#nick bracket starts in two hours….

[crimewave420]

[fatecantstopme]

Better Together

Pairing: Rafael Barba x reader

Summary: Barba acts like he hates you because it's the only way he can keep his cool in your presence. Things come to a head and you call him out on it...

Warnings: cursing, Rafael is a bit of a dick at first. Use of nicknames (baby, cariño, querida, etc.). SMUT, oral (M and F receiving), unprotected sex (P in V)

A/N: Spanish translations in brackets/italics after each sentence.

cariño/querida: sweetheart/dear/darling/baby/etc.

por favor: please

qué: what

hermosa: beautiful/gorgeous

"Right...and what makes you qualified to make that determination?"

You glared at him. "Eight years of education and ten years of practice."

"Fine, but how long did you actually talk to him?" he countered.

"Four hours."

"So now you're an expert in his mental health?"

You groaned. "He belongs in a psychiatric facility, Barba. Not a prison."

"I disagree. He raped and murdered five women."

"I'm not defending his actions, but I'm telling you he's incapable of understanding the consequences of his actions."

"She's right, counselor," Olivia Benson cut in. "I got the same feeling she did when I first talked to him."

Rafael Barba let out an annoyed huff. "Fine. What do you propose?"

"Offer him a deal," she suggested. "Send him where he can get the help he needs."

Barba nodded, expression still slightly annoyed. "Fine." With that, he walked out of the precinct, presumably to go write up a deal.

As soon as he was out of ear shot, you turned to your friend and colleague. "He argues with me for ten minutes straight, but you tell him the same damn thing and he immediately agrees?"

Olivia shrugged. "You know how he is."

"Pompous, arrogant, rude, and downright insulting?"

She laughed. "All of the above, but he's also a pretty damn good ADA."

You sighed. "I would absolutely love to disagree with you, but you're not wrong. Part of me hates that he's so good at his job. And I hate his smug face and his attitude and those damn three piece suits he looks so goddamn good in," you finished your ramble with a groan.

"Maybe if you told him you thought he was hot, he'd be nicer to you," Olivia said with a wink.

"I hate you."

She laughed. "No you don't."

"Fine, I don't, but I will do no such thing. He quite clearly despises me."

"Does he?"

"Does who what?" Nick Amaro asked as he entered the squad room.

"Does Barba hate (Y/N)?" Olivia asked.

Nick chuckled. "Without a doubt."

"See?!" you said smugly.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "One of these days you're going to have to talk to him. Tell him off for being such an ass to you all the time."

"Now that I agree with," Nick cut in.

"If he pushes the right buttons, I will."

**********

Little did you know that two days later, Barba would push the exact right button.

Olivia, Nick, Amanda, Fin, and yourself were gathered in the squad room discussing your latest case. You had two dead girls in two days and 1PP was already breathing down your necks.

You were going over the profile with the team when Barba walked in. "I know it sounds crazy, guys, but I believe the perp is a girl...probably the same age as the victims."

"Why?" Fin asked.

As you started to explain your reasoning, to include the lack of sexual assault, the relationship between the two girls, and the anger clearly present in the attacks, Barba cut you off with a harsh laugh.

"You think a 10 year old girl is capable of inflicting that kind of trauma?" he interjected. "There's no way."

You took a deep breath in through your nose and exhaled from your mouth before responding. You needed those ten seconds to calm yourself so you didn't murder him. "Were you ever a 10 year old girl?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Obviously not."

"Are you a forensic psychologist?"

"Again, no."

"Have you been working violent sex crimes for 10 years?"

"No..."

"Then be quiet and listen," you finished harshly.

You'd never snapped at him quite so intensely before and he was taken aback. He was also very aware that he may have taken it a little too far this time. He'd made it a point to keep you at arm's length (or farther) for the past 6 months, and he was belatedly realizing he may have been too cruel.

You finished your profile, answering the questions posed by the rest of the squad, before everyone went about their assigned duties.

Barba announced he was going back to his office to update the DA and you were thankful to be rid of him.

"Maybe you were right, (Y/N)," Olivia said softly. "He either hates you or he hates shrinks."

"Likely both."

"I'm proud of you for clapping back," Amanda said warmly. "Someone's gotta put that guy in his place every once in a while."

You smiled mirthlessly. "Once this case is over, I may have more to say to him, but for now, let's focus on finding the person who killed those girls."

**********

Three days later and you had your suspect in custody. You'd been right in your assessment of the perp...it turned out to be a 10 year old girl who had been relentlessly teased and bullied by the two victims for an entire year. The girl finally snapped and killed them both in a blind rage.

After hearing all of the terrible things that had been done to her, you felt sorry for the girl. You understood why she'd killed those girls, even if you didn't condone it.

"Hey, (Y/N/N)," Fin called. "We're going out for drinks. My treat."

"I think I'll take a rain check guys...I've got something I need to do."

"Awww no fun," Amanda teased.

Olivia gave you a look, but you smiled at her reassuringly. She took it to mean you were okay, so she followed the others out.

You'd decided to pay a very special visit to a certain ADA...

You arrived at his office 20 minutes later, and you belatedly realized you probably should have checked to see if he was even there still. It was already after 6pm, but you hoped since he was a workaholic, he would be unaware of the late hour.

When you reached his office door, you found yourself taking a deep breath. You started to question yourself and whether this was a good idea, but then you thought about the way he'd been treating you and you got a burst of courage.

You knocked on his door and waited. You heard a slightly annoyed "Come in", so you opened the door and stepped into his office.

Barba looked up from the paperwork he was buried in, a look of surprise ghosting over his face. "Dr. (Y/L/N)...to what do I owe the pleasure?"

You shut the door behind you and took a step towards his desk. "Do you have a problem with me?"

"Excuse me?" he asked in surprise.

"Do you have a problem with me, specifically, or is it psychologists in general?"

"I don't have a problem with psychologists."

"So it's me, got it. Do you mind telling me what the hell I did to you?"

He had the grace to look sheepish. "You didn't do anything to me."

"Then why do you treat me like I'm some sort of imbecile?"

"I...I never intended to make you feel that way," he said honestly.

"Really? How did you intend to make me feel? You belittle me, insult my abilities and my intelligence, you're unnecessarily rude to me in front of my colleagues..." you trailed off.

He rose from his seat and came around the front of his desk. His expression was unreadable, but his shoulders had slumped slightly. If you didn't know better, you'd think he actually felt bad for the way he'd been treating you.

"You're right," he admitted. "I have treated you entirely unfairly."

It was your turn to look surprised. Out of all the things you'd expected him to say, an admission of guilt was certainly not one of them.

"I don't want you to think, for even a moment, that I don't think you're brilliant. You are the sharpest woman I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and you're downright phenomenal at your job."

You opened your mouth and closed it a few times before you could formulate a coherent response. "How in the hell was I supposed to know that?"

He blushed and cast his gaze to the floor. "I suppose there was no way for you to know, given the way I've treated you."

"Why, then?" you asked softly.

He sighed deeply and ran his hand over his face. "It's--complicated."

"Enlighten me, Barba. I've got time."

His green eyes raised back up to meet yours and you found yourself nearly breathless--and not for the first time. His eyes were beautiful, typically sparkling with whit and mischief; but in this moment, they shone with emotions so complex you couldn't begin to comprehend them.

"I never intended to be cruel to you, only distant. But I found that being aloof wasn't enough to keep you at bay--I needed something stronger. So...I started treating you as if I hated you. It was just easier, and perhaps safer."

"Safer?"

He nodded, but neglected to clarify. "Keeping you out of my life has become a necessity, Dr. (Y/L/N)."

His formality annoyed you, but you didn't comment on it. "Then why didn't you just tell me you didn't like me?"

He groaned and turned back to his desk to pour himself a glass of scotch. "Because it's not true, and I'm many things, but a liar isn't one of them."

"Okay, but you want nothing to do with me?"

"Exactly."

"You do understand how contradictory that sounds, correct?"

He took a long drink from his glass and leaned back against his desk. "It sounds moronic, yes, I am aware."

You debated your next words with care. You knew if you said what was on your mind, you might regret it, but you also knew if you didn't say it, you would regret it.

"When I met you, I was instantly intrigued by you," you began. "It was obvious you were highly intelligent, but you were also funny, charming, and impeccably well-dressed. It's a rare combination."

You crossed your arms and sighed. "At first, you were friendly and I quite liked you, but things between us turned icy in an instant. I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now, but what I can tell you is it hurt me. It hurt me deeply, Barba, and it still does."

If he'd felt like an ass before, he felt 1,000 times worse now. "I never intended to hurt you," he said quietly. "You're a kind and loving soul...and you don't deserve to be treated the way I've been treating you."

"You're right," you whispered. "I don't."

He winced slightly and downed the rest of his scotch. "I am truly sorry, (Y/N). More than you'll ever know."

His use of your first name was not lost on you. You could count on one hand the number of times he'd said it and you'd reacted the same way each time. Your eyes fluttered closed for a moment, your breath caught, and your heart began to speed up.

Rafael had never noticed before...had never really paid attention to you the very few times he'd said your name, but he saw your reaction this time. For the first time since he'd met you, he began to wonder if you shared his feelings...

You quickly recovered yourself--praying he hadn't noticed. "I appreciate your apology." Your voice was slightly off pitch and you wanted to kick yourself for letting any emotion show.

"May I ask you something?" he said suddenly.

You nodded, not trusting your voice in the moment.

"You said what you thought of me when we first met--what do you think of me now?"

"Do you really want to know?"

He nodded.

You swallowed thickly. "Everything I said is true. You're a brilliant man and an even better lawyer...and you can be funny and charming, when you want to be. But that's not the Rafael Barba I get. I get the one reserved for the criminals and defense attorneys you dislike. The ones that make your skin crawl. You're pompous, arrogant, and cruel."

He closed his eyes tightly. Hearing you say what you really thought of him was much more painful than he'd anticipated.

"But I don't believe that's who you really are," you said so softly he almost didn't hear.

He looked back up at you in surprise.

"I think it's a facade you put up--a mask you wear to hide behind."

"What makes you think that?"

"Call it intuition, or perhaps training," you said with a shrug. "Either way, I am certain you really are the man I met in the beginning--not the man you've been the past several months."

"How could you have that much faith in me? After the way I've treated you..."

"Perhaps it's foolish...or maybe I just want it to be true."

He stared at you with a strange look on his face. It was as if he was trying to decide if you were playing him or being sincere. His expression slowly morphed as he realized you'd meant every word you'd said.

"May I be honest with you?" he asked.

"I want nothing less."

"Truthfully, I'm terrified of you. Absolutely, 100%, completely terrified."

Your jaw dropped slightly. Once again, he’d caught you off guard.

"You got under my skin the moment I met you and I haven't been able to get rid of you since. I've never felt like this--like I can't control my own actions or my emotions--and it's petrifying. I thought pushing you away would change how I felt, but it only intensified it. I think that's why I became crueler over time--I was angry at myself and angry with you for making me feel this way. It's not fair to you, I know, but it's the truth."

You were once again shocked to the core. You almost couldn't believe what you were hearing...if you weren't so good at reading people, you'd be convinced he was lying, but as it stood, you knew it was the raw, painful truth.

"You can't control everything, you know," you said quietly.

He laughed harshly. "God, how I wish I could."

"What are you so afraid of?"

He took a moment to answer, but once he did, the words poured out of him. "I'm afraid the way I feel about you will ruin both of our careers. I'm afraid that once you see the man behind the mask, you'll run and leave me broken. I'm afraid that we'll fall apart...that we won't stand the test of time. I'm afraid of falling so deeply in love with you that I lose myself completely. But most of all, I'm afraid that I've already screwed this up beyond repair."

For all your education and all the eloquent words you've learned in your lifetime, you found yourself stunned into complete and utter silence. No words came to mind, no coherent thoughts emerged. You stared at him and he stared at you, as the silence dragged on.

After what had to be an eternity, Rafael spoke again. "Please say something. Anything. Tell me you hate me. Tell me you never want to see my face again. Tell me you'd rather jump off a building than be with me--"

"Stop!" The intensity of your demand silenced him. "Just stop talking…I…I can't find the words I want to say, but I do know one thing: I'm not afraid."

Out of all the things you could have said, all the beautiful sentences you could have strung together, those three words were the perfect response. Fueled with sudden courage, Rafael crossed the space between the two of you in three long strides, coming to a stop a few inches from you.

With a shaking hand, he gently stroked your cheek. "May I?" he asked quietly.

Your pretty (y/e/c) eyes met his and you softly begged, "Please."

He leaned into you, lips pressing against yours with soft insistence. The kiss ignited something within you--a desire so deep and powerful it almost frightened you. You grabbed ahold of his suspenders and tugged his body closer to yours as you deepened the kiss.

Rafael moaned softly against your lips, tongue pressing forward, requesting access. You obliged, lips parting to allow him entry. His hands traveled down your soft curves until they landed on your hips. He used his gentle strength to pull you flush against him, his own body backed up against his desk to support him.

You could feel his need for you in his kiss, in his touch...and in his pants. His growing erection was pressed against you, so close to where you wanted him, yet so far away.

Rafael broke the kiss for a moment. "Carmen left for the day."

"Mhmm," you hummed in response.

"But I don't want our first time together to be on the couch in my office."

"How 'bout the desk?" you teased lightly.

He groaned. "Don't think I haven't imagined it, but I'd like to take you home...do this properly--in a bed."

You stared at him for a moment. "If we stay here, it can be casual, unassuming. If I go home with you...that changes everything."

"I don't want casual. I don't want a fling. I want you--and everything that comes along with that."

You studied him closely before responding. You noted the sincerity in his voice and his expression and decided to--for once--allow your heart to lead your decision. "Take me home, Rafael," you whispered.

He breathed deeply, as if trying to control himself. It appeared that you had the same effect on him as he did on you when you called him by his first name.

He didn't say a word--you weren't even sure he could have if he'd wanted to. He simply grabbed his jacket, took your hand, and practically dragged you to the elevator. Once outside, he hailed a cab and helped you into the backseat before sliding in beside you.

As the cab began to move, you rested your hand on Rafael's thigh. He glanced at you, but didn't say anything. You were feeling bold, so you slid your hand slowly up his thigh, inching closer to his evident arousal.

When your fingertips brushed against his clothed cock, he hissed slightly. He leaned over to whisper into your ear so the cab driver wouldn't hear. "Careful, querida. O puedo perder el control [Or I may lose control]."

You inhaled sharply--something about his tone mixed with the hushed Spanish words, sent a jolt of pure arousal straight to your core.

Your reaction didn't go unnoticed by Rafael. He smirked as he discovered one of your kinks. He tucked the knowledge away for later use.

You managed to behave yourself for the rest of the short ride to his apartment, but once inside the building, all bets were off.

His lips were on yours the moment the elevator doors slid closed, pressing your body firmly against the wall. Your fingers tangled in his hair, messing up the perfect locks.

As the elevator dinged and the doors began to open, you reluctantly pulled away from each other. You saw the desperation in his beautiful green eyes and you knew the same look reflected in yours.

He wasted no time guiding you to his apartment and the moment you were both inside, he had you spun around and pressed up against the door.

“Querida,” he whispered hungrily against your lips, fingertips dancing under your shirt.

You moaned softly as you tugged harshly on his suspenders, pushing them out of the way so you could remove his shirt.

Within moments, your clothes and his were strewn across the house as he carried you to his bedroom, nothing left between you but underwear.

Rafael tossed you gently onto the bed before climbing on top of you. He eyed you hungrily—sprawled out beneath him, desire evident on your face.

“You are perfect, hermosa.”

You blushed. “Rafa…”

He groaned. “Fuck. Don’t do that.”

Confusion clouded your expression. You didn’t think you’d done anything wrong…

He’d closed his eyes and his face gave away the internal struggle he was experiencing.

Realization suddenly crossed your features and you grinned. You gently raked your nails down his chest as you murmured the nickname again, “Rafa.”

His eyes shot open and he rutted his hips against yours, mouth pressing wet kisses to your heated skin. His teeth nipped at your neck and collarbone, leaving love bites in his wake.

He was taking his time with you. Wanting to explore every part of you, taste every inch of your skin, catalogue every detail in his mind.

You whimpered softly, not used to such attention, nor such deliberate slowness. “Rafael, please.”

He looked up at you with his trademark smirk. “You ever been with a Hispanic man before, Cariño?”

You blushed and shook your head.

His smirk widened. “We like to take our time, make sure our lady is properly loved and appreciated. This is about your enjoyment, (Y/N/N), not mine.”

“I want you to enjoy yourself too…”

He kissed you gently. “You keep making those pretty sounds for me, querida, and I promise you, I’ll enjoy myself.”

You found yourself unable to respond as he continued his slow descent towards your core. Each gentle caress of his lips against your skin seemed to set your nerve endings on fire--the need within you growing exponentially.

You whined prettily, hips shifting upwards, desperately seeking his lips where you needed them most. "Please," you begged.

You didn't know it yet, but Rafael would never deny you--not in the real world, nor the bedroom. The moment he heard your soft voice begging, he glanced up at your face. You already looked so far gone--your hair was a mess, your lips swollen, your cheeks flushed, and your breathing was ragged. He smiled to himself as he lowered his head, giving you no time to adjust as he dove into you with abandon.

You gasped as the pleasure threatened to overwhelm you. As skilled as the man between your legs was in the courtroom, he was even better suited with his mouth hungrily devouring you.

In the span of mere minutes, he'd turned you into a gasping, moaning mess--every one of your senses overwhelmed with feeling.

"Rafa--I--I'm close," you gasped.

He hummed against you, lips wrapping around your clit to increase his assault. His fingers dug into the flesh of your hips, holding you in place as he sped up his ministrations.

Your jaw dropped as a flurry of sounds--some of which were intended to be his name--slipped from your lips. Your orgasm sent wave after wave of intense pleasure through your body, but that pleasure soon turned to sensitivity.

"Rafa, too much--" you whispered as you tried to pull away from him.

He laid his arm across your lower belly, effectively holding you in place as his mouth continued to work you. His eyes flicked up to yours to check if you really did want him to stop, but your head was already thrown back, chest rising and falling rapidly as the familiar knot tightened in your stomach.

The moment your cries turned to moans and pleas to continue, Rafael stopped and lifted his head. "Did you want me to stop, querida?"

"No!" you cried loudly, fingers grasping his hair in an attempt to guide him back where you wanted him.

He smirked as he complied with your direction, lips and tongue once again sending you into a spiral of pleasure you'd never experienced before.

As you came down from your second high, Rafael finally slowed his assault and allowed you to pull his head up when it became too much.

He placed soft kisses against your heated skin, gently soothing you as the aftershocks shuddered through your body. His lips traced the curves of your face with gentle affection until your breathing had begun to normalize.

Rafael kissed you deeply, desire evident in the action. In response, your hand slowly descended down his chest and abdomen, until you reached his throbbing cock. You lightly ran your nails across the still clothed member, enticing a groan from the man above you.

You teased him for a few more seconds before sliding your hand beneath his boxer briefs and palming his cock in your warm hand. He groaned loudly--hips rutting against your hand instantly.

"I wanna taste you," you murmured against the shell of his ear.

"You don't have to..." he said softly.

There was something in his voice that caused you to pull away so you could see his face properly. He looked worried and perhaps a little apprehensive.

"But I want to," you reassured him.

"You do?"

You nodded. "It's something I enjoy very much, Rafa, so if you're okay with it, I would really like to suck your cock."

His eyes closed briefly and he moaned softly, forehead dropping against yours. "Por favor," he begged in a broken voice.

You grinned ear to ear. "Stand up."

"Qué?" he asked in confusion.

You nudged him gently and tilted your head towards the edge of the bed. "Stand up, handsome."

He did as you asked and watched in surprise as you lowered yourself to your knees on the floor in front of him. He felt like he needed to remind you again that you didn't need to do this for him, but when he saw the hunger in your eyes, he fell silent.

You slowly dragged his underwear down, freeing his cock from its constraints. You were a little surprised by his size--he was longer than average and quite thick--but surprise quickly turned to hunger.

You looked up at him, a playful smirk dancing on your lips, and all his worries faded away. It was obvious you wanted this...perhaps just as much as he did.

You wasted no time in wrapping your mouth around his cock, taking as much of him into your mouth as you could, eyes never leaving his face.

You gagged slightly as he hit the back of your throat, but you pushed past it, determined to provide him with as much pleasure as you could muster.

As you began to move, his fingers intertwined in your hair and his hips stuttered forwards occasionally. You knew what he needed, but it was clear he wasn't going to do it without some prodding.

You pulled off of him with a *pop* and waited until his heavily lidded eyes met yours. "Rafael, I want you to enjoy this."

"I am, cariño," he said in confusion.

"Not as much as you could be." You licked the tip of his cock for emphasis and his hips jumped slightly. "I want you to use my mouth for your own pleasure, Rafa. That's what it's there for."

He shook his head rapidly. He'd been expressly told not to do that by several women before you.

You rubbed his thighs reassuringly. "I want this, baby. Please," you begged. "Please fuck my mouth."

The moment the words were out of your mouth, you sucked his cock back into the warmth of your lips, hoping he would take you seriously. You pressed yourself forward, pushing past the gag reflex to take his entire member into your mouth.

Without hesitation, you began to guide his hips, urging him to give in and take what he wanted--what he needed.

You flicked your gaze up to meet his and nodded your head as best you could, hands still encouraging him to move. He very tentatively began to move his hips and you smiled, fingers digging into his thighs.

When you didn't pull away, he started to put a little more force into the movements. When you still didn't pull away, he sped up, fingers wrapping in your hair to keep you still.

You let him take control, eyes still trained on his face. He slowly began to thrust in earnest, fucking your mouth like it was his favorite place to be. You watched his head fall back, moans of intense pleasure leaving his lips.

You held onto him and focused on breathing as you let him use you. A few minutes passed before his hips began to stutter and you knew he was close.

You prepared to swallow everything he had to give you, but he surprised you by pulling away, your mouth coming off of him with a *pop*.

His breathing was ragged and his eyes were wild--pupils blocking out the brilliant green. "I need you," he said, voice raw and husky.

You understood his meaning and quickly crawled back onto the bed. He was on top of you almost immediately, lips latching onto your neck, teeth nipping at your flesh.

His cock rubbed against the outside of your pussy and you both groaned.

"Fuck," he mumbled. "Do I need a condom?"

"Pill," you gasped as you shook your head. "Wanna feel you fill me up, Rafa."

He let out a low growl and his eyes turned even more feral. He gave you no warning as he plunged his cock deep inside of you, stretching you in ways you'd never been stretched before.

"Rafael!" you cried out at the sensation.

Normally he would have forced himself to give you time to adjust, but his mind was too far gone. He set a brutal pace almost instantly and you were simply along for the ride.

There were so many new sensations that you were having a hard time staying focused. Everything just felt so incredible.

Your pussy throbbed around him, pulling him in even deeper. "Te sienetes muy bien, querida." [You feel so good, sweetheart.]

You moaned loudly, nails digging into his back as you arched against him.

"Te gusta cuando te hablo español, ¿no?" he growled into your ear. [You like it when I speak Spanish to you, don't you?"]

"Yes!" you gasped.

"Chica sucia," he chuckled darkly. [Dirty girl.]

"Rafa, please--I'm so close."

He groaned. "Quiero que vengas conmigo, cariño," he mumbled. [I want you to cum with me, sweetheart.] "Can you do that for me?" he asked in English.

You nodded your head rapidly.

"Esa es mi buena chica," he praised. [That's my good girl.]

You moaned lowly, preening at his praise. He smiled and picked up his pace, not wanting to stop until he felt you fall apart. "So close," he mumbled.

"Don't--stop!"

He knew you were close--could tell by the way your pussy fluttered around him--so he whispered, "Cum for me, baby."

You cried out as your orgasm hit you with more force than either of the two you'd had earlier. Rafael groaned your name as he spilled his seed within you, filling you up as your walls milked him dry.

You both began to come down from your highs, the intensity of your orgasms taking the wind out of both of you. Rafael pulled out and collapsed beside you, completely spent and satiated.

"That was pretty decent," you said between breaths.

He snapped his head in your direction and started to laugh when he saw the mischief in your eyes.

You grinned and joined in on his laughter, allowing him to wrap his arms around you and pull you closer to him.

"Very decent," he muttered against your hair.

You laughed again. "'Fucking incredible' would be a more accurate description."

"I couldn't agree more." He sighed softly. "I don't wanna move."

"Who says we have to?"

"We probably should...we do have work in the morning after all."

Your body tensed slightly and he felt it, realizing how his previous statement may have sounded. "I want you to stay, querida. I'm just saying we should probably get up and shower before we fall asleep."

You relaxed. "You may have to carry me."

He chuckled and dragged himself out of bed, pulling you along with him. He scooped you up despite your protests and carried you to the bathroom, placing you on the counter while he started the shower.

"I was kidding, Rafa!"

He smiled. "If my girl can walk immediately after sex, then I did something wrong. I'm always happy to carry you."

You smiled back at him, realizing he was completely serious. You watched him quietly, completely lost in thought.

"Where's your mind, querida?" he asked softly.

You shook your head, clearing your thoughts. "I'm happy...that's all."

Rafael kissed you gently. "Me too, hermosa. Now come on, let's get you cleaned up."

Once you were both clean and dry, he carried you back to his bed and laid you down gently before crawling into the bed beside you. He tugged you in closely against his chest and you sighed contentedly.

"Go to sleep, cariño. I'll be here in the morning when you wake up."

Somehow he seemed to know exactly what you needed to hear. Knowing he wasn't going anywhere and feeling his strong arms wrapped around you, allowed you to feel a calm peace you'd not felt in years.

Within minutes, you'd drifted off to sleep in his arms. Just before he fell asleep too, Rafael kissed the top of your head and whispered, "Te adoro con locura." [I adore you madly.]

[charcherry-weekly]

Charcherry Weekly - Issue 210

Hello everyone, mage of light Nick Card here. the festival is over and memories are all that remain. Let's review them.

During festival time, the efforts of the archipelago crew continued. significant progress was made, as two of the games had their goals met. Your dear newsletter writer (with the help of those that sent the prerequisite check items) finished all tasks for A Short Hike, culminating in a thrilling boat ride. Rogue of Heart Charles also managed to obtain enough badges to take on the pokemon league, eventually defeating the champion. However, while check items were released, they could not be collected, necessitating that the group continues to seek out the various types of pokeballs hidden in the various games. Reportedly, each ball symbolizes a different function of the pokedex, so seeking them out is top priority.

At some point in the middle of the week, Page of Mind Samm put on a mindfield show, which was well attended by festival-goers. It followed the story of a lonely figure that experiences the seasons, witnesses legendary birds, culminating in the appearance of Ho-oh and Moltres. The show was quite well received.

On the last day, the annual unity village summer festival pokemon tournament went underway, starting relatively early in the morning. Because of the small bracket size, it was shifted to round robin format rather than elimination. The participants were Professor Coleman Branch, Bug wrangler Hiss n' Clink, Unity Gym leader Jovin, and Meadowedge Gym leader Mimi.

The first match was a full-on bug battle, Mimi vs Hiss n' Clack.

Mimi's team contained Beebo the Ribombee, Ski-ball the Masquerain, Sneeze the Dustox, Crusty the Crustle, Chompy the Mawile, and Smelly the Aromatisse.

Hiss n' Clink's team team contained Hack the Kleavor, Slash the Scyther, Bash the Scizor, Crash the Lokix, Crush the Scolipede, and Blast the Orbeetle.

It was a close match, but Hiss n' Clack managed to prove themself the better bug trainer.

The second match was Hiss n' Clink vs Professor Branch. Though the festival has proven to be an extremely busy time for handing out starter pokemon, the professor managed to find enough time to participate in his matches. His team contained Fenris the Arcanine, Umbrous the Umbreon, Necromancer the Spectrier, Big Locis the Aerodactyl, Mordread the Ceruledge, and Flechette the Drakloak.

Professor Branch won this match, owing much to his fire types.

The next match was Mimi vs Professor Branch. Mimi's pokemon were no match against a swords dance combo on such a fast pokemon as Mordread.

After that, the professor had to resume work handing out starters for a few hours. during that time however, there was a match between Mimi and Jovin. Mimi's team managed to pull through, thanks to having powerful psychic type attacks to counter his fighting types.

Later in the day, Professor Branch returned to the gym from his work. He faced off against Jovin. The professor once again won, securing his overall victory in the tournament.

However, there was one last match. Jovin vs Hiss n' Clink. Jovin managed to win in this one.

At the end, Professor Branch was awarded a small basket of evolutionary items. Everyone else tied for second place, though because there was no second place prize, tiebreaker matches were not deemed necessary.

The results have been submitted to the regional trainer ranking authority, which will update relevant ELO rankings to reflect the wins and losses during this event.

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This week’s known market stands in Desertia Town:

DTA train ticket stand

Katie’s potion stand (Not available to plitlanders due to regulations, available to all others however)

shinyjiggly pokesnacks stand

Brae's produce stall:

-Potted vegetables -Jarred vegetables -Various jams -Hisuian herbs (medicinal leek, pep-up plant, king's leaf) Temple stand:

That should do it for this week. while I've been very determined in my work, it seems even this mage can't avoid their own physical limits. I just hope this week is a quick one, so I can get back on my feet again. People are counting on me, after all. https://letssosl.boards.net/thread/447/charcherry-weekly-issue-210

[serendipitee]

28, juke?

thank you so much for the prompt, anon! I hope you’re satisfied ;)

Number 28 from this list - one person tracing the other’s lips with a fingertip until they can’t resist any longer, tilting their chin towards them for a kiss.

Julie didn’t even know how it had happened. Well, she did know but there was just no logical explanation for it.

 Because this, this wasn’t anything like her. She didn’t end up in boys’ garages after only knowing them for a few hours. She just didn’t.

 Flynn and Carrie had finally convinced her to leave the textbooks for the night, instead spending it with them. After a lot of convincing and bribing (with the promise of an unhealthy amount of sour worms in her near future), she had agreed, letting her friends even dress her up as they deemed appropriate.

Ever since they had started college, Julie had spent most of her days inside her dorm room studying or working as a piano teacher for kids in her free time. What she definitely hadn’t done was going out.

 Flynn and Carrie definitely had, because the bouncer greeted them with a toothy grin and a high-five, waving them into the crowded bar.

 Her two best friends had quickly pushed a way through the mass of people until they had reached the counter. It had been an uncomfortable feeling, being pressed against so many strangers, the bass vibrating through her body and Julie hadn’t felt like she belonged.

 She should be studying, working her ass off to get through college as quickly as possible, so she could start making sure that no other girl would lose their mother to cancer. It was an impossible quest, she was very aware of that, but Julie had been set on it ever since leaving her mom in that hospital bed.

 “Cheers!” Carrie had handed her the first shot, something clear that smelled disgusting and Julie had swallowed it, shaking her entire body while her best friends laughed.

 Flynn had ordered them a round of drinks, the fake IDs sitting in their purses, unused. And after they had gotten their fancy cocktails, Carrie pulled them onto the dance floor.

 Moving to the music, letting her body sway to the rhythm, Julie slowly had felt more at ease, more careless. She had laughed, when a guy had tried to dance with Carrie only to be rejected by a raised eyebrow and a simple shake of her friend’s head.

 They had belted out the lyrics to all their favorite songs and then she had needed a water while her friends had stayed.

 Making her way through the dance floor, she had mumbled ‘sorry’ about two dozen times until she finally reached the bar. Leaning on her elbows, she had tried to catch the attention of one of the bar keepers but they always went right over her head.

 “Excuse me!” She had yelled for the millionth time.

 “Don’t be polite,” a voice had laughed right into her ear, a chest pressing against her back, two arms bracketing her, as he was shoved from behind.

 She had turned around, about to give him a lesson in manners and boundaries because personal space, when brown met green.

 He had been sweaty, strands of hair sticking to his forehead and she couldn’t help glancing at his bare arms in his cut-offs which he strangely enough seemed to pull off.

 “Excuse me?” It had slipped out before she could think about it.

 A laugh had rumbled through his chest, transformed his face and damn, it had been gorgeous. He had leant even closer. “You need to toughen up.”

 His lips had been brushing against her ear and Julie had tried to suppress the shiver running down her back. She had obviously failed if his smirk was anything to go by.

 “What do you suggest?” She had asked, getting on her tip toes and close to his ear. The way he had pulled in his bottom lip as she fell back didn’t go unnoticed.

 He had whispered clear instructions into her ear and Julie had done her best not to get distracted by those damn arm muscles. Finally, he had leant back and she had watched him critically.

 “And that works?”

 “Every time,” he had shrugged.

 “If I die of dehydration, it’s your fault.” She had pointed her finger at him, tempted to poke his chest, check if it was as firm as it looked.

 “I’ll make sure you won’t,” he had answered, getting pushed into her from behind again and Julie had found, that she didn’t even mind.

 One last look at him, she had turned around. The dark-haired bartender had been about to pass by her again when she yelled, “Yo, Bobby!”

 His name obviously had gotten his attention, because he stopped to check who had called for him. Julie had leant further onto the bar. “Two screwdrivers and a smile!”

 Bobby’s eyes had gotten big as he had locked in on her. Then. they had wandered over her head. Rolling his eyes, he had stepped up to them. “Fuck off, Patterson. You’re not getting your drinks for free because a pretty girl orders them for you.”

 Julie had blushed a little, especially when the boy had leaned against her, so he wouldn’t have to yell as loud. “Love you, too.”

 Ignoring him, the bartender had turned to her, throwing on a winning smile. “So, do you actually want a screwdriver or did that asshole tell you to say that?”

 “Both,” she had answered truthfully.

 For a moment, his eyes had flitted back to his friend’s – Julie assumed that they were friends, after all he knew the guy’s surname – and then he had sighed. “Coming right up.”

 Grinning triumphantly, she had turned back to the boy. He had laughed, his arms touching her bare shoulders and Julie had joined him, the energy bubbling inside her.

 Bobby had waved her off when she wanted to pay. “It’s on the house. But only for you, not for him.”

 Huffing, the guy had called out, “Try to be on time for rehearsal tomorrow!”

 Flipping him off, Bobby had turned to the next customer and Julie’s curiosity had sparked.

 “Rehearsal?” She had asked.

 “We’re in a band. Sunset Curve.” He had suddenly seemed a little bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck, biting his lip.

 Julie hadn’t been able to squash down her excitement and had asked him question after question. It had been too long since she had talked about music with somebody who loved it just as much as she did.

 Shortly after, they had left the bar, sat down at the curb outside, talking about their favorite song-writers and the stuff they were working on respectively.

 Their shoulders had bumped against each other constantly, a spark traveling down her spine every time, settling in her stomach. It had kept her warm against the cool October night.

 And then somehow, they had ended up at the garage they called their studio. Had ended up sitting on the couch, his guitar across his lap, notebook open in front of them and Julie didn’t even know his name but she didn’t care because there were so many other things she knew about him, that he knew about her. Everything had just, clicked. It hadn’t felt like they had only known each other for a few hours.

 And now, here they were. In a situation Julie never would have imagined herself in when the night started.

 “That’s amazing,” she breathed out after he had shown her one of his songs, the last chord ringing through the room.

 His smile was blinding, drawing her eyes to his lips.

 “You, um, you wanna sing the next one with me? You do sing, right?” He asked.

 Julie chuckled sadly. “I used to. With my mom, but I haven’t sung in a really long time.”

 He leaned towards her, shoulders brushing and Julie realized suddenly that they were completely alone. Well, they had been for a while but somehow it felt very different now. Had her heart always beat that hard against her ribcage?

 “I won’t tell anyone,” he promised, throwing in a wink.

 She laughed quietly, noting the way his eyes wandered to her lips and she filed that information away, pleased.

 “Can you play me another one?” She asked to distract him.

 He seemed to know what she was doing, but he still turned to another page in his notebook. Checking in with her, he started strumming, his fingers finding their way confidently.

 Julie would be lying if she said, it didn’t turn her on. She had always had a thing for musicians, guitarists in particular. Her everlasting crush on Nick all through high school was only further proof of that.

 When he started singing, she couldn’t help staring because he was good, really good and so were the lyrics. She took the notebook, knowing that the song was probably engrained on his mind already and read along. By the second verse she found herself humming and when he reached the chorus, she was surprised to find that she was singing.

 He missed a chord, fingers slipping for a moment but then his smile grew, especially when she added harmonies at the end.

 It was quiet when they finished, a silence charged with electricity. Their eyes locked, brown meeting green and Julie didn’t dare move.

 “You do sing,” he finally whispered, his breath hitting her lips, voice rough.

 She smiled slowly, trying to dismiss it. “It’s a good song.”

 “You made it better.” He sounded so sincere that Julie couldn’t help but break the eye-contact.

 She was blushing furiously under his gaze, shaking her head. “I haven’t done anything. I haven’t actually sung in—”

 Her voice trailed off, as he touched her chin, turning it towards her. His thumb carefully touched her bottom lip. “Your voice is” – he made a sound at the back of his throat – “like a wrecking ball.”

 Julie tried to shake her head but he wouldn’t let her. His thumb traced along her lower lip instead and the touch made her body freeze, while her heart raced in her chest.

 She didn’t even know his name, was the one thought running through her mind on repeat, as he slowly leaned closer.

 “I don’t even know your name,” she blurted out, his thumb stopping its way.

 He chuckled. “I don’t know yours, either.”

 “It’s Julie.”

 “Julie.” He said it like it was something precious and she liked the way his lips formed it. “Julie…”

 She found herself nodding. The air around them seemed to be filled with sparks and butterflies. She felt them inside her and on her skin, fluttering every time he moved his thumb or his breath hit her face. Every heart beat between them intensified the feeling, a feeling she had never experienced before and yet felt so achingly familiar, it should scare her.

 It didn’t.

 “Luke.” She spoke his name for the first time, breathing it out like it could break on the tip of her tongue.

 He stilled, his thumb slipping from her lip, resting on her chin. A heartbeat, two, three passed, then he tilted her chin up. The sparks thrummed with electricity, the butterflies danced excitedly on her skin and inside her chest.

 Closing the space between them, Julie kissed him, surprising him if the little gasp was any indication.

 No kiss had ever felt like this, all consuming, like an electric hammer to the heart, the butterflies swarming around them, following their hands, their lips, their eyes as they fell into each other.

 Years down the road, Flynn and Carrie would still take credit for their relationship. After all, they never would have met without them.

 Julie liked to think, they would’ve. Someday, somehow, they would’ve found each other.

[iloveannabeth]

You’re on, Seaweed Brain.

Percy stood hunched over, hands resting on his knees and panting like Mrs. O’Leary. The summer sun beat down on his skin, making his orange camp t-shirt cling to him with sweat. He stood up, heaved a sigh and mentally prepared himself for another round.

It was about a month before Percy’s sixteenth birthday and all the campers had been working harder than ever before, getting ready for whatever Kronos was going to send their way. Percy himself has been training more than anybody. He’d just spent the better part of an hour hacking practice dummies to pieces with Riptide. With the weight of the world on his shoulders, (not literally this time) he had to be ready. If that meant killing one dummy after another, so be it.

Just as he was about to start swinging again, he felt someone come up behind him. He turned around and came face to face with Annabeth.

His breath caught in his throat and he had to work to keep his facial expressions under control. Annabeth was clad in a sports bra and shorts, clearly suffering from the heat just like him. Her face and chest were flushed and, surprisingly, her hair was down, laying in messy curls around her shoulders. She looked spectacular.

“Hey, Percy,” she smiled at him. “Working hard?” He missed the way her eyes were glued to where his shirt stuck to him for a moment, before looking back up.

“Uh, hi. Y-yeah, I am,” he managed to squeak out after a moment.

His relationship with Annabeth this summer had been...rocky. For the most part it was great. They seemed closer than ever, brainstorming attack plans, sparring, even relaxing at the beach together in those calm moments that were so rare these days. Percy was getting bolder too, flirting with Annabeth when he saw an opportunity. He was pretty sure she never noticed and he didn’t know if that was good or bad if he’s being honest. It took Percy a while to admit it, but yeah, he liked her. A lot. So why wouldn’t he want Annabeth to know he was flirting with her? Well that’s complicated.

More often than not, the nice moments they shared were disrupted with an argument and ended with Annabeth storming off. It was always the worst when Percy told her he would be leaving for the weekend. She would go silent for a few minutes, then purposefully start a fight both of them knew was bullshit, just so she had an excuse to leave. She wouldn’t speak to him for days after he returned. Eventually, Percy stopped telling Annabeth he was leaving. He would simply come back and they’d pretend like nothing happened.

A part of him hoped she was acting this way out of jealousy. The more rational part of him thought that she was acting this way because he was a selfish, lazy asshole. So, maybe Annabeth knowing he was flirting wouldn’t be the greatest thing.

Still, Percy hated fighting with her more than anything. Most of the time, he didn’t even know what they were fighting about. He yearned for a time there would only be good moments.

So, he was determined not to mess up this time. Hopefully she wouldn’t catch him staring because he had a feeling that wouldn’t end well.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She asked with a raised eyebrow and an annoyed look on her face.

Fuck.

“O-oh, uh, nothing. I was just wondering why your hair’s down, is all,” Percy spluttered out. Smooth.

“My hair tie broke,” Annabeth grumbled. “I guess now you’ll actually have a chance at beating me, with my hair flying around my face,” she smirked. She looked pointedly at the sword in his hand.

Percy realized she was asking to spar with him. No way was he going to be able to focus with her looking like that. She’d be able to beat him no matter what state her hair was in, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Please, your vision doesn’t need to be impaired for me to beat you. I’d win no matter what,” Percy gloated and matched her smirk. Fake it ‘till you make it, right?

Annabeth laughed and yep, Percy was a goner. She looked him up and down and said, “Oh you’re so on Seaweed Brain.”

Percy tried not to blush at that and failed miserably. He looked down and got into position.

As soon as he locked eyes with Annabeth, they were off.

Through the years, Annabeth and Percy had trained together time and time again to the point where they had practically memorized the other’s fighting style, which only made them that much more evenly matched. The chances of winning were more or less equal.

The two demigods circled each other, waiting to see who would make the first move. Suddenly, Percy sprung forward and slashed Riptide through the air, narrowly missing Annabeth’s waist as she side-stepped.

Percy kept advancing, going on offense. He jabbed and Annabeth blocked, never letting him get a hit in. Percy faked to the left and hit Annabeth’s shoulder with the hilt of his blade. Annabeth gasped and stumbled slighting but before Percy could take advantage, Annabeth came back at him twice as hard. She wielded her dagger like a madman, stabbing here, and slashing there. However, Percy was just as effective on defence. He ducked just in time and saw a couple strands of his hair fall to the floor.

“Oh, so you’re giving me a free haircut as well as trying to kill me, huh?” Percy asked breathlessly during a lull in the fight.

“I mean, why not, Gods know you need one,” Annabeth replied with a cheeky grin.

“Come on, don’t lie, you love my hair. But you’re going to pay for that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Annabeth’s cheeks were tinted pink. Interesting. Maybe she did realize he was flirting.

“Yeah.”

Percy lunged.

Annabeth expected percy to make a direct assault, so she was unprepared for when he rolled through her legs and jumped up behind her.

Percy slashed at her neck while she was turning around. Percy watched in horror as Riptide travelled through the air towards Annabeth. He tried to stop it, but the momentum wouldn’t give in. Before Annabeth had time to parry, the blade made contact with her skin.

Annabeth cried out in pain and the hand not holding her dagger went to cover the area Percy had struck. Her hand came away bloody. Percy felt like he was going to throw up.

“Holy shit, Annabeth, I’m so sorry, are you okay—“

Next thing Percy knew, Annabeth had judo flipped him and he was laying on his back, with the point of Annabeth’s knife pressing against his jugular.

He looked up and realized he had only given Annabeth a small nick. Then he realized...some other things. Annabeth stared down at him with a satisfied smirk adorning her features and her knees bracketed his hips, leaving her weight rested on his lower abdomen. Her golden hair tumbled down around her face and tickled Percy’s ears.

If being thrown to the ground hadn’t knocked the wind out of him, that certainly did.

“I win, Seaweed Brain,” annabeth proclaimed softly. She lowered her weapon.

Percy’s brain was too busy short-circuiting to formulate a response. He just stared at the ethereal sight above him.

“Percy? Are you okay?” Annabeth had started to look concerned.

Thankfully, his mouth had finally figured out how to work again so he said, “you’re beautiful.”

What the fuck. No. Okay, clearly, his mouth needed a bit more time.

“Um, i mean, y-yeah. Sorry, I’m all good. Nice one.” Percy would like to die now. He was sure his face had never been a deeper shade of crimson. Stupid mouth.

Now, Annabeth was the speechless one. Her face held a blush that rivalled Percy’s. She tried to appear exasperated, but Percy could see a pleased, if somewhat embarrassed, smile shining through. She was radiant.

Before this train wreck could get any worse, Percy changed the subject.

“How’s your neck?” Percy inquired. He reached up and gently brushed his fingers over her cut. Percy scowled. Even if it was inconsequential, he was still mad at himself for hurting Annabeth.

He heard her breath hitch as he ran his hand down her neck.

“I’m fine, I promise.”

Percy didn’t know why she was whispering but it felt appropriate. Her eyes found his before glancing down at their bodies. She seemed to realize, for the first time, that she was straddling him, if her eyes widening comically was any indication. She looked back to Percy’s face and the air around them turned heavy and thick like molasses. Neither of them moved for a long time. Just as Annabeth sucked in a breath and started to lean down, they heard a wolf whistle and looked up to find the culprit.

“Well, isn’t this a compromising position,” Clarisse noted with an amused voice. “I thought this was the training arena, not one of your cabins.” She was clearly trying very hard not to laugh.

Percy and Annabeth stared at each other in shock before springing apart like the other was on fire, stammering out excuses.

“We were just sparring and then Percy—“

“Annabeth beat me so she—“

“Save it you two,” Clarisse said. “I’m just playing.” Though the look on her face said she clearly didn’t believe a word. “Now get out, I want to beat up some dummies.”

With that, Percy and Annabeth packed up their stuff and walked out. They continued on in a charged silence for a few minutes before Percy couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hey, Annabeth, we were just sparring, don’t listen to Clarisse. It’s no biggie, don’t let her make things awkward between us.”

Percy didn’t mean any of it. It was definitely a ‘biggie’. A very big ‘biggie’.

Now, feel free to call Percy delusional here, but he was sure that Annabeth was about to kiss him before Clarisse interrupted. He had half a mind to go punch Clarisse in the face for that, but he had more desperate matters at hand. He needed this to stay a good moment, so he hoped downplaying it would make Annabeth feel better.

A dejected look crossed her face and she answered, “right. No biggie.” She gave him a fake smile and kept walking towards her cabin.

Shit. Maybe downplaying it was not the right strategy, Percy thought. He started grasping at straws.

“Winner gets to dunk the loser in the lake fully clothed?” He suggested with hope in his eyes. “I promise to let myself get wet this time,” he smiled.

He had a feeling Annabeth missed the good moments too because, luckily, she accepted his lousy excuse for a peace offering. She gave him a real smile and said, “you’re on Seaweed Brain. Race you to the lake!”

Percy stood there for a second, just watching Annabeth run off. His chest filled with a sensation he wasn’t ready to identify quite yet.

Annabeth turned around to see him still standing there. “Hurry up, slowpoke!” She called out.

Percy couldn’t stop smiling if he tried. Oh, yeah, he thought. This was definitely a good moment.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Clarisse was walking back from the arena when she saw Percy and Annabeth together in the lake. Percy resurfaced with water in his mouth and spit it in Annabeth’s face playfully. She shrieked and jumped on Percy, shoving his head back underwater. They ended up with Percy holding onto Annabeth’s waist and her hands on his shoulders. They were grinning like fools and their eyes were sparkling.

Clarisse couldn’t remember the last time she had seen either of them that happy. Idiots, she thought.

“Hey Clarisse,” Silena said, walking up to her friend. “What are you looking at?”

“That.”

Silena’s gaze followed Clarisse’s line of sight and she saw the two lovesick demigods.

“Oh my Gods, that’s too cute even for them,” Silena deadpanned.

“When do you think they’re going to pull their heads out of their asses and realize they’re in love with each other?” Clarisse asked.

“I have no idea, but it better be soon. They’re driving everyone crazy.”

“You got that right.”

The girls set off, leaving Annabeth and Percy to smile at each other under the setting sun.

[opossumisst]

Redemption AU Chapter 1: Fateful Encounter

finally trying to write my Troy redemption AU stuff featuring my OC Azriel heyyoooo pls be gentle its my second time writing A Thing

* dialogue in [brackets] are in Eridian “ A-Are you sure dad’s okay with us going this far, T-Ty?” Troy huffed as he tried to keep up with his sister’s pace. “Course he is! Besides, if we see anything scary, I can just carry you and we’ll run back home!” Tyreen slowed down, allowing her twin to catch up. She flexed a cheeky bicep at Troy, reassuring him that she’d be able to run while having him on her back. The DeLeon twins were out exploring the vast lands of Nekrotafeyo. By 8 years old, Tyreen had already learnt to leech the force out of small nekrobugs and plants, so they wouldn’t go hungry so easily in places they haven’t been. It was also easy to make their way back home from the trail of husked plants left behind during their explorations. “You think we’d find some Eridians today, Troy?” Tyreen pondered with a skip in her step, curious as to what they would discover during their journey on that day. “But mom said the Eridians d-disa-disp… they’re gone-” “Who cares what mom thinks! She’s...not here anymore either.” Tyreen stopped skipping. Troy glanced away, remorseful that he even brought mom up. “Let’s just… Try to see what we can find this time, yeah?” She quickly changed the subject, the chirp in her voice returning.as they continue their trek through the flora.

-- It was a rest day for one Azriel Titana Kha’va. The young Eridian princess had no lessons for the day, and was left sitting by her balcony gazing at the sky, something she found herself doing more often the older she grew. The kingdom was lovely, but quaint. Visiting the same places grew boring; she was longing to see what was outside the walls that kept everything out of the last remaining Eridian faction in Nekrotafeyo. The elders warned her of unknown dangers that loomed beyond; but all she ever saw was the beautiful turquoise auroras that painted the lavender sky that seemed to lead her to a trail she wondered where it ended, the fauna that roamed the open grasslands and the mountains shrouded by the Nekrotafeyan fog. She was living in the lap of royalty, but every day felt like the same. She wanted to experience something different. She wanted to experience the greener grass on the other side.  

Her daydreaming was interrupted by the sound of her pet Nekrobug rattling the cage. It was behaving more eratically than usual. “[Tifaya?! What is wrong with you today!]” Az exclaimed as she rushed over to the cage, but before she could reach over and secure the lock, the Nekrobug had burst out, zooming past her and out of the balcony. Az watched as her beloved pet raced into the turquoise tracks in the sky. She wasn’t going to let Tifaya just fly off like that. Thinking on her feet, she grabbed a bunch of linen from her room and tied them to form a makeshift rope, long enough for her to climb down the balcony of her room and out of the castle premises. She was young but Eridians developed much quicker physically and intellectually than their Human counterparts. Trying not to alert the guards, she snuck past the back entrances and the gates when she had the opportunity, thankful that she was still small in stature compared to the giants that the adults of her species grew up to be. The escape eventually was a success, save for accidentally knocking a pot over and causing a mess in the corridor. A clearly calculated distraction, of course. Stepping foot outside the kingdom for the first time, Az laid her eyes on the new horizon, and continued her pursuit for her winged companion. -- “I’m hungry…” Troy mumbled, placing his hand over his stomach as it grumbled. They had been walking for almost an hour and he was growing weaker without sustenance. Tyreen had only been able to leech tiny bugs; her powers weren’t strong enough to absorb bigger organisms that had resided in the jungle they’d just wandered out of. “I’ll find something soon Troy… I promise.” Tyreen quickly reassured her brother. If only they hadn’t travelled so far away from dad. She was growing a little concerned that she’d never be able to find any food and no one would come to their aid… ..Until a slightly bigger than average Nekrobug flew past the twins. A spark of determination lit in Tyreen. It was a big enough animal to provide food for both her and her brother and she was going to hunt it down. “T-Ty wait up!” Troy was struggling to catch up to his sister, who was running around in circles trying to catch the Nekrobug fluttering around her, seemingly taunting the small children for not being able to capture it. “Almost…. caught .. y-” Tyreen’s gaze was too focused in the sky where the Nekrobug was flying around to notice her surroundings. Instead of lunging at the insect she had collided into something else.

Some-one else. Az emerged from the bushes only to be pounced on by what she thought was a small animal. She instinctively swatted away, causing Tyreen to scream in retaliation. “What gives!-'' Ty yelled, but paused as she saw the figure towering in front of her. Ethereal ash grey skin with lavender bioluminescent markings coursing through her limbs in a symmetrical fashion, covered in garb that resembled the ancient humanoid statues in the ruins she and her brother had seen around the vault where they resided. Electric purple eyes that seemed to glow through choppy white hair that fell to her shoulders. Whatever this being was, she wasn’t human. Ty heard the weird alien kid mumble something in a foreign language, albeit with a disgruntled tone, followed by a low, ominous growling behind her. “T-Ty… You’re too fast-” Troy heaved as he trudged towards his twin just in time as the noise  grew closer. Az raised her finger to her lips to hush the twins. She took on a more defensive stance, ready for what was about to appear.. ...a Mantakore burrowed out of the ground behind the twins, growling viciously and reared its bladed appendages. Why weren’t they doing anything? Az stared at the twins who were slowly inching away in fear as soon as they noticed the creature, not wanting to make any sudden movements. Why weren’t they summoning weapons or trying to fight back? Impatient, she took things into her own hands. “ [GET DOWN!] '' Az roared, diverting the attention of the Mantakore towards her, and the twins confused briefly by the unfamiliarity of the words she spoke in. She charged towards the beast, pushing the twins out to safety as she digistructed a basic pole from the glowing circles of her palms -- A natural ability for Eridians was to be able to materialize objects from their hands --  swinging it at the Mantakore and swiftly evading its hits. She had never fought such a beast, but she had read enough about it from her tutors to know its weak points and attacks. Mantakores were slow and easy to avoid, or so she thought. She was too focused trying to parry its limbs; she hadn’t noticed its elongated bladed tail striking, nicking her in the arm. Az yelped in pain as she jumped back before pouncing once more in retaliation, this time aiming to strike the pole straight into the beast’s mouth as it opened it to let out a roar. The Mantakore fell to its belly, legs sprawled on the ground too weak to get back up. 

She hadn’t killed it; she wasn’t sure if she could. Mustering up the courage she hesitantly positioned the pole near it’s brain, ready to slam down and end the creature’s life- “Wait!” Tyreen interrupted her as she walked over towards the dying Mantakore. She had been at the side tending to Troy after they were both suddenly pushed aside by Az to protect them from the beast, and had suffered a pretty bad graze to his knees.

Az stood aside as Tyreen took her spot, placing her palm on top of the beast’s head, where her pole would have struck. That’s when she noticed the smaller girl’s arm; the blue markings she originally thought were a mere fur patterning of the species she assumed the twins to be  started to glow as her hand touched the surface, seemingly disintegrating the creature in front of her. She could only stand in place and stare in awe as Tyreen finished the job. Tyreen walked back to her brother, who had been sitting at the same spot, leaning against a rock. Az observed that he looked paler and thinner than her sister, and tried to follow Tyreen to him, only to be blocked off by her. Noticing the fragile state Troy was in she felt bad for shoving the two out of the way so aggressively. “Don’t. Come any closer.” Tyreen shielded Troy from Az, clearly cautious of letting a stranger near her vulnerable brother. Bending down, she grabbed his wrist and his markings started to glow as well; this time a crimson red. “[I’m sorry]” Az mumbled. Troy sat up. 

“Was that…. Eridian?” His eyes lit up. “ [We are human.]” Leda had taught him a little bit of Eridian; it was his favourite thing to learn while he was confined to his bed on his sickest days. “H….Human?” Az gasped. She knew minimal English, but she knew that was the language most Humans spoke. “Damnit.. I’m all out of energy, Troy. Sorry.” Tyreen cut their conversation, glow fading from both the twins’ arms as she stood back up, slightly dizzy from the energy transfer. It was enough to heal the scrape on Troy’s knee, but not enough to get him back up to his feet again. “Energy…I give” Az fumbled around hoping the twins could understand her, and proceeded to carefully approach Troy, assuring the twins that she wasn’t going to harm either of them. “B-but you’re injured too-” Troy pointed out at the cut on her arm, blood trailing down. However, she seemed to ignore his remark and wanted to tend to him instead. She reached out her right hand, only to be met with awkward silence. “Uh…” Troy attempted to break the tension. He was missing his right arm all the way to the shoulder, and in its place was a worn out leather bracer strapped to his chest. Az quickly corrected her gesture with slight embarrassment and instead placed cupped Troy’s only hand in both of hers; a warm sensation started flowing into Troy’s arm as Az’s markings glowed white. He felt energy surge back into him. She was a tree of life, offering her fruit to the starving animal.

[let-me-love-you-loki]

Surprising Too Late Part I

Part 1

Nick

           “Matt, hand me that shelf.” My brother and I were practically dripping in sweat as we helped our dad put in a partition wall in the garage that had once been our home gym. It still was, technically, but we’d moved some of the pieces around to make room for a new purpose.

           Y/N’s birthday was in a week, and we had a surprise for her. When we’d met almost nineteen years ago—God, had it been that long—she’d been an art student. There were so many times when she’d beg the two of us to sit for sketches. I remembered the first time she showed me one of her paintings. It was a breathtakingly beautiful self-portrait. She’d given it to me as a present on our first anniversary. But in the years that followed that gift, our wife spent less and less time chasing her joy of art. It was as if the moment that Mattie was born, Y/N set aside everything except for our newborn daughter and us.

           “Is that going to be big enough?” he replied, holding out a piece of varnished and polished wood.

           Our dad poked his head around the corner. He was working outside, making sure that the window AC unit was sealed. “What are you putting on it?”

           I pointed to a spread of jars filled with a variety of paintbrushes and tubes of acrylic paint along with a bento box Kenny had given her where she kept her chalk. Dad looked between the objects and the shelf in Matt’s hands before he nodded.

           “Yeah, just tack an extra screw at the back of the bracket top and bottom.”

           I grinned and dug into my pocket for two more screws. “This is going so much better than the swing set.”

           Dad practically cackled. “You two helped me build your ring when you were teenagers. How you couldn’t follow some simple instructions is beyond me.”

           “To be fair,” Matt said as he passed over the electric screwdriver and the level. “We were stubborn.”

           “You were showing off,” Dad called back.

           “True,” I snorted. “Matt, hold this down.”

Matt

           It was hard to keep a straight face in the days leading up to Y/N’s birthday. We spent those final days in a panic. We ended up having to be in Jacksonville an extra day for a taping, and we ended up making panicked calls to our dad to get some final hardware stuff handled. From Friday to Saturday night, I don’t think either my brother or I slept more than a few hours. We took turns keeping our wife occupied while the other slipped away to the other house with the kids or to the garage to hang shelves or photos or art.

           I spent Saturday night—the night before her birthday—going through boxes of drawings the kids had done over the years. Nick had gone out that morning and picked up a dozen picture frames. I picked out two drawings from each of the kids and tucked them carefully into a frame to hang on the wall or sit out on the tables in the space we’d made for her.

           Nick had crept into her charcoal pencils and sketched the outline of the Tokyo Dome. It had taken a while, but the story of that first time he’d kissed her came out in the early days of our life together. It was a moment I didn’t begrudge them and I memory I hoped they kept with them forever.

           I’d spent hours trying to figure out what my addition would be. After a while, I decided to do my best to replicate that moment when our lives together really began. I went through my iCloud and pulled up the photos from our honeymoon. There was half a dozen of that day on the coast where Nick and Y/N had exchanged their rings. It took three tries, but I finally produced something that looked like the lighthouse on the edge of Oahu.

           It was the early hours of the morning of Y/N’s birthday when I finally slipped back into the house, bleary eyed and exhausted. Nick stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, and chugging a bottle of water.

           “Everything’s ready,” I said around a yawn. I thought about making a cup of coffee. “Is she still asleep?”

           “Everybody is. RJ was having nightmares, so I slept most of the night in his room.” My brother smiled a little. “Go get in bed. I’ll be there as soon as I check on little man.”

           I reached out and hugged him. “Thanks, Nick. For everything you’ve done all these years.”

           Nick locked his arms around me and squeezed me hard. “Thank you for letting me be here. For taking me back.”

           I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn’t going to cry. “You and Y/N are the most important people in my life. And this life is the one for us, no matter what anyone says.”

           I padded down the hallway to the master bedroom. Y/N was curled beneath the blankets in the center of the king-sized bed. For a moment, I stood there watching her sleeping. I remembered the first time I saw her, the first time I kissed her. My wife was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t believe that I’d been lucky enough to have the last almost twenty years with her.

           She snuggled close to me when I slipped into bed beside her. She pressed her lips against my cheek and tucked herself under my arm. Her head pillowed on my chest. I kissed the top of her head and closed my eyes.

           Sometime later, Nick crawled into bed on her other side. He curled up behind her, his arm tucked around her waist. Together—just like we faced everything else in life—we went to sleep.

***

           I woke up to a faint knocking. Sleep fell away slowly. I was warm and comfortable snuggled between Matt and Nick. They were both sound asleep, made evident by Nick’s slightly open mouth and Matt’s soft snores.

           The knock came again. I sighed and sat up, crawling down to the end of the bed to avoid waking either of them. Rubbing my eyes to wake up, I opened the bedroom door to find my sixteen-year-old daughter.

           “Happy birthday, Mom,” she said with a grin. “We made breakfast for you and Dad and Papa.”

           I smiled, tears in my eyes. “I think Dad and Papa are out of it for a while. But we’ll save them a plate.”

           She led the way to the kitchen where thirteen-year-old Nicole was piling eggs on the plates of her brothers. Ten-year-old Lee was carefully pouring orange juice into a line of cups. He turned and gave me a smile that looked exactly like Matt’s.

           “Morning, Mama! Happy birthday!” he said as he carried one cup at a time to the table. He handed six-year-old Ty his favorite cup, earning a wide grin from his youngest brother.

           The kids pulled me toward the table and tucked me into my normal place between Mattie and Nicole. The boys lined up on the other side of the table. Seats at the head and foot were empty, waiting for Matt and Nick to join us.

           Mattie looked around the table and frowned. She stood up and practically stalked down the hallway back to the master bedroom. I hid my laughter behind my hand as I heard her pounding on the door, yelling for her Dad and Papa to get up right now you’re ruining Mom’s birthday breakfast!

           Ty grinned, his smile pushing into his cheeks, and giggled. “Mattie’s yelling at them!”

           RJ looked over at his baby brother and nodded. “Serves them right. It’s Mama’s birthday.”

           My heart swelled at the sweetness from my sons. Lee looked after his sister and scrambled from his seat to run to join Mattie. He stood next to her, pounding his fist on the door in time with hers.

           “We’re coming, we’re coming,” Nick growled playfully as he swung open the door. I saw him grin at our eldest daughter before he leaned over, picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder. “Do you think we’d miss your mother’s birthday breakfast?”

           Matt appeared right behind him, swinging Lee up onto his back. “We were up late getting Mama’s present ready.”

           “Present?” I asked, arching my brows. I followed their movement as they carried our eldest son and daughter back into the kitchen. They deposited them in their seats, slipped around to press a tandem kiss on my cheeks, and smiled as they sank into their seats.

           “Who made this?” Matt asked, looking down at the plate in front of him.

           “Nikki,” Ty said proudly. She was his favorite, and he loved everything that she did.

           Matt’s brow lifted as he beamed at her. She blushed and looked away. “It looks amazing, Bug,” he said before taking a bite. “You cook like your mother.”

           Nicole glanced up at me, pride on her face. I kissed the top of her head. “You can help me make Thanksgiving dinner this year,” I whispered.

***

           After breakfast, Matt and Nick tied an Elite bandana around my eyes. Then they took me by the hands and led me through the house. I could hear the children following along, whispering and giggling at each other. I looked around, trying to get an idea of what was happening, particularly when we left the house for the late September sunshine.

           Nick talked quietly as he guided me over the uneven bumps and dips. I followed a map of our property in my head as I tried to figure out where they were taking me.

           “Okay,” Matt said from my left. “Mattie, you got the camera?”

           “Yep,” I heard her reply.

           The bandana fell away, and I squinted in the bright light. We stood outside the garage that the boys had converted into a home gym when they bought their homes next to each other. I stared at the door, not sure what was happening.

           Nick stepped in front of me, his hand on the doorknob, and grinned. “You’ve given up so much for us, Y/N. Your passions and your hobbies. It’s time you got those back.”

           The kids filed in behind Nick, Mattie walking backward to keep her cell phone trained on me. Matt pushed me forward with his palm on the base of my spine. The moment I stepped over the threshold, I started to cry. The space was no longer a gym. Somehow, the boys had created a whole new room. It was painted a soft heather grey and stocked with every art supply I owned. My bento box with my chalks. Mason jars of brushes and acrylic. An easel and canvases of every size. Parchment paper. Everything I could ever want or need to draw, sketch, or paint.

           The walls were hung with frames of every size and shape. Some held pictures the kids had drawn over the years, signed at the bottom with their names and ages. Two of them were clearly by Matt and Nick. A rough black and white sketch of the curving roof of the Tokyo Dome. Another carefully drawn outline of a lighthouse along a coast.

           A palette had been turned into a photo frame—I suspected Brandon’s wife had something to do with it. It was splashed with bright colors, and circular holes had been cut into the wood. A picture of each of my children had been placed inside. A larger oval had a picture of the three of us at the wedding, the two of them standing in their suits on either side of me. A photo we were desperately grateful for after the fact.

           I turned around in circles, one after the other, trying to take in everything. My heart pounded in my chest and the tears poured down my cheeks. Mattie followed my every move with the camera, her hands shaking as she cried, too. Nicole sniffled.

           “Do you like it?” Matt asked softly.

           Nick leaned his chin on his brother’s shoulder. The two of them watched me apprehensively, almost terrified.

           “I love it. So much,” I whispered, trying to take a breath. “You… you did this… It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.”

           A moment later, I was wrapped up in their arms. “We love you,” Nick whispered in my ear as Matt cradled my head in his hand. “Happy birthday, Sunshine.”

Tag List

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[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Commentaries - 5.07: Nowhere Man

Commentary with Brian Millikin (writer for the episode) and Nick Parker (writer of the companion episode 5.08).

I love these two and their commentaries so much because they talk a LOT and they have many things to say. Which is awesome, if sometimes hard to capture in text, so this is a mixture of direct quotes and paraphrasing.[My comments in square brackets]

BM: It’s kind of a two-parter, these two episodes, maybe a little bit less than some of our other two-parters of the season. That was something we set out to do.

NP: Yeah, not to the same extent as 5.05 and 5.06, but there is a lot - the Trouble carries on through both episodes, and that was an edict we had going into the season.

BM: We really wanted there to be a hard ending to a couple stories in this episode, and in the next one. So, Audrey gets to a place at the end of this one, and so do Mara and Duke, and everyone else. And this is the first episode of the season where we have Audrey Parker back. I was excited to do this because last season I wrote the episode just like it - ‘The New Girl’ - it was one of my favourite ones I did. And it seemed like all episode long it was Lexie who had come out of the Barn, but in reality it was actually Audrey. But it was fun because it was kind of like a new pilot. And then this one is not like a pilot, it was much different because Audrey had been around - even though she wasn’t in control of her body she was there to witness what Mara was doing. Which was something I think we were really attracted to …

NP: I agree

BM: … the idea that she feels a certain culpability or responsibility because she was in the back seat watching what Mara was doing.

NP: She was there, inside.

BM: Yeah and it’s a stark contrast to what we’ve done before.

BM: So this scene [the opening scene with Audrey Nathan and Duke on the Rouge] we talked about all these different versions of starting right on the heels of the previous episode. As it is I think it’s maybe an hour later, two hours later. Which is a little bit weird if you think about it. It means that episode 7 and 8 really take place within …

NP: 5, 6, 7 and 8 all take place within about 12 hours.

BM: This entire season takes place over the course of about 3 days.

NP: Yep. And there were also several different versions of this opening scene where they’re discussing the split and what to do with Mara, and I remember one which was pretty interesting where we talked about it just being Nathan and Audrey having this conversation on their own, and Duke being separate from it.

BM: Yeah, but we kind of wanted it to be the three amigos here. And Emily did a great job of playing the, almost PTSD that she has a little bit; she’s been through hell. And we had a version of this too where a lot of the scene was about them testing to make sure that she was really Audrey. But that just felt kind of unnecessary; first of all we knew that she was really Audrey, and we felt like the audience would too. So we just flew past it and assumed that she is. And the most important thing for us was that they don’t know what happened at the end of the last episode, they’re just winging it.

[As Duke goes to see Mara in the hold] NP: I love that Duke just has basically a prison cell in his boat, like always ready to go.

BM: It’s the biggest hold of a boat I’ve ever seen. I think it’s wider than the boat itself, the actual boat, but it looks great.

NP: The hold of his boat is bigger than his bedroom.

BM: But I love the set, and more than that, I love the two of them in here. Remember from the very first day of the season we always knew we were going to get to this point right here; episode 7, half way through with Audrey and Mara split. And we kept it to something of a surprise, and I think a lot of people thought it was just going to be Mara all season long and then maybe in the season finale it would be Audrey, or that at some point maybe Audrey would claim her body back. But we had always wanted to have both; to have our cake and eat it too. And we just thought it was more interesting for the story that way.

NP: And I think we decided to develop it even more and push it even further because Emily is so, so good as Mara.

BM: Absolutely.

NP: We were like; we’re going to give her as much screen time as we can.

BM: I know we all expected her to be good as Mara - I mean she’s always great as Audrey, and she really brings something to Sarah and Lexie. So we expected her to be good - but I think she was even better than we had anticipated. We love her as Mara.

NP: Yeah, you can just see her having fun in the role. She’s enjoying getting to stretch her legs a little bit, and it shows.

BM: I think the other actors had fun with it too; enjoying playing off of her as Mara. I mean, how many times have Eric Balfour and Emily Rose been in the same room together, and now they’re in the same room together, but it’s not Audrey. It’s someone else entirely. In fact she’s closer to Hannibal Lecter than anything else. That was sort of the impetus for all this stuff with her in the hold of the boat; yes it’s easier to shoot [all in the one set], but alse we thought it was dramatically interesting to see what they would do with it. It makes sense to keep Mara prisoner, at least for now just to figure out what to do next, and then it’s like well; this is great, we’ve got Mara being held in prison on Duke’s boat and Duke has now become her jailer. And that interaction between the two of them gave us so much.

NP: Yeah and particularly with what they’re discussing in this scene with the unknowing of what the split means and how it works, whether Audrey is connected to Mara. Because it’s all uncharted territory.

BM: She said it right there [as Duke’s leaving]. That was the thing that was most interesting to me about it, was the idea that she’s a prisoner, but she is actually in control. Or at least that’s what she says; she claims to be holding all the cards and to know what’s going on. And whether she does or not doesn’t really matter, because they definitely don’t. And she might. So that power interplay was something that we haven’t been able to do in the show before, and when you get to the fifth season of a show I think you’re just looking for these interesting new things you can try.

NP: And because we’re in the fifth season now I think we get to live with the characters a lot more.

BM: Sure.

[As we see Audrey and Nathan in bed together] NP: This is probably a lot of fans favourite scene. We don’t get to see these two actually be together that much. Stuff’s always so crazy in Haven that they never really get to just be together in bed and be together as a couple.

BM: No, and it’s sad because here we’ve got an actual tender scene between Nathan and Audrey and guess what - work calls. Because it just does.

NP: Every time.

BM: They don’t get a lot of time to just hang out and be with each other.

NP: I like that line; “Case Face”.

BM: I think I took that from the fact that we always talk, here and on other shows too, about having Writer Face. When you’re off on script or an outline or working on an episode. You know, you still come in to have lunch with the other writers, or you’re still in the hallways and at the coffee machine, but you’re not really there.

NP: You’re basically a phantom.

BM: With this distant look in your eyes as you try to figure out … how are they going to get out of it in act four if they don’t have a gun … or whatever. We always call it Writer Face, so Case Face was from that. I think I ripped off, everybody.

NP: Yeah. And that’s fine. That’s what good writers do, right?

BM: But the other important thing in this scene - there were some versions where we had it in that first scene but that just felt like too much  - is Nathan revealing that he can’t feel her any more. Which leads him to believe (correctly) that she is no longer the same; she’s not immune to the Troubles any more. Something is different about her. And it’s such a big deal that we decided, I think correctly, to put it in this scene between the two of them. Because it’s big deal obviously, for the two of them. At the same time, he says it doesn’t matter to him and I think we all believed that. You know, what would it be like if when he realised he couldn’t feel her he wasn’t in love with her any more?

NP: Yeah, that was something we talked about a lot.

BM: As someone who can’t feel anyone- yes he could feel her and that might have been one of the things that maybe got him started

NP: Yeah.

BM: But it’s certainly not where he is now. Not any more.

NP: Yeah.

BM: And I think maybe it spoke highly of their relationship that he believes it doesn’t really matter. Although I do think that it matters to her.

NP: Of coure.

BM: But maybe less to him. And he’s also just got her back. I don’t think there’s any version where he wouldn’t have wanted to be with her anymore just because he couldn’t feel her.

NP: No, I agree. But this lack of immunity after living with it for so long, now finding out that she isn’t, it throws her off her game which I think is an interesting dynamic in this episode. She has to live in that reality. And he’s telling her it’s all fine, that they’re going to make it. But you can see her having some self doubt.

BM: Absolutely. And we liked the emotion of that and having to grapple with that because it was a way for them to express some of the … I guess the best word for it is still PTSD of what they’ve gone through with the Mara situation. What they’re still going through. Without it being all about that. It was a microcosm of the fact that they’re sort of pawns in a larger game that they’re not in control of necessarily.

NP: Yep. Oh there’s Kirsty.

BM: Yes, Kirsty Hinchcliffe, Lucas Bryant’s wife.

NP: Officer Rebecca Rafferty.

BM: Yeah. We wanted to put her in this scene because we very much wanted her to be in the next scene she shows up in. And she’s also super-useful here, along with this townperson they meet, in establishing that people aren’t necessarily warm to the idea of Audrey being back. After what they’ve been through with Mara. Mara killed a bunch of people, she was running around causing all kinds of problems, and for the people who are in the know (like Rafferty) even they are probably a little reluctant to necessarily throw their arms around Audrey and trust her again.

NP: Yeah and I think that’s something we’ve got to explore in the second half of season five, is that, so much crazy stuff happens in Haven, all the time. So what do people know and who knows what? We talk about it in the room all the time but it’s not fully explored, because we do so much with our characters. And it is something we got to do a little bit more [5b] because things got so crazy, is how people actually react to it and how do they talk to our characters about it.

BM: Yeah, it was kind of a point of emphasis coming into the season for Matt McGuinness and Gabrielle Stanton, our show runners, was to live in the reality just a little bit more and show how people would really react to some of this stuff. And having a lot of these two-parter episodes where the case of the week extends into the next episode, which allows us just a little bit more real estate to do that kind of thing.

NP: Yeah, just to live in it. This is the most lively farmers’ market.

BM: Absolutely. Not the first time we’ve seen this farmers’ market. We were here in episode, er, four of the first season; Consumed.

NP: Oh yeah. It is so crowded there.

[As Nathan talks to Reggies] BM: Ah, this is Dylan Taylor as Reggie. And we totally stole the name from True Detective which had aired a few months before we shot this episode.

NP: We are huge fans of True Detective.

BM: And we just needed to give some flavour, and a voice to the character, and so we thought, let’s write him a bit like Reggie Ledoux.

[Having never watched True Detective, I looked Reggie Ledoux up; the fandom.com wiki describes him as a “brutal and vile drug dealer” that manufactures meth for a violent criminal biker gang, and an “accomplice and right-hand man” of a serial-killer. Yikes.]

BM: So we called him Reggie and had always intended on changing it but the name had this kind of blue-collar gritty quality and that’s who the character was. Enough that we wrote in that he has a bit of a Southern drawl, or this back-water drawl.

NP: I think back water. He brought the Southern to it, it was nice.

BM: And he really went for it and it totally worked. But we got a call from set on the first day he was there - he’s a great actor, he’s done a load of stuff, he didn’t audition, he didn’t have to, we were lucky to get him - so he shows up and he’s doing this accent and we get a call from the Producer on set. And she’s saying; I don’t know if we have a problem, but Dylan is doing an accent. And we said; Well check the script, it’s in there, it’s going to be great. And we wound up really enjoying his performance, he’s fantastic. Our showrunner Matt, was upset that he meets an untimely end in the next episode because he wanted us to bring Reggie back. He told us not to kill him but we’d already shot that scene where he dies.

NP: Matt wanted Reggie to be the new Guard back guy. Which is a role we’ve kind of rolled from character to character for production reasons in a lot of ways. But Reggie was so good that we were wondering how we could have him come back and be the Guard bad guy.

[The scene where Nathan gets hit by the Trouble] BM: So something bad is about to happen to Nathan. Which was always the plan for the episode; this has actually been in the works for a long time. We referred to this story as Ghost Nathan. Going back to the first season we had a bank of episodes [that we’d like to do]. And a lot of them were ones that we could never produce, but one of them was a ghost one where we figured we could have someone walking through walls and stuff. And I - maybe it’s because of my unabashed love for the movie Ghost - but I always thought we could do a Ghost Nathan episode. And we never had anything we could do with it. It was one of those things you’d pull it out if it worked for the episode. And it did work for this one. Because we needed the Trouble in this episode to do a few things for us. First of all it works because Lucas Bryant is great at selling the ghost of it all. He’s standing in this room with Kirsty, his wife, and she has to ignore him and he has to sell it - they both do. The best special effect in the episode is not people walking through walls or him sticking his hand through the phone, the best effect is the performance. And it’s not an easy thing; everyone ignoring him and him acting like they can’t see him.

NP: Well yeah and in that scene it was just him there and her ignoring him the entire time, but there’s several scenes where we had to shoot two versions; one with Lucas and one without, and then patch them together.

BM: Yeah even this scene [Duke and Audrey looking at Nathan’s shadow on the floor] there are a couple of wide shots where Nathan’s not in it. WhichI think our producers were not super-happy about because it definitely added to the load that we had to shoot. But Audrey and Nathan have been separated for, what six episodes this season, and they’ve just got back together again. And there was a version where we could have gone with a story where they were the power team back together again. But we liked the idea of a bit of a role reversal. That she would be thrust into this position of trying to get him back. And he’s trying to get back to her. And what that did for their characters and for so many other story lines, particularly the other big thing that we had to deal with in this episode that she’s not immune to the Troubles. So we wanted to go with a Trouble that really played to that. So the idea that she can’t see him now, when any other episode before this one she would have been able to. She would have been able to see him if she was immune and it would have blown up the episode. So this was the perfect time to do it, in an episode where, for the first time ever, Audrey is not immune to the Troubles.

NP: And an important detail is that right now, they don’t know what this Trouble is, so she doesn’t know where he is. The supposition is that he’s dead, and we’ve had dead Nathan before but always found ways to bring him back. But because of the way this Trouble works there’s no body, no nothing, so they have no way to bring him back.

BM: And that scene we just saw [Duke and Audrey finding Nathan’s shadow on the floor] there were versions of it that went a lot further in that direction. Where Duke was basically talking about the idea that it looks like Nathan is dead.

NP: Yeah, he’s gone.

BM: And Audrey was fighting back against him. And it was really, really heavy. And we eventually pulled back on it, I think correctly, because Matt and Gab felt that it was just too sad. We did still play with it a little with Duke, he’s still much closer than Audrey is to believing that the worst has happened. And that makes sense because Duke is not quite as romantic, he’s a little bit more of a realist.

NP: Yep.

BM: And he’s already been through a bunch of bad shit already. And he’s beginning to come around to the idea that he’s just lost Nathan; another punch in the series of punches he’s been taking. But Audrey clings a little bit longer. We wanted her to escalate her anger over the course of the episode as she’s starting to consider that it could be maybe legit. But we definitely pulled back on the two of them holding each other and mourning his loss. Just yet.

NP: Yeah, it will grow.

BM: So the other thing we needed to do in this episode, again talking about the realism of it all, is that we felt like it couldn’t be easy for Audrey to be Audrey again, not with everything that Mara had done. And the best way for us to show that was to have actually the Guard be the main threat in this episode. The case of the week is sort of an issue, but the real threat in this episode ends up being, what is the Guard going to do not understanding the Mara/Audrey situation of it all.

NP: Yeah and just having the Guard as the threat is something we talked about for so long at different times. And this was a good way of escalating it at the right time, with Mara having been the threat that she was for so long, and Dwight being out of town. We did not have the wonderful Adam Copeland for these two episodes, so he’s gone and the Guard is doing their own thing in his absence.

BM: Yeah it wasn’t our choice, really, to have no Adam Copeland in this episode. It was just by his schedule, due to his contract, we were just not going to have him for this episode or the next one. So we kind of got stuck with no Adam, but it wound up really working for the story because I don’t think that the Guard threat could have played as well, with them going off the handle, with him around. So it actually wound up being a story that works because Adam’s gone. It’s almost about the fact that he is gone.

NP: This actor is great, who plays Glen.

BM: Yes, his name is Dylan Trowbridge.

NP: Glen named after Glen Holler/Holland [not sure of the spelling]

BM: Our friend Glen. His last name, Andros, is a Stephen King reference. Nick Andros was the deaf character from The Stand.

NP: Perfect. Got to work in those Stephen King references.

[As Audrey arrives at the farmers’ market] BM: Now, Amy the photographer who Audrey is about to talk to is, the Troubled person of the episode. So we had to plant her in the background when we were here a while ago, and now she’s here too. Because we needed the logic to work in the background. And that’s why there’s also some dialogue here about how she had gone home because the Trouble works when she prints out the photo, when she makes the photo final, the way a painter would finish a painting or whatever. So we had established that she had not been here all day but had gone home and printed some of the photos. She must have liked the looks of Nathan. And then here we have Audrey tell her to send her some pictures and she’s got the hard copies in the next episode. So we imagine that right now, Amy is going home, printing out all the photos she has of Reggie. But maybe her printer is out of ink,

NP: Or it takes her a while to get home.

BM: And then she prints it out of course, the second that Audrey has Reggie at gunpoint and so he disappears.

[As Nathan walks up to the crying woman in the graveyard] NP: Oh remember the fun we had coming up with what this woman is going to say?

BM: Oh my gosh yes. We had always intended there to be a bit of a horror movie scare there. Totally helped by the fact that Rob Lieberman, our director for this episode and the next (as well as other Haven episodes) has a ton of experience in that department. He did Fire In The Sky, super-scary movie. And he’s great. So he totally leaned into it. You can even see here [where Nathan’s talking to the ‘ghosts’] all these interesting canted angles and stuff it just feels a little bit moodier and scarier than it otherwise could. Because if you really look at it, it’s a beautiful day. It would have been great if this was nighttime but we couldn’t shoot any of these scenes at night.

NP: And Chris Masterson does a great job here as Morgan, does an incredible job as the ghost guide, the greeting committe, giving Nathan the rundown on how everything operates. And functionally for the logic of the story it’s really important because of what he’s saying about crossing over as your residual self image. Which is stuff that plays to important plot points later in this episode and the next one.

BM: Especially in your episode. This scene was exposition heavy, it was kind of a bear trying to make it as conversational as possible.

NP: But Chris sells it.

BM: He totally does. But yeah a lot of the stuff that Morgan talks about here about the theories of how it works is his understanding, but his understanding is not correct. But it’s what we have to go with for the time being.

NP: Yeah everything he says is true from his point of view, but his understanding is not correct.

BM: Yeah we were lucky to get Chris for this episode. We had his brother, Danny Masterson, last season in your episode 411. He was one of the two Darkside Seekers. The other Darkside Seeker, Kris Lemche, is about to appear in the next episode.

[As we flash back to Nathan talking to Garland’s ghost] BM: Ooh the flashback. In the exact same cemetery. I always wonder why that says Rufus P. Parker there [on the gravestone between Nathan and Garland]. The Parker kind of threw me off.

[Personally I think it says Barker, but it’s an interesting comment anyway:)]

BM: But we’ve got a bunch of flashbacks, little quick ones like that over the course of the season. And it was sort of by design, not knowing, and still not knowing frankly, whether this would be the last season of the show or not. So just in case it was, we sort of wanted to hearken back to previous seasons before and try to connect things a little bit better. And even just seeing what our characters looked like a couple of years ago has a little bit of an emotional whallop to it.

[As Nathan watches Duke frustratedly flicking through the Crocker journal] BM: So we’re coming up on the twist here at the end of this third act that I used to sell the episode. Because the way that it works on our show, and most shows, is that you’ve got the roadmap of the season (the big things that need to happen), this one we knew this was the first one with Audrey and Mara split, and Mara in the hold of the boat. And we didn’t know a ton else about what it was going to be. We knew that we were going to start pushing Mara and Duke’s relationship as they get to know each other and see eye to eye a little bit more, and then in episode 8 a little bit more, and in episode 9 a little bit more. But that was kind of it.

NP: Episodes 7 and 8 to a large extent were about finishing up the story lines from the first half of the season, and this was platforming for everything that was going to happen in the back end.

BM: So we knew that we needed a big Trouble that would take up these two episodes, and we needed it to help us tell some stories about our characters. But the way that we sold this one with the ghost of it all was basically that - from the get-go from pitching it to our show runners and everybody - was that at the half way point of the episode, ghost!Nathan and Duke are in here and they’re talking to Mara, and Duke leaves, and then she reveals that she can see Nathan. And that was the turning point of the episode. If we’ve done our jobs well enough maybe not everyone saw it coming, I think that a good amount of people probably did see it coming. But it helped us in a lot of ways, it really turned the screws on the Mara story really quickly.

NP: Yep.

BM: Now she’s even more in control because she’s the only person who can see Nathan. And that tells us that Nathan’s not really dead of course. And it tells Nathan that he’s the victim of a Trouble. But it also helped us tell a story about the fact that Mara’s immune to the Troubles and Audrey is not. Which was the big thing that we needed to tackle. And what better way to do it than the fact that Audrey can’t see Nathan and the only person who can, is Mara.

NP: That’s it.

BM: So once we had that as the middle twist of the episode, everyone was on board. There was no going back then.

NP: And the back half of that is something maybe we’ll talk about more in 508 but, because Mara is immune and can see him, how does Audrey use her lack of immunity to her benefit.

BM: Absolutely. The end point of this episode is really about Audrey bottoming out a little bit. We wanted to get her to a place where she kind of has to confess that she is not who she once was, and she maybe can’t do this anymore because she’s lost her, superpower (for lack of a better term). And then the next episode is where she gets her groove back to some extent, and realises that it’s not about her immunity, it’s about whatever she does with whatever she has at her disposal. And she ends up using her lack of immunity to her advantage. So this episode was sort of the Empire Strikes Back, then you’ve got the Return of the Jedi.

NP *sounding doubtful* Well…

BM: Don’t think about it.

NP: Oh there’s Reggie . And I love the other backup Guard member who looks very much like Jordan McKee from previous seasons.

BM: She looks just like her.

[Me: *squints doubtfully at the screen*]

BM: Her name is Justine [I can’t catch the surname]. She has worked on the show in the past and she’s great. She had some lines at some point in time. And a name, I feel like her characters’ name was Riley. And then it ended getting cut because there was just too much going on in the episode and too many people. I should also say while we’re talking about the Guard, that Mitchell, who is coming back to our show, was in episodes three and four. He was a bit of a late addition to those; we were trying to bring back as a returning Guardsman, the guy from episode 403, Bad Blood, but he wasn’t available. So we created a new Guardsman, as Mitchell. And then we brought him back for this episode which was great.

NP: We just needed to have someone with some animosity towards Nathan and the police department who was a more militant member of the Guard.

BM: Absolutely. And we actually tried to bring Mitchell back a couple episodes from now and then he wasn’t available. So we had to go with another person, so it was a bit of a case of musical chairs of Guard members.

[Nathan talking to the two ‘ghosts’ in the graveyard] NP: And Nathan here is revealing the truth.

BM: Yeah. It’s kind of classic. We had been a little bit worried that in the previous acts there was really just that one stretch of 10 minutes where Nathan thinks he’s dead. And no one wanted him to lose his drive, because he should always be trying to figure out what’s going on. But now that he knows that he’s the victim of a Trouble, he’s in Nathan mode. And is going to do whatever he can.

NP: He’s got Case Face now.

BM: Absolutely. But again a lot of this and Morgan’s attitude on hearing what Nathan has to say, pays off more in the next episode. It’s laying the groundwork for the fact that maybe not everyone wants to go back. It’s a little of the insitutionalised thing; a bit of a Shawshank Redemtion thing here that if you get used to living this way maybe you don’t want to go back. Although as we’ll discover in 508, Morgan has a pretty good reason for not wanting to go back.

NP: A very good, if selfish, reason.

BM: Yeah, but you can’t blame him. And that’s what you’re looking for in your motivation for a bad guy. Where when you find out why they’re doing what they’re doing you feel like you’d probably do the same thing.

[As Audrey is pointing her gun at Reggie] BM: Reggie here is a bit lighter on motivation. He’s just a bad guy. But you don’t really stop to think about it because Dylan is so good.

NP: He just sells it.

BM: But even here, his little speech here was important to me to get his POV across a little bit. Which, from his stand point, Audrey has caused all of this to happen, which she did. And then she was Mara, and now she says she’s Audrey but she can’t be trusted; bad things are happening. So why should he listen to her? I put myself in Reggie’s shoes and realised that if the show was about the Guard, Audrey and Nathan would be the bad guys.

NP: Yeah. I also love the aspect of that scene there where Reggie is down on his knees at the mercy of Audrey, much like in his final scene in True Detective, on his knees at the mercy of someone there.

BM: Yeah, totally ripped that off too.

NP: I think there was an earlier version of the script where Nathan runs out of the van there and it drives through him.

*Both being amused at the intense level of concentration on Nathan’s face as he watches Bishop tap the security code into the door*

BM: What you don’t see, is that you have to imagine that in his head for the rest of this scene Nathan is just thinking to himself like; 1283. 1283. Gotta remember the code. 1283. That is why we had it be a four-digit code because if it was six it would be harder to remember. But I love the look of Guard HQ here. Remember Rob Lieberman was totally responsible for it. He mentioned to us when we were on the phone to us, he said; I’m going out on a limb here but I’m thinking like the movie Children of Men. And we were both like; Could not love Children of Men more, please do it.

NP: Such a moody and gritty feel.

BM: But if you recognise a bit of the layout and architecture of the hallway we just saw and the long room here [where Mitchell has Audrey tied to a chair in front of the desk that Bishop’s Trouble disintergrates], this is actually the same building that we used the interior of for the Barn at the end of season three and briefly in season four. I think this is the second floor of that building. The first floor is painted all white, every inch of it, because it was the Barn. And up here it’s the exact same layout but now it’s Guard HQ.

BM: Now poor Bishop.

NP: He has got a rough, rough Trouble

BM: So we imagined that he would have to be one of these people wearing gloves, and that they would have to be these chemical resistant ones because he’s got this acid touch. So then it’s like well he’s going to look silly wearing these giant gloves. Because those gloves are real, they can actually protect against any sort of corrosive acid. So we figured he should be wearing coveralls as well so it kind of matches, so it seems like he’s an industrial type guy. But the actor must have been burning alive because this was the middle of summer in Nova Scotia which means that it was about 90 degrees.

[Nathan talking to Mara again in the hold] BM: So this scene here, in a way is the climax of the episode. At least it was for me. This is where the shit hits the fan. Nathan comes to her with his plan for her to tell Duke what’s happening to Audrey. She says no, and then it’s about getting her to help. And then it all just fell into place; it seemed like the right story to tell about Audrey and Mara. And to be evolving what is Mara’s relationship to them now that she is her own person. Because she’s only going to do what’s in her best interest. And she keeps holding this card over their heads as to whether she’s connected or not. And we went into this season knowing that they weren’t connected, knowing that hurting Mara wasn’t going to hurt Audrey (unlike the thing with William) but that question comprises the entirety of this episode. Because we realised the characters don’t know that. So a lot of this is Duke trying to figure out whether she is or not. And Mara withholding her knowledge. So then we knew that the last beat in this episode would be Mara revealing the truth. Because at that point she doesn’t need them to wonder whether she’s connected or not because she’s got something better, which is that now she knows they need her to help Nathan.

NP: Well and that’s always what her bargaining chip is, that she can’t threaten them with anything, it’s all about the knowledge she possesses.

BM: And the actors all did a great job with this scene. There are takes where Nathan’s there, and when he’s not. But it all really worked. And she is just the right amount of funny in this scene.

NP: And cruel.

BM: Because she’s still enjoying messing with them, and it worked out really well. It really worked out really well. And here, what Eric had to play is realising that Nathan is alive again, but also realising that Audrey’s in Trouble. It’s not as easy as the three of them make it look. But it’s amazing because we have our three leads, they’re back in the same room together, they do this every day for years. But now, she’s the bad guy, Nathan’s a ghost, and Eric has no idea what’s going on. So I was really excited about being able to write a scene - and this is a three or four page scene - with all them in the room together but everything is different from how it usually is.

NP: Yeah, and this was one of the ones that had to be shot twice.

BM: And the other story that we’re telling in this episode is Audrey’s relationship to the town, and them not trusting her, is she lying about who she is, and all this doubt that everyone would have about her, after having lived through the tyranny of Mara for a while. And so the thing that we wanted to do in this scene [as Bishop is dissolving the desk] is kind of to some extent close that story off. It still comes up a bunch of times throughout the season, but she does something here, or could do something here, that proves to them that she is Audrey. She has a kind of I Am Sparticus Moment; I am Audrey Parker. It seemed a little cheesy in the script but Emily totally sells it. And that I Am Audrey Parker moment was an important one for us.

NP: Absolutely.

BM: We started this episode with her kind of in this fetal position trying to grapple with what she is now, finding she’s not immune, what is her identity now. So it felt important to us that she get to a different place by the next episode.

NP: Well yeah because there’s a sense in which her superpower is immunity to the Troubles, but really, on an emotional level, her superpower is her empathy for everybody and understanding what they’re going through. So she’s like; I totally get why you did what you did, so you’re going to be OK. Forgiveness is her thing.

BM: I never noticed that Duke brings Mara a can of food there. That wasn’t in the script. I’ve seen this episode a bunch of times and I never noticed that before, but it makes sense.

[As Mara is cutting her wrist with the chains] BM: We had a bit of an issue here because we knew that we wanted her to cut herself to prove that her and Audrey aren’t connected, but it was only when we were about to start shooting we realised; how is she going to cut herself when she’s chained up? So we had her use one of the chains, and it might be impossible to do in real life, but Emily totally sold it.

NP: Yep, she gets it.

BM: And I love this. We basically get three episodes of Mara in the hold of Duke’s boat. And I love them all. We always thought of it as the Hannibal Lecter scenes and the power play of it between her and Duke, and it really starts to work very well I think in these last two scenes. And super well in episode 8.

NP: It was fun. And I think one of the challenges of this is that we knew she was going to be chained up in the hold, and so the challenge is how do you differentiate each scene, and each episode, and what is the arc for each one? And so we really had to bear down on what they were going to be about.

BM: Well it was kind of a story unto itself, and here she tells us just a little bit that she’s actually affected by it, when she admits that she liked it when they said they needed her. Is she telling the truth, is she not - Duke doesn’t pay her any mind at all and walks out, but what is she thinking, what is she doing? Is she warming to Duke a little bit or does she have some angle that she’s playing - that’s the question we wanted everyone to be asking.

NP: And that’s the question we live in a lot in 508.

[Audrey talking to a ghost!Nathan (kind of) in her apartment] BM: So this scene also just fell into place really naturally. We knew that Nathan’s ghost situation was not going to be resolved at the end of this episode. And we knew that our first Audrey/Nathan scene in that bed over there was this tender scene, and I wanted to get them back in that same room and have them be in the room together but as far apart as possible. And all of the circumstances they have to deal with have kept them apart - again. And so she thinks that he’s there, but doesn’t know for sure that he is. And they’re both great in this scene.

NP: Again credit to both of the actors for selling this, that she’s talking to him but not looking at him.

BM: Yeah I talked to them about it, they really enjoyed doing it because it’s a really heartfelt scene between the two of them and she’s confessing this doubt that she has (and she’s a very confident person) and they’re both there together but she has no idea whether she’s even there or not. And he knows that she can’t hear him. So he’s watching her go through this. And it’s a scene between the two of them that is unlike anything else, in its DNA that we had been able to do before now. So it felt like an opportunity and I think they both felt that way too.

NP: Yep, love this scene.

BM: But we also just wanted them to bottom out a little bit here because then episode 8 is kind of the come back

NP: The Return of the Jedi as you so nicely put it.

BM: Exactly. We unfreeze him from carbonite. We go fight in the forest.

NP: There’s some Ewoks. It’s great.

[Nathan back in the graveyard for the final scene] BM: So this was always the end of the episode, picking up the ghost case of it all. And we always wanted, right on the back of Nathan being confident that he’s safe and he’s going to take care of it, to then come over here and see that his Deputy Glen has been killed. And we always wanted to have this message left for him [“Even ghosts can die”] scrawled on the grave. And we landed on that one pretty quickly because it couldn’t be too long.

NP: And it sets us up nicely for 508.

BM: Thanks for listening everybody, we will see you again for 508.

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 39

Had to go back to work this week and it’s been rough. Hope you enjoy.

~*~Emma~*~

 We'd won as a team and we jumped in the air screaming as a team. After shaking hands with the other side, we assembled by the net pole for a group hug. That had been an amazing fight back. The struggle made the win sweeter.

 We were on the far side of the court from the deck, but I swear I could see Sebastian's smile. I felt like I'd been ignoring him, probably because I had. Hopefully, he doesn’t feel that way.

 After gathering our stuff, we headed toward the pavilion to check on procedure and time. Since the team we just beat had only lost once they went into the loser’s bracket. They would be playing the two seed. We'd have close to two hours before our next game.

Becky put her hand over her stomach, "I'm starving."

I snaked my arm through hers, "Me too."

Jeff threw his arm over my shoulder, "I’m sure your boyfriend will feed you."

 I smacked his stomach, "Do not call him that. It's way too new to be using that word. I really really like him. Don't get him thinking I’m some kind of clingy what-does-this-mean dependent woman."

Nick snickered from behind me, "He'd be wrong."

Lindsey came to my defense, "You all need to behave. Stop acting like you're not a bunch of fanboys who are going to talk about this for weeks. Don't you screw this up for her."

Pete leaned in between me a Jeff, "And me."

We were still laughing when we got to the table. Sebastian came around the table, wrapped his arms around my waist, and lifted me off my feet. "Congratulations."

I hugged around his neck, "Thanks." I kissed his cheek as he let my feet touch the ground.

"Fuck, that was exciting. What's next?"

 I started to speak, but Nick was beside us, nodding at the group of friends who’d joined us before the game, "They're going to stay with the table while we go inside to eat."

 Becky walked by with Jeff singing, "Air conditioning."

I couldn't wait to get inside. The mix of sunscreen and sweat would at least dry inside. Disgusting. I grabbed the small string bag from the end pocket of my gym bag as we headed inside. At the table I excused myself, asking Sebastian to get me an iced tea. Becky and Lindsey followed me and barely past the bathroom door, we pulled our tank tops over our heads. Ten minutes later we'd wiped off, changed panties, and applied fresh deodorant. It wasn't great, but it was better.

We could hear the laughter coming from our table long before we got there. Sebastian having fun with these friends made me excited for him to meet Angie and Eli. There was no comparison in what the different groups meant to me.

 Sebastian was at the corner of the table with Pete diagonal. Jeff's girlfriend had shown up while we were in the bathroom, so now there were ten of us. Pete and Sebastian were talking and laughing so I had Sam let me onto the bench between them. I admit I sat closer than necessary. There was plenty of room. Sebastian kept on with his conversation, taking his hand from the table and putting his arm around me, his hand resting on my hip.

 Conversation bounced all over as we ate. There was even a small and short-lived food fight. When Sebastian and I had finished eating, he leaned back, hands dropping to his lap. I took the hand nearest me and sat back, turning a little to see him. “I feel like I’ve been ignoring you.”

 An amused look took over his face, “You have been. It’s been fantastic.”

 I’m sure I looked confused, “Fantastic?”

 “Yes. You’ve been completely focused on the game.” He made a motion with his free hand, like and it was a rifle site. “Laser-focused. I don’t think you even heard anybody yelling. It’s been awesome to watch. I’m glad I haven’t distracted you.”

 “That might be going a bit too far.” He leaned closer and I gave him a kiss.  I caught a smile and wink from Pete.

 “Don’t worry about me. You get through this game, we’ll get drunk, and then I’ll either fall asleep or take advantage of you.”

 “Romantic.”

 “Na, that’s next weekend.”

 Back outside Lindsey, Sam, Nick, Sebastian, and I walked over to court two to see how that game was going. We’d beat both of them and they’d be out for redemption. In our favor was we had a long break and time to eat. I never took any of that too seriously. Too many “easy” wins in the Super Bowl had gone to shit. Nothing was easy when you were dealing with competitive people.

 Sebastian slung his arm around my shoulders as we watched and I held onto his hand. “Preference?”

 I shook my head, “Good and bad to both.” I pointed out the differing skills, habits, and ways to counteract each team. I always liked watching team films in college. I could get a feel for how they played and what they struggled with. We could structure our play to our advantage. Obviously, you can’t do this is a rec league, but that’s some of what I was doing before we’d take a time out. Pete and I were both watching for weaknesses and what they liked to do. The time out gave us thirty seconds to pass on the information. Watching this game wasn’t providing additional information, it was more of a mind fuck. Having the team that beat you watching was always a good way to get in the other team’s head.

 The second seed was the winner. Drew’s team. We headed back to get ready.

 The approximate start time for the finals was eight and that gave us almost thirty minutes before game time. We took to the court at fifteen for a warm-up after I got my pregame good luck kiss. The other team didn’t come back until the five-minute warning. That’s what I would have done too. Rest for them was more important. We got to choose which side we wanted to start on. I picked the far bench. I wanted to be walking back to our support system to pump us up after the first set. More friends had shown up during warm-ups and the bar itself was crowded. Lindsey was the one who got nervous with people watching. We huddled up and I looked at her, “So what’s Sam think of Sebastian?”

 “What?”

 Lindsey needed out of her head. “They’ve been sitting together all day. What’s she think of him?”

 “Umm,” she still looked confused, “he’s fun. She said he hasn’t asked anything about you, except what to expect if we lost.”

 Nick cocked his head, “That’s good.”

 I looked at the women then Nick, “Why is that good?”

 Jeff put an arm around me, “If I’m asking about her it means I haven’t decided what I think yet. If I’m just having fun with her friends . . . I’m more concerned with their impression of me because I already know what I want.”

 Nick nodded, “Truth.”

 I raised my eyebrows, “So what do you think?”

 Jeff put his hand over Pete’s mouth, “Win this game and we’ll tell you.”

 “That’s not fair at all.”

 We took to the court and went to work. We didn’t take our normal time out at ten points. We had just scored us out of a tie and neither Pete nor I wanted to take us out of the momentum. We fell behind eighteen to twenty, but a pair of perfectly served balls got us back even and we took the set twenty-five to twenty-two.

 There was no celebrating. Everybody held their game faces. I don’t know about the rest of them, but I was tired. It was a long hot day. I’d be digging deep to get through the match. If we won all my lost energy would come back. Funny how that happened. But we weren’t there yet. Back at our bench, I looked up to see Sebastian wipe his hand across his forehead with wide eyes. Yeah. It had been close. I stepped up on the bench, “You gonna make it?”

 “I don’t know. Don’t do that again.” He pulled an orange wrapper out from beside him, “Need a Reese Cup?”

 My face lit up, “Oh hell, yes.”

 He laughed and poked it through the netting, “You got this, Emma. You got this.”  

 I guess he knew I was tiring out. I kissed him quickly and shoved the candy in my mouth. Lindsey had jumped up to say something to Sam and I pulled on her tank top, “I’ve got the cutest cheerleader.”

 That made all four of us laugh and we went back on the court.

 The whistle blew and it was on. Points were quick, but we flip-flopped the lead on every serve. Then it happened. I was on the back row and went for a dig, yelling for Becky to back me up with the set. I dove for the ball and got one hand under. Becky set the ball and Nick drove the ball into the sand. I looked down and saw blood. The ball had hit my fingernail and broken it off into the nail bed.

 The official saw and blew the whistle, “Injury time out.”

 Jeff was closest to the bench and looked up to Sebastian, “Her bag. It’s got a first aid kit.”

 I ran over and jumped onto the bench, shoving my fingers through the netting just as Sebastian pulled out the first aid kit. Injury time out was three minutes. Plenty of time to deal with this. It hurt but wasn’t serious.

 Sebastian looked at my finger, opening the kit, “Your nail’s still hanging on.”

 “Yeah, I know. Rip it off.”

 “What?” His eyes went wide.

 I screamed, “Fuck!” Sam had reached over and yanked while I was looking at him. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. Sebastian pressed the cold wet antiseptic wipe on my finger.  I looked at Sam, “Thanks.”

 Sebastian wiped the sides of my finger, “Thanks? No, fuck you, Sam. That hurt me.” He tossed the wipe to the side and wrapped me in a band-aid. “That’s never going to hold.”

 “It’s only gotta make it seven more points.” I was pissed.

 We’d just scored off their serve, so guess whose turn it was to serve now? Mine. You don’t use your fingers to serve, but the vibration from my hand was not going to feel good. We scored on my first two serves, but not the third. Each time I had to set the ball hurt like hell. The key was to not anticipate the pain. You had to make the play then deal with the repercussions. We hit the twenty point mark and never looked back. I wasn’t even sure of the score until the crowd erupted and Nick grabbed me. We’d won.

 The opposing team congratulated us on our win. A couple of people asked about my finger. Drew being one of them. If I was paranoid, I'd say his concern felt a little less than sincere. We were hustled over to the sign with the bar’s name on for website pictures. Pete handed off his phone to get a couple more for us. Our friends were coming across the sand and we waved them over. Sebastian had a huge excited grin on his face, making him look like a giddy kid. My want to hug him cannot be underestimated. I practically threw myself at him, fully confident he'd catch me. A moment later I was being held so tight against him I could barely take in a breath.

"Congratulations, baby. I'm so proud of you." He kissed me like he meant it and I felt it to my toes.

 I heard someone clapping their hands, knowing instantly it was Pete. "I want all our people together for a picture. Team up front."

 I took Sebastian's hand and took him with me. Everyone crowded in with us and Sebastian wrapped around me from behind. Pete got his phone back and we started inside. First round for us would be on the house. Ah, the perks of a win.

 Sebastian tapped Sam before we were off the court, holding out his phone, "Please."

We moved away from people and he wrapped around me again. He rubbed his chin against my neck, making me squirm and laugh. His hold was tight enough that I couldn't get away. I reached back to try and push him away. My hand on his face got him to stop and I turned to look at him. The mischievous look on his face clued me in to what had been his plan all along. I smiled and welcomed his soft lips against mine, hoping like hell Sam was still taking pictures.

 Inside, there was a back corner with a neon sign overhead reading, "Winner's Corner." Yeah, that was us for the night. There was a huge corner table and several bar height tables crammed in the space. I went to sit in the corner booth by Nick, but Sebastian pulled me back, "We need to clean up your finger."

I looked at the filthy band-aid, "Yeah."

 I told Nick what we were doing and he grabbed my arm as I turned to go, "What do you want to drink?"

 "Big ass margarita and a shot."

 Sebastian spoke around me, "Both of us. Two", and held up two fingers. He walked around to the side of the bar where servers put in their drink orders and got the bartenders attention, "Is there an employee's bathroom we can use to clean up her finger?"

"Sure." He pointed to the "Employees Only" door beside us. "Just inside on the left. Congrats, Emma."

I smiled, "Thanks, Max."

The employee bathroom was multi-person but definitely cleaner than the public counterpart. Sebastian dug the first aid kit out of my bag and put it between the two sinks. I looked at the ragtag band-aid and worked at the adhesive before yanking it over my fingertip.

 Sebastian winced, "Fucking hell, woman. You people and ripping things off." He ended his mini-rant with a laugh. "I can't believe Sam just ripped the rest of your nail off."

"There was only a little piece still connected."

He put his hand under mine and looked at my finger, "Yeah, the part that looks like a chunk has been gouged out." His face still looked pained. "Is it hurting?"

I nodded, "Oh yeah."

He moved to kiss my finger, but stopped, "Clean first, kiss later. Your hands are filthy."

I turned on the water and pumped out a generous amount of a substance claiming to be antibacterial foam soap. "I have news for you. Every part of me is filthy."

"And you're right-handed. Good thing your shower is big, so I can help."

The glint in his eyes made my heart skip a beat. "You take such good care of me."

"I’m trying." He washed his own hands and used his finger to spread the ointment. When I winced he cut his eyes up to me, "Sorry."

 Watching the attention and care he took in wrapping the band-aid around my finger reaffirmed my belief that he was the sweetest man ever. With the band-aid on, he lifted my hand and kissed my finger carefully. He looked back to my eyes, "Better?"

"Definitely." It felt like someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. I wondered if I'd ever become immune to the intensity in his blue eyes. I hoped not. "Would you kiss me?"

 "Love to." His hands held my face a split second before his lips touched mine. I slid my hand under the hem of his t-shirt to get to his skin. I welcomed the gentle stroke of his tongue and let my lips fall open. One hand dropped away and his armed snaked around my shoulder, pulling me close as the kiss deepened. When we parted I licked the taste of him from my lips, "Thank you."

"Anytime." He bit his bottom lip with a smile.

 Our drinks were at the table when we got back. I slipped in beside Nick and Sebastian took the end. Pete looked at Sebastian with a frown and cocked his head to the side, "I expected that to take longer."

 There was a weird pause waiting for his response. I didn’t know which way he'd go. I felt like it was a rite of passage, could they rag on him the same way we did each other. He looked at the waiting faces, “Skill beats time, my friend. Skill beats time.”

 We drank and laughed and drank and laughed some more. I came back from a bathroom break to find Sebastian was in a very animated conversation at the table, having scooted over where I’d been sitting. Becky pulled me over to a group of her friends standing away from the table. I positioned myself where I could discretely look at Sebastian. I'd had enough tequila that I was pretty sure discrete no longer meant what I thought it did. Also, pretty sure the way he was looking at me was best described as eye fucking. It wasn't constant, but I swear I could feel his eyes on me.

 A big group of people who'd come to see us play decided to head to another place, clearing out a lot of room in our corner. I hit the bar, ordering a tray of shots and watched while a variety was poured and loaded up. No way in hell was I to be trusted carrying anything at this part. I followed the server back to the table and plopped down next to Sebastian, who smiled drunkenly and kissed my cheek.

 "Everybody grab a shot." I waited while people picked and traded the tiny glasses. I had no idea what I had. I held up my glass, "A perfect tournament, perfect friends, and a perfect night."

 Everyone drank and Sebastian shuddered, "That was truly awful."

Jeff handed him a beer, "Drink up."

 Not too much later I heard my name from the other side of the table. I was leaning on the table talking across Nick and Sebastian. Pete and I were arguing about what was the best crappy disaster movie. With the sound of my name I looked up, "What?" It was Drew. I squinted my eyes, "Why?"

Drew was drunk too. "You've got a big fucking mouth."

I looked at my friends then back to him, "I don't know what you're talking about. Or do I care."

 I felt Sebastian's hand on my lower back. The warmth letting me know he was there.

 "You ruined my reputation and move on like there will never be consequences."

 Jeff held up his hand, "You're drunk. You don't want to do this. You're just going to look like an ass."

Ohhh! This little confrontation wasn't about me. Well, it was, but it was more about embarrassing me in front of Sebastian. Fuck, no. Now I was mad. I leaned forward and spoke loudly, so he (and anyone nearby) could hear me. "Are we in high school again? Your reputation. I didn't say shit to anybody. You said you were joking and I took you at your word. I just didn't want anything else to do with you."

Someone said, "Good call."

I ignored it. "Maybe what ruined your reputation was one too many misogynistic and slightly rapey jokes. Nobody needed my help to know you're an asshole."

"You're a bitch."

"Yes, thank you. You can go now." I kept eye contact despite the sound of snickering nearby. I wasn't about to be the one to back down.

Drew broke away and looked... at the person beside me. "What about you?"

 Sebastian was mid drink, covering his smile. He lowered his glass, "Why the fuck are you bringing me into this?"

 Drew continued, "She's your girlfriend, isn't she?"

"Well, yes, and your point is?"

What the hell just happened?

"Shouldn't you be defending her?"

Oh, good lord.

"She seems to be doing ok on her own. I'm here if she needs me." The hand above the table took mine. "Emma, babe, you need anything?"

I turned my head toward him, "No, I'm good. Thank you."

Sebastian looked at the drunk idiot in front of him. I could see security walking our way. "She's good. And I think you've been dismissed."

 His hand drifted down and grabbed my ass. I almost laughed.

 "Is there a problem here?" Said the intimidatingly large man.

Even drunk, Drew realized this was over. "No problem" and walked away.

 I was stunned by the whole scene. Mostly the Sebastian part.  We were all quiet until Nick said, "How drunk do you have to be to pick a fight with the Winter Soldier?"

Everyone broke out in laughter. Sebastian shook his head, "If any of you seriously think I can fight like that without a trainer and several days of practice we need to talk. A fight scene is more like a choreographed dance than a fight." He was still laughing.

Jeff joined in," Doesn't matter. Now his reputation," he accented the word with air quotes, "is the drunk who tried to pick a fight with the Winter Soldier."

 Lindsey was the one to ask, "What did he say?"

I didn’t care about telling the story now and sighed, "First I need to say we went out on two dates. Two." I held up two fingers, noticing they were a little blurry and my words were a little slurry. "We made out, but no sex."

I hear Sebastian's voice, "Details no one needs."

Nick looked at him, "You mean details you don't need."

Sebastian bobbed his head and I continued, "We went on a group date with some friends of his. I don't remember how we got there, but he and his friend were saying how when a woman agrees to come in for a drink she knows what she’s really agreeing to."

 Everybody hissed in a breath or mumbled something like "no”.

 "I explained going upstairs for a drink means just that. He argued that agreeing to come upstairs is agreeing to whatever goes on when you go upstairs because come up from a drink means come up and have sex and if it's good, we'll order pizza.  At the end of the night he asked if he could come in for a drink. I told him no and because of our differing definition of consent, we wouldn't be going out again. Which is when he told me he was just kidding and being an ass with his friends."

 The men on both sides of me both said, "No."

Sebastian looked at Nick, "Go ahead."

"He may have been kidding, but he wasn't really kidding."

Sebastian added, "He's only kidding when someone calls him on it."

 "My point exactly. Now, can we go back to drinking?" I addressed the question to the table.

 Lindsey headed to the bar, "I'll get the shots."

[gdwessel]

G1 Supercard - 4/6/2019; Wrestling Dontaku Tour: Featured Matches, Tanahashi & Tenzan Injured; Nagata/Kojima in Crockett Cup; This Week’s NJPW on AXS

Yes, hi, hello. It’s been a bit. After two twelve-hour drives, five wrestling shows (which is apparently NOT ENOUGH judging by how many shows some people attended, or WORKED, during Mania Weekend), and a brush with death (I’ll explain next time I record), I needed to recover a bit. I’m still kinda half-assing it now, since I won’t be going through the full lineups for Wrestling Dontaku in this post. But youse all can forgive me, right? Anyway, let’s start with the whole reason I went to NYC...

(And hey, you can also listen to me do a podblast on Pro Wrestling Only about the event!)

ROH/NJPW G1 Supercard - 4/6/2019, Madison Square Garden, NYC (NJPWWorld / PPV)

Honor Rumble: Kenny King d. Jushin Thunder Liger, Great Muta [Wrestle-1], TK O’Ryan, Vinny Marseglia, Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS], King Haku [Bullet Club], Cheeseburger, Minoru Suzuki [SZKG], Hirooki Goto [CHAOS], Jonathan Gresham, Toru Yano [CHAOS], Colt Cabana, Delirious, Bad Luck Fale [Bullet Club], YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS], Rocky Romero [CHAOS], PJ Black, Tracy Williams [Lifeblood], Brian Milonas, Chase Owens [Bullet Club], Will Ferrara, Ryusuke Taguchi, Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables], Rhett Titus, SHO [CHAOS], YOH [CHAOS], Shaheem Ali, LSG, BUSHI [Los Ingobernables], Beer City Brusier (42;21, OTTR)

NEVER Openweight Championship & ROH World Television Championship Title v. Title: Jeff Cobb [FREE] © d. Will Ospreay [CHAOS] © (Tour Of The Islands, 12:52) - Ospreay fails his 2nd defense - Cobb succeeds his 6th defense, and is the 24th NEVER Openweight Champion

Rush [Los Ingobernables] d. Dalton Castle (Skewer Dropkick, 0:15)

Women of Honor World Championship: Kelly Klein d. Mayu Iwatani [STARDOM] © (K Power, 10:38) - Iwatani fails her 3rd defense - Klein is the 4th champion

NYC Street Fight Open Challenge: Juice Robinson [Lifeblood], Flip Gordon & Mark Haskins [Lifeblood] d. Bully Ray, Silas Young & Shane Taylor (Gordon > Bully, Four Flippy Splash, 15:01)

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship 3-Way Match: Dragon Lee [CMLL] d. Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club] © & Bandido [Lifeblood] (Lee > Bandido, Desnucadora, 8:54) - Ishimori fails his 3rd defense - Dragon Lee is the 84th champion

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team v. ROH World Tag Team Championships Title v. Title 4-Way Match: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [Bullet Club] © d. PCO & Brody King [Villain Enterprises] ©, EVIL & SANADA [Los Ingobernables] and Jay & Mark Briscoe (Loa > King, Super Powerbomb, 9:54) - Guerillas of Destiny succeed their 1st defense - PCO/King fail their first defense; Guerrilas of Destiny are the 54th ROH World Tag Team champions

RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG] © d. Hiroshi Tanahashi (Jim Breaks Armbar, 15:14) - Sabre succeeds his ? defense

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Kota Ibushi d. Tetsuya Naito [Los Ingobernables] © (Kamigoye, 20:53) - Naito fails his 2nd defense - Ibushi is the 21st champion

ROH World Championship 3-Way Ladder Match: Matt Taven d. Jay Lethal © & Marty Scurll [Villain Enterprises] (29:35) - Lethal fails his 13th defense - Taven is the 21st champion

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS] d. Jay White [Bullet Club] © (Rainmaker, 32:33) - White fails his 1st defense - Okada is the 69th champion

Hoo wee, a lot to unpack here. This actually ran longer than Wrestle Kingdom 13. And it did feel every bit of that towards the end, sitting in MSG, I have to say. But this was a great show, and for being the last show I saw this weekend, it was a great way to end my Mania Weekend.

Which isn’t to say there are some major questions here. Like, was this the right move to take titles off White and Naito? Both are VERY over in their respective roles, Naito the only NJPW wrestler to get pre-match chants, White clearly the most hated heel in NJPW, both in Japan AND America. While Ibushi in his first championship as a contracted wrestler offers fresh title matches, Okada retaking the belt does not. And they were in the midst of an angle whereby Naito wanted to win the IWGP Heavyweight title while still IC champion. So that was... a waste of time and energy? Neither of which says the matches were not good, because both of them were. Just not sure of the results.

Tanahashi got injured, maybe by that Jim Breaks Armbar? So he is out of the next tour. So is Hiroyoshi Tenzan, which, not sure how he got injured considering he didn’t work this show. Maybe it happened during the New Japan Cup tour, or whilst in training. 

The Guerrillas of Destiny are now double-champions, however their belts were stolen by Toru Yano at the conclusion of the match. Not that anyone in MSG actually noticed, because everyone’s attention was on the (what we now know to be worked) crowd invasion by fucking Enzo & Cass. I really don’t want to spend too much time on those two scumfucks. MSG let their feelings known in no uncertain terms, however. As did many of the wrestlers, like, true to form, Tama Tonga. This was a recurring theme, of Ring Of Honor really not reading the room, and having such shitty booking decisions. The Women of Honor match was patently Not Good, and a waste of Mayu Iwatani’s talents; this goes double for the Beautiful People appearing at the end, to absolute crickets in MSG. Kenny King robbing both Jushin Thunder Liger and the absolute surprise entrant THE GREAT MUTA (yes, I absolutely did lose my shit seeing him at this show, why do you ask?) of an MSG moment (Muta did spit red mist in King’s face tho). A streetfight clusterfuck that became a 6-man match to put over Herb Gordon. The way too long ladder match. ROH stinks, folks. Stop watching them. They are awful. The only thing  on their end that was remotely good was Rush destroying Dalton Castle, but Dalton is either turning heel or leaving the company, following his attacks on The Boys. But yeah, this show made it crystal clear that NJPW are way better off without fucking around with Sinclair Broadcasting Group, especially if they are going to hire scumbags like Enzo Amore.

Dragon Lee finally wins the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title! That was a bit of a shocker. So was Ospreay ending his Giant Killer push by losing the NEVER title to a much deserving Jeff Cobb. Real happy he finally has an NJPW title.

Long story short, I really did enjoy this show, but mostly by ignoring the ROH content. I also had a wonderful weekend, where I met quite a lot of people, both regular folk and wrestlers (ZSJ! Shibata! Chinsuke Nakamura! Jiro “Ikemen” Kuroshio!), saw friends and co-hosts, ate some great food, and saw some awesome wrestling. Including the RevPro show on Friday, which had a lot of NJPW guys, but I don’t have the energy to go over that now. And what’s passed, is past. Time to look into the future yo...

This Saturday (my 46th birthday!), we begin the cycle of shows leading in to Wrestling Dontaku, which will be a 2-day event once again. I don’t have the energy to enter in the full tour cards right now. I will get to that tomorrow/Friday when I do a new Upcoming Events post. But I can go over some of the feature matches...

On 4/20, we will have Sengoku Lord in Nagoya, at Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium. Two title defenses on this show, as Kota Ibushi will make his first defense of the IWGP Intercontinental title against Zack Sabre Jr., who of course beat Ibushi during the New Japan Cup. Also on this show, Juice Robinson will defend the IWGP US belt against Bad Luck Fale.

Another title match takes place on 4/29, at the annual Wrestling Hi no Kuni  event in Kumamoto. Here, GOD will defend the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team straps against the Most Violent Players, Togi Makabe & Toru Yano. The main event of this show is a special singles match between Hirooki Goto v. Jay White. Not sure why, but here we are. There will also be a special singles, non-title match (if Juice retains on 4/20) between Juice v. Chase Owens.

The first day of Wrestling Dontaku, on 5/3 in Fukuoka, has the first time the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title is a main event match for a megashow in... a long time. (Someone tweeted when the last time was, and I didn’t save it, and I can’t fathom looking right now.) Dragon Lee makes his 1st defense against the previous champion, Taiji Ishimori. That ought to be good. Also, Jeff Cobb makes his first defense of the NEVER Openweight title against Suzuki-gun’s Taichi. And only that belt.

The following day, on 5/4, sees Kazuchika Okada make his first defense of the IWGP Heavyweight title against LIJ’s SANADA. Those three have had great matches before, including the recent New Japan Cup Final. They are also advertising a special singles match between Tomohiro Ishii v. EVIL, as well as a tag match that sees Dragon Lee & Will Ospreay team v. Taiji Ishimori & an X wrestler. Not sure why they are going the X route when we all know it’s El Phantasmo. 

As I said above, I will list all cards tomorrow or Friday in an Upcoming Events post.

Meanwhile, the brackets have been announced for the 2019 Crockett Cup tag team tournament, taking place on 4/27/2019 at Cabarrus Arena in Concord, NC. NJPW will be sending over the team of Yuji Nagata & Satoshi Kojima to this event; one assumed it would have been TenKoji were Tenzan not injured. They will face the recently dethroned ROH World Tag Team champions PCO & Brody King in their matchup. Should Nagata/Kojima win, they will face the winners of The Briscoe Brothers v. The Rock’n’Roll Express. Yes, you read that right. Over in the other block, an ROH team of Herb Gordon & Bandido (poor Bandido) goes up against a CMLL tandem of Stuka Jr. & Guerrero Maya Jr., whilst the War Kings (Jax Dane & Crimson) face off against the winner of a Wild Card Battle Royale that will take place during this show. This event will also have an NWA World’s Heavyweight title defense by Nick Aldis v. Marty Scurll. 

Finally, NJPW on AXS has a 2-hour special this week, with matches from G1 Supercard just last weekend. The advertised matches are the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental matches. You can scroll above to see who is in those. Show starts at 8pm EDT / 7pm CDT.

And that’s it. I’m still recovering, so off to bed with this old man. Tour starts Saturday. Happy to be back. Hope you enjoyed the G1 Supercard, and anything else you watched during Mania Weekend. Come back for the Road to Wrestling Dontaku!

[canyousevmyheavydirtysoul]

You’re My Bodyguard, Not My Owner. (Chapter 28) (Brendon Urie x Reader)

Twenty-two years earlier. (Y/L/N) family home, whereabouts unknown.

Your father carefully placed your delicate body back into your cradle, placing his index finger in your tiny open palm; your fingers instinctively wrapped around his bigger one and gripped it tight.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” he fussed, gazing adoringly at your sleeping frame.

“Very much so,” The Director concurred, stepping up to take a stand next to your father and clamp a hand on his shoulder. He knew precisely what was running through his friend’s mind, and he needed to reassure him. “You’re doing the right thing, Erik.”

“Am I?” your father wondered, frowning a bit as he took in your infant features and how peaceful and innocent you looked. “Because I’m starting to think that I’m about to make the biggest mistake of my life.”

“That can be argued.”

“She’s just a baby, Nick.”

The Director’s lips pursed slightly and his eyes narrowed infinitesimally as he looked at you. He understood where your father’s hesitation was coming from; if it were up to him, Fury would personally escort you and your parents to the most untraceable, safest corner of the Earth to ensure that nothing would ever happen to any of you. Sadly, that was not an option.

Both men were not at all pleased with the logistics of what was about to happen, but they both knew what the future held, and they recognized that this was perhaps the only way to guarantee that they would have at least some form of un upper hand.

“There’s no other way?” Fury spoke a moment later, voice uncharacteristically soft, “No other person?”

Your father gave a sad shake of his head as he sighed. “Not in this universe or the next,” he answered, “It’s her…”

“Destiny?”

“I was going to say ‘birthright’,” your father chuckled, looking to his friend before turning to you and gently touching your cheek, “but I suppose ‘destiny’ isn’t incorrect.”

Fury observed the act of unconditional love being exchanged before him, allowing it to run its course before he too leaned down to touch your face.

“Nothing bad will ever happen to her, Erik,” he said lowly, “I promise you that.”

“I don’t doubt that you will protect her when I’m unable to do so,” your father replied, a crease forming along his forehead, “but as much as I need you to protect her, I need you to guide her still more. Can you do that for me?”

“Hey, I’m no Norse god,” Fury scoffed before nodding, “but you can bet your ass that I’ll do the best that I can.”

“That’s all I ask of you,” your father whispered, giving The Director a tight-lipped smile before turning to face you.

“My beautiful snowflake,” he muttered. A sad smile graced his youthful features as he looked down at you – the epitome of innocence and ignorance – and his smile quickly turned into a frown as his thoughts drifted to what he was about to do.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, kissing your head softly before straightening up, “this is never what I wanted for you.” He shook his head as he touched his right index and middle finger to his forehead, and then pressed it to yours. “But in time,” he closed his eyes and when he reopened them a moment later, they were a glowing-grey in colour, “I hope you will understand the reasoning behind my actions.”

With that, seemingly in a trance, he drew in a deep breath and as he exhaled – slowly and carefully – the grey gradually drained from his eyes. After the colour had completely diminished, your father broke out of his trance with a light shake of his head.

The Director, who had been looking on in silence the entire time, was the first to speak. “Is it done?” he questioned, forehead creasing as he took a cautious step forward, joining your father in looking down at you.

“Yes,” your father spoke quietly.

You looked up at your father and godfather with lips curved into a smile and eyes the colour of glowing-grey.

“It’s done.”

 Present day. A diner somewhere on the outskirts of North Carolina.

Roughly seven hours had passed since you fled from S.H.I.E.L.D HQ, and much to your amazement, there had been no pouty-lipped, emotionless bodyguards pursuing you in a car chase, or dropping out of a helicopter, or chasing you on foot the entire way like you expected there to be. Not a single one. It was a tad disappointing, to be honest.

Sweat looked good on Brendon.

You could envision your recapture right now; a bunch of agents busting through the door and rushing over to you, weapons drawn, faces creased with a bitter mixture of anger and irritation, beckoning for you to get up, saying how could you do something like this when you know the risks involved and that Fury was irate and that you better never try something like this ever again. Then comes the rough gripping of the arm, and the guiding towards whatever vehicle they chose to accompany them on this particular mission, then the opening of the door for you (as if you were royalty, a queen being tended to by her servants and not an escaped asset; but you knew better than to think of it as any more than a guileless gallantry) and after you climbed in, the door would shut again, and they would drive you back to where ‘you would be safest’.

Oh, and Brendon would be there, too. He’d be the one doing the arm gripping and tedious lecturing.

He would be – if they had shown up.

You were 99% sure that there would be no S.H.I.E.L.D agents finding you anytime soon – even your bodyguard. You had taken all the precautions necessary to ensure that you would be off S.H.I.E.L.D’s radar for a significant amount of time; about forty-five minutes away from HQ, you pulled over at a convenience store to stock up on supplies and to use the ATM to withdraw some cash from the credit card you had taken. You withdrew as much money as you could but made sure not to max it out and once you pocketed the cash, you bent the card in half and tossed it in a nearby trashcan before hurrying back to your vehicle and driving off; you took the back route out of state, opposite to the route you were originally driving on so as to throw S.H.I.E.L.D off.

The SUV wasn’t a problem, either; you had specifically targeted the only off-limits one – that was due in for a repair to its tracking system. It would suffice as a reliable form of transport until you could get to somewhere you could find something more practical – it wasn’t the most inconspicuous of vehicles, after all. So as far as practical things go, you had done everything to make sure that you were a ghost.

Yet, you still couldn’t shake the uncertainty of that 1%.

“Hey, pretty eyes,” the busboy’s voice broke you out of your trance, and you shook your head a little before turning to him with raised brows. He slung a tattered dishrag over his right shoulder and cocked his head up at you. “You alright?”

“Perfect. Why do you ask?”

He made little effort to hide his amusement when he replied, making vague hand gestures at the crockery on the table in front of you; the food on which lied entirely untouched.

“Rez brought your food over a solid fifteen minutes ago, and you haven’t taken a single bite. Haven’t even nicked a fry.”

Your gaze fell upon the burger and fries combo in front of you. The sight made you nauseous all of a sudden. The sun had only risen about an hour ago; you should’ve ordered something more breakfast-friendly instead.

“Oh. Yeah,” you mumbled, voice completely monotonous; you didn’t care to be wasting precious moments on useless talk with a busboy when your time could be better spent gazing out of the diner window and thinking about how much of a disaster your life is.

For goodness sake, busboy, let a girl be depressed in peace.

An uncomfortable quiet was what followed, as you took it upon yourself to study the top bun of your burger in detail while your newfound acquaintance rocked back and forth on his heels, occasionally letting out a low whistle. You counted eighteen sesame seeds before he broke the silence.

“So do you want me to heat it up for you or…?”

“Actually, if you don’t mind,” you lifted the plate from the table and handed it to him, “Make it a take-out, please.”

He thinned his lips and gave a two-fingered salute. “Sure thing.”

“And,” you stopped him before he could walk away, “could I pay in the meantime? I’m kinda on a… tight schedule.”

“Yeah, ‘course. You can come right up front; Bets will ring you up.”

“Thank you,” you gave him a small smile as you gathered your jacket and car keys and slid out of the booth.

Bets was a pudgy, ginger-haired woman, dressed in a classic diner uniform – white skirt draped with a splotched red-apron and a white shirt with her name embroidered across the breast pocket. She wore glasses that despite her efforts to keep them in place, kept sliding down the ridge of her nose; her eyelids were overly caked with blue eye shadow, and you could see the stains her red lipstick left on her teeth when she grinned at you as you approached the till.

“Cheeseburger and shake, righ’?”

You confirmed with a nod, only offering Bets a sliver of your attention, since most of it had now been drawn towards the TV bracketed to the wall on your right. The volume was turned down rather soft, so you couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but there was no mistaking the blue-eyed man whose picture took up the majority of the screen; the background was of some or other hotel or conference center – you weren’t too sure. Even through a picture being broadcasted on a TV screen, his allure radiated through, drawing you in instantly. It was ridiculous that someone had that kind of magnetism, but even in the way he was posed in the picture, eyes sparkling and a coy smirk on his lips, it was clear that he had the ability to charm everyone and everything he came across – even the lens of a camera.

“That’ll be $9.28, hun,” Bets spoke, and you fished through your pockets before pulling out a ten and a five and handing it over.

“Keep the change. And, uh, could you turn that up, please?” you waved a hand at the TV and Bets obliged, picking up the remote and turning the volume up.

“…Doctor Aaron Ross, world-renowned agnoiologist, physiologist and expert on Norse mythology, will be concluding his five-day seminar with an exclusive panel hosted at The Ritz hotel in Chicago, Illinois this evening. The event will begin at 6pm and…”

 “Chicago,” you muttered, catching the attention of the busboy, who’d just set your food down in front of you; he arched his brows as you turned to address him, “that’s a, what, ten hour drive from here?”

“Twelve, actually.”

“Twelve,” you repeated with a nod as you turned to look at the clock hanging on the wall above the exit.

7:30 am.

Extending your thanks to the diner employees, you grabbed your food and dashed for the SUV, starting up and heading for Chicago. If you kept up a steady pace, you’d arrive at around 8pm. And maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to score a dinner date with a certain acquaintance.

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x

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[carisi-dreams]

So how does mc!Nick apologize after the whole Joey thing? -❄️🌹

+How does mc!Nick get you to accept his apology after the incident with Razor and Joey’s mom?

++Being super demanding today sorry, and of course totally appreciate all your posts….. Is there more to Nick apologising to you re Joey? Do you mention being a little sccared?? Love the mc!au

takes place after this

short answer: groveling & sex

long answer…

/////

You wanted to last longer than you did, but you ended up calling Nick several hours. Part of you wasn’t sure if he’d answer and the other part said that you knew that he would. Chances were he was telling the truth when he said he couldn’t sleep without you. The phone rang twice before he picked up, voice sounding weary, but wide awake.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately in a quiet voice. You sighed and leaned back against the pillows in your bed, just breathing for a moment.

“I know you are,” you acknowledged finally and you heard the rustling of sheets as he shifted in bed.

“Please let me apologize in person. Explain. I try hard, amor, but I’m not a perfect man. I get a lot of things wrong and sometimes I hurt the people I love. I’d like to ask for your forgiveness face to face, like a man should,” Nick said in the same subdued tone. It was odd to hear him like this, sounding so defeated. Usually he was confident, sometimes annoyed or upset or angry, but defeated was new. You hated the way it sounded rolling off of his tongue, sticking to his words like bitter honey.

“You can come over in the morning after you get up. I don’t…I don’t feel comfortable coming to the house until we talk first,” you admitted and he exhaled and cleared his throat.

“I won’t—I’m not going to sleep. Not without you. I’m too used to you in my bed,” Nick confessed  and you smiled slightly.

“If you feel up to it you can come now,” you offered and you heard the squeak of his mattress as he must have stood to his feet.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said before ending the call. You tossed your phone on the bed beside you and looked down at your appearance. It was nearly midnight so you were dressed for bed. You contemplated and discarded the idea of getting up to throw something cuter on. Nick wouldn’t care what you were wearing so you just sat and waited for the sound of his key in the door.

When you heard a knock ten minutes later you frowned, grabbing the gun he’d given you that was in your nightstand before getting to your feet and inching towards the door slowly. The knock came again and this time Nick called through the door softly. You exhaled hard and swore, putting the safety back on the gun before striding over to unlock and open then door. He spared a faintly impressed look at the gun in your hand before he closed and locked the door behind him, putting the chain on as well. You set the gun by the table at the door and took a step back to allow him to come into the room further. Nick swept you up in a hug, one hand coming to the back of your head to hold you in place. Your arms tightened around him as he held onto you, ducking his head into the juncture of your neck and holding on.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized and it came out muffled through your hair. You just gripped him tighter in response, pulling on his t-shirt in a way that had to be uncomfortable as you got your hands under his cut.

“Come on, let’s sit,” you said softly as you went to pull away. He made an upset noise and kept holding onto you for a moment longer. Nick’s hands came down on your shoulder gently as he ducked in for a bruising kiss before taking a step back. You ran a hand through your hair as you tried to shake your daze. He had a way of wrecking you without even trying and it threw you for a loop at the most inopportune times.

Nick followed you to the couch and a hurt look passed over his expression as you left some space between the two of you when you sat down. He grabbed one of your hands in both of his and brought it up to his mouth to kiss and then held it against his face. You opened your palm and cupped his cheek, rubbing your thumbs back and forth gently and he relaxed slightly.

“You look like you’ve had a rough few days, jefe,” you said gently in a slightly teasing tone. Nick closed his eyes and shook his head once.

“Don’t—you’re my equal. Don’t call me that, please. It makes me feel horrible,” Nick pleaded in a small voice and you smiled gently and started again.

“Talk to me, Nick. What’s going on in this head of yours, hmm?” you asked as you studied his face. He opened his eyes and inched closer to you on the couch.

“It wasn’t right for me to ask that of you. To not help Joey,” he admitted and you huffed out humorless laughter and dropped your hand.

“It wasn’t a request, remember?” you pointed out bitterly and Nick winced.

“I messed up, amor. I—the club—it’s complicated. There are expectations and rules and I’m trying my best to balance them so that you don’t le—don’t get frustrated. I can’t win. Someone will always be upset sometimes and…there’s only one of you. The club, there’s so many people I’m responsible to. People who have families and bills and—” he tried to explain.

“So I don’t count? I don’t have bills to pay? I can make this really easy for you by taking myself out of the equation,” you interrupted angrily as you got to your feet. Nick stayed seated and tracked your movement with his eyes.

“Don’t say that. Please. I’m trying. You know I don’t want that,” Nick pleaded and you shook your head, staring at a wall and not seeing anything. “Please, I just need you to see things from my perspective. Try to compromise.”

“A compromise means that both sides get something they want and also lose something they want. How is me not helping Joey a compromise? That sounds like me giving in to what you want,” you told him in a steely tone and he sagged slightly.

“Listen, reina. There are already things and rules that I’ve ignored and excused for you. Things you probably don’t even know about. That’s fine, I’d do it in a heart beat. But there are some times when I need you to just listen to me and do what I ask. Please. For both of our sakes,” Nick explained and you clenched your jaw against the scream building behind your teeth. “As for Joey…you can help him. Andre’s mom came to the club house today and threw her daughter’s ashes in my face, slapped him across the face. She was crying and telling us we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I’m sorry. I was wrong. Joey should get to do what he wants and if he wants to go to culinary school…” Nick trailed off and the anger that you had been feeling dissipated and the frown on Nick’s face deepened. You walked back over to the couch and sat down heavily, reaching for his face again.

“Are you okay?” you asked him, searching for any possible source of pain.

“Once I spit a dead girl’s ashes out of my mouth and broke a mother’s heart? Yeah, I guess you could say I’m okay,” he said bitterly and you grimaced.

“How did she die?” you asked and Nick scrubbed a hand over the part of his face that wasn’t being cupped in your hand.

“Drive by. Was intended for a member and she was dating one of the prospects at the time. They were both killed,” Nick replied and you bit your lip.

“I’m sorry, Nick. That wasn’t your fault,” you reminded him. It had to have been back before he’d even prospected and you only vaguely remember hearing something about it in high school.

“Still.” You nodded and scooted even closer to him, pressing you knee against his.

“Let’s talk about some rules for my job and prospects in the morning, okay?” you offered gently. “You’ve had a long day.”

“Okay,” Nick agreed, “but let me finish apologizing.” You tilted your head in confusion before he went on. “I scared you. In the kitchen.” Phrased like a statement rather than a question and you dropped your gaze. Nick reached out for your face slowly, tilting you to look at him and cupping your cheek. “I hate myself for that. I’m going to hate myself for a long time for that. I grew up in a house where my mom looked like that a lot,” he confessed and you straightened and reached up to grab his forearm. “I would never, ever, ever lay a hand on you in anger. Ever. I mean it (y/n). I’m sorry if you felt trapped or scared. There’s no—there’s no excuse or apology I could ever phrase that would make that okay. I don’t want you to feel scared or unsure around me. Please forgive me when you feel ready,” he asked and you nodded and turned your head to kiss his palm.

“I was scared,” you admitted quietly and Nick grimaced and pressed his lips tightly together. “But I know you’d never hurt me like that. I’m sorry for just taking off. It wasn’t okay for me to not stay and finish the conversation,” you apologized and when Nick opened his mouth to disagree you cut him off with a kiss. “Missed you,” you murmured into his mouth before kissing him again and he nodded and hauled you into his lap.

His hands tugged your sleep shirt over your head before slipping down to bracket your ribs. You pushed his cut off and leaned back slightly so that he could pull his own shirt off before discarding it carelessly. In one smooth move he leaned down to kiss you again as he stood, holding you under your thighs as he made his way to your bedroom.

[bitcoinminershasrate]

Antminer DR5 Review 2021: Hashrate| Profit | Config | Settings

Antminer DR5 Review 2021: (Hashrate or Watt)Power, Profitability and Tuning (Configuration): New mining machines continue to appear despite the temporary stagnation in the virtual payment asset market. This means that not only miners-enthusiasts, but also business sharks are confident in the bright future of the cryptoindustry. Otherwise, no one would have invested huge sums in the development of the next series of ASICs. Bitmain is setting the pace for the cryptocurrency arms race. Soon after the release of miners on 7 nanometer chips, under the SHA-256 algorithm, the company put on the market a batch of antminer dr5 devices working with Blake256R14. Antminer DR5 specifications | Hashrate | Watt In appearance, it resembles S15 and T15... Two-section case, with front-facing 120mm fans and a power supply attached to the right on the brackets. Let's take a closer look at what a miner has, characteristics and features of work. Hashrate,(maximum performance)35 TH/sHashrate,(power saving mode)25/26 TH/sPower consumption1610WattPower consumption(in economy mode)1000/1040WattEnergy efficiency(in maximum performance mode)46 J/THEnergy efficiency(in economy mode)40 J/THNumber of hash chips216Number of hash boards3Network connectionRJ45 Ethernet10 / 100MDimensions (edit)238/178 / 297mmNet weight)7.7 KGNoise level76 dBAmbient operating temperature25 - 40C Bitmain Antminer DR5 ASIC Miner 1800W 34TH/S for DashCoin with Power Supply Antminer DR5 Review Hashrate Profitability Config Settings The bitmain dr5's dimensions, weight and power consumption are quite acceptable. The miner develops a good mining speed, the operating room temperature is standard for this type of device. Official Stores You can buy antminer DR5 miner in Moscow from your regional Bitmain dealer, on the website https://ibmm.ru, or order directly from the manufacturer. At the time of this writing, the price of antminer dr5 is in stock Bitmain 1316 $, you can pay with dollars, euro or bitcoins. Top 3 Question and Answer on Amazon - Antminer DR5 Review Top 3 Question and Answer on Amazon - Antminer DR5 Review Question 1: The hashrate is 34 Th/s, is this correct? And this miner is for Dash right? Answer: Hi, yes Sr the Hastrate is between 34 TH/s and 35 TH/s, Is for Dash.By MAQUINARIA BITMAIN Customer Answer: That is NOT CORRECT! antminer DR5 can ONLY mine DECRED. THIS DOES NOT MINE DASH! Question 2: Will this mine btc as well or only dash?? Answer: BTC is mined with the SHA-256 algorithm. This does not support that algorithm and can only mine Dash and other Blake256R14 related coins. Question: Solo mina dash? Answer: Si.. Step-by-step guide to set up and connect When you receive a new miner, the first thing to do is to inspect the packaging. Take pictures of the damage, if any. Inspect the device in the same way. Make sure that all chip cooling heatsinks are firmly glued. To do this, it is enough to turn the miner over several times, the parts that have fallen off will immediately make themselves felt. Then we check the fixing of the cables in the connectors, and proceed to configuring the antminer DR5. If you have already worked with devices on integrated circuits, you will not learn anything new from the instructions. Configuring antminer DR5 begins by defining the IP address. - Download the utility to find IP, on https://service.bitmain.com/support/download - Unpack the archive, run as administrator and click "Start». - On the miner panel, click the "IP Report»And you will see the address in the program window on your PC. - Copy the received IP address into the address bar of the browser, and go to the miner control panel. It is recommended to use utilities Google Chrome or Firefox... Username and password "root"Are installed by default. If you have three or more devices, enter static IP address, subnet mask, SWG, DNS, then click “Save and apply». Go to the pool settings - Open the "Miner Configuration" tab and then "General settings». - Enter the pool url and miner name (in the Worker section). It is not necessary to change the password. - Press again "Save and apply", And connect to the selected pool. If you have several rigs, you can group or differentiate them by adding the miner's IP address to the miner's name. Supporters of work in the hive will have to upset, unfortunately, the dr5 miner is not yet included in the list Hive OS client for ASICs. Overclocking the device To change the power mode go to Miner configuration, then Advanced Settings, select: - Normal high performance; - Low economical consumption. Click Save & Apply to save the hardware configuration. Configuring antminer DR5 is now complete. It will take 5 to 30 minutes to start mining. During normal operation, the status "O" will be displayed. An "X" indicates an error, and (-) means the device is offline. To determine the version of the installed antminer DR5 firmware, go to the section Overview... The filesystem version displays the date your miner was last updated. To update the firmware: - Go to Upgrade. - Uncheck the box if you need to reset the miner settings. - Press the button with the hieroglyphs and navigate to the update file. - Select the update file and click Flash image, if there is a new antminer DR5 firmware, a green marker will light up. - When finished, execute Reboot. This completes the antminer DR5 firmware. You can restore factory settings using the physical Reset button on your device. Press and hold it for 10 seconds, if the reset is successful, the red indicator will flash. Versions of the alternative firmware bitmain antminer dr5 34 Th / s have not yet been found. However, the speed of the antminer dr5 is 34 TH / s, with a power consumption of 1610 Watt, a good indicator. The previous dr3 developed only 7.8 TH / s. What you need to know about DR5 Speaking about the advantages of antminer dr5, one cannot fail to mention the prospects of the mining algorithm. Blake-256 is one of the five finalists in the prestigious NIST technology competition. According to experts, Blake-256 outperforms algorithms, SHA256, Scrypt, Groestl in many respects. The miner itself, like all Bitmain products, is assembled with high quality and easy to configure. Of course, if you turn on the DR5 miner in a residential building, the noise will be heard throughout the entire entrance. Therefore, it is necessary to take additional measures of noise isolation, and it is better to place such devices in special mining hotels. Calculation of ROI DR5, profitability in 2020 ASIK's review will be incomplete without calculating the current profitability. We go to the calculator known to all miners WhatToMine and find it in the Miners (beta) section of Bitmain Antminer DR5, the yield at the time of this writing is $ 0.61. Do not panic, the service calculates electricity at a rate of $ 0.1 per hour, if you take a tariff of $ 0.06, the profitability of antminer dr5 will grow to $ 2.33. Low profit, but winter in the cryptocurrency market is coming to an end and the money invested will return a hundredfold. The readings of the profitability calculator antminer dr5 may change tomorrow. There are still few reviews on the bitmain antminer dr5 miner on cryptocurrency forums. ASIK has recently appeared on the market and has not yet been appreciated at its true worth. Nevertheless, the device, according to the WhatToMine profitability calculator, ranks second in the rating of equipment for the Decred cryptocurrency. Main competitor MicroBT Whatsminer D1 costs $ 4,199 and brings in $ 3.21 per day. This means that antminer dr5 will pay off faster anyway. Well, for those who still think that cryptocurrencies are just a "soap bubble", this is not a big excursion into history. Back in 1998, a well-known programmer and doctor of jurisprudence Nick Sabo wrote: "Digital currencies can be dramatically improved with cryptographic signatures that make each coin unique and eliminate the possibility of copying, double-spending and other theft." Read the full article

[ruffsficstuffplace]

And The AWRD Goes To (Part 64)

Note: Lyrics originally by kran* at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov5IyW-O6bg and Will Stetson at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QsjrS_xxpI, used without permission and modified by me.

The current version here used is shortened, and relies on a remix of the track I made in my head. Sadly no accurate backing music to that.

9:30 PM, the Professional bracket of the Moonlight Serenade began in earnest.

Crews rushed in and assembled their sets and props in Devalekha’s famous revolving stage. The contestants, their crews, and their supporting members packed the dressing rooms full, if they didn’t have trailers of their own. The hosts smiled as they subjected the audience to enough noise and spectacle to drown out the sounds of frantic construction, and roar of the stage’s complex machinery just behind the curtains.

The seats were packed full with people, from the luxury boxes filled with wealthy individuals, talent scouts, and many of the sponsors for the contestants; the rows upon rows of benches reserved for the rest of the paying audience members; and especially those standing around on the fringes, trying to find the vantage point to escape the crush, or just watch the show, live on the stage or through any of the giant screens attached to the sides of patrolling airships.

And of course, the fans and supporters were out in full force. Whether they were packed together in matching colours like armies, or spread out in small handfuls all over the area, they were all armed with banners, posters, and words to be shouted at the top of their lungs, to their favoured contestant, or to anyone who dared voice the opinion that they might be flawed, or worse yet, inferior in comparison to a different performer that night.

“MARU FOR LIFE!” some random fan dressed in purple cried, their companions chiming in too.

“MIRA IS BETTER!” came from the group opposite them, all dressed in orange instead.

Just beside the two warring groups, the older Schnees, Taiyang, and Zwei did their best to ignore them, but their increasingly passionate arguments began to drown out the background music and the words of the hosts.

A minute in, Freya snapped. “Will you all SHUT THE FUCK UP?!” she yelled as she sat atop Nick’s shoulders. “I’m here to watch the show, not bear witness to your senseless bickering!”

“Piss off, lady, this isn’t your fight!” someone from the Orange team cried.

“Yeah, shut up, this is none of your business!” someone from the Purple team added.

Freya’s ears pulled back, her tail stiffened, and her hands balled into fists. “And if you both annoy me enough that I make it my business...?” she growled.

“Yeah, what’re you going to do, call the cops on us?” someone from Orange taunted.

Freya smiled.

“Freya...” Nick said quietly, but it was too late.

A monstrous screech filled the air, the crowds started to panic and whip their heads about, screaming as they saw a giant, slate blue nevermore’s head sticking out of a glyph. It threateningly snapped its beak a few times, glared evilly at the Orange and Purple teams, but did nothing more.

Almost immediately, a police patrol airship was hovering over them, its spotlights shining down on the them. “Break it up, break it up!” said a voice over a megaphone. “And get rid of that Grimm!”

The nevermore turned to Freya, she nodded, and it obediently faded away into slate blue mist. The two teams began to split apart in retreat, the other people in the crowd rushing in to fill the space.

“Thank you for cooperating, and please do not harass, threaten, and/or use violence and semblances on your fellow audience members, or otherwise disrupt the event,” said the officer on the megaphone. “We would like to remind you that it is illegal to do so, and we have the right to immediately eject you from the premises, and pursue further legal action, if necessary.”

The ship left to patrol other areas, the wedge driven between the two groups seemed too large for them to argue anymore. Freya smiled, and said, “Much better.”

“That was a little excessive, don’t you think?” Taiyang asked.

“Yes, yes it was, Mr. Xiao-Long, but mark my words: no one and nothing is going to ruin my granddaughter’s performance tonight, and my enjoyment of it.” Freya replied. “It was already insidiously sabotaged once, I will not stand idly by and let it happen a second time.”

“Oh, come on, Grandma! You can’t honestly still believe that after all these years?” Winter asked.

Snowie gently nudged her in the side, and said, “Just let it go, baby.”

Winter sighed heavily, and did.

Elsewhere, Weiss and Aqua were in the communal dressing room, sitting at one of the many vanity tables. They were a patch of relative calm in the sea of chaos and busy work, Aqua doing little more than retouching the make-up Weiss already had on, and adding some extra decorative markings and putting on ornate jewelry that would have looked off outside of the stage.

“You nervous?” Aqua asked as she dipped her brush back into the bottle.

“A little.” Weiss replied.

“Well you shouldn’t be,” Aqua said as she let the excess drip off, before she resumed her work. “You’re going to absolutely kill it out there, and that’ll just be with your singing.”

Weiss smiled slightly. “You sound so confident...”

“Because I know just how good you are, Weiss,” Aqua said, smiling as she made one last careful stroke. “There, all done. What do you think?”

“I’m absolutely terrified of sweating, touching my face, or otherwise marring all this wonderful work,” Weiss replied calmly. “Thank you, Aqua.”

Aqua laughed, before her expression turned serious. “Can I confess something to you, Weiss? It’s not recent, just… really long overdue.”

“Uh, sure… what is it?” Weiss asked.

“I was really intimidated and worried about losing to you, the first time you competed here,” Aqua started. “Topaz wasn’t that worried when she did some oppo research and those videos of you performing at Hoshiko and Sanctum popped, but I could just tell you had It—stage presence, appearance, and a talent honed to razor-sharpness. So when I sidled up to you on the night, chatted you up, and saw how flustered you were getting…

“I went full on Sun Tzu, and I am really sorry I did, however little that probably means by now.”

Weiss nodded slowly. “Was the relationship after that some kind of insurance that I’d never compete again?” she asked half-jokingly.

Aqua smiled. “Nah. That was because I find out your cuteness wasn’t all skin deep afterward.” She sighed, and looked down. “You deserved so much better than me, Weiss… better than how I treated you, better than how it all ended...”

Weiss gently put a hand on Aqua’s arm. “Let’s not dwell on the past, Aqua—especially not when we’ve got a show to put on so soon,” she said, smiling.

Aqua looked up and slowly smiled back. “Yeah, you’re right… break a leg out there, Weiss.”

Outside, at the staging grounds, all the construction crews were getting ready, clearing paths for wheeling their equipment, props, and sets in and out; stretching and re-energizing themselves with snacks and stimulants; and running through plans and assignments all over again, just in case.

“Man, that cannon looks big enough to fire someone out of it!” Amanda said as she helped unload the contents of a Bunyan Logging Co. van. “I wonder if they’ll let me borrow it after the show...”

“Most probably not, and I politely ask that you put a stop to any other burgeoning plans involving it,” Diana said as she stood nearby with a clipboard in hand. “Whatever they are going to do with that, it will be a stunt that the inspectors have deemed safe and sane, and I am quite certain that whatever you are planning to do with it won’t be.”

Amanda scowled as she hauled a bundle of prop tools on her shoulder. “You’re no fun, Diana.”

“Well forgive me for thinking of the success of our show, and by consequence, the size of your paycheck once all of this is said and done,” Diana replied calmly. “It will not help our already risky plan in the slightest if any sort of untoward incident garners the wrong sort of attention to ourselves, and thus, the Bakunawa.”

“Alright, alright, no making after-gig plans, sheesh!” Amanda said, before she deposited the tools before Constanze, Akko, and a squad of training dummies.

“You excited to perform for real, Amanda?” Akko asked as she picked up a rake, and put it in a dummy’s hands.

“Hell yeah I am!” Amanda cried as she did the same with a scythe. “Not looking forward to having to stand around here with nothing to do till they let us out at 11:30, though. My cut better be higher than what Jaune got me to agree to way back when, or I am not going to be happy.”

“It’s not that long of a wait,” Akko said as she grabbed a pickaxe.

“It is when the only thing I’ll be able to do is walk around, twiddle my thumbs, or try to chat someone up!” Amanda replied as she kicked up a wooden mallet to her hands. “It’s fucking bullshit they won’t let us use our scrolls for anything other than emergency calls, man.”

“If it helps stop people from sabotaging the other contestants like they did in other years, I can’t really argue against it,” Akko said. “Maybe you should just pretend you’re on wild watch.”

“And here I am, the huntress who did everything she could to get out of wild watch...” Amanda grumbled as she rested the bulky head across a dummy’s shoulder. “Honestly, who’d willingly sign up for a job where you stand around in a tower for hours to days at a time, constantly watching and waiting for something to MAYBE happen…?”

Far and away from the lights and hubbub of the Tsukimi Festival, a few miles out from the city’s borders, Qrow stood alone in a wild watch tower, binoculars in one hand, the other hovering near a large bottle of alcohol with marker notches all over its side.

What was normally a relatively quiet patch of mountain wilderness was alive with the sounds of Grimm driven berserk by the moonlight, the wanton destruction they were causing, and the cries of animals that weren’t given the mercy of swift death. Your average army lookout or Grimm hunter would likely be hyper aware of every last noise as they cowered in a corner with weapon in hand, but Qrow had long tuned it all out, the area effectively dead-silent.

He was just about to take another measured sip of his drink when he heard it: a mechanical noise like a flying machine’s rotors, screeching and whirring like something particularly awful had gotten sucked into the turbines.

It only lasted for a second, but a second was all Qrow needed to whip his binoculars in the direction he’d heard it, tag the location on his scroll’s map, before he pulled it up. “Tower 7 to Central, Tower 7 to Central, come in, Central, over!” he barked.

“Central to 7, what is it, over?”

“Suspicious noise in the immediate vicinity, sounded mechanical, definitely not supposed to be around here tonight. Requesting permission to investigate, over.”

“Permission denied, 7, over.”

Qrow blinked. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. This is the first interesting thing that’s happened all night!”

“Not to us, 7. We’re stretched paper thin and just got ripped into even littler pieces with similar disturbances reported in the other areas; we need you to stay up there, and maintain your bird’s eye view until some of them start to report what they’ve found, and/or confirm they have returned to their posts, so remain in position and proceed as usual, 7, over.”

“...”

“Do you copy, 7, over?”

“Roger wilco, Central, 7 out.” Qrow said, before he sighed, put his scroll down, and picked his bottle back up. “Isn’t that just my luck…?” he muttered, before he took a long drink of it, ignoring the notches completely.

9:44, back at Devalekha Terrace, Luna Nova’s performance had been completely set-up. The Bunyan workers, Woody, and the Timber Wolves fled the area, everyone else got into their positions, be they human, Faunus, or a creature of aura.

In the center, Diana and Whitley wiped the sweat off Weiss’ face before it could start to ruin her make-up, the glow surrounding Akko and Ruby faded as they stopped channeling their aura into her. They each wished her “Break a leg.” or gave her reassuring looks, before the warning lights began to flash, the safety siren whined, and they hurried to their places.

The stage revolved once more, their section now faced the audience. The inner set of curtains whizzed by behind Weiss and obscured the set and the others, the outer set parted slowly, keeping Weiss from getting blinded by the bright studio lights beaming down on her.

“… And here she is, returning to the Moonlight Serenade after her debut four years earlier, contestant number #2, Weiss Schnee!” the hosts on-stage said, before they ran through the gamut of introductions, small talk, and of course, the ad spot for the Bakunawa.

“I hope to see you all again there later!” Weiss said flirtatiously, before she winked at the audience.

She did not have quite the same effect as Aqua had with her audiences in years past, but there was no time to worry about that, as the lights changed, the inner curtains rolled back, and the show began.

The music was upbeat and fast, the choreography just as energetic; Weiss danced across the stage, the background rapidly shifting and changing as she passed them by:

A beautiful mountaintop palace on the highest peaks of Mistral; the busy and bustling streets of a marketplace in the lower levels; to the rolling fields, thriving seas, and dust mines that fed the kingdom and its industries.

The dummies and the others mimed the daily lives of the people:

Aristocrats and royalty strolling through the gardens and enjoying the beauty; the common folk going about their business, creating art, and sometimes even fighting; and the workers toiling away, loading carts full of food, raw materials, and especially dust and jewels.

Whatever the scene, it was colourful, lively, and bright, cherry blossoms petals floating down all over the stage… and then, the “sky” grew black and thick with smoke and fire, everything was cast everything in dark, gloomy tones as the cherry blossom petals burned up and turned to ash.

With a bold and sudden calling, Northern Revolution's starting Steel your hearts, prepare yourselves, the Great Storm is coming Riding on their beasts of metal, ash and ruins left in their wake Drawing evil spirits like moths to the flame

Mantle soldiers started to charge in, bringing guns and war machines. People were shackled and herded off, instruments, brushes, and art pieces were torn out of hands or destroyed outright, those that resisted or tried to fight back were shot with impunity.

Weiss found herself in the thick of the horrors, dodging and weaving through the crossfire and the explosions.

On the great roads, soaring through the skies, let us move forward, don't look behind. Boys and girls bear blood of the samurai And the pride of their lives gone by.

Bandits and Grimm joined in the mess, Weiss managed to flee back to the palace, where inhabitants remained untouched, as happy and carefree as earlier, even with the Mantle soldiers and war machines surrounding them. With the brief pause in the music, Weiss put on expressions of confusion, horror, then rage; and as the chorus began, so did her plan.

Thousands of cherry blossoms dwindling in the light Though I can't hear your voice, keep what I say in mind - This bouquet that surrounds is iron poison, see, Looking down at us from that big guillotine

With deft acrobatics and graceful movements, evaded the guards and into a new location: a “vault” full of weapons and treasures, the Shiny Rod in the center. She spirited it away, out of the palace, guards chasing her through the market’s streets, to the fields and right into a Grimm attack on dust miners, handing the weapon to the first person she saw:

Akko.

Darkness has just engulfed the universe we know The lament that you sing can't reach ears anymore We are still far away from reaching clear blue skies Go ahead, keep fighting, ignite the light of hope!

Akko raised the Shiny Rod and a fake dust crystal, a bright flash “vanquished” some of the Grimm. The tide began to turn, more fighting, “gunfire,” and explosions rocked the stage as the Mantle soldiers came in.

Veterans who've trained through struggles are now officers in battle Here and there, we see the harlots in procession This one, that one, doesn't matter, every single person gathers March on to our saintly deaths now! One, two, san, shi!

The common folk fell quickly, but more came to replace them. The Mantle soldiers sent in reinforcements and even cannons, but even those didn’t help them as the bandits and thugs came in, clearly on the people’s side as they stabbed the soldiers in the back and joined the mob.

Passing through the gates on the mountain peaks, Escaping this world, kill all the evil fiends Surely this will end in a denouement Among the crowds giving their applause

They stormed the palace, the guards there and the royals stood no chance. The mob tore through them, Akko leading the charge with Weiss, till they reached the top of the “mountain,” victorious. The others raised their arms and cheered.

And then, the Grimm returned in full force.

Thousands of cherry blossoms dwindling in the light Once your song can be heard, we'll dance with all our might! We are still far away from reaching peaks of hope Go ahead, keep fighting, use your shining bolt!

It was chaos all over again, the Grimm fighting their way up the mountain, making short work of the helmeted, faceless training dummies as the living actors put up a fight, but slowly got pushed back up the “mountain” and to the peak.

Akko raised the Shiny Rod, another bright flash exploded all throughout the stage and pushed the Grimm back, the colour and life began to return to the set as they all “vanquished” the horde.

Darkness has just engulfed the universe we know The lament that you sing can't reach ears anymore We are still far away from reaching peaks of hope Go ahead, keep fighting , spread your wings and fly!

The remaining Grimm bowed and cowered at the base of the “palace,” the dummies and the living actors stood proud with their arms raised on the steps leading up, Akko and Weiss stood proudly at the top, holding the Shiny Rod between them as a storm of cherry blossoms rained down upon them again.

And it was then that the real Grimm attacked.

Nevermores flew in en masse, turning the brilliant night sky black from sheer numbers. The music and the audio cut off as emergency sirens and announcements blared in their place. Audience members screamed and started to run as the largest of them all swooped in, ugly, jagged scars and burn marks all over its body.

It blew past the patrol ships and obstacles in its way like paper, broke through the ceiling of the stage, and ripped it off completely as it fled, Weiss and the Shiny Rod in its talons.

Note: God I hate modifying song lyrics, but it was incredibly important for this chapter. Almost all of Weiss important character developments come in song form, after all.

P.S. I just could not get the stanzas to format properly.

[aion-rsa]

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Elisabeth Moss’ Directorial Debut Pulls No Punches

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This The Handmaid’s Tale review contains spoilers.

If you’re going to direct your first TV episode, why not do it like that. Elisabeth Moss – whose 30-year acting career has given her ample time to figure out what and what not to do behind the camera – did not go small in her debut. 

‘The Crossing’ stood apart from the normal run of things by using almost no existing locations or sets. Largely set in a monumental prison facility where June was subjected to a series of brutal interrogation methods, it was horror through and through. With strobing red lighting, a doom-infused score, claustrophobically tight close-ups and discomfiting high angles, it used every atmospheric trick in the book to conjure up a sense of panic. Job done. Although June’s so armoured in plot by this point that we know she’ll survive anything, it’s hard to remember a more dread-filled hour. In this show, that’s an achievement.

The imagery it created was neither timid nor forgettable. Hannah in the glass cage, the surrealist dream sight of Commander Lawrence at the dinner table, Beth and Sienna on the rooftop, June in the containment box, her beaten body being hosed down in the cell… The Handmaid’s Tale came out of the gates with such a strong visual identity that after four seasons, it’s hard to stamp new images on viewers’ minds. ‘The Crossing’ – a title that evokes both the train track escape attempt and June’s (understandable) betrayal of her fellow Handmaids – left us with several. 

It helped that the torture was bracketed by two-handers between some of this show’s most valuable players, with dialogue from showrunner Bruce Miller that got to the heart of character and theme. Against the hallucinatory setting of that lavish candlelit meal, Commander Lawrence summed up the regime with the line “Gilead doesn’t care about children. Gilead cares about power.” The piety, the godliness, the rituals… it’s all hypocritical window dressing, a means to an end. 

Not though, for Aunt Lydia, who until now, hasn’t just drunk Gilead’s Kool-Aid but bathed in the stuff. It’s worth asking just how strong Aunt Lydia’s belief is at this point. She’s brutal, obviously, but not without caring instincts. The momentary pause as she cross-stitched her way through June’s waterboarding screams hinted at a character struggling with Gilead’s more barbarous tactics. Compare her full wheel of emotions in this episode to the two-dimensional evil of June’s smiling gee-whiz torturer and it’s possible to believe Lydia’s foundations could be weakening. She already admitted to having had reservations about Gilead’s Magdalene Colony innovation.

Read more

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The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Has the Story Outgrown the Limits of June’s Character?

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Put Elisabeth Moss and Ann Dowd as June and Aunt Lydia in scenes together and the result will always be worth watching. Give each character the means to destroy the other in those scenes, and that goes double. The way June rounded on Lydia when she realised what a nerve she’d struck by accusing her of failing her “precious girls” was a thrill. Watching Lydia turn the same accusation against June later on was neatly done. Those two have developed into distorted reflections of the other – both leaders devoted to a cause, both fulsome in their conviction, both with blood on their hands. June’s latest escape attempt didn’t come without a cost.

Thanks to the use of Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit’, the escape scene was so emotionally dialled up that it felt like a finale – which it obviously was for Alma and Brianna. As the Handmaids ran towards that track, you first had to wonder if they weren’t aiming at the other side, but, Thelma and Louise-style, running towards the release of death that June had begged for earlier. No, this was another escape, one that reduced their number from six to two. Of the original Red Centre group, only June and Janine remain alive in Gilead. The flashback to the group’s early sisterhood (using the opening lines of Margaret Atwood’s original novel in voiceover) was a tribute to those characters, who’ve been here since the start. 

How far a shackled June and Janine will get on foot in the time it takes for that train to pass remains to be seen. They’re certainly going to need help.

Could Nick provide it? His character’s is-he-isn’t-he ambivalence remains a frustrating rather than tantalising tease. Until Nick told Commander Lawrence in that cosy fireside drinks session that he wasn’t able to move on from June, we still didn’t know where he stood. Was he manipulating June just to get her to talk? Seeing their romantic goodbye on the bridge so soon after watching Nick deliver June to her torture chamber, even if he was trying to keep her alive, felt overly simplistic. Perhaps they were just doing like the song said – immersing themselves in love.

‘The Crossing’ was this season’s most memorable instalment so far, and hopefully marks a turning point after which the story will stop spinning in circles and really start to motor. This has to be June’s final escape, the first step of her path out of Gilead. To quote Aunt Lydia, it’s the start of a new adventure. 

The Handmaid’s Tale season four episodes one to three are available to stream now on Hulu in the US. Season four will air on Channel 4 at a later date.

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The Handmaid’s Tale season four episodes one to three are available to stream now on Hulu in the US. Season four will air on Channel 4 at a later date.

The post The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Elisabeth Moss’ Directorial Debut Pulls No Punches appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Haven DVD Extras - Episode commentary notes for Sarah

Episode commentary with Lilla and Nora Zuckerman. Comments from me in [square brackets] everything else is from the Zuckermans, though not necessarily word for word.

Known as “the time travel episode” it may be surprising we haven’t done a time travel plot before this on Haven, although it could be said we weren’t allowed to do one until season three and actually at this point in the series is a good time to do time travel because we’ve established a lot of mythology, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to delve into the deeper history of Haven, Audrey and the Crocker family curse.

When we first pitched a time travel idea, the one thing for sure we knew we wanted was to meet Sarah, who you don’t know very much about yet.

What’s interesting about this first scene [Duke reading the Crocker journal] is that in the original draft this was actually the third scene of the episode because we had a dream sequence where Duke had a nightmare that he was being attacked, and he killed his assailant and turned on the lights and it was Audrey Parker. And so he was woken up by this disturbing dream and that was what started him on the path of examining his family’s journal. That scene was shot but in the end was deemed unnecessary so the story started a little later.

The beach Duke lands on was Hubbard’s Beach, not far from where they Grey Gull set is.

In thinking about a cell phone appearing in the ‘50s, we switched Duke’s phone to a more sleek, brick-like device so that it wouldn’t have any weird buttons on it. One of the other debates we had at the beginning was how does the time travel work in the sense of; what travels with him? Does his cell phone travel with him? Do his clothes travel with him, or is he arriving on the beach naked, Terminator-style? That would have posed some problems maybe, but I’m sure some of the fans would have loved it. But then we would need to deal with Duke having to find clothes etc.

The Shore Club is a real place in the area where we shoot and on summer weekend evenings, this is the happening place to be; packed with people and a band playing. We were amazed to see how populated this scene is; the crew went above and beyond to get a whole crowd of people in there and everyone in period dress. It looks amazing.

The existing Haven PD set was redressed for 1955 and we figured things might not have changed all that much. The set looks great and this episode was a challenge for almost every single department, from the sets to hair and make-up and the actors, especially Emily who really had to reimagine a whole new character. And everyone really stepped up to the challenge and we couldn’t be happier with the result.

And even for the present-day scenes the crew got no rest because they still had to transform Haven again into an alternate timeline with the comic shop. So the crew really worked overtime to transform Haven twice.

It was funny because there were people in the town tweeting photos of the comic store set, like ‘omg you guys are doing a comic booked themed episode’. So maybe we will do that eventually!

One of the challenges that we had with sending Duke into the past was, how are we going to deal with the fact that he has long hair? Becuase you probably wouldn’t see many guys in 1955 with hair that long. And if there were, they might have found themselves in some trouble with everyone looking at them sideways. So we thought it was really funny that everybody thinks he’s Native American.

So [as Duke is having the idea to write to Audrey] we may have borrowed this a little from Back to the Future II, but we figure Duke has also seen Back to the Future, so it works. And why wouldn’t he write a letter to himself? So we have fun thing planned; we dug up the original text of what the letter says, which I don’t think you get to see on camera, but you have to have it in case it did end up being visible on screen. So if you would have seen it, this is the letter that Duke wrote:

“Dear Audrey,

Help. I’m stuck in 1955. The morning you should receive this letter, I visited a guy named Stuart Mosley. I found him at [“whatever address we ended up using”]. Surprise! He’s Troubled and I think he’s sent me back in time. Go out there and get him to fix this. I’m looking for the younger version here, but apparently he doesn’t exist in 1955 Haven. In the meantime, I’ll be at the Shore Club at noon every day, drinking until I’m dead. I’ll be waiting there for my nice shiny DeLorean. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to start betting on baseball games and making stock investments, but if anyone can help me, I know it’s Audrey Parker.

See you in the future, I hope,

Duke.

P.S. If this doesn’t work, I may send a letter to myself, so hurry.”

So, to the question everyone asks (of Why doesn’t he send the letter to himself?); he knows that Audrey is more adept at helping him than himself. Plus he doesn’t even know if there is a Duke there in the present and all of those time paradoxes. And as you can imagine we had many debates about how time travel works.

And we worked with our Writers’ Assistant, Nick Parker, who had a brilliant diagram that was drawn out, and whenever anyone had any questions we just pointed to this diagram of converging alternating timelines… “That’s how it works!” And it was great to have some Doctor Who fans in the writers’ room who were familiar with time travel discussions.

And one of the reasons we worked Duke’s gold dubloon into all of this was to demonstrate how these rules work. So our main premise is; whatever happened, happened. Whatever happened in the past happened and the gold coin ending up back with Duke was intended to help demonstrate that. So we had a lot of debates about the gold dubloon constantly travelling through time in an endless loop.

And there were also questions about where is Duke’s father and mother, and if we had two hours to play with we would have loved to delve into these questions but unfortunately we had to be pretty sparing with what we addressed in the past. For example, Shawn Pillar was very curious about the younger Vince and Dave, and we would love to see them as well, but with the epsiode constraints, and we felt that if we met them we wanted to spend time with them, and we just didn’t have the real estate to do it. But one day you will get to see a bit more of them.

This is one of my favourite scenes where they [Nathan and Duke] discuss the time travel rules . It’s great becuase they come at it with their own Haven rules but also whatever rules they have in their heads from watching time travel stuff; the same questions we all talked about in the room. I just love that we made Nathan say “space time continuum” at some point. And it makes sense because if any of us got sent back in time, these are the things we would be thinking about; Back to the Future, Terminator, Peggy Sue Got Married. And we watched all of those movies again and again, to make sure that what we were doing made sense with pop culture thinking. And one of the other big influences on this epsiode that Matt McGuinness forced us to watch was City on the Edge of Forever - a great classic Star Trek episode. But whenever Matt was confused we would always go back to that as a good example of how to do the right version of this kind of story. And it’s also a time travel epsiode with heart, which is one of the things that we aimed for - both in relation to Nathan and Audrey but also Duke and his family legacy.

Originally the story was going to be mostly about Duke and his grandfather and Sarah was an interesting incidental but that grew to become more of the meat of the story as we started to think about who she is and how Nathan would react to her. If you got to be back in time with the doppelganger of the love of your life, how would you spend that time? And then those two stories converged at the end of the episode, which was the eureka moment when we figured that out.

And it was also an exciting thing when we decided to have this episode as Sarah’s introduction to Haven; because you get to discover her as she discovers Haven. And in a way it could be another pilot for a 1950s version of the show.

Now, [as we see Nathan outside the police station], everyone on Twitter was asking how Nathan got his hat. There was actually a little moment at the end of the last Shore Club scene with Duke where he grabbed a hat and coat off the back of a chair, but it was cut. So, Nathan did in fact steal that hat.

And this is one of my favourite scenes where Nathan meets a young Garland Wuornos as a child; this very touching character moment which, because it doesn’t really have that much to do with the plot, I was always convinced it would get cut. But thank god, the powers that be saw what a lovely little moment it was and fought to keep it.

We also see in this episode that the Guard has been around for a while and that probably in all the earlier cycles there has always been an opposing force to the Troubled in the way that The Rev. was, and in this particular cycle it’s this group of guys and this cop [who we see phoning Roy] and Roy and in every cycle the Crockers are probably going to be exploited. Some Crockers more unwilling than others; obviously Simon took to his role of killing the Troubled like a fish to water. But here we get to see Roy struggling with his role in Haven and what he’s expected to do vs the kind of person he wants to be, in just the same way that Duke struggles with it.

It’s interesting because prior to working on this episode we probably all had an idea in our minds of what Sarah was like, who she was, who the Colorado Kid was, but we hadn’t addressed any of that specifically until now. So for this epsiode we “had to get everyone in the writing staff on the same page and it was really interesting the debates we had about who people thought the Colorado Kid was, who they thought Sarah was. Nobody ever pictured that Nathan or Duke would be back in 1955 to influence the present world of Haven.”

This location [Nathan and Duke at the harbour where they first see Sarah] is Lunenberg. We wanted this to be ferry boat which felt very Haven to us. And hopefully you don’t notice this is Sarah until she turns around. And as everyone commented, Emily Rose looks gorgeous as a redhead, and we were very excited to create a whole new look and persona for her. The crew did great work transforming Emily; the make-up, the hair, which is a wig but it’s a fancy wig that it took an hour for Emily to get into, so it was a big deal. But she looks great and when the pictures started coming back from set, everyone in the room freaked out, we loved it she looked so great. The uniform she wears is a vintage outfit they found from the time and really wanted to use but it was the wrong size for Emily - so they literally sewed her into the costume every time before she was going to shoot. And at the end of they unsewed her, until the next day.

There was a lot of debate in the writers’ room about Sarah as a character and how is she different from Audrey. Does she have the same soul? The same inner being? Do they have the same mannerisms? But in the end we figured that Emily Rose being Emily Rose unified Audrey and Sarah enough. So we gave Emily the freedom to change her voice and really invent a new character for the role of Sarah. And we wrote Sarah’s lines differently than we would write Audrey’s lines. And from the different mannerisms Emily uses and even just the way she holds herself, you can see that she did a ton of work creating a new human being. Audrey I think watched a lot of old movies; Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. And that poise and classic energy comes through in her performance. And it was really great to see that transformation.

“Sarah Vernon” is Writers’ Assistance Nick Parker’s high school girlfriend, so that was where the name came from.

Nathan and Sarah on the beach was also filmed at Hubbard’s Beach, right down the road from the Shore Club. And this is the same beach where Nathan and Audrey have their big talk at the end of season one. I love this scene because we pushed really hard to have Sarah be kind of a flirt and a little bit of an aggressor. Because we’ve seen Audrey deal with so much devastation that her and Nathan are basically afraid to get together, but now here he is with Sarah and she’s going for it.

The ending of this scene was a little more ambiguous in the script because we weren’t quite sure how far it should go and there was this constant push and pull between the writers, and the producers, and the network. So at first we suggested, let’s have this flirty moment and then have him get up and walk away and end the scene there. And they liked that so we pushed it a bit further and had him turn to look back at her before the scene ended. And then by the time we got the dailies back, it was a full on make out in the sand, and we couldn’t have been happier.

But we should also talk about the Colorado Kid, because much as we would like to think that we have all of our ideas planned out meticulously and how everything works in Haven, things are always fluid when you’re writing. So who the Colorado Kid was, was kept very much up in the air, and there were many circulating theories and points of view amongst the writers about what should be discovered about who the Colorado Kid’s father was. And it really wasn’t until this episode that we were presented with the idea that the Colorado Kid was Nathan and Sarah’s son. Brian Milligan, one of our writers, is always saying “It’s the Terminator baby!” And we were thrilled with the way it all came together at the end of the season.

This actor who played Roy, looked very much like Eric and we felt these two had great chemistry together. He’s got a great future ahead of him and we felt very lucky to find someone who seemed very Eric-like.

This alternate timeline in present-day Haven [Claire and Audrey] was a treat to write. And in thinking about what would be cool to see in an alternate Haven, we thought, what if Garland Wuornos returned and it was awesome to be able to bring Nicholas Campbell back.

I’m not quite sure if all of these facts [that Sarah tells Stuart about the orchids] are true; I did as much research about orchids as I could, but we were under a deadline. Somewhere out there there may be a botanist who is very upset that this is not technically true. But sometimes as writers, you just … have to cheat. And the other nice thing about that scene is that you see that before Sarah is even aware of the Troubles or her role in Haven, she naturally has an inclination to help people. Which is one of the reasons we decided to make her a nurse, because she is good with people and taking care of people. And even though the entity that is Audrey and Sarah changes, there is always this heart to her. And we thought, in the ‘50s, the Women’s Army Corp would have been a good equivalent to Audrey’s FBI Agent role. And by all accounts from what we’ve read, the Women’s Army Corp really were incredible; they were heroes. And actually, our grandmother on our mother’s side was a Women’s Army Corp nurse.

I love this scene [as we see Nathan telling Sarah she has to run] and they played it perfectly. And this was shot before the scene with the two of them on the beach, so when they were shooting this, Lucas and Emily didn’t know exactly how far things had gone on the beach, or exactly what we would end up seeing there. But I think the one thing we told them is that they were playing a very deep, deep connection, even if they don’t quite understand it yet.

And this scene has my favourite line of the episode; “He has long hair. But you can trust him.”

One thing that was interesting to think about as well in writing this was that Nathan is still Troubled; he’s still numb to everyone, but he can feel Sarah.

And this epsiode is the second time we have written ear-abuse for Nathan; Audrey flicks him in the ear in Audrey Parker’s Day Off in season two, and Sarah drags him out of Stuart’s room by the ear here. I don’t know why we keep tugging on Nathan’s ear.

I think this [Sarah and Roy pointing guns at each other] was shot underneath where the Haven Herald set is. We end up doing a lot of creepy scenes as interior scenes on Haven because we shoot up in Nova Scotia and the days are so long there, there isn’t much night-time to work with and it makes it hard to shoot outdoor night-time scenes, or spooky/creepy scenes.

And [as Sarah shoots Roy] this is the City on the Edge of Forever moment, as Matt McGuinness would like to call it. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also the awful choice that Duke has to make.

And [as Roy’s blood touches Duke’s skin] there was also a lot of discussion here, about would Duke’s eyes go silver here? And it made sense to us that he would have that super-strength but not use it; it’s more of a private moment between Duke and his grandfather. And it’s kind of a nice gracenote that no matter what he does, he’s still inflicted with this family curse. Which is kind of sad and depressing.

[As Audrey gives the gun back to Nathan] I always thought of this scene as the Wizard of Oz scene where she’s grappling with the fact that she has to say farewell to all of these new friends she’s made and she’s going to be in this strange world without them.

And we see here too that even though she’s not Audrey she still has that same desire for answers and she wants to know from Nathan what’s going on. And so Nathan ends up being her introduction into what’s going on. So when we do that spin-off show about the 1950s, she goes off and solves a myriad of Troubles on her own. And it would be easier to write because there won’t be any internet or cell phones or anything getting in the way; just good old-fashioned detective work.

And so now we get to see Sarah’s first ever “curse-whispering”, which is what we call it here in the writers’ room because we don’t know what else to call it; her special ability to connect with Troubled people. She’s like Super-Therapist. And he’s trying to guide her towards it, but the truth is Nathan himself doesn’t quite understand how she does what she does.

And as writers we always try and make the resolution of the Trouble different every week and it’s one of the challenges of each episode.

And we are a little ambiguous here about how much Duke has figured out about what’s gone on between Nathan and Sarah. In the two-hour version of this epsiode, when they get back to the present day, Duke grills him about what happened.

Emily Rose really did double time in this episode and we kind of have a history of over-working her because we kind of did the same thing in Audrey Parker’s Day Off where she was in every single scene. But she was really excited about this and I think the cast liked this epsiode a lot. And we’re really proud of their work here.

This idea of the rewinding alternate reality [as we see the bullet that nearly shoots Audrey retract back into the gun], was something where if we had all the money and time in the world, we would have seen everything zipping backwards, back to the moment where the timelines converged.

And by the way, Stuart Mosley is obsessed with growing tomatoes because Nora is obsessed with growing tomatoes. As is Matt McGuinness.

This was a cool scene [Nathan telling Audrey about Sarah] I wish we could have had a little more here becuase it seems like Nathan could have told her a bit more about what happened with Sarah, until Audrey tells him the crazy truth about the Colorado Kid being her son, which immediately makes Nathan blanch, smile … I imagine a whole host of emotions. It would be great if we had more time to play that out.

This was a really cool addition [as we see Sarah in the phone box]. We knew we wanted some version of Agent Howard and this turned out to be a really cool solution. The actor got to come back for one day and it was a great moment.