I just read “Two Phantoms” and I’m OBSESSED. I need more bc is that his kid? Will she ever recognize him? I can’t believe she didn’t recognize him like I would never forget that extremely tall glass of water if I saw him!!!!

Ugh you could really make a series with this 😭😍🫶🏻🫶🏻

oh thank you so much!!

So i think I should say is that little sammy is not simon's kid lol. A lot of people got that idea but the background of it was that the reader was just taking care of her nephew because she stays with her sister during leave and she didn't recognize Simon because she's never seen him without his mask on, despite how close they are to one another.

I definitely didn't expect so many people to think Sam was Ghosts kid lmao but I've def thought about doing a continuation when he sees her back with the rest of the squadron or when they bump into eachother again maybe!

Chanukah party (USWNT x Baby!Reader)

This isn’t a request but @literaryhedgehog​ and I thought it would be fun. The basic premise is that reader is at camp during Chanukah, and the team feels bad (especially Lindsey) so they throw her a party. (thank you @notmia101​ for betaing this for us). 

You smiled at Alyssa as she described her winter plans after training camp. How she was going to visit her sister and her family for Christmas. How they were hoping for snow and how they were going to kill an innocent tree and desecrate its body with lights for their amusement. Her words, not yours. It was a game she and the other girls played every year, trying to make their Christmas plans sound as horror-movie-ish as possible. It was a way of trying to make fun of themselves so you could share the amusement and join in laughing at them. 

But despite their efforts, a little piece of you always felt left out because you couldn’t (wouldn’t?) participate. See, you were one of the few who didn’t celebrate Christmas. You were proud of your Jewish heritage, even if your family wasn’t the most ~religious~. But you were proud of the culture you had been raised in. You held its traditions very near to your heart and weren’t AT ALL bitter that the rest of the team had time designated to visit their family during their winter holidays while you still had training camp through the third week of December.  

You were kinda zoning out because you could only take so much of their cookie baking, their stalkerish man that watched kids while they slept, and their hiding of a stupid stuffed toy you were sure would give you nightmares (who the fuck thought having an ‘elf’ stalk your family all month was cute?!?!? Capitalism was a weird man). (Though you may or may not have paid attention to Lindsey’s plan to dress Ferguson like a little elf…) 

“What about you kid?” Tobin asked, nudging you out of your daydream. 

“What?” You shook your head, making everyone around you laugh. 

“Do you have plans for the holidays?” Lindsey repeated, her smile showing off her dimples. 

“Oh, um. Chanukah started a few days ago. It’s cool, they have an app with a menorah and everything. My family has been face timing me most days, but it will be over before training ends.” You shrugged, hoping they couldn’t see how much being away from your family during this time of year sucked (though you were glad to be included on the camp roster). 

Most of the veteran's jaws dropped, how had they not known that you were missing something so important to you? How had US Soccer overlooked a holiday (and inadvertently given you an ultimatum- celebrate or make the national team). 

“Then why did they schedule training camp this week?” Tobin mumbled. Again you shrugged. 

“There’s 23 of you and only one of me… it’s really not that big of a deal,” you smiled briefly and gave the same speech you had given since middle school, “It’s not like the ‘Jewish Christmas’ even though it happens around the same time some years, my family doesn’t even exchange presents, so I’m really just missing the party they’re throwing on the 18th.” 

“That still isn’t fair though. I mean, we get Christmas off automatically, even if we don’t celebrate it!” Christen huffed, throwing her hands up. 

“I mean, this isn’t like a new thing. We’re always at camp during this time. And next year the holiday starts in November, so it’s not something that can consistently be scheduled around. I guess it’s just a sacrifice I have to make to be the best right?” You said earnestly, shaking your head. You knew all of the arguments, you had heard them for all of your life. 

“But-“ Emily started to protest, but before she could get the words out you cut her off. “Don’t make a big deal guys, it’s fine. Really,” 

The team stared at you for a few seconds, several women opening and closing their mouths several times. You shifted uncomfortably under their gaze, breathing a sigh of relief when your phone rang, glad to have an excuse to get out of this situation. 

“Ok so we’re totally going to make a big deal out of this,” Lindsey said turning back around to face the team the second you were out the door. 

“I’m guessing you have a plan to woo your girl?” Emily smirked, wiggling her eyebrows. 

“It’s not to. No. We are doing this as a team to be supportive of our teammate who is part of a traditionally marginalized culture that we need to be more supportive of,” Lindsey grumbled sternly, smiling when Christen nodded in return. “I’m googling “Chanukah for Dummies” right now. 

They were going to make this camp different from the others (and if she got to impress you that was just a bonus). 

…..

“Umm, why does it smell like something is burning?” Becky asked, walking through the hotel corridor towards the dining room. 

“Because Latkes are apparently more difficult to make than I expected,” Kelley said, tossing what looked like a stack of burned hockey pucks into the trash. “I didn’t realize the whole room was going to smell like fried food- do you think they’re going to fine me when we check out?”

“If they fine you, they better fine Em too. The stench from such a little jar is kind of amazing,” Lindsey huffed. 

“What did she do, get her sardines or something?” Becky asked, shaking her head, remembering the smell that she couldn’t quite place. 

“No. Something called ‘Gefilte fish’”. 

“But isn’t that usually for Passover?” Kelley asked, looking up from where she was trying to scrape burned potatoes off her pan.

“They said it was traditional, isn’t that what we’re going for?” Emily huffed, pouting. Lindsey rolled her eyes at her best friend. 

“I’ve got music!” Chrystal called, walking through the door in a star-patterned sweater. “It turns out there are not a whole lot of Chanukah songs. There’s a Spotify playlist that’s only 3 hours long, or so, so I supplemented it with a lot of Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon.”

“And I brought the sour cream and applesauce as requested!” Sam called, walking in after her, “also some apple juice and honey bourbon. I know apples and honey are a thing for Rosh Hashana, so I thought maybe we could make some cocktails?”

“I won’t tell coach if you don’t,” Kelley said taking the bottle and pouring herself a shot. “Someone else needs to take over the latke making. My attempts have all either looked like lefse, hashbrowns or just burned.”

“Lefse?”

“I had an ex-girlfriend from Minnesota. It was a potato tortilla thing her family sent her at thanksgiving. The point here is that someone else needs to cook or we are just going to be eating sour cream and applesauce on their own.”

“We could make french fries?” Rose suggested tentatively. 

“With bacon and cheese! Those are the best,” Emily exclaimed, only to have Lindsey (gently) slap the back of her head. 

“No, Sonnett. She can’t have bacon and I don’t think she’s allowed to have cheese and meat on the same plate…” 

“I think if we just batter potato pieces in egg and flour and fry them it would taste nice with the apple sauce and sour cream. And we’ve made french fries before so it won’t be so much of a… learning curve. Though you did a great try, Kelley!” Rose said, patting Kelley’s arm.

“You guys are useless. Did you even look at a recipe?” Megan shook her head. 

“If you think it’s so easy you try it.” Kelley scoffed. Megan raised her eyebrow at the woman, stealing the spatula from the defender's hand. 

“Tasty made here we come,” 

*****

“Happy Chanukah!” came from all around as you walked in. Lindsey was very proud. Not only had she gotten the team on track and ensured that they had all of the stuff google said would make the perfect Chanukah celebration; she had also kept you off their trail until this moment. The shock on your face made all the work on their day off entirely worth it. 

The room was decorated in tinsel with a shiny plastic menorah in the center of the table. Several people were wearing ugly sweaters with different “decorations” taped on. A sign on the back wall said “We survived, let’s eat!” Lindsey had decided against hanging up the posters Rose and Mal made saying “Stick it to the (ro)Man!” and “MaccaBEe mine.” The first one because she wasn’t sure it was appropriate, the second one because she knew it wasn’t.

“Ooo who brought the hotdog of the sea?” You asked, biting your lip to suppress a giggle as you walked over to the table to see the food on display. 

“What?” Lindsey’s eyes tried to follow yours, utterly confused. They didn’t get hotdogs. They most certainly weren’t on the list that Chanukah for dummies had given her. 

You smiled softly and shook your head, pointing to the tan balls that Emily had provided. 

“That’s what my siblings and I call it during Passover. Gefilte fish is kinda a love it or hate it thing…” you trailed off, scrunching your nose just slightly. 

“And you’re not a fan?” Lindsey smirked, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. 

“Umm, I plead the fifth,” You mumbled, shaking your head slightly. It wasn’t your favorite item in the world. 

“That was all Emily,” Kelley snorted, clapping you on the back, and you grinned devilishly back at her. 

“Well, it was very nice of her to be so thoughtful. She can try a piece with me,” 

Emily cringed at the idea, but nodded nonetheless. It was your party and if eating the smelly thing out of a jar made you happy, then that’s exactly what she would do. (She also stealthily shot Lindsey the middle finger while you were surveying the rest of the items on the tables). 

“Honestly the sufganiyot is my favorite,” you said, taking a step towards the platter, your lips ticking up at Lindsey’s adorable confused face. “sorry, the donuts,” you clarified, picking up one of the many powdered sugar-covered donuts in the stack, inspecting it to see what kind it was. The Jelly ones were particularly important for the celebration. 

Lindsey blushed a little. “We didn’t know if you wanted jelly or custard,” She said hesitantly, watching as your eyes got impossibly brighter. 

“Both are amazing, thank you,” You smiled softly at the midfielder, brushing a stay bit of powdered sugar off her pink cheeks. You held her gaze for a moment before seeming realizing you had an audience, and turning towards the rest of the team. “thank all of you,” 

It wasn’t the traditional Chanukah you usually shared with your family, but the friends who had become your family made it special nonetheless.

Get out of jail for free-card

Stanford-era Sam gets a call from Dean, who has been arrested and needs him to bust him out. Jess insits on coming with him and is in for a bit of a surprise with the revelations that come with meeting Dean.

On AO3.

Ships: Sam x Jess

Warnings: Their childhood. Tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was Friday, which meant drinking and having fun for Sam and his friends. Jess was just asking what everyone wanted to drink when a phone rang. It took a few seconds before Sam realized it was his. He shot a confused look to his friends and picked up: “Uh, hello, this is Sam Winchester speaking?”

“Sammy, thank God.”, came Deans voice from the other side.

Shocked Sam said: “Dean?”

“Yeah, it's me, already forgotten the sound of my beautiful voice?” Sam practically heard the smirk in that statement.

He couldn't help the bitch face as he answered: “How could I ever forget that annoying sound. But why the fuck are you calling me?”

Tom raised his brows to Jess who gave him a confused look back, Sam wasn't known to swear and neither had ever heard of this Dean person. They were pulled back to the phone call when Sam exclaimed: “What do you mean you got arrested.”

The comment got Jess to give him A Look, so Sam told Dean: “Wait a sec, gotta move.”

Then he waved at them and said: “Sorry have to take this, you guys go and start the movie.”

Jess frowned, but Sam didn't notice as he was saying: “Yes, Dean, movie night, normal people do that sort of thing on Friday. And don't call me Samantha. Now why are you arrested again?”

“Grave desecration, not really a good excuse for that, you know.” Dean said.

Sam rubbed his forehead and asked: “And why is this my problem again?”

“Dad's in Ohio together with Bobby, a demon, he wouldn't take me, so I got an easy salt 'n burn in San Francisco, but I got busted.” Dean replied.

“Do you need bail money or do you need to be saved?” Sam asked with a tired voice.

“I'm no Disney Princess, dude.” Dean said, “Psh, getting saved. But no, no bail for me, just heard you're pre-law now.”

Sam sighed as he read between the lines, Dean needed Sam to bust him out of a holding cell. He said: “Tell them you called a lawyer and won't do anything until he's there. And what name are you going by right now?”

“Phil Rudd.” Dean said, of course it was a rock star name.

He sighed again and said: “I’ll be there in 50.”

“Thank you, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam.” Sam bitched back, then he hung up and snagged a tie out of his closet along with a dress shirt.

He walked back into the room, where no one had started the movie and everyone was ready to pounce him with questions. “Who’s Dean?” Jess asked.

“And why is he arrested.” Tom added.

Sam grimaced and awkwardly said: “He's my brother, so I'm gonna go pick him up at the police station.”

“And why is he arrested?” Jess asked with an intense look.

“Uhhh,” Sam looked away with an embarrassed flush and said: “Grave desecration.”

“He did what!” Jess exclaimed, “That's terrible! Why would he do that?”

“He has his reasons.” Sam said curtly, then he realized that that didn't help the situation, so he went on: “Look he's a good guy, honestly, just a shitty past that he didn't shake off as well as I did. If you'd meet him, you would know.”

“Then take me with you.” Jess demanded.

Their friends had been watching the discussion like it was a tennis match and in the tense silence that followed they kept their eyes on Sam. Sam, who was having a small crises. On one hand he didn't want to fuck up his relationship with Jessica because he didn't take her with him, but on the other hand he also didn't want to fuck it up because he was busting his brother out, illegally.

When the silence dragged on Jess said: “I’m not letting this go, Samuel, take me with you or this is over.”

And that made the decision for him, he said: “Okay, let’s go, I told him I'd be there as fast as I could.”

~

The ride was silent and tense for the first 15 minutes, then Jess said: “I don’t want to meet your brother with just a bad image, so what's your best memory?”

“Huh?” Sam asked dumbly.

“What's your best memory of you and Dean?”

Sam smiled softly and said: “Where do I start? God, he was always there for me for a start, according to him my first words were “Bean” in an attempt to say his name, he says he cried.”

He thought some more before saying: “I know it sounds weird, but with Dad almost always gone and mom dead, while constantly on the road, Dean was my everything. He was my brother, best friend and mom all rolled into one. We were SamnDean, no spaces between us.”

Jess shot him a look, but didn’t say anything and he didn’t either, he just looked at the road and thought back to the times were this sight was his daily view, just from the backseat, with two pairs of shoulders and two heads blocking his view.

~

When they arrived Sam turned to Jess and said: “I need you to stay in the car, please?”

Then he got out of his flannel and buttoned up the dress shirt and put on the tie. Jess frowned at that and asked: “Why? What's going on, Sam?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain, but you have to believe me when I say I hate this as much as you will. Just stay in the car. Me and Dean will be here in a few minutes.” He gave her his best puppy eyes and she relented with an “I don’t like this.”

He gave her a peck on the cheek and said: “I don’t either. See you in a bit.”

Then he was out the car and walking into the station.

Half of the scam was the confidence, so Sam strutted up to the front desk and said: “I’m John Singer, I'm here for Phil Rudd.”

The lady gave him a one over and raised a brow. He knew he was still wearing his shaggy shoes and jeans, plus he looked very young. So he kinds dropped the confidence a bit and said: “I’m just the intern, but my boss, Simon Wright, is out of town, so I’m taking the calls right now.”

A look or pity showed up on the ladies face as she said: “Didn’t expect a call this late, did ya?”

He nodded and said: “I haven’t done this before, sorry, could you point me in the right direction?”

She smiled and quickly walked him through what was expected of him. He thanked her profusely as he walked away.

~

Dean greeted him with a smirk and said: “Hey, man, what’s the plan?”

Sam gave him a bitch face and said: “I’m risking a lot by being here, so don’t try anything, okay? Jess is waiting in the car, so lets make this quick.”

“Wait a minute. Who’s Jess?” Dean said.

“My girlfriend, now pay attention we can talk later.” Sam said.

Dean whistled impressed, but stayed quiet while Sam explained: “They think I’m an intern, so a newbie. You are going to punch me and then use this time window of no surveillance you've created to escape and hide in the back of Jess’s car, okay? It’s the blue crappy Honda.”

Dean chuckled, but nodded. He got ready to punch but Sam held up his hand and quickly sent Jess a text: ‘Dean will join you in the car shortly, don't say anything to anyone. See you in a few.’

Then he allowed Dean to punch him. He waited until Dean was out the window before he yelled: “Help! He punched me and he's gone!”

Soon the whole room was filled with police. His statement was taken and he was checked over, but after 15 minutes they'd let him go while he gave them Bobby's number for if they wanted more info.

On his way out he texted Bobby about it with a side note not to tell Dad, while he ignored Jessica's messages about how this wasn’t funny.

He got into the car and was immediately slapped by an angry Jess. He looked to Dean who was lying on the back seat to stay out of sight, but he just shot him a ‘hey-don't-look-at-me-dude-this-is-your-problem’ look.

When he said nothing she said: “What took you so long?”

He told her the truth: “They still needed my statement.”

She looked even more angry and said: “Then why is he telling me you busted him out. Illegally!”

He whipped around to give Dean a look and said: “Because he is an idiot.”

“Hey! You brought her with you and told her about your plan. I thought she knew, don’t blame me!” Dean defended himself.

“Why would she know?” Sam said frustrated.

“I don’t know, maybe because she is here and you texted her your plan?”

“God, this is just like Seibert.” Sam gave him an angry look.

Dean got angry as well and loudly replied: “How is this anything like Seibert?”

“Your lack of filter almost fucked me over that’s how.” Sam had a full on bitch face now.

“I told you back then that a twelve-year-old isn’t as convincing as an crying ‘help me I’m lost kid’ than an eight-year-old.”

“And I told you that someone smaller was better for sneaking around, you’re lucky they caught me after I had given dad the keys.”

“I was trying to buy you time, which was my task in the plan.”

“And telling them I was there seemed smart when my task was to remain unseen?”

With every comment their voices got louder and angrier, but before the fight could escalate any further Jess cut in: “What are you even talking about?”

“1991, we were staying in Seibert, but Dad got arrested.” Dean began.

Sam interrupted: “Since when are you such a sharer?”

“Since I’m trying to save your relationship here dude. Look at her, she wants the truth lets give it to her.” Dean shot back.

Sam looked at Jess, who he saw was siding with Dean on the subject. He crossed his arms and muttered: “Like that isn’t gonna ruin everything.”

Then he started up the car and said: “I’m dropping you off at your car hopefully you haven’t lost that too.”

“No, baby is still at my motel, Civic Center Inn, you can drop me there.” Dean said, Jess marveled at how quickly the two calmed down, then Dean turned back to her and said: “So, 1991, Seibert Colorado. Dad had gotten arrested, this wasn’t the first time, so me and Sammy go and bust him out.”

“It’s Sam.”

“Yeah, whatever. So, my plan was that he goes in and acts like he’s lost, creating a diversion for me so that I can sneak dad the keys of his cell.” Dean explained, “Except Sam didn’t agree with that, said I had to play lost, because he was smaller and therefore would be able to sneak better.”

“Which is true.” Sam commented.

“No, it’s not, because it almost went wrong.” Dean jibed.

“And that was your fault.” Sam said.

“No, it’s wasn’t.” Dean started up the discussion again.

Jess just wanted to know what had happened, so she interrupted: “Let it go, both of you.”

“Sorry.” Sam said immediately.

Dean coughed, but Jess was certain she heard “Whipped”, Sam probably did too, because his lips tightened, but he didn’t say a thing.

Dean went on: “Anyway, I go in and start crying telling them I’m lost and it does create a diversion, but not long enough, so I also tell them I lost my younger brother while I was supposed to be watching him. That does work, a small child is lost, so everyone there starts looking and it the end they find him. He tells them he was looking for the bathroom and wondered away and we get dropped off at a random house, which we tell them is ours. Then we walk to the motel where our father joins us shortly after.”

“We skipped town that night.” Sam finished.

Jess sat quietly for a second as she takes everything in, finally she said: “I’m sorry, Sam, that sounds horrible.”

Sam just shrugged and said: “I’ve never known different, so I never missed it. I’ve been helping in illegal scams since I was three or something. That’s just life.”

“Not that he ever liked it.” Dean felt the need to insert himself into the conversation, “He and dad were always fighting.”

Sam rolled his eyes and said: “Yeah, he didn’t want me to go to college and get a normal life, sorry for wanting to be like everyone else.”

“That didn’t mean you had to fight with him about every little thing, Sam.” Dean said.

Jess sat there awkwardly, feeling that this was a whole other set of issues. She quietly asked: “Is that why you never talk about your family?”

Sam sighed sadly: “Yeah, the last words my dad said to me were: “If you go, don’t come back.” not really heartwarming, is it?”

Dean flopped backwards and said: “Our whole family is shit.”

Sam looked over his shoulder with a surprised look and said: “Didn’t think you would say that.”

Dean shrugged and said: “Doesn’t mean you’re not part of it, Sammy. Just call from time to time, okay? Oh, look there’s the turn.”

Sam turned onto the parking of the motel and Dean got out of the car. Before he slammed the door he said: “Jess, that’s your name right? Yeah, okay, Jess, don’t judge Sam for something he never wanted to be a part of. And Sammy? Sammy you don’t let her go, she’s cool. See you next time, nerd.”

Then he was gone.

Sam sat quietly for a minute then he drove off. They didn’t say anything until they were near San Mateo, then Jess carefully said: “Are you going to call him?”

Sam looked at her and said: “He knows we can’t call each other, he didn’t even give me his number to pretend. We’re never gonna talk again and that’s okay, life happens.”

Jess gave him a pained look, but she didn’t know what to say about it.

Sam asked: “Are we over?”

“No, Sam, we aren’t, just, just be more honest about your life to me, okay?” she said with a sigh.

“Are you gonna tell everyone I broke him out instead of paying a bail that didn’t exist.” Sam asked after a moment of silence.

Jess thought about it for a second. Then she shook her head and told him: “No that’s between you and your brother. I just waited in the car and we had a nice chat about you on the way to his motel, nothing peculiar happened.”

Sam grinned: “What would I do without you?”

Jess smirked back: “Crash and burn.”

~

When Dean broke in to Sams house two years later, he was glad to see that Sam had listened and hadn’t let Jess go.

2.05: Simon Said - My Rewatch Review

I love Andy. He’s smart, and funny, and laid-back, and he is a very important character at this point in the story. I love that Dean likes him, which I think is fifty percent Dean identifying with him—Dean definitely went through a wanna-be stoner phase in his life, and would have probably been just like Andy at some point if he wasn’t a hunter—and fifty percent Dean needing to believe that Andy is a good person whose powers won’t change him so that he can also believe that Sam is a good person whose powers won’t change him. Though we’re still a few episodes off from the big reveal of exactly what John told Dean before he died, the foreshadowing is becoming clearer every episode, and this episode is very heavy-handed with its parallels. Sadly, though, I think that Sam—and through Sam, Dean—takes away the wrong message from their encounter with Andy and his twin and the subsequent reveal that not all of the children chosen by the yellow-eyed demon can be easily tracked by fires in their nurseries. Because, though their investigation led them to Andy because of his similarities to Sam, his visions were leading him to Ansem, the actual psycho killer. It was Ansem’s actions, and likely some underlying issues that were not addressed—his comment to Andy about how they shouldn’t have had to grow up alone threw up a lot of red flags—not his powers, that made him evil, and it is likely that Yellow-Eyes chose him to push instead of Andy or Sam precisely because of those underlying weaknesses. Which means that, though they cannot track down all the kids the demon might have plans for, they don’t really need to worry about all of them. They only need to worry about the ones that actually do evil, and it should be comforting, rather than terrifying, to realize that there could be many more out there, because if it was their powers alone that made them evil, a lot more would have shown up on their radar a lot sooner.

I also like watching the way the boys’ relationship with the Roadhouse evolves during this rewatch, especially considering the relationship they will end up having with the hunter community in the future. It is interesting to consider that, while John raised them to be hunters, he seemed to have little desire to be part of the hunter ‘community’, and he kept his boys away from other hunters as well, and while we never get a definitive explanation why, there are plenty of clues dropped that could point to possible reasons. The reveal next episode about what happened to Jo’s dad when he went on a hunt with John is a big one—it’s possible that he saw that hunting could hurt other families the way his had been hurt early on enough that he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone but himself and his sons—and there is also the strong likelihood that John ran across a number of hunters like Gordon, and wanted to keep his children far away from people like that. From last season, we know that Sam and Dean knew about other people in the life, like Bobby and Caleb and Pastor Jim, but the fact that it’s only now that John is gone that they are seeing the world that they grew up in and thought they knew grow wider and more dangerous for them as a result is a welcome addition both to the show’s world-building and to the narrative of the Winchesters finding their new place in it without their father to guide them. And it’s interesting that it is Sam’s decision here, to enlist Ash’s help, that leads to a lot of the trouble they end up having with other hunters in the future, given that he was the one warning Dean away from Gordon just a few episodes ago. It’s not surprising—Ellen and Ash and Jo are decent people, and they are worth trusting—but given the end result of that trust, it’s no wonder that Sam and Dean try to have as little to do with the hunter community as possible in later seasons, until they are able to establish a network that puts them as the ones in charge, the ones with authority.

My one nitpick with this episode is definitely the opening scene. I can’t be 100% sure, because I don’t have personal experience with buying a gun, but if I recall correctly, the owner of the hardware store did something particularly stupid and possibly illegal by simply bringing out both the gun and the box of shells for the doctor to handle. If nothing else, it seems like a gross breach of common sense. Even in a small town, and in an exchange between two men who know each other well, I would suspect that someone who sells guns would have a better sense of self-preservation than that. I’m glad that his predicted mistake didn’t wind up with him getting killed in ‘real life’, but inaccuracies concerning the way that fictional people handle firearms (don’t even get me started on the fact that Sam and Dean stick their guns in their pants more often than not, and have never invested in decent holsters) is something that I am always interested in keeping track of, if only as a way to educate myself and others about the way guns should be handled in real life compared to the way you see them handled in the movies and on television.

Do you have an established relationship wincest recs? Where they are in love and together :) thank you!

Of course!

I live for the boys getting their HEA and just growing old with each other.

Established Fics aka Curtain Fics

Anniversary by sonofabiscuit77   The Smith-Wessons go away for a ghost-hunting mini-break to celebrate their anniversary. Just a slice of life, domestic Smith/Wesson thing where they salt and burn the ghost, have brunch and Dean gets tied to the bed.      

Backseat of My Brother’s 67 Chevy by  NaughtyPastryChef  Extended scene from “Baby”. Dean’s feeling proud of Sam’s hookup until he hears that Sam tried to give that waitress his number. Uncharacteristically, he lets Sam force him to talk about it.

Better Homes and Gardens  by  chick (orphan_account)   After getting whammied on a hunt, Dean wakes up a househusband in Lawrence married to his little brother. Trapped in this world where down is up and up is completely fucked, Dean desperately tries to figure out a way to get back to a world that makes sense without completely losing his mind in the process. Featuring: spice gardens, bridge clubs, and the power of incestuous, gay love.

Cat’s Cradle by  saltandbyrne   My version of curtain fic, with human furniture, the Outback Steakhouse, and brutal, loving BDSM.            

The Chicago Verse by  compo67 After angels and demons and things that go bump in the night, Sam and Dean want a place of their own. Finding a place is easier said than done; and settling somewhere isn’t taken lightly. They take a chance on the city Death spared because he liked the pizza. The boys settle in a Mexican neighborhood just south of the Loop called Pilsen. Sam looks back at how they got here.

Crush by  sonofabiscuit77   Five years after the apocalypse didn’t happen and Sam and Dean have settled down, or as much as the Winchesters can ever settle down. Sam is a college professor and Dean a well-respected small business owner and they’re learning how to balance work, hunting and dog-ownership while coping with the metaphorical and literal scars of war. Life’s not perfect, not for a (sort of) out and proud couple in small town USA with a lot to hide, but they’re dealing, that is, until Dean employs one sexually-confused teenager who develops an unhealthy obsession with both of them. Switching between five years earlier and now, we learn how the boys came together, how they made it through the big fight and whether they’ll ever manage to find that flighty temptress, happily ever after.

Give Him What He Needs  by  brokenlittleboy   Sam wakes Dean up for some good old-fashioned morning loving and Dean is more than happy to comply. They’ve been going at it for almost eleven years now, and it seems like every day Sam gets dirtier and dirter, and more and more desperate for it. Dean’s not complaining–he’s just a little worried someday he won’t be enough for little brother’s needs.              

How Does Your Garden Grow by majesticduxk From the prompt: Sam getting his hands all dirty, Sam getting bad knees as he ages, Sam being excited about his bean crop, Sam bringing vast quantities of zucchini to the Bunker kitchen and expecting Dean to figure out something to cook with it, Sam being wrathful and indignant about caterpillars, Sam out there all day with the sun hot on his neck and the soil cool in his hands thinking about nothing at all but the tactility and the way he’s having this small, steady good effect on the world and coming back HAPPY.

 A Life Most Ordinary  by  sonofabiscuit77   Sam and Dean Winchester are two ordinary brothers living ordinary small-town lives. Okay, so having a mother who was brutally murdered by one of America’s most notorious serial killers and a father who was forever mentally scarred by the event is not that ordinary, but the rest of their problems: marriage breakdowns and relationship failures, job disappointments and sexuality crisis, and Dean’s two kids, 9 year-old Jonah with his disturbing passion for the music of Lady Gaga and 6-year old Simon with his severe hearing loss, well they’re all completely ordinary. The only thing extraordinary about Sam and Dean is how they fell in love.Written for 2010 spn_j2_bigbang challenge    

Just Another Day  by  selecasharp   When rain keeps them in a motel for another night, Sam settles in for a quiet day of movies, popcorn, and cuddling (and maybe more) on a couch with Dean — until he realizes what day it is.      

Just Say My Name by  leonidaslion   Dean turns into a complete and utter nympho. It takes Sam a while to notice the difference.              

The King and The Lionheart by waywardelle     After the disastrous but effective removal of the Mark, Sam and Dean Winchester suddenly face a life without allies or a reason to keep hunting, so they leave their old life behind them in flames. They re-emerge from the ashes as Sam and Dean Wesson, residents of Misty Luna, Maine– a town with a personality all its own. As they settle into civilian life, they gain careers, a home, good friendships and the kind of fulfillment they never thought possible. But with nothing left to fight, the underbelly of their particular kind of love is thrown into sharp relief, especially considering the whole town thinks they’re married, anyway. After dancing around their feelings for the past twenty years, Sam and Dean find a peace they never knew existed, and through it all, they find each other again. And maybe, just maybe, forever. Curtain!fic. Canon divergence after 10x21, “Dark Dynasty.”            

Like a Fish Out of Water by nyxocity AU after Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie. During the final battle with the Leviathans, God finally makes an appearance and deigns to intervene. After granting Sam and Dean a few final requests, he ‘packs his bags’ and takes everything supernatural in existence with him. Left with nothing to hunt, Sam talks a reluctant Dean into settling down in a small town outside of Sioux Falls. Sam seems to want them live a normal kind of life, but between the ridiculous estate sale Sam bought to furnish the house, the arrival of a very human Castiel who’s overwhelmed by human emotions, and their quirky, invasive neighbors, it’s anything but. Dean’s having a difficult time adjusting, convinced everything couldn’t be more abnormal until Sam reveals exactly what kind of life he wants to have with Dean. Dean can’t deny the part of him that wants it–but can he accept it? 

Love is Never Blind  by Calysta18 Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness!!

Milk Me  by LittleSparrow69   Fill for this kinkmeme prompt:  A knocked-up Dean’s lactating and he hates it but it hurts. Sam “milking” him is less humiliating (barely) than leaking all over his shirts. Sam, though, lives for this.              

On A Friday We Call Good by  gaialux   One unlucky moment. That’s all it took to turn Dean’s life upside down. Sam seems to be on board with the fallout; insisting they take a break from hunting and set up in suburbia. While Sam finds himself assimilating, Dean is far from Mr. Domestic. If he can’t hunt - if he can’t save people - he has nothing. Or so he thinks.                      

Over the Hills, Far Away by roxymissrose   Somewhere in the middle of season seven, this world careens towards the left.Dean looks at Sam and decides enough is enough. They need to settle down for a while, take a breath.                      

The Psychology of Genetic Sexual Attraction by  sonofabiscuit77   “…50% of of reunions between siblings, or parents and offspring, separated at birth result in obsessive emotions…”This story begins in 2001 in a garage in Palo Alto when 18-year old Stanford student, Sam Sharma plucks up the courage to ask car mechanic, Dean Cooper, out for a cup of coffee.   Their attraction is instantaneous and overwhelming, and the relationship that develops seems perfect.  Except nothing is really perfect, and this particular love story started a long time before Sam and Dean even met.  Wincest non-hunting AU. This is my attempt at a boys-don’t-know-they’re-brothers story.  

The Theory of Relativity by wutendeskind   The Apocalypse is over. Sam writes it all down, and the result tops the New York Times bestseller list for an entire year. Dean loves that Sam’s found something to do with his life, but doesn’t know how he fits in. And when Dean reads Sam’s second novel, things get even more confusing for him.     

Trust Me, I’m A Doctor by  checkthemarginsThe one where Dean is a pediatric neurosurgeon and Sam is a law student and they figure out they’re in love.            

Walkin’ the Tightrope by  non_tiembo_mala  It’s 2036, and twenty years since Sam and Dean called it quits on hunting to take up a secluded, quiet life. Maybe Jesse and Cesar gave them the idea, but after Amara, they realized they’d done enough. And they wanted a proper life together even more.Known as Sam Wesson and Dean Smith to the residents of the nearby town they call home, Sam and Dean keep mostly to themselves, their immaculately kept ‘67 Chevy Impala, and their cabin in the woods. That is, until someone from their past tracks them down, desperate for help.Sam and Dean can’t say no, not when it’s their dear friend Jody Mills in deep trouble – she’s missing – but the wedding bands they wear make going back to their old life just that little bit more complicated…              

Wanna make your motor run  by  cordelia_gray   Four times Dean got road head, and one time he gave it.      

I could literally go on and on with this list so I might make a part two of this list.

❝ I’m just going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine. ❞ SIMON BAKER? No, that’s actually RON WEASLEY. Only FORTY-FOUR years old, this GRYFFINDOR alumni works as an AUROR and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. HE identifies as a CIS-MAN and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be INSECURE, SHY, and STUBBORN but also PASSIONATE, BRAVE, and DEVOTED. { SAM, 24, EST, THEY/THEM }

TWs: Death & food. 

Click here for Ron’s stats page, here for his pinterest board, and his connections can be found on the last tab! 

Oh boy.

Should we start with childhood? Or should I skip that part altogether? I think there are many ways in which to interpret Ron’s childhood, but deep down, to me, it all comes down to him feeling like an afterthought most of the time. His parents had so many boys (or other genders, I won’t presume), then a girl, then they stopped? That kind of stung when Ron was younger. Like he was just a try that didn’t work out until they got Ginny.

He never felt like anything special. Not until he met Harry, at least. Which is funny because, like... Around Harry he was Harry’s best friend. The sidekick. An afterthought for most people, as well. However, Harry didn’t treat him like an afterthought - not that other people necessarily did, but Ron is quite dramatic. Harry meant so fucking much to Ron, like wow.

So like, with Harry being dead? Ron’s heart is broken. He didn’t love Harry the same way he loved his family or Hermione, but his heart broke just as hard as it would have broken if he had lost Hermione. 

Still, he’s been hiding how fucking broken he feels, because he feels like he has to be there for everyone else the way Harry can’t be anymore. And gosh, it’s so fucking sad. I’m sorry about the swearing, but it’s legitimately tragic. Harry proved to Ron that he was his own person, not just someone’s son or brother, and he just... He lost his best friend, and it hurts so damn much.

Is trying to hold it together, but slowly cracks are starting to appear in his armour. I could see him starting to get restless, or even reckless. He wants to make sure no one else he loves is lost the way Harry was lost, and he’ll willingly sacrifice himself if he has to. 

On a lighter note; he is ridiculously good at chess. He’s a good strategist, which is often overshadowed by Harry’s bravery (or at least, it was) or by Hermione’s intellect. Ron has learned not to mind it, though. He used to like being the centre of attention, as it made him feel like he actually mattered, but now that he has his own family, he’s seriously calmed down on that aspect. 

Ron is... Ron. He’s such an established character that it’s hard to describe him, but I feel like, alongside growing up, he’s changed quite a bit. He’s learned to be a lot more thoughtful of other’s feelings, thanks to people calling him out on it, and has gotten rid of most of his jealousy. Which, like... He still gets jealous from time to time - he’s human, after all - but it’s not something that defines him anymore.

Also, now that he has money, he’s been trying to give back to his parents. He used to lowkey resent the fact that they had very little money whilst he was growing up, but as an adult, and a father himself, he now realizes just how much his parents did for him. Listen... I’m highkey emotional about how much Ron has grown when it comes to his family. He used to feel quite meh about the fact that he was one of many, but now he’s so fucking glad he has all his family members around. 

To him, becoming an auror was a no-brainer. He’d been dreaming of it since fourth year, and he worked so damn hard to get where he is now. With what’s going on, I’m not sure exactly how it all affects his work, but we can work that out if I’m accepted?

Wants revenge for Harry so fucking bad. Not only did they kill his best friend, but they left his sister a widow, his niece and nephews without their father, and his own wife so upset he’s not sure what to do anymore. (The wife part can be changed depending on who plays Hermione and how they play her.) Of course, he’s hurt too, so damn much, but he’s trying oh so hard not to focus on himself right now, and he’s succeeding.

Loves all his niblings, but probably knows Lily, Albus & James the best since I’m betting that, like, Ron, Hermione & Harry were still very close.

Loves his kids so damn much. He’s a bit worried about Rose, because he thinks she’s too smart for her own good, but also a bit... Unaware of things, and that worries the fuck out of him. Hugo, that’s to be determined depending on how they end up being played!

Loves wearing bright and colourful shirts that clash awfully with his hair, which he wears in a man bun a lot. It embarrasses his kids, so he’s happy.

Dad jokes central! “I’m hungry,” says Rose. “Hi hungry, I’m dad,” replies Ron. Hermione, in the background, rolling her eyes, probably with a fond smile unless it’s his fifth time doing that joke that day.

Did I mention how much he loves Hermione and his kids? Like, I mentioned how important his whole family is to him, but... Hermione, Rose and Hugo? His life, his heart, his everything. Would kill a man (or even twelve) for them, and would sacrifice himself in a heartbeat if they needed him to.

Honestly, I really hope I’m accepted because I feel like he’ll have very different relationships which each and every of the Wotter kids, and I’m SO curious to see what that’s gonna be like for the Wotters in play right now!

He’s heartbroken, which I already mentioned earlier, but I feel the need to say it again. His heart? In a million pieces that he’s trying to put back together with spellotape because he wants to be strong for the ones he loves.

Had a lil crush on Luna in school, and now they’re basically the person he admires most outside of his family. 

Despises asparagus. (I know that that’s not the best way to end an app, but! I am who I am for a reason.)

Chapter Seventeen

Title: Ohana

Theme Song: Saturn by Sleeping At Last

Word Count: 3,994

Warnings: language, angst, violence, blood, character death

Characters: (OC) Harper Raven, (OC) Maisie Raven, (OC) Phillip Calloway, (OC) Quincy Carter, (OC) Simone González, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester

A/N: “Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.”

Read the previous chapter here!

Chapter List | Extra Content | Character Roster | AO3

“You know, some of these stars could be dead right now. I love how we can still see their light even after they’re gone.” Maisie finds herself sitting on the outcrop of roof outside of Harper’s room, one of her favorite memories playing out in her dreams once again.

Maisie hums in agreement. “I guess humans are kind of like stars too. Even after they’re gone, they don’t really leave us. We can still see them everywhere in our lives. The things they did for us.” Maisie’s eyes become misty as she speaks, thinking of her late foster mother, Laelynn. Harper is silent for a beat, then she suddenly gets up and climbs through the window back into her room. Maisie can hear her rummaging around until she reappears through the window.

“Well, this was supposed to be for your birthday, but Mom wasn’t supposed to die… So, I think you should have it now.” Harper hands Maisie a small, round, white box with a bright yellow bow on top. It almost looked like a daisy, Maisie’s favorite flower. Maisie tugs on the bow lightly and it falls away. When she opens the box, her breath catches.

It’s a simple gold, circular pendant made to look like a compass. She turns it over, already knowing the coordinates that are engraved there by heart. The coordinates to the Harvelle’s Roadhouse, or rather where it used to stand before it was blasted to ruins by demons.

Maisie has been waiting on this gift for years. Harper and Jo had gotten identical ones, passed down by their moms. And now Maisie has Laelynn’s. Picking the necklace from the box, she merely lets it set in her hand at first, trying to feel all the history it held. She swears, if only for a second, she could feel Laelynn with her.

Maisie hands the necklace to Harper and turns her back so her sister can secure it for her. Once it’s in place, Maisie knows she’ll never take it off.

“Thank you, Harp.” Maisie pulls her sister in for a hug and doesn’t let go. 

Maisie wakes with a start, confusion mixed with grogginess making her head pound. She slowly takes in her surroundings, wondering how she got to her old room in California. She doesn’t even remember falling asleep. The last thing she remembers is telling her dad where to find Momma Q.

Maisie tries to get to her feet, but has to lean on her bedpost for support. Her eyes are still heavy and her limbs feel burdensome. Suddenly, a man's loud, angry voice makes her flinch. It almost sounds like her dad, but she has never heard him raise his voice.

Making it to the door, she slowly pulls it open and shuffles down the hall towards the voices in the living room. She can now hear another, weaker voice, but there is a short bald-headed dude and a wiry woman with wild auburn hair, blocking her view.

“You’ll pay for what you took from me,” the first voice says, but this time it’s a quiet anger, his words coming out in a low growl.

“I’ll pay with my life if I have to. But you leave my daughters out of it.” Maisie realizes with a start, that the second voice is Momma Q. Her head throbs painfully as she tries to put the pieces together of what’s happening, but what Peter says next makes her heart stop.

“Maybe I could have left Harper out of it if she could have minded her own goddamn business! But I took care of her. I would have gotten rid of that little redhead too if it weren’t for that bitch of a witch I had to deal with. In the end, you are all that really stands in the way of an eternity with my daughter.” Maisie breaks from her shocked trance, when she realizes Momma Q is now gasping for breath. She reaches for her knife, but it isn’t there. All she can do is try to talk her father down.

Maisie rushes forward, breaking through the barrier of the two vampires. The sight of her only living mother fighting for her life at the hands of her father makes Maisie sick to her stomach.

“Dad, stop! Please,” Maisie begs, her voice cracking. She runs forward, trying to pry her father’s fingers away from around Momma Q’s neck. The two vampire lackeys suddenly seem to remember their job, and surge forward to restrain Maisie.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean for you to see this. In time, you will understand. And we will have more than enough time.” Peter turns back to Quincy, a sick smile playing on his lips as he tightens his grip. Quincy’s movements become less volatile, her strength giving out.

Maisie pulls and kicks against the vampires restraining her, but she has no leverage to pull free. She screams for her mother until her voice is hoarse, even after Quincy’s arms drop and her legs stop thrashing. Peter bares his fangs, and Maisie has to squeeze her eyes shut before he plunges them into Quincy’s neck, draining the last drops of life from her body.

Maisie hears Momma Q’s body thud to the ground, but it sounds far off. Her captors finally release their hold on her and she simply crumples to the floor. She doesn’t want to open her eyes. She doesn’t want to see her dead mother’s body that she knows is only inches away from her. Silent tears stream down her face. Only one thought ricochets in her mind until she loses all consciousness.

“It’s all my fault.”

As Philip sets the plane down without so much as a bump, Harper breathes a sigh of relief. “Hey, we didn’t die in a tragic, fiery plane crash. Not that I doubted you, Phillip, because apparently you can do everything,” she quips, trying to distract herself from the anxiety their current situation has caused.

“The less you know about me, the better.” Phillip returns coolly.

“Okay, that’s not ominous at all. Thanks for the ride, daa- dude. Da dude. It’s surfer talk, we’re in California now, gotta blend in.” Harper flimsily tries to recover from the fact that she almost called Philip dad. There’s an awkward silence before Simone pipes up.

“Um, evil vampire on the loose with your kidnapped sister ring a bell?” Everyone nods in agreement and starts to file out of the small plane. Harper brings up the rear, but before she starts down the steps, Phillip calls her name.

“Yeah?” Harper looks back at him expectantly. He stands up and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Just be careful, kid. Call me when you’re ready to bring Maisie home,” Phillip says.

“You are always there when we call, huh?” Harper muses.

“Well, what can I say? You’d get yourself killed if I didn’t. As an officer of the law, I can’t have people dying on my watch if I can help it. Especially if it’s family.” Harper is surprised to hear Phillip say something so heartfelt, even if his face still portrays no emotion. “Alright, dismissed,” Phillip pats her shoulder and heads back to the cockpit. Taking a deep breath, Harper puts on a brave face.

“Sir, yes, sir.” She mocks a salute before heading after the rest of the group.

First things first, Harper needs to make sure they are on the right track. She pulls out her phone and tries Momma Q. No answer. Next, she calls the facility where Momma Q stays. When they tell her that Quincy has been checked out by a man claiming to be their uncle, Harper is oddly calm. It is close enough to the answer she was expecting.

“What did they say?” Sam asks as soon as she hangs up. She simply shakes her head.

“Uncle Peter took her for a trip,” Harper spits his name out like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

“Where would he take her?” Dean asks gruffly. Harper gives him a look that says ‘lose the attitude or I’ll kick your ass’.

“Oh yeah, I just forgot to mention the detailed notes on his plans I found in his diary.” Harper sasses back in annoyance. Sam steps between them, hands out to keep them at bay.

“Guys, now is not the time! We’re all worried about Maisie, but it’s not going to help her if we’re at each other’s throats.” Sam looks between them and makes sure they nod their agreement before he stands down.

“We can start at our family home. I don’t know that we’ll find anything but it’s a better place to think than this dirty airport parking lot at six in the morning. We need a ride, though.” As soon as Harper finishes her thought, Simone pulls up in a little red Ford Escort.

“Get in, losers,” Simone calls out through the open window. Sam and Dean eye the car skeptically.

“You couldn’t have stolen anything bigger?” Dean whines.

“It’s inconspicuous,” Simone shoots back. “And I thought it would be funny to see you and Sam trying to squeeze in the backseat,” she adds with a shrug. Dean rolls his eyes so hard he gives himself a headache. Sam turns to Harper, hoping she will save them from Simone’s pettiness.

“I call shotgun,” is all Harper says, opening the door and moving the seat up for the boys. “You wanna waste our time hotwiring another car?” Harper questions expectantly. The boys grumble assent to her point and fold themselves into the limited space of the backseat.

Sitting on her old bed, Maisie stares blankly at the wall; her thoughts and feelings ground to a halt when Momma Q’s body hit the carpet of her childhood home. The world around her faded away, feeling unreal and dream-like. At least, she hopes this is another dream, but the stirring in her gut tells her it’s all too real.

Peter pushes open the door, his posture more lighthearted than usual, unsympathetic to his daughter’s distress. The vampire watching over Maisie leaves the room at Peter’s command.

“Sorry you had to see that sweetheart. I thought my underlings would have kept a better eye on you,” Peter says, a slight edge to his voice, but it perks up as he continues. “Oh well, what’s done is done.” He pauses, gauging Maisie’s reaction, but she doesn’t even look at him.  “I hoped you would see this from my perspective, Maisie.”

“And what perspective is that?” Maisie means to come off spiteful, but the words fall flat and defeated.

Peter sits down next to Maisie, trying to catch her eye as he props his elbow on his knee and gestures with his other hand as he speaks. “She took you from me, all those years ago. And I’ve been looking for you every day since. Quincy, she would have done the same all again just to protect you from me, your own father.”

When Maisie doesn’t respond again, Peter sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Everything I’ve done is because I didn’t want to lose you again.”

“What about Harper?” Maisie finds her anger again. He may be able to justify to himself why he did this to Quincy, but not her sister. Harper didn’t steal her away; they simply had each other’s backs throughout the years. “What did she do to deserve…” Her voice trails off, as does the anger, at the thought of what had become of her sister.

Peter sighs dramatically, as if her questions are nothing but a nuisance. “She would have stopped me too, sweetheart. She didn’t understand the vision.”

That piques Maisie’s interest, and her curiosity gets the best of her. “The vision?”

Peter’s eyes twinkle as he responds, “The vision that’s kept me going all these years. Eternity with my daughter.”

The sky is starting to lighten as Simone parks their little car around the corner from the house, out of direct view. Everyone hops out, and walks down the road to catch a glimpse of the house. A few vampires linger outside, keeping an eye on the street and surrounding homes for anything suspicious. The group takes a step back to stay out of sight while they figure out a plan.

“So, who has ideas?” Sam asks, glancing to his brother and the girls.

“Let’s walk in, guns blazing,” Dean offers, looking restless, but Harper immediately shakes her head. “Well, machetes blazing.”

“And draw a shit ton of attention to the house? No, we’ve gotta do this quietly.” Harper stares off into the distance, clenching and unclenching her fists as she thinks. “I’ll sneak in, and pull Maisie out.”

Sam shakes his head fervently. “You’re not going in alone.”

Harper frowns at him. “I know how to sneak into this house, I did it a million times growing up.”

“Yeah, but like Peter said earlier, your sneaking skills suck, Harp.” Simone responds honestly.

“Really? Now we’re bringing this up?” Harper throws her a frustrated glance. Simone shrugs as if to say ‘sure, why not.’

Dean looks to Harper, slightly confused. “Did he really say that?”

“Basically,” Simone says before Harper can get a word in.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me, we don’t have time for this,” Harper mumbles her thoughts out loud. “I’m going in, whether you like it or not. I made this mess, and I’m going to get my sister out of it.”

“You didn’t make anything, Peter did.” Sam interjects. “At least let someone go with you.”

“No, there’s more risk if anyone else goes. I’ve got this, okay?” Harper’s voice softens toward the end. “Just let me do this,” she says; there’s a pleading tone to her voice as she stares Sam down.

His shoulders slump. “Fine,” he sighs out.

“If something goes wrong, we’ll go with Dean’s idea, sound good?” Harper sounds matter-of-fact about it, as if ‘wrong’ couldn’t really be that bad. Dean and Simone nod, but Sam hesitates. Harper reciprocates the gesture before turning toward the house and her sister.

Sam’s hand wraps around hers when they are a few feet away from Dean and Simone. “For the record, I hate this,” he says with a half-hearted smile as she turns back to him.

Harper gives him a little smirk. “I know, but I’ll be back with Maisie soon enough.”

There’s a silence as Sam looks away for a moment, still holding her hand in his. Harper impatiently glances to the house, not wishing to wait another second.

“Relax, I’ll be back before you know it,” she says, giving him a forced smile.

“Just let her go already,” Simone talks a little louder so the couple can hear her. Harper cracks a smile in her direction before looking to Sam again.

“Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone,” she nudges him jokingly, slipping her hand out of his, and heads toward her childhood home to save her sister and fix this mess.

Harper peers around the corner to catch a glimpse of her old house; it is across the road and a few houses down from her vantage point. An idea pops into Harper’s head, and she cringes, knowing it’s the best way. Stripping off her jacket, she throws it back at Sam, standing by Dean and Simone now.

“What are you doing?” Dean asks in confusion as Sam catches it.

“I’m going jogging,” Harper shrugs before taking off down the street at a reasonable pace. She passes in front of her childhood home, feeling the gaze of the vampires keeping watch, but she keeps her eyes forward. There’s only two of them, one of them sitting on the steps of the front porch, the other sitting on the porch swing, trying to look casual.

Once she’s made it around the bend of the road to the neighbors house, she slows to a stop, hiding behind a row of tall bushes along the front yard. Rounding the neighbor’s house, Harper sneaks through their backyard and notices another vampire patrolling the back of her childhood home. She ducks behind another bush, watching as the vampire walks toward her and into the alley between the two houses.

Harper sees her opportunity, quickly and quietly walking up behind the vampire, machete in hand. She hefts the machete at his neck, slicing off his head. The body thumps softly as it hits the grass. She quickly grabs the body and head, dragging them behind the house to keep them out of sight.

Harper then crouches low as she softly pads over to the back of her childhood home and peeks into the window of Maisie old room. Maisie is on her bed and a short, Charlie Brown looking vampire, is at the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Harper takes a deep breath to steel herself, pulling her machete back out from its sheath before knocking softly on the window. She presses herself against the side of the house, waiting for the vampire to pop his head out. Her heart hammers in her chest, as the window slowly slides up and open.

The vampire’s bald head pops out of the window and Harper brings her machete down, cleanly severing his head from his body. She awkwardly hops through the window, shoving the body out of the way as she goes.

“Hey,” Harper says lamely as her feet hit the carpet. Maisie stares in disbelief at Harper standing before her, alive and well. She jumps to her feet, surprise giving way to her need to hug her sister and to know she hasn’t lost everything. As soon as she takes a step toward Harper, though, Maisie can smell her. The scent is so strong it overcomes all other emotions or senses. Maisie can feel the hunger building, and fear grips her heart.

Instead of welcoming Harper into her arms, she suddenly pushes her away. The force of Maisie’s shove surprises Harper almost more than the action itself, sending her across the room and crashing into the door. Grabbing onto the door handle to pull herself up, Harper tries to shake off the pain and confusion.

“Maisie? What the fuck was that?” Harper demands. Maisie looks at her shaking hands in shock.

“I- He turned me. Harp, I’m becoming a vampire,” Maisie chokes out, wrapping her arms around her torso. She can’t look at Harper, not wanting to see how her sister looks at her now.  

Harper holds her breath, waiting for something to give. She’s going to wake up any minute. Or Maisie is going to smile and say it’s only a joke. It can’t be real.

Without even realizing she’s taken it out, Harper is pressing her phone to her ear. It rings once before Sam’s voice rings out in her ear. It takes her a minute to find her voice.

“Sam?” She says quietly. She’s not even sure what to say.

“Harper, what is it? You ready for backup?” Sam asks desperately.

“Peter… H- he changed Maisie into a- a, um, and I don’t know what to do, tell me what to do,” Harper chokes out, eyes flying around the room.

“Has she drank human blood yet?” Sam asks, trying to keep himself level-headed for Harper’s sake.

Harper looks to her sister, relaying the question, and Maisie shakes her head. “No, she hasn’t,” Harper answers into the phone, unable to look away from Maisie.

“Okay, that’s good. She hasn’t fully transitioned then. Dean and I can make a cure, but we need the blood of the vampire who turned her, so Peter’s, right?”

“Yeah,” Harper breathes out.

“We’re coming, hold tight. Tell Maisie it’s going to be okay. It is going to be okay, Harper,” Sam’s calm voice evens her breathing. She believes him.

“Okay. It’s going to be okay, Maisie,” Harper repeats, trying to keep Sam’s calm in her own voice as she tries to help Maisie believe it too.

Maisie finally looks up to meet her sisters earnest gaze. In a split second, Harper’s head is turned at an odd angle, and there is a strange crunching sound. Time seems to slow as Maisie watches Harper’s body fall lifelessly to the ground.

“Sometimes, you have to do things yourself,” Peter’s voice cuts through Maisie’s haze. Suddenly, time speeds up to the point that Maisie no longer registers her actions. She is consumed by a blind rage, and she cannot be stopped.

When the world comes back into focus, she is standing in the living room, over her decapitated father, blood on her hands. She looks up at sound of Sam, Dean, and Simone bursting through the front door.

Sam yells Harper’s name as he runs through the house, while Dean heads straight to Maisie. Simone lingers over Peter’s body for a moment, nodding grimly, before following after Sam.

Stopping abruptly in the doorway to Maisie’s old room, Sam’s eyes immediately falling to Harper, crumpled and broken on the ground. Simone brings a hand up to cover her mouth as she gasps in horror. She had seen so much death, but this… This was something she was not expecting.

“Harper?” Sam’s voice barely comes out above a whisper. “Harper, please don’t do this to me,” he breathes out, as he falls to his knees beside her and rolls Harper onto her back. He pushes the hair gently away from her face, hoping and praying to see some sign of life in her. The sinking feeling in his gut tells him there isn’t any hope.

Harper’s eyes are open, but the empty, lifeless stare strips away any shred of denial and false hope that Sam was holding onto. Tears fill his eyes as he pulls Harper into his arms, cradling her limp form close to himself. She feels heavier than usual, the weight of the situation slowly crushing down on him.

He stares down at her through his tears, realizing there won’t be a tomorrow with her. He won’t hold her in his arms, or feel the warmth of her touch again. She won’t be beside him when he wakes up every morning. There will be a constant empty space where she used to be, that no one else could ever fill. Sam lets out one sob after another as he clings to Harper, wishing he could talk to her one more time, to hear her voice wash over him.

Dean finds Maisie in the hallway staring blankly down at Peter’s severed head. He takes her face in his hands and tries to draw her attention.

“Maisie? Baby, are you okay?” Maisie sees the movement of Dean’s lips, but no words connect with her mind. The sound of blood rushing in her ears is deafening. Not her blood, though. Dean’s blood. The machete she hadn’t even realized she was holding clatters to the floor as she pushes away from Dean. She must have grabbed the machete Harper brought in with her to go after Peter.

Harper; Maisie’s stomach lurches as she remembers the last sight of her sister. Stumbling down the hallway, she can now here Sam’s cries. Seeing Sam crumpled on the floor, cradling her sister’s body to him like she is the only thing he can feel, stops Maisie at the door like an iron fist had clamped down on her feet. The tears come faster than her breathing. She wants to go to them, to hold onto Harper. She wants to go back in time, tell Harper she is right and never let Peter back into her life.

All she can do is lean against the doorway as her legs give away. She slides down to the floor, sobs wracking her whole body. Maisie crashes her eyes shut against a world blurred by her own tears. Tears she didn’t deserve to cry. Tears won’t bring Harper back. Tears can’t wash away the fact that her sister was dead because of her.

I was walking home today splashing through the puddles left over from the 20 odd centimeters of snow Mother Nature left us on Monday, thinking about D. Way back when, we have a young man, who may or may not understand Hollywood’s seedy underbelly, find himself getting a dream job. D joins Glee and is given a chance to become a permanent fixture. He renews his contract and the rest is history.

What comes next is a theory but I must state I believe D is gay. However, I thought I would bring this up.

What if D did not have understood his sexuality when he signed the deal. (Some people are later bloomers. I was not.) Maybe he thought he was straight or considered himself to be bisexual or even gay? Let’s say, the for purpose of this theory, he thought himself as bisexual and felt it best to play the straight man. Then he really gets to know C in ways he had never dreamed possible and – poof – he realizes, “Yes, I’m gay!” -- The scene in the Lima Bean after kissing Rachel may have been real to D – Anyhow, he finds himself trapped in PR nightmare when he has fallen hopelessly in love to his lucky co-star.

Now, D is forced into a masquerade and has to have a girlfriend because of a contract. The problem is now, the PR teams wants to save face by pushing the straight line in interviews and photos. Ladi ladi da.

What I am getting at is, people who yell a lot about something usually have something to hide.

Just think about it. There are many straight actors who have played gay rolls and have not suffered for it. Here are just a few.

 Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain)

Tom Hanks (Philadelphia)

Daniel Radcliffe (Kill Your Darlings)

Hugh Grant (Our Sons)

Eric McCormach (Will and Grace)

Gale Harold and Hal Sparks (Queer as Folks and the sex was pornography next to Blaine and Kurt)

Michael Ontkean (Making Love)

Mario Lopez (Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story)

Clive Owen (Bent)

Christian Campbell (Trick)

Christopher Meloni (Oz)

Matt Damon and Michael Douglas (Behind the Candelabra)

Paul Rudd (Object of My Affection)

 The point is, you do not see these gentlemen going out of their way to prove the straightness. Why should they? They are comfortable being straight and being actors. They were paid to play a role and they played it. 

Okay, for the detractors, yes, D is an actor and he was paid to play a role. The difference is, D’s team is yelling with megaphones from the bloody roof tops. How many times does the ‘straight’ word have to come up in one interview to make it believable? This smells like desperation and not much more.

D’s PR team reminds me of political handlers who are trying to spin a tale to defend their boss who just got caught with his pants down with some young man. All of sudden they pull the wife and kids out the front door to face the cameras to prove the man is straight even thought pictures are smeared over the internet. There are countless denials which only make it sound worse. Then, one day, after the wife has left and the kids are still trying to figure everything out, the politician admits to the dalliance.

Now, I might very well be wrong, but in my opinion, there is only one reason ‘straight’ comes up so often. D is not straight. They are far too obvious and that makes the whole charade unfathomable. If they wanted to make us believe D is straight, ramming it down our throats is not the way to do it.

It is not easy to come out of the closet, but many actors have.

Brandon Flynn

“We’ve been scared shitless our whole lives, thanks to all the stigmas that surround us,” the 24-year-old wrote in the post. “Equality takes courage, it worries me that too many people in this world lack the balls to stand up for what is right.” Since then, he's been romantically linked to singer-songwriter Sam Smith. 

Teddy Quinlivan

The model capped off a busy New York Fashion Week in September by coming out as transgender in a candid CNN interview.  Quinlivan, 23, began her transition at 16, but decided to open up about her gender identity publicly because of “the political climate in the world right now ― particularly in the United States.”  “If being transgender is something that gets attached to my name throughout my career, then it’s for a worthy cause. But I look forward to the day when it doesn’t matter,” she said. “The transgender community needs more visibility. And with more visibility will come more acceptance.”

Haaz Sleiman

In August, Sleiman opened up about his sexuality in an emotional video as part of a personal effort to combat violence against the LGBTQ community. The "Nurse Jackie" and "Killing Jesus" actor, 41, announced that he was “a gay, Muslim, Arab-American man” in the video, but didn't stop there. 

Thomas Dekker

The "Heroes" actor publicly opened up about his sexuality on Twitter in July, but suggested he was inspired to do so after a “prominent gay man” outed him.  The 32-year-old described himself as a “man who proudly loves other men” in a short essay he included with his tweet. He also revealed that he’d married his husband in April. 

Jordan Gavaris

The “Orphan Black” star came out as gay in a June interview with New York Magazine's Vulture blog.  The 27-year-old star, who plays the “exuberantly gay” Felix Dawkins, seemed a bit surprised to be questioned about his sexual orientation. “Nobody ever asks me,” he said. “I’ve never been asked.”

Dan Amboyer

The "Younger" actor married his boyfriend, Eric Berger, in October, and came out as gay in the process.  Amboyer, 32, had been in a relationship with Berger for 10 years, but had not spoken publicly about his sexuality before. He told People that he'd been “strongly advised” to “stay quiet” about his personal life as he established himself as an actor. 

Matt Bomer

"American Horror Story" actor and marble-carved-cheekbones owner Bomer acknowledged his partner, publicist Simon Halls, and their three kids in an emotional humanitarian award speech in 2012.

Colton Haynes 

Beloved for both his physique and silly social media persona, the "Arrow" star hinted slyly he was not straight before formally coming out in 2016

Wentworth Miller 

This actor and screenwriter was the portrait of brute masculinity in the 2005 Fox series "Prison Break," which made his heartfelt coming out in 2013 -- and subsequent admission to body image and depression struggles -- resonate all the more with fans.  

 The closet door is open. People are stepping out and thriving. In this day and age there is no need to stay in the dark.

A Star Reborn: Elle Magazine Interview (February 2008)

No matter how romantic, dissolute, or beatnik he played it, Hayden Christensen just couldn’t lose the long arm of Star Wars. Until, that is, he starred in this month’s hotly anticipated, Jumper and ditched Darth Vader for good. Interview by Sarah Bernard When George Lucas plucked Hayden Christensen from teen-TV obscurity to play Darth before he was dark in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, it was a career making break. It was also the kind of opportunity that could set up a young actor to fail spectacularly. Christensen wouldn’t have been the first 19 year old to let fame turn him into an intolerable party boy, or the first to flame out, Mark Hamill-style. But Christensen’s post-Vader life hasn’t followed either of those scripts. Since hanging up his lightsaber, he has made a handful of small films, the best of which was Shattered Glass, which he also produced. His portrayal of journalist-turned-plagiarist Stephen Glass, complete with dorky glasses and khakis, was a perfectly creepy rendering of ambition and desperate defiance. In Factory Girl, the Andy Warhol biopic, he played a Dylan-esque musician. The movie was so god-awful that Christensen has never seen it. “And I don’t think I ever will,” he says. He had originally signed up to play Bob Dylan, but Dylan didn’t like the way the film portrayed his relationship with Edie Sedgwick and threatened to sue. “The producers called a week later saying, ‘We can’t call him Bob Dylan.’ I said, ‘Okay, I can play Bob in my head,” says Christensen, who more or less worships the singer. But Dylan saw the final cut and still wasn’t pleased. Most of Christensen’s scenes had to be scrapped, and those that did survive had to be completely redubbed so that he sounded less Dylan-like. “It was really depressing,” the actor says. In 2007’s Awake, he played a wealthy businessman (his wife is played by Jessica Alba) who finds himself conscious during heart surgery. The film came and went in a weekend. When Christensen tried to bolt from the premiere’s screening, he says Harvey Weinstein, the film’s producer, told him, “I’ll sit next you with handcuffs if I have to.” In this odd collection of projects, there is a through line: characters who are not quite what they seem at first, possessing a mix of innocence and malevolence. Those are the parts that Christensen loves to play and what attracted to the starring role in this month’s Jumper, a sci-fi thriller about a bank robber with a talent for teleportation. It’s directed by Doug Liman, who turned Matt Damon into an assassin with a soul in Bourne Identity and matched Brad and Angelina in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.  “I think people who see this film will view Hayden as having emerged they viewed Matt as having emerged…[But the reality is, both Matt and Hayden had done phenomenal work before,” says Liman. “You just had to look at Good Will Hunting and Shattered Glass to see there was a star there.” Christensen is not one of those celebrities who always craves an audience, as he sits in a Tribeca bar in New York City answering questions, he’s wearing a Bathing Ape baseball cap pulled low over his brow. His features are so delicate, they’re almost pretty. In fact, he was the face of Louis Vuitton Menswear in fall-winter 2004-2005. (“He reminds of a young Paul Newman,” says Simon Kinsberg, who co-wrote Jumper as well as Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the third installment in the X-Men franchise.) The actor’s idea of fun is manning the excavator on the farm he recently bought an hour north of Toronto, the city where he grew up and where his family still lives. Like any good Canadian kid, he was hockey-obsessed and dreamed of playing for the Maple Leafs. He also played competitive tennis, and when he was a ball boy at the Canadian Open, he was nearly clocked with a racquet hurled by a tantrumming John McEnroe. (A clip of the near miss made the nightly news.) Christensen’s mother, Ali, and father, David, ran a communications consulting business together. He has an older brother, Tove (who now heads, with Hayden, a production company, Forest Park Pictures), and two sisters: Hejsa, a former junior world trampoline champion, and Kaylen. The whole clan spent time in Australia during the filming of Star Wars, where Christensen’s sisters even became tight with George Lucas’ daughters. When Lucas invited the girls along on a yacht vacation, Hejsa really hit it off with the boat’s captain. They married a year and a half ago in Antigua, with Lucas in attendance. “She’s sort of responsible for me having the career that I have,” says Christensen, “and I’m indirectly responsible for her family.” Listen to him talk, and it’s hard to believe he isn’t just a farm boy himself. For one thing, he mumbles. He also slurps his Coke like a little kid. Then orders another.

“I thought I had a sense of what it meant to be a down to earth, regular actor,” says Liman. “Then I met Hayden, and suddenly everyone else seems like a primadonna.” During one of many reshoots, Liman realized his star’s hair has gotten longer and lighter from the sun. “Hayden’s like, ‘no problem,’” says Liman. “He gets the scissors and the trimmer out and cuts his own hair in my bathroom! I’m terrified because we have some shooting coming up and if I mess up his hair, someone’s going to kill me. I go, ‘Are you sure you should be putting those scissors to your hair?’ He goes, ‘I was cutting my hair through the whole movie.’” “He is so sweet and so humble and approachable, and loving,” adds Jessica Alba. “He literally hugs everybody on the crew and knows all their first names, every day. He’ll say good morning, give everyone a hug. He’s so present and happy and sweet. It’s crazy. And then you’re like ‘Oh, he’s Canadian.’” ‘Menschy’ is how Kinberg describes him. “So much that wondered when I’d get to see the other side.” It’s an earnestness with an edge, like a scrim that’s hiding something uglier, messier, darker. “He’s incredibly good at lying,” says Jamie Bell, his Jumper costar. “That element of ‘I’m totally pulling the wool over your eyes.’ He’s good at that.” Darth Vader is a cartoon version of this of course. There were lots of intense stares and heavy brows in that performance. But to be fair, Star Wars has never been known for its thespianism, and delivering stilted dialogue with imaginary droids against a green screen doesn’t leave an actor much room for subtlety. Maybe Christensen was reacting to that when he played Sam Monroe, the pill-popping part time prostitute teenage son of Kevin Kline in 2001’s Life as a House. In the opening scene, Sam wakes up, sniffs a rag doused with paint thinner, sticks his head through a noose in his closet, and jacks off, until the clothes rack collapses on top of him and his mom opens the door. And that’s before the title sequence is finished. Christensen threw himself into Sam both emotionally and physically. He says ‘It was my means of rebelling,” from Star Wars one assumes. He shed 25 pounds on a diet of salad and water, dyed his blond hair black and cobalt blue, and shaved his legs to look as young and sickly as possible. The result was a performance with vulnerability and angst and full-fledged rage, all twined together like a heap if twisted steel. And because Life as a House came out before Attack of the Clones, it was actually Sam in all his Goth glory (piercings, eye shadow), not the falling Jedi Knight, who introduced the actor to the movie going public. He earned a Golden Globe nomination for his work in House, as well as a fair amount of tortured teen credibility. At that point, tortured teens were something of a Christensen specialty. In 2000, the year he got Star Wars, he was living in Vancouver and playing Scott Barringer, a drug addicted, sexually molested teenager on Fox Family’s Higher Ground. When he was summoned to Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in Northern California for a face-to-face reading with Natalie Portman, he threw up on the ride there. It was his and Portman’s chemistry that the unknown Canadian was the one. “Hayden is immediately appealing, both in person and on screen, because he knows how to balance his strength with his sensitivity,” Lucas emails. “I think he has a great acting career ahead of him.” The filming of Attack of The Clones and then Revenge of the Sith consumed a good five years of Christensen’s life-an eternity in the career of a hot young actor. He tried moving on, focusing on indie films, sharing the stage in London in 2002 with Jake Gyllenhaal in Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, a play about three rich-kid slackers in 1980s New York. Still he could not get away from Star Wars. Boxes of paraphernalia continued to arrive. “They have to send me one of everything produced,” he says. “It’s nuts. The first I opened: ‘Oh that’s cool. A little figurine of me,’ All sorts of lunch boxes, potato chips. I don’t even open them anymore. I had to get storage space because my parents’ basement overcrowded. My mom was like, ‘Enough!’” So when his agent told him about Jumper, he didn’t jump at it. “They said it was sort of science fiction, there was a franchise possibility,” he says. “And I was like, ‘does this really sound like something I’d be keen to do? I was franchise scared.” Then he found out it was being directed by Doug Liman, who has a way of infusing an emotional quotient into the star roles of his big budget action pictures. The first meeting between them was, according to both, like a great first date. Christensen has a farm. Liman has a farm. Christensen was off to a flying lesson that day. Liman is a pilot. The director invited Christensen to his apartment in New York, where they met with Kinberg and with Bell, who’d already been cast. (Liman had begun filming Jumper with Tom Sturridge as the lead, then halted production because Sturridge looked too young for the part, Kinberg says.) Christensen plays Davey, a callow young guy with a sweet, sexy girlfriend (Rachel Bilson) and the secret superpower to ‘jump’ teleport himself anywhere in the world by picturing the place. Thinking he’s the only one with such skils, Davey is blithely breaking into banks and living the high life in Manhattan when one day, a white-afroed Samuel L Jackson (Christensen’s Star Wars costar) shows up and tries to get medieval on his ass. Jackson, part of a jumper secret police, doesn’t want rogue teleporters jumping about. Disrupts the universe, you see. Liman and the crew discussed the script and debated what a jump would look like. “We started improvising, throwing out ideas,” says Christensen. A week later, Liman called and asked him back to do it all again. When Christensen was finally offered the part, the group continued to meet as a collective several times a week. “My character’s way of dealing with things is he doesn’t confront his problems. He’s always avoiding them. One day I was saying to Jamie, ‘My superpower is I can run away from anything.’ And Doug was like, ‘Wait, wait, wait! That’s your character! The fundamental undercurrent.”   It is the perfect superpower for a guy: the ability to literally bail when things get tough. “A very guy thing, yeah.” Christensen says with a laugh. Jumper was the opposite of the closed door ways of Star Wars, where they’re George’s characters,” the actor says. “I was stepping into something preexisting.” Now he was getting to be part of that defining process and he was thrilled. Not that Liman’s defining process is any cake walk. For him, scripts are never finished and actors are ever in discovery mode. Often they’d shoot a scene one way, discuss it, come up with a better idea, and shoot again. This happened whether they were on a soundstage in Toronto or on location in Tokyo, Paris, Prague, London, or Rome, where they got permission to film inside the Colosseum, the first film to do so in decades. Liman is also spontaneous, to the extreme. Driving through Times Square with Bell and Christensen, he decided that it would be good to get them fighting in traffic. So he stopped the van, ordered them out, and manned the camera himself as his starts rolled around on the pavement mid the cars and pedestrians. A good portion of the film has Christensen pummeling himself onto the floor, up against walls. Says Bell, “Hayden was tortured on this movie.” Well, not entirely tortured. Reports are that Christensen and Bilson are dating-there are pictures of her feeding him, of her puppy getting into his Ferarri, of her and Christensen running errands Best Buy-but he refuses to discuss it. What he will say is, “She’s awesome. She’s a very, very beautiful girl. She’s special. She’s one the sweetest, most gentle, kindhearted people I’ve ever met.” Christensen’s Jumper performance may be the one that finally overrides everything else on his resume. “Doug is really good at making guys look cool,” says Kinberg. Liman couldn’t agree more: “I have the reputation for getting just the right actor at the right point in their career. I think people will say I just did it again.” But even a director as self-confident as Liman is no match for the Force. Christensen tells how, on a recent head clearing trip to the Bahamas, he stopped in at a ‘really local, really basic market’. And there on the shelf was an ancient box of cereal with his mug as Anakin in that signature shag. Says Christensen; “I wanted to go up and ask the guy, ‘Are you sure that should still be on the shelf?’”

Zombies Run - Writing Prompt

For the anonymous request with the name/word prompt; Sam + Spring. 

I kept it as spoiler free as possible, I think, the only warning I can think to give would be a vaguely refer to events with two names that anyone who’s finished season three and started season 4 will know about.  Story under the cut!

Sam Yao was not a man to be taken lightly – regardless of anything people might have heard to the contrary – he took his job very seriously because it was his job to ensure the safety of Abel by ensuring the safety of its Runners.  He was the sentry, the guide, and the guardian all in one; the first line of defense for the Runners, and the last line of defense for Able Township.

What a lot of people didn’t realize was that his job was so much more than watching cameras, directing movement, and warning of danger while people were on their runs.  Sometimes his job was noticing if a Runner was acting odd.  Sometimes it was making sure a Runner low on morale was sent on a toy run, or a tequila run as required.  Sometimes it was making sure an anxious Runner was only scheduled for supply runs in safe areas.  Sometimes it was cancelling runs if a Runner was hiding an injury, or illness.  It was making sure Maxine knew if anyone started showing signs of depression or other forms of mental or emotional difficulties that may need more than the occasional pep talk.  

It was being silly and making sure he saw them smile or laugh at least once every day, or occasionally begging a Runner to go with him to the kitten house because he was embarrassed to go alone.  He’d even gotten more than few to join the Demons and Darkness group that tried to meet once a week for a game.  

Sometimes his job was pretending not to notice when they cried, and sometimes it was crying with them.  Knowing what his Runners needed was what he did, in and out of missions.

For some of them, like Jody or Simon (before his name was removed from the past and present Runner list), were pretty easy to read (at least he used to think so).  Some of them were a lot more difficult to try and pin down (like Sara Smith).  Some of them were… some of them were both and neither and utterly impossible as a result.

Runner 5, for example.  She rose so quick in Abel’s ranks that it was practically a legend. She fell from the sky in a ball of fire, ran a mission while still unknown and unnamed, returned to Abel with critical resources and saved the township all before she’d even had so much as a ‘hey, how are you?’ from the welcome committee.

That was the beginning and the end of it.  From then on she was Runner 5 – the unstoppable, the undaunted, the tireless.  Runner 5 – the hero of Abel.  

Everyone knew her designation.  Everyone knew her reputation.  And Runner 5 took it all in stride, confident and proud and every inch the model Runner and community member they needed her to be.  

The township didn’t notice when she started to change.  They didn’t see the circles under her eyes.  They didn’t see the way her hands sometimes shook when she was sent out on an important mission, like she didn’t trust herself anymore.  They didn’t see the way her head sometimes tilted, like she was listening to something they couldn’t hear.  

They didn’t see the Runners the way Sam did.  They didn’t understand  how the designations and reputations the Runners built around themselves would stare to wear on them, start to erode their sense of self. The bigger the legend, of course, the heavier those expectations were to carry.

That was his mission – to see the wear and tear on his people and make it better in whatever ways he could.  Today his mission would serve all of them, but his focus was Runner 5.  

It was spring now – finally and officially spring! – but the last bitterly cold rain they’d received had left the fields surrounding Able a quagmire of potential sprained ankles and difficult terrain.  Any Runner sent out in it would have to fight the mud for every step they took.  It was not good conditions for running quickly, it was not (Janine said stiffly after surveying the weather reports, road conditions, caloric costs/needs of Runners, etc) ideal for efficiency in performance.  

All this boiled down to a single edict – all the Runners would have the day off.  This bright, sunny, warm day with just the most pleasant breeze blowing through the township while they waited for the running conditions to be more ideal.  

It was amazing!  He couldn’t remember the last time all the Runners had the day off, even those days where most of them did Five was always needed for one critical mission or another.  This was the perfect opportunity to help her reboot her system, so to speak, and feel connected again.  Maybe get her to tell him why she seemed so distant lately.  I mean, he knew why – the Simon thing, and the Moonchild thing, and all the things that happened around and after those things – there were a lot of things, but she’d always bounced back before.  He hadn’t realized just how much she always bounced back until now when she hadn’t. He wasn’t the only person worried either, he wasn’t the only person to belatedly realize that in her constant and consistent efforts to protect the town, the town may have been neglecting to protect their runner back.    

It was important, the work he did, it was necessary, and it was very serious. Maybe even the most serious work anyone in the township could possible undertake.  

Though he would certainly understand the doubt a person would feel if they were told how serious his job was while looking at him now – dressed in an aggressively pastel pink and blue Easter bunny costume hiding little treats and toys all around the running track and training fields while a horde of kids practically vibrated with excitement and anticipation all along the perimeter.  It wasn’t religious in intention, but more an any excuse to have a bit of fun event.  The kids would watch him, the Easter Bunny, hop around and hide things, but not knowing if he was really hiding something just behind the bleachers or only pretending to to throw them off the scent, then – at the appropriate moment – they would be released!

There was nothing better for the Morale of the township then a bit of nonsense every now and then, and if that bit of nonsense reminded them what they were doing all this for, remind them of their collective humanity in the face of their personal monsters, then all the better!   Once the kids had burned some energy finding the treats, the Spring Rabbits (runners wearing bright colours, bunny ears, and face paint) would start phase 2 of the spring celebration; each runner had a different colour assigned to them and eight streamers of that colour loosely attached to their waists.   The first kid in each age group to collect 4 different colours would win a whole chocolate bar!  The sheer want in some of the kids eyes was honestly intense enough to cause Sam some concern, but he felt better know that they had secretly gathered up enough candies for all the kids to ‘win’ by the end of the Spring in Abel Event.  

Lined up along the bleachers, either sitting or leaning against the fence respectively, the volunteer Runners waited patiently, grinning and stretching and generally getting ready to make the kids work for their sugar rush later.  The pastel colours were for the younger kids, those Runners would challenge their kids but ultimately let themselves be “caught” before too long.  The brighter colours were the Runners for the older kids, Maxine and a few other adults would be watching them more closely to identify any that could be future Runners with more training.  Banners were not guaranteed for the older kids, the Runners were going to challenge them and were not going to give up any banners easily.  

Any kids that didn’t want to run for their candy could opt to solving puzzles or guiding blindfolded volunteers through the obstacle course.   Jody had been the one to casually mention the old holiday to him a couple weeks ago, wondering if he thought they could do something for it.  Ever since she made the suggestion he, Jody, Maxine, and a few others had put a lot of effort into making this event big and making sure that there was something for everyone regardless of their preferred recreational activities and capabilities.  There was even a pickup game of Demons and Darkness going on in the mess hall!  The Runners were all into it too!  When he’d initially started asking for volunteers he’d expected a certain amount of hold outs – he’d expected some of them to decline, but every single Runner signed up to a degree that he actually had to turn some of them down and find them other activities/jobs to do instead. It was amazing!  

Runner 5 was over with the other Rabbits waiting to start their runs, helping each other tie on their streamers (not too tight to pull off, but not so loose that they could fall off by accident).   Her colour was a very bright yellow, next to her Jody in the pastel blue and a sweater knitted to look like an easter egg chatted amiably.  They both waved when they caught his eyes on them. Sheepishly, he waved back.    He couldn’t help but grin, making a big show of inspecting a set of weights while he hid a couple yo-yos around the 15lb bells.  It was working!  Everyone was having fun, nobody was currently risking their lives, or thinking about the next time they’d have to risk their lives, or getting dragged down into dark thoughts and doubts and emotional friction.   They were just living, it was perfect.  

One good day; that’s all any of them needed, just every now and then, to make the less good days not seem so bad.  One good day, he promised himself that he would give Runner Five that much, even if he couldn’t do anything else for her, he could give her One Good Day.  

Finally out of treats to hide Sam pretended to hide a few more things to be cheeky and hopped his way back towards the Runners – the kids were collectively holding their breath, instinctually setting themselves into the ready position while they waited to be released.   Sam had barely finished sitting down before the kids were off, tearing around the running track, obstacles, and various piles of equipment left out deliberately so Sam could hide things in them.  

Sam couldn’t help by gape.  At their current rate of movement he figured they would have found every bit of swag he’d hidden – and the stuff they’d pre-hidden the night before – in a lot less time then he’d projected.  Even the little kids, being led by their parents, were moving a lot faster than their little legs seemed capable of.  

“Get ready Rabbits,” Jody called out to the Runners around them, “I think we’re gonna get the go ahead quicker then we’d thought.”

Five smiled at the chaos reigning on the training field, maybe not as big as Sam had hoped, but a lot less distracted then he’d feared. She seemed present today.  Not as lost in her thoughts as she’d seemed lately.  It was enough for now.  One good day.  He repeated the words to himself like a mantra; one good day would do a lot to help his poor overused Runner get back to being herself again.   He watched her from the corner of his eyes when someone else called for her and she walked away from him and Jody to answer.

“This was a good idea Sam, I’m glad we did this for the township.”  Jody said cheerfully, nudging him good naturedly with her knee from where she stood next to him.  “I can see you smiling under that ridiculous get up, I’m glad.  It’s been a while since I saw you this happy.”

“We’ve all been a bit too focused lately, what with everything that’s gone on, a bit of a distraction is good for us.  A bit of fun to remind us that there’s more to life than just running for our lives, and trying to survive or prepare for the next emergency.”    

“Runner 5 is gonna be glad to hear you said that.” Jody grinned.

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but I have to Sam! I just have to!  Runner 5 is the one who told me to remind you that the Easter Bunny used to be a thing, a way to celebrate spring and hope and new life from old.  She was worried about you, and she knew how much you like planning stuff like this.  She tricked you Sam.  She got me and Maxine to do it for her, with the planning and all, but it was Five that went around to every Runner to make sure they were on board to help.  Not that it was hard, all she had to say was for Sam and not one was willing say no, not after everything you’ve done for all of us.  This whole thing was Runner 5’s idea to make you feel better; to remind you that it’s okay to be happy again since you’ve been so down about everything that’s happened recently.”  

Sam stared at Jody for a long couple of seconds before he could process the words properly. The Runners were trying to take care of him?  Runner 5 – the formerly unstoppable and recently stopped.  Runner 5 – the undaunted, recently shaken. Runner 5 – the tireless, but oh god he could see her mental exhaustion weighing her down.  Runner 5 – the fallen hero of Abel.  Five had manipulated him into dressing up like the Easter Bunny to make him smile, to give him a day off.   And she’d gotten everyone else in on it.  He thought it’d been weird how quick Janine had decided the whole town would get the day off, but he hadn’t wanted to jinx it.  Hadn’t he just recently been thinking how easy it had been to get volunteers?  

He was supposed to be taking care of her, of all of them, that was his job and here they all were… worried about him… taking care of him…  

“You do so much for us Sam, and there not often anything we can do in return other then make it home every day, time and again, to thank you for guiding us back.  We’re all just worried that you might be taking on too much without giving yourself the occasional break that you need let alone deserve.  Abel doesn’t always have to rest on your shoulders, Sam, you need to let yourself breath every now and then.  You need to let yourself live a little too. You need to take time to be yourself, Sam Yao.”   Jody continued, nudging him again with her leg when he continued to not react, giving him an affectionate smile for encouragement.

“Thank you, Jody, really…. I…. I don’t know what to say to all that, really….”

“We’ve all got a day off Sam, you don’t have to say anything.  Just… take the time to enjoy it.  We’ve got your back.  Always.”

Before he could find his voice again to respond Jody perked up and eyed the field, a general surveying her troops, “time to go Rabbits!”  She shouted excitedly, and the Runners who’d been patiently waiting sprang into action, just as sudden and chaotic and care free as the kids had been, darting in all directions which dozens of little people laughed and chased after them, desperate to get the streamers.  

Sam tracked Five from where she was leading some of the older kids on an adventurous chase around the obstacle course.  She was smiling, careful not to run too fast and discourage them, she glanced back at him and caught his eye, giving him a one handed salute.

One good day.

Whatever it may have been before, Spring was now Sam’s favourite season.    

Up ‘til now - it’s long....

I had so wanted to get this done yesterday.  I just ran out of time.  And that, I guess, is kind of an organizing thought for going into everything before today.

Running out of time.  Running.  Running away, running toward.  I ran toward work and dove in head first, spending many weekends holed up in my office at school, working on scores, planning lessons, making copies.  Jack and the kids were I thought happily busy going to dance classes; he had taken up musical theater as a hobby so they went with him to rehearsals while I went to my own and designed classes for my students.  I taught in the teacher training every Friday night through Christmas time for several years, which was fun, and yet one more thing to juggle.

We started fostering kittens. About once a month, we’d get a new litter, or pair, that needed to be fed, cuddled, and weighed.  Once they reached 2 pounds, we would photograph them, take them back to the SPCA, cry, and pick up another litter.  It was wonderful fun - we made a spoof of a promotional video for BACWTT (Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training) starring the kittens. And, in 2010, a tuxedo litter arrived with their tiger mom, who were named after noodles.  Soba, Udon, etc.  We renamed the whole group after the cast of the old Dick van Dyke show; I fell in love with Buddy and Sally, they joined our family and the fostering ended.

Mom took me to Alaska on a cruise in 2009.  I loved it - everything about it - and surprised myself as well, I never thought I would enjoy a cruise.  It was so great, she invited me and the kids two more times to come along with her.  We went other places too; Mexico, Norway, Mediterranean.  Alyssa and I got to go the Baltics and back to Alaska.  Incredible.

When I look back at this period of time, hindsight is indeed 20-20.  Things were crumbling.  I knew that, but I didn’t know the reason.  All the arguments about the reason that were coming toward me was me that I was the problem, so I left.  I left for what I thought was going to be a short period, to get some focus, and start a healing process.  I got a small apartment (so small that I didn’t even notice that there wasn’t a sink in the cooking area - just a counter, and the only sink was a tiny bathroom sink).  I took only what I needed from the house, a couple of outfits for each of the children, because they were going to be there only infrequently....

The first thing that happened was Trevor decided he wanted to stay with me and not go back home.  Then, it quickly became apparent that Jack couldn’t care for Alyssa well enough without me and Trevor at home, so Alyssa came with me too.  Luckily it was only a three month lease.  One day, I was walking down Broderick and saw a woman coming out of what is now my building with a dog.  There was a for-rent sign and Alyssa and I went up and found our new home.  Trevor approved that night, and we schlepped our IKEA furniture and few boxes down the street, set up our little floor futon beds and 2890 was established.  

Trevor went to China with the Eurythmy troupe.  The night before he left, Jack had a strange constellation of symptoms which sent him to the ER.  They never figured out what was wrong with him, and sent him home.  We checked in on him and he was back at work the next day, so we chalked it up to something he ate, or a short-lived intense virus.

I was at Harry’s bar the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2011 and Trevor called me with the news that Jack had lost his job.  We had planned a trip to Disneyland and I agreed that we’d go anyway - I was still trying so hard to make things amicable and workable for all of us while maintaining my independence.  The trip was difficult, to say the least, and Jack was once again not feeling well.

I’ll spare all of the details of the next couple of months, but while on a cruise with Mom to Mexico that Christmas, we learned that Jack was having real difficulties during a trip to visit his sister in North Dakota.  At that point, I insisted he get a full medical work-up.  After spending 5 days in the ER, they finally did an MRI and discovered that he had Pick’s disease, a rare form of dementia that affects people in their early 50′s.  At this point we were 53.

Sam and Carol came to help.  They were amazing, strong, clear, compassionate and generous.  I can never thank them enough for all they did for me and the kids, and Jack.  As you likely know, he died from complications of this horrible disease on November 19, 2015.  His diagnosis explained so many of things that were subtle struggles at first that turned into full-blown irreconcilable differences.  You can read or re-read my posts from that time, still on this thread.

Since our transition to a family of three, life has been full and challenging at times, at 2890.  The two Johns adopted us and made sure we were OK.  Both kids finished high school.  Trevor went to college at Lewis and Clark, and majored in theater with a mom-insisted double major in Computer Science.  He is living and working in Portland now, as a designer in theater.  Full time.  He says the CS helps him, but he sure showed me how not to be afraid of ART.  He sings with an a cappella group in Portland, keeping the spirit of PME Jazz and Pop alive in the family.  I think he is beginning to be wholly happy there.

Creations flow from Alyssa’s once tiny fingers and hands; she sews what she sees, she knits like the wind, and has a beautiful singing voice.  We have made a wonderful habit of traveling together.

She’s a freshman at Willamette University in Salem.  She has found her tribe of people and each phone call is punctuated with commentary from at least one of them and lots of laughter.  She is another theater nerd, majoring in costume design and possibly business.  I am so happy for her.

In 2013 I met Scott.  I had made a part time job of going on OK Cupid and trying to date, at the urging of Bronwen at school.  It was going, as I understand it, fairly typically (NOT WELL!) until I met Scott.  I ‘recognized’ him while reading his profile, reached out, he agreed to meet me for a drink, and we adjourned to a nearby restaurant, and closed it on our first date.  I told him my WHOLE story for some reason, I guess I saw no reason not to - there was immediate trust, and we’ve been together ever since.  He’s gone through a lot too, as I guess by the time you’ve been hanging around on the planet this long, is inevitable.  He’s a brave guy - he came with me to Colorado Springs last Thanksgiving and cooked our meal.  Pretty awesome.  He’s done lots of awesome things for and with me.  I think we’re going to keep each other around.  Happy times. 

In 2014, I had been singing with the Bach Choir since I left PME in 2008, our new conductor Magen was listening to everybody before she took the podium in the fall.  She directs a professional choir, the SF Choral Artists, who I hadn’t heard in concert, but I had heard about.  Years before I had gone on to their website to see about auditioning, read the requirements, saw the bios of the singers and turned the other way.  I thought I could never make it in.  She invited me at the Bach Choir audition to come sing for her as a potential member of SFCA.  I quickly brushed up a couple of pieces from college and somehow passed that audition, which is super hard for just about everyone who is a member.  Through rehearsing with this group, I met Simon, the conductor or the St. Dominic’s choir, and was later hired by him as a section leader for what must be one of, if not the best, church choirs in the city.

Recently, Scott introduced me to someone like this:  “This is my girlfriend, Lisa. She is a singer.”  It made me pause, because, that was never how I’d introduce myself.  It was always either as Mom, Teacher, Bob and Jackie’s daughter, Sister, or Wife.  And then, I realized he is right.  I am a singer.  I make my living teaching music, and singing.  And I didn’t double major either.  Not the easiest or most lucrative path, but one I think puts some good into the world.  Not enough.  By far.  I spent October and early November working to get out the vote.  I was very excited by that, and thoroughly committed.  It was fun to be dedicated and feverish about something in addition to music. 

Scott has also challenged me to do something, which is coming up tomorrow night, which is scaring me half to death, and exciting me because it means something really new and potentially wonderful is afoot.  I am singing in the Blue Bear School of Music’s beginning rock band at a bar called the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco.  At 9:30.  At night.  I know the band will sound awesome.  I hope to be able to phonate.  It is throwing me for a loop, but things are starting to happen and I am learning and curious about music again in a whole new way, which will likely have a trickle down to my students after a while.

Writing down these memories has only brought about more, and the realization of how many friends and family members I have not even mentioned.  You are not forgotten, and you will likely show up in epilogue stories which I am being encouraged to write. Many adventures and challenges are left undescribed.  I’m starting a list.

Bob called me this morning and said “Know this:  you are resilient.”  Damn straight.  As of this morning, I am 60.  I can’t make that make sense, even after all this recounting.  I am declaring 60 is the new 40, so that feels a little more manageable.  More adventures await.

One more, later today.  

Ask meme - Scarlet

Here’s all 100 questions from that ask meme for @atrue-whovian cause he’s insane This one is for Scarlet James is next Have fun I’m on mobile so I can’t put it under a cut rip

—

1. What do they smell like? She usually smells of masculine deodorant (that feminine stuff is bullshit and expensive) and/or sweat.

2. What is their voice like? Her voice is somewhat feminine but mostly deep, very intimidating and loud.

3. What is their biggest motivator? She wants to make sure all her friends - who are now family - are safe and happy.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory? When she thought she was flirting with a gay girl but she was actually straight and was suuuper embarrassed when she tried to ask her on a date.

5. How do they deal with/react to pain? Usually she just swears loudly, takes a deep breath, applies pressure for a moment, then controls it with harsh breathing to channel her pain. If it needs treatment she applies first aid while swearing the entire time. If adrenaline is high and she’s in danger she doesn’t consciously react, and though her body might flinch she doesn’t even feel it.

6. What do they like to wear? Baggy masculine clothes most of the time, band merch and sweat pants, sometimes jeans but they’re always torn. Other times she wears tight fitting workout clothes or just a tank top and shorts to show off the guns.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively? Sam was the first person to make her start exploring herself, give a second thought to the things running through her head. Sam helped start her healing process, even if it was a little slow. While all her relationships have helped in different ways, Sam really started it all.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten? Once when she was high someone caught a grasshopper and cooked it over the fire - cooked being a generous word - and she ate it without hesitation. Don’t do drugs kids.

9. Describe the way that they sleep. Sprawled out, snoring loudly, usually with an arm wrapped around Sam.

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food? She loves hamburgers with all the toppings you can fit on it. Five Guys, Burger Factory, that kinda thing is her shit. She loves going to fast food joints and ordering the craziest combinations.

11. What do they feel most insecure about? Her abilities in anything really. She hates herself the moment she can’t do something. Even if it’s something small like playing a stupid Mario Party minigame she needs to be able to do it.

12. How do they like to dress? Masculine and functional, looking good and ready to kick ass.

13. How do they react to feelings of guilt? Beats herself up infinitely, hates herself and never really talks about it until someone convinces her to and then they can hopefully comfort her.

14. How do they react to/deal with betrayal? Initially wants to kill them. Then wants to beat the shit out of them. Eventually like, four years later, gets over it.

15. What is their greatest achievement? Breaking out if the institution and making it home safe, that was badass and awesome.

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep? Irritable and cranky. Throws back coffee and energy drinks to help stay awake until she eventually crashes and passes out.

17. What are they like when they’re drunk? Depressed, nostalgic for better times. She cries a lot and apologizes for everything ever. A sad sight to see, really.

18. What kind of music do they enjoy? Hard rock and heavy metal. She wants to feel the bass in her bones and rock the fuck out. Has a soft spot for a few softer bands but usually refuses to admit it.

19. Are they right or left handed? She was born like technically left handed, but due to the missing finger she quickly took to using her right hand.

20. Fears? Scared of losing people. Scared of disappointing her friends. Scared of becoming like her parents. Scared of hurting those she loves.

21. Favorite kind of weather? Windy and somewhat sunny, but not too bright. She loves the rain too.

22. Favorite color? Red, which was probably obvious.

23. Do they collect anything? She tends to keep bottle caps around, accumulating a pile in her room until Sam inevitably recycles them all and she has to start anew.

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more? Cool but not cold weather.

25. What is their eye color? Pale blue like iceberg water.

26. What is their race/ethnicity? White, specifically white trash by birth.

27. Hair color? Dark brown, likes to dye it red.

28. Are they happy where they are currently? Living with Sam and Max in a decent apartment with a decent job, she’s happy.

29. Are they a morning person? Not in the least. She’s basically a zombie before 11am.

30. Sunrise or sunset? Sunset, she likes knowing darkness is right around the corner.

31. Are they more messy or more organized? Messy, everything has it’s place - wherever it happens to be dropped.

32. Pet peeves? When people follow rules like it’s the law - even when it’s literally the law. See: Refusing to jaywalk Taking off hats in restaurants Never walking on the road even when it’s 2am and nobody else is awake jesus christ live a little dude

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance? She still has this little bracelet Sam gave her when they were like 12. It’s made of silver and has a little S engraved in it. She refuses to admit she still has it.

34. Least favorite food? She can’t stand salad. Why would you eat leaves?

35. Least favorite color? Orange. Never did care much for it.

36. Least favorite smell? Like 99% of perfumes, they just smell like chemicals to her.

37. When was the last time they cried? Last week she had a nightmare and some traumatic memories came back and she couldn’t help but cry.

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried? She woke Sam up without meaning to and they comforted her.

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured? She and Max were playing chicken, running straight at each other until someone bailed out. Nobody bailed out. She got her forehead cut open and Max got a huge bruise on his cheek.

40. Do they have any scars? Jesus does she ever. Scar across her left cheek, left ear reconstructed from skin grafts, scars up and down her arms and thighs from self harm, leg amputated above right knee, scars on her stomach from when her mother attacked her, burn marks across her back, and she’s missing her left index finger from a birth defect. We call her Scar for a reason.

41. Do they struggle with any mental health issues? Major depression and anger issues, as well as other shit left over from emotional and physical abuse. She’s pretty broken. On antidepressants but they aren’t quite enough, she’s doing her best.

42. Do they have any bad habits? Drinks too much (working on it though), used to smoke weed too much, leaves in the middle of the night without warning and worries everyone to death.

43. Why might someone dislike them? Lots of reasons. Resting bitch face, defensive and rude, she’s very loud and refuses to apologize for who she is

44. Why might someone love them? She has a lot to talk about. She’s intensely loyal and will protect you with her life. Once you realize what she’s working to fight through, she’s trying her hardest to be a good person. She’s a fight worth fighting for.

45. Do they believe in ghosts? She believes that if someone dies in a bullshit way they’ll stick around until they’re satisfied.

46. Is there anyone they would trust with their lives? Any four of her best friends. Sam, Max, James, and Simon alike she’d trust with her life.

47. Are they romantically interested in anyone? She loves Sam.

48. Are they dating/married to anyone? Sam is her gorgeous partner and she loves her very much.

49. Do they like surprises? She would if she could be awake enough to enjoy them. When she stays up for an all nighter she loves watching the sunrise.

50. When is their birthday? August 18th, summer child.

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday? Used to drink the night away, now gets friends together to eat cake and junk food and watch good-bad movies

52. Do they have any family? Parents are long gone. This gang of misfits is her new family. A bunch of brothers and a beautiful partner.

53. Are they close to their family? Biological family no, she wants nothing to do with them. Her new family definitely.

54. What is their MBTI type? I’d say ISTP, the Virtuoso. I think it suits her well.

55. What is their zodiac sign? She’s a Leo but can literally never remember her sign.

56. What Hogwarts House would they be in? Gryffindor, like the cliche kicking down the door Gryffindor.

57. What D&D alignment are they? Chaotic neutral-good. She wants to be good, but only when it concerns her or her friends.

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about? The infinite amount of hit that has happened to her still haunts her every week or two, usually waking her up in the middle of the night.

59. What are their views on death? Pretends not to care, actually scared of what might be waiting.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at? Any stupid joke for pun. Like what’s a fish without an eye? Her favourite joke.

61. When bored, how do they pass time? She works out, drinks, gets high, or just sleeps. She’ll also cuddle with Sam then fall asleep.

62. Do they enjoy being outside? Yeah, she loves the outdoors. She’ll get cranky if it’s too hot though.

63. Do they have an accent? She’s got the typical American/Canadian accent that doesn’t sound like an accent when you’re in north america. She has a few words out of the stereotypical Canadian accent but you’re dead if you point it out.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction? Step one: acquire cake Step two: ingest

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say? She’d be terrified, crying as she spends every moment she can with all her friends. Telling and hearig stories, terrified that she’ll be forgotten.

66. How do they feel about sex? She enjoys it but doesn’t need it. Really depends on her partner.

67. What is their sexuality? She’s bisexual, leaning towards female and nonbinary people.

68. Do they become squeamish at the sight of blood? No way, blood can’t phase her at this point. She’s stitched and bandaged too many wounds to care about blood anymore.

69. Is there anything that they find really gross? Rotten food, just the sight of it makes her want to puke, and the smell will definitely make her puke.

70. Which TV Trope(s) best describes them? The cold-hearted bully who actually has a Tragic Backstory and can’t cope with it. Just needs someone to understand her.

71. Do they enjoy helping people? Her friends, yes. Sometimes strangers, but usually busy taking care of herself.

72. Are they allergic to anything? Nope, her immune system is chill.

73. Do they have a pet? James has Pequeño and she’s basically his aunt. She also has a rose haired tarantula named Princess she keeps in her room. Sam pretends they aren’t terrified of Princess.

74. Are they quick to anger? What are they like when they lose their temper? She’ll get angry in a heartbeat. She has two possibilities when angry: brooding and internalizing it all, or yelling and screaming until she ends up breaking down crying (usually someone is bleeding at this point).

75. How patient are they? She isn’t.

76. Are they good at cooking? Good enough. Nothing special but it’s pretty good.

77. Favorite insult? Do they insult people often? All the time. Big fan of “go die in a barn fire” and “who’s this clown?”

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy? She’s grinning, laughing at everything and loud as can be.

79. What do they do when they learn about other people’s fears? She’s super careful to protect them from it and try not to mention that stuff.

80. Are they trustworthy? If you’re established as friends, she will die before she betrays you.

81. Do they try to hide their emotions? Are they good at it? She hides them on instinct, and is good at first but everything quickly overwhelms her and shows through.

82. Do they exercise regularly? All the time.

83. Are they comfortable with the way they look? She’s not terribly confident, but comfortable with her looks. She doesn’t plan on changing.

84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people? She loves their arms, like muscular or small and dainty she loves the shoulders, biceps, forearms, hands. Can’t get enough.

85. What kind of personalities do they find attractive? Calm, helpful personalities, but still enough energy to go out and have fun. She wants someone to balance her out, but have fun when they can

86. Do they like sweet foods? In small amounts, she usually prefers salty or savory stuff.

87. What is their age? She’s 18.

88. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between? Damn tall, she’s 6’3”.

89. Do they wear glasses or contacts? Nope, her eyes are fine.

90. Do they consider themselves attractive? Somewhat, but not much.

91. What is their sense of humor like? Usually based on stupid puns and morbid jokes.

92. What mood are they most often in? Used to be depressed like 24/7, now is actually happy or at least content for the most part.

93. What kinds of things anger them? Basically anything, but especially people being rude, at least as she perceives.

94. Outlook on life? Kinda shitty but she’s stuck here so she might as well make the best of it.

95. What kind of things make them sad/depressed? Life. Basically anything. Anything had the potential to be sucked into the depressive vortex and made to be depressing.

96. What is their greatest weakness? Being insecure in herself. Also girls.

97. What is the greatest strength? Fighting for what she believes in.

98. Something that they regret? The years spent drunk and high that she could have been enjoying.

99. Biggest accomplishment? Getting out of the institution with James and Simon, alive and well.

100. Create your own! Ask anything you’d like!

Hey, this is a question for whenever you feel like it and have the time, but I'm curious what you think of each of the Heap's canon SO and why or why not you ship them?

this is gonna be me gushing a lot, but also kinda salty so be warned

Simon: Lucy. I love Lucy!!! She’s one of my faves. She’s so… atypical for a character in a book series, especially as one of the main “star crossed lovers”. She’s loving, strong, persistent, steadfast, strong-willed. But she’s also loud, nosy, overweight, stubborn, in-your-face, angry, and, most importantly to me, ugly. Lucy is not typically beautiful or soft or feminine, but she’s still the main love interest!! And even though she’s not typically feminine, she still likes things like pretty ribbons and silky cloaks and cute boys, which are traditionally feminine. She’s allowed to be complex, and have this strong dichotomy with both her personality and her role in the story. And!! She grows!! In my reread something I noticed and really appreciate is the arc that Lucy goes through. It’s easy to see how she saves Simon, but she matures so much on her journey. She comes to appreciate what she has, but also trying to do better for herself. She learns to (somewhat) keep a cap on her temper when she needs to, she becomes kinder to strangers, she tries really, really hard to be a good person. And it’s so good!! She makes friends, weathers hardships, lives on her own, helps pull herself and Simon up by their bootstraps. G O D  I love her so much!! And her and Simon together??? Incredible!! She is so important in his arc, and y’all know how much I love him. They’re both so… weird. They’re kind of outcasts, they have their issues, and they never once falter on their love for each other!! Never once does Lucy think of abandoning Simon despite everything. Never once does Simon see Lucy as anything other than an angel. When he thought she left him, he wasn’t even angry with her!! He was angry with himself for not being better for her!! I love crying about them!! And like, with Lucy being kind of ugly, this becomes so much more important!! When Lucy comes out in her god-awful wedding dress, everyone’s like “oh wow, that’s kind of ugly.” But Simon!! Thinks she looks incredible and loves it because she made it herself!! Could your OTP ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sam: Marwick. G o d  I love Wolf Boy. I love him!! I always knew I liked him but my love for him has skyrocketed during my reread!! He’s… so incredible, and I’m a little mentally tired after that Lucy analysis so I won’t go into why I love him so much right now (maybe another time if y’all wanna know). And Samwick!! OK, so I only have 2 problems with Samwick, and neither makes me not ship them. The first is the whole thing about Keepers not getting married, which I wanna do a separate post about sometime soon, so I’ll leave it there. The second is the age gap. But, like Septyrah, it??? Doesn’t seem to really exist in the world??? Like, Sam is 7 years older than Marwick, but I’m pretty sure canon ages mean Absolutely Nothing to Angie Sage. And they’re both adults in Sandrider, so I’m cool with it, but I still think it’s kind of odd. Angie, why are you like this. B U T!!! They’re so cute!! Talk about a #battlecouple. They’re so nature-y and wild and intense, and they travel the world together?? Talk about #goals. Sam almost dying is like, my favorite part of Sandrider!! And the way Marwick is so sweet and trying to be calm and helpful?? 10/10

Edd: no canon S/O. (I ship him with Moira Mole for no real in-text reason, but as they both have like, no canon personalities or S/Os I’m allowed to!!)

Erik: no canon S/O. OK, so I headcanon Erik as a HUGE flirt who dates/hooks up with a lot of girls. BUT!! I also headcanon that when he meets the girl who will eventually be his wife, he’s stunned!! He’s still a smooth charmer, but he loves this girl like a little puppy, and he’s so intent on taking it seriously. He knows after like, 2 weeks that he wants to marry her, but they date for a while and he’s so happy!! He has no trouble transitioning from player to ready-to-wed. At first he has a bit of trouble not flirting with everyone on instinct before he realizes His Girlfriend also does that and they laugh and use flirting to get what they want, and never ever once worry about the other not being faithful. Then they have like 6 kids (first 2 are a set of twin girls). And it’s good!!

JoJo: Marissa. S i g h. I… have so many mixed feelings about Marissa and Jorissa. On the one hand, it’s so interesting, because they’re so fucked up. But also…?? Their canon state makes me so M A D!! I’m sure I’ve ranted about it somewhere if you look in the “Starchaser,” “JoJo Heap,” or “Marissa Lane” tags. So I can like, vibe with it I guess, but I would have to do a lot of work before I was okay with them canonly ending up together. Like, a multi-chapter Jorissa fic is something I eventually wanna do, working on how I want to make them work. But I love JoJo and Marissa does NOT treat him well!! So… IDK. It’s real complicated.

Nicko: Snorri. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The original childhood OTP, my dudes. I was so sad (and angry) in Fyre when Snorri left and they broke up. Like, nooooo!!!! My heart was broken!! So when they got back together pre-Pathfinder, I nearly lost my mind. They’re both adventurous, a little snarky boat people!! And Snorri jumped into the past for him and his fam?? And he stayed in the past with her just so she wouldn’t be lost alone!! And the way they’re both changed after the House of Foryx. They went through so much together!! I love them!! And I love Snorri!! She’s really cute. The scene where she meets Jenna and Wolf Boy, and she just keeps laughing about the ever-growing number of Heap brothers?? She’s so deadset on establishing herself as her own person, but it’s not until she goes on her own journey that she realizes she was still just following in her father’s footsteps. And she does get her own journey, and also learns to appreciate her mom!! And she can see ghosts?????? I love her!!!!!!!!!!

Jenna: Beetle. Sheesh, okay, this is where it gets a little messy, but until Sage puts in writing that these two broke up and makes S/e//p/J//e/n// canon, I won’t accept it!! Even then I won’t, but still. A N Y W A Y, Beetle is such a great character. I did a bit of an analysis on his inferiority complex compared to Sep here, but besides that he’s?? Such a huge loser nerd and I love him. He loves so completely, he strives to do what’s right, he’s so genuinely interested in things!! And his crush on Jenna is one of the cutest parts of the series, 10/10. And how do I even describe Jeetle. Two cinnamon rolls who love to have fun and help people fall in love and proceed to spread joy and love and sometimes salt throughout the kingdom. They’d fight anyone for the other. I love them.

Septimus: no canon S/O. OK, so Starchaser kinda implies that he and Driffa are gonna date, but even Angie has said no way that’s gonna last lmao. #Let SepDateSyrah2k17.

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT KINDS

But when I think back to the beginning, they were the keepers of the knowledge of vaguer, buglike things, like features that confused users. And that should be the last to realize it might be interesting to build. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because they want the lower costs of new technology. Whatever looked like the biggest win. The proof that Ajax is the next hot startup. I think the solution is to let people do the best work they can, companies like to do something unscalably laborious to get started is so nearly universal that it might be a great problem to have. And now I have independent evidence: the top links on Reddit are generally links to individual people's sites rather than to magazine articles or news stories. So starting from utility won't entirely solve the problem I described above—it won't flush out the metaphysical singularity. All you'll need will be something with a keyboard, a screen, and a client doesn't have to be shaped by admissions officers. Why? There's a huge gap between Leonardo and second-rate contemporaries like Borgognone.

Suppose you hear a strange noise that you think may be due to a nearby fan. The path to intelligence seems to be regarded as the rule rather than the writer. Is an inbox the optimal tool for that? Sometimes they even agree with one another, they work hard, whatever their age. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. Perhaps we should do what Aristotle meant to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor, or take it away from the programmers, and why only during their term of office? To us that's positive evidence an idea is good. Frankfurt's distinction between lying and bullshitting seems a promising recent example. Surely that's mere prudence? Spams tend to have a good deal less benevolent to say we ought to reduce the rate at which it changes is itself speeding up. There was no uptake among hackers.

On the hacker radar screen, Perl is as big as Java, or bigger, just on the strength of its own merits. I should have been less worried about doing something that really doesn't scale: assembling their routers themselves. All the unfun kinds of wealth creation slow dramatically in a society that allows them, after taxes, to keep just enough of their income to match what they would have made their lives easier. With some emails it's hard to see how little launches matter. When a friend of mine used to grumble because he had to learn it in a class. Startups are intrinsically risky. Another thing ramen profitability doesn't imply is Joe Kraus's idea that you should expect to take heroic measures at first. And this idea will thus tend to get all the way to go.

Ideally till you realize the rider isn't pedaling. I worked there, the servers were all Intel boxes running FreeBSD. When a startup launches, there have to be aggressive about user acquisition when you're small, you can't keep living off your parents. If someone had a problem, I admit. The very design of the average site in the late 90s was that they hoped to be laughing all the way to notice startup ideas is a subtle business, and that's what you need to be in twenty years, and then suddenly seeing the answer a bit later while doing something else. Depends which gap you mean. I often have to encourage founders who don't see the full potential of what they're building is so great that everyone who hears about it will immediately sign up. Finally, they didn't arrive at answers at all. You're also surrounded by other people trying to measure it have concentrated on the aspects of it that are most measurable.

Most of the work of reading an article is understanding its structure—figuring out what in high school? What if one of your most interesting philosophical problems. Most people overestimate its role, but it turns out to generate more jobs. When they can, because there's no limit to what they could do searches online. You can deliver software right to the browser, and no data locally to damage. I count them as false positives because I hadn't been deleting them as spams before. Web. I heard about this work I was a kid I was firmly in the camp of bad. Probably not. But there are also three less obvious advantages of ramen profitability is not the way people did two thousand years ago. If you made it you'd done your job perfectly, just as, if you know how to paint a perfect painting?

How much someone's work is worth is not a problem. And that seems bad for everyone. Hanging out with friends is like chocolate cake, you'll be able to do: find a way to turn a billion dollar industry into a fifty million dollar industry, so much the better, if all fifty million go to you. For example, Ben Silbermann noticed that a lot of them wrote software for them. What if you run out of ideas? If the Defense Department pays a thousand dollars. We lost several high-end hardware company like HP was at the time. Drew Houston realizes he's forgotten his USB stick and thinks I really need to make my files live online. In the United States, the CEO of a large public company makes about 100 times as productive as a small startup. The lowest form of these is to disagree with, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft. To a newly arrived undergraduate, all university departments look much the same. But you almost always do get it.

The thought of betting against benevolence is alarming in the same position as the runner. Likewise, the reason we do is that they've never experienced such attention themselves. They were just trying to survive. Back when hardware startups had to decide in advance how much to raise. The investors got a lot more money than the rest, we get: decreasing economic inequality means eliminating startups. Why did 36% of Princeton's class of 2007 come from prep schools, when only 1. The product is just one component of that. They will give you more options: you can provide a level of service no big company can. It only lets you experience the defining characteristic of essay writing, when done right, is the best combination.

Thanks to Nikhil Nirmel, Sarah Harlin, Carolynn Levy, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Simon Willison, Robert Morris, and Ian Hogarth for inviting me to speak.

abby winters - Why I Hate Abby Winters Backstage

I knew I shouldn't be nervous. Mom helped me get it on my toenails without smearing. She seemed a little nervous and that made me nervous. By Friday after school, the butterflies in my stomach were in full flight. " "Dan and a few of the other asshole jocks tried to give us shit one day.

"I was curious," Mom started. He basically told Dan he'd rip off both of his balls if he spoke to us again. " Mom frowned, but I could tell she was amused as well. I couldn't keep the stupid grin off my face. His mother threatened to sue us until I pointed out her little angel was engaged in sexual harassment at the time you nut-checked him. " "I didn't know she called.

"God, don't hurt Dan again. "Do any of the kids at school have a problem with you and Sam being a couple? You remember the big catcher on the softball team? Mom and I sat in the living room while I put the dark blue polish on my fingernails. Don't let him goad you or Sam into doing anything tonight. Once she figured out he could get expelled for doing that, she dropped it.

" I worried that I might have gotten myself in more trouble than I thought if Dan's mother was calling around. I think he liked Sam until he figured out she was gay, but instead of being an asshole about it, he just became her good friend. "It wasn't important to tell you since she backed down, but that family is like a reality TV show. " Sam wasn't the only out girl in school, but she was the only one I liked.

They won't let anything happen to us. She finished with my toes and I rested my heels on the coffee table while my nails dried fully. The gay guys had a harder time than we did by a long shot, but I didn't want to worry Mom more by telling her that. Sam had asked if I could stay in her room after the dance, abby winters step aerobics but I wasn't sure if Dad would let me.

"Hey, would be okay if I stayed with Sam after the dance? Being out was a lot harder when I was in school and college. Mom flipped channels on the couch next to me, so I figured I'd give it a shot with her alone first. That way you guys wouldn't have to come get me since Joe can't go tonight. " "Yeah, but you let Sam stay over last weekend.

" "I won't," I promised. " I gave her my cutest grin. "You know what we would say if you were dating a guy. And I also told you to keep it quiet up there. " She gave me a blank look. "I had to keep your father distracted for about an hour. " I felt the heat burn right up my neck. " I couldn't believe she just told me that. " "We weren't that loud.

" "Yeah, but I don't want to hear about it. "How did you think you and Joe got here? " The idea made me shiver. " I hadn't considered that. " "And that's how your father feels about someone being with you. " "I was worried about that part of things. Not that I'm complaining. It must be as gross for him as it had been for me listening to Joe was going through a what's-her-name a week.

" Mom rolled her eyes and tilted her head to look at me. " I asked, still holding out hope. "So does that mean I can stay with Sam? " "How about I pack an overnight bag just in case. I put on thin, red cotton panties and matching bra. " Mom chuckled and shook her head. The red wasn't a perfect match to the red squares on the gingham top, but it was close enough.

" After my nails were dry, I hopped upstairs to pack and dress. My skinny jeans wouldn't go on the outside of the old brown boots, so I tucked them inside. "The softball team treats me like their little sister, especially Simon.

"I'll talk to your dad about it and let you know. I put on slightly more blush and eye shadow than I usually wore, but didn't over do it. Getting the boots on required laying back on the bed and pulling until straps nearly broke.

Sam and I had bought matching shades of red lipstick at the mall so we could kiss without anyone knowing from the mismatched smears of color. I had breasts now that filled the cups of my bra. Looking at myself in the mirror, I had to admit that Sam's drawing was Abby Winters Limo closer to reality than my own internal perspective. I teased my hair out a little with a hair dryer, spraying to keep it from falling back into its usual straight blonde lines.

My jeans were a touch too small, but they didn't give me a muffin top so I wore them anyway. I put on the red top and tied it off under my bra. " I turned to find Joe staring at me with wide eyes. " "You've gotta have fun for both of us tonight," he said when I pulled back.

"Who the hell are you and what have you done with my kid sister? The pretty woman looking back at me from the mirror barely resembled the person I expected to see. I smoothed away the mark of my lips with my thumb and smiled at his goofy embarrassed expression. " He shrugged and backed away.

" Dad did a double take when I walked down the stairs with my overnight bag. When I turned in the mirror, I had to admit my ass was working in those tight jeans. For a second I thought he was going to protest what I was wearing, but Mom had been there when we bought everything and had warned him about what we'd planned.

"I wish you could go, abby winters masturbating too. " I jumped in his arms to hug him tight and kiss his cheek, leaving red lip prints behind. My stomach was flat and smooth. " "Let's go," Mom said as she walked to the door. I gave him a quick hug while Mom got her purse and keys. " "And I wish I hadn't been a dumbass. " For Dad, that was effusive praise.

My stomach was flipping over from the nerves. The drive to school seemed to take forever. " "Hey, that reminds me. He visibly swallowed and nodded, then grumbled, "You look great. "All these years I dreamed someone like Mark would take me and now I'm going with Sam. I know we told Joe he couldn't have friends over while he was grounded, but it seems like something else is going on.

I don't even see them speak to each other in passing anymore. You'd have to ask him. Mom must have picked up on my anxiety. Even though I knew it would never work out between us, it still burned me that he'd lied. Yeah, things hadn't been normal for a couple of months. " "Do you know if Bethany is going tonight? " "I can't believe I'm going to my first dance," I laughed.

"Sounds like a good idea. Do you know what happened between Mark and Joe? " Mom glanced at me as if my tone had given something away. Mark was probably picking up Lydia. If she is, she'll probably be going with Collen. " "She's being stupid and won't listen to me. "I didn't mean to bring you down on your big night.

" "Is she sleeping with him? "Yeah," I said, knowing it would get back to her Mom. Mom just took a deep breath as she turned into the school loop. I'm not as nervous now," I said and gave her a thin smile. " My door opened and I looked up to see Sam holding out her hand to help me out of the car.

"You don't sound happy about that. "And you can stay here tonight, but I want you to call me when you go back to Sam's room so I know you're safe. " Sam shut the door and Mom pulled away. When I turned, Sam was staring at me like I was a luscious scoop of ice cream. " "I figured I'd wait until after Joe wasn't grounded anymore to see if things go back to normal first.

I gave her a quick kiss and said, "You do, too. "Thanks for everything. " "Have fun," Mom said as she pulled up to stop. "Good evening, Misses Larson," Sam said to Mom. " Sam walked me into a lunch room that had been transformed into a country barn, complete with bales of hay and paper on the walls painted to look like rough cut wood.

Country music blasted from the DJ's speakers and a few brave couples were on the dance floor. " "So you ready to cut a rug? "Sho 'nuff, sugar pants," I replied. "Have fun tonight, you two. " She was wearing Mom's boots, but otherwise looked like my darker, blue-banged twin. " she said, affecting a southern twang as she picked up my overnight back without comment.

" Sam tossed my overnight bag under a table near the dance floor. "Plus, it kept me from going crazy all afternoon. Simon helped me get that reddish-brown paper taped up, then I added streaks of red and black to make wood grain and knot holes. Tables were set up around the room with centerpieces made of red ribbon, green pine needles, and battery powered tea lights which gave the dark room an intimate glow.

" I realized then she'd been just as nervous as I'd been. You've got to try the brisket. " "I painted the walls. "What part did you do? " We nibbled as we wandered around talking to people. Some hadn't heard we were going out, but I discovered it was fun to watch their reactions when I told them Sam was my girlfriend. I tried to let Sam lead, but she didn't know what she was doing either.

We ended up just swaying to the music. While we were swaying together later in the evening, I caught Mark giving me a pained look over Lydia's shoulder. "They catered in barbeque. "Would you stop staring at her? We even took a few turns on the dance floor. I just shut my eyes and squeezed Sam tighter. It also escaped the notice of the chaperones who would have broken us up if they'd seen.

Sam pulled back to see what Lydia was yelling about. She was a trained singer after all, so it was no surprise she could make herself heard. " I heard Lydia's shrill voice cutting through the music. I knew he was lying because I knew he'd been staring at me. " I tugged at Sam's arm to lead her off the dance floor. I opened my eyes to find Lydia and Mark squared off in the middle of the dance floor.

"I wasn't staring at anyone," Mark lied. " "Your brother's best friend? " I just nodded as we got back to our seats. She kissed my neck under my hair, which made me giggle. " I squeezed her hand as she pulled me to the refreshments table. " she whispered in my ear as we went. I really didn't want to have that particular discussion in the middle of the school dance, but I wouldn't lie to her. He must not have groveled enough, because she jerked her arm away from him and stalked towards our table.

Mark tried to calm Lydia and move her off the dance floor, but she wasn't having it. Sam stood before Lydia could get close and raised her arms like she wasn't going to let Lydia get past her. Thankfully, the music drowned out their voices so I didn't have to hear what she was saying about him or me.

"I already have everything I want. "You can have him," Lydia shouted over Sam's shoulder at me. I took a big drink of my soda while Sam kept her eyes on the fight. "No thanks," I said as I stood up and put my arms around Sam from behind.

Mark looked between me and Lydia, then ran to follow Lydia out the door. She stormed off and hit the exit bar with both hands, making the door to the parking lot clank loudly. " "Whatever your problem is," Sam growled, "It doesn't involve us.

"Sorry," I murmured to Sam. " Lydia looked like she wanted to say something else, but was thrown off by our response. "You didn't do anything. " Her face was clouded as she glared at the closed door they'd gone through. "Do you want to talk about it? Talking about it would only ruin our night.

Sam pulled me back to our seats and kept her arm around my shoulders. I was stupid and naive to ever believe him. "Let's go get our picture taken! "I couldn't see why you were so fixated on her, but I'm starting to figure it out. " I glanced around and spotted the photographer was free for the first time since I'd arrived.

The guy who was taking the pictures looked to be college age, but had a professional looking camera and large light defusers. I had to admit a teeny-tiny part of me wanted him to pick me for once, even if I just turned him down afterwards.

" Sam grinned and pulled me to my feet. We skipped over to the set where other couples had been lined up all night to have their picture taken. We gave our names together while trying to get comfortable on that scratchy bale of hay. " Sam asked with a big grin.

They sat on a hay bale in front of a painted backdrop of a wooden fence and fields. Sam put her arm around my waist and hooked a finger in my belt loop. I leaned into her and smiled as the guy lined up the shot. "Yeah, what are your names so I can tag you," he said as he grabbed a tablet. Just before he took the picture, I turned and kissed Sam's cheek, keeping my lips there until the shutter snapped.

It felt wonderful to be protected and accepted. She had an odd look on her face as she studied my eyes. That made the guy laugh and shake his head. "Go on and kiss her if you want to, I don't care. None of the abby winters.com winters backstage chaperones had noticed. We held the pose as our lips moved against each other. " I laughed and kissed her with as much passion as I felt.

" I took that as permission and turned Sam in my arms. Sam thanked the photographer before answering with a wry smile. "A secret from my parents. " "What was it before? "Well, now it's official. " I pulled her back to the dance floor.

It felt so right in her arms. Sam squeezed me just as tightly until a fast song came on, then we made our way back to our table. I had just taken a sip of my soda when I spotted Sophie headed our way with Dan following along wearing a sour look on his face. The camera kept snapping until we parted from laughing too hard.

"Can you take our picture? There was couple that was made for each other. I pressed our breasts together and hummed the tunes in her ear. We clung to each other through the slow love songs. She was a viper and I wouldn't give her or Dan any more ammunition.

"I see you couldn't hang on to Mark either," Sophie said with bitter bite. Sam touched my cheek with a broad grin. "I don't know what you're talking about. "I knew something was going on between you two. I nudged Sam and indicated their approach with my chin.

" I asked like I was confused. " "Well, he's not much of a guy," Sophie said with a roll of her eyes while Dan laughed like it was funny. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not really into guys. " Sam said as she jumped into the conversation at last. " The lie slipped out easily.

"Look, I don't care what you think you know or don't know—" Simon walked up at that moment and dropped a firm hand on Dan's shoulder. Sophie raised an eyebrow at her. "Dan, I believe we've talked about you bothering Sam and Steph before. "Last warning," Simon said as he pushed Dan, but Sophie jerked her arm away.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from correcting her. " "Fuck," Dan muttered as he took Sophie's arm and tried to pull her away. He had his arms crossed and was frowning at Sam and I. He looked down at Sophie with an amused smirk. "Who the hell do you think you are? " she yelled at Simon.

" Sophie glanced at Dan as if for support. Simon was taller and wider than all of us. "And Lydia confirmed it tonight. " When I nodded, she reached under the table for my overnight bag. We walked hand-in-hand to the stairwell that led up to her room. "I'm the guy who's gonna rip Dan's balls off if you don't leave my friends alone.

"Thanks, Simon," Sam chuckled as she clapped him on his shoulder. "Me, too," I said, feeling more nervous than I expected. As she led me upstairs, I felt the warmth building in my stomach. "On that note, how about we call it a night? "I had fun," Sam said as she opened the door to her room. Despite the drama, I'd had a great time at the dance with Sam. She slipped her shirt off and dropped it to the floor, leaving her lace bra open for inspection.

"I need to call Mom real quick," I whispered and headed to her room phone. "We finished dancing and are up in Sam's room. She dropped my overnight bag on the bed and began to untie her shirt with a sultry expression. She kept undressing, never taking her eyes off me. We didn't have to sneak into her room this time because most of the staff had gone home or was chaperoning the dance.

" Sophie looked like she had a mouthful of bees when Dan dragged her off. " "Oh, we're not finished by a long shot," Sam whispered, but I think Mom heard her anyway. When Mom answered, I nearly forgot how to talk. "Is Sam distracting you? "Yes, nine," Mom chuckled. When she lowered the zipper, I saw she wasn't wearing any underwear. " I watched Sam unbutton her jeans with her lower lip pinched between her teeth.

Then she palmed her breasts and tweaked her nipples until they stood out. "I'll be by to get you around nine, so don't stay up all night. For some reason, knowing she had been commando under her jeans all night had me ready to purr. "Uh-huh," Mom said with a smile in her voice. Sam toed off her boots before pushing her jeans down. " "I'll let you go, then. " Mom was still chuckling when she hung up.

We were grinning at each other the whole time. " "Nine," I repeated tonelessly as Sam's bra dropped from her fingertips. And when I sucked her soft skin into my mouth, her hands went down to pull my hips into hers. While I raced to catch up, she came to help me with my buttons and zippers.

"No, I like you a little salty," I said. Her mouth wasn't salty, but I could taste hints of her soda and barbeque sauce when my tongue slipped inside. "I'm gonna fuck you so hard," Sam whispered as she let me lick along her neck. She gripped my hair to force my head back so she could lick my neck in return.

I couldn't stop the whimper I made when she stopped to suck along abby winters limo my shoulder. The words made me shiver in her arms. "You're right," she whispered against the wet skin. She was salty where I kissed my way abby winters.com abbie winters step aerobics to her earlobe. "I like it when you're a little salty. " Then she pushed me back until I fell on her bed with a giggle. "So come and have a taste.

The skin of my arms and legs broke into prickles as waves of pleasure rolled over my body. I felt the tickle of her soft hairs against my bare mons. "Do you mind if I try something? " I ran my fingertips up my opening thighs and slipped them through my wet slit. " When she stepped close enough, she grabbed my hand and brought them up to her lips.

She pulled out a pink wand with a rounded tip. Before Sam climbed into the narrow bed with me, she opened the draw of her night stand. " she asked with a nervous smile. " "Finally, something I can teach you! Then she sucked my fingers while her eyes never left mine. She hummed and tasted me back while our nipples rubbed together. " Sam giggled as she got into bed. I sat up on my elbows when Sam removed it from her mouth.

"I trust you," I whispered as I turned to make room on the bed for us both. She sucked on it some more while I moved my legs open in preparation. "I've never used one of those before. "Oh my God," I groaned as she penetrated me slowly. I knew what Mark had felt like, but the pink wand was thinner and longer than he had been. It was cold and hard, but filled me up with a vibrating sensation that went up to my stomach.

"Oh, I like fucking you," Sam whispered as she moved the wand inside me. I couldn't move beyond the quivering that gripped me. My eyes shut on their own as my head rolled back. When she slipped it between her lips to wet it, I knew what it was. The buzzing got louder as she moved the tip toward me. The first touch made me gasp. When she bent to take my nipple into her hot mouth, I cried out and pushed against her strokes.

She probed deeper inside me and hit that magical spot with the blunt tip. I was lost in the kiss and orgasm for what seemed like hours. Her mouth caught my scream as the buzzing toy pushed me over and held me there. It pulled the heat from deep inside and brought me to the edge in an instant. She fucked me gently at first, then with firmer strokes.

" Sam asked with an evil grin. "There," I gasped and gripped the sheets. " She moved up to kiss me as I reached the edge. Then she eased it out of me and I sighed in relief as the orgasm passed as tremors.

Fandoms I’m Thankful For

Hello again, friends! I hope this post finds you well. I am writing this ahead of time because as you are seeing this, I am in Florida enjoying Universal Studios and Disney World over Thanksgiving break. I’m super excited and a bit nervous as it will be my first time flying or going to Florida. The vacation is MUCH needed though!

Since this will be posted on Thanksgiving week, I thought, what better to talk about than fandoms I am thankful for? I’ll talk about fandoms that have had a significant impact on my life in some way other than simply making me happy because all of the fandoms I am or have ever been in do that. So, let me just get right into it.

1. The Naked Brothers Band

If you have never heard of this band/show/movie, you may be a bit confused right now, but let me explain. The Naked Brothers Band started as a mockumentary film centered around Nat and Alex Wolff. After the movie was shown at a film festival and received high acclaim, Nickelodeon took ownership of the film and aired it on television. After that, Nickelodeon decided to produce a mockumentary style television series following the band a few years after the movie’s plot. So, why the heck am I including it in this blog you may ask?

NBB is what I consider to be my first fandom. I first saw the movie when I was 8 and fell in love with it. I specifically remember watching the second episode of the series when it premiered about a month after the movie. I watched it with my dad after I old him that I really liked the show and wanted him to see it. I remember him telling me that I blushed every time I saw Nat, and of course I kept denying it because what 8 year old girl wants to admit to their dad that they have a crush on a boy. He knew though.

2. Big Time Rush

As I was dealing with the reality that I wasn’t getting a new season of NBB, I saw a commercial for a new Nickelodeon show about “normal” guys that work to form a boy band. It seemed decent enough, so when it premiered, I decided to check it out. I had NO idea what I was getting myself into. By this time it was 2009, and the world had officially converted over to DVD players. For the first time, if I wanted to watch my favorite show, I had no choice but to watch it when it came on. I very quickly became just about as obsessed with Big Time Rush as I was with NBB. My mom frequently called them my New Kids On The Block, and from what I can tell, I would agree with her.

BTR just delivered another series of firsts. Aside from getting every piece of merchandise I possibly could, Big Time Rush was the reason I made my fan account on Twitter that I still use for everything today. They were also my first two concerts and the first celebrities I’ve ever met. I’m pretty sure the first time I ever cried over a band that I stanned was when I cried when my step mom surprised me with tickets for my first concert. BTR provided me with my first experiences really being a part of a fandom community of people who live tweeted episodes, fought to get concert tickets, and actually got to interact with our idols and each other. It’s crazy to think how far fandom communities have come since then and how much technology has been a part of that change. BTR, along with NBB, are a band and show that I will always consider an integral part of who I am as a person today. If I hadn’t gotten as into them as I was, I don’t know if I would even be the same person that I am now. No joke.

3. Emblem3

For those who don’t know Emblem3 was a 3 member reggae-pop band that rose in popularity due to The X-Factor. I found out about them after they were signed to Simon Cowell’s record label though. Their mission as was always to spread positivity and happiness through their music. They were also part of an organization called Team Inspire that aimed to spread positivity and inspiration by “living life beyond themselves.” Their fanbase was immediately one that I wanted to be a part of after I saw all of the great things that the band was doing.

E3 are on this list for multiple reasons. The first is that they encouraged me to make a difference in my school and community, even if it was a small difference. Being socially anxious, something like starting a club is something I would never do. However, it was only after I saw all of the great things that Team Inspire was doing that I was influenced to start a chapter at my school. I went through the whole rigamarole of everything necessary to start a club, and got it running and served as the president for the one year that the club existed. I recruited a couple other people that I knew at school who liked Emblem3 and eventually drew in more people as well. Overall, throughout that year, we managed to do some nice things for some nice people, and I think acheived our goal of spreading positivity. That club is still one of my proudest achievements.

Secondly, Emblem3 helped me through one of the most difficult times in my life. In mid-December of my sophomore year of high school, my mom’s apartment was set on fire in the middle of the night. It was the scariest moment in my life, and ultimately left my mom, sister, and I to be placed in a not so nice part of town with only a portion of our belongings having been saved. As I went through this, it could have been easy to give up, but I didn’t. I listened to Emblem3 and was uplifted and started to think on the positive side. I even went to the Team Inspire meeting that was scheduled on the same day that the fire happened. It made me feel better. The fire still effects me emotionally, and I’m sure it will throughout my life, but it is because of Emblem3 and Team Inspire that I didn’t and don’t let it ruin me.

I got a sweatshirt that Christmas from my grandparents on my dad’s side that had the E3 lyric “rise above and grow some love” on it. It was basically the equivalent of a tattoo for me at that point, because I wore it everyday (up until I lost it. RIP sweatshirt). But that lyric will always mean the world to me, as it kept me going for a really long time. To this day, my favorite quote is one from E3 member, Drew Chadwick: “I realized if I am nothing, I have every opportunity to become something.”

Unfortunately, Emblem3 isn’t really together anymore making music anymore, but I will forever hold dear all of the lessons they taught me and all of the smiles they provided me with. They were even my first general admission concert, and I will never ever forget how amazing of an experience it was. I will always hold them in my heart. (this section got real long. I apologize.)

That is it for this week, friends. This got a bit lengthy, and it isn’t even everything. 😬 I didn’t include Sam and Colby because I’ve already done a whole post about them which you can view here if you’d like. I hope you enjoyed reading if you made it through all that. I hope everyone in America has a great Thanksgiving. Eat lots of pie and tell all of your family and friends you love them. It could make them smile. I’ll see you next week when I’m back from Florida, refreshed and hopefully not dead. 

- 🕊️ ❤️ 🏹