#yeah ellen white is a legend

[skipper1331]

youngster // Lionesses

a/n: based off this request. Hope you like it :D

Getting your first senior call up at the age of 17 was shocking. Your call up came shortly before the euros and it was scary. You felt two sides of emotions, you felt the positives, the wow I’m in the senior squad and the negatives, shit I’m the in the senior squad with legends. You knew most of them, played against many of them as well yet the thought of having an actual conversation with them freaked you out.

But thinking back, you wouldn‘t change a thing.

-

Your first ever training session was interesting to say at least. As a striker, your goal was it to score but you didn‘t. At each opportunity, you passed the ball to someone else, so they could score. You were too afraid what the girls would think if you scored and if the ball wouldn‘t cross the line or if they thought it was selfish to shoot from your position.

By now, you knew the girls, you had to talked to some of them (not many) but something in your mind was telling you: keep distance, they‘re legends, you‘re just a 17 year old girl who got lucky with the call up.

Your behavior didn‘t go unnoticed - the squad questioning what the matter was with you.

"Kid, what‘s up?" Lucy asked one evening as she saw you sitting alone, watching the sunset.

"Lucy, hey"

"How are you feeling?" the older woman took it as her mission to get to know you. With the intention, that you would eventually warm up with her and the team, "First senior camp, hm?"

"Ye-yeah" nervously, you scratched your neck. You were literally talking to someone who you had admired since you were a little girl. As you felt the blush arose on your cheeks, you looked away, back at the sunset. "It’s okay to be the best version of yourself you know" she didn‘t look in your direction either, staring at the sunset as well.

"I- I don’t know what you’re talking about"

Scooting closer to your figure, the brunette looked briefly at you, "you‘re holding back. I‘ve seen you score goals for your club but not a single one here, why?"

"I don‘t know" you felt caught in fear yet Lucy made you feel like she wouldn‘t judge you for it. "It‘s scary? It‘s weird to know that I’m in the same room as you guys. Look at Ellen, she‘s a top scorer and when I am next to her in a scrimmage why would I shoot if I‘m in the same team as her?" you muttered the last part as you pulled your knees closer to your body.

"It‘s okay to be scared. But you‘re here for a reason. You have the talent, show them. Show everybody that you‘re not just the 17 year old," she laid her arm around your shoulder, bringing you some comfort before she whispered, "and by the way, all the girls think you‘re amazing. Even Ellen" she winked at you as you stared at here with wide eyes. Ellen White thought you‘re amazing?! The legend herself?

-

After the conversation with Lucy you were a changed woman. Slowly but surely, you felt comfortable with everyone on the team. You scored goals, worked hard and you’d proven yourself.

The girls became your family.

-

"Last one in the changing room is a loser" you shouted to Lessi and Ella while you began running, the best friends sprinting after you and Alessia almost tripping over her own feet as she tried to catch up with you. "You cheater!" Ella yelled as she chased after you, yourself laughing at her.

"Winner!" you threw your fist in the air, celebrating your little win as the striker and midfielder entered the room, "took ya long enough, huh?" mocking Ella’s thick accent, you yawned, acting as if you waited ages for them.

Ella and Alessia shared a look, smirking as they stepped closer to you. You looked at both of them, the mischief smiles obvious. "Oh no" you muttered. Before you even had the chance to react, the girls tackled you in sweaty hug as they started to annoy you with weird noises or tickle fingers.

"You‘re the loser" Lessi stated, laughing while Ella claimed, "I don‘t sound like that!"

-

During the international break you had two friendlies planned - one against Ireland and one against Australia.

Both tough opponents.

"Y/n" Sarina called over the pitch as you were about to take a shower like the rest of the girls. When you saw walking in your direction, you walked towards her, "yes?"

"Do you have a moment?" she asked nicely.

"Um, yeah sure!" nervously you scratched your arm, "is something wrong?"

"No! Actually quite the opposite. Let’s take a seat" she pointed towards the bench before she went there, yourself following behind. "In two days we‘ll face Ireland and you‘ll give your debut" she started, shushing you as you were about to cut her off, "you‘ll come off the bench and then you will show the world your talent."

Dazed, you nodded, "I’m really proud of you. This and last camp you improved very much, you deserve this" with that she left. Sarina was nice and a very good coach but also kind off mysterious which she had shown just now. You liked her.

-

You came on in the 75th minute for Ellen. The Og-lioness gave you a quick high five before she hugged you, cupping your cheeks while she told you "go smash it!" as well, she pressed a loving motherly kiss to your forehead. Everything’s going to be fine.

On the pitch, you looked around, assuring smiles coming from all of your team mates, even from one or two Irish girls.

Senior debut with 17, that’s world class.

While England was 2-0 in the lead, Ireland got desperate and angry, players like Katie McCabe showing it with the tackles she did.

Your moment came when Keira passed the ball to you. Dribbling around the defender you ran up to the goalie, no other defender near you, the goal keeper came out of her goal, off her line, with open legs. You had many possibilities, you could chip over her, shoot past her right/left or through her legs. And even though you had many possibilities, your brain decided on one before you could even consider which was the best option.

It was your moment to shine yet you embarrassed the gk by nutmegging her. You didn‘t care though and neither did your friends, you scored your debut goal on your debut match. It felt surreal. The stadium erupted in cheers and roars while the girls jumped on your back. Alessia was the first by your side, jumping on your back as Ella jumped on you from the side, the rest of the lionesses joining close behind. Millie and Rach smacked your head in appreciation and pride while others patted your back, Lucy being different as she squeezed your cheeks like an old aunty.

"So proud of you, little one" Leah whispered in your ear as you walked back in your own half, "thank you" you whispered, cheeks already red by all the attention you had gotten.

Like Ellen did earlier the England captain as well pressed a kiss to your forehead, showing her love.

The came continued until the ref blew the final whistle. Cheers were heard around the stadium, the girls happy with the outcome of the game. After every opponents hand was shaken the girls huddled around you, yelling, singing and the ManCity girls even dancing your name. "Debut oh oh oh, debut goal oh oh oh" they sang, hugging you in a group hug before they lifted you up.

Finally, you felt like a part of the team, like a lioness.

-

The game against Australia was a whole different story. With players like Sam Kerr and Mary Fowler up front, Alanna Kennedy and Steph Catley in the back and a brick of wall like Arnold in goal, you knew for sure that match wouldn‘t be easy. Not one team going down without a fight.

The difference this time was though, you were in the starting line up.

Arriving at the stadium, you walked out of the bus towards the building, your hand slipping in Georgias, the bayern player looking down at you. She knew how it was to be a newbie and young. Ever since you had warmed up with the team it was known fact that you loved physical touch. It calmed your nerves and just made you feel free. None of the girls minded, they enjoyed it, you were like their kid and/or little sister. So a routine had developed;

walking out of the bus in the stadium? You would hold hands with Georgia.

Scoring a goal? The skipper would kiss your forehead.

You talked to Lucy? She would‘ve her arm around your shoulder.

Ella, Lessi and Mary? Bear hug.

The thing you enjoyed the most though was the group hugs in games, it didn‘t matter if you were squished in the middle, on top or barely in the hug - just hugging the limbs around you - it was special.

"Less, could you braid my hair, please?" you asked the blonde who was already in her warm up gear. "Yeah sure!" the striker replied sweetly. You took a seat in front of her before she started to comb through your hair and eventually braid it.

In the tunnel, you stood in front Lucy, nerves kicking in as you shuffled with your feet. The brunette saw your state, her hands creeping up to massage your shoulders. She leant towards you, "deep breaths. You‘re gonna be fine" she said and that was it.

Both teams walked out of the stadium, music playing as you stood in a row. When the official part (singing the national anthem, high-fiving your opponents, etc) was finally over you were happy. You wanted to play football.

The game started intense, Australia pressed high and played very physically. Your enemy of the night was Alanna Kennedy, the Manchester City defender. She defended and distributed balls as much as she could - she was fantastic. All of her tackles were clean, too.

Then there was a corner kick.

Alex stepped up to take it as everybody positioned themselves in the box or close to it. You remember the ball flying in your direction, you remember jumping in the air and something hitting your face. It wasn‘t the ball, it wasn‘t an elbow either - it felt painful.

Your body hit the ground with a thud, your vision already black as (unknown to you) blood trickled down your face. Everyone was so focused on stopping the counter attack that no one on your team, the opposing team or the referee noticed that you were on the ground, knocked out. Macca was the first by your side, she got the message instantly - you weren‘t going to get up. She yelled something, her gloves already tossed aside as she turned you around. There was a nasty cut on the right side of your forehead, going down to your temple and blood running out of your nose. When the ref finally realized something was wrong she blew her whistle, too far away to check on you immediately - she gave the sign for the medics to come on the pitch. It took one look at your numb body before the first girls started running. Ellen and Lucy were by your side while the medics did their job. Leah was arguing with the ref, angry words leaving her mouth as Millie tried to stop her. Yet Millie also having not so friendly words resting on the tip of her tongue.

When the replay was shown on the big screen every person in the stadium inhaled sharply. It showed you jumping up and Hayley Raso jumping up as well with an outstretched leg which then connected with your face. That was enough for Millie to let go of Leah and march over to the Australian, Rachel close by. Angrily, she poked her chest as she muttered how reckless that was. There was big huddle, other players got involved but still, you were laying on the pitch. Everything happened so fast and got out of hand way too quickly.

"My head hurts" you rasped out. Ellen’s eyes grew wide, "hey" she sighed in relief.

"Do you have a twin?" you asked, eyes closing again.

"No?"

"why do I see you twice?"

Helplessly, Ellen looked at Lucy who shrugged her shoulders before she looked at the medics.

"The stretcher is coming"

-

You laid on a bed, head bandaged as you mumbled something. Benched Lotte sat next to you, Sarina with the strict order to look after you. Lotte held your hand in a comforting manner even if you didn‘t realize the act. "You know, a shrimp‘s heart is in its head" you muttered, smiling at the ceiling, high on painkillers. Lotte smiled to herself as the next random fact left your mouth and another one. Actually, she was quite impressed by your random knowledge.

"How is she?!" Jill asked as she harshly opened the door, the other girls behind the tall woman. Squeezing together in the room, the whole squad including Sarina stood inside, all eyes on you, "hi hi" you giggled, clapping your hands.

"I like you, you, you and you, you, you, oh and you," you pointed at each of the girls until you didn‘t feel like it anymore "ah, I just love all of you. My heros"

-

The days after, the girls took care of you like you were a royalty. They helped you to get dressed, reminded you to take your medication, walked with you - so if something happens, they could help you and everything. You really appreciated it, even though it annoyed you, after the first week where everything was almost back normal.

-

When the euros call up came, you were beyond excited. A European championship on home soil, could it get any better?

You loved everything about that tournament. The mood in the team was untouchable, the flair unreal and the games on fire. It surprised yourself when you got the chance to play in an actual euros match and even scoring. You felt a high like everyone else did.

It was the match against Spain when you scored the winning goal. The stadium erupted in roars, the girls celebrating jumping around you as each of them gave you a forehead kiss. Leah was the first who did - she always did it after a goal of yours but when Lucy did the same after that and Georgia joined as well, all the girls pressed a loving and thankful kiss to your forehead. It was the perfect moment, could’ve been a movie moment.

Winning the trophy was your and the highlight. Ella scored the opening goal and Chloe the final one, it was surreal. You had never felt prouder in your life.

When the final whistle blew, you ran for your dear life. You ran to the person who was the closest and jumped onto her as you shouted something cheerful. You - like everybody, felt euphoric. It was phenomenal.

You did it. The girls did it. The lionesses did it. They brought the trophy home.

With just 17 you won your first major senior trophy, many to come and as the youngster of the group, there will never be a day where you have to worry about anything. The girls had your back and you had theirs because you‘re a lioness.

All for one and one for all.

————————

[joltning]

okayyy anyway I finished sandguardians YAYYY I was gonna watch guard duty next anyway I didn’t even know ellen was voiced by the creator of that. jumpscare. anyway uhh

claire’s va change scared me so bad the tonal shift between the two is immense

THING FOR THE WHOLE SERIES BUT I FUCKINH LOVE SEALS ARMOR CHANGE GIMMICK SO MUCH ITS SO GOOD like not only for the environment but if he hangs around people more he changes to their colors? YUPPPPPP SIGN ME UP BITCH

umm I think gates is tolerable but tbh I like his dynamics with claire and miller better than his character himself 😭esp claire and gates they’re such a good duo.

I feel like out of the trio miller has the least amount of time to develop a dynamic, like miller and gates is like two guys dicking around and miller and Claire is just…I mean I guess they’re friends nothing to say about them right

am I tweaking or does miller like lowkey have a crush on nash or smth /j no but rlly I like the dynamics of miller-nash and claire-nash umm nothing on gates and nash wtf do they do

NOW WHY DID I NOT REALIZE ALL THE FUCKING BEGINNING CHARACTERS ARW VOICED BY THE CREATOR I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION “oh this is a big group of friends!” NO BITCH ITS ONE GUY. talk about range

honestly I cannot get a grasp on ichabods character I feel like every scene he’s in is ooc /j no but like I mean. like I feel like he isn’t close with EITHER dax or jason why do you feel like close enough to vent to eachother omg have you guys talked more than 10 times. OH YEAH ALSO JASON JUST DROPPING RHAT HES SUICIDAL OKAY LIKE HELLO

but tbh speaking of ichabod…… actually I feel like his interactions with ellen r closer and better than his team am I going cra

AND THE TEAM. oh lird what is happening with seal and legend Lirddd

no lie I miss the “kind of sounds like English garble talk” sangheili voice over the reverse audio one…I had this idea in my head that The Guy In White was a native sangheili speaker cuz when he grunted or did battle cries it sounded similar to that….

wtf was ellen on about when nash was like. “Ohh do you have a crush on anyone maybe mary?” And she was like “love her but not the one I’m looking for” WHO are you looking for. don’t bait me like this I will bite on the bars of my enclosure

I was starting to think like “this show has a lot of dead people who weren’t around for long🤔” BIIITCH YOU WATCHED RECRUITS I COULD NOT COUNT THE NOTEABLE DEATHS OF THAT SERIES ON BOTH HANDS if anyone gets to here hi I still might care for those guys maybe but I’m on that high I get whenever I finish a series so haiiii if anyone has watched this one too(GLARES AT YOU SKELA) let’s talk about it or smth

[mostlydaydreaming]

So, under that great French doc about Gene on YouTube (that's now in English-hurray) I commented about Gene being a wonderful man and was immediately contradicted by some moron named MissGelly who wanted me to know that he was a bully, hated by all his co-stars. Well, needless to say, I pinned her ears back and wondered if you wanted to add a few salient points, too. I forgot a few things: I didn't tell her Michael Crawford says he owes his fabulous career to Gene Kelly or mention what Patricia Wilson had to say about working with the Hollywood legend in "Take Me Along." Also forgot about his dance assistants, Coyne and Haney, being totally loyal to GK. Indeed, one of them was head over heels in love with him. I don't know why some people insist on spreading this nonsense; I suspect it's because he's very sexy and his choreography is sensual. Sexy is not in vogue these days and always suspect. Some seem intent on making him the face of Classic Hollywood's Me Too. As you know, nothing could be further from the truth. In a world of Bob Fosses, be a Gene Kelly. Cheers!

Ah, the whole purpose of my Mostlydaydreaming Tumblr & YouTube channel. When I discovered Gene Kelly (thru YouTube videos!) I loved him🥰 When I started trying to learn more, there’s a top layer of nothing but Debbie Reynolds quotes and a Cyd Charisse quote taken out of context.

When I dug deeper I found a wonderfully complex man with a huge heart. Faults and weaknesses? Of course, everyone has them. He had a white hot drive to succeed, to prove himself and leave his mark on the world. But he was also an honorable, loyal and loving family man. Yeah he could be hard to work with, but I knew he was more than that. I wanted to defend him.

That’s why I’ve posted interviews from other people who had a completely different view of him: Leslie Caron, Mitzi Gaynor, Cindy Williams, Michael Crawford, Rita Hayworth, Paula Abdul, Betty Garrett, Vera Ellen, etc. etc. etc.

I’ve tried to deal with haters before.

I remember posting a long answer, with links to interviews, articles, videos, trying to show them a different point of view. But all I got was a short smart ass answer that infuriated me, leading to me block them and take down my GK rant. I’m not getting baited again. You did ok. Offer things for them to check out, like YT interviews, and move on. You can lead a horse to water…🤷🏻‍♀️

All most people do is google him and read the first few pages of the same Debbie Reynolds stories and the same negative (usually incomplete) anecdotes:

Debbie’s horrible “french kiss” from Gene. First, this was likely a misunderstanding. It was on camera, it’s not like he trapped her in a dressing room. No other co-star ever claimed that Gene was sexually inappropriate in any way. This kiss was in the final scene. The rest of the kisses in the movie were chaste and he likely wanted a big kiss for the finale, like he had in a few of his other movies. He knew she had practiced screen kissing with another actor, like Judy Garland had done with him for his first movie. He probably didn’t think she would freak out like she did.

Debbie’s bleeding feet & Fred Astaire teaching her how to dance. First bleeding feet is nothing new to dancers. Ginger Rodgers danced with Fred Astaire with bleeding feet but you didn’t hear her bitch about it. Second, Fred Astaire didn’t teach her how to dance (I see this reported a lot). He let her watch him rehearse, which he normally didn’t do. He did it so she could see how much work dancing was, even for him. She watched him get frustrated and even throw his cane. All so she would know, if this is what she wanted to do, this was how much work it was going to take.

Cyd Charisse’s comment about how her husband knew who she danced with because if she danced with Gene she’d be black & blue. No she wasn’t implying Gene beat her! Gene was more physical than Fred with lifts and such, that’s all. They always forget her other comment when people tried to get her preference between the two: They were like apples & oranges, they were both delicious😘

The competitive dinner parties. I’m sorry, it was Gene’s house and he could put on any kind of party he wanted. He liked informality (He and Betsy knew when strangers came because they were the only ones who knocked) He liked sports and competitions. If you don’t like that stuff, don’t go!!! The people who complained most weren’t even real friends of Gene & Betsy at all, but people who tried to use them and their parties to get close to other influential people.

He only wanted young women. Again, most people only look at the surface on this one. Yes, his 1st wife Betsy was 17 when he married her and even younger than that when they started dating. But his girlfriend before her was in her early 20s. (Per articles I’ve found, they were either engaged or very near).

When Betsy left him, she was in her 30s (he in his 40s) and by all accounts, he didn’t want a divorce. If he wanted a younger one, it was the perfect time. But 2nd wife Jeannie was also in her 30s while he was in his 40s. No robbing the cradle there. After Jeannie died, in the late 70s and early 80s he dated women like older actress Jean Simmons and Tony Bennett’s separated ex, Sandra. Not excessively young. As for his 3rd wife, she did have what all his wives had, intelligence. They both loved words and literature. We may question her motives but Gene didn’t pick dumb bimbos. But to say he only wanted much younger women wasn’t true.

And he didn’t just seek young women to take advantage of them. Betsy loved telling the story of how when they dated and she tried to push for more than hugs and kisses, he reminded her that she was still too young for all that.

My GK rant is done🥵 I admire you’re enthusiasm but I don’t feed trolls anymore.

[cielsosinfel]

For once I'm cross-posting a Dreamwidth post here lol. I wrote way too much about the one and only book I finished so far this year, so tossing it into the reading log tag.

CW: non-descript discussions of sexual assault and antisemitism (both separate from one another)

The last book I finished was an anthology of fairy-tell reimaginings: Black Heart, Ivory Bones, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Avon Books, 2000). This was actually a random used bookstore find- I was once again looking for anthologies with Tanith Lee short stories, and there happened to be three different ones edited by these two authors- this book; another book in the same series called Black Swan, White Raven, and an anthology of fantasy erotica titled Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers. I really lucked out in all of these having Tanith Lee in them, and some other authors I'm interested in. I haven't started the other two yet, though. (I also just a few days ago found ANOTHER book in this fairy tale series, Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears at the same bookstore... would have missed it if I hadn't asked the clerk to check their Tanith Lee stock lmao.)

So, about this anthology:

The Tanith Lee short story in Black Heart, Ivory Bones is the first story in the anthology, and a reimagining of Rapunzel- a prince, who is putting off returning from campaign, because he does not want to return to his father who is coping with grief by obsessively fixating on heroic tales and legends, meets a girl living at the foot of a ruined tower in the middle of the woods. I didn't like this very much at all, to be honest, though there's one passage from the king I like. But one thing that stood out to me is another example of a pattern I've noticed in Lee's books: women- usually women who have already been raped- being able to just tell if a man is a potential rapist or not; men asking women if they aren't worried he's a rapist, only for the woman to tell him they would know and he doesn't have the look of one.

It's a trend I've seen throughout multiple of her novels and short stories at this point. The idea that all women can tell, based on a man's appearance and the way he carries himself and speaks, whether he will rape her. Even her most aggressive or stoic heroes have some innate quality of their being or their appearance that tells women he's safe, as far as sexual assault goes. And there's a lot to unpack there, a lot of long-existing societal biases that it just kind of reaffirms (because certainly there is a very long history of people thinking rapists and other sexually violent individuals have a certain "look" to them.) But I was also thinking about what a power fantasy this is, in a way- to be able to look at a man and know at a glance that he is safe, trustworthy, that you can desire him and know him desiring you back is not a risk. Especially as a survivor of sexual assault! What a superpower that would be.

But yeah, so that's the Tanith Lee story, mostly unremarkable. A lot of this anthology didn't stand out to me, tbh. Neil Gaiman has a short poem in it that I thought was pretty awful lmao. There's a lesbian retelling of the Red Dancing Shoes fairy tale, "The Red Boots" by Leah Cutter, that I liked- the prose is snappy and I thought the author used it to get across the energy of country dancing very well! I liked that there's no Happily Ever After resolution either- despite all the possibilities the protagonist has at her fingertips, with this dance-loving woman who is like her and mutually into her, in a place so hostile and lonely for women like them, she still can't stop treating dance as a competition she has to win. And so she will never be free of her shoes, and she'll never be able to settle down into a life of shared peace, bliss and love.

The last story that stood out to me was "The Golem" by Severna Park. The book opens to a pogrom decimating a shtetl in historical Poland, and the main character, an older woman named Judith, watching her husband Motle, the rabbi of the village, be gunned down by Christians. The shtetl is massacred, and Judith escapes into the woods with two other older women, Nekomeh and Moireh. They're reeling from the trauma they just witnessed, the grief, and the danger of being caught and killed, so decide to band together to try to make it to Leva, another much larger Jewish village outside Cracow. Judith has a dream the first time she sleeps following the massacre, where her husband tells her to make a golem to keep herself safe. What she forms out of the mud is a golem that takes on the exact appearance of her and Motle's long-dead daughter, Reva.

This is a short story but it packs in so much- surviving great violence and loss and yet not being allowed any reprieve before you're go go going to avoid even more violence and loss; the bonds between women who face misogyny, patriarchyt and violence both from within and without their communities and culture; the grief of a wife and of a mother who needs to learn to embrace and let go; the need for violence in defense vs violence as revenge and whether it would really make you better, improve your situation. I thought this was a very good piece of writing.

I really liked the ending:

"With her thumb Judith drew a trembling diagonal next to the Met and added short vertical strokes at the top and at the bottom.

Aleph. Mem. Tav.

She took a step and stumbled where the bank went soft. She fell to her hands and knees where the golem had vanished, tried to get up and stopped.

Spring flowers burst from the fertile dirt between her fingers. They pressed themselves up in green buds from under her knees. They sprouted around her feet, blooming in the sunset, dense and fragrant, trembling in the evening breeze.

Judith made herself stand. If the very earth had risen for her against its will, perhaps there was a place in the shadow of Cracow's walls where an old woman could seed the ground with new things. Not revenge. Not fear. Maybe not even peace, but she could do something.

And this time, she could not find it in herself to be afraid."

So that's the only book I've finished since 2024 started, and even then I kind of skimmed short stories that I knew I wouldn't be into. I'm still working through Lee's Kill The Dead (more like still working through health problems that have made doing anything very difficult), and I also started Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Heart Reader a day ago- I'm already halfway through, it's a very fast read, and I have a lot of thoughts about it that I've kinda posted elsewhere lol.

I've also been speeding through Final Fantasy IV DS. I keep meaning to post about it here but then I forget, I'm just so exhausted. I haven't played it in a couple days actually. It's one of those games I never had the patience to play as a kid, the SNES version at least. If we ever had the DS version I don't remember it, but I remember thinking the SNES version was suuuuuper frustrating to play lol so I didn't bother... But I'm enjoying the DS version a lot! It's definitely very frustrating with the boss battles, that octomammoth fucked me up. I'm enjoying Cecil's character arc, and I'm eagerly awaiting Rydia, Rosa and Edward coming back to my party. I'm enjoying the homoeroticism of Cecil and Kain's friendship turning into a horrific violent antagonistic mess- Kain going from standing up for Cecil and risking angering the Baron to argue for Cecil's sake, to Kain fighting with Golbez to be the one to kill Cecil... Also the whole mind control thing with Golbez is super hot, though I wonder how much of it is totally mind control and how much of it is Kain willingly going along with Golbez because of Rosa, it feels kinda unclear in latter cutscenes. But yes, the characters are fun, the localization script is very fun, the art style is endearing, and the game play is fun once you get into the rhythm of it. (I am also hardcore following this guide to make things much easier on myself lmao.)

Maybe I'll try to put down my impressions when it is not 12am and I'm not running on extremely little sleep.

[pixieungerstories]

The Captive - 3

Of course he didn’t think she was a virgin! Humans usually get married before they finished growing.  Well, they used to anyway.  George wasn’t good at guessing humans ages.  They were small for a short time, then they were full sized for a longer time, then they were dead forever.

But this one, seemed like she was old enough to have married, had a couple of children and still had time to lose her family in some plague or another.  Humans were always dying like that.  Plagues, famines, it was more trouble than it was worth keeping them alive.  Most of the time.

He had honestly thought of them as handy snacks for the longest time.

Or pets.

Well, not exactly pets.

Then black powder had turned up and suddenly the world was a lot more complicated.

When the arrangement had first been put into place, George had an entire monastery of nuns to attend to him. 

That had been good times.

Until he realized the women didn’t want to be there.

Then, suddenly, it wasn’t any fun at all.

He might not ever have found out, except that he had met a woman who did want to be there.

His tail lashed in anger.  Centuries of women, being sent to him.  Then Silene came and taught him how to speak human language.  She had loved him.  And when she had died, he had been beside himself with grief.

Then her niece had come.  Or great niece or something.  The woman had come and they had lived together.  They had grown fond of each other.  Then she was old and he was taking care of her.  One day she was gone.  He had returned her body to her family, as requested.  He had left with a cousin of some sort.

Eventually, he had surrendered part of his hoard and purchased the land.  That was when things had become official with this particular family.  He always had a companion.  Some were better than others.  

His last treasure - what was her name? - had been more interested in running some sort of shop over his head than in actually keeping him company.  He didn’t approve but he had allowed it.  Now this last one…  He didn’t know what to make of her.  She was moody.  Some days she would come down here and read to him for hours.  Other days she would sulk or rage against him.  She was right though.  He should try to remember her name.

Ellen?  Helen?  Something.  Damn it.

Elly!

Maybe?

George sighed.  Whatever her name was, she kept accusing him of eating her cat.  That was ridiculous.  He wasn’t interested in anything smaller than a sheep.  She was at more risk from him than some stupid cat.  He didn’t like cats.  They tended to spit at him.

Maybe if her got her a new one, she would get over that?   How hard would it be to find a cat?  They used to be like vermin around here.   Maybe he should let her keep the boy as a pet.  It wouldn’t be the first time he had allowed that.  Usually he waited until he knew the woman first.

He needed a few things for his lair.  Humans were pathetic and fragile.  They had almost no night vision and certainly couldn’t see colour in the dark.  They were entirely too sensitive to cold.  He had a cast iron wood stove around here somewhere.  It would need to be cleaned, but he generally found that carefully heating it until it was glowing white generally did the trick.  It had worked on the wrought iron bedstead … sort of.  The spring base for the mattress had melted.

He carefully dismantled it and dragged it down his tunnel and away from the house.  No hot fires under the structure.  He had learned his lesson last time.  Ann hadn’t let him live that down.

He missed Ann.  The one who had come to replace her hadn’t been that friendly.  He had been hoping this one would be better. 

Elsie?

His treasure.  He had bought her with gold before she was even born.  Priceless.  His.

His…. Evvie?  Did it even start with an E?

She was right.  He was going to have to try harder.

When he got back to his lair, he could smell her.  She had been here recently.  She had been afraid.  Was something wrong, or was this the usual humans always stank of fear?

Not her, though.  Not Effie.  She was just angry all the time.  Or at least all the time she was with him.  He should really do something about that.

He slithered up the steps and tried the door knob.  He was pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked.   It was easy to follow her scent trail through the shop, past the pile of raw fleeces in the corner that smelled slightly of pasture and slightly like lunch.  The stairs up were wider than the ones to the basement.  There was a whole house up here!  He had never been to the second level before.  One guest room that smelled like dust.  One office was full of boxes that smelled like old books, and the last door to the corner room was her bedroom.

It also wasn’t locked.

He barely had the door open when she announced, “Na dean fochmoid fáinn!”

That made him pause.  “I would never!”

“George?  Why are you in my bedroom?”

“Why are you cursing in Celt?”

The woman sat up in bed and turned on a small electric light on a little table.  Humans liked little tables.  George was not overly fond of the fake light she was always using.  “I asked you first,” she challenged.

“That is true,” he conceded.  “You were in my lair when I was not near the stairs.  I was uncertain what you needed there.”

She sagged, “I forgot your dinner.  I was going to ask if you needed anything.”

George considered this.  She had come to offer him food, then got frightened and ran away.  Interesting.  “Why were you shouting in Celtic?”

“Gaelic,” she countered.  “I don’t speak much, but I found a book of… well… legends and that was something to keep evil spirits away.”

“Do you know what it means?” he asked patiently.

“Um… leave me alone or something?” she suggested tentatively.

George considered that, “Nearly.  It doesn’t work on me.  You should be careful about using words of power that you don’t understand.”

“Do you need me to find you something to eat?”

He considered this.  She was trying to change the subject.  “You are not happy here.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” she snarled.

George blinked.  “What do you need to be happy?”

If anything she frowned harder.  “What do you mean?”

George sighed and squeezed a bit more of himself into her room so he could curl around himself.  “We are both going to be here for the rest of our lives.  If I can help make you happier, then maybe…”  he trailed off.  She was watching him carefully, trying to puzzle out his expression.  Good luck with that, he thought, you are only good at reading monkey faces.  “You need to sleep more, don’t you?”

“Yeah.  I don’t know if I will get to though.  Ben will be here in a couple of hours.”

George just kept watching her.  “Think about what makes you happy and let me know.  Is there any part of that life you gave up that you could get back?”

She shook her head sadly, “I was almost a librarian.  I spent a lot of time and money attending university for that.  Now I sell fancy ass string.”

George crept forward and put his head on the bed next to her.  “Would you be happier selling books instead?”  Treasure just stared at him.  “I was surprised when you added the bakery.  But that has done well.  Would people who eat…. Fancy ass bread also buy books?”

She shook her head, “No one buys books anymore.”

Suddenly he understood and it made his eyes light up.  “You hoard books.”

“No!  I don’t!  I mean, I collect a few, but that isn’t the same as hoarding.”

He smirked not believing it for a second.  “Sell the wool, use the money to buy books, be happy.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

George awkwardly shook his head, being careful not to bump her.  “You are selling the wool to buy more wool to sell.  Sell the wool and buy books to sell.”

The treasure snorted, “My mom said that.  I’ll think about it.”  After a moment she added, “George?  I don’t like that you came into my room.”

He nodded, but made no move to leave.  He waited until she shifted uncomfortably and was about to speak before he replied, “You are not comfortable in my lair.  You are here to keep me company.  So, I came to your lair to join you.”

“Yeah, well, don’t.”

He shrugged, though his shoulders didn’t really work like that.  “I get lonely.  You were right. You are the only person I talk to.”

She swallowed, “We will have to figure something out.”

George grinned.  He stopped when she looked nervously at his teeth.  Then he backed out of the room.  There wasn’t enough space on the landing to turn around without bumping into something.  He figured it out, but it wasn’t graceful.

He was most of the way back to his lair when he realized he hadn’t asked her name.  He would just have to listen carefully through the floorboards and pick it up when someone else said it.

[tisfan]

The Right Girl

Word count 1492

 01 - Handjob Tags: Handjob, shower sex, mental health, unhealthy coping mechanisms, Steve punches things a lot, anti-Ellen DeGeneres  Couple: Steve Rogers/Jessica Jones (Man with an Alias)

Takes place in the Communal Kitchen AU

Steve was exactly where she’d expected him to be. Jessica Jones could say one thing about her boyfriend, Steve Rogers, and that was that he was fairly predictable.

She leaned against one of the concrete pillars that held the roof of the gym up and watched Steve whale the hell out of a super-soldier punching bag. His hips moved in perfect time with his jabs, and his ass did the most adorable little bounce every time he hit. Jessica knew that everyone thought Tony Stark had the best ass in the Avengers -- it came up from time to time in those ridiculous listicles -- but Jessica was going to have to respectfully disagree.

That was America’s ass, right there, that was.

She held her hands up with double Ls to frame it.

“Take a picture,” Steve suggested, not speaking up to be heard. He knew she was there, had known it the whole time, probably. “It’ll last longer.”

“Rather just get my hands on it,” Jessica said, coming up behind him.

He punched the bag one more time and then held out his hand flat to make it stop swinging. “Did you need something?”

Jessica didn’t wince, or pause. She already knew this was going to be bad. “Want to talk about it?”

Steve gestured at the punching bag. Does this look like my talking face?

Jessica barreled on ahead, because she never knew how to shut up, really. She was broken in all the right places to lean against Steve’s broken bits. “So, what happened?”

It was supposed to be a fluff piece; not quite talk show, live in front of a studio audience, because after the debacle with Steve saying Ellen was friends with a war criminal and therefore just as bad, their PR team never let Steve do anything aside from ribbon cutting ceremonies that couldn’t be edited later.

Steve wasn’t even allowed to do commencement speeches, which always seemed to shock people and Jessica never understood why. Did they not realize who Steve was?

Well, no, they didn’t. They had some ultra-white conservative Captain America on their boner and never realized that wasn’t the same person at all. It had taken Jessica about three hours to realize Steve wasn’t Captain America. And she didn’t consider herself to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas Tree, so what the fuck was up with other people?

“They had an interview with Peggy,” Steve said. “She was having a good day, I guess. Talked a little about us… and that stupid thing with Howard and my jealousy. And then the reporter turned the video on me and asked me what I thought Peggy would say about my being--”

“With me?”

“Yeah.”

“So, are we going to have to pay damages?” Jessica moved a bit closer and rested her head against his sweaty back, listening to him breathe. She was as strong as he was, and it always astonished her that he was so much bigger than she was. Show off.

“I didn’t break anything,” Steve admitted, sounding cranky about it.

“Is that why you’re down here?”

“Yes-- no. I-- I’m with you,” Steve said. “Peggy and I… I mean, we never knew if anything was gonna happen, you know? There was a war, and we were busy. It might not ever have come to anything, if we’d both lived to come home.”

Privately, Jessica doubted that. Peggy Carter had been the love of Steve’s fucking life. She was always going to be second to that, and she told herself she didn’t mind, that it was okay, she had him now anyway--

“Peggy moved on with her life,” Steve said, “which is what’s supposed to fucking happen, and I’m not jealous of her husband or her kids, or her grandkids or her fucking horse farm in England.”

After more than a year together, Jessica would have supposed she’d have gotten used to Steve cursing, but she wasn’t. There was always a little elicit thrill to listening to Captain America with a fucking potty mouth.

“But you’re still mad?”

“It’s disrespectful,” Steve said, “to you. You’re not second choice, or someone I’m settling for. I love you. And I don’t see why that’s anyone else’s business but ours.”

Jessica pressed her face against his damp tee-shirt. Steve loved her. She knew he did, but that didn’t keep it from being amazing, every single time. “I swear to God,” she muttered into his skin, “that I could jerk you off on national television, and they’ll still put you and Peggy’s pictures together. It doesn’t matter, cowboy. We’re together.”

Steve turned around and tipped her chin to make her look up at him. He was slightly flushed, a little sweaty, and stupidly gorgeous as always. “You could do it now,” he suggested, and that flush got darker.

“Do-- ohhh,” she said. “Well, I suppose it is another way to destress.”

“Not-- not because of them, you know. I--”

“You love me, and Peggy is old news and you need to prove it to your dumb brain before you can move on with your life, no, I get it completely.”

Steve slumped just a little, as if in relief that he didn’t have to use his words like an adult, and if Jessica hadn’t been so cross with the magazine fuck-nuggets who thought this sort of thing was okay, she might have teased Steve a little about being too immature to ask for a handie when he wanted one.

“Come on, cowboy, let’s hit the showers,” Jessica suggested, because Natasha’s wrath was mighty when she walked in on people having sex in public areas. 

Jessica stopped by her locker to pick up some of the soft joggers and tees that the cleaning ‘bots left for people to change into after workouts. Everyone in the tower had several sets, they were all color coordinated for their armor colors. Tony was ridiculously silly about that, and everyone wore them, so it made Tony happy.

Jessica grabbed the pale grey tee and purple pants. “One of these days, I feel like telling Tony Stark that my favorite color is, in fact, pink.”

Steve blinked. “It is?”

“No, but he’d make an even more ridiculous face than you are right now, so I might do it anyway,” Jessica admitted.

Steve shucked out of his sweaty, filthy workout clothes, and Jessica was only a little behind him, because she tended to wear skinny jeans, and she did not tend to appreciate Steve ripping them off her, unless it was a very special occassion. 

Steve had the spray going full blast, boil-a-lobster, she slid in behind him, hand reaching around his hip. 

“Seems like I should be doing you,” Steve said, almost apologized, and she gave him a little squeeze to stop that line of thinking.

“I’ve seen your refractory period, cowboy,” Jessica said. “You can do me a few times later. Let’s just rub one out and get you feeling a little less murdery.”

“So romantic,” Steve grumbled, laughing a little.

“You want romance, you got the wrong girl,” Jessica said. She got her hand around Steve’s girth -- he was so fucking thick, and even though she had long fingers for a woman, she really could not wrap her entire hand around it. But it was close enough, and she had a pretty good angle behind him. She stroked, up and down, twisting her palm to put pressure in just the right places.

“I think I got exactly the right girl,” Steve protested, and if he ever did replace Peggy in his heart with her, it was when their relationship was just like this, earthy and filthy and hot and sweaty and sexy. All the times he’d taken her to bed and all the times she’d cooped a feel under the dinner table with the entire family of Avengers. All the times he’d saved her, and all the times she’s saved him.

And if she couldn’t replace Peggy in his heart, well, it really didn’t matter, did it? Peggy was ninety some years old and on a good day, sometimes she’d recognize Steve. And sometimes she didn’t. Closure was overrated, and it wasn’t like Peggy Carter wasn’t a legend in her own right.

“You’re thinking too loud, sugar,” Steve said. 

She twisted her hand again and Steve groaned, pushing into it, fucking up into her fist, his hips snapping powerfully.

She nipped at his back, licking along his spine and then nuzzling right between his shoulder blades, and then Steve was coming against her hand, dick pulsing against her palm. 

“Sometimes I think you’re going to be like Superman and come bullets right through the wall or something.”

Steve cracked an eyelid open reluctantly and looked at the tiles. “Nope, still no speed of light orgasms,” he reported.

“Well, that’s good,” Jessica said. “Feel better?”

“A little more relaxed,” Steve said. “Give me a second, I’ll--”

“Give me my turn?”

“Yeah, that.” 

[theabandonmentissues]

EPISODE ONE TRANSCRIPT

Warning: The following podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Trespassing is not only illegal, but often incredibly dangerous. The hosts do not condone any activities that could put their listeners in harms way, and encourage you to proceed with caution and do your research before exploring the unknown. We cannot be held liable for any accidents, injury, or hauntings that may occur. Listener discretion is advised. 

(full transcript under the cut.)

E:Alright I think this is right.

Z: Is it?

E: Yeah, yeah that's right, okay.

Z: Beautiful.

E: Let me find this tweet. The first thing in my drafts, is (laughs)-

Z: I'm scared.

E: (laughs)...I remember typing this out at like 2 o'clock in the morning when I had to be up for work at five. I put, “I love not learning new pop culture terms. Love being blissfully unaware. I still am not sure what poggers means. I do not care. I am free.”

Z: (laughs)

E: And I was so tired I thought that was profound. Let's see.

Z: (continues laughing)

E & Z: (laugh)

Z: Damn. That's like our declaration of independence.

E: (laughs) I'm going to print that out on the wall.

Z: That's Gen Z's declaration.

E: Let's see, where is it? There's one about Jack Black being sexy.

Z: Yeah, and it's in the drafts, why?

E: (laughs) This one says, this one all it says, no capitalization, no punctuation is, “I want Ellen Ripley to knock me out cold.”

E: (laughs)

Z: (laughs)

E: And I live by that.

Z: That's your truth and you should speak it.

E: Okay, here it is. “Sometimes, facing your fears means letting out that earth-shattering fart in the public restroom, even if there are other occupants. Speak loud, even when your voice shakes, babes.”

Z: (laughs) Shut the fuck up.

E: (laughs)

Z: No!

E: Yeah, that one...uh, that one is in the drafts. Alright, well. You asked about an intro, and I had something that was work shopping.

Z: Oooooo...

E: Do you wanna hear it?

Z: Yes, please. Please, please.

E: Alright. Hello, welcome to The Abandonment Issues, a periodical podcast about the past, the paranormal, and the just plain perplexing. I'm your host, Em.

Z: And I'm Zack.

E: How'd you feel-

Z: The other host. (laughs)

E: How'd you feel about that alliteration?

Z: You know I love alliteration.

E: I do too, I got really excited about it.

Z: (laughs)

E: I was like dead asleep, well, I wasn't dead asleep. I was very close to being though.

Z: Right.

E: And I had that thought, and I was like “Fuck, I gotta wake up and type that.” So...

Z: It was worth it though.

E: Thank you.

Z: I like it.

E: I don't know if that'll stick, but I think-

Z: I don't know, it's a start

E: It's a good start. Yeah.

Z: Yeah. Well..

E: So.

Z: Howdy doody, how ya doing.

E: Oh god, well um, I just whacked my headphones against my mic and I think it's still vibrating. But otherwise, I'm doing great.

Z: (laughs) Well, that's good.

E: How ya been?

Z: I mean, I've been alright.

E: That's good.

Z: We haven't seen each other, I mean, we haven't like recorded-recorded in two weeks?

E: Yeah.

Z: It's been like two weeks, so.

E: Yeah, I think so.

Z: It's been a second, but yeah.

E: Oh?

Z: So.

E: This is our first official, like official recording, the other ones were just tests, so.

Z: So, it's a little different, yeah. Like Em said, we did a couple recordings, so we kind of like, dipped our toes in the water of what it's like to just get behind the mics and stuff, but again this is our first episode, and we kinda just wanted to, lean in and kind of explain why we are here.

E: Yeah.

Z: What we are going to be doing, things we are going to talk about et cetera, et cetera.

E: Yeah.

Z: So. Do you want to-let's start with the-we have a couple ice breaker questions.

E: I'm so excited.

Z: Because, okay, so, you have a college degree.

E: I do.

Z: I have college credits. So we both went to college. (laughs)

E: Yes.

Z: You know, it's fun to do the ice breaker questions when you start a class.

E: Yeah.

Z: Because, even if you don't pay attention to anything that anybody else says-

E: Someone is going to change something that changes your life.

Z: Every single time-

E: Especially, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Z: No, you're good.

E: But, especially if you are playing two truths and a lie. I have found that that is the ice breaker game that I come away changed forever, like I've learned some things about some people playing that game. Are you okay?

Z: There's a burp coming.

E: (laughs)

E: Just let 'er out.

Z: (burps) There it is. (laughs)

E: Wow, that was lovely.

Z: Not to derail, real quick, but-

E: Go for it.

Z: Have you ever used Bumble?

E: Very briefly.

Z: One of my favorite things about Bumble, is that you can do like questions or whatever-

E: And that's one of 'em.

Z: That's one of them! It really, it's really telling. And I love, cause one of my truths is always so bizarre. You know which one I am talking about, but no one ever goes for it.

E: I honestly can't-

Z: The car. *laughs*

E: Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that one is pretty unbelievable. But-

Z: Yeah, we'll save that for another time.

E: I've seen that one, uh, I've seen the repercussions of that one in real time.

Z: Anyway.

Z: (laugh)

E: Alright, well...

Z: Episode one, we are going to expose my entire past.

E: Yeah.

Z: Okay, so. When we first kind of, started talking about the idea for this podcast, which really was just bred, I think just kind of like a joke text that I sent. Or that you sent.

E: I honestly don't even remember.

Z: It was, I mean just the, the very cliché, “We should start a podcast!” and then it just kind of went from there. Just I mean, 2020.

E: Yeah.

Z: It's nothing but boredom. When when we first started talking about, what we wanted to do with our podcast. It really just stemmed from, for me anyway, just really wanting to bring light to the history that exists here in the south.

E: Yeah we didn't really say that, we-

Z: No. (laughs)

E:...we are in the south, we are some good 'ol southern boys.

Z: Just a couple of southern boys.

E: Yea!

Z: We grew up very close to each other, as far as, location.

E: Yeah.

Z: And you know, our high schools probably taught around the same genre and path of like history.

E: Yeah.

Z: It's all white washed and gross. Bleh. But-

E: It's only getting worse, did you hear that Tennessee is like, passing laws to, how did they put it, it's so, it's such bullshit. Basically erasing any history of slavery or discrimination. I think that call it something like Radical Race Theory.

Z: Well, that's great. Welcome to our podcast where we are gonna nip all that in the butt.

E: Yeah.

Z: Because truly, like Em just stated, it's only getting worse, apparently. Jesus Christ, I hate Tennessee.

E: Yeah, I found out like a week ago.

E: Hi guys this is Em, I'm doing the editing, and I just wanted to clarify something really quick. When we were recording this episode, I misspoke and I said that this concept was called Radical Race Theory, but that is incorrect. The correct term is Critical Race Theory. So, I am sorry for that error. If you don't know what a ban like this would mean, the short version is basically, is that American lawmakers are trying to dictate and restrict what can and can't be taught in public schools about the history of systemic racism and slavery in the United States. I'm going to include some links in our resources for the episode where you can learn more about this and we really encourage you to check those out and do your research, because this is obviously an important part of American history for everyone. To erase these topics from lesson plans, really presents a biased and skewed version of events. Anyway, I'm sorry for that error and I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode .

Z: There's just so much history and just stories that are just passed down even by even just word of mouth-

E: Mmhmm

Z:...down here in the south. That literally no one knows about.

E: Yeah.

Z: I think that's, that really is what piqued our interest. When we were throwing around the idea of this podcast to begin with, it really was just like, “We're gonna find an abandoned building, we're going to dig into the research of it, and we're going to talk about this abandoned place.” And from what we are now, it's really expanded to literally just like a history lesson.

E: History, I think it's important to not only to cover the actual facts, but also, I think, not necessarily, like fiction and urban legends and that kind of thing. I think that sort of thing has a lot to do with like story telling, and the culture of the area like-

Z: Right.

E:..like there are, you know, you have things from like, the stories that your grandmother would tell you to keep you from being a little shit when you were a kid.

Z: (laughs)

E: Or, you know, why if there's like an anecdote for why is the sky blue, how did this mountain range be formed. Y'know I think stuff like that is really interesting. When you're driving along some random ass back road and you see an old house, and you think, “Huh, I wanna know the history of that place.” That is the kind of, the kind of thing, that I think really inspires me, is like. Seeing something, not knowing anything about it, wanting to learn about it.

Z: Exactly. And-

E: (laughs)

Z:...we had created like a little baby list of questions that we wanted to ask. When we first started kind of throwing around the idea of what we wanted to do. We kind of already covered a couple of them. But I guess I'll just kind of go down the list again.

E: Okay, sure.

Z: Just to kind of like, ya know, put the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

E: Yeah.

Z: So, the first question that we have, is who or what are our inspirations?

E: Okay.

Z: So I would say, for me personally, like I said, just growing up, and like I can't think of anything off the top of my head. But like growing up and learning that an event happened. Or someone did this thing and, you come to realize later on in life that what you were taught, wasn't necessarily the truth. The whole truth, anyway.

E: Yeah.

Z: So for me, I guess, it's not so much a who, as so much as a what. For me it's just really like uncovering what is real.

E: Okay, yeah.

Z: So.

E: I think, I think that's a good way to put it. And I feel like, y'know, disclaimer, we are not perfect, we are probably not always going to do perfect research. You know, we're not exposing all the facts, in their, 100% true form, 'cause you know. We're just taking the information that we can find and putting that to use. But I agree, I think that that's a big part of it for me is like. I can remember several times when I was younger, like having a teacher, do a lesson and be like, “Oh well this thing happened,” and then being like well, “Okay I want to know more about that but I don't know how.” And now, you know, I'm an adult, and I have better research skills, so.

Z: Right.

E: I think it's a far more entertaining use of my time, that what I was doing previously. Which was just, laying on the floor and looking at TikTok.

Z: Right. (laughs)

E: (laughs)

Z: TikTok truly, worms in my brain.

E: Yeah.

Z: But, it truly, this is just, even, I mean, we've been batting around the idea of this podcast for a couple months.

E: Mmhmm.

Z: And just getting started, and doing the research and like looking into these stories, has been so much fun.

E: Oh yeah.

Z: And, I know the story that you're going to cover today has been one.

E: Yes.

Z: And I know that I've heard bits and pieces throughout our friendship, pretty much.

E: Mmhmm.

Z: And we've known each other for awhile.

E: Mmhmm.

Z: So I'm excited to get, like the full, like get in there.

E: Yeah, I'm excited about yours too, because like,it-it's, I mean, I think, I feel like maybe comparatively I might know just a tiny bit more about yours than you might know about mine.

Z: Right.

E: Just because I've been to this location.

Z: Right.

E: And I've like snooped around there.

Z: Everyone has in this area.

E: Yeah.

Z: Well, goals for the podcast. Do you have any goals in mind?

E: I want a Lamborghini.

Z: I want to be Mr. Beast.

E: I thought you were *laughs* I thought you were gonna say Mr. Bean.

E&Z: *laugh*

E: Oh my god, which actually-

Z: That too.

E:...derailed, for a second, but this is relevant considering what I just said, um, did you know-do you listen...I know you like Gracie Helbig and Mamrie Hart.

Z: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

E: Do you listen to their podcast?

Z: Oh yeah.

E: Have you heard the one where they talk about how Mr. Bean has wrecked two McLarens?

Z: YES!

E: Apparently the man has like a 170 IQ and a passion, a deep burning passion for sports cars. And he has-I don't know if he has if he has wrecked two different ones or if it's the same one that he's wrecked twice. But he is currently trying to sell it for like 12 million dollars. And that, I have thought about that fact all fucking week. All week. They were talking about cars at work yesterday and I had to just like clench my fists and hold in the fact that I wanted to yell across the expo station, “MR. BEAN HAS WRECKED TWO MCLARENS!” Anyway.

Z: Truly it's a-

E: So sorry, but I had to get that off my chest

Z: Oh my god.

E: Rowan Atkincenter, what is his name? Ronan? Rowan Atkinson?

Z: Mr. Bean?

E: Yeah.

Z: I don't know his-the only thing I know about Mr. Bean is that he has wrecked two McLarens.

E&Z: *laughs*

E: Oh my god..

Z: Um, jesus. Goals for the podcast for me um. Yeah, a Lamborghini would be nice.

E: It would be nice, wouldn't it?

Z: No, truthfully, and I feel like I've said this like 50 times already. It's just getting the information out there. Letting people be in the know about what's going on in the south. Because I feel like *clears throat* excuse me. There's like this weird stigma against the south.

E: For sure.

Z: And it's just poor and dirty...

E: And ignorant.

Z: And ignorant. And like, there's so much that goes on down here that no one really knows about because it is so outside of “normal society?”

E: Yeah.

Z: I guess in other people's eyes? And that's even just like in the United States, even outside of the United States I'm sure that...The south is just like a cesspool of jokes.

E: Yeah.

Z: But-

E: Well I agree with that. I think that it's very much, uh there's a disconnect between like, people who actually live here and people that have never been here. And just like how it's, you know portrayed in the media. There's so. I think there's something like, I don't know the exact statistics, but I'm pretty sure that if you actually look at the numbers there is so much more diversity than in a good deal of the United States. Like, um I was reading something the other day that said that the south, like the American south is one of the most diverse places in terms of like LGBT folks and I'm not sure if that's true. But honestly, I would believe it. But yeah, I think that that's very much, getting the information out there, but also, it's a desire, personally, it's you know, a desire for more information in general.

Z: True.

E: Because-

Z: Yeah.

E: You know, I've lived here my whole life and I feel like I know a lot of cool little bits and pieces about stuff but you can always learn more.

Z: Oh yeah.

E: That is my motto.

Z: 100%.

E: You can always, always find something else out. Even if it's something that you think that you know everything about it, you can always dig deeper and find out more. So.

Z: 100%.

E: For sure, for sure.

Z: This next question is past exploration stories. I'm about to tell one of mine.

E: Okay.

Z: That's my whole story. So, do you have any that you would like to share?

E: Hm...

Z: I mean, I've done like geocaching, that sort of thing, but like.

E: Yeah,

Z: Other than that, like.

E: Yeah. I have been geocaching, I actually, I have been to the location you're going to cover today. And I thought I was going to get in big trouble, because the owner pulled up in his pickup truck and I was so afraid. I was there with my sister and, Vivian, I don't know if you'll hear this. But um, my friend Vivian, and we were walking around. We climbed the steps. We like went-I was too chicken shit to go all the way up to the top because it's a very tall structure and the stairs are very old. And I was like “nope, Imma go halfway but this step is broken, I'm not going any farther.” And then we came back down and this guy pulled up and I was like “Oh god, he's gonna get so mad at us.” He pulled up and we had Vivian's puppy with us and he rolled the window of his truck down, and he was like, “Can I give the dog a biscuit?!” And we were like, “Yes sir you can!” And he just stood there and talked to us for a little while, it was very cool.

Z: Yeah.

E: But yeah, I can't think of anything other than that, not offhand. I would like to make some more.

Z: Yeah. Same.

E: I have not been in an old building in a cool minute. Um, actually, I'm sorry, I did think of one.

Z: No, you're good.

E: Uh, we were walking around, I don't want to triangulate our location. *laughs*

Z: Right.

E: But we were, a couple of my friends and I, were walking around in this, kind of like, like uh small back road I guess you would say near one of their houses. And there was this old kind of a house? I don't know if it was actually a house at one point or if it was just like a shed. But we uh, hiked back a little off the road and went in there, and there was just like all these old bottles. Like, from the '50s all over the floor and that's something that I collect, and I was like “Oh shit, this is private property, I know we're probably trespassing. Imma take some of these bottles.” And I had a coat on with big pockets. So I put a couple of them in my pocket.

Z: *laughs*

E: And we hiked back out, and my mom called me, and I was probably like, I don't know sixteen, seventeen maybe?

Z: Sure.

E: She was like, “Hey where are you?” And I was like “We went for a walk, we're walking back to so and so's house.” and she was like “ Okay well, we'll meet you up there, I have something to give you,” and I was like “okay.” And when she pulled up I was like, “I have something to give YOU.” And she was like “What?” and I pulled out this crusty ass bottle of like vanilla extract from the 1960s, and was like, “Here ya go!” And my mom of course, I get that fascination from her, she also collects that stuff. So she was like, “Wow! This is so cool, where did you get it?” And I was like, “Well...-

Z: *laughs* That spooky building! As the thunder claps.

E:...we went in that spooky house.” And she was like, “Oh my god that's dangerous!!” And I was like, “Well, we already did it.”

Z: Yeah.

E: So yeah, that was fun. I love doing shit like that.

Z: God, me too. Is this trespassing? I love trespassing.

E: (laughs) I do, I do.

Z: Oh my god.

E: Yeah.

Z: Any topics that you wanna cover, discuss, why?

E: I think we both have a list of stuff that we would like to cover in the future.

Z: Right.

E: I will say, I don't want this to be like specifically true crime. Like I don't want to have all my stories be in one genre. I will say that some of them are paranormal related, some of them are true crime related, some of them are just general history.

Z: Same yeah.

E: I am always, I have very much a morbid curiosity.

Z: Same.

E: I will do my best to treat those with respect and there is one in particular that I am very interested to cover, because I have never heard of it, and it happened, like, in the town that I grew up in, which is very small.

Z: Right.

E: Not a whole lot of reported murders, but his name is Joe Shepherd and he was a killer in that area in the 70s I believe? And I was having a conversation with a friend of mine one day, when we were, like, first work shopping this. I don't think we'd even bought our mics yet-

Z: I don't think so either

E:...and we were talking about it, and she was just like, “Oh you know about Joe Shepherd right?” And I said, “No?” And she was like, “ Yeah, he murdered somebody and put her in the wood pile.” And I was like, “EXCUSE ME, how have I never heard this?!” So I uh, I have to, have to know more about that. I gotta know whats going on.

Z: Right. For me it's kind of in the same vein of, I mean my stories are kind of gonna be everywhere, but I'm really excited for my story for the next podcast that we're gonna do. Because it was right around the time where we started really figuring out what we wanted to do for sure with this podcast. And we went to just like a couple of used bookstores just to look for some, just some paper sources. And I found a book that was super cool, very interesting. Loved it, I've read it like twice already.

E: Oh really the whole thing?

Z: It's not very long, but I've read it like twice already, just reading through. The first story in that book is truly whacko-

E: Yeah?

Z:..so I'm going to cover that the next time we record

E: That's exciting.

Z: And I'm really excited for it. It's a missing persons. We won't say true crime, but I'll say it's a missing persons.

E: Yeah, 'cause we're not really sure if a crime was committed. Like I don't really know the whole story obviously but you've told me bits and pieces, and you know, there's several theories right? Of what actually happened?

Z: Oh yeah, I've got a couple theories that I have that I wanna, but we'll get to that.

E: We'll get to that next time.

Z: Alright, so full disclosure, this whole operation, it's just us, it's me and Em and Em and me. We do have an assistant.

E: Vanessa.

Z: Her name is Linda and we love her.

E: We love Tracy with all our hearts

Z: Veronica, she really gets it done. We asked our lovely assistant, Carly, to get some normal ice breaker questions outside of the podcast because it's really, like we said before it's really telling of someone's character to have these questions answered and we just told. We told Carol to go nuts, so.

E: I'm excited for this, because you've had a little bit of a look at these, I don't know anything.

Z: I've read like the first two, and was like okay, I can see the direction that Sharon's going. Okay, so you haven't looked at these, I've read a couple so I'm just gonna go for it.

E: Let's go.

Z: The first one is if you could be on any reality/game show what would you choose?

E: Wheel of Fortune.

Z: Wheel of Fortune?

E: I always loved Wheel of Fortune. Or Jeopardy. I'm not smart enough to be on Jeopardy, but I love Jeopardy. I miss Alex Trebek, rest in peace.

Z: Rest in peace.

E: That man, god fucking bless.

Z: God bless. For me, and you'll know this, here lately, I've been really into discord, like, essentially role play survivor games. They're so much fun. I've applied to play my first one, but they're so much fun to watch. So I would say maybe that, or if it had to be a game show, I'm going to go with either Press Your Luck-

E: Okay.

Z: Or Shop Till You Drop.

E: I don't know what either of those are

Z: Really? Press your-

E: What is press your luck?

Z: Press your luck is the no whammies, no whammies, that one?

E: I don't know what that is.

Z: You don't know that one? I will show you a clip of.

E: I feel like I've heard someone say that.

Z: So well, here's the tea, my grandma would wake up in the mornings and she would watch us before we went to school. She would wake up in the morning, she would make my grandpa food. She would sit her butt in her recliner and turn on game show network, until her husband came home from work, and then she would make him dinner and then she would watch more game shows until she went to bed. That's all this woman did.

E: I love that.

Z: So, this brain-

E: It's in your brain forever.

Z:..is a rolodex of game show trivia, but that one's a fun one. Shop Till You Drop was essentially, I don't know which one came first, but Supermarket Sweep.

E: Okay.

Z: Have you ever seen that?

E: Like guys grocery game?

Z: Kind of, but they don't like cook, so they'll have like a list, like you'll get carrots on aisle five, and tuna on aisle six, and baby formula on aisle 12, and they just, they go for it. And the first to do it wins or whatever.

E: That sounds like a lot of fun. I do love to grocery shop. I think that would be a fun one too.

Z: So number 2, if you could eliminate one food, so that no one ever ate it again, what would you pick to destroy?

E: My gut instinct says tomatoes, because I hate tomatoes.

Z: *whispers* Same.

E: But I do, it's only, like. I like tomato based sauces and I like tomato soup, so I feel like I would regret that choice.

Z: Ketchup.

E: I don't know if you're for or against ketchup.

Z: I like ketchup but I hate tomatoes. I was adding to tomatoes' cause.

E: Yeah. That's a tough one.

Z: I'm gonna go with green beans.

E: I don't think I can agree with you on that one, I'm sorry.

Z: That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm destroying green beans.

E: Okay, okay, um, god, that's really hard. I don't, I don't like tomatoes at all. I hate touching them, I hate dealing with them. I work in food service. I could also say mushrooms 'cause I really hate mushrooms.

Z: I love mushrooms.

E: That is something I find so interesting about you.

Z: That I like mushrooms?

E: Yeah, you know. You're kind of a-I don't know much about. I don't know, you're-in my eyes you're kind of a picky eater. Cause you don't like, like lettuce.

Z: I don't like lettuce.

E: What about like a good arugula? Do you like arugula?

Z: What's arugula?

E: Okay, we're gonna get you some arugula. It's a leafy green. You'll probably like, well no okay. I should-I take that back. You like Spinach.

Z: I do like Spinach.

E: Okay.

Z: Baby kale.

E: Do you like kale?

Z: I like baby kale.

E: Oh, okay.

Z: I don't like that-

E: I don't know that I've ever had the baby-

Z: It's just like spinach.

E: I mean it's-okay. Yeah that's fair.

Z: But.

E: Yeah, I'm gonna hard answer, I'm gonna say mushrooms 'cause I really fucking hate mushrooms.

Z: Valid.

E: Alright question 3.

Z: What is your favorite restaurant? In parenthesis, Zack, you cannot say McDonald's.

E&Z: *laugh*

E: Oh.

Z: Well.

E: Oh, Clarice. She's roasting ya.

Z: She really is. Shoot. I'm just going to go with fast food because-

E: Okay.

Z: Restaurants can mean any-

E: Fast food/fast casual, I think that's good.

Z: Sure. Dang, I really like. Well fast casual, I'm going to say Chili's.

E: Ooh yes.

Z: That street corn, honey chipotle tenders.

E: Those honey chipotle tenders, if I ever get married, that's what I want at my wedding.

Z: Catered?

E: Yeah, catered.

Z: Remember when I went to a-if you're hearing this Morgan, I'm sorry, remember when I went to a wedding that was catered by Cracker Barrel?

E: Yes!

Z: Morgan, I love you but, a choice was made. Okay, favorite restaurant?

E: The first thing that popped into my head was Olive Garden.

Z: *gasps*

E: I unironically, unashamedly, unabashedly. I love Olive Garden. I am-

Z: I'm white.

E: Very. Yeah, I am-I think like I don't wanna go all 23 & me, given that I haven't even taken one of those fucking tests. As far ass my family has told me I am like an 8th or a 16th Sicilian or something, so that Italian blood, it makes be crave Olive Garden like nobody's business.

Z: The breadsticks.

E: I see like the sign in the sky and it's like a werewolf to a full moon. And I go crazy.

Z: *laughs* I love Olive Garden.

E: The tiramisu? The chicken gnocchi soup with breadsticks?

Z: Gnocchi!

E: The Tour of Italy? Ah.

Z: The five dollar, to go entrees? You have lunch tomorrow.

E: That is a brilliant business plan.

Z: True.

E: You know what I want? What I desperately desperately want one. The unlimited pasta pass. I have wanted one of those since the day. Justin McElroy did an unboxxing and he got one.

Z: Olive Garden.

E: I really wanted one ever since.

Z: *whispers* Same.

E: Olive Garden sponsor us?

Z: Please god, I know this is our first episode but please.

E: I had an idea for another sponsor. Oh, Subway! Subway should sponsor us.

Z: Truly.

E: I can't believe that neither of us said Subway, actually. We-fun little BTS, behind the scenes, not the K-Pop group, sorry.

Z: Why did my brain go there first?

E: We know why.

Z: Not today. That's a song.

E: LITERALLY every time we've gotten together to brainstorm, put together anything for this show, with the exception of maybe once or twice, that I can't even recall, it's subway every single time, so.

Z: We gotta eat fresh.

E: Somebody, at Subway headquarters, say, “Hey, sponsor The Abandonment Issues-”

Z: Sponsor these people.

E: Plead our case, please.

Z: Please, please, we'll send you merch if we ever

get any.

E: I'll figure it out. I'll use my art degree. Alright. Question four!

Z: If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?

E: Hm.

Z: Forks, Washington.

E: Oh my god.

Z: Final answer.

E: Oh my god. That's a good one, shit.

Z: (laughs) 'Cause genuinely, I don't know 'cause there's so many places to go.

E: Yeah, yeah it's very hard. I always did-okay, well on the topic of my Italian heritage.

Z: Oh Jesus.

E: I was supposed to go to Italy my junior year of college and, the trip got canceled because we didn't have enough people to go. And I was very excited for it, and I would still really enjoy it. I would love to go make that trip, because we were going to stay at a farm in Tuscany that's been there for like, I don't even know. Since like 700 A.D. Or some shit.

Z: That is crazy.

E: It's called Spannocchia if you want to look it up. There's this incredible little-they have this website with like a video that you can check it out. You get to eat like all the food that they give you and all the wine that they have is like made on site. We were going-they have like the original wood kiln-

Z: Wow.

E:...on site, and you could make things in their ceramics studio and you fire it in the kiln at the end of the trip. But they also do like chefs and like butchers internships there where you can go over there and learn how to do things the way they do them and I think that's fascinating.

Z: That's really cool.

E: One day I would love to go there.

Z: Oh yeah, 100%.

Z: Get the swear jar ready.

E: Oh god.

Z: What game or movie universe would you most like to live in? Kingdom Hearts.

E: *Did you bring a roll of quarters?

Z: I'm just gonna leave it at that. Kingdom hearts.

E: I know you said game or movie-

Z: Book?

E:...but can I fudge it a little bit and say podcast?

Z: Sure!

E: I would love to be a citizen of the town of Nightvale. I know you don't know anything about Welcome to Nightvale, but boy lemme tell ya. I would live there in a heartbeat. I love it. It's so weird. I know that that's maybe not some people want because it's kind of fucked up. Bad things happen to people there all the time.

Z: Right.

E: But it's that cosmic horror, but in a fun lighthearted way.

Z: Right.

E: That's the best way I can explain it. I just love it so much. Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kramer.

Z: God bless.

E: God bless you. You two really do some amazing work. I'm literally looking at a signed photograph of Symphony Sanders and Cecil Baldwin right now. They watch over our podcast. But yeah, I would love that. I think that the aesthetic is immaculate. There's deserts, there's glowing lights in the sky above the Arby's.

Z: There's an Arby's in this Universe?

E: Yes bitch! They're just regular people like you and me. There's literally, I wanna say in episode one, there's this beautiful passage where Cecil is like “Lights, blinking in the sky above the Arby's. Not the glowing sign of the Arby's, but something higher.

Z: Did I write this? Did I ghost write this?

E: You could have. I have all the books behind me, I'm very much a fan.

Z: If you could be any mythical creature, what would you be?

E: Hypogriff.

Z: That was a fast but good answer. I would probably be a gnome.

E: (laughs) Oh fuck! Yeah.

Z: I spend my entire life-

E: Yeah.

Z:..being 6 foot tall, I just wanna live a little down there.

E: That's a good one.

Z: Yeah. What small, insignificant thing gives you joy?

E: Thrift store knick knacks.

Z: Sure.

E: That's pretty much the biggest one. I go into Amvets like once a week. And I'll get-I don't have my Keith Urban mug in here. But I get so many tiny dingy things and they always bring me such joy. That tiny little frog that I got at the antique store the last time you and I went, that thing? I'm still riding the high.

Z: For me, I would say it's like when you, complete a book series, and you get that final one and you put it up on the shelf, and you see it on the shelf together. That's my-and it doesn't have to be like, for me it's like books, video games, manga, whatever.

E: Yeah.

Z: Just seeing it complete on the shelf just does it for me.

E: I love that. That's a very good feeling.

E: Yeah.

Z: What is the dumbest purchase you have ever made?

E: Oh Zack, oh Zack, this is a hard question, cause I really-

Z: I don't know! Because I make a lot of dumb purchases.

E: I know exactly what mine is, I'm afraid to say.

Z: Can you say it? What is it?

E: You know what it pertains to.

Z: Do I? Why are you blinking? You don't have to say it if you don't want to.

E: No, I'm gonna say it.

Z: Thank god.

E: So, what was the year? I wanna say 2011/2013.

Z: Uh-oh. I know where we're going!

E: God, I made you promise not to mention this, to not drag me about any of this but i'm going to go ahead and out myself in episode one.

Z: Oh no.

E: I was a backer of the-

Z: Ahaaahaahaaaaa!!!!

E: Stop screaming and just let me get the words out. I was a higher tier backer of the Homestuck Hiveswap Kickstarter in 2013. And that haunts me to this day. To this day I will never-I will never recover from the amount of money that I spent on that when I was god-I was not a legal adult. I spoke to my mother, and I said, “Listen, I need to get this money out of my savings and I need it now.” And she was like, “Are you sure you wanna do that?” and I said, “Yes please.” and then she let me do it. And I respect that she gave me that freedom but I wish that she had just told me no.

Z: That's fair.

E: It was not worth it, and the worst part. It's been like a long time. I still have not played that game.

Z: That's just how the cookie crumbles.

E: Yeah.

Z: Dumbest purchase, my mind just scrambled. Because me and Em just shared a very panicked glance at one another before this story was told and it just jumbled everything I had lined up. I make very-

E: I'm like sweaty.

Z: (laughs)

E: That really stressed me out that I had to admit that. Feel my hand.

Z: Oh, you're clammy!

E: I am disgusting right now.

Z: You're a whole seafood buffet with them clammy hands.

E: I am.

Z: Oh my god. What was the question? Dumbest purchase. I don't know man. I make a lot of dumb purchases. I'm probably, most recently, I'm going to say my book drug dealer.

E: Oh yeah.

Z: Robert. I feel, like I feel obligated at this point to meet up with this man to buy antique books and some of them aren't really the best.

E: But still it's a cool hook-up.

Z: Yeah, I buy them anyway. So, the last time I saw this man, I bought this falling apart copy of Orwell or something.

E: That's pretty dope though.

Z: I mean it's cool, it's got a bunch of his novels and shit. It was pretty cool, but it not in the condition that he said it was in.

E: Aw, that sad.

Z: It's fine. Sorry Robert if you are listening. I'm just going to say that because literally my coworkers put me on a Facebook Marketplace timeout, and I wasn't allowed to buy from Facebook Marketplace.

E: I didn't know about that, oh my god.

Z: They were like, you have to take off two weeks. And I was like, “Fine, that's fine, we get paid in two weeks it's fine.” So, I'm just gonna say that. (laughs)

E: Oh wow.

Z: Question number 9 is what is the longest you have gone without sleep and why? I know mine.

E: Oh man.

Z: I know mine.

E: I mean, the why really for me is-it's one of two answers. College or the pandemic. And I'm leaning more towards the pandemic because I was basically only sleeping like once every other night. Over when I got furloughed from my job last spring. I remember a couple of times I was like, “I'm gonna start a craft project!” and was just cracked out on Monster Energy at 6:00 in the morning, ironing patches onto a denim jacket and shaking my ass to Glass Animals. But yeah, I wanna say the longest amount of time was like three days, but I know you got me beat, I think.

Z: You know mine.

E: Do I?

Z: You know mine. When I was in high school and I watched Men in Black.

E: Yeahhhh.

Z: So I didn't watch Men in Black when I was a child. Probably watched the first one when I was in high school and then I watched the second one, and then there's that whole subplot that there's a universe wrapped around a cat's collar or whatever.

E: It's in his little tag.

Z: It sent me down a rabbit hole. I did not sleep for four days because I was deep in infinite space theory because I just drove myself crazy. Because I was like, “If a cat collar can hold a universe, what if we're the universe inside the cat collar? Which I feel like was the entire point. But it drove me up the walls. I couldn't sleep, I just stayed up for four days straight in front of my computer just googling infinite space theory, and learning more and digging into it, and then I crashed, obviously after four days, and I woke up and was like, “Never again.”

E: Well.

Z: So.

E: I bought a book not long ago, it's called Time Warps. And I opened it and the first two pages this guy starts talking about time travel and the secrets of the universe and everything and reincarnation and physics are all connected and that really reminded me of that. So, maybe I'll read you a little passage of that after this and see if it-

Z: I can't wait.

E:..jogs anything in your brain.

Z: I'll see ya next week and I will still be awake.

E: (laughs) Oh my god.

Z: Last question, who is the most intelligent

person you know?

E: Brownie.

Z: Where is he?

E: He just walked right behind you.

Z: Oh.

E: He's not a person. He's very smart.

Z: That's a tough question.

E: Yeah, that is a really tough question.

Z: I'm gonna say it's our assistant Becky.

E: Yeah, yeah. Trisha, she really, she's probably. What even is her IQ it's gotta be in the 170s?

Z: It's probably at least a thousand.

E: The smartest person that I know of is Mr. Bean. I genuinely can't believe he has an IQ that high. Not anything against that man, I don't know him personally, but the fact that that is the kind of movie that he makes.

Z: Oh my god, and apparently there's only like 12 episodes of that show.

E: 13 I think.

Z: Yeah, so he really stretched it out.

E: Yeah.

Z: I don't know. Welp.

E: Well yeah.

Z: Thank you to Veronica for all those icebreaker questions. Really eye opening.

E: It was great. You really did the damn thing.

Z: Well. I guess that now everyone knows our deepest darkest secrets since we exposed them in episode one, I guess we can kind of get into our topics a little bit?

E: Yeah.

Z: So I feel as if you're gonna go hard.

E: Perhaps, perhaps.

Z: So if you don't mind I'm gonna go first.

E: Okay.

Z: I'm not gonna go as hard as I could. With mine, mostly just because I wanna leave it open for a return, if I want to cover it again maybe later on. My first topic is going to be about the Roundhouse that exists in Tellico Plains, TN.

E: Nice.

Z: Fairly local, kind of close to us for the most part. Here's the issue with this, is that it was a silo for a local mining company and dating back to even before the civil war, this thing was operational. So there's a lot of stuff that has gone on-

E:Okay.

Z:...in this big old building. Another problem is that there's not a plot of information online.

E: Yeah, that was a problem I ran into mine too actually.

Z: Unfortunately, the person who posted this, the beginning of this is going to be a lot from Reddit.

E: Oh, okay.

Z: The person who posted this is a local urban explorer. I've seen some of their stuff, all of their stuff is really cool, their photographs are amazing. They do posts on Facebook and stuff here and there. All of their stuff is really well researched and really good, but I don't want to set a trend of making Reddit a, you know.

E: For sure, it's not like a primary source. So do you want to-did you make note of who that person was though.

Z: Yeah, the post that was made thearcherofred on Reddit. That is their username. When we post all of our sources I will give a link to this specific person I am talking about.

E: Excellant.

Z: Yeah, that's the problem I ran into and I guess that's probably why I didn't get as into it. Mostly because I wanted to leave it open so I could share a little bit about my own experience when I went.

E: Cool, okay.

Z: I am going to give a little bit of a backstory about the area, the place, what all happened. Like I said this was a post made by thearcherofred on Reddit, all one word. About 30 years after the Civil War, Southern Slate Works purchased the land where the Roundhouse exists now. This land before used the be part of the Tellico Iron Works Company. The Iron Works Company basically mined iron and other ores during the Civil War. It was demolished during the war, and really from what I can tell, nothing really happened in this area where the Roundhouse exists now up until it was purchased on December 7th of 1893.

E: Okay.

Z: In June of 1920, J.B. Preston bought 300 acres of land from another citizen of Tellico named Cyril Herford with the intent to mine the area. It is unknown if this was part of the Southern Slate Company or a solo kind of gig. Preston had plans of making a fully working mine complete with machinery, houses for the mine workers, storage facilities, and other stuff you'd need to run a mine. He also was-he was also given permission to construct a railroad system to the mine and the quarry was set to open on January 1st 1921. He then leased this area out to Tennessee Rocks Products Company and it was operational from 1921-1928. In '22 Cyril then sued the rock company because some of the debris had gotten into the creek that ran through his property and it polluted the water. There was another lawsuit that same year against the rock company. This lawsuit came from a local farmer named Henry Fritts. He was suing for very similar reasons as Herford, because the dust coming from the mines and quarry had killed crops and vegetation. That lawsuit was settled for 600-I'm assuming there's no information about the 1st lawsuit, because there was no information on this post about it. From what I can tell, nothing really happened after that, company shut down until 1928-er shut down in 1928, that is until the mid to late 50s.

E: Okay, that's kind of a long time.

Z: Yeah, it's a minute. At this point, a man named Dr. William Alfred Rogers purchased the property in the 50s, and he was a local practicing doctor. A little bit about Mr. Rogers, he was born in Violet, NC. During the late 50s he was one of 6 doctors that lived in the Tellico Plains area during that time. He had a small stone house, that stood in downtown but eventually he built a large three story home on Unicoi Mountain.

E: Oh, okay.

Z: He thought that the high altitude would help his more chronic patients, so that's why he wanted his house to be so far up in the mountains. Rodgers and his wife ran the practice out of their home for about six years before the couple had the idea of turning the silo into a hotel/Air BnB. Not Air BnB. Sorry, that's the Gen Z in me speaking. Just a B&B. Just a normal B&B.

E: A 1950s Air BnB.

Z: Beautiful, ahead of their time, truly.

E: You get a telegraph after and they're like, “How was your stay? Please rate us.”

Z: God. So he essentially divided the space inside the silo into multiple floors and created small apartment like rooms on each story. Supposedly, right when it was set to open, a fire marshal came to inspect it and it was deemed unsafe as there needed to be two clear exits from each room, but there was only one considering that it's a large tall vertical-

E: It's just a tube.

Z: It's literally, quite literally a tube. I will. I will post some pictures and some links to some pictures so you can kind of see. But truly, it's an old silo, it's a big stone, round silo. Cylinder, and on the outside there's a staircase that leads into the first floor but there's essentially just a round staircase that-

E: It's like a fire escape.

Z: It just wraps around the outside of it and that's how you would go up there and get into your little hotel room or whatever. The fire marshal said it was no good so they couldn't really open it as a hotel.

E: So did it ever have guests like that? Or did he just kind of kill that immediately?

Z: It's hard to really pin down what really happened after that. Some sites claim that Mr. Rogers and his moved into the Roundhouse after this and they continued the practice there. Other sites claim that they went back to the house at Unicoi and ran the practice out of it. I also read somewhere, and I couldn't really pin it down again, now that I started doing the research on it again but there were some rumors about someone running a restaurant out of it.

E: I think I've heard that one actually.

Z: And it was just on the first floor, it wasn't on any of the other floors, I think there's 5 stories in that thing. I couldn't really find that again, so I don't really have any information on it. The doctor passed away 10 years after this ordeal in '67, and it has just kinda sat dormant since then, aside from the possible restaurant owner being in there, but there's not really a whole lot to go off of on that route. Unfortunately as of now, the inside of the roundhouse has been completely destroyed by vandals. The walls are covered in graffiti and there was a house that was right next to it, and again, I can't really pinpoint what that was really for. I would assume that it was probably just another house that was-

E: Yeah, I heard from somewhere that that was something to do with the hotel aspect of it.

Z: Sure, I mean. I wouldn't doubt it, but that house is all but rotted to the ground. I've been inside, and the floor is rotted to the ground. There's no foundation, there was also a large fire that happened inside the roundhouse. Can't really pinpoint a date or time. Because it sat, it was just out in the middle of nowhere.

E: Not necessarily keeping track or reporting that to-

Z: Right.

E:...anyone.

Z: It basically made everything from the bottom floor to the top floor inaccessible. I've been on the top floor. Probably wasn't that smart of a move.

E: Prolly not.

Z: I was like 17, and you're invincible at 17, nothing matters. We went up there and just kind of hung around, and I'll talk about that in a second. But that basically made all the other floors inbetween inaccessible. That's really, literally all I could find online about it. I definitely have tried to join the local library to get some book sources or something about it, but I'm currently fighting with our local library. It's so shrouded in mystery that no one really knows what's going on in there. We've got a couple reports about the lawsuits and the early 20s. Nothing until the 50s, and then this random guy wants to build a hotel there, and someone says no and it just sits there again.

E: Do you know-I know when we first started doing the research, we were talking about how it was for sale. Do you know if it still is or did it get bought?

Z: I looked at it yesterday before I was putting the finishing touches on everything. It is currently off the market, it was not sold, but it is off the market. It was going for upwards of like $500,000.

E: I would love to buy it.

Z: Same I would also-Subway?!

E: Subway sponsor us!!

Z: Please.

E: Subway just buy us The Roundhouse.

Z: We will put a Subway in the bottom floor.

E: (laughs) Like the food court in a mall.

Z: Truly. That's all the information that I have on it.

E: Well tell us your story.

Z: Well, when I was like 17/18, I worked at a local grocery store and one of my cashiers, the current at the time, the caretaker now is a new guy, but at the time she was friends with-the caretaker was a family friend. And she basically reached out to him and was like, “Hey we wanna explore after work one night. Do you think it would be cool if we went up there?” And he was like, “Yeah, sure no problem, let me know and I'll leave the gate unlocked for you guys.”

E: Cool.

Z: We went up there after work and it was probably like 10/11 o'clock and we were just gonna check it out and then leave, but I was just very curious and very fascinated so we went into the first floor and I will try to dig up photos because I took photos. The test of time has not been kind to them-

E: Absolutely not.

Z:...with phones and just everything, I think they're on my twitter somewhere so I have to really dig and find them, but like I said, the first floor there was a fire. You can look up and see the damage has been done to this place. It's covered in graffiti. We kind of poked around a little bit, there's not really much to see. There's old appliances, wood here and there, debris, vandalism, that sort of thing. We found the beginning of the staircase that leads up around the side of the Roundhouse and we climbed up to inspect it, about halfway up, it's broken-

E: Yeah that was-

Z: Very teetery.

E: Yeah.

Z: Once you get over that step it's solid again, bolted into the side of that wall or whatever, and you just keep on trucking. We went up to the top and we sat down on the floor up there, we pulled out a Ouija board.

E: Oh my god Zack.

Z: (laughs) Not my finest moment.

E: (laughs)

Z: It wasn't even a good Ouija board, it was obviously, very much produced by Hasbro, and it had the glow in the dark light in it, to where if you pushed down on the planchette it would glow.

E: Oh my god.

Z: Obviously, we got nothing because nothing happened in that building.

E: I can't believe it.

Z: Then we went back down the stairs and then we went into the house that's next to it. Like I said, there was very few places where I was comfortable standing. Floors rotted, walls punched in, knocked in, burned. We were able to go up-there's an attic.

E: Oh really?

Z: Yeah, there's an attic in there. I wasn't able to go-I didn't go up in it because I didn't really trust it. I stood at the top of the staircase and peered in a took a picture or two.

E: Cool, I never knew that.

Z: Then, we discovered a basement.

E: Oh god! Under that same house?

Z: Yeah. Here's the deal. You didn't know this did you? About the basement?

E:About the basement, no.

Z: So there's a basement, and the stairs have rotted off, so you kinda had to hop in that hole and-

E: Love it.

Z: We got down there, and it was trash.

E: Yeah.

Z: Broken glass, beer bottles, cans, old screen doors, anything that you could think of, old appliances everything, underneath that house. Then I saw a little filter of light off in the distance, so I was like, I'm gonna go in that direction. There was a tunnel.

E: I know you were going to say a tunnel and I was so afraid.

Z: A tunnel that lead directly underneath the roundhouse.

E: Bro!

Z: It's crazy.

E: That's really cool. Very scary.

Z: Very scary. I was like, “This is some-,” have you every seen House of Wax?

E: No but I think I know what you're talking about.

Z: Very House of Wax. Secret-

E: Like trap doors and stuff.

Z: Was not a fan. So then after that we kinda booked it outta there. 'Cause I was like, “Who's idea was it, to build a tunnel-,” I don't even want to know. I'm sure there was a reason.

E: I wonder if was with the intent of it being a hotel, if it was a service hallway or something like that?

Z: I mean, has to be. Has to be. Otherwise-

E: It's the only non-creepy answer.

Z: It's what's gonna let me sleep at night.

E: Oof.

Z: After that we kinda hightailed it out. I have since reached out to that cashier, and obviously neither of us work there anymore. I've since reached out, and asked if she knew who the current caretaker was and unfortunately that caretaker had passed away. There's currently a new one.

E: I wonder if that was the guy I met that gave us a dog biscuit.

Z: Might've been if he was nice.

E: He was just a nice old man.

Z: I never met him, but I'm assuming if he let a group of teenagers go wild out at the Roundhouse he probably didn't care and was a nice guy.

E: That's sad.

Z: Like I said a minute ago, it's not on the market, but when it does come on the market, I will be very eager to see if it sells this time. Hopefully, to me.

E: Maybe by then we'll get some sponsorship cash.

Z: Olive Garden please.

E: Can I trade an unlimited pasta pass for this house?

Z: Truly.

E: It's worth it's weight in gold.

Z: Truly, 'cause you think about it. We go to Olive Garden three times a day, lunch, dinner, second dinner. We don't eat breakfast anymore.

E: Oh my god, well I don't eat breakfast to begin with. Who has time for that nonsense?

Z: I do, but only because I'm at work.

E: Eating a banana. You're being very healthy.

Z: I'm eating a banana, having a monster.

E: Alright, well.

Z: Well, that's it for the Roundhouse. Like I said, thearcherofred on Reddit, thank you so much for that post. They're a couple more that they have made about the Roundhouse. I've only used the one, so feel free to look into it yourself. I'll be posting a couple links to some pictures, and hopefully I will be able to find the pictures that I took when I went. We'll post all those.

E: Thank you very much for that story. Today-

Z: Please, go off.

E:...I'm very excited about this story, because this is a story that has fascinated me literally since my childhood. I remember my teacher telling me about it when I was in, I wanna say 5th grade. Then, it turned out that there was a book about this guy, and I had the book because it was my dad's copy, and that's actually the copy that I used today for all my research. I am about to tell you the story of Mason Kershaw Evans-

Z: Yeeesss!

E:...the Hermit of Chilhowee Mountain.

Z: Yes.

E: Basically, my sources-I did have a couple, just for a little bit of fleshing out about the area and a couple facts about the specific region, but everything about Mason himself came from the book. As I discovered, the man doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

Z: Right.

E: Which isn't really that surprising to me. 'Cause the area that he was from was a very tiny place, it was in the early 19th century. There wasn't a whole lot.

Z: Right.

E: So, let's get into it! Our story takes place in the area surrounding Chilhowee Mountain, which is more commonly known today as Star Mountain, but it was named that because of a plantation owner named Caleb Star, who back in the day, he basically owned the entire mountain. Chilhowee Mountain is located partly in the southwest corner of Monroe County, TN and in Polk County. It is in the Cherokee National Forest. The flat, plateau like mountain is about halfway between Tellico Plains and Etowah and it's elevation ranges from 750 to 2,290 ft. This mountain was a favorite hunting ground for deer. So that's actually how it got it's name, because Chilhowee means cold deer in Cherokee. During the 19th century, this area was the home to Mason Evans. As I said before, it's kind of hard to find anything about him on the internet, he doesn't have a Wikipedia page, so everything I know about him I pulled from this book, Torment in the Knobs by R. Frank. McKinney. To quote the book, “This book was written give it's readers the highlights of the main events from the early advent of the early white settlers in the area during the early 20s, during the Hiwassee purchase of 1817, the removal of the Indians in 1838, the great American Conflict, The Civil War of the 60s, the building and operation the fabulous White Springs Hotel atop Star Mountain, the coming of the railroads into McMinn County, and many other events of that century. So it's not just about Mason's life, it kind of encapsulates basically everything that was going on in this area at the time. Because there was a lot of stuff going on, there was a lot of conflict, it was the time of the Civil War. It was a lot. It is a very interesting read, it's one of the more detailed accounts of this area, however, it's not without it's flaws. It was published in 1976. R. Frank McKinney was an old white man living in a very rural area of the south. He had some prejudices. I'm not really going to talk about that a whole lot, but if you do decide to-if this story does interest you and you do decide to get a copy of this book and read it, just go into it knowing that. There is also a lot of dramatization and speculation. That is explained by, another quote from the book that said, “Torment in the Knobs is a historical novel but throughout the author was at many times forced to draw his own conclusions to what was said in the conversations or dialogues between the people. This he believed was actually said, but not verified. The pages of the book are mostly written in the newspaper reporting style, but not all in together for into the phraseology of fiction writers. In many places, it combines the two. There would have been no need to write this book, Torment in the Knobs had there been a printed history of the east side of McMinn County and the lower regions of Monroe during the 19th century. What little had been printed in the newspapers and periodicals was wildly scattered and never compiled into a comprehensive history of the area. This book is not intended to be a history of either McMinn or Monroe counties, although the events mentioned took place in one or the other. The book was inspired by this pamphlet and was written in 1890 by W. F. McCarron, who was the founder and editor of The Athenian newspaper. The pamphlet was called-this is a hell of a title. I thought The Abandoment Issues was kind of a long name. This pamphlet was titled The Wild Man of Chilhowee: the True Story of Mason Evans the Hermit, 40 Years in the Wilderness, the Most Wonderful Creature of Modern Times Lives in a Cave in this County, Subsists on Raw Meats and Stolen Food. That's the whole ass title of a pamphlet.

Z: A pam-that's the whole pamphlet!

E: Yeah, literally. The book also says the great many people thought was a legend was unfolded as fact as 90 years later when a house in east Etowah was being raised to the ground. An 1890 issue of The Athenian was found in a chimney and brought to me, the author R. Frank Mckinney, who was then the editor of The Etowah Enterprise. Mickinney also did extensive research and interviews with local folks who's parents and grandparents has either met Mason, or had seen them visit their homesteads. Okay, so, there's this hermit..

Z: (laughs) I was waiting for it! Oh my god.

E: So there's this hermit..R. Frank Mckinney is the king of the fucking run-on sentence. This man could ramble. I think he's dead now? Probably. He had a lot to say, and not a whole lot of punctuation to put in it.

Z: He had a lot to say and no comma, period, comma splice was gonna get in his way.

E: Lots of question marks though. That is evidenced by his introduction to the story of what happened to Mason Evans. He said, “What happens to a man when his sweetheart suddenly jilts him? Does he take it in stride, or does his brain snap and he resort to unearthly things? What really did happen that day in 1848 in that little school house in Monroe County, TN, that caused a brilliant teacher to suddenly walk out of the school room, head to the mountains, never to say another intelligent word? And live there on snakes, rabbits, or other raw meat and whatever he could forage from mountaineers' chicken houses or gardens, and for forty years? Let's find out.

Z: Let's. Find. Out.

E: Mason was born May 10, 1824 in a log cabin at the base of the Chilhowee Mountain. At the time, the Chilhowee Mountain region was occupied primarily by the Cherokee Trible of the Native Americans. The capital of their nation, Chota, was only a few miles from the Evans's home. Mason's parents were names Robert, I'm sorry if I pronounce this wrong, I believe it's Hebrew. Her name is Karen-Happuch. That is K A R E N – H A P P U C H. I think Karen-Happuch.

Z: Okay.

E: I'm not sure though. They immigrated to Greene county in 1820, but they moved to Monroe after the Hiwassee purchase of 1817. The Evans' family was of Quaker faith, and their family consisted of Robert and Karen-Happuch, and their four boys and five girls: Moses, Robert, Mason, Samuel, Abigail, Sophia, Demaris, Caroline, and Octavia. Don't you just love that name? I love an Octavia.

Z: It's so out of left field though.

E: It is. I wonder-is that like a biblical name?

Z: I don't think so.

E: I've never thought of it as such but maybe it is.

Z: I don't think so, but go off, Imma google.

E: Mason was said to be the most talented of those children. I don't know how I'd feel about that as a Sophia or an Octavia in that family. Mason-that's kinda not fair, you don't get to be the best. Anyway, art seemed to come naturally to him. His penmanship was the talk of the settlement. Men in the region would commonly come to him to solve medical problems. In his youth, Mason was good friends with many of the Cherokee children of his age. He was 14 when the Native American Removal began, and it impacted him for the rest of his life. I mentioned Caleb Starr before, he's the one that lived on this mountain and basically gave it its current name. I had never heard anyone call it Chilhowee, fun fact, until recently. One of his son's named James was very active in Cherokee politics and he actually worked to negotiate the treaty that would result in the Trail of Tears.

Z: Ah.

E: Because of his native ancestry, eventually forced him and his own family to leave home and move westward, and he was accused-rightfully fucking so-of selling out the Natives to the white man. Eventually he was killed because of this. James, come the fuck on, what did you expect?

Z: Truly. Hello? Okay.

E: I don't want to make light of that obviously, because it was this horrible thing. At one point I had the numbers written down here, but I must have moved them. Thousands and thousands of people lost their lives on the Trail of Tears and this man basically was just-

Z: Didn't help!

E: Yeah, I don't know what he was-what he thought was going to happen. His whole family had to leave and give up their land. Hundreds of other families had to, too. Caleb Starr, as I said was a slave plantation owner and he had many 100 slaves. This is another really grim part of the story, because the way it is written, it kind of makes it sounds very praisy? They basically kind of put him on a pedestal a little bit, and they talk about about how-they talk about how much the people Caleb Starr literally bought and sold adored him and how much pride they took in their work they took for him. It is said when he left on the Trail of Tears some grieved themselves to death and were buried alongside the waters of Conasauga Creek. And that may have been true, they were grief stricken but it really grossed me out that a book written in like the 20th century was like, “Yes, this man was great, he owned 100s of people.”

Z: Yeah.

E: Anyways, but that's just-I only included that to highlight the way that it is kind of a biased telling of the story, but again it was pretty much the only source I had. Within a year the treaty was signed and the removal began in 1838. What at one time had been 50,000 square miles of native territory were reduced to only a few hundred. Until he saw them driven from their homes to an unwanted territory in the west, Mason Evans pleaded the case of the white settlers. After 1838, he formed a different opinion but kept it to himself, is what the book says.

Z: Okay.

E: I would imagine that was a pretty traumatic experience. Having all these friends and then seeing them be forced to move away.

Z: Right, yeah.

E: Anyways, so Mason went on to become a captain of a militia commissioned as such by the governor in 1841. He was 17 years old. Then, in his adulthood, instead of-I think he was supposed to go on to be a general or something. Initially thought he would have a career with the military, but he was so smart we would really rather you be a teacher, so he accepted a job as a teacher at a local school. Now we get into 'The Heartbreak' is what I have titled this chapter.

Z: Yay.

E: Essentially, the cause that is attributed to Mason deciding to go off into the wilderness forever is that he had his heart broken by his sweetheart. No one knows her true identity. What is known about her, is that she was the daughter of a prominent doctor in the area. “She was the apple of his eye, an only child whom he love more than life.No one would say, nor was it in print who the prominent doctor was, or what was his daughter's name. Was it because people wanted to protect the girl? Or was it because the doctor was so influential in Monroe County, that no one would even think to breathe a scandal such as the Mason Kershaw Evans affair.” It's all written very dramatically.

Z: Right.

E: Like a tabloid, but she was a co-teacher with Mason at the same school. They spent a lot of time together in the schoolhouse, but they would also go out together and roam around in the forest. They would ride their horses together. Mason would paint pictures for her, and draw for her. They just had a great time together. When he proposed to her, and she accepted. Mason didn't really wanna tell anybody, but she insisted that she had to tell her daughter, and he was like, “Okay, well, you tell your father, and I'll tell my mother and that'll be the only people that we tell.” Earlier, before we got started this was one of those where you could tell I was getting tired of their bullshit and just tired in general. Despite her anonymity, the author of the book gave her a name, that I quite honestly to be fucking hilarious. Dawn O'Day, and I put here, “Like bitch what is she, a leprechaun?”

E&Z: (laughs)

E: The whole that there was, there's this very dramatic story of her birth because Mason's mom a midwife, and though her father was a doctor, he decided it was bad luck to deliver your own baby, so he called for Mason's mother because she was an experienced midwife, and she was actually pregnant with Mason at the time. He and Dawn are only a few months apart in age, so she was born at the brink of day, and so the author was like, her name is Dawn O'Day.

Z: Oh-

E: Yeah

Z:...my god. What's his name again? The author?

E: R. Frank McKinney.

Z: R. Frankly, I don't like it.

E: (laughs) As I said, Mason's mother was the midwife who delivered his eventual sweetheart. What?

Z: Another thing.

E: What?

Z: I wouldn't care about bad luck. Well, I guess this was a different time period. But-

E: Yeah.

Z:...just, it's free. Just have the baby, you ain't gotta worry about it.

E: That's free real estate.

Z: That's free real estate, truly, but I mean, as soon as I said it, I was like “They didn't really have hospital bills.” But!

E: Well here's the thing that bothers me too about this whole debacle in the-I had a lot more of this whole birth scene when I initially was doing my notes because it was just. It's so hard to tell what of this was actually true, and what of it was speculation because everything seems like it was speculation the way that it was written.

Z: Right.

E: Basically there's this whole scene Dawn's mother is obviously in distress, she's in labor, she's in pain, and he just fucking backhands her and tells her to quiet down, and then she dies. Yeah, she fucking dies. She dies in childbirth. Okay first of all, he smacked the hell out of her, she falls back quote, “whimpering onto the pillow,” he drugs her to keep her calmer, and when she does deliver the baby, she dies. And he's like “Oh my god, my wife died, and I slapped her.” Like no shit. First, you shouldn't be slapping your wife in the first place, what the hell? That really-I'm sorry I just got real loud.

Z: No you're fine, speechless.

E: Oh, it frustrated the hell out of me. I could really go on about this book. He slaps the mother of his child, until she literally falls back on the bed, she dies, and that is part of why he was so protective of his daughter. Ironically, in turn, when Mason was born the doctor was the one that they called on to deliver him. This family structure, this community, they're all very tight nit, it's a very small place, they all know each other. As they got older, Dawn was very drawn to Mason because of his skills in the arts. She quickly became friends with him. She was allowed to spend some of her free time hanging out with Mason, but her father said, “Mason Evans is a bright chap, but I just don't have any use for soldiers.” It was speculated that he felt this way because he maybe had something in his past that made him kind of resent the military. A lot of people in this story in particular were draft dodgers for the Revolutionary War, which is a really weird thing to think about.

Z: 100%

E: I don't know why, I never really thought about the Revoutionary War having been-having had a draft. I guess that makes sense?

Z: Yeah.

E: It's possible that that's why he felt that way. He in general was very possessive and protective of his daughter. So she never really brought up the topic of her having any sort of affection for Mason until he proposed to her, and she said, “Well, I have to tell my dad.” She went home, and when she told him that she had intended to marry Mason, they had this massive argument and he forbade her to marry him. As incentive for her to not marry him, he promised her the farm and $1,000.00 in gold if she would turn Mason down. Now, I didn't google how much $1000.00 would have been in 1820 whatever, actually no that was later. I think this is like 1840. This is also one, in your story you had said there aren't a lot of really exact dates. There are very few exact dates in this too. Basically, I have his birth date and his death date and anything pertaining to the Civil War that was recorded by the government, but nothing specific in between. So, he promised her the farm and $1000.00 in gold, and he said, “Compare that to tending babies, scrubbing floors, tilling the ground, never having money of your own, your own husband being gone from home, soldiering, leaving you with all the chores to do. If you're in your right mind, you'll never do it.” And I have here, which, this guy was a raging shithead, but he did make some valid points. I would take that money.

Z: (whispers) Same. And a farm?!

E: A farm?! Yes.

Z: Cottagecore!

E: Yes, exactly.

Z: I don't mean to scream.

E: It's fine. That's how you feel about cottagecore.

Z: I love it, I love it.

E: Dawn didn't go to school the following morning. Mason received a note from her father's gardener, informing him that she would not be in school that day, and her students were to be sent home and return the day following. Mason accepted that, but he was acting very strangely after that. He was very anxious, and his students were taking notice. “At times he would lose his train of thought, stop his teaching, stare into space, and after a moment of silence, would again gain his pupils attention by frequently running his fingers through his hair, laughing foolishly, and whispering to himself.” Students feared that he had been bewitched because they had seen him act similarly at religious camp meetings, writhing, wringing his hands and crying. There's another quote here, “This was the first time anything had happened to him since the time he fell sick at his brother's home in Mississippi several years back.” He had gotten really ill. I don't think they ever said exactly what he had, but he had a very high fever. This is kind of where they think things started to really effect him, because he was kind of-It was a a high enough fever to where it was starting to effect his brain function, and they think that that may have permanently damaged his brain. His brother had actually said he had congestion of the brain, but Mason said, “But I wasn't crazy.” This is another-basically, any quote that I'm gonna say is certainly written by R. Frank McKinney, not by the actual people that said them. It says, “But I wasn't crazy, it was the high fever that caused me to go out of my mind,” he rationalized with himself. Mason had studied enough medicine to know something about fever. If he hadn't became a teacher, he would certainly have became a doctor, as he had said many times before. He wrote all of this behavior off of his anxiety and he told himself that he would see Dawn after class. The gardener came back, and brought him another note, telling him not to leave until Dawn showed up. Which I think is kind of funny, because why send this poor man to the schoolhouse, when you could have just said “She ain't coming to school today, also Mason, hang out for a little bit after.”

Z: Yeah.

E: Put it in the same note!

Z: Yeah.

E: I digress. So Dawn comes up, and they have this fight, she breaks it off with him. She basically does that whole thing of, even though she didn't actually hate him, she played it up like she really hated him, just to make it a cleaner break, which I get, I guess.

Z: Been there.

E: Yeah, it happens. Doesn't make it hurt any less, but that's what happened. He was devastated, and he got on his horse and he rode away into the forest to be alone. After that, he eventually went home, but Mason didn't come inside to get his food like he always did. His mom looked outside and she saw him run into the barn, grab a coat of a hook, and run back into the woods, leaving his horse behind. She said to his brother Milton, “Mason's gone off without his supper, wonder where he's headed for?” Milton replied, “To Panther Cave, I guess.” That's where he's gone a lot lately to write poetry and compose songs for that female school teacher. He said that Panther Cave is the quietest place in the Knobbs for when you wanna meditate.” Now what we'll learn here is that Mason is a douche. Oh, not Mason, sorry, Milton. Milton very much hated this girl. He, the whole time is portrayed as just thinking she has the worst of intentions. He literally calls her a witch at one point. That's another thing about this, all the exaggeration I've talked about before, instead of portraying as what I believe it to be, and what I think most people that would read this in modern times to believe, is that Mason was sick, he had some underlying illness and his behaviors after this point were possibly inflamed by trauma. To me it all reads as very much this man had undiagnosed mental illness in the 1840s. However, they demonize the shit out of Ms. Dawn O'Day.

Z: Great.

E: Constantly talking about Mason is wandering around in the woods just thinking about how he misses her, thinking about how she destroyed his life. Milton is constantly quoted as saying she ruined everything for him, and destroyed his future. It's fucked. Literally, all she did was break up with him.

Z: Right.

E: That really is another beef I have with this book. Panther Cave. Panther Cave is this cave on the western side of Chilhowee Mountain that was as the name implies known for being a hiding place for panthers and it became Mason's primary hide out in the years following this event. His family went looking for him there after he ran away, but they didn't find him because he had already left, and he was on his way back to the house. That evening, they heard someone in the barn and they thought that someone had broken in. When his father went in to investigate, he found Mason sitting on the floor in his horse's stall hugging his legs. Which, they say, this is a great horse, but I would not wanna be down there.

Z: No.

E: A horse could kill you straight up with one kick.

Z: Oh yeah.

E: Not the point.

Z: Mason's crying, he's sitting on the floor hugging his horses legs. He keeps repeating to his family, “I had to see my horse, I had to see my horse, he's the only one that would understand me.” And same, Mason I get it. Listen I understand you. I was a horse kid, okay? My mom still has horses. They're good animals. You still coulda got kicked in the head. His family convinced him to stay and have a meal with them. His mother told him to sit down at the table but he wouldn't. “Instead he began pacing the floor with bodily agitations and jerks. He ran his hands through his hair, jerking his head back and forth, then letting his body fall on the floor, writhing as if in extreme pain. Robert and Milton tried to get him off the floor but he fought them off. Finally, Mason righted himself, began to sing in words never heard before, singing most melodiously, not from the mouth or nose, but but entirely from the breast. I don't-that still boggles my mind, I have no idea. He would run from one end of the kitchen to the other and back again, often barking and grunting with each stroke of his head. His family basically thought what was happening to him was “a spell,” similar to behavior that they had seen people exhibit at Methodist camp meetings. Such as like speaking in tongues, that kinda thing. Mason was obviously in distress and they didn't know what to do. One of his parents said, “Mason's just like the man in the Bible that was possessed by demons, full of unclean spirits, until Jesus sent them into a heard of swine. But what could have caused such a thing? That was another point in which Milton was like, “It's all that woman's fault.” called her a witch. Like I said, they didn't have any idea what was happening because they had no understanding of mental illness or any kind of brain injury, knowledge or anything like that.

Z: Right.

E: So they just tried to make him comfortable and placate him. They finally fed him, and it said, “Mason ate his meal ravenously, with his hands rather than any other utensils. He ate everything they put in front of him and downed two quarts of coffee.” Which sounds like a great day. I would love for that to be me.

Z: Same.

E: I wanna do that.

Z: Same.

E: They tried to convince him to explain what had happened, but he jumped up from the table, grabbed a knapsack from a hook on the wall, and ran back into the woods. His brother Milton was a medical student and he insisted that one day he would become a doctor and he would fix Mason's problems. We're gonna time skip a little bit.

Z: Sure.

E: In July of 1850, there was a 10 day stretch of near constant rain. It brought widespread flooding to the region. Many people were forced out of their homes, and dead animals, human waste, and debris were washing up in massive quantities on the farmland. I feel like I should specify, in this area where this is all taking place. It's a lot of flood planes between mountains, so when it rains, even now, it's really easily flooded. Ten straight days of rain is bad. It was very bad. Mason, at this point, had been living in the wilderness about two years. His father had sold off his horse because Mason wasn't around to care for him. He gave him the money from the sale, he was paid $100.00, and he told Mason that he needed to take it and use it, but Mason didn't want it. He put it in his backpack, and just let this $100 bill get shredded up in his backpack.

Z: Mason.

E: Yeah. He didn't have any use for money, he was out in the woods-

Z: Fair.

E:...and at this point he had become an expert at chicken snatching, taking food from gardens in the middle of the night, anything that he could find, he could eat. He was an expert forager, he knew all the berries and roots and stuff he could eat. He did eat all his meat raw, but he didn't really have anything to cook with in a cave.

Z: You gotta do whatcha gotta do.

E: Yeah, although it's not like he didn't know how to light a fire, it's just he apparently didn't cook his food. That didn't kill him, so I guess it's okay. Disclaimer, if you're listening to this, and you're considering the Mason Evans Diet, don't.

Z: Don't.

E: Don't. Cook your chicken thoroughly. At this point, he'd lived out there for two years. Dogs would bark and chase him up trees and hunters had to come and call them off to rescue him, because they would tree him like a bear. Overall, he was adapting to his new life. He was learning how to function out in the wilderness, but things were about to take a turn because the Evans family was victim to a lot of the flooding damage. They lived right on the banks of the creek and they had to clean up a lot after the storms. By this point, all of Mason's siblings had grown up and moved away and gotten married, so his parents were all alone to deal with this. This is topical, unfortunately, the flooding brought with it something much worse than just property damage, it brought illness. There was an epidemic of typhoid fever, and people just started dropping like flies. Entire families were dead in days. Milton had gone to Knoxville to go to medical school. He was called home, not because they were enlisting all the doctors in the region to care for people, but because both of his parents died like (snaps fingers) immediately.

Z: Jesus.

E: It was horrible. He said, “I wonder how many people thought to boil the water before drinking it.” 'Cause they wouldn't have known.

Z: Right.

E: That was a lot of what was killing people was they were drinking unclean drinking water. The Evans family all came together to make arrangements for their parents, and the question came up, “What do we do about Mason?” Milton, always the spokesman of the group, decided he was going to track his brother down, but when he did find him, he decided to just yell at him. He told him that he was disgusting and that he looked like a wild animal, that he didn't look like a person at all anymore. He told him, “If you'll come and get cleaned up you can go with me, but not before. You can't see Ma and Pa looking like that.” He was just now finding out that his parents had died, he's already traumatized by a number of other things. Mason of course, didn't want to hear it and he ran off into the woods again. He didn't do what Milton told him to do, however he did attend their funeral. He followed the procession of, there was like a wagon with matching white horses that carried their caskets. It's described in this very beautiful and flowery way that honestly, genuinely very sad, and his parents were buried at Hickory Grove Cemetery, while Mason watched from the woods. After that, this is where things are getting up into the Civil War, because we are coming up on the 1860s. At this time, the construction was finishing up on the White Cliff Springs Hotel. It is a very important location in Mason's life, in his history. The owner, Harvey McGill, and instructed Jonas and Betsy Jefferson, the couple that ran the hotel kitchen, to attend to all of Mason's needs. They would feed him, and often, Mr. McGill would come to the kitchen while Mason was there and he would talk to him and kind of give him the scoop on what was going on. I also feel like I should mention at this point, Mason basically went non-verbal. He didn't really speak very much, if at all. At lot of time in the book they describe him as kind of communicating in grunts and hand gestures, but it wasn't that he didn't understand things that people were saying to him. A lot of things in the book kind of-at the same time they're like, “yes, he was brilliant,” there was kind of this air of, “well he didn't talk anymore so he was stupid.” I just want to say, that's not how it works.

Z: Right.

E: You can be nonverbal and understand things, you know.

Z: Yeah.

E: Anyway, that's a whole other spiel for another time. So he would come in, and he would get the hot goss, and he would find out what was going on. He basically learned, at the White Cliffs Hotel, that the war was coming. He learned all about states seceding from the Union and that sort of thing. He was like, “Well, I am of the age of the draft,” he would be draft-able, so he was like, “I gotta hide.” He hunkered down Panther Cave for a little while, a long time, several months I guess? While he was still in hiding there was an accident. He decided that he was afraid of being caught by the authorities, he wasn't even gonna go to the hotel, he was just kinda gonna stockpile supplies, stay in his cave. One night while he was out foraging, he sees this light in the sky. He followed it, and the hotel was on fire. Burning to the ground. He shows up, and the fire marshal is there, and they're like, “Well, there's your fire bug,” and they basically threatened to arrest him. He is very upset, he ends up-they describe him as kind of having a fit. He started convulsing, he was very upset, he didn't know how to communicate that he hadn't been the one to do it because people were basically just accusing him already.

Z: Right.

E: Fortunately, at the same time that this was happening, this woman came forward, and was like, “My daughter knocked a candle over into a laundry basket, and that's what happened.” He was exonerated and he got up and ran away. The hotel burned to the ground. Mason went back to Panther Cave. This is another one of those points in the story where the author speculates that Mason spent much of his time lost in the memory of his ill-fated love affair.

Z: I don't think so.

E: I have here, “Like come on bro, it wasn't that serious.” After that he visited his sister Demaris and her husband Horner Coltharp, and to his surprise, he learned that his brother, Milton, had become a doctor, like he said he would. Instead of doing anything to help Mason, he filed paperwork with the court system in Monroe County to declare Mason a lunatic and subject to the confinement of a lunatic asylum. Milton also sold the land that was willed to Mason, without his consent, and basically was like, “Okay cops, go get him. Lock him up.” Very helpful. So-

Z: I don't like Milton.

E:...yeah, Milton is a shithead!

Z: Truly.

E: Demaris and Horner explained to Mason that Milton had moved away, but he had alerted local authorities to be on the lookout for him. Demaris requested that her husband build a shelter for him, where he could be supervised and he could be safe. Horner Coltharp did what he was asked. He constructed an 8x10 shanty for him, supplied him with food. They implored him not to wander off. He did, of course, try to leave to go back to the forest, and he was captured and chained to the floor. Which was great, because when people heard about this, people would come and just stare at him like he was a fucking zoo animal.

Z: Great.

E: Yeah, but there is a silver lining to this because this group of women heard what was happening to him. They were sympathetic so they came to see him and they brought him some supplies. They asked him if he could make use of a file, and he was like, “Yes, fuck yes, I can use a file. I can get out of here if I have a file.” So they baked him a loaf of bread with a file hidden in it.

Z: (gasps)

E: He was able to eat the bread, get the file out, and escape. How cool is that?

Z: I love that.

E: I know! These vigilante southern mamas are just like, “Nah this is not okay, you can't be doing this. This is a grown man, let him live his life. Let him out, here's a file, go be free!” I have so much respect for that. That's probably my favorite part of this whole story.

Z: I love that.

E: Yeah, so he escaped and he basically-he vowed never to return to his sister's property again because even though they had tried to help him, he didn't wanna get captured again. He continued to wander. He did go back occasionally and visit the White Cliff Hotel because they were constructing a second one, or rebuilding it. But he felt really uncomfortable being around there. He set up a number of outposts throughout the knobs with supplies and shelters where he could hide, should the authorities come to hunt him down again. A lot of people had complained about him raiding their gardens, and stealing their animals. The police never really caught him. Four years passed from the night of the fire and Mason showed up and he was very surprised to find that there was another hermit living there. Well, he wasn't living there, but he was a visitor, and they were treating him the way they were treating Mason, where they would feed him and give him whatever he wanted. His name is Gabriel North, and he'd had a very hard life. He had been fending for himself since childhood due to a strained relationship with his family. The book also implied that he had some mental illness as well and that that might have been effecting the way that his family treated him, so he was on his own. He did, however, have two dogs and Mason did not like dogs. When Harvey McGill was like, “I don't want you two at my hotel at the same time, I think you both should leave, go show him Panther Cave.” Mason was like “Cool, let's go,” Gabriel was like, “Okay well here's my dogs, and the dogs immediately attacked him. Immediately attacked Mason. They get into a fight, he hits the dog, because the dog is trying to attack him, and Gabriel was like “If you ever hit my dog again, you'll regret it Mason.” He kind of explained, “I have a checkered past with dogs, they do not like me,” and Gabriel basically was like, “Okay, cool that's fine. Just don't do it again,” and they became friends. But, another epidemic of illness hit the region. Yellow fever this time, and Gabriel was like, “I don't wanna be around for that. I'm afraid, I don't wanna get sick, I'm leaving.” So he left, and Mason was left alone again. That was in 1878. At this point, the book talks about what Mason had done for companionship previously. Allegedly, he had a couple of different animals for companionship. He had a rooster that he stole from a farm, like a prize rooster. This rooster and him were like BFFs. He kept it in a hollow oak tree that he called his rooster house. It road in his pocket until the action of squeezing in and out of his pocket caused it to loose all it's feathers. So he had a naked chicken that-

Z: (laughs)

E:..that was his best friend.

Z: (still laughing) I love that.

E: I know!

Z: Oh my god!

E: He also befriended a very large yellow tomcat, which followed him around for a long period of time. Now, here's the thing that's kind of icky. The rooster eventually died, and Mason ate it. Which, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say, I get it because he, you know. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive, and he was already catching and killing chickens before that.

Z: Sure.

E: The thing that bothers me about this, is that people were very into the speculation that he ate the cat too.

Z: I was afraid you were gonna say that.

E: I don't know that that happened. That's another thing that is in there just for shock value I think.

Z: I think so too. I feel like he was smart enough to know not to eat the cat.

E: I don't know, and honestly who the hell am I to judge him if he did.

Z: I've never had cat, who knows maybe it's good.

E: Living in a cave in the woods, you forage for all your food. Honor every part of them right.

Z: Yeah...

E: I know that's kind of fucked up to say about a cat but yeah. I just thought that that was-it was just randomly tossed in there between, “Here's a story of the Civil War,” “Mason Evans may have eaten his cat.” Like what??

Z: (laughs)

E: What are you talking about??

Z: Written. Like. A. Tabloid.

E: It must have been a slow news day.

Z: Truly.

E: Anyway, we're finally winding down. In the 1880s, a lot of things began to change. Lumber became a big industry in the Monroe County area, therefore, railroad started moving in. It was also at this time, that The Athenian, the newspaper that printed the pamphlet that I mentioned in the beginning, began it's operation. The publisher was a man named Wilbur F. McCarron. McCarron had promised the people of McMinn County “a newspaper of prestige, one whose literary content would be the best in the nation. There, the people who subscribed to the newspaper could be assured of many interesting features about McMinn, Meigs, and Monroe Counties.” The funny thing about this, is that people were not about this happening because they were like, “We wanna know about politics, we don't give a shit about whatever literature you're trying to bring us.” They also didn't like him because this was in the time period where Democrats and Republicans were flipped values wise-

Z: Right.

E:...and he was a Republican, and I thought it was really funny because they were like, “We don't like republicans around here.” And I was like “Boy you better fast forward 200 years.

Z: You better buckle up!

E: That's all we got. Within a month of the publication's beginning, McCarron came to visit the White Cliff Hotel and he told Mr. McGill that he wanted to know about Mason and eventually write a piece about him. Mr. McGill basically told him that the best person to talk to would be Horner Colthrop, his brother-in-law. When he returned to Athens, McCarron immediately published a series of articles in his paper about quote, “The Wild Man of the Chilhowee.” He recounted the stories of the people who had encountered him through direct interviews. The article stirred up a lot of controversy, and on January 9, 1886, ,the sheriff captured Mason and brought him to the Athens County Jail, and yet again, his capture drew in a lot of spectators. A lot of people came to watch them, arrest him basically and put him in prison. They took his photo on the steps of the courthouse, gave him a change of clothes and sentenced him to an insane asylum in Nashville. Very, for context, Monroe County is like the bottom eastern corner of Tennessee. Nashville is 4 hours away?

Z: Yeah, like three of four.

E: Three or four hours away, so that's very far from anything he's every known. In The Athenian, Mr. McCarron wrote, “Till a short time ago, Mason Evans kept with regularity the date of his birth, the day of the week, the month, and the year, and when urged to do so, would write a few sentences and solve problems with as much exactness as the days of yore. But age is creeping upon him. His eyesight is failing, and the little spark of passion and the reason that should have never left him is gradually being extinguished. It was only by the exercise of strategy and urgent persuasion he was induced without using force to come down from his mountain home and get into a wagon waiting to convey him into town, a distance of some 15-20 miles.” Mason did not want-whether they forced him or not, he did not want what they took him to do. He attempted to escape several times. So far as to get the start of his guards, several 100s of yards going at full speed toward the mountains. Mostly reports said that he was harmless, but a few people had said that in his older age he would get confused, he would lash out a little bit. What it actually said was, “attacks of raving lunacy.” Which, yikes. A few weeks later, McCarron wrote that Mason was taken the McMinn County Poorhouse. Once he arrived there, he very quickly made his escape. He walked a distance of around 20 miles back to his brother-in-law's house. Horner Colthrop provided him a shelter to stay in at night and he was free to roam during the day. Which is kind of what the situation was before, but this time there wasn't really much of an issue with it. He actually used the shelter he was given, the cops didn't try to come take him away, they all kind of came to an agreement. At this point, things were really, finally starting to calm down for him. During the winter of 1891-1892, Mason stayed in the cabin intermittently. He continued to visit the White Cliff kitchens and he was very grateful for the services that they gave him, because he was 68 years old, and his health was beginning to decline. Any food that they could give him, any warmth, he was grateful for. Unfortunately, on the morning of January 11, 1892, Mason's body was found frozen sitting under a tree. His brother-in-law claimed his remains, and Mason was buried in a simple wooden casket near his parents at Hickory Grove Cemetery. For 40 years, he had lived alone in the wilderness, kept himself alive. I think that that is fucking crazy.

Z: Truly.

E: Obviously, if you threw me out there now, given that I am of the-I'm on the millenial/gen z cusp. I've basically always had a cell phone in my hand. I would not last a day.

Z: I can't even poop in the woods.

E: Exactly! Thank you! I know it was a different time but wow. 40 years, completely alone.

Z: Yeah.

E: Didn't have a house, lived in a cave. Finally I have a quote here from Harvey McGill, the owner of the White Cliff Hotel who said, “Mason Evans is much better off dead than alive and Hickory Grove is a much better place than the shack he lived in. The final resting place of his soul is with God, I am sure.” That is-

Z: That's sweet.

E:...the story of Mason Evans.

Z: Oh my god. I am still shook about those women.

E: I know.

Z: The loaf of bread.

E: It's so cool. It's so cool.

Z: Oh my god.

E: That just goes to show you. That's the definition of southern hospitality.

Z: Truly.

E: Truly.

Z: Well, thank god I finally know all about Mason.

E: I'm sorry that was so long-

Z: Nah.

E:...for our first run, but I really just needed to

get that one off my chest. Fortunately, it had given me kind of a branching off of some other topics that I want to cover too. I definitely want to talk more about the White Cliff Hotel and I am actually planning on doing an episode on sinkholes.

Z:OOooo.

E: Caves and sinkholes are all kind of connected. So that's that. Thank you for listening.

Z: Of course.

E: What's your issue this week?

Z: My issue this week, and-okay there is a side of TikTok-

E: I'm afraid now.

Z:...currently, and again, brain worms. My issue this week is cleantok. Cleaning TikTok.

E: Ooo, that sounds nice.

Z: I'm gonna do a little bit of a trigger warning here-

E: Oh, okay.

Z:...for child abuse.

E: Okay...

Z: Because skip ahead like 2 minutes, if you don't want to hear about this, but-

E: I was not expecting this.

Z:...have you ever read the book A Child Called It?

E: No, but I know about it. I know like the general plot.

Z: There's a scene where household chemicals are mixed and it's supposed to be-

E: Oh.

Z: Okay.

E: Like the mustard gas?

Z: Yeah, pretty much.

E: I think I know where this is going.

Z: There's this side of TikTok now where people are like, “We're on cleantok, we're gonna clean.” and they'll dump half a container of AJAX, Clorox, Dawn, literally everything under the-

E: Ammonia.

Z: Ammonia, everything and that's just where my brain goes is mixing chemicals together and making deadly toxic gases and I'm just waiting, because there's livestreams of people that'll just go live and dump-

E: Yeah, I've seen a couple of those videos where people are just throwing in 4 different kinds of powder and dumping multiple liquids on top of it.

Z: Yeah!

E: How are you not dead? Someone's gonna get hurt.

Z: Truly, and that's where my brain went. I was like, someone is going to not realize it. 'Cause it's science, they're chemicals. You're mixing shit together, you don't know what you're mixing. Somethings going to happen, someone is going to get hurt, because these people on TikTok are like “Oh I'm going to make a rainbow in my toilet today.”

E: Can I say, I feel like a lot of that we don't have home-ec in schools anymore.

Z: Yeah.

E: Because I learned, my mom was the one that told me, don't mix ammonia and bleach cause you'll make mustard gas, but I don't know if that's actually true. I know that it makes something that is very dangerous, but that is kind of where you would learn about these household things. Schools are so underfunded that you don't have that anymore.

Z: Yep.

E: That's just sad.

Z: Well, that was my issue. Sorry to get a little dark there for a second but truly I saw just one video, and you know how TikTok is, they'll be one here or there, and it really made me mad.

E: Well, hey, PSA don't do that. Don't mix things.

Z: Please.

E: Do your research if you're going to use multiple chemicals because, because holy shit you could literally gas yourself to death.

Z: Here's the tea. One is enough.

E: Yeah, most of the time.

Z: Scrubbing bubbles? Fine.

E: Yeah.

Z: Dawn Dishwashing Liquid? Fine. Don't start mixing shit. You don't need to. That's what they're there for.

E: Yes, yes. Please be safe. Please don't get hurt.

Z: What's your issue now that I'm all worked up?

E: My issue, maybe this is dark, my issue is honestly that I had to take Brownie to the emergency vet.

Z: Yeah.

E: 'Cause that was a nightmare.

Z: Yeah.

E: I had to take my sweet little boy to the vet because I came home from work and he had poopied blood and I was terrified and I thought he was gonna die. It turns out that he just had a mild infection, and he's had his antibiotics. He's good to go now. We did his follow up, and the vet said he looked fine. His issue this week is probably the fact that they shaved that funky chunk out of the side of his neck, because they had to give him fluids, so he has this wonky ass-it looks like the state of South Carolina.

Z: Have you ever seen that episode of Bob's Burgers where he gets the stitch in his finger-

E: Yes!

Z:...and he's like, “Why did you shave my arm?”

E: That is exactly it, yeah. God that's such-I love Bob's Burgers.

Z: Same.

E: But yeah, that's my issue. He's fine. I'm still-I don't think I'm ever gonna recover from that. That was so stressful. He's okay and he's standing here staring at me because it's been two hours, and he probably needs to poop.

Z: He probably needs to poop.

(dog shaking his head noises)

E: Yeah.

Z: We'll take that as a yes.

E: Alright, well, thanks for listening.

Z: Of course, thanks for listening to me ramble, thanks for listening to Em ramble.

E: Thanks for really listening to me ramble.

E&Z: (laughs)

Z: Well we'll hopefully see you next time, hopefully we'll see you next time, I'm really excited for my topic next week.

Z: Hi guys.

E: Hey.

Z: How's it going? So when we initially recorded this episode, we didn't have all of our social media set up completely. There were a couple that had different usernames or whatever, just rookie mistakes that we had made, but we just wanted to rerecord the ending here. Kinda touch base with you, so you know exactly where to find us so there's no confusion, and we're all on the same page. So Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @issues-podcast. Our Tumblr is @theabandonmentissues. Or you can simply go to our LinkTree whick is linktr.ee/issues_podcast. And all of this will be linked in the description below. But that's got all of our relevant links including our cited sourced, social media, and our Patreon can be found there as well.

E: We also have an email for listener story submissions now. So if you have any places nearby you that you think are relevant to the topics that we cover, we would like to hear from you. You can send those to us at tellusyourissue@gmail.com, and we might read it out on the air.

Z: You never know what could happen.

E: You never know. You can also send whatever you want to that email. Anything you want us to know. Anything relevant.

Z: Send us memes. We'll print them out, and we'll hand them to Gertrude.

E: Exactly. Yeah.

Z: No problem.

E: That should pretty much cover everything, contact wise.

Z: We appreciate you guys understanding that we're fools.

E&Z: (laughs)

E: We're just some fresh faced youngsters.

Z: Listen, we're little rookies, we gotta figure it out as we go, and unfortunately this is one of them.

E: If you need anything from us, that's were you can find us.

Z: Please, send me memes.

E: (laughs) Please. It's what keeps him going.

Z: It's all I got left in this world.

E: Yeah.

[okimargarvez]

WASTED TALENT

Original title: Wasted talent.

Prompt: Penelope can’t sleep and tries to paint something.

Warning: none.

Genre: funny, romantic.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: part 86 in Garvez canon Life.

Legend: 💑.

Song mentioned: none.

GARVEZ STORIES

WASTED TALENT

 Sometimes it can happen that, waking up due to a sudden thirst (or less elegant but nevertheless equally impelling physical needs) he discovers the place next to him unexpectedly empty and strangely cold. And reaching the living room, he notices a light on, in addition to that of a special alarm clock, bought by Luke himself because he projects the time on the wall or ceiling. And now it informs him it's three-twenty-five at night, or at morning, depending on your point of view.

-What the hell are you doing?- he exclaims, reaching his girl without being noticed and, as he secretly and maliciously hoped, making her jump.

But she is able to regain control of her body. She puts something at her feet, then she moves her hair off, braiding it, and he can’t help but thinks she is tremendously sexy. -Hey, don't you see?- she wears a short-sleeved shirt, which reaches her mid-calf. Once it might have been white, but now it is studded with spots of different colors, and they seem to be made on purpose. -I'm painting, Alvez.- the man makes his grimace, suddenly remembering the last time he saw it on her: when the girls had eavesdropped on their speeches believing that they were doing unbridled sex in the middle of the afternoon, instead they were simply busy stuccoing and painting the walls. If Penelope wanted a new color for a room, Penelope would have gotten it.

Luke walks a step closer. -Track lines at random of different colors would mean painting?- he says, struggling to take his eyes off her and move them to her "masterpiece". -I didn't know...- the sentence is cut off by a flying object not immediately identified -Ouch.- a brush suitable for covering large surfaces, and fortunately, for this reason, it's not dirty.

-You asked for it.- Penelope says with an innocent look. -I knew I was a misunderstood genius.- she rolls her eyes and turns, giving him her back, and not only.

But Luke is still not satisfied. He completely forgot the reason he stood up. -Right.- he joins her, stretching his left arm to draw her to him. - Wasted talent.- he continues to making lovingly fun of her .

But she remains equally concentrated, or pretends astonishingly. -With you, then, it's like throwing pearls to swine.- he leaves her free, pretending to be offended.

-Hey!- Penelope gives him a quick glance, judging him not worthy of something more. Of course, it's not strange for her to paint in the middle of the night. When you can’t sleep…

-Sorry, you are right.- and never happens that she wakes him up too, taking advantage of another relaxing technique. Never. -Poor pigs, they might be offended at having been compared to...- this time she's the one forced to stop, because he... -Luke Alvez! Did you really dare to stain my hair?- that blue stripe, just the only strand that escaped the weave, seems to have been made on purpose.

He admires his work for a moment. -You threw a brush to my head.- he reminds her. She pushes him away, lowering herself to look for one of the many rags scattered all over the room.

-But I didn't stain you.- she points out. -Do you know what kind of colors I'm using?- she asks.

Luke decides to tease her a little more. -It seems obvious to me that the answer is... surely.- she opens her eyes. -I am a graduate in geology, I had to take various chemistry exams and I can recognize this smell.- he loves having her eyes on himself.

-Then? I'm waiting.- and torturing her gently with expectations as she does with him.

-You are using paint with a high levels of lead.- he replies therefore, reluctantly. -But do you know how dangerous it is?- in a moment he is back serious and overprotective.

-Yes, natural that I know.- she hates when he manages to make her feel stupid, like she’s always with head in the clouds. -Monet lost his sight because of them... but he was still a genius.- she points out, with an eloquent look.

-So why you can’t use simpler colors like tempera or watercolor?- insists Luke.

-Simpler...- she tries repeating his words, but just can't do it. -Alvez, I begin to doubt my decision to stay with you.- he grabs her by the waist, opening a few buttons .

-If you call me by surname again I will give you various reasons for keep doing it.- he only says, getting a shocked (but also smug) expression. -You know perfectly that when you play the “early” Garcia role, Newbie and etcetera, I lose my mind.- this time she just doesn’t hold back laughter.

-Early Garcia?- she asks, letting him undressing her.

-I was just trying to stay on art topic.- the man replies, with the most innocent of tones.

-See, how are you?- she pretends to want to reject him. -First you make me believe to be the most ignorant on earth about a subject that is close to my heart, and then I find out that you also have a doctorate about it.- he passes his tongue over his teeth, shaking his head. Her shirt falls to the ground.

-Hey, now let's not overdo it. Jose is graduated in Art history and Critics.- she opens her eyes wide. -What, you didn't know? And guess who had to put up with endless talk about the differences between Romanesque and Gothic, about the dispute between Cimabue and Duccio and, the part I preferred most of all: contemporary art. If you can call it that...- she puts her hands under his shirt and pinches him, gently.

-Hey, I think you have looking at my painting, after all.- she says

-No, it's your impression.- it's hard to concentrate when she... -What are you doing?- he asks.

-I surrender.- she declares. -You've stolen my inspiration, you destroyed the atmosphere.- she adds.

-Hey, Pen, do you always have to be so melodramatic?- he takes her face in his hands.

-And you must always be so horny?- she rubs her knee on his groin.

-Touché.- he exclaims, but smiles. -And now what are you going to do, can you sleep?- she shrugs.

-I will return to the good old pad and pencil. What is it?- she notices his gaze. -Any good nerd knows how to draw (or knows someone intimately with such ability), how could I otherwise force my favorite characters to kiss each other?- Luke bursts out laughing.

And again, that grimace on his mouth. -I think that's right.- he nods.

-What are you still doing here?- she asks, but doesn’t move away from his body.

-Nothing, I thought that... you know, you could do me a portrait.- he proposes.

-Or a caricature.- Penelope raises, winking.

-So you may make my nose and chin particularly noticeable, right?- he asks.

-Uh, I love your nose and your chin.- she caresses them. -And something else, too, which definitely doesn't want to rest, today.- Luke shakes his head.

-If you insist with this voice...- the blonde's hands go down.

-Oh yeah, it would be my fault.- she exclaims, innocently.

-Always.- she stops just a few millimeters above the hem of his trousers.

-Good to know. So, what would you say if I'll made a portrait in your birthday suit?- she asks.

-That we just won't hang it in the living room.-

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

TAGS: @martinab26​​​​ @reidskitty13​​​​  @thinitta​​​​  @garvezz​​​​ @mercedes-maldonado​​​​  @shyladystudentfan​​​​  @pegasus-scifichick​​​​ @paperwalk​​​​​  @inlovewithgarvaz​​​​​ @the-ellen-stuff​​​​​ @astressedwriter​​​​​  @symphonyashley​​​​​ @jess-the-introvert​​​​​  @everythingisanidea​​​​​ @blackb-ird​​​​​ @veronicafiore88​​​​ @dreatine​​​ @mookewa​​  Tell me if you want to be removed from the tag list ^^

[destielthedeathofme]

Worthless

Prompt: THIS FUCKING MASTERPIECE

Author: @destielthedeathofme

Pairing: Dean/Cas

Tags/Genre: Destiel, Painter! Dean, Critic! Cas, it's sadder than I anticipated, I'll try to make it funny, it's kinda angsty

Summary: read bro 

Author's note: beep boop

~♡~

Dean cursed as Gabe nearly knocked over a display.

"Dumbass! Watch where you're going."

Gabriel just stuck his tongue out at him and proceeded to walk around.

Today was the biggest day of Dean's career and a Twizzler addict was not going to ruin it.

"Hey Dean-o why so glum?"

Dean winced as Gabriel's sickly sweet breath came in contact much too close to his face. Man, personal space seemed to just not affect Gabriel. He didn't expect any more from Gabe. Dean anxiously ran his hands through his hair, he could give Gabriel a million reasons but Dean settled on one.

"Because I'm fucking nervous you dwarf."

"Ouch." Gabriel put his hand to his chest in mock hurt.

Sam wandered over to Dean, but as soon as he spotted Gabriel, started walking fast. In the other direction.

Gabriel's eyes lit up in mischief, "HEYYY SAMMMMYYYY."

You may think by mischief, Dean refers to something childish. But no, simply because Gabriel is the embodiment of mischief.

Dean sighed, he wasn't going to survive today. But at least he was better off than poor Sam. Dean narrowed his eyes at

Charlie who had decided to take a break. Charlie gave him a terrified smile and got up again, undoubtedly cursing him off under her breath. She probably deserved one. Sure he was being a bit bitchy, but he had the right. Everything had to be perfect today.

Dean was your average struggling artist who just moved to the city two years ago. He lived in a tiny apartment where cockroaches ruled and the water tasted like lead, but he was alive and grateful. Dean knew he had to live with it because he was the one who chose to paint. He was the one that chose to paint and he would live with the consequences. Painting wasn't just colors and a canvas to Dean. No, it was much much more. Painting consumed him. Every stroke, every speck. And there wasn't Dean without art.

Too bad his father couldn't see that.

But Dean was still grateful, nonetheless that Sammy had flown out to see him. Sammy was the only family he had left. His friends were the best. He couldn't be more grateful for Gabriel, Charlie, Benny, Garth, and Jo, all of whom had shown up today.

Dean didn't like being the center of attention, how ironic that he was having an exhibition, full of his works, everything that symbolized him. Sure he liked to fool around at parties and make jokes like his life depended on it. But when it mattered, Dean didn't like attention. Maybe because he grew up without it.

Dean stifled a laugh as he saw Sam start to run away from Gabe, who seemed to catch up to Sam within seconds although his legs weren't even half as long. Funny what love could do.

Someone came up from behind him and Dean turned, sensing the "boo".

Jo pouted at him, hands at her hips, "You're no fun, Winchester."

Dean smirked, "Honey, you and I both know that's not true."

Jo hugged him, laughing, Dean loved Jo she was his best friend next to Charlie and the others. Her mom was also kind of his mom. Ellen has raised him, especially when John couldn't.

Dean circulated throughout the room, eyeing every exhibit, making sure it was set to perfection. He nodded approvingly at his friends, Garth and Benny, especially who had shown up a little early to help him.

God, what would he do without these people?

A voice chimed in, "Crash and burn."

Dean grinned at Charlie who had probably heard him although he was fairly sure he didn't say it out loud. Dean wondered how she was still beaming even after missing out on nearly 2 meals. Sure they ordered food but Charlie was hell-bent on helping.

"So I did some digging online and I know some critics that are going to show up today."

Dean's face lit up, finally some good news, there wasn't a single critic in the area that he didn't know. Dean would be prepared for them.

"Well? Spit it out."

"Okay geez, anyway I've got Balthazar you know the party freak, Chuck the guy who used to be a prodigy, Amara the one who's always trying to get in your pants, Rowena the bitchy one, and Castiel?"

Dean's face when white at the mention of Castiel.

Castiel Novak was a legend in the art industry. Anyone and everyone knew him. But he'd gone quiet over the years, just sort of disappearing. Much to Dean's disappointment, no amount of stalking would even bring up a picture of the guy or where he was. He was Dean's inspiration in art, for as long as he could remember. Castiel was known for his attitude and infamous temper. Maybe that's why Dean liked him so much. Hell, the focal point of tonight’s exhibition was a piece inspired by Castiel. Dean had named it “Angel”, and as cliche as that sounded, it was true. Castiel specialized in angels and supernatural beings, as did Dean. But his Angel tonight had been to honor his mother, Dean tried his best to replicate her and hadn’t let anyone see that one yet. 

Here's the million dollar question.

How the fuck did he know who Dean Winchester was?

"Earth to Dean Winchester!!"

Dean blinked, "Uh yeah right here."

Charlie huffed in annoyance, "Dean you look like you just saw a ghost, are you alright? You know what, don't answer that, go take a walk."

Charlie pushed Dean towards the door, as much as he protested, but maybe this was a good idea.

As Dean opened the door, his nerves multiplied as he saw people start entering. The exhibition didn't start till 5:00 but there were some people trickling in.

something that would hopefully help him relax. But as fate would have it, Dean doesn't get to relax. Dean opened the large door of the exhibition hall and started walking outside, but there were too many things on his mind and so he bumps into someone.

Naturally, Dean's first response was,

"Are you blind?"

Dean looked up at the man who was frowning at Dean. Dark hair and blue eyes the guy reminded Dean of someone he knew but he was too pissed off to care. Now if Dean Winchester had been paying attention he would have noticed the way the man’s hair curled around his neck and how gravelly his voice was. But Dean totally wasn’t paying attention to those things. Totally not.

"You bumped into me."

"Whatever."

By the time Dean had finished taking a walk, it's time for the exhibition to start.

Dean would like to think that he's relaxed at this point, many people had already offered deals on his artwork, commissions, praises. But Dean isn’t. No, Dean was waiting for Castiel. If Castiel would so much as nod at his painting Dean would be complete. 

It was time for the Q/A session and as far as Deam could tell, Castiel was a no-show. This was it. The time for the big reveal. 

Dean pulled the sheets from over the painting. 

Little gasps erupted amongst the crowd and Dean felt a huge weight being lifted off his shoulders. He looked over to Sam who had tears in his eyes. 

Dean’s voice cracked as he spoke, ”This is my final piece of the night.” 

He took a shaky breath. 

“A-Any questions?”

At least a hundred hands shot up in the air and Dean felt like the room was getting smaller. He patiently answered them all, beaming at the positive responses.

“Who is your inspiration for this piece?”

“Well the actual piece is of my mother but one of my favorite artists Castiel Novak inspired the style.” 

When the crowd quieted down, one hand remained in the air, and between the blinding lights with a mix of nerves Dean almost didn't see that hand. 

“Would you like my opinion of your work?” 

Its the same voice from earlier and Dean can’t help but feel a strange sense of deja vu. 

“Yes.”

“It's worthless.” 

The crowd gasped as a few shouts were aimed at the man. 

Dean went a little numb. And at that moment Dean blessed his smart-ass self.

“I know but tell me anyway.” 

The crowd roared and Dean could've sworn he saw the man smirk. 

“My name is Castiel Novak and I will pay as much as you’d like for this painting.”

Dean was going to faint but his ego wouldn’t let him. 

“It's not for sale.”

“My point exactly, this painting is worthless for anyone but you, because it holds much more meaning for you than it ever will to anyone else.”

“And since you won’t sell me this painting I would like to commission a painting from you.”

“For my entire fortune. But one exception, you will do so under my roof and my rules.”

“Do you accept?”

“I do.”

[unproduciblesmackdown]

doing a whole ask list For Kicks here’s the link in case idk anyone wants to normally do this nancy-drew-pc-games-themed ask list normally

secrets can kill: has anything scandalous ever happened at your school?

the ketchup vandal of middle school

stay tuned for danger: have you ever met anyone famous?

i’ve had a rushed exchange with a musician most people would know. and held ellen mclains sweater while she was in the bathroom; she voiced glados and people might know that. marble hornets guys? you famous?

message in a haunted mansion: what’s the creepiest thing you’ve experienced firsthand?

nothing in a Message In A Haunted Mansion way

treasure in the royal tower: who’s your favorite historical figure?

oh idk

the final scene: have you ever been in a theatrical production?

in fourth grade we did several scenes from julius caesar. i wish, though. in retrospect it’s Extremely obvious i very much like being onstage / being involved in stage productions

secret of the scarlet hand: do you have a favorite museum? a favorite exhibit?

well i’ve been to smithsonian things a lot. i like julia child’s kitchen in american history, i’ve never been able to spend as much time as i wanted there and i’ve been like...say three times or so

ghost dogs of moon lake: would you find a solitary hike in the woods peaceful or unsettling?

peaceful as long as i knew where i was going

the haunted carousel: what’s your favorite amusement park ride?

roller coasters!!!! 

danger on deception island: is there a cause you’re particularly passionate about?

don’t get me started

secret of shadow ranch: do you have any experience with horseback riding?

a bit and i wish i had more

curse of blackmoor manor: do you have any noteworthy ancestors?

a long list of new jerseyites and a chain of guys named Swain apparently

secret of the old clock: if you could visit any era in history, which would it be?

idk i like the internet i’m not feeling Imperialism Nostalgia

last train to bluemoon canyon: what’s your birthstone?

ugh aquamarine. the color is great but the stone is a piece of shit boring ass useless whatever

danger by design: would you visit the parisian catacombs?

yeah i guess

creature of kapu cave: are you superstitious?

no

white wolf of icicle creek: what’s your favorite thing to do when it snows?

not be outside

legend of the crystal skull: what’s your favorite comfort food?

fuck idk i’m just hungry all the time

phantom of venice: what would you dress up as for carnevale?

i didn’t play this game idk

haunting of castle malloy: what’s your heritage?

what?? well i’m not irish. i mean i think i am a little. entirely disconnected from my genealogy unless you count “midwestern linguistics i have from my midwestern parents”

ransom of the seven ships: what’s your dream vacation?

i don’t know I Don’t Have Dreams

warnings at waverly academy: would you prefer/have preferred attending an all-girls (or -boys) school?

i Did attend an “all girls” school so yeah

trail of the twister: what’s the most dangerous type of weather your area is affected by?

storms i guess b/c if the power gets knocked out around here you are Low Priority

shadow at the water’s edge: what’s your favorite scary movie?

i don’t really have one. the ritual was fun, that’s like, the most recent one

the captive curse: what’s your favorite fairy tale?

none

alibi in ashes: what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for a friend?

i don’t think i’ve ever had to do anything crazy. very uninteresting life

tomb of the lost queen: what lost historical artifact would you like to discover?

fuck ugh i’d ask a historian

the deadly device: do you have any ideas for an invention?

i don’t have ideas

ghost of thornton hall: if ghosts do exist, would you like to see one?

that’s the last thing i want to do. want to Not see one

the silent spy: would you rather work for cathedral or revenant?

i didn’t play this game

the shattered medallion: if given the opportunity, would you participate in a competition-based reality show?

competition-based.......no

labyrinth of lies: if you were a greek god(dess), which one would you be?

fuck idk i’ve done terribly lmao. i answer these so boringly. i just don’t have ideas and my life is boring!! can’t help it

[spnjediavenger]

Chapter 5: Man, Myth, Legend? Girl, Warrior, White Wolf

Disclaimers: I do not own Supernatural, any of its characters, or the lines from the episode I use in this.

Time frame: set mid S5

Warnings: SEASON 5 SPOILERS, MAJOR FEELS

Notes: Big thanks to @sarimaposthumous for proof reading my fic as always!

Not gonna lie, i got UBER emotional writing this XDDD

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! And much love to those who have liked and/or reposted!!! <3

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

To say that Elliana was overwhelmed would be a drastic understatement. Since her less-than-perfect reunion with Sam and Dean, she and the boys had a mini catch-up session covering the following:

·      Sam and Dean ended up on a path before meeting Ellie that led to Lucifer, the freaking devil, being set free from a cage in hell (the boys thought it best to keep Elliana out of that mess until it became necessary)

·      Gabriel was trying to get them to play their roles as vessels for Lucifer and the archangel Michael so they could fight

·      The boys, along with Bobby, Cas, and two other hunters, Ellen and Jo tried to kill Lucifer but they failed and Ellen and Jo died in the process

o   This ended in Lucifer setting the four horsemen free, bringing the coming of the Biblical apocalypse

Along with this information, you could only imagine how the now 14-year old took to fighting one of said horsemen, coming across real-life zombies in Bobby’s hometown, the boys dying, dealing with a false prophet, and meeting the boys’ half-brother only to see him be abducted by angels.

Not well.

Not that she let it show much, but Ellie was definitely freaking out on the inside. If a teenager fighting plain old monsters was normal – this was abnormal for her; like a whole new level.

Given this fact – it was understandable that there hasn’t been a chance to slow down lately; hence the arrival at another motel.

Elysian fields.

It was dark and it was pouring rain like no one’s business, so Sam, Dean, and Elliana (Anaya sticking close by her side) ran into the building, trying and failing to shield themselves from the downpour.

Once inside, the trio took a moment to catch their breath, shake the water from their hair, and froze at the motel’s appearance. Their jaws slightly dropped at the higher-end furniture and décor, not used to places that nice.

“Nice digs for once,” Dean commented, looking around.

Sam could only nod his head in agreement, still a bit stunned from the shower outside.

Sam and Ellie stood together as Dean was checking in. Anaya let out a low growl at Elliana’s side as the hotel worker leaned forward a bit, examining Dean. He pointed out a small cut on Dean’s neck and handed him a tissue; Anaya kept her eyes locked onto the man and stepped a little closer to Ellie.

Ellie took the behavior into consideration and also eyed the man. He noticed this and simply smiled over at her.

“Beautiful dog. Siberian Husky, yes?” he said pleasantly.

Ellie narrowed her eyes a bit and nodded, also finding herself wary.

Dean finished signing paperwork and looked back to the receptionist. “You wouldn’t happen to have a coffee shop, would ya?”

“Buffet,” the man said. “All you can eat.” He leans in a bit an continues, “best pie in the tri-state area.”

Dean adopts a bit of a wonderstruck expression and smiles. “You don’t say.”

The group looks around the corner where the man had pointed and was indeed met with one amazing buffet layout. Ellie grabbed Dean’s arm before he could run in.

“Can I have one of the room keys?” she asked, eyes scoping out the place before resting on the boys again.

“Why don’t you grab something to eat first? You ok?” Sam was quick to jump in with the ‘worried older brother’ face.

“Yeah,” she said. “I just want to relax a bit before digging in,” she said, not wanting to ruin Dean’s eagerness yet.

Sam sighed but Dean handed her the key. “Stay out of trouble, then,” he said, smirking lightly. “We’ll be up soon.”

As Ellie and Anaya passed the front counter, Anaya leaned into Elliana once more and pricked her ears, lowly growling again as she looked to the receptionist.

Soon, they made it to the room and Ellie couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Compared to every place else she had stayed, this was like a 5-star hotel. She closed and locked the door behind her and jumped onto one of the beds, allowing herself to enjoy something for a moment. Anaya jumped up and lied next to her reluctantly, still wary of things.

Curled up next to her dog on a plush bed, it didn’t take long for Elliana to fall asleep.

“Who are you? Are you an angel?”

“I’m more of a…guardian if you will. Technically, sure, I’m an angel; but more of a rogue. Just someone that heard your prayer and came to help. Speaking of which – not to put a damper on the already dampened mood, but I need you to go pack your normal and your hunting things and we need to go because that demon will come back for you.”

“Wait – how did you know I hunt?”

“Guardian,” the figure said, shrugging a bit. “Now, things, go, no pressure but we should kinda hurry.”

 “Ok, Ellie, you’re doin’ great, kid. We’re gonna stop here for a bit,” Gabriel says, sitting down on a bench with the girl. “I can’t stick around much longer. I have a lot of things to attend to,” the archangel explained. “There’s a motel not far from here. You go in and tell them your parents dropped you off and told you to check in-“

“Like in Home Alone 2 when Kevin checks into the Plaza Hotel?” Elliana said a bit excitedly, despite the things she just witnessed.

Gabriel chuckled a bit. He knew there was a reason he answered this prayer.

“Exactly,” he said, a small smile on his face. “Avoid the workers as best you can but leave the moment you wake up. Don’t give them a chance to ask questions or see much of your face if you can help it. You’re young and they’ll find out something’s up and probably call the police or social services or something.

“You’re young. You shouldn’t have to live like this but you do. But I’ve watched over you for a couple months and know you can handle it.”

Elliana was scared, of course; but she knew this was coming for a while. And she was determined to make it work.

So the girl nodded her head at the man and he smiled again.

“Now, I won’t be there every second with you, but if you really need me – just pray for me, ok? And take this with you.”

Gabriel handed the girl a small necklace. She took it and laid it over one of her hands and examined it. It had a silver chain with a silver crescent moon, a circular pendent with a white wolf hanging in its center.

“Wolves are strong and tough and smart. Just like you. I believe in you, White Wolf.”

Elliana smiled and looked up at him. “Thank you, Gabriel.”

 Elliana was woken by Sam gently shaking her shoulder. She had only been out for maybe an hour while the guys were downstairs and they found her asleep when they came up.

Dean, like Ellie, was in awe of the room but Sam looked as uncertain as Ellie had felt earlier.

“Isn’t this place kind of in the middle of nowhere?” he asked.

“Yeah?” Dean replied, trying not to care.

“So what’s a 4-star hotel doing on a no-star highway?”

“And as much as I hate to admit it too, Sam has a point. And not only that, but Anaya was acting on-edge in the lobby with the receptionist. She’s only ever like that for a reaso-“

Ellie is cut off by the couple in the room next to them being particularly loud with their activities. Dean starts to smirk before Anaya lets out a bark before the wall between the two rooms is pushed in with a bang.

The trio goes to check out the room to find it trashed, and Dean catches a glimpse of an engagement ring on the floor. They all look at each other, eyebrows raised, when Dean suggests they do some digging.

“Ellie, Sammy and I are gonna head downstairs to see what the bellhop creep knows about this. Why don’t you and Anaya sniff around the room a bit then head back to ours? We’ll meet you back up here in a little bit.”

Elliana nodded and they split ways.

She turned back to Anaya and drew two fingers out towards the room; “Search, Anaya,” she commanded lightly before taking a look at things as well.

Upon finding nothing of significance, Ellie and Anaya returned to her and the boys’ room. She waited a little while before texting Sam to see if they found anything. After a few minutes, Ellie started getting suspicious, as the boys usually responded to her almost right away (well, Sam did anyway).

“Come on, Anaya,” Ellie said, opening the door but stopping in her tracks when she was met with the receptionist. “What are you doing here?” Ellie said, a challenging tone in her voice..

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s best if you stay up here.”

“Where are Sam and Dean?” Ellie challenged again. Anaya stalked over to the two, lowering her ears and snarling at the man before her. He looked at her with a certain look in his eyes that made Elliana want to shoot him. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. She’s fought werewolves and vampires and other monsters like you. She won’t hesitate to fight you too. And neither will I,” Elliana threatened, pulling a knife from her jacket.

The man flicked a wrist and sent Elliana and Anaya flying back a few feet onto the floor and he shut the door, warding the room to keep them inside.

“Hey!” Ellie yelled, running forward to grab the doorknob, pounding on the door when it wouldn’t open. She pulled out her phone and tried texting and calling Sam and Dean but she no longer had service. And unknown to her, the boys were downstairs being used as bargaining chips to a room full of deities.

           Ellie rakes her hands through her hair and turns around, only to let out a surprised scream when she sees a figure sitting on the couch across the room. Out of instinct, she throws her knife at it but it’s stopped in the air just inches from the figure’s face.

           “Jeez. A ‘nice to see you’ would’ve been better, I think,” a cheeky voice said. Elliana finally focused to find Gabriel closing her knife and tossing it on the ground as he stood up and walked over to her. He smiled and opened his arms expectantly but was instead met with a fist to the cheek.

           A shout of pain was let out but not by the archangel.

           Gabriel looked down with a raised eyebrow at Ellie, who was bent over, fist pulled into her chest.

           “Ok, 1: you know that does pretty much nothing; and 2: what was that for?!” the archangel said, extremely confused at the moment.

           “What the hell, Gabriel?!” Ellie yelled, standing up now but still clutching her hand. “Why would you take Sam and Dean and not even say anything to me?! You knew I was with them! You didn’t think it right to even give me an explanation when I left?! I thought they abandoned me, you jerk!! I was hurt!”

           Ellie looked angrily at Gabriel, but had tears in her eyes remembering how bad she felt thinking Sam and Dean had left her. Gabriel saw this in her eyes and sighed, feeling a little guilt start welling up in his chest.

           “Ok, E – I really am sorry. I was stupid and didn’t think about how taking them would affect you. And I know this isn’t an excuse but I had to figure some things out once they left and I got side tracked from you. Now, I admit I still don’t like those idiots,” this earned a glare from Ellie, prompting Gabriel to hold a finger up for her to be patient. “But, I know they’ve taken good care of you and should have remembered that. Can my ladybird forgive me?” Gabriel took Ellie’s hands and, though he was serious in what he said, gave her his best puppy-dog eyes that would rival Sam’s.

             “Come on, kiddo,” Gabriel begged the teenager, who had her back to him.

           Elliana had just finished a hunt; it was just a simple salt ‘n burn but one of the victims had ended up in the hospital. Because I was too late, she though sadly. Gabriel had ‘the talk’ with her about how you can’t save or keep everyone completely safe. And she understood that. At least that’s what she said. But the girl still beat herself up over it.

           So here was Gabriel, an archangel for Chuck’s sake, begging a teenage hunter to ‘turn that frown upside down’ (yes, he actually said that).

           Gabriel sighed and appeared in front of Elliana, taking her hands in his, making her look at him.

           “Come on, little wolf. I know you know you can’t blame yourself. And think about it – if you hadn’t been there, that person could have died. But you were. And they didn’t.” Gabriel saw the corners of her lips tug a bit. “So, please don’t be so hard on yourself. For me. Pwease?” he added with a childish voice, pushing his bottom lip out and giving her puppy-dog eyes. Ellie giggled as he did this, making the archangel give a triumphant smile and gave his little wolf a kiss on the head.

             Elliana, of course, couldn’t help but smile a bit at that (it was a curse that she almost always gave into that look, and even more of a curse that Gabriel knew it). She sighed a bit, looking over at Anaya, who was wagging her tail enthusiastically at the archangel, and looked back up.

           “I guess so,” she said with a small smirk.

           Gabriel chuckled a bit and hugged her. “That’s my girl.” He bent down to greet the overly excited dog next to Ellie, turns out she had a soft spot for the archangel too, then stood up to look at Elliana seriously again. “Ok, down to the reason I’m here. You guys have driven into a big trap, as I’m sure you’ve already deduced. Your boys down there? They’re currently in the hands of a bunch of gods who want to use them as game pieces in the Lucifer’s-apocalypse-and-Michael-wants-to-fight-him game. Now, before you freak out,” he continued, raising a finger again when Ellie’s face dropped in shock. “Give me two secs to save their butts and I’ll be back.”

           With a snap of his fingers, Gabriel vanished.

           Elliana looked over to Anaya, eyes wide and jaw slightly dropped. What the heck is happening? She thought.

           Not a minute later, Sam and Dean appeared on the other side of the room, both looking thoroughly confused.

           “Ok, what the – holy crap!” Dean said, looking at Sam.

           “Guys!” Ellie called, running to hug them both.

           They hug her back and Sam looks at Dean. “By the way, next time I say let’s keep driving, uh…let’s keep driving,” he said.

           “Ok, yeah. Next time,” Dean snarked.

           “Alright, guys, enough,” Elliana huffed, getting their attention. “You can have your dumb brother fight later,” she continued, earning a double bitch face from the Winchesters. “We’re in kind of a big situation right now and we need to figure out what to do next. So what’s our play?”

           “Well, there’s gods in the ballroom and a bunch of people in the kitchen freezer,” Sam filled Ellie in.

           “Alright so…I-I…I don’t know,” Dean started, wracking his brain for what to take care of first. “I guess we grab those poor saps outta the freezer, bust ‘em out? Gank a few freaks along the way if we’re lucky?”

           “And when are you ever lucky?” Gabriel’s voice cut in.

           The trio looked over to see him sitting on the couch again, amusement in his eyes.

           “Ok, you know what? Bite me,” Dean snapped. “You know, I should’ve known. This had your stink on it all from the jump.”

           “Dean-“

           “You think I’m behind this? Please. I’m the Costner to your Houston. I’m here to save your ass,” Gabriel defended himself, though keeping his usual humored façade.

           The guys looked at him confused.

           “You want to pull us out of the fire?” Dean said, still the only one to speak.

           “Bingo. Those gods are either gonna dust you or use you as bait. Either way – you’re uber-boned.”

           “Wow, ‘cause a couple of months ago, you were telling us that we need to ‘play our roles’. You were uber-boning us.”

           “Ohhhh, the end is still nigh,” Gabriel said, tilting his head pointedly. “Michael and Lucifer are still gonna dance the lambada,” he continued, dancing between the brothers a bit. “But not tonight. Not here.”

           “And why do you care?”

           “I don’t care…but…me and Kali, we uh…had a thing,” Gabriel forced out a bit awkwardly, but composed himself as he continued, “Chick was all hands.”

           Sam and Dean threw him a look.

           “What can I say? I’m sentimental. And I’m here for this one too,” Gabriel added, pointing over to Elliana.

           Now both guys narrowed their eyes in confusion.

           “Ellie?” Dean said.

           “Elliana, you know Gabriel?” Sam asked, finally speaking.

           Ellie’s cheeks burned just the slightest bit from the sudden attention. “He uh…he was the one that saved me from the demon.”

           “Him?” Dean said incredulously, pointing at the archangel.

           “Yeah, poke fun all you want,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes. He didn’t expect the Winchesters to credit him with anything of the sort. “If it wasn’t for her, I would’ve let you guys down already.”

           Sam, Dean, and even Ellie rolled their eyes at his remark. But they continued talking, trying to form a plan to escape, and to try and free the people stuck in the freezer as well. Gabriel was going to try and break the blood spell on the boys while Sam, Dean, and Ellie would let the guests out. Before they temporarily parted, Gabriel snapped Anaya into the Impala to keep her safe because he said ‘one of the gods downstairs wouldn’t give a passing thought to eat her in front of you’ – that was more than enough of a reason for Ellie.

           The group snuck downstairs into the kitchen; Sam began to pick the lock on the freezer while Dean and Elliana tried and failed to stop the men that came in to stop them. So once again, the Winchesters (with Elliana now) found themselves surrounded by the deities.

           Soon enough, Gabriel was brought in by Kali.

“Well well well,” she said, looking vaguely betrayed as she stared down at him. “Looks like the trickster has tricked us.”

“Kali…don’t…” Gabriel said, lightly pleading with her.

“You’re mine now.” The goddess of destruction sat herself on Gabriel’s lap. “You have something I want.” She ran her hand down his chest, moving it into his jacket to pull out his angel blade. “An archangel’s blade…from the archangel…Gabriel.”

Elliana’s eyes widened and Dean had to put a hand on her shoulder, silently communicating to her not to do anything drastic just yet.

“Ok! Ok! So I got wings. Like kotex,” Gabriel said in a ‘who cares’ tone. “But it doesn’t make me any less right about Lucifer.”

Kali now stood, looking down at him again.

“He’s lying. He’s a spy.”

“I’m not a spy. I’m a runaway,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m trying to save you. I know my brother, Kali. He should scare the living crap out of you. You can’t beat him. I’ve skipped ahead – seen how this story ends-“

“Your story,” Kali corrects him. “Not ours. Westerners, I swear” she shakes her head. “The sheer arrogance. You think you’re the only ones on earth? You pillage and you butcher in your God’s name. You’re not the only village. And He’s not the only god. And now you think you can just rip the planet apart? You’re wrong,” she continued, voice breaking. “There are billions of us. And we were here first. If anyone gets to end this world…it’s me.” Kali leaned down and caressed Gabriel’s face. “I’m sorry.” She slid the angel blade through Gabriel’s abdomen, causing light to stream from his mouth and eyes.

“Nooo! Gabriel!!” Ellie shouted, jumping up from her chair, only to be pulled back by Sam. “No!” she cried, fighting against the younger Winchester, who only held her tighter. She eventually stopped fighting but stared at Gabriel’s body as tears streamed down her face.

“This is crazy,” one of the room’s occupants commented.

Kali simply stood there, also staring at the dead archangel. “They can die,” she said in finality. “We can kill Lucifer.”

Discussion continued and Dean stood up, bargaining with the deities. Sam bypassed the shock at Dean’s actions to quietly comfort the girl in his arms. Elliana felt like her heart was ripped to shreds; as if that blade went through her heart instead of Gabriel’s. That angel meant the world to her.

Once Dean was able to convince the deities to allow him to set the hotel’s other inhabitants free, he walked over to Sam and Ellie, telling them to follow him. Ellie reluctantly followed the brothers to the kitchen.

As Dean was ushering everyone out of the hotel quickly, a hushed voice called his name from the Impala. He looks over and his eyes go wide as he sees Gabriel ducking in the backseat, motioning for him to get over there.

  “Ellie, I really wish you’d wait in the car. I know you want to stay with us, but this is headed in a much different direction than we thought, ok? Lucifer is going to be here. And we don’t want you getting caught in any crossfire,” Sam said, looking desperately into Elliana’s eyes.

“Sam, please,” she whispered, eyes still holding tears from earlier. “I just lost Gabe…I won’t lose you guys too; I can help you.”

  “Well good luck with that. Me? I’m blowing Jonestown. Those lemmings in there wanna run off a cliff, that’s their business,” Gabriel said in his conversation with Dean, sold on wanting to leave this whole situation.

“I see right through you, you know that? The smart-ass shell, the whole ‘I could give a crap’ thing? Believe me, it takes on to know one,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes at the archangel.

“That so?” he replied, tilting his head as he nonchalantly pet the dog sitting in the back seat with him.

  “Not that I doubt you, because I don’t – but are you sure you can handle this?” Sam asked, searching the girl’s eyes in front of him as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

Ellie sighed and looked down. “No,” she whispered, then looked up at Sam. “But I couldn’t handle that demon either.”

  “Yes. And maybe those freaks in there aren’t your blood but they’re your family.”

“They just stabbed me in the friggin’ heart!”

“Maybe. But you still give a crap about them, don’t you?” Dean continued, knowing he was starting to hit close to home.

“Dean.”

“They’re gonna die in there without you.”

“I can’t kill my brother,” Gabriel said, defeated.

“Can’t or won’t?” Dean challenged. Gabriel cast his eyes to the side, remaining silent. “That’s what I thought.” Dean went to open the car door but turned back to the archangel. “Elliana is in there too, ya know. And she’ll die without you too. Me and Sammy may never get it, but the kid loves you. And I can tell you care about her too,” Dean continued, trying one last time.

Gabriel felt a tug at his heart; he had been hoping Dean wouldn’t mention Ellie for this very reason.

At Gabriel’s continued silence, Dean sighed and got out of the car.

Dean rejoined Sam, Ellie and the others in the hotel. Most of the deities fanned out, leaving Kali and Baldur in the ballroom with the trio. Like Sam, Dean had tried to convince Elliana to wait in the car, only to receive a sad chuckle.

“You don’t get it, do you? I’m with you guys. Through everything. I’m in this mess by my own choosing and I’m not letting you do it without me,” she told him, raising an eyebrow with a light smile. Her smile faded soon as she continued, “And I want to do it for Gabe too…”

Dean was about to tell her Gabriel was still alive when the lights began to flicker violently.

“What’s going on?” Baldur said, glancing around the room.

“It’s him,” Sam said, unconsciously pulling Elliana closer.

“How?” Kali asked, not expecting Lucifer until they removed the enochian symbols from Sam’s ribs.

“Does it matter?” Dean spoke up. “Shazzam us outta here, would ya?”

“We can’t,” Baldur said, fear lacing his voice the smallest bit.

“Of course you can’t,” a voice instantly grabbed everyone’s attention. Their heads all snapped up to the figure standing in the open doorway. “You didn’t say ‘mother, may I?’”

Lucifer lightly smirked as he took account of who stood in the room before him, of course stopping on the Winchesters.

“Sam, Dean. Good to see you again. And who’s this with you?” Lucifer asked, tilting his head in curiosity as he looked at Elliana. “New travel buddy? I’m Lucifer - though I’m assuming you already knew that,” he continued, talking directly to her now. “What’s your name?”

“Go to hell,” Ellie said coldly, not showing the slightest bit of intimidation.

“Oh, I just got out of there, sweetheart,” he easily countered.

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” she spat, taking a challenging step forward. Sam and Dean pulled her back, causing Lucifer to smirk.

“I like her,” he said to the boys. “Feisty.”

Kali muttered to Baldur, who had started walking towards Lucifer with a dominant gait. The boys took a few slow steps backwards with Elliana as the deity gave a short, angered monologue to Lucifer, ending with him consequently ripping Baldur’s heart out.

As Lucifer threw his body to the ground, Kali became enraged and threw a fire attack at him. At the growing physical conflict, the boys and Ellie jumped behind one of the overturned tables in the room to duck in cover.

“You guys ok?” Sam asked his brother and Ellie.

“Not really,” Gabriel’s voice replied before either got the chance. All three looked behind Dean to face him – Dean being shocked Gabriel came back and Sam and Ellie shocked that he’s alive. “Better late then never huh?”

“Gabriel?“ Elliana said, tears welling up in her eyes again. “What- you…you were-“

“It’s ok, E. I’m here. Hang tight ok?” Gabriel turns to Dean, handing him a DVD. “Guard this with your life.”

Gabriel went to stand up, but Elliana moved around Dean and quickly grabbed his arm. “Gabe, no. You’re not doing this by yourself,” she said, voice shaking.

The archangel let out a quick sigh; he was hoping to make this a quick exchange to avoid a conversation like this, but of course had no such luck. “This is the only way for you guys to escape. It’ll be ok-“

“No!” Ellie said again in a harsh whisper. “I’m not leaving you here!”

Gabriel fought back the sting in his eyes and he looked over at the brothers. “Please,” he said. “When it’s time, make her leave,” he continued, staring at them determinedly, though his own voice shook a little. “You make her leave.”

They nodded a bit sadly and held a struggling Ellie when she went to grab Gabriel again.

The archangel gently took her face in his hands and planted a kiss on her forehead, making her freeze in her struggles. “I love you, little wolf.”

Gabriel got up and struck a hand out, throwing Lucifer across the room, into the far wall before he could stomp on Kali.

“Luci, I’m home,” Gabriel said as he stepped into view. “Not this time,” he stopped Lucifer’s advance, holding up his angel blade as he helped Kali up. “Guys! Get her out of here,” he called to Sam and Dean over his shoulder.

The boys walked over and did as he said. They and Elliana headed towards the door, Gabriel standing in front of them protectively as he kept a hard stare on Lucifer. As they neared the exit, Ellie stepped out to Gabriel again.

“Gabe, please, please come with us,” she begged quietly.

“Guys,” Gabriel said again, unable to keep his voice from quivering and tears from stinging his eyes.

Sam took Elliana’s arm but she pushed him away, running back for the archangel so Dean moved up, grabbed her, and threw the girl over his shoulder, leading the rest of the group out of the room.

“Gabe, no! Nooo!! Gabriel!!” Ellie screamed hoarsely as she tried to free herself from Dean.

Gabriel closed his eyes and twitched his neck to get his head back in the game and confront his brother.  Though he supposed it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. This was a fight he knew he wasn’t going to walk away from.

Sam, Dean, Ellie, and Kali got outside and to the car – the goddess in the front seat with Dean, and Sam in the back with Anaya and Ellie once Dean set her down. The girl made one last, albeit weak attempt to go back to the hotel, but Sam pulled her into his side.

Elliana stared out the Impala’s window for as long as she could, hoping for any sign that things would work out for the better, but was only met with a bright white light flashing from the ballroom windows, forcing a sad cry from Ellie. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth and she squeezed her eyes shut. Dean looked in the rearview mirror at Sam, both boys hurting to see her like this.

“Come here,” Sam whispered, pulling Ellie into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. Soft cries and whimpers escaped Ellie as she clutched onto Sam as if he was her lifeline. Sam quietly shushed Elliana, one hand rubbing calming circles on her back, the other gently cradling her head. He had helped her at least slow her breathing, but tears still flowed from her eyes and a soft cry escaped her lips every now and again.

All the emotions had been eating away at her energy and she started becoming tired. As her eyelids drooped, her head slowly fell against Sam’s shoulder. And everything she had felt before was amplified now, since she knew Gabriel definitely wasn’t coming back this time.

Chapter 5.5 ->

[tiny-fox-paws]

1-100

Okay first of all, you are the DEVIL. Second, bold of you to assume I won’t do this. At this point, it’s a pride issue, so HERE GOES:

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora? - Spotify

is your room messy or clean? - Depends on the day! Pretty messy today!

what color are your eyes? - Brown :c

do you like your name? why? - Eh, not really! It’s not common so people sometimes mispronounce it.

what is your relationship status? - Happily in a relationship!

describe your personality in 3 words or less - Bubbly cute goblin.

what color hair do you have? - Right now it’s a red-brown color

what kind of car do you drive? color? - Slver Honda Accord! 

where do you shop? - Good question...Amazon/other online shops mainly! In person, Gamestop, Hot Topic, Forever 21, etc.

how would you describe your style? - PASTEL GOTH AS HELL with the occasional girly outfit! Mostly it’s just t-shirts and shorts if I’m not going out, but dressing a little nicer if I am.

favorite social media account - This one....

what size bed do you have? - Queen!

any siblings? - Yes, one brother

if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why? - Ireland! It’s beautiful.

favorite snapchat filter? - What tf kinda question is this

favorite makeup brand(s) - I don’t really have one, but Too Faced has some cute products!

how many times a week do you shower? - Sadly I’m one of those people that have to shower everyday, or else I feel gross! 

favorite tv show? - It really depends...I love Hannibal, The Office, Parks and Rec, New Girl, Dexter, etc.!

shoe size? - Mostly a 6, sometimes a 6 1/2!

how tall are you? - 5′4″

sandals or sneakers? - Depends on my mood! 

do you go to the gym? - Nope!

describe your dream date - OH JEEZ. I don’t really have one! I’m just happy to be with the person that makes me happy. I’d love to do anything from getting ice cream and walking the park together, to dinner and a movie, to takeout and Netflix, to a drive-in movie. I just like surprises man. I’m pretty simple!

how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment? - Exactly $1 in cash, and the rest on my card! I don’t generally keep cash around.

what color socks are you wearing? - No socks right now!

how many pillows do you sleep with? - One normal, and a few stuffed animals!

do you have a job? what do you do? - I’m a pet sitter!

how many friends do you have? - That’s a pretty loaded question! My best friend currently lives in Florida, and I have a few other areas, and some good friends here! I’m a huge introvert so it’s hard to make friends sometimes.

whats the worst thing you have ever done? - THESE 100 QUESTIONS.

whats your favorite candle scent? - I love vanilla, cinnamon, anything floral, lavender!

3 favorite boy names - I can’t narrow them down really, but I like Jace, Logan, Jack

3 favorite girl names - Again, can’t narrow it down but I like Ellie, Korra, Esme, Taylor

favorite actor? - I don’t have a favorite, but I like Robert Downey Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio, Elijah Wood

favorite actress? - I don’t have a favorite, but I like Ellen Page, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Portman 

who is your celebrity crush? - None, but some people that are adorable are Ellen Page, LIGHTS, Brendon Urie, Emma Watson, Keanu Reeves 

favorite movie? - Howl’s Moving Castle (I love Studio Ghibli!), Your Name, Inception, The Great Gatsby, etc.

do you read a lot? whats your favorite book? - I used to read a lot before my ADHD got worse. I’m working on starting again! 

money or brains? - Hmm

do you have a nickname? what is it? - Mer, short for Meredith

how many times have you been to the hospital? - Oh boy, Let’s see...4 major times!

top 10 favorite songs - Don’t make me choose...but lately I’ve been into electronic music from LIGHTS, FRND, Kailee Morgue, TheFatRat, etc.!

do you take any medications daily? - Yes!

what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc) - Oily...I was cursed.

what is your biggest fear? - Hard to determine, probably abandonment or unrequited love. I’m also scared of heights, suffocation, a lot of things really!

how many kids do you want? - None, as of right now.

whats your go to hair style? - I usually just straighten it and leave it down, or put it up in a high ponytail. I’ll occasionally curl or wave it!

what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc) - I don’t mind, probably a medium size!

who is your role model? - I don’t really have one

what was the last compliment you received? - I believe it was on my hair!

what was the last text you sent? - Not sure!

how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real? - Bitch you think I remember?

what is your dream car? - I don’t have one!

opinion on smoking? - Terrible. I’ve watched smoking consume the lives of people close to me

do you go to college? - I have a degree, but plan to go back eventually for another.

what is your dream job? - I don’t really have one. I enjoy working around video games and animals though.

would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs? - Either!

do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels? - Nope

do you have freckles? - Yes, on my cheeks and nose!

do you smile for pictures? - Usually?

how many pictures do you have on your phone? - A lot...

have you ever peed in the woods? - Nah

do you still watch cartoons? - HELL YEAH, some of my favorite shows are cartoons (Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Legend Of Korra)

do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds? - Wendy’s

Favorite dipping sauce? - Ketchup or nacho cheese

what do you wear to bed? - a t-shirt or tank top with undies or sleep shorts

have you ever won a spelling bee? - Never been in one!

what are your hobbies? - I like playing video games, watching shows, drawing, painting, organizing stuff

can you draw? - Sort of!

do you play an instrument? - Not currently. I played violin for 4 years though

what was the last concert you saw? - LIGHTS!

tea or coffee? - Tea

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? - Neither

do you want to get married? - HELL YEAH

what is your crush’s first and last initial? - Wouldn’t you like to know! 

are you going to change your last name when you get married? - 100%!

what color looks best on you? - Blue, black, wine red!

do you miss anyone right now? - Most definitely!

do you sleep with your door open or closed? - Open for my cat to come in and out!

do you believe in ghosts? - Yes, even know there’s no logical way to justify it!

what is your biggest pet peeve? - When people ignore me, interrupt me (though I can understand that one sometimes because I have ADHD), some other stuff!

last person you called. - My bf!

favorite ice cream flavor? - Chocolate Peanut Butter, or Cookies and Cream!

regular oreos or golden oreos? - Regular

chocolate or rainbow sprinkles? - I’m not really a sprinkles person, but I guess chocolate!

what shirt are you wearing? - A Kingdom Hearts t-shirt!

what is your phone background? - 

are you outgoing or shy? - Shy mostly, but once I get comfortable with someone I am outgoing!

do you like it when people play with your hair? - YES, I LOVE IT. Please play with my hair ;u;

do you like your neighbors? - I like one, I hate the other

do you wash your face? at night? in the morning? - Morning!

have you ever been high? - Only a few times but weed does NOT react well with me

have you ever been drunk? - Only a few times

last thing you ate? - A brownie!

favorite lyrics right now - I don’t know, my guy

summer or winter? - Winter

day or night? - Night

dark, milk, or white chocolate? - Milk

favorite month? - October because Halloween!

what is your zodiac sign - Cancer

who was the last person you cried in front of? - The last time I cried was in my car. I make it a huge point not to cry in front of people, because I have a fear of vulnerability.

I DID IT, BITCH. 

[lillianwrites]

Sad Hearts And Black Eyes (chapter 3)

A/N: It took me so long, but the new chapter is officially here, hope you all enjoy!

Words: 3,524

When Daniel and Phil got back to the old motel, it was dark and cold outside, not a single person outside walking, hell, there was barely anyone in cars. Phil had told Daniel on the drive back his real name, and how he got into the hunting business, and surprisingly Daniel had took it well, whispering a small “Phil” in that voice that just drove Phil crazy. He didn't think daniel was aware of how attractive he really was, and that was amazing to Phil.

The motel beds were old and dusty as Phil sat down, it made a creaking groan under the pressure, but Phil paid no mind to that as he gestured to Daniel to the other bed, before pulling his phone from his duffel bag and dialing the number on his favorites.

“Whatcha need boy-” He heard Bobby say, the slur of his voice a familiarity to Phil.

“Bobby, i'm done in Kingston, i was working a case with a preacher getting killed by a demon, then this ghost showed up, heading after his son since the mother was dead and he was the only close relatives. Just finished this one up and i was hoping i could possibly head down there, visit and check in on a few things.” Phil said, getting up with a huff and beginning to pace around the small motel room. To his left, Daniel was looking through a book Phil had left sitting on the desk in the corner, it contained every known fact and legend on Wendigos, and how to hunt and kill them.

He heard Bobby sigh through the phone, and then the rough voice was saying “Boy you know damn well you are welcome here anytime. We got Dean, Sam, and Castiel down right now actually, and Ellen and Jo will be here by tomorrow, so you'll get to see everyone. Dean says he needs to kick your ass again.”

Phil laughed, happy to hear his family was there and he would get to see them. But something was keeping him from being excited, because Daniel was now a part of his life, and for whatever small reason, the thought of never seeing, or even just leaving Daniel for a day, scared him.And that scared him even more, he's never felt like this before, ad he wasn't sure what to do with the new feelings.

He looked over, to where Daniel Had put the book down and was now looking at Phil with a strange expression. God Phil had to be careful, he could get lost in the soft feature s of the boy, with his pretty brown eyes and permanent rosy cheeks, and wow he needed to answer Bobby.

“sounds great Bobby, i'm gonna pack up and then get some sleep. See you tomorrow morning, bye.”

The sound of the phones dial tone filled the air as Phil looked up again and met Daniels eyes, and Phil was positive there was sadness inside those eyes.  They looked at each other and Phil wasn't sure what to say, how to say bye, how to say anything at all. How was he to say goodbye to the person he only just got.Yet he couldn't say that, Daniel wasn't his, Daniel wasn't his to hold, kiss, or do other things that aren't so Hallmark channel friendly. Phil was confused on his next move, until he remembered a quote his old elementary school teacher had told him.

“Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage, and i promise something great will come of it.”

“Come with me.” Phil said standing up and walking over to Daniel. Daniel looked at him, shocked and confused. “What? Where? What are you talking about Phil?” He asked looking up at Phil through those eyelashes, and yeah, Phil could live with having to protect him for the rest of his life, if it meant looking into those eyes forever, wow was he being lame.

“Come with me, i'll keep you safe, travel with me.” He said looking at Daniel, scared to what the boy was going to say, he was looking ta Phil with a strange expression, but he didn't look disgusted, so Phil was going to take that as a good sign, so he decided to continue.

“I mean, obviously just because it's dangerous out there for you now, i could protect you, you could come with me, you'd always have a place to stay, food to eat, and i would make sure you're okay. Plus, it gets a bit boring out here alone.” He finished. He was pacing now, looking at his suitcase, before looking back at Daniel, who was grinning in the slightest.

“Okay, yes god i'll go with you, but what will i tell everyone? Wouldn't it be suspicious?” Daniel asked, looking up at Phil before standing up, admittedly not adding much height, but better than being at Phils knees.

Phil thought for a minute before nodding “I'll talk to the police station, say i'm taking you to your close relatives, then we just leave, they won’t question me.” He said. He watched Daniel nod, so he said “Go ahead and pack.” before packing a few of his things, so excited but also scared that Daniel was going to be with him. It was unbelievable to believe he had caught emotions for someone who wasn't even trying, he wasn't wearing lingerie and calling him names, he wasn't offering sex or booze, he was just being Daniel, and god did Phil find that attractive. One could hardly blame him for wanting to bend him over the table an do blasphemous things to him. Yet Phil couldn't, he doesnt think he could be the one to ruin something so pure and soft.

Once the two were finished packing everything but the clothes for tomorrow, Phil headed over to the light switch, getting ready to turn it off, but Daniel was walking over, eyes nervous as he stopped in front of Phil. “Phil, could i know more about you? I'm kinda scared to just leave with someone when i've known them for forty eight hours, and only just learned their name.”

Phil wanted to just grab Daniels face and squish it, but he wanted to keep up his reputation, he was Phil Lester, strippers across the nation remembered his name, bartenders and cops, he's saved more people single handedly, than the entire FBI, why was he being a giant fucking sap over some barely not jailbait kid? What was he to do however? Half of him, the better part of him, wanted to see where this could go, see if this could crush could actually be something more than Phils dick talking, but the other part just wanted to shut it down, dont let it bloom because a flower could catch on fire, and turn into a wildfire so beyond controllable it hurts people. Phil didn't want to fall victim to that fire. Feelings were Phils worst attribute, he wasn't like Dean, he didn't have a brother to punch him when he was being an unsensibe

Phil wasn't sure what part to listen to, and he didn't know if he even had a middle ground, god this is what Bobby meant when he said they had as many emotions as a potato. Daniel was staring at him now, eyes brown and slightly untrusting, and god Phil never wanted to see Daniel afraid, most definitely not of him. Sighing he walked over to the bed and sat down, gingerly patting down the spot next to him. Maybe he could spare a few facts if it made Daniel happy.

“well, what would you like to know?” he asked, watching as Daniel slowly walked over to him and sat down. The boy paused for a moment, before saying “Why did you become a hunter?”

Phil forze for a second, not sure how he was going to explain the story. “When my dad died, i took over.” he said, hoping that was a good enough answer. Daniel nodded, before asking another question. “Why are you really letting me go with you?” This one however, Phil didn't know how to answer, sap or asshole, no middle ground. he waited another moment before saying “Look kid, if you stay here alone, you'll be dead meat. I don't wanna see you hanging off some tree dead, or with your guts on the floor. You wouldn't last a day now that monsters know you're out there.” He finished. Asshole it was.

Daniel paused, and Phil could see the shining in the boys eyes, most likely from the reminder of how his father died. Letting out a soft sniffle, Daniel nodded his head, getting up and heading to turn off the light before Phil heard the other bed creak, and then silence. Phil sighed getting under the covers, it was gonna be a long night for him.

____________________________________________________________________________

By the time 10:00am rolled around, Phil was exhausted, and Daniel was almost back to sleep, even after being woken up three times. The sun was beyond bright through the white curtains,and he was so tired he honestly didn't know if it would be safe to drive. He had stayed awake all night, wondering what was going to happen now, they would go to Bobby's, stay there for a day or two, find a hunt, and life would continue on, they would go on, and be normal, well except for Daniel, Phil would teach him how to deal with it, how to protect himself,but he would never ask him to hunt, Phil doesn't know what he would do if he got used to Daniel, only to have him ripped apart by the very thing that took every Phil seems to care about.

When Daniel finally rolled out of bed with a huff, Phil grabbed his duffel bag and went to the car, throwing it in the trunk, before going back into the room and and doing the same with Daniels suitcase. When he was finished, he walked in yet again, this time to Daniel stepping out, fully dressed, but with wet, curly, and unruly hair. He looked over at Phil, before putting on his shoes, and nodding at Phil, whispering a small “I’m ready.” before he was walking out of the room and to the car. With a sigh, Phil looked around the room, before joining him, to Bobby's they went.

____________________________________________________________________________

The drive was awkward, to say the least, they rarely spoke, but thankfully, Daniel liked the music Phil had on, so there wasn't a problem with just driving, riding, and listening. By the time they hit the junkyard he calls home, it was close to 12:00pm, and Phil could feel his eyes weighing down. He pulled the car in, smiling at the 67 Chevy Impala sitting next to them, if he hadn't had such a damn good car, he'd be jealous of Deans baby, alas his car was the best in his opinion, and nothing could convince him otherwise.

Phil opened his door, stepping out and wincing at the brightness, he heard the other door open and then close shut with a slam. Daniel stepped over, eyes scanning around, clearly nervous and unsure. Phil tried to tell himself it was the new surrounding and not being with Phil that made him hold that look.

Deciding he wanted to make amends, Phil held his hand out, trying to ignore the look he got before Daniels small and soft hand fitted into his. He heard him take a deep breath, before Phil was walking them to the door, and knocking with three hard thuds. He heard yelling in the house, before fast footsteps, and then dean was there in front of him, cat grin on his face as he immediately pulled Phil into a gigantic hug. “Whats up Philly?” He asked.

He finally pulled back, and realized there was someone standing next to Phil, looking awkward and scared, ready to run almost. He gave him a strange look, but before he could say anything, Phil was explaining, he really didn't need Dean asking questions with his fat mouth.

“This is Daniel, i helped him with a ghost problem yesterday, he's gonna ride with me for now on.” He said, not liking the look in Deans eyes, as he began to open his mouth however, they heard heavier footsteps, and then Sam was pushing Dean away, and Pulling Phil into an even bigger hug, and damn, when did he get taller than Phil? Daniel must have felt like a goddamn fairy compared to sam, and for all he knew, he probably actually did.

“Dean leave them alone,come in, Bobby's in the living room, calling the world a bunch of idjits again.” Sam laughed out, before leading them inside.

The house smelled like he remembered, like old beer and salt. They walked through the house and into the living room, where Bobby was sitting, staring at Castiel, who looked equally confused, you'd be surprised how often this actually happens. When Bobby and Castiel saw sight of them, they both stood up and walked over, Castiel letting Bobby go first. The last time he had hugged Bobby, he was worried he wasn't going to see him again,with everything happening with the apocalypse, he wasn't so sure either was going to see each other again, the world was going crazy, so he enjoyed the hug, and let himself close his eyes, taking in that all his family was still alive. Once Bobby let go, he shook castiel's hand ‘that strange angel’ before he was looking around to Bobby.

“Wheres ellen and jo?” He asked, looking at  the people around him. Bobby shrugged, looking at his phone. “They should be here by the hour, if not i'll call and make sure they're okay. Now, who is this?” He asked, looking at Daniel, who stood scared, arms crossed over his chest.

“He’s the pastor's son, Daniel, we've decided he's going to travel with me, i hope you don't mind him staying with me here, we’ll be heading off most likely by tomorrow, since i've been meaning to go see a old client for a while.” Phil said, smiling when Bobby nodded, holding his hand out to Daniel, who shook it awkwardly before offering a small smile.

When everyone had calmed down, they all sat down to watch some tv and chat, but by the time an hour had passed, Dean was getting up and walking over to him. “Hey man, can we go for a walk.” He asked, and when Phil nodded, they headed outside, leaving everyone inside. As they got out of the door, Phil became worried, because Dean didn't usually offer to talk, it was always sam, so dean must be worried about something.

____________________________________________________________________________

They had made it to the gate, before Dean finally said anything. “So, there's nothing happening, going on between you and that kid in there?” he asked, looking over at Phil. Phil shook his head. “I won't lie, i want there to be, but he's so young, and he's so innocent, i'm not that good at feelings. How do you date someone who knows a hellhound ripped your father shred to shred? He's just so different man, it scares me, i don't want to get close and have something happen to him.” Phil explained, letting out a sigh.

Dean nodded, placing a hand on Phils shoulder as he stopped walking. “Look, i suck at feelings, ask literally anyone, you know that, but what i will say is that kid looks at you for everything, maybe dont date him right now, maybe see if there's something there, and if there is, let it grow, but man, if you do like me, and you just ignore it, you'll regret it, i promise. Just don't be stupid okay?” and with that, the boys headed back inside. Phil Wasn't sure why Dean brought him out here, to have this talk, but if anything, maybe he was right, maybe in time this could be something, but first, he needed to know if there was anything.

____________________________________________________________________________

When Dean and Phil walked back through the front door, they saw castiel and Daniel sitting on the couch, Daniel Laughing and saying something to cas, While Bobby and Sam sat on the loveseat, handing each other cards.

Phil walked over to Cas and Daniel, Who paused their conversations to look up at him with smiles on their faces. “Daniel, could i speak to you for a minute please?” he asked, holding his hand out to daniel, who looked up at his through his lashes before taking his hand. Once Daniel was up, Phil was dragging him upstairs, to the second bedroom, where they were staying. The old furniture reminded Phil of when he would spend weeks here, a rowdy teenager sneaking out to go talk to the girls down at the drive in.

When the door was safely closed, Phil turned around, looking down at Daniel,at the way the boys chest rose, and the way his eyes seemed to flutter, almost too delicate for Phil to believe he was real. He stepped closer to the boy, the height difference becoming more prominent, but Daniel didn't seem to understand, as everytime Phil got closer, he would back up, eyes growing confused as his back met the wall, barely two inches separating his body from Phils.

Phil finally spoke up after a minute or two of staring at the boy and his lips. “Daniel, if you don't want this, you need to say something now.”

The look on Daniels face was something Phil swore he would see for a lifetime, the boys head fell back, exposing his pale neck, and his eyes fluttered shut,a soft sound falling from his lips before a breathy and soft “Please.” And god Phil didn't need anything else in this world.

With a newfound power he didn't even know he had, he had Daniel in his arms, his small legs wrapped around his waist, and his back slamming back into the wall. His mouth was on his, wet, hot, and powerful, and man if Phil didn't feel like a god with the noises falling from Daniels lips, almost like a prayer to the older man. He couldn't stop himself with Daniels tongue wrestling his own, the boy gave in so easily, so submissive, he’d let Phil do anything to him.

Slowly, Phil was backing up, spinning Daniel around, and then they were falling, Phil on top of Daniel as the soft bed encased Daniels back. Daniel was moaning, and Phils moth was making its way down, and god it was so good, Phil didn't know how he had survived, Daniel was pliant underneath him and Phil was sure this is what heaven felt like.

Phils mouth made its way down Daniels neck, and as he landed under Daniels ear, the boy let out a loud moan, he threw his head back, and suddenly he was speaking. “Phil ah, da- oh, please, please i need, hnng”

“what did you say Daniel, what didn't you finish?” Phil asked, smirking down at Daniel, he didn't expect that word to try coming out out the boys mouth, but he was not complaining. Phil watched as the Daniel let out a soft “Please.” before whispering “Daddy, please!” and who was Phil to deny someone so beautiful.

They continued to make out on the bed, their hips occasionally clashing, but soon enough Phil was panting into Daniels neck, kissing it softly before getting up. Daniel Made a confused noise, getting up to look at him, and how was Phil Meant to make this choice? But he knew what Dean said, he needed to wait a minute, needed to make sure he wanted this, that Daniel wanted this, it was just to early, they only just met, so with a sigh he began to speak.

“I think we need to think about this, about me, and you, and if either of us want that, and then we’ll talk, okay?”  He asked, watching Daniels face as it contotrered into sadness, into anger, and suddenly he was getting up, glaring at Phil.

“you have some nerve! You come in here, make out with me, and then all of a sudden, you're worried about thinking? I haven't known you long Phil Lester, but i can tell you thinking before isn't your forte so what the hell are you on about? I'm not a kid god! I can think for myself, i'm an adult, i wouldn't have said yes if i didn't want this!” He yelled, his glare getting harder as he stepped closer to Phil, angrily pointing his chest.

Wow, Phil was not expecting that from the usually quiet and submissive boy. He was expecting him to cry, and then gree, bit i guess that was daniel to prove him wrong.

“It's not happening Daniel, thats the end of it.” he finished, holding his face in a hard look, before turned around and walked out of the room, ignoring the sigh from behind him.

[moonaft]

The Winter Long - Reread

Rosemary and Rue

A Local Habitation

An Artificial Night

Late Eclipses

One Salt Sea

Ashes of Honor

Chimes At Midnight

Interlude : Full of Briers

As always, spoilers up to The Brightest Fell and October 2018 for the Patreon stories. No spoilers for Night and Silence, and at this point I think I’ll have finished the entire reread by the time I get my copy. Which is just as well.

First off, ‘the winter long’ is one line after ‘rosemary and rue’. Is the final book going to be ‘Grace and Remembrance’? 

I really like TWL. This was a good book, filled with shifting allies and cameos by my favorite people. It’s probably my favorite after The Brightest Fell and not just because of Simon. 

I am going to ignore the fact that the knowe is called ‘Muir Woods’ even before it was named that in 1908. Maybe? Maybe Arden took up the name really quickly. I can’t find a mention of it by name in Patrick’s first short story and I can’t dig up “In Little Stars” right now to check if it was called Muir Woods back then. Patreon’s search sucks.

Onto the ball! A good ball, in which no one gets poisoned or nearly assassinated and Toby doesn’t commit murder. Yeah, if I was her I also wouldn’t want to go to fancy balls. She takes after Sylvester in that regard. 

Speaking of, hi Sylvester! Hi Li Quin!

Arden has social anxiety and needs more friends than Madden. I am surprised no noble Daoine Sidhe have come a-courting. At least she’ll get Walther and Cassandra to take jobs at court soon. 

I love Arden subtly copying Quentin in table manners. 

Are Raven-maids and -men the opposite of Selkies, born birds and need the feathers to transform?  Jazz takes off her band to turn into a raven. Amandine doesn’t, but presumably her magic can force the transformation regardless. Though Amandine does imply that destroying the band will keep her as a human. 

Yes, it’s time to put everyone to bed. Meanwhile, Toby gets to pull some all nighters.

Hello, Simon.

I love how no one has questioned where he was since Late Eclipses, and that only as a brief mention. He’s the tragic backstory, not meant to show up in the present. Oleander was that too, but now she’s dead and can’t hurt anyone anymore. 

Yeah, she was really not expecting that. Why is it that the bad things only happen to Toby during the books? From the plot summaries, the time between the books is the only time she gets to relax.

Yes, that’s not Sylvester. 

It’s sad how much Toby has internalized him as her personal boogeyman. Dugan, Riordan, Samson, the false Queen could all be fought. It wasn’t easy by any means, but here Toby’s given up without a fight which just doesn’t happen. She’s already determined this is a fight she can’t win. 

I love that the first thing Simon does is praise her. He genuinely does not mean her ill-will.

So Simon has not seen Evening in years prior to TWL and did come to warn Toby about it. Or, turn her into a tree for a hundred years, but to him, that is helping. Evening didn’t send him so he must have gotten word somehow that she was returning. Where was he all those years?

Hello Jazz, you have great timing. Sorry that you are once again attacked in your own home.

Simon didn’t come in limping – Toby turning his spell back against him must have hurt him badly.

Why exactly does Simon have so many transformation spells? Is this his own flower-based transformation or something he got from Evening? It could be his own – he once transformed Patrick’s suit into something more modern and there’s no indication that eventually failed. And why fish? Could he have transformed Patrick into a fish so he and Dianda could spend time together in the Undersea without breathing spells? That would be so cute.

Good job on using your cats to warn Tybalt.

I think even May gets over her feelings by the time of TBF, or at least, she’s willing to let him try so they can save Jazz.

All in all, Simon’s going to get what he wants by the end of this book, namely, Toby’s safety. Sure, he’s elf-shot but so’s Evening. It’s TBF where he’s going to get his ass kicked repeatedly.

Same, Quentin – I too have an endless supply of songs about boats. Five bucks says you’re singing “The Mary Ellen Carter”.

Tybalt probably would still shred Simon to pieces given the change but he’s out of the picture for all of TBF.

Why do you think you can predict what Simon’s going to do, Toby? You know literally nothing about his objectives. He’s also willing to answer what he can of your questions and tell you things without being asked.  

The knowe is willing to let Toby through, and she is family. Would the knowe have let Simon through because he helped build it? What about August?

Way to mess it up, Sylvester. You definitely should have told Toby about Simon before you sent her after him. But that’s in the past and doesn’t matter, does it, Sylvester? Just like September, just like August. It can’t hurt you anymore, right?

I do believe the twins were close once, and by 1840 that’s no longer the case, but it doesn’t matter until 1906. You didn’t help enough to find August, or you encouraged her too much, it doesn’t matter. Simon wanted you to hurt the way he hurt, and if you can’t see that, you have forgotten too much.

Yeah, I can’t imagine Simon hurting Amandine unless it was in direct defense of August or Toby. Sylvester, you should know Amandine’s not going to let him back into her life without August present. You should know this, why don’t you know this?

Tybalt, you told them to run, that is not the Torquills’ fault. Hey, remember that decree that says if you want to marry one of the three, that one can’t refuse?

“I need you to live long enough to be cannon fodder when Simon decides to attack.” Quentin loves you too, Toby.

You are missing a vital, vital piece of why Simon was running around with Oleander. He’s not doing it for shits and giggles, Toby.

Poor Luidaeg. It sucks having the answers and not being able to tell them. Toby’s doing better on the questions this time around.

“At least we know that Simon won’t be able to come after us there.” One small problem with that, Toby.

Does each Library have its own library card, or is it an all access pass?

Mags definitely wanted Toby to show up after Simon left. Whoops. And Toby, you still owe her your mother’s history.

Hi again, Simon. Maybe this time you can actually talk?                                                                        

Yeah, the arrangement with Oleander is definitely non-con. Everyone is glad she’s dead except probably Evening.

Simon has three modes in this book: what he thinks will help Toby, what Toby thinks is helpful, and what he does as a servant of Evening. This is the middle interaction – useful information, no one is transformed or hurt.

Toby, remember you still owe Mags info on your mom.

Amandine definitely ruined your life, Toby, even if you don’t want to admit it.

Good job on raising the dead, Toby.

I guess Evening is a vampire? There’s at least one Snow White legend like that.

“Your lover was a Selkie; he told me quite a bit after he died.” How- What- Did the Luidaeg summon the night haunts to talk to Connor?

How long had Simon been sitting on Toby’s doorstep? He must have gotten straight to Shadowed Hills to get the roses and then back to her place. To the rose gardens at least, he couldn’t have gotten into the halls themselves.

This is the other thing – Toby stops again to ask her personal boogeyman for help. She trusts him enough to do that, which is something we don’t see anywhere else in the series. To be fair, Simon does keep insisting that he’s there to help, which is something no other villain does.

And Simon’s convinced she’s going to die.

May’s benched again, which is a recurring theme that she specifically acknowledges. Let this girl have a field trip with Toby.

Although not into the ocean because that’s where everyone ended up! Hi Dianda. Thanks for saving Toby from drowning.

I wonder what would have happened if Toby told Dianda that Simon gave her the warning. Probably nothing good – here’s yet another trusted authority figure who knew about that relationship and didn’t tell her.

Hello Evening. Hate to see you again. If only Dianda could punch you in the face.

Here her magic is roses and snow but I swear I’ve seen it described as roses and apples somewhere.

So where was she these past few years as she recovered? Does she have another knowe?

So why is Marcia not affected by Evening’s magic? Evening doesn’t recognize Marcia as anything other than changeling, I think. But Evening wouldn’t care that much. I really really want her to be Titania. Maeve would be cool too, but I want her to be Titania.

Good thing no one drowned in that little episode, including Tybalt and Quentin.  

Hi Raj! Everything’s ok!

Props to Toby for being willing to burn the Library down to get it to close, and kudos to Mags for listening to her.

And Simon’s playing double agent on the phone. Toby couldn’t have gotten through this book without him.

Toby hasn’t actually slept since before the Yule ball. How many days and nights has it been since then?

So why did Evening get Quentin sent to Shadowed Hills directly after Luna and Raysel’s return? How did they break free?

Riordan was once in Alameda – how did she move down to Dreamer’s Glass?

And how did Sylvester know they were coming? Simon must have told Evening, or maybe Evening assumed Toby would show up.

Hi Etienne, Bridget and Chelsea!

Yes, leave the boys behind to play Xbox games. Good plan.

Luna does have several points about Evening, Raysel and Karen. Why, exactly, does Stacy have two Seer daughters? She is also smart enough to get her favor from Toby before telling Toby what’s going on.

Is Toby going to have to do a favor for every ally she has?

You can take the Daoine Sidhe out of the Torquill but you can’t take the fox-fur hair and golden eyes.

Poor Raysel. I hope this helps her.

Huzzah, Toby gets to sleep!

Hello again, Simon. OK, Toby doesn’t think he told Evening that she called Shadowed Hills. And he’s back at the house.

There’s something to be said for the image of Simon petting Toby’s rosebush-cat for hours.

Yes, everyone needs group therapy, which clearly doesn’t exist in Faerie.

Correction: there’s nothing in his blood now that she could change. If Toby knew enough to look, could she tell immediately? Maida told Toby that she was once a changeling, and now Toby can look at Quentin and see those watermarks. She has since looked at Sylvester and Simon and been unable to tell that they had human blood once, but Toby misses a lot.

Hmm, Toby is not this… intimate with anyone else. Mind walking while riding Simon’s blood? She’s never done this with living people before. I think if he can be saved in the end, it will involve something similar.

Yep, the non-con is strong here. Simon is a fascinating villain.

So what exactly was Simon planning here? Toby is not a tree. She’s out for several hours and up again. Was Simon buying her time?

Hi Luidaeg! Glad to see you up.

Titania also sounds like a shit mother.

Septiminus was Evening’s grandson. He certainly didn’t get his coloring from her.

“Most of her children died young.” But there were enough grandchildren to establish several Daoine Sidhe lines. Aethlin and Maida aren’t closely related to the Torquills or Dugan or Rhys or Riordan.

Maeve took what vengeance she could against Titania for the Luidaeg’s binding and we don’t know what that is, yet.

Ok, yes. This is where the Luidaeg says Evening’s signatures are apples and roses. Her own magic is brackish marshes and ocean air. Toby doesn’t ask about this.

Elizabeth Ryan would probably argue that the Luidaeg stole her heart but she isn’t here right now.  

I am pretty sure Evening is older than the Luidaeg, but the Luidaeg implies Maeve could have had children before her, just not through Oberon. And none of them are living now.

The Luidaeg knows who Amandine’s mother is and can’t say.                                    

Yes Evening, we know you don’t like Dianda and Patrick’s marriage. You can shut up about it now.

Is Dawn one of the things the Luidaeg can’t talk about? She is not mentioned at all in this book, least of all by Toby.

And Simon’s under Evening’s control again. Poor Tybalt.

And Toby’s covered in her own blood again.

Dammit, Sylvester, Simon’s better at giving Toby answers than you are.

Yes, which of the Queens owned that key? And what exactly is it?

Oh you still don’t know better by now, Toby. You are still somewhat blind to what’s going on around you.

Nice job breaking Evening’s spell, Toby.

Oh Simon, you were so close.

Being stabbed with Simon’s elf-shot laced blood is enough to take out a Firstborn but somehow drinking Nolan’s blood didn’t put Toby out.

Though being asleep isn’t going to stop her…

Naww, Tybalt and Toby are cute together.

Man, I really want to see Dianda and Patrick’s reactions on learning that Evening is the Daoine Sidhe Firstborn. And why does no one seem to recall Dawn? Is there a world-wide “don’t think about it” spell? If so, who could cast it?

[mermaidsirennikita]

July 2018 Book Roundup

This was a bit of a slump month for me in terms of reading.  But wait!  I read so many books!  Yeah, but I savored very few of them.  Some were mediocre, and several were bad.  Very bad.  Standouts included Riley Sager’s “spooky summer camp reinvented” thriller The Last Time I Lied and the very satisfying conclusion to Kiersten White’s super underrated Conqueror’s Saga, Bright We Burn.  You win some months and lose some months--I hope the next one is better.

My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton.  2/5.  A retelling of Jane Eyre, My Plain Jane sees Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre as friends at Lowood together, with Jane able to see ghosts and Charlotte desperate to get to the bottom of her secrets.  As Jane takes a job at Thornfield Hall, she is pursued by Charlotte and intrepid paranormal investigator Alexander, in a tale full of ghosts, secret wives, and romance.  I... really don’t want to say I hate this because it had its funny, cute moments that remind me of My Lady Jane, but... I kind of hated it?  It’s partially my own fault, really, because the book was exactly what it described itself to be.  But what worked when twisting history--My Lady Jane focused on Jane Grey--just doesn’t work when retelling a popular book.  Charlotte was quirky girl’d to the point of being twee; she also seemed into Jane Austen, which bugged me because she wasn’t.  And much of Jane’s side of things seemed like condescending fix it fic, in a way.  Don’t you know that Jane only falls for Rochester because she’s a romantic young woman with no life experience (and an obsessed with Mr. Darcy because I guess)????  Maybe I just like the real Jane Eyre too much.  Either way, I’m still going to read the next Jane book, but cannot recommend this one.

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager.  5/5.  Fifteen years ago, Emma Davis was the last person to see Vivian, Allison, and Natalie before they disappeared from Camp Nightingale--and the world--forever.  She accused a boy she liked of doing something terrible; and she vanished into obscurity, reinventing herself as an up and coming artist.  But she can’t seem to stop painting the girls, even as she covered them up afterwards.  Upon the prompting of the camp’s owner--and dogged by guilt--Emma returns to teach at the reopened Camp Nightingale, given three new girls to mentor.  Yet she still can’t seem to stop seeing the girls--especially the entrancing, manipulative Vivian.  Riley Sager does something with his books that make me really happy: he keeps on taking a classic teen slasher trope and making a whole book about it.  I loved the sexy-teens-in-a-cabin angle of Final Girls--and this book takes on the whole creepy camp thing, complete with a spooky lake and campfire legends.  He also throws in--for good measure--toxic, intoxicating girl relationships!  Because yes, Emma had a crush on a boy, but her world was really dominated by Vivian.  At one point, I thought that this book would be a 4 out of 5 because as much as I love the tone and atmosphere and the overall story, I wasn’t a big fan of how Emma’s hallucinations worked and the ending seemed rather predictable.  But that wasn’t the REAL ending.  And the real ending?  Just... yes.  The present storyline in this book is good, but the past--mostly Vivian, let’s be real, that’s a girl after my own heart--is fantastic.  

Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris.  1/5.  While stopped at a gas station with her boyfriend FInn, Layla goes missing. Twelve years later--after enduring a period as the prime suspect in Layla’s murder, despite the fact that her body was never found--Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister Ellen.  Out of nowhere, little signs begin appearing that lead Finn to wonder... could Layla still be out there?  WHAT A DUMB BOOK.  I didn’t realize that I’d read one of Paris’s books, the super underwhelming The Breakdown.  If I had, I wouldn’t have tried it.  God, this was fucking stupid.  Literally every twist you would think of, every basic “surprise” is here.  And then one that is so--but the real issue is Finn.  I don’t take issue with flawed protagonists, but Finn was more than flawed.  He was creepy (fine in certain cases) and stupid (never fine).  And for that matter, everyone else was so one-dimensional that it was impossible to sweep aside his shortcomings.  I skimmed this after a point, and I’m glad I didn’t waste any more time on it.

The List by Joanna Bolouri.  1/5.  IT GOT WORSE!!!  I won’t bother with a summary, because this is actually pretty fucking simple: a year (!!!!) after her ex cheated on her, thirty-year-old Phoebe still isn’t over it.  In an effort to revitalize her sex life, she makes a list of sexual experiences she hasn’t tried and wants to, and sets off to check them off with her best guy friend, Oliver.  Okay, admittedly, I should have known that this would be a diary book, which is a style I usually don’t like (with some notable exceptions).  Phoebe has the most annoying voice I have ever read.  It’s as if the author wants to mimic Bridget Jones, but doesn’t understand why people like Bridget and why she came off more as hapless but amusing, instead of just... a moron.  Phoebe is a FUCKING MORON.  She hates her job, she uses cutesy slang words (like, my least favorite cutesy slang words from the U.K.) and describes sex acts in the least appealing way possible.  But it’s not as if the author wants the sex to feel real, because aside from a few mishaps, Phoebe overall has great sexual experiences, even when you imagine that if this is the first time she’s doing them, it’d probably be more awkward.  Like... we’re supposed to buy that Phoebe LOOOOOVES anal after the first time she’s tried it, but she describes it as feeling like “she’s going to the bathroom, but good” basically.  HOT STUFF.  And she’s just a dipshit in general.  She and all of her friends are.  I knew this was definitely going to be 1/5 after Oliver made a joke about stereotypical “Native American” names (a joke that is somehow worse knowing that an author from the U.K. wrote it) but even before then, Phoebe is talking about her lack of sexual satisfaction with her friends all of whom are in their thirties and one of them... is like... humping a couch?  I don’t know why authors who write “sexual” books think that this is normal behavior.  I am in my 20s; I’ve been in weird situations; I know a lot of weird people.  Never has some dry-humped a couch in front of me... as a joke.... or in general.  Wow.  Stupid.

Choose Your Own Disaster by Dana Schwartz.  3/5.  Dana Schwartz’s memoir--detailing her struggles with eating disorders, mental illness in general, romantic travails, and finding herself as a millennial--is laid out in the style of a choose your own adventure novel.  While it’s certainly well-written and takes advantage of its gimmick, I can’t say this was as enjoyable as My Lady’s Choosing.  Obviously, they’re totally different genres, but...  I don’t know.  This wasn’t a fun read to me, even though I think it was important.  Some parts hit too close to home, which isn’t Schwartz’s fault, while other parts seemed overwritten, which is.  A mixed bag.

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell.  4/5.  Shortly after marrying the wealthy and handsome Rupert, Elsie finds herself widowed and pregnant, sent away to the Bainbridge family’s country estate to wait for her baby to be born.  She’s met with eerie villagers and angry servants, as well as Rupert’s awkward cousin, Sarah.  All of that, however, she could deal with--what’s more unsettling are the violent events that begin occurring in the house, and strange painted “silent companions” that seem to pop up everywhere, their eyes appearing to follow Elsie around.  Perhaps most disturbing of all is the diary Sarah finds, detailing the story of Rupert’s ancestress, Anne Bainbridge--and her mute daughter Hetta...  This kicked off with a slow start; I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get through it.  But about 50 pages in, things PICK UP.  Especially when we get into Anne’s diary, which is where some of the really creepy stuff takes place.  It’s a spooky, unsettling story that feels like it’s of another time.  If you’re a fan of “The Others”--which I am--I’d highly recommend the novel.  

Bright We Burn by Kiersten White.  4/5.  The final book in The Conqueror’s Saga sees Radu finally forced to make a choice for his future, as Lada’s conflict with him and Mehmed--and all of her enemies, really--finally comes to a head.  I can’t say much more than that, because... final book in the series, and all.  I really can’t recommend this trilogy enough.  Yes, a gender-flipped Vlad the Impaler story sounds weird.  But Lada is a great character you so rarely see in YA--a truly horrible female lead.  She’s awful.  Not a monster, but not really redeemable either, especially after this installment.  And I wouldn’t even say that Lada is the most complex character in the series--that goes to Radu, her brother who is a) gay b) a Muslim convert and c) in love with Mehmed, their childhood friend who is in love with Lada, who kind of loves Mehmed but kind of hates him because he’s about as horrible a she is.  I loved this poisonous triangle of scheming and bad people--Radu is significantly less horrible than Lada and Mehmed, but has his moments--and the world and the supporting characters, and the only reason this book didn’t a full 5/5 is because I think there needed to be more.  The conflict of the trio really petered out a bit for me, and it came down to Lada and Radu.  And I love Lada and Radu, but Mehmed was the kind of antagonist that got their asses in gear, and the book needed that extra kick.  Overall, however, this was a great conclusion--super satisfying, and quite bloody.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.  4/5.  Celestial and Roy are upwardly mobile Atlanta residents--she a rising artist, he a young executive--and just over  a year into their marriage when Roy is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.  Sentenced to twelve years in prison, Roy writes to Celestial as their marriage gradually disintegrates.  When he’s exonerated and freed five years into his sentence, he returns to her.  But Celestial has built up a relationship with Andre, her childhood friend and the best man at her and Roy’s wedding.  The question isn’t just one of who Celestial belongs with--and whether she belongs with anyone--but of whether or not she and Roy ever would have worked out in the first place?  This is a DEEP literary book, y’all.  Not light reading.  And I can’t say it was super enjoyable?  I mean, this is one of those harshly realistic, love isn’t enough tearjerkers.  But it was very well-written, and it examined themes and questions that I don’t think you’d necessarily expect from such a relatively simple premise.  Of course, much of the novel does revolve around being a black man (or woman) in 21st century America--so I can’t critique that aspect.  The only thing I really can say as a criticism is that the older characters in the novel--Celestial and Roy’s parents, primarily--do essentially repeat themselves a good bit.  And again, I can’t say that I like everything every character did or said--but every action came from a very real place.  It’s a harsh one.

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott.  3/5.  Kit is an ambitious scientist, hoping to gain a spot on a PMDD-related study led by her idol.  She’s the only woman in the running, and considered a shoo-in the the “woman spot”--until Diane shows up.  Diane and Kit knew each other when they were younger; and Diane told Kit a secret that derailed both of their lives.  With the weight of Diane’s secret on her mind, Kit begins to slowly unravel, questioning how she should handle a secret that has gone from being another person’s problem, to hers as well.  I’m not one of those people scared off by Abbott’s squicky, literary style of telling domestic thriller stories.  I’m used to her obsession with the female body and feminine mysteries in general.  I’m not sure why this one didn’t click with me.  The writing was still there, and on paper the story is something I should have liked--so I’m saying it’s me, not her.  It may be that the books of Abbott’s I’ve really liked have dealt more with the truly domestic sphere or something more mundane and universal than scientific studies?  I just wasn’t attached to this story or the characters.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware.  3/5.  Down on her luck tarot card reader Hal is shocked when she receives word that she is the possible recipient of an inheritance.  Her grandmother has died, and Hal is summoned to her home to hear the will being read.  The only issue is that to Hal’s knowledge, her grandmother was already dead--and with her mother gone, she has no way of knowing who this woman is.  Desperate for money, she goes to the Westaway estate, only to find that the inheritance may not be worth the risk.  This is a very standard mystery/thriller.  Kind of predictable.  I really don’t have much to say about it.  The book wasn’t bad but it didn’t thrill me, so it might be another me/my slump thing.

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren.  4/5.  Macy hasn’t seen her childhood friend and first love Elliot for eleven years.  When they run into each other in a coffee shop, he’s an aspiring novelist and she’s a resident on the brink of marriage.  As the novel traces the story of Elliot and Macy’s past--and what he did to make her cut off contact with him the same night he confessed his love--Macy is confronted with a decision about her future, and owning up to who she is in the present.  A slump-breaker!  This is a really good romance, y’all.  Elliot and Macy’s chemistry is palpable.  You spend the whole novel worrying less about what drove them apart, and more about when they’re going to get together.  That being said, the best part of the book was definitely the past.  Their friendship felt genuine, which made the sexual tension buildup even better (speaking of: this is one of the few contemporary romances with legitimately good sex scenes).  The stakes aren’t quite as high in the present--it seems painstakingly obvious from the beginning that Macy can fix her issues in a pretty simple way.  And if she didn’t know that, I’d be a bit less annoyed, but she does.  Not much happens in the present, really--that’s just the payoff for what started in the past.  Still, this is a very sweet, sexy, and kind of heartwarming book that I would recommend to anyone who needs something that’s light without being TOO light.

Roomies by Christina Lauren.  3/5.  Holland is obsessed with a guitarist on the subway, and has been for about six months.  By a twist of fate, they finally meet, and through her connections she is able to get him a job opportunity.  The only problem is that Calvin--an Irish immigrant who’s overstayed his student visa--is in the States illegally.  So, out of the goodness of her heart and not at all because she wants to jump his bones, Holland offers to marry him so that he can get his green card.  What could go wrong?  Christina Lauren is, again, great at building up the sexual tension between her characters, and can actually write good sex scenes.  This is a sweet, fluffy, silly book.  I’d recommend it to romance fans.  It’s just not as substantial as Love and Other Words and the plot could have been stronger; I basically skimmed over that stuff because it didn’t really grab me, and focused more on the romantic bits between Holland Calvin.  A quick, nice read, but I’ve read better romance novels.

Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent.  2/5.  Andrew and Lydia, a wealthy couple who’ve fallen on hard time, have buried the body of a young woman in their back yard. Though Lydia desperately tries to keep the secret from their son, Laurence, he discovers the truth before long.  Meanwhile, their victim’s sister investigates Annie’s disappearance, struggling for answers.  Ugh, this hasn’t been a great month for me + thrillers.  This one sucked.  In theory, there were good ideas, and moments of good voice, but the overall execution was very poor.  The characters came off as caricatures, one of the worst things you can do in a thriller imo.  And ooooh, there was so much emphasis on Laurence’s obesity, Annie’s lack of education--it seemed lurid and borderline exploitative at times.  Hard pass.

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Croatoan- Part 1

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1,939

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, angst, language, minor character death, blood, you know the usual,

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Please, if you want to be tagged for this series, let me know and I’ll add you! If you want to be tagged for my other fics, I’ll add you! I want to hear what you guys think about this. If you want something requested, send it in!

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Tags at the bottom

Urban legends, bedtime stories, monsters under the bed: they are all things you hear about but never really believe. You hear about them from your friends and you think about them all the time, it never really leaving your mind until one day, you finally do some more research.

You ask your parents about it and they always say it isn’t real, that you have nothing to worry about. So, you forget about it for a few months. Until it comes up again and the cycle starts all over again.

That’s how kids live their lives. Always knowing the unknown but never being afraid because they know it could never be real. However, with the way you grew up, those nightmares came true and you had to face them every single day.

You didn’t get to have a shortcut in life. You didn’t have parents to tell you otherwise. All you had were guns and rock salt to protect yourself with.

And that’s all you needed.

But that never stopped you from looking up some of the world’s greatest mysteries because with what you knew, anything could be true. You got to digging around and much to your pleasure, you came across the Croatoan Mystery. You thought that was very fascinating and have been obsessed with it ever since.

How could someone leave a ton of people on some island, only to come back 3 years later and have no trace of anyone ever lived there?

“Sweetheart? Are you in there?” You looked at Dean who was at the counter of the gas station, buying some food and beer.

“Yeah, sorry, just thinking, I guess.” You said, shrugging.

“Is this about the last hunt we went on?” He asked, keeping it vague for the cashier.

“You two hunt? What kind of animals do you hunt?” The cashier asked you with a smile. You looked at him and gave him a tight smile.

“Deer mostly.” Dean grabbed his change and took the beer and the jerky he bought.

“I hunt them too. Once I got a moose but don’t tell anyone.” He said with a laugh.

“We won’t. Thank you.” You said, walking out of the gas station that was right across from the motel you were staying at. Dean immediately opened the bag of jerky and started to munch on it.

“Damn, this is good. You want some?” He offered.

“No, Dean, I don’t want any. Are you just going to ignore what happened with that demon? You were going to sell your soul without any consideration of who it might affect?” You asked, walking with him.

“Look, I was trying to get her on our side. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Dean said, looking at you while you two walked.

“Why don’t I believe you?” You looked at him with a sigh.

“Believe what you want but that is what I’m sticking with.” Dean said, walking ahead of you.

“Dean, please, wait,” You reached out and grabbed his arm, making him look at you. “I love you so much and I know you want John back. I know you miss him but this isn’t what he would have wanted. He did this to save his son who he loves. It would kind of defeat the point if you died trying to bring him back.”

“Yeah, I know you’re right. You’re always right.” He muttered. You smiled and stroked his cheek before pulling away. Dean grabbed your waist with his free hand and leaned down to kiss you but you stopped him.

“You know I hate jerky. I am not getting that taste on my tongue.” You teased, pulling away from him and walking to the motel room. You slid the key in and opened the door, frowning when you saw Sam on the floor, holding his head in pain. Dean walked up behind you and saw Sam as well.

“Sam, are you okay?” You asked, rushing to him. You got on the floor and moved some of his hair that was damp with sweat, away from his eyes.

“We have to go. Rivergrove. Another vision.” Sam said, squeezing his eyes shut. You looked up at Dean who was already packing his things. Well, that beer would have to wait to get drunk. Right now, you had another case to solve.

It was late at night and you’ve barely gotten sleep. Sam was so sure that Rivergrove was the place that he needed to be. You didn’t know what his vision was about because he wasn’t talking. You tried 2 times to get him to talk. Maybe third time is the charm.

“Sam, please tell us what your vision was about. You do want our help, right? I can’t give it to you if you don’t tell me.” You said, scooting closer to the seat.

“Fine, there was a dark room, a few people inside, and Dean was there, holding a gun. One of the guys in the room kept pleading with Dean that it wasn’t inside him but Dean shot him anyways.” Sam said with a sigh.

“What was in him and who was it?” You asked, looking at Dean who kept his eyes on the road.

“I have no idea. I don’t know what half of these visions mean anymore.” Sam said, looking at the GPS.

“And how are you so sure we are heading in the right direction? Aren’t there two Rivergroves in this country?” You asked.

“There was a poster on the wall of Crater Lake which is in Oregon.” Sam answered.

“Okay, there was something inside of him. Was he possessed? Your visions are always tied to the yellow-eyed demon somehow. Did I exorcise it? Any black smoke?” Dean asked.

“No, nothing like that. You just shot him.” Sam said, biting his lip.

“Maybe he had a good reason.” You said.

“Yeah, I hope so.” Sam said quietly.

“What does that mean?” Dean asked, looking at his brother. When Sam didn’t say anything, Dean scoffed. “Sam, I wouldn’t kill an innocent man.” Sam looked at his brother with his eyebrows raised.

“Hey, he wouldn’t!” You defended your boyfriend.

“Fine! Look, we don't know what it is. But whatever it is, that guy in the chair's a part of it. So, let's find him, and see what's what.” Sam said, leaning back in the seat, closing his eyes.

“Fine.” Dean said, looking back at the road. You sighed and laid down in the back seat, closing your eyes to see if you could get a few hours of sleep before you had to go to work.

“Sweetheart, wake up.” Your eyes fluttered open and you looked to see both Winchesters stare at you from the front seat.

“Can’t we leave and say we took care of the problem?” You joked.

“No, that would be cheating. Come on, Sleeping Beauty.” Dean chuckled, getting out of the car. He helped you out and you took in your surroundings. You were definitely in Crater Lake. You were parked in front of a wooden shop with a man who was cleaning a rifle outside of it.

Sam and Dean walked to him and you followed, looking around the town.

“Good morning, sir.” Sam said politely.

“Good morning, what can I do for you?” The man said with a smile.

“My name is Billy Gibbons and this is Frank Beard and she is Margaret Wells. We’re U.S. Marshals.” Dean said, taking out a badge. You wished you brought yours along but luckily, he didn’t ask for yours.

“What’s this about?” The man lost his smile.

“We’re looking for someone.” Dean said, looking at his brother for help since Dean didn’t have any idea who this kid was or what he looked like.

“A young man in his early twenties who has a thin scar right below his hairline.” Sam said, remembering his vision.

“What did he do?” The man asked worriedly.

“Well, nothing. We're actually looking for someone else, but we think this young man could help us.” Sam said.

“He’s not in any kind of trouble. We think you might know who he is, Master Sergeant,” Dean said, smiling at the man. You looked at the man and saw a tattoo on his arm that represented the Marines. “My dad was in the Corps. He was a Corporal.”

“What company?”

“Echo-2-1.” You loved how proud Dean was of his dad.

“So, can you help us?” Sam asked.

“Fine, Duane Tanner’s got a scar like that. But I know him and he’s a good kid.”

“I believe you. Like they said, he isn’t in any kind of trouble. Where does he live?” You asked, stepping in.

“With his family, up in Aspen Way.”

“Thank you for your help.” You said, turning around and walking with Dean and Sam back to the car. On your way, you looked up and frowned when you saw a telephone pole with the one word you’ve been thinking about lately.

Croatoan.

“Dean, Sam, look at this.” You walked closer to the pole and examined it. They followed you and frowned when they saw the word.

“What the hell is a Croatoan?” Dean asked. You and Dean both stared at him with your mouths open.

“Dean, don’t you know the story of Roanoke, one of the first English colonies in America in the late 1500s?” You asked, not believing your ears.

“Yeah, Dean, didn’t you pay any attention in history class?” Sam asked.

“Didn’t need to.” Dean shrugged.

“Well, story goes is that an Englishman named John White came to America to start a colony. I’ll spare you the details but he eventually left to get help from England but ended up coming back because of the war in Spain 3 years later. When he came back, the whole town was wiped out. It was like no one ever lived there. He left behind over a hundred people but they were all gone and there was no trace of anyone ever living there. The only thing he found was the word Croatoan carved into a post.” You said, pointing to the word on the pole.

“So, you think that’s what’s going on here?” Dean asked, looking at his brother.

“Whatever I saw, it wasn’t good, that’s for sure. But what do you think could do that? I mean, there had to have been some explanation why those people disappeared.” Sam said.

“Well, no matter the answer, your visions always are tied to the yellow-eyed demon. Maybe we should call Bobby or Ellen for help?” Dean suggested.

“Let me call Jo. I haven’t talked to her in a while,” You pulled out your phone but frowned when you didn’t have any bars. “I don’t have any service.” Dean and Sam took out their phones to check. It was the same thing with theirs.

You looked around and spotted a pay phone and hastily walked over to it, picking up the phone. You frowned when you heard the “out of order” beeping. You tried again but you always got the same result. You hung up and turned to the guys.

“The line is dead. You know, if I was going to wipe out an entire town, this would be my first step.” You said, sighing.

“Okay, then I guess the only thing to do is visit Duane.” Dean said, walking back to his car. You looked at Sam and sighed, getting into the car. You looked back at the shop where the man with the rifle was and didn’t see him there. You had a feeling that was bad but you ignored it for now.

The Queens:

@maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith @mogaruke @whit85-blog @inlovewithbja @spn67-sister @kdfrqqg @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @roxyspearing @supercalifragilistic26 @mishamigose @cobrakai1967 @essie1876 @wishedworld @crispychrissy @laqueus-ludovicus @nostalgic-uncertainty @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @potterhead1265 @starswirlblitz @untitled39887 @ta-n-ja @deans-fallen-angel-boy @scarletluvscas @notnaturalanahi @tahbehonest @stay-in--place @dreaminofdean @posiemax @donnaintx @mikey1822 @alexandriajanae4 @li-ssu @just-another-winchester @obsessivecompulsivespn @emoryhemsworth

Dean Beans:

@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester @winchesterandpie @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @tahbehonest @carribear31 @tacklesackles @oreosatmidnight @not-naturalfangirl @missselinakitty @iam-a-cutiepie @kristendansmith @milo-winchester-4ever @jensenackesl @codyshany316​ 

Series Rewrite Junkies:

@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr @caseykitten6 @roxalya19 @quixoticcat @supernaturalblogging @notmoose45 @crowleysminion @mina22 @tahbehonest @hadleymcallister2177 @destielsangels @spnhybrid @oreosatmidnight @valerieshubin