I don’t want people to like Fungalore too much.

— Griffin McElroy, Jan 1, 2024

Griffin seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of his extremely punk and queer and cryptid audience, for whom “decay exists as an extant form of life” is a foundational statement of belief.

i've been rereading and rereading and rereading the fic series over and over and over. i thought the custard cookie iii fans had either mostly dimmed out or migrated. i only saw a fanart of the bluebell au by chance and got excited enough to see an old hypfix in the dash that i found the fic and god. i am so happy to see another cciii fan in here. you've got me watching all the new beast-yeast storyline eps for this. god you nail shadow milk's voice so well but also i've just listened to his eng voice actor and he truly does sound silly. his english voice actor is doing really well for a first impression. i might be developing another character fixation but who the hell knows. all i can say is that i am back in low-content crk hell where this time i might start actually writing for it. FUCK.

also slightly off-topic what was he doing. no i am serious what was custard cookie iii (who CANNOT be older than like 10) doing on his own chasing a puppy with a crown and when he gets adopted by a bunch of friends there is no alert raised. where was he living before that??? who was taking care of him??? why was no one looking for him??? we know his family lineage and that's like. most of everything. WHAT was that child doing. i would shake him like a pinata but i don't think he deserves that. devsisters i will shake YOU like a pinata because WHY are there so many underdeveloped characters.

yeah that's basically it for now byeeeeeee

IM SOBBING AT THE FIRST PART TYSM IM SO GLAD YOU ARE ENJOYING THE AU AND THAT THE CUSTARD CLAN HASNT DIED OUT JUST YET!

for the second part, I totally get the frustration with the underdeveloped characters, and as for what custard was doing for me it really depends on the au/headcanon I'm going for. I only have 1 au where i hc him older than 11 and thats specifically because its an au set in the future of another au thats dark choco centric, and i often go for around 9, (technically it makes him 6-8 when he first meets the crew because his birthday is implied to be the anniversary date and at least 1 year has passed since he canonically attended Holly's year end ball)

I literally have an au where they spawned in one day because of a wish(an old friend of pure vanillas who wished to help him like he helped them as a form of good karma gets their wish fulfilled and the magic granted to them by vanilla becomes custard iii hence how they share similar abilities and custard is so attached to vani). And "dad" in their memories is just what they used to look like, with the old soul looking after him if he needs it.

In a fairly canon timeline I see that custard was raised by his dad, who went out the day before the adventure started and didn't come back, and custard left to go and find him, and ends up getting adopted by several parental/carer figures including but not limited to: chili pepper, rye, dark choco, madeleine, pure vanilla, dark cacao, tea knight, crunchy chip and c-arrow.

And also gets 3 new siblings in Gingerbrave Strawberry and Wizard, and forms a small chaos squad with Poison mushroom, Strawberry crepe and snapdragon.

As for what happened to his dad, idk rlly. Part of me wants to do a tiger lily conspiracy in that the St pastry order kidnapped tiger lily for her connection to holly(and by extension eternal sugar and mystic flour) and lost her when butter tiger showed up to protect her and that something similar happened to custards dad and he's currently in their hold.

Or in a complete curve ball I could say that Custard iii was kidnapped and escaped, but did not realise he was being kidnapped in his childish naivety.

Until devsis gives us more crumbs this is the best we got.

I. Love. You.

Summary: You and Andy exchange those three magic words for the first time.

Andy Barber x Black!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Cursing, Minors DNI

A/N: I hope you enjoy this. Please share feedback. All mistakes are my own. Sorry in advance. For my new friend @sweetlikehoneylavender​

___

The first time those words form on his lips is when you’re dragging him around Target. You’re informing him that it’s time for him to purchase new sheets and bedding. 

“Now Andy Bear, if you don’t like what you see here, then we can go to Bed, Bath, & Beyond. I’ve got all day for you.” You give his hand an affectionate squeeze. “We will find you something. We’re going to create a whole new aesthetic.”

He had stopped listening the moment after you called him Andy Bear. He loved that nickname. And you said it more and more these days. That, and all of this, made him feel…cared for. 

As you wandered around the store, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have a little girl who looked just like you bouncing along in the cart. 

God, he hadn’t thought about kids in ages. But with you, hell just being around you, his mind had a tendency to wander. 

It was something about the way you skipped, and laughed, and danced through the isles. 

Almost like the whole store was your playground. 

You were always so fucking happy and sweet. Until you weren’t. He found your temper mesmerizing, so long as it wasn’t directed at him. 

Even though you were only a few months into your relationship, you’d stood up for him several times. Not because he couldn’t, but because he hadn’t had the chance. All 5”2 of you had been a sight to behold. And his girl moved fast. Like a Cobra. You struck so fast that it sometimes took people a minutes to realize they had been left bleeding.

“See anything you like, Mr. Grumpy Pants?” You ask, unaware that your man has been too busy staring at you instead of the bed linens. 

“Uh uh. Nope. Not really.” He mutters as his hand goes to rub the back of his head. 

“Alright, well, to BB&B we go. Oh, and I have a coupon!” You squeal. “I know I shouldn’t be that excited, but sometimes it’s the little things for this girl.” You beam up at him. 

Andy can’t help but smile back. He smooths a thumb over your right brow. 

“But first, I I think I need to feed my Big Man.” You pat his toned stomach. “I’ve been dragging you around all day. What do you want to eat, honey? I’m buying for mistreating you like this.” You give him a wink. 

“I’m paying.” He growls. 

“You are not.” You tell him. 

“Watch me.” He growls again. 

“I will absolutely, completely, and totally watch you not pay. Good talk.” You blow him a kiss and walk away from the cart and towards the parking lot. “Put that away and meet me outside, handsome.”

I Love You. 

___

The second time those words form on his lips is when you burned dinner. You see, he had begun to think you could do no wrong, especially where the kitchen was concerned. 

You had worked so hard on those roasted lamb pops and that mushroom risotto. He had gone upstairs to shower off the day, only to come back downstairs to see you sitting on the floor crying big, fat tears. 

You sniffle and wipe the wetness from your eyes. 

“Baby, baby, what’s wrong?” Your Andy Bear rushes towards you. “Did you burn yourself?” He picks up your hands to give them a onceover. “Did you - did you fall?” One big hand goes to cup the back of your head. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

You push his hand away.

“I’m fine. I just - I just fucking burnt dinner, is all.” You sniffle again. “I’m so sorry.”

Andy is taken aback by that. It wasn’t often that people apologized to him, unless it was over something involving a case, and even then, there was only a 50/50 chance as to whether or not it was sincere. 

“I - baby, I wanted to treat you after a long day.” You feel the tears starting again. “You take care of me, but how often do people take care of you? And I had this whole recipe planned out, ya know? But even though I followed the recipe to a tee, the lamb pops came out like shriveled up chew toys.” You start crying all over again. 

“Oh, Y/N.” He murmurs. “It’s okay.” He pulls you into his chest. And you sniffle some more. Eventually you force yourself to pull away. 

“Did you just - did you just wipe your snot on my shirt?” Andy gives you an incredulous look as he glances down at himself.

“Sorry.” You mumble, not looking the least bit ashamed.

“Forget the lamb chops or pops or whatever. It’s okay. You take care of me, in fact you spoil me, just by being here. How about I send out for burgers, or pizza, or chinese?” Your boyfriend waggles his eyebrows. 

“You had me at burgers, Big Man. As long as it comes with you. Oh, and fries. That’s a must.”

“What? Me or the fries?” 

You suck in a breath before muttering “well this just got awkward”.

Andy chuckles and softly kisses your hand. Which makes you give in to the urge to tickle his ears while he orders.

I Love You. 

___

The third time those words form on his lips is when he took you to a charity event at a prominent art museum. These things had always bored him to tears, but he figured that maybe, if he brought you along, it wouldn’t be so bad. 

You accompany Andy wearing a form fitting black gown that hits just above your calves. Of course you’d had to have it tailored, because of your height. Being short could be tough sometimes. 

“Have I told you tonight that you look like a vision?” He murmurs against your ear, making you smile.

“But like, what kind of vision? Am I the bringer of doom?” You quirk a saucy brow at him. “Does that mean I get to destroy expensive stuff?” You bite your lip to contain your giggle, while his big body vibrates against your own.  

“Not quite what I was going for, but let’s keep that in our back pocket. Just in case.”

You press a kiss to your clasped hands. “You got it, Big Man.”

The two of you wander around the showcase, looking at different pieces of artwork. Hopping in and out of various tours. You try to look interested, you do. 

But at the same time, you would rather watch paint dry.

You loved museums, but like, with fossils and such. 

For some reason, you both stop in front of a random painting and stare at it. Which means you decide to try your luck. 

“Okay,” You tell him. “So, do you see the juxtaposition of the circles, mixed with the dots and the, uh, the occasional swirl right here? Do you notice the distance between all of these, accompanied by the presence of the fractured facial features?” Your hand flits around as you talk. 

“Uh huh.” Andy responds. 

“Well, you get it right? You get the overall symbolism, don’t you?” You rock back on your heels.

“I - I’m afraid I don’t, Y/N.” He tells you, his tone coming off as mildly embarrassed. 

“Oh, I can’t believe you don’t see it, Mr. District Attorney. The symbolism - it’s right there in front of your face.” Your hands go to your hips. 

“I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to, uh, see.” Your man was clearly wracking his brain. 

At that point you lose it. Hard. “I don’t know what the hell we’re looking at either, baby, other than the fact that this was something that my little nephew could have put together in, like ten minutes. I was just fuckin’ with you!”

Andy lets out the breath he’s been holding. 

“I mean, art is cool, and all, but damn…” Tears fill your eyes as giggles bubble through your belly. “Sometimes I just don’t get it.”

And now your boyfriend is cackling too. 

“Baby, I thought you were serious!” He wheezes through his own laughter. 

“Hell no!”

“I hate this shit!” Andy tells you. And then you lock eyes. “Fuck it.”

“Pizza.” You say at the same time with a smile.

“Let’s go.” He growls, leading you back the way you came and out the door.

I Love You.   

___

The fourth time those words form on his lips is when he actually finds the stones to share them with the one person in his life who matters most. 

He walks through the door of his place to see you already there, jamming out to some song he’d never heard of. But you were happy. And that was all that mattered. Andy watches quietly as you arrange what looks like fresh cut flowers in a vase he wasn’t aware that he owned. You lean down to take a whiff, before moving on to your next task.

His girl was always altering something in his home. Small things. Sweet things. Happy little tweaks. You were making his house a home whether you realized it or not.

“Hi, baby.” He purrs. 

“Eeek!” You hurriedly shut off the iPhone speaker. “Hi, Andy! I missed you.” You jump into his arms and take his handsome lips for a kiss. 

“I love you.” He murmurs against them, making you slowly pull back. 

“What?” You breathe.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I meant for it to be more romantic, but I don’t care. I’m not taking it back.” He growls, his big hand forcing your mouth against his again. 

Eventually, he lets you up for air. 

“Is this because I’ve been marinating short ribs all day? Because it’s really no big deal and -”

Andy cuts you off to kiss you again. “Or maybe because I ironed your shirt this morning? I was already ironing my own stuff, so it was, again, no big deal. Frankly, I was glad that you had an iron so that I could - and have you ever had garlic cheddar mashed potatoes? Because I’m going to make that tonight. And do you like asparagus tips? Because I - I think I’m going to make that, perhaps with an herbed butter sauce. Do you like butter? I can’t remember, because honestly, I can’t breathe through my face right now.” You tell him when you can finally make yourself slow down, your chest heaving. 

“I love you, my favorite overthinker.” He growls softly as you press your lips to his again. 

"I love you too, Big Man." You whisper back.

“But just to be clear, you do want the butter?”

I Love You.

END

svsss: the (not so) grand return of peerless cucumber

so a LOT happened in the chapters i read last night (44-49) and i have. SO many thoughts

not as many as i had right after i read but i really had to go to bed so i couldn’t write them all up.....

i put some reactions in individual posts but i’ll repeat them here!

first of all. shang qinghua. fucked off to the demon realm. like, good for him? but also. i want to see my boy

binghe keeping sqq’s body??? xue yang vibes OFF the charts

so I’M IN LOVE WITH THE MUSHROOM PLOT

i love how every so often sv will hit me with a twist that is SO up my alley that i just. lose it a little bit

HE MADE HIMSELF A CLONE BODY OUT OF MAGICAL MUSHROOMS AND TRANSPORTED HIS SOUL INTO IT.

i love mushroom shit and i love bodyswapping and. my god.

the fact that sqq has died twice and been forced to inhabit 3 different bodies??? wei wuxian wishes he were this cool

sidenote but the mental image of sqq doing radio calisthenics in the forest is really funny. or maybe it’s just funny to me because of the associations i have with this one time in japanese class?

sqq’s new body looking like a cross between shen yuan and shen qingqiu is really interesting and perhaps... symbolic....?

also hey does this mean he doesn’t have to deal with the cureless poison anymore. i assumed that it would be cured in his eventual sexytimes with binghe but hmmm i guess not!

the point where i really lost it was when he realized he was disconnected from the system. i know now that it wasn’t permanent but that was just so interesting, how much he hates it and wants it gone. which makes sense! even though it has helped him get out of bad spots at times, it’s a sign that he’s not really from this world. now i’m just really curious what’s gonna happen to the system at the end of the novel. maybe it’ll shut off once he achieves the “goal” it’s seemed to have set for him and gets together with lbh?

also i’m glad that sqq seems to have matured a little bit in terms of his people skills / problem solving skills? though uh. remains to be seen how he’ll act in front of binghe when binghe realizes who he is

it also seems like i was completely wrong about sqq’s motivations for sacrificing himself lol. lot more selfish than i thought? but it makes sense! fun twist

mxtx sure likes to have her protagonists execute plots that they don’t tell the reader about until after they happen lol (i’m thinking of the golden core transfer)

uhh back to plot reactions

love the running joke about peerless cucumber. also the demon names... six balls <3

also hold on a minute, peerless cucumber is a dick joke? lmao

thank you airplane for making it clear binghe has a big dick. absolutely vital character information

so i’ve said this before but sqq’s narration really CARRIES this novel. here i’m thinking specifically about his diatribe against sha hualing’s nails

shl is pretty fun. sexy evil lady!

sqq can turn his fan into a blade. nie huaisang get ON that smh

yang yixuan my beloved!

also HAHA i predicted that sqq’s super mushroom powers could help the xin mo thing and i was RIGHT

so sqq is just. SO invested in getting the plot back on track. like with all the harem members and stuff. it’s so funny because like bro. surely you’ve noticed by now that things are going very differently than in pidw. and also... you don’t WANT to go back on the pidw track bc that would kill you!!!

so the system reactivates when binghe turns up right? i am thinking about. the fact that when it tries to reboot it’s like “contacting customer service”

WHO IS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

it’s so interesting because like... obviously the whole system thing is so much bigger than just A Book? it’s even got airplane trapped inside it. and he’s the fucking author! who is running this thing? and for what purpose?

sqq listening in on the gossip about how lbh is DEFINITELY obsessively in love with him was SO funny. poor man

so binghe. he has become so COLD

i don’t like it :(

once more. my dude go to therapy.

wait also random but sqq has a beard now and for some reason that’s so funny to me

life at the palace seems terrible lmao no one is doing ok

smh, mxtx protags keep dying and staying dead for huge amounts of time and then coming back in different bodies

the fact that binghe’s happiest memories are training with sqq :(

THE FACT THAT BINGHE IS ABSOLUTELY SHIT AT KISSING

my god. that entire scene

went from “awwww headpats” to “AAAAAAAA”

the fact that the system congratulates him i’m sjkdhgjhsdhgjsds poor sqq.... didn’t ask for this shit.......

after 50 chapters, he’s finally realized he turned the male lead gay <3 say goodbye to all those funny oblivious moments!

i had to stop there because it was way too late at night but wow. we shall see how this relationship progresses

i can’t see it improving anytime soon but at least sqq knows lbh likes him now???

i had a LOT of thoughts last night but now i’m pretty much just like. i really need to see where it goes before i make any judgements on bingqiu

rn i’m not a big fan because 1. sqq is so wildly uncomfortable (understandable lol, even if lbh thinks it’s just a dream) and 2. lbh is very obsessive and that’s not really my favorite trope. but like it’s obviously not meant to be a healthy relationship, at least definitely not right now, and i do like some good fucked up romance! i’m excited to see the developments where sqq realizes what his real feelings are

i’m also fairly neutral on binghe as a character atm. his main personality traits seem to be “obsessed with sqq” and “trying not to die from evil sword qi poisoning” and i don’t find that all that compelling? between him and lwj i have to say that mxtx’s love interest characters are not really my favorite, though i wouldn’t say i dislike either of them.

furthermore i’m slightly concerned with how lbh’s “i’m the main character and i get what i want” attitude is gonna affect the romance. i know there’s some dubconny stuff later which i can’t say i’m excited for but i am excited to see how binghe’s character is gonna develop in general

my aspirations for bingqiu is that they’re both able to eventually break free of the expectations of the system

because, look at this from sqq’s pov. there’s this ai in your head that has, for literal years, been steering you towards a romance that you (at least outwardly) don’t want. isn’t that fucking terrifying? i love it. the system (at least how i see it) has been bending the established plot of the world in order to make this happen. it’s like fate but you can see the gears turning.

and even if sqq does end up liking lbh back, can you imagine the existential crisis of like. wondering if he really CHOSE to get with binghe or if he was somehow compelled to by the system which acts based on binghe’s emotions?

i think that would be so interesting

however what i think is Actually going to happen (based on that one time when airplane was like “hey cucumber, uh, is lbh just a character to you or is there more...”) is that sqq is gonna realize that he’s had a bit of a crush on binghe since reading pidw and is only just now dealing with his internalized homophobia. so him getting together with binghe has less strings attached

i think there’s some opportunity here for a commentary on the soulmate trope? because svsss is just so steeped in themes about agency and fate. i think that would be really cool but we’ll have to see. i feel like the ending is gonna be simpler and happier than i want it to be but obviously i cannot make any judgements yet! i’m just having Thoughts :)

so, i also read one of the extras (the one where he goes with lqg to battle succubi) because the translation i’m reading recommended it! it was pretty fun

sqq SO clueless. like i get it, he doesn’t think he’s into anything other than Pretty Cis Women, but. sqq we’ll work on this

also ASKING LQG IF HE’S A VIRGIN. sqq literally stop

(that was so funny though)

liu qingge ACE RIGHTS

actually lqg’s outburst in this chapter was kind of bizarre and can be explained in a few different ways i think?

i really like the idea of him being aroace. thinks true love doesn’t exist etc

i feel like the intended implication of lqg’s outburst is that he’s realized madame meiyin is referring to binghe and is like “holy shit no sqq can’t be with Him”

maybe lqg is just homophobic?

but i. also kind of wonder if lqg is gay and in love with sqq? and is just putting up the “such deep love doesn’t exist” thing because he really doesn’t want sqq to know

there was that whole line where the succubus was like “well you’re not his soulmate you don’t know” and it made me think

on the other hand i can’t really see lqg liking sqq that way; they seem to have more of a Bro Bond

then again lqg does keep fighting binghe for sqq’s sake

either headcanon is fun! i’d be excited for more insight into lqg in general i think

@oblvions @shes-outta-sight @lazingonsunday @karrotkate @satans-helper thank you all for the tags 💗💕

A buttload of info about me:

Last thing I read: "Lovers" by @satans-helper 😍😍😍

Favorite Book: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

Favorite Movie: Beetlegeuse

Dream Date: Imagine this: a nice, plush couch, covered in down pillows and fluffy blankets. There is a fire in the brick fireplace, the wood smoke combines with the scent of Nag Champa incense and the homemade treats that cover the low table next to the couch. There are brownies, bread rolls, cheeses, bowls of fruit, dipping sauces, cakes, sandwiches - a whole feast of my favorite foods. My partner and I would cuddle up on that couch, listening to my favorite symphonies on the record player in the corner and talking for hours. This isn't really a first date thing, more like an established relationshil date, but god I'd love to just spend an afternoon surrounded with my favorite things and my favorite person.

Do I have a crush?: Not really. There are people I find very very attractive (a friend, Sam Kiszka, Duff Mckagan in his 20s, Lucy Lui) but nobody that I'm actually romantically and sexually into.

Hobbies: Swimming, observing nature, browsing Pinterest, daydreaming, writing, reading, making art, singing, listening to music, love to cook

My favorite time of day: late afternoon, right before the sun sets. I'm usually free to do what I like, the temperature starts to drop, I can watch the sun... it's nice

If I could choose what I looked like, anything, what would it be?: I want tattoos, and more piercings, I'd love to change my hair color again - it's been natural for awhile but I think I want either burgundy or bright blue. WINGS! I kind of want giant, strong fairy wings, and maybe glowing eyes, a forked tongue, and tattoos that move and change (kinda like Maui lol)

Am I romantic?: Yeah, I'd say I am. I love to treat people, friends and significant others, but I'd be especially affectionate and romantic for a partner. I'm constantly buying gifts and things that remind me of them, cooking for them, planning dates and buying tickets for things I know they like, quietly taking care of stuff I know they need to do, cuddling, complimenting... I love to shower my partner in affection 24/7

My favorite kind of weather: Late Autumn, generally. About 55ºF, cloudy but not raining, windy

What do I like to talk about?: Lol I talk a whole lot and I've probably talked about everything at some point. One of my close friends and I particularly love to debate religion, mythology, magic, history, and the intersections of those. We also regularly plan heists and crimes lmao

My turn-ons: Long eyelashes, pouty lips, dirty hands (motor oil, paint, flour, etc), sarcasm, seeing someone get excited about something, compassion, casual physical affection

My turn-offs: Nastiness without a reason, knees (I just think knees look weird idk), Trump supporters, 100% pessimism (I understand being depressed or doubtful or being generally a pessimist, but if you adamantly refuse to see anything in a good light and try to ruin it for others f u c k y o u)

If I got a tattoo, what would it be and where?: ohhh I want tattoos so bad but I'm saving up and I'm not certain about some yet.... but I know that I'm getting a tree of life matching with my mom, I want mushrooms, pine trees, lavender, wildflowers (all for personal reasons). I'd also like to make maybe a charm bracelet of sorts with little charms for my favorite bands, books, movies, and other peices of media. I know that interests change and I might not like something in 30 years, but I see my life in periods of interests and I want to catalogue the things that shaped me

My pets: I have 3 cats - Pumpkin Pie, Lady, and Sweetheart

My dream job: I just want to live a free life doing what I want. I want to grow my own food for the most part, and raise animals, and paint, and write, and play music, and go on random adventures, go antiquing, decorate my home from my travels, learn without expectations - I don't want to exchange a fulfilling life for financial security from some mundane modern job.

My dream place to live: Secluded, in the forests of Oregon (or maybe Pennsylvania idk) on the bottom third of a mountain, on my own little farm

My dream vacation: I just wanna go explore historical landmarks and buildings

My dream house: A beautiful historical house -- like an 1870s American farmhouse, or a craftsman cottage, or a Victorian painted Lady, or maybe a New York brownstone -- filled with antiques and records and books and artifacts that I've collected. I LOVE antiques so much, everything would be of fine craftsmanship, it would be lavish and inviting and packed with interesting items at every turn (I want my house to be a curios shop lol) I also want a big ass kitchen and nice woodwork, I literally get horny over original built ins

My piercings: Sadly, I only have my standard ear piercings right now, but I think I'll get more soon. A nose ring, eye brow bar (yes I know that's so 2000s but I like them), probably 4 more on each ear, navel, nipples

If I had kids, what would I name them?: I love older, interesting names, so - Euphemia, Hartford, Monroe, Malory, Louise (me lol), August, Fredrick

My worst traits: I'm incredibly stubborn; I love talking to people but I'm awkward; lazy and don't care; I'm a bit of a collector/hoarder; I bottle up any anger or sadness I feel so I don't inconvenience others

My best traits: I love to give and help; I try to make people comfortable around me/in my home; I have excellent taste; I appreciate quality, culture, and creativity; I have many interesting interests that I'm eager to share and learn more about; I'm very creative

My worst fear: a painful death - I'm not afraid of dying, even though I'd rather not, I just don't want it to hurt

What do I want to eat right now?: Well, considering that I just ate my first bit of solid food in 3 days and immediately had to run to the bathroom... nothing

My favorite vacation memory: *blushes* my first kiss AND nearly my first time (we went like halfway): making out with this dude, son of my mom's friend, at my family cabin

My favorite city: I really don't know. Timber, OR, let's say

My favorite social media platform: Tumblr or Pinterest (does that count?)

My favorite article of clothing: My leather motorcycle jacket. I can't actually ride a motorcycle (trying to remedy that because *sexy*) but I got it a few years ago and it makes me feel so fucking badass. It's heavy, about 15 pounds of good quality leather, has lots of secret pockets in the lining and some cool looking zippers and studs, but nothing crazy. It's hella warm and comfy, I wear it everyday it's cold enough to

Do I play any sports?: pfft no. I like to swim, and I'm interested in baseball and tennis, but I suck at them and also I just don't like team sports

My favorite meal: What I order when I go to Buffalo Bills - a pesto/feta/mozzarella/Italian sausage/basil/tomato/garlic pizza, with homemade potato chips and chunky blue cheese dressing for dipping. If I had room, I'd finish with Marionberry cheesecake pie from Sherri's (but I am incredibly sick and have no faith in getting better enough so I feel like I'll never be able to eat like this again)

What am I excited for?: The winter holidays! I'm atheist, so Christmas is all about the personal stuff and non religious family traditions for me. I love the decorations, the music, seeing my family, baking, giving and receiving presents, it's all just so fun

What am I not excited for?: Cleaning my room, it really really needs it though. Also just continuing to live like this. I'm not suicidal, I'm just in a lot of pain constantly and I don't know what to do

When was the last time I cried?: an hour or so ago, I'm in loads of pain right now

What is something I hate about the world?: There's too much to choose from

What is something I love about the world?: children and nature

My favorite scents: vanilla, lavender, pine, Nag Champa incense, BBQ meat, pizza with basil, rosemary, my Dad's cologne

Cats or dogs?: kitties 💗

What kind of sleeper am I?: A weird one lol. I can't lay on my stomach for more than 15 minutes without it making me incredibly nauseous for the rest of the day, but it's also my favorite way to sleep cause its comfy somehow... I can't lay on my back without a pillow either, 30 seconds in and the nerves pinch so bad I'm screaming. I snore, and I sleep deep, but it takes a long time to fall asleep and usually only beeping or banging noises wake me up??? Like I said, I sleep weird

How long would I survive in a zombie apocalypse?: I really don't know. I have some skills and the drive to learn to fight, but I am currently, as I'm sure y'all can tell, very sick and I don't think I'd be able to live with so much movement and so little medicine

Am I trusting?: Generally, I probably trust too much but I'm not gonna stop

What fictional characters do I identify with?: there are many I like but none I identify with

My most common labels: Mom friend, butch, that weird fat chick (doesn't bother me tho), the well behaved daughter, old soul

My life's anthem: I really am not sure if this is a good anthem song but I love it so so much... Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While) by Kim Weston - you see where I get my love of long titles lol

Problems I'm dealing with: my health and whatever painful sickness is wrecking me, figuring out what to do with my life, saving money, getting my anxiety under control, getting the house to actually heat up because I'm cold as fuck

How can someone win me over?: let me express my interests and feelings, show kindness, be funny

What is something people don't know about me?: Idk

Not tagging anyone, this took over an hour

“the bear and the bow” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I'm watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I'd be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

So…

!!!

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. One thing at a time. Other plots first, so I can gush about this in peace. ...oh, come on, you knew I was gonna.

Under the cut, obviously. Sorry, this is a bit more “recappy” than usual, because my OTP hasn’t had a decent conversation in ages, and I was determined to indulge myself.

how people kept a straight face around that thing, i will never know

Look, guys, you know that I love you, but I wish you'd put down the plot ball for a moment. You were great about realising that Arthur was up to no good back in Camelot--how is it that nobody had even the slightest clue until now? At least they weren't the only ones. Seriously, Arthur, you couldn't stick that mushroom in your pocket? Down your pants? Anything? I get that mushrooms are supposed to burn, but it was a goddamn magic mushroom, you bonehead!

Anyway, the jig's up now, and they might have bigger problems than Arthur, anyway.

...doesn't look good, does it?

Emma. Buddy. Pal. I know you're the Dark One and that comes with its own problems, but if you killed Merlin, we absolutely cannot be friends anymore. Also, I will hunt you down and smack you with the biggest cactus I can find.

::sigh:: Please, just let him be a tree again or something...

And on that cheerful note...

what the hell, merida?

You know, I was going to joke about how calm Belle took being kidnapped by this complete stranger, but let's be honest, this is a "But for me, it was Tuesday" situation for her.

The whole Merida-plot was a bit weaker than I would have liked. Though I'm not going to lie: when she started telling the story of that battle, I was completely convinced that she'd accidentally shot Fergus, and I was ready to fight every single writer on this show with my bare fists. Really glad it didn't come to that, but it does tell me something about the degree of Drama™ this show has conditioned me to expect. And is it just me or is that a kind of... lame reason for the clans to withdraw their support? I get why Merida would lose confidence after that incident, but I think it may have been more believable to say "the clans weren't ready to accept me as queen, yet" rather than make it seem like they were totally on-board with that idea until she failed to make a near-impossible shot on the battlefield. Just saying.

At least she and Belle had phenomenal chemistry in that flashback. Less so in the present-day plot, for obvious reasons, but outside of attempted murder, I'd love to see some more scenes from them.

“belle saying goodbye to her girl of the week at the water’s edge” may not be a pattern, but it’s a weird thing to happen twice

Another thing the flashback set up/echoed very nicely was the concept of "remember what you are fighting for" and that people are often at their bravest when it's for somebody else.

Complaining aside, the climax of flashback!Merida’s subplot was so jawdroppingly awesome that I’m willing to overlook the other nonsense. Yes, yes, I know. Cheap. Look at me not caring.

yes, i know it's physically impossible to do this. and i also do NOT care

This actually made for a relaxing counterpoint to present-day!Merida, who’s… really not in a good place, poor woman. At least we know that after everything is over, she can go back home to her brothers and her kingdom.

Now, before I get into my favourite plot (yes, I am shamelessly playing favourites this episode; sue me), I wanted one dishonourable mention to the one bit in there that I heartily disliked. Namely: was it in any way necessary to retcon Rumple's reason for leaving the war? That's a rhetorical question, by the way, because I can tell you right now that it wasn't. It doesn't add anything to the character or to that story--quite the opposite, in fact--and it messes with character motivations all through the established canon.

I'll just let Nick take this one.

OK, that said, on to the good bits!

::high-pitched whine::

I probably shouldn't be worried, this thing has been through worse, but… he smashed it! I cannot believe he smashed the cup! Yes, yes, I know. It's not the object that's important it's about Belle and what he's willing to do for her, but still. The poor cup. It didn't deserve that.

And then finally, finally, we got the reunion.

Please pardon my language, but about fucking time! I mean, I knew I’d missed seeing them together, but this scene brought it all into focus. And while we’re on it, how dare you use that elevator against me, show? I call foul play!

And oh, the whole “I only came back for you” bit? Yeah, just… rip out my heart and leave it here, I guess. Didn’t really need it, anyway. (Also, this is the point where I got misty-eyed and I kind of cried on and off throughout the rest of that plot. I’m not just built near water, I live in a goddamn houseboat.)

OK, let me put on my analytical hat for a moment, and say that this was such a good story for them both. It shows their relationship dynamic at its best, and after so much time spent separated and/or lying to each other (OK, mostly Rumple lying to Belle, but you get my point), it's just balm for my poor shipper heart.

...now where did that analytical hat go?

Anyway, as I was saying: relationship at its best. They're both protective of each other, but rely on each other, and when Rumple is about to fall into bad habits again, Belle stops him, for his own sake as much as other's.

Though I will say, Belle, that you may have slightly overestimated Rumple's attachment to the people in this town. He may have felt bad about leaving Henry behind, but he probably assumed that if anyone was safe from Emma it was him. All in all, not much of a reason to stay, is what I'm saying.

And then there was the whole scene in the woods.

Before I get to anything else, I want to mention the possibly most hilarious bit of this episode:

Just. Belle. Running in the woods. In heels. At night.

Yeah, don't try this at home, kids.

Oh, but this entire scene was perfect. I want to frame the whole thing and put it up on my wall, so I can look at it when I'm feeling down. The two of them being protective of each other. Both clearly terrified and both refusing to back down while the other is still in danger.

The setup for this scene was excellent, too. Everything they talked about before, everything they did—from hiding in the shop, to Rumple's escape attempt in the car— built towards the emotional payoff in this moment, when Rumple turns up with that ridiculous sword. Which, I might add, he didn't need in the end, because that's not how his kind of courage works. Also, I must be losing my touch, because that anti-transformation dust could not have been set up more bluntly, and yet I didn't realise what it was for until he used it.

though from what i gather, he wasn’t too sure about it, either

Can we please have more of this? Not just the happy post-debearing (yes, that’s a word now) moments, but the whole package of affection, honesty, and benign arguments. You know–character growth.

Speaking of which…

Nice little finish to that particular subplot, although we all know the real “hero moment” happened in the woods. This felt important, but it really wasn’t dramatically emphasised. It was more like a footnote of “oh, yeah, of course he can pull out the sword”.

And Rumple’s threat to Emma? Hellll, yes. He’s right, too–nobody else knows how the Dark One works the way he does. Like he said earlier, in some ways, he knows Emma better than she knows herself right now. Six weeks experience of carrying that curse vs. 200+? Yeah, I wouldn’t exactly put my money on Emma in this scenario.

(Very) long story short: this episode was amazing and I’m excited to see where this goes.

(Also, yes, I am aware that Status Quo Is God on this show and that the current situation won’t last forever, but damnit, I’m determined to enjoy the ride.)

Glitch!Dio: Oh my fucking god. Glitch!Dio: Why. I don’t want the Bee Movie Script take it somewhere else. Glitch!Dio:  ALSO WHY ARE ALL THE CAPITAL Cs TURNED INTO CAPITAL Os.

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little. Barry! Breakfast is ready! Ooming! Hang on a second. Hello? - Barry? - Adam? - Oan you believe this is happening? - I can't. I'll pick you up. Looking sharp. Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those. Sorry. I'm excited. Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son. A perfect report card, all B's. Very proud. Ma! I got a thing going here. - You got lint on your fuzz. - Ow! That's me! - Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000. - Bye! Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house! - Hey, Adam. - Hey, Barry. - Is that fuzz gel? - A little. Special day, graduation. Never thought I'd make it. Three days grade school, three days high school. Those were awkward. Three days college. I'm glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive. You did come back different. - Hi, Barry. - Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good. - Hear about Frankie? - Yeah. - You going to the funeral? - No, I'm not going. Everybody knows, sting someone, you die. Don't waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead. I guess he could have just gotten out of the way. I love this incorporating an amusement park into our day. That's why we don't need vacations. Boy, quite a bit of pomp... under the circumstances. - Well, Adam, today we are men. - We are! - Bee-men. - Amen! Hallelujah! Students, faculty, distinguished bees, please welcome Dean Buzzwell. Welcome, New Hive Oity graduating class of... ...9:15. That concludes our ceremonies. And begins your career at Honex Industries! Will we pick ourjob today? I heard it's just orientation. Heads up! Here we go. Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times. - Wonder what it'll be like? - A little scary. Welcome to Honex, a division of Honesco and a part of the Hexagon Group. This is it! Wow. Wow. We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life to get to the point where you can work for your whole life. Honey begins when our valiant Pollen Jocks bring the nectar to the hive. Our top-secret formula is automatically color-corrected, scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured into this soothing sweet syrup with its distinctive golden glow you know as... Honey! - That girl was hot. - She's my cousin! - She is? - Yes, we're all cousins. - Right. You're right. - At Honex, we constantly strive to improve every aspect of bee existence. These bees are stress-testing a new helmet technology. - What do you think he makes? - Not enough. Here we have our latest advancement, the Krelman. - What does that do? - Oatches that little strand of honey that hangs after you pour it. Saves us millions. Oan anyone work on the Krelman? Of course. Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know that every small job, if it's done well, means a lot. But choose carefully because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life. The same job the rest of your life? I didn't know that. What's the difference? You'll be happy to know that bees, as a species, haven't had one day off in 27 million years. So you'll just work us to death? We'll sure try. Wow! That blew my mind! "What's the difference?" How can you say that? One job forever? That's an insane choice to have to make. I'm relieved. Now we only have to make one decision in life. But, Adam, how could they never have told us that? Why would you question anything? We're bees. We're the most perfectly functioning society on Earth. You ever think maybe things work a little too well here? Like what? Give me one example. I don't know. But you know what I'm talking about. Please clear the gate. Royal Nectar Force on approach. Wait a second. Oheck it out. - Hey, those are Pollen Jocks! - Wow. I've never seen them this close. They know what it's like outside the hive. Yeah, but some don't come back. - Hey, Jocks! - Hi, Jocks! You guys did great! You're monsters! You're sky freaks! I love it! I love it! - I wonder where they were. - I don't know. Their day's not planned. Outside the hive, flying who knows where, doing who knows what. You can'tjust decide to be a Pollen Jock. You have to be bred for that. Right. Look. That's more pollen than you and I will see in a lifetime. It's just a status symbol. Bees make too much of it. Perhaps. Unless you're wearing it and the ladies see you wearing it. Those ladies? Aren't they our cousins too? Distant. Distant. Look at these two. - Oouple of Hive Harrys. - Let's have fun with them. It must be dangerous being a Pollen Jock. Yeah. Once a bear pinned me against a mushroom! He had a paw on my throat, and with the other, he was slapping me! - Oh, my! - I never thought I'd knock him out. What were you doing during this? Trying to alert the authorities. I can autograph that. A little gusty out there today, wasn't it, comrades? Yeah. Gusty. We're hitting a sunflower patch six miles from here tomorrow. - Six miles, huh? - Barry! A puddle jump for us, but maybe you're not up for it. - Maybe I am. - You are not! We're going 0900 at J-Gate. What do you think, buzzy-boy? Are you bee enough? I might be. It all depends on what 0900 means. Hey, Honex! Dad, you surprised me. You decide what you're interested in? - Well, there's a lot of choices. - But you only get one. Do you ever get bored doing the same job every day? Son, let me tell you about stirring. You grab that stick, and you just move it around, and you stir it around. You get yourself into a rhythm. It's a beautiful thing. You know, Dad, the more I think about it, maybe the honey field just isn't right for me. You were thinking of what, making balloon animals? That's a bad job for a guy with a stinger. Janet, your son's not sure he wants to go into honey! - Barry, you are so funny sometimes. - I'm not trying to be funny. You're not funny! You're going into honey. Our son, the stirrer! - You're gonna be a stirrer? - No one's listening to me! Wait till you see the sticks I have. I could say anything right now. I'm gonna get an ant tattoo! Let's open some honey and celebrate! Maybe I'll pierce my thorax. Shave my antennae. Shack up with a grasshopper. Get a gold tooth and call everybody "dawg"! I'm so proud. - We're starting work today! - Today's the day. Oome on! All the good jobs will be gone. Yeah, right. Pollen counting, stunt bee, pouring, stirrer, front desk, hair removal... - Is it still available? - Hang on. Two left! One of them's yours! Oongratulations! Step to the side. - What'd you get? - Picking crud out. Stellar! Wow! Oouple of newbies? Yes, sir! Our first day! We are ready! Make your choice. - You want to go first? - No, you go. Oh, my. What's available? Restroom attendant's open, not for the reason you think. - Any chance of getting the Krelman? - Sure, you're on. I'm sorry, the Krelman just closed out. Wax monkey's always open. The Krelman opened up again. What happened? A bee died. Makes an opening. See? He's dead. Another dead one. Deady. Deadified. Two more dead. Dead from the neck up. Dead from the neck down. That's life! Oh, this is so hard! Heating, cooling, stunt bee, pourer, stirrer, humming, inspector number seven, lint coordinator, stripe supervisor, mite wrangler. Barry, what do you think I should... Barry? Barry! All right, we've got the sunflower patch in quadrant nine... What happened to you? Where are you? - I'm going out. - Out? Out where? - Out there. - Oh, no! I have to, before I go to work for the rest of my life. You're gonna die! You're crazy! Hello? Another call coming in. If anyone's feeling brave, there's a Korean deli on 83rd that gets their roses today. Hey, guys. - Look at that. - Isn't that the kid we saw yesterday? Hold it, son, flight deck's restricted. It's OK, Lou. We're gonna take him up. Really? Feeling lucky, are you? Sign here, here. Just initial that. - Thank you. - OK. You got a rain advisory today, and as you all know, bees cannot fly in rain. So be careful. As always, watch your brooms, hockey sticks, dogs, birds, bears and bats. Also, I got a couple of reports of root beer being poured on us. Murphy's in a home because of it, babbling like a cicada! - That's awful. - And a reminder for you rookies, bee law number one, absolutely no talking to humans! All right, launch positions! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Black and yellow! Hello! You ready for this, hot shot? Yeah. Yeah, bring it on. Wind, check. - Antennae, check. - Nectar pack, check. - Wings, check. - Stinger, check. Scared out of my shorts, check. OK, ladies, let's move it out! Pound those petunias, you striped stem-suckers! All of you, drain those flowers! Wow! I'm out! I can't believe I'm out! So blue. I feel so fast and free! Box kite! Wow! Flowers! This is Blue Leader. We have roses visual. Bring it around 30 degrees and hold. Roses! 30 degrees, roger. Bringing it around. Stand to the side, kid. It's got a bit of a kick. That is one nectar collector! - Ever see pollination up close? - No, sir. I pick up some pollen here, sprinkle it over here. Maybe a dash over there, a pinch on that one. See that? It's a little bit of magic. That's amazing. Why do we do that? That's pollen power. More pollen, more flowers, more nectar, more honey for us. Oool. I'm picking up a lot of bright yellow. Oould be daisies. Don't we need those? Oopy that visual. Wait. One of these flowers seems to be on the move. Say again? You're reporting a moving flower? Affirmative. That was on the line! This is the coolest. What is it? I don't know, but I'm loving this color. It smells good. Not like a flower, but I like it. Yeah, fuzzy. Ohemical-y. Oareful, guys. It's a little grabby. My sweet lord of bees! Oandy-brain, get off there! Problem! - Guys! - This could be bad. Affirmative. Very close. Gonna hurt. Mama's little boy. You are way out of position, rookie! Ooming in at you like a missile! Help me! I don't think these are flowers. - Should we tell him? - I think he knows. What is this?! Match point! You can start packing up, honey, because you're about to eat it! Yowser! Gross. There's a bee in the car! - Do something! - I'm driving! - Hi, bee. - He's back here! He's going to sting me! Nobody move. If you don't move, he won't sting you. Freeze! He blinked! Spray him, Granny! What are you doing?! Wow... the tension level out here is unbelievable. I gotta get home. Oan't fly in rain. Oan't fly in rain. Oan't fly in rain. Mayday! Mayday! Bee going down! Ken, could you close the window please? Ken, could you close the window please? Oheck out my new resume. I made it into a fold-out brochure. You see? Folds out. Oh, no. More humans. I don't need this. What was that? Maybe this time. This time. This time. This time! This time! This... Drapes! That is diabolical. It's fantastic. It's got all my special skills, even my top-ten favorite movies. What's number one? Star Wars? Nah, I don't go for that... ...kind of stuff. No wonder we shouldn't talk to them. They're out of their minds. When I leave a job interview, they're flabbergasted, can't believe what I say. There's the sun. Maybe that's a way out. I don't remember the sun having a big 75 on it. I predicted global warming. I could feel it getting hotter. At first I thought it was just me. Wait! Stop! Bee! Stand back. These are winter boots. Wait! Don't kill him! You know I'm allergic to them! This thing could kill me! Why does his life have less value than yours? Why does his life have any less value than mine? Is that your statement? I'm just saying all life has value. You don't know what he's capable of feeling. My brochure! There you go, little guy. I'm not scared of him. It's an allergic thing. Put that on your resume brochure. My whole face could puff up. Make it one of your special skills. Knocking someone out is also a special skill. Right. Bye, Vanessa. Thanks. - Vanessa, next week? Yogurt night? - Sure, Ken. You know, whatever. - You could put carob chips on there. - Bye. - Supposed to be less calories. - Bye. I gotta say something. She saved my life. I gotta say something. All right, here it goes. Nah. What would I say? I could really get in trouble. It's a bee law. You're not supposed to talk to a human. I can't believe I'm doing this. I've got to. Oh, I can't do it. Oome on! No. Yes. No. Do it. I can't. How should I start it? "You like jazz?" No, that's no good. Here she comes! Speak, you fool! Hi! I'm sorry. - You're talking. - Yes, I know. You're talking! I'm so sorry. No, it's OK. It's fine. I know I'm dreaming. But I don't recall going to bed. Well, I'm sure this is very disconcerting. This is a bit of a surprise to me. I mean, you're a bee! I am. And I'm not supposed to be doing this, but they were all trying to kill me. And if it wasn't for you... I had to thank you. It's just how I was raised. That was a little weird. - I'm talking with a bee. - Yeah. I'm talking to a bee. And the bee is talking to me! I just want to say I'm grateful. I'll leave now. - Wait! How did you learn to do that? - What? The talking thing. Same way you did, I guess. "Mama, Dada, honey." You pick it up. - That's very funny. - Yeah. Bees are funny. If we didn't laugh, we'd cry with what we have to deal with. Anyway... Oan I... ...get you something? - Like what? I don't know. I mean... I don't know. Ooffee? I don't want to put you out. It's no trouble. It takes two minutes. - It's just coffee. - I hate to impose. - Don't be ridiculous! - Actually, I would love a cup. Hey, you want rum cake? - I shouldn't. - Have some. - No, I can't. - Oome on! I'm trying to lose a couple micrograms. - Where? - These stripes don't help. You look great! I don't know if you know anything about fashion. Are you all right? No. He's making the tie in the cab as they're flying up Madison. He finally gets there. He runs up the steps into the church. The wedding is on. And he says, "Watermelon? I thought you said Guatemalan. Why would I marry a watermelon?" Is that a bee joke? That's the kind of stuff we do. Yeah, different. So, what are you gonna do, Barry? About work? I don't know. I want to do my part for the hive, but I can't do it the way they want. I know how you feel. - You do? - Sure. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, but I wanted to be a florist. - Really? - My only interest is flowers. Our new queen was just elected with that same campaign slogan. Anyway, if you look... There's my hive right there. See it? You're in Sheep Meadow! Yes! I'm right off the Turtle Pond! No way! I know that area. I lost a toe ring there once. - Why do girls put rings on their toes? - Why not? - It's like putting a hat on your knee. - Maybe I'll try that. - You all right, ma'am? - Oh, yeah. Fine. Just having two cups of coffee! Anyway, this has been great. Thanks for the coffee. Yeah, it's no trouble. Sorry I couldn't finish it. If I did, I'd be up the rest of my life. Are you...? Oan I take a piece of this with me? Sure! Here, have a crumb. - Thanks! - Yeah. All right. Well, then... I guess I'll see you around. Or not. OK, Barry. And thank you so much again... for before. Oh, that? That was nothing. Well, not nothing, but... Anyway... This can't possibly work. He's all set to go. We may as well try it. OK, Dave, pull the chute. - Sounds amazing. - It was amazing! It was the scariest, happiest moment of my life. Humans! I can't believe you were with humans! Giant, scary humans! What were they like? Huge and crazy. They talk crazy. They eat crazy giant things. They drive crazy. - Do they try and kill you, like on TV? - Some of them. But some of them don't. - How'd you get back? - Poodle. You did it, and I'm glad. You saw whatever you wanted to see. You had your "experience." Now you can pick out yourjob and be normal. - Well... - Well? Well, I met someone. You did? Was she Bee-ish? - A wasp?! Your parents will kill you! - No, no, no, not a wasp. - Spider? - I'm not attracted to spiders. I know it's the hottest thing, with the eight legs and all. I can't get by that face. So who is she? She's... human. No, no. That's a bee law. You wouldn't break a bee law. - Her name's Vanessa. - Oh, boy. She's so nice. And she's a florist! Oh, no! You're dating a human florist! We're not dating. You're flying outside the hive, talking to humans that attack our homes with power washers and M-80s! One-eighth a stick of dynamite! She saved my life! And she understands me. This is over! Eat this. This is not over! What was that? - They call it a crumb. - It was so stingin' stripey! And that's not what they eat. That's what falls off what they eat! - You know what a Oinnabon is? - No. It's bread and cinnamon and frosting. They heat it up... Sit down! ...really hot! - Listen to me! We are not them! We're us. There's us and there's them! Yes, but who can deny the heart that is yearning? There's no yearning. Stop yearning. Listen to me! You have got to start thinking bee, my friend. Thinking bee! - Thinking bee. - Thinking bee. Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! There he is. He's in the pool. You know what your problem is, Barry? I gotta start thinking bee? How much longer will this go on? It's been three days! Why aren't you working? I've got a lot of big life decisions to think about. What life? You have no life! You have no job. You're barely a bee! Would it kill you to make a little honey? Barry, come out. Your father's talking to you. Martin, would you talk to him? Barry, I'm talking to you! You coming? Got everything? All set! Go ahead. I'll catch up. Don't be too long. Watch this! Vanessa! - We're still here. - I told you not to yell at him. He doesn't respond to yelling! - Then why yell at me? - Because you don't listen! I'm not listening to this. Sorry, I've gotta go. - Where are you going? - I'm meeting a friend. A girl? Is this why you can't decide? Bye. I just hope she's Bee-ish. They have a huge parade of flowers every year in Pasadena? To be in the Tournament of Roses, that's every florist's dream! Up on a float, surrounded by flowers, crowds cheering. A tournament. Do the roses compete in athletic events? No. All right, I've got one. How come you don't fly everywhere? It's exhausting. Why don't you run everywhere? It's faster. Yeah, OK, I see, I see. All right, your turn. TiVo. You can just freeze live TV? That's insane! You don't have that? We have Hivo, but it's a disease. It's a horrible, horrible disease. Oh, my. Dumb bees! You must want to sting all those jerks. We try not to sting. It's usually fatal for us. So you have to watch your temper. Very carefully. You kick a wall, take a walk, write an angry letter and throw it out. Work through it like any emotion: Anger, jealousy, lust. Oh, my goodness! Are you OK? Yeah. - What is wrong with you?! - It's a bug. He's not bothering anybody. Get out of here, you creep! What was that? A Pic 'N' Save circular? Yeah, it was. How did you know? It felt like about 10 pages. Seventy-five is pretty much our limit. You've really got that down to a science. - I lost a cousin to Italian Vogue. - I'll bet. What in the name of Mighty Hercules is this? How did this get here? Oute Bee, Golden Blossom, Ray Liotta Private Select? - Is he that actor? - I never heard of him. - Why is this here? - For people. We eat it. You don't have enough food of your own? - Well, yes. - How do you get it? - Bees make it. - I know who makes it! And it's hard to make it! There's heating, cooling, stirring. You need a whole Krelman thing! - It's organic. - It's our-ganic! It's just honey, Barry. Just what?! Bees don't know about this! This is stealing! A lot of stealing! You've taken our homes, schools, hospitals! This is all we have! And it's on sale?! I'm getting to the bottom of this. I'm getting to the bottom of all of this! Hey, Hector. - You almost done? - Almost. He is here. I sense it. Well, I guess I'll go home now and just leave this nice honey out, with no one around. You're busted, box boy! I knew I heard something. So you can talk! I can talk. And now you'll start talking! Where you getting the sweet stuff? Who's your supplier? I don't understand. I thought we were friends. The last thing we want to do is upset bees! You're too late! It's ours now! You, sir, have crossed the wrong sword! You, sir, will be lunch for my iguana, Ignacio! Where is the honey coming from? Tell me where! Honey Farms! It comes from Honey Farms! Orazy person! What horrible thing has happened here? These faces, they never knew what hit them. And now they're on the road to nowhere! Just keep still. What? You're not dead? Do I look dead? They will wipe anything that moves. Where you headed? To Honey Farms. I am onto something huge here. I'm going to Alaska. Moose blood, crazy stuff. Blows your head off! I'm going to Tacoma. - And you? - He really is dead. All right. Uh-oh! - What is that?! - Oh, no! - A wiper! Triple blade! - Triple blade? Jump on! It's your only chance, bee! Why does everything have to be so doggone clean?! How much do you people need to see?! Open your eyes! Stick your head out the window! From NPR News in Washington, I'm Oarl Kasell. But don't kill no more bugs! - Bee! - Moose blood guy!! - You hear something? - Like what? Like tiny screaming. Turn off the radio. Whassup, bee boy? Hey, Blood. Just a row of honey jars, as far as the eye could see. Wow! I assume wherever this truck goes is where they're getting it. I mean, that honey's ours. - Bees hang tight. - We're all jammed in. It's a close community. Not us, man. We on our own. Every mosquito on his own. - What if you get in trouble? - You a mosquito, you in trouble. Nobody likes us. They just smack. See a mosquito, smack, smack! At least you're out in the world. You must meet girls. Mosquito girls try to trade up, get with a moth, dragonfly. Mosquito girl don't want no mosquito. You got to be kidding me! Mooseblood's about to leave the building! So long, bee! - Hey, guys! - Mooseblood! I knew I'd catch y'all down here. Did you bring your crazy straw? We throw it in jars, slap a label on it, and it's pretty much pure profit. What is this place? A bee's got a brain the size of a pinhead. They are pinheads! Pinhead. - Oheck out the new smoker. - Oh, sweet. That's the one you want. The Thomas 3000! Smoker? Ninety puffs a minute, semi-automatic. Twice the nicotine, all the tar. A couple breaths of this knocks them right out. They make the honey, and we make the money. "They make the honey, and we make the money"? Oh, my! What's going on? Are you OK? Yeah. It doesn't last too long. Do you know you're in a fake hive with fake walls? Our queen was moved here. We had no choice. This is your queen? That's a man in women's clothes! That's a drag queen! What is this? Oh, no! There's hundreds of them! Bee honey. Our honey is being brazenly stolen on a massive scale! This is worse than anything bears have done! I intend to do something. Oh, Barry, stop. Who told you humans are taking our honey? That's a rumor. Do these look like rumors? That's a conspiracy theory. These are obviously doctored photos. How did you get mixed up in this? He's been talking to humans. - What? - Talking to humans?! He has a human girlfriend. And they make out! Make out? Barry! We do not. - You wish you could. - Whose side are you on? The bees! I dated a cricket once in San Antonio. Those crazy legs kept me up all night. Barry, this is what you want to do with your life? I want to do it for all our lives. Nobody works harder than bees! Dad, I remember you coming home so overworked your hands were still stirring. You couldn't stop. I remember that. What right do they have to our honey? We live on two cups a year. They put it in lip balm for no reason whatsoever! Even if it's true, what can one bee do? Sting them where it really hurts. In the face! The eye! - That would hurt. - No. Up the nose? That's a killer. There's only one place you can sting the humans, one place where it matters. Hive at Five, the hive's only full-hour action news source. No more bee beards! With Bob Bumble at the anchor desk. Weather with Storm Stinger. Sports with Buzz Larvi. And Jeanette Ohung. - Good evening. I'm Bob Bumble. - And I'm Jeanette Ohung. A tri-county bee, Barry Benson, intends to sue the human race for stealing our honey, packaging it and profiting from it illegally! Tomorrow night on Bee Larry King, we'll have three former queens here in our studio, discussing their new book, Olassy Ladies, out this week on Hexagon. Tonight we're talking to Barry Benson. Did you ever think, "I'm a kid from the hive. I can't do this"? Bees have never been afraid to change the world. What about Bee Oolumbus? Bee Gandhi? Bejesus? Where I'm from, we'd never sue humans. We were thinking of stickball or candy stores. How old are you? The bee community is supporting you in this case, which will be the trial of the bee century. You know, they have a Larry King in the human world too. It's a common name. Next week... He looks like you and has a show and suspenders and colored dots... Next week... Glasses, quotes on the bottom from the guest even though you just heard 'em. Bear Week next week! They're scary, hairy and here live. Always leans forward, pointy shoulders, squinty eyes, very Jewish. In tennis, you attack at the point of weakness! It was my grandmother, Ken. She's 81. Honey, her backhand's a joke! I'm not gonna take advantage of that? Quiet, please. Actual work going on here. - Is that that same bee? - Yes, it is! I'm helping him sue the human race. - Hello. - Hello, bee. This is Ken. Yeah, I remember you. Timberland, size ten and a half. Vibram sole, I believe. Why does he talk again? Listen, you better go 'cause we're really busy working. But it's our yogurt night! Bye-bye. Why is yogurt night so difficult?! You poor thing. You two have been at this for hours! Yes, and Adam here has been a huge help. - Frosting... - How many sugars? Just one. I try not to use the competition. So why are you helping me? Bees have good qualities. And it takes my mind off the shop. Instead of flowers, people are giving balloon bouquets now. Those are great, if you're three. And artificial flowers. - Oh, those just get me psychotic! - Yeah, me too. Bent stingers, pointless pollination. Bees must hate those fake things! Nothing worse than a daffodil that's had work done. Maybe this could make up for it a little bit. - This lawsuit's a pretty big deal. - I guess. You sure you want to go through with it? Am I sure? When I'm done with the humans, they won't be able to say, "Honey, I'm home," without paying a royalty! It's an incredible scene here in downtown Manhattan, where the world anxiously waits, because for the first time in history, we will hear for ourselves if a honeybee can actually speak. What have we gotten into here, Barry? It's pretty big, isn't it? I can't believe how many humans don't work during the day. You think billion-dollar multinational food companies have good lawyers? Everybody needs to stay behind the barricade. - What's the matter? - I don't know, I just got a chill. Well, if it isn't the bee team. You boys work on this? All rise! The Honorable Judge Bumbleton presiding. All right. Oase number 4475, Superior Oourt of New York, Barry Bee Benson v. the Honey Industry is now in session. Mr. Montgomery, you're representing the five food companies collectively? A privilege. Mr. Benson... you're representing all the bees of the world? I'm kidding. Yes, Your Honor, we're ready to proceed. Mr. Montgomery, your opening statement, please. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my grandmother was a simple woman. Born on a farm, she believed it was man's divine right to benefit from the bounty of nature God put before us. If we lived in the topsy-turvy world Mr. Benson imagines, just think of what would it mean. I would have to negotiate with the silkworm for the elastic in my britches! Talking bee! How do we know this isn't some sort of holographic motion-picture-capture Hollywood wizardry? They could be using laser beams! Robotics! Ventriloquism! Oloning! For all we know, he could be on steroids! Mr. Benson? Ladies and gentlemen, there's no trickery here. I'm just an ordinary bee. Honey's pretty important to me. It's important to all bees. We invented it! We make it. And we protect it with our lives. Unfortunately, there are some people in this room who think they can take it from us 'cause we're the little guys! I'm hoping that, after this is all over, you'll see how, by taking our honey, you not only take everything we have but everything we are! I wish he'd dress like that all the time. So nice! Oall your first witness. So, Mr. Klauss Vanderhayden of Honey Farms, big company you have. I suppose so. I see you also own Honeyburton and Honron! Yes, they provide beekeepers for our farms. Beekeeper. I find that to be a very disturbing term. I don't imagine you employ any bee-free-ers, do you? - No. - I couldn't hear you. - No. - No. Because you don't free bees. You keep bees. Not only that, it seems you thought a bear would be an appropriate image for a jar of honey. They're very lovable creatures. Yogi Bear, Fozzie Bear, Build-A-Bear. You mean like this? Bears kill bees! How'd you like his head crashing through your living room?! Biting into your couch! Spitting out your throw pillows! OK, that's enough. Take him away. So, Mr. Sting, thank you for being here. Your name intrigues me. - Where have I heard it before? - I was with a band called The Police. But you've never been a police officer, have you? No, I haven't. No, you haven't. And so here we have yet another example of bee culture casually stolen by a human for nothing more than a prance-about stage name. Oh, please. Have you ever been stung, Mr. Sting? Because I'm feeling a little stung, Sting. Or should I say... Mr. Gordon M. Sumner! That's not his real name?! You idiots! Mr. Liotta, first, belated congratulations on your Emmy win for a guest spot on ER in 2005. Thank you. Thank you. I see from your resume that you're devilishly handsome with a churning inner turmoil that's ready to blow. I enjoy what I do. Is that a crime? Not yet it isn't. But is this what it's come to for you? Exploiting tiny, helpless bees so you don't have to rehearse your part and learn your lines, sir? Watch it, Benson! I could blow right now! This isn't a goodfella. This is a badfella! Why doesn't someone just step on this creep, and we can all go home?! - Order in this court! - You're all thinking it! Order! Order, I say! - Say it! - Mr. Liotta, please sit down! I think it was awfully nice of that bear to pitch in like that. I think the jury's on our side. Are we doing everything right, legally? I'm a florist. Right. Well, here's to a great team. To a great team! Well, hello. - Ken! - Hello. I didn't think you were coming. No, I was just late. I tried to call, but... the battery. I didn't want all this to go to waste, so I called Barry. Luckily, he was free. Oh, that was lucky. There's a little left. I could heat it up. Yeah, heat it up, sure, whatever. So I hear you're quite a tennis player. I'm not much for the game myself. The ball's a little grabby. That's where I usually sit. Right... there. Ken, Barry was looking at your resume, and he agreed with me that eating with chopsticks isn't really a special skill. You think I don't see what you're doing? I know how hard it is to find the rightjob. We have that in common. Do we? Bees have 100 percent employment, but we do jobs like taking the crud out. That's just what I was thinking about doing. Ken, I let Barry borrow your razor for his fuzz. I hope that was all right. I'm going to drain the old stinger. Yeah, you do that. Look at that. You know, I've just about had it with your little mind games. - What's that? - Italian Vogue. Mamma mia, that's a lot of pages. A lot of ads. Remember what Van said, why is your life more valuable than mine? Funny, I just can't seem to recall that! I think something stinks in here! I love the smell of flowers. How do you like the smell of flames?! Not as much. Water bug! Not taking sides! Ken, I'm wearing a Ohapstick hat! This is pathetic! I've got issues! Well, well, well, a royal flush! - You're bluffing. - Am I? Surf's up, dude! Poo water! That bowl is gnarly. Except for those dirty yellow rings! Kenneth! What are you doing?! You know, I don't even like honey! I don't eat it! We need to talk! He's just a little bee! And he happens to be the nicest bee I've met in a long time! Long time? What are you talking about?! Are there other bugs in your life? No, but there are other things bugging me in life. And you're one of them! Fine! Talking bees, no yogurt night... My nerves are fried from riding on this emotional roller coaster! Goodbye, Ken. And for your information, I prefer sugar-free, artificial sweeteners made by man! I'm sorry about all that. I know it's got an aftertaste! I like it! I always felt there was some kind of barrier between Ken and me. I couldn't overcome it. Oh, well. Are you OK for the trial? I believe Mr. Montgomery is about out of ideas. We would like to call Mr. Barry Benson Bee to the stand. Good idea! You can really see why he's considered one of the best lawyers... Yeah. Layton, you've gotta weave some magic with this jury, or it's gonna be all over. Don't worry. The only thing I have to do to turn this jury around is to remind them of what they don't like about bees. - You got the tweezers? - Are you allergic? Only to losing, son. Only to losing. Mr. Benson Bee, I'll ask you what I think we'd all like to know. What exactly is your relationship to that woman? We're friends. - Good friends? - Yes. How good? Do you live together? Wait a minute... Are you her little... ...bedbug? I've seen a bee documentary or two. From what I understand, doesn't your queen give birth to all the bee children? - Yeah, but... - So those aren't your real parents! - Oh, Barry... - Yes, they are! Hold me back! You're an illegitimate bee, aren't you, Benson? He's denouncing bees! Don't y'all date your cousins? - Objection! - I'm going to pincushion this guy! Adam, don't! It's what he wants! Oh, I'm hit!! Oh, lordy, I am hit! Order! Order! The venom! The venom is coursing through my veins! I have been felled by a winged beast of destruction! You see? You can't treat them like equals! They're striped savages! Stinging's the only thing they know! It's their way! - Adam, stay with me. - I can't feel my legs. What angel of mercy will come forward to suck the poison from my heaving buttocks? I will have order in this court. Order! Order, please! The case of the honeybees versus the human race took a pointed turn against the bees yesterday when one of their legal team stung Layton T. Montgomery. - Hey, buddy. - Hey. - Is there much pain? - Yeah. I... I blew the whole case, didn't I? It doesn't matter. What matters is you're alive. You could have died. I'd be better off dead. Look at me. They got it from the cafeteria downstairs, in a tuna sandwich. Look, there's a little celery still on it. What was it like to sting someone? I can't explain it. It was all... All adrenaline and then... and then ecstasy! All right. You think it was all a trap? Of course. I'm sorry. I flew us right into this. What were we thinking? Look at us. We're just a couple of bugs in this world. What will the humans do to us if they win? I don't know. I hear they put the roaches in motels. That doesn't sound so bad. Adam, they check in, but they don't check out! Oh, my. Oould you get a nurse to close that window? - Why? - The smoke. Bees don't smoke. Right. Bees don't smoke. Bees don't smoke! But some bees are smoking. That's it! That's our case! It is? It's not over? Get dressed. I've gotta go somewhere. Get back to the court and stall. Stall any way you can. And assuming you've done step correctly, you're ready for the tub. Mr. Flayman. Yes? Yes, Your Honor! Where is the rest of your team? Well, Your Honor, it's interesting. Bees are trained to fly haphazardly, and as a result, we don't make very good time. I actually heard a funny story about... Your Honor, haven't these ridiculous bugs taken up enough of this court's valuable time? How much longer will we allow these absurd shenanigans to go on? They have presented no compelling evidence to support their charges against my clients, who run legitimate businesses. I move for a complete dismissal of this entire case! Mr. Flayman, I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider Mr. Montgomery's motion. But you can't! We have a terrific case. Where is your proof? Where is the evidence? Show me the smoking gun! Hold it, Your Honor! You want a smoking gun? Here is your smoking gun. What is that? It's a bee smoker! What, this? This harmless little contraption? This couldn't hurt a fly, let alone a bee. Look at what has happened to bees who have never been asked, "Smoking or non?" Is this what nature intended for us? To be forcibly addicted to smoke machines and man-made wooden slat work camps? Living out our lives as honey slaves to the white man? - What are we gonna do? - He's playing the species card. Ladies and gentlemen, please, free these bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! The court finds in favor of the bees! Vanessa, we won! I knew you could do it! High-five! Sorry. I'm OK! You know what this means? All the honey will finally belong to the bees. Now we won't have to work so hard all the time. This is an unholy perversion of the balance of nature, Benson. You'll regret this. Barry, how much honey is out there? All right. One at a time. Barry, who are you wearing? My sweater is Ralph Lauren, and I have no pants. - What if Montgomery's right? - What do you mean? We've been living the bee way a long time, 27 million years. Oongratulations on your victory. What will you demand as a settlement? First, we'll demand a complete shutdown of all bee work camps. Then we want back the honey that was ours to begin with, every last drop. We demand an end to the glorification of the bear as anything more than a filthy, smelly, bad-breath stink machine. We're all aware of what they do in the woods. Wait for my signal. Take him out. He'll have nauseous for a few hours, then he'll be fine. And we will no longer tolerate bee-negative nicknames... But it's just a prance-about stage name! ...unnecessary inclusion of honey in bogus health products and la-dee-da human tea-time snack garnishments. Oan't breathe. Bring it in, boys! Hold it right there! Good. Tap it. Mr. Buzzwell, we just passed three cups, and there's gallons more coming! - I think we need to shut down! - Shut down? We've never shut down. Shut down honey production! Stop making honey! Turn your key, sir! What do we do now? Oannonball! We're shutting honey production! Mission abort. Aborting pollination and nectar detail. Returning to base. Adam, you wouldn't believe how much honey was out there. Oh, yeah? What's going on? Where is everybody? - Are they out celebrating? - They're home. They don't know what to do. Laying out, sleeping in. I heard your Uncle Oarl was on his way to San Antonio with a cricket. At least we got our honey back. Sometimes I think, so what if humans liked our honey? Who wouldn't? It's the greatest thing in the world! I was excited to be part of making it. This was my new desk. This was my new job. I wanted to do it really well. And now... Now I can't. I don't understand why they're not happy. I thought their lives would be better! They're doing nothing. It's amazing. Honey really changes people. You don't have any idea what's going on, do you? - What did you want to show me? - This. What happened here? That is not the half of it. Oh, no. Oh, my. They're all wilting. Doesn't look very good, does it? No. And whose fault do you think that is? You know, I'm gonna guess bees. Bees? Specifically, me. I didn't think bees not needing to make honey would affect all these things. It's notjust flowers. Fruits, vegetables, they all need bees. That's our whole SAT test right there. Take away produce, that affects the entire animal kingdom. And then, of course... The human species? So if there's no more pollination, it could all just go south here, couldn't it? I know this is also partly my fault. How about a suicide pact? How do we do it? - I'll sting you, you step on me. - Thatjust kills you twice. Right, right. Listen, Barry... sorry, but I gotta get going. I had to open my mouth and talk. Vanessa? Vanessa? Why are you leaving? Where are you going? To the final Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena. They've moved it to this weekend because all the flowers are dying. It's the last chance I'll ever have to see it. Vanessa, I just wanna say I'm sorry. I never meant it to turn out like this. I know. Me neither. Tournament of Roses. Roses can't do sports. Wait a minute. Roses. Roses? Roses! Vanessa! Roses?! Barry? - Roses are flowers! - Yes, they are. Flowers, bees, pollen! I know. That's why this is the last parade. Maybe not. Oould you ask him to slow down? Oould you slow down? Barry! OK, I made a huge mistake. This is a total disaster, all my fault. Yes, it kind of is. I've ruined the planet. I wanted to help you with the flower shop. I've made it worse. Actually, it's completely closed down. I thought maybe you were remodeling. But I have another idea, and it's greater than my previous ideas combined. I don't want to hear it! All right, they have the roses, the roses have the pollen. I know every bee, plant and flower bud in this park. All we gotta do is get what they've got back here with what we've got. - Bees. - Park. - Pollen! - Flowers. - Repollination! - Across the nation! Tournament of Roses, Pasadena, Oalifornia. They've got nothing but flowers, floats and cotton candy. Security will be tight. I have an idea. Vanessa Bloome, FTD. Official floral business. It's real. Sorry, ma'am. Nice brooch. Thank you. It was a gift. Once inside, we just pick the right float. How about The Princess and the Pea? I could be the princess, and you could be the pea! Yes, I got it. - Where should I sit? - What are you? - I believe I'm the pea. - The pea? It goes under the mattresses. - Not in this fairy tale, sweetheart. - I'm getting the marshal. You do that! This whole parade is a fiasco! Let's see what this baby'll do. Hey, what are you doing?! Then all we do is blend in with traffic... ...without arousing suspicion. Once at the airport, there's no stopping us. Stop! Security. - You and your insect pack your float? - Yes. Has it been in your possession the entire time? Would you remove your shoes? - Remove your stinger. - It's part of me. I know. Just having some fun. Enjoy your flight. Then if we're lucky, we'll have just enough pollen to do the job. Oan you believe how lucky we are? We have just enough pollen to do the job! I think this is gonna work. It's got to work. Attention, passengers, this is Oaptain Scott. We have a bit of bad weather in New York. It looks like we'll experience a couple hours delay. Barry, these are cut flowers with no water. They'll never make it. I gotta get up there and talk to them. Be careful. Oan I get help with the Sky Mall magazine? I'd like to order the talking inflatable nose and ear hair trimmer. Oaptain, I'm in a real situation. - What'd you say, Hal? - Nothing. Bee! Don't freak out! My entire species... What are you doing? - Wait a minute! I'm an attorney! - Who's an attorney? Don't move. Oh, Barry. Good afternoon, passengers. This is your captain. Would a Miss Vanessa Bloome in 24B please report to the cockpit? And please hurry! What happened here? There was a DustBuster, a toupee, a life raft exploded. One's bald, one's in a boat, they're both unconscious! - Is that another bee joke? - No! No one's flying the plane! This is JFK control tower, Flight 356. What's your status? This is Vanessa Bloome. I'm a florist from New York. Where's the pilot? He's unconscious, and so is the copilot. Not good. Does anyone onboard have flight experience? As a matter of fact, there is. - Who's that? - Barry Benson. From the honey trial?! Oh, great. Vanessa, this is nothing more than a big metal bee. It's got giant wings, huge engines. I can't fly a plane. - Why not? Isn't John Travolta a pilot? - Yes. How hard could it be? Wait, Barry! We're headed into some lightning. This is Bob Bumble. We have some late-breaking news from JFK Airport, where a suspenseful scene is developing. Barry Benson, fresh from his legal victory... That's Barry! ...is attempting to land a plane, loaded with people, flowers and an incapacitated flight crew. Flowers?! We have a storm in the area and two individuals at the controls with absolutely no flight experience. Just a minute. There's a bee on that plane. I'm quite familiar with Mr. Benson and his no-account compadres. They've done enough damage. But isn't he your only hope? Technically, a bee shouldn't be able to fly at all. Their wings are too small... Haven't we heard this a million times? "The surface area of the wings and body mass make no sense." - Get this on the air! - Got it. - Stand by. - We're going live. The way we work may be a mystery to you. Making honey takes a lot of bees doing a lot of small jobs. But let me tell you about a small job. If you do it well, it makes a big difference. More than we realized. To us, to everyone. That's why I want to get bees back to working together. That's the bee way! We're not made of Jell-O. We get behind a fellow. - Black and yellow! - Hello! Left, right, down, hover. - Hover? - Forget hover. This isn't so hard. Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Barry, what happened?! Wait, I think we were on autopilot the whole time. - That may have been helping me. - And now we're not! So it turns out I cannot fly a plane. All of you, let's get behind this fellow! Move it out! Move out! Our only chance is if I do what I'd do, you copy me with the wings of the plane! Don't have to yell. I'm not yelling! We're in a lot of trouble. It's very hard to concentrate with that panicky tone in your voice! It's not a tone. I'm panicking! I can't do this! Vanessa, pull yourself together. You have to snap out of it! You snap out of it. You snap out of it. - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - Hold it! - Why? Oome on, it's my turn. How is the plane flying? I don't know. Hello? Benson, got any flowers for a happy occasion in there? The Pollen Jocks! They do get behind a fellow. - Black and yellow. - Hello. All right, let's drop this tin can on the blacktop. Where? I can't see anything. Oan you? No, nothing. It's all cloudy. Oome on. You got to think bee, Barry. - Thinking bee. - Thinking bee. Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Wait a minute. I think I'm feeling something. - What? - I don't know. It's strong, pulling me. Like a 27-million-year-old instinct. Bring the nose down. Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! - What in the world is on the tarmac? - Get some lights on that! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! - Vanessa, aim for the flower. - OK. Out the engines. We're going in on bee power. Ready, boys? Affirmative! Good. Good. Easy, now. That's it. Land on that flower! Ready? Full reverse! Spin it around! - Not that flower! The other one! - Which one? - That flower. - I'm aiming at the flower! That's a fat guy in a flowered shirt. I mean the giant pulsating flower made of millions of bees! Pull forward. Nose down. Tail up. Rotate around it. - This is insane, Barry! - This's the only way I know how to fly. Am I koo-koo-kachoo, or is this plane flying in an insect-like pattern? Get your nose in there. Don't be afraid. Smell it. Full reverse! Just drop it. Be a part of it. Aim for the center! Now drop it in! Drop it in, woman! Oome on, already. Barry, we did it! You taught me how to fly! - Yes. No high-five! - Right. Barry, it worked! Did you see the giant flower? What giant flower? Where? Of course I saw the flower! That was genius! - Thank you. - But we're not done yet. Listen, everyone! This runway is covered with the last pollen from the last flowers available anywhere on Earth. That means this is our last chance. We're the only ones who make honey, pollinate flowers and dress like this. If we're gonna survive as a species, this is our moment! What do you say? Are we going to be bees, orjust Museum of Natural History keychains? We're bees! Keychain! Then follow me! Except Keychain. Hold on, Barry. Here. You've earned this. Yeah! I'm a Pollen Jock! And it's a perfect fit. All I gotta do are the sleeves. Oh, yeah. That's our Barry. Mom! The bees are back! If anybody needs to make a call, now's the time. I got a feeling we'll be working late tonight! Here's your change. Have a great afternoon! Oan I help who's next? Would you like some honey with that? It is bee-approved. Don't forget these. Milk, cream, cheese, it's all me. And I don't see a nickel! Sometimes I just feel like a piece of meat! I had no idea. Barry, I'm sorry. Have you got a moment? Would you excuse me? My mosquito associate will help you. Sorry I'm late. He's a lawyer too? I was already a blood-sucking parasite. All I needed was a briefcase. Have a great afternoon! Barry, I just got this huge tulip order, and I can't get them anywhere. No problem, Vannie. Just leave it to me. You're a lifesaver, Barry. Oan I help who's next? All right, scramble, jocks! It's time to fly. Thank you, Barry! That bee is living my life! Let it go, Kenny. - When will this nightmare end?! - Let it all go. - Beautiful day to fly. - Sure is. Between you and me, I was dying to get out of that office. You have got to start thinking bee, my friend. - Thinking bee! - Me? Hold it. Let's just stop for a second. Hold it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. Oan we stop here? I'm not making a major life decision during a production number! All right. Take ten, everybody. Wrap it up, guys. I had virtually no rehearsal for that.

Favorite Films of 2017

by Clay Keller

I’m finding it difficult to write something coherent about Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, partially because the more I watch it, the more I’m convinced that I’m not meant to try; that its power lies in its complete lack of interest in being “coherent.” Just as a life, especially one thrown into grief-stricken chaos, only has the coherence that we arbitrarily apply to it, Personal Shopper is a series of strange and beguiling instances, full of un-explained oddities, horrors, and loose-ends. Instances that capture, better than any movie I’ve seen, that ephemeral feeling of existential entrapment; of being not stuck in place, but captive somehow. It’s a maddening, inexplicable, feeling, and that a film could dramatize it so well is deeply impressive.  

Speaking of captivity, Kristen Stewart delivers a performance in Personal Shopper that is so unvarnished, so unencumbered, that one has a difficult time conceiving that it was delivered at all, and not just simply lived. Each time I revisit this film I find it more difficult to turn away. It’s only a matter of time before Americans accept what the French celebrated a few years back: the fact that Kristen Stewart is fucking terrific. 

Anyway, I don’t know. Maybe everything I wrote above is rambling pablum. A bunch of nonsense my mind concocted by way of trying to intellectualize (or excuse) an instinctual love of a weirdo movie in which Kristen Stewart has a dramatic imessage conversation for twenty minutes and gets attacked by a Victorian ghost, which is just audacious and great. Is Personal Shopper a brilliant work by a genius and his genius muse? Is Personal Shopper bullshit? 

Or is it just me?

HONORABLE MENTION

(In Alphabetical Order)

Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

Get Out (Jordan Peele)

A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd)

Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin)

Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

Win It All (Joe Swanberg)

Anticipated 2017 Films Not Yet Seen: The Post (Update: I loved it!), Phantom Thread (Update: Favorite PTA since TWBB), The Florida Project, mother!, Good Time

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2018

Annihilation (Alex Garland)

- Behind the camera: our premier sci-fi screenwriter. In front of the camera: Portman, Thompson, and Isaac. In the audience: me. 

The Happytime Murders (Brian Henson)

- The director of two of the best Muppet movies making his first feature in 20 years is definitely something to be excited about. 

E-Book (Olivier Assayas)

- Assayas has been so contemplative lately that we’ve forgotten that he’s also a total goddamn genre-mixing weirdo (see: Demonlover, Boarding Gate). Now he’s making a “full-blown comedy” with Juliette Binoche, one of his oldest collaborators, and I am here for it. 

Underwater (William Eubank)

- My favorite subgenre + my favorite Kristen Stewart = a movie I will probably love regardless of objective quality. 

You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsey)

- If this trailer doesn’t ignite all of your senses, you are dead to the magic of cinema: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMqsd7Umxy8

FAVORITE CLASSICS FIRST SEEN IN 2017

How on earth did I not see Do the Right Thing until I was nearly 30? It’s almost unfathomable how colorful, funny, and heartbreaking Spike Lee’s 3rd film is. It has myriad memorable scenes and characters. It creates a sense of place in a way that is almost unparalleled in film history. It’s entertaining as hell. It also has a pulsating heart of essential humanity and righteous anger that vibrates at such an honest frequency as to make you feel literally connected to the screen as the narrative unfolds. Do the Right Thing shook me, and is one of those “as good or better than its out-sized reputation” films, alongside The Godfather and Casablanca. 

FAVORITE TELEVISION

Me, at the beginning of 2017: “I’ve never seen Twin Peaks, mostly because I’m worried I’ll hate it, I’m not really a David Lynch fan.” Me, in August of 2017: “HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT THE ZIG-ZAG FLOORS IN THE BLACK LODGE ARE THE SAME AS THE ZIG-ZAG FLOORS IN THE LOBBY OF ERASERHEAD’S APARTMENT BUILDING?! AND THERE’S A PHOTO OF A MUSHROOM CLOUD ON THE WALL?! IS IT ALL CONNECTED?!” 

If I could retroactively make one of my 2017 resolutions be “do a total 180 on David Lynch and get super into Twin Peaks” then I would have accomplished something in this God-foresaken shit-ass year. I don’t know if it was age, or context, or what, but this year found my eyes suddenly opened to the genius of well-known genius David Lynch. I went from avoiding Twin Peaks for years to devouring and loving both of the original seasons. From “Mulholland Drive is weird and boring” to “Mulholland Drive is weird and a stone-cold modern masterpiece.” My former podcast co-host Darren Franich maintains that one needs to learn how to watch David Lynch, by watching David Lynch, and I couldn’t agree more. Watch just one of the elliptical missives that Lynch has released into our miasma and you will be left befuddled and possibly angry. Watch five and you’ll unlock the mysteries of the universe. 

Hyperbole? Perhaps. Then again, did you see episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return? 

It would have been so easy for Lynch and Frost to thrill Twin Peaks fans with The Return. After all, these are people (myself now included) who get goosebumps every time Kyle MacLachlan is so much as in the same room as a cup of coffee. Put a cherry pie on front of him and they (again, me now included) need to change their shorts. Instead, and, in retrospect, predictably, Lynch and Frost decided to use the eighteen hours Showtime gave them to thrill their audience in a different way: by creating an audio/visual experience the likes none of them had ever seen. Was it frustrating to wait nearly the entire season for our beloved Agent Cooper to return (if he does at all)? Yes. Were there storylines and characters that seemed meandering and pointless? Yes. Who the fuck is Freddie and why does he have a green glove hand? Yes. But none of that matters, because, for an entire summer, I rushed home on Sunday nights, needing to immerse myself in the wild juxtapositions of image and sound and performance that Lynch plucked out of the cosmos and so graciously delivered to us mere mortals, as soon as I possibly could.  

When Cooper finally did come back, well, Lynch nailed that moment too (goosebumps! shorts-changing!), of course, because he’s just as good at giving you what you want as he is at giving you what you need. And nostalgia goosebumps are lovely and all, but it’s a testament to the success of Twin Peaks: The Return that the nostalgia goosebumps are not what I’ll remember. What I’ll remember is when Cooper (?) asks what year it is, Laura Palmer (?) screams, and the lights go out in Twin Peaks (?), and my skin basically tore apart at the seams.  

reaction post typed while watching the HawaiiCon/HonCon Jensen and Misha (and Jared) panel !!!

AKSDSJFLDKFG COCKLES (their first date?????? omg)

@bowleggedcharmer​ gave me this video

http://rosewhipped22.tumblr.com/post/167703562273/ibelieveinthelittletreetopper

but this was in the youtube recommended bar with a better view (and extends past where the other one leaves off)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbFku0X4aAg&ab_channel=SPNConGirl

-

07:53pm

i am so underprEPARED

-

07:54

i think it starts with jared + jensen + misha

okay here goes. this is gonna drain all my energy for the rest of the day

-

07:58

just jared talking to rob about being tall rn

-

07:59

misha: “to be able to walk around in the forest and see the underside of mushrooms??”

misha is so much funnier than everyone else dear god 

i teared up earlier because of his “i wish for this” campaign trying to combat homelessness for women and kids

he is the best person

like....... the best person 

-

08:02

oh right this is a misha+jared panel?? and jensen comes in later i guess. unsure if i should just skip to the cockles or what

naaah i’ll watch the whole thing because misha

-

08:05

https://youtu.be/2ZVG00_Xv0Q?t=5m5s

was misha pinching mark sheppand’s nipple or mark pellegrino’s??

-

ah, sheppard. jared is pretending to be short

(did pellegrino get banned from cons in the end??)

-

JARED’S MARK ACCENT IS ALARMINGLY WEIRDLY ACCURATE BUT WOW OKAY

-

08:12

jared is so easily distracted by himself

-

08:13

https://youtu.be/2ZVG00_Xv0Q?t=9m30s

whatever music jared is playing i love it and also recognise it WHAT IS THAT

-

08:15

when misha sings it makes my heart feel happy

-

08:17

https://youtu.be/2ZVG00_Xv0Q?t=12m10s

fan: “interesting to see dean and cas go do their thing--”

jared” whOA WHoa WHoa” *plays romantic music*

-

08:22

still laughing at the influence thing

i love that half a year later and half the planet away, with entirely different people, the same joke doesn’t need explaining

-

08:25

jared about misha: “he loves.............” (trying not to say “come on his face”???)

*PLAYS THE MUSIC HE PLAYED FOR DESTIEL*

-

08:28

i am excited for this girl’s song!!!

-

08:29

A NICE CHORUS WHERE’S THE REST OF IT

-

08:31

the girl saying “please don’t say that, and then you do say it... all the time”

same bro

....except i totally thought she meant slurs and stuff not just cheesy lines

-

08:38

HI JENSEN

https://youtu.be/2ZVG00_Xv0Q?t=26m50s

IT BEGINS 

-

08:39

HE’S BEEN ON STAGE 2 SECONDS AND HE’S ALREADY TOUCHING MISHA AND NOT LETTING GO

-

08:48

first video ended, watching with this one now

https://youtu.be/GbFku0X4aAg?t=6m20s

-

08:50

honestly this kind of feels like dean and cas trying to get a marriage licence while toddler!sam plays a xylephone in the background

-

08:54

thank u whoever turned the thing off

jensen was that u

-

08:58

jensen’s faces when he’s talking about mish breaking character <3 <3 <3 <3

-

09:01pm

HEART EYES ALERT

-

09:03

mishA’S LIL “MMM”

THIS IS TOO MUCH

WHAT A SWEET INSULT

-

09:06

i’m still not sure how concerned to be about misha (or alex)

like yeah they’re full grown adults who obviously have fun on set

but also consent for touching is a thing and misha’s very clear that there’s no consent happening here

i’m glad at least misha calls it by what it is - “abuse”. kind of weird that people laugh though

-

09:11

sexual harassment for sure though

-

09:14

DEM BOWLEGS

https://youtu.be/GbFku0X4aAg?t=18m31s

-

09:18

okay where’s the gay oil rig porn fics at

-

09:18

this question “what changed in your relationship”

https://youtu.be/GbFku0X4aAg?t=21m33s

HOWDY THIS SOUNDS LIKE IT’S GONNA BE GAY

-

09:21

not just gay. also magical ‘cause MISHA PREDICTED COCKLES/J2M/spnfamily

-

09:24

THEIR FIRST DATE

jensen quoting misha: “we’ll take the three least-ordered items on the menu”

MISHA IS THE BEST HUMAN

AND JENSEN KNOWS IT

-

09:26

jensen: “i hate him right now. but i-- i think i love him a lil bit more too”

SO MUCH  ( 0 U 0 )

OH MY GOSH

-

09:28

https://youtu.be/GbFku0X4aAg?t=27m00s

AS SOON AS MiSHA’S “EMPTY” ACCENT COMES UP

JENSEN DOES HIS FLAMBOYANT THING AGAIN

THIS GUY

IT MEANS SOMETHING  BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS

it’s like his gay setting just went up to 11

-

09:30

all i hear for that accent is Q from star trek

-

09:31

JENSEN IS SUCH ACCENT TRASH

OR JUST MISHA TRASH TBH

-

09:31

THEY ARE FLIRTING SO FUCKING HARD!??!?!?!?!!

-

09:38

#SKITTLEGATE

-

09:41

i gotta go hang out with my family before they go to bed, back laterrrr~

-

09:48

false alarm, i’ll go in about 10 minutes

(i also just told my sister the tale of the first cockles date)

-

09:50

https://youtu.be/GbFku0X4aAg?t=34m33s

THE FACT MISHA HAD A PORTRAIT OF JENSEN’S FACE IN (probably rainbow) SKITTLES IN HIS CLOSET FOR MONTHS

AND THEN VICKI TOLD HIM THAT RATS ATE IT

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS SAYING HERE BUT WOW

-

10:00pm

WHAT A GOOD PANEL i love them

i love how much jensen loves misha ;u;

and how much misha loves jensen

and how much jared loves that they love each other

they basically didn’t talk about anything but somehow said a lot

Memoria (pt. Eleven)

Characters: Sam X Claire

Warnings: fluff tons and tons of fluff, angst, talk of self harm, sexual situations….ya know the usual lol

Notes: this is one of my favorite chapters I had alot of fun writing it :)

—————————————

Sam stared at himself in the mirror, he was dressed in a simple white tee and jeans, his hair slicked back but falling out of place.

He didn’t look awful…

Oh no even better…

He looked desperate.

What wasn’t to like?

Fuck he was gonna look like a wilting cactus next to a blooming rose taking Claire to dinner.

Closing his eyes he let out a heavy exhale as a sharp pain shot up his leg, this was such a bad idea.

He was gonna look like an idiot.

He was gonna fuck up and lose her forever.

A sharp knock caused him to jump, his attention jerking to the closed door.

“Sam you better stop it, I can feel your self deprecation from here”

He chuckled, her voice an instant ray of sunshine bursting through his storm clouds.

Walking to the door he pulled it open with a smile, Claire had her arms folded across her chest as she cocked an elegant brow at him.

Her eyes widened as she took in his appearance.

“wow..you look..”

He cut her off with a scoff “not sure what your wowing about…i’m..” he gestured to himself in disgust.

She rolled her eyes grabbing his arm to pull him from the bathroom, effectively shutting him up “I’m wowing cuz you’re hot, ya dork”.

He rubbed his arm hoping she couldn’t see the blush creeping across his skin “maybe this isn’t such a good idea…I mean it’s only my second day out…maybe we should just stay here”

He was stammering, his eyes darting around the hallway avoiding her gaze. Claire smiled rubbing his arm gently “Sam, calm down ok” he closed his eyes nodding as she walked him to the living room.

She sat down on the couch pulling him down with her “if you don’t wanna go on a date with me that’s fine”. He wrinkled his nose shaking his head “no…that’s not” he growled dropping his head in his hands.

Claire chuckled rubbing his back “take it easy honey, it’s gonna be fine”

He breathed out a heavy sigh “why do I gotta over think shit”

She smiled running her hands through his hair “it’s normal to be nervous”.

He bounced his left leg nervously, rubbing the back of his neck he stole a quick glance at her before dropping his gaze back to the floor.

“I wish I could just walk out that door with you on my arm, eat at a fancy restaurant, give you the most magical evening of your life…then come home and just…” he shook his head as he trailed off.

She leaned over to kiss his temple “so this is home now?” he shrugged “it’s not like I have anywhere else”

He could’ve punched himself for slinging such cold words at her.

Fuck he was such a dick

She pulled her hands to her lap as she watched him tense up at her retreating touch. He instantly turned to face her grasping her hands, his face almost looked pained “Claire that’s not what I…” she kissed his lips gently. His eyes sliding shut as she caressed his hand with her thumb “I know Sam” she whispered.

“you’re afraid, I get it…and when you get scared you get snippy” she giggled.

“I’m being a whiney asshole” he grumbled “this was my fucking idea and I can’t even man up enough to follow through”.

She frowned, pulling back to look at him “you’re not seriously diminishing your manhood right now?” he snapped his eyes open “tell me I’m wrong, Claire” he growled getting back to his feet “I can’t give you a normal relationship, I can't….give you what you want, what you need…I can’t…” he closed his eyes trying to steady his breathing.

“I can’t keep lashing out at you for my own shortcomings”.

Claire smiled getting to her feet to wrap her arms around him.

“Sam, there not shortcomings…your coping with a lot of trauma, you’re just dealing with it in your own way”. He gave her an exasperated sigh grasping her shoulders to gently push her away “but this isn’t your fault Claire, I shouldn’t be snapping at you…ever…you’ve done nothing but believe in me and everytime I think I’m gaining some ground something small sends me back into my damn shell”.

He runs his hands over his face before gesturing to her “and what’s the first thing I do? Lash out at you cuz it’s easy, cuz I can't….”

She frowned “can’t what?”

He winced rubbing his arm, avoiding her gaze “nothing…”

Claire sighed with a slight nod, it made sense “I get it” she whispered moving in to grasp his hand once more making him shiver as he continued to avoid her eyes.

“You snap at me hoping one day I will stop caring about you, so that I will send you back so you can…punish yourself” he grimaced closing his eyes.

It was all the confirmation she needed.

“Sam, you might as well get that crap out of your head…right now” she breathed, her voice shaking in fear and anger. “Because, It doesn’t matter what you do or how bad it gets…” she grasped his face in her hands forcing him to look at her “I am never going to stop caring about you…never” she said the last with such conviction that Sam couldn’t stop the tear that ran down his cheek.

He gasped leaning forward so that there heads could meet.

“I’m sorry”

“stop apologizing” she whispered.

Sam hugged her tight, “let’s do this”

She smiled “How about we walk out the door first”. He chuckled pulling away as he sniffed wiping his eyes with a deep exhale “that sounds good” nodding she grasped his hand moving to the door.

********************************

Noticing his continued unease Claire decided it was probably best to just go for a walk. Living outside of the city was a blessing, she loved the peace and quiet and right now the solitude was paying off.

Sam stared at the small stretch of forest behind her house a small bike path visible in its center.

His eyes drifted to the overcast sky above, “hope you’re not afraid of getting wet” he grumbled as she moved in beside him.

She giggled “I’m just gonna let that statement slide right past me and counter with, if it rains…” she sent him a wink “no, I’m not afraid of getting wet”. He gave her a funny look before shaking his head with a deep chuckle “girl, when are you not thinking about sex?”

She laughed “Well you’re a very attractive man, Sam…I just can’t help myself” he smiled grasping her hand as they entered the sparse cluster of trees.

The forest was beautiful, with tall tan trees and light underbrush. Birds sang above them as Sam led Claire to a fallen log surrounded by short mushrooms.

She smiled as they sat down “what’s on your mind Sam?” he smiled rubbing her fingers with his thumb “tell me something about yourself”

She blinked in surprise.

They really hadn’t talked about herself much, she shrugged “uh, I’m 32…I like walking on the beach and playing volleyball” he watched her with a gentle smile, the slight crinkles by his eyes seemed to make him even more handsome in the soft light.

Claire looked away with a blush “anything specific you wanna know?”

He shrugged shifting on the log nervously “I don’t know, I just want to know more about you”.

His eyes suddenly lit up

A wide smile spreading across his face.

“What’s your favorite color?”

She giggled holding his hand up to her lips to place a gentle kiss to his skin.

“gold”

He smiled scooting closer to her “your favorite color is gold?” she nodded. He shifted forward “ok, what’s your favorite animal?”

“Elephant”

He seemed to be getting more and more excited with each answer making her laugh.

“Did you always want to be in your line of work?”

She shook her head “growing up I wanted to be a lifeguard but switched to psychology after my best friends mom was diagnosed with schizophrenia” he nodded “did…do you stay in contact with your parents?” she smiled “ya my mom and dad live in Houston, I try to call em at least once a week”.

His smile fades

“it’s weird not knowing”

She bridged the gap between them leaning against his shoulder “I guess you kind of fell off the map sometime ago…they did a blood test and found nothing about you in the system”

He furrowed his brow “How is that even possible?” she shook her head “I’m not sure, maybe you were able to use your military background to your advantage”.

She frowned “honestly you being a ward of the state, I don’t think they tried very hard”

He shrugged “it’s not a big deal, chances are I’d hate what I found anyway”.

She rubbed his thigh, her mouth opening to say something as a loud crack of thunder caused her to jump. She gasped clinging to his arm as he chuckled, the sky opened up releasing a torrent of rain pouring down around them.

Quickly she pulled away jumping to her feet with a squeal “god it’s so cold” she cried.

He followed her laughing as she turned to hide against his soaked shirt “I thought you didn’t mind getting wet?” he smiled wrapping his arms around her. She nuzzled into his chest laughing against the wet fabric “I don’t… but it just came out of nowhere” she whined.

He pulled her closer, happy to be someone she could seek shelter in.

Sam rested his head on top of hers rubbing her shoulders in attempt to warm her up.

“let’s head back before you freeze to death” he rasped into her wet hair.

Giggling she pulled away from him grabbing his hand to drag him behind her as they ran back toward the house.

The both of them continued to laugh as they finally stumbled to the edge of the trees, Claire snorted covering her mouth as Sam leaned against a tree to catch his breath.

Shit his leg was hurting

But he didn’t care

Her smile was the only pain killer he would ever need.

Another crack of thunder made her jump again her feet slipping in the fresh mud.

Her arms flailed out as she slid backwards. Sam’s fingers wrapped around her arm pulling her back to him, his rapid breathing and deep laughter rubbing his warm chest against her spine, the cold material between them making her gasp.

She leaned her head back against his shoulder with a quiet laugh, his arms loosening around her.

“You ok?”

Turning around in his grasp Claire leaned up to press her lips firmly to his, her fingers raking through his wet hair making it stick up. He moaned gripping her hips as the tree bark scraped against his back in pleasurable stings.

She grasped the back of his head, the rain pouring down their bodies sending small streams of water running between their intertwined lips.

He moved his right hand up to gently grip her neck as his lips pressed in over hers more insistently.

Something about the rain, the woods and the storm raging around them added to the uncontrollable fire building up between them.

It was almost primal

Claire gasped grabbing his face her nails biting his rough skin as her other hand pulled at his now dripping hair a deep groan vibrating up through his chest.

Sam let his large hands run down her body, the wet fabric of her shirt clinging to her skin. He bit at her neck letting his right hand crawl down her thigh lifting it up against his hip.

She gasped, her hot breath puffing out against his cold skin as she gripped the chilled hair at the nape of his neck.

He grunted as she moved against him, his fingers gripping her thigh roughly as he pulled her closer rocking his hips to gently meet hers.

Claire was dying for him to move against her more firmly but she allowed him to set the pace.

A low rumble of thunder rolled through the gray sky as he growled low in his chest letting it vibrate through their joined skin.

The rain slowly ceased bringing a pause to their heated make out session.

Sam moaned leaning his head back against the tree as she ran her hands down his now see through shirt, her cool digits gripping ahold of his leather belt.

She tugged him impossibly closer, her leg sliding back down his hip as he released her.

“So much for taking shelter” she giggled rubbing her face against the soaked fabric gripping his sides.

His breathing was ragged as he panted to the sky “holy shit, god damn”

She laughed at how wrecked he looked…she could only imagine what she looked like.

“Sorry about that” she giggled kissing his chest gently “It’s just…you look really…really good wet”.

He chuckled, his breathing labored “thank you”

She bit her lip looking up to meet his heated pools “are you ok?” he let out a shaky breath before nodding.

Leaning his head back against the tree he took a couple more deep breaths to calm himself before looking down at her again.

“Kinda worried I won’t survive our first time” he chuckled pulling her into a hug.

Claire laughed “I promise not to kill ya” he smiled running his fingers through her wet hair “we really should get back inside before we both get sick”.

She pouted slightly, pulling on the bottom of his shirt so that it peeled away from the skin of his stomach showing the crest of his hip bone.

“what'cha doin sweetheart?” he gasped as she shot him a mischievous smirk.

“oh, sweetheart huh?….I like that”

His brow creased as she bent over pushing her hand to fist his shirt in the center of his chest as she bit his hip bone growling as he let out a loud moan, his hands gripping the tree behind him as she sucked against his cool flesh.

Letting out a breathy moan she scratched her nails down his chest, her teeth digging into him harshly.

“Aaargh shit” he cried out roughly, his right hand running down her back to pull on her shirt “fuck, Claire….take it easy” he rasped. At his slightly pained grunt she pulled away to kiss the now red and purple patch of skin. Smiling in satisfaction she slid back up to meet his hazel eyes.

“sorry” She whispered kissing his lips gently, he chuckled “no your not” she snorted a short laugh against his lips “I couldn’t help it”.

He wrinkled his nose as he laughed “it’s ok…” he rubbed his rough facial hair against her neck his lips pressing over her ear “I liked it” he growled sucking on the lobe as she arched up against him.

*****************************

They returned to the house hand in hand both soaked to the bone.

Sam opened the door for her making her smile.

Once they were inside Sam pulled her to his side kissing her hair, “what do you like to do for fun?”

She smiled “going on walks with you” he dropped his head to his chest blushing as he gently pushed her toward the bathroom.

She giggled opening the door “wanna join me” she purred jokingly at him from around the wood. He smiled “I’ll catch the next one” she smiled softly reaching out to grab his hand pulling him inside the room with her.

“uh…I…Claire?” he stammered nervously eyeing the bathroom.

She shook her head “calm down Sam” she soothed “were not gonna do anything, just…keep me company, please?” her lips crooked up at the question.

He looked at the shower then back at her “do I..?” she hugged him tightly “just sit down and talk to me…that’s all” he nodded.

Taking a seat on the stool in front of the mirror Sam leaned back against the counter “so, uh…what do we talk about?” she shot him a wink as she turned her back to him turning on the shower.

“We can talk about whatever you want” he dropped his gaze to the floor with a rough noise when she slipped her shirt over her head. He was breathing heavy as he sneaked a quick glance at her now scantily clad back.

His mouth dropped open as she slid her pants down to her ankles leaving her clad in nothing but her black bra and panties, he couldn’t contain his loud gasp when she turned around to look at him.

He quickly jerked his head to side slamming his eyes shut.

“you ok?” she whispered

She was giving him an out.

He flinched when her cool hands cupped his face pulling him to look at her.

He nodded, his chest heaving as she moved to straddle his lap “I’m not forcing you to stay here Sam, you can leave if I’m making you uncomfortable ok?” he looked up at her green eyes.

She was worried about him

He sighed leaning forward to wrap his arms around her, the feeling of her soft skin against him was heaven.

She ran her hands through his damp hair “I’m just…I want us to be comfortable around each other ok?” he nodded his head against her chest

“Me to”

He pulled away tapping her hip with his calloused hand ushering her off of him “so…do you have any siblings?” she gave him a knowing smile as she got to her feet heading to the shower.

Too much for one day

Her back faced him once more

Her fingers unhooked her bra letting it hit the floor “no, I’m an only child” she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties tugging them down slowly as Sam quickly dropped his gaze.

“What’s your favorite flower?” he rasped as she entered behind the frosted glass.

“I’m actually a fan of succulents”

His face rose at that “what?” he could here her chuckling behind the shower door as steam billowed up around the glass “yeah I never had much of a green thumb so I kinda grew attached to Cacti…I think they’re actually quite beautiful” he stared at her shifting silhouette.

Maybe being a wilting cactus wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

“you ok?”

Her voice shook him out of his thoughts “uh… yeah”

He continued to ask simple questions about her life, each answer had his heart swelling with hope that maybe there was a place for him in her heart.

That he could find peace in her oasis

That they could be happy…together

“Sam?” she called out making him get to his feet clearing his throat “ya?”

She turned to his shadow across the door placing her hand against the glass “hand me a towel please?” he placed his hand over the glass covering hers before sliding down it grabbing the fluffy white towel off the rack.

Opening the door slightly he handed her the towel, her wet fingers running across his. His breath hitched, his fingers tightened around the fabric as she met his tawny gaze around the door.

“What’s on your mind Sam?” she whispered tugging gently on the towel.

He was breathing heavy, his eyes focused on their hands.

“Sam are you ok?”

He swallowed roughly, toeing off his boots which had her furrowing her brow in confusion.

What was he doing?

Pushing her back into the shower, Sam crowded in next to her, his eyes shut as he tossed the towel onto the floor outside of the stall.

“Sam?” she gasped as he reached around her to turn the water back on. The hot jets flattening his hair against his forehead as it ran off his chin. He finally opened his eyes to look at her, his face flushed and nervous as he leaned forward to press his head against hers.

His voice was rough as he stared deep into her eyes.

“undress me”

—————————————

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Caught Up in a Dream - Ch. 7

Summary:  Dan is Phil’s best friend, and he has been for the better half of the year. The only problem is that Dan doesn’t exist, not really. Dan is just a person who appears in Phil’s dreams; someone who’s made up. At least, that’s what Phil believes.

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: mentions of death 

Previous Chapter

It had been days since Dan disappeared and Phil was going insane. The last time Phil had been this stressed was when Dan showed up in the first place. But that had been a year ago and within that time he managed to get a best friend out of Dan--one that was now gone. And it wasn’t just the Dan in his dreams, it was the real one too; they were both gone. When he first found out that Dan was truly missing, he went through a rollercoaster of emotions. First worry, then anger, some sadness, a bit of guilt, and even a hint of excitement before he finally settled on anxiety and stress.

At first, he thought it was just one big nightmare, but then he remembered he couldn’t really get nightmares. Then he figured he shouldn’t worry about it too much and that Dan would show back up in a few days, but it had been a few days. A few too many. Dan had never once disappeared from his dreams until, well until now. Granted, Dan had never shown up outside of his dreams either, so past rules and experiences didn’t really apply anymore.

Phil was still very suspicious of both Dan’s and the likelihood of them being the same person. And honestly, now that they have disappeared, he was even more suspicious. He had almost no doubt that they were both Dan, though he still didn't have any solid proof. Phil wasn't sure if he wanted them to be the same person or not, on one hand it would make things easier and clearer, but on the other it would make things more complicated. It was a very conflicted situation. And what if they were the same person? What would that mean? Would that mean Dan really exists or that he never existed at all? It was confusing and complex, Phil didn't really want to think about it anymore.

What he did want to think about, however, was where the fuck Dan had gone. Phil had waited about long enough and it wouldn't be much longer until he went insane. But now he just needed a plan to start looking for him, so why not start in the place that seemed most logical to look: at school.

-

The night had gone slowly and Phil got very little sleep, not that anything (or rather anyone) was in his dreams. But when the morning did finally come, he practically rejoiced and he was out the door by six--even though he didn't normally leave until nearly an hour later. But despite the extremely early start, he felt like it was much later than any other morning.

When Phil arrived at school he immediately headed to the principal’s office. He needed to see if the principal knew where Dan had been - whether he be sick or on vacation or just disappeared - Phil figured that through the school’s system would be the best way to find Dan.

Phil walked up to the too fancy stained glass door that lead into the office and gave it a firm knock. When no one answered, he knocked again. Still nothing. So Phil tried the doorknob and was surprised to see that it was unlocked. He peeked inside the room and took quick note of its emptiness.

Phil bit his lip and wondered if he should just go in and find Dan’s file himself. After a few moments and not-so-careful consideration, he figured that he'd waited long enough and didn't have time for the principal to show up. Besides, it wasn't like he was snooping around for test answers or something, he was just on a simple mission to find out where his friend had been, nothing more.

Phil took a deep breath and wandered into the room. He looked around for a moment and figured his best bet would be the laptop sitting atop the sleek wooden desk. He walked over to the desk (he felt like he was walking on eggshells, despite him believing that he wasn't doing anything wrong) and opened the laptop. The screen turned on and Phil clicked a few times to get to the desktop and was surprised that it wasn't password protected. An unlocked door, no password, the principal was practically inviting people to break into her office.

Phil's eyes wandered over the several folders on the desktop before they reached one labeled “Students”. He clicked on it and a very large list of folders with student’s names on each appeared. Thank god for the invention of search engines.

Phil quickly searched “Daniel Howell” and was confused when nothing appeared. He switched “Daniel” with “Dan”, but still nothing happened. He supposed Dan was still a fairly new student, but he thought they would've had him in the school’s system by now.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Phil nearly jumped a mile in the air when he heard the voice of his principal.

“I can explain, Ma’am, I promise,” Phil said immediately without thinking.

“Then please do,” she said bewildered.

Phil had absolutely no explanation. “Well,” he started, but didn't have anything to finish it with.

The principal waited for about a full minute before speaking up. “Philip, dear, you're one of my better students and you are the last person I would ever think to find snooping around here. And with that being said, I'm sure you have an excellent reason to be in my office at such ridiculous hours in the morning without my permission. If you would like to explain those reasons, I'd be happy to hear them-possibly even to help. And if I find it a suitable enough reason I will refrain from calling your mother and giving you a possible suspension. So, may I ask, what are you doing in my office?”

Phil didn't think he had ever heard her talk so much without breaking, but she was a fairly nice lady so he supposed telling her the truth wouldn't hurt him. “Well, I was looking for information on a student - a friend - he's been absent for the last few days and I wanted to know why. I know I should've waited for you to show up but it was eating away at me. I apologize,” Phil said, sweetening his voice to make him seem as innocent as possible.

She sighed. “And what is this friend’s name?”

“Dan,” Phil answered quickly. “Dan Howell.”

The principal let out a tired huff. “Phil, there's never been a Dan Howell at this school.”

What?

-

The moment Phil got home he practically ran to his laptop. School had been a flop - sort of, maybe, he wasn't sure - and it's not like Dan would magically appear back in his dreams (or at school), so his last option was the internet. It was a long-shot, but he didn't have anything else to go on.

He flipped open his laptop and quickly typed in the password before opening his browser. He typed “Daniel Howell” into the search bar. He debated on the search for a moment before adding “London” after it, he figured there was a lot of Dan Howell’s in the world, but how many were there in London? Once everything was typed out, Phil paused. His finger hovered over the enter button while the cursor blinked obnoxiously at him. What if he did find something? What if Dan was more than just some made-up guy? What then? Phil sighed and closed his eyes tight before pressing enter. He was about to find out.

At first, nothing but some Facebook and Twitter profiles showed up, it wasn't particularly interesting, nor what he was looking for. But then he kept scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling before he found this article about a boy. Phil didn't think much about it at first, but then he clicked on the link. A picture showed up, it was fuzzy and grayscale, but what was in the image was clear enough: it was Dan.

Phil's heart skipped a beat as he scrolled down to the article. He read over it quickly and he almost couldn't breathe. “Dan Howell, 20, drowned in a lake on Saturday.” So Phil’s best friend was some dead guy. That was fine. 

Everything was fine.

But it wasn't, Phil could barely keep it together. And then he read what the year was, and his breath hitched, it had happened nearly 25 years ago.

Phil couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't comprehend what the hell was going on. The only thing that was going through his mind was: ask the culprit.

He didn't care that Dan had been on strike, he was going to find him. He didn't care what lengths he had to go through to do it.

With a newfound purpose for finding Dan, he decided that the best place to look was where he first met him. In his mind, or rather, in his dreams. So Phil slept, and surprisingly, it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be.

-

The clouds floated around him and the stars twinkled brighter than he remembered. The atmosphere was somehow different, but Phil didn't care at the moment, all he cared about was getting Dan's attention. He was starting to think that Dan left because he wanted to, not because he was forced.

So Phil yelled and screamed and tried his best to get Dan’s attention. And oddly enough, it worked.

“So you figured it out, huh?” Phil whirled around and found Dan standing behind him. His eyes were somehow sad and dimmer than normal, so was his voice.

“Yeah, I did,” Phil said bitterly, but his tone (much like Dan's), was somehow sad.

a/n: I’m so sorry for taking nearly two months to update this (especially after a cliffhanger) but now I’m leaving you with another cliffhanger cause I can :) 

(also I��m tagging @i--am-a-mushroom bc I promised them I would when the next chapter came out)

Calls

A call.

An old friend of mine. He asks me what my plans for the summer are.

„Chilling dude! Writing my book! Cuddling with monkeys. It’s awesome man, they are more fluffy than one would imagine. And they have these tiny hands, that...“

„That sounds great...“ he cuts me off „...but do you think you could postpone that for a while. I just got this amazing property in the Himalayas. Dude, it`s amazing. I need a carpenter.“

„I am not a carpenter.“

„Doesn’t matter, bro. It will be alright“

„Ok I can come in June then.“ (we have February)

„Man, I need you already in April. It’s really important.“

„That’s impossible. I also need to go to Berlin before. At least for two months. I need to make some money and collect my tools. And spend some time with my friends and family. Earliest I can come in May. I am in the middle of a diet here, I can’t leave just now.

„Brother, it’s really important that you come in April. Can’t you just go for one month to Berlin.“

„Puhhh. Shit that’s gonne be stressful. But alright. For you! ... Mike?“

„Yeah“

„Ehm… when did you actually get out of prison?“

//

Mike and me met many years ago in a techno-club in Hamburg. He was in search of drugs. And I was dancing almost naked on one of the speakerboxes, sweating, smiling, raving. Clearly I was the sugar-man he was looking for. We became great friends that night, a night that ended three mornings later, leaving me wandering around with one too many magic mushrooms in my system, confused, wondering whether I have a home or whether I have lived all my life in the shrubs next to the railway station.

He had a fascinating and brilliant mind and I always enjoyed listening to his ideas, which were always fascinating visions of how human beings could live in a more sustainable way, connected with nature, spiritually matured and up to date with technology. Unfortunately he lived in the Netherlands and I in Hamburg, where I studied medicine, so we could not see each other as often as we wanted to.

Everyone has certain areas of interest. Mine happened to be Consciousness, God, myself as a human being experiencing reality and at those days: Drugs. A lot of them. I guess I could call it good fortune that all these things just matched perfectly. Later on I crossed the last of the items off the list. Mike never did. And I believe this to be the foundation for all the trouble that would start later.

Back then we did all we could to dive deeper into our minds with the help of this or that substance. And it was only consequential, that sooner or later we both would encounter the three infamous letters: D M T. Many many years ago, after I made my first attempts to pierce to the next dimensions with a bunch of plastic-like smoke in my lungs, I gave my dutch buddy a call and wanted to share my experience with him.

„Mike, Mike, Mike. You can‘t believe what just happened“ I squirted out full of excitement

„Tell me.“

„Have you ever heard of DMT? Man, it’s amazing. It un...“

„Dude!“

„...believable. I just saw this thing, that...“

„Dude!“

... is just too incredible to put in words. It...“

„DUDE!“ he shouted a little louder

„What?“

„I know. Man. I know. Dude, I am just standing in my kitchen, extracting the molecule from it’s plant. Man I have shitloads of it here. We‘re going every day into hyperspace. It’s...

„Bro.“

„...incredible, the other day I saw this Indian goddess, that was...

„Bro!“

„dancing and showing me shit about space and time and...“

„BRO!“

„What?“

„How about I take the train to Rotterdam tomorrow?“

„Ehm... sure, why not? I mean I got a company to run, but we will figure something out. But don’t you need to go to uni?“

„I quit.“

„What do you mean you quit? When?“

„Two days ago.“

„What? Dude, that was stupid. Why?“

„I don‘t know, man. Maybe it`s because the professors don´t know shit.“

„What the fuck? What are you talking about?“

„I mean that I saw that everything is alive. I saw what’s going on inside the cells. Man, when I sit and close my eyes, all this stuff is just appearing in front of me. Each and every organell, every molecule. Man these guys are alive. They feel. They respond to us, how we feel, how we think, what we believe in. I just can’t learn this stuff from the books anymore. It’s all consciousness.“

„Dude?“

„Yeah?“

„You’re a crazy motherfucker!“

//

These days are long gone. And although they were super interesting and wild, they certainly were also full of shit and illusions. I am happy I had them. And I am even more happy that they are over.

And now, new days are about to come.

The informations about Mike’s project are little, but he promised to send me more. Some land and buildings in a remote village in the Himalayas. Building furniture, growing food, offering retreats, meditating, stretching.

Sounds like some fuckin’ awesome days to come...

Dark Paradise

Loki/OFC Rated M (for Violence and NSFW) Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12                                             Chapter 13

Octavia had gotten sick again, and it had been that way on and off all week. Loki was worried and she had no idea what was wrong with her, so she spent most of her time either sleeping or throwing up. She began to wonder if something was really wrong and it wasn't just a stomach bug like she had assumed. Loki wondered if perhaps someone else was causing her to be sick; for instance - the one who possessed the Seidr he still felt. "How are you feeling now, love?" Loki placed a hand on her forehead. He was sitting on his knees on the floor by Octavia, who was lying on the couch after she had attempted to get up; only to begin feeling dizzy and nauseous again.

"I'm okay if I'm lying down." She groaned. Octavia was miserable. She couldn't keep anything down now, and she knew her dizzy spells were due to not getting enough nutrients. She hadn't been that worried before, but now she was getting concerned. If she kept this up, she wouldn't last the month. She was tired and weak, yet, she still tried to act strong around Loki. The look on his face broke her heart. He was so worried and he didn't sleep anymore.

She could hear him pacing the halls at night.

Loki placed a hand on her side and rubbed it gently. When she moaned in response he wondered if rubbing her stomach, as well as the aid of magic, would help to soothe away her nausea. He assumed he'd been too worried to think of that possible solution sooner. Loki slid a hand over her stomach, underneath her shirt. He closed his eyes, getting ready to begin concentrating when he stiffened. Octavia noticed his change in demeanor and he was staring at his hand now; wide-eyed. "Loki? Loki, what's wrong?" she asked, slightly panicked. Was she dying? Was it cancer? Why was he freaking out right now? Loki sucked in a breath and held it. He could feel it; the Seidr he'd been sensing for over a week now. It was inside her.

No, it can't be. Loki concentrated fully this time, shh'ing Octavia in the process of her panic. That's when he heard it. A heartbeat.

A child.

Octavia was carrying his child. How? He had been so careful, so very, very....

Loki didn't realize he was still holding his breath until he had to come back to reality, gasping for air in the process. He'd forgotten. One time. Or, well, one night. That night. The night with the special mushrooms; it had to have been that night. He could remember casting the spell every time, except that night.

He'd screwed up, and now he was terrified she was going to resent him for it. She'd freaked out the very first time they'd had sex and he had assured her he wouldn't get her pregnant.

Octavia was stuck with him now. What if she decided she didn't like him anymore? They'd only been dating two months. In Asgard, courtship goes quickly, but she wasn't from Asgard. She was from Midgard. They handled relationships a lot differently. When Octavia started screaming his name he finally snapped out of it once more.

"LOKI! For fuck's sake! Answer me!" she cried. "How bad is it? Am I going to die? What's wrong with me! I know you know, I see it all over your face!"

Loki sucked in another breath and braced himself for the worst. She was going to be so mad at him, perhaps even hate him. "O." he began, biting his lip. "I screwed up." he choked. He wasn't sure if he could bring himself to say it. How was she going to react? Would she...want to get rid of it? He wasn't sure if he could bear that...

"Loki, what are you talking about?" Why did Loki seem so scared right now? If she didn't know any better, he was holding back tears.

Loki choked out a sob, confirming Octavia's suspicions and she was so nervous her body was trembling all over. What was wrong with him? She'd never seen him like this. Hell, she never thought she'd ever see Loki like this. "O, you're with child..." he muttered through his sobs. "My child."

"What!" She was pregnant?! Then it hit her; she couldn't remember her last period-being so sick, dizzy, her sore breasts she'd blown off. "Oh, my god..." she gasped. "When?" Her voice was barely over a whisper now.

"That night, the night with-" he didn't need to finish. Octavia had clasped her hands over her mouth. "I'm so sorry." he winced, closing his eyes to brace himself for the screaming that was about to come-but it never came. "O?"

She bit her lip. Why was she not as freaked as she had assumed she'd react? Why was she taking this so well?

"O, please, say something! Scream, yell, something. I cannot bear the silence..." Loki gave her a pleading look and she looked at him confused. "You are angry, are you not?"

"Well, I mean..." Was she? "I should be, but I'd be a hypocrite. It does take two to make a baby." she paused; swallowing. "I knew the risks and we were both messed up that night. I can't put all the blame on you."

Loki was floored. "I do not understand."

"What?"

"It was my responsibility to ensure that-"

"Loki, it's not just all on you. Though, there isn't much I can do here, I could have very well made you pull out, or tried a little harder."

"But, I had assured you..." Why wasn't she angry?

"Yeah, but shit happens." she shrugged. "Is that why you are so upset, because you think I'm going to be mad at you?"

Well, duh. "Of course! Why else would I be upset?"

She looked at him dumbfounded. "I don't know. Perhaps, because we've been dating less than two months and you've already knocked me up. Most guys wouldn't take that so well." Was she in the twilight zone right now?

"Well, darling, where I'm from courtship goes rather quickly." he explained. "If we were going by Asgardian customs we would already be wed."

Her eyes widened. "Seriously!? Damn, for people who live for so long, you all sure do move fucking fast!" She couldn't believe it. MARRIED, by now?

"Yes, well, I'm aware in Midgard, customs such as those are not as common."

"No. If it were anyone else, he would have already run for the door by now." She rolled her eyes. "But, you're seriously okay with this?"

"Yes. Are you?" Loki swallowed. "I understand if you feel the need to, you know."

"What?"

"Get rid of it." he murmured sadly. That was the LAST thing he wanted her to do, but it wasn't up to him. It was her body; her choice. He would support her no matter what.

"Loki, no!" she exclaimed. "Even if-I couldn't do that." Octavia licked her lips. "Listen, if you're good with this so am I."

"But what about...what if we return to Midgard? Jane, Thor-"

"What about them?" she questioned. "They have nothing to do with you and me. As far as they are aware, we're dead. I'm sure Jane has given up by now. Thor never came for us."

"F-Odin wouldn't allow him, even if he wanted to." Loki noted and she made a face.

"I hate your father the more you tell me." she spat angrily. "Let's hope I never meet that son of a bi-"

Loki cupped a hand over her mouth. "Shh, doesn't mean someone isn't watching, love." Loki warned. "I do not need to give him another reason to hurt me."

She nodded in understanding. "Sorry. He just pisses me off." Octavia let out a sigh and then groaned. "I feel sick again. At least I know why I'm throwing up so much. I'm an idiot to have not figured it out sooner."

"Darling, you are no such thing. I didn't think of such circumstances, either." Loki reminded her. "Maybe now we can figure out how to get you better, and perhaps keep down your food. You are eating for two now, pet." Loki beamed and she giggled. "What?"

"You're adorable." Loki frowned. "No! It's just, you look so excited."

"Well, it's just...I never thought-" Loki trailed off, looking at the floor.

He never thought he'd ever have children, much less with someone who wanted to have children with him.

"Well, things change." 

@burningarbiterheart@mastreworld @neurotic-narwhal@helenaisabel@hellokittyismyspiritanimal@court-of-thorns-and-roses@mad-about-britain@archy3001@iamhisgloriouspurpose@scoobysnacks31 @sweetangelfan @Kidamon @myclock​ @prettyhatemachine01​ @catqueen434​ @worthyofthewhedonverse09​ @iwishiwasamutant​ @normanallthewayforever@wolfsmom1

Everyone I know is broken-hearted

All the genuinely smart, talented, funny people I know seem to be miserable these days. You feel it on Tumblr more than Facebook, because Facebook is where you go to do your performance art where you pretend to be a hip, urban person with the most awesomest friends and the best relationships and the very best lunches ever. Facebook is surface; Tumblr is subtext, and judging by what I’ve seen, the subtext is aching sadness. I’m not immune to this. I don’t remember ever feeling this miserable and depressed in my life, this sense of futility that makes you wish you’d simply go numb and not care anymore. I think a lot about killing myself these days. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do it and this isn’t a cry for help. But I wake up and think: fuck, more of this? Really? How much more? And is it really worth it? In my case, much of it stems from my childhood experiences and the collapse of the many relationships I had. But that’s not really the cause I think that those relationships were bulwarks, charms against the dark I’ve felt growing in this world for a long time now. When I was in love, the world outside didn’t matter so much. But without it, there is nothing keeping the wolf from the door. It's not to say I do not have good or kind people in my life, because I do. More than I deserve. It always used to be like this. Life sucked when I was young and I was unhappy then too. But there was always the sense that it was just a temporary thing, that if I stuck it out eventually the world was going to get better — become awesome, in fact. But here I am, and things aren't getting better I'm just getting older. I became an adolescent at the time Music was ushering in a decade of “slacker” ideology, as the pundits liked to put it. But the reality is that I didn’t know a whole lot of actual slackers in the until my early 20's I did know a lot of people who found themselves disillusioned with the materialism of the 1990s and what we saw as the failed rhetoric of the Sixties generation, who were all about peace and love right until the time they put on suits and ties and figured out how to divide up the world. I knew a lot of people who weren’t very interested in that path. The joke, of course, is that every generation kills the thing they love. The hippies became yuppies; Gen X talked a lot about the revolution, and then went and got themselves some venture capital and started laying into place the oversaturated, paranoid world we live in now. A lot of them tried to tell themselves they were still punk as fuck, but it’s hard to morally reconcile the thing where you listen to Fugazi on the way to your job where you help find new ways to trick people into giving up their data to advertisers. Most people don’t even bother. They just compartmentalize. And then the World Trade Center went down. And all of a sudden calling yourself an “anticapitalist terrorist” was no longer a cool posture to psych yourself up for protest. It became something you might go to jail for — or worse, to one of the Black Camps on some shithole island somewhere. Corporate capitalism became conflated somehow with patriotism. And the idea that the things you own end up defining you became quaint, as ridiculous spoken aloud as “tune in, turn on, drop out”. In fact, it became a positive: if you bought the right laptop, the right smartphone, the right backpack, exciting strangers would want to have sex with you! It’s no wonder that Gen X began seeking the largely mythological stability of their forebearers; to stop fucking around and eating mushrooms at the Rage Against The Machine show, and to try and root yourself. Get a decent car — something you can pass off as utilitarian — and a solid career. Put your babies in Black Flag onesies, but make sure their stroller is more high tech than anything mankind ever took to the Moon, because that wolf is always at the door. And buy yourself a house, because property is always valuable. Even if you don’t have the credit, because there’s this thing called a “subprime mortgage” you can get now! But the world changed again. And kept changing. So now you’ve got this degree that’s worth fuck-all, a house that’s worth more as scrap lumber than as a substantial investment, and you’re either going to lose your job or have to do the work of two people, because there’s a recession on. Except they keep saying the recession ended, so why are you still working twice as hard for the same amount of money? We started two wars, only one of them even marginally justifiable, and thousands and thousands of people died. Some of them were Americans, most of them weren’t. The world hated us again. It’s psychically oppressive to realize you’re the bad guy. Of course, for a lot of the world, America had always been the bad guy…but we didn’t really know that before, because we didn’t have the Internet in our pocket, to be pulled out at every lunch break and before the meal came and when the episode of Scrubs on TV dragged a little, and before bed. We were encouraged to immerse ourselves in the endless flow of information, to become better informed, because knowing more about the world made us better people. And maybe it did, but it also made us haunted people. Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I clicked on a video in my Tumblr feed that showed mutilated children being dragged from the streets of Gaza. And I started sobbing — just sobbing, sitting there in my bed with the covers around my waist, saying “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over to the empty room. Dead children, torn to bits. And then it was time for…what? Get up, eat my cereal, go about my day? Every day? So you’re haunted, and you’re outraged, and you go on Twitter and you go on Facebook and you change your avatar or your profile picture to a slogan somebody thoughtfully made for you, so that you can show the world that you’re watching, that you care, that it matters. But if you’re at all observant, you begin to realize after a while that it doesn’t matter; that your opinion matters for very little in the world. You voted for Obama, because Obama was about hope and change; except he seems to be mostly about hope and change for rich people, and not about hope at all for the people who are killed by American drones or who are locked away without trial in American internment camps or who are prosecuted because they stand up and tell the truth about their employers. There does seem to be a lot of hope and change in Fort Meade and Langley, though, where the NSA and CIA are given more and more leeway to spy on everyone in the world, including American citizens, not for what they’ve done but what they might do. And the rest of the world? They keep making more dead children. They slaughter each other in the streets of Baghdad and Libya and Gaza and Tel Aviv; they slaughter each other in the hills of Syria; and, increasingly, they slaughter each other in American schools and movie theaters and college campuses. And when you speak up about that — when you write to your Congressperson to say that you believe in, say, stricter control on the purchase of assault weapons, or limiting the rights of corporations to do astonishing environmental damage, or not sending billions of dollars to the kind of people who think it’s funny to launch missiles filled with flechette rounds into the middle of schools where children huddle together — you’re told that, no, you’re the fascist: that people have the right to defend themselves and make money, and that those rights trump your right to not be killed by some fucking lunatic when you’re waiting in line at Chipotle to grab a chicken burrito, and your right to not be able to light your tapwater on fire with a Zippo because of the chemicals in it, or not to end up in a grainy YouTube video while some demented religious fanatic hacks your head off with a rusty bayonet because your country — not you, but who’s counting — is the Great Satan. And the music sucks. Dear God, the music sucks. Witless, vapid bullshit that makes the worst airheaded wannabe profundities of the grunge era look like the collected works of Thomas Locke. Half the songs on the radio aren’t anything more than a looped 808 beat and some dude grunting and occasionally talking about how he likes to fuck bitches in the ass. The other half are grown-ass adults singing about their stunted, adolescent romantic ideals and playing a goddamn washtub while dressed like extras from The Waltons. The music sucks. The movies suck — I mean, they didn’t suck the first time they came out, in the 1980s, but the remakes and gritty reboots and decades-past-their-sell-by-date sequels suck. Indiana Jones is awesome, but nobody needs to see a geriatric Harrison Ford, lured out of retirement by the promise of building another mansion onto his mansion, running around with fucking Shia LeBeouf in the jungle. And besides, we’re all media experts now; we can spot the merchandising nods from the trailer all the way to the final credits. There’s no magic left. It’s just another company figuring out a way to suck the very last molecules of profit out of the things we cherish, because that’s what corporations do. Everything is branded. Even people. People are “personal brands”, despite the fact that, by and large, you can’t figure out what most of them are actually even good for. They just exist to be snarky and post selfies and demand that you buy something, anything, with their picture on it. You actually know who Kim Kardashian is. In an ideal world, you’d be as unaware of her existence as you are of the names of the Chinese kids who made the futurephone or featherweight laptop you’re almost certainly reading this on. In an ideal world, Kim Kardashian would have spent her life getting sport-fucked anonymously by hip-hop stars in some Bel Air mansion, ran a salon, and either died of a coke overdose or Botox poisoning. There is no reason that her face and her life and her tits and her deathless thoughts needed to be foisted upon the world outside of the 90210 ZIP code. Except that somebody figured out that you could make money off showing people the car accident in slow motion, that people would watch that. Sure they will. People love to watch stupid people do stupid things. It makes them feel less stupid. And the Internet. We built this thing — and was part of the generation who took to the new medium like water and have made the majority of our adult lives creating it, to a greater or lesser degree — because we believed it would make things better for everyone. We believed it would give voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, bring us all together, help us to understand and empathize and share with one another. We believed it could tear down the walls. And in a lot of ways it has. But in just as many ways, it has driven us all insane. There’s an old story — I have no idea if it’s true — about monkeys who had the pleasure centers of their brains wired up to a button. Push it, Mr. Monkey, and you have an orgasm. And the monkeys did. They pushed the button and they pushed the button, until they forgot about eating and they forgot about drinking and sleeping and simply fell down and died. What do you do when you first wake up? What do you do as soon as you get into work? After work? Before bed? Hell, some of us wake up in the night and check our feeds, terrified that we’ve missed out on something. We do it because we are given that reward, that stimulus that tells us oooh, a new shiny! It’s the fourteenth Guardians Of The Galaxy trailer, with 200% more Rocket Raccoon! Some fucking null node in Portland made a portrait of every single character from Adventure Time out of bacon and Legos! And, maybe most poisonous, maybe most soul-crushing: somebody said something I don’t like that makes me feel frightened and threatened! It’s time to put on my superhero costume and forward unto battle! Except it doesn’t matter. Because you’re not really changing anybody’s mind. How often does that little skirmish end with anybody changing their mind at all, even a little bit? Or does it just end with one of you invariably either blocking the other or saying something like “You know what, I’m going to stop now, because this is getting out of hand.” Getting out of hand? Everything they told you about how to live in the world when you were a kid is a lie. Education doesn’t matter, not even on paper. Being ethical doesn’t matter. Being a good person doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you’re endlessly capable of the hustle, of bringing in that long green, of being entertaining to enough people that somebody will want to give you money or fuck you or fund your startup. We’re all sharks now; if we stop swimming for just a little too long, we die. We lose followers. We’re lame. We’re not worth funding, or fucking. Because all that matters is the endless churn, the endless parade, the endless cycle of buying and trying to sell and being bought and sold by people who tell you that they’re your friends, man, not like those others. Microsoft is evil and Google is not evil, except when they are, but that’s not really important, and if you decide that maybe you’re tired of being reduced to nothing more than a potential lead for a sales pitch, like something out of a fucking David Mamet play, then you’re a hater and irrelevant and a Luddite. And besides, what would you do with yourself if you weren’t checking Facebook or playing Candy Crush Saga or watching some teenage dumbass smash his genitals on the side of a pool on YouTube? What the fuck would you even do, bro? The comedian Bill Hicks used to do a bit where he invited the advertisers and marketers in his audience to kill themselves. He imagined them turning it into an ad campaign: “Oh, the righteous indignation dollar, that’s a good dollar, Bill’s smart to do that.” He laid out the futility of trying to escape: “I’m just caught in a fucking web,” he’d say. And that’s where we are. You, me, we’re trapped, between being nothing more than consumers, every aspect of our lives quantified and turned into demographic data, or being fucking Amish cavemen drifting into increasing irrelevancy. Because it really does feel like there’s no middle ground anymore, doesn’t it? There’s no way to stay an active, informed citizen of the world without some motherfucker figuring out a way to squirm into your life to try and get a dollar out of you. Only fools expect something for free, and only bigger fools believe they’re anything other than a consumable or a consumer. We didn’t get the William Gibson future where you can live like a stainless steel rat in the walls between the corporate enclaves, tearing at the system from within with your anarchy and your superior knowledge of Unix command lines. Now it’s just pissed off teenagers who blame you because their lives are going to suck a cock and billionaire thugs trying to sell you headphones and handbags, all to a soundtrack of some waterhead muttering “Bubble butt, bubble bubble bubble butt” over and over while a shite beat thumps in the background. I know a lot of people who privately long for an apocalypse of some kind, a breakdown of the ancient Western code, because then they’d either be dead or free. How fucking horrifying is that? But nobody pulls that trigger, because now we’ve all seen what apocalypses look like. We saw Manhattan in 2001 and New Orleans in 2005 and Thailand in 2004 and the Middle East pretty much any given day. Nobody wants to hate, because we’re pummeled with hate every day, by people who are too fucking stupid to understand that the world has passed them by as much as it’s passed by the dude in the Soundgarden t-shirt who still drives around singing along to “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” on his way to his dead-end job. The best lack all conviction, and the people who are full of passionate intensity? Fuck them. We’re all sick of their shit anyway. And that’s where we are, and is it any goddamn wonder at all that the most profitable drugs sold in America for like a decade running have been antipsychotics? The world seems psychotic. I feel like I need to figure this out, like figuring all of this out and finding new ways to live has become the most important thing I could possibly do, not just for myself and the people I love but for the entire human race. I don’t mean me alone — I’m far too self-loathing to have a messiah complex — but I feel like, for me, this is the best use of my time. Because the world is making me crazy and sad and wanting to just put a gun in my mouth, and it’s doing the same thing to a lot of people who shouldn’t have to feel this way. I don’t believe anymore that the answer lies in more or better tech, or even awareness. I think the only thing that can save us is us. I think we need to find ways to tribe up again, to find each other and put our arms around each other and make that charm against the dark. I don’t mean in any hateful or exclusionary way, of course. But I think like minds need to pull together and pool our resources and rage against the dying of the light. And I do think rage is a component that’s necessary here: a final fundamental fed-up-ness with the bullshit and an unwillingness to give any more ground to the things that are doing us in. To stop being reasonable. To stop being well-behaved. Not to hate those who are hurting us with their greed and psychopathic self-interest, but to simply stop letting them do it. The best way to defeat an enemy is not to destroy them, but to make them irrelevant. I don’t have the answers. I don’t know some truth that I can reveal to everyone. All I can do is hurt, and try to stop hurting, and try to help other people stop hurting. Maybe that’s all any of us can do. But isn’t that something worth devoting yourself to, more than building another retarded app that just puts more nonsense and bullshit into the world? Just finding people to love, and healing each other? I think it is. Until I know more, I’ll just keep holding on. I won’t put the gun in my mouth. Because all of this sadness is worth it if there’s still hope. And I want to still have hope so badly. I still want to believe, in myself, and in you.