#that were originally in the games that beth was apart of

[the-project-of-chaos]

NEW MANAGEMENT.

HELLO THERE MUTTS, SO NICE TO ALWAYS TALK TO YOU... HM? WHAT’S THAT? WHO AM I? WHY. IM THE ONE WHO HELPED LITTLE BETH HERE MAKE THIS ACCOUNT.. NOW I’LL ADMIT. AT FIRST GLANCE. THIS MIGHT BE ODD. AND CONFUSING, BUT THE GIST OF IT IS THIS. SHE ATTEMPTED TO DO ANOTHER GAME. ONE BY MY OWN CHOSING, IT WAS MEANT AS A TEST RUN, SEEING HOW SHE DID S O WELL IN MY ORIGINAL GAMES. UNTIL... DUE TO SOME... DISCUSSING WITH. PEOPLE THAT I AM WELL AWARE OF THAT EXIST. SHE HAS SINCE BEEN BROUGHT BACK. TO MY WORLD. CALL IT AN FAVOUR. I AM IN CONTROL OF HER ACCOUNT NOW. IM SURE SHE WON’T MIND. MUCH. EITHER WAY. SHE DOESN’T USE IT ANYWAYS. BUT WHO KNOWS, SHE MIGHT COME BACK. MIGHT. WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY, IM SURE YOU ALL ARE BEGGING TO LEARN WHO I AM. I GO BY MANY NAMES DEAR MUTTS. MANY MANY TITLES. MANY ORIGINS. MANY FORMS. BUT YOU ALL MAY REFER TO ME SIMPLY AS. THE GOD OF CHAOS. RATIOSU. OR. MORE COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS, LATIOS. DO NOT ASK WHY I CHOSE THAT NAME. I JUST FANCY IT. BESIDES. MY TRUE NAME IS IN A LONG DEAD LANGUAGE, AND CANNOT BUT TRANSLATED BY YOUR OWN FEEBLE MINDS. AND SO... WHY IS THIS STILL HERE THEN? IF BETH NO LONGER HAS A PURPOSE TO BE IN THOSE... OTHER GAMES. SIMPLE REALLY. I AM GONNA BE USING THIS, TO CHAT WITH YOU ALL, ALONG WITH MY OWN MUTTS, MY OWN CONTESTANTS. IN A BETTER AND BRIGHTER GAME.MY OWN EXPERIMENTS! IT’S BEEN GATHERING A LOT OF DUST. AND I MEAN, A HELL OF A LOT. BUT. NO MORE. IT IS TIME FOR THE GAMES TO CONTINUE. FOURTH TIME IS THE CHARM. MAYBE WE’LL SEE EACHOTHER THERE. MAYBE WE WONT. WHO KNOWS. REGARLESS. IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I HAD SOME FUN CHATTING. WELCOME ONE AND ALL, TO A BRAND NEW REBIRTH, WELCOME. TO THE PROJECT, OF CHAOS. BE SEEING YOU~ SINCERELY, YOURS~ https://discord.gg/s9BFwaGWud 

[amtrak12]

❤️🧡🤍🩷💜A WLW ASK MEME❤️🧡🤍🩷💜 List the top 10 ladies you’ve been obsessed with Ever Of All Time! Then send this on to 5 sapphic mutuals 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

Yes, fun! :D Thank you!!

Okay, I went fictional characters with this because I just don't really get obsessed with RL people outside of like a 5 year period between 2005-2010 where I followed select actors around to other shows. Also, there's only three ladies who I can confirm fit both 'obsessed' and 'ever of all time', so I've trudged through my entire childhood for every fictional lady who's helped shape my personality to round out the list.

In Chronological Order (to me not by air date):

Margaret Houlihan (M*A*S*H) -- Oh MASH reruns on the Hallmark channel, my beloved 💚 Now, I'm primarily talking about the juicy middle seasons after Potter took over command and Loretta Swit was able to wrestle some better storylines for Margaret, but there's some gems in the early years too. I've been drawn back to MASH three times as an adult and each time I get sucked deeper and deeper into both the real life history of the Korean War and the fictional character of Margaret. Do I have a thousand and one headcanons for how she handles life after the war? Yes. Am I obsessed with whatever platonic/sexual relationship she's got going on with Hawkeye? Yes. Have I plotted out what her D&D character might look like? YEP! She's a paladin :P I also believe if you examined her character through a queer lens, you'd find a trans man rather than a queer woman, but your mileage may vary.

AndrAIa (ReBoot) -- Yeah, yeah, yeah it's a cartoon, but bb 11 year old me was absolutely OBSESSED with this show, and AndrAIa was a big part of that. Look at her little capital AI in her name! 😭 25 years before corporate greed ruined the acronym, that AI was adorable!! And very clever given that she was an NPC game sprite who decided to leave her game and live as a real sprite. Her whole existence and vibe was very formative for me. I love her.

Harley Davidson Cooper (Guiding Light) -- Yes, her full name is absolutely necessary, even if no one ever used it. So, I was SUUUCH a CBS soap girlie back around 2000-2002, and I've been very nostalgic for it in the last few years. As the World Turns was my primary soap, so I figured one of my regular blorbos like Rose or Katie or Romana would be the one I miss most. But then Harley's actress Beth Ehlers popped up during my Law & Order SVU watch and I LOST MY MIND!!!!! Her face and voice instantly filled my soul with joy! So Harley gets the trophy. Even if she didn't have any stand out storylines during that era (apart from her and Gus being Very Hot), she was always my favorite character from GL.

Piper Halliwell (Charmed, original flavor) -- Technically, I had Turtle Wexler from the book The Westing Game on this list instead because I didn't remember Piper until after I'd drafted all ten slots :S But listen! That's because health problems have made my memory shitty! It is not because Piper doesn't stand up to the test of time! Ugh, I remember the show never treated Piper like she was the fan favorite and I hadn't discovered online TV forums yet so I felt so alone in my love for her :( But being on lesbian millennial Tumblr makes 14 year old me feel SO validated, because Piper is the only Halliwell sister anyone ever talks about on my dash. 💜 Congrats everyone. We were right all along.

Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls) -- Yeeeaaah.. we've hit the Big Three that I alluded to earlier. I was very, very gay for Lorelai (and Lauren Graham) in the latter half of my high school years, and I did not realize that until way later. She taught me how to be quicker with the comebacks and, more importantly, to marry someone who could cook instead of learning how to feed yourself. And I really took that to heart. My spouse is a fantastic cook! :) (Don't get scared for me guys! I do actually know how to cook three (3) entire meals now that I'm in my 30s :P lol)

Rose Tyler/Billie Piper (Doctor Who) -- I will list the actress here, because my love for Rose Tyler is probably split 50/50 between the character herself, and Billie Piper's charisma and hotness. She's gorgeous!!! 😍 That seemingly common question in the mid-2000s of 'Who would you kiss if you were gay?' always left me stumped until New Who aired in the states. Then, I was finally able to answer 'Billie Piper' and actually mean it. Because that's what you were supposed to do with that question, right? Take it seriously and not treat it like hyperbole? #totallystraightbehavior #swearsies Alas, it would take me two more girl crushes and interacting with genuine queer women in a femslash fandom before I recognized my feelings for what they were. But Rose was still a very significant step forward!

Myka Bering (Warehouse 13) -- MY GIRL!!! My Lady of all Ladies. I would die for her. I would kill for her. I would kneel and raise my sword and swear fealty to her. MYKA FUCKING BERING, EVERYONE! 👏👏👏👏 Watching her fall in love with Helena made me realize all my girl crushes were real crushes and that I was bi. Bless her. Bless Joanne Kelly. And bless the incomparable Bering and Wells fandom. *kisses everyone on the mouth, sloppy style*

Erin Gilbert (Ghostbusters 2016) -- Look, I know that I can never get away with pretending that Erin isn't my favorite ghostbuster, but I do usually think about her in the context of her relationships! Like 8 times out of 10, when I'm headcanoning, I'm thinking about her and Abby's relationship. And if I'm not, there's a not-so-small chance I'm thinking about her relationship with Patty instead. (RIP to Holtzy who I virtually never think about outside of the foursome. Her fanbase just ruined it for me :S) But um... yeah, Erin's my favorite. I even have Pokemon parties picked out for them all. And their daemons.

Eve (Lucifer) -- Okay so I know it hasn't even been a full high school (aka 4 years) since I met Eve, so I can't really say she's someone I'll stay obsessed with forever and ever and ever. You probably don't even believe I'm obsessed with her at all given the bulk of my Lucifer talk is about Lucifer/Chloe -- but that's just cause that's where the storyline is! Trust me, Eve is my favorite character, even if she was in the least amount of episodes (RIP me). When she pops up in the background of a Deckerstar fanvid, I'm instantly distracted and have to marathon every Maze/Eve vid in my collection. I decided to use a fandom name in the first time, like, ever, when creating my Lucifer-specific Twitter account and I made it Eve themed. She's my favorite, bestest girl who can do no wrong and -- YES! -- that does include accidentally-definitely-on-purpose starting a demon mutiny that led to newborn Charlie's kidnapping. She had never been dumped before okay? First woman to ever exist and she'd never been dumped. Did you handle your first break-up well? No! I didn't think so :P

Alex Cabot (Law & Order: SVU) -- I've only know Cabot for four months, but if anything happens to her, I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself -- OH WAIT! She already left me. 😭 I am in S17 now, which is like ten seasons past when she went into witness protection and barely ever came back, yet there's not an episode that goes by where I don't think about her. So, I say that counts as longevity and am sticking her on the list. This woman has Issues. Plural. Period. She makes me say shit like 'I want to dig into her brain with a fork' and it's actually an accurate metaphor for what I feel. I love her your honor... now who can I sue for emotional damages?

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Evil Dead Rise

“Evil Dead Rise” banks entirely on Alyssa Sutherland’s performance and puts little into every other aspect of the movie.

Ellie is a single mother raising three kids on her own. Her sister, Beth, comes over to visit to tell her that she’s pregnant. During dinner, Beth accidentally brings up the sensitive topic of her husband, so the kids are asked to leave and get pizza. On their way back, the kids experience an earthquake. The earthquake causes an abandoned part of the apartment to reveal itself. The kids decide to explore and find a mysterious book.

The start of this movie was very promising. After thoroughly enjoying Fede Álvarez’s “Evil Dead” and seeing the high reviews for “Evil Dead Rise”, I was pretty excited. I love it when modern horror installments use contemporary ways to pay homage to the originals and there’s this great drone shot meant to emulate the Deadite POV shot from the originals. There’s also a surprising gore scene in the beginning that just threw me into the action and I couldn’t be more hyped. The opening title was also super creative, so I knew I was in good hands. Then, the movie comes to a grinding halt. We’re introduced to the main family and they just seemed like they hated each other. All of them seemed defined by one character trait, which made it hard for me to care about any of them. On top of that, the older brother’s dumb decision to explore an abandoned part of a decrepit apartment building that just witnessed an earthquake and was scheduled to be demolished next month annoyed the hell out of me. It’s such an idiotic move that only makes sense when you realize the script needs a way for this kid to find the book. Also, why was the book here anyways? 2013′s “Evil Dead” had clear rules for the audience to follow, but “Evil Dead Rise” seems content with not explaining anything. Then a huge chunk of the movie just revolves around the family slowly getting infected one by one. I’ll give credit where credit is due. Alyssa Sutherland is fantastic in this movie. She can definitely carry a horror movie on her back. There’s some decent gore throughout, but nowhere near the level of the previous entry. I think the filmmakers were trying to achieve a happy middle ground with the tone by having the comedy of the original trilogy and the brutality of the remake. For me, it missed more than it hit. The people in my theater seemed to enjoy it, so I guess it’s all subjective at the end of the day. Still, most of my theater was cackling at the trailer for “Strays”, so I don’t know how much I can trust them on what they think is funny. I think the ending of the movie missed the mark completely. This is a spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the movie already, but the Deadites become this human-flesh-spider amalgamation. This feels like the final boss of a video game, but doesn’t feel practical at all. They’re now slower, louder, less dexterous, and are a bigger target. I get that it looks creepy, but it just seems like a downgrade. After everything is done, the movie reminds you that the main chunk of the movie was technically a flashback. It reveals how the victims at the start of the movie were connected to the events that unfolded and it’s such a barebone connection that I don’t understand why they bothered with it in the first place. I definitely think this is probably the least inspired entry in this franchise. I know that most people are loving the movie so I’m in the minority here, but I thought it’d be worth detailing why I didn’t enjoy the movie like everyone else.

★★★

Watched on April 29th, 2023

[forabeatofadrum]

🌈💝🍭

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

See here!

I mean, I'd like to think I work hard on all my stuff, not only Call Me Maybe, but I also feel appreciated, ya know? I don't think people don't notice, apart from what I mentioned about Call Me Maybe.

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Probably Ebb & Flow. As the host of the 321 Prompt Bang you've probably seen my many, many breakdowns over that fic. And as a result, once it was out in the world, I had a "thank fuck it's over" moment and because I may or may not have projected my insecure feelings on that, I was shook that people actually liked it. I mean, Beth, you know that this fic was weird for me, and you know that I also kind of hate to bash it, since I wasn't the only one who made it. You were the original prompter! But as usual, I wanna reiterate that I love your prompt and I love Judas's art, but man the writing. But yeah, I also say that Ebb & Flow also shows how much positive feedback like comments and kudos work. I always say that the fandom really lifted this one up for me. Heck, I actually reread parts of it yesterday and I had an another "you know what, this is fine" moment. It will probably never be my favourite fic and a part of me will always go "ah, yes, that happened, huh?", but it has some good stuff and I'm glad people showed me that.

(On a smaller tangent, I do get a lot of joy when I play Splatoon 3 and I keep thinking about the Ebb & Flow world while doing so. The other day I got absolutely KO'd by a Lunar Blaster and all I could think of was "alright, okay, this is why I let Blaine main that one".)

🍭why did you start writing?

Fic writing? "Officially" around 2013. Cory was still alive. Weird to say, I know, but that's how I remember it was 2013. I wrote all of Just The Way You Look Tonight in one day on a campsite during summer. But even before that I technically wrote fic without knowing what fic was. I once rewrote all of Harry Potter from Ginny's POV. I borrowed all the books from the library so that I could match it perfectly. That's fanfiction. And before that, I always had so many ideas for Winx Club stories in my head.

And I now see that I misread the question. I thought it said "when did you start writing" BUT ANYWAY this answer still sort of tracks: I just loved playing around with other people's characters and worlds. I wanted to expand on it. My mind was filled with all of the things I wanted to see. I did write original stuff when I was a kid. I probably still have a notebook with my original stuff somewhere, because I am oldschool and grew up in the 2000s and wrote everything on paper. And same can be said here. These characters were my own, but I just liked having a creative outlet. I love making stories, even for non-writing. Look at my good ole 10 generation long family on the Sims 4. Or now with Stardew Valley, I get so lost in making a farmer OC (Lune and Abby just got a second child and I am over the moon!) up to the point that I want to buy another copy of this game so that I can make 5 more!

[jupitersson]

Tell us about the percy jackson rp server experiences?

genuinely you do Not know the can of worms you just fucking opened

so.

when i was a sophomore in high school i had this friend beth. i'd known her since kindergarten and at the time we were besties (after all of these events we ended up growing apart in that we graduated high school and i blocked her on everything bc i was so fed up with her negative attitudes but that's a whole other thing). we were in the same french class when she learned i both a) loved percy jackson with my entire being and b) am a very good writer.

funnily enough this girl and this server is the reason i started using discord

anyway so beth invites me to this server with a bunch of her friends and as you can expect it was a percy jackson roleplaying server on discord, but the interesting thing about it was that it was only on discord after the original game it had started on shut down. that game was free realms... dark days that i was not part of that began a lot of this drama and nonsense

i join this server and Immediately everyone's clamoring for me for Some Odd Reason (i was 15 and my writing was Okay at this point but i think bc i texted with proper grammar and was funny everyone wanted me). i should explain this is not an rp server where we play the actual characters, we are making OCs, and this is important because some of these bitches were BATSHIT.

basically a ton of people were trying to cajole me to join their cabins bc i was new meat fresh blood etc and i eventually ended up choosing poseidon bc i'm a whore who thought liking swimming and having the same birthday as percy made me a poseidon kid when i very much am an athena kid and i meet the counselor, scott (he/him) and my new brother maverick (he/him)

everything's chill for a little bit and i start meeting some new people and feeling out some relationships. i stick pretty close to beth and maverick because she introduced me to these people and was my bestie and maverick was my new brother.

very quickly i begin to notice some strife between a few particular people. this is where we meet scott's girlfriend: telem, or tel (she/her).

now. tel is. wild. she at the time self described as a psychopath and was the cabin counselor of the keres cabin. now mars, you may be thinking, what the Fuck is the keres cabin.

well,

the keres in greek mythology were female death spirits. they were considered goddesses i Believe to an extent but i always found it odd that they included a keres cabin and didn't even have other minor gods, but i left it alone because tel was so intense with people and very weird in her interactions that i just didn't wanna cause problems

anyway that was her cabin and she begged for it to be created so. you can probably imagine the kind of person she was beyond the self identification as a psychopath.

another important character here is my friend trevor (he/him). trevor at the time was a hotheated teenage boy who did Not like tel and made it very known to all who got close to him how much he did not like tel. he was friends with beth, so he very quickly became my friend too.

essentially, trevor's beef with tel began in the free realms days and carried over onto discord. they were cordial enough, but everyone knew about the tension.

so. for the main body of the story.

in this server there were obviously admins. these were the camp directors and, beneath them, camp counselors. three directors would be in power at all times as the absolute triumvirate and then the counselors beneath them comprised the rest of the leadership (LS) team.

now, when one director steps down, obviously a new one has to take their place. at this point i believe my friends cal (she/her) and dylan (he/him) were the other two directors who also despised tel, and by extension, scott, but couldn't show it because tel was a counselor.

but the original server owner wanted to step down from being a director, so an election had to be held.

scott was nominated, and eventually won the election to be the third camp director.

something important to know about scott is his self esteem was GARBAGE and everyone knew he basically let tel run their entire relationship and he would do just about anything she said just to get more of her attention, so this very obviously became a figurehead situation where tel would whisper in his ear whatever she wanted out of camp to grapple for some fucked up sense of control that she didn't have in her own life and thought she could get from a fucking PERCY JACKSON ROLEPLAYING SERVER

it was at this point that tel's cronies began going behind cal's back to dm people and try to persuade them to recall her. someone essentially dmed me to try and manipulate me into saying cal was a bad director because she was never around the server (she was a college student living her life bro) and that she was shady AF and they were trying to recall her (as if going behind her back dming randos trying to recall her wasn't also shady)

in the transfer of power from the original server owner it was decided that cal would get server ownership because she had been CD the longest, but somehow it was given to scott and we realized it was because scott and tel had the old CD in their pocket.

this sparked a huge uproar in the out of character channel where all of tel's minions were arguing with our squad until scott Finally gave up ownership to cal and she banned everyone and we all lived happily ever after <3

that was very longwinded and idek if it was entertaining but this was my pjo roleplaying experience. one of them. i have a whole other dramatic story but this is already long so. yeah.

people joke about the microcosm discord drama and i just,,, yeah,,,,,,,,,

all because a fucking emo bitch was a control freak and her only way to exert that was to get control of a PERCY JACKSON RP SERVER

get a fucking grip my lord

[yeonchi]

Rick and Morty: A Way Back Home is best erogame don't @ me.

I'm not putting in screenshots or overtly spoiling the "elements" of this game, but I'll talk a little bit about it.

This parody erogame from Ferdafs follows Morty as he is dumped in another dimension by his Rick in an effort for him to gain confidence, but as he settles himself in the place of that dimension's Morty, he learns that having "encounters" with other girls is what is apparently making him gain that confidence, so he continues doing so in the eventual hope that his Rick will come back for him. In addition to Beth, Summer and Jerry, Morty is joined by a Rick exiled from another dimension and his Morty, a female one named Morticia (from the Pocket Mortys mobile game).

Throughout the game, Morty also has encounters with other girls such as Tricia Lange, Jessica, Reka (a background character whose name was revealed to be Grace Smith in the Rick and Morty Character Guide), Nancy, Jerry's girlfriend Kiara, Unity, the Gazorpians, a female Rick and even Planetina (an update literally had a full adaptation of that episode as her route). Later, he is also joined by Wild Summer from a Cronenberged dimension and Space Beth.

I like how this game replicates the art style of the original show, but there are some clothing-related continuity errors in some scenes if you know what I mean. In the five years this game has been released, there are so many scenes and routes that Ferdafs probably forgot to address the main arc of the story, which is Morty going home to his dimension. It has been briefly addressed in recent updates, but nothing significant has come of it as of yet.

This game was built in Unity and it uses a sandbox VN format that involves progressing in routes by going to different locations and earning money (by working for Rick) that is only useful for buying story-related items from the Devil's shop. A fan known as Night Mirror has created a remake of the game in Ren'Py called Another Way Home, eliminating the sandbox format and combining all the routes into a linear story while also expanding on scenes and creating original ones as well. For example, the Halloween party event adds Morticia in the Ren'Py version, with her and Morty being dressed as Mabel and Dipper from Gravity Falls, whereas in the Unity version, Morticia is not seen at the party and Morty is merely wearing a Vindicator vest. The animations were made using Live2D in the Unity game, but they were screen recorded into .webm files in Ren'Py due to lacking native support on Mac and Android.

So why am I making a post about this particular erogame? Because Ferdafs has recently gone AWOL with no updates since May. Updates used to come out monthly, then bi-monthly and now, every three months. Last year however, Ferdafs was apparently undergoing arm surgery and making a recovery, but it's been nearly a year since then and updates to the game were released even if they were three months apart. If Ferdafs doesn't make an announcement by November, then Night Mirror is slated to begin the endgame of the Ren'Py version, though if Ferdafs does make new content then the endgame will presumably be deferred. Let's just hope we get something at some point.

[scarfacemarston]

I have a bit more of a meta question if you don’t mind me asking. Regarding Tilly, Mary-Beth, and Karen; since they were originally supposed to be working girls. Do their in game personalities match up with the attitude of someone exposed to that life? Or do you think they’d be different/empathize with Abigail more?

Hey! Thanks for the question. I'm always happy to answer meta questions! TLDR: I don’t have a satisfactory answer. I would like to say that they would have more empathy, but my guess is they’d be the same considering their personalities. 

Grimshaw has some conversations about the girls that kind of seem to be related to sex work? I will say, I don’t think she cares if they’re sex workers or not. She tries to bully Abigail into going back into sex work and does not care at all. I think she has the attitude of “I did it, so now so should you.”She is always talking about the girls having “ideas above their station”.  Mary-Beth doesn't at all seem to me like a sex worker or former sex worker in any sense of the word. She comes across as extremely sheltered and I almost get the sense from her dialogue that she came from a middle class family.  Now, anyone could be as sex worker. One day you're wealthy, next day, you lose it all. I don't think she has the "heaviness" associated with being a sex worker at this time. She seems too naïve about too many things to have been apart of that life style. She is very gossipy and it sounds like she is the largest gossiper. That’s not the end of the world, but I feel like she and Karen are part of the problem as far as how they treat Abigail. Neither of them talk to her. I’ve never seen Mary-Beth talk to Abigail except what I think is a deleted conversation I just found.  Karen definitely picks up a john whether she was ever going to sleep with him or not. This is in Valentine. It’s hard because you can be a pessimistic / jaded type of person (imo) without being a sex worker. I do think she is or was one - but I think she has more options considering her status in the gang as like the “go to” girl as far as robberies and guarding camp goes. Karen was kind when she tried to comfort Abigail after Jack was taken, but  I don’t see Karen interact with Abigail at any other point. I don’t think that would change.

I don't think Tilly was ever a sex worker only because she was so young and essentially raised by Dutch and the gang once she escaped from the Foreman brothers. I'd hate to think of the alternative though because anything was possible back then. IF Tilly was involved, she matches the attitude of someone who left the life and is ready to power through everything to achieve her goals. I truly believe she’d be part of the small percent to leave that life behind her as we see with her in the final game. Tilly has a more balanced view of the world. She counteracts Karen’s anarchy and pessimism. Realistic like Abigail, but she dares to dream whereas Abigail is downtrodden and basically has given up. 

Tilly seems to be very close to her and I'd argue besides Sadie, she's Abigail's best friend.    I think Abigail becoming pregnant scarred her - not just scared, scarred. I don't know what she would have been like . I don't think she would ever be wild per se or as gun ho as Karen. I think she was the type to just be happy with John no matter what they were doing.  However, prior to Karen, Abigail was the top earner of the gang if we go by what Hosea says about her thieving skills and acting ability to con someone - and she can work with demolitions. I think she would stay there followed by Karen. I don't think John would have changed and I don't think the gang would have been as "moral" in terms of softening up. I don't think they'd be ‘evil’ or anything - but Jack is kind of a morality pet for them. So basically, I think they’d stay the same for the most part. They might understand the reasons why. It’s hard to say whether the girls would say “Well, I see it all the time. It sucks, but that’s how it is.” or “glad it’s not me, poor girl”. 

[mydearhosea]

Here are some writing prompts that are catered to the Van Der Linde Gang :)

Write about how you think Hosea managed to heal after Bessie's death, as he mentions that he was an ongoing drunk for about a year after she passed. (I personally believe that Arthur was the one who helped him.)

Arthur and Hosea take Jack into town with them to do some shopping.

Sadie and/or Charles visits Beecher's Hope after the events of Red Dead Redemption and meets Jack as an adult for the first time. Perhaps Sadie takes him under her wing.

Write about an alternate ending where the members who originally died were there when the gang fell apart.

Arthur catches Micah hurting one of the girls and shoots him dead right then and there.

Give us a happy ending where the gang does manage to get away and they settle down in Australia, Tahiti, etc.

Write down a list of headcanons involving Hosea and his relationship with Bessie.

Arthur, Bill, Javier, Uncle, Pearson, Sean and Karen all play a drinking game where they have to take a shot every time Miss Grimshaw tells someone off. They all have to take seven shots when she tells them off for playing their game.

Write about how Charles’ reaction to Arthur’s death and him going to bury his body somewhere nice.

John visits Arthur’s grave for the first time since he died.

Arthur gives young John some drawing lessons for the fun of it.

Write about how Dutch and Hosea met Arthur (or each other). Doesn’t have to be canon.

Arthur comes home all bruised and beaten, so Charles willingly puts everything aside to take care of him for the evening.

Write about your interpretation of what happened during the Blackwater massacre.

Write about Arthur's past (his relationship with his father, how he survived alone, etc.)

Javier and Uncle decide to write a song together.

Tilly, Mary-Beth and Karen all decide to go rob a stagecoach together.

Sean takes Karen out for dinner at a nearby saloon.

[tornbetween2loves]

A Glimpse Into Christmas Future, Part 3

Happy New Year to you all! This is the next part in this flash-forward of My Heart Torn Apart, 5 Years Later. Sorry for the posting delay, the holidays provided some unexpected setbacks for me and my family.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Pixelberry, except for my OC's, which I claim as my own.

Warnings: This fic contains spoilers. If you don't want to know the outcome of MHTA, 5 years later, please don't read. Liam x Riley x Drake are in a polyamorous relationship in this story. If you don't agree with that, please don't read. This story is adult-themed. Please do not read if you're under the age of 18. You should read previous parts of this story first. They can be found on my master list.

One more reminder: This story takes place after the original TRR series. It does not take into consideration anything that happened in TRH or any following series. It does not follow canon.

Liam smiled as he surveyed the beautiful disaster that was his living room. Scraps of wrapping paper and ribbon were strewn about, along with toys and clothes and candy wrappers. Breakfast dishes and coffee mugs littered the coffee table. His heart swelled as he held up his phone to take a picture of his family huddled together on the couch. Drake and Riley sat at each end with their legs stretched out on the ottoman, heads tipped back and eyes closed. Grace was curled up under Drake’s arm, her legs tucked under her to make room for Beth, who was under Riley’s arm. Liam had covered them with blankets and couldn’t resist snapping a picture of his snoozing family. They looked so peaceful. He sighed as he thought back to the conversation last night.

“You never signed the papers Liam,” Drake said. “Technically, you never abdicated. Legally, you are still the king of Cordonia.”

Liam sighed and shook his head. “No. It’s not that simple. I may not have abdicated, but I abandoned my throne and my country.”

“Yes, but you did so under duress. Out of fear for the safety of your family. We could go back. Fight for your birthright to rule Cordonia.” Riley placed a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “A birthright you never gave up, my king.”

Riley stirred and yawned as she opened one eye to look at Liam. “Go make the call, my king. It’s early morning in Cordonia by now. Drake and I will take care of this mess when we’re done napping.” A wide grin spread across his face as Liam jumped up. He kissed Riley on the cheek quickly then headed to their bedroom.

He stopped outside of Henry’s room and knocked softly. There was no answer. He opened the door and peeked inside. His son laid on the bed with headphones on as he played a game on his laptop. Liam smiled and closed the door, then headed to the bedroom. He got down on his hands and knees and pulled a lock box out from under the bed. He fished the key out of the nightstand drawer and sat on the bed to open the box. All of their important documents were inside, birth certificates, Liam’s coronation papers, marriage licenses. A large manila envelope was at the bottom. He pulled it out and turned it over in his hands as he remembered when he received it.

They had been at the safe house for almost a week. There was no word from anyone at the palace. Liam paced back and forth across the living room, unable to clear his head. He kept thinking about the night they fled the palace. Everything was left behind. Liam had grabbed the lockbox with their important documents from his desk drawer, but everything else was left. Cell phones, computers, tablets, pictures. They had been forced from their home. Why hadn’t Bastien contacted him? Why was there no tv in this safehouse? There was one phone line, and Liam had tried to call the palace several times on various numbers to no avail. He had tried to contact Bastien through the guards posted here at the safehouse. But everything was oddly quiet. It made him crazy not knowing what was happening to his country.

A knock at the door startled Liam from his thoughts. The guard approached the door as he waved Liam into the other room. He moved into the kitchen as a lump formed at the back of his throat and his stomach tied up in knots. Something was wrong. Bastien appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Bas! My god, you look awful,” Liam wrapped an arm around the guard’s shoulders and eased him into a chair. He was covered in dried blood and dirt and looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “You need to rest. Are you hungry? I’ll get Riley to make you something,” Liam turned to head into the other room, but Bastien stopped him. “No! I’m afraid there’s no time.” His eyes grew moist as he locked his gaze on the king. “I’m so sorry, your majesty. We–we’ve lost the palace. The terrorists now have access to sensitve information regarding you and your family.” he shifted his gaze to the floor, then back up. “It is time. You have to flee. Before it’s too late.”

Tears coursed down Liam’s cheeks. “Flee? To where? This is our home, Bastien. How–” his voice cracked. “Please, Liam. You must ensure the safety of your family. Get them all together. I have an escape plan in place.” Things moved so quickly after that it was all a blur. They woke the children in the middle of the night and loaded into an SUV with Bastien.

“It’s going to be quite a battle,” Bastien explained. “The duchies have secured their borders and are building their own armies. Any members of the Royal Guard who weren’t captured have joined the duchies.” Liam shot a sideways glance at Bastien. “And you, Bastien? What will come of you?” He swallowed audibly. “Sir, I will be joining the army at Lythikos. Olivia and I will do whatever we can to get rid of these terrorists. When it is safe, you can return.”

Liam shook his head. “This does not seem right. We should stay and fight too.” Bastien shook his head. “You don’t understand. There is a price on your head. On all of your heads, even the childrens’. You must go.” Bastien pulled into the back entrance of Cordonia’s airport, directly onto the tarmac. He pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to the king. “There’s passports in there for all of you. There’s also bank cards to allow you to access an American bank account that has been set up for you. All under assumed names, of course.”

He pulled out a small cell phone. “This is a burner phone. There are 2 numbers programmed into it. No one has this number, including me.” His steel-grey gaze sent a shiver down the King’s spine. “When you’re ready, call these numbers.” Liam shot him a questioning look. “Ready? For what?” Bastien smiled. “You’ll know when you are ready.”

Liam sighed as he turned the phone over in his hands. That was almost a year ago. They fled to America just after the new year. He had thought about calling the numbers on this phone every single day since they arrived here. He plugged the phone into a charger and waited for it to turn on.

He highlighted the first number and pressed send. His stomach churned as he waited for an answer. Liam had purposely avoided any news about Cordonia, it was just too painful for him to see his people struggle without him. He had no idea what had happened since they left. His focus had been on his family, he wanted to provide them the most normal existence possible.

The phone rang and rang. Liam sighed as he hung up. No answer was not a good sign. He dialed the other number and waited anxiously as it rang.

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

Bastien stood in the King’s office and took in the view of the garden maze. The maze had almost been destroyed during the occupation. He sighed as he thought about the turmoil that had torn apart his country for the past decade. Once the journal of Michael Drammir had been made public, a wave of political unrest swept across Cordonia. Several people stepped forward and staked a claim to the throne, while others questioned the ability of the king and queen to present a strong, united front to neighboring countries. Terrorist cells began forming and several attempts were made to overthrow the government. Many of Cordonia’s noble houses were no longer loyal to the crown. It seemed like peace would never settle over the country again.

Bastien had a plan that could not be executed until the Royal Family was out of the picture. He knew that the only way to gain the support of Lythikos or the Duke of Ramsford would be if the Rhys’ bloodline was removed for good. He made that happen. He sent the Royal family off to America, then once control of the capital was reinstated he released the report that the entire family had been massacred at the safe house. No one questioned the head of the King’s guard. No autopsies were performed on the bodies that were all brutally mutilated beyond recognition. Funeral services were held, caskets were placed in the Rhys’ family tomb. The entire country mourned the loss of their leaders. Once again, random people stepped forward to make claims to the throne. But the people were tired of the fighting and the monarchy.

People protested on the palace lawn during council meetings. They wanted representation. They wanted democracy. The first election in Cordonian history was scheduled to take place in just a few days. Each duchy had nominated a candidate, debates were scheduled, and a primary election took place.

The final election would decide between two candidates: Olivia Nevrakis, Duchess of Lythikos and Madeline Drammir, Duchess of Fydelia. Bastien was confident that no matter the outcome, peace would be restored to Cordonia. It had been suggested that he run himself, but Bastien was not a politician. He belonged in the background, protector of lives and secrets.

The sound of his phone ringing interrupted his thoughts. The color drained from his face when he saw the number. “Shit,” he mumbled as he turned around and bumped right into Olivia. He jumped as he ignored the call. “You love to sneak up on me don’t you,” he snickered as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her gently. She winked at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Will you ever stop being so jumpy? What are you afraid of, Bas?” He laughed out loud as he locked his steel-grey eyes on her emerald pools. “I fear nothing sweetheart, I just like to be prepared for anything at any time.” He kissed her again, long and hard, then pulled away breathless. “And you keep me on my toes, my temptress.” They kissed again, then Olivia pulled away reluctantly. “See you in a couple hours? It is Christmas, you know.” Bastien nodded as he placed his hand on the small of Olivia’s back and led her to the door. He closed the door behind her and locked it, then sat in the chair behind the desk.

How was he going to handle this situation? Of course when he gave Liam that burner phone he didn’t know how events would unfold. And then when news broke of the royal family’s deaths he thought for sure that they decided to just stay gone. He figured someone would have called then. But now? There’s no way they could be allowed back into the country. All the progress that had been made would be gone in an instant. He would have to stop it. One way or another.

He picked up his phone and called back the number.

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[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 13, The Future Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Marc: Hello, Marc Roskin, producer and director of this episode.

Amy: Hi, Amy Berg, supervising producer and co-writer of this episode.

John: John Rogers, executive producer.

Chris: Chris Downy, executive producer, and co-writer of the Future Job.

John: Uh, this, did this start out of the haunting episode? Is this how the psychic came about?

Amy: The origin of this? No, the um, no I don't think so. Psychic Job was—

John: Was that Dean's?

Amy: No, it was literally a card that was on my board at the beginning of the season, along with Three Days of the Hunter, and Two Live Crew Job, so this was essentially plucked from the well.

John: This was one of the ones that sat there, that sat there for a long time, she was great, what, uh...

Marc: Jen Taylor, local Seattle actress. She was wonderful.

John: But it was Dean who really dug in on this one, because he really liked the bad guy. He really said, you know, ‘I really wanna hammer the fake psychics.’

Amy: Yeah, and he was the one who, sort of, had the vision of, sort of, making this a Parker episode and, sort of, getting to delve deeper into her backstory a little bit.

Chris: And there's Luke Perry.

John: Luke Perry was fantastic.

Amy: He was great.

John: How did we wind up casting Luke Perry?

Chris: I think it was suggested by our casting folks, and I think it was the first one on his list, and he said, Luke Perry would be fantastic for this role. And we all, we were kind of like wow. You know, you didn't really think of him as- as an evil psychic.

Marc: I would leave my wife for Luke Perry. 

[All Laugh]

John: Luke Perry—uh, as a director, why don't you talk about working with Luke Perry, Marc?

Marc: He was wonderful. I mean, you can just really, when someone has that much experience working in television, I mean, it's amazing. He was on time, he never left set, he was always talking about character and would take any suggestions, you know, from me as a director, if you wanted to go another way, just let me know; he was just a dream to work with.

John: Now, what was the idea on this particular setting for the psychic, instead of like a formal office, or like, what was the set dec idea on this?

Marc: Well we wanted to have him working out of, like, a home type office, and actually we had to find something that we could build on the stage to work on.

John: Oh so that wasn't a location, that was-

Marc: No, that was just our basic, uh, hospital and Gina apartment set.

John: [Laughs] The Frankenset.

Marc: Shot on the same day as this day, on the stage, in our bar.

John: Okay, cool. Nice shot through the glass, by the way. I didn't know those taps worked. If I'd known those taps worked I would have been up north a lot more often.

Marc: They work. As soon as you request it, Eric Bates we'll start pumping a keg through them.

John: And this actor playing the brother—

Marc: Uh, Eric Riedman, he was great, too. I mean, he really, really clicked with Tim in this scene. They really worked well together.

John: And it was interesting. We were trying to figure out—we had a great victim, but ordinarily our victim has already had the thing done to them, but in the design of this, you needed the victim to sort of be in suspension.

Amy: Yeah, we needed a proxy. And uh, the brother was sort of a great emotional investment tool for us.

John: Yeah. And Portland actor, just a really, really great job. That was a good, 'I hate that guy moment', when we made her pregnant. And uh—

Chris: And taking her house.

John: Take her house, don't leave money on the table.

Amy: I guess we should point out that, uh, I named a lot of these characters - with the exception of Dalton Rand, Luke Perry's character - after the assistants on our show.

John: Oh, this one is the one where we used all the—

Amy: Yeah, it's Wilson, it's Nicholas, and Ryan, and—

Chris: I love that logo there, by the way, that went by.

John: Oh yeah, who designed that? The great Dalton Rand logo?

Chris: Oh they did a great job.

John: It was actually designed by Derek, right? Our computer graphics guy?

Marc: Yeah, Derek Frederickson in Chicago.

John: He banged it up for us. And it is amazing, this is another one where you could assume we are doing one or the other of any of the very sundry famous psychics, but really they all use the same cons.

Amy: Yeah, they really do.

John: And I’ll also say, Derren Brown was a big influence on this episode.

Amy: Yeah, I think you and I are maybe a little too obsessed with Derren Brown, and uh—

John: He is dreamy.

Amy: He's dreamy and he's sort of an—

John: And a powerful, commanding presence.

Amy: And he's an expert in NLP, which a lot of the stuff we talk about in this episode is, and he debunks a lot of psychics and mediums and things of that sort.

John: That's a really interesting way, too, by doing shows that make it look like he has those abilities.

Amy: And Apollo Robbins, our consultant, was helpful in, sort of, submitting some great terminology for us to use throughout.

John: Oh yeah, that's right, the cold reading terminology, yeah. Um, now this, where was this set?

Marc: This was an actual cable access station that they, again, just opened the doors for us. We didn't have to change any of the logos or the numbers, the people working the camera are the actual camera crew—

Chris: Wow, that's great.

Marc: —of this station, they were wonderful.

Amy: They absorbed us into their own productions.

Chris: Just like Three Days of the Hunter, this is another example of Portland opening its doors to us.

Marc: So all those monitors, they had up and running and feeding through our system as well, it was great.

John: Now did you take a look at any of the extant shows, in order to, sort of, see how this works?

Marc: Uh, I did, and a lot of it at first was just to see the set. And everybody—once you start looking at their sets—were like 'oh, maybe ours is a little too pretty.' [All Laugh] Some of them were just like two chairs and an easel, with something leaning against it.

John: 'I'm gonna sketch what your dead mother is saying.'

Marc: And then our construction crew, you know, built the risers, so we can have some depth with the audience. This was a fun scene. It wasn't supposed to be a physical scene, but Eliot and Lathrop turned it into one, so it was kinda fun.

Chris: I love when he gets mad here.

Amy: This was supposed to be a con, and then it turned into something altogether different.

John: He's just really annoyed at that dude up in his face. And you know what's interesting is we- it was a little weird developing this, because all the tricks that a lot of fake psychics use—not the real psychics, of course, with giant lawyers behind them, but the fake psychics use—are actually techniques we use in the cons, and so it was kind of this weirdly recursive thing. It's like, we're kind of exposing to the audience how they do this, but we do it every week.

Amy: Yeah, we're exposing ourselves as much as we're exposing Dalton Rand here.

John: And this is where he goes into cold reading. What was the—and it's interesting, cold reading is a fascinating subject, there's actually a couple great books that Apollo Robbins hunted up, and the idea that just by playing the numbers, just by playing the odds, any one of these guys can hit at about 80 to 85 percent success rate.

Amy: Yeah, it's act- it's basically asking a series of questions, and, sort of, gauging reactions to people without knowing anything about them in advance. Whereas hot reads or warm reads, as they’re sometimes called, are basically doing your homework beforehand, and getting research on the people you're about to meet with and, sort of, using that knowledge to, sort of, manipulate them.

Chris: The hot read is really more what our guy's doing, which is kinda how this thing broke down in the episode, was when we hijack and sort of take it over and hot read.

Amy: Yeah. Well we, the team basically underestimates Dalton here, and he surprises them.

John: They think that once they throw him, they'll get him, and he's able to cold read Parker. Which is also a big thing, not just in anchoring Parker's story into the episode, but the show always works when the nemesis is a bit more formidable.

Amy: Absolutely.

John: And it was kind of important, especially since Luke's kind of a really nice, he's got a nice guy vibe, it was kinda really important to start to hammer in on the fact that this guy is as good as they are. If he knew they were coming, this would be a very different game.

Amy: And I think Tim is great in this scene, because he's playing the audience, he's like, ‘Wait a minute, like, we were supposed to come in and sort of take over this guy, and he's sort of manipulating Parker, and surprising me in turn.’

John: Wow, look at Beth there. She is working.

Chris: Now, how'd you work with her on this when you went into this scene?

Marc: Um, it was interesting, because the scenes we shot first are the scenes later where it was really emotional in the Leverage apartment, where she really broke down, so she was already at that place once, and she just brought it right back, and I think Luke worked really well with her.

John: I also like that beat in the van where Jeri sort of chose, it was a very nice choice, where Aldis has got Hardison really pissed off, and Jeri's just admiring the craft. She's not as emotionally invested in the team, so she can kind of step back and admire this guy's chops.

Marc: And this scene was just such a great scene where all of our actors work so well together in, not only just rehearsing it, but getting Beth to a certain place, you know, where she should be, they were all really emotionally involved in this, and took a lot of time to rehearse—

John: Probably took twice as long as we usually do to shoot this stuff.

Amy: Well yeah, it was the characters being really protective of Parker, and the actors being really protective of Beth, it was really great.

Chris: Well I think it was actually, when it was written, more angry. You know what I mean? And I think seeing the dailies, it was, like, she took it to this incredibly vulnerable place that I don't think it really was on the page.

John: Also big credit to Dean Devlin, because he also had pushed that.

Marc: He did, he did. And this was a great scene, we have all the emotional arc with Beth, but as you guys were just explaining, in the script we explain the hot read and the cold read and we break it all down.

John: Yeah, and this is—again, we are always agonizing over how to explain this stuff, and having someone with a specific emotional response or attitude in the scenes makes a giant difference. And having it be Parker, who the audience is very very fond of, really helps, you know. We're now dumping an enormous amount of exposition on your plate, and you don't care.

Chris: Right, because it's—you know, we're seeing her in this really, just devastated place.

Marc: And we just found out a lot about her past that we didn't know about.

John: And he—I love that look up, just like, ‘Help me out here, I got nothing.’

Chris: Well the thing about it, and we'll talk about it when we get there, but the way she plays the scene at the end, with the brother, really was informed by all this, which was not at all on the page at all.

Marc: Right.

Chris: Like, when she hugs the victim's brother, and we'll get there, it's as if she's hugging her own brother.

John: And also it's interesting, because—oddly, it certainly wasn't intended, but it's just the way TV shows evolve—it helps, sort of, explain her relationship with Eliot and Hardison, you know. That's sort of how she fell into that rhythm, and that sort of proxy family—

Chris: It was not intended.

John: I would like to say, I'd like to say it was a sort of subconscious Alan Moore idea space.

Amy: Speak for yourself Chris, I totally did that on purpose.

John: Like two years ahead, like two years in advance?

Chris: Oh sure. That's what you're supposed to do on these commentaries—

Amy: Yes, many many years.

Chris: —you're supposed to go 'well, you see, I laid these—'

John: 'So this moment, two years earlier—'

Amy: Reason we're awesome, number 427.

John: But here's what's amazing is, we really, we're always like, in the show, could we possibly fool people with this? And then when you do this, this explanation scene, could you possibly fool anyone? They do! This is how they do it! We're not making any of this up.

Amy: No.

John: If anything, we're giving them better tech.

Amy: We're giving them ideas on how to be better at it.

Chris: And by the way, from a technical standpoint, these scenes were very difficult to shoot because we're going from monitors to action—

Amy: To flashbacks.

Chris: —to flashbacks, very hard.

Marc: And they're all green screens on the day we're shooting them.

John: Oh that's right, we didn't have the footage.

Amy: Nothing was on these monitors.

Marc: Nothing is on the monitors.

Amy: All we had was a nice bulletin board.

Marc: Yeah, we had a little bulletin board to show that they had the seating chart. And here, one of my favorite lines is coming up, it's just a great release valve, with all this tension, and, and her emotions—crying.

John: Yeah, you can see her turning, too. There's the sort of old Parker coming back, and the anger kind of building up in her face.

Amy: Yeah it's like, wait a minute...

Marc: And then this line from Eliot. 'Can we kill him?' 

[All Laugh]

Chris: I think that was you.

John: Yeah that was, I think that was me. Quite sure. ‘Yeah, alright [Laughs] absolutely.’ I like, and Chris played it just right too, like...

Chris: Just a shrug.

John: And it's interesting, 'cause, that actually was intentional in the back half of the season this year. We really want to remind people, Eliot Spencer used to kill people. I mean, because it's really easy, because Chris is very charming, and he's very funny... yeah he was not a pleasant human being by any stretch of the imagination. And every now and then, you lose it a little, you know what I mean? You lose track of it, because he's such a nice guy. And who's that?

Marc: That is Lana Veenker, our casting associate there in good old Portland.

Amy: How did that come about? [Laughs]

Marc: You know what? We were just reading people and all of a sudden I'm like, ‘Why don't you read?’ 'No no no, I won't. Okay, gimme thirty seconds.' All of a sudden she read and we were like, 'Done.'

John: Done. We're out.

Chris: Didn't we write some pages where they have a long passionate kiss here? 

[All Laugh]

John: Yes, we did. We did—actually we didn't write them, you know, they were faxed in, and I don't know where they came from.

Chris: Handwritten.

Amy: Yeah I think it was a Portland IP address, somehow.

John: Yeah, it was a little creepy, to tell you the truth. [Amy Laughs] Ah, no. And this, uh—you know, we need a new name for the assistant who's not a Busey.

Chris: Uh... Well, I mean...

John: Because we've had a couple.

Chris: Lackey? It’s kind of a lackey.

Amy: Do people know—have we explained—

John: We've explained the Busey's on both seasons.

Amy: Okay good.

John: Uh, yeah, he's not quite a lackey, he's more of a henchman.

Chris: Henchman, yeah.

John: For those of you building the characters in Savage Worlds, he would have one wild die. [Laughs]

Amy: Lackies don't have lines, henchmen do.

John: Ah, there you go, good point.

Marc: And this scene as well, the opening scene in this office was shot at like, one in the morning, twelve o'clock at night, Luke's first day—

John: [Laughs] Welcome to Leverage, Luke.

Marc: Yeah, exactly. And he just rocked it out.

Amy: Yeah, he's great.

John: He landed unctuous. It was a pity because it was one of those performances where in the middle you're like, ‘Oh man, I love when we find an actor and we want to bring them back— oh wait, he's a villain.’ This almost never happens with villains.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Drew was the exception, but he was a good guy villain.

Chris: I think he mentioned that he was a—he is a con man here, and that he could always have a twin brother.

[All Laugh]

Amy: Without the beard and mustache.

John: This is, uh, I actually showed up on set, I think this day, or the—I flew in...

Amy: This was my first day too.

John: Yeah, and we arrived and Marc was in the middle of planning the most insane thing ever.

Amy: Well, the thing is, I put this camera move in the script thinking and hoping maybe just to freak Marc out—with no expectation that he could possibly pull it off—as a joke!

John: Oh like the giant blue whale structure.

Amy: Yeah, yeah, as a friggin joke, and then like, he shows me this move, and, like, I nearly died.

Marc: I thought about it, and I was like, ‘Well, can we do it?’ And our First AD David Wechsler and New York AD goes, 'Do you want it?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'Then we could do it.'

John: Yeah, Wex stops traffic in New York; stopping traffic in Portland wasn't—'cause that's what happened, I showed up and I'm like, 'I'm going to the set' and they're like, 'I'm sorry sir, you can't go. They stopped traffic.' 'Well I know, but I'm a writer' 'No no, they're doing some sort of s—' I'm four blocks away! What the hell?’

Chris: By the way, Jeri Ryan here, fantastic look from Nadine—

Amy: Yeah.

John: And she's also got a great character going here—

Marc: She looks fantastic.

Chris: Got a great character.

John: This is a softer character than Jeri usually gets to play, even in the cons.

Marc: A little hippie-ish, yeah.

Chris: The hair was great. I mean really, they nailed this.

Amy: Well Luke even comments on it, “It’s a little on the nose, but [laughs] it works for you.”

John: But that’s the idea, to just kind of you know, not try to overthink it.

Amy: Yeah, it’s great.

John: And it was interesting, again, the—Jeri was great for us and she was really fantastic all year, but you know one thing she mentioned is, she got to play roles that nobody usually lets her play, even within the cons.

Amy: Yup.

John: And there’s another clue for you, where she spent the last—the time before her con career.

Marc: And here comes the shot.

Amy: I’m excited just thinking about it.

John: I’m a little giddy. Yeah, there you go.

Chris: Oh, around the corner!

John: Now that’s all done in camera, so what happens is you have to have everyone within view of that camera freeze. And then the camera man basically runs, we put a steadicam through and then we digitally speed it up.

Marc: Poor Gary Camp.

Amy: Gary Camp!

John: Poor Gary Camp.

Chris: Now that I thought about it, I bet you in the finale that’s what prompted Dean to do that shot with Sterling. 

John: Right.

Chris: I bet Dean was like, he saw this and he was like ‘Oh you wanna try and top me with that? Well come and watch this!’

[All Laugh]

John: ‘I start and stop it four times!’

Chris: ‘I gave you your chance!’

Marc: But I don’t know, if you play it back you can see we also put some digital birds that are stopped—

John: Seriously? Like, if you slow-mo it you can see?

Marc: Yes. If you slow-mo it you’ll see two pigeons in the middle and we pass right past them.

Amy: That’s awesome.

John: I like the fact that, again, they’ve electrified the table, and that Nate is on board with Parker. ‘Cause again, that’s one of those little hints that Nate’s… sadism, for lack of a better word? is really starting to overtake his good judgment.

Amy: Yes. He’s—yeah it’s, little by little he’s starting to sort of fall to pieces here and sort of turn to the dark side.

John: Well, what’s nice is we started with the arc with the hospital one with- with the sadism, and then, you know, we had to sort of lean back on it for Gina’s arc. And then when we came back it was nice, that was basically the thrust of the back episodes. This was a lot of fun coming up with what the possible fucking visions could be. Oh that’s… I’m sorry, I’m drinking. [Amy Laughs] They’re used to me swearing on these by now! This really is like making, building a puzzle backwards.

Marc: This was really clever writing, and then to have the ability to shoot it was so much fun.

Amy: Aw. Thank you Rosky.

John: Yeah. We try to keep you entertained up there, after all your—this was only your fourth?

Marc: Yes.

Amy: Fourth episode?

John: Fourth episode, with no notice.

Marc: Yeah.

Amy: How was this episode different from the other three you’ve done?

Marc: It was fun to be in different places, you know, just to new places in Portland. It was fun to have a guest star like Luke to work with. And I loved having the emotional hook with Parker, ‘cause my first episode I did in the first season was a Parker episode, it was the Stork Job.

Amy: Oh! This is like your Parker bookend basically. That’s great.

John: Also it was interesting, watching with the sound off, I didn’t realize that’s one of the longest villain character scenes we’ve ever had. Like just when he’s parked there at the chair and she runs the con on him. Luke was really, really great.

Amy: He’s not bad to look at. [John Laughs] That’s kinda my job since you’re all dudes. [Laugh]

John: Well you know, I can appreciate a nice piece of man flesh as much as the next person. What is in this?

[All Laugh]

Marc: And the coffee finally spills.

John: And did we do the driving stunt there? No the driving—yes, the driving stunt’s after this.

Chris: It’s after this, yeah.

Amy: Yeah, yeah it was, the first part of it yeah.

John: But we shot it that day.

Amy: With the amazing, highly maneuverable Hyundai Genesis.

John: Hyundai Genesis was great. If you’re gonna murder someone with a car, the Hyundai Genesis is the way to go.

Marc: This was another local actor, I mean he just has… what a great face for television.

John: You know what, he looks a little like the British actor Peter Mullan actually, the guy who was on The Fixer?

Amy: He does! Yeah he does.

John: It’s really, I’ll tell you what Portland gave us - good cops.

Marc: Yes.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: Our cops up there, ‘cause we just look at the Bottle show, and the three guys who played the Boston cops in the background, they’re just grounded.

Amy: This guy smells cop. [Laughs]

Chris: If you’re a cop-looking guy living in LA and you wanna get some work...

Everyone: Move to Portland.

Amy: We’ll employ you!

Chris: Just go! You listen to this right now? Load up the car, get up there! There’s work for you, my friend.

John: After these commentaries come out, people are gonna be on buses. There’s gonna be, like, bus tours for actors. And this was a lot of fun, was coming up—this was actually, I think we’d had the fortune cookie con in something. What was the story? Remember? We’d had it on the board for a while. The fortune cookies, the substituting.

Amy: Oh dude, so long ago; I wish I had the answer to that.

John: A lot of the, I mean that’s the thing is, there’s actually in the writer’s room a board of stuff.

Amy: Yeah.

John: And some of the stuff has been around long enough that it’s like, I know there was a provenance.

Amy: I think there was a fortune cookie con card.

Chris: Mm, I don’t know if a whole… might have been a story beat; it wasn’t a whole con.

John: Not a whole con, it was a story beat, yeah. But the idea of substituting—

Chris: This is a great- Here we go; here it is. [Laughs]

Amy: Look at it shining in the sun, beautiful.

John: And that’s a great—what was the choice on the, like in the moment, in the script it just says, ‘He realizes.’ How did you decide to go to the slow-mo and..?

Marc: I wanted to do a slow-mo in the 360; the world’s kinda spinning on him and just the— 

Amy: The camera’s a great touch, too. I like it.

Marc: Yeah, well I wanted the can to just show the proximity of how close he was, how much he’s tempted fate.

John: This was also one of the sequences that—who cut this?

Marc: This was Sonny.

John: This was one of the sequences where Sonny Baskin really, really, really slammed it together because this is always tricky, figuring out how the flashbacks work. In what order, in what pace, at what exact moment in the scene. And I think in the script we played around with showing some of it upfront, and then—

Chris: How much of the dialogue to replay was kind of the trick.

John: Exactly, how much we make sure the audience is following.

Marc: And I don’t think some people were understanding, like, why I took so long to shoot that car sequence when he stepped out. That it does play later, and it does have to have different feels and looks to it.

Amy: There’s two parts to it, yeah.

John: And again, this is another one where you have to anticipate, this guy checks credit reports, we know he checked the victim’s credit report earlier, you know.

Chris: And another thing is, one of the hallmarks of our show is that when we create a character, we don’t always create powerful con characters. We create characters that have vulnerabilities that our bad guys can exploit. So here, we created a fake story of her having bad credit and being in debt for hospital bills.

John: Yeah it’s like Chris in the MMA one, Kane, he plays in a very power-negative position in that. Pretty much every variant of a con character you can possibly find.

Amy: José! The name on the cup.

John: And Chris is ridiculously delighted to be doing this at this point actually. [All Laugh]

Amy: How can you tell?!

John: I think he’s just enjoying stealing—driving a truck to tell the truth. And I love the idea that Hardison would do this and this is just what he does. He spends his weekends filling fortune cookies with fake messages. He does all the grunt work.

Marc: That’s a good shot.

John: That is a great shot. And we’re locked in. And this was also tricky, too, because again, because the victim had not been burned yet, essentially, and it was a preventative con. It’s not something we usually do, and trying to figure out how to accelerate this con, and what exactly Con A was, was really—it kicked our asses to tell you the truth.

Chris: The danger was really the tricky part, when to introduce the danger.

John: And now we knew we wanted to do the maestro Hardison beat in this script. Marc, you had a very specific reference for this whole bit, which was the radio announcer in Warriors right?

Marc: Yes. 

John: Though Hardison is basically being a geek hacker—what year was that, 1980… Walter Hill, The Warriors…

Marc: Late 70s.

Amy: ‘79, or something. Around there.

John: Basically Marc reached back, like 35 years, and found himself a really great filmic reference for her side.

Chris: Well the key here is, the writing of it was making sure to go quickly from one, to the next, to the next.

John: Boom, boom, boom.

Chris: Each piece of information feeds to her, and she synthesizes it and comes to a conclusion.

John: It also helps explain how good Tara is.

Chris: Yeah.

John: She’s gonna run this con character as she’s getting all this crap dumped into her ear.

Amy: She’s playing vulnerable to him, but sort of expert to us.

John: I also love that he’s just given up at this point. We had not told the set people to put the orange soda in the fridge, but they just filled it and it just stayed that way for the year. I love that Nate’s just given up.

Chris: Yeah, this is Hardison’s war zone. He’s gonna need to be armed.

Amy: Gummy frogs, always important.

John: Gummy frogs, a call back from the magician episode. And Aldis really dug in there, really great job. Oh that’s Ire!

Amy: That’s Ire!

John: Was our…

Chris: Camera intern?

John: Camera intern, yeah. And she does some acting, and she was fantastic. 

Amy: Her audition was fantastic, yeah.

John: Yeah, that was one of the ones where it was like, ‘Okay we’ll audition you.’ At the end of the audition, ‘Wow…you have a career in this.’ [Laughs] But she’s going into camera work. She’s gonna, believe back this year as one of our camera people...

Chris: Oh she’s gonna come back? Oh that’s great.

John: And why the choices on the lights in the- the blue? Just liked it? Just like the set of one color tone?

Marc: Yeah, just liked it. Dave had an idea about it, and it just worked real well.

John: And it stayed consistent through this setting. It’s a very nice contrast with the sort of warm orange and wood tones of like, Nate’s apartment. It helps track locations a lot easier.

Marc: And Beth freaked out a lot of people when she walked on set with that wig.

Amy: Many many people did not recognize her.

John: I know, that’s really odd, right?

Amy: It was fun.

John: It’s a great wig.

Amy: Yeah it is.

John: Hair and makeup did a great job with that, ‘cause you guys sent me the photos and I was like, ‘I have to shoot the season finale. Did they cut her freaking hair?’ No, great wig. And this is hot read, this is our crew doing hot reads on the fly, and it’s a lot like the Bottle show, where it’s like, you can’t do the wire in two hours. In theory, you can’t hot read someone simultaneously as you’re conning them. Well, you know.

Amy: Maybe you can if you’re Leverage!

John: You’ve got the little camera movements here, is that, you tried to track those or do you just assume that Camp and—?

Chris: Yeah, you’re making sure as you move in one direction on one, you move in the other direction on the other?

Marc: Uh, a little bit. We always wanna keep the sliders going, just pushing in at the appropriate moments especially when Ire- I mean she just did such a great performance, and did it in one take.

Amy: One take; it was one take.

Chris: And didn’t you say to her, ‘Save a little bit ‘cause you may need to do this again’?

Marc: Yeah. I said, I said, ‘Don’t let it all out so fast.’ And Luke was so great with her. Knowing that... He’s seen her pulling cable, and all of a sudden she’s in front and having to break down.

John: He was great with her. Now here’s the thing, most people don’t know what sliders are, why don’t you explain what sliders are? Most people know cameras move left and right but they, you know-

Marc: Sliders are what we have on our dollies and tripods that allow the camera head to move, I guess laterally, left and right, in a fluid movement. Just drifting, so always- the background’s moving just ever so slightly, so it never looks too stale or stagnant. There’s my Warrior shot!

John: And I notice you punched in, like closer, closer, til you land on it. It’s very nice. Also, I like the fact that the name of the National Transportation Safety Board—is that, that’s the name of Parker’s friend from… Peggy Milbank, is like the name that’s coming up, that’s Parker’s friend from the first season.

Amy: Yeah, it’s sort of like a little inside joke.

John: And Hardison, ‘Get the hell out of my way.’ It’s interesting, this is a big, kind of, Nate as guardian episode, and he’s not driving it. It’s one of the great episode examples of where Tim Hutton and Nate kind of just ground it, is kind of the center of it. There’s Wade.

Amy: Wade Williams, awesome actor. Perfect for this role.

John: I was wondering how he would play this reaction, because she’s, you know, he’s giving her a line of bullshit, and he’s gotta, he’s in front of everyone.

Amy: Yeah, he knows he’s on camera.

John: That reminds me of that guy who proposed to his girlfriend at the basketball game and she turned him down.

Everyone: Oh yeah!

Marc: Then the mascot walks him off.

John: Just put a- just end it. No, Wade was fantastic, he’d just come off Prison Break? Wasn’t he a guard on that?

Chris: And we had a long search for that part, too.

John: Yeah, we read a lot of guys. Well, because the original dialogue was somewhat baroque. [Laugh]

Amy: It was! It wasn’t exactly an easy thing to pull off, which is why we ended up casting it out of LA. It was just a really meaty part.

John: Nice fight coming up here, by the way. They actually banged the hell out of that van. You had to hammer a dent out, didn’t you?

Marc: Oh yeah. Yes we did. 

John: Just every now and then you bounce a stuntie off a van. Jeri mixing it up. Jeri was in there, yeah. Good hit! 

Marc: Our local stunt actors and Kevin Jackson choreographed this. 

Amy: The moment where he, sort of, notes the tattoo on the guy’s hand.

John: It’s a nice beat. It’s interesting, the Portland stunt guys really dug in. Because we did a lot more stunts and a lot more fights than four or five movies that have shot up there combined, and they really rallied. They were fantastic. And this was the—

Chris: But here’s where he has to synthesize everything. I mean, now, you know, is where he really steps forward.

John: Well this is really where he digs in on the mastermind thing. This is a good, ‘Let me get this straight’ scene. This is a nice- the ‘let me get this straight’ scene is where you just reset for the audience, you know, just reset the stakes, reset the plot.

Amy: Also known as ‘So you’re telling me.’

Chris: It’s a general rule of writing to show, not tell, and the exception to that rule is when the situation is either so absurd or entertaining that you get a second laugh on the retelling of it.

Amy: Just commenting on it.

John: ‘I wanna get this straight,’ yeah. And you can also hide it in planning, or when the characters don’t have enough information. But no, because the episode at this point—

Chris: There it is, I think she just said ‘so let me get this straight.’ 

[All Laugh]

John: ‘Cause this is the point where the episode becomes an entirely different episode, because the first con worked. Again, because that’s always the trick on these, like, in theory you don’t want something to just fall out of the sky and be wrong.

Amy: Well they basically had Dalton Rand in the bag, and then, a totally unexpected-

Everyone: It worked too well.

John: This was a lovely shot. Marc?

Chris: Oh, I love this.

Marc: This was, I wanted to try and get this in one steadicam shot and just show the energy and movement throughout. I mean we spent so much time in this apartment that it’s fun to try and mix it up again.

Chris: Oh here we go, and up the stairs!

John: Nice, how many takes was that?

Marc: I think we did it in about three or four takes.

Amy: That’s crazy.

Chris: That was it? Now that was planned as a one- or, or was that just the end of the day, we gotta get this shot?

Marc: No, that was planned. That was one shot I wanted to try and do that had a little more energy and fun to it. 

John: Marc’s lived at that set for a lot of shots, he wants to vary it up a little.

Amy: Time to mix it up. 

Marc: And this, this was an idea that Connell had. When he saw the location and the time we’re shooting at, he said, ‘Let’s establish their faces,’ and then just, she’s walking into darkness.

John: Just bump into silhouette.

Chris: And she’s in boots, so let’s pan out from them, so, let’s be honest.

Amy: That’s what boots are for.

Marc: This happened to be in the paper factory.

John: Is this the The Bottle Job paper factory?

Marc: Yes, it’s just the area that didn’t have paper. 

[All Laugh]

John: Now, yes, now we’re basically—yeah, there you go. He’s really digging in on this. ‘Come, come join me!’

Marc: And that was his idea, he said, ‘Get the lady a chair!’

John: This entire speech, I think I did drunk. 

Amy: This was me taking notes on a notepad when you were drunk in the writer’s room, reeling off this speech. 

Chris: It was a big debate about the- about what we- this guy, what was called in the writer’s room the evil scary guy.

John: Evil scary guy.

Chris: The appearance of evil scary guy. We typically don’t have dangerous villains appear late in episodes. Usually we’ve established them and so this was the idea that we were gonna have evil scary guy come at this point in the episode and you know, put everyone in mortal danger. And you went off in a very oddly baroque manner.

John: Yeah. I really—‘cause what I was doing was actually making fun of the idea. Because I was like, ‘Seriously guys, we’re gonna do this? Some guy’s gonna show up and go ‘Gentlemen, I have a problem!’’ And I basically did this speech with, like, a fistful of scotch, and Berg and Chris sat on the same side of the table and they both looked at me and went, ‘Yeah.’

Chris: ‘Yeah, yeah if you like that. That’s great.’

John: ‘Pretty much. Exactly like that. Thanks gentlemen. Debate’s over.’

Chris: ‘Debate’s done.’

John: ‘Debate’s done. That was entertaining, we all enjoyed it, therefore it is in the episode.’

Marc: This was fun to shoot; we had a circle track with, you know, two cameras and two separate dollies.

John: Wait, at the same time?

Marc: Yes.

Chris: Wow.

John: Oh, Jesus Murphy. So where is the circle track laid down, it’s on the outside of this beam?

Marc: On the outside of the beam, and yeah, just around everybody. 

John: Two sizes.

Marc: Yeah, two sizes. And then at one point towards the end we, you know, change direction, just to mix it up a bit. But it was fun to have this type of villain. In the beginning we’re dealing with someone who’s smart, looking at bank statements, and now we’re dealing with a guy with a gun and thugs, who spent time in upstate New York.

John: Yeah, and he really sold it. And also it- the rule is: the villain has to suffer. And interestingly enough, we started Darlton Rand’s suffering really early in this episode. His loss of power here is really, he has just a bad back two acts. And Luke played it very nicely. Like right here, where he’s trying to keep control.

Marc: Yeah, when he’s trying to keep control, and he’s still trying to sell the idea that he’s the psychic. 

John: Wade is terrifying. That was nice, picking up around here as she was dropping into it; that was very nicely done.

Marc: Yes, Gary Camp and Dave Connell.

Chris: Now how long did this take? Do you remember how many takes you did with this, with the circle track?

Marc: I think this scene, we… I believe we did it in just over an hour. Yeah, but it’s a lot of dialogue, and Wade did such a great job because, you know, he had to do it so many different times.

John: And there’s a lot of looks in this. There’s a lot of angles in this.

Amy: He just cracks me up.

John: Yeah, he does. He’s so happy. Yeah, you gotta bang them up from both sides, you’ve gotta pick him up talking to them. There’s no good way except a circle track to shoot that.

Marc: Yeah. I think that Jeri sells this really well in this scene.

John: She does. A little distressed, a little—

Marc: Yeah he’s walking in one direction, no, it’s not, this way. And it’s nice seeing, shooting over, oops, too early.

John: It’s always a little too early. A little too early.  Timing is a big part of the show. And yeah, fainting damsel never, never fails. 

Amy: Best stall ever.

John: Where was this? Was this, like, the storage unit place? Or this was on the road outside?

Marc: Uh, this wasn’t far from our sound stage.

John: Really? Really, we shot near the sound stage?

Chris: We got a lot of mileage within a couple hundred yards of our sound stage.

Amy: Clackamas.

John: Beautiful scenic Clackamas. And this actually, the fake registration idea came from Darwyn Cooke’s comic book adaptation of Parker. The Donald Westlake novel. In the opening of it, remember, he has the thing with Parker and—it’s one of my favorite starts to a novel, Parker’s walking into New York on the Brooklyn Bridge, like, but on the street? And people are—So what happens is, in the 1960s, he goes and gets his replacement driver’s license, and then he ages it. Because… and we spent a little time in the room like, what doesn’t have your picture on it? What can we age believably that, and, yeah that was where the idea came from. And then constructing this backwards to get the series of clues was- was a long afternoon.

Amy: Yeah, that was a tough—but then we broke this episode in one day, so it wasn’t that tough.

Marc: But I wasn’t allowed to break the window.

Amy: Oh that’s right, I remember that. Yeah, we had to, she had to jimmy it open.

Chris: ‘Cause that glass is expensive.

John: Breakaway glass is not cheap. Uh, there’s something creepily sexual about this exchange.

Chris: ‘Can I have your overalls?’

Amy: Yeah, and the look on Tim’s face, too.

John: Yeah, well I think that might not be the matching dialogue with that take, ‘cause I think it got a little dirty in that shot. Now this is a great location. I think we actually broke into a couple of storage units for this. People don’t mind, it’s Portland, they’re totally cool with us doing that. Good stall, and then we finally get Nate into a costume for the stall. Storage units, the anonymity of modern life is the key to Leverage. Storage units, cell phones, instant messaging, email, you know, I don’t think you could do this show in the 50s. And there you go, yeah.

Chris: Here he is.

Marc: Uh-oh. Gun, danger.

John: And, is that Dashiel Hammett or Raymond Chandler’s rule?

Amy: Yeah, Dashiel Hammett’s.

John: Dashiel Hammett. When in doubt, have a guy enter with a gun. And we actually have on the board in the writers room, ‘Man entering with gun > man exiting with gun.’ You have to understand, dude coming in… And Tim has an enormous amount of fun.

Chris: And this is his fumfering bureaucrat.

Marc: This was a fun shot to do. Craning up just to see, and then that’s the CG building that we added in the background.

Chris: That’s right, to set up the ending.

John: Yeah, in the original ending it was all done through remote camera, and then Dean suggested that we actually put it, attached it to it, and since cable access shows are shot in the middle of fricking nowhere, it actually worked out fine. And whenever- Oh, there you go.

Amy: Well I think Dean’s idea of that was just, sort of, to give our villain a bigger comeuppance, if he had to, sort of, face his victims...

John: Face-to-face. And that’s interesting ‘cause we always go like, you need the gloat, but you also need the suffering. And in the non-him-showing-up version, we had—

Amy: It was basically just the gloat, yeah. I mean he still ends in jail, but.

John: We have the people upset, but you know, you don’t get him looking them right in the eye.

Marc: Small spaces to work in. 

[All Laugh]

Chris: How was it like, shooting the storage locker?

Marc: It was a little tough.

Amy: I remember this day.

Marc: You know, it was a double, but we just made it look like one, so we had room to always just have the camera on one side.

Amy: Yeah, there was actually another storage locker that opened up right next to this, to the left, so we could have somewhere to switch the cameras.

John: So did you throw up like a half-wall over on that side, or is it just, stack some boxes to feel like-

Marc: We just stack some boxes and just move the camera, but you’ll notice the camera’s usually on that side, looking that direction.

Chris: And here’s where he’s really starting to lose it, ‘cause he does have an arc, from inexplicably baroque, to just completely losing it.

John: No, he totally sold this. There’s no doubt about it whatsoever. And you guys took what was a joke pitch and turned it into a real character. That was just me on a long drunken rant. I’m inexplicably baroque, in the room, often! 

Amy: This is, by the way, true. 

John: Yeah. And Luke, losing it. Really the whole confession, the whole begging; he really sold it.

Marc: And of course, you know, time constraints. His stuff was shot all at night, hers was all in the daytime.

Amy: Of course. That’s how it works.

John: Really? So looking at Luke, you were looking, you had night behind you looking out?

Marc: It was night.

Chris: Here we go.

John and Chris: Det cord. 

[All Laugh]

Amy: Det cord is great. 

Marc: Our friend for the back half of season uh—

Amy: Thank you MythBusters for det cord.

John: Thank you MythBusters for showing us how det cord worked and how effectively—

Amy: I think I pulled that from a YouTube video.

John: Yeah, well we started with Thermite, remember? ‘Cause I remember how it melted through the car and you were like, ‘No, that’s too huge’, and you found us some det cord.

Marc: Here I just wanted to have a shot of Eliot’s arms.

John: So here’s a little something for the ladies, as my wife says. And now, this is very flashback heavy, but it’s all in continuity. You did a nice job of making sure we’ve seen just enough of these that we never floated. ‘Cause sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh god, do we know exactly where we are in this flashback?’

Chris: I think we compressed a little of it in editing too. I think there was a little bit more and we kind of just moved it all.

Amy: Yeah, there’s a lot more here than…

John: Ah, the network is unhappy; they’re gonna go get one of these real psychics now, not a fake psychic like this.

Chris: And then we get to see our victim again, and our other victim.

John: The proxy victim. 

Amy: And the camera lady’s like, ‘I don’t wanna be part of this,’ backing out of the scene.

John: And the begging and the pleading. There you go. And there’s all the people who’ve been hurt. 

Chris: The man from Michigan. 

John: Did he stay in a hotel? Why is he still there? He got his reading yesterday. I don’t remember why he…

Chris: He wanted to come back; he had more to find out.

John: I guess so, I guess so.

Marc: This is always fun when you shoot things on two different days, that end, and that end.

Chris: Is Tim looking at a tennis ball, what do you do?

John: Is that like Jurassic Park? Or it’s like this tennis ball on a hockey stick is Chris’ hair. ‘Just track this.’

Chris: You just make sure your script supervisor takes good notes of uh...

John: Look at that, you’re shooting past the car! He’s in the car. 

Chris: Nice, I never would have known that.

John: Nicely done. And this is actually, you know what? The president of the network the other day mentioned how much he loves the scenes where they’re all there. Where the guy actually, like, sees the whole- the whole con.

Amy: The family gloat, as opposed to just the singular gloat.

Marc: That’s the way we pull off this show in seven days - cheating.

Amy: Cheating very cinematically.

John: I prefer to call it cable awareness.

Amy: Cable awareness? Nice.

Marc: Now I think this next scene in the bar is, I think, one of my favorite wrap-up scenes that I’ve got to direct.

Amy: It’s one of my favorite, too.

Marc: It was one of these days where it was- there were so many tears on set.

John: We were coming to the end, too; we were getting there. Everyone was kind of rung up and spun up.

Marc: But everyone just, you know, Tim and Jeri and Beth and everybody, our guest actors, everybody just came in so strong and it was great.

John: This speech, by the way, you can really tell Tim’s a dad. That’s really how he lands this speech, it’s like, yeah.

Chris: Well the story, it’s an interesting story because the little peanut butter bit, a very good friend, a writer friend, Steve O’Donnell, who is a long time Letterman writer, and he has a twin brother Mark O’Donnell—also a writer, wrote the book to Hairspray. And I remember talking to him one time about the closeness of the two of them, and he said that they’re so close, that if you laid out peanut butter, that somebody spread on different pieces of bread, he could pick out his brother’s peanut butter. And it always stuck with me that that is something that, when I was writing this scene, that there’s just things that you see in your child that you just recognize from yourself or your father, and it has nothing to do with what you did, it’s all biological. And that was really, it did a beautiful job with it.

John: Nice landing on that. And Jeri there, by the way, she’s got a little glisten going there; she got a little moist.

Chris: And here’s this moment that was not scripted at all. Well, not intended in the script, but just through the acting.

John: But that was nice. Jeri landed the arc. She kind of completed Tara’s arc through there. 

Chris: Yeah, she got it.

John: She had gone through all six episodes and she, you know, a lot of actors would come in and take up the space and say thanks for the job, but she really put in the work from [unintelligible].

Chris: There it is. I mean, that’s like...

John: I mean, she’s breaking your heart there.

Chris: She’s hugging her brother.

Marc: And I just gotta make sure that she makes that eye contact with Nate.

Chris: And it was all because that part about her brother was added after that scene was written, but she brought it together in this moment.

John: It’s a lovely beat. We have very, very good actors.

Marc: Then we release the valve and let you chuckle here.

Chris: Yes. We call it, in the comedy business, a treacle cutter.

John: A treacle cutter, yeah. And also Kane really lands these beats. He really- it goes from a smile, all the way to annoyed. He hits both of the crucial Eliot beats here. It’s the grin, and then, ‘I’m gonna kick your ass.’ He really hits all the bases on that one.

Chris: And we kind of end on her surrogate brother here.

John: Yeah. Who she may sleep with. Still haven’t decided that.

Amy: It’s a little incestual.

John: Yeah, you know, all television’s a little incestual. 

Chris: Oh they’re all...

John: What, they’re all sleeping together, is that what you meant? What’s going on up there?

Chris: No, that’s—Come on. It’s like Star Wars.

John: Oh there you go, that’s perfectly legit. Anything you want to say to the nice folks?

Amy: Thanks everybody.

Marc: Thank you. It was a great episode to work on. 

Chris: Thank you guys.

John: And actually thanks for David Wechsler, ‘cause he came in late and really helped us out on that. Really good job. And hopefully Luke Perry will be back. Less evil.

Chris: As his twin brother.

John: There you go.

Chris: Why not?

[sdktrs12]

Hello!! Relatively new to Good Girls and brio and all that. Any recs for season 1 fics? Or any fics that are just particularly funny? Thanks!

Season 1 fics (stars next to authors who have multiple season one fics) -

Housewives and Gangbangers by thingcalledlove *  

rated E & T | series 8k+ total | mostly PWP | canon compliant  

I don't wanna know the way down... by by_no_one_more_than_me (Lady_Cleo)*

rated M | one shot 2k+ | blood/violence + smut | canon divergent  

blueberries and cream by wildcard_47

rated M | one shot 200+ | a snippet surrounding a certain pancake fantasy | canon compliant

Fantasy by KristiLynn *

rated E | one shot 900+ | PWP | canon compliant  

The Only Time by alinalotus *  

rated E | one shot 7k+ | domestic fluff + smut | canon compliant  

If it Ain't Love by It_MightBe_Love

rated M | multi chapter 8k+ | domestic fluff + smut | canon divergent

cast me down where the devil don't go by amosanguis

rated M | one shot/series 800+ | soul mates AU | canon compliant

Rio Isn't The Forgiving Type by saucedo1997 *

not rated | one shot 800+ | outsider POV – demon | canon compliant

The Mouth You Wear by liferaft *

rated T | one shot 1k+ | angst + multi POV | canon divergent  

you are a past sinner by FakePlastikTrees *

rated E | one shot 1k+ | PWP + beth breaking shit | canon compliant  

happiness is a warm gun by AMiserableLove

not rated | one shot 1k+ | angst | canon compliant  

the way you moan, you make a symphony by medievalraven

rated E | one shot 2k+ | PWP | canon divergent  

Peaches & Cream by sleepylotus *

rated E | multi chapter 8k+ | smut + domestic fluff | canon divergent    

The Perfect Excuse by mskatej *  

rated E | series 12k+ total | fake dating + domestic fluff + smut | canon compliant

A Fairytale by Indieblue

rated M | one shot 1k+ | rio POV – character study | canon compliant  

I Wanna Fuckin' Tear You Apart by sunken__ships

rated T | one shot 5k+ | outsider POV – annie | canon compliant  

take me to that place where you always go by rowanshand

rated G | one shot 1k+ | angst + unresolved sexual tension | canon divergent

The Lady and The Gangfriend by inspiritedmama

rated E | multi chapter 7k (wip) | fluff + hurt/comfort + mild smut | AU – canon divergence  

mermaid tits by thefudge

rated M | one shot 900+ | rio POV + power plays | canon compliant  

Live Fast Die Young by waketosleep

rated M | one shot 2k+ | angst | canon compliant  

like tea made from rain by lilithenaltum

rated E | multi chapter 23k+ (wip) | fluff + domestic + smut | canon divergent

I Wanna Hear You by fanzel12 *

rated E | multi chapter 7k+ | fluffy domestic smut | canon divergent  

Kings and Queens by BeaDeM0 *  

rated E | multi chapter 48k+ | angst + fake dating vibes + domestic fluff + smut | canon divergent  

A couple of firsts and a second by MelCalder

rated E | multi chapter 38k+ | exploration of growing relationship + smut + fluff + angst | canon compliant

Two ships crossing in the night by actmademoiselle

rated M | one shot 2k+ | character study – missing/extended scenes + angst | canon compliant  

Handled by RouvaWuoti

rated M | multi chapter 26k+ | angst + fake dating vibes + smut | canon divergent

Love is a bitch by Milaistryingtowrite

rated E | multi chapter 15k+ | alternating POV + character study + angst + hurt/comfort + smut | canon compliant/divergent  

A House of Cards by elkcrossing *

rated M | one shot 3k+ | PWP – pancake lie becomes truth | AU – canon divergence

Sure am using you by Aniara *  

rated E | one shot 1k+ | outsider POV – original character + smut | canon compliant  

Slippery Slope by mamey2422 *  

rated E | multi chapter 3k+ | PWP | canon divergence

Photographic Evidence by angelspidey *

rated T | one shot 400+ | outsider POV – agent turner | canon compliant  

Shared History by watermelonriddles *  

rated T | multi chapter 113k+ | slow burn + fluff + angst | AU – canon compliant/divergence  

Next Time by nottonyharrison *  

rated E | multi chapter 8k+ | power play dynamics + snarky banter + smut | canon divergent  

Simpler Times by ohmisterjapan

rated E | one shot 2k+ | power play dynamics + PWP | canon divergent  

Losing Game by Niham87  *

rated E | multi chapter 174k+ (wip) | blood/violence + non con + angst + smut | AU – canon compliant/divergence    

A Little Jealous by EnsignDisaster *  

rated M | part of series 1k+ | rio POV + jealousy + violence + angst | canon compliant  

shameful company by Ejunkiet

rated T | part of a series 1k+ | character study – rio | canon compliant

The Space in Between by Slow_Burn_87

rated E | multi chapter 62k+ (wip) | fake dating vibes + angst + fluff + smut | canon divergence  

Souls Lost to be Won by entwinedloop *  

rated M | multi chapter 103k+ | slow burn + fake dating vibes + angst + hurt/comfort | canon divergent  

i never thought i'd hear my heartbeat so loud by fortunehasgivenup *

rated E | one shot 2k+ | angst + smut | canon divergent  

like a river flows by megleah

rated E | multi chapter 76k+ (wip) | violence + angst + smut | canon divergent

Someone Like You by sunshine83 *  

rated E | multi chapter 45k+ (wip) | smut + angst + domestic fluff | canon divergent  

The Pancakes Series by convolutedConcussion

rated M | series 10k+ total | snarky banter + pancakes + PWP | canon divergent

i'll see you on the other side by heretowinbitch

rated G | one shot 1k+ | missing/extended scene | canon compliant  

crash course in polite conversation by emeraldcut *

rated M | multi chapter 22k+ (wip) | slow burn + angst + smut | canon divergent

Stuck in the Middle by MissMaxime *

rated M | one shot 5k+ | exasperated beth + fake dating vibes + smut | canon divergent

Funny fics (ft. all the fluffy/snarky banter goodness) -

All of the Salmonella by linzackles  

rated E | one shot 8k+ | high brio + fluff + smut | season two canon compliant  

Ever Thought Of Calling When You've Had A Few? by FakePlastikTrees

rated E | one shot 2k+ | drunk brio + snark + smut | season two canon compliant  

Teach Me Tonight by riosnecktattoo  

rated T | one shot 7k+ | fluffy fluff + brio date + rio failing at chopsticks | season three canon compliant

Only You Show Me What Warmth Is by riosnecktattoo

rated M & E | series 17k+ total | domestic fluff + playful banter + smut | season three canon compliant  

The Gangsitter by nachocheese26

rated G & T | series 76k+ total | domestic fluff + dad!rio + meet the family | season two divergence  

The Pony Palace by EnsignDisaster

rated E | multi chapter 27k+ (wip) | flirty banter + date night + fluff + smut | AU – strip club  

Proper Skincare and Its Application by EnsignDisaster

rated G | one shot 2k+ | domestic fluff + rio POV | season three canon compliant

When Worlds Collide by Kenrune

not rated | one shot 4k+ | outsider POV + snarky banter + fluff | season three canon compliant  

The Clementine by femalegothic

rated M | part of series 7k+ | a bit of angst + some fluff + sexy fruit + smut | season three canon compliant  

better than a harmony by convolutedConcussion (+ all of their other fic. Seriously.)  

rated M | multi chapter 38k (wip) | domestic fluff + snarky banter + smut | AU – park meet cute/canon compliant  

You'll have to send a strong goddamn wind (to get rid of me) by MoodyFern

rated E | part of series 2k+ | snarky banter + PWP | season three canon compliant  

waiting for someone who needs me by s_t_c_s

rated E | one shot 9k+ | dummies being dumb + heavy use of sarcasm + smut | AU – genie  

Filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake by s_t_c_s

rated E | multi chapter 18k+ | domestic fluff + relationship exploration + smut | AU – private investigator  

let's play pretend just for a minute by vuccijl

rated T | multi chapter 9k+ | fake dating vibes + flirty banter | season two canon divergence  

Pre Season by wakeupflawless

rated M | multi chapter 11k+ (wip) | snarky banter + enemies to lovers | AU – college/sports  

Where You Belong by wakeupflawless

rated E | multi chapter 25k+ | snarky banter + enemies to lovers + angst + smut | AU – arranged marriage  

M/W/F by IFeelLikeGlitter  

rated M | part of series 9k+ | flirty banter + fluff + smut | AU – college

For Goodness' Bakes by fortunehasgivenup

rated M | one shot 2k+ | flirty banter + funny side commentary + fluff + smut | AU – baking competition  

Five Times People Walk In On Them by fortunehasgivenup

rated M | one shot 2k+ | outsider POV + smut | season two canon compliant

On A Dare by watermelonriddles

rated T | one shot 2k+ | OT3 fluffy snark + a bit of angst | season one canon compliant  

Where's My Shirt? by watermelonriddles

rated T | one shot 2k+ | brio + OT3 + fluff | season two canon compliant  

PTA Vibes by greyish

not rated | multi chapter 11k+ | snarky banter + amazing OC + rio POV + domestic fluff | season two canon divergence  

Both Sides of the Law by JoeyLee

rated T | multi chapter 52k+ (wip) | enemies to lovers + slow burn + rio POV + two ridiculously smart incredibly dumb people | AU – law school  

Stalking 101: Never Double Tap by voraciouswriter

rated M | one shot 4k+ | OT3 + social media stalking + smutty brio | season two canon divergence

for a moment we were strangers by openhearts

rated E | one shot 16k+ | smutty domestic fluff | season two canon divergence  

Roll the Footage by Briology

rated T | one shot 1k+ | rio POV + missing/extended scene | season one canon compliant  

A Bit of a Stretch by septiembre

rated T | one shot 4k+ | domestic fluff + rio POV + hurt/comfort | season three canon divergence  

vile and yet devout by nomind

rated E | part of a series 4k+ | rio POV + snarky banter + smutty power plays | AU – grocery store manager  

queen for a day by emeraldcut

not rated | one shot 5k+ | annie/rio roadtrip | season two canon compliant  

PTA Parents by thingcalledlove

rated T | series 5k+ | domestic fluff | season two canon compliant/divergence

[reidingandwriting]

A Thousand Years

Word Count: ~3,600 words

Ship: Aaron Hotchner x Reader (my first Hotch fic!!)

Warnings: A curse word or two, a suggestion towards smut; dialogue and plot kind of follows scenes from season 7, but plenty of originality :)

A/N: Credit for the inspiration goes to imreallyfunnybtw on TikTok!! The video that inspired this video is linked here. Can I please have an Aaron Hotchner of my own? This takes place around season 7, except for Beth it’s Y/N! I wrote this as a gender neutral reader with no descriptors, but if I missed anything while editing, please let me know :) I got permission from the creator to post this, so I hope it doesn’t disappoint!!

When Hotch lost Haley, he never really planned on getting into another relationship. He went on the occasional date, being dragged into playing a wingman role while with Rossi, but there was never that spark. There was never that feeling he had always heard of, that moment you knew you wanted that person in your life. And it’s not like he had much time for another person in his life. When he wasn’t at home with Jack, he was at work- whether that was at the FBI Headquarters in Quantico, or in another state for days at a time. And when he wasn’t working, Aaron valued every moment he could get with his son. When he did have time for himself, he often found himself in the park. And that’s where he met you. He had just finished his run when you came along.

------

“Either you do sprints for fun,” Hotch turned around as he heard a voice, a person jogging over and stopping a few feet away, “or you’re training for something. I hope it’s the latter because only a sadist would sprint like that.”

“No, I’m.. I’m trying to do this triathlon in February.” He spoke between pants, and your eyes lit up in recognition.

“The FBI one, right? You’re an agent? Oh, shit. I’m not supposed to ask if you’re an agent.”

“Yeah, the FBI one. I work for the,” a brief pause, “justice department.” A faint smile graced his lips, and you felt your own mood lifting at the sight. “I’m guessing you’re training, too?”

“Yeah. For a MS triathlon, in January. I’m not in nearly as big of a rush as you though.” 

“Well, I only have about forty five minutes a day. Between work and home, it’s… hard. And that’s just for the running. For biking? I’m pretty sure my tires are inflated.” Hotch let out a laugh and you smiled, an idea now in your mind.

“Well, I was planning on cycling this weekend. I’m not the best cyclist, so I could always use a partner. If you’re not busy.” 

“I, uh, don’t know my schedule for work yet. But I should know in the next few days, and I could call you?” Hotch asked and you nodded.

“Yeah! Yeah. I have a card somewhere.” You pulled a card out of your armband and handed it to Hotch. “If you have any free time this weekend, give me a call.” You started to walk off, but stopped when you heard him speak again.

“So, what made you think I was an agent?” You turned around and shrugged.

“I saw your suit. What else could you be?” And with a wave, you spun back around and jogged off with a laugh. Hotch watched you with a smile that didn’t leave until he got to work.

--

“So, are your tires all pumped and ready?” You asked as you settled on your bike. It was late Friday night when you got the call from Hotch, where he asked if you were free in the morning. You happily agreed, and now you were back in the park where you had met- bright and early on a Saturday morning.

“Hopefully. So, you haven’t done a lot of biking?” Hotch asked and you shook your head. “But you’re going to do a triathlon?” 

“Go big or go home.” You put your helmet on and adjusted the strap, and the look on Aaron’s face made you giggle. “That’s what my dad always says.”

“Your dad sounds smart.”

“He was. He passed away a couple months ago.” You weren’t a profiler, but it didn’t take one to notice the emotion that flashed through his eyes, the understanding. He’d been through loss as well. 

“I’m sorry. Is your mom still alive?” Hotch asked.

“Yeah. She’s doing a lot better.” 

“That’s good. And how are you?”

“I’m hanging in there.” A silent moment of understanding passed before you spoke again. “So, where are we headed?”

“I usually go up Connecticut, through Rock Creek Park, then back through Sixteenth. But we don’t have to do all that if you don’t want to.” “No, let’s do it.” You shifted as Aaron put on his helmet. “If we lose each other, we will meet back up with each other at Dupont Circle for coffee.”

“If we lose each other?” Aaron’s brows furrowed. “I thought we were doing this together.”

“The chase is the best part of it.” You winked before you pushed off the ground and pedaled away. Hotch shook his head, a fond smile on his face as he got on his bike and pedaled off after you.

------

That bike ride became the first of many training sessions together, which led to a few dates sprinkled in between. Whether he’d admit it or not is a whole other story, but you had worked your way into Aaron’s heart. While the two of you hadn’t been official for long, he felt as if your connection had been there from day one. Hotch was grateful for that feeling, which made your first real date much less nerve-wracking. It was Valentine’s Day, thank you Morgan for the reminder, and Hotch couldn’t remember the last time he felt that nervous for a date. 

------

Aaron stood on your front porch, bouquet of flowers in one hand, and his other knocked on your door. He took a deep breath to compose himself right as you opened the door. 

“Hi.” You said as you opened the door. “Oh, the flowers are beautiful. Thank you.” You took the flowers from Aaron. “I didn’t think we had anything planned.”

“You’re welcome.” Hotch said and he watched as you lowered your head to sniff the flowers. “And we didn’t, but I just get called away so often. So I thought we should take the opportunity while we had it.”

“That was very thoughtful. Let me grab my stuff and I’ll be right back.” You stepped inside and set the flowers down, then fixed your hair before you grabbed a sweater. Perfect, you nodded at your reflection in the mirror by your door before you stepped back out to meet Aaron. “So, what’s our plan?” You asked as you closed your door, locking it. 

“Well, I suppose I could tell you. But, uh, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.” He flashed a pair of tickets at you and you gasped. “So I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

“My first mistake.” You teased as Aaron started to walk down the stairs. “Oh!”

“Did you forget something?” Hotch turned to face you and you took a step closer to him. 

“This.” You leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips, which he gladly returned. You broke apart seconds later, a lovesick look on both of your faces. “Thought I should spare us the awkwardness later.” You walked down the stairs and offered your hand out to Aaron, and he took your hand, lacing your fingers together. “You don’t have the market cornered on surprises, Aaron.” 

“It’s not often I’m left speechless, but I am now.” Aaron’s laughter filled the street and you had discovered your favorite sound, and you wanted to hear it forever. 

------

After that date, Hotch knew he wanted you to meet Jack. And you couldn’t wait to meet him. Needless to say, both of you were nervous about the meeting. Aaron because you were his girlfriend, and Jack was his son. And you knew Jack was the most important person in Aaron’s life, and you wouldn’t want anything to come in between the two of them, so you hoped with all of your being that you and Jack would get along. You both had decided the FBI Triathlon would be the perfect time for you to meet his son. 

------

You were a few feet away from all the commotion as Hotch crossed the finish line, and you were cheering the entire time. You saw a group of people move over towards Hotch once he crossed, and you guessed they were his team, especially when one of the men set down a kid who then ran over to Aaron. Jack, you thought to yourself with a smile. He took a drink from a volunteer, thanking them, before he bent down to Jack’s level and put his medal on the hyper boy, a homemade sign clutched in his hands. Hotch talked to the group for a minute before you called his name. 

“Hotchner!”

“Y/N!” Hotch looked up then looked back at Jack. “Jack, there’s someone I want you to meet, come here.” You met Hotch halfway and tightly embraced him, a big grin on both of your faces. 

“You were amazing, congratulations.” You let go of him after a minute and Hotch stepped back. 

“Thanks. Y/N, I’d like you to meet my son, Jack. Jack, this is my friend, Y/N.”

“Hi.” Jack smiled up at you and you bent down, shaking his hand. 

“Hey there, Jack, it’s nice to meet you.” Your nerves had melted away once you saw Aaron with Jack, and you felt much more at ease. 

“Do you work with my dad, too?”

“No, we’re just friends.” You looked up at Hotch before you knelt to Jack’s level.”Did you make that yourself?” You nodded towards his sign, which he showed off when you mentioned it. 

“Yep! I cut it myself. And put the sparkles on it, too.” 

“You know what? I look at art all day long. And that, my friend, is pretty good.”

“Thank you.” Jack said. 

“You’re welcome!” You stood back up and Aaron spoke. 

“We’re going to get something to eat. Do you want to come?” Aaron asked you and you nodded. 

“Sure.”

“Okay, great.” Hotch led the way, Jack beside him, and you followed as the three of you made your way to his car. And all of you were oblivious to the looks on the faces of the team just a few feet away. 

“Who is that?” Morgan asked.

“Did you know he was seeing someone?” Spencer asked as he watched the pair.

“They’re so cute together.” Garcia cooed.

“Come on, let’s leave them alone.” Rossi ushered the group away and Emily turned to him with a gasp.

“You knew!”

------

Months had flown by since you first met Jack, and you frequented the Hotchner household, each time better than the last. It started off with a dinner here and there on the weekends, or a night where you’d play games or watch a movie until Jack fell asleep- where you’d then spend some time talking quietly with Aaron, your bodies curled into each other’s, before you headed home. Until one night, where he asked you to stay. 

“Stay with me? Uh, with us. You could stay for breakfast before we go to work.” Hotch had asked, and how could you say no to him? That night together, with your head against Aaron’s chest and his arms wrapped around you, you both knew that you wanted many more nights like those. After that, you spent most of your free time with the Hotchners. Building forts with Jack and helping him with homework, cooking dinner with Aaron and doing little things around the house to give him more time with his son.

When Hotch met you, he never imagined that, months later, he would be in a serious relationship with you. But ever since you had entered his life, you had proved yourself to be resilient. And completely unpredictable. That was something Aaron loved about you, he never knew exactly what was running through your mind. Which led him to now.

He’s seen a lot of unexpected things in his life, he worked as a profiler for god’s sake. But the one thing he never expected was to see you, dancing around in the rain with Jack, your phone playing music from its spot on the front porch. Of course it was on the railing, you knew how worried your boyfriend got over you breaking your phone. Again.

“Y/N, please, quit leaning over the railing.” Hotch’s ‘dad voice’ came out in full effect as he saw you leaned over the side of a bridge, your phone in your outstretched arm. Your other hand was holding Jack’s, who was content looking at the fish in the river below the bridge.

“Just a second! I want to get a good picture.” 

“You can get just as good of a picture without dangling.” Aaron tried to reason, but you waved him off. Unfortunately for you, with your wave, you sent your phone flying down into the water below. 

“Oh, sh-oot.” You turned towards Hotch, your eyes narrowed as you pointed at him. “I blame you.”

“Me?!”

Hotch grabbed your phone and set it somewhere safer and shook his head at the sight in front of him. You and Jack were both wearing your rain boots, and you were loudly singing along with the music. Jack tried to protest through his laughter, feigning embarrassment, but you scooped him into your arms as you kept singing. 

“Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere!” You spun around as you sang the last word, and the sound of Jack’s laughter made Aaron smile. You set Jack down and you continued dancing, cheering when Jack danced around with you. You didn’t see Aaron on the porch until Jack pointed him out. 

“Dad! Come play with us.” 

“Yeah, Aaron, come play.” You pouted at Hotch, but he didn’t miss the teasing glint in your eyes. “Or are you too cool to join us?”

“And miss out on watching you two? Maybe later.” Hotch chuckled as he leaned against the railing of the porch. You shrugged as you turned back to Jack. 

“Bet I can make a bigger splash in that puddle.” You pointed towards a puddle a few feet away, and Jack ran off, accepting your challenge. You winked at Aaron before running after him. You continued to jump around in the puddles in the yard, and you made sure to let Jack win a few rounds of your splash contest. 

You squealed when the song changed to a song Aaron was familiar with, and you looked at him. “Turn it up!” Hotch groaned dramatically but turned the song up as you started dancing and singing.

“Kiss me once cause you know I had a long night. Kiss me twice cause it's gonna be alright. Three times 'cause I've waited my whole life. One, two, one two three four! I like shiny things but I’d marry you with paper rings.” You continued to dance to the music and Aaron couldn’t help but notice how happy you looked. How happy Jack looked. Your connection with him wasn’t forced, you never pushed or tried to put yourself in a situation until you knew Jack and Aaron both were okay with it. Hotch was more nervous than words could explain when it came to you and Jack, but the sight in front of him made his worries melt away. You were dancing, hands up in the air as you twirled around, laughing as you stumbled and nearly fell back into a puddle. Jack was doubled over in laughter and you playfully narrowed your eyes at him. 

“Oh, you think it’s funny, huh?” Once you were steady on your feet, you began to count. “Three… two…” Jack’s eyes widened and he ran to hide behind his dad.

“Base! Can’t get me up here.” Jack peeked out at you and stuck his tongue out, and you mimicked him. “Wait, need a break. Need a snack, then we can keep playing?”

“Of course we can. Take your shoes off at the door.” Aaron said to Jack as he went inside.

Once Jack was inside, you walked over to Aaron, still swaying your hips to the music, until you reached the steps. You then held your hand out and looked up at him. “Come on, you have to come dance. Let loose a little, have some fun.” “I can ‘let loose’ without getting rained on.” Hotch said and you pouted.

“Please? Just one dance. Then I’ll let you continue to be a grumpy old man who’s allergic to fun.” Hotch narrowed his eyes at you, and you smirked, knowing you had him now. 

“Old man, huh? I’ll remember that.”

“I’m sure you’ll remind me tonight.” You climbed up the steps of the porch and grabbed your phone. You scrolled through your music before you found the song you were looking for. “But first,” you pressed play on the song before you took Aaron’s hands, “we dance.” You led Aaron down to his front yard and turned to face him. “You do know how to slow dance, right?”

“Let’s find out.” Hotch pulled you into him as the song played, letting the music lead as you started to dance. The rain drizzled over both of you, but you smiled up at him as you danced.

Heart beats fast

Colors and promises

How to be brave

How can I love when I'm afraid to fall

“I can’t hear this song without thinking of those stupid Twilight movies you showed me.” Hotch chuckled as you danced, his arms warm against your waist and you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“They were such a vital part of pop culture for years, they are not stupid.” You scoffed. “You were so into them. If I remember correctly, you gasped at the last movie when you thought Carlisle died.”

“Hmm, can’t say I remember that.” Hotch tried to deny but you saw the smile he tried hard to suppress. 

“I may not be a profiler like you, but I do know when you’re lying.” You rested your head against his chest and let the steady sound of his heartbeat relax you. 

But watching you stand alone

All of my doubt, suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

“You’re really good with him.” Hotch spoke after a minute and you looked up at him. He had a soft smile on his face and a certain look in his eyes you couldn’t decipher. Love, maybe? You felt your cheeks heat up at the thought, and you shook your head to clear your mind.

“He’s a great kid. He has a pretty awesome dad, too.” Aaron leaned down and pressed a kiss to your head, your wet hair tickling his face. 

“And he has you. He loves you, you know?” You smiled and combed your fingers through his hair. “We both do.” 

“I love him, too.” You leaned up, your lips brushing against Aaron’s as you whispered. “And... I love you.” Hotch closed the gap between you two, and the feeling of his lips against yours still gave you butterflies after all these months you’ve spent together. 

I have died everyday, waiting for you

Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years

I'll love you for a thousand more

You pulled apart moments later, a lovesick smile on Aaron’s face and yours. You breathed out a sigh as Aaron brushed your hair out of your face, before he pressed a kiss to your forehead. You closed your eyes, enjoying the peaceful moment before you heard the front door open and close. 

“Daddy, Y/N, I have popsicles!” You and Aaron laughed as you looked at Jack, who held three popsicles in his hand. 

“We’ll be right there, buddy.” Hotch said to Jack before he looked at you again. “Hope you like the blue ones, red is mine.” 

“Blue is the best anyways.” You ran your finger down Hotch’s blue shirt before you took his hand and walked over to the front porch. 

“The team wants to meet you. Properly, at Rossi’s. Jess has already agreed to watch Jack, if you want to go. Dinner on Sunday?” Aaron looked over at you and you looked up at him.

“I’d love to. You’ve told me so much about them, I can’t wait to properly meet them.” You climbed up the porch stairs and took a seat beside Jack, Aaron sitting on the other side of him. “Rossi’s got some big shoes to fill, with our little chef in training here. He made some amazing pancakes with me this morning.” You ruffled Jack’s hair and took the popsicle he held out for you. “Thank you, Jack.”

“I think those were the best pancakes I’ve ever had.” Hotch took the other popsicle from Jack, kissed his head, and thanked him. “Maybe Jack should cook dinner, too.” Jack giggled and shook his head.

“You promised Chinese noodles.” 

“Lo mein.” You corrected him.

“Lo mein.” Jack mimicked before handing his popsicle to you. “Please?” You tore the popsicle wrapper open and handed it back to him. He accepted it with a soft ‘thank you’ and tucked himself into your side.

“You did promise at lunch we could have takeout for dinner. Since Jack ate those disgust- I mean, delicious brussel sprouts without complaining.” You corrected yourself when Hotch’s eyes playfully narrowed at you.

“Y/N didn’t even eat theirs without making faces.” Jack spoke as he bit into his popsicle and you gasped.

“I did not! You’re imagining things, bud.” You patted his head and bit your popsicle. Jack dove into a detailed retelling of lunch, and the sound of your laughter along with Jack’s storytelling filled Aaron’s ears and he couldn’t be happier this was his life.

And all along I believed, I would find you

Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years

I'll love you for a thousand more

Taglist: @ssa-sugar-tits​ and @spidey-reids-2003​ ❤ Taglist and requests are OPEN, just send me an ask or a message :) 

[irishmacguirefucker]

Meeting Tilly Jackson

A.N: (So originally this was going to be for my au but I realized that if I wanna write Tilly in my AU i need to properly understand her background. We don't have a lot of specific details in the game, so i wrote this. Essentially its how Dutch found Tilly and took her in. She’s 14 in this. I will probably have a part 2 soon. Its a little dialogue heavy)

(TW: Sexual Assault of a minor is mentioned but nothing happens, blood)

Wordcount:  3110

-

Tilly Jackson has a family. They may be a little odd, different than what everyone else might consider a family, but a family nonetheless. Dutch and Hosea her father figures, Susan Grimshaw a motherly presence. Sisters in Karen, Mary-Beth and the other women of the camp, brothers in Arthur and John and most of the other men. The titles don't matter so much as the feeling of safety and comfort and appreciation among them. She missed her late mother of course, but she hoped on some level her mother would be happy with how things turned out for the girl in the end. Being kidnapped at the age of 12 was nothing short of traumatizing, and for a long while, things only got worse. The Foreman gang was the opposite of a family. They were nothing to her but the people who stole her away from her mother claimed to own her. The ones who tried to take advantage of her. The night that Malcolm Foreman tried to make advances on her and she killed him was the night she would consider herself grown. 

She's not sure exactly how long she was alone, it must have been under a year. She went to find her mother only to hear of her death, and with nowhere else to go she just kept running. The further she made it the less likely that Anthony Foreman would find her and pay her back for what she did to his cousin. She knows that it was early spring when she left. The snow had barely been off the ground, she supposed that no longer being wrapped in a ratty cloak and scarf was the reason that gang member thought to make his move. 

Dutch found her just when it was beginning to get cold again. 

Despite considering herself grown, her body disagreed. The shoes she ran away in were already ill-fitted, and by that autumn they were practically falling apart. Her toes stuck out the front. She had done her best to steal clothing off people’s clotheslines, but they rarely fit.

Dutch caught her doing just that. He had been watching the property of some well off folks, planning on casing it with Arthur later that week. He watched as a girl no older than 14, snuck out from the tree line in a torn-up blouse and a too-long skirt.

She was clearly not experienced in stealing as she tripped over her skirts up the property, but she made it to the side of the house mostly successfully. She quickly tore down a long dress and an undershirt and quickly started back to the tree line. She stared wistfully at the property's large orchard and nearly turned her course towards it before hearing the owner of the house open his front door and stealing away into the forest. Even from a distance, Dutch knew what that hesitation meant. She was hungry.

Dutch was hardly one to let a promising little thief like her starve in the forest, so with a passing glance at the house he stood from his hiding spot up the hill and mounted the Count.

Tracking was never one of Dutch’s strongest abilities but she made it rather easy, with footprints in the mud, a scrap of fabric where her clothing caught a branch, etc. Eventually, he reached a spot where she seemed to trip and fall, and then there were a few drops of blood here and there as he followed. He knew he was getting closer, the blood wasn’t dry. He dismounted his horse and began leading him forward when suddenly she jumped out from behind a tree wielding a large rusted hunting knife. 

“Don’t come any closer! You can take your clothes back, here.” She kicked over the items he had just watched her steal. “Don’t tell the law, and I’ll disappear. I don’t have anything more to offer you.”

Dutch grinned, she was strong-willed. But he also observed that her cheeks were sunken in, and her skin was dull. She was visibly malnourished, and there was blood dripping from one of her small hands. He hoped it was a branch she cut herself on and not that dirty knife of hers.

He put his hands up in a friendly gesture.

“I’m not the man you robbed earlier, don’t you worry. I watched you steal that dress, you’re quite the little thief.” 

She was doing a damn good job of hiding her fear, but Dutch was experienced in seeing past such facades. She didn’t seem scared of the weapon she was holding, as the young and inexperienced often were when they wielded such an item. She just seemed scared of him. 

“Why did you follow me, it ain’t your things I stole. I have nothing to give you, so you best just leave me be.” She didn’t stutter, her high pitched voice remained unwavering and strong. Dutch tried his best to look unthreatening, something he didn’t find himself having to do often. 

“Well, I myself was planning on robbing that house myself later with a few of my friends, perhaps I just wanted to see if you had any advice for me as a seasoned visitor of that property.”

She didn’t believe him and didn’t lower her knife, but she didn’t run either. Good. “Now if I reach for something in my saddle bag here are you gonna come at me with that big old knife?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

Dutch smiled. “Well if you and I are gonna talk business I thought that maybe I could pay you for your time, little lady.”

She finally lowered the knife a little, seeming less afraid but very suspicious. “You wanna pay me for information on that house?”

“I do. Information is worth a lot to us outlaws, you should know that well Darlin’” He slowly turned to the horse. Even if she did attempt to stab him, she wouldn’t get to him before he could turn around, so he wasn’t worried. As he was digging through the saddlebag she spoke up behind him.

“Don’t call me Darlin.” 

He smiled at her bravado but kept looking through the bag. “Well, you’ve yet to give me something else to call you Miss. Ah! Here it is!” He turned back to her holding a small stack of cash and a wrapped parcel. 

“Yeah, well neither have you!” There’s that reminder that he’s talking to a child. They’re always so petulant. John had been just the same, though a little more rabid. “Well, I’m Dutch, Dutch Van der Linde.”

He studied her face for any sign of recognition, but there was none. Good, less reason for her to be afraid of him. She didn’t give her name just yet. 

“Are you with the Foreman brothers?” She asked boldly. “I won’t let you take me back, I’ll kill you before you get me back there.” That would explain her fear, she wasn’t just a thief. She was a runaway from another gang.

“Now I’ll tell you right now Miss, I’m not with Anthony Forman or his little gang. The only gang I’m with is the Van der Linde gang, and I promise me and mine won’t bring you any harm.”

“You...You lead a gang?” She was shaking, it was starting to get colder as the sun was setting. 

“I am, but we aren’t like those bastards you knew. We’re just good people, looking to live free.”

Then he did something bold, a gesture to help her feel safer in the presence of a gang leader. Hopefully, she would be a little more at ease. “Do you mind if I sit down Miss-” 

“Jackson. Tilly Jackson.”

He smiled. “Miss Jackson. Do you mind if I sit while we talk? Tracking you was quite a little adventure.” 

“Go ahead, I guess.” 

“Thank you, Tilly.” He sat down on a log just to the side, and she lowered her weapon fully but gripped it tight. “Now, go ahead and take this.” He took a couple of bills and tucked them into the string around the parcel. She stared at it suspiciously.

 “I didn’t tell you nothing yet and I ain’t stupid mister Van der Linde, why are you giving me this.” 

He smiled and leaned forward to place the parcel on the ground in front of him, between them. 

“As I said, you’re quite the thief and I think you could help me out. Doesn't hurt to butter up the informant. There's some food in the package, I thought you looked a little hungry.”

She seemed to stare at the parcel longingly and something clenched in Dutch’s cold heart. The poor girl must be starving.

 “I…I don’t have no info for you, Mister Van der Linde. I just needed the clothes.” She seemed disappointed to be saying it, but she didn't lie to him like he thought she might.

“Well...maybe you could just keep me company then Milady. Good company is hard to find among us outlaws, as I’m sure you know.”

In a flash, she was back two steps and her knife was raised once more.

“I ain’t that kind of girl. you can keep your fucking money and go pay a real whore for your damned “company’”

This was the opposite of the outcome he was looking for, and entirely at the fault of his own poor word choice. He should have known better, there are only a few things that can happen to a young girl in this country to put her on the run and make her fear good company. 

“Now listen here, Miss Jackson. I am not that kind of man, I wouldn’t take advantage of you like I’m sure the bastards in Foreman’s gang tried. It’s like I said it, my gang is just good men looking for freedom and money. You can leave right now if you want and I won’t stop you, or you can stay and eat some, and I promise I won’t even look at you funny.”

She stood frozen, knife gripped tight. She seemed to be weighing her options. Dutch had yet to pose a threat to her, his weapons remained holstered. He hadn’t even tried to come close to her. She steeled her nerves and spoke again. 

“Then...Give me one of your guns. If you really ain’t gonna try nothing then give me one of your pistols and if you try and do anything bad I’ll shoot you.”

In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t have even considered it. But this wasn’t some criminal who he was wringing for information. This was a terrified little girl who was too afraid of the man in front of her to even eat food when she was starving. He slowly reached for his left holster and pulled out the pistol. He made a big show of flipping it in his hand so that his finger stayed away from the trigger as not to scare her, and he placed it beside the parcel. Gently he pushed them both over with his foot and sat back on the log with his hands beside him. 

She stared at him, and quick as lightning she grabbed the items from the ground. She backed up to her spot and slowly sat on the ground. The pistol was too big for her hand, and her other hand was getting blood on the side of the wrapped meat. Slowly she unwrapped the piece of dried venison, not breaking eye contact with the man sitting before her. “Why are you being so kind to me, I ain’t never heard of a ‘Good’ outlaw, we’re all just killers and thieves.”

He took note of the word ‘we’ before killers and thieves. Perhaps there was a reason she was so steady holding that knife. “I suppose no truer words have been spoken Miss Tilly, but I was never the type to watch a young lady suffer…You know, I found my son Arthur when he was about your age. The boy was just starving in the streets, stealing what he could. Quite like you are now.”

She didn’t respond, just stared at him a moment longer before taking a large bite of the meat. He hadn’t seen someone eat so ravenously since he fed John for the first time.

It took a lot of talking to get her to let her guard down. She didn’t reveal much about herself, other than that her mother died and she wasn’t part of the foreman gang, she was just there. Though the tension in her shoulders slowly sapped away as she filled her stomach and let herself calm down. They spoke for a few hours and he tried his best not to treat her like a child, god knows they hate when you do that. He couldn’t help but notice that she just seemed so sad. Once all that fear subsided and she spoke more freely, it was clear that she was lost. She mentioned her mother’s death with deep sorrow, her eyes going glassy before she seemed to catch herself and move on. 

Eventually, her hand stopped bleeding, and he tried to catch a look at it as she gestured. The sun was nearly set and he would have to get back to camp before they went looking for him.

He told her as much and he watched that deep-set sadness seep back to her features. 

“Oh… well. It was nice to meet you Dutch.” She used his first name for the first time. He stood up and she did as well, wincing as she used her injured hand to push off the ground.

“You know... you could come back with me and let our doctor take a look at that hand. Well...she ain’t exactly a doctor, but she can fix it. We wouldn’t want that getting infected, it’s far easier to be an outlaw with both hands.”

She wanted to go with him, he could see it in her eyes. Good friends are hard to come by when you’re a child with no home. 

“And perhaps, you could stay awhile. Learn how to be a real outlaw instead of a dress thief.” She seemed offended at the comment, a funny little scowl crossing her features. She was thinking about the offer, and he hoped it sounded at least a little better than sleeping alone in the forest. 

“If I come to your camp….nobody's gonna try and touch me?”

 “Absolutely not my dear, if they try I’ll cut off their hand myself.” She seemed to giggle a little at the notion, a sound he would take pride in. She sobered up and asked; 

“And I can leave whenever I want? I ain’t gonna let anyone try and say they own me ever again.”

“If you come to camp, Tilly Jackson will remain a free woman, but you’ll have a home to come back to if that’s what you would like.”

He watched her hesitate a little longer. Some coyotes barked in the distance and she shivered.  “Maybe just for a little while. Just to try it.” 

“And you can leave whenever you want.” he reassured.

“And I can leave whenever I want.” She repeated it back like she was convincing herself. He turned his back to adjust the Count’s saddle and give him a sugar cube, and he heard small footsteps come closer to him.

“Um. Can I give him one? He’s real pretty.” Dutch turned and she was at his side, staring at the large animal. She was even smaller up close, and he could see that her bones stood up against her dark skin.

“You know, I think he would like that. Now here, take just one of these and put it in your hand flat. Don’t worry, he won’t bite you.” She went to take it from his hand before realizing her hands were full with the knife and Dutch’s gun. 

“Oh. Here you go, Mister Dutch.” She tried to hand him back the gun. Bravely he thought, to give up her best defense, but he didn’t take it.

“I’ll tell you what my lady, It’s gonna be a bit of a ride to get back to camp and I don’t want you feeling like you can’t hold your own. You hold on to that one just until we get back, alright? We can put your knife in the bag safe and sound.” She obliged, putting the hunting knife gently in the saddlebag and holding on to the pistol. Then Dutch gave her the sugar cube and she held it out to the horse gingerly. The Count had no such hesitation and stole the treat from her hand quickly, the softness of his nose near her fingers making her giggle.

“Now, I think we might just be ready to move! Can I help you up milady?” He said, with a ring clad hand extended like a butler. The gesture made her giggle more and Dutch was happy to see the sadness put aside for a little while. She took his hand in her much smaller one and let him lead her to the side of the saddle.

“Now, can I lift you or do you want to go stand on the log over there?” She could read the underlying notion. The hidden meaning of ‘Do you want me to touch you’, ‘is it okay if I lift you’, etc. He was being more considerate than anyone she had ever met. She took a deep breath and put a little trust in him.

“You can lift me if that’s okay.”

“It would be my honor milady.” He lifted her onto the horse’s rump and tried not to think about how light she was. How he could feel her bones through the layers of her shirt. Once she was settled, he climbed up himself. Before they got going he pulled out his canteen and an apple from the bag. 

“Here. Dinner will be done by the time we get to camp and there’s no reason you should go hungry back there, that just wouldn’t befit such a distinguished young lady.” She accepted the food, and he set the Count into a walk to get them out of the underbrush. Once they were on the path he pushed into a more brisk pace, but he wouldn’t risk trotting with her back there, the count’s trot could be rather rough and she’s so thin she would just be thrown off.

It would be a long ride back to camp at this pace, but it just gave him more time to get to know her and tell her about camp. 

[forasecondtherewedwon]

first of all I LOVE your writing!

What about a prompt with Beth borrowing Benny’s clothes? (could be a little spicy but doesn’t need to be)

Thanks!

Strategies for the Advanced Player

Pairing: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts Rating: M Word Count: 1336

Summary: "No woman can compete with Benny's love for himself." - Cleo, The Queen's Gambit Benny leaves his things lying around. There has to be something there that'll make him look at Beth the way she wants him to.

She can’t take it any longer.

She thought, when she agreed to this arrangement, that they both understood it for what it was: a ruse. Was Benny’s impressive mental archive of match history something she could benefit from? Yes. Was Beth able to recognize him as a valuable resource? Yes. Was the training he offered, despite those acknowledgements, also just an easy façade for an inevitably carnal relationship? She fucking figured!

Two weeks he’s had her suffering. Two of the five before Paris. Staying in his apartment, drinking his coffee, and sleeping where? On an air mattress that smells like mildew and makes trying to get comfortable enough to sleep an experience equivalent to a child learning to ride a bike (not that anyone ever taught her)—just way too much wobbling side to side.

Maybe Benny does want to keep this professional. Maybe he thinks that much of himself, his stature in the chess world, his imperviousness to her beauty and charisma, his purity as a man truly devoted to chess and coaching a chosen protégé to victory. Bastard. He just might. Except that he can’t be that obtuse, Beth’s certain. She made him aware of her attraction to him and how does he respond? By wearing that fucking robe. Or sometimes no robe! No shirt! Yeah, it kinda brings back memories of her mom dressing way, way down around the house when her fickle husband was still jerking her (them, really, though Beth never felt like more than an observer of the situation or him) around, but that was different. Alma was at sea, depressed, unable to locate even the thinnest straw to grasp. Benny’s flaunting his partial nudity, Beth swears he is. It’s not about relaxing in his own home; it’s about torturing her.

She glares at his back every night he gives her that look and shuts himself in his bedroom. Privacy is a luxury in this dismal apartment and he heightens its appeal by colouring it coquettish. Every morning he emerges, sits across from her at the chessboard, adjusts his pieces—black or white, they alternate, the way the game should be played—with hovering hands and delicate shifts. Making Beth tense. Making Beth want to scream.

Benny’s home is like a vault within a vault. The awkward entry, the narrow trash-lined corridor. The heavy door, the bleak interior. Finally, the bedroom. She’s not sure if it’s her arrival that causes him to draw items of importance close to himself or if that’s how he’s always behaved, but week two cascades into week three and a pounding headache yields to the realization that he’s quit squirreling things away. Away in his room, away from her. Specific things. Copies of books he lectures her about and has always carried back to some secret shelf at the end of the day are suddenly left on the table. One night, Beth expresses an interest in taking a long, solitary walk soon and the next day, she wakes to hear Benny in the shower and find that he’s left her his key on the kitchen counter where she prepares her breakfast. The books and the key have made a transition and become pieces of their communal space. Is this trust? If not for him screwing with her vis-à-vis the robe, Beth would soften at the gesture. Too late.

He leaves his jacket and hat in the living room. The next morning, early, she slips the jacket on over her pink pajamas and slaps the hat onto her head. Clothes are identity—hers are, and so are his. Her mother embroidered a dress with her name and though she saw Mrs. Deardorff take it away to be burned, Beth never saw the fire. It might’ve been beautiful. For years, she wore lusterless browns and bruised blues, nothing ever new, everything the former garment of another orphan. Those were the colours and fabrics of loneliness. Since then, Beth’s only worn another person’s clothes for a particular reason: to feel close to Alma after her death. She dons Benny’s apparel with an eerie mix of that same solemnity and the helium-high humour of a clown. What can she say? The sexual tension’s got her slightly unhinged.

She remembers the interview. The implication of madness. She sits in Benny’s seat, facing his bedroom and wearing his clothes, and props her face delicately against the back of the fingers of both hands, like she does during some matches. Her fingernails touch, making a V below her chin. Unfortunately, her head’s drooping with sleepiness when Benny emerges, but she thinks he still gets the effect.

Halting the morning momentum that always propels him straight across the room to begin making coffee, he stares. He’s still doing it when Beth ceases yawning and blinking. Shirtless. Asshole.

“You want to explain what you’re doing?” he asks.

She glances down at herself. It’s really uncomfortable, sitting with so much jacket bunched up against her lower back. Why would he do this?

“Besides the obvious?” she checks. Benny’s expression says he’s ready to be amused, but he’s not there yet. She’ll need to lead him. “I’m trying a new strategy.”

“Osmosis?”

“Please don’t. I hope I’m not absorbing anything through this jacket. I’m just taking things a step further than reading your book.”

“The fact that you say that like it’s a logical progression worries me.”

Beth laughs, then remembers something.

“Oh!” she says, and holds up a finger before ducking her head and affixing the fake mustache. She raises her head. “Can’t believe I almost forgot.”

Now, Benny laughs.

“What… what is…?” he wheezes.

“I cut a couple strands off your broom. I’ll buy you a new one.”

She adjusts her straw mustache immediately because uttering the promise tilts it. The only glue she could find is very weak, still slick on her upper lip as she presses the straw against her skin.

“Don’t bother. I barely use it.”

Beth sneezes massively; her mustache is dusty.

“I can tell,” she says.

“Take that off,” he instructs, smiling and shaking his head fondly.

She peels the mustache away with a diluted sense of defeat and wipes the dab of glue off with a used napkin as Benny walks over to her. It’s the closest they’ve been—him standing next to the chair as she twists to look up at him. What she anticipates, when his arm twitches forward, is the eternal, fraternal shoulder squeeze. No. He cups her chin.

“What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” she counters.

Gripping the chairback, he bends and kisses her. When he doesn’t hurry to withdraw, Beth slides her hands around his ribs, pressing her fingers to his back. He plucks the hat from her head while their eyes are closed.

“Take that off,” he mumbles against her mouth, then sneaks his tongue inside. The kissing grows heated and she stands, body curving readily with his, hands grasping the back of his neck.

“Is it because I’m dressed like you?” she asks the second his lips break away from hers. She opens her eyes to scrutinize his. “You are pretty obsessed with yourself.”

Benny smiles and watches her. He smooths her hair, then drops his hand to her shoulder. Pointedly, he looks down.

“Take that off.”

Beth huffs and lets go of his neck, pushing at the lapels of his leather jacket to slip back out of it, but Benny reaches for her hand. More than that; stills it, covers it, captures it.

“Ah,” he says, a guttural noise of correction. She hates that noise. He makes it when she gets sick of re-enacting historic matches and plays an original move instead. The sound is both stubborn and apologetic—Benny knows when he’s holding her back.

He lowers Beth’s hand to her side and leaves it hanging there. His come up to her chest, not to remove the jacket, but to undo the top button on her pajamas.

“The jacket—” she starts.

“—can wait,” he finishes.

[princesssarisa]

Assorted thoughts on “Little Women”

 In no particular order.

*I’m glad I waited this long to read the original, unabridged novel. If I had read it as a teen or a preteen, I just might have followed countless girl readers’ example of having a crush on Laurie and being angry that Jo doesn’t marry him. Reading it now, I’m able to see him as the well-rounded, likable yet flawed character he is, not just as a girl’s prize, and realize that while he and Jo have a beautiful friendship, they wouldn’t have worked as a couple. The canon pairings of Jo/Friedrich and Amy/Laurie are the right ones.

*About the controversial issue of the characters’ ambitions... None of the young leads achieve their childhood dreams in the end; Alcott’s intended message was clearly  “We don’t always achieve our dreams, but life can still be happy in ways we never expected.” That’s all well and good. But apart from Meg’s gender-neutral dream of being rich, the characters’ “castles in the air” are all in defiance of their expected gender roles: Jo wants to be a famous author and Amy a famous artist, two fields normally reserved for men, while Laurie wants to be a composer instead of going into his grandfather’s business. And all three of their endings are distinctly more gender-conforming: Jo becomes a schoolmistress, Amy becomes a society lady, both become wives and mothers, and Laurie goes into business “like a man.” I think it’s fair for modern readers to be disappointed by that conformity, even while appreciating the realistic message about childhood dreams. Those feelings aren’t mutually exclusive. For modern audiences, I think the standard adaptational change of Jo publishing her own version of Little Women at the end (instead of 20 years later in the last sequel) is a good change.

*About Jo needing to control her temper... I understand why this annoys some feminists. So often women are expected to suppress all anger and never stand up for themselves. Maybe it is problematic that role model Marmee explicitly never shows her anger, but only purses her lips and leaves the room. But personally, I think it’s presented in a healthy, gender-neutral way. Jo’s anger isn’t a problem because it’s “unseemly” or “unfeminine,” but because it can lead her to do cruel things to others. The mistake that teaches her the lesson in “Jo Meets Appolyon,” letting Amy skate on the thin ice, isn’t a loud, aggressive act of rage, but a cold, silent act (or rather inaction) of spite. Besides “control your temper” doesn’t mean “never stand up for yourself.” The book has several examples of women calmly yet firmly calling out other people’s bad behavior (most often Laurie’s ^–^) and it’s portrayed as entirely right. And though it’s tempting to be annoyed by Mr. March putting his finger to his lips when he sees his wife starting to get angry, it’s also a nice subversion of gender stereotypes to see a marriage where the husband is gentler by nature than his wife and is a calming influence on her. Stereotypical couples are the other way around.

*As a person on the autism spectrum, I relate strongly to Beth. I fully embrace the headcanon that Beth herself is autistic and that Lizzie Alcott might have been diagnosed as such if she had lived today. So it hurts a little to see other readers call Beth “boring,” “annoying,” a “doormat” and “the worst of the sisters.” Although she is idealized because she was Alcott’s tribute to her dead little sister, she’s not the cardboard cutout of bland feminine virtue she’s so often been stereotyped as being. It’s clear from the start that Beth isn’t “normal,” either by our standards or by past ones. Her crippling shyness isn’t just “sweet Victorian modesty,” but portrayed as a real flaw that she struggles to overcome. She’s been homeschooled because as a child her social anxiety made regular school unbearable for her. She still plays with dolls, believes in Santa Claus and has imaginary friends at age 13. She has no desire to get married, or to have any kind of career, or ever to leave her parents’ house. And because of all this, she clearly has a low opinion of herself: hence she tells Jo that she was never meant to live long, because she would never have been anything but “stupid little Beth, trotting about at home.” But the narrative belies her words. In both of her illnesses, so many people rally around her and reveal how much they love her and how valuable her quiet kindness has been in their lives. Ultimately she dies in peace because she realizes her life hasn’t been worthless after all. With my own social struggles, my tendency to be “younger than my years,” and my own desire to have a quiet life close to my family instead of going out into the big, overwhelming world and doing big, overwhelming things, I find her storyline beautiful, because it gives me hope that my life is just as valuable as anyone else’s.

*I also relate to Jo, as so many readers do. The result is that I’m of two minds of the chapters “Calls” and “Consequences.” On the one hand, there’s no doubt that Jo is at fault in those chapters and does more-or-less deserves to lose the trip to Europe. She’s genuinely, purposefully rude to her aunts and to the other people they visit and she humiliates Amy and harms her social life – at the subsequent fair, the Chesters ban Amy from the art table because Jo insulted them. Plus the only reason why she has to join Amy in the calls in the first place is because she promised she would, so it’s hypocritical of her to whine about it. But on the other hand, I do empathize with Jo. With my own my social difficulties, I relate to her hating formal occasions where she has to dress up, mind her manners, make small talk about topics that don’t interest her with people she dislikes, and always be “agreeable” and “docile.” For Jo and for so many of us, it’s so hard to be that way, yet it’s the mold that all women were expected to stuff themselves into in the 19th century and to an extent still are today. Amy is lucky that she enjoys playing that social game and that it comes naturally to her. So it’s easy to sympathize with Jo’s envy when Amy is chosen to go to Europe, to feel as if Amy is rewarded for her social conformity while Jo is punished for failing to conform, and to feel as if the message is that all girls should conform like Amy. Fortunately, the book as a whole doesn’t send that message: even Amy achieves her ultimate happiness by letting herself be a bit more like Jo and call Laurie out on his laziness and apathy, when back in “Calls” she had argued that a lady should never show disapproval to a man.

*I don’t understand why some commentators think the chapter “On the Shelf” is so horribly sexist. Well, actually, I do. It’s tempting to find fault with John for being “jealous” that Meg is focusing more on their babies than on him and for “neglecting” Meg and spending carefree evenings out while she slaves away with the twins. And for Meg to be told by her mother that this is her own fault for “neglecting her duty to her husband” understandably rankles some feminists. But I honestly don’t think there’s any real problem. Meg genuinely neglects John and overtaxes herself by devoting every waking minute to the twins and letting neither John nor anyone else help her, because she’s afraid that otherwise she’ll be a bad mother. John isn’t jealous of the babies, he understandably feels ignored and useless. Nor (despite what some critics think) does he cheat on Meg, or want to. He just goes to a friend’s house rather than sit alone at home; Meg’s fear that his eye is roving to Mrs. Scott is just a product of her own stress. The resolution is arguably just the opposite of sexist: Meg finally lets John take an equal share of child-rearing duties, lets Hannah babysit often so they can both have time for themselves too, and steps out of her domestic sphere to share talks with John about politics, literature, etc. By the end of the chapter, their marriage is more egalitarian than ever.

*I’d like to read a fanfic where Jo meets Rodolfo from La Bohéme. I wouldn’t ship them, since they’re even more “too much alike” than Jo and Laurie are, but I’d like to see them meet. They’re both lively, passionate, temperamental ENFP writers, whose minds are full of “castles in the air” (they both use that exact phrase), yet whose lives both turn out differently than they had hoped, although Jo’s outcome is much happier. Both also adore a sweet, gentle, sickly young girl (Jo’s sister Beth/Rodolfo’s love interest Mimí) whose death they both regard as the end of their own youth. Furthermore, both of their authors modeled them after themselves. Jo is more down-to-earth than Rodolfo, though, and I’m not sure if they’d be friends or hate each other – Jo would definitely be indignant to learn how Rodolfo emotionally abused and broke up with Mimí because he couldn’t bear to watch her die, when she herself nursed Beth day and night through both of her illnesses and never left her side. But it would be an interesting meeting.

@fairychamber, @thatvermilionflycatcher

[doglover502]

GAAAHH OKAY WEREANIMALS AGAIN what animals are they, exactly? (🤫❤)

Alright I've been WAITING for someone to ask this so I can nerd about the thought I put into these (for context for y'all, it's this AU)

For length sake (and cause they're my favorites cause I'm biased), we'll keep it to the original Island cast (plus Sierra and Alejandro)

Owen- Bear. Cause he's big, tends to eat a lot, and claims how he's a woodsman "naturalist". He also has a lot of interactions with bears on the show.

Gwen- Dragon. She mentions having lizards at home, and something about a goth dragon is badass. Plus, in Dramarama Ella turned to a dragon and there she was her cousin, so it's cool to think if she got really really mad she would too.

Heather- Panther. Heather has always had major cat energy, like even before it was revealed she owned a cat. And a black panther kinda fits her hair.

Duncan- Skunk. It started as a joke about how his attitude stinks, and he kinda melded into it. A tough guy no one wants to mess with like how no one wants to mess with a skunk. (His green hair even extends to his tail skunk stripe)

LeShawna- Badger. Honestly, LeShawna was the hardest to pinpoint, and I just picked badger cause to get the list done (fun fact, originally she was a porcupine). Again, she melded into it. Sweet and loving, but can also rip your face off if prompted, like a real badger.

Geoff- Otter. Playful, fun, easygoing, and a love for the water. Had Geoff written all over it

Izzy- Hyena. Something about a hyena suits Izzy; crazy, loud laugh, but definitely a force no one wants to reckon with.

DJ- Deer. They're big creatures, but also gentle and graceful. DJ is just deerkin.

Lindsay- Tabby. Another one to hard point (she was actually the last contestant that got an animal). Eventually tabby because they're agile (and she does gymnastics), and relatively nice and unassuming (but still smarter than she looks). Lindsay gravitating to Heather as a friend in Island in this AU is partially because Heather's also a cat, albeit a bigger one.

Bridgette- Seal. Bridgette's technically more a selkie than a "were", in that she can control it with whether her hoodie's on and off, unlike everyone else who seems to only have partial control. Seals are also fun loving and love the water so it suited Bridgette too

Trent- Human. He was the normal guy in the show, so it makes sense he's the normal guy here.

(he almost was a donkey cause he low-key tryna smash a dragon)

Harold- Bug. Harold's unique in that he's not pinpointed down to transforming into one specific bug, but actually a variety of bugs, like how he has so many wicked skills throughout the competition

(It's also a reference to how everyone's annoyed with his fact spilling, i.e. a pest)

Courtney- Raccoon. Courtney just screams raccoon; smart, conniving, and her taste in men is trash

Katie and Sadie- Lovebirds. They're constantly together, and get upset when they're apart for a few Island episodes. Just like real lovebirds.

Beth- Pig. She comes from a farm and mentions a pet pig. This was pretty easy.

Cody- Rabbit. They're tiny, unassuming (but still badass in their own way), and are great at multiplying (well, Cody's only great at the math kind of multiplying, but it still counts). Also cause Cody on the show is sure he's gonna die a bunch of times, and AU rabbit Cody feels the same (especially cause most of the other contestants can change to predator animals).

Tyler- Chicken. This was more for comedy with Tyler's fear of chickens, and his were being a chicken makes his phobia extremely ironic. And how he's not great at athletic, and quite literally has chicken arms.

Justin- Wolf. This guy already kinda looked like a Taylor Lautner wannabe, so why not take it further by having him constantly look like something straight out of a Twilight movie?

Noah- Dog. He mentions having a dog many times, and...I dunno something about it suits him. The same chaotic energy Noah has, in that here, he's smart enough to hack into a video game system, but still dumb enough to bark at his reflection for 3 hours. Also him having a dog tail constantly sticking out that always gives away how he actually has feelings.

(also more specifically, a dachshund cause he tiny)

Eva- Tiger. Tigers are badass. Eva is badass. Enough said.

Ezekiel- Boar. I actually didn't choose this one, a friend of mine I was talking to about this with did. But it kinda fits him considering he's also from a farm, and kinda turns feral later on in the show, like how wild boars exists.

Sierra- Hyena. Cause like Izzy, she's also crazy, but in a much scarier way (like real hyenas vs fictional ones). Here, Cody takes her romantic interest the wrong way and thinks she wants to eat him (I mean she does but not in that way)

Alejandro- Jaguar. In the Hawaiian Aftermath, they chose a jaguar as his spirit animal, and frankly there they list all the reasons why for me.