#i want a bullhorn now

[ranger-potato]

May I offer some Bullhorn sketches in these trying times?

It’s been a while since I’ve been engaged with the kotlc fandom... but the excerpt from Stellarlune drew me back in like a moth to a flame (once a part of the fandom... always a part of the fandom). So... naturally... I just had to draw some fanart of our favourite banshee. I couldn’t resist! Enjoy :D

#kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #keeper of the lost cites fanart #bullhorn #kotlc bullhorn #i love bullhorn #i want a bullhorn now #you better watch out elwin because i'm teleporting to splendor plains and kidnapping bullhorn >:)

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

So I’m in a deeply red incredibly conservative state.  I ran a pride month 5k awhile back. The usual group of 3 protestors with an incredibly loud bullhorn showed up to yell at us about how trans people are mutilating themselves and AIDS is God’s judgement and we’re a menace to children etc. etc. etc. But they were vastly outnumbered by runners and volunteers. One of the first race announcements was that they hadn’t ordered enough T-shirts for the amount of people who ended up running, and would have to reorder, so anyone who wanted another race T-shirt should sign up now.

We’re all used to the protestors by now, they show up everywhere. We just ignore them. Interacting with them just encourages them.

I hadn’t realized how early the race date was this year compared to previous years and hadn’t prepared as much, and there were a lot of hills; not to mention there was some confusion as to the race route which resulted in the announcer referring to it post-run as a “4-mile 5k” (they are supposed to be about 3.5 miles. One guy ended up in an entirely different district of the city from where the race route was and still finished first.) I ended up walking a lot of the race, but I finished it, and did do a fair bit of running.

I had top surgery a few years ago but I’ve only gotten comfortable running shirtless this year as body fat redistribution happened. I had been trying to decide if I wanted to run shirtless or not before the protestors showed up and started yelling, then I was like ah. I will run past the transphobes shirtless like a human middle finger. And that is what I did. was wearing delightfully garish rainbow shorts I found at a thrift store and my pink triangle necklace.

Some Americorps volunteers were directing runners at one of the more confusing junctions, I high fived one and panted that I had just joined Conservation Corps. The sound of angry bullhorn shouting faded almost immediately behind us, and there were rainbow flags hanging in several of the yards we ran past throughout the route.

As in previous years, a lot of tough incredibly fit beautiful older people, mostly women, breezed past me during the race. One jogged up even with me with an encouraging “what would you do for a klondike bar!” I wasn’t sure how to reply to this and didn’t have the breath to express that I did not want anything thick or creamy at that moment, but what did come out was “you did remind me that there’s beer at the finish line.” Another lady who walked and jogged near me for awhile near the middle-latter half of the race talked a bit and complained that one of the volunteers organizing the race hadn’t set up the “water” table with fireball shots that she did for some other races and we just got a regular water and gatorade station!

Coming back to the finish line I was handed a flag and ran past long rows of cheering people. Around the corner the protestors were still lurking, but were mostly silent now. Apparently they had gotten worn out by just standing there and not running. As I passed the bullhorn guy shook himself out of his torpor enough to give a halfhearted “is it a man? is it a woman? who knows anymore?” I passed him and the sound of cheering, and then the 80s music (I remember Blondie and ABBA) they were blasting closer to the finish line.

Once most of the runners were back there was a fun run for the kids. A couple of the older ones had also run the 5k (I just know the protestors were awful to the poor guys ughh) but all of them made a lap around the parking lot and got handed medals. All of the adult volunteers and participants spread out around the middle of the parking lot so that there was someone cheering and waving flags for the kids along every step of the route.

There were free snacks, water and beer courtesy of our sponsor [brand redacted]. There was also non-alcoholic “beer”, which I thought was nice to see, I’d been thinking there was a heavily alcoholic element to a lot of local queer events. I drank a lot of water and ate some food before getting a free beer, which still hit me pretty hard after the run. While I was hovering around the refreshment table a big handsome butch came up next to me and I noticed a faded tattoo on her arm of a chain, each link a different color of the rainbow.

I went to put something down in my car just as the protestors were starting to leave, and realized that they were moving on a course that overlapped with mine as I walked to my car. I decided I wasn’t going to stop or veer out of their way and just see what they did. As I got closer they seemed to be talking about how we had definitely totally noticed that they were leaving (no one had.) They noticed me coming towards them and suddenly got quiet, avoided eye contact and skittered out of my way. Ha.

I stumbled into the nearby fundraiser to cool down and sober up in the air conditioning before I left. They were playing girl in red, rupaul, that girls/girls/boys song by Panic! at the disco, and that Taylor Swift song “You need to calm down” that some people on this site complained was cringe. The lady next to me sang along to “shade never made anybody less gay.” I bought a baseball hat.

It’s easy, I think especially if you’re very online and not very active in your local community, to start feeling like there’s no queer community in your area and we’re outnumbered by people who hate us. Unless you live in the middle of Westoboro Baptist territory that’s generally not true. I cannot stress enough how incredibly conservative and red my area is. We’ve got like 3 very loud people with nothing better to do who bother us at every event, and large amounts of people across all demographics who show up in support. I’ve been thinking about this post by @headspace-hotel about not being able to find stuff online and this is a slightly different thing but yeah. If you don’t know what there is in your area, you don’t know what you’re looking for or where to find it when searching online. If you search “is there queer stuff happening near me” google is going to shrug and recommend you Products And Services that it can Sell You. When I moved back home after spending some time in a much more blue state (but which had much less of a sense of community--I think it’s the way we band together down here when we know just what the stakes are) I felt like I was going to be the only trans person in the state, then someone mentioned to me that there was a local private facebook group for trans people to share personal posts and resources with many hundreds of members. There are more of us that aren’t on facebook. The Facebook group, though, introduced me to many more resources I hadn't known were in my area.

Get outside. Find some sort of local queer event and ask around. There will be other queer people. There is very likely something you’re interested in already happening or people who would love to work with you to start it if not. Even if you’re in a very red very rural state, you’re not alone, and chill or neutrally polite people vastly outnumber the few assholes, it’s just that the assholes are very loud and especially if you’ve been marinating in overwhelmingly toxic online environments it can feel like they’re everywhere. They’re not. Don’t give them that power.

The current legal landscape is terrifying and needs a lot of work but it doesn't reflect lived experiences. Get outside, find your local community, show up to in-person events if at all possible, it’s so encouraging.

#personal (ok to rb) #I kept forgetting to post this but here you go #country queer pride #what to tag was #lgbtq+

[thefirsthogokage]

Fuck AMPTP and the bullshit going on. I'm tired, might not do this well:

(link to article in above picture) From The Article

Receiving positive feedback from Wall Street since the WGA went on strike May 2, Warner Bros Discovery, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount and others have become determined to “break the WGA,” as one studio exec blatantly put it.

To do so, the studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline. Acknowledging the cold-as-ice approach, several other sources reiterated the statement. One insider called it “a cruel but necessary evil.”

The studios and streamers’ next think financially strapped writers would go to WGA leadership and demand they restart talks before what could be a very cold Christmas. In that context, the studios and streamers feel they would be in a position to dictate most of the terms of any possible deal.

[Image IDs: Twitter thread by David Slack posted July 12th, 2023 that reads in totality:

And right on cue, here’s the inevitable Deadline article claiming that the AMPTP and their CEO bosses are ready to wait us out and let us “go broke.”

They’re not. They can’t. This studio propaganda, and here’s why.

In the increasingly mega-merged and hedgefundified Hollywood, these companies live or die on their quarterly earnings reports. It only takes one bad quarter for their stock price to plunge, putting the company and the CEO’s job in jeopardy.

But their stock prices are holding steady, right? Right. For now. Because our industry is a pipeline that starts with writers. The TV and movies they’re releasing now are shows we started making for them 4-12 quarters ago. But what happens when that pipeline runs dry?

What happens is they run out of product. No new shows in streaming to drive and sustain subscribers. No new shows in broadcast and ad-supported to bring in ad revenue.

No shows, no money.

No money, bad earnings report.

Bad earnings report, bye-bye stock price. Bye-bye CEO.

After 70+ days with no writers to create their product for them, the pipeline is running dry.

Their stock price isn’t tanking yet. But if they don’t make a deal with us, it will.

And they know it.

If they make a deal soon, they might be able to weather it. Stretch out releases. Rush some new stuff through.

But the longer they keep us out, the longer that pipeline runs dry, the more unavoidable a catastrophic dip in new high-quality shows becomes.

And they know it.

So yeah, the studios are planting articles in the trades that make it sound like they’re so determined not to pay us the 0.02% of company revenues we’re asking for that they’re willing to hold out forever.

Bullshit.

I’m sure the AMPTP bosses would love to break our union. But they love their jobs more. They love money more. They can’t make that money without us.

And they know it.

Ignore the trades, walk the line, stand together, and win. #WGAStrong

/End ID]

Bonus: John Rogers' Reaction

[Image ID: A tweet from John Rogers that he posted July 12th, 2023 that reads:

I was trying to be cool and professional about this strike, but this AMPTP “we want to drive them to homelessness” shit means I’m going to be dug in at WB Gate 4 like Hiroo Onada. They’re gonna have to send @ellenstutzman with a bullhorn to order me out of the bushes.

The second image is Ellen Stutzman's Twitter bio that says:

Cheif Negotiator for WGA MBA, Assistant Executive Director, Writers Guild of America, West; Cornell ILR and UCLA Anderson alum. Views are my own.

/End ID]

EDIT: Please see the update on this HERE

#david slack #wga strike #wga strong #john rogers

[thefreakandthehair]

a little fluff for @starrystevie's birthday! hope it's the absolute best day! ✨

Eddie misses Steve.

It's equal parts cute, and maybe a little pitiful because it's only three days in Chicago for his friend's Bachelor Party, but it's already been two days and he misses Steve. Bandit digs his claws into Eddie's thigh as he makes biscuits and begs for pets, curling up comfortably next to Eddie's lap and leaving Steve's side of the couch overwhelmingly cold and empty.

"I know, kid. I know," Eddie coos, scratching their cat behind the left ear as he purrs.

He's glad that Steve had been able to get the time off from work to go, and he's glad that Steve's made friends on his recreational basketball league, and he's not jealous. At all. Not even a little bit.

... Okay, maybe he is a little bit jealous that Brandon gets to see him sweaty and gross in the June heat, running around doing whatever jock-activity they've planned in the backyard of their rented house all weekend, but who can blame him? Steve never gives him a reason to feel insecure so he knows this isn't about Steve. It's not rooted in anything even remotely related to him or their relationship— it's all about Eddie and the nasty voice in the back of his head that pulls out a bullhorn and screams not good enough on a loop.

Condensation from the beer in his free hand drips down his wrist as he rests his elbow on the arm of the couch. It's not the first time he's felt this way, and Steve himself has admitted to feeling the same way from time to time, so he knows that it'll pass. He just needs to focus on something else: DND campaign planning, sketching, writing, cracking out the ol' guitar. He could rewatch Howard the Duck for the hundredth time, or maybe even Labyrinth—

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Eddie's phone buzzes on the coffee table and he fully expects it to be Gareth or Jeff, or maybe Robin. They have plans later that night, both of them missing Steve and all. What he doesn't expect is a series of text messages and 19 photos from Steve.

How funny. It's been five years since they'd become EddieandSteve but seeing Steve's name and smiling photo on his phone sets his little hummingbird heart aflutter even still.

steve 👑: it's so goddamn hot here steve 👑: we're playing cornhole now and just threw a football around steve 👑: sweating all the beer and vodka out as a I go, that's healthy, right? don't worry, I'm drinking a shit ton of water.

Steve includes a selfie of himself, smiling closed-lipped with a baseball cap on backwards and the neck of his tee-shirt drenched in sweat. Eddie wants to lick him dry and that's a thought he'll never tell a living soul, probably not even Steve. No, no definitely not Steve. He'll never live that one down.

steve 👑: oh, and fishing was good! we made some bets on who could catch the most and then who could catch the biggest. I tied for first place for the biggest and I caught 17. brandon got 20 so he won that bet. I'm only letting it go because it's his bachelor party lmao

Eddie swipes to the next photo, one of Steve and Brandon holding their two biggest catches. Steve's sunglasses are sliding down his nose, no doubt from the sun warming his glistening skin, and he's smiling wide against the railing of a boat. As much as he misses him, Eddie can't help but mirror his smile. Call him lovesick or 'down bad', as Robin says, but seeing Steve happy makes him happy.

He continues swiping and reading the little blurb attached to each photo, some of which don't even include Steve but Eddie appreciates them all the same. They don't include Steve, but it feels a lot like Steve trying include Eddie in the weekend. The last picture is one of the entire group, all dozen or so guys lined up on the ship. Brandon stands in the center surrounded by the rest of the group with Steve shuffled in no meaningful spot but to Eddie, Steve is the center of every photo, every moment, everything.

Eddie starts to type a response when his phone dings again. This time, Steve sends a voice message and Eddie presses play so quickly, he nearly knocks poor Bandit off his lap.

Hey, takin' a break from cornhole. I won, by the way, had to make up for losing to Brandon in the fishing bet.

Steve laughs and Eddie's stomach flips. Robin's right. He's down very, very bad for this man.

But I just uh, I miss you, and I know maybe that's sorta lame but I do. The party's great and all, but I can't wait to get back home tomorrow. Tell the kid I said hi. I love you, Ed.

He replays it a few times and shamelessly taps Keep so it doesn't disappear before sending his own voice message.

It's no more lame than me sitting here with Bandit sharing how much we miss you, so you get a pass. I mean, you get a pass on everything all the time, but don't let that go to your pretty head, okay? I'm so fucking glad you're having fun and sowing your jocky oats, but selfishly, I can't wait for you to get home. I'll make it worth your while.

He huffs air through his nose and laughs low in his throat.

Oh, and Robin's coming by in a little bit so I'm gonna grab a bottle of wine. Don't be surprised if you get a FaceTime call later. I love you too, Stevie. So goddamn much.

Eddie sure does miss Steve, but it stings a little less knowing that Steve misses him, too.

#steddie #steddie fanfiction #steddie fanfic #steddie fic #steddie ficlets #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fic #stranger things ficlets #st fic #st ficlet #myblurbs #myfic #alcohol cw #eddie and robin do indeed facetime steve later a little wine drunk and steve obviously answers immediately #he misses his boyfriend and his best friend so fucking much #he gets to pass the phone around a little bit and introduce everyone #proudly (and a little drunkenly) proclaiming how much he loves his two favorite people #they play two truths and a lie over facetime with the rest of the bachelor party #when steve gets home the next day eddie and robin get standing invites to everything forever <3333 #no one look at me this idea came from nowhere and i know it's not any of my wips BUT the worms drive the bus

[jb5lover]

Your friend group always making fun of how obsessed you and jude are with each other, and your both so shameless about it too 🫣 you’ll be sneaking away from the rest of the group to do stuff or you’ll just be excessively touchy/kissy around everyone, and they’ve learned to just deal with it so one day you guys are all getting ready to go out and you can’t get over how good he looks. So like two minutes before you guys leave, you call him upstairs with a lame ass excuse like “i need help finding jewellery” but everyone knows what that’s really code for. And his friends can totally hear you cuz ur terrible at being quiet so eventually they tell him they’ll just meet him there🤭

the two of you have become notorious for basically undressing each other with your eyes or initiating heated kisses when other people are around and all of your friends can never help but roll their eyes whenever it happens. typically it takes a couple of cushion whacks to the head or bullhorns in your ear to get the two of you away from each other because a simple “there’s other people here!” won’t do the trick.

you guys had all planned to have a dinner to celebrate jude’s birthday now that he was finally back in town. it had been a while since you’d all seen each other and the feeling of excitement was mutual. you of course got ready at jude’s house, where your friend group had agreed to meet. throughout the night the two of you were throwing glances at each other as you got dressed. you watched him in the mirror as he came out of the shower with his towel around his torso, you eyed up him and down as he threw on his dress shirt, you held yourself back from jumping on him when he sprayed his cologne around his upper body.

after the two of you had finished dressing, you took a couple of pics in the mirror, with his hand snaked around your waist and your head tucked in his neck. “you look so nice,” you told him turning to face him momentarily. “likewise. it’s a shame your hair and makeup looks so nice cause all i can think about right now is messing that up a little,” he whispered into your ear and he placed soft kisses along your neck and chest. you desperately wanted to hold his head there but instead he pulled away, “okay, you finish your touch ups and i’ll meet you downstairs” he said causally, as if he didn’t just single handedly cause your legs to go weak.

you stayed alone for a few moments in the room trying to clear your mind, before heading downstairs in hopes in making this feeling go away. you entered the living room where a few of your friends and your boyfriend were seated on the couch waiting for you. “you look gorgeous babe, ready to go?” one of your girls complimented. “aw, thank you. um, not yet actually. i can’t seem to find the necklace that goes with these earrings. jude, would you help me find it?” you asked, trying you best to sound innocent. “oh, i can help,” she spoke up but you immediately shut it down.

“uh, no, that’s okay. it may have gotten mixed up with his mom’s jewellery, so jude, can you come upstairs? now, please,” you pressed, the desperation becoming obvious in your tone. your friends all exchanged that look with each other, knowing what ‘help me find my jewellery was really code for. jude excused yourself and followed your up the stairs with his hand in yours. “we have to go soon, so be quick!”

your friend’s voice was completely drowned out by the sound of your door slamming shut urgently as you yanked him into his room. “i need you so bad,” you whined against his lips, amidst the messiest and most rushed make out ever. “love, we have to-”

“no, i know,” you interrupted, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him in closer, “but i need you to fuck me, please.” he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t as down to do this as you were, quickies had become a staple in your relationship due to his busy schedule. but something about hearing you beg was just gonna do it for him every time, without fail. “say that again,” he egged you on. and if you were any less desperate, you would’ve rolled your eyes and told him to shut up, but instead you did as he told and repeated that phrase that would inevitably make him go feral.

before you knew it, he was pressing you against the desk he had bought for you in his room. it allowed you to prolong your stays with him instead of having to go fly home constantly to carry on with schoolwork. without breaking the kiss, you both worked to knock all of the papers, pens and books off of the table to make room. once it was clear, he lifted you up from under your thighs, stepping in between the gap between your legs as he sat you on the desk. “oh, we’ve never done it here before,” you commented as you rushed to unbutton his jeans. “first time for everything,” he replied, scrunching your dress up to reveal your now soaked underwear.

it wasn’t your intention to be as loud as you were, it was just part of your nature. your quietest volume was still loud enough for someone within close range to hear exactly what was going on, and a part of you couldn’t even find yourself to be embarrassed anymore. “fuck, you’re so good,” you cried as jude pounded harshly into you, causing the table to crash against the wall repeatedly. he groaned into the kisses he was leaving on your neck as you pressed your hand into his hair. “don’t stop, please,” you begged. he carried on giving it to you as good as he could, trying to hold back his own noises that were threatening to come through.

it was a miracle that between the sounds of your skin slapping and the table against the wall, you managed to hear the knock on the door. “uh, yeah?” you called out, as you tried to focus your attention on which of your friends was just outside his room, instead of the feeling of jude rubbing your clit at a rapid pace. “you guys ready yet, cuz the reservation is booked for 8? it’s almost half 7.”

“yeah, we’ll be read-fuck!” you weren’t sure if jude had purposely hit your sweet spot in that moment, but either way it was terrible timing because it had you moaning embarrassingly loud while his best friend stood just a few metres away. noticing that you were in no state to speak, jude took over while he let you express yourself as much as you needed to. “yeah that’s calm,” he called out, his own eyes shutting from how amazing it felt to be inside you, “we should be done in like ten minutes.”

“twenty,” you shouted out, correcting your boyfriend as you looked directly in the eyes while sliding your dress off your shoulders completely. he looked mesmerised by the sight of you, and knew there and then that even twenty minutes would’ve seemed like a rush. “you know what, how about we meet you guys there?” he suggested, proceeding to speed up the pace and become more aggressive with his thrusts.

his friend tried not to be disgusted by the noises come from your room, deciding to just give a hurried response and run downstairs. the two of you waited until you heard the front door shut, and then you knew you were free to be as loud and disruptive as you pleased. at least until the further extended thirty minutes were up.

#jude bellingham #jude bellingham smut #my mini jude blurbs

[gretagerwigsmuse]

rocketman: part i - it's just my job five days a week

Summary: in which lieutenant commander bradshaw is on a three month special detachment in the pacific and the holidays have never felt lonelier for either of you. it's just three months, it'll be fine, right?

OR you and bradley write each other 159 emails

Pairing: Rooster x Fem!Reader 11.8k

Warnings: 18+, explicit language, suggestive dialogue, bradley needs to remember this is a government email server...(okay yes, i am perfectly aware that our esteemed lieutenant commander would probably get kicked out of the navy for some of these emails…that being said, i also don’t particularly care! we’re playing fast and loose with the time stamps too because i may be smart, but math has never been a strong suit of mine!) enjoy the companion playlist! rest of the series can be found here!

12/17 @ 6:19am

I miss you already and I haven’t even left the parking lot. I’m still in my car typing this after having stayed for probably far too long watching your C-40 take off (like people were staring at me I was there so long)(and, yes, I looked up the name of the plane). Pete asked me if I wanted to get breakfast with him, but I said no. Felt too lost. Plus, I need to get ready for work. We’re going to get dinner on Wednesday before I head up to Berkeley Thursday morning, though!

Hope you have a safe transport and settle onboard quickly. I left you something in your duffle bag (yes, it’s safe to open around other people…head out of the gutter, Bradshaw).

Love you and stay safe, x

12/18 @ 5:46pm 

Just dropped off the gifts at the Junior League for Caroline’s adopt a child thing. She was completely in her element (they gave her a clipboard and a bullhorn!), though she did say we went wayyy too over the top. But little Carter asked for all that stuff! We couldn’t just not get it all for him? She also appreciated your wrapping skills, very impressed with the bows and tight corners. I met a couple of her friends there, which was nice and they invited me to stay for drinks (the prosecco was flowing…), but I wanted to head home. 

I miss you so much already, it feels weird not going over to your place after work and making dinner and prepping lunch together - and it’s only been two days. I know you’re on a comms blackout for the next couple days, so I’m just gonna keep sending these so you’ll have a bunch to read all at once.

All my love, x

12/19 @ 11:48am

My brother and Lauren decided to come out here for Christmas after all! My dad was so excited when he called me, but I think Mary’s a little less enthused. Feels like shit knowing we were the backup option for them. Apparently, Lauren’s mom is sick and the whole house is in disarray (not hard in that family…) so my dad is paying for them to fly in from New York tomorrow. I think it’ll be nice, we’ll almost have a full set (baring you, of course, my darling rocketman), so the house won’t be as lonely. Do you think we’ll get to talk on Christmas or Christmas Eve? You should be getting a package soon (‘twas preemptively sent!) and are under strict orders not to open it until Christmas Eve, buddy!

Going to dinner with Pete tonight, I’ll let you know how it goes. Amelia’s coming with us, but I don’t know about Penny? I hope they like the gifts we got them. I’m going to stop by your place, do a once over, and make sure the tree is ready for Pete to take, etc. before I leave on Thursday.

Love you and talk soon! x

12/20 @ 7:03am

House looked good! In my seat on the plane. If my morals were shakier, I would 1000% have taken Max up on his offer to fly me up to Berkeley. But alas! Climate change is real and private jets account for 20x as many carbon emissions as commercial planes, so I am up at the ass-crack of dawn for this 7:15am flight. I’ll message you when I land, love you!

12/20 @ 9:04am

Just landed - easy flight. Now to find my dad in arrivals…

Love you, talk when you get the chance! x

12/23 @ 4:45am

Hey sweetheart! Back online and all settled in. I’m bunking with Payback and we actually have a pretty decent layout. He graciously offered to give me the bottom bunk, due to my ‘geriatric status.’ Honestly, I’m just glad I don’t have to sleep in the bunk room with the ensigns and rest of the crew. I forgot how noisy it is being on an aircraft carrier, which makes Payback’s snoring surprisingly pleasant. I’m glad he and Bob are with me. The rest of this squadron’s from Lemoore and Bob knows some of them. It’s interesting seeing him and Payback fly together, but they mesh really well.

Glad Mav is there to keep an eye on you. 

Okay, I had way too much fun picking out all those presents, so I really hope Carter loves them too. And please tell me you have a picture of Caroline yelling into the bullhorn? I can truly think of nothing scarier than Caroline Calloway ordering the young women of San Diego county around like Santa’s chief elf. And speaking of gifts, I loved my pictures. The one from the Christmas party is my favorite, did Fanboy take it? I saw him running around with his Pentax. When the hell did you have time to print it? I’ve got it hanging up in my bunk so I can see it every night. 

I still don’t understand why you don’t fly into Oakland instead of SFO? Like I get it, you’re not a Spirit or SW girl, but kid….it’s an hour and forty minute flight? Live a little. And I think it’ll be nice having your brother and Lauren around for Christmas. How many people do you think it’ll be? I always loved seeing Christmas Eves with large families in movies and stuff, all the chaos and whatnot? But it’s just gonna be you five Christmas Day? I’ve heard rumblings that I might be first in line for a Facetime on Christmas Eve, so save some time for me too, kid. I’ll let you know for sure in a couple days. 

Okay, think we’re all caught up now. Talk soon and love you so much,

Your Bradley

12/23 @ 9:08am

Bubs! I read your email four times since I woke up, I can’t stop smiling. I’m glad you’re all settled in - Payback’s snoring and ageism aside haha. How’s the food? Do you want earplugs? A sleep mask? Are earplugs allowed for sleeping? What if you need to get up right away and you can’t hear? I could send you a white noise machine? Or is there a fear of hacking with that? I should’ve done more research on this before you left. Tell me if you need anything, I’ll send it out express! Oh, I’m just so happy to hear from you. Keep me posted!

Lots of love, x

12/23 @ 8:53pm

You and me, hot date tomorrow night at 11:45pst - don’t be late. (And look cute.)

Your Bradley

12/23 @ 8:55pm

I’ll be there 😉 Love you, x

12/25 @ 9:56am

Bradley Bradshaw you absolute sneak! How on Earth did you pull a Christmas miracle off!?! Mary said she had no clue, so I’m extremely impressed you got my dad to keep that secret!? I was totally not expecting another present from you? The cooking lessons and apron were more than enough - to say nothing about moving in together!?! I love the bracelet so much, you have no idea. I started crying when I opened it! Mary took a video, which I’m sure she’ll send you. God, Bradley? You didn’t have to do that! It’s perfect, it’s like we’re locked together. I’m gonna wear it everyday. Please email me later if you get the chance! 

(Also, Lauren looked really jealous 😉 my brother was sweating)

Love you and Merry Christmas Rocketman! x

12/25 @ 11:38am

Ummm, not sure what you’re talking about, kid? That sounds like something Santa would do? Probably heard about how good you’ve been this year? x

12/25 @ 11:40am

Thank you, I love it so much and wish I could give you the biggest hug and kiss right now. I’ll have an extra slice of babka for you tonight, talk soon and Merry Christmas, Bradley! Love you x

12/27 @ 4:49am

I miss sleeping next to you. Whenever I can’t sleep, I think about the way you looked at me in the living room after our Christmas party. You looked so happy and I hate that I have to leave you for all our firsts. First Christmas, first New Year’s, first Valentine’s Day. And god, sweetheart, you’re so fucking gorgeous it makes me want to lose my mind sometimes. Always thinking about you, Bradley 

12/27 @ 8:38am

I miss sleeping next to you, too (especially since your body is like a furnace and you hold me close when I get cold). And I know you being away during the holidays is hard, but look at it this way - we’ll just have our firsts next year. Next year will be our first Christmas, first New Year’s, first Valentine’s Day together, not an ocean apart. We have all the time in the world, rocketman. Love you today and every day x

12/29 @ 6:02pm

There’s already so many things I’m dying to tell you and stories about the squadron we’re teaming up with, but the Navy will have my ass if I give away too many details so I’m just going to leave it at this: are we sure Max doesn’t have a twin on another continent? Take that as you will. What’re your plans for New Year’s? Your Bradley

12/30 @ 9:20am

Sorry for the delayed response! A minor issue with my brother and my dad that I won’t bore you with had the whole house in a tizzy. Thankfully, he and Lauren are gone even though my dad still won’t tell me what the issue was? Anyway! God, I wish I could hear more about Max’s twin? I am honestly kind of scared about knowing there’s a Max doppelgänger in the Navy (jokes!). For New Year’s, I’m going to this party with Mary and dad in the city, it’s at this fancy venue and I have a cute black dress! It’s very different for me and I wish you were here to see it! I’ll have to wear it again. Message me when it’s the New Year your time! Love you! x

01/01 @ 12:09am

Happy New Year, sweetheart! They had a little party for the officers - we even got cake and Bob snuck me and Payback seconds somehow. It’s always the quiet ones you gotta look out for. You absolutely need to send me pictures of you in that dress, I can’t wait to see it on you in person someday. Hope you have a great time with your dad and Mary, give them my best. Love you and again Happy New Year! 

Your Bradley

01/01 @ 12:01am

Happy New Year, Bradley!!! You got cake!! You broke some rules! I approve! Milk them for all the cake they’re worth! I’ll send some pics of the three of us and one just for you big boy 😉 Talk soon and love you so so much! x

01/01 @ 10:59am

Had a late start! Here are the pics from last night! Try and sneak some more cake xx

[mary_and_dad_being_annoying.jpg]

[me.jpg]

01/02 @ 6:12am

You know you labeled the pictures wrong…luckily no one was behind me…

01/02 @ 9:04am

Who? Me? I would NEVER! (Just trying to keep you on your toes.) Hope the flying is going well and you’re staying safe, B! Love you!

01/03 @ 8:00pm

Yeah, it’s going well. It’s so different flying on the open ocean after so long? Last time was in September when I went to Hong Kong. The desert is cool, don’t get me wrong, but seeing the clouds and the water together is unreal. The pink and purple clouds remind me of you (sorry, that was lame). You still gotta let me take you up, kid. I’ve heard Mav is trying to convince you, but you gotta let me be the one. Can’t trust just anyone with my girl. Love B

01/04 @ 10:13am

Bradley…he’s practically your father, I’m pretty sure you can trust him to take me up in a plane, you silly boy. Not that I’m saying you won’t be my first…but come on! And it’s not lame. I like that the pink and purple clouds remind you of me. Every time I see a plane I send a little call out for your safety. Gotta keep you safe, rocketman! Talk soon and love you! x

01/06 @ 4:45pm

My parents just dropped me off at the airport and no matter how many times I leave them, I always cry. I think the only time I didn’t cry when I left their house was when you were with me over Thanksgiving. You always make it better, bubs.

They’re coming down in a couple weeks to help me start packing, anything in the house you wouldn’t want them to see while dropping off boxes? I can still bring my old bed, etc for the guest room, right?

All my love, x

01/06 @ 9:58pm

I think I get that, having you around this time makes it different. I’ve never had anyone to really write to while I’ve been away before. Sure, I talked to my grandparents when they were still around and my aunts and uncles, Nat, Ice, and a couple others, but not like this. And I don’t ever want to not feel like this again. 

I’m an open book, kid. Ain’t got nothing to hide. And yeah, anything like that feel free to bring with you for the guest room or office. It was the bed, nightstands, and dresser and then your couch for the office, yeah? We can get new bedding and pillows for it if you want? I’m on comms blackout for a couple days, so message me whenever you want so I can read them all when we’re back online.

Your Bradley

01/06 @ 10:07pm

Perfect! Love you and stay safe, rocketman.

01/06 @ 10:09pm

Love you too, kid.

01/09 @ 6:11pm

Bradley, I don’t mean to alarm you, but there was a raccoon in your garage! Scratch that, a FAMILY of raccoons!??! I’m sure Mr Harrington was ready to call the cops when he heard my scream. They’re so cute, but also terrifying at the same time? So, I called Pete and he came right over, a true knight in shining armor! Amelia and I did a THOROUGH sweep of the house to make sure they were relegated to the garage. Pete got them out safe and sound with a random tennis racket and your 4 iron, but somebody’s coming tomorrow to check on how they got in there. And I know they aren’t hurting anyone, but I just don’t want there to be any issues later on? (The babies were actually so cute and reminded me of my cat growing up, Porter.) Anyway! Enough drama for tonight, I hope that gets a laugh out of you - talk soon!

Love you! x

01/10 @ 8:05am

Well, the exterminator got here around 7:30 and sprayed all this stuff and blocked the hole in the crawl space of the garage. He showed me pictures and let me tell you, there was quite the nest up there. These raccoons were living large over the holidays. 

01/12 @ 5:21pm

Okay! I’m in the parking lot, waiting for my first cooking class to start. Is it weird I’m a little nervous? I hope everyone else’s skill level is similar, I don’t like feeling behind. I brought my new apron, ironed it and everything. I feel a little like Ina Garten, isn’t she just divine? Okay, okay, I’m going in now! I’ll let you know how it goes! Thanks again for getting me these xx

01/12 @ 7:03pm

I feel so tired? Like my hand cramped a little bit? We started off the class with knife skills, which we’re going to do every week and then made this “simple” egg dish, which was NOT simple and I overcooked the egg. Ina would be so disappointed. Alas! Onto next week. Love you!

01/15 @ 9:12pm

Bradley you’re not going to BELIEVE what just happened on Succession. My heart is POUNDING? Do you think if I called and asked really nicely the Navy would get an HBO subscription for everyone? That is what I would like my tax dollars to go towards. Can you get me a direct line to someone in charge please? Love you!

01/16 @ 7:47am

Not to worry my little Barefoot Contessa, I have returned back to civilization (ie the internet), though am dismayed to have missed this mind blowing Succession episode? Has Perry Mason started back up again or will we be able to watch that together? 

Bob and I were in the gym earlier and he almost dropped a dumbbell on my foot, I swear my life flashed before my eyes. But I had a new PR on the bench press today, up to 285 pounds. Glad the cooking lesson went well though! What’s the class makeup like? x Bradley 

01/16 @ 9:04am

I’m glad you’re back online and safe! Perry Mason has not started yet, though I’m still certain you’re the only person under the age of 55 that watches it (I guess I should say we’re the only people under the age of 55 that watch it, but whatever). You’ve also missed a couple Top Chef episodes, but we can always binge this season later. 

There’s about 12 of us in the class and it’s pretty evenly split? Though there’s tragically this really annoying couple who were at the station next to me. I hope we get to change next week, I don’t think I can watch them feed each other food another week. 

And I’m still waiting for that direct line to the Navy, Bradshaw! Love you! x

01/1 6 @ 6:59pm

Wait, wait, how did I miss there? There was a WHAT in my garage? A raccoon? Multiple raccoons? We need to get a dog or a cat or something. x Bradley 

01/18 @ 7:02am

Bradley!! I know we talked about a trip once you got home (provided you still feel up for it with the transition and all), what if we went here? I was talking about our tentative plans with my dad and Mary before I went back to San Diego and they went to Punta Mita this past fall and LOVED it! What do you think? Love you!

01/18 @ 6:03pm

Holy shit! That looks absolutely amazing, yes I’d love to go! Can we afford that though? It looks expensive? xBradley

01/18 @ 6:05pm

YAY!! Ahh, I’m so excited you have no idea! I want to hug and kiss you so bad right now! We can fly for free since I have a bunch of AA points (thank you pwc) and then I have like a million Amex points, so it’s not full price!! 

01/18 @ 6:12pm

When you say ‘like a million’ do you actually mean a million or?

01/18 @ 6:14pm

Yes! I’ve had this card for like 15 years! My whole family does the pooling on it! It’s a drop in the bucket, promise! Plus, I always use my other card for work and that has a whole bunch of Bonvoy points on it, too. We could stay at one of those? I think there’s a St Regis next door?

01/18 @ 6:22pm

Sweetheart, I want to go, I just don’t want you to waste all those points on this. 

01/18 @ 6:26pm

What if we go for 6 nights instead of 9? Maybe no plunge pool? Or we could pay cash instead? And then I could get 6x the points from paying that way? So, really….the points just keep accumulating, we’ve got to use them sometime! The points can pay for the flights and the hotel and then we can split the room charges and incidentals 50:50?

Will you think about it? You don’t have to give me an answer right away and we can always pick another hotel? But if we want to go someplace in late March/early April, I think we should book soon with spring break and all? Not that I imagine many coeds will be staying at the Four Seasons, but you never know…

01/18 @ 6:33pm

You gotta send me a ppt on all this points stuff, you know math stresses me out. And no, I don’t think many coeds will be staying at the Four Seasons, kid. 

01/18 @ 6:37pm

Can I send you a dossier with everything!?! Even if you say no to that I’m doing it anyway ;) just promise me you’ll think about it, please? I’ll do whatever you want, Bradley <3

01/18 @ 6:40pm

Yes, please send the dossier my way henceforth, Moneypenny. 

And you’ll do whatever I want, huh? Might have to send you a dossier of my own now…

(But yes, I promise I’ll seriously consider everything. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to spend all this money to make me happy. I’d say we’d both be happy camping out on the beach, but I think that might be a security issue down there, plus neither of us like camping - anyway, you know what I mean.)

01/18 @ 6:43pm

Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw!! Is this a dossier for my eyes only? What will M say!? I’ll send you mine if you send me yours?

(But seriously, thank you! I’ll send you more specifics tomorrow - like pricing and whatnot - and you can take a couple days to think it over. And thank you for clarifying the camping thing, I was worried for a second there.)

I love you so much rocketman and we’ll talk (email) tomorrow 

x Moneypenny 

01/18 @ 6:46pm

I’d say ‘sleep tight,’ but that’s a given considering you haven’t been fucked in a couple weeks. 

(Perfect, I genuinely am really excited about it, just want to make sure it works out for us both.)

Love you so much, kid 

Your Bradley

01/18 @ 6:58pm

Bradley Bradshaw!! You did not just say that over a government email server! 

Imissyourcocksobadlyit’sdrivingmeinsane

01/18 @ 7:01pm

Couldn’t help it. Plus, we both know it’s true. 

01/18 @ 7:04pm

Oh, shut up. Shut me up

01/18 @ 11:43pm

I’m sorry if I came off too strong about planning earlier, I might’ve gotten a little carried away and been a little too eager about planning something five days after you’re home from a three month detachment. If at any time before you come home or even right after you come home you don’t feel up to the trip, please please please tell me. I want to do something nice for you and give you a chance to truly relax, but I’d hate for it to come at a price. So, just let me know, okay? Say the word and we’ll push it, alright? I don’t exactly know what you’re going through, but tell me if it’s ever too much. I’ll always be here, promise. Love you x

[dossier_for_your_eyes_only.ppt]

01/19 @ 8:29am

Kid, no. I promise I’ll tell you. You know I love how excited you get planning things. I think I like it so much because you take care of it all. Sure, you ask for my opinion and what I want, but I just have to tell you one thing, one idea and you take care of it. 

Funny though, isn’t it? How it’s totally opposite in the other side of our relationship? You tell me one thing, one idea and I take care of all of it? Bet it’s hard for you not having someone around to do that for you? Maybe next time we Facetime we can talk more about that? x B

01/19 @ 10:11am

Luckily, I have a very creative imagination, Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw. 

See right now, I’m in my office, sitting at my desk, feeling so overwhelmed. It almost hurts how overwhelmed and frustrated I am. And you bust down the door, hair windswept like you’d flown to Del Mar, and you have that slutty flight suit on and I don’t even mind that you’re sweaty and gross. You smell absolutely divine and I rake my hands through your hair as you eat me out underneath my glass desk. I get a conference call, but you don’t stop the entire time. You like how squirmy and fussy I get, I can’t focus on the deliverable I’m working on for the client. You like that I can’t control myself, that I squeeze my thighs around your head. Eventually, you can’t take it anymore, your cock is aching so badly, and you need to fuck me on top of my desk. You’re so strong it almost breaks. You fuck me so good everyone in the office can hear me crying out for you. 

(actually, I’m on the couch, watching college football, but it’s more fun to imagine you fucking me in my office - see, creative imagination! Make sure you get a quiet room for that Facetime...)

Love x

01/19 @ 7:29pm

You think you’re funny, huh? You have any more of those thoughts, feel free to send them my way. ‘m taking out that picture you gave me for Christmas right now. How you taking care of yourself? My imagination isn’t as creative as yours. B

01/19 @ 7:40pm

Guess you’ll have to wait for our next Facetime…

x

01/20 @ 4:24pm

Your dad and Mary write me emails, you know. They aren’t as good correspondents as you are (for how could they possibly be, my dear?), but they check in about once a week or so. Mary sends me some of the articles she gives her students and talks about the show she’s watching with your dad. Your dad mainly talks about you. It makes me wish my parents were still around to do this stuff with me. Just checking in and writing emails and bragging about me to my girlfriend? How was yesterday’s class?

Your Bradley

01/20 @ 5:39m

I didn’t know they wrote you that often and I’m beyond embarrassed that my dad talks about me that much? But come on, Bradley…you have someone who does that, too? He’s about 5’8” (on a good day), looks great in a leather jacket, and just spent about two hours last weekend cleaning your gutters and telling me about how you won your high school’s debate scholarship?? Like how could you not tell me that? It’s literally one of the hottest things I’ve heard about you!

Class was good! They taught us a trick to cut onions without crying and one of the other girls complimented my apron! We’re doing meats next week, cutting, marinating, cooking, etc. and I’m excited!

01/20 @ 5:42pm

Oh gee, I bet it’s just awful for you to have Mav around all the time. Knight in shining armor…

01/20 @ 5:48pm

He’s not a bother! And it’s not all the time! We’re actually going to get lunch together on Saturday! It’s this new place on the water.

01/20 @ 5:50pm

Sounds like a cute little date! You’ll have to tell me how he is. Love you so much B

01/20 @ 5:55pm

I’ll keep ya posted, bubs! Love you!

01/22 @ 10:01am

Breaking news, kid. Your esteemed, naval aviator boyfriend is going to be on 60 Minutes at the end of February. Totally came out of left field, but I couldn’t say anything until they finished filming. It’s about the Navy in the Pacific and “the lost art of shipbuilding.” They even rigged up a camera on my plane and everything, it was so cool. I’ve been dying to tell you, but again couldn’t say anything until it was official. I probably won’t be on it long since they interviewed the Admiral and Pac Fleet Commander for most of it, but yeah, Payback and Bob and I will be on with my girl Norah. I made sure I had enough sunscreen on so I was camera ready at all times. Love you B

01/22 @ 10:09am

YOU’RE FUCKING SHITTING ME????? Oh my god, Bradley! That’s amazing! Margie even ran into my office to see what made me shriek! I am TOTALLY having a viewing party! Oh my god, how do you think it went? Did they get your good side? What about hair and makeup? I know you get helmet hair, bubs. 

Seriously, so so excited and proud of you, Bradley! I’m going to make my dad and Mary come down for it! She doesn’t teach on Mondays, so this is perfect for them to stay over Sunday night! But now don’t go letting all that fame get to your head, Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw 😉 Love you so much x

01/24 @ 12:17pm

Rocketman - 

I was sitting at my desk earlier and listening to some music before my 12:30 meeting and Elton John’s Rocket Man popped up on my shuffle. Obviously, as you are my rocketman, I always think of you whenever I hear it, but today the lyrics really scratched that special part of my brain, so I did a deep dive into the song’s origins. 

Please note, I’m including this time in my billable hours to the client (re. you). My findings are as follows:

Bernie Taupin was inspired by a Ray Bradbury story written in 1951 titled ‘The Rocket Man’ - not drugs as the urban legend states! Drugs! Imagine!

Bradbury’s ‘The Rocket Man’ was first published in Maclean’s, a weekly Canadian magazine, before it was published in the short story collection ‘The Illustrated Man’ that same year

‘The Illustrated Man’ later was made into a film, though ‘The Rocket Man’ story was notably absent

Some of more popular and renowned stories from the collection include ‘The Veldt’ and ‘The Long Rain,’ the latter of which is commonly read in high school honors English

Was client in honors English? Please confirm in follow up correspondence

Client has mentioned extensive library resources at disposal - perhaps he can check this collection out on his next visit? But for now, an executive summary has been provided:

With space travel more commonplace in society, Doug’s father, an astronaut, is sent on frequent, three- month journeys into space

Despite missing his dad, Doug also longs to be a Rocket Man, though his mother frequently prevails on Doug to beg his father to stay on Earth and be with the family

“What’s it like, out in space?” Mother shot me a frightened glance. It was too late. Dad stood there for a full half minute trying to find an answer, then he shrugged.“It’s the best thing in a lifetime of best things.” Then he caught himself. “Oh, it’s really nothing at all. Routine. You wouldn’t like it.” He looked at me, apprehensively. “But you always go back.” “Habit.”

The father finds that his work is ruining his life, but the draw of the stars is too great: "You don’t know what it is. Every time I’m out there I think, if I ever get back to Earth I’ll stay there; I’ll never go out again. But I got out, and I guess I’ll always go out.”

Even while on vacation with the family, having Thanksgiving dinner, or sitting on the back porch, the father’s eyes are always on the sky…

Doug’s father begs him to not be like him, to not be a rocket man, but what happens when his father goes on one last journey to the stars?

Through much reflection, I have decided that ‘The Rocket Man’ was written about you - and your mom and your dad and me and on and on until there is no longer a need for Rocket Men - or the rocket man simply stops and breaks the cycle

You are both the Rocket Man and the little boy, forever waiting for his father to come home from space

The allure of flying, of being a ‘rocket man,’ is both too great and too sad for you to ignore

None of this is to say the rocket man is selfish, no. He simply cannot resist the temptation. He knows nothing other than the thrill and peace of being amongst the stars

And his mother shielding Doug from the sun at the end is like your mom asking Mav to pull your papers, she does it to save him, but it cannot keep him from becoming his father

Needless to say - I had to postpone my 12:30 meeting until tomorrow as my eyes were far too puffy and any word I tried to say felt like cotton in my mouth.

I miss you and I love you - your ‘Lilly’  

01/24 @ 8:22pm

Fuck - I love you so much. My clever girl.

01/24 @ 8:28pm

I pour my heart out to you and that’s all you have to say, rocketman? ‘Fuck - I love you so much’

(of course, I also love you so much, my clever boy.)

01/24 @ 8:30pm

Darling - it’s going to take me a little longer to come up with any commentary you deem appropriate, so for the sake of time, yes. I gotta read this story in full. I’ll be at the library at my earliest convenience. ‘The client’ will send an annotated copy with his notes henceforth.

01/24 @ 8:32pm

Of course, sweet boy. Goodnight, I love you so much. x

01/25 @ 11:44am

As promised, my darling girl. Love you.

[b.bradshaw_the rocket man_final paper.pdf]

01/25 @ 7:14pm

Oh Bradley! I love you so much, rocketman. Yes, I couldn’t have said it better. Yours x

01/26 @ 10:39am

Bradley! They’re sending me to London in February for two weeks! I even get a swanky corporate apartment for the stay. I wish you could come with me - even if it was just for a long weekend? We could go to all my favorite restaurants and afternoon tea and for walks in all the parks. One day it’ll work out! 

But tragedy of all tragedies! I just realized I’m going to miss a couple cooking lessons when I’m in London! I already emailed the instructor before today’s class and she said there’s other classes throughout the week that are behind us, so I can make it up with them! Ahhh I’m so excited! Talk soon, love you!

01/26 @ 11:13pm

I didn’t realize how nervous I was about the trip until I went to bed tonight. It’ll be my first trip abroad since I got my promotion in November. Plus, it’s a completely different client than my last trip abroad and I’ve only met one person on this new London team before. Sometimes I go into these meetings and still feel like a little kid? I’m always the youngest person in the room and normally the only woman and on one hand, that’s cool? But sometimes I feel like someone’s daughter instead of their colleague? Like these guys are my dad’s age? And they’re actually supposed to listen to what I have to say about their company? Do you ever feel like that? Like you don’t really belong, despite knowing you’ve earned your place? I wish you were beside me right now. My bed feels way too big tonight. Love you.

01/27 @ 7:48am

Sweetheart! I am so unbelievably proud of you! That’s amazing! You gotta celebrate, go out to dinner with Caro and Darcy, maybe even Nat! I know you’ve been working so hard these last couple of weeks, you absolutely deserve this. I can’t say I know exactly what you’re going through, but yes. I have absolutely felt like I haven’t belonged or deserved something despite having ‘checked off all the boxes.’ I felt that way when I got promoted to LC and when I got that award in October. Everytime I see it on my uniform, I feel a bit like a faker? Like do I really deserve this? But then I remember the way you smiled at me when I got back to my seat that night and how proud of me you were and I think maybe I do deserve it? Plus, I also think of how goddamn gorgeous you looked all fucked out later that night. 

And please note, I would happily slip into bed alongside you, especially since my bed feels way too small tonight. Love you, Bradley

01/27 @ 10:56am

Thank you for earlier. I don’t know, sometimes I just feel like I’m just too soft for all of this? Like I’m always trying to prove something to everyone and I get a little lost. Tell me something good? x

01/27 @ 7:01pm

How about this? Every time I go up in the sky and see the way the sun hits the clouds, I think of you. I’ve never wanted to be with someone as much as I want to be with you. I love you so much, kid

Your Bradley 

01/27 @ 7:06pm

Sometimes I can’t believe we love each other this much, it feels like a dream  x

01/27 @ 7:11pm

I can. Your Bradley 

01/30 @ 7:08am

i slept in one of your shirts last night. it doesn’t smell like you anymore, but it feels like you: soft and safe and warm x

01/30 @ 7:23am

Well I spray my pillowcase with your perfume whenever I miss you so I guess we’re even

Your Bradley

ps - can you send me another bottle?

01/30 @ 7:34am

You’re already out? What sort of illicit behavior are you engaging in with that perfume bottle? 

01/30 @ 10:33pm

I burrow my face in my pillow so I can smell it while I fist my cock, why? What’d you have in mind?

01/30 @ 10:37pm

How does that work though? Like genuinely? Do you jack off with Rueben in the top bunk? Or wait till he’s in the gym? I’ve been curious about this for a while now. What about the showers? Is it like an open floor plan thing? Or are there stalls? Is there a Zillow listing for this aircraft carrier?

01/30 @ 10:41pm

Now why would I ruin the mystery? 

01/30 @ 10:43pm

Bradley!!!!

01/30 @ 10:44pm

Atta girl, that’s the spirit! Love you 

02/02 @ 6:30pm

I am so sick of going to the gym. It seems like it’s all Payback and I do lately. We got this new workout regime that’s been killing me - don’t say it’s because I’m old. Though, I have been using my Theragun. Payback does my back if I do his in return. It was only awkward the first time he turned it on too hard and yelped (please tell everyone that). 

02/02 @ 6:46pm

Oh, so you and Rueben Theragun each other, huh? Say more Lieutenant Commander!

02/04 @ 2:45pm

Going to Pete and Penny’s in a bit to watch the Super Bowl! Max is at the game, apparently his golf buddy Jimmy G hooked him up, though he neglected to bring me or Caroline. I feel like you would’ve been his first choice, so take that as a compliment I suppose. Do you guys do anything onboard for it? I have $350 on the 49ers winning by 3. Have a lovely day my darling boy x

02/04 @ 9:30pm

Guess who’s as snug as a bug on a rug in her bed AND $1400 dollars richer? That would be me! When you get home we’re going to Juniper and Ivy, my treat, bubs! x

02/06 @ 4:57am

Awww sweetheart are you gonna sugar mama me again? 

02/06 @ 7:03am

You do know the only reason you’re getting away with that is because there’s an ocean between us, right? 

02/06 @ 6:00pm

Sorry, couldn’t resist! Love you! B

02/06 @ 6:10pm

You’re lucky I love you so much. x

02/08 @ 9:58pm

Can you imagine if I was gone for 20 years?

02/08 @ 10:11pm

Bradley that’s not funny 

02/08 @ 10:13pm

It’s not supposed to be. I’m reading the Odyssey and it got me thinking. 

02/08 @ 10:16pm

Bradley I love you something awful, but you are such an old man sometimes. 

Are you going through some sort of midlife crisis reading the Odyssey while you’re at sea?? Is the Old Man and the Sea next?

(ps i love the thought of you reading in your bunk in your spare time and being so struck by something composed thousands of years ago that you have to email me)

02/08 @ 10:20pm

They wait 20 years to get back to each other - practically half their lives. They miss so many things and barely knew each other before he left, but they’re still so - I don’t even know? They’re just so intent on getting back to the other in Odysseus’s case? While Penelope makes sure there’s something for him to come back to? And I must’ve read this stanza ten times before I had to email you: 

"...the gods cast me upon Ogygia, Calypso's island, home of the dangerous sea nymph with glossy braids, and the goddess took me in in all her kindness, welcomed me warmly, cherished me, even vowed to make me immortal, ageless, all my days - but she never won the heart inside me, never" 

And I know it’s not a perfect comparison or parallel, but I read that last bit and I couldn’t help but think of you? And how you’re the one who won my heart and it’s always going to be that way. Whether I see you in twenty seconds or twenty years.

02/08 @ 10:23pm

You’d come home to me whether it took twenty seconds or twenty years. You’d come home to me and I’d know you anywhere. I love you so much. 

02/08 @ 10:58pm

“Now help me, please, to get back home, and quickly! I miss my family. I have been gone so long it hurts.” 

Your Bradley

02/09 @ 7:03pm

At the airport for London! Taking off! And I may or may not have used points to upgrade to a Club World seat…but like? It’s a nonstop flight, so it’s okay, right? Work’s already paying for business class? It’s points from my work card? It’ll be fine, right?

I had to take an ativan in the lounge. I just hate that I still get so nervous whenever I fly long distance? I fly all the time, I shouldn’t be like this? You know, one time, I pretended you were flying my plane. I know it’s kind of dumb and silly and a completely different type of plane, but it made me feel better because you’d never let anything happen to me. 

Anyway, we’re book buddies!! I went to the bookstore a couple days ago and got a copy! I read the Odyssey back in high school, but forgot so much. I was reading in the lounge and this part made me think of you:

“...this lovely house, my marriage home, so full of wealth and life, which I suppose I will remember even in my dreams.”

I’ll text you when I land my darling boy, love you x

02/10 @ 6:02am

You gotta squeeze every last bit of your per diem out of pwc. You’ve been working way too hard lately. Fuck it, on the way home just put the upgrade on your work card or put it on mine. Have a safe (rest of your) flight - maybe one day you’ll let me take you up. Love Bradley 

02/10 @ 10:08am

Just landed and on my way to the office (already…)

I thought of you as I read and stared out the window on the plane. I could pretend I’m flying towards you, rather than further away. I can’t imagine how you feel doing this everyday, but I imagine it’s like feeling limitless, like everything is in front of you, there for the taking. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you take me up one day. 

I’ll keep you posted on how everything’s going if you do the same. All my love x

02/12 @ 5:49am

How’s it going, kid? They working you too hard? You’re in London! Try to enjoy it, you deserve it. One of the guys I’m with gave me a restaurant recommendation for you, said the drinks were amazing, his wife loved it. Do something fun while you’re there! And send me some pictures dammit!

Love you, 

Bradley 

02/12 @ 8:22am

Bradley! It’s been so so crazy here! I feel like I haven’t stopped since I landed. My ‘flat’ is so cute and right by the client’s offices, so it’s an easy commute. I feel so professional taking the Tube places too! It’s one thing I’d like us to have in San Diego as opposed to all the traffic. Also, it’s CHILLY here and I’m so glad I dug my big coat out of storage. I’ll try and check the restaurant out this weekend, I’m gonna sneak in a trip to the Tate, too. I’ve always wanted to see the Turners. Talk soon and love you bunches! x 

02/14 @ 9:54am

Bradley Bradshaw! You absolute SAP! HOW!?! Did you conspire with my dad again? Thank you for the flowers! I’m going to have the biggest smile on my face all day. I love you and hope this is the first of a lifetime of Valentine’s Days together. Always x 

02/14 @ 7:33pm

Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, kid. I’m not gonna lie, I gave your dad very specific instructions for the bouquet (I was going to ask Max, but he’d probably swap it for something ugly and cheap and keep the change…kidding (not)), so I’m glad they turned out well. It was a very big day on board today: we got special red heart cookies for the holiday. The mood was infectious, I can still taste the sprinkles. Maybe you could cook for me on our next Facetime? Have you learned anything good in class lately? It doesn’t have to be fancy, just wanna see you (and maybe also live vicariously through whatever you’re making).  

02/14 @ 7:33pm

Bradley! I think I can swing that for you, when do you think our next call will be? 

02/16 @ 3:18pm

Kid, you spoil me. This package is amazing, I don’t know where to start (just kidding it’s with the Cadbury chocolate and the Sudocrem as my burnt shoulders thank you), but everything is wonderful, thank you. I love hearing about London and seeing the pictures you sent last time. But I do have one complaint…you’re not in any of the pictures, kid, and that’s truly egregious. (Think we won’t be able to Facetime for a while, I gave Payback my slot the other day.)

02/16 @ 3:23pm

That’s not true! I’m in the one in front of the Tate!

02/16 @ 3:25pm

Yeah, but I can’t see you under all those layers! Just want to see your face. It’s been way too long since our last Facetime.

02/16 @ 9:52pm

As requested, Lieutenant Commander. I had one of the girls in the London office take this at dinner tonight. She really did wonders with the lighting and even managed to get my sidecar in the pic! x Love you

02/17 @ 6:55am

You look pretty. New dress? B

02/17 @ 7:17am

Maybe…it was on sale, couldn’t resist. But you’re gonna hate me because all of my clothes are very much not going to fit in your closet. Also, I bought you a new jacket and some socks. x

02/17 @ 7:20am

Ehhh I’m not too worried about the closet thing. But if you keep buying me clothes we might have a problem.

02/17 @ 7:24am

It’s so cute though!! You’re going to look so handsome in it! I got the green one for you!

02/17 @ 7:29am

Okay, admittedly a very nice jacket, thank you. But you are aware that we live in San Diego…

02/17 @ 7:31am

I am aware of that fact, LC Bradshaw. You can wear it when we visit my parents. Hell, I had to get my coat out of my storage closet for this trip. 

02/17 @ 6:53pm

Sighhhhh you raise a good point. Alright, alright, thank you for the jacket and socks my darling girl. What’d you have for dinner last night? We had chicken with these absolutely awful biscuits, tasted like saw dust, my stomach was growling for some more of that Cadbury chocolate (yes, Payback and I ate all of it already, though it was mainly Payback) for hours afterward. 

02/17 @ 6:59pm

Oh my sweet boy! Who do I need to call about your meal plan? Give me the number and I’ll call the Navy up right now. And I had scallops with truffle risotto. It was delicious. Wanted to lick the bowl clean. Love you bubs x

02/19 @ 10:22pm

Bubs, I cannot eat another meal out. I feel like I’m going to burst. I’ve gone to so many work dinners and lunches even before coming here, it almost makes me feel like a glutton. 

I miss you and your cooking (though I’ll have you know that my skills were vastly improving before my trip abroad!) and you standing behind me at the counter while I try to perfectly cut peppers. Sometimes I do it wrong on purpose so you’ll put your arms around me and I can feel the rumble of your voice. Would we call that weaponized incompetence? You better be ready for some Michelin Star meals when you get home, buddy. I just can’t wait to be home with you and roll over next to you in the morning and to tell you to stop snoring and that the battery in the smoke detector needs to be changed. I can’t wait to be home with you and make a life with you. I’m going to be really sappy now, but let me have this because I was reading this poem the other day and thought of you. 

“I am supposed to be touched. I can’t wait to find the person who will come into the kitchen just to smell my neck and get behind me and hug me and breathe me in and make me turn around and make me kiss his face and put my hands in his hair even with my soapy dishwater drips. I am a lovely woman. Who will come into my kitchen and be hungry for me?” (x)

Only a month until you’re home with me, I hope you’re hungry. 

All my love x

02/20 @ 4:50am

It’s only weaponized incompetence if the other person minds. I, however, do not mind. I loved that quote you sent me, going to be thinking about that one for a long time. I hate to tell you this, but I’m gonna be offline for a couple days. I hate that it’s at the end of your trip, but please please message me when you’re leaving/taking off and again when you land, you know I worry. Love you and am so unbelievably proud of you, kid! You killed it in London. Your Bradley

02/20 @ 7:03am

That’s okay, I totally understand. I’ll give you all the details on our next Facetime. In the meantime, I message you when I leave. Stay safe and love you, Bradley! x

02/23 @ 3:45pm

Taking off soon! I got an upgrade again, thankfully! And I made sure to put your new coat in my carry on - I don’t trust British Airways not to lose it! Taking an ativan again so hopefully I’ll sleep the entire flight - love you and talk soon!

02/24 @ 10:33pm

Just landed, slept through….90% of the flight! Apparently, there was bad turbulence, so probably for the best. Now, I know you would never have me deal with that my darling rocketman! Talk later - love you! x

02/25 @ 7:09pm

Feels kind of weird being back? I can’t quite get back into my routine. I’m not sure if it’s jet lag or something else? Feeling a little lost? x

02/26 @ 7:55pm

Bradley!!! You were so good, I’m so so proud of you! Max had everyone over at his place for us to watch you! We have quite the party here including my parents, Pete, Penny and Amelia, Natasha, Mickey and Cielo, Caroline, and Darcy. I’ll have to tell you about the parents meeting later. I wish you had been here for it, they took to each other like bees to honey. 

You looked tragically handsome, I practically had to hold back a moan when you were standing on the flight deck talking to Norah O’Donnell (is she as nice in person as she is on TV?). God, I want to ravish you, you sounded so fucking smart. You know like half the country is going to be in love with you now, right? I’ve got to get back to everyone, Max ordered dinner for us afterwards, but I had to email you as soon as you finished!

Just wanted to let you know how proud of you I am and how much I love you x

02/27 @ 5:09am

Thanks, kid. Sorry it took me a bit to respond, things have been getting a bit crazy, you know, now that I’m a celebrity and all? We’re winding down this training, so the next couple weeks are gonna be full of debriefs and paperwork, which means I should have a more stable schedule. Love you B

02/28 @ 11:48pm

Sometimes I wonder if you were here what would you do? Hold me? Love me? I never feel small except when I’m in your arms. x

02/29 @ 11:48pm

Some nights in bed, if I try really hard, I can imagine I’m laying down next to you. And it makes everything just a little easier. Bradley

03/01 @ 12:56am

I haven’t taken anything besides my fingers in months. You’re going to stretch me out so well when you get home. 

03/01 @ 7:19pm

And I’m gonna mark your ass pink for that comment. I can’t believe you sent that in the middle of the day. You getting yourself off at work? Dirty girl. 

03/01 @ 9:41pm

Never feels as good as when you do it. 

03/01 @ 10:01pm

And my hands pale in comparison to your pretty little cunt. You know that first time we slept together you were so fucking tight, I knew you hadn’t had a good fuck in ages. It gonna be like that again when I come home?

03/01 @ 10:05pm

Where are you going to have me first?

03/01 @ 10:06pm

In our bed, in our house, after you make me dinner in our kitchen. 

03/01 @ 10:09pm

Just over two weeks now, I can’t wait to see you. x

03/03 @ 5:55am

How you holding up, kid? You doing a little better this week work wise? Try and log off around 5 if you can. Don’t want you getting all worn down on me. 

They had us doing these war games yesterday that made me think of you. You would’ve walked circles around some of these other guys I swear. Think I can get a Facetime for us in a couple days? Probably will be our last one before I come home. Love you, B

03/03 @ 7:12am

Bradley! That's the best news I’ve had in ages! I can’t wait to see you! Definitely felt a little lost after coming back from London, but I hope my rut will be over soon? Tying things up with a client is always so lengthy and tedious. 

War games! ‘Would you like to play a game?’ I’d ask if you won, but no one ever wins in the art of war 😉Love you!

03/05 @ 8:54pm

So, here’s a new one. My mom called? She’s going to be stateside and wants to get lunch tomorrow. Could’ve done with a bit more warning, but apparently, she has a layover in San Diego on her way to New York to see my brother? I didn’t even know she was going to see him? I don’t even know if I want to see her? It’s funny, I can already tell you exactly how it’ll play out:

We’ll go to lunch at some sort of vegan restaurant, probably Donna Jean

She’ll make me pay

She’ll try to get me to use some sort of herb to promote weight loss since I’m looking a bit “pudgy” around the face

Though she’ll forget to ask about you, she’ll tell me about her latest string of failed relationships with bartenders and surf instructors in Canggu. Or is it Ubud? I genuinely don’t remember, she started in Ubud, but honestly my knowledge of Balinese geography is rudimentary at best 

She’ll ask how ‘that woman’ is doing as if Mary is just the woman my dad is seeing, not the woman who raised me and my brother

And finally, she’ll ask for money though betting is still open as to what for!

So, what do you say? Wanna put a wager on it? Your terms.

Love you! x

03/06 @ 6:30am

$100 she orders the caesar and makes you pay. I’m not even going to entertain the third parlay, pretty girl. Oddly feeling like she’s got a winner on her hands so yes she’ll talk about her new paramour. Does she really call Mary ‘that woman?’ And yes, without a question, she will ask you for money.

Your move my gorgeous girl,

Bradley

03/06 @ 7:49pm

I really wish you were here right now. She doesn’t even know me, but she somehow always manages to make me feel small. 

Caesar - no croutons 

I paid

Pudgy and frumpy, but she was hawking shakes not herbs

Failed relationship? No, she’s actually GETTING MARRIED

She did not ask about you much other than to say I need to watch my figure for you (see bullet point no. 3)

Mary was called ‘that woman’ six times before I stopped counting

She asked for money as a wedding present 

So, you didn’t get them all, but not a bad showing. Love you. Talk tomorrow on Facetime. x

03/07 @ 6:09am

God kid, I’m so sorry. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Actually, I don’t even think she deserves to know what she’s missing. Did you talk to your dad or Mary about it? I know we’re talking later, but I just wanted you to have a message from me before you start your day. What’re you wearing to the office tomorrow? Have you worn that polka dot dress with the bow lately? You know it’s one of my favorites and that I always love unwrapping it when you get home from the office. 

Can’t wait to see you tonight. All my love, Bradley

03/07 @ 9:55am

The dress doesn’t fit. My mom was right, I shouldn’t have gotten the french toast.

I’m planning on talking to dad and Mary later today before you and I have our Facetime. I know they’ll make me feel better, much like you have my darling boy, but it still feels pretty crummy. Especially since I’m sure she’s going to have wonderful time in New York with my brother 🙄 and I’ll have to hear all about it next time I talk to him. 

And I’m not sure if I’ve unpacked that dress yet! I’ll have to do some digging. Talk soon! x

03/10 @ 3:26am

We had a little baby. He was always giggling and laughing and we were making silly faces and he looked so small in your arms, Bradley. So small and little and he was ours. And then I turned around and he was toddling around the house and we were chasing him and his little legs were moving so quickly and we all wound up on the couch in a tangle of limbs, giggling under the blankets as we tickled him and he called you daddy. 

It wasn’t our house - or what will be our house, I guess? Instead of the leather couch you have, it was white and big and wide and the three of us could easily fit on it, snuggled together. 

And I could feel your arms around me, rocking me back and forth. I could feel you humming in my ear and kissing my neck and telling me you loved me. I could feel it. I could feel you. I could feel him and you. And it was nice and I felt warm and safe and cherished and loved. Because I felt so much love for this little boy in my arms - the perfect mix of me and you. Everything felt right and perfect. 

Except when I rolled over in bed to tell you about it, I realized I was alone in my bed, in my apartment, and not in the house that we shared or with the little boy that looked so much like you and I haven’t felt so empty and sad since I can’t remember when. 

And I just miss you so much, Bradley. I know I can come across as glib and unfeeling sometimes and like this doesn’t affect me as much. But it does and sometimes I feel like my heart is going to burst because I’ve never felt like this for anyone else before? It’s never been so easy for me to love someone and let them love me to the point that I always want to be beside them. And I know with your job - and mine - that can’t always happen, but god Bradley I wish you were here right now so you could hold me and tell me you loved me because I just want to feel your arms around me and know you’re real. I want to tell you about the little boy - the perfect mix of me and you. 

I love you rocketman x

03/11 @ 12:49pm

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I realize that’s a lot to drop on you, especially since we can’t talk in person. I guess I’ve just never missed a person more in my life and seeing that future showed me what we could have when you come home. God, Bradley I want you to come home so badly. I want you to stay here with me forever and never leave and to have that cute little boy who was the perfect mix of me and you and to have you here in my arms every night. And I know it’s selfish of me to ask or even make you think about it, but I want you right here - in twenty seconds, not twenty years. 

How did your hop go today? x

03/11 @ 7:03pm

I have dreams like that, too. I’ll be little, but still older than I was when my dad died and we’ll be at the beach, running around, and he’ll pick me up and spin me around like I’m flying on an airplane. 

But then it’ll be me and my kid, running around and I’ll pick them up and spin them around like they’re flying on an airplane. Sometimes it’s a girl, sometimes a little boy. But I always just can feel and tell that I love them and I’d do anything for them. 

And I used to hate waking up alone after I had them and I’d feel empty and sad and like I had the feeling that they should still be there? Except now I have you and I know it doesn’t just have to be a dream?

Sorry it took me so long to reply. Today was hectic and I didn’t get to check my email until later. But if I checked it earlier, my day would’ve been a lot easier on my heart. 

All my love,

Your Bradley

03/12 @ 7:11pm

How do you always know exactly what to say? I’m sorry for springing that all on you, know it wasn’t exactly a quick/easy message, but I love that you knew exactly what I meant. My day’s always a lot easier on my heart when I hear from you, too. Love you x

03/13 @ 10:17pm

i miss having you around to take care of me. and telling me what to do and what to wear for you and how you want me and where you want me and when you want me and and and. and how good i feel around you as you come, how you take what’s yours. how i need you to take control and tell me what i need because i’m too much of a dumb slut to figure it out on my own. i need you so much bradley. and it’s so hard because i’m trying to take care of myself like you do and imagine what you’d do if you were with me right now. but i’m so frustrated since no one takes care of me like you do. i feel so empty. nothing stretches me out like you do, nothing makes me feel as small as you do, nothing makes me flush like the sound of your voice against my neck as i come, nothing soothes the ache inside me like you do. need you to call me good girl, pretty girl, sweet girl, anything as long as it’s yours. 

i need you i need you i need you i need you bradley bradley bradley bradley

3/13 @ 10:39pm

Awwww sweetheart, did you get yourself all worked up over me? It’s okay, I know it’s hard for you all by yourself. Must’ve been real bad for you to risk this getting flagged, huh? Poor thing, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. 

Want you to pretend I’m next to you, leaning over you as you lay down and touch yourself. Say yes Bradley, more Bradley. Bradley, Bradley, Bradley. Good girl. 

Want you naked under the covers, no frilly little pajama set or anything. No, I want your cum to stain the sheets and then for you to have to clean up in the morning, all embarrassed because you did this. You made yourself like this because you can’t control yourself without me around. All that cum being wasted. Nobody around to lick it off your pussy. So what doesn’t get on the sheets, you have to taste. Good girl. 

Want you to use your fingers - only your fingers, I’ll know if you use anything else. Start with your breasts. Think of how perfectly they fit in my hands and how yours aren’t quite the same. They aren’t as big. Aren’t as strong. Play with your nipples, drag your nails across the soft skin on the underside of your breasts.

Want you to sigh my name as you slide your hands down your stomach towards your pretty little pussy. Have you shaved? Gotten a wax? You know how I like it, want it just like that when I get home. Pretend it’s my fingers sliding into your cunt. A few touches and you’re already clenching on air and I’m not even around. 

In and out, in and out. Circle your clit with your thumb. Add another finger, then another. You rocking your hips yet? I know you’re soaked. I know you want more. Three fingers can’t stretch you out nearly as much as you need. But I don’t know if you can handle anything else without me around. And I know you would never disagree with me, right? Because you’re my good girl and good girls do what they’re told. 

Don’t hesitate to get loud. You’re in our house, in our bed, you can be as loud as you want. Bet you’re getting close, huh? Try and last a little longer, can you hear yourself and how wet you are? Are you shaking yet? I know you’re close. Go ahead, speed up your fingers, just the way I do. It’s okay, you can come. Know you’re gonna get sleepy soon, wish I could sleep inside you, nice and tight.

Now say thank you Bradley. Good girl. 

03/14 @ 5:49pm

Thank you, Bradley. Thank you for taking care of me last night 

You like chicken piccata, right?

03/14 @ 7:33pm

Yeah, kid, I like chicken piccata. 

03/14 @ 7:39pm

Okay, that’s good. I’m going to make it when you come home. I ran it by my cooking instructor. Ina’s recipe of course. 

(I’ve read your email seven times since you sent it. I’ve thought about it constantly. I want you to take me softly and slowly that first time. But after that? I can’t wait to let go and float. Love you so much x)

03/15 @ 6:09am

You’re the boss. Good thing I’ll be home soon, you’re gonna run out of material. As is, I had to type that last one with one hand. 

Love you,

B

03/15 @ 7:21am

I’ll be good till you get home, promise. 

Have a good day, do you think we’ll get to talk much from now till Friday? Love you x

03/15 @ 7:24am

I’ll hold you to it. 

I don’t think so, might be able to send one out before leaving the boat. Better make it a good one. 

All my love

Your Bradley 

03/15 @ 7:25am

You got it! Love you bubs 

03/18 @ 11:08pm

Kid - there’s this lyric that keeps running through my head: ‘and I want you right here.’ I want you beside me - today, tomorrow, all my days. I want you right here, beside me forever. In twenty seconds, not twenty years. See you tomorrow.

All my love,

Your Bradley

03/18 @ 11:11pm

See you tomorrow, rocketman. I’ll be the one in blue.

Love you x

a/n: thanks for reading! i'll be back with part ii and part iii (hopefully not in...4 months). i had so much fun writing these and getting to explore a different format and side to their relationship! thanks to alexa @sometimesanalice, kylie @ofstoriesandstardust, cass @notroosterbradshaw, elle @dissonannce, nik @cherrycola27, and loren @heartsofminds for all the support!

#bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #rooster imagine #bradley and smart aleck #top gun imagine #bradley bradshaw x female reader #rooster x reader

[inairbinad]

Lover's Lick

Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson, 2.4k words, also on ao3

Just a silly little first kiss idea that fell into my head because I accidentally typed Lover’s Lick instead of Lover’s Lake.

It was a blistering day in Hawkins. As a twisted way to enjoy it, the whole party decided to spend the day at Lover's Lake to continue celebrating what they’d dubbed “Dead Vecna Summer.”

Eddie wasn’t sure he was enjoying himself, yet, but Robin was determined to make sure everyone did.

“It’s called exposure therapy,” Robin explained as she lazily dragged her toes through the water from her seat on the dock. “If we all come here and have a good time, the positive association will start to make the bad shit less scary.”

“That doesn’t sound like a thing,” Mike countered, and Nancy leaned down and flicked a handful of water at him. She and Robin were near inseparable now, physically sitting shoulder to shoulder as they soaked up the sun, but also to the point where Nancy steadfastly defended everything Robin said. 

“It’s a thing, Wheeler,” Eddie drawled from his own beach towel. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was a thing or not, but Robin tended to know her shit, so he was going along with her plan for now. Eddie had no interest in actually getting in the water, but the shady little patch of grass he’d managed to lounge in was pleasant enough. “I just don’t know if it’s working.”

Admittedly, the whole experience was made more pleasant by the fact that no one else but their little group was around, staring them down or making accusations with their eyes. No one really wanted to spend much time at Lover's Lakep anymore, considering it had so recently been a crime scene. The quarry and the copious other lakes around Hawkins seemed delightful by comparison; but maybe that was just because no one else had Robin.

So far, only Dustin, El, and Will had been brave enough to venture into the water. They were off the shore a ways, splashing each other and giggling ferociously. The glee on their faces was helping to tamp down the lingering sense of dread that Eddie couldn’t quite shake, despite his best efforts.

Steve was also eyeing them warily, either watching like a hawk to make sure nothing weird went tickling at their ankles, or because he was fighting himself on whether he wanted to venture in after them.

Eddie suspected it was a little bit of both. 

“Fuck it,” Steve muttered to himself, before stripping his shirt off and wading into the lake. Eddie watched him go from behind the safety of his sunglasses, doing his best not to let his jaw go slack in the presence of a half dressed, sun kissed, and about to be wet Steve Harrington. 

Once Eddie finally tore his eyes away, he noticed Robin also looking after Steve—but her expression was a worried one. 

“Maybe we should play a game,” Eddie suggested with a slow grin. “For positivity, and whatnot.”

“Oooh, how about truth or dare?” Max recommended in a heartbeat, like she’d been waiting for an opportunity to present itself for her to suggest it. It instantly made Eddie wary of her intentions, but he shrugged and went along. If it made Max happy to wrangle some embarrassment out of her friends, she deserved as much. Plus, truth or dare never scared Eddie much, since he could always come up with something freakier to challenge people with than anyone ever dared him to do. And truths weren’t tricky at all, because he had a knack for making bullshit sound like the truth on the spot. 

They didn’t come around on his turn for a while, yet, so he let his gaze drift back across the strikingly serene water until it landed back on Steve. He started off indulging the kids in letting them dunk his head under water, but now he seemed to have found some semblance of peace, floating on his back with his eyes on the sky.

“Earth to Munson,” Lucas called out, cupping his hands around his mouth and deepening his voice for the intended bullhorn effect. “It’s your turn, so you can stop ogling Steve, now.”

“I don’t ogle, Sinclair,” Eddie said, pulling his best unaffected act. All the same, he dragged his eyes back to his immediate surroundings. “That’s much more your speed.” 

Lucas nervously glanced at Max, knowing exactly what Eddie was implying. Max seemed to know as well, because she came to Lucas’s defense in a snap. Eddie would’ve thought it was sweet, if he hadn’t just aimed the Max Cannon of Shit-Talking squarely in his direction. 

“You’re the one who looks like you want to lick Steve’s face half the time,” she said with a knowing smirk. Everyone else burst into laughter, and Eddie had no choice but to eat the shame of being completely obvious, to the point where even all the gremlins knew he had an enormous crush on Steve. 

“Only half the time?” Jonathan asked, and Argyle snorted. When even the two of them were helping to gang up on Eddie, he lost any hope of someone backing him up instead of roasting him further. He sighed in resignation.

Not long after all the Upside Down drama had concluded, Eddie and Robin had both teamed up and decided to come out to the whole group together. It was partly because Robin was sick of having to deny the allegations that she was in love with Steve, and partly because they both agreed it would let the group adjust so that there would be as little friction as possible when Will decided to follow suit. It turned out none of them really needed the extra education in love and acceptance and all that, though. The kids barely blinked an eye, and instead just shifted the allegations about being in love with Steve off of Robin and right onto Eddie. 

“Oh my god,” Lucas squealed, completely overcome with excitement for some reason. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Eddie as he said, “That’s your dare!”

“I didn’t even pick—” Eddie tried, but everyone was already turning to look at him with matching evil smiles. 

“Lick his face,” Max sat back, folding her arms against her chest in satisfaction. 

“That’s not my dare,” Eddie muttered, already knowing his fate was sealed. He had to lick Steve’s face, or suffer some unknowable torture for time eternal for being a chickenshit. 

“Lick his face,” everyone chorused, mercifully at a whisper so Steve wouldn’t hear. That didn’t make it any less mortifying.

“I swear to Christ—” Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose, doing his best to ignore them. He thought maybe he could withstand the torture option, instead.

“Lick his face,” they all repeated, chanting like they only worshiped at the alter of humiliating Eddie in the most creative ways possible. 

“You’re a bunch of heathens,” Eddie whined. 

“Lick his face!” They repeated, insistent and already getting louder. 

Eddie stared at Max in a silent plea, knowing she was the one who could most easily get everyone to lay off of him. This was her rodeo, and they both knew it. Max only stared back at him, unwavering. Eddie wondered if this was why she wanted to play truth or dare in the first place. 

“Fucking,” Eddie grumbled, pulling himself up off his towel and whipping his own shirt and sunglasses off. Then he stood there, clad in nothing but his Garfield swim trunks, and took a deep breath to steady himself. He’d done worse than this, surely. It would be mortifying, but he’d get over it. Steve had a good enough sense of humor that Eddie didn’t think he’d be pissed, at least. “Fine.”

Then he stomped off into the lake and started swimming out to Steve to a round of raucous cheers at his back.

The calamitous thing he was about to go do was enough to distract Eddie from the fact that he was swimming in this lake for the first time since the spring, and he wasn’t being dragged down to its depths, or watching something mind-bendingly terrifying, or being chased for his life as he did. An entirely different kind of doom was spelled out for him, sure, but at least Eddie was swimming towards someone as his fate unfurled before him.

Steve really did look beautiful, sprawled out on his back, droplets of water glistening on his skin in the sun. Eddie intentionally caused a lot of fuss as he swam, making waves and noise as he went, so as not to startle Steve out of his peaceful reverie too severely. 

Steve was already treading water, swimming upright again, by the time Eddie reached him. 

“Hey,” he said, soft and trusting even though he probably shouldn’t have been. 

“Hey,” Eddie echoed him, feeling the weight of fourteen sadistic eyes on his back. Once more, he was incredibly glad that no one else but their little group of friends was around to witness this. Eddie laughed, a desperate and delirious little sound that perfectly encapsulated how little he believed he was about to give in to peer pressure like all the preppy conformists he always made fun of.

“I’m sorry in advance,” Eddie said, and Steve tilted his head in confusion. 

“Huh—”

Eddie reached up and grabbed Steve’s chin, watching as the lake water pebbled across the planes of Steve’s face, and gently tipped it towards the side. Then he licked a stripe up Steve’s cheek, quick but thorough, just enough to savor the feel of Steve’s skin on his tongue for even a moment. 

Just as quickly as it’d begun, it was over, and Eddie turned around to face his jury, still idly judging from the dock. They broke out into another round of cheers and applause, so Eddie couldn’t help but thrust his arms up in triumph and give them a little show. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder, then, and had to kick his feet quicker so he didn’t start sinking at the sensation of being spun around. Eddie braced himself, for a split second thinking he was gonna get punched. 

The next thing he felt was, in fact, a hand on his face, but it was as gentle of a touch as he could ever remember feeling. Eddie peeked one eye open, only to find Steve looking back at him, a small smile playing at his lips. Steve rubbed his thumb across Eddie’s cheek bone, then very deliberately dropped his eyes to Eddie’s lips.

“What are you doing, Stevie?” Eddie asked, wondering if he was dreaming all of a sudden.

“What was Robin rambling about earlier?” Steve murmured, the low rumble of humor in his chest. “Positive associations?” 

Eddie just nodded dumbly at him, entirely unsure if that was what Robin had said at all. 

“Well, here’s mine,” Steve said simply, then leaned in and kissed him. 

Even though the world had seemingly thudded to a stop, Eddie felt the way Steve’s lips moved against his own, firm and soft all at once, leaving him all tingly in an instant. Eddie didn’t know how, or why, but Steve was kissing him like he meant it—like he’d been ruminating on his desire to slot his lips between Eddie’s it for as long Eddie had been fantasizing about the same. 

The realization was a heady one, and Eddie heard a surprised little whimper escape his throat. Steve hummed happily in response, then slid the hand on Eddie’s cheek into his hair, getting a better grip so he could maneuver the angle of Eddie’s face to his liking.

Eddie thought he’d let Steve position him however the fuck he wanted as long as he kept kissing him. He grabbed on to Steve’s shoulders on instinct, dragging him in closer, with the water allowing Steve to flow into Eddie's arms with ease until their chests were pressed together. Steve gently nipped at Eddie’s bottom lip with his teeth, and Eddie rode that wave to bold new heights, daring to drag his tongue along the curve of Steve’s, perfect, delectable mouth. Steve's grip on Eddie's hair tightened, then he opened up and rolled his tongue against Eddie's own.

Eddie thought Lover’s Lake might actually be the best place on Earth.

It occurred to Eddie that he might sink and drown and die in that moment, since he completely forgot how to tread water when the only thing he could focus on was Steve’s mouth on his own, Steve’s hand in his hair, Steve kissing him so thoroughly that it was worth it if this was where he died after all. But Steve secured an arm around Eddie’s waist, holding them both aloft in the water, letting the sunshine dance across their shoulders and set their kisses surging with even more heat than their hold on each other could generate on its own. 

When they finally pulled apart, Eddie heard the distant roar of hooting and hollering coming at them from the dock and their friends nearby in the water, but he couldn’t do anything but stare at Steve, dumbstruck and with the taste of Steve's cherry lip balm still on his tongue.

“Was that okay?” Steve asked, looking worried now. 

Eddie thought the best way to chase that concern right off Steve’s pretty face was to kiss him again, and again, and again.

“Oh my god, get a room,” Dustin hollered at them after a moment, and Eddie relished the feel of Steve’s smile against his own. Eddie pulled back just enough to tilt his head in silent communication, doing his best not to get too distracted by how Steve’s lips were still swollen thanks to him.

“Definitely,” Steve nodded in agreement, and two of them took off after Dustin in perfect sync. By the time Dustin realized what he was in for, it was too late. He paddled away like a mad man, screeching and giggling all the way, but Steve was too fast. He gained on Dustin quickly, getting his arms around him just as Eddie caught up.

Together, they each smacked a sloppy kiss to one of Dustin’s cheeks, then dunked him underwater together. Dustin did his best to look affronted when he resurfaced, but his grin was unmistakable.

“It’s about time,” he muttered, then splashed Steve and Eddie both and quickly paddled away again. El and Will joined in the chase this time, and Eddie heard several splashes from the dock behind him as reinforcements came to unite in a game of ganging up on Henderson.

None of them ever really panicked about taking a dip in Lover's Lake after that.

#steddie #dani's drafts #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie fic #stranger things #fanfic

[missrubybird]

Seven Sims and a Unicorn

Thanks to the EA Creator Network I was able to get the new Sims 4 Horse Ranch Expansion Pack a little earlier and right away got to making a bunch of townies to go with the lore and existing pre-made Sims in Chestnut Ridge.

Below the cut you’ll find:

The Sims Download Link

Sims’ Backstories and Traits

CC Links and Credits

All Sims have all 8 Outfits using only HR and Basegame

Have fun!   ♥️ 🦄 ♥️

CC Links: Freckles//Lashes (make sure to download all 3 versions!)

Please Note:

There is CC included in the Download Files, make sure to put it in your Mods Folder along with the CC linked above! 

You need a No EA Lashes mod for the Sims to look exactly like they do in the pictures!

The Unicorn has my Default horse eyes, please be aware of this in case you're using other horse Defaults

Credits:@tamosim@vibrantpixels@vegantrait@rheallsim  Thank you so much for your generous TOUs! ♥️♥️♥️

DOWNLOAD

Sims' Backstories (from left to right and top to bottom):

Issi Miashintubbee (loves the outdoors/loyal/rancher) Tula Miashintubbee (silly)

Issi comes from a long line of ranch owners and was supposed to take over her parents' ranch and business and get married to the father of her daughter Tula. To her family's shock and surprise one day she decided she was tired of everyone's expectations and the path already decided for her and packed her stuff and set off with Tula into the unknown to find out what it is that she really wants. Will she find her fortune in Chestnut Ridge? And what does Tula think of all this?

River Dempsey (loves the outdoors/perfectionist/horse lover) Milla Dempsey (bookworm)

River, widowed and possibly looking for love, is a passionate horse breeder and father who would like nothing more than to impart said passion for riding and horses on his daughter Milla. After all, there are competitions coming up! To his great disappointment Milla is all about books and hopes to one day become a published author. It's not that she doesn't like horses but she would much rather think up stories and spend her free time browsing the library.

Yona Kitegista (cheerful/outgoing/foodie)

Yona has run the Oak Barrel Bar as long as anyone can remember and she takes great pride in making the most popular nectar in town. If only there weren't those two youngsters, Marissa and Dani, who seem to have quite the touch at making new and exiting flavors of nectar. Her old friend and childhood sweetheart Don Gooseman is convinced hers is the best around but Yona isn't sure she won't have to change up her longstanding recipe to keep up with the competition!

Jaxen Tracey (creative/music lover)

Jaxen is Marissa's brother and the newest addition to the household, although Dani isn't too sure what to think of this, since things have been a little tense between her and Marissa lately. And now Jaxen is here, playing that music of his rather loudly! Marissa and Dani can tell that he is quite talented but his electro beats are a bit of a sore thumb among the blues lovers of Chestnut Ridge. All the while, Jaxen isn't so sure either what to make of his new surroundings. Will he eventually don the country fashion, get on that horse and become a blues lover?

Arabella von Rosenberg (intelligent/brave/friendly) Charley Bullhorn (rancher/romantic/familyoriented)

Why does Charley have a pink, sparkling unicorn, you wonder? No one knows, but he sure is proud of his beautiful, prize-winning Arabella. The two have travelled all over the country from shows to competitions but now Charley feels like it's time to settle down and find a permanent place to stay. Some may think he's a bit of a ladies man but actually he's a bit shy and secretly wants to have a big family. Can charming Arabella help him find the love of his life? And maybe Arabella too might find a new equestrian friend?

#ts4 horse ranch #ea creator network #missrubybird #Download #My Sims #Women #Men #Kids #Elder

[xanadontit]

College Chronicles

Since the deadline to make a decision is nigh, my brother is finally actually touring of some of the schools he's been accepted to.

San Jose State (SJSU) is the current front runner. He needs to get a 3 on the AP Calculus exam to be officially in, although the admissions counselor said there was a work-around there if he didn't. I think it's a test they administer through the university? One of his best friends has also committed to SJSU and said if my brother goes he'd like to room with him. My dad is being a total jackass about this. "It's too close to home." OK? Then you shouldn't have allowed him to apply there! And seriously? We're going to punish the kid because he happened to grow up in an area where there are a ton of great opportunities because you've decided he "needs" to go far away? Shut up.

Chico State (CSCU) is out but my brother said if you could move the campus slightly closer to a city he'd definitely consider it seriously. Totally fair. It's a cute, affordable college town but Sacramento is 1.5 hours away on a good day. I'm glad he's weighing the schools and considering he has to live there.

Long Beach is old and rundown and felt depressing, according to him lol. Fullerton had a nice campus and people were smiling and seemed happy but he finds the 97% commuter aspect off-putting. He also liked the campus at Cal Poly Pomona and said the chemical engineering program sounds fantastic but it's basically Chico but further south (remote, not much going on in the area). But, he hasn't officially eliminated it.

SF State is also an option but is even closer to my parents' house than SJSU (my stepmom drives past it on her way to work most days) and so again, my dad is being a pill about it. My brother doesn't seem terribly excited about it, anyway, other than he knows the area and spends time in the city anyway so it's comfortable.

He hasn't visited Sonoma or Northridge. He turned down UC Santa Cruz's waitlist spot. At one point UC Davis was also in the mix (waitlisted) but he didn't love it when he visited and told me he had it at the top of his list because it's a UC and "everyone told me to be into it."

I told him if he wants to talk through his thoughts/concerns I'd be happy to help him make some pro/con lists or figure out his non-negotiables or just listen to him vent and he said he knows and loves me (omg) and he's going to sleep on it and talk to his girlfriend (who also got into SJSU and liked it, FYI) and he may call me to talk later. At this point I may offer to be there when he tells his parents his decision if for no other reason than to whip something at my dad's head if he expresses anything other than enthusiastic support.

@pelicanhypeman and I are pretty sure it's going to be SJSU. My dad thinks I support this because it's 10 minutes from my house and uhhhh... if the kid wanted to go to school in Japan I'd support him! What is there to be gained by shitting on his decision, especially if it's not an inherently harmful one? He'll pull away from us out of hurt, not out of finding independence. I don't want that kind of relationship with him.

Now I need to figure out what to get him as a graduation present (I still owe him a trip from 8ther grade graduation in 2020) and order the bullhorn for the ceremony.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 7

Fast Times at Aguefort High

Welcome back to Fantasy High where the Bad Kids are, as the episode’s title suggests, being stress tested in a major way! Before we hop into that though, we have a few short scenes at school to get through, starting with a surprise assembly called by Principal Grix. 

There’s two main orders of business. The first is to introduce Agent Clark who is going to be investigating because of Fig’s shenanigans over the past 2 seasons. Fig Disguises herself as Kristen causing a scene that forces Adaine to burn a portent roll to cancel a Nat 20 and Agent Clark to go off on a very intense rant about the improper use of Disguises, which we mostly don’t hear because the Bad Kids are busy doing bits. 

After that’s done, Grix subjects all of the students to a mandatory drug test and starts literally throwing bolo nets at the students who fail—including Max Durden of course. VP Jace is alarmed and chases after him as he chases after students. Riz was already hella suspicious of Max pushing gorgenfern on them iat the party and now interrogates him about his motives as he cuts him out of the net. Max insists that his only motive was that smoking fantasy weed is awesome and that he’s never gotten in trouble like this before. Riz asks if any of the Rat Grinders were down in the basement with him and he says that they weren’t but Ivy was supposed to be down there. She was the one who hooked him up with the fern. Everyone notes that with suspicion. 

The conversation pivots to the fact that KP has a fleet of food trucks outside offering free food as part of her campaign. Riz is on guard but everyone else kinda wants to chow down–for recon reasons of course. After a quick aside where the idea of Adaine solving her money problems by dealing drugs is discussed and quickly rebuffed–they check out the food trucks and find that the food, unfortunately, slaps. Adaine ritual casts Detect Magic to see if the food is charmed in any way and she finds that it’s not but that the paper the food is in has some vote for KP subliminal messages implanted. Which is, como se dice, INTENSE for a school election even though they brush it off.

They discuss going over to KP (who is campaigning with a bullhorn while Mary Ann hands out flyers) and intimidating her but Kristen decides to take the high road. Of course, her version of the high road involves going over in a cowboy hat full of salsa and offering to let KP dip chips into it because this is still Kristen we’re talking about. 

Kristen and KP have a very smiley but catty conversation. Kristen implies KP was at the shrimp party but KP denies and says she was busy. Kristen shoots back that she thought she was done with all her classes because the rogue teacher found her (info she got from Riz via Jawbone you’ll remember). KP gives a tight smile at that and Kristen later on a 14 Insight sees that not only is she not rattled or insulted, she’s actually the kind of person who loves breaking the spirit of the law and getting a technical success over a traditional one. Hate that! KP says that it’s nice to be able to focus and asks how things are going with Kristen’s goddess. Kristen, for reasons I can’t fathom, says that her goddess passed and then immediately backpedals and changes it to “passed the test to give me more spells” and tries to “Spiderman away”.

????????????

Luckily she has the best friends in the world and they all team up with various spells to help her make a flashy, magical escape that’s so bombastic a bunch of the food trucks drive off in terror. 

As this happens, KP says into the bullhorn, “Your goddess passed? How can you cast spells?” So it looks like that is now public knowledge. 

Also, as an aside, Riz brings this subliminal message to Max since he’s a conspiracy head and, by their estimation, a pretty cool guy. Max says he’s on the case.  

OK, Now let’s jump into downtime! The way this works is that for the clump of time time that each bit of downtime runs for (this one is from the start of the school year to the beginning of November) each Bad Kid can make a series of rolls in the following categories: Academics, Popularity, Money, Job/Money, Extracurriculars, Relationships, and Mystery. Each roll they make, the DC goes up by 5 and failing some tracks have higher consequences than others.

Having a signed MCAT means you get to roll advantage on all Academic tracks after your first. Succeeding wildly means you get extra fun stuff. 

Fig and Kristen are in danger of expulsion and if they fail their Academics by more than 5, they’ll be expelled. And Brennan says Kristen’s Academics rolls will be hard without a god

Adaine is rolling her Academic track with disadvantage until she can get enough money to get to “well off”--diamonds aren’t cheap! (Girl, take Oisin’s diamonds, I’m begging you).

And, if at any point they want to reroll, they can by taking a stress token. They can only take 2 for each roll. The players can’t see this but whenever they take one there is a countdown to 5 and it’s parked by increasingly bigger and gnarlier red crystals which, considering the theme of this season is Concerning. 

Fabian gives Bardics to everyone but Riz and Riz takes one of Fig’s corrupted Bardics. Even though this is a long period of time, they’re each only allowed one Bardic (not sure if that’s per person–like they could get one from Fig and from Fabe–or period). Likewise, Adaine can only get help from Boggy once. 

OK, that’s all the nitty gritty. Let’s jump into everyone's rolls!

ROUND ONE

Riz predictably knocks out Academics with his DC 5 roll. He gets a 24. Boom, A+ in Rogue class and he’s not breaking a sweat. 

Adaine rolls for a job and rolls an 11 which passes but she needs a 25 to get to well off. Her passing roll is enough to get her a job as Basrar’s with Aelwyn as her one reference. 

Fabian rolls Popularity and gets a 20 which is a high enough success to get a perk: He’ll now get advantage on charisma whenever he meets someone new at school AND he’ll get advantage rolling on another track because some other student will just help him. 

Gorgug rolls all four of his Academic tracks at once–3 Artificers and 1 Barbarian. He doesn’t have an MCAT so it’s way harder than it should be. 

AND YET. 

His first roll is a 21. A+ no Sweat. His second roll is a 13 which is a C. He takes a Stress token. Nat 1. He takes another stress token. Nat 20! Another A+. He rolls his third Artificer track with advantage because of the last roll.. NAT 20 AGAIN!!! Ayda would be so proud! AND Brennan said that if he crit he’d get something super secret and special (some kind of academic resource). Excited to find out what it is so soon! His Barbarian roll is a 23 which is high but just a C since the DC keeps going up. He decides he’s cool with that. 

Kristen, before she rolls, goes to her cleric teacher Yolanda and fills her in on everything re: Cassandra. Yolanda says that if she wants to stay on the cleric track she’s going to need to do extra papers and academic stuff to make up for the lack of magic. She’ll need to get her spells back by the end of fall semester or else she’ll fail just as a matter of course And she needs to perform a miracle. You know, casual stuff. Although this is Kristen so maybe it is kind of casual. 

Yolanda does a divination spell on the Cassandra shards and we don’t learn what, if any, info she gleans from that but she does tell Kristen that as long as she still believes in Cass, she shouldn’t be fully gone. Cass can’t work through her right now so she’ll have to step up and work through Cass. 

After confirming that the Shrimp Jump doesn’t count as a miracle, she meditates on Cass and doubt and how it’s helped her in her life. When she thinks about doubt as the first step of escaping a bad situation, all the doors and windows in the room she’s in unlock–a minor bit of magic which means that she’s not totally cut off from Cass. The feeling she gets is that the cable is still there, there’s just not any juice running through it. This–tending to her religion–counts as her Extracurricular roll btw and she got a 22 on a DC 5. 

She hosts a little ceremony as almost an apology and tribute to Cass and Craig shows up! Good old Craig. 

Moving on to Fig, she suddenly has the idea that I’ve been wondering about all season: why not become a paladin to Cassandra? She needs followers. And Rebellion and Doubt go hand in hand. She seems wary cause it’s such a rash decision but Kristen encourages her to go with it.

She goes to Warlock classes where Zara once again offers her a signed MCAT before they take a field trip to the Bottomless Pit–Fig’s domain taken from Gorthalax. It’s backed up with work she’s ignoring and she tells everyone to just build a giant recording studio. Sure. 

Fig tells Zara that she’s kind of her own source of warlock power which Zara says is dangerous because it’s super easy to break a promise you made to yourself. She advises Fig to find a promise that she can make to herself that she won’t break. 

Fig then sees the Pride Armor behind her which says, “Ruin you have brought here.” Fig tells Baby to check in on who owns that armor and what its deal is. (Which is good because this is definitely the kind of thing that will SERIOUSLY bite you in the butt if you don’t stay on top of it). 

Then she rolls for her Warlock classes: 24! Fig’s an A+ student! 

ROUND TWO

DCs are higher now and we’re gonna start with Gorgug this time. 

He rolls for the Owlbears and is now at a DC 25. He fails and is told then if he fails this track 2 more times, he’ll be kicked off the team. He takes a stress but still fails, playing a truly trash game against the Hudol Hellions. 

Fabian rolls for Academics next and tries to get help from Mazey. Brennan makes him roll for the boldness of getting help from her after blowing her off but with a 22, he’s successful and has a flirty conversation with him. He also rolls a 22 on the DC 10 Bard Academic track. 

Then, he does his Fighter roll (DC 15 but with Advantage cause he has a signed MCAT) and gets a THIRTY TWO. 

His DC 20 Owlbears check? TWENTY THREE.

Fabian is the most popular kid in school, maximum party legend, lofi study nights at his house every weekday, captain of the Owlbears, and straight A student. You truly hate to see it gang.

Adaine rolls Academics next and takes the Help action from Boggy so she can roll flat. That’s a 22 on her DC 10 check. Party nerd, keeping it together even without diamonds (and eggs). 

Then, she decides she wants to put her jacket to use and become the school dealer, not of drugs but of things like extra pencils and erasers. Brennan lets her make another Job track check and with a 22 (DC 15) makes 2d10 gold. 

She does another roll (DC 20) to try and get the AV club’s help checking the Seacaster Manor security footage for info on the suspicious Mephits but even with a stress token, she can’t find anything. She does know that if they WERE her mephits then they must have been compelled because they wouldn’t have acted like that naturally. 

Also, she absolutely isn’t doing her oracle gig even though elves keep showing up at her job. Adaine, just charge them! They’re rich!  Take money from the Falinel 1%! It’s easy and ethical! 

Finally, Brennan makes her roll to keep her panic in check with all the stress and she succeeds. 

Riz rolls for his Extracurriculars next at a DC 10. Brennan allows him to do all of them at once if he takes Disadvantage. He does so and rolls a Nat 1 but with Reliable Talent, that becomes a 10+9=19. He’s doing every club he can and he’s acing it! 

October is apparently Riz and Gorgug’s Birthday (which I thought was supposed to be at the folk fairy but either I misunderstood or Brennan misspoke–either way just chalk it up to the time quangle, gang) and they have a joint Ice Cream party at Basrar’s. Gorgug gets an artificing gift card from his bio-parents who are coming down to see him at the Frosty Folk Fair which is coming up. 

Fig tells her bard teacher that she wants to do an independent study, causing her to float away in tears (though she absolutely allows it, apologizes for her behavior via email, and says she’s welcome back any time). 

Gorgug is having a harder time with his teachers (or at least with Porter because Henry loves him). He asks Fig what to do and she tries to trick Porter into signing Gorgug’s MCAT. He sees right through her and, to Gorgug’s dismay, signs Fig’s MCAT instead, saying that she’s been such a good student just from auditing. In contrast, he tells Gorgug that he needs to get an A+ or he’ll be kicked out. “Must be nice,” Gorgug laments to a baffled Fig who truly was just trying to help her friend. The signed MCAT confers the same benefits to her even though she’s not officially going for Barb levels. She is officially on the books as a Barb/Warlock multiclass. 

She does check out Paladin classes however. The poncy knight Halo St. Croix (love these names Brennan) isn’t really her speed so she checks in with one of the multiclass teachers at Brennan’s suggestion. Guess who the paladin/barb specialist is? Lmao, it’s Porter and Zac is so over it. Like, not Gorgug I felt that annoyance coming from Zac Oyama the real life person. Porter tells her that Rage and an Oath are two sides of the same coin because you’re raging to keep the oath to protect the people you care about. He does a very cool Divine Smite to demonstrate his abilities and Fig is on board for private lessons, calling him “sir” and rolling a 22 on this track (I think a DC 10 right now). A+ in Paladin. Insane. 

Kristen rolls for Popularity. It’s a DC 10 and she rolls a 12. Riz asks to take stress for her and Brennan says yes but he’s the only one who can do that for other people. I wonder if that’s an in the moment judgment to keep the whole table from taking bullets for each other or a true Riz special but, either way, it totally checks out. She rolls worse and Riz takes another stress which puts her roll at a 21. She gets the same Charisma perk as Fabian. 

Next Kristen has to do her homework which she does with advantage because of her newly gained perk. It’s a DC 15 and she gets an 18 to pass (with a C) and then an 11 on her actual research which is on Osmir, the god of magic and secrets. While doing this research, she learns that there is a lot of value in faith that’s not evangelistic and evergrowing (something common in Helioism and the Moon religion) and it can be just as powerful to have one follower who prays every day or monasteries that do their own thing and don’t do converts (which seems kind of like what Osmir’s vibe is).

ROUND THREE

Fig rolls Mystery (DC 15) to find out what Ruben’s type is so she can continue her infiltration mission. She takes a stress to reroll to get a 19 and learns he isn’t picky and actually has a big crush on Wanda Childa and hopes she’ll be at the Frosty Fair that he’s headlining. She’s delighted and magically inserts herself into his dreams to keep that fire burning. 

Fabian does a DC 25 relationship roll on Ivy and fails. He takes 2 stress tokens but fails twice more, leaving her unimpressed with him and his friendship with Mazey. She sneers and says that if it gets cold he can “wear her like a sweater”. Fabian is absolutely taken aback by the cruelty and Emily’s disgusted, “Oh my God,” at the table really sums up my feelings. I knew I never liked that bitch. Before Fabian can make a hasty retreat with an excuse about getting a phone call, Ivy gets close to Fabian’s ear and says, “You missed your shot playboy.” 

He also gets 10k gold for being a trust fund baby. Yay for Fabian. 

Riz does a DC 15 Mystery Roll for the crystal stuff and gets a 23 (2 away from a bigger clue). He learns that Ragh was in middle school when the crystal was put into Lydia so there’s no danger of him being an avatar of any kind of bad magic. 

He does another roll to research Lucy (DC 20) and a Nat 1 becomes a 21. Rogues are so good you guys. 

He learns that they never found a body but scrying magic confirmed her dead. However, it was low level scrying so all it really confirmed was that she wasn’t alive on the material plane. That still leaves a lot of options that are not quite dead. 

More info: She went missing near Lake Shimmerstone which is near the woods the Ratgrinders grind rats at. And, most notably, in that two week period where grades didn’t count anymore, she submitted paperwork to change her god but then submitted paperwork to cancel the first set of paperwork. Riz doesn’t see who she wanted to change her god to though. There’s nothing written there. 

Adaine does a Mystery roll to see what’s up with Grix. It’s a DC 25 and even with a stress she doesn’t make it. She’s not grasping anything but the uptick in bureaucracy is very weird and worrying. 

Finally, Kristen rolls Mystery to try and find out more about Lucy. It’s a DC 20 and she gets a 19 after taking a stress token. With Fig’s sketchy bardic that takes it up to a 27. 

She goes to talk to her teacher again and asks about Lucy and whatever happened to her. Yolanda gets somber and says Lucy was a wonderful student, sad but very kind. She worshiped a goddess named Ruvina who was an ancestral goddess of giants and giant-kin. Her domain is winter and sorrow. 

Kristen asks if she was thinking about switching and Yolanda is confused and alarmed. Lucy never would have switched to another god. She was extremely devoted. Kristen mentions the request form and Yolanda says she never got it and didn’t give approval–she wouldn’t have been at school when the form was sent. She thanks Kristen for bringing this to her attention and when Kristen rolls insight, a 27 tells her that her teacher is sincerely upset and frightened at what this info might mean. 

Yolanda says she’s going to talk to Grix but Kristen points out that the guy who throws nets at kids probably isn’t the best person to confide in. Yolanda agrees and plans to talk to VP Jace instead. Before she leaves, she gives Kristen a token that says “When the only thing you can believe in is believing.”

Listening to this conversation gives Riz a brain blast. What if the name on the god change form wasn’t blank or redacted. What if it was invisible, like the name of a god you can’t say? He uses some of his dad’s celestial spy gear and, sure enough, there’s something there that can’t be read by mortal eyes. 

This is where we exit downtime and everyone has taken some level of stress. Fig has one. Riz and Adaine have two. Kristen, Gorgug, and Fabian have three. They’re all fried and coping in ways that range from being hermits (Adaine) to not slowing down lest the wheels fall off (Riz). There’s a way to reduce stress but Ally says it's hard and Brennan says they can’t try till next time. Based on their stress, they’ll have to pick certain things to have disadvantage on (which isn't great considering there’s def gonna be a fight next episode and we don’t know how long until the next downtime period). 

We finish off the day of the Frosty Folk Fair which will be held at Gorgug’s house. Riz realizes he forgot to look into the fraud case his mom is defending but it’s too late now. 

At Mordred, Lydia is making a killer breakfast and she also has all the stuff the party asked her to get about her Bakur quest. Since he’s a fiend, they all expected it to be written in Infernal but no. The texts are written in the language of the Giants. 

Honor Roll

Gorgug for Acing His Artificing Classes

It’s honestly absurd how proud I am of Gorgug for this. Like I fully recognize that this is a fictional character and these were just random rolls but guys, he’s doing it! 

Detention 

Ivy for Minitaur Racism and Extreme Bitchiness 

Ok look. I love characters who are bitches. Aelwyn is my favorite FH NPC. That’s well known information. But this is a nuanced thing. I’m not out here for any character who just shows up and is mean. You need style. You need flair. You need a decade of family trauma and suppressed affection you don’t know how to express. 

Ivy just showing up to be full on racist to Mazey? Jail. 

It was like Brennan looked Lou right in the eyes and was like, “If you pursue this character after this point I absolve myself from any responsibility.”

Fabian, my guy, you are under absolutely no obligation to date Mazey if you don’t see her that way but for the love of whoever Kristen is praying to right now, don’t pursue Ivy! 

Random Thoughts

Kristen’s range is such that in one breath she can be telling Max that “if we all do drugs he can’t net everyone” isn’t a union and then in the next breath she’s encouraging Adaine to sell drugs.

A little surprised Fig didn’t run into Bucky when she crashed Paladin classes. 

Curious if when KP said, “Your god passed, how are you casting spells?” in the bullhorn if that was purely to spill her secrets or if she was also genuinely baffled by that. 

I didn’t mention this before but Fig is purposefully tanking her Popularity track to focus on other things/be more stealthy. It’s good she’s not prioritizing it because it seems like she’s doing literally everything else she can! It’s interesting how right as Gorgug is digging more into techy things and magic, she’s dipping more into martial classes. I am so curious to know what her character sheet looks like by the end of the season. If she doesn’t want to take full levels, she can always take the Magic Initiate feat for some paladin spells. 

In a clutch bit of detective work from Riz, we learn that the god’s name on Lucy’s sheet can’t be read by mortal eyes. I know Kristen would be loath to do this, but I bet she could get Helio on the phone pretty easily and get him to read it for her, maybe for a price. Maybe he’d even do it pro bono if he’s not mad at her–Kristen thought he sucked but from what I remember he was pretty chill. 

The timeline of Lucy’s supposed death is throwing me off. If she’d died Freshmen year the Rat Grinders would make sense to me–why leave the woods if your cleric died the first week of school? But this seems like it was their M.O. even before whatever happened to Lucy. So what’s the deal? 

I also can’t get a read on whether the Rat Grinders (by which I mean KP and Ivy–the ones I trust the least) are pro or anti Lucy. Like, is whatever they’re going now a ploy to bring back Lucy (if she’s even dead at all which seems doubtful) or is it a second attempt at whatever did her in, now with Buddy as the sacrifice? I’ve seen people speculate that the Rat Grinders are mad that Kristen and Gorgug were resurrected by Aguefort while their cleric was not and that’s why they hate the system but that theory hinges on whether they cared about Lucy or not. So curious to know what their group dynamics are when they’re alone. 

If Lucy’s got is a god of sorrow I wonder if this nameless god was a god of rage.  Also wondering if there is any connection between the frost giant thing and the frosty folk fair thing.

I sincerely love this downtime system and I think it’s great that we’re getting more of the high school experience this season. I wonder how many times we’ll get to do this. 

I was expecting to have to ask Brennan in a Q&A what Gorgug’s nat 20 would mean, not that it would happen twice back to back on his first set of rolls! I can’t wait to see what he unlocked! 

On another note, Porter really needs to let Gorgug get his MCAT. Yes, his grades are slipping like Porter said they would but that’s kind of a self fulfilling prophecy from forcing him into this position.

Yolanda Badgood is weirdly comfortable talking to a student about others students' private business but maybe it's an adventuring school so it would be weird if students weren't breaking into school records from time to time. They literally teach students to be rogues after all.  

EDIT: Coming back a day later to make this edit because I can't believe I forgot to mention my new favorite corruption of KP's name: Littledoggy Girlcollar. Chef's kiss. No notes. They are really dragging Brennan's ass for this name--the name of one of his ACTUAL PCs. Lmao, brutal.

The main additions to the Conspiracy Board from this ep:

Not from the ep but we learned from the just released map that KP’s family owns a real estate company (thanks to the anon who gave me the heads up). I wonder if that’s why they keep grinding in that one specific plot of land. Maybe she knows something about the land that others don’t because of intel from her parents. 

Lucy seems like she was a good person and switching her god is so out of character that it was deeply worrying for her teacher. We have to wonder if she even sent the form or if one or both of them were forgeries, perhaps by a rogue. And if she did send the form, was she coerced and then quickly changed her mind? 

The dead god Bakur was trying to raise seems related to giants and Lucy worshiped an ancestral giant god. We need more to go on but that’s an obvious connection. Did KP learn about this nameless god via Lucy and decide to use it to her advantage?

No idea if this is at all relevant but Lucy's people are said to be from the Mountain's of Chaos in this episode. That's also where Tiberia Runestaff--Adaine's divination teacher who kinda sucks--is from. Doesn't necessarily mean she's implicated but it does mean she might know some information.

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card #this episode was a dream to recap #love it when they're this straightforward

[thesimquarter]

Some Unused Urbz (GBA) Dialogue

I was looking through the string table in the Urbz for GBA and noticed some dialogue that goes unused in the actual game and decided to catalogue it and share it because I just love things like this.

If you see an '@1', in the dialogue, that's just a placeholder for the player's name (or at least for all of THESE. Sometimes it's used for other things.)

As a side note, the dialogue for this game is pretty well-organized and all the characters have distinct enough voices (TS2GBA DO NOT INTERACT) that it's incredibly easy to figure out who said what. There's also a lot more unused strings, but I'm just focusing on the dialogue right now

First of all, all characters, not just those you can have as a roommate, have roommate acceptance dialogues. So, here are all the unused ones.

BAYOU BOO: Gosh, that's fine idea. Don't mind if I do. BERKELEY CLODD: Sure I'll move in with you. What a splendid way to meet a whole new set of clients. LINCOLN BROADSHEET: Sure, I'll live with you, buddy. But be warned: I stay up late. CRAWDAD CLEM: You know, It'd be real fun to share accommodations with you for a bit. Sure. EPHRAM EARL: To haunt your house with your permission, this I will do. PRITCHARD LOCKSLEY: Sure, so long as you help me memorize my lines. HARLAN KING: Of course I will. How wonderful! LOTTIE CASH: Okay! That'd be killer! We're going to have such an awesome time. LUTHOR L. BIGBUCKS: Sure, why not. It'll be just like college all over again. MAMBO LOA: I would gladly share accommodations with you. When do I move in? Now? MAXIMILLIAN MOORE: Sure, why not? So long as you don't mind the smell of bleach. OLDE SALTY: You're darn tooting! I'd be your roommate any day. CRYSTAL: Okay! I can't wait to redecorate your dumpy pad. POLLY NOMIAL: Yes. To maintain a domicile with you would be most enlightening. GIUSEPPI MEZZOALTO: Why not, right? It'll be loads of fun. I'm moving in today! ROXANNA MOXIE: Sure, why not? It'll be fun, you know? A real laugh. THERESA BULLHORN: Yes! I would love to share your life of glamour and fame. DARIUS: Heck yeah, dawg. We can kick it together. DADDY BIGBUCKS: You betcha! DET. DAN D. MANN: It's an interesting proposition. Hm… Consider it done! LILY GATES: An excellent plan! Your place is much closer to where I work! KRIS THISTLE: You want me to move in with you? After all I've done? Wow. You're great. GRAMMA HATTIE: What a grand idea. Your house will be a great place to hold meetings.

There is also an unused set of rep group-related dialogues. These ones most likely being used if you managed to get an exceedingly poor rep with your rep group.

DARIUS: Hey, @1. Check yourself before you wreck your Rep. The Streeties are getting sick of you hanging around. LUTHOR L. BIGBUCKS: Sorry to be the one to break this to you, @1, but the rest of the Richies think you're getting a tad uppity. Clean up your act or we'll boot you. POLLY NOMIAL: Our patience with your gradual assimilation into our social sphere is waning. Progress or be excommunicated from the Nerdies. ROXANNA MOXIE: A few words of advice @1. Shape up or ship out of our group. End of story.

These MAY not be unused, but I've never heard of anyone getting any of these messages, and, for the life of me, I could not get them to activate through my own twiddling. There exists no dialogue for actually kicking you out of the rep group. So even if this WAS used, it would just be an empty threat. (I mean… it's implied that it was your rep group that picked you up after you crash landed in Miniopolis, which is why you're apart of it despite not really knowing anyone.)

As a side note, when I was going through getting to -10 rep points with the Richies, after about -6, every time I lost a rep group point, Roxanna Moxie kept on giving my silver plaques. RICHIE silver plaques. Using the Artsie silver plaque dialogue. By the time I was done testing things out, I had five of them. Strange glitch?

So, the Urbz GBA, for whatever reason, doesn’t let us romance the elderly. That doesn't mean that there isn't flirting and kissing dialogue for the unromancable characters! The first dialogue is flirting, and the second one is refusing to accept a kiss.

EPHRAM EARL: A piece of human interest seems to be the loving way. EPHRAM EARL: I cannot kiss that which I cannot touch. HARLAN KING: Eh? Does that have a saucy secondary meaning I am not aware of? HARLAN KING: Ugh! No! Your breath smells like everything but fresh! OLDE SALTY: Arrr, you've cracked my barnacle encrusted heart! OLDE SALTY: I'll kiss no one! Not until you proves your devotion! DADDY BIGBUCKS: Hello there… do you mind if I buy you a small island? DADDY BIGBUCKS: Get away from me, you pest! I'd sooner kiss a sneezing dog. GRAMMA HATTIE: Stop it this instant. I know you're just trying to fool with an old woman's mind. GRAMMA HATTIE: Ack! Help! Help! Police! This boy is trying to inhale me!

Related, when a character accepts a hug or a kiss in-game, they don't say anything. However, there is actually unused dialogue for this event. Almost all of it is just "Aw!". However, there's a few exceptions.

BAYOU BOO: Aw! BAYOU BOO: Plant one right here, girl! BERKELEY CLODD: Come hither and embrace me, @1! BERKELEY CLODD: Ah! LINCOLN BROADSHEET: Come here, you! LINCOLN BROADSHEET: Oh! EPHRAM EARL: If arms were ribbons consider this my bow. EPHRAM EARL: Ah! EWAN WATAHMEE: Hugs are free, yes. But they are also round. EWAN WATAHMEE: Ah! PRITCHARD LOCKSLEY: It's so good to see you too! Let's do lunch. PRITCHARD LOCKSLEY: Ah! LOTTIE CASH: It's fun to be this close to me, huh? LOTTIE CASH: Oh! LUTHOR L. BIGBUCKS: Wrap your arms around me, baby. LUTHOR L. BIGBUCKS: Yeah! MAXIMILLIAN MOORE: You washed your hands before you hugged me, right? MAXIMILLIAN MOORE: Eek! CRYSTAL: Gee, thanks. You're sweet. CRYSTAL: Oh! OLDE SALTY: That's right, give poor Olde Salty a nice hug. OLDE SALTY: Yay! DADDY BIGBUCKS: Normally I don't let people touch me if they're not wearing an expensive coat. But for you'll I'll make an exception. DADDY BIGBUCKS: Normally I don't let people kiss me if they're not wearing fruity lip gloss. But for you'll I'll make an exception.

The first dialogue here is accepting a hug; the second is accepting a kiss. All characters not listed here just has "Aw!" as a response to both being kissed and hugged.

There seems to be a scrapped interaction, most likely called 'Talk about Pets.' from the subject of the replies and the fact that it was tucked between 'Talk about Ninjas' and 'Talk about Politics,' which would make the placement alphabetical. I wonder why it went unused!

Not every single character had a line for this. The following characters do not: Bayou Boo, Crawdad Clem, Ephram Earl, Ewan Watahmee Harlan King, Luthor L. Bigbucks, Mambo Loa, Misty Waters, Olde Salty, and Theresa Bullhorn. Some of these characters do have other lines that refer to owning a pet; they just don't have a dialogue here.

BERKELEY CLODD: I looked into buying a talented chimpanzee, but very few know how to pick pock- er, pick their nose. LINCOLN BROADSHEET: I have my pet rabbit to thank for my interest in journalism. Why? Well… isn't it obvious? PRITCHARD LOCKSLEY: I was so proud my pet lizard Harvey was cast as the lead in a new gladiator film. Sure he beat me for the role… but he was wonderful! LOTTIE CASH: I have a cute little pug named Paris. You don't think I'll get sued for that, do you? I hope not. MAXIMILLIAN MOORE: Sooner or later, every disease that pets get will jump to humans! The end is near! CRYSTAL: I totally want a pet dolphin so it can protect me from sharks. PHOEBE TWIDDLE: My mom was a cat lady and my dad was a dog guy, so I learned to love pets very early on. But I'll never forget the smell. POLLY NOMIAL: Your colorful colloquy is highly amusing. GIUSEPPI MEZZOALTO: If I tell you I like snakes, you'd better not make any jokes. Got it? ROXANNA MOXIE: Come by the carnival sometime! There are lots of needy animals there. SUE PIRNOVA: I'm not organized enough to take care of another creature. The best I can manage is feeding ants. DARIUS: I like goldfish. What? DADDY BIGBUCKS: Yuck! There is nothing worse that a sniveling, drooling, hairy servant who cannot follow orders. DET. DAN D. MANN: When people don't clean up after their pets, who do you think has to do it for them? Huh? I'm asking you because I don't know the answer. LILY GATES: Every time I buy a pet, I get so busy I forget to feed it. And then… well… I shouldn't own any pets. KRIS THISTLE: Don't remind me! My landlord doesn't allow pets, so when I moved here I was forced to sell my ferret. CANNONBALL COLEMAN: I owned a crow a few years ago. He made enough noise to scare ghosts away. I miss that old bird. GRAMMA HATTIE: I'm definitely a cat person. And a dog person. And a chicken person too. I'm really a pet person. DUSTY HOGG: I used to own a small python and a small dog. Now I just own a bigger python.

'Talk about Pets' does not show up in the list of interactions earlier in the string set.

Lincoln Broadsheet has some mission dialogue that, again, may not be unused, but I have never seen, and I have never seen anyone else talk about it.

YOU: Mister Broadsheet, would you help me write a thesis? LINCOLN BROADSHEET: Gosh, I would if I wasn't so busy. Tell you what I can do though: I'll let you use my computer to log in to my research database. That should give you some good ideas. LINCOLN BROADSHEET: Hey, have you heard the recent news? A local TV station is filming a new Reality Television Show. YOU: Interesting, but I don't watch much TV. LINCOLN BROADSHEET: Me neither, but don't let that stop you from going up to Paradise Island and signing up. If you do well I could write a big article about you. YOU: Are they still letting people sign up? LINCOLN BROADSHEET: I think so. Head up to Paradise Island and see for yourself. And if you do well Id love to write an article on you.

Note: I have been informed that the first two lines in this section actually can happen in-game!

It is also appears he would have given the player the Reality TV Show plotline.

And finally, ‘The Bad Ending.’

DADDY BIGBUCKS: People around here call me Daddy Bigbucks. If you like what you see in Miniopolis, it's a good bet I own it.

This is actually listed next to all the character introductions, so this would have been how Daddy Bigbucks introduced himself, if he were to actually introduce himself. There are placeholders for the other characters who don’t get to say a proper introduction as well (Kris Thistle, Det. Dan D. Mann, Crawdad Clem, Harlan King), but they’re just placeholders. No text of relevance.

#urbz #the urbz #sims handhelds #gba sims #OH and i didn't personally extract all the strings from the game #someone posted it somewhere (i forgot who and where at) and i saved itttt ages ago #was just looking through it and noticed some unused dialogues and decided to share it! #i'm looking through the TSBO string ATM and ngl there isn't very much in the terms of character dialogue #-- AND SOMETHING ELSE. so a few characters in the urbz have dialogues referring to being arrested for passing out #in the sims 2 for gba (a game where you are sent to the medical center if you pass out) there are a few strings referring to #getting arrested for sleeping on public property. but there aren't any in the Urbz whichhhh #i think it's kinda interesting there are references to that in TS2GBA and not this game!

[dilfwaynes]

i. estranging from wayne | t. al ghul

summary: talia never had a problem with snatching resources and other factors before from her ex, granted he always took reoccupy of anything purloin; but with you talia isn’t too willing on returning you to the gotham knight.

⚢ pairings; talia al ghul x fem!reader, bruce wayne x fem!reader

✎ word count ; 3.3k

✗ warnings; dom!talia al ghul x sub!fem!reader, future smut with plot, talia being a little mean in the beginning and bruce being a shit head.

NOT PROOFREAD !!!

brandish enflames your skin, the embarrassment and anger quite literally flooding through like water under floorboards and tearing apart anything other than a rehash of an emotional saga of ire, shame, and resentment, for him and yourself. allowing him to treat you like an old trinket that’s tossed in a sheet and hiked up a shelf to remember for when it has a purpose, as well as forgetting about you like a generation passed down antique around the manor.

resentment for empty promises and his runs to cartier and tiffany’s for gifted diamonds to try and fill up his shallow promises somehow. resentment for succeeding in making things up for you, and then rotating to the root once again, and making you lose respect for yourself for your stupidity and naiveness. resentment for his usual family’s broad control of their facial expressions now sudden gained vociferous without them catching on when they also come to the realization bruce has stood you up for her again

selina was sculptured with a blade of aphrodite’s hand, her skilled cheekbones and cat-like eyes to her full lips and thighs and her long legs to match her height, it wasn’t hard to understand why your boyfriend is in love with her —you, yourself very well could see yourself in the same situation, replaced with you on selina’s arm instead—he and her will always have a connection, a bond that you two didn’t, couldn’t ever have. you accepted that a long time ago, but you thought it’ll remain as just a “what if” and remembrances. even though that wasn’t ideal you knew bruce would never get fully over her and belong to you wholeheartedly, you thought maybe at least you could have half of him. they had an understanding with each other that few shared with a man like bruce, an orphan underground that he and selina shared, while you and he quite didn’t, more of a middle ground with uneven sides to put it more accurately.

selina is also his ex who he never fell out of love with.

so it was more than longing and tension, more than wanting. there’s history, already the known, and longing for the once before and having something standing in the doorway of getting it, and honestly you even doubt you were the pillar to that door, which is probably the most pathetic part of it. you don’t even matter enough to be a problem or thought wedged in.

shreds prick the pad of your finger while you aimlessly flick the old wooden table with your head propped up in your hand, you can’t bear the confidence to make eye contact with alfred or luke and kate in the kitchen with you, barely giving a dry thank you when alfred collects your untouched plate of dinner.

red hot embarrassment flushes when luke gives an apologetic look and kate continues the exchange with whispering with a bullhorn of not understanding why you stay with her cousin. you swallow thickly with tears threatening to start with swelling of a burning sting behind your lids, viewing yourself as a complete idiot, actually waiting for him again, swiping your bag and hastily leaping out to the hallways, deluding the hot tears with your thumb as you try to rush from the fallen self-dignity that you lost in this manner.

embarrassingly so you can count on your fingers over how many times you’ve cried in the wayne manor hallways because of this very same situation you keep repeating yourself in.

‘stupid, stupid, stupid’. you scream at yourself mentally for placing yourself to constantly be humiliated, and for knowing your future self will take bruce back with open arms, and more than likely legs when he comes to your place with apologizes and kisses. tears completely blur your eyesight and train of thought when you finally end your rush to the door and step outside, and instantly colliding your body into someone, taller than you enough so that for a second you thought it was dick but you’re quickly confirmed wrong when you lift up to roiled jaded eyes.

overwhelmed with emotions before and confusion you’re obtusely glued to the floor, arms bent under your weight to support your gaze at the woman standing inches away, almost towering above you if she were to move closer, your mouth agape slightly, the action seemingly gets her eyes to slit the tint of the spleen in them more.

from the sleek of her cheekbones and bridge of her nose and green eyes and bronze radiance you already knew who she was without damian needing to confirm with it a calling of mother. your lips pull into a deeper pout as all your emotions fest larger than some minutes ago, great, now two of bruce’s aberrantly gorgeous exes are in gotham.

from her tighten expression she doesn’t need certification to know who you are either.

talia’s demeanor changes somewhat at the sound of damian’s voice, taking her annoyed eyes from your figure—still on the ground— and looking towards damian, muttering what you surmise is arabic. damian takes a peer at you and motions a look of being out of the loop, talia’s eyes latch onto you once more, annoyance clouds over now with unamused and a cocked brow of curiosity.

“damian is this how your father now regards his newest beloved?” she jeeringly quips and you can tell she doesn’t expect an answer, rather just wanted to throw a dagger into breaking the ice. your eyebrows deepen and you peck at your bottom lip, swallowing tightly at the jab. damain ignores his mother and reaches his hand to pull you up by your side, you know he recognizes your form of state and why your eyes are so glossy, acquainted already and that only further shames you.

heat elopes your skin more when you notice that you stayed grasped to the ground for this entire interaction, and quite literally giving talia the ultimate power play with falling onto your ass and staying there. you shrug subconsciously, not the worse or most embarrassing thing that has happened, just another add to the list, and realistically talia has the power play with simply existing.

“the typical?” damian asks, eyebrow raised exactly like his mother that it has you blinking your eyes a second, flicking to talia and latching onto an brief few seconds of intense eye contact. chewing on your bottom lip, brushing off whatever dirt attached onto your legs and skirt, bashfully avoiding the question and urging to make the outcome of tonight not so pitiful and low esteem, especially in front of talia, who’s rather dour parched to the side.

you wonder if she meaningfully meant to strike herself out to be so gorgeous tonight in her fitted washed jeans, the allure of the contrast of her white long polo sleeve against her skintone, or did it just come naturally to her like how all these runway models sort like to claim for themselves?

she seizes your longing eye and holds it again, her stare is complexion with boring into you, yet also uninterested in you at the same time. for you, her presence racks your body with insecurity, and something else you can’t tell right this second.

before even being given the chance to choose to ignore or reply to damian’s question hidden behind a clear statement, he’s gone from the sudden beep of whatever bat device, signaling he’s needed and passing on good nights to you and his mother. you shyly fully turn your attention to talia, anxiously pushing hair behind your ear while trying not to be a complete embarrassing idiot.” sorry for running into you, i should’ve paid more attention,” you quietly apologize, fastening out the words to ease out a fast escape from the situation.

talia was gorgeous in such a way you had never seen, coasted with sultry that edged with freeze rather than hot, structure that defined her bones in an angular perfection, her eyes honed and intimidating

the slit in her eyes struck dubiously, aghast some in the behavior towards your apology to her, she didn’t expect you so demure in such a timid way, bruce’s exes after her have been all rather… prim or at least along those lines.

“or if i hurt you by mistake, i didn’t mean to.” you ramble suddenly at her lack of reply and subdue stare, you sincerely hope you didn’t hurt her in your dull-witted rush, god you truly hated bruce at this moment as guilt claws at your stomach. what if you did clash into talia too hard and now she thinks you’re some bitter girlfriend and meant to run into her and you’re smug about it?

talia’s eyebrows farrow up just a smudge, holding down a bubble of laughter at your words, amusement overthrows any other micro responses at the genuine concern of yours thinking you could harm her. though she can’t pinpoint out if her amusement is set to leaning in offense or just plain amusement, you are as genuine as someone talia has ever met, your movements also show no falseness of putting up a show of timorous, you were truly a shy thing, a nervous habit of jutting your bottom lip between your teeth, pouting and giving doe eyes unconsciously.

you had to be very young with your mannerisms, talia wasn’t quite sure how young tho, but you were far too good and innocent for bruce, talia knows that for sure.

“no harm was inflicted.” her voice is lighter than she had expected and she can tell you thought the same, it was clear of any frostbite but also a dead end to it. you nod awkwardly, getting the hint of the lack of words and edge in her tone, she didn’t want to continue speaking to you. figuring a goodnight was pushing it, you decide to skim past her and the door to walk out to the cold air, and once again mentally scream when you realize you didn’t drive to the manor but tailed down a cab

that was hours ago when the sun only set to twilight and now it’s well over eleven, in this hour cabs tend to be freaky with drivers and more sketch, then again what choice do you have? you can only allow yourself so much self-shame, there has to be a limit, and going to ask for a ride back in the manor is well over dirt in that crossing.

ignoring the stinging crisp nipping at your skin, you pull out your phone and dial a texi service once researching for the most legitimate and less socially rejected one, somewhere along forgetting about talia’s coexistence with her also taking way out, seeming to not sense her adamant gaze on you.

you were very different than bruce’s usual type, thoughts of so swirled buoyant in talia’s head as she took keen in you, somewhere in the middle of diminutive; naïve and careless of your surrounds and hearing, giving you the benefit somewhat as her movements were trained as a deadly assassin, but also ticking that you were just as oblivious in other occasions too. you were timid and polite, shy.

curiosity and doubt burned her thoughts if you were that what you’re showing and not a trickery, damian seemed to care for you to bend down and help you recover from a clumsy fall, as well to ask about your well being in a tension knowledge he already knew information about. the mere idea of you playing some game and damian getting hurt cause of it has her stomach clutching, alongside her teeth.

“is your driver absent?” your attention disengages from the bright lighting between your eyes, fasting to the called-out voice and talia, your surprise must’ve shown on your face with the amused tug of her lip and brow. swallowing, you lamely nod, no cabs were answering or willing to come to the outskirts of gotham at this hour, even with the wayne name being under the address. talia merely tsk’s, her eyes steep and contacting with yours as you shrink under her stare.

her amusement quickly fades and a rush of panic engages in you at her loose response and lack of words, until you realize that she wants a verbal reply back.” yeah, i can’t get a cab for some reason.” you laugh awkwardly, dumbly showing a display of your words by waving your phone, cringing at yourself immediately.

your guess was right about her wanting verbalizing when her eyes light up the dull fringes of umbrage from your lack of voice before, noting yourself to keep in mind whenever— or if ever— you’re in the presence of talia again.

“the butler’s available, perhaps he can assist your aid,” talia suggests lowly, a new delicate placed behind her words. the idea has you drowning in displeasure at the thought of marching back into the manner and asking for a ride back to your house after your boyfriend bailed on you to help his ex. you shake your head softly instinctively with strays of hair brushing against your skin, a sight of talia’s expression quickly reminds you of her surmised preferences of words.

“It's fine, i rather just wait for a cab,” you reassure, pointed more towards yourself than talia, gripping the coat closer to your forested-over skin while glancing back at your phone to see if you received any notifications back. talia’s hum reached your hearing lowly and firing a spark of your interest and costing a peer at her; dry runs over your throat with torrid at connecting with talia’s pierced stare now more inflamed than some minutes ago with smoothed from any hardness, vehemence enhancing the effect of moonlight casting a white bright flare to her hair, jaw, and collarbone.

granted your answer was far from needing to be calculated, the response unknowingly pleased talia and meeting her without any difficulty, you quite didn’t think much about the earlier counter, or realized talia would put thought into the ordeal, and your apparent for making your situation was bold, though talia wasn’t quite sure if bruce kicked you to the side for batman duties regarding gotham, or a catwoman, she eclipses the other factors and leaning on the latter of the problems.

“perhaps i can escort you,” talia propounds while choosing to ignore the fast twitch of your brow and widen eyes, misdoubt swirls of her suspicion some minutes before, considering that you might actually just be bruce’s little bovine, docile and meek lamb. although even if you were, she’s still rather curious about your relationship with damian as he never mentioned you, yet seemingly cared enough to pull you up.

“i assume you reside in gotham city also?” she easily hunches out and walks towards the stretch where her black mercedes stills a few inches sideways from you and the driver’s seat merely far away, poised movements to her plodding reach inside her car. a glimpse once again has your throat clamping and burning, the moon glowering the defines shadows of talia’s jawline, lips and eyes and for the hundredth time your attentiveness falls into talia’s intense gaze; eyes scrutinizing through the rear view mirror to see your choice of her offering.

the frosted wrath of gotham this month of the year ultimately decide your decision when you feel your thighs chalking together to create warmth from the cold, you press for a moment, before hesitantly opening the door and slowly sliding into the passage seat. talia stares at you for a long moment, jades a waiting hue that leaves you confused and slightly uncomfortable in your seat until you blink with the realization she’s waiting for you to tell her your address; it seems like you can’t get enough of embarrassing yourself to talia tonight. you hurry and give her your address between an awkward forced laugh and large blushing spread across your cheeks, talia converts her gaze quickly ahead and roars engine to life.

���are you cold?” talia suddenly asks, voice flat with the question usually benevolent and concern, at least whenever jason or barbara has asked, even bruce. you still for a few seconds, nodding timidly before realizing your mistake again. talia’s lips tug upwards as she watches you catch yourself from your nonverbal habit of answering questions, the removal of the said habit from you picking up her dislike for it does rumble satisfaction in her.

”yeah, staying outside for a few minutes made me freezing.”

‘so obedient.’ talia thinks fetchingly and turning up the contrast of the heat, taking a brisk peek at you, vast curiosity about you swirling in different directions now other than the original reason.

“you and my son are well acquainted?” talia asks in a manner that’s very well stating it, rather than asking it, your head glides towards talia’s question from the heated thoughts angered at your suppose gotham knight. your frown turns confused, is talia annoyed or mad if you had a connection with damian? could she be thinking you’re trying to replace her as damian’s mom?

“uh, i guess. he’s a really good kid.” you reply back and avoid her fast glance at you, you simply can’t handle making eye contact being so close to her, sitting by her is already nerve racking and has you regretting not sliding into the backseat originally; her perfume hazing your sensesso strong that you have a feeling sitting in the back also wouldn’t have helped.

maybe you’re slightly attracted to your boyfriend’s son’s mother aka his ex - god what is wrong with you?

“damian’s prodigious, stupendous is his birthright,” talia waves her hand dismissively after claiming her sentence, as if what she just said is the casual run of the mill. you furrow your eyebrows but remain quiet.”what are your problems regarding the knight?” talia bluntly asks with no quiver of second guessing to ask her question, though you doubt talia’s the type of woman to ever second guess herself.

“it’s crowded when there’s three people in a relationship,” you respond without a beat to her question, with her question being so honest and straight to the point you figure she deserved an answer in the same regard. talia arches her brow amusingly after you confirm what she knew.”i’ll imagine so.” she draws, voice almost light and bemused.

for the first time being in her car you finally look at her and wonder why she bothered to ask you when her words mean are simply dry, maybe it’s normal when talking to an ex of your partners? or maybe you’re let down and was maybe hoping for some sight in advice.

“the doe eyes don’t shackle him to the bed as you hoped, i assume,” she teasingly jests in a dark tone after some large moments has passed, her words addles your already currently dull mind with trying to figure out what she meant. pulling your bottom lip between your teeth, trying to understand her but before so her gaze abruptly shifts to you, eyes boring yours until they linger downward to your lip trapped by your teeth - remaining her eyes onto you while shutting down the car”you’re home.”she announces and burning you up with hot embarrassment, no wonder why she’s staring at you! she wants you out.

“thank you for driving me to my place, i really appreciate it,” you express it meekly after getting out of the benz as elegantly you possibly can muster. after no response in the thirty-five seconds of waiting you begin gently closing the door after you.

”goodnight doe.”

ignoring the rush instant of sense of shock at first and leveling yourself slowly towards the door leading to your apartment, you can’t deny the also flooding giddy sensation at the nickname talia addressed you by, and how stupid that feeling makes you feel as you merely met talia two hours ago. a snapped zoom jolts and tells you that talia left the parking lot and some relief settles in from no longer in her tense presence - her perfume on your clothes make youpractically dizzy, as if her eyes didn’t have enough of that effect.

sighing you quickly unlock the lobby door with your card before some batman villain decides to come and kidnap you tonight. on the topic of batman while entering the elevator you think of the best possible to kill him, being honest with yourself? you think offering off the joker would kill bruce more than actually killing him.

maybe it’s not selina you’re fighting with for bruce but rather a psychotic gay clown.

#talia al ghul #talia al ghul x reader #talia al ghul headcannon #talia al ghul hc #talia al ghul smut #talia al ghul imagines #bruce wayne x reader

[anarchywoofwoof]

i think it's kind of funny that people still like telling anarchists and socialists to be "realistic" whenever we start dreaming too loud or too big. as if human existence has ever lacked a certain stubbornness that gets shit done. how many transformative, world changing ideas were shrugged off 'cause they were "unrealistic" at some point?

every mind-blowing change that shook the foundations of this world started as a "nah, that can't happen" in an entire section of society's book. think about what we have done. abolishing slavery? the right to vote for women & minorities? they used to tell us that there was no practical reason to assume a human being would ever need a computer in their home. that is a real quote.

it's the very essence of progress to dream past our circumstances and what is in our hands, to grasp for even the wispiest strands of clouds even if we have people in our ear every single day telling us there's nothing but ceiling above us.

and this is the same energy we gotta keep when folks start humming the "utopian" tune whenever we talk about things like universal basic income or global healthcare. yeah, we know these things sound massive, like they're galaxies away. but weren't all great things once? we are a species who discovered fire and send our citizens to outer space, thousands of miles away from our planet. we can't feed everyone? we can't house everyone? bullshit. it's possible.

i mean… the society we have now isn't some everlasting monolith, despite what the global corporate elite would like for you to believe. it's fluid, evolving, blank and bare. it's malleable. it's a canvas meant absorb and showcase the bold and vibrant colors that we bring to it. and what could be more bold than saying “yeah, maybe everyone deserves a bit of security, a bit of guaranteed compassion, some human decency?”

and like, i'm not saying let's snap our fingers and make the world a socialist paradise overnight. yes, i do wish that was possible. but i am saying why cap our dreams? why put a limit on our horizon? if we're not aiming for the stars, what are we doing? are half-measures what we all showed up here to look for, or are we here for answers? no, we may not be able to accomplish absolutely everything we want to achieve in our lifetimes, but why does starting the car and pulling out of the driveway have to be the hardest part of the journey?

yeah, it might be loud, it might be "obnoxious" to constantly shout about a world where everyone’s got what they need to live a good life, and it might sound crazy and utopian to a lot of people, but maybe that's exactly what we have to do. be the bullhorns, be the annoying, constant reminder that we deserve better, we can do better and we will do better.

and let's be honest, this world will never, ever gonna be perfect. it ain't ever gonna be a snapshot of someone’s utopia, but that doesn't mean we stop crafting the grandest, most magnificent visions that we can imagine. you have to be willing to chase the impossible because that’s when you stumble into beautiful "maybes" that can genuinely change the way that the world functions.

shooting for anything less than the loftiest goals would be selling ourselves short. we have come too far and accomplished too much to have anyone tell us that what we want isn't possible. it'll be the hardest thing we've ever done, but in time, we will see the fruits of our labor come to bear.

#text #bork bork thoughts

[thewidowsghost]

Seeing the Beauty (Piper McLean x Fem!Jackson!Reader) - Chapter 15

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

The mountainside is on fire. Smoke billows hundreds of feet in the air. (Y/n) spots a helicopter – maybe firefighters or reporters – coming towards them. 

All around them is carnage. The Earthborn had melted into piles of clay, leaving behind only their rock missiles and some nasty bits of loincloth, but (Y/n) figures they would reform soon enough. Construction equipment lies in ruins and the ground is scarred and blackened.

Coach Hedge starts to move. He sits up with a groan and rubs his head. His canary yellow pants are now the color of Dijon mustard mixed with mud.

He blinks and looks around him at the battle scene. “Did I do this?”

Before Jason can reply, Hedge picks up his club and gets shakily to his feet. “Yeah, you wanted some hoof? I gave you some hoof, cupcakes! Who’s the goat, huh?”

He does a little dance, kicking rocks and making what are probably rude satyr gestures at the piles of clay.

Leo cracks a smile, and Jason can’t help it — he starts to laugh. It probably sounds a little hysterical, but it’s such a relief to be alive, he doesn’t care.

Then a man stands up across the clearing. Tristan McLean staggers forward. His eyes are hollow, shell-shocked, like someone who’d just walked through a nuclear wasteland. “Piper?” he calls. His voice cracks. “Pipes, what — what is —” He can’t complete the thought. Piper runs over to him and hugs him tightly but he almost doesn’t seem to know her.

(Y/n) had felt a similar way — that morning at the Grand Canyon, when she woke with no memory. But Mr. McLean has the opposite problem. He has too many memories, too much trauma his mind just can’t handle. He is coming apart.

“We need to get him out of here,” Jason says, as though reading (Y/n)’s mind.

“Yeah, but how?” Leo says. “He’s in no shape to walk.”

Jason glances up at the helicopter, which is now circling directly overhead. “Can you make us a bullhorn or something?” he asks Leo. “Piper has some talking to do.”

. . .

Borrowing the helicopter is  easy. Getting her dad on board is not.

Piper needs only a few words through Leo’s improvised bullhorn to convince the pilot to land on the mountain. The Park Service copter is big enough for medical evacuations or search and rescue, and when Piper tells the very nice ranger pilot lady that it would be a great idea to fly them to the Oakland Airport, she readily agreed.

“No,” her dad mutters, as they pick him up off the ground. “Piper, what — there were monsters — there were monsters —”

She needs (Y/n)’s help to hold him, while Coach Hedge gathers their supplies. Fortunately Hedge had put his pants and shoes back on, so Piper doesn’t have to explain the goat legs.

It breaks Piper’s heart to see her dad like this — pushed beyond the breaking point, crying like a little boy. She doesn’t know what the giant had done to him exactly, how the monsters had shattered his spirit, but she doesn’t think she can stand to find out.

“It’ll be okay, Dad,” she says, making her voice as soothing as possible. She doesn’t want to charmspeak her own father, but it seems like the only way. “These people are my friends. We’re going to help you. You’re safe now.”

He blinks, and looks up at helicopter rotors. “Blades. They had a machine with so many blades. They had six arms . . .”

When they get him to the bay doors, the pilot comes over to help. “What’s wrong with him?” she asks.

“Smoke inhalation,” Jason suggests. “Or heat exhaustion.”

“We should get him to a hospital,” the pilot says.

“It’s okay,” Piper replies. “The airport is good.”

“Yeah, the airport is good,” the pilot agrees immediately. Then she frowns, as if uncertain why she’d changed her mind. “Isn’t he Tristan McLean, the movie star?”

“No,” Piper says. “He only looks like him. Forget it.”

“Yes,” the pilot replies. “Only looks like him. I —” She blinks, confused. “I forgot what I was saying. Let’s get going."

Jason raises his eyebrows at Piper, obviously impressed, but Piper feels miserable. She doesn't want to twist people’s minds, convince them of things they didn’t believe. It feels so bossy, so wrong — like something Drew would do back at camp, or Medea in her evil department store. And how will it help my father? She can’t convince him he would be okay, or that nothing had happened. His trauma is just too deep.

Finally they get him on board, and the helicopter takes off. The pilot keeps getting questions over her radio, asking her where she is going, but she ignores them. They veer away from the burning mountain and head towards the Berkeley Hills.

“Piper.” Her dad grasps her hand and holds on like he was afraid he’d fall. “It’s you? They told me—they told me you would die. They said . . . horrible things would happen.”

“It’s me, Dad.” It takes all her willpower not to cry. She has to be strong for him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“They were monsters,” he says. “Real monsters. Earth spirits, right out of Grandpa Tom’s stories — and the Earth Mother was angry with me. And the giant, Tsul’kalu, breathing fire —” He focuses on Piper again, his eyes like broken glass, reflecting a crazy kind of light. “They said you were a demigod, Your mother was . . ."

“Aphrodite,” Piper says. “Goddess of love.”

“I – I –” he takes a shaky breath, then seems to forget how to exhale.

Piper’s friends are careful not to watch. Leo fiddles with a lug nut from his tool belt. Jason gazes at the valley below – the roads backing up as mortals stop their cars and gawk at the burning mountain. (Y/n) is drinking a bottle of water – Smart thing for a Poesidon kid to do, Piper thinks – and studying the nicks in Tsunami’s blade. Geeson chews the stub of his carnation, and for once, the satyr doesn’t look in the mood to yell or boast. 

Traistan McLean isn’t supposed to be seen like this. He’s a star – confident, stylish, suave, and always in control. That was the image he’d always projected. Piper had seen the image falter before, but this is different. Now it’s broken, gone.

“I didn’t know about Mom,” Piper tells him. “Not until you were taken. When we found out where you were, we came right away. My friends helped me. No one will hurt you again.”

Her dad can’t stop shivering. “You’re heroes – you and your friends. I can’t believe it. You’re a real hero, not like me. Not playing a part. I’m so proud of you, Pipes.” But the words are muttered listlessly, in a semi-trance. 

He gazes down on the valley, and his grip on Piper’s hand goes slack. “Your mother never told me.”

“She thought it was for the best.” It sounds lame, even to Piper, and no amount of charmspeak can change that. But she doesn’t tell her dad what Aphrodite had really worried about: If he has to spend the rest of his life with those memories , knowing that gods and spirits walk the earth, it will shatter him.

Piper feels inside the pocket of her jacket. The vial is still there, warm to her touch. How can I erase his memories? Dad finally knows who I am. He’s proud of me, and I’m his hero, not the other way around. He’d never send me away, now. They shared a secret. How can I go back to the way things were?

She holds his hand, speaking to him about small things — her time at the Wilderness School, her cabin at Camp Half-Blood. She tells him how Coach Hedge ate carnations and got knocked on his butt on Mount Diablo, how Leo had tamed a dragon, how much of a good swordfighter and battle strategist (Y/n) was, and how Jason had made wolves back down by talking in Latin. Her friends smile reluctantly as she recounts their adventures. Her dad seems to relax as she talks, but he doesn’t smile. Piper isn’t even sure he heard her.

As they pass over the hills into the East Bay, Jason tenses. He leans so far out the doorway (Y/n) is afraid he’d fall, and she reaches out to grab the back of his collared shirt.

He points. “What is that?”

Piper looks down, but she doesn’t see anything interesting — just hills, woods, houses, little roads snaking through the canyons. A highway cuts through a tunnel in the hills, connecting the East Bay with the inland towns.

“Where?” Piper asks.

“That road,” he replies. “The one that goes through the hills.”

Piper picks up the com helmet the pilot had given her and relays the question over the radio. The answer isn’t very exciting.

“She says it’s Highway 24,” Piper reports. “That’s the Caldecott Tunnel. Why?”

Jason stares intently at the tunnel entrance, but he says nothing. It disappears from view as they fly over downtown Oakland, but Jason still stares into the distance, his expression almost as unsettled as Piper’s dad’s.

“Monsters,” her dad sats, a tear tracing his cheek. “I live in a world of monsters.”

. . . 

Air traffic control doesn't want to let an unscheduled helicopter land at the Oakland Airport – until Piper gets on the radio, that is. 

They all unload on the tarmac, and everyone looks at Piper. 

“What now?” (Y/n) asks Piper gently. 

Piper feels slightly uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to be in charge, but for her dad’s sake, she has to appear confident. She has no plan. She’d just remembered that he’d flown into Oakland, which means his private plane would still be here. But today is the solstice. They have to save Hera. They have no idea where to go or even if they were too late. And how can I leave Dad in this condition?

“First think,” Piper says. “I – I have to get my dad home. I’m sorry, guys.”

Leo’s and Jason’s faces fall, but (Y/n)’s expression settles into an empathetic one – as though she understood exactly the problem that was raging in Piper’s head. 

“Oh,” Leo says. “I mean, absolutely. He needs you right now. We can take it from here. 

“Pipes, no,” Tristan McLean had been sitting in the hospital doorway, a blanket around his shoulders. But he stumbles to his feet. “You have a mission. A quest. I can’t –”

“I’ll take care of him,” interrupts Coach Hedge.

Piper stares at him. The satyr is the last person she’d expected to offer. “You?” she asks.

“I’m a protector,” Gleeson says. “That’s my job, not fighting.”

He sounds a little crestfallen, and Piper realizes maybe she shouldn’t have recounted how he got knocked unconscious in the last battle. In his own way, maybe the satyr is as sensitive as her dad.

Then Hedge straightens, and set his jaw. “Of course, I’m good at fighting, too.” He glares at them all, daring them to argue.

“Yes,” Jason says.

“Absolutely,” (Y/n) grins.

“Terrifying,” Leo agrees.

The coach grunts . “But I’m a protector, and I can do this. You dad’s right, Piper. You need to carry on with the quest.”

“But . . .” Piper’s eyes sting, as if she were back in the forest fire. “Dad . . .”

He holds out his arms, and she hugs him. He feels frail. He is trembling so much, it scares her.

“Let’s give them a minute,” Jason says, and they take the pilot a few yards down the tarmac.

“I can’t believe it,” her dad says. “I failed you.”

“No, Dad!”

“The things they did, Piper, the visions they showed me . . .”

“Dad, listen.” She takes out the vial from her pocket. “Aphrodite gave me this, for you. It takes away your recent memories. It’ll make it like none of this ever happened.”

He gazes at her, as if translating her words from a foreign language. “But you’re a hero. I would forget that?”

“Yes,” Piper whispers. She forces an assuring tone into her voice. “Yes, you would. It’ll be like—like before.”

He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. “I love you, Piper. I always have. I — I sent you away because I didn’t want you exposed to my life. Not the way I grew up — the poverty, the hopelessness. Not the Hollywood insanity either. I thought — I thought I was protecting you.” He manages a brittle laugh. “As if your life without me was better, or safer.”

Piper takes his hand. She’d heard him talk about protecting her before, but she’d never believed it. She’d always thought he was just rationalizing. Her dad seems so confident and easygoing, like his life is a joyride. How can he claim she needs protecting from that?

Finally Piper understands he’d been acting for her benefit, trying not to show how scared and insecure he was. He really had been trying to protect her. And now his ability to cope has been destroyed.

She offers him the vial. “Take it. Maybe someday we’ll be ready to talk about this again. When you’re ready.”

“When I’m ready,” he mutters. “You make it sound like — like I’m the one growing up. I’m supposed to be the parent.” He takes the vial. His eyes glimmer with a small desperate hope. “I love you, Pipes.”

“Love you, too, Dad.”

He drinks the pink liquid. His eyes roll up into his head, and he slumps forward. Piper catches him, and her friends run up to help.

“Got him,” Hedge says. The satyr stumbles, but he is strong enough to hold Tristan McLean upright. “I already asked our ranger friend to call up his plane. It’s on the way now. Home address?”

Piper is about to tell her. Then a thought occurs to her; she checks her dad’s pocket, and his BlackBerry is still there. It seems bizarre to Piper that he’d still have something so normal after everything he’d gone through, but she guesses Enceladus hadn’t seen any reason to take it.

“Everything’s on here,” Piper says. “Address, his chauffeur’s number. Just watch out for Jane.”

Hedge’s eyes light up, like he sensed a possible fight. “Who’s Jane?”

By the time Piper explains, her dad’s sleek white Gulf-stream had taxied next to the helicopter.

Hedge and the flight attendant get Piper’s dad on board. Then Hedge comes down one last time to say his good-byes. He gives Piper a hug and glares at Jason, (Y/n), and Leo. “You cupcakes take care of this girl, you hear? Or I’m gonna make you do push-ups.”

“Absolutely, Coach,” (Y/n) smiles, her eyes crinkling with smile lines. 

“You got it,” Leo says, a smile tugging at his mouth.

“No push-ups,” Jason promises.

Piper gives the old satyr one more hug. “Thank you, Gleeson. Take care of him, please."

“I got this, McLean,” he assures her. “They got root beer and veggie enchiladas on this flight, and one hundred percent linen napkins — yum! I could get used to this.”

(Y/n) steps forward, pulling the Coach to the side for a moment. “I’ll talk to Grover, for you, okay?” she says. 

The Coach smiles slightly, clapping her on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Jackson.” Trotting up the stairs, the Coach loses one shoe, and his hoof is visible for just a second. The flight attendant’s eyes widen, but she looks away and pretends nothing is wrong. Piper figures she’d probably seen stranger things, working for Tristan McLean.

When the plane is heading down the runway, Piper starts to cry. She’d been holding it in too long and she just can’t anymore. Before she knows it, (Y/n) is hugging her, and Leo stands uncomfortably nearby, pulling Kleenex out of his tool belt.

“Your dad’s in good hands,” (Y/n) murmurs. “You did amazing.”

Piper sobs into (Y/n)’s shirt. She allows herself to be held for six deep breaths, inhaling (Y/n)’s natural ocean scent. And then seven. PIper decides she can’t indulge herself anymore. Her friends need her. The helicopter pilot is already looking uncomfortable, like she is starting to wonder why she’d flown them here. 

“Thank you, guys,” Piper says. “I —” She wants to tell them how much they mean to her. They’d sacrificed everything, maybe even their quest, to help her. She can’t repay them, can’t even put her gratitude into words. But her friends’ expressions tell her they understand.

Then, right next to Jason, the air begins to shimmer. At first Piper thinks it’s heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter, but she’d seen something like this before in Medea’s fountain. It’s an Iris message. An image appears in the air — a dark-haired girl in silver winter camouflage, holding a bow.

Jason stumbles back in surprise. “Thalia!”

“Thank the gods,” says the Hunter. The scene behind her is hard to make out, but Piper hears yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions. “We’ve found her,” Thalia says. “Where are you?”

“Oakland,” he replies. “Where are you?”

“The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you’re not too far. We’re holding off the giant’s minions, but we can’t hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it’s all over.”

“Then it’s not too late?” Piper cries. Hope surges through her, but Thalia’s expression quickly dampens it.

“Not yet,” Thalia says. “But Jason — it’s worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry.”

“But where is the Wolf House?” he pleads.

“Our last trip,” Thalia says, her image starting to flicker. “The park. Jack London. Remember?”

This makes no sense to Piper, and (Y/n) comments “Jason, I love your sister like a sister, but she could’ve made more sense.” 

Jason, however, looks like he’d been shot. He totters, his face pale, and the Iris message disappears.

“Bro, you all right?” Leo asks. “You know where she is?”

“Nfes,” Jason says. “Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air.”

Piper turns to the ranger pilot, who’d been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression.

“Ma’am,” Piper says with her best smile. “You don’t mind helping us one more time, do you?”

“I don’t mind,” the pilot agrees.

“We can’t take a mortal into battle,” Jason says. “It’s too dangerous.” He turns to Leo. “Do you think you could fly this thing?”

“Um . . .” Leo’s expression doesn’t reassure Piper, but then (Y/n) speaks.

“I can.”

Jason, Piper, and Leo look at her, bewildered and (Y/n) shrugs. 

“Rachel’s dad had a helicopter,” (Y/n) explains, though that wasn’t much of an explanation. 

Piper smiles at the ranger again. “You don’t have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We’ll return it.”

“I –” The pilot nearly chokes on the words, but she gets them out: “I don’t have a problem with that.”

(Y/n) grins. “Hop in.”

. . . 

The sun is going down as they fly north over the Richmond Bridge, and (Y/n) can’t believe the day had gone so quickly. Nothing like raging ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly, she thinks.

Piloting the chopper, she goes back and forth between confidence and panic. If she doesn’t think about it, (Y/n) finds herself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back on the stick, and flying straight. If she allowed herself to think about what she's doing, her brain keeps telling her that Jason’s dad would strike them out of the sky.

“Going okay?” Piper asks from the copilot’s seat. Piper sounds more nervous than she is, so (Y/n) puts on a brace face. 

“Great,” (Y/n) replies. 

“What’s the Wolf House?” Leo asks, he and Jason kneeling side by side in between (Y/n) and Piper’s seats. 

“An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it – Jack London,” Jason replies. 

Leo can’t seem to place the name. “He an actor?”

“A writer, I think,” (Y/n) replies and Piper hums in agreement.

“Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?” 

“Yeah,” Jason says. “He was a son of Mercury — I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion — the Wolf House.”

“Named that ’cause he wrote about wolves?” Leo guesses.

“Partially,” Jason replies. “But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves — he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There’re a lot of holes in his life story — how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much — stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod.”

The bay slips behind them, and the helicopter continues north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as (Y/n) can see.

“So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood,” Leo guesses.

“No,” Jason frowns. “No, he didn’t.”

“Bro, you’re freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?”

“Pieces,” Jason says. “Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It’s where London started his journey as a child — where he found out he was a demigod. That’s why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn’t meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site.”

“So,” Piper says, “how do you know all this?”

A shadow crosses Jason’s face. Probably just a cloud, but (Y/n) can swear the shape looked like an eagle.

“I started my journey there too,” Jason replies. “It’s a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion — that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully.”

(Y/n) kept her hand on the joystick, guiding the chopper at full speed — racing towards the north. He can see some weather ahead — a spot of darkness like a cloudbank or a storm, right where they are going.

Then the  helicopter shudders. Metal creaks, and (Y/n) can almost imagine the tapping was Morse code: Not the end. Not the end.

She levels out the chopper, and the creaking stops. She’s just hearing things. 

“I think we’re about thirty minutes out,” (Y/n) tells her friends. “If you want to get some rest, now’s a good time.”

. . . 

Jason straps himself in the back of the helicopter and passes out almost immediately, but Piper and Leo stay wide-awake with (Y/n).

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Leo says, “Your dad’ll be fine, you know. Nobody’s gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around.

Piper glances over, and Leo is struck by how much she’d changed. Not just physically either. Her presence was stronger. She seemed more . . . here. At Wilderness School, she’d spent the semester trying to to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, the back of the bus, the corner of the lunchroom as far as possible from the loud kids. Now she would be impossible to miss. It doesn’t matter what she is wearing – you’d have to look at her.

“My dad,” she says thoughtfully. “Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason. I’m worried.”

Leo nods. The closer they get to the bank of dark clouds, the more Leo worries too. “He’s starting to remember. That’s got to make him a little edgy.”

“But what if . . . what if he’s a different person?” Piper says. 

Leo had been having similar thoughts. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason’s whole personality be an illusion, too? If their friend isn’t their friend, and they are heading into a cursed mansion – a dangerous place for demigods – what would happen if Jason’s full memory comes back in the middle of a battle?

(Y/n) glances back at the sleeping Son of Zeus. “After all we’ve been through? I can’t see it. We’re a team. Jason can handle it.”

“How are you doing?” Piper asks, and Leo and Piper look at her.

“Okay,” (Y/n) replies truthfully. “Memories sort of coming back, though there are still some big gaps.” (Y/n) goes to say something else, but then they hit the storm clouds.

At first, (Y/n) thinks rocks are pelting the windshield. Then she realizes it’s sleet. Frost builds up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blot out her view. 

“An ice storm?” Piper shouts over the engine and the wind. “Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?”

(Y/n) isn’t sure, but something about this storm seems conscious, malevolent – like it’s intentionally slamming them. 

Jason wakes quickly. He crawls forward, grabbing Leo’s shoulder and one of the seats for balance. ��We’ve got to be getting close.”

(Y/n) is too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly, it isn’t so easy to drive the chopper – it’s movements turning sluggish and jerky. THe whole machine shudders in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn’t been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refuse to respond, and they start to lose altitude.

Below them, the ground is a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill looms in front of them and (Y/n) yanks the stick, just clearing the treetops. 

“There!” Jason shouts. 

A small valley opens up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aims the helicopter straight for it. All around them are flashes of light that reminds (Y/n) of the tracer fire at Midas’s compound. Trees crackle and explode at the edge of the clearing, and a black and purple figure streaks in front of the windshield.

“Out!” (Y/n) orders. They leap from the helicopter and barely clear the rotors before a massive BOOM shake the ground, knocking (Y/n) off her feet and splattering ice all over her. 

She gets up shakily and sees the completely flattened Bell 412 smoldering with purple flames. 

Then the creature lands in front of her, its green eyes narrowed with hostility. The black dragon’s mouth opens and begins to glow. (Y/n) closes her eyes and raises her hand, turning her head away. 

The dragon closes his mouth, and he tilts his head. Then he presses his head to (Y/n)’s hand. (Y/n) opens her eyes, and meets the dragon’s softened green gaze. He makes a sound like a cat purring, and he opens his mouth again, showing his toothless mouth. 

“Toothless,” (Y/n) murmurs, scratching underneath the dragon’s chin. 

“Jason! (Y/n)!” a girl’s voice calls. 

Thalia appears from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow is in her hand, and her quiver is almost empty. She runs towards them, but makes it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre – one of the Earthborn – bursts from the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

“Look out!” Leo yells, and Toothless lets out a rumble. The four demigods rush to help, but Thalia has it covered. She launches into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivots like gymnast and lands in a kneeling position. The ogre gets a silver arrow right between the eyes and melts into a pile of clay. 

Thalia stands and retrieves, but the point had snapped off. “That was my last one.” She kicks the pile of clay resentfully. “Stupid ogre.” Then she sees the dragon looming over the demigods and draws a silver dagger. 

“Wait!” (Y/n) says as Toothless rumbles again. “Toothless, meet Thalia. Thalia, meet Toothless.”

“You tamed a Night Fury?” Thaila looks impressed, and then she hugs Jason and (Y/n), and nods to Piper. “Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we’ll be overrun any minute.”

“By Earthborn?” Jason asks.

“And wolves — Lycaon’s minions.” Thalia blows a fleck of ice off her nose. “Also storm spirits —”

“But we gave them to Aeolus!” Piper protests.

“Who tried to kill us,” Leo reminds her. “Maybe he’s helping Gaea again.”

“I don’t know,” Thalia says. “But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we’re surrounded. I don’t know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera.”

“Where is she?” Jason asked.

“Inside,” Thalia says. “We tried to free her, but we can’t figure out how to break the cage. It’s only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that’s the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don’t free Hera soon —” She doesn’t need to finish the thought.

Leo, Jason, (Y/n) and Piper follow Thalia into the ruined mansion, Toothless trotting along behind.

Jason steps over the threshold and immediately collapses, falling back onto the Night Fury.

“Hey!” Leo exclaims. “None of that, man. What’s wrong?”

“This place . . .” Jason shakes his head. “Sorry . . . It came rushing back to me.”

“So you have been here,” Piper says.

“We both have,” Thalia replies. Her expression is grim, like she’s reliving someone’s death. “This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared.”

“She gave me to the wolves,” Jason murmurs. “At Hera’s insistence. She gave me to Lupa.”

“That part I didn’t know.” Thalia frowns. “Who is Lupa?”

An explosion shakes the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billows up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.

“Maybe this isn’t the time for questions,” Leo suggests. “Show us the goddess.”

Once inside, Jason seems to get his bearings. The house is built in a giant U, and Jason leads them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.

One of the spires is much bigger — a solid dark mass about twenty feet high, and to (Y/n) it looks like a stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils she can make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature is stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck — rising.

On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire is smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril is as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Leo doubts he could’ve gotten his arm through. Still, he can see inside. And in the center of the cage stands Tia Callida.

She looks exactly like Leo remembers: dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes.

She doesn’t glow or radiate any sort of power. She looks like a regular mortal woman, his good old psychotic babysitter.

(Y/n) drops into the pool and approaches the cage. “Hera, you in a little bit of trouble?”

Hera crosses her arms and sighs in exasperation. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way, Jackson. Get me out of here!”

“My brother soloed Ares, maybe I should whoop your ass, too,” (Y/n) replies.

Thalia steps next to him and looks at the cage with distaste — or maybe she is looking at the goddess. “We tried everything we could think of, but maybe my heart wasn’t in it. If it was up to me, I’d just leave her in there.”

“Ohh, Thalia Grace,” the goddess says. “When I get out of here, you’ll be sorry you were ever born.”

“Save it!” Thalia snaps. “You’ve been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. \bu sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth —”

“She was disrespectful!”

“Youu dropped a statue on my legs.”

“It was an accident!”

“Bullshit!” (Y/n) replies.

“And you took my brother!” Thalia’s voice cracks with emotion. “Here — on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!”

“Hey,” Jason intervenes. “Thalia — Sis — I know. But this isn’t the time. You should help your Hunters.”

Thalia clenches her jaw. “Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn’t worth it.” Thalia turns, leaps out of the pool, and storms from the building.

Leo turns to Hera with grudging respect. “Intestinally challenged cows?”

“Focus on the cage, Leo,” she grumbles. “And Jason — you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well.”

“I’m not your champion, lady,” Jason says. “I’m only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what’s going on with that?” He nods to the other spire that looks like the king-size granite body bag. Was (Y/n) imagining it, or had it grown taller since they’d gotten here?

“That, Jason,” Hera says, “is the king of the giants being reborn.”

“Gross,” Piper comments.

“Indeed,” Hera agrees. “Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again — my power. For weeks I’ve grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form.”

“So you’re like a heat lamp,” Leo guesses. 

“Or fertilizer,” (Y/n) grins.

The goddess glares at them. “Joke all you wish,” Hera says in a clipped tone. “But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken.”

Leo frowns at the giant’s spire. “Can’t we blow it up or something?”

“Without me, you do not have the power,” Hera says. “You might as well try to destroy a mountain.”

“Done that once today,” Jason replies.

“Just hurry up and let me out!” Hera demands.

Jason scratches his head. “Leo, can you do it?”

“I don’t know.” Leo tries not to panic. “Besides, if she’s a goddess, why hasn’t she busted herself out?”

Hera paces furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. “Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you’re intelligent. Once trapped, a god’s power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg — beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus.”

“Sounds fair,” Leo says.

Hera movies him the godly stink-eye. “I’ve watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you.”

“But it’s not a machine. It’s like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and . . .” Leo feels dizzy. The line of their prophecy comes back to him: The forge and dove shall break the cage.“Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I’m going to need your help. And we’re going to need time.”

The air turns brittle with cold. The temperature drop so fast, Leo’s lips crack and his breath changes to mist. Frost coats the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rush in — but instead of winged men, these are shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackle with lightning. Some have silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Piper draws her dagger. Jason grabs an ice-covered plank off the pool floor. (Y/n) summons Tsunami; Leo reaches into his tool belt, but he is so shaken up, all he produces is a tin of breath mints. He shoves them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and draws a hammer instead.

One of the wolves pads forward. It is dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opens its maw and drops the statue for them to see — an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

“Thalia!” Jason rushes forward, but Piper and Leo pull him back. The ground around Thalia’s statue was already webbed with ice. Leo fears if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.

“Who did this?” Jason yells. His body crackled with electricity. “I’ll kill you myself!”

From somewhere behind the monsters, Leo hears a girl’s laughter, clear and cold. She steps out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regards them with those deep brown eyes Leo had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.

Word Count: 6200 words

#piper mclean x jackson reader #piper mclean x female reader #piper mclean x fem reader #lesbian piper mclean #piper mclean x reader #lesbian piper #percy jackson x sister reader #percy jackson x reader

[coochiequeens]

Personally, I don't want to live in a world where little boys playing with dolls and little girls who don't like wearing pink are subjected to lifelong medical intervention because lunatics think these kids are in the wrong body. If that's the right side of history, then history can go f**k itself." - Graham Linehan

Stretched out on a hospital trolley after a surgeon had removed my cancer-riddled testicle, waiting for a doctor to give me the all-clear to go home, I lazily opened Twitter.

This was five years ago and, at this point, I had not quite nailed my colours to the gender-critical mast. I had defended women being smeared with the slur 'Terf' (for 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist') and was being monitored by trans activists as a result. This made me nervous, though I wasn't quite sure why.

I'd had an inkling of what I was up against when my wife Helen and I played a small part in repealing Ireland's draconian abortion laws. Working with Amnesty International, we appeared in a video in which Helen spoke of terminating a pregnancy because the foetus she was carrying had an abnormality which would have resulted in death moments after birth.

We tried to attend every protest and, at one event, I remember some strange person with a bullhorn bellowing out this nonsense: 'We want the state to pay for abortions!' [general cheering] '...and surgeries for trans people' [puzzled mumbling].

I felt uneasy. Sure, let's talk about trans rights, but first things first. We hadn't yet won the fight on abortion.

In retrospect, this was the first sign I had of the sleight of hand that would allow a sinister movement to attach itself to progressive causes and wrap itself in their stolen banners.

Then, when Ireland voted to overturn the abortion ban, Amnesty Ireland tweeted that this was a victory for 'pregnant people'. I was enraged.

My wife wasn't a 'pregnant person'. She was a woman, and a mother.

But these were only the first ripples of a gathering tsunami of madness. Online, people had started to go dangerously insane. It was such a slow process that I didn't notice it at first, but now, as I lay in hospital, I was collecting my thoughts on the subject.

I knew my positions were thought-through and sound, and I was sure that once people saw I was arguing in good faith, they'd see the problems with gender ideology and we could have a sensible, grown-up conversation about it.

I also told myself that, as co-writer of well-loved television sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd, I had an audience out there who would listen to me. So I sent a few tweets carefully outlining my argument.

Meanwhile, I was in intense pain from the wound under my bandage and, when I was finally told I could go home, I couldn't stand up. A bed was found for me and I lay there, enjoying a bit of peace until the morphine wore off.

The visitors had gone and all was quiet. I decided to have a look at Twitter (now X).

My careful explanation of my position had certainly had an impact.

A trans activist and journalist called Parker Molloy, who identifies as a woman and is enraged if anyone disagrees, had sent me a number of increasingly frenzied direct messages.

After the third or fourth time telling Molloy I was in hospital, I ended the conversation. Meanwhile, another tweeter hopped into my replies to say, 'I wish the cancer had won'.

My ordeal had begun. Cast adrift, I was about to lose everything — my career, my marriage, my reputation.

A little bit after my brush with cancer, I brushed with something almost worse. A biological male, now going by the name Stephanie Hayden, was determined to wreck the life of anyone who flouted trans dogma.

A woman was arrested at home in front of her two young children and put in a prison cell for seven hours after she referred to Hayden on Twitter as a man.

When I made a public accusation about Hayden on X, Hayden didn't challenge it.

Instead, I was accused of breaking confidentiality by publicising Hayden's former male identities.

Hayden reported me to the police. The Guardian, whose editors seemed to have given up any pretence of being even-handed on this issue, published an article headlined 'Graham Linehan given police warning after complaint by transgender activist'.

It claimed I had been given a 'verbal harassment warning' by police acting on Hayden's complaint. This was untrue. I'd been phoned by a policeman who seemed confused when I told him that I'd blocked Hayden on Twitter months ago, so could hardly be accused of harassment.

The policeman then said something like 'stay away from her, awright?' and rang off.

For a national newspaper to headline this as a 'harassment warning' — a formal document that needs to be delivered in writing — was disgraceful, but typical of how many journalists liked to frame things that involved feminists and their allies.

After seven months of wrangling, the paper eventually removed the word 'harassment', which was too little, too late.

By then, the 'police warning' had morphed on social media into 'police caution' — which is issued where a crime has been committed and requires an admission of guilt, neither of which had happened. The false claim that I received a police caution for transphobia is constantly repeated to friends and colleagues to justify my cancellation. It was even presented to my publisher as a reason not to publish this book from which you are reading an extract. I found it grimly funny that the police and media were acting as reputation managers for a character like Hayden, but my wife Helen was terrified at being targeted in this way.

Hayden and Adrian Harrop, a Liverpool-based GP who was temporarily suspended from practising medicine as punishment for his aggression towards women on Twitter, trolled a Catholic journalist called Caroline Farrow, live-tweeting a visit to her home in a way that seemed designed to frighten and intimidate her.

She was about to travel to the U.S., but her visa was withdrawn. Harrop tweeted that he'd just visited the U.S. embassy in London: 'Consular staff very efficient at dealing with my important diplomatic business,' he wrote, with a wink emoji.

In a tweet, I called Harrop 'Doctor Do-Much-Harm'. The next morning, the police turned up at my door. I told them I wouldn't be changing my online behaviour one iota, and that Harrop bullied women online.

The policeman nodded, said something about free speech, and left. However, that visit wore heavily on my wife.

But the likes of Hayden and Harrop could not have had such success without accomplices in the police and the Press. It was surreal how swiftly they gained such power over society.

As for my career as a successful television scriptwriter, that proved to be over before the stitches from my cancer operation had healed.

Around this time, I received a letter from Sonia Friedman, one of the biggest theatre producers in London's West End, about me writing a new companion piece for the late Peter Shaffer's classic one-act farce Black Comedy.

I was apparently 'top of our dream list' to pen it.

Black Comedy is possibly the most ingenious farce ever written. I'd seen it years before with David Tennant in the lead and it left me giddy and envious. Now, going from lowly sitcom writer to being considered worthy of pairing with Shaffer had me floating.

Not for long, though. Only a few days later, Shaffer's estate decided on the late playwright's behalf that they 'didn't want to get involved' by 'taking one side or the other'.

More jobs began to fall away. A tour to Australia to teach comedy was cancelled because the company claimed it 'wouldn't be able to afford the security'. I discovered later this was a standard excuse given to those of us declared unclean by the new sacred class.

I'm also the person who worked with comedians Steve Martin and Martin Short for the shortest period of time. Five minutes, I think it was. A producer invited me to develop a comedy-drama TV series in which both would star. I had a flat-out offer and then, within minutes, an email from the same producer rescinding it, I suspect after a Twitter user in his office told him I was a bigot.

Even what I thought would be my pension was taken away from me. There were plans to make a musical of Father Ted, written and directed by me, which I was certain would be a huge hit, perhaps even make my fortune if I could get it right.

I hadn't reckoned how resolute the forces against me actually were, and how quiet my colleagues would be in the face of their onslaught. Sonia Friedman, the producer, told me I was 'on the wrong side of history' and advised me to 'stop talking'.

I suddenly found myself in a raging argument with this powerful woman who held my musical in her hands. But hearing one of these copy-and-pasted, thought-terminating clichés from the mouth of a colleague was more than I could bear.

Personally, I don't want to live in a world where little boys playing with dolls and little girls who don't like wearing pink are subjected to lifelong medical intervention because lunatics think these kids are in the wrong body. If that's the right side of history, then history can go f**k itself.

The meeting ended with each of us trying not to catch the other's eye in case it kicked off again.

I thought at least that Jimmy Mulville, the head of Hat Trick Productions, was on my side.

As the original producer of Father Ted, the company had a big stake in this new venture. But now the Hat Trick people began to go the other way.

I had another meeting around the supposed problem of my defending women and girls, in which, as always, no one could locate the flaw in my analysis as I explained over and over again: 'Children are being hurt. Women are losing their sports, their language, their privacy.'

Finally, I referred to the violent, terroristic nature of trans rights activism. Casually, off-handedly, Jimmy said: 'Well, there's bad behaviour on both sides.'

'Both sides' is a poisonous smear. No one on my side of the argument insists that people should be shunned by polite society. No one on our side wears T-shirts with slogans such as 'Kill all Terfs' and 'Die Terf Scum'.

I was told by one acquaintance: 'Some of the things you've done have been questionable.' 'Give me an example,' I replied. Long pause. 'All right, well maybe not.'

The final act was a meeting in the Hat Trick offices in which Jimmy told me I was to remove my name from Father Ted The Musical or he would not make the show — my show, which I had been tending, rewriting and refining for the best part of half a decade.

Once again, I asked what I was being accused of.

Jimmy rolled his eyes, as if it was self- evident. Desperately, I tried to explain what was happening to women's rights, and to the young girls mutilating themselves because of — 'I DON'T CARE!' Jimmy shouted. I left.

Later, I heard from my agent that in return for declaring me an unperson, Hat Trick was suggesting an up-front payment of £200,000 as an advance on my royalties. Initially, I agreed to go along with it, because I needed the money. But then I changed my mind.

I saw an interview with the mother of one of the women competitors who found themselves up against the trans swimmer Lia Thomas.

Lia was still physically intact and all the girls worked out how many towels to take into the locker room to cover themselves up completely as they changed.

'I asked my daughter what she would do if Lia was changing in there,' said the mother. 'And she said resignedly, 'I'm not sure I'd have a choice.' I still can't believe I had to tell my adult-age daughter that you always have a choice about whether you undress in front of a man.'

What messages have these girls been receiving?

My heart was ripped apart. I closed the door for ever on making any kind of deal with Hat Trick. I was prepared to betray myself for £200,000, but I couldn't abandon my daughter.

BEFORE the gender hoopla, I only knew people in the media. Now I had been so effectively cancelled that virtually no one in the media would return my calls. But I began to count as friends social workers, police officers, solicitors, barristers, doctors, nurses and academics who sided with me or shared my experience.

One of the few people I still know in the creative arts is the choreographer Rosie Kay.

At a party at her home in Birmingham for her company of young dancers — some of whom went by 'preferred' pronouns — the conversation turned to her plan for an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's gender-bending Orlando.

The discussion turned heated as she explained that she strongly believed in the reality of sex because she and her son had both almost died while she was in labour.

During that ordeal, her womanhood was literally a matter of life and death for her.

Her husband would never know that experience, and that difference between them meant something.

To the little sparrows of the Church of Gender, this was all high heresy, and could not be tolerated. The dancers harangued Rosie to such an extent that she hid in her own bathroom, then they formally complained about her to the company chiefs.

'They cancelled Orlando and then were making efforts to re-educate me, to stop me from centring women's rights in my future work,' Rosie told me. 'I had to resign from the company I founded.'

Then there's the children's author Rachel Rooney, who wrote a picture book called My Body Is Me. Its message was that children should be happy with their body.

But trans rights activists dislike any mention of being happy with your body as it undermines their message that being trans is a thrilling and transformative lifestyle choice.

Tweets called the book terrorist propaganda and likened Rachel to a white supremacist.

The author's 'trade union', the Society of Authors, declined to offer support. So devastating was the experience that Rachel stopped writing books for children and has now taken on a part-time care job.

But what did Rachel do to deserve cancellation? She wrote a beautiful, kind, responsible book for children, and she got the same treatment I received: they tried to destroy her life. Trans activists mostly target women for disagreeing with them, but I'm not the only man to have suffered. Some 30 years after we'd first worked together, I crossed paths once more with the comic actor James Dreyfus (Constable Kevin in The Thin Blue Line).

I persuaded him to sign a letter asking Stonewall, the former lesbian and gay rights charity which has altered its remit and done more than any other institution in the UK to promote extreme gender ideology, to reconsider its stance.

James agreed without hesitation. The letter argued that Stonewall was 'seeking to prevent public debate of these issues by branding as transphobic anyone who questions [its] current trans policies'. It asked the charity to 'commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate'.

Stonewall refused. Even asking the question was painted as a moral failing. Five years later, James is still being hounded by trans rights activists and he has had difficulty finding work.

In 2021, the company Big Finish released Masterful, a celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who's arch-enemy, The Master, who James had played on its audio productions.

The credits featured every living actor who had taken the iconic role… except James. When the history of these years is written, it's not only the extremist activists who will be recalled with revulsion, but also the spineless corporate figures who never made an attempt to resist them. Their inaction contributed to the ruin of James's livelihood.

A brilliant comic actor, a gay man, was abandoned by the very people who should have had his back, because the celebrity class is more interested in looking like they're doing the right thing than actually doing it.

Meanwhile, a chasm was opening up between me and my wife as she watched me lose jobs and opportunities.

Helen was looking for normality, and I was perpetually dismayed and angry. She asked me to cease operations, which she was perfectly within her rights to do to protect our family.

But I couldn't do it. I knew what everyone who's in this fight knows — the Gender Stasi never forgive.

I could never be confident of a having a job again until the entire gender ideology movement, which has caused so much misery, was burnt to ashes.

Even if I had been prepared to recant or keep my mouth shut, it wouldn't do any good because my heresy was out there and would never be forgiven.

I could never be confident of a having a job again until the entire gender ideology movement, which has caused so much misery, was burnt to ashes.

Even if I had been prepared to recant or keep my mouth shut, it wouldn't do any good because my heresy was out there and would never be forgiven.

I was fighting for women and children, sure, but also for my reputation and my ability to make a living.

With my marriage now over, I left the family home and moved into a modest flat. It had a nursing home for old people to one side and an overgrown, neglected graveyard behind it — which is a little too symbolic of my situation for comfort.

Adapted from Tough Crowd by Graham Linehan (Eye Books, £19.99) to be published October 12. © Graham Linehan 2023. To order a copy for £17.99 (offer valid to 15/10/2023; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.

#Graham Linehan #TRAs attaching themselves to other causes #TRAs wanting free stuff #Only women can get pregnant #Father Ted #The IT Crowd #how many identities did Hayden have before transitioning? #The Guardian and poor journalism #A TRA got a women’s visa withdrawn and we are supposed to believe the man in a dress is oppressed? #Sonia Friedman is a TRA handmade #Jimmy Mulville is a coward #The Society of Authors abandoned Rachel Rooney #James Dreyfus may have portrayed a villian but he has more integrity than the producers of Big Finish

[causeitsagame]

Fic: Aquila (6/8)

Pairing: Hajime Hinata/Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu

Author: @miggylol

Notes: HOPE Y'ALL LIKE TALKING

Previous Chapters: in the tag.

Excerpt: All of those conclusions ran rapid-fire through Kazuichi's eyes, and he further relaxed. "Huh. Well, gotta say that this is a big surprise, man."

"You're telling me," Hajime said dryly. "His first reaction was to get pissed off at me about it."

-----

The next morning at breakfast, Hajime tried not to be obvious as he studied Kazuichi. Sonia would easily notice such an appraisal, while Akane would ignore anything short of a bullhorn against her ear while she ate. Kazuichi fell somewhere between those extremes, but unfortunately, Hajime wasn't quite sure where.

At least Kazuichi hadn't resented Hajime moving over to the cottages, thanks to a brief excuse of not wanting to leave Fuyuhiko out there alone. All of them knew far, far better than to say this out loud, but Fuyuhiko would be the least able to extract himself if some collapse, earthquake, or other crisis left him trapped. He might have as much raw determination as the rest of them combined, but determination alone couldn't lift a toppled tree.

At those few words of explanation, Kazuichi nodded knowingly and said nothing more. If Fuyuhiko insisted on going off somewhere, then at least he would tolerate Hajime's presence while throwing one of his anti-social fits. That was a good compromise until Fuyuhiko stopped stalking around like an angry cat and was once again willing to rejoin the group.

The cover story worked, but the ruse did leave Hajime feeling a little guilty. The excuse Hajime had given wasn't really a lie, but eventually, continuing down this path would result in straight-up twisting the truth. That, he wasn't willing to do.

Even so, while Kazuichi was a good and enthusiastic friend, he was…

Hajime paused to consider what label to use.

Kazuichi was reactive. Fuyuhiko was the one whose body might work against him if a crisis erupted, but it was Kazuichi who was the most likely to fall emotionally apart, by far. Hajime and Fuyuhiko pairing off might earn well-wishes from him, for all they knew! But it could also trigger a spiral of self-doubt where Kazuichi looked at the survivors, counted up the odd number of their small group, and then obsessed over every harsh rejection Sonia had ever given him.

"You keep looking over there," Fuyuhiko muttered as he worked at an orange's peel. "Going to tell him?"

"I know we'd talked about just staying private for a while," Hajime murmured back as he also reached for one, "but it feels different now that Sonia knows."

As if she'd somehow heard them, Sonia smiled knowingly from her nearby table. Perhaps they were leaning in a bit too close.

"Yeah," Fuyuhiko admitted. "Fine. Let's get it done."

Hajime nodded, but settled in for a real breakfast, first. According to Sonia's stated plan, the other three were headed back to the fifth island, while he and Fuyuhiko had another day of work ahead of them here. He'd need some calories in him.

"Okay, let's do it," he eventually whispered, and stood. Fuyuhiko followed suit, and went over to catch Akane by the arm before she could rush off to the dock.

Almost immediately, Hajime heard Akane say, "Oh, huh. Is that all? Sure, whatever." That easy? Dammit, Fuyuhiko knew what he'd been doing by claiming the girls as his targets.

"Hey, Kazuichi," Hajime said, and also caught Kazuichi by the elbow before he could head for the boat. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Huh? Oh, sure, man. What's up?"

"It's, uh…" Aware of Akane studying him, clearly about to comment on the situation, Hajime pulled Kazuichi into a nearby hallway. Its walls were lined with faded, yellowed posters about the musical act that was making a three-month visit to the islands, advertisements for businesses over in the second island's charming village, and encouragement to take advantage of the world-class room service menu. A small framed sign reminded them that reservations were recommended for the restaurant.

"Seriously," Kazuichi said once they were alone. Unfortunately, he was tilting visibly toward concern. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong. Me and Fuyuhiko got to talking, and we might…" Hajime shrugged, striving for casual.

"…Stay out there?" Kazuichi prompted in the silence. "You both said the cottages are a lot nicer. If you want to bother redoing the roofs—or managed to find some good ones—then hey, more power to you! Maybe I can try to get those electric carts up and running, huh? That way, you wouldn't have to keep walking back and forth." A grin erupted, and he leaned in with an amused, conspiratorial whisper. "Or you could just run him here and back. Ha! I just pictured his face if you offered to carry him."

"Ha, yeah, probably best to avoid that," Hajime weakly chuckled, and tried not to flash back to Fuyuhiko's proximity-versus-strength test from the day before. It'd be unfortunate if he started blushing here in the hallway. "Maybe we will stay. They are actually a lot nicer. But mostly, I wanted to mention that he and I…"

Kazuichi waited as Hajime fell back into silence, and popped his eyebrows up to prompt him to continue.

Wow, Hajime apparently did not have any Ultimate Tell Your Friend That You're Well On The Way To Hooking Up With Another Friend in his quiver of talents. After a moment of thought, he held up two fingers like he was making a peace sign. "He and I are thinking that we might want to be…" The fingers crossed. "…He and I, y'know?"

"Huh?" A moment later, clarity struck, and Kazuichi blinked and shook his head like a dog throwing off water. "Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah." Again, Hajime strove for casual, like this was a typical romantic pairing instead of forty percent of their known universe changing the social rules.

Kazuichi stared back at him in continued befuddlement. Then, unfortunately, he slid into worry as he turned to look toward the hall of hotel rooms. His stricken expression clearly said that he was recalling the wealth of other hotel options and homes left by previous residents.

Would Akane soon want to relocate to the second island that had been most popular with American tourists, to take advantage of its protected swimming areas and climbing cliffs? Would Sonia relocate to the elegant sprawl of the fourth's island top-end resort? Had Hajime and Fuyuhiko moving out and pairing off only been the first step in everyone choosing a path that led directly away from him?

Now for this, Hajime did have talents to draw upon. He silently thanked the therapist and psychologist at the back of his mind for putting labels onto all of those shifting emotions. Rather than acknowledge Kazuichi's deepening worry, he lightly continued, "Weirdly, it happened after a dream I had. I—well, Izuru, but it felt like me—was watching him lead a fight against the Foundation. We talked about it, afterwards. And got to talking about other things."

That was technically a lie, but Hajime didn't mind bending the truth of the timeline if it made Kazuichi feel better. As he'd suspected, it did work. Weirdly. But it worked.

Kazuichi worked through that, nodding slowly, and calmed down as he assigned deeper meaning to Hajime's words. It wasn't that people were finding better options than him; it was that Kazuichi Souda was, against all odds, actually the one in a better position. And he hardly ever got to experience that.

Hajime had been Hope's Peak's world-shattering triumph, and then the mastermind behind very nearly bringing back Junko Enoshima. Fuyuhiko had been at the head of armies that ruthlessly brought cities to their knees before putting bullets into civilians' heads. Kazuichi had certainly brought his own horror to the world, with all the devices he'd made for manufacturing Monokuma robots and helmets, or performing executions, or detonating dirty bombs across European cities. But his guilt had a slightly different feeling than theirs, for Kazuichi had always been following someone else's orders. Hajime and Fuyuhiko's memories had no such padding, as slight as it was.

If they'd formed a connection based on that recalled bone-deep regret, then it was understandable. It was a good thing to support each other, even. All of those conclusions ran rapid-fire through Kazuichi's eyes, and he further relaxed. "Huh. Well, gotta say that this is a big surprise, man."

"You're telling me," Hajime said dryly. "His first reaction was to get pissed off at me about it."

"Hah!" Kazuichi covered his mouth as soon as he'd barked out the laugh, and looked with continued amusement toward the restaurant door. "Is it wrong to wish you good luck?"

"Yes," Hajime said flatly, instinctively wanting to come to Fuyuhiko's defense. But then he paused, and couldn't help but say, "Thanks."

Kazuichi's grin held a few seconds more, then ebbed a bit. "So, is this, like, serious?"

"I don't know," Hajime admitted with a laugh. "I have zero idea. I know that I can wake the pods up, but not when, exactly. It would actually be nice to have those electric carts handy, but I don't know if it's worth clearing the trails for them, yet. And I know that I'm… I'm something with him, now, but I don't know what the label is. I really don't know these things. Believe it or not, that's actually a nice feeling to have."

Kazuichi's grin turned lopsided and softer, and he reached forward to clap his friend on the shoulder. The contact left him looking speculatively at Hajime, then at the doorway to the restaurant. If Hajime had to guess, Kazuichi's brain was reclassifying the number of romantic options on the island, rapid-fire.

Hajime held up his crossed fingers again. "Me and Fuyuhiko, remember? Literally just started something?"

Kazuichi stepped back. "Right, congrats! Hey, I'd better get to the boat, okay? Sonia and Akane are probably waiting for me." The girls' names brought that speculative glint back to his eyes, and Hajime said a silent prayer that all of them would return from the fifth island with no drama. The two of them adding romance to the equation really might have changed things.

Once the other three were headed for the dock, and it was once again time to focus on animal control, Fuyuhiko shot a hopeful look toward Hajime. "So? How'd it go? He looked like he was in a good enough mood heading out, but…"

Hajime nodded. "Yep." He paused for the length of a few steps, then carefully phrased, "He even wished us good luck."

"Hey, there's something." Fuyuhiko grinned. "Obviously, Akane didn't give two shits. Like I expected."

"Yeah, I noticed you grabbed the easier people," Hajime laughed, and lightly elbowed him. "You owe me."

"I owe you? You could've grabbed the girls before I did! Not my fault you don't know how to negotiate."

"You owe me," Hajime repeated. "I'm making you catch the first animal before I start working."

"Lazy ass," Fuyuhiko grumbled, and went off in search of a rope. "I'm not starting with the fucking chickens."

Hours later, they'd located several favored grazing spots and managed to relocate more than a dozen goats. The animals complained while they were being led, but now they happily grazed, or investigated a barn that their mothers and grandmothers had long abandoned. "So," Fuyuhiko wondered as they studied the ranch. "What do you do with goats, exactly?"

"Do?"

"It's not really like you eat them like the chickens, yeah?"

"Of course you can," Hajime idly mused, running through recipes in his mind for appetizers, entrees, and dessert. "Braised, curried, stewed. And with some fruit, honey, and goat cheese, we could—" He paused, then corrected himself. "No cheese." At least, not for Fuyuhiko.

Fuyuhiko nodded, his mood improving after Hajime remembered that without being prompted. But then it plummeted, for his gaze shifted to the adjoining coop, now repaired and ready to once again hold a flock.

"Let's go catch some fucking chickens," Hajime prompted with amusement.

"They shit everywhere, you know," Fuyuhiko complained as they walked toward their next task. "All across the hotel sidewalks, all over the island. That's my biggest problem with them."

"I know. So you've said. Repeatedly."

That earned a sharp sidelong look. With a wry smile, Hajime shut up.

Ahh.

Romance.

At dinner that night, it felt rather like they were zoo specimens. Sonia and Kazuichi studied them openly with every bite, while Akane also made no secret of her curiosity whenever she reloaded her plate. "So," Hajime prompted, very deliberately. "Did you find anything at the police dock?"

"We did," Sonia nodded, but kept looking between Fuyuhiko and Hajime as she spoke. "They're set up for scanning for boats in distress out in international waters. We'll be able to track any approaching vessels from quite a long range, once the power supply is back there."

"That's good to hear," Fuyuhiko agreed, and speared a wedge of melon. "Stop staring at us."

Sonia obligingly focused on her plate.

"You too, Souda."

Kazuichi tried to act like he wasn't staring, and did a piss-poor job of it.

They'd calm down soon enough, Hajime told himself, and shoveled in some rice taken from the restaurant's stockpiles. (Across all six islands, he estimated that there was enough rice to last a group of fifteen people approximately eight hundred and fifty-seven years, if everyone consumed it with every meal.) This was the most exciting change for their group since Hajime confirmed that he had a strategy for waking up the pods, and it was no wonder that they were the center of attention.

It was still annoying, though, and so it was a relief when dinner ended and they could escape back to what they'd decided was home. "I sure hope we picked the right cottages," Fuyuhiko muttered as they sped their pace. Heavy clouds had begun to roll in overhead.

"We should be. I didn't notice any water damage on the floor from other storms." Still, those clouds were heavy and swollen, and so low that it looked like they might be able to reach up and touch them. Hajime's first instinct was to set off running to beat the storm. His second instinct was to offer to scoop Fuyuhiko up, as Kazuichi had laughingly suggested. He thankfully fought back both instincts, and they made it to the cottages with minutes to spare.

"Good luck," Hajime laughingly told Fuyuhiko as they each reached for their cottage door, three doors down from the other.

"Good luck," Fuyuhiko wryly echoed, and stepped inside.

When the rain started, Hajime held his breath for long, purposeful stretches, waiting to hear any traitorous plink-plink-plinks that would warn him he'd made the wrong cottage choice. None came. He slowly walked through the cottage's expansive footprint, lingering in a reading nook across from a wall-mounted television, and then in a small breakfast alcove, and finally before a small lounging deck above the water.

A glass door led to that small deck. For a while, Hajime watched the rain through it. There was no lightning, so thunder wouldn't wake him. The wind howled, though; they'd want to check the roofs again once the storm passed.

He wondered how long it'd take until rain on a tropical island stopped feeling out of place. For all that perpetual sun had felt suspicious while inside the simulation, it was pleasantly easy to get used to. Ah well, Hajime thought, and turned for his bed. (Across the islands, they'd located several thousand sets of bed linens. It'd be a lot of laundry to do, eventually.) Storms would refill the reservoir tanks.

With the sound of rain soothing him, Hajime flicked the overhead light switch conveniently placed next to the bed, and let the noises steer him toward sleep.

"Hey."

Hajime blinked awake, some minutes or hours later. Pressure gripped his chest as he struggled to see anything. After a few long moments, with effort, he could barely make out Fuyuhiko's silhouette at the cottage door. There didn't seem to be any rain behind him, now, but what scant light there was must have to fight its way through thick clouds.

His heart beat more freely as he focused on the shadow Fuyuhiko made against that backdrop. On most days, Hajime honestly could handle his years-ago memories, but he never did well when it felt like he'd woken back up into blindness. "Hey. What's up?"

"I thought about how it was even darker, tonight. I didn't know if it'd be a problem. And if there was a problem, I thought maybe it'd help if…"

Hajime bit down hard and didn't point out that he hadn't noticed how dark it was until he'd been woken up. "Yeah. Thanks. You didn't have to, but thanks."

"So, hmm, let me just…" Fuyuhiko murmured to himself as he walked carefully into the cottage, trailing his hand against the far wall for guidance as he went. The door automatically swung shut behind him and even the faint glow from outside vanished.

Memories reared up and clawed deeply into Hajime's mind, whispering that he was back there. He was fading. He was alone. But light soon erupted, and Hajime instinctively threw an arm over his eyes before he processed that it wasn't bright enough to hurt.

A lamp would keep him awake if it were close, but Fuyuhiko had cleverly chosen a small one around a corner, near the door that led out to the deck. Its light reflected dimly off the walls, and showed up over in the bedroom as only a faint golden glow like a faded memory of the sun. That was enough, though; when Hajime looked around, he immediately saw where he was. "Good idea," he admitted. "I should have thought of that."

Fuyuhiko nodded as he walked back to the sleeping area, unconcerned. "I did the same thing, at first."

"At first?" Here on the real island?

"After this," Fuyuhiko clarified, and gestured to the heavy scarring over his useless right eye. He'd left his eyepatch in his own cottage, but Hajime hadn't paid any mind to the injury until he pointed to it. "Heh. Should clarify that, I guess: after the second time I lost it." He grinned wickedly. "Losing an eye from the same socket three time's gotta be a world record, right?"

"Must be," Hajime agreed with dark amusement. At least it apparently wasn't a source of trauma, by now.

"Anyway," Fuyuhiko continued, slouching comfortably into an armchair next to Hajime's bed. "I couldn't see for shit, at first. My brain still expected to be seeing out of an eye that wasn't there, and so it was…" He trailed off and sat in silence. When he continued, his good eye directed enormous sympathy toward Hajime. "And so it was dark. Not all the way, but a lot darker than it should be."

Hajime nodded back, and found himself relaxing into the mattress. No, it wasn't the same thing, but it was a surprisingly strong relief to be understood even halfway.

"So, I left a low light on overnight in the bathroom," Fuyuhiko continued. "You remember how they had those glass walls? Wish I'd been able to turn it down even further, but it worked. It felt weird to be sleeping with a nightlight, but in case I needed to get up, I didn't want to trip into something and rip this back open." His thumb drew a line low across his stomach. "It worked for me, then, so I thought it might work for you."

"It's a lot better, thanks. Seriously, I should have thought of that." For all of the knowledge and abilities that had been forced into him, an ingrained social norm of 'only kids sleep with a light on' was apparently too strong to overcome. Hajime needed to get over that. There wasn't reason to follow everyone else's expectations, any more.

Silence took over. In it, Fuyuhiko's words echoed. When his stomach had just been stitched up, huh? Hajime frowned against his pillow in thought. That meant that Fuyuhiko had been struggling inside his cottage, feeling like he'd lost even more than half his vision… when Hajime had been completely alone with him at Hotel Mirai. Just like the two of them now. Huh.

Slowly, Hajime pieced together memories and really considered the aftermath of Peko's execution like he hadn't, before. Fuyuhiko had been left dying in front of them, drowning and choking on his own blood. They'd all been so caught up in adrenaline and fear that Hajime never really thought that deeply about what was happening to someone who still felt like a stranger.

"Hey. Fuyuhiko?"

"Yeah?"

Hajime hesitated before asking, "Tell me if you don't want to think about this, but… do you remember what happened when you got rushed to the hospital?"

A slight smirk edged Fuyuhiko's voice. "Which time?"

That put a smile on Hajime, too. "The first one."

"Yeah, I do. Not as well as the second time, but yeah." As he spoke, Fuyuhiko's voice sobered. "It was just me and him in that fucked-up hospital, and he was… laughing." Shuddering, Fuyuhiko rubbed his arms and looked surprised by the strength of his recollection. "That bear's fucking laugh. You remember it, right?"

"Right. Of course."

"I couldn't move at all, by that point. He said he needed to sew up some internal bleeding, and he…" Troubled, Fuyuhiko folded in on himself more. "He… twisted. Warped. I didn't understand what I was seeing, and probably thought it was just my brain dying off with the rest of me. But after what we learned at the end, I guess it must have been the Junko A.I. flickering in, a little."

Hajime frowned, picturing some horrific Monokuma/Junko monster looming over a barely conscious Fuyuhiko. "How do you mean?"

"He needed fingers to hold the scalpel. And after he warped… there were fingers. It looked." Fuyuhiko struggled for the word. "Wrong. Not that I could pay much attention to how that damn bear looked, but when I make myself think back on it, it was like I was being operated on by some glitch. Some hole in reality."

Hajime shifted uneasily. Scalpels had been mentioned, but no anesthesia. He didn't want to clarify. "Sorry for asking. Looking back on it now, I suppose I assumed he'd just… edited your code to not be dying, any more."

"Maybe he did that, too. But you know that sadistic prick would never give up the chance to slice someone open when he's got an excuse to do so. He'd want to hear them hurting." Fuyuhiko's gaze grew even more distant, and he looked suddenly, agonizingly sad. "I hope Nekomaru wasn't awake."

"Oh. Shit. Yeah."

"He couldn't have been," Fuyuhiko decided, though it sounded more like he was convincing himself. "Think about how the guy didn't have a care in the world, afterward. There's no way he would've been like that if he remembered that fucking bear ripping out all his body parts, one by one. He… he wasn't awake. There's no way. No way."

Whatever awful memories he'd earned on Monokuma's operating table now seemed irrelevant. Fuyuhiko's expression warped further for Nekomaru's imagined mutilation than it ever had for his own surgeries. Eventually, he laughed weakly and rubbed at his reddened eye. "You pick some dark fuckin' topics to focus on when you're trying to fall asleep, you know. That probably doesn't help things."

"Sorry." Hajime smiled lopsidedly at him. "You mentioning your stomach got me thinking, and… and this sounds really selfish," he admitted. "But it was easier to worry about what you went through. It was something else to think about."

"Easier to think about someone else," Fuyuhiko quietly echoed, and still sounded shaken by picturing whatever hell had happened to Nekomaru Nidai. Maybe, after everything, it felt wrong to worry about themselves. But at least they could still worry about each other.

They sat for another good while in silence, until Fuyuhiko stood abruptly up. "I'm talking about something else," he decided, and surprised Hajime by taking the far side of the bed. "And I'm talking," he repeated emphatically as he stretched out against the mattress.

Hajime let the brighter tone carry him back toward smiling. "We're not outside, now," he pointed out.

Fuyuhiko propped himself up enough to shoot Hajime a disbelieving look. "No, we're not outside, but what kinda fucked-up mood just got set? Anyway, I'm gonna talk, and you're gonna focus on my story and worry about me, until you fall back asleep."

"Okay," Hajime said uncertainly. Worrying about Fuyuhiko didn't sound like a good way to give him a restful night, but it seemed like a plan was in place.

"Kinkaku-ji," Fuyuhiko began. "One of the temples in Kyoto. You know it, right?"

"Never been there, but by name, yeah."

"Well, my parents decided that Natsumi and I needed to appreciate our cultural heritage. Or whatever. They were big on that. So, off we went to Kyoto, to see all the temples and watch all the people."

"And you were…"

"Four." Fuyuhiko laughed once. "So yeah, I didn't give a shit about anything I was seeing. We were at Kinkaku-ji when I started running around to burn off some energy, and fell hard against a stone staircase. Hard. Ripped the skin open down to the kneecap."

Hajime grimaced. "Ow."

"I was probably screaming loud enough to wake the dead. So I get rushed to the nearest hospital, and here's the thing: my parents had always told me not to trust any doctor I didn't know. Because otherwise, someone could dress up like a doctor and shoot you up with something, or convince you to go off with them, y'know?"

"Sure. I guess." That had certainly not been a concern in Hajime's own childhood, but he supposed it made some sense for Fuyuhiko's.

"So anyway, I'm screaming my fucking head off, and then a doctor that I don't know comes in to take a look at me." Fuyuhiko laughed at the memory. The warm, pleasant sound washed over Hajime and he felt himself smiling, too. "And so I grab a tongue depressor and try to stab him with it."

A laugh burst through Hajime's drowsiness. "A tongue depressor? One of those round sticks?"

"Yeah." Fuyuhiko laughed again. "It was handy to grab, but it didn't work very well."

"No kidding."

"So… that meant I just had to keep trying, obviously."

The imagined visual of a barely-out-of-toddlerhood, blood-drenched Fuyuhiko going absolutely ham with a tongue depressor on some bewildered doctor brought actual tears to Hajime's eyes. "Oh my God."

"They had to pin me down," Fuyuhiko proudly added. "And I never had to go back to another temple."

"I seriously don't even know how to respond." Hajime smiled up at the ceiling, noting how the dim light etched shadows around all of its beams and planks. It was good to have something to focus on. His gaze wandered downward, and Hajime sleepily amended: it was good to have someone. "Got any other stories?"

Fuyuhiko looked over to him and smiled, then began a calmer tale. "So I had this dog, once…"

Soon, Hajime realized that he'd missed a couple of words. Then, half of them. His breathing steadied and he slowly sank into calm, deep nothing. Memories stayed blessedly quiet as sleep took him, for the trauma that marked Hajime expected him to be alone.

By morning, the clouds were gone.

#kuzuhina #hajime hinata #fuyuhiko kuzuryuu #my fic #fic: aquila