#I BASICALLY PREDICTED IT I WAS LIKE ’what if john just bought him new ear defenders what then’

[littleoceanbabe]

john getting sherlock ear defenders that are personalized, both with sherlock’s initials and john being quick to point out the pun it makes is something that can be so so important to me, actually. john is so unbelievably sweet, understanding, and accommodating it’s absolutely wonderful to see. i love this podcast ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[mendesforpresident]

Sunflowers & Roses

Its been a while, but I’ve brought this unedited piece and I may have a Part 2 to “What’s a title Idk”. So watch out for that and I’ll be back. Also try and leave feedback it would be a tremendous help<3

The day had been boring. Busy but boring and spending time with your best friend seemed like the only enjoyable part of the day. Time dragged on at work and even lunch break felt slow. You didn’t like it at all. It felt as though life was stopped and you were walking through molasses. But the minute you got off work, time began to move again and go at lightning speed until you found yourself in your kitchen pouring chips into a bowl while Shawn sat on the couch chatting your ear off about his day. 

“Andrew’s really pushin it with the recording. I love the guy and I love the music but being trapped in a small studio with the same people for days on end could drive anyone crazy. This album needs to get out soon, with the festival run in summer I don’t think I would have the time to release it. So he’s right but I need a break. You understand, right?” he lamented to you from the living room. 

“Oh yes I totally understand the problems of a 19 year old world renowned pop star” you responded.

“You aren’t helping me with that sarcastic mouth of yours.” he chirped back.

“Really I couldn’t tell” You tested just to see his reaction.

“Stop it.” He ended the argument with a playful smile. You laughed menacingly as you dropped onto the couch beside him and handed him the bowl. You both just looked at each other for a second and studied each others faces. It was something the two of you had just began doing recently. Studying each other, you’d known each other for a long time but you were both changing so quickly. So you felt like there was always something new to see. 

“I put up some new posters in my room, if you wanna come see. There’s a few that would fit on my walls if you wanna claim them for your own.” You said getting up from the couch to break the silence. “Bring the chips with you” you finished as you made your way into your bed room with Shawn trailing behind you. You had put up a John Lennon poster and a David Bowie poster. Your walls had seemed bare and it didn’t hurt to add something. The knick-knacks cluttering your shelves just weren’t doing it for you anymore. 

“Oh guess what. I’m keeping you in business, buddy” You said while making your way over to your vinyl record collection.

“What do you mean?” Shawn replied lying down on your queen bed, basically covering the entire expanse of the mattress. 

“Okay, so I was at that music store on 5th street and there’s that section of upcoming artists, right. So I’m looking through and I found like Khalid and Hailee Steinfield and Camila and Julia Michaels and Sam Smith even though he’s been around for a few years but then he went away for awhile. Anyways so I’m flipping through that section and guess who I found? YOU. Everyone’s favorite Canadian boy. So I bought your Unplugged album and because I’m the bestest most supporting friend ever, I already had all your other albums on vinyl. And now my collection is complete. May I just say that you already sounded sooooo good on the unplugged album but when you match it with a record player oh boy its incredible.” You finally finished talking, grabbed all the Shawn vinyls that you owned and brought them over to Shawn who was by now sitting up on the bed. He looked over the albums quietly, almost memorized by seeing his work, his words in person on an album. 

“I’d never taken the time to listen to them on vinyl. If I’m being honest, I barely listen to my music at all unless I have to. Makes me uncomfortable, I mean I’m proud but it’s just weird to hear my voice and see other peoples reactions.” He said, leaving you in shock.

“You’ve never heard this album?!? You have to-I have to-I’m playing it. You sound beautiful, your voice is incredibly unique. I’m sure you already know that but-REALLY you’ve never taken the time to listen to this album on vinyl? You’re crazy.” You said, quickly picking up the vinyl from where he had placed it on the bed next to him. You pulled it out of it’s cover carefully so you wouldn’t get it dirty. Placed it on the turn table and put the needle down. The sound that emitted from the speakers of your record player was indeed beautiful. You looked over your shoulder to see Shawn blushing. He looked embarrassed but proud and confident cause he knew that in the company of his best friend there was no room for embarrassment. You just stood by the record player and quietly drummed your fingers to the beat of the songs playing on the vinyl. You could hear Shawn humming behind you on the bed. As the songs went by you soon found your self having to flip over the record player. Roses slowly began playing.

“It’s not that I’m afraid I’m not enough for her

It’s not that I can’t find the words to say

But when she’s with him she seems happier

And I don’t wanna take that away”

This song evoked emotion in you. It always had and it probably always will. You didn’t know why but it just did. If it was the incredible lyrics or angelic singing, everything about the song brought on emotions. You began to feel tears pricking up in your eyes. But you quickly pushed them away because there was no reason to be crying. It made you think about Shawn and the way you felt about him. It always scared you when you felt jealousy from seeing him with other girls. And you could tell he felt the same when the roles were reversed. It was weird between you two and the thought it made you sick. You pushed the thoughts away and began to immerse yourself into the song once again.

“You can tell me to stop if you already know 

But I’m not sure that my heart could take it

And the look on your face says don’t let me go..?”

You heard a creak of the floor boards, which brought you from your thoughts and the music. You turned to see Shawn towering over you. The sun from the windows coming in and lighting up his curls and causing his skin to glow. His frame was built and large but also thin and lean. He looked like a Greek god. You studied his features till you made it to his face where you saw that he wasn’t studying you back. He was bashfully looking down at his hands. Your eyes slowly followed to see a sunflower in his grip. You took in a sharp breath as his eyes met yours and he smiled. He took a step closer to you and reached behind you to take the needle off the record. Leaving the room completely silent. You realized he had taken the sunflower from the vase on your bedside table while you were lost in your head. 

“It may not be a rose but um I know that you don’t really like roses anyways. You think they’re unoriginal and-” 

“predictable” you said simultaneously.

“Uh yeah. I don’t really know how to say this but…I guess-um I guess that this sunflower is kinda like my rose for you. Cause it’s different and beautiful like you. And you mean the world to me, you’re the greatest person in my life. When we’re together I feel like the better me-you’re the better half of me. And even when we’re not together I barely stop thinking about you. When I think of you my mind goes wild. When I think of you I’m happy. You make me happy and I wanna be happy. And I don’t ever wanna lose you. You matter to me and I love you, okay. I love you. I love you so much. I’ve loved you since we’ve met. At the time I guess I didn’t know it but I do now and that’s all that matters. So this is my rose for you and I want you to let it grow. I really do.” He said. Biting his lip in anticipation because he just poured his heart out to you. Giving the sunflower out to you.

“Yes.” You responded, unable to get your mouth and mind to work.

“Yes what?” He asked in slight panic.

“Jesus just kiss me Shawn.” You said, accepting the flower from him and into your hands. Looking up at him. He cupped your face in his large hands and connected his lips to yours. You grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him in closer to you. You felt alive. Lightning coursed through your veins. His lips were soft and sweet. Like him. It was befitting. His hands felt rough against your cheeks from the years of guitar playing. You’d never been so happy. His scent encasing you. You were on fire. And he smiled, the smile had caused the kiss to end.

“So that’s a yes?” 

“Of course it is, Mendes”

-it is like 3 AM ladies i am not ok gn loves

[youhatedspain]

APRIL

At the beginning of April my aunty comes to visit from Spain, and we book a table at the cafe on the beach for lunch. They have a jazz band on. My dad sits at the end of the table wincing and asking all the wait staff to repeat themselves every time they speak, angry at the music he is accidentally experiencing.

When we get home from the accidental jazz brunch I walk to Maria’s to have book club, and we talk about Shrill sitting in her garden while the sun starts to disappear.

My dad and his girlfriend are going to visit my aunty in Spain in May. My dad’s girlfriend wants to buy some summer clothes, so we all go to Boscombe and walk around amongst brightly coloured T-shirts with flamingos on them and twenty sizes of green khakis and glittery tops for kids until she settles on a few things to try on. A smock dress, a pair of beige linen trousers, a button up shirt. Shifting between two feet outside the changing room, my aunty and I decide that shopping for someone else is markedly better than shopping for yourself. My dad’s girlfriend finds everything she needs within an hour, and within a five mile radius. When we’re done we stop in Boscanova for a coffee, our achievements in the shape of comfortable shoes and trousers in plastic bags around us.

At home we sit in the living room and play a game of scrabble together with the sun setting behind us. My dad turns the radio on and they play Time Has Told Me. My aunty asks who it is and writes Nick Drake down in her little notebook of things to remember.

The following weekend, Louis and I make vegan flapjacks and a roast dinner in the thick heat of the steam filled kitchen and dad brings me back a trio of cacti from the garden centre.

The next day I wake up with an abscess at the back of my mouth and a pain in my throat. I can’t open my mouth wide enough to fit food in, or chew it properly once it’s in there, so my aunty makes me a special smoothie with some vanilla protein powder she bought from the health food shop, berries, banana and ginger. I drink it out of my pint & 1/2 Hard Rock Cafe Madrid hurricane glass, jealous because of the smell of toast.

I go to an emergency dentist in Christchurch, who leans over me with facts about teeth on the wall behind him and tells me in a bored voice that my wisdom tooth is coming through at a funny angle and causing the abscess. He takes off his gloves and prescribes me a course of antibiotics in his messy blue handwriting, one a day for seven days. I am so relieved. Louis and I buy a wrap to share from the vegan deli, and I say ‘ow,’ every time I open my mouth to chew.

I’m working at the bar on bank holiday Thursday, and because it’s bank holiday everyone is there. There is a solid rush of people from 5.30 to about 9.30, then when just about everyone has gone apart from one table, a huge drunk guy in a tweed suit walks in and starts talking in one massive run along sentence about nothing. He picks up my friend who works on the floor and starts waltzing with her, throwing her away when he’s done. He picks up the cocktail shakers from the bar and starts speaking into them as if they’re microphones, narrating what I’m doing like a sports commentator. He literally is always making noise, even when he’s not actually saying anything. We have to ask him to leave.

On the 16th, Louis and I drive to Portsmouth to see Mum. Louis wants new e-cigarettes for his dad and Mum does that. She gives him a massive plastic bag full of new e-cigarettes, e-liquids and spare parts, then drives us into town for Japanese food. At about four o’clock I catch the train from Portsmouth to Portslade, where I meet Frank from work. We have a roast dinner together, her with a little black nose drawn on top of her own because it’s easter sunday. The pink bunny ears sit on the table in front of us. 

The next day we go into Brighton and I spend the whole day telling Frank how excited I am for PWR BTTM that night. Since January my appreciation has grown into a fully fledged obsession. I buy a long kimono. I buy some sequins to stick on my face. At Frank’s we get dressed up and drink Prosecco, and I feel nervous with how excited I am. We get the train into Brighton and join the queue for The Haunt, which is full of people who look a bit like us and people who look nothing like us.

There’s no new inventive or creative way to say this, but PWR BTTM are just fucking amazing. The Haunt is absolutely packed, so that if I jump up and down I accidentally stand on the shoe of the guy behind me, and if I want to put my arms up I have to do it slowly so that I can make sure I don’t hit anyone in the face. We meet the band after the gig and I am pretty convinced I make a tit out of myself but Frank assures me I didn’t. She says, ‘it’s not like when we met John Hodgman and you gave him that handwritten note!’

We go on to the Mesmerist and drink Tequila with soda and dance to a swing band, then we take a strip of photos in the booth in the corner. They’re not great photos but it is a great night so it sort of imbues the photos with a layer of warmth that they don’t have by themselves. Frank has work the next day so we get the train home, and I sit up wired and not ready for sleep until about 2am.

The next morning, the comedown hits me hard. Not the sort of physical, chemical comedown I used to have when I was eighteen, a direct result produced by a cause, but a kind of grey vague psychological comedown instead. A blankness in the space that used to be full. Full of excitement, anticipation for The Thing, then, full of The Thing itself, and now Nothing. I have breakfast with Frank, then when she goes to work I do the washing up with Adam and Joe in my headphones and I feel a little bit better, remembering that I am a human to whom a lot of things happen, Good, Bad, and Nothing, a little spectrum that means nothing to anyone but tiny tiny Me.   On the train home I start writing a poem that I am quite proud of, and finish it the following day. I send it off to a competition despite being the only person who has ever read it. It’s probably not a decision you’d be advised to make, but I make it, and I feel quite good for it.

I work six days in a row. Nothing to bring you back down to Earth quite like that.

On the 27th I go for a belated birthday brunch with Maria and we walk home through a cloudy day. I take a bath, drink some IPA and go to meet some work friends. There’s a guy at the bar and nobody knows how we know him but he won’t leave and he’s been there since five. He keeps offering to buy everyone’s drinks, I tell him I don’t want him to do that for me and he seems offended. But he’s so drunk that he’s basically not a person any more, has sort of reached that stage where the spectrum of human emotion is no longer available to him and therefore he isn’t able to produce conversation in the same capacity as everyone else.

The next day I feel hungover but good. I feel like my serotonin levels have balanced themselves out, through writing, through speaking to people, through hot baths and yoga and wind filled walks. I speak to Frank on the phone about it and she says she had the same thing after Laura Marling; a kind of crashing comedown, a bump when she landed. We both marvel at our inability to just enjoy The Thing. She says we probably need therapy. I definitely agree.

The difference between how I felt at the beginning of the month (awful) compared to how I feel now (basically good) is pretty enormous. I think I am more predictable than I give myself credit for, or perhaps more easily fixed.

This month I’ve enjoyed

READING

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (BOOK CLUB)

WATCHING

Girls Season 6 finale

old Louis Theroux documentaries.

(I watched When Louis Met The Hamiltons from 2002 and it is seriously one of the most incredible, weird, miraculous pieces of television I’ve seen in a while. I hadn’t seen it before but it takes you on a strange and amazing journey.)

LISTENING TO

S-Town podcast (also incredible and amazing and strange)

[ecotone99]

[SF] What if Aliens Just Like Fishin'?

Hi all, I recently watched a couple JRE videos related to UFOs and felt compelled to write this. Any help with tightening this up would be appreciated. I'm grateful for anyone who reads it! (Some of the formatting may be off. Please forgive me.)

June 18th, 2024

Aron University District, Tansant. Zeta Reticuli III.

“Zimp, are you watching? Look how handsome your father looks!”

Now for headline story of the evening. Has Aron Corp. overstepped Tansant protocols with their extraction teams? CEO of Aron Corp is with us now, it’s a pleasure to speak with you Magnate Xolon.

Zimp embedded an H2O onto the base of his new tank and slid it next to the one marked l̷͗̈́͌̕l̵̛͆̌̀́̃̿́̈́͝. “Yes, mom, I’m watching…” Zimp covered the receiver of his device before the magnetic whir of his tank stabilizer could be heard.

It’s a pleasure to be here, Laax. Let me start by saying that Aron Corporation has not had a single hostile encounter with…

“Have you bought your H2O specimen yet? I’ll have to come by and see it!”

That’s very true, Magnate, but detections of Aron Corp. vehicles have risen tenfold over the....

“Not yet, mom. You know, I have a lot of SNC homework that I need to get to. I’ll talk to you-”

… and for example on Wek III they’re not even aware of what they’re seeing so it behooves…

“SNC? Oh, look how assertive he’s being, Zimp!”

“Synthetic Nano-Cohesion, gotta go! Bye!”

Cloaked SNC nets are expensive devices, Laax. We can’t simply...

Zimp began scrambling out of his apartment on a collision course with his Cleaner. The machine predicted the encounter. In a single motion the Cleaner picked up the Tansantian robe and darted upward out of the way.

Jumping into his AGV and holding back a smile Zimp asked his device “How much will an H2O specimen cost totally optimized for my setup?”

“1,354 Aron; 2,136 Kezk; 85-”

“Stop.” Zimp said as his vehicle detected the elevation for arrival. Zimp was queued several stories up. As his vehicle descended the queue, he would occasionally be greeted with an Aron Corp. meeting that had put their exterior wall to transparent. He’d quickly peek inside the lavish meeting rooms between the chromium walls. Inside were Karkons, Blexoids and Tanizars assessing the ongoing operations of various planets.

Zimp looked at the spectacles as they came, but each reminded him of the path he took to be an engineer. “That is what my father does,” he thought, “I’ll be the one who improves the ships that go there... ” He expanded his device remembering his SNC homework.

Eventually at his destination, Zimp entered Aron Corporation Exotic Friends Depot. The walls were packed with tanks full of various compounds and the Curators maintaining them. Zimp ran straight to the H2O section and found a Curator. He swiped his device back to the details of his H2O setup.

The Curator didn’t mind the small delay. It was able to adjust the temperature and inject some Base Food Components into the tank as his sensors and systems detected an impending inquiry. “Hello, sir. Please let me assist you when you are ready.”

Lucky for Zimp, no other Tanizars were around to see the smile he wore as he waved his device over the Curator. The Curator processed his request and hung for a moment to ensure the Base Food Components were assembling properly. They formed inside the Base Food Tray to look like a Wek III consumable for this specimen. A tiny, scaled, many legged thing. Its exterior a dull gray.

“This specimen here would suit you perfectly, sir! It is one of our newest inventory. Taken from Wek III just last Lune!”

Zimp quickly looked at the creature within the tank. It was fascinating. Like a large black oval combined with a serrated hemisphere at the end opposite its large brown eyes -- with no lids! It had a faint blue tinge to its front and… Zimp almost sucked in his limbs with excitement. There was something orange attached to its side… Something… Synthetic. Something not removed… Something created by a primitive of Wek III?!

He quickly swiped his device over the Curator once again.

“Very good, sir! Please wait as the delivery box forms.”

Water poured out of the thousands of small holes on the inner sheathe as it shrank down to a carriable size, bringing the H2O specimen with it. When the final size was reached the holes filled and a box containing his new specimen was released.

“Enjoy the remainder of your Rise, sir!” The Curator hummed before returning to its tasks.

The excitement of a new specimen -- one containing a primitive’s handywork no less! -- colored his world vibrantly. Zimp gazed out at the two yellow balls of fire that his little homeworld of Tansant orbits. The Twins. He thought on all the different species he’d learned about in his Extronomy courses. Wek III, he tried to remember, it’s... 70% “H2O”?

His vehicle arrived in the queue and he was back at his apartment a moment later. Hurriedly placing his new specimen into his tank, the box expanded to fit his tank. From up close, Zimp could even make out the individual scales of this creature. He froze the tank for a moment and looked at what was injected in between its gleaming scales.

He waved his device, transcribing the black text onto it: 0016.

“I wonder what it means…”

June 15th, 2024

Narragansett, Rhode Island. Earth.

Another beautiful day in Narragansett. John took a look at his little white house: chipped paint, the discolored step on his porch, his hose that hadn’t worked in a couple years. “Future projects…”

He slammed shut the door of his ‘97 pickup and started down toward his Skipper’s house. The bright orange light of sunrise reflecting off the dew on the jalopy’s hood. Before he could even get the radio to a good channel he was at his destination.

A skinny man in a Stormbreaker shivered, cautiously traversing his damp yard.

“Can’t believe you’re still driving this thing, man.” The Skipper quipped as he shut the door.

“What do you mean ‘this thing’, there, Skip?”

“I heard you used to have a Porsche. Why you driving this thing around?”

“It’s all a bucket of gears, Skip. Just a box that gets me from one place to the next.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it ain’t a Porsche, Captain.”

“Look, at least I got a car!”

Skipper looked over at John with half a smile and shook his head. “That’s a whole other thing, man. Anyway, you heard about that ‘AAV’ siting up in Maine?”

“AAV? What are you talking about?”

“It’s basically UFOs. Started calling ‘em ‘AAV’s back when the Navy confi-”

“Skipper… Look, you’re a great man on ship but sometimes…”

“I’m serious! They confirmed ‘em back in like 2019 or 2018.”

John begrudgingly looked over at the Skipper. “I mean, I definitely think there’s something else out there… but if they could fly here, why wouldn’t they also just be invisible?”

“I don’t know, Cap. They keep seeing ‘em around the ocean. They even got protocols for ‘em for the fighter pilots and stuff...”

The rest of the ride to the harbor was shared quietly. John waved to another crew setting up for a lobster run when they got there.

Skipper rolled down the window. “Catchin’ some Black Sea Bass today, boys!” One of the younger guys from the other crew let out a hollar in return.

The captain of the crew waved John to park near him. When he pulled up the captain started yelling toward John’s window. “Hey, John. URI is tracking some of the bass…”

“Thanks, Phil. I’ll be sure to let ‘em know our counts.” John said as he stepped out onto the weathered parking lot.

“Heard they got some new GPS they’re putting in the ones they tag. Guess they’re tracking migration or something...” Phil heaved a netted sack over around his shoulders.

“That’s interesting. Wonder if they’ll share that with us when they’re done.”

Phil huffed. “Probably not. You know how they feel about us.”

The two shared a knowing nod.

It wasn’t long until they were out on the sea. Skipper seemed to be more focused than usual, the weather was a nice overcast, and no big ships were going to be passing by all morning. Even the beers were still cold from the last run. It was a bit foggy, but he knew these waters well enough.

John lit up a smoke, cracked a beer, and settled in for a couple hours of smooth sailing.

An hour into the trip, John was halfway through redesigning his house’s plumbing when he could hear the Skipper scrambling around at the front of the vessel.

“Hey… Captain… John!” The Skipper was pointing starboard with a look on his face he’d never seen in him.

“What? What’s over.. there.”

John saw it. Right at their destination, he estimated. A white ovoid. Hovering like a star. Was it a star? That wouldn’t explain the breakers around it… It was too big to be a star… It wouldn’t overlap with the ocean like that.

“A. A. V. Motherfucker!” Skipper wildly punched the air, keeping his eyes and ears toward the strange object.

John couldn’t get out a word and just looked onward.

He looked closer… Is that some kind of... Net around a… Cube?

“Is it sucking up fishes?”

John looked away from its center and could barely make out over the seafoam some small, black dots being brought up through the weird white net around the cube.

“What in the world am I looking at?”

Then, instantly and without a sound, it was gone.

The two looked at each other. Skipper’s mouth was agape. He unsuccessfully tried to say something but his jaw wouldn’t allow it.

“I just can’t beli-” John’s words were cut short by something ricocheting off the vessel’s railing, hitting him right on the temple.

June 17th, 2024

Kingston, Rhode Island. Earth.

Nicole didn’t know who to call. Kingston Police? The Environmental Protection Agency? “This is just such absolute… Bullshit!”

After all those meetings with her advisor, writing that entire proposal, finally getting the grant. Her entire PhD was about to be undone by some losers shooting, of all the fish in the Atlantic, her fish out of some kind of cannon? She looked at the GPS trajectory again on her laptop, tracing the upward trajectory and rapid horizontal acceleration, before smacking the table.

Some guys drop this off claiming that it was “shot out of a UFO.” Nice. How’s that homeless problem, Kingston? She looked at her tagging gun and stack of foy tags. She shook her fist toward the ceiling.

“0016, I will avenge you!”

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