#…actually compared to the comic i had to do at school six hours is really not that long

[forourtomorrows]

memories

[hellfirenacht]

Upside Down to Inside Out Chapter 2

Fic Summery: It has been four months since anyone has heard from Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. After the Events of the Upside Down, he skips town, leaving you to reflect on the fallout and how your relationship changed during the battle for Hawkins. 1

Chapter Summery: Hellfire goes to the Championship game and Team Surfer Boy looks for El.

Tags: Eddie Munson x Reader, no use of y/n, reader is not described, sfw

May 1986

You hadn’t been to a school basketball game since you were in middle school when you’d been dragged by a few friends with the promise of free food. This wasn’t much different, with the school marching band blasting music and the excited chatter of what seemed to be the whole school anxiously waiting for the game to start. 

Eddie had disappeared for a few hours after the final bell rang, only appearing at the last minute to meet you with the rest of Hellfire outside of the gym. He smelled faintly of weed covered with some cheap cologne to avoid suspicion. Shit, that would have been a good idea to have a joint before this. 

Despite his assumed inebriated state, Eddie still held a firm frown on his face that made you wince internally. It was clear he was still upset with the change of plans for the evening, and you didn’t blame him, you really didn’t. But this was something important to a friend, and you hoped he could at least pretend to care long enough for Lucas to see his friends coming out to support him. 

His mood affected the others as well, or at least the more impressionable ones of Jeff and Gareth, who had been in Hellfire the longest. Gareth had always looked up to Eddie, and had always been one to fall in line first with the DM, imitating whatever emotion Eddie had to almost a comical degree. 

Tonight it wasn’t funny, Gareth’s scowl at you seemed to be overkill compared to Eddie’s look of annoyance from having to be here. Jeff and Zack were talking to each other, probably going over some strategy that their characters would use when the final session did happen. Dustin and Mike looked like they had a d4 up their asses from the way they were nervously looking between you and Eddie. 

It always came down to between you and Eddie. Somehow in the year and a half that you’d been a part of Hellfire, you had become his second-in-command with the club. You hadn’t set out to do it, but while Eddie was good at actually running the campaigns you were better at making sure that Higgins didn’t have any reason to disband the club and sweet talking the drama teacher into letting everyone use the prop room for the meetings. 

Hell, you’d been the one to actually make sure that the yearbook club came to take everyone’s photo as proof that you all existed in the school. 

“So,” Dustin said, trying to shift the mood a little. “Should we go inside? I think it’s about to start.”

“Yup, I got everyone’s tickets.” you said, pulling out six slips of paper from your back pocket and handing them out. 

“How’d you get so many tickets to this game?” Jeff asked, looking at the ticket and then at you. 

“I have connections.” you shrugged. The connection being your piggy bank at home that was now starving. You’d probably have to go without your usual supply from Eddie for a while, but it would be worth it, though. You all would make it through the game, Lucas would be happy, and then you all would be able to meet up over Spring Break, beat Eddie’s campaign together as a team, come back to school, graduate, and then maybe you’d finally consider telling Eddie- 

“Henderson!” 

Everyone looked up to see Steve Harrington of all people walking towards the group. There was a pretty blond girl on his arm, who looked confused as to why she was being ushered towards the freaks of Hawkins. 

Dustin had mentioned a few times that he was friends with Steve, and you had honestly thought he was joking. He’d acted like the two of them went on life threatening adventures together, and that Steve was some sort of badass. Mike had backed him up, which added a little bit of credit to his account as Steve had infamously dated Mike’s sister at some point. 

But now there was no doubt in the world that Dustin and Steve knew each other. Both of their faces lit up and soon they were doing some sort of dorky secret handshake that shattered any previous perception that you had of King Steve. You covered your mouth with your hand, trying not to laugh too much and immediately looked over at Eddie, as if to say ‘Are you seeing this?’. 

Eddie was looking back at you out of the corner of his eye, his lips slightly parted and his eyebrows raised. Yes, he was indeed seeing this, and he looked just as baffled as you were. 

The two of you glanced back at the scene and you looked over at the blond girl who seemed equally as baffled at her date’s sudden burst of dorkiness. 

“I thought you had your nerd club on Fridays!” Steve said, clearly pleased that Dustin was holding a ticket to the game. 

“Yeah we, uh, were able to reschedule for Lucas! Eddie was generous enough to postpone the final session so that we could cheer on the Tigers.” Dustin said, trying to give Eddie credit for the good deed. You couldn’t tell if the attempt at flattery had helped or hurt, as Eddie was reminded why you all were outside of the Gym and not safely tucked away in the prop department. 

Steve looked at Eddie, and there was just something weird about seeing the King and the Freak acknowledging each other in any way. Steve had never so much as glanced at another member of the Hellfire Club, despite his former reputation of being a jackass. You had assumed that you all were beneath him, and yet there was an undeniable real friendship between him and Dustin. 

“Yeah, that’s great!” Steve said, turning his attention back to Dustin. Guess he didn’t know what to say to Eddie, who also didn’t seem to know how to handle this bizarre scenario. 

Steve’s date tugged on his arm, clearly ready to go inside and be around normal people again. Steve and Dustin bumped fists, and he gave everyone else a polite enough parting, making eye contact with you for a moment before the two turned to head into the gym. 

“I’m sorry, was that Steve Harrington that just came over and was willingly seen next to us with a girl?” Jeff asked, looking around at everyone. “Am I dreaming?”

“That sure was.” you said, as Steve and his date disappeared behind the double doors. 

“He’s cool!” Dustin said defensively. “He’s not as bad as you think he is.”

“Didn’t he vandalize the movie theater downtown to call Mike’s sister a slut?” Zack asked, and Eddie’s eyes widened. 

“Jesus.” he muttered. 

“Shut up.” said Mike, glaring at Zack. 

“Alright, that’s enough!” you said, placing yourself between the two. “How about we all just go inside, we’ve stalled long enough.”

In a sea of Hawkin’s Tigers green, the Hellfire club stood out like sore thumbs with their matching shirts. The six of you had managed to find a few spaces on the bleachers to stand around in. You, Eddie, and Jeff were standing a row above Dustin, Mike, Gareth, and Zack. The seven of you barely had time to file into the gym and grab spots before the team was running out onto the court. 

You made sure to cheer as loudly as you could as Lucas ran onto the court with the rest of the team, only losing in enthusiasm to Mike and Dustin. You swear, the only other time you had ever seen Lucas’s face light up like that was was when his character had pulled off a near impossible bluff check last semester that could have ended badly for everyone in the party. It was worth pissing off the whole club, if anything just for this. Even Eddie managed to bring himself to clap with a grimace. You wished that he understood that this wasn’t the end of the world to support his friend. 

Then again, you’d been lucky enough to fly under the radar at Hawkins High. You hadn’t endured the same level of bullying that everyone else in this club had, even on the days that you wore your Hellfire shirt.  

Everyone’s attention was brought back to the court when Higgins was announcing for everyone to stand for the national anthem. 

Tammy Thompson couldn’t carry a tune in the bucket. You were once again looking to meet Eddie’s eyes as the second most bizarre thing to happen today happened. She came back to Hawkins from Nashville to sing at a school function? This day kept getting weirder. 

“Do you think Nashville kicked her out?” Eddie asked, leaning into you. You snorted and elbowed him. It was reassuring that he was at least talking to you and making a joke. 

Tweeeeeeeet

The whistle blew and within a few minutes it was clear that you and the rest of Hellfire was completely lost. The baseline of everyone’s knowledge of the game was that the ball needed to go in the laundry basket hoop, anything beyond that might as well be calculus. 

Jeff and Zack lost interest pretty quickly, almost immediately turning to chat with each other rather than watch the game. When it became clear that Lucas was going to be sitting on the bench, yet again, everyone took their seats and started ignoring whatever was happening on the court. The only ones even trying to figure out what was going on were Dustin and Zack.

“So... how does everyone think the adventure’s going?” you asked, seeing the glazed look in everyone’s eyes as you tried to lighten the mood. 

“We aren’t on an adventure.” Gareth was looking at you like you were crazy. 

“Yeah, we would be on an adventure if we didn’t have to be here.” muttered Jeff. 

“Oh, come on.” you rolled your eyes. “It’s not even that bad. Yeah we have no idea what’s going on, and the person we came to support and cheer on is on the bench-”

“You are terrible at pep talks, mom.” Zack said. 

“I’m better than Jason Carver!” you pointed out, remembering his horrible pep talk this morning at the pep rally. 

“A mime is better at pep talks than Jason Carver.” Mike said.

“Yeah the bar for that is in Hell.” Added Dustin. 

“Gee, thanks guys-” you started. 

“Wait what happened at the pep rally?” Eddie asked, much to your surprise. You knew he skipped, having looked for him earlier in the day in the bleachers but you didn’t think he’d bother to show an interest. 

“He basically said that when their team was losing, he told them to think of dead students and Hopper and how they’d want the team to win.” you provided. “It was really distasteful and gross.”

Eddie looked even more unimpressed that he was here now. “You all could be fighting cultists right now instead of this.” he said, gesturing to the players on the court. “It’s not too late to head to the room, you know.”

He grunted when you punched him in the arm, glaring at him. “Absolutely not.” you said firmly. You’d already have to miss out on anything that required money for the next month getting everyone tickets to this game. “Besides, who says that we aren’t already fighting cultists?” 

He looked at you skeptically, as did the rest of Hellfire. Sometimes, it was hard playing the ‘Team Mom’, the ‘Bad Cop’, the ‘Cheerleader’ as Jeff once even called you much to your distaste.

“Look around, everyone’s wearing the same outfit!” you said.  “The basketball team is clearly performing some sort of ancient money ritual-”

“I’m sorry, a money ritual?” Gareth asked. 

“Wait, that makes sense!” piped up Dustin. “Doesn’t the school get extra funding if the sports team does well?”  

You pointed at Dustin, thankful for the assist. “Exactly! See? So the team’s doing this crazy ritual with a rival cult, right? And everyone in town is showing up because they want in on it, even if they won’t get any of the benefits because the money’s just gonna be funneled back into the cult.” 

“You know, she’s starting to make some sense.” Zack said slowly. 

“I do that often.” You looked back at Eddie. “You said it yourself that Sinclair’s been taken in by the dark side, see? He joined a cult!” You pointed to the bench where Lucas was watching the game intently. 

Eddie followed your gaze and you saw that crack of a smile as well as his shoulders relax just a little. Right, this was working. Just get through the game with everyone in something resembling a good mood and things will work out. 

You were about to start on how the cheerleaders were bards when you noticed someone staring at you from below. Somehow you and Chrissy Cunningham were making direct eye contact with each other. Why would she be looking at you? Why would she be looking at anyone in this area? She realized you were looking back and she quickly turned back to the game, clapping with her pompoms. 

Bizarre count: Three.

It really wouldn’t have made your list of strange happenings for the night had she not kept looking over her shoulder at your group nervously. You realized that it wasn’t specifically you that she was looking at, but (assuming you were not insane) Eddie. Chrissy the Cheerleader was looking over at Eddie the Freak. She looked a little shaken up and you nudged Eddie. 

“Eddie, why does that cheerleader keep staring at you?” you asked, motioning towards the strawberry blonde ponytail that was now bobbing up and down as she cheered for the Tigers. 

“She’s not.” Eddie said quickly, with the undertone of ‘shut up’.

“Oh, she really is.” you said. “She keeps staring directly at you, and she looks... scared.”

You didn’t want to accuse Eddie of anything, you refused to make any sort of judgment without at least asking what was going on. 

His hand wrapped around your arm and he jerked you closer and leaned in close. His voice was so quiet, even this close to your ear you could barely hear him over the sound of the crowd. “I’m selling something to her tonight. Stop drawing attention to this.” 

You quickly shut your trap, though you looked at him in surprise. Prom Queen Chrissy Cunningham was buying off of Eddie? She was the last person that you would ever expect to approach Eddie, let alone buy from him. 

“I’ll shut up, but she should be less obvious.” you mutter, more to yourself than to him. 

The sound of a buzzer echoed through the gym, signally halftime. This was good, the club no longer looked like they were completely miserable being there, just regular annoyed. You were sure that by the end of the game they’d be able to move on and set up a time for the end of Eddie’s campaign. 

Everyone started to disperse, using this time to go to the bathroom or grab snacks. You made your way over to the concession stand, looking over once more at Chrissy, who was talking to two other jocks, you think they were from the football team? She still looked nervous but at least she wasn’t looking at Eddie anymore. 

That was the memory that would haunt you looking back on that night. More than what would happen just a few minutes later, more than the words exchanged between you and Eddie, and more than the large bruise that would appear on your ribs before the end of the night. 

Maybe if Chrissy had kept her eyes to herself, things would have been different. 

September 1986

Trying to keep up with where all the kids hung out was proving to be an impossible task. You, Jonathan, and Argyle had started with visiting Hopper at his cabin. A few months ago it had been run down and nearly uninhabitable but the past few months had seen changes. There were still parts of the exterior that could use a good coat of paint but it was far more intact than it had been. 

Former Police Chief Hopper wasn’t exactly thrilled to see three stoners showing up at his door unannounced but he didn’t immediately turn you away either. It probably helped that Johnathan and Argyle had been the ones to help El save the world. 

She wasn’t home. It was the weekend and El had disappeared with Mike and the others some time after school and he’d only heard from her twice. The last Hopper heard, they were at Mike’s house. 

Mike’s house proved to be of no help either, with Nancy opening the door. You liked Nancy, she had at least been nice to you in school and the two of you had worked well enough together to solve the Creel mystery as well as her using her own money to help buy Eddie food when he was in hiding. 

You didn’t know if Nancy and Johnathan were together. You knew that had been, but were unsure now. It didn’t help that the two seemed to freeze when they made eye contact, their smiles hesitance and awkward. You and Argyle looked at each other, before Argyle stepped up to the plate to ask if El was there. 

Jonathan just stared at Nancy as she explained that they had been there last night and this morning, but they had run off right after breakfast. She mentioned that they had talked about grabbing something from Dustin’s house before they left. 

Nancy and Johnathan gave each other the most painful and awkward hug you’d ever seen in your life, and you think Nancy kissed his cheek when you turned away. Just like you had only given your new friends snippets of your relationship with Eddie, Jonathan had kept the more intimate details about his relationship with Nancy Wheeler close to his chest since you all started hanging out.

You already knew that the kids were long gone before Ms. Henderson even opened up the door. There were no bikes in the front yard to indicate that anyone other than Dustin’s mother was home. 

Sitting in the Surfer Boy van, you sighed as you all tried to figure out where to go next. The three of you ran down the mental list of all the kids, crossing out where you had been. El, Mike, Dustin... there was always the Beyers house, Lucas’s house, Max’s-

The thought of stepping back into Forest Hills Trailer Park made your stomach turn. You hadn’t been back in months, not since Wayne gave you the news. You highly doubted the kids were even there anyway. 

“We’re getting nowhere with this.” you said, rubbing your face, leaning against the seats. The scent of pleather and weed fogging up your brain as you leaned forward against the driver seat. Months ago it would have just reminded you of Eddie, but the scent memories were slowly shifting to long nights talking to Argyle and Johnathan.

“Man, this would be so much easier if we had that girl's powers!” Argyle said. “We could, like, go lay around in a tub and just think about where she is and we’d know it!”

“Argyle, if we could do that, we wouldn’t even need her to find Eddie.” you snorted. 

“Oh right, we’re looking for Eddie!” 

That just made you laugh more. You probably shouldn’t be trusting Argyle to drive in this state, but here you were, letting him pull out of the driveway of the Hendersons. 

“Wait, shit. I think I know how we can find them” you said. “Take me home, I have an idea.” 

Soon enough you were digging through your drawers, pulling out an old heavy walkie talkie. You hadn’t touched the thing since the last time you saw Eddie. After checking to make sure it had batteries, you brought it back to the van. 

“Those kids always have their walkies on.” you said, flicking it on and extending the antenna. Your hands were shaking a little-

“-NEEDS AN AMBULANCE! DOES ANYONE COPY? EDDIE NEEDS AN AMBULANCE. WE’RE CALLING 911-”

A firm hand on your arm made you jump and you looked up at Johnathan. Right, you were supposed to be using it, not having flashbacks. 

“You’re okay.” he said and you nodded. 

“Dustin, do you copy?” you said into the brick. “This is Team Surfer Boy to Dustin- do you copy?” 

The three of you stared at the walkie talkie. Maybe it was a few seconds, maybe it was a few hours, but the speaker crackled to life and you looked up at Argyle and Johnathan in surprise, relief flooding your face. 

“This is Dustin to Team Surfer Boy, we copy. Over.”

“Dustin where are you and is El with you? Over” you asked. 

“Yeah, we’re all over at Will’s place right now.” 

You looked up at Johnathan who groaned in annoyance. Of course they were at his house. This could have easily been solved with a phone call home- or any phone call. Wait, why were you running all over town again?

Ah, so that’s why weed is not the most conducive to making logical decisions. 

“I repeat, we are all at the Byer’s home now. Is everything okay?” Dustin’s voice repeated. 

“Copy that, Dustin. Everything is fine, no one’s in danger.” you hoped. “Team Surfer Boy is coming to crash the party. ETA fifteen minutes.”   

“Copy that.” Dustin said and you pushed down the antenna again. 

“Alright Brochachos, buckle up! Next stop is Casa Byers!” Argyle said, taking off again. Argyle had been living with them for a few months now. You wondered if he would ever go home. 

You couldn’t imagine Hawkins feeling like home to anyone after everything that happened.

It was just warm enough outside to roll down the windows of the van as Argyle drove. You hoped that the cool air would do you some good as you zipped through the familiar streets towards the new home that Johnathan lived at. You realized that you had never actually been to his home. Everytime the three of you hung out, it was Argyle picking you up from your house, or meeting up somewhere else. 

If you had never been to their house then why did this neighborhood look so familiar to you?

The faint sound of drums and guitar was echoing through the old speakers of the Surfer Boy van. This was also something that didn’t make sense as this song wasn’t exactly Argyle or Johnathan’s usual style of music. It sounded like... 

All the blood drained from your face as you heard the music getting louder. A guitar riff- one not as practiced as it used to be, echoed through the otherwise quiet street. You could basically hear the lyrics in your mind ‘raging through my skin, blazing through my veins’

You had been told that they broke up, that Corroded Coffin was no longer together after Eddie had skipped town. Gareth had made it very clear that he blamed you for the destruction of the band and Hellfire Club. You couldn’t even bring yourself to argue if that was fair or even technically correct. But everyone else agreed that it was better if you all went your separate ways, needing space apart to heal the gaping wound that Eddie’s disappearance had caused. 

Jeff, Gareth, and Zack were healing. You felt your wound start to pull at the seams. 

You slid down in the backseat as you passed by the Emmerson house and pulled in right next door. Of fucking course. Of course Johnathan and Argyle lived next to Gareth Emmerson. Of course Gareth was outside with the friends that shunned you. Of course you’d have to get out of the car and risk being seen by them. 

“You doin’ okay back there?” Argyle asked, turning off the van. 

“Not even a little, why?” you asked, staring at the ceiling. 

“I take it you know those guys?” Jonathan asked, looking next door. The music had come to a stop and though you couldn’t make out any words you knew that Corroded Coffin was standing around and talking now. 

“Yup. That’s.. Hellfire Club. Well, Corroded Coffin. Eddie’s band. We were in Hellfire together.” you explained, wishing you could disappear into the seats. “They hate me.” 

“Mom isn’t too thrilled with them either.” Jonathan said, continuing to look out at your former party members, not being even a little discreet. “She says they make too much noise when she’s trying to work.” 

Music started up again, a cover of an old song that you and Eddie had listened to one night after they played the Hideout. He’d snuck some beers out of the back, you two stayed out all night just talking-

“You aren’t gonna find him in my van.” Argyle said, nudging your leg. “Let’s go talk to the psychic girl and find your friend!”

He was right, you knew he was right. But stepping out and being seen by those you’d given everything to was hard. You sat up and took a deep breath, maybe if they were playing they wouldn’t notice you and you could just sneak into the home. 

If only things could ever be that simple. When you stepped out and the van door slammed shut with an echo, the drumming immediately stopped followed quickly by the rest of the music. 

You froze in place as you made eye contact with Jeff, stuck in place like a deer in the headlights. 

“You know this is a closed practice, right?” Gareth said, stepping out from behind his drums and walking outside of the garage. There was a small line of shrubs that separated the two driveways and you supposed that if Gareth tried to fight you he’d at least be slowed down by that.  

“I’m not here for you, Gareth.” you said, crossing your arms. “I’m here to-” 

You couldn’t tell them that you were here to see a girl with psychic powers who could possibly help you locate Eddie and confirm that he was alive. You wanted to tell them, but the look in their eyes was distrustful, as if your very presence would somehow disrupt their fragile contentment that they had clearly worked hard to piece back together. 

“I’m here to see someone else.” you swallowed and looked at all of them. You should say that they sound good, that it’s clear they’re working hard. Something, any kind of compliment to ease the tension just like you used to. You always were able to get everyone to relax, right?

Maybe the old you could. Maybe Team Mom could. But not now. 

“You should probably not keep them waiting.” Jeff said, and you looked for anything other than contempt and distrust in their eyes. When you didn’t find it, Jonathan placed an arm around your shoulders and led you into the house. 

Maybe it was just easier to be mad at you compared to Eddie. After all, you were the one who stopped Hellfire from having its final campaign session. If everyone had that closure of finishing the Cult of Vecna before Eddie’s grand disappearing act, then maybe they wouldn’t direct their hurt and anger at you. They didn’t want to blame Eddie, and so you were the next best thing. 

It had been easy to push the rejection down when you didn’t see them, when you were spending time with Johnathan and Argyle. But the reminder that you weren’t wanted tugged at the wound inside of you. 

The Byers’ basement was spacious, with plenty of room for any casual group of teenagers to hang out without the bother of parents hovering. As Johnathan directed you down the stairs you saw the party in place. Well, some of them. 

Dustin, Mike, Will, and El were sitting around and watching a movie as you all walked in. The tv paused as everyone greeted each other. 

Of the four, you knew Dustin and Mike the best after a year of adventuring as well as the battle of the Upside Down. Will you barely knew, only hearing stories from Johnathan, and El you had met in person a handful of times. 

“No Sinclair or Max?” you asked, looking around. 

“Max had rehab and Lucas went with her.” Mike said. 

“It’s called physical therapy, Mike.” said Will. 

You nodded, at least one couple might actually make it out of all of this. 

“So.... what are you guys doing here?” Dustin asked, bringing up the elephant in the room. “I take it you didn’t track us down to have a friendly chat?”

“You were looking for me.” El said. 

“Wooah... she’s good.” Argyle said with a nod and you pat him on the shoulder, not having the heart to remind him that you had specifically asked for El over the walkie talkie. 

“Yeah I... I need your help.” you said, walking over to the young girl. Her hair was short, having been buzzed a few months ago. It was slicked back right now, and you couldn’t help but think about how badass she looked, even with her softer features. “I want to find Eddie. Can you help me?” 

The silence was deafening as she looked at you in surprise. The rest of the kids were also looking at each other. 

“Have any of you heard from Eddie...?” you asked, looking around. 

Mike looked over at Dustin who shook his head. “No. No one’s heard from him.” Dustin looked away, and you felt for the kid. He’d looked up to Eddie so much, and you were sure that his disappearance had wounded him the same way it had for you. 

You were going to strangle Eddie if you ever saw him again, if not for yourself then for Dustin and Wayne at least. 

“He probably doesn’t want to be found.” Dustin said. “I mean, he left months ago and no one’s heard from him. I mean, this town still hates him.”

“My dad told me that I’m not allowed to go to Hellfire anymore.” Mike added. “That’s why we come over here to play D&D now.” 

“Hellfire doesn’t even exist at school anymore.” Will chimed in. “Higgins banned it the second school started again.” 

“Which is not fair, because Eddie did nothing wrong.” El said looking at you. “Eddie was a hero and Dungeons and Dragons is a game for nerds and it is bitchin’.”

Eddie would have loved El, you were sure of it. You couldn’t help but smile at her. “Yeah, yeah you’re right, kid.” you said. “Please, El. I just want to know he’s alive and not dead in a ditch somewhere.” 

She looked at the others, a silent conversation happening between them all. El finally nodded. 

“I will look for him.” she said. 

You reached into your wallet, and pulled out a polaroid of you and Eddie. It had been taken a few weeks before everything had gone wrong. You two looked so happy. Eddie was on his throne in the props department, you were standing behind the chair with your arm slung around his shoulders as you pretended to try and look at his DM notes. He was laughing and trying to push you away. 

“I don’t know if you need a picture or anything but, here.” you handed over the photo to El who looked at it. 

February 1986

“I will do my best.” she said. 

It had been a pain in the ass going to yearbook club every week to remind them that Hellfire Club still hadn’t had any pictures taken for the yearbook but finally they had sent someone to do it. Molly was the only one who had been willing to come and get the few group photos needed, and you were fine with that. The two of you had English together, and she had always been nice enough to those in Hellfire. 

She had just finished taking the group pictures in the hallway of everyone and now you all were back in the drama room. Molly had said that she wanted to take some more dynamic shots, like at any other club. You somehow doubted that anything other than the group shot would make it in, but you appreciated the effort anyway. 

Eddie had already set up his DM screen earlier and was more than happy to ham it up as the freak for a photo. She had taken a few of everyone at the table, pretending to play while getting quotes from everyone about why they liked Hellfire Club and how it “enriched their lives at Hawking High”. 

While Eddie was going on a tangent about his many notebooks he kept to keep track of his game, that’s when you got your idea. You stood up as quietly as you could, sneaking behind him. His back was turned to you as he chatted with Molly, and you leaned over his chair, looking over his shoulder in the most obvious way possible to catch a glimpse of behind the screen. 

“Hey!” Eddie’s head whipped around and he looked at you. “Nu-uh, nope, you know the rules. Get back in your seat.” Eddie grabbed his notebook and slammed it shut. “Nice try.”

“Come on, Eds!” you slipped around him and threw your arm around his shoulder, leaning over more. ”I know you keep track of who your favorite players are, and I want proof that you’re unfairly targeting me!” you joke and reach for the notebook again. 

“Touch my notebook and I’m killing you when the session starts.” he said, and despite his words he was smiling at you. Eddie tried to push you away, but you leaned into the touch instead, feeling his warm hand squish against your face as you reached for the notebook again. 

“Don’t you mean kill my character?” you asked as he pulled the notebook out of reach. 

“Nope. I mean you specifically.” he teased.  

The notebook he was holding wasn’t even where he kept his important notes. You knew that, and he knew that. That was the notebook for doodles and song lyrics, and fucking around. You knew that because you had given him the leather bound notebook that he kept his real notes in last year for Christmas. 

You had forgotten that Molly was even there until-

Flash

September 1986

El was sitting on the couch, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. You’d been told that she had powers, that she could do this but you had never witnessed it. 

She had only looked at the picture for a few seconds before handing it back to you. It was tucked safely back into your wallet for now. 

It had been tense in the room for a few minutes as you all stared at the girl. From what you had been told, she had lost her powers and had just recently had them come back. You had no idea what to expect from this, really. What if she couldn’t find him? What if only some of these powers had come back? 

“I see him.” El’s voice sounded far off, as if she were talking in her sleep, hell maybe she was. “Eddie is... at a store. He is buying cigarettes.” 

Your heart leapt up in your chest as you listened to her. He was alive. Eddie was alive and he still existed somewhere. 

“How... how does he look?” you asked, unsure if she could even hear you in this state. 

“He looks... tired.” El said slowly. 

You wiped at tears that were threatening to fall from your eyes. 

“But he’s.. He’s alive? He looks okay? He’s not.. Not hurt?” your voice cracked. 

“I do not think so.” El said. “He is not talking. He is buying cigarettes and a mountain dew.” 

“That’s not real food, Eddie.” you said, a tear escaping your eye. . 

El removed her blindfold and you got up and hugged her tightly. 

“Thank you, El.” you said. “Thank you so fucking much.”

Eddie Munson was alive, but that did little to ease the ache in your heart. Eddie was alive, and you were still slowly dying inside without him. 

Now what?

----

Dividers by @strangergraphics

a/n: Only 2 people showed an interested in this fic, but I love it so I'm gonna write it.

Comments and reblogs feed the muse <3

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

For a prompt, maybe Bobby having a job in high school where he teaches guitar to kids and Emily and Mitch mistakenly sign Luke up for lessons? (Bobby just doesn't sound like a teenager on the phone) Belated congratulations on the 500 milestone, btw ✨

Here you go, friend! I hope you like it! My first jatp AU fic lol :)

Read on ao3 here:

--

Here’s the thing: Luke already knows how to play the guitar.

Has he ever taken a lesson? Officially? No, of course not, because he’s not a nerd. But he’s been learning from YouTube tutorials for almost six years now, been writing his own stuff for four, been the lead singer and guitarist of an epic, legendary rock band for two. He’d say he’s pretty well covered in the “knowing how to play the guitar” department, without some crusty old guy showing him the chords to songs no one’s listened to since the 60s in the grimy basement of a church two hours a week.

And yet, here he stands, on the sidewalk outside said church, guitar case in hand and a truly menacing grimace on his face, staring up at the hand-painted sign on the door detailing “Guitar lessons for kids! Room B38” in big block letters.

“Well?” Alex, who drove Luke here because Luke is currently not on speaking terms with his mother and father out of pure unadulterated spite, claps a hand on his shoulder, already stifling giggles. “You ready for your lesson, kiddo?”

“I will kick you out of the band,” Luke threatens.

“Then you can walk home.” Alex jingles his keys teasingly, then tugs Luke into a quick hug. “Come on, man, I think it was a nice gesture. Try to make the most of it, at least your parents are trying.”

Right, because the whole reason Luke’s here is because his mom thought the lessons would be a good reward for Luke passing all his classes this semester. Because she heard him complaining that Sunset Curve needed a rhythm guitarist to fill out their sound and decided that meant he needed to learn how to do it himself, even though Luke tried to explain to her that he couldn’t play rhythm guitar and face-melting solos at the same time.

Of course, she didn’t listen, and then his dad found a flyer for this guy Robert giving lessons out of the local church, and before Luke could say no, the first month’s worth were already paid for and he didn’t have a choice.

And he supposes Alex is sort of right. At least his parents know what a guitar is. At least they’re trying to be somewhat, relatively supportive of his music, instead of pushing him to apply to college or get a job over the summer like they did constantly until he ran away for six months after Christmas and almost died (he’s fine now, but that near-death experience really changed his parents’ tune).

At least they actually acknowledge that he’s in a band at all, unlike Alex’s folks, whose friends think Alex volunteers at homeless shelters in his free time, or Reggie’s, who just don’t care.

Luke knows he’s got it good, compared to his friends, compared to himself a year ago. But that doesn’t mean he’s gotta be happy about it.

“All right, I’ll pick you up in an hour,” Alex says, giving Luke’s shoulder another friendly squeeze. “Try not to pout so much, it’s unbecoming.”

Luke gives him the finger, and Alex’s laughter echoes behind him as he heads back toward his car.

And then Luke sighs, grips his guitar a little tighter, and heads inside. He’s already here, he might as well get it over with.

Room B38 is a tiny classroom deep in the bowels of the church, reserved for Sunday School or daycare or some other such activity. The door’s closed, so Luke knocks, and a voice from inside calls, “Come in!”

A voice that does not sound like it belongs to the crusty old man Luke had been picturing.

He frowns, wondering if maybe he’s in the wrong place, but tugs the door open anyway and maneuvers himself and his guitar inside.

There’s no crusty old man waiting for him. There is, however, a handsome (Luke can’t help noticing and then feels stupid for noticing), young man, no more than a year or two older than Luke at most, sitting in a comically small plastic chair and tuning an acoustic guitar.

“Hey,” Luke greets him, raising an awkward hand. “You’re… Robert?”

“Please—Bobby,” the guy corrects, laying his guitar down on the carpeted floor next to him so he can stand and shake Luke’s hand. There’s a gleam of confusion in his eyes, and he glances over Luke’s shoulder like he’s looking for something as he says, “You must be Luke’s… older brother?”

Oh, Luke is going to kill his parents. “Uh, no,” he says, clears his throat awkwardly. “No, um… I’m Luke.”

Bobby lets out an undignified snort, and then claps his hand over his mouth. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, still sort of giggling. “I shouldn’t laugh, it’s just—most of my students are in the four to twelve age range? I thought you’d be, like, eight.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “Well, I thought you’d be, like, sixty, so I guess we’re both disappointed.”

“Not disappointed,” Bobby corrects, and his smile makes Luke’s stomach flip in a way he’d really rather not analyze too closely right now. Bobby nods down at the guitar case in Luke’s hand. “Should we get started?”

Luke’s tongue feels dumb and thick in his mouth, but he manages to stammer something vaguely affirmative, and Bobby grins at him.

They settle into the kiddy chairs across from each other, and Bobby picks his guitar back up while Luke pulls his own out of its case.

He briefly considers pretending to actually need guitar lessons so that Bobby will have a chance to show off, because Bobby’s cute and funny and clearly cares about music, and Luke doesn’t know how to flirt.

But Luke also doesn’t know how to play guitar badly. So they only get about twenty minutes into the lesson before Bobby stops and says, “You don’t need me, do you?”

“I really don’t,” Luke apologizes. “I play lead guitar in a band, I’ve been teaching myself since I was twelve, my parents are just—” he starts to say stupid, then remembers Alex’s words and amends—“a little clueless about this kind of thing.”

Bobby puts his guitar aside and leans forward in his chair. “What, have they never heard you play before?”

Luke resists the urge to roll his eyes. “No, they have, they just. We’re looking for someone—my band and me—to play rhythm guitar for us? My parents asked why I couldn’t do it, and when I explained it to them, they thought ‘I can’t play lead and rhythm at the same time’ meant I couldn’t play rhythm at all. I don’t know.” He shrugs a little, busies himself with putting his guitar back in its case.

“I could.”

Luke looks up, frowning. “You could what?”

Bobby raises his eyebrows pointedly, nods at the guitar lying at his feet. “Play with you guys. If you’re still looking for someone, I mean.”

Luke’s heart skips a beat, and a warm smile spreads across his face without his permission. “Seriously, man? That’d be amazing! Here, let me give you my number and you can come over sometime and meet the band.”

They exchange information, and Luke spends a little too long staring stupidly at the contact in his phone that Bobby has named “Guitar Teacher <3”.

“Plus,” Bobby says, and Luke looks back up to see him smirking as he returns his own phone to his pocket. “Now I get an excuse to see you again. Since you obviously don’t need the lessons.”

“Yeah,” Luke agrees. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

“But, uh, maybe don’t tell your parents that. Cause I can’t give them a refund.”

--

Taglist: @whenweremarried @sunsethimb0s @pink-flame @penguin0613 @fighttoshine @sunsetcurvecuddles @apples-bees @reggiescrookedteeth @brightattheorpheum @queenmolina @jandthephantoms @lexilucacia @sapphossidechick @acnhaddict @shrimp-colours @sunset-bobby @lenacarstairspotterstewart @conversationaltreestump @burntchromas @shellydominique @julieandthequeers @joyandthephantoms @it-tastes-like-lizard

[sunnysviolin]

God I love your blog I spent all day just looking at it and I’m like yes more Omori brain worms

Also, what do you think the Omori gang’s jobs would be when they’re adults? I kinda meta’d and thought Sunny would be a little comic book artist with the character Omoriboy but I’m curious on your thoughts

Awww thank you! Also you have given me the perfect excuse to show off my happiest AU aka the ‘everyone stays in town together, and lowkey they all live at Hero’s house’  I have a lot of different ideas for what they could end up being, so if this isn’t your cup of tea it’s not my firm canon haha! I actually do have an artist sunny series which would probably be up your alley if you were interested in hearing about that too! Alsooooo this got long again it’s under a read more. I’m calling it Come Home series and I really like it if you guys are interested in hearing more 0-0 I only talk about Basil Sunny and Kel here haha because it got long long, but there’s defintiely another part coming to this if you guys want it! 

Basil starts going back to school post-canon, and he ends up doing pretty good for his last two years, but it’s still a struggle considering he missed so much school over the last four years. The idea of going to college is particularly stressful to him, so Polly doesn’t push it on him. She didn’t end up finishing college, and she turned out alright. 

Polly does want Basil to be thinking about his future though, and so she encourages him to find something related to what he’s passionate about. Which leads to Basil working part time at Fix-It in the gardening section. 

He quickly branches out of just gardening, although that is still his favorite. There’s something deeply gratifying about seeing what he’s created with his own two hands, and having people ask for his help only with simple things he can fix for them. 

Basil starts up a deep mentoring relationship with the couple who owns  Fix-It. They like to hear his passionate rambles about the flowers, and they like the ideas he has. Basil starts to lead flower arrangement classes, and they end up being a big hit. 

When he’s in the spring of his senior year, they ask him about his plans. When they find out he isn’t really all that interested in college, they ask if he could come on full time, and maybe even apprentice. They have a son of their own, but he is a lawyer and has no interest in the shop. Basil is excited by this, and he almost immediately agrees. 

There’s a lot more to running the shop then he thought, but he loves it. He’s content just to be the manager for now, but the couple has assured him that within the next five years they plan to retire and the shop will be his for good.

Kel does end up getting a scholarship for basketball. It’s to a good school (not quite Hero’s level, but better than his parents expected). It’s a big state school compared to Hero’s tiny private, but his parents are happy and they have a winning basketball team. The problem is that Kel has no idea what he would want to do. 

He had some ideas, but I think that learning the truth really affected him. He had thought he wanted to be a basketball star, or something to do with the sports industry, but that all feels so juvenile now. Now Kel wants to do something real and good. He wants to work with people, but he isn’t sure what that might mean. 

Kel goes to school as an undecided major, and they stick him in a bunch of different types of classes. Most of them are painfully boring, hard, and he just isn’t interested. He briefly considers dropping out, but he knows how disappointed his mom and dad would be. They didn’t get the opportunity to get a college degree, so it kind of feels like slapping them in the face if he gave back all the money he got just because he didn’t have any passion. 

There is one class that Kel really enjoys. The class is called Child’s Play and it’s a psychology course. Specifically a class on the influence of play children’s lives. It’s still hard for him, and he struggles to fully comprehend the material, but it’s something he’s passionate about. 

He talks with his advisor about it, and the man suggests combining all of the things he’s been passionate about so far. He wants to do good for other people, he is interested in sports, and he liked learning about how children work. His advisor puts him in an education couse and a few physical health courses, and Kel enters his sophomore year with a physical education major. 

Kel doesn’t graduate with honors like Hero, but he does graduate with a plan. He does his student teaching at Faraway High, his connections with his coach and the school helping to grease the wheels. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s living with Sunny by this point, and Sunny got a job offer in Faraway that he’s going to accept...but more on that later)

They offer him a tentative position at the end of the year, and he accepts it. He also takes on the basketball team, and they win the playoffs for the first time since he graduated, which cinches his job in tight.

Sunny also doesn’t end up going to college. Not only did he not have the grades, it just wasn’t something he thought he would be very good at. He doesn’t really have a plan, just that he wants to still be by his friends. Hero is far from them now, and Aubrey is planning on going away too, but Basil and Kel are staying close by

He ends up talking to Kel about it late one night, and Kel proposes a great idea. They’ll get an apartment together off campus instead of him living in the dorms, and Sunny can figure his life out while Kel gets a friend and study partner. 

Sunny’s mother is very happy with this idea, and Kel’s parents are satisfied that he won’t be off partying every night if he has Sunny with him, so they agree as well. What Sunny’s mother isn’t excited about is the idea of her baby not getting any degree or anything. So she makes a compromise. She and Sunny will find a good trade school near Kel’s college, and Sunny will take classes in something he enjoys

She assumes he will pick art classes or something that she knows he likes, but Sunny surprisingly picks veterinary certification. It feels out of left field, but if it makes Sunny happy and he’s going to go to his internships and his classes then so be it. 

Sunny is never top of the class, but he is serious about doing well. There are aspects of the job that he does not do well with, but he manages. He gets his vet tech certification and finds a starting position near where he lives with Kel

Living with Kel is a breath of fresh air. It feels good to have a partner in life who doesn’t expect him to talk or to act like everyone else. Kel is a master at reading Sunny, and it’s a bone deep relaxation to not have to try and express himself. Most of the time Sunny can just listen and let Kel talk to him. They work well with chores and food and generally everything. Every day feels like a sleepover honestly, and Sunny starts to smile a bit more and reach just a little father out of his comfort zone. 

Kel loves living with Sunny. Every night they get to just spend time together and enjoy each others presence, and sometimes Basil will come up and they all get to eat dinner together in their little shoebox apartment. One of their windowsills is full of plants that Basil has brought them. 

At the end of their four years Kel knows that he wants to go back to Faraway to work. He has been commuting there for student teaching, and while it’s only an hour, it’s still pretty far. The problem is that he can’t imagine leaving Sunny alone. Not after four years of them being together every single day. Then Sunny reveals that he found a job in the town next to Faraway that he wants to take. He doesn’t want to leave Kel though, and he’s not sure what to do. 

They have a long conversation that night, and they both agree that they want to stay together. It’s been an unspoken thing, but neither of them ended up having any long term partner in the last four years. They don’t have romantic feelings for one another, but they want to continue what they have. It’s safe, it’s lovely, and they feel secure in their bond. Whatever happens they want to decide as a team, as a partnership. 

With Kel and Sunny both coming back to Faraway they assume that they’re going to have to try and find a place to live closer. They’re going to stay with Kel’s parents until they do, but Basil has a better idea. 

Polly loves Basil a lot. She has adored getting to raise him and helping him and guiding him the last six years. But now her quiet sweet boy is a grown man, and his parents stopped paying her for caring for him over a year ago. She knows that the best thing to do would be to detach herself and to let him continue to grow without her constant presence. 

Basil isn’t sure he’s ready to be all by himself, and when he finds out Kel and Sunny are coming back to Faraway, he offers to let them stay at his house. It might be a bit cramped all three of them, and they don’t have to, but it could be nice. They say yes before he can even begin to second guess himself

So as bright and bushy 21/22 year olds, Kel, Basil, and Sunny all have Come Home. 

[angrylizardjacket]

dirtbags // 3: Charlotte

Summary: High school AU, 1985, Winter. The year’s off to a strange start as Charlotte and her friends find out that not only does Lola work at the new diner that opened up in town, but her dad owns it! Charlotte humbles Nikki in a very un-Charlotte manor, and Vince’s parents decide to host an English exchange student in an attempt to give him a good role model; instead, they get Razzle.

A/N: 8466 words. Do I care too much about this AU? Yes. as always, for my dears @misscharlottelee and @newyeareva ft. a softer world quotes

the city sometimes feels like a movie set. maybe this is the big scene. maybe i can be an extra at least.

Charlotte’s only a few practice hours away from being able to get her provisional license, and she berates her past self for not getting it sooner, especially not when her Winter Break has been kind of a shit-show and she’d rather tear off her own arms than ride in Tommy’s shitbox of a car with Vince Neil. 

Since his blowout house party, Vince had essentially been grounded for the rest of the school year, had his car privileges revoked, and the only people his parents apparently trusted him to hang around with outside of school, were Tommy, Charlotte, Eileen, and Peach. Tommy was delighted. The girls, unsurprisingly, were not. Vince himself was downright somber, and had sulked for the remainder of the semester, and well into the break.

He had been in a particularly sour mood since last night, New Year’s Eve, when his parents had announced they were going to be hosting an exchange student from England for six months. Vince is convinced it’s an attempt to give him some sort of role model his own age, and spent most of his parents’ New Year’s Eve party ranting to Tommy and the girls while they played cards in his basement.

Her saving grace is Eileen, of course, who’s father had bought her mother a shiny, new car for Christmas, and had given Eileen the keys to her mother’s old station wagon. 

“It’s kinda dumb that we’re taking two cars,” Peach, Eileen’s little sister, pipes up from the back seat, hands fiddling in her lap. It’s New Year’s Day, and while their various parents were sleeping off their hangovers, they’d suggested the kids check out the new diner that was opening today. Vince jumped at the suggestion of freedom, and everyone was in agreement, but Eileen and Charlotte took Peach in Eileen’s car the moment Vince slid into Tommy’s front seat, holding the flyer he’d gotten at the mall that told them all about the diner’s opening day, “just saying, we could all fit in one.” But she’s met with silence, “are you going to be mad at him forever?” She finally sighs.

“Yes.” Both Charlotte and Eileen answer automatically. Peach sighs as dramatically as she’s able, and sinks as low into the seat as she can. Charlotte turns on the radio, and hums along to something familiar, but that she doesn’t quite recognize, staring out the front window at the back of Tommy’s car. Vince turns around in the front seat and flips them off.

“I’m gonna ram them,” Eileen says, with absolute sincerity and serenity, leveling an intense glare at where Vince was now waving.

“Don’t,” Charlotte advises, equally level.

“I don’t get why you’re still mad, I’m not even mad,” Peach huffed, pouting. Charlotte and Eileen share a look; at sixteen years old, Peach was top of almost all of her math and science classes, but she was still a teenage girl, and an absolute fool for a blonde boy who made her cry. Charlotte knew that feeling all too well, but thankfully she’d moved on from the ‘wondering why she wasn’t enough’ stage to the ‘realizing her ex is a cheating douchebag and it was never her fault’ stage. She really hopes Peach can move on to ‘realizing Vince made her cry and hasn’t even tried to change since then and deserved to get his car keyed’ stage quickly.

The diner was bustling when they arrived, a large decal on the inside of window, black, thick and flowing lettering, outlined in gold, reading Leo’s. Through the window, several booths were already filled, as were a host of the stools along the counter. It looked warm inside, inviting in golds, yellows, peaches and oranges, neon signs and rusted street signs, band and comic book memorabilia, and photos. Behind the counter -

Lola. Smiling.

“I’m freezing my butt off, can we go in?” Peach asks, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her parker, the only person who did not recognize the girl currently pouring coffee for an elderly gentleman at the counter. 

Inside, the diner is warm, filled with the sounds pleasant chatter, and of the Beatles coming from a cherry wood jukebox in the corner.

“Lola!” Tommy can’t help himself, lighting up at the sight of her, and once Lola finishes pouring her customer coffee, she looks to their confused little group, and waves.

“Find yourselves a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment,” she calls back, smiling bright and wide, hair tied back with a bright, red bandana. 

The teens do as they’re told, pulling off jackets and gloves and scarves, sliding into a booth by the window, looking around, wrapped up in the smell of warm food, and the confusion of Lola’s presence, and completely unfamiliar demeanor. There’s an uncertain kind of quiet among them, having just expected to spend lunch at a cool new diner, but this has shift everything, only Peach, blissfully unaware of who Lola even was, seemed at ease, rearranging the sugar packets in their little holder.

Lola comes by with menus, and cups, and a pitcher of water for the table, looking pristine and put together in a tight, black blouse, skirt, and scuffed black combat boots, little peach-coloured apron tied around her waist. She pulls a notebook and pen from the pocket of the apron, looking around at them all, as if finally taking a moment to assess the situation.

Charlotte picked up a menu.

“You work here?” Tommy asked, and Lola confirms brightly, but doesn’t give any further details. She does, however, thank them all for coming, and recommend a few of her favourites.

“I’m also partial to The Lola, for obvious reasons,” she gives an actual laugh at that, as if implying one of the burgers was named after her was giving away too much information, and Charlotte was quickly scouring the menu.

Beef patty, double bacon, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a home-made smokey maple-barbeque sauce, on a toasted bun.

“The menu’s kind of misleading,” Lola admits, moving to look down over Charlotte’s shoulder as she was reading, “all the patties are home made too, with Leo’s signature blend of herbs and spices.” That asked more questions than it answered. No-one’s quite sure what to say.

“Can I get a milkshake?” Peach pipes up, and Lola’s smile grew wide as she asked what flavour, “chocolate, please, and do you have curly fries or regular?”

“Hand cut,” Lola tells her proudly, but that means very little to Peach, who’s just glad to be having food, “still need time to think?” Lola asks the rest, and they all give her awkward, quiet smiles and nods. 

Lola leaves, heading back to the counter, and the moment she’s gone, the whole table explodes with whispered confusion, leaning in, asking questions and not getting any answers. 

“You guys are being super fucking weird,” Peach hisses loudly at them all, while Charlotte and Tommy argue about how the other should have known. Eileen, quietly delighted by the chaos, demands to know if anyone else thinks Lola might secretly have a twin, and Vince, who’s had the least contact with her aside from Peach, is babbling about how it’s weird to see Lola so chipper; their mutual confusion is enough to set aside Eileen and Charlotte’s hatred of him, at least for the moment. 

When Peach demands they explain what they’re all whisper-shouting about, disturbing the booth behind her, they all quiet down, and Tommy and Eileen take it in turns explaining their full understanding of Lola. Charlotte takes the time to actually look around the diner now that she was inside.

There’s two other waitress, one behind the counter, the other always moving on about the various tables and booths on one side, making sure the customers are happy and food and drinks are delivered, both in the same outfit as Lola, though with varying footwear. 

The view to the kitchen is unobstructed behind the counter, a half wall where meals ready to be delivered were sat, but a clear view to where three people in the kitchen, two by the grills and fryers, turned away; a broad-shouldered man towering over the grill with the longest hair Charlotte’s ever seen braided neatly down his back, and a comparatively shorter man, also with far shorter hair, though enough to be pulled up into a messy pony tail. The shorter man’s working the fryer, and putting together burgers as the taller man cooked up their various ingredients. There was also a strangely familiar kid with a mop of dark, curly hair washing dishes on the other side of the kitchen, barely visible.

Lola worked diligently, smiling and chatting away; she collected dishes, and ferried meals, and handed out slices of desert from the cute, multi-tiered desserts display on the counter. When she came back, milkshake in one hand, basket of fries in the other, Peach is fully caught up on each of her friend’s short but confusing histories with her, and blurts out -

“You’re Lola?” Injecting new meaning into the words, into the name, as if anyone else at their entire school had the same name. Lola’s smile goes a little tight as she places the fries and the milkshake before the redhead. Standing back up, she taps her nametag, which reads Lola, with little flowers drawn around it, and confirms, though it’s clear she’s more on edge than she was before.

“You guys ready to order?” She asks, still trying to keep up her chipper attitude, pulling out her notebook again. Everyone’s quieter this time, looking over the menu and finally deciding on food.

“My mom heard the owner was a chef, is that true?” Tommy asks, looking up from the menu to Lola again, and the tense set of her shoulders loosens considerably at the question.

“Leo is a chef,” Lola nodded, grinning broadly, “trained at the Culinary Institute of America back in the sixties, and worked his way up to being the head chef of Parker House in Boston, which I know probably doesn’t mean much to you guys, but it’s,” Lola laughs a little struggling to describe it, “it’s fine dining at it’s finest, but for the past twelve years, he’s been running Leo’s in Salem, and now he’s here, still using all that fine dining training for the anyone who wants a good meal at a good price.”

“Is that something they have you memorize in training?” Vince says, a little awed, and Lola gives a strange little smile.

“Leo’s my dad.”

Everything kind of fell into place after that, finally making sense, and the gang’s confusion quickly shifted to understanding, and the air around the table seemed to clear. It was easier after that, the teens in the booth ordering quickly, and the chatter picked up to a normal level as she moved away, shouting their order back to the kitchen once she was back at the counter.

She doesn’t spend much time at their table, still in charge of waitressing half of the tables and booths, but she always gives them a nod as she passes, and their meals are being delivered efficiently, so there’s no reason to complain.

The food itself, for diner food, is nothing short of spectacular, which kind of just raises more questions - why if Leo can cook food that tastes this good, and with all the experience he evidentially has, would he open a diner in suburban LA, and not a high-end restaurant? But it feels kind of intrusive to ask, so Charlotte simply enjoys her food, and her friends’ company.

Up until Vince starts complaining about the exchange student again.

“His name’s Nicholas, he shows up in a week, and mom’s making me clear out the basement so he can sleep there,” he’s despondently poking his milkshake with one of his fries, head propped up on one hand, “I’ve been asking for years if I could move into the basement, and this fucking Nicholas just gets it?” His whole expression scrunches up at the thought, and he angrily eats his fry.

“Wait, so the issue isn’t that you have to clean up the basement, it’s that he gets to use it as a bedroom and you don’t?” Charlotte frowned, lowering her own burger, “why would you even want to sleep in the basement?”

“Privacy!” Vince throws his hands in the air, eyes wide, “Tammi keeps complaining about getting cramps in the back of my car, but my bedroom walls are paper thin,” he huffs, “I need my own space.”

“Tammi?” Peach asks, her voice high and almost painfully chipper, “Tammi Frisk? She scored the winning goal in the softball final, right?” She’s not looking at Vince, when Charlotte looks over to her, she’s looking at her plate of fries, pushing the few left around without eating any, smiling in a way that’s clearly forced.

“You were at the softball final?” Tommy asked, frowning slightly. Peach did not look up.

“For the school paper,” she explained, voice still strange.

“You’re still with Tammi Frisk?” Eileen asks, making sure the disgust is clear in her voice as she draws the table’s attention away from the clearly uncomfortable Peach. Charlotte’s lip curled; she wanted to make sure her expression was as judgmental as possible when Vince turned back to her. 

It’s not that she cared about who he was dating, she was mostly apathetic to Tammi, and knew little more about her than the fact that she was on the softball team, but Charlotte knew Vince had been dating Tammi when he’d decided to crush Peach’s heart publicly at the start of the last semester.

Neither Peach nor Eileen had told any of them exactly how, but apparently Eileen’s hatred was well warranted, both against Vince, and according to Eileen, Tammi too.

Vince, immediately sensing Eileen’s shift in tone, and seeing the look on her face, frowns.

“Kind of,” he responds flatly, and his gaze flicks to Peach, “not really,” he backtracks, and his indignation at the whole situation seems to fizzle out with a sigh, and he slouches, going back to paying attention to his burger, “she’s sort of hanging out with one of the second-string football guys, but they’re not... and we’re not really...” he trails off, despondent once more.

At least Vince seemed to be self-aware of the fact that he was an asshole to Peach, at least he had the decency to feel bad about it. Why he kept inviting Peach to hang out, despite the fact that he knew Eileen, who hated his guts, would come along too - invited or not - baffled Charlotte. 

Tommy was his friend, and a guy, Charlotte was a cheerleader and technically popular, and so was usually begrudgingly invited too, but Peach, sweet Peach, recent Science Fair Winner, junior reporter for the school paper, treasurer for the AV Club, by all accounts ‘a nerd’ when judged by her interests, was still on the guest list of Vince Neil’s life, even if he wouldn’t admit that out loud. 

It kind of made Charlotte want to punch him in the face.

But that’s not news.

“I hope the English exchange student is a decent influence on you,” Charlotte tells him. Vince scowls.

“You sound like my parents.”

you make me want to pretend to be a better man.

Now that school has started back up, Vince has thankfully had his car privileges returned, and Charlotte can return to not glowering in the back seat of Tommy’s car when he picks her up on the way to school, and drops her home on the days they both have practice. 

But it’s Wednesday, first week back, and he’s uncharacteristically quiet. Usually he’s babbling about practice, or cheerleaders he thinks are pretty, or Lola, but today, he meets Charlotte in the carpark, leaning against the trunk of his car, hands in his pockets, quiet. It’s decidedly unnerving.

“What’s wrong, Tom?” Charlotte asks, yanking the passenger door open once he unlocks it, sliding into the seat and putting her bag by her feet.

“Nothing,” Tommy voice betrays the lie, the thoughts so clearly on his mind that he was trying to avoid talking about. Charlotte won’t push him, if he wanted to tell her, he would, and he usually does, “put on some music, will you?” And Charlotte obligingly opens the glove compartment in front of her to look through the collection of 8track tapes he keeps in there, several of which had been Christmas gifts from Charlotte herself.

Feet on the dashboard, Charlotte’s more than content listening to Bon Jovi, bopping her head to the beat, when Tommy finally finds the words for his thoughts.

“Lola and Nikki Sixx are friends.” 

Up until now, Charlotte was under the impression that Tommy, like her, thought Nikki and Lola would be great as friends, Tommy’s current tone implies otherwise. 

“Is that not good?” Charlotte’s careful about her words, still not sure where Tommy’s hesitation was coming from.

“No, they make sense,” he’s quick to try and backtrack, words spilling from him almost too fast, “they make sense as friends.” He deliberates, before asking, “Charlie, you’re not friends with Nikki Sixx are you?” And it sounds like he already knows the answer. Charlotte hesitates.

“He keeps bothering me during my free periods, I wouldn’t exactly call us friends -”

“He called you Charlie,” its deadpan and accusatory in equal measure, and Charlotte shrinks back into her seat as Tommy keeps talking, “he called me ‘Charlie’s cousin’. It was weird.”

“I thought you wanted to be his friend -” she tries, right as they pull up to a red light, and Tommy fixes her with an unamused look, the only expression that makes him seem older than his years.

“Did you tell him I was obsessed with him?”

“No!” Charlotte snaps, automatically defensive.

“Because I’m not -”

“I never said - I told him you were a fan! That’s all! Like Duff was!” Charlotte tries to clear up, and Tommy looks back at the road, though this time he thankfully looks more pensive than angry. Only Bon Jovi cuts through the tense air between them for the rest of the drive back to Charlotte’s house, and when Tommy pulls up outside, he doesn’t say anything to her when she gets out. 

The next day, like clockwork, fifteen minutes into her free period, Nikki Sixx comes climbing over the school’s fence, into the garden Charlotte had been trying to force herself to study in. In all honesty, she’d been waiting for him, picking at her nail polish beneath the table and reading the same sentence in Moby Dick over and over again.

“Miss Lee,” Nikki nods to her, a little gruffer than usual, “you seem more tense than usual; I can help you with that if you want,” but he still manages to smirk his way through an unsubtle come-on, and Charlotte rolls her eyes, not in the mood for their usual banter.

“I’d rather sit on a cactus,” she tells him icily, without even a teasing edge. Nikki’s eyebrows shoot up at the hostility, and he puts the packet of cigarettes that he’d about to offer her on the table, knowing she’d turn them down anyway, “I thought people weren’t meant to know that we know each other.”

“What people do?” Nikki frowned, raising his lighter to the cigarette between his lips, “is this about yesterday? I talked to your cousin, big deal. Everyone knows you two are related, and everyone knows you,” he looks pointedly to the embroidered logo on her cheer uniform, “I wasn’t even looking for him -”

“Dude,” Charlotte felt as though she was about to tear her hair out, “you called me Charlie to him, people don’t just call me that!”

“Plenty of people call you that! That leggy redhead you’re always hanging around calls you Charlie -”

“My friends call me that -” Charlotte snaps, “and I know you know that’s Eileen Austen.” And Nikki’s wearing a dreamy look, like he’s thinking unholy thoughts about Eileen as Charlotte speaks, before snapping out of it as the first of her words register like a bucket of ice water to the face.

“I’ve called you Charlie before. To your face.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Charlotte tells him dryly, crossing her arms, “it’s less effort if I don’t correct you. We’re so not friends that I don’t even care about correcting you.” Back when this school year started, Charlotte wouldn’t have dreamed saying half the nasty shit she’s thrown at Nikki Sixx, and at some point she may have to confront the idea that being around him has made her meaner, “but did you tell my cousin that I told you he was obsessed with you? Because I never -”

“I said I was glad he was a fan!” Nikki scowled, sitting back and glowering at her across the table, “all I wanted was to ask Lola if she wanted to sit on the roof with the rest of the smokers, and your fuckin’ yappy, dumbass of a cousin -”

Punching someone in the face hurts a lot more than Charlotte had been anticipating, but it’s worth it to see Nikki toppling backwards off of the picnic bench and onto the cold grass. His cigarette lies some few feet away while he lays groaning, clutching his cheek, and Charlotte’s standing, leaning, thighs pressed against the picnic table for support as she’s staring down at him, breathing heavy through her nose while the adrenaline rushes through her system.

“What the fuck, Charlie?”

“Don’t talk shit about Tommy,” her heart’s thundering in her chest, she can feel the blood rushing in her ears, and when she looks at her hand, she sees the skin of one of her knuckles has split enough to draw blood, “he has done fucking nothing to you apart from support you, and think you’re really fucking cool, for whatever dumbass reason, so don’t you dare talk shit about him.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nikki groaned, eyes closed, trying to catch his breath after being winded so thoroughly, hand still cradling his cheek. That’s how Charlotte leaves him, slinging her bag onto her shoulder, and stalking towards the library to finish the rest of her free period in peace.

When Tommy drives Charlotte, Eileen, and Peach home after school that day, he’s quiet once again, but it somehow feels completely different to the oppressively accusatory air of the day before. The three girls were chattering away, trying to plan a trip to the mall for the upcoming weekend, and only when Peach and Eileen were waving goodbye in the rearview mirror did Tommy speak up.

“Did you punch Nikki Sixx in the face?” There’s a smile in her cousin’s voice, and Charlotte’s not quite sure how to react.

“I had good reason to,” she says, carefully guarded.

“He said you guys were friends, and then he thanked me for being coming to the gig a while back; told me he’d asked you to bring me specifically,” Tommy’s tone was oozing pride, and if Charlotte had been looking at him, and not frowning out the window, she would have seen how he was all but preening.

“He told you all that?” Charlotte’s anger at her memory’s of the morning’s altercation was fading fast.

“He hung out with me and Lola by the carpark for lunch,” Tommy paused, snorting a laugh, “didn’t want his buddies to find out a cheerleader gave him a black eye.”

“I - what? No I didn’t...” Charlotte’s eyes went wide, and finally she looked at her cousin’s beaming face.

“You definitely did; Lola laughed at him for a full ten minutes because of it.”

“Serves him right,” Charlotte said, with a begrudging little smile.

Nikki sits with Tommy and Lola on Friday too, which Tommy is delighted to inform Charlotte on Saturday while he’s driving them both to Vince’s, where his parents have invited them over to meet the exchange student. Nicholas.

He arrived on Wednesday, but Vince’s parents have given him the rest of the week to settle in, and had invited around the few friends Vince has that they deem to be a positive influence, if only so he knew a few faces around school. 

Charlotte had been picturing some over-gelled boarding-school boy, used to itchy uniforms and strict rules, and about to get a good deal of culture shock hanging around Vince and the rest of their motley little pack, but when Charlotte brings this speculation up in the car, Tommy’s quick to dismiss it. Vince, from the little Tommy had spoken to him in the past two days, was over the moon, claimed that Nicholas - Vince had called him Razzle - was amazing. If Charlotte felt an quiet sense of foreboding at that sentiment, she felt it was justified.

The first thing either of them hear after being directed down to the basement by Vince’s mother, is Alice Cooper playing almost obnoxiously loud; Charlotte’s not sure why, but it eases something in her chest. 

Nicholas’s - Razzle’s? - room, first and foremost, is possibly the coolest bedroom Charlotte’s ever been in. He’s decked it out with movie and band posters, though most of the band’s she’s never heard of. There’s string-lights above a desk, a bed crammed into one corner with a bright duvet, and even a sofa, and a few beanbags all crowded around a low, wooden table that had mostly been taken up with a record player, which is where they found their friends. 

The name Razzle suited him, Charlotte considered, as she took in the newcomer’s appearance, all spiked up dark hair and ostentatious clothing, animatedly telling a story while Peach and Vince hung onto his every word. He looked almost wild, like collection of half-thought ideas all vying to become a reality through the texture of his clothes, the height of his hair, the hint of amusement that tailed his words, the passion shining in the blue of his eyes when they flicked to look at her and her cousin, standing on the stairs and watching him.

His words grow quiet as he takes them in, as if waiting for something to happen, for someone to introduce them.

“You must be Charlie and Tommy!” His accent, thick and bright, made her nickname sound so familiar on his lips.

“Charlotte,” Vince corrects, giving a surprisingly respectful nod to Charlotte, who tries to shrug nonchalantly.

“Charlie’s fine. You’re,” and Charlotte hesitates for a moment, ignoring Vince’s eyeroll, “Razzle, right?” Razzle’s smile is blinding at her immediate use of the nickname, and he waves them in.

Peach throws Tommy a cushion from the sofa when he asks, and he settles himself on the floor next to Vince, while Peach and Eileen squeeze over to make room for Charlotte on the sofa clearly only made for two people.

“I was just telling these guys ‘bout my band’s very first gig, ‘nd how I had to sneak out just to get there,” Razzle settled back into his own beanbag, hands out and ready to return to his story, eyes still shining with anticipation at the memory, or possibly just glad to have an audience. 

Oh, Charlotte thought, looking at this boy she barely knew, already fighting off a smile in the face of his infectious enthusiasm, maybe Vince was becoming a better judge of character.

“You’re in a band?” Tommy’s eyes light up, and Charlotte gives her cousin a fond smile; Razzle has already won his seal of approval.

we need more good crazy. it'd be nice to watch the news, and think, 'that's fucking insane', but feel a little jealous instead of just alone.

Heather hasn’t been glowering as much at lunch, and the rumour is that it’s because she’s getting laid. Well, it’s less of a rumour to Charlotte, since Heather confirmed as much to the rest of the cheer squad when one of the girls asked her, but she’s being coy and secretive about who she’s with, which is the really weird part; Heather won’t say, and no-one’s coming forward, and lord knows that most guys at their school would jump at the opportunity to claim they’re banging the Vice Captain of the Cheerleading Squad. 

But Charlotte knows not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and instead just smiles back when Heather gives her a sunny smile in the cafeteria.

Tommy is less than thrilled with the news when Charlotte brings it up in the car after school. Nikki’s still sitting with him and Lola during lunch, despite his bruising going down considerably over the weekend, and Tommy is equal parts delighted and uncomfortable, for reasons he can’t seem to put into words. 

“At least Pam’s single,” he says it with as much of a dreamy sigh as he can manage, though it comes out more forlorn than anything else. Charlotte pets his shoulder, and reminds him that so is over half the squad; he perks up a little at that. 

They pull into Mick’s gas station, and Charlotte waves to Mick and Lola, who are sitting on the step by the door sharing a cigarette. Lola waves back.

“Meant to give this to you,” Lola says to Charlotte, still sitting while Mick begrudgingly heads inside. Tommy follows him in, not needing to fill up the tank, but rather just looking to drown his sorrows regarding Heather in a jumbo slurpee. Outside, Charlotte waits with her hands in her pockets, giving Lola an amused smile, watching as the dark haired girl pulls a pin off of the jacket she practically lives in, and hands it over.

It’s a piece of black card stock cut into the shape of a star, barely an inch in diameter, taped to a safety pin. It say Punched Nikki Sixx in silver pen, one of the points of the star already a little bit crumpled. 

“You’re a little bit punk, so you get a pin,” Lola tells her, smiling around her cigarette, looking quietly pleased, and perhaps even a little bit proud; whether of herself or of Charlotte, Charlotte can’t tell, but it still makes her flush.

“I thought Nikki didn’t want anyone knowing that a cheerleader gave him a black eye,” Charlotte mused, looking at the little pin, and Lola’s face scrunched up, expression falling.

“So? Who gives a shit?” She shrugs, looking away tone having shifted to almost forcibly neutral in an instant, “wear the pin or don’t, I don’t care.” Lola stands with a groan, without giving Charlotte a chance to respond, and calls to Mick that she’s heading to the diner. Mick waves, Tommy calls out a farewell, and Charlotte frowns, wondering what just happened.

“I hate that,” Nikki says flatly, the moment he spots the pin where Charlotte’s fixed it to the strap of her backpack. There’s no hard feelings between them after last week’s altercation, thankfully, though they don’t talk about it. If Charlotte’s glad that he still showed up, if she’s realised she may, in fact, enjoy his company, she keeps that information to herself.

“Lola made it for me,” Charlotte tells him. Nikki leans in, squinting at the handmade pin.

“Of course she did,” he sighs, leaning back. Surprisingly, there’s quiet between them for a few, long moments; maybe, Charlotte considers, this will be one of those mornings where Nikki uses their time together to catch up on sleep, and Charlotte can actually use her free period for it’s intended, study-related purpose, but then Nikki sighs like he wants her to ask what’s wrong.

So she does.

“I need a new band.”

“I can’t help you.”

“I know,” Nikki nods with resignation, “I was gonna ask this guy I work with, Slash, he plays guitar, but he’s already in one -”

“Wait, you don’t mean Duff’s friend Saul Hudson, do you?” Charlotte frowned, intrigued despite the stab of anger she felt at the mere mention of her ex. Nikki seemed taken aback by her question.

“You know Duff McKagan?”

“I dated him for a year and a half,” Charlotte finds herself suddenly very interested in drawing connecting triangles in the back of her notebook, not looking at Nikki, who’s quietly processing this information.

“He’s in a band now,” and neither of them seem to be quite sure why he offered that information, but they both let is hang between them for a moment.

“Makes sense,” Charlotte nods, tone flat, “with Saul - Slash?”

“Yeah,” is all Nikki has to say.

“Slash is a good kid, I always liked him,” Charlotte offered, and finally she looks up, “Tommy plays drums.”

“Marching band isn’t exactly -” Nikki begins, but Charlotte’s shaking her head.

“No, like, legit drums,” she enthuses, “his parents fixed up their whole garage to make it sound proof for him,” but she doesn’t want Nikki to think she’s pushing her cousin on him too hard, not after last week, so she sits back, and crosses her arms, trying to play it cool, “I mean, you can ask him yourself, see if he’s any good.” She shrugs, but Nikki looks like he’s already considering it. 

“How many musicians do you know, Charlie?” He finally asks, giving her a faint, amused smile.

“Probably too many,” Charlotte responds with a longsuffering smile, before her mind turns to the things Tommy himself had told her, “I heard you and Lola are getting along; what’d I tell you?” She teased, and much to her surprise, what she could see of Nikki’s face, for his hair, was turning pink.

“She’s a bitch; you know she’s a bitch, right?” He asks, but he’s grinning, all sharp and dangerously amused.

“I knew you guys would get along,” Charlotte gives a pleased little sigh, as if she’d manufactured their whole friendship herself. Nikki rolls his eyes at her, and the bell goes.

Tommy, as it turns out, thinks they’re sleeping together, at least that’s what he tells Charlotte when they’re on their way to Leo’s after school to meet up with Vince, Razzle, Peach, and Eileen. The news of Nikki and Lola’s potential affair surprises Charlotte at first, but after a moment of consideration, she thinks she should have seen it coming. 

Tommy’s reasoning is that they’ve become friends far quicker than he’d realised, and Nikki’s always giving Lola lifts after work, like they’re going in the same direction, even though he’d pretty sure Nikki doesn’t live near Leo’s. It also turns out that that was what had been bothering him about Nikki and Lola being friends; he still tries to insist he doesn’t have a crush on Lola, but he and Charlotte both know that’s mostly a lie.

So Charlotte can see how conflicted he is when he tells her that Nikki’s looking to start a new band, and that he asked about Tommy possibly playing drums. A beat of silence follows, and then, without looking away from the road, Tommy mutters a quiet thanks, knowing without asking that Charlotte had been the one to recommend him. Charlotte leans over and bumps her forehead against his shoulder in unspoken acknowledgment. 

“Duff’s in a band,” Charlotte’s voice is soft and a little unreadable.

“Sorry,” Tommy mutters, tone somber like it’s the worst news in the world, “we could throw rotten tomatoes at him?” He suggested, at the mental picture alone was enough to make Charlotte laugh, “or is that just in the movies?”

“I think that’s just in the movies,” Charlotte says, amid giggles, “besides, the rest of his band doesn’t deserve that.”

In the week that Razzle’s been in LA, Vince and his family have taken him to several, sophisticated restaurants in the vicinity, and Razzle had apparently loved them all; Leo’s was no different. He was sitting across from Charlotte in the booth, at the end of the table, reading the menu intently as the others chattered away about their day, making noises of intrigue every time he spotted something new he wanted to try. His knee knocked hers under the table, but it barely seemed to register, so engrossed in the menu that he muttered the faintest apology.

“Afternoon, guys, welcome,” Lola at work never failed to startle Charlotte, despite the fact that she’d been here once already since the first time. At least her chipper introduction seemed to bring Razzle back to reality. 

“Hi, yes - oh! I know you!” Razzle lit up at the sight of Lola, and the rest of the gathered teens watched with interest, trying not to give away how intrigued they were to see Lola’s reaction, “Miss Honky Cat, you work here?”

What?

“Alright, Razzle, you found me, did you wanna order something?” Lola says, with a good-natured eyeroll, and an easy grin, hip cocked to one side. Razzle asks her what she recommends, and orders that, and then the rest of them, who had been sitting in stunned silence, are quick to order for themselves.

When she leaves, it’s mere moments before Tommy asks what that was all about, and Razzle’s eyes go wide.

“That’s Lola, innit? From school? She’s in my music class, was playing Honky Cat on the piano in the second music room, the Elton song, you know, when we had some free this morning,” he explained, confused, “she called me Rocketman when I picked what she’d been playing, but I told her my name’s Razzle.” 

“You’re an enigma,” ironically, it’s Eileen who says this, wearing a fond little smile, while Razzle just looked bemused.

“I think it’s the accent, chicks fuckin’ love it,” Vince pipes up, smirking, and Razzle tries to hide his own pleased little grin since he can’t very well deny it, “Pam was all over him in Phys Ed yesterday -”

“We were just having a conversation -” Razzle was quickly turning red, while Vince clutched at his arm, putting on a high voice, twirling his blonde hair around one finger as he pretended to be Pam.

“Oh Nicholas, tell me more about The Clash, please, I want to know more!” He ended with a fake moan, which had Eileen and Peach laughing, while Razzle grabbed Charlotte’s hand and exaggeratedly mouthed ‘help me’. 

“Pam’s into Razzle?” Tommy groaned, breaking the moment, falling dejectedly against Vince, who was already leaning pretty heavily on Razzle, who was then ejected from his seat and onto the floor, while Vince was draped over where he was just sitting, and Tommy was draped over Vince, “I’m gonna die alone.”

Despite Tommy’s despair, the rest of the table was greatly amused.

Thankfully for Razzle, it wasn’t a far fall, and he’d held tight to Charlotte’s hand, so at least he hadn’t ended up flat on his back, and Charlotte gave him an apologetic grin as she helped him to his feet. He lets go to dust himself off, and it’s here Charlotte notices his maroon, velvet pants, and black and white leather shoes with their little heel.

“Fancy threads,” Charlotte points out, notes of approval in her voice. Razzle makes a move to straightening a jacket he’s not wearing, and clicks his heels together, drawing the attention of the rest of the table to his shoes, of which they all make various noises of approval, or at least interest.

“I dress to impress,” and judging by his tone, if he were as crass as Vince or Nikki, he would have winked, but Charlotte’s kind of glad he refrained. He then shoves Vince, and by extension Tommy, back up to a sitting position, retaking his seat across from Charlotte, this time purposefully knocking his knee against hers.

Charlotte’s glad that Lola’s back with their drinks, so she can look at something that’s not Razzle’s sunny smile, because she doesn’t want to think about how pretty it makes him look. Stupid, British, band boy and his stupid, blue eyes.

But then she’s looking at Lola, and all she can remember is Tommy’s dejected expression when he told her that Lola and Nikki were possibly sleeping together, and Nikki’s half-hidden, bashful grin when he calls a bitch with a kind of fondness that Charlotte had never heard from him before. The urge to protect her cousin, from harm, from heartbreak, is carved into her bones, but part of her knows it would him hurt more to let him keep falling for Lola when she’d never really end up catching him. Suddenly staring into the depths of her soda became the safest option.

i have loved since you. but when the new paint gets scratched, there you are underneath.

Heather, of all people, is holding a party, and she tries to limit the amount of people she tells - the squad and her friends were the first to be invited - but of course, the guest list spirals out of control, and it’s exactly one and a half days before Tommy’s mooning over the fact that he’s been invited to a party at an actual cheerleader’s house.

“Dude, you’re killing me here,” Charlotte tells him at lunch; she’s finally sitting with him, Lola, and Nikki, though Nikki’s late. Heather had coyly asked her to ask Vince to bring Razzle - the cute English guy, specifically - and Charlotte had picked up her bag and left. Something about Heather in a good mood was worse than when she was being catty.

“You don’t count, you’re my cousin,” Tommy waived her off, and Lola snorted a laugh from where she was laying in the grass, using her backpack as a pillow. “You going?” Tommy pokes Lola in the ribs and she smacks his hand away, but makes an affirmative noise, and throws her arm over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

Something about how that makes Tommy smile, almost pleased, has worry sinking heavy in Charlotte’s gut. 

“Heather asked me to ask Vince to invite Razzle,” Charlotte’s not quite sure why she says it, or why it makes Lola bark a laugh of her own, but at least it get’s Tommy’s mind off of last time he and Lola were at a party.

“Of course -” Tommy sighs, but then, in the very same breath, he lights up like a lightbulb, “wait! If Heather’s preoccupied with Razzle, and Pam’s going, then I -” he turned sharply to Charlotte, eyes wide, “is Pam seeing anyone?” Charlotte gives him an amused, but longsuffering look, shaking her head.

“You gonna put the moves on her?” Lola’s smirking, and Tommy’s steadily turning red, but refusing to be embarrassed.

“It’s now or never, you know? She’s graduating in a few months, will go to college and date some meathead, college footballer, this is my chance,” he enthused, and Charlotte pet his shoulder in solidarity. 

Nikki joins them halfway through lunch, right as Lola and Charlotte find themselves playing angel and devil on Tommy’s shoulders regarding how he should dress for the party. Charlotte’s firmly of the opinion that he should be be wearing bright, eye-catching things - “Come on, you know Pam likes those new-wave guys!” - while Lola was adamantly recommending to go all-out punk. 

“Don’t ask Nikki’s opinion, you know who he’s going to side with,” Charlotte implored, and as if to prove a point, Nikki throws his bag to the side, and lays down with his head pillowed on Lola’s stomach. 

“Because Nikki has taste,” Lola throws her arm above her head, into the grass, neck at an awkward angle as she looks, wide-eyed to Tommy. 

“Thank you,” Nikki grumbles, and immediately closes his eyes, “what are we arguing about?” A pause, then, “and why is Charlie here?”

“Heather asked Charlie to bring Razz to the party next weekend,” Tommy says, the words sounding rote off his tongue, before he gets into the meat of the argument, laying himself back in the grass. Somehow it makes Charlotte feel left out, being the only one left marginally upright, and she slouches a little lower against the fence. 

Tommy explains his conundrum, and much to everyone’s surprise, Nikki refrains from giving his opinion, sighting that he has no clue what Pam would like, and that he’s not taking the fall if Tommy looks like a dickhead and crashes and burns while talking to, arguably, the most popular girl in school.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole,” Tommy groans, without really thinking, and as the realization and subsequent horror took over his expression, Lola barked a laugh, and even Nikki was grinning.

The moment was surprisingly light, Tommy’s face buried in his hands, though he’s now hiding a smile, and Charlotte is surprised at how easy it is to smile and laugh here, these people accepting her presence without another thought. The politics of the cafeteria make it all feel so foreign, but Tommy said ‘Charlie’s sitting here now’ and Nikki and Lola took it in stride.

And later, Eileen will ask her where she was at lunch, will go on to sigh and roll her eyes as she recounts barely sitting through five minutes of the cheerleaders buzzing like cheerful, little hornets, discussing who would be at the party, and how they would coordinate their outfits. She’d spent another five minutes with the swim team, who spent the entire time picking apart her backstroke technique since she ‘finally decided to join them’.

“This is why I don’t sit with them,” Eileen had frowned, sitting in the McDonalds carpark, absentmindedly violating her soda with it’s straw out of frustration, Charlotte, wide-eyed, quietly eats her terrible, oily fries, and lets Eileen vent, “if I have to listen to one more five-am-gym-going-wannabe-sports-scholarship tell me my form is off, I’m going to go full Carrie-At-The-Prom at our next meet,” Eileen warned, and reached over to snatch a fry. Very few people were ever privy to Eileen’s frustration, as the redhead seemed to do a rather good job of bottling it up, but Charlotte personally felt honored that her friend could be so honest around her.

“I was thinking of joining yearbook, maybe? Or the school paper with...” a strange moment of hesitation, “with Peach,” Eileen paused, taking a long moment to think, and take a sip of her drink, eyes glass as she stared out at the highway as cars passed before them, “auditions for the school play are on Friday,” she adds, like she’s seriously considering it, “it’s Singin’ In The Rain, Keanu actually suggested I should audition.” The idea that Keanu and Eileen have talked enough for him to suggest that she audition for a musical and for her to serious consider it is kind of baffling; Charlotte doesn’t process the meaning behind any of this now, however, just files it away in the back of her mind for later.

“Macy moved to Portland over the Summer,” Charlotte feigns seriousness with her suggestion instead, trying not to give away how amused she is, already anticipating Eileen’s response, “we’re holding cheer tryouts to replace her on Tuesday,” Eileen’s expression is already souring, almost comedically disgusted at Charlotte’s implied suggestion, though she lets the blonde finish, “you were the best bottom-right to the pyramid we’ve ever had,” she said, barely stifling giggles as Eileen turns to her.

“I’d rather die,” her lip curled, and Charlotte leaned over the center console of the minivan to press her forehead against Eileen’s shoulder, and Eileen reaches up with her free hand to scratch gently at Charlotte’s scalp, before bursting out with, “and my form’s not even bad! The coach loves me, Charlie, she loves me, they just think they’re better than me, bunch of clique-y, insular, webbed-toe bitches.”

The words hang in the air, a surprising outburst from the usually reserved and thoughtful girl.

“Do they really have webbed toes?” Charlotte asks, turning so her temple still pressed against the soft cashmere of Eileen’s sweater, but she was following the ginger’s gaze out to the highway ahead. Eileen gives a tired, little laugh, as if her outburst had left her exhausted.

“No.”

Charlotte wants more than anything to ask her what’s wrong, but knows better than anyone that Eileen only says exactly what she wants someone else to know. Instead, she offers her fries silently. Eileen takes one.

“Peach and I got into a fight today,” voice barely above a whisper, Eileen follows her words with a sigh, and suddenly her out of character frustration made complete, and utter sense. For all that she’s known both Peach and Eileen, Charlotte has never known their altercations to be quick or painless affairs, “Vince invited her to Heather’s party.”

“He invited her himself?” Charlotte’s not sure what the issue is beyond their general dislike of Vince, but if Vince himself is starting to possibly change, then it’s hard to see the issue. 

“Yeah,” Eileen seems to know what Charlotte’s thinking, and pauses to find the right words, “I don’t trust him, and I don’t know how she can trust him either.” There’s a quality to her voice that Charlotte’s only heard rarely; uncertainty, “and I don’t want her going to Heather’s party, I barely want to go myself, and what if she drinks, and what if she does terrible things she regrets -?” Eileen cuts herself off, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning her head back against the headrest.

“I get it,” Charlotte says, so gentle, so understanding, but Eileen’s still quiet.

“She’s my little sister, Charlie,” Eileen sighed, “and it’s like our parents couldn’t care less, so I have to protect her, and I have to keep her from the guy she thinks is the love of her life, and I have to be the one to always remind her of all the shitty things he’s done and remind her that life isn’t a goddamn fairytale.” She sounds close to tears, soda cup between her knees and hands clutching, white knuckled, at the steering wheel, or else she may have been tearing her hair out. 

There was a shake in her voice, tight and exhausted in equal measure, like the words had sat, unspoken, pressed against her teeth, for far longer than Charlotte had realized she’d been thinking them. Charlotte rests her hand on Eileen’s. 

“She loves you more than anyone else in the world, you know that right? She’s just sixteen, you know all the drama and shit we went through last year -”

“I can’t watch her go through what you went through with Duff,” the words escaped Eileen in a rush, and she clamps her mouth shut, sitting forward in the driver’s seat, lips pressed into a thin line, as Charlotte’s heart sank in her chest, “I’m sorry.”

“No, I know what you mean,” Charlotte sat back in her own seat, nodding dejectedly, fiddling with her bracelet. 

“You... Charlie, you know you’re my best friend, and I love you, and seeing you in pain with no way to help,” Eileen’s hands slid down the sides of the steering wheel as she forced herself to relax, though her words have Charlotte’s heart swelling with fondness, “it fucking killed me,” she admitted, leaning back, letting her shoulders sags with the weight of her words, like the weight of the world, and as she leaned back, she looked to Charlotte, so unguarded, so sincere, “I can’t let Vince break Peach’s heart like that.”

Eileen has always looked and seemed older than her seventeen years, but it’s strange to see her like this, to be reminded that she holds within her this unassuming duality. To protect is her first instinct, herself, her feelings, her friends, her family, but she’s still so young, just a kid; she still deserves to be protected too.

“I’m so tired,” Eileen murmurs, gaze dropping to her hands, now folded in her lap, and she huffs a humorless laugh, “I’m seventeen, Charlie, I’m fucking tired of feeling thirty.”

[thevioletjones]

31, because I can’t see it fitting Ian/Mickey easily and know you’re a good enough writer to prove me wrong ☺️

Thanks! I tried. 🙂

Prompt 6: “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Ian’s Box of Crap

Being currently unemployed, Mickey didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when attempting to deflect Ian’s demands that he get chores and household tasks done while his husband was out earning an honest paycheck. He wasn’t even allowed to shake people down anymore, let alone pull robberies, or get back into the drug trade. Ian had made it clear that divorce wasn't off the table if Mickey deliberately did something stupid that got him thrown back in prison for a long stretch.

He didn’t much like being told what to do, but what he liked even less was not having Ian in his life. He’d had to go too many years without him in the past, and nothing good ever came during those times. Unfortunately, Ian Gallagher was it for Mickey Milkovich. That meant that he actually had to stay in line and put in the work if he didn’t want to lose him again. Ian wasn’t as soft as he used to be. Never really had been at his core, but the maturity of age had cemented his backbone rather rigidly, and Mickey was actually loathe to piss him off too badly these days.

So he did the bullshit grunt work requested of him, just to keep the peace. He was tired of fighting every day of his life, and what was the point of marrying Ian if they weren’t going to try and make each other happy?

In the past couple weeks, Mickey had done everything from laundry and dishes, to vacuuming and mopping. He’d patched up a couple of big holes in the wall that Frank had made, and fixed the loose parts of the wooden outdoor steps and banisters, both front and back. He’d even gone so far as to babysit the tiny, helpless Gallagher spawn a few times, which had been interesting and somewhat terrifying. Then Ian had given him this look when he caught the scene one afternoon, eyes shining, smile beaming. It reminded him of that brief time they’d helped take care of Yevgeny, which made Mickey’s head spin. He didn’t need Gallagher getting the whole ‘having kids’ thing back in his head right now. Mickey was in no way ready for all that. Hadn’t been the first time, and they’d all seen how that turned out.

Today, he was supposed to clean out the attic. He told Ian that asking someone outside the family to do it sounded like a bad idea. How was he supposed to know what shit the Gallaghers wanted to keep, and what they wanted to get rid of? What if he made a mistake? If anyone had asked him what to keep from the hoarded piles of shit in the Milkovich house, he would’ve laughed in their face, then set everything on fire. Mickey wasn’t the sentimental type. So did Ian want him to just toss everything?

Ian had rolled his eyes, clarified that Mickey was a Gallagher now, and given him a run-down. Anything that had obviously been made or cherished by a Gallagher kid, any family photos and albums, or small boxes of keepsakes, those stayed. Anything that wasn’t being used by anyone, but could be of use and handed down to the youngest or recently shacked up of them, set them aside to be put in rotation. Anything that worked, but they already had one of or didn’t need, donation box (because apparently they actually sometimes donated shit to the local shelter). And anything that looked completely unnecessary for anyone, throw it in a Best Choice trash bag, but don't take them to the curb yet. Ian would go over everything when he got home to make sure it was sorted correctly.

“So you’re gettin' me to do all this boring-ass grunt work, then you’re gonna have to go through it anyway? What the fuck, man?” he’d asked.

“It'll make the whole thing way easier on me, so can you just shut the fuck up and do me the favor? I’ll blow you later for your trouble.”

“Like you wouldn’t be doin’ that anyway.”

Ian had shrugged. “If you don’t, I won’t.”

“Threatening to withhold sex? That’s a bitch move if I ever heard one.”

“Whatever, deadbeat. You want me to support you, gotta help out when I ask. A blowjob would just be a bonus, because I’m generous of spirit.”

“I’m not gonna forget this hardcore manipulation, Firecrotch. I’ll get my revenge eventually.”

Ian merely kissed him on the nose. “Sounds like a plan. See ya.”

And he was out the door.

“Asshole,” Mickey’d muttered under his breath.

And now, a few hours later, here he was; sitting on the dusty, hard planks of the weird-smelling Gallagher attic, sorting through the memories and forgotten things of the family he’d married into less than six months ago. He’d dawdled as long as he could on the couch, eating junk food and watching his favorite daytime game shows, judge shows, and salacious ‘who’s the baby daddy?’ shows. The only hint of fun left in the remainder of his day was in the bong and the beer he’d brought with him up the rickety ladder. After every box sorted, he’d take a rip or two and chase the smoke with a long swig of cheap alcohol.

The most interesting things he’d found so far were some old pictures of Ian when he was little, his hair a curly mess, and his pale skin covered in dark freckles. His smile was too big for his face, and he looked goofy as all hell. Nothing like the hot hunk of man he was today. It was the Ian Mickey remembered from Little League a million years ago. And maybe he’d set one of the photos aside to keep for himself and taken some pics of others with his phone, so what?

Mostly he’d had to sift through little Debbie’s ridiculous girly shit, and Frank’s completely random assortment of insignificant trinkets with a side of what looked like bondage gear. He’d since moved on to a group of boxes obviously labeled by Carl when he was younger. He recognized the scrawl, occasional backwards lettering, and lack of possessive apostrophes. The words were short enough not to be atrociously misspelled, and consisted of a Gallagher first name in plural, followed by: ‘box of crap.’

Everybody had one, including Fiona, who hadn’t taken it with her when she’d left Chicago, and the kids she’d raised as her own, behind. The most scandalous item in there was a dildo of decent size that Mickey definitely would’ve packed in his suitcase if he’d been the one moving away as a single chick. The thought crossed his mind to pilfer it for his own collection, but he figured that Ian would be weirded out by the association. Sex toys were probably the only thing Gallaghers never shared between them.

Carl had a box of his own, semi-well-hidden compared to the others, and Mickey discovered why when he’d managed to get the copious amount of packing tape off. It was full of straight porn mags with big-tittied women and shaved pussies, underneath an array of dangerous weapons the family had forbidden him to have when he was underaged. He found everything from nunchucks, to throwing stars, to switchblades, to brass knuckles. No guns or attempted homemade bombs, thank fuck. He chucked the porn in the trash pile, cuz nobody needed to see that shit, and set the switchblade aside for himself, deciding to give the rest to Ian to sort out.

He saved Ian’s box for last, opening it up to find a grab bag of old army decorations, tattered paperbacks, comics, a bunch of loose paper covered in scribbles, and a stack of notebooks.

Mickey didn’t realize Ian was such a huge nerd that he’d kept his high school notebooks, but giving a quick flip through the first two revealed they weren’t school-related at all. He remembered Ian going through a phase when he was always writing shit down, ranting about having great ideas he needed to save for posterity. Before he went to the hospital. A manic phase. Probably one of many he’d cycled through, yet Mickey had missed some of those extremes.

Everything had been so chaotic then. He’d pushed Ian away, then gotten the same treatment in return. Their typical messiness pervaded everything back then. And now, he had in his hands Ian’s unfiltered thoughts about what happened back then.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, setting the notebooks down and going for the beer/weed combo again.

There were exactly two ways to go about this: he could put the notebooks back into the Ian box and not invade his privacy, or he could skim through them and hone in on the interesting relevant bits and maybe get a few long-pondered answers. On the one hand, Ian would probably get pissed if Mickey read them. On the other hand, Ian never had to know about it, did he?

It really wasn’t much of a choice… he’d always been curious as to what the hell was going through Ian’s head back in the day. They’d never exactly been great at talking things out, and he didn’t have it in him to try and make Ian relive some of the lowest moments of his life just to give Mickey some peace of mind. Plus, they were always facing some new bullshit obstacle head-on, so the past always just kind of got lost in the shuffle of their present difficulties.

Mickey took a deep breath and opened one of the notebooks again. The pages weren’t dated, and a lot of it didn’t make much sense. There were many lists with lines crossed out, but they didn’t describe things ‘to do,’ more like an endless inventory of concepts and feelings. The thought patterns were totally abstract, and Mickey couldn’t really make heads or tails of them. It hit him sharply in the chest when he realized that when Ian had been out of it, he’d really and truly been fucking out of it. These seemed like the crazed rantings of an unmedicated schizophrenic babbling on public transportation. It pained Mickey to the core, and it scared the shit out of him too.

He flipped through it fairly quickly, then opened the next one. It seemed to be calmer, more legible, and less unintelligible. It was more like a diary with bad poetry sprinkled in, and it only took a few pages for Mickey’s own name to jump out at him among the wall of words. It must have been written during Ian’s lost months, after going AWOL from the Army when he was 17.

He described running away from Chicago, scamming his early enlistment, crashing and burning his way out of bootcamp, shaking and selling his ass as a club boy, snorting, smoking, and swallowing all manner of substances, and crashing anywhere from penthouses to flophouses with sexual favors sprinkled in liberally. It was like the chronicle of a person going mad and coping in all the wrong ways. It surprised Mickey how emotional it made him to read these things in vivid detail. He’d completely forgotten how worried he used to be about Ian. When he was gone, when he went missing again, and when he started doing irrational things that could’ve ended so much worse than they did.

Ian was the one that had to live out all the drama and trauma of his disorder, but Mickey was the one caught on the sidelines, not having a single clue what to do or how to fix it. He’d never felt so useless or helpless in his entire life, even through all the bullshit he’d suffered growing up with Terry as a father. Maybe it was because of his age, or how Ian made him feel a certain way he’d never felt before. He just remembered hating it, and being so fucking sad.

These pages reminded him that through the mania, Ian was a bottomless well of sadness himself.

It was tough text to get through, and more than once, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t be reading it at all. Ian had never intended for other people to see his innermost thoughts, even Mickey. But it was impossible to stop now that he’d opened that floodgate. It was like reliving a part of their shared history through the eyes of his partner in crime. It was too fascinating.

After countless pages of dark tales from the void, Mickey came upon a page that was actually addressed to him. Surely, Ian had never intended to hand it over, but it was his nonetheless.

Mickey— I never had the balls to tell you this, But you’re the only boy I’ve ever loved. I thought you loved me too, But now I’m not so sure. I’m so confused and I go back and forth, Never really knowing what to actually think, Or what the truth is. All I really realize now is that I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you. It took you forever to let me, And now I just do it with anyone, Cuz I don’t fucking care. I just miss you, And I wish you were here. But also, I don’t, Cuz I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m having a great time on my own adventure, But also not. You shouldn’t be a part of it right now. You’re on your own strange journey, I guess. Maybe one day we’ll be on the same road together again, And also for the first time, since we never really were.

Mickey barely had enough time to sniff and wipe away the stray tear that had fallen, when his husband’s voice startled him out of his reverie.

“You’re still up here?”

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out with a visible jolt of his body.

His head snapped toward the attic hatch, where Ian’s dumb red head was surveying the musty space. Mickey let the notebook fall from his grasp, but Ian was already climbing the rest of the way in before it occurred to him that he was about to be caught red-handed with journals that were supposed to be deeply private. He could only flip it closed and grab his beer to polish it off, before Ian was crouching in front of him and taking a seat.

“Can’t believe you actually did this for me, to be honest,” Ian said with a chuckle, glancing at the bong. “Anything left?”

“Baggie’s right there,” Mickey replied nodding his head to the left.

“Nice.”

Ian got distracted with loading a bowl, so Mickey very subtly tried to nudge Ian's notebooks aside with his foot, like maybe if they were slightly farther away, he could claim complete innocence as to knowing what they were.

He watched Ian take a couple hits before passing it to him, and Mickey welcomed the opportunity to temper his suddenly sullen mood.

“How was work?” he asked between hits, before passing back to Ian.

Ian snickered and furrowed his brow. “You never ask me about work.”

Mickey shrugged. “Don’t mean I don’t care.”

“Uh huh.” Ian looked even more skeptical, and finally glanced around at what Mickey had in his vicinity. That sent his brow up high, in a decent imitation of Mickey’s usual expressiveness. “Oh. That my box?”

Mickey gulped and nodded. “Yeah. Just sorting it out. Should’ve just left the whole thing for ya. Sorry.”

Ian’s gaze snapped to his face. “You read stuff.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“Just a little,” Mickey admitted. “I shouldn’t have. Fuck, I’m an asshole.”

But Ian only shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’d be pissed.”

“I’m not. I promise.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

Ian shook his head again. “No. Actually, I’m kinda relieved.”

“How the fuck so?”

“It's all stuff I wanted you to know. I mean, part of me used to be really ashamed, maybe still is, but… another part of me always just wanted to be totally honest with you. In a way I haven’t ever been with anyone. Even Lip. But I didn’t have the words to say it, you know? And I know a lot of it is just scary rambling. I don’t even understand what some of it means, but the stuff that’s real… the lucid stuff… it’s depressing as fuck, but it’s the truth. We didn’t always tell each other the truth, but we showed each other. And this was something I couldn’t really show you. So maybe you were meant to find these. Do my dirty work for me.”

“Damn, Gallagher, that’s kinda heavy. These were… kinda heavy. Made me feel shit I’d forgotten about, you know?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t read ‘em in years, but I remember. It’s why I wanted to put ‘em away, I guess. Plus, I didn’t want someone else snooping around and finding out too much. I mean, you never know in this house. It’s possible every fucking Gallagher already read them, but I hope not.”

“Ian…” Mickey started, but didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. Words of reassurance? It was all in the past, and Ian was doing so well now. He was diligent about his medication, and he hadn’t spun out of control since before prison. Anything Mickey said now would just be cold comfort, since that notebook version of Ian barely existed anymore. Ian was always afraid that it would recur, but Mickey wasn’t. They were truly in it together now, and he’d never let Ian cross the threshold into the uncontrollable. “I wish I coulda been what you needed me to be back then. However impossible it was. Some of it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault, really. It was some shitty shit that happened to me. I reacted the only way I thought I could. There’s no use in either of us wishing we’d done things differently now. At least we got the right outcome, right? We’re together.” He clasped their left hands so that their wedding rings touched. “Forever.”

Mickey couldn’t help but snort. “Okay, you didn’t have to get that gay about it. I already had to suffer through a buncha your faggy teen poetry. I deserve a break from the high drama of it all.”

Ian laughed, kissed his hand, dropped it, then smacked him on the cheek. “Fuck you.”

“Just say when,” Mickey responded with a smile.

“After we go through all this shit, Romeo. Explain the piles.”

“Well,” said Mickey, pointing to the nearby corner, “Carl has a shitload of contraband in there. Weapons, not drugs. Frank has some shit that might be S&M gear, not sure, then aside from your lunatic journal ramblings, everything else is boring as shit. Oh, and Fiona left a big blue dildo.”

[pointlesstrashyexistence]

Headcanons I have for Sam as someone who is a youngest sibling with a brother 5 years older than me who I have a somewhat difficult relationship with

When Sam was younger and still much shorter than Dean, Dean would rest his elbow on top of Sam’s head. It annoys the fuck out of him and when he's older and taller then Dean, when Dean sits down Sam rests his elbow on Dean’s head. I am 5 foot and a quarter of an inch and my brother is over 6 feet and this is what I consider doing every time to my brother.

Dean knew John would be too rough and harsh and drill sergeant like training Sam so Dean took over a significant portion of Sam’s training, as much as he could. My brother actually would attempt to box and wrestle with me. One day he body slammed me when I was young and when my parents yelled at us he said “I’m in charge of her physical fitness.”

When Dean and Sam stayed somewhere long enough and had enough spare money for something that wasn't essential, Dean would buy comic books that he then passed onto Sam. Sam secretly has a collection of all the comics Dean has given him and when remembering happier times cracks them open and thinks about jokes they made while flipping through the pages.

There are little things that Sam will see and think of Dean, sometimes good, sometimes bad. The things that are especially bad make him stare into oblivion not realizing he’s about to start crying. I’m in art school and I can't look at gold paint anymore because of a dangerous physical fight between my dad and brother that led to gold paint flying everywhere, some of which still can't be removed. I actively try not to look at those spots.

To me, Sam has petty younger sibling energy. When its cold outside and Dean comes in with cold hands and puts them on the back of Sam’s neck and starts laughing when Sam yells, Sam waits for Dean to take a shower, gets a bucker of cold water, and then dunks it over the shower curtain at Dean and runs away laughing.

Sam isn’t good at taking care of kids. Not that he can’t relate to kids or watch a kid for an hour or so. But just like, when you’re the youngest you’re the baby of the family so there were always others who could take care of you and you weren't expected to take care of others. So when it comes to actually taking care of a kid he’s just completely lost. No idea how to change a baby’s diaper, is completely terrified of terrible twos toddlers, elementary schoolers have so much energy and short attention spans, and if he hears any more lullabies from those never ending Youtube Kids nursery rhymes and lullabies videos he will go ballistic.

Sam makes fruit and vegetable salads because he doesn’t really know how to make anything else. Yes I know it's part of him being a health nut compared to Dean who could eat a double cheeseburgers, a milkshake, a twizzlers packet, and a box of twinkies in one sitting. But this kind of goes in line with how when your the youngest and you have siblings old enough to care for you, you’re not expected to learn certain things until you’re alone. And I don't think Dean trusted Sam in the kitchen so I think Sam doesn't really know how to cook meats so he only eats meat when someone else has cooked it.

Because Sam never learns how to cook and in my head is living off entirely from financial aid and grants and scholarship when he goes to Stanford, I don't think Sam eats meat again until he starts dating pre-med Jess who is like, “You are over six feet, eat some fucking protein.” And then she realizes he’s never learned how to cook food and he nearly burns down her apartment trying to just make chicken and she never lets him in the kitchen again. He keeps trying to learn when she’s out but he’s just horrible. I'm sorry Eileenn and Rowena but your he/they malewife maid can't cook for shit.

When Sam is away at Stanford and he and Dean haven't spoken to each other in year's, I think he tries to call Dean on his birthday and Dean’s birthday and tell him that he knows they haven’t spoken but he misses his big bro and he’s thankful for Dean trying to protect him when no one would protect Dean and tries to leave a voicemail but they all sound like crap and he just gives up until he accidentally leaves one when he’s super drunk. Partially inspired by birthday phone calls when my bro was in prison 5-6 hours away from me and the rest of my family.

Sam hasn’t known how to come out to Dean for like the last decade and one day when Castiel explains to them that angels don’t really have a human concept of the gender binary because they primarily exist as non-physical interdimensional wavelengths and usually just go along with whatever pronouns humans give them based on how their vessels are perceived, Sam asks if Cas would like to go by another set and Cas says something like it doesn’t really matter but they/them would be acceptable and Sam says he would like also like to be referred to with those pronouns. Dean is silently taking all this in , wondering if there were ever any times he made Sam feel horrible with any comments or jokes he made about Sam being girly. Maybe this is the breakthrough Dean needs to examine his own gender and sexual and romantic identity.

[rachelbethhines]

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 50s

So the first three episodes of Wandavision have dropped onto Disney Plus and like me you’re probably already obsessing over it. Also like me you’re probably jonesing for another fix while waiting for more as the episodes only come out once a week. 

But never fear, we literally have decades of cheesy comedy sitcoms to sift through to keep us entertained during quarantine. Along with the occasional action and/or horror stuff  if you’re so inclined. So if you’re trying to decide where to start I’ll be making short lists for each decade that coincides with each episode. 

1. I Love Lucy (1951- 1957)

The granddaddy of all American television sitcoms staring the first lady of comedy herself, Lucille Ball. While not the first sitcom to air, tv had been kicking around since the late 40s, this show did pave the way for many technical innovations for the new medium both on and behind the scenes. As such Elisabeth Olsen cited Miss Ball’s work as one of her inspirations for her role as Wanda in the series, as do many a woman entering into the comedic field. 

Also the show is just flat out funny. One of those rare 50s sitcoms that manages to overcome some of it’s more dated aspects through shear force of personality and peak comedic screwball antics. The only downside is you have to have Hulu to watch it as the copywrite is tightly controlled even to this day.  

2. Amos ‘n Andy (1951-1953)

The 1950s television landscape was overwhelemingly white. It’s no secret that POC had a hard time finding work in the field of entertainment let alone be the stars of the show. Amos ‘n Andy, a spin off of the earlier same titled radio show, was one of, if not the first black led shows on television and so deserves a mention just for that alone. 

Now I will not act as if this show is perfect or ahead of it’s time. The series was controversial even during its day for is depictions of racial stereotypes. Eventually the series was canceled because of protests from the NAACP despite being very popular in the ratings. However I’m a full believer that history should be observed and talked about in order to progress further so check out an episode or two on youtube and decide for yourself if it’s worth remembering or not. 

3. The Adventures of Superman (1952 - 1958)

Ok, not a sitcom, but as we all know, Wandavision isn’t just a sitcom it’s also a superhero show and this is one of the first tv series in this genre. It and the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the previous decade helped to make the juggernaut industry that we know today. 

Plus Superman did an official crossover with I Love Lucy, seriously. 

4. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952 - 1966)

Hardly anyone talks about it today, but Ozzie and Harriet is the longest running sitcom to date. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia being the only other show threating to up seat it come next year. However the two sitcoms couldn’t be any more different. 

The series stared the real life Nelson family who had got their start in radio as comedians and singers who then crossed over into tv. While the show was completely scripted it tried to hew as close to real life as possible, kicking off American’s obsession with platonic voyeurism. Much in the way Wandavision has the meta storyline of being watch in their own home. 

5. Father Knows Best (1954 - 1960)

Another radio to television entry here, however the series drastically changed the main character during the transition. During the 40s radio sitcoms were very biting and sarcastic, often either going the complete surreal screwball route or were satires of the day. This fell out of favor as tv became more dominated by commercials and advertisers feared offending their potential costumers. So things were greatly toned down as the decade progressed. 

Therefore when Father Knows Best hit the small screen gone was the rude and domineering dad and in his place we got the very model tv father; affable, gentle, loving, devoted, and very congenial. All traits we love to see in Vision some six decades later.      

6. The Honeymooners (1955 - 1956)

I physically can not make a recommendation list of 50s sitcoms and not mention The Hoonymooners. I just can’t. It’s one of the greatest sitcoms ever made and hugely influential. So much so that The Flintstones ripped off the series whole sale to the point that Jackie Gleason threatened to sue Hanna-Barbera. However there’s little such influence in Wandvision. 

See what made The Honeymooners stand out at the time and what gave it such longevity is the fact that the main characters were poor. They lived in a cramped and over crowded sparsely furnitured one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. They owed bills, they dressed plainly, they worked long hours at low paying jobs, and they were often dirty from said work. 

Much like how Wandavision will pull back the curtain a little to see the reality hiding underneath their suburban utopia, so too did The Honeymooners defy the the ‘perfect American dream’ that was soled on tv during the 50s to show us the trauma of poverty and the only thing that you can do when you find yourself trapped within that reality, laugh. 

7. Leave it to Beaver (1957 - 1963)

You can not get any more quintessentially 50s than Leave it to Beaver. The series has become synonymous with the decade and it’s take on the ideal American family life to the point where it’s become a punchline of numerus jokes criticizing the values and attitudes of the era. 

Does it really deserve such mockery? Who knows. I think one needs to watch it for themselves to decide. However it slots right into the aesthetic that the first episode of Wandavision is trying to recreate and it must have been popular for a reason, right? 

8. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959 - 1963)

We featured wholesome family sitcoms and screwball comedies with married folks but we haven’t covered any surrealist humor yet, and Wandavision is seeped into that sort of stuff. That’s because there really isn’t a lot of fantasy in most 50s sitcoms. So while the trappings for episode one of Wandavision is very 50s the effects and premise is more 1960s. 

That’s where Dobie Gillis comes into play. Like Wandavision, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is based off a comic book, or comic strip rather. However that comic was very down to earth and tame compared to the tv show. More fondly remembered as the inspiration for Scooby Doo a decade later, Dobie Gillis quickly transformed from a typical coming of age show about teenagers to a surreal, sarcastic, tongue in cheek comedy, complete with get rich quick schemes, spys, bongos, and a giant chicken. 

9. Bonanza (1959 - 1973) 

Yeah, I know all of y’all are judging me right now. “A western in a sitcom/sic-fi list? What are you thinking?” Well one really can’t talk about 50s television and not mention westerns of some sort. They permeated all mediums and dominated the cultural air waves. And Bonanza is far more than just a western.

Bonanza is literally every thing. It’s every genre at once; western, historical drama, sitcom, action adventure, satire, crime drama, soap opera ,and yes even the occasional foray into science fiction, albeit with a more Jules Vern take than a typical spaceman theming. 

If Wandavision is a melding pot of seemingly disconnected genres then it’s because Bonanza paved the way with it’s similar breakage of formula. 

10 The Twilight Zone (1959 to 1964)

Yeah, you probably knew this was coming. When not being a homage to sitcoms Wandavision is a downright horror movie, but not one with gore and mindless monsters. Rather the show evokes old school surrealist horror, like that employed in the famous (or infamous) Twilight Zone. 

What you probably didn’t know is that we have the I Love Lucy show to thank for it. See Lucille Ball and her then husband Desi Arnaz had created their own production company in order to make I Love Lucy. This production company,  Desilu Productions, is responsible for picking up Rod Sterling’s pilot and producing The Twilight Zone. 

Runner Ups

Good shows that have little to do with Wandavision but are good anyways.

What’s My Line (1950 - 1967)

Just a really fun game show. Stars of the day would sometimes appear on it including many of the sitcom comedians listed above

Have Gun - Will Travel (1957 - 1963) 

One of the very few pure westerns that I can tolerate. The lead actually cares about people and justice and will stand up to bigots.  

Dennis the Menace (1959 - 1963)

While I have fond memories of the 90s film, I thought it was a tad redundant to put on the list when there’s already Leave it to Beaver. 

So there’s the 50s list. On Wednesday I’ll post a list for the 60s and cover some of the more obvious stuff Wandavision was paying homage to. 

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Is Back!!! Raya and the Last Dragon, Chaos Walking and More

Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior!

This is probably going to be a little different from any of my previous columns, because New York City theaters reopen on Friday, and I swore that once they do, I would be writing about box office again. But this will also essentially be a previous column, so it will include reviews, it will include festivals and repertory series, and basically, whatever the hell I want to write about.

But let’s be realistic here. While there are a lot of movie theaters in New York City, not all of them will open, and they’ll all still have a capacity ceiling at 25% or 50 people in the larger theaters. Many of the larger multiplexes like AMC will be able to show films on two, three or more screenings to be able to make up for the limited capacity, but smaller theaters and those who have been doing well with the virtual cinema may remain closed. I know that the Angelika will be reopening to show some of the indies that haven’t had a theatrical release in NYC yet like Minari, and the IFC Center is reopening but with insanely strict protocols. (Don’t you DARE take off your mask even if you’re watching a three-hour movie! The good news is that they’re showing a lot of great movies on reopening including a comedy series that includes a number of Lynn Shelton movies.)

There’s also the issue of New Yorkers who are still petrified of being out in public, even those who have already been vaccinated and are possibly spending time in congregate settings that are just as likely to cause COVID spread than movie theaters. (I’m not gonna go on a rant about the egotistical and elitist film critics and journalists who have been ranting about movie theaters reopening for the past six months – for some reason, they think they’re as important as essential workers. Guess what, NAME REDACTED, you’re not.)

The big release of the weekend is the Disney animated movie RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, which will hit probably around 2,400 theaters on Friday as well as be available for a premium on Disney+. I honestly don’t know a ton about this premium streaming release, but this is the second one after last year’s Mulan, which came out (better sit down for this) six months ago!

This magical fantasy adventure centers around Raya (a teen girl voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), who is trying to save her world that has been relegated to dust by the destruction of a valuable magical gem that contains destructive spirits imprisoned there by the legendary dragons. When Raya finds the last dragon, Sihsu (voiced by Awkwafina), the two of them must travel across the land collecting the separated pieces of the gem to reassemble them and restore their world.  Raya is thwarted along the way by her arch-nemesis Namaari (Gemma Chan) who wants to reunite the gem pieces to help her own city of Fang.

(Raya is preceded by the animated short Us Again, which is a nice wordless short about a cranky old man who reflects back on his younger days dancing with his wife. It’s okay, nothing particularly memorable.)

Raya and the Last Dragon, on the other hand, is pretty wonderful, a mix of action, adventure, magic and humor, directed by Don Hall (Big Hero Six) and Carlos Lopez Estrada (Blindspotting) in a way that blends those disparate elements in fun ways. I’ll freely admit that I was a little worried that Akwafina’s schtick was going to annoy me, but after a while her wise-cracking dragon grows on you. In fact there are actually so many other funny characters to add to the laughs that the more brought in the mix on Raya and Sihsu’s journey, the more enjoyable the film gets.

One of the reasons the film works as well as it does is that unlike last year’s Onward, it wasn’t just the two characters and what they had to offer but how their situation changes as it goes along and they visit different cities. I was pretty surprised by how well the film keeps you entertained and invested in the journey.

I also absolutely loved the score by Thomas Newton Howard, which may be even better than his score for News of the World, which I honestly think he’ll get another Oscar nomination for. This is a film that explores all sorts of emotions as well as its Southeast Asian myths, so I feel that I was always going to be a complete and total patsy for this movie since it combines a lot of things I like such as fantasy and Asian mythology. In that sense, Raya is also a nice companion to the recent Mulan, which made my Top 10 last year, but sadly never even got a nominal theatrical release.

So let’s talk about box office, something I haven’t done in almost a year. Last weekend, Warner Bros’ Tom and Jerry had a fairly spectacular opening of $13.7 million. Raya is the first new wide release Disney movie since Pixar’s Onward literally a year ago. That ended up opening to $39 million in 4,310 theaters but only grossed $61.5 million domestic after its legs were cut short by COVID one week later. Raya will likely open in about 2,500 theaters by comparison and that’s with limited capacity for safety, but it should fare decently against the second weekend of Tom & Jerry, and I could easily see it bringing in $15 million or even as much as $18 million, but again, we’re in the baby steps part of the reopening, and things are going to start slowly and keep building as the vaccine continues rolling out.

Being released theatrically by Lionsgate this Friday is CHAOS WALKING, the adaptation of Patrick Ness’ future-set young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, which stars Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. Holland plays Todd Hewitt, a young man living in a world with no women where men’s thoughts can be perceived by everyone around them. One day, he discovers a mysterious girl named Viola (Ridley), when she crash lands on this planet but her very presence puts Viola’s life in danger, so Todd agrees to accompany her to find her own people.

Yeah, where do I even begin with the latest film from director Doug Liman that was probably filmed two or three years ago and was being delayed even before COVID came along? That’s already a bad sign, but when see how “The Noise,” the way that we hear all of characters’ thinking emerges, it immediately feels like it’s gonna be a problem. Sure enough, it’s such an awkward plot device to watch smoke billowing from the heads of the various characters as we hear their thoughts that it takes most of the movie to get used to it, and yet, it’s still so comically inept a concept that you can’t help but laugh when Holland continually rants, “My Name is Todd Hewitt,” over and over to keep Ridley’s Viola to hear his pubescent teen boy thoughts on experiencing his first girl.

The thing is that the scenes with just Holland and Ridley aren’t bad, but when you have a movie with actors like Mads Mikkelsen, David Oyelowo, Demian Bechir and Cynthia Erivo, it’s disappointing that they can’t elevate the movie above anything other than the most obvious sci-fi (and Western) pastiches. Mikkelsen is the town mayor who is so obviously another bad guy, that he doesn’t bother to put too much into his performance cause we’ve seen him do it so many times before.

Liman is more than a competent filmmaker but he clearly is unaware of how watching clouds pool around the heads of characters as we hear and see their thoughts become material, and even the introduction of the particularly silly-looking aliens – called, get this, the “Spackle” -- makes you forget that this is a sci-fi film from the director of Edge of Tomorrow (or whatever it ended up being called). It’s not even particularly surprising when we find out what really happened to the women in Todd’s community.

I have a feeling that the problems within Chaos Walking come straight from the Patrick Ness source material and the fact that he decided to adapt it himself may have made him tone-deaf to how hard it is to make the film’s central premise work without eliciting guffaws even from the most dedicated or devout fans.

This is also opening in IMAX theaters this weekend, and when it comes to New York, that might be the ideal way to see it (if you so choose) since it’s generally bigger theaters with a maximum of fifty people. Honestly, I don’t think Chaos Walking will make more than $5 million this weekend even in what should be over 2,000 theaters and with the presumed star power of Holland and Ripley from their franchise work. This could be seen as counter-programming from the animated movie, although any teens ready to go back to the movies might stick with Raya as well. Honestly, how this didn’t end up getting dumped to streaming compared to some of this weekend’s better movies is beyond me.

Offering a bit of indie counterprogramming for the two (relatively) big studio movies is Eddie Huang’s BOOGIE, the directorial debut of the Fresh Off the Boat producer, being released by Focus Features into who knows how many theaters? (1,000 or less, I’d Imagine.) It’s a coming-of-age movie starring Taylor Takahashi as Alfred “Boogie” Chin, a Queens high school basketball ace who dreams of one day playing in the NBA but whose temper gets him in trouble with the scouts for college where he’s hoping to get a scholarship.

I was kind of looking forward to this one, because I generally enjoy Fresh Off the Boat, and I’m interested in what stories Huang has to offer as a filmmaker. The film has its merits but it’s not necessarily Takahashi, who isn’t strong enough to really keep the viewer’s interest.

On the other hand, Huang was wise to cast the amazing Taylour Paige (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) as Boogie’s love interest and even better than both is Pamelyn Chee as Boogie’s “Tiger Mom” mother who is sugary sweet when it comes to wooing possible recruiters but also is a complete nightmare to his ex-con father (Perry Yung).

Thinking back on the movie, I definitely didn’t hate it as there were character relations and dynamics I enjoyed, but not all of it clicked with me, and it’s hard to imagine this one connecting with audiences as well as some of the other movies out this week, unless you’re into college hoops, which I am not.

As far as box office, I’m not sure this will be in more than 1,250 theaters (if even that) and even if it plays in New York City (where it would normally find its biggest audience), I just don’t think there’s much awareness for the movie out there. In fact, I see it only playing in one movie theaters in NYC, and that’s way up in Harlem, presumably hoping to get the street ball fans, but I’m not so sure too many up there will be interested in an Asian-American story, so honestly, I don’t think this will make more than $500,000 or $600,000 tops.

Besides the reopening of movie theaters, the other big excitement this week is the launch of Paramount+, the relaunch, spin-off, rebranding of CBS All Access that I had also been considering checking out. It will launch on Thursday, March 4, with the animated family movie THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE ON THE RUN, which was supposed to be released by Paramount Pictures last year and did get a bit of a theatrical release in Canada while theaters were open there last year. This one involves SpongeBob and his buddy Patrick trying to retrieve SpongeBob’s beloved pet snail Gary, who has gone missing.

I generally enjoyed the first to SpongeBob movies, even though I never watched the show, and the regular creators and voice actors always seem to step up their game in terms of the wackiness whenever they’re given a chance to bring the lunacy to the big screen. In this case, it comes in the form of some of the guests including Snoop Dog and Danny Trejo in an odd Western section complete with musical number or Keanu Reeves introduced in the same section as a tumbleweed named Sage. (Oddly, this also features Awkwafina providing the voice of a robot, and I kind of liked her in more of a subdued role like this.) Although SpongeBob and his friends are CG animated, the movie doesn’t try too hard to integrate the live action in as fluid a way as last week’s Tom and Jerry – live actors just kind of show up – but it’s still pretty darn entertaining to watch another movie in which everyone involved, including director Tim Hill (who shockingly directed last year’s awful The War with Grandpa!), just going about making the movie as crazy and wacky as possible, something that should appeal to kids and… THC-laced adults (preferably not those watching with kids) … to get an overall enjoyable experience. Maybe it’s no surprise that I was particularly tickled with SpongeBob and Patrick’s adventures in Las Vegas.

Along with that, the streamer will have a new animated series called KAMP KORAL: SPONGEBOB’S UNDER YEARS, which is a CG-animated series that focuses on SpongeBob and friends when they were younger, which actually is one of the funnier bits in the movie as well.

There’s a lot of great stuff coming to Paramount+ that should make it a real player in the streaming world, and that includes all of the Paramount movies that will be streaming on it, both those that are getting a theatrical release this year and the studio’s absolutely vast library over the past 100 or so years.

And that’s not all! This weekend also sees the release of the sequel thirty years in the making, COMING 2 AMERICA, which will launch on Amazon Prime Video on Friday (after being sold to the streamer by Paramount, oddly), so yeah, there’s plenty of options to keep people home this weekend even with theaters reopening.

Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall are back as Prince (now King) Akeem of Zamunda and his trusty aide Semmi, and in fact, almost every character and actor from the movie has returned, as the duo return to America to find Akeem’s illegitimate son Lavelle (Jermayne Fowler) in queens, hoping to teach him the Zamundan way so he can take over as King after him.  Unfortunately, Lavelle is joined in Zamunda with his family which includes mother Leslie Jones and uncle Tracy Jordan.

Unfortunately, reviews are embargoed until Thursday, so I’m not sure I’ll get to review this one, but I did like the movie, more than I thought because my rewatch of the original 1989 movie led me to believe there was a good reason I hadn’t watched it in over thirty years. The sequel offers a lot of originality and humor in the forms of Leslie Jones and Tracy Jordan, but that’s all I’ll say about it for now.

Incidentally, you can check out an interview I did with director Craig Brewer over at Below the Line AND I also talked to the film’s make-up team, and after you see the movie, you’ll understand why I’m holding it until after people have seen the movie.

Another movie that would probably have gotten a theatrical release but now will be seen on Hulu is the Joe Carnahan-directed BOSS LEVEL, reteaming him with long-time collaborator Frank Grillo as a man who cannot die, because he’s living in a single day that’s being repeated over and over as he takes on a series of assassins sent to kill him.

This as a really fun action-comedy that never lets down in terms of either half of that genre, and it’s kinda groovy to see Mel Gibson playing a fairly key role since he became the master of that action genre with the Lethal Weapon movies.  But this really is Frank Grillo’s show as a leading man, and while I can understand some thinking him not having enough charisma for that sort of thing, I respectfully disagree.

We get into this high-concept premise pretty quickly as we watch his character, Roy Pulver, take on a string of assassins for his over 100th attempt to do so, and as per the title, it is a lot like a video game where Roy has to defeat all of the assassins on his way to the big boss, Gibson’s The Colonel. Apparently, Roy’s wife Gemma (Naomi Watts) has been killed by the Colonel or his thug (Will Sasso) so Roy is now on a quest for revenge. But first he has to survive the onslaught of killers, all of whom he’s given cute nicknames.

Easily my favorite of the killers is Selina Lo’s Guan Yin, a feisty swordswoman who proves to be the most formidable opponent for Roy. I won’t say how he bests her, but it does involve Michelle Yeoh, who has such a strange nothing appearance in one section of the movie, you wonder what she’s doing there. In fact, the movie does hit a slight lull after the initial concept is introduced, but it

Listen, I’ve long been a fan of Carnahan’s dark sense of humor and to some, it might seem mini-spirited, to me it harks back to one of my favorite movies he directed, Smokin’ Aces, a similar movie with a crazy ensemble cast, though maybe a slightly smaller budget. Still, Carnahan is a terrific action director, which makes this one of the stronger action movies in a while, and he finds a way to take a fairly simple premise and make it bigger in that Roy’s dilemma turns into something where he has to save the world, but also something more emotional and personal as he tries to bond with his son before said world ends. I guess in many ways, it’s hard to put into words what makes Boss Level so special, but I can only hope that Ryan Reynold’s Free Guy is as good as this after being delayed so many times, because this will be a tough act to follow for sure.

Over at the Metrograph, still closed physically unfortunately, they’re doing a series this week called “David Fincher/Kirk Baxter” which looks at the relationship between the director and his frequent editor, showing a series of movies over the course of the week:  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network

The Metrograph has a lot of movies as part of its digital membership (just $5 a month) including Chloé Zhao’s very first film, Songs My Brother Taught Me, which was available to members through Wednesday night. (Sorry, I tweeted about it multiple times if you missed it.)

This week also launches the 26th annual “Rendezvous with French Cinema” up at Film at Lincoln Center, which was actually one of the LAST events to happen up there LAST year. This year, they’re keeping things safe by holding it virtually. It runs from March 4 through March 14, kicking off on Thursday with Sébastien Lifshitz’s Little Girl, which will be released by Music Box Films in the Fall. There’s a lot of fairly recent French films with an all-access pass available to rent all 18 films for $165. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything, so can’t really recommend anything but I’ll probably be checking out the free talk “How Music Makes the Film” on Monday, March 8.

Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood) and Sigourney Weaver star in Philippe Falardeau’s MY SALINGER YEAR (IFC Films), based on Joanna Rakoff’s book. Set in New York of the ‘90s, Qualley plays Joanna, a grad school student who dreams of becoming a writer who gets hired as an assistant to literary agent Margaret (Weaver), whose biggest client is J.D. Salinger. Although Joanna’s role is more of a glorified secretary, she gets to go through Salinger’s fan mail from around the world, and she decides to start answering some of the letters to the author, an experience that helps her find her writers’ voice.

I wasn’t sure if this movie would be for me, but I find Qualley to be quite delightful, and this was a light film with a comedic tone from the Canadian filmmaker of the boxing movie, Chuck, and the Oscar-nominated Monsieur Lazhar. I enjoyed its look at the New York literary world of the 1990s, and it kept me quite invested even if I’m not particularly invested in Salinger’s work or an obsessive with The Catcher in the Rye as many are. Weaver is also fantastic as Joanna’s boss – think of a lighter version of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada – and also enjoyed the tentative relationship between Joanna and her writer boyfriend Don, played by Douglas Booth.

Basically, Falardeau has created another generally wonderful and crowd-pleasing movie that sadly missed its opportunity at a festival run to build an audience after debuting at the Berlinale almost exactly a year ago. Presumably, this will open at the reopened IFC Center this weekend. (In fact, IFC Center released its reopening schedule and it’s a pretty cool mix of IFC Films movies from the past as well as some of the Netflix movies that weren’t released in NYC previously.)

Okay, let’s get to some other releases from the week, beginning with Ivan Kavanagh’s SON (RLJEfilms/Shudder), the latest film from the Irish director of The Canal, a fantastic horror film that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival about seven years back. In this one, Andi Matichak from Halloween plays a single mother whose son David (Luke David Blumm) suffers from all sorts of maladies but when she starts getting closer to a local detective (Emile Hirsch), he discovers that there’s a lot more to her past and to her son’s ailments.

Honestly, I do not want to say too much about the plot, because there are so many shocking surprises in the movie once you think you know where it’s going, although I will say that it has connections to films like The Lodge and shows like Servant, but it also does a good job fucking with the viewer’s head, so you never know what’s really happening and what might be in the characters’ heads.

I will say that the movie is very dark and quite disturbing with lots of gruesome gory sequences, but if you’re a fan of smart horror, you’ll want to check out Son. (I’ll have an interview with Kavanagh over at Below the Line next week.)

Sony Classics is finally releasing Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s doc THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS (Sony Classics), which has been playing on the virtual festival circuit all the way back to Sundance last year, so we’ll see how many people are left to see it. It’s set in the forests of Piedmont, Italy where a handful of 70-to-80-year-old men are on the hunt for the rare white Alba truffle, which has resisted all modern science to be cultivated.

For whatever reason, I procrastinated on watching this movie for most of last year, maybe because I’m not that big a fan of cinema verité docs, but this is infinitely entertaining between the various men featured – including a lot of real characters in there – and how the movie shows their close bond with their truffle-sniffing dogs. This is a genuinely enjoyable movie that I feel can appeal to a wide range of viewers, although be aware that is in Italian, so maybe one should consider that even with the cute dogs, this should probably be watched by teen or older rather than small kids. (I don’t remember anything particularly racy, but the movie is Rated PG-13.)

Staying in the dog realm, Magnolia Pictures is releasing Elizabeth Lo’s documentary STRAY on Friday, which documents the life of Zeytin, a stray dog living on the streets of Istanbul, and some of his dog frenemies. Actually, this was a pretty wonderful film that I quite enjoyed, although there were a few dog fight sequences that disturbed me a little bit.  But it’s a great look at Turkey through the eyes of some of the canines on the street, how they interact with the humans around them. Essentially, Stray is the dog version of Kedi, but I’ve seen other similar docs like this including Los Reyes – this one is just as strong as either of those movies, the images of all the beautiful dogs accompanied by gorgeous string music by Ali Helnwein that helps you understand the dogs’ complex emotions.  Seriously, if you like dogs, you can definitely do worse than the previous two movies mentioned. Stray is available via Virtual Cinema, including that of the Film Forum.

Filmmaker and EDM artist Quentin Dupieux (Rubber) is back with his latest, KEEP AN EYE OUT (Dekanalog), starring Belgian comedian Benoît Poelvoorde as police officer, Commissaire Buran, investigating a guy (Grégoire Ludig) who has discovered a dead body in a puddle of blood outside his apartment building. The prime suspect is then left alone with a one-eyed rookie, and if you’ve seen any of Dupieux’s other films, you’ll probably know to expect the unexpected as things get crazier and crazier. (I seem to remember seeing this last year at some festival, maybe FantasticFest, but I’ll have to watch again before remembering if this was one of Dupieux’s movies that I liked.)  This will be available in select theaters and also in virtual cinema this Friday. (Oddly Dupieux’s last movie, Deerskin, debuted at last year’s “Rendezvous with French Cinema” right before theaters shut down for a year, and I don’t want to be superstitious, but yeah, I’m worried.)

Barnaby Thompson’s Ireland-set crime thriller PIXIE (Saban/Paramount) stars Olivia Cooke (Sound of Metal) and Alec Baldwin with Cooke playing Pixie Hardy, a young woman who wants to avenge her mother’s death by pulling off a heist that will allow her to leave her small town. The crime goes wrong, and she’s forced to team up with a group of misfits including Baldwin’s Father McGrath.

Bradley Parker’s action-thriller THE DEVIL BELOW (Vertical) deals with a team of researchers who are investigating a series of underground coal mines in Appalachian country that have been on fire for decades where they discover a mystery. It’s getting a combined theatrical, VOD and digital release Friday.

Phil Sheerin’s directorial debut THE WINTER LAKE stars Emma Mackey (Sex Education) as Holly, a young woman with a secret that’s uncovered by her unstable neighbor Tom (Anson Boon from Blackbird) and the two of them are pulled into a confrontation with her father, who wants to keep the family secret buried. This will be in select theaters on Friday, On Demand on Tuesday, March 9 and then on DVD March 23.

Dylan McCormick’s SOMETIME OTHER THAN NOW (Gravitas Ventures) stars Donal Logue and Kate Walsh, Logue playing Sam who is stranded in a small New England town after his motorcycle crashes into the ocean seeking refuge at a run-down motel run by Walsh’s Kate, a similarly run-down and lost soul. When Sam learns that his estranged daughter Audrey, who he hasn’t seen in 25 years, lives in the town, he starts to learn more about why he ended up there.

Jacob Johnston’s DREAMCATCHER (Samuel Goldwyn) stars Travis Burns as Dylan aka DJ Dreamcatcher who meets up with two estranged sisters at the underground music film festival, Cataclysm, where they become entrenched in 48 hours of violence and mayhem after a drug-fueled event. Sounds delightful.

Some of the other VOD stuff hitting the ‘net this week include: 400 Bullets (Shout! Studios), Sophie Jones(Oscilloscope), Dementer (Dark Star PIctures), Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know (Giant Pictures)

That’s it for this week. Next week, theaters hopefully will remain open, and we’ll have some new movies to write about.

[m-ziliak]

What got you interested in animation?

Okay, this is gonna be long and it’s gonna involve a lot of Invader Zim. So as a kid I really loved drawing and cartoons. I drew all the time. I’d get in trouble a lot for it as well because I tended to finish my work early and doodle in the margins of my papers. But one particular cartoon changed the way I looked at cartoons as a whole.  I remember the night. It was a spring evening in 2001. Nickelodeon was going to air two “new” cartoons and they had held a poll on their website to see which would air first. It was between Fairly OddParents and Invader Zim. Of course Fairly OddParents won because it was already known from its Oh Yeah! Cartoons segments. (My sister and I quoted those episodes CONSTANTLY.) I was specifically excited to see it become a full half-hour show instead of the short eight or so minute romp it was. I sat down on my bedroom floor and turned the dial (My TV at the time was from the late 70s or so, I have no idea how we hooked it up to cable.) to 45 and enjoyed. It was pretty much the same as before, just longer. Nothing special. I decided to stay for the other cartoon and on came Invader Zim. I was completely engrossed with it. It was dark, it was weird, it was sci-fi and scary and action! I didn’t know cartoons could be like that! All I thought about that week was the chase scene between Zim and Dib. I was interested in cartoons before, but not like this. A cartoon that wasn’t just comedy! Imagine! On top of that it looked so different than everything else, sharp angles, thick linework, dramatic colors. Somehow the art was so much more vivid and darker than other shows at the same time. That was when I really got into cartoons and saw them as a medium instead of a genera. In high school I began to get an interest in comics, beginning a collection of old House of Mystery books and drawing my own really bad comics out on printer paper. I also got really into JtHM. I figured when I went to college I’d go into the illustration major to learn more about that. But two things happened. First, my friend Jessica gave me her box set of Invader Zim DVDs. I figured I’d re-live the show, so I accepted and put them on and saw they had commentary. I wanted to know who was behind a comic I loved at the time and a show I loved as a kid, so I decided to give it a go and I fell in love all over again. They absolutely HATED working with the network on the show, yet they seemed to have so much fun doing it. Making quips about someone forgetting to draw in cars, messing up on a background character, the lighting being off for an entire sequence, it all was exhausting and hilarious at the same time. I wanted to be like them, the people who made cartoons. They were weird and sarcastic, dedicated yet slackers. They seemed like friends, kindred spirits maybe.  And then came an assignment. When I was 13 one of the last assignments of ninth grade was to make a stop-motion movie. Didn’t have to be long, just three minutes or so. I made a witch, a prince and a monster. It was maybe six frames per second and kinda choppy, but the second I saw my characters move, a fire was lit in me. It was absolutely magic. I felt like that was what I was made for and nothing could ever compare to the feeling of seeing something I made come to life. So I went into animation in college. It’s still like that, I still get excited whenever I see a finished animation of mine. I don’t have a scanner at the moment and haven’t for like, a few years now, so I can’t actually finish anything digitally anymore (Which is why I have so many marker drawings on Instagram.) I have a degree in animation now, but studios haven’t liked my stuff. I applied for a good handful of shows but no one’s messaged me back. I even applied to work on the Invader Zim movie, how wonderful would that have been to work on the one thing that got you into animation in the first place? I’m fine with working on comics at the moment, my Oswald one is getting popular. I have a lot of stories I want to tell but it always feels like there’s never enough time. I’d love to get some of these projects over to animation one day but for now I’m okay sketching out one thing at a time.

[fire-the-headcanons]

What's WeaponsEx?" Raven asked.

"There's a big weapons convention every summer in Vale. Tons of businesses show off new stuff. Dust companies, arms manufacturers, defense engineers—" he said.

"And there's an entire wing of the hall for comics!"

"You mean recruiting."

"Yeah, same difference. There's costume contests, artists answer questions and sign autographs—"

"And they get a few famous Huntsmen to come too," he finished.

Qrow listened with an intensity usually saved for forging class. "Whoa, cool."

Raven rolled her eyes. "You're drooling."

Follow the Beacon Taiyang—COSTumes

[Link to Masterpost]

[Hey, look! A normal-length chapter!]

"Ramparts! For all of your cosplay needs!" Summer declared, throwing the door open dramatically. The Taupes followed her in, looking around in confusion.

"This is a costume store?" Raven asked, brushing through a rack of sweaters.

"Thrift store," Tai corrected. "People donate old clothes, they sell 'em cheap, and the money goes to charity. Summer likes to find stuff and make alterations."

"Come on, let's look at suits!" She grabbed Qrow's wrist and hauled him off toward the men’s section. Amused, Tai and Raven followed.

"Okay, we want to find a green suit and vest for Ozpin, and a red suit for Pete," Summer said, already digging through the racks for anything near the right colors. "Preferably double-breasted, but we probably won't find one. We can sew a little gold ribbon around the edges to make it look like him. I've got a scarf we could tie like his ascot. What about shoes? Should we get shoes?"

He accepted the hideous maroon suit she was holding out.  "Our uniform shoes will be fine, Summer."

"Yeah, you're right." She was in her natural habitat now, comparing every dark green suit in the store to one of their photos from Ozpin's file. It only took a few minutes for her to pop back out of the racks with a three-piece that looked to be about Qrow's size. "Try it on!"

"Uh…" He eyed it warily, holding it in front of his face.

"We are not spending four thousand lien on something you're only going to wear once," Raven said, glaring at the tag.

She had a point. Tai glanced over Summer's shoulder at the photo on the scroll, searching for another solution. "Y'know, Ozpin's suit is really dark—the uniform jacket and pants would probably work fine if we got a green turtleneck to put under it."

"I was thinking just a scarf for that bit, actually," Summer said, running to the end of the aisle and grabbing one with horrible stringy fringe. "We'll tuck the ends in under the jacket. Cardboard will work for his tie-pin-thing, and then all we need are some glasses."

The bin was right next to Tai, and he started rifling through. "None of these look like Ozpin's."

"Those weird bendy parts on the sides are probably custom. Just grab some small round ones."

He held up a pair he’d seen almost immediately, and Qrow gingerly took them.

"How does he see though them?" he muttered, squinting. "These are tiny."

"They're also only thirty lien 'cause the lens is cracked, but we can take them out back at school."

"What should we get for the Carmine costume?" Tai asked. "I don't think we're going to find a leather apron here. Or for less than fifty thousand lien."

"What? No, I'm wearing the one I didn't finish in time for WeaponsEx!"

"Come on, you can wear it next year. We've gotta match. Nobody will be able to see the detail on it in the dark anyway!" 

"Fine," she sighed, grabbing maybe the ugliest brown dress in existence off the rack behind her. It looked about six sizes too big for her, layered with thick ruffles in multiple shades. "I'll cut patches of the darker lining for the embossing Carmine has around the edges. There should be plenty of fabric."

She just couldn’t do a sewing project halfway. "That's still way more effort than you need to put into this."

"What's WeaponsEx?" Raven asked.

"There's a big weapons convention every summer in Vale. Tons of businesses show off new stuff. Dust companies, arms manufacturers, defense engineers—" he said.

"And there's an entire wing of the hall for comics!"

"You mean recruiting."

"Yeah, same difference. There's costume contests, artists answer questions and sign autographs—"

"And they get a few famous Huntsmen to come too," he finished.

Qrow listened with an intensity usually saved for forging class. "Whoa, cool."

Raven rolled her eyes. "You're drooling."

"Yeah, it's where the SDC unveiled the Guillotine last year." Summer said, still thumbing through the suits. "The easiest way to do Professor Mesánychta's suit would be to splatter-paint stars onto the school uniform, but anything that would show up might not wash out…"

"Flour." Tai pointed out.

"Ooooh! Yeah!" 

Raven frowned. "It'll just fall off."

"Not while you're wearing it! Your aura kinda holds it in place—I speak from experience. We can make her headband out of cardboard too. Lucky so many of the staff wear dark suits."

They brought their things up to the registers, the twins looking much more at ease with their two hundred lien price tag.

"So, where should we eat?" Summer chirped.

"…We're not going back to the school?" Qrow and Raven shared an anxious look.

"Well… we could, but it'd take like two hours to fly there and back," she said. "Besides, don't you want to go somewhere other than the cafeteria?"

"Maybe, uh, we'll just meet up with you again after, then…" Qrow stammered. 

"What? Come on, that'll take ages," Summer said with a wave. "Come with us to Goldenrod's! We go every time we’re in Vale, they have these giant noodle bowls, it's great—”

"We'll meet you there in a half hour," Raven said. "There's a comic store Qrow wanted to look at."

Why were they—oh. They hadn't been worried about the cost of the suit just because it was frivolous. Tai's ears burned with secondhand embarrassment. "Uh, Sum—"

Summer tilted her head. "You know I love comics… Why don't we all go after lunch?"

Qrow straightened up, bracing himself. "Because we don't have any money."

Raven shot him a panicked glare as Summer wilted. "…Oh." She fiddled with her hands for a second before shoving them into the pockets of her hoodie. "Sorry, I…"

"I—I mean, it's been nice looking around with you two—"

"We'll buy today," Tai said quickly. Anything to make the awkward stop.

"You don't have to—" Raven began.

"No, come on, it's team bonding time! We've got you. And next time we come to town we'll just pack a lunch."

* * *

"So, have you ever visited Mistral?" Summer asked, errantly drumming on the table as they waited. "I guess you said you were from southern Anima, that'd be a long trip…"

"It was. We went twice."

Her eyes widened. "Really? What's it like? I don't really remember Anima that well." 

"It's…more dangerous than Vale," he said, glancing out of the window at the end of their booth. "Unless you're rich. We mostly kept our heads down. …What about your home? What's Patch like?"

Summer shrugged. "Not much to say. It's just a little port town on an island outside Vale. Forest on the west side has some Grimm, nothing big enough to be a real threat."

"It's the most boring place in existence," Tai sighed.

"At least you'd have ships to look at," Raven said. "There is nothing on Remnant less interesting than a farm." Everyone stared at her for a half-second, she'd been her usual withdrawn self all day. She flinched at the sudden attention. "…I've always liked boats."

"Me too," Summer admitted. "But, sailing boats. With sails. You know, the old-fashioned windy kind, not the new big loud cargo ships."

Nobody liked the giant—usually Atlesian—monsters that would barge into the harbor at all hours. Tai gestured with his chopsticks. "Ugh, and that one asshole that always runs too close to the north side of the island and wakes everyone up in the middle of the night!"

"Well, hey, why don't we go to the docks after the comic store? We could take pictures and stuff!"

"Because your camera’s broken. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Her face fell a little. "Well, we can still look around."

"There's not actually a comic store," Raven admitted. "We were trying to buy time."

Summer reached across the table, taking her hand in both of hers. "Raven. You're not getting out of going to the comic shop with me and Qrow just because you made it all up."

Raven rolled her eyes, the ghost of a real smile playing around her mouth. "Fine."

Next Chapter: Summer—Mission Critical

[Yet another chapter of Qrow is a Nerd. ‘Suave flirt’ is a valid interpretation of the text, it’s just not my interpretation]

[ladylilibet]

Tainted Love|Chapter 5.

I/II/III/IV/V Tainted Love – How can you tell a lady no? The White Wolf claimed he needed no one, but his collection of misfits started with Lady Helena of Oxenfurt… and ended with her, too.

                    Chapter V: 𝖂𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖆𝖙 𝕶𝖆𝖊𝖗 𝕸𝖔𝖗𝖍𝖊𝖓, part I

Kaer Morhen.

Helena had read about the fortress before. The School of the Wolf, where Witchers were created and taught long ago. If she closed her eyes, she could picture the compound in all its grandeur during its formative years. Now, however, only sat the shell of something once great.

Rusted armor littered its vacant halls. Shattered windows poorly patched up allowed a stiff breeze, but not enough as the air still smelled of mildew and mold . She pondered how this was all Geralt knew of a home and found herself comparing their different worlds .

"Miss Helena, do I need to repeat myself?" A disgruntled voice interrupted her thoughts. "Silver and steel -- what is the difference?"

Vesemir, Geralt's mentor and father-figure, sat before her. She watched as the old man crossed his arms and shot a stern look in her direction. Like Geralt, his face was speckled with scars. A pair of golden eyes locked with hers, evidence of the mutations inflicted on a Witcher.

"Silver is for monsters," Helena stated, recalling what Geralt had told her months ago, as she gestured at the blades at their feet . "Steel is for humans. Steel can work on monsters too, but silver is more efficient, especially in cases like the Bruxa. Silver shouldn't be used on humans as it's delicate and shouldn't be used for combat."

When her companion told her that he knew a great teacher to teach her swordsmanship, she presumed he was referring to himself . Perhaps he'd taken into consideration her former education. That a slow-paced learning environment would benefit her more. Something he couldn't provide.

"Well done, Miss Helena." Vesemir stood with a stretch and a groan, "Later, we'll focus on how to properly hold your sword and stance.

Wait, she didn't think it'd be this slow.

Helena furrowed her brow, "That's all for today?"

"I didn't expect Geralt to winter at Kaer Morhen, let alone with a... guest. Though delighted to see you both, I mustn't let it get in the way of my nap.

"Lesson finished so soon?" Geralt questioned with a quirked brow as she left the study.

"Said something about needing a nap."

He hummed and drew her in for a hug. Helena was still getting used to the intimacy the Witcher displayed; he rarely did so freely. Each time, she'd feel his muscles tense, unsure. He'd melt the moment she'd wrap her arms around him -- touch starved and taking her all in.

"Since I'm not yet capable of steady holding a sword -- or at least until Master Vesemir wakes -- what do you suggest we do?"

"I could show you to your room," Geralt suggested with a smirk and a mischievous glint in his eyes.

The maiden titled her head and nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of her voice, another spoke over her.

"Oi, pretty boy!"

The Witcher in her arms tensed up once more and muttered, "Fucking prick" ere abandoning her embrace. At the end of the hall stood two more Witchers.

"You know I heard that." The so-called 'prick' stated with arms crossed. He narrowed his cat-eyes at the pair and donned a sneer, "Who's your lady friend? Thought papa Vesemir said not to get involved."

His partner beside him walked over to greet Geralt. Despite the scar on his face leaving behind a permanent menacing grimace, he wrapped Geralt into a warm hug. Geralt returned the hug and gave the man a firm pat on the back.

"Helena, these are my brothers. This here is Eskel and that sod over there is Lambert."

Lambert faked a bow, "Charmed."

"Didn't think you'd be making it this winter," Geralt made conversation as he and Eskel began to walk down the corridor.

"Same as every year," was his reply.

Helena followed a beat behind to allow the friends to mingle. She looked to Lambert on her left who matched her pace but said nothing.

He eyed her back, "Never understood why you women wore blouses that show off your shoulders like that. Pointless. Showing off your tits, I understand, really. Noted and appreciated. But your shoulders? Bah." Unlike his older companion, Lambert didn't hold back nor hide his wandering gaze.

"Excuse me?"

"Too fuckin' cold in this dump," He quickened his pace to catch up with his brothers, "Got some whiskey from the Isles. Let's drink, men!"

Lambert took charge and now led them to the dining hall.

"Eskel, buddy, fetch the drink and some cups!" He sat down at a table with Geralt and Helena across from him. "How 'bout we play a game? Hm, strip Gwent?"

"I've never even played Gwent before," Helena replied with a frown.

"Even better."

Eskel came to the table, muttering under his breath he wasn't a barmaid. He set a tankard in front of each man and filled their cups.

"Only got mugs -- that okay, Helena?"

She hummed a reply and smiled as he poured her drink too. The drinking up looked comically large in her hands. She brought it up to her lips, sniffing the drink first, and took a mouthful. Much to the Witchers' amusement, Helena choked and sputtered, not expecting the burn.

"Want us to water it down for ya?" Geralt teased as he rubbed her back. She shook her head no, face red from both the alcohol and embarrassment.

"So, princess--" Lambert began.

Helena corrected him, "Actually, I'm only a Lady--"

"--whatever. What brings you to this shithole?"

Unsure how to answer, she looked to Geralt.

"Met her in Oxenfurt after a contract. Wanted to come see what we do." The white-haired man spoke for her with a shrug.

"So are you really a Lady?" Eskel asked.

She nodded with a small sip, "Lady Helena." She tapped her chin as she pretended to be in thought, "Though you may call me 'Your Grace.'"

"Your Grace," Lambert rolled his eyes and brought his mug up as if toasting. "Still doesn't answer my question. How? Sure. But why? Too many bonbons? Couldn't figure out which maid to terrorize?"

"Lay off her," Geralt ordered.

Helena dismissed it with a wave, "I want to feel like I was born more to be someone's wife and womb. I'm to be married in six months time and I want a memory I can look back on fondly."

Eskel nudged his buddy sitting beside him, "We of all people ought to understand the longing of choice."

"I've been working on a monster journal -- well, it's more of a diary, to be frank. I think it'd be swell to make a book about where I've gone and what I've seen. Hell, this is the farthest I've ever been from Oxenfurt. If it never graces a publisher or library, so be it. I'll read it to my brats before their wetnurse sees them to bed." She continued her rambling with blush and a chuckle.

The other two Witchers nodded at her, whereas Lambert clasped his hands together loudly, "So... Strip Gwent?"

"No," was the collective answer.

"Alright, killjoys. Any suggestions?"

The group thought for a moment and Helena spoke up.

"Back at university, we would play this game. It's called 'Never Have I Ever.' Someone starts by saying 'I've never...' and finishing the sentence however they want. Whoever has done that thing, downs a shot. Then it's the next guy's turn."

The game commenced and Helena was left to learn some interesting facts about the Witchers. Their mugs required multiple refills, she had yet to finish her first. She chalked it up to age difference and upbringing.

"Well, I appreciated the company," Helena took a last swig and stood, "But I should probably head to bed before I learn too much about you lot."

"Papa Vesemir havin' you polish swords in the morning?" Lambert teased causing the other Witchers to snicker at the innuendo.

Confused, she raised a brow and shook her head no.

"Aah, great, so you have time to polish my sword," The short-haired Witcher wouldn't relent and received a sharp glare from Geralt, "Fine, fine. I can polish my own sword while Helena polishes Geralt's. Eskel's sword is pretty small, so--" Eskel stopped laughing and swatted at Lambert who was consumed by his buzz.

Blinking, Helena shrugged it off. As the other two were consumed in a slapping fight, she dipped down to whisper in Geralt's ear, feeling brazened by the alcohol.

"I'll leave my door unlocked for you."

Bad idea.

Helena awoke a few hours to the sound of banging and crashing then loud shushing. She shot up and looked for the source of the noise as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

In front of her were the three Witchers, backlit by the moon. Eskel and Geralt were dressed down to their underwear, whereas Lambert was wearing her favorite dressing gown. Eskel covered himself and looked away whereas Lambert put his hands on his hips, showing off an hourglass figure.

"Y-you mad at us, L-lena?" Geralt slurred his words as he struggled to stand. Helena huffed loudly and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Only mad that he looks better in it than I do."

[cyanpeacock]

that comic is big hueg mood and i value it a lot.

mental illness really isn’t about “oh just be thankful for what you CAN do!”

it’s sometimes (always?) about “i know i’m capable of doing Even Better, if i just had some help! i’m not well! i’m thankful every day that i’m not worse, but it fucking burns me to know how much better i COULD be doing with more support!!”

and if you appear to be high-functioning, even if that level is like, abysmal compared to what you know your mind and body would actually be capable of in better circumstances, you sort of get... abandoned? like, “oh, that one is doing well enough.” and seeking out the necessary support to improve your functioning level requires SO much time and energy that it is literally killing people. 

like i have so many suicide attempts i can’t count them under my belt. i’ve got self harm scars on every limb and they number, like... well, it’s in the hundreds, for sure. i’ve got no IRL social network. a lot of my daily energy goes on regulating emotions and processing trauma. i can’t drive, i can assemble some food sometimes but can’t reliably cook, etc etc.

and because i’m in university - still there by sheer force of will, because this is the ONLY thing that might land me in reasonable comfort in the future - and not in trouble with the school, i’ve been written off again and again by mental health services. it’s always, “come back in six months,” or “here’s a referral for a 12-week group, in two years’ time,” and “oh, has it been two months? i’m sorry, we haven’t got around to allocating you a community psychiatric nurse yet” 

i’m here like, what... the fuck? i feel like, it’s been assumed i’m a person of average ability, with minor problems, and i can just Get On With It. when actually, i’m well aware i’m a person of exceptional academic ability, with really quite significant social, emotional, and mental health problems, particularly like... in terms of trust. and it makes me fucking furious, and at times ashamed, that i’m coming up to 22 years old, my secondary school peers are graduating, and i’m only just going into second year. i was ahead of my peers for So Long. i should still be there. but because nobody believes i need fucking help, i’m getting delayed more and fucking more!!! it burns me!!!!!

like, of course i can fucking Get On With It. that’s all i CAN do, it’s my Priority, My Degree Is My Life This Secures A Future I Could Accept. i can learn semantic information without ever fucking touching my trust/interpersonal issues. and i don’t think anybody just skimming my case notes can grasp how much this fucking course means to me, how much sheer fucking aggression i’ve had to channel to get here, to stay here.

like they don’t see how i haul myself out of my apartment when i’m fucking suicidal to show to the lectures. how I take notes from the lecture recordings for every. single. lecture. i miss because i’m too exhausted or overwhelmed to make it to the hall. how i never chat in the lab because i’m scared as hell and have to get into a mindset that goes I’m Here To Fucking Learn Not To Make Friends, although i’d really like to make friends. how exam revision takes priority to the exclusion of eating and sleeping, how I have to set myself timers and force myself to eat and sleep, how my walls get covered in webs and webs of colourful revision post-it notes and i spend hours and hours arranging them Perfectly so i can remember the whole thing as a 3D spatial map inside my brain. how i give myself eyestrain and migraines from staring at books and screens for so long, how i don’t fucking wash myself, or clean my apartment, or say a word to anyone but myself for days or weeks. how i’m so fucking hurt that it took me two years to do first year, how i’m having to go part time for second year. like, this is not healthy learning. this is, I’m Going To Die If I Don’t Cling The FUCK On To This Opportunity, This Lucky Fucking Break That Is Going To Save My Life. and i’m NOT fucking giving it up. 

they don’t seem to see that AT THE SAME TIME i’ve been off on my fucking own learning and practicing DBT skills, how i taught myself to meditate when my mind is still screaming Kill Yourself Kill Yourself Kill Yourself, how i’ve been seeing a private counsellor who i can’t afford from the wallet but who i have to afford so i don’t try to kill myself even more fucking often. how i’ve been looking around to try and find like, a faith that might give me more reason to keep fighting, how i do all that shit like taking walks in nature and working out and maintaining a good sleep schedule, and yet, i’m Still Not Well. 

like here i am with the SAME trauma spinning around my head and the SAME terror of social situations and the SAME goddamn increasing fear every time i push myself to “just join a group!! just talk to people!! it gets easier the more you do it!!!”

that’s the FUCKING PROBLEM! i’m DOING all the easy shit, all the “just make lifestyle changes! :) x”!!!!!!! there is still shit that gets HARDER the more i do it!!!!!!! i get MORE anxious and MORE scared and MORE defensive and MORE avoidant the more i push myself to Just Talk To People and the better somebody knows me, because the more they know, the more they have to use as a fucking weapon! this is why I shut down and say “Oh you know I’m okay :)” in my fucking appointments!!!! because they send me to SO MANY different people, who BARELY skim my case notes, and i have no opportunity to develop enough trust with them to tell them the whole truth! which is, “dude, i feel like shit. i’m behind where i Should be given my age and ability. i have no friends, i’m terrified of people who start to get to know me. i’m constantly trying to process trauma, but it’s always the same pain, and then i remember something else painful, and it’s all more fucked up the older i get, and there’s a limit to what i can do about this alone, and i’m overwhelmed. i’m used to it, because i’ve been living this way for so fucking long, but i’m furious, because you people should have KEPT me from getting used to living like this. and i Don’t. Want. To Live. This. Way. Forever.” 

they haven’t even given me the fucking opportunity to build ANY significant, long-term therapeutic relationship with ANY NHS mental health practitioner. i haven’t seen anybody for more than like, three appointments, except my goddamn private counsellor, who is a blessing and lets me pay him in artwork when the cash runs out. and he always looks so angry and disappointed that the NHS are doing so fucking little for me, but never that way in me, which i have seen from so-called mental health “professionals,” including crisis team workers, on the NHS. 

like, the last time i saw a psychiatrist, he had a face on him like NBC’s Hannibal fucking Lecter and he said word-for-word “I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.” what kind of fucking health professional comes out with shit like THAT? and shortly after that appt I got increasingly unstable, went psychotic, trashed my apartment, tried to commit suicide again, then spent all my fucking money running all over the country and ended up here, in a flat in halls my uni are paying for while i bit-by-bit clean up my apartment, alone because i don’t trust anybody else to touch MY THINGS, until it’s livable again.

i think i’m gonna print a lot of these recent text posts and take them to my case review. i’ve always been too ashamed to take anything significant that i write to Brain Appointments, because, like... well. mother is to blame for that. “melodramatic/theatrical/overemotional/I think you’re just tired/making things up/imagining things” and so on. and the fact that when it was found out by my school i was self harming and they told her, shit got so much worse at home. like, that pretty effectively taught me Hide Everything Or You’ll Be Punished, Even By People Who Say They’re Just Trying To Help You. 

man, seriously, fuck this shit. fuck this shit. fuck how hard i’m having to fight for this. fuck all this terror and aggression, sure I can pilot the ship on fear and fury, but i wanna pilot it just like, gently, with love and enthusiasm. i’ve been finding ways to start doing that, alone. but this whole, social stuff? i can’t do that alone. the social space inside my head is healthier, i’m not screaming and fighting with the voices, or constantly blocking them out with music and drugs and trances, but Other Bodies? i need help with Other Bodies.

ok im getting a headache so it’s time to call this post Done

[winterromanov]

she’s the sunset (in the west) - thasmin fic

Poppy Smith is the youngest and quietest kid in Yasmin Khan’s reception class, so it’s a bit of a shock when she encounters Poppy’s mum - the chaotic, intelligent whirlwind that is Doctor Joanna Smith. With both parent and child struggling to hold their worlds together, Yasmin becomes more involved in the life of Joanna and Poppy than she originally anticipates (other than having the biggest, fattest crush on Joanna, of course. It’s impossible not to.)

single parent/teacher thasmin au

chapter one

Her last meeting of the night is at six fifty and Yaz has never felt so exhausted in her life.

It’s not the kids. She deals with them day in day out and yeah, it’s tiring, but it’s nothing compared to the tirade of questions from irate parents she’s had thrown at her since four pm. Many of them seemed annoyed at their kid’s reading ability—or lack thereof—which would be a problem if they weren’t four or five years old and, naturally, Harry Potter is still going to be a bit ambitious for a boy who can barely hold a pencil. She’s been through piles and piles of identical maths problems with erratic results, handwriting exercises varying from just about legible to dancing scribbles in HB. The art, on the other hand, is a lot more fun talk about. She tried so hard to hide her giggles when showing a bemused mother her daughter’s drawing of a dog poo she’d seen in the playground.

But right now, all Yaz wants is to lock her classroom door, make her way to her car and have the longest and hottest bath of her life. Ideally with a pizza and half a bottle of white. It’s been that sort of day.

But there’s still one more agonising ten minute appointment to go. Fortunately it’s with one of her…less behaviourally challenging pupils, a little girl called Poppy, with an August birthday that pits her at the younger end of the class. Despite her age, there’s no unintelligible scrawls in Poppy’s exercise books—she’s smart, one hell of a reading ability, but very quiet. Yaz has seen her stalking across the grassy edge of the playground at break and sat alone at lunch, usually armed with a dog-eared picture book about space.

It’s not Poppy’s behaviour Yaz is slightly concerned about. It just can’t be good, or healthy, for a little four year old girl to have not made any friendships in the month she’s been at the school. She’d really like to talk about it with Poppy’s parents, but the clock on the wall above the door ticks on and there’s no-one to be seen.

Six fifty-six.

Six fifty-seven.

At six fifty-eight, Yaz sighs and starts to pack up her things, because sometimes parents forget appointments or can’t get away from work or life happens. At six fifty-nine, she’s about to leave, when—

The classroom door flies open and a woman walks in gripping Poppy’s hand, flustered and panting like she’s just run across the playground. She looks up, blowing a strand of blonde hair that’s blown into her eye-line away from her face. Two vivid green eyes blink back at her—Yaz hasn’t seen anything like them, and maybe it’s the sappy part of her left over from her literature degree, but it’s the kind of gaze that horny Renaissance poets write sonnets about.

(It’s pathetic, but it would be a lie to say that she doesn’t end up writing one herself a little bit later down the line. Oh, well. It’s called being ridiculously in love.)

“Sorry,” the woman breathes in a Northern accent almost as strong as hers, “I’m late. Am I late?”

“You are late,” Poppy says decidedly, identical eyes staring sagely, “Can I please go sit in the reading corner, Miss Khan?”

The reading corner is a pile of cushions and beanbags in an abandoned alcove of the classroom, now covered with posters of The Gruffalo and animals that begin with every letter of the alphabet. Poppy has her space book tucked under her left arm, as well as a little stuffed dog.

“Of course you may, Poppy,” Yaz says, smiling, dropping her bag onto the ground by her chair. “Me and your mummy are just going to have a short chat about how you’re doing at school.”

Poppy nods, and the woman presses a kiss on the top of her head as she rushes away, little shoes tapping noisily on the carpeted floor. The woman turns, smiling apologetically.

“I’m so sorry. I do try, really, but sometimes it’s like the world is working against me to purposely make me late.” Yaz notices the small array of earring glinting on her ear, the smart grey coat she wears on top of some cuffed mom jeans and a long sleeved shirt. She leans across the desk, shaking Yaz’s hand. “I work up at the university, you see, and the traffic is an absolute nightmare if you… sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I? Already taken up enough of your time, I expect. It’s Miss Khan, right?”

She talks at a hundred miles an hour, waving her hands occasionally, and there’s something oddly compelling about it. It really doesn’t take much to warm to her—or to notice the contrast between her and her daughter. “Yasmin. And you would be Mrs Smith?”

“Miss,” the woman hastily corrects, but then smiles awkwardly, scratching her head. There’s an absence of a wedding ring, which isn’t so unusual, but there’s a pain in her grimace that she doesn’t see in so many divorced parents. Rather the widowed ones. “Technically, it’s Doctor, but I really can’t stand titles, sounds a bit pretentious. Joanna is fine.”

Doctor Joanna Smith. Yaz smiles inwardly, and wonders if it’s totally inappropriate to have a little bit of a crush on one of her student’s parents, because there’s just something about this beautiful and chaotic woman in five minutes that is impossible to put her finger on.

“Okay, let’s talk about Poppy, shall we?” Yaz says, fanning out Poppy’s collection of exercise books onto the table. There are no full-sized seats in the room other than her own, so Joanna is perched on a red plastic one, face comically just above being in line with the desk itself. It doesn’t seem to bother her. “She’s a lovely little girl. Very, very smart for her age—her reading is on par with someone at least three years older and her maths is coming along really well. I’m worried she’ll overtake me!”

Joanna laughs a little, but she’s busy scanning rows of handwriting and felt-tip illustrations, fingertips skimming a picture of roughly drawn little dog. It’s the same one she has clutched in her hands in the reading corner, grey with a red collar.

“Here,” Yaz says, turning the book slightly to an assignment labelled My Family, “We asked all the kids to talk about who they live with, what they do, and so on. She clearly looks up to you a lot.”

It’s heart-warming, really, and Yaz almost teared up sat at home marking it. My mummy is very clever and kind and when we hug we go to the moon. Mummy says I am a star but I think she is a star too and one day we will go to space together

There’s no mention of a daddy, or anyone else, and maybe that’s what makes this task so bittersweet sometimes. Reading about the kids who aren’t like the other kids.

Joanna’s eyes glaze over for a second and she looks over to the reading corner, where Poppy is lying on her back with her book held at arms’ length. Her hands clasp together. “What she like with the other kids? She never talks about anyone at home, really, and she always struggled with making friends at nursery. By that I mean she didn’t have any.”

Yaz softens because she can see concern in her eyes and a sort of muted desperation and hope that she’ll say something that contradicts her thoughts. But lying doesn’t help anybody in situations like these. “She is very quiet and that does often mean she’s by herself, yes.”

Joanna bites the inside of her cheek. “You should see her at home. Can barely get her to shut up most of the time, always banging on about penguins or black holes or…well, she talks about you quite a lot.”

“Me?”

“Oh, yeah,” Joanna nods, “Ever since you read Alice in Wonderland she’s made me read it to her every chance she gets, but apparently I don’t do the voices like Miss Khan does.”

Yaz remembers reading a bit of the story just the other week with all twenty-nine kids sat on the carpet eagerly, rolling with laughter every time she changed from high to low pitch when voicing the Hare and the Hatter. Poppy had sat silently at the back, expression unwavering—yet the whole time she was taking it in, making a bigger impact than Yaz anticipated.

“There’s a fine art to the voices in Alice,” Yaz replies, Joanna grinning, “You clearly just haven’t mastered it yet.”

“I have a PhD in astrophysics but satisfactorily reading a children’s book to a four year old’s standard is where I fall short, yeah?”

Yaz leans forward, rests her chin in her hand. Hopes she’s been subtle but doubts she actually is, but that is usually the way. She wants to keep talking about Poppy but she also wants to talk about her, what she sees when she looks up at the sky and what it means. Her job at the university. The silvery light of a full moon and the pull it has on the tides.

“I’m sure you’ll get there. It just takes practice.”

“Yeah. That’s a good motto for parenting, actually.” She pauses, looking down at her hands. Her nails are painted navy blue and chipped at the corners. “I just—like, I worry about her, a lot. We lost her dad a couple of years ago and most of the time, it’s just me and her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Yaz sympathises—there it is, there it is.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Joanna insists, “Long time ago. I don’t think she remembers him. And I don’t have any family, not anymore, just a few friends who are basically family, but… she needs more than that. I’m not worried about her schoolwork at all. I just want her to be able to talk and play with people her own age rather than me all the time. As much as I’d like to build dens twenty-four seven. Who wouldn’t?”

“You shouldn’t worry. It’s only the first month of term, after all. Kids move at different paces, and it’s just taking Poppy a little longer to settle in.” Yaz smiles comfortingly. “If you like, I’ll keep a closer eye on her. See if I can encourage her to be more involved with some of the children.”

Joanna’s demeanour brightens a little, hands loosening apart. “That would be great, thanks. Sometimes all she needs is a bit of a prod in the right direction.”

At that moment Poppy stalks over to the desk, toy dog straying behind her, book still clutched tight to her chest. She looks at her mother expectantly.

“What is it, baby?” Joanna asks softly, stroking Poppy’s blonde hair gently. “You tired?”

She shakes her head decisively. “Can I show Miss Khan the picture in my book?”

Yaz grins brightly, leaning across the desk. “You know, Poppy, I absolutely love pictures. And I think I’d love to see the one in your book.”

Poppy looks shyly over at Joanna before opening it to the back cover, where a biro illustration of a strange blue box stands majestically amongst the index. Joanna pulls her onto her knee so she can point to it better and Yaz looks intrigued, curious to know what it means.

“This is my time machine. Mummy drew it for me,” Poppy explains carefully, “And we’re going to travel back to the dinosaurs so I can ride on the back of a diplodocus.”

“A diplodocus?” Yaz raises a questioning eyebrow, as it’s a big word for such a little girl, and Joanna masks her giggle by kissing the back of her head. “That does sound like fun.”

“Mummy tells lots of fun stories. I especially like the one about the lizard and her wife and their pet potato.” Joanna does another terrible attempt of hiding her laugh and Yaz finds it ridiculously endearing, especially the way her nose scrunches as she grins. “If you like mummy could put you into one of her stories.”

The thought of being in this woman’s head after she’s left the classroom behind is too good an offer to refuse. They share a look, barely a second—but surely, surely, it’s not just her that feels something?

“I think I’d like that a lot,” Yaz says.

When they shake hands as Joanna and Poppy are about to leave, her hand lingers a little longer than before. Her skin is soft but flecked with black pen, a small silver ring indented with a moon on her index finger. When they break apart, Yaz longs for a reconnect. This cannot be the last time they meet. It cannot be the only time. It cannot.

[beardyallen]

Plagiarism

So let's start at the very beginning. Before moving to Beijing for the semester, I was warned that the culture around education in China differs in some pretty major ways when it comes to plagiarism and academic dishonesty. In the States, public school students are warned not to plagiarize starting (at least) in middle school. Cheating and plagiarism are not acceptable, and this idea is forced down every student's throat.

However, American students still cheat, copy and plagiarize. When you're put under enough stress, the incentive to abide by certain social agreements is devalued and the risk of punishment for violating these contracts becomes more acceptable to the student. This is something that, I believe, all of us can understand. However, I think we can all agree that it does not justify or absolve the student.

The major difference that I was warned about in China was that plagiarism is not nearly as condemnable. This likely has something to do with the pervading philosophy that puts the community first. Collaboration is assumed, and individuality is not as stressed. Students have indicated to me recently that their other instructors in China have not indicated to them that plagiarism is as severe a violation as their American instructors (namely: me).

In spite of the fact that I was warned that this is a bigger issue in China, I am not one to assume that the students in my classroom are indicative of the general population, or even that any of them are dishonest. Sure, the odds are pretty good that at least one out of the 30-something students will plagiarize, but I feel that I would be doing all of them a disservice by ASSUMING that this will happen.

So, when grading their assignments, I have not had the book's solution manual, written by the authors and published online for free, open next to me. At least until this week.

However, I have caught two students copying homework solutions from each other near the beginning of the semester. That situation was handled, and the students exhibited regret for their actions. I maintained their punishment (a zero on the assignment for both of them) in spite of their apology and the fact that they took responsibility for their unethical behavior.

But this past week, because I didn't want to memorize values in a z-table (a statistics/probability thing), I kept the solutions open next to me to compare the numbers that the students were coming up with. And some interesting trends popped up.

On Tuesday, I noticed a mistake one one student's assignment that I could chalk up to having solved the problem on other paper, then copying down their assignment neatly and missing a few symbols. This happens. No big deal. But...when another student who I know works with the first makes the same unintentional omission, you get suspicious. After comparing their solutions, it became apparent that they were academically dishonest.

This was frustrating. And it was exacerbated by the fact that I noticed a third student (who generally has not been known to work with these two) who had similar phrasing on other problems. The work on many problems was organized in much the same way. This is when I started comparing them to the solution manual, and my temper started to rise. [cue: Mark Ruffalo's Dr. Banner saying, "That's my secret, Cap: I'm always angry."]

After a bit of close reading, it became evident that all three of these students were using the solution manual as a blueprint for their problem solving process. This is not inherently bad. But if a student is to use a resource like this to complete their homework, they still need to convey that they understand the material on their own, meaning contributing their own phrasing or additional ideas and information in the arguments. The solution manuals are (frequently) intentionally left a bit under-developed precisely for this reason.

At this point, each assignment was roughly half-graded, and I had to stop. I was upset. Angry. Hurt. And definitely not in a healthy mental space to grade my students' work fairly. But those three assignments were set aside with a big, fat 0 at the top.

Cut to the next day.

I'm still upset, but I can set these emotions aside. I was still more suspicious than I would like to be of my students, the ones who have done nothing to provoke suspicion.

Until they did something to provoke suspicion. Over the course of the next hour, I identified three more students who plagiarized the solution manual, and my cool was gone. I set their assignments aside, finished grading the submissions from the other students, and then had 4 hours before class to decide how to proceed.

I didn't know what I was going to do until class started, but here's a little glimpse into what crossed my mind:

(1) Write "Who wants to confess to plagiarism?" on the chalkboard and wait to see how they react before passing back their assignments.

(2) Hand back the assignments, as the six who committed plagiarism to leave, and hold a review session for the final in their absence.

(3) Cry. Just sit and sob.

(4) Pass it back, not say anything to the class about it because it's the end of the semester and I'm just done.

(5) Just cancel class. Fuck it.

There were other ideas, but I don't remember them. I tried taking a walk. Reading comics to clear my mind. Taking a shower. Nothing helped.

And then it was time to head over for class.

I was shaking and really not looking forward to confronting them. Part of it was out of fear. Not that I was afraid of them, because they aren't scary. I was afraid of myself in that moment. I didn't know what I was going to say, and I wasn't sure that I could keep my emotions in check while I discuss the issue with them. Or made the decision. Usually I have enough time to parse through my emotions, maybe chat with a few people about what I should do (I'm looking at you, LN and MJ). I'm not usually Ron-Weasley-when-Malfoy-uses-racial-slurs when I walk in front of a class.

But before I get into how I handled it, I want to express why this struck me so deeply.

I was warned in advance that students here would be more likely to plagiarize. In some instances, this was communicated in a fashion that sounded vaguely racist, though I don't think that was the intent. Yet, I chose to trust my students. I assumed that they would have enough respect for me to, if they were going to use the solutions, they would at least make it difficult for me to catch them.

None of these students ever sought my help in or outside of class. No e-mails, no questions in class. Nothing. They never reached out to me, but instead chose to trust a document they found online. In spite of the fact that I have a well-known reputation for high standards, and these solutions (though correct) do not reach my standards. So they're somehow simultaneously taking the easy way out AND ALSO not even turning in good work. Like, they were getting full marks on their solutions, even though the solutions were basically written by the authors of our textbook. And this has likely been going on all semester long, so they know that it's not good enough.

And yes, this behavior hurt me personally. I feel disrespected. But also: they do this because they care about their grade. At least that's what they say. Maybe they fess up to laziness. Fine. But there's always an aspect of it that hinges on their grade being important. But what about the exams? They aren't cheating on the exams, but their prep-work isn't preparing them for the exams. So they give mediocre-to-pathetic performances on the days that really matter. So they care enough about their grade to cheat when it doesn't make a huge difference on their final grade, but not enough to perform well on the days that actually matter. Ridiculous. So it hurts me, but it hurts them more.

And then, the icing on the cake: they're disrespecting their peers. Because there are several students who are struggling with the material, and have been struggling all semester. In spite of that, they attend my office hours and ask questions. Frequently in broken English with a lot of exasperation because we aren't communicating well (which is, honestly, not their fault at all; they've met me more than halfway, I'm the foreigner who's teaching in China and can only say like 5 words in Chinese). These students have expressed frustration. And commitment. And a desire to perform well. But they haven't crossed that line. So yes, the plagiarism hurts me. The plagiarism hurts the students who plagiarize. But the thing to drove me the most crazy is that it devalues the work of the honest students. It is for them that I was the most upset.

So I walk into the classroom. I don't write an agenda on the board. I don't write anything. I set the assignments down at the front of the room on top of my Surface. I grab a chair that's tucked away behind the podium/tech-center and place it dead-center at the front of the room and sit down. I can't even look them in the eyes. And I'm shaking. My body is buzzing. If I were in an anime, their would be a yellow electric buzzing aura around me. Maybe red. I'm not sure.

And I start with a question: "Who is aware that there were solutions to all of the homework problems available online throughout the entire semester?"

Nobody moves. I'd say you cut the tension with a knife, but I think a better description is that the tension could stop a bullet. Or a train. Eventually, one of the students raises their hand. Side glances. Another hand. Then another. Some of them were the plagiarizers, some where not. Interesting.

I talk about how I feel. I summarize briefly what happened the day before, where I found three instances of plagiarism, all connected to the posted solutions and was so upset that I had to stop grading for the day. I have their undivided attention for the first time all semester long. (This makes me more angry, but I set that aside and don't think about it until this very moment. Now I have to calm myself down again. *deep breaths*)

I talk about how I felt today, when I went back to grading. And found three more instances. Half of the class committed plagiarism. This is unacceptable. I've been talking for 5 minutes, and I've mostly been looking down. Away from them. But I see fear on every single face in that room. Deer, meet headlights.

I talk about how I felt at the moment, in that room. That I'm shaking. That I wanted to come in today and give them a comprehensive recap on the entire semester, to reiterate some connections that maybe weren't perfectly presented before. But that I can barely stay calm enough to keep standing. And they can see it.

A student raises her hand. She didn't plagiarize. She's come to office hours all semester long seeking help. "Yes?" I say. "Professor, what is your definition of plagiarism?" she asks, in a voice that shakes nearly as much as mine. In that moment, the irony is almost too much. She has been a good student all semester long. She has worked with another student, collaborated on their homework all semester long, and I've given them warnings that their work sometimes looks a bit too similar (always written, and never with repercussions). Because of this, while I was grading the homeworks this week and plagiarism had already been found, I compared their work. Sure, a lot of it was similar. But it's clear to me that they didn't plagiarize each other because there is always enough written down to convince me that they both contributed to the work.

And this is, more or less, the distinction for me. Plagiarism in a math class is a tricky thing. There are only so many ways to write x = y. There are only so many ways to present individuality when showing your work. And this is one of the reasons I find it so important that all of their work include written justification. Because the justification is where their individuality will come through.

So what is my definition of plagiarism? "My definition is the same as that of the University. You can find a link to the University policy on plagiarism in the Academic Dishonesty portion of the syllabus. But, more practically, it's writing something down that you saw or heard somewhere else without contributing anything original." Because I know that some students didn't "copy word-for-word." Some may have even tried to avoid plagiarism by paraphrasing (this is the most common approach), which IS STILL PLAGIARISM.

I go on a bit after this about how I was warned that plagiarism is a bigger issue here, but that I view plagiarism as a person-by-person issue. That I couldn't walk into that classroom day after day, assuming or presuming that they would be dishonest. But that I apparently haven't been doing my job correctly because this was the first time I had compared their solutions to those found online.

"So, your assignments are here. You can come collect them. But I need to leave. I will see on Monday for the Final Exam." Class began at 7:00pm, and class ended at 7:11pm.

I was laying in my bed, finally calming down, by 7:15pm.

Over the course of the evening, I checked my e-mail a few times and noticed apology e-mails from students:

Student A

I am so sorry that I copied the solution for this homework. I know that I should not do that. I will work hard for my final exam and try my best to have a good grade.

I just went to your office and you were not in here. Can I go to your office at your office hour tomorrow? I am so sorry for that.

Friend of Student A, who wasn’t even in class

I want to express my apologies to you because of the plagiarism. I never thought this action is so serious before, I just too anxious to finish the work, but now I know that it is a really bad behavior, I promise that I will not make mistake like this in the future. Please accept my apology, I'm so sorry.

Student C - pretty sure I busted him for letting someone else copy his solutions earlier this semester...

I admit that I copied the solution online to do the last homework assignment and I apologize for that.   It is close to the end of the semester, which is my last semester in university and I guess I have lost some incentive to work hard as I used to do before. I didn't treat the homework assignment seriously and copied some of the solutions directly, which is totally wrong.  I can see your effort this semester, that you really want to teach us something and make the math knowledge more interesting. To be honest, I really appreciate your teaching style. Anyway, plagiarism is not right and  I really want to say sorry about that.  I promise I will work hard for the final.

Student D, and the most entertaining apology but also kind of the worst

I sincerely apologize for my fault---I copied answer from online.

I am a senior student. I am soon to graduate from this university, so I am a little bit slack at the end of this semester. When I was doing some questions of the homework, I had some ideas but I couldn’t totally solve these problems. I thought they were a little bit difficult. I wanted to figure them out, so I turned to online answers for help. I am not a bad student essentially, I truly want to learn knowledge. When I finish copying, I immediately understand how the mathematical theories are applied. So I used “answer” as a tool to help me study knowledge. I admitted that behavior was wrong, but I hope you could understand I truly wanted to learn knowledge, though my behavior was not appropriate.

I copied homework answer but the exam score was definitely true. They reflected my real learning state. I have already got math minor but I still choose this course, since I love math and this course is a prerequisite for my graduate program---business analytics, which will start this September.

You are a nice professor and I indeed learned a lot. Therefore, based on all these above,  I sincerely entreat you could only punish me on this assignment and don’t fail me on this course. I apologize for my behavior again and I promise I will study hard for the final exam. 

I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but for the most part, it didn't mean much. But reading those e-mails, having seen the looks on their faces...I think I reached them. I'm not sure that the message they received was the one I was trying to send, but I highly doubt they will forget that experience any time soon. This thought was what brought the first smile to my face all day.

And then...today.

As you could tell from some of the messages, students were going to come to my office hours to apology or talk to me or plead for mercy or whatever. I've dealt with reactions after the fact before, and, with no exception, the apologies end with a request that I change my mind. "But sir, I've learned my lesson. Now I know. I won't do it again. Can I have another chance?"

So not a second after my ass hit my office chair, a student walked into my office. Didn't knock on the door in spite of him having seen me close the door. Just walked in, walked right up to me, and handed me some papers, saying, "I've rewritten the assignment without looking at the solutions."

Huh. Well that's new. Sure, he was somewhat quiet and ashamed and vaguely remorseful, but he had so much of that air of entitlement that you see in American students. He knew that, if he said he was sorry, pleaded his case that his lack of awareness surrounding the seriousness of his dishonesty was not his fault, that now he knows better, it won't happen again, and he knows the material, then I should give him some credit for the work. Because he did it again. I bet he's even proud of himself for thinking of rewriting the assignment all on his own.

And honestly, I'm a bit thrown. I didn't expect this. Granted, it's for sure something that I would have thought of had I committed plagiarism in college. If I committed plagiarism in college, got caught, and wanted to save some aspect of my grade, I would FOR SURE have done much of the same thing. I mean, I would have done it better, though. I wouldn't have asked for a different grade...maybe said something along the lines of: "I know that I don't necessarily deserve a second chance, but I was hoping that you could at least take a look at what I have and give me feedback. I want to make sure that I understand the solutions completely." Maybe, just MAYBE, they would give me some partial credit. But it would have to be the instructor's idea.

But he doesn't do this. Nah, he just begs. Lip quivering the entire time. I'm sitting in my chair, amazed at how easy it is to stare directly at his eyes when he's too ashamed or embarrassed or whatever to look at me. And he's standing 2 feet away, searching in his mind for the right words to convince me that he's right and that he deserves partial credit.

And I tell him, "No." He asks and begs again. "No." And again. "My mind is made up. You are getting a zero on this assignment. That's the end of the story. This won't impact the way that I grade your final exam, but I will not budge on this." And he keeps begging.

This goes on and on until I start to feel that familiar feeling of this-kid-cares-enough-and-feels-so-strongly-that-he's-right-that-he-might-get-violent. This is a very American thing. It's not uncommon for white, American boys/young-men to be so sure of themselves that they resort to violent action in response to what they perceive as unfair treatment. If I were in the States, I would be legitimately concerned that he would shoot up my office. Or the classroom during Finals. People have done it for far less. And I've had students far more brazen with me. A former vet, even; he scared this shit out of me. Not sure how I managed to stand my ground and kick him out of class...but I clearly recall walking to the front of the room he exited, looking out at the students and saying, "Fuck, that was terrifying. I'm shaking. Gonna need a minute."

Students, for one reason or another, are put under such ridiculous stress. And they react. But I'm not sure what the extreme reactions here would be. To be clear: I don't expect him to do anything drastic. I expect that he will be upset for awhile, take the exam next week, and that will be the end of it. But what would he have done if my punishment for plagiarism was more extreme? And believe me, it could have been. A zero on the assignment, when my policy says that the lowest grade gets dropped? Pssh. That's basically nothing! *sigh*

Anyway.

At this point, it's clear that he's not backing down. So I ask him to leave.

Him [quietly]: "No."

Me [internally]: Bitch, what did you just say to me?!

Me [aloud]: "I have told you repeatedly that my mind is made up. I heard what you had to say, but I've made up my mind. I will see you on Monday for the Final Exam. If Monday does not work, please e-mail me with your availability for Tuesday so that we can find a time for you to take the exam. That will be all. Please leave me office now."

Him [quietly]: "No. I think--"

Me [internally]: Aight, now I feel unsafe. And I'm still angry. And I don't know what he's going to do, and I don't want this to escalate. How the fuck do I handle this?! What the fuck is even going on?! SERIOUSLY?! He's just not-leaving?!

Him [quietly]: "--that I deserve--"

Me [internally]: What the hell do I do? There are 4 or 5 other students out there, hoping to talk to me about the same damn thing! What if they're like this? What if they're worse? Now that this kid has already pissed me off, how I do recollect my cool-calm-approachable-demeanor and engage with them appropriately?

Me [aloud]: "I need you to leave. Now. If you don't, I can go downstairs at get a security guard."

Me [internally]: Got 'im! Now way does he just ignore that one! Security and safety is a huge deal in China, he's going to cave. For sure. *phew* Go me, just de-escalated the situation like a motha-fuckin' boss! I'm so proud of me.

Him [quietly]: "No." (Or something else that's similar.)

Me [internally]: *alarms are blaring* *that part of the brain responsible for fight-or-flight is going haywire* FUCK! *there goes my hearing* *now my vision is getting a little red at the edges* Shit, am I gonna have to fight this kid?! Is that boss-battle music?! Damn, I don't even have a character sheet...what's my dexterity?! I know my strength isn't super high (though neither is his), but come on!!!

Me [aloud]: "Alright. This is getting out of hand. I'm leaving. I suggest you do as well."

I collect my belongings (the ones that I'm most concerned he might destroy in my absence), and walk to the door, open it, see 5 students waiting to give me a "formal apology," and I then turn and look at the kid. He's not budging.

Alright. Time for a fucking staring contest, then. But now we have an audience.

My mental/emotional state:

"You need to leave. Now." And I didn't even raise my voice.

And although the students aren't necessarily on my side in this, they're standing behind me, staring at him.

*cue Pokemon battle music*

Michael used Intimidate.

It was super effective!

[Student] ran away!

*sigh of relief that was heard the world over*

But now there's the rest of them.

"Hello Professor. We're here to give you a formal apology."

URGH!

"Okay. We'll do that here, then," I say, standing in the hall, two feet away from another open office door, with the instructor staring at me, a bemused grin splashed all across her face.

They give me a similar apology to those written above, so I'll skip to the end. They say they're sorry, I listen. It's awkward. I respond, "Okay. You should know that this does not change my decision on how I graded your homework. That will stand. However, the plagiarism will not impact how I grade your final exams. I will see you on Monday."

They leave, end of drama (for now), and then two more students show up.

The two I've mentioned before, who work together on their work constantly but haven't been academically dishonest. They have questions about the final exam. Content-based questions. And we have a nice exchange. It's pleasant. I don't know if I'll be a teacher/instructor after I receive my PhD. At least formally. If you know me, you know that I can't help myself but share information. It's just a part of who I am.

But if I did, I would be putting up with all of this bullshit just for the hope that some of the students are like these two girls. They may not care about the material the way that I do. They may not find it particularly useful for them at any point after the Final Exam. But they still put in the work. They still ask questions to make sure that they understand what's expected of them. And they're honest. Maybe not for the right reasons, but they're still honest.

And those students make it worth it. Almost. Sometimes. Maybe.

[pixelgrotto]

D&D With My Bro: The Case of the Almost Assassination

For the last four months, my brother and I have been playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I whipped up called The Case of the Almost Assassination, and we came to a triumphant finale the other night. My bro’s called it a “steampunk mystery set in a fantasy world,” which is a good description, but on a more detailed level, the campaign was also heavily influenced by the Ace Attorney and Professor Layton games and exists in the universe of The Thirteenth Hour, a series of fantasy stories self-published by my brother that are inspired by 80s movies and cartoons. So the whole thing is one huge ball of fun nerdiness, and figuring that it might be cool to chronicle the campaign as we played, I captured each of our sessions on video. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube here in convenient playlist format (listening to it in the background like a podcast is also pretty nice, I gotta say), and there’s over 20 hours there, which is longer than some of the video games I’ve blogged about! 

This wasn’t the first time that my brother and I had played D&D, since I’d previously introduced the game to him via a small four hour mini-campaign last time I visited his house. (He’s written some great thoughts on that adventure, as well as the experience of missing out on D&D in his childhood but getting the chance to discover it as an adult here.) But this was certainly the first time we’d played something long that continued from week to week, and it was also the first time we’d used virtual tabletop software - in this case the very useful Roll 20 - to play online. Minus a few minor internet hiccups, it ran smoothly, and I think both of us had a great time. The experience also made me ruminate on three interesting facts about D&D that I think not enough people write about, and I’m going to jot off a few thoughts on them here. Without further ado...

1) It is perfectly possible, and sometimes even more fun, to play D&D with just one other person. 

Normally, Dungeons & Dragons conjures up images of a bunch of people - usually three or four at minimum - sitting at a table listening to instructions given to them by the Dungeon/Game Master, or DM. But the hardest part of D&D isn’t juggling rules or even fighting Challenge Rating 30 monsters - it’s getting a group of three or four people to meet up together on a consistent basis! This is why you can tell that anyone who still thinks of D&D as an activity for anti-social basement dwellers hasn’t actually played it, because in truth, the game is a demanding social commitment, especially for adults.

Thankfully, while it might be a less common way to play, you can totally enjoy D&D with just two people. Usually this means that someone more familiar with the rules has to be the DM while the other person acts as the player, which is what my brother and I did. Sometimes, the DM will also have to create a player character for themselves, and I did that in order to assist my bro with various battles and tricky scenes. This is more work for the DM, since they’ll have to juggle both their own character as well as the various non-playable characters (NPCs) encountered in the story, but if you’re up for it, it’s a rewarding exercise.

The best thing about playing D&D with just one DM and one player is how efficient it is. Three or four player D&D (to say nothing of five, six, or even more players) can get slowed down by arguments about how to progress or share loot, not to mention downtime in battles when a player who has a bazillion spells at his disposal deliberates on the one he wants to use that will both do the most damage and look the coolest. Don’t get me wrong, I actually love these sorts of interactions, but it’s also nice to strip all that fat away. 

When it’s just one player and the DM, the DM also has the chance to make that player feel pivotally important by basing the story around them. Usually, the “unit” of D&D is the adventuring party, but in a one person + one DM game, the player gets to shine as the main character. Thus, it’s a good idea to choose the sort of story that can emphasize the important actions of an individual, and in my opinion the best ones for this are heavy on role-playing and character interaction rather than dungeon crawling and monster slaying. For example, a rogue adventure in an urban environment might fit the bill...or maybe even a mystery. Which leads me to my second point...

2) If you’re a DM making a homebrew campaign, try utilizing a setting that your players are already familiar with.

When my brother initially agreed to play a long campaign with me, I first thought that we might attempt one of the many published Forgotten Realms adventures that have been released for 5th Edition D&D. But then I realized that while my brother is mildly familiar with the Forgotten Realms, thanks to old comics and fantasy art from the 80s and 90s, he’s much more familiar with the setting that he created for his own fantasy novel, The Thirteenth Hour. My bro originally wrote this book when he was a high school kid and finally published it a few years ago, and in the time since, he’s written some short spin-offs and outlined ideas for a sequel. In the mini-campaign we’d played in October, his character was actually a half-elf ranger named the Wayfarer who’ll play a pivotal role in book two, and I initially pitched the whole idea of D&D to him as “Hey, this can help you brainstorm your sequel concepts before you put them down to paper.” 

Once I began toying with the idea of making a homebrew campaign set in The Thirteenth Hour world, I started worrying that my brother’s universe was limited when compared to the “fantasy kitchen sink” setting of the Forgotten Realms. I mean, my bro’s book didn’t even have orcs! Or dwarves! What was I gonna do! But then I stopped being reliant on fantasy tropes and actually re-read The Thirteenth Hour, quickly finding that there was plenty I could work with.The universe that my brother created doesn’t have all of the races that Tolkien coined, but it’s still full of magic and wonder - a place where crafty old wizards inspired by The Last Starfighter’s Centauri run amok, strange technological anomalies like hover boards occasionally pop up and an otherworldly gatekeeper known as the Dreamweaver lets the spirits of the deceased visit their loved ones in dreams. And there’s also a large kingdom called Tartec ruled over by a vaguely Trump-esque king named Darian, who thinks he’s found the elixir of immortality when actually all he’s discovered is coffee. (If you think this sounds amusing, you can pick up a digital copy of my bro’s book on Amazon for less than a cup of Starbucks!)

Darian’s a funny character, and in one of the spin-off short stories that my brother wrote, an older and slightly wiser version of him reflects on how an assassin nearly took his head off with a dagger. This one sentence got me thinking who that assassin might be, and before I knew it I’d come up with the basic hook of a campaign. At the time, I was also reading Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, a D&D book that introduces 5th Edition’s Inquisitive subclass, which is basically a fantasy Sherlock Holmes. Suddenly, the ideas began bubbling in my head - the campaign would be a detective story set in Tartec with two leads trying to determine the identity of King Darian’s would-be assassins. Once I had this hook, I decided to draw further inspiration from the two video game series I think of when I hear the word “detective” - the Professor Layton games (which I like the style of but am rubbish at, since puzzles confound me) and the Ace Attorney series, which I’ve written about before. My brother would be the main character Lester LeFoe (patterned slightly after Phoenix Wright, the star of Ace Attorney), and I’d be the spunky female assistant Claudia Copperhoof (a little similar to Phoenix’s assistant Maya Fey). 

I hoped that situating these characters in my brother’s world would breed a quicker sense of familiarity than he’d get from playing a generic warrior in the Forgotten Realms, and I think it’s safe to say that the experiment succeeded. Thus, even though 5th Edition D&D products all use the Realms as their default setting, it’s worth remembering that you don’t have to follow this lead, and can always tailor your campaign to a world that your players are already familiar with. In my brother’s case, he’s a writer who made his own world, but for someone else this can easily be Middle-Earth or the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard’s Conan books. The D&D Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide actively encourage modifying published adventures to appeal to your players’ favorite settings, in fact, and not only will this potentially help to decrease the amount of lore you need to explain as a Dungeon Master, but it’ll also help keep the attention of everybody listening to you. Because who wouldn’t want to insert themselves into their favorite bit of genre fiction as a legendary figure? In many ways, the whole point of D&D is to give people a framework to do that!

3) If you’re DMing for someone who doesn’t have much time to play, remember that a linear campaign is not necessarily a bad thing, and simplify the more complicated rules - making stuff up whenever necessary!

On page six of the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, there’s a whole section entitled “Know Your Players,” which is all about altering your game to appeal to the personalities at your table. If you’re DMing for people who like acting and appreciate in-depth stories, give them plenty of role-playing opportunities and narrative twists, for instance, and if you’re dealing with folks who’d rather just make their characters look cool, try having them fight lots of monsters who reward snazzy armor and weapons. 

There should really be a sub-section there entitled “How to run a game for players who are low on time.” Because that’s my brother in a nutshell. He’s a late 30s dude who works a demanding job and has two small children to take care of, one of whom is barely half a year old. (You can hear my nephew gurgling in the background in a few of our videos, and sometimes we’d even have to stop playing when the baby woke up from a snooze, which is a situation that I’m sure all new parents can relate to.) I know for a fact that my brother is also the type of guy whose eyes will glaze over when presented with a lot of complicated rules - as is probably the case for anyone who only has at most an hour or two, often in the late evening, to sit down to play a game when the rest of the family is in bed. 

In my opinion, the way to tailor your game to such a player is to make a brisk, well-paced story that they can actually see to a satisfying conclusion. This means that the campaign might be fairly linear - a word which seems to have bizarre negative connotations to some D&D players out there, who are always ranting about “railroading,” which is when a DM puts players down a predetermined path without any wiggle room. I think it’s important to note that “linear” does NOT necessarily equate to “railroading,” however, and that a sprawling campaign with a trillion different outcomes and choices to make at every interval isn’t necessarily the best approach for someone who can only play a little bit each week and might get bored if they feel like they aren’t making tangible progress. 

Let me put it this way - the campaign that I made for my brother was tightly designed. Instead of giving Lester and Claudia a vast landscape to explore, everything was confined to the city of Tartec, and I made an effort to nudge the characters towards certain objectives that they had to complete in order to solve the mystery, such infiltrating a manor house in the upper class section of town. But I also made sure to flesh out these few areas (quality over quantity) and allowed a certain degree of freedom in how the objectives could be cleared. For instance, I initially thought that Lester and Claudia might sneak into the manor house through the sewers. But as I was brainstorming strategies with my bro, the topic of disguises came up, because Claudia owned a disguise kit. And eventually we decided to infiltrate the party with Lester masquerading as a nutty old lady and Claudia as his keeper, which was a fun improvisation that I never would’ve anticipated - but still a viable way to complete the main objective that didn’t negatively impact the story’s pacing. 

On the topic of keeping the pace of the story brisk for a player low on time, I feel like it’s also important to minimize the number crunching and reduce D&D’s more complicated rules whenever possible. In practice, this meant that I took care of as much behind-the-scenes stats management as possible so my bro wouldn’t have to, though I did always try to explain to him what was going on (and what all of those funky dice rolls meant) so he’d have some understanding of the game’s mechanics. Also, whenever we were in a situation where I wasn’t sure of a rule, instead of wasting time looking at the Player’s Handbook, nine times out of ten I’d just make something up on the fly. For example, our adventure had a friendly NPC orangutan in it (specifically chosen because I know my brother likes backflipping primates) and she was supposed to be a super strong, unpredictable force of nature in the final battle. I’d lost the stats that I’d used for her when she first appeared, and instead of looking for them, I decided to just roll a d20 for her damage, figuring that the end result would be close enough. In that same vein, there were a few instances where I made mistakes, since I’m still a relatively new DM. Once I totally miscalculated a character’s special attack, leading to a funny NPC death (which I’d expected but not exactly in that way) and on multiple occasions I flat out forgot to apply modifiers to attack rolls. But instead of going back to redo everything I’d either just laugh it off or forge ahead, hoping that my bro didn’t notice, which he never did. 

Ultimately, my philosophy for DMing is to not sweat the small stuff TOO much if it probably doesn’t matter in the long run, especially if you’re running a game for just one person whose free hours are precious. I believe this sort of approach might be sacrilegious to some of the more rules-oriented DMs out there, like the ones who spend hundreds of words arguing over damage variables on the D&D Subreddit. But I’m not one of those folks, and I’d prefer to follow the advice of Sly Flourish, a DM who has a great website where he advocates a “lazy” style of Dungeon Mastering which de-emphasizes nitpicking over rules in favor of just having fun. 

At the end of the day, having fun is what D&D is all about. It’s a game of make believe that can really bring out your inner storytelling-loving child, and in an era where very few adults are encouraged to even consider the concept of “make believe,” it can be a truly wonderful breath of fresh air. And if you don’t believe me...I encourage you to watch The Case of the Almost Assassination and try not to crack up at some of the situations that Lester LeFoe and Claudia Copperhoof found themselves in. :)

The pics above are either art that I assembled for our adventure or screenshots that I took while we were playing! The little figurines I designed via HeroForge.