#this was my Grown Up version of playing with barbie dolls

[usahanna]

Imagine being 12-13 years old and being so obsessed with a crackship and a specific set of characters from different videogames that you make up an entire storyline filled with drama and slowburn just so your ship can bang

[oh-styles]

what's one christmas tradition harry picked up from SAAF and vice versa? also who wants to spoil their kids the most regarding gifts? i have a feeling harry gives the speech as gifts aren't everything but he has a hard time passing something very expensive and utterly useless as well, for his babies lmao

One of SAAF's Christmas traditions is she opens one small present open on Christmas Eve. It was something her parents let her do as a child, and she still does as an adult. Harry made note she tries to open up the present that she feels are books. It always made him happy to see her get excited Christmas Eve about her one present, so he started doing it alongside with her.

As for Harry's tradition, it's more so on Boxing Day. SAAF, having not grown up in the UK, had heard of Boxing Day, but thought it was the UK's version of football on Thanksgiving for American's. She thought everyone got around and watching boxing matches on tv. So, for Harry, instead of going out shopping the day after Christmas, he and his family stay in and spend time together with friends. They drink, converse, play games, get drunk. And even when SAAF started attending Christmas's in the UK, they turned on boxing matches for her to watch on Boxing Day. It started off as a joke, but everyone soon got into it.

I think what's interesting about the presents in their household, is SAAF grew up on a budget, so she didn't get to go all out on presents for her friends and family, and even Harry. She liked paycheck to paycheck before him. Now, she has an income, and can afford to buy people things, and god does she love it. Homegirl loves to give.

So as for the kids, she's actually the one who loves to lavish her girls in presents, because she knows how in the not-so-distant past, that was a struggle of hers and she wouldn't have been able to do it.

Harry has been in the luxury of wealth for a long time now, so living on a budget isn't something that's ever really been on his mind, at least not in the past decade. So when it comes to the girls, will he buy them a three foot dollhouse? Absolutely. Will he buy them embroidered robes with their names on them? He's done it every year.

Harry's presents seem a little more lavish compared to SAAF, who buys her girls coloring books and Barbie dolls, and toy cars with a town rug. Lincoln logs and Lego's.

also as i was just trying this, the remote on my arm rest just randomly wiggled back and forth so my apartment is haunted goodbye

[moonlightreal]

Lookit this trailer!

We’ve got a montage of artistes drawing wings and scenes from Alfea, then we get to see the girls in their new fairy forms. New-est fairy forms. This is the fourth? I think fourth version of Bloom that we’ve seen, from the very early Bloom with kind of a bow across her chest, to the revamped season one look, to the recent art of the whole gang on the roof, to this glitter warrior mermaid look.

Full shot of Bloom’s new fairy form. Love the beads in her hair! Bloom has returned to bright blue with pink only as accents.

There’s Aisha, lookin’ good in aqua. She looks quite similar to the “Winx on the roof” picture, though her hair has calmed down and no longer makes me think of whisk brooms.

Musa’s got amazing buckled boots you can only see for a second, and she’s gone back to her little pigtails instead of loops or buns.

Stella looks great in glittery orange with stars in her hair.

Tecna… looks like she’s got pants in her fairy form? Maybe? Or they could be her boots. Tec is rockin’ an undercut and I love the circuitry on her head, and unlike the last two pictures we got, this Tecna looks fully human. She is no longer ball jointed. I suppose there are good reasons for this; we don’t want to be sending messages that only different/emotionless/weird girls use technology, or something, but I’m still on team “It would’ve been neat!” Tec’s look has simplified since the roof picture, but she’s kept the hair.

Flora has also barely changed from the rooftop picture. She’s still in a little pink dress with flowers down the bodice. It’s a whole lotta Barbie-doll pink, but I love the ribbons on her arms and the hairdo, the thick fishtail braid and puffs of flowers are just perfect.

Then we see some animation in progress and what’s probably part of Flora’s transformation as she swings on a vine and does a kick. Pretty! I like it!

Then we get more drafts, the girls flying towards Alfea, and some interior images. There’s Faragonda’s office, I think, and Wizgiz’ classroom with the tiny professor as a silhouette that will be later replaced by the animated teacher. Then a shot of what I think is the girls’ common room and an aerial view of Alfea, which I think has grown again! There are now six big domed classrooms with their own courtyards, and the big round courtyard in the middle of the school. Alfea now has some ponds by the front gate, and is near a lake. Lake Roccaluce? Could be.

Then we’ve got Flora in civilian clothes, including that jacket that looks like a succulent that we saw in a previous image, saying “We’ll teach you everything we’ve learned.” and then the non-Bloom girls appear out of a mystic portal so we get to see their civilian clothes. Stella’s are a little weird, but the others look good. They’re dressed like themselves. And the big news: Flora and Aisha are the correct skin colors again! Hooray! Stella hasn’t regained her tan and Musa looks… Musa looks odd in this shot and they’re weirdly lit, so I can’t say one way or the other if I think she’s supposed to have regained her Asian features.

Then they play a bit from Una Di Noi, and tell us it’s coming in 2025! So what did we learn? Well, we learned it’ll be at Alfea and at least one of the teachers is coming back, hardly a surprise but good to know. We’ve seen yet another new look for the girls and it looks… just like the warrior mermaids in Mermaid Magic! I just watched the first episode of Mermaid Magic and was thinking “these are great, I hope the Winx get a form like this” and my wish was granted mere days later! Full post on Mermaid Magic at some future time, but the first episode get a thumbs-up from me. The girls are fun, the animation is good, there are lots of background characters, the transformation sequence is all that a transformation sequence should be. Give it a watch! We gotta watch something for the rest of the year!

And the animation from season 9 is exactly the animation from Mermaid Magic, so if you want to judge the animation quality now you can totally do it. My judgment is “could be worse.” It’s pretty, it’s able to express emotions better than season 8, it works. The girls do look very young in this style, at least the 16 year old mermaids in Mermaid Magic seem much younger than the 16 year old Winx in season 1. I guess it’s good, and in future seasons the girls can grow and look like they’re growing instead of staying ambiguously seventeen for eight seasons, but it’s different.

So we know what the new season will look like, but we can still wonder what the new season will be like. Which minor characters will appear? Will they keep Icy’s season 8 backstory? What will Bloom’s backstory be? How much will season 9 mirror season 1? I’m just so excited!

[ariel-seagull-wings]

TOP 12 PORTRAYALS OF RAPUNZEL

@princesssarisa​ @sunlit-music​ @superkingofpriderock​ @mademoiselle-princesse​ @amalthea9​ @theancientvaleofsoulmaking​ @astrangechoiceoffavourites​ @notyouraveragejulie​ @tilthenextbluemoon​ @giuliettaluce​

Rapunzel, Rapunzel: lay down your hair so i can climb the golden stair! 

These are the words to call the lady named after a vegetable, so one can climb her hair and visit the tower where she is kept prisoner. At the same time that she is known for her exotic name and very long hair, personality wise Rapunzel tends to get very underestimated. Some adaptations gaved her a pretty passive role, and pop culture parodies would usually paint her as “just a girl who cries for the Prince to save her”, downplaying the inteligence and resilience to adapt into harsh situations that she showed in the original Brothers Grimm’s tale. So today, i will share my twelve favorite portrayals of the long haired heroine, that showed respect to her, gaved her carisma and made justice to her strenghts.

12º The version from ‘The Story of Rapunzel’ (1951)

At the start of his career as a stop motion animator, Ray Harryhausen made, with the collaboration of his relatives, a series of shorts based on fairy tales. Those shorts were ‘The Mother Goose Stories’, ‘The Tortoise and The Hare’, ‘The Story of Rapunzel’, ‘The Story of Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Story of Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘The Story of King Midas’ (when this tale started to be taken out of greek mythology and be perceived as a medieval fairy tale in the public conscience), where the characters were silent and the voice was given to a narrator. This encarnation of Rapunzel is more on the naive and passive spectrum, but i like her design and the fact she is animated in stop motion, plus the short is historically significant for being one of the early atempts to adapt her tale , and that’s why she has a place on this ranking.

11º The version from Simsala Grimm (1999)

In this german-french, two plushies, Yoyo and Doc Croc, receive life from a magic book to have adventures inside the Brother’s Grimm tales. They go to the tale of Rapunzel and help her and Prince Egmond get together. This encarnation of Rapunzel is kept as both prisoner and apprentice of Frau Gothel, who wants to turn the young woman into a mean spirited sorceress like her. But Rapunzel can only make spells that create pretty and merry things, like squirrels and birds. It’s a nice touch of humour, and that grants her the Eleventh Place at this ranking.

10º Mackenzie Mauzy in Disney’s Into the Woods (2014)

This movie as a whole is a weak adaptation of the now classic Broadway stage musical. But it had some enjoyable elements, one of them being Mackenzie Mauzy’s performance as Rapunzel. Mauzy has a short time on screen, but in that short time she brings beauty, grace, melancholy and anger to the role, and this makes it stand out enough to be the Tenth Place in this ranking.

09º Linda Purl in Timeless Tales from Hallmark (1990-91)

Timeless Tales from Hallmark was a direct to video series that had a live action hosted by Olivia Newton John and animated segments showing the fairy tale of the day, animated by the Hannah-Barbera studio. Purl’s Rapunzel is the romantic dreamer archetype, who sings her wish to be free. She has two encounters with the Prince before getting caught by the Witch Scarlotta, having her hair cutted and exiled to the distant woods. She reunites with the Prince, who has been turned into a blue bird (i see what you did there, screenwriters), and breaks the spell over him with her tears. She should smell more onions to cry and bottle those tears, that can be very usefull.

08º Tisha Campbell in Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995)

In the bayous of Louisiana, Rapunzel is taken from her parents by Zenobia the Hoodoo Diva (played by Whoopi Goldberg, by the way), who seeks to make her a protege and shows her such neat tricks as voodoo dolls and shrinking her head down. Rapunzel is reluctant to do this when she sees Zenobia is hurting innocent creatures. Rapunzel soon attracts a handsome Creole prince, who must rescue Rapunzel and reunite her with her parents, but Zenobia seeks to thwart the interloper. One of the first african-american portrayals, this kind yet rebellious encarnation is a refreshing take on the character, and that is why she takes the Eight Place here.

07º Mandy Moore in Disney’s Tangled (2010)

After her mother dranked a tea made of a magical flower, Rapunzel was born with a magical hair that is able to heal any desease and rejuvenate anyone who touches it. Because of that, she was kidnapped and emprisoned in a Tower by Gothel, who raises Rapunzel to be insecure and afrayed of the outside world. But her curiosity is more powerfull, and with the guidance of a thief named Flinn Rider, the young lady escapes the Tower and goes on a journey to discover both what is scary and what is beautifull on the outside world with her own eyes, along the way captivating people with her merry and spontaneous personality, wich gives her the Seventh Place on this list.

06º Pamela Winslow Kashani in American Playhouse: Into the Woods (1991)

The lady who originated the role in the Broadway stage musical. Like Mackenzie Mauzy, Pamela Winslow Kashani brings the beauty, the grance, the melancholy and the anger to the role, but with an extra touch of energetic humour, taking advantage of the fact that she is in a stage show and getting intense as possible. That humour in the First Act  is what makes her PTSD and tragic death in the Second Act all the more heartbreaking. Plus, she probably has the most beautifull singing voice ever gaved to a Rapunzel encarnation, and sometimes that is enough to earn a place in my rankings.

05º Mitsuko Horie/Lara Cody in Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics (1988-89)

This encarnation has a tragic backstory, having been forgotten by her parents after they received a memory spell from the Witch and they had three more kids after her. She is raised in the Tower as the Witch’s granddaughter, and develops a great talent to play the harp. Is the sound of that harp that attracts the atention of the Prince, who comes to the tower and conquers Rapunzel’s love. Sadly, when they are making plans on how to take her away from the Tower, the Witch sees the Prince climbing down, so she cuts Rapunzel’s hair and beats her till unconsciousness before exiling the poor young woman in the desert, where she learns to survive while raising the son that she conceived with the Prince, who searches for Rapunzel despite being blinded by thorns.

04º Luisa Wietzorek in Sechs Auf Einen Streich (2009)

This adaptation gives some interesting touches to Rapunzel’s story and character: until age 12, she lived a nomadic life, travelling in Gothel’s donkey pulled cart. But one day Gothel spots Rapunzel talking with a young boy, and decides to lock her in the Tower, where there is a magic golden haircomb that makes Rapunzel’s hair grow to be used as a ladder by her adoptive mother. Years pass, and the destiny brings the Prince, who was the young boy of the pass, to the Tower where the now grown up Rapunzel lives, and she has to face a dilema: continuing to live in the Tower, that brings the feel of comfort and safety, or taking risks and running away to freedom with the Prince she fell in love with.

03º Kelly Sheridan in Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)

This was my first animated adaptation of the fairy tale, and still is my favorite. In this movie, while giving some painting lessons to her little sister, Barbie tells a version of the Rapunzel story to encourage her creativity: kidnapped as a baby by the Witch Gothel, Rapunzel was raised as a house maid, receiving constant verbal mistreatments. But, thanks to her friendship with a rabbit named Hobie and a dragon cub (who still needs to learn how to fly) called Penelope, and her love of painting, the young long haired lady never lets her spirit be broken, always dreaming of someday go to live free in a castle by the sea. One night, she is surprised to find a haircomb that turns into a magic paint brush, wich can make a portal where she can escape and explore the ouside world, and in her first journey, she meets and falls in love with the dashing Prince Stefan, while asking him to not his name to her, because she is afrayed of being forced to tell it to Gothel. And she doesn’t stay long, because she fears that Gothel will get revenge on Hugo, Penelope’s father, for her escape. Talk about having a great sense of altruism, who wouldn’t want to have this lady as their best friend?!

02º Sylvia Wolff  in Rapunzel oder Der Zauber der Tränen (1988)

This german TV Movie combines the tale of Rapunzel with another, more obscure tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, called Maid Maleen. In this version, Rapunzel growed up very acustomed to the comfort and rich life provided by the Old Witch, using a magic reel to roll her hair in and make it grow to be used as a latter. Even tough she is in love with Prince Mathias, she is afrayed of going to the outside world. Later, not being enough that the Old Witch discovers her secret, cuts of her hair and blinds Prince Mathias, the King, after learning the existence of a maiden in the tower who becamed the love of his son, orders his troops to search the tower and seal its window, because he wants Mathias to marry another neighbour princess he arranged for him! Fortunally one of the soldiers takes enough pity to let a loose brick so Rapunzel can breath. She tries to use the point reel to scratch the clay that glues the bricks, and after cutting herself in the reel and crying over it, the reel regains magic, floating, opening the bricks, helping her to escape  to the outside world and search for her beloved Mathias...

And my Number One favorite portrayal of Rapunzel is:

01º Shelley Duvall in Faerie Tale Theatre (1983)

There were some small changes made in some detailles of the story (radishes replacing rampion to be more familiar with international, non german audiences,  insinuation that the Peasants Wife’s craving of the vegetal was a spell purposefully cast by the Witch, Rapunzel being traped in the Tower at adulthood instead of age twelve and a talking parrot/macaw that tells the Witch of the Prince’s visits), but as a whole, this is probably the most faithfull adaptation of the Brothers Grimm tale, and is all the more benefited for it, specially Rapunzel’s character, portrayed by the shows herself, Shelley Duvall. Duvall presented a very sincere passion for the source material, and in her performance, she showed a deep understanding of Rapunzel’s character and why she resonates with so many people: her rebeliousness, her curiosity, her romanticism, her inteligence, her quiet strenght, her resilience and her sense of hope, all of those qualities that the Grimm’s described in their heroine, are all there! When i watch this episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, i don’t see an actress playing a role, i see an icon of my childhood coming to life!

And that is why Shelley Duvall in Faerie Tale Theatre is whom i consider my definitive Rapunzel.

[karasunology]

⸙ ˚₊ ➷ IWAIZUMI HAJIME BEING A DAD HEADCANONS! ❞

✎ . . . Herrroooo! 👋🏽 May I request a Baby daddy head canon (The “as dads” head canons lol) please? For Iwaizumi and Nishinoya please and thank you 💞 Love your writing too!!!

❝ ― submitted by @ nonnie <3 ❞

✎ . . . jae idk whether anyone has requested this but is it okay if i request for some iwaizumi and ushi dad HCs 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 ur HCs make me SO soft and tbh i just wanna live in ur imaginations 😢💞

❝ ― submitted by @b0kuto <3 ❞

✎ . . . since you did oikawa as a dad, what about my boyfie iwachann?? and maybe how their kids will interact with each other, thank you if you ever consider💛

❝ ― submitted by @ nonnie <3 ❞

-ˏˋ ➶ character(s) ━ iwaizumi hajime <3

[ trigger warnings ━ slight manga spoilers !! ]

✎ . . . DAD HEADCANONS.

[ SUGAWARA KOUSHI & OIKAWA VERSION. ] [ BOKUTO KOUTARO VERSION. ] [ MIYA ATSUMU VERSION. ] [ KUROO TETSUROU & KOZUME KENMA HEADCANONS. ]

-ˏˋ playing soleil's tape ˊˎ-

[ 📼 ] . . . happy 900 followers and happy birthday lizzie !! @kaidasen , i have two other iwaizumi hcs in my inbox and one being another dad req but not just general hcs and phew i'm tired

IWAIZUMI HAJIME.

➜ i'm not a s*mp but,,,

➜ i would glady offer him my hand in marraige

➜ you two weren't quick to settle down, since the both of you have been busy with your own jobs especially then, trying to survive a comitted long-distance relationship

➜ but now that it has been almost a year since you two got married, hajime knew he wanted to start a family with you

➜ and when i tell you that if MANS EVER EVEN THOUGHT of having children WITH YOU, you're in it for a long long run my love

➜ listen ─ iwa is a rational and decisive man, stubborn too, but overall thinks first before bringing these types lf serious stuff with you

➜ knowing that once you agree, mans will not be able to hold back anymore

➜ it was quite funny actually, since it has been a running joke between you two with your baby fever phase in high school that you soon grew out of when you attended collage.

➜ iwa used to relentlessly tease tf out of you but even then, he couldn't help but be the one that you want to have a child with

➜ now all the left over pride he has vanished away while he looks like a CLOWN as he nervously asked you about starting a family with him

➜ emodiment of👉👈😳🥺

➜ because now it was YOUR turn to tease tf out of him, payback bitch

➜ iwa : what if we . . start a family?? 😳👉👈 haha i'm joking . . . unless??

➜ you : it's funny how bitches turned into my fans💅💸

“ wow how the turn tables ”

“ baby girl, i don't think that's how it ─ ”

“ ─ aha simp ”

➜ but regardless, you immediately agreed to his offer and you BET that iwa would give you payback for all the teasing you have done in the bedroom

➜ ok bet fill me up to the brim sir

➜ okay um chile ,, i have to keep reminding of myself that this is a family friendly show

➜ he may be a little busy with work sometimes, but he'll always try to have time to go with you on your baby check ups and appointments which, he, actually booked the second you told him you were pregnant

➜ but whenever he doesn't, he would always be a lot more affectionate whenever he goes home to see you and would hear how you talk about updates from the doctor as he just RUBS YOUR TUMMY as he apologizes for not coming with you😭

➜ when you gave birth to a beautiful hanako, iwa couldn't help but cry because wow??YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL AND HE IS SO PROUD TO HAVE YOU AS HIS WIFE, AND YOU GAVE HIM THIS LOVELY MASTERPIECE OKAY AIGHT

➜ hajime didn't really care about gender now, but before he actually wanted a son, but as i said now, all his mind was just about you and your daughter ─ his precious girls

➜ besides, he has all the time in the world to make a son with you or two

➜ hanako, no matter how sweet she could be ─ she is lowkey a little shit too

➜ prefers hajime over you but would LOVE to rile him up and make it seem that she prefers you over him

➜ he would be a strict father, but such a softie for his daughter that he forgets why he even was mad when your daughter pulls up with THE TRUMP CARD with the same puppy eyes you always used on him

➜ like mans was already a goner but aight

➜ gets FLUSTERED AND EMBARESSED whenever hanako wants him to play with her with her dolls and he also has to act out with her lmao, but we all know she was doing it on purpose

➜ your daughter is a   s a d i s t

➜ makes her dad watch all the OLD barbie movies because she doesn't👏like👏the👏new👏ones👏

➜ periodt 😡💅

➜ has grown to LOVE the thought of being a princess AND HAJIME CALLS HER PRINCESS ALL THE TIME AHH

“ but daddy i'm a princess !! of course i need a prince ” hanako pouted as iwaizumi's tick mark just grew with the thought of his daughter having another boy in her life other than him ( and oikawa & perhaps future brothers😳 )

“ why would you need a prince when you already have your knight in shinning armor here, ” he gestured vigorously to himself with his hands moving up and down from his head to toe

“ oh yeah! i guess i'm okay with that ” your daughter giggled before calling out to you as she saw you coming into her line of sight, reaching her hands out for you to carry her

➜ and by the time you have her in your arms, she would always nuzzle her little head onto your neck, but this time, before he could, she looked back at her father ─ but this time with a mischievous glint

“ ─ for now ” she smiled cheekily before tugging you to head over to kitchen because one, she wants to get away from her father's intense aura emitting from him, and two, she was hungry

➜ as you can see, bb girl loves to rile up her father, but as i said, iwa could never stay mad for too long

➜ would, yes, kinda yell at his kids, but would NEVER EVER hit them

➜ would kinda BONK🔨💥 them but not the childhood traumatizing methods

➜ he has strong beliefs that hitting children are a no-go, because it would probably affect them in the future, and there are other, better and appropriate ways to handle them without leaving them in child trauma

➜ since argentina is close to california where you and iwa have settled down, you bet that oikawa BEGGED them to have a small little reunion atleast every other three months LMAO

➜ and when you gave birth to your son, hayato, oikawa's offer did not STOP, and when oikawa finally had the time to visit you guys with his family ─ it was chaotic.

➜ first of, hanako is so mean to oikawa for some reason but she also kinda likes him too?? 😭

➜ oikawa : that's so upsettin😔

➜ then moves to hayato because unLIKE A CERTAIN SOMEONE, hayato being the precious bb boy he is, accepted all the love oikawa would give him

“ hana-chan, yahoo !! ” before uncle tooru could engulf hanako as he ran up to her with arms open wide, she avoided his figure as he went pass her and hit himself on a lampost

➜ with a blank stare, she crouched to his cowering figure as he rubbed the spot on his head that hit the post while whining, poking his side in curiousity.

“ uncle, are you alright ─ ”

“ ─ oi, shittykawa what are you doing ─ ”

➜ as you and your husband along with oikawa's wife and kids, run up to where the two duo were crouching, your toddler son tilted his head innocently

“ shittykawa . . . ? ”

➜ usually these reunion day would always end in traditional family dinner with the iwaizumis and the oikawas ─ and after that, their offsprings just couldn't get away from each other when it's time to go 🥺

“ i don't want them to leave :( ” hayato pouted as he wouldn't let go of his little tug on akiro's sweater

“ hana-chan !! ” hikaru clung onto hanako as hanako quietly glared at him, trying to shake him off while she shyly held onto akio as aiko starts scolding her little brother

➜ also side note : you bet that they would come back to japan just to attend aobajohsai

➜ anywh0res😍

➜ iwaizumi is the type of dad that would give EQUAL amounts of love to his children, would never have favouritism with his children because that shit actually hurts ngl😔

➜ would arm wRESTLE with hayato but he doesn't wanna hurt him so he would always let him win though it may cost his pride

➜ someone thirst with me about his arms please😭😭

➜ when he's soft'ish

➜ it was near father's day and you have been planning for it along with your children but you guys were anything BUT LOWKEY

➜ iwaizumi could literally hear giggling in one of the rooms and he goes to check it out and sees nodding vigorously at hayato.

➜ wanting to join in the fun, he opened the door and leaned onto the door frame expecting for you to call for him to join you guys

➜ but to his suprised, you guys stayed unusually quiet while your two kids avoided eye contact with him

➜ iwaizumi was upset being left out, but didn't really comment on it. but as father's day rolls in with your two kids waking him up as he goes down to the kitchen to see his favourite breakfast along with some cards from hanako and hayato, and with you smiling warmly at him as you took off your apron before kissing him a goodmorning in his cheeks ─ he knew it was worth it, whatever you guys were planning

“ ew, mommy kissed dada!! ” shrieked by your children as hajime stuck a tongue at them as he grinned at you, lovesick, before he could get to steal kiss on your lips, you pushed his head to look at the opposite side

“ brush your teeth first, and THEN, i will think about kissing you ”

[talenlee]

Henry Orenstein

I'm going to tell you a story. It jumps around a little, to future and past, and it has a big twist in it that I'm going to need you to trust me on. Because of that, the fold - and content warning - is coming later than you'd expect.

This story, started, for me, on the Transformers wiki.

This is a Rubsign. It's a small piece of plastic that's heat-reactive. When Transformers started out as a brand, there was an immediate push to make cheap knockoff toys with similar ideas. In order to 'protect' the brand and ensure kids only wanted to buy the genuine Transformers, they developed something that they could pretend was part of the play pattern: a small symbol on the robot's body that had the silhouette of either the Decepticon or Autobot faction, and you wouldn't know for sure if you didn't heat it up, usually as a child, by rubbing it with your finger.

Transformers, and their gimmick of 'transforming', is essentially, open source. You can't copyright it or even copyright the techniques of a mould. This is one of the reasons there's so many knockoffs of those toys — the actual technique of a transforming toy is pretty much uncopyriteable method.

The rubsigns, however, were made with patented technology; not only weren't other people allowed to put them on their toys, but even worse, they simply couldn't make them because the method for their creation was proprietary. What I thought as a child was a clever way to represent a disguise, for a moment of tension in the narrative, was really just a corporate control collar, a thing that meant they could draw a hard line between their version of the idea and the other, shitty ones, so I could ensure my collection of second hand transforming robot toys was properly branded.

Rubsigns are a cop is what I'm saying.

But, they had to be invented.

This is Henry Orenstein. Learning about the origin of the rubsign meant learning that to my surprise, the patent for them is not held by The company per se, but is instead partially owned by Hasbro, and partially owned by this one dude, Henry Orenstein.

When I found his name in the Transformers wiki, the wiki stated, perhaps boldly: His life is more interesting than Transformers.

Bold claim.

This is professional Poker. It's a well known game that involves players playing for extremely large sums of money, often with similarly large sums of money involved in the buy-in. It's grown in popularity over the past twenty years, in part because of improvements in presenting the game to an audience. Back in 1995, a patent was filed for a device known as a hole camera, which let the broadcasters collect the information about the players' hands without doing anything that disrupted the natural flow of the game. The hole camera was used in 1999, and that's about when poker started to pick up in public discourse.

And the patent for the earliest hole camera (which isn't used much any more) is to a guy named Henry Orenstein. So important was this - and his winnings and his achievements lifetime - that he's been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.

This is a Johnny Seven OMA, which were made by Topper Toys. And that's a company Henry Orenstein founded to make his toys after being annoyed at how expensive dolls and toy guns were for poor kids. Topper Toys eventually folded into another brand, Deluxe Reading, which I understand if you are a hardcore toy collector, really into things like barbie accessories and cross compatibility, is very important to the hobby.

This background was how Henry got the attention of Hasbro, and wound up working with them on acquiring new toy properties. That meant he was in position to be in Japan, looking at Takara and Microchange toys, and come back with the idea of acquiring both toy sets, and rebranding them as Transformers in 1980.

Interesting dude, right? He should write a memoir.

Except he did already:

And now, when we jump back in the story, I have to say: Content Warning: Nazis.

Henry Orenstein was born Henryk Orenstein, one of five Jewish children to a Polish family, born in Hrubieszów, Poland, 1923. That is to say, when he was 16 years old, the Nazis invaded and occupied his country. This was obviously not ideal, and the Orensteins first hid themselves in their house through secret passages and hidden chambers between the walls. When the food and water ran out, the parents made the painful decision to surrender to arrest, in the hopes of keeping their children alive.

Henryk's parents were taken, shipped to a camp, and shot. The children were then sent to a camp, where Henryk dedicated a plan to keeping moving. If they were being moved around, transferred from thing to thing, if the person in charge of them was different from time to time, nobody would have the time to really make a protracted plan to execute them. That, hypothetically, was the idea. This meant that he and his siblings were in five different concentration camp - including the camp run by Amon Goeth, the villain of Schindler's List.

They end up in the camp in Budzyń. A few days after arrival, a report comes over the loudspeaker that 'Any Jews with math or science training must report to front office' and Henryk signs himself and his brothers up.

... they did not have math or science training

See, as things were Getting Worse towards the end of the war, the Germans were trying to maximise the resources they did have. This is part of the grouping of things you'd possibly hear as the wunderwaffe — the preposterous weapons of the later days of Hitler's aspirations. You may know these as a sequence of History Channel tv ads, like Hitler's Greatest Tanks or Superboats or The Cannon That Shoots Time Frozen Chunks Of Hitler's Future Brain or whatever. Nowadays, wunderwaffe is a German word primarily used sarcastically, in case you're curious. The Nazis were desperate, because they were a bunch of sucky losers who couldn't make anything good on their own —

And never did

— they instead tried to turn their prisoners to the task of solving their problems with the finest of Nazi Bullshit Magic. At this point, Henryk is maybe nineteen years old, and he and his brothers are signed up to the camp's equivalent of the Shed they dump the A-Team in. The scientists in charge of the lab are scared: if this fails, they're just wasting manpower, and while the Jewish subordinates may fail, if they fail, they're going to get shipped to the front and treated like meaty bullet catchers.

Henryk, recognising the situation, proceeded to run cons on the Nazis with his brothers.

They made bullshit devices that wouldn't work, but did look like they worked. They stole from the labs. They crafted things that could be faked to working but wouldn't work for real. They entertained the scientists with the finest of hokum. And then the researchers, full of relief that they wouldn't become a statistic on a Soviet soldier's bayonet, started to talk about how great their progress was of Doing Science At Shit to their command.

Command released an order to demand that these Jewish Science Wizards produce a tank paralysing gas.

Which was a problem.

Look, the Nazis were fond of demanding things that couldn't be done. Then they could shout at their subordinates who were fucking up, or they'd deliver and you looked great. Again, this is not an environment for refined science, this is a shrinking circular firing squad where everyone is trying to just not be the next person shot. But nonetheless, Tank Paralysing Gas was demanded.

Henryk and his brothers did what they could, they made something they assured the Nazis would work, and the scientists, sweating bullets, sent it off to another base to be tested.

Where it didn't work.

Obviously.

Okay, so now for a moment, consider the situation. Consider what this looks like. These scientists have sent a giant pile of reports about how great a job they were doing, and there's a big trapdoor labelled Actual Bullets on it underneath them. They just put together their wunderwaffe and sent it off to be tested, and it didn't work, so what do they do?

Blame the prisoners?

Uh, that's going to go poorly, because they were saying the prisoners were doing a great job just a few days ago.

Come clean?

Fuck off.

Okay, so what else do they have as an option? Well, they did the only thing a fascist can do. They posted through it, Nazi style.

They sent infuriated reports to the other camp. WHAT DID YOU DO TO OUR TANK-PARALYSING GAS THAT MADE IT NOT WORK!?

And... you can see how this goes.

Right now, nobody wants to be the person who admits something is wrong. Nobody wants to be the person who pulls the circle of who gets shot even closer. You don't want to tell your superiors you fucked up handling the Tank Paralysing Gas, or if you made the Tank Paralysing Gas, you don't want to tell them that the Tank Paralysing Gas didn't work.

And so back and forth they go. Testing things that won't work and demanding ever-increasing test protocols to try and make it the other person's problem. I don't have proof of it, but some accounts of the story include the two camps getting infrastructure projects like new roads to make sure the transport of the Tank Paralysing Gas works and is good and proper and anyway, the war ended before they got this resolved.

But there is paperwork, recovered during the fall of Berlin, with Heinrich Himmler's signature on it, ordering the mass production of the Tank Paralysing Gas made by Henryk and his younger brothers.

"The whole tale about the scam they pulled on the nazis is... instructive, too"

[frangipanidownunder]

Twas the night before Christmas: fic

A/N This is for my anon who sent a prompt ‘M&S debate the existence of Santa Claus’. This is set now, post season 11, no baby. 

It turned into something a little sexier and longer than I expected. And, it references How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, so posting it today on its 20th anniversary seems fitting.

A little NSFW so there’s cut. Happy Holidays, all.

He’s hanging his stocking from the hook in the mantelpiece. There’s a warm glow from the fairy lights on the overly grand tree in the corner; they blaze and fade, highlighting Scully’s precision-positioned decorations.

              “Is there some kind of mathematical equation for hanging baubles that I have been ignorant of all my life?” he asks as she hands him a mulled wine.

The warm smell of cinnamon hangs in the air. She snuffs a laugh from her pink-tipped nose and he picks up the poker to stoke the flames. The fire crackles and spits and he steps back, slotting an arm around her waist.

“Have you been naughty or nice this year, Mulder?” Her upturned mouth shimmers in the light, too pretty not to kiss.

              She tastes of spice and citrus. “The year’s not out yet. Why don’t you let me know next week?” He burrows his chin into the juncture of her neck and shoulder and he can feel her breasts move against him as she laughs.

              “Well,” she says, shouldering him away with a slow smile. “Let’s see what Santa puts in your stocking tonight.”

              He looks down at her, cheeks wine-warmed, hair aflame like the fire, lips plump. She’s amazing, his Scully. Age hasn’t dulled his passion for everything about her. She still intrigues and mystifies him. Still keeps him guessing.

              “I’d tell you that you would be the best stocking filler a boy could wish for, if it weren’t for respect and boundaries.” Her hair tickles the underside of his chin as they sway, watching the orange glow. “So, I’ll leave out carrots and a glass of the finest malt whisky and hope Saint Nick looks upon the new, grown up version of me proudly.”

              She chinks her glass against his and swallows some more wine. “There are thousands of churches in Europe dedicated to St Nicholas, did you know that? Legend has it that he paid the dowries of three young girls to stop them from being sold into prostitution. Charity and kindness. We could use more men like him in our current climate.”

              “Santa for president in 2020.” He drops a kiss on her head. “I didn’t think you believed?”

              She snuggles closer to him, practically burrowing under his arm. He doesn’t mind. Her cheek presses against his pec and he flexes it just to get a reaction. She giggles. “Mulder, there’s a vast difference between the red-suited, white-bearded Coca-Cola brand we’re all used to seeing and the real Saint Nicholas, who lived in 4th Century Turkey and is the patron saint of sailors and ships.”

              Her arm curls around his waist and he pulls her towards the couch where she lands half on him, half on the seat. Her legs drape over his knees and he tucks her feet down under his hand. She’s wearing knitted socks decorated with whimsical snowmen sporting top hats and button eyes and noses.  How had he not noticed before? He snaps one against her ankle and she kicks his hands away.

              “Bill sent them. We used to do this present exchange, you know, see who could give the tackiest gifts.”

              “I can’t imagine that you, Dr Dana Scully, would indulge in a gaudy gift competition.”

              She twists and plumps up a cushion. “I once sent him a toilet roll holder shaped like Polaroid camera. And another time, a yodelling pickle.”

Mulder sniggers and strokes her soles. She wriggles her toes and lays her head back. He watches her as her face relaxes, shadows playing over the perfect creaminess of her cheeks and neck. “Did you know that St Nicholas is also the patron saint of pawnbrokers and pirating and thievery. It’s amazing how a well-targeted marketing campaign can lift one’s image.

“Look at Kersh,” she says and they both laugh.

The fairy lights twinkle like the frost on the windows. The cabin was a perfect find, nestled in the hills. The forecast is for a white Christmas. There’ll be nothing to do but stay inside. The fridge is stocked - smoked salmon, Champagne, a Turducken and organic vegetables, a blueberry cheesecake in the shape of a love-heart, a seasonal special from the local patisserie.

              “So, did you believe, as a child, Scully? Or did big brother Bill spoil the surprise?”

              “Oh, it wasn’t Bill. It was Melissa.”

              His eyebrows shoot up. “She of the harmonic conversions and mystical auras?”

              Scully sniffs quietly, tucking her chin to her chest. “One Christmas, when she was about 12, Missy wanted a portable cassette player. You know the ones with the chunky white and red buttons? We shared a room and she wouldn’t settle, just kept sitting up and all I could hear was the rustling of her covers. I told her Santa wouldn’t visit if she didn’t go to sleep and she got out of her bed, sat on mine and laughed.”

              “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Dana, it’s time to face facts.’ The evidence is staring you in the face, yet you choose not to see it.” She looks at him and waits for a reaction. He nods for her to carry on. He loves it when she shares these memories, moments in her life that have stayed within. Whenever she tells them her breathing quickens and her eyes dart about, like she’s pulling images from her mind, sorting through the catalogue of conversations.

She sits up higher, heels digging into his thigh. “She said, with this real smug look on her face, ‘you do know that old Saint Nick is really Dad dressed up in some flea-bitten suit that Mom got from Goodwill and the sack is just an old hessian potato bag that lives at the bottom of their wardrobe all year.’

“I was devastated, but I tried so hard no to show it. I pulled the covers over my head and balled into my pillow. I cried myself to sleep, missed Santa’s arrival.”

“Did Missy get her cassette player?”

“That was the funny thing. She didn’t. She got a Barbie camper van and she launched it across the living room, yelling at Mom and Dad that she was too old for dolls and if Santa were real, he wouldn’t have delivered such a baby’s present. She yelled at Dad, ‘you never want me to grow up.’”

Scully leans her lips into her finger and thumb, rubbing gently and shaking her head. “Bill told her she was a spoilt brat and spent the morning trying to fix up the camper van. Missy spent the morning in our room and Mom carried on serving food like nothing had happened.”

He chuckles softly, imagining young Dana’s eyes widen and wet. “Was that the moment you decided on science as a career path?”

“God, no!” she says. “It just made me more determined to prove her wrong. My ten-year-old self reasoned that Santa must have been real because the gift was a reminder to Missy that she was still too young for grown up gifts and that her tantrum just served to prove that.”

              “Santa always knows best.”

              “Pretty silly, wasn’t it?” She lets out a soft flutter of giggles and slides closer, kissing him deeply.

              Her head drops onto his shoulder and they watch the flames a little longer. “Did you know there’s a town in Alaska called North Pole? And that a man who changed his name to Santa Claus was elected to the city council there?”

              “I did not,” she says, peppering his jawline with kisses. “But if we’re exchanging fun facts, have you ever wondered how many calories Santa consumes on his amazing trip around the world?”

              “Not as many as your mother serves at a Scully family Christmas, I would imagine.”

              “Assuming each household in the world left out two chocolate chip cookies he would consume something like 374 billion calories.”

Mulder whistles. “That’s quite a feat of endurance. I wonder how much his dental plan costs?”

She grins and he sees the fire reflected in her eyes. “If he could run an eight-minute mile, he would have to run for 109 centuries to burn off all those treats.”

“Nobody likes a math geek, Scully.”

There’s a rumbling noise from her throat as she leans in to kiss him. There’s a matching rumbling noise from his as she lifts herself across his lap, knees tucked either side of his thighs.

“You do, Mulder.” She says it as she grinds against his lap. “You love this math geek.”

He does. He really does. There is no formula to calculate the length and breadth of his love. It’s infinity times infinity. She’s latched onto the sweet spot under his ear. This will all be over too soon, if he doesn’t slow it down. He takes a slow breath in. Rummages through the stored trivia he’s collected over the years. The stuff most people would roll their eyes at. The stuff Dana Scully seems to find an aphrodisiac, when she’s in the mood. And as she rocks back and forward on him, arms anchored on his shoulders, it’s a fair bet to assume she’s in the mood.

“Did you know that pre red and jolly Santa Claus, hardened arteries and all, Scandinavian countries believed in a magical Yule goat.

“A goat?” Her voice hits the part of his brain that has control of his cock, ratcheting up a gear. She notices, it’s all in her little whimper.

“The goat would wander around to ensure families were preparing for Yule and demand gifts on the side.”

“A Mafia goat?”

He chuckles and bucks up under her movement. She moans into his mouth. “Ready for more math, Mulder?”

“I’m always ready for more math with you, Dr Scully.” Math and science, morality and scepticism

“To reach everybody on Christmas Eve, Santa has to cover 218 million miles which means he must travel 1,280 miles per second.”

“He must have the elite model alien-technology-built engine on that sleigh.” His fingers work on unbuttoning her top as she rolls her pelvis.

“I concede that unnatural forces are at play at this time of the year, Mulder.” He tries to nod but there’s something more than natural happening down below so he lets her talk as he works his hands around her back to unclip her bra. His fingers brush the knots of her spine and he wonders at her delicate framework, wonders how calcium and collagen and marrow could be so utterly sexy.

“Santa's sleigh would weigh more than 400,000 tons with all those toys so he would need more than 360,000 reindeer to do that.” 

Her breasts fall and his palms flatten over them. Her nipples are already hard and he muses that biology is the best science. The human form offers such comfort. Such diversity in texture. He marvels at the gentle weight of her breasts, the peaked points pushing at his skin. The sensual warmth of her mouth, the softness of her against the hardness of his body.

“So Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph need some more friends?”

“Uh-huh,” she says and it’s just the sexiest noise.

She’s grappling with his belt buckle and he doesn’t mind. He loves her grappling. She’s always been deft with her hands so it’s a pleasure of a different nature to see her working so hard, tongue kept neatly in the corner of her mouth, fingers white at the knuckle. He shifts up, allowing her room to do her work.

His belt slithers from its loops and she utters a small whoop of success. He captures the end of the noise in his mouth and pushes her blouse from her shoulders, along with her bra. There’s a stippling of gooseflesh over her exposed midriff. He runs his hands over her ribcage, counting each groove as his straining erection pulses between them.

There’s a smoky flavour to her skin, her nipples, the knobbly joint between her breasts. She’s woodfire and spice, naked on the couch beneath him. Laid out as a gift that he’s blessed to receive. His cock is throbbing with anticipation and she’s open-mouthed and flushed with need too. Her heat wraps around the tip, spreads up his shaft and burns in his throat, his mouth, his brain.

There are sounds all around, the reverberations of his own deep breathing, Scully’s soft moans, the snap of flames, the heartbeat-tick of the old-fashioned mantel clock keeping time above their stockings as though they might be in need of it. Time has never been less important. Time could just disappear and he doubts even Scully would care.

Each stroke fills him with such deep joy that he is sure there is nothing else in the world. She arches her back and in turn he pumps harder, understanding the clues that point to her building climax. Hot breaths under his ear, fingernails scraping the planes of his shoulders, forehead covered in a sheen of sweat.

“Fuck, Mulder.”

That’s the most overt sign and he slides a hand under her ass closing whatever gap there had been, pinning her to him so that he can feel her implode. When she does, she cries out and her voice hits his own release button and he surges into her with a shuddering sigh.

She’s boneless underneath him, pulsing faintly, shimmering. He’s unwilling to move. Their hearts beat as one. When he does shift, it’s because the fire spits and smoke fills his nasal passages. He presses his lips to hers and she tugs at the ends of his hair.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

He sits up and chuffs. “What for?”

“For loving me again.”

Her skin is hot as he sets his palm on her bent knees. Her hair is stuck to the side of her face. There are crease marks on her cheek where his weight had pushed her against the couch cushions. She’s still wearing her socks. How could he not love her?

“I never stopped,” he says, handing her the discarded underwear. “You’re pretty hard to let go, Scully.”

She swings herself round and up and slips her panties back on. “I’m old, still sceptical, I’m getting more and more cranky, I have zero patience for anything. I just seem to look at life and think how inefficient it is. I mean, what do you see in someone like that? Someone so bitter?”

He stands behind her, massaging her shoulders, kissing the scar of her chip. “You know how many reindeer Santa needs to pull his sleigh.”

She giggles softly into his clasped hands around her neck. “And that’s the criteria you use as a guide to loving someone?”

“What can I say, Scully. I’m a simple man, with simple needs.”

She laughs harder this time. “You are the most complex man I’ve ever met, Fox William Mulder.”

“No, no, no, Miss Scully. I think you’re confusing me with the other Fox William Mulder. This one here just wants to spend every waking hour loving you and every sleeping hour dreaming about loving you. As efficiently as possible.”

Her stocking moves on an updraft from the fire and she reaches out to still it. “I used to have strict rules about love, Mulder.”

He’s by her side now, holding her hand. “I can’t believe Dr Dana Scully ever had any rules in her life. Sounds fake.”

“When I was a teenager, watching Missy have her heart broken or breaking hearts. I imagined how my future relationships would be. Should be. I’ve broken all the rules over the years, of course. Older men, married men.” She turns her face up to him. “Women.”

The flush on her skin deepens. “You do keep me guessing, Scully.”

“But you rewrote the rule book entirely. You made me see what love was really about. You’ve loved me so openly and honestly that it hurt sometimes. It was too much. But this time round, it’s like I’ve grown to fit the size of your love. Does that make sense?”

It makes perfect sense. So much sense that a tear slips down his cheek. “There’s a reason why some things cannot be explained away by science, don’t you think? There are reasons why some ideals become so embedded in a society that you can’t tell where the line between fantasy and reality lies any more. Santa Claus, St Nicholas he was real. And now he’s a secret magical sleigh-speeding reindeer-riding dream figure. He personifies the clash between the commercial and the sacred. Love is no different, is it?”

“So true love has become Hallmark sentiment, and we don’t know the difference any more?”

Their bodies press together and they’re almost swaying in rhythm to the dancing flames. Heat washes over them. Their stockings are flat, expectant. “If saying I love you in 14 point Edwardian Script is what it takes then so be it, Scully.”

Her hair tickles the skin of his upper arm and he lifts it, allowing her under, so her cheek rests on his pecs. His cock is still half-mast and twitches as her breast squash against his ribs. “I had you pegged as a 48 point, bold Chiller font kind of guy, Mulder.” She makes a breathy ‘wooooohhhh’ noise, like a ghost.

“Who would you haunt, Scully? If you could?”

“Kersh,” she fires off, no hesitation.

He barks out a laugh.  “I think I’ll join you. Imagine the pair of us tormenting him in his dotage. Floating around his place, leaving all the evidence of ghostly activity behind, and he wouldn’t be able to prove a goddamned thing. He’d sound like a lunatic. Such sweet revenge.”

She shivers as she laughs with him and he pulls her in for a full embrace. “I wonder what Maurice and Lyda are doing now?”

“Probably not cuddling naked in front of a fire in a cabin in the mountains.”

“More fool them. This is the only place to be on Christmas Eve.”

“We’re not going to shoot each other, are we?”

She chuckles, but it’s low and throaty and his cock twitches. “Lucky we left our weapons at home.”

“Maybe we should just exchange gifts instead?”

“As long as mine’s not an umbrella with alien faces on it this year. I’ll get dressed and go get yours.”

He pulls a face, hanging on to her arm. “Don’t.”

“Get your gift?” she asks, chin tilted up to him. “It might be better than an Italian leather Filofax, Mulder.”

He chuckles, but shakes his head. “Don’t get dressed.”

She looks at her nipples, tight peaks and grins at him.

He shrugs. “Best present ever.”

She looks at his cock and arches her eyebrow. “Ditto.”

The fire snaps and flickers and the stockings waft back and forth. The couch is draped in soft amber light. He takes her hand in his and leads her back there.

“There is a school of thought, Scully, that suggests that believing in Santa Claus cultivates the imagination and the ability to think of possibilities and potentialities. He buries his face in the warm valley between her breasts and she strokes his hair.

“And I know how much you want to believe.”

 As the clock sounds a soft chime for the turn of midnight, he stirs, half-opens an eye. There’s a shadow stretching from the open door of the bedroom to the fire, now just ashes in the hearth. It’s large and round. There’s a cool draft and Scully shivers in her sleep. He pulls the blanket higher over them as she snuggles closer. There’s a scraping noise and a soft jingle of bells. He sinks back down against the pillow and smiles as he drifts back to sleep.

[ithelpstodream]

Brace yourself — the holiday season is upon us. Returning home for the holidays can be complicated for us queer folk, as our families are often unprepared to behold the incandescent, gender-transcendent, anti-establishment beings we have become. Take my family for example: We love baseball (not me, I’m too gay for sports) and we LOVE the holidays. Our Thanksgiving menu consists of classic American holiday fare: turkey, cranberry sauce, yams with marshmallows, plus The Outlier: sticky rice with Chinese sausage, to remind us where we came from. We are, dare I say it, very "diverse," so our holiday dinners look like a Norman Rockwell painting, if Norman Rockwell had had a 90’s post-racial utopia phase. I even have some relatives who are queer… though we don’t really talk about that. My fam is stuck in a time machine set to "early 2000s liberalism," so I find coming home queer for the holidays can be difficult. They’re not sure what to make of my constantly shifting gender presentation, much less my conflicting feelings about getting joy from a holiday I objectively know is about genocide. It gets awkward real fast. If you feel similarly, here are some #lifehacks for being queer and home for the holidays! 1. Wear a name tag. Maybe this is your first holiday season going by a new name. Maybe you look really different from last year. Maybe both! In any case, you deserve to be recognized for who you are. The first time I shaved my head, my dad walked me around a dim sum hall "introducing" me to relatives I’ve known my whole life, trying to justify my new look. “This is Jes, you remember, right? The flamboyant artist?” I thought to myself, “I’m not an ‘artist,’ DAD, I’m just queer.” (Since then I’ve realized I can actually be both.) Avoid this awkwardness with a handy dandy name tag! Now everybody knows you’re the baby cousin who took off your diaper and climbed into the cranberry sauce that one year, even though you’re grown up and have a giant septum ring now. Or, you have a new name and a giant septum ring, and nobody knows why you remind them so much of their baby cousin who took off their diaper and climbed into the cranberry sauce that one year. You’ll get to eat your siu mai, or mac 'n' cheese, or whatever, in peace. 2. Bring a decoy. Okay, so maybe the name tag didn’t work, and people are still calling you by the wrong name. Tremendous bummer. Really puts a lump in your mashed potatoes. Divert that negative energy by carrying a decoy that bears your deadname during all your interactions with stubborn relatives. It can be a teddy bear, a Bratz doll, a small porcelain cherub, really anything you like. I prefer a sock puppet. Suddenly, it’s [Deadname] the Sock Puppet who has “grown into such a lovely young woman,” [Deadname] the Sock Puppet who “should really man up for once,” and [Deadname] the Sock Puppet who “used to be so beautiful, before they got all those Friday the 13th flash tattoos.” It’s not about you anymore. It’s about the sock puppet. And your sock puppet will love the compliments. 3. Make friends with animals. Socializing with humans — especially humans you’re related to — can be extremely taxing. Instead, wander away from the party to make some animal friends. Animals don’t speak human languages, so they don’t have trash opinions about our current president (though it is highly speculated that all animals hate Trump), they won’t say your gender-neutral pronouns are “grammatically incorrect,” and they will never refer to your partner as your "roommate." One of my most distinct memories from a childhood Thanksgiving is of the time I met my cousin’s pet hedgehog, Barbie. Barbie didn’t care that she was more of a chubby, spine-covered ball than a leggy blonde — she knew exactly who she was, and she was proud of it. I was so captivated by her that to this day, I can’t remember anything else from that night. Barbie was a true queer icon. You, too, can forge such meaningful bonds with whatever cat, dog, or bearded lizard you can get your hands on. And before you know it, you’ll feel just like a Disney Princex. 4. Use your queer powers for good. There’s no doubt about it: queer people are powerful. Whether our experience with family is positive or negative, we have the power to heal, and the power to destroy. As a wise man in a gender-nonconforming, but culturally appropriative outfit once said, “use the force, Luke.” Unless your name isn’t Luke, in which case refer back to #1. Use your fashion influence — lez be real, you’re probably the most fashionable, or at least most self-actualized member of your family — to show your nieces and nephews that their “pilgrim hats” and “Indian headbands” aren’t a cute look ("so 1600s colonialism!" "so 20th century romanticism of genocide!"). Shadow your uncle in the kitchen so you can make a vegan version of his stuffing for your queer fam. Help Gramma pick out a new holiday sweater. Play video games with your burgeoning gender-nonconforming cousin. Who knows? Maybe you’ll help a family member find their truth, and then you won’t have to be the only Gay Cousin. 5. Eat. If all else fails, eat the food. That turkey (or vegan substitute) is calling your name, and yes, it’s the name you are meant to be called. https://www.them.us/story/survival-guide-to-awkward-family-time

[resmarted]

i am golden embers from the oldest burnt out flame that somehow manages to stay alive well past the party. i don’t know how we got here, but i’m drawing little cartoon skulls on the back of your hand and ruminating on death culture and our historical fascination with it, not to mention this modern day obsession. wake up, i’m worrying at you. i know, it’s been a long time since we’ve talked like this, in this house with all the windows open for anyone to be able to look in and see. me, a shameless blubbering idiot and you, an omnipresent interdimensional being that changes names and faces depending on what time of day it is. i wish we could be friends like normal and not these shapeshifting spaces that descend and disappear before they can even get a chance to form. i’m out of practice, but shall we? i am the cutest boy in school, (get over it, i just am.) and you are my closest friend. at least you were when we were kids, before puberty made things weird and gender norms influenced the politics of our relationship. back when life was endless summers in a treehouse and i was the only dude in your life besides your dad, and then even more significantly when he left. we were such pure vessels of innocence, or at least i was, you were more of a terrorist in an young girl’s body. we spend our days playing with your barbies, one of many secrets we take to our graves, and we have intricate plot lines for each of their relationships. i make scenery for them out of legos, a lawn to lounge on and a clunky castle to sleep, they even had a hot tub. we have an entire world that nobody knows about and eleven thousand inside jokes based within it, this galactic sandbox that goes on for miles where nobody can hurt us. in seventh grade two boys from our school come over and spot the dolls laying in the corner of the treehouse and they give me hell for it, and i mean it gets really bad. they carelessly pull apart their tiny clothes, some of them handmade by your aunt, and hold them up like torches made of naked plastic flesh. it is startling and i know fighting them will only make it worse, will only turn them into even bigger deviants, so i don’t provoke them any further and take all necessary precaution to keep it from happening again. admittedly, this is where shit starts to hit the fan with us. i tell you the next day you can’t bring them in here anymore, and that this is not a storage facility for your girl stuff, to which you respond with a look only the demon possessed child that you are could invoke. we don’t talk for what turns out to be the longest week of my life, and i try to compromise because i miss you terribly and all of our stories, how are all of our characters (ripped directly from episodes of 90210) even doing right now? i ask what if we just, yknow, not use the dolls anymore, but still play the game. we finally come to an agreement and spend the rest of the year lounging around telling stories in the air, playing without the physical evidence, just these long sagas that never get written down or repeated or acted out with dolls of any kind.

you’re growing up faster than i am, your body is developing first and you got a nice set of big naturals before we even get to high school. and what am i supposed to do, not notice? i try not to. i try to act like it’s totally not making me feel any type of way when you start to experiment with makeup and of course i’m not jealous of the boy band members you secretly fawn over when no one from school is around to make fun of you. what do all these meatheads got that i don’t got? besides muscles and money and matching wardrobes with dope harmony skills. i magically take up guitar the next summer and whenever you start to talk about another hollywood hunk i am just like so anyway, here’s wonderwall. you never seem to catch on, never showing to have the slightest clue, and over time our stories become fewer and farther between because you’ve got new daydreams now. you’ve grown tired of the dramatics in our pretend romances and you want a real one. you want jake who has a mustache and works at gadzooks in the mall or bryan who is always hogging the pinball machine at skate country. i call him a dweebmunch and you just drift further away from me. by high school we barely know each other, you can hardly even remember i exist as you join all these teams and squads and athletic girl gangs, and i still haven’t lost my baby fat. you’re dating marcus who plays defense on our school’s football team and at some point the new normal becomes this sort of familiar strangers vibe where we barely acknowledge each other when passing in the halls but wave to each other’s families when passing them in real life. we don’t actually talk again until prom night when you show up drunkenly to my backyard like the last four years never even happened. your mascara is running and your dress is torn, your pretty hairdo that took hours at the salon that day is all disheveled, and you hold a bottle of wine to your lips like it’s water. you are barely able to steady yourself long enough to climb up into the treehouse where you find me choking on a hit of weed with a look of terror like i’ve just seen a ghost. technically i have. you slur your words and ask me for a hit and i’m terrified of you, just take whatever you want, you monstrous beauty queen. you tell me that you hate your boyfriend but don’t go into detail, that prom sucks and your friends suck and everyone is fake and nobody will even be able to outgrow this version of themselves because their parents never did, and at one point you’re holding up the bottle yelling with burgundy stained teeth that nobody in this town cares about anything other than football. which is true, it’s just one of those towns where our whole identity is based on touchdowns and score boards because that’s all anybody’s got to live for. you curl up in a corner, finding a couple of your old dolls safe and secure and you smile at me, saying you thought they weren’t allowed up here anymore. i don’t even look back at you when stating that obviously abby and olivia don’t count since they are notorious rule breakers. you hold one up to sit atop my shoulder and talk in one of your stupid voices, requesting a live rendition of wonderwall. don’t be silly, i’m eighteen now, i’m too cool for oasis and have upgraded to strictly radiohead, the bends album specifically. we start to argue like we are ten all over again when you insist i am just being pretentious because i can’t acknowledge the obvious golden child that is karma police, and without thinking i retort that i’d rather be pretentious than pretend i’m dumb just to fit in with those who are. you knock me square in the jaw with your trusty right hook and i land harder than you expected. you’re not even concerned, and why would you be? you’re three sheets to the wind and screaming things like you think i wanted things to end up this way? you gave up first, if you would have just been a real friend to me none of this ever would have happened. you’re crying hysterically now like all good prom nights end, and i am rubbing the sore spot on my face.

i don’t fight you though, i know better. instead i just bundle you up and put you to bed like the little trainwreck that you are, and in the morning when the birds chirp and the sun fills this tiny space, you can’t remember how you got here or why your head is pounding so hard now. i am sitting up reading a burroughs novel because i’m cultured and mysterious now, with a thermos of coffee already waiting for you. you lean over to puke outside and it lands twenty feet below, and you hate when i tell everyone this story because i always say that’s the part where i knew i loved you. but it’s true, i had never been more certain of anything in my life than when i saw you hurling out this red river across the yard and thought how nice it was to have you back around, if even for a very delirious moment in a state of great confusion. we get breakfast at a diner we used to fantasize about being old enough to go to without our parents someday, and somehow that manages to be the beginning of the first of many best summers of our lives. now we’re old enough to go all kinds of places without our parents, and it’s still very novel for us to hold hands in public and be out past curfew. somehow we manage to stay these wild eyed teenagers no matter how old we get, and i wouldn’t want to grow young with anyone else.

[idonthaveanaccent]

For all my fellow writers/authors:

We all start out somewhere. I, by far, am not a published writer, but I have certainly grown in terms of my writing. We all start somewhere, so I figured I’d share a few of my first stories that I recall, and then I’ll explain my current one that I am working on writing and will hopefully get published.

I’ve been writing since Elementary school. I’m going to be a Sophomore in high school (I’m fifteen and in my tenth year of school for everyone not in the American school stuff), so I’ve been writing for a while. And while my writing is not perfect, and m spelling is certainly not something to blab about (I’ve already had ten spelling mistakes since I started writing this) and my grammar would certainly make even a fifth grader cringe at points, I feel as if I have grown in terms of solid storyline.

Writing does not have to be perfect, so long as you can convey the story you want to.

My very first story...well, I’m going to be frank. It was not an original story. Yes, it had original-ish characters, but it certainly was not a story I made up completely on it’s own. No, my first story, back when I was in...second grade? Third? One of those, was a fanfiction. You heard me- a fan fiction.

I usually, nowadays, shy away from both reading and writing fanfiction, mainly because I’m worried I’ll ruin my favorite characters or I’ll get extremely angry at the author for making one character not written in the way I always imagine them. However, the fanfiction story I made was not written down.

Back in the day, we always played with toys. I don’t know if any of you young-ins on the site who lied about your age would recall this, but before IPads and IPhones were given to second graders, we would have Barbie's and homemade clothes and we’d create these worlds. Now, I did not make this story up with Barbie’s and other dolls, it stemmed from a dream I had.

When I was young, I had an obsession with a  book series known as the Secrets of Droon. Never heard of them? It was essentially (from what I recall, it’s been years) about three kids who would travel to an alternate world (or was it just two...) and they fought evil and yada yada. Anyways, one night, I was watching this TV show known as the Backyardigans. Super obscure. No one ever watched it. I was a young hipster, obviously. Anyways, there was this one episode where Tasha was a superhero (they all were, duh) and she had this snapping ability. Then Uniqua (?) could control insects. Tyron had bubbles, and I think Austin had storm powers, or was that Pablo? I don’t recall exactly, but anyways.

One night, after watching that episode, I went to sleep and dreamed up a world where the MCs of the Secrets of Droon were sent to another alternate world, and there were three superheroes with abilities and then there was another one who everyone thought was evil or something, and I just rolled with it. I remember sitting in my room and just saying the words in the story, and I built upon the world. I had created a story.

My next story was in third grade. It was about a wizard girl with a gnome as a housekeeper/butler/.wise guardian/sarcastic shit and a human boy. The boy wandered into the woods, met the two other characters and they went on this epic adventure. I had made it up for a Halloween writing assignment, and I never turned it in so I don’t know what grade I got on it. It topped a whole eleven pages with size twenty-four font. I was so proud.

The next series that really became something I wanted to write was inspired by Wizards of Waverly place. It was about a wizard named Paige (yes, I made myself the hot main character because I was an egotistical nine year old) who was British (who knew that’d haunt me throughout my high school years?) and moved into town with her father to her Uncle’s house. Her cousin, Mason? I think that was his name...anyways, he was a werewolf and so was his dad. Her father gave up being a werewolf to be with her human mother or something.

Anyways, it was really well thought out and in fifth grade I wrote a very short version of it and because when I was third grade I had a crush on this kid in my class named Josh, I named the love-interest after him and in fifth grade he was in my class and we had to share our stories my friends all laughed at me because they thought I had a crush on him and they weren’t completely wrong but I didn’t have a crush anymore so technically they were wrong. That was long winded and not at all correct grammar.

Anyhow, the next story line I came up was about fairies, and it is way too stupid and complicated to even write it out, but I still have copies of it (I printed them all the time) so if you want me to type them up into a post I will do it. Anyways, that series was a complete flop as well.

In seventh grade, I began to think up this one series with more mystical creatures. I am actually thinking of writing this one out, but here’s the gist of it:

Erick, the son of the Elven leader, is a hybrid of Elf and Magic User (wizard, essentially). His mother was supposed to be the Queen, but she bailed after learning she didn’t want to be it. During the war, their house was bombed and she died. Cut to nine years later, and Erick has to go on this epic journey with other Hybrids like himself to stop Drea, his aunt. Anyways, it is really epic but it doesn’t sound epic because I’m cutting it short. Sorry.

Anyways, in middle school we had IPads because we were just that cool, and I’d type this story up on it.

Now we get to the motherlode of stories. This story is the one I want to publish. Here’s the basic summary:

Maxwell River is a sixteen year old high school boy living in Manhattan. He’s popular, attractive, sarcastic, and wanted. He’s got a best friend, Maria, and a rival, Chris.

Things change though when Max learns he can control water.

New doors are open to him. Not only is he the fifth of his kind, but he also has to fight off demons from taking over the world.

With the shapeshifting Killian Gold, the flaming Asher Burn, the freezing Jasmine Frost, and the earth crushing Piper Stone, Max is set. But when your power is wonky and stronger than everyone else’s, things can get hairy. Especially when the leader of the Demons is none other than Chris, his rival form high school, and his second command is his old crush, Hannah.

Things are only getting more complicated for Max, and there is no sign of it getting easier.

Yeah, not the most descriptive, but I don’t want to ruin the book. Anyways, I’ve been planning this series since the beginning of eighth grade, and my has it grown. In all honesty I never expected to be able to plan out six main series books, two spin-offs, and a second trilogy that details the lives of another group related to the main group.

My point of this long post is to tell you that even if your writing is bad, it takes time to plan out a good story. Not everyone can think up one on the spot. All my story ideas grew from time thinking of them. I’ve spent more hours of my life planning how to stop Max from being with the woman he loves than actually writing the story.

So long as you have a good idea and different main plots for each book, than you can write it. And it’s not gonna be perfect the first time around. It will take you ages to get it to the way you want it to be.

Trust me, if I had kept the original storyline, than Max would be superhero who would watch people make out in alleys. Not exactly stellar material.

Anyways, your story may not seem perfect now, but even have a base idea is good enough. I was able to build a story around a dude with water powers who fought of demons. If I can do that, than you can make your story amazing.

By the way, if you ever need help building your story, I can help. You can always message me or ask me for help. I will do my best.

Until we meet again.

[legendary-bard]

consider yourselves beta readers HERE WE GO

tw for torture / medical-y stuff 

for some reason my formatting is broken so ya’ll get the non-italicized version. oopsie

He’s hungry.

That’s really all he can focus on anymore.

He presses his forehead against the backseat. He digs his injured temple into the rough material to purposely provide himself with some more pain, to try to cover up the gnawing emptiness in his stomach.

As a child, if he whined about a headache, his grandpa would tell him to go get a hammer and smash one of his toes with it. It was the same principle here.

His temple starts bleeding.

Way to go.

Grandpa is dead and his advice is bad. 76 is hungry and bleeding. He has to grit his teeth to hold back a whine.

You’re not a whiner. Pick your sorry ass up and get your shit together, 76.

“Reaps, he’s bleeding again.”

“We just bandaged-”

“No, no, on his forehead.”

“I didn’t know I’d have to chaperone a fucking toddler.” Reaper growls, probably to himself. A stab of indignation shoots through 76 and he’s tempted to snap back a reply. He takes a sharp breath through his nose and manages to hold his tongue. “Stop fucking hurting yourself or I will sit back there with you.”

The unspoken implication is more pain. 76 gives a short nod of understanding.

“Hey, 76, mind if I turn on some music?” Sombra asks, in a conversational way that implies that he has no real choice in the matter.

“Don’t.” Reaper growls.

“Hey, 76’s our guest. He wants the music on, I want the music on, that’s two to three-”

“He didn’t answer you.”

Sombra twists in her seat, looking back at 76. “What’cha say, Gramps? It’s gonna be a long ride.”

He gives a short, jerky nod. Sombra whoops happily, hands diving for the dashboard.

“He doesn’t count.” Reaper grabs her wrist.

“Too late, asshole, the music’s going on.”

Reaper lets go of her in disgust and she turns on some thumping techno. Something that teenage Jack Morrison would’ve liked. 76 doesn’t care for it in the slightest, but Sombra appears to be enjoying herself.

“So, 76,” She calls above the synth. “We’re gonna be teammates soon, so only seems fair you tell us about yourself-”

“I’m not going to work with you,” He spits.

“Whatever. What kind of music do you like?”

He doesn’t dignify that with a reply.

“She asked a question.” Reaper surprises him by speaking up.

“The hell does it matter?”

“Answer it.” Reaper orders.

“Johnny Cash.” He says, blunt. It’s not a lie. Reaper makes a low sound. Perhaps acknowledgement or understanding.

“Holy shit, that is such an old man thing.” Sombra snorts. “Want me to pla-”

“No.” 76 is nothing if not curt.

“Fine,” Sombra huffs. “Reaps, you got a favorite-”

“No.” Reaper pointedly turns his head.

“God, you guys are chilly.” Sombra snorts.

“You’re kidnapping me-” 76 can’t bite back the words. “- And you think I’m going to be friendly?”

“Guess not,” Sombra says churlishly. “But Reaps, come on, we’re a team. You can tell me your favorite band.”

“I don’t have one.” He mutters.

Sombra gives up on socializing and starts playing with a tablet that she must’ve been hiding in her coat.

76 contemplates escape. There are no visible locks on the car doors in the back, but that doesn’t inherently mean they’re unlocked. And even if they are unlocked, he would have to either awkwardly stand-crouch to get at the door with his hands or try to pry open the handle with his teeth. Both of which are going to go noticed and will be foiled by either Sombra or Reaper.

The bullet wound in his side and his bloodied thumbs pulse. His stomach gurgles miserably. It’s an echo chamber of self-pity in here.

“That’s, like, the third time I’ve heard your stomach growl.” Sombra sets aside the tablet and sighs dramatically. “Reaps, I think we picked up a hobo instead of a super soldier.”

Super soldier. Ice runs up his back but he keeps his face cold and impassive.

“I’m not feeding him.” Reaper says bluntly.

“Widowmaker would,” Sombra argues.

“I’m not Widowmaker.”

Widowmaker. The way they speak about her- is she their boss? It’s an interesting, if somewhat disturbing, callsign. He can’t help but think that he might know it from somewhere, but he doesn’t for the life of him remember where. He blames his old age for his bad memory.

“C’mon, Reaps, it’d be funny trying to watch him eat with his hands tied like that.” Sombra nudges him. “You gotta have some humor.”

“I’m not feeding him.” Reaper repeats adamantly.

“Well, I guess I will, then. We’re almost at Mexico City, there’s bound to be some fast food-”

“You do that and I’ll-”

“You’ll what, Reaps?” Sombra sits up abruptly. “The hell are you gonna do, huh? You can’t kill me. You can’t hurt me. You can yell at me all you want and I don’t care.”

Reaper’s silence is shocked and indignant. Looks like he’s used to getting his way.

“The higher-ups are going to-” Reaper begins, slowly.

“Oh, the fuck do you care? You’re not gonna report me. And even if you did, they’re not gonna give a fuck. The least we can do is feed the starving bastard we’re gonna throw to the wolves.”

“You don’t have a conscience.” Reaper growls. “This isn’t like you.”

“Maybe I wanna squeeze out a bit of kindness before we get another Widow.” Sombra’s voice is clipped. “I’m stopping at a food joint and if you wanna stop me I’m gonna kick you right the fuck out and you can walk.”

Reaper is silent. 76 thinks he might like Sombra. Just a little bit. She reminds him of someone he used to know. Darker skin and a tattoo is all she’s really missing.

“Oy, abuelo. How long since you last ate?”

“A few days.” With his super soldier metabolism, it may as well be a week. His stomach gnaws on itself again. Pathetically whimpering for food scraps.

“Christ. I’m ordering off the dollar menu, you’ll eat like a fuckin’ god.” Her voice challenges Reaper to argue. He doesn’t.

It takes less than thirty minutes for Sombra to park the hovercar at some greasy fast food joint. She gets out, and Reaper gets out. 76 contemplates trying to get the car door open with his teeth while they’re gone. Before he can even get a shot at it, the door to his left opens.

Reaper sits down in the backseat with him and slams the door shut.

“Kick me again and I’m ripping off your leg.” Reaper tells him, with deadly seriousness. 76 gives a begrudging nod. His hands are bound, his wound is still fresh. At this close range and in this confined space, the fight would be over as soon as Reaper held down his legs, and possibly even sooner.

His stomach growls.

“Who is she?” Reaper asks abruptly.

“What?”

“You mention a woman in your journal.”

“None of your goddamn business.” 76 snaps back.

“Talon’s going to find out, whoever she is.”

“She’s dead,” 76 spits the words as if they’re venom.

Reaper is silent. He remains that way until Sombra comes back.

“Sorry it took so long, guys. But, hey, all of it was free.”

There’s a disturbing implication in that. 76 is tempted to ask why, but he doesn’t want Sombra to start thinking he’s going to be friendly with her.

“Three burgers, some chicken tenders, some fries, a few drinks-” Sombra delicately sets a white paper bag in the shotgun seat.

The smell wafting off of it is killing him. It’s a greasy kind of smell, the distinct earmark of fast food. There’s the heavenly smell of meat and fried bread, but most of all, it’s the scent of hot food. His will almost breaks and he has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying “please”.  He thinks his stomach is going to cave in on itself if he doesn’t get some of that food right now.

Sombra strips the wax paper off of one of the burgers and starts eating. Tomato and lettuce. Cheese. A muscle in 76’s cheek twitches and his self-control almost takes a nosedive. He swallows, maybe a little too hard.

“I’m gonna make a deal with you,” Sombra has cruel mirth glittering in her eyes. “I’m gonna toss a handful of fries back there, and if you can reach them, you can eat-”

Reaper wordlessly extends a hand.

“What?” Sombra asks.

“Give me the bag.”

Sombra passes it over. All that food, at Reaper’s feet. 76 has the dignity to keep from drooling, though just barely.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat before,” Sombra says, sounding intrigued.

“It’s not for me.” Reaper replies bluntly. “This detour has cost us long enough. Start the car.”

Sombra’s fingers dance over the dashboard. The hovercar comes to a gentle start.

Reaper holds up a fry almost ponderously. It looks ridiculous, foreign in his hands; the same way a Barbie doll would in a grown man’s.

He holds it out to 76.

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m not uncuffing you.” Reaper says, voice hard. “If you want to eat, this is how it’s going to be. And if you bite me-”

“I get it,” 76 mutters.

He eats out of Reaper’s hands. Not as if he has a choice; his stomach has more sway than his pride.

While he’s going, he commits. He doesn’t know when he’s going to get a full meal again, so he eats everything Sombra brought them. Reaper, thankfully, decides to feed him everything that’s there. Probably a reward for not biting him or attempting to bite him.

He’s torn between whether or not he should thank them for the meal.

They kidnapped you and are planning on turning you into one of their Talon puppets. You’re not going to thank them.

He doesn’t thank them.

It takes about an hour, give or take, before the car stops again.

End of the line.

“Walk with me nicely and you’ll get the visor back.” Reaper’s voice sounds rough and cold in comparison to the idle hum of the hovercar’s engine. He opens one of the car doors and gets out. He holds the door, gestures for 76 to follow. “Make a racket and I’ll rip out your tongue.”

76 is a good deal more precarious than usual. His dulled eyes and cuffed hands force him to move slower and much more carefully, but he gets out of the car, nonetheless.

It’s dark. Not pitch black, but definitely indoors. He can’t see well enough to make out exactly where they are, but his other senses clue him in. It’s damp, cold, drafty, and the air smells of earth. Underground is his best guess. The fluorescent yellow-orange lights coupled with the darkness remind him of subways and, strangely enough, airports. The walls are either concrete or stone, but he can’t tell for absolute certain.

He almost asks where are we going, but he has a pretty good idea. He flexes against the cuffs, vainly hoping they’ll break. He knows they won’t, but he tries, nonetheless. His analytical mind can’t hold back from thinking of hopeless escape routes. If he got his hands uncuffed, he’d clock Reaper in the face, hold him down, get the visor back-

And what? Run? Where? Do you think they wouldn’t find you?

Tracer, Winston, Genji, McCree, Angela, Reinhardt, Torbjorn- They’re all still alive. They would give me sanctuary.

You have an international bounty on your head. They aren’t going to shelter you.

I’ll tell them I’m Jack Morrison.

Jack Morrison is dead and I would rather die than have to be him again.

It would be better for everyone if they’d believed that Strike Commander Morrison was blown to shrapnel in the Swiss explosion. Having to be a leader again, having to make those decisions, having to face the rotting husk of Overwatch and the UN… He can’t do it. 76 isn’t strong enough to be a leader. 76 is a soldier; he isn’t Strike Commander. All he is, and all he will be, is Soldier: 76.

Jack Morrison is dead.

“Move,” Reaper snarls.

76 lowers his head and falls in step with Reaper and Sombra.

The old ghost is surprisingly soft and quiet as he’s directed. Reaper momentarily entertains the idea that this is a trap and 76 is a plant. He doesn’t think so. The ghost wouldn’t have fought so hard in the beginning. Wouldn’t have had such private confectories on his person. Wouldn’t have come so close to bleeding to death. No, this doesn’t read trap to him.

But something is here that bothers him, that he can’t put his finger on. There are some glimpses of 76’s face, from different angles, and he strongly resembles someone Reaper used to know. Something about the shape of his cheekbones or the proud line of his jaw or the jut of his chin. The scars ruin the image; something about the shape of the nose or the crinkle of his face at his lips seems distinctly wrong. Who the hell could he have been?

A few Talon agents join them. If they bother 76, he doesn’t show it. He keeps his head bowed, but shoulders squared and chest out. He may be submissive, but he isn’t afraid. Reaper tries to match that particular trait to someone he knew. There’s an old operative in Blackwatch that he thinks might fit the bill… But that man was missing an ear, and 76 definitely had both of his.

He runs through a string of old Overwatch members.

One jumps to mind immediately, and is almost as quickly discarded. Jack Morrison’s grave had been laid, and this man doesn’t have the same attitude Jack did. Jack was always friendly, if somewhat strained from lack of sleep and his workload. Jack wasn’t avoidant when combat was regarded, but he prefered little brainiac schemes to blindly going down fighting. He wasn’t sharply against unofficial ops and “vigilante justice”, which 76 wholeheartedly represented. They’re too different in ideology to be the same person, and as much as it stings to say it, Jack Morrison is dead.

Jesse McCree is a definite no, although he has the vigilante justice down pat. Jesse’s too short and too young to be 76. The shape of the nose and face is wrong, too.

Torbjorn is a no. So is Reinhardt. So is Genji. There are a multitude of grizzled white men from Blackwatch and Overwatch, but their faces swim in his mind’s eye and he can’t remember if any of them supremely resembled Soldier: 76.

He has to reluctantly concede that he just doesn’t know. It’s going to be one of the first things he asks when he finally gets 76 in the interrogation chair, that’s for goddamn certain.

“Sir,” One of the agents whispers to him, “Doctor Carthy wants to see Soldier: 76 right away.”

A grunt from Reaper. “Then we’ll take him to the medbay.”

The base they’re presently in is staunchly on the border between Mexico and the United States. It finds its home in an abandoned mining facility, deep below the earth. They’re at the upper level, less than a few meters from the surface. Their intended destination is the elevator, then, a kilometer below, the medbay.

Reaper is not a fan of Doctor Carthy. He finds, as he adjusts to being Reaper, that he finds himself not a fan of any doctor.

Particularly…

The thought of Angela has his blood boiling. He gives the ghost a sharper, harder shove, and he stumbles.

“Keep moving.”

76 scowls at him but says nothing. Reaper, Sombra, 76, and the entourage of agents all climb in the elevator.

It’s a short ride to the belly of the facility. The agents motion to blindfold 76, but Reaper stops them with a shake of his head. It’s unnecessary, and besides that, 76 already has a difficult time seeing.

He wondered if 76 was born with it. There were visually impaired people in Overwatch, though none he recalls that look quite like the old ghost. He wonders if perhaps 76 has undergone some form of cosmetic surgery.

He lived in a hovel. He shared a home with rats and fleas. He hasn’t had cosmetic surgery. He’s quick to dismiss that thought. If he had, he would’ve removed the scars, which is the only thing that keeps him from efficiently blending in with every other middling-fifties white man.

“Hey, Reaps, I’m gonna go get some rest.” Sombra gives an overblown yawn, arching her back and stretching. “I’m gonna go to my room. You should, too. Let Doc Carthy handl-”

“No.” He replies bluntly. He’s not letting 76 out of his sight until he wrings out the answers he’s craving. If that takes days, so be it.

The elevator comes to a stop. Reaper shoves the ghost forward. The hallways here are white and clinical. Walls lined with blue LEDs and ceilings patterned with fluorescent, sickly-white overhead lights. He hates the medbay. It reminds him of his illness, the terrifying uncertainty and lightness of being nothing and everything simultaneously. You haven’t known agony until you’ve felt yourself dissolve and regrow, over and over again. It took months of mental schooling, of doctor’s prods and tests, in order to get him in a mostly functional state.

At the very least they kept him detached during those months. They never called him Gabriel Reyes or anything of the kind. It made leaving his old life behind so much easier.

“Where are we going?” 76 asks. His voice is guarded.

“Doctor Carthy’s lab.” Reaper replies, as if it will mean anything to him.

Doctor Carthy’s clinic was a large open space. It had a multitude of operating tables, all with thick restraints. Reaper has no bad memories with them; he was always able to slip away from his bonds when he was restrained. After a while he was put in his own special holding cell in the medical ward. The result of being an intangible mess of dying and living cells.

There are machines that line the walls, most of which he can’t put a name to. Reaper isn’t a doctor, far from it. He never bothered to learn the names of the blocky metal device in one corner, or the one that’s protruding a multitude of bizarre tubes, or the ones delicately trimmed with glass and hooked up to computers. They’re for doctoring. That’s all he needs to know.

“Oh! You’ve managed to capture Soldier: 76, how delightful!” Doctor Carthy himself looks up. He had previously been studying a multitude of papers at his desk in the corner. He sets down the loose sheets and strides over.

Doctor Carthy is small, wiry, of Indian descent. Reaper has never seen him out of his labcoat, and his latex gloves are a constant. He supposes that Carthy could be considered handsome; he has a proud nose, strong jaw, salt and pepper hair, intelligence. Reaper’s trauma lays too close to doctors for him to be interested in one, though.

“76.” Reaper fingers one of the handcuffs. “I’m going to release you. Don’t move.”

76 grunts in what sounds like confirmation. It takes a few deft movements of Reaper’s fingers, but he wisps smoke into the spring mechanisms of the cuffs and a moment later, they pop open.

Immediately, 76 stomps on Reaper’s toes with his heel. He spins, promptly, and uses the meat of his palm to strike Reaper’s chin.

Reaper stumbles backwards, catching himself on a marble countertop. He spits viciously, arms brought to bear. 76’s face is twisted with rage, and he lunges for the wraith.

The two of them collide in the nearest wall. 76’s knee slams into Reaper’s tenderest bits while Reaper grabs the wound in his side. The both of them hunch over in pain, with 76 able to endure it better. His hand pulls tight around Reaper’s throat, and he flings Reaper to the ground.

Reaper attempts to get up again, but 76 hunkers on top of him, frantically attempting to rifle through Reaper’s coat.

The visor.

Reaper slams his knee hard into 76’s wound. It immediately evokes a shriek of pain, and 76 hastens to get off him. Reaper takes to the offensive, getting up and lunging at 76-

76 dodges nimbly and Reaper just barely avoids crashing into some doctor-related machine. He spins around, trying to locate 76-

Doctor Carthy holds him by the collar of his jacket, a syringe full of… Something now jammed into the meat of 76’s shoulder.

“Oh,” 76 says, quietly. He stares at the syringe with a detached look of… Dread, maybe. “Oh.”

The old ghost crumples to the floor.

“What the hell was that?” Reaper demands immediately. “If you killed him-”

“Nothing so drastic.” Carthy says dismissively. “A nerve agent to keep him quiet. I do so hate it when they wriggle during my work. That’ll be all-”

“I’m staying here.” Reaper says.

“Well. I guess I could use all that muscle. Put him on a table, won’t you?”

He kneels, carries the limp 76 to the nearest operating table. He starts fastening the restraints around 76’s ankles, then moves to start binding his hands.

“Don’t cuff his left arm, I’m going to need that for blood drawing.” Carthy instructs. “Oh, actually, I’m going to need you to take his jacket and shirt off.”

Reaper is not a fan of being ordered around. He still does as he is bidden.

76’s ribs are clear cut against his skin. Reaper can’t count every single one, but the jut of his bone is not that of a healthy man. Regardless of his thinness, he still has rippling abdominal muscles that belong on a male model. He’s an innie and not an outie. He has a trail of frosty white hair starting from his navel that tapers down past his pants. The strands are smothered and sticky with blood, as is most of the snowy chest hair. Really, his entire torso is awash with the stuff. He needs a shower.

He has strong biceps, those of a working man. They crisscross with a few faded scars, scars that must’ve been from decades ago. More hair dapples his forearms. He has strong hands. Square fingers.

“Were you the one who shot him?” Carthy sounds disapproving. “I hate removing shotgun pellets-”

“Police shot him.” Reaper grunts. “Not me.”

“Ah, at the very least the bullet will be easy to remove. Hmm… I’ll need a teaspoon or two of his blood.”

“There’s plenty.” Reaper gestures to the bloodsoaked t-shirt and bandages.

“From his veins. No contaminants.” Carthy makes a face. “Then afterwards we’ll need to get him on a drip. He looks malnourished, and all that blood loss isn’t good for a person. Are you ready to earn your stripes as a nurse, Reaper?”

Carthy gets a growl in reply.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Carthy goes digging around in 76’s body for the bullet. It takes long enough for Reaper to pull up a chair.

“Got it,” Carthy says after a while. The bullet tinks in the bottom of a stainless steel dish, a few droplets of blood accompanying. Carthy strips off his dripping gloves and grabs a new pair from a carton of them on his desk. He slips them on and gets to work on suturing and prodding around 76’s wound.

“I’d give it a few months before he’s fully healed,” Carthy assesses, pinching the edges of 76’s skin taut as he threads sharply through it. The stitches look like barbed wire. “A few weeks with a biotic field. I’d imagine you’re eager to throw him in some torture dungeon just like everyone else I tend to, but keep in mind that the body needs time to heal.”

“Don’t tear the stitches when we interrogate him.” Reaper intones dully. “Got it.”

“I’m serious, Reaper. You keep sending me all these people who get injuries before their old ones can heal. I can’t do anything with a mass of half-healed scar tissue.” Carthy cuts the thread and gives the wound another look-over. “Hmph. He’s going to need a shower. Have I mentioned that I hate it when you bring back patients and don’t have the courtesy to bathe them-”

“Not my choice.”

“We could do that now, I suppose. I gave him a dose that should last up to six hours…”

“I won’t be accompanying you.”

“Not eager to bathe an old man? Smart.” Carthy sighs. “I’m not a bodybuilder, help me carry him. Be careful with the stitches, I just made them and it’s a pain when they tear.”

Reaper undoes 76’s straps and hefts him up, mindful of the stitches.

“Let’s see… He’s unconscious, so looks like we’re due for a bath.” Carthy hums to himself. He disappears into another room, and a second later, Reaper hears the sound of running water. He follows after Carthy.

In the other room is a shallow depression in the ground- No more than two feet deep. Circular, six feet by six feet, with a spout currently jettisoning water into the indent. A bathtub, though nontraditional. Nearby are sinks and showers. Reaper kneels, lays 76 beside the tub. Carthy starts undressing the ghost, clinical and medical in his movements. Reaper looks away.

There’s the soft sound of a body being slipped into water. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the clear liquid turning a cloudy pink. Carthy clicks his tongue disapprovingly and grabs a washcloth and soap.

“If you want to jump in and help, Reaper…”

Reaper leaves the room.

Twenty minutes later, Carthy calls him back.

76 has been redressed in an approximation of a hospital gown. Something to afford modesty whilst not getting in the way. His face is slack, impassive, and remains that way when Reaper carries him back to the operating table. He doesn’t stir through re-cuffing him. Nor does he wake when Carthy carefully jabs a needle into the crook of his elbow.

“Your ghost is a junkie.” Carthy says. Blood spurts into the vial he’s stuffing into 76’s arm.

“What?”

“He’s got a mass of scar tissue over the vein in his left arm. Small, precise holes. Ones that a needle has to make. They look old, though. An ex-junkie, perhaps.”

Were there any drug addicts in Overwatch or Blackwatch? No, surely not. They would’ve been fired. There are some things you can’t get away with; being high off your fucking mind during an op or even in downtime just wasn’t allowed. Maybe he’s not an Overwatch member. Either that or Overwatch got slack with their routine drug tests.

Carthy removes the needle in 76’s arm and pads over to some strange machine Reaper has no name for. He stuffs the vial of his blood in the device.

A few minutes later it beeps, blinking a yellow light. One of the monitors flickers on. Blood cells, Reaper thinks.

“Well. No blood cancer.” Carthy studies a string of incoherent letters, words, and numbers that are projected on a second screen. “No traces of drugs in his system, other than the one I gave him. Low blood cell count, expected because of how much he’s lost. Hmm…”

“Hmm?” Reaper repeats.

“He has something strange swimming around in his blood.” Carthy leans up towards the screen, fingers playing over the surface. He taps a strange, squiggly object amidst the donut-shaped blood cells. There’s quite a few of them, seemingly innocent and harmless. “It’s an enzyme that I’ve seen only once before.”

“No need to keep me in suspense.” Reaper says coolly.

“You. I’ve seen it in you.”

“What?” Reaper sits up, halfway sprinting to the monitor. “What do you mean?”

“That enzyme is swimming around in your blood, too. I assumed it was due to Doctor Ziegler’s failure to properly revive you, but he has it, too. Which is… Concerning. Outside of you two-”

“I know what it is,” Reaper hisses, barely able to get the words out. No wonder 76 looked so familiar. “That stuff. It’s part of SEP.”

“SEP?” Carthy echoes.

“Soldier Enhancement Program.” Reaper mutters. “We had injections, biweekly. That’s why his arm is scarred. That’s why I recognize him. That’s why I recognize his fighting. He’s part of SEP.”

“You know who he is?” Carthy is bright-eyed, interested.

“I don’t know who he is.” Reaper admits. He still can’t put a name to the face, but he’s closer to finishing the puzzle. It’s one of the SEP recruits. There’s less than a hundred men that Soldier: 76 could be. He strains to recall anyone in SEP with features like the old ghost’s.

Soldier: 76 lets out a strangled groan, jerking in his bonds. His eyes blink, blurry, indistinct. The ghost works at clearing the drug-induced film out of his eyes.

“Impossible,” Carthy gasps. “I gave him enough to knock him out for another three hours-”

“SEP recruits metabolize faster.” Reaper mutters to him. “Give him a smaller dose, but give it to him more often.” He turns for the door.

“What? Where are you going?”

“Prepping an interrogation room. I don’t give a shit about tearing his stitches. I want to know who this is.”

The door closes behind him with a sharp, room-rattling slam.

The interrogation room is small. Dark. It’s ten feet by ten feet, with a cuffed chair dominating the center of the room. Strapped to it is a lucid Soldier: 76. Doctor Carthy cleared him, said he was healthy, and reminded Reaper yet again to not tear his stitches.

The interrogation room is lit only by cold blue lights. They’re dimmed, not that they need to be.

“Doctor Carthy,” Reaper says slowly, “Tells me that you still have all your wisdom teeth.”

“Is this supposed to scare me?” 76 spits spitefully. “If you’re going for torture, do it already. I can’t fucking stand postulating.”

“What’s your name?” Reaper asks, drawing close to the old ghost.

“Soldier: 76.”

“What’s your real name?” Reaper amends patiently.

“Soldier: 76.” The ghost repeats.

“You used to be someone.” Reaper tells him quietly. “You’re part of SEP.”

There’s a flicker of fear, of uncertainty, in 76’s eyes. His face hardens and twists into a sneer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is that right?” Reaper intones dully. “SEP is hard to forget. Biweekly injections. The burning in your veins. The nausea. The weakness. The touch sensitivity-”

“You’re another SEP recruit.” 76’s face contorts unpleasantly.

“They’re in short supply nowadays.” Reaper says. “Which is why I’m so interested that I’ve caught another.”

“Fuck off.”

“What’s your name?” Reaper repeats, drawing closer.

“Soldier: 76.” The ghost replies.

“What’s your name?” He says again.

“It’s Soldier: 76. It’s always been 76. It’s never going to be anything else, and nothing you can do to me will make say any different.” 76 snaps.

“You made your choice.” Reaper says simply.

Reaper applies pressure to the corner of 76’s jaw. His stubbornly gritted teeth bend under the force, and his mouth opens. Reaper wrenches his teeth further apart, and keeps them spread with a dental gag. 76 makes an angry sputtering noise, trying to dislodge it, but the gag stays fast.

Reaper taps a pair of pliers gently against 76’s cheek, a loving reminder that he could’ve avoided this.

“All your wisdom teeth…” He drags the pliers over 76’s molars, producing a slight grinding noise. “I suppose you’ve never had a tooth pulled.”

The metal clamp comes down on his back left tooth.

“Want to talk, 76?”

The ghost is mute.

He certainly isn’t after Reaper yanks out the tooth. The removal of his molar coaxes a horrible, gurgling scream from 76. He seizes in the chair, straining against the straps holding him down. A stream of incoherent noises that are probably meant to be curses leave him.

There’s something slightly fascinating about blood welling in the hollow where his tooth used to be. It spills into 76’s mouth, and he has no choice to swallow.

Reaper drops the tooth onto a tray nearby.

76 pants through the gag, coming down from the worst of the pain. His eyes screw up tight. He pulls against his straps, growling what’s likely supposed to be a death threat.

“We have three more teeth to get through.” Reaper says simply. “You should talk while you still have them.”

He spits something that sounds suspiciously like “fuck off”.

Reaper rips out another tooth.

76 screams. The sound is sharp, a crescendo of agony that bounces off of the ceiling and dies off as quickly as it comes.

His chest heaves. Blood escapes the corner of his lips, mingling with flecks of saliva. 76’s eyes are shut tight. Shivers make the broad curve of his shoulders shake.

“Half-way done,” Reaper croons. “I’ll start taking fingernails after this.”

76’s eyes open a sliver. Hatred glitters in them. Reaper has no doubt in his mind that the old ghost is imagining Reaper dying hundreds of agonizing deaths.

“Upper right or upper left?” Reaper asks ponderously. The pliers tap thoughtfully against 76’s cheekbone.

76 spices up his swears, snarling something akin to a slurred “go fuck yourself”.

Upper left. He gives an experimental tug and enjoys watching tension ripple through 76’s muscles. He was anticipating another jerk.

Reaper tugs again, a little harder. 76’s breathing gets louder, more strained. He swallows more blood.

Reaper pulls. Not hard enough to remove the tooth, but enough to hurt. 76 groans.

“You’re probably thinking…” A soft, gentle tug. “When is he going to pull it out?” A hard, sharp jerk, that produces a muffled shout. 76’s tooth remains in his gums. “The uncertainty is killing you.” Another hard tug that has 76 give a strangled noise of pain. “It hurts even worse than-” Without losing his meter, Reaper jerks the tooth out of 76’s skull.

A startled shriek bursts from the old ghost’s throat. His body spasms reflexively, and his crinkled eyes shoot open. His fingers flex out, then curl into fists. A few desperate gulps of air serve to calm 76 down.

“- Getting the tooth pulled.” Reaper finishes casually.

76 says something garbled.

“What was that?”

76 enunciates as clearly as he can: “You’re a sick freak and I’ll be fucking glad when you’re dead.”

“That’s fair.” Reaper says coolly. “Can I get a name?”

“76.” The ghost growls.

“Hmm.”

He leans in for the final tooth. 76 screws his eyes shut tight. Reaper wonders how much he would scream if he plucked out one of his eyes. They’re basically useless anyway, right? The Talon operatives wouldn’t mind much…

Maybe later. He has a last tooth to get through.

He’s very gentle with its extraction. An insistent pulling instead of teasing pulls or a hard yank. 76’s gums cling desperately, trying to keep the tooth where it belongs. It’s almost fascinating, watching the roots come out this slow, watching blood well from under the tooth and spill, dripping onto 76’s tongue.

The man keens, twisting in his bonds almost feverishly. His eyes are open wide and haunted. Looks like he does good with pain in spurts, not so much prolonged.

“Let’s go easier,” Reaper coos. He can see the prongs of 76’s wisdom tooth starting to protrude, blood spilling leisurely along with it. “How old are you?”

“Fi’ty ‘ee,” 76 manages. His entire body jerks involuntarily, shuddering with pain.  

It’s something to start with, at least.

“Date of birth?”

He approximates a ‘fuck off’. Reaper jerks out the tooth and is pleasantly surprised at the spurt of blood that follows. 76 looses a shuddering cry of pain, throwing his head up. Reaper thinks his eyes might be watering.

“Fifty-three, huh?” He drops the final tooth onto the tray. There’s a towel nearby, and he uses it to clean off the blood on his hands. He uses the same towel to wipe the trickles of blood and drool out of the corners of 76’s mouth. Not as anything nice; it’s to highlight the fact that he’s helpless.

The age, by itself, isn’t much to go off of. A majority of SEP recruits were young men and women. All of them should be around their early to mid fifties now. The real meaning of the age 76 gives is simple: He can and will break.

Reaper removes the gag, managing to avoid getting bitten. The metal is smeared with blood and saliva, and he dumps it carelessly next to 76’s wisdom teeth.

“Where to start next,” Reaper hums to himself.

“Fuck off,” 76 snarls, face twisting in pain. Looks like talking hurts.

“How long can you hold your breath, 76?” Reaper murmurs. “I think we might be going waterboarding.”

“Do whatever the hell you like. It’s 76. It always has been 76.”

“Your mother was a very boring woman, then.” Reaper grunts. “I don’t think it’s worth wasting sophisticated waterboarding on you.”

He unclasps 76’s wrists, binds them together. He undoes the binds on 76’s legs, dodges the foot that tries to kick him in the face, and loops his ankles together. He scruffs 76 and drags him to another corner of the room.

A one foot deep trough of water awaits the old ghost. Reaper forces him to kneel in front of it, grabbing a fistful of 76’s hair.

And he plunges him under.

76 is quiet and still for a few minutes.

Then he panics.

His neck and head jerks repeatedly, trying to pull free. His thighs twitch, his biceps flex, and he struggles against Reaper’s grip. He doesn’t shout. Probably trying to save the precious breath he has.

The dying thrashes grow much more desperate, but the flailing grows weaker and weaker…

Reaper jerks his head out of the water. 76 coughs and sputters, hawking up water and trembling hard. His entire body has erupted in goosebumps, hairs standing on end.

Reaper motions to plunge him in again. 76 gives a loud sound of protest, drawing in a deep breath before he’s forced under.

The struggle is wholehearted and desperate. Reaper has the feeling that 76 has never been trained to withstand torture. The only reason he’s gotten as far as he has is because SEP gifted him with a high pain tolerance.

Too bad that pain tolerance doesn’t apply here. This is sheer force of will and psychological training, and it looks like both are in short supply for the old ghost.

Reaper jerks his head up a few minutes later. He gives the man even less of a refractory period, allowing him to snatch only a quick breath before he goes under again.

Reaper counts the seconds patiently in his head.

Bubbles float upwards and he pulls 76 from the water. He coughs and sputters horribly, producing raspy words that Reaper can’t make heads or tails of.

“Stop,” 76 chokes finally. “Stop.”

“Ready to tell me your name?”

“It’s- It’s J-” He hesitates. Reaper waits patiently. Egging him on is going to make him lock his lips up tighter than a nun’s chastity belt. “It’s Seventy-Six. It’s always… It’s always been 76…”

And down he goes. As Reaper nearly drowns the ghost again, he reflects.

It’s J-

Started with a J, huh. A John or a Jacob, probably. He recalls a handful of Johns and one or two Jacobs. Or, at least, he thinks he does.

He pulls 76 up again.

“It starts with a J.” It’s not a question.

“It’s Soldier: 76.” He snarls.

“John.”

Silence.

“Jack.”

Silence.

“Jacob.”

Silence.

“Jaden.”

Silence.

“Jamison.”

Silence.

“Jeffery.”

Silence.

Reaper shoves 76’s head back under and holds him there for a full five minutes before he pulls him back up again.

The old ghost coughs miserably, spitting up fluid. If it weren’t for the water making it impossible to tell, Reaper would’ve suspected he was crying.

“Just one word, and you can make the pain stop.” Reaper coaxes. “I might accidentally hold you under for too long next time.”

“It’s Soldier: 76.” His voice quivers, as if he’s about to cry. “It’s always been Soldier: 76.”

“So that J was a slipup? I don’t believe it.”

76 doesn’t defend himself. He lowers his head, making a slight noise of pain. If he’s hoping for mercy or pity, he’ll receive none.

Reaper pushes him away from the water trough. 76 lays on the ground, hogtied. He struggles vainly against his bonds and Reaper leaves him there.

If Reaper had the patience, he would call off this session and start again later. Prolonged torture over a period of weeks, gradually amping up pain and intensity.

But he doesn’t have time for that. He wants to know who Soldier: 76 is, right now. If that means ripping a few stitches or breaking a few bones, so be it.

He goes big instead of going home. On a tray of torture instruments is a small chip, about the size of a grain of rice. He picks it up delicately between his fingertips and approaches the prone ghost.

He holds him down and gently taps the chip to the nape of 76’s neck. Obediently, the little device attaches to his skin.

“What the hell is that?” 76 twists, as if it would help him see it. Unfortunately for him, he can’t see it or reach it.

“It’s going to loosen your tongue.” Reaper says in as pleasant a voice as he can manage. “Up you go.”

He picks the old ghost up again, bringing him back to the chair. He unbinds his hands. There’s a brief fight with him to get his wrists back into the chair’s straps, but he stays bound. When it comes to rebinding his feet, Reaper’s a little too slow to avoid a foot to the shoulder, but 76’s ankles get tied down without too much trouble.

“This is going to be a gentle shock.” Reaper tells him. He picks up the small remote that goes with the chip-sized device. It bears a dial and two buttons, not all that complex.

He flicks the dial upwards and hits one of the buttons.

76 screams. Louder than when Reaper clawed at his bullet wound, louder than when he got his teeth pulled. It’s so loud, so full of pain, that Reaper’s sure he must’ve poured some of his very soul into it.

Reaper turns it off.

76 sits there, hollow and stunned. His eyes are wide, disbelieving. There’s an unspoken question in his blue eyes: did that just happen? What was that? It shares room with the aftershocks of agony. He twitches, spasmodic and uncontrollably.

Of all the warring emotions on 76’s face, Reaper enjoys one in particular.

Fear.

The unknown is the biggest, scariest thing that any human ever faces. Looks like a SEP agent isn’t immune to that particular flavor of terror either.

“A name,” Reaper requests silkily. 76 looks at him, pupils blown wide. Reaper relishes in the horror in his expression.

“S-” He hesitates, almost as if wondering if it’s worth it. “It’s… It’s 76. It always has been 76.”

Reaper adjusts the dial accordingly.

Electricity does funny things to people, especially in high enough amounts. When you shoot volts directly into the nervous system, it’s even worse. This isn’t struck by lightning kind of electrocution, nor is it toaster and bathtub or fork in an electric outlet. This is specifically hand-tailored to hurt without killing.

Not that 76 knows that.

76’s body spasms and jerks like a marionette being shaken, his jaws parted in an agonized, unending scream.  Reaper likes to imagine he can see electricity forking around his body; he keeps the current running for a good half a minute.

When he turns it off, 76 still twitches and seizes, body caught in contortions. It takes a good minute for him to sort himself out and for the spasms to stop.

Foam dribbles past 76’s mouth, bloodied in conjunction with his missing teeth.

“A name.” Reaper repeats.

“J- Ja-” He dissolves into a pained shiver. It’s something, at least. “Seventy… Six…”

“Hmm.”

Once more is all it takes.

He jumps up the voltage. The howls are unearthly, something that shouldn’t be able to be produced by a human body. Foam froths past the old ghost’s mouth, and the fresh scent of urine permeates the air.

When Reaper turns it off, his body still jerks and twitches violently, as if still caught in the throes of electricity. It takes a few minutes for it all to subside.

76’s shoulders are shaking.

He’s weeping.

“Your name.”

“Jack,” 76 says through grit teeth. A sob almost tears through him.

“Last name?”

“Mor- Morris- Morrison.”

Reaper grabs him by the throat, squeezing hard. Blue eyes shoot open, wide with fear and pain.

“Jack Morrison is dead,” Reaper’s less than an inch away from his face.

“I u- I used- to be him.”  76 confesses, hanging his head. “N- not- anymore.”

Reaper draws back.

Everything clicks together.

The handwriting.

The way his face looks so damnably familiar.

Being in SEP.

The fact that 76 appeared only after the Swiss explosion.

Reaper lets go of him. Moves away.

He should’ve known.

Jack Morrison.

The asshole never died. He was like a cockroach. A weed, stubbornly growing out of cracks in the concrete.

“I’m going to kill you,” 76 chokes.

“You already did.” Reaper replies.

He sweeps out of the room and leaves the disgraced commander alone.

“Sombra.”

The voice is hoarse, raspy.

The lights in her room abruptly flicker on. She’d previously been laying in pitch black darkness, trying to get some rest.

The lights reveal a person.

Clad in black. A familiar hood, familiar armor, familiar coat.

But the familiar mask is missing.

“Oh shit,” Sombra stares at him in disbelief. She doesn’t think even Widow’s seen Reaper’s face. “Oh shit.”

His face is gnarled, like an old tree, crisscrossed by scars. Thin, close-cropped hair, in buzzcut style. Black, threaded with hints of grey. He has a beard, greying at the chin and in little flecks of hair. His nose is strong, proud, although knotted with scars. His teeth are unnaturally sharp, bordering on monstrous. His eyes are a cool, reflective red, with his sclera a deep, inky black. He’s missing a chunk of his ear, one side of his face is deeply pitted.

To sum up: He’s not exactly pretty-looking.

“What the hell…” Sombra asks, slightly apprehensive. “Why?”

“Widow’s on a mission.” His voice is thick.

“You can’t be that upset about it.” She hesitates a second. “Do you want some water, or a chair, or-”

“Soldier: 76 is Jack Morrison.”

“Holy fucking shit, seriously? We’ve got the Strike-Commander of Overwatch- Ah, shit, I knew he wasn’t dead, I knew it!” Sombra gets to her feet, pumping her fist victoriously. “That’s cool, isn’t it!? We get to work with the Strike-Commander. Except mind-controlled!”

Reaper’s lack of enthusiasm isn’t encouraging.

“Hey- Is something wrong?”

“Something’s wrong alright,” Reaper spits. Smoke escapes his mouth when he talks, wisping like vapor on a cold night. He sits on the edge of Sombra’s bed, and without warning, buries his face in his hands.

Sombra isn’t exactly sure what to do. She holds out a hand, hovering it over his exposed back. She gently rubs his shoulder, trying to comfort. The fact that he doesn’t tell her to stop worries her more than anything.

“Let me…” Reaper says into his hands. “Let me tell you… A story.”

=

Long before he was Strike-Commander Morrison, he was Jack.

Jack Morrison was a young man, a shooting star, a promising light in the dark. He excelled in every field. He was a sharpshooter, a sprinter, a distance runner, a hand to hand fighter, the best man on the obstacle course. He was brave, steadfast, intelligent, analytical. The best and brightest the United States had to offer, all at the tender age of nineteen. He joined the military when he was seventeen and was drafted for SEP. within two years.

SEP. The Soldier Enhancement Program. Real life super soldiers. It was a prestigious offer, given to only five hundred men. By the end of the program, there were two hundred remaining. Either cracked under pressure or got sick due to the injections. Jack Morrison, during the entire program, was the head of the class. The top of everything. The envy of any man who was there, even the sergeants. He was charismatic, easy to rub shoulders with, and always willing to sacrifice for others. He took one for the team, kept humble, and was glad to help out if you were lacking in an area of training. He was, by all means, the best of the best. The ultimate soldier and, by the end of it all, a good friend to all.

He graduated. There wasn’t a valedictorian or a title for being first, but he stood head and shoulders above us all. He was a beacon of morality, of hope. A sign that we were going in the right direction. Nothing bad could produce a man like Jack.

He was sent out into the Omnic Crisis. He won scores and scores of victories. He was clinical in his precision, careful and tactical, while also capable of kicking in teeth and breaking bots. He was not a leader who sat on his hands in some safe place hundreds of miles from battle. He was right there, commanding men while fighting beside them. He was a paragon.

Overwatch was founded. An idle little dream sanctioned by the UN, built on the backs of extraordinary people with extraordinary powers. Strength, intelligence, speed; anyone who was ‘special’ became part of the task force. Jack Morrison was immediately was extended the offer to join. He took it, as did many other members of SEP. In Overwatch, he heralded a new reign of world peace. It was an inevitability when he became Strike-Commander. He was a natural born leader, easy to get along with, and compromising. He sent help wherever it was needed and occasionally wild carded, going on missions himself. He had fun with his work. He loved being Strike-Commander. He loved Overwatch. He loved being the leader, and he was good at it. There wasn’t a single person who even tried to contest his reign.

There were some who were bitter. Surely. It comes with the territory; when someone is a massive success, there’s bound to be some jealousy. There were other members of SEP who thought they deserved better. They were brushed aside, because ultimately Jack was the best choice.

Strike-Commander Morrison had a fatal flaw, however. His own hubris, his own naivety. He couldn’t see that Overwatch was starting to bloat, rotting from the inside. He didn’t notice that some members didn’t share his own sparkling virtue. People were dying and getting brushed away. Funds were being embezzled. Jobs were getting done sloppily. Accounts were being forged. People were getting hurt and those who tried to bring it up to him were being snubbed.  

It came to a head in Switzerland. There, Jack Morrison died.

=

“Except he didn’t.” Sombra says slowly.

“No,” Reaper mutters. “He didn’t.”

“I get the feeling that there’s more to the story than that.”

“There is.”

“You gonna tell me?” A brief pause. “You don’t have to.”

“I think I should.”

=

An important piece missing from the puzzle was Gabriel Reyes.

Gabriel Reyes was Jack’s roommate and closest friend for the entire duration of SEP. He was the closest competitor to Jack, as well. Seconds behind his best lap times, a few percent behind him in target accuracy. Not quite as skilled at hand to hand combat. Second best in everything.

Gabriel Reyes was a surly man. He questioned authority rather than blindly accept it, tested waters that no recruit dared, and was fond of making his own intuitive leaps instead of obeying directions. Jack Morrison occasionally bent rules, but he never broke them. Gabriel broke them constantly. Rules were made to be broken and reshaped into tools, he argued. Jack disagreed. As did the commanding officers. Gabriel was almost kicked out of SEP, the only recruit to be discharged. Jack argued on his behalf; Gabriel was a highly competent soldier and the second best, only outclassed by Jack himself. He claimed he would quit if Gabriel was kicked out, and their superiors conceded and allowed Gabriel to stay.

Gabriel hated Jack after that. But it was hard to hate him for long. Jack was a very likeable and charming man. Hatred warped into neutrality. Neutrality became affection. That affection bloomed from brothers-in-arms to romantic interest.

They graduated SEP before Gabriel could make a move. He moved on to be a major fighter in the Omnic Crisis, the same as Jack, but the war strained their relations. Jack was moving up in the world as a commander, and Gabriel remained a steroid-pumped grunt. A foot soldier. It was only thanks to Jack’s insistence on bonding with the soldiers in his regiment that Gabriel didn’t lose his mind and his interest altogether. There was never a good opportunity in which to bring up the question. How do you find love in the midst of all that bloodshed? You don’t.

Gabriel waited. Bided his time. There would be a chance, sometime after the war.

Overwatch was founded. Gabriel was invited the same time Jack was. He jumped on his chance. They went together. Gabriel hoped that they could be agents together, spend more time, that he would hopefully get the chance to confess romantic feelings. There was never time. Jack was quickly promoted to Strike-Commander. Gabriel was given another job. Not as prestigious, but even more important than Strike-Commander.

He lead Blackwatch. The covert ops of the Overwatch world. The messy jobs. The ones with grey morality, the ones that required bodies on top of bodies. Needed torture. Needed illegal actions. Jack had a distinct and documented distaste for Blackwatch as a whole. He and Gabriel didn’t talk much anymore, outside of strict business. It almost drove Gabriel insane- Acting as if their friendship were nothing because he had to take on the filthy jobs Overwatch was too ashamed to put in the public eye. Gabriel hauled Jack’s garbage for years upon years, working behind the scenes to try to keep everything together and get the jobs that needed to be done done.

All of that ended in the Swiss explosion, as well.

=

Sombra had a suspicion. A niggling suspicion, in the back of her mind. No harm in asking.

“You were him.”

Reaper doesn’t look up. Sombra clears her throat.

“You were Gabriel Reyes.”

A shaky, almost unconscious nod, like a bobblehead doll.

“Shit.”

Reaper rubs the bridge of his nose with his fingers, wordless grief.

“So… What’re you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know.” Reaper says, voice hollow and cracked.

“Do you still like him?”

“I thought he died.”

“Do you still like him?” She repeats.

“Yes,” It’s scarcely above a whisper.

“Well, he’s here now-”

“I just ripped out all of his wisdom teeth, drowned him a half dozen times, and electrocuted him-”

“Well, I mean. You kind of blew that, but maybe he’ll look past it if you-” Sombra hesitates. “I mean. I don’t know. I don’t date, and certainly not dudes… I get the feeling ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t gonna cut it here. Tell you what- Why don’t we go talk to him? Where is he?”

“Still in the interrogation chair. Unless Carthy moved him.”

“Tell him who you are. Chances are he’ll hate you less.” Sombra suggests weakly. “You know his secret identity, it’s only fair that he gets yours-”

Reaper rises wordlessly. Smoke wisps off of his shoulders, thickening in front of his face, and a new mask appears from nothing.

“Go to the interrogation room. Get Jack, bring him back to his bedroom.” Reaper orders roughly. “I have… I have something I need to do.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

It’s a quick trip down to the interrogation room from her’s. Reaper has a particular room he’s fond of, tailored to his own specific likings. All his torture stuff is rowed in his own particular order.

76 is slumped in the chair, chin to chest. He looks to be asleep, and Sombra briefly fears he might be dead. The faint, shaky rise and fall of his chest suggests otherwise.

He looks like hell. Hair still dripping wet, one of the electrochips at the base of his neck, corners of his mouth leaking blood. She picks off the electrochip delicately and puts it back where it belongs. She towels off his hair, wipes his mouth.

“You still with us, 76?” She asks, gently. There’s a strangled groan from the man. As confirmational as confirmation was gonna get. “Do you want to be called Strike-Commander or-”

“It’s 76,” He insists. His voice is rough, edged with pain and humiliation. “What else do you want? Overwatch secrets? Doesn’t matter anymore. Overwatch is gone.”

“I’m not here to interrogate you. We’re moving you.” Sombra tells him. “We’re going to your room. We, uh, got everything we need from you.”

76 lets out a gurgled sound that Sombra hopes isn’t one of his lungs collapsing.

“Can you walk?”

“Don’t know,” 76 replies, sounding defeated.

“Well, we’re gonna figure it out. Just in case you wanna get cute and try to attack me, I’m just as combat trained as Reaper. And trust me when I say I’m stronger than you right now.”

A slight nod. Sombra unbinds his wrists, then his legs. She leans forwards, arms outstretched. 76 attempts to rise, managing to stand a few inches before sinking back into his chair.

He pants softly, miserably.

“I got you. C’mon, can’t leave you here to soak in your own pee.” The smell is quite strong. Must’ve been from the electrocution; you kind of lose control of downstairs when you get all those volts shooting down your spine.

76 rises again, and Sombra is there to catch him when he can’t stand by himself. Holy fuck, he’s heavy.

“God, I can’t carry you by myself.” Sombra complains. “You’re gonna need to take some of your own weight.”

He does. He heavily leans over Sombra. Trickles of blood escape his mouth, and he keeps his head hung.

Despite the fact that he pissed himself and he can’t stand upright without Sombra’s help, the man who was formerly Jack Morrison doesn’t strike her as pathetic. There’s a quiet kind of dignity in the way he moves, like a disgraced king or an old veteran. Both of which he kind of is, she supposes.

“Not too much farther…” Sombra tells him as they shuffle out into the hallway. “You get a private room, with me and Widow and Reaper.”

76 stiffens at the mention of his name.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Don’t need to spook.” Sombra feels as if she’s talking to a frightened animal. Maybe, in some ways, she is. “I know you’ve probably had a shit day, but tomorrow won’t be so bad, right?”

Casual optimism never hurt anyone who’d been tortured.

He spits up a large glob of blood and doesn’t reply.

“Yeah,” Sombra says, in lieu of his response. The two of them shuffle to the elevator, and when the elevator lets off, towards the living quarters of the special Talon agents. There’s a dozen rooms down this hallway, two thirds of which are out of use. The occasional agent flits in and out, but the permanent residents are Reaper’s and Widowmaker’s. They both have nowhere else to go. Sombra wouldn’t consider herself a “permanent resident”, but her room does see regular use.

The fourth room was prepped for Soldier: 76. It’s barebones- A bed, a dresser, a clock. It wasn’t much, but compared to the rat-infested, flea-bitten blankets he’d been sleeping in before, it was probably a palace.

“Ooookay. Down we go.” Sombra guides him gently towards the bed. He halfway collapses on it and halfway lays down. He shivers and twitches, immediately closing his eyes. Sombra guesses he’s going to be wanting to rest, and for quite a while. Torture kind of takes it out of you.

She digs a biotic field out of her pocket, one she’d snatched up when 76 had originally been captured. She slaps the device down on the dresser. It immediately begins to radiate its warm yellow glow. The crinkles of pain around 76’s face lessen. He breathes deeply, clearly. The shivering and twitching dies off. Goddamn biotic fields are a miracle of science.

Then again, so is 76. She’ll need to go down and talk to Doctor Carthy and Reaper about this “SEP” stuff. It’s not technology, but she deals in knowledge, and not knowing everything there is to know about SEP is annoying. If she can gain 76’s trust, he might open up and tell her more. He’d probably be a more valid and upfront source of information than Reaper.

“Go ahead and sleep, abuelo.” Sombra says softly. She has to resist the urge to ruffle his hair when she leaves.

[geeksrs545]

20 Christmas Toys That Have Become Classics

You say the word Christmas to any kid, they think of one thing: Christmas toys.

For the past 30 years, there has been a major 'toy of the year' every year that every parent needs to get their kid to assure they keep up with the Joneses and meet the 'kid status quo'.  Though these toys differ greatly from generation to generation, they have one thing in common. Grown ass adults would literally be willing to actually fight over them in the store to get them for their kids. Adults acting like kids to get their kids gifts that make them act less like adults.

Related: The 25 Most Valuable Old Toys (You May Still Have!)

Kind of a funny cycle, really.

So when thinking back on my own childhood, there were many popular Christmas toys for kids that I got those years and now in hindsight, I wonder in terror if my parents had to assault any other adults to obtain them for me. Good thing I know better about them than that. All that said, here are a list of 20 Christmas toys from over the last thirty years that have become toy classics (some very much still selling to this day).

This list is numbered for your convenience but presented in no particular order.

20) Zhu Zhu Pets

Who who WHATS? I'm gonna do some quick research to find out what these things are.

*Comes back wholly unimpressed

They are just stuffed animals that move and do some basic crap is all. Run a maze and push a ball, WOOHOO!

But when you are writing a list about Christmas toys that got big, one would not necessarily call Zhu Zhu Pets “classic toys”, but in 2009 and 2010, if you were a little kid and did not get one of these, apparently you threw a tantrum.

Keep in mind, a literal HAMSTER cost less than these fake ones.

God, kids have gotten so lame.

19) Anything Branded by Apple

Apple has become the go-to brand to make yourself seem superior to others, so anything Apple has dropped (especially the iPod) was and is always the big gift to give that year.

Why do you think they make their OWN software obsolete so frequently? Because us sheep keep on buying it, so they keep doing it. But since the iPod (and iPhone and iPad and – one more thing…) dropped, Apple has essentially owned every Christmas simply by updating their software and making their older stuff obsolete.

Hey, if it ain't broke, break it and then sell it back slightly upgraded for triple the cost. Good for them. We would all do it and get rich that way if we could, don't even play.

18) Atari 2600 (and All Video Game Consoles Thereafter)

You cannot mention Christmas toys for kids without bringing up the impact that the Atari home console had on gaming. It really was the console that kicked off this world's love of home systems, as it was the most powerful home console we had seen up to that time.

It also set the tone for the console wars in the forthcoming years, which would see MANY Christmases being met with requests for the newest game consoles, still to this day! And now that they are coming out at around $500 a pop, the request becomes more and more unreasonable, unfortunately.

17) Barbie

I hope you did not expect this to be gender-specific. A fad is fad, despite what gender plays with it, and in this case, to not call Barbie a classic toy would be to undermine just how much this toy changed the game for young girls (and even some boys).

It would also be foolish to bring up a list of classic and retro toys and NOT mention Barbie. Hell, I feel the odd urge to mention her 'Dream House' and I don't even know why.

Moving on…

16) Gi-Joe

See, everyone gets represented so relax. Gi-Joe was to young boys what Barbie was to young girls. The best part is, Gi-Joe had a 50-year run (that is still going, much like Barbie, Hasbro know what they're doing).

Starting in the sixties as more of a shout out to the American soldier, over the years they took on a life of their own, and their popularity has made them a classic Christmas gift for all the young boys and girls in your life who like to pretend to blow things up.

Also see Transformers. I put them in the same category and love them ALMOST equally, but Michael Bay kinda ruined the Transformers for me (and probably you, too), so Gi-Joe lands the spot.

Deal with it.

15) Teddy Ruxpin

Teddy Ruxpin was one of the dopest Christmas toys I ever got. He was a Teddy Bear who was animatronic and you could put cassette tapes into his back and his mouth would move and he would sing you songs and joke with you and shit. It was cool and kinda creepy at the same time.

It was also creepy AF to put Black Sabbath tapes in his back and see him try to lip-sync along with darkly Satanic sounding music.

Good way to freak out your parents after the fact, too.

14) Easy-Bake Oven

Though more of a “conditioning method” than a toy (hey, give this to young girls to teach them to be subservient housewives, great message to send) but the truth is, my sister had one, and we would sit there for hours watching a single lightbulb try to make a single, tiny cupcake that was the size of a single bite.

In hindsight, it is hilarious, but at the time it was the bomb. But really, it is literally like a ten-watt lightbulb that cooks one cupcake over nine hours time, and the cupcake is bite-sized. So it taught girls how to cook AND become anorexic.

Good times!

13) The Pogo Stick

The 70's were a weird time. At one point, “pet rocks” were a thing. I think a lot of 70's toy fads are a direct result of all the drugs people were on in that decade. One example of classic toys that blew up over Christmas time in the 70's and 80's is the Pogo stick.

If you don't know, it is a giant stick you bounce up and down on. Yup, that's about it.

But it was so big at one point that you could leave your house Christmas morning, look down your street, and see twelve other kids (and adults) in their driveways trying to bounce like Tigger.

Like I said, the 70's and 80's were weird times, man.

12) Beanie Babies

Hey, remember that crappy moment in time when almost all the world was obsessed with collecting, tiny stuffed animals called Beanie Babies?

Yeah, unfortunately, so do I. Enough said about that.

Moving on…

11) Pogs

I will admit, I never really “got” pogs, but that doesn't mean in the 90's you could go anywhere without seeing them. Kids were obsessed with collecting them and dueling and shit.

I guess it could be said that things like Pokemon wouldn't be as popular today had pogs not set the tone for something similar years earlier.

To me, it just always looked like kids slamming things on a table, so I never saw the draw, but MILLIONS did, and that is why it makes the list (even though it is more like a stocking stuffer).

10) Bratz Dolls

Listen, I don't like it any more than any of you. I tend to think Bratz dolls kind of emphasize little girls being slutty, but that is just my opinion. Regardless of how I feel, this was another 90's-2000's toy that was just the IT toy for young girls for quite a few years.

And you know what, I don't slut shame. Screw it, you want to buy your son or daughter a tiny girl that looks like a stripper, that is all on you. More power to them, frankly.

I sold my kids into slavery so I don't have to worry about that crap anymore.

9) Anything Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Whenever you are bringing up Christmas toys for kids you know pop culture is gonna get brought into it, and when the TMNT got huge in the 90's, they had one of the most financially successful toy lines ever, because everyone wanted them.

And the kicker is, if you did get any of those 90's TMNT toys and still have them, they are worth a pretty penny now.

8) Tickle-Me-Elmo

Why kids wanted to tickle a heavy, robotic muppet was always kind of beyond me, but it was supposed to be, that was not my demographic. That fad kicked in when I was already an adult, so I can't relate to the desire for this thing, but sure enough, Elmo had a run of many Christmas' in the 90's and on, from Rock n' Roll Elmo to Tumbling Elmo to the “Stab and then run away” Elmo as seen above.

Honestly, the only reason we are no longer inundated with Elmo toys is because of this terrible story.

Glad it all worked out in the end, no pun intended.

7) Razor Scooters

First it was BMX bikes and then skateboards. Now it seems everyone 12 and under wanted to be seen busting nasty spin-tricks on their scooters.

But I can't have any gripes with this one. It got kids back outside and doing physical shit which we see all too infrequently these days as more and more kids choose to hide away in virtual reality.

Those weird hoverboards from a few years back almost took this spot but they started catching fire so that fad died as quickly as the people using it did.

Boom goes the dynamite.

6) Furby

Ah, from the very depths of Hell comes this furry beast. Mocking your family non-stop in gibberish. Waking people up from dead sleeps for no reason. Screaming to be fed, but fed WHAT?

NEVER understood the allure of these sick little bastards, but that seems to be a running theme here.

5) Tamagotchi

Another one of those retro toys that EVERYONE had at one point and another example of a virtual life kids had to keep alive as a pastime. How is that FUN?

Honestly, I also never understood this fad. I don't want kids in the least and can barely keep MYSELF alive so why do I need a virtual pet that essentially exists only to annoy and worry me?

No idea, but a LOT kids loved these things.

P.S. The Tamagotchi is back – new 2017 versions available. Seriously.

4) Nintendo Wii

I know I already shouted out consoles on the list, but the Wii was something different. The year it came out, every person got one, from young to old. Nintendo went and redefined gaming, making it more accessible to all ages, families, and groups again. It was cool to witness and be a part of.

This was actually one of my fave toy fads from Christmas' past simply because it got EVERYONE hanging out and having fun again, and that hadn't happened since the old days of board games.

3) Anything Star Wars Related, the Older the Better

This one was a given. The main toy I was going to mention was the Darth Vader head for carrying all your Star Wars figures (oh, cuz Darth Vader was a “headcase”, hahaha, well played).

Though there have been many Star Wars toys that have been popular, that is the one that is worth the most money now, especially if you have it filled with all the figures.

You are talking BIG BUCKS if you still have one. Like “put a kid through med school”  money.

2) Anything Pokemon

Though kind of generic to say ANYTHING Pokemon, you guys and gals all know it's true. From the Gameboy games to the toys and the clothes, Pokemon is more than just a toy line for many. It is an obsession.

The weirdest part here is, these things have been big since I was a kid, and you RARELY see a toy stay that famous for that long without major changes. It is actually kind of impressive, TBH, and Pokemon Go proved this series still has a lot of life left (and a lot of Christmas dollars to still get you to spend).

 Finally, the one you were all waiting for…..

1) Cabbage Patch Dolls

One cannot mention Christmas toys that became classics and not mention the mother of all classic collectible and the toy that kind of started the crazy Christmas phase when parents would kill to buy their kids gifts.

My overall thought on that is, if you need to fight another adult to make your kid happy, you raised your kid wrong. Real talk.

But Hell, even I had a Cabbage Patch Kid. His name was Skipper Anthony, he was a Premie (why the fuck was I getting fake premature babies to play with?) and for no reason, I grew up to buy the adult outfit version of what he wore, so apparently, that little f*cker made some HUGE impression on me.

(Tan corduroy jacket, blue shirt, jeans, and soon enough, the bald head, too).

Now for those looking for a list of more CURRENT gifts, we've got you covered there, too. You're welcome.

The 25 MUST-HAVE Xmas Gifts of 2017

[dianehoffmaster]

Are you wondering about which important life lessons for boys that you should be teaching your son?  It isn’t always easy raising boys in today’s world. When my son was born 13 years ago I looked into his tiny face and wondered what sort of things he would accomplish in his life.  Would he be a famous scientist?  Maybe he would discover a cure for cancer or help bring about peace to nations at war.  There are so many possibilities when a baby is born that it is just a bit overwhelming to realize that YOU are in charge of the fate of this boy.

As his mother, I know that I play a big role in how he grows up and the development of his personality.  It is just a tad bit intimidating…I could really screw up an otherwise decent kid with a few stupid decisions!  As he has gotten older, I have come to realize that WHAT he accomplishes in life isn’t anywhere near as important as the type of person he becomes.  I would rather him be a garbage man with a well-developed sense of pride, independence, and individuality than have him become a lawyer with no moral compass to steer him in the right direction.

There are a number of life lessons for boys that we should teach our sons as they grow up. You want to ensure they become men who we will be proud to have raised.  I don’t want his future wife to wonder what in the world I was thinking when I was raising him!

I am putting these important lessons we should teach our sons down in print, as a reminder every day that this boy needs guidance if he is going to grow into a decent human being.  Of course, as a teenager, we are REALLY far from decent human being right now!  At the moment my son is in the grunting and acting slovenly stage.  I really hope this phase passes quickly! Until it does I will just keep hammering these lessons home and throwing up a prayer to God every once in a while that maybe he could give me a helping hand.  Here are my own ideas for lessons we should teach our sons.

I am putting these important lessons for boys down in print, as a reminder every day that this boy needs guidance if he is going to grow into a decent human being.  Of course, as a teenager, we are REALLY far from decent human being right now!  At the moment my son is in the grunting and acting slovenly stage.  I really hope this phase passes quickly! Until it does I will just keep hammering these lessons home and throwing up a prayer to God every once in a while that maybe he could give me a helping hand.  Here are my own ideas for lessons we should teach our sons.

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Life Lessons for Boys

Unless you want to starve, learn how to cook

Nothing will impress your future wife more than if you make her a home cooked meal that did not come out of a can.  Pick up a wooden spoon occasionally and use it for something other than scratching your back.  Give him a copy of Teens Cook: How to Cook What You Want to Eat and get into the kitchen with him for a bit of guidance. You don’t want vegetable chopping to turn into playing with knives.  Raising boys can be challenging some days! 

  Body odor is NOT manly

Bathe regularly.  And actually use soap!  Keep your nails trimmed and your armpits de-stinkified.  Deodorant is helpful but do not use cologne to take the place of a shower.  You will still smell like BO, I promise!  Make him a few homemade sneaker sachets for stinky shoes and teach him how to remove armpit odor from workout clothes.

Real women do not look like Victoria’s Secret models

Your future wife will most likely not look like the life-sized version of a Barbie doll.  Get over it…you don’t exactly look like Ken, either!  Teach him that beauty is more than skin-deep and that a woman who is ugly inside is not a person they should consider dating.

Life lessons for boys:  This is not an attractive look!

Pull your pants up

Wearing your jeans around your butt cheeks with your underwear hanging out is not an attractive fashion statement.  Invest in a few belts and put your pants up around your waist where they belong.  Life lessons for boys that teach them good fashion sense may just help them land a job when they get older.

Money doesn’t grow on trees

Just because you have a plastic card with a nearly endless supply of purchasing power doesn’t mean you have to use it.  Spend wisely and save for a rainy day.  If your girlfriend is more impressed with expensive, sparkly things than an act of kindness occasionally she isn’t worth having.  Learn how to balance a checkbook, invest in mutual funds, and create a budget.  If you choose not to do this, there are plenty of empty boxes on street corners that you may end up living in.

It takes more guts to say NO than it does to say YES

Your friends will no doubt attempt to get you to do stupid things.  You are boys.  Boys are notoriously stupid at times.  Use your best judgment before making a bad choice.  When in doubt, ask yourself “Would mom beat me if I did this?” If it doesn’t have the mom seal of approval you are probably better off saying no.  Remember, it is mom’s prerogative as to whether or not to bail you out of jail the next day.

You never, EVER ask a girl out for the first time OR break up with her via text or telephone

Be a man and stare her straight in the eyes when you have something important to say.  Teens today have lost the ability to interact with other human beings on a personal level.  They need to know how to communicate with their peers as well as adults.  Important conversations should never happen via text message.

Naked pictures of yourself are not cute

Unless you are an infant in a bathtub full of suds and a rubber ducky, you should not be appearing naked online.  Naked pictures of grown up you that are posted on Facebook, Twitter and texted to your friends will come back to haunt you. My kids are in high school now and I can tell you honestly that sexting IS a big problem and happens more often than you think.  Make sure that they know that their dream job may just be taken away because someone Googled your name and was horrified by your naked, dangly bits all over the Internet.

The only safe sex occurs with your hand

This is one of the most important life lessons for boys that I want my son to remember.  No matter how careful you are, every once in while accidental pregnancies happen. If YOU are the cause of that accident, you will be paying for that mistake for the rest of your life.  If you absolutely can’t keep it in your pants, glove up and use a condom.  EVERY SINGLE TIME.  They can save you from years of financial and emotional issues, as well as prevent some nasty diseases. Study after study has shown that abstinence-only programs don’t work as well as safe sex education in preventing teen pregnancies.

The term ‘gay’ should never be used in a derogatory manner

Gay is a state of being, not something to call a movie you didn’t like or a teacher who gave you an F on a final.  And if you happen to have a friend who comes out and tells you they are gay, I hope you are man enough to hold your head high and still call them a friend.

It is okay to cry

Not that you have to cry over the death of a caterpillar, the closing of your favorite bookstore, or your recent burnt dinner attempt (see number 1 above!) but sometimes, something will happen that truly hurts.  And it is okay to let that hurt out with a few tears.  And if someone calls you gay for that, reread number 9 and ask yourself if they are really somebody you want to be friends with.

  I’m sure I have left out a number of life lessons for boys that they need to know.   Please share if you have one!  If you are the mother of a daughter you might like my article on How to Raise Confident Girls.

If you are raising boys, what life lessons do you want them to know?

Looking for more parenting articles?  Try these!

Important Life Lessons for Kids to Ensure Long Term Success

  Tips for Raising Teenagers: Keeping the Lines of Communication Open

[worthywriting]

I Love Barbie-qua

“What outfit will I wear today? Maybe the totally cool striped purple shirt with the glittery shooting stars on the sleeves.. or perhaps the rad jeans with the daisies going down the leg. Hmm, I haven't even tried on that mini dress with the unicorn silhouette yet.. it'd look great with that gold lamé jacket I have in my closet. Oh, so many fabulous choices! I better hurry and make a decision before work starts! Hmm.. I wonder what I will be today. Maybe.. a.. police officer! No. I don't have that uniform yet. Um, how about.. a ballerina! No. I lost the tutu. A teacher! No, I did that last week. Oh, I know! I'll be a movie star!! Yeah! Oh, and my best friends Jessica and Mallory can even star in the movie with me! This is the best idea ever!” I joyously proclaimed as I tossed Keisha, my favorite Barbie doll into the air. This was my routine as a young child. I would go to school during the day, and once the bell rung, I'd dash home to my room where my imagination was complimented by the ideal-looking women of my dreams: my Barbies. My most treasured possessions. These doe-eyed pieces of plastic got me through the happiest and most difficult times in my early years, which could be trying for a little black girl growing up where the only other one of her skin color is non-existent. Non-existent that is only if you don't count Keisha. Keisha the black Barbie doll. Keisha, my girl.

I grew up in a middle class home, in a middle class neighborhood, where I attended a middle class public school; and for nearly every year, I was the only female of a darker brown skin tone. The majority of my classmates were of Asian decent with pale skin and long, flowing, shiny black hair. Now, as a 23 year old adult, I look back at my elementary class photos and see that I clearly stand out like a sore, brown thumb. My frizzy, black hair in 5 ponytails, all placed around my head with barrettes jingling at the ends was always a thorn in my side. My brown skin, caught every hue of the light that shone on it to make me look as if I were made of a precious copper. Though I didn't see myself as something so precious that way back then. My classmates were of my envy, for they could ride the swings on the playground and look as if they were a beautiful bird as their pale skin tuned nearly to white in the gleams of the sun and hair flapped like wild fire with every sing pump going higher and higher. The only times I was aware of my hair having any movement was when one of my nuisance barrettes would poke me in the eye if I turned my head too fast. Being of this decent felt like a curse, a pain and incredibly lonely, that is until I'd go home and play with my girl Keisha.

Keisha, my beautiful black Barbie, was exactly what I needed in order to feel like it was not only okay to be me, but that I was indeed, fabulous. She was pleasing to the eye, had a great body, smart, funny, intelligent, basically anything and everything I wanted her to be. This creatively formed piece of plastic became a letter that I was writing to my future self. When I would play with her, that was my voice, my thoughts, my dreams being acted out vicariously through her in hopes of one day that I would act those things out once I was old enough to do so. Because I spoke my dreams through her in playtime, and could see and physically “make” this gorgeous brown figure “go to work” as a doctor/artist/airplane pilot, I could envision myself as the real life version of a gorgeous brown figure doing such. Barbie is essentially a voodoo doll without the voodoo. Little girls play with the doll because that is who they want to become when they grow older. They don't see the gigantic breasts or unrealistic waist. The only reason I picked up on those traits as a young girl was because of the older women who would ridicule my beloved for her appearance. And as a child, hearing these things from my elders, I would go along with them and call Barbie a “bad role-model” or “ridiculous imagery”, because I wanted to fit in with these women. But as I have grown up, I am beginning to see things in a different light.

I am black Barbie. And as such, I don't appreciate all of the negativity. For years, I was fed the ideas from smart, educated women that the Barbie doll, no matter what shade, was a bad influence on the very vulnerable mind of a young female and that she caused them to compare themselves to the plastic beauty and feel bad that they “weren't as beautiful” or “thin”.

Barbie is criticized because she's thin and beautiful and it is said that little girls don't need that comparative pressure. But what if you are thin and beautiful? This is not teaching young girls that Barbie's look is unrealistic, but how to compare themselves to an inanimate plastic object. Because Barbie is given the personality of being happy with herself, having great friends, being beautiful and thin, the willingness to try new careers and has a pension for pink, she is put down by women. This behavior starts with Barbie at a young age, but moves on to real women of the same aura once older. Women who are beautiful, uncommonly thin, tall and have multiple talents are more likely to be talked of in an ill nature or looked at through green eyes than seen as just another fellow female in the world trying to make it. It seems as if a woman can't have too many good things going for her to be considered fair game. Though the male kingdom goes through this in minor degrees, it is far more prevalent amongst women. Boys aren't told at their tender age that the muscles on their action figure are unrealistic, or that even though G.I. Joe has kung-fu grip and karate chop that he's a bad role model because the majority of real men can't do that. Once men grow older, even if they have a pot belly and work at McDonalds, when they see a man with rock hard abs who can carry a tune at karaoke and is a plastic surgeon, they're more likely to say “wow, he's pretty cool. He must work out”. If a woman in her adult years who is even slightly overweight and has a decent job, sees another woman who is a great singer, rail thin and is a doctor, shes more likely to be called “.. bitch..”. The lessons learned from the ones who give us the toys are the actions played out as we progress into adulthood.

Unfortunately, I feel that Barbie is put down by women who feel that they are below par of a certain shape/career level/ideal of beauty that they, themselves want to be, which renders into jealousy to be put on a smiling plastic object that can't fight back. If the Coca-Cola bottle instead of a regular cap, had a cap in the shape of an attractive, female head, I'm sure Coke might be regarded in the same way.

I grew up continuously hearing the slogan “Real women have curves”. What does that mean? I'm not a real woman? When truly thought about, the words have quite a bite. Real women. Real women. Its saying that women in the living, human world are supposed to be shapely, a bit more “meat on her bones”, and that if one isn't that way, then she is fake. Like a Barbie. But as a woman, myself, who has been a size 00 since 12 years old and lacks the curvature of womanly hips, this slogan is a stab in the heart. Am I not seen as a real woman by my fellow females because my genetics didn't include a set of hips? Am I to be regarded as a fake woman, just a plaything by men until they can find a real woman with 'childbearing hips'? Is it seen as okay to call me a “fake” woman because I am beautiful and talented like my friend, Barbie? What if I weren't so facially fortunate? Homely. Would it still be okay to say I'm not a “real” woman? My talents, gone. Still okay? I understand that the slogan is a way for the women who weigh more than 100 pounds to make themselves feel desired and beautiful as well, but the name calling is a terrible approach.

By no means am I attempting to make a claim that being thin and beautiful is a burden, but more trying to make the argument of that there is a big problem with women transcending their frustrations onto a simulation doll instead of joining together with other women to make sure that the future generation grows up as content with themselves and others around them as possible. Barbie is a doll. Barbie is plastic. Barbie can't walk into a married human man's office and seduce him to run away with her. Barbie is only a tangible extension of imagination for young girls to get the wheels turning for what they'd like to become in the future. Which is incredibly important for the young, black female.

Little black girls need Barbie. She might just be the only other female of color besides family that the child becomes familiar with, and even though Barbie is an extension of the child's imagination, its important for her to give the doll a voice, one that the child would like to hear that sounds pleasant and relatable. Black Barbie is beautiful, just like the other Barbies. Black Barbie is tall, the same height as the other Barbies. Black Barbie is slender, just like the other Barbies. There is nothing that says that black Barbie is in any way inferior or unequal to her lighter toned counterparts, the only difference is a change in shade.

Though Mattel was criticized by the way they created the first black Barbie, Christie (1968), simply by using the same facial feature template as 'white' Barbie, but only with brown skin and hair in a small, big, loosely curled black afro, I personally feel that that was the right and best choice for them to do for the first of the kind. As African-American women come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, hair types and facial features, anything too over done or not done enough would have resounded in an incredible backlash from the black community. If the nose was too wide, the charge of racism would have been applied by the black women with narrow noses. If the hair was too coarse, then the black women with straighter hair would have cried intolerance. The best thing to do was to simply dye the already loved 'white' Barbie a common shade of brown and give her some snazzy clothes to ensure that racist disputes couldn't be made, for she was exactly the same as her white counterpart.

Since then, Mattel has come out with a wide variety of extraordinary versions of black Barbie which range from noses wide and narrow, to dreadlocks and braids, to light-skin to dark skin, to brown eyes and hazel eyes to everything in between. They even have a new line of Barbies entitled the S.I.S (So In Style) Collection of African-American Barbies of different skin shades, hair types and personal styles for every little girl to envision herself as.

Barbie is a friend. Barbie is a vision tool. But Barbie is plastic. Barbie is not real. She is around to support little girls in their dreams and goals and be there even if no one else understands. Her flack is great, but importance is greater. As one who grew up to be Barbie, I know that the way in which I view her as a valuable tool for young females might be a bit biased. Some might feel that along with the skin color progressing, that the weight needs to be altered as well, and to that I wholeheartedly would agree. Fuller figured Barbies to a point, would be a delightful addition to the Mattel line, not only for the girls of fuller figures, but for the ones who already resemble Barbie to become acquainted with, too. All women of strong life choices need to be represented. Every girl should have a Barbie, because whats learned from Barbie is learned for life.          

[creativedogtrainingonline]

Pomeranian Dogs

Pomerianian canines are enjoyable to have however you need to find out the unique method of caring for them. Here are the rules.

Pomeranians are popular toy dogs which are normally owned by attractive individuals like the late Dame Barbara Cartland, the doyenne of royal romantic fiction. In the beginning look they do not look like canines, they look more like cats. They are thickly furred, specifically in the neck location which makes their locks bloom or balloon. As such they look like a miniature version of the mature male lion.

They are, however, nowhere near the male lion in ferocity. On the contrary, Pomeranians are a mild breed. Oftentimes, they are more civil than Poodles. And because their bodies are small, Pomerians have the tendency to bark in a tiny, almost inaudible voice the tinier they are. When a Pomerian dog isn’t moving, you can normally error it for a stuffed toy. My first Pomerian appeared like among those adorable Ewoks in the George Lucas movie.

What makes a Pomeranian so charming is their locks of hair. My very first Pomeranian had a sable fur which did not seem like genuine hair. It’s more like Barbie Doll hair. And owing to this sort of hair plus their small bodies, Pomeranian pets have an unique, natural scent all their own. No matter what sort of soap you use on them, or exactly what type of powder for that matter-they maintain that natural scent comparable to a newly bought doll.

However the Pomeranian pets hair can also be its curse. So this is where you have got to take care. As young puppies this won’t be a trouble, but view out once they are complete grown. The thicker their locks of hair, the more the chances that a few of their canine droppings may get knotted on their backs when they defecate. This can get pretty nasty specifically when they are having a loose bowel motion.

Because this can occur quite often, eventually the Pomeranian expects exactly what you are going to do next. When it does not want you to clean its back, the Pomeranian will try to conceal the difficulty on your floor carpets or someplace else. When you aim to pick your family pet up it typically tries to conceal, say, under the bed.

So it’s a great idea to have the Pomeranian’s hair cut around the back. But the majority of people don’t since it robs the Pom’s natural beauty. It’s your choice.

Veterinarians constantly suggestions that you pet your Pomeranian pretty often. They state that Pomeranian dogs are social animals who constantly desire affection and approval. And since they are also commonly classified as small dog, the specialists advice that you put them on your lap as regularly as possible.

This is where I disagree. Of 3 of my Poms, just one of them desire to remain in my lap. I daresay they are more curious than social. They want to romp around. In some cases, they like being brought like an infant in one’s arms. I can sense, nevertheless, that they do not truly like that frequently. When given a choice, I think a Pomeranian would rather be down the flooring free to playing around than anything.

Pomeranians are vain, too. Like gold fish they constantly want to be taken a look at. Somehow, they seem to know that they are lovely animals, cut above the rest of the other pet types. You can pick up that feeling of superiority most in the company of other pet dogs.

You toilet train a Pomeranian basically the very same method you would do other puppies. You push a newspaper under their feet when they are about to wet or to pooh. And soon, they will look for a paper prior to they listen to the call of nature. However as I stated previously, you always have to watch a Pom’s back!

When you do find those undesirable stuffings, take your pet to the bathroom and wash its back with soap and lukewarm water. I repeat lukewarm water! For if you happen to pipe him down with cold water in the middle of the night, he will remember what took place. And opportunities are, you will never discover him once again in the next circumstances of a bad back.

Never ever underestimate the speed of your Pomeranian. He can quite much disappear in a couple of seconds and out the door! And since he is so tiny he can go through fences. My very first Pomeranian got run over by a truck death by the neighborhood. Because then, I have always kept my Poms in the house and within closed doors. As I stated earlier, these animals actually prefer to frolic around.

Bathing a Pomeranian is always a pleasure-except when they have canine droppings stuck somewhere as previously discussed. You’ll marvel how small they are when wet. The one additional step you constantly have to do as compared with other pet dog types is use the hair clothes dryer on your Pomeranian after the bath.

You have to choose a great pet dog brush to opt for the procedure. Blow-dry the Pomeranian very same method you would do your hair, other than take special attention to change the heating to just possible. Once your family pet is totally dry, sprinkle a little talcum powder and brush its coat some more. The more you brush, the better your family pet’s hair gets.

Poms do not require to go on an unique diet. Any brand name of dog food will do. But please, absolutely no chicken bones or fish!

Bruno is blogging about pomeranian and Mops (pug pet dogs) at Hundefeber.no.

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[themomsandthecity]

6 Things I Didn't Know About Boys - Until I Had Sons

Growing up, my dolls were all girls. I'd stuff them into various sparkly, ruffly, fabulous outfits and fantasize about doing girlie activities with the real-life daughter I just knew I'd have one day. But the grown-up version of me was surprised by birthing one, then two, then three, then four children of the male variety (that last one tried to ninja-kick his way out, heel first, and hasn't stopped since). And though I wouldn't have my daughter-devoid life any other way - seriously, I wouldn't know what to do with a girl at this point - I've had to adjust my expectations accordingly. Because there are definitely a few things - six that stand out right now - that have surprised me about raising boys. 1. They use a TON of toilet paper. According to my very scientific calculations (ahem), boys should use about 50 percent of the toilet paper that girls do. I mean, they only use it like once a day, maybe twice if they eat a lot of fiber - right? WRONG. I am the only member of my six-person family who uses toilet paper on every trip to the bathroom, yet despite the economy-size packs I buy, we're running out faster than I can say "I just put out a new roll!" 2. They play with whatever you give them. Some of my boys' favorite toys over the years have been "girlie." They have had well-loved baby dolls and kitchen playsets that literally fell apart from use. Recently I dragged out a plastic tub full of my old Barbies, and the kids played with them for hours. Do they naturally gravitate toward the more traditional "boy" toys? Sure, especially as they get older. But if you don't limit them to gender-specific choices, they have fun with just about anything. 3. Their hair needs a lot of attention. I can barely manage to pull my own hair into a respectable ponytail, so I was relieved to have a houseful of sons with low-maintenance manes. Unfortunately, boy hair requires much more upkeep than I anticipated - especially if it's short. First of all, it's sticking up everywhere in the mornings, sometimes so stubbornly that only a dousing of water and a dollop of gel (and a lot of whining) will make them look presentable. And second: the haircuts. While my hair grows at a frustratingly slow pace, my sons need a trim every couple of weeks or they look like freaking Rapunzel. So unfair. 4. Their "junk" is their most prized possession. From the time a baby boy figures out he's got something to grab "down there," he will - and he won't let go. Ever. Little dudes twiddle, fiddle, stretch, and squeeze to the point where it looks painful. Bigger dudes eventually learn to do those things in private, for the most part, though it's still the first place their sleepy hands wander when you wake them up in the morning. 5. They can be moody and dramatic. I figured that having sons meant a low-key, hysteria-free experience - I mean, the phrase is drama queen, after all. But no. There is no shortage of sobbing, screaming, door-slamming, "my life is ruined!" theatrics. Sometimes they hate their brothers, sometimes they hate wearing pants instead of shorts, sometimes they hate everything in general, reminiscent of some kind of weird male PMS. 6. Someone is always injured. Seventy-five percent of my children have had a chipped a tooth (or straight-up knocked one out). We've had broken wrists, dislocated shoulders and hips, and stitches. And those are just the major things; minor cuts, scrapes, road rash, and huge bruises are everyday occurrences. My medicine cabinet looks like it belongs in an emergency room. It's no wonder, since they're always jumping off something - or, as I see it, trying to give me a heart attack. But on a positive note, dealing with gross injuries has toughened me up more than I ever thought possible. Having sons has brought several surprises . . . some awesome, some not so much. But the depth of a boy's love for his mama has been the best surprise of all. Sure, they look up to their dad and have lots of fun with him, but there's a level of devotion to me that defies description. Boys are boisterous, bubbly, big-hearted creatures, and they make life an adventure every day - from son up to son down. Related: The Unexpected Reason I Wanted a Baby Girl The Joys of Boys Being Boys 9 "Nod in Agreement" Truths Moms of Boys Will Totally Get http://bit.ly/2iGLDTC