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redbeardace · 3 years

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I was asleep.

Everyone remembers where they were. I was sleeping.

I was in college then. Summer quarter had ended a few weeks ago, and Fall quarter was a few weeks away, so I had nothing to do that Tuesday. I was sleeping.

My mother would get up to help get my father ready for work. He'd leave a little after 6 AM. Then she'd stay up and turn on the KTLA Morning News. We weren't in Southern California, but we'd lived there and had family connections there, so it felt like a "local" newscast, even though it was a thousand miles away. So most weekdays, I'd fade into consciousness, hearing the rhythm of the broadcast.

Carlos to Mark, Mark to Jennifer, Jennifer to Sam, Commercial, Repeat.

That morning, none of that.

I couldn't really hear what was going on, but it wasn't normal. There were no jokes, no music, no commercials, no changes. Just a steady drone.

I started to listen, to try to hear what was happening.

I heard something about the Pentagon and a bomb at the State Department.

Well. That's not good.

I roll out of bed and into the living room. It was a little after 7:30.

There's a helicopter shot of giant cloud of dust on the TV. Dust. A few buildings. here and there. But dust. Everywhere. It looked like Mt. St. Helens had moved to the city and erupted.

It wasn't the Pentagon. It wasn't the State Department. Was that New York?

"Planes hit the World Trade Center towers." My mother's voice is shaky.

Okay, then, somewhere in that dust are the towers. They build those things to survive plane strikes. It survived the bomb in '93. The Empire State Building got hit by a plane and it's still standing. She told me that they'd fallen, but I didn't believe her. I couldn't believe her. They're just hidden by the dust and the dust will clear.

The dust will clear. The towers can't just fall. You'll see.

The dust will clear.

There was nothing there.

---

We watched what was unfolding on the other side of the continent all day long. I think my father got sent home early and joined us.

Watching a day like that unfold live is an experience that's hard to describe. You look back now, and there's a clear timeline, there are clear events. But on that day, nothing was clear. The news was an unbroken stream of numbing repetition and confusion. The anchors narrating what's going on have a worse view of it than you do, because they're squinting at small monitors halfway across the studio. You can flip between CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and pick up little tidbits here and there, but they can't. They only have what comes through their earpiece, what ends up on their TelePrompTer, what's handed to them on paper. No one knows what's going on, not even the people telling you what's going on.

That day was full of rumors and confusion. There were attacks at the State Department and the FBI, there was a plane that had crashed in rural Pennsylvania, there was a plane that had been hijacked in Alaska. We didn't know what was real, and what was a phantom of fear. But mostly, it was just the numbing repetition. There was nothing new to add. Nothing more to say at 1 PM that hadn't been said at noon. What got repeated is what had happened, what didn't get repeated hadn't. The plane crash in Pennsylvania got repeated. The attack at the State Department didn't.

All day long, it was the same video from earlier in the day. Maybe a new angle as reporters and survivors got their footage to a TV station. But we watched it again and again. Maybe there'd be a new detail to see, something to fill in another piece of the What The Fuck Just Happened puzzle we were now living in.

In a weird way, that day didn't seem as bad as it went on and the rumors subsided and the scope became clear. My morning started with a dust cloud that covered all of Lower Manhattan and obscured what had happened. Had the towers toppled sideways and crushed dozens of buildings for blocks around? It was 9 AM on a Tuesday, a work day, those buildings were full, and the area was a major commuter hub. 10000 people in each building, maybe tens of thousands passing through, hundreds of thousands in that cloud of dust. There's no one alive down there. The initial estimates they gave were 20-30 thousand in the collapsed towers alone, to say nothing of the people suffocated by that cloud of dust and smoke. And then Washington DC is under attack and they're even hijacking planes in Alaska. What are they going to do to us next? But the death toll steadily dropped, other rumored attacks were found to be false alarms, they didn't come back for a second round. But that "good" news didn't make us feel any better. What would've made us feel better would've been word that they had been rescuing dozens of people from the rubble, stories of survivors being found days later, but that news never came.

---

Where's the President? Why haven't we seen the President? Why hasn't he said anything?

"He's safe and in an undisclosed location."

On September 10th, George W. Bush was just a bumbling dumbass who'd stolen the election from Gore. He wasn't yet a warmonger, although he'd surrounded himself with them.

On September 11th, Bush was still a bumbling dumbass, but he was our President. I was actually glad that he was invisible and hidden most of that day. We didn't know what in the hell was going on. If I knew where the President was, then the assholes who did this to us would know where he was, and no matter how much I didn't like the guy, I certainly didn't want to see a terrorist attack on Air Force One or the White House.

But I was worried that he'd send in the missiles and bombers and turn everything from Morocco to Pakistan to ash, which is what some people were calling for before we even knew who was responsible. And that's not what happened. All that happened that day was... nothing. I respected that, and I still respect that. Rushing headlong into revenge isn't what we needed that day.

---

We ended that day, not with Dan Rather or Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw, but with Hal Fishman, legendary anchor on the KTLA News at Ten. He was a plane guy. He'd know what happened. He was comfortable to us, familiar, and we needed to know there was still something out there comfortable and familiar.

---

The next day, my mother wanted a break from it all, so we went shopping. I don't think we needed to, and Wednesday wasn't the normal shopping day, but we just had to get out, so we went to Wal-Mart.

Throughout the store, there were TVs hanging from the ceiling. Normally, they'd show ads and music videos and things. Not that day. They were all tuned to CNN. People stopped in the middle of the aisle, watching Condoleezza Rice or Donald Rumsfeld or Colin Powell or whoever giving a press conference.

There was no break from it.

---

Does everyone else know it was a Tuesday? I mean, just know. Like somehow that is an important, integral part of what happened that day. Because I know it was a Tuesday with that same fierceness as I know that the towers fell. I don't remember all the flight numbers or which tower was hit first or which one fell first or even a single word of what the President said that night, but I know it was a Tuesday. And I don't understand why.

---

I've cried over it. I just did while writing all this. It's one of the few things I have cried about. But it's never sustained weeping. One tear. Maybe two. It feels like it should be more, but then it's like the scale becomes incomprehensible and unreal and it stops. What good will my tears do? They won't fix it. They won't change it.

---

"Never Forget", they say, but twenty years on, many of you have no memory of that day, maybe even weren't born yet. You've only seen the packaged videos from the perfect camera angles. You know what happened, the full story told from beginning to end across three acts in a two hour movie. You know the death toll, you know about the box cutters, you know how Osama Bin Laden ends, you know where the undisclosed location is, you know about the plane that said "Let's Roll". We didn't know any of that, sometimes for days or weeks or years. We only knew shock and confusion and sadness and anger and numbness and a giant cloud of dust that has not cleared and will never clear and still coats everything in our lives, even if we were thousands of miles away.

For those of us who saw that day...

Never forget?

How could we?

#9/11 #september 11th

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Misread Details, Part One

CW: Death talk, BBU, dehumanizing language about Box Boys

A Box Boy Serial Killer On the Loose? Part 1 of 3

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee 1 month ago

Hello, r/LetsTalkTrueCrime!

I’ve posted this write-up in a couple other reddits, but someone pointed me to this one as being a good place for discussion, and this is a really weird set of three unsolved murders (well, one death and two murders? Maybe?) and I wanted to see if any of you have some thoughts or maybe more info on these cases.

Three men died within two years in three different cities.

While each death is unique, all of them have one thing in common - fingerprints and DNA from a single human pet was found in every single location.

Let’s start with the first death.

Nathaniel Matthew Benson, who went by “Nanda” (a childhood nickname given to him by a younger brother who couldn’t pronounce his full name as a toddler, apparently), was forty-one years old at the time of his death.

He was born and raised in North Dakota by very strict religious parents, and had three younger brothers and one younger sister. There is some disagreement here about whether his home life was peaceful or not. His younger sister claims that the environment at home was strict but fair, and the family was mostly happy. Two of his three younger brothers tell a different story, about a father who put too much on their shoulders, especially “Nanda” as the eldest, and the pressure they felt to be perfect.

His other brother, the youngest of the family, has never given a public interview beyond a short statement that he and Nanda were not close, and he did not feel able to speak about his character. There were nearly fifteen years between the oldest and youngest childrens’ births, and Nathaniel had moved out of the house by the time the youngest was four years old, so this makes sense.

By all accounts, Nathaniel was an excellent student, getting all A’s throughout his years of education. He was considered quiet and shy, and most of his high school classmates don’t have many standout memories of him. He graduated valedictorian of his high school class, then surprised everyone by stating he wouldn’t be attending college, and instead would be taking a “gap year” to travel the United States using money from his graduation party and also some he’d saved up from working part-time retail and restaurant jobs.

Between ages 18 and 19, he took his small secondhand four-door vehicle around the nation, calling home every week or so to give his family updates, sending postcards, etc. After about six months, though, the phone calls and postcards became fewer and fewer, and eventually he told everyone he had gotten a new job and decided to forgo college entirely.

His family was shocked - and by all accounts his father was furious - but Nathaniel refused to budge.

There was apparently a very hostile phone conversation about one year after this decision which was the last time Nathaniel Benson spoke to his father directly until his death.

After this, his family received only sporadic communications sent from a P.O. Box located in central California, in a mid-sized city known as Dosaba. He never did give anyone an actual home address.

He occasionally called them, mostly his sister and one of his brothers, but surviving family states that the phone number he called from was different every single time, and usually didn’t have a California area code.

“He used burner phones for everything,” Nathaniel’s sister Samantha told WNDR, a local news station, shortly after his mysterious death. “And he would never tell us what job he did. We asked and asked and Nanda would just say ‘oh, this and that’, or ‘I do contractor work’. Just answers that don’t tell you anything. It was all very mysterious, very secretive. You know, we talked about how maybe he’d gotten into drugs or something, but my brother wasn’t a drug user, ever. It just seems so out of character for the brother I knew.”

“He was always reading his Bible when we knew him,” Younger brother Timothy stated. “But you know, I asked him once if he had found a home church wherever he was living, and he laughed and laughed. Then he just said, ‘they’d have a lot of opinions on how I live my life if I did that’, and changed the subject. So I knew whatever he was doing, it probably wasn’t good.”

There has been a lot of speculation by investigators that “Nanda” had indeed picked up employment within some kind of drug smuggling group at this time. Evidence found after his death has even opened the possibility that he worked as a high-end hitman.

There’s a lot of international travel during this time period, far more than can be accounted for unless travel was part of his workplace responsibilities. Employment records show him working as a sales manager for a company called Sunrise Investments, but this is believed by many to be a shell corporation hiding something much, much darker.

However, all of this remains speculative, and there’s never been any proof that Nathaniel Benson did anything but the financial sales the company claims. No one ever did much work with him, and other employees at the company stated contact with him occurred entirely by phone and fax (and then e-mail) at this time.

When investigators pored over the documents after getting a warrant, they weren’t able to find anything suspicious - and that in and of itself seems suspicious to some.

For years, Benson seemed to simply drop off the map entirely when it comes to local information - investigators did find that he owned a vintage Corvette that he fixed up himself (found via vehicle registry and taxes listings, which is public knowledge), and that about two years before his death he bought a large five-bedroom house with a basement in Dosaba, which he renovated in total secrecy. I was able to find records of him paying home taxes through his mortgage company, and that he spoke to local contractors and building companies, paying for consultations about the renovations he undertook.

None of the companies he spoke to kept any kind of detailed notes about these consultations, but you’ll see why it’s relevant when I discuss what was found after his death.

Nathaniel Benson’s life came to an abrupt end on August 16th, 20XX, but nobody would find his body for more than two days.

On August 18th, his cleaning lady arrived for her usual weekly visit to discover him crumpled at the foot of the stairs, face-up. She called 911 immediately and first responders arrived within twenty minutes to her white-faced and nearly silent.

First responders noted that Nathaniel’s eyes were closed, unusual for a violent death. A wet cloth had been laid over them to help them stay that way. The medical examiner stated later that this would have to have been done within the first hour after he died, before rigor mortis could stiffen muscles and lead to them opening again.

That whoever witnessed his death knew to do this is deeply unusual, and may be a sign of affection or grief.

The autopsy found that Nathaniel had met his end approximately 36 hours before he was found, and had died due to an undiagnosed heart defect that had resulted in cardiac arrest.

Sounds like any sudden death that can simply be written off as sad but natural, right? Well, there’s a few details that make things a little murkier than that, and have led to his death being listed as “undetermined” officially, and possibly including foul play.

For one thing, Nathaniel hadn’t simply collapsed next to the stairs - he had fallen, or been pushed, and showed evidence of bone fractures and head trauma consistent with the fall. A bit of blood was found on one step that came from his injuries. This head trauma would likely not have been fatal if he had received medical attention, but cardiac arrest ensured death even if head trauma didn’t.

Did Nathaniel Benson suffer a heart attack and fall down the stairs, dying only when he reached the bottom? Maybe.

Or maybe he really was pushed, the shock of it is the reason he went into cardiac arrest.

There’s one more unusual fact that makes foul play a possibility in this mysterious death.

Nathaniel Benson owned a legally purchased Box Boy, no known legal name, who went by his original purchase number: 334235. The Box Boy was a Romantic designation, and was purchased from Facility 001 in Berras, a city in Southern California, where the WRU headquarters is located.

WRU, when contacted by investigators, easily agreed to meet and provide detectives with information regarding the Box Boy’s purchase, as well as the DNA and fingerprint samples the company keeps on file.

According to WRU’s internal records, this Boxie was not only a designated Romantic, but a specialty Romantic, trained for ‘masochism’. This tracks with multiple books on, shall we say, somewhat salacious interests that Benson had for his love life.

As Benson never seemed to date anyone or maintain a relationship, it’s theorized that the Boxie was his way of dealing with the stress of his work. WRU noted that Benson had contacted them after the purchase was complete to give his compliments on the Boxie’s training and note that he was ‘perfect’ and they ‘got along just fine’.

The Box Boy’s fingerprints were found all over the house, which is totally normal. He was living there full-time, after all. But investigators also located something a bit more unusual: a secret room within the home that the cleaning lady had never seen before, hidden behind a carefully camouflaged door.

This is what Benson had been working on when he ‘renovated’ his newly purchased home: He built a secret dungeon room with stone walls and a concrete floor, outfitted with a dip and a “drain”, plus a garden hose hooked up on one wall.

The room also had rows upon rows of cabinets full of various tools consistent with a ‘hard BDSM lifestyle’, according to one detective. I wasn’t able to get ahold of the actual list of items found, but was able to determine that whips, knives, ‘unspecified implements purchased from adult stores’, and other things were found.

Tests done on the walls and floor showed that blood had been spilled nearly everywhere in the room at one time or another, and large amounts of it. There was also evidence of blood found in Nathaniel Benson’s bedroom, primarily on the floor and in the bed. A small faded stain was found on the headboard just below a set of cuffs hooked into it.

A few small dried bloodstains were also found around the master bathroom sink, and investigators were able to determine the blood matched the DNA of the Box Boy, and was left there much more recently than the rest of the blood in the house, possibly even on the day of Benson’s death.

Here’s the thing, though: the Box Boy himself was nowhere to be found.

Was this Box Boy tired of being used as a human pincushion? Did he take matters into his own hands and commit the ultimate crime a pet can do, killing his owner? If he did, he no doubt knew what happens to pets who kill their owners, usually either being ‘put down’ or wiped clean to be resold.

Is our Boxie a killer right from the start? Or was he only a witness to a natural death who panicked and ran away?

Without locating the Boxie himself, it’s impossible to know.

The cleaning lady remembered him, and gave a description: Somewhere between 5’8” and 5’11”, wiry but with some muscle, usually dressed in just a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt when she was in the house. He has short dark hair, brown eyes, and an angular face. She mentioned visible scars on his arms, but none on his face. She was told to call him only “pet” if she needed to speak to him. She stated his voice was slightly hoarse and rough, as if he had a sore throat all the time.

They had only one significant interaction, where the cleaning lady inquired about a large bruise on the Boxie’s face and bandages on his arms. He apparently told her, at the time, that he ‘liked the reminer’, but thanked her for asking after his health. They never spoke directly again.

The detail about his face being unscarred will become incredibly relevant in parts 2 and 3.

Neighbors, when asked, mentioned that they had seen someone matching that description walking away from the house somewhere around 4 and 5 pm on August 16th. The medical examiner believes Benson died around noon, so this leaves about four or five hours between the death and the Boxie leaving.

He appeared to be walking very quickly and one neighbor noticed he was holding what looked like crumpled cash in one hand and a plastic shopping bag in another.

He was spotted waiting at a nearby bus stop, and footage from a camera mounted inside the bus shows someone matching the Box Boy’s description riding the bus all the way into Dosaba’s historic, artsy downtown. There, he was again captured on CCTV purchasing a one-way train ticket with cash. The train station employee who sold him the ticket remembers offering him a round-trip ticket for a discount, which she always did anyone who asked for a ticket to another city, only to have him “nervously” say he wouldn’t need to come back. She mentioned that he scratched at the side of his neck, and that when he walked away, he looked like his shoes were a little too big for his feet.

It is believed, as Nathaniel Benson was found barefoot but wearing clothing that suggested he had been outside doing yard work just before his death, that the Box Boy stole his shoes.

The fleeing Box Boy is captured one more time on camera as he arrived at his destination, Red Hills, approximately a two-hour train ride to the south. He walks past the CCTV quickly, hunched over as if trying to hide his face.

After that, he disappears.

Red Hills is a significantly larger city than Dosaba, with nearly a million residents within city limits and another 600,000 filling its suburbs and outer neighborhoods. Red Hills is a city that has seen better days, and it would be easy for a runaway Box Boy to simply fade away into its seedier districts. While Red Hills has had more than a dozen runaway Boxies picked up over the years, mostly Romantics who engaged in prostitution to make ends meet, it’s not believed that Benson’s Box Boy knew this when he chose the location.

As Romantic Boxies usually can’t read, it’s believed he simply chose a location he’d overheard someone else say, knowing nothing about what he would find when he got there.

Two days after his death, Nathaniel Benson’s debit and credit cards, Driver’s License, and a folded-up note he had written to himself about buying toothpaste were found in a plastic shopping bag tied-off at the top, were found inside the bus the Boxie had ridden, stuffed between the edge of a seat and the wall. The Boxie’s fingerprints were on everything.

But the Boxie himself wouldn’t be seen again until more than a year later.

Nathaniel “Nanda” Benson’s death for a time remained a one-off unsolved mystery. A little on the unusual side, but entirely possible that no foul play occurred, just some details that need filling in.

The shocking murder of a Red Hills man known locally as “Brute” would bring this Box Boy back into law enforcement’s line of sight, and open up questions about whether the Box Boy had simply been running away from Nathaniel Benson’s death… or leaving to find a new victim.

I’ll post Part 2, about “Brute”, shortly! Then Part 3 will be about a third murder, in which our potential Box Boy serial killer takes out… another serial killer.

I told you this one gets interesting.

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @raigash @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @endless-whump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary

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morningfears · 5 years

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Back Home

Rating: PG-13 (Blink and you’ll miss it homophobia, some swearing)

Summary: Calum and Elizabeth are going to Hangout with Michael and Crystal in Gulf Shores, Alabama. However, they’ve decided to make a stop in Elizabeth’s hometown, first. Calum gets to see firsthand what growing up in the middle of nowhere was like and, while he’s at it, ask her parents for her hand in marriage.

Word Count: 7k

Calum watched as sunlight filtered through the thick growth of trees lining the road and into the car, illuminating Elizabeth’s face as they drove along a seemingly deserted back road in some tiny Alabama town he didn’t remember the name of. Her eyes, a beautiful green that he hoped their children would someday inherit, were hidden beneath a pair of sunglasses she’d stolen from him but he could clearly see how she was feeling from the smile on her lips and the way that she relaxed in the driver’s seat.

They were on their way to her parents’ house, located in an even tinier Alabama town, where they planned to spend a few days before joining Michael and Crystal in Gulf Shores for the Hangout Festival. It was a new experience for him, he’d never been to either her hometown or Hangout, but he found himself looking forward to it. He found himself looking forward to the blistering heat (“It’s actually not that bad yet,” she’d told him as they packed their bags, “it’s only hit ninety once this week.”) and the solitude she’d described when telling him about growing up in the middle of the woods. But his excitement was nothing compared to hers.

Elizabeth had always been vocal about her dislike of southern politics, southern hypocrisy, southern weather (“It can’t make up it’s damn mind! One day, it’s eighty degrees and sunshine. The next, it’s thirty and you’ve got snow flurries. But maybe that’s just April,” she’d once said, and Calum had never forgotten it), and her own accent - one that Calum could hear but just barely - but he knew she missed certain things. She missed the food - her mother’s, specifically - and some of the people. She missed being able to smile at someone as she walked down the sidewalk and not get a funny look in return. She missed manners, being expected to say hello and ask how someone was doing when she walked into a shop, and not getting a dirty look if she called someone over the age of thirty ma’am.

But, more than anything, she missed her family.

Though Calum and Elizabeth had been together for nearly three years, he’d only met her parents once. It was at her college graduation, less than a year into their relationship, and the meeting was fine. Her parents, while polite, didn’t exactly love him right off the bat. They hadn’t cared how well the band was doing, that he’d made a career out of music and that it was going well, nor did they care about how much he already loved their daughter. He was different, a musician that didn’t look anything like the sweet southern boy her mother had always imagined she’d marry, and that was enough for them to write him off as a novelty.

They imagined that Elizabeth would grow tired of Calum after a while, that she’d get tired of the long, lonely nights while he was away on tour, and that she would begin to see things from their point of view. They imagined that she would tire of California, that her southern roots were planted just deep enough, and that she would tire of Calum and return home to them. But, so far, she hadn’t.

And Calum desperately hoped that she never would.

While her parents had accepted her desire to stay in California and to keep Calum in her life - her mother even liked him, enough to bake him a loaf of bread that apparently no one else in her family liked - there was a bit of a rift. Calum’s parents traveled to see him every so often (and he packed up to see them when he could) but Elizabeth’s parents didn’t like to travel. She told him once that her mother was so afraid of flying that even a Xanax couldn’t calm her enough to get on a flight and that she was such an awful car passenger that a twenty-nine hour drive, even. with regular stops, might actually kill her. They’d only been to California once, to see her graduate, and that had been such an ordeal that Elizabeth never asked again.

Her schedule, while freer now that she’d finished school, was less flexible than his own. She had work, a job that required her to stay in Los Angeles most of the time, and that made going home (as well as joining him on tour) next to impossible. She went home for big holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving, but even that was starting to become difficult as she and Calum began to intertwine their lives.

She hadn’t been home since November - they’d spent Christmas with his family in Australia - and was beyond homesick. Most of the meals she made were recipes her mother talked her through over FaceTime so when Michael and Crystal asked him if they would want to join them for a week in Gulf Shores, Calum jumped at the opportunity to surprise his homesick girlfriend. He worked with her boss - a lovely woman from, coincidentally, Georgia, who had become more like a mentor than a boss - to get her a week of vacation. He called her mom and asked her if it would be alright for them to stay for a weekend before they headed to the beach (of course, she was so excited that she cried and Calum didn’t quite understand half of her words through her accent but he felt the love). And he managed to keep their final destination a secret until they landed in Mobile.

Just before they landed in Mobile, when the pilot announced their destination, the look on Elizabeth’s face was more than enough to make Calum’s year. He took a picture of it, just to remember the look of awe and love she’d given him, before he kissed her and confirmed that they were headed to see her parents. He told her, as they navigated the airport and headed toward the car rental, that they would be spending the weekend with them before heading down to Gulf Shores to spend a few days exploring and experiencing Hangout.

He was certain the smile hadn’t disappeared since.

Although he’d offered to drive, Elizabeth refused to let him behind the wheel. Calum normally drove on their outings - mostly because he was a much calmer driver than her and knew how to handle Los Angeles traffic without having a minor panic attack - but she’d been insistent. The closest airport to her parents’ house was in Mobile and the quickest route took them through a maze of backroads that, according to her and Michael (who had gotten lost on more than one occasion during his trips down south), didn’t appear on either Apple or Google Maps. Elizabeth, however, knew the route like the back of her hand and was comfortable navigating the winding curves and deserted country roads.

“Did you go to Mobile a lot as a kid?” Calum asked, his voice breaking the silence for the first time since they’d left the city limits. He’d been content to just look, to soak it all in, and apparently, so had she. It was like she was recommitting the entire route to memory and he didn’t want to disturb her. However, he was curious and, with her, he never let his questions go unasked.

“Not really,” she hummed, glancing over at him for a moment before returning her gaze to the road beyond the windshield. “It’s almost a three hour drive. It wasn’t a big deal to make the trip but it was more special occasion, you know? We came down here to get dresses for formals and, like, my prom dress. I came with my grandparents some because my paw-paw went to the doctor down here. He took me to Hot Topic for the first time and my mom swears I haven’t been normal since.”

Calum grinned at that, both at the casual use of ‘paw-paw’ (something he knew she hated saying because of the obviousness of it’s origin and the way it seemed to draw out her accent) and the mental image of a pre-teen Elizabeth exploring Hot Topic for the first time. There were pieces of her, bits of her past, that he had never seen. They were never intentionally hidden, it wasn’t as if she locked them away and refused to show them to him, but they were just things that didn’t really come up in the course of their daily lives. Memories of childhood, old habits that had long since been forgotten, seemed to return to her as they drove through the curved roads and he was looking forward to getting know who she was before she moved to LA.

The drive passed far quicker than either imagined it would. Calum watched Elizabeth’s face more often than he watched the scenery pass them by but both were equally captivating. She pointed out certain buildings, little shops or restaurants, that she’d visited as a child. She informed him when they left one town and entered another. She made him promise they could stop by a diner, a little building that looked like it could only fit about five people at a time, on their way back to Gulf Shores (they would make the return trip, the same way they’d just come, and drive through Mobile to get there), as well as made him promise they could stop and get ice cream at a farmer’s market that would apparently ruin his desire to eat any other ice cream ever again.

It was endearing, seeing her so excited for such small things, and Calum decided that he would do whatever she wanted, stop wherever she wanted, just to see the carefree smile she’d been sporting since they stepped out of the airport remain on her lips.

The closer they got to her hometown, the more relaxed she grew in the driver’s seat. She smiled as she pointed out her high school (“It sucked. I hated every moment of it, but it still feels nice seeing the building, you know?”) and the one gas station in her hometown. Calum smiled as he imagined her driving these very roads as a teenager, singing along to All Time Low and wholeheartedly agreeing with the pop punk standard of needing to leave her hometown. He marveled at the lack of traffic lights, at the lack of buildings, and grew more and more astonished the farther they got from her high school. She’d told him she grew up in the middle of nowhere, far away from civilization, but he thought she was joking. However, as he realized that he could count on one hand the number of buildings they’d seen since leaving the city limits of the town closest to her home, he realized that that wasn’t the case at all.

But it was nice, in an odd sort of way. It felt serene, like a quiet place where you could disconnect from the world, and Calum wondered what it was like to grow up here.

“It was miserable,” Elizabeth answered candidly when he asked. “The nearest grocery store is twenty minutes away, if you’re speeding, and they don’t even have half of what you need. It’s just the essentials, really, like milk and bread and stuff. If you wanted anything good, like ice cream or candy or snacks, you’d have to go to Walmart. The closest Walmart, the only place where you can get stuff like dish soap and good shampoo - well, as good as Dove is, I guess - and toothpaste that doesn’t cost six bucks a tube is forty-five minutes away. The nearest hospital is an hour away. Same with the nearest mall, movie theater, bowling alley… The list goes on. There wasn’t much to do here as a kid. You just kind of exist, you know? I played outside al to as a kid. Shocking, I know,” she added, grinning in Calum’s direction as she caught the surprised look on his face.

He couldn’t imagine Elizabeth, the girl who hated her hands being dirty more than anything else, playing outside in the southern heat. He almost asked what her neighbors were like, what the other kids in her neighborhood were like, when she added, “I didn’t have neighbors so I just kind of had to entertain myself. It was lonely and boring.”

Calum watched as she focused on a turn she was making, down a road just off the main highway, and he imagined that they were getting closer to her parents’ house. “Do you miss anything about it?” he asked, his voice soft as he watched her bring one hand up to play with the butterfly pendant laying against her skin. “Other than your family and the dogs, of course.”

“Of course,” she laughed as she glanced at him and smiled. She paused for a moment, as if to think about it, before she shrugged. “Not really,” she hummed as she returned her gaze to the road ahead. “I mean, I miss the food but if I really want it, I can make most things myself. The only thing I haven’t mastered yet is collards and I think that’s just because I can’t get good ones in LA. I miss the quiet sometimes, mostly when I’m trying to sleep, and being able to see the stars but I love living in an actual city with things to do and places to go. Yeah, some stores are still twenty minutes from our house but if I really need something, I can get it from somewhere else. And, I mean, I love the diversity of the city. I didn’t know anything about other cultures, about other people, when I moved to LA and it’s been amazing to see it all and to see how open everyone is to new things. I mean, yeah, I hate some things about LA and it’s a different world for me, for sure, but, at the end of the day, it’s home now.”

Calum nodded his understanding at that. He realized that she loved being surrounded by options. She loved having the ability to get in the car and go get coffee or just go to Target if she felt like it and her hometown wasn’t exactly the most stimulating place he’d ever found himself. Everything looked as if it had seen better days, decades ago, and he didn’t begrudge her not wanting to return for good. However, he was glad that he was getting the opportunity to at least spend a weekend in the middle of nowhere with her and that joy was only magnified as they approached a small dirt road that he quickly realized housed her parents’ home.

“Am I going to get to hear your southern accent?” he asked, an excited lilt to his voice as they drove down a tree lined dirt road, careful not to hit the rocks and tree limbs that cluttered it. “It’s so faint now,” he reminded her. She, like him, had adapted to Los Angeles and he accent had faded. It was still there, more so than his own, but it only truly appeared when she was angry or excited or exceptionally tired and unable to control her speech pattern. It was faint and Calum missed it. He thought it was cute, he liked the way it sounded when she said his name, but he knew it had been a source of annoyance for her when she first arrived in the city. He also knew that she herself wasn’t very fond of it so she didn’t lament its loss at all.

“Probably. At least, it’ll be thicker here than it is in LA,” she confirmed with a sigh, not at all pleased by the thought. “I try not to control my voice so much around my family. I just talk, I guess. But I still don’t get why you like it so much. It’s gross. And, besides, you’ll get tired of the southern twang real quick with my family. I’ll provide translation services if necessary.”

Calum laughed at the deadpan comment and nodded his appreciation. She knew how much trouble he had understanding her mother sometimes (usually when she was angry and ranting during a phone call) and had warned him that the rest of her family - with the exception of her brother - was worse. The accents grew thicker and thicker, harder and harder to understand, and she herself sometimes found it difficult to navigate a conversation. But Calum was looking forward to seeing her at ease among members of her family and grew excited as he spotted a comfortable white house looming in the distance.

“Here we are,” she informed him with a smile, her cheeks round and pink (from the heat or excitement, he couldn’t tell) and her teeth on display, as she caught sight of the cars parked out front. “Holy shit, everyone is here.”

Everyone seemed to be an understatement. There were several cars, all parked in front of her parents’ home, and Calum couldn’t even begin to guess who had appeared to greet her. Her mother had told him that her brother, his wife, and their children would be there to greet them. He also imagined that her nana would be there. However, he couldn’t fathom who else her mother could have invited. But, as Elizabeth put the car in park, a horde of teenagers, all in their mid to late teens, rushed out of the front door, down the steps, and swarmed the car.

“Lizzie, you’re home,” one girl with blonde hair and braces cheered as Elizabeth climbed out of the car. Though she looked to be about sixteen, she stood several inches taller than Elizabeth and dwarfed her as she pulled her into a hug. “I missed you! I have so much to tell you. I got a car! I can drive now. And a boyfriend! You went to high school with his brother, Austin.”

“Let her go, May,” another of the girls, this one shorter than Elizabeth and decidedly the oldest of the group, urged as she shoved her arms between the pair, “I want to hug her.” She wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s waist and pouted up at her as she said, “Lizzie, I start college in August. I’m going to LSU and I don’t know what to do. Help me!”

“She’s my aunt!” A high pitched voice squeaked as a short girl with glasses and braces that bore a clear family resemblance to Elizabeth shoved through the others. “Aunt Lizzie!”

“Hey, guys,” she laughed, clearly overwhelmed by the affection as she struggled to fully climb out of the car. “It’s good to see you all, too. What are y’all doing here?”

“We waited to have maw maw’s birthday party today so we could celebrate that, you being home, and me graduating high school all at once. Oh my god, is that a boy? Lizzie has a boyfriend!” the second girl, whose name Calum still didn’t know, yelled as she caught sight of him climbing out of the car. He offered her a smile, amused by the apparent novelty of Elizabeth bringing someone home, and waved at her before he reached back into the car to grab his bag. “Lizzie’s never brought anyone home before,” she told Calum as he walked around the car to stand at Elizabeth’s side. “We thought she was a lesbian but just didn’t want to tell us.”

“Oh my god, Haley,” Elizabeth groaned as she reached out and nudged the shorter girl away from her. “Go away. All of you, go inside. I’ll be there in a second.” When the girls turned and began running back toward the house, Elizabeth groaned and turned to bury her face in the crook of Calum’s neck. “Jesus, fuck. This is why I never brought anyone home,” she deadpanned as she glanced up at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m going to go ahead and apologize for everything that’s about to happen.”

Calum, who was struggling to hold back his laughter, shook his head at her statement. “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her with a smile as he leaned in to press a kiss to the crown of her head. “Family can be embarrassing but, at the end of the day, they love you and want to see you happy.” He paused for a moment, thinking about the comment the girl had made, before he asked, “Before we go in, they don’t know you’re bi, do they?”

“No,” she sighed as she removed herself from his grasp and opened the back door to grab her own bag from the seat. “They… I don’t know. I can’t tell them and, I mean, right now, it doesn’t matter. But, no. There are a lot of things they don’t know about me. I didn’t realize you’d be thrown to the wolves on the very first night so I’m going to apologize again for anything they say that’s offensive. I’ve tried so many times to educate them but it’s so tiring when they don’t want to learn, you know? My mom tries, sometimes, but it’s easier to just pretend for a few days than keep pounding my head against a brick wall.”

Calum wasn’t sure what he could say to that statement and he knew that, sometimes, all she needed was a hand to hold. So, instead of putting his foot in his mouth, he gripped her hand in his and brought it to his mouth to place a gentle kiss against the back. When she shot him a halfhearted smile, he squeezed it a little tighter and said, “Lead the way, love.”

Though Calum had been overwhelmed by the barrage of teenage girls that bombarded the car, they were nothing compared to the barrage of adults that swarmed them as they entered the house. He held Elizabeth’s bag and watched as, one by one, adult after adult wrapped Elizabeth in hugs and shouted variations of, “Lizzie Belle!” He stood off to the side, a small smile on his face, as he watched them tell her how proud they were of her for finding a life in Los Angeles or how beautiful she looked. It was sweet, an onslaught of love, but he imagined that she was incredibly uncomfortable with the outpouring of compliments as she thanked everyone. She didn’t like to be the center of attention, not when there were so many sets of eyes on her, but he could tell that she was glad to be at home as she hugged her nana and held on tight.

“Here, let me help you with that,” a voice called over the din of the living room and Calum glanced over to meet the eyes of a man he recognized as her older brother. The family resemblance wasn’t very strong - likely due to their different fathers - but he could see bits and pieces of Elizabeth in him. They had the same dark, wavy hair (though her brothers had started graying) and kind smile but that was where the similarity ended. Her brother, slightly taller than Calum and significantly bigger, looked as if he spent a good deal of his time outdoors and was covered with tattoos.

“Thanks,” Calum said as he handed the bag to Elizabeth’s brother and followed him through the small path he’d carved behind the crowd of relatives. “Calum,” he introduced, holding his hand out as they entered a long hallway, “nice to meet you.”

“Josh,” he returned as he shook Calum’s hand before gesturing to a room with a closed door, “this is Lizzie’s room. Y’all’ll be in here.” Josh dropped the bag onto Elizabeth’s bed and Calum followed suit before he paused to glance around the room.

The room was exactly what he’d imagined it would be. The curtains were black and red with a light blocking curtain behind them. The queen sized bed was tall, so tall that Elizabeth needed a step-stool to climb onto it, and covered with a black duvet with white polka dots and nearly a million pillows at the head. Posters covered every inch of the walls and Calum spotted All Time Low, Green Day, and even a few One Direction posters thrown into the mix. A bookshelf rested in one corner and was filled to the brim with books, CDs, DVDs, and old trinkets. He spotted a stack of yearbooks on the top shelf and decided that his night was going to spent combing through her memories.

As Calum lost himself in exploring her bedroom, he didn’t realize that a small velvet box had fallen out of his bag. He’d tucked it into the pocket for safety but it jostled loose when he tossed the bag onto the bed and hit the floor with a thud. As he ran his fingers along the CDs littering her bookshelf, stopping and grinning when he came across their self-titled album - something he was absolutely going to tease Elizabeth about having later - Josh bent down to pick it up.

“You know, Lizzie’s never really been a jewelry person but, from the way she talks about you, I can see her being alright with wearing this.”

Calum turned, surprised as he had forgotten that Josh was still in the room, and blinked as he stared at the box in his hand. He didn’t know what to say. He’d been planning on asking her parents for permission, something he knew she thought was old-fashioned but a sweet gesture, and was mildly terrified of the response he was going to get. However, as Josh smiled at him and held the box out to him, Calum felt a small bit of ease wash over him.

“You think?” he asked as he shoved the box back into his bag and ensured that it wouldn’t fall out again. “I don’t - I know we’ve just met but I…” He paused, unsure of what he should say to him, before he simply stated, “I really love her.”

“I figured,” he nodded as he took a seat on the edge of her bed and jerked his head in the direction of the living room. “Anyone willing to put up with all this has to be in love. Momma said you were the one who called and asked if y’all could come down,” Josh said as he glanced toward the door of the room. “Lizzie doesn’t get to come home much so it meant a lot that you called and set this up for her. Momma’s hard to get through to sometimes. She doesn’t think anyone’s good enough for her kids, especially when they keep them so far away from home, but that made her happy. That gave her a reason to like you. I don’t think they’ll say no, if that’s what you’re after. But, you do know that Lizzie won’t care what they say, right?”

Calum was floored to hear Josh speak so candidly about their mother. Elizabeth was never so open about it. She rarely spoke about the bad with her family - only when she really needed to convey the importance of something - but he knew that there was a tension that he would need to overcome where her family was concerned. He was more of afraid of their denial than hers but to hear Josh predict that they would approve made his heartbeat calm and the tension in his shoulders ease.

“I know,” he laughed as he imagined Elizabeth raging against a denial from her parents. She was an adult, she was free to do as she pleased, and if she wanted to marry Calum, she would. However, having that approval was more of a symbolic gesture that Calum hoped would extend an olive branch to her parents and assure them that he wasn’t trying to steal their daughter or keep her from seeing them. He opened his mouth to thank Josh when footsteps interrupted him.

He glanced up to see Elizabeth step into the room with a small child in her arms, no older than two, and Calum felt his heart skip a beat at the sight. “There you are,” she hummed as she glanced at Calum and gave him a smile before she turned her attention to her brother. “Dad’s looking for you. They’re getting the crawfish ready to put out. They need some more hands.”

“Alright,” he sighed as he stood from the bed and clapped Calum on the shoulder. “Nice meeting you, man. We’ll have a beer later, talk some more. Lizzie says you’re in a band. I wanna know about your music,” he said before he leaned in and wrapped an arm around Elizabeth’s waist and pressed a kiss to the baby’s head. “Hey, girl. Good to see you. Don’t drop my child, please.”

“Like I would,” Elizabeth huffed as she nudged her brother away from her. “You literally threw me across a room as a baby. I’m clearly not the one anyone needs to be concerned about. Isn’t that right, Sawyer?” The baby in her arms cooed, grinning up at her, and Josh rolled his eyes as he let go.

“Keep bringing up the past, damn. Can’t let anyone make any mistakes around here,” he grumbled playfully as he left the room and left Calum, Elizabeth, and Sawyer alone.

“Sorry for letting him steal you,” she apologized as she stepped closer to him and smiled when he reached out to offer the baby his finger. “I try desperately hard to keep anyone I like away from him. When I was twelve, he called out this guy I had a crush on on Facebook and the guy never spoke to me again. He was, uh, a little… overprotective?” She paused, glancing down at the baby in her arms, before she cooed at her. “You’re gonna have such tough time dating, honey. He’s gonna give your dates the ultimate interrogation and it’s not going to end well for anyone involved.”

Calum laughed as Elizabeth pouted at the baby and felt his heart melt as he watched them interact. He’d been thinking a lot lately, about children and marriage and the future, and every image of the future he got, Elizabeth was in it. He wanted her to be the one walking down the aisle to meet him. He wanted her to be the one to carry his children. He wanted her to be the one he grew old with. He wanted her, then and forever, and it made his heart ache in the best way to see her look so happy holding a small child.

“You look beautiful like that,” Calum breathed before he could stop himself. When Elizabeth rolled her eyes, brushing him off with a comment about how much she’d been sweating from the sweltering heat, he shook his head. “You always look beautiful but you look even more so holding the baby,” he elaborated, smiling as she glanced down at the giggling girl in her arms. “It looks natural.”

“It’s taken us a few times to get this right,” she hummed as she tickled Sawyer and grinned at her. “She threw up on me the first few times I held her. But we’re good now, right, honey?” When Sawyer cooed at her, reaching out to tug at her hair, Elizabeth smiled and glanced at Calum. When she met his amused glance, she grinned and shook her head. “I know what you meant, bub. It’s nice. I’ve thought about it and I want it - children, a family - with you. I’m sure there are other things we need to work on before that but I want that.”

“I do, too,” Calum confirmed with a grin as he leaned over to press a soft kiss to her cheek. When the baby slapped at his chest, he laughed and pulled away from Elizabeth with a grin, “But maybe now isn’t the best time to talk about our family plans, huh?”

“Nope,” she agreed with a smile, “not when there’s a cranky little lady that needs her mom and two adults that need beer and crawfish.”

Calum quickly found himself in the backyard, passed around by relatives as Elizabeth introduced him to each one. Her mother, who had been finishing frosting a red velvet cake, grinned when she spotted him and nudged an uncle that Calum had already forgotten the name of out of the way. He was almost surprised at the hug he received, the affection was a little startling, but he decided not to question it as Elizabeth’s mother wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.

“Thank you,” she said as the others around them dispersed to give them a moment to talk. “My Belle doesn’t get to come home much and she’s always so worried about taking off so I’m so glad you convinced her to come home for a little bit. I’ve missed my baby. And it’s good to see you again. I haven’t seen you in nearly two years. I miss your hair,” she laughed as she pointed out the buzz cut he’d gotten recently.

“Lizzie does, too,” he laughed as he rubbed a hand over the bleached hair on top of his head. “She liked playing with it while we were watching TV,” he added quickly, afraid of how the first part of his sentence sounded. “I’m glad that everyone was able to come. She’s missed everyone.”

“She has,” her mom nodded as she glanced around the backyard and smiled as she caught sight of Elizabeth sitting with the girls and chatting animatedly about whatever topic they’d gotten started on. “Everyone’s missed her. It’s not the same without her here but she’s happy in LA. You make her happy. I’m glad that y’all have each other,” her mother told him with a smile and Calum breathed a quiet sigh of relief at the sincerity in her tone. He was afraid that Josh had misread the situation, that he wasn’t nearly as favored as he imagined he was, but to hear her say that eased the nerves he felt in the pit of his stomach. However, they quickly returned as she turned to face him and said, “Josh said you had something you wanted to ask us?”

Calum blinked, surprised he was being put on the spot so quickly, and nodded slowly. “I, uh, yeah. But it can wait. It’s fine.”

Her mother smiled at him and Calum could see the understanding on her face. “If it’s what I think you want to ask, I’d prefer you didn’t. The answer is yes, by the way, from both of us. But we still want to hear your proposal.”

Calum laughed as he found himself being dragged into the house by Elizabeth’s parents. Her brother and grandmother — whose opinion really, truly mattered — followed them into the laundry room (the only room that seemed to be empty) and listened carefully as Calum asked for permission and detailed the proposal he had planned in Gulf Shores.

The rest of the weekend seemed to pass in a blur. Elizabeth taught Calum how to eat crawfish - her brother showed him how to suck the head, though he didn’t imagine he would be giving that a try - and her maw maw taught him how to shell butterbeans and peas as they sat in the shade of a pecan tree and worked on seven five-gallon buckets of peas and beans. They took him to a fish camp, an old cabin-like building in the middle of nowhere that made the best friend fish he’d ever had, and showed him the river where they went tubing when Elizabeth and Josh were young. And on their last night, he and Elizabeth sat on her parent’s front porch with a bucket of peas a piece and watched as the dusty afternoon turned to night.

“I’m really glad you did this,” she hummed as she glanced away from the bucket in front of her and over at Calum. “I never thought I’d say this but maybe all I needed was to come home and shell peas for a few days.”

Calum, whose fingers were sore and stained from the hulls, couldn’t imagine having spent every summer in this fashion but it was a nice glimpse into her world and he agreed. It had been restful, something of a recharge, and he found himself grateful for the experience. “It’s been nice,” Calum agreed with a smile as he watched her work for a moment. “It’s been good to see you in your element. I know that this isn’t your life anymore but it was nice to see where you come from.”

“I’m glad it didn’t send you running for the hills,” she teased as she tossed a hull into the bucket and shook her head. “You know, if you’d told me as a kid that I would move to LA, I wouldn’t have believed you. But if you’d have said that I’d move to LA, find someone as amazing as you, fall in love, and then bring you home someday to show you what my life was like before? I would’ve called you insane. But it felt right. Letting you in, letting you see this part of my life. It felt… it felt like it was time, you know?”

Calum reached out to squeeze Elizabeth’s hand but said nothing as they continued to shell their peas. If he’d spoken, he would’ve poured his heart out to her. He would’ve confessed just how much he loved her, just how much she meant to him, and would’ve ended up proposing on her parents’ front porch. Instead, he let his touch convey everything he wanted to say and hoped that would last them until they made it to the beach.

Saying goodbye was a rough affair. Elizabeth’s mother and nana cried. Her father held onto her for so long that her mother had to pull them apart. They all made her promise to visit again soon and sent them on their way with enough food to feed an army. Elizabeth let Calum drive on the return trip and watched as he navigated the streets she regarded with a fondness that she never imagined she would feel. She felt bittersweet, glad to have gone home but sad to be leaving, and hoped that the festival would cheer her mood.

However, what she was met with was something far greater than she expected.

As they arrived at the beach house she, Calum, Michael, and Crystal would share for the weekend, she was under the impression that they’d arrived before Michael and Crystal. However, as they entered the house to find it decorated with photos from her and Calum’s relationship as well as flowers, she realized that she was wrong. They’d been in, long enough to help Calum set up his surprise, and were waiting somewhere in the city for Calum to make his move. It didn’t click, not at first, what the point of the set up was. But as she dropped her bag and began to look at each of the photos, it soon dawned on her.

“Calum,” she began, her voice quiet as she turned to him, only to see him on one knee behind her. “Oh, fuck.”

At her exclamation, Calum laughed and held his hand out for her to grab. “Come here,” he laughed, smiling as she stepped closer to him and allowed him to hold her hand in his. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and even spending a weekend shelling peas can’t deter me,” Calum teased as he glanced up at her. Her hand rested over her mouth, her fingers shaking as she watched him open the small velvet box to reveal a beautiful ring. “I love you, so much. Whenever I imagine the future, I imagine you in it. I want it all with you. I want to have a family with you, I want to grow old with you. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life by your side. I love you, Lizzie. Will you marry me?”

Elizabeth, though she imagined the proposal was coming, couldn’t speak. Instead, she nodded her agreement and kneeled onto the floor to wrap her arms around Calum’s neck. He laughed, relief and joy bubbling in his chest, as he wrapped his own arms around her waist and held her tight against his chest. He held her there for a moment, relishing in the moment, before he pulled away just enough to press a kiss to her lips. “I love you,” he breathed against them, his eyes shining with joy as he moved to place the ring on her finger, “I can’t wait for forever with you.”

“Forever isn’t long enough when I’m with you, Hood,” she quipped, her smile bright and her eyes glittering with unshed tears as she pressed her lips to his once more. “I love you, Cal. Thank you for being the most amazing man and for loving me the way you do.”

Calum knew that the future was rapidly approaching. He knew that, no matter how far away it seemed, everything would change in the blink of an eye. But with Elizabeth by his side, with her hand in his, he imagined that he could tackle whatever the universe threw at him.

And as they sat on the back patio, curled up together on a lounge chair and looking out at the water with Michael and Crystal to their left and the sound of pre-Hangout revelry to their right, Calum couldn’t think of any other place he’d rather be.

____________________________________________________

Author’s Note: This is literally just seven thousand words of self-indulgent bullshit. I don’t know. I felt it and I’ve wanted to do this for a while. It wouldn’t leave me alone so I spent my day alternating between this and Rose Tattoo. Also, with tag lists I lowkey feel like I’m annoying people if I tag them (which is the point, I know) but tell me if you don’t want to be tagged in everything. Anyway. I need to write something for Ash now. I’m, like, in an Ash mood.

Tag List (like this post or message me if you want to be added! If you don’t want to be tagged in everything, just let me know): @toolazymyguy , @irwinkitten , @jamieebabiee , @glittersluke , @spicycal , @lusbaby , @everyscarisahealingplace, @brokenvirtualheartcollector , @if-it-rains-it-pours, @blisshemmings , @calumscalm , @lovemenowseemenever , @ijutreallylovezebras , @rhiannonmichelle , @p0laroidpictures , @tomscuddles , @loverofmineluke , @harrytreatspeoplewithkindnesss , @blueviiolence , @loveroflrh , @empathycth , @luckyduckydoo , @tobefalling , @bandsandbooksaremykink , @watch-how-she-burns , @megz1985 , @wokeupinaustralia , @lucidlrh , @canterburyfiction , @cal-is-not-on-branding , @jaacknaano , @findingliam-o , @idk-who-i-am-anymore1 , @sammyrenae68 , @flowerthug ,

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ochard-fics · 4 years

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Bad Ideas - A Spider-man Story

Chapter Index: 1, 2

Pronouns used: they/them

Genre: Enemies to lovers, slow burn, angst, fluff, young love

Warnings: None

Word count: 6.5k+

Summary: Though you moved across the country about half a year ago, you are still trying to find your footing in the strange streets of New York. On top of that, you are desperately trying to balance your demanding school life at Midtown School of Science and Technology, where you like everyone but you was much more talented and smarter than you could ever imagine to be. Among those students is the one whom you loathe the most: Peter Benjamin Parker, the boy who’s success both in school and in Stark Industries is constantly shoved in your face. The only person who helps you escape those troubles is Spider-man, the hero of Queens and your crush.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading this! Likes, retweets, and feedback is appreciated~

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Chapter 1 - Spider-man’s Sandwich Seller

When your mom excitedly told you that you’d start attending Midtown School of Science and Technology (MSST for short) in August you didn’t think much about it. As far as you knew, it was probably like any other public high school in America that was located in a “nice” part of a major city in America. Yet again you’d spent the last 16 years in Southern California, so your knowledge of schools outside of the area was very limited. Still, you felt no joy or resentment of the idea of being an MSST student. You assumed the title of “Science and Technology” was just to play it up as something cool.

But oh boy, how wrong you were.

It’s been four months into your junior year at MSST and you learned the hard way that the “Science and Technology” part of the school’s title was not played up for show. If the school was a cell, it’s STEM* program was the mitochondria of the institution. Everyone around you was excelling somewhere within the programs’ four disciplines, and you could not escape it’s presence no matter what. You would think that your mom would have warned you about this before she enrolled you, someone who was not savvy in the STEM disciplines AT ALL, into this foreign environment.

It had been a couple of weeks since the new semester of junior year started back up and here you were, trapped within the cold walls of the chemistry lab, staring down at your second quiz of the new semester. A pop quiz, no less. One of your worst enemy.

You glanced up at the clock to see how much time you had left. Three minutes. Crap. The first three questions on chemical bonds had you stuck, and you could feel your brain reach its thinking capacity.

Looking over the questions again, you went over your work to see if you had done something wrong. However, you weren’t even sure if the work you were doing was correct. Furrowing your brows, you desperately tried to remember something from your lecture that could make sense of this equation, but the anxiety only left your brain cloudy.

The loud ring of the school bell snapped you out of your thoughts and made you jump in shock, earning you a surprised look from your deskmate, MJ.

“You okay?” She asked, a brow raised by your sudden movement.

“I…” You sputtered, feeling your face flush in embarrassment, and looked down at your quiz to avoid eye contact with her. A heavy and defeated sigh left your body, as you immediately accepted your failure on this exam. “Yeah, the bell just startled me,” you replied, giving her a weak smile. She furrowed her brows at you, but luckily she decided not to press further.

The sound of zippers being pulled and the excited chatter of students almost drowned Mr. Cobwell’s request to hand him the quizzes as they exited the class. MJ went ahead of you as you begrudgingly shoved your pencil pack into your backpack and slung the red canvas sack over your shoulder. Guilt and shame began to press upon your chest as you walked up to Mr. Cobwell, who was trying to organize the load of papers in his arms. He notices your hunched figure as you approached, and his expression turns to that of concern. Averting your gaze from him, you hand over your barely done quiz, to which Mr. Cobwell gazes over it in dismay. He lets out a disappointed sigh, making the pressure on your chest worse.

“(Y/N),” He begins, shaking his head, “We’re half-way into the school year, this is really troubling.” Your eyes look down at your black and white canvas shoes, the embarrassment making it difficult to make eye contact with your superior. Cobwell waits for a response from you, but seems to notice your current emotions so he continues.

“You know, if you are struggling with the lessons, you can always tell me,” he says in a concerned voice, “I understand that chemistry is a very difficult subject for those who struggle with subjects like math. After class you can ask me questions about the lesson if you don’t feel comfortable doing that during the lesson.”

For some reason Cobwell’s genuine concern made you feel even more guilty. What teacher would want to waste time explaining everything to a student who didn’t even understand in the first place? Wouldn’t he think you’re dumb for not getting it? And what if you still needed him to explain because you just couldn’t get it? Wouldn’t he get frustrated and snap at you? You looked up for a moment to meet eyes with Mr. Cobwell, who was waiting for your response. Instead, you headed towards the door, head hung low, and wished him a good evening.

Squeezing through the school of teenagers flooding the hallway, you catch up to MJ, who was leaning by the club bulletin watching the crowd. You called out for her and she turned toward you, giving you a small ‘Sup with her head and leaned off of the walls as you approached her.

“Hey,” she said, nodding her head towards the chemistry classroom, “Everything good?” The last thing you wanted was to bring down the mood to your only friend at MSST, so you shrugged and replied, “Yeah, it was just about the quiz.”

MJ furrowed her brows in concern, saying, “You know, if you need any help, I’m down to do it.” Great, more guilt came from those words. You know MJ meant well, but you couldn’t help the feeling make home in your heart.

“It’s fine, MJ,” you replied, gently shooting down her offer, “Really. You’re already busy with the academic decathlon and art club. Those are more important.” MJ gives you a look, one of ‘Are you sure?’.

She lets out a short defeated sigh and shrugs, replying, “Whatever, it’s your life. Let’s just get to your locker already.” You nod and begin walking with her against the current of students. Four months ago you didn’t really think that your short interaction with MJ would lead you to being pals with her, yet here you both are. Granted, you both were similar in several ways. For one, both of you were the more introverted type, and tended to dress how you liked rather than how others expected you to dress. Both of you were pursuing artists, both having joined the new and improved art club at MSST. Plus, you both liked things that most would consider to be a bit eccentric, such as morbid things like true crime or controversial stuff like surrealist art and history. Flash Thompson, the residential rich idiot of MSST, liked to call the both of you freaks. Though MJ would usually be able to shut his ass up with a comeback that made Thompson look like a dumbass.

However, a friendship wouldn’t be such if there weren’t any differences between the two, and you both had quite striking ones. While MJ tended to be much more blunt, you tended to keep your feelings to yourself. She was also much more observant than you could ever be, since you are more intuitive, though you thought that was mostly your anxiety. Additionally, you tended to be a bit more hot-headed, which has gotten you in a few verbal spats with Flash. The most obvious difference between the two of you, was that MJ was incredibly smart, while you...well, you already know where you were several lacking in the academic intelligence department.

It’s funny, neither you nor MJ verbally agreed to be friends. Both of you just naturally gravitated towards the other whenever you were around each other. MJ insists that she’s a lone wolf, but she considers you her friend, and you the same with her.

The two of you headed towards your locker, where you noticed it was being blocked but a familiar lanky figure in a blue MSST zipper hoodie. Disgruntled, you paced faster toward the figure until you were behind it. The person leaning hadn’t noticed you yet since their back was facing toward you, so to your (and MJ’s) amusement you thought about slamming your hand on the locker next to yours to give the pasty blockade a scare. However, just as you were about to reel your hand in, the figure turns around and faces you.

“Oh! (Y/N)!” Peter Parker, the golden loser as you like to call him, chimes with a crack. You groaned mentally. Damn it, of all the people you wanted to see right now he had to be here.

Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: you despised, no, loathed Peter Benjamin Parker. He was in the same grade as you, and was, unfortunately, in all of your classes. The guy was infamous in MSST for having scored an internship at Stark Industries, where your dad currently works and the main reason you moved from Los Angeles to Queens in the first place. Admittingly, he was incredibly gifted. He, along with MJ and a handful of other students in MSST, was one of the top students at the school. Whenever you watched him in class, you could see how easily everything came to him. He just...got it.

And you hated him for it.

Parker leans off your locker quickly and steps aside, motioning you towards it.

“S-sorry! I didn’t mean to block your way!” he stutters, something he tended to do frequently. You said nothing and gave him an emotionless eyebrow raise, then looked over to see Ned Leeds, who looked like he was trying to hold laughing at his friend’s awkward expression. He was your locker neighbor and Peter Parker’s best friend, so unfortunately you would see Parker too often. You didn’t necessarily mind him, he’s a well-meaning guy, but at times you did find him pretty annoying.

You rolled your eyes at the boys and opened your locker, shoving your Chemistry textbook into it like it was a ragdoll. If it didn’t cost $150 you would’ve loved to lunge it across the halls instead (where it could possibly hit Flash Thompson in the head), but you knew that probably would’ve given you a temporary high of satisfaction. The boys look at you surprised but resume their previous conversation, which seemed to be about a Lord of the Rings lego set. MJ gives her signature judgemental look and, noticing your aggressive behavior, attempts to make you feel better.

“Hey,” she began as you unzipped your backpack and shuffled through the contents inside, “There’s a new episode of the Left for Dead podcast out today. You want to get paletas** and take a listen?”

“I can’t today,” you replied, not looking at MJ and you traded books to and from your locker, “I asked Delmar to give me more hours so I’m going to do part-time on Monday now.” MJ clicks her tongue in disappointment, but shrugs the decline off.

“Dang that sucks,” she says in her monotone voice, “This episode was supposed to be about Black Dahlia, too.” You were disappointed too, so you turned to her.

“We can listen to it over Zoom when I get home,” you assured her, “I’ll be back by 8.”

“Hey MJ!” Ned called out, catching the attention of both you and your friend, “If you’re free, Pete and I were thinking of going to Shawarma Palace right now! Care to join?” MJ declines the offer, saying that she’s just going to go home. Before she heads out, she bids you and the boys a farewell. You then watched as she turned around and walked towards the school entrance, disappearing into the sea of students.

Listening to the new podcast sounds much more fun than work, you thought sadly to yourself. A sad sigh left your body, which caught the attention of Parker.

“Hey (Y/N),” he started, “Are...you okay?” Despite the genuine concern coming from his tone, you felt your fight responses kick it.

“Why do you care?” you ask spitefully, shooting a look at him. The brunette is taken aback by your response, and so was Ned.

“I-I-I just…” Parker stammers, fiddling with his hands nervously, “I saw you talking to Cobwell and you looked pretty upset.” For some reason, this sets you off. Angry, you slam your locker shut, alarming the boys and everyone else around you three.

“Mind your own damn business, Parker.” You say bitterly, giving the already shocked boy an intense glare. Looking at him was only making you more angry, so you slung your red canvas backpack over your shoulder and turned your heel towards the school entrance, leaving Parker and Leeds to wonder what in the hell just happened.

It has been three hours into your shift at Delmar’s Deli and Grill, you tried to keep yourself busy in order to beat the feeling of anger that had lingered on you ever since you left school. Even the soundtracks of your surroundings like the small hum of the heater, the blissful purrs of Murph the bodega cat, the occasion honks from the cars outside, and the every-so-often flipping of pages from the paper Delmar was reading couldn’t distract you from your annoyance towards Parker.

Damn Parker, thinks he could eavesdrop into my personal life, you bitterly thought, aggressively sweeping at the murky tiled floors of the bodega, I’ll kick his ass if I ever catch him-

The small television above the newspaper racks interrupted your internal monologue. You looked up from sweeping to see it playing today’s news. Delmar and you listened in to the report:

“...was hospitalized. According to Queens police, they believe that the attackers are purposely targeting small businesses as this is the fourth one to be robbed these past two weeks,” You watched the pristine-looking woman with a sculpted hairstyle announce as footage was being shown beside her, “From security footage it can be determined that the attackers are a duo, both male, about five foot eight...”

“Jeez, I just reopened this place too,” you heard Delmar grumble, who was looking up at the TV, “Why can’t they rob a Whole Foods or something? Assholes like them, taking advantage of the working man...you must be rotten to go after family businesses. Isn’t Spider-man going to do anything about this?”

“Local police have reported that Spider-man has been informed of the current situation and will be looking into the robberies,” the reporter answered, “For now, authorities are asking that store-owners remain alert and take extra measures to secure their businesses.” Delmar let out a disgruntled grunt and turned to look at you.

“Hey kid,” he called, and you turned to look at him, “Can you keep a look out for customers? I need to make a call to the chips suppliers in the back.”

“Yes sir,” you replied with a nod, “Wait, what if they ask for cigarettes?”

“Give me a shout to ring them up, then.” He called back, already descending to the back of the store. A small huff left your body and you shoved the collected dirt from the floor into the streets of Queens. The skyline began to darken as the sun set, and you watched as the sky looked like a rainbow sorbet. Memories of late night drives with your older friends in California emerged from your memory, where you would sleep in the car to watch the sunset dip into the Pacific ocean waters. Even though you were on the other side of the country, the sunsets were still the same. Yet, for some reason, this one didn’t feel as homey as the ones back in California did.

Suddenly, a figure in a red mask covers your line of sight, and it makes you stumble back while letting out an embarrassing yelp.

“HEY THERE!” the red and blue clad figure announces excitingly, hanging upside down from the store’s awning, “Oh shoot! S-sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!” Once you recognized who it was, your lips broke out into a smile. Finally, someone you actually wanted to see today.

“Well, you did,” You said with a cheeky grin, “I thought you only sneak up on criminals, Spider-Man.”

“H-hey, I said I’m sorry,” he said apologetically, coming down right-side up, “I just thought you would’ve enjoyed it.”

“I’m messing with you,” You replied with a playful punch to his arm, “But next time, maybe a heads up before you greet someone bat-style. Do that to Delmar and the dude might get a heart attack.”

“Will do,” he replied, then looked over your shoulder, “Hey, where’s Delmar?”

“Out back making a call to a supplier,” You replied, ushering him inside the bodega, “You want a number five? Pickles and smushed really flat, right?”

“O-oh! Actually,I already had dinner,” Spider-man replied, his angular white lenses widening in surprise by your offer.

“Really?” You said, shrugging your shoulders, “You usually get that during this time. Are you cheating on Delmar’s place?”

“I could never!” He said motioning his arms into an x-sign, “If I ever betray the best sandwich shop in the world then throw me into jail.”

“I’ll remember that when I have to testify in court,” you teased, making your way to the counter. Murph, Delmar’s cat, sat next to the cashier upon his favorite cushion, purring loudly as the two approached him.

“Heya Murph!” Spider-man said, scratching behind the feline’s ears, “You doing good? Keeping Spider-man’s sandwich seller company?”

“Is that what you call me?” You asked, an amused smile spreading across your face, “I feel pretty honored by that title.” The masked hero of Queens let out a chuckle, and somehow hearing it made your ears turn pink. Then, a thought came to you that you expressed out loud.

“You know,” you began, still watching Spider-man give Murph some butt scratches, “You have the exact same order as someone I know.”

“R-really?” Spider-man stammered, retreating his hand from Murph in surprise. You looked at him, brows raised, “Aha...who is it?”

“Peter Parker,” You replied, deciding to rearrange the misplaced chips from the rack beside the counter, “‘Goes to my school.”

“Y-yeah, I remember you mentioning him a few times,” He said, his voice raising, which you noticed he does when he gets nervous, “He’s the one you don’t like?”

“Right,” You replied, not looking up from the rack, “Is it true that he works at Stark Industries?”

“Yeah, yeah! Of course he does!,” He replied, his voice going higher and cracking, “W-why do you ask?” He began to fiddle with his hands anxiously.

“Well,” You started, brushing your hands on your forest green apron, “My dad works there, but he never sees him.” Your dad was the head of International Affairs at Stark Industries. He mainly handled communication between Stark and companies they were planning on selling to. You didn’t know much about his job and you didn’t plan on it. You blamed the job from taking you away from your home, and your dad...well, you already had a complicated relationship with him. The move just made it much worse.

“R-really? Isn’t that weird,” Spider-man replies, rubbing his hand behind his neck, “W-well, I--Peter, doesn’t work with International Affairs. He works more with superhero stuff.”

“Like what?” You asked him, somewhat intrigued. You knew you were never going to find out from Peter personally, so might as well get the inside scoop from Spider-man himself.

“U-um…” His aperture-like eyes shift narrowly, seemingly unable to answer your question. Before you could press him further, you heard Delmar call out from the back of the store

“Hey kid! Your shift’s over!” Your Dominican boss announced. You look over to the counter to see him emerge from the back of the store.

“Best you go now since the streets are-” Delmar notices who is beside you and his eyes light up with glee.

“Ey, Hombre Araña!” Delmar exclaimed, smiling like he’s seeing an old friend, “Are you here for your usual? It’s on the house!”

“Hey Delmar,” Spider-man replies as he turns to him, waving to him, “N-no thanks, I just ate.”

“Hey, you better not cheat on me with Sub Heaven,” the middle-aged man jokes, waving his index finger at him, “I would know if you are.”

“Hey don’t worry, I’m loyal!” Spider-man replies with a laugh. Delmar chuckles then looks over to you, where you were looking at your favorite hero with a smile. He then turns back to look at Spider-man.

“Hey Spider-man,” He began, “Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Y-yeah?” the hero says, straightening himself up, “What’s up?”

“Can you give the kid a walk to the bus stop?” He asked, motioning his head towards you“It’s getting dark and with the recent news, I want to make sure they get to their stop safely.” You shot your head at Delmar, your smile falling as your eyes widened in shock. “D-Delmar! I-it’s fine!” You began, waving your hands frantically, “It’s just a ten minute walk to the stop-”

“Of course!” He replied almost too keenly, interrupting you,”I-I’d love to!” You looked back at Spider-man, surprised. Was he saying that just to be polite? You thought as your blush began creeping down to your cheeks.

Delmar gave him a hearty thanks and motioned you to come to the back to clock out. You did so in a haste, your thoughts going into key mash mode. This wasn’t the first time you’ve ever been alone with him---you’ve had several run-ins with the masked hero. Any person who was enamored by superheroes would be stoked to have him be their walking buddy.

However, he wasn’t just any superhero. To you, Spider-man meant so much more. This may or may not have something to do with you having a major crush on him ever since you met him in the summer of last year. After almost five months of seeing him practically weekly, you liked the feeling that you knew Spider-man. Yet, you were still unaware of who was behind the mask. With your crush developing harder and harder, the curiosity began to nip at you aggressively.

You clocked out from work and hung up your apron, then wished Delmar and Murph a buenas noches, as you headed towards the deli’s entrance door. You slung your backpack over your shoulders and noticed that Spider-man was waiting in the front of the store, waving hello to an excited child passing by across from the bodega. You brushed some of Murph’s cat hair off of you (your dad would throw a fit if he found cat hair in the house again) and straightened up, mentally calming yourself. You practically skipped up to Spider-man and told him that you were ready to go. He turns to you and gives you an eye (lense?) smile, and you two begin your way towards your stop.

During the first couple of minutes into the walk, you were in an argument with your thoughts on what you should talk about with Spider-man. It would’ve killed you if this ten minute walk was in silence! Thankfully, he began speaking.

“So,” He started, “Anything exciting happened to you today?” This. You thought, but obviously you would sucker punch yourself in the face if you said that out loud.

“Eh, not much,” you responded with a shrug, “Had a chemistry quiz today.”

“How’d it go?” he asked as he looked out, resting the back of his head atop his hands.

“Wonderfully,” you said sarcastically, looking down at your shoes, “Only completed three questions out of the ten on the quiz. At this rate I’m going to be the top student!” He looked over at you, watching as you kicked a piece of gravel with your foot. You let out a sad sigh.

“It’s my fault,” you continued, “I should’ve studied harder. But I just get so overwhelmed by the material I freak out and then when I freak out I get anxious and then when I get anxious I just can’t focus and when I can’t focus I don’t study!” You exhaled.

“Whoa, whoa, easy,” Spider-man says, motioning you to calm down, “Why don’t you ask someone for help on the subject? Like your teacher or a tutor?” You let out a dry laugh, remembering what Mr. Cobwell had said earlier.

“No teacher wants to deal with a student like me,” you replied, not looking up at him, “I don’t blame them, I would get frustrated when I have to repeat the same god damn thing a thousand times to someone who still can’t get it.”

“But it’s a teacher’s job to help students understand what they’re learning,” Spider-man said, “That’s the whole point!”

“I know,” you hang your head lower. God, you hated that he was right. “I just...it feels embarrassing,” you admitted, “Even asking help from a friend.” You began to pick at your fingernails, remembering MJ’s offer from earlier.

“And a tutor...well, I used to have one back home,” you said, and Spider-man watched you closely, “But my dad saw them as a waste of money so he took over. But he’s not the best tutor.” The memories of your dad trying to “help” you made you tense, and the emotions from earlier today started to creep back.

“I get where you’re coming from, in a way,” Spider-man replied, and you looked up at him, “When I first started out as Spider-man I insisted that I didn’t need anyone’s help. I felt guilty asking for help because I wanted to assume responsibility for something I felt was my problem.” His arms fell to his sides as he looked up, reminiscing.

“I didn’t want to drag the people I cared about the most into my problems,” he continued, “I didn’t want them to get hurt. But then it ended up...hurting someone I cared about the most.” You felt the weight of his words as he looked down.

“I couldn’t look at Ma-,” he stopped himself, “I mean my closest peers without feeling like it was all my fault. If I had only been honest about my feelings, I thought maybe things would’ve been different. ”

You watched the masked man, and you could tell that this anecdote was hard to bring up. People put super-heroes on such a high pedestal, seeing them as invincible people with nothing to lose. How forgetful they are that they have lives too, that they have dealt with hardships and flaws. From the tone and inflections of his voice, Spider-man sounded fairly young to you. Maybe he was your age, or maybe slightly older. You didn’t know if he was human or not, but you could imagine that getting these powers came at a price.

Everything comes at a price, you remembered your parents telling you. Nothing comes without consequence.

“Then things began to change when Mr. Stark recruited me,” he went on, “It was the best moment of my life. Finally, I thought, I could do something more and still protect those I care about. I felt like I was finally doing more.” He let out a dry chuckle.

“I became so confident that I could do more, and I even disobeyed Stark because I thought I didn’t need help,” you continued to listen in intently, “And it blew up in my face.”

“The point is,” He looks up at you, “Asking for help doesn’t mean you’re dumb or weak, it means that you’re strong enough to know when you need it. The words weighed on you, and you looked out, thoughtfully. Maybe he’s right, your consciousness spoke, But it still seems so...terrifying. You noticed that you were at your stop, but your bus was running a bit late.

“We’re here,” You spoke, pointing your thumb towards the green bench that was next to a bus stop pole.

“Ah,” Spider-man noticed this, and you both stopped walking. You both turned to each other.

“Thank you for walking me here,” you said, giving him a smile, “I appreciate it.” The masked boy rubbed the back of his neck again, seemingly bashful by your gratitude.

“H-hey, no problem,” he said shyly, “Got to look after civilians, after all.”

“Right,” you responded with a chuckle, tilting your head to the side with a raised brow.“‘The little guys’ Are we the munchkins of Oz and you’re Dorothy Gale?”

“Wh-what?!” Spider-man exclaimed, shaking his head, “N-no! That’s not what I-”

“I mean, you guys almost have the same color scheme,” You pressed on, amused by his reaction, “You just need the ruby slippers and you’re good to go.”

“H-hey,” he whined, shuffling his feet all embarrassed.

“Gosh,” you laughed, “For a diligent super-hero, you’re way too easy to tease.”

“A-am not,” He pouts as he crosses his arms, looking down at his shoes shyly.

“Oh my god,” you said, stifling a laugh, “You’re acting like my seven year old neighbor now.”

He looks up and gives you a glare, but then lets out a chuckle; a sound that warmed up your heart and your cheeks. The sound of the bus honking made you both look over to see it pulling into your stop. Darn it, you were having such a good time with him! You thought with a scowl. A disappointed sigh let your lips and you turned to look at your crush.

“Thanks again,” you said, giving him a shy smile, “Hopefully I’ll see you soon?”

“Y-yeah,” he said, almost sounding enamored by your smile, “G-get back home safely.”

“W-will do,” you stuttered back, forcing yourself to look at him even though you wanted to desperately hide the blush that was growing on your face.

“And (Y/N),” you looked up at him as he continued, “I-if you need me to walk with you again, d-don’t hesitate to holler at me.”

“O-oh n-no it’s okay!” You exclaimed, waving your hands dismissively, “I-I don’t want to take up your time!” Then, you watched as Spider-man took a step toward you, making your heart beat widely. Gently, he placed his arm atop your shoulder, and your body froze in shock.

“You,” he began, looking at you sincerely (or as sincerely as his lenses could make him look), “You never take up my time. I enjoy being with you.”

And at that moment, you felt your soul ready to rocket itself into the clouds from pure joy.

You wished you could stay like this, but the screeching of the bus’s brakes broke both of you out of the moment, and Spider-man retreated his hand from your shoulder.

“I-I, um,” he rubbed the back of his neck yet again, while you were still processing what just happened, “You better go.”

“Y-yeah,” you stuttered, then forced your body to turn it’s heel and head toward the bus. You turned and gave Spider-man a small wave, to which he returned. You adjusted your backpack and headed inside, tapping your bus card and then quickly taking the nearest available seat. As the bus doors closed and began your hour long ride, you watched as Spider-man shot a web toward the nearest building, then swung into the night.

Wow, you thought as you placed your backpack atop your lap. That was all you could think. Wow.

The bus ride had been long and tedious, but soon you were walking up the footsteps towards your house in the quaint area of Maspeth, Queens. You opened the door and upon entering your two-story brick house you could hear the television from the living room. You glanced over and saw your mom and dad sitting in their designated lounge chairs across from the wide monitor that was displayed on the wall. It seems that they were watching one of those night time talk show hosts from New York.

“I’m home,” You announced, kicking your sneakers off of your feet as you shut the door behind you. Mom looked up and saw you.

“Welcome back, dear!” Your mom greeted you with a cheerful yet tired smile, “How was work?” You told her the same old thing you’ve said to her before (“It was okay, I’m just tired.”), though you opted to leave the bit about Spider-man out.

“Well, I’m glad you got home safely,” She says, “If you’re hungry I made some dinner.”

“Nah, I ate at Delmar’s,” You replied, quickly reminiscing on your number two sandwich from earlier. It wasn’t your usual, but you were going to lose it if Delmar nagged at you for having a number five every single night you worked. Upon hearing this, mom furrows her brows in disappointment.

“Eating all of those sandwiches isn’t healthy for you,” she comments, turning back to the television, “I don’t know how well sanitized that small place is, who knows what kind of chemicals are in those ingredients.” You bit back the urge to snap at her, because this isn’t the first time she made this dumbass claim.

“Did you have an exam today?” You heard your father’s low but stern voice come from the living room. He didn’t turn to look towards you.

“N-no,” you replied sheepishly, playing with your fingernails nervously, “Just a chemistry quiz.”

“I better see an A on that,” He coldly replied, and even from the house entrance you can feel his annoyance, “You have all this time to work on your damn art projects and working in that junkyard so I better see the same effort in your STEM classes.”

Your teeth clenched, feeling the ball of emotions form in your throat. Without saying a word, you headed upstairs, where you entered your bedroom and crashed head first into your unmade bed. A long breath you didn’t even realize you were holding escaped your body, muffled by your bed sheet. You got up and slipped off your backpack, then turned to take a look around your very messy room.

It’s been a while since you last cleaned up your space. The art table was littered with your current gouache paint project of a plant study, your art board was discarded near the end of your bed, the books on your shelves were completely disorganized, your desk had your biology notes scattered upon it, and you still had a unfinished sketched canvas of an ocean sunfish lying next to it. The sound of your mom nagging at you to keep it clean knocked at your brain, immediately making you annoyed.

Dreading the scolding that could be, you let out an exaggerated huff and began to organize your art table. Mid-way through putting your gouache tubes in their designated container, you remembered your mom passively commenting about how Peter Parker probably keeps his desk very tidy, and that’s why he’s doing so well in school.

The memory had you clenching your fists, annoyance from the memory returning. Even at home, you couldn't escape Peter Parker's presence, and that ticked you off more than anything in the world. Why couldn’t he just be a dumbass and leave it at that? No, he had to be a smart dumbass. How fucking annoying.

“Stupid Parker and his stupid perfection,” you mumbled angrily to yourself as you shoved the rest of your gouache tubs into the containers, “I hope I don’t have to deal with your stupid face forever.”

Tuesday had been an arguably much better day, and it was made better by the fact that you had art club after school.

You arrived at the art club meeting room, which was just the school’s art studio. Easel stands were climbed together at one end of the room, while several artworks of students were sprinkled across the room. You could smell the wet ceramic clay from the other side of the room, where several to-be finished artworks were bagged up to keep their wet form.

The wooden drawing horses were arranged in a semicircle, where they had already been occupied by your fellow art club members. In no time you were able to spot MJ, who was waving at you to notice her. Smiling, you scuttled on over to the unoccupied wooden seat next to her, place your backpack underneath. The both of you said your greeting even though you just had chemistry together.

“What do you think we’ll be doing today?” You asked her curiously.

“Dunno,” She responded, leaning back and crossing her arms, “This is my first time joining the school’s art club. This time last year I’d be in one of the rooms where they held detention and draw the sad people in there.” You looked off and nodded, seeming to get it.

“But,” she started, and you looked back at her, “If I had to guess, I think we’ll probably talk about the spring show. The arts department needs money anyways so auctioning off student work is usually a good way to bring in the dough.”

As if on cue, Ms. Narvaez, the newest art teacher at MSST and the club’s advisor, entered the studio. Everyone turned to greet her and she returned the greeting with a gentle yet tired smile.

“Afternoon, guys,” she greeted, placing her bag of materials on her desk at the corner of the room, “I’m glad to see that everyone came today because we have something really important to discuss.” She rummaged through her bag then pulled out her trusty yellow acrylic clipboard.

“In about a month we’ll be holding our annual spring art show,” she announced, heading to the front of the semi-circle so that everyone could see her, “We need to think of a theme for this show today, so we can print the fliers out as soon as possible and encourage the students at this school to participate. Last year we had a whopping fourteen people submit work, but it was all from you guys.” Everyone looked at each upon hearing this information.

“So,” she continued, “We need a good theme so we can bring in more submissions. More submissions could mean more auctioned-off art, which will lead to more funding for our department.” Everyone began to whisper to each other, though not very enthusiastically.

“Please take out a sheet of paper and write down any themes you have in mind, no matter the number,” said Ms. Narvaez, and everyone began to unzip their bags and grab their notebooks. MJ and you did the same, grabbing a notebook that you specifically had for ideas for art. You turned to the next blank page and began jotting down anything that came up in your mind.

Camouflage

Growth

Becoming

Home

Serenity

You were about to list another word when a knock alerted you and the rest of the art club. Everyone turned and you saw your guidance counselor, Ms. Lee, peeking from the entrance of the studio.

Uh oh. You thought. Guidance counselors making unannounced appearances was never a good sign in high school.

“Oh, Florence!” Ms. Narvaez smiles upon seeing her wife, “Do you need to speak to me?”

Ms. Lee smiled. “Hi dear,” she turned to meet your eyes, “Actually, I’m here for (Y/N).”

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Annotations

* = STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering and Math

**= paletas are Mexican popsicles that you can get from men on the street pushing a ice cream cart full of them

Ms. Narvaez is based off of American actress Lauren Velez

Ms. Lee is based off of actress Sandra Oh

#bad ideas fic #spider-man x reader #peter parker x reader #mcu fanfiction #reader insert #spider-man reader insert #spiderman fics #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman x reader

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gayenerd · 4 years

Text

This is another article I found during the internet k-hole I went into while looking for information about Adrienne’s ex-fiance, saved in a document, and now can’t find online anymore. I think it was originally featured in the Mankato Free Press, but the author apparently had a blog detailing her 2009 efforts to get in contact with Adrienne and campaign for Green Day to play in Mankato again. There’s some more interesting tidbits about the Mankato punk scene and an interview with Adrienne there.

Campaign Green Day: Reflection

By Amanda Dyslin

Free Press Features Editor

June 10, 2009 11:29 pm

— It was dark in the middle of the southern Minnesota countryside, somewhere by St. Peter in the summer of 1992.

On a farm with a barn and not much else, there was one light pole casting a shallow glow on three guys standing atop 6-foot wide, 5-foot tall wire spools — a makeshift stage to gain high ground over 200 or so people watching. Next to them was a big, old, beat-up beast of a car pulled up by the owner so 15 or so people could stand on top and gain a better view. One of them had a video camera.

Ben Gruber, then a sophomore at Loyola High School, was there. In fact, he and a buddy had helped haul equipment for the band, and even gave the drummer, Tre Cool, a ride before the show in Mankato. The music was good, he said. A lot more polished than other punk bands he’d seen in Mankato.

He was aware of the five-year-old band, born in Berkeley, Calif., he said. They’d put out a couple of smaller recordings, including their full-length debut “39/Smooth” on Lookout! Records. But they were two years from their breakthrough record, “Dookie,” which would have pretty much everyone at the show that night in awe of what they had experienced — maybe one of the last stripped down, small-scale punk shows Green Day would ever perform.

Mankato punk

The Libido Boyz are often considered the anchor of the Mankato punk scene in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It was a time when the city was rich with garage and basement punk bands, drummer Chad Sabin said before a reunion show in 2007. PSD and Plain Truth were a couple of other bands that got a lot of attention at the time.

Marti’s All Ages Music, located where the Vietnamese restaurant Tonn is now on Front Street, was an open building with a bathroom and a couple of booths where kids could put on shows. A couple of bands went on to the big time after playing there. The Offspring was one of them.

Many claimed having heard of friends who had seen Green Day play at Marti’s. According to a former talent booker, the closest Green Day ever came to playing the venue was when frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and his girlfriend, Adrienne Nesser, walked in and left right after The Offspring’s set in 1994. Marti’s tried to get Green Day to play the venue numerous times, but it was way too small for even the moderate level of fame they’d already gained pre-“Dookie.” Marti’s had the same trouble with the punk band Fugazi.

“It was pretty much no frills,” Gruber said. “There wasn’t much to do there.”

The bulk of the punk scene was made up of high school and college-age punk-rockers who would play anywhere, Sabin said. Like a lot of kids at the time, the Libido Boyz just wanted to play loud, chaotic music, which also is what people seemed to want to hear. Kids would cram into basements for concerts or listen outside garages.

“On any given week or weekend, there would be a show with anywhere from two to 10 bands playing,” Gruber said. “There was a really good crop of musician-age kids who were into (punk) for a while (before) grunge became very popular.”

During the next few years, the Libido Boyz got big. They played in the Cities and toured the state and eventually started playing shows across the country, including New York and San Francisco. Out West is where they met Green Day, who would become the biggest punk band to come through Mankato.

“They were just dirty punks like us,” Sabin said.

Former Libido Boyz bassist Dave Begalka said they played punk shows with Green Day from time to time while on tour. Mike Dirnt, Green Day bassist, actually did Begalka a big favor once when they played a show in Cleveland together.

Some of Begalka’s bass gear went missing, and a couple of months later he saw Dirnt when they both were playing shows in the California Bay Area. Turns out, the bass gear was mixed up with Dirnt’s equipment that night, and he’d been keeping it safe for him the whole time.

“I thought that was just downright a swell thing to do,” Begalka said. “As I recall, I think we couch surfed at Billy Joe’s that night. ... By the way, I still use the lost guitar strap that went around the U.S. with Green Day.”

The Libido Boyz and Green Day crossed paths in another way as well, through Adrienne, who was a student at Minnesota State University and living in Mankato.

The first lady

Adrienne (Nesser) Armstrong, now 39, was born in Minneapolis and started at MSU in the late 1980s, graduating with the class of 1994 with a degree in sociology.

She met Billie Joe on Green Day’s first tour in 1990. Some report it was a show at First Ave in Minneapolis, and she is quoted at greenday.net as saying only about 10 people were there. She asked Billie Joe where she could get a copy of the band’s CD, and the two hit it off.

While on tour, Billie Joe kept in contact with Adrienne by phone. Their first kiss inspired an early Green Day song, “2,000 Light Years Away.” Their relationship caused Billie Joe to arrange two tours around Minnesota so they could see each other, a relationship which lasted about a year and a half.

Although it’s unclear, witnesses who saw Billie Joe and Adrienne around Mankato during that time say the reason Green Day played shows in the area at all was simply because she was here. The shows weren’t a part of any tour, but rather impromptu ways to pass to the time.

The relationship fizzled after they decided the distance was too much of a strain. Adrienne got engaged to Billy Bisson, the frontman of Libido Boyz, the following year. Reports differ from either side, with some saying the relationship dissolved on its own. Bisson has been quoted as saying Billie Joe stole her away.

While in Mankato, Adrienne worked at various places, including the Piercing Pagoda in the River Hills Mall and Pagliai’s Pizza, and is described by those who knew her as a beautiful punk rock girl who everybody had a crush on.

Cheryl Rueda, manager of Pagliai’s, worked with Adrienne and three of the Libido Boyz at the restaurant when Adrienne was dating Bisson. Adrienne also babysat for Cheryl’s kids.

“She was a beautiful girl,” Rueda said. “I think the world of her. She was just a regular person.”

Thursday nights Adrienne babysat for Cheryl’s two kids, Andre and Marisa, who were about 3 and 6 at the time. She would often have a craft project or activity to do to keep them entertained. She even took them out trick-or-treating during a blizzard one year.

“She was their favorite babysitter,” she said.

Carrie Zempel Heise worked with her at a bar called The Jungle, now Dutler’s Bowl.

“I ran into her after the bar had closed down (she was working at Pier 1 Imports), and she told me she was moving out West soon,” Zempel said. “Months later, word got back that she had married Billie Joe, and then the next thing I saw was an interview with him in Rolling Stone magazine talking about his pregnant wife!”

When Adrienne finished school, Billie Joe convinced her to move to California and marry him. Rueda said it happened so fast it seemed she was gone over night. Before she left, she and friends had a big garage sale, said Amy Lennartson of Eagle Lake. She and Lennartson originally had plans to move to San Francisco together and open a business.

“She headed West that May, and I stayed over the summer to finish up my time at MSU,” Lennartson said. “Then, in true rock star fashion, I returned home from a Fourth of July vacation to a wedding invitation from Adrienne — to a wedding that had already happened.”

The wedding took two weeks to plan and happened in five minutes July 2, 1994, in Billie Joe’s backyard, according to the VH1 “Behind the Music” documentary. “We didn’t think about it, we just did it,” Adrienne said.

Protestant, Catholic and Jewish vows were exchanged because neither had a religion. The honeymoon took place 10 minutes from Billie Joe’s house at the Claremont Hotel. The day after the wedding, Adrienne found out she was pregnant.

The couple has two sons, Joseph Marciano, 14, and Jakob Danger, 10.

Adrienne now co-owns Adeline Records in Oakland, Calif., and Adeline Street clothing line. She works with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and co-owns Atomic Garden, an eco-friendly clothing and home goods store.

There is at least one friend in Mankato Adrienne is reported to keep in contact with. But said friend — whose basement Green Day was reported to have played in and who reportedly visited the Armstrongs in California — wasn’t eager to talk about it.

Rueda kept in contact with Adrienne for a while. Adrienne would send the Rueda kids Green Day T-shirts and things. She also sent a family photo to the Ruedas years ago. When Adrienne’s first son was 1 1/2, she came back to Mankato to visit and Rueda saw them. She was the same person she had always been, Rueda said.

A few years ago, Adrienne asked a friend in Mankato to go to the Ruedas’ house and videotape the kids so she could see how much they had grown up. Otherwise, the Ruedas haven’t heard from her since.

Big time

The night Green Day played St. Peter, the original plan was for them to play at someone’s house behind where Casey’s is now on Lee Boulevard in North Mankato.

Two local bands went on first. But the cops came and broke it up because of the noise. Gruber and his buddy offered to drive equipment and Tre Cool to a house on Fifth Street in Mankato, where somebody had offered up their basement. But the band took one look and said it was way too small.

That’s when a girl whose family lived off Hwy. 99 near St. Peter offered her place.

“This whole caravan of cars ended up driving out to her place,” Gruber said.

It was too hot to play in the barn. Gruber suggested the guys make a mini stage out of the wire spools, which they thought was pretty punk rock, even commenting on that stage and show later on a bootleg recording, he said.

Gruber said he later recognized songs such as “Welcome to Paradise” off of “Dookie” that they played that night — the night most people look to as the epitome of nostalgia when it comes to Green Day’s presence in Mankato. People still go to YouTube to check out the nine or so minutes of footage from that concert, despite being out of focus, jittery and too dark to see much.

“Took me back,” Gruber said of watching the footage. “That guy filming, he was probably standing right next to me and my friends.”

A couple of hundred people have similar memories from that night, having accidentally stumbled upon a concert that would become local legend. None of them could possibly have imagined what Green Day would become.

“Dookie,” released in 1994 — which followed 1992’s “Kerplunk,” having sold 50,000 copies — sold more than 10 million copies in the U.S. That album, along with those of The Offspring and Rancid, is credited for reviving mainstream interest in punk music, and it won Best Alternative Album at the Grammy Awards.

Future albums, “Insomniac” and “Nimrod,” went double platinum, and “Warning” went gold. None of them reached the level of success of “Dookie.”

But 2004’s punk rock opera “American Idiot” changed everything. Debuting at No. 1 and selling five million copies, critics absolutely drooled over it. “American Idiot” won Best Rock Album at the 2005 Grammys and swept the MTV Video Music Awards.

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” spent 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and won the Grammy for Record of the Year. During the band’s 150-date tour in support of the album, they drew crowds of 130,000 people over two days in the United Kingdom.

The band’s new album, “21st Century Breakdown,” was released worldwide May 15 and received rave reviews. Last week the band played “The Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien.

Their world tour kicks off in July, with the Minneapolis show at the Target Center July 11.

#daslfhasdlfkha imagine staying on the couch of a guy who wrote a sappy love song about your gf/fiancee #articles #Green Day #article #interview #babe-drienne #billie joe armstrong

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saltothearth · 4 years

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King, what's your best advice/starting points for living a Good, Christian life? My upbringing was v atheist and consumerism driven... And now I've moved out to a little rural village and dont know where to start building that life beyond reading my bible each day and attending the local church. Thanks in advance!

So, I’ve been sitting on this for days, and have tried to form a response a few times only to not be able to find the words. Honestly, this hits close to home for me. I grew up in a Southern household and as most Southerners, my family was Christian-in-name-only. I’d gone to church a handful of times, mostly when my father decided to unsuccessfully try and get off drugs or my parents were going through one of their separations. But Christ was not in our household. So starting my own walk without knowledge of what to do or where to turn has been - and still is - an ongoing battle. Fortunately, I have my wife who did indeed grow up in a faithful household, and her family who is very Christcentric to turn to, but growing is something we all do. No one is born a Christian, everyone is adopted into the family. Everyone has to go through the same transformative process. Your ask just resonates at such a level with me, and you seem so genuine that it honestly makes me well up. I’m misty-eyed now even.

Because you asked for advice, I’ll give you mine. But I think it’s important to establish a few things first. One is that Jesus Christ, and through Him His apostles, are your guide on how to live and be. This how-to is a part of what the Bible - namely the New Testament - is. There is a wealth of knowledge and if you lived ten lifetimes you could not extract all there is to know, all the wisdom, from that good book. However, God Himself promised that if you approach it with a pure heart and pure intent and ask for discernment, He’ll give it to you. Pray, read, study, pray some more. Ask for wisdom and receive it. These are things that God promised you.

Our faith is not what we do, it’s who we are. Reading, praying, worshiping, these are not things we stop and take time out of our day to do, it’s who we are, it’s what we do. When you make food, worship him in the way you make it. When you do your job, whatever it is, do it to your best and know that your abilities come from His blessings. Internalize this identity, this new way of being; you are a new creature and that is just an awesome thing to introspect on.

Understand that your bad habits probably aren’t going to just be gone overnight. New Christians come into the faith on fire for God, and that’s so awesome! You all just have this passion and zeal. It’s refreshing, it’s genuine, it’s bright-eyed and ready to take on the world. But then you are reminded of where you once struggled, who you once were, and the sin nature that is in you and a part of your flesh crops up. And it’s disheartening. Or at least it was for me. But take Paul’s word when he says that this isn’t you but the sin in you that does wrong. Thank God for his infinite mercy and for giving you a conscious, confess to God, and move forward with the good fight.

Finding a church can be hard. I don’t know where you are, but here in California it’s a spiritual wasteland. I don’t want to dwell on the bad, but be cautious who you throw in with at this tender and young spiritual stage. Be weary of false prophets who preach slanted or warped versions of the Word. Be cautious of churches that don’t stand for anything at all. This may prove to be hard, but like with all big decisions. Pray, pray, pray and be patient. I speak to myself as much as I speak to you here, because I could be reminded of this in my search for a church that is ongoing. Even if you don’t find a physical church location right away, make sure to surround yourself with characters of good faith and morals.

Tell your friends and family about your new life with Christ. This can be intimidating, especially coming from a background that might be hostile to this, but you are a powerful beacon for good and for truth and light, and God can use you to bring those closest to you home. Pray for them, regardless of their response, and let God’s light show through you.

Get baptized. This is one of the first things all Christians should do in their next steps in the Faith. Talk to your local pastor and read up on what this means, what it symbolizes, and how powerful this public professing of your faith truly is.

There are so many little good things that you can do - some of them more concrete, some less so - that I cannot name them all. However, doing these things is a good way to get started on the rest of your life and the rest of eternity.

One last thing. Welcome home, friend. May you continue to inspire others the way you did me. God bless you ↟

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andy-the-8th · 3 years

Text

Summer Research

Part 7 of Creatures That Defy Logic

Read on AO3

Jess is mapping and navigating the reefs on the coasts. John is navigating how to be a better father.

Contains a direct homage one of the most intense scenes in Moonlight (2016)

cw: homophobia, homophobic slurs, bullying, minor violence

Salty spray kicked up against the rocks, splashing with the breaking waves in the warm June sunlight. It was only late morning, but Jess had already been out at the coast for several hours.

Ever since getting past his fear of swimming (mostly), he'd realized his exploration and study of the local reefs and waters had entirely new unlocked potential. He couldn't properly dive yet - scuba was expensive and dangerous, nevermind he was probably too young - but there was plenty you could see with a snorkel in the clear shallow waters around Mahone Bay.

Jess had spent much of the last few weeks working on one stretch of coastline, on the opposite end of the harbor from where the Griffins lived. It was only a half hour bike ride from the marina, but far enough that there was rarely any significant boat activity.

From his searches at the library, Jess knew that there were very generalized maps of the offshore waters nearby - mostly just marking depths for the benefit of fishing and boating, the better to not get run aground.

However, no one had ever mapped the different micro-ecosystems, the biological landscape of the waters. Jess had decided to make this his ongoing personal research project for the summer.

Days started early, just after sunrise - temperature checks of the water and air, confirming locations with latitude and longitude. Surveys of the tide pools, updated with proper location data: tracking all species identified, recording numbers.

Once the sun was up, he'd swim out to the shallows. There were plenty of rock reefs, kelp forests, and flats within comfortable swimming range of the beach - California didn't have a lot in the ways of coral, on account of the cold open ocean currents, but what species it did have were in the southern part of the state, right where Mahone was situated on the coast. Jess had marked out 50 ft lengths of beach into specific zones, then gridded out 50 ft from the shore, 100, 150, 200 - he didn't swim out much past 200. Every day he'd pick a zone, head out with waterproof clipboard, spend the morning swimming down and resurfacing, noting everything he saw.

The rest of the afternoon he'd spend going over field guides from the library, trying to match up his observations with species he could name and identify. He'd fill it in on his data grid, another little patch of ocean, a little bit more closely explored.

This was not a terribly efficient system of research.

Still, it certainly was good practice field work, good exercise, and a good way for Jess to throw himself at his passions and not think too hard about people for a while.

That was the best part of the work - Jess didn't get lonely doing it. Marine biology had always been his main interest, but he'd spent 13 years unable to go past the tide pools for any in-person field observations. There was SO much lost time to make up.

Jess was dutiful with keeping records of his research, carefully sorted in folders in his room, labeled spiral notebooks, Xeroxed maps from the library, hand-drawn data tables and grids. His dad had asked after the first week or so if he was doing some kind of summer extra credit project, a bit surprised at how much literature Jess seemed to be producing.

Of course, he wasn't - Jess did all this on his own, like any responsible aspiring scientist. The work was its own reward.

John had kept his distance the first few weeks of the summer - Jess could tell how sorry he was for what happened. In his own way, Jess had tried to show that he'd forgiven him the last day or two - they'd never been particularly talkative, but at least Jess stopped purposefully not talking to him. He wasn't sure if his dad had picked up on that yet.

Jess thought of that as he was putting his charts and books into his bag. It was still the early in the day, but he'd decided to cut field work short today in favor of heading to the library. He had stayed out on the shore a bit to dry in the air before pedaling home. Jess usually swam with a long sleeve swim shirt, mostly to prevent sunburn and maintain body heat in the early morning water, but it meant not drying out quite as quickly. He'd have to change before going to the library.

The ride back to the marina felt a little longer than usual from the sun and heat beating down - Jess didn't normally make the trip in the middle of the day. Veering off the smooth road onto the crushed gravel of the marina, he quickly rolled to a stop under the overhang just outside the shed door next to the workshop, into the shade, before hurrying up the metal steps along the side of the building to the apartment.

The space wasn't large - really just one area for a living room/kitchen, two bedrooms, and one small bathroom at the end of the hall. The walls of the living room were mostly for maps, fishing photographs, an odd nautical salvaged antique here or there. There was a little mantle, more of a shelf (given that there was no fireplace) along the wall, with a small row of photos in frames.

Jess's school photos from the last few years. A picture of John's parents in front of the marina when it just was one workshop and shack. A photo of Jess's mother and father on their wedding day at the far end.

Jess hadn't ever known his mom - Evy, as his dad would refer to her when reminiscing. She had passed away before he was 2 year years old. In a way, it also meant he didn't really miss her either - like it or not, he'd only ever known life with just John.

He walked quickly down the hall to his room, changed into dry clothes, hung his swim shirt and towel out the sill of the small window overlooking the boat yard to dry in the sun. Carefully took the books out of his bag, swapped out the ones from his desk due back at the library, catalogued his notes. The whole process took only 15 minutes or so, and he was headed back down the outside steps to his bike.

"Where you headed, Jess?"

Even growing up with him had never quite gotten rid of the surprise when John would speak unexpectedly from his small dark study in the shed, surrounded by all his nets, salvaging gear, mermaid memorabilia. Jess jumped a bit at the sound.

"Oh uh, just going to the library, switch out some books."

"Do you, uh, want a ride? I was going to drive into town this afternoo-"

"No Dad, it's OK. I'll just go on my own."

Jess strapped on his helmet, grabbed the handlebars, starting walking his bike toward the road, out into the sun, leaving his father in the shade.

"Jess, can we tal-"

"I don't really want to talk about it. I know. I know you didn't mean any harm. I forgive you for that, or whatever. I don't want to have to go over it again."

Jess never really spoke back to his father like that. He paused, nervous, realizing how gruff he might have sounded.

John didn't really move or say anything for a second. Jess wondered if he might actually get mad at him right then.

He didn't. John breathed in and out heavily, eyes fixed on the floor, then looked up at his son.

"Thank you Jess. Thank you for forgiving me."

Immediately awkward but not wanting to ruin the moment, Jess shakily nodded and half-smiled. "You're welcome."

"You sure you don't want a ride into town?"

"No Dad, I'm fine."

He pushed himself onto the bike, kicked off the gravel, and pedaled out of the marina.

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

"Back again Mr. Wheatley?"

The lady behind the front desk at Mahone Bay's small library had a pretty good memory for faces as it was, and Jess had been coming by at least once a week for the last couple years.

"Yes Ms. Mullins, just returning some books." Jess put the small stack on the counter, helpfully handing her each one to sign it back in, then stamping his library card. The library had just gotten a computer last year, but most of the checkout systems were done on paper, especially for reference texts and maps.

"So what are you studying these days? Still mapping the reefs on the south shore?"

"Yup! Plenty more beach still to go, and that's just documenting what I can see this time of year!"

By now Ms. Mullins looked forward to Jess's visits; he was always so polite, so eager to talk about what he was studying. It was a nice break from most of the teen boys one might encounter as a front desk library lady.

The door slid open behind them, another patron coming into the cool lobby out of the hot sun. A gust of the summer heat followed whoever it was through the door.

"Jess?"

Well, that wasn't a voice he normally heard this time of year.

"Mrs. Nelson?" There was a special weirdness in running into a teacher outside of school, and doubly so in the summer - almost like they were regular humans or something.

"How's your summer going? Did I hear you're doing research again?"

"I am! Continuing some of the topography studies Cody and I started on our project, but now I'm documenting up to 200 ft away from the coast, and moving it to the south side of the harbor! I've been charting all the coral and plants on the reefs, the temperatures, composition of the rocks, any animal species I can find....."

Mrs. Nelson smiled as he continued, impressed but not surprised at how much work Jess had taken on. Sure, his methods were....perhaps imprecise....but his heart was really in it. And his observations could actually be quite useful for studying the shallows around the bay, effectively building a map of all the biomes.

Always a great moment as a teacher to see one of your students applying your subject in the real world - even if they're a 13 year old amateur oceanographer.

"That's really great Jess!"

Jess had finished, a bit breathless after giving what he'd thought was a concise and quick review of his work. He was a tinge self-conscious at how much he'd spoken in such a quick burst - Sam had advised him to tone it down a bit. Then again, Mrs. Nelson was a biology teacher, and she clearly didn't show any signs of being bored or annoyed.

"Would you be interested in bringing in your research at the end of the summer? Not as homework of course, just to share your findings. You could maybe even present it for my next year's biology class if you want?"

Jess lit up like a lighthouse at that.

"Oh I'd love to! That'd be great!"

Mrs. Nelson smiled again. "Well, I won't keep you from your work any longer. Good luck! Always a great day for science." She often ended class with that little adage.

"Always a great day for science" Jess agreed, as she walked past him into the library.

"Will that be everything today dear?" Ms. Mullins was looking over the desk at him, the last book checked in and moved to the cart for re-shelving.

Jess had gotten distracted, dizzingly pre-planning how he might present his research to next year's class. "Oh, yeah. Thank you ma'am, I'll see you next week." He turned back to the automatic doors, the warm air hitting again as he stepped outside, walked down the sidewalk to the bike rack.

The library was right on the main strip in town - Mahone Bay wasn't big, so most of the usual staples were all on one or two main streets. The library sat across from the post office and a coffee shop adjoining it next door; on one side was the town hall, on the other another line of shops - tourist traps, small bookstores and craft places, small restaurants and cafes. Apartments over top of them.

Jess was just about done unchaining his bike and putting on his helmet when he caught a shadow of someone walking toward him on the sidewalk - too late.

"Ugh, watch it!" Jess started to get up to apologize to whoever it was who half-tripped over him. He looked up to see three unfortunately familiar faces.

"Oh great. How's it going Josh, summer OK?" Of course luck would have it that Sean Marshall would almost trip over him in front of the library. His voice hadn't lost any of the disdain from the last time they'd spoken - when Sean had been pretty unambiguously about to beat Jess up pretty bad.

"I-I'm sorry Sean. I didn't see you, I...." Jess stammered, surprised and more than a little shaken to see Sean again. He didn't know the other two other than that they were other swim team guys - also familiar from the last day of school as part of Sean's hangers-on crowd.

"Yeah, you should be."

"OK, I'm sorry, I am," Jess just wanted to leave now. He wanted to be away from these guys and away from whatever this might lead to.

Sean got quiet again as Jess started to get on his bike up the hill to head off. "Learned not to talk back to me, huh smartass?"

Jess knew this was an attempt to bait him. He knew he shouldn't say anything, but then again, not saying anything was equally giving Sean what he wanted.

Annoying how these bullying asshole types always created these Catch-22 situations.

"I guess I just don't really have anything to say to you right now."

If it wasn't for the proximity it brought him to physical harm, Jess would find that look of insulted surprise in Sean's eyes incredibly funny. At least he didn't give him the last word.

"Oh you'll be sorry now, no one speaks to me like that, you little fucking fag," Sean growled, starting toward Jess - it would only be seconds for him to cover the couple meters between where the three had been standing and where Jess was on his bike a bit up the sidewalk.

The library doors slid open again right as the words left his lips - Mrs. Nelson had apparently finished whatever she needed to do at the library and serendipity had her emerge right at that second.

She may only technically only hold authority in school, but a teacher being directly in sight was enough to defuse most bullies away from outright violence.

"Mr. Marshall, good to see you." Mrs. Nelson definitely didn't sound happy to see him. She was definitely using The Teacher Voice here. "Was there some problem?"

Just like before, Sean wiped away his more dangerous side effortlessly, unnervingly cool and charming in an instant. "No Mrs. Nelson, no problem. Just getting a chance to catch up with Josh."

In the back of his mind Jess wondered if all these swim team people called him Josh on purpose, or if it was a genuine mistake - not the most pressing matter at hand though.

Mrs. Nelson was looking at him pointedly now, then back at Sean. "OK then. Stay out of trouble boys. Jess, I'll see you later then?"

That was a confusing statement: she hadn't said anything about reviewing his research today.

Unless she was making it clear to Sean and the others that he would be missed, should he not get home safe today. That made Jess shudder to think about.

"Uh, OK, definitely! Thanks Mrs. Nelson!"

She sent another tough glare at the other three, and stood by the outside of the building til they moved along. Sean turned back and sneered at Jess, a dangerous glint in his eyes - he wasn't going to forget this.

Mrs. Nelson quickly walked up the sidewalk once the other three boys were out of sight down the hill, stopping right in front of where Jess was still poised on his bike.

"Jess, is there anything you need help with? Anything you want me to know here?" He'd heard that same line from teachers before - teachers knowing something was going on, but knowing they lacked proof unless a student actually told them something. He knew she did genuinely want to help.

Unfortunately, he also knew how it usually went when you tried to report bullying.

"Kids will be kids." "Boys will be boys." "They'll sort it out."

"No Mrs. Nelson, I'm fine." Jess started to get on moving, pointing his bike up the road to head home. Jess saw in her face that she knew he wasn't telling her everything.

"OK. If you're ever not, please don't be afraid to tell someone." Jess knew she really did care. But he also knew teachers could only do so much.

"Really, I'm OK. It was nice to see you, have a good rest of your summer" Jess tried to smile and sound confident as he turned and pedaled off.

Mrs. Nelson straightened up as Jess went over the hill and out of sight. Another one scared to ask for help. God, if she ever caught that Sean Marshall red handed. Fullest extent of suspension possible, swim champion or not. If only they weren't going to be in the high school next year, away from where she'd be around.

Still, she could tell Jess was tougher than most people would give him credit for. She hoped that would always be enough.

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

Whether it was smart to do so or not, Jess took the long way home. Much of the afternoon heat had dissipated by the time he saw the marina coming up on the road - of course it would be light past 8 at night this time of year, but the sun was past its zenith for the day. He sped through the shadows of the boat masts and antennae crisscrossing along the gravel, turned and rolled to a stop under the overhang, put his bike just inside the shed door and hung his helmet on the handlebar. He was half-wondering if his dad would still be in his study from earlier today.

He wasn't, and from what Jess could tell once he got upstairs, he wasn't home at all. Jess wasn't surprised - it was still early in the day all things considered, and he often worked late out at the docks. Even if it was just outside the walls of the apartment, he was still at work, busy fixing up whatever boat pieces or engines the fishermen had brought in, sorting through whatever salvage he'd trawled up earlier that week.

Jess went in his room and closed the door, leaving the lights off, window open to try to get some cool sea air inside. He picked up the shirt and towel off the sill, hung them over the chair in front of his small desk. He laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, took off his glasses, let the world go blurry.

He really wasn't a stranger to bullies, but there was something more cutting about his last two run-ins with Sean Marshall. Most prominently, he knew at least something about Cody - in more ways than one, that could be used to hurt Jess in a way other bullies never could. What if Sean ever worked out what really happened? What if he told anyone else? What if what he'd said about Cody not caring about Jess had any truth in it?

There was something else though. Jess hadn't let himself look it up, even though he definitely wanted to. He wanted to know what it was that Sean had been calling him. Why it stung so strangely, even without knowing the definition.

Just from context though, he knew that it wasn't something he could ask a teacher, or a librarian. And definitely not something to type into a computer's search engine.

A shuffle and the sound of the door closing outside his room let Jess know his dad had come in. Jess sat up, rubbed his eyes, and put his glasses back on. The sun had gone down while he'd been lying there, thoughts writhing around his mind. He got up and opened the door to his room, softly padded down the hall to the small living room.

"Oh hey Jess." John was taking his boots off, putting them under where he'd already hung up his work overshirt on the little wall hooks next to the door. "How was the library?"

Words caught in Jess's throat, worse than he'd expected. "It was fine Dad. Dropped off my books. I ran into Mrs. Nelson too."

John mentally chided himself for not remembering who that was. After a second, it was clear Jess hadn't really expected him to either.

"She said I can bring her my research from mapping the south shore reefs at the start of next school year. Maybe even present it to the next year's biology class."

John smiled at that, moving past the pause a line ago. "Oh that's great! That's real good, gettin' to show off all the hard work you've been doin'."

"Yeah Dad, it'll be great." Jess finished quietly, like he was closing the door on talking any more right now. It was a familiar enough cadence to their discussions. Not exactly uncomfortable most of the time. John still got the sense there was something else Jess wanted to say, or didn't want to say, or....something. He couldn't pin it but he knew that Jess wasn't closing the conversation because he didn't have more to say.

"So I uh, smoked some sea bass for dinner." They didn't always eat together at the table, but when John had a particularly good catch he tried to make the time for it. Jess brightened a bit at that - sea bass was one of his favorites, with a mildly sweet flavor and less of a fishy aftertaste.

"Oh great! I'll, um, I'll get some plates out?" Jess said this quickly walking to the small cabinet over the stove, putting two old porcelain plates on the table. Smiling for a second at the dramatic mermaid designs etched into the old china.

John got the fish out of the fridge and heated it on the gas stove while Jess cut up potatoes to fry on the side. They worked mostly silently, only a word here or there - could you pass the seasoning, can I use that dishtowel - that sort of thing.

Still not whatever John could tell that his son was avoiding.

They didn't say grace or anything, but did take a moment of pause after both sitting down, fish and fries laid out on each plate, opposite ends of the short table.

John could see Jess making small looks up at him between bites, like he was trying to hide it. He knew not to push him. His mind could come up with a dozen things Jess could want to say to him, especially after the brief outburst earlier that day. A dozen things John had already known he'd done wrong, a dozen things he wanted to make better or make up for if he knew how. He felt like he was prepared for anything Jess could be about to say -

"Dad," Jess started hesitantly. His voice was soft. Almost scared.

John let a full beat pass, swallowing his own anxiety, ready to talk about whatever Jess was about to bring up.

Jess looked down at his plate, his voice only hair above a whisper. "What does 'faggot' mean?"

John could feel his own eyes widen, his own face freeze in shock. Of all the things he was ready for Jess to say, that was definitely not one of them. What was he even supposed to say to this?"

"Jess, uh, um...." he stammered to find words, trying to sound more confident than he really was. He hoped Jess wouldn't notice, or would forgive him that too if he did. Controlling his tone, he tried to sound caring and firm, but not accusatory. It still came out rougher than he'd wanted it to. "Jess, where did you hear that word?"

He could hear Jess breathe and shudder nervously at the other end of the table. Only a few feet apart in their small kitchen, he still felt both miles away and uncomfortably, vulnerably close.

"I don't know, uh...nowhere....just, um....someone at school."

"Did someone call you that Jess?" He couldn't keep the roughness out of that line.

"No." He said it too quickly, but John wasn't going to call him on the lie. He knew Jess kept things from him, especially when it came to his social problems. There were only so many times any kid could realistically "fall off a bike." There were only so many ways to "accidentally" break one's glasses.

"Well then." John breathed heavily again. Whatever he said now, he knew it might well be one of the most critical moments in his relationship with his son.

"Faggot, uh. Well, in British, it just means a pile of sticks." He tried to make it sound humorous, to push back against the stifling unease between them. Jess gave a compulsory half smile that vanished almost before John could see it.

"But um. It means, well.....it's something people say to hurt someone. To make them feel awful about themselves."

"OK, but what does it mean." Frustrated, Jess could tell he was talking around something. It hurt to see that his son clearly already knew that the word was meant to be hurtful.

John paused again, making every effort to even and soften his voice, to bury the rage he felt at whoever had brought his Jess to this point. To the cusp of crying out of frustration at his own kitchen table.

"It's a way to negatively call a man a homosexual." That was about as even and measured as he could have put that. Jess didn't look up from his lap, but he could see that his son's shoulders relaxed just a little bit.

"Oh."

Jess felt himself breathe out at that. Well, at least there was the answer.

"Jess, do you know what that -"

"Yeah, Dad, I know....I know what that means." Jess couldn't keep the lie out of his voice on that last part though. Sure, he could reason through the word's meaning - he knew enough Latin for that.

"Is that....even possible?" he asked in a hushed uptalk, looking up at John from behind his glasses.

"Is what possible Jess?"

"Homosexual, that means, um....." Jess wasn't exactly sure what meaning to go with. Having the same sets of sex chromosomes? Having offspring from two organisms of the same sex?

John paused, realizing Jess actually didn't know this one. On one hand, in the back of his mind John was at least a little glad his son hadn't had to learn this from someone else too - that there was a bit of innocence to grownup things left in him. On the other hand, he had to answer this truthfully. Some parenting conversations are never easy.

"Jess, you know how boys like to date and get married to girls?"

"Of course" Jess's cheeks flushed, surprised and embarrassed by wherever this was going. The space between them twisted taut, made the kitchen feel almost suffocating, but he had to get this right.

"Well, sometimes, um. Boys like other boys that way. Or girls like other girls too, I guess." John was trying to keep it as age-appropriate and neutral as he could. He watched Jess carefully, watched as he had turned his eyes nervously back to his plate.

The silence hung in the air. No change to the crushing, nervous energy in the room.

His voice still quiet, but almost thick with anxiety - hopefully not tears, John prayed - Jess spoke still looking down.

"Is that bad?"

In the split second after he said it, John's brain again whirred through possible explanations, outcomes, everything, knowing he had to get this right -to not think about politics, or society, or Jesus, or AIDS - not think about what Jess might be about to tell him, or might be about to realize. Just to be the best father he could to the small scared boy in front of him.

"No Jess. That's not bad."

They both exhaled - the air in the room felt just a bit more breathable. "It's different. It's not that common. But it's not bad."

Jess looked up then, breathed in and out, in and out, calming down. "OK. Thanks for explaining Dad." He closed in the same way he'd done other conversations - times when John had asked about a black eye, a broken glasses lens, a missing shoe. Times Jess thought he had gotten as much support from his father as he was going to.

"Jess." John said it gently but emphatically. His son looked up at him, surprised.

"No matter what you might hear, I want you to always remember: no one has the right to make anyone feel bad about themselves for being different. In any way."

John let the silence hang after that. He had to make sure Jess knew that.

Jess's eyes were a bit shiny behind his glasses as he looked back across the table, and nodded once again, a bit more confident. "Thanks Dad. I won't forget."

"Alright then."

They both finished the rest of dinner without speaking - not an uncomfortable silence. Both of them had to take time to process things when it came to people and emotions rather than mythology and marine biology. They were alike in that way.

Jess was finishing drying off the last dish John had handed to him. John looked at him carefully open the cabinet, carefully put it back, carefully fold the dish towel. So gentle and harmless.

God damn, he couldn't stand to imagine anyone hurting this kid.

Jess turned away from the stove, back toward the hall, toward his room. "Goodnight Dad. Thanks for the sea bass."

"Don't mention it, bud. Goodnight." John watched his son down the hall, start to open his door.

"Jess?"

"Yeah Dad?"

"I love you."

A quiet pause. John didn't move from where he was in the kitchen, hand still on the sponge at the sink. He didn't hear Jess moving at the far end of the apartment - he was still standing with the door to his room half open.

"I love you too, Dad."

John heard the door to Jess's room click closed. He felt his whole body relax as he turned, rinsing off the sponge, wringing it out over the sink.

He heard Jess's door click open. Worry caught in his throat again.

"You alright bud?"

"Yeah Dad, I forgot to brush my teeth." John felt the tension leave again. His Jess. Always so responsible.

END NOTES:

Definitely the heaviest entry in the series so far.

I know it might seem a bit far-fetched that Jess might not know what some things mean at this age, but I can attest that I based that on my own experience - everyone learns about things in their own time and being socially out-of-the-loop, especially pre-Internet, meant kids might not learn about things until later than they might nowadays

I think Mahone Bay is an actual place in Nova Scotia and that that may be where the movie was supposed to be set, but we're going to ignore that - the sealife in the movie much better lines up with California, so that's where this fictional Mahone Bay's going to be - it also might make future crossovers that may or may not be planned a little bit easier to work with.

On a lighter note I think I've also decided that Al Gore's going to win the 2000 election in this universe, and 9/11 and the Iraq invasion are not going to happen. I doubt those will impact the story as it's currently planned but y'know, never hurts to be prepared for such questions.

#the thirteenth year #long post #dcom #disney channel original movies #disney #mermaid #mermen #homophobic slurs #ocean life #marine biology #fanfic

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graffitibible · 4 years

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Do you think zones and battery cities exist outside the US, like all around the world?

i’ve thought a lot about this, actually! in the universe i’m building for “pray for disaster,” there’s a lot of world history that goes hand in hand with character histories, stuff like that. the specifics of the dates are still in a mild state of flux (which is to say that since a lot of works are in progress i don’t want to canonize something that i’ll have to contradict later) but i do have a basic layout for the progression of world events and thus the layout of what the hell happened in places that aren’t california.

so the lore we get from canon occasionally conflates the helium wars with the analog wars; for my part, i choose to separate them out but maintain that there’s a bit of overlap. the helium wars were a global war, a global struggle that involved multiple countries, including the US. the analog wars were more akin to a civil war that took place specifically between the zones in california and battery city. i’ve got a timeline i use to keep my version of canon from contradicting itself; in it, the americas only lasted in the helium wars up until around the early-to-mid 1990s. by then, bli had a well-established presence in the area, particularly in california (possibly since the 70s or 80s). by the time the americas drop out of the helium wars, those countries have more or less been dissolved as entities. the “may death never stop you” trailer states that battery city is the capital for what remains of all the americas, so it’s very possible that a union or republic or coalition was made of the north, south, and central america regions - not just the US. but that would’ve essentially been little more than a front for the corporatocracy that Better Living quickly establishes.

we’re going to focus on the US (or what’s left of it) since that’s what you were asking about. in the “may death never stop you” trailer we get a brief look at what the country that used to be the US looks like now, and those definitely aren’t your ordinary state lines. california got to remain as is, but the rest of the states weren’t so lucky. dr. death defying’s listening party mentions “losing texas,” due to some kind of massive explosion or bomb blast, so to say that battery city is capital of what remains of the americas like the “may death never stop you” trailer suggests sounds accurate. i imagine large swathes of this territory have become borderline unlivable.

so, what’ve we got here in what’s left of the US? i count seven distinct territories of what used to be the states, though the gridded view makes it hard to be 100% sure of that. still, it looks like seven so right now i’m going with seven. my name scheme for them (so far) boils down thusly, keying to the way i numbered them in the screenshot i took above:

california (CA) - got to remain as is, with battery city as its capital. since it’s the smallest territory on the map i think that it might actually have the largest amount of livable surface area, which means that the US is, environmentally speaking, not doing so hot as a whole. this is important.

utah (UT) - the territory to the immediate right of california. both the transmissions and dr. death defying mention the “battle of utah,” so i assume that utah got to keep its state name (though not its state borders).

wyoming (WY) - the territory immediately above california and (new) utah.

new carolina (NC) - that whole southern region that includes texas and florida, basically. it’s the biggest in terms of surface area but also significantly lower in population considering how little of the territory is actually habitable by now, since a bomb or calamity with the power to wipe out texas is going to leave a hell of an environmental scar on the surrounding territories.

new dakota (ND) - the area between the great lakes and wyoming.

new virginia (NV) - lower east coast, just beneath the great lakes.

new maine (NM) - the upper east coast, to the right of the great lakes.

so, swinging back around to your initial query - i don’t think that the rest of the US follows the model that california sets specifically. i think that since battery city is deemed to be the capital of what remains of the americas, it’s unique - and i think that’s what made it such a target for rebellion in the first place. battery city is the capital of all the americas now, which means that it’s probably where a lot of BLi’s power is stored. the comics all but outright state this: in dismantling battery city, the main characters seek to dismantle BLi.

so the analog wars are, based on what i can discern from the canon we get, the name for the struggle between better living industries and those who oppose them - aka, killjoys. outside battery city, there are six zones (at least in the era of the music videos; dr. death’s twitter mentions zones 1 - 6, though the comics later imply that there are at least seven zones. for our purposes, we’re going to look at this from the perspective of the mv eras). we don’t know what’s beyond those six zones - only that there is a world outside of them.

now, better living is absurdly powerful. they’re a megacorporation. they literally own death. the rebellion happening outside their city walls isn’t something they want to see continue - by the comics era, it’s clear that BLI wants to see the killjoys thoroughly eradicated from both the surface of the world and the public consciousness. yet despite their seemingly infinite resources, they can’t seem to wipe them out.

now this is very much theoretical (i mean much of this response is purely conjecture lol) but i think that might be because there literally isn’t a way of accessing battery city from outside the zones, or at least not an easy one that battery city can exploit. i think that battery city and the zones have been extremely isolated thanks to…whatever’s out past zone six/zone seven. severe radiation? possibly, though i don’t think it’s due to bomb blasts - most radiation from nuclear weaponry won’t linger for longer than two weeks. long-term health effects will linger, but immediate death isn’t going to be what kills you in that scenario unless you don’t shelter from the blast and remain in shelter for something like 48 hours after it hits. i think it’s more likely that it’s some mass damage to parts of the ozone in the area around the zones, which means that showers of mass amounts of UV radiation can be hugely detrimental in the short term and long term depending on how much of it there is, and way more likely to be a long-lasting status effect in the physical area than something like nuclear fallout.

so, from there i speculate that the establishment of the zones might have been a deliberate means of isolating battery city from the rest of the world. this could have been on the part of the killjoys, if it meant that battery city wouldn’t be getting reinforcements or wouldn’t be capable of contacting other BLI cities for help through the environmental interference. this also could have been on the part of battery city itself, to keep the rebellion from spreading to other parts of the world, to keep those pesky killjoys from leaking their ideology into other territories. it could honestly go either way! both sides would have a reason to do it, and it would certainly explain why the struggle in the mvs and comics feels so centralized in that singular location.

so no, to answer your question, not exactly. i think the zones and battery city are a pretty unique situation and i think that’s very possibly a result of battery city being the beacon of BLi’s power that it’s outright stated to be in the comics. but also that’s just me!

i think it’s also incredibly likely that the rest of the americas might have similar situations going on, but in isolation from the rest - we get very little insight into what the rest of the world is doing (other than australia apparently disappearing completely in 2019), so it’s really honestly up in the air. i don’t think it’s a corporate mandate that all cities and territories be surrounded by concentric circles of zones, for example, but i do think it’s very likely that another city in another part of what used to be the states is grappling with a very similar resistance and in relative isolation from the rest of the world. we’re talking about a large expanse of territory that had huge chunks taken out of it in the wars that ravaged the landscape, like the literal size of texas in scope. if the surface of what used to be the US is that cratered by war, i think it’s very likely that there are a few habitable cities scattered throughout the americas, these little bastions of civilization that are all owned and operated by BLi. and while i don’t think every territory surrounding those cities would follow the “zone” model, it’s worth wondering what a rebellion in another city would look like, if it’s not surrounded by a desert soaked in radiation. like, what about any cities situated near the great lakes? if those lakes are still there, i’m just putting it out there that “secret underwater killjoy city” is totally possible as long as it wasn’t engineered by andrew ryan

#danger days #anon #*mine #*spec #*fabrication #sorry LONG ANSWER but i do think of this a lot #like u have COMPLETE ARTISTIC LICENSE wrt any other cities out there #there's no reason to follow the desert formula! go hog wild!#underground killjoy city! inner-city killjoy rebellion that divides a city Lit Rally in two!#the possibilities are ENDLESS and that is very exciting!#i know at least one of the transmissions hinted that there are zones as far out as japan #so that might be a corporate mandate for capitals #but it does raise the question of where the cutoff for zones are and how theyre distinguished #which is what leads me to believe that purposeful isolation might be the ultimate goal to a strategy like that

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nationalparkposters · 3 years

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Re-discovering America, the Park-to-Park Highway Series – Part 4 of 4

Re-discovering America, the Park-to-Park Highway Series – Part 4 of 4: After visiting Yosemite, General Grant and Sequoia National Parks, the Park-To-Park Highway group left the mountain climate behind them and headed into warmer weather. They continued on to Bakersfield on October 19th, where they were met by the automobile Club of California, and one other surprise visitor, who had emerged from his hospital bed. The great pathfinder, Anton Westgard. His desire to see through the tour temporarily outweighed his illness, but unfortunately, he could only rejoin the tour as far as Los Angeles. As the group moved west, Westgard traveled south to San Diego, where his health continued to decline. He would not rejoin the tour. The Auto Club of Southern California had hosted them during their stay in Los Angeles, and when the group left, they traveled on what today is the famous Route 66. Traveling now in desert conditions dotted with Joshua trees, they journeyed to the next park on the list. Zion National Park With the intensely dry heat of the Mohave Desert being a constant companion, the Park-to-Park tour group's resolve was beginning to wane. Dust was an ever-present fixture on the road and it permeated everything, from their clothes to the engines of their automobiles. Their journey continued north, and after 4,000 miles of travel, a 500-mile trip to Zion National Park seemed not only impossible, but unbearable. What's more, they simply had no time to spare. But what they did not realize was the beautiful other-worldly sights they would miss at Zion. With its sheer sandstone cliffs and green oasis in the desert, they could not fathom the scenery unless they saw it with their own eyes. Located on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, the rock that was pushed up over millions of years started to erode away, leaving a unique landscape with colorful rock formations and a desert river at the bottom, forming a ribbon of green in the middle of an arid land. Oblivious to Zion's wonders, the party soldiered on. Grand Canyon National Park Even though Zion was bypassed, the group could not have anticipated the spectacular vistas they were about to experience. On October 26th, the caravan crossed the border into Arizona, arriving at El Tovar Hotel at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. They were not prepared for the truly awe-inspiring sight of endless miles of steep cliffs and colorful strada, made possible by the eroding force of the Colorado River. At some points, the Canyon is a mile deep; the result of millions of years of erosion and a perfect recording of the Earth's history. The unbelievable spectacle of seeing the Grand Canyon for their first time has been known to leave some visitors so overcome that they simply faint, or sink down to their knees, crying with joy and wonder. Varying from 4 to 8 miles wide, the Grand Canyon stretches for 277 miles. Previously set aside by past presidents as first a forest, and then a game reserve, it wasn't until 1919 that Congress made it a national park. In 1902, the first automobile came to the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff along a stagecoach route. Back then, that journey took 4 days. Construction of Rim Road began in 1908. The tour group spent 3 days at the Canyon. On October 30th, they traveled on to Flagstaff. They continued east, stopping by Petrified Forest National Monument. By now it was November and winter was catching up. With the weather becoming a deterrent, they had to shift their itinerary and ship the cars up to Pueblo, Colorado. The trip had become too cumbersome for some and a few of the members left the tour to catch a train back home. The remainder of the group took a train to Durango. Mesa Verde National Park Despite the inclement weather, Steven Mathers joined the rest of the group for the final push to Mesa Verde. It was the only park on their journey to feature man-made structures, where the Pueblo people built their homes and sacred spaces 900 years ago. In a mysterious move, these ancient citizens abandoned their home and when the Europeans discovered it several centuries later, it became jeopardized when early tourists took delicate artifacts; some even vandalizing the area. It was then a group of ladies who realized they had to do something about it. Around the 1890's they began advocating for Mesa Verde to become a protected national park, and in 1906, their efforts paid off. Not only did they protect the cliff dwellings, but they commissioned the building of wells, trails, and eventually roads. When Steven Mather and company arrived at the park on November 6th, 1920, only one major road had been built so far, the Knife Edge Trail. Back in 1917, Horace Albright described this road as “one of the most disreputable, dangerous, fearsome bits of slippery rotted misery I ever had the misfortune to travel.” This, of course, gave the Park-to-Park tour a renewed sense of their mission to preach the gospel of good roads. Home Again, Home Again After touring the last park on their grand circle tour, they headed back to Denver to attend a convention to further discuss the creation of good roads. But before that, they held their last meeting in Pueblo at the Congress Hotel. Then, on November 9th, the tour drove up South Broadway into Denver after 76 days of almost constant travel which saw them being escorted by 60 automobiles and a welcome banquet. The group was able to show the world that visiting these national parks could be possible on passable roads going from park to park. Seven of the original 12 members completed the entire tour. Anton Westgard was one of the more notable figures not in attendance that day. Alas, he had to remain in San Diego, as late-stage syphilis ravaged his body. He succumbed to the disease on April 3, 1921. He was 66 years old. Later that year, Congress began the process of getting good paved roads to link the parks together, eventually creating the Park to Park Highway. It was a direct result of the enthusiasm that this tour created. These roads provided a whole new scale of American tourism. It opened the door to the concept that the almighty road trip is part of the American dream of adventure, freedom, and exploration. Mathers, Westgard, and the entire Park-to-Park team literally paved the way for the Great American Road Trip, and of re-discovering the amazing beauty of the American West. Click here to read Part 1 of the Park-to-Park Highway series... or Click here to read Part 3 of the Park-to-Park Highway series... Meet Rob Decker, Creator of National Park Posters Photographer and graphic artist Rob Decker studied photography with Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park during the summer of 1979 when he was just 19. It was an experience solidified his love of photography and our National Parks. Now he is on a journey to photograph and create iconic WPA-style posters of all our major national parks as we celebrate the next 100 years of the National Park Service. "I feel it's important to protect America's special places, and to connect people with nature. And it's up to all of us to pitch in. Perhaps more importantly, we need to inspire the next generation of park stewards. I'm trying to make a difference by giving back to the amazing organizations that support our National Parks. I donate 10% of annual profits, so when you buy one of these original works, you're helping these trusts, conservancies and associations, too." Click here to meet the artist, Rob Decker. Join the growing community of 75k+ National Park enthusiasts to receive insider deals and updates. See why 75k+ National Park fans have already joined... https://national-park-posters.com/blogs/national-park-posters/park-to-park-highway-series-part-4?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=Sendible&utm_campaign=RSS

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socialjusticeartshare · 3 years

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Massive family reunification effort starts with a mother and son at the border

SAN YSIDRO, Calif. — Three years, seven months and four days since U.S. immigration agents separated her from her son, Sandra was on her way back Monday to the San Ysidro border crossing.

He’s 18 now, and living in southern California. She was deported alone to Mexico. Her flight back to the border — to Bryan — was 12 hours away.

“I keep thinking about what it’s going to be like. How will I react? How will he react?” she said Monday by telephone. “He’s not the same boy I remember.”

Sandra and Bryan were among the thousands of families separated by the Trump administration in 2017 and 2018 under a policy to deter migration. When Sandra crosses into the United States on Tuesday afternoon, she and her son will be among the first reunited under the Biden administration — the start of a massive relocation of parents deported by one U.S. president and returned by another. In total, more than 1,000 families are expected to be reunified.

U.S. to begin reuniting migrant families separated under ‘cruel’ Trump policy, DHS secretary says

Sandra and Bryan are one of four families to be reunited this week as part of what government officials and immigration lawyers describe as a trial balloon — a test to find the most effective ways to return parents to their children without reviving the trauma they experienced when they were separated. And so it was with some reservation that the lawyers working on Sandra’s case told her that the process would involve her returning to the same border crossing where she had been separated from her son.

“Hopefully it’s not a triggering event,” said Carol Anne Donohoe, Sandra’s attorney, of the law firm Al Otro Lado.

Said Sandra: “I think it’s all going to come flooding back to me when I’m there.”

She and Bryan had fled their village in Mexico’s Michoacán state, where it seemed as though everything that could go wrong did. In 2010, her husband disappeared; his body was found two days later with bullet wounds. Then the local cartel delivered the body of their teenage neighbor, Bryan’s friend, dismembered in a bag. And then they began trying to recruit Bryan.

“That’s when we decided to go,” she said.

It was October 2017. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy wouldn’t be officially implemented until April 2018, but authorities had already begun separating migrant families at the border.

Sandra and Bryan turned themselves in at the San Ysidro port of entry and requested asylum. Two days later, she says, they were taken to a nondescript office.

“They told me to say goodbye to my son, that I wouldn’t see him again,” she said. “And then they took him away.”

As U.S. seeks to outsource immigration enforcement, Mexico gains leverage

Sandra was detained for more than a month with other mothers who had been separated from their children. Like Sandra, most were unable to communicate with their children during their time in detention. She says Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers told them that their sons and daughters would be put up for adoption.

Eventually, Sandra was told that she had failed her credible fear interview, the first step in gaining asylum, and would be deported. She asked for her son to be deported with her, she says, but officials told her it wasn’t possible.

After Sandra was deported to Tijuana, she called her older son. Jose Arturo had migrated to the United States years earlier. He told her that Bryan had arrived in southern California and that the two of them were living together.

Sandra took a bus back to Michoacán. She moved in with her parents on the outskirts of their town. For weeks, she refused to go outside. She made video calls to Bryan, but they mostly just stared at each other and cried.

“I assumed, ‘This is it. I’ll never see him again,’ ” she said.

Harris-led campaign to stem migration from Central America faces steep challenges

She found a job harvesting lemons, earning about $10 per day, three days per week. She and Bryan settled into a routine of about two video calls a week. She charted his progress from call to call.

First he was learning English. Then he was enrolling in advanced-placement classes. Then he was graduating high school early. He told her about his prom and his first full-time job. He ended almost every call by saying, “We’ll be together soon.”

But when he hung up the phone, she says, he would tell his friends: “I wish she was here for this.”

President Biden promised during his campaign last year to reunite families separated by the Trump administration. When he was elected, Sandra began to wonder whether a return to the United States might be possible. Al Otro Lado, the law firm, had contacted her, and told her to be patient.

But her lawyers grew frustrated with the pace of the reunification process.

“We applied to bring Sandra across in February and were denied,” Donohoe said. “We had to keep telling our clients to wait and wait and wait.”

They missed their U.S. court dates because they were kidnapped. Now they’re blocked from applying for asylum.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security agreed to process the first few returning parents at the border. Sandra’s flight to Tijuana — which will be her first time in an airplane — was booked. So was a coronavirus test and an appointment with Customs and Border Protection in San Ysidro.

A small group of lawyers and advocates, including Donohoe, were making arrangements for about three dozen parents, among the first group slated to return. The challenges were many. The passport process in Guatemala, for example, proved painstaking. Some parents had limited cellphone access and could be reached only once a week. Others had developed a deep mistrust of the United States after their separations and worried that parts of the reunification program might be a scam.

Another group of advocates was charged with finding hundreds of other separated parents who have not been located since their deportations. Four hundred and sixty-five of them remain “unreachable.” A fraction are probably living with the children in the United States, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In June 2018, a judge ordered the Trump administration to reunify separated families within 30 days, and hundreds were. But by then, hundreds more had already been deported without their children.

Because the Trump administration kept little contact information for the parents they had deported, advocates were left to fund radio advertisements that aired across Central America.

“Were you separated from your child at the United States border?” one begins.

A few days ago, before Sandra left for the border, Bryan gave her a video tour of her future home, including two neatly made beds next to each other.

“How pretty,” she said, smiling at the screen, which then flashed again to her son’s face, more mature than she remembered, with a dark shadow of facial hair.

“He looks like a man,” she thought.

And then she thought: “He looks sad. He’s not the same son I had. This whole thing has changed him.”

Asked to envision the weeks after the reunification, she paused.

“Being together again will be beautiful,” she said. “But it might not be easy.”

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#reunification #family reunification #Border

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starforsharon · 5 years

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Sexy Little Me

This is how Hollywood turns a pretty Texas girl into Sharon Tate, the star.

By John Bowers for "The Saturday Evening Post"

1. Two of Sharon Tate's three pictures have been produced in Europe. Although Texas-born, Sharon spent her adolescence abroad, and much prefers London to Hollywood.

2. Sharon will be shown off to American audiences for the first time in DON��T MAKE WAVES. On the set, she reacts prettily to a compliment from co-star Tony Curtis.

3. At 6 months Sharon won Dallas’ “Miss Tiny Tot” award.

4. Portraying a Las Vegas showgirl who becomes a superstar in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, Sharon had to wear a 10-pound jeweled headdress which “gave her a headache.”

5. This picture of Sharon and her father, Maj. Paul Tate, at a 1965 Fort MacArthur party is from a large “family events” scrapbook that Sharon dutifully keeps.

6. Relaxing on the set of YOUR TEETH IN MY NECK, Sharon listens attentively as the Polish-born Polanski explains how she can improve her performance in the next scene.

May 6, 1967 – Sharon Tate had finished her last scenes for The Vampire Killers (later to be called Your Teeth in My Neck), and had no film work for the moment. At 95 Eaton Mews West, London, she moved about in the late afternoon looking for something to do. She sat Buddah-style on the living room floor and put on fake eyelashes, one eyelash at a time. She worried that a sunlamp treatment, taken a few hours before, was going to make red cracks in her face. “Doesn’t it seem to be getting all red on the cheeks? Look close now.”

She wore a gray sweat suit and furry boots, having been to her daily gym class that afternoon. She didn’t like the gym class, but Roman Polanski, her director, had told her she must go. She frowned into a hand mirror, thinking she saw a red streak. She started to bite a fingernail, but stopped. Roman had forbidden any more fingernail biting; she had a tendency to bite them down to the nub. She went to the refrigerator, and amidst Wyborowa vodka and Carlsberg beer, brought out the makings for a salami sandwich. She would not drink a beer because it might bloat her, and Roman was taking her out for dinner.

There was no place in the apartment for her to settle back and relax now. Everything inside had a transient look, as if the tenants would only be there a short season. A complicated stereo set sat on crates; Bach on top of a stack of records, Cannonball Adderly on the bottom. There were no pictures, no pets, no cozy heat. Upstairs on the wall was a framed citation stating that Knife In The Water under the direction of Roman Polanski had been nominated for an Academy Award. As Sharon reached for a folder of still photographs from The Vampire Killers to show a male visitor, she stuck up her bottom in a way she has; as she went through the photos, she pooched out her bosom. But she did it by reflex. Her thoughts were totally on her director, who was not there. She had been in three unreleased films – 13, Don’t Make Waves and The Vampire Killers, all with different directors.

If she caught the public’s fancy in any of these pictures, she would become a movie star. And she was pleased with her work in The Vampire Killers. She was in a nude bathtub scene in it, and in a brief sequence in which she got spanked.

The phone rang; it was a strange female voice with a French accent. “Is Roman there?”

“No, I’m sorry he isn’t,” Sharon said, in her accent of the moment, which was English. “Who shall I say is calling, please?”

“Oh – I just wondered if he were in. Tell him Barbara. Thank you very much..”

The dull London afternoon turned dark, and still no Polanski. He could be cutting The Vampire Killers, or he could be tied up in London traffic or he could be sitting in a café. She took off her furry boots and put her feet into his house slippers, which rested at odd angels by a mammoth bed that cost over $600. The slippers were far too big for her. She wondered if tonight she would be thrown with people who would overwhelm her with their wit, their awesome knowledge, their self-confidence. When she was out in public with Roman, she never felt adequate enough to open her mouth. She could only talk to him alone. Her problem was that she had always been beautiful, and people were forever losing themselves in fantasy over her – electing her a beauty queen, imagining her as a wife, dreaming of a caress. Most people had fantasies. But a few people, like Polanski, took charge.

At the age of six months Sharon Tate was elected Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas, Tex. Her mother had sent in photos of the beautiful baby to contest officials. Sharon’s father was (and is) in the Regular Army, and was then stationed in Dallas. (Both her parents are natives of Houston.) As Sharon grew up, the family moved around in Army style, her father frequently absent from home. She remembers that when her father would return from an overseas tour, and she had reached a nubile age, her mother’s first command would be, “Now you, Sharon Marie, button up that night gown when you come out of your bedroom. Daddy’s home.” Her father was very strict with her as she budded through adolescence, turning thumbs down on potential boyfriends and making her stay in nights. He was very strong and knew how to take charge.

But most people continued to do things for Sharon without her lifting a finger. At 16 she was elected Miss Richland, Washington, and a short time later named Miss Autorama. At the age of 17 she was in Verona, Italy, where her father was stationed, and the prizes mounted. At Vicenza American High she was a cheerleader and baton twirler, and was chosen Homecoming Queen and Queen of the Senior Prom. The Vicenza yearbook for 1961 shows her as a very pretty, large-eyed girl, with hair somewhat darker and hips a little broader than now. She daydreamed at this time about becoming a psychiatrist and a ballerina, and had little to do with her classmates. Yet if any far-out stunts or fads were proposed, this terribly quiet girl was ready to lead the way. “If miniskirts had come in then, ” she says, “I’d have worn the shortest one.”

Today the fad among young girls in cosmopolitan circles is to use the old Anglo-Saxon words in everyday conversation, and Sharon Tate leads the way. But back in Italy at 17, she was just starting her worldly knowledge. She watched the on-location shooting of Barabbas, a film about ancient Rome, and the family scrapbook now includes still pictures of Jack Palance and Anthony Quinn in the movie costumers they wore in Italy. As she walked in Venice one day, she was spotted by the choreographer for the Pat Boone Show, which was being filmed in Italy. She next appeared very briefly in one of Boone’s TV shows, and his glossy smiling face now rests in the album with a fond inscription for Sharon.

When the Tate family moved from Italy to Southern California, Sharon decided it was time to live on her own. She was 18, and she paid a visit to Harold Gefsky, then agent for Richard Beymer, a young actor she met in Rome. “She was so young and beautiful,” Gefsky, a softly-spoken man, said in his Sunset Boulevard office, “that I didn’t know what to do with her. I think the first thing I did was take her to a puppet show.”

He also got her work because her father, in Calvinistic style, had only given her a few dollars to sink or swim. One of her first jobs was dressing up in an Irish costume and handing out Kelly-Kalani wine in Los Angeles restaurants at $25 a day. She also appeared in TV commercials for Chevy cars and Santa Fe cigars. People who knew her during this period agree on one thing. She was the most beautiful girl in the world. “Everywhere I took her she caused a sensation,” Gefsky said. “I would take her into a restaurant and the owner would pay for her meal. Photographers kept stopping her on the street. I’ve lived in Hollywood since the mid-Forties, but I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.”

But at this point no one, except perhaps Sharon, knew if she wanted to be an actress. Then one day Gefsky took her by to meet his friend Herbert Browar, who was connected with TV’s Petticoat Junction. He thought possibly Browar could fix her up with a minor role, something to tide her over. Browar took one look at her and rushed her in to see Martin Ransohoff, head of Filmways, Inc.

Ransohoff has a strand of hair combed over his bald dome. He wears loose sweaters, torn windbreakers and breeches that are baggy in the seat. He first started producing TV commercials in New York when food particles were glued onto Brand X’s plate to show the differences in detergents. He branched out into TV programs with such commercial winners as Mr. Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. He then tackled movies on the order of The Americanization of Emily and The Loved One, which got mixed reviews but generally made money. He founded the company in 1952 on $200, and today it operates on a budget of over $35 million. He will talk about Oswald Spengler or H. L. Mencken and then croon into his ever-present phone, “Helloooo, Bertie, baby. Where’s the action, kid?” He chews gum till his head rings, smokes two packs a day and sends everyone to the wall with his adrenaline. He can be gratuitously cruel in speaking of others – “She’s got a lunch pail for a mouth,” he said of an aging actress, “and if we take out insurance on her, it’ll have to be that she’ll die.” Then he can take his twin sons to a football game, clean up a dog’s mess in his Bel Air living room, and talk to anyone in the world who has guts enough to call him. A rich man’s son, he sold pots and pans from door to door while going to Colgate and claims the experience taught him what the public will or will not buy. He had little interest in films before he became involved in them, and his favorite actress in the old days was Deanna Durbin – who, coincidentally, was also Polanski’s favorite. Both vividly remember her pedaling a bicycle down a shady street and singing through a dimpled smile. Not everyone has had pleasant dealings with Ransohoff in Hollywood, but all agree he is a super salesman.

When he first saw Sharon Tate, he squinted his right eye and did something that was very impulsive, even for him. “Draw up a contract,” he shouted. “Get her mother. Get my lawyer. This is the girl I want!”

He had not seen a screen test, not even a still photograph. She had hardly opened her mouth. But Marty Ransohoff, like the rest of us, has his fantasies – and Sharon Tate walked into one of his fondest ones. “I have this dream,” Ransohoff said, “where I’ll discover a beautiful girl who’s a nobody and turn her into a star that everybody wants. I’ll do it like L. B. Mayer used to, only better. But once she’s successful, then I’ll loose interest. That’s how my dream goes. I don’t give two cents now for Tuesday Weld or Ann-Margret..”

“I think he’s just trying to pull one over on the public,” Gefsky said.

Sharon signed a seven-year contract, and Ransohoff took charge. Gefsky, a nice man, bowed out. At first she lived in complete fear of Ransohoff, and did as she was told. “She wouldn’t even eat a hamburger if he told her not to,” a friend from that period said. If Ransohoff said she was to appear on The Beverly Hillbillies disguised in a black wig, she appeared. If he told her to go on a moments notice to Big Sur, New York, London, she went. Off and on she studied acting.

Jeff Corey, one acting coach, said, “An incredibly beautiful girl, but a fragmented personality. I tried to get reactions out of her, though. Once I even gave her a stick, and said, ‘Hit me, do something, show emotion’ ..If you can’t tap who you are, you can never act.”

Charles Conrad, another acting teacher, said, “Such a beautiful girl, you would have thought she would have all the confidence in the world. But she had none.” Among her friends, however, she began to refer to herself as “sexy little me.”

Ransohoff tried to place Sharon in The Cincinnati Kid – his own movie – but failed when the director demanded Tuesday Weld. He packed her off to New York to study under the personal direction of Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. “She was only with me a few weeks,” Strasberg said, “but I remember her. She was a beautiful girl.” In New York Sharon had a romance with a young French star, who offered her relief from her Texas style, Puritan upbringing. The actor was tall, dark and very nice. When they broke up, the actor bungled a suicide attempt.

Sharon continued to fear Ransohoff. Once, while driving at a high speed near Big Sur, she turned her car over four and a half times, but somehow managed to crawl out with only minor injuries. Her first thought was that Marty would be mad. The first picture he finally placed her in was his French made 13, in which she plays a chillingly beautiful, expressionless girl who goes about putting the hex on people. Completed many months ago, ’13’ still rests in the can waiting for a 1967 release date. Ransohoff flew Sharon back to Hollywood for her second film, Don’t Make Waves, in which she plays a beautiful, deadpan skydiver. Sharon’s first two directors were older men. Britishers – very polite, very nice and understanding with a novice actress.

And then Ransohoff began dickering with Roman Polanski, the Polish director living in London, to make a picture. Polanski, a tiny, baby-faced man whose explosive manner and Beatle-like appearance belie his much-admired skill as a maker of art films, wanted to do something with Ransohoff called The Vampire Killers, a spoof of horror movies. He wanted to play in it himself, and, as in all his movies, he wanted a beautiful girl in a supporting role.

“How about Sharon Tate?” Ransohoff said. “I was thinking more in terms of Jill St. John,” Polanski said.

At Ransohoff’s instigation, Sharon and Polanski had dinner together. He looked at her from time to time, but said nothing. On a second dinner date he was painfully silent once more. Real weirdo, she thought. What’s he waiting on? She found out shortly. Walking in London’s Eaton Square, he suddenly put a bear hug on her and they fell to the ground, Polanski on the bottom. Sharon clouted him and stormed off. “That’s the craziest nut I ever saw,” she said. “I’ll never work for him.”

But Polanski apologized, and they saw each other again. One night he took her to his apartment which had even less furniture than it has now and no electricity. He lit a candle and excused himself, flying upstairs to don a Frankenstein mask. He crept up behind her, raised his arms, and whinnied like a madman. Sharon turned and emitted a terrible scream. It took over an hour for her hysterical weeping to subside. Not long afterward Polanski informed Ransohoff that Sharon would do fine for The Vampire Killers. On the set he treated her as if they never saw each other at night. He cajoled, flattered, got angry – which ever worked – and never had lunch with her. During the nude bathtub scene, he snapped still pictures of her. Still enthusiastic, he had her pose all over the set in the altogether, and then sent the results to Playboy. She plays a gorgeous redhead in The Vampire Killers – and she shows

Roman Polanski walked into his apartment in a sharp blue blazer and high-gloss shoes, carrying a briefcase. He had a good-sized nose and searching, deep-set eyes, and he nodded briskly to Sharon. “A Barbara called,” she let out daintily. “Do you know who that could be?”

“A Barbara?” he called from the kitchen, out of sight. A pause. “You didn’t get any last name? Always get last names. I don’t know any Barbara that would be calling. Sharon, Sharon. There’s no liquor here. Always see to it that we have enough whisky. Can’t you do that?”

Sharon went on the phone to order some, worrying about which brands to specify. She didn’t want to be embarrassed by asking Roman – although he would certainly tell her. He knew the correct whiskey brands in London, the good pastrami places in Manhattan, and the right topless spots in Hollywood. He learned a country’s customs and its language in a couple of weeks. He took a bath now upstairs, calling down for Sharon to fetch him some tea. Later he descended the stairs in a cowboy outfit and boots, ready for dinner. Some movie friends had shown up, and he led the party on foot toward Alvaro’s restaurant.

At the restaurant Sharon basked in the eyes that roved over her. She listened big-eyed to Polanski explain the difference between the sun’s heat and that on earth, apropos of Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. The only trouble was that it was difficult to digest pasta in such a giddy atmosphere, and she complained of her stomach. After Polanski figured out how to work the waiter’s ballpoint pen, he signed the check.

In a dreamlike state, Sharon began slipping into her fox fur coat in the foyer. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tall Englishman with a prep-school tie and large teeth popped up and put his arm around her. “Ummm, you have a sexy feel, love. Don’t we all love to touch you now..” She squirmed away.

Out on the street, she said, “Roman, a complete stranger began hugging me in there.”

“Yeah? Really?” A short distance away he suddenly spied a blond in fox fur who had the same duck walk that Sharon has. “Hey, there goes Sharon,” he said. “Let’s get her and put the two of them together!”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, her anger flashing. Another day, away from Sharon, Polanski said, “I’m trying to get her to be a little meaner, She’s too nice, and she doesn’t believe in her beauty. Once when I was very poor in Poland I had got some beautiful shoes, and I immediately became very ashamed of them. All my friends had plain, ordinary shoes, and I was embarrassed to walk in front of them. That’s how Sharon feels about her beauty. She’s embarrassed by it.”

Sharon has a quarter-inch scar under her left eye and one beside the eye, the result of accidents which she keeps having. As Polanski drove with her one night in London, meticulously keeping on the left in the custom of the land, an Englishman with a couple of pints under his belt hit him from the right. The only one hurt was Sharon, whose head bounced off the dashboard, spraying blood on slacks, boots and fur. An angry red wound appeared at the start of her scalp, and it will leave another whitish scar on her head. With blond hair combed down over her forehead to hide it, she skied at St. Moritz. And then she caught a jet for Hollywood because Ransohoff had called. She must redo a few scenes for Don’t Make Waves. She grumbled a little. She found she could grumble to Ransohoff now. She hated Hollywood, and she didn’t want to leave Polanski. Also, she hated to fly. She had to be drugged to endure it.

And then she appeared beside Ransohoff at La Scala restaurant in Beverly Hills. She had a black costume that looked more like a slip than a dress, and her blond head caught glints of movie-star light as she turned this way and that. “Oh, there’s David! David Hemmings. David, David!”

David Hemmings, who had been featured with her in 13 and had gone on to star in Antonioni’s Blow-Up waved. Other celebrities flicked glances her way, at each other, to the door to see what majesty might enter next. Occasionally they looked down at food or drink. The place was as crowded as Alvaro’s in London, the customers practically the same. Ransohoff wore an open-neck sport shirt and shapeless coat, and he talked business. “Listen, sweetie, I’m going to have to cut some stuff out of The Vampire Killers. Your spanking scene has got to go.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Why would you do that?” “Because it doesn’t move the story. The story has got to move. Bang, bang, bang. No American audience is going to sit still while Polanski indulges himself.”

“But Europeans make movies differently than Americans, ” she explained to the producer she once feared. “Blow-Up moved slowly. But wasn’t it a great film!”

“I’ll tell you something, baby. I didn’t like it. If I’d have seen it before the reviews, I’d have said it’d never make it. It’s not my kind of picture. I want to be told a story without all that hocus-pocus symbolism going on.”

“But that one scene, Marty. When the girl show’s her, ah –” (only Sharon said the Anglo-Saxon word). In Hollywood, New York and London they all talked now about Blow-Up, dwelling on that scene.

“Yeah, I got to hand it to the guy for that one.” Ransohoff said, chuckling. “He pulled a good one off there.”

“Oh, I want to do a complete nude scene,” she said. “Say you’ll let me!”

“OK, OK,” Ransohoff said, bored, looking toward the door. “Yes, yes.”

“Do it now. Don’t just say it.” Then Sharon got bored.

Early in the morning Sharon appeared before the camera at Malibu Beach, redoing a scene for Don’t Make Waves. The sun had a hard time getting through the wisps of fog, and strong klieg lights helped out. In a sequence with an undraped David Draper, “Mr. Universe”, Sharon stuck out her backside and shot out her front. Magically, a button or two came undone on her polka-dot blouse, and after close examination of camera angle, director Sandy Mackendrick decided to leave it that way. He gave Sharon guidance in rubbing mineral oil over Draper’s bare back, as the scene called for. “Treat him like a horse,” he said. “Pat him just as you would an animal. That’s the way..”

She lovingly went over Draper’s muscled back, and then went “ugh” when the camera ceased to roll. The scene was done over and over. In her tiny trailer dressing room, she took a break and smoked daintily. “I’m happier when I’m working,” she said. “I don’t have time to think to much that way.”

One thing to think about was a visit to her parent’s home in Palos Verdes Estates, an hour’s drive away. (Her father was stationed in Korea, her mother and two younger sisters were at home.) Driving to the house one night in a heavy seaside fog, she became quieter and quieter, her words less Anglo-Saxon. A passenger beside her remarked, as the car neared its destination, that the fog reminded him of snow. “You know what it looks like to me?” she said. “Vomit.”

Her mother – a pleasant, plump, dark-haired woman – turned Sharon’s face this way and that. “Have you had your blood count recently, honey? You look so pale to me.” What did she think of Sharon’s becoming a movie star? What did she think of Roman Polanski? “You know,” she said, in the voice of every middle-class American mother, “I don’t care – just as long as she’s happy.”

Back in Hollywood Sharon moved from hotel to hotel, from one friend’s home to another. She talked to Polanski by phone. (It embarrassed him to try to write letters in English because of his mistakes.) So many things were unresolved, shadowy. Ransohoff was sore at Polanski because Polanski had gone way over the budget on The Vampire Killers (“Very un-Hollywood of him,” a Filmways executive said; another only referred to him as “the little–.”); Polanski was mad at Ransohoff because Ransohoff was cutting away at his film and postponing its release in the States. (Ransohoff had also had difficulties with Tony Richardson, the English director, over the budget and the cutting of The Loved One.) “The thing is,” said Sharon, “that Roman is an artist.”

At night Sharon went to The Daisy, a private discotheque in Beverly Hills. She wore an aviator’s leather jacket, slacks, and tinted Ben Franklin glasses. Seated near the dance floor, she silently watched young actresses her age go through their gyrations. Suzanne Pleshette and Patty Duke did subdued turns; Linda Ann Evans, in a miniskirt, did a much more spirited fling. Carolyn Jones, who only yesterday had played the ingénue, now looked like a chaperone. Sharon gave Linda Ann Evans the once over and said, “I’ve worn a much shorter mini in London. That’s nothing.”

From another table a slim, bronzed young man with a pampered black hair ambled confidently past Tina Sinatra, Patty Duke, Suzanne Pleshette – and hovered over this strange blond beauty in an aviator’s leather jacket. He had the air of a football star in a small town high school, who was used to having his pick. He showed his beautiful white teeth and said, “Let’s dance.”

“No,” she said, “let’s not.”

He kept the smile on his face as he backed away. He was now another who had tried to bring Sharon Tate into a private fantasy – but he didn’t know that she had passed his type long ago.

She was going to fly to London and get engaged to Roman Polanski. Then she was going to fly back to star in Valley of the Dolls. Ransohoff was lending her to 20th Century-Fox to play a sexy bombshell who goes to Europe to star in nudie movies and who bewitches the world with her improbable lushness.

#sharontate #sharon tate #sixties #1960s #vintage #hollywood #old hollywood #1967 #sexy little me #john bowers #saturday evening post #article #cinema #fearless vampire killers #valley of the dolls #don't make waves #roman polanski #paul tate #fort macarthur

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forsetti · 4 years

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On Racial Justice: Time For Action

When I was in high school, a young girl went missing. There was a rumor she had been abducted. This was years before cell phones and then internet. Word spread through phone trees, in diners, at the gas station, in the barbershop and hair salon. The entire county became quickly invested into finding her. It was as if someone took a big stick and beat the hell out of our little beehive.

She was found, later that day, up one of the canyons that bordered the rural valley where we lived. She had been killed. I know this because my father was the county coroner, as well as the local mortician. As the news of her murder spread as quickly her abduction had earlier in the day, a wave of anger and fear blanketed the valley. Anger because of what had happened to “one of their own.” Fear because there was an existential threat to their own children out there, somewhere, still at large. The beehive was whipped up into a frenzy.

I can't remember if it was later that same day or the next but the local police soon found and arrested what they described as “a drifter from California,” for the young girl's abduction and murder. They locked the man up in the little jail that was located in our town hall.

Once news of the arrest and jailing hit the hive, the emotions that had been building over the past couple of days began to boil over. By that evening, after a number of drinks at one of the local watering holes, a number of men had worked themselves up into a frenzy over what had happened. At some point, one of the men suggested they drag that “mother fucker” out of the jail and administer some “good ol' country justice.” Before you could say, “vigilante justice,” a number of armed men in pickup trucks were parked in front of the town hall ready to reenact their own personal version of “Death Wish.”

With all respect to the local police force, the few officers on duty were able to talk the inebriated, heavily armed group off the ledge. The men eventually drove off to their respective homes, no one was lynched, and a crisis was averted. A few hours later, in the middle of the night, the police transferred the prisoner to a larger jail a hundred miles away.

The reason I bring up this story is because I am reminded of it every time I hear white people lecture black people on how to behave after one of their unarmed sons and daughters is killed by the police. I watched, in real time, an entire community get worked up to a fever, murderous pitch over the course of a couple of days over the murder of one of their own. Yet, people just like those I grew up around who, within a few hours, rationalized a lynching over one unjust death, cannot imagine the release of pent-up fear and anger many black communities feel that has been building for generations.

The reason Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the National Anthem wasn't because of the killing of one person. The reason there were riots in Ferguson MO in 2015 wasn't just because of the death of Michael Brown. The reason there are protests and riots in all fifty states right now isn't just because of the deaths of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. The reason for all of these is the centuries-old, systemic practice of viewing and treating black bodies as expendable.

When citizens do this like we've recently seen with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, it is horrible and deserves moral outrage and legal repercussions. When this happens at the hands of those entrusted to serve and protect the very people it kills, without consequences, it is evil. When this happens over and over and over and over....again, it is a moral failure not just of the law enforcement officers who do this but of our society because we've turned a blind eye to the deaths, pain, and suffering of our own.

It doesn't take a lot of thought to imagine what would happen if it was unarmed white people being killed by the police. One of the turning points in how the nation viewed of the way our government was handling the Vietnam War was shooting deaths of four young, unarmed students at Kent State in 1970. Like the rural area where I grew up, white America doesn't tolerate the killing of their own by agents of the government. Not for one fucking second.

Yet, a whole lot of white America can't seem to understand why Black Americans get so worked up whenever one of their own is murdered by the police. I've seen more video of white people screaming at police for pulling them over or for asking them to obey safe practices during a pandemic than over the killing of their fellow, unarmed citizens.

I know there are a host of hot takes as to why white America doesn't really give a damn about the killing of unarmed minorities. If the analysis doesn't begin and end with, “as a whole, white America views minorities as inferior and expendable,” it isn't worth a damn. This doesn't mean all of white America is racist. It means that, as a group, white America doesn't care enough to change the status quo. This shouldn't be a revelation to anyone who pays attention to the world around them. White America hasn't given a damn about minorities since, forever. They have really never cared about Native Americans. They've only given a half-assed care about blacks and that was only after seeing images of church-dressed men, women, and children being attacked by police dogs and brutalized with batons and fire hoses at the hands of racist, Southern police. Once the Civil Rights Act passed, White America pretty much went back to not giving a damn about black people. It almost seems like giving blacks the right to vote was all the care White America could muster and a lot of them couldn't (and still can't) do that. The fear and anger the people in my community felt over the course of a few days back in the late 70s led them to be willing to break whatever laws they deemed necessary to get the justice they felt they deserved. Imagine this same fear and anger not building up over a few days but a few centuries. Imagine not one member of your community being unjustly killed but dozens and dozens each and every year. Imagine the fear and anger not that these deaths were the result of some random person but by the very people hired and entrusted to protect your community.

The surprising thing isn't that black Americas are angry. The surprising thing is they've kept their anger in control as well as they have. White Americans protest and riot over their favorite sports team winning or losing. They protest and riot over a beloved football coach being fired. They protest and riot over having their favorite drink being taxed. They protest and riot over not being able to get their hair cut and flower beds properly tended. Black Americans are protesting over the killings of their loved ones.

I cannot imagine what it is like to fear for your life every time you encounter the police, regardless of the circumstances. I cannot imagine worrying about any of my children being harmed, let alone killed by the police. I cannot imagine being punished more harshly by the police and courts for doing the same things that others have done. I cannot imagine being viewed as “violent,” “lazy,” “a thug,” “a threat,”... , no matter how wealthy or successful I am, by a good portion of society, just because of the color of my skin. I cannot imagine my water supply being poisoned with lead and no one with any power gives a damn. There are thousands of things about being black in America I cannot even imagine.

Just because I can't imagine these things doesn't make them not real. It doesn't make them not important. That I cannot imagine these things just means I've been fortunate enough to be on the other side of the systemic racism in our country. As I watch the current protests over the latest police killings of unarmed blacks, I'm hopeful and afraid. Hopeful because the number of protests not just in big cities but around the country in towns large and small means, like the images on tv from the 60s of the Civil Rights marches, are having a real impact on white America. Fearful because I know the history of this country when it comes to the levels it will go to protect the white patriarchy.

Within the past few years, I watched the election of someone who is the personification of white supremacy as a backlash to the first black president. Trump won the election because the majority of white men and women voted for him. They may not do the same next time around but that they did the first time tells you all you need to know about where White America stands when it comes to racial justice and equality.

When it comes to the deaths of unarmed blacks by police, to the overpopulation of our prison system, to the gross wealth disparity of whites and blacks, to too many issues to list here, to my fellow White Americans, I quote Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” You know damn well you wouldn't tolerate being treated how blacks our in our country. You know damn well you wouldn't tolerate the killing of your sons and daughters by anyone, especially the police.

It is time to stop pretending the problem isn't systemic and it is the responsibility of minorities to fix. White America built the system. White America has and still does, to a great extent, support it. White America, all of it, benefits from it. It is up to us to dismantle it. We can either go down as the ones who did what was necessary to live up to the promises of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or we can go down in history as just another era that made promises it never intended to live up to. This isn't something that could or should wait another day to happen. It is centuries behind schedule. Trying is no longer enough. To quote a Jedi Master, “Do or do not, there is no try.” We owe it ourselves but, much more importantly, we owe it to Black Americans past and present.

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