#east coast pool skating

[roosterforme]

The Intern Part 1 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: After you try to delay the inevitable, you begin your job search. At least that way you'll be able to get out of your father's house and away from everyone who acts like you're incapable of doing anything on your own. When Bradley pursues you, in part to bolster his own agenda, he's pretty convinced you're more capable than most.

Warnings: Language, reader's dad has a name (eventually 18+)

Length: 3700 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Find the Prologue here.

The Intern masterlist. Check out my masterlist for more. Banner by @mak-32

Your father wasted no time over the breakfast that his chef made. You were still in your pajamas which consisted of a white silk camisole and shorts set, but he was already in a charcoal suit and tie, ready to seize the day. Or at the very least, your freedom.

"You need an internship," he said firmly as he smeared jelly on a piece of toast. "You need to complete a professional internship to show everyone that you are clever and talented and can think on your feet. You need to show them in person that your last name has nothing to do with it."

This was going to be a lot more involved than you originally thought. You carefully cut into your poached egg and asked, "So I can't just intern with you?"

He sighed and gave you a bland look. "I would love to have you with me all day and show you the ropes at Avio Technologies, but you already know that's not possible. You need to find a different department or a different company altogether." 

You chewed your food and shot him a bland look of your own. It was almost amusing that he thought he could outwit you when he was the one who taught you how to play all of his games. "Maybe we could talk about this tomorrow?"

"You already got an extra day out of me, Sweetheart. My generosity has been all used up." 

He looked almost amused now, so you knew you were skating on thin ice as you said, "I think an internship that starts in September would be the way to go."

When he set his knife down and bit into his toast, you straightened your back while he chewed. He took his time responding, and when he did, he asked, "And what exactly would you do during June, July and August?"

"There's a lot to be said for a little relaxation, Daddy," you told him in your most professional voice. "I've spent the last six years working nearly every day."

"And I've spent the last thirty five years working nearly every day. Please, get to your point."

You folded your hands in front of yourself and said, "I would be a better intern if I were well rested."

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood, taking one last sip of his coffee. If you or he wanted more to eat, his chef would make it. And you could see his housekeeper standing in the kitchen doorway ready to run in and clean up after him as soon as he left the dining room. All of it made you want to scream. You weren't even sure you wanted this lifestyle. 

"Are you aware of the stipulations on your trust fund?" your father asked you in a voice laced with more than warning. You could feel the blood rush from your face. You'd been waiting your entire life for that money, and not because you wanted to use it the same way he did. 

"Yes."

He nodded at you before he kissed your forehead. "Then make your decisions accordingly. I'll be back in a few hours."

As soon as he was out of the dining room, his housekeeper had her hands on his empty plate and coffee cup, and you abandoned the rest of your food for the relative solace of your bedroom. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet, but it was close to lunchtime on the east coast. Maybe you could call one of your friends from school, but they were probably starting internships of their own this week. You glanced out your windows at the pool, but the landscaping crew was out there with leaf blowers, so you just flopped down onto your bed.

What did you want out of an internship? You wanted it to be like school. You had no problem with hard work, but you preferred it to come with a hefty side of fun. Cocktails, dancing, late night dinners, boys, shopping. You weren't too picky about how that fun was served up, but you were absolutely certain there was more to life than working nonstop. And nobody in their right mind needed as much money as your father had.

You reached for your computer and rolled onto your stomach. The last place you wanted to intern was at Avio Technologies where your supervisor would report every detail of your work back to him. Even if you found a department that had nothing to do with what he was working on, you'd be screwed. Your dad knew everyone. He'd find out if you forgot to cover your mouth when you coughed or yawned too loudly. No, you needed to find something without your dad's help.

After you update your résumé and your LinkedIn profile, you thought about contacting that hot recruiter you met in grad school. You were pretty sure you still had his number in your phone contacts. Maybe you should make a to-do list. Or maybe you should go back to bed now that your dad was gone. You ended up lounging around for so long that your stomach was growling because of your unfinished breakfast. 

"Fuck it," you murmured, strolling out of your room still in your silk pajamas. If the groundskeepers saw you as you walked past the French doors, then it was their own fault. And honestly, you were more covered up now than you were when you were wearing your bathing suit anyway.

The fact that you had to sneak into the kitchen so nobody tried to help you toast a slice of bread was beyond annoying, but you tiptoed through the house anyway. You ended up walking around as you ate the toast, probably leaving a trail of crumbs, but at least this way the housekeeper would be entertained again. You wondered what the staff did all day long when it was only your dad here. He could literally take care of himself if he tried, but why try when you're worth billions?

You popped the last bite into your mouth and started dancing through the foyer to the song that was stuck in your head. You did a few spins and pirouettes, and then you started making up an actual routine as you hummed. When you heard the front door open, you tried to freeze, but your foot caught on the marble floor, and you stumbled awkwardly. Just when you braced yourself for a lecture from your father, you were greeted by deep laughter and amused brown eyes instead.

"Oh," you said, pressing your palm to your chest as you regained your footing. "It's just you."

"Just me," Bradley Bradshaw replied with a shrug. He surveyed your body, and you could tell he was trying his best not to react to your outfit. Or lack thereof.

You crossed your arms over your chest. "Yes. I'm still in my pajamas."

"I didn't say a word about it," he replied immediately, those brown eyes suddenly feigning innocence. 

You knew your shorts left nothing to the imagination. You were also very aware that your nipples were probably peaked against your silk top, but you kept reminding yourself you were wearing less than this yesterday in the pool. Bradley however was wearing another designer suit that hugged him in all the right places, and his tie was once again a little too loose for you to take him completely seriously. His hair was a bit mussed today, too. Maybe his wife or girlfriend had run her fingers through it, but if that was the case, then he shouldn't be looking at you this way.

"What are you doing here?" you asked him. 

His hands were back on his narrow hips as he replied, "Supposed to have lunch with your father."

"At least the chef and housekeeper will have something to do," you muttered to yourself. Then a little louder you said, "My dad's not back yet, and I hope you don't expect me to entertain you."

He chuckled. "Of course not. You look busy as hell dancing around. I definitely wouldn't want to interrupt that."

"Correct," you replied, tipping your chin in the air. "I've got no time for nonsense. Unless... did you bring your Armani swim trunks? It's a little early in the day for skinny dipping." You took a step closer to him. You couldn't pinpoint exactly why it was so fun to tease him, but he looked down at the floor and blushed a little bit before he replied which made you feel even bolder. 

He met your eyes and said, "How embarrassing. I'm too early for lunch, and I'm too early for skinny dipping." His voice was a little softer now and you bit your lip, which drew his gaze to your mouth.

"You could always come back later."

His amused smile from yesterday was back as he said, "You really are a bit of a brat."

Then your father was right there, closing the front door behind him with a flourish as you took a step away from Bradley. He hadn't moved an inch, and his eyes were still on yours even as your father said his name.

"Sir," Bradley replied, turning toward him and holding out his hand. Your father shook it before patting him on the shoulder. 

"We've been over this before, Bradley. You can call me Ted. We've been working together for a while."

"Ted," Bradley repeated, and you could tell that your father was secretly pleased by this show of respect. You wanted to roll your eyes, and then you realized that you were standing in the foyer in your pajama set at noon, and that was going to be a problem. 

When your father turned toward you, his gaze was unamused. "Have you done anything today?"

"It's only lunchtime, Daddy," you replied. "But I updated my résumé."

"You have something better than a résumé," he snapped. "You have connections. Use them. I want you to have solidified an internship by the end of the week."

"But-"

He cut you right off, and you could feel the heat rising to your face as Bradley looked at you a little sympathetically. 

"I don't generally deal with people who force me to repeat myself," your father said. "And I think you'll find I'm not the only one."

Now you were getting a little angry. He was talking to you like you just tanked a business deal for him. "I'm not some random person from your company."

But you could tell he wasn't listening now. He wouldn't really listen again until you had a job. "Once you find yourself an internship, I think you'll see that whomever you're working under won't take kindly to that sort of attitude. Now go get dressed," he said, dismissing you as he nodded toward the dining room and started walking. 

You were left standing there with your hands on your silk covered hips and your bottom lip held firmly between your teeth. Bradley was giving you a curious look as he started to follow your father. "I'll see you around?"

"Yeah," you replied, barely meeting his eyes. Your dad embarrassed you in front of him. And sure, maybe you should have been dressed for the day, but you just got back to California. You wanted a chance to catch your breath. But now you were standing there watching both of their retreating forms with a bad taste in your mouth.

----------------------------

After an uneventful lunch with Ted, Bradley walked slowly back through his house. It was really more of a mansion or an estate, something that Bradley supposed he himself could afford now if he so desired, but he was used to his condo in Mission Hills. And he just couldn't picture having staff living with him. 

He found that his head was on a swivel, peeking out the French doors to check the pool area and glancing up the main stairs to see if you were still around. A smile always crept to his lips whenever he thought about you, and it was obvious why. You were clearly a bit of a handful. Definitely a touch bratty. Old enough to know better, but young enough to not give too much of a damn. And you always made Bradley laugh. 

At Christmastime, you were tipsy and tried to get him to drink a bottle of wine with you. He spent the rest of the night wondering what would have happened if he actually followed you into your father's kitchen, just the two of you. If anyone else happened upon that scene, he figured it would have gotten back to Ted. It was probably for the best that someone else had interrupted that. 

But now his mind was swirling with information. You needed an internship. Bradley was headed off to Europe and could use an extra hand with work all summer. There would be endless meetings and constant schmoozing about the proprietary missile guiding software that Avio Technologies was currently peddling to the US Navy. Bradley was silently dreading doing it alone. 

You might also serve as a useful source of information. If anyone knew what exactly was going on at Avio regarding the misuse of funds that he was certain he'd stumbled upon, Bradley was sure it would be Ted. Your father knew everyone. He had his hands in the research end of things where Bradley worked as well as the sales end of things where his old friend Jake Seresin was currently dabbling. 

This is why Bradley was spending so much of his time here now; he was looking for information. And also for Ted's daughter. If he could appeal to your tastes as far as a job went, maybe he could get you to join him for the summer. 

"Once again, I'm sorry about my daughter," Ted said with a sigh as he walked Bradley across the foyer. "She's stubborn. Headstrong. She wants to have her own agenda. She'll make an exceptional CFO someday."

Bradley couldn't help but chuckle. "Something tells me you're right."

"She just has a lot to learn about staying in your pajamas until noon and working your connections to your benefit, but she'll get there," he replied with a wave of his hand. 

Bradley glanced up the stairs one more time, hoping for a glimpse of white silk and your pretty face, but you had tucked yourself away somewhere out of sight. "Thanks for lunch," Bradley said, holding out his hand for Ted to shake. "I always appreciate when you let me pick your brain, sir."

He chuckled and clapped Bradley on the back again. "How many times do I have to tell you to use my first name?"

"Always one more, I guess," Bradley replied, heading toward the front door with a smile. "See you at the office later this week."

Once he was outside in the sunlight, he slipped on his favorite pair of aviators he'd had since he first started flying F/A-18s and headed for his SUV. He walked past an assortment of sports cars in the circular drive before he got to his more modest black Range Rover Velar. As he drove back into the city to the office, he already started to formulate a plan. He just hoped you'd be around when he showed up again tomorrow. You were already integral to his agenda. 

When his phone rang, he took it in the car as he wove through traffic. He didn't even check the number since only a handful of people had it. "Bradshaw," he said as he pulled up to a red light. "Bradley, it's Judy." He sighed and relaxed back against the seat; his receptionist was exceptional. She could take a pile of bullshit and whittle it down to the bare minimum of necessary information for him. He needed to give her another raise. "I have a few résumés here, and some of them were dropped off by hand. You know... a few Vice Presidents are trying to get their kids jobs in the software development lab. There are also some who are hoping for professional internships. Want to look at them, or should I toss them?"

Bradley ran his hand over his mouth before he said, "I'm on my way back to the office now. I'll take a look at them, but I'm hoping I found an alternative solution to a professional intern that might just be perfect."

------------------------

The following morning, you stood in your closet and held up your white bikini. You looked at it longingly, ran your fingers along the cute triangles that made up the top and wrapped the ties around your fingers before tossing it aside. Instead, you changed out of your pink nightie into an outfit that your father would probably refer to as 'smart casual' as soon as he saw you.

But you were alone for breakfast, because he was already gone for the day. When his chef asked you what you wanted to eat, she looked annoyed when you said cereal and fruit and told her you could get it yourself. The refrigerator was completely stocked, and you loved that your dad had removed cherries from his shopping lists since you found out you were allergic. 

You swiped a peach and some berries onto the counter and started cutting them up, and now the chef looked like she was about to faint. You added them to the top of your cereal bowl and smiled pleasantly at her before you headed into the dining room with your coffee and breakfast. You'd have to contact some potential employers today. You already knew that. But you found yourself lingering over your meal until the cereal was soggy, trying to put off the inevitable a little longer. 

You bargained with yourself. If you spent the morning looking for an internship, then you could lounge by the pool for the afternoon. "Excellent bargaining. You're so smart," you told yourself as you returned your dirty dishes to the kitchen while the housekeeper bounced on her feet nervously. She met you at the sink and snagged everything out of your hands. 

With your computer on your lap, you sat on the couch and made a list of companies in San Diego that might fit the bill. The problem was, Avio was at the top of the list, simply because of the sheer number of different departments housed in the main office downtown. When you clicked on the Research and Development header, you saw a smug looking photo of Bradley Bradshaw and started to laugh. 

"Clearly you know you're handsome," you muttered, reading about him in his short bio. Department Lead for Research and Development at Avio Technologies. Fifteen years as a US Naval aviator. Retired with medals of honor and a rank of Lieutenant Commander. Leading Avio in cutting edge research for naval aircraft software. "Impressive."

You scrolled through a few other departments and made a separate list of people to ask your father to introduce you to. When your stomach started growling, you realized it was already noon. "Time flies when you're not having fun," you murmured as you dashed upstairs, your bikini calling to you like a siren song. 

Only because it would be convenient, you decided to ask the chef to make you lunch so you could eat it outside by the pool. You were just tying your sheer beach cover up over your bathing suit and leaving your room when you heard your dad's voice along with some others. As silently as you could, you tiptoed barefoot down the main stairs, looked both ways and dashed to the left toward the French doors. And then you slammed directly into someone.

"Shit," you whispered, grabbing onto an Armani suit while hands came up to your back to steady you. Then you looked up into those same pretty brown eyes as the big hands tightened around your waist. "It's you again."

Bradley was laughing, and the deep rumble had you pressing yourself against him. "Me again."

You tried not to laugh as you whispered, "If you come with me, you can ditch the rest of the suits." For some reason, you wanted him to join you on the patio, just like he had the other day. He'd ditched everyone else for your company then, and you wanted him to do precisely that again.

You tugged him toward the doors, but he just shook his head. "It's too early for skinny dipping, remember?" A rather inappropriate retort was poised and ready to go, just sitting on the tip of your tongue, but he added, "But I actually was looking for you."

Now your heart fluttered. "You were?"

"Mmhmm," he hummed, releasing his hold on you. Your initial instinct was to whine until he touched you again, and you had to bite your lip to prevent another embarrassing moment. "I couldn't help but overhear yesterday that you're looking for a professional internship."

When he paused, you said, "I am. Go on."

He smirked, and he looked so much like his photo on the Avio Technologies website, you almost started laughing again. "I think I have something that could be exactly what you're looking for. Are you free tomorrow?"

"I could be. As long as it doesn't interfere with my sunbathing," you told him, and you watched his Adam's apple bob as his gaze dipped briefly to your chest. 

Your breath caught in your throat as that pretty pink color flooded his cheeks. He reached into his pocket without taking his eyes off your face and then held a business card between his index and middle fingers right in front of your lips. "Call my office this afternoon. Judy will set something up for tomorrow." He paused again. "If you're interested."

You plucked the card from his grasp, and he smiled as he turned to his left and headed for your father's conference room. As you studied the tidy font, you wondered what he was looking for in an intern. You wondered what he could offer you. After a quick detour to grab your phone, you went outside to make a call.

You were interested. 

------------------------

Interested is an understatement for me. Offer her a job, Bradley! And pack you swim shorts, baby boy. Thank you @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 2

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[kyistell]

I'm going skating but I decided to whip this up before I left sooo ENJOY!!!

New Jersey-

Play Fights

Every region has their own thing that they do as a fun competition. The West Coast does comedy nights, where they see who can make the most people laugh. The South has what they call Hunt Offs, to see who’s the best hunter. And the Midwest likes to do cook offs, with the South being taste testers.

The North Coast has play fights, multiple rounds through the course of two days, normally held on a weekend. This includes Maine all the way at the top of the North Coast, all the way down to Florida, which allows for a larger roster.

It started as just a thing the New Netherland area did, over time it expanded to include the whole of the North East, then Delaware wanted Maryland to join and soon it spireled to the whole North Coast.

Of course it started out friendly enough, everyone tended to go a bit softer on Georgia since he isn’t nearly as rough as everyone else. Then North and South Carolina would make a bet when they fought, which had Pennsylvania open up a proper betting pool. The play fighting weekend always ended up with everyone sore to all hell and back, saying to themselves to never do this again and specifically never go up against New Jersey again.

Jersey was strong, while it didn’t visibly look like he could pretty easily lift 400 like it was 20, he could. However he often forgot just how strong he was compared to everyone else, it wasn’t like the rest of the states were weak but when compared to them, Jersey was like a powerhouse.

He isn’t too sure as to why he’s so strong, especially since he normally comes off as looking like a twig, however he did believe it was most likely something demon related. He knows his own demon, not father, father is no slouch in the strength department, and Jersey also knows that he could easily get his strength up more. 

It’s not like he wants to hurt the others, he really doesn’t, sure it’s a bit funny to have Northie pinned down after five seconds of fighting and sure it’s amazing to be better than Yorkie, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that he’s hurting friends, people who are basically his family.

Despite him being significantly stronger than the others, he never has actually won before. He always gets in his head when up against Yorkie, always ends up hurting him the worst, always dropping out after and just watches over the betting pools. 

It’s basically tradition at this point for Jersey to tend to everyone’s wounds after this, whether it’s early in the games or he and Yorkie were in the semi finals, it doesn’t matter. 

Jersey has a big heart, a big heart that can’t bear to see him hurt his family, so he’ll try to make up for it. Cooking for everyone involved, taking care of their wounds if Rhody brought a knife again (seriously he has got to stop doing that), just generally being a nicer person for a good week before he starts to go back to normal.

The next time the play fighting happens, the same thing will happen again, a vicious cycle that Jersey can’t snap himself out of.

[lovemesomesurveys]

[chasingghosts @ bzoink]

Are you the sort of person who can nap or sleep anywhere, anytime? No, definitely not. I mean, unless I took a sleeping pill lol.

Do you feel like you have unfinished business with anyone? Yeah, I'll always feel that with some people.

Have you ever been to the Statue of Liberty? No. What are some of your favourite sitcoms? Roseanne, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Golden Girls, Mom, Old Adventures of New Christine, The Middle, Home Improvement, Full House, Family Matters, The Goldbergs, Seinfeld.

Do you talk to your Uber/taxi driver?  Some small talk, sure.

Have you ever taken an Uber pool? Did you talk to the other passengers?  I haven't done that.

How cold does it get in winter where you live?   It can reach low 30s F at night sometimes and mid 50s F during the day. I know, I know, it's laughable to those on the east coast and other countries, but for California where we get 100+ degree weather a lot and it's warm most of the year, that's fucking cold for us okay lol.

Do you like to layer when you dress up?    I get hot easily, so I'm honestly typically fine with my puffer coat, but some days i may wear a hoodie underneath that.

Will you ever call it X, or will you always call it Twitter?  It's Twitter. X is stupid.

Are you a fast walker? Yes.

Have you ever skated on a frozen lake? Would you want to?  Noooo.

Were you susceptible to peer pressure as a teenager?  I managed to avoid all that, thankfully. I did experience it when I started college from my own friends, though,

Who did you last go to the cinema with?  My mom, brother, and his boyfriend.

Do you have any cheese in your fridge right now? Yep.

Do you wear earrings every day?  I have been since Christmas.

What colour was the last couch you sat on?  Gray.

Do you think your house is too small, too big or just right?  it's definitely too small. We outgrew it longggg ago.

Would you rather eat mashed potatoes or hash browns?  Mashed potatoes. I eat it smothered with gravy all the time.

What website do you spend the most time on?  Tumblr.

Have you ever had a Tamagotchi? Of courseee.

Who was the last person you avoided?  *shrug*

Do you give a wishlist to your friends and family for Christmas and/or birthdays?   My fam and I do that for each other just a few things to give some ideas.

What pet names do you use for your friends?  One of my friends is Cinnabon Delight and Litttay Titttay (inside joke) and my other friend is Baja Blast. Also, I'm Taco Bell Queen. lol.

What decade do you think has been the best for movies?   Oooh. Perhaps the 2000s.

Think about the last book you read. Was it fiction or non-fiction?     Fiction.

Were you better at maths or English in school?  English for sure.

Would you know the coordinates of your city? I don't offhand.

Have you ever sent a postcard while on vacation? Where from?  i think so when I was a kid.

Do you look up when helicopters or planes fly overhead?     >> not, like, as a rule. but yeah, I've done so <<<

What do you do when you're bored? The things I do anyway, like this.

[goldiers1]

Is Fishing on the Norfolk Broads a Good Catch?

  For all the avid anglers out there looking for a perfect fishing getaway, look no further than Norfolk on the East Coast of England. With its vast stretches of coastline, abundance of rivers and lakes, and varied marine life, Norfolk is a haven for fishing enthusiasts. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced angler, Norfolk has a lot to offer for a fulfilling and rejuvenating fishing holiday. In this article, we will explore why Norfolk is the ultimate destination for fishing holidays and what you can expect during your stay.  

Abundant Marine Life

Norfolk's coastline stretches for over 90 miles and is home to a diverse range of fish species such as bass, flatfish, mackerel, and cod. There are several fishing charters available that can take you on exciting deep-sea fishing trips where you can reel in big catches like skate, conger eels, and even sharks. Additionally, the Norfolk Broads, a vast network of rivers and lakes, are filled with pike, bream, roach, and tench. You can hire a boat or fish from the bank and catch some of the delicious freshwater fish that Norfolk has to offer.  

The North Norfolk Fish Co, Old Stable Yard, Holt. Photo by Kolfoln. Wikimedia.   The Location Norfolk's coastline is blessed with a wide range of habitats, each with its distinct marine life. From sandy beaches to rocky cliff ledges, each habitat supports a diverse range of marine life that varies depending on the tides and weather conditions. Some of the most well-known British creatures can be found in Norfolk's waters. Particularly popular are the Atlantic grey seals, the common dolphins, and the harbor porpoises. These animals can often be seen playing and swimming off the coast, and if you're lucky, you might even be able to spot them from the shore.  

Great Crested Grebe fishing. Photo by Smudge 9000. Flickr.   Natural Surroundings Norfolk's coastline is not only home to mammals but also features a plethora of fish species. The coastline boasts of having over 14 types of fish species. The coastline is home to some of the UK's most sought-after fish species, such as cod, whiting, plaice, bass, and mackerel, making it an ideal place to fish for sport or to indulge in a spot of sea-to-fork dining. Norfolk also plays host to many seabird species, such as the puffin, guillemot, and razorbills. Norfolk's waters aren't just famous for their marine mammals, fish, and seabirds. But, the coastline is also home to some of the UK's most breathtakingly expansive mussel beds, oyster beds, and salt marshes. These protect rich habitats that are essential to local ecology and provide vital food sources for the abundant marine life off the coast. Mussel and oyster fishing are traditional industries that are still widespread along the coast. Being able to visit the shellfish industry and try these local delicacies is a must-do experience.  

Coastal defence at Titchwell, Norfolk. Photo by Andy Peacock. Geograph.   Nature Reserves The North Norfolk coast is home to a variety of nature reserves that are crucial to the survival of many marine creatures in the area. The Cromer Shoals Chalk Reef, situated just over a mile off the coast, is one fantastic example of a designated marine conservation zone. This site stretches over 20 miles and provides a habitat for over 300 species of fish and other marine life. Other popular reserves include Titchwell Marsh, Cley Marshes, and Blakeney Point, which is home to the largest seal colony in England.  

Mill pool at Taverham Mill Fishery. Photo by Evelyn Simak. Wikimedia.  

Scenic Locations

One of the top activities that both parents and children can get involved in is fishing. Norfolk has plenty of family-friendly fishing locations, including Taverham Mill Fishery and Pleasurewood Hills Family Theme Park. At Taverham Mill, you can enjoy a peaceful day by the lake with your family, where your kids can learn the art of fishing and catch some fish themselves. Pleasurewood Hills, on the other hand, offers a perfect combination of fishing and theme park rides. Whether you're an experienced angler or a beginner, fishing in Norfolk is a fun and educational experience for the whole family.  

Gooderstone Water Gardens. Photo by Karen Roe. Flickr.   Discover the Broads If you're looking for an outdoor activity outside of fishing, Norfolk's nature reserves are a must-visit. The Broads, the UK's largest protected wetland, is a unique landscape of water, broads, and marshes, offering a chance to see varied wildlife, birds, and plants. Your family can also take a boat trip and explore the tranquil waterways of the Broads, which stretch across 125 miles. Another nature reserve worth visiting is Blickling Estate, which is home to ancient woodland, rolling farmland, and a stunning Jacobean house. It has several walking trails that are perfect for families and lead to gardens, lakes, and temples.  

Norwich Castle - and modern lift. Photo by Elliot Brown. Flickr.   Cultural Days Out Apart from nature reserves, Norfolk has a rich history and is home to numerous castles and museums. Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, for instance, is a gem for history buffs, housing archaeological treasures dating back to the Roman era. Children will enjoy exploring the castle's turret, which provides a panoramic view of the surrounding cityscape. Another historic landmark that you shouldn't miss is the 900-year-old Castle Rising, which is surrounded by a moat and has an interactive exhibition that tells the story of its history.  

The Old Vicarage Gardens, East Ruston - East Ruston Church. Photo by John Salmon. Geograph.   Amazing Gardens Lastly, Norfolk has several magnificent gardens that will take your breath away. One such garden is the East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden, a ten-acre garden with a mix of traditional and exotic plants. The garden is divided into different sections, each with its unique character, including a Mediterranean-style garden and a water garden. Your family can also enjoy a relaxing walk around Holkham Hall's Walled Garden, which boasts an array of vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees, plus a glasshouse filled with colourful flowers.  

Varied Accommodation Options

Norfolk has a wide range of accommodation options that cater to all types of anglers. From cozy cottages to luxury lodges, there is something for everyone. Many accommodations offer fishing packages that include guided fishing tours, gear rental, and bait. You could also choose to stay near the coastline or inland, depending on your preference. With very comfortable accommodation available in Norfolk, you can rest after a long day of fishing and wake up to beautiful scenery.  

The Garden Party, Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Photo by Sasastro. Flickr.  

Festivals and Events

Norfolk is renowned for its annual fishing festivals and events that attract anglers from around the country. The Cromer Crab and Lobster Festival is a popular event that celebrates the coastal town's seafood traditions with cooking competitions, crabbing, and boat races. The Norfolk and Suffolk Fly Fishers Club also hosts regular events that feature fly-fishing competitions and workshops. Attending these events can be a great way to connect with other anglers and explore the region's fishing culture.  

Fun-Filled Family Holidays

One of the top activities that both parents and children can get involved in is fishing. Norfolk has plenty of family-friendly fishing locations, including Taverham Mill Fishery and Pleasurewood Hills Family Theme Park. At Taverham Mill, you can enjoy a peaceful day by the lake with your family, where your kids can learn the art of fishing and catch some fish themselves. Pleasurewood Hills, on the other hand, offers a perfect combination of fishing and theme park rides. Whether you're an experienced angler or a beginner, fishing in Norfolk is a fun and educational experience for the whole family. If you're looking for an outdoor activity outside of fishing, Norfolk's nature reserves are a must-visit. The Broads, the UK's largest protected wetland, is a unique landscape of water, broads, and marshes, offering a chance to see varied wildlife, birds, and plants. Your family can also take a boat trip and explore the tranquil waterways of the Broads. The navigable waterways stretch across more than 125 miles. Another nature reserve worth visiting is Blickling Estate, which is home to ancient woodland, rolling farmland, and a stunning Jacobean house. It has several walking trails that are perfect for families and lead to gardens, lakes, and temples. Apart from nature reserves, Norfolk has a rich history and is home to numerous castles and museums. Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, for instance, is a gem for history buffs, housing archaeological treasures dating back to the Roman era. Children will enjoy exploring the castle's turret, which provides a panoramic view of the surrounding cityscape. Another historic landmark that you shouldn't miss is the 900-year-old Castle Rising, which is surrounded by a moat and has an interactive exhibition that tells the story of its history. Lastly, Norfolk has several magnificent gardens that will take your breath away. One such garden is the East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden, a ten-acre garden with a mix of traditional and exotic plants. The garden is divided into different sections, each with its unique character, including a Mediterranean-style garden and a water garden. Your family can also enjoy a relaxing walk around Holkham Hall's Walled Garden, which boasts an array of vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees, plus a glasshouse filled with colorful flowers.  

Conclusion

Norfolk is a stunning fishing destination for both experienced and novice anglers alike. With its abundant marine life, natural surroundings, and scenic locations, Norfolk is certainly on the anglers bucket list as an unforgettable fishing holiday. Whether you're after big catches in the deep sea or freshwater fish from the banks of rivers and lakes, there's no shortage of incredible spots to cast your line. And with so many nature reserves providing vital habitats for local species like seals and dolphins, you can be sure that your visit will help contribute towards protecting these amazing creatures too! Norfolk is a great destination for family holidays, offering something to suit all tastes. Whether you’re looking to go fishing, explore nature reserves, or learn about history and culture at the castles and museums, there are plenty of activities that both parents and children can enjoy. With comfortable accommodation available in Norfolk, it makes an ideal place to relax after a long day out exploring. From guided fishing tours with gear rental included to attending festivals and events celebrating the region's seafood traditions, there are lots of ways to make your holiday truly memorable.   Sources: THX News, National Parks UK & Norfolk Broads. Read the full article

[tkufs]

Dillan Raia-Bs Grab in a Square Pool, NY 2020

[lovehugsandcandy]

just close enough (Logan x MC, RoD)

A/N: I am sorry, I have been very out of touch. I apologize for not responding to tags and chats. Things haven’t been great and I am surprised that I have anything for rodaw. Please keep tagging me on your stuff!

Pairing: Logan x MC, ROD

Length: ~1700 words

Rating/Warnings: N*FW (sorry, in rereading this, yeah, you probably shouldn’t read this at work)

Summary: Distance can be measured in miles and inches, and none of it is too far for Logan to travel.

.

He’s almost asleep, sliding into the hazy space between full alertness (how he spends every waking moment) and complete unconsciousness (where any dream he regretfully remembers is from a past best totally forgotten). The couch cushions are rough along his spine, spring digging into a shoulder blade, but he’s slept in worse places. He’s almost blessedly asleep, darkness warm and welcoming and-

“Logan?”

His eyes fly open and he jolts up, instantly awake. The room is in shadows, light of the moon filtering through the LA smog, bathing his surroundings in a sleepy glow. He turns his head; other than the call of his name, the loft is quiet, still. With a lifetime spent attuned for threats, he can sense that the calm in the air signals safety.

“Logan?” she slurs again, voice tinged with sleep.

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

He blinks, squinting over at the lump under his sheets. “What?”

“You’re too far away. Come here.”

God, he wants that, more than anything. In the daylight, when the corners of the shop gleam sharp and lethal, he knows it is too dangerous to get close. That distance is the one thing that will save her from mistakes he has spent a lifetime making and atoning for. But here, in the stillness of night, when the scratching fabric chafes his back and the siren in his bed calls, he feels his resolve weaken, scattering in shards to the floorboards to join the dust and grime underneath.

He pads over, the rhythm of his footsteps matching the soft sigh of her breath, and cautiously perches on the mattress, giving her a beat to reconsider before he swings his legs over and slides under the covers. She is soft and warm, coconut and sunshine next to his grease and oil, and she rolls over to edge soft on his side.

“Close enough?” he asks into the curls pillowing over his shoulder.

“Mmh… almost.” 

He chuckles as he catalogues the space between them, an inch where her waist curves concave from his, a rumpled barrier of fabric where her feet are entangled. They could barely be closer, but somehow, he still agrees with Ellie. 

The smile is still on his face as he drifts off into a contented sleep.

~~~~~

He’s not used to being in the passenger seat. 

The view is different here, shifted, the rows of parked cars tilted and angled askew, but he sat relaxed, legs splayed and hair catching the wind the entire way. It’s a testament to her driving; she’s brilliant behind the wheel, beaming with every acceleration, leaning into every curve, and he can tell - she finds the call of the road freeing, just like he does. She’s come a long way from the shy bookworm whose path he stepped in front of. It’s barely been a few weeks, but it feels like forever.

He wishes it could go on forever.

He inhales harshly through his nose, recalling the day they met, the hushed conversations that preceded it. She deserves to know the truth and here, parked in this lot waiting on a disconcertingly mysterious job, seems like the perfect place to tell her.

But before he can find the words, she turns, fixing him with a devious smirk.

“Come here.” Her finger beckons and, just past it, a devious smirk glows in the multicolor shades alight from the dash. 

“What do you…”

“Come here. You’re too far away.”

He leans forward, and the center console digs into his ribs. It doesn’t matter, not when she tugs on a strand of hair to pull him closer, so close he can map the lines of her smile with an intensity usually saved for fuel intake lines and racetracks. “Better?”

“Nope.”

He inches forward. “How about now?”

“Nope.” Her voice is teasing, soft, a whisper of air against his lips, the tingling of excitement before the fall.

He’s completely in her space, so close he can’t see beyond the dark of her eyes, the apples of her cheeks. There is no world beyond the girl in the driver’s seat. “Now?”

“... almost.” She breathes the response into his mouth as their lips finally meet; he realizes with a start that he will never be closer to anyone, here in this stadium parking lot, with his hands tangled in her hair and poisonous secrets in his heart.

Even when they are close as can be, he still feels the distance.

~~~~~

Logan’s just catching his breath, skating a shaking palm over her side. “Are you ready?” The words make him pause.

“No.” He blinks at her as she rests against the pillow in Vaughn’s spare bedroom, hair spilling down against the pillow; the strands curl around his finger as he absentmindedly runs his fingers in a tense pattern. He could never be ready for this, to see the one person he ever trusted, the one person he ever loved, race for their freedom on a pitch-black highway.

“We don’t really have a choice.”

“I know.” 

“Logan, we need to do this.” She props herself up on her elbow, and his heart falls.

“I know. I just… I hate the thought of not being with you, not being able to protect you.” 

She blinks down at him, and his fingers reach up to tangle in one graceful coil of hair strands soft on the pads on his fingers. “You know I can drive.”

“Of course, Troublemaker, I’ve seen you drive. I just… I don’t want you to be in danger. I hate that you’re going to be out there where I can’t help you.”

“I’ll be too far away?”

“Yeah.” For as close at they are now, where he can catalogue the distance between them (millimeters between his shoulder and hers, three inches between their lips, and no distance at all where his cock is just stirring, again, into the soft skin of her stomach), he knows that the waiting, the space on the highway --- it will wreck him.

She smiles, faintly, distantly, her eyes echoing his own pain. “I’m here right now.”

“You are.” He spins, hand on her hip pushing until he is over her, legs intertwined, fingertips around her waist, every inch of them aligned and in sync. “And I’m going to make the most of it.”

~~~~~

You’re too far away.

The words are high in the wind and he whips his head around frantically, as memories collide with the storm brewing outside. The first flake is a shock, pelting his forehead in an icy portent and, mere seconds later, the grey clouds above part in a mass of ice and slush.

It never snowed in LA.

Logan cranes his neck up to feel the full brunt of the storm hammer his face, each frosty blast a jolting reminder of how far he traveled from the last few months, the distance between him and his old stomping ground washed away as the frozen water melts over his face, droplets pouring down his brow and drenching his hair.

His face is frozen when he steps back into the shop, some run-down shithole he found in inner-city Detroit. Here, locals don’t ask questions, and there are no reminders of the mentor who was almost like a father and the girl who was almost like forever.

This time, they are miles and days and utter lives apart, and he worries that nothing on the earth will bring them together again.

~~~~~

The years flow like molasses. Fall edges into winter, which thaws into spring and heats into summer, and then it starts all over again, punishing, never ending.

The cities stack up almost as easily. After Detroit, it’s Miami, then Houston, a long stretch in Nashville before Milwaukee calls and then, finally, to the East Coast. He stops for a spell in DC, walking through shaded paths as the cherry blossoms sway above him. The pink defies imagination. He’s used to vehicle-grade candy paint, each car brighter and more audacious than the last, a parade of vibrant neons and sultry veneers that spin rainbows around tracks. 

This pink is soft, petals even softer against his fingertips, and Logan feels an irrational stab of guilt for the calluses that dare grace the blossoms swaying in the wind. His dark past makes him unworthy to touch such beauty and, as he watches the petals flutter to the ground, he thinks of another beauty that slipped through his fingers.

He stays for a few months, enough to learn the grid of southeast DC and the bisecting avenues, but then spring tiptoes into summer. He’s used to the sun but the goddamn humidity makes his hair pouf into patterns he knows gentle fingers would soothe, so he heads north.

It’s a quick drive, the four lanes of 95 providing ample room to swerve and fly; he imagines another car with another driver speeding down these roads.

Finally, the wheels lead him to New York, where he trembles on a doorstep under flickering lights in this apartment building, fighting up five floors where every step made him want to vomit.

He breathes through his nose. He didn’t come all this way (trans versing the United States, multiple times, him and the Devore burning miles and gas but subsisting on memories and love) for nothing. His fingers shake and he rings the doorbell.

When it opens, she looks just as she does in his memory, eyes warm and bright, smile breaking out over the apples of her cheeks. His heart leaps.

“Logan?”

“Hi,” he breathes. He had been unsure of his reception but now, with her blinking up serenely at him, the years fade away and he’s brought back to the moment in front of her fathers house, watching the tears pool in her eyes and wishing futility on every star that life could be different.

They move at the same time; she jumps forward, and he pulls her in and their lips meet as if no time had passed, as if they had never been apart, as if distance were meaningless in the troublemaker's face who stole his heart.

 “Close enough now?” He beams at her, smile so wide it hurts, cheeks pinching unfamiliarly, and he never wants to leave her side.

Her answering smile shines brighter than any shooting star he’s seen, and he knows he is right where he needs to be. “Finally.”

.

Tags:

Perma

@leelee10898, @client-327, @brightpinkpeppercorn, @choicesarehard, @burnsoslow, @zaffrenotes, @kat-tia801, @desiree-pow-35-1986, @ritachacha

ROD

@omgjasminesimone, @mskaneko, @alyssalauren

[the-gone-ton]

Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge

THE BEAUTIFUL GARDENS AT MOUNT AIRY LODGE - For a PERFECT POCONO vacation or honeymoon. MOUNT AIRY LODGE has everything - - Private Lake. Ocean Sandy Beach . . Free Boating . . Indoor and Outdoor Swimming Pool . . Health Club . . Orchestra Nightly at our new CRYSTAL ROOM, CLUB SUZANNE and EMPRESS ROOM . . TV . . Saddle Horses . . Tennis . . Reasonable Rates - include Delicious meals, sports and entertainment. Write for booklet: MOUNT AIRY LODGE, Mt. Pocono, Pa. Tel: 717-839-7133. Open all year.

STRICKLAND'S MOUNTAIN INN "In the heart of the scenic Pocono Mts." Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. Pool and Shuffleboard are a few of the many Sports and Activities that are enjoyed by Honeymooners and young married couples in the new Mountain View Recreation Lodge. Open throughout the year. Write for color brochure.

Sunning and Water Sports in the Majestic Roman Pool at POCONO GARDENS LODGE Cresco, Pa. 18326 America's Most Unique Honeymoon Estate

Mount Airy Lodge was not the first resort in the Pocono Mountains to define itself as a destination for honeymooners and young couples, but it sure liked to think of itself as the best one. Just about 90 minutes from New York City and Philadelphia, the Poconos were the honeymoon capital of the east coast, where city dwellers could find a little slice of heaven in the mountains. Billing itself as the Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge in ubiquitous advertising campaigns, the resort was arguably the crown jewel of the Pocono Mountains tourism industry for decades. The all-inclusive resort offered lovers skiing, horseback riding, huge outdoor pool, golf course, two ice skating rinks, live big-name entertainment and of course a luxurious and sexually-daring room including heart-shaped whirlpool bathtubs. The resort's shrewd owner, Czechoslovak immigrant Emil Wagner, built up an aura of mysticality around the resort by using hyperbole to promote it - for example, employees were asked to describe the gourmet food as "epicurean delights" to better entice visitors. Eventually, Mount Airy became too grand to be contained within its own property lines, and it purchased two neighboring resorts - Strickland's Mountain Inn and the Pocono Gardens Lodge.

But expansion came at a price, and debt hung heavy upon the shoulders of the vaunted Mount Airy Lodge. On top of that, the whole Pocono resort industry was feeling the pressure of more affordable flights and cruises drawing couples away. In the 90s, complaints of disrepair on the premises became frequent. The furniture was worn and dirty, the bed linens weren't being properly cleaned, the pool wasn't being maintained, and customer service became poor. Workers joked that the "epicurean delights" served at Mount Airy's dining room now included powdered eggs and expired food. By 1999, Mount Airy owed some $46 million in unsecured debt. Emil Wagner was facing foreclosure. Unable to bear his resort being taken from him, a 77 year old Wagner committed suicide. The resort declared bankruptcy and was sold at a sheriff's sale. Pocono Associates, one of the resort's creditors, assumed ownership in 2000 and assessed that two-thirds of the resort's rooms were not suitable to rent. As a result, 650 out of the resort's 900 rooms were permanently sealed - including the outright closure of Mount Airy's sister resorts, Strickland's and Pocono Gardens. Pocono Associates spent a year and no small sum of cash trying to repair both the physical condition of the resort and its tarnished reputation, but could not succeed on either front. Mount Airy Lodge closed its doors for the last time in October, 2001.

[wingedkiare]

Hey my lovelies!  Happy 2021.  I hope that you are all enjoying a little peace and quiet, even though the madness of this world hasn’t slowed one bit.

2020 was a year.  It started off in a pretty awesome way - I got to actually meet Evey in person and hug her, and cuddle her. We had a roller skating day for my birthday, went to the Getty Villa and Universal Hollywood.  And then....all of this.

I am fortunate that my FIL and my husband are as aggressive as possible in caring for me. Because I’ve been stuck here at the house (except for medical/dental appts) since March 14th.  My husband got hired by a major entertainment/tech company in the middle of a pandemic!  My kids have worked really hard to carve out their own spaces and respect meetings and such.

I had a starter, killed him accidentally. (I’m gonna restart him tonight. Hercule Poir-deux, the OG was Hercule Poir-dough)  Made a lot of bread, though.

I learned to bleach and tone my own hair!  I dyed it a fuschia color, and damn it is a gorgeous color - but I stain the shit out of everything when I shed hair.  I also learned that most cameras cannot figure out how to adjust color with my hair. It’s.... entertaining.

I got nowhere with my draft. I tried.  But all my waking hours were focused on making sure my family was okay, and that I could finish work.  WORK, man, that was stressful. At a time where the media industry was firing people left and right, my team kicked ass and actually found a way to make a profit.  Granted, it took a lot of hours and I need a full team to keep up this pace - but I did it.

2020 was supposed to be a lot of things. I was going to get tattoos, I was going to take a summer trip to Vegas with my husband. I was maybe going to go to Florida to see my parents for Christmas (that’s the one that hurts the most. I miss my parents so fucking much, even though I talk to my mom constantly).

My oldest was supposed to go to his 8th grade trip to the East Coast - that was cancelled. No AstroCamp for him either.

Instead, we all got familiar with the backyard. We got an inflatable pool, inflatable hammocks (the kind you run to fill up with air). They basically ran a track into the backyard lawn.

I cut everyone’s hair.

We started making dinners together.  We did movie days.

It... has been stressful, but I know these kids so much better than I did before.  They text me constantly.  My oldest is on Twitter and chimes in and sends me jokes and drags the President (it’s a private account, so my husband and I get to see it). My youngest sends me stupid videos and memes and stops to tell me the weirdest stories from school.  He won’t play Marvel Avengers’ campaigns unless I can sit here and watch.

I know I’m lucky. My husband and my kids are three of my favorite people.  I miss having alone time.  I miss getting to run on the trail (too many anti-maskers, sadly for that).  I miss the me I’d been at the start of the year - who went to the gym a few days a week and was visibly showing muscle.

I miss Cate. Our lunches that turn into long drawn out conversations at Lift, where I fantasize about stealing their awesome aircraft chairs.  I’m happy she and I text and talk via video, but it isn’t the same.

(I miss Evey every day. Even though we talk every day. LOL)

I don’t know what 2021 brings.  I’m still holding my breath until the 20th, hoping that at least we can return to the usual political BS, and fight to make THAT better.  That it becomes about improving things, not surviving for most of us.

Anyways, I love you all. W

[juicemagazine]

R.I.P. MONDO BECK… timeless Bert at the Gonzales pool. Photo by @JGrantBrittain It is with peace, love and respect that we share the sad news that David Carl Beck, known to most in the skateboarding and surfing world as “Mondo”, passed away on February 4, 2021, from cardiac arrest.  Born and raised on the East Coast, Mondo was the son of Carl and Elly Beck of Cherry Hill, NJ, and he had two sisters, Lorrie and Joanne. Mondo was the father of two sons, Cody and Dylan, and was living in Hawaii at the time of his death. He started skateboarding around 1974 during the beginning of the skateboard explosion and, a few years later, Mondo was an integral part of the labor force that built Cherry Hill Skate Park in 1978, where he became one of the rowdiest, most ripping locals.  Around 1982, Mondo moved to Southern California where his surf/skate style and airbrushed artwork sparked an Alva revival and his story continued as he influenced skateboarding and skateboard graphics and gifted many up and coming skateboarders and surfers with their first skateboards. From the East Coast to the West Coast to Hawaii and beyond, Mondo left a lasting impression everywhere he went. In memory of Mondo, a tribute with stories and memories from family and friends has been posted at juicemagazine.com. R.I.P. Mondo 💔🤙❤️ #RIP #MondoBeck #skate #surf #Alva #legend #Alvaposse #SkullSkates #AlvaSkates #LocalMotion #surfer #skateboarder #artist #airbrusher #visionaryartist #surfskatefamily #cherryhillskatepark #newjersey #venice #eastcoast #westcoast #hawaii #RIPMondo https://www.instagram.com/p/CLKTgjIFSdP/?igshid=res9jjx8vg1t

[pastiche-comic]

Fun and Entertainment

By Keith W. Horowitz

Cheesy brochures tout Indisclosednia as a perpetual party and adventure archipelago on the South Pacific. “Fun” is something almost synonymous with this sunny slice of paradise. If it sounds touristy, it’s because it is. Tourism’s the country’s biggest industry, and it shows: the crowds swell at tourist season in summer.

There is a kernel of truth in the stereotype. Given half the chance, locals really can be as laid-back and leisurely as the brochures suggest.

Seasonal fun

The seasons, however, play a role in exactly how we spend our leisure time.

For most of the southern summer, we keep ourselves entertained in indoor venues with air conditioning. We leave the mostly outdoor tourist destinations to the tourists on holiday. And while it’s true that we tend to pass on the tourist spots for most of the summer (we couldn’t if we wanted to), we don’t live our lives around a holiday spot without getting in on the action.

The end of the tourist season means that we’ve the resorts and destinations mostly to ourselves. To cope with the decline in business, venues start offering local discounts aplenty.

However, we’re left with the small window for summertime fun before monsoon season. The afternoon showers can quickly put the kibosh on any fun outdoor activity after 3 o’clock. The cool season is often sunny enough that many people schedule outdoor activities early in the day.

Indoors

Summer is the season where we go indoors. Shopaholics prowl the malls. Adolescents and children flock to the gaming arcades. Gamers host LAN parties in Internet cafes. Middle-aged adults hold bowling tournaments. Groups of friends take pot-shots of each other at karaoke night. Basically, if it’s air conditioned and weather-protected, we will be there.

People also start flocking to indoor venues every afternoon during the cool season when the rain starts to fall at around 4 P.M.

We don’t have the indoors to ourselves, though. Casinos are some of the indoor places where the crowds are just as likely to be a mix of locals and tourists. Fiscal irresponsibility knows no borders.

In the Water

The water’s great when the sun’s out and we’re never short of things to do in the water. Many Indisclosedneans are fond of water sports, among them parasailing, jet skiing, and kitesurfing. Even locals would often brave the summer heat for a chance to book a rental at peak season. Surfing is a perennial pastime and the presence of the surf community might explain the strong association with the 1990s.

There are also plenty of spectacular snorkelling and scuba diving spots off the coast and away from the cities, including the reefs around the atolls and the shallow sandy seagrass beds in the north lagoon.

Swimming is one activity enjoyed year-round in the country, but again there’s a huge contrast between the locals and the tourists at summertime. Tourists tend to flock to the pools and the beach at peak season, whereas locals huddle in covered community pools. Water parks are a perennial favourite among young people.

Outdoor Relaxation

Like the travelogue says, there’s a multitude of things you can do here for leisure on a warm day.  And this includes “doing nothing.”

Tourists on holiday get lots of R&R, usually while lounging in a poolside beach chair with a tropical drink on hand as tourists normally do. Locals with decks, hammocks, and some culinary skill are usually more than happy to recreate this experience at home—a “staycation” that feels more real than most.

There’s a multitude of nightlife partying in the beaches of East Baywood. Most dance clubs and venues are outdoors; most indoor clubs are the domain of the country’s small rave scene, though they predictably fill up quickly during the cool season. (Heh.)

Sports

Sports are a popular diversion for people of all ages in this country. At heart, Indisclosednia’s a soccer playing nation and few other team sports are anywhere near as prominent. These other sports of note are basketball and beach volleyball.

Golf is more popular among retirees and businesspeople. The country only has one major golf course, the John Olmstead Executive Golf Club.

Adrenaline junkies also get their fix further inland. Thrill-seeking activities like bungee jumping and ziplining are common in the foothills on the outskirts of Baywood. The country has a flourishing extreme sports community that is especially prominent in Baywood, which has a designated skate park, and has left a mark that’s more than just another snide “Heh, ‘90s” comment. Adolescent skaters and cyclists are a common sight in the city in the mid-afternoon.

(Heh. ‘90s.)

Prominent sporting events include the Academy Association Football Cup, the Baywood Beach Volleyball Cup, the extreme-sports oriented Spectrum Games, and the Olmstead Founders Golf Tournament.  

Back to Nature

Much of the country’s natural beauty has been preserved, so nature lovers have a lot to do. Birdwatchers have a plethora of opportunities to look for birds in the mountain rainforests and on the coasts. Hikers can traverse the challenging trail at Mount Balder.

And if you like marine mammals but aren’t keen on the prospect of whale watching in the open sea, there’s a sea lion colony just outside Hoonoisweir; if you’re lucky, you may be able to spot Rascal, a rescued sea lion and the country’s unofficial conservation mascot.

Fishing is a popular activity, and anglers can be seen prowling the lagoons, estuaries, and the open sea for their catch. Many sport fish—marlin, especially—are seasonal and any caught out of season are strictly for catch-and-release; endangered species are strictly for catch and release only. 

[cardstumble]

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Year-of-Dangerous-Days/Nicholas-Griffin/9781501191022

police brutality    drug crisis     immigration    white/latin/black tribes

Excerpt

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1

DECEMBER 1979

By 1979, there were several Miamis that barely lapped against one another, let alone integrated. The county itself was a strange beast, twenty-seven different municipalities with their own mayor, many with their own police departments. But Miami wasn’t divided by municipalities; it was separated into tribes.

There was Anglo Miami, which the city’s boosters were still hawking to white America: beaches, real estate, hotels, and entertainment. Tourists dominated the region. Dade had 1.6 million residents but

2.1 million international visitors a year. Anglo Miami was far from monolithic. There were southerners, migrants, and a large Jewish population that ran some of the most important businesses and institutions in Miami Beach.

Across the causeway in Little Havana and up the coast in Hialeah sat Latin Miami, created by the Cubans who’d fled Fidel Castro’s revolution twenty years before. Whenever there was violence south of the border, Latin America coughed up a new pocket of immigrants. Most recently that meant that the Cuban population in Dade was being watered down by Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Colombians.

Then there was black Miami. It, too, had more divisions than cohesion. There was a strong Bahamian presence, plenty of Jamaicans. Both felt distinct from the African Americans who had moved south from Georgia, and those who were born and bred in Miami. The latest immigrants were only beginning to spill in: a large number of unwelcome Haitians. Arriving on rickety boats, fleeing both political persecution and economic despair, they were docking at a time when not one of Miami’s communities was in the mood to reach out and welcome them.

For all the nuances, if you were black, white, or Latin, you tended to know so little about the other tribes that you regarded them as rigid blocs. Who knew a Jamaican turned his nose up at a Georgia-born black, or that a Puerto Rican couldn’t stand another word from a Cuban, or that a Jew couldn’t walk through the door at the all-white country club at La Gorce? There was enough inequality to go around, but in this one thing, the black community got the most generous helping.

In 1979, if you were black in Dade County, you most likely lived in one of three neighborhoods: Overtown, the Black Grove, or Liberty City. Liberty City was the youngest of the three, dating back to 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the first large public housing project in the South. It was Roosevelt’s response to local campaigns for better sanitation. In the ’30s, Liberty City had what most houses in Overtown and the Black Grove did not: running water, modern kitchens, electricity. Overtown remained the center of black life in Miami until the arrival of I-95, the vast stretch of American highway that ran from Maine down the East Coast all the way to Miami. It stomped right through the middle of Miami’s most prominent black neighborhood in 1965, a ravenous millipede with a thousand concrete legs.

Had the 3,000-kilometer highway been halted just 5 kilometers to the north, black Miami might have had a different history. Instead the highway, touted as “slum clearance,” bulldozed through black Miami’s main drags. Gone was much of Overtown’s commercial heart, with its three movie theaters, its

public pool, grocery store, and businesses. Goodbye to clubs that had hosted Ella Fitzgerald, to the Sir John Hotel, which had offered their finest suites to black entertainers banned from staying in whites-only Miami Beach. But more important, goodbye to a neighborhood where parents knew which house every child belonged to. Goodbye to the nighttime games of Moonlight Baby, where kids would use the bottle caps of Cola Nibs to mark the edge of their bodies on the pavement. Goodbye to unarmed

black patrolmen walking black streets.

Overtown had its own all-black police station, with strict rules. Black officers couldn’t carry a weapon home, since “no one wanted to see a black man with a gun.” They could stop whites in Overtown but

had no power of arrest over them. The closest affordable housing for Overtown’s displaced was in and around the Liberty City projects. Block by block it began to turn from white to black, until neighboring white homeowners built a wall

to separate themselves from ever-blacker Liberty City. White housewives in colorful plaids and horn-rimmed glasses carried protest signs: “We want this Nigger moved” and

“Nigger go to Washington.” Someone detonated a stick of dynamite in

an empty apartment leased to blacks. Nothing worked, and by the end of the 1960s the first proud black owners inside Liberty City were joined by many of Overtown’s twenty thousand displaced. As white flight accelerated, house prices declined, local businesses faltered, and unemployment and crime began to rise. By 1968, Liberty City had assumed a new reputation. The CND—the Central-North District—had

earned the nickname “Central Negro District” from both the city and the county police departments.

There was still beauty in Liberty City, still sunrises where the light would smart off the sides of pastel-painted houses, and the dew on the grass would glisten, and churches would fill, and the jitney buses would chug patiently, waiting for the elderly to board. Still schoolchildren in white shirts tightening backpacks to their shoulders and catching as much shade as possible on the way to the school gates. There was still beauty, but you had to squint to see it.

Eighty percent of South Florida homes had air-conditioning in 1980, but in stifling hot Liberty City,

only one in five homes could afford it. It was a neighborhood without a center, few jobs to offer, seventy-two churches but just six banks,

not one of which was black-owned. There were plenty of places to pray for a positive future but few institutions willing to risk investment in one. The fact that a teenager called Arthur McDuffie got out at all was unusual. The fact that he came back, found a good job, earned steadily, and raised a family was rarer still.

Frederica Jones had been Arthur McDuffie’s high school sweetheart at Booker T. Washington, one of Miami’s three segregated schools. They’d met while Frederica was walking home from the local store, where she’d bought a can of peas for her mother. She’d swung her groceries at her side, and McDuffie, who’d been watching her from across the street, fell into step beside her.

After a few moments of banter, McDuffie made a simple declaration. “I like you.” Then he asked for Frederica’s number. That night McDuffie called, and the two talked for an hour. At the end of the conversation McDuffie, two years Frederica’s senior, asked, “Would you go with me?”

“Yes!” she said.

They became inseparable. They were in the Booker T. Washington band together. McDuffie was the baritone horn

and Frederica a majorette. She watched McDuffie win the local swim meets. When McDuffie graduated, he joined the Marine Corps, and for the next three years, they communicated through letters. Then, within two months of his honorable discharge, they married. Two children quickly followed. After which came problems, separation, and, in 1978, divorce. McDuffie had always had a reputation as a ladies’ man, and now he had

a child with another woman to prove it.

Yet toward the end of 1979, the thirty-three-year-old McDuffie was back visiting the house he’d once shared with Frederica. He mowed the lawn, fixed the air conditioners, and trimmed the hedges of their neighbor, the last white family on the block. The warmth in the failed marriage seemed to be returning. The two spent the night of December 15, 1979, together, and McDuffie asked Frederica to join him on a trip to Hawaii—a vacation he’d just won at the office for his performance as the assistant manager at Coastal States Life Insurance.

The following day, Sunday, under bright 80-degree skies, Frederica, a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital, drove McDuffie back to his home. She parked the car feeling like there was positive momentum.

They’d talked of remarriage in front of their families. The deal was that if McDuffie could make “certain changes” in his life, then they could go ahead and make it official. As they sat in the car, McDuffie kissed his ex-wife goodbye and promised to be back at her place that evening to take care of their children before her shift. Normally, Frederica worked only afternoons, but the hospital was short-staffed over the Christmas period and she’d agreed to work that night at 11:00.

Shortly after 2:00 p.m., McDuffie walked into 1157 NW 111th Street, the home he now shared with his younger sister, Dorothy, a legal clerk. It was a modest building, painted green. Inside there was a record collection and books of music. McDuffie played

five instruments, all horns. There was

an entire white wall “covered with plaques and certificates of achievement,” including his “Most Outstanding”

award from his Marine Corps platoon. He wasn’t a war hero, hadn’t fought in Vietnam, but McDuffie had been faithful to the corps, a military policeman who had done his job impeccably.

A dutiful father, McDuffie had already wrapped Christmas presents for his two daughters and hidden them in a closet in his bedroom. His nine-year-old would get a wagon, a jack-in-the-box, and clothes. His oldest would get a watch, a tape recorder, a radio,

and a pair of roller skates.

He’d saved for months, but it hadn’t been an easy year to make money. Under President Jimmy Carter, the country, most especially the South, had been battered. Unemployment was stubbornly high, and it looked like the president was being swept downstream by the economy. For all Carter’s preaching of forbearance, the reality was that interest rates were up to 17 percent. In thirty years, inflation had never run higher.

Gas prices had doubled in two years. Even hamburger meat was two dollars a pound.

Despite all this, Carter was about to enter an election year in comparatively good standing. Whatever America thought of his ability to steer the country, he retained the people’s sympathy,

with an approval rating of 61 percent. Six weeks before, the Iranian revolution had become very real to the distant United States. The sixty-two hostages captured in the American embassy in Tehran had helped generate a sudden sense of solidarity in the United States. Between that and the following month’s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was an understanding that Carter had a tricky hand to play. He would promise a strong and quick response to both situations. By the end of the year Carter led his presumptive challenger, Ronald Reagan, by

an enormous 24-point margin.

Still, the mood was summed up best by the

Miami Herald

in 1979. It was a year the average American wallet had “barely survived.” The unseen benefit, according to the paper, was that Miamians like McDuffie lived in Florida. They weren’t being hammered on heating oil like the rest of the country.

By Miami standards, the evening of December 16 counted as cold, expected to dip below 70 degrees and then drop below 60 the following day. Miamians traditionally overreacted, digging out winter coats and scarves for a rare outing. McDuffie selected blue jeans, a navy shirt over a baby-blue undershirt,

and a black motorcycle jacket. He searched his house for a hat to wear under his helmet. At 5:00 p.m., he closed the door behind him.

His own car, a 1969 green Grand Prix, wasn’t parked in its usual spot in his driveway. A friend had borrowed it. So he climbed on an orange-and-black 1973 Kawasaki 2100, “a more or less permanent loan” from his cousin. McDuffie turned the key, revved the engine, and drove the motorcycle south to Fifty-Ninth Street, to his friend Lynwood Blackmon’s house. He pulled up at the front door, feet still astride the bike, and talked to Blackmon’s seven- and eight-year-old daughters. He explained to them that he couldn’t help their father tune their car as he’d promised. His tools were in the back of the borrowed Grand Prix. Next he drove to his older brother’s house, his most common stop, and found him washing his car in his driveway. McDuffie grinned, revved the engine, spat up dirt over the clean car, and sped away before his brother could grab him. He raced to the far end of the street, turned, and braked hard.

“You better slow that bike down,” shouted his brother. McDuffie nodded, grinned, and pulled away.

Sometimes on weekends McDuffie moonlighted as a truck driver, making deliveries to Miami Beach. Sometimes he gave up his time to help jobless youngsters, teaching them how to paint houses. Just two years before, he’d painted the Range Funeral Home, where his body would arrive in exactly a week. On this particular Sunday evening, he was going to see Carolyn Battle, the twenty-six-year-old assistant that McDuffie had hired at Coastal Insurance. She was pretty, independent, and stylish, with a preference for dresses and wearing her hair in an Afro. He’d brought a helmet for her.

McDuffie shouldn’t have been driving at all. His license had been suspended months before, and he’d paid his thirty-five-dollar traffic fine with a check that had bounced. He’d told a coworker that he was worried about getting stopped again, but there were no alternatives for

driving back and forth to work. Public transport was pitiful in Miami, and Liberty City—barely serviced—was reliant on independent jitney operators who rarely worked weekends. Not having a car was a self-quarantine.

McDuffie collected Carolyn Battle. They drove fifteen minutes south, to the edge of Miami International Airport, where they watched planes arcing out over the ocean or dropping into landing patterns above the Everglades. Tiring of the airport, McDuffie drove Battle across MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. When McDuffie was a child, dusk would have found an exodus heading the other way:

black Americans subject to a sunset curfew. But on December 16, on the three lanes that ran east over the bright blue shallows, McDuffie showed off, hitting eighty miles an hour. They walked in the sand, stopped for Pepsi, and then at 9:00 p.m. headed back to Battle’s apartment at 3160 NW Forty-Sixth Street, just

five blocks from the Airport Expressway.

At one in the morning, McDuffie slept in Battle’s bed while she watched television on her couch. At 1:30 she woke him up. “Jesus,” said McDuffie, reaching for his watch. He was far too late to show up at his ex-wife’s house. Frederica would have taken the kids over to a babysitter two hours ago. How was he going to make that up to her? Had he blown it? McDuffie gathered his watch, his wedding ring, his medallion. Still dressed in his blue jeans, two blue shirts, and boots, he put on his knitted cap under his white helmet, tied his knapsack to the back of the Kawasaki, and headed north toward home.

Was it a wheelie, a rolled stop sign, a hand lifted from a handlebar to give the finger that caught the sergeant’s attention? The officer would later offer all three explanations of why he’d first noticed the Kawasaki pass by him. It was 1:51 a.m. The sergeant got on the radio, described McDuffie’s white helmet and the tag number of the motorbike, and flipped on his red light and siren. On a cool night, with the rider in jeans, jacket, and helmet, he couldn’t have known if he was black, Latin, or white.

McDuffie appeared to glance in his mirror and then sped through a red light on NW Sixty-First Street. As the sergeant followed in his white-and-green county squad car, McDuffie blew through another red light and swept around corners,

not even slowing for the stop signs. He’d picked a very quiet night for these traffic infractions. Within sixty seconds of the beginning of the chase, McDuffie was being followed by every available unit within Central District.

[slowpocalypsecooking]

the top 8 tracks on folklore from least to most embarrassing to enjoy

Hi I’m Anthony Fantano and welcome to the needle drop. I don’t know if he says that, because I don’t watch him—if I wanted to listen to a repulsive white man talk about music, I could just go on a date. (just kidding, covid!)

Forgoing any further introduction, here are the top eight tracks from Taylor Swift’s new album, low-caps “folklore,” ranked from least embarrassing to most embarrassing to enjoy, according to me. The whole album is 16 tracks long, but I’m only doing the most noteworthy half because 16 is too many. You’re welcome for that decision.

Methodology: To get on this list, songs had to be both embarrassing and enjoyable. There will be natural fluctuation between tracks, but as we go down the list, assume that the songs are getting increasingly better to listen to and worse to think about, like this:

The rankings:

8. cardigan

This is a song about feeling at times like an unloved trash bag, as we all do, and then being warmly reminded that you matter because you are in fact someone’s fallback. The hook goes:

and when i felt like i was an old cardigan under someone’s bed you put me on and said i was your favorite.

Beyond reveling in this pathetic status, this song serves as an admission that the speaker a. uses the word “cardigan” and b. thinks of those bland, preppy sweaters as a comforting thing to wear. In a cooler universe, this song would be called “flannel.” It is just okay to listen to.

7. mad woman

This song has big Ophelia vibes, big Handmaid’s Tale vibes, big “daughter of the witches you couldn’t burn” vibes. One of the verses contains the line “and women like hunting witches too,” because, hey, woman-on-woman misogyny is bad, didn’t you know. Strong reminder that if being called crazy is the worst form of oppression you’ve experienced, you still have it pretty good. Sometimes sounds decent, sometimes too croony.

6. invisible string

This one uses a pretty lazy, commonplace device: She opens couplets within verses by just naming colors, and uses these to create a simple repetitive structure for introducing random, useless details:

green was the color of the grass where i used to read at centennial park i used to think i would meet somebody there teal was the color of your shirt when you were sixteen at the yogurt shop you used to work at to make a little money

Sure this device is tired, but that’s only the surface of what’s embarrassing here. More embarrassing is the image I’ve conjured of a teal-shirted teenage boy smiling through his braces behind the toppings station at one of those blindingly lit American-kawaii froyo stores. I don’t know who needs to hear this but don’t fuck the froyo boy. Song is pretty catchy.

5. illicit affairs

Title says it all here: This song is about how thrilling and fun and ultimately horrible it is to be involved in a romantic situation you’re not supposed to be in, and how that forbidden sheen can get you totally enthralled with a crappy garbage man. Not a whole lot going on below the surface. This song is both very enjoyable and very embarrassing because it is very relatable.

4. seven

We are back to the aggressive levels of white woman previously seen in “mad woman,” only the case has gotten much more severe. Here’s this song’s final chorus:

Sweet tea in the summer Cross my heart, won’t tell no other And though I can't recall your face I still got love for you Pack your dolls and a sweater We'll move to India forever Passed down like folk songs Our love lasts so long

Okay let’s just skate past the part where a presumed adult is telling a fellow adult (I sure hope!) to bring their dolls when they run away together. That in itself is too big a can of worms to crack open. What I want to talk about is the line “We’ll move to India forever,” which pretty obviously uses an Orientalist fantasy of India as some nebulous, ethereal image of the East. Real people don’t live there; it’s the exotic dreamland where sweet-tea drinking southern belles bring their adult toys when they elope. This song is very catchy.

3. betty

Let me start by saying that now that we’re in the top three, all of the remaining songs are vying for the #1 slot. I could very easily see this and the next as the  Most Embarrassing to Enjoy. But “betty” is clocking in at number three today.

This is a song about a teenage romance gone bad, in which a speaker named James (who is “only seventeen, I don’t know anything”) has cheated on a girlfriend (Betty) and is now considering showing up at her party, begging for forgiveness, and hoping for a kiss in the garden. We get the backstory in the bridge:

I was walking home on broken cobblestones Just thinking of you when she pulled up like A figment of my worst intentions She said "James, get in, let's drive" Those days turned into nights Slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long

First of all, “figment” of “intentions” is not really a phrase? But secondly, and more importantly: Excited bloggers all over the internet have posted a smattering of theories detailing why this song is Taylor Swift’s coded revelation that she actually maybe fucks girls, too, y’know, and hey, maybe the object of this song is the supermodel Karlie Kloss, whose middle name is Elizabeth. Apparently Taylor Swift is named after James Taylor, so she could be James, or at the very least James could be a woman. I’m going to allow for the possibility that the speaker “James” is a woman, because why not; it does not change the narrative. But said narrative doesn’t make sense: who is this woman pulling up next to James and picking them up on the cobblestone? Did James really spend all summer with her, and if so, why? James is only seventeen by the time they get back to ask Betty’s forgiveness, so like, where the hell are James’s parents? Do they not care that their child has gone off for the whole summer with a person I can only picture as a cheetah-print-and-goggles-wearing divorcee driving a convertible?

Furthermore, the Karlie Kloss/Taylor Swift fan theories are gross for the simple reason that these two tall skinny white women look pretty much exactly the same. What is it with the internet’s obsession with wanting practically identical people to hook up? There might be an incest thing going on there that you guys could stand to reflect on. And on the more cynical conspiracy-theorizing side, couldn’t this just be some convenient queerbaiting? Didn’t Taylor Swift get criticized for appropriating gay rhetoric and imagery for “You Need to Calm Down,” like, 20 minutes ago? If she were going to come out, wouldn’t it have been an ideal moment to do so when she was under fire for that? I’m not saying all celebrities are shallow opportunists, but, you know, maybe.

This song is infectious. You will need to lobotomize me to get it out of my head.

2. exile

I know I originally said this was gonna be number one but I lied. It is pretty rough, though. This track features Bon Iver, and it’s not the high-pitched sad boy of “Skinny Love” renown. This Bon Iver is deep-voiced and country, like Bon Iver playing Tim McGraw in an uncomfortable SNL parody. Also, the whole song is centered around the tired and overused metaphor that a person is a place, and the person the speaker is pining after is home, and the speaker is in exile because they can’t go home to the person they love. It’s a heartache-ballad, cry-sing in your car, absolute jam.

1. the last great american dynasty

I really tried not to let this be number one. I really didn’t want it to be, which is precisely why it is. This was the track that first alerted me to the entire album’s release, because Ed Markey supporters on Twitter seized on it and decided it was about the downfall of the Kennedy family. It is not. The opening verse goes:

Rebekah rode up on the afternoon train, it was sunny Her saltbox house on the coast took her mind off St. Louis Bill was the heir to the Standard Oil name and money And the town said, "How did a middle-class divorcée do it?" The wedding was charming, if a little gauche There's only so far new money goes They picked out a home and called it "Holiday House"

This is very obviously about a real couple, Rebekah and William (Bill) Hale Harkness, who had a real mansion in Rhode Island that they called “Holiday House.” The Harkness name is on basically every building in Connecticut and a lot of the Northeast because Stephen Harkness, Bill Hale Harkness’s great uncle, was a founder of Standard Oil along with John D. Rockefeller. In 2013, Taylor Swift bought the property known as “Holiday House,” as she says in the song:

Fifty years is a long time Holiday House sat quietly on that beach Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits And then it was bought by me

The cool, fun, left-ish internet reading of this song is that it’s a revolutionary tale about toppling class hierarchy—getting a hold of wealth and bringing the institution that created it to its knees by… “fill[ing] the pool with champagne”? How much would that amount of champagne even cost? This is not a song about revolution. Taylor Swift didn’t storm into the Standard Oil house and burn it down or take it over; she bought it. It is not a song about destabilizing the ruling class. It’s a song about joining it.

It absolutely fucking slaps, unfortunately.

[justlookfrightened]

Houston Chronicles, Part 17

Read the beginning here. Read the last installment here.

Jack looked at his phone and put it down again.

There were no texts from Bitty after the one where he said he was worried. No calls, either.

So maybe Bitty was worried, but not worried enough to keep checking.

It had been more than a day since that text. Thirty-one hours of Jack trying to figure out what to do next, if he’d spoiled everything, if he could live having driven Bitty out of his life again.

Of course he knew how to live without Bitty. He’d been doing it for five years, and doing just fine. Or at least adequately. But having Bitty in his life — even in the limited way of these past few weeks — was infinitely better than not having Bitty in his life. When he wasn’t with Bitty, he was looking forward to being with him, anticipating what he would look like and what he would have to talk about. Jack would save up things to tell him, take pictures of things to show him. He even tried to play better when Bitty was watching.

Then they’d fallen into bed (Jack had carried Bitty to his bed), and it had been heaven. The way he looked, the way he smelled, the way he sounded … Jack could feel the blood pool in his groin just thinking about it.

After, when Bitty had pulled on Jack’s arm and asked him to stay, had curled into his side and nuzzled against his shoulder, his breath coming in little gusts … Jack dropped off to sleep feeling like he was home in a tiny apartment with a rattling air conditioner.

Then the alarm on Bitty’s phone had gone off, startling Jack awake a scant hour after he’d turned off the light. Jack silenced it before it woke Bitty — he’d said he’d get someone to cover for him, right? — but then lay awake, thinking about what he’d done.

He’d invited himself to Bitty’s home as soon as he arrived back in Houston, even though he knew Bitty would normally be asleep at that hour. More than that, Bitty needed to be asleep then to make it to work. And his job wasn’t just busywork for someone else, it was running his own successful business, one he’d built himself.

When they started seeing each other again, Bitty said he’d had to leave because everything was about Jack, and Bitty felt like he was losing his identity. Here Jack was, pushing his way in on his own schedule again.

And Bitty had said over and over again that they had to take it slow this time, they had to do it right this time, they had to talk about it this time.

Then, after a few minutes of making out he’d gone all caveman and picked Bitty up and carried him off to bed.

(But Bitty liked it. Bitty had been grinding against him. Bitty asked him to take his clothes off. Bitty told him where the condoms were. (Why did Bitty have condoms?))

In the end, he convinced himself that Bitty could be angry when he woke up, and Jack knew he couldn’t take that. So he slid gingerly out of bed, gathered up his clothes and dressed in the living room.

He’d decided to wait to find out how Bitty felt about things before doing anything else.

But then Bitty hadn’t texted all day. His text finally came late in the afternoon, when Bitty would be getting off work, and Jack hadn’t known how to respond. He didn’t really know what was going on. Why hadn’t Bitty called or texted when he woke up?

Every text he tried to compose sounded annoyed, or angry, or pathetic.

I don’t know what’s going on. You tell me.

Of course I’m ok. Why wouldn’t I be?

I’m scared I screwed it all up.

He drove back to Bitty’s apartment, glad his Audi had finally arrived, figuring he could do better in person, but when he pulled up, he saw Bitty walking out the front door with Mandy and Jeni. So Bitty wasn’t that worried.

Jack drove home.

The next day was morning skate, tape, team lunch, pregame nap. Through it all, Bitty didn’t text or call again. He wasn’t in his usual seat for the game. Jack showered, did his post-game workout, and went home.

There were still no new entries in the text thread with Bitty.

Finally, he thumbed through his contacts. It was after midnight on the east coast, but Shitty hadn’t warned Jack about Bitty being here. Shitty deserved to have his sleep disturbed.

It didn’t take Shitty long to answer.

“Jack! I see you’re tearing up the central division,” Shitty said. “Find someone to give you a little extra encouragement?”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Shits?”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference, would it? You were traded.”

“I could have invoked my non-movement clause.”

“Nah, you wanted out of Providence.”

That was true. As the signs of Bitty had slowly been erased from Jack’s life there, he’d felt less and less anchored. He’d wanted a fresh start, and, according to his stat line at least, it had been good for him.

“So you’ve seen him?” Shitty asked. “I was getting the feeling both of you were busy since no one was calling Uncle Shitty and pining at me.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I’ve been seeing him, but I think I fucked everything up.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Shitty said. “You haven’t listened to him talk about you the last few years. ‘Is he really okay? Do you think he hates me? Does he ever ask about me?’”

“Then why didn’t he call me?”

“Did you hear what I just said?” Shitty said. “He was afraid to. Thought you hated him, or maybe worse, would laugh at him. And you never did ask about him, so I couldn’t say you did. Even though I knew you were never over him.”

Jack remembered the look on Bitty’s face when he came out of the kitchen the first time at Bits and Pieces. It was like when he was a freshman and was bracing himself for a check, terrified but determined to see it through, at least until his body betrayed him and he fainted.

Fuck.

“Shitty, I’ve done every possible thing wrong,” Jack said.

“I doubt that,” Shitty said. “And whatever mistakes you made, you get up tomorrow and try to make it right.”

************************

Read the next installment

[thecomicsnexus]

MIGHT MUTANIMALS #1-6 / TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ADVENTURES #38-39 APRIL - DECEMBER 1992 BY STEVEN MURPHY, STEVE LAVIGNE,  MIKE KAZALEH, SCOTT SHAW, JON D’AGOSTINO, GARRETT HO, CHRIS ALLAN, BRIAN THOMAS AND BARRY GROSSMAN

SYNOPSIS (FROM COMIC VINE AND TMNT ENTITY)

In the sky above the desert, a bald eagle soars. Below, a rider on horseback races across the wasteland. The rider is revealed to be Death. Death clutches a patch of leopard fur, rubs it to its face and then races onward. As the patch of fur is picked up in the breeze, the eagle snatches it in its talons and follows the Grim Reaper.

Off the coast of South America, Mondo Gecko is having a “bodacious” time, skating the side of an abandoned ship, the Dorian Grey, like a half pipe. Wingnut and Screwloose find his antics irritating and take off.

From a raft out in the water, Kid Terra watches them through his binoculars and wallows in his own despair. He feels genuinely regretful for the things he did while under the employ of Null; an emotion which grows tenfold once he considers how hard it must be for the various mutants he’s met to find their place in the world.

Below, Man Ray leads numerous Glublub refugees (whose homeland was destroyed by Null’s toxic pollution) to their new home of Valle De La Ninfa Marina, a marine nature preserve. The Glublub’s are grateful for his help, though the local sharks are hungry. Man Ray uses his Aquaman-like powers to summon the shark’s natural enemy, the stingray. The stingrays drive the sharks away and Man Ray leaves the Glublubs in peace so he can rendezvous with Kid Terra; whom he isn’t very fond of. An uneasy conversation follows, as Terra assures Ray that he never intended to kill his friend, Bubbla the Glublub; he intended to kill him. Man Ray is touched, but Terra expresses his guilt and vows to use all his knowledge of Null’s operation to bring the villain to justice. Man Ray and Terra part on uneasy terms.

High above the jungle, Wingnut and Screwloose yearn for their lost home world of Huanu, though find brief joy among a flock of vampire bats brought out by the setting sun.

In an ancient temple built by an unknown civilization, Jagwar calls the rest of the Mutanimals (sans Wingnut and Screwloose) to a meeting. Jagwar asks his friends to eat the fruit of the jungala tree, as its mystical properties will allow them to share a vision; a vision of his mother, Juntarra, who has been missing for six years. Many years before that, though, Juntarra’s restless spirit sent her on a quest to the south, following the path of the four winds. The south was the Path of the Serpent, where she was able to shed her previous life. The second path, to the west, was the Path of the Jaguar, where she faced her fear of death. Juntarra sought out the Jaguar Spirit, Yaguaro, and the two fell in love. Juntarra then gave birth to Jagwar, but being a rather poor mother, left him at age 12 to continue her journey. That was six years ago.

Suddenly, Jagwar is disturbed by the arrival of his father, Yaguaro. Yaguaro tells Jagwar that his mother has succeeded in following the third path to the east, the Path of the Dragon. He warns Jagwar that a great danger approaches her and that he, as a spirit, is powerless to stop it.

Indeed, out in the desert, the leopard skin-clad Juntarra is spied by the eagle, who swoops down to deliver the patch of fur it had caught. Juntarra is then faced by the figure of Death. Juntarra succeeds in decapitating the Reaper with her dagger, but the spectre only laughs and knocks her out with the blunt end of its scythe. Putting its head back on, Death places Juntarra on his horse and rides off.

Back at the temple, Jagwar observes the whole ordeal and declares that he must save his mother. The other Mutanimals insist they have his back.

In the South American rain forest, the Mutanimals follow a trail of rattlesnake talismans left behind, leading them toward the Path of the Serpent. Making small talk, Mondo Gecko asks Wingnut and Screwloose why they’re both so standoffish, leaving Screwloose to angrily reply that they’re friends and that should be good enough. Apologizing, Mondo brings them up to speed on their current mission, to follow the trail of Jagwar’s missing mother, Juntarra, and save her from the mysterious skull-faced fiend who has captured her.

Leaving behind the bulldozers and construction vehicles of Man’s world, the Mutanimals journey deeper into the heart of the rain forest. At last, they reach their first destination: the South Wind, AKA the Path of the Serpent. Suddenly, a humongous snake bursts out of the cave entrance and attacks. The Mutanimals rally together to defeat it, but in the battle, the snake destroys Wingnut’s prosthetic wings (emotionally crippling the poor guy). Leatherhead and Man Ray get a bright idea and, using their super strength, tie the creature in knots. The Mutanimals then escape into the cave.

Coming out the other end of the tunnel, they are met with a shade and vest-wearing anthropomorphic serpent-man named Snake-Eyes. As the representative of the Path of the Serpent, his challenge requires those who seek him to face their pasts and shed them like the skin of a snake. Using his hypnotic gaze, Snake-Eyes freezes the Mutanimals and decides to make Wingnut face his inner demons first. Wingnut remembers his childhood on his homeworld, Huanu. His wings were small and crippled and he couldn’t fly. However, this handicap led him to his best friend, Screwloose, who also couldn’t fly. The two then decided to pool their allowances until Wingnut could afford prosthetic wings that he could use to travel (and Screwloose could use for rides). Sadly, Wingnut’s next memory is far more tragic, as he relives the destruction of his planet and race at the hands of Krang.

Enraged that Sake-Eyes would make Wingnut relive such horror, Screwloose forces the serpent to gaze at his own reflection in a pool of water. Hypnotized, Snake-Eyes is forced to recall a rather unfortunate moment from his own past… when he tricked Eve into eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge.

Later, the Mutanimals relax over a campfire. Wingnut feels relieved, having faced his past. Screwloose suddenly realizes that Snake-Eyes was actually trying to help them all and that his brash actions foiled their chances at emotional bliss. The Mutanimals forgive him, though, as he was acting in what he thought was his friends' best interests. Jagwar, meanwhile, can think only of his poor missing mother.

In the desert, an eagle follows as the grim reaper carts Juntarra into the mouth of a giant skull.

Riding atop his steed, Beelzy, the Grim Reaper carries Juntarra into the mouth of his skull-shaped temple (as an eagle observes from the sky). Setting Juntarra down, Death worries that the Mutanimals are too far ahead of schedule and the plans orchestrated by himself and a mysterious other could be ruined if they arrive too early. Mixing a spell into a bubbling cauldron, Death gleefully prepares a surprise for the heroes.

Scaling a temple in the shape of a jaguar head, Jagwar announces that the Mutanimals have at last reached the Path of the West Wind, the Path of the Jaguar. The Jaguar-spirit, who is also Jagwar’s father, requires all who confront him to face death. Man-Ray complains, suggesting they just skip all these bogus supernatural “paths” and go directly to the East where they know Juntarra has been taken. Jagwar explains that they are on a supernatural mission and must follow a supernatural path. Being a scientist, Man-Ray refuses to believe in such nonsense and rolls his eyes as the rest of the Mutanimals sit and meditate.

Suddenly, the Jaguar-spirit appears to Man-Ray, asking if he fears death. Man-Ray boisterously reveals that since death is an unknown, and he has no cause to fear the unknown, then therefore he does not fear death. The Jaguar-spirit takes Man-Ray on a spiritual tour of his life, to when he was a grad student in 1987, trying to cure several dying dolphins of a mysterious poison and again to the summer of 1988 when he was doused in mutagen and transformed into Man-Ray. Even as Jack Finney, he was more curious than scared, never fearing death. Taking the tour into his own hands, Man-Ray shows the Jaguar-spirit the times he fought Cap’n Mossback and the aliens, never showing fear in either encounter.

The Jaguar-spirit senses danger and drags Man-Ray back to his body. The Mutanimals come to in time to spot a flock of bat-winged skulls ("deadheads") flying toward them. The Mutanimals engage the creatures in battle, with one narrowly making off with Screwloose. Screwloose escapes with Leatherhead’s help and manages to smash the last remaining deadhead.

The fight isn’t over, as a colossal burning skeleton attacks, hurling fireballs in every direction. Man-Ray comes up with a strategy on the spot and, with the power of name-calling, lures the burning monstrosity to a nearby lake, where it evaporates on contact with the water. From the sky, the Jaguar-spirit is impressed, conceding that Man-Ray truly does not fear death. As the Mutanimals reunite, Screwloose remarks that their challenges were way too easy, as if someone or something were merely trying to stall them.

At the skull temple, Death laughs as he cleans out his cauldron, pondering the next challenge he can concoct for his foes. Juntarra quietly comes to and attempts to sneak away. Her escape is barred by a familiar cigar-smoking, horn-headed fiend in a business suit.

Observing a flock of bats leaving their caves for the evening, or “the Elation of Wings” as it was called back on Huanu, Wingnut and Screwloose bask in the beauty of the migration while simultaneously missing their now-lost ability to fly. They rejoin the rest of the Mutanimals, who are preparing for their journey to the North and the Path of the Dragon; the Path of Wisdom.

At the skull-shaped temple, Juntarra comes face to face with an unimpressed Mr. Null and attempts to castrate him with her knife (for real). Null laughs her attack off, disarming her and slapping her around. Enraged, Juntarra steals the scythe from the Grim Reaper and takes another whack at Null. Now angry, Null seizes the scythe and lays Juntarra out cold with a fist to the face.

Crossing a desert, the Mutanimals stumble across an slaving operation. The Mutanimals intervene, taking down the guards and freeing the slaves. The slaves suddenly drop to their knees and begin worshiping Jagwar as a god. Dreadmon asks what’s up, leaving Jagwar to nervously admit that back in his younger days he used the local tribes’ worship of the jaguar to his advantage; masquerading as a god for his own gain. Never the judgmental type, Dreadmon remarks that he wishes he’d thought of it, too.

The Mutanimals continue up a mountain and finally reach the Path of the Dragon. The bearded, French-smoking dragon Glyph greets them (and his “distant cousins” Mondo and Leatherhead) and tells Jagwar that his mother had spent many years learning wisdom from him on her journey. Glyph knows they’re in a hurry and decides to let them depart with only one story.

Over four billion years ago, there was a planet between Jupiter and Mars named Astraea. Two warring alien factions, the Gryphs and the Soomas began battling over the planet’s resources and when the Soomas launched a secret weapon, they wound-up destroying Astraea (reducing it to the asteroid belt) and both races in the explosion. The lone survivor, a Gryph, crash-landed on Earth with nothing to show for his campaign but a valley full of spaceship wreckage. That Gryph was, of course, Glyph.

The Mutanimals venture into the valley full of spaceship wreckage the next day, contemplating the meaning of Glyph’s story. Man-Ray doubts its authenticity, as “Astraea” was the goddess of justice; citing it as nothing more than an allegorical fable. Searching the wreckage, Leatherhead comes up with his own moral, “Walk tall and carry a big stick”, as he pulls a humongous gun out of a cockpit. The other Mutanimals follow his lead, arming themselves with outrageous alien artillery.

Crossing several days into the desert, the Mutanimals are greeted by an eagle; the same one that tried to warn Juntarra of danger. The eagle transforms into a beautiful woman, who introduces herself as Azrael.

Welcoming the Mutanimals to the last of the Four Winds, the Path to the East, mystical bird-woman Azrael offers to help them rescue Juntarra if they in turn help her save the Four Winds. The Mutanimals agree only for Man-Ray to collapse from dehydration. Azrael leads them to a hidden spring where Man-Ray makes a full recovery. She explains that the spring is all that remains of Lake Resurrection and the sacred tropical lowlands of the Path to the East, which were all destroyed by the bad magic of the Grim Reaper and his mysterious cohort.

Screwloose grabs his alien rifle and urges everyone to stop yakking and head into battle. Azrael leads the Mutanimals to a hill overlooking the skull temple but encourages Jagwar to wait until nightfall for their assault.

Inside, Juntarra wakes up and finds herself bound to a chair with Kid Terra. Kid Terra tells his life story to Juntarra and that Null has captured him for revenge. Reluctantly, Juntarra responds with her life story; that her parents were Spanish missionaries who brought her to Brazil as a child in an attempt to convert Mayorunans. The Mayorunans burned her parents alive but chose to raise her as she was innocent. Juntarra eventually abandoned the Myarunans due to their patriarchal beliefs that women cannot follow the Path of the Four Winds. She then lays the bomb on Kid Terra that she is, in fact, Jagwar’s mother.

Night falls and the Mutanimals descend the hill for their assault. Just then, Null steps out of the shadows and greets them… with an army of laser-wielding robot skeletons! The Mutanimals and the skeletons open fire on each other, but the good guys are too badly outnumbered. One by one, they are each taken down until only Leatherhead and Azrael are left. As the skeleton robots move in, Leatherhead tells Azrael to transform back into an eagle and retreat. From his vantage point, Null lights a cigar and grins.

Man Ray, Jagwar, Dreadmon, Mondo Gecko, Wingnut and Screwloose have been knocked unconscious by a group of skeletal robots controlled by the evil corporate weasel, Mr. Null - the devilsih dude hellbent on ruling the universe. Leatherhead and a shape-shifter named Azrael are still standing, but the gatorman's gun runs out of ammo and he is overpowered by the cybernetic psychos. Azrael changes into an eagle and escapes.

Before Null can kidnap the Mutanimals, the TMNT, Ninjara and Splinter show up and the fight is renewed. A laser beam that Leo deflects with his swords nicks Man Ray's shoulder which awakens the mutant and he joins the fray. Eventually all of the Mutanimals recover and battle escalates. As laser beams and robot body parts fly, Null manages to capture Azrael when she returns to human form and punches her in the face. Null then carries the unconscious woman through a secret doorway hidden in the nearby rocky hills.

Mr. Null meets with four shadowy figures, the foremost looking like the Grim Reaper, who states that the group is ready.

Meanwhile, with the help of the Turtles, the Mutanimals finish mopping up the Robo-Skeletons. As the group exchanges greetings, Jagwar notes that Azrael is missing. Leonardo points out that Cudley is also gone and wonders if they're together, but Dreadmon states that he saw Azrael flying off in her eagle form.

Man Ray then explains that the Mutanimals have come to this place to search for Jagwar's mother, Juntarra, who was kidnapped by the Grim Reaper. A nearby giant skull is where they believe the Reaper to be - but when they found it, Null's robots attacked them. Thus the fishy mutant surmises that Null is working with the Grim Reaper. Jagwar points out that the stoney desert they're now standing in was a lush tropical jungle before the Reaper arrived. Ninjara notices a fire in the jungle far off and everyone rushes to investigate.

When our heroes arrive, they discover four zombies with torches setting fire to the jungle. Jagwar and Dreamon destroy the monsters quickly. When the heroic mutants turn to look at the fire, four shadowy figures emerge from the flames.

As the rain forest burns, the Mutanimals, the Turtles, Splinter and Ninjara face off against their foes: War, Famine and Pestilence; three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! Suddenly, the Grim Reaper reveals himself to be the Fourth Horseman, Death (big shocker), and with his scythe, slices reality into three segments, dividing the combined Mutanimal/Turtle forces.

Inside the skull temple, Null plops the unconscious Azrael down at the feet of the bound Kid Terra and Juntarra. Kid Terra pleads for Null to let the ladies go, but Null has very important plans for them… they’re going to be part of his harem.

Back in the desert, Death opens up his “toy chest”, pulling out marionettes of the other three Horsemen and gets ready to “play”. Splinter, Leonardo, Man Ray, Wingnut and Screwloose suddenly find themselves drafted into the army and standing out in the middle of a war zone. Jagwar, Donatello, Raphael and Mondo Gecko end up in an operating room dressed in surgeon’s garb. Michelangelo, Ninjara, Dreadmon and Leatherhead appear in a wilting corn field.

In the corn field, the heroes find themselves hungrier than they’ve ever been before, quickly wasting away to skin and bones. They see a breadline stretching ever onward and fall in line to wait for their meager sustenance. In the operating room, our heroes are faced with cages and cages full of monkeys destined for vivisection. Jagwar considers freeing the pitiable little guys, but the head surgeon warns them that they could already be infected with new strains of deadly viruses. He pulls back his surgical mask to reveal himself to be Pestilence. On the battlefield, our heroes desperately try to avoid getting blown up by "friendly fire". Their commanding officer orders them to seize the enemy barn on the horizon where he suspects nukes are being hidden. The good guys narrowly avoid getting killed by their own forces, but when they kick down the door, they discover War preparing to launch a nuclear missile destined for every nation on the globe.

Back in the breadline, the good guys finally make it to their turn, only for the food to run out. They ask why they can’t have any of the food in the nearby truck, but the distributor laments that those resources are going to the Presidential Palace. As the President commands the military, the starving have no choice but to accept their fate. Suddenly, a can falls from the back of the truck and everyone fights over it. They decide to share the scrap of food, but when Dreadmon claws it open, Famine bursts out. Sapping the last of their strength, he carries the helpless heroes away.

At the operating room, Pestilence reveals that the patient he’s been working on (the Earth) has died. The Turtles try to attack him, but since he’s made of bugs, they can’t land a solid hit. Jagwar has an idea and releases the monkeys, who promptly devour the Horseman. Alas, that just allows Pestilence to possess the primates, who knock the heroes unconscious. Restoring himself, Pestilence wheels the fallen protagonists away.

At the barn, War proves immune to sword blows from Leo and Splinter and counters by using each hero as a bludgeon against one another. He reveals that, in the end, the heroes shall defeat themselves. The protagonists ponder what he means, when suddenly they notice a massive warhead, “friendly fire”, heading toward them and the nuke. The nuke explodes and War hauls their unconscious bodies away.

Out on the desert overlooking the skull temple, Death gleefully dances his three Horsemen marionettes over the beaten and broken marionettes of the Turtles and the Mutanimals.

The four shadowy figures ended up being Death, Famine, War and Pestilence - evil forces of nature who have allied themselves with Null and defeated our heroes. As this issue opens, Null has the TMNT and Mutanimals shackled to posts. Jagwar demands to know why Null has destroyed the rain forest and kidnapped his mother. The evil corporate devil explains that he did it to make the Earth inhospitable to all life.

Splinter asks Null what he plans to do with his captives and the villain explains that they will all be slowly electrocuted to death on the posts. Ninjara snarls for him to get it over with, but Null delays and states that he will not be the one to push the button that begins the execution, he has someone else in mind for that task. The demon then he walks off to his hidden headquarters in the hills.

When Null gets to his destination, he discovers that both Azrael and Juntarra have escaped.

Azrael arrives at the spot where our heroes are tied and attacks the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In his efforts to capture the eagle, War crashes through the posts holding some of our heroes, freeing them. A battle ensues while Don quickly frees the others.

In the distance, the cowboy known as Kid Terra spies on the Reaper, who is controlling War, Famine and Pestilence by means of puppetry. Juntarra is with Kid - she runs off to help her son while Terra heads up the cliff where the Grim Reaper is preoccupied with the battle below. Kid Terra punches the bonehead, but Null arrives on the scene and shoots the cowboy, who falls from the top of the cliff to the ground below.

The battle between the mutants and the Horsemen continues, while the Reaper seizes the Kid's lifeless body.

Juntarra, Ninjara and Azrael corner Null - who freaks out when faced by three powerful women.

While the Reaper is preoccupied with the Kid's body, Screwloose finds the puppets that the deathly villain was using to control the other Horsemen. Screwloose grabs the puppets and smashes them on a rock - causing the real monsters to disappear into thin air!

Null pulls a gun and keeps his adversaries at bay, before sprouting bat wings and escaping.

Our heroes gather around the Grim Reaper as it holds Terra's body. Kid is having a vision about a hallway full of doors... he finds one cracked open, bright white light escaping from it. Kid opens the door...

The Reaper laughs with satisfaction and holds a glowing orb high above his head, gloating that it has captured Kid Terra's soul. Juntarra grabs the Reaper's scythe and smashes the skeleton to bits - Azrael leaps and catches the Kid's soul and places it on his head, where it seeps back into his body. Once he's absorbed his soul, Kid Terra stirs back to life!

The Reaper's bones turn to dust and Kid asks someone to remove the bullet from his chest - Raph states that he can do it with the right implements.

Jagwar is finally reunited with his mother.

Mondo comments, "After all this, I can only say one thing... WHEW!"

Off in the distance, the Grim Reaper's dust reforms into its skeletal form and rides off on its horse.

Later, Kid Terra peacefully recovers from his impromptu surgery as the Turtles wonder where Cudley the Cowlick could be.

REVIEW

When a villain is so evil, he doesn’t care if he has a planet to live in... you are usually getting yourself into a bad story. But that is not the only thing that doesn’t work.

Jagwar’s mother has become very famous for no reason, she had a son with jaguar spirit (don’t ask), plus there is the changeling Azrael, that we technically have been seeing all along, but does very little in the end, except for bringing Kid Terra back from death.

My main concern however is in how this was supposed to be a spiritual journey, yet they managed to evade learning anything from it. The most notorious problem is when they meet the dragon. You can extract him from the story completely.

Then we have the actual crossover with the TMNT. Which is ok. I feel like the tone of the TMNT book is way darker than Mutanimals, and this mix doesn’t really work that well. And they are both kids books.

The biggest legacy of this saga is in the letter pages, where it is explained that Man Ray’s original name is Man Ray, and that Ray Fillet was a name change they had to do for legal reasons, for the Playmates toy line. I still prefer Ray Fillet, even if it makes no sense.

The art is quite different between the two titles. While both are cartoon-ey, Mutanimals takes it to the extreme.

I give this saga a score of 6.

[breadknight-likes-things]

Neversoft Was Onto Something Great In The Small Town “Tony Hawk’s Project 8″

Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland made a lot of noise about being the first “Open World” Tony Hawk game when it was being advertised and shown off, but if you’re an avid fan of the series you know as well as I do that claim was mostly buzzwords.  The game was full of obvious level boundaries, long bland tunnels meant to hide load times and, despite it’s grand ideas of an open world, always felt restrictive and linear when it came to where you could actually go.  Project 8 only briefly got spoken about in these terms, due to them having already been used so heavily, which I find incredibly unfair as it actually fulfilled the American Wasteland’s promise and will never get the credit it deserved for it.  Instead of shooting for the stars and recreating a major urban metropolis like L.A, Project 8 scaled everything back and created a small town almost supernaturally built for skating, without fear of looking real enough or enough like a well known place.  In doing so Neversoft successfully created an actual open world with no obvious boundaries or loading zones like the ones that plagued American Wasteland, and revitalized an aging series, if just for a short time. To say that the town in Tony Hawk’s Project 8 felt like a “real place” would sound absurd in the same way saying any Tony Hawk level felt like a “real place”, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t use its small town setting to expert effect.  It more comes off as some kind of elaborate skate park of a town that’s mimicking things you may find in small town America, twisting and changing anything it needs to in order to make for the best possible skate lines and the maximum amount of fun.  The rooftops of downtown are dominated by empty pools and ramps positioned just right to launch you up to the power lines.  The school down the road is set up in a way that facilitates skating 1000% more than it does learning.  Even the city hall, as ridiculously grand and statuesque as it is, is little more than a facade featuring a large empty pool for with which to bust combos to your hearts content.

In a way the town in Project 8 was like something of an amalgamation of every kind of level that worked well in Tony Hawk prior to this game in the series.  Imagine then, if all those classic levels flowed into each other in a way that allowed you start a combo in the iconic School II and end it in the traditional skate-park of Burnside.  While those names and layouts aren’t actually there, the locations in Project 8 evoke them wonderfully, and the possibility of carrying your combo between them is a reality, with far more than one way to carry your combo between them, not just via the rigid tunnels in American Wasteland.  It creates a sense of cohesion the game that marketed itself as “open world” crucially lacked, and in doing so becomes what is very likely the most charming location in the series.

It’s a huge shame Tony Hawk as a franchise had to die the way it did, even the very next game in the series, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, fell back into the trap of trying to go too big with it’s recreations of large East Coast cities linked together by narrow bridges.  I feel had Neversoft stuck to the idea of small, detailed areas as they’d shown they could do so well in Project 8, we could still see Tony Hawk games today.  Alas, the Birdman’s wings have been clipped, and we’re all just going to have to make do with Skate 4.....eventually....probably....maybe.

[tkufs]

Jesse McEneaney-Fs Corner Air at the Old Square (R.I.P)

As seen in Confusion Magazine Issue 25