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thesassenachswiftie · 3 years

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Lover - Chapter 13: “Soon You’ll Get Better”

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Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 // Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Chapter 11 // Chapter 12

Summary: Claire and Jo go Christmas shopping; Claire gets a call at work that Lamb’s in the hospital in Boston where she fears she will need to spend the holidays without Jamie. In short: angst, but make it festive.

" This won't go back to normal, if it ever was It's been years of hoping, and I keep saying it because 'Cause I have to

Ooh-ah, you'll get better..."

CW: cancer, hospitals, illness of a loved one,

Notes: First of all, if you’re still here, thank you for reading, and thank you for bearing with me as I took a small hiatus. Hopefully I will be getting back to a more regular posting schedule, but work is really draining right now and it’s hard to find enough hours in the day to do everything.

As you know, each Chapter of this fic is based off a Taylor Swift song by the same name. This one was particularly difficult to write/approach because I actually haven’t listened to this song in over a year. In early Summer 2019, a tumor was found on my grandfather’s brain. This was also the summer I discovered Outlander, and the summer Taylor Swift released Lover. The day after Lover came out, I broke down sobbing in my apartment listening to this song and thinking about my grandfather, knowing his condition was worsening. That night, I recieved the call that my grandfather had passed. He was the kindest, purest soul and I write this chapter in part as a tribute to him. Many of the experiences Claire and Lamb share are based on my own experiences with my grandpa that summer, and this version of Lamb is very much based on my Grandpa Jim.

That being said, you may want to grab a box of tissues before reading, but hopefully not all your tears will be sad. I’m hoping to post again before Chistmas, but in case I don’t Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays--and Happy Hanukkah to any Jewish readers I may have--here is a Hanukkah present for you!

Chapter 13: “Soon You’ll Get Better”

“All I want for Christmas is yooouuuuu” the sounds of Mariah Carey rang out throughout the small boutique gift shop in the heart of the village of Northport.

“Good God, we’re only a week into December and I swear I’ve already heard this song three hundred times. I’m not exaggerating either. Two hundred and eight-four at the very least.” Jo scoffed exasperatedly.

“Are you complaining?” Claire asked in reply. “It’s a great song--a classic really.”

“Do you know how many incredible, amazing, beautiful, jolly Christmas songs there are in existence?” Jo was gearing up for one of their famous rants, “Yet, the radio stations only ever play the same eighteen songs, I swear!”

“It must be more than eighteen.”

“Fine. Twenty. Take this song for instance: Ingrid Michaelson has the most hauntingly beautiful cover of it--do you ever hear it? No! You only ever hear Mariah!”

“I, for one, like Mariah!” Claire interjected, playfully defensive.

“Who doesn’t? But she’s not the only powerhouse female vocalist out there! I’d just like to see a little diversity in my holiday music, is that so much to ask?”

Claire giggled. Her best friend always had an opinion on everything and she loved them all the more for it. “Do you think Jenny would like this candle?” Claire unscrewed the lid a locally-made jar candle, taking a sniff before placing it under Jo’s nose. It smelled like Lavender and Sage with just a hint of Eucalyptus.

“Does Jenny keep a lot of candles around, with all those children?” Jo chuckled back. “It does smell nice though.” Jo had only met Jenny a couple times when visiting Claire, but they had a knack for reading people and Claire was glad to have them along as a shopping partner.

“I suppose candles aren’t really her thing. Jenny seems very practical, but I don’t know what she would need that she doesn’t already have, and Jamie’s been no help!”

“I think you’re on the right track with the self-care/relaxation vibe, but maybe not something the children can use to burn the house down. What about an artisanal lotion set?” Jo inquired, gesturing at a nearby display.

“Oh that might work!” Claire took a squirt from the bottle labeled ‘tester’ inhaling deeply as she rubbed it between her palms. “Ooo that’s nice, I would appreciate this if I were a hardworking mother.”

“If things keep going the way they are with your man, LJ, you might just be before you know it” Jo made a lewd gesture with their hands, raising their eyebrows to make it clear exactly what they were implying.

“Jo! You’re terrible” Claire shrieked, smacking her friend playfully on the arm. Besides, not much of that happening these days if you haven’t noticed, Jamie is literally across the ocean.”

“Well, at least you can’t get knocked up from phone sex,” Jo replied. “What are you getting him anyway? I’m thinking something lacy and strappy, with little bows on it of course, to be festive. There’s a place down the street that might have something like that.”

“Hmm” Claire exhaled. “We’ll see.” Claire knew lingerie was definitely going to be part of Jamie’s Christmas gift, one she would be most excited for him to unwrap. God, she missed him. It had been over a month and they were settling into a routine, video chatting every night, sweet texts back and forth throughout the day, the occasional phone sex when they were both sick with desire for one other--but nothing was the same as the feel of their bodies pressed against each other in the heat of the moment, chasing each other’s climax. Claire couldn’t wait to be reunited with him in every way.

It was two days before Christmas break, only a few days left until Claire would find freedom for the next ten days and, most of all--the comfort of Jamie’s arms. Claire was sitting in her school nurse’s office, inhaling deeply during the first quiet moments she’d had all week. There was an uptick of student visits in the past couple weeks--a few were legitimate concerns tied to cold and flu season: students whose parents sent them to school when they weren’t quite well enough, overachievers who wanted to maintain their perfect attendance dragging themselves to school despite their bodies protestations. Most of her patients however, were suffering from something much more insidious: the eagerness to start their winter break early by skipping their classes. This time of year the air of the school felt different, students and teachers alike were burnt out, apathetic, and ready for a break. This attitude in the students fed into the teachers’ attitudes--overworked with the end of the marking period, trying to squeeze in Christmas shopping and decorating between grading. Claire did not envy Jo nor any of the other teachers during this time, but their exhaustion was so palpable in the air of the school that she was starting to feel it too. By tomorrow, most teachers would be shutting their doors and playing a holiday film, giving up on instruction all together--hopefully that would make for a quiet day for Claire. Really, if she could just get through the rest of the day it would be smooth sailing until Christmas--until Jamie.

Her silent musings were broken by the blaring sound of her office phone. She was expecting a teacher, calling to send a student down, but instead it was the school clerk, Glenda. “Hi Nurse Beauchamp, we have an outside call for you, it seems like it may be a personal call so if there’s any students with you we can send someone down to watch them if you’d like to take it privately here in the office.”

Claire's heart sank to her stomach. What could it be? She took a deep breath and swallowed to brace herself before replying “last student just left.”

“Alright, I’ll transfer you now.” The click of the call transferring sounded through the phone.

“Hello, this is Miss Beauchamp”

“Hello Miss Beauchamp, I’m Tammy, a nurse at Mass General we’re calling because you’re listed as the emergency contact for Quentin Beauchamp” a nasally voice croaked through the phone speaker--the voice was impersonal like that of a cashier saying “have a nice day” for the thousandth time, not fitting of a potential harbinger of death.

“Yes…” Claire replied, nervously, questioningly.

“Mr. Lambert was admitted this morning after showing signs of cognitive distress. An initial cat scan shows a mass on his brain. He’s currently undergoing testing to see if it’s cancerous.”

Claire’s lungs felt like they were about to collapse. Lamb had been diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago, but had been able to live with it through treatment. Claire also knew that cancer was insidious and could spread throughout the body rapidly and without warning. She knew it was very likely that the mass was cancer. She tried to find her medical professional voice, but a diagnosis was different when it was someone you loved. Instead, she croaked out, “when will you know?”

“We should have the results by tomorrow. He’ll stay here overnight for monitoring and we’ll decide whether to admit him long term from there.”

“I’m on Long Island, should I drive up?”

“I’m afraid it’s too soon to tell, it could be nothing, but--” Claire cut her off, knowing exactly how bad it could be.

“I understand. I’ll drive up this evening.”

“Alright, he should be back in his room by then, he’s out getting his tests done now. It’s room 713 when you get here.” Claire wrote the number on a bright blue sticky note on her desk as the nurse spoke. “Have a nice day Ms. Beauchamp”

“Hmm” was all she could reply, as if she could possibly have a nice day. She hung up the phone, and finally let the deluge of tears she’d been holding back free.

She allowed herself to cry for a few minutes to get it out, but she knew she had to get to Boston as soon as possible. She picked up the phone again and dialed the main office.

“Hi Glenda, it’s Claire. I need to take the rest of the day off--I have to go to Boston, my uncle…” she couldn’t say it out loud for fear of unleashing the tears again “Is Principal Gowan there, I need to let him know.”

“Oh Nurse Beauchamp, I’m so sorry to hear that, let me know if you need anything. Mr. Gowan’s in his office, I’ll transfer you to him now, if he doesn’t answer just pack up your things and go, I’ll take care of it”

“Thanks Glenda, I really appreciate it”

----------

After getting the ok from her kind and understanding principal, Claire rushed back to Jamie’s apartment, hastily packed a bag (likely forgetting several things), informed Jenny where she was going--which was met with sympathy and genuine concern--and hopped back in the car for the journey to Boston. She entered the hospital doors several hours later, the buttons of her coat were tangled in her hair as she rushed, breathless, to the front desk to receive her visitor’s pass.

When she arrived at Lamb’s room, he was asleep. She didn’t want to wake him, but she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze to let him know she was there before settling into the armchair beside him to await his awakening. He looked so frail and small in the hospital bed, not at all like the strong, spirited man who had raised her. He had left the television on--some sports channel was playing a highlight reel of various golfing moments. No wonder Lamb fell asleep. Claire was staring at the screen, but her thoughts were elsewhere: worried about Lamb, wondering if she’d remember everything when she hastily packed, wondering what the future held. Would she have to spend Christmas in this hospital room? A golf ball soared across the Scottish Highlands on the screen. Jamie. Jamie was coming home Christmas Eve, she was supposed to pick him up from the airport, supposed to spend her holiday break with him, experience her first Hogmanay with the Murray family, be surrounded by love and laughter and family. Lamb was supposed to be fine, he was supposed to take the train down, spend Christmas with them. Every plan they had made was shattered into a million pieces. Would she even be able to see Jamie? She thought about the presents she’d bought for him, not yet wrapped, piled in the closet but definitely not hidden, especially considering it was his apartment. Of course he’d understand--she could tell him where they were, but the magic of unwrapping would be lost, it would feel entirely unsentimental. It was bad enough that she felt her gifts weren’t sentimental enough--what could she possibly get him to show how special he was to her? How could she communicate that with an object? If she were a painter she would paint him a painting, if she were a songwriter she would write him a song, but she was simply Claire, and practical gifts were all she knew. She had purchased a cozy blue sweater to match his eyes and keep him warm in the brisk London winters, a cool multi-tool the size of a credit card that would fit in his wallet and help him solve a variety of problems, a protective case for his phone, and a box of artisanal beef jerky. She had also procured a complicated piece of lingerie with a big red bow across the chest for him to unwrap the night of Christmas, which she knew he would enjoy. Everything was thoughtful enough and mostly practical, but she longed to be able to give him something truly special--a grand gesture to match her feelings for him. Claire glanced back at her uncle and immediately felt guilty being so selfish. I hate to make this all about me. Lamb always had a knack for helping her realize what was important when life’s situations overwhelmed her. She needed him for perspective, but how could she talk to him about this? How could she tell him how she felt? She knew it was wrong, but she was mad at him for getting sick so close to Christmas. Who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there’s no you? The tears were welling up in her eyes as she watched her most beloved uncle sleep--hooked up to machines, pale and listless in the hospital bed.

Claire slipped into the adjoining bathroom to try to compose herself--she didn’t want her uncle to wake up and see her upset, she knew he would try to comfort her, to be the rock he always had been for her. She was here to be his rock this time, she needed to stay strong for him. She looked at herself in the mirror, telling herself it was going to be ok--her uncle was strong and he’d been fighting a long time--he’d continue to fight. Soon you’ll get better. She had to convince herself it was true, pretend it wasn’t real, it wasn’t so bad. She knew it was a delusion, she could see it all over her glass face when she looked in the mirror. She was genuinely afraid that this could be when she lost him, if not physically right away, he could be lost mentally. She’d been hoping for years he would get better, but now it seemed he’d taken a turn for the worse. She took a few deep breaths and offered up a prayer. She wasn’t usually religious, but they say desperate people find faith, so she decided it was time to try. God? Jesus? Whoever is up there. I know I don’t much deserve anything from you, I’m not sure I’m exactly on good terms with you, but I’m inclined to believe you care and you are good. Besides, I’m not really asking anything for myself, not really. I just pray my Uncle is ok, I pray he gets better. He has to. Please don’t take his brilliant mind away from him. Please let him be ok. Please, I’ll be good, I’ll do whatever it takes to help him. Just please, please, don’t take him away from me. I need him. Please let him get better. Please let him get better. Claire continued to repeat the words like a mantra as she returned to her bedside chair. She stared at the collection of orange bottles on the tray table. Please let them help him get better. Please let him get better. Please, please, please let him get better.

Claire had no idea how long she sat there, repeating those words to herself, but her silent appeal was interrupted when a nurse entered the room to check her uncle’s vitals.

“Hi, I’m Brenda, I’ll be the nurse on duty tonight.” Brenda erased a name on a small whiteboard in front of the room and replaced it with her own.

“I’m Claire, I’m his niece.”

Brenda had made her way over to the other side of the bed and was checking the monitors beside the bed, making notes on the chart in her hand. “I hate waking them up, but I’m going to have to.” Claire was glad that she was much kinder than the nurse she had spoken with on the phone earlier—had that really been earlier? It seemed much longer since that phone call. “Excuse me, Quentin? Sir?” Brenda gently nudged his arm to awaken him. Lamb’s eyes fluttered open and he looked disoriented, Claire watched him carefully hoping that his disorientation was solely from being awoken mid-sleep and not from any neurological damage.

“Hi Uncle Lamb” Claire stammered, hoping she sounded cheerful anyway.

“Claire! My girl! You came all the way to see your old uncle!”

“Of course I did! How are you?” she replied warmly.

“Oh, I’m fine, they’re taking good care of me here.” Lamb’s voice sounded genuinely content and Claire felt comforted for the first time since the hospital had called her earlier that day.

“Hello sir, my name’s Brenda, I’ll be your nurse tonight. I just need to ask you a few questions and check your vitals.”

“What is your name?”

“Quentin Lambert Beauchamp”

“Good. When is your birthday?

“March 23th, 1939”

“Good, and who is the president?”

“Well, unfortunately…” both Claire and Brenda giggled at how Lamb began his sentence. Claire was well aware of Lamb’s opinions of the current president of the United States, and was glad to see he hadn’t lost his sly sense of humor or his disdain for the man. She was also glad he knew who the president was, hopefully his mental capacities were more promising than the worst-case-scenario her mind was conjuring.

----------

Claire stayed by her uncle’s side for the rest of the night, only leaving the room twice, once to find something to eat from a vending machine, and once for her nightly call to Jamie. She allowed herself to break down when talking to Jamie, sobbing over the phone. Jamie did his best to comfort her through the speaker, desperately wishing he could be there for her in person. Claire wished the same, longing to curl up in his strong embrace, and bury her swollen face in his chest. She couldn’t bring up the fact that she might have to spend Christmas in Boston. She was enough of a mess without facing the reality that they wouldn’t see each other, and when Jamie promised they’d see each other soon at the end of their call, Claire hung up quickly as another wave of emotion overtook her and she buried her face in her hands to cry some more.

The next morning, the doctor came in with Lamb’s results. Claire grasped Lamb’s hand, unsure of who was holding onto whom for comfort as the doctor explained that the mass on Lamb’s brain was in fact cancerous, but it was still relatively small and had been caught early. He explained that they could operate on it and remove it, however there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t come back or that they’d be able to get it all out. It was moments like these where Claire desperately wished she was already a surgeon, that she could feel in control of the outcome--though could she operate on her own uncle? Would she be able to hold her hand steady enough to do a good job? No, perhaps it was best left to the veteran surgeons in Boston.

After discussing all the details and options with the doctor’s, Lamb decided to go through with the surgery. It was scheduled for the day after Christmas and Claire resigned herself to the sobering fact that she’d be spending the holidays in the hospital. As the florescent hospital lights lit the room with an unnatural glow, Claire couldn’t tell him she was scared. She had to stay strong, she had to keep it together and remain positive and supportive.

----------

Claire spent the next few days devoted to her uncle, rarely leaving his bedside. Lamb had forced her to spend the nights at his apartment, which was probably for the best. She wasn’t sleeping well to begin with and the recliner at the hospital was only making matters worse. Claire was present and doting on him from morning to night though, helping her uncle order his meals, assisting him when he needed to use the restroom, adding and removing pillows and blankets as needed, or anything else he needed or wanted. Lamb had been moved to the cancer floor, and the window of his new room had a nice view of the Boston skyline. Lamb was making the best of a bad deal, he bragged about his ‘luxury accommodations’, he cracked jokes often, he liked the nicer nurses, he ordered extra dessert with all his meals and was in generally pleasant spirits. Claire could see the cracks in his cognition though. Sometimes he would change the topic he was discussing mid-sentence, and he couldn’t seem to keep time straight. Whenever anyone would mention Christmas, he would act surprised to know that it was coming up, and at one point he hinted at Claire that she might just get those roller skates she wanted for Christmas, a gift she had not asked for since she was eleven years old. He didn’t seem to know what year it was or how old Claire was. He did know who Claire was though, and for that she was thankful. He also knew who the president was whenever the nurses asked, always beginning his answer with a short preamble to make known his disdain.

Before they knew it, it was Christmas Eve and Claire couldn’t hide the sadness she felt on her face. She was glad to spend the evening with Lamb, but she had been looking forward to her first big family Christmas. She had filled in Jamie about Lamb’s condition and her subsequent stay in Boston over the course of their phone calls that week. She had also describe the Christmas gifts she had purchased for the Murrays, Jo, and Lamb, so Jamie would know the rest were for him. Jamie had agreed to put the Murrays gifts in gift bags and distribute them for her. They were meant to exchange family gifts that evening, the morning being reserved for Santa, and Claire was heartbroken to be missing out. In a matter of hours, and for the first time in two months, her and Jamie would be on the same continent, yet they wouldn’t be able to see each other. There was no way Claire could get into the Christmas spirit under these conditions. The hospital, despite being modestly decorated, was not the most festive atmosphere. Even a troop of Girl Scouts caroling their way through the hospital halls did nothing to assuage the weight of losing everything Claire had been looking forward to for the past two months.

“What’s a matter, my dear?” Lamb asked, showing genuine concern for his niece.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine, I promise, I’m just wishing things were different today.”

“Why today? Is it something special? I can’t seem to remember.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. You were supposed to come to Long Island and meet Jamie. We were going to spend the holiday with his family.”

“Yes, I remember, that’s today? Oh dear, I haven’t gotten your gift yet I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine, Lamb, I’m afraid I left your gift at home, so we’ll have to do that part later. We can take a raincheck on gift exchanging. I was just really looking forward to you getting to know Jamie.”

“I’m sure I’ll meet the lad soon; he seems really special to you.”

“He is; I know you’ll like him.”

“I already do.” He patted the top of her hand and turned his attention back to the sitcom on the television, providing humorous commentary to try to cheer Claire up.

----------

It was late Christmas morning. Uncle Lamb was napping again and Claire had switched the television to the Hallmark Channel--usually her guilty pleasure this season, today it was simply reminding her of how her Christmas was proving to be less than magical. For her there would be no Christmas kisses, no magical snowfall, no saving the small town family business or learning to love Christmas again. All that awaited her this Christmas were fluorescent lights, beeping monitors, and nurses visiting every 6 hours to check her uncle’s vitals. This Christmas would be decidedly the most un-magical she had ever experienced. She had had her share of unconventional Christmases in the past, in fact, she never really was a Christmas person, but it had started to feel special to her when she was living in New York. This Christmas though--this was one she was looking forward to more than ever before. Claire spent most of the morning crying, grieving over all she was missing. She should have spent the morning curled up in Jamie’s arms, watching the children open presents. She could picture the Murray’s living room, trashed with colorful wrapping paper from end to end, each child in their own private world fascinated by their latest favorite toy, Jenny and Ian beaming through tired eyes.

Claire was surprised Jamie hadn’t called her to fill her in on the details yet. He had called yesterday when his plane arrived--groggy and jet-lagged, his communication skills were not the most eloquent, but he tried his best to make her feel better. She hadn’t heard from him at all this morning though, not even a Merry Christmas text. Surely the jet lag would have woken him up as early as the children, and they must have been done opening presents by now. Claire tried to rationalize that Jamie was just spending time with his family, but she couldn’t help feeling hurt and ignored. She thought she was important enough to him that he could take a moment away from his family to at least text her, or to find some way to make her feel included from afar. Had his feelings changed in their months apart? Did coming home to a messy apartment turn him off? Did she find his Christmas gifts and come to think she didn’t care enough to get him something more thoughtful? She thought about calling him, but a mixture of pride and fear kept her from acting first, not to mention she couldn’t stop crying over these sappy Christmas movies.

Suddenly, a voice from the doorway rang through the room, “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!” Claire looked up in confusion, momentarily unable to comprehend her surroundings and the disruption that had just entered them. Santa? No. The tall figure filling the door frame was dressed like Santa, beard and all, but the unmistakable Scottish burr gave away his true identity. If Claire hadn’t already been crying, she certainly was now. Jamie was standing in the doorway, dressed in a Santa suit, carrying a large, blue IKEA bag overflowing with wrapped presents and what appeared to be Christmas decorations.

“What?” Claire could hardly believe he was there, she rose from the chair and the couple met in the middle of the room for a hearty embrace. Claire buried her face in the soft, fluffy suit covering Jamie’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably. Perhaps the setting wasn’t a snow covered street in a small town, but this was her own Hallmark movie moment--and to be honest, those Hallmark guys had nothing on James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser. Jamie held her close, and tight, planting kisses in her curls and whispering softly to her.

“I’m here, mo nighean donn.” He caressed her shoulders with his thumbs, not releasing his embrace in the slightest, breathing in her scent, trying to absorb her fears and pain.

All of the commotion had awoken Uncle Lamb and after witnessing the couples’ embrace for longer than was comfortable, Lamb loudly cleared his throat to remind them of his presence in the room.

“Uncle Lamb!” Claire unfolded herself from Jamie’s embrace, keeping one arm around his back. Jamie sheepishly pulled the fake beard down around his neck to reveal his face and removed his Santa hat, clutching it tightly in the palm that wasn’t holding Claire. “This is Jamie, my Jamie. Jamie, this is my Uncle Lamb.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad it’s not Santa Claus, or we’d have a lot of explaining to do to the lad!” Lamb chuckled back.

“A pleasure to finally meet you, sir.” Jamie reluctantly released Claire from his grasp to step beside the bed, extending a firm but gentle hand to Lamb. “I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances.”

“Pleased to meet you as well, lad” Lamb replied, patting Jamie’s hand with his before releasing their handshake. “And don’t you worry about me, I have the best nurse there is taking care of me.” Two sets of proudly smiling eyes met Claire across the room.

“Oh I dinna doubt it for a second. Your niece is a rare woman.”

“Glad to see we’re in agreement. Now what’s all that?” Lamb gestured towards the large tote discarded near Claire’s feet.

“Aye, I thought I’d bring you two a bit o’ holiday cheer.” Jamie pulled a large cardboard box from the bag and extracted a small tabletop Christmas tree from it, unfurling each branch carefully and placing it on the countertop across the room, plugging it in to reveal fiber optic lights changing colors dreamily. “I usually insist on my Christmas trees being more, well, alive, but under the circumstances this’ll have tae do.” Jamie and Claire spent the next half hour or so festooning the room in garlands and placing tiny ornaments on the small tree. Claire tried to ignore that more than half of the bag was filled with brightly wrapped gifts, not sure whether she was hoping they were all for her, or hoping that they weren’t. After all, she didn’t have anything to give him and she didn’t know if he had looked through his gifts yet nor if he had appreciated them.

While they decorated, Jamie filled Claire and Lamb in on the events of the last few days. Jamie had called Jenny to tell her not to bother picking him up from the airport. He had planned on renting a car there and driving straight to Boston. Claire could hear Jenny’s voice loud and clear through Jamie’s imitation “ya clotheid! Have ya gone daft? Yer barely able to form coherent sentences amidst the jet lag from yer Christmas Eve flight, and ya wanna drive five hours tae Boston in that state!?! Claire willna appreciate ya ending up in a ditch on the side of the road as a Christmas present ya eejit!” Jenny had made a fair point, and Jamie had agreed to sleep at home and left shortly after he awoke that morning, staying only long enough for the children to open their stockings, and to watch their faces alight with surprise at the sudden appearance of piles of presents under and around the tree.

“I’m glad you took Jenny’s advice, but most of all I’m glad you’re here.” She embraced him again. “You didn’t have to do this though, Jamie, I know how important your family is to you.”

Jamie stepped back and lifted Claire’s chin with his thumb, looking into her eyes. “You are important to me, Sassenach.” he replied, with a sincerity that penetrated Claire’s heart. Claire responded by kissing Jamie chastely on the cheek, knowing her uncle was only four feet away--politely trying to ignore them and watch the television which he had flipped to an all-day marathon of A Christmas Story on repeat. Jamie’s welcome intrusion broke up the monotony of hospital life and seemed to give Lamb a better sense of what day it was.

“Now that we’ve got the place looking good and festive, I believe it’s traditional to exchange gifts on Christmas day.”

“Jamie, it’s too much, I--”

“Oh? Thought they were all for you, didja Sassenach?” he teased. Claire blushed. Of course; she hadn’t really--but who else would they be for? Surely Jamie wouldn’t spoil Lamb, a complete stranger to him, quite so much, and no one else was there. She looked dumbfounded as she tried to come up with a defense but Jamie stopped her. “Dinna fash, Sassenach, Jenny wrapped your gifts for me and Lamb before I could see and I bought them along too. She thanks ya for the wee lotions, by the way.”

“God bless Jenny! That woman is a Saint.” Claire also silently thanked God that she had left the present she was planning on wearing for Jamie that evening in her dresser drawer, that was not a gift she wanted Jenny to see, and was definitely not something she wanted him to be opening in front of her uncle.

The three exchanged gifts, save Lamb, who had nothing to give but smiles and approval for the young couples’ thoughtful gifts. Jamie was genuinely appreciative of Claire’s gifts, although she kept insisting that she hadn’t finished shopping and there was more to come; to which Jamie humbly rejected, claiming it wasn’t necessary. Jamie’s gifts to Claire were thoughtful and meaningful, the most touching ones being a print of a painting of the rose garden he had ordered from the Botanic Garden’s gift shop and a bracelet engraved with the words perennis amor, which caused Claire to tear up and embrace him tenderly in spite of her uncle’s presence.

The three enjoyed the rest of the day thoroughly. A Christmas Story played in the background and they laughed and shared stories with one another. Jamie was a born storyteller and Lamb was elated to have a fresh audience to recount his many adventures to, so conversation flowed naturally between them, with Claire occasionally interjecting. Claire mostly just sat back and admired the two men who were most important to her, filled with joy that they were getting along, that Jamie was there, that it was Christmas. For the first time in several days she had hope and peace. She was surrounded by love in that hospital room as well. She had all the things Christmas was said to bring, and for that she was grateful. Jamie had made her greatest Christmas wishes come true without her even asking and she felt lucky to be alive.

The hospital staff served their version of Christmas dinner for the small family, and while Claire was sure it paled in comparison to whatever Jenny had made, it was quite delicious, especially considering it was hospital food. Jamie ate in the armchair next to Lamb at Claire’s insistence, since the two were deep in conversation, and Claire sat in the chair on the other side of Jamie, taking in her magical Christmas scene, better than any Hallmark movie could depict.

After dinner, Jamie was fading fast, listening to one of Lamb’s stories with heavy eyes. She took one of the spare blankets and covered Jamie. “Looks like you’re still not over your jet lag”

“Hrmmphh, I ‘spose not.”

“Do you want me to go get you a coffee? I doubt the cafe downstairs is open today, but there’s a cappuccino vending machine a few floors down that isn’t terrible.”

“Aye Sassenach, that’d be bonny. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“None at all, my love, I’ll be back soon.” Claire squeezed his hand before leaving the two men alone.

Jamie listened to her footsteps down the hall, and waited until he heard the ding of the elevator before he cleared his throat to speak frankly to Lamb. He sat up straight in the chair to ward off the sleepiness, having a few important things he wanted to say before Claire came back.

“Lamb, I need you to know, Claire is the most important person in my life. I love her sae much and I’d do anything for her.”

“I’m glad to hear that, I can see how happy you make her. She lights up when you’re around, it comforts my old heart to see.”

“I need you tae know, I’m very serious about her. I ken we haven’t been together that long, but I know--I know deep in my wame that I’m meant tae be hers. I want ya to know that I intend on spending the rest of my life making her happy, and while I havna bought a ring or ennathing yet, I wanted to ask yer blessing” Jamie paused for a moment before adding, “just in case.”

“Of course you have my blessing, son. I couldn’t be more glad to know that Claire will be so well cared for after I’m gone, truly.” Both men looked somber, knowing full well that this could be their last conversation, hoping dearly that it wasn’t. Claire returned with three cappuccinos in hand, surprised by the mood in the room.

“Everything alright, gentlemen? Don’t tell me Ralphie shot his eye out!”

“Och! Everything’s fine, Claire! I’m just tired is all, I’m sure this wee cappuccino will cure me in no time!” replied Jamie, eagerly taking a cup from Claire as she set another on Lamb’s tray table. The rest of the evening was quiet as Jamie took a nap, while Lamb and Claire watched A Christmas Story more intently then they had all day. Claire didn’t want to leave him alone so early on Christmas so she let Jamie nap until Lamb was asleep soundly for the night. The sense of joy she had felt all day was still present, but the nagging worry she felt about Lamb’s coming surgery was starting to settle in as well. Claire woke Jamie gently and Claire whispered softly to Lamb that they’d return in the morning, squeezing his hand before the couple quietly left the room.

----------

They walked out to Jamie’s car, since he still had his stuff packed in it, but Claire drove them back to Lamb’s apartment where she’d been staying. The cappuccino was helping Jamie stay coherent, but he was in no state to drive. They were quiet on the drive home, but kept their hands locked between the seats, grateful just to be in the presence of one another.

When they arrived at Lamb’s apartment, Jamie was so tired, he didn’t even want to brush his teeth, let alone do any of his usual nightly routines. However, he had spent the morning sweating in a polyester Santa suit over his clothes, and although he took it off shortly after his surprise arrival, he felt in need of a shower. Claire showed him where the bathroom was and made sure he had everything he needed, and got herself ready for bed.

Jamie showered quickly, not bothering to wash his hair, and only cleaning the parts of his body where any stench would be most concentrated, figuring the water would take care of the rest. A few minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, ready to collapse into bed, but not before embracing his sorcha. He scooped her into his embrace and she buried her face in his bare, firm chest, warm from the shower. He smelled clean, and fresh and most of like Jamie. “I’m so happy you’re with me, Jamie. You have no idea how much it means to me that you’re here.” the emotions of the day hit her again and her voice caught at the end of her sentence as tears filled her eyes once again. Jamie kissed her forehead softly, down to her nose, and landed on her lips, giving her the firm, passionate kiss they’d both been longing for all day--and for months before that.

“Mo cridhe.” Jamie breathed when they separated. “I’m here. I’ll always be here for you. I’ll no’ leave you alone when ya need me.”

“Oh Jamie” Claire was still crying, “I’ve been so worried. I’ve been trying to stay strong for Lamb, but I feel like this won’t go back to normal--if there ever was a normal with him. I’m scared he’s going to get worse, or--” her sentence dissolved into a fit of sobs, which she tried to stifle on Jamie’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to stay strong when you’re with me. I’ll be here to help you shoulder the burden. I’ll be here to soak up your tears. There’s two of us now, Claire.” He pressed a kiss into her curls. “You can feel your feelings now, mo cridhe. Lay your cares on me. Come now, let’s get ya tae bed. I’m no’ sure how much longer I can stand myself.”

Claire fell asleep wrapped safely in Jamie’s embrace, free to be herself fully. Free to be vulnerable she felt safe, she felt loved, she felt comfortable, and most new to her--she felt she had the hope and strength that she could carry on, no matter what was to come. She slept better than she had in weeks, secure in the embrace of her eternal love.

End Notes: Thanks again for reading!! By the way, the Ingrid Michaelson song Jo mentions is hauntingly beautiful and you should listen to it. Also, I hope you liked Jamie's surprise. This was going to be a lot more angsty of a chapter but Jamie refused to let Claire suffer and had other plans. I know this was full of a lot of emotional ups and downs, and hopefully we can all find some comfort in the fact that just because Christmas/the holidays may look different for a lot of us this year, it can still be special, and there's still light, joy, love, hope, and peace to be found in the midst of the darkness.

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phairfantooooom · 3 years

Text

Bleak

Merry Christmas!!!! Secret Santa gift for @ellie-winthrope. I hope you enjoy it! Thank you @ginkgowritings for hosting the MLQC Secret Santa!!!

Pairing: Lucien x Reader

Warnings: Possessiveness, Mentions of injection, Drugs

Word Count: ~2.2k Words

Synopsis: You had finally come home, and you had quelled Lucien’s worries. But now that snow has begun to fall once more, a grim possibility rears its head. Angst with a happy ending.

A lack of color.

That’s.... what had started all of this hadn’t it?

The gentle lulls of Ray Conniff and Frank Sinatra echoed quietly in the small apartment, a holiday tune being sung sweetly through the old speakers of the record player he owned. The cheery song was as stark a contrast to the cold expression he wore on his face as day was to night.

He silently maneuvered his way around the cluttered space, violet irises focused on you the entire time. So at ease, so peaceful..... He had lived in your apartment for so long he knew the area like the back of his hand.... for him it would be... it would be all too easy to just...

Gritting his teeth he dragged his gaze off your slumbering form, innocently resting the day away, oblivious to the fact that an all too familiar war was being waged inside him.

His eyes caught on the glass balcony door, the root of his ire coating the ground in a crisp sheet of white. A reminder.... a memory of another world. Of a different time. The control he had so delicately crafted beginning to ebb and chip away.

Oh, how this covetous sin yearns to exist.

Your life was yours to live, no matter how he longed to lock you away somewhere nice and safe. To mute your senses and clip the wings of freedom you cherished so deeply.

My life has no meaning without you, after all...

You who had brought vibrant color to his world, and left desaturated hues in your sudden demise. All those shades of color that had blessed his vision had begun to fade back to into those familiar blacks, whites, and grays the longer your absence went on.

Life had become dull.

Bleak.

His gaze had wandered and he found himself staring at you again. The radiant and beautiful owner of his small little world. “My little fool...”

Reaching out he gently stroked the top of your head, his neutral expression collapsing and revealing a broken man underneath. A man that was steadily getting closer to the edge of his breaking point. A low husky whisper left him, and he found himself glad you were too deep in your sleep to hear his plea.

“I... I love you.” His voice shook to his dismay and he took a moment to steady himself before continuing. “I want you, in every aspect. I long to have you in your entirety. Your heart, your dreams, your very future. I am but a humble fire that burns for your very existence....”

He leaned down and placed a kiss atop the crown of your head, a solemn look of consideration crossing his face. “Yes... I am a blaze that will continue to burn... for you and you alone. Until all that remains of me are warm ashes...”

“Should I become an rampant inferno... I wonder if you would be able to forgive me...”

It was like watching an old film.

The scene in front of you was colorless, the world was hazy around the edges of your vision as you took in the view of what laid in front of you.

It was a laboratory, with not much of note. The walls were cracked and peeling, and the linoleum floor was stained with splatters of black. The tables and cabinets were toppled over, the workspace in a state of disarray, save for the piece of equipment in the center of the room and the work table next to it.

A large tank stood from ceiling to floor, the inside of it was filled with water and an unconscious body. As the body shifted in its forced slumber, bubbles would occasionally rise from the bottom of the tank. Watching quietly the scene almost felt peaceful. The same type of peace one would feel when drowning and succumbing to the watery depths.

The serenity that only death could bring.

You felt yourself drift closer to the tank and a strange sensation filled you as you peered at the face of the slumbering person. A mask was pressed against their face, with a tube attached for oxygen while wires and smaller tubes were attached to their arms. Leaning closer you narrowed your eyes trying to figure out what exactly it was that you were seeing. After all it seemed almost as if...

Your eyes met those that resided inside the tank and you felt your stomach lurch slightly in fear and confusion as it dawned on you who it was. Their gaze wobbled as they weakly tried to move their body, shifting one of their hands to press against the glass.

To escape.

“Movement detected. Administering Midazolam and Propofol Ketamine... please stand by.”

An automated voice sounded from the machine in front of you and you watched as the body in the tank suddenly thrashed as fluids were injected into them. It was but a brief moment before you saw the dim light of consciousness in their eyes be once more snuffed out. The body once more floating stagnantly, limp and lifeless.

“My little fool...”

A familiar voice spoke behind you and you felt a chill race up your spine. Turning cautiously you looked at the man that spoke, but found his gaze was not on you but on the person in the tank.

For the person in the tank was you.

Lucien slowly strode up to the tank, his gaze focused on it like an artist admiring their work. The clothes he donned were unlike those he usually wore, the color of his current suit was light in its hue yet eerie all the same. It…. it reminded you of….

“A perfect world… just for the two of us…”

He lifted one of his hands and lightly pressed his palm against the glass, the glimmer of madness in his eyes erratic in a controlled way.

“Evol detected. Analyzing… Welcome Back, Lucien.”

The automated voice spoke once more and Lucien hummed in response, not sparing a glance away from the sleeping body as he continued.

“Update me on her progress.”

There was a noise of a processor whirling briefly before the automated voice responded. “Evol extraction is at 71% and running smoothly, however an anomaly was detected approximately ten minutes ago. Signs of Evol fluctuation and burnout were registered and recorded with the times marked.”

Lucien’s brows drew together and he paused a moment before speaking. “How much longer till it is complete?”

“Estimated time remaining is thirty minutes.”

“.....and what of the Black Queen?”

Another low hum of machinery and a crackle of static before the automated voice responded.

“The autopsy report has revealed a genetic array that can be used in aiding Evol extraction.”

“Oh? Continue.”

“The deceased body of the Black Queen has provided the necessary replacement tissue and blood needed for Evol extraction. With the unique DNA her body has provided, the hypothetical Evol transfer is possible.”

“In what form?”

“A single injection with the Queen’s Evol will be all that is required. Once extraction is completed, the Evol and Queen’s gene will be compiled for use and record keeping.”

Lucien’s lips quirked up into a thin smile.

“Excellent. Inform me when it’s finished, as I will be the recipient of the injection…”

You shook slightly, the words and implication behind them making your heart sink. In this place, this world, this future… Lucien had killed the Black Queen… and confined you… and was going to take your Evol…?

Why?

Why had this happened?

You wanted to reach out to ask, but the man before you was someone that had given up hope and control. Someone that feared losing you so much that he snapped. The current situation would be frightening if it were not so completely tragic.

As you realized the cause of all of this your heart thudded with a singular goal in mind.

You’d save him. You’d save him from his worst enemy.

Himself.

Bleak.

Yet bittersweet.

As Lucien was going to stand up and leave you to sleep in peace he felt a gentle warmth wrap around his wrist, causing his eyes to instinctively flicker up to yours at the sudden movement.

For a brief moment you merely looked at him, your tired eyes looking into his. The emotion that swirled in their depths was easy to see and understand. The adoration and love he saw… it was almost a reflection of his own for you.

His heart skipped as he watched you sit up and draw him close. Your touch was like a magical remedy, it pushed away the worries and concerns like the sun dispersing clouds on a hot summer day. It was only when you were away that the dark temptations were no longer held at bay.

As you held him he held you in turn, his eyes falling shut as he laid his head on your shoulder. No longer was music playing in the apartment, only comfortable silence remained as you brushed away the demons that lurked in his head.

“Lucien…”

He felt his heart seize as you whispered his name. You sounded… somber. Reluctantly he pulled away, the ever familiar calm smile on his face as he replied. His mind on auto-pilot, pretending as if his mental tranquility had never been threatened by the very woman that sat in front of him.

“Yes? What can I do for my little fool?”

“Lucien.”

He held off the reflex to flinch, your tone slipping further from that familiar sweetness, to something forlorn. As if you knew something he didn’t want you to know. Few times had this occurred before but in every instance…

He didn’t respond this time, but held an even gaze as you looked at him with sympathy and melancholy. It made him frown, he hated to see you sad, even more so when he was the cause of it. You were an existence he wanted to protect from all that was wrong in the world.

...Including himself.

“No.”

He blinked and watched as you shook your head. Had he accidently spoken that aloud? As he scrambled to make an excuse for himself he was caught off guard when you leaned up and embraced him once more.

“Lucien, it’s okay. You don’t need to worry anymore. Everything is going to be okay… I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” You pulled him down slightly and laid his head over where your heart was. “Can you feel that? It’s my heart beating… Sometimes it slows down and other times it picks up speed…”

“Just because something behaves differently doesn’t mean that it’s no longer the same.”

He felt a strange ball of emotion swell in the back of his throat, and merely murmured in response, but didn’t miss the reassuring gaze you gave him. “The world may be harsh, but the very same world gave me you… and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Not for peace nor power…”

A soft laugh that reminded him of the early mornings he’d spent with you rumbled in your chest and he couldn’t stop a small smile from gracing his face. “I suppose in that respect we both are quite selfish, aren’t we?” He lifted one of your hands, chastely kissing your wrist. “As I feel the same, I wouldn’t trade you for anything in this world or beyond…”

Lucien felt a weight lift off his shoulders at your words and his own. Communication was always an important thing…. when had he gotten so caught up in himself that he neglected how he appeared to you? This would need to be rectified immediately…

“My silly girl, what is your wish for Christmas?”

He watched your expression change as you thought it over, clearly you were taking it seriously which made him want to fill your wish all the more.

“I… I want you to promise me something.”

He rose a brow but nodded his head for you to continue.

“I… want you to promise not to lose faith in me. Or this world.”

It dawned on him what your words meant and he felt his heart waver. For you to say such a thing… you must have seen something in your dreams. A possible future perhaps… in which he…

Ah. He had done something, hadn’t he?

With a sigh he nodded his head, this being one of the few times where he’d struggled with your requests. “I promise you that I will never lose faith…”

You smiled and he felt his heart start to race. He would cherish you until the day he died, but he wouldn’t try to clip your beautiful wings, no matter how tempted he might become.

A promise is a promise after all.

“In return, Lucien, what would you like for Christmas?”

A calm sort of tranquility overcame him as he thought of his request. The desire to tease or be honest fighting on the tip of his tongue.

But in the end he lost to his heart.

“You. My silly girl… all I could ever want is you.”

#MLQC #MLQC Lucien #Imagine #Drabble #Reader Insert #My Writing #ellie-winthrope #ginkgowritings #Secret Santa #MLQCSanta20

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drummergirl231-2 · 4 years

Note

So, which scene would you say the main cast individually (David (Scrooge), Danny (Huey), Ben (Dewey), Bobby (Louie), Kate (Webby), Beck (Launchpad), Toks (Beakley), Tony (Donald), and Paget (Della)) show off their best performances as their characters? Keep in mind I mean having these nine actors individually, not in the same scene necessarily.

Holy molars, where to start? XD

My first thought is to go straight to the scenes where they’re the most emotional or the most crazy, and that works for some of the characters, but not all.

For Scrooge, I definitely think some of David Tennant’s best work is in those emotional scenes. He did the entire Spear of Selene monologue from “The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!” in one take. He also did a lot of great work in “The Shadow War! Part 1.” I’m always moved by his reunion scene with Della, as well.

Then there are some scenes where his comedic acting is just... I can’t stop smiling and giggling during these scenes and it’s all to do with his line delivery. Some examples that come to mind are when he’s going over Glomgold’s plan in “Moonvasion,” when he’s faking embracing the hippie lifestyle of the Mervanans, and then... this.

Going in the order you provided, I’m gonna move on to Huey next.

My guess is, with this being Huey’s season, some of Danny Pudi’s best work is yet to come, but he’s had a lot of great moments already. His meltdowns are well done, and his singing voice is lovely.

I think a really great scene for Huey is in “Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!” when he and Violet are on top of the volcano, from when he first starts trying to cross on the rope to when he and Violet are sinking down into the crater. He has a lot of range in that scene (anxiety, mild-moderate insanity, regret, acceptance, more anxiety) and Danny nails all of it.

For Dewey, I think Ben Schwartz really shines in scenes involving Della, whether Dewey’s thinking about her or interacting with her. His sweet little “Merry Christmas, Mom,” in “Last Christmas!” brings the feels every time, and he displayed amazing range all throughout “Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!” One scene that gives a good example of his range though is from “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!” when he first meets his mom. He went from joyfully declaring he knew he was part robot, to making those soft little hugging-someone-tight noises in his mommy’s arms, to yelling:

Ben really doesn’t hold back. Also, I flipping love every one of his line deliveries in the scene with tall Huey.

Louie’s another character where it’s hard to narrow it down to one scene. Bobby Moynihan is great at the scenes in which Louie is emotional, like when he was cradling his mom’s jacket in “The Secret(s) of Castle McDuck!” and when he met his mom in “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!”

I also love Louie’s little businessman/commercial voice he does, and I was crazy impressed with how he was able to hit the notes in the lullaby in “Moonvasion! Part 2.” I’ve heard Bobby complain of having to redo lines to sound more like a kid more than Danny and Ben complain about it, so I can imagine it must’ve been annoying to be told, “Now sound like a kid, and sing in falsetto as that kid.” BUGH. And while Louie doesn’t exactly have Huey’s pipes, I have mad respect for him hitting those high notes.

I think Louie’s best overall episode so far has definitely been “Timephoon!” though. I think that one showed his range the way “Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!” did for Dewey.

I think Webby’s best moments are when she’s disillusioned. She had a great moment after reading Lena’s journal in “The Shadow War! Part 2,” but I really love Kate Micucci’s work in “The Lost Harp of Mervanna!”

Webby sinking into cynicism gave Kate a little more room to explore Webby’s emotional depth, and it made me really excited to see what’s coming in Webby’s arc this season.

I also love all of Webby’s moments when she’s super excited and she makes those cute li’l *squeee* sounds, or when her heart’s “too full.”

Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking, but I think one of Beck Bennett’s best moments as Launchpad was when LP had his Darkwing Duck monologue. I’m a little bummed that other characters talked over some of it, but getting to hear LP speak so eloquently, and even quote some of the DWD theme song lyrics, was definitely a treat.

But like, also though, “Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!”

Hearing Beck keep his Launchpad voice while sounding so much more intelligent (partially because of the words he used, and partially because of his new accent) was unexpected and delightful. It was great to hear him playing the same character but playing him so differently.

For Mrs. Beakley, I think this is another instance where the best is yet to come, even though we’ve already seen/heard a lot of great moments with her already. Toks Olagundoye is insanely talented (like did you guys see that live reading of “McMystery at McDuck McManor!” where she filled in for Margo Martindale as Ma Beagle???), and she’s able to convey Beakley’s toughness and gentleness with equal ease.

So far I think “The Lost Harp of Mervana!” is probably Toks’ best work, as well.

I’m really excited to hear Toks’ vocal work as Beakley comes to terms with not being able to run from her past.

As for Tony Anselmo, the guy’s a Disney legend. He’s Donald Duck. He’s been Donald my whole life and longer. Donald doesn’t get a ton of lines in most episodes due to being hard to understand (and Donald, as a character, probably doesn’t like trying to talk much because it’s such a struggle to be understood anyway), but there’s one scene in particular that blows me away every time I see it, and that’s his scene with Dewey in the first half of “Last Christmas!”

You’d think having to do Donald’s quacky voice would really limit Tony’s range when it comes to conveying emotion, but somehow, it doesn’t. That “Oh...” Donald gives as he leaves the room gets me every time. He still carries so much grief. He missed his sister so much. And knowing Dewey was grieving her that Christmas, too just added to that sense of loss for Donald. Like, how did Tony pack so much emotion into one syllable? Just... GAHHHH my heart!

And then there’s Della... she talks a heck of a lot more than Donald, ya know? XD Paget Brewster is up for an Emmy for her performance as Della, and she couldn’t deserve it more. It’s hard to narrow it down to a few scenes or an episode because Paget handles Della’s funny moments and vulnerable moments so well. If I’m gonna narrow it down to one episode... nope, forget that. I’m doing two episodes. “Timephoon!” and “What Ever Happened to Della Duck?!”

“Timephoon!” reeeeally captures her range of funny to angsty (please everyone no fighting about this episode on this post, okay? Go make your own), and “What Ever Happened to Della Duck?!” is such a solid debut episode with a solid performance.

#ducktales 2017 #ducktales season 1 #ducktales season 2 #ducktales season 3 #ducktales cast #ducktales

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darkstar6782 · 3 years

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3.08: A Very Supernatural Christmas - My Rewatch Review

Though it has some stiff competition, this episode may be my favorite of this season, and probably in the top ten of my favorites in the entire series. It has literally everything that I love about Supernatural and then some.

Right from the beginning, this episode distinguishes itself as one of those that showcases Eric Kripke’s truly macabre sense of humor. I have heard him say in interviews that the two scenes he constructed this episode around were the scene of Santa being dragged up the chimney, and the scene of someone getting stabbed to death by a Christmas tree. It takes a truly twisted mind to not only come up with ideas like that, but to then find a way that not only gets them on to network television, but then finds a way to pull off a compelling, poignant Christmas story around them, and it is one of the things that makes Supernatural a truly special show—because, although they fortunately do not tread the Christmas special ground again, they are always finding new and entertaining ways to bring both the truly heartwarming and the truly grotesque into their narratives, right up until the very end.

This episode also stands out as one of the most important of the flashback episodes to when Sam and Dean were kids, because not only does it tell the story of the origin of Dean’s iconic necklace (known in fandom from this episode on as “the Samulet”), but it also reveals exactly when and how Sam found out that his family hunted monsters. And I am impressed all over again at just how good a job the young actors in those scenes do at playing Sam and Dean. There is an especially well-done parallel between a scene of Sam and Dean as adults, when Sam has admitted that he can’t bear to celebrate Christmas knowing that Dean is going to be dead in a year, and a scene where young Sam and Dean are sitting together talking after Dean has tried to explain that their Dad won’t let the monsters get them. In both cases, there is a look of grief and devastation in Dean’s eyes that just breaks your heart, because he is feeling so guilty in both those moments for being the one responsible for his little brother’s pain and loss of innocence, but, in true Winchester fashion, he can’t let Sam know what he’s feeling. And yet, in both instances, I think Sam knows, or figures it out anyway. Like he said in the last episode, he’s been looking up to Dean his whole life; though he may not always make it clear, it’s obvious more often than not that he reads Dean like a book. And in both cases in this episode, he manages to show Dean that he’s going to be okay, and that he doesn’t hold Dean responsible for the pain and grief that he is feeling—in the first case, by giving Dean the present he’d meant to give his dad, and in the second case, by surprising Dean with the Christmas he wanted. And though both Christmases are bittersweet for the boys, it is nice to see how they have always been there for each other and will continue to be so, no matter what they’re going through.

And then, to top the entire episode off, the moment that really pushes it over the top is that it ends with my favorite Christmas song, complete with original lyrics. I’m not sure why, but there is just something about ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ that speaks to me at Christmas-time, and even though it was years before I learned that the lyrics were changed from ‘until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow’ to ‘hang a shining star upon the highest bough’ in order to make it more upbeat and Christmassy, I have always counted it among my favorites. Learning about the original lyrics, and the tinge of melancholy that they bring to the song raised it into the list of my very favorite songs, though, and even though it’s almost impossible to find any recordings of it with the original lyrics, I always make a point to sing it as originally written at least once every year. And then, Supernatural had to go and use it too, in a scene that makes me both smile and cry every time I watch it. Who could ask for a more perfect end to the most perfect Christmas episode of a show ever?

#supernatural #3.08 a very supernatural christmas #spn rewatch #the great pre-convention SPN rewatch #tgpcSPNr

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imreallyhereforportal · 4 years

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Portal Secret Santa 2019

Hey @the-real-baberaham-lincoln!! Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!! I really REALLY hope you like this lil’ Chelley one-shot. I took some “creative liberties,” apologies hehe. Merry Christmas, I’m so sorry I’m late. hugs and kisses x infinity

~~~~

Resonance

“Agh - no! Dammit, God...n-not that I’m not happy to see you! Of course I am! I just...thought you wouldn’t be back...until later.”

That certainly wasn’t a greeting Chell usually met on her way through the door. Typically Wheatley’s eyes would light up, inflating with delight and, sometimes, relief, as he lifted his gaze from whatever he’d been doing. And then the corners of his lips would follow in that dazzling, toothy grin, and he’d open his mouth with the cheeriest “Hullo!”. He’d watch her for a moment, like he had no intention of moving. And then he’d remember his legs and stand so that he could welcome her properly. Wheatley would envelop her in a short hug, or perhaps offer a kiss to her temple. Or he’d take what she held in her hands, ridding her of burdens.

That was their routine. And, quite frankly, Chell missed it now, having been expectant of it, disgruntled and damp as she gripped her sopping purse. The files inside were doubtless ruined. She’d been angered by that earlier, but now her concern landed on her tall, lanky, clearly bothered partner standing in their kitchen twenty feet away.

Wheatley didn’t seem to have noticed her current state. He appeared preoccupied with an urge to bang his head against the wall.

“I - ugh, well, cat’s out of the bag now, I s’pose,” he said gruffly. Wheatley gestured to the table in front of him with a wave of his arm. Chell’s confusion only increased as she noted the several glass cups poised in a line before him. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about them from where she stood. Chell stared at Wheatley for a second, waiting for him to elaborate, but he avoided her gaze, glaring at the glasses like they’d offended him. Huffing silently, Chell moved to take her coat off.

“I mean, it’s not the end of the world. I was going to show you eventually anyhow, so it’ll do, but I’d meant for more time - OH!”

Chell spun around at his sudden outburst, coat in hand.

Wheatley gaped at her. He stuttered, stopped, then traversed the room in great, heavy strides, reaching with both hands. One of them was closed around something. “I - I didn’t notice…” He took her bag and placed it on the carpet beside them. When he turned back, he fiddled with the trinket he’d been holding before tossing it onto the couch behind him.

Chell watched as it reflected light from the ceiling lamp, but she didn’t see what is was.

Wheatley went to grab a hanger from the closet while she crouched to untie her squelching boots. She heard him try again, “I didn’t see you’d gotten rained on. Don’t know how, it’s quite obvious, actually, what with your hair dripping and that scowl on your face.”

She looked up at that. He was smiling at her lightly, over his shoulder. Chell narrowed her eyes in return, but he recognized her mutual teasing.

Wheatley disappeared once the coat hung in its usual spot. As she finished tugging off her boots, he rounded the corner back into view, equipped with a large bath towel. He approached her and began to wrap it around Chell but she stopped him with a raised hand. She wasn’t in the mood for a scrubbing, if that’s what he planned to do.

Eyeing him gratefully, Chell unfurled the towel herself. “It didn’t rain,” she stated plainly. Not while she’d been out. “Some car drove over a puddle.”

“Must’ve been quite the puddle,” Wheatley supplied. His smile faltered at the look she gave him. “And - and how dare it, right? Totally against social etiquette, to be such a big puddle on the side of the road. And how dare that driver! Should’ve known better, whoever they were, or at least been more careful. Anyway, besides that, how was your day?”

Chell shrugged. Nothing special, though she’d been let off early. She was still a bit drenched, droplets trailing down her face and back, but that was subject to change. Standing by the entryway of their home, warm and drying and Wheatley close by, it wasn’t all that bad. Though, she definitely needed to examine the contents of her bag.

It could wait. She was still perplexed by Wheatley’s initial welcome. “What were you doing?” she asked.

“I - me? Well, I, uh…” he looked at the ground imploringly, like it would aid him with the rest of his words. A few instances passed where Wheatley seemed to be making up his mind. Chell didn’t rush him. Ultimately, he met her gaze, determined. “Come see.”

He led her almost all the way back to the kitchen before stopping with a quiet “Oh!” and returning to the couch, grabbing whatever tool he’d thrown down earlier.

Chell took the opportunity to examine the table more closely. About a dozen glasses sat in a neat array, and they appeared to be filled with water. A metal spoon lay close by. As he approached, Chell understood that Wheatley had retrieved a second spoon, now held in a closed fist. He looked at her a bit nervously, chewing his lip and wringing his hands. Chell tried for an attentive but casual disposition, wringing out her hair with the towel.

He understood. “Right, so, I’ve been trying to, uh, learn something. Well, more like figure it out myself. ‘Cause, I sort of discovered, I guess you could say, that when you tap a spoon against one of these glasses-” he stopped to demonstrate, a chime coloring the air “-it lets out a note. Yeah, I thought that was curious, and - this is the interesting part - when you fill the glass with some water-” he tapped another glass, and another note sounded “-you get a different one.” As he shared, Wheatley’s voice danced with barely-suppressed excitement. He’d clearly forgotten about his nerves. “And so, I was thinking, ‘Why not keep doing that?’ Y’know, filling the glasses with different amounts of water, ‘cause that was definitely the critical factor in making the note change. So I did that, and...” He let his actions explain, tapping three glasses, a grin on his face.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Chell was no expert on music, but the pitches were obviously a sequence from some scale. Wheatley was right - it was interesting, and quite impressive, for Wheatley to have measured out the exact water amounts that produced the right notes. It didn’t escape her, though, that he must’ve been banging flatware on their glasses to have learned about the chiming noises.

Wheatley’s attention was still fixated on the arrangement in front of them. “And so I uh...well, I’ve been practicing. Something. And I’m not sure if it’s ready, to be honest, I wasn’t sure when I’d be showing you, but...” He smiled sheepishly. He glanced at the funnel in the towel where she’d been collecting hair and squeezing out water, then back to her. “Now might be as good of a time as any. Hopefully.”

Wordlessly, he grabbed the back of a chair and sat down. Wheatley acquired his other spoon from the table, one in each hand, and looked over his ensemble of glass cups. Chell took a couple steps back to give him space. From this trajectory, she could see how each glass had been filled to a different line. Wheatley watched her as she shifted, hunkered down and close to his instruments before she offered an emphasized nod. Of course, Chell figured what she was about to hear, and she felt more than a little intrigued to see its execution. A look of heavy concentration flooded Wheatley’s face. He brought a hand up, the spoon shaking slightly in his grasp, hesitated, and brought it against the glass’s side.

Chell recognized the tune with about four clinks. Greensleeves. Interesting choice. It was a beautiful piece, one Wheatley knew she enjoyed, delicate but cleverly rich, the kind of music that would prompt her to choose a spot on the wall and watch it unseeingly. It had some sort of calming effect that coaxed her out of thought. Not many things could manage it. Chell usually heard Greensleeves on piano, soft and deep. This rendition was not much the same.

This was sweet. Stirring and light with each bump of the glass. Chell gazed at Wheatley, the maestro, as he persuaded every note from his orchestra, slowly but surely. The water would shake upon playing its part, but Wheatley didn’t. After his initial tension, his face relaxed, and his hands worked easily. He must’ve practiced thoroughly to gain such confidence. Or maybe he was in his element with music.

Given the nature of the instrument, Chell had expected some of the notes to come out harsh, maybe even abrasive, or perhaps the tempo to slow further, but nothing of the sort happened. She allowed herself to embrace the sounds as she did when she heard the song on the radio. Subconsciously, Chell trusted she could give herself up to the music, and Wheatley wouldn’t falter.

He played thirty-two measures, the renowned beginning of the piece, before his final note rang, clear as the rest. Wheatley looked at her nervously as Chell woke from her voluntary trance, but she saw the relief brimming in his eyes. She knew why. He hadn’t known if he could do it, if he could carry her from reality into a state of peace, even as her hair dripped and the towel weighed down on her. He hadn’t known if his idea was even all that interesting, but he’d tried to make something special for Chell. His song choice proved that.

It’d been short, but it’d definitely been memorable. A gift.

Eventually, Wheatley spoke up. “So, what do you think? Did you like that?”

Chell responded by crossing to his side of the table, sitting across his lap, and wrapping the towel around both of them. Their own little peace, like the one he created for her. Every day. She smiled brightly and told him she loved it before sealing her words with a kiss.

#portal secret santa #chelley #my posts #chell #wheatley #portal #portal 2

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apparitionism · 4 years

Text

Hark

A merry early Gift Exchange to @kla1991, whose not-so-secret Santa I am this year. This is the first part of a story set somewhat in-universe: there’s no season 5 (what could that even be?), and only the first ep of season 4—basically, time wound back to right before the Warehouse exploded in Stand, which aired on Oct. 3, so the Christmas during which this story is set is happening less than three months after that momentous occurrence. I’m postulating that Helena became an agent again, and there was no Artie/Father Data business. (Oh, and Steve didn’t die, so no metronome. I refuse to force Helena through witnessing anyone being brought back non-nefariously from the dead.) I’ll do my best to post the concluding part(s) by New Year’s Day—no promises on that, but I’ll finish as soon as apparitionally possible. Anyway, happy holidays to everyone. Continuing to participate with you all in this wondrous exercise in fandom is a blessing in every tradition, and I’m profoundly grateful.

Hark

“Your upstart nation stole ‘God Save the Queen’!” Helena seethed at Myka.

For whom “upstart nation” was really too much. “Nobody owns that melody!” she fumed, reciprocally, at Helena. “You can’t steal something nobody owns, our version is perfectly valid, and anyway I’m pretty sure other countries stole it too. Look it up!”

“I’m not in other countries. You look it up.”

“I’m driving! Since when are you such a fan of the monarchy anyway?”

“Stop questioning my patriotism!”

“I couldn’t care less about your patriotism!”

“You brought up citizenship!”

“Because you don’t have any!” Myka had genuinely thought they would be having an intellectual conversation, one about documentation and—

“I did at birth!” Helena raged, and then she scowl-sang, “God save our gra-cious Queen.”

This gave Myka pause. She reflected that she had actually never heard Helena sing before. She then concluded that she never wanted to hear Helena sing again... because Helena could not sing.

However: “My country ’tis of thee,” Myka sang back, frustrated. It was the only reason she herself would ever have sung, because—

“You can’t sing,” Helena informed her, in the tone of a doctor trying to conceal joy at having to report that the patient would not recover.

“Neither can you,” Myka informed back, aiming for straightforward “snide.”

“And I never want to hear you sing again,” Helena continued.

All Myka could come up with in response to that was an inadequate “Ditto.”

Helena sniffed. “You just wanted the last word.”

Myka pointedly let Helena have that last word. To make her stew in it. In the ensuing silence, she continued to drive. On this last leg home from a retrieval, late on Christmas Eve—their very first Christmas Eve—the air between them was frostier than the South Dakota winter outside the car could ever dream of matching.

She was under no illusion that Helena cared at all about anybody saving the Queen, and she herself, while reasonably patriotic on the American side of things, hadn’t sung her way through that song since her childhood. She knew this dispute was ridiculous, and she suspected Helena knew it too. She suspected also that they both understood they were developing a pattern: A period of calm—a deepening of accord—that would sooner or later, particularly in the adrenalin-ebb aftermath of a dangerous retrieval, dissipate into some minimally motivated squabble, the respective sides of which they entrenched themselves into with such commitment that it seemed there could never be an unentrenching.

An early instance: Myka had threatened to storm out of their shared hotel room because Helena had mulishly refused to concede that it had been foolish to open a bottle of mini-bar water for which they would be charged five dollars.

“Go right ahead,” Helena had “suggested,” so Myka did.

In the lobby, she’d run into Pete, who wasn’t storming anywhere, just looking for free snacks. “See?” Myka demanded of him. “Like a normal person.”

“If you were normal, you wouldn’t be out here with me. ’Cause you’ve got a hot girl in a hotel room, and I know things got a little uh-oh chasing that guy today, but you’re both still in one piece.”

“Maybe not for long.”

“You volunteered for this.”

“No I didn’t. Artie said ‘Pete, Myka, Helena, get on a plane for Montgomery, Alabama,’ and so we—”

“You know that isn’t the ‘this’ I meant.”

Myka did. But she hadn’t volunteered for that “this” either. Nothing about her response to Helena was voluntary. Nothing about it had ever been voluntary.

“Fights and all,” Pete added. “After the thing”—he always called the barely averted explosion of the Warehouse “the thing,” and so did Claudia—“you could’ve let her leave. You could’ve made her leave. She would have done anything you said.”

“Not anything,” Myka said, to be contrary.

“Maybe you don’t remember how she’d hardly even sit in a chair without your say-so. Oh, but wait, I think I know somebody who remembers everything, some tall lady with a lot of hair, name rhymes with Opelika... hey, that’s you!”

“Shut up. It wasn’t... that simple.”

“It is now.”

She crossed her arms at him.

He sighed. “Lemme show you: ‘Sorry, baby,’” he said in his “Myka” voice, which was terrible. “Me too, darling,” he then said in his “Helena” voice, which was even worse. As himself, he finished, “It’s like you’ve never been in a relationship.”

In a conversation in which Pete had said several annoyingly true things, that one was the most annoyingly true. But: “It’s like,” she conceded, and he slapped the side of her head, very gently.

“Hot girl hotel room,” he said.

When Myka went back to that hotel room, the hot girl said, “I’m sorry,” as if she’d received the same instructions from Pete. “I was precipitately thirsty.”

“I’m sorry too,” Myka told her. “I was precipitately miserly.”

Myka kissed the hot girl, the hot girl kissed back, and they fumbled their way to fine.

Until the next trivial-yet-entrenched tiff... because apparently, peace was for normal people.

Normal people. When Myka and Helena finally made it back to the B&B, Leena, Claudia, and Steve were doing reasonably convincing “normal” impressions: drinking hot chocolate, eating cookies, and playing board games. They seemed to be playing all the board games; Leena was replacing the lid on Monopoly, which she set aside, reaching for the next box in a towering stack. “Chef’s-kiss timing,” Claudia told them. “I just bankrupted these two pathetic poser slumlords, and we’re about to start Sorry. It’s funner with four, so siddown, and you two can be a team.”

“Or not,” Myka said, glancing at Helena, who glanced back and gave a definitely not yet inhale-exhale. “Why isn’t Pete playing?”

“We’re supposed to tell you it’s because he’s doing some last-minute Christmas shopping,” Steve said.

Myka was about to ask, “This late at night?” but Claudia supplied, “Except it’s really that he goofed off today and didn’t finish inventory and thought he’d get away with it but then Artie called and yelled at him.”

“And you left him alone to keep working on it? It’s the night before Christmas, and—”

Claudia waved her hands. “And all through the Warehouse, not a creature was stirring, I swear.”

“Besides,” Leena added, “he’s a grown man.”

“Who always ruins Christmas!” said Myka.

“Always almost ruins Christmas,” Claudia corrected.

Myka demanded, “Is there anything about me that says ‘I like a close call’?”

All eyes turned to Helena, then back to Myka.

Of course Helena had been part of the closest of calls, and Myka hadn’t liked it at all: nothing but the outcome. The Warehouse, the saving of it, yes, the thing—but the real outcome had been the aftermath at the B&B.

That outcome was real, but it was also a dream, one that Myka had dreamed more often than she would ever have confessed to pondering in her heart, this dream of being alone with a present Helena, no disastrous endpoint looming. The dream-logic of it: I can touch her? And Myka put a hand to Helena’s elbow. Reached and did that. Helena looked at the hand, the elbow. She looked in Myka’s eyes then and said, “Don’t spare my feelings.”

Feelings? Are you really you in your skin, Myka wanted to ask. Is this your elbow. Instead, because she needed to know, she murmured, “What do you want.”

Helena didn’t say words, but she made a noise that evolution had found fit to preserve from a deep, animal past, a guttural push of sound through the throat-column: it told Myka everything. Told Myka: “Everything.”

No speaking then but by bodies, a language of desperation and culmination. Helena had a mouth that could be met by Myka’s own, clothes that could be removed to reveal a palpable body, with every response of that body real under Myka’s hands. Myka held her eyes closed for much of that night, lest sight confuse her about presence and its proof, lest she fail to attend to what her eyes could never offer: The fleshy heaviness of a tongue in response to her own. The soft give of a thigh interior under her insistent thumb. The steady pressure of a body that pushed back. No empty air, no absence; only presence.

No question marks intruded on their immediate intimacy, their immeasurable, embodied relief. Two days prior, Helena had been a sacrificeable hologram, but all at once she was Myka’s living, breathing, at-last lover. All destined... like meeting at gunpoint.

That night precipitated a fast fall into full couplehood, with seemingly little conscious choice on either of their parts. As inevitable as the gunpoint meetings, the wrenching betrayals, even the miraculous redemption.

But nothing good can possibly be so simple, Myka told herself. Or so inevitable.

“Is that what you believe?” Myka imagined Helena asking this, Socratically. She’d had so many internal conversations with Helena that she found the habit—probably a bad one—difficult to break.

“I’m tired of belief,” Myka told her beautiful, imaginary Socrates. “Sometimes I want to go back to my regular non-Warehouse life, where belief didn’t matter.”

Helena said, still in Myka’s head, still Socratic, “Or did you merely act as if it didn’t matter? Artifacts were born. Religions carried on as they do. Your ignoring belief had no effect on any of it.”

“My not ignoring it has no effect on any of it.”

“So you yourself, regardless of attitude adopted, cannot affect belief.” Socrates paused. Smiled. “Or that which is inevitable.”

Myka did, in such moments, briefly wonder why she needed the real Helena around, if the one in her head was such a reasonable facsimile. A hologram could have done that job just as well.

But the answers, the “here’s why,” came fast and thick, and Myka rejoiced that they could. The real Helena could make Myka laugh an easy laugh, because circumstances were not as they had been with that hologram, when laughter was an impossibility. The real Helena could touch Myka’s neck—not wonderingly, as Myka had known that elbow—but instead quick and hot, in that way that said “we have been intimate recently and will soon again be.” The real Helena could fall asleep and in relaxation display a face so devastating in its symmetry that Myka was inclined to regret not being Michelangelo, so as to recreate it in appropriately tributary marble.

Strange, though, or probably just ridiculous, to feel that your romantic relationship had made more sense when one of you was a hologram.

Myka should have expected Christmas, also a fraught inevitability, to loom as an existential test—yet another existential test—of that relationship.

She should have expected also that when this new existential test was administered, Pete would be the one helping to shove answer sheets and no. 2 pencils into their hands.

“Might be a close call or two in Sorry. Sorry!” Claudia cackled. “Anyway, go put your stuff away so we can get our Sorry on. Also our merry. We might even sing.”

“Or not,” Myka said again, and this time she got an eyeroll in response rather than meaningful breathing. An improvement? Hard to tell.

“Nobody’s required to sing anyth—” Leena began, but then she sat up very straight and cocked her head. “Do you hear that sound? Or I guess I mean, do you feel that sound? It’s not singing.”

Helena moved her head too, and not in a way Myka recognized. “I do feel that sound. In fact I believe I know that sound.”

“I do too,” Leena said.

Steve squinted. “Feels like... a weird earthquake? Is it happening all over Univille?”

Claudia said, “This is the kind of thing they blame on us even when it isn’t us. It’s why they look at us weird at the supermarket.”

“I can’t feel anything,” Myka said. “What is it?” She looked first to Helena, who was shaking her head—not at Myka, not with anger, but as if she might be able to find the right shake to rid her ears of the sound, or the feeling, or whatever it was.

“Agitated artifacts,” Leena said, performing a very similar shake. “They... rumble.”

“Agitated artifacts,” Myka repeated. “Pete’s alone at the Warehouse, it’s Christmas, and artifacts are agitated. Okay.”

Naturally, Pete chose that moment to march in, proclaiming, “I hope everybody’s ready to apologize to me.”

Steve asked, “Why should we apologize?” Now he was shaking his head too.

“Because everybody always says I ruin Christmas.”

Helena said, “As I understand the situation, the salient fact is not that they say you ruin Christmas. The salient fact is that you do ruin Christmas.”

“Almost,” Claudia corrected again. She canted her head, righted it. Canted it again.

“But this time I saved it.”

“By agitating artifacts?” Myka said, but of course he would think that. Probably encouraged them to have a party...

“More so by the minute, from the sound of things,” Leena told him.

“What? No! That isn’t what I did!”

“The artifacts are telling a different story,” Helena noted.

Claudia offered, “It’s more that they’re humming it real low. Like some geologic event that worked its way into a Björk track. Or vice versa.”

Myka—very calmly, she believed, under the circumstances—said, “What. Did. You. Touch.”

“Nothing, Mom,” he said, and his tone caused Myka to spare some sympathy for Jane Lattimer. He then said, as if it were some magnanimous confession, “Okay. Fine. I did, but I gloved up.”

“What did you touch after you gloved up?” Leena asked. “And why?”

“It was like it tapped me on the shoulder...” he began.

Still canting her head, Claudia muttered, “Sallah flashback, Sallah flashback...”

“And said ‘hey big guy’...”

Steve said, “This is already a longer story than I feel like it should be.”

“And told me it had to go the Christmas aisle...”

Myka had had enough. “If you don’t spit it out right now, I personally will Heimlich it out of you. Joyfully. WHAT had to go to the Christmas aisle?”

He turned to her and gave a palms-up shrug. “You know I don’t know anything about classical music.”

She reached to the table for the nearest board game, to throw it at him, but Helena preempted that move by saying, “Judging from Myka’s face, now is not the time for non sequiturs.”

She probably couldn’t have done much damage with a travel-size Aggravation anyway, but travel and aggravation made her think, in Helena’s direction, Oh, now you can read my face. An hour ago in the car, not so much. Then she sighed internally. Or maybe, an hour ago in the car, too well.

Pete was continuing, “But the Messiah had strong feelings.”

“Oh no,” Leena said, and Myka knew that Leena saying “oh no” in that particular way meant she knew something, and the something she knew wasn’t good, but Pete kept on, still enthusiastically proud of himself: “So I gloved up, took it where it wanted to be, and then came home. Because it isn’t Christmas till I’ve won the Trivial Pursuit Star Wars Classic Trilogy Collectors’ Edition!”

“Do I seriously have to remind you I’m the reigning champ?” Claudia demanded. “What you’re saying is, it’s never gonna be Christmas.”

“Not for a while yet,” Leena said, “because we’re going back to the Warehouse. Because I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening.”

“Why do I have to go if I can’t hear whatever it is?” Pete whined.

Myka told him, “I can’t hear it either, and it’s your fault.”

“Your ears are your own problem.”

“I might Heimlich you just for the fun of it.”

Steve said, with concern, “I’ve heard that ribs tend to break.”

Myka nodded. “Exactly.”

“Santa would not approve of that attitude, young lady,” Pete chided.

“All I do is lug around stockings full of coal,” she said. “Do your worst, Santa.”

She made the mistake of glancing at Helena, whose face betrayed a responsive ripple of disquiet. Exactly the wrong sentiment for ending a fight, even a foolish one, Myka realized: imply that nothing you carry with you is what you want. “I didn’t mean...” she began, but Claudia was demanding of Leena, “How do you know what’s happening? And what is happening?”

“He put the Messiah sheet music in the Christmas aisle,” Leena said, with what Myka considered enviable patience.

“You say that like it means something!”

“It does mean something,” Leena said. “You’ll see. More importantly, you’ll hear.”

At the Warehouse, when they reached the floor, they were greeted by... “Curtains?” Steve tried, because that was what they were. Tall, cream-colored damask curtains with a green floral pattern. Freestanding, blocking their path. Insistently blocking their path.

“For all of us!” Pete tried back. “Dun-dun-DUN!”

“No...” Leena said. She regarded the curtains. “I know who you are,” she said, and Myka found herself unsurprised to see the curtains rustle at that, as if in appreciation. Leena then said, “And now I know exactly what’s happening.”

“A play is beginning?” Helena suggested.

“Not quite, but you’re in the neighborhood. Surely somebody other than me knows who these curtains are really for.”

Pete leaned close to the curtains, then jumped back like they’d bit him. “Oh my god. Now that I look close—the von Trapp kids!”

“Good boy,” Leena said.

“I thought we were calling him a grown man,” groused Myka.

“Leena is providing positive reinforcement,” Helena said. Pedantic, as if Myka had never heard of such a thing.

“I know she’s providing—” But she shut herself up, sighed in frustration instead.

Leena made sure everyone was wearing gloves, then said, “Claudia, keep your goo gun in your pocket; we might find more of them taking their frustrations for a walk.”

“So do we just put things back where they belong?” Steve asked. “And they calm down and the rumble-chatter stops?”

“Any that got themselves where they aren’t supposed to be, we take them back. But here’s what else we have to do.” She paused. “Sing.”

“No,” Myka said, and “no,” she repeated. She chanced a glance at Helena, but she had closed her eyes and seemed to be pre-massaging a headache out of her temples.

Leena appeared not to have heard Myka, for she went on, “We’ll deal with the curtains first. Next, the Messiah goes back where it’s supposed to be—because that’s what started it all. After that, I think Claudia should tell us what we need to do.”

“Oh god,” Claudia said, sounding just about as dread-filled as Myka felt. “This is Caretaker practice, isn’t it?”

“What if it is?” Leena asked.

“Ugh. Thanks, Pete.”

He said, “Maybe it tapped my shoulder because it thought you needed Caretaker practice.”

Myka snorted. “Maybe it tapped your shoulder because it could tell you’re an easy mark.”

“Hey!” he protested.

“Particularly at Christmas.”

“Hey!”

Leena said, “I think the Messiah might have sensed you’d be an easy mark... mostly because you want to make everybody happy. Particularly at Christmas.”

“See? Leena understands,” he taunted Myka.

Myka once again considered the Heimlich.

They escorted the curtains back to the musicals section, passing by Ginger Rogers’s dancing shoes, and Myka was unnervingly tempted to put them on and bleed her way backwards and in high heels out of the entire situation as Leena explained, “People repurpose ‘My Favorite Things’ as a Christmas song. The curtains find that... troubling.”

Pete scratched his head. “I guess I don’t really get that. Isn’t it kinda great?”

“Wait,” Claudia said, “and this might not even be practice: I think I do get it. How they feel. So let’s say you’re you.”

“I’m me,” he said. “Gotcha. Awesome. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Exactly. But what if some holiday thingy came along and made like it was changing you into something else? They’re afraid we’ll put ’em in the Christmas aisle, and they don’t want to be there. Unlike the Messiah, I guess. Am I wrong, Leena?”

“You’re not wrong,” Leena told her, smiling.

“I feel that too,” Steve agreed. “They’re... afraid? Afraid it’ll diminish them. They’ll be about Christmas and that’s all. That’s why they’re so agitated.”

And so the curtains were serenaded with words about raindrops, kittens, kettles, mittens, and all the rest.

“Are they happier now?” Pete asked. “Do they not feel so bad?”

Leena, Claudia, Steve, and Helena all nodded, if not entirely vigorously. Helena said, “Marginally happier. Not knowing the song, I of course couldn’t participate. I hope they aren’t offended.”

But she hadn’t seemed apologetic at all while the singing took place. In fact she’d smirked. So Myka murmured, “Thrilled, more likely.”

Helena pretended to ignore her but also bared her teeth, minimally, in Myka’s direction, as she said, “Popular culture, alas, remains a largely undiscovered country.”

“It’s just one song,” Claudia said. “You’re getting your head around more stuff all the time! Take the Muppets.”

“Last week’s Christmas special,” Helena said, and Claudia nodded. Myka knew they’d been going one per week, because that was as much as Helena could take, whereas Claudia would have set up a holly-jolly IV drip if she could. Helena continued, “The one you called a ‘crash course’ in several shows’ worth of puppets?”

Claudia nodded again, even more enthusiastically. “Muppet Family Christmas! And now you’re up to speed, so for example when I say ‘Oscar,’ you say...”

“I still fail to understand how the large bird, which seems more accurately a costume than a puppet, qualifies.”

“The answer we were looking for was ‘the Grouch,’ so maybe we’re not quite as far along as I thought. I’m not going to bother with when I say ‘Fraggle,’ you say.”

“Consumer of the structures built by the devoted little workers who wear hats.”

“Aaaand that’s why not. Although your essay answer isn’t wrong.”

“Thank you,” Helena said, performing her funny little bow that struck Myka anew, each time she saw it, as a Victorian tell.

In fact, Myka had come home from the Warehouse just as that “crash course” was ending: Helena, as always after such a lesson, looked bemused but relieved, while Claudia was fidgeting with post-lecture satisfaction and, most likely, disappointment that she’d have to wait an entire week till the next one. Myka had asked, “Why does Helena need to know about the Muppets?”

Claudia responded with a puzzled, “Why doesn’t she?”

“Bert, Ernie, and the distinctions therebetween,” Helena said to Myka. “Would that I were you and could retain it all.” She smiled a small “but here we are” smile, and Myka leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed that smile. Because she wanted to; because she could. The smile then widened, and Myka tried not to make the mistake of wondering why every moment wasn’t like this one.

“You two can be pretty soft when you want to be,” Claudia remarked.

Myka had thought, No, we’re not this way when we want to be. It was when they weren’t actively wanting it—or needing it—that this ease stole upon them. But here it was... so Myka kissed Helena again, then asked, “What’s for dinner?”

The asking of that question, in the softness of that moment, had seemed an ideal step forward, one not about destiny or fraught inevitability, but balance and consistency. And then Myka did make the mistake: Why couldn’t every moment be like that? What was it that disturbed all the other moments?

Now, as they all headed for the Christmas aisle, Pete pulled on Myka’s arm and held her back a bit from the rest. “You mouthed the words,” he accused, very quietly.

“So what if I did? You know I can’t sing.”

“Maybe it makes a difference. H.G. said the drapes were only marginally better.”

“She didn’t sing either, by the way,” Myka pointed out.

Apparently her feelings about that were clear, for Pete said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I meant you and H.G. Incidentally, you walk a little bit like Big Bird.”

“We’re fine. Incidentally, if you got a chicken bone stuck in your throat I wouldn’t be at all upset about what could happen while I was saving your stupid life.”

“I sort of feel like if she choked on a chicken bone, right now, you wouldn’t want to let anybody else do the rib-breaking.”

Myka almost said a dark “you bet I wouldn’t,” but then she realized: “I think that’s always going to be true.”

Pete nodded. “Kiss her, kill her. I get it.”

Unless he was talking about vibes, he didn’t get it, not fully—Myka herself didn’t get it fully, and in everybody’s defense there was a lot to be got—but it was Christmas-sweet that he got as much as he did. She said a mollified, “Look, just don’t make me sing, okay?” Because if there was anything Myka was sure she and Helena definitely did not need right now, it was a replay of “you can’t sing” and “neither can you.”

“No promises, partner. When Leena says ‘jump’ I say ‘my knees are shot.’ You, on the other hand, when she says ‘sing’? Better say ‘how high.’”

“This is kind of a ‘my knees are shot’ situation,” Myka observed.

“What’s the matter with your knees?”

“Never mind.”

And then they reached the Christmas aisle. About which Myka felt, and felt she had a right to feel, a certain amount of post-traumatic stress.

“If you touch anything,” she told Pete, “I will turn your ribs into chicken bones.”

“That makes no sense.”

“And yet you understand me perfectly.”

He took a step away from her. “In a very mobbed-up way, yes I do.”

Helena, Claudia, Leena, and Steve had ringed themselves around a shelf, and Myka peeked over Helena’s shoulder. Only in the Warehouse, she figured, could a piece of music manage to project the idea that it was pleased with itself.

“It’s gloating at me,” Pete complained.

“It did make you do what it wanted,” Steve pointed out.

Claudia said, “It’s like it knew we’d show up right at this moment.”

“I’m pretty sure it did,” Leena said.

Myka, still at Helena’s shoulder, felt a tension in the body that was not quite touching hers. She felt a tension, too, in words that were not quite meant for her to hear as Helena murmured at the music, “What else do you know...”

TBC

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #B&W Holiday Gift Exchange #kla1991 #Hark #second part coming sooner rather than later #(I hope so anyway)

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phoenotopia · 4 years

Text

2019 December Update

The game is officially playable from beginning to end!

That battle has concluded...

Soon begins the war! But first, a brief reprieve for the holidays.

And I must throw in the usual caveats. We're still playtesting, we're still polishing, we still gotta get age ratings, more red tape, etc etc. And most importantly, we need to figure out the launch strategy. Think Megaman, charging his shot for 5 and a half years... We're not allowed to miss at this point. It has to HIT.

Luckily, we're in a relatively stable position where we don't have to rush the game out immediately. It's not LAUNCH or STARVE - it's... take some time to aim a little. We don't want to launch in the shadow of a bigger behemoth game, and we don't want to launch completely unknown either. We have to build up the game's media presence, which has been neglected so far. I know it's annoying to have to continue to wait... but please bear with us a little longer!

Here's what we've been doing for the past couple months.

---------- THE SCRIPT ----------

The script sits at over 80,000 words. I didn't realize the significance until a teammate told me that that's actually as long as a novel! I looked it up, and sure enough, it's a little longer than the first Harry Potter. But unlike Harry Potter, hardly any of these words are wasted on, pffft, narration. It's all juicy dialogue!

(Some of the game's golden nuggets of dialogue)

There was actually a lot of mundanity getting to the end. Pirate, acting as my editor, caught tons of errors and inconsistencies. One of the most recurring issues had to do with capitalization. I like to capitalize things, often inconsistently. Some common questions that arose:

Why is this text highlighted yellow, and this one highlighted blue?

Why is this monster name capitalized, but this monster not?

Why is this item capitalized, and this one not?

... and so on!

All very mundane issues, but all very necessary to tackle. And there was a TON of 'em. (em vs 'em was another thing we had to make consistent). I actually did some research to see what capitalization rules Zelda had. From what I could tell, when it comes to animals and monsters in the Zelda universe:

All monsters are capitalized

All regular animals are not capitalized

The Cuccos are special, and ARE capitalized

(a collage of Zelda pictures I assembled to study)

In the Zelda universe, all regular items are lowercase, but highlighted blue when mentioned in a quest context (e.g. "butter", "hylian wheat"). Items can be uppercase, if they are special named items (e.g. "Sheikah Slate"). We adopted similar rules as Zelda in some cases, and deviated in others. For instance, in the Phoenotopia universe, there isn't a clear distinction between animals and monsters - that fish monster is really just an animal that happens to be the alpha predator in its natural habitat. So most entities are lowercase, but "big deal" entities can be uppercase.

(we made a formal document to consult whenever a question regarding capitalization arises)

---------- A SAMPLING of QUEST AND CHARACTERS ----------

A lot of new quests have arisen in our great writing effort extending over the past several months. And with it, new characters, big and small. I'll tease a sampling of some of them here (warning: some light spoilers ahead):

My favorite new quest is undoubtedly our game's new "Trading Quest". This one takes inspiration from the Zelda series - the trading quest similarly has you roaming the world and its towns in search of needy people who desire a particular item. Deliver them the item they desire, and get a new item. Do this 10 times, and the ultimate weapon awaits you at the end.

I tried some things to vary up the formula. Some NPCs don't reveal what they need right away - steps have to be taken to get them there. It's also possible to go down the wrong route in the sequence, and have to double-back. We try to keep it interesting.

---------- LOOT PLACEMENTS & GAME BALANCING ----------

A great effort was also spent towards balancing the game this past 2 months. Because even one good healing item, easily obtained, can throw the game's whole difficulty off-kilter. And this same principle applies to other areas, like the money economy and player powerup options. Altogether, they form a very delicate ecosystem for enjoyment.

One of the recent things I did for this game was put down exactly where each heart ruby, energy gem, and moonstone could be found. And this was actually a rather involved process because you have a limited number of rewards to distribute (you wouldn't want the final max HP count to be a weird number like 297). Put too many rewards in the beginning, and the late dungeons would have no rewards to offer. Put too much in the end, and the inverse happens.

I found myself going back into earlier areas and plundering their rewards to fill the later areas. And then to ensure a relatively even spread of rewards within each area themselves, I drew crude maps of the dungeons & their reward spots, so that they could be studied from a bird's eye perspective.

But it was still not enough. With NPC quests and towns also taking up their own allotment of the rewards, I found myself running low on things to distribute. So I went back to the books and upped the number of rewards across the board. Before there were 44 Heart Rubies to collect - there are now 55. Before each Heart Ruby boosted your max HP by 5, but now each one now boosts your max HP by 4, so your final max HP count would still end up the same. It's kinda similar to what happened with Twilight Princess, where they broke with tradition and made 5 heart containers required to gain a new heart instead of the usual 4. Overall, the final tally for treasure to find is:

55 heart pieces

30 energy gems

108 moon stones

Who's crazy enough to collect them all?

---------- BADGES / ACHIEVEMENTS ----------

As one of the game's finishing touches, there's a menu for BADGES - they're this game's version of achievements. This is an ongoing task that we hope to stamp out this December. A few favorites of mine from the original flash game will return ("Pillow Connoisseur" is among them).

(The menu looks like this before any badges are earned)

I allocated slots for just 33 badges, so we're selecting the badges very carefully. We got rid of most of the fluffy ones that appeared in the flash game - we wanted to reduce the number of badges that you would earn automatically for just playing the game (so no more "1st boss", "2nd boss", "3rd boss" achievements). We're aiming for a healthy mix of easily earned badges, hard earned badges, collectathon badges, secret fun badges, and so on.

The badges have another twist - they bear miniaturized portraits of characters from the game! In the initial brainstorm mockup phase, I wasn't really fond of the badge designs. You got a medal of a heart because you collected some hearts, and you got the medal of a moonstone for collecting moonstones, etc. It just seemed so... expected.

(various badge mockups)

How could we engage the players on a more fun and deep level? The idea came - what if we attached pictures of the people you meet on your journey? And these people's stories and character would have a connection with the achievement? That could keep the player guessing which character would come attached with an achievement, or even reveal a hidden detail about the character you didn't know.

---------- MUSIC ----------

Will has just one more task to do. And that's to recut the song for the trailer. One of our other goals for this December is to make a really good trailer... again. There's actually 2 other trailers we cut and never made public for reasons. Maybe I'll talk about them one day in the post-mortem.

Since this may be the last conventional update, we wondered with which song to best leave the audience. And we decided that the most suitable song is "Sanctuary". It's a song that the player will often encounter often when they happen upon a quiet resting place in the world.

There's a little story behind this song. Two and a half years ago, I linked Will the Earthbound song, "Buzz buzz's prophecy", and told him, make a song like that!

In response, Will made "Sanctuary".

Give it a listen HERE. What do you think? Did Will hit close to the greats?

---------- FAN ART ----------

Three fan arts have come in the last couple months. I display them here proudly:

Another submission by Cody G! Gale looking shy as she flashes the V sign for the camera. I like how Cody G's art is continually evolving. Note the additional detail on her eye, and how her hair is drawn extra fluffy. Very nice!

Shafiyahh is another consistent contributor, and made one in the spirit of Halloween. I really like their costumes! Gale as an angel, and Lisa as a demon, fittingly captures their relationship, since Gale is the responsible one and Lisa is the troublemaker. So cute!

A contribution from a new artist, Negativus Core! Wow, Gale looks so bada-- here! We often forget about Gale's tough side due to the cutesy graphics. This is probably how her enemies see her. And the gummy (slime) is a cute touch!

---------- FINAL NOTES ----------

Similar to last year, this will be the last update for a while. If things run too slow, I'll post a status update come end of February 2020.

It's possible, and this is a BIG IF, that something notable happens sooner than expected - like we're going to a con or we have reason to drop the trailer sooner than later. If so, this blog will update earlier than expected. BIG IF. Otherwise, it's end of February till next you hear of us.

The game's development has reached a new uncharted territory. We're going to take the time and figure out exactly what our next steps are. In addition, we'll still be doing some playtesting and script polishing. And we'll be taking a break too. It is the holiday season, things move kind of slow around this time of year. We'll enjoy the company of our family and friends.

Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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castielslostwings · 4 years

Text

All I Want For Christmas (Are Earplugs)

Ficlet: 3k of fluffy, explicit (at the end) Christmas-y DeanCas.

The challenge: "Write something about Cas being stuck in the gas n sip where "All I Want For Christmas is You" plays on an endless loop for 3 months until he's nearly homicidal 😂 ...and then dean shows up and they bang in the storeroom while it's playing and the song is still awful and plays every 45 minutes but at least Cas has a positive memory to associate with it now!"

Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21656614

Or check out this excerpt (cut because Tumblr will eat my smut):

Corporate doesn’t even hold off until Thanksgiving is over to move onto Christmas, not anymore. In the age of instant gratification and having everything a person could possibly want only a finger swipe away, waiting until after Thanksgiving to break out the Christmas theming would render it all relatively pointless. Thus, the day after Halloween, that’s when it starts these days. Castiel doesn’t get it, not really, especially considering the Gas’n’Sip is, well, a gas station. No one is looking to their shelves for holiday sales and the opportunity to grab this season’s hottest items before they sell out. Not unless one considers snack cakes and travel-sized tubes of toothpaste to be the perfect holiday gifts. Not that Castiel’s judging.

It’s just that those realities make the auditory horror Castiel’s subjected to for nearly three months straight all the more baffling. Why he has to suffer so the Gas’n’Sip can claw uselessly at retail relevance is beyond his understanding. It’s not as if they’re succeeding. That little “Last Minute Gifts!” display doesn’t get any sort of play at all until the twenty-third, and even then people have to grimace their way through choosing between cheap shower product sets and crappy mugs with teddy bears holding chocolates stuffed inside them. By November first, Castiel’s already practicing the most tactful ways to interrupt those poor procrastinating saps and suggest simply buying lottery scratch-off tickets.

The thing is, the decorations aren’t so bad. A little tinsel here, a few red glittery signs there, couple of candy-filled endcaps with Santa theming, whatever. Even the little Christmas tree that sits next to the register and Castiel can’t stop knocking into with his elbow every time he goes to make change is more festive than frustrating. None of those things are particularly bothersome at all. In fact, Castiel barely even notices them (aside from diving to catch the tree and keep it from crashing to the ground every ten minutes). And the twinkling, color-changing string lights that Castiel spent the better part of a day stapling around the top of the store, along the windows, and over the register are actually fairly enjoyable to look at. So much so that he strung a set around the shelves of the storeroom for when he’s stuck back there organizing or doing inventory. Very cheery.

But the songs. The songs are the worst. Well, no, that’s not exactly it either. The holiday songs on the corporate-provided CD that loops endlessly on a forty-five minute spiral in the background definitely still play in Castiel’s head long after he’s dumped the coffee, turned out the lights, and locked the gas station doors. They infiltrate his quiet moments in the evening after he’s returned home, dance across his mind obnoxiously when he should be enjoying his free time away. It’s only the beginning of December and already Castiel’s starting to lose his mind. Last night, full of a spectacular dinner and tucked warm and snug in bed with Dean squirming underneath him, Castiel was screwed out of an actual orgasm by the painfully catchy crooning of Mariah Carey relentlessly belting out those high notes in his head.

Because really, at the end of the day, it’s not all the holiday songs, it’s that holiday song. The bane of retail workers everywhere, Castiel’s sure of it, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is single-handedly making his holiday season as un-merry as it could possibly get. A grating earworm that’s starting to feel more “nails on a chalkboard” than singing at all, Castiel’s forced to enjoy it on a repeat cycle every forty-two-point-five minutes of every single workday. And now, it’s messing with his off-time, his intimate evenings with Dean, those relax and reset moments that Castiel counts on to get him through the next day and the one after that. Retail is hard enough on a regular old Tuesday, never mind during the holiday season when everyone’s so desperate to squeeze in as much merriment as possible that they’re willing to steamroll right over people like Castiel to do it.

Most of the time, Castiel doesn’t mind being a faceless cog in the machine, hell, he enjoys it some days. There’s a quiet dignity in his job, in providing food and fuel for weary travelers just trying to get from Point A to Point B. Keeping the coffee pot full, the hot dogs warm, the cigarette cartons stacked. Perhaps other people might look down on him for being satisfied with that type of work, that type of life, but Castiel has no interest in what other people think of him. Well, anyone besides Dean, of course. And Dean loves him, is proud of him, and that’s more than enough to make his days, every single one of them, merry and bright.

So it would be Castiel’s preference that he subsists through the rest of the Christmas season without murdering the one man who makes his existence tolerable, and that fucking song is beginning to threaten that theoretically simple wish.

Today, for instance, it’s four in the afternoon and Castiel is working a double. Which means that since the Gas’n’Sip opened its doors at six AM, Mariah Carey’s syrupy-sweet caroling has set his teeth on edge going on fourteen times. Fourteen. Chinese water torture would be kinder. Two hours and two more rounds of the nightmare in G Major later, Castiel texts Nora, his manager, and begs her to let him change the music. “ Just for the today, just for the rest of my shift”, he pleads, even going so far as to say he’ll tune the radio to their local Christmas music station.

Nora sends back, “ LOL, Castiel you’re so funny”, and Castiel dies a little bit inside. Business is slow and the lackluster trickle of customers comes to a stop completely around ten PM, leaving an entire hour for Castiel to count down the minutes to the next time that awful song is going to play without any kind of distraction. When the bells tied to the doors finally jingle signaling a customer around ten forty-five, relief doesn’t even come close to what Castiel feels. That doubles when the face that appears across his countertop is Dean’s.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says warmly, and he’s not exaggerating when he thinks he may never have been happier to see the man. Although, it’s never unpleasant to see Dean.

“I'll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols,” Dean replies cheekily, leaning across the counter for a kiss which Castiel gladly provides. Not the menthols, though.

“Funny,” he murmurs and then sighs heavily. “Dean, I’m going to lose my mind if I have to put up with this—” Castiel jams his finger in the direction of the ceiling speaker above his head, “ Horror show for another three weeks.”

Dean looks up from where he’s fingering the different flavors of Bubble Yum and slides a pack across the smooth surface, reaching for his wallet to pay. Castiel waves him off, grabs a couple of singles from his own pocket and runs the transaction absently. “It can’t be that bad,” Dean says and Castiel’s fingers halt mid-button-push.

“My ears feel like they’re bleeding, Dean,” he protests with a glare. “Every forty-two-point-five minutes exactly it comes on and I’m in hell.” Clocking Dean’s badly-suppressed smirk, Castiel works his jaw and folds his arms across his chest. “Perhaps I’ll call Bobby and offer him a free month of advertising in the Gas’n’Sip window. All he’ll have to do is play a particular CD on repeat in the auto-repair bay from tomorrow until Christmas.” Satisfied with the way Dean’s face pales and the smirk disappears, Castiel feels absolutely no need to remind him that approving free advertising isn’t remotely in his job description. Honestly, if Dean can’t figure that out from the knowledge that he isn’t so much as allowed to change the store’s chosen music, that’s on him.

“Don’t mess with my classic rock, Cas,” Dean warns him. “Some shit is sacred, you know.” Annoyed again, Castiel raises his hands and gestures around him emphatically. “Alright, alright,” Dean relents. “I see your point, it sucks.” Sucking his lip distractedly in between his teeth, Dean glances around the store. “So, where are your security cameras at?”

Rolling his eyes, Castiel points to several different corners and just above his head behind the register. “There, there, there, and there. Don’t you think if I could have moved them, I would have? Changing their direction sends a notification straight to Nora’s phone.”

“That’s not what I—what about the storeroom? There any cameras there?”

Castiel narrows his eyes and regards Dean curiously. “No… There was one, but it broke weeks ago and Corporate hasn’t yet responded to Nora’s service request.” With a mild hum and another glance around that includes a sweep of the deserted parking lot outside, Dean wanders over to the doors and locks them. “Dean?” Castiel doesn’t protest, just watches as Dean flips the sign that says, “Back in 5 minutes!” Castiel rarely uses it himself, but every so often nature calls and the store has to be locked in the meantime. It’s interesting that Dean remembers that.

“C’mon,” is all Dean says on his pass back through the store, reaching out to grab Castiel’s arm and tug him out from his little alcove and across the floor to the storeroom.

“Dean, what—”

“How long until that song plays again?” Dean asks as he pulls Castiel inside and shuts the door behind them.

Checking his watch, Castiel does some quick mental math as well as cocks his head to listen for whatever song is playing now. “It’s next,” he groans, but Dean just grins.

“Awesome timing,” he replies, grabbing Castiel’s waist and manhandling him around until his back is up against some stable-looking shelving. “We’re gonna play a game, alright?” Dean’s bright green eyes are sparkling and shining and Castiel definitely knows that face. He also knows he should stop him, should tell Dean no to whatever mischievous thing he’s plotting, but it is only minutes to closing time and hell, Castiel’s day has been pure, undiluted shit.

“What sort of game?” Castiel asks, unable to keep the note of amusement out of his voice as he watches Dean’s eyes dart down to his own lips. Without answering, Dean leans in, kisses Castiel’s bottom lip and then his top, pulls back just far enough to look down and slot their groins together in a way that won’t have anyone’s belts causing unwanted, painful havoc. Then he’s back, tongue poking at the seam of Castiel’s mouth, and despite everything, Castiel recognizes that this is Dean asking for permission. If he really doesn’t want to do this, in his store or at all, he need only close his mouth.

As much as he appreciates the asking, though, Castiel knew what he was getting into when he stepped inside the storeroom. Dean has a bit of an exhibitionist side, and this isn’t their first rodeo in a semi-public space. Though the likelihood of being walked in on is extremely low, there’s still a bit of a thrill Castiel gets over doing something naughty, and maybe he’s more into it than he lets on. The whole concept has him hardening up nicely and Dean’s grinding isn’t hurting either, but just as they’re setting a pretty nice pace, the first notes of The Song come on.

Growling into Dean’s mouth, Castiel reluctantly pushes him back. “I can’t,” he says, frustrated. “I don’t want to associate having sex with you with this demonic lullaby.”

Read the rest on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21656614

#destiel #ficlet #christmas #holidays #deancas #my fic #all i want for christmas (are earplugs)#fic rec #castielslostwings

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lilyvandersteen · 5 years

Note

How was the concert? I wann hear everything! :)

Long story short: it was AMAZING!!

Putting the rest of this under a read more, because I have a lot of gushing to do, and it will get looooooooooooooooong.

I got to spend most of my two days in London with @perfectanomaly, who is a perfect darling. Thank you, sweetie, for making me feel welcome from the moment I arrived, for making my nerves just melt away, for gently guiding me in the right direction any time I veered off (Yep, I have no sense of direction. At all.) and for the wonderful chats we had. I had a lovely time in London, and that’s in large part due to you. Safe travels home, honey, and I hope to see you again soon!

We met up with another Gleek, @misssnowfoxx, shortly before the doors were to open, and she was dressed as a very cute female Blaine - blazer, bow tie necklace and all. Just gorgeous!

Then, when I was queuing, I met @fionaroleplays and @sarkyblueeyes, both of whom were lovely, and talked to me about their past experiences seeing Darren perform. When we entered the building, I lost sight of them in the crowd, though - sorry for not saying goodbye!

In the concert hall itself, I got to meet @klaineunite, who was very sweet, and introduced me to two other Flemish girls who were sitting with her, and we chatted a bit about Lea because those girls were BIG Lea fans.

The thing is, @klaineunite and I both live in THE SAME CITY. And yet we have never met until yesterday, in London. Isn’t that crazy? Glee definitely brings people together, and I’m so thankful that it does :-)

But, anyway, you want to hear about the concert. Of course. Yes. Getting to that. *Happy sigh* Not over it yet. So not over it yet. I’m still just floating on air and pinching myself to check I’m not dreaming. Wow, that was a wonderful experience. Hands down one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.

First thing I want to say is that because it’s Lea & Darren together, you’re definitely getting value for your money. It’s like two concerts in one, and that’s not counting the opening act, I believe his name was Tom Spade, who sang with a girl called Delia, and their songs were lovely, so that was a nice extra surprise.

So, as I was saying, the concert ran really long. Lea and Darren sang for over two hours, and their energy never flagged, not even for a minute.

Both of them have such a galvanising presence. They had the crowd in the palm of their hand from the first moment to the last. There may have been people there that just came along with their daughters or girlfriends, but by the end of the evening, they were clapping and singing along just as enthusiastically as the actual fans. That’s how magnetic Lea and Darren are.

They started off by singing Broadway Baby, acting it out like they did on Glee, and really hamming it up. You could see so clearly that they were enjoying themselves, those dorks :-)

Then they did Suddenly Seymour. Of course Darren couldn’t recall what episode they sang this in on Glee, and of course Lea remembered PERFECTLY. Down to the outfit! She described the pink top and the skirt she’d been wearing that day on the Glee set, and Darren said, “Huh, was I wearing that?”, which of course cracked everyone up. I’m sure Blaine could pull it off, though :-)

The third song they did together was Falling Slowly and oh, that gave me chills, it was SO GOOD. Their harmonies are so beautiful on that song.

After those three duets, Darren started yawning and said he needed a nap (Ha! I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually DID take a nap!), so then it was just Lea left. And she chatted with us like we were friends, telling us what was in all the cups and glasses and paraphernalia that were on the piano just for her. No alcohol, though she confessed that after the show, she’d have a drink to unwind a little. No, it was tea and cranberry juice and water and a throat spray, if I remember correctly, which she said she all needed for as long a set as theirs runs. I believe her wholeheartedly. It’s a wonder they can keep singing like that night after night - they certainly don’t hold back. They give it their all.

She sang Cannonball first, and oh, she DID sound like a cannonball. Her voice is so powerful. She got the crowd to join in, too, which I loved.

Then she sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and the backdrop on the stage actually turned into the colours of the rainbow for that song - it was so pretty. And of course she nailed the song. She said she’d always loved it, but she’d never sung it in public before, so she’d practiced it so she could sing it in London. Just lovely.

And then we got another confession from her: that she was a huge Gleek, just like us. That got a big cheer, of course!

She asked us what our favourite Glee songs were, and she sang a few snippets - I remember a stanza from Poker Face and then a bigger part of Don’t Stop Believing, getting us all to sing along, and of course we did so with gusto!! Yeah, that was a goosebumps moment. And you saw her beaming at the response from the crowd and being so pleased that we were so in the moment with her and singing along. Wonderful.

That segued into Lea singing Don’t Rain On My Parade, and KILLING IT!! Oh, she really went to town on that song, and we rewarded her for that with a standing ovation, which was more than deserved.

Then she told us about being a huge Lady Gaga fan, and how she was sad she didn’t get to sing Edge of Glory on Glee, because it was one of her go-to songs to sing in the shower, etc. And she told a story about her strong connection with her grandfather, and apparently Lady Gaga had written this story for HER grandfather. I didn’t catch everything, but it was a beautiful moment.And then she sang Edge of Glory, and you could tell that it meant a lot to her, that song. So emotional.

As was the next one she sang, Glitter In The Air. Apparently, that’s one out of only THREE songs that Lea got to choose for herself to sing on Glee (the others were Make You Feel My Love and This Time). And she recalled seeing Pink perform this song live at the Grammys hanging in the air from just a piece of cloth, and she remembers thinking, ‘If Pink can do that, I can do anything I put my mind to’. Lea’s performance of this song was just as intimate and goosebump-inducing as it was on Glee, and I just LOVED it.

After that, she sang Run To You, and I squealed excitedly, because those were back to back the two songs I’d really hoped she’d sing, so I was thrilled. I know she can belt like the best of them, but where Lea really touches me is when she makes her voice soft and vulnerable and crystal clear, every note just hitting the right spot, and conveying so much emotion that it fills you to the brim.

The last song she sang on her own was a Christmas song, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

After that, Darren came back on stage to loud cheering, and they sang another song of hers, Getaway Car, together. Again, their harmonies give me chills. They sound awesome together.

When the Getaway Car duet was done, Lea left the stage to Darren for a well-deserved break, and Darren sang Cough Syrup. Never one of my favourite Glee songs, because of the whole suicide scene playing out while Blaine was singing it - *cringe*. But hearing it now without any of those marring elements, only Darren on stage singing his heart out, redeemed the song for me. Thank you for that, Darren! Now I have better images attached to that song :-)

And then Darren asked us if we knew the song before we heard it on Glee. I didn’t, and many others shook their heads as well, but Darren said he’d always loved the band Young the Giant, way before he got to sing their song on Glee. Which led him to enthuse about how wonderful it was that Glee mixed up all sorts of music genres, and led him to become more proficient at singing musical songs, for instance, and how he loved that aspect of being part of Glee, and how it had shaped his musical career. “Look at this concert! Where else would you hear a rock song and then straight after a song from a musical?”

That segued into Darren singing Hopelessly Devoted To You. And devoted he was. Oh, he sang that song beautifully on Glee, but during the concert, it was even more heartfelt, more raw. He dug deep, and at times, it felt like intruding on a personal moment. It made tears well up in my eyes.

After that, he sang most of the songs from his Homework EP. Again, I was THRILLED, ‘cause I love those.

It was just Darren and his guitar for both Going Nowhere and I Dreamed A Dream, and during most of that, you could here a pin drop. Everyone was so in the moment, and Darren’s voice is SO beautiful on both of those songs, which have gorgeous melodies and lyrics that really speak to you. Yes, that was definitely one of the highlights of the concert for me. I’ve listened to those songs on repeat for I don’t know how many times, but hearing them live is so much better still.

Foolish Thing was on the piano, and a lot more vigorous than the softer songs that came before, and many people sang along. The crowd was so responsive, I loved that.

Then Darren told the story of how he’d written Not Alone while he was in Italy, and wanting to write a big ballad, and he mentioned that he’d used it for AVPM, which of course got a LOUD cheer from the Starkid fans, and he sang a snippet from Going Back To Hogwarts, and we sang along, that was fun.

And then he sang Not Alone, and oh, SO INCREDIBLE. You could tell that the song meant a lot to him. Again, he poured just everything into it, and it was an outstanding moment, with the audience singing with him and just feeling the vibe. Goosebumps. Truly.

But he topped that with the song that came after, which was Teenage Dream. He asked us not to sing along, and during the quiet part, we didn’t, but as soon as Darren started belting, there were people singing along anyway. I’m sorry about that, but luckily, it didn’t get to Darren, who really gave his all on this song, and it was so stupendous that we ended up giving him a standing ovation. For TD and everything that came before. Seriously, the guy is pure magic and had us all under his spell. So SO deserved, that standing O.

Then Lea came on again, and they did This Time, reminiscing about Glee again, dedicating the song to us fans, and then harmonising so beautifully that I got tears in my eyes again. I’m getting emotional again just writing about it.

The last song before the encore was Don’t You Want me, and they were so full of energy as if it was their very first, getting us to stand up and sing and dance along, which we did enthusiastically.

And then the encore was Make you feel my love. Without microphones, just their voices. An amazing moment, that made us feel so connected and so moved. It was only marred by an idiot shouting something somewhere halfway through.

That was the end, and then I went to my hotel with @klaineunite who was staying there too, and I was still half in a trance. It was so superb that I’ll be reliving it for days and weeks on end. What a wonderful experience. Truly spectacular, and my admiration for the both of them has grown exponentially. Lea and Darren are amazing, and deserve all the praise.

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suedescripture · 5 years

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Pinto, Hallmark Christmas movie AU

The Pine family has reigned over the Christmas season at The Grove for as long as most people can remember. Katie and Gwynne come up with new themes for the North Pole Village each year. Robert Pine is—in certain circles and according to ten out of ten children under the age of 12 in the greater metro area—considered the Real Santa Claus. And Chris is the cheeriest, happiest, Most Merry Santa’s Little Helper who has ever held the position (including when he booted Katie at the age of 17). He can charm a smile out of the surliest scrooge.

But listen, Zach works retail, and not even good retail, he works one of those godawful kiosks trying desperately to sign people up for phone service, and the only reason he’s making $15/hr now is because the great state of CA finally forced his boss to pony up a semi-realistic minimum wage (but Zach still lives in his newlywed brother’s basement, because Califuckingfornia). If there is anyone in this mall that hates the time of year when the glitter covered fake-ass cotton snow comes rolling out and That Family™ comes in and takes over the place, it’s this guy.

Oh Zach and Chris very nearly came to blows last year. The have A History. This will be Year Three in the Fallout between Chris the Friendliest Happiest Santa’s Elf and That Swarthy Guy with the Nasty Attitude At Kiosk 18. It made the local 6 o’clock news. Reporters are already staking out territory. Mall security isn’t happy about it.

It starts out similarly to last year. Chris leaves a Christmas candy on Zach’s kiosk when he’s not looking. A candy cane one day. An Andes mint chocolate. Those pillow thingies that squish weird in your teeth. Each time, Zach trashes them, gritting his teeth. So Chris ups the ante. He goes for the whole Terry’s Chocolate Orange, the kind you have to whack and then unwrap and you get perfect little slices of delicious orangey dark chocolate.

A cameraman from Channel 7 catches him squirreling it into his coat pocket, When confronted, with the camera in his face, he says defensively, “My mom loves them, and they’re impossible to find in Pittsburgh,” before running off.

Chris: 1, Zach: 0. Grumpy Zach is publicly outed as a Mama’s boy. The reporters send an affiliate to reach out to his mom in Pittsburgh for comment. She cracks the door and tells them her Zachary really is a sweet soft gentle boy, he’s just had a terrible time since his father passed on Christmas when he was just seven.

The following week, Zach makes two children cry by telling them Santa passes gas in the break room that smells like reindeer roast.

That’s where it comes to head this year, so the media doesn’t quite get wind of it. Chris walks in and confronts Zach at the coffeemaker, saying, “Don’t you dare bring my dad into this.”

“Why not? He’s a gassy Santa. It’s gross, he should see a doctor.”

“Yeah he is, but you don’t have to ruin Christmas for little kids just because you don’t have a dad!” Chris immediately covers his mouth after that pops out. It was out of line, and he knows it. Zach silently goes back to the kiosk with a pained rage on his face.

But it changes everything. Chris confesses what he said to his dad when they’re at home over hot cocoa with full sized marshmallows, and they he feels even worse because all he’s ever wanted was to cheer this poor guy up and let him have a good Christmas for once. Also he’s just kind of hot, and… and Chris knows he’s probably as sweet as his mom says, because who would know better but Zach’s own mom? And Bob, itching at the snowy beard that he’ll shave off as soon as the season is over, tells him, “Then stop making it a hostile takeover, a forceful assault demanding that Zach should be happy right now. Sometimes, Chris, especially with people who have losses and pain to deal with, the Spirit of Christmas is just in quiet moments of joy.”

Chris doesn’t do anything at all in the week leading up to Christmas, to the dismay of all the reporters and the gossipmongers. He and Zach keep their distance, but there is one instance where Chris drops an entire bucket of mini candy canes practically in Zach’s kiosk. He didn’t do it on purpose either, some asshole didn’t place a mat over a wire correctly, and a patron could have gotten hurt. A whole group of piney teenage girls swept right in to help Santa’s Hot Little Helper pick up the mess, which he milked with sweet grins and thanks and presenting each one with a sweet, but it was a camera from Channel 4 that caught Zach watching the whole thing, specifically staring at Chris’ ass before he rolled his eyes and picked up a remaining candy cane by his feet, tucking it in his pocket.

Another happened when the Christmas decorations strung over Zach’s kiosk come loose and covers him in glitter that would never fucking come out of his clothes, but it almost made him look positively festive for the rest of the day. Chris giggled every time he looked in his direction, and Zach caught him several times, scowling. “You did it on purpose,” Zach accuses over the coffeemaker.

“I didn’t,” says Chris, “But now you’re all sparkly. It’s cute.”

“I don’t sparkle.”

“All sparkly and shiny and pretty like a Christmas ornament.”

“I’m not pretty,” Zach frowns, flustered.

“Yeah, you are.”

Zach’s eyes widen in shock.

Oh. Chris turns beet red and leaves it at that. Whoops.

Finally it’s time for the Christmas Eve Finale, the part everyone is here for, because every year—and the reason he stole the position from Katie (though she was happy to give it up)—Chris sings a song and put on a little show. And boy howdy, Santa’s Little Helper can sing like Sinatra. And this year, Zach got scheduled to work til close, so he can’t skip out and leave like he did the last two years.

Chris puts on a snappy suit with a Christmasy paisley double-breasted waistcoat and a red bowtie (he has a friend who works at the Armani shop and did him a solid) and starts the show by walking up to Dad with a grin and steals his Santa hat. The lights go low, and the music starts, and Chris makes sure he can see Zach nonchalantly flipping the pages of a magazine as he starts to sing “Let’s make Christmas Merry, Baby”. It’s risky, but hopefully he can play it right. He casually strolls off the stage and in among the crowd and over towards the kiosk.

Zach tries to fight it, he tries to hide at first when he realizes what Chris is up to, but Chris’s cuts off his escape and as he sings “I’ll come around about midnight, fill your stocking full of toys.” Zach rolls his eyes and crosses his arms as Chris does a little twirl around him, singing “I’ll let you ride my reindeer, you won’t need a hobby horse,” as he pulls a pen from Zach’s breast pocket and writes his phone number on the heel of Zach’s hand with a heart. By the time he sings “I’ll bring you a chartreuse Cadillac and a diamond ring,” he’s got Zach’s full attention, because he’s shimmied his butt up on the the kiosk’s countertop and tugged Zach in between his legs, and parents are covering their little kid’s eyes, because… because…

Because Zach, the Scowling Scrooge of Phone Sales at the Grove, is smiling. Besotted. A little punch drunk looking as Santa’s Little Helper leaves a sweet kiss on his cheek and whispers in his ear, “I hope you’ll come at Christmas with me.”

And he does. Zach feels so awkward going over to the Pines for Christmas, but he puts on a dumb ugly sweater and carefully does his hair and awkwardly shows up with a bottle of wine, but they’re like so nice to him, and Bob Pine takes him aside and asks him about his family and (tongue-in-cheek) if there was anything that Santa could do that would help him feel better around this time of year, and fuck, he might as well be the real Santa Claus for as good as he is at reading people and saying the right thing. And then Chris gestures him out to the dark backyard and it’s kind of awkward, and Chris has glitter in his hair and Chris says he only has one wish for Christmas and it’s for a kiss.

He tastes like peppermint.

#clearly I am terrible at this whole summarizing thing #wordplay as foreplay #fanfic memes #AUs I'll never write #semperama #also I have never actually watched a hallmark christmas movie in full so I hope I did this cliche shit justice

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makingnewenemies · 5 years

Text

Hi Hi Hi. Here is a little blurb I wrote off the top of my head about all my friends on this year’s Group Picture Vol. 8. I love them all. I love their songs. And I love that we still keep up this stupid tradition; and somehow the comp keeps getting better and better. Thanks everyone! Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays :) - walt

Sour Guy - All Those Plans Were Wrong

Last summer Kris Schobert (Sour Guy, Walter Etc. / Mitty core member, Ernie…) was admitted to the hospital… and then again… and then again…. I think he spent like a month total in the hospital. It was not chill. But when he got out, the whole experience gave him a bit of clarity and new perspective on his life and the decisions he has made thus far. I won’t speak any further for him, but Kris… hey, nice song! And your quality home recording production and continuation of the WMAHMO slop sound doesn’t not go unnoticed! This song made me tear up in a coffee shop the first time I heard it.

Slaughter Beach, Dog - Big Band

Slaughter Beach, Dog are randomly GP staples by now but also one of my favorite bands and greatest friends. This song is a bit of a sound change for them, swapping mid tempo soft rock John K Sampson vibes for a theatrical late 60’s / 70’s sound that is a bit more light hearted than normal and I LOVE IT. It’s catchy, it makes me laugh, yet its so true. Glad to have these boys back this year.

Teal & Jer - Alphabet

Portland’s dreamiest duo Teal & Jer (Chain, Riled, Loose, lots of projects) bring a quirky alt edge to our otherwise bland and boring comp. Without them, we’d just be us. I personally would like to hear more Teal solo work??? Teal???

Milk Flud - Rodeo

If you don’t fuck with Milk Flud then you can get out.

Chase Hoyt - Health

Chase Hoyt (Ubu Roi, Feed, Chaz and the Minions of Chaz, The Rodeo…) is a GP fixture by now, and important asset to MNE because it’s his classic rock sensibilities that balance out the overload of folk / indie rock that we swim in. This song not only has a comically true message (health is the most important, i agree Chase) but the vibe, especially the chorus, has my head bobbing and me feeling like I’m on a grassy hillside at an outdoor concert in the 70’s, but also one glass of wine deep making homemade pizzas at an Air BNB with a girl I love, and that is a nice combo of feelings. “Let’s wrap it up / I’ve embarrassed us all enough”

Dry Goods - Learnt Nothing

You hear that flawless acoustic finger picking? That masculine story telling voice that sounds somewhere between a suburban Bob Dylan and a cowboy singing to the emptiness of the high desert? Yup, its Russell Park AKA Dry Goods and FKA Weston Bookhouse coming at us with another folk masterpiece, but this year adding in some new elements we aren’t quite used to- namely some cruisey guitar solos! Rumor has it Dry Goods is in the studio recording a new album right now and I would not be bummed out if this song were on it.

Byronius Punk - Beautiful Things

I just spent 3 weeks with Byronius Punk (Ian Farmer of Slaugher Beach, Dog / Modern Baseball) at his studio The Metal Shop in Philadelphia making a record with his beautiful mind and his new drum machine- so this song really hits home for me. I could write an essay on why this is the perfect Group Picture song- my three main points being - 1. It is a song about the act of creating. (“in everything that exists there lies a certain beauty / I want the world to know how much it all means to me”) which is exactly what Group Picture aims to celebrate. 2. It’s a song written and performed by someone who is usually more in the background of his bands (bassist / backup vox / recording engineer) but here has a platform to express his own individual style and skills, which is exactly what Group Picture wants to promote. 3. It has a Milk Flud name drop, which is a classic and classy GP / MNE move. Thank you Ian. You rule.

Dante Elephante - It Bothers Me

Dante Elephante are Santa Barbara legends and their new album “Rare Attractions” shows them evolving their sound into more loungey and ethereal territory. I am so glad they have joined GP this year, because I see singer / songwriter Ruben almost every weekend when he DJ’s at The Tavern in Ventura and I drunkenly annoy him / vaguely fan boy out on him. Dante being on Group Picture is a sign that our friendship extends beyond Saturday nights at the Tavern. Also their album vibes hard. Check out Rare Attractions on Spotify.

Peanut Butter Cups - Highest Quality

Petition for Aaron Kovacs (Peanut Butter cups, Lauren Records CEO, Winter Break and Summer Vacation drummer) to finally put out a full album? This catchy lo-fi pop rock is undeniably infectious. Fun fact: I’ve been hanging with this boy for almost 10 years and I’ve never heard him sing, but then he sends me these recordings and I’m like wtf your voice is so cool! If he makes a full album, MNE will put out the LP and still give him 100% of the digital income. That is how much I like Aaron’s style.

Anika Pyle - Young Love

I once wrote a song with the lyric “I’ll probably see her on tour but she won’t be on Group Picture this year.” I’m so glad I was wrong. Welcome to GP Anika Pyle! Anika (Katie Ellen, Chumped) plays raw emotional pop rock songs and this gem “Young Love” is just the tip of the iceberg. When her vocals max out at the end of the tune and you get a little bit of musical goosebumps, that is the feeling you get for a full 30 minutes of watching her play live. Anika, please come in and stay for a while!

Walter Etc. - This Would Only Happen to Me

Ok ok enough of the soft emotional bullshit. Here’s a song about someone coming to kill me! It’s 100% true. If you’re reading this, help!!!

Jake Lee - Good Run

Jake Lee (Bleeding Gums Murphy) strikes again with a lo-fi indie gem in which we hear Jake Lee reflect on his gaime from last year. Sounds like he made some interesting choices and is coming to terms with them? Or did I miss the mark, Jake? He is and always will be one of my favorite songwriters and his voice in this fuzz effect is not a bad look, I have to admit. The only way my life would be better is if Jake made a full album. Cheers homie.

Babytooth - State Quarters, OR

Technically, this is Babytooth’s official debut on Group Picture, but Portland, OR singer / songwriter Isabel Zacharias had a song on the comp last year that blew me away. It was her vocals and lyrics that hooked me then, and are still yanking me now. Now backed by a full band that gives dynamic range to her songs, it was still that first line “now you know you want a girl without a phone” that had me nodding “yup i love this”. Fingers crossed for Babytooth to become a GP staple.

Trashbike - Weasel

Trashbike is Bread (Blowout, Walter etc., Donkey Lips) and his homie Ru playing the pedals. He told me he wrote this song while stumbling home from the Bye and Bye. Bread is like a sexy emo prince, can’t you hear it? This song rules and I really hope Trashbike is more than just a one and done GP band. I would listen to a few albums of soft songs like this, wouldn’t you?

Banned From Japan - Vegan X

Welcome back to the Socal Valley punk rockers Banned From Japan! If you know that singer / songwriter Matthew Earle has been sober for a few years, this song is hilarious, simultaneously poking fun at vegan straight-edge and himself. The music rips and his vocals are catchy af. Fat Wrecks Chords come and sign Banned From Japan asap!

Walter X - Winter Shy

Ok. This is a bit meta. Walter X (Michael Mahaffie and his WMAHMO / Walter Etc. hardcore chip tune cover project) covers an old Walter GP song as his own GP song. Pretty niche MNE content! This song, in this Lifetime-esque style, his vocals so clear but so gruff, those guitar harmonies, the creative intro and chip-tuney bridge…. this literally gives me chills and is so much better than the original. I encourage anyone reading this to go check out his own original music under the name Jump Cut. It sounds just like this but with Michael’s own songs, shedding the limitations of the musical simpleton Walter songs. Also, check out the full Walter X album on Spotify! What a talented dude…

Curling - Genkai Trip

Curling released their MNE album “Definitely Band” this year and the musical arrangements / song structures absolutely floored me. Genkai Trip is a song that got left off the album, but lives on through GP! Singer / guitarist Bernie Gelman noted “There's some pretty wacky guitar overdubs where Jojo and I each doubled some guitar parts while the other person was playing with the trem on the guitar, so you get this really weird detuning effect.” and yup that is Curling in a nutshell for you. Always excited to play around with gear and recording techniques that are way beyond my level. I think this is an extremely underrated band and highly encourage the world to check out Definitely Band on spotify!

Ali Muhareb - DIY Hell

Ali? What the hell did you even make this song? It’s intriguing in the verses and then when the chorus busts out it sounds like if Dough Martsch were an up and coming artist in Portland in 2018. I actually had to text Ali to ask what these guitar sounds were and, if anyone is interested, he responded, “I compressed two guitars together through a virtual amp. And they’re both running through this sick pedal I got called the Data Corrupter.” For sure Ali! Thanks for a bad ass tune.

Dakota Loesch - Don’t Solve My Mysteries

I’ve been listening to a lot of Dakota’s music (solo, Animal City, Lemp Lungs) recently. I keep coming back to it, and its not a mystery. After hundreds of songs in his pocket, songs like “Don’t Solve My Mysteries” still sound musically and lyrically fresh, like Dakota has never had writer’s block in his life. When I listen to his music, I feel like it vicariously breaks down my own creative barriers. For instance when I first heard this song and he dropped the hook “just don’t solve all mysterious” I had that knee-jerk urge to ditch what I was doing and go write a poem or something. His will to create is just that contagious. Combine that with the Casio-keyboard bedroom drum machine vibe that I love so much about his songs like “The Basmati Rice” and you have a 10/10 GP banger.

Jerbear - Nowhere Girl

Jerbear is Jeremy Murphy (Teal & Jer, Riled, so many) and he is the king of a few things: weird bad guitar tones, asymmetrical organic song structures, rad lyrics that I never understand, and a voice that is universally loved. He stole my heart with Cranberries in the Cosmos on a previous GP, but I think Nowhere Girl takes the cake. Jer- when do we get the full solo album? Please don’t fall into the category of GP lost wonders. You’re not too shabby at this music thing!

Hemingway - Catch My Cool

Catch My Cool is a B-side from Hemingway’s You Will Never Be Happy.

I played drums in Hemingway at this time and I always vibed that Benny didn’t really like the way this song came out int he studio. I don’t get why? That vocal melody, soft sad and surfy guitar leads… it makes me wanna hold hands with a girl on Christmas Eve while walking down some bougie street looking at Christmas Lights. It sounds like a Starflyer 59 worship track and I love it for that. Benny, you made a mistake. This song should have made the album.

Alex Maddox - The Hypocrit’s Dilemma

I’ve heard Alex play this song when we get together to jam, and he always laughs it off as a Walter Mitty rip off song. But honestly, this is what I wish WMAHMO would write about if we made a folk punk record today. If you listen to this song knowing that Alex Maddox was a guy who quit his high paying job to travel Europe in his van, surfing and skating and working on farms, the lyrics to this song are way more wanna-be Walter Mitty. The song depicts a transformation in his paradigm and is completely raw, authentic, and sincere. Alex inspires me to chase a wholesome life that is designed for and by myself, rather than the obvious and sterile template that is provided for us, and this song exemplifies that 1000%.

Uncle Uncle - Nira (I’m Alive)

We played with Uncle Uncle last year in Santa Barbara and I honestly think we should have opened for them. They are actually a good band, both live and recorded. Stylish, friendly, and comically laid back- they might be the quintessential Santa Barbara band. A semi-new band, Uncle Uncle is gaining momentum quickly, and I won’t be surprised when the day comes that Kevin and Dom big time me on State st. Til then, I’m just glad I get to claim that they were on a Group Picture.

Humphrey Orlando - Set U Free

Ah, Humphrey. No, Humphrey accompanied by Toast. Two legends as old as MNE itself. What is there to say? I could listen to their wandering ballads til I fall into the Big Sleep, and still the melodies linger on…

#group picture #group picture volume 8 #making new enemies

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seasonofthegeek · 6 years

Photo

Merry Christmas, @tobashii! I’m your @mlsecretsanta so I did a little art and wrote a story just for you. <3

A Fresh Start

“Nathaniel!” Marinette beamed from behind the bakery counter.

Nathaniel waved awkwardly. “Hi.”

She rounded the counter with a smile. “It’s so good to see you,” she exclaimed, hugging him tightly.

He stiffened for a moment before hugging her back. “It’s good to see you too. This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

She stepped back with a sly grin. “Come on now. We’ve gotten new flooring and counters in the last year.”

He laughed and held up a hand. “Please forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven, I suppose,” she teased. “Have you moved back or just in town for the holidays?”

“Holidays. My mom remarried last year and we’re doing a big Christmas this year. We’ll see how it goes.”

“You mean after all these years of me begging you to celebrate Christmas, it might actually happen?”

“Apparently we don’t have to be Jewish anymore,” he shrugged sheepishly.

She bit her lip. “It’s really good to have you back, even if it is temporary.”

Nathaniel flushed. He didn’t know what it was about coming back here that made him feel like an awkward teenage boy again. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that no matter how many years it had been, Marinette was prettier than ever. Her hair was pulled up into twin buns at the top of her head, festive red and green ribbons dangling from them and her eyes twinkled as she spoke. He realized those eyes were now staring at him and he wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d last spoken. He cleared his throat. “Uh, what about you? I heard you had moved away.”

Something flashed across her face but whatever it had been was quickly replaced with a smile. “I did for a while. Now I’m back.”

“Still upstairs?”

“No. That was one of my stipulations on coming back,” she laughed. “I have a place not too far from here. What about you? Braving the Kurtzberg household during your stay?”

He grimaced. “Yeah, I doubt I’ll make it the whole time though. Apparently, Noah, Abraham, and I are all going to fit in one queen size bed.”

“Last time I saw Noah, he was over six feet.”

“And then some.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I have a couch if you need it,” she offered.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he smiled. His phone buzzed and he looked down at it with a frown. “Ah, running behind as usual. I better get going.”

“Sure,” Marinette nodded. “Wait! Did you come in for something or…” She trailed off, gesturing to display case.

“I got what I came for,” he grinned before stepping outside.

Marinette watched him walk along the sidewalk and disappear when the bakery windows ended. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face even long after he had gone. ________________________

“He has long hair.”

Alya blinked groggily up at Marinette. “Who does?”

“Nathaniel. He has pretty, long, red hair.”

“You know that apartment key is for emergencies, right?” she grumbled, burying her face in a pillow.

“He was wearing this dark purple scarf and a gray coat and he looked so good, Al. What am I going to do?”

“Go start my coffee maker before I accidentally kill you? And stop mentioning colors. It’s weird.”

Marinette huffed, standing and going into Alya’s messy kitchen. She moved things around until she found the coffee and the pot was almost full by the time Alya trudged in, hair in a messy bun and frown in place.

“Like I was saying—“

Alya pressed two fingers to Marinette’s lips. “Coffee.”

Marinette reached for a mug and handed it to her, offering cream and sugar. “Can I speak now?”

“If you must.”

“Your mom is going to kill you when she sees this kitchen.”

“Good thing I’m going to their place for Christmas this year then,” Alya muttered, taking a sip of coffee. “I don’t have time to clean.”

“Then I’ll talk fast.”

Alya rolled her eyes but grinned as she raised the mug again. “So Nath is back, huh?”

“Just for Christmas.”

“And he came to see you?”

“Yes.”

“Then go out with him while he’s here and be done with it.”

“Alya.”

“Yes?”

“You know I’ve kind of always regretted things not working out for us to date.”

“I believe I recall something like that, yes,” Alya nodded patronizingly.

“And what if this is my second chance? What if everything that happened in Milan with my job and with Jacob and everything was just so I could come back here and reconnect with Nathaniel?” Marinette asked, eyes bright. “It’s a sign.”

“Slow down, M, and take a breath.” Alya pushed aside of stack of unopened mail and set her mug on the counter. “What happened back there sucks and you didn’t deserve any of it, okay? But I don’t think you need to start taking everything as a sign now.”

“But—“

“For instance,” Alya interrupted, “that store having one pink scarf left when we were shopping the other day was not a sign that you should throw out all of your clothes that aren’t pink.”

“Okay, I admit that was a ridiculous thing to suggest, but—“

“Nino playing a song he knows you like was not a sign that you should become vegan because we were talking about it when it came on.”

“The health benefits are—“

“Girl,” Alya said gently, “you need to just let yourself live. You’ve been grasping at everything for a meaning since you came back and sometimes that’s just not how life goes. Go out with Nathaniel. Have a good time. Have a Christmas fling and then say goodbye when he goes back to wherever he’s been living.”

“London.”

“Fine,” she nodded. “The point is, you need to let yourself just see what happens. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve planned everything. It’s time to let go.”

“I think I can do that,” Marinette replied slowly.

“I think you can too.” ________________________

“I’m glad you called,” Nathaniel grinned, handing Marinette one of the snowflake shaped cookies. “I was hoping I would get to see you again soon.”

“Well, we do have a lot to catch up on,” Marinette replied, nibbling on the edge of the cookie. “For instance, what kind of conditioner do you use because it’s not fair that your hair looks softer than mine.”

He laughed and took the offered hot cocoas from the street vendor. Marinette pointed to a low wall and they walked over and sat down on it to enjoy their treats. “It’s some fancy conditioner that costs way too much but smells really good. My, uh, my ex used to buy it for me and I kinda got hooked.”

“Ooo, are we jumping into the ex talk because I think I’m going to win,” Marinette sighed.

“Bad break-up?”

“Nuclear. Yours?”

Nathaniel set his cocoa down and braced his hands on the ledge, leaning back. “Mine was more that I was really into her and she got bored with me.” He shrugged but folded in on himself a little. “It was mostly amicable though. I couldn’t really be mad at her for not loving me the way I hoped she would. Well, I guess I could’ve gotten mad, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. It feels like personal growth anyway.”

She nodded. “I get that.”

“What about you?”

Marinette wrapped her pink mitten-covered hands around her cup, puffy pom-poms dangling from her wrists. “I was doing really well at a fashion house and I started seeing this guy who worked there. People warned me it was dangerous to date someone I was technically in competition with, but you know, love.”

“Ah, love.”

“It makes idiots of us all.”

Nathaniel chuckled and took a bite of his cookie.

“Anyway, a big campaign was coming up and I was working my butt off for it and…” She trailed off, eyes trained on something in the distance that Nathaniel couldn’t see. “And I handed it all over to him. I let him convince me that I couldn’t cut it.”

“Marinette…”

“I let him use my designs and he got a promotion and broke up with me, and I got let go from a job I thought I loved.” She took a long sip of her cocoa. “So I moved back here and I’m just…I don’t know, lost maybe? Like I thought I knew where my life was going, right? And suddenly I’m back at square one without a single clue as to where to go next.”

Nathaniel laughed softly, shaking his head.

“What?”

“That just sounds too familiar. My mom has asked me to come home for the holidays every year since I moved away and every year, I’ve had a reason not to. And this year I realized that I was completely alone in London. Tara was gone and most of my friends had been her friends. So I was sitting there, reading my mom’s email and ready to respond with some excuse and I thought why not go home. I’ve got nothing left here.”

“I thought you said you were just visiting.”

He ducked his head, his cheeks going pink from something other than the cold. “I was, but maybe it feels like there might be more for me here than there.”

Marinette smiled but her eyes tightened. “You know, I was really excited to see you the other night and I would love it if you were back here more permanently, but, uh, I don’t know if I’m exactly ready to be back in a relationship yet. I don’t think I realized that until just now, but I think I need to figure some things out.”

Nathaniel pursed his lips. “If I’m being honest with myself, that’s probably what I need to.” He drank some more cocoa. “What about friendship?”

“I think that’s a good start,” she said, the tension in her face easing away. “And then we’ll see,” she added, her cheeks darkening.

“And then we’ll see,” Nathaniel echoed with a grin.

Snow began to fall around them and Marinette inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. “I love the snow.” She tilted her head back and the silver bells attached to the pink bow in her hair made a soft tinkling sound. Nathaniel watched the snowflakes attach to her hair and eyelashes and he realized he had never seen anything more beautiful. “No matter how many times it happens a season, it always feels brand new,” she sighed, turning her head to look at him.

“A fresh start.”

Marinette put her hand over his. “Exactly.”

Merry Christmas! :D

#ml secret santa #nathanette #marinette dupain-cheng #nathaniel kurtzberg

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khaleesi-in-the-north · 6 years

Note

Howdy! I just came to drop by to say that your Sansaery fics are amazing. I re-read The Double Date series and I have question. It was mentioned that Margaery had a promiscuous reputation before and it was said it was not true. What were the instances that Margaery gained that unfair and undeserved reputation? You're welcome to make that as a prompt. Hahaha. ;) Btw, I also hope we get to have a glimpse of the first Christmas of their twins. :)

I hope to answer the first part of this ask in another response, but for now, here’s the first Christmas!

********

Waking up early on Christmas had always been a Stark family tradition. Early Christmas even bed times guaranteed all the kids would be out of bed before dawn. Even when Sansa was old enough to know Santa wasn’t a real person who visited every house in the world, excitement and anticipation for the presents still drove her to challenge Arya as the first one up to open presents.

For the first time in years, Sansa felt like a child on Christmas. The boys wouldn’t remember their first Christmas, but Sansa and Margaery would.

“Look! He ate all the cookies!” Sansa pointed at the empty plate of cookies she and Margaery decorated with the twins last night.

Florian tucked his head back into Sansa’s shoulder and yawned. Margaery was holding Aedyn, who was slightly more awake than his brother and mother. Unable to contain her excitement, Sansa had woken up Margaery before dawn. A cup of coffee had done little to improve her grouchiness.

“Sansa, they don’t even know what youre talking about,” Margaery groaned.

“Shush,” Sansa reprimanded. “Who wants to see,” Sansa gasped dramatically, “the presents! From Santa!”

Sansa darted to the living room, where the tree was still lit, surrounded by boxes of presents. She plopped down by the coffee table from which the stockings were hung. She pulled Florian’s stocking off the holder. It was red with a large penguin face in the middle. Margaery sat beside her, doing the same with Aedyn’s stocking with a reindeer face.

With one arm around Florian to keep him upright on her knee, Sansa began digging through the stocking. She pulled out the first stocking stuffer: a blue pacifier. “What’s this! What did Santa get you?” she gasped. She held the pacifier in front of Florian. He looked at it, then went back to pulling on Sansa’s top.

Margaery took a different tactic. She dumped out the contents of the stocking in front of her and Aedyn and gave Aedyn free reign to do whatever he liked. He picked up the tiny yellow blanket, dropped it, and moved on to the pink and blue rattle.

“Marge, you’re supposed to show him all the presents,” Sansa gestured to the mess.

“He’s not going to be interested in all of them at this very moment. Neither is Florian, for that matter,” Margaery rolled her eyes.

Sansa hadn’t noticed that Florian had gotten hold of the stocking. He turned it around nutil he could pull on the enclosed end, and spilled all of they presents out of the stocking.

“Florian!” Sansa barely restrained herself from cursing. This wasn’t how she imagined her boys reacting to their presents.

Florian was more engrossed with the stocking than with any of the presents. He squeezed it and shook it up and down, giggling when the plush beak jiggled up and down.

“That’s not a toy, sweetheart,” Sansa grabbed the stocking and gently pulled it out of Floian’s grasp. Florian’s face crinkled, his lips puffed into a pout, his face grew red on the verge of tears. Sansa picked up his green and yellow rattle that fell out of the stocking and shook it. “Here. Don’t you want to play with the presents Santa got you?”

Florian shoved the rattle out of Sansa’s hand and shrieked. He reached for the stocking.

“Let him have the stocking. It won’t hurt anything,” Margaery said. Unlike Florian, Aedyn was completely content with his presents.

Sansa sighed, but relented to Margaery’s advice. Florian squeezed the penguin beak again and giggled. There was no sign that he had been upset just a moment before.

“Sansa look this way,” Margaery called.

Sansa turned her head.

“Say cheese,” Margaery smiled, her phone held up to take a photo. Sansa grinned and Margaery snapped a few photos.

By the time the twins had finished with the stocking toys and were ready to move on to the big presents, everyone was wide awake. Sansa scooted to the boxes with Florian in her lap. Margaery chose to walk around with Aedyn.

They started with the biggest box, which was a playpin for the boys. With a twin on each side, Sansa helped Florian find a grip on the wrapping paper and pull up. The paper ripped. Sansa tossed the strip to the side and tried to help Florian find another place to pull, but this time he became distracted by the first piece.

“Come on Florian, there’s more,” Sansa groaned. This morning was more frustrating than she had imagined. Why couldn’t he cooperate, like Aedyn. He was tearing piece after piece off.

When Sansa looked up to see how far along Aedyn was on his side, she found that Aedyn hadn’t made any progress at all. Like Florian, he was playing with a pile of wrapping paper, crunching it up and pulling tape off. Margaery, however, had made pulled off nearly the entire side.

“Margaery! That’s for the boys to do! They need to open their presents,” Sansa sighed.

Margaery tossed the last piece aside. “Sweetling, you can see they have no interest in this. They have all this colorful wrapping paper they’d rather play with.” She tugged the box closer to her so she could finish off the other side as well. “The way they see it, the wrapping is the present. They’ll eventually play with all this other stuff, but they’re happy now.”

“But half the fun on Christmas is opening the presents!” Sansa pouted. She crossed her arms over her chest like a child.

Margaery laughed. “That’s our fun, then. We can open the presents, they can play in the mess.”

“I guess,” Sansa grumbled.

Margaery picked up one of the presents and handed it to Sansa. They tore through the rest of them pretty quickly. The boys eventually tired of the paper and moved on to the singing train that was part of Aedyn’s pile of gifts.

After all the boys’ toys had been opened, Margaery and Sansa watched them poke buttons and clap their hands and garble over the train as it played song after song. Even Lady decided to join the fun, nuzzling between the boys with her new squeaky toy. The living room was covered in wrapping paper that would need to be thrown away. Sansa couldn’t help but smile.

Margaery laid her head on Sansa’s shoulder. “I think this one goes in the success column.”

Sansa grinned down at her. “It goes in the major success column. Oh wait! We almost forgot our presents.”

Sansa stretched her long arms behind her, laying out to grab the last two presents under the tree. She sat back up and handed her present to Margaery.

She was about to tear into the paper when she noticed the boys crawling toward them, babbling along the way. They both stopped in front of Sansa, reaching for the present. “You want to open this for mummy?”

Sansa held out the present and let the boys tear apart the paper on top. Florian giggled and tried to put a tiny piece of the paper in his mouth. Margaery lunged out in time to keep him from doing so.

“Not so fast you little bugger!” Margaery laughed.

Sansa took the lid off the top of the dull brown card board box. She lifted the book that was inside and read the cover. “Babe! How did you even get this?!” she exclaimed. It was a first edition Mark Twain novel.

“Hours of endless searching and a very intense bidding war.”

Sansa gently placed the novel back in its box and took it to a shelf that the boys couldn’t reach. “Thank you. I love it.”

Margaery pulled the twins into her lap. “Can you get mine? My hands are a little full.”

Sansa laughed to herself and unwrapped her present to Margaery. Unlike Margaery’s gift, hers was still in the original box.

“Merry Christmas!” Sansa held up the box.

“Ah! I knew I shouldn’t have let father show you all those photos of me!” Margaery giggled.

It was a batman lamp with a bat signal emblem to outline the light. Every photo Sansa had seen of young Margaery was her in pretty dresses, or playing with her brothers outside, or in the garden with her grandmother picking flowers. Until, of course, Mace had brought a new photo album with him when he and Alleria came to meet the boys. It was filled with photos of Margaery as a middle schooler with DC clothing and reading comic books. She was a nerd and Sansa couldn’t get enough of it.

“But you like it right?” Sansa put the box down and crawled to Margaery’s side.

“Of course I do,” Margaery touched her forehead against Sansa’s.

“Good,” Sansa whispered. “Because part two of your gift is waiting in our bedroom and I’d really like you to use them tonight.”

Margaery smirked. “I’d love to. Too bad I’ll be sleeping instead.”

Aedyn crawled out of Margaery’s lap and into Sansa’s, dragging his new blanket with him. Sansa grinned and plopped him down. “This morning was worth it.”

In the end, Florian and Aedyn’s first Christmas was everything Sansa had anticipated.

#the double date #prompt #ask #anon #christmas fic #sansaery

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morningmindsetpodcast-blog · 5 years

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MM214 - What Lifts you Up?

We all get down or feel down. That is natural. We should focus on and remember things that lift us back up and make us feel good. What in your life lifts you up? Try to spend more time focusing on that. (Filter: Take a Picture, playing my guitar, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

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Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Hello and welcome back to Morning Mindset, I got it right that time. That's right. I am your host Paul Markel. Thank you, once again for joining me for this show for sharing this with other people for leaving comments on your favorite podcast application. Whatever that happens to be today. We're going to talk about what lifts you up. We all get down. We all feel down at certain times we go through highs and lows in our lives. That's what life is all about. That's natural. - But what we need to focus on is not so much the things that get us down or when we do get down when we feel low when we feel bummed out when we feel like we don't want to get out of bed or we don't want to do anything, what have you. Need to focus on things that lift us up? What lifts you up? What makes you feel good? Put you back on your feet, again, Julie Andrews. She sung are saying about it in The Sound of Music. - That's right, it was called favorite things and you older people understand this and you know these younger people are like, what is he talking about raindrops on roses and Whispers on whiskers on kittens, not Whispers and warm woolen mittens. Those are a few of her favorite things when the dog bites when the bee stings when she's feeling sad. She simply remembers her favorite things and then she doesn't feel so bad. That's an actually a concept that's pretty old. But how often do we think about that? - How often when you're feeling down when you get down when you just win the blues have taken a hold of you. Do you have a plan in place to bring you out of it? Or do you just kind of float along? I know I've been guilty of this. Sometimes I've gotten down or felt like, you know, what's the point and I don't have a plan or I didn't put a plan into action. What I want you guys to do is I want you to think about that now it's easy to feel good when everything is going well course, it's natural when you encounter something that makes you, legitimately, seriously just it uplifts you. - It makes you feel good. I don't know what it is, it could be a song. It could be a picture that you look at it could be an episode of a television show. They're the office is a classic American television show. I know it was British first, but no one cares about that. There are certain episodes of the I like the office. It's been off the air for a while now, but it's still available on Netflix and there are certain episodes of the television show The Office that actually just make me feel good. There are certain songs that just instantly it's like an adrenaline rush. It's like a stiff drink or what have you makes me feel good. For instance. The band filter has a song called take a picture. That when I listen to that song it instantly lifts me up. - They're older songs that lift me up. For instance. I talked yesterday about Stairway to Heaven Sarah to have an instantly lift me up because it transforms me back to where I was at the time and I think about that that makes me feel good. Playing my guitar as I said before I'm not I don't claim to be a musician by any stretch of the imagination and I don't play for other people, but when I have the opportunity I sit down by myself, and I play and I don't think about other things. That's the great thing. That's the greatest thing about musical instruments is that when you're focusing on the instrument itself and focusing on trying to hit the right chords and hit the right strings and all of that stuff. - When you're focusing on that, you're not focusing on anything else. You're not focusing on what's got you down or depressed or angry or frustrated or what have you when I'm playing my guitar. I don't think about what's on Facebook or social media or anything as think about the good stuff. What lifts you up? Maybe it's a passage that you have read or a poem or a song or what have you something that I when I if I'm feeling depressed or if I'm feeling like extremely frustrated. I guess. I like to read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. If you guys don't know what Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, it was actually turned into a song many many years ago. - But it's a time for everything and it explains an ecclesiastic that includes you a sees that as humans who inhabit this Earth. There's not only time for happiness. There's also time for sadness. There's not a time for us, for death, but for birth. Birth and death happiness and sadness peace and War there's a time for all things under heaven and when I read that, I reread it. I'm in a pretty much have it memorized by now, but I'll go back and I'll read it. It makes things and puts things into perspective. Sometimes we just need some perspective in our life. - Sometimes when we get down or feeling down or we're bummed out, we just need something to kick-start us to give us that little bit of perspective to make things seem like they're not all that bad. Just like Julie Andrews song sang about or something about what is the correct pronunciation is she sing. She sang she sung. My English professors. I hope they're not listening to this right now. But so. What I want you guys to do when you're feeling good when you're feeling up when you're feeling upbeat and you encounter something and there may be things that you've never thought about. You know, what I forgot about that song Or that passage or that book or that show or whatever set yourself a plan. - Set up a defense mechanism or a defense plan create your own defensive plan against the blues that sometimes we all need to sing the blues and sometimes singing the blues is just part of life and I understand that you know, that's something that Darryl taught Michael singing the blues is sometimes part of life. There's an office joke for you guys for those who get it, Congratulations. - If you don't don't know what to tell you. So what lifts you up and when you find something that lifts you up make a mental note of it so that the next time you need to enact your your plan your defensive plan against the blues you can go and do that thing, and appreciate that thing for what it is whether it's a song whether it's a passage whether it's a book whether it's a musical instrument, whatever it is, maybe it's just petting your dog. - I don't know but think about that consider what it is in your life that lifts you up. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's all I have for you today. Thank you. Once again for being a part of the Morning Mindset audience. I hope you're enjoying it. I hope you're sharing it with others. Don't be greedy. Don't be greedy. Share this show with other people. I'm sure that there's at least one person that you know, that would get something out of this show, and if you'd like to leave us a message or write us a letter or what have you go to MorningMindsetPodcast.com and you can do that, and if you'd like to get a copy of the book it's available on Amazon, or you can get signed copies from our website. All right, that's it. That's all I have for you guys today Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

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