#Its important that everyone knows that i put three pop references in this picture

[raionmimi]

When the idol event first dropped in JP, I lost my mind over the part where Medb puts her lipstick on Ecchan and have been meaning to draw this meme ever since

#queen medb #mysterious heroine alter #magical college girl medb #tamamo cat #miss crane #fgo #fate grand order #its taken me an entire year to do this becuase I kept procrastinating lmao #medb rarepair #Its important that everyone knows that i put three pop references in this picture #one is very obvious

[twistedtranslations]

Cater Diamond - H-Huh?

You can unlock this story by getting Cater’s SR Lab coat

Translation under the cut

General TN

Cater refers to himself a lot as Cay(-kun), aka in third person, which is pretty important to know. I’ve only translated the line when he uses “Cay” to refer to himself once in the last paragraph for emphasis.

Laboratory

Cater: Damn, our break's already over. Hm, gotta find an empty seat… Ah, if it isn’t Vil and Lilia! I’m butting in and taking this seat~

Lilia: Oh, Cater. For you to be in the same elective as us.

Vil: It’s quite surprising that you chose poison refinement as your elective.

Cater: You think so? The other class sounded really boring.

Vil: Are you talking about "The transition and comparison of abbreviating incantations in ancient and modern times?"

Cater: That one! I've heard that it's the kind of class where you only make chronological tables and write reports. I'll definitely get fed up with something as boring as that. It's not like poison refinement is flashy either, but it has a dangerous vibe~…

Lilia: So when you weighed them against each other, you find this more preferable? I too chose this class for the same reason.

Cater: Really~? You and I, as fellow members of the light music club, really get along~

Crewel: Stop your yapping mongrels. Class is starting.

Everyone: Yes!

Crewel: Our first topic is cultivating mandrakes. If you bestow magic upon the seedling, it will grow faster. Be careful when you concentrate your magic, because how you raise it will affect the effectiveness of the poison. Then, godspeed, cultivate the seedlings you have at hand until they're a suitable size. Start the experiment!

Cater: Okay, let's put in some magic… Wow, the leaves and roots are steadily growing, nice~ If this keeps on, I'll have some healthy crops!

Lilia: … Oho? Cater, your mandrake has bigger leaves than mine.

Cater: You're right. Vil's mandrake… its leaves and roots look really glossy~

Lilia: Now that you say so… When I traveled in the past, I happened upon a soil of mandrakes and their shape and nature all differed.

Vil: The color of a crop can depend on the farmer, especially when it comes to vegetables.

Cater: So you mean to say that mandrakes raised by humans will reflect the character of the person whose magic it absorbed? Isn't that interesting! If we pour our magic in with all our power, we can make some distinctive mandrakes! Don't you think we'll trend on MagiCam if we manage to make some with funny poses and vegetable shapes?

Vil: That doesn't sound bad. I don't really care about the mandrakes trending though.

Cater: Really?! I mean, I proposed the idea, but I thought you, of all people, would find it stupid.

Vil: Now that I think about it, it's about imbuing your own hues in the mandrakes. Isn't that the perfect job for the elegant me? I am interested.

Lilia: I too will take part. I am most looking forward to the result.

Cater: Yay! Then, when we're done cultivating our mandrakes, we should come together and show 'em to each other! I look forward to seeing what mandrakes you'd make!

-

Vil: Here it is. What do you think about my mandrake?

Cater: Wow! This mandrake has an outstanding spine and build. And its roots are so crisp, it looks like a supermodel! Even more, it's moving rhythmically in cool poses. Glorious!

Vil: He's performing as if he's working. It must have been the influence of yesterday's magazine photoshoot.

Cater: As expected of you, Vil. Your amazing self awareness reflects in the individuality of your mandrake!

Lilia: Fufufu, mine is complete as well.

Cater: Huh, your mandrake is energetically dancing?!

Vil: The way it's moving its arms,is this a pop dance? What an awfully cheerful mandrake.

Cater: When you pull out a mandrake, it desperately cries with, resolved to its grim fate, but… Lilia’s mandrake looks completely different from what I expected. It's nice that it's having fun.

Lilia: Kufufu, I am glad I satisfied you. Raising a mandrake like this is very pleasant.

Cater: I won't lose to you two either. I'll make some real interesting guys! Okay, concentrate. While you're pouring your magic in, you should form an image of the mandrake you want to cultivate… There!

Chapter 2

Cater: Okay, concentrate. While you're pouring your magic in, you should form an image of the mandrake you want to cultivate… There!

Lilia: Oho, this is… a mandrake with cute, round, pink eyes.

Vil: Cater, you are unexpectedly girlish.

Cater: No, no, that's not it at all! I have two sisters after all… The Diamond family rates everything on its cuteness~ From drawing, to doing crafts and even when it came to the sweets I bought, I'd get criticized daily if it "weren't cute"…! That's why I got something cute on my first try. Well, I'll show you. The next one will be way cooler!… There!

Vil: Huh, the deep crimson body has a trump card pattern over it… What a bold design.

Lilia: Hoho, it lookes as if it is holding a guitar. It is very handsome indeed. This is the workmanship fitting of one who belongs to the light music club.

Cater: Thanks, you two! Now that I've got the hang of it, I can make other glamorous guys like this in a flash! If I concentrate once more… let's go!

Vil: This mandrake… this one is sitting on his knees as if he's prepared for gym class.

Lilia: Quite pessimistic, this one.

Cater: H-Huh?

Vil: ... Hey, Lilia. You said that the appearance of a cultivated mandrake depends on the personality of the human whose magic it was imbued with, right?

Lilia: Yes. It might be that the usual cheerful Cater hides a very downer side of himself.

Cater: Huuh?! No way, you guys are just overthinking! I sucked at imbuing this one with my magic!

Lilia: Cater, why are you so flustered? So your real essence might be~

Cater: There's no such thing as that~! Lilia, you're just playing with me, right? Come on… From now on, I'll show what I can really do!

-

Vil: Heh… I managed to cultivate three mandrakes.

Lilia: Me too. This amount of ingredients should suffice for refining the poison. How is Cater doing…?

Cater: Tada! These are my mandrakes!

Lilia: Oho, you also have three! A skipping one, a rainbow colored flashy one… and one who is holding his belly while laughing. They all seem fun from their appearance!

Cater: Right!

Vil: Hm, only three? I thought I saw you make more.

Cater: Hah! Don't joke around like that, Vil. These three are all of them.

Vil: Hmpf, if you say so, I won't pry any further.

Cater: A-Anyways, since I went through the trouble of making them, I should take some pics for MagiCam!

*shutter sounds*

Cater: Phew~ Be good, little mandrakes~ I'll keep on shooting 'til I get the perfect shot!

Lilia/Vil: …Ah.

Cater: Hey, which picture do you guys think is the best?

Crewel: Cater Diamond.

Cater: !

Crewel: What do you think that happens to fussing mongrels that do not stop barking.

Cater: A, Ahaha~ my apologies. But it's not like I was the only one…

Vil: It's like Mr. Crewel said. You should take this seriously, Cater.

Lilia: Neglecting the basic principles of being a student, namely the pursuit of knowledge, is deplorable.

Cater: Hey, don’t play dumb, that’s so unfair! Now I'm the only one getting in trouble! You're mistaken, Mr. I just got really excited about the study of this experiment… Here, please look! I put so much effort into the experiment that I grew six mandrakes. This is enough for the poison, right?

Crewel: So you weren't simply fooling around… But you know what happens if you howl any longer than this… right?

Cater: Yes, I'll watch out!… Vil, Lilia! How cruel could you be, abandoning me like that?

Vil: You were the one who started this.

Lilia: Agreed. It is of utmost importance to know when to pull back from entertainment.

Cater: That's not what I agreed to~~!~

-

*humming*

Cater: *sigh* Finally the class is over. Time to pull myself together with some shooting time~ Which mandrake will Cater finally upload to his MagiCam? Yep, the stylish and cheerful guys are great, but this one… I’d better pick this one. Oh. Maybe this mandrake that's always cackling. Cay should always be excited and happy after all~ Okay, mandrake, please look over here~ Stay still for a while. Okay, cheese!

*shutter noise*

#twisted wonderland #cater diamond #lilia vanrouge #vil schoenheit #personal story #translation

[votederpycausemufins]

So, took a bit longer to write this since I was moving back home now that the school year is done and as you probably saw if you follow me, I created the Shared Space au! I’m really proud of that too, so check it out! and send asks for it too!

anywho, tagging time! @petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

Jrum stood facing Grifect, sword at the ready. He just needed to buy some time because there was something easy he could do. Instead of having an actual communicator, it had been built into his system at one update, so he didn’t need to get it out and type. Instead he could just send it mentally, though it could be a little odd at times.

But right now it was important. Jrum got a message ready and sent it to Mumbo, then to Grian. Telling them he was in danger and Tommy probably was too. But there was a problem, he didn’t get a message back from them, but an error.

“Sowwy, but I can’t wet uwu caww fow hewp! Thawt wouwd make my dad mad. If they gow aftew Tommy, they’ww see youw bwothew iws gone.”

Jrum jumped at Grifect, slashing his sword at the other bot. An arrow hit him as he ran forth, a second when he hit Grifect. Not wanting to get shot anymore, Jrum kicked the dispenser, pushing it out of Grifect’s reach. He attacked with his sword again, but a shield materialized on Grifect’s arm and deflected the attack. “That’s not fair!”

“Why wouwd I make iwt faiw? I wawnt tuwu win awnd hacking iws easy. You’d awweady be dead if I couwdn’t wisk wetting a message out thawt I was the owne who kiwwed uwu.” Grifter explained with a giggle, hacking in a new dispenser. “At the vewy weast kiwwing machines won’t duwu thawt, then I cawn pwetend iwt was juwst an accident whiwe you’we fine! But if aww my data iws wight, once you’we dead, you’ww be whisked away fwom thiws wowwd again!”

Jrum hesitated at that. He would? But he lost a life in the SMP and came out fine. But then again they had weird respawn rules, Tommy was proof of that. Jrum thought about trying to run, but then had an idea. If he would have an issue with respawning, Grifect would have to have the same issue!

Jrum pulled out a bow and fired it at Grifect before pulling out an axe. The helsbot put their shield up for the arrow, so Jrum was quickly able to chop it in half with his axe. Grifect’s eyes widened which let Jrum know something else, the other bot wasn’t good at combat or have a program for it. “You asked Xannes how to be a better hacker?” Jrum swiped his sword at the bot. “He’s a good hacker because he had to train all his skills. Xisuma is the best admin, so he needed to beat that. But he also needed to be good at everything!” The sword managed to tear into a weak part of Grifect’s body at a join. “You may be a hacker, but you have no clue how to actually use what you have! And that means I win!” And the sword sliced Grifect in half, the robotic body disappearing in smoke before it could reach the ground.

Jrum panted, having used a lot of energy for that. He wanted to close his combat program to conserve power, but he didn’t know if anyone else would show up. He wasn’t even sure where his hels version would respawn. But the fact that he needed to respawn at all was good news, so Jrum attempted to send another message and smiled as it went through. Now people would know what was going on.

.

.

.

Grian kept glancing at his comm, worried out of his mind while he wasn’t with either of the bots. He had just gotten them back and while they looked like they were getting better, he couldn’t help but imagine the worst. It also didn’t help that he was dealing with NPG, Xannes and Sense all in one room. 

He couldn’t help but sigh in relief when he got some messages from the boys. Jrum was still having fun playing with his hels copy and Tommy seemed to be taking care of Grum. The best part was the message that Grum was cuddling with Tubbee, which was great to imagine. It was just a shame Tommy could send a picture without disturbing them.

“So are you guys close to being done arguing?” Grian spoke up, getting up from where he was sitting. “I’m getting a headache from it all and Mumbo’s not here to help.”

“You can always go for the next best thing.” Sense suggested, making Grian scrunch his face up in disgust.

“What would Grifter think?”

“As if he wouldn’t want some fun with a clone.”

Grian shuddered. “Why are you like this?”

“Because Grifter and I love each other, which is surprising that you can’t do that as the ‘good’ versions.” Sense replied, crossing his arms.

“Hey! Those two of course love each other, they’re just not gross about it.” NPG argued for Grian. “And Even Xannes is okay with his stuff.”

“Ye-Hey!” Xannes complained, but then was stopped as their comms buzzed. Everyone looked away, Grian going over to his own and reading two messages, watching as a third appeared.

Grifect was slain by Jrumbot

<Jrumbot> Something’s wrong with Grum and Tommy. Grifter’s been up to something and my copy’s been hacking.

Grian was slain by PerfectSense

Grian watched as his own death message appeared as he was blasted in the back by a death ray Sense had on him. When his eyes next opened, he was in bed and heard a scream in the distance. His comm was still in his hand since he was holding it when he died. There were three more death messages, one for Xannes, one for Tommy and one for NPG. 

The one for Tommy was the most concerning with Jrum’s message, so Grian jumped out of bed and broke his window to go through, not wanting to go through the main hall and run into Sense again. A few shards of glass cut into his wings from the shoddy break and Grian’s recklessness, but he didn’t care, needing to get there fast. He flew as fast as he could to get to the old hobbit hole, glad it wasn’t too far away.

Grian’s eyes widened as he got into the place. It was a mess and Grum was standing in the middle of it, holding a sword and staring at Tommy’s bed. Tubbee flew near him and was stabbed by the sword, making Grian hold his breath before the bee popped out of its hive again. The avian was glad that Xisuma had set it up so that the bee could respawn since Tommy had been scared of something happening to it.

“Grum, put the sword down.” Grian said. He wanted to reach for a weapon, but realized he hadn’t grabbed any before rushing over there. He frowned as Grum didn’t move, instead killing Tubbee again. “Grum, put it down!”

Grum put the sword down, slowly laying it down on the ground. Grian started to take a step towards the bot, but they immediately turned around, pulling out a crossbow and shooting Grian with it. Grian yelled as the arrow struck him and he looked at Grum, now realising it wasn’t his son, but the hels version. “What did you do with Grum?! And it said you killed Tommy too. How? You left the world with Grifter and didn’t-”

Sefter moved so fast Grian barely comprehended it. Grian’s wing deflected the attack, though an axe chopping into it still hurt. At the very least it was weak as Sefter was just bringing the weapon out, but he was just after any damage. Another attack came down on Grian’s arm before the bot changed to another crossbow, shooting Grian point blank.

Grian attempted to attack back, even though he only had his fists and wings as weapons, but Sefter kept dodging them. Grian huffed, finally noticing the magic radiating off of the robot. A strong speed potion. There was no way he could land a hit on Sefter, especially without a weapon. But that was fine, because it finally made sense. Tommy wasn’t here, likely in the other half of the hobbit holes. Grum also wasn't around because someone messed with the messages and he had left the world, not Sefter. Because of that, there was no reason for him to be here.

When Sefter next attacked, Grian dodged, letting himself fall. He opened a portal just below himself, letting the magic envelop him before closing it again so the bot couldn’t follow. He felt like he was falling for a few moments before opening a second portal, taking him out of the Watcher’s world and into the SMP.

.

.

.

The first thing he heard was someone crying. It sounded familiar, but at the same time he couldn’t place it. A voice that spoke up definitely was recognizable though. “Hmm, not sure it worked. Why not hit him again harder this time?”

“Tech-” He got out before something slammed into his gut, winding him. “Wh-What the fuh?” He managed to wheeze out.

“I-I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t… You s-said he was- wh-why are you laughing?”

“You’re a f-fucking bitch Techno.”

“Nice to see you too Tommy.”

Tommy groaned as he sat up, having trouble as he found Grum sitting on his lap, holding a book in his hands like he was ready to bludgeon Tommy with it. That was probably what hit him in the gut now that he thought about it. “What the fuck happened?”

“The kid got the revive book that Dream had and used it to fix you. Did the same for Wilbur.”

Tommy sat up just a little bit straighter. “Wait, Wil’s alive? You’re serious?””

Techno gestured to Grum. “Yeah, apparently this one half revived him while we were all gone.”

“This one? His name’s Grum.” Tommy said, crossing his arms.

Techno crossed his arms back. “Does it matter?”

“He’s our fucking nephew!” Tommy complained, making Techno huff.

“And? So far all of my ‘nephews’ have tried killing me.”

“B-because you did it first.” Grum piped up. “I tried to be d-diplomatic with y-you and-”

“Yeah, well I hate government.” Techno cut Grum off.

“Yeah. I know. It was sort of my job to account for people like you. But it’s fine! One uncle is enough!”

Tommy chuckled. “Hey, maybe you’ll like Wil as an uncle too. Then you’ll have two.”

Grum turned to look at Tommy again. “I was already accounting for him in my count as I already had encounters with him here before. That is the one I was referring to.”

“Wh- Hey! Why am I being excluded?!” Tommy shouted while Techno smiled slightly. 

Grum recoiled slightly, which made Tommy back off a bit. “You… you said I could call you something else. Just because you’re actually my uncle… you’re sort of not.”

It took Tommy a bit to realize what Grum meant. He supposed it was true, a week ago, they hadn’t known they were actually related to each other. “Well, alright, if you’ve only got one uncle, I’ve only got four brothers! Take that Techno!”

The hybrid just rolled his eyes while Grum tackled Tommy with a hug. Tommy patted the bot, rolling his own eyes, though it was more sarcastically. “So kid, why not start with Tommy?”

There was a moment of confusion from Tommy before Grum suddenly stiffened, letting Tommy know that whatever was being talked about wasn’t the greatest thing. “What are you talking about?”

“Something got brought up before we came here. I figure since you two seem close, he should be telling you, especially if I’ve already been told.”

Tommy leaned back to look at Grum. They didn’t look scared as much as they were nervous. “Hey big man, what is it? If it’s something that happened because of Dream, I won’t be mad. I mean, you kinda killed me and I’m fine.”

Grum fidgeted a bit, still looking nervous, but then he answered. “Um, I think I have something called chat? At least that’s what Techno called it.”

Tommy was taken aback and looked at the piglin. “Yeah, well, chat’s just what I call it. They’re basically just voices.”

“Right… sorry.” Grum apologized.

Tommy looked between the two of them again. “Wait, so you’ve got your own form of chat? They’re not telling you to be as bloodthirsty as Techno, right?” Tommy asked, and Grum quickly shook his head. “Then yeah, it’s fine. Besides, even if I didn’t like it, your dads do so-”

“They don’t.” Grum cut Tommy off. “You’re… I’ve only told two people and you’re the second. I thought it was bad.”

“No, you’re fine. It runs in the family.” Tommy assured the bot. “Plus, they don’t sound too bad, so it’s fine.”

Grum fidgeted some more. “Well… Dream isn’t the nicest-”

“Wait, you hear Dream in there?!” Tommy couldn’t help but stand up in shock, causing Grum to fall off the bed. “Uh, sorry Grum. I just- Dream?! Really?!”

Grum rubbed his head. “Yes and no? He’s not like the one that was admin here, at least mostly. And they’ve kinda been around before I even knew you.”

Tommy didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t want to make Grum even more upset. “I guess that’s okay. Who else do you remember the names of?”

“Um, all of them. There aren’t many. There’s Dream of course, but also Eyes, Gor-”

Tommy didn’t need Grum to continue. “I found your book. You hid it in your charger. Their names were in there. I mean, I don’t know how you got PM in your chat, but it sounds cool.”

“You found my book?” Grum asked, tilting his head. “And it was in my charger? Who put it there?”

“Uh, I thought it was you. I mean, you sent me a message to go there, though you used Eye’s name.”

Grum shook his head. “Then I didn’t do that. Eyes did.”

“What do you mean Eyes did?” Techno asked. “How can your voices do stuff like that?”

Grum looked even more confused now. “But… Is that not supposed to happen? Eyes and Console have both been doing that.” And then Grum’s confusion turned to panic. “I thought you said it was okay?”

“Shit.” Tommy cursed, sitting back down to pull Grum into a hug. “Yeah yeah, it’s okay. Just different. Fuck we need Mumbo and Grian.”

It was perfect timing, as just as Tommy said that, Techno’s communicator buzzed. The hybrid took it out and read the message before showing it to the teen.

Grian joined the world.

#hermit!tommy au #hermit!tommy #jrumbot #hels!jrumbot #grian #watcher!grian #grian xelqua #avian!Grian #evil xisuma #npg #npc grian #hels!Mumbo #hels!Grumbot #tommyinnit #technoblade #grumbot

[janeofcakes]

Soulmates: How John Met Sherlock...Again  Chapter 3

Hello, my friends! It’s been a busy weekend and I’m more than a little sunburned (grrrrr), but here it is! The next chapter is ready and waiting for you all. I hope you enjoy it and had a great weekend!

---

The next two Saturdays come and go with Olive and Gracie no closer to getting their fathers to meet. The one following their first would have been perfect, but Sherlock had a case on that did not finish as timely as he had hoped. Mrs. Hudson was out of town with Mrs. Turner, so he called in his own babysitter. She and John had a pleasant enough conversation on the park bench from what little Gracie and Olive overheard. It didn’t really matter that John had been told Sherlock’s name was William because Annie had always called him that anyway. From what Olive understood, it was an attempt to protect both Sherlock and Annie’s privacy. She could reference him as her employer with ease while avoiding the inevitable ‘Yes, Sherlock Holmes. Yes, he does have a child.’ conversation. It was also better that Sherlock not advertise the fact.

Olive and Gracie’s anticipation of the following Saturday grew with John’s answer to the playdate at Olive’s flat question. He had said it would likely be fine, but he needed to meet Olive’s parents first. When Saturday came, John was called away on an emergency and Candace took Gracie to the park AGAIN. After the two girls pouted a bit, they cooked up a scheme wherein Candace gave her impression of Sherlock to John so they could move things along. The girls thought this would suffice, but John still insisted upon meeting ‘Will’ himself. Gracie tried to argue that he trusts Candace and should just go along with it. She had a good, long strop on Sunday when he refused. 

Gracie’s class sits together in the smaller of the school’s two gymnasiums when they arrive individually before the day begins. Every class has its place so each can rise and file to its room when the bell rings. Olive and Gracie love beginning the day this way because they have a chance to talk before having to sit quietly for lessons. It makes it much easier to pay attention. This particular Monday morning, however, is not going to plan.

Gracie glances up to the clock on the wall impatiently and begins to worry. Olive is not in the gym yet and it is not like her. Sherlock always has her to school at exactly eight minutes before the bell rings and it is now five minutes to the bell. Gracie lowers her eyes again and bites her lip. She knows her concern is ridiculous at this stage. It’s probably just traffic or something, but her protective side won’t let it drop. Could Olive and her father have gotten caught up in a case somehow? Gracie furrows her brow as she considers what that might mean when a pair of red shoes comes into view. She lets her eyes focus on them a moment before lifting them to see a girl from one of the other grade three classes standing before her nervously.

“Hi, Grace,” she says quietly. Her name is Julia and she usually keeps to herself, but Olive has built up a report with her. She says Julia sees and knows everything and is really nice, just a bit shy. Knowing this, Gracie is surprised she has left her own class group to come over to Gracie’s and talk.

“Hi,” Gracie mutters and then adds, thinking it the most likely reason for Julia’s visit, “Olive isn’t here yet.”

“I know. I just wanted to tell you,” Julia casts a slow side glance to her right and then back to Gracie, whose curious eyes follow the other girl’s. “Jones is planning something for lunch today. I’m not sure what, but she wants to embarrass you. She’s still mad about that punch on your first day.”

“Oh,” Gracie replies, not knowing why she expected anything less. Jones hadn’t said word one to them since that day and Olive kept saying it was only a matter of time. “Thanks. I’ll watch out for that.”

“We all loved it, you know,” Julia carries on swiftly. “Jones has been a pain in everyone’s side forever. She deserved it.”

Julia glances away again and takes a step back. Her brown eyes are intense when she returns them to Gracie’s and she angles her head closer.

“We’re all with you in this,” she almost whispers. “We’ll help anytime you need it.”

“Thanks,” Gracie doesn’t try to stop the small smile on her face. “I’ll remember that.”

Julia nods once and hurries back to her class’s spot. Gracie watches her go, feeling a bit lighter than she did before. She doesn’t know who is encompassed in the word ‘we’ at this moment, but it must be more than just grade three, right?. She had gotten quite a lot of attention from the other kids after the punch. More had greeted her afterwards or thrown a smile her way. Gracie wouldn’t say they all wanted to be friends or anything, just that they knew of her and liked what they knew. Very different from her old school where she was virtually unknown outside of her own grade.

Gracie thinks back on the friends she left behind in Bath and resolves to zoom with them soon. Turning her head to check the clock again, she nearly jumps out of her skin when Olive plops down right in front of her. The brunette is breathless, obviously having walked as fast as possible through the school halls to get here. Gracie cocks a brow and crosses her arms over her chest. 

“Where the heck have you been?” she nearly scolds, secretly eyeing her friend for any signs of injury. “The bell’s about to ring.”

“Pfft,” Olive makes a dismissive sound and waves a hand. “We still have two minutes.”

“Well, where were you?” Gracie fidgets, feeling a little exposed, but wanting to say this nonetheless. “I was kind of worried. Like maybe you ended up on a case or something.”

“Oh, no. Dad never takes me on cases,” Olive tells her in a very serious tone. “Well, only once when he absolutely had to and only because he knew there was no danger.”

Gracie releases the lip she’s been chewing on and lets the tension drain from her body. Seeing her friend relax, Olive smiles and lightens her tone.

“Dad did get a call for a case though and Mrs. Hudson had to bring me in. She’s never as fast as dad is,” Olive’s whole face lights up then and she hops up to sit on her knees for a change of subject. Gracie knows what it is too. It’s the reason she has waited for her friend so anxiously. “So did you ask him? What did he say? Whaddid he say?”

“He still needs to meet your dad first,” Gracie sighs with disappointment.

“What?” Olive blurts indignantly. “But he trusts Candace’s judgement.”

“That’s what I said, but he says he still has to meet your parents before I can go to your flat,” Gracie huffs. “It’s like he thinks he can tell they aren’t axe murderers with just one look.”

“You can, you know,” Olive replies suddenly in a calmer voice.

“What?”

“Tell someone isn’t an axe murderer with one look,” Olive sounds very pleased with herself for knowing this bit of information.

“What are you on about?” Gracie shakes her head. “That’s not even important right now.”

“No. You’re right,” Olive concedes. She touched a finger to her lips to think and then groans loudly, her voice dripping with annoyance. “We have to make sure they meet this weekend. I’ll tell Uncle Greg not to even call Dad if I have to.”

“I’ll do what I can too, but there’s no way I can stop another emergency,” Gracie grumbles and wrinkles her nose.

“Any chance of a baby again?” Olive asks, trying to plan for any contingency. 

“I don’t think so,” Gracie shrugs. “Dad usually tells me to be ready when it’s something he can anticipate.”

“Hm. Then we’ll just have to hope for a slow weekend,” Olive mumbles, touching a finger to her lips again.

“Right,” Gracie agrees, leaning forward and lowering her voice. “Something interesting happened right before you got here.”

The bell rings and teachers begin to call out instructions as Olive opens her mouth to respond. The two girls rise with their classmates, Gracie shouldering her backpack. Their line starts moving almost right away. Olive puts a hand on Gracie’s shoulder and leans in, the shorter girl turning her head to hear better.

“You can tell me at lunch,” Olives says, “and we can decide what to do on our first playdate.”

Gracie grins and agrees as they walk into the hall to their classroom.

***

“And then I’ll show you our latest experiment,” Olive had started listing the things she and Gracie would do on their first playdate the moment they walked into the lunch room. Olive puts a spoon full of yogurt into her mouth triumphantly.

“What are you working on now?” Gracie asks, snapping off a piece of her carrot and chewing. Her face is bright and open. Thinking about her first time in Olive’s flat is her most fun pastime these days. She has even dreamt about it: what she pictures it to look like and what they will do. It is the most excited she has been about something in a while. She was excited to move to London and start in a new school. Of course she was, but this has none of the uncertainty or anxiety those did. It is all pure anticipation and Olive feels it too, which makes it all the harder to wait until their fathers meet.

“The effects of cola on raw meat,” Olive answers Gracie’s question while dipping her spoon for more yogurt.

“What?” Gracie frowns and cocks a brow. “Why?”

“You don’t want to know,” Olive eyes the mound of yogurt on her spoon. “We’ve also added other stuff, like poisons and things to see if it makes any difference as far as how quickly the meat deteriorates or absorbs the poison. It’s for a homicide case.”

“What’s homicide?” Gracie asks curiously.

“Murder,” Olive whispers and closes her mouth smoothly around the spoon.

“Wow,” Gracie looks at her with wide eyes, carrot still in hand.

“I can’t guarantee we’ll still be doing it by the time we have our playdate though,” Olive tells her almost regretfully, holding the spoon to her lower lip. “There’s no way it could last two weeks. Dad never takes that long to solve a case.”

“That’s okay. It sounds kind of gross anyway,” Gracie pops the carrot into her mouth and grabs another. “What else could we do?”

“I want to show you my room. That’ll be the best part,” Olive declares, shifting from side to side in her seat eagerly. “It’s the upstairs bedroom. The only room upstairs.”

“Oh my god. Your flat has an upstairs?” Gracie blinks her eyes wide. “Ours have always been all on one floor.”

“Sometimes I pretend it’s a castle on top of a huge mountain and I have to climb it to search for prisoners or treasure or villains,” Olive is waving her spoon around now, gesturing enthusiastically.

“That sounds brilliant!” Gracie bubbles. “We could climb it together.”

“And, and!” Olive gasps, grabbing Gracie’s wrist and holding perfectly still. Gracie freezes too, but nearly vibrates with the anticipation of what she will say. “You can bring Pandy and we’ll save her and Wellies.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s perfect!” Gracie shoves a carrot in her mouth. “I can’t wait.”

“We have to get our dads to meet this Saturday,” Olive says emphatically, nearly in a whine as the bell rings. “I can’t wait anymore.”

Around them, Miss Chapel begins rounding everyone up. Olive and Gracie both shove what’s left of their lunches into their bags and hurry to stand.

“Hey, wait. We forgot. What were you going to tell me?” Olive asks, pushing her chair in.

“What?” Gracie replies, not sure what she means.

“From this morning,” Olive answers as Gracie picks up her bag and milk carton. “I got so excited about our playdate, I forgot to ask.”

“Oh, that,” Gracie starts toward the door, but her foot catches on something and she falls flat on the floor. Throwing her arms out to catch herself, she drops her lunch bag and milk carton and then lands right on them. Both smash flat, the half full carton soaking the front of her uniform.

“Gracie, are you okay?” Olive darts around the table to help, but Gracie is already getting to her knees.

“I’m fine,” Gracie mutters, looking down at herself and grumbling. Olive follows Gracie’s legs to find the sources of her fall and her eyes settle on a black size six. She knows who it is without even looking, but raises her angry gaze nonetheless and rests it on the smug face of Samantha Jones.

“Your friend had best watch where she’s going, Holmes,” Jones sneers, her two lackeys grinning behind her. “She could get hurt.”

“You’re a coward, Jones,” Olive scowls. “She faced you straight on and bested you, and now you hide in the corner waiting to catch her off-guard.”

“Olive,” Gracie cautions, standing next to the taller girl now.

“You watch yourself, Holmes,” Jones steps up close and stares Olive down. “Your pet won’t be with you all the time and that’s when I’ll find you.”

“Girls,” Miss Chapel calls sternly from behind Olive and Gracie, “what are you doing? Did you not hear the bell?”

“Just coming, Miss Chapel,” Jones replies pleasantly, side-stepping the two younger girls while staring at them menacingly. “Wouldn’t want to be late to class.”

After the three grade sixers are gone, Olive takes Gracie’s lunch bag and goes to class while Miss Chapel helps Gracie clean up a bit in the loo. She isn’t too worried about missing anything. Olive will fill her in on the lesson later. What Gracie has on her mind now is how to get back at Samantha Jones and really put her in her place so she doesn’t bully anyone in the school again. If anyone can do it, it’s Gracie Watson and Olive Holmes. 

***

“Just the two of you against the world then, eh?” John chuckles as he drops Gracie’s soiled uniform into the washer with some other laundry and closes the lid.

“The world of bullies, yeah,” Gracie answers as if there is no way it could be questioned. “You should see her, Dad. She pushes everyone around and steals the good stuff from their lunches as a ‘protection fee’.”

John flips the dial on the machine to start the cycle and turns to his daughter with a both bemused and amused expression. She wears a look of determination that only furthers his pleasure. Gracie looks nothing less than adorable. Her brow is furrowed, her eyes deadly serious and her mouth purse into half its usual size. With a hand on one hip and her other arm wrapped around Pandy, she stands strong with her feet planted on the floor. The smiling panda t-shirt, her favorite one, looks up at him with friendly eyes that contrast with his daughter’s.

“Protection fee?” John laughs because he just can’t help himself at this point. “Where on earth did you hear that?”

“That’s what Olive calls it,” she informs him in a tone that is all business. “Jones says she won’t bother them if they give her the treats from their lunches and they do it because they’re scared of her. She’s mean and you say I should stand up against bullies.”

“True, but…” John cuts in, seeing where this is going and not sure it’s the best course of action for Gracie to take.

“You don’t want me to stand back and let her bully little kids,” Gracie continues. “Kids in my class, even the ones who are younger than us. Why shouldn’t I stop her if I can?”

“Gracie…” John begins again, gathering his thoughts quickly.

“I thought you’d get it,” Gracie’s voice is insistent, but has a touch of pleading as well, and even some disappointment. “You fought in a war.”

“This is hardly war, Gracie,” John says a bit more sternly than he meant to . She snaps her mouth shut in a thin frown and the furrow of her brow deepens. She tilts her chin down and looks up at him with frustrated eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and pressing Pandy against her body. John sighs and squats down before her, placing his hands on her shoulders. 

“Gracie, I’m just trying to look out for you,” he tells her in a soft tone of concern. “I love that you want to help the other kids and don’t want to back down from a fight. I couldn’t be more proud.”

Gracie takes a deep breath through her nose, shoulders straightening and her chest puffing out. The corners of her mouth turn up ever so slightly.

“You’ve only been at the school for a few weeks,” John carries on carefully. “I don’t want kids that could have been friends to steer clear of you because they think you like trouble, or will get them in trouble.”

“Seriously?” Gracie questions, obviously finding the idea unbelievably stupid. “They seem to like me more because I stood up to Jones in the lunchroom. Like Julia said.”

“Oh, right,” John lifts his chin and raises his eyes briefly as he remembers. “The informant.”

“She knows everything,” Gracie lowers her voice and glances to her left before leaning in conspiratorially. “She lays low and hears all kinds of things. Olive can always go to her if she has questions about stuff that’s going on.”

“Just like Billy,” John mutters to himself with a quiet laugh.

“Who?” Gracie asks, looking a little confused.

“Nothing, sweet pea. Someone from another life,” John deftly pushes away his past. “I’m your dad. It’s my job to help you any way I can to be a good person and get on with other kids, or with schoolwork and whatever, yeah? I’m a lot older and have done a lot of things. It’s called experience.”

“Okay,” Gracie says slowly like she is beginning to see his point. She watches him thoughtfully.

“Sometimes people just think you’ll be the next bully when you stand up to one,” John explains. “You have to be careful kids don’t get the wrong impression and assume they should avoid you too.”

“I don’t think that would happen,” Gracie shakes her head. “Not with Olive on my side and Julia talking to everybody.”

“Well, good,” John straightens his legs to stand. “I’m glad you have such good and supportive friends.”

Gracie follows him as he walks to the kitchen to check the lasagna baking in the oven. It smells delicious and is one of their favorite dinners.

“Did you and your best friend help people?” Gracie asks curiously, lagging behind a little to stay away from the heat of the open oven door.

“Oh, yes,” John replies without even thinking as he lifts the aluminum foil from the casserole pan to look at the bubbling cheese. “Every case we solved helped people and even saved lives. It was an amazing time.”

“You solved cases?” Gracie asks after a brief pause. John’s eyes widen as he realizes what he just said and he hurriedly grabs for the oven mitts on the counter.

“Medical cases, sweetie,” John pulls the lasagna from the oven and moves across the counter. “Will you close the door, please?”

Gracie pushes the oven door shut and steps to the counter next to John. She picks up the first plate and hands it to him when he turns to retrieve it.

“Thank you,” he says warmly, taking it and dishing up the lasagna, some vegetables he had kept warm and a bit of salad. He tries not to look at Gracie for too long as he hands her the plate and she passes him an empty one. After all these years it is still too easy to read his expressions and he knows his daughter will know immediately that he’s hoping his lame explanation will suffice. John does, however, have to get it together before he sits down to eat with Gracie or he will spend the rest of the night telling her how the beloved characters in her bedtime stories are real and one of them is her own father. Will she feel betrayed? Like he has kept a huge part of himself from her? Do eight year olds even understand that concept? Gracie is fairly mature and advanced in her thinking, but enough to feel wronged or just to think her dad has this cool, secret past?

Finished filling his own plate, John schools his features as he turns to the table to see Gracie watching him expectantly. She has not only gotten the glass of milk he poured for her from the fridge, but his ice water as well. As he moves to sit opposite her, John wonders just how long it took him to dish up his own food. Gracie doesn’t look the least bit suspicious though, which is definitely a good sign. John really doesn’t want to spend the night dwelling on his former best friend. He has patently tried not to do just that since the day he agreed to take over the practice.

“Daddy?” Gracie’s voice interrupts his thoughts. John looks across the table to see her staring at him with a very deliberate expression as she chews. “You have to come to the park this Saturday and meet Olive’s dad. We’ve already planned what we’re going to do on our first playdate and it’s going to be amazing.”

“I’m sure you have,” John almost sighs in relief, picking up his glass for a drink. “You both love your master plans.”

“I’m not kidding, Dad,” Gracie says plainly. “This is very important.”

“Well, I don’t anticipate any emergencies, so it should be fine,” John answers. He replaces his water glass and scoops some lasagna onto his fork. “You’ll get to have a playdate soon enough.”

***

After dinner and the washing up, John and Gracie play a few card games until bedtime. Gracie beats him twice at Old Maid and once at Go-Fish, but John wins both games of Gin. John picks up and puts away the last deck of cards while Gracie brushes her teeth. He makes himself a cup of tea while she runs to her room to change into pajamas.

When John appears in her doorway, cup in hand, Gracie is lying down with the covers pulled up to her shoulders. He walks in, sets the tea on the bedside table and grabs the chair from her desk. Pulling it up to her bed, he sits and grabs his mug again.

“So,” John sips the tea, “what would you like tonight? Another chapter of the old Nancy Drew you and Olive are reading?”

“Actually…” Gracie’s tone is slightly higher than usual. A clear indication that she is going to ask for something she thinks he will say no to. “I was hoping for a Sam and Dean story. One you haven’t told me before.”

“Just how many of those stories do you think there are?” John asks good-naturedly after a quick bark of laughter.

“Hundreds!” Gracie answers with a sparkle in her eyes that John can never resist. He looks  down at her with a soft smile.

“I wouldn’t say that,” John tells her, “but I do still have some you don’t know.”

One leaps to mind. Why, John doesn’t know, but it is suddenly the only one he can think of. It isn’t a pleasant memory, but is certainly a case that pulled him and Sherlock closer together.

“I was going to save this one for when you’re older,” John pauses to wet his lips as Gracie’s eyes go wide.

“Please, Daddy, please,” she throws the covers off her arms, sits up and grabs the arm that doesn’t have a mug of tea at the end. “I’m old enough, please.”

John studies her for a moment and then sets down his tea.

“All right, all right,” he puts his hands on her shoulders, “but lie down. This is bedtime after all.”

“Yes!” Gracie declares in triumph and lays back quickly. John pulls the covers up to her chin and begins to tell her the story about pips, hostages, explosions and Moriarty, who he calls Chuck instead. Gracie listens with rapt attention, only really getting nervous when they were staring at that damn painting and the voice on the phone was a child. John has not told anyone, or even thought of this case, for over ten years and a feeling like exhaustion settles over him as he reaches the pool.

“The door opened and Dean walked in wearing a thick parka,” John says as Gracie gasps in horror. Her eyes are wide with shock, her mouth drops open.

“Oh my god, it was Dean?” she whispers, scarcely able to say the words. John’s heart sinks when she makes the same assumption Sherlock did, but rebounds when she quickly takes it back. “No. No, it can’t be Dean. He would never do that.”

“Right you are,” John commends her. “Dean pulled open the coat to reveal a waistcoat of explosives.”

Gracie lets out a huge gasp, her hands shooting from under the covers and over her mouth.

“No! What did he do? How did Sam save him?” Gracie demands in a hushed voice, unwilling to take her eyes off John for even a moment.

“Dean couldn’t say or do anything but what Chuck told him and Sam… He didn’t know what to do,” John shakes his head, remembering Sherlock’s face. He had been so frightened and vulnerable for that split-second before he schooled his expression, but John had seen it all. Unfortunately, so had Moriarty. John flinches as the words echo through his mind for the first time in years.

I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you.

I have been reliably informed I don’t have one.

We both know that’s not quite true.

“All of a sudden, Chuck appeared and started telling Sam how he needed to give up, let him carry on with his plans,” John continues, trying not to see Sherlock’s face and hear the words again.

Gracie’s eyes are glued to John as he tells her how he had grabbed Moriarty and told Sherlock to go, but that he wouldn’t leave. John had known there was no way out when he saw those damn red dots on Sherlock’s forehead and throat. He had released Moriarty and swallowed hard in resignation, but then the little devil had left. Gracie breathes a sigh of relief when the semtex came off and then screeches quietly, full of fear again when Moriarty returned. 

“Sam looked Dean in the eye and it was all Dean needed to know what he was thinking.” John’s voice is hushed, the only sound in the room. “He was going to shoot the bomb and cause an explosion.”

“Oh my god, no!” Gracie mutters, one hand over her mouth and the other clutching Pandy to her chest tightly. “He can’t.”

“It would’ve killed the two of them, but would also put an end to Chuck’s plans,” John says, trying to keep his tone even as the past floods back to him. It wouldn’t have stopped Moriarty. If they had survived somehow, he still would have ruined Sherlock’s reputation, threatened the three people most important to him and forced him to jump. You owe me a fall. Moriarty would have gone to any lengths to see that happen and must have had the pieces in place even then. God, how that man had fucked up their lives.

“What happened?” Gracie’s voice, thick with anticipation and dread, breaks John free from his thoughts. His gaze comes into focus again and he looks at his daughter for a moment before finding his voice.

“His phone rang,” he says simply.

“What?” Gracie blinks her eyes wide, her whole face rife with disbelief. John allows himself a small smile. 

“Someone gave him another way to end the detective and make him useful in the process,” John says grimly. “So he just left. So did his henchmen, but Sam and Dean knew he would be back.”

“Wow,” Gracie breathes in utter amazement. “What an ending. I can’t believe he got away. Did he come after Sam and Dean again?”

“Unfortunately,” John gives her a shallow nod, knowing he cannot tell her that story anytime soon. Maybe never.

“Oh my gosh,” Gracie mutters. “When? How? Did they get away? Do they beat him?”

“Oh, no,” John shakes his head. “You get one story and that one was much longer than it should have been.”

“What? Dad!” Gracie cries, disappointment coloring her face and tone.

“You know the rules, Gracie,” John tells her firmly. “It’s late enough already. You need to sleep.”

“Fine,” Gracie grumbles after studying him long enough to see there is no hope of John changing his mind. She snuggles Pandy close to her cheek as John bends down to kiss her head.

“Good night, sweet pea,” John says into her hair and then sits up again. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Gracie replies, already looking sleepy. John stands and replaces the chair by the desk. He turns off the lamp on the bedside table as he picks up his mug, leaving only the dim night light to illuminate the room.

“Good night,” John whispers. Gracie’s eyes are closed and she does not open them. John slips from the room and heads for the kitchen. It’s still fairly early, but John will only think of Sherlock if he stays awake. Even crap telly or a book will not distract him at this point.

John sighs and sets the mug in the sink. He goes to his bedroom and into the ensuite, cleans his teeth and readies for bed. Once his pajamas are on and he is staring at the ceiling in the dark, John allows his mind to unveil that portrait of Sherlock he keeps so tightly covered and looks at it for a long time. Being in London again and not even that far from Baker Street, John has resolutely kept the man from his thoughts and will not entertain the idea of going anywhere near his former flat, even just to see if Sherlock is still there. When John left with Mary, there were too many things left unsaid. It is too late to say them now.

John turns on his side with a sad sigh, closes his eyes and pulls the curtain over Sherlock’s ever-changing eyes once again.

---

There you are! Complete with a vision of creepy Moriarty and the pool. Incidentally, I have a great idea for a one shot involving the pool and what follows that strays wildly from canon (infamous eyebrow waggle). Hopefully I can start on it soon. In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you think about chapter 3 or teasers or any ideas that might be running through your heads. Have a great week, my friends, and thank you so much for your support and love. Makes my heart glow.  Jane

@johnlock-rocks

#Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #sherlockholmes #sherlock loves john #john watson #johnwatson #johnlock #Johnlock fanfic #sherlock fanfic #John loves Sherlock

[benedictscanvas]

all the wrong places  [4/7] - spencer reid x reader

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Summary: It only takes a moment for Spencer to realise that he doesn’t just want to marry you someday, he wants to marry you as soon as he possibly can. But since he can’t come up with a solid plan, he turns to his BAU family for help in planning the most important day of his life so far. Is that a mistake? Most definitely.

Warnings: Series probably aren’t meant to be exclusively fluffy, but this one practically is! I need some fluff in my life, damn it! There may be some mention of regular Criminal Minds things, some language but mostly just good ol’ Spence lovin’

a chapter every day for seven days! (20-26th July 2020) so please drop an ask if you’d like to be tagged <3

---

Chapter Four - Could We Confer?

It seemed that this had become a game to everyone except himself, like they’d forgotten that the whole point of this was that he wanted to ask you to marry him and that was a pretty serious endeavour.

Everyone in the BAU had become aware of his plans, because there was no way Garcia and Morgan could keep the Bruno Mars story to themselves. In fairness, Spencer couldn’t wait to tell you the story once he’d finally popped the question. Morgan had told Rossi, who thought it was hilarious and did nothing to hide that, whilst Rossi himself told Hotch. Even Hotch laughed. He hadn’t come up to Spencer to tease him about it like so many of the others, but there had been a few particular looks.

Now, at Rossi’s house for a dinner that you weren’t able to come to, it was the favoured topic of conversation.

“Y/N having a girls’ night with her school friends is actually perfect,” Derek said mischievously, raising his eyebrows at Spencer, “Because now we can decide who gets to help Spencer with his proposal next.”

“Yes!” Garcia clapped her hands, “Three people down, three to go. We should take bets.”

“I’ll go next,” Emily chimed in, “I’ve got an idea that I really think could work. If you’re placing bets, you better place them on me.”

Spencer gawked at them all.

“Guys,” he said, just as Penelope got her phone out to write down everyone’s bets, “Come on. This is ridiculous. I don’t want any more help.”

“Have you got a plan, pretty boy?”

He stumbled over his words. He had already said no without even having to say the word.

“And do you want to propose to Y/N in this decade?”

He didn’t bother trying to answer this time. There was no point. But Emily had thrown something at Derek and was turning to him instead.

“Don’t listen to him, Reid,” she said kindly, “Think about it. You’ve got me, Rossi and Hotch left to ‘give you advice’. Isn’t that a little reassuring? You’ve got all the idiots out of the way.”

She looked directly at Derek when she said idiots and he scoffed, holding a hand to his heart in mock offence. Rossi was already shaking his head, however.

“Reid does not need advice from a three time divorcee,” he asserted firmly, “No way.”

“I’m not getting involved either,” Hotch said blankly, holding his hands up in surrender. Spencer smiled at them both gratefully.

“Just me then,” Emily said excitedly, pushing forward on the couch until she was sat on the very edge of it, directly facing Spencer, “You want to hear it?”

He knew his options. Or, rather, his lack thereof. She took his silence as permission to continue.

“Picture the scene,” she said dreamily, a hand held out in front of her, “Fairy lights adorn the conference room. There’s candles on the table-”

“Fire hazard.”

“Let me finish! Candles on the table, with all the normal lights turned off and its dark outside because its after work, see? Then we get Y/N to go out to get something for Hotch from his car, because she’s too kind not to, then when she comes back, we’re all holding candles!”

“Emily…”

“I said, let me fucking finish. We’re all holding candles and then she walks past all of us and we give her a rose each, so by the time she gets to Spencer in the conference room-”

“You got this from The Office, didn’t you?”

“No!” Emily said indignantly, “I got it from a video on Youtube of cute proposal ideas, how dare you?”

Spencer let out a lengthy sigh, as did a few of the others.

“So your idea isn’t even your own?” Derek tsked, “Way to let the side down, Prentiss.”

“Oh yeah? And what about your idea, huh? Your idea ended up with him down on one knee with Y/N thinking he was tying his laces!”

“At least I didn’t send a flash mob to Quantico.”

“Well, at least I knew that Y/N can’t stand fancy restaurants like the one JJ sent him to.”

“Hey! Let’s go back to the literal flash mob, shall we?”

And so it continued. A four way argument where absolutely no one was winning, but the other three men were quickly gaining new headaches. It wasn’t as if Spencer knew how to stop this argument. The only thing he could think to tell them was that all their ideas were shit, but somehow he didn’t think that would defuse anything adequately.

“You know what we should do?” Dave suddenly said, loudly and firmly enough that the bickering ceased instantaneously, “We should show Y/N the video of that proposal and see what she thinks.”

“But that’d clue Y/N in on the fact that Spence was going to propose, wouldn’t it?”

“And he wouldn’t be able to use the idea anymore!”

“Just to be absolutely clear,” Spencer said, even though it had become clear his opinion was neither wanted nor needed in the conversation of how to propose to you, “I was never going to use the idea anyway.”

Emily glared at him but he just shrugged. He really didn’t think he was the one being unreasonable here.

“At least we’ll know how good Prentiss’ idea was?” Dave suggested.

“I could do it,” Hotch piped up for the first time in a while, having been watching his team’s antics with fond disapproval, “I could suggest that I was going to propose to Beth, what did she think of this idea?”

“I thought you and Beth broke up?” Penelope stage whispered and Hotch rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly.

“We did, but I haven’t told everyone that yet, Penelope,” he said pointedly and she put a hand over her mouth as she sank further into her seat, Derek putting a comforting arm around her, “Before any of you say a word, she was given a job offer in Hong Kong, it was mutual, I am fine.”

Surprisingly, he actually did seem reasonably fine, so no one had the guts to push the subject, at least for the night. Instead, Emily started taking bets on whether Hotch’s plan would work, on what your response to the proposal would be, on every random thing she could think of. She was very good at swindling the tipsier members of the team out of their money.

Spencer sat back and sipped his lemonade. He found comfort in the fact that their plan had nothing to do with him this time, and he could focus on finding the perfect proposal without worrying about their incessant meddling.

For a day, at least.

---

For a group of profilers, they were not the most subtle people on the planet. Hotch was playing his role perfectly, by simply not acting any different to usual, but the others were being...weird. Maybe it was just because Spencer knew what they were planning, knew how much money each of them had riding on your answer, but they all seemed to be treating you with some extra kindness in the thirty minutes before wheels up.

As if being nice to you would help you choose the option that would benefit them in a made-up test that, as of now, you had no fucking clue about.

You’d been called in dreadfully early for a case and were on the jet by five thirty in the morning, but still Morgan had already made you a coffee and both JJ and Penelope had commented on how nice you looked that day. You were wearing your worst shirt. You knew, because Penelope had previously told you that it was your worst shirt.

“What is with everyone today?” you asked Spencer after the jet briefing, sat next to him at one of the table seats. He didn’t look up from the file he was reading.

“I have no idea,” he said easily, “I find it best to just ignore them when they’re being weird. Getting involved never does me any good.”

“Wise words from my genius boyfriend,” you teased, earning a small smile even though he still wouldn’t look at you. The smile wasn’t just from the compliment though, because nowadays he tended to smile every time you referred to him as your boyfriend, if only because he was imagining how it would feel to hear you refer to him as your fiance - as your husband. The thought made him giddy.

You had to say yes first, of course. Didn’t stop him thinking about it.

“I am very wise,” he hummed. You didn’t reply, choosing instead to cuddle a little closer to him, resting your head just beneath his chin so he could rest his weight on it. He tilted to rest his cheek on top of your head for just a moment before returning to the previous position, “Your hair is so soft, angel.”

“Thank you, hun,” you murmured, closing your eyes for a moment. Unfortunately, that was just the moment that JJ nudged Hotch with a force that sprung him into action.

“Actually, Y/L/N, I’ve been meaning to ask your opinion on something, if you don’t mind?” Hotch said quietly, seeing as you had your eyes closed. You opened them readily at the question, only slightly annoyed at your quiet Spence time being disturbed.

“Oh, ‘course Hotch. What did you need?”

“Well I’ve asked everyone else I think, but I wanted your opinion too,” he said slowly, as he scrolled through his phone to find something. You didn’t move from your position leaning against Spencer, even if you normally would when talking to your boss, but since it was five thirty in the morning and you should still be cuddled up with Spence in your bed, you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

“Okay…”

“I’m thinking about, well,” he hesitated a little, “Proposing to Beth. Sometime. Soon.”

“Oh wow!” you said happily, finally sitting up in your chair, much to Spencer’s dismay. You made sure to control your reaction, seeing as you knew Hotch wouldn’t want the fuss, “That’s amazing, Hotch. I’m really happy for you.” “Thank you,” he said sincerely, “What do you think of this? For the proposal?”

And with that, he shoved the phone towards you and pressed play. The entire team waited with baited breath as you watched. Spencer too, even if he was still pretending to be busy with that file he’d finished reading so long ago. You didn’t say anything while you watched, brows furrowed, facial expressions giving nothing away.

The video finished. You leaned back into your chair. Silence.

“So? Thoughts?” Hotch prompted, because apparently he was invested now too. Spencer didn’t remember him betting on anything, but nothing would surprise him at this point.

“Honestly, Hotch? Not my favourite. It feels a little contrived, you know?”

“Right, okay.”

“I hope I’m not overstepping, sir,” you said seriously, “But also, it’s not very you. Most important part of any proposal? The fact that you’re the one who’s proposing to her. The fact that she’s the one you wants to marry. Nothing else matters that much.”

“So just to be abundantly clear,” Hotch said, pushing it now, “You do not think this is a good idea.”

You frowned.

“Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, I just think a proposal should be about how much you love each other rather than all the extra bits. But that’s only my opin-”

“Bullshit!” 

Emily was the one who shouted it, top of her voice, startling Spencer so much that a couple of the notes in his file fell to the floor. He didn’t bother picking them up, too busy staring at Emily in horrified shock. Everyone else was doing the same.

“I’m sorry Em, my opinion doesn’t even matter, really, it’s all down to what Hotch thinks.”

Emily was quiet, clearly realising the stupidity of what she’d just done, too wrapped up in how much money she had just lost to Derek in the corner with the shit-eating grin. She stood from her chair, trying to keep her resolve and not die of embarrassment.

“It’s just bullshit,” she said, so quietly they could hardly hear her, before scurrying off to the coffee machine without another word. Everyone stared after her with wide eyes, and the guilt on your face was palpable.

“I really am sorry, Hotch,” you whispered across the table, “I’d never want to lie to you, that’s all.”

“Don’t be, I’m glad you told me. I was pretty against the idea anyway, but it was Emily who showed me the video in the first place.”

You nodded your head in understanding, still sparing glances towards the curtain Emily was now behind. You turned to Spencer, who had finally picked his notes up from the floor and was back to his file, albeit with a new heat creeping up the back of his neck.

“You think I should go apologise? I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You have nothing to apologise for, Y/N,” he said firmly, putting his arm around you when you still didn’t look convinced, “It’s early and Emily’s cranky. She’ll have a coffee and calm down before you know it. See if you can get an hour’s rest before we land.”

You nodded, curling yourself back into Spencer’s chest, bringing your feet up on the seat. When he looked down at your closed eyes, he knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep worrying about Emily being mad at you, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He just pulled you closer.

When he caught eyes with Derek, he sent him a strong glare as Derek held his hands up in surrender.

I’m going to murder you all, Spencer mouthed at him with great precision, watching as Derek bit his lip in response.

You love us really, he mouthed back jokingly, but Spencer’s glare only narrowed as he felt you cuddle in closer. He pressed a kiss to the crown of your head and looked back at Derek, noticing that most eyes on the jet were on him now, most looking rather apologetic. He looked each of them in the eye as he mouthed at them:

I’m going to murder you all...very slowly.

---

taglist (ily all <3)

@mrs-dr-reid @soda610 @alexxcorona113 @thupidalethea @may-beforejune-afterapril @ilovesupersoldiers @hurricanejjareau @stardream14 @mortallythoughtfulgurl @aperrywilliams @saranyx @anotherspencerreidblog @thegayestdestielshipper @burkgolden @reidsmyhusband-emilysmymistress @zozoleesi @baumindss @sargent-barnes​ @halseysunset​

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer x reader #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fluff

[scoupsy-remade]

For this gif tutorial I’m going to try to keep it as basic as possible, I may add a few tips for coloring at the end, but for the most part this is going to be how I make my basic gif. Also I’m not going to use my vapoursynth to process the video beforehand, just because I know not everyone uses it and it’s harder to learn. This is going to be just a downloaded mp4 video through the gif process. Don’t let the idea that this is a BASIC TUTORIAL fool you, I’m going to try to teach you a lot of things. It’s gonna get wordy, but i will try my hardest to keep the process easy. I’m just going to explain what things do instead of having you just copy + paste my method and not know what it means. okay? okay.

Before we start though, if you plan of giffing live stages you either need to accept the they will not be super crisp and clear OR learn how to use avisynth/vapoursynth to resize the videos without quality loss.

If you just want to gif music videos or variety shows then this should still give you HQ gifs.

Other notes:

try to ONLY use 1080p and up video if possible, maybe 720p if you’re really desperate, but anything under that... it’s not going to look good at all, so try to avoid using them.

The Photoshop I am using is PS 2020, so all my screenshots will be from that version and with my weird set up. But I’ve been using pretty much the same method since cc 2015 so other than the fact that some placements and names are tweaked, it’s the same. (If you can’t find something on your version shoot me an ask and I’ll try to help! And asks I get on this tutorial I’ll link HERE for future reference) 

CUTTING VIDEO

To cut videos I’ll just use my quicktime player.

I use edit > trim to select the portion of the video I plan to gif and save that as it’s own new mov file.

which pops up this tab 

that you just slide until the part you want to gif is selected

then just save it as a new video and your done with part 1

ENTER PHOTOSHOP

Now what we’ll do is open our photoshop and import that clip into layers

FILE > IMPORT > VIDEO FRAMES TO LAYERS and select your video.

A small pop up will appear to show the clip you’re opening, you can trim it further here or just keep going by clicking okay

my setup is weird for drawing BUT you should have it looking remotely like this: 

The things you will DEFINITELY need to see are TIMELINE, LAYERS, ADJUSTMENTS. If you don’t have these sections you can add them to your screen by clicking on the WINDOW tab at the very top menu bar and clicking on them

LAYERS - this is pretty self explanatory but each row is a layer in the gif. the more layers the bigger the gif will end up, the longer it plays. So bigger clips will have more layers and end up as larger gifs in the end.

TIMELINE - This is where you can edit the gifs timing (make it faster or slower) 

We’ll be doing a bit of work with it so it’s important to know it well

ADJUSTMENTS - Best friend and worst nightmare. this is where ALL the tedious recoloring is done. VERY rarely would you not use these. 99.9% of kpop things are filmed through a green or blue lense so you’ll want to fix that to not have ghost idols

So, Let’s make a gif

Step 1 - In the top right corner of your timeline is a set of lines, click there and then click SELECT ALL FRAMES

under each frame is a time stamp (this video’s is 0.04) this decides how fast each clip goes by, or how quickly the gif moves. Personally I prefer slower gifs, but I say anywhere between 0.04-0.06 is a decent speed.

Step 2 - with all the frames selected, click on the small down arrow next to any of the frames and change the speed to your liking. (I’m going to use .06)

Step 3 - in that same tab of lines we’ll now click CONVERT TO VIDEO TIMELINE, which will change our Timeline to look like this:

Step 4 - Back in our very TOP menu we’ll click SELECT > ALL LAYERS, then on the TOP menu click FILTER > CONVERT FOR SMART FILTERS (this might take your computer a minute since our File is still pretty large.) Now our Time line will look like this: 

Step 5 - Sharpening

This one is VERY MUCH something you’re going to have to play with to get your settings to be how you like them. It’s also where I’d use topaz adjustments, BUT since I said we’re doing basic PS gif we’re just going to be using smart sharpening. SO: 

 in the TOP munu again, click FILTER > SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN

A pop up window will appear and you can edit the settings to your liking. Mine:

Step 6 - Resize your gif or crop it to tumblrs standards:  big singal gifs have a 540px width ||  Two gifs use 268px || and three gifs use 177/178px

To do this we’ll use the crop tool and type in our dimensions in the menu bar:

and then crop to your liking. (this doesnt resize the gif it just crops to the correct ratio so we still have to shrink the gif) 

Next, we’ll resize the gif to that size in the TOP menu click IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE a pop up menu will appear and you’ll type in your resize ratio and click enter.

Now technically thats a gif. it’s TECHNICALLY done. but mine is white washed and there are words on it that I dont want so onto the coloring and blurring. 

First I’m going to show you how I blur text on gifs. because text is EVERYWHERE in kpop content and it’s hideous and I hate it. so lets kill it.

BLURRING LETTERING

First we’re going to add a new blank layer to our LAYER TAB by clicking the little box with the + inside at the bottom

Sometimes doing this can mess up the timeline’s selection but its SUPER easy to fix so lets do that. 

So in our timeline we have these two bars on each side that select what part of the gif will play. this is also where you can readjust your gif if it has extra frames at the end, or it ends up being too large and you have to make the gif smaller to save it. Just click and drag the bars back to where our gif actually ends, and all is fixed!

Now on our new layer we’re gonna take a paint brush (one of the ones with a lot of fade NOT the solid circle ) and paint over where the words are like so:

MAKE SURE ITS ON OUR BLANK LAYER AND NOT THE GIF LAYER!!

I know it looks stupid but trust me okay. 

Now in your LAYER tab we’re going to duplicate our gif layer by right clicking on it and selecting duplicate. 

Then we’re going to drag the new gif layer so that it’s above the paint layer in our LAYER tab :

Now, right click on the top gif layer and select CREATE CLIPPING MASK. it should put a little down arrow to the left of the picture, toward the paint layer. This means the gif is ONLY visible where that paint is now.

So we’re going to click on FILTER in the TOP menu again (while we still have that top gif selected!) and Go to BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR. a pop up menu will appear and you can just drag the radius until the text is as blurry as you want it to be. (also IF you missed part of the text, you can just go add more paint to your paint layer and it will blur wherever you paint!) 

so now my gif is like so:

So now we’ll color him, because he’s pretty washed out.

ADJUSTMENTS

This is where I’m going to be the least specific about what I do and more about what tools do, so that you can learn how to color things the way you like them!

The Adjustment tab on Photoshop has 16 options but I’m really only going to talk about 6 of them. We’ll do it in order though. All the actual adjustment tools will open in the PROPERTIES tab

Brightness / Contrast  - Pretty self explanatory, but definitely should be toward the end of your coloring, as if can effect the quality a lot. Small adjustments do A LOT so don’t go crazy, 

Levels - Levels is all about the balance of how dar or light your gifs will be if you adjust in the RGB layer it will adjust for the entire image, but if you change the selection to RED/GREEN/BLUE it will adjust just those colors hues. Also there are three small droppers to the left of the graph. using those you can select which part of the gif you want the image to recognize as the lightest/darkest part of the gif, and the tool will adjust the gifs coloring to that point. ( play with those droppers! magic happens i swear!) 

Curves - Kind of like levels but instead of how light or dark the entire image is it works more on contrast. REALLY play with the curves options, i’m sure most things you can do with other tools can also just be done in curves if you’re patient enough to learn

Vibrance / Saturation -  Vibrance will make duller parts of an image higher contract and brighter and saturation will make everything a more neon shade. or in reverse lowering vibrance will dull out the things that were already neutral and saturation will dull out the more vibrant parts of the image (usually reds)

Color Balance - Good for fixing tones. so if a live stage is SUPER BLUE!!!!! you can readjust and calm down the blues to dull them out or get rid of them completely. Again play with this its insane what it can do 

Selective Color - adjusts the different colors in your image without touching the other colors. if you wanna touch the reds, make them pinker but not change the blues and greens, you do it here

If you want MORE drawn out explanations of what each of the 16 adjustment layers do here and here are actual articles you can look at.  But it’s all about practice. playing with all the adjustments alone and together. Finding out what you like to do!

Now when you gif is ALLLLL colored and you’re ready to save it we do FILE > EXPORT > SAVE FOR THE WEB and a whole new window of options pops up. I’ll give you two examples of how to play with those options and then we’re done! 

keep in MIND tumblr’s gif limit is 10MB which is pretty huge now, but still watch your gif size!!!!

AND SAVE your done!

I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions,again I’ll have an ask tag for it and it’ll get linked HERE if people end up needing help!

Happy giffing!!!

#drm.pst #drm.txt #Gif tutorial #this is LONG okay please be aware of that before you open it #als i did NOT reread it because it took me 3 hours to type out so it's probably a grammatic nightmare #BUT i'm JUST under a new milestone so i'm gifting this early because i had the patience to do it today lmao

[buzzdixonwriter]

COMPARE & CONTRAST: Birth Of A Nation vs Gone With The Wind vs The General

TRIGGER WARNING:   Talking about race in American culture and movies, so some readers may want to brace themselves (looking at you, wypipo).

. . .

Confining “classic films” to movies that: Demonstrate technical expertise, and Influenced other films and creators

-- we have three (and only three) movies about the American Civil War we can safely put in the classic bin.

Before we go further, let’s restate the obvious: A film’s impact in the medium of motion pictures is separate from its impact on the culture as a whole.

Case in point: Leni Riefenstahl’s The Triumph Of The Will is a perfect textbook example of how to stage massive crowd scenes for maximum visual impact, and how to promote individuals and ideas in purely cinematic terms.

It also contributed mightily to the Nazis’ rise to power, their subsequent wars of conquest, and the deaths directly and indirectly of tens of millions of human beings.

It’s important to know The Triumph Of The Will exists and why it’s important in film and cultural and political history, but you need never subject yourself to its vile hate mongering.

With that in mind, let us proceed.

. . . 

Here are the three bona fide classic movies about the American Civil War:

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

Gone With The Wind (1939) 

The General (1926)

They are all problematic for the same reason: They embrace the “lost cause” myth of Southern white supremacists.

The Birth Of A Nation is by far the worst offender of the trio, helping to restart the Ku Klux Klan and promulgate jim crow for decades to come.

Director D.W. Griffith was a Southern boy, Kentucky born with a father who served as a colonel in the Confederate army (Kentucky, a border slave state, tried to stay neutral at the beginning of the Civil War, then leaned heavily towards secession, but by 1862 threw its lot in with the Union).

Griffith bought into the lost cause myth heavily, and The Birth Of A Nation explicitly states African-Americans are fit only for slavery, becoming a murderous / rapacious mob once freed, and the Ku Klux Klan were gallant heroes attempting to turn this tide.

Griffith tries to have it both ways, depicting Abraham Lincoln as a thoughtful and compassionate leader who would have treated the South better had he survived (ignoring the fact Andrew Johnson did everything in his power to prevent the Union from holding the South accountable, and that Lincoln’s assassin was a Southerner who killed him in revenge after the war ended).

There can be no denying Griffith’s enormous talents as a film maker (again, separating thematic content from the technical expertise).  While the Hollywood publicity machine was quick to claim The Birth Of A Nation was the first feature length film (i.e., 65 minutes or more), the truth is the Australians, the Chinese, the English, the French, the Italians, the Japanese, and the Russians all made feature films long before Griffith, and Griffith wasn’t even the first American to make a feature but was preceded by at least a half a dozen other film makers.

What Griffith was, however, was a master synthesis of all the techniques that preceded him.  Griffith made movies better than anyone else of his era, and his best films are still eminently watchable to this day.

That’s what makes The Birth Of A Nation so harmful and destructive:  Like the Riefenstahl film, it seduced common audiences into complacency while stirring the worst people to action.

It’s a film whose final cost is not measured in dollars but in innocent blood and tears.

Griffith wasn’t stupid, and while he might have felt personally immune to the criticism of his racist attitudes, he was savvy enough to recognize publicly embracing them would not serve his career well.  He followed The Birth Of A Nation with Intolerance, an epic that jumps around in its story lines like a Tarantino film, and in later movies displayed a far gentler albeit still patronizing attitude towards African-Americans.

But the damage was done, the lost cause myth cemented into not just the Southern psyche but white America in general.

Like The Triumph Of The Will, I would never recommend The Birth Of A Nation as a “must see” film to anyone.  If you’re a film historian and you want to subject yourself to this cancer, that’s your choice, but if you’re a student of film there’s nothing Griffith did technically or artistically in this movie that he didn’t do better in his later efforts, and other film makers have since emulated his innovations and built upon them.

. . . 

For many decades Gone With The Wind was celebrated as the pinnacle of American film making, but once the romantic blinders were removed we see it for what it is:  An over long, over blown epic that promulgates what we now recognize as white supremacy, classism, and rape culture.

And while it uses every technical trick in the book, it doesn’t use them as well as Orson Welles did a year later with Citizen Kane.

Gone With The Wind is really two movies:  A well made Civil War epic and its lackluster Reconstruction sequel.

They should have ended the movie with “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!”  (Seriously.  The only two memorable scenes in the second half other than “I don’t give a damn” both center around Scarlett O’Hara’s dresses.)

Again, let’s emphasize that a technically well made movie does not excuse bad intentions in thematic content.

Gone With The Wind is a rip-roaring bodice-ripping historical novel, admittedly well research and well written by Margaret Mitchell.

She isn’t necessarily writing from a conscious desire to spread the message of white supremacy, but as a Southern gal who grew up in the midst of the lost cause myth, she ends up breathing that message into every line of the book.

The movie version can’t escape that, nor does it try to.  There’s a brief scene early on where both Mitchell and the later film makers prefigure the lost cause myth where Rhett Butler explains to the good ol’ boys at the Tara cotillion that they’re about to be brutally decimated by the Union in a war of attrition, but both author and film makers side with the good ol’ boys and support their God given right to throw away their lives and destroy their homes in an attempt to keep enslaving millions of innocent people.

That last part in bold never gets mentioned, does it?  As others have observed, Gone With The Wind isn’t antagonistic towards African-Americans, rather it treats them as if they don’t exist other that walking / talking props among the scenery.

In that regard, Gone With The Wind is on par with The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged (only with a far superior writing style).  The protagonists of all three books are narcissistic sociopaths who will lie / cheat / steal / blow up buildings because the common folk -- the people who actually put in the grunt labor to make things work -- are nothing but slaves there for the elites’ entitlements, and God (or market forces, take your pick) help them if they ever raise their heads or voices -- much less their hands -- in protest.

Oh, but doesn’t it look gorgeous?  As those beautiful rich Technicolor gowns and sets and matte paintings.  All those balls and dances.  All those smoldering looks.  All those flames as Atlanta burns…

There’s the true hero of the story:  William Tecumseh Sherman.  The mofo cut the Confederacy in half, destroying lines of supply and communication, obliterating any rebels who dared to stand up to him, shortening the war by several months, and freeing tens of thousands of enslaved people in the process.

None of which would have been necessary if a few greedy bastards such as the O’Haras had lived Christian enough lives to say, “Y’know, maybe the way we’re treating these people is wrong…”

Gone With The Wind proved insanely popular, on a scale with The Birth Of A Nation a generation earlier, and once again it made it easier for mainstream middle American whites to turn a blind eye to injustices still being perpetuated on African-Americans of that day.  

And it kept playing again and again, one of the very few non-Disney movies to enjoy a substantial re-release schedule, popping up about once every seven years in theaters until the arrival of first cable then VHS.

And it’s still popular, still a steady seller in DVD and BluRay.

That’s in no small part to the skill of both Mitchell and the film makers in hiding the most egregiously problematic elements of the story under a think patina of romanticism.  It became a cultural touchstone that everyone knew and everyone could reference, from political cartoons to Carol Burnett skits.

But it’s still racist and white supremacist, saying African-Americans exist only to serve whites.

It’s still classist, saying not all whites are worthy of what the upper class hogs for itself.

It’s still about rape culture, saying all Scarlett needed was one good rape by Rhett Butler to set her straight.

Is it a product of its era?

Absolutely. The same way over the counter heroin at your friendly neighborhood drug store was a product of its era.  The same way cocaine laced Coca-Cola was a product of its era.

Just because it wasn’t recognized as a bad idea then means we should still circulate it now.

Compared to The Birth Of A Nation, Gone With The Wind is a far less hate filled work, and one that inspires less immediate harm.

It has inspired harm over several generations by making it easy to overlook the real harm it represents in favor of a romantic antebellum fantasy.

If someone wants to see a film that represents the Hollywood studio system at the height of its creative power, I’d recommend Casablanca or The Wizard Of Oz.

I’d put Gone With The Wind way down on that list, and I’d caution it with caveats, but I would say it represents a good example of the old Hollywood system firing on all eight cylinders.

At least for the first half of the film.

. . . 

In most ways, Buster Keaton’s The General is the least problematic of these three films.

In another, it’s as bad as Gone With The Wind.

The good thing about The General is that modern audiences can easily enjoy it.

Buster Keaton chasing after a stolen steam locomotive?  What’s not to love?

It’s one of his best comedies and if it’s not the very best, I’d hate to live on the difference.

It certainly lacks the overt racism of The Birth Of A Nation. 

In fact, it almost lacks any race at all.

And ironically, that’s what makes it a problem.

In researching this post, I re-watched The General, something I wasn’t willing to do for The Birth Of A Nation or Gone With The Wind.

I re-watched it looking for African-American faces anywhere in the film.

I think I found four.

Two porters lugging a trunk in an early scene at a train station, possibly two small children with their backs turned to the camera at the edge of a crowd about ten minutes later.

That’s it.

In a movie about one of the most crucial events in American history, an event entirely predicated on the issue of the enslavement of millions of African-Americans…that’s it.

Four faces.

Total screen time: Less than a minute.

If critics can justifiably lambast Gone With The Wind for sailing over the bloodied backs of millions of enslaved African-Americans to focus on the luxury liner S.S. Scarlett O’Hara, what can they say about a Civil War movie that almost succeeds in eradicating those enslaved humans from the story?

Paradoxically, this makes The General the safest of these movies to show an unsuspecting audience.

The Civil War is boiled down to the dark uniform army fighting the light uniform army; why they were fighting is never explored in detail.

But the lost cause myth was so prevalent at that point that Keaton and company didn’t need to discuss the causes of the war.

Audiences – even those completely ignorant of U.S. history -- automatically assume the light uniform army are the good guys simply because Buster is on their side.

Buster would never do anything bad, would he?

Of course not!

And so -- =poof!= -- millions of people erased from history.

Top that, Thanos.

To be honest, I don’t know how a modern audience should react to that, in particular an African-American audience.

Disappointment at being culturally short changed again?

Relief at being spared the most egregious stereotyping and white supremacy apologies?

Or just plain enjoy Buster chasing after a stolen locomotive?

The General’s cultural weightlessness helps it become a great film.

It’s a purely cinematic endeavor, with the intertitles used primarily to explain the spies’ and military leaders’ plans and motives, not tell us what Buster is thinking and doing.

For a guy called “the great stone face” Buster could be awfully expressive with his body language, and he needs title cards the least of all the performers in this movie

. . .

So where does that leave us, as a 21st century audience in a 21st century culture?

We can neither deny nor ignore the impact of these three films.  Even The Birth Of A Nation, as vile and as hateful as it is, influenced the country and the countries attitudes for a century.

Gone With The Wind feels like something we’ve outgrown, something some audience members can look back on with fondness, but not anything we can fully embrace again.

The General can still make us laugh, and in this case the sin of omission seems far less than the others’ sins of commission.

Learn from the past.

Do better in the future.

    © Buzz Dixon

#race relations #movies #art #cinema #morals #ethics #politics #Birth Of A Nation #Gone With The Wind #The General #DW Griffith #Buster Keaton

[jae-canikeepyou]

| serenity in us | j.jh | ch. one

word count: 2.9k+ ( putting this now yay :3 )

a/n: hey hi hello~ i’m back with another series! i was gonna wait until my semester’s done but my patience’s killing me and i don’t wanna keep you all waiting so here you go! ♡ enjoy! ~j

“serenity is found somewhere between the sky and the sand.” you read the font words on the minimalist frame. it was a quote you heard in an ongoing, constant dream that you thought was needed to be drawn and remembered. in it, the quote was a voice as if a narrator spoke those words to begin something new. the scenery you ask? every place was different but there was always a horizon. the dream was vague and raised a lot of question marks in your mind the moment you wake up.

you hung the item on the wall, marking the end of unpacking your things since moving in days ago. the mess was finally cleared out and the boxes were emptied and folded briefly, lined on one side of the wall. you slouched low in exhaustion, sliding your home slippers across the white marbled floor. it was squeaking even, that only explained how much of a neat freak you were. a new apartment, simple furniture and man oh man, you have an automatic vacuum with a sensor that you didn’t have to worry about the dirt at the annoying, impossible corners.

independence was something you were blessed with despite being an orphan as early as two. uncle caleb; a friend of your father’s and aunt jenn; your mother’s half-sister, gladly took you in as their own.

honestly the mention of your beloved felt like they were still alive and just working abroad, because they were always reminded and talked about from your uncle and aunt. you had a striking resemblance with your mother, but the ways were your father’s. ‘a perfect combination of the two’, was how they described the child they never wanted to leave behind.

the door bell rang and the small screen showed your childhood— and best friend, eunha. she waved at the super tiny camera and had some flowers and bento boxes with her, all packed and nicely decorated. you pressed the button for her to enter. whilst you waited, you played an hour long track list of soothing, chill, instrumental songs to make the apartment a little noisy. one thing’s for sure, silent cleaning was not a good habit since you tend to procrastinate, oops. 

eunha greeted you a hug so tight, placing down the things she brought with her. “y/n! i’m so glad we’re living so close to each other!” she hugged you and fanned herself as if that would stop her eyes from welling. “how’s everything with you? you should’ve called me honey! you know i’ll be coming straight away to help! i have a hotline like the powerpuff girls has.” she winked.

“i’m great! i crossed out the things i completed and now free from the stress. i’m ready for the new semester.” you gestured her to sit, inviting her for the meal you prepared. “well i am the bubbles to your blossom~ but it’s really okay! i managed and here we are talking freely without stressing over things.”

her hands held yours and swung them with excitement. “after we eat, do you want me to bring you around town? there’s a vinyl record store i think you’ll like.” her voice beaming as she singsonged, chewing on the pancake with whipped cream and blueberries.

“it’s still 9 a.m. we have loads of time in the world.” you showed your watch.

the leaves began to fall and you twirled around the sidewalk’s lamppost. eunha took pictures of you, happiness written on your face. you both entered the said shop. records displayed and hung on the wall, posters of legendary artists and worldwide singers encouraging customers to come in.

your hands trailed along the shelf that had new and limited turntables. as much as you were itching to pull out your wallet, there were other important things you needed to worry about and independence meant discipline too. your fingers curled and hesitated, just inches left before you could touch the surface of the one thing you’ve always wanted to purchase.

eunha giggled at your whiney, surrendered self. your back turning away from the product and walking towards her. “y/n.” she called your name, but this certain tone was serious and was more of a reminder.

“i know.” you smiled as you wiggled your phone with the ever precious wallpaper of yours.

“oh! your aunt’s calling you.” she hopped and pointed at the device, making you sliding fingers on the screen a second later. she gestured that she’d head out and wait for you.

“hi aunt jenn.” you greeted on the phone, only to extend your arm slightly at the baby’s cry on the other line. “aw he’s crying again?”

“yes y/n. i’ll be heading to work soon. can you come here?” she chuckled, though it was obvious she had the baby in her arms.

you exited the store and pulled eunha, crossing the pedestrian. “alright, i’ll be on my way.”

the office was dead silent and not one soul dared to speak. three figures stood in front of the angered woman; their continuous fiddles of the fingers and tapping of the toes became faster as they tried to come up with a reason to tell. just one. only the ticking of the clock on the table was heard. it was getting harder and harder to breathe even in a hundred square meter room.

“where is he?!” she yelled. the three flinched and were taken aback, hands either behind them or wrapped around an arm. the door then flung opened, revealing the said guy.

“young man, how can you be so inconsiderate?!” the woman asked again, this time it was in an annoying range of decibel that the listeners had to endure the volume. 

jaehyun brushed past the ‘meeting’ and sat in one of the leather chairs. his legs rested on the centered table, obviously not bothering to listen. “so, being a minute late concludes my actions in general?” he chuckled bitterly, spinning the chair around before standing up again.

“i couldn’t care less,” he now glared at the woman. “about this damn meeting. what is it for, anyway?! wasting my time!”

he left the room and the woman rubbed her temples, swinging her palms to tell the rest of the three to follow the young man. “jaehyun.” yunho called his brother, reaching a hand out to grab him, successfully turning the lad around.

“what?” jaehyun snapped, removing the grip onto his body.

krystal rolled her eyes, the pungent smell entering her nostrils. “you reek, jae.”

“you went drinking again, didn’t you? i could smell the moment you came into the office.” yunho asked, pressing the button of the lift to head down.

“when will you learn, honestly?” jessica fixed her bag on her arm. “grow up.”

jaehyun clapped his hands, applauding the expected words that woman instructed his siblings to do. “me? learn? i already did. i just won’t follow orders from that silver digger.”

“gold*.” they corrected him.

“see you’re still drunk.” krystal meddled with her new manicure, earning a nudge from jessica.

“whatever, noona. you get my point either way.” jaehyun fished out his car keys to toss them up high, whistling his heart out at his favourite tune.

they exited the building and got on the car. he dropped off his sisters at the blanc and eclare flagship headquarters, then drove to a nearby restaurant for lunch with yunho. they entered the place and went to the reserved table. jaehyun sat and loosened the buttons of his polo, removing the neck tie and sat back.

yunho stared at his carefree little brother, he put the menu down so he could maybe give him a little serious talk. he understood why jaehyun acted the way he did earlier. even he himself could do the same but given the circumstances of his standing in the family, of course he’d be the mature one. he was the first child anyway.

“got anything you want?” yunho asked, removing his sunglasses then placing them in its case. “i’ll pay.”

“nah, let me pay for my own meal, hyung.” he flashed a small smile. “i got my pay check.”

“so you still do have a heart.” yunho jokingly stated the overseen fact.

“c’mon you’re smarter than that doctor jung.” jaehyun said the occupation title in a childlike tone. “you should know why i’m filled with hatred towards the woman.”

“hatred is such a strong word, offensive even. but seriously jae, how long are you going to keep up with this behavior? the next thing you know it, you’re out of the penthouse.”

yunho raised his hands to order. the young lad didn’t dare to answer and he sighed at the usual unresponsive manner whenever they hit this certain topic. “look i know for the longest time she treated us like how captain george von trapp did to his kids. i get it. you hated how she uses out-of-the-world discipline and i totally understand that-”

jaehyun scoffed, disbelief clearly written on his face. “i was six when she entered our lives. a kid that age couldn’t handle being shoved around just because he thought there was no difference between boxers and pajama shorts. the sound of music is cool reference by the way.”

“you did have confused mind back then. and what else can i compare it with? she probably took the idea from there.” yunho laughed as he handed the utensils and handkerchief. “but still though, i suggest you man up and act like you do with dad. just be yourself.”

“easier said than done.” jaehyun began slicing his steak and popping one bit into his mouth.

“what makes you so stone cold towards her anyway?” he asked, fixing the handkerchief by his lap.

“simple.” jaehyun stated the obvious even if he knew that yunho knew the answer.

“she’s not mom.”

eunha brought you to the restaurant that opened not long ago. the interior was eye-catching yet even with its simplicity, it was able to attract customers from outside. the smell of dishes that were yet to be served was luring and probably the reason why eunha chose the place. the waiters led you to the a table and soon came back with a baby chair. you placed the little un in it and he smiled with pearls trying to peek out.

you fixed the bib around him and booped his nose. gurgles of his hoarse laughs made everyone at your area turn to him. “ooh you sure are the spotlight stealer, aren’t you? these people are already taking a picture of you.”

“gosh he has the cutest smile.” eunha melted at the sight of him grabbing the tissue. “looky here!” she aimed her camera at him. “y/n, what’re you getting?”

you pondered for a while before your eyes landed at the name your stomach was craving for the past week. moving apartments had a toll on you— that resulted in you unable to cook your favourite meal. up until this morning were you finally found the time to do that. hence the breakfast eunha devoured within seconds.

“i’m getting fish & chips, and the classic steak.” your stomach growled at the picture beside it.

“alright, i guess i’m getting the same as yours.” eunha raised her hand.

the waiter came to your table to kindly ask for your orders. when you did so and thanked the man, a wallet fell from your right side. picking it up to give it to the owner, a large hand lightly touched yours and you looked up to see two men smiling softly.

“thank you.” the man in a suit said, taking the wallet from you.

“you’re welcome.” you answered. the man looked awfully familiar, as if he was on every commercial the screen had offered to show.

you and eunha shared a look. the telepathic words exchanged between the both of you had your eyes agreeing with what you saw, confirming his identity.

“he’s that celebrity doctor.” eunha mouthed. “dr. jung yunho, a paediatrician.”

“he seems a happy child. how old is he if i may ask?” he waved at him.

“this little guy here, just turned one few days ago.” you said, wiping off the drool with the bib.

“oh precious. belated happy birthday buddy.” he greeted.

you turned to the little one and carried him in your arms, waving his hands to thank the man. as you continued have your lunch and taking turns in feeding him and yourself, you noticed some movement where other children would approach the child on your lap. they would pinch his cheeks lightly and made faces they thought would make him laugh.

then the two men beside you stood. but before they left, yunho took a something out of his pockets and handed it to you.

it was a business card of his own practice office with an address and contact information. “if there’s anything you need help with, just give me a call and this guy-” he pointed at jaehyun and pat his back. “-will pick you and birthday boy up and head to my office.”

“hyung!” jaehyun gasped loudly, later covering his hands at the volume of his complaint. “sorry, i don’t mean it in a negative way.” he smiled awkwardly at you.

“no worries.” you gave him a sincere smile and he swore he felt like the world slowed down. everything else blurred where the only focus was you; how your hair length waved below your shoulders and your eyes sparkled with the sun’s reflection.

this young fine man though, whom you thought wasn’t paying attention or interest to, was now staring at you like he had a thousands of questions to ask to fill in his curiosity. “see you around.” yunho bid you goodbye, and the other trailed from behind.

eunha poked your shoulder with an intention of a tease. she grinned and you knew where she would go from there. “i know what you’re gonna say.” you rolled your eyes, yet a faint smile was evident in your lips.

“really?” her tone was very challenging. “i’ll test you. go ahead.”

“‘dr. jung yunho is so handsome! he’s so dreamy in real life! i should’ve asked for his photograph and boast it to my friends!’ yeah, i guess it’s somewhere along those lines.” you mimicked her voice and expression, not to mention gestures as well, especially the hands.

“yah i don’t act like that!” she defended, but there wasn’t any denial as she said that. “well, maybe. you’re not wrong though.”

“hmpf. and here you went ‘test me’.” you giggled, giving another piece of fish fillet to the one-year old. “and for the record, i’m always right whenever i’m proving you wrong.”

“fine you win.” she sipped her juice from a straw. “oh! hey, the guy he’s with is also handsome.”

you nodded in agreement at the obvious fact, although he did have tiny temperment. but that was only due to dr. yunho’s sudden suggestion. “he looked young. maybe his younger brother perhaps?” you wondered.

“hm. i haven’t seen him before. not on screen at least.” eunha chewed on her food. you raised a brow since you have no idea what she was talking about. “that doctor we conversed with, is from a family of good looking people. he has two younger sisters; jessica and krystal jung. the older one is the founder and endorser of blanc and eclare, while the younger one is an nationwide actress.”

“wow.” your eyes grew at the far/fetched level of these people. “sounds like an ideal family out of a manhwa.”

“egg-xactly.” she pointed at you with a hard boiled egg by her fork.

“that guy called him ‘hyung’ though. looked like to me they know each other. plus they have resemblance too.” you wiped your lips clean from the possible stain.

“oh dear ms. y/n.” eunha called you, her palms touching her chest as if she was surprised. “you have the hots for guys like him, which was why you-”

“ah-ah.” you glared at her, making her shush and zipping the imagination by her lips. “don’t talk about that.”

“bummer, i wasn’t even gonna.” eunha pouted but held your hand anyway. “i’ll always be here for you, y/n.”

“thank you.” you gave her a warm smile.

jaehyun waited by the entrance while his brother paid their meal. although he was bummed out that he wasn’t able to pay for his, he was somehow relieved. because once that cash was out of his pockets, he’d be broke the next time he goes to drink again.

at the corners of his eyes, he could still see you and your friend, as well as the adorable child seated on your lap. you were giving him a spoonfuls for airplane feeding.

yunho gestured jaehyun that they were leaving the restaurant. “hyung, why did you say that i’d pick her up?” he asked as he took a quick glance at you.

“c’mon i’m just playing around.” he nudged jaehyun.

“by matchmaking me to some random girl?” he scoffed. “you sure got a lot of time in your hands.”

“don’t take it too seriously jae.” yunho went ahead, leaving his brother flabbergasted.

he then shrugged it off and looked at you before stepping out. his ears perked up at the three second long conversation exchanged between you and the child.

“jaewon, look! mommy’s got an airplane~”

jaehyun stopped in his tracks by the entrance. his head quickly turning to you again. your lips mouthed the one word that shock hit his entire body. you weren’t just some random girl,

you were the mother of that child.

#serenity in us jjh #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun imagines #nct 127 #jung jaehyun #jung yoonoh #nct jaehyun #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun fanfic #jaehyun series #jaehyun au

[ineloqueent]

Starstruck: Part 2

Brian May x Fem!Reader

This is Part 2 of a multi-part fic. Click the links below to read the Masterpost, the previous part, or the next part of the fic :)

Masterpost / Part 1 / Part 3

Summary: When studying at Imperial College in the 1970s, your path is crossed by a beautiful boy as much in love with the stars as you.  

Warnings: swearing, slight sentiments of sadness

Historical Inaccuracies:

I realise that ‘Time Waits For No One’ was partially a composition by Dave Clark, and not only by Freddie, but I’d imagine that he’d have liked that whole concept anyway, before Clark came along with his musical.

The picture below is from Christmas Eve, 1969, but we’re going to pretend that it’s from February, 1975 :)

Word Count: 4.3k

‧⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧

You awoke with a terrible sadness in your heart, and heavy-limbed, you climbed out of bed to the sound of rain and somebody making coffee in the kitchen. With a look at your alarm clock and a start, you realised that it was already ten minutes past eleven.

You traded your pyjamas for slacks and a jumper Heather had once knitted for you, wondering why melancholy overwhelmed you as you combed your hair from your eyes.

Dazed by sleep, you wandered into the kitchen with a yawn shuddering your frame. You blinked blearily at the shirtless blonde in your kitchen who was drumming his fingers on the counter along to the tune he hummed.

“Roger?” you said, confounded.

He spun around with an equally bewildered expression, his hands raised as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.

His features broadened into a smile. “Y/N! You live here too?”

“Too?” you said. “Who else do you know here? And put on a shirt, Rog. You’re dressed if you’re in my kitchen.”

Roger stuck out his tongue at you, but pulled his shirt from where it’d been slung over a barstool.

You returned his lovely expression and he rolled his eyes at you in good nature.

You’d known Roger since you’d started at Imperial College and he’d started at London Hospital Medical College; you’d met him at the stall he kept in Kensington Market, selling clothes. Always talking about cars and his love for them, Roger was funny and charming, and quite intelligent, though the latter was a thing he downplayed in favour of his looks. You had never understood why boys thought that girls didn’t want a smart boyfriend, and when you’d mentioned it to Roger off-handedly once, visiting on a day he was working at the stall, he’d simply shrugged. “I’ll get them one way or another,” he’d winked.

Then, a sophisticated, sunkissed lad who was folding clothes had snorted from behind a clothing rack. “You won’t get her,” he’d said, referring to you. He’d then introduced himself with, “Freddie Mercury, darling. I can tell you where to find the nice boys, because Rog here isn’t one of them.” Freddie, of East Ealing Art College, was shy but creative, fashionable, and utterly lovely. He had known Roger since before school, and, aside from the clothing stand with Rog, was also in a band with him and a couple of others. Roger played the drums, and you knew that Freddie was an incredible vocalist, because you’d once caught him humming to himself and demanded he sing you more. You had fit right in with Roger and Freddie since day one, with your sharp wit and passionate romanticisms, and the three of you had quickly become good friends.

“So who’s the lucky lady?” you said, putting the kettle on for tea. For some reason, you didn’t feel like coffee this morning. The thought of its bitterness suddenly drew bitterness from you. “Or should I say ladies?” you trilled.

Roger smirked, leaned against the kitchen counter. “No, just the one lady. Think she’s still asleep, though, so try to keep it down,” he shushed.

You shook your head at him. “If she knows what you look like, she knows what you’re like, Rog. Don’t think you’ve got anyone fooled.”

“You’re such a good friend, Y/N. So supportive,” he drawled sarcastically.

“Funny,” you said, “I was told exactly the same thing last night, but I think he meant it, at least.”

Roger winced. “No getting down for you, then?”

You lobbed a coaster at him, but he caught it. “You need to stop just throwing things when you can’t think of anything to say, Y/N.”

“Stop being a prick, then,” you sassed him back.

“Okay, grumpy girl. Just because your little friend didn’t like you back.”

“For your information, he was actually very tall.”

A soft padding sound reached you from the doorway, and you glanced over to see Heather appear in the doorway, her mane of hair sticking up to one side and her pyjama top only half-buttoned.

“The hell is it with you people and shirts?” you muttered. “You’d think your mothers never taught you how to dress yourselves.”

Roger laughed at your comment, and Heather looked between the two of you.

“You know each other?” she said.

“Heather, honestly?” you scoffed. “My friend Roger who works down at the stall in Kensington?”

“Oh,” she said. “Same Roger?” You just blinked at her. “Common name,” she shrugged.

“You two know each other?” you gestured between her and Roger.

Roger’s smile was easy; he turned to Heather and his eyes ran over her, his lower lip between his teeth. Heather’s body language was obviously responsive.

“Ugh, no!” you said, rubbing your eyes. “Not a good image.”

“I thought we looked quite good together,” Heather flirted to Roger as you shuddered.

“Please don’t. Least not before breakfast,” you groaned, sliding off of the barstool as the kettle boiled.

Heather giggled, and you could still see Roger looking at her in your peripheral vision.

You busied yourself with making tea and pouring it into a thermos. Roger had walked over to kiss Heather, and you couldn’t get away from the sight of your two friends necking fast enough.

“I’m going out,” you said, grabbing the thermos, your keys, and boots.

“Oh, any chance you’re going to see Freddie?” said Roger from the doorway to the hall, arms around Heather.

You narrowed your eyes. “Why?”

“Got a message for him.”

“Could you not just telephone him?”

“There’s no phone at the stall.”

“Later, then?”

Roger frowned. “It’s important, please?”

You sighed heavily. “Fine, but only because I’m such a good friend,” you mimicked his words from earlier. “What is it, then?”

Roger grinned. “Tell him Clements says okay and eight o’clock sharp.”

Your puzzled expression seemed to amuse him. “I was going to tell you, but I’m sure Freddie will.�� He waved a hand. “I haven’t got time right now.”

“You haven’t— oh forget it.” He’d gone back to snogging Heather, and there was simply no point in nagging him when it would be faster just to find Freddie.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

“Fred?” you poked your head around the stall, trying to spot him between the racks of colourful jackets and corduroy trousers, but failing for the life of you.

He popped up from underneath the table and you nearly leapt from your skin.

“Oh, hello, darling! How lovely of you to visit me,” he beamed, smoothing hair back from his face. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Jesus, Freddie, you scared me,” you exhaled laboriously, still recovering from your shock.

“Sorry about that, dearie. I’m afraid I’ve upset the moneybox and spilled it all under the table,” he said with an expression of dismay. “Help me look?”

You eyed your already questionably-clean trousers. “Yeah, alright then,” you said, squeezing into the stall beside Freddie. “Any idea how much was in there?” you asked as you sank to your knees.

Freddie lifted the cloth covering the table and threw it to the side. “Afraid not. Deacy usually handles finances and all that, after Norman Sheffield’s fuckery at Trident, y’know.”

You knew the soft-eyed, cheeky John Deacon as well. As the bassist in Freddie and Roger’s band and student of electrical engineering, Deacy (as he was known) was simultaneously the most well-mannered boy you’d ever encountered and also the greatest connoisseur of dirty jokes. Despite being only a year younger than you and Roger, Deacy was Freddie’s protegé, in a way, because Freddie had taken the younger boy under his wing in matters both of the musical world and of the world in general. You were quite sure that Freddie believed Deacy to be an innocent in need of protection, and that Deacy intended to keep his precious mentor fooled, particularly because some of the disco nightclubs that John had shown you and Rog suggested rather the opposite of his supposed personality. All in all, he was as dear to you as Freddie and Rog.

You laughed. “Freddie, this is just little coins. I’m sure you would’ve been okay to look after that.”

“Yes, well, not much time to count money when the most handsome men in London seem to stroll through this here market almost constantly,” Freddie huffed indignantly and you smiled in amusement. “Are you looking?” he said.

“Yes, yes,” you assured him, hastily picking up the coins in your immediate line of sight before beginning to scavenge for those which had rolled farther away on their escape routes.

“So, why are you here? I know you like our lovely little shop, but you’re usually studying on Saturdays.”

You sighed. “I probably should be. But Roger’s shacked it up with one of my housemates, my roommate, actually—”

“Heather?”

“Yeah, Heather.”

“Oh yes, he’s definitely her type,” gushed Freddie, spotting another coin and tossing it into the moneybox gleefully.

“He’s hers?” you said.

Freddie peered at you. “Well, really, Y/N. Roger’s type is everyone.”

“Fair enough,” you nodded. “And, oh,” you remembered, “I have a message for you, from Rog.”

“Ah. What’s it, then?”

“Uh, it seemed kind of cryptic, but he said you’d understand.” Freddie motioned for you to go on. “Let’s see. ‘Clements says okay and eight o’clock sharp’,” you quoted.

Freddie paused in his treasure hunt and clapped, “Oh, excellent!”

“Fill me in?” you pleaded finally, weary with excitement for that which you did not know.

Freddie clasped his hands. “We’re playing a gig, tonight, at the Union Bar!” he exclaimed. “We normally don’t play that small any longer, what with our increasing popularity, but we thought it would be nice to do a bit of an intimate concert once more, before we shoot for the stars and lose that privilege entirely.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic!” you said, knowing you were free tonight. You’d always wanted to see their band Queen, but the circumstances had never really lined up for you to do so, though Freddie had even offered for you to sit in on their rehearsals many a time.

“And you can finally meet our last puzzle piece!” said Freddie, his eyes alight. “Oh, he’ll adore you. Have I mentioned he’s studying some sort of science too? Maybe even similar to what you’re doing. I always seem to forget the name of it, though Bri is quite particular about it. He’d positively kill me with that glower of his if he knew I’d forgotten the name of it again. Oh, bugger,” Freddie went on. “It’s something to do with space. It’s on the tip of my tongue, I swear—”

But something had clicked inside of your head, and your palms felt oddly sweaty.

Freddie and Roger and Deacy had always referred to their fourth bandmate as simply ‘Bri’ or ‘Brimi’, or, in Fred’s case, ‘that bitch’, and so it had not occurred to you. You hadn’t known what he’d looked like, or anything about him, really, other than that he was a talented guitarist of a short temper and a motherly heart. But now you realised, with a fluttering sensation to accompany the thought, that you knew precisely who Brimi was, and that you had practically memorised his smile from seeing it nearly every morning of the past semester. Now, suddenly, the calloused fingers you had held in your own made perfect sense— Brian, the guitarist.

“Astrophysics,” you murmured softly.

“I’m sorry?” said Freddie, who had only just stopped in his flood of excited words.

“Astrophysics,” you repeated more loudly.

Freddie’s brow creased. “Yes, yes that’s it. I’d better commit it to memory, now. But how’d you know that? I’m sure I’ve never actually managed to tell you. I would’ve remembered such a momentous occasion.”

Your head felt suddenly quiet, though the thrum of your heart was sure to replace that silence with its own deafening beat.

You looked away, combing your fingers through your hair. “We’ve got the same morning class for our major,” you said, “and, uh, yesterday evening, when Heather went off with Roger, Brian and I had a drink together.”

Freddie gasped so vehemently that your eyes flashed back to him to be sure that he wasn’t suffering a fit or something.

“In that case, I’m sure he adores you already.”

“Freddie!”

“Think about it, Y/N! You’re both besotted by an absolutely absurd science that makes no fucking sense, and you’re friends with me and Roger and Deac already, so you must’ve gotten along like wildfire and a dry forestscape!”

“Freddie, that’s a horrible analogy.”

“That may be so, darling, but from the light in your eyes, you know what I mean.”

A strange blush engulfed your cheeks and you touched your fingers to your face, willing the flush to disappear. It didn’t.

“No idea what you’re on about,” you said.

“There’s still time.”

“Still time for what?”

Freddie threw his hands into the air. “For things to happen.”

“Nothing did and nothing will,” you countered, a little sternly.

“You’ll be lying to me before the month is through. I’ll find you more time with him, if that’s what you need.”

You ignored Freddie’s suggestive comments. “Time waits for no one,” you remarked instead.

“Now that’s a good line, isn’t it? Do you use it often, or would you mind terribly if I made something of it?” Freddie inquired.

“Pretty sure it’s a rather common expression, but I’m sure you’ll make something wonderful of it,” you said fondly, knowing his poetic habits.

Freddie winked at you. “I’ll certainly do my best. Now, I think we’ve got all the coins, so I say we get off of this filthy floor that the dust bunnies appear to have taken over, or what’s your view on the matter?”

“Time to depart the good Realm of Floor,” you agreed, stretching your creaking legs and giving Freddie a hand up.

“So you’re coming tonight, yes?” Freddie brushed dust and lint from his velvet trousers.

“Of course,” you said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“You’ve missed all the other times, though,”

“I know, Fred,” you exhaled softly. “But I—”

Freddie’s hand covered your shoulder. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, darling. We’re friends, remember?” he smiled comfortingly.

“And friends will be friends,” you responded, as you and the others had taken to saying, originally as a gag, but now as a sort of mantra to keep you going through the harder days.

Freddie smiled again. “Are you busy, or do you fancy going for lunch?”

“Sounds good,” you said. “Where were you thinking?”

“Just the pub. You know how much I enjoy their fish ‘n’ chips.” He meant Kensington Pub.

“Oh yes,” you recalled it very well. “I know.”

“Excellent! Well, I’ll just tidy up quickly and close, and we can be on our way.” You nodded, helping him to rearrange a few out-of-place things before he waved you off. “You don’t work here, dearie. We can talk about dear ol’ Brian while you wait for me, if you like.”

“Clearly, you’re the one who’s obsessed with him.”

“I won’t dispute that. He’s rather nice when he’s not attempting to control every little note of our music.”

“Which is... often?” you said.

Freddie nodded with ardour. “He’s got taste, mind you, but sometimes that taste just gets overbearing, if you know what I mean,” his tone was cheeky.

You folded your arms and leaned against the wall. “No, Freddie, I’ve entirely no clue what you mean.”

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

After lunch, the two of you took the tube from Kensington Station to Freddie’s flat.

Freddie opened the door to several different cats meowing at the return of their human, and he greeted each one by name, rubbing fluffy backs and scratching behind waiting ears as he passed.

The cats had encountered you many times before, and though many had at first been apprehensive at the presence of an outsider, they now greeted you as one of their own.

“I thought maybe you’d like to borrow a couple of our records to listen to before the concert tonight,” Freddie said, tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter and making his way over to where his record player and vinyl collection resided. He gestured to the crates and stacks of records, encouraging you to take a look while he retrieved Queen’s own works.

Despite the fact that your household contained a total of eleven people, Freddie’s music collection was far more impressive than that of your residence. Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Aretha Franklin seemed to dominate the collection, but there was a heavy presence of classical and operatic compositions too, from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to Chopin.

“You have so many records,” you said, wishing there was more room in your monthly budget to spend on records, music that you could replay as much as you wanted, rather than waiting for— hoping for— the radio to cycle through your favourites.

“I’ve spent many years building up my collection,” Freddie told you, as though he knew what you were thinking and wished to remind you that such collections were not accumulated overnight; there was still all the time in the world for you to develop your own reserve of records.

“Ah, here we are!” he slid three volumes from a shelf, smiling fondly at the covers. “We’re not The Beatles, but I daresay we’re quite fantastic all the same.” He handed you the records, and you took them with care.

The first was mauve in colour scheme and depicted a person hoisting a sheared microphone stand into the air, illuminated by a singular dramatic spotlight. The second was a highly-contrasted rendering of all four members of Queen in (once more) spectacular lighting, and diamond formation. The third and final was all of them again, lying in a strange circular heap, eyes intense and skin shining with what was likely supposed to be sweat.

Your eyes strayed to Brian on the cover of the third album, the neck of his shirt pulled open, his lips parted and his eyes dazed. The image was suggestive, and Brian was attractive.

Blinking stray thoughts away, you tucked the last album behind the others and cleared your throat as subtly as you could manage. But Freddie had not thought you subtle; he grinned at you astutely.

“Rock and roll, then?” you said, though you already knew the answer. The point was, you were trying to change the subject.

“Rock ‘n’ roll,” Freddie emphasised. “We’ll have you educated in no time, don’t you worry. Homework is listening to those records. Come back again soon and I’ll swap you some Led Zeppelin and Aretha Franklin.”

“Varying taste,” you commented, desperately trying to coerce your mind from its previous focus.

“We’ve got to expand yours,” Freddie said. “Now go home and listen! We can’t have you standing mute and still in the crowd tonight! I plan on making sure you get up front, but I need energy from you for that to be justified, Y/N.”

“Okay, Mercury,” you smirked. “Such high standards, so demanding.”

Freddie sighed, “Got to be, darling. How else would I augment the quality of my music?”

“I’m definitely out of my depth here, Fred.”

He patted your shoulder. “Get out and go home and listen,” he said.

You made a face and Freddie stuck out his tongue at you. “See you later, dearie. Tell Brendan Clements when you arrive and he’ll get you past the crowds.”

“Fab. Later, Freddie.” You gave him a wave as you departed and he blew you a kiss.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You supposed there was one good thing about Heather and Roger’s newfound relations. Well, maybe two.

The first was that you knew Roger and he knew you, and he knew that you would dye his hair permanently peroxide green if he ever hurt Heather intentionally.

The second was that, after this morning, Heather and Roger had headed off to Roger’s place for a few days, meaning that you were free to dance around your room to whatever music you wished without suffering shyness and embarrassment about your moves when you were inevitably discovered. Your other housemates worked most days, and conveniently, your shifts at the local cafe did not coincide with the absences of your household; you would now have the house to yourself quite a bit.

Having abandoned your boots by your wardrobe, you picked up the first record, simply titled Queen.

“Memorable already,” you murmured, feeling oddly exhilarated.

The record was on the deck by your bed within moments, and you flopped down atop your covers to enjoy the music in one of the purest ways you knew how— by lying back on your bed and spreading your arms and letting the melodies carry you away.

The energy kicked in immediately, and to the vivacity of the music you would have sold your soul.

Freddie’s voice was unrelentingly powerful, and unmatchable in beauty. You caught hints of Roger and Brian singing between the thrum of Deacy’s bass lines, their own instruments, and Freddie’s lead vocals, and the effect of the four of them together was unforgettable, astronomical, meant to make history.

Their talent as musicians was riveting if appreciated on its own, but Queen were artists too. How they could have thought up the stories they told, both through lyrics and without any words at all, you did not know.

Record after record, their voices rose together like waves, rushing over you and tossing you in their midst. You felt you were made of stardust, not only in the sense that everything of the past was still atomically part of everything present, but also in the metaphorical way; you felt light and heavenly, like you were floating above the ground, dancing on clouds.

Most of Queen’s songs, to your delight, made you want to dance— the best music made one want to dance. The songs that didn’t make you want to dance made you feel other emotions entirely— they moved you to tears.

By the time ‘In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited’ had signalled the end of Sheer Heart Attack, you had curled up on your side, gazing unblinkingly at the slowing vinyl. It wouldn’t have been too far off to say that listening to Queen's music felt like a transcendental experience.

When the needle passed the final break in the record’s surface and met the space between the break and the record’s central label, you leapt up. Immediately, you swapped the last record for the first, so as to begin the cycle of listening again. You wanted to, needed to, hear it all again.

How lucky you felt, to be going to the concert of such artists the very same night, and how serendipitous it felt to not only know, but to be friends with these artists.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You had dabbed your eyelids with silver and outlined them in black, the way Freddie had taught you to, though you had never worn your makeup so until now. Your dress was a cotton-tulle mix, black and bell-sleeved, and spotted with flecks of silver like little stars; the effect was somewhere between casual and glam. A good balance, if you should be so bold as to say. Platform sandals completed the regalia, which you felt was a fitting way to describe the outfit which one wore to the concert of a band named Queen.

Between your third and fourth cycles of the three Queen albums, Heather had rung the telephone in the hallway across from your room.

“Hello, gorgeous!”

“Hiya, Heather,” you greeted her cheerily.

“I’ve been out all day, so I’m sorry if you’ve tried to get hold of me.”

“I’ve been out for a good many hours as well. Hope you didn’t miss me too terribly,” you sniggered.

“Pish posh. Not in the slightest. Been making out with Rog—”

“Stop right there, Heather.”

She made kissing sounds on the other end of the line.

“Remind me why you’re calling again?” you said, half-jokingly, half-seriously. Half-seriously because it was getting dreadfully close to eight o’clock, to Queen playing at the Union Bar. “And where are you, anyway?

“Calling to tell you Roger and his band are playing at the Union tonight, and to ask if you’re coming. I’m currently at said drummer’s place getting ready to tag along for said concert.”

“‘Course I’m coming,” you said. “Finest new musicians I’ve heard in years.”

Heather snorted. “You sound like my grandfather— top of the morning to you— finest musicians!” she laughed.

“Just because you haven’t actually heard their music yet,” you reprimanded her.

“About to. So this Freddie told you about the concert, like Roger said he would.”

“Yeah, our friend Freddie.”

“Oh. Oh god, Y/N, I’m fucking stupid. It’s the same guys as you usually talk about. I forget that. It’s like my mind thinks they’re part of some alternate reality, or something.”

“Please tell me you’re not on LSD.”

“No! I promised you I wouldn’t do anything silly for a month. You said LSD counted as silly, so despite being surrounded by all sorts of rockstars, I’m currently stone cold sober in every sense of the word.”

“Unfortunately, it appears you’re still under the effects of Roger Meddows Taylor,” you laughed.

“Shush, Y/N. He’ll think I’m some wacko already in love with him on day one.”

“You are a little bit, though, aren’t you?”

You could almost see her roll her eyes, see yourself respond with a knowing smile toward the insight that she was forever downplaying her emotions to seem less of a romantic than she was. But she was a romantic. Very much so. And she got her heart broken far too often for someone who loved as much and as wholly, as unconditionally, as she did.

“See you in a bit, mwah,” Heather kissed the phone and you cursed her loudness. She laughed at your string of obscenities and put down the phone.

With a final look in the mirror, hoping that your fashion choices had not been too bold, you swept out the door and into the night.

‧⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧

A/N: hello beautiful! thanks for reading this. just send me an ask if you’d like to be added to my taglist!

taglist: @melting-obelisks  @stardust-killer-queen  @hgmercury39​ @topsecretdeacon

Masterpost / Part 1 / Part 3

#tina’s writing #starstruck #brian may #brian may x reader #brian may x y/n #brian may x you #queen #freddie mercury #roger taylor #john deacon #queen fanfiction #1975 #1970s #fic

[blvirz]

Living Life Through A Lens: Chapter Three

Chapter 3: YG Entertainment

Word Count: 4.4K

Warnings: None

[8:00 AM KST]

           The ride on the way to your meeting was a peaceful one in comparison to your ride to work back home. The difference being that you were now driven to work and that everything was quieter. There was rarely any honking and even the hustle and bustle of people on their daily commutes was barely audible.

Soon enough you arrived at YG Entertainment headquarters. The building was modern in style, very monotone with lots of glass windows. To you it looked like a gigantic version of a computer tower. A computer tower that just happened to be made of concrete, steel and glass. Parked under the building were a collection of black and silver vans. Just before pulling into the lot you see a billboard that had a picture of Blackpink, it read “BLINKS DEMAND FOR BLACKPINK.” You smiled and thought, I’ll give you the content you're waiting for Blinks, just you wait. Apart from the billboard you notice a large group of people with signs and various other banners gathered at the company gate. When the car slows you get a chance to look at their signs, you were shocked as some of them had your face on it causing you to chuckle. How did they find me…? Right you did an Instagram live yesterday.

As soon as you and Lex get out of the car you're met with three new bodyguards, Scott and a woman who introduced herself as YG’s assistant. Before heading into the building, you made your way to go meet the fans standing at the company gate but were instantly stopped by YG’s set of bodyguards. With a confused look on your face, “am I not allowed to greet them? They came here for me…”

The guards said nothing but instead looked to the assistant and waited for her to tell you why they had stopped you. “I’m sure you're well aware of the risks that comes with meeting your supporters but because of the lack of security and strict YG protocol we cannot allow you to meet them.”

“They would never hurt me. If I stand a few feet away could I at least just say hello?” you ask.

She didn’t say anything and that alone told you it was a no. Feeling sad and guilty you look back to see them waving at you with their big signs and smiles. You wave back with just as much enthusiasm and very slowly make your way into the building.

Walking into the building you're brought to a reception desk where immediately you are given a warm welcome and a badge with your name on it. Before making your way to the elevators you pass by the famous YG cafeteria, you wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the black-wall waterfall you’ve seen during one of Blackpink’s vlives. The elevator dings signaling its arrival. Playing With Fire is playing in the elevator and to break the tension you ask, “I like this song! Anyone know who sings it?” Everyone in the elevator laughs, even YG’s bodyguards.

Getting out of the elevator you and your team are seated in a conference room and are told that YG would be there soon. Spinning around in your chair you look for a distraction, as a reflex you look at your phone and notice more missed calls and text messages. With an achy feeling you put your phone faced down on the conference table in front of you. Through the glass panes of the conference room you notice a group of people making their way toward the conference room doors. You look closely and see that it was YG, and he was surrounded by not one, not two, not three but four people. He had an intimidating aura around him which only made you more nervous. Blackpink, however nowhere in sight.

YG and his team walk in and immediately you're on your feet, feeling lightheaded with how fast you stood up. Nervously, you bow forward and greet him, “hello. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Hello, Y/N is it? How are you enjoying South Korea so far?” YG asks as he goes in for a hug.

Hugging him awkwardly and then pulling away, “that’s me! How did you know? And yes, the people here have been so kind. And the food­– don’t get me started on the food.”

“I have to admit that I’ve searched you up on the internet. I must say the photos don’t do you justice, you're much prettier in person.” He says confidently.

Before you could tell him thank you, an even larger group makes their way into the room. It was only a few seconds, but everything was in slow motion, everyone in the room turns to look and see that it’s the members of Blackpink along with their managers. Your jaw hung open at what was currently in front of you. Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa all entered the room and now stood before you.

Each of them went straight in for a hug and greeted you a hello. It was barely audible as you were still shell shocked. Without thinking you say, “oh my gosh, this only happens in my dreams.” The room erupts in laughter.

After hugging each member and greeting their managers, YG sits down to start the meeting. YG was seated at the head of the conference table, his assistant and translator on his immediate left, followed by Scott, you and Lex. On his right sat another translator, Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and then Lisa. On the other head of the table was a large TV screen and camera. A confused look on your face was noticed by Lex. As if answering the question in your head, she whispers “Ethan wanted to be included in the meeting last minute,” you nod in response.

The people at YG had technical difficulties trying to connect with Ethan, so while you were waiting you found yourself glancing over in the girls’ direction. Sometimes making eye contact and when you did you blushed and quickly spun your chair around to avoid their gaze, gaining a laugh from each of them every time you did it. When Ethan finally popped up on screen only then did you feel less nervous. Ethan was a smooth talker and good negotiator, so with him included in the meeting meant less time for you to talk. Or so you thought.

The meeting started with the formal introductions, everyone around the table said their name and their role in their respective companies. After that was over, Ethan and YG each took their turns discussing the business aspect behind the deal and each company’s expectations. You already knew what was expected of you so instead of listening you found yourself sneaking quick glances at the girls. Pinching yourself in the same spot until it turned red; your mind was still unable to process that this was real life. Suddenly you felt a nudge under the table from Lex, looking up you realized that everyone’s eyes were on you awaiting an answer.

Looking at the members in front of you blurt out, “sorry they’re so pretty its distracting,” immediately causing the members to blush and laugh amongst themselves.

Jisoo chuckles and speaks for the first time and though it’s in Korean the translator next to her looks to you and says, “Jisoo says for you to wait until you get to know each of the members, only then will you realize they’re not so charming.” In retaliation, Jennie and the other members playfully punch Jisoo’s shoulder. They will be the death of me, you thought to yourself.

The meeting continues and you explain how you’ve decided to film Blackpink’s upcoming documentary. Nervously looking around the room you start, “I hope you’ll forgive me for being so nervous, if I’m honest I am still shocked that we get to work together. It truly is a dream. But if you look to the information packet that my company has chosen to provide us for this meeting, you’ll see all my research and plans to make this documentary a successful one. It starts off with just the quick basic biography on me. What’s important in here is that my shooting and editing style are unique to me. It’s how I’ve always worked, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. The next bit in this packet explains how I’m choosing to produce the film in its entirety.”

While holding up and pointing to the page you're referring to you continue, “it’s really simple. I have a small crew that works with me, I film. I have a sound person. I have someone looking at the monitor to make sure my shots are okay. Very small and intimate. As for how the film will be made, it happens in four phases. The first phase, there’s really no work done here other than us­– and by us I mean myself, Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa getting to know each other. This phase is a bit unorthodox in that it doesn’t really happen with other documentaries. I choose to include it as it takes away a lot of the awkwardness when it comes to filming. The more we know of each other, the easier it is on me as I learn the boundaries; what to film and what not to film etc. The second phase is the easy part, you go on about your schedules and I follow you around with the camera. On occasion we’ll have a few sit-down interviews here and there but that’s all. The third phase is just editing and then the fourth and final phase is the premiere–” you stop and notice that Jennie was looking at you oddly. You couldn’t quite tell what her expression was. Was it admiration? Interest? Confusion? Whatever it was caused you stop in your tracks.

Giving her a quick smile and to close the sudden silence you asked her shyly, “w-was there something you wanted me to go over?”

Jennie hesitated. “Me? - sorry was I staring? No, please continue.” Smiling and using her hands to also gesture you continue.

You continued with the rest of the information in the packet, and still in the corner of your eye you could see Jennie looking at you with the same look and occasional smile. Once what seemed like hours but in reality was only 45 minutes, you got through everything you needed. All that was left for the day was the major press event with Korea’s media and a few international networks. The event was to be held in a large auditorium where you and the members would be seated on a panel and would be asked questions regarding your partnership.

[1:30 PM KST]

Before the press event everyone in the meeting was encouraged to grab a quick meal at the company cafeteria. You all made your way down and after grabbing tea and a portion of fruit you sat down at one of the tables. Lex and Scott were both making conversation with some of the staff which was a blessing in disguise because you just wanted to eat in peace. Wanting to calm your nerves you took a sip of your tea and wondered what the press would ask. Would they stick to the details of the documentary? Would they venture into your personal life? Your breakup had now become public, so much so that your company had to make a statement:

“It is true that Y/N and one of our company lawyers have ended their seven year-long relationship, and although we would have wished for this matter to remain private it has become such a spectacle that we are forced to confirm this news. They both have said they’re focused on their current projects and wish that the public refrain from asking questions about their break-up.

Thank You, Universal Film and Entertainment.”

When the you first read the statement it made you angry, you argued that the statement would only fan the flames and that you wanted it to be handled privately. You wanted whoever made the news public to have their head on a pike. Before you could let yourself get mad again you felt someone sit next to you.

It was Lisa and soon enough she was followed by Rosé who sat on the other side of you. Not wanting to talk with food in your mouth you turn to each of them and smile, covering your mouth as you do. Jisoo and Jennie sat across from you and each of their plates were filled with a variety of breakfast food.

Lisa starts off the conversation, “so Y/N? How do I pronounce your name correctly?” She said it correctly, but to confirm you sounded out your name slowly going over each syllable.

As if she could feel you tense up Rosé spoke softly, “Y/N, I hope we don’t make you nervous. I know we only just met, but please treat us as your friends. In fact, treat us as you would if we’ve known each other for a long time.”

“I’ll try my best but naturally I’m timid and shy. It will take me awhile, but I hope that we become great friends and co-workers.” You say with a smile.

Jennie spoke next, “Y/N. What do you like to do in your free time? After this we have no schedules for the rest of the day so let’s do something that you like to do. Are you okay with that?”

Feeling a bit more comfortable you reply, “mmm… I’m really not all that interesting but I wanted to get to know the area around my apartment as I’m going to be living here for the next year. But besides that, I would like to eat and go shopping.”

They all laugh and each of them go on to talk about the shops they want to take you to. Soon enough, Lisa and Rosé start to argue about where to take you first. You reassure them that you have lots of time and would be able to visit them all. They really are how they seem on Blackpink House. While Jisoo was occupied with one of her managers and Lisa and Rosé still arguing, Jennie looks up at you and smiles.

“Is this all too much?” she asks. How does she know exactly how you feel? Was it the look on your face? You thought you hid it well.

“It was in the beginning, but I can feel myself warming up. Slowly. You guys really remind me of my friends back home if I–” but before you could say more Scott comes and tells you guys that it’s time for the press event.

[2:30 PM KST]

The press event was well underway, it had started with a few photos of you and the members of Blackpink in front of a large backdrop that had all your faces on it followed by introductions. You sat in the middle while Jennie and Jisoo were on your right, and Lisa and Rosé on your left. Pulling your mic closer to your body and fixing the earpiece that would translate the medias questions to English you waited patiently for the spokesperson to pick a person to ask you a question.

The first question was easy, “Y/N. In a previous statement you’ve said that this documentary will be different and will surely be successful. Could you please elaborate?”

“This documentary will be different in that it won’t be a regular two- and half-hour film. I have decided to film a docuseries instead. Each member will have their own respective episode followed by a final episode, which will be a movie length long, focusing on Blackpink collectively as one unit. As for the success of this I am quite confident. Blackpink’s fanbase, or should I say Blinks- are a fandom second to none. The support they show is unbelievable. Unlike any I have seen so far. Plus, because YG has confirmed their comeback scheduled in four months I hope to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the hard work they put into it, which is content I am sure Blinks will enjoy.”

The second question was for the girls and how excited they were to be getting their first official documentary. As an unofficial leader you found Jisoo pulling her mic closer toward her. Through the earpiece, it was a rough translation but in short, she said that they were excited and ready to show a different side to Blackpink in comparison to what they have shown in the past. Jisoo also said that she and her members already felt like you guys were already great friends and that the they hope the documentary will do well. It took a while for it all to come through the earpiece but when it was over you looked over and smiled at Jisoo and surprisingly she took your hand and gave it light squeeze while also returning a smile. Further in the distance you see Jennie’s eyes make their way to you and Jisoo holding hands, making eye contact with her you gave her a polite nod too.

It was about the tenth question in and you were hoping it’d be the last. However, this particular reporter who was chosen had a press badge with the large letters reading ET on the front. Dang it, Entertainment Tonight. This company always caused you great headaches. They were constantly prying into your personal life enough so that you had warned them multiple times in the past, which didn’t stop them of course. So, you sat there bracing yourself for impact.

“This question is for Y/N. Your recent breakup with high profile Universal lawyer Irene has recently made headlines. How has this affected your work, in terms of being able to get along and work through this documentary?” They really aren’t shy with their questions, are they? It takes everything in you to answer the question professionally, but you still have a hard time trying to answer anyway.

Looking down while fumbling with your fingers you begin, “uh- uhm. I- I mean we­­–” you look around for Scott for some help but instead you hear some fumbling and Jennie has her mic in her hands. Very quickly she’s able to shift the attention back to the documentary and away from you. Disappointed with your inability to answer the question you look down at your fingers fidgeting under the table. You feel Lisa’s hand grab a hold of yours while also feeling a light squeeze. Her doe-brown eyes meet yours and she mouths “it’s okay,” her mouth forming into a warm smile. You mouth a quick “thank you,” which goes unnoticed by the media as they are distracted with Jennie still. Lisa let go eventually, but from time to time for the rest of the event she would put her hand on your leg to encourage you.

The press event was finally over and you could slowly feel yourself relax again. The crushing feeling in your chest dissipated as you felt Lisa and Jennie link their arms with yours as you made it off the stage.

“I just wanted to say thank you again. I should have been more prepared.” You say shyly.

Jennie responds, “don’t even mention it. It shouldn’t happen but it does happen to the best of us.” You look up and finally see Lex and Scott typing away furiously on their phone. Oh man they must be furious. Although it was never mentioned, it was assumed that the questions asked at the press event were strictly supposed to be focused on the project, nothing personal. You unlink arms with the girls and give them both a polite nod before running toward Scott and Lex for a hug.

While still in a hug Scott rubs your back and says, “Oh my gosh Y/N. I am so sorry. I had no idea that they would be here let alone ask you that question. I am so sorry for not preparing you ahead of time. I’m trying to find our contact with ET. I’ll get this fixed in no time.”

It wasn’t okay, you were blindsided but to make Scott and Lex both feel better you told them that it was okay, and you were thankful for what Jennie did for you. You turn around and the members are standing off to the side with their managers. Jennie’s eyes are lasered in on Scott and Lex, when you she takes notice of you staring back at her she looks at you and smiles.

[4:30 PM KST]

Your team was too angry about what happened to go with you and the girls to dinner, they wanted to kill whoever was responsible at ET. Before you parted ways with them Lex pulled you aside and apologized again, she told you that she would meet you back at your apartment as she wanted to set a few things up for you at your new apartment as an apology. After telling her it wasn’t her fault for what seemed like the millionth time, you hugged her goodbye and made your way to Blackpink’s company van. You were going to ride with them to the restaurant while Scott and Lex took your van to the hotel and apartment. Turning back, you made sure Scott and Lex were safely settled in the van; this would be the last time you saw Scott in person as he would be travelling back home to get back to work. Where I would I be without you guys, you thought to yourself.

“Y/N! Are you coming?” Rosé says as she pops her head out from the van. Quickly you spun around and made your way to the van.

On the way to the restaurant you found yourself still in awe of South Korea. Everything was still so new and refreshing for you. The girls on the other hand couldn’t care less, their eyes were glued to their phones. Before you knew it, you arrived at the restaurant. It was a small mom and pop shop and you could feel your stomach grumbling on the way in.

You sat down in the booth and noticed Jennie sat immediately on your right. Lisa and Rosé both ran for the spot on your left, Rosé won, and you laughed.

“Nobody wants to sit next to me?” Jisoo asked in a pitiful tone.

“I’ll sit next to you unnie,” Lisa said as she sighed. This caused Jisoo hit Lisa in the left shoulder; she had said something to the effect of “why do you sound so disappointed” in Korean. You only understood as Rosé translated it for you.

After ordering, you thought of what you talk about with the girls. You remembered you wanted to make a few things clear before you started filming. You started, “hey I just wanted to say a few things that I couldn’t earlier.”

The girls immediately focused in on you making you a little nervous.

“I didn’t want to say it earlier in front of all the businesspeople at the meeting this morning, because frankly their job is to look at the numbers and make sure that this partnership does well on both ends. All they care about is the profits and margins, and there’s nothing wrong with that but– I guess what I’m trying to say is that before I am a director, editor, or whatever occupation I hold, I want to be your friend and someone you can trust first and foremost. So, if there is anything– and I mean anything that I catch on film or you don’t want filmed, just let me know you aren’t comfortable with it and I will delete it. I don’t believe in creating drama for views despite what our agencies might ask of us, so if you want something deleted, it’s gone. No questions asked.”

It was silent for a moment, but each of them expressed their gratitude for your honesty. They opened up about their experience in the industry thus far. You guys talked about how rare it was to just have genuine friendships, and that it was tiring trying to decipher who was real and who wasn’t. Being able to have this in common and bond over it made you all feel so much closer. The whole night wasn’t all serious though, you found yourself laughing and cracking jokes as if you guys had been friends for years.

While Jisoo was caught playing referee for an argument between Lisa and Rosé, you took this time as a chance to talk to Jennie. You didn’t have to get her attention as she was already looking at you. She was always looking at you. Why? You figured you would ask. What could go wrong?

Smiling and laughing as you ask her “why are you always looking at me?”

She laughs too, “Do I have to have a reason to?”

“I mean no, but it makes me nervous when you do.”

Teasingly she inches closer to you, so close that you could see her individual eyelashes. “Are you saying…I make you nervous Y/N?”

You push her away and out of breath you say, “yes. Very nervous.”

“Good,” she replies and goes back to eating her food. What is with this girl? Was she flirting as a joke? Should you flirt back?

The rest of the evening you guys talked for hours, so much so that the owners had to come by your table and say it was closing time. With all of you stuffed to the brim with food, it silent on the drive to your apartment. The girls were falling asleep and so were you.

After pulling into the driveway under of your apartment you said goodbye to each of the girls. You gave all the members a hug before exiting the van and while hugging Jisoo you notice a familiar figure waiting at the doors of your apartment building through the window of the van. The figure turns around and you see it’s Irene.

Chapter 4 - HERE

#Blackpink #Blackpink imagines #Jennie Kim #lalisa manoban #Blackpink Rosé #Blackpink Jisoo #Jisoo

[revolution-john]

Madam Dixon

by STEVE LAMBERT

What set the whole thing off was Sam Heintzman leaving a vase of long-stem roses on her front step. It was early still, around seven, and she heard something outside the front door. She peeked out the window and saw Sam waddling back towards his place across the street.  They were beautiful, the roses, and the ring in the middle of the vase were all open and singing, and the ones around the lip, for some reason, huddled in on themselves like little old ladies wrapped in shawls.  A tiny card taped to the vase read, “Let me know if you need anything.  My deepest sympathy.  –Sam.” She leaned in, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

Sam, who had been an engineer at the Cape, was recently retired.  His job had been something to do with making the tiles on the front of the space shuttles.  But now he alternated between working in his yard and sitting in a lawn chair in his driveway, drinking canned beer and admiring his landscaping while the sprinklers ran. He had almost no fingernails, and his fingers were nubby at the ends.  Nubbiness, she’d often thought, was his defining feature. On more than one occasion, she’d seen him pop a beer tab with his house key. She couldn’t imagine “needing” anything from him.

Rich and Sam hadn’t exactly been friends, but living so close to each other for so many years, they’d became steady acquaintances, treated each other in that excessively cordial way that people do who don’t know each other intimately; all those handshakes and nods and winks and courteous chuckles—affirming gestures, like two salesmen.  Plus they both spoke the dull Latin of lawn care.  She recalled how on late afternoons the two of them would walk slowly around their or Sam’s yard, each with a can of beer in hand, pointing at various imposters, pulling them up and naming them: tickseed, dollar weed, chick weed, etc., etc.  She didn’t know the language.  It was an easy way for them to be, but she saw the way Sam looked at her sometimes.  She thought Rich noticed, too, but he was not the jealous type.  Never was one to get territorial.  

              She didn’t really feel like visiting, but probably should, she thought, go thank him for the roses before it got too late.  For some reason, she thought about how hard she’d found it to be alone at night, especially not being a sound sleeper. That was the most pronounced absence she felt in the wake of Rich’s death—his not being there, next to her, when she lay in bed at night.  It was just her now when she’d wake up at two or three in the morning; her and the intermittent sounds of the night settled down around the house, gently crushing it into the dirt, like a child slowly pressing its soft, fat hand down on a toy it has decided is no longer fun to play with.

She glanced over at the vase of roses on the bar, where she’d put them, and decided to walk over to Sam’s and invite him for lunch.  Why not? She thought. It’s a neighborly gesture. It would be an imposition for me, to go to lunch, but it would probably mean a lot to him. Anyway, it’s the right thing to do.  

 He answered the door in his usual attire: plaid shorts, white V-neck and flip-flops—big grin on his round face.  “Madam Dixon,” he said in a voice like a retired boxer’s, and bowed, his rubber flip-flops squealing under the strain.  

“Sam,” she said, “the flowers are lovely.  Thank you for them—and the card.  It was very nice of you.” She didn’t mean to sound dismissive but thought maybe she had. She hoped he hadn’t noticed.

“Come in, come in,” he said, moving to the side, and she reluctantly stepped into the dark living room. She found herself wondering if was her first time inside his house. A couch hunkered to her immediate right, and a small hallway stretched out beyond it.  Light funneled in from the back of the house. Particles floated and swirled around in the rays of light like nebulae.

“Thank you,” she said.  No, I must have been in here before, she thought, but couldn’t think of a single time she had.

“Have a seat.” He pointed to the couch, and then touched a stout finger to his nose, as if nudging it into place.

“It’s rather dark in here, don’t you think, Sam.”

“I guess it is if you’re coming in from outside,” he said, and he opened the blinds. Light slanted in in thin layers. He winced a bit.

“How’s that, madam?”

“You don’t have to call me that, you know,” she said.  Now that Rich is gone, she thought, it seems silly somehow.  She had been “madam” to his “Colonel.”  

“Oh, it’s just for fun,” he said.  “Would you like something to drink?  A cold adult beverage, perhaps?  I have some Busch in the fridge.”

“No, thank you, Sam. I just stopped by—”

“I believe I’ll have one, if you don’t mind.”

While he was gone she noticed a very large framed photograph on the wall, opposite the couch, of a space shuttle blasting off of a launch pad.  She pointed it out when he returned with his beer.

“Oh, her.  She’s the Columbia. A real beautiful craft.  The first to go to space.…April twelve, nineteen eighty-one.” He clicked his tongue then sipped his beer.  She found it mildly irritating that he referred to it as “her,” but didn’t dwell on it because she realized something.

“Rich took me to that launch, Sam.  We were there, at the—what do you call it—where the bleachers are? Where everyone watches?”

“The Causeway?” He slightly tipped the beer can and slurped, like he was trying to be extra careful not to spill any.

“That’s it. The NASA Causeway.  That’s where we were. We’d been transferred to Patrick about, I don’t know, a month prior—from Barksdale, in Louisiana.  He was so excited about that—getting to see that first shuttle launch.”

She remembered: on the way to the Cape, Rich driving huddled up close to the steering wheel, pointing up at the sky, and her just sitting there listening. “Folks who’ve been to rocket launches say you can watch it the whole way up. You can see everything: the glint of sunlight on the metal, the tower of smoke, like a string of popcorn, like on a Christmas tree—everything.  Takes maybe an hour to disappear, to dissipate.  Course, this’ll be a little different.”  Neither of them knew exactly what a shuttle was, but he made it sound much more interesting than she would have found it all by herself. The car swerved a little under the strain of Rich’s excitement.

And it was something. And crowded with people—people with binoculars and telescopes and wearing sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats and men in shorts and Hawaiian-print shirts, open at the front.  One woman chased a little boy, who was about three, in circles.  She was short, but pretty, and had on a black one-piece bathing suit.  The little boy chuckled as his young mother chased after him, one hand keeping her sun hat on her head. And they all watched it lift off and go up and it all seemed so slow, but it wasn’t slow, it was fast, hundreds of miles per hour, but from where they stood everything was happening in slow motion, beautiful and vivid and big.

“It was a big deal, Madam. Very exciting.”  Sam walked closer to the photo, swigging as he moved, like a kid with a glass of milk. She half expected him to start blowing bubbles in his beer. “Who knows,” he said, “the guy or gal who took this picture might have been standing right next to you.” He looked away from the photo. “Barksdale,” he said, and scratched at the top of his blotchy bald head. “Seems like I’ve been there…”

She watched him and wait for more, but nothing followed.

“Sam,” she said, “I was wondering.  Do you have any lunch plans?” It seemed absurd the second she said it. Of course he didn’t. She imagined him opening a can of tuna and eating straight out of it with a fork.

“Oh, well,” he said.  He put the beer can down on the coffee table and scratched at his head again.  He moved closer to the wall with the photo of the shuttle on it. He put a hand on the wall, like he was bracing himself for a dizzy spell.

This can’t be happening, she thought.  He isn’t even attractive. He’s an old troll. I don’t like him a bit, to be honest. Drinking beer this early in the day.  She got a flush feeling and her face felt warm.  He thinks I’m a sad, pathetic old widow.

“I do, as a matter of fact, Marie.  I’m going out to the—” He looked at his watch.  “And won’t be back till—Maybe we can—”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said.  She stood up, shook her head.  “Really. It’s fine.”  She thought she might start crying, which was completely out of the question.  This is not a rejection, she told herself. It’s just bad timing.

“Well,” he said, and he smoothed the palms of his hands across his shirt front.

“No need to explain, Sam.  It’s fine,” she said, smiling. She found that she was pressing on her hair with one hand. She made herself stop. “Rain check,” she added, without having thought about it beforehand.

“Yes!” he said, happy to have a word for the awkwardness he felt.  “Rain check, indeed, madam.”

 She watched from her living room window as Sam got into his burgundy Chrysler and pulled out and sped off down the road and out of sight.  Where is he going so fast? She thought.  She picked one of the roses from the center of the bouquet and smelled of it.  Its scent was so faint that she couldn’t think of a word to describe it.  He’d said he wouldn’t be back till late.

 She’d loved Rich, she often thought, because he made her feel like somebody. In the beginning, when they were dating, she’d felt unfamiliar to herself when she was with him. Later, after they were married, the wife of an Air Force officer, she felt confident and important. Initially, anyway. She loved him for that, for that gift he probably didn’t even consider a gift.  She loved it better than any jewelry or flowers or exotic getaway. It felt almost permanent, and it was real. But things always change. Things didn’t get better or worse—they just changed.  They were two people in a habituation together. She continued to love him, and she supposed he still loved her.  But towards the end it wasn’t a gift so much as an ill-fitting pair of jeans you can’t bring yourself to give away because you are sure you’ll fit back into them some day.

 She waited till dusk.  She put on dark clothes and her old running sneakers and grabbed the flashlight out of the catchall drawer in the kitchen. She preemptively took two Ibuprofen. If I have to do any climbing or crawling or anything I’ll be sore tomorrow, she thought. It was very quiet outside.  

She checked his side door, the one that goes into the garage, and it was unlocked, of course. No one locked up in their neighborhood. There was no need to. It smelled like gasoline and fertilizer in the garage, and the smell made her feel lightheaded.  She lifted the mat at the foot of the door that led from the garage into the house, but didn’t find a key. she shone the flashlight around until she saw a little metal hook on the wall, to the left of the door, with a ring of keys hanging on it. She tried five before she found the right one. Before she turned the key in the lock she took a moment to consider what Rich would think of this.  Presumably, she thought, he could be watching me at this very moment.  What do you think, Rich? she whispered. It gave her the creeps to hear her voice in the dark, stinky garage.  She heard something scurry and thought rat or possum and inserted the key and quickly entered the house.

In the yellow glow of the flashlight bulb the photograph looked mythic. She immediately had an urge to cry, standing there looking at it with what amounted to a spotlight on it.  For the first time in a month she was feeling the full weight of her grief. Before she knew it she was sitting on Sam’s couch looking up at the photograph, sobbing—like a proper widow, she thought.  What an odd place for mourning?  But the photo captured something, and not just the shuttle launch—that was secondary—but the color and feel of that day, that point in time.  The quality of light.  A small bit of her life, as it had been once, paused—a crystalized memory she’d forgotten she had.

She got up and walked over to the picture and put the flashlight right on it. Maybe if I look long enough I’ll find us, she thought, me and Rich, with our hands shielding the sun from our eyes, watching the shuttle climb up towards space.  Maybe I’ll find the petite young mother and her little boy. She looked and squinted and searched the photograph.  But she needed more time with it.  Most of the onlookers were blurry. It was too dark now. The shuttle, lifting off, and the dense exhaust, were the most vivid things. She stared so hard that things got distorted and she started to zone out. She imagined Sam ripping his nubby fingernails off and sticking them to the black nose of the spacecraft.  He ripped one off and stuck it on and went for another one.  Then he took a sip of beer. Disgusting old troll, she thought. Who drinks beer in the middle of the day, anyway?  

A few minutes passed and she pulled herself together. She sat and stared at the huge thing hanging there on the wall until a light from outside grew and intensified and she realized that it was the headlights from Sam’s car, shining in through the window as he pulled into the driveway.

She wasn’t sure what to do. She heard the car door slam. She turned off the flashlight and put it in her back pocket and carefully hoisted the photograph off the wall and crept, bent over, to the door that let out to the garage. From inside the garage, she heard the key in the front door, heard it turn and the door open. Sam sighed as he closed it. She slowly put the keys back on the hook by the door in the garage. She paused and heard an interior door, a bedroom door. She left the garage and stole quickly across the street, tip-toed home in the dark, the picture under her arm, like a cat burglar.  But what I’ve done doesn’t feel like stealing, she thought, as she sat the photograph against the wall in her bedroom. She took the flashlight out of her pocket and sat on the edge of her bed. It feels like something else. Feels like a resurrection.

()

Steve Lambert’s writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Saw Palm, Chiron Review, New Contrast (South Africa), The Pinch, Broad River Review, Longleaf Review, Emrys Journal, BULL Fiction, Into the Void, Cowboy Jamboree, Cortland Review, and many other places. In 2015 he won third place in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction contest and in 2018 he won Emrys Journal’s Nancy Dew Taylor Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of four Pushcart Prize nominations and was a Rash Award in Fiction finalist. He is the author of the poetry collection Heat Seekers (CW Books, 2017), the chapbook In Eynsham (CW Books, 2020) and the fiction collection The Patron Saint of Birds (Cowboy Jamboree, 2020). His novel, Philisteens, will be out May 2021, and his second full-length poetry collection, The Shamble, will be out in October, both with Close to The Bone Publishing. He lives in Northeast Florida, with his wife and daughter, where he teaches part-time at the University of North Florida.  

#steve lambert #short story

[athenaquinn]

A First Ink-counter || Luce & Athena

TIMING: July 13th  LOCATION: Ink Inc.  PARTIES: @divineluce and @athenaquinn SUMMARY: Athena decides to get an important tattoo. Luce provides much needed refreshing conversation.

Her parents didn’t have to know about everything she did. Certainly they didn’t know about her fake ID and maybe one other thing, and so they didn’t have to know about this, either. Athena wasn’t planning on letting them see what she was getting anyhow. If her brother refused to come home, she’d make sure that he didn’t entirely break away from her. She hadn’t been apart from him for more than a few hours throughout their entire life, and so perhaps a tattoo of the constellation with his namesake would do the trick. She had a picture printed and folded neatly in her purse and enough money to pay in cash, unless the tattoo came out to over a thousand dollars. But what she was asking for was small, and so she figured it wouldn’t cost too much. Better to not leave a paper trail though, she knew her parents well enough for that. She pushed open the door to the shop and took in a deep breath before going up to the receptionist. “Hello. I have an appointment with Luce, I believe?” She gave a small tug at the edge of her shirt. She knew that in her white shorts, nearly new Converse, and pastel purple shirt she didn’t exactly look like she belonged in a tattoo parlor, but this was important to her, and after all, she was far tougher than she looked. Besides, anybody could get tattoos. To assume only one sort of person could probably wasn’t the best viewpoint to begin all of this with, but she had to be quick to judge in most situations. She sat down in a chair in the waiting area and pulled out her phone, only looking up when she heard someone else come into the room.

Taking a sip from her coffee cup, Luce glanced at the clock on her laptop and let out a quiet swear. Fuck. She had an appointment. After spending the last few weeks not coming into work, it was weird getting back into the swing of things. But, she had bills to pay-- big fucking bills from the extended stay in the hospital. So she needed all the appointments she could get. Adjusting her ponytail, Luce hurried out to the main lobby. Looking around the shop, she saw a young woman sitting down in the waiting area and approached her with an extended hand. “Athena, right? I think we talked a while ago about tattoos. I was surprised to see the booking-- in a good way.” She said with an easy grin she often used with clients, meant to set their mind at ease and help calm them down a bit. “C’mon back. I’ve got the design drafted up for you and we can see how you like it.” She said, escorting the girl into her room of the shop. “This is gonna be your first tattoo, right?”

When the woman stepped out and called her name, Athena shook her head for a moment, before nodding. “Yes! I remember now!” She took in Luce’s look, before looking back down at her lap. “Can’t say I knew how to dress for this occasion, but hey, doesn’t look like you’d kick me out for this, right?” She stood up, brushing her hands against her shorts and began to follow Luce to the back room. “Yes please, I think reviewing things can often be helpful!” Was her voice a bit too forced? Probably, but she wanted to make a good first impression, especially since this was important to her, and for all that she had no personal experience with tattoos, she did at least know that they were permanent and when having someone put something permanent on your body, being on their good side was the way to go. At Luce’s question, she offered her a small smile and gave a shrug, “that it is - though I can’t imagine what would’ve given that away.” She moved so that she was standing next to Luce. “I’d love to see what you have drawn up. I know it’s a fairly simple design, but hey, at least it’s not a simple wave, right?”

“Hey, we get all kinds of people in here. I’ve had people roll up in sweat pants and other folks who came in full business suits. Besides, if any of us gave a shit about what people thought about our appearances, we’re be in the wrong business.” Luce laughed as she gestured to the seat in the middle of the room. It had been awhile since she’d been back in, but her room was just as clean and organized as always. She needed to update some of her designs on the pinboard, but that was a continual work in progress. “Since it was a pretty simple one, I drew up a couple. Had a lot of time on my hands to really make this pop.” She said and pulled up the three different designs she’d made. One of them featured dotted lines connecting the entirety of the constellation, another had a backdrop of watercolors behind it, and the final was a very minimalist take on the constellation, with only the bow connected. “Eh, everyone starts out a virgin. In my experience, most people who get their first tattoo come back and get a second one in about a year. Once you’ve got the bug…” She shrugged and gestured to the dark sleeves on her arms. “So, what do you think of these?”

“That’s fair. Though the image of some of the businesspeople I’ve seen around town in here is one that doesn’t quite compute.” Athena gave another shrug, “but that’s totally true, it’s just still nice to see. Doesn’t always happen.” She sat down on the seat that Luce had pointed out and twirled the ends of her hair around her fingertips. How odd it was to be nervous about something like this and yet be willing to run and fight any sort of creature in a second. “I appreciate the dedication that you’ve already put into this. She looked at the different design choices, taking her time to take in the drawings. “You’re a great artist, I’m glad I was able to book you.” She dropped her hair from her hands and looked up at Luce. “I think I like the one with the little dots in between everything. It feels like just enough, but not too much - not that the one with the colors is bad at all, I just don’t necessarily want to be overly flashy right now.” Athena nodded, “well, that much is true. Can’t say I plan on getting more as of now, but hey, sometimes I surprise myself.” She bit her lip. “So, should I lie down? Sorry, as I said, I’m new to all this. Just tell me what to do.”

“Eh, sometimes they’re people who are just passing through. Don’t judge a book by its cover and shit, you know?” Luce said as she let Athena look over the different designs. It really wasn’t a big deal. The design was super minimalist to begin with so it was easy for her to come up with a few different ideas off the top of her head. Besides, she didn’t think the tattoo would take much longer than a half hour. “Thanks. I do good work.” She nodded at Athena’s choice. “Sounds like a good call to me. Nothing wrong with colors, but I personally prefer black and white myself.” She gestured to her own arms once more. “You can hang out for a second-- Gotta print a stencil. Then, we’ll figure out placement, that might take a couple tries to get it situated. And then we’ll get started on it. You mentioned in the booking you wanted it on your ribs, right?” She asked as the stencil was printed out.

“Of course.” Athena nodded. “Well, if it’s good business for you all then I am glad you are able to have it.” She continued to listen to the other woman, “yes, I don’t want anything too flashy - at least not for a tattoo.” Not when it was as special as this one was. Besides, it wasn’t like her brother was flashy, and honoring him should be similar. Subtle, but well thought out. Or at least she hoped so. “Of course, and yes! I see that!” She glanced down at Luce’s tattoos. “Well, you pull it off well. Can I ask, what made you interested in this? Both getting your own and having this as a profession? If I may ask, of course.” She nodded at Luce’s words. “I’ll stay right here, don’t worry about it!” She nodded, again perhaps with too much enthusiasm, but she didn’t think Luce would mind too much. “Sounds good - and yep! Sort of on the side of my ribs,” Athena pressed her hand against the outside of her shirt. “Though you know best, so once we get to the positioning, I’m open to advice.”

“Thanks.” Luce nodded in response as she looked over the stencils that had printed. One was slightly larger than the other-- one would cover most of the girl’s ribs, the other probably half. Then again, she was guesstimating. “How big we going?” She asked holding the two up for Athena to look over. “It’s totally your call on placement. At the end of the day, it’s your body, your tattoo. I can give you an idea of what would look good in my opinion, but you get the final say. That said,” She said “You’re also going to need to take off your shirt soon. Depending on how high up on your ribs you want it, I can give you pasties.” Luce said, no stranger to nudity when it came to her work. It was part of the job. Lots of girls wanted rib tattoos, or sternum tattoos. And more than a few guys wanted thigh tattoos for some fucking reason, which meant she’d been way too close to way more dicks than she ever wanted. Circling back to Athena’s question, Luce shrugged. “I was an art student at UMaine for a bit, but I dropped out after I got my first tattoo. Figured out that tattooing was more my speed and Ulf offered me an apprenticeship. Never really looked back after that.”

“Of course.” Athena bit her lip at Luce’s question. “I think the smaller. I like them both, and it’s not like this’ll always be super visible, but I think a bit smaller is more what I’m up for.” Smaller was more intimate, more connected - her brother was hardly one to make a big statement about anything, and if she was doing something in his honor, it should represent him, shouldn’t it? “I’d like advice on placement, but I think on the side of my ribs might be good. Up to hearing your thoughts on the matter. When in doubt or in experiencing something new, I’m of the belief to refer to the expert.” She gave a small shrug. “I sort of expected as much.” Luce was pretty, and she wasn’t fae at least, and if this was the way tattoos worked, it meant that she’d likely be able to hide it easily. She pulled her shirt over her head, brushing her hair over one shoulder as she looked over at Luce. “Oh, I’m at UMaine now - Senior come fall. Hey, I know someone else who’s going to trade school, I think that you should do what you want, and clearly you do a killer job here.” She offered the other girl a small smile. “Ulf’s the owner?”

“Sounds good to me on all counts.” Luce said as she tossed the other stencil in the trash and waited patiently for the girl to get herself situated. With an analytical eye, she mapped out the positioning with the space available, taking into account how the lines would draw the attention of the casual observer. “Yeah, you’d think more people would take that approach right? But, for some reason, people think they know better than me. Who cares about my experience, huh?” She said as she applied the stencil to the girl’s skin. “Hm. Check it out in the mirror and let me know what you think.” Luce said with a nod before leaning back against her desk. “Thanks. And yeah, Ulfric. He’s a good dude. Owns the shop, gave an apprenticeship, does tattoos too.” She said with a nod.

“I’m glad.” Athena kept glancing over to Luce, trying to take in the entire room, It was a natural habit that she’d had for as long as she could remember. Survey the scene, make sure you know what you can use in case you run into trouble. It was why she’d survived that werewolf attack on her and her brother’s eighteenth birthday. Quick thinking and a knowledge of what was around her. “You’d think, but people are idiots a lot of the time.” She rolled her eyes and let the woman place the stencil against her skin. “You don’t have to worry about me thinking I know better than you. I’m decent at interior design, but I’m not super great at other forms of art, but hey, we can’t all have it all, right?” She held onto the stencil and hopped off of her seat and went over to the mirror. It looked good - situated just on her ribs. She hadn’t had an exact placement in mind, just within a certain area - and this fit the bill. Good enough to keep hidden even in the couple crop tops she owned, and personal, private. Nodding at Luce’s comments, she turned to walk back over. “Seems like a nice combo of things to have and be. By the way, placement’s perfect. Just tell me what to do next. I can pull my hair into a ponytail if need be, I know it’s a bit long.”

“If that isn’t a fucking mood.” Luce laughed and grinned. “Glad to hear it. That kind of thinking will get you far in life. Sometimes it pays to watch and learn and let the professionals do what’s best. I mean, like… from a learning perspective.” She said as she prepped her tray of tools, grabbing fresh gloves and supplies from her rolling toolkit. “And hey, who knows. With practice, you could get better. No harm in trying, right?” She said as she gestured to the chair. “I think your hair should be fine. If you could lie down on your other side, we’ll get this thing started.” She said, snapping on the gloves with a smile. “A constellation, though, huh? Any particular meaning behind it?”

“Such a mood,” Athena grinned. “Right - I mean, I want to be a doctor. It’s a pretty huge yikes if I don’t listen to what others want to teach me. Especially given that I might want to do surgery. No amount of books will teach me that - I need to learn from those who understand the field. I have respect for those who know more than I do.” She gave a shrug at Luce’s next comment. “Very true. I think trying is always of use. Maybe I’ll go pick up a sketch pad sometime soon, we’ll see.” Athena nodded at Luce’s request. “Alright, I’ve got scrunchies and hair ties just in case.” She moved to lie down on the opposite side and bit her lip at Luce’s question. Saying yeah, it’s for my twin brother who sort of might hate me but who is my other half might not fly so well. “I’ve got a friend who meant a lot to me who was super into astronomy. Plus, there’s sadly no Athena-specific constellation, and so this one suits me well.”

“A surgeon? Smart girl. That’s pretty cool.” Luce replied as the machine in her hand began to buzz. “Alright, let’s get this thing started. If you need to take a break or something, just let me know.” It was a small tattoo, with hardly enough detail to warrant all that much time to get what Athena wanted, but you could never be too careful tattooing virgins. She’d had a girl pass out on her once while doing the tiniest fucking scribble of her life. As the tattoo machine buzzed in her hand, Luce continued to talk while she worked, “Ah, that’s cool. I don’t know much about astronomy, so I wouldn’t know if there was one or not. This is the hunter guy, right? Orion?” She asked.

“I like to think I am at least sort of smart. Thank you.” Athena took in a careful breath as Luce began the tattooing process. At least the scars on her body were faint and primarily on her legs.”I’ll be sure to let you know, but I played field hockey in high school. I doubt this’ll hurt more than any of that did.” She did her best to stay as still as possible. “I’m hardly an expert myself, but well, when you have the sort of name I do, you kinda have to know at least some other Greek mythology, and by default you get thrown into astronomy. Especially when you’re like me and sometimes just read textbooks for fun. Or if you get too caught up in curiosity.” She took in another deep breath as Luce continued, the buzzing on her ribs feeling stranger more than anything else. “Yes. One of them. Placed into the stars by Artemis in some stories of mythology.”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself short. You thinking about med school soon? What with senior year rolling up and stuff?” Luce asked as she continued to follow the stencil. It was a pretty easy tattoo and hey, at least she was getting paid. Field hockey. Weird fucking sport, considering it was a rough and tumble kind of deal and yet all the girls had to wear skirts and shit. Not that she’d ever minded. She’d been with a few different field hockey girls before. “Makes sense. The default Greek myth stuff. Can’t relate to the textbook thing, though. I’m not big on books.” She said as she dipped the tip of the machine into the ink once more. “Artemis…” Luce nodded, “That’s the moon lady, right? I did a tattoo of her a while back-- something with her like, turning a dude into a deer and making his dogs eat him? The lady who wanted it was metal as hell. Turned out to be a cool tattoo.”

“Yep! Planning on taking the MCAT and applying this year. We’ll see where I end up.” Athena continued. “At present, I’m interested in otolaryngology, immunology, or medical genetics, but I suppose I’ll have to see.” She felt her cheeks grow a bit warm - it wasn’t even as though the other girl was giving her any sort of big complement, but there was something incredibly satisfying about having someone who was a mostly stranger still compliment her. “Yeah? I think Greek myths can be super neat - an interesting way of understanding the way they understood the world. Oh? Well, hey, not everyone is. I’ve got a -” she scrunched up her nose, not wanting to bring up Ariana, not really properly knowing what she was, “I know someone else who’s not big on reading, but they’re into audiobooks.” She glanced down at the tattoo as it was forming under Luce’s steady hands, “Yes, she is the moon lady,” something I wonder if I would’ve been named after her in another life, “oh? That’s super interesting! You really do get all sorts of fascinating tattoos around here, don’t you?”

“Dope. Good luck with all of that. Sounds like you’ve got a lotta cool shit in your future.” Luce said, the specific fields that the girl rattled off going right over her head. She’d gotten through high school with a solid C grade and lasted 8 weeks in college before dropping out-- medical shit, outside of tattoo aftercare and specifics on how to avoid blood poisoning were completely out of her wheelhouse. Which suited Luce just fine. Let doctor people do doctor stuff, she’d stay in her lane with her art. “Yeah, myths and stuff like that are pretty cool. A lot of art draws from greek myth so I’ve studied some of it, but eh. That was a while ago. I’m not exactly interested in being the next Raphael.” She said as she wiped away some droplets of ink with a paper towel. “Around here? Depends on the day, but I’ve got a few cool ones under my belt.” She tilted her head to one of the framed art pieces on the wall, an intricately woven black and white mandala that featured motifs of flowers, circles, and other geometric shapes. “That’s my preferred style. I had a client who came in, didn’t know what he wanted, saw that, and had me turn it into a stencil. Got it done on his calf then and there. It was pretty cool.”

“Thank you.” It was nice, how easy it was to talk with Luce. Athena had never been someone who found talking to others difficult (heck, she’d been the one to initiate conversations for others, even), but it was still nice to fall into a balanced conversation with strangers. Especially ones that at least seemed human, for all intents and purposes. “Eh, being the next Raphael is overrated anyhow. He’s neat, he made some great art, but trying to be him? Overrated.” She grinned at Luce, before following her gaze. “That’s amazing!! Sorry to have mine be a bit boring, but it’s just something I’ve thought about for a while, and for all that I can sometimes be bright and bold, I also appreciate simplicity. Hence the sort of minimalist tattoo.” She glanced down at Luce’s work. “Thanks for being so careful. I was sort of nervous this was going to hurt more than it has been. But again, maybe all the sports prepared me for this. What’s a tattoo compared to an elbow in the ribs?”

“Oh, big mood. I’m not exactly interested in being some repressed painter. And besides, portraits and sculpting aren’t my thing anyways.” Luce said as she wiped the tattoo clean. It was such a simple design, it really wasn’t going to take much longer. Leaning back, she took a look at her handiwork with a critical eye. It was exactly what Athena had requested, so hopefully it would go over well. “It was a fun time. And hey, it’s meaningful to you and that’s what matters. Doesn’t matter if it’s minimalist or something more intricate. Art’s art.” She replied. “I’ve got a light hand, which helps for this sort of thing. But yeah, you’ve been taking it like a champ.” Luce said with a grin of reassurance.

“Right? That’s so fifteenth century.” Athena grinned. “I think it’s good to know about all sorts of art. It’s wonderful how skilled you are.” She glanced over to Luce again, watching the woman as she stepped back and began examining the tattoo. Athena glanced down at it. “Well, from what I can see, it looks better than I expected, so I think this is a win. Thank you - you do have a wonderful and steady hand for this, and I appreciate the endorsement. Means a lot.”

“Exactly. I’m a modern gal, I’m not about that old shit.” Luce smiled in return before shrugging. “A lot of people say that tattooing isn’t art. Those people are wrong, it’s an art, it’s just a different kind. Which is why I look into other stuff outside of just tattooing. Acrylic painting, oils, charcoals, stuff like that.” She said before putting a small wrap over the tattoo. “No worries, I’m glad you like it. It’s always nice to do something that people appreciate, you know?” She said before grabbing one of the aftercare kits from her work station. “There’s a little hand out in there that has information for you to look back on, but keep the wrap on, wash it with unscented soap every couple hours, and no baths, pools, or hot tubs for two weeks until it’s healed. Other than that…” Luce peeled off her gloves and tossed them in the trash before offering her hand to Athena. “I think it turned out really well.”

“I can appreciate history but I don’t want to be like that, right?” Athena gave a small shrug. “Same class of people who say cheerleading and dance aren’t sports. I never did them, but they are valid sports.” She allowed Luce to wrap up her tattoo and flashed her another grin. “I agree. It’s best when someone’s able to appreciate what you do, and I know I super appreciate this.” She glanced down at it. A way to have a part of the most important person in her life next to her always. With her, always. “Thanks!” Athena grabbed the kit and nodded along to Luce’s description. “I’ll be careful and so long as I can still shower, I’m all good.” She grabbed Luce’s hand, pleasantly surprised at the lack of rash the silver rings caused against her now bare skin. “I agree. Should I decide to go wild and get another, I know which gal to call.”

“Right? Ah well, fuck what people think, you know? Sometimes you just gotta do what you want. Who cares what other people think?” Luce said with a nod, though she knew it was easier said than done. She’d lived by that motto for a long time, but… there were times when it would have been simpler to just go along with what other people wanted. Pushing the thought from her mind, Luce gave a thumbs up. “Yeah, definitely shower, just be gentle when you’re cleaning it. The print out has everything you’ll need and feel free to call the shop if you ever have any questions.” At the young woman’s firm handshake, Luce smiled in response. “For sure, for sure. But yeah, great working with you. They’ll ring you up at the front. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.” She said with a wink as she began to clean up her work station. She remembered being like that, getting her first tattoo and then coming back for more. Ariana was that way, Luce mused, thinking about the tattoos the girl sported. Maybe she’d see more of the both of them in the future.

#wickedswriting #c luce #chatzy #a first inkcounter #// i love cal #and i loved this so much #this was a fascinating interaction and i am deeply intrigued by this

[renaroo]

Some Times (Time and Time Again) (6/8)

Disclaimer: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics. Warnings: Canon shaken not stirred, Heavy canon references to Booster Gold (2009-2011) and Blue Beetle (2016-2018) Pairings: Boostle Rating: T Synopsis: Booster Gold and the rest of the Time Masters are still straightening up things in the wake of the most recent universal Rebirth. But Rip Hunter is still missing in the aftermath, leaving Booster in charge with Skeets, Michelle, and Rani. But there’s a distraction for Booster, one he can’t keep himself from ignoring.

Ted Kord, miraculously, is still alive. And that makes everything more complicated than Michael could have ever imagined.

A/N: My gosh we are so close to completing this thing! Just two chapters left, hard as it is to believe!

And of course a wonderful thanks to @shibascarf, @babybatbrat, @bibliofilariidae, @mcbangle, @secretlystephaniebrown, arouraleona, and boopinbabbit for your lovely feedback and support!

Michelle Carter

“God, I’m such an idiot sometimes!” Michelle hisses to herself, feet stomping down the corridor toward Rani’s room.

Her conversation with Ted Kord is still rattling around in her skull and she can’t tell what half of her she’d like to strangle more — the overly sharing side unable to keep a coherent secret or the crude and cryptic mistress of time she feels no right to even claiming.

Coming to a stop mid-stride, Michelle closes her eyes and lets her shoulders droop. She tilts her head back with a sigh. “No wonder Rip and Mikey trust me with next to nothing other than babysitting duty,” she groans. “Throw one little moment of emotional conflict and I utterly lose those salutatorian's brains.”

Opening her eyes, she looks toward Rani’s still distant room and feels a wave of conflict and shame that hasn’t pestered her in a while. But this is the feeling she should be used to by now — it’s just like their father used to always say when he bothered to be around.

“Been playing second best to nothing since the womb, huh, Michelle?” she mutters under her breath. “Could place second in a game of solitaire.”

She takes a moment to suck in a deep breath, steeling herself for a smiling face and positive disposition when a single voice knocks the wind out of her lungs yet again.

“What’s solitaire?” Rani’s tiny voice questions.

Michelle blinks in surprise just before Rani’s mousy haired head pops out from her room’s doorway.

Despite herself, despite everything, Michelle manages a softer and more genuine smile than the one she has been building up to and shakes her head slightly. “A really boring card game,” she answers easily. “Should have known better than to think you would be asleep.”

Skeets, the ever unhelpful bot, hovers out from Rani’s room and bops in the air. “It would have been an unlikely scenario even in the most forgiving of circumstances, Michelle! Which, unfortunately for us, the last twenty-four hours or so have not been.”

“Try the last twenty-nine years for some of us, Skeets,” Michelle jokes, closing the distance of the hallway and scooping Rani into her arms with a simple bow.

“That is much too small to be your correct chronal age, Michelle—“

“Skeets, shush,” Michelle snaps as she enters the bedroom. “Or I’ll give you to Batman to dissect. Again.”

“Three experiences too many, I will heed the warning,” Skeets banters back.

As they enter Rani’s room, Michelle slows her approach to Rani’s bed and adjusts her hold on the younger child. Her thoughts are nearly as heavy as Rani is getting as she lives and ages with them. It’s not going to be long before picking her up isn’t an option for Michelle or Michael.

“Are you going to make me go to bed?” Rani asks critically.

“Eventually,” Michelle admits, turning to sit on the edge of the bed while still keeping her grip on Rani. The girl sits easily in her lap and leans away, giving enough space for them to look into each other’s eyes. “We need to have a talk about everything that’s happened first.”

Rani’s cheeks grow slightly pale and she squirms uncomfortably. “Oh,” she says. “I think I’d rather sleep.”

“Well, that’s tough, kiddo, probably should have put yourself to bed before I got over here then,” Michelle jokes, poking at Rani’s stomach playfully.

In response, Rani turns and twists, but the enthusiasm is slow and dull compared to Rani’s usual behavior.

It’s one of many signs Michelle, Michael, and Rip have learned to pay careful attention to with Rani. She is a sensitive little girl, and her traumas are numerous. When she’s not bopping around she’s almost assuredly in some state of regressive isolation or pure shock.

Watching the man she loves as a father get beaten to a pulp by an evil man they have encountered before is, at the very least, a trigger. Michelle can be certain of at least that much.

“Rani, listen to me,” Michelle says, firmly but without any heat to it. It’s enough to draw Rani’s wide eyes to her. “We love you, and we want the best for you. You know that, right?”

After a moment of clear confusion, Rani manages a small nod.

“Good, because we do,” Michelle reinforces. “And we know you love Rip and want to find him. We do too! But you are a very little girl and this is a very dangerous multiverse we live in. You absolutely cannot, under no circumstances, leave Time Lab without either Mikey, myself, or Rip.”

“I had Skeets,” Rani says quickly.

On instinct, Michelle turns her head to acknowledge Skeets’ floating presence. She immediately turns her eyes back on Rani but it’s a moment too late as Skeets already feels acknowledged.

“Young Rani does have quite an argument on that account,” Skeets says supportively.

“Yes, Skeets, you did a great job,” Michelle says with a roll of her eyes that threatens to continue right out of her sockets. “What were you even doing allowing any of this, Skeets? Aren’t you programmed with safety protocols and whatnot?”

“Yes I am, Michelle, however, there are no proper babysitting protocols. And while I advised against rash action, it was best to make do with the situation at hand,” Skeets returns promptly. “Might I point out, this is not far off from my calculations when dealing with your brother.”

There isn’t much she can give to deny that fairly abundant fact so Michelle releases a groan instead. “Why can’t anything just be simple?”

Rani squirms and meets Michelle’s gaze. “Please don’t be mad at Skeets, Michelle,” Rani pleads. “It’s my fault. I just wanted to find Boppy, and he did leave me a message.”

Michelle feels her chest tighten and she squeezes her grip on Rani sadly. “We all want Rip back, Rani, believe me.”

“In further defense of both Rani and myself,” Skeets spoke up, hovering closer to eye level with Michelle, “following clear instructions left by Rip Hunter is often an important and practical step for all of us here in the Time Lab. And those newly chalked directions were fairly direct considering the usual clues.”

Blinking, Michelle thinks it over.

“That’s… actually pretty true, Skeets,” Michelle remarks thoughtfully. “And it did lead to saving Ted… and getting a bunch of us almost killed, but definitely the saving Ted part.” She presses her lips together, still deep in contemplation. “But even then there wasn’t any sign of Rip, even when Michael was almost certainly in trouble. And that’s not like Rip at all. I can’t even count on my hands and toes how many times, when Mike’s taken too much, Rip has shown up and tipped the scales for him. It’s almost his signature at a certain point.”

Following the conversation, Rani draws her own brows together in concern. “Michelle, you don’t think Boppy wrote the message? But who did? I’m the only one who’s ever written on the board before… and Boppy made me switch to making my unicorns and butterflies on paper so I don’t do that anymore.”

Sighing, Michelle shifts Rani’s weight to her other knee. “I’ll be honest, honey, I’m not sure yet what exactly I think about anything.”

Rani’s bottom lip puckers out as she studies Michelle carefully. “If we don’t know what’s going on, how do we know I did the wrong thing?” she asks pointedly.

“No, no, missy, you’re not philosophizing out of this one,” Michelle stops her quickly. “This isn’t a matter of right or wrong at the moment, it’s a matter of keeping you and everyone else safe so that we can all be together again as a big, happy family. And if you’re flying around to random times and places without us, we can’t do that. Because I know for me and Mike, losing you is the absolute worst thing imaginable these days, and I’m not going to let it happen. Okay, girlie?”

While she ducks her head down to avoid Michelle’s gaze, a coy smile finds its way to Rani’s face. She knows when Michelle says these things that she’s speaking from the bottom of her heart. She has to know by now.

And if she does, considering the emotional mess Rani was when she first came into their lives, maybe that means they’re doing something right after all.

When Rani breaks the silence again, it’s with a deceptively simple question. “Is Ted Kord now in our family? Like Boppy?”

Thinking about it, Michelle takes a breath and then leans back. “I honestly don’t know what’s in store with those two, Rani, love,” she admits. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere any time soon. Either because Michael and he need to sort things out or because of the whole… assassination stuff. That makes it kind of difficult to picture this arrangement ending too fast.”

Before Rani can respond, there is a loud shout followed by laughter.

“Welp, that’s the nose, and no sounds of murder,” Michelle jokes. Rani looks at her questioningly so she rubs her shoulders. “What I mean is, things are definitely looking like we can be expecting to see more of the former Blue Beetle.”

“Okay,” Rani nods. “And if he’s family, then Boppy will be okay with him staying here, like me, so that’s good.”

Michelle has a hard time arguing with Rani’s peculiar logic on that accord.

That is until Michelle looks over and notices the little girl is still furrowed in thought, her eyes darting back and forth as if she’s reading something on her room’s wall. Then, looking at Michelle cautiously, Rani asks, “If he’s not family… how is Black Beetle able to always get in and out of Time Lab? Or write on the board, if it’s him?”

If Rani hadn’t always been so innocent and young, Michelle thinks the questions would have been laced with more accusations. It’s already enough to make Michelle’s heart seize.

They are, after all, very good questions.

Playing up to the role of an adult, Michelle looks toward Skeets instead. “Skeets… how is all of this stuff possible from Black Beetle?” she asks, more worry in her voice than she intends to let on.

For once, Skeets’ response is not immediate and overly explanatory. The droid hovers, a strangely ominous look to his screen in the wrong lighting.

“Apologies, Michelle,” Skeets says in a flat and altogether unapologetic tone. “Information about my scans and records for Rip Hunter and Black Beetle are blocked as of update two-two-seven-dash-eleven-dot-thirteen. Courtesy of Rip Hunter.”

“What?” Michelle asks, aghast.

“Why would Boppy do that?” Rani asks again, only now her pointed questions are accented by the shake of Time Lab’s very infrastructure itself.

The little girl in her lap screams and throws herself into a fit before Michelle can even blink. She can’t draw a single coherent thought before leaping to her feet, Rani in tow, and looking at Skeets.

“I am receiving an intruder alert!” Skeets says loudly, a red exclamation popping up on his screen.

“You useless, toaster!” Michelle sputters in frustration. “Tell me where this is coming from!”

“I believe it does not require much deductive reasoning,” Skeets answers, following Michelle through the door and out into the corridor, “to assume that the laboratory is the most likely option!”

She would die before admitting it out loud, but Michelle knows that Skeets is right. She turns on her heels and takes off to follow the continuing noises of clattering and shaking.

Their home is under attack, their family, everything they still have of their old world and time — and Michelle cannot be nearly as upset with that as she is with the haunting premises that Rani and Skeets have given her.

Black Beetle or not, the real attack is on the understanding Michelle has had of their everything in the last few congruent years. And as much as she wants Rip Hunter safely back with them, she needs a serious word with him about that alone.

#writing #dc fic #DC: Some Times (Time and Time Again) #Boostle #Michelle Carter #Booster Gold #Michael Jon Carter #Ted Kord #Blue Beetle #Rani #Skeets

[alwaysspeakshermind]

Top 5 Anti-Varchie Arguments & Why They Make No Sense

#2: “Varchie’s too rushed/forced/there’s no development.”

[Note: this is one of the arguments that really grates my cheese, because the refuting evidence is so! Very! Obvious! that I don’t even know how anyone can bring themselves to actually use it. So be warned...this post is long. Also, it definitely jumps around a bit, because I was in a serious ‘Really, dude? Really?’ mood when I wrote it, and upon calmer reflection, I decided to remove a few overly sarcastic things I put down in the heat of the moment and add a couple of clarifications so it doesn’t sound like I’m trying to insult anything I’ve no intention of insulting.]

Varchie’s too rushed? Varchie’s too forced? Varchie has no development?

Yeah, no.

I’m trying to not lose all pretense of tact here, but this falls in the “anyone saying this must be too young to grasp the concept of abstract reasoning because people cannot possibly be this dumb” type of arguments.

Because again...no.

NOOOOOOOOOO.

Since the beginning of the series, Archie and Veronica have been Riverdale’s best-developed couple. (Yes, even better than Bughead, who, no shade whatsoever because this is by no means a post meant to disparage one of the other three pairings I’m 100% on board with in this show, didn’t even interact in the pilot), and anyone with more than an ounce of common sense can recognize that. Even if they hate it with every fiber of their being and wish it weren’t true—it’s true.

Development (particularly that of the onscreen relationship variety) does not fall in the category of artistic elements that lend themselves to subjective interpretation. It is a technical, structural element, meaning it is either there, or it’s not, and deliberately ignoring or refusing to acknowledge its existence does not render it null and void. Though they are the first of the canon couples to kiss onscreen, Varchie is also the only ship on the show that takes longer than two or three somewhat-romantic interactions to begin a relationship.

No, seriously. 

Give it a second and really think about it…

In six episodes, how many the-average-person-would-recognize-this-as-romantic times do Betty and Jughead interact before they kiss and begin a romantic relationship? [Note: and by “the average person,” I mean “would even your clueless dad who would probably rather be watching something else instantly recognize this as a Definite Romantic Moment™?”]

How many times in twelve episodes do Cheryl and Toni interact at all before romance is inarguably hinted at [in 2x14; 2x14 is where their half-second interactions become more than fanon and the average viewer learns what most of the rest of us already knew anyway]? 

How many times do Alice and FP interact at all in ten episodes (the point when people suddenly decided they had an entire romantic history and “needed to be put together”), and how many times do they interact after that before they begin whatever kind of relationship it is they have?

How many times do Kevin and Joaquin interact at all, period in one episode before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times do Kevin and Moose interact in thirteen episodes before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in one and a half seasons do Kevin and Fangs interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times do Archie and Val interact at all, period in six episodes before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in two and a half seasons do Archie and Josie interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in two and a half seasons do Veronica and Reggie interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship and how many of those scenes also include Archie? 

(I’d also mention Josie and Reggie, but apparently I’m the only one who remembers that pairing. And also Josie and that summer fling “relationship,” but I’m kind of still trying to block that one from my mind because it really horrifies me that my girl kissed a dude who looks like he pours axle grease on his hair every morning, walks around wearing plaid shirts with cutoff sleeves like Larry the Cable Guy, but still has the nerve to whine publicly about her not wanting it to be anything more, so I won’t.)

But, etc., etc. You get the picture.

This is not, of course, to hurl accusations of “worthless!” at any of the above-mentioned ships or those who ship them; it’s just an example used to illustrate the following point:

If any or all of those pairings seem[ed] cute/promising/full of potential and/or not rushed or forced to you when none of them were so much as hinted at in the pilot (and the show goes for long periods of time without those characters even sharing screentime, let alone actual interactions or even glances), Varchie shouldn’t either. 

Especially in light of the fact that Varchie has a stronger romantic buildup in one episode than most teen couples get in three.

For instance:

Varchie Development In 1x01

Diner scene: Archie and Veronica meet at Pop’s and the romantic interest on both sides is made obvious from the beginning.

School Hall scene: Walking with Betty and Kevin, Veronica spots Archie, asks about him, and makes her interest in him explicitly known (“In that case, mind putting in a word?”) once Betty says “we’re just friends.”

Lunch scene: Veronica immediately addresses Archie regarding the song he’s playing, and Archie surreptitiously checks Veronica out  (it’s quick, but he does. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch Archie during that scene while keeping in mind where Veronica’s at.)

Invitation-to-the-dance scene: Veronica calls Archie over from practice in order to give Betty a prime opportunity to finally ask him out, and Archie pays more attention to Veronica during the conversation—jogging over right away, smiling at her, even agreeing to go to a dance he’s indifferent to because Veronica jokingly insists and agrees to come with him and Betty. Also, “Archiekins,” Veronica’s pet-name-of-choice (besides “Lover”) for Archie in the comics, makes it first appearance.

Dance scene: Veronica jokes about how Archie needs to drop the fine arts/sports question for a night so they can all have fun, Archie refers to her as Ronnie for the first time and tells her he’s trying. Veronica teasingly tells him to work faster, and Archie watches her leave with a look similar to the one he wore in the diner when they first met.

Seven Minutes In Heaven scene: As soon as Archie’s name is suggested, Veronica looks his way, and she visibly leans forward to watch the bottle make its selection. Although it does not “clearly [point] to the new girl” as Cheryl claims (the bottle actually lands in-between Betty and Veronica, meaning no one can say for sure who Archie’s going to kiss), Archie’s eyes immediately cut over to Veronica, and Veronica immediately looks at Archie.

Closet scene: There isn’t much doubt what’s going to happen as soon as the door shuts behind Archie and Veronica, because the sexual tension is palpable, and the entirety of their conversation is like a very awkward dance around the fact they are interested in each other. By the time they kiss it feels inevitable, and even the kiss itself is postponed until the end of the scene so that it acts as the exclamation point to the story arc.

 Once they exit and find Betty gone, the next eight to nine episodes consistently juxtapose Archie and Veronica’s new Friendship™ status with mildly flirtatious and subtly romantic moments that hearken back to the 1x01 makeout; by the time they become an official couple toward the end of Season 1, their relationship development is already slower and stronger than that of most of those previously-listed canon ships after three seasons. So, quite frankly, if you can’t recognize/acknowledge exactly how well-developed and non-rushed a relationship Varchie is, the problem is not the show/writers/the Varchie shippers.

The problem is YOU.

**IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SLOW-BURN DEVELOPMENT**

When it comes to fictional relationships, development is not the same thing as a preexisting history between characters. In all forms of fiction, everything important—whether it directly impacts/advances the plot or not—must take place on the screen, stage, or page. (The motto is show, not tell.) Character interactions are not excluded from this rule, particularly when it comes to film or television, where narration is an optional touch to be used sparingly, rather than the default mode of conveying information to the audience. While you can absolutely try to argue that “Barchie has the best development, not Varchie” on the grounds that the former has a long history of friendship, the reality is that at this point in the show, Barchie does not have enough onscreen interactions period, let alone romance-tinged interactions over the course of three seasons, to qualify them for a slow-burn status, let alone a good slow-burn status.

Now.

I’m not sure exactly why, but the concept of slow-burn has lately become so popular and so synonymous in fandom with “best development” and “superior quality” that the term gets thrown around until its original meaning is all but lost and everyone seems to think that if a certain potential pairing doesn’t happen right out of the gate, it automatically = EPIC! SLOW-BURN! ENDGAME!** while any pairing that does happen first automatically = boring. forced. predictable.

Which is…just…not…true.

[**Yet another side note: I LOATHE the word endgame. Always have, always will, and one day I will write the essay on the ever-swirling debate regarding Riverdale’s use of that word and why Veronica had to say it in-narrative for the pure and simple reason that people wouldn’t shut up about Kevin saying it that one time back in the pilot, and in math we call that an inverse operation, BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.]

Fictional relationships are about character dynamics just as much (if not more) than they’re about story, so it really doesn’t matter if the relationship that winds up being the E-word relationship is expected/planned or unexpected/unplanned. Slow burns can be great, but they are not the only type or relationship with value. Furthermore, not every ship that doesn’t show immediate progress on the romantic front is a slow burn, and not every attempt to create a slow burn works.

In TV, there are epic slow-burns, there are mediocre attempts to create epic slow-burns, there are bad attempts to create epic slow-burns, and then there are blatantly terrible pairings that attempt to cloak their pulled-out-of-a-hat-for-drama-ness beneath the heading of “slow-burn.” (Come to think of it, maybe that’s why people are so confused about what actually constitutes a slow-burn???)

Using another Friends example, think the J/R pairing…did they have the potential to be a good slow-burn relationship? Yeah, sure. All the actors on that show had chemistry and everyone interacted enough to make everything narratively plausible. Were they a good slow-burn relationship? No, because they came from left field, happened so late in the game and, worst of all, had to follow a strong relationship with better romantic chemistry and multiple seasons of solid storylines behind it. There are some people who prefer them together, yes, but even everyone who does like them (at least everyone I’ve ever come across) fully admits that they would also have preferred that pairing occurred much earlier in the show, when not so much water had gone under the bridge.

[Or, if Friends isn’t your sitcom, think instead of the giant misstep in How I Met Your Mother’s finale, where 7-8 seasons of plot and character development were bent, clipped, and otherwise torpedoed to splice existing material onto the plan for an ending that was concocted back when the show’s creators expected to only get maybe 3 seasons. Could that ending have worked after 2-3 seasons? Yes! It could’ve even been great. But after all those seasons, and all that story/character/relationship development in directions that wound up being more compelling than the original plan, it just didn’t work. It wound up feeling like someone luring you on a fun-but-long car ride with the promise of dessert at the end, and then being like “Ta da! Here’s a fruit parfait! Eat up!” Because while plenty of people enjoy fruit parfaits and wouldn’t mind eating them for breakfast or a snack, no one really appreciates being served berries, yogurt, and granola when they were led to expect ice cream/cake/cookies/pie. When you expend a lot of time and effort building something up, you absolutely have to deliver. You can’t pull a switcheroo at the last minute and call it good, because all that does is beg the question if this was your plan all along, why did you waste so much time developing everything but this?]

When it comes to creating slow burn, there are no shortcuts. It’s a delicate and tricky road, because in addition to needing to make sense from an in-narrative and character aspect, it also requires careful, unflagging cultivation over an extended period of time. It can’t show up and disappear at random for the sake of plot convenience; it needs normal and consistent onscreen interaction (i.e., frequent everyday conversations with and without other characters present), readily-observable-by-audience romance-tinged interaction every 2-4 episodes (flirting, furtive or longing glances, touches that linger, special smiles, noticeably consistent too much attention paid to the other person’s dating or personal life, etc.), as well as an unwavering attraction/willingness to go there from both parties.

In other words, slow-burn is exactly what the name implies: a long, slow, process where each step depends on the one before it, and you can’t rush it, skip steps, or let it fade into the background for a couple seasons while you work on something else. It must be shown, not told, the connection must be inarguable from the beginning, and there must be so much sizzling sexual chemistry between characters that even interactions in platonic settings resemble mutual flirting rather than friendly banter. After one season, Barchie doesn’t have any of that. After two seasons, Barchie doesn’t have any of that. After three seasons, Barchie still doesn’t have that.

But you know who does have all of that? 

Varchie. 

In every. Single. Season. 

(You know who else does? Bughead, but that’s a different essay.)

S1 takes about thirteen episodes to bring everything that begins the second A&V see each other to fruition, and is peppered throughout with flirty interactions, wistful glances, etc., and every few episodes, they share a moment that unmistakably hints at romance/their continued interest in one another. 

In S2, even their breakup is handled along the lines of a slow-burn formula…they sit on opposite sides of the room and exchange glances at the beginning of the episode. Their “we’re still friends” moment is awkward and laced with obvious sexual tension where a direct reminder of the relationship they’re trying to forget is introduced (the watch), and Veronica’s instinctive grab for Archie’s hand makes everything worse. Their I Love You Too reunion beneath the fake mistletoe is built up to like a first kiss scene. 

In S3, in order to make other pairings seem remotely plausible, the narrative goes out of its way to separate Archie and Veronica and keep them from interacting, but still throws the two of them together every few episodes or so for a moment that underscores their connection and shows how even their best attempts at friendship are sabotaged by the very non-platonic feelings they have for each other.

They are not rushed. They are not underdeveloped. They are most certainly not “forced.”

Oh, and speaking of forced...

Some quick definitions of “forced,” because we seem to be very confused about this word in relation to fiction as well:

(1) Obtained or imposed by coercion or physical power.

(2) (of a plant) having its development or maturity artificially hastened.

(3) (of a gesture or expression) produced or maintained with effort; affected or unnatural.

Beyond the fact that definitions 2&3 clearly refer to plants and facial expressions and thus maybe shouldn’t be used as an argument against a fictional relationship in the first place, none of these apply to Varchie. Their relationship involved no coercion/exercise of physical power whether you look at it from a meta or in-narrative perspective. Neither development nor maturity was hastened; if anything, it was deliberately stalled to create conflict between three of the main characters and then grown on an episode-by-episode basis. It is effortlessly produced/maintained thanks to the actors’ dynamic (which is also the point where the affected/unnatural part collapses; KJ Apa and Camila Mendes work too well together to make their interactions seem anything but natural) and the ease with which the characters’ personalities mesh.

But, hey...you know what could be reasonably construed as “forced?” You know what does actually fit all three of those above definitions? The contortionist-level attempts it took to break Archie and Veronica up in order to pair them with characters they have had hardly any onscreen interactions with in three seasons. If you truly despise forced fictional relationships, then perhaps it would be better to focus more energy on decrying the plot gymnastics that were required in S3 to break up Varchie and bring Archie/Josie and Veronica/Reggie into existence. Because regardless of whether you like or dislike those last two pairings, they are, by positive rather than normative standards, extremely forced.

So, once again...Varchie: not rushed, not underdeveloped, not forced. 

And once again (I’m getting so tired of typing this, but hey, it will never not be applicable, so oh well): You’re perfectly free to be mad that Archie and Veronica  prevent your ship from happening, and/or get all the scenes you’d like your favorite pairing to get. But arguing that they have no development when they are objectively the best-developed and least-rushed pairing on Riverdale is just ridiculous. 

#varchie #archie x veronica #riverdale opinion #my opinion #my post #rant #varchie has no development? #in what universe please? #forgot to post this the other day #but i'm a lot calmer now #so i guess that's good?

[fly-pow-bye]

ThunderCats Roar - “The Horror of Hook Mountain”

Co-Executive Producer: Victor Courtright

Supervising Producer: Nate Cash

Producer: Marly Halpern-Graser

Story by: Joan Ford

Teleplay by: Eric Knobel

Directed by: Jeremy Polgar

There is a horror in this one...but is it the episode itself?

Our journey begins with Tygra taking Lion-O on a hike for him to learn one of the many, many lessons he needs to learn to become a good Lord of the ThunderCats. One of them happens to be climbing the titular Hook Mountain, which is both terrifying and super cool according to Lion-O. Tygra had to admit that he is right with the latter, though not with the same definition of "cool".

Lion-O: Good thing we got our booties!

Don't worry, he means boots. Really really tiny boots that would not protect him from absolute zero, but boots nonetheless. Cold temperatures aren't the only danger, either, as this mountain has super avalanches, trick snow floors, and lethal stabby ice canyons! Yes, that is exactly how Tygra puts that last one; I could imagine he has to lower his vocabulary to a level Lion-O could understand, but it could be more for the sake of having a running gag where he constantly calls stalagmites "stab canyons."

Treading this mountain would require a leader that can trust his teammates, and, for Lion-O's lesson, Tygra decides to have him do the classic trust exercise. Even before Tygra could even explain what a trust exercise even is, Lion-O reveals that he does know and decides to fall so Tygra can catch him.

Unfortunately, he takes it too far by falling from a very high part of the mountain right on top of a bunch of hungry pterodactyls who just say "yum, yum, yum, yum", which he managed to climb off-screen with the power of cartoon logic. This episode definitely establishes which one of these guys is the straight man. We get to see Lion-O seemingly falling to his death, while Tygra rushes around, tiring himself out.

All of that just for this rather poorly drawn reaction with maybe a little too much attention on the booty. Here, I really do mean posterior! In the name of trust, he decides to trust Tygra's training on this leader stuff, and he starts climbing the mountain with a sentence that shows his confidence as a trusting leader.

In the middle of that sentence, we see Lion-O and Tygra struggling to get up the mountain, as even Lion-O realizes his little booties and cape aren't enough for him to survive the cold atmosphere. They do find a cabin, and Tygra, being the more down-to-Earth fellow, decides to ponder about whether they should trust. Of course, Lion-O decides to take out his Claw and shoot a grappling hook towards the door. Why didn't he just use the Claw Line to climb the mountain? They actually have Tygra ask that question, and Lion-O just shrugs. See kids, we know we're being stupid!

Lion-O sleeps on the snugly bear rug, kind of like, well, a cat. Tygra, without much hesitation, decides to sleep in the bed. It's almost as if Tygra knows he's being forced to do something that would most likely lead to him getting eaten by whatever creature owns this house by the script. He is tired, but still.

The next morning, we get a reason to use that classic "dun dun dun dun" cue, and surprisingly, they didn't even use it until now. They did not even use it for the minute long trust exercise gag! Okay, maybe it wasn't a minute long, but it felt that long. That "dun dun dun dun" was for the reveal that a yeti owns this cabin, and in what horrifying way is this yeti going to greet his unwanted guests?

Yeti: (singing) 1, 2, good morning to you!

It turns out that this yeti seems to be a nice guy, and actually likes having visitors around. He introduces himself as Snowman and also introduces his pet sabretoothed cat, Snowmeow! They also really like to people-watch any people that come to their home to sleep, which gives Tygra more of a reason to not trust them. There's a few more things here and there that could raise his suspicion, namely that aforementioned bear rug suggesting he may hunt, but that's the big one.

Speaking of that rug, Tygra tries to alert Lion-O about that suspicious guy who likes to stare at people, who is still resting on it. They decided to have the all important detail of Lion-O farting as soon as he gets up, complete with a fart cloud coming out of him, because...I have no idea.

Of course, as a good leader who is following Tygra's lessons, he decides to blindly trust this man and his wild cat. Lion-O does get horrified by the snow cat, but only because this cat is nude. This is an obvious joke on how this bipedal cat is reacting to a regular cat. One interesting reference that pops up from this is that he pulls out a spare outfit, and it happens to be an outfit with an abdominal opening like the original Lion-O's.

Tygra is none too happy about this blind trusting, and tries to literally carry Lion-O out of the house.

Namely, as soon as he reaches for the door, a bunch of steel bars pop out of nowhere.

Snowman: You're not going a-ny-where!

It's here where one might expect the obvious twist: that this guy is probably Mumm-Ra in another one of his many disguises. But no, he has a different reason to trap them. As a spider crawls out of his fur just to make him seem more gross, another way to get people to believe Tygra's side of the story, he tells them that it isn't safe out there, because of...

Snowman: The Sparkle-Maw!

I'm certainly sparing the readers all of the wacky close-ups this episode has, because there's a ton of them. In this episode, they outnumber the "dun dun dun duns", which is kind of an accomplishment. He then talks a little history about this Sparkle-Maw, including how it is able to camouflage itself, and that it ate all of his friends. He slowly looks at the one photo of his blizzard buds with tears in his eyes, only to be interrupted by a smoke alarm.

Snowman: Oopsy-poopsy! Bacon's burning! (throws possibly only picture of his friends out of frame, presumably breaking it)

Wow, everyone just doesn't really respect their fallen friends in this series, do they? Whether it be Jaga just shrugging off the destruction of his planet with a "oh, everything splodes someday!", or Snowman just throwing away what is probably a sentimental photo. I get that they're trying to subvert our expectations, but it does take a bit of weight from this.

Tygra doesn't believe him, because, even in this weird world where pterodactyls still exist, there seems to be a man for every type of animal, and the unicorns roam free, he just knows the Sparkle-Maw isn't a real creature. Knowing Lion-O must see through this as well, he tells him to use the Sword of Omens, but Lion-O doesn't want his friends eaten by that Sparkle-Maw, and decides, as a good leader, that he will trust everything this man says. Tygra tries to clarify he didn't mean blindly trust, but the smell of pterodactyl bacon just can't be resisted.

A long time seemingly passes, with Tygra writing in his journal about how unbearable it is that he still hasn't figured out Snowman's horrible plan as he stares at him passing along a ball of yarn with the two other cats in the room, Lion-O included in that. There's a lot of jokes about how they're cats, and they're not particularly cringe-worthy.

That long time turns out to be 375...unbearable...minutes, and I could just imagine Tygra actually counting the seconds in his second, scratching a number with his claws on the wall, as Snowman, his pet, and his other guest remains blissfully unaware. Either Tygra is gradually going nuts, or he's reacting like anyone should when almost everything else seems to add up to a Hansel and Gretel situation. Then again, he did climb into a stranger's bed, he can't be that sensible.

Tygra does get an idea based on Snowman's love of playing games: a game of Thunderian Picture Guess. It's like Pictionary, minus any royalties to Mattel. Since Snowmeow can't talk, and Snowman seems to only see everything as the Sparkle-Maw, Tygra draws something he really wanted Lion-O to say: "lightning purr shovel." At least, that was one of Lion-O's guesses.

Lion-O eventually gets the right answer, "thunder thunder thunder thundercats hoe", which ends up causing the sword to shine through the cabin and right into the Cat's Lair's disco ball. We got to see what they were doing throughout the episode: watching an apparently boring cooking show that only Panthro was interested in. I was kind of worried this would lead nowhere, as if a ThunderCats Roar could fail if they're merely bored. However, they do decide to go after it anyway, though it's suggested that WilyKit is just going with it because the show was just so boring. It's a little more justified than a similar scene in one of the earlier episodes.

Lion-O and Tygra look out the window, and Tygra uses this as proof that there's no Sparkle-Maw out there, as he just sees the ThunderCats in their Thunder Tank, and a bunch of spiders that came out of nowhere.

These must be those Sparkle-Maws Snowman was talking about. He tells Snowman that he should trust him and his teammates, and he eventually decides to let him free, telling him that he's going to miss him. Lion-O valiantly runs forward...far away from the Sparkle-Maws, leaving everyone else to do all the dirty work. From what I've seen in the original, this isn't too far off so far.

We get our higher-budget fight scene here, and I'd put it somewhere in the middle. The animation is above-average, and while there's not as many clever uses of weapons as, say, Boggy Ben, it's doesn't feel like an afterthought either. It's also not one-sided, as the Sparkle-Maws manage to trap them with their big claws.

Thankfully, Lion-O seemingly running away turns out to be a strategy that ties in with one of the first jokes in the episode. Here's a hint: it's almost as long, and it's kind of silly. Also, the Snowman eventually joins the fight, too, getting over his fears and trapping one of the Sparkle-Maws with his net gun. That seems like a good bit of progression with his character, though there might be more to it than that.

In the end, Lion-O reveals that Tygra messing up big time has led him to learn the importance of trust, and Tygra just kind of accepts it. Honestly, the real lesson should have been that Tygra shouldn't have been so prejudiced against yetis, but maybe leaving that unstated is a good thing.

Most importantly, Lion-O gets to celebrate that they defeated the Sparkle-Maws. Sure, he was talking about THE Sparkle-Maw rather than a bunch of them, those spiders didn't really have any camouflage abilities, and those spiders didn't really have anything sparkling on them nor did they have particularly big mouths, but maybe that was just him embellishing the monster...right?

Pretty much every episode of ThunderCats Roar ended in a way where everything went back to normal, and this episode is an outlier. It's strange because there's no other episode that ends like this yet. One will see what I mean.

How does it stack up?

I didn't really have too much to say about this episode, but not much to complain about, either. Well, except for maybe the overuse of exaggerated, but that's kind of the norm for the series.

I'm going to put this whole episode in the middle. Not great, not terrible. Three cats.

Next, this show with messy animation gets literally messy!

← Lost Sword 🐈 ThunderSlobs →

#fpb tcr #fpb reviews #thundercats roar #cartoon network

[dmwelch77]

Hooray for the Matriarchy! Forgotten Voices

Hooray for the Matriarchy!

Week one: Forgotten voices

Matthew 1: 1-6, 12-16

You always know it’s going to be a fun Sunday morning when the sermon starts with a reading of a genealogy. More on that a little bit later.

A couple of years ago I did some work at the Museum of the Bible, in Washington DC. [Yes really, there’s an entire – and pretty large – museum dedicated to the Bible. If you’re ever lucky enough to be in DC, it’s worth a visit for reasons shall we say both good and bad.]

There is a whole floor in the museum describing the ‘global impact’ of the Bible. The exhibit begins with a series of displays about the Bible in American history. It’s a complicated picture. In one cabinet is a volume of ‘The Woman’s Bible’ published by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1895. Stanton was an influential advocate for women’s suffrage and blamed the teachings of the church for much of the problem of denying women their rights. Her Bible included commentary interpreting what she saw as the Bible’s real message about women.

In another cabinet is one of the so-called ‘Slave Bibles’ of the early 1800s – part of a large display outlining how the Bible was used both in justifying slavery, and in fighting for its abolition. ‘Slave Bibles’ radically edited the Bible text – missing out stories and sometimes whole books – to downplay themes of freedom and liberation and emphasise themes of obedience and submission. Verses like this one from Titus “teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything” definitely made the cut, used to perpetuate the idea that slavery and ownership was the natural – even God-ordained – order of the world.

In a roundabout way, that’s why we’re beginning a new series this week: Hooray for the Matriarchy! How we read the Bible matters, and for the next four weeks we are going to be exploring the stories of some women from the Bible.

We can’t possibly do that justice in just four weeks – neither incidentally should it be the only time in the year when we talk about women’s stories. In the next three weeks, we’re going to hear the stories of Deborah, Miriam, and Hagar. This week, we’re beginning with the title ‘forgotten voices’ – women whose stories are minimised and marginalised; women who (along with men) are often unnamed in the Bible, yet whose inclusion in the text – I think - tells us something about our own calling in the world. How have women’s voices been forgotten – and why does it matter?

Pop quiz: does anyone know how many women are named in the Hebrew Bible – the Old Testament? I wonder if we started shouting out names, how many we could muster. [Maybe we shouldn’t – we’ll be here all morning]

There are 111 women named – and very many more unnamed. Some we know – Ruth maybe, or Esther – both have books of the Bible named after them which helps. Many we may have never noticed or heard. But the women’s stories are there.

All about the patriarchy

We started with that reading from Matthew 1, listing the ancestors of Jesus – beginning with the patriarchs. Time and again in the Bible we’re told that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Right from Sunday school, we teach stories about the male heroes of faith [or so-called heroes – many of them are pretty violent, interesting that these are the stories we teach children!]. Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, Samson, Gideon – the list goes on. But listen to that reading from Matthew 1 carefully and you’ll notice that – in an absolute break with how genealogies of the time were put together – four women are named. Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Mary. Their inclusion is intriguing – but it’s not an utter surprise. The Bible is a remarkable history. Most histories are written by those who conquered, those who won, these are the ones who control the narrative. Yet the Bible – the Hebrew Bible – tells the story of the Jewish people who are constantly conquered, occupied, and exiled. In that context the Bible is often subversive, often disruptive. It is written in a time and culture completely formed by patriarchy (a system where men hold power and women are largely excluded from power) – so the Bible is this weird mix. It is rich with stories of women who are oppressed, but who sometimes have agency. Women who are silenced, but who sometimes make their voices heard. Many of the women in the Hebrew Bible whose stories we know are foreigners, outsiders in Israel. Their stories aren’t the centre of the text, they appear and disappear. We get a little bit about them, then we never know what happens to them after that. Their feelings and actions are unexplored, their story arcs don’t get completed. In a text that is often about power and nation-building, the men’s stories are the point. But the women’s stories are there.

Because God is the God of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah. Without these matriarchs we have no more patriarchs.

Without Shiphra and Puah – the Israelite midwives who subvert Pharoah’s orders [to kill every Hebrew baby boy, and instead tell him that Hebrew women just give birth really fast before they can get there – they’ve already pushed them out and hidden them somewhere!]

Without Jochabed who hides her baby in the reeds

Without Miriam who watches over her baby brother and saves his life

Without the Egyptian Princess who raises him

We have no Moses.

And while Moses parts the waters of the red sea – Miriam leads the people of Israel across with dancing.

When Israel sends spies into Canaan, looking for their promised land – it’s Rahab who saves them. Deborah leads the people of Israel in peacetime, as well as in war – a war that’s won when Jael (another woman) puts a tent peg through Sisera’s skull. Tamar, Dinah, the daughters of Zelophehad, Hannah, Esther, Abigail – we don’t have time for their stories, but even to say their names is important, because we don’t. Time and again the fate of the people of Israel pivots on the actions of women. The women’s stories are there.

If we don’t think the Bible celebrates women – as leaders, prophets, a source of wisdom and courage, as leaders of the resistance, subverters, champions of justice – then we’re not reading the Bible very well. Patriarchy is not just a problem in the writing of the text – it’s a problem in our reading of it as well. We continue to emphasise the stories of men, missing out the essential stories of women.

Why is this important? Well – aside from the fact that 50% of the population can’t find themselves in this story if women’s voices are forgotten – when we read the Bible through our own bias, we compound the problem. We weaponise the Bible. We fail to challenge interpretations that justify and lead to injustice.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton wasn’t wrong when she argued that the teaching of the church over the centuries – based on this Biblical text which is steeped in patriarchy – has played a huge role in denying women their rights. From Eve to Mary, women have been cast as either sinners (whores) or saints (virgins). It begins with Augustine in the fourth century – but it carries on and it gathers pace. Here are some of my favourite quotes for you [I actually have a document on my computer called ‘quotes about women’, so I picked out a couple of my favourites]:

(This is from the fifteenth-century manual of the Dominican Inquisitors against witches): “When a woman thinks alone she thinks evil, for the woman was made from the crooked rib which is bent in the contrary direction from the man. Woman conspired constantly against spiritual good. Her very name, fe-mina means ‘absence of faith’. She is insatiable lust by nature. Because of this lust she consorts even with Devils. It is for this reason that women are especially prone to the crime of witchcraft, from which men have been preserved by the maleness of Christ.”

One more? Here’s Martin Luther the great reformer, on the subject of marriage: “Eve originally was more equally a partner with Adam, but because of sin the present woman is a far inferior creature. Because she is responsible for the Fall, woman is in a state of subjugation. The man rules the home and the world, wages war and tills the soil. The woman is like a nail driven into the wall, she sits at home.”

Those are rather extreme examples – but if you go into a Christian bookshop today, or step inside some churches, and you won’t have to look hard to find ideas that are rooted in patriarchy, and that still deny the place, the voice, and the role of women – in church and in society. And ideas like the purity culture that have heaped shame on women for their sexuality and their identity.  

This (weaponising Scripture) is all a problem not just for how we read the Bible in relation to women – but to everyone whose voice is minimalised or marginalised. To every group of people who find themselves pushed to the outside or ignored. I think we all know ways in which the Bible has been used against people because of their race, their gender, their sexuality, or their social status.

The Bible is problematic. Referring to the Hebrew Scriptures, Professor Wil Gafney – a brilliant womanist theologian [if you don’t know her work it’s worth reading – she’s written a brilliant book called Womanist Midrash] – says this about the Bible:

“The reprehensible gender and sexual mores of the Stone and Iron Ages are still in effect for some of the women, men, boys, and girls living in our Digital Age. Our sacred texts do not proclaim or even envision a world without slavery and the subordination of women, but they lay a foundation for us to transcend them and their limitations: ‘Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.’ ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you.’ ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to another.’ ‘In the Messiah there is no longer slave or free, male or female.’”

In celebration of women

The women’s stories are there in the Bible – we need to make sure we tell them well – that means we have to untangle them from their limitations, and from those that we’ve placed on them.

Some of you may know John Bell – if you are a Greenbelt regular. He’s a teacher from the Iona Community, and just a brilliant storyteller around the Bible. He tells a story about leading a retreat with a group of church leaders, where he sets them off into groups. Half of the groups – he asks to write down the names of the twelve male disciples, and also to write down three things that they know about each of them.

To the other half of the group, he says think about all the women who are followers of Jesus in the gospels, and write down what you know about them.

So off they go, when they come back again the men’s groups start and put their sheets on the wall. Most groups have named most of the twelve of the disciples – a few are a bit tricky to remember. What about when it comes to what we know about them? Peter – we know quite a lot about Peter, people could find three things to say about him. Matthew? He’s a tax collector … he collected taxes … James the Less? Lesser than … another James? Andrew? Andrew brought a small boy with loaves and fishes, and some Greeks, and his brother to Jesus.

What about the groups that thought about the women? John Bell says that when they came back with their pieces of paper, there was a whole wall full of information. The women at the well – we don’t know her name, but she gets a whole chapter in John’s Gospel, which she shares with Jesus. No other character in the gospel gets a whole chapter of their own. She’s the first evangelist. She brings a whole village to follow Jesus. [John Bell jokes that Andrew brings a small boy, some greeks, and his brother – for which he becomes the patron saint of Scotland. This woman brings a whole village and we don’t know her name.]

Not all are named

“We know more about the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, than we do about five of the disciples after whom cathedrals are named. There has been an imbalance.”

There are 22 women in the gospels whose interactions with Jesus are recorded. We don’t know many of their names – but we know their faith and we do know how Jesus responds to them. The woman who was bleeding, and who touched Jesus. The Syro-Phoenician woman who calls Jesus out on his use of racist language. The woman caught in adultery who walks away, uncondemned. The woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears. The woman who gives away her last coin in the temple offering. The woman who pours expensive oil on Jesus’ head – which Judas thinks is a waste and Jesus chastises him. The women who wait at the cross, while Jesus’ male disciples flee. The women who watch his burial, who visit the tomb, who are the first witnesses of the resurrection.

They are not named – but they are bearers of the most important news in human history.

I want to say clearly: for those of us who have felt excluded or marginalised or unheard by a version of Christianity that has lifted up the powerful, and silenced those on the edges, the place of these women in the text reminds us that we are all equally made in the image of God. We are all included. We are all in. Against the odds, (yes) from the margins, unnamed, imperfect, nonetheless … the women’s stories are there.

Says John Bell:

“Jesus eats with women, is offered hospitality with women, argues with women, and takes their experience seriously. He engages with, eats with, enjoys the company of, and allows himself to be touched by those who are equally made in the image of God.”

Texts of terror

Women’ stories are there in the Bible – and we need to tell them well. But we also need to tell them honestly. And if we’re going to be honest about the story of women in the Bible, then we need to talk about what Rachel Held Evans called the ‘dark stories’ – or as Phyllis Trible calls them, the texts of terror.

I believe the Bible absolutely celebrates women, and we see that most in Jesus’ life and interactions. But the Bible also contains some horrific stories – women suffer beyond all others, and often God is silent about their suffering. Throughout the text, women are the victims of terror and violence and injustice. Even in metaphor – when Israel is in trouble, she is depicted as a woman. A daughter, destitute on the streets. A mother weeping. A harlot cast out. It’s impossible to read the Bible without encountering the voices of women who suffer.    

And as a woman, approaching those stories is hard.

Rachel Held Evans says that as she read these stories as a young woman: “I kept anticipating some sort of postscript or epilogue chastising the major players for their sins, a sort of Arrested Development–style “lesson” to wrap it all up—“And that’s why you should always challenge the patriarchy!” But no such epilogue exists. While women are assaulted, killed, and divided as plunder, God stands by, mute as clay.”

She goes on:

“Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories. They have forgotten that the concubine of Bethlehem, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth.”  

The story of the unnamed concubine in Judges 19 strikes me as one of the most terrible stories the Bible offers us. It comes at the end of the days of judges ‘when Israel had no king (and) the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes’. These are dangerous days, violence is everywhere, and those in charge abuse their power. In a gruesome string of events, when the Levite and ‘his concubine’ (or as Wil Gafney translates it, womb-slave [ask me later for Gafney’s translation of Bilhah’s story]) are travelling, they end up in the house of an old man, in a town in the hill country of Benjamin. [In a parallel to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah] a group of men surround the house, demanding that the Levite come outside. Instead, the two men offer up the women to the mob – both the daughter of the old man, and the Levite’s concubine. We don’t know what happens to the daughter, she’s not mentioned again, but the Levite pushes his concubine out, and the woman is sexually assaulted by a group of men and left for dead.

In the morning the Levite gets up to go on his way, seemingly undisturbed about what’s happened to his concubine, opens the door, and finds her on the ground with her hands on the threshold. So he takes her home – it’s not clear whether she’s alive or not – he cuts her body into twelve pieces, and sends one to each tribe of Israel. The story is an indictment (told at the end of the story arc of Judges) of what king-less and law-less Israel has become. Violence begets violence, begets violence, and war ensues between the tribes. [All the men of Benjamin except 600 are killed. All the women are killed, all the children are killed. 400 women are snatched to be wives for the remaining men … etc]

It is a terrible, terrible story. There is no justice for the woman. She is abandoned and used in every way. She is not even named – only the story of the violence done to her lives on. Phyllis Trible says that of all the characters in Scripture she is the least. The least. But her story is there. This nameless woman demands our attention. She doesn’t speak in the text, only her father and her husband speak. And yet she is not silenced. Her suffering speaks for her, calls out for our outrage.

Lest we need reminding, misogyny, violence, and abuse of power are not confined to the distant past. Violence still disproportionately affects women and girls around the globe. Worldwide, one in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence because she is a woman. Women are more at risk of domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, forced marriage, sex trafficking, and genital mutilation.

Although people of all genders experience violence and abuse online, the abuse experienced by women is specifically sexist or misogynistic in nature. Online threats of violence against women are often sexualised or target a specific aspect of a woman’s identity (involving racism or transphobia for example). 21% of women in the UK have experienced online abuse or harassment.

Time and again, in the Bible, the suffering of women points to the need and the fight for justice. To the failure of Israel to live up to its calling to care for the poor, the orphaned, the widow, the stranger. And when you read the story of the Levite’s concubine, or the story of Tamar, or the story of Rizpah … [Rizpah’s story we probably don’t know. She was Saul’s concubine. She sits in the desert with the corpses of her sons for six months after David has had them killed, fending off wild animals and birds, demanding justice for their deaths and burial for their bodies, and she wins – David has them buried along with the bones of Saul and Jonathan …] When we read these stories it’s impossible to not to think about contemporary stories [the mothers of the disappeared in Argentina parallel Rizpah’s story].

I think the Bible teaches us that these terrible stories … [do you know, I’m not ‘glad’ that they’re there – I don’t think ‘oh it’s good that women’s stories are included in the Bible even the violent ones’ … we wish they weren’t there because they’re awful stories.] But they are there and what they point us to is the need and the fight for justice for women and girls and men and boys around the world, and our part in that.

In her book, Texts of terror, Phyllis Trible concludes:

“The story is alive, and all is not well. Beyond confession we must say ‘never again’ … speaking the word not to others but to ourselves: Repent. Repent.”

Here – I think – is the challenge and the invitation to us, as we read the stories of women in the Bible. Yes – to be inspired by their leadership, their courage, their flaws, and their faith. Yes – to be encouraged that their stories are told, even against the odds, from the margins, subverting power, leading the resistance. But most of all to be reminded of our own calling as the people of God always to bring good news that is freedom for the poor, and justice for the oppressed.

Let’s pray

May we – each one of us – find ourselves in this story of faith.

May we know our value, our worth, and our identity – formed, each one of us, in the image of God.

May we learn to listen for the stories from the margins and amplify their voice.

May we be compelled to act for justice, to resolve oppression and exploitation wherever we find it.

May these stories not trouble us in vain – may we use them for some good.