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lit-in-thy-heart · 3 years

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you know what, what's the point of being on this platform if you don't get to bellow into the void about your interests in the hope of finding someone with the same interest?

in light of this, let me inflict a lowdown of the victorian literature (mostly novels because poetry is difficult to collate) that i've read for my module this year upon my mutuals

i'll do a separate one for vampire novels and reblog with the link

because what are the victorians without vampires? straight

bleak house (dickens): what a ride that was! yes, it was nearly a thousand pages and, yes, some chapters i was like can we move on please, but that's dickens for you. honestly, i loved it. if you're looking for thinly-veiled lesbianism, this is the book for you (esda all the way, if they even have a ship name). unfortunately i already knew one of the plot twists due to watching dickensian five years before, but there are plenty more to go around! if you can get through the first chapter describing nothing but fog and the law courts, you're in for one hell of a treat -- just don't google anything about it until you've finished because you will get spoiled (or don't share a house with me, where i'll tell you the entire plot as i'm reading it). definitely recommend, but marking it down for the heteronormativity with allan. (9.5/10)

villette (c. brontë): where to fucking start. i, quite frankly, do not care for charlotte brontë, and when reading the earlier novel agnes grey by anne, i could see some more things that charlotte has filched for this travesty. no victorian novel is going to be without problems, but this one was xenophobic, ableist and, of course, racist. the protagonist doesn't really give anything away, which is meant to make her more mysterious, but it just renders her an empty vessel. oh, and she tells you stuff that she's figured out waaaaaay after she says she's figured it out, a bit like she's allowing you to feel smart for making a connection before going 'oh yeah i knew that like twelve chapters ago, keep up'. some of the passages are really striking and there's maybe one character who's likeable but that's about it. i'd say it's more a story of omission than repression tbh. (4/10)

janet's repentance (eliot): wait, have i even finished this? no, no, i have not. it's fine, i wasn't going to tell you the ending anyway. i did get hooked eventually, there were just a LOT of names thrown around in the first few chapters, and a word that i didn't know was used frequently (turns out it was a name for the followers of this guy). i did get strong hester prynne/arthur dimmesdale vibes from some of the main characters, but janet is a very sympathetic character which, after reading villette, was nice. slightly depressing in some places, but a good enough read if you're not cramming it in the day before your tutorial, because it is mildly dense. (7/10)

the wonderful adventures of mrs seacole in many lands (seacole): not what i'd been expecting to read on my module, what with it being a biography, but enjoyable nonetheless. horrible histories lied to me, though, she was in her 40s/50s when she treated people in the crimean war, not in her 20s, but that's minor. it was actually quite funny??? like she was very reluctant to give away to give away her age and almost slipped up a couple of times, and also made some very biting remarks about people who were passing comment on her skin colour. for a biography, it wasn't hugely biographical, in that she was married for what seemed all of five minutes before her husband died, when in fact they were married for several years, but if you want an in-depth depiction of war, this is for you. not what i'd usually read, but some of the descriptions are so vivid that it does read like a novel in places, though sometimes the descriptions were so detailed that i did tune out at odd intervals. (9/10)

the happy prince and other stories (wilde): if you're feeling low, don't read these. don't. especially not 'the nightingale and the rose', because that was honestly heartbreaking. really well-written, some passages were just beautiful, i just wasn't in the right headspace to fully appreciate it. it also has a lot of death, i should probably explicitly say that. (8/10)

agnes grey (a. brontë): chef's kiss, honestly. if i'd read this last year then i think it definitely would have hit a lot harder, what with agnes moving away from home for the first time and struggling with loneliness around people who she is different from. beautifully written, i'm irritated at myself for not reading it sooner, even though i've owned a copy for about four years or so. agnes does come across as a bit wet sometimes, but those moments are rare and far between, she's overall a resilient character who is trying to make her own way in the world. seeing as i managed to get through the whole thing and didn't lose focus on what i was reading, i rate it higher than jane eyre (which is a rip-off of this anyway). we stan anne. though i am marking it down for the underdeveloped romantic relationship that just pops up (9.5/10)

now for some old classics that weren't taught on my module, but i can't not mention them

a tale of two cities (dickens): this was my first dickens book and oh my word what a book. yeah, okay, lucie is a bit of a wet dishcloth and has basically no personality, but there is definitely something there between her and her maid. sydney is my baby and oh so gorgeously dramatic ("you have kindled me, heap of ashes that i am, into fire"), which was perfect for the pangs of unrequited love. the plot is slightly confusing, and you don't really understand everything until right near the end, but i loved finding parallels in the chapters set in france with the chapters set in britain. oh and the showdown between miss pross and madame defarge is wonderful. i had a tradition of reading it on the run-up to christmas, just because that was the period when i read it for the first time, but i haven't done that for the past two years just because of exams and stuff. now, bleak house just pips it at the post, but i still love it dearly. (9/10)

wuthering heights (e. brontë): i couldn't review victorian literature and not include this. there are very strong similarities between this and villette (seems charlotte really drew on her sisters' work), particularly in terms of me not liking a single one of the characters except hareton. everyone is called cathy. literally. and heathcliff/cathy one is a toxic ship that should not be boarded. it is obsession, not love. the second volume is basically a repeat of the first one, thus showing that humanity will never move past its vices and will be caught in a vicious cycle of self-destruction for the rest of time. again, though, beautifully and vividly written. the characters are the type that you love to hate. (8/10)

the tenant of wildfell hall (a. brontë): what. a. book. this was a book that was simultaneously loved and condemned as scandalous when it came out. there's mystery, there's a woman escaping a horrible situation and making her own living, and there's a well-developed relationship! and the characters are likeable (i love rose, she's great, completely goes off at her brother when she has to do things for him all the time), which always puts it onto a winner. there's one chapter with gilbert that i have to skip just because i hate what he does in it. there are quite a lot of religious references, with redemption playing a huge part in the novel, but even the religious views brontë expresses went against a lot of the teachings of the anglican church at the time. do i even need to say that it's beautifully written if it's anne? marking it down for gilbert's behaviour and arguable control of helen's narrative. (9.5/10)

far from the madding crowd (hardy): i love this book. a little more uplifting than tess but still with the drama and murder you'd expect from hardy. maybe my review is influenced by my tiny crush on bathsheba: she's not the best role model but damn what a woman. gabriel isn't quite bae but i love him all the same, i'm so glad he's happy in the end. (9/10)

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iheartsunset · 4 years

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I love your headcannons they're (chef kiss), also do you have headcannons of my boi Connor? 👀

Papa Louie Connor HCs

(Ack you’re one of my favorite people on here and to hear you compliment my stuff is just 💕👌🏽 here’s some hcs for you my friend)

-Connor Grant is an 18 year old high school student and convenience store worker who lives with his newly remarried parents and his younger half brother, Peter Grant, who prefers to go by “LePete”. As the star basketball player at Burgerburgh High and best friend of the famous track star, Lisa Pereira, Connor is highly regarded among the townspeople for every championship he wins. Connor dreams of going pro, but he secretly wants to pursue a career as a playwright, though he is discouraged by his father’s encouragement of toxically masculine behaviors.

-Connor’s a true athlete, one that’s energetic and gung ho, always capturing the crowd’s attention with his confidence and encouragement. He likes to present himself as tough per his parents’ directions, but he’s actually real soulful and sensitive. Like a lot of times he’s shy and artistic, but he only does this when he’s alone or with Lisa. He tries to connect with his younger brother, but LePete’s jealousy of him has put a wedge in their relationship, leading to Connor also hating his parents’ expectations for them. He just wants to break free, like he’s soaring, flying, like there’s not a star in heaven that he can’t reach. He wants to bop to the top, be fabulous, to always bet on it, and find something that could be the start of something new. To also get his head in the game, but still not stick to the status quo.

-He and Lisa have lived down the street from each other their whole lives. They became best friends since Marty babysat both of them at the same time when they were 8. They both exercise together regularly, hang out at each others’ work, and even cheer each other on at games. Connor even breaks into the loudspeaker to play her favorite songs to make her run faster, and she does the same for his basketball games (except with the high school musical soundtrack). Connor even stalked- I mean observed Allan to scope out whether or not he’d be good for Lisa (he was). She’s one of the only ones who supports him becoming a writer. Anyways they totally still wear friendship bracelets, like the rubber band ones from the Cra-Z loom (anyone else remember those?).

-Whenever LePete runs away to sneaks out, Connor and Lisa will haul ass all over the continent to bring him home safely, mostly going to Calypso Island to find him hanging with his military bound mother or in Oniontown with his friends, Sarge Fan, Radlynn, Greg, Iggy, and Yippy, but he goes all over the place. He’s mostly overprotective of LePete, even though LePete doesn’t seem to like him at all. LePete will still piggyback Connor and hang around him and Lisa though, so maybe they’ll end up getting along in the future.

-Connor displays interest in both musicals and traditional plays. He’s mostly into modern musicals and contemporary plays, though, as opposed to Koilee and Carlo Romano’s shared love of classic musicals and Shakespeare. As in, he cries over works like Hamilton and Hadestown at least twice a day. They’ve also inspired him to write many of his own plays, which he helps Allan with as well since he’s the co-writer of the Grease remake. As for performing, he’s great at acting and can sing alright, but that’s okay since he prefers to direct and write anyways .

-Burgerburgh is a very close knit town, so he thinks of lots of the other citizens as his family. Look up the list of Burgerburgh residents, that’s everyone he loves more than his parents, just add LePete and Allan somewhere there. Anyways, they also love him very much, but can he please stop randomly bursting into song?

-He’s one fo the few characters to actually have a car instead of relying on airplanes and public transportation. He does this so that he and his passengers could jam out to musicals without being judged.

-He actually sucks at NBA video games. Even through they’re all about basketball, he can’t beat them unless he looks up cheats online. Tohru actually almost took a train to Burgerburgh just to punch him in the face for this, but luckily decided that staying inside and playing more video games was a better option.

-His favorite movie is definitely Space Jam. He’s seen it about 400 times and still somehow never gets sick of it. His DVD copy of it is one of his most prized possessions.

-He likes to give advice to his friends and teammates about not suppressing their emotions, acting like jerks, or disliking feminine things since he knows that lots of people force those ideas onto them. He’ll also stay up all night with them to hear them talk about their issues or help them with schoolwork. Connor’s just an amazing sweetheart honestly and we stan.

-His hair is very tall and is also thick enough to hide stuff in. He and Lisa used to hide snacks or their cell phones in his hair so that they could eat in the movies or sneak their phones into class. Now that she’s in college and he’s still in high school , Lisa can’t do the second one as much anymore, but she’ll still avoid paying for butterfingers at the movie theater by keeping a bag of them in his hair.

-Connor is really tall, like 6’3, so he often has bruises oh his forehead from hitting the tops of doorways or the shower heads.

-I love Connor so much since I also love basketball, but Ig I don’t really have too many headcanons for him taht don’t revolve around Lisa or LePete...oh well I still love him 💕

#flipline studios #papa louie #flipline #my hcs #Connor #space jam is the superior movie #so is high school musical #lisa and connor are best friends #mention of allan x Lisa #seriously I only hc three people it have a car #like just Connor Rita and the Romano family have a car #are busses cars?

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nyaoi-warrior · 3 years

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TOP TEN ANIMALS TO HAVE AS PETS! GOOOOOOOO!

Bold of you to assume I can count. But here I go.

1. Cat - Perfect pet. Absolutely amazing and I love them so so much. Would kiss them on their perfect little heads.

2. Snake - Absolutely adorable pet. With very boopable nose. You can also have them around your neck, very fashionable

3. Ferret - Combine those two animals. Boom. Absolute squigly baby.

4. Axolotl - No thoughts. Head empty. Very cute, very relateable.

5. Corvid (Raven, crow etc.) - Like parot but if you are edgy and pretentious. You can quote Edgar Allan Poe and be smug about it. Or teach them to do so.

6. Chinchilla - Big round soft baby. Immagine holding them for extended period. Very calming

7. Lizard - My friends have them as pets and I like looking at pictures of them. They all look extremly stupid but in a good way. Friends more lizard pictures please. Plus when I was like 7 I wanted to have comodo dragon as a pet

8. Mouse - My friend rly likes mice and we exchange cute pictures. She also had very round mouse and I loved the pics I was shown this summer.

9. Parot - Like raven but you are gay. My mum always wanted one and honestly I too would like one probably. Would make pirate jokes ngl

10. Bunny - They are also very adorable and very soft. My cousin has one named Eliška bc they thought he was a female. Well he is not so now he is trans icon. We stan.

Man putting together 10 animals was so much harder than I thought but I had so much fun anyway.

#thank you for this ask anon this was nice #i like listing things #also if you have pictures of any of those pets feel free to send #anon #wafs' dumb answers

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xoxavery · 4 years

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Anyways Allan from papa louie is the hottest person on earth stan him 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

We r all allfans. Fallans. Fanlans. Help me out here

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traincat · 5 years

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It is true that Flash Thompson was not originally a bully and that later writer retconned him to be one to make Peter more relatable?

This is an interesting thing to explore and I don’t think it’s quite as clear cut as that, because it’s not like a retcon where the switch got flipped and suddenly This Is How Canon Is. It’s more of a messy canon landslide, filled with creator infighting. (In a move that I’m sure will surprise no one, just like people in fandom disagree with each other’s headcanons, different writers on longrunning multi-creator series disagree with each other’s headcanons. It’s just that they get to then make those headcanons canon.) But to take it back to the very beginning with Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s run – no, I don’t believe Flash Thompson was originally intended to be a bully in high school, at least not in the same way he later became characterized during that time and not in the way that the word “bully” brings to mind in modern context. I think it’s more accurate to say that the original depiction of Flash in the Lee/Ditko run is as the popular student to Peter’s wallflower. Compared to Peter, Flash cares less about intellectual pursuits and schoolwork and comes across more as the Typical American Teenager of the time, complete with curly flaxen hair and sweaters with his initial on the front. Peter and Flash are certainly not friends in high school and Flash is verbally rude to Peter, but he’s certainly not the only one, and, especially after the spider-bite, Peter gives as good as he takes in that department and more. I’d describe the relationship in the Lee/Ditko run as “mutually antagonistic”, and that the nature of that antagonism is largely verbal. Out of the couple of times they have come to blows in the Lee/Ditko run, there’s one boxing match in Amazing Spider-Man #8 to “settle their feud”:

I don’t think this was approved conflict resolution between students even in the 60s, but whatever – anyway, long story short, after an attempt to figure out how to pull his punches enough so he doesn’t seriously injure Flash, Peter… still wipes the floor with him.

Okay.

Then there’s a fight in Amazing Spider-Man #26, which only gets broke up because Liz Allan physically gets between them:

So in both of these original cases, it’s hard not label Peter as, if not the aggressor, then at the least complicit in these physical fights solely within the confines of the original Lee/Ditko run. I also think it’s notable in the latter scene that, though the principal blames Peter – and look at that flying tackle leap – Flash takes the rap for this fight so Peter won’t get in trouble.

Here’s the thing about Spider-Man as a series: there’s a big joke at the forefront of the series at its beginning, and the joke is that Peter’s dear old aunt might think he’s such a fragile boy, and his classmates might think he’s just another scrawny nerd, but he knows – and you and I, the readers, know – that that’s not true at all and that physically Peter’s much stronger than all of them and he knows – and again, we the readers know – that he could flatten anyone at school who looks at him wrong, and that it’s his own sense of responsibility and morals that keeps him from doing just that. It’s a very specific kind of joke, it’s an in-joke. We know it, Peter knows, nobody else knows it, and that’s why it’s funny. And that joke deepens when they introduce the element of Flash Thompson being Spider-Man’s biggest fan.

(Amazing Spider-Man #17) So now the joke’s not only that Flash, as Peter’s classmate, might think he’s kind of a wimp, it’s that while he thinks Peter’s a wimp he simultaneously worships the ground Spider-Man walks on. I’ve mentioned before that in my opinion it’s a shallow take to boil Spider-Man’s humor as a series down to Peter’s quipping in fights; the narrative itself is clever, and Flash squabbling with Peter while simultaneously thinking Spider-Man’s just the greatest ever is part of that. To complicate things further, part of the reason Flash dislikes Peter at this point in canon is because he feels his girlfriend Liz Allan is gunning to get with Peter (and she is). Flash and Liz have an odd relationship; they’re ostensibly together through high school, but essentially they’re both obsessed with the same guy in different outfits. (This isn’t actually canon, or at least, it isn’t yet, but for the sake of the conversation: I do strongly believe that Flash, as he’s been written in 616 over the years, is gay. @bipeteparker has an excellent breakdown of the subtext here. And so while I do think it’s very easy to paint Flash’s feelings for Spider-Man as more than platonic, I also think his feelings for Peter eventually get, yeah, pretty romantic. Identity porn in practice!)

Peter and Flash continue this kind of mutual antagonism into the early days of college, where they both end up in Gwen Stacy’s social circle:

(Amazing Spider-Man #37) I do think the Ditko/Lee run is very important, but there’s a reason I don’t usually recommend people start with it, and it’s because if you’re used to Peter Parker being a certain way, Peter in the original run is uhhh. Let’s call him prickly, to say the least. For all of Flash’s posturing here in this scene, if you look at what’s actually on the page, he does sort of come off a little better than Peter – from his perspective, he’s trying to defend Gwen, his friend, from a guy he knows has a history of some pretty weird behavior. I don’t doubt that the original point of the scene was for the reader to come down more on Peter’s side of things (note Gwen’s internal monologue), but from a modern perspective, well – Peter’s being a pretty big jerk in it. (Peter mellows out a lot in college, and also when John Romita Sr hits the scene and replaces Ditko on art.)

So one of the things that kept Peter and Flash from being friends sooner – and within the confines of the Lee/Ditko run, kept Peter from having friends at all sooner – is that Peter’s responsibilities towards Spider-Man and his aunt did make him initially come off as very standoffish during high school and at the beginning of college, which was the result of him being, well, just superhumanly busy and having a lot on his mind, but which his classmates (who don’t have the reader’s privilege of knowing just what the hell is up with Peter Parker) did read as him thinking he was too good for them:

(Amazing Spider-Man #34)

Flash remarks on this same behavior in the future, after he and Peter have become friends:

“We all had responsibilities, Pete. But we made time for each other. You made it clear that you always had something more important to do than be with us. How do you think we felt?” (Web of Spider-Man #11 – with a classic Flash Thompson fashion look.) This is one of the downsides of Spider-Man; because of his secret identity, even the Peter people loves most in his life (and he grows to love Flash a very great deal) don’t really know every side of him. And it’s very easy for the reader to sympathize with Peter first and foremost because we know he missed that movie/dance/dinner/whatever because there was a supervillain on the loose, or someone was trapped in a burning building, but when he can’t/won’t share that information with the people in his life with whom he keeps breaking plans, I think it’s also reasonable to sympathize with them feeling like they’re just not important to him, so I like Web of Spider-Man #11′s spin on the situation. (Flash also comes down on Peter’s treatment of Liz Allan in high school, given her obvious crush on him, in the issue.)

To go back briefly to the idea of Peter and Flash having a mutual antagonism in high school, rather than a bully-victim dynamic, while Flash looked down on Peter for not being as athletic or popular with girls as him, Peter teased Flash about his intelligence:

(”Back before we became friends, Parker used to tease me for not being as bright as he is. I wonder if he knew how much that hurt?” – Spectacular Spider-Man #148.) So there’s an interesting twist in the dynamic there, because we the readers know that Flash teasing Peter about not being as athletic as him is funny because, after the spider-bite, Peter’s far stronger and faster than Flash is. Peter teasing Flash about not being as smart as him, on the other hand, isn’t funny at all, because Peter really is that much smarter than Flash. And I’m not trying to make Peter out to be the bully in the situation, but I do think Spider-Man comics and relationship dynamics are at their best when not everything is as simple as it seems and when there are different sides to the story, and that I do really like this dynamic of Peter and Flash of two kids who just drastically didn’t understand each other, and who both had pretty valid reasons not to like each other in high school, but who ended up clicking really well in later life as they both matured. It’s also notable that Peter, while orphaned as a young child, had Ben and May who were very loving parents, whereas Flash’s father was violently abusive. In the issue that reveals Flash’s home life situation, a much younger Flash stares down in envy at Peter and Uncle Ben:

(Spectacular Spider-Man #-1)

(Venom (2011) #5)

Having established all of that, it is pretty much hard canon now that Flash was more of a garden variety bully in high school, with the idea popularized in Spider-Man fandom by like, every Peter Parker movie, and as comics moved forward with new writers who saw different parts of their own experiences in Peter’s high school isolation, or who wanted to move things into a more modern perspective. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing for Flash as a character, necessarily – I don’t think it’s in the original Lee/Ditko run’s text, but neither is Flash having a father who beats him, and while “bully is actually a victim of abuse himself” is maybe an overused trope, it comes up a lot for a reason, and so much of Spider-Man does boil down to what abuse does to people, and how they then abuse other people – or how they choose not to do that. (A huge part of Flash’s Venom run is on breaking the cycle of abuse.) I know I’ve talked a couple times about Flash being put down to make Peter look better by comparison, I don’t really mean the slide of Flash from popular boy who just, well, didn’t really like Peter into Peter’s bully so much as some later canon (particularly around the late ‘90s and into the ‘00s) that, well, didn’t seem to really know what to do with Flash.

For example, for a while in canon, Flash had a job as an athletics coach teaching kids, and he seemed to really like it and he was really good with kids! Then we hit a point in canon and it’s like, oh never mind, he considers this a dead-end job for a loser. In the mid-250s of Spectacular Spider-Man, Flash tries to get back together with Betty Brant, with the caveat that something unnamed and jerkish happened to end their relationship and that it was his fault -- but that doesn’t make sense, in part because after Ned’s death and Betty’s breakdown it’s never clear whether Flash and Betty’s relatoinship ever even regained a romantic footing, and besides we see Flash and Betty hanging out in the same company after that when Flash was seeing Felicia with no apparent hard feelings between them. And some of it’s just your regular comic book style character regression -- at one point, Flash gets kidnapped by Norman Osborn, waterboarded with whisky, framed for a car accident that leaves him in a coma and with brain damage, and then when he comes out of it he’s regressed back to his high school-ish personality and can’t remember being friends with Peter (this didn’t last but it was sure a thing). So there’s some stuff like that. And I do think a lot of it comes out of comic book writers who maybe identify with Peter a little too closely as a former high school nerd and it offers them a chance to put the jock down which -- I don’t know, I think it’s just a shallower take on a relationship that developed very naturally.

So long story short, I don’t think the bully angle is something that was really in the Lee/Ditko run, and that Flash and Peter have more of a mutual antagonism that initially stems from Flash being the popular kid and Peter being a loner who feels isolated, yes, but who also had a tendency at that age to isolate himself, and that the bully aspect later emerged as a way to make Peter more of a relatable figure initially -- less prickly, more picked on, and Flash got pushed into that role because of it. It’s canon now, and I don’t really have a problem with it -- Flash and Peter managed to work it out amongst themselves, after all -- but I do think it’s interesting how it’s changed over the years, and I do personally think the initial dynamic from the Lee/Ditko run is more interesting. Ultimately I think the evolution of Flash in high school from a popular and a bit airheaded jock who loves Spider-Man to being characterized as a bully first and foremost is a shame because Flash and Peter have a really great friendship in later canon, and that’s something I’d like to see more of in Spider-Man adaptations. Instead the bully role just gets trot out over and over again.

#peter parker #flash thompson #marvel comics #traincat talks comics #long post/#*replies

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codyfernaesthetic · 5 years

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Patreon preview

Hi everyone! You’ve probably seen my patreon page linked on here before, and I wanted to give you guys a taste of my work outside of fanfic. This is part one of my short story entitled “Don’t Feed the Strays”. I’ll be posting the next part on my patreon today. Hopefully this will convince you to pledge a $1 and see where the story goes?☺️ You can find and pledge at Lovely Little Writings on Patreon.

(P.S. I think you Millory stans in particular will like this story)

October, 2018

The coffee shop quietly buzzed around Rachel as she sat at the small corner table clicking away at a ten page research paper she had neglected to start on for her English class until three days before the deadline. She had Beethoven and Mozart pumping through her earbuds for the sole reason that she heard they helped you concentrate better. She found it relentlessly boring but did find that being unable to find pleasure in the music forced her to focus on her task. Some employees of the shop had taken to teasing her when she walked in that she should grab an apron and work overtime, one of the main ones being a creepy 16 year old barely out of braces who apparently thought she was just as interested in him as he was her; so perhaps there were two reasons why she had earbuds blasting loud dead guy music. Her furious typing was interrupted by a notification at the bottom bar of her laptop screen. She hovered and clicked over red “1” on her mailbox to bring up a new tab to add to the other 7 she had open. It was one of those automated emails from a website. Someone had replied to her roommate ad.

Kelly her previous roommate had moved out a month before she got married. She’d invited her to the wedding but Rachel didn’t go. Kelly was nice and a good roommate for the most part, but not her friend. There’d only been a night or two when she and her girlfriend had woken her up with drunken sex, it wouldn’t have bothered her if one of those nights didn’t end with a leftovers left on the kitchen counter and an unidentifiable liquid spilled on the floor; much to her clean-freak dismay. She skimmed through the reply and saved it for a later time.

She jumped and gasped as something tapped her shoulder. She plucked the earbuds from her ears and looked in the direction of the disturbance. She met the artificially white smile of a stocky young woman around her own age wearing a bright blue tracksuit; her blonde hair was tightly pulled into a ponytail, perfectly plucked eyebrows framing smiling hazel eyes.

“Hey, Rachel!”

Her voice wasn’t unpleasant, but it was an annoying spotlight of sunshine in a perfectly quiet rainy sky. Rachel smiled half-heartedly, rubbing the earbud cord between her fingers, “Hi, Macy. How are you?”

Macy fluidly pulled out the other chair and sat across from her, “I’m good, how are you?”

“Fine,” she lied.

“Homework?” She playfully indicated toward the laptop.

“Yep...I have to finish an English paper. It’s due Monday and I didn’t start on it til yesterday.”

Macy nodded knowingly, “I get it. I have a Chemistry project due next week and I haven’t even taken one look at it—“

Macy continued for another two or three sentences; Rachel kept eye contact while wondering why we spill details about our mundane failures, but then felt entirely pretentious and pushed the thought away.

“But anyway,” Macy finally said, “I’m sorry to bother you-“

“Oh, you didn’t,” she lied again.

“But I really wanted to ask what you were doing for Halloween?”

Rachel blinked slowly with a blank expression, her mind whirring to life to comprehend her question, “Halloween?”

“Yeah!” She chipperly exclaimed, “There’s a carnival coming into town that’s gonna set up in Washika Park for that weekend and me and a couple others were gonna go! You wanna come with us?”

She scratched the side of her nose and shifted the laptop, stuttering, “I, well, I...I mean I don’t know.”

“Ok, well if you want to just let me know! I’ve got one spot open in my car, we’d be leaving at seven, we’d love to have you!”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let you get back to your paper. Have a good day!”

“You too.”

Macy left the table with a cheery little wave and went off to order from the counter. Macy was a very sweet girl who had decided that Rachel was her project lonely shy-girl that she assumed had a either a bad home life or depression and needed someone to save her. Rachel could already envision the graduation speech where Macy would name drop her as a testament to her heavenly kindness. And the worst part about it was that her assumptions weren’t necessarily wrong.

She returned to her paper, wondering how she could come up with an excuse to not go to the carnival.

Unfortunately, no valid excuse came up. She didn’t have the heart to tell Macy no; and besides, she told herself, it’s no fun to stay at home alone. She kept telling herself to get out with people more, to try and make friends. This was her attempt.

She didn’t have much in the way of costume ideas, especially not in her own closet; which was composed of neutral sweaters, t shirts, and leggings. She decided to keep it simple and bought a modest black dress and a witch’s hat splashed with purple designs. She watched a few tutorials online to figure out how to do a smokey eye and concluded that makeup was far too messy for her to use in any consistent capacity. She felt like a raccoon with all the black powder smudged around her eyes, but now she had committed to the look. She sent Macy a message that she was walking out the door. At least she had convinced her to let her drive herself there. There was no way she’d be out in public without an escape plan.

The group that Macy invited consisted of a couple of her friends, tall and buff athletes who gave off an air of superiority along with their boyfriends of the same type; all of them dressed in matching Superman/Supergirl and Batman/Batgirl outfits, Macy’s boyfriend Lance, a lanky English major dressed as Edgar Allan Poe, and a friend of his who Rachel had never met. She was told he was Lance’s next door neighbor and childhood friend Carson, who was a Doctor, apparently; which one Rachel couldn’t say. Macy herself was a raven, complete with homemade wings and beak. Which Rachel found adorable. The night went by at an agonizingly slow pace. She tried to find interest their conversation, but found herself drifting off more often than she wanted to. Playing games was pretty fun, she didn’t win anything, but she enjoyed not being forced to talk. She hated heights, so she told them she would stay on the ground while they went up on the Ferris Wheel. She was grateful for the chance to be alone. Macy and her friends were fine, they weren’t rude or mean, she just didn’t connect with them. She wanted to go find someplace quiet.

She spotted a beacon in the crowd. An instant photo booth. She noticed the other patrons passing it without a glance and watched it for a moment to see that no one entered or exited from the red curtain. It would maybe provide a moment to gather her thoughts alone. She fast-walked as naturally as possible to her salvation and pulled the curtain back with a quick step forward to step inside.

“Oh, I’m sorry!”

She froze at the wide-eyed stare of the young man sitting in the booth. He was dressed in all black with a pair of fuzzy cat ears on his head. He scratched his arm with a light chuckle, “You trying to hide too?”

She blinked wordlessly for a moment before returning his awkward mirth, “Yeah, is this the escape pod?”

He smiled, “Unfortunately it’s not mobile,” he paused then scooted over with an awkward glance, “But there’s room for two.”

Rachel would have normally refused and found somewhere else, but nothing about his body language suggested that he was hitting on her; in fact he looked just as people shy as she was, almost curling up into himself. She sat down silently and kept to the other edge of the booth, more so for his comfort than hers.

After a beat of quiet and listening to the ruckus outside their sanctuary, he asked knowingly, “Who’re you escaping?”

She looked at him and bit her lower lip with a suppressed smile, “Acquaintances. You?”

He sighed heavily, looking at the bottom of the booth, “Everything.”

Her heart clenched slightly at his tone of voice.

“You not having fun with these acquaintances?” He continued.

“Not really.”

He finally looked at her, “Not your usual crowd?”

“I don’t do crowds usually.”

“Me neither,” he smiled knowingly.

A beat of silence passed. They returned to their respective staring at the ground or the wall of the enclosed box. The silence was sprinkled with nervous throat clearing or sniffling.

“Are you here with anyone?”

“Nope.”

She opened her mouth then bit down on her lip, as if to stop herself, but let out a breathy chuckle,

“So, I guess that makes you a stray?”

His brows furrowed and he scrunched up his nose as he glanced her way. She awkwardly indicated to his cat ears, earning her a small, but genuine laugh as his confusion melted away.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good word for me.”

She shrugged, words tumbling out of her mouth faster than her mind could keep up with, “Well, maybe it’s fate then. Witches are supposed to...like, come in contact with spirit guides that take the form of animals. The most popular is cats. They’re called familiars. I read an article once.”

He paused, and she mentally scolded herself. But he smiled and looked her in the eyes, “So, I’m not a stray, I just hadn’t met you yet.”

This was her first chance to get a good look at him. Though his shoulders were slumped, they appeared toned through the black shirt, his smile was charming, through his slightly parted lips she could see a single sharp canine close to scraping his lower lip, his button nose slightly red from the cold, a shaggy mess of dark brunette hair swished over blue eyes that held a sort of pained kindness.

“I guess so.”

She kept staring at him. She couldn’t help it, though she knew how creepy it must’ve been. She was usually loathe to maintain long eye contact, it made her far too uncomfortable. However, she found herself captivated, never wanting to look away from those eyes. He wasn’t a chiseled jock like Macy’s friend’s two boyfriends, but there was an odd beauty to him; his jawline was sharp, but his cheeks were round, his lips were full and soft, but his hands looked slightly calloused and strong, he was blooming with feminine grace, and bursting with male ferocity. Or perhaps Rachel was sleep deprived; which was not unlikely.

The curtain of the booth slid back, and they stared at a guy dressed as a video game character that Rachel only recognized from a few conversations she’d had at school. The guy apologized and quickly closed it again.

She stood, straightening her dress, “We probably shouldn’t be staying in here.”

“Do you wanna take a picture?” He asked suddenly. He met her surprised gaze, “I mean, just so you’ll have something from your not so fun night? Then you can tell your great grandchildren about the weird cat guy you met on Halloween.”

She answered, barely thinking of what she said, “Sure.”

She sat down closer to him and leaned on him as the pictures were taken. Two of them were normal, and he suggested two silly ones, which she obliged. He radiated heat. Their clothes shoulders were the only thing really touching, but their fingers were mere centimeters apart; a fact that Rachel desperately wanted to find uncomfortable, but only felt an excited thumping in her chest.

They exited the booth, allowing the couple outside to finally enter. They took a short, silent journey a few feet away. He lifted the strip of photos,

“You wanna split them?”

She nodded as he looked the photos over, a little smirk creeping onto his features, “Ok, just from knowing myself, I think I’m sillier of the two of us. I’ll keep these.”

She chuckled softly as he tore the photo strip and handed her, her half.

“You gonna reunite with your acquaintances or find another hiding spot?”

She gave an awkward laugh, “I think I’ll text their leader and tell them I’m not feeling well.”

He nodded, “Classic.”

She pocketed the photos, “What about you? Are you gonna face everything or hide from it some more?”

He flourished his right hand over his chest, “I am a hide and seek champion, it’ll never find me.”

The tug at her heart returned and kept her feet firmly planted. She pursed her lips and looked away from him at nothing in particular.

“I don’t wanna be presumptuous or anything,” he offered quietly, “but you seem like you could use a place to hide for a while.”

She turned her head, a bit wide-eyed.

“And I am your spirit guide after all.”

A shy smile pushed its way onto her lips. They looked at each other for a quiet moment, ignoring the noise around them. She took a breath, paused, and asked, “Where were you thinking?”

She saw his chest heave out as if he just released his breath. He rubbed the back of his head, “Are you new in town at all?”

She’d only been at the university for 6 months, and hadn’t taken the time to explore.

“A little.”

His smile lit up, “You ever been to the beach a little north from here? It’s honestly the most peaceful place at night.”

She shook her head, “I’ve never been.”

He drew into himself slightly, his voice quiet, yet inviting, “You’re welcome to join me.”

She spoke again, before her mind could catch up, a pattern seeming to emerge with this stranger, “Ok.”

#patreonwriter #patreon #my writing #millory #short story

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fereality-indy · 6 years

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Wendip Week Day Two - Typical Pines Luck

I went a different direction with this story.

Gravity Falls High School

Friday October 10th, 2014

Man, the first couple of weeks here at Gravity Falls High have been fun. I’ve been able to spend a good amount of time with Wendy and the gang. I’ve got homeroom (English Lit) and lunch with Mabel, Biology with Wendy and Candy, Creative Writing with Pacifica, Lee, and Tambry, French with Wendy and Grenda, Calc 2 with Wendy and Tambry, and Cooking with Grenda. Wendy, Nate, and Pacifica are in the same lunch as Mabel and I. That leaves me with one class where I really don’t know anyone, Conditioning. Being on the track team I felt I needed to take a athletics class to keep my stamina up during the off season.

The only down side is I seem to have attracted to attention of Allan Weems, one of the muscle heads who plays tackle for the Gravity Falls Grizzlies. At six foot two and approximately three hundred pounds of muscle, his size really is all he has going for him. The nose ring he wears outside of football games only adds to the reason he’s nicknamed Bull, mostly he has it cause he’s about as bright as one. He’s not an actual Gravity Falls resident, he comes from one of the little towns that are still in the county but lay just outside the valley. Hirschburg or Ritterton maybe.

“Alright guys, you have ten minutes till the bell. Get in there and get clean. I don’t want any complaints from the other teachers.” Coach Doherty said after he blew his whistle to signal the end of the class.

I stayed back as the rest of the guys headed into the locker. After I was certain that everyone should be mostly in the showers I head in and quickly get out of my gym clothes. Wrapping my self in my towel I head to the shower stalls and grab the first empty one. When I was done I dried off and rushed out to get dressed. Unfortunately Allan was waiting on me. Even worse, we were the last ones in the locker room.

“So Dipwad, how’s my favorite tackling dummy?” he asked as he held something behind his back, as I got closer I realized it was my gym shirt and he had wrapped it tightly around his fist, “You know what, I really don’t care.”

Before I knew what was happening he stepped close and punched me twice in the stomach. As I gasped for air he dropped my shirt over my head and started walking away.

When he got to the door he looked back and said “Well this was fun, let’s do it again tomorrow.”

After catching my breath, I got dressed just as the bell sounded. Walking out of the locker I found Coach Doherty waiting on me.

“You ok, Pines? Mr. Weems told me as he left that he thought he heard you trip on something as he left the locker room.” He asked as h saw me exit.

Just my luck, Allan gave the Coach an explanation for why I took so long. Not really wanting to press the issue I said, “Eh, I just stubbed my toe is all Coach.”

“Well I hope you didn’t break it. From everything I’ve seen so for I‘m looking forward to seeing you on the track this year.” He said as I headed towards the door.

I stopped at my locker and traded out my morning books for the ones I’ll need after lunch.

“Hey broseph, ready for the Friday meatloaf?” Mabel asks as she opened her locker. She had art the period before and still had some paint on the back of her hand.

“I guess, it can’t be any worse than Stan’s mystery meat surprise.” I replied still holding my sore stomach.

We got our food and headed towards the table that Nate had grabbed. We were the last ones there as Wendy and Pacifica were already eating.

As Mabel sat down she turned to Pacifica and said, “Oh man, Paz. Did you hear what happened today in the Candy’s gym class? Apparently there was a big fight between two of her classmates.”

“Yeah, I heard. Apparently Jimmy Holman found out that Marion Albert, his girlfriend, was seeing Aaron Holtz on the side. He just walked up to Aaron and punched him, ended up taking half the class to separate them. Someone said it looked like Aaron’s nose looked broken.” Pacifica said as she sort of picked through the food on her tray. She’s told me that she no longer cared about her food meeting a four star rating but she still was leery of school cafeteria food. Welcome to the club princess.

“That’s what Candy said too. Though she said it looked like Aaron actually threw the first punch.” Mabel said around a spoonful of mashed potatoes.

“Eh, either way they both got suspended.” Pacifica said just before it seems like hunger won out and she took a bite of the meatloaf.

That there was one of the reasons I just took the punches earlier and didn’t fight back. Heck. He didn’t hit anywhere near as bad as Rumble, so there’s that also. But there is a reason that is even more important to me.

“God, I hate it when guys fight like that.” Wendy said after she swallowed her bite of meatloaf. “This could have easily been handled by talking. And they’re fighting each other and are either wondering what her opinion of the situation is, I mean maybe she didn’t think they were exclusive.”

And there is the most important reason I didn’t fight back. Wendy dislikes guys fighting. And after we lost Robbie, I realized just how short life can be and I decided I would follow my own advice from a couple of years ago and strive to be someone worthy of her love. That doesn’t mean I’m changing anything about me, it just means that I’m gonna improve the me that I already am. Oh shoot, Mabel is talking to me.

“Huh?” was all I was able to get out as a response.

“I asked if you were gonna finish that?” Mabel said pointing towards my less than half eaten tray and more specifically the chocolate pudding.

“Oh, yeah. Here you go, take what you want.” I say as I slide the tray over to her.

“Hey Dip, you still coming over to work on Calc and Biology homework?” Wendy asked after Mabel snagged the last half of my meatloaf and the pudding.

“Sure, I’ve even got The Monster Of The Cape to bring over to watch if we have time afterwards.” I say with a smile.

"Sweet. We’ll have to rush through the homework then.” Wendy says with a smirk.

The rest of the day went by like normal and soon Mabel and I were back at the house dad found on the outskirts of downtown. I took a moment to look over Mabel’s homework while she got ready for a night with the gals. Pacifica, Candy, Grenda, and surprisingly Tambry are all gonna be there. I think Mabel is wanting to plan the baby shower.

After I was done, her work was on par for her which means she’ll get a b plus at least, I grabbed my bag, the DVD, and a microwave burrito. I was just heading to the front door when my phone went off.

“Hey there.” I said as I heard Wendy’s voice on the other end, “Yeah, I was just heading out. You’re where?”

I heard a knock echo through the phone and from the front door. When I opened the door there she stood.

“Well since you’re ready I may as well come pick you up.” She said as a greeting.

"I was gonna walk, but a ride with my best friend does sound great.” I said as I walked out the door. Once I was out I noticed something, her truck wasn’t there. Turning to her I asked, “Ok, if you’re giving me a ride where’s your truck.”

“It never really was mine, Dad was just letting me use it. Marcus just got his license so dad is letting him use it now.” Wendy said as she shut the door and started heading towards the street.

“Ok, if you don’t have the truck how are we getting to your house?” I asked looking around as I followed her, thinking that maybe she had borrowed the Mystery cart from Soos or something.

“Well you see, when I got home Uncle Randy and his son Seth were there. At first I was afraid they were there cause dad was making plans to send me up to the logging camp next summer. But no, they were there to give me an early birthday and graduation present.” She said as we got to the sidewalk. We headed past our driveway when we stopped in front of a charcoal grey van. “Here she is, a seventy-nine WV Uberkreuzung Microbus. It was my Grandpa’s, then Randy’s, and now its mine.”

“Cool,” I said as she unlocked the door. I hopped in as she ran around to the driver’s side. I unlocked her door for her and she climbed on in.

“We need to stop and grab some snacks but then back to my place to study.” Wendy said as she turned the key.

We sopped at the store and picked up a couple bags of chips, a bag of puffed corn, and a case of Pitt. After that it was a quick drive and we made it back to her place. The homework was done in less than ten minutes and that was with me going over the definitions of an infinite series and partial sums twice to make sure she got them. But really the homework is just an excuse we use to hang out anyways. We then cracked open the snacks and tossed the DVD into her player. She then plopped down on her stomach while I leaned back on a backrest pillow I had bought and left here last year just for movie nights. Grabbing a handful of puffcorn settled in for a marathon of jokes about the quality (or lack of it) of the special effects.

“Ok, that suit doesn’t even have matching seams. I meant look you can see the actors neck right there.” she called out as the ‘monster’ chase a hapless co-ed through a dock of fishing boats.

“Ok, there are several potential weapons on those boats. I mean I see a spear gun laying on the deck of that one. Why don’t she go for one. Or maybe even just get on one of the boats and hide in it’s cabin.” I added after I had taken a swig of Pitt.

“They probably didn’t get permission from any of the boat owners. Hell I would be surprised that they permission to even film on the dock.” She said as she playfully swatted my stomach. Unfortunately I was still tender and I winced at the contact. Now Wendy is definitely no dummy and noticed something was wrong. “You ok, Dip? I barely touched you there.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” I said as I tried to play it off. I did not want her worrying about me getting into a fight or worse her getting in trouble fighting him in my place.

“Dip. We’ve been friends for a couple of years now, I know when you’re lying man.” She said as propped herself up with her right arm before sitting to look at me better. “And if it’s something that you feel like you have to lie to me, then I know it’s gotta be something big. You don’t lie to me. So what is it?”

“It’s nothing.” I said as I tried to withdraw from her gaze.

Not buying it she said, “Nope, something is wrong. Luckily for me I have learned of a weakness in your armor from Mabel for just this occasion.”

Before I knew what was happening she was on me and began tickling me. She started under my arms but quickly worked down my sides. I started laughing and as my diaphragm contracted during a particularly loud laugh I again grimaced.

Seeing that she grabbed the edge of my shirt and lifted it. I hadn’t seen it myself yet, it looked like him wrapping his hand didn’t do much towards preventing a bruise from forming.

“Dude, what the hell?” She yelled as she got a good look at it. “Who did this? Tell me and I’ll beat the crap out of them!”

“That’s why I was hiding it, I don’t want you getting in trouble on account of me. Principal Reeves has been doing nothing but praising the turnaround you have made in the last couple of years and I don’t want to ruin that on my account.” I said as I tried to pull my shirt back down to cover it back up.

She let go of my shirt and sat back up, pulled her legs under her, and then leaned against the wall behind her. When was done she asked, “Please tell me you at least gave it to them as good as you got?”

“No,” I said not looking her in the face.

“Wait a minute.” Was her response. She followed up with, “What? Why?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine” I said almost feeling like I was twelve again.

“Nope, I’m gonna worry about you man.” She said with a look of genuine concern, “Now why didn’t you fight back? Whoever did this couldn’t be worse than those two gnomes that found the growth crystals back in June. We kicked their tails.”

I mumbled something barely audible.

“What was that?” she asked as she leaned closer to me.

“You don’t like guys fighting.” I repeated at a volume that she could hear.

I started to get up before I felt her hand on my shoulder. She pulled me back down and turned me so I was facing her in one turn. “Yeah, I hate guys fighting for stupid reasons. Defending yourself is never a stupid reason.”

She pulled me into a hug, “Dude, I want you to be safe. But next time this guy does something, defend yourself. I mean why else was Stan giving you and Mabel boxing lessons.”

As I pulled back I got lost in her eyes again, they were so full of worry for me. A part of me wondered if there was something else there too.

“I will.” I finally said as I realized how long I had been staring turning my head I saw that the movie was over. Looking down at my watch I said, “Man, I gotta get going. Mom and Dad want me home for dinner. Tell you what, keep the DVD here and we can watch it next time.”

I leaned forward and gave her another hug.

When I let go Wendy said, “Do you really have to go. I was hoping we could get in another movie at least.”

“Yeah, unfortunately the rents aren’t as forgiving as Stan is for coming home late.” I said as I gathered up my school books.

“You want a ride back?” she asked as she slid off the front of her bed and turned off her tv.

“Yeah, thanks.” I replied as I zipped up my backpack. “You’re working tomorrow, right?”

“Sure, maybe we can hang after work tomorrow.” She said as we headed out of room.

Mystery Shack

Saturday October 11th, 2014

Well today has mostly been about organizing displays and placing some in mothballs till next spring. Soos did take one group out on a tour and should be back sometime soon, but really the season is over. I mean we may get some to come through for Halloween, but this is Oregon tourist season is over.

I was dusting some souvenirs when I felt a large hand on my shoulder and heard a voice I was not wanting to hear, “Why Dipwad, what a pleasant surprise.”

He roughly turned me around and pushed me up against the shelves. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Wendy look like she was about to jump the counter. I waved her off just as he continued, "Well I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I mean a freak like you must fit right in with all of this junk.”

“Now you can call me names, but you best not insult the Shack.” I said as I for once push him back.

It doesn’t move him much but it does seem to phase him. It seemed to crack his veneer of superiority, but he seemed to recover his bravado quickly. Glaring down at me he said, “Whatchu gonna do about it. The only good things in this pig sty is red over there and that cute lil sister of yours. Where did she go anyways, she was here when I got here. “

“That’s it. Step outside.” I say as I once again pushed him. This time it moved him enough that I was able to start heading towards the door. Wendy was staring daggers at him as I neared. In a whisper I ask, “Is he coming?”

“On your six, but he just started moving.” she responded her gaze softening as she turned it towards me. “Is he the one?”

“Yeah. There’s gonna be a fight, I’m not sure you’re gonna want to see this.” I said as I reached the door.

She pulled a ‘closed for break’ sign out from under the counter and set it in front of the register. “I’m not gonna miss this.”

I found out later that she had pulled out her phone and sent a group text to Mabel, Soos, and the rest of the gang that read ‘Dipper about to confront a bully outside of Shack, fight probable’.

As I made it outside I headed towards the grassy area south of the parking lot. Mabel was running out from behind the Shack carrying a stack of signs, the visible one read ‘Round One’. She made it over to where I was about the time Bull got out of the front door. He was followed shortly by Wendy.

“So you’re fighting Bull. Man, what an idiot.” Mabel said as she saw who I was looking at. Realizing that what she said could have sounded like she was calling me the idiot, she clarified “Not you, him. It takes him forever to get something through his thick skull. He most have asked me out at least twice a week since school started and I’ve turned him down every time.”

“Oh there she is.” Bull said as he realized Mabel had joined me, “Hey there cutie. How about after I beat the snot out of your brother, you n me go to Hermanos Brothers for a tray of tacos?”

“Kick him where the sun don’t shine, broseph.” Mabel said as she backed away and headed towards Wendy.

About that time Soos showed up with his tour group. I recognized three other members of the football team and a guy that looked like he could be Bull’s dad.

“This him?” I heard the older guy ask.

“Yep, he’s my project this year. He’s got all the basics; weird name, class geek, smaller than me, crush on a girl out of his league, you know the works.” Bull said as he looked at his dad. And with that what hope I had that his dad would help out faded. At least it looked like he had shocked and maybe disgusted his fellow team members, “He's a push over. He hasn’t even complained yet.”

“Then why is he fighting you now?” I heard his dad ask.

“Oh, he’s just trying to show off for Red there.” Bull said throwing his thumb in Wendy’s direction. It was a good thing that Mabel was there to hold Wendy back or I may not even got a chance to have this fight.

“Well he at least has some good taste.” Bull’s dad said as he took a look at Wendy, “And if looks could kill, you’d be dead son. I wonder if he isn’t reaching to far there. You ever try for her?”

"Oh hell no dad, she’s a Corduroy. The whole family plays with axes like they were toys. That’s a crazy I’m not touching. She’s the one that dislocated Lorenzo's shoulder last year when he tried to cop a feel.” Bull said as he grimaced remembering the incident, “Now Dipwad here won’t last five minutes. He’s a wuss.”

“You’re right, he isn’t much to look at. We’ll see how he is doing after this fight, maybe we can use him as a janitor at the farm.” His dad said almost pushing bull towards me. “Enough talking, go get him.”

As he got closer I held my hands up and said, “Before we start I have to warn you I have a purple belt…”

Before I could finish he rushed at me yelling, “I don’t care, we’re here to fight not talk fashion.”

I side stepped him and brought my hand down across the back of his head, smacking him. This did nothing more than anger him, good an angry opponent is a sloppy opponent.

We threw punches back and forth for a moment. I did my best to remember what my teachers’ taught me and kept my guard up to deflect most of his blows, all the while ensuring I landed mine. He still got me a couple times and I am gonna be sore tomorrow. Finally I got an opening. He threw a wild punch that I deflected, as soon as I did I brought my right knee up straight into his gut. After that connected, as he went backwards I snapped my right foot out and connected to his jaw. He fell flat.

“Do you give?” I asked as he went to get up.

There was still fire in his eyes as he stood. He rushed towards me with murderous intent. I reached out and grabbed his collar, put my left foot into his stomach, and rolled backwards flipping him in the process. I gained my footing first and as he tried to rise I brought my left foot down on the back of his head knocking him flat. When he didn’t try to rise again I reached down and felt for a breath and checked his pulse.

"You lil son of a…” His dad yelled as he tried to get to me, only to be stopped by the other members of his sons football team.

“Just grab Allan and go Mr. Weems,” said the one I now remember is named Frank, I think he's in French with me. “And tell Allan not to bother showing up at the game tomorrow. We’re gonna report that he admitted to the bullying to Coach. He has a zero tolerance policy.”

“And we’ll just deny it, it’ll be your word against ours.” Mr. Weems said as he started towards his son.

“Probably not dood, I’ve got like the whole thing recorded on my phone. Including everything you and sleeping beauty said.” Soos called from where he was standing with his phone aimed at Mr. Weems.

Wendy and Mabel rushed over to me as Mr. Weems gathered his son as he came to and got him to their truck.

“That was great man, I knew you had it in you.” Wendy said as they both hugged me.

“Way to go bro, glad to see the classes finally are paying off.” Mabel added.

“Alright, not so tight you two.” I said as I winced from how sore I was now that the fight was over.

Wendy remembered my bruised midsection and released quickly before asking Mabel, “Classes? I wouldn’t really call those boxing lessons Stan gave you and Dipper classes.”

“Not those, but Dip did use some of those techniques today. I’m talking our kickboxing classes. We’ve been going since we were ten, but Dip here didn’t take them serious until we got back from that first summer. That’s why he only has his purple belt, I’ve got my brown belt.” Mabel replied as she backed off and got into a fighting stance.

“Oh, so that's what you were trying to tell him.” Wendy said as she brought her arm up and settled it down on my shoulder. “I thought you were just trying to confuse him.”

“It wasn’t my intention but it did seem to work out that way.” I said as I try to head towards the Shack, the next thing he knows he is being hoisted up on a uneven pair of shoulders as Wendy and Soos carry him towards the Shack. It seemed Mabel was already sharing the video Soos had taken with the rest of the gang who hadn’t made it to the fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear from the Stans before the Weekend is over about it, too.

“Thanks guys but really, I’m good. I just want to get some ice on my lip and jaw and, if it’s alright with you Soos, find somewhere to collapse. The adrenaline is wearing off and I am sore.” I said as we got to the porch.

As they sat me down on my feet Soos said, “Oh, sure dood. Go ahead and take the rest of the day off. You’ve earned it.”

After a look from Melody, which carried some sort of mental message that married people seem able to do (I’ll have to investigate that later), Soos added “Hey Wendy, you have the most knowledge out of us when it comes to first aid, why don’t you take the rest of the day off too and take care of the Dipster.”

“Oh yeah, Wends. I’ll cover for you if needed.” I heard come back from wherever Mabel was at.

“You don’t have to tell me twice. Sit right here and rest Dip, I’ll go grab the ice and then we can go back to my place and try to watch that movie again.” Wendy said as she help me to the chair Soos had placed by the gift shop’s entrance. Then she ran on into the shack.

“You can thank me and Melody later dawg.” Soos said before he and Melody entered the Shack. And believe me I did.

#gravity falls #wendy corduroy #dipper pines #wendip #mabel pines #soos ramirez #melody #Wendip Week 2018

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pulltopush · 6 years

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15 Questions

Answer 15 questions and tag 15 people you want to know better

Tagged by: @pinhead-in-stilettos, thanks! :D

Name: Maarten

Nicknames: Martini, although I don’t think anyone calls me with a nickname anymore these days

Gender: male

Orientation: straight

Favorite color: black, dark green, dark blue

Book recommendation: I don’t read a lot but anything from Anthony Horowitz, Darren Shan, or Edgar Allan Poe

Movie recommendation: Anything by Tim Burton <3, V for Vendetta, The Shining, Kung Fury, The Imitation Game, Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimpson Peak, Insidious, all Resident Evils, Scream 4 (and the others), Urban Legend, All Saw movies, What We Do In The Shadows, Ghost In The Shell,...

Tv recommendation: Rick & Morty, Westworld, Sherlock, Samurai Jack (especially the last season), Stranger Things, Doctor Who, Tabula Rasa, Bojack Horseman, Whose Line Is It Anyway (1998 version),...

Music recommendation: Rammstein, Avenged Sevenfold, Marilyn Manson, Dorothy, New Years Day, Halestorm, Avatar, Volbeat, The Charm The Fury, Fleddy Melculy, In This Moment, Powerwolf, Rise Against, Bury Tomorrow, Royal Blood, Trivium, Skillet, Steak Number Eight, Eisbrecher, Eluveitie, Rob Zombie, Icon For Hire, A Day To Remember, Disturbed, Parkway Drive, Diablo Blvd,...

Coffee, tea or hot chocolate: The only one I drink is hot chocolate.

Favourite meme: So many, but probably the one with ‘you can’t fall behind schedule if you don’t have a schedule’ with the smart thinking guy :p

I want to live long enough to: Be able to visit the world, go watch all my favorite bands, go make a game and maybe start playing in a band. After that, Satan can have me.

Weird obsessions: Horror, death, fire, metal, Abandoned Buildings / Abandoned amusement parks, Marilyn Manson, probably others I can’t think of right now..

Random fact: The Hulk was originally dark gray from color, but since the printing press kept having problems with the color, the Hulk kept coming out green. After a few comics Stan Lee decided to keep him green.

Okay because I like this one so much, another fact(ish): The person proofreading Hitler’s speeches was the first real ‘grammar nazi’.

Goals for 2018: Survive

I tag my mutuals: @worshippedwreck, @rememberless, @morbidmacabremin, @restlessgalaxy-us, @reallydarkplace, @kattherippa, @another--sinner, @heavybitches, @aliceaacidland, @milamaiart, @teenedgerr, @whiskeycigarettsexfeels, @coloursandthenight, @ohiwishicouldlovemyself, @petitgrimoire, and any mutuals I may have missed, sorry!

#me #tagged #tag game #mutuals

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thelastspeecher · 7 years

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In Another World - Chapter Ten: Neither Brute Nor Human

Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Epilogue AO3

Dang, I took forever to update this fic. This was fun to write. I’ve been reading fairy tales and fairy mythology since I was very small, so it was fun to utilize a bit of that knowledge. Anyways, this chapter takes place in the Neverhuman AU, created by @notllorstel. They have some pretty rad art for it, and I recommend the multichap of it, “A Thousand Natural Shocks”, by @dubsdeedubs. There’s some good shit for this AU all around.

I’ll stop promoting other people’s stuff and get to the writing now.

“They are neither man nor woman/They are neither brute nor human/They are Ghouls.” – Edgar Allan Poe, The Bells (IV.)

Date: July 25, 2012

Dimension: AL-18/89*Fb

Location: Greasy’s Diner, Gravity Falls, OR

Weather: Partly cloudy

Observations:

This is the first reality I have arrived in where Stanley has found me. I am still astonished by it. Upon my arrival, I took to the woods, as they are relatively safe from prying eyes in my reality. However, I somehow managed to get lost, and found myself in a deeply dark clearing, being watched by hundreds of Technicolor eyes. I would have likely lost my life, had Stan not intervened. But it is not a Stan I recognize.

This Stan has not two eyes, but six

These six eyes are not normal human eyes. Rather, they glow green, and, unless I am mistaken, emitted a small hum.

He bared his teeth at me upon seeing me, which allowed me to notice his enlarged canines.

He knew the Fae in the clearing by name, and spoke to them as he would an equal. He even flirted with a few of them.

The clearing was filled with roots and other means of tripping up trespassers. I may have imagined it, but it seemed as though these obstacles moved out of Stan’s way when he arrived.

Stan made repeated references to a “gift” that he claimed I possess. I have made little interaction with the Fae of my own universe, so I am unsure as to what he meant.

However, from my travels, I have learned that the Fae come from other dimensions. Strange. Stan associates with dimensional travelers, and is also related to one.

He appeared to have some knowledge of dimensional travel, but a different understanding than I did. It was similar to the method the fair folk utilize.

Conclusions:

The appearance of this reality’s Stan is evidence enough that he is not human. As for what kind of being he is, well, that was fairly obvious. Fae willingly interact with only others of their species. This reality’s Stan is a changeling: a Fae infant placed with a human family.

Notes:

My encounter with this reality’s version of Stan was surreal. He asked who I was, and upon my answer, reacted only by insisting I leave the forest. Clearly, he was furious with me. But he didn’t try to fight me. Perhaps he has higher priorities?

Why was he so protective about the forest? He even called it “his” forest.

What happened to the “real” Stanley Pines in this dimension? Is it like the faeries of yore; was this dimension’s Stanley raised by faeries, in exchange for one of their children?

Or is any discussion of a “real” Stanley effectively moot? For all accounts and purposes, this Stanley is the real one. He has never known any other way of life, and was raised as Stanley Pines.

I should not go down this particular path of thought; it will only lead to headaches and heartaches.

-----

In the old days, parents adopted a series of security measures to protect their newborn children, or children of any other age, from the fair folk. Abduction was prevented through a number of means, from leaving a pair of open iron scissors near the crib, to surrounding the crib in a circle of salt, to hanging a pair of the father’s pants over the crib. Everyone grew up knowing the tricks of how to avoid faeries: wear red, wear clothes inside out, carry salt or St. John’s-wort, and do not wander into faerie rings.

These tried and true practices were eventually abandoned as people ceased to believe in the fair folk. Forgotten along with them were the methods of determining which humans were born with the Gift, also called the Sight. Among the knowledge lost was the fact that those who have the Gift are special targets of faeries. The Fae will do anything to keep humans out of their world, particularly those who can see them as they truly are.

Some of the groups of humans who tend to be born with the Gift are those with heterochromia, twins, those born on a solstice or equinox, and polydactyls. Needless to say, these particular humans are often blinded or even killed. In rare cases, they or a close family member may be abducted, and a faerie replacement left behind. This replacement, called a “changeling”, may or may not know they are Fae.

To humans, this entire process may seem cruel. But to the fair folk, it is just their way of life.

-----

“Thanks for visiting the Mystery Shack, come again!” The last tourists of the day walked out of the gift shop, laden with tchotchkes Stan had sold to them at an exorbitantly high price. Stan counted out the cash with a smile on his face.

Damn, I’m good. He put the money away and carefully slid out a book from underneath the cash register. It was the one his brother had thrown at him two years ago. He sighed. Not good enough, though. He flipped through the pages idly, not paying attention, just relishing the feeling. Until he saw something he didn’t recognize.

“What is this?” he muttered. He read the pages.

I have made contact with the Fae of the Gravity Falls forest. They are strange and unwilling to interact with humans, but have made an exception for me. They say it is because I have “The Gift”, and to deny audience to a human with “The Gift” is to ask for secrets to be exposed. I asked them what they meant by “The Gift”. They say it is an innate ability to see the fair folk and their world as it is. It is something I, as a polydactyl twin, have inherited.

I have consulted them multiple times on their origin, and they remain tight-lipped about it. But I convinced one of their changelings to tell me. Yes, they have changelings! Apparently, when faeries kidnap human infants, they get attached to the point where they keep the child, and raise it as their own. Incredible!

…Regardless, the changeling told me that the first Fae came through a weak spot in our dimension’s “walls”. Could the fair folk be able to assist me on my mission to view other dimensions?

Stan slammed the book closed.

“Bingo.”

-----

“All right, fairies, or whatever the hell you’re called, come out!” Stan shouted. He’d been wandering in the forest for a few hours by now, and hadn’t seen any fairies yet.

Saw some tree giant monster thing. And…living facial hair. But no fairies. Where the fuck are they?

“I’m a twin,” he said, trying to sweeten the pot. “I’ve got the Gift or whatever. You should come talk to me.” As if cued by that, a bright blue light suddenly appeared. It hovered to the left of Stan, about three feet off the ground. “The fuck is that?” He began to walk toward it, but stopped.

It leads me off the path. Should I follow it? Another of the same hovering balls of light appeared, a few feet past the first one. Fuck it. Stan stepped off the path and followed the new one.

After ten minutes, the forest began to get dark. Five minutes after that, Stan felt a prickle on the back of his neck that he recognized: someone was watching him. Fifteen minutes after that, he tripped over a root. Quiet tittering filled the darkened clearing he was in.

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up,” Stan grumbled, getting to his feet. “But you dorks just slipped up. You can’t pretend you’re not there any more!” The clearing became dead silent before getting illuminated by hundreds of eyes. Stan blanched and took an instinctive step backward. “Fan-fucking-tastic. What did you get yourself into this time, you knucklehead?” The tittering filled the air again. Stan looked around at the eyes, which were in colors that spanned the entire rainbow.

You can do this. Just bluff your way through it. Fake confidence, don’t let them know you’re terrified.

“Who do I talk to about dimensional travel?” he asked clearly. The laughter stopped once more.

“How do you know about that?” a deep voice rumbled. Stan scanned the area, but was unable to discern where the voice came from.

“My brother knew you guys. Stanford Pines. He had the Gift. And so do I. I’m his twin, after all.”

“No you don’t,” another voice said, this one with a higher pitch. “You don’t have the Gift.” Stan’s heart fell.

“What- what makes you say that?” he asked.

Dammit! If they can’t help me, I won’t be able to get Ford back for years.

“Only humans can have the Gift,” a third voice said. “You aren’t human, Stanley.” A chill ran through him.

“How- how did you know my name?” he asked.

“We know our own,” the first voice thundered.

“What?”

“We recognize our own, and call them by their names,” the second voice said.

“Are you- are you saying that I- that I’m-?”

“One of us,” the third voice said. “You are Fae, Stanley Pines.” Stan blinked.

“What makes you say that?”

“Look at yourself,” the three voices said in unison. Stan rummaged in one of his pockets until he dug out his flask. It was metal, and he kept it polished well enough that he could see his reflection in it. He held the flask up to his face and looked at himself, as he was told. Glowing green eyes reflected back at him.

There was only one proper response.

“Well, shit.”

-----

Stan approached his twin.

“Finally! After all these long years of waiting, you’re actually here! Brother!” He didn’t expect the punch. Stan winced, surprised by the strength behind Ford’s fist. He could feel his grasp on his human guise grow tenuous.

Shit! Can’t lose control now. Not in front of the kids.

“What the heck was that for?” he asked. Ford responded with yet another blow. Stan fell to the ground. He whipped his head around to face Ford at a speed he recognized as inhuman. Ford gasped and took a few steps back.

“St-Stan?” Ford said. Stan stood up and squashed down the instinct to bare his teeth at Ford.

“That’s my name,” he said, taking off his glasses.

It’s pointless wearing ‘em right now. The four extra eyes don’t exactly have their own pairs.

“What happened to you?” Ford asked. Stan shrugged.

“Eh, apparently when you get chosen as the guardian of the forest or whatever, this sorta stuff happens.” Ford shook his head.

“That’s impossible. Only Fae can be forest guardians.” Stan looked at Ford. “…Oh. Stan, you’re not-”

“Whoa, whoa, what’s going on?” Mabel interrupted. Stan turned. She and Dipper gasped.

“Dude…” Soos said in a low voice.

“Wh- how- are- what the heck is going on?!” Dipper said, his voice squeaking slightly. Stan turned back to Ford.

“This is why I didn’t wanna fight in front of the kids! I lost control, and now they’re scared. Way to go, Poindexter.”

“I- You didn’t tell me there were children down here, Stan,” Ford said softly.

“Well, there are. And now they know I’m not human.”

“What are you?” Dipper asked. Stan shrugged.

“Changeling or Fae or something like that. Not important.”

“Wait wait wait. Like a fairy?” Mabel asked. Her eyes sparkled. Stan chuckled despite himself at his niece’s excitement.

“Not the kind you’re thinking of, sweetheart.”

“When did you find out?” Ford asked Stan.

“A coupla years after you went…wherever you went. Wandered into the forest looking for help to start up your machine thing, found faeries, got told I was a changeling. Then a little while later, they ‘summoned’ me or whatever and made me the guardian of the forest. Got these extra eyes when I got the gig. Saves me money on Summerween makeup, I’ll tell you that.”

“Grunkle Stan, are you gonna introduce us your brother?” Mabel asked. Stan rubbed the back of his neck.

“Right. I think it’s best if I start from the beginning.”

-----

“So I never actually had a twin?” Ford asked Stan. Stan nodded. He, Ford, and Dipper and Mabel were sitting in the basement lab. Ford had insisted on running tests on him, and the kids had insisted on watching.

“Apparently, sometimes when they leave one of their faerie babies behind, they don’t bother taking a human in exchange. And something about you made them nervous, so they wanted someone to keep an eye on you.” Stan winked with three of his eyes. “Or six.”

“HA!” Mabel laughed.

“Thanks, pumpkin.”

“Why did they choose you as forest guardian?” Ford wondered. Stan shrugged.

“Beats me.”

“So you don’t have any wings?” Mabel asked.

“I already told you, no. I don’t.”

“Oh, poo.”

“It’s okay, Mabel, magical creatures aren’t what we assume they’ll be,” Ford said. “Faeries, unicorns, mermaids…no, wait, mermaids are fairly kind and considerate creatures.”

“What’s wrong with unicorns?” Mabel asked, upset. Ford scoffed.

“What’s right with them?”

“So, Great Uncle Ford, what are you doing now?” Dipper asked eagerly. Ford showed him the device he was currently holding.

“When I point this at someone, it reveals that they are Fae, no matter how good their glamour, or human disguise, is.”

“How does it do that?”

“It picks up on energy waves broadcast by Fae auras. When it registers them, it makes a high-pitched sound. Like so.” Ford pointed the device at Stan. It began to emit a high noise. Stan winced.

“That’s annoying.”

“Yes, it is,” Ford replied matter-of-factly. “Now, when it’s pointed at a human, it stops.” He pointed it at Dipper. It continued to make the noise.

“Oh, it must be broken,” Dipper said. Ford frowned.

“It shouldn’t be,” he muttered. He turned it to face himself. The noise stopped. They all looked at Dipper.

“It’s just messing up or something, right? It’s wrong,” Dipper said quickly. “I’m not- I can’t be- I’m a human, I know I am!”

“Kid…” Stan said softly.

“Dip-dop, it’s fine,” Mabel said gently. She patted her brother on the back. “So what if you have glowing orange eyes?”

“What?!” Dipper closed his eyes tightly and rubbed them. “No, I have normal eyes. I’m human!”

“Dipper,” Ford started.

“You’re wrong!” Dipper ran out of the lab. Mabel got up to follow him.

“Mabel, don’t.” Mabel sat back down. “Give him some time,” Stan said. “It’s rough, finding out you’re not human.”

#Neverhuman AU #Stanley Pines #Stanford Pines #Dipper Pines #Mabel Pines #Soos Ramirez #Gravity Falls #In Another World #fanfiction #my writing #my stuff #speecher speaks #a Stan-centric chapter just in time for Stanuary how bout that

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firsttimesinceaugust · 6 years

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Bob’s Boots Released – Free and Live Streaming

Well, it took some doing, but I have finally released Bob’s Boots, a collection of studio outtakes, demos and live recordings from the 1980s, a kind of official bootleg, hence the title. I had planned to release it commercially but in the end, I decided to make it a free download. I have all this material kicking around and I just want to get it out there, give it new life. Some of the production values are quite good, others not so much, in true bootleg form.

You can listen to Bob’s Boots here for free

You can also download the entire album onto you hard drive, gratis.

As I put the project together, I made notes on each track and have also written a bit about those times, when I was out there trying to make it as a folksinger. All of that information follows, below. Thanks for listening.

Notes on Bob’s Boots

In 1984 I released an LP called First Time Since August and moved first to Toronto, then Alberta and finally Ottawa as I tried to make my mark as a folk singer. I finally realized that a real sustaining career for me as a musician was not in the cards, and gave up that little dream in the late 1980s. Looking back now I have no regrets for pursuing it, but the same can be said for giving it up. Musicians need to travel constantly, and I never would have been able to be away from my kids when they were growing up. I also lost the desire to perform, so for me, the decision was a good one. (The truth is, I always suffered from stage fright, and there was never a time I felt comfortable up there.) Incidentally, it has been about 25 years since I picked up the guitar. I simply have no desire to do so, and these days my creative outlet is writing poetry and also recording spoken word versions of it.

However, while I was working as a musician, I continued to write and also to record. All these years later, I find that I have a lot of unreleased recorded material, including live stuff, demos, studio outtakes and material I had begun to compile for a second LP. Over the past year or so, I have been thinking about releasing some of it, as a kind of official bootleg, hence the title, Bob’s Boots. I am referring to it as such as most of the material has decent production values but it is not up to snuff for an official release, certainly by today’s standards. A couple of the tracks are a bit rough, but I felt the material was good enough to use them anyway.

My career, if I can call it that, was a pretty minor one. I did play a few festivals, but for the most part I performed mostly in bars and coffee houses in Alberta, Ontario and the Maritimes. Some of the clubs were pretty rough. I recall a huge fight in a bar in Edmonton one night while I was playing, and I just kept singing. Actually, I think that that was less distracting than the TV was during hockey playoff season. I also played a bar in small-town Saskatchewan that was so rough I worried every night that someone would come up on stage and attack me. There was another gig where I shared the stage with a middle eastern group and belly dancer at a restaurant called 1001 Nights. I would do a set, and then the belly dancer and her band would do one. We rotated. The strangest gig I was ever offered was performing at some kind of underground sex club when I was in San Francisco. I turned it down, not so much because of the nature of the venue, as because I didn’t think I could pull it off with my brand of music in that kind of environment.

One of the gigs I remember most fondly was during my hobo days. There was a little health food restaurant in Whitehorse, Yukon called Annabelle’s, run by a very nice couple. I had the house gig there. The terms were that I would play at supper every night, with no sound system, and my payment was $25.00 per show, plus supper and the use of their barn for my crash pad. And so I lived in a barn and had supper covered and some spending money. It was just the greatest. I did play other gigs around Whitehouse as well, including the fabled Kopper King that Stan Rogers wrote about, and a place called Foxy’s. I also worked at the Taku Restaurant with a cook who later murdered a patron because he insulted the food, one of the town’s now-legendary murders. I used to argue with the guy all the time. Little did I know.

Some of the gigs were raucous, colourful, to say the least. I recall playing the Cameron House in Toronto back in the days when it was still a punk rock bar. That was character building. There was also a gig I had in Sackville, New Brunswick where I would get so drunk I couldn’t remember the last set I had performed when I’d wake up the next morning. Some of the places I played are still there, like the Cock & Bull pub in Montreal, The Cameron House and Café on the Park in Toronto and a one hundred-plus year-old tavern in New Brunswick that is currently called George’s Roadhouse.

I also busked all over the place, from Alaska to San Francisco and New York City; Saint Louis, Toronto, Montreal, and many other towns and cities, and that was where a lot of my material came from, i.e. the experience of emulating my hero, Woody Guthrie. It was all a bit of an adventure, especially hitch hiking around the US. There were a few times when I feared for my life.

What follows are some comments on each of the tracks on this recording should anyone be interested. I do not see myself ever performing live music again, although I did perform my spoken word poetry at a festival in England in August of 2018 and have been invited back. Other offers are coming in and I can see myself continuing to do this. Thank you for listening.

Bob Jensen

Prince Edward Island, October 5th,, 2018

1. Mary Mack – This track is a traditional song I learned many years ago from an old John Allan Cameron record, and which appears on First Time Since August. This version was recorded at the Bonaventure Lodge in New Mills, New Brunswick in the spring of 1984. It was a great night. The place was packed to the rafters and they sold every last bottle of beer and wine in the joint and gave us a nice bonus at the end of the night.

2. Nova Scotia Breeze – Recorded at Rasputin’s Café in Ottawa on August 13th, 1987 by CBC Radio. While the song is called Nova Scotia Breeze, the imagery is actually from Charlo, New Brunswick, and I am not quite sure if they eat fiddle heads in Cape Breton. I am accompanied by Tim O’Ray on harmonica and Gerry Pizzarella on fiddle. I don’t know whatever became of Tim. Gerry was a Cape Breton fiddler who died a few years back.

3. The Coast of Peru – A stunning whaling ballad from England that I learned from an old Chris Foster LP from the 1970s called Traces, which to this day of probably the finest recording of English trad I have ever heard. Live from Rasputin’s.

4. The Ritz Café – The Ritz was a real place and the words tell the story, such as it is. This also appeared originally on First Time Since August. The Canadian folk singer Valdy used to perform this song in concert and threatened for years to record it, but alas, never did. From Rasputin’s.

5. William Casey And Jackie the Liar – My one and only murder ballad. The imagery comes from what I observed while traveling and working out west and up north. Rasputin’s.

6. Your Deep Blue Eyes and the Sea – First recorded for First Time Since August, this live version is also from Rasputin’s. I always felt that this was one of my better songs and I like this version more than I do the studio one did for the LP. The imagery comes from my hoboing days in San Francisco and Tampa, Florida.

7. Christmas Song – Another Rasputin’s version of a song from First Time Since August. The song has since been recorded by Zimbabwe’s Black Umfolosi and that version is set to be released on a Christmas recording I am planning that will feature poetry, stories and a little music.

8. First Time Since August – From Rasputin’s. I wrote this when I was 18, thinking back to my first big hitchhiking odyssey, a 10,000 mile trek across Canada the previous summer.

9. Fiddle Tunes – Also from Rasputin’s, Gerry lets loose on this one and I try to keep up on the guitar. I tried to find out the names of these tunes but was unsuccessful.

10. Marilyn – This was recorded by Peter Perkins in Dalhousie, NB in 1983 or 84 on a Tascam 4-track studio. I played rhythm guitar and peter played lead, bass and sang backup. The cheesy drums were programmed. While the production values are a bit rough on this, I really like the way it came out. Marilyn was a prostitute I came to know in Edmonton. She used to work the streets near one of the clubs I played frequently, and she and her colleagues would come in to warm up and listen to me. I wonder whatever became of her.

11. Lazy Bob’s Lament with band – The vocal track for this was recorded for First Time Since August. An old friend of mine from junior high school, Rejean Arsenault, took the vinyl and rerecorded the track and then proceeded to record all the other instruments around it. He then emailed it to me out of the blue a couple of years ago. I was absolutely delighted. I never even considered that this song could be anything other than a cappella, so I was completely surprised by his treatment of it. That was a very kind thing he did, and was much appreciated.

12. Haulin’ For Logs – was recorded at Happy Rock Studios in Ottawa in the late 1980s for a second LP that I never did end up making. I grew up in a mill town, Dalhousie, NB, and when we were kids there were always tugs on the harbour pulling and collecting pulpwood. I believe I wrote this back in the late 80s while I was visiting home. The mill is gone now, and all the tugs with it.

13. Illegitimate Love Song – I wrote this in San Francisco, a bitter song about being hurt by love, also from Happy Rock in Ottawa.

14. Thunder Bay Blues – The third song from Happy Rock Studios in Ottawa. Sandy was my blood brother. One night when were kids, drinking, we actually cut our thumbs and pressed them together, something you don’t hear much about in modern times. Sandy and I went through a lot together, including some hard traveling. He died of an overdose in his early twenties. He was an intense and a beautiful guy, but he had some demons I could never figure out.

15. Drunken Sailor – Another song recorded at the Bonaventure Lodge in northern New Brunswick in 1984, with my old friends Kevin Tremblay on bass and Kirk Guitard on the whistle.

16. Daddy’s Little Boy – I didn’t know how to fit this one in, so I’m calling it a bonus track. When my first child was born, I would rock him and sing to him. Over time, I made up this little song, which I ended up singing to all three of my kids. It was recorded on a $200.00 ZOOM H2N mic in my office in 2018. It is nothing like anything else I ever wrote, but because of what it is and how it came to be, I think it is, in a way, music in its purest form, an expression of love for a child, created to comfort him. Music doesn’t get any more real than that.

Recording Information

Tracks 1 and track 15 were recorded live on a Tascam 4-track studio at the Bonaventure Lodge in New Mills, NB in the spring of 1984 by Peter Perkins. Track 15 features Kevin Trembly on bass and Kirk Guitard on whistle.

Tracks 2 through 9 were recorded live at Rasputin’s Café in Ottawa on August 13th, 1987 by CBC Radio and used under license and with kind permission.

Track 10 was recorded on a Tascam 4-track studio by Peter Perkins in Dalhousie, NB 1983. Bass guitar, lead solo and backing vocals by Peter Perkins.

Track 11 was originally recorded a cappella for the LP, First Time Since August, which was released in 1984. Rejean Arsenault produced this version of the track and played all the instruments on it as well, in Quebec in 2015. Original a cappella vocal track was recorded at Son Art Studio in Campbellton, NB in 1983 by Daniel Beaulieu.

Tracks 12, 13 and 14 were recorded at Happy Rock Studios in Ottawa by Ross Murray in the mid to late 1980s

Track 16 was recorded by Bob Jensen on a ZOOM H2N Handy Recorder digital mic in 2018

All tracks written and copyright by Bob Jensen except for tracks 1, 3, 9 and 15, all of which are traditional and in the public domain.

Bob Jensen’s music is published by SGO in Salisbury, UK. The SGO catalogue is represented globally by BMG. For more information please call +44 (0)1747 871563 or email [email protected]

Cover designed by Bob Jensen and Jon Weaver

Special thanks to Jon Weaver, a trusted colleague and a valued friend

First Time Since August is distributed by CD Baby and Amazon.com

#music #folk music #singer-songwriters #bootlegs

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