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hearts-hunger · 3 years

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ciryc ca’tra (cold night sky): chapter five || din djarin x reader

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chapter one | chapter two | chapter three | chapter four

Series Summary: When you crash-land on a frozen planet on your way to Trask, you and Din work together to keep the Crest afloat and keep your little family safe under the cold night sky. || Part One of Jate’kara (Lucky Stars)

Chapter Summary: In the aftermath of the attack, you and Din try and mend each other before you try to mend your broken ship.

Pairings: Din Djarin x Wife!Reader

Genre: Hurt/comfort, fluff, angst | Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: spiders, brief panic attack/ptsd

A/N: This chapter? God-tier. Din is the best husband in the whole galaxy bar none. He’s attentive, he’s soft, he loves to make you laugh. Chock-full of fluff and hurt/comfort, just the way I like it. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope you enjoy it too! ♡

You needed to be near to your husband.

Maybe it was the set of his shoulders as he stood out in the snow, looking towards the place where the X-Wings had gone; maybe it was the way you still felt his hand in yours, squeezing tight like it was the last way he’d ever tell you he loved you. You stepped carefully over the broken glass and crushed metal to get through the cockpit doors, one hand carrying your baby, the other carrying your blaster. The little silver thing shook in your hand as you held it in front of you, and you desperately hoped you wouldn’t need to fire it.

You came down the ladder and had to stifle a sob at the sight that met you.

Gruesome, disfigured spider bodies tangled with cords and wires on the floor; long, stringy webs shone on every surface from floor to ceiling. The floor was slick with ice and slime and webbing; some limbs still twitched where they lay, their faint clicking making you shudder with revulsion. You nursed a low whine of disgust and fear at the hateful things as you stepped over them, webs catching in your hair, your skin crawling with the thought of them. Your shoulders tensed with every sound, every faint sign of fading life from the things that had infested your home.

You wanted to take a gasping breath of fresh air when you stepped through the web-covered break in the siding, but the wretched spiders were everywhere, the acrid smell of the green fluid mixing with the exhaust from the Crest’s smoking thrusters. The body of the giant one was collapsed over the top of the Crest, its legs seeming to swallow the ship like it wanted to pull it deep into the ice with it as it decayed.

You heard something scuttle across the rubble and swung your blaster around to aim at it, but before you even spotted it, it was reduced to a heap of ash by a shot from behind you.

You stood looking at it for too long, watching the way the smoke curled up towards the cavern ceiling; you jumped and let out a choked sob when you felt Din’s hand on your shoulder.

“Just me,” he said, like he was afraid to spook you. He put a hand on your wrist and eased the blaster down; he gently pried it from your fingers and holstered it on his own belt.

“Easy, cyar’ika,” he said softly, pulling you towards him. You gave a pathetic whimper and leaned into him, felt his hand move to your back to hold you securely against him. Your chin quivered with sickness and emotion, and you weren’t sure if you were going to be sick or burst into tears.

Your baby gave a quiet coo, and your body made the decision for you as you finally started to cry. You leaned completely against your husband as sobs wracked your body, every bit of fear and hurt and tension shredding through you until you were so overwhelmed by it you couldn’t catch your breath. Din gently eased the baby from your arms and urged you to try and take a breath.

“Ok, cyare,” he soothed, deep worry coloring his voice. “Breathe for me, love. Try and take a deep breath.”

You sucked in a greedy, hitching breath, pressing your hands to your face, trying to tether yourself to something - you felt your whole body had gone numb, and you couldn’t breathe -

Din took one of your hands in his and held tightly, like he had in the cockpit, and suddenly your breath caught on a groaning sob like the sound of purest grief. Gasping moans tumbled from you, and it seemed like you’d never stop. You wanted this to be over. You wanted to be home. You didn’t want your home to be a pile of rubble underneath a giant, lifeless monster.

“Din, I can’t - ” you sobbed, “I don’t want - I can’t - ”

“I know,” he said, and the grief in his voice matched yours even if he couldn’t give himself over to it like you were. “I know, cyare. It’s ok. Just breathe for me.”

He stood patiently with you, letting you hold onto him, murmuring words of comfort in Basic and Mando’a until you’d finally worn yourself out with crying. You scrubbed at your hot, tear-streaked face, your shoulders hitching with your stuttering breaths, dizzy and tired and more run-down than you’d ever been in your life.

“That’s it,” Din said gently. “Deep breaths.” He grunted a little as you hugged him tightly, trying to be as close to him as you could.

He ran a soothing hand up and down your back. “You’re ok, cyar’ika. I’ve got you.”

“Sorry,” you said miserably, his chestplate cool against your burning cheeks. You’d wasted valuable time breaking to bits like that, out here where you were most vulnerable to attack. You couldn’t imagine keeping a hold of yourself like Din was, and wished you could be stronger.

“No, cyare,” he said, kind and yet firm. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You... we’ve suffered a great deal of fear and loss. You don’t have to apologize for feeling that.”

He tucked you protectively against him, one arm wrapped around you and the other holding your son. He gave a heavy sigh and rested his helm against your head.

“Mandalorians have a word - mirjahaal,” he said. “It means peace, or healing of the spirit. You say it to people who’ve suffered a loss or gone through something traumatic.”

“Mirjahaal,” you repeated. You had always loved the way Mandalorian words sounded, and held on to the way this word sounded strong and gentle at the same time.

Din hummed in agreement. “You can’t heal unless you feel the wound, cyar’ika,” he said gently. “And there’s no shame in being wounded.”

You let your husband hold you and offered your hand to your baby; he took your pinkie in a gentle grasp and cooed at you. There, with your little family held close in the protective circle of Din’s arms, you felt a little less of the terrible weight that had settled on your heart.

“Mirjahaal,” you said again, softly. You didn’t know how, but you felt things must get better; you would heal, and so would your family. You would be safe and have an abundance of peace. You knew you would.

You looked up at Din’s visor. “I love you.”

He gently touched his helmet to your head. “I love you too.” His grip tightened on your waist, and you lightly kissed the bottom of his helmet.

“We’re all safe, cyare,” he said, and you knew it was to remind himself as well as you. “We’ll find a way out of this, I promise.”

You nodded wordlessly; the baby gave a quiet, happy babble.

Din’s laugh was wobbly through his vocoder. “I love you too,” he said, cradling his son closer to his chest. “You were very brave with mama, weren’t you, verd’ika?”

You smiled at the nickname, “little soldier” in Mando’a. His grip on your finger was strong, and you felt a wash of gratitude that he hadn’t been hurt. You didn’t know what you would have done if either he or Din had been injured, and felt profound relief that they were both safe.

“Come on,” you said, pulling away from Din just enough to take his hand in yours. “Let’s try and fix our home.”

Din let you keep your hold on him as you ducked back inside the Crest; you were thankful for his strength and steadiness as you took in the state of the ship with a clearer mind. It looked more hopeless than it ever had, a mere shadow of the safe, familiar fortress it had always been for your little family.

“Haar’chak,” Din swore quietly. “This is... the worst I’ve ever seen her.”

You gave his hand a comforting squeeze.

“We’ll fix her, Din,” you said, trying for confidence. You slipped your hand from his to reach down and pick up a box, saw a severed spider leg leaning against it, and bit your tongue to keep from yelling every curse word you’d ever learned from your husband.

You crossed your arms over your chest lest you be tempted to tidy anything else before the spiders were gone.

“I know it looks bad,” you said. “But we can handle it. We’ve...” You trailed off, your gaze snagging on the webs sticking from the ceiling to Din’s armor, and wondered fleetingly how covered you must be in the sticky residue.

He cocked his head at you. “What?”

“You’re just... covered in webs,” you said. He looked up and turned his head slightly, making the threads billow with his movement.

He sighed. “Yeah. I’ll have to scrub my beskar for a week to get everything off of it.” He gestured to you. “At least I have armor - you’re covered in it too.”

You gave him an unimpressed look. “Yes, I know I don’t have armor on, dearest. Thank you.”

His huff of a laugh was cut short, and you could tell by the sudden stiffness of his posture that something was wrong.

“What?” you asked, trying to tamp down the panic rising in your chest.

He held out a hand, like he might do to steady a skittish Fathier that could buck at any moment.

“Don’t freak out,” he said in a purposefully calm voice. Your baby was watching you with wide eyes, cooing with interest; all of a sudden you knew what it was, and your shoulders tensed with utter revulsion.

“Oh, kriff - get it off, Din, get it off, get it off,” you pleaded, squeezing your eyes shut. You felt a little scurrying movement on your shoulder and heard a tiny chitter, and you really and truly whined at the thought of the horrible thing on you.

You felt Din’s hand swipe your shoulder, then heard a single blaster shot. You jumped and opened your eyes to see a scorch mark on the floor as Din holstered his blaster at his hip.

“It was that big?” you asked in dismay. You’d assumed he would just bat it away and step on it, but if it had been big enough to shoot at -

“No,” he said. “But I didn’t want any more spider guts on my boots.”

You ran to him and put your arms around his waist, feeling your skin crawl.

“It’s gone, cyare,” he said, though you knew he didn’t mind the hug.

You shuddered. “I don’t care. I’m staying right here with you, forever.”

He chuckled. “Okay.”

Your baby gave you a happy coo, delighted to see you so close to him as he leaned contentedly against his father’s chest, and you gave him a little smile.

“I love you, my little darling,” you said quietly, just for him to hear. He babbled and brushed his claws through your hair with intentional gentleness.

“Yes, nice pets,” Din said, like he had when teaching the baby to pet the Tusken Massiffs. “Be gentle with mama’s hair.”

You couldn’t help a laugh, but were reminded of the thing that had just been in your hair a second ago.

“See if there are any more on me,” you said, dreading the possibility.

Din leaned forward a little to check your back. “No, you’re fine.” He pulled a few strings of webs from your hair. “Have you ever considered shaving your head?”

You looked up at him. “It’s that bad?”

He considered the lock of your hair tangled in his fingers. “It’s... going to take a lot of dedicated brushing, I think.” He looked back down at you. “Not that I would know. Perks of an extremely religious upbringing.”

You gave him a wry smile and found yourself very relieved and comforted that your husband was joking with you.

“Thank you for slaying the beast,” you said. “All of them.”

“My pleasure, cyar’ika.”

He looked around at the interior of the ship, a low sigh coming through his modulator. “The only way I can think to get us out of here is to just fix the cockpit. There’s no way I can make enough of a repair of the hull to make it usable.”

You thought of the damage the cockpit had sustained and felt its repair alone was an ambitious goal; with the state of the Crest and your limited knowledge of mechanics, you agreed with his assessment that the majority of the ship would be nothing more than scrap metal until you could get it to a shop.

“We’ll get it fixed, Din,” you said. “Surely there’s someone on Trask who can help.”

He nodded. “I hope so. I’d really like to take it to Peli, but we can’t make it to Tatooine before we do some patchwork.”

You thought fondly of the short, curly-haired mechanic who’d become as good a friend to you and Din as any you’d found on your travels through the galaxy. If she and her droids were here, Din would have the Crest as good as new in short order, and your baby would have the company of one of the many people he’d charmed within the first few moments of meeting them.

“Though I should thank her for getting me into this mess,” Din said, an edge of uncharacteristic surliness to his voice. You knew he was just tired and overwhelmed, and tried to be kind when you responded.

“It’s not Peli’s fault that we’re here, my love,” you said gently, pulling a few threads of webbing from his pauldron. “She wanted to help a friend, and really, we owed her for helping us find someone to take us to the other Mandalorians.”

He gave a resigned huff. “Somebody to take us to the Mandalorians won’t do us much good if we don’t get off this kriffing planet.”

“Well, good thing we are getting off this planet,” you said. You looked up at him without judgement, but you wanted him to know you weren’t going to indulge his grumbling.

He sighed, and you saw how his shoulders slumped a little.

“You’re right,” he said, weary. “Sorry. I’m just...”

You would have kissed his helmet, but it was so covered in webs that you settled for tapping it gently where you knew his mouth was.

“I know,” you assured him gently. “And you don’t have to be all sunshine and starbursts for me, you know that. But if you start doing down the path of doom and gloom, we both know I won’t be far behind.”

He breathed a laugh. “Can’t have that, can we?” he asked. Then, very tenderly, “Thank you for keeping my head on straight, ner kar’ta. I couldn’t do this without you.”

You beamed at that; he only ever called you ‘my heart’ when he was very pleased and proud of you, and you were happy that what little help you could offer in the grand scheme of things had been that important to him.

“You won’t ever have to,” you reminded him. “I mean, I’ve stuck with you through a giant spider attack. There’s really not much worse you could throw at me.”

He gave a wry hum of agreement. “No, I guess not.” He looked around at the tangled spider bodies that had begun to close in on themselves, and you knew him well enough to know he was grimacing under the helm.

“They are pretty awful, aren’t they?” he asked. “I’ve dealt with some questionable creatures before, but I think these take the uj'alayi.”

Just the mention of the dense, sweet Mandalorian cake was enough to make you start daydreaming about it. “I could go for some uj'alayi right now,” you said dreamily.

He chuckled. “When we get the Crest back on her feet, I’ll make you some,” he promised. “But for now, I guess we can eat our fill of roasted spider.”

He waggled his fingers towards you in imitation of the creepy things, and you batted his hand away with a laugh.

“That’s disgusting,” you said, and he laughed too. “I’d rather share the frog eggs with the baby if it came down to it.”

Din tried to muffle a laugh but it ended up just sounding kind of strangled, and not a second later did you hear the quiet croak of the frog lady from behind you. You looked wide-eyed at Din, struck with sudden embarrassment like a youngling talking about someone behind their back on the playground, and he merely cocked his head at you. You knew he was trying not to laugh under his helmet, and you gave him a petulant shove against his chestplate.

“Good thing we have some rations left, right, cyare?” he said, intending to be overheard.

You tried for a withering look but couldn’t quite manage it; his shoulders shook with suppressed laughter and you couldn't help a grudging smile at how his mood had improved.

“I’m so getting you back for that,” you said in a low voice.

You knew he was smiling at you; you could always tell with Din.

“I’ll be on my guard, cyar’ika,” he said amusedly, assuring you he was looking forward to whatever you’d cook up to get back at him with. You felt a brief, hesitant desire for your husband, something you were sure would have burned much brighter if your circumstances had not been so dire. You hoped that once you got out of this mess, you could take a breather of sorts - maybe drop the baby off with Omera and go back to Naboo for a long weekend in the sun.

The thought of your home planet’s warmth only made you feel the cold of this planet more sharply, and you allowed yourself a little sigh as you were brought back to the reality of your situation.

“Alright,” Din said to both you and the frog lady, and you knew he’d felt the end of your short reprieve as well. “I’m gonna repair the cockpit enough for us to limp to Trask. There’s nothing I can do about the main hull’s integrity, so we’re gonna have to get cozy in the cockpit. It’s the only thing I can pressurize.”

You’d never minded being in the cockpit before, but you’d also always had the option of roaming the ship. You idly wondered how long it would take to get to Trask, considering lightspeed was out of the question, and began to mentally prepare yourself for a lengthy trip with a toddler who wasn’t used to being so cooped up.

“If you need to use the privy, do it now,” Din suggested. “It’s gonna be a long ride.”

He handed the baby over to you, and your son gave only a slight coo of protest before he snuggled into your arms. You wished you had somewhere to take him to let him run around for a bit before you settled in the cockpit, but there wasn’t a single place in or around the ship that wasn’t in smoking ruin or littered with spiders.

Come to think of it, there really wasn’t any place for you to go. You looked up at Din.

“Can we stay with you while you work?” you asked.

He shrugged. “If you want to. It won’t be very entertaining.”

You gave a tired wave of your hand. “Fine by me.” Dozing in the passenger seat while Din worked on the repairs seemed luxurious compared to the events of the past few days.

You turned to the frog lady, intending to ask if she’d like to come up with you, but she had set herself to the task of gathering the smaller spider bodies and tossing them outside. You cringed as a limb broke off one when she picked it up, but as much as you had all disliked them when they were alive, they didn’t seem to faze her now that they were dead.

Din stepped forward as she put her weight into dragging a larger one towards the split in the hull, his body language tight with almost comical unease.

“You don’t have to - ” he started, but she gave a dismissive croak and muscled the spider across the floor. Both you and Din reacted with wincing aversion, but she didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Ok then,” your husband said quickly, clearly content to let her continue if she wished and unwilling to continue watching her do it. He steered you towards the ladder. “We’ll be up in the cockpit if you need anything.”

Like he always did when you went up the ladder with the baby in hand, Din let you go first and hovered protectively to catch you if you slipped. You never had, but you didn’t mind indulging that particular habit for the sake of his nerves. You actually appreciated it then, with webs and slime covering each rung - Din’s hand on your thigh was steadying as you fought to overcome your reluctance to keep a firm grip on the sticky ladder.

The cockpit was covered in webs too, and Din kindly swept them from your seat before he started pulling them from the instrument panel. You felt a little guilty as you sank into your chair, watching him set to work - you were achy with exhaustion, and you knew that for all his armor, he’d gotten battered and bruised in the fight with the spiders and was running on only a few hours of broken sleep.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” you offered. You didn't know the first thing about mechanics, but maybe there was something you could do for him.

His chuckle was affectionate. “No, cyare, that’s ok,” he said gently. “You rest.”

Before he hunkered down to work on the dash, he unscrewed the little silver handle from the gear shift and dropped it into your son’s outstretched hand.

“Be good and play quietly,” Din said to the baby. “Let mama rest.”

The baby cooed in agreement, settling in your lap and turning the ball over in his hands. Din gave your knee a slightly distracted but affectionate pat as he knelt in front of the instrument panel, fishing through the toolbox to find what he needed.

You leaned your elbow on the dash and watched for a few moments; there was something soothing about the way Din was so methodical in caring for his ship. You’d sat with him during repairs or routine maintenance countless times while you were courting; he’d let you chatter away about anything and everything while he worked, occasionally asking a thoughtful question or laughing at a funny memory you recounted. You’d fallen in love with him while he worked on the Crest, and you rested in that love now as he worked diligently to keep you and your baby safe.

“I’m gonna fall asleep,” you mumbled, resting your cheek against your propped-up arm. Your exhaustion was finally catching up to you now that the adrenaline had faded, and your eyes fluttered shut as your head nodded a little.

You heard him turn towards you. “You don’t look that comfortable, cyar’ika.”

You gave a light shug, re-settling your arm around the baby. “Take me somewhere with a huge, Varactyl feather bed when you get the ship fixed.”

He chuckled. “Okay,” he agreed. “Do you want me to take the baby from you?”

“Only...” You yawned. “Only if he looks like he’s going to fall off my lap.”

You felt him run his knuckles lightly over your shin. “Goodnight, cyare.”

You nodded, feeling yourself fade fast, knowing you were safe and taken care of. “‘Night. Love you.”

“Love you too,” he said. You heard the soft whir of one of his tools start up again, and moments later, you drifted off into a dearly needed sleep.

Read chapter six!

pedro pascal character taglist: @punkgeekchic, @tv-saved-the-teenage-girl, @stardust-galaxies, @theorganasolo ♡

series taglist: @kyjoraven, @sarahjkl82-blog, @remmysbounty, @bitchin-beskar ♡

let me know if you’d like to be added to either taglist! ♡

#ngl i really love this chapter #let me know what you think!!#din djarin x reader #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian chapter 10 #chapter 10: the passenger #maddie writes stuff!#ciryc ca'tra #flashing gif tw

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rex101111 · 3 years

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Up to the clouds she flies

*SPOILERS FOR BNHA 296, LIKE MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS*

HORIKOSHI MY MOM DID NOT DESERVE THAT!! MIDNIGHT NOOOO-

god this hurts fuck, so here’s a melodramatic thousand words because Hori showed us nothing but her holding momo’s hand and this grief needs processing damn it!!!

any way Major canon character death and blood and stuff just. just take this away from me I gotta sob-

-_-

As Nemuri Kayama feels death creep over her, she isn’t afraid. Not for herself anyway.

She’s been in this situation on more than one occasion, villains have surprised her before, cornered her, beaten her within an inch of her life. She’s survived by the skin of her teeth more times than she would ever tell anyone short of Aizawa and Yamada. She has scars that very few people have ever seen, her students would never know the full scope of what her career put her through.

Well, maybe they will, now. That thought, more than anything, more than the pain of her broken bones, more than the crystal clear certainty that this is where it ends for her, terrified her. The thought that her students (her kids, her precious energetic little kids oh god oh god) will find her cold and dead on the forest floor and she could do nothing to comfort them.

She wouldn’t be able to tell Momo how proud she was, she felt the quaking footsteps of Gigantomachia cease a few minutes ago. The villains she fought felt it too, and the shrill laugh she let out as she figured out that her Momo, her brilliant little Momo, did exactly what Nemuri knew she could, had them all run with their tails between their legs.

(She’s going to be one of the best. She’s going to shine and she’s going to soar and Nemuri’s going to see none of it. God dammnit. God dammnit.)

She’s leaning against a tree, the cloudy sky, so blue and so calm, clearly visibly from the clearing she stood in. Blood from her sides, from her nose, from all over, seeps from her and stains the grass. Breathing becomes harder, and her vision grows blurry.

She’s tired. God help her she’s so tired.

(She needs to see them. Needs to wrap her arms around them and kiss their heads, needs to hear Kyouka sing one more time, needs to see Ochako settle her heart, needs to see Denki grow up, to see Tenya grow into his legacy, Katsuki’s hero name, Deku realizing his life matters, Mina dancing, Rikido cooking, she needs to see it all. She needs to see them. She will she WILL-)

A sharp pain in her side nearly makes her cry out, but she swallows it down, her last words to them will not be a pathetic scream of pain. It won’t.

She takes a few stumbling steps forward, one hand pressing against the long wound in her side. She supposes she should feel some measure of…peace at being able to do her part at making sure the mission was complete, but all her thoughts end up spiraling back to her kids.

Her kids, because that’s what they are. Not just her students, teaching them was a joy impossible to ignore, but she saw them grow, all of them. She saw them stumble and cry and be so, so close to giving up. She saw them overcome, and they looked at her with so much gratitude and excitement and…she wants just a few more minutes.

Just a bit more, please please, just a few minutes more. Just enough to see them, just to say that she’s proud, that she loves them so much.

Just a bit…just a bit…

Her legs fail her, she falls on her back, the impact of hitting the ground shakes her and sends waves of pain through her broken body, and she can’t even muster the strength to moan in pain.

She’s stuck on her back, looking straight up. Straight up at the cloudy, blue, peaceful sky.

Did she earn this? This slow, quiet place to die while tears prick at her eyes? So many other heroes ripped to pieces by some freakish monsters, so many civilians crushed in their homes, and she gets this? She gets a cloudy sky for the achievement of giving her kids a corpse to find?

It’s hilarious, in a twisted sort of way, and that realization mutes the regret and anger she feels towards herself a bit. She was taught to never feel sorry for herself, she taught her kids the same…she doesn’t have the energy anyway, no use wasting it.

She laughs, the sound wet and weak, and the tears flow freely yet slowly down her cheeks. This will hurt them, she knows, knows it in her broken bones. But her kids are tough, tougher than anyone she’s ever met. They’ll pull through, they’ll surpass this, she will regret that her last words to them would be a screaming order, but her kids are strong.

They’ll make her proud. Like always.

Breathing becomes nearly impossible, her inhales short and unstable. A pang of panic goes through her, and she uses what little strength she has left to try and calm herself. If her kids are going to find her too late, then at least she’ll be a bit…presentable. Not like she can do much else for them, anymore.

Hopefully she’s done enough. Hopefully she’s taught them enough. Hopefully Shouta and Hizashi can pick up her slack.

Hopefully Shouta will remember to pick up her cat. She knows he’s always loved Sushi. He’ll take care of him.

Thinking, God, since when was thinking so exhausting?

Her breathing slows, and her blurry vision catches something in the sky, the outline of a cloud seeming familiar…

“Kumo…?” A small smile lights her bloodied face, “…yeah, yeah okay.” She closes her eyes, and thinks back to high school, to days spent on the roof. She thinks back to one day in particular.

A day with a calm, blue, cloudy, beautiful, and infinite sky.

She asked Shirakumo to fly her as high up as he could, she told him she wanted to touch those pure white clouds. Shirakumo, in an uncharacteristic display of restraint, said he wanted to practice his quirk a little more, so he was good enough to grant her wish. So he could take all four of them to touch the sky.

He never had the chance, never had enough time to train to make that childish dream of hers, of theirs, come true.

The first time she visited his grave, she told him to forget it, that she could find her way to the sky herself.

She opens her eyes, slowly, every inch she drags her eye lids near torturous, and she sees Shirakumo’s smile in the silver lining.

She sees him reaching down to her, his head down in a mockery of gentlemanly courtesy, to invite her aboard his cloud. He never forgot that promise.

Nemuri Kayama, feeling as light as air, her body whole and young as she was that long gone high school day, meets him half way.

Together, they reach the sky.

(She hears footsteps somewhere to her left, muffled, and uses that last vestige of strength to whisper, “I love you”, to the empty forest air. She doesn’t get the chance to hear Momo’s gasp, Mina’s scream, doesn’t hear Eijirou and Rikido chock on the air in their throats.

But they heard her, just barely.

Just barely.)

Mina grasps Midnight’s hand as she shivered and shook, and sobs as she feels what little warmth in her teacher’s hand vanish.

A cloud shadows the clearing for a long moment as she and her friends wail, for longer than it should though they do not notice, and then floats on.

#my hero academia #my hero academia spoilers #Nemuri Kayama #Midnight (BNHA)#stuff rex wrote #Clouds #god this chapter hurted #fav teacher not enough people appreciated her #this is horribly melodramatic but I don't care #if any chapter gives me the excuse to over indulge it THIS ONE

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rason-rodd · 3 years

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The Night(wing) Before Christmas

Summary: Damian tries to convince Dick to come to dinner for Christmas. But duty calls and a weird surprise awaits Dick. Do you believe in Santa Claus?

Warning: No pairing. Just a family Christmas-themed OS.

Author’s note: This would certainly be the last Bat-Christmas one shot. I decided not to make it a Dick x Reader (though it was initially the plan) because I wanted to give Dick and Damian the chance to reconnect. Hope you will like it.

Blüdhaven was never quiet. Blüdhaven was always restless. Lively. Noisy. Blüdhaven was like him. In shades of jet-black and neon-blue. Shining. Glowing. Like a beacon by the ocean. But tonight, Blüdhaven was not blue. Blüdhaven was red. Blüdhaven was green. Blüdhaven was yellow. Blüdhaven was merry. Blüdhaven was childish. Blüdhaven was a little boy waiting for his gift in a small circus trailer, counting days and eating chocolate. Blüdhaven was getting ready for Christmas. But Dick Grayson was not. “You know Father still insists that you come celebrate Christmas with us at the manor this year.” Slumped on the chimney, feet hanging and swinging in the air, Damian Wayne was playing with a birdarang like a bored child waiting for action, demonstrating nonchalance and casualness that could have almost seemed natural and sincere if it hadn’t been for his little green eyes peeping at his brother’s every reactions. “I still have to think about it, Damian.” Damian clicked his tongue and crossed his arms over his chest to sulk in silence. “Todd said he was coming.” Dick snickered at the boy’s remark – which sounded more like a reproach - finding certain amusement in seeing Damian’s childish disappointment. “So who are you going to spend Christmas with? The poor waitress you used to date?” Those last few words were enough to erase the smile on Dick’s face. “Bea and I are over, Damian. I told you, didn’t I?” Damian shrugged and jumped from his perch to come and kneel by his brother by the edge of the rooftop they were on. “She wasn’t good enough for you, anyway.” And that was a lame attempt at comforting by Damian Wayne, ladies and gents. “Well, if I listen to you, Damian, no one is ever good enough for me. You said the same thing about Shawn when we broke up.” “Shawn? Oh right the mediocre artist/ villain you thought you had got pregnant. Almost forgot about her. What a lousy list of conquests you have under your belt, Grayson.” Dick’s jaw clenched to prevent any hurtful commentary to come out of his mouth. There was no point in debating with Damian in that situation. Dick knew well than to take his words seriously. After all, they were just part of a clumsy technique to attract attention, not ill intentioned at all and not to be taken seriously.

Police sirens suddenly screamed in the avenue under their feet, flickering blue and red. A code of alert. A perfect way to escape Damian. “Got to go.” And without any other word, Dick leaped over the edge of the building, grapple gun in hand, ignoring his little brother yelling at him “See you next Thursday at 6.” and his classic “Grayson, you fool.” when he didn’t get an answer.

Dick wasn’t a huge fan of car chases. Though appearing as simple and routine at first sight, he found them to be the most dangerous and scariest of a superhero’s everyday (or night) missions. They needed an extreme vigilance that was hard to fully have: requiring his attention to be sharp and focused on both the criminals and the police as well as the road and especially any citizen who were unfortunate enough to be on the way. But full vigilance didn’t mean no light-hearted commentary. “Where are you guys going with an organ recovery vehicle? The hospital is the other way. Might wanna update the GPS and reconsider the music. Last Christmas I stole you your heart would be more fitting for organs traffickers” “Nightwing!” The driver exclaimed as his partner in crime pulled his gun from his holster to shoot him. “Yeah that’s me. And you might wanna give me that.” Dick said as he quickly seized the gun to throw it through the car window. “Now pull over before Santa hears about what bad boys you two have been this year.” “Screw you, punk!” “As you wish.” Dick rolled his eyes, acting dramatically annoyed, and grabbed the wheel, taking the two men by surprise. “What are you doing?” They asked, screaming at him. “Checking the airbags.” He declared as he voluntarily led the speeding car towards a barricaded construction site knowing perfectly that there were no workers in there tonight. ”Hang on.”

The car hit the metal fence, bending it as if it was a mere piece of paper. Then it left the ground and flew right towards a hole of fresh concrete. When it landed, all the bodywork crashed like a can of tomato soup and the windows broke, leaving the two criminals screaming in fear. But their yells were brief, chocked by the airbags that suddenly inflated due to the powerful noisy impact. “Airbags, check. MOT test, over. You may get down of the vehicle gentlemen.” Nightwing said as he opened the door. But the two men were so stunned and terrified they couldn’t move. “Or you can wait here. That’s fine as well.”

The police car who had been chasing the two men suddenly parked on the site and a couple of officers ran to the accident car, guns in hands. Among them Detective Elise Svobada, Nightwing’s own Jim Gordon except that Jim Gordon had never kissed Batman. A memory that still made Dick want to puke. “Good job, tights.” “A compliment? Christmas makes you soft, Svoboda.” Dick smirked as he let the woman pushed the driver out of the car. “Don’t get used to it.” “Detective, the heart must be delivered in less than 15 minutes. We won’t be there on time. Not with this traffic.” Svoboda’s partner declared, panicking and trembling like a Chihuahua. “Damn it!” Svoboda kicked the tire of the car, angry and wondering what to do now. “Nightwing, do you think you can…” But there was no need to finish the sentence as the vigilante was already far away, swinging from building to building, the box containing the precious organ in his hand. “Thanks, kid… Nelson, call the hospital. Tell them there’s a special delivery.”

There’s nothing more gratifying than knowing you saved a life, except maybe knowing that you saved a life on Christmas. Makes you feel like some heroic caped Santa Claus in a way. But Dick never chose to become a vigilante for gratification or fame. He never wished for a thank you or some sort of admiration. Dick chose to become a vigilante to help people, to see the smiles on their face, that glimmer of hope shining in their eyes when they thought all hope was gone. Dick chose to become a vigilante to make the world a better place.

“That girl owes you her life.” The white-bearded doctor said as he shook Dick’s hand with a gratitude that was making the happy tears in his eyes sparkle like stars. “She doesn’t owe me anything.” And no one could doubt his sincerity. “Still what you did was very noble, boy. Thanks to you this young lady will be able to spend Christmas with her loved ones. And I hope you will as well. After all there’s nothing more important than family.” “We’ll see about that. Merry Christmas, Doctor.” He said as he headed towards the exit. “Merry Christmas, Richard.”

Dick froze and quickly turned around, wondering if he had heard right or if it was his fatigue playing tricks on him. But the old doctor was already gone and nowhere to be seen. Did he know the Batman’s disappearance act, too? “You really need to sleep, Nightwing.” “Indeed you look awful.” The nonchalant voice of Damian Wayne suddenly made Nightwing jump. That little demon could be so stealthy sometimes. “Would not want you to look like a walking dead at dinner. We already have Todd for that.” “How did you find me?” “Heard the police radio. No need to be a genius to do so.” He clicked his tongue as he crossed his tiny arms over his small chest. “So you saved the mayor’s daughter. Congratulations. What now?” “The mayor’s daughter?” “Yes. The two criminals wanted to use her as a way to corrupt the mayor.” Dick frowned. “What? Did you really think there was some sort of organs trafficking in Blüdhaven? Hello! It’s Blüdhaven not Gotham! You know the place where you’re expected on Thursday.” Dick laughed and tousled his little brother’s hair to annoy him. “Alright, little guy. I’ll be there.” “Thank you.” Damian sighed deeply. “Don’t thank me. Thank Santa.” Dick corrected him, still thinking about that weird old doctor. “Don’t try to choke with some cheesy Christmas spirit.” Damian declared as he pointed his fingers at Dick who were chuckling. “Alright.” He complied, gently grabbing Damian by the arm. “Wanna go drink some hot cocoa at my place?” “Are you sweet-talking me?” Damian glared at his brother, not really knowing how to take the offer. “Maybe.” “Would there be marshmallows in the cup?” Dick grinned and hugged his brother. “Of course.”

#dick grayson #nightwing #Damian Wayne #robin #bat-christmas #one shot #nightwing one shot #dick grayson one shot

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ladyfawkes · 3 years

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Eugene Appreciation Week - Day 3: Home - That Joyous Place Within

Words: 1784 Rated: G Summary: Eugene eagerly and anxiously awaits the arrival of his and Rapunzel's first child. He is distracted by the realization that what he'd always felt with Rapunzel has suddenly begun to allude him....and he can NOT figure out why. Not until he gets to truly consider the child on his own.

That Joyous Place Within Eugene couldn’t help but pay attention to what everyone said during Rapunzel’s first pregnancy. He didn’t dare admit it, but it truly devastated him to know that as Prince Consort, he was expected to be very hands-off when it came to child-rearing, even though it was his own child they were discussing. He could not bear the thought of basically being only a stern disciplinary presence for his son until the child was 10 or 11 years old….and only then was he expected to step in. “I feel as if I’d be missing half his life. I don’t wanna be an absent parent,” he had finally confessed to Rapunzel. Things reached a fever pitch as during this same time, Rapunzel kept acquiring more and more things….the palace was just too huge, and she would flit from room to room and space to space, obsessing over how it needed to be just perfect before the baby came. Nobody seemed to know what to do in order to get her to stop nesting. And she was driving everyone bonkers, especially Old Lady Crowley. The palace no longer felt like….home. Not to Rapunzel or Eugene. Eugene just decided that he was going to whisk himself and Rapunzel away from that enormous palace, away from everybody and everything else, just so they could bloody think for themselves. Rapunzel had fallen pregnant so quickly after she wed Eugene that she’d not been given a chance to be crowned queen. During the foreseeable future, Frederic was serving as interim monarch. And this time, Eugene had gone straight to his father-in-law with his conundrum and asked outright about what otherwise uninhabited properties did the crown possess? He insisted that he be given full run to choose amongst any of them. Surprisingly, Frederic understood. Eugene had certainly not forgotten that Rapunzel’s own mother would’ve died giving birth to her were it not for the Sun Drop. They did not have such a luxury at hand this time. Thus Eugene was adamant that his sweet wife should be as stress-free as possible. Immediately they had a staff and crew revamp one of the kingdom’s old mountain cottages until it was sparkling clean and new again. While Eugene hadn’t known all of what Rapunzel required while at the cottage, Arianna told him to just finish packing and go already...that Rapunzel would take care of the rest once she got there. “Home Sweet Home” read the cheerful bright needlepoint as they entered the sunny cottage. It was chockful of natural light. Yellow and white checkered curtains adorned the windows….pieces of sunny decor complemented the curtains. And the nursery was bare so far (so that Rapunzel could pick and choose as she saw fit) except for one thing…..a cradle that Xavier had helped Eugene fashion out of nearby Corona pine that came from the same forest in which the cottage now sat. Eugene knew some basic carpentry skills, same as most guys. But Xavier had really shown him how best to blend together the joins, how to lock all the pieces so tightly they’d never fall apart. It was truly an heirloom piece. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d given somebody something he’d made with his own two hands. Rapunzel burst into tears and threw her arms around him in gratitude and relief; she had been so worried over his being absent for more time than usual, what with pulling everything together as quickly as possible in preparation of their surprise move to the cottage. “Oh Eugene, can’t you feel it??” Rapunzel exclaimed, clapping her hands. “We’re finally home!!”Eugene, of course, had to go back to work as captain and he’d actually started waking three hours earlier each day so he could arrive on time for his work day, yet still be able to, in turn, leave Corona island three hours sooner and still arrive back at the cottage with some daylight left. And with the in-house midwife and nanny, and occasionally her mother, Rapunzel wouldn’t ever have to be alone either. His plan included having Rapunzel tell him what she needed and he could always fetch it for her while he was back in Corona and she would have whatever she wanted within a day. This almighty

plan of his worked really well -- for about two weeks. Until he started falling asleep on the job. He was mortified with himself. One month to go and he was a nervous wreck. And the most embarrassing reason is because still -- that feeling of “home” eluded him. It had always been with Rapunzel before. Now, Rapunzel had taken to nesting like a mama bird once she and Eugene had a space that was just theirs. One particularly exhausting day, Frederic and Arianna had pulled Eugene into the throne room in a semi-formal meeting. “Eugene, son, we hate to do this, and we mean this in the absolute kindest way possible -- but -- you’re fired.” His mouth fell open in shock and dismay before his knackered brain could register that they were in fact giving him an indefinite reprieve from his guard duties until such time as he no longer needed to be with Rapunzel. Of course, once Eugene was permanently there….he was out of his mind without something else to do, all the time. So he made a promising secondary career out of chopping firewood. Which suited him just fine; it had been several years since anyone had been in the cottage and the supply was woefully inadequate for a stay during the upcoming fall and winter. And the day Rapunzel went into labor, oh merciful heavens. He thought watching Rapunzel fight Cassandra all those years ago had been terrifying and nightmare-ish….but this??? Even outside the cottage, when all he was doing is listening….Lance, Kiera, and Catalina were there to try and keep him company….but he was so consumed within his own world. If anything happened to his beloved Rapunzel, it was arguably all his fault. Aaaaand at the moment, she was letting the Father of Fitzherbert know all about it, too. In between contractions and all of the screaming and coaching and pushing, she took the time to curse Eugene, his father, his father’s father, and every other father in existence before that!!! It shocked him, but not because he felt particularly slighted, it was because he hadn’t thought Rapunzel would even know such a curse. Eugene lamented that Lance was lucky he didn’t have to experience this process in order to have a family. Catalina patted his arm and he thought he saw a glimmer of something familiar in her eyes….until he got distracted and whirled away, slapped his hands over his ears, pulled them down, squeezed his eyes shut, and hummed loudly while rocking back and forth like a headcase. Eugene was simply trying to block everything out for half a second, so he could try and clear his head. Before he knew it though, Kiera had tugged on his hair and said, “Hey, paging the new lumberjack daddy, Mr. Fitzherbert,” she teased, as only Kiera could. It helped. He didn’t know why, but having the girls here….helped. Everything after that was such a whirlwind….Rapunzel presenting to him their first child, an adorable little pink squish with a full head of dark curls they named “Samson Alexander Fitzherbert”. L’il Squish was carefully passed to the requisite personnel to mind his medical needs...and then Eugene just about fell apart again, this time admiring his wife. There was nothing-- nothing -- she couldn’t do. Nine months incubating L’il Squish into existence...and after 16 hours of hard labor, his badass wife was now actually nursing their tiny child. It was nearly incomprehensible, and yet….somehow, this enigma of life-giving that happens elsewhere in the world, every day, happened right here...20 feet from where he now sat in this rocking chair. The nurse had given Rapunzel a reprieve (it was the first time she’d gotten a real chance to sleep in the past 24 hours.) And Eugene sat vigil in the rocker and couldn’t sleep until he knew Rapunzel got some sleep first….he was so in sync with her emotionally. The past few hours, he didn’t get much, if any, time to truly hold or consider their son due to all of the hungry arms eager to take turns holding him. He tried not to notice but it was like his arms had developed a physical ache that could only be cured by holding their son. And then….finally….at 3

o’clock in the morning on an otherwise idle Tuesday, Eugene actually saw it. A few minutes after taking the baby from Rapunzel, the nurse suddenly motioned wordlessly to Eugene as he sat in the rocker. He rubbed the sleep from his dozing eyes in the low light of the oil lamp and accepted the little bundle from the nurse. To Eugene, who had been chopping wood every day, all day for the past month….Sammy was positively weightless. Eugene could cup his tiny body as well as support his head all in one hand. And again he marveled how someone so miniscule and fragile could in fact be a wholly realized person. The nurse showed him how to burp the baby. Eugene was worried he might….pat him too hard, but he was tougher than he seemed. And he even tried to push himself away from Eugene’s shoulder. Or, at least, that’s how Eugene interpreted it -- this squish kept fussing and insisting on being moved so Eugene obliged and held his son in front of himself and at this time...L’il Sammy’s eyes were finally open. He was calm and curious and staring directly at Eugene. "Hey there," Eugene whispered in awe, "it's a doozy of a name you've been given, but I begged your mama that if you were a boy, you could be named after cool-sounding ancient Greek heroes." He paused, considering, "And if at just a few hours old, you're gonna one-arm yourself off my shoulder, I daresay you'll grow into that name in no time." The child appeared to be concentrating on just Eugene so hard, his little dark eyes sometimes crossed. Yet this effort wasn’t lost on Eugene. "But please just stay a lil squish for the time being," he finished softly, bringing Sammy close and kissing him on this tiny forehead. Suddenly, this young new papa was awash in that which he’d been searching for so diligently for months now….that feeling of warmth, contentment, peace, and bliss. Immediately the tears brimming on the surface fell down Eugene's cheeks at the realization. He was finally home. -------------------------- P. S. I HAD to write some tooth-rotting fluffery after whumping Kidgene and Arnie so hard for Day 1. =( <3 @gleamful-lanterns @kingreywrites @autumn-ravenclaw

#eugene appreciation week #eaw #ao3 fanfic #my fanfiction #fanfiction #eugene + rapunzel + 1 #dadgene #Day 3 Home

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Galactica, Chapter 51 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: Courtney arrived at Bianca’s penthouse and Violet met Sutan’s mother and neither of them burst into flames.

This Chapter: We dine. (Thanksgiving Chronicles 2 of ???)

***

“I thought,” Raja reached out, taking an empty chocolate wrapper from Raven’s hand. “That you didn’t like Beng-Bengs, Princess?”

They were sitting in the living room, three couches carefully arranged around a round coffee table, the sweet scent of incense in Raja’s nose. All the walls were filled with photos, the window stills overflowing with plants and flowers. She could hear her mom in the kitchen, Murni waving her away when she had tried to lend a hand, the fact that she was pushing 70 apparently not an issue.

“Shut up.”

Raja chuckled, leaning even further back on the couch, her arm around Raven’s shoulder. Raven had gone directly for the candy dish as soon as they had entered the house. The Beng-Bengs were a chocolate treat from Raja’s childhood, either her mom or dad always asking their family back in Indonesia to send some along whenever they received care packages.

Raven swallowed the last bite, reaching for the bowl to grab a kopiko, her girlfriend eating like she was possessed.

“Mmmh,” Raven moaned, closing her eyes as she bit into the chewy coffee candy.

“You know,” Raja turned her head, putting her lips against Raven’s temple. “Maybe, it’s time to consider if you want to continue doing swimwear.”

“Why?” Raven looked up at her, an annoyed expression on her face. “You think I can’t do it?”

“No.” Raja ran her fingers through Raven’s hair, the strands silky smooth as always. Raja didn’t want to make decisions on Raven’s career, those choices up to her brother. Sure, she always gave her opinion when Raven asked, and was always ready to guide her and help her, but at the end of the day, Raja prefered to have those lines in their relationship. “I just don’t know if it’s really worth it for you.”

“Raj-”

“All I’m saying,” Raja smiled, lowering her voice to make sure her mom couldn’t hear her, “is that it usually takes a good 45 minutes to make you moan like that.”

“Maybe the chocolate is just better than you?” Raven huffed, and Raja couldn’t help but laugh as she leaned in, stealing coffee flavored chocolate kisses from her fiancée.

***

“Hey munchkins,” Katya smiled as she reentered the kitchen, a box of decorations in her arms. “How is everyone doing?”

Katya had just spent the last 35 minutes setting up the living room, hanging a garland of Fall leaves, arranging her most impressive ever cornucopia, and putting out the special Thanksgiving tablecloth with little turkeys all around the edge that Trixie had made her for their first Thanksgiving together.

“You do realize,” Max looked up from where he was rolling out the puffed pastries, his back bent slightly so he could use the kitchen counter, “that we’re not actually children, right?”

“Speak for yourself-“ Pearl pointed at him with the potato peeler, yellow rubber gloves on her hands. “It’s so unfair I always have to peel the potatoes. I don’t even like them.”

“That’s because it’s the one job you can’t fuck up,” Trixie grinned, and Katya smiled at him, her fiancé standing at the stove with his ‘kiss the cook’ apron on, caramalizing the onions, a pumpkin ale next to him.

“I could stir onions.”

“You could,” Katya opened their pantry, where boxes filled with decorations for every holiday (except Christmas, which had its own basement storage unit all to itself) took up half the shelves. “But we don’t want another house fire.”

“It’s not a fire if it doesn’t leave the pan!”

Max snorted, and Katya laughed. “Sure baby, sure.”

“Is that Pearl whining again?” asked a voice in the doorway, and Katya turned to see Kim. She’d generously agreed to cook the turkey in her oven, since that would free up Katya and Trixie’s for the rest of the food, and had left to baste.

“Of course. How’s the turkey?”

“Your bird is looking moist and delicious,” Kim answered, and Max visibly shuddered.

“Must you use that word?” he asked, and Kim stepped up to him.

“What word?” she inquired, leaning right up to his ear, cooing a teasing, “You mean mmmoist?” directly into his ear.

“Gah!” Max cringed again, all of them giggling at his overreaction.

“Kimmy, can you start the pumpkin pie filling?” Katya asked, getting down the cans from the shelf and laying a recipe card on the table.

“Of course!” Kim picked up the card and looked it over while Katya bustled around the kitchen, pulling out the various spices and ingredients she would need.

“Ugh, she gets pumpkin pie?” Pearl whined.

“You want a piece of me, potato bitch?” Kim asked, and Trixie burst out laughing, repeating ‘potato bitch,’ softly to himself.

“Kids!” Katya clapped her hands and the whole group looked at her. “You’re all marvelous and essential, and I love you.”

“Gross,” Pearl said, but the smile on her face betrayed her words.

***

“Ha!” Sutan smiled triumphantly, the metal lid on the bird feeder finally popping open. “There we go!”

Sutan and Violet were out in the backyard, Violet sitting on the deck in a lawn chair, while Sutan had braved the moist Autumn grass to make his way to the big pear tree in the corner.

“Throw me the seeds, would you?” Sutan looked over his shoulder, Violet wrapped up in his jacket so she wouldn’t be cold since had forgotten her own in the car.

“The seeds?” Violet raised an eyebrow, but she still patted his jacket down, her eyes widening when she found a packet in the right pocket. “... Did you bring bird seeds with you from Manhattan?”

“Maybe?” Sutan grinned, catching the seeds in the air when Violet threw them. He hadn’t expected her to follow him into the garden, had figured he could slip away without anyone noticing, but while Raven had absolutely warmed up to VIolet, and his twin seemed to genuinely like her, he wasn’t exactly sure if Violet felt the same way about his sister and her fiancée.

“Is this a normal occurrence?” Violet was smiling, watching him with her brow eyes.

“That I fill the bird feeders?” Sutan got up on his toes, tipping the packet to fill it up about half way. “Or being in the garden?”

“Both?”

“My mom isn’t as young as she used to be,” Sutan shrugged, moving from one feeder to the next. “And she’s not very good at asking for help, so I always try to do something in the garden whenever I’m here.”

Murnis age was something he tried not to think about, something he tried to push away, the idea that his mom wouldn’t be there one day one of the few things that genuinely terrified him.

“It’s a very beautiful garden.”

“You should tell her that,” Sutan smiled, the complement sounding completely genuine. “She’s very proud of her marigolds.”

“She should be.”

Neither of them said anything for a little while, Sutan getting some of the last pears from the tree. He knew they had to go back inside, that his mom was probably putting the finishing touches on their Thanksgiving dinner, but he figured he’d maybe have time to take a look at the greenhouse too, Violet thankfully not the type of person who kicked up a fuss when he took his time.

“Did you grow up here?” Sutan turned around, Violet practically swallowed up by his jacket as she was cuddled up.

“No. When we got to America, my family lived in Iowa. This house is actually the first thing Raja and I ever bought, when we started making money. Our first piece of real estate.” Sutan smiled at the memory of when Raja had finally, finally, finally gotten the pay check that pushed them over the edge. “We still lived in a shitty one bedroom apartment in Manhattan, but we knew we wanted to do something for our parents. Wanted to make sure Ayah and Bunda had a good place to stay and for them to be closer.”

“Ayah?”

“It means dad. In Indonesian.”

“Oh…” Violet paused, looking at his face, and Sutan really hoped it wasn’t obvious how much it hurt to think about his dad. “He isn’t here, is he-”

“He died when I was 32.” It was weird that Violet didn’t already know, weird that she hadn’t stumbled on it yet since the gossip sites and magazines had certainly covered how it had wrecked both him and Raja, a simple google search enough to know his entire life story, but Sutan appreciated that she wanted to hear it from him too. “Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.” Violet looked genuinely upset, empathy clear on her features.

“It’s okay,” Sutan forced a smile. “It was a long time ago.”

It didn’t feel like it, but that wasn’t Violet’s burden to bear, Sutan’s regrets of how he’d never get the chance to talk to his dad again and apologize his and his alone.

***

Once Courtney had a couple of drinks in her, she found herself forgetting to be nervous or uncomfortable about being in the fanciest apartment she’d ever seen, and just began having a good time with her bestie, enjoying Bianca’s generous hospitality and the attention that still made her heart go a little fluttery when their eyes met.

By the time Bianca appeared in the den again to tell them that dinner was ready, they’d abandoned the karaoke machine and were curled up on the couch, watching the parade, Adore’s head in Courtney’s lap.

“You guys ready for dinner?”

“Ugh, vegan Thanksgiving. I am not looking forward to this,” Adore grumbled, poking Courtney in the arm. “Did you know she was gonna do that? Get everything vegan?”

Courtney’s eyes widened--she wasn’t expecting that, not at all. She’d been surprised that the appetizers were vegan, but the whole meal? She looked at Bianca with gratitude and shock, asking, “Really?”

“Most of it. Adore whined so much about the stuffing that I made her some the good old-fashioned Cuban chock-full-of-meat way.”

“You did?!” Adore jumped up excitedly, clapping her hands.

“I did. I used Abuelita’s recipe.” Bianca cuffed her playfully on the ear. “Happy?”

“I take back everything I said, you’re still my favorite sister.” Adore slung an arm around Bianca’s shoulders as they walked down the hall. “You didn’t forget my Hillshire Farms, did you?”

“No, bitch, I didn’t forget your Hillshire Farms. I even put it out all nice on a plate so you don’t have to eat straight out of the package like you do at home.”

“Yaaas, sounds classy as fuck.”

Courtney was completely unprepared for the sight that met her when they stepped into the dining room. The table was laden with beautiful, vibrantly colorful Autumnal dishes - enough for at least ten people.

“Oh my god.”

Bianca looked over at her. “Something wrong?”

“No! No, it’s absolutely...just so much, I wasn’t expecting this. Are more people coming?”

“Courtney. You live in America now. And you know what Thanksgiving is all about?”

“Gratitude?” Courtney guessed, still overwhelmed at the spread.

“No, baby. No. It’s about coming together, and, whether you are hungry or not, eating until you can’t possibly take another bite. And then having dessert.”

Courtney laughed, taking her seat. “I guess I’m not fully assimilated, huh?”

“You’ll learn.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“Try this. It’s the vegan version of Adore’s favorite relleno de pavo,” Bianca said, spooning some onto her plate, along with about five other things, Courtney quickly losing track.

She’d been to a family Thanksgiving dinner once before, during a short-lived college relationship with a guy who Adore had nicknamed “Wonder Bread,” and it was nothing like this: a meal of dry turkey, bland mashed potatoes, overcooked green beans in some kind of hideous mushroom sauce, and candied yams straight from a can. This meal was like something she’d get at a 5-star farm to table restaurant, fresh and delicious, somehow reminding her of her mother’s vegetable garden, something she didn’t realize she was missing so badly until she was tasting it. It was so good, she forgot to say anything, soon greedily gobbling up everything she could get her hands on.

“So...what do we think? Can I put the chef on a repeat list?” Bianca asked, and Courtney nodded vigorously, mouth full.

“I’m actually shocked how good this corn pudding is,” Adore said, mouth full. “Who knew vegan butter would be so good?”

“Well, vegan butter is margarine. And you’re garbage, so you love margarine.”

“I really do, man.”

Bianca laughed, chuckling slightly, finishing her wine.

“Anyone want another drink?”

“I’ll get it!” Adore said, rising from her seat.

“Thanks.”

Once she’d left the room, Bianca turned to Courtney, who was still gorging herself on all of the delicious dishes before her. She touched Courtney on the wrist, sending little tingles up her arm as she tried to quickly swallow the persimmon and kale salad in her mouth.

“Listen, I want to thank you for being so sweet with her, and looking out, you know? I know she pretends she’s a tough girl, but-she really needs TLC right now.”

Courtney wiped her mouth and answered, “Of course. She’d do the same for me. She has done the same for me.”

“Good. I mean, not that you...uh, needed, y’know-”

Courtney smiled, wondering if there was anything cuter than someone with Bianca’s self assuredness getting flustered and tongue-tied. “I know what you mean.”

“I’m just glad that someone gentler than me is there for her. You know, I’m not so great with the touchy-feely stuff.”

“I think you do okay,” Courtney said, unable to tear her eyes from Bianca’s. And then Courtney’s chest flooded with guilt at the next thought. A fleeting second where she imagined Bianca taking care of her, too. Fortunately, Adore came back into the room at that exact moment, two bottles of wine in hand, letting her shake the thought right from her head, reaching for a whole grain dinner roll to distract herself from it all.

“Bitch, I have never seen you eat like this,” Adore commented, laughing.

“Well, you’ve never seen me with food this good. Who was this chef, anyway? Can I marry them?”

“I’ll pass along the proposal. Although I’m not sure her wife will be too pleased,” Bianca said.

“I can share,” Courtney suggested sweetly, batting her lashes, making Bianca laugh.

“Or, you know...you can just marry someone with the resources to hire her whenever you want.” Bianca swirled the wine in her glass.

“Hmm...I don’t know anyone like that,” Courtney told her. “I run with a pretty low-rent crowd.”

“Pity.”

Courtney giggled into her plate, wondering if she should ease up on the alcohol, since that warm, light-headed feeling was taking over.

***

“Come on, come on,” Juju muttered to herself, digging through her bag, everyone's jackets piled high on her aunt's bed. She was looking for her daughter’s toy monkey, Julia falling outside and hitting her knee while playing with her cousins. She was okay, but she had asked for her toy, if only Juju could find it.

“Juju?” The door opened, and Juju looked over her shoulder to see her husband stand there, thankfully without one of their children on his arm.

“Give me a second-”

Detox closed the door, and Juju paused, her eyes narrowing. “What are you doing?”

“Me?” Detox grinned, his eyes sparkling with an almost predatory glee. “Oh, nothing.” He reached behind him, flicking the lock. “Nothing at all.”

“De-” Juju almost wanted to get upset, her entire family just outside, and she still hadn’t seen Julia’s knee for herself. “I have to get-”

“Your dad put a bandaid on her,” Detox smiled, walking over to her, and Juju couldn’t help but notice how good he looked, “and she’s watching TV with Kelly.”

“Ah.” Juju chuckled, her oldest an absolute sweetheart when her siblings needed her, even though she often tried to act too cool for school. “Well then-”

“Well then,” Detox walked into her space, “I think we have more than enough time.” He put his hands on her waist, pulling her in, her belly bumping against his hips.

“Time for what?”

“Time for this.” Detox leaned down, their lips meeting in a heated kiss, Detox lips tasting faintly like the Beerloa the Laotian part of her family loved.

“De-” Juju broke the kiss, trying to pull back. “We have to-”

“Come on,” Detox smiled. “Live a little. Not like you can get pregnant right now.”

“I hate you so much-” Detox gave her a peck, and Juju could feel her knees buckle, her hands going to his hips, her fingers grabbing the belt loops on his pants as she allowed herself to fall back on the bed.

***

“Okay well...vegan Thanksgiving was less gross than I thought,” Adore said, putting her head on the table.

“We’re glad you didn’t suffer too much,” said Bianca.

“I think it was fucking perfection,” Courtney said, a happy grin on her face as she scraped the last of the cranberry mousse from her plate.

“I mean, I’m not complaining,” Adore added, reaching for another apple hand pie, and after a pause, a second.

“Oh no? That’s a first,” Bianca chuckled.

“Well to be fair, most vegan food is crap. This was an exception,” Adore said, slathering her pies with what was probably quinoa-based whipped cream and taking another pumpkin blondie square for good measure.

“Mmhmm…” Bianca said, judgment dripping from her pursed lips, laughing when Adore stuck her tongue out. She then turned to Courtney, who had gently tapped her on the arm.

“Where’s your restroom?”

“There’s one right through there.” Bianca pointed, and Courtney smiled.

“Thanks! Be right back!”

Adore eyed her sister, watching her face, eyes glued to Courtney as she left the room. It took Bianca about ten full seconds before she realized that she was being watched herself. She turned to Adore, took in her smirk, and scowled.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just fun to see you bark up the wrong tree. Not used to you being rejected.” Adore rested her chin on her hand, popping a bite of blondie into her mouth.

“Shut up.”

Adore laughed. “No, it’s cool. Very humanizing.”

“First of all, I’m not barking anywhere, so you can put your little smug face away. And second...what makes you so sure I’d even be rejected?”

“Please.” Adore rolled her eyes. “I know my girl, Bianca. She’s straight.”

“Okay.” Bianca set down her coffee cup.

“I mean, if you got another seven or so drinks in her, maybe she’d let you-”

“Alright, enough. Now you’re being gross,” Bianca said testily.

“Sorry. But can I just give you one tip?”

“What?” Bianca asked, face stern.

“Tequila shots.”

Bianca tried valiantly to keep the cross look, but after a few seconds, she broke, dimples deep in her cheeks. She balled up a linen napkin and chucked it at Adore’s face.

Outside, the rain had let up, a few rays of evening sun breaking through the clouds.

“Hey, do you mind taking the dogs out for a walk before it starts raining again? Just a little one, they’ve been out to the terrace.” Bianca rose from her seat and began clearing some dishes from the table.

“Yeah, no problem.” Adore headed for the door, intercepting Courtney on her way back from the bathroom. “Come with me, we’re walking the dogs.”

“Oh...but doesn’t Bianca need help with the-”

“Nope!” Adore pulled her by the hand towards the door, grabbing their coats and strapping the dogs into their harnesses.

It wasn’t until they were safely outside when she finally felt comfortable giving her friend...well, not a warning exactly.

“So listen,” she began, and Courtney turned to her, head cocked. “I’m sure you already know this, but my sister is kind of a player.”

“Uhhh…”

“Come on. You must have heard stories.”

“I guess I have, but I–”

“It’s my fault. I should have…I dunno, I should have warned you about B’s weakness for pretty blondes. And I know it’s just your personality to be sweet and friendly and a bit of a flirt. But you’re totally gonna give her the wrong idea.”

Courtney bit her lip and turned away, and Adore felt bad.

“Don’t be embarrassed! I’m not saying that you’re doing anything wrong. It’s just...she’s not really used to people turning her down, so...”

“Right.”

Courtney didn’t seem to have much more to say, and Adore worried that maybe she’d offended her.

“I’m sorry, boo, but this is just something you have to consider when you’re the most charming, beautiful, kind, funny, smart…”

Courtney started laughing, cutting her off with a hug.

“I get what you’re saying. You can stop laying it on so thick.”

Adore smiled, then realized that her phone was ringing. She handed the leashes over to Courtney and looked at it, surprised at the name on the display.

The last one she thought she’d see, especially today.

Pearl.

10 notes · View notes

nnnnoooooooooooo · 3 years

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My Ballot for They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s 25 Favourite Films Poll

The following is my ballot for They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’s poll for their readers’ 25 favourite films of all-time. It contains a dozen or so favourites, several compromises, and a handful of personally foundational texts.

Seven Chances (1925, Buster Keaton): It ain’t easy to only choose one Keaton. This is one of Keaton’s films with a racist blackface character, which gave me some reservations. Still, this is a solid contender as his funniest picture, and, more importantly, this is Buster as I love him the most. Keaton’s characters were always the most cerebral and lost, keen observers with no understanding. An inability to communicate one’s emotions drives the need to convert it into a physical experience; Keaton inevitably becomes the object that cannot be stopped. His full forced desperation and athleticism, he is a master of locomotion. Featuring the finalization of the chase gag, along with a generous serving of his brand of surreal.

City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin): Comedically and emotionally devastating.

Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch): Lubtisch’s portrayal of Continental aristocracy on the cusp. Containing love, melancholy, desire, rivalry, loyalty, betrayal, criminals, and thieves-- all saved by his grace alone, achieving a rare bliss of comedy and romance. Normally, I’d say that, in a temporal world, perfection exists only as a process, but then how would I explain this?

La grande illusion (1937, Jean Renoir): In the best of Renoir’s films, I find a type of harmony I find lacking in the rest of the world.

La règle du jeu (1939, Jean Renoir): In making this list, I never doubted either of these Renoir films having a place. Now, trying to write about my list, I find myself becoming frustrated at not finding the words to explain why I chose them. I’ve never been a great communicator, and I doubt that’s Renoir’s fault. I think it’s best for me to move on before I start misplacing my frustrations with my inability to write onto the film itself.

How Green Was My Valley? (1941, John Ford): Possibly the greatest movie ever made under Hollywood’s Studio System, and perhaps the closest we’ll ever get to seeing what Hedy Lamarr might have seen in John Loder. More than any other actor, Sara Allgood carries this film, in her role as the matriarch of the Morgan household. This is chock full of great character actors and moments as you’d expect from Ford. It’s the magic of childhood, the safety of the womb, the cyclical nature of a town where nothing ever seems to change, and the devastation of entropy. I lost track of how many times I cried.

To Be or Not to Be (1942, Ernst Lubitsch): This is my choice for a comedy from the 1940s, despite stiff competition from Hellzapoppin’, and the 11 movies Preston Sturges released over the decade. I had the privilege of seeing this at my local Cinemateque with an introduction by Kevin McDonald. I was late, and the audience had already begun to talk back. He rolled, and we were soon laughing before the “projectionist” could hit ‘play’ on the Blu-Ray. My friend came later. It was a packed house, so we weren’t able to sit together. I enjoyed hearing the variances in people’s response*, and the timing of their laughter. Trying to pinpoint my friend’s laughter from the crowd, I couldn’t help but hear our host’s generous laughter throughout the film. What a joy it was for all of us to experience this film together. I guess I haven’t had a chance to share those other movies the way that I was with this one. *A nice change of pace, as this usually makes me self-conscious

Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock): I find Hitchcock’s women’s pictures to be some of his richest texts. Besides which, any film asking me to sympathize with Theresa Wright already has a lot going for it. Alongside The Wrong Man as Hitchcock’s most tragic film.

Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean): My favourite romance, whatever that says about me. A passionate extramarital affair between Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), told in flashback. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this placed among noirs, but I think this could be an example of a women’s film noir. There’s a thick sense of transgression and fatalistic mise-en-scene, along with an inability to escape, which ends the film on an unconvincing return to safety. After the two lovers part for the final time, Johnson returns home. Her husband, Stanley Holloway, asks for nothing, and expresses gratitude for her return. However, for all of that loveliness, Johnson has learned that the world is far more fragile than she ever dreamt. The husband is portrayed as a bit childlike, and, coupled with the affably stiff upper-lipped nature of their marriage, Johnson is unable to confess what’s occurred, which only preserves her turmoil. Unable to consummate, sustain, or forsake her romance with Howard, she may find some refuge with her husband, but salvation eludes her.

Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur): RKO Pictures, film noir, Jacques Tourneur, and Robert Mitchum– These are a few of my favourite things. As a prude, I don’t care to admit that I love cigarette smoke in B&W pictures as much as I do, and it’s deployed here to its zenith, courtesy of Nicholas Musuraca’s cinematography. Daniel Mainwaring’s script, along with Tourneur and Mitchum, use underplay in order to create a heightened effect. Mitchum’s somnambulism grants his portrayal of Jeff Bailey an omniscient cool, which extends to his character’s bisexuality. There’s such delight in hearing Mitchum, one of the best voices in movies, deliver the film’s lyrical dialogue in his disaffected baritone.

The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang): Perhaps Lang’s most cynical film? The culmination of all his conspiracies. The law vs. criminals, no longer as separate from one another, but as sides of the same coin: the establishment. Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) engages in total war against Lagana’s (Alexander Scourby) crime syndicate. Those caught in between end up as collateral damage, pawns in their game. Each dismantles the family unit, Lagana disposes of Bannion’s wife (Jocelyn Brando), and Bannion displaces his child, so that both sides can carry on unfettered. The happy ending finds Bannion happily back at work in the homicide department, where they’re informed of a grisly murder. Oh boy, here we go again! Gloria Grahame, a sister under the mink, reigns as my favourite actress in all of film noir.

The Sun Shines Bright (1953, John Ford): It’s not easy to film a miracle, a feat for which I’d pair this with Carl Th. Dreyer’s penultimate film, Ordet. Speaking of Dreyer, if you have 15 minutes to spare, here’s a great video of Jonathan Rosenbaum discussing this movie alongside Dreyer’s final film, Gertrud. The responsibilities and limitations of society. Communities are built through sacrifice, as we give of ourselves, which accounts for the film’s sometimes funereal tone. One’s resting spot as the place to make a stand, but what good is taking a stand if it doesn’t lead anywhere? Our redemption lies not in preserving ourselves, but in guiding the world to a place that no longer needs us. Thus, not a dying world to save, but an understanding that we must pass in order to bring about renewal. Funerals become parades, and parades become funerals, as we walk the strait and narrow path between tradition and progress. Don’t take a stand while the world marches on, but lead us into thy rest.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953, Roy Rowland): This is a musical written and designed by Dr. Seuss, which is to say that I think you oughta see it. Still, it’s hard to justify why I chose this over The Band Wagon. I’d probably better enjoy watching The Band Wagon, which I’d wager is Hollywood’s greatest musical, but there’s something about The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T that gets under my skin. I saw it on television when I was very young. Old enough to remember seeing it, but too young to remember more than three details: twins joined at the beard, the nightmare-inducing elevator operator, and a large piano requiring an exponential amount of fingers. This forgotten foundation, along with its Seussian imagery, grants the film a dreamlike feeling. Just as every good boy deserves fudge, every Hans Conried deserves a role like the one he has here, playing the titular Dr. T.

The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton): A kid’s film featuring the personification of evil, not in Mitchum’s portrayal of the preacher Harry Powell, but in Evelyn Varden’s Icey Spoon. This movie is so full of indelible images that I sometimes forget LOVE/HATE tattooed on Powell’s knuckles. There’s a dreadful unease from the inability to fully save or preserve Ben & Pearl within a society whose systems turn on them so easily. Their safety is drawn and quartered at every turn, and so Ben & Pearl flee society, finding a guardian out yonder. Still, there’s a limitation to their newfound guardian’s protection. Their angel and their demon sing in harmony; evil becomes instructive to the children’s growth. It’s a hard world for little things, but there is hope. Mrs. Cooper (Lillian Gish) manages to find her redemption in protecting these children while she can. Perhaps we need them as much as they need us. This was Charles Laughton’s only film as a director, as well as the final of James Agee’s two films as a screenwriter. It isn’t right.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick): This is my favourite film noir, possibly the nastiest as well. Of course, I cackle throughout the entire picture. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis at their bests; the tension between a malevolent god and his jester/would-be pretender played as flirtation, conducting assassinations as though they were composing poetry. Shot on location in New York by James Wong Howe, giving us a view of Babel from the gutters up. Also, I’m just a big ol’ softy for Emile Meyer, who plays Lt. Kello.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957, Frank Tashlin): As I see it, this is the best sex comedy of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Tashlin previously worked at Termite Terrace, making Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and did a brief stop making Screen Gem cartoons over at Columbia in the middle. After having brought feature film techniques to his cartoons, he brought cartoon imagery into his live-action films. This is a vehicle for Jayne Mansfield, who may have been the most cartoonish of the era’s blonde bombshells, and so it is a happy marriage indeed.

Playtime (1967, Jacques Tati): This is cinema. Ah! Tati, Ah! Modernity

Out 1: noli me tangere (1971, Jacques Rivette & Suzanne Schiffman): Rivette’s movies feel alive in a way that I haven’t found anywhere else. The films I’ve seen are about conspiracy, games, and the development of theatre troupes: things that exist only in our minds, and are dependant on our cooperation with others. Things get so twisted that you wonder how they’ll ever untie it all, only for the shared illusions to be revealed as a complex series of false knots. I broke my rule with this film, in choosing a film that I’ve only seen once. I didn’t make the time to revisit this or Céline et Julie vont en bateau, my other favourite Rivette film, so I went with the larger labyrinth to lose myself in.

F for Fake (1973, Orson Welles): This is Orson Welles’s most playful film. I love Welles, the personality, almost as much as I love Welles, the director, so I chose a movie that features both.

Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May): Perhaps the most tense and dark comedy I’ve ever seen. May reaches her highest levels of drama here, and does so without any cost to her usual standards for humour.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra): I wasn’t sure about including this, given that it’s not even my favourite James Stewart Christmas movie, but what can I do? It’s a Wonderful Life is an institution in my family, we’ve watched this every Christmas Eve since I was grade 6. There was a year or two in the early ‘10s where we might have missed it, but, otherwise, we’ve been devout. This is also one of four sources that laid the foundation for my love of movies, and, in particular, older movies. I hope to continue to watch this every year. It just wouldn’t be Christmas. Growing up, my brothers and I used to be allowed to open one gift the night of Christmas Eve, which evolved into my brothers and I exchanging our gifts for each other. The first year my brother’s and I exchanged gifts, we happened upon CBC playing It’s a Wonderful Life in a 3-hour timeslot. Filling in the gaps of my memory with ego, I’d say that I instigated our watching it. I was always the biggest sucker for holiday specials, as well as being the most drawn to B&W. It was an instant hit with all of us, and so two traditions were born that night. For those curious as to what year this took place, I gave my oldest brother a 3 Doors Down CD. My older brother got me the Beast Wars transmetal Terrosaur figure. And. It. Freakin’. Ruled. CBC continued to air It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve, and we continued to tune in. My brothers and I continued to exchange gifts on Christmas Eve for about another decade, but now my family has a better Christmas Eve tradition to pair with our holiday movie: Chinese food, and, less dogmatically, vegetable samosas. Leftovers become brunch. We’ve watched the movie, I think, twenty times now, which includes one viewing of the unfortunate colourized version, and once in theatres. It’s a great movie to come back to each year. There are lots of little moments, lines, and details to zero in on, and each year I get to internally test and brag to myself about naming and recognizing the various character actors and bit players that pop up. Still, I sometimes find myself resisting its charms. A couple of years ago, my view of Frank Capra changed. I no longer saw him as the director I had previously thought him to be*. I wondered whether this movie stood on its own merits, or if I was holding onto it for sentimental reasons. I have since settled on this film being a genuine classic. Another source of resistance is that I’ve never watched this on its own, there’s a lack of an individual foundation to my relationship with the film. I’m so accustomed to viewing films on my own, I think there’s a relief in a taking a private experience, and having it succeed in a public forum. The two support each other, which is part of why a couple of films ended up on this list. However, when it’s a film I’ve only seen in the company of others, I become suspicious of my experience. I believe in the power of cinema when it’s to my benefit, only to doubt it when I fear that it has the power betray me. I guess that I lack faith. *The director I once thought Frank Capra was, I now find Leo McCarey to be.

Doctor Who: The Lost in Time Collection (1963-69, various): This was a last minute decision that ended on a mistake. I ought to have chosen Daleks: The Early Years instead, which has the proper framing of a retrospective documentary. Daleks: The Early Years is a VHS release hosted by Peter Davison, featuring interviews with key people from ‘60s Dalek stories, cannibalizing clips from Dalekmania (another documentary on Daleks in the ‘60s), and orphan episodes and snippets from otherwise lost ‘60s Dalek serials. It’s also one of the VHS tapes that I grew up with, and my introduction to the fact that, at the time, over 100 episodes of ‘60s Doctor Who were missing and presumed lost. This was my introduction to the concept of lost media. Since then, a further 12 episodes have been found, and the number of missing episodes has dropped to 97. Instead, I chose The Lost in Time Collection, which is a 3-disc collection of orphan episodes and surviving clips from otherwise missing ‘60s serials, not actually a feature in itself. It’s a really nice sampling of the Doctor Who’s best era, and the episodes and clips are sometimes more interesting without the rest of their serial for context. While I didn’t get this collection until I was an adult, I had managed to see most or all of its contents growing up, mostly on various VHS compilations, as well as some clips online. As the deadline for submissions approached, I chose the one I enjoy more, rather than the one that first changed me. I suspect that Doctor Who was the first work of science-fiction that I got into, as it predates me in our household. My brothers and my getting into Transformers predates my memory, but it does not predate my being around. Doctor Who also served as my first exposure to B&W viewing. I was really into science-fiction growing up, and the genre was really my first interest in older films. The interest didn’t really bridge its way from my youth into my present. Heck, I wasn’t even particularly a movie person until into my twenties. In early adulthood, after fading for a bit, my fondness for science-fiction was more directed towards video games and books. So while it didn’t lead into my love of film and B&W, it laid a lot of the groundwork for what I’d eventually come to love. My oldest brother remembers staying up late with our parents to watch Doctor Who, and my older brother has memories of trying to stay up with them, but it was no longer airing on any of the stations we had by the time I was kicking. Loved, but unseen, it developed a sort of mythic reputation in my young mind. Over the years, we managed to see a bunch of serials on VHS through our local library system, and we eventually got 5 VHS releases of our own before the decade ended. We got a book, The Doctor Who Yearbook, which had listings and synopsises of every serial ever made. The classic Doctor Who series lasted 26 seasons, consisting of 153 serials, and just shy of 700 episodes. No matter how many episodes of Doctor Who I managed to see when I was growing up, it was only ever the tip of the iceberg. My younger self liked daydreaming about all of the adventures, planets, aliens, robots, and monsters, but that would begin to dissipate with age. While I loved Star Wars for the many of the same reasons as I did Doctor Who, the advent of more Star Wars wasn’t all that fulfilling, with Episode I: Racer for the N64 PC as a noted exception. More than the fact that I was caught up in the cultural backlash against George Lucas, the lack of a well defined characters and society in the original trilogy was a virtue. The toys and books really capitalized on this. I was the kid that wanted to know every weirdo and background character’s life story. I was such a mark. The more movies they made that added to the lore, the smaller their galaxy seemed to be, in opposition to an expanded universe. Each piece promising to add to the larger picture only seemed to reveal a smaller whole. More movies telling the same stories with different versions of the same characters. A galaxy that once seemed so vast now revealed to be comprised of maybe two dozen people, many of which are related or connected to each other in some tired and unnecessary way. Eventually, I got really into Jonathan Rosenbaum, and began to project my ego all over his preferences, to which Star Wars became a victim. I gave up on the series after sitting through a showing of Episode VII. Fires subside, and, these days, I’m mostly indifferent towards the series. Undergraduates can be a bit much, y’know? While the new Doctor Who series also fell out of favour with me, it was easier for me to divorce it from the original series. Having seen the series only in disparate pieces, rather than a linear narrative may have helped. I have no illusions that the original series is anything more than a silly kid’s show that mostly takes place in corridors, which is a fine thing to be. It’s enough to be a delight. The deceit of nostalgia is that I can return to these works I once loved with the same feelings and wonder that I had as a child. While I remain fond of Doctor Who, the whole of a serial is often less than the sum of its parts. After all, being a serial, half of the adventure is meant to take place in your head during the week between episodes. It’s the opposite of binge-watch material. It’s hard to commit to working your way through such a bulky series at a deliberately slow pace. Besides, even spacing the episodes out some, it’s still not going to capture my mind the way it would when I was a child. The virtue of the Lost in Time Collection is that you’re never seeing a serial as a whole, only as individual pieces. The collection consists of 18 complete episodes from 12 serials, with clips and bits from an additional 10 serials. Only one serial has more than two episodes featured, The Daleks’ Master Plan, a 12-part epic, which has its 3 known surviving episodes on the set. Freed from the responsibilities of being part of a larger story, you get to enjoy the pleasures of each episode as its own entity. Charm exists outside of context, and what may have been stretched and strained over half a dozen episodes can easily be sustained in the single episode or two that remains. A piece of Starburst may not keep its flavour any longer than a piece of Hubba Bubba, but at least it has the decency not to overstay its welcome. The less that remains of a serial, the more interesting it becomes. For some serials, the only surviving clips are the scenes that were cut by censors, and so you’re only seeing the juiciest bits. Protected by obscurity, just as recording in B&W protected this era of the series against its lack of budget, the childlike sense of wonder remains. Any missing serial could have been great. We lack evidence to prove otherwise. What little remains from these serials is enough to imagine what may have been, and it’s easy to give the benefit of the doubt to an old friend. No longer just a science-fiction adventure, the series has grown into a larger and more engaging adventure in film & television preservation. Thanks to its cultural status and following, questions as to how these stories were lost, why years of episodes were junked, how they were returned, in which disparate places were episodes found, who has been hunting for them, what were their methods, to what lengths did they go, what places remain to be searched, what remains to be found, what’s trapped in the hands of private collectors, and what has been lost forever have all been thoroughly explored, though some answers continue to elude us. For those interested, Youtuber Josh Snares has an extensive series of videos that breaks down many of these questions as best as one can with what’s publicly known, and, despite being on yotube, I don’t think he’s annoying. Doctor Who best represents my film lover’s sense of discovery, combining the joys of hearing about a film that piques my interest, trying to track a film down, discovering or rediscovering a new favourite, learning about film history, and the efforts of film preservation. Hearing about films I’d like to see can be nearly as rewarding as actually watching the films themselves. The more that I see, the more there is that I’d like to see. The harder something is to find, the more interesting it can become. Film is a physical object, so there is a battle against time for us to discover, recover, restore, and preserve works before they’re lost to time. The good news is that many efforts are being undertaken, both by professionals and by amateurs. The advent of crowdfunding has really helped to create more opportunities for completing these endeavours. Following an Indiegogo campaign, Netflix stepped in and completed Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind. Many of Marion Davies’s silent films have been restored in recent years. Thanks to the efforts of Ben Model and his team, I will soon have the pleasure of seeing eight Edward Everett Horton shorts that haven’t been in circulation since the silent era. Steve Stanchfield (Thunderbean), Jerry Beck (Cartoon Research), Tommy Stathes (Cartoons On Film), and their cohorts are doing God’s work in finding and restoring old cartoons, and giving them an audience once more. I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be so out of touch.

The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley): The Muppets’ movies were a staple of our household growing up, and this ranks alongside The Great Muppet Caper as the best of them. This movie has a very self-aware humour to it, exemplified by the introduction. The camera wanders through a studio backlot, following a car carrying Statler & Waldorf, who provide us with the first dialogue of the film, announcing their intent to heckle the film. Inside, the Muppets are waiting for a private screening of The Muppet Movie to begin. It’s a disaster. A monster tears out one of the seats, the visibly deranged Crazy Harry blows up another, people are dancing in the aisles, and chickens are flying about. Objects being thrown include, but are not limited to, popcorn, Lew Zealand’s boomerang fish, and paper airplanes. A full-sized Muppet looms in the background, a giant colourful bird with enormous unblinking eyes, leaning a bit from side to side. An acknowledgement that somebody has let the animals in charge of the zoo. Still, a coziness remains amidst all of the chaos. Kermit attempts to introduce the movie to his peers, the lights go down, and he takes his seat. The movie opens in the heavens, where the credits and a rainbow appear. It clears onto a long, long shot of a swamp, slowly zooming in to reveal a frog on a log, playing a banjo, singing Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher’s The Rainbow Connection. We’re taken away. One of the most vital aspects of the Muppets is that they exist in our world, something that gets lost in their 90’s trend of literary adaptations. An entire world of Muppets isn’t much of a utopian vision, but the idea that these animals, monsters, and whatevers belong in society alongside ‘real’ people is. This trend was part of a larger regression throughout the years with the Muppets. What began as a self-aware humour turned into a self-depreciating humour, and, eventually, a self-loathing humour. The Muppets used to take on the world, but, in later years, they seemed unable to dream of anything more than getting back together once more, so that they could reaffirm their lack of success. Bring them back to life so they can take one more dying breath. This Muppet movie is filled with celebrity cameos, in part a tribute to their variety show, as well as to the vaudevillian origins of most of their shtick. Here, the cameos serve the Muppets. Later, the Muppets would take a backseat, and become vehicles for others, not even allowed to star in their own movies. I wish they were given better opportunities to shine. As good as this film is, I have to admit that this film’s treatment of Miss Piggy is embarrassingly sexist. While they don’t look like Presbyterians to me, at their best, I think the Muppets have almost as much hope to offer as any religion.

Transformers: The Movie (1986, Nelson Shin): Watching this movie gives me the feeling I always hope that I’ll feel whenever I’ve bought concert tickets. I don’t watch this so much as I sing along to it. I even knew Vince DiCola’s score down to a ‘T’. With all due respect to Storefront Hitchcock, this is my personal Stop Making Sense.

Air Alert V. 4 (late 2000’s, TMT Sports): First, and most importantly, I do not recommend Air Alert nor any other paid for vertical jump program. I cannot stress that enough. They’re not designed by people who really know what they’re doing, the marketing is predatory, they’re unjustly hard on your joints, and they’re methods are not in conjunction with their promises of wild vertical gains. While I hope to stop finding that people have also done Air Alert, I immediately feel a strong kinship with those I learn have also been misled. Air Alert is a 15-week vertical jump program that makes the dubious promises of adding 8-14 inches to yer vertical leap to everyone, regardless of their current physical condition. It promises to add explosiveness to yer hops, but its means are an exponentially increasing amount of jump exercise repetitions. This is to say that, in practice, Air Alert actually builds jumping endurance, which teaches yer muscles to conserve energy, rather than to expend it in an explosive manner. Like all jump programs, it also fails to address that much of your jumping’s height comes from a combination of your core and upper body strength, as well as technique. The version I got also came with an advertised-as-new Air Alert Advanced, a further 6 weeks of yet more intensive exercise routine to add another 3-6 inches to yer leap. I did the 15 weeks of Air Alert, and, like everybody else I’ve known, I got 2-3 inches added to my vertical. After the recovery week suggested following completion of the program, I tried dunking at the church. You had better believe that I told my dad to bring his digital camera, ’cause this was gonna be a big deal. Being able to dunk was surely going to usher in a whole new era in my life. Now, I had been wrong about these sorts of things before. I had become skinny, I got a couple of nice shirts, I listened to what I though was the right unpopular music, and I had stolen some jokes, but my life largely remained the same. It seemed as though my life couldn’t be redeemed by vanity and trivialities, J still wasn’t dating me, but this would be so much more. This was dunking. This was going to be different. We went to the church, and I had the same problems as before. I could get high enough, but I couldn’t throw down. The further you extend a limb from your core, the less strength it has at its disposal. I had little upper-body strength to begin with, and, fully extended, my hand is pretty far from my body. I’d always lose the ball on the way up, or lose height putting more of my strength onto the ball. Legs can only take you so far. At my best, I’ve brought the ball to the rim, lost it, and, thanks to momentum, had the ball go off of the backboard and in. A lay-up isn’t a dunk. My knees have been crunchy ever since. After a further month of letting my joints recover, I tried my hand at Air Alert Advanced. After the first week, which consisted of 3 days of 2000 individual jumps, some of my friends reunited to play soccer at our old high school. I was proud to see that the goals we had rescued were still on the field. However, I found that my joints were so worn down that I could only run at a steady pace in a straight line. Turning, accelerating, and decelerating were all, sadly, out of the picture. I decided not to continue onto the subsequent weeks. I was still a fatuous pauper, single, and working at a shoe store while friends had gone on to do other things, so what did I manage to accomplish? Well, for starters, I gained some athletic ability for the first time in my life, which was neat. I gained a lot of leg strength, endurance, and quickness, as well as the previously mentioned 2-3 inches to my vert, all of which I treasured. Despite being the skinniest guy on the court, my legs were strong enough to anchor me in the key, and contend with guys up to double my weight. I went from being a guy who showed up to Dunkball, to becoming a guy that people wanted on their team. While others got tired throughout the night, slowly losing their vertical, I managed to jump just as frequently and just as high in my last game of the night as I could during my first. As both the tallest and the lankiest guy at Dunkball, my height advantage now increased in the air. I’d let people box me out, only to jump and reach over them. I felt so free. I was, and remain, Dunkball’s most improved player. Of course, it helps to have the advantage of having started out lower than everybody else. Once, somebody brought a friend who was taller than me. It was awful. As for dunking? Well, I could dunk small balls at the church, if I could close my hand on them. I managed to dunk a flat soccer ball on an outdoor net at a school yard once, but I never verified its height. I could dunk at the Academy chapel with the rim fully raised, though that rim sags in the front, so I’m guessing that rim was about 9’10”. Still, that won me a game of H-O-R-S-E or two. Sometimes, when warming up for Dunkball, someone would instigate a dunk competition, and I managed to develop a trademark dunk which nobody could replicate or stomach: the underhanded dunk. Norm was the only person not to loathe it, bless his heart. While I never managed to dunk on a proper 10’ net, I was able to goaltend, which has no use outside of being a dick to a friend. I was smarmy enough to do it once. Even at Dunkball, I never became much of a dunker, except on turnovers or tip-ins, or unless I had a guard who could do the work of setting me up. I’m more opportunistic than aggressive, besides, who am I going to beat off of the dribble? On my worst nights, I was still a tall guy who could jump, so I always drew the interest of a defender. I’ve always preferred defence to offence, and my favourite offensive play is to box out their post-player, either to be in a better position to rebound, or in order to prevent them from goaltending. Defence is where Air Alert made the most difference for me. They either had to box me out in order to stop me from goaltending, or try banking it in. I could sit low enough to the ground to defend outside players without losing speed. With a lower net, some players didn’t arc their shots as much, allowing me to swat them away with ease. There was nothing better than blocking a dunk. Some people took it personally, and would try coming at you on the next play; we all loved blocking Joseph. Still, the best was blocking Norm’s dunks, even if it meant landing on my back. It was summertime, the final game of the night, with uneven teams and lopsided match-ups, but, somehow, it’s neck and neck. Not only are we still in it, we’ve had the lead. Will is shooting, Nathan is hustling, and I’m blocking everything. My greatest defensive game ends prematurely after I block one of Norm’s dunks, landing horizontally, with all of my weight squarely on my tailbone and elbows. I call it a night, and, in the morning, learned that we had lost immediately after I left. At this point, I had memorized Air Alert’s number of sets and routines, and so I lent the DVD to Graham. He promised to return it soon. This was in 2010. I learned how to juggle that August, but that didn’t save me either. I kept up my jumping exercises, doing week 4 as maintenance, losing consistency once I started university that fall. Dunkball slowly lost consistency, too, and so I eventually took up the reigns of organizing it. People changed wards, got married, moved, and started families. It was hard to motivate people to come out without a guarantee. At some point, I became one of the veterans. As Dunkball continued to lose consistency, and as I went through occasional bouts of burn-out withorganizing things, Dunkball changed from being year-round into seasons, and, later, patches, of activity. The benefit of being the one to organize Dunkball is that it allowed me to filter out the jerks between patches of activity. There aren’t a ton of rules, you can make a pass off the wall, you can charge, you can play it in the hall, and goaltending is a way of life, but life is too long to spend it with people who can’t play sports without yelling. We weren’t as athletic as we once were, but the new players were generally pretty skinny, so we were still able to push them around. I stopped buying bus passes after my first year of university, which helped me to maintain most of my leg strength. While I was in university, I managed to keep most of my vertical, but my confidence became precarious, which affected my intensity. I wasn’t soaking through my shirts anymore, I started to let people push me around. After I dropped out of university, I grew into a much more sedentary lifestyle. The leg strength I had used to define myself diminished. I’ve had a really hard coping with that. At times, the prospect of playing Dunkball felt more embarrassing than motivating. I felt lost out on the court. I didn’t feel strong enough to bump around in the key, and I felt sluggish trying to play on the outside. Still, I had now been around long enough that I was able to lead a team, if necessary. I’d hide from my refuge until I felt strong enough to return. Volunteering and winter each got me walking again. Collin organized a soccer team the summer before the pandemic, which got me running and jumping again. I felt more determined, and began to feel better. No longer trapped by where I was, or where I felt I should have been, I was content with making progress. I think that I handled the early months of the pandemic better than most people. With our usual routines in disarray, I stumbled out of the feedback loop I was caught in. Finding some self-compassion and focus, I created structure to my quarantine in order to work on some goals. I was going to come out of the quarantine dunking. I was joking this time, but I need to dream about something while exercising. Otherwise, I’m just jumping in place, staring at the door. I went through weeks 1-7 of Air Alert, ending with the rest week that marks the halfway point. After which, I returned to doing week 4 to maintain strength. With churches closed, activities cancelled, and others on lockdown, I started secretly meeting Nik on Saturdays to shoot the ball around. This was back when we were allowed to keep small circles of contacts. The benefit of having keys. The only downside was that the building didn’t have any air circulation outside of facilities management’s offices. Regarding the pandemic, our city still didn’t have any cases of community transmission. Two of us shooting the ball around became three, and soon we were playing 2-on-2. Dunkball was back, baby! Sans the titular Dunkball, which had gone missing, stolen by missionaries. I knew that it was only a matter of time before they got rid of the Academy chapel, so I was really motivated to play as much as we could while it was still safe. It took us a little bit before we managed to get six players out on the same day, and we still ended up playing 2’s some nights. We weren’t getting many guys out, but we always had good games. Everyone who came out hustled and was a solid atmosphere guy. We’d mostly play best-of-5 or 7 game series, maybe switching teams up for a final game or two. The series managed to stay pretty tight, with nobody ever reaching a dynasty. Facilities management leaves the building at 5:30, and, with nobody else around, our secret combination was free to schedule Dunkball whenever we pleased. We were playing twice some weeks. We were able to accommodate people’s schedule. Marvin, my favourite teammate, was able to come out. I hadn’t been able to play with him in years. A high percentage of our small group of players were relatively new to the game. It was really exciting to see them develop, even if Jason blocked me that one time. I had found my place again, having regained some of my leg strength and quickness. My core and upper-body strength, elusive at the best of times, had become memories, but I worked around that. My game is mostly designed with those absences in mind anyways. Consequently, my play became much more lateral, rather than vertical, after the 4th and, later, 5th game, as Collin noted. I also managed a new trick or two, like learning to bait people into banking their shot, and then blocking it off of the backboard for a quick turnover. My intensity was up, or at least the A/C was down. I was soaking through my shirts again, and I was happy. It was a hot and humid summer. I missed Jason’s birthday, so I brought some blackout chocolate banana bread to celebrate. As it turns out, a thick moist cake is not refreshing when you’re exhausted and sitting around in a hot and stuffy room you’ve spent the past 2-3 hours further heating up with yer friends. Collin became the MVP the following week when he brought a box of freezies with him. All my life, I had never seen their true worth or potential. I took them for granted in my youth, and turned my nose up at them as I grew older. Now I understood. I had Dunkball, I had friendly players who responded when I tried organizing things, we had freezies, and, as the Ward Clerk, I had convinced my Bishop that we should buy a new ball (despite the fact that playing at the Church was still verboten.) I was grateful, but I still longed for a day where we had more than 4-6 players, so that we could have subs between games. It’s nice to be able to switch up teams between games, rather than trying to push Arles all night. It’s even nicer to sit down every once in a while, especially after failing to push Arles around. Our province was still fairly safe, but that was beginning to change. Two regulars had at risk family members, and we began seeing community transmission. I planned to end what was to be the penultimate season of Dunkball after Labour Day. I was concerned what would happen once the school year started. Before then, we had eight* people come out to Dunkball one morning. Four pairs of family members, in fact. This gave us rotations between games, and a variety of playing styles, leading to more interesting match-ups and dynamics. Whoever loses would get to take a break; excitement was in the air! I questioned Collin’s choice of shoes. He reminded me that I’m solely responsible for their condition. I lend Collin my shoes. He likes the shoes, and I like his freezies. *the ideal amount is 8-9 people Shoot for teams: Graham, Collin, and I hit our shots. Collin has speed, Graham has range and strength, I have the height, and we all rebound. We win the first game easily, manage to survive the second, and win our third. Dynasty! Shoot for teams again, and I’m back on the floor with David and Marvin. David anchors the key, allowing me to cheat on defence, while Marvin generates offence and creates mismatches. We all defend. Three more wins, and it’s another dynasty! Marvin and I sit this time, and watch as Jacob (handles), Graham, and Jason (positioning) steal the game. Marvin and I go back on with Limhi, a guard heavy team playing an post-player’s game. They shoot and pass, drawing out the defence, while I set picks, prevent goaltending, and try to clean up on the boards. They cover the outside, while I guard the inside. When the other team goes to the inside, I make their post-player turn away from the net, where either Marvin or Limhi, cheating off of their man, are waiting to strip them of the ball. We win the first game, taking back the floor. They carry me through the second. Last game of the day, and the other team starts to fall apart. As per tradition, we extend the game, but only to to 15, because only Graham and I want to play to 21. We stumble as they regroup, but Jacob gets frustrated, and their chemistry falters. I assume that I’m to blame, become self-conscious, and begin calling fouls on myself whenever I make any contact with the other team. Of course, this happens on every play, because I’m trying to box out my brother. I get some weird looks as David sighs, he just wants it to be over. I get a clean stop, Limhi scores, and the day ends on a third dynasty. I remain undefeated. Freezies for everyone! That was the third to last time we played Dunkball. We had another night with six players, and ended the season with a morning of playing 2-on-2, after which we ran out of freezies. I was optimistic that we’d be back playing sometime in the New Year. We barely registered a first wave of the pandemic, but restrictions ended prematurely, and school started back up. Cases kept climbing. I was scared in October, but that was only the beginning. When we first started playing Dunkball that summer, our province was first in the country. By Christmas, we had become the worst. We began to curb the number of new cases, but restrictions were eased before hospitals finished dealing with the second wave. In May, we began transferring patients to other provinces. For some reason, the plan is to reopen in July. For some reason, a duo tried organizing ball in March. I declined. Our congregation was changing buildings, so Nik and I went over to grab some stuff. I found that our Dunkball had gone missing again, but I found the original Dunkball, which hasn’t held air since 2015, and brought it home. In April, facilities management began clearing out the Academy chapel, in anticipation of listing the building for sale. They didn’t inform our Bishop until later that week. He went over to pack anything worth keeping, only to have found that they had already junked everything belonging to our congregation, as well everything belonging to the Yazidi community group that had been meeting there prior to the pandemic. I don’t know the building’s current status. Nik and I kept our keys in the hopes of playing again, but it’s unlikely that things will be safe to go back to normal in time. Dunkball exists as a time and a place: Thursday nights after Institute class at Academy. Last fall, they moved institute classes over to the stake centre. The Academy building is being sold now, and Dunkball is over as we know it. As I previously mentioned, I lent Graham, the Gordie Howe of Dunkball, my Air Alert DVD and booklet back in 2010. For the past ten years now, he has meant to return it, only for it to slip his mind. I usually forget about it, myself, only for him to remind me when he apologizes. In the moment, I sorta feel guilty that he worries about it. I mean, it’s fine, I don’t need it. He’s put it on his desk, he’s placed it by the door, and though he’s either seen me or a member of my family at least once a week for the past decade, my copy of Air Alert still hasn’t made its way back to me. I’m not even sure that I want it back, but I appreciate his sincerity. It’s become tradition for him to maintain this false tension between us. At this point, I’d hate to see it go. What if this tension is what’s sustained our friendship throughout all these years? What if Graham’s only been coming out to Dunkball because he feels guilty? I won’t see him at Dunkball anymore, and, as of this week, he won’t be seeing me at church anymore. It’s things like this that keep us alive. I hope that Graham never returns my copy of Air Alert, but I hope that he always tries. ”There is no end to matter, There is no end to space, There is no end to Dunkball, There is no end to race.” - If You Could Hie to Kolob Dunkball, by W.W. Phelps.

I could have gone on about my legs, honestly. Now, I only included those formative texts that I’m willing to admit are still a part of me. I did not include those works whose influences I feel that I have repented of, which is why the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage of Bigfoot from Bluff Creek, California, The Weezer Video Capture Device, Newsies, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, nor anything related to Dorm Life or MST3K are not included on my ballot. In any case, I’m sorry not to have found room for Johnny Guitar.

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limerental · 4 years

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limerental’s witcher fic masterlist

all of this can be found on my ao3 of the same name but is sometimes nice to have a list on tumblr as well I suppose

yennskier & ot3 fic

the poet’s wish - yennefer/jaskier - 100k, canon divergent, slow burn enemies to lovers mutual pining

The one where Jaskier has a near-death experience, makes a wish, and inexplicably has a lot of amazing but ill-advised sex in a crumbling manor house with a sexy but insane sorceress. And then, keeps on having it. It's almost as if the universe is drawing them ceaselessly back together or something. Which would all be very romantic if not for the fact that they viscerally hate one another. Until, of course, they don't.

lilacs and dandelions - jaskier/yennefer(/geralt), 46.8k, canon divergent, explicit

Geralt seeks out Yennefer only to find her, of all unbelievable and ridiculous things, shacking up with his bard.

other things i’ll never be - geralt/jaskier/yennefer, 23.9k, modern au, everyone is trans,

Yennefer renamed herself when she was fourteen.

Jaskier re-learned his own name and built himself from the ground up and then again and all over again.

Geralt denies and denies and denies.

how long we were fool’d - jaskier/yennefer, aromantic geralt, platonic found family, suburban neighbors au, 9.8k

Yennefer and Jaskier are the eclectic, married couple who have just moved in to an ordinary suburban neighborhood next door to hot, single dad Geralt and his young daughter, Ciri.

Geralt has no idea what to make of them. None at all.

i been in the valley - geralt/yennefer/jaskier, 9.5k, polyamorous triad equestrian au, explicit

Jaskier is the reckless sort of brave that thinks nothing of wearing white breeches on an impromptu trail ride, and Yennefer has clawed her way up from nothing to an esteemed training position at a sprawling equestrian complex. When a mysterious, decidedly attractive stranger with a knack for horsemanship and an unknown backstory arrives one day at the barn, neither is the type to just sit back and let the other seduce him. Competition is what they know best, and Geralt is first prize.

Or the equestrian witcher AU literally no one asked for but that we all deserve.

(don’t) poke the sleeping dragon - geralt/jaskier/yennefer, 7.5k yen drives a wizard van au, pwp/explicit, warnings for drug use & mildly dubious consent

A retelling of Bottled Appetites but everyone is really high at a nerdy music festival and Yennefer has a wizard van for no discernible reason and also Geralt gets pegged.

twas nothing at all - geralt/yennefer/jaskier, 6.1k, pwp/explicit

There once was a succubus, ugly and crass who cast a dark spell on one fine lad and lass But Geralt of Rivia, who saw them enthralled took a cock up his arse like twas nothing at all

lay these things bare - yennefer/jaskier - 4.5k

Jaskier comes to Yennefer to solve a pressing issue.

Yennefer can't help herself from having a bit of fun. Until it's not really all that fun anymore.

Aka Jaskier goes bald and Yen has a crisis and it's somehow very very tender idk

over the edge - jaskier/yennefer, 4.2k, pwp/explicit

Returning from an errand, Yennefer catches Jaskier fucking the innkeeper's wife in her bed. Of course, the only logical thing to do is to join them. It is her bed, after all.

said you’d never smile again - yennefer/jaskier, 2.2k

“If you should ever witness that smile turned your way,” Istredd says, cross-eyed with drunkenness, pointing a sharp finger into Jaskier’s chest. “You will feel like the luckiest man alive. I promise you this. You will be half-ruined for any other. You will wish you could inspire that smile a dozen times over and then some. That she would look at you like that until the end of your days.”

And Jaskier doesn't really get what he means. Until, he does.

you’re not a stranger - yennefer/dandelion, book fic, blood of elves au, 2.2k

Sharing a meal, Yennefer had told the poet ”I know you and like you”, and expressed that strange affection as a show of gratitude for keeping Geralt sane and whole on the Path, but that was not the extent of it, no, not by half.

She had grown fond of him, the utter ignoramus, and equal parts curious. Curious whether she could coax more verse from him on the topic of her power, her heart, her strength, her beauty, and curious also, if the swagger he walked with was well-deserved, if he was as well-endowed in terms of his… talent as he professed in song.

you can sharpen your knife - yennefer/jaskier - 1.8k, pwp/explicit

After an ambush reveals that Jaskier is plenty handy with his little dagger, Yennefer finds herself hot and bothered.

that medicine i need - jaskier & yennefer, 1.6k

A Jaskier who skirts the boundaries of gender helps Yennefer navigate some identity issues of her own.

geraskier fic

long on the road - geralt/jaskier, 80s trucker au, 14.9k, warnings for major character death & depiction of terminal illness/HIV/AIDS

Geralt is a long-haul trucker who has recently broken it off (again) with his ex-wife. Jaskier is a free spirit musician hitchhiking across the country while grappling with a sudden reminder of his mortality. Geralt really, really regrets picking him up at the last rest area. Until, he doesn’t.

how light carries on - geralt/jaskier, geralt/regis, 9.6k, sequel to long on the road

Jaskier dies in 1990. Geralt lives.

the waters dark and deep - geralt/jaskier, 8.7k, warning for character death

Yennefer wonders if the Witcher bent first to will the ground warm and dry or if he hacked with furious, shuddering blows until the earth fractured and gave way to him. No matter, the grave carved out of the swell of the bluff bears the same dark weight in the end. A little body, withered in age, wrapped in a worn quilt from their bed and swept beneath the soil one broad stroke at a time.

Or, the one where Geralt goes with Jaskier to the coast and spends happily ever after farming by the sea.

you were always gold to me - geralt/jaskier, greenhouse owner!jaskier, ex con!geralt au, 6k, explicit

After spending ten years behind bars for getting caught up in the wrong crowd while trying his hardest to be a worthy father to his little daughter, Geralt takes up a job at a swanky garden center owned by the bubbly and charismatic man of many yellow flower names. They rest, they say, is just gravity.

denial’s not just a river - geralt/jaskier, 3.7k, pwp/explicit

prompt fill for an anon who asked for loss of control/loss of agency in relation to edging/orgasm control/premature ejaculation/omorashi aka it’s geralt piss fic, babes

to pull me from myself again - geralt/jaskier - 1.8k, role reversal, bard!geralt & witcher!jaskier

“You could be my barker!” the Witcher exclaimed in a fit of wide-armed inspiration on the brown road. “You sir, seem in want of a muse, and I am chock full of musings. Full to the brim.”

“Full of something,” said Geralt, hands tight on the strap of his lute case, and Jaskier barked out a surprised laugh. Or at least, Geralt thought it was a laugh.

It twisted gutturally in his throat.

other fic

hands on my waist, do it softly - geralt/jaskier/eskel - 6.7k, fem!jaskier/witchergender fem-bodied witchers, pwp/explicit

She had thought their ilk did not usually travel in pairs, but there they were, two great, hulking shapes in the rough-hewn doorway of the tavern.

Or: fem!Jaskier gets sandwiched between two beefy lady Witchers

blood of the covenant, water of the womb - geralt & renfri, 2.7k, warnings for imagined rape/non-con, gore, body horror

“Spoken like the beast the world will believe you to be. But we both know you’re no beast, my dear. Simply a victim of circumstance, as I was. No beast at all.”

“Quit blabbering,” said Geralt. “Let me guess. Find a way to lift the curse, and you sway the masses in my favor.”

Stregobor’s pleasant smile deepened his rosy cheeks.

“No, no, I know how to end my affliction. Now that you are here, it will not be long.”

respite - yen/vesemir, 1.8k

Vesemir is old. Yennefer allows him small moments of rest.

swallow - geralt/yen, geralt & ciri - 1.3k, character study, gore

May he rot to make earth. May he nourish one small patch of soil, one tuft of grass. That’s where he’ll retire, in the gut of a carrion bird. Vulture shit. A fitting tribute. All the memorial he’s ever going to get.

#and that's that!#my fic

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handlewcaare · 4 years

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Origins: ?

The first time he died, it was a little over in the 730’s.

No one really takes into account that immortality was not one evidently diagnosed, not when it first occurs. Similar to those who passed, he was subjected to smallpox. The manifestations were all there: malaise, chills that did nothing to coax the fever, he could even hardly stomach what food was provided to him. However, the mild mannered man—his birth name lost to him—never once barked or snarled in distaste of his family’s efforts. Rather, even in his enervated and delirious state, he always offered his gratitude in the form of a slight nod and a mumbled ‘thank you’ that weighed too heavy along his lips.

By the time the winter came, his immune system became more worn and enervated. His strength wilted like the flora underneath the pelt of the tundra. Had it not been so long ago, he would have described how his family’s voices sounded, what woe and distraught that would amplify by the final breath of their oldest brother and son—or maybe, he was the youngest? He vaguely recalled being an uncle, but maybe he was a father as well. He was a little attuned to a small one’s cry; a habitual feeling. He didn’t know now, as immortality never guaranteed a permanent memory.

For whoever his family was, it was the end of their line. One of their own would never survive to see how their generation would flourish. He would never witness the following summer, nor would he recall anything but the hearth of the fireplace as his immune system failed him. They would have been right, normally—

—until he attempted to breathe through a thick penumbra of dirt an hour later.

The suffocation of the cold, dark earth evoked natural panic thorough his senses. His fingernails nearly cracked under the strain of him clawing him out of his grave. The absence of home left him cold and pale, as if his circulation could never be initiated ever again. By the time he rasped out for a heave of breath he believed he didn’t need, his russet gaze blearily peered toward the silhouettes of astonished grave robbers.

As groggy as he was—as if stirred into the early morning—he could only provide an awkward “hello” until one of them attempted to ram the tongue of his shovel into his frontal lobe.

Everything around him always changed. Ailments became easier to cure, people lived longer (not as long as himself, but a decade or two later). Yet, he was drowned in an neverchanging state; no matter how many injuries he succumbed (with slight annoyance), no matter how many diseases infiltrated his system, he was in a constant within a world full of variables. He had been thirty-three for the past several centuries, not a wrinkle, nor a callus, nor a scar to his name. It made him somehow nauseated that children could develop more scars than he could.

While people lived longer, however, their actions became easier to predict. What desperate beau would ready his blade to kill his lover’s fiancé would be intercepted by his cold and unrelenting hand. An admirer of a serial killer would only copy their tactics (and their mistakes). Once he started to apply the patterns, catching felons was a habit of his.

It was roughly in the spring of the 1920’s that he countered a pseudo-Duchess, a beautiful woman should he be frank, but not enough to pry him out of his own head.

“And where were you last night, Madam?” His baritone was demure, soft enough to never be tarnished by the nicotine they both breathed in.

She could only align a cherry-lipped smile, a bit wistful at the contours, “I was over in New York City with a friend at West Egg,” unlike his voice, her’s felt coarse with one too many huffs of nicotine.

His brow raised, “Don’t have friends with old money?”

“They’re not as respectful with the loss of my mother,” her vanity perished under the devestating weight of her relative. Had he not been emotionally aware of such a loss, he would have entirely missed the falsetto of her chocking up. “Y-You have to understand, I was in need of some company to cope.”

The private investigator briefly skimmed over his notes scribbled in his pad. “I’m sure you did,” he reflected, reverence couldn’t have sounded so potent, “so much so that you had to pay your debts to a nicely suited man with a violin case.”

The Duchess’s verdant glare widened by the mention of her ‘company.’ As she guffawed, she hastily attempted to light up another cigarette after shakily snuffing out her half-finished one. She was getting restless, “what? So I can’t befriend someone from an orchestra?”

“Said friend is affiliated with many of the bootleggers of West Egg,” another bullet to fire that stained her pretty countenance with a snarl, “it wouldn’t be a problem, if you didn’t hire him to lay a hit on your mother for—“ he suddenly became rather pensive, “—ah, fourteen milli—!”

“I don’t have to answer a damn thing from you.”

She was right, she didn’t have to. As the prime suspect outright splashed her cherry wine into his face, he made no attempt to hastily chase after her for interrogation in sheer furor. Rather, he only trailed after her out of the restaurant neither of them could afford. Had he not encountered the same type of crime in the seventeen hundreds, he wouldn’t have put a wheel lock to prevent her from escaping so soon.

His smile was a bit too smug when she glared over her shoulder.

His detective work never got much recognition. In truth, it was what he preferred in the first place. The rough cases where he would hold the hand of someone who wasn’t the same as him left him sleepless at night.

Sanguine was never a pretty sight to see seep from the lips of a young woman just trying to go home late, nor was the sound of an old man’s whimpers—“I don’t wanna go”—the equivalent of a swan song. Death was a hideous thing that clambered and infiltrated what should have had warmth and color. None of them should ever look like him. Oddly enough, he could feel how much colder their hands were compared to his own. How lifeless and stagnant they were; a grotesque reflection, should he ever try to be the poetic type.

The more work he did, the more he couldn’t stomach the cases he failed in. There was always a private victory he would have in saving people from monstrous situations in the form of a simple shot of bourbon, but most of that had changed when he encountered a man in a well-dressed suit.

It was Autumn when a seat beside him was occupied at the pub, roughly thirty years later after the Duchess was hauled off to court for the murder of her mother. The glass balanced along the stranger’s frames held more hearth than the eyes that saw the detective through them.

“You’re quite handsome,” for a specimen, the sentence would eventually trail off to someone the private eye wasn’t. As acrimonious as the private eye was, his manners were still prevelent.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

“More along the lines of what I can help you with,” the man assertively corrected. The smile that graced his demeanor would have disarmed anyone, but the private eye became too keen.

After that, it was all a blur. Immortality could never guarantee a permanent memory, but after he was succumbed to various experiments, he didn’t think they were worth it. As the cold water splashed over his cyanotic skin, his body jolted when the tongue of lightning crept along his scalp and left him a panting mess. What would soon follow would be his body partially submerged to an acidic bite that cindered and charred through bone and tissue; hungry for the blood that could only become more bitter and citrated the more Subject 66 aged.

He could handle pain easy, but not to this vehement extent.

“Can you get up, subject 66?” A hauntingly calloused baritone spoke to his hunched physique across the tessellated floor.

That isn’t my name.

When he didn’t answer immediately, the toe of a leather shoe prodded into the progressively healing ulcer from the acid. If only half of his body could function, he would have seized that leg with the acid still singeing through his withering palm. Instead of the guttural cries of the injured genetist, Genus hummed in a low tone.

“Your healing factor has improved marginally,” he declared, as if it was an advancement. “We’ll have to be more creative with our experiments.”

Subject 66 couldn’t help but align a coy simper, copper tasted heinous along his lips, “why don’t we trade places then?” He challenged.

Subject 66 couldn’t recall what his name was prior, not since he was under the knife of a genetist who conjured himself a god-complex (as if he wasn’t pretentious enough). Not since his brain was dissected in several quadrants, leaving him hollow. He was but a phantom that lurked within the murmurs of a shell. He was quite handsome for a specimen, but the compliment only served as pure vitriol for what would will him to escape.

Dr. Genus never accounted for the fact that near-perfect regeneration could be used against him. As clones of mutated animals and copies of the scientist’s self-made image were torn through by the weight of his arsenal—a fireaxe he stole from a little compartment, twin machetes he smuggled under his shirt from his torture, and a desert Eagle that always fractured his radius—he could only feel a sense of relief that swarmed his senses to the acrimonious aroma of copper and salt.

It wasn’t the rivers of blood that was euphoric. Not in the slightest. What was euphoric was the bleeding sunshine that welcomed him when he used a healing stump of his arm to open the door. The symphony of cicadas that beckoned the enervated to sleep the summer away. After—how long? Months? Decades?—some time of being confined to fluorescent lighting and pale, minimalistic cages. Subject 66 could only chuckle to himself as he staggered out and back to the world that would be ever changing.

#opm #one punch man #Origins Headcanon #Zombieman #OPM Zombieman #I wrote... a novel #lmao #ken.txt #long post #I was also inspired by the Old Guard when I wrote this #so that’s another reason why it’s quite hefty #character study

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National Examiner, April 12

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Mark Harmon quitting NCIS

Page 2: Stars Who Rock Around the Clock -- they believe in the healing power of crystals -- Naomi Campbell, Shirley MacLaine, Adele, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Uma Thurman

Page 3: Debra Messing, Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, Megan Fox, Katy Perry, Gisele Bundchen

Page 4: Eddie Murphy's roles and costumes

Page 6: George Clooney is turning 60 in May, and he says being an older dad to toddlers has its benefits -- his son isn't ever going to feel competitive with him and he'll be gumming his bread by the time he'd feel competitive with him, jokes the Oscar-winning actor, whose twins Ella and Alexander turn 4 in June -- George is well aware that growing up with two highly accomplished parents (his wife Amal Clooney is a successful human rights lawyer) can put a lot of pressure on a kid and that's why the couple is already guiding Ella and Alexander with strong values and kind hearts because George says it's their job to make sure that they care about people and that they challenge people in power and look out for people who don't have power and those are the things he was raised with -- the known prankster is also passing the practical joke tradition down to the next generation and he taught Alexander to take a piece of banana, chew it up and then spit it into a napkin, then stand next to him mom, pretend to blow his nose into it and look down until Mama looks at it, then eat it

Page 7: Partridge Family star Shirley Jones turned 87, and she's brimming over with gratitude for her wonderful life that's been chock-full of extraordinary experiences -- she says you have to have a good time and enjoy life to the fullest and before you know it you'll be 87 -- Shirley has three sons (her stepson David Cassidy died in 2017) and 13 grandchildren

Page 8: Take your etiquette test for tea with Queen Elizabeth

Page 9: Brain foods that may help prevent dementia

* Study says new drug slows Alzheimer's

Page 10: Jennifer Garner recently opened up about her real feelings on her body -- she's 48 and single and has three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck: daughters Violet and Seraphina and son Samuel -- in a recent interview, she admitted that her body has changed a lot since having three kids and she doesn't mind one little bit, even though she was hurt when a friend hinted she may be expecting again, saying there are some women whose bodies just, no matter how many babies they have, they bounce right back to that slim-hipped, no stomach and she has so many girlfriends who have that physique and she's so happy for them, but she's not one of them and she can work really hard and she can be really fit and she will still look like a woman who's had three babies and she always will

Page 11: 6 stomach symptoms you should never ignore -- catch problems before the become deadly

Page 12: After more than two decades, James Brolin says he's discovered the way to keep his marriage to Barbra Streisand going strong: negotiation -- it's taken two marriages and 22 years for him to figure it out and he and his wife have gotten so close being locked down together -- his mother was the sweetest person so he never really learned to negotiate with women but now he knows if you sit down and talk about a situation, you can work it out

Page 14: Dear Tony, America's Top Psychic Healer -- don't make snap judgments; you may lose the perfect mate -- Tony predicts a very hot summer coming and a lot more street crime

Page 15: Folks getting their COVID-19 vaccinations at the Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts got a shocking treat: a mini-concert from world-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma -- while waiting out his 15-minute observation period, the musician sat down to play a socially distant symphony for his fellow inoculees

Page 16: Duchess Kate is never seen without a purse, but what exactly does she keep inside it? There's quite a history between royal women and their handbags: Princess Diana used her clutch bag to cover her cleavage from prying photographers, Queen Elizabeth moves her handbag from one arm to the other to signal to her staff when she's bored of chatting with someone, and Kate carries her bag in her left hand so she can keep her right hand free to greet and shake hands with guests and she holds her bag in front of her when shaking hands might be awkward -- according to royal protocol pre-pandemic, Kate must extend her hand first for another person to shake hands with her, so if she prefers to just smile instead of touching other folks, she uses her clutch to do that -- author Marcia Moody who wrote Kate: A Biography, says the duchess always carries four must-have items: in her small clutch, she carries a compact mirror, a handkerchief, blotting paper and lip balm and every now and then, if she's going to attend a tennis match, for example, Kate will carry a pair of sunglasses -- unlike Queen Elizabeth, whose purses come from a company called Launer, the duchess favors different brands, but mostly a company called Mulberry -- nowadays with three small children, the mom gravitates toward midsize bags with handles because she's got to take more items with her like a handy bunch of tissues, good for wiping little noses and faces, and also takes her camera along

Page 18: William Shatner confesses that when he starred in Star Trek during the mid-60s, he had no idea it would become a worldwide phenomenon still popular today -- Shatner, who turned 90 in March, says it's unimaginable and it's all beyond anybody's imagination or ability to repeat and the greatest thing about being the captain of the Enterprise for three years was his relationship with the cast and the roles were written so well

Page 19: Brandy is a one-in-a million cat because those are the odds she'd ever be found again after she went missing 15 years ago -- when Charles got the phone call from a California animal shelter that his missing pet has been found, he could scarcely believe his ears and the Los Angeles man was skeptical and thought it must be a mistake but he had made sure the two-month-old kitten had a microchip and sure enough, the malnourished stray they found was his Brandy -- Charles did break down and cry because he thought about all of the years he lost from her and when he picked her up, she started to purr and it was very emotional

Page 20: Mark Harmon finally lured wife Pam Dawber out of retirement to star alongside him on NCIS, but the pairing will be short-lived because he's leaving the show after 18 hit seasons -- the 69-year-old star is finally fed up with the backbreaking hours, endless rehearsals, and feuds with cast and crew, and plans to ride off into the sunset with Pam and retire to the couple's Montana Ranch -- Mark's contract is up after season 18, and he's agonized over whether to sign a new one and he's being offered the moon and the stars to come back for a few more seasons, but he says his heart just isn't in it and Mark has faced problems on the set over the past few years and he feels his age, he just doesn't need the aggravation anymore -- NCIS recently teased a possible departure of his character Leroy Gibbs when the special agent commander was suspended for assaulting and nearly killing a suspect but despite that, Harmon insists Gibbs not be killed off so he can leave the door open for a possible return

Page 22: Legendary actor Michael Caine just turned 88 and he's still going strong, starring in an upcoming comedy Best Sellers and says he knows he's old but he doesn't feel old, not in his head, where it matters

Page 24: They say money doesn't buy happiness, but what do people spend their money on that can buy happiness? You don't need millions of dollars to afford the things that happy people buy to stay that way and studies show that anything over $75,000 a year in income is gravy, which means yachts, jewels, second homes and art collections are not at all required -- the best thing to drop your cash on is experiences and doing is better than having and in other words, an object you own will never give you the consistent pleasure of an experience that creates good memories that live on forever -- also the best experiences are the ones that involve other people like having a picnic with family, going rafting with pals, or even just walking and talking with an exercise buddy

Page 25: Freshen Your Fridge -- make a clean start with this 5-step plan

Page 26: Tony's Mystic World -- may the force be with you -- the life force can be drained out of you by fear or worry

Page 28: Sensational Snaps From Around the World -- photo contest captures amazing sights

Page 31: When to trash it -- the useful lifespan of refrigerated food

Page 32: It's been 40 years since Marilu Henner starred on the hit sitcom Taxi, but the great memories and wonderful co-stars are always on her mind because she's still pals with them -- they always stayed in touch with each other and never lost touch and do a Taxi Zoom every two months and they're all very current with each other and they have a text chain as well and they're in contact every week -- Marilu is close with cast members Tony Danza, Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Carol Kane

Page 33: Garth Brooks is overjoyed wife Trisha Yearwood has finally bounced back from her bout with COVID-19 -- she seems to be 100 percent, according to Garth, and at the end there during fatigue she got real impatient, really kind of mean and sassy and he thought well, she's back to herself -- after announcing in February that Trisha had the coronavirus and Garth said he had tested negative

Page 40: The grass is always greener when you use these simple gardening tips

* Avoid cat-astrophe -- the right way to add a stray

Page 42: 10 things you never knew about Glenn Close -- the wildly successful actress turned 74 in March

Page 44: Eyes on the Stars -- Sylvester Stallone and wife Jennifer Flavin leave a Florida hotel (picture), Jane Seymour is still looking on the bright side even as the world continues to weather the pandemic, one year after the death of Kenny Rogers his family thanked fans as they honored his life, Sharon Stone is dishing dirt about her Hollywood past in her recently released memoir like one moviemaker who told her to have sex with a male co-star to improve their on-screen chemistry, 28-year-old twins Lady Amelia and Lady Eliza Spencer who are the nieces of Princess Diana recently stepped out in South Africa as bridesmaids for fellow high society girl Leila Osato, director Christopher Columbus pooh-poohed internet rumors about the existence of an NC-17 cut of Mrs. Doubtfire but he did confirm there's an unreleased R-rated version

Page 45: Good Morning America co-host Cecilia Vega mugs it up for the camera on the morning show (picture), Gretta Monahan gets out of a car (picture), longtime GMA veteran Robin Roberts displays her ever-present sunny side on the set (picture), the Hollywood Hills home of Johnny Depp recently had some uninvited guests when a man was spotted loitering by the property's pool but ran off after being confronted by a neighbor and not much later Johnny's security team called police about another unwanted visitor who had taken a shower and helped himself to the actor's booze, Elsa Pataky has been married to Chris Hemsworth for 10 years and says patience and communication and understanding are what help their relationship be successful

Page 46: A Texas man has helped thousands of people by donating his blood platelets a staggering 962 times over the past 37 years

Page 47: Celebrity Weddings Gone Wrong -- Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, Nicky Hilton and James Rothschild, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, Jessica Simpson and Eric Johnson, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar, Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley

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