#or the episode where zach blows up his hands

[romana-after-dark]

The Wrong Way: Chapter 8

Dark!Joel Miller x Fem!Reader Tommy Miller x reader (secondary)

Masterlist

Spotify playlist

Summery: You are sold to Joel to clear up some of your fathers' debts, and he takes you back to his house where him, Tommy, and high ranking members of his raiding trope stay. Joel is mean, cruel, and hash, but had small moments of softness that confuse you in your venerable state. Over time, you get to know him and Tommy, and see different sides of each, and both are hiding secrets. Was it possible to fall in love under these circumstances? Or was that just another way Joel was fucking with you?

Aka: my mom sold me to One Direction

WARNINGS FOR FULL FIC, NOT CHAPTER BY CHAPTER UNLESS SOMETHING NEW IS ADDED AFTER MASTER WARNING LIST: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT!!!! Fic contains graphic depictions of sexual assault, rape, molestation, dubcon/non con. Blow Jobs, PIV sex, lose of virginity, sex trafficking, past incest, death/people dying everywhere, Stockholm syndrome, falling for your rapist, victim blaming, torcher, branding, physical abuse, rape (not Joel), somno, dub con on tommy? idk he's not really into it but feels like he has to, self-harm/depression/suicidal thoughts (not a lot) but fair warning, major age gaps, love triangle, pregnancy/birth, threats of abortion, major character death, mentions of potential csa/child abuse but does not even come close to happening, forced pregnancy, forced housewife shit, breeding, breeding kink?!?!

I wanna add we're really heavy on the birth/pregnancy, forced birth, choking, domestic violence, threats of hanging and murder. Can't say I didn't warning yuh (unless i missed a warning of course. then please let me know so i cant edit ASAP) Like this is a rough chapter, a lot of violence to a pregnant woman. but I wanna say right now...

The baby will not be harmed in anyway. Baby will be born healthy, and live and have a good life in both the main ending and alt ending.

5k words (sorry not sorry lol)

Also to clarify a few things I guess i didn't make clear enough in previous chapters!

Joel only 'guessed' that Tommy and LO slept together. He had suspicions but thought he could trust Tommy and his 'girlfriend'. When LO rushed to stop Joel from hurting Tommy, that was his 'evidence'. Joel was beating Tommy because he found out about Maria.

Joel only heard part of the conversation between Zach and Little One. Nick said way back in chapter 3 the wall are thinner than she thinks. He didn't know Lorenzo had any part of it, and because LO didn't rat him out, he never will.

Thats my bad for not being clear!

Can you catch the Superstore homage? (aka i rewatched two episodes just to take it line for line lol)

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

Month 3

No one warned you about morning sickness. 

You knew fuck all about sex before you came to Joel’s, just a thing or two from your friend back at the ranch and how to get a man off with your mouth or hands, but pregnancy and birth was next to nothing. You didn’t even know how pregnancy happened really, other than a penis in a vagina until you asked Tommy early on if you were going to get pregnant. After a very uncomfortable talk for both of you, Tommy explained that Joel told him he pulls out, so you should be good… Lorenzo said you can still get pregnant that way, but thinking back to the night Joel almost killed Tommy and you… Joel finished inside… the timing added up. 

Pregnancy and birth were entirely unknown to you, and you wished someone would just give you a heads up. Joel had a daughter and no doubt had been through at least once pregnancy, and Lorenzo had mentioned 4 of his 6 older sisters got pregnant before leaving the house… something about no sex education, men too old for them, and their religion not believing in birth control or abortion… but you didn’t know what half those words meant, and after Lorenzo mercilessly made fun of you for days about not knowing Joel’s song for you was actually a very famous song, you didn’t dare ask him about the words, or anything with pregnancy. You didn’t want to ask Joel either, not wanting to give away how terrified you were, not wanting him to think you didn’t want to… But you did! You did want this baby, you reminded yourself again and again and again, because Joel was good to you, Joel took care of you, Joel would care for this baby too. You’d be bound to him, and he’d never get tired of you this way, and he wouldn’t hurt the mother of his child, right?

The birth was something you tried not to think about.

So here you were, puking your gut out before you even had breakfast and Joel held your hair back.

“Shhh, shhhhhhh” he coo’d and you heaved, yellow bile and acid coming up from inside you since the little food in your stomach from dinner had been thrown up 5 minuets ago.

With a final spit into the toilet, you sink back and Joel wipes your mouth for you. “I think that’s it.” You mutter, and Joel carries you into your shared bedroom, laying you down with the care of an infant before kissing your forehead. 

“Don’t worry about breakfast, little one. I don’t need anything this morning.” He says before kissing your cheek. But you were worrying about breakfast, because you wanted it… but the only way you’d be getting food is if you made it. Tommy wasn’t here to care for you anymore. “I’ll be gone until the evening, what's for dinner?”

The thought of cooking, the thought of raw meats and the strong smells of spices made you want to vomit again. “I dunno…”

“I think a few of them chickens is ready to be butchered, you ever made chicken parmesan? We got that cheese I brought back yesterday, you could make something like that.”

You groan a bit, exhausted and tired despite being only 3 months in. You didn’t sleep at all last night, nightmares of the past and the future plaguing you. He knew that you didn’t sleep, you had told him… “Joel I can’t, the butchering, I feel so-”

“I’ll make Lorenzo do it.” He promises. “Chicken parmesan it is then?” He decided for you. What he didn’t understand is it wasn’t just butchering a few chickens. To make chicken parm you need chicken breasts, not the rest of it. You didn’t waste meat, so Lorenzo kills (you could do it on a normal day, but not with your heightened smell) then you pluck, clean, Lorenzo butchers, then you have to separate the different parts and put them into hygienic storage and take them to the freezer locker, then thoroughly clean yourself, all the tools and surfaces (and Lorenzo) to prevent illness. It would take hours. But Joel didn’t see that, he only ever saw the food at the end of his day.

“Okay” You agree reluctantly, and he begins kissing your neck and groping you, no doubt wanting a quicky before a long day of unspeakable violence. “Joel, please, I don’t feel good.” You beg him not to, but you learned in the past that this never got far.

His morning breath wasn’t helping anything as he tugged down your shorts. “I’ll be quick.”

You knew what that meant. Joel slid into you with no prep, no lubrication, and it burned. The steady rocking was the last thing you needed right now, and with his head buried in your neck, you covered your mouth as the nausea took over. You threw up, but like everything the last several months, you just swallowed it down again to deal with when Joel was gone. When he came inside (wasn’t he worried about you getting pregnant again?) you quickly pull up your pants and run to the bathroom, pushing past Lorenzo no doubt on his way to babysitting duties with you. 

As he watched you run past and heard the sounds of throwing up, Lorenzo caught Joel’s arm as he brushed past. “Peppermint or ginger. Find it, whatever form it's in. Oils, drops, whatever. If you can find the leaves or the root we can make it into a tea. Just find it, it’ll help her nausea.”

Month 4

“Okay Lorenzo, I got a question for you, and you can’t make fun of me.” You say as you cook, the swell of your belly beginning to show now.

“No guarantees.” He says, sitting his drink. How did he find so much alcohol?

“Fine. Okay… when Joel and I have sex-”

He visibly cringed. “Since when do we talk about our sex lives?” 

“Renzo.”

“Fine, go on. But remember I’m not exactly an expert on female anatomy.”

You take a deep breath. “Okay. Well I told you he always pulls out right? Um… ever since I told him im pregnant… he doesn’t.”

Lorenzo waits for you to continue, but you don’t. You think that’s it. “What the problem?”

You continue to avoid looking at him, stirring the soup. “Well.. what if I get pregnant again?”

He stares at you like he’s trying to make sense of your question before the recognition sets in. “OH!” But before he explains what he means… his face shifts… theres something sad in there, a hint of pain in his eyes you only saw once, the face he had as he looked at you in disgust while Joel carried you from the bedroom to the bath while you were covered head to toe in spit and cum and period blood… was it pity? “Jesus kid… No one really taught you anything, did they?”

“C’mon, just tell me.”

Scrubbing his face, he sighed. “No, you can’t get pregnant while your already pregnant.”

Oh. “Wait… really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Ah. Okay then.”

There was a long, long silence before he spoke again. “If you got any other question about, like… pregnancy and birth… I can try and answer.”

Joel had been trying to find a doctor, a midwife, something for you… but it was slim pickings in Wyoming. 

Five minuets later, you were squealing, covering your ears, but laughing. “Ew! What the hell is a mucus plug! You know what, I don’t wanna-”

“IT’S A PLUG FULL OF MUCUS IN YOUR VAGINA WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS?!?!” He yells loud enough to get past your attempt at blocking your ears. 

“NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH!!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” But you still could.

“Honestly in the last month or two all kinds of weird things are gonna come out of you including but not limited to a very slimey and weird looking baby.”

You gasp, feigning indignance. “How dare you insult my unborn child!”

“It ain’t personal, sweetheart. All babies look ugly as fuck as newborns. Now, let’s get back to the gritty details.”

With a squeal, you try to run away. “No! I know enough!” But you’re laughing. It felt like you were messing around with Zach back in your childhood home. 

“My sister Elaina lost like 4 teeth.”

“AAAHHHHH!”

Month 5

Joel had finally found a midwife of sorts. Well, technically, Jack did, as it was his cousin. Maura had been a nurse in the birthing wing a short time before everything went to shit and had been helping women deliver babies ever since. Initially, she told Jack to keep his mouth shut. She hated Joel and didn’t want a thing to do with him, but when no one else showed up and you were in your 5th month, she relented, purely for the sake of the innocent kidnapped girl. 

“Put the fucking gun away, Joel.” She said as she entered your room, grabbing the barrel in Joel’s hands and pointing it to the floor. “Point that shit at me again and I’m not helping your child bride.” She stared him down, head tilted up only slightly to reach his eyes. If she was intimidated by Joel, she wouldn’t

Joel glared at her, but he didn’t have many options. “If you hurt her-”

“From what I hear, you’re doing enough of that yourself. Now, you stand up against the wall and watch if you want to, but don’t interfere, and do not try to intimidate me, understood?”

You watched in awe as she stood her ground… It had been months before you had done anything of the sort against Joel, only standing up to him when Tommy’s life was in danger. Joel gave a curt nod and she turn to approach where you lay, sat up against some pillows.

A gentle smile was on her face, but it was clear she was here for business. Still, her confidence and certainty put you at ease.

“My name’s Maura, I’ll be helping deliver this baby.” She was beautiful, with long black hair and a light smattering of freckles on her face, but got straight to the point. It was clear she knew what she was doing, asking you questions you hadn’t even thought of yet and examining you. When she was done, she stood up, looking at you, not Joel. “It seems despite the circumstances-”

Joel tried to interrupt. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean”

But Maura ignored him, keeping your attention with her bright brown eyes. “Despite the circumstances, everything appears to be progressing naturally, theres no cause for concern as of right now. But you need to keep things low stress.” It was then she turned to glare at Joel, to emphasize her point.

Maura said she’d be staying near-by and Joel was paying her a hefty price for her services. When you’d go into labor, Joel was to send a man on horse to fetch her, preferably Jack, but she warned she would armed, and she’d be there shortly.

That night, Joel held you close as you discussed baby names. 

“How about Loretta? Like that singer you liked?”

Joel hums, none commital. “I always liked Dorothy, we could call her Dolly as a nickname. I know you like Dolly Parton” Joel had been teaching you about old country music, and you certainly had a few favorites. Not knowing many women in general, your pool of girl names was not strong so you drew from singers he’d mentioned. 

You scrunch up your nose a bit at that. “I like Dolly, I don’t like Dorothy.”

“It was my grandmas name, I’d really like to name our daughter after her.” His voice had that tone to it, the one that left little room to argue, but you tried to push past Dorothy.

“Maybe June? Like June Carter?” You knew how particle he was to Johnny Cash, but also... that was the name of the only friend you had before Tommy.

“That’s beautiful, little one, June it is.” He smiles into your skin, and you think you’ve won, when he says. “Dorothy June.” 

He had already decided, and there was no real option to argue or change his mind. You’d just call her Dolly, then.

You had one thing you really, really wanted for boy name, and you desperately hoped you could get it, but you couldn’t tell him why. You didn’t want any more kids so this was your only shot. You hadn’t even wanted this one, but as your stomach swelled with life, motherly love came with it and you decided you’d make the best of the situation. The child inside you was your number one priority. “Okay, boys? I really like Caleab… It’s my favorite boy name…” You didn’t have to tell him that was Zach’s middle name.

“I like it, bebita.” 

You got what you wanted. You knew Joel was hoping for a girl, so you figured he was less particular on the boy name. 

“Got any ideas for the middle name?” You ask him.

“Nothing in mind, really. I’m open…” He kisses your neck.  “Anything you want?”

You keep quiet. The name you wanted… he’d never go for.

Joel pulled you closer, nuzzling his face against you as he whispered. “Ah. I see.” You freeze. Tommy hadn’t been so much as alluded to since he barely made it out alive and you thought for sure Joel would have a fit, and you began to prepare yourself to feel a hand wrapped around your throat… But he tucked your hair behind your ear and kissed into your locks as he settled down for bed. “Caleb Thomas”

Month 6 

Lorenzo was getting on your fucking nerves today, and you were about to fling the frying pan, bubbling grease and all, at his face. 

“Will you shut up?”

“No, I’m not going to shut up because you are being fucking stupid!” Instead of his usual spot sitting at the kitchen table, he’s standing, arms crossed, in the doorway as you tried to get diner done. “I told you the first day, you are a dumb. Bitch.” he was drunk, three sheets to the wind and absolutely no filter.

“You have no fucking idea what I am! I am trying to fucking survive, Lorenzo, I am trying to keep myself and this baby-”

“You are playing housewife to a serial murder and a rapist!” He yells at you, clearly frustrated. “You are rewarding all the bad things he’s ever done you just give positive reinforcement-”

“Don’t fucking blame me! I’m not reinforcing the bad, I’m reinforcing the good!” You storm over to him, glaring Lorenzo down. “You have no fucking idea how bad things were! I used to dream about killing myself, about dying, about Joel finally snapping and doing it! I am doing the best in the conditions I have!”

“You could have left! You could have left with Zach and gone off with him for fucks sake!”

With a burst of anger you didn’t know was even in you anymore, you shove him, hard, causing the drunk to fall over. “You wanna know what he did last time I tried to run? He caught me within 10 minuets, dragged me back and chained me to this table-” You point at the table that you and Joel sit at most evenings now for diner. “And raped me in front of everyone, Lorenzo! Then he branded me and left me to be gang raped by all your little buddies here! And no one could stop him, not even Tommy! All Tommy could do is stand by and watch, and unchain me after Joel left before anyone could do anything more!”

Lorenzo was not deterred. “That’s my fucking point!”

“If I leave and he catches me, I am dead!”

Scoffing, Lorenzo rolls his eyes from where he’s slumped against the floor. “Yeah, that’s why”

Unsure how much more you can take from him, you motion him to continue.

“You just don’t wanna admit you fell in love with your rapist.”

That was enough. You begin to walk away from him, but he follows after you. 

“What about when you give birth, huh? What kind of father is he going to be? Are you going to stand by while he beats your kids?”

“SHUT UP!” You scream, still walking away. 

“And what if you have a daughter? You just gonna let him molest her like your dad-”

You wipe around so fast you don’t even have time to blink. “No, Joel isn’t like that.” 

Lorenzo laughs at you, cruel and loud. “You are 20 years younger than him, he raped you! You really think he’s above-”

“YES! He will not hurt her like that!”

“And if you have a son? Do you really wanna raise a man like Joel? The kind of man who beats and rapes innocent girls?”

Tears prickle at your eyes now, a terrible tightness in your chest bubbling with stomach bile. “N-no, that’s not gonna happen, I won’t let-”

“Oh, because you’ve had so much choice the last year, havn’t you. Sooooo much control.”

“I won’t.” You shake your head vigorously. “I won’t let anything happen to my baby, Joel won’t hurt them.”

“So, say he doesn't. You really gonna raise a kid here? Half the men here would’ve raped you, given the chance! You really think your child is safe here?”

You can’t argue with him when he’s right. But he doesn’t get it. Joel is good now, Joel protects you, Joel will protect the baby… Joel is gentle now… soft, kind… he thinks of you, he sings you songs… he plays music for you, he’ll be a good dad… You’ll be okay…

You shut down, going into autopilot. You don’t look at Lorenzo as you walk back to the kitchen to finish frying the chicken. Joel would be home soon.

Month 7

“JACK! GET MAURA!” Joel shouts as you groan on the bed, the tight contractions hurting.

“Joel, it hurts!” You call for him, and in a flash Joel is at your bedside, letting you squeeze his hand. 

“I know, little one, I know…” He pets your hair, having flashbacks to Sarah’s birth…. He wanted another girl so bad, but god, he just wanted a healthy baby and for his girl to make it out alive. Birth was dangerous in modern medicine, nonetheless a post-apocalyptic shitstorm. 

Lorenzo stood in the doorway, biting his nails. “You’re not due for another 8 weeks!”

Grunting through the pain, you let a rare bout of sarcasm slip. “Oh yeah, that’s right, never mind.”

“Could be false labor, you know? That’s called Braxton-Hicks contractions?” Lorenzo looked more nervous than you.

Joel ignored him. “It’s gonna be okay, Maura’s on her way and I think even out here 32 weeks is gonna be okay.” Joel wasn’t entirely sure about his own words. 32 weeks meant a premature baby, and pre-mature usually meant NICU… but there was no NICU to go to… if the babies lungs were under developed or anything like that, there were no options. 

Lorenzo was chewing through his nails enough to draw blood. “Or maybe it’s Braxton-Hicks”

At that, Joel finally acknowledges Lorenzo. “Okay, we get it, you know the term Braxton-Hicks, we’re all very impressed.”

“AHHHHHHH” You yell, wishing to get there was something for the pain.

Lorenzo wouldn’t shut up. “Okay, contractions are getting longer, that means your in active labor?”

“Her water hasn’t broke yet!” 

“Is she dilated?”

“Does it look like her pants are off to you?”

“Well check!”

“I don’t know how to tell! Weren’t you bragging last month you helped your sister give birth in a Walmart?”

“That doesn’t mean I know how to check if she’s dilated!”

“You know more than me!”

“I’m not sticking my fucking face between legs!”

“Oh, because you’re gay you’re suddenly scared of vagina’s?”

“What are you talking about?”

“So you’d rather let her just die?”

“DIE? Joel she’s not gonna die because I’m not looking at her fucking cu-”

“GUYS” you shout, causing both to turn and look at you. “The contractions stopped.”

There’s a moment of silence before Lorenzo speaks. “Oh. Huh. That’s uhhh… Braxton-Hicks I guess. False labor.”

As Joel kissed you that night, sex was the last thing you wanted, but you knew there was no point in fighting it.

Joel sucked on your throat, already bruised with dark marks from the night before, now sore and aching with new licks and bites, his hands roaming to expanse of skin presented before him. Gripping, feeling, pinching, tugging, some things felt good, some hurt, but that didn’t matter. He’d get you off, he always did, at night anyway, but you knew sometimes he just liked to feel you, feel what he owned.  The pain is mine. Your cries are mine, your cunt is mine. And if you bleed? Your blood is mine.

Your belly round and swollen with child, he could not hardly keep his hand off it, every time his hand traveled to explore, it quickly found itself returning to its home, never wanting to miss a kick. He slithered down, nestling his face between your legs and devouring your pussy the way he did your neck, the way he did every piece of you, body and soul and until there was nothing left but this subservient version of you, weak and obedient to his hands. He lapped you up, skilled tongue exploring through your folds only pausing to nibble at the soft skin of your thighs or kiss the round stomach above him. He felt extra possessive today, a desperate, anxious way about him as he devoured you so hungrily you wondered if he intended to eat you, swallow you whole to keep you with him forever; a communion, and you were the eucharist, a matrimony of cannibalism. 

You wanted to tug at his hair, you wanted to entangle yourself in him but your belly was in the way, so you simply laid back and enjoyed as he tongue fucked you, prodding at your entrance, his hands on the globe where your child waits to be born.

“Fuck, Joel, need you, need to cum, please.”

You beg for him, plead, and he devours. Joel knows you love when his perfect, plus lips such at your mound and your clit with long fingers fingering into you, and you yelp when they curl up and hit that spot inside you. “Keep moaning, little one, let me hear you.”

You obliged. Sometimes you wondered how sick everyone in the house was of hearing you, but they weren’t the ones you needed to please; pleasing Joel kept you alive.

“I need you inside me, please” Nudging him with your leg as you cry for his cock. “Joel, I gotta have you inside me, I need to cum on your cock, please? Please, Joel-”

A wet, sloppy sound as he detached from you, and his eyes looked just as hungry as he acted while he crawled up. “You beg so pretty, little one, such a pretty little cock whore.”

But you didn’t have time for his talking, you needed him inside you, now; the hormones of the pregnancy had a mind of their own. You take a chance and push him down, watching Joel smile as you straddle his waist. “God, I just- just need you.”

“The take me, little one, take me” 

You cry out as you sink down onto him, feeling your cunt split on him. “Fuuuck!” Sobbing, you take him fully and begin to fuck yourself on him.

“Just like that, pretty girl, fuck, taking me so well, gonna have you all stretched out to have this baby, huh? Gonna give me a child, little girl? A baby of our own? Fuck, fuck you look so pretty like this, swollen with my child, stretching your stomach as I stretch your cunt, fucking perfect, my perfect wife.”

Wife.

Wife.

Wife?!

You knew Joel was delusional… but fuck, Lorenzo was right… you were playing house wife. Joel thought of you as his wife… 

“Gonna fuck you full of my cum, again, and again, keep you constantly knocked up, make our happy little family, you and me and a dozen little kids running around, FUCK, our family, our family.”

You continued the pace, you couldn’t falter, you couldn’t slow down, you couldn’t hesitate; you couldn’t give any sort of reason for him to think you didn’t want this…

But it suddenly struck you

You were trapped. Joel trapped you with a baby, knowing you’d need him to protect it, knowing you’d never leave your child… and now he was going to keep you pregnant. You could never leave with 5,6,7 kids, it would be impossible. 

“Yeah, fuck yourself on my cock little one, just little that…” Joel reached out to touch you, roughly manhandling your tits that were swollen and engorged.

You begin to cry, but that wouldn’t give away anything for Joel; he fucking loved that shit.

One hand on your breast, one on your clit. “Cry on my cock, baby girl, cry when you cum.”

You did, you sobbed as you came, your body betraying the horrors you felt at his hands.

Month 8

“Hey Joel? Can I talk to you about something?”

You had to do it. You had to. And it had to be now. You two had fucked less than half an hour ago and he was currently eating your food, humming contently. He was always lovey-dovey after sex, and was always much happier after food… The pair didn’t line up often, so now was your chance. 

“What’s on your mind, little one? Nervous about being a mother? You’ll be a great mom; I just know it.” He smiled at you with puppy dog eyes, looking up from his plate, and you couldn’t help smiling back, not when he showered you with compliments.

“Well… you’ve said before you wanted lots of kids… but we… well this little baby was an accident.”

“A miracle, not an accident.” Joel corrected you. You didn’t see how conceiving a child the night he was threatening to blow your brains onto a wall for sleeping with his brother if you didn’t shoot said-baby’s uncle was a miracle… but you digress

“Right. Well… we never really talked about more kids… and although I’m over the moon about this baby, I did initially not want to have it.” Joel’s face began to darken, but you powered through. “Maybe we could see how we feel about one kid after a few years before thinking about-”

Joel slammed down his silverware. “What are you trying to say.”

But you freeze. This was a bad idea, you needed to placate immediately, you needed to calm him down. “N-nothing, Joel, just thinking out loud.”

He stood up, a deadly, blank stare on his face, so far removed from the adoration as he bestowed kisses on your ever-growing belly. Joel walked around the table, standing behind you and placing firm hands on your shaking shoulders, leaning into your ear. 

“You say’n you don’t want my kids? Don’t wanna be their mama? You don’t wanna be my wife?”

“No, no that’s not-” But you don’t get a chance to finish, his hand is wrapped around your throat and insane strength pulling you up and out of the chair, the wooden furniture toppled to the side in a loud clatter. He slams the back of your head against the drywall, you’re toes barely touch the ground; struggling to breath, you claw at his hand, but he doesn’t even blink.

The panic begins to set it.

“YOU ARE NOT IN CHARGE! YOU DO NOT GET TO MAKE CHOICES!” He screams, and out of the corner of your eye you watch as a few men hesitantly gather, like vultures waiting on the next piece of deadmeat. You couldn’t see who, but it didn’t matter. Even the good ones couldn’t intervene.

Joel’s face was suddenly right in front of yours. “Everything you have, any freedom, any luxuries, any power you think you have is because I have given it to you.” Black spots appeared, your vision blurring, sinking into the unknown and god, did it feel sweet. Was it finally over? “I bought you, I own you, you have no rights! You are nothing! You are nothing but a toy for me to play with, a breeding bitch and you should be so lucky to sit at my table!”

He let go, but as you gasped for breath, Joel yanked at your hair and patched you across the room, not letting go of his grasp on you as you flung into the counter. What he didn’t know, what he could never understand was how the handle of the draw rammed into the brand on your side. Suddenly, all sense, all rational went out the window, and you were violently thrust back to last year as he burned his initials into your skin. The flashbacks were triggered, and the result was nothing short of hysteria. You cry out for the only person who would step in.

“TOMMY!TOMMY!TOMMY!TOMMY!TOMMYYYY” You scream, the fact Tommy was miles away didn’t matter, nor did the fact this would only anger Joel more. This didn’t matter; you wanted him, no one but him, and all sense was knocked out of you.

Joel pulls you up by your hair and slaps you hard enough that you taste blood and screams at you to not say Tommy’s name, but you can’t stop, you scream and scream and scream for him to come save you and your baby, the precious little life inside you that has never done anything wrong. 

You fight and claw and panic, hysterics drowning out the one or two voices telling Joel to stop; who they belonged to, you couldn’t say. 

Joel stopped listening, and the voices grow louder as Joel drags you, kicking and screaming, outside; rope and a chair in his hand, your hair in the other, and Joel walked with long strides to a tree outside.

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

YEEEEEEESSSSHHHHHHHHHHH Cliiiiiff hanger, hanging from a cliiiiiiffff thats why he's caaaaallled, Cliff Hangers!

Who else used to watch Inbetween The Lions? Anyway.

Who wanna guess what happens!

Only two chapters left!

For the sake of credit, if you didn't find the superstore reference or dont watch the show, most of the dialogue between Joel and Lorenzo and LO was between Amy and Jonah from two birth related episodes of superstore

Also, Maura is named after my dear dear friend @maura-honey who although is not generally a fanfiction girlie, made a tumblr so she could read, like and reblog this series and always sends me such lovely messages <3

Reblogs are the best way to spread and support, but comments mean the world. I know not everyone likes to share dark content on their blog, but even a kind anon is such support!

for those who voted you dont like or hate or Lorenzo, I hope that doesn't mean you hate him as n he's a bad character. I got a comment on AO3 that said "i cant tell if i like lorenzo or not, but i like him in the story" which makes sense! His victim blaming is really fucking shitty.

no poll today, sorry!

MoonBanana said they think LO copes by lying to herself until she beleives it, what do y'all think? is she as delusional as joel?

@my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @howaboutcastiel @tidlewav3 @bunnnyy-dummy @slutfortimotheechalamet @foggymoonbanana @dinsbaby @miraclesabound @jenna-ortega @primosworld @marclovers @threeheadedlamb @secretwriterpp @the-fox-den

@bitchyglitterfox @0bsessedwithfictionalcharacters @alloftheboysivelovedbefore @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @lunar-ghoulie @pedritosdarling @dreamonseems @alwaysdjarin @amoramorquetepintas @milla-frenchy

[turtlethon]

“Sword of Yurikawa”

Season 6, Episode 5 First US Airdate: October 10, 1992

Shredder, Splinter and exotic weapons collector Lafayette Le Drone vie for control of a mystical and powerful sword.

The sixth season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continues with “Sword of Yurikawa”. This is the first and only episode of the series credited to Marc Handler.

In the Lair, Leonardo is insistent on attempting to fix the team’s broken TV on his own, managing to electrocute himself in the process. He goes on to insist that he was doing everything right and had the correct knob. Splinter emerges and explains that he didn’t have the right attitude, nudging the antenna on top of the set to restore the picture.

April reports from the Japanese Embassy, where Ambassador Yurishima is presenting a series of historical artefacts. Among them is the Sword of Yurikawa, which Splinter is astonished to see on-screen. He explains that it used to belong to his own ninja master, and “has the amazing power of transformation – always changing, yet always the same.” Splinter orders the Turtles to guard the sword and ensure no-one tries to steal it; when they question the usefulness of this exercise, he admonishes them for not having “the true ninja spirit”. Reluctantly, the Turtles leave the Lair and head to the Embassy.

In the Technodrome, Krang goes right into the Scheme of the Day, demonstrating his Mind Bender Ray by having Rocksteady and Bebop perform a quick-fire series of basic instructions. Tomorrow, Krang explains, a truck convoy transporting a rare form of toxic waste will travel via the Tri-State Bridge. He intends to blow up the bridge and have the waste combine with the sludge of the harbour below. This will create an army of mud mutants that Krang will control using the Mind Bender.

Later, Krang insists the operation will require a “hands-on approach”, which leads to Shredder taunting the alien brain for not having any actual hands himself. Krang is flustered and whacks a control panel, causing April’s broadcast from the Japanese Embassy to appear on a view screen. Shredder is immediately smitten with the sword, forgetting about today’s villainous plot and taking a transport module to the city.

In a luxurious home, a man with a moustache and a French accent also sees April’s report. He explains to his cat that he needs the sword for his collection of rare and exotic weaponry. To obtain it, he selects a weapon from his existing arsenal: a ring that has unexpected “destructive power”, which he demonstrates by destroying a nearby bookcase.

The Turtles continue their journey to the Embassy on-foot, with Michaelangelo insisting on taking a break to get some pizza. Leonardo is adamant that they maintain their focus, but soon the whole team ends up acquiescing, chowing down as a mysterious ninja with oddly familiar eyes watches them from nearby. Later, the same ninja is seen breaking into the Embassy, taking the Sword of Yurikawa and replacing it with a dummy sword before leaving. More time passes, and another ninja in identical attire arrives, stealing one fake sword and leaving another in its place. Later still, a third ninja sneaks in and just takes the existing sword for himself.

By the time the Turtles reach the Japanese Embassy, the police are already present, with the craggy cop who we last saw as “Sergeant O’Flaherty” in “Zach and the Alien Invaders” requesting that an all-points bulletin be put out for the stolen sword. The Turtles are dismayed at having failed in the mission given to them and begin dreading the prospect of having to explain to Splinter how their pizza break led to the sword being stolen. Before they can come up with a plan to get it back, the team find themselves face to face with Ninja #1, who emerges from an alley wielding what we as viewers will recognise as the genuine Sword of Yurikawa. The blade catches fire and the mysterious ninja begins swinging it at the Turtles as the first act concludes.

Act two kicks off with the Turtles diving for cover, unable to get near the ninja and the flaming sword. The mysterious attacker eventually cuts down the awning from a nearby store, blanketing the Turtles before making his exit.

Shredder returns to the Technodrome in a ninja costume, revealing himself to be the third of the thieves that broke into the Embassy. He begins swinging his sword around in front of a disbelieving Krang and is eager to show off its powers of transformation, but the blade breaks off, flying across the room and narrowly missing Rocksteady and Bebop before crumbling. Incensed, Shreds takes his mutants to the surface to get the real sword despite the pleas of Krang, who points out that they’re running out of time to implement the original Scheme of the Day.

The Turtles arrive at Channel 6 and meet up with April, viewing CCTV footage of the break-in. They use computer records to determine that the (second) intruder was wearing The Maltese Ring, “an ancient hand-crafted weapon”. The ring is currently thought to be in the collection of Lafayette Le Drone, the moustachioed Frenchman seen earlier in the episode. The Turtles exit Channel 6 by diving out the window, lowering themselves to the ground via ropes. Watching from nearby are Shredder and his henchmen, who begin tracking their old enemies.

At the home of Lafayette Le Drone, the Turtles confront the weapons collector and demand that he gives the sword back. He responds by activating a series of booby traps including ping-pong balls and a spiked floor. Le Drone prepares to use the Sword of Yurikawa on a captive Donatello, but like Shredder finds that his blade crumbles upon use, confirming it to be a forgery. He escapes via a secret passage, re-emerging after the Turtles head off once more in search of the real sword. Shredder and The Boys then arrive to address Le Drone themselves. (The weapons collector apparently doesn’t know who Shreds is, which by this point in the series feels entirely implausible.) Through intimidation, Shredder convinces Le Drone that both parties should forge an alliance, with Shreds promising to give the collector the real sword once the Turtles have been defeated.

The Turtles are heading home once more, again attempting to figure out how to explain their failure to retrieve the sword to Splinter, when the ninja who attacked them earlier re-emerges. He uses the flaming sword to disarm the team, which is enough to convince them a different approach is needed. Leonardo asks the ninja nicely to hand over the sword. Against all odds, the mystery man does just that, before prompting Leo to attack him with it. Donatello helpfully explains that Leo must fight him, as to deny the request would “insult his ninja honour”. The sword heats up in Leonardo’s hands, forcing him to drop it, while the mystery ninja vanishes into the night.

Krang reaches Shredder to point out the trucks containing the toxic chemicals will soon be passing over the Tri-State Bridge. Shreds remains disinterested, his focus entirely on getting the sword. He soon spots the Turtles passing by with the ancient weapon, setting Rocksteady and Bebop on them. The team easily defeat the mutant duo, but things take an unexpected turn when Lafayette Le Drone emerges in a giant tank, ensnaring the green teens with a ball-and-chain. Shredder snatches the sword, before begrudgingly being reminded by Le Drone of their prior agreement.

The Turtles are tied to the Tri-State bridge by Rocksteady and Bebop as Krang again checks in. Shredder continues to crow about his sword, insistent that it will lead to world domination. By this point Krang is fed up with hearing about how terrific the sword is and only cares that the bridge will be destroyed on-cue one way or another.

Shredder turns the Sword of Yurikawa into a chainsaw and is about to use it to cut the girders that the Turtles are tied to when the weapon begins floating through the air, attempting to attack him. Le Drone picks up the sword, believing this to be a sign he was meant to wield it, but the weapon increases in size, slicing through the girders of the bridge as it chases him back to his tank. Now with only two supports holding the bridge in place, the situation has worsened for the Turtles.

Saving the day is the mystery ninja who the Turtles encountered earlier. He cuts the rope holding the team, allowing them to drop back onto the bridge. The ninja reveals himself to be Splinter – duh – who declares that while he dislikes deception, he had to go through all of this to test the “ninja spirit” of his pupils. While the Turtles chase off Rocksteady and Bebop, Shredder and Splinter do battle. Shreds soon decides to fight dirty, pulling out a laser blaster and explaining that “as our old sensei told us, in battle one must improvise”. Splinter counters by having the sword spin wildly, leaving the gun in pieces. Ultimately Shredder, too, retreats into Le Drone’s tank, but Splinter and the Turtles now face a bigger problem: the impending arrival of the trucks carrying the toxic waste, with the bridge now unable to support them. Splinter hurls the Sword of Yurikawa into the air and energy spirals encircle the bridge, restoring the supports and allowing the trucks to pass safely.

Splinter re-iterates his earlier remarks about the sword “always changing, yet always remaining the same”. When the Turtles point out that no-one else who tried was able to wield it successfully, he explains that it can only be used for good, and this is its true power. Later, in the Lair, the Turtles vow to take the sword back to the Embassy – without stopping for pizza this time.

It’s a shame that this will be Marc Handler’s only contribution to the series, as I really like the way he’s chosen to approach this story. While it initially seems like this is going to be another tale of the Turtles battling mutant slime monsters created by Krang, the same kind of thing we’ve seen countless times before, this turns out to be something of a welcome mis-direct, with Shredder’s fixation on the sword leading things down an entirely different path. What we end up with is a story with a lot of moving parts, and more complexity than we’re usually treated to. Granted, I don’t think anyone watching was under any illusions as to who the three ninjas were – they're clearly Splinter, Le Drone and Shredder, in that order – and I’m already on-record as not liking stories where Splinter messes with the Turtles by putting them through some sort of “test”, though he’s done far worse in the past than he does here. There is the small issue of the fact that he told the team it would be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands, which contradicts what we learn about it at the end; presumably Splinter thought it was worth going through all this trouble just to teach the Turtles about the importance of having “ninja spirit”.

One of the aspects of this story that I particularly appreciate is that the Turtles are, to borrow a phrase from the 2012 show’s intro, “doing ninja things” throughout, beyond the simple of act of fighting bad guys: we see them emerge from the shadows to greet April at Channel 6 before making their exit again, then infiltrate the mansion of Lafayette Le Drone from different angles. These are themes I’d like to see more of as we enter the second half of the series. (Chronologically speaking we’re past the halfway point now, though in terms of the number of episodes left we’re almost into the last quarter.) Speaking of Le Drone, he works well here as a supporting villain to Shredder, though I don’t know how tolerable he’d be as a stand-alone bad guy. As is so often the case with new characters introduced by writers outside of the usual rotation, he won’t be used again, so it’s a particular pity that he didn’t even really get a proper come-uppance before being shown the door.

“Sword of Yurikawa” is easily the stand-out episode of the season thus far: we’ll see if TMNT can build on this momentum next time, with “Return of the Turtleoid”.

[pattysplaceofplaces]

How They Kiss You Headcanons 

[Me: Is watching My Cat From Hell, gets this idea and pauses the episode mid way and takes an hour to write this.

I regret nothing! >:3]

Gender neutral reader

Team Red

Carmen: 

Short and sweet, she’s never in one place for too long whether it be a room or a country but whenever she walks into the same room as you, you get a peck on the lips. 

Ivy: 

Grabs your cheeks and peppers small kisses everywhere on your face. Your lucky she doesn’t wear makeup or your whole face would be her lip color. She just can’t help it! She gets so excited to see you! 

Zach: 

It’s pretty sloppy and you have to wipe your lips or your cheek off with your sleeve but you still love him. He will press his whole lips into your face with so much pressure. Please teach this man how to kiss. 

——————-

ACME Agents

Julia: 

She’s so cute it melts your heart every time. If she’s standing up while kissing you she’ll do that thing where one leg is raised back while she’s standing on the tips of her toes. Will kiss you goodbye for work then all of the sudden run back in the house because she wants to give you another one. She’s a keeper.

Chase: 

Dramatic. Like really dramatic. It doesn’t matter where you two are, he’ll spin you, dip you, then kiss you. It makes him prideful that you blush and giggle every time. Likes to be hugging you or hugged while getting the smooches, it makes him feel safe. 

Zari: 

Even if it’s not promiscuous she doesn’t kiss you out in public. She loves you a lot! But she tends to be professional even outside of her job. Will always ask if she can kiss you, it can be awkward but she takes you seriously and wants you to be comfortable. 

———-

VILE Operatives

Mime Bomb: Mans loves you but would hate to ruin his makeup so while suited up all he can do is give blow you kisses or kiss his hand then put the hand gently on your lips. When he doesn’t have makeup on you get actual kisses, he’s so gentle. 

Crackle: Kisses your forehead then ruffles your hair. Loves how pouty you get when he messes up your hair, both of you know that you can’t stay mad at him for very long. He probably pinches your cheeks after just to tick you off a little bit. 

Tigress: Loves to embarrass you. Will grab you by the collar of your shirt and kiss you, doesn’t care who’s watching. Although if it makes you uncomfortable just let her know and she’ll have another alternative ready. 

Paper Star: She prefers handholding and doesn’t kiss you in front of others often. She’ll make a paper fan and cover both of your faces then kiss you. It’s time with you she considers sacred and she doesn’t like prying eyes. 

[rickybowensfever]

Sicktember - Zach has a headache

Another @sicktember post! Today’s story is with my oc’s Kylie and Zach. 

Prompts: 

Blankets

Medicine

Missing Out 

Headache 

Fever

 Zach and Kylie are in the last week of summer before their senior year of high school and want to make every minute count. So, when Zach arrives at Kylie’s family’s End of the Summer BBQ looking flushed and develops a headache, Kylie drops everything to take care of him. 

Zach swings by the kitchen where his sister, Emily is garnishing her avocado toast — a sprinkle of paprika, an egg over easy — before taking the right Instagram photo to share with her friends.

“‘Morning!” Zach croaks, startled by the sound of his voice. Must just be my morning voice he tries to convince himself. 

He grabs a glass from the wooden cabinet nearest to the refrigerator and pours a glass of orange juice for himself before finding a quick breakfast. 

His eyes grow wide when he sees a white plate with four pieces of bacon lying on it. He quickly takes piece by piece until only one remains on the plate. 

 “Zach!!” Emily exclaimed, her eyes raised and face scrunched in annoyance. 

“Those were for Mom!” she explains, holding a hand on her hip. 

“Sorry…” he mutters, “That would’ve been nice to know before, you know” he gestures his hands to the plate of bacon, pouting his lip. 

“Ugh, it’s fine. I can just make more” 

“Sorry, I have to be at Kylie’s soon for their barbeque and I totally woke up late,” he says trying to justify his actions. 

 “Oh, nice! I’m going to try and stop by later with Kara”  she half-smiles. Emily has been seeing a girl named Kara for over a month now since they met at her summer job as a school nurse at a summer day camp. Emily’s first job since she graduated from Med School. 

 Zach touched his Home screen button to reveal the time, 12:48 PM with five unread messages from Kylie probably asking him where he was. 

 “Fuck. I better go” Zach said, panicked. He had been up late watching Netflix aimlessly and his throat was sore. He had tried everything: tea and honey, gargling with salt water, and honey-flavored cough drops. Nothing was curing the aching in his throat. 

Finally, around 2 am, he was able to fall asleep thanks to some NyQuil. 

But, he was deeply regretting his decisions when he woke up at 11:45 am after Kylie told him to get to her house at 12. 

Luckily, the pain in his throat had hindered. Please, don’t do this to me again, he said into his mirror as he pulled on a blue t-shirt and khaki shorts. 

 Zach pulled into the Daniels’ driveway which was beginning to pack up with cars. As he parked his car, Kylie’s brother, Blake ran over to him waving his arms around in excitement. 

Blake was a year younger than Kylie and Zach, playing in a band with some of his high school friends. 

“Yo! You playing tonight?” Zach asked as he got out of the car to greet him with a handshake. 

Blake laughed, “Nah. I got out of that tonight. One of my bandmates is taking their brother to college,” he said. 

Blake escorted Zach to the back gate where their ingrown pool was fenced in and the party was brewing. Kylie waved to her boyfriend the minute she saw him. She wore an ombre purple bikini top with denim shorts and flip-flops, pulling out pool noodles for the kids to play with. 

Zach smiled, walking over to her, greeting her younger cousins. He pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek.

“Do you have any water?” he asked feeling dehydrated. 

Kylie perked up, turning her head toward him. 

“Yeah! Right in the blue cooler”, she mentioned, throwing a couple of pool noodles into the pool at the kids. The kids screamed with excitement, one laying on their stomach and the others blowing water out the trunk of the noodle. Kylie giggled. 

Zach pulled a cold water bottle out of the cooler and sighed out of relief. Suddenly, he felt light-headed and super thirsty. He chugged the water bottle until only drops of water remained. 

“Let’s go inside. My mom still needs help getting everything set up” she mentioned. 

Zach nodded, following her lead. 

Kylie closed the gate over and started heading into the house. 

When they walked into the Daniels’ home, Zach was immediately greeted by her family members. 

“Zach! Nice to see ya,” Uncle Tim said. Zach nodded waving at him. “I’ll be right back, you chat” Kylie whispered in his ear. 

Zach shrugged. “Ready for senior year? Do you have any colleges picked out?” Aunt Michelle (Tim’s wife) asked. 

Zach dreaded this question. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. 

“Uh, I’m going to community college, actually,” he said, confidently. 

“Oh,” they said in unison. Zach was so used to hearing the disappointment in their voices when he told any adult he wasn’t going the “traditional” route for college. 

Why was it so bad that he’d rather save money and figure out what he actually wanted to do instead of contributing to being in crippling debt from student loans? His sister had done the same thing and now, she landed a job as a school nurse. When he figured out whatever the hell he wanted to do in life, he would be successful, too. 

“Yeah! Trying to save money” he said smiling at them. This was his cue to walk away. He walked over to the sectional in the living room across from the kitchen where the TV was playing a re-run of a Food Network competition. 

Once the winner was revealed and another episode started, Zach looked around for his girlfriend. The chatter of Kylie’s loud relatives made his head start to hurt and fatigue set in. 

His eyes lit up when he saw a hint of purple and his girlfriend bringing in a folded chair for an elderly woman to sit in. He ran over to Kylie as soon as he saw her. 

 “Hey. Can I go lay down in your room? I have a headache” he said, talking low so no one could hear him. 

“Sure. Do you want some Advil?” she asked, pouting her lip with concern, “You look a little flushed” she mentioned. 

Zach nodded, “Yeah, that’d be great” and jogged up the stairs turning a corner in the hallway to enter her room. 

The noise died down as he closed the door. Now only hints of loud voices were in the distance. Zach grabbed a fuzzy blanket from a wicker basket and lied on top of her dark purple comforter, closing his eyes as his head pounded. 

Then, the door opened. 

Kylie rubbed his back saying, “Hey, I brought some water and Advil” 

Zach opened his eyes and grabbed the two pink tablets from her hand, chasing them with the water. 

“A nap might help? You look exhausted” she said brushing her hand through his soft brown hair. 

He nodded, “Thanks” and curled back into his position. A shiver went through his body. Making Kylie now more concerned. 

“Do you feel okay? Besides the headache?” she asked quietly. 

“Mhmm” Zach mumbled. “Alright, I’ll check in later, or come and get me if you’re feeling better,” she said, closing her door over. 

 Zach woke up an hour later, feeling cold, his throat burning, and his head pounding more than earlier. He groaned. He could just go home and rest, but driving felt impossible. 

He laid in the bed trying to muster up some strength to send Kylie a text. He waited, counted to five in his head, and slowly picked his body up. 

Z: come here pls i need u 

K: coming! 

He threw his phone down and curled back up in his position. Shivering under the one blanket from earlier. 

The door opened and Kylie quietly walked. 

“Hey, everything okay?” she asked, calmly. 

Zach opened his eyes seeing she changed into a Lakewood University shirt - the college she was most eager to attend. 

“Need to go home. Can’t drive” he muttered. 

“Aw, what’s wrong?” she asked, worried.

“Everything,” he said, his voice raspy. “I just need to go” 

Zach groaned. “Babe, you can stay here. I don’t mind. I know you don’t feel well” she offered. 

He was silent. 

Kylie held in a laugh, resting the back of her hand on his forehead. “I think you have a fever,” she said frowning. 

“Why don’t you stay here until you’re feeling a little better? Then, I’ll drive you home” she suggested. “Your sister and your mom are already here, so I don’t think anyone would even be at your house”

“Okay,” he mumbled.

 “Let me get you some medicine and see if you have a fever,” she said, running out to the hallway closet where the Daniel’s stored their medicine. 

Kylie returned to the room with a bottle of Tylenol and a digital thermometer. 

“I’m sorry, but I need you to get up. Please” 

Zach slowly, painfully got up and looked at his girlfriend. 

Kylie frowned at his glassy eyes and pink cheeks. 

“This should help relieve your symptoms for a bit,” she said gesturing to the pink bottle.

Zach just looked at her. He looked exhausted, she thought. 

She poured the liquid into a plastic measuring cup and handed it over to him. Zach took a big gulp of the medicine, wincing from the taste. 

“It’ll make you feel so much better. I promise” she said smiling softly, then grabbing the digital thermometer. 

“Next,” she said holding the thermometer in the air. Zach opened his mouth, letting the instrument rest under his tongue. 

“I’ll get some more blankets while we wait,” she said softly. 

Even though he felt like utter shit, Zach was so grateful for Kylie. She would drop anything for him, even their family’s annual barbeque. Even before they made things official, as just friends, she was still always there for him. 

Beep. Finally, the thermometer beeped as she held two blankets in her arms. 

She placed the blankets on the bed as Zach lied on his back with the blanket she gave him earlier. 

Kylie took the instrument out of her boyfriend’s mouth and read it. “Okay, you probably just have a bad cold. Nothing we can’t fix! And, you have a little fever, but the medicine should help with that ” she explained. 

Zach grabbed the blankets at the end of the bed, ignoring whatever she was saying. 

“Zach? Are you listening to me?” she asked noticing her boyfriend’s extra blanket. 

He placed the blanket on top of the other and sighed out of relief. 

“Sorry, what did you say?” he asked. 

Kylie sighed. “I said, you have a little fever. But I think you just have a bad cold. Nothing we can’t fix” 

Zach nodded, feeling warmth under the blankets. “Sorry. I really was looking forward to today” he muttered. 

“Oh, don’t even worry! We had a great summer, anyway. Now, let’s get you better” she said kissing him on the forehead. 

See more of Zach and Kylie! 

LOVE SICK 

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 22: Pumpkin Patch (originally published on August 9, 2021)

AN: At long last, the homestretch of Part 3, which I have already dubbed the Tearjerking Three last time. And for our first entry into this trilogy, we finally get an update on the relationship between Peridot and Lapis, which I found to be done so dirty in Future as a Lapidot shipper. I mean, they didn't even interact with each other even when they were in the same episode together! Plus, Pumpkin just disappeared into thin air once the movie came along, leaving the only hint of where she is now are those similar gourd puppies from The Future. But enough griping, let's get my personal answer on what really happened, and maybe a big surprise that I no doubt have already spoiled on DeviantArt anyways.

Synopsis: Steven, Peridot and Lapis reminisce on the anniversary of Pumpkin's death.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven, Pumpkin

Shelby Rabara as Peridot, Squaridot

Jennifer Paz as Lapis, Laz, Zuli

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst, Ocean Jasper

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl

Uzo Aduba as Bismuth

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon

Jeff Bergman as Farmer

Featuring Billie Eilish as Turquoise

--

"Maybe I'll find myself smiling on that distant shore," Steven sang to himself while gazing at his watch as the oven timer counted down in front of him. "Maybe I'm not alone."

The timer beeped, notifying Steven that whatever he had in the oven was ready. After putting on some oven mitts and opening the oven, Steven pulled a pumpkin pie out and set it on the counter to cool. "This one is for you two, guys." He said before gazing at a nearby calendar that read June 7th. "I remember it like it was yesterday." Steven then began to reminisce on the aftermath of his visit to Homeworld.

--

A few weeks the Crystal Gems have successfully convinced the Diamonds to help them in healing the corrupted Gems on Earth, these Gems now needed somewhere to live. As far as Steven knew, there was no way they could expand the Temple to make room for all of them, and he's sure none of the newly healed Gems wanted to return to Homeworld, so the Crystal Gems decided that their only choice now was to build them their own little town. They had some basic ideas down, but all they needed now was a name.

"How about Peritropolis?!" Peridot suggested as she wrote down her choice of name on the whiteboard, with little sketches of her face surrounding the name for emphasis. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"How about something that won't stroke your ego?" Steven frowned at the idea.

"What about Barnstantinople?" Lapis proposed. "We are building it around where the barn used to be after all."

"Speaking of which, how's clean-up on that going?" Amethyst asked, looking out the window to gaze at the wreckage that was once Lapis and Peridot's barn house home. "I think some bits of it might be useful somehow."

"I say we put that on hold." Lapis stated. "That old barn caused just as much harm to Peridot and me as much as it did good."

"You serious about this?" Peridot asked her blue roommate. "I mean, we had so many good memories in there."

"Yeah, and a lot of those memories were you just bending over backwards trying to keep me happy." Lapis added. "I know you're still sad about me jumping ship and coming back with only a "Hey", but I still got things to work out, y'know."

"OK." Peridot said just as their pet Pumpkin opened the door. "Oh, hey Pumpkin!"

In contrast to Peridot being excited to see Pumpkin, the little canine fruit let out an exhausted bark before sitting down to nap, revealing wrinkles around her eyeholes.

"Hey, is your little buddy there doin' alright?" Bismuth asked. "I barely know a thing about the lifespan of organic creatures, but even I know she ain't doing so hot."

"Oh, I'm sure she's just tired!" Peridot assured Bismuth. "Just needs to rest, that's all!"

"Don't be so sure Peridot." Garnet advised the little Gem. "Pumpkin was brought to life with magic, which means she's probably lived longer than a pumpkin normally does."

"Just let her be happy Garnet." Pearl whispered into Garnet's ear. "She's already been through so much recently, and I don't think she can take anymore."

"You sure she's OK Dottie?" Steven asked Peridot regarding Pumpkin. "Nothing lasts forever, you know."

"Oh, she just needs some extra time in the Sun!" Peridot laughed. But despite her insistence, that wasn't how the story really went.

--

"Okay, a little to the left!" Peridot commanded Squaridot as the eye Gem Peridot levitated a lifeguard chair around while Bismuth, Ocean Jasper & Teal Zircon dug up the ground to build a swimming pool. "No, your other left!" she corrected herself. "Wait wait, your other OTHER left!"

"There's no such thing as an other other left!" Squaridot yelled and grumpily set the chair down next to where she was standing. "How's this?"

"Perfect." Peridot gave her fellow technician a thumbs up before turning around to see the Lapis twins walk towards the construction site. "Oh, I see our lifeguards wanna start early!"

"Why was it necessary for us to dress in these?" Laz wondered while modeling the red one-piece she was wearing. "I don't think red is my color."

"I don't know about you Laz, but I make this look good!" Zuli declared while flaunting her body in a matching outfit. "We look just like the hotties on Coast Patrol or Destiny from CPH season 3! By the way, where's Lapis? She's head lifeguard, so shouldn't she be out here with us?"

"She still has the suit, but she's not coming out because today is a special day." Peridot stated. "It's the anniversary of a certain something."

"Hey, I think I can see Steven's car!" Ocean Jasper cried out as she peeked out of the hole to find Steven disembarking from his Dondai Supremo and walking over with the pumpkin pie in hand. "And he's got a pie, maybe as thanks for our hard work."

"Naw, I don't think it's for us Ocean." Bismuth said just as Steven walked over to Peridot. "I think we should leave them alone for a bit and get back to work."

"Aw, but I wanted a pie!" Teal Zircon complained.

"I see you got the pie." Peridot said to Steven while gazing at the pie in his hands. "In case you're wondering, we worked on a new meep morp last night dedicated to her."

"Okay, why don't you show me?" Steven offered.

"I'd be happy to." Peridot smiled before turning back to everyone at the in-progress pool. "Keep up the good work everyone, I'll just be taking the rest off!"

"Yeah, take some time for yourself, Peri." Bismuth replied while Squaridot used her burgeoning ferrokinesis to lift the blacksmith out of the pool. "Just don't get too teary-eyed and fill up the pool early."

"Yeah, we're planning on filling the pool for our opening ceremony!" Teal called while struggling to get out.

"And I'm just gonna catch some rays." Laz declared as she sat down on a lawn chair, pulled some sunglasses over her eyes, and began sunbathing. However, her moment of peace was cut off by Zuli loudly blowing into her whistle and laughing.

"So, who's the pie really for Bis?" Ocean Jasper asked as she climbed out the pool before helping Teal and the two sat down next to Bismuth.

"You two got a moment?" Bismuth asked, and the Jasper and Zircon nodded in affirmation. "Well, the pie is actually for a friend of theirs."

--

Steven and Peridot kept walking away from the pool and eventually found themselves in front of the Little Homeworld house that Lapis & Peridot shared. It looked like a smaller version of the barn the two Gems once lived in, but instead of being decorated with a mishmash of items around the barnyard, it now looked like Peridot did most of the construction with bits of metal and advanced technology sprinkled onto a simple-looking two-story cabin.

"Hey Lapis, we're here." Steven called out to Lapis as he and Peridot entered the cabin to find Lapis napping on the couch with a manga on her lap and a red one-piece hanging on a clothes hanger nearby. "Lapis, wake up."

"Agh, don't go with her Pierre!" Lapis yelled as she woke up from her nap and rubbed her eyes to find Peridot & Steven before her. "Sorry you guys, I was trying on my lifeguard uniform, but then I got bored and decided to relax a little."

"You still remember what day it is?" Peridot asked while Steven presented his pumpkin pie.

"Yeah, I still do." Lapis declared sadly. "Want to see the meep morp we've been working on, Steven?"

"Sure." Steven replied before the two Gems took him upstairs to their shared bedroom & workshop, where a very large sculpture of Pumpkin stood, a big smile permanently etched onto the front beneath a pair of innocent eyes. "Almost like the real thing. Except bigger."

"Showing this to you makes me miss her even more." Peridot began to hold back tears. "I still remember how I coped with it too."

--

The groundbreaking ceremony of what would soon become Little Homeworld went quite swimmingly for the Crystal Gems, thanks to the support of their Beach City friends and the Diamonds. But amidst the rejoicing of a new beginning for Gems on Earth, there was some bad news that flew right under everyone's noses.

After Peridot marked the giant pit where the barn once was with Little Homeworld's flag, Pumpkin came strolling up to her green owner looking far wearier and more decayed than she did previously, a sight which worried them greatly. As soon as the ceremonies ended, Pumpkin was rushed back to the beach house.

"Please Steven, you gotta do something!" Peridot begged Steven while Pumpkin laid before the trio with a heavy sigh emitting from her mouth. "Pumpkin doesn't have much time left, surely you must have the solution like you always do!"

"I'm really sorry Peridot." Steven said regretfully. "As much as I would love to help you and Lapis out, Pumpkin wasn't long for this Earth anyways. Death is a perfectly natural part of life. It can be real sad and scary to watch someone you treasured so dearly go, but ultimately, their time will come all the same."

"So, she was going to die regardless?" Lapis said apprehensively while stroking the living gourd's rotting body. "I don't really see how this is possible since you did bring her to life with your powers, but I can deal with it."

"Well, I'm not!" Peridot objected tearfully. "It's not fair! I've already been through so much, why does the universe have to keep nailing the hammer into the coffin?!"

"Peridot, I know you're upset, but you gotta listen." Steven tried comforting his little green pal. "Death is completely natural, even if it's scary. I mean, my dad might die someday, and so might Connie. I'm not sure if I can die like a human though."

"Well, your race is different." Peridot declared. "None of you will ever know what it's like to live forever!" With that, she stormed out of the beach house to vent, leaving her two friends to worry for Peridot.

"I don't think I want to know where this is going." Lapis muttered.

"If it's anything like what happened to Peridot after you left Earth, I don't think she'll take it very well." Steven agreed.

--

Using a trashcan lid, Peridot flew far away from the general area of Beach City and into the countryside, where farmlands were very prosperous. Farmlands like the ones she and Lapis tended to together in the past, and the ones where Pumpkin was born. The very sight of all these fresh crops made her more miserable. What gave them the right to grow so healthy while Pumpkin looked so withered?

"Rackum frackum produce, I'll show you what for!" Peridot mumbled as she touched down in front of a pumpkin patch and swiftly got to work on destroying them. "You walked so Pumpkin could die!" she yelled as her green body became covered in orange pumpkin insides. "Why can't anything go my way for once?!"

"Hey, get offa my crops ya gremlin!" a farmer yelled at Peridot while stomping over to her with a pitchfork in hand. "You got any idea what it's like to work so hard on a great harvest, only for it to be ruined by a bunch of punks?!"

"No, but I'm sure you don't know what it's like to love someone only to lose them!" Peridot argued with the farmer, a retort that stunned him a little before he tried to look more sympathetic.

"Coping, eh?" the farmer said. "Look, you have every right to get mad, but that don't mean you can just stomp all over someone else's hard work! You gotta find better ways to vent, ya know!"

"Look, sir, I literally just ran away from home, I don't have time right now." Peridot coldly rejected the farmer's advice.

"Well, looks like you left me no choice." The farmer shook his head before reaching behind his back and pulling out a scary mask to frighten Peridot with. "BOOGEDY BOOGEDY BOOGEDY!"

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" Peridot screamed loudly before flying away from the farm on her lid.

--

As soon as Peridot returned to Beach City, she soared right towards Steven's house, where she found him making a grilled cheese sandwich, and began pounding on his window.

"Steven! Steven!" Peridot yelled from outside, getting the half-Gem's attention. "Let me in, I wanna talk!"

"You know you can just come in yourself." Steven suggested before opening the door for his green friend. "How have things been going?"

"I got an idea for you." Peridot stated. "How about in exchange for helping me with Pumpkin, I'll do something for you in return. Just name your price, I'll do anything!"

"Peridot, are you trying to bribe me into saving Pumpkin?" Steven asked. "Didn't I tell you earlier that death is a natural part of life?"

"But you managed to save Lars from death with your crying!" Peridot objected. "Why can't you do the same to Pumpkin?! Why does she have to die while so many other pumpkins have to live?!"

"Pumpkins?" Steven asked. "What other pumpkins?"

"I vented my frustrations by whaling on some farmer's pumpkin harvest." Peridot confessed innocently. "He didn't take too kindly to that."

"I think I know where this is going." Steven realized. "Five Stages of Grief, right? First was anger, now you're bargaining. Which means depression might not be too far behind." Just then, as if on cue, Steven's phone started ringing with a message from Lapis that he readily picked up. "Hello?"

"Steven, is Peridot there?" Lapis asked from the other end of the line. "Ever since she fled the house, I took Pumpkin back to our place, and now she wants to see us both before, you know."

"See what I mean?" Steven declared to Peridot, who was now on the verge of breaking down because now, she finally realized it was too late. "Do you want to see her?"

"Yes please." Peridot began to sob and hugged Steven tight. "Promise me that you won't ever leave too, Steven."

"I promise." Steven stated, hugging Peridot back.

--

Meanwhile, at the massive construction site that would soon become Little Homeworld, Lapis gently watched over the slowly dying Pumpkin, whose normally bright orange skin now had splotches of grayish-black, as she let out a weak yip. "Don't die yet, sweetie." Lapis assured Pumpkin. "Peridot will be here soon, I know it."

And right on cue, Peridot and Steven soared right towards Lapis on the trash can lid to see Pumpkin off one last time. Peridot raced as fast as she could towards the groundwork for her and Lapis's new home and tightly nuzzled her pet gourd, unaware that it wasn't in the mood for such a tight hug.

"Peridot, let her go! She's in pain!" Lapis yelled while prying the sentient pumpkin from Peridot's embrace, much to the green Gem's agony.

"No, please!" Peridot cried. "Just let me hold her!"

"I'm sorry Peri, but I don't think she can take much more!" Lapis argued while on the brink of crying just as much. "Pumpkin's already dying. She's so scared right now, so let's just-"

"Don't try to argue Lapis." Steven solemnly interrupted Lapis. "Peridot's already having a breakdown as is."

"I'm sorry about that." Lapis quickly apologized before she turned to Pumpkin. "Pumpkin, if you can still hear me, I want you to know that you and Peridot were the only things keeping me sane here, even when I ran off to the moon." She said to the dying fruit. "I can't thank you enough for brightening my day with your cute little smile, your barking, and all the days we spent playing together. Even if we find a replacement, none can ever replace you, little guy."

"You want a turn, Peri?" Steven said to Peridot.

"Fine, but I won't like it." Peridot sniffed loudly as she walked up to Pumpkin. "You were like an offspring to us, Pumpkin." She said quietly. "When I first saw your little carved face, those adorable stubby legs, it filled my heart with so much joy. Figuratively, of course, since we naturally don't have hearts. But every step we took together, every struggle, kept me grounded here on this crazy planet. Oh stars, now I won't know what to do now."

"Mah, mah," Pumpkin barked weakly with her last breath. "Mommy."

"I promise you," Peridot declared while her gem touched Pumpkin's forehead. "I'll never forget."

And with that, Pumpkin gently shut her eyes, allowing herself to pass on with her mothers and her creator by her side.

--

The funeral that followed was a private affair, with only the other Crystal Gems, Connie and Greg in attendance, and Pumpkin buried outside Peridot & Lapis's house. However, it was after the funeral when trouble began brewing. Just like when she had first begun living with the Gems, Peridot began hiding away in the bathroom for the next week to grieve the demise of Pumpkin and seemed resilient in refusing to come out, no matter how much they tried.

"C'mon P-Dot, open up!" Amethyst called while pounding on the door. "If you're planning on flushing yourself down the toilet again, let me tell you again, I tried that once and it didn't work."

"I think I know what to do." Greg proposed his idea and held up a boombox that began playing a song he knew she would recognize. "I look up to the sky, that's full of stars-"

"I'm trying to mourn here, leave me alone." Peridot despondently declared.

"I say we should respect her wishes." Garnet stated before she turned her gaze to Lapis. "Unless…."

"You think I should go in there?" Lapis asked.

"You are quite possibly Peridot's closest friend." Pearl agreed with Garnet.

"Closest friend?" Bismuth raised an eyebrow. "C'mon, we all know there may be something more than that!"

"Well, okay then." Lapis finally accepted with a shrug and slowly pushed the door open. "Wish me luck." She then said before entering the bathroom and closing it behind her. "You still in here?"

"So, they sent you in now." Peridot observed hoarsely. "I may have lost all hope, but I can still hear you know."

"They do say we're the closest." Lapis said before she sat down on the edge of the tub where Peridot had hidden herself away beneath a cocoon of Steven's bedsheets. "Come on now, get up and sit next to me."

"Okay, if it's you, I'll talk." Peridot succumbed to Lapis's offer and rose from her comfy shell to talk with her barn mate. "I'm sorry for worrying you all this past week, it's just that Pumpkin was basically our baby! Watching her die was like watching a child die!"

"Except the child wasn't human, it was a magical living pumpkin." Lapis remarked, which caused Peridot to glare at her. "No offense."

"But still, outside of our relationship, why did you volunteer?" Peridot wondered.

"Well, because I wanted to return the favor." Lapis answered. "Remember what happened after that boat trip I took with Steven and his dad?"

--

As soon as Lapis dropped Steven and Greg off at the docks following the boat trip gone wrong, she needed someone to lean on in her time of need. It didn't matter who, it could be any of the other Crystal Gems, or one of Steven's human friends. But right now, there was only one person, or rather Gem, that she could turn to.

Lapis could now see the barn in the distance, and as reluctant as she was to admit it, Peridot was the only one who could understand her regarding a certain Quartz. "Peridot, are you there?" she called for her green housemate. "I'm back!"

"Lapis, so glad you could make it!" Peridot exclaimed while racing out of the barn. "I discovered that I can move spoons with my mind, I made some decent progress on my Camp Pining Hearts essay; though I'm still stuck on the poutine theory, and-" However, she realized a bit too late what Lapis was feeling. "Is something the matter?"

"Steven and I found Jasper during the trip." Lapis said morosely. "She wanted to fuse with me again because she says I changed her. And to be honest, I think it was kind of my fault. Unfusing with Jasper drove her mad and I even said I missed taking all my frustrations out on her!"

"Lapis, are you serious?" Peridot gasped in alarm.

"Yes, I'm serious." Lapis declared as her eyes darkened and she turned away from Peridot. "Go ahead, run off and live with the Gems again so you don't have to be another one of my victims. If Jasper says I'm a monster, then I guess I really am one, especially after the way I treated you when we first moved in together."

"Okay Lapis, I don't want your garbage right now!" Peridot yelled, briefly breaking Lapis out of her funk with the almost exact words she described the tape recorder she broke. "I can see you're very stressed out. You want to scream so bad, to hit something, to let your anger out! But whatever you do, don't lose it on other people."

"Wh-what are you saying?" Lapis asked.

"I'm mostly just repeating stuff I read online," Peridot admitted. "I think what you need is a way to vent healthily, maybe on a perfectly defenseless object."

"Like what?" Lapis raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"One second!" Peridot exclaimed while walking into the barn and coming back out with an alien plush wearing a top hat and bowtie that she gazed at with a solemn expression. "I'm so sorry my sweet." She said softly to the stuffed toy before presenting it to Lapis. "Go ahead, hit it as hard as you can. Or maybe something else violent, whatever."

"Okay." Lapis sighed as she began feeling around the toy for something to do before grabbing at the bowtie and ripping it off the alien's neck, causing some stuffing to spill out of the hole she created. "Whoa."

"So, how did that make you feel?" Peridot asked as the alien dropped from her grip.

"Good." Lapis muttered in awe of what she just did. "I feel so much lighter now, like a real adrenaline burst."

"See, as I told you." Peridot smiled happily. "You just needed healthier ways to relieve stress."

"You're right." Lapis agreed when she got an idea. "Now, how about I try something a little heavier?" She then glanced over to a nearby pickup truck and used the water from Peridot's makeshift pool to lift it into the air. "How about this?"

"Yeah, I think that could work." Peridot nervously replied before Lapis suddenly tossed the truck into the air. "NO WAIT, THAT'S A LITTLE TOO-" she screamed and covered herself to avoid getting hit, but the truck instead crashed into the wall over the barn entrance, creating a massive hole that the vehicle filled. "Hm, guess I was wrong."

"Well, if we're gonna be living here together, why don't we make ourselves at home?" Lapis laughed and put a hand on Peridot's shoulder.

"Yeah, I think this is a good start." Peridot agreed while wrapping her arm around the taller Gem's waist and the two began brainstorming ideas for remodeling the barn.

--

"Yeah, I really was there for you back then." Peridot realized with a grin. "And from then on out, we were so close."

"You bet." Lapis replied and cupped Peridot's face in her hands. "Let me be a shoulder for you to cry on this time. I love you Peridot."

"I love you too Lapis." Peridot responded happily before the two began to kiss, and their gems started glowing as they began to fuse into a tall, slender Gem with turquoise hair, dark cyan hair in the shape of a maple leaf, Peridot's glasses, Lapis's top with a bright yellow star on it, a skirt with a bronze ribbon around her waist and dark teal sandals with bronze accents.

The new, accidental fusion of Peridot and Lapis looked around the bathroom and gazed down at her four hands. Feeling around her body, she felts the gems of her components on her forehead and back before coming to a shocking realization and let out a loud, confused scream. "AAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

"Is something wrong?!" Steven exclaimed as he barged into the bathroom to discover the fusion before him and started screaming as well, but this time in joy. "AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" the new fusion continued screaming and covered her face in alarm at Steven as the two continued shrieking at each other.

--

"But was that fusion really an accident or maybe something more?" Peridot asked while she, Steven, and Lapis walked outside to her and Lapis's garden in their backyard.

"Maybe a mix of both?" Lapis answered with a shrug. "I mean, we did kiss each other after saying "I love you" to each other, but the fusion part came out of nowhere."

"Still, we were all so happy to see you two fuse at last." Steven said. "Words could not describe how long I've been waiting for that moment."

"I couldn't shapeshift, so I just assumed I couldn't fuse as well." Peridot observed before they happened upon a makeshift tombstone that read 'In memory of Pumpkin. A good girl to the end.' "You know, all this talk reminds me of a song I've been writing for the past few days. It may seem a little short and I pulled from other sources, but it's the best I got."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Lapis suggested eagerly. "Sing for us."

"Yeah, we never heard you do a solo before either." Steven agreed with the ocean Gem.

"Okay, if you insist." Peridot declared before she cued a nearby Robonoid tending to the garden to start playing jazzy music, and she started to sing. "My sweet little pumpkin o' mine, a living gourd with a smile so fine. You made us smile with your bark, your stem's like emerald, and filled with seeds of gold. You were our most beloved work of art."

Almost as if Pumpkin was coming back to listen to Peridot's eulogy, many similar living produce like additional pumpkins, some gourds, and squashes, began coming out to watch. "You saw fields of corn, sandy beaches too. In summers so warm, it was just us and you." Peridot continued singing. "And I think to myself, what a wonderful pet."

Soon, Lapis began to join in on the song as well. "Though your time was short, like all things are." She joined Peridot in singing with her own solo. "We'll always think of you, when we look at your star."

"Our sweet little pumpkin of ours," the pair finished the song and embraced each other. "You were a wonderful pet."

With that, the two Gems fused into Turquoise, this time on purpose while surrounded by living Cucurbita, and smiled.

"Thank you for coming today, Steven." Turquoise said to Steven. "It really means a lot to us."

"Nothing to it girls." Steven smiled while rubbing his finger on his upper lip.

In Memory of Thea "Muriel Bagge" White

June 16, 1940 – July 30, 2021

"What courage you have."

--

So ends the first installment of the Tearjerking Three. In comparison to what will come next, I'm pretty sure this will be tears of happiness at these two dorky barnmates basically becoming an item at last and even fusing too (also, I totally took Turquoise's design from @artifiziell, she makes some amazing stuff, go check her out). But next time, we move on from someone being dead for real to someone being dead to Steven. Can you guess which one? Oh who am I kidding, if you watch me on DeviantArt, I basically spoiled everything after this.

[rawiswhore]

Triple H, Shawn Michaels x Fem Reader- "Chain Gang"

I hope I don't offend anyone who has this disorder, but the World Wrestling Federation's Attitude era during the late 90's and early 2000's was pure histrionic personality disorder TV.

What is histrionic personality disorder?

A disorder in which people exhibit attention seeking behavior, talks dramatically with strong opinions, acting inappropriate and provocative as well as sexual, and uses appearance to gain attention.

Let's see...the World Wrestling Federation's Attitude era had the following: 2 men shedding their boxer shorts to reveal themselves in thongs, a porn star getting his penis cut off (not really, but...), 2 of the faces of the company are notorious potty mouthed trash talkers that sound like a machine gun going off when they cut promos, a sex addict revealing he lost his virginity to his sister at 8 years old as well as admitting he had sex with his sister 2 days before a therapy session, one wrestler crucifying another wrestler (albeit not on a cross), a woman falling out of the ring and having a miscarriage, a man falling off of the top of a titantron (not Owen Hart), a woman ripping the top of another woman to reveal her naked uncovered breasts, a group of people invading another wrestling company they're not a part of and blowing up CNN headquarters, that same group of people cutting a promo in blackface, an incestuous "Leave it To Beaver" parody, a man interrupting a funeral and riding on top of a casket (albeit not having sex with it), a woman flashing the audience her breasts and another woman taking her shirt off to reveal hand prints painted over her tits, as well as women wearing bikinis that left nothing to the imagination and a cross dresser who entered the ring dressed as everything from 90's shock rocker Marilyn Manson to a Christmas tree while being the sex slave to a Wendy O. Williams-lite.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg to the Attitude era.

90% of what was done in the Attitude era was not just to get with the times, but for shock value as well as to beat another wrestling company in the ratings, that other wrestling company was WCW.

Although, do you think moments like a man finding out his dinner is his pet dog, a sex addict revealing he lost his virginity to his sister, an incestuous "Leave it To Beaver" parody, and a woman having a miscarriage going to make people want to watch wrestling?

No, it initiates wrestling's bad reputation and even most of the lowest common denominator audience that wrestling's fanbase is associated with would find these things offensive and tacky.

You could also say the Attitude era is antisocial personality disorder as well as oppositional defiant disorder television since APD is about disregarding right from wrong and disregarding the feelings for others, whereas ODD involves rebelling and refusing to do rules, annoying others and being frequently angry.

And again, the Attitude era involved a man interrupting a funeral and riding a casket, that same man kidnapping and killing someone's dog and feeding it to its owner, 2 of the faces of the company are a trashtalking redneck and guido throwing insults at everyone, a psychopath who poured gasoline on people and almost killed them, a man drugging a woman and marrying her through a drivethru wedding while unconscious, a group of rebellious people bombing CNN and urinating on other people's motorcycles, a woman forced to strip and bark like a dog, and women being degraded.

Plus, the Attitude era's face of the company rebelled and tormented his boss and their most popular faction would try to annoy and piss off other people as well as refuse to follow rules.

The company called itself WWF Attitude, for fuck's sake!

The World Wrestling Federation really underwent a makeover by the end of the 1990's, becoming much more edgier, violent, sexual, shocking and adult like than the previously kid friendly cartoon WWF of yore.

In 1998, specifically near the start of the year, on a "Monday Night Raw" episode, after the audience heard a Zach De La Rocha from Rage Against the Machine knockoff ask "Are you ready?", the crowd immediately got out of their seats and loudly cheered.

As the entrance music began playing while the television screen cut between shots of the words "D Generation X" and footage of police officers running in the streets and strippers in bikinis dancing around, right after the Zach De La Rocha knockoff shouted "Break it Down!", you, Shawn Michaels and Triple H had entered and walked into the arena.

Shawn didn't have any facial hair on his face and had his long hair hanging down, not tied back in a ponytail or in little braids, Triple H, too, had his long block locks hanging down.

They were both dressed in black leather jackets with matching black pants.

You, on the other hand, were wearing a black leather bra with a matching black thong and black pleather boots that went up to your knees.

You had a leather black collar wrapped around the bottom of your neck, two thin silver chains were attached to your collar, and Triple H and Shawn were holding onto those chains with one of their hands.

The outfit you wore was the same outfit Madonna wore in a 1995 calendar.

Shawn and Triple H helped pull and escort you into the arena and to the ring, though they weren't trying to suffocate you when they pulled the chains on your collar.

The audiences eyes weren't just on Shawn Michaels and Triple H, but rather you, dressed in that black leather thong and bra.

Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross pretended to be shocked sitting at the commentary table, their eyes nearly bugging out of their sockets.

Jerry Lawler was smiling from ear to ear and shrieking his throat out over you half naked, whereas Jim was at a loss for words.

The males in the audience are getting a massive kick out of you dressed in that thong and bra, cheering even louder when you strolled to the ring, a few of them even making "wolf whistles" at you.

The camera was zooming in on your neck having a collar wrapped around it as well as thin little chains attached to it, showing the people watching it on television what you have around your neck.

Despite that you had a collar around your neck and was being pulled by chains, you weren't crawling on all fours to the ring like a dog, that would be even more degrading.

Your facial expression you had on your face wasn't like you were embarrassed, but you kept a straight, serious face, your mouth having a slight smirk on it.

You marched and strolled down that ring like you weren't nervous or embarrassed, almost walking like you were proud.

When you, Triple H and Shawn had approached the ring, you lifted one of your feet off of the floor and placed it on the trampoline, only to slide yourself under the ropes.

Triple H and Shawn followed suit, lifting their feet off of the floor and planting their feet on the trampoline.

Their fingers wrapped around and grabbed one of the upper ropes, lifting that rope over their heads and ducked their head under that rope.

You as well as Triple H and Shawn lifted your other foot off of the floor and placed it on the trampoline, lifting both of their feet as well as yours over the ropes.

Triple H and Shawn let go of the ropes, where they walked towards the middle of the ring, still holding on to the chains attached to your collar, where you walked behind Trips and Shawn, walking behind them.

When you, Shawn and Triple H stood in the middle of the ring, eventually Shawn pulled a microphone out of his pocket and turned it on by his thumb pushing the volume to the "on" switch, putting that microphone up to his lips.

"Cut the music!" Shawn shouted, to which D Generation X's entrance music stopped playing.

The camera filmed down your body, examining your body again.

"Are those chains around her neck?" Jerry Lawler asked.

Some women and teen girls in the audience are absolutely disgusted seeing you having those chains on your neck.

Shawn and Triple H proceeded to cut a promo in the ring, whereas you were looking at them both smiling and grinning at them.

Soon, you sunk yourself down until your head was in front of Triple H's crotch, you were squatting in the middle of the ring.

The camera zoomed in on you in front of Triple H's crotch as well as Triple H's hands unbuttoning his jeans, which got a massive shriek and pop from the females in the audience.

He then pulled the zipper of his jeans down, though he really wasn't gonna expose himself on television.

"She's not gonna do what I think she'll do?" Jerry asked.

Right after he said that, while you had a grin plastered to your face, you leaned into Triple H's crotch and buried your face into the fly area of his jeans, your face and mouth looked like you were giving him a blowjob.

Despite that his cock wasn't really in your mouth (though you wish it was), you were pretending to look like you really were giving him head.

This made the audience's jaws drop, their eyes bugging wide, many of the men in the audience cheering and roaring for you, some of them even wolf whistling at you.

"By Gawd!" Jim Ross said, pretending to be shocked.

Your hands grabbed onto the sides of Triple H's jeans, though you didn't pull his jeans down.

Triple H didn't have any underwear on under his jeans, so it looked like he really was getting blown.

The camera zoomed out and filmed you looking like you're giving head, showing the back of your head in front of Triple H's crotch whereas Triple H pretended to act like he was getting a blowjob, his eyes rolling around his head and leaning his head back, sometimes even moaning.

The camera filmed you from behind as well as on your sides.

You swallowed whilst pretending to suck Triple H's dick, acting like you're gulping his cum down.

The camera zoomed on the side of your neck and head while you gulped.

"I think I saw her swallow!" Shawn exclaimed, pointing to your neck, which got the people in the audience cheering for this. "You could poke an eye out with that thing and she's taking it down her throat!"

Shawn then pointed to Triple H's crotch when he mentioned how you can poke an eye out with the massive size of Triple H's penis.

Triple H's hands joined together a few inches above his crotch and formed an "x" shape at his wrists.

"Suck it!" he exclaimed, slightly thrusting his crotch forward in your face.

The audience got a massive pop from this, especially the males, getting out of their seats and cheering for Triple H shouting that, a few men's hands forming "x" shapes in front of their crotches and crotch chopping in solidarity.

Shawn has been was cornered around you and Trips, looking down at you and smiling from ear to ear.

Shawn cackled after he heard Triple H shout DX's iconic signature catchphrase, cackling like Ted Debiase Sr.'s iconic laugh.

"Maybe she can suck me off too!" Shawn stated, which got another huge pop from the audience, both male and female.

Men were roaring and cheering for Shawn whereas women were shrieking.

Triple H's eyes looked at Shawn while his mouth smirked hearing Shawn's suggestion.

"Wait a minute!" Triple H interrupted, to which his eyes turned back to you looking like you're blowing him off.

Triple H's hands separated from each other and made chopping motions at his cum gutters as they're known, his hands forming a "v" shape line this time.

Triple H doesn't need to shout what this gesture means, the audience knows about it already.

Your eyes continued to look up at Triple H, your eyes wide and doe-like, sometimes your mouth even moaning whilst you pretended to suck him off.

After a while, Shawn tapped you on your shoulder, which made you turn your head and look at Shawn.

Shawn's hands joined together and formed an "x" shape above his crotch, his mouth smiled from ear to ear.

You know what that means now.

You then walked on your knees on the trampoline to Shawn, where he proceeded to unbutton and unzip his jeans.

This made the women in the audience get out of their seats and shriek, hoping to see his penis.

Shawn's hands then formed an "x" shape at the wrist above his crotch again, not needing to even shout "suck it!".

With a grin on your face, you leaned your face to his crotch and buried your face in the unzipped area of his jeans, where you looked like you were giving him a blowjob, but surprisingly wasn't.

Like Triple H, Shawn wasn't wearing any underwear under his jeans, this helped this storytelling look more realistic.

Speaking of Triple H, Trips was zipping his jeans back up and buttoning his pants, much to the dismay of the women in the audience.

Shawn leaned his head back and pretended to look like you really were giving him head, pretending to have an orgasm, closing his eyes and smiling.

The audience was cheering for you sucking him off, some men in the audience were even chanting "suck it!" over and over again as well as crotch chopping along with it.

Shawn shut his eyes and bit his bottom lip while you pretended to give him head, your throat still swallowing nothing but air.

Triple H was smiling and laughing while he watched you looking like you're giving Shawn a blowjob.

As you were implied to give Shawn head, you moaned as you pretended to suck him off, and even Shawn quietly moaned a bit too.

Shawn's hands separated from each other and made chopping motions at his cum gutters, his hands forming a "v" shape.

He smiled from ear to ear and even laughed a bit while doing this.

You know what that gesture means, and you still continued "sucking it" as well as swallowing, although you weren't really swallowing anything.

Shawn was trying to really act like he was getting a blowjob, Triple H was trying to act like that too previously when you were sucking him off, despite that the audience can't really see either of their cocks getting sucked.

"Do I taste good?" Shawn asked you, raising and straightening his head and looking down at you.

You nodded your head, the camera cutting to you nodding your head and your eyes looking up at the Heartbreak Kid.

"What about Hunter?" Shawn asked.

You nodded your head again, the camera cutting to you nodding your head.

Despite Shawn and Triple H not climaxing, much to the dismay of the audience, Shawn zipped his jeans back up and buttoned his pants, one of his hands pretending to put his penis back in his pants.

"Now, do you have anything to say?" Shawn asked to the microphone, only to then point the microphone to your face.

You were in between Shawn and Triple H, who were standing in the ring on their feet, whereas you were standing on your knees in the middle of the ring.

Shawn and Triple H's microphones were positioned at their crotches and pointing at your face, meant to look like penises.

The camera cut to you standing on your knees in the ring with 2 microphones pointing at your face, you wrapped your fingers around both of the microphones, making it look like you have 2 cocks in your face.

As you said something into the microphones, you stuck your tongue on the corner of your mouth, where your tongue proceeded to lick the microphone Triple H was holding like the mike was his penis.

The audience's eyes were growing wide and bugging out in shock whereas their jaws were dropping in gasps, Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross both pretended to be shocked at the commentary table.

"I-is she licking that microphone?" Jerry asked.

No duh!

Your tongue caressed and stroked the tip of his microphone, roaming around the microphone as well as curling around it, and you didn't just lick that microphone, but you wrapped your lips around that microphone and put it in your mouth, where you started sucking that microphone.

This got another massive pop from the audience, males in the audience cheering and filling the arena with cheers, roars and wolf whistles.

Triple H and Shawn's eyes bugged out, the 2 of them pretending to be shocked and slightly jumping back, but at the same time they were loving this.

Their mouths spread wide ear-to-ear smiles and they were even laughing a bit, they didn't mind you doing this.

Triple H turned the microphone off by pulling the volume switch down with his thumb.

You want to pump your hands up and down the microphones shafts like they're penises, but you're afraid that you'll turn the microphones on.

The tip of Shawn's microphone nudged into your face, and your head turned to now lick and suck on Shawn's mic this time.

The tip of Shawn's microphone had entered your mouth, where you sucked on that microphone, your lips sliding down the tip of the microphone.

You didn't just suck that microphone, but again, licked it, licking up and down as well as horizontally back and forth, your tongue caressing and roaming on that microphone.

Triple H moved a few steps forward to your face, his microphone nudging your face now this time, and your tongue moved to lick on Triple H's microphone as well.

You wish Billy Gunn, who was then in the New Age Outlaws, could be in this moment as well, so you could lick and suck the microphone positioned over his crotch, though you don't mean microphone as in penis.

The camera eventually cut to commercial break, this was getting too hot for TV.

You entering the ring in a leather bra and thong (and worse, having a collar wrapped around your neck while 2 men held those chains attached to that collar like you were a literal dog) caused a massive uproar of controversy, especially amongst feminists, complaining this is degrading to women.

Plus, there was another uproar over you looking like you're giving head to Triple H and Shawn Michaels as well as licking and sucking their microphones like they're actual penises.

Like I said before, the Attitude era was Histrionic Personality Disorder television (and maybe antisocial personality disorder and oppositional defiant disorder TV too).

Many of the things you did during the Attitude era made you seem like someone with Histrionic Personality Disorder as well as helped define why the Attitude era was histrionic personality disorder TV.

The thing is, this moment with you in the leather bra and thong and pretending to give head and what not is tame compared to some of the other things you did during the Attitude era...

[william-nylander]

rough day at work, could i maybe request your favorite times willy interacted with his teammates with massive heart eyes?

hi sorry for the delay here is a list of my favourite willy heart eyes moments

we’ll start with this video where the editing team incorrectly label adrian kempe as mario kempe (which is fair they both look like hot raccoons) and willyum is drinking from the smallest espresso cup and oskar lindblom already wishes he lied & said he had plans for the day

i have decided that they should have like a sitcom where adrian & oskar are neighbours and willy is their new neighbour. they have a fun meet cute in the mail room & adrian & oskar both are like I Will Seduce The New Neighbour and the show is full of their silly attempts while willy wanders around clueless. the season finale *spoilers!!* ends with them ALL dating 

i MEAN!!!!!!!

heres the sitch willy is a high school hockey STAR but he’s failing drama or something. this is maybe an episode of life with derek. david is the NEW EXCHANGE KID who accidentally signs himself up for the school play. they are cast as ROMEO AND JULIET. it is the best even though willy forgets his lines and after the show they make out at the cast party 

while the vibe of this pic is very Handsum Suit Men the vibe of willy/goat is extremely tall big man freddie puts willy in his pocket while he gardens. i think willy is like a cat in the sunlight just basking around and sometimes surfacing to rub his face on goat’s knee and ask for attention. goat makes them a salad straight from his garden for dinner and then they watch HGTV until they fall asleep

the vibe of willy/kappy is always just so like “accidentally touched ur dick bro oh whoops now im giving u a blow job whoops broooo” so i feel like they get to be side characters in a television drama. like kappys neighbour is Going Through Stuff & every once and awhile, for comic relief, the character sees the two of them like dunking each other in a pool or walking down the hallway at school with their arms around each other. they never like. Get It. always just like “i love u bro” “bro i love YOU”

on the other hand zach and willy are ALL rom coms. willy pines after zach in every single iteration of them on screen. are they 27 dresses??? willy who’s always the bridesmaid never the bride and zach who is the journalist who falls for them???? is willy disaster bridget jones and zach is standoffish colin firth???? all of the above but think, if you will - zach as gabriella montez, new smart kid, and willy as troy bolton, basketball star

willy/nicke.......i mean. they just scream regency. its all very Willy Sent Away To Finishing School, comes back and marries the earl whatsit who is nicke. nicke knew the nylanders and always got along with lil william & it would be weird but its the OLDEN TIMES so marrying someone much younger than u is fine or whatever. god the 2017 world championship huh????

HEY SPEAKING OF MORALLY GREY RELATIONSHIPS u know this video ive watched 18 times and theres a lot of heart eyes all around. my favourite thing to think about is a sorta matt santos west wing au where kyles running for president i guess and willys the waiter that hooked up with him awhile ago who’s along for the ride. they kinda fell into this relationship and now GASP its all a scandal and kyle’s having to run for president while also maintain his relationship with Known Cutie Will Nye while willy has to like. u know in what a girl wants when amanda bynes has to learn how to be a socialite? its like that in a montage.

last but not least this cute moment that pierre engvall is screwing up a bit. he kinda looks like a statue here. anyways freddie willy is SO CUTE bc willy is not shy at all not even once & i think when he decides that he likes freddie he goes ALL OUT & freddie sort of turtles all pleased. like sweater paws, eyes down, smiley man, like still BIG freddie but a bit of a flushed sweetie and willys just like :D :D :D :D NOTICE ME LETS DATE

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

From Michael Hutchence to a Pirate: Why Luke Arnold's Career Is Sailing Smoothly

Luke Arnold has been working steadily as an actor in Australia for years, with roles on Winners & Losers and Rush, but the gig that really put him in the spotlight this year was his turn as Michael Hutchence in the two-part telemovie INXS: Never Tear Us Apart. Luke was praised for his performance as the iconic rock star, and now he's returning to the small screen as another familiar character: Long John Silver in the Starz action drama Black Sails. 

The show takes place before the events in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, in the 1700s during the Golden Age of Piracy. There's a lot that happens in the pilot, including how Silver gets roped into the pirate industry, the set-up of a plan to find the ultimate treasure, and the battle for captaincy of the ships. There's also a lot of action and a little bit of pirate lovin'.

We caught up with Luke in Sydney yesterday ahead of the show's premiere on Showcase tonight at 9:40 p.m. to discuss the most fun thing about playing a pirate, what he took away from the experience of playing Michael Hutchence, and the craziest Hollywood party he's been to. 

Hint: it was at a famous socialite's house.

POPSUGAR Australia: Where are you based these days?

Luke Arnold: Cape Town, while we shoot Black Sails, and that's about seven months of the year. I have a couple of boxes of things in Cape Town, a couple of boxes of things in Melbourne, LA, same thing. Everywhere there's a guitar and a box of basics.

PS: How did you get the role?

LA: So for years I was going to LA once or twice a year, and it just kind of happened that I got cast in Black Sails. I did one audition with the casting director, then met the showrunner, the creator, did one more audition, and then got signed to the show! But when I was signed to it they still didn't know what character I was going to play. They said, "You're a pirate, you're on the show, but we'll work out who you are later on."

PS: So did you test for a few different pirates?

LA: Yeah. Well I auditioned for just Vane, one of the other roles, and never actually auditioned for Silver. They went, 'It depends who else we cast,' and they found Zach McGowan for Vane and so I became Silver.

PS: What's the most fun thing about playing a pirate?

LA: I think it's that you're allowed to be a pirate in real-life, a little bit. You kind of get an excuse, and almost an expectation, to be a little rowdier, maybe a little drunker, in day-to-day life. So yeah, I think that's that.

PS: Which scenes do you enjoy filming the most?

LA: The writers on the show are really fantastic, and also really going for poetry a lot. They're really writing some amazing stuff, and I think that's what you wait for; occasionally you just get these speeches that are beautiful to say, and you can really sink your teeth into. And at the same time I love a big action scene where I've got nothing to say, and just stuff to do. I don't know which I like more, but it's nice to be on a show where you get both. One day I'll just be running up and down a ship that's blowing up, and the next day you get a five-page monologue.

PS: What are those big actions scenes like? Is this the largest scale thing you've done in terms of production?

LA: Absolutely it is. This is one of the biggest television shows ever made, and while there's a lot of visual effects, we have the real ships and the real towns, and we blow up a lot of stuff. So it's amazing. And what's fun — we've done two seasons of Black Sails — is you still never get used to walking onto a new set. Or when you bring in someone else to check out the set for the first time, it's a nice reminder where you're like, 'Oh that's right, this is amazing.' It's just a huge playground we get to play with on the show.

PS: I noticed the director of the pilot is Neil Marshall, who's known for directing the big battle episodes for Game of Thrones. What was it like working with him?

LA: It was fantastic. And that's his trademark, really, he does big action stuff for TV. So having him for Black Sails was fantastic.

PS: I feel like there's a lot that happens in the first episode. What can you tell me about John Silver's story?

LA: There's a lot going on, and I do think the first half of season one is really setting the stage in a lot of ways. Even though the pirate story has been around for ages, because we're doing a grittier, more real, historically-accurate version, there is a lot of setting the scene, and establishing what this world really is. But for John Silver, well I'm the one who's not a pirate. I'm the one guy, when we begin the show, that isn't invested in this pirate world. Everyone else, it's high stakes, they're really serious and they've got big plans, and for Silver, he just wants to get his handful of gold, and then head off to the next place. I think he realises that it's a pretty dumb career choice, if you can avoid becoming a pirate. It's dangerous; it kind of sucks, really! It's not a fun life. So I think the kind of lightness that John has at the beginning comes from that, that he's not invested in this world and he's breezing through.

But the story for him, really, is knowing that it is about him being sucked into this world, becoming one of the crew, and eventually becoming Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

PS: What kind of prep did you have to do for the role? Were you familiar with the character from Treasure Island?

LA: Yeah. I think he's the kind of character that's permanently in pop culture, in a lot of ways since Treasure Island happened. So I'd read the book before, but I'd also seen Muppet Treasure Island, and some of the other versions. And you feel like that character has been referenced in so many other cartoons and things, so it was very familiar. I then did a lot of character research. Also, we all had to go back and look at all the historical stuff, to try and get out of our heads the stereotypes, the clichés, what pirates have become over years of storytelling, and instead try and go back to who these men and women really were.

PS: I also read that physically it was quite a lot of prep?

LA: Yeah, it was. I had a few weeks of training on my own, then we did like a three-week pirate boot camp in Cape Town. It was really full on. It was a mixture of training in the gym, fight training, sailing ships, taking all the modern rigging off and just doing it by hand. It was just exhausting. In a way it's different on a film because you've got longer to shoot any particular scene, you can put the stunt doubles in, you can work it out. We're shooting a big budget movie every couple of weeks, so we have to just do it, and do it over and over. If we hadn't done all this training, I wouldn't be able to do the job. You wouldn't be able to use any angles on me — like after two times of climbing rope up the side of the ship, I don't even know if I could've done it once before the training. But now, we'll do it 30, 50 times in a day.

PS: Do you still like working out in your spare time?

LA: At the end of season one I was really addicted to it. I actually think the rock star stuff got me out of the habit, because I almost had to stop training, and stop eating to play Michael Hutchence.

PS: So you did Black Sails first?

LA: Yep. I did season one of Black Sails, then did Never Tear Us Apart, then season two of Black Sails. That got me out of the habit, then I had to get back in the habit for season two. I do still enjoy it, but I'm not like a big gym junkie. I would more enjoy kicking up with beers in the mid-afternoon in the sun. But even though the first part of training was tough, I never felt as good as I did when I was at the peak of physical health, and feeling good and eating right. It's just the pain to get to that point — you have to go through that pain to get to the point where you feel really good.

PS: As you do get to shoot in such amazing locations, do you get much time off to relax?

LA: A lot, actually. We only ever shoot a five-day week — sometimes we do six days — but mostly it's a five-day week, and it's an ensemble show, so any day we're not shooting, which is often, we'll generally be rehearsing the next episode, or going off to do costume stuff. It means we do get a lot of half-days, and days off. And Cape Town is a beautiful place for be for time off. The only problem is it's a long way away, so even if you do get a few days off, it's not like you'll go, 'Oh, I'll go visit the family.' We're stuck there. But we definitely get enough downtime, and it's recovery time as well. When we do the big fight scenes, it's like being beaten up for 16 hours, so often we do just need that day. They work us hard when we're working, but the time off in between gives us a chance to recover.

PS: I was going through your Twitter recently and saw Never Tear Us Apart aired in the US recently. What was the reception like to that? Do you even know how people reacted?

LA: It was the same as the Australian one: mostly just on Twitter. I've had a lot of really positive response. You get all the INXS fans coming out of the woodwork, taking the effort to say how much they enjoyed it, my performance and the show. So that's been really great. It's kind of airing over a few weeks there, so it's rolling out and people are still discovering it; obviously it didn't have the same publicity push that we had here. It's nice for the show to get a really good response in the American market.

PS: What's the biggest thing you took away from your experience of playing that role?

LA: It was about how important the people you work with are. They talk about film as a collaborative medium, and it absolutely is. I know that Never Tear Us Apart, there are so many ways it could have not worked. It worked because every single person, from the unit guys who arrived first to set up with the crew area, to everyone involved with props and costume — everyone cared so much. No one was just treating it like a job. And that is why it turned out being as good as it is, because everyone went above and beyond the call of duty to make it great. And I think that was the biggest thing, to see that. And I didn't think I was going to enjoy it; like I really wanted the role, but I thought the pressure of the whole thing was going to make it stressful the whole time. But I had so much fun, and that was just by being around so many passionate people.

PS: Who's on your wish list to work with as a co-star, or director, or producer?

LA: Ooh. There are lots. The actors I'm really loving at the moment: Jeff Bridges and Sam Rockwell are guys I'm looking at as other actors, where you feel you learn so much just from watching them. I'm sure working with them would be really amazing. It's tough to say with directors, because there's so many. The wish list is so big these days. [Martin] Scorsese is always my absolute idol of directors. It's constantly changing, especially in the TV world.

PS: Which TV shows are you obsessed with at the moment?

LA: I'm watching quite a few: Hannibal, House of Cards. Louie is, I think, my all-time favourite show at the moment. And I am a Game of Thrones fan as well. And Breaking Bad, I still think it's the best show that's been on television.

PS: And the Emmys are tomorrow! Are you still into watching things like that?

LA: Yeah! But actually it's funny, less now that we're in TV. It's like, really, you go for the parties, and after-parties, really. Black Sails won two Emmys this year, because we had the Creative Arts Emmys already, so we got the special in visual effects and the sound editing. So we're now an Emmy Award-winning show.

PS: Have you been to any crazy or memorable Hollywood parties?

LA: The first week I was ever in LA, which was about five years ago, like the first weekend I was there, I ended up at Paris Hilton's house at a party. It was like the cliché, LA . . . Like it was my first week and I was meeting people, and they were like, "So, how are you doing in LA, are you settling in?" I was like, "Yeah, I was at Paris Hilton's house on the weekend!" They were like, "Oh, OK, you've settled in fine, then."

PS: Have you seen The Bling Ring?

LA: It's exactly like that. Yeah. When they're walking through, and they've got the club with the poles, it was the same thing. There's like a tequila dispenser in the walls, where you just hold your glass and get shots of tequila. And her face is on everything.

Source: PopSugar Au

[fictionalnormalcy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1xYrCg0CVE

*rubs hands

All right, I have entered analysis mode. For this post, of the new Steven Universe Future trailer that was released. Now I would just to alert ahead of time, that these upcoming theories expressed are not entirely mine. I bet a lot of us have this on our mind. I am just giving my two cents on this. I have provided a link to the trailer above should you like some insight before reading ahead into the analysis. It is a mere thirty seconds, but man it’s a lot of mind-blowing images packed into the video. There are spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

SPOILERS, TURN BACK NOW IF NOT SEEN

Now, we all remember how the movie ended right? Steven has come to the realization that he will always have work to do, but has also acknowledged that for now he’ll enjoy his happily ever after. When we were given the first teaser trailer, we see that Steven has changed his shirt once again to the same one his dad wore in the flashback episodes. He can now drive, and Little Homeworld has been completed. Then we’re given a single glance of the hardships to come. 

There are so many theories that came out of this image. It’s one that leaves you purely shocked. That fact that every single being had glowing eyes. Jasper is still nefarious, even after two years have passed. White Diamond seems to be coming undone. There are two new Lapis Lazulis to be introduced to. A new fusion with the wings of an Aquamarine and the distinct hair of a Ruby. A strange cactus creature that has four heads, all in the shape of Steven. And what was believed to be the source of it all, is the mysterious gigantic caterpillar in the back, which has the odd shape of Steven’s nose. 

One of the biggest theories I came upon was the corrupted Steven theory. A factor I found most supporting to the theory was a comic I saw for Goretober. Featuring Jasper and Steven. A confrontation where she tells him something similar to what we saw in this current trailer, where she’ll never see Steven as her diamond. Jasper forcibly fuses with Steven, and because there are permanent marks of corruption, he’s affected as well. Which is how he turns into the caterpillar, and is believed to put those other beings under his control as well. 

The cactus is, a little strange, to be frank. The simplest explanation seems to be that Steven somehow licks or bites into a cactus, and it turns into the creature. The Watermelon Stevens and Pumpkin are proof enough. I just don’t know what would make Steven use his powers on a prickly cactus of all things.

I included this image, as reference for what is seen in the newly released trailer. 

We’re introduced to another storyline. There is a new gem, which appears to be a Rose Quartz that was once corrupted. Steven is showing her around, and from the looks of it, giving her a tour of Little Homeworld to see if she would want to stay. Telling her how everyone is free to be who they want to be. But then, it seems to change. We start hearing the faint echoes of his voice, everything seems to descend into chaos. We’re reintroduced to characters that I bet a lot of us wondered where they were during the course of the movie. So we are getting some clarification. The Amethysts and Jaspers have come to Earth, Yellow Pearl posing as a model with Vidalia teaching an art class. Pink Pearl’s eye continues to be cracked, and her outfit still displaying the color of her Diamond. 

The first trailer, gave us the illusion that things were going to be sunshine and rainbows, with the single still portraying the conflict to come. As for this second trailer, I would have to say that there’s a lot more going on that is going to leave us fans emotionally wrecked. 

Oh, and I just want to give a big thanks to Kimberly Brooks for providing such a fantastic voice for Jasper. I am fangirling about this because I think of the other character she voiced, Princess Allura from the reboot of DreamWorks Voltron, and I am very impressed at the drastic change in voice. Okay, moving on.

Of the beings we saw in the single image shown above, only Jasper and the fusion are included in the new trailer. We only get the fusion of Aquamarine and Eyeball for a few seconds, but they seem to be in the temple. Jasper, however, is best expressed as the largest conflict in this trailer. I feel that they included these three gems because the SU Crew would like us to see who still has a bone to pick with Steven and the rest of the Crystal Gems. But I think what really caught my attention the most, that seemed to fuel most of the dramatic parts we saw in the trailer, was what was happening to Steven. And let me just say, from the little we were given, I can make a vague guess as to why Zach Callison says this in an interview: “I hate to do this but the hardest scene I’ve done I did a few weeks ago and I can’t talk about it for quite a while.” I can bet that we’ll be seeing it in the epilogue series.

Jasper, from what we can guess, hasn’t been living in Little Homeworld or in Beach City. Nor has she returned to Homeworld. From what I can perceive, she took some time to herself, and has finally returned. In Battle of Heart and Mind, we see that she clearly needs some time to take in the new things that were uncovered. The biggest being that Steven had Pink Diamond’s gem. And judging from how she returned, Jasper is still as bitter as ever. She still harbors resentment toward Steven, but we don’t see if she wishes to enact revenge or strike at Steven in a different way.

The best we can tell, is that she does want to pick a fight with Steven. And only him. That looks like her foot pushing down on him when he goes fully pink.

There’s a screenshot someone made of Pearl stepping in front of Pink Pearl, defending her from someone. That someone is believed to be Steven. Following on that theory, it leads me to think that it may have been Pink Diamond’s fault that Pink Pearl’s eye was irreversibly damaged. Her cracked eye may not have come from an event that occurred while she was under White Diamond’s control. When we saw her in the Diamond Days episodes, I was under the impression that she had hurt herself while under White’s control, and that White had never allowed her to heal. But judging from how two years have passed and her eyes still continues in that condition, I have to accept that it’s permanent.

There’s another scene where we see Pink Pearl staring at Pink Diamond wistfully. I have a statement to make. Pearl had a crush on Rose Quartz. Pink Pearl had a crush on Pink Diamond. I’ll leave it at that.

I am most psyched, about the fact that Steven turns pink. I feel like it’s further fuel to the corrupted Steven theory, but the trailer provided a more frightening aspect. The trailer as a whole, just seemed to show Steven, unraveling. I mean, why would he suddenly turn off the video his mother made for him with a panicked look on his face. I don’t quite get the vibe that he’s trying to hide it from someone. The echoes of his voice, especially that “Soon we’ll be able to put the past behind us,” the way it kept repeating in the glitched out manner... I really think he’s saying that to reassure himself. Only one more struggle to go through.

A lot of people are suggesting that Steven is getting angry enough that Pink Steven is taking over. I actually, do not think that’s the case.

He looks wholeheartedly Steven. Pink Steven in Battle of Heart and Mind had an empty look and glasslike eyes. What I do agree on, is the rage. Now, Steven being the cinnamon roll that he is, it was quite an awakening when we saw what he was capable of when angry. I want to say that the first sign we see that he can spiral out of control was when he started having Diamond dreams and confronted the gems about it. They weren’t necessarily afraid of him in that aspect, but his outburst of how he hated them keeping secrets from him made everyone squirm in their seats.

But going Pink? This takes it to a whole new level. I can see where the Gem Steven taking over comes from. When we see that piece of Steven, it seemed relatively emotionless.

The anger it portrayed expresses how much unbridled power Steven holds. I mean, when he gets legitimately angry there is damage. When Pink Steven went off, with that single shouted phrase he incapacitated WD and all of the hypnotized gems. Almost knocking over Human Steven and Connie as all. The only emotion that Gem Steven Can seem to express, is anger. 

I’m going to steer a little off track, but I swear this will relate to the trailer analysis later. So we were given a foreshadow in the episode where the gems meet Steven for the first time around Christmas. Where they wind up kidnapping him because they didn’t know how to handle a gem-human hybrid. Amethyst says that it was just Rose shapeshifting, which she had done. Pearl thinks Rose is trapped inside, and comes very close to pulling out Steven’s gem. The closest anyone got was Garnet. Saying it was fusion, and it was. Since Steven is half human half gem, there are literally two separate beings combined to make the Steven Universe we know and love.

We see as much when we see that Steven’s human half cannot survive if not supported by the gem half. It reminds me of the crystal shards, and like Garnet says, are pieces of a gem struggling to find the rest of themselves. The shards express one emotion. Desperation. We see Human Steven displaying this as he tries to crawl to his gem half even when he can’t even stand on his own two feet. He’s a fusion, and as seen through most, there are a variety of those emotions running through the combined being. If you pay attention to most fusions, whether when they’re solid or just short of coming undone, you can perceive who is communicating based on the dialogue exchanged. Garnet when saying that they must forgive Pearl. Stevonnie when saying they had to beat Kevin. Malachite when saying they were pathetic. Alexandrite when saying for the two of them to cut it out. You start to get a distinct voice of who is influencing the fusion. 

Perhaps there’s a chance, that when Steven turns Pink, it’s the only aspect that Gem Steven can express. It’s the only opportunity for it to express its own control over the fusion. This theory is fragile at best. It still does leave you wondering why only now is Gem Steven starting to express itself by having the fusion turn completely pink. 

These two images, made me think of a separate theory. Still somewhat involved with Steven going full on Pink. There was also another image where we see Pink Pearl with a blank look in her eye and the crack spreading across her hair and face. 

You know, I feel there’s a reason that they have Steven wearing black. It’s because he’s going to become the darkest we’ve ever seen him. There are THREE instances in the 30 second trailer alone, that show us Steven doesn’t just turn Pink once. And we certainly aren’t given the impression that this is just some new power Steven unfolded. This seems to say, that Steven has finally been pushed to the limit. You have entered him into a vengeful state, and he can be considered a threat to others. 

And honest to gods, I do not think Jasper is the sole cause of this release of unrelenting rage.

After this split second image, we do get to see that Steven has regret for what he seemingly just did, cracking a screen of some sort. His hands are cupped over his mouth and there are tears in his eyes. It’s a direct parallel to what his mother did when he had the Diamond dream as Stevonnie. 

It could suggest that at first he isn’t control of when he turns Pink, but soon enough he accepts the rage, and unleashes it. 

Lot of drama coming. Man, Steven Universe has come a long way.

[keepingupwithfundies]

Bringing Up Bates Season 7 Episode 35: Blue or Pink, What do you think?

A gender reveal, another advertisement and the beginning of the engagement adventure. 

If you have trouble with the “Keep Reading,” try clicking HERE. 

-T 

It is time for Tori and Bobby’s Gender Reveal party. Erin planned it and Tori and Bobby know the gender but have not told anyone. Erin told them not to tell her because she might give it away. Everyone hounds Tori and Bobby to tell them. Everyone gets pink or blue clips to say if they think it will be a girl or a boy. They then pray and have pizza and snacks, and the whole family is together.  They ask the family in talking heads and boy has a slight edge.  Everyone then gets the corresponding colored cupcake for their guess. They ask the younger ones if they will have more gender reveal ideas by the time they have kids; the boys want to drop things out of planes and blow up colored chalk while Ellie says she won’t tell. At the party, the family gathers around on the grass. Tori will toss a balloon with colored powder and Bobby will hit it with a baseball bat and it will pop and reveal the sex. Tori worries about throwing it to the wrong place, and the Bates are worried it won’t explode.  Bobby is worried he’ll miss. However, all goes well and they reveal that it is a boy. Trace smashes his blue cupcake on Bobby and the family celebrates. Tori and Bobby reveal he will be Robert Ellis Smith IV and they will call him Cade or Kade [they’ve spelled it both ways on social media so one of the two]. Tori and the family talk about how she wanted a boy first and they are excited for her.

At the Balka house, the family is talking about engagement plans. Kelton tells his sister the Utah plan and then talks about the sentimental stuff he wants to put into it. He wants to have stops about their relationship- best friends, serious, courtship, engagement- each stop pre-staged with pictures and a letter.  He got a bracket with an airplane and then at each stop there will be another charm to add. The first says “best friends,”  then the next is a coffee cup for serious because they went to coffee shops all the time. He’d like to give her that one in a coffee shop. For courtship he has a bridge for the covered bridge. The last one is an infinity sign. Kelton has put a lot of thought into this. The proposal will happen in a Jeep 4 by 4 tour of one of the national parks. Kelton is going to ask the tour company to help them set something up at the park, and his sister Ariana suggests asking them about a coffee shop as well. Kelton is excited for the big day.

Whitney and Zach feed their kids Honey Nut Cheerios [more native advertising] and talk about what they have left to do for the vow renewal. They’re getting flowers and other stuff all lined up. Whitney talks about how good the cereal is and Bradley says he likes Cheerios with milk and a spoon. Next they will bring the kids to the grandparents and begin getting stuff done.

Kelton goes to the florist to pick up pink roses. He is so nervous and tells the sales attendant his plans. He goes to Josie’s salon where she is sweeping up with flowers in hand. He is ready to surprise her. He brings her the flowers and she is surprised to see him.  Kelton says the bad news is that her next client won’t be showing up- it’s a fake appointment. The good news is they’re going on a trip. Josie says she doesn’t love surprises but she’s more patient with Kelton. They ask her to guess and she says Utah? and she is so excited. They head off.

[theprocrastinatingalien]

Who could/should take the lead when Rick Grimes leaves THE WALKING DEAD?

Well, that was a long title. 

The internet is still riled up with the news that Andrew Lincoln is leaving THE WALKING DEAD by the end of the upcoming ninth season... some fans calling for the show to end with his exit.

The show will likely carry on though, and this begs the question - who should take over as the lead character?

Well, firstly, I think there's quite a lot decent characters in the series, and the show doesn't need a 'lead' anymore. Make it an ensemble. But ignoring that idea, I'm now going to list TEN potential leads once Rick Grimes vacates the spot.

1. DARYL DIXON

This is obviously the basket AMC are putting all their eggs into.  News reports state that actor Norman Reedus is being officer $20m to stay on and become the show's next lead. In some respects, this makes sense.  Reedus IS the next billed actor behind Lincoln, so his name would naturally come next... and Daryl Dixon is easily one of the most popular characters on the show... but is Daryl really a 'leader'?  Not really.  He's a supporting character, and adds muscle, grit and attitude... but can you see him making rousing speeches to prep the communities?  Nope.   So far, I haven't seen a single person online that sees this move as a good one. Although (!) I will state that maybe, just maybe, if ALL the leaders are taken out (Rick, Maggie, Ezekiel) by, let's say, their heads on pikes(?) then non-leaders will have to step up... Maybe it *could* work.  Maybe.

2. MAGGIE RHEE

Since before the eighth season had finished airing, word had come that behind the scenes negotiations with Lauren Cohan had fallen apart somewhat. News travelled that the actress was after more money to match her up to Lincoln and Reedus.  She is the third billed star after all, and the highest billed female actor, having been with the series since the second season. AMC didn't seem thrilled by the idea though and things went silent.  Cohan even got herself cast in a pilot for THE WHISKEY CAVALIER, which has since been picked up for a series. Cohan WILL be back for season nine, but I think many fans are sure that it will be her last - and are just waiting for the character to be killed off.  This is bolstered by the fact we've been told she'll get less screen time.   The major blow here is, to me Maggie Rhee is absolutely the best character to lead the series after Rick's exit.  Since she lost her hubby Glenn at the start of the seventh season, she's taken leadership of the Hilltop community, and is more than capable of prepping her people.   Plus she's popular with audiences. I will remain hopeful that we're wrong, and Maggie will be sticking around... maybe with a new leading position?

3. MICHONNE

Danai Gurira' star is certainly on the rise.  Even if you ignore her theatre work, she's in BLACK PANTHER and AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. Now would certainly be time to raise her character up from support to lead.  Michonne's perhaps not the natural born leader that Maggie seems to be, but she's certainly more naturally capable of leadership than Daryl. There are a strain of fans that believe Gurira will also exit this season - meaning Rick, Michonne and Judith can all ride of into the sunset, with a happy ending, rather than death and destruction like normal.  Michonne will take Rick's death pretty bad, and let's not forget, they did just lose Carl.  How will Michonne act if Rick is killed? Let's also note, in the comics, Michonne takes over leadership of The Kingdom following Ezekiel's death, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that she could become leader of the Alexandria Safe Zone.

4.  CAROL PELETIER

Carol, and actress Melissa McBride, are fan favourites, and also another original cast member. She may not have been promoted to the title credits until season four, she got there in the end, and it seemed that she'd been adopting Michonne's comic storyline - partnering her with Ezekiel, and then maybe taking on leadership of the Kingdom following his Alpha death. TWD creator Robert Kirkman has stated there's one character in the show he wouldn't kill, and that would be Carol.  Would it not make sense to make her the show lead?  I'm not sure tbh. I'm not sure Carol is the right character to lead the show, but I'm throwing her into the mix as (next to Daryl) she's the only other character from season one left standing!

5.  NEGAN

I think Jeffrey Dean Morgan is great.   I think he owns every scene he's in, and I think JDM would make for a brilliant lead.  However, Negan is not in a place where he could be the show's lead.  When we last saw him, he'd had his throat cut, and strapped to a bed, and was being given his orders by Rick, that he'd spend the rest of his days in jail. Maybe if this was season twelve... but right now is too soon. Whoever does take leadership will have to deal with Rick's decision to keep Negan alive.

6. KING EZEKIEL

Fans of the comics will know that we're fast approaching Ezekiel's comic book death. However, with Rick definitely on the way out, and Maggie possibly/probably on the way out, maybe - just maybe - the King of the Kingdom will get to survive? If he does, then I have to throw his name into the leadership ring.  Whilst he's relatively new, having only been introduced in the seventh season, the guy is already a leader of a community, and (despite a bit of a breakdown this last season) he's no stranger to a rousing speech. Actor Khary Payton was a brilliant addition to the cast, and whilst his name sits in the 'also stars' territory, I think a lot of fans may accept a quick promotion to the top end of the credits.

7. MAGNA

Season Nine will introduce a few new characters, one particular one being Magna, the leader of a small group that we'll come across .  At the time of writing we don't know who's been cast in the role yet, but with knowledge that they're losing Rick (and possibly some other big names) the showrunners might cast someone with a view of potentially making them a new lead.  Focussing on someone we haven't met yet could help with the next chapter of the show.

8. HEATH

Okay, stick with me and listen this one out.  Back in the show's sixth season, the writers introduced Heath, a fan favourite from the comics.  He only appeared in a handful of episodes and it's believed actor Corey Hawkins would've received a promotion to the regular line-up in season seven.  Hawkins then got himself cast as the lead in 24: LEGACY, taking over star status from Kiefer Sutherland.  Whilst he did return for a one-off episode in season seven, he's been AWOL ever since, quite likely because Hawkins is now a bigger star than the role of Heath would allow. Unless he returns now. With Rick going out, showrunners could bring Heath and Hawkins back with a new upgraded status. No, forget that idea, it was a bit of longshot, I just wanted to throw the idea out there.

9.  SOMEONE COMPLETELY NEW

When other TV series have lost their lead actor, most choose to bring in a completely new character rather than upgrade an existing one.  TWD could do that, and create another exclusive-to-the-series character.  It's worth mentioning that if seems actor Zach McGowan may have joined the cast.  He's a known actor, and it's possibly may have been brought up in add some clout in seeing out Lincoln. He may not be the only one either, so it's something to consider.

IN CONCLUSION...

It seems Andrew Lincoln may be leaving because of the show's decision to kill off Carl, his onscreen son. Ironically, I think most can agree, that Carl would be best character to have taken the lead of the show.  From a narrative point of view, it's have been perfect, but it wasn't meant to be. Ultimately, as much as I'd rather have Lauren Cohan step up to lead as Maggie, AMC will force Daryl Dixon into the leadership role.  With the right story, it could work, or it could end up being a piece in the puzzle that just won't fit.

[thepuckbuddies]

upsetti spaghetti

prompt:  Hey can I have a zach werenski imagine where he proposes? (from anonymous)

player: Zach Werenski, Columbus Blue Jackets

“Hey, babe? I’m home!” You call into the apartment, voice muffled by the scarf wrapped tight around your face to protect you from the howling wind in the streets outside. You pause when you hear a cut-off curse and a clatter from the kitchen nearby. Your boyfriend appears in the doorway, face red and slightly sweaty.

“Oh, hey, (Y/N), what’s up? I didn’t, uh, know you would be home this early!” Zach says, not-so-casually leaning against the doorframe to block your view of the kitchen. His dark hair is mussed on one side, and his clothes are in disarray.

“...yeah, I managed to get away early.” You say, quirking an eyebrow. You move towards the doorway he’s in, and he jumps forward, wrapping one arm around your shoulders and steering you towards the living room. You offer him a confused smile, sure something is up but without any clue as to what it is. He grins back at you and nudges you down on the couch.

“Well, good! Stay right there, I’ll grab you something to drink!” He’s off before you can even say thank you, bustling back into the kitchen. He returns with a glass and a bowl of chips, setting them down. “Here, have the remote, put your feet up, relax!”

“Thanks, babe, but what—” you start. Zach isn’t normally this frantic-cheerful, so you’re kind of worried something’s gone wrong. You stop trying to talk when he leans down to kiss you, running a hand through your hair. You relax into it, feeling the tension leech out of his body too as you rest one hand on his shoulder and one over his heart.

“I’ll be back, okay? Why don’t you put on something to watch?” Zach suggests, leaning back. Shaking your head, you agree and rest back against the arm of the couch, wrapping your arms around a pillow. Zach smiles at you and disappears out of the room, head down as he mutters something to himself.

You’ve only gotten a few minutes into the episode of Scrubs you put on when a heavy thump echoes in the apartment. Worried, you sit up and call out.

“Zach? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, baby, just, uh, slipped! Everything’s fine!”

‘You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah!” You sit back again and frown, reluctantly returning your attention to the TV again, fiddling with the pillow’s edge. Only a few minutes later, you hear him yelp out a curse as there’s another loud crash. That’s enough for you. It was kind of funny watching him try to be subtle while it lasted. but you’re worried he’s going to hurt himself any minute now. Tossing your pillow to the side, you storm across the room.

“Zach, seriously, what is going on? Is something wr—,” you stop in your tracks as you reach the doorway. “Oh.” Zach is staring wide-eyed at you as he tries to cover the mess he’s made. “Oh, boy.”

The kitchen is wrecked, frankly. The stove and the wall behind it is covered in red sauce and there’s dry spaghetti everywhere, scattered across the floor and countertops. There’s at least twenty different dishes piled haphazardly in the sink, and the oven door is wide open, spilling heat out into the room. The source of the crash seems to be the tray of what looks like garlic bread sitting upside down on the floor, its contents forlornly scattered around it. You take in the entire mess and slowly drag your gaze up to where your boyfriend is standing in the middle of it, cheeks bright red.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says immediately. You raise an eyebrow and he winces. “Alright, so it’s as bad as it looks.” He sighs and drops his head, scrubbing a hand through his hair and getting red sauce all through it. “I tried to make dinner for you, but the spaghetti went everywhere and only like half of it went in the pot, then the red sauce overheated and got all over and I think it burned on the bottom, so I was distracted trying to fix that, and then I thought the garlic bread was done so I went to get it out of the oven but I forgot a mitt and I burned my fingers and dropped the tray, so now it’s all over the floor, and—”

You can’t help but start to giggle, only laughing harder when Zach pouts at you.

“This isn’t funny, (Y/N), nothing went right.” He’s frowning at you as you try to stop yourself from laughing, clapping a hand over your mouth, but it’s just so adorable. He’s a mess, but he’s your mess. You smile at him and pull a hand towel from the countertop as you walk over.

“Zach, you don’t have to cook me dinner,” you say, still grinning as you wipe off the worst of the sauce all over his face and hair.

“But—”

“There’s no need to be so upsetti, spaghetti,” you continue.

“You’re the worst,” he laughs, shoulders slumping. He rests his hands on your hips as you finish cleaning him off. You lean up onto your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Oh, am I? I’m the worst? That’s not a very nice thing to say,” you tease. Zach rolls his eyes and pokes at you, laughing as you flinch away, ticklish. “Uh-uh, mister, no way. You’ve got a mess to clean up.” Zach makes a face, scrunching up his nose, hazel eyes bright.

“Alright, alright, I know,” he says mournfully, looking around.

“How about this? I’ll go get takeout from that place we love on 5th while you clean this up and take a shower.”

“I love you, you know that?” Zach says, smiling again.

“I love you, too,” you laugh as you blow him a joking kiss goodbye, wrapping yourself up in your scarf again.

***

You’re greeted at the door of the apartment an hour later by a squeaky clean boyfriend and a soft kiss as he takes your coat and the food from you, wrapping an arm around your waist and guiding you to the living room. You stutter-step as you catch sight of the room.

Everything is bathed in the soft light of what seems like a hundred candles, flickering flames lending a golden glow to the otherwise dark room. Gentle music plays in the background, a mix of acoustic songs that weave guitars in with soft voices. There’s a beautiful bouquet of flowers in the vase on the coffee table, soft sprays of baby’s breath mixed in with rich red roses. Zach grins at your reaction and guides you, stunned, to sit on thick cushions pilfered from the couch to rest on the floor. You turn to blink at Zach, wide-eyed. He shrugs bashfully.

“It would’ve been like this last time, but you came home early.” You laugh and throw your arms around his shoulders, feeling his own come around you to bring you close to his chest.

“It’s beautiful, you romantic sap!” You exclaim, eyes shining as you lean back. “Thank you,” you add, knowing the expression on your face must be the most love-struck thing. You happily dish up the food, splitting the entrees between you as you always do.

The dinner passes in comfortable discussion and laughter as the two of you get entirely wrapped up in each other. Eventually, Zach gets up to gather your plates and shakes his head when you offer to help.

“I’ll be right back, just have to get something from the kitchen,” he says. As he turns to go, you tip your head back to blink up at the ceiling, unable to stop yourself from grinning. You’re so in love with him, it feels like it’s going to burst right out of you. The feeling only intensifies when Zach reappears, waggling his eyebrows as he proudly shows off a little cheesecake made for two. You laugh at his antics and applaud appropriately as he sets down the dessert with a flourish.

The treat doesn’t last long, since both of you have a bit of a weakness for cheesecake, and you soon find yourself laughing as Zach tries to get a bit of chocolate off his cheek with his tongue.

“Come here, dork,” you chuckle, leaning forward. Your palm is warm on his cheek, thumb brushing away the chocolate. As you move to pull away, Zach’s palm covers yours, dark eyes earnest as he leans his head into your hand. His eyelashes flutter as his eyes close, sighing as he turns to press a kiss to your palm.

“Come on,” he says quietly, “Let’s lie down.” He links his fingers with yours and won’t let go, even when there’s some finagling to get you both in the position he wants. He’s flat on his back and you’re tucked between the back of the couch and his chest, head cushioned on his right shoulder and bicep as his arm curls around you, thumb brushing absentmindedly up and down your arm. You’re beginning to drift off to the steady sound of his breathing when he shifts under you.

“(Y/N), can I ask you something?” You lift your head to meet his gaze. Zach looks nervous, brows slightly drawn down and mouth tight.

“Always, babe. What is it?”

“I...never mind.” You furrow your brow.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Zach seems to trying to smooth his expression, but he still looks nervous and a little...something else you’re not sure of. Disappointed? Concerned, you hitch yourself up and look down at him, hair falling a little into your face. He reaches up and tucks it behind your ear.

“You can tell me, you know,” you say, a little pleading.

“I know, baby.”

“I love you.”

“I know, baby.”

“You’re a dork.”

“I know, baby.”

“Can you say anything else?”

“No, baby.”

“Now that’s just cruel,” you pout. Zach cracks a grin and pulls you back down to his chest, pressing his face to your hair.

“I love you, too,” he mutters. You laugh and pat his chest, resting your hand over his heart.

“I know, baby.” The music in the background fills the silence, and the comfort of the night wraps around the two of you as you cuddle together. Eventually, the song changes to a cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon”, and you grin into Zach’s chest as he begins to move his shoulders to the beat.

“Alright, alright, come on,” you say, climbing off him to offer him a hand up, using it to pull him close to you. You link your fingers together and drape your other hand over his right shoulder as he curls his around your waist. Together, you sway to the beat, Zach humming under his breath. You rest your head on his shoulder and begin to quietly sing.

“Come a little bit closer, hear what I have to say. Just like children sleeping, we could dream this night away.” Your voice is nothing to really call home about, but you’re not self-conscious around Zach and don’t mind singing around him when you wouldn’t with others.

The song continues playing as the two of you sway, pressed close together in the middle of your living room. You press a kiss to the bottom of Zach’s jaw and shift back to look him in the eye, smiling softly. Zach looks back at you, fondness written across his expression.

“Marry me,” he says. You blink at him and your lips part in shock.

“What?”

“Marry me, (Y/N),” Zach repeats, that same fond look still on his face. “I’ve never loved anything like I love you.” He extracts himself from your hold but doesn’t let go of your hand. Your free hand flies to your mouth as he drops to the ground on one knee, reaching back to pull out a black box and flick it open one-handed.

You don’t even look at the ring. He’s all you can see.

“Let me spend the rest of my life at your side, (Y/N). Let me be there when you go to bed at night and be the first thing you see in the mornings. Let me try to make you dinner and let me hear you laugh when I fail. Let me be there for your ups and the downs, let me have you with me when I succeed and when I fail. Let me hold you close and let me love you the only when I ever will — wholly and unconditionally. (Y/N), will you marry me?”

Somehow, through the tears on your cheeks, the smile on your face, and the happy laugh bubbling out of your chest, you manage to nod and tell him the truest thing you’ve ever said.

“Yes! Yes, I’d love to marry you!” You barely wait for the ring to slip onto your finger before you’re kissing him senseless, so happy you can barely breathe. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” you keep repeating between kisses, the both of you unable to stop grinning.

“I love you, too,” Zach says, hugging you tight.

You’re not letting go anytime soon.

author’s note: i hope whoever requested this enjoyed it! again, feel free to send in requests if you’d like!

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 3: Cracks and Buds (originally published on December 21, 2020)

Author's note: Like I said last chapter, this will be where things get interesting and diverge a bit from the original version of Future. In addition to merging Rose Buds with Volleyball, A Very Special Episode will mostly be skipped since while I did enjoy that one, it pretty much rendered itself non-canon by the end. However, elements of that will be incorporated into the final episode of Part 1. But I've been talking too much, let's get on with the show!

Synopsis: Steven is forced to air out more of his mother's dirty laundry when Pink Pearl and a group of Rose Quartzes visit Earth.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst, Ocean Jasper, Lace Amethyst, Famethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl, Pink Pearl, Shell, Mega Pearl

Tom Scharpling as Greg

Kimberly Brooks as Shy Rose, Superfan Rose, Hippie Rose, Angel Aura Quartz, Zebra Jasper, Biggs Jasper, Carnelian, Skinny Jasper

Christine Pedi as Holly Blue Agate

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon

Lamar Abrams as Wy-Six

Cristina Vee as Jay-Ten

Dee Bradley Baker as Lion

Noël Wells as ?

--

"Thanks for stopping by to help me with this painting while I help some of these Gems today TZ." Steven, wearing a doctor's uniform, thanked Teal Zircon while she stood before a painting of her former leader Rose Quartz. "Seeing this after all I've been through recently is kinda making me uncomfortable, so I want it moved somewhere else."

"Can do Steven!" Teal exclaimed while keeping her eyes on the painting, contemplating what to do with it. "Now where to put this."

First, Teal tried hanging the portrait above the temple gate. "Naw, no good."

Next, Teal went up to Steven's conservatory and thought Rose's serene expression would fit well among the greenery, but then changed her mind. "Hm, needs to be more grandiose."

Then, she tried going up to the temple's hand and hung it on one of the fingers. "Nice view, but I'm not sure."

Warping back down to Steven, Teal Zircon carried the Rose Quartz painting over to the kitchen and leaned it against the trashcan. "Hey Steven, you think this is a good spot?!" she called to Steven, who had just wrapped up healing a Ruby.

"Wait, in the garbage?" Steven asked as he walked over to the painting near the trash. "Why would you choose that place?"

"Well, it's simple really." Teal explained. "Y'all think Rose is trash now so therefore, she belongs with actual trash."

"No, it's not like that!" Steven objected to the Zircon's decision. "Rose may have done some highly questionable things, like faking her own death as Pink Diamond and lying to both sides for thousands of years, but that doesn't mean she should just be thrown away like that!" Before Steven could continue, there was a knock at the door. "Hang on, gotta take this."

When Steven opened the front door, he was greeted with tons of Quartzes with cracked gems and physical deformities. "Volleyball must've gotten real wild, eh?"

"You said it!" Biggs Jasper replied, sticking out a finger that had an eyeball at its tip.

--

A few minutes later, all the Quartzes were back to normal thanks to Steven, and they returned to their volleyball game while he waved them off. "Come again!" Steven cried. "But not like, too soon. Remember, volleyball isn't a contact sport!"

"Yo Schtu-ball!" Steven's father Greg called for him while he walked towards the beach house with Amethyst in tow. "Did you and that crazy Zircon find a good place for that painting yet?"

"No can do." Teal answered with a shake of her head.

"What she said." Steven agreed. "After everything that's happened lately, I don't know if I still want her hanging over us, y'know?"

"Hey, speaking of pink Gems, I think someone might wanna talk with you." Amethyst said, and she & Greg moved out of the way to reveal Pink Diamond's former Pearl standing behind them.

"Oh, it's you!" Steven exclaimed, recognizing Pink Pearl from when he managed to free everyone from White Diamond's control, including her. "What brings you to Earth?"

"I came here because I heard you might be able to help with this." The Pearl said, stepping forward while gesturing to her hideously cracked eye that extended to parts of her face and even a small portion of her hair.

"Well step right on in!" Teal Zircon exclaimed before she and Steven walked Pink Pearl into the house and sat her down. "You came to the right guy. You should've been here earlier. He was able to fix up all these Quartzes, including one that had an eye growing on her finger!"

"Thanks TZ, but let me take care of this." Steven said. "I'll have you fixed up in a jiffy." He began to lick his palm, which grossed Pink Pearl out. "Don't worry, it may seem gross but it gets the job done." He placed his healing saliva-covered palm on his patient's gem and waited for her eye to be healed. But sadly, nothing happened.

"Did it work?" Pink Pearl quietly asked.

"Maybe you should try touching her eye?" Teal suggested.

"That's exactly what I was going to say." Steven stated before he licked his hand again. This time, the spit went on Pink Pearl's injured eye. But just like last time, nothing happened. "This can't be right!" he said to himself. Steven rushed over to a plant and plucked off a leaf to double-check. He tapped on the stem the leaf came from, and out of it came a bouquet of flowers. "It's alright, my powers are fine."

"But what if there's something more to this?" TZ guessed, sitting down where Steven once sat right across from Pink Pearl. "Tell me, I've been told you were controlled by White Diamond once. I know this might be a touchy subject, but is there anything you remember from that time?"

"Nope!" Pink answered. "8,000 years just, blip! Gone!"

"So you don't remember getting cracked in the first place?" Steven asked.

"Oh no no." Steven's patient corrected him. "This was from before."

"So White must've hurt you at some point!" Teal guessed earnestly. "Is that right?"

"Oh stars, no!" Pink Pearl stated. "This was all Pink Diamond's doing!"

"My mom?!" Steven yelped at this revelation and began tensing up, turning a little pink in the process.

"Told you." TZ muttered, unintentionally making Steven more nervous already until Pink Pearl let out a gasp.

"Are you okay?" Pink Pearl asked Steven, who began to ease up more thanks to her.

"Sorry, it's just baggage." Steven let out a sigh of exhaustion. "And thanks a lot Teal."

"Oop, sorry!" Teal giggled nervously. "No hard feelings?"

"It's fine." Steven said to Teal and turned back to Pink Pearl. "Anyway, I think I know just the Pearl to help us fix you!"

--

As Steven took Pink Pearl outside, Amethyst joined the two as they began searching for Pearl. "So, I take it fixing her eye was a no-go?" she asked.

"You're right, and that's why we're looking for Pearl." Steven said. "You know where she is?"

Before Amethyst could answer, a stray volleyball zoomed past her, Steven and Pink Pearl. Right in front of them, the same group of Quartzes Steven healed earlier were playing a very aggressive round with Pearl serving as the referee.

"Think fast!" Angel Aura Quartz yelled before she spiked the ball towards Zebra Jasper's head, followed by Pearl blowing the whistle.

"Next set!" Pearl declared before she noticed Steven. "Oh, if it isn't my favorite medical professional. How's your clinic going?"

"Hey Pearl, you got a moment for she and Steven here?" Amethyst asked, pointing to Pink Pearl.

"Sure." Pearl accepted as she looked at Pink Pearl. "Did you come to compete?"

"Pardon?" Pink Pearl asked confusedly.

"I mean, in the volleyball tournament." The other Pearl blushed awkwardly.

"Actually, we came here because we need your help." Steven said.

"Okay, what can I do for you?" Pearl asked the two.

"So, this is Pearl." Steven introduced Pink Pearl to Pearl. "She was Mom's, I mean, Pink Diamond's Pearl too, a long time ago." Unfortunately for Steven, introductions quickly got confusing. "And Pearl, you remember Pearl? She was also Pink Diamond's Pearl, AGH! That's too many Pearls!" he snapped in befuddlement. "We should probably give you a nickname."

"A nickname?" Pink Pearl blushed in surprise.

"Yeah, a nickname." Steven repeated.

"Like how Steven calls Teal Zircon stuff like Teal or TZ." Amethyst said. "Maybe we could put an eyepatch over that eye and call you Captain Pearl!"

"Oh, I know what a nickname is." Pink Pearl stated. "It just reminds me of how Pink Diamond once gave silly little names to everything." She added, reminiscing on her former owner with a longing stare. "She was so funny like that."

"Looks like someone's still holding a torch, am I right?" Amethyst snarked. "Now if only I had an eyepatch lying around."

"How about-" Steven began just before a volleyball hit him in the face, and an idea hit him just as hard. "Volleyball!"

"Volleyball? You're so funny!" Pink Pearl, now known as Volleyball, blushed with a cute giggle. "You're just like her."

"No, I'm not like," Steven yipped in surprise. "Anyway, we're here because of the crack on-"

Steven was cut off however by the beach growing darker as a large rumbling sound rang out, and an equally large dagger-like silhouette descended towards them.

"Uh guys, is that who I think it is?" Greg rushed to join the Gems, as the shape grew closer to the Earth.

"Um, is whoever's in there with you?" Volleyball asked nervously.

"Yep." Steven answered, before the Human Zoo docked itself right in front of him. "They're with us."

--

"Ste-Van, greetings!" Wy-Six, one of the humans inhabiting Pink Diamond's former human zoo, merrily greeted Steven alongside Jay-Ten through the communicator in Steven's conservatory.

"Jay-Ten, Wy-Six, how did you get your space station all the way to Earth?" Steven asked just as cheerfully.

"We took the Zoo ship and made it into a cruise ship!" Jay-Ten answered.

"Um, I don't think I was told there were humans that made it to space." Volleyball stated.

"You were still under White's control when Pink had this human zoo made for her." Pearl suggested to Volleyball just as Greg, Amethyst and Teal Zircon arrived in the conservatory. "I'll fill you in later."

"Oh hey Jay-Ten. Hey Wy-Six." Greg nervously greeted the two Zoomans, whose pleasant expressions turned sour in his presence. "I haven't seen y'all since the Choosening!"

"You mean since you DIDN'T choosen us?!" Wy-Six said angrily. "Don't you have any sound discs to listen to in your wheeled conveyance?"

"Yes, yes I do." Greg replied as he nervously walked away from the conversation.

"Now that he is gone, we'd love it if you came by for a visit." Wy-Six offered.

"Sure thing." Steven accepted the offer. "Is it okay if Amethyst came along and saw the Famethyst?"

"You're right, I gotta introduce the Quartzes to them!" Amethyst exclaimed before preparing to run off. "Oh we're gonna have such a ball!"

"As long as she is not Ga-Reg, she is welcome." Jay-Ten smiled.

--

Since Steven had last been there, the Human Zoo had received a massive overhaul. Now that Era 3 came with the end of the caste system, the Famethyst and the Zoomans essentially took over control of the zoo from Holly Blue Agate and turned it into a paradise for themselves.

"Ste-Van, welcome to our cah-ruse!" Wy-Six declared, introducing Steven, Pearl, Volleyball, Amethyst and the Little Homeschool Quartzes to the new & improved Human Zoo.

"Wow, it looks so much different that last time." Pearl gasped in astonishment at how much change they brought to the space station.

"Um, was it always like this?" Volleyball asked the Zoomans.

"Kind of." Jay-Ten said to the Pearl. "We were descended from humans that were taken here and choosened, but it's all different now for us while the Amethysts and Jaspers laze around like delinquents! Am I right Holly Blue?"

"Stop relaxing and get back to your posts, you low class twits!" Holly Blue yelled orders to the relaxing Amethysts, despite the fact that she no longer had power over them. "How can anyone function with this total lack of order?!"

"Aw come on Holly, chill out." A Carnelian the size of Amethyst said while another Amethyst put a flower crown on the angry Agate's head. "You know you want to."

"I give up. No one answers to me, and I answer to no one." Holly Blue kept ranting, unaware that Steven and Volleyball were standing behind her. "I'd give anything for an order from the Diamonds, but all they ever talk about is Steven, Steven, Steve-STEVEN?!"

"Hi Holly!" Steven casually greeted Holly Blue. The Agate gave a stink-eye to Volleyball before nervously shuffling away while performing the Diamond salute, and ran off as her former subordinates laughed at her expense.

"Soon boy. Soon." Holly growled under her breath as she ripped the flower crown off her head and the doors slowly closed behind her. "That Pearl we made into a sleeper agent better work."

"Bye Holly." Steven said just as casual, unaware of what Holly Blue murmured.

"Yo, Famethyst!" Amethyst called to her fellow Quartzes. "Meet some of my new homies!"

"AMETHYST!" the Famethyst cried out happily before Amethyst spin-dashed towards the group and knocked them all down like they were bowling pins.

"Hey, you came here with Amethyst here?" a very skinny Jasper asked Zebra Jasper as she held up Amethyst. "You guys are gonna love it here."

As the large group of Quartzes laughed and played together, Steven looked on with a grin. "What a weird, happy family."

"Ste-van, we have some special friends we'd like you and your Pearls to meet." Wy-Six said to Steven and the Pearls before he led them out of the Zoo.

"They wanted to meet us?" Pearl asked in total confusion.

"Yes, it is they who wanted to come with us to Earth." Jay-Ten replied before they stood in front of the door that led to a room where so many Rose Quartz gems were bubbled by the Diamonds. "We cannot wait to see the look upon your faces when you see their faces! Ooh, here they come!"

The door opened, and standing before Steven, Pearl & Volleyball was a Rose Quartz with a face and hair eerily similar to the Rose that Pink Diamond had disguised as. While Steven and Pearl stood wide-eyed in shock, Volleyball was still left in the dark.

"Yes, that's the look we wanted to see!" Wy-Six exclaimed.

"I suppose she looks familiar to you?" Volleyball asked her friends, who were still silent in alarm as two more Roses, a medium pink-colored messy haired Rose with her gem on her shoulder and another with her gemstone on her chest and slightly straighter hair of a lighter color, rushed out of the room, where tons more formerly bubbled Rose Quartzes frolicked about.

"S-s-so many Rose Quartzes." Steven finally stuttered in surprise. "But how?"

"Now that it's Era 3, we were all unbubbled, so now we're making up for lost time!" the shoulder-gem Rose revealed excitedly while shaking Steven's hand. "Hi, I'm Rose Quartz! And you, you must be Steven!" she added while picking the boy up. "You're so much smaller than I thought you'd be! Is it because you're half-organic? Isn't he amazing Rose Quartz?"

"It's, like, we were bubbled but, like, now we're not." The chest-gem Rose pointed out while speaking like a hippie while her super-excitable companion presented Steven to her.

"Uh yeah, it's really great." Steven laughed awkwardly. "I'm glad to see you're adjusting well."

"Oh, isn't Steven just the best?!" the hyperactive Rose exclaimed. "You're so kind and friendly and brave and smart and handsome and gentle, and we haven't seen the Earth since we first emerged! Tell us, what's it like living there?"

The familiar-looking Rose Quartz peeked out from behind the hippie-like Rose, continuing to make Steven & Pearl nervous while Volleyball still looked befuddled.

"I'm sorry, what?" Pearl stuttered.

"You know, the planet you live on, Earth!" the happy Rose shouted as she lowered Steven to the ground. "What's a day in the life like for a hero like you?"

"Well, most days I am pretty busy." Steven answered shyly. "I wake up pretty early and-"

"Where's your house at?" the hippie Rose interrupted with a question of her own.

"Oh, we have a beautiful view of the ocean." Pearl answered.

"I've never seen the ocean before!" the exuberant Rose said, placing a hand on Steven's shoulder.

"I've never smelled it before." Her relaxed friend added as she placed a hand on Steven's other shoulder, making him even more disturbed. "Speaking of smell, what's it like breathing?"

"It's mostly nitrogen." Steven explained. "My friend Connie says-"

"I bet you sleep ALL the time!" the Rose that had pretty much become Steven's new number one fan cheered.

"Well, not all the time." Steven replied. "I only need eight to ten hours of sleep at night at my age."

"What's it like eating food?" the fangirling Rose squealed eagerly.

"W-w-w-well why don't you come to dinner and find out?!" Steven blurted out while looking at the shy Rose with a massive degree of unease. "That is, if you want?"

"I'm still lost. Why are Rose Quartzes such a touchy subject for you?" Volleyball piped up, breaking up the tension.

"Oh ye of little faith." Pearl declared as she put a hand on her fellow Pearl's shoulder. "You have so much to learn."

Just then, the Quartzes suddenly arrived via conga line led by Amethyst; seemingly unaware of what just happened. "Yo Steven!" Amethyst cried, before she turned catatonic at the sight of the Rose Quartzes with Steven and the Pearls. "Uh, what did I miss?"

"Family reunion." Steven answered meekly before the Quartzes conga-lined away. "So what do you say girls?"

"I'd love to Steven!" the shoulder Rose cheered and gave Steven a big hug. "Come on guys, Steven's having us over!"

"Like, wow man." The chest Rose replied. "You really are a real sweet guy Steven."

"You go on ahead, I'll catch up later!" Volleyball laughed while Steven and Pearl walked away with the Roses. When she was left completely alone, Volleyball hesitantly knocked on the wall and a peephole opened up. "I've come to report Holly Blue."

"Excellent, at least I have one bright spot." Holly Blue sighed happily from the other side of the wall. "Can you give me any important info?"

"Yes. Apparently this Rose Quartz they once spoke so highly of is a rather uncomfortable subject for the Crystal Gems." Volleyball said nervously. "I could see it in Steven, the Pearl and the Amethyst's eyes when they met those Rose Quartzes."

"The boss will like this." Holly Blue purred mischievously. "Return to that boy at once and see what else you can gather."

"That reminds me, I think I'd like to back out of this revolution." Volleyball murmured. "I know it's because of Pink Diamond that I'm like this, but Steven is barely anything like her! He even gave me a nickname!"

"You one-eyed moron!" the Agate yelled at the Pearl. "Our master has brought us together in the first place because Steven bent all of Homeworld to their knees by being a controlling brat, just like how Pink constantly threw tantrums because she didn't get what she wanted! Is that clear Pink Pearl?!"

Volleyball didn't listen however, and instead walked faraway from Holly Blue. "I still won't have any part in this." She declared hotly. "And by the way, they call me Volleyball now."

"What kind of stupid nickname is that?!" Holly shrieked furiously. "Get back and do as you're told, like the slave you are!" Her yelling fell on deaf ears and Volleyball was gone, leaving Holly to panic. "The master will not like this."

--

"He's cutting one of those carrot beans again." The excitable Rose announced as she, her fellow Roses, Garnet and Pearl watched Steven cut up some carrots on his dinner plate. "Going up…..into…his mouth!" she continued before Steven picked up a piece of carrot to eat. "Ah, and it's gone! No one can eat a carrot bean like you!"

"I've been doing this for most of my life now." Steven said, still unnerved by the Roses' obsession with him. "I'd hope that-"

"Hey Scthu-Ball!" Greg cheerfully greeted his son as he entered the beach house. "Any idea when the Zoomans will leave? I haven't had this many of my exes visiting since-"

"You must be Steven's human dad!" Shoulder Rose exclaimed. "Hi, how are you?!"

Greg completely stopped in his tracks at the sight of the three Roses, especially the one that looked almost exactly like his late wife. "I can feel the rest of my hair falling out."

Just as Greg was about to leave, Steven tried to stop him. "Don't go Dad. You wanna join us for dinner?"

"Nope!" Greg answered without hesitation, and left just as quickly as he came. As Mr. Universe left, Volleyball finally returned to Steven.

"Hi everybody, sorry I took so long." Volleyball fibbed. "Amethyst wanted me to stay a while."

"Uh…" Steven muttered.

"Okay, now back to this eating thing!" Shoulder Rose continued while she took Steven's plate for herself. "So, you take this food stuff and you put it in your face hole like this, right?"

"Yeah, that's basically it." Steven laughed nervously.

"Y'know, if I had my own Pearl, I'd totally, like, want it to be just like you." Chest Rose said as she gazed at a very unnerved Pearl. "You tried this butter stuff? It's real groovy."

"It's okay, but thanks anyway Roooooose." Pearl answered very uncomfortably.

"Excuse me Pearl, but are you alright?" the shy Rose Quartz asked Pearl.

"I'm going to the bathroom." Pearl abruptly declared and, as she stated, moved away to the bathroom.

"Yo, you're lookin' kinda tense." Chest Rose said to Garnet with a hand on the fusion's shoulder. "How about I give you a nice relaxing message while we talk?"

"I'm also in need of the bathroom!" Garnet stated and got up to follow Pearl to the john.

"Okay Steven, I think I got this eating thing down." Shoulder Rose proclaimed while holding a carrot from Steven's plate in front of his face like he was a little boy. "Here, open your face hole." With that, Steven reluctantly took the carrot and ate it. "Good job!"

"I, uh, should probably see how Garnet and Pearl are doing." Steven nervously said. "Why don't you talk to Volleyball here while I chat with them?"

As Steven left for the bathroom after Garnet & Pearl, the three Roses stared at Volleyball.

"So, what was it like as Pink Diamond's Pearl?" Navy Rose asked Volleyball.

"They're not her." Steven whispered to himself as he watched the Pearl talk with the Quartzes, with a hand on the doorknob. "It's not weird at all."

--

Steven found Garnet and Pearl waiting for him in the bathroom as he closed the door behind him. "So, how's it going?"

"Don't you think this is super weird?" Pearl asked her son figure. "I mean, we've lived without Rose for sixteen years now, and then here come these Rose Quartzes that were bubbled because of her! And one of them even looked like her!"

"Of course it's super weird Pearl!" Garnet answered bluntly.

"Come on guys, we can't all be like this." Steven tried to calm the two down. "It's like Pearl said, they were bubbled because they looked like Mom. Now they're finally free, and all we're doing is hiding away in the bathroom whispering to each other about the same thing."

"I know it's wrong," Garnet stated. "but I'm overwhelmed."

"You know what? They don't just look like her, they are here!" Pearl exclaimed. "Because she made them!" The ex-servant took a deep breath and buried her face in her hands in embarrassment. "I thought I'd be more prepared for this."

Just then, they heard someone rushing down the stairs, followed by a familiar voice. "Hey Steven, where are you?! I still need help with the painting!"

"That's gotta be TZ." Steven recognized the voice and prepared to go back outside. "You two wait here, I'm gonna go back out to make sure they're having a good time. And that they don't see the painting."

--

"Oh Steven, come out come out wherever you are!" Teal Zircon called for Steven around the house while she hauled the painting around on her back, when she noticed Volleyball and the Roses. "Oh hey Pink Pearl, who are your new friends?"

"Oh, you're that Zircon from earlier." Volleyball said. "I was about to tell these three Rose Quartzes about how I got my eye cracked when you came around. How are you doing?"

"I still can't find a good place to hang this doohickey that won't make Steven freak out." Teal explained as she flipped the painting off her back to show Volleyball. "I understand why he doesn't want it within his line of sight, but it's a very nice lookin' "meep morp" as I've heard some Gems call art."

As Steven finally emerged from the bathroom, he saw that Teal Zircon was presenting Rose's painting to Volleyball while the Roses looked on.

"I think we should leave." Navy Rose suggested. "We wouldn't want to overstay our welcome."

"But we're having so much fun!" Chest Rose complained, and the trio looked at Steven with hurt on their faces.

"Do you not want us here?!" Shoulder Rose asked Steven sorrowfully.

"N-no, you're totally welcome here!" Steven stuttered bashfully, taking a brief moment to glare at TZ for bringing up the painting at such a bad time as he slightly began to turn pink. "I-in fact, I think there's still something we should t-t-t-t-took, I mean talk about, like Volleyball! We haven't brought up your eye yet!"

"Oh yes, it's a real shame what White Diamond did to this poor thing!" Pearl dramatically agreed as she impulsively burst from the restroom, realizing far too late what she just did and covered her mouth in shame. "Oh, darn it!"

"Yeah, I mean, Steven's healing powers won't work on her eye." TZ replied. "Hey Pearl, you know a place where she can get fixed?"

"Well, when a Pearl was damaged, they're usually taken to the Reef." Pearl explained. "It's located on one of Saturn's moons

"Yes, that's exactly what Pink would do!" Volleyball chirped happily.

"Ooh ooh, can we come too?!" Shoulder Rose asked Steven and Pearl. "I always wanted to know how Pearls are made!"

"Oh sure, the more the merrier!" Steven accepted.

"That's so awesome!" Shoulder Rose yelled, and she dropped down to the floor. "I'm dying, I'm dying, I am dead! I am dead Rose Quartz!"

After they all had a good laugh, Steven, Pearl, Volleyball and the Roses all left for the Reef via Warp Pad, leaving Teal Zircon all alone in the living room. At least until Garnet peeped out of the bathroom. "I predicted you would play a role in screwing the pooch TZ." She coolly stated.

"Was it something I said?" Teal said meekly.

--

Far from Earth, past Saturn & Jupiter and on the moon called Titan rested the Reef, a Gem facility that was essentially the birthplace of Pearls. And it was just the place that Steven was looking for.

"Here we are." Pearl announced as the Warp Pad took her, Steven, Volleyball and the Roses to a clamshell-like building surrounded by water.

"So this is the Reef." Steven declared as he looked around the place.

"This is where Pearls are made, right?" Navy Rose asked.

"Were, but you're right." Volleyball answered. "It also serves as a luxury boutique and center for refurbishment & repair."

"Repair, yes!" Steven exclaimed. "Just what I needed to hear." When Steven pressed his hand on a nearby pedestal, the facility turned on and a voice similar to Pearl's spoke to the group.

"Welcome, Pink Diamond." The voice greeted Steven.

"No, my name's Steven Universe." Steven corrected the voice.

"Welcome, Steven Universe." The voice corrected itself. "My name is Shell, your guide to the Reef."

"Wow, it sounds just like Pearl!" Shoulder Rose chirped eagerly.

"Well, this is a place for Pearls." Pearl stated with a chuckle. "Anyways, tell Shell why we're here Steven."

"Okay." Steven said, and then he turned to Shell. "My friend Volleyball here has a big crack on her face, and we'd like to get it fixed. Can you show us where you can help?"

"Understood." Shell obliged as a path to the center of the facility was lit up. "Please follow the illuminated path to the Care Center."

"You really didn't need to go all this way for something so trivial." Volleyball smiled.

"It's not so trivial Volleyball." Steven assured Pink's former Pearl. "Soon, we'll all be able to put this behind us."

"And don't you worry." Pearl added while taking her fellow ex-slave's hand. "I'll be with you the whole way."

Steven and his Gem friends began following the lit path to the Care Center while they examined all the boutique's accessories and holograms of Pearls.

"This is like, so cool." Chest Rose commented. "Pearls are so lucky to get all this cool stuff."

"Please feel free to take your time looking at the boutique's latest offerings as we make our way to the Care Center." Shell instructed. One offering in particular caught Volleyball's eye.

"Look at these darling fans!" Volleyball exclaimed, pointing to an assortment of fans.

"I'm taking one of these for the road." Chest Rose snickered while taking one of the fans for herself.

"What about you Pearl?" Steven asked Pearl. "Any memories rushing back into you?"

"Please, nothing like examining all these glitzy tchotchkes to get you remembering the simpler days." Pearl scoffed when she found a ribbon wand on display. "I mean, who even needs something as tacky as a ribbon wand, right Volleyball?!"

"What a sweet ribbon wand!" Volleyball gasped at the wand on display. "It looks just like mine!" To demonstrate, she summoned a ribbon wand of her own just like what was displayed and began twirling it around. "It was a gift from Pink. Isn't it exquisite?"

"Ooh!" Shoulder Rose whooped in excitement.

"Takin' this one too." Chest Rose declared as she snatched the ribbon wand from its stand.

"It's sweet she gave you all these keepsakes." Pearl laughed sardonically. "But I don't think there's any need to get attached." She tried to remove the ribbon wand from Volleyball's grasp, but the other Pearl refused to lose it.

"Guys, can we keep moving already?" Steven said impatiently.

"Yes, let's." Pearl obliged grumpily before she stomped away to the Care Center. "I've had enough of this old circus of objectification."

--

"Welcome to the Care Center." Shell introduced the almost featureless round room to its guests as they stepped into it. "We have everything you need here to update and repair your Pearl."

"If only I had something to help us remember this trip by!" Shoulder Rose whispered to her fellow Quartzes as Volleyball stepped onto a panel in the middle of the Care Center.

"Hey, I got these." Chest Rose replied, holding up the trinkets she took from the boutique. "Can't wait to show everyone at the Zoo."

"Scanning in progress." Shell informed as the one-eyed Pearl was scanned for any injuries to her form.

"So how do I look?" Volleyball asked Shell, but the answer she got was nothing like she expected.

"I am sorry." Shell apologized. "There is nothing I can do."

"But I thought this place was for fixing Pearls!" Navy Rose exclaimed. "There's got to be some kind of misunderstanding!"

"That's right! What's wrong with her?" Steven agreed.

"There is no visible damage to her pearl." Shell analyzed. "Perhaps the damage was severe enough to impact her even if her gem shows no signs of disrepair."

"So, it's psychological?" Steven gulped at the AI's answer.

"That's absurd!" Volleyball laughed creepily while turning to the others. "I'm totally fine!" The forced smile on her face and the worsening cracks on her eye, on the other hand, told a completely different story.

"How could White be so careless?!" Pearl shouted furiously at Volleyball.

"Oh no Pearl, you got it all wrong." Volleyball revealed. "This was all Pink's doing."

"What did you just say?!" Pearl yelled in Volleyball's face, as Steven watched in horror.

"Ah dudes, I don't think Steven's looking too hot." Chest Rose muttered while she noticed Steven sweating very nervously.

"It's a real funny story." Volleyball said. "Once, Pink got so fed up with Yellow and Blue Diamond refusing to give her a colony that she went straight to White Diamond. Of course, White told her that she wasn't fit to have one, and that set her off."

"Set her off?!" Pearl shouted, currently unaware of the stress Steven was under at the moment. "What kind of crazy talk is that?!"

"You know how Pink's powers were so destructive, how she threw tantrums left & right and that her screams could crack walls!" Volleyball continued explaining, accidentally earning her more of Pearl's ire. "But she didn't mean to hurt me! I was just standing a little too close during one tantrum and-"

"It doesn't matter!" Steven yelled while averting his ears from more of his late mother's dark secrets. "I don't want to hear anymore, I just want to fix this!"

"Destructive powers? Tantrums?!" Pearl exclaimed in disbelief of what Volleyball was saying. "The Pink I knew was a healer who kept her feeling secret!"

"The Pink I knew couldn't keep a secret to save her own gem." Volleyball admitted.

"Are you kidding?!" Pearl replied as Steven's angst reached a boiling point. "If anything, she was too good at keeping secrets! In fact it was because of one secret that we're even here today!"

"STOP IT!" Steven finally screamed as he fully turned pink and his shout knocked the Roses off their feet, catching the Pearls' attention. "I've had enough with hearing about all the horrible things she did! I get it already, she was the absolute worst, can we just cut it out already?! I don't want to think about it anymore!"

"Steven, please!" Pearl cried out, shocked at both Steven's outburst and how it changed his body.

"I just want to fix it!" Steven exploded, causing a room-wide shockwave created by his fury, forming a crater beneath where he stood. Pearl rushed to the traumatized Volleyball's defense as the pink-colored Pearl curled up into a ball on the floor. When Steven finally calmed down, he gazed at his reflection in the broken floor and immediately regretted what he just did.

"I am terribly sorry for the troubles these defective Pearls have caused you." Shell coldly apologized while the whole Care Center turned an ominous red. "Rejuvenation is required to contain these two."

Suddenly, a pair of oyster shells emerged from the ground and began trapping the Pearls inside of them right before Steven and the Roses' eyes.

"Zoinks man!" Chest Rose yelled, a complete 180 from her usual hippie-like persona. "What do we do?!"

"We have to use our heads!" the panicking Shoulder Rose suggested, and her two sisters turned to face her. "Uh, what are you looking at me for?"

"When the process is complete, they will obey you without fail." Shell continued while pulling up a viewscreen showing the Pearls inside the clam-like trap.

"What have I done?!" Steven yelled frightfully while banging on the shells. "Please, let them out!"

In the midst of the chaos, a loud clanging noise was heard from the other side of the shell, which came from Chest & Navy Rose trying to use Shoulder Rose as a battering ram to help free the Pearls. "I didn't mean use my head!"

"Do not worry Steven Universe, your Pearls are about to be better than new!" Shell assured the boy while presenting him the viewscreen. "Feel free to examine this process from the outside using this screen."

While Steven was forced to watch as Pearl & Volleyball were writhing from the pink energy they were zapped with coursing through their forms, the Roses kept on using Shoulder Rose's head to try breaking them out.

"What are you three still doing?!" Steven cried out at them.

"We're just trying to help, uh doy!" Shoulder Rose yelled while rubbing her head.

"Can't you all take a hint?" Shy Rose stated. "He doesn't like us because we look like his mom, and us coming here made it worse!"

"There's no way that's true, right Steven?" Shoulder Rose began sobbing in disbelief.

"That's not important!" Steven replied. "What's important is that we have to save them!"

"Wow dude, not even considering our feelings?" Chest Rose said. "That's just cold!"

"Never meet your heroes." Shoulder Rose began crying.

"No please, don't leave me like this!" Steven yelled for them while they tried to escape the Reef. "You can still help me, it's just that you guys look so much like my mom! I thought I could finally move on from her, but then here you three come and start making feel all twisted up. I've been pretending I'm fine this whole time, but to be honest, I'm not."

"We've been pretending to be fine too." Navy Rose confessed.

"But not pretending to have fun with you!" Shoulder Rose added.

"And not pretending to take all this cool stuff." Chest Rose also stated.

"Your mom created us, and then we were bubbled because we looked like her." Navy Rose said. "Because we were Rose Quartzes. I don't really expect you to understand."

"But I do understand." Steven responded softly. "If anyone knows where you're coming from, it's me."

--

While Steven and the Roses were still outside, Pearl and Volleyball were on the verge of being rejuvenated into completely new Pearls, and used these last moments of their current selves to confide in one another.

"I'm sorry for not believing you!" Pearl apologized quickly to her fellow Pearl. "I just can't stop making all these excuses for her!"

"Is that what you've been doing?!" Volleyball asked while twitching in agony. "Like I said, she didn't mean to do this to me!"

"But you were hurt!" Pearl yelled. "Badly hurt!"

"You were badly hurt too!" Volleyball exclaimed. "But how did you stop all the hurt?!"

Pearl simply responded by hugging Volleyball tightly and proclaiming, "I didn't." When Volleyball hugged her back, the two began glowing in harmony.

--

"Don't worry Pearls, we got you!" Steven exclaimed as he and the Rose trio raced to the viewscreen just as it disappeared. "Oh no, are we too late?!"

Thankfully for Steven, his question was answered in the form of the clamshell exploding and from its remains came a fusion of Pearl & Volleyball, standing calm and confident. The fusion had a single gold eye while the other got its cracked eye from Volleyball, and was dressed in very regal attire.

"You fused!" Steven exclaimed joyously. The Roses were just as amazed, particularly Shoulder Rose who just kept squeeing in amazement.

"WARNING: UNKNOWN ENTITY SIGHTED!" Shell roared in alarm while activating the Reef's defense systems. "FACILITY DEFENSE PROTOCAL INITIATED!"

"We can cheer later dudes, we gotta bounce!" Chest Rose cried out as claws emerged from the walls. The Pearl fusion, however, detained all of the claws with elegant ease using a weapon that was Pearl's spear combined with Volleyball's wand.

"That's so awesome!" Shoulder Rose cheered. "Go Mega Pearl! Yeah, that's what I'm gonna call her, I call dibs!"

"Hang on everyone!" Mega Pearl exclaimed as she rounded up her four friends and sliced the Care Center's door open immediately after it was shut. Laser began firing from the walls, which Mega Pearl nimbly maneuvered through. But as one last defense, smaller clamshells tried to block the exit while tendrils emerged to keep Mega Pearl restrained.

"We were almost there!" Steven groaned in frustration, before Mega Pearl picked him and the trio up in her hand.

"You four take it from here." Mega Pearl said before she turned her ribbon spear into a lance that pierced straight through both the clams and the exit. She then tossed Steven, Shoulder Rose, Chest Rose & Navy Rose forward, and Steven used his shield to slide on as he reached for the pedestal to shut down the facility once again.

With the defense systems finally off, the door opened and Mega Pearl was lying gracefully on the ground, now free from the tendrils, and gazing tenderly at Steven.

Steven smiled back just as Shoulder Rose rushed up from behind him. "That, was, SO AWESOME!" she squealed and squished her cheeks in excitement.

"Best day ever." Chest Rose declared with her face to the ground and a thumbs up in the air.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Navy Rose sighed, exhausted but relieved that everyone was okay.

Unbeknowst to all the Gems as they left the deactivated Reef, a peculiar device left out some dying beeps in the Care Center, and then finally shut down.

--

Night fell by the time Steven and the Gems returned to Earth, and they all gazed out at the ocean together.

"Wow, everything looks so pretty at night." Shoulder Rose muttered in awe.

However, Steven was silent for most of the night, until he turned to Mega Pearl and the Roses. "I'm sorry that this whole trip was for nothing." He apologized to the fusion, and then turned to the trio of Quartzes. "And I'm sorry I made you guys feel bad."

"Nothing personal Steven." Chest Rose accepted the apology. "And like you said, no one could understand us more than you."

"Yeah. Guess that kinda makes us siblings in a way." Steven admitted.

"What does that mean?" Navy Rose said shyly.

"Well, my mom created you, just like how she created me." Steven guessed. "I think that would make you my sisters in a way."

"That sounds awesome!" Shoulder Rose cheered, and she gave Steven a big hug. "Siblings forever!"

"I'm glad to be related to you." Chest Rose agreed with the sentiment.

"I can't wait to tell all the other Rose Quartzes about this." Navy Rose said. "It was very nice getting to see Earth."

"This whole endeavor wasn't for nothing." Mega Pearl finally said softly. "Your mother's Pearls just never knew the whole story. One knew your mother as she was trying to change, but didn't know why. The other never expected her to change at all. But now, I can understand it all, and they can have each other."

With that, Mega Pearl unfused back into Pearl & Volleyball, holding hands and gazing out at the night sky. As Volleyball leaned on Pearl, Amethyst and the Little Homeschool Quartzes suddenly returned.

"Yeah, Famethyst for life!" Amethyst cried, accidentally ruining the mood as the others stared at her from behind. "Hey, what did I miss?"

"Oh, Steven!" Teal Zircon yelled as she raced towards Steven. "First things first, sorry for making your guests feel bad. And second, I think I finally found a place to put Rose! And no, I won't put her in the trash this time."

"That's great TZ." Steven smiled at the Zircon. "What did you have in mind?"

--

Later that night, Steven was lying peacefully in bed with Lion by his side. And within Lion's mane, Rose Quartz's painting leaned against the tree within its pocket dimension, no longer hanging over everyone.

--

"So she just up and left?!" a voice barked at Holly Blue Agate from a computer screen in a hidden room at the Human Zoo. "Why didn't you stop her?!"

"I tried your clarity, but she refused to listen!" Holly Blue pleaded on her knees. "Please forgive me, I can do better on whatever assignment you give me next!"

"Okay, I'll let this slide." The voice sighed, bringing joy to Holly Blue's face. "Return to Homeworld at once, I have another assignment for you. But in the meantime, what about that tracking beacon we planted on the Pearl?"

"It seems to have short-circuited, last I checked." Holly Blue declared. "Last known location was the Reef on Titan."

--

"And that's why you never send a Pearl to do, well, anyone else's job!" a slim, black figure wearing a white cape complained on the other end of the call via a green visor, pinching the gemstone replacing her nose in irritation as she arrived via Warp Pad at the Reef. "I'm already at the designated location. I'll keep you all updated with further orders."

Pushing the pedestal, the facility suddenly reactivated, to the figure's delight.

--

And cue For The Damaged Coda! Gotta say, this was probably my longest chapter yet. Now that we have yet another load of dirty laundry cleaned up, it's time to ask some bigger questions. Who is Holly Blue taking orders from when she said earlier she didn't take orders from anyone? What does this mystery character want with the Reef, and how will Steven react to a possible revolution taking place right under his nose? Join us next week for more answers, and happy holidays!

[wineanddinosaur]

VinePair Podcast: Making a Case for Alcohol Label Transparency

There’s an odd fact you might have noticed about beer, wine, and spirits. Unlike virtually every other consumable, the U.S. government does not require alcohol producers and manufacturers to disclose the ingredients or nutritional facts of their product. Furthermore, the number of beverage alcohol producers that do so voluntarily is vanishingly small. As with many alcohol-related laws, this labeling exemption dates back to the end of Prohibition. It persists because alcohol is not regulated through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but instead through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

That lack of nutrition labeling has gone largely unchecked until now, when changes in the industry and interests of American consumers could very well bring the era of opacity to a close.

The rise of hard seltzer and its aggressively promoted low-cal, low-carb lifestyle have begun to force the hand of more traditional beverages like beer, while the “clean wine” movement attempts to capitalize on a lack of transparency in the wine industry. The European Union will require ingredient labeling by the end of 2022. Will these forces be enough to overturn decades of inertia? Will mandated labeling privilege large brands over small producers? That’s what Erica Duecy and Zach Geballe discuss on this week’s episode of the VinePair Podcast.

LISTEN ONLINE

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE

Zach: From Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

Erica: In Connecticut, I’m Erica Duecy.

Z: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Yes, we are without Adam but we are not without ads. This podcast is brought to you by Cognac USA, Speedrack, and VinePair. We’re collaborating to offer 10 $1,000 cash stipend prizes exclusively for professional bartenders. You can enter by creating an original Cognac cocktail and you can even receive bonus points through viewing Speedrack’s Instagram live videos. Visit cognacconnection.com, that’s cognacconnection.com, for details and to enter. The deadline is Aug. 31, and that’s cognacconnection.com. The campaign is financed with aid from the European Union.

Z: Erica, what’s your favorite Cognac cocktail?

E: That’s a good question. If I’m going to drink Cognac I’m probably going to drink it straight. It’s one of those things that if you really enjoy it, that’s one of the ones to savor.

Z: I think there’s a place for the higher end — and trust me, Cognac goes really high end really quick — but the higher-end stuff I wouldn’t mix in a cocktail. Sazerac, which is often traditionally made with Cognac, I think is a delicious cocktail. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this. A couple of years ago, I created a drink for our bar program at one of the restaurants that I was running and it was my take on Vieux-Carre, which is a split-base cocktail with Cognac and rye. I did that but instead of Bénédictine, it had Strega in it, but I think the Vieux-Carré  is a fun one even if it’s not a pure Cognac cocktail.

E: That is a delicious cocktail. In the winter especially, I just really love the idea — even if I don’t have a fireplace — of sitting around the fire with a snifter of Cognac. But really, I just use a rocks glass.

Z: You’re telling me you don’t retire to your hunting lodge every winter?

E: I’m getting there, not quite yet.

Z: When this podcast finally blows up. I have another question for you before we get into today’s topic. We were debating what to discuss this week, and maybe we’ll get back to this in the future, but I was curious, you’re the parent of a couple of kids who are older than my son and right now, my son’s interaction with alcohol is basically learning a surprisingly large number of grape varieties because we teach them to him. His favorite is Roussanne, in case anyone is wondering. But how do your kids react to what you do for a living?

E: I think they think it’s pretty interesting, although my husband has an even more interesting job because he’s playing with clay all day, so nothing really can compare to that. However, they do seem to think that it’s interesting that I’m tasting a lot of wines and tasting spirits and thinking about cocktails, and sometimes making up recipes. … And people seem to get a lot of enjoyment when they’re at our house because I’m always whipping up something, I always love to have a special cocktail that I’m serving if people come over, or, I’m pouring wines. So I think parties at our house, and small gatherings, tend to be pretty festive. I’m always interested in, for example at the end of a meal, pulling out a couple of bottles of Armagnac or Cognac or something. So people are always tasting and testing and talking about it. And the girls do love smelling in the glass. I think one of my proudest moments was when my daughter Gia was about 6 years old and I asked her to smell into the glass of sherry, and she told me that it smelled like nuts! I was so proud of her, and she was very quizzically looking at me like, “Yeah, it tastes like nuts.”

Z: That’s awesome. I can’t believe this never occurred to me before but it feels like the final form of yours and John’s relationship is opening the world’s fanciest pottery, painting, and wine sipping extravaganza. I’m sure you have seen those advertised, [where you] go paint some pottery and sip wine, but yours would be the fanciest of them all.

E: That’s pretty much our house all the time. They tend to have a good time, and we do open up the studio and have little parties up there when we’re not in a social distancing period — and so they are playing with clay and I’m making cocktails. I love to do a Spritz bar when we’re up there. There’s a lot of fun stuff to do and for kids, they’re pretty young so we’re not talking too much about responsibility around alcohol yet. I don’t think they’re quite there yet from a standpoint of really understanding the depth and nuance of that. But certainly, we do not have any sloppy behavior around them. I think that’s our way of presenting what alcohol looks like when consumed in a responsible manner.

Z: That is good. As you probably know, the sloppiness is a trickier thing to manage when you have a young child. There’s no way that goes well for anyone, even if you were tempted to do it. Dealing with a 2-year-old with a hangover is really miserable. Been there once or twice, sadly.

E: Exactly. I’m getting a little old for hangovers, I think.

Z: This would have been a natural segue if we were talking about hangover-free wine, but we are going to be in that general vein, so we might as well move on to the topic for today’s show. I think this is a really fascinating conversation that, hopefully, we’re going to have here, which is about the increased scrutiny potentially being paid to not just wine but all beverages and labeling. Erica, I think you could set the ground a little bit better than I can in this context. I’ll just say, one of the things that are important to understand as we get into this conversation is that in the United States, alcohol has traditionally been exempted from the rules that surround most other consumable products in terms of the requirement to disclose nutritional facts and ingredients. And there’s a real conversation going on in the industry about whether it’s time to give up that special exemption and be more upfront about what is in a bottle or can.

E: I think one of the big things that we need to realize is that virtually everything you can buy at a grocery store or in any other part of your life — at chain restaurants, for example — everything comes with a nutrition label these days. At chain restaurants, you have calories listed on menus, on the soda you’re drinking, any sort of other drinks, except for alcohol, it’s labeled. Why is alcohol exempt? The short answer here is that it’s a legacy of Prohibition. Alcoholic beverages aren’t regulated by the FDA, like everything else, but instead by the TTB, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and they don’t require nutritional labeling. Consumer advocates have been pressuring the agency for years to add this labeling but it never seems to happen. Most recently, last year the modernization of the labeling and advertising regulations for wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverages Notice No. 176 was up for review and they did make some changes to the laws around labeling, but it did not concern nutritional labeling. The TTB said in April of this year that they will revisit those labels at a later time. But I think the real thing that we’re finding is that consumers want to know what they’re drinking and because we have created this environment of opaqueness around what is in the bottle across beer, wine, and spirits, that’s done two things. First, it’s turned many consumers off of these products onto other categories. Hard seltzer is one that has adequate product labeling, and I think that is one of the things that has really led to the rise of hard seltzer. Second, there have also been these dubious marketers, these clean wine marketers, these fitness marketers, making all sorts of claims about their wines that are verifiably false that we have fact-checked and have published articles about. Yet it’s because of this environment of opaqueness that those claims have now risen up.

Z: I think this is something that maybe more people in the beverage and alcohol space should have seen coming: That if you’re not transparent, people will use that lack of transparency against you. Whether they’re doing so dishonestly or not, it doesn’t really seem to matter. You pointed out this whole issue with clean wine companies and this has come up a few times in the past, but as one of the people who wrote one of those articles, I will say that it was remarkable going down this rabbit hole of what some of these claims that are made, and really a lot of it is an implication that “our wine doesn’t have these ingredients in it, we don’t use these additives,” so, therefore, your inference as a consumer, especially not a super well-informed one, is “everyone else must be using these.” Because if you’re making a point to say “we don’t put ferrocyanide in our wines,” which no one does, it’s not even allowed anymore, I don’t want that and the implication is that every other wine has that. But again this is where wine, beer, and spirits have made themselves vulnerable. I will say one of the things that I really want to get into in this conversation, and Erica, I’m curious [about] your thoughts on it: I do think there is a fundamental difference between wanting labeling that gives consumers actionable information, like how many calories in a serving, versus information that I’m not sure is all that useful. One of the wineries that does label in terms of ingredients is Ridge. Ridge is a great winery and makes exceptional wine, but if you look at that label, I think even for a wine professional, it’s pretty opaque. You have to know a lot about how wine is made to understand if what they’re talking about here is normal. Is it reasonable that they add nutrients to the yeast? Or is it normal to water wine down? For me or you as professionals, those words mean something, but to a consumer I’m not sure that a list of ingredients is going to help them at all. Maybe it will, but I think the calorie thing is one side and the specifics about what is in the products are another.

E: From my perspective, I think that as much transparency as possible is the way to go, and it’s really about educating consumers. The reason that I am for more transparency is that what you don’t say can be used against you. A good example from Ridge would be calcium carbonate. People might not know what calcium carbonate is, and they may want to look it up or go to Ridge’s website where you can see that it’s saying small additions of this compound are used during fermentation to moderate unusually high natural acidity. So I think if you give an explanation and you are stating why something would be used in a wine, then that takes away the ability of marketers to use it against you. I think that’s the unintended, unrecognized thing that people in the industry just didn’t anticipate. I think people in the industry thought for a long time it’s not going to be a good idea for us to label because if we start putting calorie counts on things, then people will drink less. There are also practical concerns for winemakers around cost. Having to test all these bottles every vintage has a cost to it. But when you don’t do those things, that’s when you’re opening yourself up for bigger problems where these unscrupulous marketers come in and start to take all of your business away because they’re saying “we don’t do all of these shady things,” when really not much of what is happening is very shady at all.

Z: I think it’s also important, as much as possible, to differentiate between two important things with ingredient labeling. It’s sometimes muddied in even professionals’ minds, let alone consumers’ minds, the unfortunate history of wine, if you stretch back far enough, with things being added to wine or wine being adulterated in various ways that were not only disingenuous — producers in Burgundy blending in Rhône wine or North African wine to bulk their wines out, the same thing with producers in Bordeaux, to the Austrian scandal of glycerol in wines in the mid-’80s. And these are things where the additives can be potentially toxic or harmful. With modern winemaking, the area we’re talking about most often is pesticide residues in wine, that being a relatively small concern with most wine but it is a possibility and something I think I understand people’s interest in knowing whether that’s something that could possibly be in their wine, versus a lot of the additives, even the ones that wine connoisseur might turn their nose up. Like mega purple, which gets a terrible rap, and I think there’s a philosophical issue with using grape concentrate to make your wine seem more colorful and richer in flavor, but it’s not at all harmful. It doesn’t hurt people and it’s probably the only way that a $5 bottle of California Cabernet can make it to a store shelf. I don’t personally have a lot of issues with it like “this is bad for the public.” I think if it was disclosed on the label it might change people’s purchasing decisions, which probably is a good thing, but I guess I think that is important to understand what information we are trying to provide to people and how that will affect things. Anything that involves a potential health risk is hugely important to disclose. I’m not saying that I don’t think winemakers should be forced to disclose when they modify their wine in a variety of wines, but I think it’s important to also push back on the notion that doing that is harmful. It might not represent the pinnacle of winemaking, but it’s not bad for you in any real way.

E: That’s true. And I think it is a reality that people do not have any idea how many calories are in the alcohol that they’re drinking. I was looking at some different studies, and one public health researcher found that most Americans are drinking 400 calories a day of alcohol. When you think of an average glass of beer or wine it’s probably around 150 calories, and it’s much more for cocktails, so I think there’s a health concern that is legitimate — of people wanting to know how many calories are in their wine — and that’s why these hard seltzers and RTDs have been so successful. Certainly there’s the convenience as the appeal, but secondarily, you can really keep track of how much you’re drinking. If you look at a lot of the different surveys that have been done about labeling, you’ll see the Center for Science in the Public Interest, they say 94 percent of adults support alcohol content labeling, 91 percent support ingredient labeling, 89 percent support calorie labeling. These things are going to be coming up more and more. And the brands that get on board quicker with transparency are going to be the successful ones. Just looking at the E.U., for example, in the European Union by the end of 2022, you have to provide nutrition and ingredient information if you’re going to be doing business in those countries. Already there, Diageo, Treasury, AB InBev, have already started to provide ingredient and nutritional information on a voluntary basis before that date on a lot of their products. This is going to become a bigger and bigger issue, especially at the end of 2022 [when] it is required. I think then, a lot more American consumers are going to be requesting and requiring this. Additionally, I think that the brands that do get ahead of this are going to see better sales results. It may sound counterintuitive to say that if people are looking at the calories and ingredients, they’ll choose my product over another, but I really do think it will happen because it’s that type of transparency that has proven so effective for these clean wine marketers. When I say “transparency” let me put that in air quotes because certainly what they are doing is not transparency, it is pseudoscience and pseudo-transparency, but they are coming across as the ones who are taking the high road on this and providing that type of information that consumers are looking for. So once brands that have integrity and are doing marketing on the up and up are providing this level of transparency to their products, it’s going to take the wind out of the sails of a lot of the clean marketers and fitness marketers whose claims will no longer stand up.

Z: I think it’s interesting to think about who will benefit in a landscape where ingredient and nutritional fact labeling is a staple of the alcohol industry. My concern, and you mentioned this a little bit in the past, was that it will disproportionately advantage big companies. You mentioned the big multinationals that are already doing this on a voluntary basis in the E.U., as you said, getting this kind of testing done is not free and it may not even be cheap. If you’re a small winemaker, a relatively small winery, brewery, or distillery, that added cost you would have to weigh the benefit it might derive from the cost it will inflect, and each producer will make their own decision about that. It’s one thing for a big multinational to have its own lab where it can easily do this as part of everything else that they do as part of the business. I’m concerned that this will disproportionality benefit the companies that really don’t need more help at the moment, and also, the other question I am curious to hear your thoughts on is, people say they want ingredient and calorie count labeling, but how much of that 90-ish percent of the population will those numbers actually drive behavior? I think there’s a lot of people who would say, and do say, they want calorie counts on fast food menus but when they go through the drive-thru does that calorie count affect their purchase decision at all? Maybe at the margins, but most people are going to get a Big Mac regardless of whatever the calorie count says, if that’s what they want. So I think that… it doesn’t hurt anyone to have that information in the abstract, but I am dubious that for most consumers they’re going to pick up three bottles of wine or three beers and the determining factor is going to be the calorie count. I think it’s going to be what it tends to be already, which is, what does the label look like? What does it say on the front label? What is the price? That’s going to be how people make their decisions, and maybe calorie count is the tiebreaker for some people, and so fair enough. But I think, as you said, the other thing about this is, there’s not a big difference in a lot of these categories. Most dry wine is going to be in the same narrow range of calories per serving. Beer has a bigger range because of differing levels of alcohol — much more so than wine — spirits to some extent as well, but I think — it’s not a bad thing — but I’m not sure it’s going to be the holy grail of consumer independence and freedom that we might sometimes think it is.

E: For the concern about wineries having to do it every year, I would say that there very well could be some sort of compromise. For example, back in 2017 when the FDA was requiring menu labeling, the Brewers Association said it’s going to be a huge burden on small craft producers to be able to do these calorie counts, so what if we work with the FDA to create some sort of guidelines on what is acceptable around these categories of beer styles instead of individual breweries having to do it themselves, and the FDA agreed. So there are workarounds. I think what if they TTB said, what if you have to do it every five years for your wines. That makes it much more manageable so I think there could be ways around having to test wines every single year. Or maybe it’s when a new product comes onto the market, and every year the alcohol changes by more than a percent and a half, I don’t know what it is but something like that could work. To the second point, I think for the people that are making decisions based on calorie counts, they’re doing that already and they’ve already turned off wine. I was just on Twitter with someone today who sent me a photo of a brand called Fit Wine and it was marketing on calories and I was joking and saying it’s essentially the Walking Dead. These brands are coming out of the woodwork, get your swords ready, you need to be like Daryl Dixon out there slaying zombies because they are coming out of the woodwork and if the TTB does not step in it’s only going to get worse. But the bigger point is we’ve already lost the people that are making these calorie count decisions. If their decisions on what they purchase are based on what’s on the label, they haven’t been purchasing wine but maybe they will come back to wine if they do see calorie counts on there. That would be my perspective. I think these sunshine initiatives that shed light on where there is opaqueness there may be some skeletons in the closet but probably not that many and when you are being more transparent and providing consumers with a level of transparency there’s so much evidence to show that’s what consumers are looking for and I think that is the way of the future for wine, beer, and spirits

Z: I’m a bit mixed in my thoughts on this. This comes back to the conversation about ingredient labeling about healthy wine and products and I think to some extent a thing that gets missed is that alcohol is not inherently a particularly healthy thing. I think that there are ways to which alcohol consumption can be a part of a generally healthy lifestyle but the idea that alcohol consumption is the healthy part of your lifestyle is a ridiculous claim and is the thing that TTB and others need to push back against. Anyone that is attempting to intimate or flat-out state that somehow drinking these wines are somehow good, the whole French paradox, the Mediterranean diet, there’s a lot of pseudoscience in there. And the reality is alcohol is delicious in many cases, its enjoyable, the effect it has on our brains is something that most people find enjoyable at lower levels but is not inherently healthful and so I recoil at the idea that what we should be trying to do is designing products that have a label that makes people want to buy them but it is this idea of Frankensteining a product that gets you below a certain calorie count and doesn’t use certain ingredients but is so divorced from what to me is the pleasurable part of drinking which is not just taste but also the idea of some sense of a through line from a place to a beverage. I just worry that we’re going to end up in this sort of endless quest to create this lowest calorie whatever with the fewest ingredients that has some flavor but really is just an engineered product that meets market demand. And I’m not naive, there’s a lot of wines, beers, and spirits out there that do exactly that and some are delicious and they have a place for sure, but I worry — and in wine in particular — if too much embrace of transparency ends up privileging those where all they have is transparency, there’s nothing there. It’s just a clear window into a factory or something.

E: I think that’s a fair concern and from my perspective, I don’t want to drink those wines but I also don’t want to eat fat-free chips or sugar-free cookies. I am a consumer that loves full fat, full-flavored, give me all the promenades, give me all the backstory, that’s the type of consumer I am, but I think I’m unfortunately less and less the consumer who is looking for all of that full-fat, full-experience type thing. I think it’s just a reality of where we are in the consumer landscape that every other category has some degree of label transparency and this category does not and now it’s being used against the category and consumers are turning off. So I come to this argument as someone who loves the wine industry and the spirits industry, beer I know less about, but wine, in particular, I am legitimately concerned about the future of the wine industry. If some degree of labeling transparency does not become more embraced voluntarily, or enforced if that’s what it needs to be, then more and more consumers are going to turn off of this category because that’s what they expect.

Z: I think I can’t and don’t want to argue against that. It’s an unfortunate reality but that’s what it is. Before we go I’m going to read our Cognac Connection ad one more time. If you are a professional bartender and are interested in entering the Cognac Connection challenge you can win a $1,000 cash stipend. The deadline to do so is Aug. 31 and to do that you go to cognacconnection.com to enter you can also find more details there. Erica, we made it through without Adam. Somehow I feel like we didn’t even mention Seattle until the last minute. He’s going to be so disappointed, I’ll edit in some random clips of us saying Seattle and talking about the weather just to keep up appearances. Adam will be back next week from his well-earned vacation and we will be back waiting for you then. Talk to you later.

E: Talk to you then!

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: Making a Case for Alcohol Label Transparency appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/alcohol-label-transparency/

[isaiahrippinus]

VinePair Podcast: Making a Case for Alcohol Label Transparency

There’s an odd fact you might have noticed about beer, wine, and spirits. Unlike virtually every other consumable, the U.S. government does not require alcohol producers and manufacturers to disclose the ingredients or nutritional facts of their product. Furthermore, the number of beverage alcohol producers that do so voluntarily is vanishingly small. As with many alcohol-related laws, this labeling exemption dates back to the end of Prohibition. It persists because alcohol is not regulated through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but instead through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

That lack of nutrition labeling has gone largely unchecked until now, when changes in the industry and interests of American consumers could very well bring the era of opacity to a close.

The rise of hard seltzer and its aggressively promoted low-cal, low-carb lifestyle have begun to force the hand of more traditional beverages like beer, while the “clean wine” movement attempts to capitalize on a lack of transparency in the wine industry. The European Union will require ingredient labeling by the end of 2022. Will these forces be enough to overturn decades of inertia? Will mandated labeling privilege large brands over small producers? That’s what Erica Duecy and Zach Geballe discuss on this week’s episode of the VinePair Podcast.

LISTEN ONLINE

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE

Zach: From Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

Erica: In Connecticut, I’m Erica Duecy.

Z: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Yes, we are without Adam but we are not without ads. This podcast is brought to you by Cognac USA, Speedrack, and VinePair. We’re collaborating to offer 10 $1,000 cash stipend prizes exclusively for professional bartenders. You can enter by creating an original Cognac cocktail and you can even receive bonus points through viewing Speedrack’s Instagram live videos. Visit cognacconnection.com, that’s cognacconnection.com, for details and to enter. The deadline is Aug. 31, and that’s cognacconnection.com. The campaign is financed with aid from the European Union.

Z: Erica, what’s your favorite Cognac cocktail?

E: That’s a good question. If I’m going to drink Cognac I’m probably going to drink it straight. It’s one of those things that if you really enjoy it, that’s one of the ones to savor.

Z: I think there’s a place for the higher end — and trust me, Cognac goes really high end really quick — but the higher-end stuff I wouldn’t mix in a cocktail. Sazerac, which is often traditionally made with Cognac, I think is a delicious cocktail. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this. A couple of years ago, I created a drink for our bar program at one of the restaurants that I was running and it was my take on Vieux-Carre, which is a split-base cocktail with Cognac and rye. I did that but instead of Bénédictine, it had Strega in it, but I think the Vieux-Carré  is a fun one even if it’s not a pure Cognac cocktail.

E: That is a delicious cocktail. In the winter especially, I just really love the idea — even if I don’t have a fireplace — of sitting around the fire with a snifter of Cognac. But really, I just use a rocks glass.

Z: You’re telling me you don’t retire to your hunting lodge every winter?

E: I’m getting there, not quite yet.

Z: When this podcast finally blows up. I have another question for you before we get into today’s topic. We were debating what to discuss this week, and maybe we’ll get back to this in the future, but I was curious, you’re the parent of a couple of kids who are older than my son and right now, my son’s interaction with alcohol is basically learning a surprisingly large number of grape varieties because we teach them to him. His favorite is Roussanne, in case anyone is wondering. But how do your kids react to what you do for a living?

E: I think they think it’s pretty interesting, although my husband has an even more interesting job because he’s playing with clay all day, so nothing really can compare to that. However, they do seem to think that it’s interesting that I’m tasting a lot of wines and tasting spirits and thinking about cocktails, and sometimes making up recipes. … And people seem to get a lot of enjoyment when they’re at our house because I’m always whipping up something, I always love to have a special cocktail that I’m serving if people come over, or, I’m pouring wines. So I think parties at our house, and small gatherings, tend to be pretty festive. I’m always interested in, for example at the end of a meal, pulling out a couple of bottles of Armagnac or Cognac or something. So people are always tasting and testing and talking about it. And the girls do love smelling in the glass. I think one of my proudest moments was when my daughter Gia was about 6 years old and I asked her to smell into the glass of sherry, and she told me that it smelled like nuts! I was so proud of her, and she was very quizzically looking at me like, “Yeah, it tastes like nuts.”

Z: That’s awesome. I can’t believe this never occurred to me before but it feels like the final form of yours and John’s relationship is opening the world’s fanciest pottery, painting, and wine sipping extravaganza. I’m sure you have seen those advertised, [where you] go paint some pottery and sip wine, but yours would be the fanciest of them all.

E: That’s pretty much our house all the time. They tend to have a good time, and we do open up the studio and have little parties up there when we’re not in a social distancing period — and so they are playing with clay and I’m making cocktails. I love to do a Spritz bar when we’re up there. There’s a lot of fun stuff to do and for kids, they’re pretty young so we’re not talking too much about responsibility around alcohol yet. I don’t think they’re quite there yet from a standpoint of really understanding the depth and nuance of that. But certainly, we do not have any sloppy behavior around them. I think that’s our way of presenting what alcohol looks like when consumed in a responsible manner.

Z: That is good. As you probably know, the sloppiness is a trickier thing to manage when you have a young child. There’s no way that goes well for anyone, even if you were tempted to do it. Dealing with a 2-year-old with a hangover is really miserable. Been there once or twice, sadly.

E: Exactly. I’m getting a little old for hangovers, I think.

Z: This would have been a natural segue if we were talking about hangover-free wine, but we are going to be in that general vein, so we might as well move on to the topic for today’s show. I think this is a really fascinating conversation that, hopefully, we’re going to have here, which is about the increased scrutiny potentially being paid to not just wine but all beverages and labeling. Erica, I think you could set the ground a little bit better than I can in this context. I’ll just say, one of the things that are important to understand as we get into this conversation is that in the United States, alcohol has traditionally been exempted from the rules that surround most other consumable products in terms of the requirement to disclose nutritional facts and ingredients. And there’s a real conversation going on in the industry about whether it’s time to give up that special exemption and be more upfront about what is in a bottle or can.

E: I think one of the big things that we need to realize is that virtually everything you can buy at a grocery store or in any other part of your life — at chain restaurants, for example — everything comes with a nutrition label these days. At chain restaurants, you have calories listed on menus, on the soda you’re drinking, any sort of other drinks, except for alcohol, it’s labeled. Why is alcohol exempt? The short answer here is that it’s a legacy of Prohibition. Alcoholic beverages aren’t regulated by the FDA, like everything else, but instead by the TTB, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and they don’t require nutritional labeling. Consumer advocates have been pressuring the agency for years to add this labeling but it never seems to happen. Most recently, last year the modernization of the labeling and advertising regulations for wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverages Notice No. 176 was up for review and they did make some changes to the laws around labeling, but it did not concern nutritional labeling. The TTB said in April of this year that they will revisit those labels at a later time. But I think the real thing that we’re finding is that consumers want to know what they’re drinking and because we have created this environment of opaqueness around what is in the bottle across beer, wine, and spirits, that’s done two things. First, it’s turned many consumers off of these products onto other categories. Hard seltzer is one that has adequate product labeling, and I think that is one of the things that has really led to the rise of hard seltzer. Second, there have also been these dubious marketers, these clean wine marketers, these fitness marketers, making all sorts of claims about their wines that are verifiably false that we have fact-checked and have published articles about. Yet it’s because of this environment of opaqueness that those claims have now risen up.

Z: I think this is something that maybe more people in the beverage and alcohol space should have seen coming: That if you’re not transparent, people will use that lack of transparency against you. Whether they’re doing so dishonestly or not, it doesn’t really seem to matter. You pointed out this whole issue with clean wine companies and this has come up a few times in the past, but as one of the people who wrote one of those articles, I will say that it was remarkable going down this rabbit hole of what some of these claims that are made, and really a lot of it is an implication that “our wine doesn’t have these ingredients in it, we don’t use these additives,” so, therefore, your inference as a consumer, especially not a super well-informed one, is “everyone else must be using these.” Because if you’re making a point to say “we don’t put ferrocyanide in our wines,” which no one does, it’s not even allowed anymore, I don’t want that and the implication is that every other wine has that. But again this is where wine, beer, and spirits have made themselves vulnerable. I will say one of the things that I really want to get into in this conversation, and Erica, I’m curious [about] your thoughts on it: I do think there is a fundamental difference between wanting labeling that gives consumers actionable information, like how many calories in a serving, versus information that I’m not sure is all that useful. One of the wineries that does label in terms of ingredients is Ridge. Ridge is a great winery and makes exceptional wine, but if you look at that label, I think even for a wine professional, it’s pretty opaque. You have to know a lot about how wine is made to understand if what they’re talking about here is normal. Is it reasonable that they add nutrients to the yeast? Or is it normal to water wine down? For me or you as professionals, those words mean something, but to a consumer I’m not sure that a list of ingredients is going to help them at all. Maybe it will, but I think the calorie thing is one side and the specifics about what is in the products are another.

E: From my perspective, I think that as much transparency as possible is the way to go, and it’s really about educating consumers. The reason that I am for more transparency is that what you don’t say can be used against you. A good example from Ridge would be calcium carbonate. People might not know what calcium carbonate is, and they may want to look it up or go to Ridge’s website where you can see that it’s saying small additions of this compound are used during fermentation to moderate unusually high natural acidity. So I think if you give an explanation and you are stating why something would be used in a wine, then that takes away the ability of marketers to use it against you. I think that’s the unintended, unrecognized thing that people in the industry just didn’t anticipate. I think people in the industry thought for a long time it’s not going to be a good idea for us to label because if we start putting calorie counts on things, then people will drink less. There are also practical concerns for winemakers around cost. Having to test all these bottles every vintage has a cost to it. But when you don’t do those things, that’s when you’re opening yourself up for bigger problems where these unscrupulous marketers come in and start to take all of your business away because they’re saying “we don’t do all of these shady things,” when really not much of what is happening is very shady at all.

Z: I think it’s also important, as much as possible, to differentiate between two important things with ingredient labeling. It’s sometimes muddied in even professionals’ minds, let alone consumers’ minds, the unfortunate history of wine, if you stretch back far enough, with things being added to wine or wine being adulterated in various ways that were not only disingenuous — producers in Burgundy blending in Rhône wine or North African wine to bulk their wines out, the same thing with producers in Bordeaux, to the Austrian scandal of glycerol in wines in the mid-’80s. And these are things where the additives can be potentially toxic or harmful. With modern winemaking, the area we’re talking about most often is pesticide residues in wine, that being a relatively small concern with most wine but it is a possibility and something I think I understand people’s interest in knowing whether that’s something that could possibly be in their wine, versus a lot of the additives, even the ones that wine connoisseur might turn their nose up. Like mega purple, which gets a terrible rap, and I think there’s a philosophical issue with using grape concentrate to make your wine seem more colorful and richer in flavor, but it’s not at all harmful. It doesn’t hurt people and it’s probably the only way that a $5 bottle of California Cabernet can make it to a store shelf. I don’t personally have a lot of issues with it like “this is bad for the public.” I think if it was disclosed on the label it might change people’s purchasing decisions, which probably is a good thing, but I guess I think that is important to understand what information we are trying to provide to people and how that will affect things. Anything that involves a potential health risk is hugely important to disclose. I’m not saying that I don’t think winemakers should be forced to disclose when they modify their wine in a variety of wines, but I think it’s important to also push back on the notion that doing that is harmful. It might not represent the pinnacle of winemaking, but it’s not bad for you in any real way.

E: That’s true. And I think it is a reality that people do not have any idea how many calories are in the alcohol that they’re drinking. I was looking at some different studies, and one public health researcher found that most Americans are drinking 400 calories a day of alcohol. When you think of an average glass of beer or wine it’s probably around 150 calories, and it’s much more for cocktails, so I think there’s a health concern that is legitimate — of people wanting to know how many calories are in their wine — and that’s why these hard seltzers and RTDs have been so successful. Certainly there’s the convenience as the appeal, but secondarily, you can really keep track of how much you’re drinking. If you look at a lot of the different surveys that have been done about labeling, you’ll see the Center for Science in the Public Interest, they say 94 percent of adults support alcohol content labeling, 91 percent support ingredient labeling, 89 percent support calorie labeling. These things are going to be coming up more and more. And the brands that get on board quicker with transparency are going to be the successful ones. Just looking at the E.U., for example, in the European Union by the end of 2022, you have to provide nutrition and ingredient information if you’re going to be doing business in those countries. Already there, Diageo, Treasury, AB InBev, have already started to provide ingredient and nutritional information on a voluntary basis before that date on a lot of their products. This is going to become a bigger and bigger issue, especially at the end of 2022 [when] it is required. I think then, a lot more American consumers are going to be requesting and requiring this. Additionally, I think that the brands that do get ahead of this are going to see better sales results. It may sound counterintuitive to say that if people are looking at the calories and ingredients, they’ll choose my product over another, but I really do think it will happen because it’s that type of transparency that has proven so effective for these clean wine marketers. When I say “transparency” let me put that in air quotes because certainly what they are doing is not transparency, it is pseudoscience and pseudo-transparency, but they are coming across as the ones who are taking the high road on this and providing that type of information that consumers are looking for. So once brands that have integrity and are doing marketing on the up and up are providing this level of transparency to their products, it’s going to take the wind out of the sails of a lot of the clean marketers and fitness marketers whose claims will no longer stand up.

Z: I think it’s interesting to think about who will benefit in a landscape where ingredient and nutritional fact labeling is a staple of the alcohol industry. My concern, and you mentioned this a little bit in the past, was that it will disproportionately advantage big companies. You mentioned the big multinationals that are already doing this on a voluntary basis in the E.U., as you said, getting this kind of testing done is not free and it may not even be cheap. If you’re a small winemaker, a relatively small winery, brewery, or distillery, that added cost you would have to weigh the benefit it might derive from the cost it will inflect, and each producer will make their own decision about that. It’s one thing for a big multinational to have its own lab where it can easily do this as part of everything else that they do as part of the business. I’m concerned that this will disproportionality benefit the companies that really don’t need more help at the moment, and also, the other question I am curious to hear your thoughts on is, people say they want ingredient and calorie count labeling, but how much of that 90-ish percent of the population will those numbers actually drive behavior? I think there’s a lot of people who would say, and do say, they want calorie counts on fast food menus but when they go through the drive-thru does that calorie count affect their purchase decision at all? Maybe at the margins, but most people are going to get a Big Mac regardless of whatever the calorie count says, if that’s what they want. So I think that… it doesn’t hurt anyone to have that information in the abstract, but I am dubious that for most consumers they’re going to pick up three bottles of wine or three beers and the determining factor is going to be the calorie count. I think it’s going to be what it tends to be already, which is, what does the label look like? What does it say on the front label? What is the price? That’s going to be how people make their decisions, and maybe calorie count is the tiebreaker for some people, and so fair enough. But I think, as you said, the other thing about this is, there’s not a big difference in a lot of these categories. Most dry wine is going to be in the same narrow range of calories per serving. Beer has a bigger range because of differing levels of alcohol — much more so than wine — spirits to some extent as well, but I think — it’s not a bad thing — but I’m not sure it’s going to be the holy grail of consumer independence and freedom that we might sometimes think it is.

E: For the concern about wineries having to do it every year, I would say that there very well could be some sort of compromise. For example, back in 2017 when the FDA was requiring menu labeling, the Brewers Association said it’s going to be a huge burden on small craft producers to be able to do these calorie counts, so what if we work with the FDA to create some sort of guidelines on what is acceptable around these categories of beer styles instead of individual breweries having to do it themselves, and the FDA agreed. So there are workarounds. I think what if they TTB said, what if you have to do it every five years for your wines. That makes it much more manageable so I think there could be ways around having to test wines every single year. Or maybe it’s when a new product comes onto the market, and every year the alcohol changes by more than a percent and a half, I don’t know what it is but something like that could work. To the second point, I think for the people that are making decisions based on calorie counts, they’re doing that already and they’ve already turned off wine. I was just on Twitter with someone today who sent me a photo of a brand called Fit Wine and it was marketing on calories and I was joking and saying it’s essentially the Walking Dead. These brands are coming out of the woodwork, get your swords ready, you need to be like Daryl Dixon out there slaying zombies because they are coming out of the woodwork and if the TTB does not step in it’s only going to get worse. But the bigger point is we’ve already lost the people that are making these calorie count decisions. If their decisions on what they purchase are based on what’s on the label, they haven’t been purchasing wine but maybe they will come back to wine if they do see calorie counts on there. That would be my perspective. I think these sunshine initiatives that shed light on where there is opaqueness there may be some skeletons in the closet but probably not that many and when you are being more transparent and providing consumers with a level of transparency there’s so much evidence to show that’s what consumers are looking for and I think that is the way of the future for wine, beer, and spirits

Z: I’m a bit mixed in my thoughts on this. This comes back to the conversation about ingredient labeling about healthy wine and products and I think to some extent a thing that gets missed is that alcohol is not inherently a particularly healthy thing. I think that there are ways to which alcohol consumption can be a part of a generally healthy lifestyle but the idea that alcohol consumption is the healthy part of your lifestyle is a ridiculous claim and is the thing that TTB and others need to push back against. Anyone that is attempting to intimate or flat-out state that somehow drinking these wines are somehow good, the whole French paradox, the Mediterranean diet, there’s a lot of pseudoscience in there. And the reality is alcohol is delicious in many cases, its enjoyable, the effect it has on our brains is something that most people find enjoyable at lower levels but is not inherently healthful and so I recoil at the idea that what we should be trying to do is designing products that have a label that makes people want to buy them but it is this idea of Frankensteining a product that gets you below a certain calorie count and doesn’t use certain ingredients but is so divorced from what to me is the pleasurable part of drinking which is not just taste but also the idea of some sense of a through line from a place to a beverage. I just worry that we’re going to end up in this sort of endless quest to create this lowest calorie whatever with the fewest ingredients that has some flavor but really is just an engineered product that meets market demand. And I’m not naive, there’s a lot of wines, beers, and spirits out there that do exactly that and some are delicious and they have a place for sure, but I worry — and in wine in particular — if too much embrace of transparency ends up privileging those where all they have is transparency, there’s nothing there. It’s just a clear window into a factory or something.

E: I think that’s a fair concern and from my perspective, I don’t want to drink those wines but I also don’t want to eat fat-free chips or sugar-free cookies. I am a consumer that loves full fat, full-flavored, give me all the promenades, give me all the backstory, that’s the type of consumer I am, but I think I’m unfortunately less and less the consumer who is looking for all of that full-fat, full-experience type thing. I think it’s just a reality of where we are in the consumer landscape that every other category has some degree of label transparency and this category does not and now it’s being used against the category and consumers are turning off. So I come to this argument as someone who loves the wine industry and the spirits industry, beer I know less about, but wine, in particular, I am legitimately concerned about the future of the wine industry. If some degree of labeling transparency does not become more embraced voluntarily, or enforced if that’s what it needs to be, then more and more consumers are going to turn off of this category because that’s what they expect.

Z: I think I can’t and don’t want to argue against that. It’s an unfortunate reality but that’s what it is. Before we go I’m going to read our Cognac Connection ad one more time. If you are a professional bartender and are interested in entering the Cognac Connection challenge you can win a $1,000 cash stipend. The deadline to do so is Aug. 31 and to do that you go to cognacconnection.com to enter you can also find more details there. Erica, we made it through without Adam. Somehow I feel like we didn’t even mention Seattle until the last minute. He’s going to be so disappointed, I’ll edit in some random clips of us saying Seattle and talking about the weather just to keep up appearances. Adam will be back next week from his well-earned vacation and we will be back waiting for you then. Talk to you later.

E: Talk to you then!

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: Making a Case for Alcohol Label Transparency appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/alcohol-label-transparency/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/627433105676959744

[johnboothus]

VinePair Podcast: Making a Case for Alcohol Label Transparency

There’s an odd fact you might have noticed about beer, wine, and spirits. Unlike virtually every other consumable, the U.S. government does not require alcohol producers and manufacturers to disclose the ingredients or nutritional facts of their product. Furthermore, the number of beverage alcohol producers that do so voluntarily is vanishingly small. As with many alcohol-related laws, this labeling exemption dates back to the end of Prohibition. It persists because alcohol is not regulated through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but instead through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

That lack of nutrition labeling has gone largely unchecked until now, when changes in the industry and interests of American consumers could very well bring the era of opacity to a close.

The rise of hard seltzer and its aggressively promoted low-cal, low-carb lifestyle have begun to force the hand of more traditional beverages like beer, while the “clean wine” movement attempts to capitalize on a lack of transparency in the wine industry. The European Union will require ingredient labeling by the end of 2022. Will these forces be enough to overturn decades of inertia? Will mandated labeling privilege large brands over small producers? That’s what Erica Duecy and Zach Geballe discuss on this week’s episode of the VinePair Podcast.

LISTEN ONLINE

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE

Zach: From Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

Erica: In Connecticut, I’m Erica Duecy.

Z: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Yes, we are without Adam but we are not without ads. This podcast is brought to you by Cognac USA, Speedrack, and VinePair. We’re collaborating to offer 10 $1,000 cash stipend prizes exclusively for professional bartenders. You can enter by creating an original Cognac cocktail and you can even receive bonus points through viewing Speedrack’s Instagram live videos. Visit cognacconnection.com, that’s cognacconnection.com, for details and to enter. The deadline is Aug. 31, and that’s cognacconnection.com. The campaign is financed with aid from the European Union.

Z: Erica, what’s your favorite Cognac cocktail?

E: That’s a good question. If I’m going to drink Cognac I’m probably going to drink it straight. It’s one of those things that if you really enjoy it, that’s one of the ones to savor.

Z: I think there’s a place for the higher end — and trust me, Cognac goes really high end really quick — but the higher-end stuff I wouldn’t mix in a cocktail. Sazerac, which is often traditionally made with Cognac, I think is a delicious cocktail. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this. A couple of years ago, I created a drink for our bar program at one of the restaurants that I was running and it was my take on Vieux-Carre, which is a split-base cocktail with Cognac and rye. I did that but instead of Bénédictine, it had Strega in it, but I think the Vieux-Carré  is a fun one even if it’s not a pure Cognac cocktail.

E: That is a delicious cocktail. In the winter especially, I just really love the idea — even if I don’t have a fireplace — of sitting around the fire with a snifter of Cognac. But really, I just use a rocks glass.

Z: You’re telling me you don’t retire to your hunting lodge every winter?

E: I’m getting there, not quite yet.

Z: When this podcast finally blows up. I have another question for you before we get into today’s topic. We were debating what to discuss this week, and maybe we’ll get back to this in the future, but I was curious, you’re the parent of a couple of kids who are older than my son and right now, my son’s interaction with alcohol is basically learning a surprisingly large number of grape varieties because we teach them to him. His favorite is Roussanne, in case anyone is wondering. But how do your kids react to what you do for a living?

E: I think they think it’s pretty interesting, although my husband has an even more interesting job because he’s playing with clay all day, so nothing really can compare to that. However, they do seem to think that it’s interesting that I’m tasting a lot of wines and tasting spirits and thinking about cocktails, and sometimes making up recipes. … And people seem to get a lot of enjoyment when they’re at our house because I’m always whipping up something, I always love to have a special cocktail that I’m serving if people come over, or, I’m pouring wines. So I think parties at our house, and small gatherings, tend to be pretty festive. I’m always interested in, for example at the end of a meal, pulling out a couple of bottles of Armagnac or Cognac or something. So people are always tasting and testing and talking about it. And the girls do love smelling in the glass. I think one of my proudest moments was when my daughter Gia was about 6 years old and I asked her to smell into the glass of sherry, and she told me that it smelled like nuts! I was so proud of her, and she was very quizzically looking at me like, “Yeah, it tastes like nuts.”

Z: That’s awesome. I can’t believe this never occurred to me before but it feels like the final form of yours and John’s relationship is opening the world’s fanciest pottery, painting, and wine sipping extravaganza. I’m sure you have seen those advertised, [where you] go paint some pottery and sip wine, but yours would be the fanciest of them all.

E: That’s pretty much our house all the time. They tend to have a good time, and we do open up the studio and have little parties up there when we’re not in a social distancing period — and so they are playing with clay and I’m making cocktails. I love to do a Spritz bar when we’re up there. There’s a lot of fun stuff to do and for kids, they’re pretty young so we’re not talking too much about responsibility around alcohol yet. I don’t think they’re quite there yet from a standpoint of really understanding the depth and nuance of that. But certainly, we do not have any sloppy behavior around them. I think that’s our way of presenting what alcohol looks like when consumed in a responsible manner.

Z: That is good. As you probably know, the sloppiness is a trickier thing to manage when you have a young child. There’s no way that goes well for anyone, even if you were tempted to do it. Dealing with a 2-year-old with a hangover is really miserable. Been there once or twice, sadly.

E: Exactly. I’m getting a little old for hangovers, I think.

Z: This would have been a natural segue if we were talking about hangover-free wine, but we are going to be in that general vein, so we might as well move on to the topic for today’s show. I think this is a really fascinating conversation that, hopefully, we’re going to have here, which is about the increased scrutiny potentially being paid to not just wine but all beverages and labeling. Erica, I think you could set the ground a little bit better than I can in this context. I’ll just say, one of the things that are important to understand as we get into this conversation is that in the United States, alcohol has traditionally been exempted from the rules that surround most other consumable products in terms of the requirement to disclose nutritional facts and ingredients. And there’s a real conversation going on in the industry about whether it’s time to give up that special exemption and be more upfront about what is in a bottle or can.

E: I think one of the big things that we need to realize is that virtually everything you can buy at a grocery store or in any other part of your life — at chain restaurants, for example — everything comes with a nutrition label these days. At chain restaurants, you have calories listed on menus, on the soda you’re drinking, any sort of other drinks, except for alcohol, it’s labeled. Why is alcohol exempt? The short answer here is that it’s a legacy of Prohibition. Alcoholic beverages aren’t regulated by the FDA, like everything else, but instead by the TTB, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and they don’t require nutritional labeling. Consumer advocates have been pressuring the agency for years to add this labeling but it never seems to happen. Most recently, last year the modernization of the labeling and advertising regulations for wine, distilled spirits, and malt beverages Notice No. 176 was up for review and they did make some changes to the laws around labeling, but it did not concern nutritional labeling. The TTB said in April of this year that they will revisit those labels at a later time. But I think the real thing that we’re finding is that consumers want to know what they’re drinking and because we have created this environment of opaqueness around what is in the bottle across beer, wine, and spirits, that’s done two things. First, it’s turned many consumers off of these products onto other categories. Hard seltzer is one that has adequate product labeling, and I think that is one of the things that has really led to the rise of hard seltzer. Second, there have also been these dubious marketers, these clean wine marketers, these fitness marketers, making all sorts of claims about their wines that are verifiably false that we have fact-checked and have published articles about. Yet it’s because of this environment of opaqueness that those claims have now risen up.

Z: I think this is something that maybe more people in the beverage and alcohol space should have seen coming: That if you’re not transparent, people will use that lack of transparency against you. Whether they’re doing so dishonestly or not, it doesn’t really seem to matter. You pointed out this whole issue with clean wine companies and this has come up a few times in the past, but as one of the people who wrote one of those articles, I will say that it was remarkable going down this rabbit hole of what some of these claims that are made, and really a lot of it is an implication that “our wine doesn’t have these ingredients in it, we don’t use these additives,” so, therefore, your inference as a consumer, especially not a super well-informed one, is “everyone else must be using these.” Because if you’re making a point to say “we don’t put ferrocyanide in our wines,” which no one does, it’s not even allowed anymore, I don’t want that and the implication is that every other wine has that. But again this is where wine, beer, and spirits have made themselves vulnerable. I will say one of the things that I really want to get into in this conversation, and Erica, I’m curious [about] your thoughts on it: I do think there is a fundamental difference between wanting labeling that gives consumers actionable information, like how many calories in a serving, versus information that I’m not sure is all that useful. One of the wineries that does label in terms of ingredients is Ridge. Ridge is a great winery and makes exceptional wine, but if you look at that label, I think even for a wine professional, it’s pretty opaque. You have to know a lot about how wine is made to understand if what they’re talking about here is normal. Is it reasonable that they add nutrients to the yeast? Or is it normal to water wine down? For me or you as professionals, those words mean something, but to a consumer I’m not sure that a list of ingredients is going to help them at all. Maybe it will, but I think the calorie thing is one side and the specifics about what is in the products are another.

E: From my perspective, I think that as much transparency as possible is the way to go, and it’s really about educating consumers. The reason that I am for more transparency is that what you don’t say can be used against you. A good example from Ridge would be calcium carbonate. People might not know what calcium carbonate is, and they may want to look it up or go to Ridge’s website where you can see that it’s saying small additions of this compound are used during fermentation to moderate unusually high natural acidity. So I think if you give an explanation and you are stating why something would be used in a wine, then that takes away the ability of marketers to use it against you. I think that’s the unintended, unrecognized thing that people in the industry just didn’t anticipate. I think people in the industry thought for a long time it’s not going to be a good idea for us to label because if we start putting calorie counts on things, then people will drink less. There are also practical concerns for winemakers around cost. Having to test all these bottles every vintage has a cost to it. But when you don’t do those things, that’s when you’re opening yourself up for bigger problems where these unscrupulous marketers come in and start to take all of your business away because they’re saying “we don’t do all of these shady things,” when really not much of what is happening is very shady at all.

Z: I think it’s also important, as much as possible, to differentiate between two important things with ingredient labeling. It’s sometimes muddied in even professionals’ minds, let alone consumers’ minds, the unfortunate history of wine, if you stretch back far enough, with things being added to wine or wine being adulterated in various ways that were not only disingenuous — producers in Burgundy blending in Rhône wine or North African wine to bulk their wines out, the same thing with producers in Bordeaux, to the Austrian scandal of glycerol in wines in the mid-’80s. And these are things where the additives can be potentially toxic or harmful. With modern winemaking, the area we’re talking about most often is pesticide residues in wine, that being a relatively small concern with most wine but it is a possibility and something I think I understand people’s interest in knowing whether that’s something that could possibly be in their wine, versus a lot of the additives, even the ones that wine connoisseur might turn their nose up. Like mega purple, which gets a terrible rap, and I think there’s a philosophical issue with using grape concentrate to make your wine seem more colorful and richer in flavor, but it’s not at all harmful. It doesn’t hurt people and it’s probably the only way that a $5 bottle of California Cabernet can make it to a store shelf. I don’t personally have a lot of issues with it like “this is bad for the public.” I think if it was disclosed on the label it might change people’s purchasing decisions, which probably is a good thing, but I guess I think that is important to understand what information we are trying to provide to people and how that will affect things. Anything that involves a potential health risk is hugely important to disclose. I’m not saying that I don’t think winemakers should be forced to disclose when they modify their wine in a variety of wines, but I think it’s important to also push back on the notion that doing that is harmful. It might not represent the pinnacle of winemaking, but it’s not bad for you in any real way.

E: That’s true. And I think it is a reality that people do not have any idea how many calories are in the alcohol that they’re drinking. I was looking at some different studies, and one public health researcher found that most Americans are drinking 400 calories a day of alcohol. When you think of an average glass of beer or wine it’s probably around 150 calories, and it’s much more for cocktails, so I think there’s a health concern that is legitimate — of people wanting to know how many calories are in their wine — and that’s why these hard seltzers and RTDs have been so successful. Certainly there’s the convenience as the appeal, but secondarily, you can really keep track of how much you’re drinking. If you look at a lot of the different surveys that have been done about labeling, you’ll see the Center for Science in the Public Interest, they say 94 percent of adults support alcohol content labeling, 91 percent support ingredient labeling, 89 percent support calorie labeling. These things are going to be coming up more and more. And the brands that get on board quicker with transparency are going to be the successful ones. Just looking at the E.U., for example, in the European Union by the end of 2022, you have to provide nutrition and ingredient information if you’re going to be doing business in those countries. Already there, Diageo, Treasury, AB InBev, have already started to provide ingredient and nutritional information on a voluntary basis before that date on a lot of their products. This is going to become a bigger and bigger issue, especially at the end of 2022 [when] it is required. I think then, a lot more American consumers are going to be requesting and requiring this. Additionally, I think that the brands that do get ahead of this are going to see better sales results. It may sound counterintuitive to say that if people are looking at the calories and ingredients, they’ll choose my product over another, but I really do think it will happen because it’s that type of transparency that has proven so effective for these clean wine marketers. When I say “transparency” let me put that in air quotes because certainly what they are doing is not transparency, it is pseudoscience and pseudo-transparency, but they are coming across as the ones who are taking the high road on this and providing that type of information that consumers are looking for. So once brands that have integrity and are doing marketing on the up and up are providing this level of transparency to their products, it’s going to take the wind out of the sails of a lot of the clean marketers and fitness marketers whose claims will no longer stand up.

Z: I think it’s interesting to think about who will benefit in a landscape where ingredient and nutritional fact labeling is a staple of the alcohol industry. My concern, and you mentioned this a little bit in the past, was that it will disproportionately advantage big companies. You mentioned the big multinationals that are already doing this on a voluntary basis in the E.U., as you said, getting this kind of testing done is not free and it may not even be cheap. If you’re a small winemaker, a relatively small winery, brewery, or distillery, that added cost you would have to weigh the benefit it might derive from the cost it will inflect, and each producer will make their own decision about that. It’s one thing for a big multinational to have its own lab where it can easily do this as part of everything else that they do as part of the business. I’m concerned that this will disproportionality benefit the companies that really don’t need more help at the moment, and also, the other question I am curious to hear your thoughts on is, people say they want ingredient and calorie count labeling, but how much of that 90-ish percent of the population will those numbers actually drive behavior? I think there’s a lot of people who would say, and do say, they want calorie counts on fast food menus but when they go through the drive-thru does that calorie count affect their purchase decision at all? Maybe at the margins, but most people are going to get a Big Mac regardless of whatever the calorie count says, if that’s what they want. So I think that… it doesn’t hurt anyone to have that information in the abstract, but I am dubious that for most consumers they’re going to pick up three bottles of wine or three beers and the determining factor is going to be the calorie count. I think it’s going to be what it tends to be already, which is, what does the label look like? What does it say on the front label? What is the price? That’s going to be how people make their decisions, and maybe calorie count is the tiebreaker for some people, and so fair enough. But I think, as you said, the other thing about this is, there’s not a big difference in a lot of these categories. Most dry wine is going to be in the same narrow range of calories per serving. Beer has a bigger range because of differing levels of alcohol — much more so than wine — spirits to some extent as well, but I think — it’s not a bad thing — but I’m not sure it’s going to be the holy grail of consumer independence and freedom that we might sometimes think it is.

E: For the concern about wineries having to do it every year, I would say that there very well could be some sort of compromise. For example, back in 2017 when the FDA was requiring menu labeling, the Brewers Association said it’s going to be a huge burden on small craft producers to be able to do these calorie counts, so what if we work with the FDA to create some sort of guidelines on what is acceptable around these categories of beer styles instead of individual breweries having to do it themselves, and the FDA agreed. So there are workarounds. I think what if they TTB said, what if you have to do it every five years for your wines. That makes it much more manageable so I think there could be ways around having to test wines every single year. Or maybe it’s when a new product comes onto the market, and every year the alcohol changes by more than a percent and a half, I don’t know what it is but something like that could work. To the second point, I think for the people that are making decisions based on calorie counts, they’re doing that already and they’ve already turned off wine. I was just on Twitter with someone today who sent me a photo of a brand called Fit Wine and it was marketing on calories and I was joking and saying it’s essentially the Walking Dead. These brands are coming out of the woodwork, get your swords ready, you need to be like Daryl Dixon out there slaying zombies because they are coming out of the woodwork and if the TTB does not step in it’s only going to get worse. But the bigger point is we’ve already lost the people that are making these calorie count decisions. If their decisions on what they purchase are based on what’s on the label, they haven’t been purchasing wine but maybe they will come back to wine if they do see calorie counts on there. That would be my perspective. I think these sunshine initiatives that shed light on where there is opaqueness there may be some skeletons in the closet but probably not that many and when you are being more transparent and providing consumers with a level of transparency there’s so much evidence to show that’s what consumers are looking for and I think that is the way of the future for wine, beer, and spirits

Z: I’m a bit mixed in my thoughts on this. This comes back to the conversation about ingredient labeling about healthy wine and products and I think to some extent a thing that gets missed is that alcohol is not inherently a particularly healthy thing. I think that there are ways to which alcohol consumption can be a part of a generally healthy lifestyle but the idea that alcohol consumption is the healthy part of your lifestyle is a ridiculous claim and is the thing that TTB and others need to push back against. Anyone that is attempting to intimate or flat-out state that somehow drinking these wines are somehow good, the whole French paradox, the Mediterranean diet, there’s a lot of pseudoscience in there. And the reality is alcohol is delicious in many cases, its enjoyable, the effect it has on our brains is something that most people find enjoyable at lower levels but is not inherently healthful and so I recoil at the idea that what we should be trying to do is designing products that have a label that makes people want to buy them but it is this idea of Frankensteining a product that gets you below a certain calorie count and doesn’t use certain ingredients but is so divorced from what to me is the pleasurable part of drinking which is not just taste but also the idea of some sense of a through line from a place to a beverage. I just worry that we’re going to end up in this sort of endless quest to create this lowest calorie whatever with the fewest ingredients that has some flavor but really is just an engineered product that meets market demand. And I’m not naive, there’s a lot of wines, beers, and spirits out there that do exactly that and some are delicious and they have a place for sure, but I worry — and in wine in particular — if too much embrace of transparency ends up privileging those where all they have is transparency, there’s nothing there. It’s just a clear window into a factory or something.

E: I think that’s a fair concern and from my perspective, I don’t want to drink those wines but I also don’t want to eat fat-free chips or sugar-free cookies. I am a consumer that loves full fat, full-flavored, give me all the promenades, give me all the backstory, that’s the type of consumer I am, but I think I’m unfortunately less and less the consumer who is looking for all of that full-fat, full-experience type thing. I think it’s just a reality of where we are in the consumer landscape that every other category has some degree of label transparency and this category does not and now it’s being used against the category and consumers are turning off. So I come to this argument as someone who loves the wine industry and the spirits industry, beer I know less about, but wine, in particular, I am legitimately concerned about the future of the wine industry. If some degree of labeling transparency does not become more embraced voluntarily, or enforced if that’s what it needs to be, then more and more consumers are going to turn off of this category because that’s what they expect.

Z: I think I can’t and don’t want to argue against that. It’s an unfortunate reality but that’s what it is. Before we go I’m going to read our Cognac Connection ad one more time. If you are a professional bartender and are interested in entering the Cognac Connection challenge you can win a $1,000 cash stipend. The deadline to do so is Aug. 31 and to do that you go to cognacconnection.com to enter you can also find more details there. Erica, we made it through without Adam. Somehow I feel like we didn’t even mention Seattle until the last minute. He’s going to be so disappointed, I’ll edit in some random clips of us saying Seattle and talking about the weather just to keep up appearances. Adam will be back next week from his well-earned vacation and we will be back waiting for you then. Talk to you later.

E: Talk to you then!

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me: Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder Josh Malin and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: Making a Case for Alcohol Label Transparency appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/alcohol-label-transparency/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-making-a-case-for-alcohol-label-transparency