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thefanficmonster · 3 years

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Stranger In The Crowd

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: None

Genre: FLUFF, Humor, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Having recently ended the process of moving, Y/N is rightfully very tired but also very excited for the new chapter of her life. Funnily enough, this new chapter includes a newly formed long distance friendship/crush with a very special person from San Diego.

Requested by @boiled-onionrings Hi darling! Thank you so much for your wonderful request and I’m really sorry you’ve had to wait so long for it to be posted but here it finally is and I hope you enjoy the read! Love, Vy ❤

I let out a heavy sigh, relieved to finally be at home after such a long day of standing around in the Georgia heat with only a thin layer of fabric to protect my eyes and head from the scorching sun. Yeah, anyone who says that tent did well at protecting everyone under it today is nothing but a liar. I was in a short, strapless white summer dress, the fabric of which barely had any weight and consistency to provide heat of its own yet I still damn near melted. Ok, I’ll admit, some of the roasting heat probably came from the energy and force I put into singing the songs of my band’s new album ‘Starting At The End’.

The mini concert we held in this large open field was meant as an introduction to the city of Savannah where all the band members - myself included - are actually from but we all moved to the West Coast to pursue our music career. And now that we’ve grown, and the majority of us are married, one of us is a father now as well, we’ve decided to return to our hometown. The decision was so spontaneous and was executed so quickly due to no one objecting to it that it still hasn’t me that I’m no longer in LA. The heat isn’t helping my ‘processing’ process but I’ll get to it eventually. Do I miss LA though? Not sure I do - I think I more miss the people I was closer to while I was there.

Suddenly, as if perfectly timed, my phone dings, notifying me that I’ve received a message. I don’t have to look to know it’s from - there’s only one person I actively text and his name is....

C ~ Your virtual buddy Corpse here, making sure you didn’t die of a heatstroke today. If you did indeed survive, just reply to this message, if not....don’t do anything, I guess.

I can’t help but giggle at the sight of the message. I promised Corpse I’d text him after the concert to let him know I was ok, but the even dragged out for longer than anticipated so I’m guessing he got worried.

How cute.

Me ~ Alive and well, but I do feel like a popped tire of an overloaded truck. Hope that’s a visually appealing description

Corpse and I met on the charity livestream Jacksepticeye organized and invited our band to so we could play Among Us with some of the best gamers and streamers on the internet. It was a huge honor and a ton of fun, definitely an event I’d like to repeat in the near future because I had such a good time and I know all my bandmates did too. We all got acquainted and even became official friends with the gamers that were practically our hosts, Corpse becoming the closest friends I’d earn. That livestream happened months ago and we still text just as consistently.

C ~ Oh I know EXACTLY what you mean. Anyway, as to not exhaust you further to force you into typing, how about you send me pictures to sum up your thoughts and emotions and plans for the evening

This is OUR THING trademark, mine and Corpse’s and no one can take it away from us. It’s a significant element of our friendship that enables us both to understand one another when one of us feels the way I described in my message - a popped tire or a deflated balloon. I’m usually the exhausted one - blame the many shows we do and the many meet-and-greets we organize for our lovely fans. It’s the type of exhaustion none of the band members mind at all, but we definitely need some time to recover from it.

As I go to sit down on my couch, the flower crown I’ve been wearing slips off the top of my head, falling on the floor, creating a soft noise that attracts the attention of one of my many cats - Sasha. She’s the youngest and most curious kitty in the family, always protected by the other four - Luna, Cassie, Silver and Lynn. Those four are far lazier and a lot more disinterested in comparison to Sasha who immediately runs over to see what’s fallen.

I smile to myself, taking the flower crown and undoing it to lessen it by a few stems to make it smaller, all the while being watched by the curious Sasha whose interest is rewarded in the end when I put the now adorably tiny flower crown on her head.

While she still hasn’t shaken the thing off I manage to snap a pic which I send to Corpse who opens it mere seconds after it was delivered.

C ~ Sasha’s pulling off your aesthetic better than you. Sorry, someone had to let you know

I burst out laughing for two reasons - 1.The message itself, damn it! It’s hilarious; 2. Corpse has learnt the name of each one of my cats and never mixes them up - not even Luna and Lynn who look almost identical. That amount of attention to detail is astonishing and very meaningful to me, it genuinely warms my heart and that may or may not be dramatic but it’s definitely not exaggerated.

Me ~ You think I haven’t caught on yet?

C ~ Well, if it makes you feel any better you pull off my aesthetic better than I do

He’s referring to the e-girl look I did for one show the band had in downtown LA one night. I was drunk and looking forward to trying new things so I improvised the hell out of my outfit but I apparently looked presentable enough to leave a good impression on Corpse despite the pic I sent him being a bit blurry and being a mirror selfie in the bathroom of the very bar we were performing in. It goes without saying that the mirror was dirty too - had a bunch of writing on it which Corpse said only added to the aesthetic. Looking back on it now I kinda agree, and luckily so did the fans in the comments of that same photo when I posted it on Instagram.

Me ~ Means a lot actually. Nowhere near enough to aid the burn of having a cat pull off cottagecore better than I do, but still helps XD

As if sensing that we’re talking about her, Sasha hops on the couch, poking her head over my phone to look down at the screen.

Now this is gonna be golden.

I take a selfie with my phone in my lap, the camera capturing both me and Sasha at a rather unflattering angle which has me losing my mind laughing when I send the picture to Corpse who immediately sends back a string of cry-laughing emojis.

C ~ I can’t tell which one of you is cuter

Me ~ If that was a compliment, I gotta say I appreciate it greatly

C ~ Just telling the truth ;)

It’s times like these that the butterflies in my stomach remind me just why I’ve started catching feelings for this man despite all the distance between us and despite barely knowing him - he knows me more than I know him but I don’t mind it, oddly enough.

I’m fond of our connection and though I sometimes dream of something more, I’m also content with what we already have considering that ‘something more’ seems rather unattainable as of now.

My phone dings again, clearing the fog of thoughts and presenting me with a new message from Corpse.

C ~ Oh, by the way, look what I got....

That message is followed up by a picture of a ticket. A plane ticket to Georgia!

While I’m still busy stomaching this and dealing with my quickly rising excitement, he sends another message.

C ~ I hope to catch a The Silver Rays concert while I’m there. Heard they had an adorable frontwoman ;)

My breath catches in my throat as a wide grin spreads across my face. The thought of having Corpse so close to me sends those aforementioned butterflies in my stomach into a raving mood and they practically explode my insides with excitement and joy like I’ve never felt it before. I can’t wrap my brain around the fact that we’re about to go from having an entire country between us, to being just some ways away - him in the audience and me on stage without a single clue of who to look for. That’s part of the excitement though, I guess, part of the guessing game that’s gonna make our meeting all the more interesting.

He’ll be a stranger in the crowd and I’ll be a performer on a stage - seemingly two people who have no relation whatsoever. But damn does it go beyond that: No one has to know how hard I’m falling for that stranger in the crowd.

Me ~ I’ve heard so too, can’t confirm it though

If this is gonna be a guessing game, I’ll flip the tables a bit - I won’t take any guesses. I’ll let the answer come to me. I’ll give the first move over to the stranger in the crowd, let’s see what he does.

C ~ I’ll check and let you know, don’t worry

Not worried whatsoever, Corpsie. I’m not worried at all.

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wordsandshawn · 4 years

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Secret | Part 1 | #ShawnMendesWritingCircle

A/N: I’m so excited to get to be a part of this writing circle. Thank you @saysweartogod-og for coming up with this amazing idea. This fic is a little spin off of a secret billionaire trope, and I can honestly say I’m so excited to see where some of the amazing writers participating in this decide to take it. I hope you enjoy this first chapter, and feel free to send feedback or thoughts about the chapter and where you think it might go, because my guess is as good as yours, and I’d love to talk about it!

WC: 2.6K

From the moment you met Shawn six months ago, you knew that letting yourself get involved with him was a bad idea. It took you about three seconds to come up with a handful of reasons why you could never let yourself fall for him, but it only took him one night to make you forget them all.

You stepped into his condo, spotted him, and knew who he was immediately before the words, “Hey, I’m Shawn,” Even fell from his lips. You told yourself you’d never come back here before you spoke a single word to him. You also vowed to kill Brian and Alicia the second you got them alone.

Brian is dating your roommate, which is how you wound up here in the first place. Alicia knows you rarely ever go out because you’re either working or studying, so when she found out you weren’t working for the first time on a Friday night, she practically begged you to come with her. She said she was meeting some of Brian’s friends for the first time and didn’t want to be alone. Despite you telling her that she’d obviously have Brian there, she refused to give up, and finally, you reluctantly agreed to go. You had no idea that Brian’s “friend” was Shawn Mendes.

At first, your only focus was getting through the party and out of the condo without anyone posting a photo of you online, knowing that photo would be circulated within minutes if it had Shawn in it too, and that’s the last thing you’d want. You didn’t expect it to be too difficult to avoid being in a photo with Shawn considering the condo was not small by any means, and there’s no reason for him to take any type of notice of you.

Even though you regretted accepting the invitation, you still decided to make the most of the night. Since you rarely let yourself go out, you were determined to enjoy the one night you had. You’re still nursing your first drink, despite it already being warm. As time passes, you watch as everyone around you becomes more and more inebriated. Phones are out, as they often are at parties like these, and you’re tired of hiding in the darkest corner you could find, so you slip outside. You’re not outside for even five minutes before you hear the sliding door open, the music drifting out from inside.

“Y/n, right?” Shawn questions, stepping outside, and you try to hide the shock on your face over the fact that he remembered your name.

“Mhmm,” You respond intentionally looking away from him.

“What are you doing out here?” He asks, taking the spot beside you by the railing so the two of you are standing shoulder to shoulder, except his shoulder is about five inches above yours.

“I could ask you the same thing.” You respond, not wanting to give him the real answer to that question.

“They’re all taking a lot of pictures in there.” He says, as though that’s an answer to the question, but it’s not.

“It’s your party, why wouldn’t you want to be in the pictures?” You question, surprised. You know why you don’t want to be in them, but you can’t seem to fathom why he wouldn’t want to be in pictures with his friends at his own place.

“Don’t want people to know where I am,” He says with a shrug. “What about you, why’d you slip out just now?” He asks again since you avoided the question the first time.

“Needed some air,” You lie, keeping your eyes trained on the city lights.

He doesn’t press the topic anymore. You’re expecting him to wander away, back inside to the party, but he doesn’t. Shawn asks about how you know Brian and you explain that he’s dating your roommate. To be polite, you ask him the same question and he shares that they met when they were six and on the same soccer team. For some reason, conversation comes easy with him, and you almost let your guard down. Almost.

After a talking for a while, he asks, “Can I get your Instagram?”

Suddenly you remember the promise you made to yourself earlier. “I don’t have one.” You say before slipping past him and heading back inside in search of the bathroom. You don’t need to see his face to know he’s wearing a perplexed look. When people hear you don’t have an Instagram, they look at you like you’re from outer space. That’s how ridiculous they think it is, and then they think you’re lying because you’re not into them. Even though you’re not lying, you never really cared if that’s what they thought.

By the end of the night, you’re just glad to make it out of there. Alicia is drunk enough that you drive her car back to your apartment, and the whole time, she’s mumbling about how she thinks Shawn likes you and about how Brian told her that he thinks you two would be good together. You tell her she’s talking nonsense, and Shawn would never like you like that, but deep down, you knew you already liked Shawn more than you would want to admit.

Brian gave Shawn your number, and you texted for two months before moving beyond friendship, even though you both knew it was heading in that direction from the very beginning. It took that long for you to finally be convinced that he was a safe person to be with. Shawn knew from the very beginning, before you even got together, that you did not want to go public with the relationship. He knew that you were completely off of social media, so it made sense that you wanted to keep your life private, and he agreed that it would be for the best.

Even after you got together, he was rarely ever in Toronto. He was busy traveling for work, and you were busy with work and Uni, so it was mostly a long distance relationship with a lot of texting and facetiming, but you’ve managed to make it work and treasure the small amounts of time you have together.

Shawn’s finally back in town, and you spent most of the day lazily hanging out. When night hit, a bunch of Shawn’s friends came over, including Brian and Alicia. This party feels a lot different from the last one. In that one, you were keeping to yourself, mostly in the corner or outside. Tonight, you feel like you can let your guard down, at least a little bit. Shawn had made it clear that his friends couldn’t post any pictures with him in them because he was supposed to be in Miami and his management would basically kill him if it got out he slipped away to come home to Toronto. Shawn was determined to come home for the weekend. He missed you, so he made a promise to his management that no one would find out he was here.

It worked out better for you because you felt like you were safe from worrying about pictures posted online. What you didn’t realize was that his friends never promised not to post pictures at all, just that they wouldn’t post pictures of Shawn. You’re standing around the kitchen island, laughing about something Alicia is saying when you spot Brian looking down at his phone. Out of curiosity, your eyes fall on his screen to see you and Alicia. He clicks post before you have a chance to say anything. In a second, you’re standing in front of him. “Hey, what did you just post?” You ask him.

“Don’t worry, it’s a nice picture.” He says, shrugging.

“Brian, delete it.” You say. He’s already drunk, and you’re starting to wish you had more than one drink because of the anxiety raising up within you. “Please, you have to delete that. Delete it right now, please.” You swallow your anxiety and fear, trying to keep your emotions from getting the better of you. It’s only now that you realize that you were basically screaming, and all the other conversations going on stopped because everyone is focused on you.

“Chill,” Brian says, but when you make it clear that you’re serious, he finally concedes. “Fine.” He deletes it, showing you his phone as he does so.

“Thanks,” You mumble before pushing past everyone still standing around staring at you and disappearing into Shawn’s room, slamming the door behind you. You pace across the room a couple of times before you hear a knock on the door.

You don’t say anything or make a move to open it. You’re still trying to calm your breathing and remind yourself that nothing happened. The picture was only up for no more than a few minutes. Everything’s okay, and you’re just being paranoid, at least that’s what you tried to tell yourself.

The door opens, and you turn to see who it is. Shawn’s standing in the doorway, questions swimming in his eyes, but he doesn’t ask any of them right away. You sit down on the bed, taking a deep breath, readying yourself to face him. He steps inside, closing the door behind him. “You okay?” He asks.

You swallow hard to keep your emotions down, “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry about that.” You nod toward the door, but you don’t offer an explanation.

Shawn takes a seat next to you, “That wasn’t just about us keeping our relationship a secret, was it?” He questions softly. He’s putting the pieces together. Shawn wasn’t even in the Instagram story, and even though you know Shawn’s fans keep track of his every move and watch all of his friend’s stuff, you’re not delusional enough to think that if you’re in one story everyone will know about you and Shawn. But as soon as you realized that Shawn’s friends get tens of thousands of views on their stories, it worried you. You’re worried that someone would see it, someone who you didn’t want to see it.

“I’m sorry I freaked out.” You respond. “But you should get back to your friends. I think I’m just going to go.” You say, starting to stand up.

Shawn reaches out for you, taking your hand in his. “Please don’t go.” He says. “I just want to know what’s going on with you. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” He seems concerned. Even though you’ve only known him for a couple of months, you already trust Shawn more than you’ve trusted anyone else. But with all of his friends here, along with knowing he’s already had a few drinks, you know now’s not the time to talk about this.

“I really think I should go. I’ll see you later, okay?” Shawn doesn’t try to stop you again. He’s already made it clear that he wants you to stay, but if you want to go, he’ll let you.

You get into your car and drive back to your apartment. When you arrive, you see that Shawn has texted you a few times. He asks you to text him when you get home safely. He also lets you know that if you want to talk about what happened, he’s there.

You text him back, letting him know you made it home, but you don’t say anything about the picture. After replying to Shawn, you turn off your phone and get ready for bed, trying to fall asleep before you worry yourself sick.

The next morning, when you wake up, you’re surprised that you don’t see a message from Shawn. He must still be sleeping, you think to yourself before getting out of bed. After brushing your teeth and putting your contacts in, you start walking toward the kitchen in search of breakfast. You stop short as soon as you step out of the hallway because you see Shawn sitting at your dining room table. He looks up from his phone when he sees you.

“Hey, Alicia let me in.” He explains before nodding toward the donuts, “I brought donuts.”

“Thanks,” You whisper, pulling out a seat and sitting down.

“Can we talk about last night?” He asks, hesitantly.

You knew that you would have to tell him sometime, but you were hoping you could avoid it for at least a little while longer.

“My dad’s really,” You pause, searching for the right word, finally saying, “Controlling.”

Shawn’s eyebrows knit together, and he watches you closely. He doesn’t know where this conversation is going, and you don’t blame him.

“Both of my parents wanted me to go into the family business, but I didn’t want to. They didn’t want to hear it or even consider letting me do anything else. When I turned eighteen, I left. I got a scholarship to a university they never knew I applied to. I deleted all my social media’s and I moved away.” You haven’t spoken those words aloud to anyone, ever, and you didn’t realize they would be so difficult to say.

“You ran away?” Shawn questions, his voice barely above a whisper, and you know that he’s just trying to wrap his mind around all of it. It’s a lot, so you don’t blame him.

“I’m not a teenaged runaway. I’m not a missing person.” You respond, knowing how it sounds. “I was eighteen. I told them I was moving away to go to University. I just didn’t tell them which one because I didn’t want them to just show up or think they could buy their way back into my life. I needed to do it on my own.”

He’s not quite understanding how you could just cut your family out of your life, and you know it’s a difficult concept. “Buy their way in?” He asks.

“Yeah, knowing my dad, he’d do something like buy a building on campus or something and then make a whole show of dedicating and opening it, or find some way to show up and manipulate their way back into my life, and I just didn’t want that.”

“So, what does your dad do?”

“You ever heard of Ardes Corp.” Shawn’s eyes widen. Everyone’s heard of Ardes Corp. “My real name is Y/n Ardes. I started using my middle name as my last name, so people wouldn’t know.”

“Okay, but why go through all these lengths to still not be found by them? You clearly did it all on your own, putting yourself through Uni and everything. Why would it matter if they saw a picture of you online?”

“You know how I said I told them I was leaving, so I didn’t just run away?”

“Yeah?”

“Well it wasn’t the best conversation. They kind of disowned me, and I kind of don’t want them to find me and confront me or tell me I’m living my life wrong or do whatever they might do if they change my mind and try to drag me back home.” That may not be the full story, but you think it’ll be at least enough to satisfy Shawn for the time being.

When he nods, and hands you a napkin, you take it gratefully.

“I guess that’s why you won’t even step outside with me, huh?” He questions, opening the box of donuts.

You bite your lip, meeting his eyes and nodding.

He nods back, a silent understanding passes between the two of you. Even though you just threw a lot of information about your past at him, he doesn’t seem to be put off by it, instead, he took it all in stride.

“Thanks for buying the donuts.” You say, as he motions for you to choose first.

“You’re welcome.” He says with a smile.

You choose the twist and Shawn takes one with chocolate on it, and the two of you eat in comfortable silence. You have no doubt that Shawn has more questions, and there’s a lot more that he deserves to know, but he’s only here for another day, and you’d much rather focus on this delicious donut and the idea of some quality time alone with your boyfriend instead of rehashing your past.

#Shawn Mendes #ShawnMendesWritingCircle #Shawn Peter Raul Mendes #Shawn Mendes imagine #Shawn Mendes fic #Shawn Mendes Writing Circle

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kravitzz · 5 years

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Podcast Recs 2019

Hey there! I’ve updated my list of podcast recommendations for 2019. This includes anything from my top favorites to stuff I haven’t gotten around to listening to yet! For a more up to date version of this list, please go here.

* = Favorite! ! = Caught Up # = In progress + = Need to listen

Fiction: *! Wolf 359: Starts off as a goofy space station slice-of-life comedy and spirals into something way, way deeper. Great characters, fantastic plot, and a really great concept overall. *# The Penumbra Podcast: A couple different plots, but primarily a futuristic space noir story. Really cheesy but in the best way, also super LGBT and fantastic and it just makes me so happy. # Beef and Dairy Network Podcast: Just a completely normal podcast about the inner workings of the beef and dairy industry. Nothing weird here, not at all. # Hello From The Magic Tavern: A podcast transmitted from the magical land of Foon! Really chill and funny improvised stuff # King Falls AM: A fun paranormal radio show sort of deal. I’m not far in enough to describe it better. # EOS 10: Doctors in space! It’s gay and funny and suspenseful, I adore the hell out of the writing. # The Bright Sessions: Superhero therapy! Incredible character building, really cool show. # Within the Wires: I’m only an ep in and uh. I have no fucking clue what’s happening but it’s cool as shit so far. # Everything Is Alive: A podcast where a guy interviews inanimate objects! It’s interesting and fun. *# Welcome to Nightvale: A classic! A radio show in a desert town that’s much odder than it seems. # Done Disappeared: A parody of true-crime investigation podcasts. Dumb and funny.

+ Jim Robbie and the Wanderers + Dopple Avenue Hurt + The Thrilling Adventure Hour + Wooden Overcoats + Ars Paradoxica + The Far Meridian + The Strange Case of Starship Iris + Girl In Space + Inkwyrm + Immunities + Mission to Zixx +Kaleidotrope +Midnight Radio

Horror: *# The Magnus Archives: Jonathan Sims, head archivist of a paranormal research institute in London, reads the statements of people who have experienced horrifying things. Things go south very quickly for him and his assistants. HEAVY trigger warning, since it includes lots of the typical horror things such as gore, bugs, cannibalism, etc, but if you can handle it, I highly recommend this show. The writing and characters are so good. *! SCP Archives: Performed readings of different SCP stories. If you like SCP, this show is really good! # Alice Isn’t Dead: A fantastic spooky adventure with a gal trucking across the U.S. to find her missing wife! Made by the Nightvale folks, and it’s really intriguing and well produced. # The NoSleep Podcast: Different horror stories from r/nosleep, acted and read aloud. Varies in quality, but is generally pretty good! Gets better in the later seasons. # Limetown: A well-known faux-journalism horror story. The first season is very good, I haven’t listened to the second yet. # Mabel: It’s been a while since I listened to this one, so I don’t remember much other than it being very, very spooky. # The Black Tapes: The ending isn’t good, but the rest was great. They’re apparently continuing, so hopefully the ending will be fixed.

+ The Blood Crow Stories + The Alexandria Archive + TANIS + Rabbits D&D/Actual Play: *! The Adventure Zone: Look. You know this one. An actual-play podcast that starts off slow and picks up really quickly. 80% comedy, 20% plot, and 100% amazing. Balance is the first campaign and is D&D and a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. *# Critical Role: I’ve been riding with this show for years now, but I haven’t actually listened to the podcast format of it! The show itself is fantastic though, so I’m still recommending it. Follow the in-progress D&D adventure of a bunch of great voice actors. Sorta the flip of TAZ, in that it’s like 80% plot and 20% comedy. Also 100% crying. Their first campaign is complete, and they’re currently partially through their second. # Godsfall: A pretty rules-heavy DND podcast. Really really well produced. # Friends At The Table: Not really far in enough to make much judgement! + Heroes and Halfwits + Tabletop Champions + Join the Party + Dames & Dragons + Bombarded + The Mortal Path + Dnduet + The Venture Maidens + The Broad Swords + Six Feats Under

Nonfiction: # Wonderful!: Happy and pure, Griffin and Rachel Mcelroy talk about things that make them happy. I enjoy listening to random episodes when I need a pick-me-up. # Oh No, Ross and Carrie!: Ross and Carrie go around and investigate different fringe science, paranormal, and spiritual things. They’re super fun to listen to! + The Worst Bestsellers + Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men + Mysterious Universe + Bunker Buddies + Imaginary Worlds + Conversations With People Who Hate Me + Dead Pilots Society + Harry Potter and the Sacred Text + Storybreak + Shmanners + Positiviteeny! + Still Buffering + The Supermega Podcast Comedy: *# My Brother, My Brother, and Me: Really good goofs and advice from the Mcelroy brothers. It’s so good. # Sawbones: Medical history with Sydnee and Justin Mcelroy! Sydnee is an actual doctor, so it’s a wonderful combo of dumb humor and really good information. # My Dad Wrote A Porno: Title kind of says it all. Very, very funny. + What Should We Draw? + Revisionist History + Hardcore History + More Perfect + Making a Podcast with Myself True Crime/Supernatural: *# My Favorite Murder: True crime and murder stories, as told by some very cool and funny ladies. They’re like my goth comedian moms. # Heaven’s Gate: A podcast about the cult Heaven’s Gate. Only 10 episodes, really interesting and well produced. # Lore: I listened to this forever ago and loved it! Really good paranormal and spooky stories. # And That’s Why We Drink: Em and Christine talk about the paranormal and true crime while getting drunk and chatting about their lives! They have a great dynamic and it’s just a fun comfy show to listen to. + Judge John Hodgman +Spirits + Blurry Photos + Expanded Perspectives + Wine and Crime + Cabinet of Curiosities Journalism:

*# 99% Invisible: Beautifully written and edited journalism about design and life. I love the hell out of this podcast. *# Reply All: Journalism and weird stories about technology and the different ways it affects us. I highly recommend listening to episode #102 and #103, Long Distance, if you want an incredibly interesting story about spam callers and trying to hunt them down. # Ear Hustle: Stories about the life of prisoners, made by a prisoner! Really interesting journalism. # Setting the Record Queer: A queer interview show. Pretty new but really fun! # Twenty Thousand Hertz: A podcast about sound design and things relating to it. Very well produced and interesting. + Family Ghosts + Ologies

#podcasts #podcast recs #rambles #not taz

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wellhellotragic · 6 years

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No Handlebars 1/2

Summary: Before moving to the city he’d thought his days back at school in London had been wild, but American’s put the British to shame in their attempts at debauchery.

Or that fic where Killian and the guys rent a barcycle for the night and everything goes wrong…but there's this blonde he keeps seeing, and she's an angel

Rating: Probably Teen but let’s just go with M to be safe

A/N: So one of my favorite fandom people was feeling down and I wanted to do something to cheer her up. @pirateherokillian, a little birdie (cough @xemmaloveskillianx cough) told me that you like your fics with a certain pirate acting a little drunk and a whole lot goofy. I hope this brightens your day a some!

“A barcycle. What the hell is a bloody barcycle?”

Killian Jones had heard of all sorts of strange things since he’d moved to Boston three years before for college. He’d been completely taken aback when Victor Whale had scored them all an invitation to the Alpha Tau’s annual ‘pimps and hoes back to school’ party their freshman year. Then there had been spring break. He’d thought his days back at school in London had been wild, but American’s put the British to shame with their attempts at debauchery.

So he really shouldn’t have been surprised at the idea of a mobile method of imbibing, yet he was.

“What part is tripping you up mate? The bar part or the cycle part?”

Will Scarlet, Wanker of Willington, had moved to the states at roughly the same time as Killian, but as the less studious of the two, armed with much lower standards that Killian, Will had found himself with more free time to explore the city.

“I got that much, mate.” Killian made sure to pop the t just has his hand made contact with the back of Will’s head. “I just can’t fathom people actually drinking while on bicycles. I thought this place had laws against that sort of thing.”

“Well for starters,” David cut in, “you won’t be on a bicycle. It’s more like sitting at a table that has pedals.”

Robin, who’d been oddly quiet during the discussion had scrunched up his face.

“And secondly, it’s not illegal. They have a liquor license. As long as your butt is in the seat, you can drink. Once you get off, you have to wait until you’re in the bar to have more.”

“Wait. If I’m already sitting at the bar, why on earth are we stopping at other bars?”

Killian was glad to see someone else just as perplexed by the entire thing as he was.

“Look, I have to run. You’ll see it when you get there. Just be at The Frog’s Pond at nine sharp.”

With that David grabbed his book-bag and headed out for his final exam of their junior year. Killian had taken his last one that morning, on very little sleep thanks to the base thumping from the apartment next door. If it kept up much longer, he was going to find a way to convince Dave and Rob that they’d all need to find a new place after their lease was up the next month.

Killian grumbled as his head hit the back of the couch, earning him a chuckle from Robin.

“Come on. It’s not as bad as all of that is it?”

Killian grumbled once more and the grin his friend had been sporting fell.

“It’s one night, and to be honest, I think it’s time you started getting out again. It’s been three months since Milah broke up with you.”

“Oi, I didn’t know we were allowed to start using her name again!”

Killian rolled his eyes at Will’s flippant remark. The guys had actually all been pretty good about not mentioning her in recent months. Not since she dumped him for a much older medieval history professor. His only solace had been the rumors that he’d dumped her a few weeks earlier so he could pursue one of the literary grad students instead.

“You know what? You’re absolutely right, and I’m going to start with getting out of here right now.”

Killian grabbed his coat and left for the coffee house around the corner, ignoring his friend’s groans as he did so. The coffee shop had always been his little haven. His roommates tended to shy away from any establishment that didn’t serve alcohol or greasy food, and the shop afforded him a quiet atmosphere to study in. Now, it was just as escape from his well meaning but overbearing friends.

The whole night had started off as just one of those vague ideas that he never expected to actually come to fruition. Graham’s birthday had been two weeks earlier and they’d been knee deep in the books studying for finals (or at least most of them had) so Victor had suggested just waiting until the end of term and doing something special to celebrate both occasions.

His mates had been a little tipsy at the time and he’d expected them to have forgotten about it, but low and behold, they hadn’t. Whale had even gone so far as to book the barcycle for the entire evening.

Killian made his way to the counter, ready to order his usual, when he stopped short. There, ordering the last vanilla cupcake and a hot cocoa with cinnamon was a blonde goddess. He’d been so taken with her that he’d missed the barista calling for him to place his order, and when the woman turned back to see what all of the fuss was about, he’d realized that he’d been staring and started to blush furiously.

To spare himself any further embarrassment he stepped up to the counter to order his latte, but when he turned back she was gone. He stayed there for a few hours just watching people and thinking about the woman he’d missed.

Back at his apartment he’d been pleasantly surprised to find it empty and quiet. The neighbor next door must have finally left for his own exams. Well that or he’d stroked out from the constant noise. Either way, Killian was glad for it as he toppled over into his bed to nap.

The pounding was back, a photo frame on his wall nearly falling off as the beat bombarded him once more. He looked at his watch. Seven. Not quite early enough to head to the bar, but not late enough to hope he could tough it out either. He shot a text off to Graham, whose apartment was only a few blocks away to let him know he was heading over.

They watched the tail end of Back to the Future, cheering as Marty McFly and his girlfriend crammed into the delorean with the Doc and took off. By the time the final credits played, it was almost nine and time to head down to the bar. When he and Graham arrived though, it was to find and aggravated Victor yelling at a random guy while David, Robin, and a few other guys they knew sat and watched.

“What’s wrong with Victor?”

“Apparently they accidentally gave our barcycle out to another group?” Will didn’t sound entirely sure.

“No,” interrupted Victor, who was apparently finished dressing down one of the employees. “They actually just double booked us. From what I understand though there is another one coming in about twenty minutes though.”

Killian watched as the guy disappeared into the bar and reappeared carrying a small cardboard box.

“Look, man. I’m really sorry about the mix up, but to make it up to you we have some free beer koozies for all of you.”

Victor scoffed, taking the proffered koozie.

Tonight I was a hero. I found a beer that was trapped inside a bottle and I rescued it.

Cleaver.

With twenty minutes to kill, the guys all headed inside bar, coined The Frog Pond for their drink staple. A blue concoction made with eight different rums and god knew what else. The bartender had warned them that they were large drinks meant for sharing, but being the manly men that they were, sharing was out of the question. Instead each guy ordered their own, all cheersing and taking a gulp at the same time.

It was disgusting. Possibly the worst drink Killian had ever had in his life, and judging by the grimaces on his compatriots faces, they all agreed as well. At sixteen bucks a pop though, Killian had refused to not finish it. The rest of the guys had managed to chug theirs down as well, all except Robin who was struggling with each gulp he took. Finally, he conceded defeat and set the still half full bowl back on the table. Remised to waste alcohol, Killian downed the rest of Robin’s drink in one go.

Killian was starting to feel the buzz as their barcycle pulled up looking worse for the wear. Three of the seats were missing pedals and the music coming through the speaker system was more static than anything.

“You’re kidding me right? This is the joke bike you bring out to get the crowd laughing before the real one shows up, right?”

Victor had a point. Graham had looked up the rental agency and Whale was splashing out a few hundred dollars.

“Again, I’m sorry. One of the owners is in New York and he approved a booking over the phone for a bunch of girls without looking at the schedule first. It’s this guy or nothing.”

Whale grumbled and David tried to tell him it would be okay. As the three men attempted to bargain for a new price, Will and some other blokes loaded a large cooler full of beer into the center of the death mobile and climbed on board, ready to continue their drinking endeavors.

Eventually the three men came to an understanding and joined them on the barcycle. The driver explained to the them the premise. They had three hours to hit as many bars as possible, but that would all depend on them. On how hard they rode and how long they wanted to stay at each place.

“Wait a sec. I thought these things had motors on them.”

“Ya, about that. This is actually one of our older carts. It’s a little old school as in they didn’t start putting engines on them until about two years ago.”

Killian could see Victor’s patience slipping with each passing minute, and while he hadn’t been all that intrigued by the entire idea in the beginning, he reminded himself that it was, in part, to celebrate Graham’s birthday, and he didn’t want the occasion to be ruined before it even started.

He bent over the bar and reached into the cooler grabbing our a beer for each man.

“Well lads, to long nights and the drinks that get us through!”

All of the men cheered, including Whale and began drinking.

Since three of the seats where basically useless, they’d agreed to change seats each time they stopped at a new bar. The driver called out for them to pedal harder and each man took it as his own personal challenge to get them up the hill. A test for sure, but Killian Jones was never one to turn down a challenge.

His legs were burning the entire way around the block to the next bar and when he stepped down from his seat, they almost gave out underneath him. The others seemed a little less wobbly. It was only made worse when he looked over and saw that they had parked right next to another cart, a much newer and nicer cart.

“Okay, gentleman. Henry’s is our first stop. Make sure the show them your wrist bands if you want the discounts on the special drinks.”

“Wait.” Will had stopped dead in his tracts halfway down the sidewalk. “What wristbands?”

“Oh, shit. Sorry guys. I totally forgot.”

“Bloody wanker. The man’s already toasted.”

Will had a point. The driver had been out of sorts back at their starting point, but Killian had just assumed he was overwhelmed from the change in plans, but now it was clear as day. The man had obviously been drinking on his last tour.

The driver ran back up to the cart and thumbed around in an overhead compartment for a while before returning with a sheet of red wristbands. He tore them apart one by one and attached them to each man’s right wrist.

“Ok, so like I was saying, show your wrist band and you’ll get three dollar shots or five dollar shots with a beer chaser.”

The only upside so far had been that the driver seemed to know the bouncer and the men were all allowed to skip the incredibly long line that had formed out front. Killian was just about to step through the door after showing the man his ID when he stopped short, catching a flash of flaxen hair. His breath caught as she passed by him, but she was gone just as quickly as she’d appeared and he’d never actually caught a glimpse of her face.

“Oi, earth to Killian. You coming?”

Killian shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts of the woman from the coffee shop. There was no way it had been her. Boston was a huge city filled with blondes. The probability of see her was next to nothing, but still, he couldn’t ignore the way his heart has started beating just a little bit harder.

“Uh, ya, coming.”

The men stayed there for about thirty minutes. The driver knew the bartenders well enough and had secured a drink for himself easily enough, but the rest of the group had been left to fend for themselves. The two bartenders on hand were both male and clearly more pressed with serving the gaggle of girls waiting. It wasn’t until a female bartender reemerged from the back that they received any service.

They threw back their shots and chugged their beers. He wasn’t quite drunk yet, but he was beginning to feel the effects of his libations on the walk back to the cart. The three broken seats filled up quickly and Killian was once again forced to pedal for his life as Robin took his turn in handing out drinks to all of the men.

The next bar was luckily just at the opposite end of the block and only took about two minutes to arrive at. The White Rabbit. Killian had been there once before in his sophomore year, but that had been the night he’d met Milah. He’d taken so many shots to build up the courage to talk to her that he’d actually blacked out later on, waking up the next day back in his bathroom huddled naked in the bathtub. It had taken three more meetings before Milah had even given him the time of day after that. He should have known then how fickle her love could be.

Bad memories of all of their fights flooded through his head and he wasted no time in ordered a double rum, throwing it back and then ordering another.

“I heard she got kicked out.”

Killian’s head snapped up to meet Arthur King’s eyes.

“You were with Milah, right?”

“Aye.”

Arthur had always seemed like a good enough guy based on the little Killian knew about him, if not a little pompous. But David had vouched for him.

“I know what happened with you two. Dave told me.”

“And what of it?”

“I just thought it might help you to know she got kicked out of school last week.”

Killian’s brow rose as he took in Arthur’s words.

“Ya, she uh, wasn’t doing too well in Dr. Hopper’s class and she tried to offer him the same deal she gave Gold.”

He couldn’t help the way the laugh barked out of him at the image of Milah attempted to seduce an ethics professor. It shouldn’t have given him the pleasure it did, knowing that Milah had been kicked out of school so close to graduation, but a part of him felt pleased. Arthur walked away to rejoin David as Killian sat at the bar smiling.

The third bar was called Pub Parliament, in what most would think as a call back to British culture, but in actuality the place was anything but. It was filled with girls grinding to dirty music that left your eardrums crying for days. Killian had been ready to leave the moment they stepped inside, not even bothering to grab a drink. He was already pleasantly tippsy from the previous bars and from Arthur’s revelation. He just wanted to move on before his mood could be spoiled.

But then he caught a glimpse of golden tresses again, swaying in the crowd on the dance floor and his legs compelled him to move closer. As she jumped up and down to the music, her hair rose and fell like like the sun rising and setting each day. And then she turned around, catching his gaze with her stunning green eyes and Killian melted. It was her, his coffee house goddess.

He smiled, giving her the goofiest grin his could manage thanks to all ot the alcohol in his system. And then his bliss was over thanks to Victor and Victor’s raging hormones.

“Oh gentlemen, what do we have here? Has the universe seen fit to smile upon us?”

The group of guys all rushed towards the woman as Killian stood back, his view of her blocked. Aggravated once more, Killian made his way to the bar to order a shot of tequila. Not his favorite by any means but he needed something with a kick if he was going to have to hear about how some girl’s ass felt pressed against Victor’s crotch while they danced. Especially if that girl was the one he’d been fawning over all day.

He felt a warm body crash into his at the bar and was just about to tell them off but then it spoke up with an angelic voice.

“Make that two.”

She gave him a wry grin, one that rivaled the most stunning of sights.

“Emma.”

“Killian.”

He couldn’t stop smiling.

“Killian, huh? That’s not one you hear every day.”

“No, I, uh, guess not.”

God, he was a fool.

The bartender returned with their shots.

“So what’s up with the big guys night out?”

Kilian tilted his head questioningly at her.

“Well normally when guys go out, it’s just two or three of them. I guess it’s easier to score that way or something.” She’d leaned considerably closer as she spoke above the music on the dance floor. “But there's got to be at least ten of you out here, so what is it? Bachelor party?”

Killian nearly choked at the idea of any of the guys he was with getting married. Aside from David’s brief relationship with Kathryn freshman year, not of them had ever been in a serious relationship has far as he’d known.

“No. It’s one of the guys birthday. Or it was two weeks ago but with finals we’re just not getting around to celebrating.”

“Good to know.”

Killian was vexed by the entire conversation. She wasn’t flirty with him, that much he’d determined, but she seemed content to linger with him by the bar.

“Would you like another drink?”

She looked back to the wall of alcohol and shook her head instead.

“No, I should probably get back to my friends.”

“Ah,” disappointment seeping into every bit of his being. “And what are you fine ladies celebrating?”

“Bachelorette party.”

Killian’s eyes widened as he looked down to both of her hands, praying not to find a ring there. He wasn’t sure if he could handle the idea of her already being taken.

“My friend Anna just got engaged.”

He followed her line of sight, seeing a young girl with two braids dancing around with another girl.

“She’s so young though.”

He hadn’t even meant to say it out loud, but Emma just giggled.

“Don’t worry. It won’t last. This is her second engagement this year.”

When Killian looked back he noticed that the group of girls was much closer that time, walking towards him.

“Emma!” one of them screamed. “It’s time to blow this popsicle stand!”

Emma shook her head at her friend.

“Guess I’ll see you around, Jones.”

Killian turned and watched her leave, too awestruck the realize he he hadn’t even asked for her phone number or last name even. Too dumbstruck to realize she’d used his last name. She turned at the door and gave him a wink before slipping outside.

He was fucked.

Turning around he ordered one more shot and downed it immediately before finding the rest of the guys still on the dance floor.

#wellhellotragic #pirateherokillian #no handlebars #cs ff au #captain swan

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renegade-is-in-my-blood · 6 years

Text

Hey. Me and my cowriter of Books section of renegade7x Domc went to short trip to Netherlands last week and here is our quite long story:

I found this trip on my favourite czech discount websites for very cheap price of around 60 euros for the bus ride from Prague. I had only positive experiences with booking trips online as this was my fifth travel trip through discount website called Hyperslevy (link for all my Czech/Slovak readers)

I made a reservation and exchanged several emails with the travel agency. Agency offered extra boarding cities including my hometown Hradec Kralove where I study and work.It’s 2 hours away from Prague. Domc currently lives in Prague what was another boarding city so we decided it would be easier for me to board in Hradec and for her to board in Prague. Agency told us it would be no problem and we were set without any idea what a huge problem it would be in reality.

I boarded in Hradec at 16:30 pm and our bus headed to Prague to get another passengers Domc including as we were sitting together in the bus. During the drive there I texted her how our bus looked like and our current location. We were supposed to be in Prague at 18:30 pm. and we entered the city at around 18:20 so I texted her we will be at boarding place shortly.

However our bus suddenly took a turn and headed away from Prague. I found it weird but as I’m not very familiar with Prague road system I just tought we wanted to avoid traffic so I texted Domc we would be probably late.

15 minutes passed and we were long way from Prague without Domc on board. At this time our czech speaking delegate came to me and asked me where my friend was. At this time I was so confused and I kept telling her she is supposed to board in Prague at what our delegate told me “she’s not there” and i said “she is but we’re not there”.

After another few confusing sentences I learned that there were 2 busses and my friend was supposed to board to another one. So basically travel agency without our consent split us into 2 busses and Domc would transfer later when our 2 busses would meet. No one bothered to told us thought.

Domc was standing in front of bus that she was supposed to board for 15 minutes what resulted in 15 minutes delay for both busses so all of the other passengers were pretty upset with us but not as much as we were with the agency.

And this wasn’t even the worst thing that happened for the ride to Netherlands.

At our last boarding place in czech republic 6 clearly drunk and horribly smelling men boarded the bus. Of course they sat right behind us and our personal hell began.

They kept drinking the whole time, alcohol and cigarettes smell spread through whole bus, they were so loud and vulgar and just plainly stupid it was unbearable. Language like straight from the pub and they didn’t gave a tiny rats ass that there were small children sitting next to them. They spilled alcohol over the floor and even on one lady’s bags several times and since they were drinking all the time they kept peeing in bus toilet that was locked, so every time they needed to pee, they had to go al the way to the front of the bus (we were all sitting in the back) to ask driver to unlock the toilet for them so the driver got pretty upset with them as well.

It was horrible, all of the passengers were complaining, they tried to warn them themselves but it was useless . They were drunk, vulgar and aggressive and they almost got into fight few times.

There were no sleeping for the bus. The minute I closed my eyes I heard one of them go “I came here to party not to sleep i could have slept at home” . Let me remind you the bus was full of 40+ years old ladies, families with kids, me and my friend and 6 30+ years old drunk pigs. There were 56 passengers altogether.

The travel directions we received from travel agency before the trip clearly stated that agency has the right to cast out any passenger who is consuming alcohol, drugs, is vulgar and aggressive toward other passengers but all of this was just pretty bullshit. Delegate came to them like thee times and each time she gave them “last warning” otherwise she would throw them away from the bus with no financial restitution. Sadly that didn’t happened even though all of the 50 other passengers would welcome it.

I attended bus trips many times and never did I realized the importance of your co-travelers. Luckily our drunk heads calmed down at around 5 am and we were getting off in holland at 6:30 am

Another negative thing for the drive was that there were almost no toilets breaks. Driver is supposed to make safety stops every 3-4 hours but that did not happened. Since I boarded at 16:30 till 6:30 there were only 2 toilets breaks !

I realize I have been complaining for quite a while but this was the “only” negative of the whole trip. Holland was incredible and from now on I’m gonna tell you only positive experiences about the trip.

Our first stop in holland was Keukenhof tulip gardens, the biggest and most beautiful tulip gardens in whole Netherlands and it truly is.

Garden opens at 8 am and we were a bit sooner, we got tickets for 17 euros and spend there 3,5 hours. As we had some time to spend before the opening we went to small market to buy tulip onions for our own gardens. 10 euros for 3 bags of 10 onions.

It was much nicer at this early hours as there were almost no people while at noon the garden wa so crowded there were almost no place to move and it was impossible to take nice picture without other tourist photo bombing you.

Gardens were in great shape, perfectly cut, incredible color combination, many beautiful decorations that looked incredibly on photos. I believe there is not much I could say about it and it would be better for you to see some of the many pictures we took in there to truly see the beauty we experienced:

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What you can find in Keukenhof gardens besides tulips:

coffee shops

benches to rest

wheelchairs to borrow for older people

statues

retro car shops

flowers shaped into pictures (like hearts, faces, river)

the well, small rivers, waterfalls

animals – ducks, swans, goat, chicken, pigs, rabbits, parrots

fountains

old cars and flowers growing out of them, retro motorbikes and cars as a decoration

Netherlands white and blue ceramic

boats

windmill

Beach, indian, valentines and many other themed sections great for photographs

King Arthur’s sword Excalibur in rock (we were not worthy to pull it out)

Keukenhof is 110% recommendation must see when visiting Holland.

Our next stop was Zaanse Schans. Another beautiful sigh but I did not enjoy it as much as the gardens as the weather was bit unpleasant. It was starting to rain a bit. It was so windy and the place was full with people so it was annoying to walk with umbrellas on such narrow road as there were.

We had 3 major stops at Zaanse schans – first was cheese related. We went into this old building where they demonstrated original preparation of Netherlands cheeses and we even got to try bunch of different cheeses – some really delicious and some I couldn’t even swallow.

Next was clogs demonstration. They showed us how they make clogs from the log in just several minutes. We also got to see many clogs and ceramic at gift shop:

Third stop was windmill itself. We paid 4,50 euros extra but it was so not wort it, we just got to see inside of the windmill, climb upwards but since it was so windy and rainy outside we couldn’t even took proper picture so I did not like this attraction.

We still got few minutes to spare so we went to Zaansen Schans museum for free. But to be fair I have no idea what was it about as I guess we were supposed to take free audio guide to explain to us what was all of the exhibitions about, but since we had only like 10 minutes we just passed them by, took some photos and headed for bus:

From there we headed to Amsterdam. We arrived at 17:00 pm and leaved at 21:30pm.

Our group went to boat trip and wax figurines museum but me and Domc did not want to attend those so we went on our own and created our own program.

First of all we were starting to get cold so our first stop was Primark so we could buy some warm scarfs.

From there we just wandered aimlessly through Amsterdam, we made a stop at gift shop where we bought some souvenirs for our friends and family.

Amsterdam is famous for its liberal believes, legal access to weed or prostitution. Whole place smelled like weed and it remind me of my university dorm hallways. You could buy weed products, souvenirs or sex toys at every gift shop you coud find. I got weed lollipops for my friends.

We bought some sweets at this cute shop and ate them with the view from the bench over the river. We also bought coffee at Starbucks and relaxed for a bit and posted some photos on internet.

Prices were almost the same as at our country. We saw many people eating this fries so we tried them as well with sweet chilli sauce. They also offered free mayo with herbs what tasted great but their ketchup was just bad.

You can’t find public restrooms in Amsterdam so if you want to use bathroom you need to go to some restaurant – we choose McDonald’s for 50 cent where we also got some snack and chilled for a bit.

In our next wandering we came across Museum of torture so we went in for 7,50 euros.

It was full of torture instruments with description on “how to use them”, vivid photographs and stories in many different languages. The place looked like basement and it was dimmed with scary red and blue light like this:

We did not follow the map, we just occasionally checked it if we did not went too far away from our boarding place. Suddenly we were on Amsterdam’s famous Red light district street. It’s famous for shit tons of strip clubs, bars and easy access to prostitution, room renting and drugs. There were girls dressed in lingerie dancing in shop windows and seducing bypassing tourists and trust me there were a lot of tourists at this street. Our delegate warn us not to take pictures of the ladies as they don’t like that very much and might leave or get very upset.

I get that – I wouldn’t like people taking photo of me while I’m working as well.

Being from middle europe where people are way too conservative and still consider homosexuals as something rare,unusual and huge sin our delegate put homosexuality into same liberal category as prostitution and drugs, and actually “warn us about them” what was kind of offensive in my point of view as a LGBTQ+/supporter.

For me personally Amsterdam went up hight on my top cities I visited list, I loved the view, old buildings, bicycles everywhere, nature, coffee shops with cute colorful chairs outside. I was thrilled by how everyone we met speaks perfect english, not like when i was in states where it took me a while to adapt to certain accent, or in Paris where just very few people could speak english. People were so nice – some of them even smiled or said hello to us what was just so shocking for us as we are so not used to something like that.

We kept walking the streets till evening and enjoyed beautiful sunset over the city.

As the 21:30 we were all at bus heading home. I was so afraid our horrible night from before would repeat as our guy group kept saying how they’re gonna get wasted and stoned in Amsterdam. Thank God when they turned the lights off in bus all of the guys fell asleep and we all could enjoy our night of peace. I arrived home at sunday noon full of great experiences.

What I did not know before I visited Netherlands:

Amsterdam has the lowest criminality even though the prostitution and drugs. I felt like the worst behaving people were the Czechs from our bus.

Another fact I did not now before was that whole country is under the sea level what was so mind-blowing for us as we were driving through country, sea was actually above us.

I had no idea the blue and white ceramic was originally from Netherlands, even though we had a couple of them at home since I was a kid.

I never really thought about why there is so many tulips in Netherlands or what they do with them afterwards. I learned that holland distributes onions worldwide with vegetables and fruits they grow in there.

Clogs – well know holland shoes but why did they start to wear them in first place? Well as Netherlands is under the sea level and whole country is full of water people needed shoes that would not leak and wood was perfect for moist tulips fields.

Amsterdam is not the capital city of Netherlands

Even thought ride to Holland was hell, country was heaven and we had great time.

Thank you for your attention

xo Natalia

One day in Netherlands Hey. Me and my cowriter of Books section of renegade7x Domc went to short trip to Netherlands last week and here is our quite long story:

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symplegades · 7 years

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i’m gonna do one of those old facebook note quiz things from 2010

Are you ready to answer these questions honestly even if it starts to get hard? ya How old is the last person you kissed on the lips? 27 Who was the last person you had a face to face conversation with? my best friend from undergrad What were you doing at 12 am last night? getting into bed/falling asleep Does the person you like, like you back? um i hope so!!!!!!! we share a bed????? Have you ever walked away from someone who was yelling at you? unclear. maybe but i think i’d be too squeamish to do that, i’d just stand there and cry Do you ignore people when you're mad/upset with them? nah i always have to talk it out either with them or someone else, and both options usually end in me getting over it/getting closure and going back to normal Did you kiss or hug anyone in the last 48 hours? yep When you say you don't care do you mean it? i don’t say i don’t care very much, so i guess when i say it i do mean it? i’ll have to pay attention next time Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow? yep Did your last kiss take place in/on a bed? nah i kissed mike while he was still covered in shaving cream it was yikes Have you ever cried cause you were so mad? oh absolutely, like 100% of the time What's your favourite color? cool colors. <-- what i wrote in 2010 but still true What color is your shirt? grey with purple lettering What do you hear? netflix, i’m watching this movie ~out of the dark~ Last person of the opposite sex you gave a hug to? actually my friend kevin from grad school! i just ran into him at work Are you sitting or standing? sitting. <-- also written in 2010, also still true Are you keeping a secret from anyone? um probably Have you ever kissed someone in the rain? ya Have you kissed someone with braces? yes. <-- i don’t remember that but apparently yes Are you short? ok in 2010 i wrote yes but i think i’m actually pretty average or even taller than average. maybe i was shorter in 10th grade What would your last name be if you were married to the last person you texted? ok i just texted like 3 people at once. i guess velez Last picture comment was from? did this mean, like, on myspace or facebook? idk who was the last person to comment on my fb photos. oh actually you know what a friend of a friend went through all my public posts including photos and commented on all of it and it was rly offputting, so that’s who How was your day overall? p good, i applied to 2 jobs and got called back for a second interview for another job (FINALLY) Do you think that someone is thinking about you right now? probably SOMEONE in the world. maybe my ma Have you ever kissed anyone within an hour of meeting them? ok mike tried to kiss me after our first date but i was like no that is creepy. and looking back i’m like aw so sweet we shoulda kissed! but no it was still uncomfy that he was trying to kiss me a very short time after we first met Are you anyone's first love? pls. sure i guess, people in high school. Could you handle living together with the last person who texted you? lol maybe? i’ve never considered it. prolly we could find agreements/common ground So, the person you like, their name starts with a B, doesn't it? it does not. <-- still true Is the person you last texted single? negative. <-- also still true Do you think age matters in relationships? i mean it’s totally dependent on context. we talking about 16 and 18 year olds or 16 and 32 year olds? i guess it always MATTERS it just depends on how it matters, like being similar ages kinda matters bc you’ve had similar life experiences at similar points in history and being very different ages matters bc you gotta wonder what’s going on. but once you’re over like, 25 i feel like bigger age gaps are more acceptable depending on what’s going on in folks lives. idk. How is your hair right now? it’s okay, up in a pony. actually i thought it was in a bun but i just touched it and it is a pony, usually it’s a bun when i’m home Do you hate the last guy you had a conversation with? nah he’s cool, although sometimes i have trouble following his thought process Where was your default picture taken? my prof pic on fb was taken at columbia Who's the last person you took a picture with? yikes, ahhhh... probably mike. Are you waiting for something? a job!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did you get your last bruise? who knows. <-- still true. i’m not sure i currently have any bruises? Do you believe in love? yes. <-- still true What are your plans for the summer? ikea with sami tomorrow, permit on monday, kate's birthday party monday night, possibly beach with em sara hayley + meg on tuesday, dermatologist on wednesday, california with sami from friday to tuesday, one week home, to maine for 2 weeks, one week home to schedule driving time and finish summer reading and find a job. wooo!

^^^^^sorry i just wanna preserve that 2010 message bc it’s so wholesome and high school-ish and carefree.

my actual summer plans are just intense job hunting and getting a job. then maybe planning a trip home or to maine, then planning a china trip but probably won’t happen this summer. What was your first thought this morning? wa wa why is my alarm going off Have you kissed anyone this month? ya Could you date someone taller than you? sure Is there anything in your past that you'd like to try again? uhhh. yeah i’m sure there are things i didn’t do great. idk? Have you ever gotten butterflies from someone? oh yes. <-- lol wtf? “oh yes”? ya sure idk Do you like waking up in the morning to find that you have new texts? sometimes. i think when i was younger it was more exciting but now i’m kinda relieved when i wake up and don’t have notifications. Ever had braces? nope. <-- still true Do you enjoy Taco Bell or McDonalds? i haven’t eaten either in ages even tho i want to but i know i’ll just get diarrhea. but i’d probably get mcdonalds given the choice Have you ever walked on the beach at night? oh yes. <-- oh yes?? anyway the most prominent “walking on the beach at night” story was when i was on spring break with my friends in ghana (or maybe we were in togo?) and we got stuck in this beach house like a mile down this deserted beach and it was like 2am and we’re walking and all super scared bc we’re a bunch of american girls in a foreign land and then 2 random dudes come out of nowhere and we’re all like NO LEAVE US ALONE and they somehow follow us to our house? and like try to come in? and we’re all f r e a k i n g out bc we’re afraid they’re gonna attack us but then my friend who is naive and trusting opens the door and we’re all screaming like DON’T OPEN THE DOOR but then i guess he just asked if we like... needed matches or something. anyway it was a lot What were you doing at 2AM this morning? sleeping. <-- still true Let me guess, your last incoming call was from the opposite sex? nope it was mike’s mom Has a girl sat on your bed before? yes although actually i don’t think that has happened in this apartment? no one ever really goes in the bedroom except mike and me. but maybe in the old apartment girls had sat on my bed before. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? chatting with my friend and getting my thread organized Ever kissed anyone 18 or older? lol ya Math or English? womp. english? i’m poop at math now i haven’t taken it since i was a freshman in undergrad Do you have any twins in your family? i don’t think so, which is surprising bc it’s a pretty big family Are you shy? depends on the setting and how comfy i am feeling Are you close with your siblings ? meh depends on the day. i think sometimes my middle sister mom’s me too much/nags me/treats me like a baby. You'd say "Fuck you" to your ex, ain't I right? which ex? i mean probably not, what’s the point? How you feeling? kinda hungry Will you ever run away and get married in Las Vegas with no notifications to either of your families? lol nooooooooo What do you think of boyfriends/girlfriends calling each other by food names? i think it is hilar and i wish mike and i did it If you're single, then why don't you get a boyfriend/girlfriend ? not single but also this question unnecessarily adheres to the gender binary also even if i was single i don’t need a partner heck! When was the last time you were craving to get drunk? wah not in a while, i can’t hold my alcohol and mike doesn’t drink so it’s not very fun I don't know about you, but I like saying "fuck" a lot. Do you? not like a LOT. when appropriate Do you think you'll be one of those people that will get a divorce in the future? eep i hope not? does anyone consider themselves “one of those people”? Who did you last hug? my best friend from undergrad Have you ever done something that was really bad for yourself? dur Is it worth crying over a guy or a girl? i mean... crying is crying. it’s not a question of worth it or not. if you wanna cry then cry Would you ever take someone back if they cheated on you? ya but we’d need to do a lot of emotional repair Has the last person you texted ever been mad at you before? oh absolutely i was trying to pretend that i wasn’t running horribly late but i was and i made her stand around for so long and she was pissed Has someone ever called you at midnight on your birthday? probably Are you wearing pants? shorts. does that count? <-- same Would you date someone twenty years older than you? womp not right now i’d feel a bit yikes. maybe if i was like 60 and they were 80 or something. it feels better to me if we’re both old lol Is your birthday in less than 6 months? nah Would you ever quit a bad habit for someone? i did actually! i was still smoking a bit when mike and i got together and he really hated it/asked me to stop Have you ever felt guilty about something you didn’t do? oh absolutely lol i feel lots of emotions about everything Do looks matter the most to you? nah Are you looking forward to tomorrow? meh Do you have someone of the opposite sex you can tell everything to? yeah! What are you doing after this? probably gonna make french fries Is something bothering you? unemployment ;( Three days from now, will you be in a relationship? i don't even know if i'm in a relationship NOW. <-- o shit 2010 alicia??? wyd?? you good???

anyway ya i hope so Has someone ever made a promise with you and broke it? i’m sure Will your next kiss be a mistake? hope not! Do you think you can last in a relationship for 3 months? we goin on 3 years here so Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? mommy. <-- still true!! we literally talk every day if not multiple times a day. Are you trying to avoid liking somebody at the moment? nope! What are you doing tomorrow? sigh probably clean... apply for another job. cross stitch lol What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? he still likes me (: <-- i’m so sad for 2010 me. what is going on? i’m so sad.

and i have no clue what my last thought was, i think i was wondering if mike wanted me to stop leaning on his arm Do you get along more with girls or guys? girls are beautiful and perfect and guys are yikes until proven otherwise next Do you remember who you liked on New Years? lol ya this same guy Have you ever intentionally pissed someone off? probably? Is there someone on your mind that shouldn't be? nah The person you fell hardest for calls, what do you say? hey!!! how's phoenix?! why are you talking to me and not your arizona brethren? <-- ooooooooooh it’s when i dated this white missionary boy who i loved so much but he def did not love me but i was like, just totally infatuated. my best friend from high school refers to this boy as my renaissance bc i after dating him i started dating much cuter people lol

um anyway it’s hard to quantify who i fell hARDEST for i guess? i mean i’m currently in the process of marrying mike so i think he wins. if he called i would ask how bar night was and when the transformers movie is starting bc he got free tix from work Do you think someone has feelings for you? lol he better Have you done anything sneaky lately? hm hm. i don’t think sneaky. Do you find smoking unattractive? sigh i shouldn’t but i do think it makes ppl look sooooo COOL Do you still talk to the last person you kissed? ya we like live together How many cigarettes have you smoked today? zero. <-- still true! Kissed someone who's name started with an N? hmmmmm. when i studied abroad i kissed a LOT of people so i’m sure one of their names started with N When was the last time something bothered you? lol what? constantly? Was last night terrible? nah it was good just a quick turnaround of getting home and going to bed. i ate a lot of watermelon which was gr8 What does your hair look like right now? pony-ish First person to speak to you in '09? lmfao damn i’m dating myself. idfk. Are you afraid of losing the last person you talked to? i mean, i’m not worried about losing them, but yes i’d be afraid or upset if i lost them Are you basically a happy person? i hope so! Do you wish you could take things back? meh. no regerts and all that Have you ever wondered what life would be like without your best friends? omg what?? no?? it would be terrible?? Last person to make you seriously mad? prolly bigots Be honest, are you starting to gain feelings towards anyone? i’m like 3 years in so Do you think relationships are even worth it? well fuck i hope so lol Does anyone completely understand you? i mean no one will ever ~~completely~~ understand me but ya i have lots of people i am close to and whom i trust a lot Did you hug anyone in the last 48 hours? yep! Can you recall the last time you liked someone a lot? lol yes smh Where do you see your ex in 5 years? sigh i have a lot of ex’s don’t put me on blast like this. a few of them are already married so. idk. employed? Your ex runs into you and hugs you, what do you do? which. one. actually it doesn’t rly matter bc if any of them did that i’d be like wat Who was your last missed call from? my dad, we were playing phone tag on father’s day Did you have any unread text messages this morning when you woke up? yeah one from my best friend from high school saying “wtf” bc i told him about how rats can eat snakes if you’re not paying attention when you feed your snek When you and your friends are out and about do you usually get dirty looks? wut? i mean no but probably when i was a teen or preteen we were annoying and did get dirty looks Are you easily scared by horror/thriller films? i lOOOve these films but if it’s about like home invasions i get scared, or like things that live in your house Favorite fruit? god i love fruit. raspberries, applies, cherries (but i’m allergic now :(((((((( ), melon, oranges, the whole shebang. When someone says "we need to talk," what runs through your mind? yikes.com What are your chances of getting with your crush? smh i think they’re pretty good Who did you talk to on the phone last, and why? mom bc i was walking home and wanted to chat with her Do you always answer your phone? yes always Ever worn something of the opposite sex's clothing? dur Which do you enjoy more, to eat or sleep? lmao ahhhhhh i guess eat. Is there a member of the opposite sex on your mind? i mean, yes i have a partner who is a man who i love dearly but he’s not like ALWAYS on my mind, like rn i’m not rly thinking about him but i do care for him a lot and think of him often/want to share most things with him Do you believe your latest ex thinks about you? who??... is my latest ex...... either that aaron guy from okcupid or -- omg CONNOR sigh omg poor boy i hope he’s okay. i hope he doesn’t think about me omg Who was the last person you talked to before you went to bed last night? mike Do you know anyone who would just drop everything to come see you? i mean what’s EVERYTHING... like within reason yeah Your best friend tells you, you have a drug problem, you say? ah i love you and we will get through this lets research our options together

#WEW THAT WAS SUPER LONG #enter at your own risk #smh that was soooooo long #did people actually read these when i did them in 2010?

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academla · 7 years

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Digital responsibility, once and for all

Alright, I’ve talked way too much about The Hater, but I honestly want to discuss “digital responsibility” (leaving a clean footprint online) in general because it’s something I have struggled with and think is important to address. Here are some aspects (in terms of job, school, and socially) that I consider important to take into account:

Obviously, pictures: drunk pics, nudes, drugs, anything risque (bikini pics, depending on what’s emphasized) and not family friendly.

Swearing (which I FAIL at): yeah, it’s not great if your employer stumbles upon a YouTube video or bunch of blog posts where you’re swearing like a sailor. I try to justify my swearing because I use it as emphasis for very justified topics (e.g. hate), but if I was 100% digitally responsible I wouldn’t do it.

Shit-talking about “authority” figures: if you’re publicly talking shit and showing disrespect for your professors, bosses, even possibly coworkers (by which I mean serious name-calling/hating/turning others against them, not just complaining), that doesn’t look good.

Shit-talking about schools: so like it’s not good if your dream school finds a Facebook status where you’re bashing them for one reason or another...

What you write: I have no idea where employers stand if they find out you basically write porn (lbr that’s essentially what smut is) (it’s probably about fandom characters). I just know that I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with an employer/teacher/even my parents reading a makeout scene I wrote, let alone a steamy sex scene. It’s up to you, and chances are relatively slim that they’ll find you on AO3 or Wattpad or whatever, but something to take into account if you want to seem totally clean and pristine perfect to others. I mean... if it’s really good, who knows. I saw someone accidentally send their teacher a smutty Destiel fic and the teacher was like “I especially liked the part about Cas’s handprint on Dean’s butt, but this is not your essay” and I died.

All of that being said, you don’t have to be a perfect angel, and that’s not what I’m telling you to be. Employers check social media, but it’s unlikely that they’re going to spend the time scrolling through your blog finding blog posts and not hiring you because you say the f-word. They might even dig up dirt like that, and still hire you. It doesn’t reflect well if you’re applying for customer service and you talk shit from dawn til dusk, but if you’re going to be entering data into a computer 10 hours a week, they probably don’t care as much.

All of that being said, just be conscientious. People know this happens and we hear about it, but I think sometimes it’s easy to forget.

Now, here’s the other thing. We all have some form of online reputation on social media. Some of us are less in the public eye than others. Some of us do not care at all about what others think of us on the internet. But I would like to operate under the assumption that people generally do not want to be viewed as gossipy, cliquey, manipulative, rude, back-stabbing, or just anything negative. This is digital responsibility as it pertains to public image, and isn’t as important as in the workplace/academics, but still important as a social media consumer.

These are things I try to be very aware of:

Straight up talking shit. If you are going to talk behind someone’s back, do so in a way that there is a guarantee it will not be exposed. Do so via FaceTime and similar or at least do it one-on-one, with someone you trust, or a group where you know not a single member would report back to the person. If you don’t, you’re literally ASKING to be caught and labelled as a bitch/called out (no idea if my particular hater is remotely aware)/etc.

NOTHING ON THE INTERNET IS PRIVATE. NOTHING. This includes texts. If you and 15 online people join in on bashing one person *throws shade* that evidence is there in black and white. Your name is on that screenshot. You can’t take it back or lie. Whatever conversations you have, whatever things you post, even if you set it to private and take every precaution, IT IS THERE. (Maybe people have serious hardcore security hacks, but...) Listen, unless you are 100% private and don’t have any followers (and even so), there will be access available to your social media accounts and to what you post.

Arguably, controversial topics. Including reblogs. Welp, clearly I don’t worry about that. But if your goal is to create a pristine image, think before posting something controversial. I’m personally a controversial person, and people tend to have very polarized views of me. If you don’t want anyone unfollowing you because of your political/religious leanings, then don’t post or reblog things revealing those leanings. People can also have access to your “likes” so if you seriously do not want a single person believing that you are politically motivated, stay away from that.

Side/second blogs. It’s great to have anonymity and start fresh (that Augustana song “Boston” just came into my head... I think I’ll start it over/where no one knows my name). But you’re never 100% anonymous and a fresh start doesn’t mean nobody can find you and link you back to your other accounts.

Anonymous hate. This is a topic I’ve discussed before. And there is no total guarantee that you will not be able to be tracked. Yes, people don’t usually go to those lengths. That being said, even if it is anonymous, it’s still you behind the screen, and it’s still you who everyone else is judging negatively and probably saying horrible things about which would normally ruin your reputation.

Real life people. Oh man. Yup. My friend in high school had a Larry (Louis/Harry from 1D) blog. Someone IRL found it either through Tumblr or her email/phone number or smth, and a group of malicious kids stood up on the bus on the way back from a track meet and started reading her posts out loud. If you don’t want that to happen to you, don’t post anything that might be socially incriminating *cough* stigmatization of fandom *cough*. I personally would not be ashamed if someone found my studyblr because like bro... I’m reblogging photos of people studying... but I will admit that posting on Snapchat to RL people is stressful because I do show a side of me I don’t show to them immediately IRL. I don’t think they really care that much, and I’ve never had anyone comment on the content other than “your snap story is so long” but it is something I often consider.

No idea if this is of any merit whatsoever, but I just felt like I needed to make that post. Just for reference. I don’t know. What am I doing with my life. Hope that was helpful, and I’ll catch you on the flip side.

#mine #tp #academlets #masterpost #hate #hater #digital responsibility #work #school #college #social #social media #social networking #reputation #idk #goodbye

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rxpunzelwrites-blog · 7 years

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what my kiddos are doing for valentine’s day!

laura tagged along with lydia and rosy for a lot of the day because she normally spends the day with lydia and felt a little lonely probably. but then she left the two of them to do their own thing and now she’s scotty’s valentine and eating donuts with him.

audrey isn’t even aware it’s valentine’s day. she was probably alarmed by the all the paper hearts in messina then eventually shrugged it off and went to work.

harper spent it with toby of course, and baked him heart shaped cookies and they probably went for lunch with their kiddies! she also baked rhodes a batch as well and kissed him all over his face and told him she loved him no less than thirty times.

reuben had to help bill pick out a valentine’s day gift from tori and suggested that he take her on a ghost tour. whether or not he took that onboard is up to jenny :’) and then reuben pulled himself to dinner and asked daisy on a second date and probably just took her somewhere nice for dinner.

mickey didn’t celebrate valentine’s day because it’s shane’s birthday which is a hundred times more important to him. he saved up his money and bought him a vintage signed photo of gregory peck.

dennis went right ahead and bought bret flowers and they weren’t crumpled this time and he says that he’s only making up for squashing them on their auction date and that he didn’t even know that it was valentine’s day but he said all this with a stupid smile on his face and probably helped with the rosy surprise even though he complained the whole way through it.

alice spent the whole day making out with jay. probably in front of quinn at some point. i am so sorry.

leon sent an anonymous card to freddie because he’s in way over his head. silly boy.

atticus kissed eeeeeeveryone on the cheek today. but finn and reggie and amelia and annie got TWO kisses. he didn’t get anyone any gifts bc he claimed that he is their gift and that they should feel blessed.

wren claimed quinn as her valentine like she usually does. she made him a card like she usually does. and she kissed him like she usually does. later on, she went birdwatching with henry and tried to ignore all the flutters in her tummy.

rosy spent her day with lydia and got the best surprise EVERRRRR. she definitely cried. and then when laura left them alone she demanded that she and lydia cuddle in bed for the whole night and then told lydia that it’s the best valentine’s day she’d ever had. also realised she’s in love with lydia but didn’t say it out loud because she wants to tell bret first and ask if he thinks she should tell her.

wilhelm literally just spent the day with ringo starr. his ankle still hurts so he couldn’t even dance, poor bb.

felix wrote little valentine’s day cards for raegan, hazel and monica and then he sent one to eddie ‘from mallory’. but yeah it’s mostly from him. felix loves valentine’s day oh my gosh.

jack sang love songs all day, i’m not joking. he probably shyly serenaded ivy as well.

justin definitely asked raegan out on a date. and then as a joke he’d pretend he’d asked colton out as well and then he’d pretend to be worried about being double booked and then insist that indy needs to come now as well so there’ an even number. it probably wasn’t even his idea because he’s too dumb for that so raegan is welcome to take the credit.

callum debated asking what scotty was doing and then decided against it and just wished kai a happy valentine’s day through the wall before ultimately just going to work and spending his night on the docks.

brody lmaaaao okay so brody bought hunter a bunch of the saddest looking daffodils in the whole entire world because that was all he could afford. and he left them at her desk and claimed that it was so he could ‘keep up appearances’ oh my god i’ve been waiting to type this all day.

riley received lots of valentine’s cards from his students and took them all home with him and pinned them on his wall after he conferred with barry just to make sure that none of them were serious love letters. he sent monty a card and said he only did so because that’s what the two of them usually do.

sutton probably went to hang out with kara and ollie fully aware that it was valentine’s day but didn’t mention it and if it was brought up he would feign ignorance like ‘oh??? it’s valentine’s day???’

let’s not talk about how greyson is doing today

elsie kept herself to herself even though she contemplated wishing tara a happy valentine’s day but decided against it. angelica probably tried to corner her for a kiss but she ran away.

wardo is the most loved up fucking goober right now. he spent the whole day kissing louis and then dancing with cecily and ivy and was even nice to ulysses. wardo was in the best mood ever today okay.

elliot cooked chicken nuggets for melody and then took her to a monster truck rally. he asked for a kiss from raegan and was probably denied it, but he definitely gave rhodes a big kiss. and he’s super worried about him after the break up.

pace and cece didn’t give each other valentine’s gifts, but pace wished everyone he came across a happy valentine’s day. he filmed a lot of people getting their gifts and even caught a proposal on camera so he’s had a good day living through other people’s happiness.

angelica gave everyone all the kisses including lizzie, bea, jess, seth, katie, carter, cassie, conrad, melody and nearly elsie. basically if you think there’s a chance that angelica would have reason to kiss your oc then she definitely did.

dean spent the day watching finding nemo with mellie and baby hadley :)

joe hooked up with someone he can’t remember the name of. very romantic.

sybil went ghost hunting as usual, possibly with byron and if anyone tried to suggest something about that she’d threaten to curse them.

ella had class but brought hazel cupcakes home for her to decorate. she probably uploaded the footage to her youtube channel.

aaron is spending the day with his girlfriend but let it be known that he text astrid saying, ‘happy valentine’s day, maine x’

harvey was working but as you can see, he’s talking to kenny which means he’s very happy about that.

nathaniel spent the day with will and jane and kissed them both and basically just tried to keep will’s spirits up.

will isn’t doing good right now and he misses alex a lot and he feels edgy and anxious but he spent time with nathaniel and jane anyway bc he knew it would make nate happy.

dixie was working but when she saw séamus in the lobby, she definitely wished him a happy valentine’s day and then spent the rest of her shift blushing about it. also her momma made a sculpture in her pottery class and ‘in the spirit’ of valentine’s, she gave it to mr croft. innocently, of course, but dixie knows better and wasted no time in telling cassie and david.

cecily spent her day playing with apollo and smiling and giggling at wardo and louis. she let wardo dance with her and she hugged ivy and after some encouragement from her brother, she got brave enough to kiss louis on the cheek and wish him a happy valentine’s day before all the excitement got a bit too much for her and she scurried off to the museum. but then she saw david and got all frazzled again :’)

levi IS GOING ON A SORT-OF DATE WITH AMELIA AND THAT’S THAT ON THAT.

dustin is making fun of all his students’ valentines. because he’s a dick.

diego probably isn’t doing a lot bc when is he ever but i like to think he enlisted caroline’s help to draw a picture of a butterfly so he could give it to cedric.

chase is getting high af and hooking up with whoever wants him. mess.

max is having the time of her fricking life and sent valentine’s to practically all of messina. she’s wearing heart themed everything today and her muse is through the roof so she’s probably planned like six new novels and she’s LIVING. and she’s asking after everyone else’s valentines and how they’re going and fangirling over all the cute things.

holly walked into a novel idea. glared at katie. left.

benji probably got another kiss of david because i say so that’s why.

jutta has no valentine but she plans to find one when she goes out clubbing tonight so really she’ll be fine.

taylor sent valentine’s to both darren and ronnie from BOTH her and james because she knew james wanted to but wasn’t brave enough, and it also helped her feel less guilty about everything that’s happened between her and the boys lately.

bennett got piss drunk then found some randomer to sleep with so he can forget about calvin and hero.

kit is in a surprisingly good mood today. simon gave her chocolates which she didn’t eat, but gave them to cody instead. then she baked cakes for daisy, simon, lo and beau. she was probably super shy about giving lo one but again, she’s in a good mood, she got over herself and did it.

simon woke up feeling sad but he still went into work and bravely wished billy a happy valentine’s day AS A FRIEND before saying the same to everyone else in a novel idea. then he went home and gave chocolate to kit and beau to be a gentleman.

evie demanded that jax be her valentine because she knew he hasn’t quite managed to work up the courage to ask ronan out and ronan remains oblivious.

oz gave out free candy to everyone and tried not to be sad when daisy told him she was going on a date with reuben so there’s that.

caroline heard that amelia and cassie were both otherwise preoccupied but decided that was okay because she woke up and tackled jason and gave him a big kiss on the cheek as well as a card that says ‘i love you to infinity and beyond’. she also bumped into gabe and pretended to not know it was valentine’s day pls just give me this.

mellie is probs very anti-valetine’s day right now. she’s avoiding che and probably pouted if indy did end up giving into justin and going out, so she watched finding nemo with dean instead.

ronan was working and being oblivious about jax and i hate him for it. he probably spent what free time he had attempting to find a date for his cousin, abel.

alfie baked all his friends a heart shaped pie and gave them all kisses even though he’s a little bi awkward around scotty rn because he’s not sure if he’s allowed to kiss his cheek anymore, but his spirits were up anyway!

emma was on set and i’m sure that drew did something charming so there’s that :’)

ellis arranged so many flower bouquets today and you can bet your goddamn ass she went to pick clara up at school and gave one to barry whether he liked it or not. she also graciously camped out in calvin’s room in order to give rory the space should he bring someone home :’) and because of that she probably bulled calvin into letting her braid his hair.

seth spent the day with all of his friend - not just katie. he gave all of his friend a valentine’s day hug - not just katie. he went out at night with all of his friends - not just katie. AND YES HE’S SURE HE STARED LONGINGLY AT /ALL/ OF HIS FRIENDS NOT JUST KATIE, THANKS VERY MUCH.

noah literally spent the whole of rehearsal belting every single iconic broadway love song at isaac just to get a reaction from him.

conrad was bullied by anya into wishing lizzie a happy valentine’s day. he’s going to be embarrassed about this for the next three months.

carter as we know was cassie’s valentine and the two of them shared alllll the candy and chocolate together. and then he met teddy and let a stranger hug him and that’s very important for him. also, he pined over jess. as per.

kevin WAS SNAKED BY CARTER FUCKING HEFFRON. he’s v displeased and pouted at katie for being the mastermind behind the whole thing.

piper probably took a selfie with hunter and sent it to brody saying that she was stealing his valentine.

robbie spent it with blair and was appalled when jimmy showed up to ask if he could take blair out because EXCUSE ME CATTLE MAN THAT’S MY VALENTINE AND I NEED TO MAKE ALL THE MEMORIES WITH HER. so my headcanon is that he obnoxiously tagged along.

beau got cakes from kit and chocolate from simon and bought lo a big tub of marshmallows :) she’s not really up for celebrating though after her break up.

bailey sent all of her sisters gifts and then went to the stables so she could assist couples going on valentine treks together. she briefly contemplated how lonely single life can be but swiftly got over it.

adam definitely gave mack a card and a teddy literally just to piss off roy because he’s awful.

sawyer was in the ER and probably walked in on bennett and someone on the on-call room and is scarred for life. she debated going to see lux but then realised caleb might be working and decided against it.

micah spent the day at home with jd. he feels bad about not really checking on greyson but he knows he doesn’t treat jd the way he should or spend that much time with him on a good day and he wants to make that up to him on the national day of romance.

foster was working and probably received an inappropriate valentine’s from one of his students that probably left him close to tears because NO THIS IS WRONG WHY CAN’T I JUST HAVE AN EASY LIFE. he probably debated shoving himself back in the janitor’s closet before ultimately deciding to hide away at lunch time and share his babybel with ryke.

jimmy decided to ask out blair for the day and then realised that meant robbie would be tagging along. he was only a little annoyed.

#valentine's day;

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jackfollmanwriter-blog · 6 years

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The Great Gatsby Killings

I will never understand why Instagram will remove the photo or profile of a #bodystagramer because they post a picture of half their ass, but won’t take down profiles which celebrate the work of infamous serial killers. What I also will never understand, is my inability to not click on these violent Instagram profiles whenever I accidently stumble on one, lying in my bed at 1 a.m., trying to bore myself to sleep.

A few months back I ended up not boring myself, but falling into a cold pit of fear when I scrolled through the endless Instagram images related to notorious crimes in my hometown of LA.

I skimmed through the usual suspects - The Black Dahlia, The Night Stalker, The Freeway Killer, The Manson Family, Sharon Tate - I already knew everything there was to know. No need to waste time on them. I was just about to leave the profile, but then a picture of something I was familiar with caught my eye...my grandma’s house.

Tucked up into the highest folds of the Los Feliz hills in what was the fanciest part of LA back in the 20s, my grandma’s house was the subject of much old Hollywood lore, but most of the family never believed it. There was talk the house used to belong to a glamorous movie star from the 40s. One of those actresses with an old-school name like Gladys or Mabel, who someone’s grandpa’s would probably rave about.

There had never been tales or rumors about anything sinister being tied to the house though. Seeing the image of my grandma’s pale yellow house with the pointed roof and immaculate front yard lined with rose bushes on a profile celebrating murders was a true shock in the middle of the night.

I read through the copy next to the photo of my grandma’s house with my breath held.

This house at 3918 North Luker Street is the site of of the mysterious LA Gatsby Killings of 1947.

Due to a court case won by the current owner and inhabitant, the records of the case and the location were sealed for 60 years and were opened just a month ago to reveal the address and the full details of the case.

I dove into researching the LA Gatsby Killings of 1947. Here is just about word-for-word what I found on a blog.

The LA Gatsby Killings of 47 have long been shrouded in mystery, but the 60 year ribbon being taken off the case has finally shed some light on the rampant rumors which have swirled around the murders that took place, and the house which still rests at 3918 North Luker.

The case file confirms that a large party took place on October 31,1947. In the morning, the owner of the house, and heir to a manufacturing fortune, Abigail Hanover, my grandmother, called the police to report that she woke up to find the dead bodies of four partygoers in the bar room of the mansion.

The officers who arrived said they found four bodies which had passed away in the night and fallen to the floor. An investigation later revealed that the four - three men and one woman - had been poisoned. The exact source of poisoning was never determined.

Abigail’s story was that it was a very large party, around 50 people, that went well into the night and she retired upstairs to her bedroom around 1 in the morning while a mix of about 10 people, whom she did not know well (including the four victims), were wrapping up. Drunk and tired, Abigail said they could finish their drinks before they went as long as they locked the door on their way out. She woke the next morning to find the dead bodies and called the police.

This was the outlaw days of the 40s when people thought there was no way a rich, white woman could have killed four people. The police reportedly didn’t even question Abigail and only did a light investigation into into the crime. The three male victims were confirmed to be involved in the heroin trade and the female victim, Jessica Lucas, had been arrested multiple times on prostitution charges. Abigail admitted getting drunk and letting the party swell with far too many unsavory characters she didn’t really know and told the officers she was embarrassed about the whole thing and really just wanted it to go away.

However, an LA Times reporter conducted his own investigation and discovered from neighbors and the few acquaintances she maintained that Abigail Hanover was an immensely private woman who never had parties, whom they had only seen a few times. The reporter also discovered that Abigail only had one living, documented family member, a brother who lived in New York, whom she had not seen in more than 10 years.

Abigail went after The Times once the first story was written about the case and won a court decision which barred the publication from further investigation because she had been cleared by the police. This stopped the The Times from being able to publically report any further information about the case, but it did not stop the reporter from investigating privately.

What the reporter learned privately over the next 10 years would end up deepening the mystery and eventually earn it the “Gatsby Murders” moniker.

The reporter was able to document his findings in a long out-of-print zine called Crime Noir Vault. The articles are not available online, but I found them in the media archives at the LA library.

After Abigail’s brother passed away, his children took Abigail to court to try and get her half of the family inheritance, because they believed her to be an imposter. They believed the Abigail who was living in 3918 North Luker was actually Jessica Lucas, the prostitute who supposedly died from poisoning at the party and that Jessica had poisoned Abigail.

The family revealed that Abigail was a closeted homosexual. Her sexuality was actually the main reason she distanced herself from all family and most friends. Her deeply religious brother told the children the reason he cut himself off from her was that he discovered she regularly used the services of prostitutes. They believed Jessica Lucas was one of those prostitutes and that Jessica hatched a plan to swap identities with Abigail so she could assume her identity, home and fortune. The two women had a striking resemblance and the children believed Jessica relied on the incompetence of law enforcement and forensics of the time to allow her to pull it off. The children argued Jessica poisoned the real Abigail along with a few male flunkies to tie the crime to the drug trade so the cops would be more inclined to write it off.

And it worked. Abigail (Jessica) won her court case against the family. She kept her money and mansion.

Abigail (Jessica) married shortly after the murders and had a son (my dad) and daughter. She reportedly still lives in the house to this day alone as her husband passed away in the 70s and she never remarried.

My mind was blown in a way I never thought it could be. My grandma was an imposter? And a murderer?

I didn’t even know how to absorb the news. I thought about calling my parents and asking if they had ever heard anything about it. Thought they could maybe offer some reassurance, but decided against it. I didn’t want to blow up their worlds until I could get a little more concrete information. The whole thing could have been Internet bullshit.

I actually had the perfect chance to do so coming up in the morning. The next day was my weekly day of serving as my grandma’s nurse, at her house, at 3918 North Luker.

92 years-old and barely able to move, my grandma required 24-hour assistance, seven days a week. Being the superstar grandchild that I was, I offered to handle the task of caring for my grandma one day a week to give her usual caregivers a break and to bond with her. Well...and she gave me $500 every time that I did it.

All I usually did was eat three meals with my grandma, read the newspaper and paperback novels during the day, watch the news and some game shows at night and put her to bed. Once my grandma was in bed, I watched shows on my tablet and texted with friends until I went to sleep in the guest room and left early the next morning.

I was on just a few hours of restless sleep when I used the heavy, lion head-shaped door knocker on the front door of my grandma’s house and waited for her to come to the door. The snarling tongue of the iron lion seemed to take on a menacing quality this gray, November morning in LA as morbid thoughts swirled in my brain.

I heard the familiar sound of my grandma’s stair lift slowly transporting her down the steep flight of stairs which connected the first and second story of the house. The chair lift was the only way my feeble grandmother could get up and down the stairs.

I heard the chair grind to a halt and soon looked at my 98-pound grandma through the open door of her house.

She greeted me with a hug which felt just a little bit hollow for the first time.

Breakfast and lunch went by as usual. I wasn’t able to force out a passive attempt to bring up the story from the Instagram account, but the three glasses of chardonnay I downed at dinner made sure the third meal of the day would not pass without bringing it up.

I coughed my way into the confrontation...

“Uh, ahaha, so grandma...I saw this really crazy thing on this site that’s like Facebook, called Instagram. It, uh, had photos of haunted places in LA and places where people were murdered, and I saw, uh, your house, this house, on it.”

My face was as red as one of those cherry lollipops you get with the bill at a Mexican restaurant when I looked up across the long dining room table at my grandma. She stopped picking through her salad.

“That’s funny,” my grandma answered back with a flat tone.

“Yeah, it said this thing about how four people were poisoned here in 1947. The whole thing sounded made up. Did you ever hear about that? Or see anything about it?” I pressed on.

“Yeah, there was a bunch of crap about that. They had the wrong house. It was the house four doors down. The Wainwright’s live there now,” my grandma explained and turned her attention back to her salad.

I let it go. I took my grandma’s answer as good enough. I think my brain really just wanted her excuse to be true, despite knowing the amount of detail in the Instagram post and blog showed that there was no way it was just the “wrong house.”

I figured I needed to wade into this thing like cold water at the beach - step-by-step and inch-by-inch. There was no real reason to be worried or in a hurry. If the whole thing was true, it just meant that I was l would eventually inherit some money I didn’t deserve from someone who didn’t deserve it from someone who stole it from someone who didn’t deserve it.

Those tall glasses of chardonnay and the gin and tonic I topped them off with sent me to bed just a few minute after my grandma’s 9 p.m. bedtime. I was tucked into the luxurious king size bed with silk sheets (another reason I didn’t mind my caretaker duties) and fighting off sleep by the time 9:30 rolled around.

But that boozy sleep would not last. A swollen bladder woke me just a few sweaty hours later and I found myself rustling in the bed in the dark.

I started to fight that childhood battle of burning bladder vs. childish fear. I desperately needed to pee and take a couple Advil out of my purse, but I was petrified of the dark cavernous hall which led out of the guest room and towards the nearest bathroom.

The battle raged for a few minutes until a grinding sound outside of the door took over the fear department in my brain. I knew the sound as soon as I heard it. It was my grandma’s stair lift - rattling and rumbling around the hallway outside my door.

Was my grandma riding her chair in the middle of the night?

I got up out of bed and headed for the door to the hallway.

I threw the door open and watched the empty cushioned chair of my grandma’s stair lift slowly roll past my door and head back in the direction of the stairs. I breathed a brief sigh of relief, but it was short lived.

Maybe she had taken it downstairs and fallen off and now it was rolling around on its own?

I followed the chair lift down the stairs and found no sign of my grandma. The thing probably just turned on accidently. I started to search around the track on the ground floor to see if I could find its home base where I could turn it off.

I managed to lose track of the chair during my first floor investigation. I had never noticed it before, but the chair looked to snake around the west wing of the first floor where I rarely went. I followed its metal tracks around the corner of the foyer and into a hall that led to a dining room and prep room that were never used.

The chair’s path seemed strange to me. I was surprised my grandma rigged it up to go all the way down a hallway I assume she never went into.

I followed.

I flicked on a light as soon as I got into the hallway and noticed an open door to the left just before the end. It seemed like the sounds of the chair’s gears grinding were coming from in there. The little prep room which connected to the formal dining room.

I followed.

I stopped just inside the doorway and tried the light switch in the little prep room, but it didn’t work.

I squinted in the dark and made out what looked to be the bookcase I was accustomed to see in the room, turned sideways as if someone had pulled it away from the wall. The gap in the wall the bookcase left looked to open into another little room I had never seen before.

A horrible feeling rumbled in my gut. Like that flushing drop to the pit of your stomach you get not long after eating something rotten.

I fought back the fear. I figured at this point that if someone, or something, had something sinister in mind for me, they would have already done it. If anything, going into this dark, secret room was going to give me information which may be useful.

I followed.

The scent of thick perfume came over me as soon as I walked into the room. I instantly sneezed, twice, and it delayed me taking in the room for a few moments.

The room slowly came into focus in the soft light provided by a flickering candle in the corner. Just left of the candle was a vanity mirror, perched on top of an ornate counter. Seated in front of the counter on a velvet stool was who I recognized as a younger version of my grandma.

I watched for a few chilly seconds as she combed her hair while staring at herself in mirror - showing not an ounce of recognition of someone else in the room.

“That damn thing,” I heard a groggy voice call out from behind me.

I literally jumped up into the air and screamed as loudly as I ever had in my entire life.

I gathered my bearings in an instant and spun around to see the shadow of my present day, elderly grandmother wobbling in the doorway to the hidden room.

I looked back around the room in a flash and saw no candle, no mirror and no younger version of my grandma combing her hair.

“That thing keeps acting up and riding around the house all night for no reason,” my grandma went on as she stumbled out of the doorway and back towards the prep room.

I tried to put things back together in my head for a moment, but couldn’t even get close. The room I was standing in was now just a dusty, empty room with a cold floor on my bare feet.

“Funny the thing found it’s way in there,” my grandma’s voice faded away as she walked away.

I followed my grandma out of the room.

“I have the chair stored in the old secret powder room so the ugly thing is out of sight most of the time and it must have decided to head back home after roaming around all night. I guess you had never actually been in there. Your grandpa loved it for drinks, but I had no use it for it so I never used it,” my grandma went on.

I made my way out of the prep room and into the hallway where my grandma was speaking from, but she was no longer there.

I stopped in the hallway and listened to her little feet trot up the stairs, back towards her bedroom and the guest room where I slept.

“Try to get back to bed and get some sleep dear,” I heard my grandma call down.

“Actually, if it’s okay. I think I might go home to get some more sleep. I have a work event in the morning,” I called back.

I waited for a few moments before I heard a response back from my grandma.

“That’s fine...but you know...sometimes it’s best to let secrets lie, if they work in your favor.”

I choked on my tongue. Tried to form a coherent response, but could only get out noises.

“Uh, um, uh, yeah.”

“Good night,” my grandma’s voice echoed from upstairs before I heard her bedroom close and I ran outside to get into my car.

I didn’t actually have a work event the next morning. I just slept in until almost noon since I barely got any sleep the night before. I turned off my phone so I wouldn’t get any texts, emails or notifications which would shake me from my much-needed slumber.

I was shocked when I turned on my phone, felt it vibrate and heard it ding for what felt like two full minutes before it calmed down. I woke it up and looked to see my home screen flooded with little notification indicators.

The first piece of communication I cued up was a voicemail. Judging by the familiar sobs of my mother which greeted me as soon as the recording started, whatever prompted all this communication was not good.

“It’s your mom. I hate to have to call you and tell you this, but your grandma passed away last night. Just, call me as soon as you get this and we can talk. I’m sorry.”

I called my mom back. She knew I stayed the night before at grandma’s and she had a lot of questions. The authorities would likely have some questions, but they could get to that when I got to my parents’ house across town.

I decided to go to my parents’ house as soon as possible, but needed to clean myself up a little bit first. My hair was particularly a mess and my hoodie had drool on it from the night before.

I started to take my hoodie off to change into something clean, but stopped. I felt something hard in one of the pockets. I reached in and pulled out the item.

Looking back at me was a golden comb, worn with age. I marvelled at it for a few moments and noticed an inscription, in cursive, on the handle - JL.

I looked into the mirror in front of me and smiled.

I put the comb to my head and started to fix my hair.

There weren’t a lot of questions for me from family or the authorities. I told them I had too much to drink at dinner and both of us fell asleep a little early.

I told them I woke up around 1 a.m. because I was sobering up and thought it would be easier to go sleep at home, so I headed home without talking to my grandma. I didn’t get the news until I received my mom’s message just before noon.

I thought about telling them about the incident with the chair and the secret parlor, but held back, especially because of a key piece of information the coroner shared with my parents which they shared with me.

The coroner assured my parents that my grandma passed away not long after she went to bed, just after 9 p.m.

Did I tell my parents that I saw my grandma walking around, hours later, after 1 a.m? I thought about it for a bit, but decided against it.

Sometimes it’s best to let secrets lie if they work in your favor.

Originally published by Thought Catalog on www.ThoughtCatalog.com.

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sambaguy · 6 years

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Samba Guy Goes On A Date

I have an iPhone 6 Plus and go to Coachella every year. I’m thinking about starting a blog and have been really into standup lately. I have a favorite microbrewery because I like my beer really hoppy, whatever that means. I have a fun Twitter feed and interesting theories about what could happen on House of Cards. Clearly, I am no slouch in the ladies department. I mean, I am funny, cultured, well dressed and well read, and any girl would take pride in dating a guy who is so keenly cool. And I have a ton of platonic female friends in my friend group. But, alas, the last few months have been what people in comedies would probably call a dry spell. Hard as it is to believe, I haven’t been with a girl in a long time.

I was devastated when my ex and I stopped seeing each other, except for the fact that when we stopped seeing each other, we couldn’t stop seeing each other, because we followed each other on Twitter and Instagram and were friends on Facebook. So I saw her all the time, her grinning profile picture shadowing my feed. “Unfollow her!” my roommates would roar. “You’re never going to get over her unless you unfollow her on all that stuff.” But I couldn’t. There was something so enthralling about being able to track her social life. Was she seeing someone else? I had to know. Besides, unfollowing her was too dramatic. Remaining friends on social media, however, showed I was unfazed, cool, chill and whatever. But I wasn’t any of those things. I’d find myself scrolling through her tweets and Instagram posts at 2 a.m., drunk. Her Instagram always included photos of other men. Men who, I could only assume, were better than me, knew more about album releases than I did, and had better takes to offer off-handedly during important cultural events, like the Billboard Awards (BTW, props to whoever booed Kanye and Kendal and Kylie, like seriousy it’s about time and LMAO at the censoring). Finally sensing the craziness of all this, I clicked “unfollow” and then “unfriend.” With this tiny act of defiance, I was finally free. “This is closure,” I told myself. “This is moving on.”

So it’s time to get back out there. I’ve been trying. Whenever I’m out with my friends at concerts or even just breweries, I try to talk to as many as possible. I don’t get a lot of positive responses—it’s surprisingly harder than you’d think to find a girl who shares my taste in music and opinions about shows (they need to at least be as caught up as I am because I tend to let the spoilers fly, especially when I’ve had a few beers and am excited by the prospect of someone of the fairer sex actually liking Game of Thrones or whatever show is being discussed at the moment). So many girls only listen to pop and not even critically, like they just don’t even know what they’re listening to. I guess that’s what I’m really looking for, at the end of the day, a girl that really knows her stuff. Like a needle in a haystack I’m afraid. But every once in a blue moon there’s that spark. And it’s truly magical.

I felt that spark last weekend when my friends and I were at a St. Vincent concert. It was there that I met Ellen, the girl who is going to be my date tonight and who, if I play my cards right, might even be my girlfriend. But I’m getting ahead of myself. So there I am with my roommates and we’re all standing around the bar. St. Vincent hasn’t started yet and they’re playing Girlpool over the speakers as the between-set music. It sounds pretty good and it takes me only about 45 seconds to recognize it. I turn to my friend Erik and point a finger at the ceiling, the universal sign for “You listening to this? This is good” (if that’s not in the ASL alphabet, they’re doing it wrong). Erik nods and leans closer to me.

“Trust me,” I tell him. “You’ll see this artist on the Coachella lineup in two years.”

Just then, a girl who was standing against the bar turns to us. She’s attractive and wearing a dark blue top with some pretty big jewelry around her neck.

“You know Girlpool?” she says to me, but kind of looking at the whole group. Clearly, there is a lot of mutual impressed-ness happening between all of us. But she was talking to me.

“Oh, yeah,” I tell her. I’m playing it cool now. “They’re pretty great.” She smiles at me and moves closer, now addressing me only and not so much the group. Already I’m feeling like something could happen here.

“They’re amazing,” she says. “Probably the most heartening band I’ve heard in a long, long time. It’s such special music.” She looks away for a second. “I can’t believe you like them, or even know about them.” Laughing.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’ll see this artist on the Coachella lineup in two years.”

“I already have my ticket,” she says and laughs.

“Really?” I’m instantly jarred back into reality. “When did they announce the lineup? Is presale available already?”

She looks confused for a second and then laughs again.

“You’re funny,” she says. I’m racking my brain for any recent Coachella news I remember seeing. Tickets cannot be available yet. That’s not possible. That’s almost a year from now. I fight the urge to take out my phone and check right now.

“I’m Ellen,” she says, sticking out her hand.

“Tom,” I say, startled.

“Tom,” she murmurs. “Nice to meet you.” I am at a total loss. I can’t focus on anything now. I take a sip of my beer to buy me some time. Ellen is still looking at me.

“You like these guys?” I say, motioning with my pint glass around the venue, indicating St. Vincent.

“Who? St. Vincent? Yeah, totally, she’s amazing, she’s such a badass.” I notice my friends have sort of dispersed into the crowd.

“So badass,” I say, taking another sip of beer and nodding. Just then, St. Vincent comes out on stage and it’s gets loud in here. We are jostled by everyone around us moving closer to the front. I feel, somehow, rooted to the spot, connected to Ellen. I don’t know what to do next. A group of girls come up to Ellen and engulf her. She looks at me and waves and disappears into the crowd. I’m by myself now and don’t see my friends anywhere.

When St. Vincent (pretty good) is over I’m still waiting on the outskirts of the crowd. I can’t believe that’s how it’s going to end with the Potential Girl of My Dreams. I craned my neck to look for her the entire time but couldn’t really see her and didn’t want to be totally creepy and track her down in the audience. My friends come back.

“Where were you, dude?” Aaron says. “We were like four feet back from the stage. So awesome.”

“I know,” I say. I look around one more time for Ellen as we all make our way out into the warm night and then to Erik’s Forester.

“Tom!” I hear a high voice behind me. I turn and see Ellen walking away from her friend group toward me. Under a street lamp I can see her better. She has brown hair and bangs and a round face.

“Hey,” I say, sort of breaking away from my friends as well. “There you are. You totally…vanished.”

“My friends wanted me with them since I basically dragged them here,” she says, laughing. Then, seeing my grave face, she adds, “Sorry though.”

“No problem.” I shake my head. Silence. “Do you want to have dinner with me?” I say quickly. “We could…talk more about…Girlpool,” I add, in what I hope sounds like an appealingly suggestive way.

“Yeah, of course, yeah,” she says. “Yeah.” She takes out her phone and hands it to me. “Put yourself in there.”

I do and then she texts me so I have her number. I add a new contact: Ellen. I look at the name on my phone and smile and then I look at the girl in front of me and it falters.

“Text me,” she says. “I have to go.”

“I will,” I say. In the backseat of Erik’s Forester, my thigh squished up against Derek’s, craft-beer-drunk and riding home, I tweet an innocuous Drake lyric.

* * *

That was last weekend. I texted her two days later and after some clutch icebreakers (“Hi it’s Samba Guy, the Girlpool guy from the St. Vincent show last weekend”) we made a plan to meet at a ramen place she knew about this coming Friday, A.K.A. tonight. I’m getting ready, putting on my brand new shoes, which arrived just in time, and––most importantly––taking an extra large dose of serum. I can’t think of anything worse than transforming in front of Ellen’s face on our very first date (not that I intend to ever let her see that happen ever). I pick out a pretty nice looking sweater that’s still casual enough for a first date but looks like I obviously put effort into my appearance. I borrow Erik’s Forester and I’m out the door. I play Run The Jewels to get me pumped up and then when I’m a block away from Ellen’s building I switch it to Girlpool to really set the mood. I pull head first into a huge spot (I’m a pretty bad parallel parker and I’m stressed enough as it is!) that’s luckily vacant and jump out of the car. I send her a text saying I’m outside. Twenty minutes later Ellen comes out onto the sidewalk wearing jeans and a green shirt with an interesting neck area and big necklace.

“Hey,” she says. “Sorry I wasn’t ready, and my friend’s were like freaking out.”

“Not a problem,” I say. I passed the twenty minutes catching up on some Stereogum: there’s a new Run the Jewels parody thing that big-name artists are getting involved with called “Meow the Jewels.” They’ve raised a bunch of money for it already on Kickstarter. It’s absurd, but that’s the point. It’s like a joke turned reality. “You look great.”

We drive to the ramen place. Ellen either doesn’t notice or doesn’t comment on Girlpool playing at a good volume in the car. I ask if she’s seen the Mad Men finale yet. She says she still needs to watch the last few seasons first. I smile to myself. There’s a strong smoky almost medicinal smell I can’t place coming off of her clothes. “That’s cool,” I say. “It was really good.” She’s on her phone for the rest of the car ride.

Inside the ramen place it’s packed and noisy and a stressed-out looking middle aged woman is seating people and taking down names for the waitlist. I tell Ellen I’ll go put our name in. It’s about a twenty-five minute wait. I come back to where Ellen is standing by the glass wall and stand next to her. “Twenty-five minutes, she said,” I say. “Want to wait?”

“Where else would we go?” All around us, seated and standing, are other couples. I don’t see anyone I recognize but I feel nervous and exposed. I have no idea what to say to Ellen. I wish dinner was over and I was at home.

“I don’t know,” I say. “We could wait outside?”

“Sure,” she says. We step outside, me keeping the door open as she walks out in front of me. Another couple comes in as I’m still holding the door. The girl knows Ellen.

“Hiiiii,” she says to Ellen. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe this, hi.”

“Heyyyyyyyy,” Ellen says. “How are you! What’s up, have you been here before?”

“Yeah, we come here like a lot,” the girl says, motioning to the guy, who is now talking the middle aged hostess. “It’s amazing.” I smile at her and look straight ahead. Ellen makes no mention of me. I’m still holding the door open. The girl is still sort of standing in the walkway, Ellen is on the sidewalk.

“What’re you doing later,” the girl asks.

“No idea,” Ellen says. “Why? Are you guys gonna be around?”

“Yeah girl,” she says. “It’s likely. Text me later.” She goes inside and walks to a table where the guy is already sitting, his jacket around the back of the chair, looking at his phone. He puts it down when the girl sits down. Ellen sees this happen. It occurs to me they take reservations.

“You should have made reservations,” Ellen says to me. “It is a Friday.”

Twenty minutes later we’re sitting at a small table in the humid back corner of the restaurant. The glass wall against our table is fogged with condensation. Ellen draws boobs in it. And then adds a shaft, turning it into a dick and balls.

“I’m glad we could do this,” I’m saying. “It’s great to see you again.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I didn’t think you’d text me.” I don’t know what this means. I try to change course.

“You listened to Girlpool lately?” I ask. Ellen looks at me for a moment, placing something.

“Not really,” she says finally, excruciatingly. Another pause. She seems to decide something else. “So what’d you do?”

“I work at a start-up,” I say. “It’s called Winyl, it like pairs drinks with the perfect music.”

Imperceptible interest registers on Ellen’s face. I continue: “Like what’s the best song to play while drinking this IPA, that kind of thing…”

“So what would you pair with this right now?” she says, pointing at her ice water.

“Well I’m not sure, I mean, the app uses like an algorithm. You either input the drink, or you let it listen to the music. It can pair it both ways.”

“Can I see your phone?” she asks abruptly. I hesitate. “I want to try it in here.”

“Oh, it’s not done yet. Like it’s not an app yet. I’m sort of helping out on a freelance basis.” Another long pause. I look up at her. I realize her eyes are green and not blue (the glow of her phone had thrown off their true color) and say, “Do you have Snapchat?”

“No,” she says. “I’m old-school.”

“Oh,” I say. “I respect that.” And then: “There’s a new Run the Jewels parody thing that big-name artists are getting involved with called ‘Meow the Jewels,’” I tell her. “They’ve raised a bunch of money for it already on Kickstarter. It’s absurd, but that’s the point. It’s like a joke turned reality.”

“That’s rad,” she says. “That’s actually rad.” I smile at her and she looks right at me. It feels as if all the most exciting parts of a new relationship have combined with all the ease and familiarity of an old friend. The effect is something like spiked hot chocolate: warm, comforting, intoxicating.

“Do you know who Lord Huron is?” she says. I feel her foot nudge mine.

* * *

After dinner, I’m feeling sick from the ramen and my face and head is sweaty. I pay the check and we get up slowly and walk outside, emerging into the cool and actually very pleasant night. A dog is barking somewhere and the sun is just setting over San Francisco. We’re walking to the car now and I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I’m much more comfortable now, but now that we’re back in motion, in a new and uncertain environment, I don’t know what the next step is supposed to be. I decide to say nothing and just see what happens. In the Forester we sit for a moment. I almost speak––wonder aloud what we should do––when Ellen asks, “Have you seen the new Game of Thrones yet? I still need to watch it. We could do that. I don’t want this night to end yet. My roommates have HBOGo.”

“I actually haven’t,” I lie. “That sounds awesome.” Ellen actually looks excited. I smile at her and start the car. She plugs her iPhone into the tape adapter and “I Love You, Honeybear” by Father John Misty starts playing. How sexy is that?

– Samba Guy, May 18, 2015

#sambaguy #archive #vintageguy

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wordsypalabras · 6 years

Text

You Ever Blink and Suddenly It’s 6 Years Later?

I recently moved to a new city. I graduated University in May. Moved in September. Been here since. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s beautiful but it’s dark and I miss the sun. I miss looking up and feeling warm, I miss sitting on the edge of a pool with my feet in the water with sweat dripping down my back and the bottom of my thighs feeling the heat of the stone. But it’s okay. I’m trying to be positive and I distract myself enough to not have the sadness consume me.

When I moved here I almost immediately began dating this guy Brandon. We watched a football game at my college friend’s apartment and vibed, the weekend after he took me to a haunted house which I loved. I love being scared. I love creepy things and not knowing. I love screaming in the car and laughing so hard I close my eyes. We planned to go on Saturday and then didn’t because it was pouring rain out that night and there was a wait of over an hour to get in. So we went back to his place and watched A Nightmare Before Christmas. The next day, Sunday, however, we went to the haunted house and that was great. He was sweet. He was thoughtful and sweet and a good kisser and silly with great taste in music. He helped me name my new car - Julian, after his favorite and my second favorite lead singer - Julian Casablancas (Anthony Kiedis is my first). All the while that I was seeing him, it felt like we just jumped straight in and it was cool because there was no prelim period, we just jumped. But it felt a little too committal for such little time together. Then one night we went out and I was drunk and kissed a good friend of mine, let's call him James, that I’d secretly been crushing on since I moved to this city. James and I talked about talking and had decided that after Thanksgiving we’d figure out what we were going to do. But then Thanksgiving happened.

Rewind to my first week in this city and we had a volunteer event. I saw a cute guy with a shirt from my university. So I tell him “nice shirt,” he made a what the fuck face, and walked away. From then on I thought of him as an asshole. Because he was.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving day. I wasn’t able to go back home for the holiday, so we had a Friendsgiving. Someone invited the asshole, let’s call him Dean. But I figured I wouldn’t be a bitch, I’d made sangria, and I wanted to make him feel included since he didn’t know anyone there except this one girl. I didn’t talk to him much, but he would give me a shy smile or look at me when someone said something ridiculous and he knew I understood his silent judgment. Towards the end of the night, he told me he liked my outfit. I drove him and my friend home. I dropped off my friend and then asked him where he lived. We drove to his place and then sat in my car talking from 9 PM til 330 AM that night. I was supposed to see Brandon that night and just completely forgot. I was supposed to be talking to James the following week about “us.” But the asshole truly captivated me. That was Thursday. Saturday we went out dancing and he came with, a bunch of guys asked me to dance and I politely declined, I wanted Dean’s attention. He walked me back to my car after, I drove him to his apartment, and we sat in my car until 730 AM just talking. I decided that night I was ending things with Brandon and wasn’t gonna start anything with James.

By Monday I’d ended it with Brandon. Tuesday I’d had dinner with James and we’d agree to stay friends. Dean was sick that Tuesday so after dinner with James, I stopped by to drop him off some tea. We’ve been “dating” since but it seems as though he doesn’t want to define it just yet and I’m okay with that for now I think but after being single for over 5 years, I’m ready to not be anymore. And Dean is weird and complex but so easy to talk to and funny and I appreciate his existence so much. Sometimes when I drive home and think about him I get momentarily nervous, it’s weird. But I think I’m in this more than him. I don’t know if it’s what’s going on with his life right now - as he is looking for a better job more suited to him and hates his current job - or if he’s just always like this, but I’m always putting myself out there for him and it’s never reciprocated. He makes me scared, irrational, jealous, overthink everything, but happy. Not happy in a dependent way. I don’t need a guy to be happy, clearly I’ve proven this over the last five years, but nonetheless he does make me forget everything. The sadness isn’t hanging over me as much when he’s there. Which is why I say I think I’m in this more than him, I think he’s momentarily sad because of his job circumstances but I feel like I’m just a sad person in general who focuses more on making other people happy.

I was feeling sad tonight and wanted to talk and he just kind of disappeared. So I texted Brandon just to hear from him and that was nice. I texted my ex that I’m good friends with, he has a kid now, just to talk but he has work in the morning so that was a bust. I got on tumblr to write and stumbled upon messages from another ex when I was a junior in highschool. I’d wondered what happened to him, he deleted all social media years ago and has been off the grid since, but I found his ex’s Instagram, he got back togethere with her after me. I saw a photo of him and he changed so much it was radical to see him look that way. I’ve kept this image of him and it was weird seeing him in another way. I found other friends I knew in highschool and it was weird. That ex that dropped off social media is engaged. The other good friend ex has a baby and is married for the second time. A friend from highschool is a chef at the Ritz Carlton, has twins, and lived in Italy for a while. My bestfriend of over ten years graduated from Brown University in May and is now living in Spain. And I was sitting here on my bed sad about Dean and sad about nothing and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I was gasping for air. How did I get here an how am I nearly 23 years old and how is it six years later and I feel like I have done nothing? And I know that’s not the truth, because in a non-brag honest type of way, I’m the most successful of anyone I know from my past. I graduated from the top university in my state, from the 5th best business school in the US, from the 3rd best program for my major in the US, I’m working for Microsoft and getting paid an amount I never believed I could make straight out of college, I’m dating an equally well educated man who isn’t a criminal or drug user like any of my ex’s, I don’t have children, I’ve got an amazing family. But yet I feel like this happened so quickly, time passed so fast, and I feel like I’m the only one who hasn’t moved. Will I always be dissatisfied? Is it dissatisfaction with life or myself? I don’t know what I’m doing. I doubt anyone is reading this at this point.

I wonder if my dad just screwed me up so much that I can’t survive without the attention of a man or constant validation. I can. I can. I know I can. But I want it.

Tell me what to do.

#Life LifeAfterCollege ClinicallySad TooManyMen #FuckedUp Seattle HauntedHouse Friends WhatAmIDoing

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dzamie · 7 years

Text

Fuckton of OC questions: Dream

Questions from @liaraliara‘s post here. Doing these for Dream, will do more for other characters eventually, whether y’all want me to or not.

Dream’s kind of a questionable character for me, because I kiiiinda stole her from another person when my imagination met a neat character in a Spyro fanfiction. I still feel guilty for taking and warping her, which is part of why everyone refers to her with her shortened name. If I hadn’t been using her for over half a decade now, I’d change her name probably to Dreamstalker, but... I’m very used to it now.

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything? Her full name is Mistress Dreamnorn. “Mistress” is her legal first name, though only she knows why. It’s... pretty obvious why pretty much everyone calls her Dream.

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them? None that have been confirmed real.

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? She’s very secretive about her past. Assumedly, she has several bad memories involving Holy Water, and fond memories of gardening.

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents? [data unknown]

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults? [data unknown]

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate? [data unknown] Though she’s a natural at ballistic mechanics, and has often times claimed to have various degrees in Physics.

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood? [data unknown]

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals? She keeps her childhood secret. She jokes that Kenneth’s her pet. She likes watching some animals, though usually gets quickly angry around bears.

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals? Animals tend to fear her, although she’s nothing but gentle with them.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect? She tries to stay away from kids for liability purposes.

11. Do they have any special diet requirements? Are they a vegetarian? Vegan? Have any allergies? As a dragon, she’s a carnivore, though she does tend a crop of carrots. For unexplained reasons, these carrots are blue. And explosive. She’s not allergic, per se, but she claims she has a nasty reaction to Christian icons, such as crosses, holy water, and churches. Nuns burst into flames around her.

12. What is their favourite food? Steak, medium rare, side of fries.

13. What is their least favourite food? Eucharist. She’s never been seen eating it, so nobody’s entirely sure if this is a joke.

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal? Not really.

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking? So long as she keeps her carrots out of the kitchen, she’s pretty good at cooking. She does cook with them, and they have... side effects.

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it? She collects firearms and sex toys. Should be pretty obvious what she does with them. The guns are kept behind a variety of traps and other hazards, like most dragons’ hoards. The sex toys are in a “locked” drawer, though the lock is nonfunctional.

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos? She takes what Dzamie and HM would call “blackmail photos,” but she just uses them to tease the subject.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else She likes adventure novels, especially with nonhuman protagonists. Not much a fan of other media.

19. What’s their least favourite genres? Historical nonfiction.

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes? Not particularly. She sometimes hums along if a classical piece she likes comes on.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper? Dream doesn’t get angry. She gets revenge.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back? She’ll just call them various animals, either in Draconic if she’s speaking Common, or Common if she’s speaking Draconic. Usually pretty harmless animals, though.

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces? She’s not too good with names if she doesn’t expect to see them often, but she doesn’t forget a face. Not the best at short-term memory.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress? Diurnal, though tends to laze around more in the summer. She doesn’t snore, though she does drool a bit. She prefers to sleep on Dzamie, HM, Kenneth, and any acid-proof mattress, in that order. For personal safety reasons, HM and Kenneth would rather she sleep next to them rather than on them.

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves? She likes lolrandumb style stuff. Not quite “t3h p3nguin of d00m” level, but YTPs and gmod videos are a favorite.

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions? The tip of her tail flicks back and forth, and she tends to... bounce. In her seat or on her feet.

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad? Losing something from either hoard, or a tragic fate happening to someone she cares about - including her favorite characters from a beloved series. She sometimes cries when sad, and others tend to be quick to comfort her, either out of sympathy or just to stop the flow of highly-corrosive tears.

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared? Nobody knows. She can be startled, but her reaction is usually throwing an exploding carrot at whatever startled her.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective? She mentally files it away in case she wants to exploit it later, but in the immediate moment tries to stop them from being scared, either by removing the source of fear or distracting/comforting them

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out? Twice a week, generally. Usually more stretching than most would do. Pre-workout she tends to be peppy, post-workout she’s either pumped up for some other activity or flopping on the couch and asking Dzamie for a massage.

31. Do they drink? What are they like drunk? What are they like hungover? How do they act when other people are drunk or hungover? Kind or teasing? She doesn’t really drink. Incredibly high alcohol tolerance, and it’s just not worth the cost for her to even get buzzed.

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like? Around friends, she goes around in just her scales - comfier, and less chance of accidentally corroding a hole into clothes she likes. In public, she tends to wear shirts (tee or button-down) and short skirts or pants, depending on weather. She also has a bunch of cloaks and blankets for when it gets really cold. Her hair is straight and brown, and she usually wears it down, but puts it in a ponytail for physical activities.

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties? Lacy panties. If she’s wearing some, there’s usually a rather specific and obvious reason.

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body? She’s a bipedal dragoness, around 5′6″ including her horns. Pretty muscular, but not very visibly so. Dream has limited shapeshifting ability, and tends to use it to mess with the size of her wings and tail. She’s comfortable in her body.

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure? Tactical games. She thinks it clashes with her lewd, dominating gunslinger sort of thing, so she rarely indulges herself, but she’s beaten several Fire Emblem games, Advance Wars, X-COM, and a lot of Wesnoth maps. Dzamie and HM sometimes face off in Chess, Risk, or similar games, but Dream prefers not to play with them - she likes to mess with her opponents, and they concentrate more on the game and less on her cute dragony wiles. As for unguilty pleasure... there’s a reason she’s so good at rope tying and accuracy with a whip.

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing? She’s an excellent markswoman, a talented gardener, and is superb at all sorts of knot-tying. Plenty of other things, too, but those are the most frequent 3. She likes gardening, and sometimes idly fiddles with a couple short lengths of rope. She has a nice speaking voice, but isn’t very good at holding a tune.

37. Do they like to read? Are they a fast or slow reader? Do they like poetry? Fictional or non fiction? Yes, she tears through adventure series. She sometimes enjoys poetry, but doesn’t go out of her way to find it. Nonfiction is a decent sleep aid for her.

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had? She admires confidence and stamina, and wishes she had more self-control at times.

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging? Email. She’d probably like sending texts, but doesn’t usually have pockets.

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert? Giving Dream energy drinks or caffeine is a subtle way of saying “I don’t really care how much of this building is left standing in an hour.”

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship? Bi and promiscuous. She finds lean builds and happy personalities attractive, and gravitates towards partners she thinks would enjoy a submissive role. Likes partners who are just friends outside of physical things, and needs them to be able to cheat exhaustion or escape her on the brink of such. Well, for their sake.

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition? She’s pretty content, actually. Wishes she could do bdsm things with Dzamie, but he’s very clear that it unnerves him, so she doesn’t. Secret ambition is to design a gun that fires guns that fires guns.

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people? ...nuns literally burst into flame around her. Other religions have a much lesser effect on her and vice versa.

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most? Spring. Weather starts to warm up, just about time to plant her weird carrots, she tends to have a weaker heat cycle then, and the trees stop being so depressingly bare.

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves? Most people think her lewdness is almost her entire personality, and that she isn’t able to defend herself. She disagrees strongly with the first, and will readily correct people about the second.

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves? Not really, especially since she usually mentions her full name (and her nickname. She’s not stupid.) when introducing herself.

47. How do they act in a formal occasion? What do they think of black tie wear? Do they enjoy fancy parties and love to chit chat or loathe the whole event? She’s not used to them, and tries to avoid being noticed if she has to go to one.

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend? She finds parties fun, at least the types HM hosts. Tends to be pretty outgoing at them. Once went to a “reunion” type thing at the local dragonslayer’s guild as Dzamie’s plus-one. Kind of awkward until she figured out that “kill all dragons” isn’t really the guild’s motto or mindset, and ended up amusing herself and Dzamie by winning a game of strip poker despite wearing a dress and nothing else.

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them? Her rocket launcher, custom-made to be able to fire her blue carrots. She takes it everywhere, and uses a basic Storage spell when she can’t physically have it for some reason or another.

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials? I’m never gonna figure out a good answer for any of my characters. Dream would probably take a bedroll, a tinderbox, her crossbow (plus some bolts), and a bunch of blue carrot seeds. And, of course, her rocket launcher. It’s surprisingly portable.

#text #ocs #dream

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