#the sun is finally getting into the position where it hits my disco ball in the evenings

[gingeralepdf]

:,)

#the sun is finally getting into the position where it hits my disco ball in the evenings #and i almost cried when i came home and saw it today #because i guess i was reminded that im capable of doing things that make me really happy #like hanging a disco ball #or funny pictures #or little trinkets #it was nice to have a moment of pride in the little space ive created for myself #instead of being critical and negative like i seem to often be about myself #anyway! #recovery

[grapevynerendezvous]

Bobby Hebb - Sunny

In the summer of 1966 the sun warmed the Earth, in part because Bobby Hebb’s compelling song, Sunny, was released that June by Phillips Records. An uplifting ode to celebration of  life and perseverance; it is one the most recorded and performed popular songs. In a 2000 interview with Jonathan Marx of Nashville Scene Hebb estimated that there was some 500 recorded versions of the song. Recorded in February ’66, it entered the Billboard Top 100 at the end of June and in late August peaked at No. 2 for three weeks. It was ranked No. 27 in the Top 100 for the year. It also hit No.3 on the Billboard R&B chart and was ranked No.17 for the year. In BMI’s Top 100 Songs of the Century it is at No.25. In this particular case century represented the period of time that BMI - Broadcast Music, Inc. had existed since the 1930s. The tally also represented those songwriters and publishers that were licensed through BMI, which has had a significant share of artists in rock and roll, blues, jazz, r&b, gospel, country, folk, latin and classical styles of music as opposed to their main competitor ASCAP which has been more focused on pop artists. The ensuing Sunny album was released in September. It topped out at No.17 on the Billboard R&B during a brief period on that chart, but appears to have not broken through the Billboard Top 200 chart. Another track from the album, A Satisfied Mind b/w Love Love Love, was released later in the fall and reached No.39 on the Hot 100 and No. 40 on R&B in Billboard. A non-album song, Love Me b/w Crazy Baby (which was on the album) was released in late ’66 and only reached No.84 on the Top 100.

About the time I graduated from David Starr Jordan Junior High School, and summer days were upon me, radio jocks started spinning Sunny, a beautifully written and performed song with such wonderful positive message. I wasn’t really considering buying 45s at the time and the song lead me to buying the album when it came out in late summer making it the tenth LP of my small, but growing collection. I enjoyed some of the songs on the album and listened to it quite a bit after I first got it, less so as I started getting more records that kept me busy listening to them. It appears that the album didn’t have big sales so it must be comparatively rare these days, although I don’t get a sense that it is collectively in big demand. Since there was no internet back then, and I didn’t know about trade magazines and such, I had always wondered about what happened to Bobby. I basically heard nothing about him after 1966. It turns out that within five years he was basically out of the recording business, but still did some performing, although on a more local basis in the locations where he lived. His song still brings me sunshine when I hear it.

One of the stranger things I’ve ever come upon is that a single of Bobby Hebb’s Sunny was released by a Japanese label in 1971 backed with Summertime Blues by Blue Cheer. As soon as I saw the track times I knew it was for real. I used to put both songs on cassette tapes and have the song lengths indelibly stuck in my brain. Don’t get me wrong, I love both those songs, but I don’t think I would ever play them back to back, let alone expect them to be on the same 45 record. Just to clarify, Sunny is an R&B/Pop song as opposed to Blue Cheer’s version of Summertime Blues, which is arguably one of, if not, the earliest heavy metal songs on radio or anywhere else.

Robert “Bobby” Von Hebb was born in Nashville, Tennessee, one of eight children. His parents were both blind, and they were musicians. Bobby started performing at the age of three when he was introduced to an audience by his nine-year old brother, who was tap dancing at the time. They were both members  of their gospel group Hebb’s Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra which included his siblings and parents. His brother Harold and he continued performing as a song-and-dance team, mostly in local nightclubs. Meanwhile Bobby learned to play guitar and other instruments. Being in Nashville meant that Hebb was also surrounded by “hillbilly music”, which is what later became known as country music. He was about 16 when, after playing on a local TV show hosted by record producer Owen Bradley, he was given an opportunity to perform with Roy Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys, playing the spoons among other instruments. He was one of the first African-Americans to play at The Grand Old Opry, performing regularly with the Acuff band, having played there before Charlie Pride.

A few years later he went to Chicago, drawn by the jazz scene, but drawn in by the blues. He ended up hanging out with Bo Diddley and is “said to have appeared on a Bo Diddley recording, Diddley Daddy…singing back-up or playing spoons, but there is no aural evidence of the latter”, according to the Richard Williams’ August 2010 Bobby Hebb obituary article in The Guardian.

By the next year he was in the U.S. Navy and assigned to the   seaplane tender USS Pine Island. He learned to play trumpet while in the band, the Pine Island Pirates. After his stint in the Navy he returned to Nashville where he performed in Nashville jazz and R&B nightclubs playing guitar and trumpet. Hebb recorded his first record, Night Train to Memphis. It was a song written by Owen Bradley and performed by Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys. Bobby gave this country song an R&B edge, even a bit of gospel, proving that the hillbilly/country and race/rhythm & blues styles were quite compatible. The song was released on Rich Records by owner/DJ John “R” Richbourg. A few years later Bobby went to New York after he had worked in some sessions with Dr. John and James Booker, where Richbourg got him a gig at Sylvia Robinson’s (nee Vanderpool) Blue Morocco Club. As Hebb put it, “I went for two weeks and stayed for two years.” Sylvia was one half of Mickey & Sylvia and after Mickey relocated to Paris she worked with Hebb for awhile as Bobby & Sylvia.

It was while Bobby Hebb was in New York that he wrote Sunny. It was not long after the death of his brother Harold which occurred outside a Nashville nightclub the day after President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. It has been claimed by some that he wrote the song as a response to the murder of his brother, perhaps to both men, but Hebb put it another way in his interview with Jonathan Marx: “Very few people know what I really meant when I said “Sunny.” The other things, yes, but who I was talking to, or what I was talking about when I said “Sunny”—that still remains a mystery because it can be taken in quite a few ways.” After being asked if it was written for his brother he said, “Everyone seems to think that, because of the love, I suppose. But the love is always there. Sunny is your disposition. You either have a sunny disposition or you have a lousy disposition. Either you’re screaming at someone and angry, or you say, ‘No, uh-uh, I’m not angry. Let’s discuss this thing in a nice and pleasant way.’ Well, that pleasant way is a sunny disposition. Instead of confusing, and building chaos, let’s make this day a nice day for everyone. Spread that type of news so that you can become a little more relaxed and not filled with chaos, because chaos can become a killer.” In a sense, it still was in reaction to the tragic death of his brother, even if not consciously. He wrote Sunny in 1964 and, according to Richard Williams’ obituary article, it is explained, “The song came to him one morning when he had just returned to his home in Harlem from an all-night music session and a bout of heavy drinking, the sight of a purple dawn being its immediate inspiration.”

Not long after Hebb started being represented by Buster Newman, who started shopping the song around to publishers, but kept getting turned down. It did finally get picked up and was first recorded by a Japanese singer, Mieko Hirota, and as an instrumental by vibraphonist Dave Pike. Hebb was finally persuaded by eventual producer Jerry Ross to record it in New York studio Bell Sounds and it was included in an eighteen song demo. The recording of it  was completed in the last moments in the session. Among those who were back up singers for the recording are names that eventually made their own marks in the music world: Melba Moore, and Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, soon to known simply as Ashford and Simpson. The album was released three months after the single and included two other Hebb-penned songs.

Sunny was Bobby’s only big hit, but it came at a very special moment. So special that he was offered the opportunity to be on the bill as The Beatles toured America. Some have said that he was the opener, but it was in fact a co-bill. At the time of the tour his song, Sunny, was ranked higher than The Beatles’ songs. Here is what he had to say about it in the interview with Jonathan Marx in 2000, “I went on the Beatles tour—but I did not open up for The Beatles. Barry and the Remains opened the show for The Beatles. Then you had The Ronettes. Then you had The Cyrcle—“Red Rubber Ball.” Then I came on, and The Beatles came on. I was the costar of that show.”

Bobby Hebb also recorded three other singles after Night Train to Memphis, one on the Rich label, and two more on a couple of other labels in the ‘60s. In addition to the three singles that charted in ’66-’67 five more unsuccessful ones were released in the U.S, through 1968, primarily on Phillips. Mercury Records released another single that didn’t chart in 1972. The album Love Games was released in 1970 on Epic Records with all songs written or co-written by Hebb. It failed to chart in any manner. In 1975 the last single Hebb released, on Laurie Records, was a disco-ized version his hit called Sunny ’76 which only reached No.94 on the Billboard R&B chart i 1976. After 35 years of non-recording Hebb issued an album on a German label in 2005.

Bobby Hebb wrote hundreds of songs, and as his recording days faded, in a large part due to alcoholism, he begun working with comedian/composer Sandy Baron on a musical that never made it to Broadway. Two of the  songs, A Natural Man (originally titled Natural Resource) and His Song Shall Be Sung, made their way to Lou Rawls after they had done some re-writes to the former one. A Natural Man was a big hit for Rawls in 1971, while His Song Shall Be Sung was the B-side to Rawls’ ’71 single Believe in Me.

Bobby had gotten married and has one daughter who, as of this writing is around 35 years old. He also had a son in the mid-fifties. After a move to the Boston area, where he played in a few clubs, Hebb’s liqueur issues were coming to a head, literally. Per Charles Goldsmith’s UPI article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Nov. 2, 1987, Hebb said he "was drinking a quart a day, Green Chartreuse, 110 proof.” In 1978 he was arrested for shooting his wife in the shoulder, and served two years for assault. Hebb said, “it was “an accident, my wife and I are still friends,” In the ‘80s he was working a maintenance job with the state Public Works Department and, as a recovering alcoholic, was singing in a lounge in North Boston. He had stopped drinking in 1981. Eventually returning to Nashville, Bobby Hebb died while being treated for lung cancer.

Thank you, Bobby, thank you for the gleam that shows its’ grace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Hebb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_(Bobby_Hebb_song)

https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/article/13004879/one-so-true

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bobby-hebb-mn0000075683/biography

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/05/bobby-hebb-obituary

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1987-11-02-8702030189-story.html

https://books.google.com/books?id=qYtz7kEHegEC&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=bobby+hebb+and+Dr.+John&source

https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/19991214_bmi_announces_top_100_songs_of_the_century

R&B top albums Bobby Hebb Sunny No. 17 https://books.google.com/books?id=hSIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA43&dq=billboard+top+records+of+1966+december

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_Music,_Inc.

https://www.discogs.com/Bobby-Hebb-Sunny-By-Bobby-Hebb/release/14985370

https://www.discogs.com/Bobby-Hebb-Blue-Cheer-Sunny-Summertime-Blues/release/12366602

Sunny https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-5xGXpNt74

Sunny Live with Ron Carter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRWyxzmNdJc

A Satisfied Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shs74PDun2Q

Night Train to Memphis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URYxTHTNKkM

A Natural Man Live with Ron Carter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TYrc3tjePI

Bobby Hebb Playing Sam Cooke’s You Send Me Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=342QerUE-og

LP10

[ti-bae-rius]

Rafael and Max QSA fic

Lightwood-Bane kids fic (mundane AU) – based loosely off @khaleesiofalicante‘malec parent-teacher meeting headcanons’. It’s also very queer-positive and I hope you enjoy. Also yes some ages are weird and yes I did totally manip some canon to make this work but eyyy all in the spirit of the AU. 

“Who was that guy with Max at the parent-teacher conference?”

Rafael looked up from his lunch quizzically. Frickin’ Capri Suns. Who designed those flimsy little straws?

“Huh?” he asked.

He and his friends had claimed a table in the cafeteria and, as ninth graders, none of the younger middle schoolers ever encroached on their territory. Beside him was his childhood best friend, Alex, but the other guys – Ethan and Zabi – he’d only met recently through soccer try-outs.

“My brother is in class with Max,” Zabi told him. “You know, Hakim? He said your dad was there with Max and a tall guy wearing loads of rings.”

“Oh,” Rafael said, understanding, and took a bite of his stir fry. Magnus made the best stir-fry, with broccoli and baby corn. He was pretty sure Max had spent the morning waiting for the lunch bell just like him. “That’s my papa.”

“What?” Zabi asked, looking jealously at Rafe’s lunch.

“So, like, you know my dad – he picks me up from soccer practise – and then there’s my papa and he works late but he’ll be at the game next weekend. You’ll meet him at our parent-teacher conference on Friday anyway.”

“He has two dads,” Alex clarified, not looking up from his comic book. He was on the last issue of The Vision and refused to be disturbed by trivialities like food, especially since he – like Zabi – had cafeteria lunch and today’s mac and cheese resembled neither of the titular ingredients.

“But your dad doesn’t look gay,” Ethan said and Rafe’s brows furrowed.

“How do you ‘look gay’?” he asked, making sarcastic air quotes with his fingers. “You can’t tell if someone’s gay by looking at them, dude.” While he was pre-occupied, Zabi’s hand shot out and Rafael batted it away. “Don’t even think about it. This stir fry is my life, Zee.”

“But, like, you play soccer,” Ethan said and Rafe stared at him in confusion.

“Yeah?”

“But your dads are gay.”

“Yeah?”

“So…they let you play sports? Like, you don’t have to do theatre or whatever.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start with that. That was like you were trying to win a game of homophobia bingo.”

“It’s not homophobic,” Zabi protested. “You just don’t seem like the type to like guys.”

“I’m not gay,” Rafael explained, painstakingly slowly. “My parents are.”

“But they’ll probably make you gay too,” Zabi said, with a conviction Rafe almost admired in its boldness.

“Oh my God, is Alex the lucky guy?” Ethan laughed and Rafael stood up, packing up his food and pushing his chair back. “Hey,” Ethan called. “Where are you doing, man? We’re just kidding. Don’t be all dramatic.”

“I don’t want to talk to you guys right now,” Rafe said, sounding frustrated. “You’re being idiots. I’m gonna eat lunch someplace else. Alex?”

From behind his comic, Alex was flushed red and his eyes were wide and imploring behind their glasses. “Come on, Rafe,” he said quietly. “Sit back down.”

“Are you serious?” Rafael half-laughed, but Alex looked away sheepishly. “Whatever. And I have a lot of homework, so you can’t come over tonight after soccer.”

Shoving his juice in the garbage, Rafael began the task of scanning the cafeteria for his brother. Luckily, it wasn’t difficult.

Max was, Rafael believed, something of a disco ball; attention-grabbing, a hallmark of a good party, and sure to be a talking point wherever he went. This might have been at least in part due to his blue-dyed hair, that or his tendency to pull people along with him to partake in some kind of adventure. To Max, everything was an adventure and as much as Rafael pretended he was too cool to play games with his little brother, climbing fire escapes to snoop on college film classes to see movies for free was kind of badass. It was fun to be part of Max’s adventures, especially when they involved scaring themselves stupid watching slasher flicks through windows with the wind whistling behind them all the way home like the breath of the crazed killers in the movies.

Now, at lunch, Max was currently attempting to charm a girl from his class called Mina by clumsily juggling three apples. One fell and rolled under the table, disrupting his rhythm, and he surrendered with a grin of defeat. He ducked under the table to get the lost apple, laughing at himself along with Mina and his friends. He didn’t even see his older brother approach.

“Max, come over here.”

Max turned and glared at Rafael.

“I’m busy,” he said, before darting his gaze pointedly to Mina.

“Too bad, this is important,” Rafael responded. Max sighed and got to his feet, reaching his hands out to his friends dramatically as if grasping for help. Rafe rolled his eyes and beckoned Max over to a quiet corner of the lunch hall to talk. When he was satisfied they weren’t going to be overheard, Rafael started speaking.

“Did your friends say anything about Dad and Papa after your parent-teacher night?”

Max gave a puzzled look. “I…don’t think so? We haven’t talked about it really. Everyone has been talking about the fact Anjali’s parents bought her a macbook for passing the finals.”

“Jesus, maybe we should try and get adopted by them,” Rafael said, shaking his head. “What twelve year old needs a macbook?”

“Um, me hopefully?” Max said, and Rafe shushed him.

“That’s not the point. The point is that people are talking in my grade. Ethan is being a real jerk about it.”

Max wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Why?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out if I just have bad taste in friends or if our school sucks generally. Try and find out whether your group has any issues.”

“What then?” Max asked, wide-eyed. “Are we gonna, like, beat them up?”

“What? No,” Rafe said, confused.

“Oh good, because I’m obviously very here for sticking up for Dad and Papa but I’m really more of a pacifist than…”

“Yeah, I got it,” Rafael interrupted. “I gotta go. I’ll meet you later to walk home.”

“Don’t you have soccer? You always walk with Alex after soccer.”

“Not today,” Rafael said grimly. He glanced over at the table where Max’s friends were sat. “That Mina?” he asked and Max nodded. “Good luck. Tell her she has cool shoes. They have Adventure Time characters on. Dredge up anything you remember from those clips I showed you.”

“I knew your YouTube spams would be good for something,” Max grinned.

“By the way, you have broccoli in your teeth.”

“What?” Max asked, sounding frantic. Rafael cracked up. “Are you messing with me? Gimme your phone!” Rafael held it up out of reach and Max snatched up a spoon from the table, inspecting his smile in the reflective surface. When he found nothing, he hit Rafe with it lightly. “You’re the worst.”

“Four o’clock, bike racks!” Rafe shouted and Max disappeared back to his table with a glare, making Rafe smile. That was, until he glanced back at his usual table and saw Alex looking at him over the top of his comic. Rafael’s smile faded and he walked out, ready to find a back corner of the library to start researching his ideas where no one would see him – especially not his asshole friends.

 “I think some of my friends suck too.”

Rafael looked across at Max. The two of them had come home early and let themselves into the apartment, but neither had spoken much on the way home. Max read a book on the subway home and Rafe had his earbuds in, both distracted. Now, sat on the floor of the apartment doing their homework, Max had finally decided to talk. It wasn’t quite what Rafael had wanted to hear though.

“Really?”

Max nodded, looking disappointed. “Some of them are cool. Mina thinks her brother might be bi. The guys were cool. A couple of the girls were weird about it though.”

“Weird how? Like…homophobic?”

Max shrugged uneasily. “I don’t know. They weren’t like, hating. If anything it was the other way. They were being all weird and squealy about it, saying how much they love gay people. They’ve never even met Dad and Papa. I guess that’s better? But it still feels…kind of bad. Plus, they were all ‘we could totally tell because your dad dresses so well’.” Max scowled.

“I assume they meant Papa,” Rafe grinned. “Dad’s sweaters look like he found them in a hedge and then let a rabid dog maul at them for good measure.”

Max laughed before falling serious again, closing his book, a ruler in the page to mark his place. “What should we do?”

“I have some ideas. Have you heard of a QSA?” When Max shook his head, Rafael continued. “So, it stands for Queer-Straight Alliance and it’s like a club where queer students and allies can meet and make friends. It’s about teaching people what queerness means and making people understand better. I think it’s a good idea. I’ve been researching it.”

Max was smiling, nodding. “I like it. Do you think the school would allow it?”

Rafe’s own grin was mischievous. “Who said we have to tell them? This would be underground, strictly invite-only. The teachers would never have to know. That’s the beauty of social media.”

Max gasped excitedly, punching Rafael on the arm in a gesture of respect. “Like Dumbledore’s Army? Oh my God, where’s our Room of Requirement going to be?”

“God, you’re such a little nerd,” Rafael sighed. “But…how about the old music room in the basement?”

Max grinned. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, this is so cool!”

Rafael nodded. “I think it could be.”

When the door opened, admitting both their parents, who were laughing at the coincidence of them both coming home at the same time, the boys exchanged a look and fell silent. Rafael packed his stuff into his bag, and disappeared to his room, pulling his laptop out ready to do more research and send out mass-texts to relevant people.

 “Hey, get some sleep, blueberry.”

Max looked up to see Alec in the doorway, a hand hovering over the light switch.

“Max? Can I turn this off? Wanna switch your lamp on if you’re still reading?”

“What’s it like being gay?”

Alec made a surprised noise and then came into the room, sitting down on the end of Max’s bed.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, what would you want people to know? If you could talk to the people who didn’t get it, like those people with the signs at that parade we went to, what would you tell them?”

Alec pressed his lips together and crossed his legs on the bed, leaning on his elbows.

“That’s a good question,” he said, and hummed in thought. “I guess I’d ask them how they’d feel, if it was them, or if it was someone they loved. I just wonder if they’d think the same way if it was something about them that so many people were opposed to. Like if they’d spent years not being able to get married because they were blonde or whatever. You know?”

Max nodded and turned on his bedside lamp. “It isn’t fair.”

Alec shook his head, smiling wryly. “No, you’re right. It isn’t fair. But people can learn, if you’re kind enough to educate them. You just need to be patient, and honest, and open. Sometimes, it takes people being vulnerable for the people who disagree with them to see they’re human too.” Max smiled sadly and Alec put a hand on his son’s knee over the duvet. “Why do you ask? Is there anything you want to talk about?”

Max shook his head. “No, nothing. I just wanted to know.”

“Okay,” Alec said, standing up. “It’s a very thoughtful question. Thank you for asking me.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Max said, and flicked his bedside lamp off. “Actually, can you turn the light out? I’m kind of tired.”

“Sure thing. Papa will come and say goodnight in a second. Sleep well, blueberry.”

As the room plunged into darkness, Max pulled out his phone from where it was charging by his bedside. He pulled up Rafael’s text tab and started typing:

‘I have intel’

Rafael’s reply came quickly.

‘12. Music room. Tell your friends. I’ve snapped some others.’

Max liked the message and turned his phone over so any notifications wouldn’t wake him up. By the time Magnus came in to say goodnight, he was already fast asleep, huddled under the duvet as always, a small ball in the middle of the bed. Magnus folded the curtains so the morning light wouldn’t wake his son and closed the door softly behind him.

 “Well this isn’t quite the revolution I expected.”

Max kicked his friend Raja in the ankle and sighed. The two of them, Rafael, and a small group of trusted confidants were gathered outside Music Room 1 in the mostly-abandoned basement of the school, staring at the locked door in defeat. The lights weren’t even on down here anymore, all the lightbulbs long since dead and never replaced. The underlit chins of texting friends was almost eerie in the gloom. All that survived down here, like the aftermath of a nuclear war, was brooms and Windex, and the occasional scuttling cockroach. Internally, Max was a little disappointed. Mina had promised to be here, and she was nowhere to be seen. He sagged a little on his feet. However, on cue, footsteps ran down the stairs. The gathered group scattered behind alcoves and stacks of chairs. The footsteps stopped abruptly and there was the sound of breath catching.

“Um…hello?”

Max wriggled out of his hiding place at the voice. Mina.

“Hey!” he said, and cringed a little when his voice cracked. Ugh seventh grade fricking sucked. Mina didn’t seem to notice. She beamed when Max emerged. “We, um, we can’t get in. It’s locked,” Max admitted, and she waved a dismissive hand.

“Kit taught me how to pick locks. I can get us in.”

“Cool,” Max breathed. Behind him, Rafael snorted and Max blushed, pulling out his phone. “I’ll give you some light. Here.”

With the torch beam on, Max bent down by Mina, who was twisting one paper clip and holding the other in her free hand. Her tongue poked out of the side of her mouth as she worked and, bent so close, Max could smell her shampoo. When the door made a clicking noise, and she pushed it open, the whole group cheered and she flicked the light on inside, grinning proudly.

“Thanks for the torch,” she said and Max smiled, red-faced.

“It’s cool.”

“Right, so I kind of explained over text but I’ll tell you all properly what this is,” Rafael said. Everyone was finding seats where they could – atop amps and on the stools behind the drumkits or at the piano benches – but Rafael stood. Max had claimed a spot beside Mina on a table, her legs crossed and his pulled up to his chest. Before everyone, Rafael felt a little nervous. Max was the one who was good at talking to crowds, performing in front of people, not him. Nevertheless, this was important, so he continued. “Okay, so this is the New York Educational Institute Queer-Straight Alliance, or the NYEIQSA for short – well, not that short.” A smattering of laughter made him relax a little. “QSAs are really important. Max and I have two awesome dads but not everyone gets it. Some people feel bad for us because we don’t have a mom or assume stuff that isn’t true about our family. Sometimes…” He thought back to lunch the other day and sighed. “Sometimes people can be mean. A lot of the time, though, people say stuff that sounds bad because they don’t understand and that’s what we’re doing here. We want to educate each other. Maybe some of you have family who aren’t straight or cis, or maybe there are people in here who aren’t. We aren’t asking you to come out, and we don’t want you to out anyone else, but we do want to talk about it and make people understand. That way, we can tell other people about stuff and people maybe won’t be freaked out by stuff that’s different.”

“I was talking to my dad last night and I asked him what he would want people who didn’t like gay people to understand about being gay, and he said he wanted them to think about what it would be like if it was something they couldn’t choose that everyone got mad at,” Max put in, and stood up from his spot on the table. “Like, what if people hated you just because you had brown hair or green eyes or something. You’d think it was really stupid and unfair, but that’s just like being gay. Like, it isn’t fair to bully people for something they can’t control, and you can’t control whether or not you’re gay.”

“And if you have questions, we can answer them. Or someone else in the group can. And if none of us can answer we can ask our dads or someone we know. That way, we can all understand. What do you think?”

“That’s badass,” Mina grinned and some others nodded along.

“Show of hands who’s in?” Rafael asked and he and Max exchanged ecstatic looks when every arm went into the air.

 “So…when do you decide to be gay?”

“You don’t decide. You’re born gay, you just eventually come out – which is what it’s called when you tell people you’re gay or whatever. It can be any time. My Papa has been out forever but my Dad only came out when he met Papa and they started dating.”

Everyone was lounging around on random surfaces – the floor was covered with coats and sweaters being used as pillows – and asking questions. To their surprise, Max and Rafe weren’t the only ones answering. After the initial few questions, others started pitching in with their own answers.

“What’s the difference between polysexual and polyamorous?”

“Polysexual is being into many, but not all, genders,” someone said, who was googling terms at the back when a lapse of silence fell.

“My brother is polyamorous.”

A boy a little older than Rafael named Tavvy was sat with his legs out in front of him. When the room turned to him curiously, he sat forward.

“So, my brother Mark has a boyfriend called Kieran and a girlfriend called Cristina.”

“Do they know about each other?” someone asked and Tavvy laughed.

“Yeah, he’s not cheating on them. They’re all dating each other. It’s like…hang on.” He walked over to the whiteboard, where composition lines for music were written, and uncapped one of the pens on the windowsill nearby. He sketched a triangle with double-ended arrows for sides and marked them: M, K, C. “So, they’re all dating each other, see?”

Somewhere above them all, a bell rang and Rafael sighed. “That’s the final bell. We have to get to homeroom. This was really fun though. Ask your friends if they wanna come and keep this a secret from teachers and stuff.”

“When are we meeting again?” Tavvy asked and Rafael faltered.

“Um…”

“Thursday?” someone suggested, and a group mutter of assent went around the room. Two days. Rafael and Max exchanged looks. They hadn’t expected this to be such a hit, but they nodded.

“Thursday sounds good,” Rafael said, at the same time Max said, “I’ll make a group chat.”

The group dispersed and Rafael gave Max a grin. Maybe this whole group thing wouldn’t be so hard after all.

 By a couple of weeks in, a problem became obvious: the room just wasn’t big enough. The small music suite felt cramped and claustrophobic, and they’d slowly migrated into the neighbouring room; it was a bigger room that must’ve once been a classroom. Who knew how long it had been abandoned? It still had a chalkboard, so the chances of someone coming down here to find them was slim. Rafael, Max, and Mina had shown up early on their first session in the new room, rearranging furniture and covering the glass-front window with construction paper to mask any light. Eventually, into the amicable silence, Mina spoke.

“My brother came out.”

Rafael turned, smiling. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s bi and dating this guy. They’re really gross together. His boyfriend came over for dinner.”

“What’s he like?” Max asked.

“Kit’s boyfriend? Kind of weird, but in a good way. He’s a forensic psychologist so he uses really big words, but he’s also beat my mom at Trivial Pursuit, so I think he’s pretty cool.”

A knock at the door made them all turn. When Rafael saw who it was, he startled. He’d hardly seen his friends since their fight at lunch, had made only polite conversation. Now, here was Alex, looking shy and nervous, but hopeful.

“Um, hey. I…I wondered if I could join?”

“Sure, ah…” Rafael turned to Max. “You two go make sure the others know where we’re going. They’ll be here in five minutes.”

Max and Mina left, closing the door behind Alex, leaving the two boys staring at the floor instead of each other.

“I’m really sorry,” Alex said finally, pushing his round glasses up his nose.

“Why didn’t you come with me? Why did you stay with them when they said all that stuff?”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. I…I didn’t want us to fight and I thought if I just stayed quiet maybe it would be okay.” He sat down on a table and looked at his hands. “I don’t know. I just…I didn’t know what to do.”

Rafael nodded, sitting down beside him on the table. “My dads have missed you coming over for dinner after practise.” Alex huffed a laugh and smiled tightly. “Papa said your goal last Saturday was ‘better than a well-shaken cocktail’.” This time, Alex did laugh, but it sounded shaky. Rafe put an arm around him worriedly. “Hey, dude. It’s okay. I’m not mad anymore.”

“I’m just scared, Rafe.”

Rafael glanced across, saw Alex rub a hand under his glasses, and decided not to ask questions. He put his head against Alex’s shoulder and texted Max to keep the others in the hall until he said to let them in.

“You wanna come over for dinner tonight? Papa is making nasi uduk. It’ll taste amazing.”

Alex nodded, sniffing. “We’re still best friends, right?”

“Obviously.”

“What’s nasi uduk like?”

“Oh my God, it’s so good,” Rafael began, launching into an explanation. By the time he was done, Alex was feeling better, smiling. He gave Rafael a grateful nod, which Rafe returned. “Our adoring public awaits. You wanna stay for the meeting?”

Alex sighed, nodding. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

#malec #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #lightwood bane #max lightwood bane #rafael lightwood bane #queer #tmi #the mortal instruments #au #au fic #the dark artifices #tda

[gwensanotherdimension]

The Trials and Tribulations of being a Toy

Upon watching Toy Story 3, when I was in my seat watching these toys joining hands and accepting their fate of being incinerated, I felt an empty black pit of nothingness in my stomach. These toys were accepting their death and the end of their lives. That was pretty dark for a kids movie. They understood that this is what sometimes happens to toys. I was about eight years old when the movie was released and I’ve watched it more than I can admit. Of course I didn't understand what the big deal was about other than the fact that they were going to die. At the end of the movie, when Andy hands over the toys to Bonnie, it was the end of Toy Story and also the end of his childhood; but also it was the end of everyone else’s childhood. The kids that watched the first Toy Story as a kid are most definitely the same age as Andy in the third movie, if not slightly older. They all passed through the experience of growing out of your toys and moving past that stage of life. As I also grew older, nine years since the third movie, I had my own growing out of my toys' moments and putting them away. It was bitter sweet but the truth of life and what happens when children grow up. This lesson was highly impactful to any child growing up and growing out of their childhood, which made me upset when I saw that Toy Story 4 was going to be made. What could possibly top off how impactful the lesson in the third movie was? 

I always thought that that was the perfect ending to a trilogy. Everyone grows up and moves on from toys, their toys are their deepest possessions and they have to say goodbye. I feel as if adding Toy Story 4 is unnecessary. Why restart what was ended so perfectly? While audiences bid farewell with the toys to Andy, it was also goodbye to the Toy Story trilogy. Spanning about 15 years, the movie ended where it needed to. But Pixar asked themselves, what are the toys up to now with Bonnie? Wouldn’t we like to know? And I can honestly say that my life hasn’t benefited since knowing. I was annoyed at the fact that they broke the perfect ending and added more to the story, at the end of the fourth (and hopefully the final) movie, Woody breaks apart from the main toy gang and stays with Bo Peep; traveling the world and expanding horizons.

Throughout the fourth movie, Woody has an existential crisis, he’s not a primary toy anymore, he always gets left in the closet and is often forgotten about. But when Forky (Voiced by Tony Hale) is created in class by Bonnie as a new friend, he protests that he’s just trash and is meant for a one use short-lived life. Woody tries to get Forky to realize that being a toy is an honour and their purpose to fulfill the child’s life (for the needed moment) He projects his need of being a wanted toy onto Forky who just wants to jump in the trash can. When the family stop at an RV park, Woody and Forky find themselves at an antique store, where Bo was dropped off nine years ago. She lives around in the area being a free toy and enjoying life. There’s also a small side-plot with a scary vintage Gabby Gabby doll and multiple creepy ventriloquist dummies where she essentially holds Forky hostage and lures Woody into the store in exchange for his voice box so she gets a chance at being a young girl’s toy.  

Woody feels the need to protect Forky from throwing himself in the trash because he sees that the craft Spork means a lot to Bonnie. This stems from his need to feel wanted, Forky and Woody quickly understand each other and he fully convinces Forky that being a toy to a child is the best thing that can happen to a toy. However, the new characters that Woody meets have conflicting opinions, Bo ‘had a child’ but then she grew up and was pawned. But after about two years of not being sold, she left the store and started exploring the world around her. Duke Caboom, a stunt toy didn’t meet his child’s expectations and was thrown out. At the climax, when the gang are trying to break Forky away from Gabby’s locked case, Woody goes to extremes and risks the lives of the rest of the toys. In a heated moment, Bo asks him if their lives are worth less because they don’t belong to children. He retorts back that rescuing Forky for the happiness of Bonnie is his remaining purpose in life and that loyalty is something that a lost toy wouldn’t understand.

This time, when he returns to the store alone, Gabby shares her longing for a child’s love, which is similar to what Woody wants. They both long for the feeling of being wanted, and Woody sympathizes with her feelings and willingly gives over his voice box. Just before he leaves with Forky, he watches Gabby get rejected by her ideal owner, and he asks her if she would like to join the group with Bonnie. Just before they reach the RV Gabby notices a small girl lost at the carnival taking place during the events of this movie and she realizes her purpose is to help comfort this girl. When they reach the RV, Woody and Bo share a bittersweet goodbye, but Woody is hesitant to leave Bo again, he can’t help but notice the free life that she has, she’s fulfilled her purpose as a toy and is enjoying life. Buzz notices his longing for that lifestyle and assures him that Bonnie will be okay without him. The rest of the toys also share a bittersweet goodbye to Woody as he leaves the group and joins Bo finding owners for lost toys.

After the movie, I didn’t understand what the point of all this was. At the end of the third, they had already established the lesson of moving on, growing up and letting go of your childhood. In the fourth movie, they spin this lesson slightly, establishing that the hardest option is sometimes the best option. (The hardest option being Andy giving his toys away to Bonnie) I watched some behind the scenes to possibly pick up what I might've missed. It was definitely hard for Buzz to say goodbye to his longtime partner Woody; but he had to weigh the options. It’s hard to admit that you aren’t a used toy anymore, even though your only purpose in life at one time was to be there for a child; sometimes you aren’t going to have to be there. The lesson passed off in the fourth didn’t seem as impactful as the lesson in the third. When someone grows up, there isn’t a repeat option, there isn’t an option to return, that’s why I felt the growing up ending was a good drop-off point and final destination. It’s an ideal way of ending a movie series, toys are only toys up to a certain point in a human’s life. When people grow up, their toys and playtime aren’t as vivid now as they were when they were children. It’s almost as if toys live for the same amount of time as they're played with children.

Adding the fourth movie felt like re-opening a sewn seam and stitching another different piece of fabric into the shirt. Sure, there might be a handful of people that would’ve liked to see what the Toys were up to with Bonnie but it felt like an extended series type of thing instead of a legitimate attachment. I would’ve liked to see a mini-series released on Disney+ afterwards but not marked as the fourth movie. I have to keep reiterating the fact that Toy Story 3 had the best ending to a trilogy and the fourth was unnecessary and nobody cared enough to actively want to know.

Interestingly enough Toy Story 4 is the highest grossing installment of the franchise so I should be eating my words right now. Also, this movie was met with generally positive reviews and even won the academy award for Best Animated Feature. While I seemed to have picked this movie apart for existing, I have to applaud the movie for its spectacular animation. The flashback sequence at the beginning of the movie featured a heavy rainfall and was stunning. I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was incredibly photo-realistic. The lighting and shadows were equally impressive, the sky was beautifully layered with colours at different times in the day and there is a moment in the antique store where the sun shines through the window and the rays hit the different chandeliers and lamps and breaks off into a disco ball of colour and light. I noticed a comment on the trailer and someone had pointed out how they loved the modernization of the characters but still kept the original elements and designs in and I wholeheartedly agree.

It has some of the most beautiful realistic animation I’ve seen so far and this adds onto Pixar’s impressive roster of innovative photo-realistic animation. Starting with Toy Story, the animation looks like Toy Story 4’s rough draft animation. With each movie comes a new animation challenge that Pixar executes so perfectly. With Cars 3, they had to invent a program for the naturalistic mud that the cars were interacting with, and in Coco, skeletons proved to be a challenge with the animated fabric being caught on the joins and creases of the exposed bones and draping unnaturally from hip bones rather than real human hips. Pixar has continued to perfect and improve their animation software and I'm genuinely impressed every time.

Toy Story 4, in my humble opinion was unnecessary, I wished that Toy Story 3 was the final ultimate ending but alas, we have another strong ending to the franchise. While I don't think that it's as impactful as the third (And I don't think anything will ever top it) it was definitely a solid ending for Woody and his journey with the rest of the original gang

#toy story 4 #toy story 3 #pixar #movie essay #disney #pixar essay #pixar movies

[spartanguard]

glitterbombed

A/N: so @optomisticgirl discovered that there’s this stuff called Passion Dust that is basically glitter for your hoo-ha “to make sex more magical”. Obviously that’s ridiculous and unhealthy. So, obviously, CS had to get in on that. (But safely.)

2.5k of glittersmut | rated M | AO3

A normal weeknight in the Swan-Jones household found Emma spread out over the sofa, scrolling on her phone, with her feet on Killian’s lap, who was reading a book on the other end. Dinner was put away and the house was quiet; it was their new normal, though life was still far from mundane.

At least, it had been quiet, until Emma came across something that was just so silly she couldn’t help but chuckle. And giggle. And then full-on laugh because it was so completely ridiculous.

“What’s so funny, love?” Killian finally asked; she looked past her phone to see that he’d set aside his book and had his attention on her, an amused smirk on his face.

“Look at this!” she blurted out as she sat up and scooted next to him, shoving her phone at him. She watched as he took in what was on the screen, his eyebrow raising in disbelief as he read.

“Surely, they can’t be serious,” he queried, giving her the incredulous side-eyed glance he gave her whenever he thought something in this realm was absurd.

“I mean, doctors say not to use them, but apparently people still do.”

“Just…” he started, then trailed off, shaking his head. “Glitter? Down there?”

“Apparently.” It was just one of those dumb things that popped up on Facebook, but evidently, someone was producing and marketing glitter-filled capsules for use during intimate times. Or, in other words: vaginal glitter bombs. “Haven’t these people ever had sex on the beach?” she added. “It’s gotta be like sand—it gets everywhere and it hurts.”

“Aye,” Killian agreed, wincing. “But sand at least washes out. Glitter...glitter stays with you.”

“Oh?” she asked, almost surprised. He sounded like he was speaking from experience. “And how would you know that?”

He blushed a bit, avoiding her gaze and scratching at that spot behind his ear. “There may have been an...incident in Neverland.”

“Oh, I’ve gotta hear this.”

He sighed, but she could tell it was more out of embarrassment than anything. “I’d bought a vial of what some charlatan was hawking as ‘pixie dust’ on an errand once; I thought it might amuse Tinkerbell. And it did. However, when we were...enjoying ourselves that night, one or the other of us may have been a bit too enthusiastic and the bottle toppled off the shelf. Right onto us.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t actually pixie dust?”

“No, it was not. I’d imagine pixie dust would make you feel good.” She snorted at that; he didn’t realize the euphemism he’d made. He gave her that sideways glance again but continued on. “This...just went everywhere,” he said with disdain. “It fell right onto where we were, ah, joined, and floated around from there. It was in my chest hair for months and my balls sparkled for more than a year.”

“Aw, I bet you were so pretty,” she teased. “How did Tink fair?”

“Much the same, but without the balls.”

“I figured.” They both giggled, both at the story and at the ease with which they were able to talk about past encounters.

“And besides,” he continued, gesturing toward the insanity on her phone screen. “You and I certainly don’t need this contrived product to create magic in the bedroom, as it seems to be advertising. Not when all the magic we could ever need is already part of you, my love,” he concluded genuinely.

Now she was the one blushing, though that obviously wasn’t something new. But—it gave her an idea. “Hmm...what if we could do it without the mess?” she theorized.

He quirked an eyebrow curiously. “What are you thinking, Swan?”

“I’m thinking...” she started, then set her phone aside and slid her hand into the open V of Killian’s shirt. “...That I’d really like to see what you look like with glitter in your chest hair. And on your balls.”

“Only if I get to see you covered in it, too, darling.”

“Deal.”

A few minutes later, they were in their room, stripped naked and perched on their bed, sitting on their knees and facing each other. “Okay, here goes,” she said, holding her left palm up in a cupped position. She closed her eyes and waved her right hand over it, imagining little specks of light like the kind that glanced off a disco ball and danced around the room.

Her palm soon felt warm, and she heard Killian’s breath hitch, so she opened her eyes—and it worked! In her hand was a small pile of little glowing particles, not much bigger than how the stars looked from down here, giving off a faint golden light that illuminated them both.

She stared at it enraptured for a moment, then looked up at Killian to see his reaction. His gaze wasn’t on her face, though—he was leering just a bit south, with a hungry look on his face. She hazarded a glance down—and yeah, her breasts did look pretty magnificent in the glow. But if that was all he was going to notice, she could think of other ways of getting his attention.

Quickly, she took a breath and blew the little particles out of her hand and all over Killian.

“Bloody hell!” he shouted and jerked back from the onslaught. The little pieces found home in his hair, beard, and chest hair, and lightly dusted his skin before the remaining bits settled on the bed around him.

An annoyed, glowing eyebrow arched at her in what was probably supposed to be his fiercest captain’s glare, but she could only giggle at him, especially as the little spots of light on him changed to a bluish color.

The stern look melted off Killian’s face at the sound of her laughter, and he gathered up some of the shimmers that lay around them and sprinkled them on top of her head.

“How do I look?” she asked happily.

“Incandescent,” he replied, smiling. “But something tells me I’ve taken the brunt of things here.”

“Well, that won’t do.” Go big or go home, right? She cupped both her hands together and conjured a heaping mound of the golden particles, almost too bright to look at. And then she tossed them in the air to rain down on them.

Where they hit her skin, it felt warm like the sun and they changed to a bright green color. The other scattered specks lit the room like candles and illuminated their bodies all over, gracing all their curves and edges—the dips of his collarbones, the rounds of her breasts, the slight ripple of his abs, the plane of her stomach.

It was ethereal, the way they glowed, and she became enthralled with Killian’s new blue freckles that sat on his skin next to the natural ones that she so loved mapping.

Her hair had fallen in front of her face a bit as she studied him, enough for her to notice all the specks caught in it in her peripheral vision. Killian carefully brushed it back behind her ear and softly traced the edge of her chin with his fingertips, a touch so slight that it shouldn’t have really registered but still sent sparks through her.

When he eventually pulled his hand away, it was covered in glowing green dust that held its hue—it didn’t change to match the rest of Killian’s. To see if it worked in reverse, she ran a hand through his hair; it came back covered in the aqua that coated him.

“That’s so cool,” she said quietly, finding all the places where the colors were mixing due to their increased proximity.

“It’s brilliant, love—just like you.” He was giving her one of his usual adoring grins, but this time quite literally highlighted by the glitter that had accumulated in his dimples and the crinkles around his eyes, and she was sure she looked similar.

There was nothing else to say or do but surge forward and kiss him. Her hands held tight to his sides and his buried in her hair as their tongues began to dance. Every touch of skin was accompanied by an extra pinprick of heat from the minuscule embers that covered them, each one adding to a continuous tingle that stoked the rising flame within her.

He surged toward her, pressing her back against the illuminated pillows and shifting his weight so he was above her and between her legs, while never ceasing his assault on her mouth. Her hands drifted up his torso and then down, freeing blue specks from him that fell onto her—though plenty transferred between them with every brush of his body against hers, particularly his chest hair against her hardening nipples.

He palmed a breast at the same time he arched his groin forward, his erection grazing her folds and drawing a quick whimper from her. He did it again, and again, and she got so lost in his teasing that she almost forgot why they were here in the first place.

Somehow, she managed to push him away just enough to glance down at his cock. She tilted her head a bit as she studied it. “Emma, love, what is it?” Killian rasped out, bracing himself on his elbows and knees above her.

She finally looked back up at him, smirking. “Your balls aren’t nearly sparkly enough.”

He chuckled, but she quickly summoned another handful of glitter, reached down, and tossed it up at his groin. A fair amount fell back in the dusting of hair covering her mound, but the majority hit its intended target. A stuttered sigh came from him as the warm particles covered his manhood, which now glowed a bright blue—exactly what she’d wanted to see.

She looked back up at him, taking a moment to admire the way bits of light clung to his long lashes where they rested on his cheeks. Then she caressed his neck, prompting him to open his eyes, which were filled with lust and love.

“Fuck me with your disco balls, Killian,” she commanded, somehow managing to keep a straight face at what was probably the most ridiculous line she’d ever given.

“My what?” His confusion was adorable.

“I’ll explain it to you later, just get—ahhh!” He understood the most important part of her terrible joke, and interrupted her by lifting her hips and sliding inside, filling her wholly and completely like he always did. But there was just that extra little tickle this time that sent an added shock of ecstacy through her.

Wordlessly, he began to move, slowly pulling back and then pressing forward, the usual heat of his member only exacerbated by the warmth of the glitter. Almost immediately, the coil of tension deep within her began to twist, much quicker than usual, and she had to grip his back to brace herself against it.

She propped her legs and planted her feet on the mattress as he continued his back-and-forth motion and she completely lost track of anything but him and her, their bodies moving together. But she was vaguely aware of heat building externally and not just internally, and managed to open her eyes at one point to see the tiny sparkles that resulted from every stroke, every thrust, every kiss that were falling off of them, shimmering on every surface she could see, including them.

Underneath each speck, her skin tingled even more intensely as Killian’s pace hastened; she could feel herself approaching the edge and was suddenly eager to get there faster. Roughly, she pulled his lips to hers and urged him on, moving her heel to his lower back, and he complied as he chased his own release.

And a few thrusts later, the pressure that had built within her finally exploded—figuratively and literally. A rainbow of stars burst behind her shut eyelids as the shockwaves of pleasure rolled over her, and an equally impressive outburst of every-colored glitter flew out from them, especially as Killian followed her into climax a moment later.

He slipped out of her and to her side, but she didn’t let go of him, clinging tight as they came down from their high. When her breathing had finally returned to an almost-normal rate, she opened her eyes—and gasped.

Every inch of their skin was covered in specks of every color of the spectrum, and probably some she’d never seen before. She could barely see Killian’s tanned skin through it—or anything else in their room, for that matter. “It’s like a glitter factory threw up in here,” she muttered, glancing around, which drew Killian’s attention.

The whites of his eyes stood out starkly from the technicolor mess on his skin, but the pale blue of his irises complemented it. He briefly gazed around, but nothing seemed to hold his attention, save for her.

“Indeed it does, my darling,” he agreed, chuckling. “But surely there’s a better way to describe it.”

She snorted a bit. “You’re the master with words, not me. What would you say?”

He hummed and pulled her impossibly closer. “Hmm...resplendent...luminous...multichromatic...radiant.” It was obvious he was talking about her; thank goodness he couldn’t see her blush again. “That was absolutely incredible, Emma.”

“Don’t say that just yet,” she warned. “Let’s make sure it’ll clean up easy first.” She didn’t necessarily want to end the fun just yet, but she also needed to know if she’d be spending the next week cleaning up glitter. She closed her eyes and waved her hand.

“Well, it mostly worked,” Killian assessed, prompting her to open her eyes again. It had: the bed and the room were all clean, free of the luminescent sparkles. But they were both still completely covered in it.

“No, it did,” she told him as she sat up and shifted off the bed. “I left it on us on purpose. Perhaps we should see how well it washes off?” she proposed as she tugged him to standing with her.

With every move, the spots of colored light drifted off of them, floating in the air and then into nothing but creating a sort of cloud around them.

“I love the way you think, my effulgent wife,” he practically growled, grinning and pulling her close for a searing kiss. “Lead the way.”

As it turned out, the water had no effect on the glitter...but they certainly had fun trying. So they went to bed shimmering and glowing, two shining bodies of color.

Come morning, it disappeared with the arrival of sunlight, save for a few specks trapped at their scalps and in the hair at Killian’s breastbone. “I told you, Swan,” he said, pulling a red sparkle from her hair. “All the magic we need is yours.”

(And despite David definitely noticing the blue bit of glitter in Killian’s hair, they added sparkly adventures to their usual rotation of bedroom thrills.)

hope y’all liked it! be safe, friends! tagging some who might like this: @kat2609 @thesschesthair @fergus80 @xpumpkindumplingx @shipsxahoy @selfie-wench @cocohook38 @annytecture @wingedlioness @fairytalesandtimetravel @word-bug @pirateherokillian @bleebug @its-imperator-furiosa @queen-mabs-revenge @flipperbrain @sherlockianwhovian @laschatzi @effulgentcolors @ive-always-been-a-pirate @jscoutfinch @nfbagelperson @stubble-sandwich @lenfaz @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet @kmomof4 @ilovemesomekillianjones @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snowbellewells @jackieorioncat

#cs ff #cs smut #GLITTERSMUT #my ff

[iaminarage]

Don’t Hesitate (A NurseyDex Ficlet)

Ship: Derek Nurse/William Poindexter Betas: dievampiredie, Scout451 Rated: PG Words: 2224

Summary: When Dex wakes up after the latest big Kegster, he can’t find Nursey, and he has a feeling that there’s something he should remember.

Warnings: Canon typical drinking and struggling to remember the details of the previous night.

Notes: The fic title comes from Mary Oliver’s “Don’t Hesitate”. Because apparently I have to name all of my nerseydex fic after Mary Oliver poems. The inspiration for this fic was a text from last night, but it got away from me.

AO3

Don’t Hesitate

The first thing Dex registered as he woke up was a strange smell. It smelled like some combination of the SMH locker room, pizza sauce, and cheap beer. It was a distinctly familiar smell, but Dex couldn’t place it. He knew that all he needed to do to figure out where he’d fallen asleep was to open his eyes, but this was not Dex’s first rodeo. He knew full well that once he opened his eyes, he’d be subjecting himself to The Light, and that was a stunningly terrible idea.

He ran his fingers over his sleeping surface and realized that it had a velvety sort of feel to it, but the fibers were stuck down in some places. It was definitely a soft place to sleep, but it was lumpy in odd places.

Finally he stretched his legs from their curled up position and hit the bottom of his makeshift bed. Now he knew where he was.

“The couch!” He exclaimed, shockingly loud in the silence, which, until then had been punctuated only by light snores.

“Broooooo,” he heard Wicks groan. “Shut up. Your voice feels like a chainsaw.”

Dex wanted to protest, but his voice did sound a bit like a chainsaw just at this exact moment.

Dex shifted a bit and pulled the couch pillow in tighter, trying not to think about what foul things might have been done in the presence of said pillow. As he dozed, the night came slowly back into focus. It had been the Valentine’s Day/Nursey’s Birthday/Mercilessly Crushing Vermont Kegster.

Although the Kegster was officially in celebration of his birthday, Dex had considered it a reasonable possibility that Nursey would be in one of his melancholy moods. In their third year of being--well, friends was a strong word to describe all three of those years--being people who knew each other, Dex had pretty much figured out that Nursey didn’t much like his birthday. Or at least he didn’t like that it was on Valentine’s Day. Dex had always thought that made a certain amount of sense. It made your birthday a lot less special if everyone always had plans with their significant other.

Dex probably should have been on Nursey patrol since he was single and Nursey’s roommate, but Bitty had taken over since Jack was on a West Coast Ross trip and Samwell had a game, so there was no way for them to see each other.

It had taken Dex a while to find Nursey at the kegster, which wasn’t usual these days. Now that he and Nursey were really friends, they tended to spend parties together, but not this one. When he did find Nursey, he had to have been several rounds of tub juice in and he seemed out of control. Like he’d lost track of his famous chill and was just going full throttle. He’d laughed, draping his arms around Bitty and challenging a couple of soccer players to beer pong, but there had been something hard in his eyes when he’d seen Dex.

Was that the only time he’d seen Nursey last night? Dex blinked his eyes open suddenly and immediately regretted it as the light flooding through the Haus windows made his head feel like it was going to explode. But Dex couldn’t remember seeing Nursey again after he’d started playing beer pong, and the Haus wasn’t big enough for that to make sense.

Dex groaned as he dragged himself to a sitting position and waited a second for his spinning head to catch up. How much tub juice had he had last night? He didn’t think he’d been that drunk when he’d seen Nursey. When he stood up, he had to grab the arm of the couch for a second as he tried to tell his stomach to calm down. He looked around the room and sighed. This was going to be an unpleasant mess in a few hours, but he wasn’t even going to bother until more of the team was awake.

Getting up the stairs to his room was slow going, but he made it up without incident. He opened the door and checked the bottom bunk to see if Nursey was up, but Nursey’s bunk was empty. The obviously un-slept-in bed sent a quick shock of anxiety through Dex, which didn’t make any sense. Nursey had probably just gone home with someone. It wasn’t exactly uncommon for Nursey to find someone interesting or exciting at a party and end up sleeping somewhere else, which Dex was committed to pretending didn’t bother him; it just hadn’t happened much over the last few months.

But there was something else. Something in the back of Dex’s mind trying to get his attention. Something had happened last night that made Dex think Nursey hadn’t gone home with someone else. He just couldn’t for the life of him pick it out of the blur of tub juice and beer pong and dancing with his friends and strangers and feeling just a little bit on top of the world.

Dex pulled his phone out of his pocket. Thankfully, it still had 40% battery left. He just hoped that Nursey’s wasn’t dead.

“Where are you?” he texted.

He stared at his phone for a minute before he finally convinced himself that staring wasn’t going to make Nursey text him. Instead, he stepped into their bathroom so that he could try to get his mouth to stop tasting like something crawled into it and died.

When he caught sight of himself in the mirror, he flinched. He looked pretty much as terrible as he felt. At least he could kill some time waiting for Nursey to answer by trying to make himself look a little bit alive.

Dex’s phone pinged when he was rinsing out his hair, and he nearly fell out of the shower trying to get to it. When he saw that it was Nursey, he felt himself relax.

“I woke up on the hammock spooning a box of Cheese Itz.” Dex couldn’t help but laugh at the image.

He probably could have just waited for Nursey to make his way upstairs, but that something was still tickling the edges of his memory, making him feel like getting to Nursey was an emergency, so he grabbed the first t-shirt and sweatpants he could find and thundered down the stairs, drawing a loud, “SHUT UP!” from Ollie in the living room as he raced through.

He rocketed onto the porch before it occurred to him that he should probably have pretended that he wasn’t running to find Nursey in a completely unnecessary panic.

He found Nursey exactly as described, laying in the hammock, his cheeks inexplicably covered in glitter which shined in the February sun, a box of Cheese Itz clutched in his arms, and still somehow looking impossibly beautiful.

“Aren’t you cold?” Dex asked. “It’s freezing out here.”

“I think I had a blanket until I woke up,” Nursey replied, indicating the sharks quilt on the floor of the porch which could only have come from Chowder’s room, although Dex couldn’t imagine how that would have happened.

“You look like hell, Dexy,” Nursey said.

“Thanks a lot,” Dex replied, running a hand through his damp hair, his sarcasm almost on autopilot. “You look like a disco ball.”

Something about the glitter on Nursey’s face was tickling that memory again. Nursey sparkling under the lights on the dance floor, and Dex’s hands, covered in glitter under the harsh, sobering lights of the downstairs bathroom.

Dex sat on the edge of the porch and grabbed his head. It hurt so much, and he just couldn’t put the pieces together.

Then he felt Nursey’s hand on his shoulder as he dropped down to sit next to Dex. And the feel of Nursey’s warm hand through his thin t-shirt finally triggered the memory.

“Oh God,” Dex said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You kissed me.”

“Yep,” Nursey said, popping the p as his hand fell from Dex’s shoulder. “And you ran away. So… sorry for doing that.”

“Oh God,” Dex said again. Because all of a sudden the memories had come back, and Dex could relive them in perfect, technicolor clarity.

He’d felt like Nursey was avoiding him the whole night, but when he’d finally cornered Nursey on the dance floor, somehow covered in glitter and dancing like nobody was watching, Nursey had acted happy to see him, draping his arms around Dex’s neck and dancing in close to him. Dex couldn’t dance like Nursey, he didn’t move easily to the music like that, but he’d tried gamely. He’d been confused but happy to have Nursey with him, smiling at him, touching him.

Then they’d locked eyes, and Nursey had leaned in and kissed him. And for a second, he felt like his heart was going to explode. Like everything he’d tried not to want had found him anyways and it was amazing. And then it felt like the floor melted under his feet and the room was spinning, but not in a good way. He’d pulled away from Nursey and run.

“Nursey, shit. I didn’t run away from you.” Dex ran his hand through his hair. “God, this is so embarrassing. I threw up.”

Nursey turned to him wide eyed. “I’m honestly not sure if that’s supposed to make me feel better or worse.” But his posture relaxed obviously.

Dex shook his head. “I didn’t throw up because you kissed me. I was drunk.”

“I have to have the worst timing of any human being on earth,” Nursey said with a laugh, leaning back on his hands and staring at the porch ceiling. “I’ve been falling for you for a year, and my genius drunk brain decides to kiss you ten seconds before you barf?”

“Apparently,” Dex replied with a grin, and then his brain caught up with Nursey’s statement. “Wait, you what?”

Nursey shrugged self consciously. “Yeah, about that. That’s kind of why I was avoiding you last night.”

“Because you like me?”

“It was Valentine’s Day and my birthday, and just like always, all of my friends had big plans for how to make the day special with their significant other. And every time someone mentioned it, all I could think of was how much I wanted to spend it with you.”

“Okay,” Dex said, feeling completely befuddled as always by Nursey’s logic. “So why didn’t you spend it with me?”

Nursey sighed. “Because I didn’t want to be your drunk roommate who needs a babysitter. I wanted to be the person you wanted to spend Valentine’s Day with.”

Dex shook his head and didn’t even attempt to hide his smile. “You were. You have been. For more than one Valentine’s Day.”

Nursey just stared at him for a moment. “You’re not serious.”

“Serious as the heart attack I nearly had when a stupid coin told me I had to be roommates with one of my best friends who I also happened to have a giant crush on,” Dex replied with a shrug. He and Nursey had never really talked about the dib flip that had landed them in the same room. It was too emotionally complicated, and by the time they’d come back for the fall, they’d been texting all summer and had just avoided any discussion. It was borderline miraculous in Dex’s book, because he’d had absolutely no explanation of his behavior to give Nursey at the time.

Nursey’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? That’s why you flipped a shit?”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that being roommates with me would be a huge turn off.”

Now Dex could see Nursey starting to smile, too. “Well, it didn’t work. Like, at all.”

Dex took a deep breath, steeling himself even though he already knew how Nursey felt. “So, I know I messed up our first kiss. But could we have a do over?”

Nursey just grinned and wrapped his arms around Dex’s waist, pulling him in close, and kissed him. And Dex felt the same feeling as last night, like he was a balloon whose strings had been cut and the only things holding him down to earth were Nursey’s hands and lips. Like the rush when the buzzer sounds and he’s won the big game or the feeling of signing his name to his letter of intent for Samwell or the first time he’d tasted Bitty’s cherry pie warm from the oven. Absolute joy. And this time there was nothing to ruin the moment.

They kissed for Dex didn’t know how long, until they were finally interrupted by the porch door opening and Bitty’s voice saying, “Oh my goodness!”

The pulled away from each other a bit sheepishly, and Dex could feel himself blushing flaming red as he looked up at Bitty. “Well, that’s certainly not how I expected this conversation to go!” Bitty said with a grin. “Anyways, breakfast is ready. I made omelets.”

“We’ll be right there. Thanks, Bitty,” Nursey replied. Neither of them was about to miss Bitty’s omelets.

As they stood up and dusted themselves off, both of them grinning like idiots, Dex looked down at his hands and realized they were covered in glitter again. Then Nursey slipped his hand into Dex’s and pulled him into the Haus for breakfast. 

#nurseydex #nurseydex fic #derek nurse #william poindexter #iaminarage fic #check please #check please fic