#And I love the moments Travis comes up with to show his complete adoration for Pike | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamqueenkala · 9 months

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WHERE SUMMER ENDS, THE HUNT BEGINS

Previous Chapter

Laura Kearney is my best friend and is currently missing.

Max Brinly is my best friend and is currently missing.

Ryan Erzahler is friendly towards me.

Jacob Custos is easily flustered around me.

Abigail Blyg is distasteful of me.

Dylan Lenivy finds me adorable.

Emma Mountebank greatly enjoys my company.

Kaitlyn Ka is entertained by me.

Nicholas Furcillo is protective of me.

Travis Hackett has no relation to me.

Chris Hackett finds me reliable.

I am alive, sane and unharmed.

I have yet to have a clairvoyant vision.

No paths have branched.

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Viewing Tape #7

Hackett's Quarry Summer Camp Entrance

17:07 August 22–Carter Rhodes

Emma stood in the middle of the dirt road, waving off the bus at it retreated down the trail back towards the interstate. "Bye!" She called, lifting on her toes for a moment with a smile.

Nick, standing on the balcony beside Dylan, smiled slightly with a soft tone to his voice. "Laters!"

Dylan grinned that familiar dopey grin of his, sending the kids off with a salute. "Peace and love!"

Snickering softly, I tossed a peace sign up in the air, wolf whistling playfully. "Adios, little dudes!"

Kaitlyn, perched on the steps with Jacob, folded her arms over her chest. "See ya later, kids!"

"Yeah! Hackett's Quarry forever!" Jacob cheered, arm draped over the shorter girls shoulders. I shook my head, standing beside Emma as she blew a few air kisses after the bus, one final wave on her mind. The blonde, despite being taller than me, had quickly become one of my best friends here at the quarry. She was incredibly outgoing which more than made up for my typically shy nature, and I found myself confiding in her more often than I did the camp owner.

After spending two months here, taking care of much younger kiddos surrounded by nature and rambunctious teens fresh out of high school, I'd grown to miss my home slightly less. It was far more peaceful here than back home, at least, it was for me. I didn't have the best family life, living with a single mother that couldn't stand half of the stuff I was into—supposedly because I was either too much like my dead father or not enough like him. Coming here was my safe haven, rescuing me from a summer that would've been shrouded in storm clouds—ironic because I love thunderstorms.

It would've been better if my two best friends had actually made it, though. We'd planned to work here together this summer, but Max and Laura decided it would be best to head in a day early. I'd told them I'd had a bad feeling about the idea, what with my strong sixth sense and all, but Laura was quick to shoot down my concerns. She claimed it was my social anxiety, and Max and I had no other reason not to believe her. I showed up the day after and unfortunately discovered they hadn't arrived.

According to Chris Hackett, the camp owner, they'd called in and claimed they weren't going to make it. My gut feeling didn't agree with the excuse he gave us, but I didn't pry. It wasn't my place to. Despite the lack of Max and Laura's presence beside me this past summer, I still enjoyed my time here. I was honestly a bit down to be leaving this place.

Branch Selected

Skeptic BFF: Having been best friends with Max and Laura, I knew they weren't okay. With their absence, I grew skeptical of Chris Hackett and his promises.

"Dude, this summer was frickin' epic." I hummed thoughtfully, hands buried in my ripped jean pockets. Emma slung an arm over my shoulder, leaning into my side with a small chuckle, her cocoa eyes wrinkled slightly with her pearly smile.

"Um, duh, because you spent it with me!" I snorted, ruffling my short blonde curls gently as I let my eyes rest for a moment. Deciding to stay kind rather than flirty or cynical, I smiled at her from the corner of my eye.

"Hey, you're pretty damn quick-witted and smart, Emma. Makes being around snot-nosed little brats a helluva lot more tolerable when you're keeping me entertained." I replied, feeling her rest her chin on my shoulder.

Emma is flattered by my response.

"Hm, yeah, I am pretty awesome." Rolling my eyes, I nudged her side gently, coaxing her towards the minivan. "Right, well, why don't you go see if you can find Ryan or something? I'm going to go toy with Jacob before I look for Abi."

"You're tearing his poor heart strings, drama queen." I cooed playfully, grinning as she walked away.

"Yeah yeah. It's just a summer fling." She shrugged, skipping her way towards Jacob and Kaitlyn. Turning on my heel, I proceeded towards the cellar, pleasantly satisfied to find a familiar face leaning against a post with his earbuds in. His eyes were closed as he bobbed his head slightly every so often, most likely listening to his podcast. I made my way to his side and nudged his shoe, causing the guy to tilt his head up to look at me.

I smiled down at him as he removed one earbud, returning the gesture. "Hey, Ryan. Mind if I sit down?" He shook his head and I took my place beside him, legs curled to my chest and head resting on my knees. "So? The podcast?"

His dark eyes lit up almost immediately, lips pulling tight in a genuine, relaxed smile. "Yeah. New episode came out today." I grinned lightly, always warmed when I saw his or the others eyes light up about something they were into. I don't know why, but I'd always found myself with a knack for making others smile.

"That's cool. Been a week, right?" He nodded, and I found myself easily slipping into conversation with him about it. It wasn't hard, actually. I'd always been a pretty charismatic person, finding it incredibly natural for me to come up with things to talk about. To be honest, if I really wanted to I could manipulate people, make them feel or think a certain way. But I wouldn't do that. I wasn't that type of person.

"Yeah. It's a bit of a long one, though, so hopefully it's a really good story." I nodded, closing my eyes. I suppose he took that to mean he could continue listening because after a moment of shuffling, I could barely make out muffled audio from his earbuds. I kept my head buried in my knees for awhile, enjoying the peace and quiet, 'til heavy footsteps made their way over.

Peeking up, I waved at Jacob, whom waved at both myself and Ryan. Ryan, of course, noticed and waved in reply, but didn't do much else. Jacobs eyes flitted between the two of us awkwardly as he shifted his weight before he turned on his heel. I glanced at Ryan and shrugged my shoulders, standing up and dusting my pants off.

Urging myself to follow after Jacob, I trekked up the lodge steps to the front door just as it slammed shut in Jacob's face. "C'mon man!" Jacob huffed, the sound of soft chuckling muffled by the closed wood. Now realizing his predicament, I debated assisting him for a moment. I tapped his shoulder, startling the teddy bear of a guy as he spun on his heel.

"Try the window around the side. Library window is always unlocked." He grinned, ruffling my hair with his large hand, cheeks the slightest tint of pink.

"Thank you, little dude!" I pouted at the nickname he'd never dropped, puffing out my cheeks as he made his way around the side.

"I'm, like, a foot shorter than you, Jacob!"

Jacob is amused by my response.

With a huff, I face the door again, knocking gently. It swung open in seconds, the same dopey grin I'd come to adore greeting me, doe eyes searching my face with glee. "Well, hey there, tiger stripes! Looking to join the cool kids?" I snorted slightly at Dylan's word choice, unable to resist the grin tugging at my lips.

"Oh yeah. Heard the coolest of the cool were here." I decided to play along, hands once again buried in my pockets. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find them, would ya, kind sir?"

Dylan hummed thoughtfully, placing a hand on his chin dramatically. "Hmm, I dunno. Where could those two super cool dudes be?"

Taking the sight of his much taller frame in, I decided to take a leap of faith. "I've also heard they're the most attractive, if that helps?" His cheeks flushed and his brown eyes flicked back to my grey ones, his smile softer.

Dylan is flustered but pleasantly surprised by my flirtatious reply.

"U-Uh, yeah! Yeah, they're right here, come in, come in!" He stepped to the side, finally allowing me entry. As the door clicked shut behind me, I spotted Nick sitting by the stairs and waved. He smiled back slightly, curling his fingers in a lazy wave just as Jacob entered his line of view. Turning to face Dylan, I found he was already staring at me, my eyes widening for a second at the realization.

"Dyl? Is there something on my face...?" He blinked and flushed again, shaking his head. One of his pale hands scratched the back of his neck whilst the other slipped into his back pocket, chocolate doe eyes flickering away from me awkwardly.

"N-No, sorry. Just got...lost in thought."

"Right..."

"I-I'm gonna go get our phones, so...." Dylan quickly jogged towards Chris' office to gather our phones, disappearing from my sight.

Blinking away the awkward moment, I turned and moved further into the lodge, eying the walls and tables for any random items lying about. It seemed Dylan and Nick did a great job cleaning, though, because I couldn't even find dust under the tables. With a satisfied smile, I perched myself on one of the many benches, fiddling with my long black sleeves as I waited for Dylan to return, suddenly feeling a bit isolated and shy.

Granted, that was my own doing coming in here while the others were busy, but it still agitated me slightly all the same. Lost in my thoughts, I barely noticed the small rectangular paper piece stuck between the floorboards below me. Furrowing my brows in curiosity, I leaned down and plucked the object up, gazing over it with narrowed grey eyes and parted lips.

It was a tarot card, specifically the Temperance card. What appeared to be an Angel in white with red wings rested on its center, a chalice and wine in her hands. It was old, the corners slightly tattered, and appeared to have been lit aflame recently as it's edges were still a faint orange glow.

My head began to hurt and I winced, placing my free palm against my forehead. My vision swam and my ears pulsed with a sound like rapid water, pressure building in my temples. I groaned, head swaying before I abruptly blacked out.

It was dark, the fire lit before me, my friends surrounding me. Jacob tossed a beer can my way, a pocket knife in his outstretched hand. I debated it for a moment as I caught the beverage, then stood and accepted the blade so I could shotgun the beer, pocketing it afterwards.

I gasped as I came to, forcing myself to open my eyes as my hands shook. I'd somehow fallen from the bench, and just now realized that Nick was leaning over me, his hand hovering over my side. His dark eyes were full of concern, searching my pale face for any signs of discomfort or pain.

"Hey? You okay, Carter?" I blinked a few times and nodded, swallowing thickly as he helped me sit upright, his palm warm and firm on my lower back. I grunted and rubbed my temples, the buzzing of the vision I'd seen leaving my mind scrambled. Glancing down at my left hand, brows furrowing again as nothing but a trace of ash left in my palm. "Carter?"

"Y-Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just a dizzy spell." Though he seemed reluctant to accept my response, Nick nodded, gently helping me to stand. I grunted and popped my neck, wiping the ash inconspicuously against my white-washed jeans. My skin was paler than normal and coated in a thin sheen of sweat, my pupils dilated.

Nick is concerned for my health.

Nick, noticing how pale I seemed, opened his mouth to speak, his hand gripping my arm slightly to steady me. Before he could, a familiar head of soft brown locks popped into view.

"Yo! Got the phones!" Dylan greeted, grinning as he waved the case with our phones around. I shot the boy a grateful smile, avoiding Nick's gaze as Dylan gently handed me my phone, the familiar black and blue glittery case comfortable in my hands.

"Thanks DJ." I smiled slightly and pressed the power button, watching the apple logo come to life on my screen.

"No prob, Tiger."

"Thanks man."

Unlocking my phone, I huffed, pouting my lip. "Dammit, no bars. 73% though."

Nick messed his for a moment before nodding along. "No bars, 42%."

"Ah, shit, I'm at 6%."

"Should've turned your phone off, dude."

Dylan scoffed at my words, reaching over to ruffle my blonde locks as he stuffed his phone in his pocket. "Zip it, pipsqueak."

"I'm not that short, dammit!"

Nick and Dylan laughed as I whined and complained, fixing my hair as we made our way outside onto the balcony porch. Dylan leaned against the rail on my right, Nick on my left, and I hoisted myself onto the banister, legs over the edge and my arm resting on Dylan's shoulder. Jacob and Kaitlyn stood below us around the minivan, the former having just recently tossed the last bags inside the crammed trunk.

Dylan, having tossed the box, now held an array of phones—most likely belonging to the others—in his pockets. Nick, however, held a familiar black rectangle in his own hands, a mischievous grin growing on his tanned face. He shared a subtle glance with me, reassuring my disapproving look with a shrug as Dylan spoke to the duo.

"Hey Jacob!"

The tall athlete turned to face us, the relaxed expression on his face quickly falling as his gaze caught sight of the object in Nick's grasp. "Dude, no! N-No, c'mon, please! Don't!"

With a chuckle, the lithe Aussie tossed the object into the air, crying, "Go long!" Jacob scrambled to catch it, fumbling it slightly before his fingers managed to find purchase around the slim frame of his phone. He cheered, holding it up with glee before breaking into a very sexual and lewdly inappropriate dance.

"Boo yah! There it is!"

I groaned and scrambled down from the banister, Dylan's palm quickly covering my eyes which elicited a soft giggle from me. Dylan guided me down the stairs as we joined the duo, his hand still covering my sight.

"Good save, man!" Nick's voice cheered, and Jacob's erotic grunting got louder.

"Oh my god, this sounds so much worse when I can't see." Dylan snorted behind me, removing his palm as Jacob finally settled his behavior.

"Ooh, I wish I had some singles." Dylan yelped as my hand met his shoulder harshly, a blush and a glare on my face.

"Freaks. I'm surrounded by freaks." Kaitlyn exclaimed, completely disgusted by Jacob's behavior.

"No, you're just friends with a bunch of horndogs." Kaitlyn scoffed at my reply, but her unamused expression quickly altered to one of delight as Dylan passed her phone over.

"Oh thank God. I get the whole 'no technology' thing, but take me back world!" Her expression fell as she checked her notifications to find nothing, a groan of distaste leaving her lips. "Oh come on! Not one cell tower!?"

As the two conversed I felt something under my shoe and peeked down. Moving my left foot to the side, I found another card buried in the dirt. Picking it up, I gazed over the tattered surface, examining the image framed across the Strength card. A boy in a hood was hobbled over a wolf, his hands drawing its jaws apart.

The buzzing returned and I faltered, staggering slightly. My vision blurred and my ears popped, my head swaying again. The sound was louder than before, louder than buzzing but quieter than a ringing. It made my ears hurt and I covered them, clenching my teeth.

I held my breathe, back pressed to a boulder with Abigail beside me, hands over each other's mouths. A silhouette clambered above the boulder beside us, it's glowing red eyes searching the earth, snarling as it's saliva dripped against my shoulder and made me shudder.

"Woah, woah! Easy there, Tiger." I yelped, stumbling as Dylan steadied me, his hands on my shoulders to hold me upright as my knees buckled. His eyes and Kaitlyn's searched mine carefully, both sharing a worried glance. "You okay?"

"Y-Yeah, dehydrated, maybe. I'll be fine."

Dylan and Kaitlyn were weary but accepting of my reply.

Jacob's voice drew my attention, along with Kaitlyn and Dylan, whom turned to face him in unison. "Man, you would've thought Mr. H could've charged our phones just a little bit."

"Nothing's ever your fault, is it?" Kaitlyn raised a brow, crossing her arms over her chest.

Dylan, deciding to be his usually quippy self, smirked playfully as he spoke. "You know, you should probably just save it for emergencies only. Unless, of course, is being dumped an emergency?"

I winced at the mention, the memory of that encounter still fresh in mind. Emma and Jacob had been in some form of a friends-with-benefits relationship this past summer. I'd caught them going at it on multiple occasions in the bathhouse, and that's probably why Jacob was always so flustered around me. Though, last night Emma broke it off with him, claiming it was just a summer fling and the long distance wouldn't work. I'd come with her to dump him on account of her complaining how 'she needed moral support', but I rather ended up comforting the big teddy bear afterwards.

I'd honestly felt pretty terrible just witnessing the breakup. Especially since, in my blatant opinion, Jacob was one of the sweetest guys I'd ever met. Personally, I'd have taken the chance and tried Long distance just for him. He deserved that kind of happiness.

Nick chuckled, a taunting grin on his lips, one hand set on his hip. "Burn!"

Though his expression fell momentarily at the mention of Emma, he was just as quick to snap back as usual. "Ah, well, at least I had a relationship this summer."

"Damn, now we burned!"

"Shut up, Nick." I snickered, shaking my head. Dylan glanced at me and flushed slightly, bottom lip extended in a partial pout.

"Yeah, well, maybe not everyone is looking for a hookup, okay? So—"

"Okay, okay! Can you guys put your little dicks away and let's get this show on the road, huh?" Kaitlyn intervened quickly, her sensible and reliable self able to just about smell the testosterone boiling between the two tallest people in our group.

Under my breathe, I mumbled. "I know at least one of their dicks ain't little." Nick, having heard me, whipped his head in my direction with wide eyes and I flushed, waving him off shyly. His expression spoke louder words than I did—'We're discussing this later' he mouthed.

"Where's everybody else?" Nick inquired, changing the subject quickly as he surveyed the lodge interest curiously. His gaze settled on Jacob as he spoke, quirking a brow.

"Wha-Why would I know that?" The tall ravenette inquired.

Nick shrugged, hands in his pockets. "I dunno. Sometimes you know stuff I don't."

Jacob blinked incredulously. "I-I...I don't even know how to respond to that."

Nick's quick wit stayed just as strong as both Jacob's and Dylan's. "You say, 'Nick you're way smarter than me and you're a super hot guy who gets all the chicks he wants.'"

"You may be the most attractive in Emma's cabin, but mine would not have agreed with that statement." I quipped, tossing a playful grin his way. The Aussie stuck his tongue out at me in reply, though he no longer had a comeback in mind.

"Keep dreaming, Junior." Jacob huffed, his tone slightly aggressive. I gave him a shy but awkward smile, but for once, he failed to return it, instead redirecting his gaze to his feet. My heart dropped, turning my head to face the area under the lodge.

"Aaaaanyway..." Kaitlyn once again directed our attention elsewhere after a long silence.

"Do we just, like...wait? Or...?" Dylan spoke, tilting his head.

"Yeah."

"Boringggg." I rolled my eyes at the quirky brunettes complaint, stepping closer to him and leaning my head against his left bicep—goddamn, the guy didn't look it but he was toned.

"Yeah, I need to charge my phone. You think Mr. H would let me pop in and give it some juice before we leave?"

Kaitlyn gave him a baffled look, shifting her weight on her feet. "Why didn't you charge it before we got to camp?"

"I dunno. I figured we'd still have them at camp."

"Why would you assume that at a summer camp?"

"Nobody said they would take them!"

"Even I figured that one out, dude." Jacob added, shrugging his shoulders. The two broke into a small argument and I sighed, moving away from Dylan. Making my way to the trunk of the minivan, I dug through my bag—which was thankfully on top of the discombobulated pile—and retrieved my inhaler, along with its backup. Pocketing them, I made my way to Jacob's side as Emma and Abigail came into view.

"Heyyyyy!" Emma called, sidling up to the group with a dejected-looking Abigail behind her.

"Where are your bags?" Nick asked, just as confused as the rest of us over their unsuccessful mission.

"Mr. H locked them in the cabin already."

Jacob scoffed, eying the blonde with the smallest hint of adoration in his eyes. "Why? To keep out bears?"

"...Apparently." She sighed, shaking her head.

Dylan leaned forward a bit, shifting his weight with a curious glint to his eyes. "Well, why didn't you just...break in?"

Abigail scoffed, gesturing between him and Emma as she spoke. "Okay, because Dylan thinks that would've been a good idea, that confirms we did the right thing." Emma waved her off, obviously displeased with the girl.

"Oof, ow. I like my ideas." Dylan took it in stride despite how underhanded the comment was, shrugging slightly. I hummed and pursed my lips, glaring sickeningly sweet towards the artist.

"Sorry not everyone's a picture perfect goody-two-shoes like you, Blyg." I cooed, grinning sarcastically. Abigail grit her teeth and wrinkled her nose but otherwise said nothing.

Abigail was irritated by my smart remark.

It wasn't really a secret that Abigail and I never got along. We just didn't click like the others did. On top of that, she's quite naive and too obtuse during conversation, often saying things without thinking about them first. She took the 'n' of out of fun, leaving 'f u'.

"Hey, has anyone seen Ryan?" Emma inquired, gazing about the group as she realized one of us was still missing.

"Oh yeah, he's probably off being all broody and mysterious and alluring somewhere." Dylan quipped, the faintest pink tint on his cheeks.

"Your dick runs your mouth a lot, doesn't it?" I teased, the brunette flicking me off as his cheeks darkened.

"I'm here." My grey eyes fell on the dark-skinned counselor I'd spent half my summer with when Emma wasn't around, his earbuds now dangling over the collar of his shirt.

"What're you doing under there? A little 'me' party?"

"Uh...I was listening to a podcast, actually." Ryan answers Kaitlyn's question, somewhat reluctant to express his interest with the group. I smiled reassuringly at him, watching his shoulders relax as he caught my gaze.

"Oh, podcast, that...that's cool." Dylan hummed. He wasn't even interested in the topic, his eyes gazing over Ryan's face almost love struck.

"What's it about?"

"Yeah, what's it about? Is it about me?"

Ryan flicked his eyes over to Dylan, brows furrowed as he missed the flirtatious remark. "You...think I was listening to a podcast...about you?"

"Okay, if anyone had a podcast about themselves, it'd be me." Raising her hand slightly, Kaitlyn nonchalantly expressed her affirmation of her awesome personality, earning a chuckle out of me.

"Yeah, if there was a podcast called 'How to look and smell like a butt'."

"Dylan, you're hormones are showing." He stuck his tongue out in my direction, the girls snickering lightly.

"Shut up, Carter." He groaned.

"No, it's—it's a paranormal podcast." Ryan continued, slowly drawing closer to the group, though still outside the circle we'd formed.

"The one about Hackett's Quarry?" I inquired, earning a look of surprise from Nick and Jacob.

"You listen to it, too?" The former asked.

"Nah. I love listening to Ryan talk about it though. He's a really good story teller." The guy in question smiled at my compliment, slightly flustered.

Ryan was grateful for my display of interest in his hobby.

"It's, uh, called 'The Hag of Hackett's Quarry'."

Perking up at the mere sound of it, a slight buzzing formed in my ears, something like a whisper sending a shiver up my spine. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"You've probably heard it before."

"I'm sorry. The what of whosit what now?" Kaitlyn seemed thoroughly confused, lips parted and brows raised.

"You don't know about 'The Hag of Hackett's Quarry'?" Dylan all but gasped, an expression of dramatic shock on his face.

"Would I be asking if I did, dumbass?"

"Tell her about 'The Hag of Hackett's Quarry'."

Catching on to the playfulness Dylan had acquired, the corner of Ryan's lips lifted. "I don't think she wants to know about the Hag of Hackett's Quarry."

"Can we please just stop saying 'The Hag of Hackett's Quarry'?" Kaitlyn snapped, quickly losing her patience with the two. Dylan's mouth snapped shut and Ryan began to explain.

"It's just this campfire story for the kids. It's um... There's supposedly an old woman who died in a fire a few years back. She haunts the woods looking for her lost baby boy." He started, eyes darting between each counselor to gauge their reaction. "There are like reports of whispers, or whatever, and this figure that floats around... You know, textbook ghost stuff. Some people say that if she catches you alone, she'll try to turn you into her son... or kill you or something, I dunno... It's never really been clear. Anyways. 'Hag of Hackett's Quarry'." It was silent for maybe a moment as everyone let his ghost story sink in.

"Y-You made that up." Kaitlyn looked miffed at her stutter, eying Ryan skeptically.

"It's right here in the podcast, man."

Jacob shot the guy a smile, nodding his head along. "Cool story, bro."

"Yeah, Ryan, that's actually pretty sick, man. You amaze me with those stories, dude." I chipped in, earning a delighted smile in reply.

Ryan was reassured and happy with my response.

"You guys should've seen the kids though. Scared them shitless, I swear." I snickered, sharing a grin with Dylan.

"They weren't that bad..." Ryan mumbled halfheartedly.

"Gotta be careful with that stuff, man. That shits true." Dylan's comment seemed to cause Kaitlyn and Jacob some momentary discomfort, as the former shifted her weight and the other snapped frantically.

"C'mon—dude, bullshit!"

"What's the hold up, Hacketteers?" I yelped at the voice overhead, turning my head to face our coffee-loving, shorts-wearing boss, Chris Hackett.

"Heya—ah, we, uh—w-we're almost done, Mr. H!" Jacob stammered, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, hop to it, kiddos! You're wasting daylight."

Emma stepped forward with a scoff, hand on her hip. "Coulda-woulda if our bags weren't locked up."

Narrowing his eyes on her with distaste, he tilted his head. "What's that? Sounded like you said 'of course Mr. H, we're on it, Mr. H!'"

Abigail, sensing our boss's waning patience, stepped in. "Sorry, Mr. Hackett, but our...our bags—"

"Right. Cabin. Huh."

"We're really bustin' our butts here. Well, except Ryan who's trying to scare the pants off our butts with his weird ghost stories." Kaitlyn added, eying the teen as an after thought.

"Okay, okay, enough with all the butts..." An expression of minor disgust crossed the man's wrinkled brow as he waved his hand. "Eh—and what...what's this about ghost stories?"

"The 'H' of 'H's' 'Q'."

Ryan cleared his throat, head bowed slightly. "'The Hag of Hackett's Quarry.' I was just—"

"Oh for Pete's sake, Ryan." Chris scoffed, disappointment heavy in his tone.

"Hey, dude, lay off. He likes his ghost stories, some sissy kids gotta learn to grow up eventually." I snapped, glaring up at the man hovering on the porch. Ryan glanced at me with temporary relief, whilst Mr. Hackett narrowed his eyes down on me with a grunt.

"Hey, uh—" Kaitlyn stepped in again, sensing the growing tension once more. "You still got the van key, Mr. H?"

I rolled my eyes and turned to face the van, leaning against a tree near its hood as I closed my eyes. The buzzing hadn't gone away, and closing my eyes made my head swim. My left hand came up to rub at my temples, a sharp exhale escaping my nose as I rolled my shoulders. I'd been feeling off for the past week—lightheaded, exhausted, weak—but ever since I'd picked up that first tarot card my discomfort had multiplied tenfold.

I'd always been sensitive to the unnatural or spiritual. My dad used to tell me I was gifted with the sight, more commonly known as being a medium or clairvoyant. I had a knack for sensing danger and sometimes seeing things in my dreams that had yet to occur—the same thing that elicited moments of Deja Vu later on. It usually was pretty relaxed, occurring fairy rarely and otherwise leaving my life as normal as it could get. However, since arriving here my clairvoyance had been going off the rails—whether it be that sixth sense kicking in when a tree was going to fall or a kid was going to get themselves hurt half way across camp, or it was a dream three nights early warning me of a bear in the woods or a coyote sneaking into one of the cabins. I hadn't had a full nights sleep since early July.

Grumbling slightly, I straightened up as Mr. H made his way to the minivan with Ryan and Jacob in tow, surprised I'd been out of it for so long. The man tossed the keys to Jacob, an anxious smile spreading across his face.

Dylan, most likely replying to whatever Chris had just said, huffed out desperately. "I try not to dwell on the past, man."

"Good, cause it's time to dwell on the minivan and get on with our respective lives! Move it, let's go!" Chris urged, waving Jacob into the car.

Baffled by Chris' urgency in trying to make us leave, Emma stepped forward. "Hey, what about our bags?!"

"Oh, Emma. I'm gonna have to ship 'em to you tomorrow first thin—" His indifference to her question irritated the blonde, a scowl on her face.

"Hell no! No. I am not leaving without my—"

"Hey! It's the way it's gotta be." Chris snapped, efficiently convincing Emma to shut her mouth.

"Ugh."

"Come on, Jacob! Start 'er up!"

Jacob turned the key in the ignition, though the only response the minivan gave was a sharp squeal and loud sputtering. Confused, I furrowed my brows, leaning closer to the hood to try and make out where the sound was coming from.

"What's the problem?" Chris' voice had grown more urgent, impatiently moving near the hood, as well.

"Ugh... Dude. I don't know. I-I think there's something wrong with the engine, Mr. H." Jacob hummed. His voice took on a lilt that screamed guilty to me, though Chris seemed too anxious to notice.

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Yeah dude, it's just like... kaput!"

"Alright lemme try." Ryan stepped towards the drivers side, peering at Jacob through the open window.

"What? Dude, I'm telling you, alright, it's busted!"

"Well maybe you're doing it wrong—"

"Duh- 'Well maybe you're doing it wrong!'" Jacob's tone baffled me, my eyes shooting up to glare at him through the front windshield.

"The fuck, dude?"

"Enough! Enough, both of you! Shit." He stepped up to the car, opening the drivers door and tugging at Jacob's sleeve. "Come on, come on let's go."

Stumbling, Jacob stepped out of the vehicle, brushing himself off. "Alright dude, chill! Chill dude." As Chris attempted to start the car, smoke began to seep from the lip of the hood, startling me.

"Uh, Mr. H? Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that..." His eyes widened at my words and he jumped out of the car, dragging me away from the tree I was leaning against.

"Holy smokes! Everybody back, now! No, now, now!" He exclaimed, urging the rest of the group backwards. Jacob, however, disregarded Mr. Hackett's warning and moved to the front of the vehicle, popping it open to view the engine. A blaze had formed near the fuel tank, our eyes widening at the sight.

"Jesus Christ!" Jacob exclaimed, skirting the edge of the car.

"J-Jacob, c'mon, get away from it!" I exclaimed, my heart racing in my chest. I hated fire, loathed it, memories I didn't want to recall lingering at the forefront of my brain.

"I-I got this!" He reached into the drivers side, grasping at water bottle. He ran back to the front of the vehicle and I yelped, darting past both Ryan and Chris.

"Jacob, don't—!" The water splashed over the engine just as I curled my fingers around Jacob's wrist. The flames rose and my back and arm, which were facing the hood, were splashed with oil. A scream left me as my skin burned through the fabric, recoiling closer to Jacob and cradling my burnt arm to my chest. "Fuck!"

"Shit, shit! Are you okay? Fuck!" Jacob cradled my arm in his large hands, blowing cool air on the red skin peeking through the freshly singed hole in my sleeve and shoulder, electing a whimper from me. Chris appeared beside us with a fire bucket in hand, dumping the sand in it over the engine and successfully smothering the flames.

With a heavy sigh, he dropped the bucket to the ground, brows furrowed with distress. "This things toast."

"Well, uh- Look it's not that big of a deal, okay, we'll just spend one more night out here." Jacob quipped after a moment, patting my back lightly as I babied my injured arm with a hiss, resting my head against his shoulder.

"No—NO. Just stop. Let me think." Chris snapped, hands running I've this face as he paced for a moment. Chris slammed the hood with an angry yell, startling me and Jacob. "Arrrrghhh! Okay. Dammit. You're right. You're right, yeah. Yeah, you're right."

"What?" Ryan seemed utterly bewildered with Chris' behavior, brows furrowed as he glanced at us. Chris tossed him the keys to the lodge as he walked past, Ryan successfully grasping them midair.

"Hey Ryan. Come here for a sec." Chris waved the boy over as he clambered into his own car, rolling the window down. Jacob guided me away from the cars towards the others, hand on my back.

"Shit, dude, I'm really fucking sorry, I didn't—"

"It's fine. You didn't know. It's cool. It's cool." I huffed, cutting off his apology. I knew he didn't mean to get me hurt, and it was only a second degree burn. With proper treatment I'd be okay. I was more concerned for Jacob's current emotional status—the guy didn't handle pain and sorrow very well.

I smiled up at Jacob to reassure him when words didn't work, nudging his side with my good arm. "Really, bear, I mean it. I'll be okay." He glanced between both of my grey eyes for a moment before relaxing, his lips forming the tiniest smile.

"Okay."

Jacob is reassured by my kindness and empathy.

"So, what was all of that about?" Dylan's voice drew my attention behind me as Ryan rejoined us, Chris and his car out of sight.

"He uh... said to stay inside. That we're not leaving until the morning." Ryan answered in a slow, uncertain tone, eyes lingering on my burn.

"Are... you kidding me?" Emma scoffed, tossing her hands up with irritation.

"Em..."

"Are you kidding me!? What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, we should go inside. Like he said."

Dylan tilted his head side to side, an inquisitive expression crossing his soft features. "We could go inside. Until morning..."

"Yeah—"

Quickly cutting Ryan off, Dylan smiled mischievously. "Or... Or we could do something else."

"What... are you talking about?"

"No Mr. Hackett. No screaming kids. Just a bunch of grown-ass adults ready to cut loose and get down with their animal side." I deadpanned at this, blinking slowly as I attempted to register what the hell he was going on about. Jacob, however, seemed to both understand and become eager for the idea.

"Ohh, hell yeah."

"P. A. R. T... Why the fuck not!? Alright, it seems like the stars have aligned for us. No?" I sighed through my nose, gnawing at my lower lip anxiously, which did not go unnoticed.

"Okay, okay, okay..." Kaitlyn began to nod thoughtfully, contemplating the tall brunettes offer.

"One last epic bonfire blowout for all time."

"Oh, dude. Fuck yes!" Jacob pumped the air, gesturing to the only Aussie in the group. "I'm in. Nick, you're in."

"Yeah I'm in."

"Dylan's in. Obviously. My man. Kaitlyn?"

After some momentary hesitation and a quick glance around the group, the short Asian woman conceded. "I go where my people need me."

"Yeah! Okay... Em, what do you say?"

"Yeah, I'm in." She grinned, hands on her hips.

"Mr. Hackett seemed pretty insistent we stay in the lodge." Abigail suddenly cut in, dampening my mood further with her voice.

"He was just trying to freak us out. You know, like um... Like one of Ryan's stupid ghost stories."

"Why would he want to scare us?"

Probably because he doesn't fucking like you, Abigail. I hissed in my head, scowling at her from under my long black lashes.

Ryan, looking miffed and uncertain, sighed through his nose apprehensively. "I don't think he was trying to freak us out, Jacob. I think he was really freaked out by something."

"Jesus Christ."

"Chris seemed real serious about this, guys."

Dylan slumped slightly, off put by Ryan's mood dampening behavior. "Just say you're in, man. Come on. One last night. Dude. He won't even know."

"Yeah but I promised, I—"

I had to grab Jacob's arm to stop him from stepping forward with his irritation, encouraging him to just speak calmly. "No no nah, dude, dude. It's all good. Alright, we get it, you know. You, uh... You don't wanna disappoint 'daddy'."

Ryan's eyes narrowed on Jacob and his nose wrinkled at the underhanded remark. "Whatever, man."

Dylan stepped in quickly, attempting to keep the conversation calm. "It's gonna be fine, man. Trust me. It's gonna be chill."

"I'm sure he's just looking out for us. No big deal." Ryan muttered this, mostly to reassure himself.

"Alright. Yeah! Party!" Dylan cheered, grins spreading on the rest of their faces.

"No, I didn't mean—"

Dylan put his hand up for a high five, grinning at the deep-toned male with excitement. "High five—Touch my hand, Ryan."

Ryan hesitated, eying the brunette before glancing at me. I nodded hesitantly, worry still on my mind. With a sigh, he lifted his hand and pressed it against Dylan's. "Alright, fine..."

"But I just want to go on record and say that this is a bad idea."

Jacob deadpanned and shook his head. "Oh my God, dude."

"Ugh. It's gonna be fine, man. Trust me. It's gonna be chill." Dylan did his best to reassure the guy he'd been pinning after half the summer.

Excited once again for tonight's plan, Jacob rubbed his hands together. "Alright, alright, alright, Hacketteers! Party planning committee. Let's do this!"

He gestured to Nick and Abigail, tilting his head side to side. "Um, okay. First things first, Nick and Abi... you go get some firewood. Uh... Emma and I will go to the store for some supplies. And, uh, Dylan, you just... I don't know, figure out how to charge the phones or something..." Dylan and Nick shared a thumbs up with the jock before he clapped his hands. "Alright let's do this!"

Hesitating, I glanced among the group and hit my lip, the buzzing behind my ears urging me to speak up. I could tell them what I'd 'seen' so far—knowing they were likely to listen to it as my clairvoyance was well known—but risk dampening the mood. Or I could keep it to myself and hope that everything would be okay. Besides that, who would I join? Abi and Nick? Dylan, Ryan and Kaitlyn? Emma and Jacob? Or should I find something to do alone?

Wha t would you do?

|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|

Laura Kearney is my best friend and is currently missing.

Max Brinly is my best friend and is currently missing.

Ryan Erzahler is appreciative towards me.

Jacob Custos is concerned for my health and attached to me.

Abigail Blyg is distasteful of me.

Dylan Lenivy finds me adorable.

Emma Mountebank greatly enjoys my company.

Kaitlyn Ka is entertained by me.

Nicholas Furcillo is protective of me and concerned for my mental health.

Travis Hackett has no relation to me.

Chris Hackett finds me reliable but aggressive.

I am alive, sane and burned but otherwise healthy.

Tarot Visions:

Temperance

Strength

Branches:

•Skeptic BFF: Having been best friends with Max and Laura, I knew they weren't okay. With their absence, I grew skeptical of Chris Hackett and his promises.

#my stuff #fluff #fanfic #the quarry #the quarry fanfic #mxm #bxb #horror #magic #dark magic #psychological horror #gore #violence #mature #apocalypticnova

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faithandfearcollide · 3 years

Photo

Wholesome Pike and Grog Moments | Curious Tide: Episode 89: 1 | 2 Grog believing he hugged Pike to death.

#criticalroleedit #critical role #pike trickfoot #grog strongjaw #pike x grog #travis willingham #ashley johnson #CR1 #laura bailey #marisha ray #G&P #This is the most wholesome duo to exist ever #I love how soft they are with each other #And I love the moments Travis comes up with to show his complete adoration for Pike #Grog has the utmost love and affection for his little gnome buddy #BroTP: The bestest MONSTAHS

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garrothromeave · 3 years

Text

the hell is mystreet season 6??

(warning, long post ahead)

ok so before i start this

1) ive never posted shiiiit on tumblr before so watch me suffer, im just here to talk about stuff that my friends who dont know anything about aphmau have to listen to me rant about for hours on end

2) i havent seen mystreet in like years (except season 3, i watch that frequently since im laurance and shadow knight deprived) so please bear with me because i might be completely wrong on this lol. it’s just like, pointing out things i remember

3) im sure someones already talked about this but who cares

4) im gonna do this stupid thing where i just explain myself a bit at first, if you dont want to read that just skip to the part where you see “the actual thingy:” in bold and italics

5) mild disclaimer; i am completely aware that jessica is not a professional writer. i know that she did her best to appeal to her fans, and honestly, respect for that. while this post will come off as aggressive and probably look like hate, that’s not my intention in the slightest. it’s just... intense criticism. im sure y’all probably already know that, but yeah, just stating that anyways. i do believe that jess is doing her best, and in no way do i want to dismiss any hard work she’s done. that being said; prepare for a very strongly opinionated post.

haha watch there be 10000+ typos in this making me look like a complete dumbass

ok here we go

one of the main reasons i stopped watching aphmau back in 2017 was the mess that was season 4. like, in the first few episodes of the emerald secret, i thought “woah!! this is kinda cool, im a sucker for mystery!” because of course i was, it was something new and something exciting. the only problem i had with it at the time was kim, but that’s just because i always found her annoying and out of place. i just didn’t understand why garroth dragged her along and honestly i still don’t to this day BUT, moving on.

anyways, as the season progressed, 13 year old me was of course just “:0!!” the entire time--that is, up until the reveal of the main villain. i remember watching the episode, seeing the reveal of ein, and then stopping. like, just for a quick break, but i was still just overwhelmingly disappointed. like, and this was the time when pdh was airing and ein just got made alpha (i think?) and i had really really liked eins character in pdh. either way, that really sucked and actually opened my eyes to a lot of things.

one of the main things bein’ the fact that this was supposed to be a slice of life kinda series that decided to take a turn to a more edgy kinda approach. which, i guess i regularly wouldnt mind? but seeing as mcd was kinda bein neglected at the time it just didnt sit right with me. BUT WHATEVER, point is i stopped watching mystreet all together at the end of season 4.

like, a whole year later my brother tells me that shit’s getting intense in season 5 + 6 of mystreet, and my brilliant self decided to give it a shot--but i refused to watch all of season 5, so i only stepped in when ein made an appearance. so whenever that was, that’s where i picked up because i didnt care enough to see

and y’know--i honestly didn’t hate it at first. in fact, i found it oddly cool. it wasn’t enough to get me into aphmau again, but it was enough to where i was intrigued. i dont know why, but i never watched the finale, so i didnt see the ending until just a few weeks ago--but back then, i thought it was neat. looking back on it however... im just so confused.

side note: only got back into aphmau this time around because of mcd. mainly because like, i adore the first season and the first half of the second season. and being nearly 18 now, im a lot more appreciative of plot and well-written characters n junk.

the actual thingy:

ok back on track. imma stop spilling out my story of how i got back into aphmau, and lets just skip to what rewatching mcd made me realize of season 6′s plot and shit:

-emmalyn. how the fuck does ghost even remotely exist? if she’s emmalyn as claimed, then why have we already seen emmalyn in the mystreet universe alive? look i get that creators can do whatever they want with their stories but at the same time please provide some sort of explanation good god. and maybe they did and i just havent seen it, so if there is one--let me know. but until that day imma just sit here confused as fuck

-ok so imma just be real, the whole ‘ultima’ thing is just... not great. in my opinion, anyways. like... i saw someone mention this in another post, but if this ultima stuff was like, a really big deal, why isnt it mentioned in mcd? though i suppose since its a curse of sorts, it could be later on past the time period in which mcd takes place--but even then, how did it manage to make its way into aaron’s family bloodline?

-WHY IS EVERYONE AT STARLIGHT ITS JUST SO CONVINIENT like what happened to this place being the most expensive shit on the planet or whatever, and how the gang happens to run into like, the werewolf trio and blaze and kai and guy and nate all of these people like god damn life doesnt WORK LIKE THAT

-im sorry but turning people into relics? thats... thats the best you could come up with? plus, like, how does that even work? in mcd it’s established that relics are separate entitles that choose their wielder, based on a ‘personal’ connection (being a descendent of a previous wielder) or if they’re a good match personality and (i think?) moral wise. so the whole turning-people-into-relics doesnt make much sense to be honest.

-irene really over here using her god powers to only keep her friends alive like god damn not a great god if you ask me

-can i talk about how incredibly predictable aphmaus death was? like i just kinda sat there waiting for it to happen and when it did i literally went “haha! wonder when she’ll be revived” because god forbid we actually kill off characters

-when aphmau + demon warlock fought in the irene dimension there was no passage of time whatsoever in the real world whiiiiiiiiich really bothers me because they fought in there for at least a few minutes

-speaking of aphmau and the demon warlocks fight does it bother anyone else that it had to be aaron who took over the fight?? like we get it hes the big protector blah blah blah but god damn it wouldve been cooler if aphmau had fought this battle as her. aaron fighting this battle was so underwhelming

-...love. like, thats the only thing thats needed to break out of a forever potion? love? LIKE YEAH, GOOD GUYS GOTTA WIN SOMEHOW, but its just so cliche and overdoneeee

-oh yeah and also when travis went bonkers and became the demon warlock or whatever, why’d he only take over katelyn and garroth?? like, zane had been influenced by the potions in the past as well? DONT GET ME WRONG--i do love some good brother edge, but uh, the demon warlock was just bein kinda a dumbass by not possessing zane too just sayin’

-can aaron please go to fucking jail for mass murder now like holy shit, he just got sent home on a fuckin boat. also why did blaze forgive him for killing him thats not even remotely realistic. then again, nothing in mystreet has ever been realistic when it comes to characters and motives and personalities, (cough katelyn being actually abusive and travis being an actual pervert) but yknow whatever

-katelyn and kawaii chan literally added nothing to the plot whatsoever. like lets be real, katelyn lost her personality the moment season 5 started and kawaii chan just kinda sits there :I

-ok im sorry this was bound to come up but cmon guys imagine laurances potential if he was in season 6 like god damn this is beyond maddening. AND YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A REALLY REALLY COOL PARRALLEL?? IF IT WAS LAURANCE WHO SNAPPED GARROTH OUT OF HIS MIND CONTROL THING, because it would mimic laurance’s speech to get garroth to snap out of his rage in season 1, episode 100 of minecraft diaries. like how fuckin rad would that have been? missed opportunity

-also?? why does kim/ghost know magicks?? like, if i remember correctly, emmalyn is a scholar--not someone who knew magicks. i mean, i guess research? study?? but its been established that knowing how magicks works =/= being able to use magicks. i dunno, just doesnt seem right i guess. maybe its explained, i wouldnt know (yes i know that makes me look like a dick leave me alone)

-melissa should have stayed dead. LIKE, NO, ITS NOT AS SIMPLE AS “haha it takes more than a few bullets to kill me”??? look ive got nothing wrong with melissa (cough lie cough) but yknow it would have just been cool a character... stay dead? for once? its just too fuckin cliche that shes alive god damn

-can i also just say the only good thing that came out of season 6 was travis’ dads sacrifice like damn that made me actually sad

-howww was lucinda turned into a relic. or yknow, anyone else? like im sure they explain it better in the actual show i just dont remember, but its just that easy? turning anyone into a relic? granted, a normal person wouldnt be able to produce a good relic, but idk man. IM JUST SAYING; that the only really powerful relics that aphmau should have been able to wield is the one that aaron + zane produced because shad relic and esmund relic moment. lucinda isnt even like, connected to a divine warrior. ALSO, another point, if its seriously that powerful of a relic getting one from just a magic user like lucinda, why go through the trouble? i mean i guess ofc youd want the “all powerful” one that the ultima produces but i mean damn whats the point

-ok this is just going to bother me but in one of the episodes (i think might have been in season 5 actually) where that like, guardian dude was chasing aphmau and zane and at one point they split up and the dude just chuckles at zane diverting paths and goes under his breath “youre not the important one here”, suggesting that aphmau somehow is? first of all, id argue that any ro’meave is significantly more important than aphmau was, especially not knowing much about her other than that shes with aaron. i might be missing some bits an pieces, but if i was that dude id forget about aphmau and go after zane

-killing off derek for shock factor sucked, and i know the moment was supposed to be really sad because like “oh :( aarons dad is sacrificing himself for his son” but lets be real dereks still was a shitty father and i dont think his reasons for doing what he did was very good at all

-less about plot or more like: why the absolute fuck did the gang bring kim along instead of, oh i dont know, a life-long friend? like, laurance or dante maybe?? im sure its explained, i never saw aphmaus year or most of season 5, but god DAMN id hate to be apart of this friend group AND GOD LIKE, imagine reconnecting with an old friend who ends up getting closer to your best friends and taking priority in their lives over you (cough laurance) like god damn lol

-im just going to preface this one with: i dont remember everything that’s happened, so if im wrong i apologize in advance--but (you actually can correct me if im wrong and please do) didnt like, irene reincarnate her friends in order to give them better lives? I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE, ITS JUST WHAT I REMEMBER--however, if im correct, then:

a. why the hell would she bring back someone like zane, or gene, or ivy, etc.

b. why the hell do they all have the same exact names? first and last? again, im aware that the whole mystreet+mcd tie wasn’t originally supposed to be there, but i dont think that means such a coincidence can be excused? its just a bit much if you ask me.

c. why the hell is the fact that (as much as i literally hate this) aaron is a decedent of shad being ignored? like, you’d think that something like this would be something thats actually important, or something the demon warlock couldve taken advantage of. or are we completely erasing every other connections to divine warriors besides aphmau + irene? because even if irene did reincarnate them or do whatever it is she did, does she even have the power to sever the connections between them and their ancestors? my guess is, no.

d. speaking of irene why on earth was aphmau able to talk to/see irene, they’re literally the same person are they not? did she like, fuckin reincarnate herself without actually doing it?? BUT--i will give it to them, the demon warlock did refer to aphmau as something along the lines of being “one of the 3 parts of her broken soul” or something like that. however, my point still remains. also what are the other two did i miss that or is it never explained

now; if irene in fact did not ‘reincarnate’ her friends then please ignore that little bit right there :)

but yes, those are a few of the problems i have with season 6 off the top of my head. i would go into like, season 4 and 5 more as well, but i honestly didnt feel like it. at some point i might go into other things, like how important laurance could have been to the plot of these later seasons, or HELL, even dante. i might also go into what could have made season 4, 5, and 6 actually good--maybe... a rewrite? perhaps? but im getting too far ahead of myself, so i just leave you with this for now.

and i know that as soon as i post this 15 more things are just going to pop into my head BUT im going to try and not edit this post because why stress myself with that even more

anyways thank you for coming to my tedtalk

#in conclusion i hate it here #lets go back to mystreet bein slice of life pls #anyways tune in next week for 'the hell is pdh??'#aphmau #mcd #mystreet #minecraft diaries #please ignore these next tags im just promoting relentlessly #garroth ro'meave #zane ro'meave #aaron lycan #kawaii chan #kim mystreet #laurance zvhal #pls i have no idea how to tag posts #rant

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spine-buster · 4 years

Text

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 23

A/N: *sings* Taaaake me to church...

February 25th, 2020

Aberdeen Bloom was officially 22 years old.

Despite all the events of yesterday, she was happy. She had a few texts from friends and some Instagram notifications already waiting for her when she woke up, and they put her in a good mood. Her parents called her as she was putting on her makeup, and talked to her until she left to get breakfast downstairs. She already knew she would FaceTime Siena after practice when they got back to the hotel.

When she got downstairs to the continental breakfast, some of the guys were already there, and she knew everyone else was on their way. Jake was already there, wishing her a happy birthday at the scrambled eggs. Mitch was there too, who poured her some orange juice as he wished her a happy birthday as well. Jason said she should be sitting down at the table while everyone else got her the food she wanted. She giggled.

Willy and Kappy arrived together. Kappy wished her a quick happy birthday before he started to get his food. Willy lingered by her. “You talk to your parents yet?”

“They called me this morning, yeah.”

“Siena?”

“We’re FaceTiming after practice.”

William nodded his head understandingly. “Happy birthday,” he smiled softly.

She smiled equally as softly. “Thanks.”

“You gonna be blasting that Taylor Swift song or what?” Travis Dermott asked he appeared beside them, plate piled high with scrambled eggs and bacon. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling twenty-twoooOooOOOooo!” he sang aloud in a horrible high-pitched voice, definitely trying to mimic Taylor Swift but of course failing miserably.

William set down his plate and put his hands over his hears dramatically. Travis began dancing while trying not to have the bacon spill over his plate. Aberdeen couldn’t help but laugh. “Were you doing that when you turned 22?” she asked.

“You bet! That song was on a 24 hour loop,” he smiled.

“Poor Kat.”

“She lived. So what’s your birthday wish?”

“For you guys to win tonight,” she winked.

“We can make that happen,” he winked back. “Can’t we, Willy?”

“My ear drums burst after your awful singing. What did you say?”

“I said WE CAN WIN TONIGHT, CAN’T WE?” he yelled so loud other patrons in the eating area looked towards them.

Aberdeen shielded her face and William turned completely around so they couldn’t see his face. “You’re the worst, pal,” William said to Travis. “And by the way,” he shifted focus to Aberdeen, “we’re definitely winning the game tonight. For you and only you. Bust also so that we don’t have to hear any more of that.”

***

“Did the boys promise you they’d win for your birthday?” Brendan asked Aberdeen as they walked together through the halls to their box for the game.

“They did,” she nodded. “This morning at breakfast.”

“Think they’ll be able to do it?” he asked. They both flashed their credentials to the security guard who let them through easily. Aberdeen could even see Kyle down at the other end of the hallway waiting.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I hope so. It would be kind of nice.”

“No hoping,” Brendan shook his head. “Do you have faith they can win the game tonight for your birthday?” he asked again, his voice sterner.

“Yes,” she answered automatically, nodding her head. She did have faith in them. She had faith that William would probably show off tonight like he showed off when Siena was in the building in Ottawa, but she wasn’t exactly going to vocalize that out loud. “Do you?”

He took a moment to think about it as he looked at her. It wasn’t an automatic reaction like hers was. “Yes,” he finally said. “Because I know how much they adore you.”

***

“Look at him fuckin’ go,” Kyle said with a giant smirk on his face as he watched the replay of William’s goal. It was beautiful. The Leafs were on a powerplay and he was sitting pretty right in front of the net. After a feed from Mitch not going exactly where he wanted it go, William ended up sneaking it in between his legs and putting it in the net, top shelf. Bardown. Beautiful.

“He just surpassed his dad in goals not even two weeks ago and now this. Now he’s just showing off,” Brendan giggled, looking at the replay himself.

Aberdeen watched replay after replay. “This is absolutely unbelievable by Nylander” she heard the announcer say as he broke down the play and the goal. She was so enamoured by the coverage and the breakdown and the smile on his face at the end of it that she almost didn’t notice what Brendan whispered to Kyle.

“Think he’s showing off for someone?”

***

Brendan made sure he and Aberdeen took their time walking down to the locker room after the 4-3 win. He made sure to have his cell phone constantly in his hand, waiting for the right text to come through. He made sure that when he did, he hurried down there with her tagging along.

Aberdeen followed Brendan into the locker room. Brendan nodded at Sheldon. Sheldon nodded at him.

“Alright boys! Everyone get in here!” Sheldon yelled out to the team. Everyone settled down and came back in the locker room, either standing or sitting in their stalls, their gear half on or half off and their hair still sweaty from the game. Brendan and Aberdeen were in the back, standing just in front of one of the entrances, making sure not to block Jack Campbell’s view. “We came back hard tonight. We showed them what we were made of. We held them off in the third period. We stuck with our game. Willy with that game winning goal that I’m sure is gonna be on every highlight reel this season,” Sheldon smiled, and some of the boys clapped and whooped for him. “It was a good fight. It was a good…hey…hey wait. Where’s Spezza?” he asked, furrowing his brows. “Where’s Spezz?”

Everybody began looking around the room. Even Aberdeen started looking. “Spezz?” Tyson asked really loudly.

Silence.

And then…

“Haaaaaaaaaappy biiiiiiirthday to yoooooouuuuu…”

Out of the corner of her eye, Aberdeen saw Jason walk into the locker room carrying a giant slab cake, with 22 candles lit up throughout. It started with just his voice, but as the words dragged on, more voices joined. She saw giant smiles on the entire locker room’s faces as they sang along, and she immediately covered her face in embarrassment, getting way too emotional. Even the cameraman that they sometimes brought on road trips to film content for Blueprints was filming her.

“Haaaaaaaaaappy biiiiiiirthday to yoooooouuuuu…Haaapppy Biiirthdaaayyy dear Aaaaaaaberdeeeeeeeeeen, haaaaaaaaaappy biiiiiiirthday to yoooooouuuuu!”

The entire locker room began cheering and clapping loudly. Aberdeen couldn’t believe it. She shook her head at everything that was happening – the cake, the singing, the filming, the shit-eating grins on everyone’s faces, particularly Jason’s and Brendan’s – and blew out her candles in one big blow, causing everyone to cheer even louder than before. She knew she had an embarrassed look on her face – because she truly wasn’t expecting anything like this – but she was so grateful for the gesture. Her eyes were even tearing up, though she didn’t know why.

“Aberdeen, I think I speak for everyone when I say we wish you a very, very happy birthday in your twenty-second year of life,” Brendan began. “You came into our lives in September, and since then, we’ve grown more and more in love with you, your outfits, the books you bring on the plane…” he motioned with his hands for the guys to pitch in.

“Your no-nonsense attitude!” Jason contributed.

“Your rockstar Halloween costumes!” Travis yelled.

“Your Willy fashion roasting!” Kappy yelled.

Everybody laughed. Brendan laughed too before focusing back on her. “From the streets of good ol’ Etobicoke to 50 Bay Street…you’ll always be part of the Maple Leafs family, Aberdeen. Always.”

Aberdeen’s breath hitched in her throat. She nodded her head. Those were some very kind words from a very powerful man, and she knew just how much they meant. And the fact that he was saying it in front of the team meant so much more. She thought it would be over and done with, but Kappy and Travis had other plans. “Speeeeeeeech! Speeeeeeeech!” they chanted. “Speeeeeeeeeech!” everyone else followed, expecting it like she’d just won an Oscar.

(Maybe she deserved one, since she’d been sneaking around with William and nobody seemed to be the wiser.)

“There’s not a lot I’m gonna be able to say without crying,” she said, still shaking her head. She was still very well aware that the cameraman was still recording. “But seriously, thank you guys so much. This means a lot to me, considering how much of a family we are here. You guys, I…I can’t say enough about you guys. Honestly. But for how much you might love me, I hope you guys know how much I love you all too…”

The guys began clapping when they realized she really couldn’t say anything else because she would have gotten emotional. But it was Brendan who spoke and eliminated the feeling by screaming “ONE MORE TIME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABERDEEN!”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!” they all rushed towards her screaming, engulfing her in a giant mob as she screamed at the fact that twenty-plus men were about the crowd her like she was a fellow hockey player. The only one who didn’t was Jason so he could save the cake. Thank God.

“The gift!”

“Where’s the gift?!”

“Somebody get the gift!!!”

Aberdeen furrowed her brows. Mitch ran from where Jason had come from, hockey pants and socks still on, and brought out a giant box from the back. He placed in right in front of Aberdeen. “What did you guys do?”

“We started thinking about it at the beginning of the month—” Kasperi began, but Jason quickly cut him off.

“—Jen and Bee said we should get you something. But I mean we all thought of the idea of what to get you,” he said, throwing a look towards Kappy. “John went out and bought it, but like we all pitched in.”

Aberdeen kept unwrapped until she tore a part of the wrapping paper and saw the Louis Vuitton logo on the box. She gasped out loud. She didn’t care that everybody in the room was watching her at this point. “Whaaaaaaat did you guys do?!” she shrieked, ripping off the paper even quicker now. When the wrapping paper was off and she opened the box, she gasped dramatically. Everybody had pitched in to buy her a Louis Vuitton Keepall Bandoulière carry-on bag in the damier azur canvas colour. “Are you for real?!” she asked, delicately moving the tissue paper to the side and taking the luggage bag out of the box.

“You like it?” Jason was smiling at her reaction.

“Now we all match with our Louis Vuitton!” Auston winked.

“Yeah, and now you can’t make fun of my fashion anymore!” William yelled.

“Oh yes I can,” Aberdeen replied automatically, not even looking at him – still admiring her new bag too much. “Seriously—I—what made you all decide you were going to get me Louis freaking Vuitton?”

“You roasting Willy’s fashion choices, actually,” Jason laughed out. Brendan laughed too. “Just thought you deserved something nice too, for putting up with us all the time.”

“I’m still making fun of Willy’s fashion choices,” she deadpanned.

“We figured.”

Aberdeen didn’t know who cut the cake. All she knew was that she was handed a piece once she was done groveling over her new bag. She didn’t know when the music started playing. All she knew was someone took her phone and started blasting her Spotify, and a weird variety of songs came on: “Vossi Bop” by Stormzy, which most of the guys vibed to; “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, because of course; and “(Dancin’) On A Saturday Night” by Barry Blue, which caused Tyson to grab her and start dancing with her comically. The guys were eating cake and taking off their gear. The media was still peeking in though their time and interviews had long gone. She wondered if they got pieces of cake.

When everything was said and done, everybody loaded onto the bus to get back to the hotel. She still had a stupid smile on her face as everyone filed in, carrying the box in her hands like a party-size pizza. She put it onto the seat beside her before taking out her phone to respond to some of the last messages she got from her friends, and saw some notifications that piqued her interest.

@kristenshilton: Leafs are celebrating a birthday in the locker room after their Tampa game. Cake and everything. I’m told that it’s chocolate.

@kristenshilton: ‘Vossi Bop’ by UK rapper Stormzy is playing. Nylander tells me, “It came up on Aberdeen’s phone. It’s her birthday. We promised we’d win the game for her.”

Aberdeen Bloom, in question: Brendan Shanahan’s personal assistant.

Aberdeen wondered if this was the first time her name had been put out there by the media. She honestly had never searched her name on Twitter before so she had no clue. Now that it was out in the open, what would happen? What would Brendan say? Would he want it out there? She didn’t have the answers. The only thing she knew was that it didn’t matter right now, because it was her 22nd birthday. She could deal with it later – if she even needed to deal with it.

She went through her unanswered texts and Instagram messages thanking everybody for their birthday wishes. Just as she was about the locker her phone again, she opened her email inbox, noticing a few spam emails from sites she’d signed up for.

But one in particular caught her eye. She opened it immediately.

Dear Ms. Bloom,

Thank you for your submission to the “Memoirs” section of Toronto Life. We have read your essay “Maple Leaf For…Now” but regret to inform you that our team of editors has decided not to publish the essay. We thank you for your time and submission.

Best regards,

Sandy Miller, Senior Editor at Toronto Life Magazine

She immediately closed the email. She didn’t need to read it twice. She didn’t need to dwell on the feeling of being rejected. Again.

It was a quick drive back to the hotel. She followed everybody up to their respective floors and rooms, getting some final happy birthdays before she opened her own door and escaped into her own room. She put the giant box next to her luggage – she’d wonder how she was going to handle the packing tomorrow. She took her phone out of her pocket, seeing a text from William already.

i’ll let u know when i’m coming maybe 20-30 mins? the guys are pretty hyped and i want to make sure they’re in bed

Ok. No problem.

brendan was right tonight u know we all fell in love with u from the beginning i hope u know that

😇

She waited patiently yet impatiently. During the time she was waiting for him, she’d washed off all her makeup, took a quick shower, and even changed into her pajamas. She debated whether or not she should greet him with a sheetmask on, but then she figured that it was her birthday and he’d probably want to kiss her all night, so she decided against it, even as a joke. There was no way she’d waste a sheet mask.

She was sitting on her bed scrolling through her phone when she got the text from Willy. She prepared herself, and when she heard the slight knock on her door, she practically jumped out of bed and ran to the door. She opened it quickly. “Hey,” she smiled, closing the door behind him, even locking it for good measure.

“Hey.”

“What a goal tonight, Will!” she giggled as he got closer, wrapping his arms around her.

“For you,” was all he said. He apparently didn’t want to talk hockey – regardless of how pretty his goal was – or waste any more time. He just began kissing her. Big, open-mouthed, passionate kisses as he walked them towards her bed, falling on top of it when it reached the back of Aberdeen’s knees. Like many times before, they were making out like teenagers; they couldn’t help it. William found her insatiable, and Aberdeen found him just as much, if not more insatiable. She snaked her hands underneath his hoodie and took it off, leaving him shirtless. He did the same to her, leaving her topless in her bed.

“Aberdeen?” he mumbled against the skin between her breasts after what felt like hours of kissing, touching, and grinding against each other’s bodies.

“Yeah?” she managed to get out, though she could feel how hot her body was.

“Can I taste you?”

“Huh?” she blurted out in the most vulgar way that was humanly possible, completely embarrassing herself. She was sure William was going walk out the door right now and never turn back.

William snorted. “Can I taste you?” he asked again, slower, with a dumb smile on his face as he looked up at her.

“I…I…” her chest began to heave slightly. “I mean…okay. But um…I’ve never…” she kept trying to find the right words, but when she thought about what she actually needed to say, it just made her more embarrassed and more prone to stutter out her response. “I mean, I’ve never had…you know, anyone go down on me before.”

William stopped, furrowing his brows. “Wait…you’ve…you’ve never—”

“No.”

“You haven’t been eaten out before?”

“No.”

William seemed shocked. “But you…you’ve had boyfriends…?”

“Yes, Will. God.”

“So…” he was trying to piece everything together. “That guy I met, Zane or whatever his name was…he never ate you out in the entire year you dated?” he asked. Aberdeen shook her head. “What kind assholes did you date?” he shrieked.

“Arrrrrggghhhhh,” Aberdeen grumbled, covering her face with her hands in complete embarrassment. “This is so embarrassing!”

“Noooo no no no, come on, it’s okay,” William kept repeating and cooing as he pushed himself back up, one hand placing itself on her stomach to caress the skin there and on her sides while he leaned on his other arm. “Aberdeen, come on. It’s okay.”

“Is it though? Is it really?” she was peeking through her fingers like a kid.

“Of course it is,” he assured her. “It means I get to be the first one.” Aberdeen removed her hand from in front of her eyes so she could give him a look. “Was there a reason why it never happened?”

Aberdeen shrugged. “I mean…I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about it. Like about how I’d react or how I’d, like…taste,” she used his own words. “But Zane said he didn’t like to go down on girls, so I sort of never, like, asked for it. He was like that from the beginning. And I felt embarrassed to ask if I was just gonna get shot down. I mean…I wanted to try it. He just never would.”

“Did you give him blowjobs?”

Aberdeen knew she shouldn’t be getting uncomfortable, because she was with William and she was comfortable with him and trusted him completely, but it was a direct line of questioning she wasn’t used to. Though she talked about her hookups or past boyfriends with Siena or people like Kasha, she didn’t go into extreme depth like that. “Yeah…a whole bunch of them, actually…” she admitted.

She watched as William shook his head, getting angry. “That guy was a fucking asshole, and I’ll look through every stupid fucking cubicle in the city if I have to so I can punch him in the face for you.”

Aberdeen let out a sigh, running her fingers through his hair to push it back. “Does that make me lame? Be honest.”

“No, minskatt. It does not make you lame,” William asserted. He brought his hand up to caress her face, and trailed his fingers up to her new scar just above her eyebrow. He touched it delicately and she didn’t wince. “Listen…I want to taste you. I want to make you feel good,” he continued softly. “I know you’re nervous. It’s okay. I promise that I’ll go slow, okay? And I’ll stop whenever you tell me to stop.”

Aberdeen was nervous – perhaps more nervous than she’d ever been – but she nodded her head. “Okay,” she said.

“You’re sure?” William confirmed with her one more time.

“Yeah,” she nodded again. “I’m sure. Just…go slow.”

He’d heard her request those words before. “I will, minskatt. I love you.”

“I love you too, Willy.”

He began kissing her again, trying to get her as comfortable and relaxed as possible – how she was before he proposed the idea. They kissed again for a long time, William making sure he could sense her comfortability before he began to move down, running his lips and tongue down to her chest. His lips left her skin only to take off her pajama pants and underwear, slipping them off slowly at the same time before discarding them to the side. He could feel her shiver. “You alright?” he asked. She nodded her head. “I’m going to make you feel great, I promise.”

“You better.”

They both giggled slightly. “Just tell me when to stop if you want me to stop.”

“Okay.”

He continued to kiss his way down her body, eventually spreading her legs open and settling in between them. He could feel her take a deep breath, so he kissed some more – along her belly button, her hips, on the insides of her thighs. When he did that, there was another shiver. “Minskatt?”

“What?” she asked, like she was having trouble even getting the word out.

“Hold my hand.”

Aberdeen looked down. Seeing his face in between her thighs was quite the sight to behold. She grabbed onto one of his hands and intertwined their fingers. She could feel his thumb rubbing her hand assuredly. She didn’t think the first flick of the tongue to taste her was coming so soon. But as she felt his tongue along her folds, she flinched slightly out of surprise more than anything, squeezing his hand. “Oh fuck,” she sighed out, her hips bucking.

With his free arm, he pushed gently back on to the bed. “Was that okay?” he asked, his mouth still dangerously close to her lips so that when she spoke, she still felt them move against her. She nodded quickly. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” she said firmly, her response automatic. “K—Keep going. It felt good.”

Aberdeen looked down, only to make eye contact with him before he dived in again. Her eyes rolled to the back as William continued lapping at her, making her feel better and better with each stroke of his tongue. Soon, there were no nerves anymore – no worries about how she tasted or how she’d never done this before – and her body was doing the talking, squirming and writhing and sighing, her little oh fuck and oh my god comments the fuel William wanted, needed, to keep doing what he was doing. He did everything – quick flicks of the tongue, long laps from bottom-to-top, top-to-bottom, and sucking and licking like he was drinking a thick milkshake, making sure Aberdeen got the full experience.

Her moans were his music. At one point she had let go of his hand so she could bunch the bedsheets in her fists. He could hear her huffs and sighs. “S’at feel good?” he asked quickly.

“God, yes,” Aberdeen whispered, her voice so soft and so full of innocence at the new feeling of it all that William almost came himself right then and there.

“You taste so sweet for me, Aberdeen. You’re so sweet and it’s all for me,” he said, his voice low and full of lust and Aberdeen almost came right then and there.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuck, Willy,” she couldn’t say much more. When he lapped at her with his flat tongue immediately after, she instinctively went to grab and tug on his hair. He’d made it a personal goal that he would make her come with just his tongue, and his groan in response and the vibration from it made her whimper. “Willy—I—Willy—”

He did it again, and she cried out. With his face so firmly planted on her pussy and with her tugging at his hair and making sure he stayed down there, the feeling was almost too much, but she knew she wanted him to keep going. She knew she wanted the build-up. She knew she wanted it to last as long as it could – as long as was physically possible for Willy – because this was, perhaps, the best feeling she’d ever felt.

The fact she was getting louder made Willy know she was enjoying it. She’d moved on from squirms to moans, and now from moans to audible cries, words frantic and scarcely used but enough so that he knew he was doing a good job and she wanted him to keep going. He kept up his movements so he could keep hearing her, the tugging of his hair bringing him the same kind of pleasure as he was currently giving her.

Then Aberdeen went a bit quiet. William didn’t like that. He looked up at her as he was still licking and noticed she was staring up at the ceiling. He squeezed her hand to get her attention. “You okay?”

She looked down and saw how wet his lips were – how her juices were all over his mouth, really, and she could have fucking cried. It was one of the hottest things she’d ever seen. “I feel really close,” she whispered, her voice strained. She’d been moaning and crying out for so long that he was surprised she even had one left. “I—fuck Willy—I feel so close.”

William wanted to make sure any part of her that was still holding back – if there was any left – didn’t hold back at all. He made sure he was making eye contact with her. “Come all over my face Aberdeen. Come for me. Now.”

Aberdeen had never been so turned on. He lapped and sucked once more and within seconds she was a screaming, writhing mess. She couldn’t be quiet. It was impossible. As her orgasm overcame her, flooding her entire body with pleasure, she tried to stop her legs from clamping together and squeezing William’s head in between her thighs. He didn’t care. William moved with each squirm, each scream, each buck of the hips, never once taking his mouth off her pussy as she came long and hard and completely, not once. She screamed and huffed and moaned until she couldn’t anymore, until her throat was dry. When she felt herself finally coming down from her orgasm – earth-shattering orgasm, really, if we’re being specific – she looked down at saw William already looking at her, smiling, her juices all over his lips and face, and she knew it was a sight that would be permanently etched in her mind.

When Aberdeen regained basic consciousness, she could feel William kissing the insides of her thighs again as he was chuckling slightly. He kissed his way back up to her, and when his lips landed on hers, she let out her last moan she had in her as she tasted herself on his lips. “You taste incredible,” he said once they finished kissing, looking right into her eyes as he licked his lips.

“I can’t believe that was what I was missing this entire time,” she said. “Zane’s a fucking asshole.”

William chuckled louder this time, nuzzling himself into her neck as he placed light butterfly kisses there. “I told you,” he said. “It felt good for you?”

She nodded. “It felt incredible. I’m serious. You’re going to turn me into one of those nymphomaniacs.”

“What did you like the most?”

“All of it,” she said immediately, because it was true. There was absolutely nothing that she didn’t like. As she felt his body rest beside hers, his lips still lingering on the skin of her neck, she could feel his erection. She turned a bit so she could look him in the eye, kissing him quickly. “D’you want me to take care of that?”

“No no,” he shook his head. She didn’t understand, especially since he was rock hard. She couldn’t believe him going down on her made him so aroused. “This is all about you. I’ll take care of it.”

“Willy—”

“It’s okay, minskatt. I’ll take care of it,” he said, giving her a kiss before rolling over and getting off the bed. She watched as he disappeared into the washroom and closed the door behind him. She couldn’t think of anything else to do, laying in the bed completely naked thinking about what had just happened, until she thought to grab her underwear and put them back on. She kept herself topless though, as maybe a little treat to William, as she went back to thinking about the feeling of his tongue on her folds, shivering as she remembered.

William was in there for a while before he came back out, seemingly having taken care of it, and climbed back into bed with her. He placed kisses on her breasts and nipples before moving to her neck and finally her lips, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closed against his body. He was topless, too, but kept his boxers on. “I love you, minskatt,” he whispered.

“I love you too Willy,” she said, his body heat and warmth she felt lulling her to sleep so quickly. “Thank you for being my first for that.”

He smiled. “The pleasure was all mine. Go to sleep, minskatt. Go to sleep.”

***

The next morning, William was still in bed with Aberdeen. They’d hardly moved, limbs still intertwined and still holding on to each other like the other would float away. Aberdeen woke up first, her eyes gently opening, noticing and appreciating how close she was to Will. Instinctively – really, she couldn’t help herself – she brought a hand up to his face, barely touching it with her fingertips. The stubble along his jawline and cheeks. The curve of his perfect nose. His soft, sweet lips. He was truly so beautiful. She couldn’t believe he was hers. She couldn’t believe she was his. It was a magical thing to wake up in William Nylander’s arms, knowing that he loved her, and knowing that she loved him.

He shifted slightly, letting her know he was awake – or at least waking up. “Minskatt?” he mumbled, barely audible, before he even opened his eyes.

“I’m right here,” she said in an equally soft voice.

He opened his eyes. He smiled sleepily once he saw how close they were and sighed contently. “I dreamt we were in Sweden,” he whispered.

Aberdeen felt a shiver run up her spine. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “My family was there. My sisters loved you. Alex too. You were sitting by the lake at our house in the country,” he said. “Your hair was down and you were looking over your shoulder back at me. It was perfect.”

Aberdeen couldn’t help but smile. His voice was so soft and his emotion so innocent. “Tell me more.”

“You had on a pretty dress. The sky was blue. So was the water. We could do what we wanted and nobody cared. We could be open with our love and it was so beautiful.”

She felt a small pang of guilt at that. At this point, she knew how bad they both wanted to be out in the open, but life dictated that they couldn’t. She couldn’t just up and quit her job and lose her income. They needed to ride out the wave. It would happen eventually; it just couldn’t happen now. “I’m sorry that we can’t,” she whispered, caressing his face again.

“Don’t apologize, minskatt. We will one day. You’re still the best thing in my life and always will be. I’ll wait forever if I have to.”

It was that statement that got Aberdeen emotional. Here he was dreaming about her in Sweden with him and his family, freely showing their love, but the reality was that couldn’t happen. Yet he said he would wait forever. She wasn’t sure about that. No guy had waited for her before. “But you’ve been waiting already for so long,” she whispered, her eyes welling with tears. “Why are you waiting for so long? Any other guy would have given up and moved on already. Why haven’t you?”

“Shhh, Aberdeen, stop,” he said, squeezing her tighter. “Don’t you get—Aberdeen, you’re it for me. I don’t care that I’m waiting to be out in the open with you. I will wait however long you want me to, alright? You’ll always have me. No matter what happens. You’ll always have me.”

Aberdeen nodded. There was nothing she could say to that. Her heart felt so full at his words. He’d wait. He’d wait as long as he needed to. He loved her. He adored her. She was it for him. “I love you, Willy.”

“I love you too Aberdeen. So much,” he kissed the tip of her nose.

Aberdeen kissed him on his lips, needing to feel them against hers. Like always, they couldn’t stop. “Make love to me Willy…before you have to go.”

He did. It was slow and it was sensual and it was tender and it was everything she could have wanted, needed that morning in bed with him. And afterwards, when he had to put his clothes on and sneak out back to his room, he sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her. “Jag tänker på dig när jag inte ens tanker,” he whispered against her lips.

Aberdeen smiled. She didn’t know Swedish but she knew those words. They were theirs. Theirs and only theirs. Which is why she repeated them back to him. “I think about you when I’m not even thinking.”

243 notes · View notes

werezmastarbucks · 4 years

Text

more like honeymoon [1]

stuck in the prison world together with kai, and it turns out to be awesome

kai parker x reader (ER)

word count: ~4160

warnings: mentions of suicide, suicide, graphic violence, glorification of violence

music: right in the text + darkside by iann dior and travis barker

DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY by Bobby McFerrin segment

You danced, while making sandwiches. This kitchen rocked. They had... they used to have about four hundred types of cheese.

The only thing they lacked seemed to be black bread, so you were forced to make one yourself. Kai was a bit grumpy about it since he wanted to move on to the library, and you got stuck in this hotel. He ended up going without you, while you had a go at making bread, and returned with a hip of books that he threw around in the lobby. He moved all the cozy puffed armchairs together and created a neat nest that didn’t seem to have an end, right in the middle. You were still getting used to how incredibly stylish everything was back in ‘94. The year was absolutely special to you, and you couldn’t have wished for a better year to get stuck in. The best music was already out, the fashion was on its peak, and they already thought of creating relatively skinny jeans - not the kind you enjoyed in the new world, but not the baggy horror of the eighties, either.

It’s been one month and a half that you stayed in the prison world, and it was going very well. So far, it felt to you like a long prepaid holiday with absolutely no restrictions. You were breaking into houses and raided supermarkets, you could visit any cafe and any shop, Kai changed cars every day unless it was a Chevy; maybe there was something dramatically wrong with your head, you had no way of knowing.

You were spreading California cheese on fresh, still warm slice of black bread, dancing goofily to music, and chopping tomatoes.

Kai was resting like a little birdie among the expensive cushions which you knew he’d spot with the tomatoes or the cheese, and you still brought the food out. He gasped, excited, and threw the books away, and you stuffed your faces.

Every day, which was the same day again and again, you discovered the new shades of good in him which was frankly unthinkable before. Kai Parker good; but it seemed like being back in prison either broke him completely, or, more likely, put him back into the environment he knew well. Sooner or later you work out your comfort zone; some people, spending years in imprisonment, learn to live and enjoy the place. Not because they’re weak, but because it’s a survival instinct. Kai’s survival instinct was unbelievably strong.

You listened to music and traveled, and every day you asked yourself when the horror will settle in, and it still didn’t. Looked like, with the right company, and the whole world to explore, the magical prison world could seem like a resort.

COME WITH ME by Phil Collins segment

You were standing on the edge of the Canyon. Kai was holding your hand, clearly thinking about something.

“I can’t believe you’ve never been here before”, he muttered.

You were considering other things.

“Where’s the path again?”

“Right there, where the river turns. There’s a narrow way between the rocks that leads up”.

He looked at you. The sun was slowly going up, climbing over the red mountains, coloring them in insane shades.

“We don’t have to do it, if you’re afraid”.

His face gave a mocking expression as he squeezed your hand lightly.

“I’m not afraid”.

“Then just do it. I gotta say, the first thing I’ll do when we get out, I will marry you”.

You got distracted from your thoughts by this. You looked at him. The rising sun was coloring him, too. Kai had that kind of face which you always wanted to hold. It was just so... holdable.

“You fucking with me?”

He shook his head with a smile.

“No. This place doesn’t even feel like a prison anymore. I love it. Because of you”.

Of course he loved it. He had the whole planet at his disposal, but he wasn’t alone anymore. He still had magic from the merge, and he was high and lovestruck. He was about to jump from the Grand Canyon and fall to death, and then come back and continue his journey.

You’d asked him before which way to die was the most painful. This was about to be your first time dying. Before that, you only witnessed people die.

He said being crashed by a car slowly was probably objectively the most painful. He has never set himself on fire because he wasn’t crazy.

The irony completely escaped him.

Feeling your joints tear, and bones shatter, and all, that’s the worst. But psychologically, suicide was scarier. Knowing that it’s your own hands doing that. Falling from a height like that, there was danger of breaking something and staying alive for a fragment of a second, being horrified by the violent collision with the sharp pieces of rocks, but you wouldn’t probably even notice. Jumping from the Canyon was your idea, and that was why he got so inspired.

You looked at each other. Dying together is fucking symbolic, and this world rocked. For a second there you thought, even if you didn’t know you would resurrect, you would still jump, as long as his hand was holding yours.

You interlocked your fingers not to lose each other too soon, and hopped down. The air whistled and howled in your ears as you fell down. It’s nothing like flying, you thought with disappointment. And too fast, as well. You see nothing but the racing red stone. The feeling of being free is still good, until you crash into the first step of the hard mountain, crushing your skull in several pieces.

The Grand Canyon didn’t hear you two die, it was too big.

It took you the whole day to get out, but it was okay because the next day was the same again.

HEARTS IN FLAMES by Red 7 segment

And the next one. And the next. You discovered something you kinda know, but can’t fathom completely until you actually go there: on the other side of the world, it began with night, because it was the eleventh of May after midnight. Somewhere, the time was going further, and somewhere it was slower.

You rode down the long sandy and stone roads in the deserts, and sped as much as you could, not afraid to crash. You ate at any place you wanted to, Kai showed you the ‘secret’ recipe of making the McDonald’s fries, and he cooked it so well you didn’t see any difference. The process looked disgusting, and you knew, once you got out, you’d never go to McDonald’s again.

Once we get out became a kind of a proverb, a catchphrase you used, hopeful and indefinite, and light-hearted. Neither of you really suffered or felt confined in here; you didn’t know when you’d get out, really, because this time the Mystic Falls gang seemingly made sure Kai never has a chance to walk the earth again. You were just there when they tried to send him away, and you wouldn’t have it.

There are several most important moments in a person’s life, and you knew, in a weird way, that was when you and him got absoultely, ultimately connected. It was your chance to stand up for him for once, and, more importantly, to show him that there is somebody after all who refuses to give up on Malachai. So they sent you away, too. Clutching hands together, as you held his open wound, because Kai kicked and bit better than anybody else you knew, and they had to stab him first, you flew away in a tunnel of white light, didn’t feel anything, and it was ‘94 again.

Once we get out had all kinds of plans you weren’t sure you’d fulfill. Like marrying, and getting a car, and moving away from Mystic Falls. Settling down in New Orleans was yours, and burning New Orleans down to the ground was his, because he didn’t want to live there.

Once we get out was a point in the future very vague and distant, because, three months since you landed in the front lawn of the Salvatore mansion in the past, you had only a spell that was useless without Bennett blood. Somebody, whoever hid the spell, overestimated its importance hugely, and went a very hard way to secure it. Kai found it in Florence, of all places. He couldn’t speak any Italian, and your saying you’re fluent in French only made him chuckle with adoration. Do not let it fool you, his adoring chuckle only meant he thought you were a silly creature. French is no use because it’s Italy, bella, he said. Your ass started arguing that a lot is similar in the languages, and he shut you out with jokes. Then went into the library. You preferred to spend time in the streets, cruising around and remembering everything Anne Rice used to write into them.

The spell was scribbled on the piece of yellow paper and put into The Name of Rose. The backup spell which allegedly could go round the whole blood routine. Kai tried it and nothing happened. You weren’t even that sorry, and you both looked at each other long, promising you would keep looking. But honestly...

The whole world. It was yours.

YOU GOT IT by Roy Orbison segment

You had to carry a big bag with you now with the clothes you ‘stole’ from shops because, even though you could change every day, there were still a couple of things you refused to let go of. Kai was trying to teach you to travel light, but the whole life spent in a usual world still had a hold on you.

You realized you liked sweet life, you liked staying at the big houses where the rich people of ‘94 used to live, with all the rich things they had. The pools were the same, and the mini bars, too. May was warm and sunny, especially so in warm and tropical places, and only in Madrid it constantly rained, again and again.

You realized you still had an overall petrifying respect for the pieces of art, but the prison world was an amazing chance to push your limits. Whatever you destroyed, returned back on its place the next day, because it was the same day. You watched Kai swing a bat at Venus herself. The poor gal didn’t have arms for all you knew. He had no mercy for her. Everything here was like a video game. Kai only did it to show you what it feels like. It seemed like he was determined to use this opportunity to make you completely liberate yourself, but something had a hold on him, too.

You danced a lot, you found it especially romantic to dance in the dim lights of the evening in the hotel lobbies. You could choose anything, anywhere, and yet, so it happened that when you finally got tired of traveling non-stop, you found yourselves in Las Vegas. Kai said, awesome, this city has the best hotels. You really doubted that.

But nothing was better than dancing with him, foreheads touching, in the empty, well-furnished space of the Cesar Palace, and sing to each other. Without other people constantly interrupting, the time and schedules, other faces triggering hatred or anxiety in him, it became so easy to just be with each other. You were high on the free wealth, the opportunities this empty planet provided. You had no idea how much Kai was really enjoying it.

The feeling of closeness was overwhelming, even you felt that. Sometimes you wouldn’t be able to let go of each other for days; Kai kept his journal he understandably abandoned once he got out of here the first time. Now, it was its second go. By the time you have finally had sex to every single song in your 576 songs playlist, it’s been seven months in the prison world.

Las Vegas was cool but it was a desert. However, the desert was simply magical at the end of the day, when the heat settled down, and the dense air cooled a little. You’d drive down the avenues of the empty city to look at the dark and lit buildings. Some of them looked occupied, but there was nobody. You never understood what determined which windows were lit.

CLOSE TO YOU by Maxi Priest segment

“Sometimes I was thinking about killing you”.

You’d be more surprised if Kai had never thought of it. When you love someone, you think about killing them constantly. The one option you never tried before left, which is an absolute no go. The forbidden apple of relationship, the ultimate joy of possession, feeling as the life drains from the one you love. You wondered if it would be scarier than jumping off the Canyon if he killed you. You didn’t know if that was Kai poisoning your mind already, or it was what made you two click in the first place.

“Now you have the chance”, you said. He looked a you, cocking his head, and examined you as if trying to understand if you’re joking.

“You want me to kill you?”

Uttering it was still a little bit too much. You were nervous about falling down that rabbit hole where the whole pushing the borders experiment turns into bloody twisted chaos, and you end up like the children from Gummo. Senseless, pointless violence, filthy, dictated only by lust or ignorance. Kai was far from that still. He was essentially hurt and curious, not filthy. He was bold in the ways he professed his violence. But there’s always this danger of going too far and not being able to pick yourself up anymore.

“I mean, it would be good for you. You know what your cravings do to you if you don’t let the steam off from time to time. Now you can kill me safely and close that door”.

He was thinking about it quietly.

“I’m not interested in hurting you anymore”.

It sounded like a song.

But he listened to you, and listened well.

“By the way, if I can kill you, then you can kill me, too”.

Your head snapped towards him.

“I know you”, he chuckled, “you always wanted blood. But you’ve never killed anybody, have you?”

You shook your head no. Kai was like a serpent playing disinterest, but you could see the tip of his tongue split two ways, showing through his sharp teeth as he spoke.

“It’s a changing experience. Nothing quite like it, a good exercise”.

“Did you actually enjoy hurting others?”

“It felt necessary”, he said simply. “I woud die if I didn’t. Better them than me”.

You looked at him blinking slowly. He was a textbook killer you’ve read about millions of times. The philosophical question of whether that darkness that pushes them towards violence has the bottom and end was still unanswered in the future. You yourself had some gems of unanswered mysteries inside of you. Why were you so attracted to this boy, what made you want to stick with him so much? Why this obsession with being the only one who cares for him? Momma complex much? The saint redeemer? He was just so so cute and murderous and that was it. Maybe you did come from a completely cursed generation after all.

“How would you do it?” Kai asked. You were sitting on the porch of a suburbs house you chose to squat in by the way. It was your ‘pretending like you’re middle class’ week.

“Stab you”, you replied, without thinking. “You?”

“I’ll choke you”, he responded, looking at you. You noted how he didn’t use the conditional, but the future. He has made his mind up.

He took his time, though, trying to intrigue, or unnerve you, perhaps. It’s been about two weeks, or even a month, and you almost thought he forgot about it, which wouldn’t be atypical of him. His thoughts were all over the place.

You really loved this house, resembling any house from a 90s sitcom, with that big family couch in the living room which had the way right into the kitchen.

You finished doing the dishes and put the last plates away. Kai usually cooked, and you did the cleaning, all was fair. He appeared silently, wrapping his hands around your waist, and distracted you with heated kisses. They were heated literally, like he had a fever; you turned to feel his skin, and drowned in the kiss. You felt the itchy hot wave coming up, as his hands slid down your hips, and suddenly, his fingers were on your throat. He broke the kiss, leaving your mouth open, and the next second his face was cold, eyes black like two pieces of coal and you recognized that old Kai whom you met at the Grill. While he was still pretending to be fun, pretending to be nice, before you two got together.

His palms closed on your neck and your brain went in overrun. A part of you knew that was something you had discussed beforehand, and he even chose the right time, just after the sunset, when the kitchen was only lit by the pink-scarlet cloud light. A part of you, the more physical chunk, started fighting him, and the air got blocked out from your throat. The feeling of your own cartilage pressing on your artery was one of the most disgusting types of pain you’ve ever experienced. Your hands flew up, slapping his face, but he could as well be made of stone. The murderousness of Kai Parker was unmatched. Like a bulldog, once he closed his clutch, there was only one way it’d end.

Slowly, as you suffocated, blood throbbing in your eyes, he laid you down, while the darkness was consuming you. Damn, it’s taking so long, you thought with a grudge. You’ll definitely kill this dick back. You knew choking someone takes minutes, but these minutes feel like agonizing hours when it’s you being choked. Just relax and try to enjoy it, your mind said, and you suffocated even further on the inner dying laughter. Your hands were shaking violently as they grabbed his, and you wiggled on the floor. He shook you once, banging the back of your head on the tiles, and you almost blacked out. Your body bent out towards his in a fake desire motion. He put his knee on your stomach to keep you in place and pressed further and you died slowly, confused the hell out, in pain, and a little but irritated.

IKO IKO by The Belle Stars segment

You stood there, looking at the row of knives. A song from the future got stuck in your head, where there were lyrics that went,

that you’ll love me more when I’m dead

Your overall mood has not changed. It was just so good to be together, all the time, like a long, magical [sic!] honeymoon. You did not argue. You weren’t upset. Sometimes you’d get slightly disappointed, entering supermarkets, like this one, and expecting people to be there. After all, you have spent a huge chunk of your life... well, all your life, surrounded by other people.

It was another side of good though, knowing, that Kai is the only other one here. He joked a lot about ‘the last girl on Earth’. He was extremely romantic about it.

One of the knives laid in your palm obediently. It was beautiful: short stirdy grey handle, and the sharp broad blade. You could almost see your own reflection in its perfectly clean steel. There’s something about knives. Something about their inevitability, their thinness. You weighed it in your hand, completely mesmerized. You liked knives and was always the one to chop all the food before Kai could cook it. You were the Chopper in this... family?

You turned to look at him, the tall, lean frame, his black as hell head cocked on the side as he was reading something on a pack of nuts. He never read anything from the packs, so you found it curious. What were you calling yourselves? He was like that demon who slides from below your bed and you hold its cold paw in the dark, questioning, what are we?

The way he looked at you, it really felt like he has reached the end of his path in searching. You’ve never seen him so calm before. And vice versa, he was the only one who ever made you feel like that. It was a unit. He never once called you his girlfriend, and it was different. You never spoke about it, except that one time on the Canyon when he said he’d marry you. He looked very sure about it, but, knowing him, you didn’t think much of it. It was one of the things you’d do once you get out...

You walked up to Kai, and as he turned to you, about to show you something that got him so interested in a plain pack of nuts, you stabbed him in the side of his body.

Kai gasped gently, like it was more of a kick, and, unsure if you’re applying enough force, you pressed further.

His hand didn’t even get down to stop you. Unlike you, he didn’t even begin fighting you. He shot you a short glance, and there was nothing but curiousity in his eyes. He’s died thousands of times. It was horrible to think about it, but he was used to this kind of pain. You asked yourself why you’re hurting him, of all people, but it was cold math. You had to get even, because that’s what you had both decided. Plus, once the blade was inside of him, you couldn’t stop yourself.

You stabbed him again, as he grabbed on a shelf no try and stay on his feet. The second hit went right into his abdomen, and you wondered at the thickness of his stomach; being an innocent child before, you believed that a human body would be like butter, since a knife is sharp and extremely thin. It turned out to be a bit harder than you expected.

Kai fell down and laid on his back, putting his hands aside. You suddenly realized, with bursting heart, that you were the only one person in any world that he allowed to kill him and didn’t even struggle. It was the ultimate demonstration of trust, better than any kind of I love you. The best thing he could ever do.

You sat on top of him, stabbing him again and again, trying different spots. The side proved to be the most vulnerable, and the chest was the hardest to break through because of the ribcage. When the blade got stuck against the bone, Kai was already dead, and your elbow hurt. No matter how much you climbed and how much heavy stuff you carried here, you weren’t becoming stronger, because one day’s excercise does nothing.

The blood was splattering onto his face and yours, and then you got tired, and horror finally seized you. At some point you stopped being curious, and became enraged for no reason, stabbing him blindly, just because he was good being stabbed.

You stopped, panting, and looked into his white face with his eyes open, turned away, drops of his own blood on his chin. Your hands were red as you touched his open wounds, and your own stomach seemed to have sucked on itself with fear.

Why did I do this? What does he like so much about it?

You knew for sure he’d come back. There was no reason for him not to resurrect. But the irrational nervousness grabbed you. You took his chin and turned his face up, looking at him.

I love you so much, and I don’t know why I did it.

His blood was warm and salty. It went well with bubblegum ice cream.

You had no idea that it was invented SUCH a long time ago. You had no hope to find it in ‘94 and felt like an idiot, but a happy one.

You sat on the floor two steps away from him and stress-devoured ice cream for an hour until he finally woke up.

Kai groaned and attempted to get up, lifting his head and looking at the high ceiling for a moment. He then rolled to his side and lifted himself up on an elbow.

“How did it feel?” he went straight to the point.

“Good at first, but then horrible. I think I went a little overboard. I stabbed you about twenty times”.

“I always knew there was something deeply, fundamentally wrong with you”, he said with tenderness. He got up and crawled up to you, attracted by the sight of the half-empty bucket of ice cream.

“I don’t wanna do this anymore”, you said, and felt lonely for a second. “I didn’t really enjoy neither the first nor the second time”.

“Each to his own, I guess”, Kai shrugged, and opened his mouth. You shoved a spoonful into it.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries #vampire diaries imagine #tvd

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bl3uvelvet · 3 years

Text

Found BWOC on YouTube

Edit: I’ve just realized that the episodes on YouTube are presented out of order. I did not realize this until I started season 2. No wonder some things didn’t make sense timeline-wise... So, yeah, just FYI the episodes presented in this are in the order the encore+ people put them in.

Ahhh, childhood. And also, hello again to one of my very first slash pairings (Tommy/Merton). Big Wolf on Campus aired from 1999-2002 (3 seasons).

So, I realize that this fandom probably hasn’t been active in a while, but I was rewatching the show and... wow, was there a lot that went over my head as a kid (full disclosure I was 11-13 when this originally aired). Apparently, I also still somehow picked up on it anyway.

So, I decided to create a list of my favorite questionable moments from Big Wolf on Campus Season 1. Keep in mind this show was meant for kids...mostly. Think Teen Wolf TV series light. The show is campy as fuck, but still kinda hilarious.

This list does not include all the times Tommy just generally touches and moves Merton around to wherever he wants him to be- which is A LOT- and leans over Merton and just tends to act somewhat... casually possessive? Like, the kind of casual, thoughtless touches to the arms and torso/back that you might see couples use. It also doesn’t include all the times Tommy protects Merton from a monster and/or T’N’T.

Honestly, this list is mostly just for me, but hey if someone else finds it interesting, sweet.

Episode 1: Uhh, see something you like there Tommy?

Episode 3: ...Pretty much the whole thing actually. Tommy gets pretty protective of Merton in this one (for good reason though). HOWEVER, at the dance, Tommy tries to talk up a girl (Stacey) and the she so very much implies that she thinks Tommy is there with Merton. Romantically.

And then there’s this line- “I was a little bummed about losing my role model, but I- uh, I had something even better.” CUT TO MERTON TALKING TO TOMMY. “And that’s good enough for me.”

Episode 4: Tommy convinces Merton to throw a party. And then he subsequently messes it up by being a typical jock with his jock buddies to Merton’s face. To make it up to Merton, he does the classic high school romantic moment and announces to the school, in the lunchroom from on top of a table, that he thinks Merton is pretty great. He spends the rest of the episode defending their friendship. (Also, Stacey is kind of a bitch in this episode. Becky has some pretty great lines, though.)

And apparently Merton gave him a flea bath?!

Episode 5: Tommy, not looking happy at Vesper (Muffy) kissing Merton.

Episode 6: Tommy monologuing about there being someone perfect for you out there. “But, if you’re lucky, if you’re really lucky, that person could even be in your third period English class.” Camera pulls back to reveal Merton (then Stacey and Tommy doing a scene together).

Also, Merton sounds a little sour about Tommy’s continued crush on Stacey during the bowling scene.

(Sidenote: Merton! Why would you put that in your mouth?! Bad goth boy!)

Episode 7: That scene where Tommy is about to bite Merton’s neck. (But, before that, the guy that thinks Tommy is coming on to him.)

Episode 8: Tommy is so upset at Merton being bullied by Tim and Travis that he “wolfs out.”

Detention- He’s, like, pretty much leaning right onto Merton.

Later- Uhh, your shirt is unbuttoned a little low there, Tommy, for going to see your friend.

Funny moment- Merton, unafraid to kick Tommy in the junk to get him to change. That’s true friendship right there.

Episode 9: Tommy wants to room with Merton in college. Is upset when Merton has plans to go overseas for higher education.

Episode 10: Merton is apparently very familiar with Tommy’s pro-bowling fantasies. Lmao.

According to Tommy, Aerosmith has a “hypnotic gaze”.

Episode 12: Did...did Merton just give Tommy a prostate exam?! AND WHAT ARE THE OTHER TESTS?! AND WHAT ARE THESE PHOTOS?!

Book scene. You’ll know. (ALL the double-speak.)

Episode 13: Merton is such a good (boy)friend. Buying Tommy ALL the fried chicken. And being so supportive of his seasonal weight gain.

Contortionists club Merton? Oh, hey, Tommy.

Tommy: “You were right. I was wrong.”

Merton’s rack in the dungeon. I mean lair.

Episode 14: Kind of like episode 6. Tommy says he isn’t normally interested in history, but something about this class...(Merton napping in the background while Stacey gives a presentation). Tommy continues to seem interested during Merton’s presentation as well.

Excavating the well scene.

Tommy is super excited to get Leonardo DiCaprio’s autograph.

Can’t bring himself to hurt Merton, who’s possessed by a ghost that wants to strangle Tommy.

Episode 15: I swear they’re trying to get rid of Stacey at this point. Merton backseat gaming. So adorable! Also, dear god, they’ve picked up each other’s habits.

Tommy- asks Merton out for a drink. Seems kinda bummed when Merton says he can’t because he has a meeting.

WHAT LOVE TRIANGLE TOMMY?! MERTON, MARGARET, AND WHO TOMMY??!! YOU’RE THE ONLY OTHER PERSON IN THAT ROOM!! Plus, Tommy did not look thrilled at the mention of her being Merton’s girlfriend.

Episode 16: Tommy takes Merton’s words about individuality to heart and takes off his letterman jacket. Apparently, Merton’s opinion of him matters a great deal. Awww.

Tommy’s reaction when he realizes Merton is completely naked. Priceless.

Episode 17: Another one of those where pretty much the entire episode is an ode to how much Tommy values Merton.

Episode 19: Tommy- “buying flowers for your girlfriend”- Camera is on Merton

Episode 20: Was Tommy about to bite Merton on the neck?

Bad Tommy...still kinda likes Merton when he doesn’t like anyone else?

Episode 22: Tommy freaking out that he might have hurt Merton.

And yeah...that’s pretty much it for season 1. I feel like there was one scene I missed (something about some male celebrity being hotter for some reason, according to Tommy), but I can’t find it now. Oh well.

However, there are a lot of sweet little moments that didn’t make it on here as well. Tommy and Merton have a really close friendship, and there’s plenty of subtext to imply something else if that’s your thing as well.

#bwoc #big wolf on campus #tommy dawkins #merton dingle

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newmusickarl · 3 years

Video

youtube

Album & EP Recommendations

As there is a HUGE amount to cover this week, I’m trying something a bit different with some slightly snappier reviews and a genre inclusion so you can head straight for the recommendation that matches your musical preference. There’s at least one album from all the key genres this week too, so hopefully a little something for everyone. Without any further ado then, here’s what’s good:

Album of the Week: Comfort To Me by Amyl & The Sniffers (Punk/Rock)

My personal preference from this week is the rip-roaring sophomore album from Australia’s own Amyl & The Sniffers. Although I was already vaguely familiar with the band’s previous work, I was still not prepared for the full throttle, smashmouth, rifftastic contents of this utterly brilliant record. As a result, this one hit me like a lightning bolt, thanks to the furious energy of frontwoman Amy Taylor and the mind-melting guitar work throughout.

From the off, absolutely nothing is held back here, as Taylor’s punk vocals and razor-sharp lyrics hit you in the ear like haymakers. What’s most surprising though is how the shredding guitar riffs that are littered across this record manage to sound so astonishing and impressive, yet at the same time as if the band are not even trying at all. It’s completely hypnotising yet everything is made to sound so easy and natural thanks to the sheer rawness of the music.

This one also already plays out like a greatest hits record too, with Guided By Angels, Security, Hertz, Maggot and Capital five of the best pure punk rock tracks to emerge in the last five years. Concise, in-your-face and no moment spared, this is a rock record the kind of which rarely gets made anymore. Without a doubt, one of the best of the year for its genre.

Listen here

Hey What by Low (Experimental/Alternative)

They may be 13 albums and nearly 30 years into their career at this point, but American experimental rockers Low show no sign of slowing down at this point. Still relatively fresh off the back of their hugely acclaimed album Double Negative, which was widely seen as the Album of the Year in 2018, Low are back yet again with another sonic trip into the weird and wonderful.

Now I must admit although a lot of people adored Double Negative, I personally was always a bit indifferent towards it. I appreciated the sonic textures and the heartfelt moments, but it never completely resonated with me like I know it did for others – one that fell into the “easy to admire, hard to love” category. That is not the case with this new album however, as with Hey What they seem to have further refined what they started on that record, creating an album that’s just as impressive but possibly more accessible than its predecessor.

Opener White Horses picks up pretty much where they left off under a tidal wave of soaring vocals and stunning yet unsettling distortion. From there you’ll once again be checking your audio equipment hasn’t broken, as Low playfully mess around with musical conventions and gargantuan glitchy soundscapes to great effect. This also allows the slightly sparser tracks like All Night, Don’t Walk Away and particularly Days Like These, to emerge out of this masterfully produced cacophony as some of the most haunting and stirring moments.

They may not have won me over with the last one, but they certainly have now – an outstanding album that leaves a lasting impression.

Listen here

Star-crossed by Kacey Musgraves (Country/Pop)

Golden Hour was another hit with the critics in 2018 that, much like the Low album, didn’t quite capture me. But again, just like Low, I prefer this latest work from country-turned-pop singer, Kacey Musgraves. With Star-crossed, Musgraves aims to craft her own Shakespearean tragedy, with all the theatre and the drama that goes with it.

The title track opener perfectly sets the stage as the gentle plucking of the acoustic guitar is suddenly surrounded by soaring, multi-layered instrumentation. It is all hugely cinematic and from there on in, Musgraves weaves her tale of heartbreak with plenty of catchy hooks, polished production and solid, heartfelt songwriting. However, the best moments are arguably when Musgraves keeps it raw, such as on camera roll where she takes something as simple as finding old photos of a lost lover on a phone and relaying back to the listener the pain that moment can bring.

In a year that’s already seen some brilliant pop albums, Musgraves stakes her claim with a well-crafted record built on a tried and tested concept. It’s a successful outing with more than enough great tunes and interesting instrumentation (see the jazz flute on there is a light in particular) to keep you interested from beginning to end.

Listen here

Enjoy The View by We Were Promised Jetpacks (Alternative)

Scottish indie rockers We Were Promised Jetpacks also released their stunning fifth album this week. This one pulls at the heartstrings from the get-go as the gentle waltz of reflective opener that’s Not Me Anymore immediately locks you into the record and refuses to loosen its grip until the very last note. There’s plenty of spine-tingling moments throughout too, such as the melancholic riffs of All That Glittered, the haunting sparseness of What I Know Now and the uplifting melody of I Wish You Well.

Listen here

Back In Love City by The Vaccines (Indie)

A band well adept at writing killer hooks at this point, indie rockers The Vaccines have also returned with their fun fifth album this week. Not too much to say about this one other than if you are a fan of their previous efforts the chances are you’ll adore this one too, as their music continues to deliver big riffs and anthemic choruses aplenty, but with more refinement and polished craftmanship at this veteran stage in their career. Highlights include the ultra-catchy title-track and the galloping, Western-stylings of Paranormal Romance, which comes across a bit like their own version of Muse’s Knights of Cydonia.

Listen here

Mother by Cleo Sol (R&B/Soul)

Fresh off her high-profile collaborations with Little Simz and Sault, singer-songwriter Cleo Sol has once again stepped out on her own, this time exploring themes of motherhood. Gracious, compassionate and quite moving, it’s a stirring soul record where Cleo’s soft yet powerful vocals take centre stage against a backdrop of minimal instrumentation. If you need something peaceful and easy listening, you won’t go wrong with this one as Don’t Let Me Fall, Promises and We Need You offer up the most beautiful moments here.

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The Melodic Blue by Baby Keem (Hip Hop/Rap)

There is a lot of pressure that comes with being Kendrick Lamar’s cousin, however you wouldn’t know it listening to Baby Keem’s assured debut album. Although it is admittedly quite hit and miss (first two tracks trademark usa and pink panties ironically leave a lot to be desired), there are enough high points here to make this record worth your time. The collaborations with Kendrick (range brothers and family ties) both strike a chord while the Don Toliver (cocoa) and Travis Scott (durag activity) featuring tracks also dazzle. That said Keem is arguably at his best when he’s riding solo, such as on the heartfelt issues and the Kanye West Love Lockdown sampling, scars.

Listen here

I’ve Been Trying To Tell You by Saint Etienne (Ambient/Electronic)

Crafted over lockdown, this tenth studio album from the London trio is a gloriously understated dive into modern British history, 1997-2001 to be precise. By using evocative imagery and samples from the turn of the millennium, where R&B and bubblegum pop dominated the musical landscape, they have forged quite a dreamy ambient record. Wonderfully creative and a fairly chill listen, it’s a fascinating reflection on a time when the world seemed a lot less complex than it does today.

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The Blacklist by Metallica (Metal/Various)

And lastly on the albums front this week, I have been promoting the various Metallica covers released as part of the The Blacklist project for several weeks now, but now finally the full album has been revealed along with all the covers yet to be shared as individual releases.

At 53 songs long, the tribute to Metallica’s classic Black Album is certainly not one to run through in a single sitting, however there is plenty of fun covers here to dip into and explore. In case you haven’t seen, amongst those offering their own versions of these classic tracks are: Miley Cyrus & Elton John, Phoebe Bridgers, Dermot Kennedy, Weezer, Biffy Clyro, St. Vincent, Rina Sawayama, Sam Fender, Flatbush Zombies, Portugal The Man, IDLES, Cherry Glazerr and many, many more.

Listen here

Tracks of the Week

Beautiful James by Placebo

I’m also over the moon to say Placebo finally released their new single this week, their first since 2016’s Jesus’ Son. Beautiful James shows that Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal haven’t missed a step in their five-year hiatus, with this one centred on a typically instant chorus and some neon-soaked synths. A big welcome back to one of my all-time favourites!

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I Don’t Live Here Anymore by The War On Drugs

Although the first single from their forthcoming new album may have been more understated than normal, on this title track Adam Granduciel & Co. return to the soaring stadium-sized rock for which they are known. Undoubtedly one of their finest tracks to date, you’ll want to stick this one on repeat just so you can keep getting lost in those wonderfully atmospheric guitar riffs.

Listen here

Arcadia by Lana Del Rey

And finally, Lana continues the build towards her second album of 2021, Blue Banisters, with this latest single seeing her on typically vintage form as the song sounds as if it was pulled from another time. With distant horns and a gentle piano, it’s as stunning as any of her best recent work.

Listen here

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valentinesparda · 4 years

Text

in reference to this post:

@nougatships oh god oh geez

@kirasgxddess you come here too

listen, I understand nmh is a silly game. it is a sly commentary on video games as a whole and should not be treated as seriously as I am about to but goddammit if I'm not gonna Go Off.

content warnings for discussions of violence and sexuality, but you should know that already, right?

1444 words lets GOOO

“ LET THE BLOODSHED BEGIN! “

yes yes i know Hee Hee he shake his beam katana suggestively he’s a Funny Boy, but in my humble opinion there can and Should be more depth put into him and his character....and for starters I wanna point out the fact that he lays off of the flirting when he knows it isn't being reciprocated / not appropriate. I half expected him to be completely trashy and nonstop sexual but he really doesn't and I....adore that?? for someone like Him who I mean. he's still pretty raunchy and it's the vibe of the game but like. I really appreciate that he has his moments of Badass and also his moments of Weakness

[ re: moments of Badass - he IS shown as being a capable and feared fighter and they don't stray away from that. bro he's so fuckin cool....effortlessly cool and he KNOWS it. he earned his spotlight and i love him

re: moments of Weakness - if i start i wont stop but essentially im referencing the whole “moved by people’s emotional problems” thing that his wiki page mentions / how he treats people who don’t particularly give him reasons to hate them / aren’t necessarily involved in things ]

so like. part of me wants to project and be like "he just likes to have fun because it is his way of coping with trauma" and "he feels like if he isn't being a bit of a dweeb then what is the point" but a bigger part of me is obviously going to say that he’s like That because he’s written that way. but also. if no one I going to respect you for who you are or what you do and if you're going to live with trauma then might as well have a little fun right?? I mean for gods sake the whole "just because we're assassins doesn't mean we're worth nothing" [ lit. "Assassins aren't tools. As fucked up as we may be, we're HUMANS, too!" ] comment kinda puts a pin in that. he doesn't like feeling like he's used as a tool. everyone else does it because they've got personal vendettas [ which, admittedly, the whole bishop scenario ] or, re: “you’re just a perverted killing maniac” to badgirl, blah blah. he doesn’t do it to actively cause harm; that said, if you’re in his way, you’re in his way. he does it cause it's fun and because he knows he can fall back onto it. he does it for the money and he does it for the memory, and so what if he wants a little bit of fame??

[ I would love to comment on the whole "man he REALLY likes to fight" thing / the commentary on senseless violence being seen as an inherent urge and the parallels to his sexuality / equating violence to sexuality but if I did we would be here all day and I also would sound completely nuts ]

also travis has shown himself to be almost flighty and this gets me to thinking....would he really be in it for the long term?? all he ever talks about is immediate gratification / multiple imaginary flings [ fantasizing about having multiple women around him if he ever hit it big at the beginning of the first game, asking for sylvia to just let him hit it Once becky lemme smash.mp4 ], so like. why would he ever attempt to keep up appearances and pursue a relationship with killian?

let's be real; dude has been out on his own for far too long and he's incredibly touch starved. this is going to manifest in massive amounts of unresolved sexual and emotional frustration and just a lack of positive physical and emotional relationships so of course he will cope however he can. bro, sylvia all but promised that he would get laid and he did whatever she wanted him to do. so once killian shows him that they could and want to - in some way - reciprocate those feelings and balance out what he had been lacking, of course he'll grow attached.

so that all said before I make myself upsetti spaghetti, travis doesn't normally let things get to him. and yeah he might be a little bloodthirsty himself but what's a guy to do. it's the Spirit of the Fight. he sees the humanity in the people that he goes up against and idk man that is something that goes overlooked a lot. it's something in his character that I personally adore. and in the end, he Does care about the people closest to him and he’d do anything for them [ as prominently seen with entirety of nmh2 ]. he’s still incredibly attentive and while he might be a little stupid and hot-headed, he has compassion and he isn’t afraid to be himself. he knows how to have fun. he's talented, he's stylish, he knows it, but he also knows that at the end of the day it really is just a job and a choice and being an assassin doesn’t have to make a person who they are.

travis feels so blessed that he gets to see killian at their most relaxed, that he is the reason that killian smiles. he thinks that their stubborn nature and how quick they are to fluster is adorable and once he bites past that hard exterior and knows what buttons he needs to press to get them to open up, he exploits the hell out of it, and killian could not be happier. hell, at one point [ not that he would ever know it because if killian told him they would die on the spot ] travis was almost the only thing motivating them. even if they have trouble showing it, and even if they didn't become lovers, killian would still have travis as a friend and would still cherish every moment.

travis also likes killian because they balance him out pretty well. they can hold their own and they also see the Business as just a Job or a side hustle but he can also see that they might be a little more in their element in the playing field than they'd like to admit. sure they're hot, they're really kinda mean and a little scary which isn’t normally his type, but they're also capable of being sweet and genuine and out of almost everyone else he has met they're the ONE person who still sees him for him. they don't see the crownless king, they really just see this ordinary 20-something loser who collects figures and likes wrestling and drinks and eats fast food and has a cat and cracks jokes like it may as well be the end of the world and that is something he holds dear to him. they give him what he really enjoys: a fight first and foremost, that’s not something that’s gonna go away, but also a similar soul not to yoink a concept from the first game or anything who treats him the way he really wants to be treated - as a person. not a killer, not a legend, but a man. he appreciates that.

no, even moreso - he adores that. above all else.

[ less important things i want to mention, but because i feel like it is necessary to say and someone might ask: other things that travis likes about killian are their love for soft things, their thighs and body in general, their tenacity, and most of all, their heart. ]

ugh i’m aware that it’s all not that deep, i really am, but travis deserves someone who is gonna treat him like a person first and foremost and also be capable of cheering him on no matter what he does. despite a lot of shit that he DOES do, he still has a moral compass that he follows and by god does he really just need someone there for him. and maybe praise him a little bit. he’s lonely, man.

i-if i say any more i’ll start getting really embarrassed, so i’m gonna leave it right here and maybe pick up on it some other time. i’m just....i’m mainly mad at how weird sylvia is written and to be honest travis deserves better, so that’s where i’m coming in.

TL;DR: to summarize, travis is - at his core - lonely and looking for someone who is gonna treat him like a person rather than as the Crownless King, the No More Hero, but also respects him and thinks he’s cool. someone who he can geek out with as well as have fun with [ in more ways than one, of course ], and he himself will give them the same amount of respect that he gets in return.

#el.txt #otp: never let go #long post

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staticscreenwriting · 4 years

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Casual moths - chapter nine

Find the other parts on my masterlist here.

If you liked this part and wanna help me out, please consider a reblog. Thank you.

Chapter nine - mothers and bears

The sun falls in thick golden rays through the white curtains of Callie’s bedroom, casting it in a warm glow. There’s a wave of serenity washing over them as Angel pulls her closer to his body, trying to savour the peace and quiet of a Saturday morning.

“ We should get up, Daisy is gonna come knocking any moment now. She needs her cereal.”

Angel buries his head further into her hair, getting lost in the scent of her hair. The scent of flowers. The scent of her.

“ You gotta teach your kid how to properly make some cereal. Who puts the milk first. “

“ This is something that won’t leave your head, huh?”

“ Nah. It’s wrong.”

Callie’s body shakes with silent laughter. “ You know what? You just let her watch you do it your way a few times and she’ll copy it soon enough. She adores you. “

“ Does she? “ Angel says and tries to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible.

“ Uh-huh. It’s always Angel this and Angel that. You’d think you’re her boyfriend. “

“ Aw, you jealous mamí? “

“ Nah “ Callie responds before turning around and cradling his face in between her hands “ I’m happy you guys have such a strong connection. She’s my life. The most important person for me. There would be no you and I if she didn’t get along with you.”

“ Yeah, I’m glad she likes me too. “

“ Mama! “ a little voice calls out from the room across the hall. It’s not something Angel ever thought he would appreciate, having a kid around but something about this little routine him and the girls have established in the last few weeks feels — right.

Travis hasn’t shown his face since the run-in at the carnicería but somehow the situation still weighs heavy on both of them. Angel hopes and prays that this is it. That Travis has learned his lesson and has pissed off. But this is Angel Reyes and his life is never that easy. Things don’t just go right for him. If they do they don’t stay that way for very long. He’s constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and things to nosedive.

“ Mamaaa! “ Daisy’s little voice calls out again making Callie let out a sigh before slipping on her pyjama pants and Angel’s shirt left discarded on the floor.

“ I’m gonna go feed the little monster, you go take a shower then join us. “

Her lips are smiling and so are her eyes and Angel can’t help but notice the flutter it sends through his heart. He hasn’t felt this way since fucking high school. It’s silly but it’s so so nice to feel this way again.

“ Alright. “

Callie throws him a wink before walking out into the hallway leaving him alone tangled in the sheets that still smell like her, that still hold the warmth of her skin. If heaven really is a place, he thinks, this must be it.

The kitchen smells like bacon and eggs and toast and a burst of laughter carries through the air coming from the open dining room.

Daisy is devouring a bowl of cereal, watching some cartoon playing on the tv in the living room as Callie puts some bacon on a plate.

“ Man, you girls are already throwing a party without me huh? “ Angel exclaims as he steps into the room, making the girls look at him with smiles playing on their faces.

“ Good morning, Angel “ Daisy says as she waves at him then focuses her attention back on the show and her cereal.

“ Morning princess. “ he replies then walks up beside Callie, placing soft kisses up and down her neck. “ and good morning to you too. “

Something about being with her is different than being with any other woman, Angel realises. Even the most mundane things feel remarkable, special.

“ Sit down, you goof. I made you breakfast. “

“ So you get really strong. “ Daisy chimes in, clearly having caught a small part of their conversation.

“ You don’t think I’m strong enough? “ Angel asks as he walks up beside Daisy and starts tickling her and ruffling her hair. “ You think I’m weak, huh? Huh, little monster? “

Laughter fills the air, fills the entire house. Joy lives here, in every corner and every room. It’s something Angel isn’t used to. It’s something he knew back when he was a kid but something that seemed to have gotten lost along the way. For a long time, he thought that’s what growing up is, losing a bit of happiness as you experience the world for what it is. Being here now though, he realises he was wrong. Joy and love can live everywhere, at all times. Life doesn’t have to make you bitter and angry and sad. Sometimes it just makes you stronger. Love harder. Hold on tighter to the people you love. The people that love you back. Maybe, if he tries hard enough and believes in himself, in the man he can be, maybe then he can let go of some of his demons and let love in.

That morning they sit at the dining table and have breakfast together and laugh and talk and just exist together in a world where bad things don’t happen and the sun filters through the curtains and the world has a golden tint to it.

Angel remembers then, what it felt like to have a family. One that loves unconditionally. One where secrets don’t exist and you don’t have to wonder if they’re keeping stuff from you, for your sake or theirs.

“ So, there’s a party later tonight. Do you wanna come? “ Angel asks Callie as he stuffs the last piece of bacon into his mouth. He hopes his words come of nonchalantly and casual though they are anything but. The club, that’s his family, his brothers. Up until he’s met her, it’s been the biggest part of his life, the most important thing. Recently though the priorities kinda shifted. It’s scary and confusing and he knows that the club should come first, always. But though his head knows it, his heart seems to not give a fuck. His heart is with his flower girls.

“ At the clubhouse? “

“ Mmh.”

“ Do you want me to come? “

“ Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. “

“ Then yes. I’d love to. “

“ Can I come? “ Daisy asks, eyes sparkling with hope and adventure.

“ Aw babes, “ Callie replies, “ It’s a party for adults. “

The defeated “oh” that leaves Daisy’s lips almost breaks Angel’s heart. For a moment, Angel lets his mind wander to a future where there’s another little girl sitting at the table with them. One that looks a little like him. He’s honestly not sure his heart could deal with all that love. Having his own kid was never an idea he liked to entertain. It never felt like something he wanted or needed. Now that thought doesn’t seem all that delusional.

“ You can stay with grandma though, and play with the dog. And maybe go in the pool while it’s still light out. “ Callie tries to reason though all she gets in return is a sad shrug.” But Angel isn’t there. “

Yup. That’s it. He’s officially wrapped around this little girl’s finger. Completely smitten with her and the way she breaks his heart with her words.

“ Princess, how about this. Tonight mommy and I are going to a party and you stay with your grandma and then next week I’ll take you out somewhere. You can choose. “

“ Disneyland? “

He honestly should’ve expected that one.

“ Ah that’s a bit far but how about the carnival? “

“ Yeess !! “ Daisy cheers and enthusiastically claps her little hands in excitement. “ I wanna go on all the fast rides.”

“ A little daredevil huh? “

“ I don’t know what that means. “

“It means you’re brave and you like fun. “

“ It means I’m prone to suffer a heart attack at an early age, “ Callie murmurs around the rim of her coffee mug making Angel crack a grin.

A warmth settles around his heart as he lets himself take in this moment. Bad things exist, they are very real and very scary and they wait around every corner and Angel is still waiting for the other shoe to drop but right here and right now with his girls, life is sweet. And bad things don’t exist here. Not on a perfect golden Saturday morning.

“ There’s no reason for you to be this nervous. We’re only dropping the little one off. We’ll only be there for a few minutes“

“ I’m not nervous. What are you talking about? “

Callie doesn’t answer instead, she raises her eyebrow in mock disbelieve.

Okay, maybe he is nervous. So what? This whole meet the parents thing, it’s not something he’s done a lot before. There have only been two girlfriends that brought him home to meet their parents and both of those were high school girlfriends. Those relationships didn’t hold nearly as much importance to him as this one does. What if her mom realises the kind of person he is? What if she doesn’t think he’s good enough. Which he isn’t but — it’s one thing to be aware of it, it’s a whole nother thing to have her mother know it too.

The red door to the little one story home swings open, revealing the smiling face of a woman that looks just like Callie but older. She has the same warm eyes, the same kind smile. Something about the Cordell women makes you feel — home.

“ Hello. “ she says then glances towards Daisy who wraps her arms around the older woman’s waist. “ hello my princess. I’m so excited for our girls night. “

“ Grandmaaaa. Grandma look this is Angel. “

He tries to swallow the knot that’s building in his throat at the mention of his name. Being included feels incredible but being put in the metaphorical spotlight in front of Callie’s mom feels — terrifying.

“ It’s so nice to meet you, Angel. This little one won’t shut up about you. And this one “ she says and nods towards Callie “ hasn’t stopped talking about you either. “

Angel is well aware of how crazy he is about Callie. Of the fact that she never fully leaves his mind. That whatever he does he wonders what she’s doing at that moment. To hear that she thinks about him in return, it gives him a sense of pride, of validation.

“ Nice to meet you too. Yeah, I don’t know why they want to keep me around but I ain’t complaining. They’re — the best. “

“ They are. “ Mrs. Cordell agrees and grants him another warm smile. There’s no fakeness there. It’s sincere and comforting and motherly and he realises then, how much he’s missed a presence like this in his life.

“ oookay, we gotta go. “ Callie chimes in and Angel can’t help but smile at the red tint sweeping across her cheek.

“ You kids have fun alright? Me and the little miss here are gonna make pizza and watch frozen. “

Angel can’t help but admire the love these women have for their little girl, for their family. It really puts things into perspective.

Callie leans down to place a big smooch on her daughter’s cheek and tells her to be good and behave which Daisy only replies to with a charming smile and an “I’m always good”.

Angel doesn’t doubt it. This kid can do no wrong in his eyes.

Just as they bid Mrs Cordell goodbye and are about to turn away from the door, a pair of small arms wrap around Angel’s leg. “Byeeeee” Daisy mumbles against his jeans as she presses her face against him “I’ll miss you.”

Yup, definitely wrapped around her finger. “I’ll miss you too, kid.” And it’s the god honest truth.

As the scenery of Santo Padre moves past the window, Callie notices that wherever they’re going, it’s not the direction of the clubhouse.

“ Are you kidnapping me? “

“ What? “ Angel chuckles. “ Why would I do that?”

“ I don’t know. We’re not going in the direction of the scrapyard though. I know that much.”

“ Yeah … maybe I wanna take you on a little detour. “

“ Do you now? “

“ Mmmh. “

For a moment they let a comfortable silence wash over them, to relish in the knowledge that they’re existing together in this very moment. Hearts beating in sync.

“ Hey, Angel? “

“ Yeah?”

“ Are you happy?”

And for the first time in a really really long time he doesn’t have to think about it, doesn’t even hesitate as he answers.

“ Yeah, I am.”

She rests her hand on top of his and locks their fingers together. It’s tiny signs of affection like this one that he never thought he wanted but no never wants to miss ever again.

A few minutes later Angel pulls the car into a parking spot in front of a very familiar facade.

“ The shop! Oh, it looks almost finished, you guys did a great job! You told me the windows aren’t done yet. “ Callie gasps as she gets out of the car and walks towards the front door of the flower shop.

The windows are new, no cracks anywhere. There’s a decal on one window saying “Daisy’s flowers” in a swirly font surrounded by little daisies stencils.

“ Yeaaah I might’ve lied about that. Shop’s finished, babe.”

“ No way?!”

The look on her face makes all the work so worth it. He’s used to women looking at him as if they adore him but this is different. It’s usually either because they wanna fuck him or because they like the privileges that come with hanging around a patched member of the Mayans. Callie looks at him and she really sees him. All that he is and all that he can be. Callie adores him for his personality, for his actions. Callie likes Angel Reyes. Not the Mayan. Just Angel.

“ Let’s go inside. “ he says and unlocks the door, leading her inside by placing a hand on her lower back.

“ Wow, Angel! This looks even better than before, I — “ Callie stops in her tracks as her eyes fall onto the wall that, the last time she’d been here, had been smeared with a threatening message that still makes her skin crawl.

“ Do you like it? “ there a nervous edge to his words. He’s pretty sure she likes what he did to the place though he needs to hear the words. He needs the confirmation.

“ Did — did you do this? “ she points at her wall.

Where the treat had been scribbled, there’s now a beautiful mural of a bear and cub on a field of daisies underneath a starry sky. It’s incredibly detailed and colourful and — it’s perfect.

“ I did.”

“ This is incredible.”

“ It’s nothing, Callie. Honestly. I’m not much of a painter, honestly but I didn’t trust anyone else to do it. Trust me I tried finding someone but ... “

Before he even realises what’s happening, she’s got her lips locked on his, her fingers combing through his hair, her body pressed up against his. Angel Reyes has shared a lot of kisses in his life and yet not a single one can compare to her kisses. They always mean something deeper. Something real.

“ Angel Reyes?” she whispers as she pulls way.

“ huh? “

“ I’m in love with you.”

He’s heard those words so many times from so many different girls. Those words were always empty, hollow and fake. They never mattered.

They matter now though. More than anything else ever did. And for the first time in his life, he says it back.

“ I’m in love with you too. “

#angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes fanfic #angel reyes x reader #angel reyes imagine #angel reyes x oc #angel reyes x ofc #mayans fanfic #mayans mc fanfic #mayans imagine #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc fanfiction #casualmothsstory

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theres-a-goldensky · 4 years

Text

16 + 2 Reddie Fic Recs pt. 2

I’m back and still on my Bill Hader bullshit, so here’s another round of Reddie fic recs, because I can’t stop reading and sometimes sifting through the insane amounts of fic is a nightmare. So if you feel my pain and need some (at least in my opinion) fun stories, then come along with me on a magical journey filled with men crying during sex, hypochondria, and your mom jokes.

As ever, feel free to reblog and check out my other rec lists for the following fandoms:

IT chapter 2 list part one - Reddie

Good Omens fic

The Untamed list one and two - various pairings, mostly Wangxian

Various BL Series fic (fandoms: Love By Chance, TharnType, 2Moons series, My Engineer, Until We Meet Again, 2gether, History3: Trapped)

Or just head over to my bookmarks on AO3.

All my recs are completed, almost all of them are post-It chapter 2. * - denotes a favorite

1. I killed a clown. AMA! by liesmyth - ~10,000 words, teen - The history of Eddie and Myra’s marriage shown through their posts on reddit. The voices here are great, and it really feels like reading the reddit forums, down to the people sleuthing through their past posts and comments to try and figure out if what they’re saying is real or an elaborate troll.

r/relationships

Posted by u/martymcfly6xo 7 months ago

My (39F) husband (39M) likes horrible stand-up comedy. How can I stop him from bringing this up in front of our mutual friends?

For the last year or so my husband has been watching a lot of stand-up comedy on youtube. I want him to have something relaxing to do (he works a lot and gets really invested in his ‘hands-on’ hobbies in a way I’m not sure is good for him) but I was very puzzled by this discovery as he likes very crass acts and that is certainly not the kind of humor hubby usually enjoys...

2. all of the kids back home believing much more than you do by eatcheeseliveforever - ~11,000 words, explicit - This is a fix-it fic, which is becoming more and more rare in this fandom as we collectively started deciding that Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t need to be brought back to live, because he never died in the first place, dammit. It has some great pining by Richie. You can really feel his grief and desperation as he searches for a way to get Eddie back. The other Losers are great in this too, especially Mike with his whales.

"A boat, actually," murmured Mike. "I'm on a whale-watching cruise."

Richie mouthed the words "whale watching cruise" to himself. Empirically he knew such things existed, that they happened not far away from the coast where he lived, but it felt like several fucking galaxies away from where he was, surrounded by the ghosts of takeouts and blackouts past and the actual ghost-ghosts, who he couldn't step in or stub his toe on at three in the morning, but hurt so much worse.

"He said you've been googling resurrection rituals."

Richie scrounged through his pile of empties, hoping one wasn't. "Bill talks too much."

"Richie." A sigh, or a wave, or a really quiet whale. "You're not going to find a resurrection ritual on Google."

"I've found hundreds," said Richie. "Funny thing, though, they all seem to call for orgies. Or virgin sacrifices. Or sacrificing someone's virginity in an orgy. I'm hoping Ben will volunteer as tribute."

3. * - you’ve got the answers to my confessions by QueerOnTilMorning - ~17,000 words, explicit - This is the good stuff right here. Richie accidentally sexts Eddie and Eddie is IN. TO. IT. This fic starts with excellent phone sex, there’s misunderstandings and confessions in the middle, and then it ends with super hot sex. There’s a brief part with karaoke that was a bit of a lull in the story, but doesn’t take away from how great the rest is.

suck on ur tongue

show u how much I missd that mouth

when u start getting weak in the knees

thats when ill get on mine

He set the phone aside to unzip his pants, palming himself through his boxers, already half-hard.

Then he froze.

The text he had just replied to--it was what he'd expected Travis to say, but it wasn't how Travis would say it. That text began with a capital letter and contained punctuation. That text was from--

"Oh, fuck, no," Richie whispered, and his phone rang.

Incoming call: Eds

4. * - L'Appel du Vide by Mackem - ~92,000 words, teen - I know, I know, almost 100k and no sex, but hear me out! The pining in this fic is so exquisitely beautiful and wrenching. Eddie’s POV is excellent and feels really spot on. The other Losers are well represented, especially Ben and Bev. In fact, the group dynamics here are almost as good as the relationship stuff. The later chapters bring in a subplot about the deadlights that I wasn’t that interested in, but it’s still done really, really well, and that’s only a side plot that doesn’t impact that exceptional story of Eddie and Richie figuring out how to stop being dummies.

Two messages, however, are from Stanley, sent to him privately. He opens them, and is met with a picture of Richie, apparently taken without him realising.

It shows him laughing, his eyes crinkled at the corners behind his glasses, and his smile bright and broad as a hand gestures wildly in the air. The other hand is in his hair, pushing it out of his eyes as he tilts his head back, displaying the line of his throat beneath his stubble.

The breath is punched from Eddie at the sight of it.

He stares at it for a long moment, surprised by the depth of his reaction. His stomach is swirling happily, a bubble of excitement growing at the pit, and he cannot help but feel a heated flush build at his cheeks.

It’s probably just because Richie looks like he’s enjoying himself. It’s good to see his friend having fun. That has to be it.

Then he reads Stan’s message.

Stan: He was talking about you. He does that a lot.

5. my love a beacon in the night - by zach_stone - ~4500 words, explicit - Richie is on the road doing shows through Christmas. His friends have a surprise for him. I know it’s almost Valentine’s Day, but it’s never the wrong time for a fluffy Christmas story imo.

“Yep, just got to my hotel,” Richie says. “Now I’m getting ready for my big Christmas Eve plans.”

Eddie snorts. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Well according to my TV guide, they’re doing a rerun of The Mistletoe Promise, so I’m all fuckin’ set,” Richie says, grinning when Eddie laughs. On Eddie’s end of the line, he hears the sound of cars passing by, the muffled chatter of people, and says, “Are you outside?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Eddie says.

Richie glances at the clock on the nightstand. It’s after ten; Eddie’s not one to be wandering around Times Square after dark. He frowns slightly. Eddie’s been unusually vague about his holiday plans, so Richie has no clue what he’s up to this evening. Not that it’s any of his business. Maybe he’s started seeing someone and is spending the holidays with them. Richie has a sudden image of Eddie, arm-in-arm with some generically pretty woman, taking in the lights and decorations around the city. It opens a pit in his stomach.

6. Coming Back and Coming Out: Richie Tozier's 2019 by Lunatical - ~2000 words, teen - I genuinely adore the mixed media fics that this fandom has spawned. This one is an excerpt from a magazine interview with Richie as he restarts his career.

Slouched on his couch in a cheesy Hawaiian shirt and torn-up jeans, Richie Tozier looks exactly like the manchild he is describing himself to be. Next to him, sitting up straight and dressed in a lovely suit that most people would consider appropriate for an interview, his husband rolls his eyes.

When we scheduled this interview, Tozier insisted we hold it at their house, citing a desire for the interview to be “as chill as possible”—in his own words, of course. He argued that seeing the two of them in their usual environment would help me get a better idea of the kind of relationship they have. After walking into their apartment and seeing the way they’ve decorated the place, I have to admit that I can understand why.

7. baby, there’s no other superstar by kaspbrakziers - ~7000 words, mature - Another mixed media fic that shows the progression of Richie and Eddie’s relationship and Richie’s career through tweets, texts, and interviews. Eddie not knowing how to turn off the capslock on his phone absolutely sent me.

Search history

Today Sunday, 13 November 2016

should i get a divorce? - Google Search

Unhappily Married: Should I get a divorce? - Yahoo Answers

10 Signs Your Marriage Is Over - Buzzfeed

how to divorce? - Google Search

How To File For Divorce (With Pictures) - wikiHow

how to divorce someone without them getting angry? – Google Search

can you divorce someone without telling them? - Google Search

8. Goes on Trips for the Scenery by InkandOwl - ~4500 words, teen - Eddie dies and then comes back to life and tries to get some perspective. I liked the conversations between Eddie and Richie and then way that Eddie starts to take care of himself. The end is really sweet.

If cosmic power and a literal alien space clown’s death wasn’t going to bring him back to life, Eddie was certain that the terrible pain of hearing Richie beg, his tears dropping onto Eddie’s face, probably would’ve done it. He feels sick just thinking about it. About what it all means. “Yeah, Rich, I will.” He could throw a jab at him, tell him something about eating like an adult for once, but he wants to be easy with him right now. Richie deserves it. “You’ll text, right?”

Richie looks down at the prepaid cricket phone in Eddie’s hand and laughs, “There’s no fucking way that thing gets texts.”

“It does.” Eddie grins, “You could call too.”

The fight drains from Richie, his shoulder slumping and he sighs, “Yeah, Eds, I’ll call.”

9. cause i'm about to blow that back out by thotgreeves - ~5000 words, explicit - Here, have some porn. Eddie wears lingerie and Richie loses his goddamn mind. Features submissive top Richie and his unending boner for Eddie.

Richie really should have learnt to never underestimate Eddie Kaspbrak by now. It had come close to killing Richie once, but Eddie might actually be trying to finish him off.

Because the other perk of always letting Eddie go ahead of him was that it gave Richie a prime view of Eddie's ass. Eddie knew about this part and was okay with it. He was wearing a high-waisted pair of slacks that Richie was pretty sure came from the women's section, slightly loose in the legs but nicely filled out by his ass. Richie had been very vocal in the past about how hot they got him, which signaled that Eddie definitely wanted to have sex tonight, and that was already enough to make Richie's dick twitch in excitement. He hadn't been prepared for the finishing blow.

Richie's eyes were fixed, pendulum-like, on how Eddie's slacks were hugging his butt perfectly with every step he took, tight enough to show off the outline of his underwear. Only the folds didn't sit where Richie had expected them to. Instead, Richie realized, his mouth going dry, that in the absence of boxers, there was only a V-shaped crease running from Eddie's hips to between his asscheeks, which could only mean-

Eddie was wearing a thong.

10. * - I’ll Be Homo For Christmas by Amuly - ~15,000 words, explicit - Bill and Audra get a divorce, so Bill moves into Richie’s house with him. Eddie, watching all of this from New York, where he’s still married to Myra, is super, super ok and fine with it in every way.

Except then Richie started posting.

Just stupid shit, mostly with Bill. It wasn’t even real. Eddie knew Bill wasn’t gay and him and Richie were just fucking around ‘for the ‘gram!’ But the more posts Eddie scrolled past on Richie’s Instagram—

Bill in the kitchen swatting at Richie with a spatula.

Richie and Bill at the pound, Richie rating dogs on adoptability, Richie begging Bill to adopt a dog with him.

Richie in the morning with bedhead, smiling blearily into the camera as Bill…

Well. Eddie couldn’t even remember what stupid thing Bill was supposed to be doing in the background of that photo because his eyes couldn’t get past Richie’s bedhead and shirtless torso, chest hairs creeping up towards his collarbones and the little dip at the base of his throat.

Eddie hadn’t thought he was homophobic. But he must have some unresolved issues with it, because he got a stomachache every time he looked at that photo of Richie. Eddie popped a Tums and resolved to talk about it with his therapist.

11. A High-Five is a Hug You Can Hit by Amuly - ~26,000 words, explicit - This fic shows us times throughout their friendship when Eddie and Richie would invent reasons to touch each other without even knowing why. This author feels the same bone deep conviction about Richie crying during sex that I do, and I greatly appreciate that. Plus, all of their stories are fantastic, including this one.

“You know, one of the symptoms of hypothermia is feeling like you’re warm. So like, your body gets so cold that it gets hot, and then you start taking off your clothes-”

“Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Eddie?” Richie shot back at him without turning around.

“Why don’t you ask your sister how much she liked it last week!” Eddie hollered up at him. Richie just flipped him off without looking. That kinda… bugged Eddie. What the fuck did Richie think he was doing leading up the group with Bill? Why was he stuck back here with Stan? Eddie glanced over at Stan, who was trudging tiredly through the woods alongside him, breath puffing out in little clouds of smoke.

“Okay, Stan?”

Stan glanced over at him, confused. Then he shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Cold.”

“Well that’s better than feeling warm.” And now Eddie was back on track. “Because, if anyone starts feeling warm, they should tell the others immediately. That’s a sign of hypothermia. And we have to warm you up. But you have to do it gradually, you can’t just jump in like, a pot of boiling water-”

12. * - fall apart of stay intact by kaspbrak_kid - ~19,000 words, teen - A more melancholy take on the Christmas fic. This story takes Richie’s self-esteem issues and mental problems and amps them up in a way that feels entirely realistic. The gang comes together to celebrate Christmas, and everyone is walking on eggshells because last Christmas was a bad one for Richie. Also, Eddie moves into the house literally right next to Richie’s, and I find that detail endlessly charming.

“Five minutes ago. I called you, and you didn’t answer. Because you were outside, apparently, fucking...stargazing in December! With no hat on!”

“It’s about the Vitamin D!” Richie says. Now that he’s moved a little, he can really feel the cold—his ears are aching, and his face is numb. “Reflecting off the moon, or something. I have seasonal depression, you know!”

“You have seasonal stupidity,” Eddie mutters, audibly rubbing his hands together. “Just get inside.”

“Yours or mine?” Richie jokes.

Eddie doesn’t get the memo. “Mine, obviously. I’ll make you hot chocolate.”

“Oh,” Richie says, and sits up. “Um. Okay, be right there.”

“Oh, thank god,” Eddie says, and hightails it to his back door, cursing about the cold.

13. evidence of a happier future by lagaudiere - 23,000 words, mature - I am here, leading the Jealous!Eddie revolution. Why aren’t there more fics about this. Have you SEEN Eddie Kaspbrak, can you IMAGINE him jealous? Make this happen, fandom. Anyway, in this one, Richie has a boyfriend back in LA. Eddie has trouble dealing with that as he tries to figure himself out and pick up the pieces of his life post-Derry.

“It’s not gonna be like Mike’s announcement, don’t worry,” Richie says hastily. “And it’s not like, a huge thing, so don’t make it a huge thing. But you guys are like, my best friends, and I just wanted you to know that I’m, uh. Gay.”

He turns up his palms and raises his eyebrows in a gesture that suggests a magician presenting his audience with an empty hat after making the rabbit disappear, and Eddie says, “Are you joking?”

“What? Jesus, no, Eddie.” Richie’s face falls, and Eddie instantly feels guilty. “I’m trying to be sincere here.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says immediately, feeling all of their friends looking at him with reproach. “I was just — if you weren’t, I wouldn’t think you should… joke about it.”

“Well, I am,” Richie says. He sounds slightly put out — and who wouldn’t be, Eddie scolds himself, by that ridiculous response. “I have all the gay credientials. I have a boyfriend, partner, whatever people say. I don’t really tell people because of the whole, stage persona, thing. But yeah.”

“Richie!” Bev’s voice breaks through the awkwardness, and she reaches across the table to squeeze his hand. “Thank you for telling us. Really.”

And the others all join in, a chorus of voices telling Richie they love him and they’re proud of him, and Ben is saying, “I wanna see a picture of the guy!” and Eddie’s throat feels like it’s closing up.

14. The ‘Do Not Fucking Touch Me’ Tour by MellytheHun - ~23,000 words, explicit - It’s Richie’s comeback special, and he makes it a big one. This...isn’t really a comedy show, but the author lampshades that. It’s an excuse to have Richie talk about how much he loves each of his friends individually, and it’s extremely entertaining. Richie doesn’t know that Eddie is in the audience watching it all.

“Hey, uhm… Eddie… he couldn’t reschedule his thing? He - I mean... it… it was really that important?”

She feels awful for him immediately, but not wanting to spoil what would ultimately be a lovely surprise, she tells him, “I’m sorry, Rich. He said it was urgent. He was really sorry about it.”

Her phone buzzes with a text from Eddie right as Richie curses under his breath, missing the noise. She clutches her phone more tightly in her fist, knowing Eddie is wondering where his seat is going to be; she bought him a separate ticket, elsewhere in the theatre, so Richie wouldn’t catch him sitting among them, as he will absolutely, inevitably look over to the Losers for most of the show.

“Okay,” Richie surrenders sadly, “Uh - I guess he’ll see it eventually, right?”

Smiling forlornly at him, she pats his arm, and tells him, “don’t worry, Richie. Your genius will inevitably be forced upon us all.”

He smiles at her, gives her a kiss on the cheek, and when Bill jokingly asks why he didn’t get one, Richie flips him off, and reminds them to treat themselves to the bar in the lobby.

Once he’s backstage, Beverly takes her phone out, and emails Eddie his ticket, explains that she’s already convinced Richie he’s not coming, and to make sure he doesn’t show up too early, or Richie will notice.

15. The List by cissues - ~7000 words, teen - Eddie finds a list he wrote as a teenager. Richie tries his best to fulfill them all. This is very sweet.

‘ All the things I want. Everything I’m not allowed to have. A perfect summer. ”

The words hit gentler than he thought they would, but they still hit and he finds himself blinking away at a wetness at the corner of his eye. He wipes at it and sniffles and Richie peers sidelong at him to make sure he’s okay. He is, he’s fine, and Richie never dotes on him when things are, generally, okay. Only when he needs it, which is one of the many things he loves about what they have now.

“This is… this is like a fucking bucket list for the most repressed child in the world.” Richie says, breathless.

Eddie rolls his eyes to hide the sting. “You’re looking at him,” he says, bitter. Richie frowns at him but turns back to the paper. Another thing Eddie loves, Richie never takes his trauma-induced bait. His knee-jerk reactions developed over years of what he’s now comfortable enough to call abuse.

16. Richie Tozier Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions by DeadpanMage - ~2000 words, teen - This is a short one, but the transcript of this popular YT video format with Richie felt spot on in terms of characterization and Richie’s voice.

[Back to the text screen: “So WIRED asked Richie Tozier some of the internet’s burning questions.” Cut back to Richie, now holding a poster board with several Google autocomplete searches half covered.]

Richie: I’ve undergone something of a rebranding in the past year, so I wonder how many of these questions are going to be super irrelevant-slash-embarrassing. Probably all of them. Let’s get started! [He tears the covering off of the first question.] Alright, that’s not bad. “How to pronounce Richie Tozier?” Well, we’re only on question one and I’ve already said it like a hundred times so there you go. And that’s “Richie Tozier” spelled J-O-H-N M-U-L-A-N-E-Y, so if you’ve got any complaints be sure to send them that way. Next question!

You can check out a larger list of stories I’ve enjoyed in my AO3 bookmarks. And finally, if you’re interested, here are the two fics I’ve written:

1. Waiting For a Sign - ~6000 words, explicit - Eddie meets Richie again and comes to the startling realization that he totally wants to hit that.

Maybe if Richie wasn’t famous, Eddie could have found a way to let it go. A couple furtive jerk off sessions in the shower after he got back to New York and the image of Richie’s big hands and wide smile and improbably flattering stubble would fade from his mind.

But Richie was famous, and the internet never forgot.

Eddie lasted three days before giving in and typing ‘Richie Tozier’ into the YouTube search bar. Just seeing Richie in the thumbnails was enough to make Eddie’s heart thud, what the fuck. He had to scroll past a bunch of news videos about Richie's supposed mental breakdown, but after that he landed on some old stand-up.

Before he clicked on the first video, he got up and made sure that the door of his study was locked. Then he turned off the lights and put on a pair of earbuds.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It - ~21,000 words, explicit - It’s that totally relatable situation where the man you’re secretly in love with is a celebrity who just came out and now needs a fake boyfriend to keep himself in the spotlight. Eddie offers to help out of the goodness of his heart and not because he’s insanely fucking jealous.

Eddie froze, breath catching in his throat.

Richie looked...really good.

Bev’s influence was obvious. His hair, which had been unkempt and shaggy, a perfect match for his stoner permakid schtick, was cut much shorter and neater. His formerly unruly stubble somehow now emphasized the sharp cut of his jaw instead of obscuring it.

He wore new glasses, Eddie noticed. Slim silver metal frames instead of his giant, clunky plastic ones. The fitted black sweater and dark blue jeans were simple, but made his shoulders look impossibly broad and his legs miles long.

Fuck everything and Beverly Marsh in particular.

LINK TO MY FIRST SET OF REDDIE RECS 30+ FICS

#reddie fic #reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #fic recs #it chapter 2 #ao3 #rec list #reddie fic recs

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slashhack · 5 years

Text

Leatherface (Thomas Hewitt) X Reader: Spring Break

anonymous: May I get a Thomas Brown Hewitt first meeting reader who doesn’t see him as dumb or scary and shows him kindness in small ways. (Perhaps she is on a road trip and gets stranded?)

(Note: Sorry for the ridiculously long wait! Hope this lives up to your expectations! And sorry about the word count... I just couldn’t stop writing, lol.)

“Are we almost there?”

Ash tightens her grip on the wheel, gritting her teeth. “We’re about twenty minutes closer since the last time you asked, but no, Damien, we are not ‘almost there.’”

“God, we’ve been driving forever!” Damien says, sighing heavily. His on again-off again (currently on again) girlfriend, Katelyn, nods emphatically in agreement.

“When are we gonna stop? I’m hungry, and I have to pee,” Katelyn whines.

Ash’s eye twitches. Next to her, in the passenger’s seat, Frankie fiddles with the road map. She seems unaware of the fact that Ash is contemplating driving into a tree to shut Katelyn and Damien up (in a way that doesn’t involve them subjecting the rest of you to gross make-out noises).

“Do we have any water?” You ask. Unfortunately, rather than diffuse the mounting tension, all your question does is shift Ash’s ire to you.

“No, we don’t,” Ash replies tightly. “Which wouldn’t be the case if someone had stocked up before we started, like they were supposed to.”

You sink a little lower in your seat.

Frankie reaches out to place a soothing hand on Ash’s knee. “Deep breaths, babe. There’s gotta be a gas station or a rest stop or something somewhere around here. We can stop in, grab some stuff, and get right back on the road.”

“Wouldn’t have to if everyone had just done their part in the first fucking place,” Ash mutters.

Damien snorts, barely attempting to disguise it as a cough. Katelyn outright laughs.

Needless to say, your spring break road trip with your dorm-mates is not going well. The past few hours have seen growing friction between all of you, and you’re almost certain that - despite the fact that one of the goals you’d made for this trip was to form positive relationships with the others - the rest of the group may or may not be planning on stranding you in the middle of nowhere.

(Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Sure, they may not seem to like you all that much, but they're not evil. They wouldn't leave you out in the middle of Texas with no way to get home.

...Right?)

At the first rest stop you find, you volunteer to get out and get coffee and breakfast bars for everyone (except Katelyn, who hates coffee). When you’re handing Ash hers, you lose your footing, and about a quarter of the fresh-brewed coffee sloshes onto her lap. Ash swears a blue streak, insulting you in pretty much every possible way. Frankie gives you a sympathetic look as she mops up the spill and consoles her girlfriend, but doesn’t say anything.

When Damien busts out his radio and asks what music everybody wants to hear, you tentatively offer a suggestion, and he ignores you. You repeat yourself, thinking that it’s possible he just didn’t hear you, and he rolls his eyes.

“I heard you, I just don’t wanna listen to some dumb bullshit.” He grins. “My radio, my right to veto garbage tunes, dude.”

Katelyn laughs. “Ooh, put on K-OKLA!”

Damien smiles crookedly and extends the antenna. “Anything for my girl.”

You decide to take a nap.

(At this point, anything is better than this.)

A good while later, after the stash of granola bars and beef jerky has dwindled down to nothing, you finally reach what appears to be a tiny general store in Travis County. You once again volunteer to go on a supply run. (You’re only mildly disappointed when nobody offers to come with you, or even to help you pay.)

The wooden door creaks as you enter, and when you cross the threshold you aren’t surprised to find a homey interior, complete with photographs and a taxidermied buck’s head mounted on the wall. There’s a woman with cat eye glasses smoking at the counter, so you approach with a shy smile.

“Um, do you have anything that comes in wrappers or is resealable?”

The woman takes a thoughtful drag from her cigarette before saying, “I got some jerky I can wrap up for ya.”

You nod, digging out the remainder of the money you had allotted to the trip. “That would be great. How much is that?”

Praying that what you’ve purchased is enough and having nearly depleted your funds, you step outside, plastic bag in hand. “Hey guys, I got some-”

The bag of jerky slips out of your hand.

The van is gone. In its place, you find your suitcase, laying in the dirt. Dumbstruck, you walk toward it.

You can't believe they ditched you. You thought they were better than that. You thought…

You aren't sure what you thought.

They're probably long gone, and now you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere. You don’t have a car, you have barely any money, and you certainly don’t have any idea what the hell you’re supposed to do.

Behind you, the door to the shop creaks open.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” It’s the woman from the shop.

Blinking hard, you say, “My friends left me.”

A gentle hand is placed on your back. “They left ya?” There’s a pause. Perhaps the woman sees your suitcase, because she says, softly, “Oh.”

You take a shuddering breath, and then bend down to pick up the bag. You turn to the woman.

“Is there anywhere I could stay in town?” Remembering the alarmingly small amount of money in your possession, you add, “...For really, really cheap?”

The woman shakes her head. “Ain’t much around for miles.” She hesitates. “But…”

Your breath catches. “But what?”

“Well…” The woman puts a hand on her hip, and with the other hand she adjusts her glasses. “I s’pose you’re welcome to stay with my family and me for the night. Just for the night, now,” she says pointedly. “Then tomorrow we can have the sheriff drive you to the next town over.”

You feel a fresh wave of emotion crash over you, and almost collapse under the weight of your relief.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” you say. Then you laugh. “Gosh, I don’t even know your name, and you’re being so kind to me…”

The woman smiles gently at you - the first time you can recall her smiling. “My name’s Luda Mae, dear.”

You offer your name in return, thanking Luda Mae again for her kindness.

Against all odds, it appears that your horrid luck is taking a turn for the better.

Luda Mae has two sons. She tells you about them as you help her close up shop and on the trip to her home - first about her eldest son, who sounds curmudgeonly and abrasive, but well-meaning when it comes down to it, and then about her younger son, Thomas. From the second she begins speaking about him, it’s obvious that she adores Thomas; you tell her so, and she nods.

“I love my boy with all my heart,” she says firmly. “Thomas has seen so much pain, all his life… Lord knows my Thomas has earned a little love.”

Luda Mae also tells you about her brother, Monty. She doesn’t have much to say about him, other than that he’s in a wheelchair and that you aren’t to let him bother you.

“You’re a guest, and we treat our guests with respect. If he starts actin’ up, you just let me know,” she gives you a little pat on the arm.

You smile bashfully. “I will.”

When you finally make it to Luda Mae’s family home, you’re curious, but not shocked; you’re a big believer in not judging people based on their appearances, after all. Why would a little old lady, running a mom-and-pop general store, living in a plantation style manor with her family throw you for a loop?

Entering the house, you immediately see an old man in a wheelchair - Monty, you presume - sitting in the living room watching television. He looks up at the sound of the opening door, doing a double-take when he spots you.

“Who the hell’re you? What’re you doin’ in here?” He makes to wheel himself around.

“Now, Monty, don’t you start none,” Luda Mae says. “This here’s a guest of ours. Stayin’ with us for the night, that’s all.”

“What for?”

Luda Mae looks at you, nodding as though to give you encouragement. Taking that as a cue, you say, “My dorm-mates - we were on a road trip, and I got out to buy some food for everyone. By the time I left the store, they were gone. I found my suitcase laying on the ground outside.”

Monty is silent for a moment, as though he’s mulling over your situation. Finally, he shakes his head and turns back to the television, muttering, “Hoyt ain’t gon’ like it…”

Luda Mae scoffs, putting her hands on her hips. “Don’t matter none what Hoyt likes, this is my house, and he ain’t too old yet to listen to his mama.”

Monty doesn’t have a response to that.

You feel your respect for Luda Mae growing more and more by the second.

Luda Mae gives you a brief tour of the house after showing you the guest room, in which you’ll be staying for the night. She walks you through the kitchen, points out a couple of different bathrooms, and tells you where her room is - “just in case of you findin’ yourself needin’ somethin’.” She also, strangely, makes a point to tell you to avoid the basement. You’re curious, but you don’t want to be rude, so you don’t ask why. You do ask if her sons live with her.

“They do. Hoyt’s the sheriff, so he ain’t gonna be home for a while, but Thomas is probably down in the basement. Doin’ what, I couldn’t tell ya, but he just about lives down there.”

Well, that answers your unspoken question, then.

“Don’t you worry,” She continues, “you’ll be meetin’ Thomas and Hoyt. Wanna make sure they know you’re a guest - ‘specially Thomas. He’s a little bit protective.”

Once again not wanting to risk seeming rude, you nod as though you understand. (In truth, you’ve got even more questions now, but you’re not going to interrogate this nice woman in her own home. After all, if there was really a problem with you staying, you’re pretty sure she wouldn’t have invited you.)

Luda Mae is in the middle of asking how you feel about stew when you hear what sounds like a sliding metal door being opened. She gets a slightly nervous look on her face; she lifts a hand to her mouth and says, “Oh, that’ll be Thomas.” She glances at you for a moment before calling, “Thomas! C’mere a second, I got somebody for ya to meet!”

You hear footsteps coming towards you from the direction of the basement. They’re fairly heavy - Thomas must be a sizeable man.

After a brief pause, a figure - a very tall figure - comes to loom in the doorway.

Luda Mae clicks her tongue, putting a hand on her hip. “Don’t be shy, now. C’mon in here.”

Thomas’ shoulders rise and sink slowly in what you suspect to be an inaudible sigh, but he obeys, stepping further into the room. Now, you have a clear view of him.

He’s easily around six and a half feet tall, with long, wavy dark hair that reaches his shoulders. Curiously, he’s also wearing a strange leather muzzle-like contraption that encompasses much of his face; it shows his eyes and mouth, but covers his nose, ears, and most of his skin, and the straps come up over his ears, meeting over the top of his head.

Smiling and giving a little wave, you say, “Hello,” and tell him your name.

You think he gives a short incline of his head, but he doesn’t reply. He looks you over, and you can feel yourself starting to shrink under his silent gaze.

Luda Mae puts a hand on your shoulder. “Don’t worry none. Thomas just ain’t a talker; don’t take it personal,” she gives you a reassuring little pat, and you relax again.

Luda Mae’s attention drifts to the clock on the wall, and she does a double-take. “Good gracious me, is that the time? I best get supper goin’. Stew is all right, you said?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am!” You say, nodding. “Stew is more than all right with me.”

“Good, good,” Luda Mae turns to Thomas and says, “Sweetheart, you mind keepin’ our guest company ‘til Hoyt gets back? Don’t want him to think we got trespassers.”

Thomas gives a single, slow incline of his head.

Luda Mae seems pleased. As she goes to leave, she pats you on the shoulder and says, “I’ll leave y’all be, then. Don’t you worry; you’re in good hands.”

As his mother rushes off to the kitchen, Thomas gives you an unreadable look, surveying you once again. Apparently satisfied with whatever he sees, he turns around and begins to walk off. You assume that you’re supposed to follow him, so you do.

Thomas leads you outside, and the two of you walk for a bit, toward a small garage which stands separate from the house. When he reaches the entrance, Thomas stops, looking back at you over his shoulder for a moment.

It dawns on you, after a moment, what he wants.

“You want me to wait here?”

Thomas nods.

You smile. “All right, then.”

Thomas goes into the garage. You hear the sounds of metal scraping and what you presume to be things getting moved around. You’re beyond curious as to what’s going on, but you resist the urge to crane your neck and try to see. Thomas asked you to stay back for a reason, after all.

After a few minutes, the sounds stop, and Thomas returns, a sack hefted over his shoulder. He gestures with his head for you to resume following him, and you do so without argument.

“Where are we going?” You ask without thinking. Thomas gives you a look out the corner of his eye, and you feel warmth rise in your cheeks. “Sorry.”

You’ve never encountered someone who can’t speak before. You wonder what it must be like, not being able to verbally communicate. You imagine it must be very difficult.

The two of you walk for a good while longer before reaching a fence that you assume marks the edge of the Hewitts’ property. Thomas grunts, swinging the bag off his shoulder and opening it.

He walks a couple of feet along the fence before pulling out - to your surprise - a bear trap, which he places on the ground, kneeling down to set it.

“Is there… Is there any way I could help?” You ask, startling yourself. Thomas seems to be nearly as caught off guard as you; he glances at you, his brows furrowed. After a moment (during which you consider rescinding the offer, just out of embarrassment), Thomas nods shortly. He picks up the burlap sack and holds it out to you. You accept it, surprised when its weight nearly topples you; Thomas had been carrying it so effortlessly, you hadn’t realised how heavy it must be.

You’re not sure how long you spend following Thomas around the property, setting new traps, checking old traps, and sometimes just stopping to look out over the vast space, but you do know that by the time the bag is empty, your feet are starting to hurt. After the bag is empty and you’ve covered every square inch of the Hewitts’ land, Thomas leads you back to the garage, once more indicating for you to wait outside as he takes the sack from you and goes in.

As you wait for Thomas to return, a sheriff’s car pulls up to the house. A man in a sheriff’s uniform, with bushy eyebrows and light, silvery stubble, gets out. When he sees you leaning up against the outside of the garage, he immediately starts toward you. Taking a moment to recall what you know about Luda Mae’s eldest son, Hoyt, you realise that this must be him.

You smile, waving a bit. To your confusion (and discomfort), this seems to cause Hoyt’s expression to sour considerably. He’s yelling as soon as he’s within earshot of you: “What the hell’re you doin’ on my property?”

You shrink back against the wall, your eyes widening. “I-I…”

“Get the hell outta here,” Hoyt shouts, advancing on you quickly. “You’re trespassin’ on private property! You don’t get outta here right now, I got a right to shoot ya!”

“P-Please, no! I’m not- I swear I’m not trespassing, I, I-”

Hoyt makes a grab for your forearm with one hand, the other lifting up, and you stiffen, squeezing your eyes shut, preparing yourself for a blow.

Only it never comes.

Opening your eyes, you suddenly find something - or rather, someone - obscuring your field of vision. Thomas.

“Tommy? What the hell’s goin’ on here,” Hoyt growls. “We got trespassers?”

Thomas shakes his head firmly. He reaches back and tugs you forward to stand next to him, placing a heavy hand on your shoulder.

You can see, now, that Hoyt looks bewildered.

Thomas nudges you, and you realise now is your chance to explain yourself.

“I-I,” you pause, take a deep breath, and then continue with as much conviction as you can muster. “I’m not a trespasser, I’m a guest. L-Luda Mae invited me to stay for the night after my… my dorm-mates abandoned me.”

Hoyt doesn’t seem convinced, but just as he opens his mouth, Luda Mae’s voice floats across the yard from the backdoor: “Supper’s ready! Y’all come on!”

“Comin’, Mama!” Hoyt calls back reluctantly. To you, he says, “We’ll just see about that, won’t we, now?” With that, he stalks off toward the house.

You watch him go until the door closes behind him. When it does, you let loose a shaky breath, lifting a hand to your mouth.

Thomas is still standing next to you. His hand is still resting on your shoulder, the strangely familiar weight helping you stay grounded.

“Thank you, Thomas,” you say softly, almost timidly. “Thank you for protecting me. That was…” You sigh. “...That was really scary.”

Thomas seems unsure how to respond. He nods, his eyes avoiding your face.

He doesn’t remove the hand from you shoulder. You find that you don’t really mind.

You reach up hesitantly, placing your hand on top of his and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Let’s go inside,” you say.

Thomas nods again, and the two of you set off for the house.

You almost swear that you see the faintest hint of a blush on what little you can see of his face.

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ghosty-schnibibit · 4 years

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multiple days early taz grad liveblog! ^u^

ngl this took me completely by surprise and i didn't end up listening to it until around ten o'clock, it’s a bit before one in the morning as i’m posting this lol. managed to avoid any spoilers tho!

how's everybody doing in quarantine? i've mainly been playing minecraft and doing relistens of various podcasts, and just generally staying home :P

anyways, on to the episode!

i was not expecting that intro holy shit, this is so meta

as much as i loved the sillier intro i missed the pretty music the last couple episodes, i’m glad trav’s found a way for us to have both

"the offending skeletons" pfff

oh man this sounds so pretty, wow

griffin w h y

well that's terrifying

"your creepy panopticon continues to function" gary serves the eye

yeah who fucking died to make their room available

awww, is fitzroy scared of ghosts?

does firbolg have ghost hunting abilities???

... that's probably just from the spectral cats tho right

"they're steps of the mind" travis what does that even mean

:o!!! fitzroy the cussing boy

um??? fitzroy wtf are you talking about

yay! crepes for my boy! :D

better than i could do lmao

oh great, more creepy buckminster time :|

... dang, that's an interesting choice. i'm trying to think in-character of what would lead fitz to not telling them, and i've come to four main possibilities: a) fitzroy doesn't trust anyone at the school, even his friends, b) fitzroy hasn't found a way to tell them w/o being in the presence of a gary, c) fitzroy is worried that if he tells anyone they might get disappeared like leon, or d) a combination of all of the above.

kumquat? oh it's those little orangey guys, okay, continuing argo's citrus fixation then lol

"my new hero" can't wait to see all the maplekeene fic that comes out of that line lmao

well fuck that's sad :(

aww firbolg my sweet baby

ilu firbolg :')

OH FUCK, did leon send the broach as a message?

i have never gone from laughing to worried so fast holy shit

... so he's not just mind-wiped, he's being actively controlled

good idea fitz, this is very smart

another moment reminding me of how much i love the firbolg's character and how the other boys interact with him

yay! my favorite girl is back :D

my sweet boys, these are such bad puns, absolute morons the lot of you

argo my dipshit son ilu

she is a necromancer lol

oh fun! dad lich!

... i need art of rainer as a blupjeans baby stat

"he's not not dead!" i love this description

i cannot tell if that's a euphemism or if he's insinuating rainer is some kind of frankenstein

oh dang :O

fiztroy you absolute ding dong ilu

oh fun, new npc :D

go firbolg, nice

so leon actually managed to get through to the guild before higglemas did whatever he did to him, and hieronymus and higglemas appear to be on the same page vis-a-vis wanting to keep the guild out of the school... fuck

althea, good to know, i'm so bad at spelling, i was hearing it as alfia

yay! i missed the money zone :D

aww, thank you trav

wait is that the end? does taz just not have ad reads anymore???

hey what the fuck, i am worried for my boys trav you can't just drop that on me apropos of nothing

how trippy for the rest of the staff do you think it was that all of a sudden jackyl's creepy voice suddenly turned into a lilting brogue

argo my sweet boy

IT'S AN ANTI GARY ZONE

... is he going to- yep, he's telling him about the hot mint

argo my sweet boy you are a valued member of the group

"hot mint is nothing new" oh my darling

ilu jackyl

what do you mean not from a person? do they think fitzroy is somehow linked to the demons in the forest?

thank you for that trav i am bad at remembering scenery details

i get what jackyl's saying here but like... there are ways for argo to ask fitz about his magic without being suspicious. they're pretty okay friends at this point, i don't think it's too much of a stretch to bring up magic in conversation like “hey, i have magic from my parents, do you think your magic could have come from yours?”

argo that's kind of a hollow threat, i don't think you can leave, they'd probably kill you :/

ilu argo my sweet boy

yikes, goddamn, the bad roles are back for argo

what was the end of that line clint

NICE, good rolls are back :)

clint you absolute dipshit

it's not boring! i'm very proud of clint getting so many good rolls in a row!

i love this so much lol

ooooh, this is some pretty music

fitz is on supplemental levels of paranoia

i can get that rationale, he can't solve anything if he can't trust his own perceptions

so he's taking a crack at artificing, fun times

this is an extremely good interaction, i am loving this

what does your little high pitched HMMM mean fitzroy? what are you doing my dipshit son???

oh fun, drawf then i'm guessing

green and gold were my university colors trav don't do this to me

fitzroy sounds like me every time i fall down the rabbit hole of metalworking videos on youtube and think “i wanna make a sword!”

... huh. i have to go back and listen to ep. 7, but is crabtree part of the unbroken chain? i'd be more inclined to trust her if so, i don't know if fitz would be safe crafting a mind protecting charm with her if there's even the slightest possibility that she's in on whatever higglemas is doing

fitzroy my dipshit son, you are an absolute dummy, you are the worst

griffin you planned an entire campaign around magical items

i don't like the sound of that "oh!"

oh this has gone just about as bad as it could have gone

that is absolutely not going to happen

nice thinking griffin, holy cow

not a fan of the foreshadowing implications of that

precision is certainly something fitzroy doesn't have

yes thank you for not doing that griffin

this is probably a bad idea and i am worried for firbolg

"let the wiki show, your honor" i want to check the wiki now to see if anyone’s added that lol

jesus that's a creepy feeling

griffin you have no right to make me cry like this

justin you've murdered me

welp, this is extremely bad :|

what are you doing fitzroy, what is the end game here fitzroy

okay, okay that's a good idea but this music is very terrifying

maybe also talk about what's going on with buckminster please, i am so worried about leon

i am at odds with myself because i adore the friendship development that's going on here, but i'm also so worried for literally all of them and poor argo is being left out

oh nice, very excited to see how that goes next ep

thank you for lifting the mood some griffin lol

clint you've killed me

oh i am so looking forward to this conversation

so a lot went down this episode, huh? compared to how lighthearted and silly the last two episodes were we got a ton of plot development, and in retrospect i’m glad we had an emotional buffer before things got too hairy. i am very worried for my boys, i personally think travis is nailing the build-up of suspense and mistrust between characters while keeping the danger factor mysterious enough that there’s no obvious solution as to who’s right not to trust who. i can’t wait to head into the tag and see the kinds of theories people are coming up with because dang if i don’t have some thoughts.

see you guys whenever the next ep comes out i guess!

#taz #taz graduation #the adventure zone #taz spoilers #ghosty liveblogs taz #it's late enough at night i debated posting this now and just queueing it for tomorrow #but i really wanted to throw my thoughts out before i went to bed bc holy shit this ep

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eponymous-rose · 5 years

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Talks Machina Episode #100 Highlights!

That’s right: 100 EPISODES. That’s a lot of great questions, greater answers, questionable pronunciations of usernames, even more questionable uses of overlays, and a++++ excellent dogs.

The entire cast is answering questions this week!

Max runs an (adorable) intro in the above puppet theater, and each cast member gets a title. Laura is The Heart, Sam is The “Funny Guy”, Travis is The Brawn, Liam is The Actor, Matt is The Brains, Marisha is The Face, Taliesin is The Pyramid, Brian is The Convict, and Ashley is The Favorite.

The cast’s entrance is majestic. There are balloons, sashes, tiaras, and champagne. Henry has a tiara too!

The Search for Grog will air this Friday, February 22 at 7 PM Pacific on twitch.tv/criticalrole. If you miss the stream, it’ll be available Saturday morning on CR’s YouTube channel!

Talks Machina and CR will air on CR’s official channels starting today! Starting next episode, TM will be available on CR’s YouTube channel on Thursday at 7 Pacific, and also in podcast form!

Stats: in 100 episodes of TM, there’s been 81 episodes of Brian’s glorious beard. There have been 9 Skype/FaceTime call-ins! There were 244 guest misnomers before that well ran dry. 93 episodes of pre-show hijinks (thanks to Max James!). 95 episodes of Arsequeef. 826 days of being on the internet!

Brian: "The concept of creating a talk show about a D&D campaign has always been absurd to me, so we wanted to embrace that terribleness.”

There’s now a Steve Cam (quietly reading, meal prepping, and ignoring the show), and a Zach Cam (staring at a monitor that’s all just Liam’s chest hair and the Fjord bust), and a Max Cam (dancing in a stripper cop outfit), Lockey Cam (practicing with a sword in front of a mirror and then charging at Daniel for filming it - Brian: “Hopefully Daniel’s non-union.”), Ed Cam (drinking scotch and counting down the days until football returns, and also lint rolling his new goatee), Chris Cam (rapping in the VO booth), Brittany Cam (dancing with a unicorn blanket, huffing compressed air - Brian: “You can’t show that on Twitch!”).

Matt is asked how his DMing style has evolved with campaign 2. “Well... I’ve been forced to embrace a little more of the tragedy in the characters’ backstories.” The internal and external conflict has been really interesting for him to watch and react to. “I’ve learned to be very proud of my players for mucking up my perception of where things are going to go.”

Coming to Xhorhas, Nott’s thrilled to no longer have to worry about the mask. Sam’s excited about the City of Beasts “to see what kind of fucked-up individuals we’re going to find and seeing how Nott will react to that.”

Yasha definitely sympathizes with Nott trying to save her spouse, but “there’s a lot going on with her going back to Xhorhas. It’s definitely triggering for her, but she understands the need to want to go back. I wish I could go to Xhorhas. We’ll see what happens.” Travis: “I’m pretty sure once we go to a place we can never go back.”

Favorite item on the Talks shelves? Taliesin mentions a magnetic Percy mini, Sam likes the tiny Sams (”It looks like my bedroom!”), Ashley and Brian are partial to the Sully painting, Laura loves the Pike painting, Marisha loves all the stuff the cast bought on a hungover voyage to the flea market when they were first building the set, Matt loves a very cool dice tower. Brian likes the Vecna with Marisha’s face. Matt: “I don’t know if I like that one.”

Laura doesn’t like the party using the derogatory term for the Krynn, because she wants people to be happy even if she doesn’t know them. Sam: “I haven’t been the best for that, but if Jester wants me to... I guess I’ll change.”

There are new wipe transitions featuring the Matt pillow and the Fjord bust. It’s glorious.

Gif of the week: Sam calling Travis “studly” for catching the candy. Laura: “...I like that I’ve been cut out of it completely.”

Arsequeef gets the Lifetime Achievement Award for Gif of the Week. He wins Max’s 2006 Honda Accord.

On Caleb taking off his bandages because there’s nothing to hide anymore: “Was that terrifying for him, or a relief?” Liam: “Yes!” He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it feels good. He’s got f...r...iends?” Marisha: “I love that sitcom. (weakly) F...r...iends?”

Caduceus being a source of comfort, insight, and advice was built into the character. Taliesin looked at low INT high WIS, and Matt immediately started laughing and told Taliesin he’d do well with that. Taliesin: “There’s plenty of things that will eventually flap that, but we haven’t hit them yet.”

As a player, Travis doesn’t like to weigh things carefully all the time, so a lot of Fjord’s leardership has been a bit about pressing fast-forward. Marisha: “So what you’re saying is that your Grog’s poking through.” Matt points out that if both characters have a trait, it’s probably just Travis.

Liam: “I’ve got a little Travis poking me from behind.” Marisha, musing: “So many conflicting beards...”

Beau’s prayer to Ioun mostly came from a “couldn’t hurt” perspective. “I’ll try it out. Give it a spin.” When Travis asks, Marisha clarifies that it was Ioun specifically because of the Cobalt Soul. Travis: “Oh yeah, I totally knew the relationship there. I just wanted to make sure the audience did.”

Bugbear friend or bugbear foe? Sam: “He speaks goblin, he seems cool, his name’s Gluzo. He has a hard-to-pin-down accent, but it’s amazing.” Taliesin: “You have a hard-to-pin-down accent, too. It’s something you have in common.” Taliesin gets asked if his insight check revealed that the bugbear is secretly pretending to be someone else. “Yes, he’s just pretending to be a bugbear. He’s actually Matt Mercer.” Laura: “I like him. ‘Cause he’s cute and he let me give him a tattoo.”

Sam: “Nott trusts her friends to be as strong as they can be, and at this point, I don’t know if she’s as concerned with one of them dying as just getting to her husband in time before he dies. If we lose one along the way, Nott will probably cry a little, but will move on.” What if it were Fjord? “Fjord’s expjendable.”

Matt: “I’ve reached a point where Travis controls Yasha in combat, but I don’t consider any of his roleplay canon.” Ashley: “I trust Travis. Barbarian respect.” Laura: “Don’t give him that.” Ashley: “Travis himself is like a Deck of Many things. This is risky, but it’s kind of fun!”

Sam: “That dunamancy shit is lit.” Liam: “And it’s tied up in everything that Caleb wants, so if he can get on the entropy shit and the gravity shit, you know he’s going to go back in time, motherfucker.” Sam is so excited to have these mystery spells because they’re so new, and they’re inherently something they don’t know how to counter or prepare for. Travis: “It’s almost like every time we play D&D.”

Fanart of the Week: a spectacular group shot.

Everyone freaks out over how good Travis looks with glasses. He takes them off and puts them back on sexily for a while. I was too slow grabbing a screencap, but don’t worry, the gifs will be everywhere.

Laura: “Jester hasn’t experienced a lot of emotions. She hasn’t experienced a lot of anything, really. She’s definitely dealt with sadness in her life, but I don’t think it’s been so in-your-face constantly, just the trauma of it all.” Liam: “Yeah, she’s with some very terrible people.” Laura: “While it is traumatic, it’s also been a great adventure, and she’s enjoying being out and doing things. Even if it might hurt her, it’s so much better than reading about it, drawing it, just imagining how it would be.”

Caleb’s still feeling out the shift in his relationship with Nott, but there’s no question that everything they’ve gone through can’t be forgotten or overlooked. “He sees her as an absolute ally no matter what, and will do anything for her. In a weird way, he feels like they’re even more alike than he thought they were, and he loves her and wants her to succeed in what she’s doing, and hopes that the things that he wants don’t fuck it up entirely.” Sam: “Are you talking about Liam and Sam right now?”

Caduceus’ thoughts on Xhorhas? “A new environment, certainly, and a new aspect of nature that he’s unfamiliar with. This is just more terrain to him at this point. He’s also very unaware of the political realities. He’s vaguely aware there is war. He’s still not sure why we can’t just go up and ask for directions from everyone.”

Brian: “That tiara is the most blessed image.”

Travis on the Captain Tusktooth tattoo: “Brand recognition is huge in Xhorhas.” Taliesin: “Viral marketing.” Laura confirms that it’s not likely to change apart from some small differences from tattoo to tattoo. “Each person gets a special google.”

Laura on fans actually getting this tattoo: “I am ALL ABOUT IT.”

Marisha: “Guys! How about instead of M9 tattoos...” Sam: “We let Laura tattoo us? I would legitimately be down with that!” Ashley: “I’m kind of into it.” Liam: “This is what splits us apart.” Laura: “Everybody gets a dick.” Travis: “How would we explain that to our kid? ‘What’s that?’ ‘Your mom did that.’”

Beau is holding back a bit since her impulsiveness started having negative repercussions. “I think it’s about accountability. She’s started to learn--- especially when she first joined M9, she didn’t have friends, really. I think you had to learn, oh, my actions do affect others around me. I think that’s something you can learn and you can grow in, but yeah, she is trying to not be a total fuckwad anymore. Trying. But old habits...”

Favorite TM moments? Travis: “Do you remember that episode where Brian wasn’t the host?” Brian remembers Travis throwing the card that almost took him out. Ashley fondly remembers PullOutKing. Laura remembers Taliesin saying the phrase “I love teenage assholes” (referring to Percy acting immature), and Taliesin is super glad someone brought that up again just when the tweets were finally starting to die down.

Ashley talks about how proud she is about how far Brian’s come, and how great he’s doing at this. Everyone has an uncharacteristically sincere moment of applause for Brian. Liam: “Everyone take 30 seconds to drop the bit that we think you’re a total fucking weirdo. You’re so good at this, and you’re such a good friend, and we’re so glad you’re part of this family.”

Marisha pitches the idea of trying to sell TM syndicated on LifeTime now that they have 100 episodes.

Brian remembers having food poisoning that led to him running off-screen, throwing up in the middle of the show, and then having to come back. Marisha remembers Travis texting everyone that night with “lol, did Brian just yarf on TV?”

Matt talks about how proud he is of Brian for going from zero tabletop experience to co-running his own game.

Talks Machina After Dog ft. Sleepy Boi Henry

“This is the best dog-petting show ever.”

Liam was skeptical about TM initially, because he was worried it would take away from what would be shared in-game. Marisha: “I was stoked for it, not gonna lie. I was very misunderstood and people hated my character, so I was kind of stoked to just get to explain it.” Travis was sold once they picked the name.

Marisha: “It also set the precedent for really dumb, punny names.” Brian points out that, as a channel, they now can’t stick with serious names as their final choice.

Laura’s sister has been watching the show, and she texted Laura after the show to ask what the whisper was, so Laura’s going to tell her and no one else. Liam: “You’re gonna tell your real sibling?”

There’s a horrified discussion about giraffe fighting. Some segues happened in there.

What’s something their characters have done that’s made them proud? Liam: Caleb using the Wall of Fire. Marisha: the Plank King execution episode as a whole (everyone agrees). Travis: “I was proud of hooking up with an NPC when my wife wasn’t here to threaten me with death.” (he immediately turns to Taliesin: “Help.” Taliesin: “No god can help you now.”) Taliesin: “I sunk a boat.” Laura: Proud of not getting caught with Nott in the Platinum Dragon sanctuary. Sam: Taking the blow for Jester so she could escape. Liam: “Molly showing his dick covered in eggs.”

Matt: “I’m proud of you guys not entirely descending into evil madness. I’m proud of the character arcs of being broken, terrible people, and finding out that it’s okay to be broken; you’re not necessarily terrible.” Liam: “The entire cast went, ‘He’s talking about everyone but me’.” Matt thought it was going to be very hard to keep the group together, but the party turned it into character growth moments. “I’m proud of you.” Laura: “Thanks, Dad.”

Yasha loved the arm wrestling. “Oh man, it’s so fun to be the tank.”

Laura: “I’m really proud of us for saving Kiri!”

Everyone has Liam’s chest hair:

Wishes for the next 100 episodes? More Ashley.

Brian: “I hate this coffee table more than anything in the whole, entire world.”

What’s something that should never change about the show? How ridiculous it is, the barrel, Dani. Also always have a dog. They fundamentally do the show for themselves, still, and that’s made it a really good environment for them to open up about the show and their characters.

Liam: “There’s a lot of beauty to what we do, but it’s also inherently silly. And to deny that is silly.”

Matt likes that it’s unpolished and imperfect. “Things are going to go wrong regardless, and you can either get angry and frustrated about the lack of control, or you can embrace it.” Sam: “None of this is real anyway.”

Brian points out that this is not an excuse to stop paying him.

And that’s a wrap! This is the last After Dark for a while, but there are some big ideas in the works for the coming weeks!

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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maskeddevera · 5 years

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Critical Role: Campaign 2, Episode 77 “A Tangled Web”: Beauregard Lionett’s relationships

With the Critical Role week break coming up, I’m writing a post for each Mighty Nein character analyzing all of their current relationships as of the end of episode 77, including my opinions on romantic relationships. Since I’m writing these posts in alphabetical order, I’m starting with Beau.

Beauregard - romantic relationships and friends as of episode 77

We joke about Beau getting the most action, and it’s true.

Romantic relationships outside of the Mighty Nein:

Beau & Tori:

Beau has an ex girlfriend, a criminal named Tori. We don’t know much about her except like Beau, she was a criminal, so probably not the best influence. However, Beau’s assumption that Tori didn’t truly care for her doesn’t seem to have much basis in what Beau has told us because it is mainly based on Beau not seeing her after they were arrested. Do I ship Beau and Tori at the moment? No, there is nothing to really make us like Tori unless Matt shows up and plays Tori in a way that makes us like her.

Beau & Vorsa

Elven companion that Beau paid five gold pieces for - not really a romantic relationship, but it was as physical one. It sounded like Beau thought Vorsa had a good time, so I’m adding Vorsa the the list to be complete. There is no reason to ship them together.

Beau & Keg:

After adventuring together, they had a one night stand. Keg sneaked out the next day but their night together seemed to impact her positively.

Personally, I can’t take this relationship seriously enough to ship beyond a one night stand. Keg might have been a bit starstruck, but I get the impression that both Beau and Keg knew that this was a one night stand and that they don’t have much in common.

Beau & Reani:

Reani developed a crush on Beau when they were adventuring together, and Beau made her move when Reani attempted to give her a rose. They shared a kiss and probably made love as well.

This kiss was so romantic, and their relationship could develop into something more, but I have trouble believing that Beau and Reani would work in a long term serious relationship. Their personalities and world views are too different.

Beau & Dairon (Wild Card):

Nothing has happened physically in canon. However, Beau clearly finds Dairon attractive and often pretends to be in a romantic relationship with Dairon or tries to use a romantic relationship as a cover. I have felt that there has been some tension a few times between Beau and Dairon that could be read as sexual or romantic...it’s difficult to tell if this tension is just because Marisha and Matt have great chemistry that is bleeding into these scenes. I see potential for a romance here if Matt indicates Dairon ever showing an interest. She is also the character outside of the Mighty Nein that Beau has been most emotionally vulnerable around. The only thing that might make it a bit awkward is crossing the lines from mentor to partner.

The Mighty Nein: Romantic and Non-Romantic Relationships

Beau is a lesbian, which leaves only the ladies of Nott, Jester, and Yasha as Mighty Nein members that she might be interested in romantically. Nott is married, and even prior to knowing that information Beau didn’t show any romantic interest in her, so I’m going to dismiss Nott from romantic consideration for Beau. I also personally read Beau & Jester as friends, so I’m evaluating them as such although I know several fans disagree.

Romantic

Beau & Yasha

Marisha came on strong with Beau hitting on Yasha early on. With Yasha’s extreme awkwardness and how much Ashley has had to be away, it was difficult to tell if Yasha had any feelings for Beau. Some of them started to peek out over time, and Ashley has teased us that Yasha has been developing fond feelings for others in the Mighty Nein. Complications abound that I will discuss more in my Yasha-centric post: Yasha had a wife named Zuala, and we find out where she comes from that you only get married once in your life. Also, since Yasha didn’t witness Zuala being killed, there is the possibility that Zuala is still alive. Just before Yasha broke from the party recently, Beau had started to open up to her. If anyone is going to end up with Beau romantically in the long term, at the moment I could get the most behind Yasha once we get Ashley back on a permanent basis for every Thursday. That said, this ship is for those of us who can withstand a lot of angst.

Non-romantic

Beau & Caduceus

I don’t feel Caduceus and Beau have had much interaction with each other that I can think of off the top of my head, although it is interesting that Taliesin identified Beau as Caduceus’ favorite member of the Mighty Nein way back around episode 50. (I feel like that might have changed with recent events). Caduceus appreciated her attempting to be more honest in negotiations.

Beau & Caleb “The Empire Kids”

How far Caleb and Beau have come from only begrudgingly identifying with each other due to not being able to see in the dark and Caleb needing a convenient shoulder to lean on when he goes into Frumpkin-vision! I adore this friendship -- how Beau was one of the first to call Caleb out, the second to learn his secret, and how she never told his secret. She still knows more about Caleb than most of the other Mighty Nein members. I love how Beau and Caleb’s joint disdain for the corruption of the Empire is turning out to be because they care about people, and how they are deeply becoming involved in wanting to end that war and that corruption. Her reluctance to join Caleb in his studies has morphed into someone who also finds something useful in books. They have a friendship that has developed into a level of trust and respect that I find endearing even when they squabble.

Beau & Fjord

Beau always has Fjord’s back and vice versa. Beau has become Fjord’s first mate (or second mate due to Travis - I think accidentally for memory reasons and not intentionally - demoting her). I like how much Beau respects Fjord’s opinion and listens to his coaching about how she should interact with others. I also like how she wants to give back to him what he has given to her (such as recently offering to have him join her workouts). For being very different people, Beau and Fjord have a rock solid friendship and often end up being the grounding members of the group.

Beau & Jester

(some may disagree with me, but I don’t read this friendship as a romance)

While there is some incredible fan art of these two involved romantically, in game I’ve read their relationship as close friends. Beau has told Jester that she loves her, but for me Beau’s amusement and “well, in a way” when Jester asks Beau if she is secretly in love with her to me sums it up and says it all. The Mighty Nein love Jester, but that doesn’t mean that they are all in love with Jester. I’ve thought about where this relationship could go if they took it a different way, but for me personally, I love the solid comradery of this relationship and the woman-supporting-woman loyalty without adding in romantic complications that could make their solid friendship awkward. While I think Jester gets more out of Beau’s friendship - Beau hypes up Jester to others, defends her, and tells her that it is okay to be sad -- I feel that their friendship exists at all is very important to Beau who has struggled with loneliness.

Beau & Mollymauk

I keep waiting for Mollymauk’s tarot cards to make another appearance. Other than perhaps Yasha, I feel like Mollymauk’s fate has had the most impact on Beau. She truly tries to keep his philosophy in mind about leaving each town better than they left it and also just enjoying life and living in the moment. I also think it might impact how Beau treats others knowing that at any moment this conversation might be your last with them.

Beau & Nott

Do these two ever interact? I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head except for their competitive race to the top of the trees that ended in Nott shooting Beau in the butt. It always seems like when Beau and Nott interact there are others involved such as Jester or Caleb in the middle of the interaction.

#Critical Role #Critical Role: Campaign 2 #Beau #Beauregard Lionett #my musings #character analyses #Critical Role 2: Episode 77 #A Tangled Web #Beau x Yasha #Beau x Dairon #Marisha Ray

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