#but as a five year old I was swept up by the narrative and very personally insulted and hurt by my peers' response to it

[blujayonthewing]

suddenly remembered and found a storybook-turned-tv movie about a cat that perhaps inexplicably made me emotional when I was a little little kid and am watching it now with the additional layers of 'I loved this when I was five and now I am 32' and 'I miss my cat' and it's going about as well as you might expect

#an old man braves an ongoing storm to try fishing for his starving village #told from the point of view of his cat who loves him more than anything #'she purred to tell him she loved him and would go with him and she wouldn't want to live in the cottage without him' #me- very normal: [openly weeping] #I also have a core memory of crying because I brought it into class in kindergarten and it made the other kids laugh #in fairness to the other kids: the movie translated a cat 'singing' as her literally singing with human vocals and that is a bit silly #but as a five year old I was swept up by the narrative and very personally insulted and hurt by my peers' response to it #about me

[signalwatch]

Norse Watch: The Northman (2022)

Watched:  04/30/2023

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Eggers

Well.

So, I just finished listening to the audiobook of the translated Völsunga Saga, and then some pals asked if I'd yet seen The Northman (2022), and while those events were unrelated, they did dovetail.  I hadn't quite gotten to the movie despite liking the prior Eggers film I had seen and a general interest in the content.  I was aware of middling opinions of folks on the street (it's got a 64% audience reaction on RT) - with some folks also camping out in the deep like and dislike camps.  But it was a bit of a critical darling.  So, it seemed it was probably doing *something* of interest, even if it wasn't for me.

The movie does it's best to recreate a world that seems almost impossible in its brutality and viciousness, that believes in fates, and the best fate is to die (valiantly) in battle and be swept off to Valhalla by a Valkyrie.  It's a culture that sees sacking and pillaging as a vocation, and vengeance as a noble right.  And everyone is kind of aware that being a king also means being a target.  Kind of hard to believe these same people a few hundred years later would be living in countries now deemed to be some of the chillest places you can go.

But every scene in the film is cold, wet, or both.  This is the Northern European sea-faring people eking out a living in inhospitable climates kept at bay with stone houses and fires.

I will say - I am glad I had some actual Old Norse poetry under my belt.  The narrative is not pulled from anything in the Saga, I don't believe.  But given what the characters in the poems value and how they see the world deeply informed my understanding of what unspooled on screen - so, good timing, me.  

Eggers and writer Sjón were working to tell an ur-Hamlet (which really only hit me across the face when Nicole Kidman, playing the lead's mother calls him "Amleth" and the particular way she hit the name).  But, yes, it's a story about a prince whose father is killed by his uncle who then marries his mother and claims the kingdom and that prince being told by a phantom to finally deal with his need for vengeance, though it will doom everyone.  And this is not the Volsungs, but this is a different saga and based on an actual person in some way.

In this case, a 13-ish Amleth heads out to sea and allies himself with berserkers, becoming a fierce warrior (in the imposing form of a jacked Alexander Skarsgård).  He has not followed up on his plans for vengeance, but learning his mother and uncle have taken to Iceland after losing their kingdom to an invader (this stuff is like every five pages in the saga) he boards a slave ship headed to Iceland, posing as a slave. 

Oh, and did I mention he's given a vision by a witch in the form of a very spooky ghost-Norn-witch Björk?  Because that shit absolutely happens and I think all movies could use Björk showing up and doling out fates.  Heck, I wish Björk would show up and tell me what to do with myself.

Along the way he meets a fellow slave, this one a Slav in the form of Anya Taylor-Joy, who is clearly a wee bit witchy herself, and unnerving to her captors who can't quite their finger on why this woman sets them off.  

As mentioned, Kidman plays Amleth's mother, Queen Gudrún, and at first I thought "this is some odd casting.  Always happy to see Kidman, but...  why would she take this?."  And then she got her big scene, an equivalent of the Hamlet/ Gertrude scene, but fit for killer-take-all world of kings and chieftans living in stone houses in the shadow of a living volcano.  

Willem Defoe pops up as a Yorick-like character from Amleth's youth, but as much shaman as anything.  Ethan Hawke appears as the father who falls beneath his brother's sword, and Danish actor Claes Bang plays the uncle (very well, indeed, and I would hope this gets him more high profile roles in English-language film, although you may have seen him as Dracula in the Netflix limited series).  

I imagine the film is not for everyone.  This isn't a clear story of heroes and villains.  It's not clear Amleth is just or right, and an eye-for-an-eye truly leaves the whole world blind by the film's end.  He's a "hero" in the pre-20th Century version of the word - a challenged man capable of great and terrible deeds as he deals with fates doled out by gods larger than himself.  He's a near mindless, brutal killer when we catch up with him as an adult, murdering and destroying for want of any better way to work through the rage that defines him.  Life and death are fairly cheap commodities, and the virtues of this world barely align with our own.  The world of the film is cruel and literally barbaric.  

There's certainly CGI, color-grading, etc... employed here, but it's not a movie about the FX.  It relies on performance and story to move it along, and hats off to the DP who managed to light the thing in abysmal conditions and make it work.  So, it's  beautifully shot, well-performed and - if you give it room - moving.  But not in a "the real Northman was the friends we made along the way" sort of way.  It's much more of the hollowed out feeling you may have had at the end of Branagh's Hamlet.  

Anyway - I am not sure I recommend the film broadly, but I'm in the camp of "this is an  interesting movie, I liked it, and I'm glad it exists".  And I would be surprised if I didn't watch it again.

https://ift.tt/b0l3V2E

from The Signal Watch https://ift.tt/Qztc4wU

#the northman #northman #movies #norse mythology

[michyeosseo]

欢乐颂 ode to joy 3 first impressions

the reboot makes me feel old-old but at least we still have the balloons?

yes, we all miss the quintet that were shengmei, andy, xiaoxiao, yingying & guanguan but first, here’s a brief intro before my thoughts on the new tenants of the 22nd floor:

2201 again with the aloof mystery lady with an english name - lucy fang zhiheng

2202 has the three flatmates setup (a jiejie and two ducklings) as before - zhu zhe, nickname jiji; he minhong; and yu chuhui, nickname a'chu

2203 still houses the fuerdai of the bunch - ye zhenzhen

(watched the five fully subbed episodes on viki and as of last night, 18 out of 33 have already aired so halfway mark now)

jiji is as sensible as hotel managers go. she may not leave you with a strong sense of who she is at the start but she's been working the longest among these ladies and her breadwinner energy shows. the smol ones ought to let jiejie enjoy her drama fix before bed in peace.

naïve + nosy is how i'd describe minhong... guess that comes with her being a green writer. initially shown as someone who wants to impart her morals (chided by her supervisor right away for aspiring such) in the magazine column, she's bound to learn from conflicts she'll cause.

a'chu has the signature turbulent family woes. that said, grew up well and is striving to strike balance between escaping poverty and being true to herself – developing engineer patents even though neither her nor her peers get credit while teaching kids ballet on the side.

zhenzhen acted as the welcome wagon to the trio. yes, she's a scientist-to-be (biochemistry field if we're being exact) living one good deed a day. outside the lab's spent bonding with the other ladies of 22nd floor - treating them to expensive ice cream and just chilling around.

she and zhenzhen moved in the same time but rarely do we glimpse the two beauties mingling. by design since lucy's miss i-got-my-hands-full: keeping up her luxury appearances and keeping a semblance of normal when she should probably get therapy. she longs for their warm friendship from afar.

chemistry between the five is still wanting in organic interactions department, which is given. much has changed in the shanghai residential complex since the original series was on. years passed. 22nd floor corridor itself is laid different. our original 22nd floor jiejies may have moved on to hopefully better lives yet women in the workforce continue to struggle, maybe even more so with how reductive society has turned into. this otj reboot feels dated, though. at least, daylight entertainment's approach in these early episodes i have seen. the mansplainer of a narrator is gone, lemme just say that's a relief personally.

but y'know what bugs me? how they've opted to tackle sexual harassment.

raising the discussion via media in itself is fine. such abuse of power imbalance shouldn't be swept under the rug, considering countless women on a daily basis are coerced into silence because of the indifference. too few real-life jiji/a'chu/zhenzhen who believes immediately. but one of the guys in the main cast, lucy's suitor, is very attached to this so-called theme exploration. spoiler alert: he's the son of the company superior who assaulted lucy. gonna spare y'all the grim details but, of course, she alone knows of the connection. left to process such trauma by herself while fending off his dogged pursuits - at the office, at the mma gym and later on, even at her hls apartment. what kind of plot?! from the closing credits, he's not bound to leave anytime soon.

my main worry is the narrative will prove her reluctance wrong, that he's a Good Guy, tied neat bow and all that jazz when that does absolutely NOTHING to address the shitty lot that would have been avoided if he wasn't related to this godforsaken dog bloodedness to begin with. if it's only an afterthought to the writer, i just wanna voice that when you've penned a franchise jumpstarting the trend of female-centric modern set cdramas and then you want to continue that brand today? maybe you should update your sensibilities first.

we embrace women's wrongs in this house, not when women are wronged. 

quips won't make the cut with the audiences that easily anymore.

#cdrama #ode to joy #ode to joy 3 #欢乐颂 #did a thread on twitter but just in case mutuals here might wanna talk here as well #where's viv hahahuhu #(i hope she's acing law school) #my friend say weibo reception is lukewarm so that's proof brand ain't the easy score it might have been before #there's barely any promo floating around ugh #i am rooting for the new girlies to be treated well #dear god they better be they signed up for otj 4 and 5 as well

[absolutebl]

Hello!

Could you do a brief analysis of Sam Lin's acting in WBL? I am curious as to how would you describe the seme/uke dynamic between Gao Shide & Zhou Shuyi?

We Best Love: Seme/Uke & Sam Lin’s Acting

I can, but honestly I'll just be waxing poetical about how great he is, especially in season 2. But I guess you, literally, asked for it. 

So here we go! 

Sam Lin’s Acting: Screen Presence + Charisma  

Okay so let’s talk Sam’s acting quickly up front. 

The reason he’s my favorite actor in BL is because he does both whole body acting (physicality) and full facial nuances (emotional telegraphing). So, style wise, he’s kinda like a combination of Ohm and Nanon. (He’s not like Saint though, he doesn’t change the way he inhabits his own body with different characters the way Saint can. But that’s so so rare amongst actors it’s no surprise. In fact, Sam plays a very similar role to Shi De in Emily's 5 Things AKA Five Missions. The pining seme suits him even when it’s het. He does have better chemistry with Yu though.) 

Where was I? 

So what I love about Sam is you can see his feelings carried in his whole body - the way he holds his shoulders and moves his hands. It’s not just his expressions. He has a fantastic screen presence. But also it’s in how mobile his face is, micro flics of eyes and twitches of the mouth. 

He can go from extremes of melodrama to complete subtlety in the course of one scene, which is (quite frankly) what it’s like to experience those kinds of heightened emotions.  

Yu is a lot, objectively, prettier, but notice how your gaze is almost always sucked towards Sam? (At least mine is.) That’s what the biz would call on screen charisma. 

Not to slag of Yu AT ALL. It’s a goddam challenging to act up against both presence and charisma, especially in your first gig. But it does seem, in some scenes, like he’s being swept along by this overwhelming wave that is Sam’s talent. That works for this narrative though, because Shu Yi is being swept up and carried along by Shi De’s emotions in the story, too. 

Also: Experience  

It also feels like Sam brings life experience to the table (whether true or not, I’m making no assumptions about his life). 

It never feels like he’s “acting” drunk, or in love, or sexually attracted to someone based on what’s he’s seen or read. Watching him, it feels like he’s actually been through all this stuff which gives him better access for portraying it. 

When some of the (especially) younger Thai actors portray this kind of scene in a BL I’m often like, 

“Awe, that’s cute, but that boy has actually NEVER been drunk before. Has actually never kissed someone they wanted to fuck before. He still just a baby.” 

Sam = no baby. Therefore none of his acting feels at all performative, it feels genuine. 

Seme/uke in WBL 

Okay so this is a Taiwanese drama which means it has a weak seme/uke out the gate in terms of heterosexual dysmorphia and visual elements. (Unlike Thai BL or Japanese yaoi, the uke isn’t required to be feminized or girly. Taiwan likes both their main characters in a BL to be masc.)  

But that said, Shu Yi narratively is basically a poster boy for tsundere uke. All of his actions and behavior in the story, including his extremes of falling into and out of love (het or gay), are hallmarks of the archetype. 

And Shi De is basically the ultra classic seme who has pined since childhood for this one boy who hates him. Incidentally, this is also a classic Asian romance trope for the het hero. 

Honestly, if Kdramas taught me anything it’s that if you haven’t met your soulmate before high school you have no soulmate. At the very least a minimum of 10 years quiet, suffering, pining is required. 

Incidentally, this is an intentionally applied characterization tool for the seme/hero: Benevolent sexism, stalkerism, and obsession can be softened by a narrative that insists the dominant ultra-masc hero is actually a big old marshmallow softie... but just for this one person. It’s basically a means of executing damaging tropes without discoloring the character (by comparison to modern society’s advancements.) 

Also, they get to be way more dramatic this way.  

I happen to love this trope (the seme who pines and is soft for his one person) no matter what form it shows up it. 

There’s something about the eternal loyalty of it all. 

All this to say WBL, both seasons, it pretty classic in regard to seme/uke as a narrative device. In fact, the whole story is rushed and sparse and not WBL’s strong point at all (just like traditional yaoi). 

It is the acting that elevates it. Sam, in particular, manages to make Shi De something more than just a typical seme - despite the fact that that’s what was written for him. This is what I love most about this series, it manages to hit up everything I loved about yaoi without making me feel like trash even slightly for loving Shu Yi and Shi De SO MUCH. 

(source) 

#we best love #sam lin #We Best Love: No. 1 For You #We Best Love: Fighting Mr.2nd #Taiwanese bl #taiwanese actor #film critisism #asked and answered #lets be clear I am still trash #but not for loving this BL #film critique

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

I have said a Lot about the “Raph is a system” theory over the past several months, so this is something of a compilation post. It’s got some new stuff, it’s got some old stuff. (You’re reading Part 1) (Part 2 is here) (Part 3 is here)

---

Firstly, “system” is the term for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. (The term can also apply to some folks with OSDD.) Someone might develop DID after experiencing long-term trauma at an early age- roughly five or six years old. To paraphrase the DSM-V:

1. We’ve seen three (possibly four) distinct personality states who speak, act, and perceive others differently.

2. The personality states, or “alters”, don’t necessarily share memory, and Donnie insinuated in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle” that Raph has a bad memory in general.

3. Problems arise when alters don’t get along or aren’t on the same page. That none of them seem to be quite aware they’re a system doesn’t help either; it’s hard to work on communication and cooperation when you don’t know they need to be worked on!

4. This whole situation isn’t a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice, or just Raph playing make-believe. (Though I wonder if he had “imaginary friends” when he was younger...)

5. It’s also not because Raph’s been smoking the devil’s lettuce or whatever. “Pizza Puffs” was one long weed joke and he was the only one “sober” (not poisoned) throughout! We don’t see this happen to other mutants, so it’s not a bizarre side effect of mutagen either.

(I’ve seen a few people joke that Mikey has “multiple personalities”, but that’s a tad yikesy and also just plain incorrect. His “doctor” personas are something he does deliberately, and youngest siblings are just Like That.)

So yeah, Raph is pretty heavily DID-coded. We’ve seen four alters so far:

“Host” Raph (HR): He’s our everyday Raph. A “host” is an alter who fronts most of the time and takes care of “business as usual” situations. They are often unaware of past traumatic events, such that they can appear “normal”. (Ex: the host of a child who lives with an abusive parent could be unaware of the abuse. Otherwise, they might cry or be uncooperative whenever the parent is near, further invoking their wrath. This unawareness allows them to be a “good child”, and stay under the parent’s radar sometimes.) Some systems have more than one host, but that the others have shown up so rarely in this story suggests HR is the only host (for now?).

Savage Raph (SR): Debuting in “Man vs. Sewer”, he’s a survival-oriented alter. HR probably could have defeated the Sando Brothers on his own under normal circumstances, but being in the middle of a breakdown doesn’t do much for your fighting skills. SR got pulled to the front to deal with them instead.

“Red” Raph (RR): “Red” is just a placeholder since we don’t actually know his name yet (or even if he has one, not all alters do), though I’ve also heard folks call him “Angel”. He’s got a “tough love” approach to problem-solving, which was probably a helpful thing in the past. LDM were no doubt rowdy children! We were (officially) introduced to him in “Pizza Puffs”.

Mind Raph (MR): MR could just be a manifestation of HR's thought process via Cartoon Goofery, but that possibility doesn’t give me anything to work with so I’m ignoring it. He’s pretty similar to HR, maybe a tad more upbeat. We (officially) met him in “Raph’s Ride-Along”.

When “Pizza Puffs” first aired, I was like “ah yes, this is the alter who has the cranky edgelord tendencies we’ve seen in previous iterations of Raph. He probably broods on rooftops in the rain when he’s in a bad mood.” Combining that with the whole “Red Angel” thing gives off some Batman vibes. And, of course, SR is similar to the Hulk. Those two heroes are pretty different, but they do have one major thing in common...

A sudden, violent loss. Given how prevalent rushing water is throughout “Man vs. Sewer”, I’m thinking a flood came through and separated Raph from his family. (You could probably argue that turbulent water symbolizes a turbulent subconscious? 🤷) Again, DID stems from long-term trauma, so Raph must have been gone for... a while. A couple of months, maybe more? It’s hard to say exactly; we have a little wiggle room when applying human developmental psychology to a human/turtle mutant. Since Splinter still needed to care for the other three, he wouldn’t have been able to devote much time to searching for Raph, and the New York City sewers go on for miles and miles. The longer Raph was alone, the more convinced he would have been that the others had drowned and he was the only survivor.

How old would he have been? I know the turtles are “different ages”, but they were all mutated at the same time so I’m pretty sure Splinter was just like “the littlest one is the youngest, the biggest one is the oldest, and the medium-sized ones are the middle children.” They’re all probably fourteenish by “Finale”. Back in “MvS”, Leo said, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone”. He didn’t say anything like, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone ever since such-and-such an incident happened”. This suggests that LDM straight-up don’t know something traumatic happened to Raph; they were too little to retain concrete memories of that time. In their minds, Raph has always been like this. Draxum isn’t known for his patience, so even though he wasn’t able to immerse the hatchlings in mutagen for long, they probably mature a bit faster than humans. And since humans usually can’t remember anything from before four years of age, three sounds about right for the turtles, though they would have been stronger and steadier on their feet than any human toddler. I doubt Raph would have survived otherwise.

I think he’s sort of... “stuck” back in that trauma. Catching food, building a fire, making a weapon, and getting camouflage aren’t the behaviors of someone who’s only been gone for a few minutes.

When SR called for help, I don’t think he was expecting anyone to answer.

But Raph did manage to hang onto something as he was swept away! It wasn’t much, but that little ragdoll gave him comfort while he was scared and alone.

(The rabbit design on Bruce’s pajamas is probably a coincidence, but...)

Raph seems the type to have sympathy for odd-looking toys. His knockoff Mrs. Cuddles plushie was the emotional crutch he needed back then.

And then he was separated from that as well. Lowkey associating Mrs. Cuddles with this traumatic event would explain why HR was so scared of her. That he doesn’t remember the trauma means he has no context for this fear, making it seem silly and baseless to him (and to the rest of his family), which is why he denied being scared at all in the first part of the “Mrs. Cuddles” episode. It would also explain why he collects teddy bears instead these days, they are a “safe” toy. (The moral of the story is to not make fun of triggers that seem silly.)

(I wonder what would happen if Mrs. Cuddles encountered Savage Raph? Perhaps he’d be quite sympathetic towards such a lonely little raggedy thing! Timestuck as he is, he probably wouldn’t question why a stuffed animal can talk... and it wouldn't be hard for her to persuade her “new bestest fwiend” to get rid of some “mean ol’ nasty sewew monstews” for her.)

That whole “sewer monsters” thing suggests Raph ran into... something while he was wandering alone. Y’all have heard those rumors about alligators living in the New York City sewers, right? Encountering Leatherhead could trigger a flashback.

It would be pretty easy to introduce Leatherhead into the narrative. One of the episodes the Rise crew had planned was titled “The Island of Dr. Noe”, and alligators have very impressive teeth. The Mirage comics had a story where Leatherhead and several cryptids were brought to an island to be hunted for sport.

Noe seems to have quite a few cronies/friends/rivals he could entertain this way. Since he’s got that obsession with Raph, Noe captures him as well, knocking him out with those darts so he can’t waste his energy trying to escape too soon. (Let’s just assume everyone’s powers are glitchy because they all hit another wave of puberty, meaning they can’t just curbstomp the lower-level villains lol.)

HR wakes up on the island and, of course, starts to panic because he’s lost and alone. While wandering, he runs into Leatherhead, which would trigger a flashback to getting attacked by that alligator all those years ago. But Leatherhead doesn’t want to fight! He’s just as scared and confused as HR is, and could really use a partner to help him survive this island.

HR and SR come into conflict because Leatherhead is/isn’t/is/isn’t/is/isn’t a threat. HR eventually wins out, reasoning that even if Leatherhead is that alligator, it wouldn’t be fair to judge him for what he did back when he was an animal.

But time and dissociation can make memories unclear. That our first look at Leatherhead was in Draxum’s “bluh bluh I’m gonna mutate all the humans” bit in “Bug Busters” means he’s a human-base mutant. He wasn’t the alligator back then, but the hunter tracking it. Leatherhead isn’t one of Noe’s targets, he is one of Noe’s guests! And he wants no one to interfere with his quarry, so he’ll play nice long enough for him and the snapper to take out the rest of the hunters and the freaks. Then the two of them will have the island all to themselves...

Years and years ago, Jack Marlin was a big game hunter prowling the New York City sewers in search of an alligator. He did manage to find and kill one, only to realize it had also been hunting! He had inadvertently saved the strangest little turtle creature.

Marlin had become too skilled at this point, the hunt held no challenge for him. This turtle sounded very young, and he was quite big and strong already. An adult could be tough and intelligent enough to entertain him. Marlin tried to get Raph to lead him back to “the others”. But Raph had been lost for some time, and as far as he knew, his family was dead. Hearing that put Marlin in quite the sour mood. A little mutant snapper is a better catch than none at all, so Marlin tried to haul Raph off. Raph fought back and bit off Marlin’s hand. He escaped, but lost his rabbit in the scuffle. Marlin retreated as well, taking some time to recover, scheme, and hunt other game. (And to pocket that rabbit. The blood loss had made him woozy, and he wanted to have some kind of proof he hadn’t just hallucinated the snapper.) Perhaps he turned that alligator’s hide into a vest, which provided the genetic material for his mutation when he eventually got bit by an oozesquito. Like his Mirage counterpart, Marlin didn’t take losing a limb as a sign he should retire, and instead got a tricked-out prosthetic. Who knows what he could do with it in such a mystic setting as Rise.

Raph eventually reunited with his family, but those distrustful, high-strung survivalist traits he had picked up weren’t helpful anymore. He once again had to be the good and patient big brother who didn’t bite when someone play-tackled him or shook him awake at three in the morning because they’d had a nightmare. Those two states gradually got partitioned off more and more, and now they know little, if anything, about each other.

So Leatherhead and HR are chasing away some mothmen or whatever, and things are going pretty well... until one of them knocks Leatherhead over and a familiar ragdoll rabbit falls out of his pocket. SR realizes that Leatherhead is Marlin and switches in to fight him off again. They’re evenly matched, or perhaps SR is even in danger of losing, when LDM arrive to provide support. Leatherhead is enough of a tactician to know that he should retreat. Donnie and Mikey pursue him while Leo stays behind, placing the rabbit in his stunned brother’s hands. “Remember when Pops made this for you? You were always really gentle with it, ‘cause he wasn’t good at sewing back then...”

(This thing really needs patching up, he’s got sewing stuff for whenever he needs to fix his bears/Blue isn’t a threat on his own/Wasn’t he just back at the lair?/Blue gave back the rabbit/Why does he feel like he got hit by a train?/Blue doesn’t want to fight?/ ...Leo?) And that’s enough for HR to switch back in. He’s probably missing memory from his whole time on the island, so while Leo does his best to tell him what happened, they don’t have enough puzzle pieces between them to truly figure out what's going on.

They defeat the bad guys, release the cryptids, save the day, etc. (Leatherhead managed to lose Donnie and Mikey in the woods. A battle for another day.) Once they return to the lair, HR gets help from Draxum to modify the memory spell from “E-Turtle Sunshine” so he can try to fill in the gaps. Surely he wouldn’t get rejected by his own subconscious... right?

Cue part three in the saga of Raph Punches Himself In The Face. SR isn’t happy that HR is essentially trying to poke at an improperly-healed wound, and attempts to chase him off. HR assumes that SR is just a psychic white blood cell like the Lou Jitsu constructs in Splinter’s mind, and retaliates.

But, of course, fighting is not the answer here. All that accomplishes is giving the body bruises. Eventually HR realizes “stay away” and “back off” are a little different than “get out”, and that SR is just scared. So HR tries another tactic. Over the following days and weeks, he tunes in to calmer memories and just sort of... talks. About what happened yesterday, about his teddy bear collection, about how he finally managed to get a good picture of that pizza pigeon. It takes a while to establish a connection, and even then, it’s spotty at best. Using the spell too much can cause headaches and nightmares. There are days when SR is nearby, and days when he’s not there at all. But he shows up when he can.

And then there’s awkward, stilted conversation and questions neither of them know how to answer and questions neither of them want to answer and more scrapes and bruises and strained silences and apologies, but they finally, finally reach a compromise. SR still doesn’t let HR near those memories, but he tells HR what happened as best he can. (The audience would see those memories, with SR as a voiceover.) Afterwards, HR still visits the mindscape that’s starting to become more solid. They talk some more, they watch light and shadow flow around them, they listen to half-forgotten lullabies on scratchy old cassette tapes. Eventually, HR doesn’t even need to use the memory spell, meditation is enough.

They’ll never get along all the time. But it’s a start.

(SR is going to be so clingy when it finally clicks for him when he finally lets himself believe that his family is alive.)

---

This took eight million years lmao. Parts 2 and 3 will come out eventually, they’ll focus more on MR and RR. Let me know if I need to tag this stuff as anything.

The usual disclaimer applies, I am not a system or a mental health professional so if you’re one or both of those things then feel free to give me some of that good good constructive criticism.

#you called for help... but nobody came. #rottmnt #rottmnt theory #the 'raph is a system' theory #rottmnt raph #savage raph #mrs. cuddles #leatherhead #jack marlin #plot bunnies free to a good home lmao #long post

[vanessakirbyfans]

Vanessa Kirby suggests we meet on the Mall, the central location for her on-screen triumph as the young Princess Margaret in The Crown. I’m standing outside the shuttered Institute of Contemporary Arts when she strides into view, a slender, leggy figure with bleached hair and brilliant blue eyes, clad in trademark black, but for her gleaming white Converse trainers.

"I haven’t been here since we were filming!" she marvels through her mask, gazing up the processional avenue towards Buckingham Palace. "I was whizzing up the road on a motorbike, holding onto the back of Matthew Goode [as Antony Armstrong-Jones] and feeling so exhilarated about what on Earth was happening to my life – being in a job I loved, playing someone I loved."

Her ebullient mood was dented when Margaret’s handbag, into which she’d put her own phone, was blown away from between her feet, and an opportunistic passer-by ran off with it. "By the time I could check Find My iPhone, it was already in Leicester Square," she says. "Of course, the costume department were furious because the bag was vintage and a one-off." We both laugh, rather ruefully, for such anecdotes already seem to belong to a more carefree time. This bright, crisp lunchtime in lockdown, the Mall is all but deserted –there would be no need for roadblocks or filming at dawn today – while the roles Kirby is here to discuss are light-years away from her embodiment of a pampered royal party girl.

The morning of our meeting, Pieces of a Woman has launched on Netflix to rapturous reviews and critical acclaim that has seen Kirby, in her first lead role, picked as a front-runner for the award season’s most coveted best-actress gongs.

It is not, however, an easy watch. Kirby plays Martha, a first-time mother whose baby dies moments after being born; the film follows Martha’s subsequent disintegration, alongside that of her close relationships. Her labour, which comes at the start of the film, is some 26 minutes of one unbroken take that manages to be simultaneously intimate and menacing as the camera swoops around the apartment and hovers beside the traumatised protagonists.

Kirby’s performance is astonishingly unselfconscious, which is the more surprising since she never went to drama school (turning down the offer of a place at Lamda in favour of stage roles at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre) and says she couldn't bring herself to dance in front of her friends. "I’m the one who sits in the corner and watches." She describes seeing herself on-screen as "disconcerting", and "not a very natural human experience", and indeed even finds making Zoom calls a trial. "There’s nothing to hide behind!"

For Pieces of a Woman, the director Kornel Mundruczo decided that the birth scene would be the first to be shot, she tells me, as we stroll around St James’s Park, conducting ourselves like a couple of spies in a Le Carré novel. "I knew I’d have to be naked, and literally open my legs and give birth in front of a group of strangers I’d only met that morning. I was actually quite thankful – I thought, the rest of it’s going to be a lot easier."

In fact, she says, she found herself swept away by the emotion of the story. "Normally, it’s so hard to forget there are machines in your face, but I had no idea that a camera was even there." Was it traumatic to act? "The first time we shot it, I was literally sobbing for 10 minutes afterwards. I couldn’t get out of it. My brain was telling me it wasn’t real, but my unconscious didn’t know the difference, especially with having a real baby in my arms.

"Kornel came over onto the bed and held me so tight. He didn’t let go of me for five minutes, and he said, 'Just remember this feeling.' That really helped me for the rest of the movie, when the character doesn’t express anything, but almost has to be doing the howling without speaking a word."

Kirby took her research seriously, even asking a mother-to-be –a total stranger – to allow her to be present in the delivery room at the birth of her son in a north-London hospital. "I remember every single second of it," the actress says emphatically. "I was there, glued to my seat, for seven hours, not even a loo break! I was just amazed, in awe. I saw a woman completely surrender and go on this spiritual journey, which involved indescribable pain, clearly, but also ecstasy. It gave me a whole new respect for women and how powerful they are, and a new empathy for men, because they feel so helpless. And obviously, seeing the baby come out was the most incredible thing in the world I’ve ever seen, by far. After he was born, all of the mother’s colour returned, she looked like an angel, she had a kind of holy glow." Bathetically, it was only then that the couple recognised Kirby. "They were going, 'Oh my God, it’s Princess Margaret! This is so weird!'"

The experience has given her a new philosophy on life, she says. "I was watching the mother go through these contractions, which were excruciating, and the pushing, and then there was a moment of calm, and of expansion. And so, when I’m going through things in my life, I say to myself, this is like a contraction, surrender to it, because there might be something born from it. Sometimes we don’t want that; when we’re feeling something horrible, we want it to pass as far as possible. I’m teaching myself to allow it to be there and not resist or push it away, and that’s because of that woman."

But her character’s storyline also demanded that Kirby understand the experience of stillbirth. A friend introduced her to a woman who had lost her baby Luciana under eerily similar circumstances to those in Martha’s narrative. "She shared everything with me." They have become close friends, and the film’s ending is dedicated to Luciana. Kirby continues to work with Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity, and is voluble in her admiration of the Duchess of Sussex and Chrissy Teigen, both of whom have recently spoken out about their own experiences of miscarriage.

"I feel so close to them and so proud of them for breaking that silence," she says. "Meghan is probably the last person who would feel comfortable sharing her very personal, intimate feelings. It’s that courage that I want to continue to honour. What they’re saying is, if you’ve been through it, we have too, we share your story. I think that makes you feel less lonely. But one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, which is far more than I knew about. Society finds it difficult to hold space for that kind of pain."

Her parents, to whom she is very close, have both seen the film and wept throughout, she says. As if on cue, her phone pings, and her eyes soften when she checks the message; it’s a childhood friend who herself miscarried, getting in touch to say how much the film has meant to her.

The integrity of Kirby’s performance has already netted her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. "It doesn’t seem real," she says. "I have it in its case – I wouldn’t have it on display, it looks like a football trophy – but occasionally I glance at it and think, 'Did that really happen? Or did I make it up in a weird dream?'" In a similar vein, she is reluctant to engage with the Oscar buzz surrounding her. "I don’t even know when they are," she admits. "My 13-year-old self would have a heart attack. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it!"

Kirby’s other film, The World to Come, is set in mid-19th-century America but touches on the same themes of bereavement and redemption. The central character Abigail, played by Katherine Waterston, has also lost her young daughter, and in her grief, turns away from her husband to have an affair with Tallie, her free-spirited, flame-haired neighbour. "I was glad I was playing Tallie rather than Abigail, because it might have been a bit too much," Kirby confesses – though without giving away spoilers, that role is pretty traumatic too...

The screenplay is taken from the short story of the same name by Jim Shepard, which was inspired by an entry he found in an antique diary: 'My best friend’s moved away, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.' "It was one woman’s voice, like an echo from the past, and we’ll never know who she was," says Kirby. "The World to Come really educated me about what life was like for women not that long ago. They didn’t have a choice about anything they did with their time. You were owned by the house, and the man, and you had no freedom outside that. The best thing about doing this mad job sometimes is having your ignorance illuminated. I gravitate towards things that push beyond my experience, I want to go to places I don’t know, I’m not familiar with."

The experience of making both films has changed her profoundly. "I can’t do anything unless it means something to me now," she says. "It’s a better way to work, because you’re not focused on yourself at all. So maybe I’ll only work once every 10 years!"

To ensure that this is not the case, and in order to find more untold, female-led stories, her ambition is now to set up her own production company. "Even a few years ago, a film about a woman losing a baby would have been unthinkable. There are so many voiceless people, and I have a voice in this industry, and I want to make sure the tribe is represented properly."

It is undeniably awkward, therefore, that her male co-stars in the films, Shia LaBeouf and Casey Affleck, both of whom play violent, abusive husbands, have been called out for their treatment of women. In December, the British singer FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against LaBeouf, her ex-partner, alleging that he "hurts women. He uses them. He abuses them, both physically and mentally". While LaBeouf largely denied the accusations, he admitted in a statement to The New York Times: "I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say."

Meanwhile, Affleck was sued by two female crew members working on his 2010 film I’m Still Here, one of whom accused him of sexual harassment. He denied the allegations, and the lawsuits were settled out of court, but he later told the Associated Press: "I behaved in a way, and I allowed others to behave in a way, that was really unprofessional, and I’m sorry."

Kirby is understandably reluctant to get into any of this. "I can’t comment on a legal case that’s going on in someone’s personal life," she says. "I feel really protective of Pieces, so that’s what I want to speak about. Because it came out at eight this morning, all I can think about is the mothers I spoke to, and wanting them to be my focus. I just know my job is to honour them."

Perhaps counter-intuitively, starring in Pieces has awakened in her the desire for a family of her own. "It’s definitely made me want a baby, for sure," she says; but she hasn’t currently got a partner, having split up from Callum Turner (Frank Churchill in last year’s Emma), whom she met when they co-starred in the 2014 film Queen & Country. "This year has made me think a lot about the home I want to create. I like the idea of inviting someone into a space that’s mine, preferably before I have kids."

In the near future, however, Kirby has nothing on her plate except for getting through a third lockdown. "I’m free as a bird! I’ve read a lot of stuff, and said no to a lot of stuff..." She currently shares a flat in Tooting, south London, with her sister Juliet, an assistant director, and two friends. "I was just about to move out to live on my own in north London – my God, I would have been so lonely! My sister saved me. It was so nice to have routines together. We were trying to take a bit of exercise, cooking together, watching films that made us feel better, drinking wine on Friday nights..."

By now, having circled St James’s Park several times, we are strolling back towards the Corinthia Hotel, where Kirby has a full programme of Zoom interviews lined up for the afternoon. "That’s why I’m so happy to have actually had the chance to go out and meet you in real life," she says enthusiastically. "It’s funny when everything in your life closes down, and you have to sit with yourself, and you suddenly notice all the things you have and you’re grateful for. I hope that feeling never goes away – I will never underestimate how lucky I am."

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #The World to Come #Interview #Articles

[anarchy-and-piglins]

My depression: but what if suicidal Techno?

My muse: yes sir, right away sir!

So have some vent writing...

The first time Technoblade tried to kill himself he was maybe ten years old.

Like most bad choices it was spurred by nothing but curiosity. The overwhelming need to test the limits of the improbable, without a second glance as to whether knowing would make a difference or not.

It had whispered in his mind for years. You can not die, it had told him over and over. Until it was pressed solidly within his veins. Technoblade hadn't thought to question them at all. Despite the voices having a tendency to lie to him, gloat in his misery or trick him with falsehoods, there was an underlying certainty that this statement at least was true. Technoblade would never die, he knew.

Until he had sat on the floor in the living room one night, watching Phil rock Tommy on his lap. His tiny body shook with sobs as their father rubbed Tommy's back, fingers cradling tenderly through blonde hair. "It was just a nightmare," Phil had said. "We're all fine, promise. We're alive." But the words had done nothing to reassure the child.

Because Tommy was five years old and had dreamt his family died.

And Phil had told him that while everybody died eventually, it wouldn't be for a very long time yet.

Technoblade sat on the floor with Wilbur leaning against him, half-asleep as they had all been woken up by Tommy's nightmare, and had wondered which one was the truth.

So the next day he had waited until their father left to run an errand, until both his brothers had been distracted. And then Technoblade went into Phil's room and found a knife.

He brought it to the river that ran near their house and glanced at the rippling water. There was no fear inside him – no worry. It felt like Techno's very soul knew it wouldn't work. The voices confirmed this by telling him it was futile, taunting him to go through with it or begging him not to. Techno narrowed his eyes, walking into the water until it came up to his knees and holding out his arm.

In one quick motion he slid into the skin, following the curve of his elbow down towards his wrist.

Blood was swept away into the river while Techno stood there, tears brimming in his eyes from a mixture of pain and confusion. Minutes passed and he bled and bled and bled and then he got dizzy and he sat down on the soggy riverbank, still crying and bleeding.

Techno passed out and woke up what felt like hours later, the sun sat low in the sky.

He was covered in blood, the wound scabbed over with the dried remains of it. He hadn't died, though he felt in all ways as if he should have.

Standing up, he stumbled back to the house. Wilbur was in the living room, his face when Technoblade staggered inside became three shades paler. Techno dropped to his knees, feeling empty. He told Wil it was an accident. Told him that he had taken the knife to train with and had slipped up and hurt himself. He begged Wilbur not to tell their father.

Eventually, Wilbur agreed but made him promise to be more careful.

Technoblade nodded. Though it hadn't been the last time he tried, he became more careful about letting them see.

The river ran red five more times.

He drowned once, in Antarctica.

The ice had broken beneath Technoblade's feet and he had dropped beneath the surface in a blink's time. Cold water rushed into his mouth when he gasped and then it was in his eyes too, making it hard to see. Heavy furs became soaked in seconds, dragging him down deeper and Techno tried to swim but only found more ice, solid walls every way he tried to go. His lungs were bursting in his ribcage, tearing apart with the need for oxygen. It hurt worse than any war wound had.

Technoblade couldn't die.

He was left there, at the brink of some grand abyss that was denied for him and left him with the agony instead. After what felt like forever he managed to push through something inside him – a small chasm of power that resided within – and Technoblade punched through the sheet above him to claw at the sky again. Heaving himself onto the ground, he was left retching the excess water out of his body. Hypothermia had set in, sending pinpricks through every nerve but his flesh did not starve or wither.

Technoblade never dies, the voices cheered. A mantra that was starting to sound like a curse. The gift of a god turned into a damnation.

Technoblade stood on shaking legs and continued his way home.

He set the charges one by one, sloppy and without care.

There was poetic justice in this, he decided. This was a narrative conclusion that made sense. His brother blew up both L'Manberg and himself. Then Technoblade blew the city up as well.

So this simply was the logical next step.

If Technoblade could get his way, there would be nothing left come morning but a giant crater in the ground.

Instead, the explosives went off and ended the world that mattered without taking Techno down with it. He stared at the sky with pain in every limb that should have been torn off but stayed attached, with burns all over that should have killed him but wouldn't, and wondered how the simple act of dying could be this difficult. The voices were still audible – the only thing he could hear since his fractured eardrums were bleeding out his ears – and they admonished him for being naive enough to try still.

It would never allow him to die on anything but their terms.

("Take better care of yourself," somebody said.

"Don't go throwing yourself into danger for others," somebody said.

"Why did you protect me? You could have died!"

Technoblade wanted to tell them all that his life didn't matter like theirs did, but couldn't find the words.)

The anvil had broken his head open, splashed his brain matter into a million pieces before stitching it back together. When Quackity asked him how he had done it, Technoblade had laughed with a hollow heart.

He came home and found his nearest chest full of potions, digging through it for any sleeping pot he could find. Tommy was asking questions Techno easily brushed off, finding he couldn't care less why the kid was here. Heck, maybe he could keep the cabin. At least then all Techno's grinding wouldn't go to waste. Uncorking the first bottle, Technoblade downed it in three big swallows.

Then the next, and the next. A few more after. The world became dazed and muffled and Technoblade was tired. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to go to bed and be left alone forever. Even in retirement, they would see fit to hunt him down, drag him to their mockery of a trail like an animal and sentence him without a jury.

And subjected him to an execution that some part of Technoblade might have been hoping would actually work. A death that would finally stick.

Not yet, it whispered in his mind, toxic and murky. Dragging him to the edge of unconsciousness as he slumped down on the floor feeling his pulse slow down to a faint whimper. It would not cease beating completely only because they would not allow it to, divine power kept the blood flowing. You can't die yet. You can never die.

Technoblade closed his eyes just to pretend he wouldn't wake up again.

When he did Phil was there. Some distant part of Techno felt the heat of sibling-typical annoyance towards Tommy. Clearly the kid had snitched on him. Gone and told dad, like he always said he would when he found Wilbur wrist-deep in the cookie jar.

Techno wanted to sob.

"Why did you do it?" Phil asked, with no anger or disappointment. Only sincere worry was reflected in his every gesture. It made regret swell in Techno's gut. He couldn't even die without hurting everybody around him.

He'd always keep hurting them.

"I don't know," he lied. Or maybe it was the truth. He wasn't sure anymore.

"Oh, Tech." Phil hugged him, the warmth not at all enough to waylay the numbness in Techno's soul but at least it was better than nothing. A little drop in the desert that was his confused emotions.

Techno clung to him and rubbed Phil's back, remembering the way Tommy had held onto their father over a decade ago. "I'm fine, promise. I'm alive."

Even if he'd rather not be.

Inside his ribcage, his heart continued beating.

#technoblade #dream smp #mcyt #shara writes #self harm tw #suicidal ideation tw #suicide attempt tw #-dabs as they throw this here-

[rockthistowninsideout]

Never Too Late For A Leap Of Faith

Part 1

(Part 2)

Five times Taichi only feels the presence of Digimons and one time he actually meets them (again).

Words: 2126 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Tags: 5+1 Pairings: Taichi Yagami/OC, Sorato, Jyoumi

Inspired by this youtube video talking about how the end of Kizuna fits into the narrative of the Epilogue in 02, posted by TheDigiKnow. It’s in my opinion a thorough and yet personal analysis.

   When there was a baby’s cry from the labour room, Taichi broke down in tears. He’d been pacing to and fro in the hall leading to it, but only after his wife Kana had dislodged some knuckles in his hand by holding it too tight during a contraction and he had to be treated for it. Afterwards he hadn’t been allowed in again because, and that was something he didn’t like to admit, he had been on the brink of fainting before Kana’s force had jerked him back to consciousness.

    A nurse stuck her head out the door and smiled. “Congratulations, Yagami-shi, you have a son!”

   Taichi wiped away his tears, smile a little lopsided, and entered the labour room. His wife Kana, whom he had met at a diplomatic meeting three years ago, looked pale and drained, but smiled broadly. She mopped her sweaty brow with a neckerchief, pushed her long black hair that looked a tad greasy after her exertions behind her ear and leaned forward to receive a kiss from Taichi. Then she pulled away the duvet that had been drawn over her to reveal their newborn son. He had chestnut brown hair just like Taichi but his mother’s bulbous nose and when he opened his eyes they were a startling clear blue.

   “Most children have blue eyes when they’re born”, the nurse explained. “They’ll darken over the course of the first year.”

     Taichi hadn’t said a word yet, he was too transfixed on this small bundle of life that he helped to produce and that he was now responsible for. That realization suddenly felt heavy on his shoulders but when he looked into Kana’s soft yet endearing black eyes, the very eyes he’d been mesmerized by from the very beginning, he felt the weight ease.

   “Do you want to hold the little egg?”, Kana asked and lifted the bundle towards Taichi who’d been instinctively forming a cradle with his arms.   Something at the back of his mind stirred to life, something about a green yard full of cribs with colourful eggs, the way it never had before when the word “egg” was mentioned, but Taichi didn’t give it any notice. Tears were running down his face again as he watched the miracle before him. With a scratchy voice he whispered “Hello Hotaro, welcome to the world.”

   The first days were reserved just for them so the three could get to know each other. After the tiredness of being born had worn off, Hotaro was a very awake child. In every sense. He had trouble sleeping through, which caused Taichi, suddenly becoming self-conscious about his appearance, to use Kana’s concealer. She had taken a year off from work while Taichi went back to the office after three days. His colleagues welcomed him with a round of applause, a light blue greeting card, and a big stuffed and, for some reason, snow white teddy bear. As he looked the bear up and down, suddenly a cold breeze swept over him and gave him goosebumps. He immediately knew how he would name the bear.

     “I am Frigimon”, he muttered under his breath.

***

   Hotaro loved Frigimon. He had accepted the name without hesitation, affectionately calling him Friggi, and never going to sleep without him. Once Frigimon had entered the Yagami household, something had shifted within Taichi. Usually he was highly alert in his meetings but now he started dreaming away. Dreamt of a tram that didn’t need rails, of an island ruled by an evil bat-like looking creature, and vending machines in the middle of nowhere.

     He also started dreaming away at the kitchen table when having dinner with his family. At some point he was so far gone that it needed a gentle slap on the shoulder by his wife. When he looked at her questioningly, she said “Muchomon”.

   He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

   “Muchomon was my Digimon partner. He vanished when I was 24 and had just finished my degree.”

   “You were a DigiDestined?” Taichi’s eyes went wide as saucers.

   She nodded. “It’s been a while but since you brought Frigimon here the memories have boiled up again. You should talk to your friends again, and more than just at their birthdays and about irrelevances. I thought you’d been so close? To be a DigiDestined, and having fought numerous battles, welds together – for life.”

   Taichi took a deep breath. He kneaded his hands. He hadn’t wanted all this to happen – to let the contact cool down or even freeze. It had just happened. Because. Because of life, he guessed. At some point work and his little family had become more important than his long-term friends. He didn’t even know how many children Sora and Yamato now had!

   He banged his fist on the table.

   “Dad!” Hotaro exclaimed frightened. He had never seen his father so agitated. Immediately, Taichi regretted his outburst. He had never wanted to scare his son, become violent around him. And now he had. Because of his own shortcoming. “I’m sorry, Hota”, he quickly said, tearing at his hair. He got up, walked around the table, and lifted his son in the air.

   “It’s okay”, the four-year-old said, gently touching his father’s face. “Can you let me down, please?”

   Taichi complied, a bit confused.

   Hotaro took his hand and led him to his room. “Sit down, Dad. I’ve found something while playing in the attic a few days ago.” He handed him a box which Taichi instantly recognized, and his heart ached. He didn’t need to lift the dusty lid, sprinkled with little fingerprints from his son, to know what was inside. But he did it anyway. Coming to light was a round pair of goggles and a smouldered Digivice. He only noticed he was crying when the first tears hit the Digivice, just like they had done many years ago when Agumon had to say goodbye.

   For good.

   Or so he had thought. But Digimons were reborn. He had witnessed that many times. Maybe it just hadn’t been the right time until now.

   He lifted his head to look straight into his son’s open, curious, beautiful face. When also Kana had been a DigiDestined, then maybe their child should also supposed to be one. Or no, no he shouldn’t. He should choose if he wanted to become one.

   They had been thrust into this world without having been asked first. They had had to come to terms all on their when they’d been mere children and the forces who had chosen them had never offered much aid. He wanted this to go differently.

   He noticed that Hotaro held up Taichi’s phone. Koushirou’s name was on the display, it was already dialling. “Call him”, Hotaro said. Taichi shook his head. That kid was much smarter than was good for him.

***

   “Oh!! It’s soo good to see you all again!”, Mimi exclaimed, as excited as ever.

   Taichi had to dial down the volume of his computer as the audio overmodulated. But he smiled, genuinely, because he felt just the same. Before him, the screen was split into five segments, all filled with bright smiling faces.

   “Jou, come over, they’re here now!”, Mimi called, her face turned away from the camera. In the background there suddenly was the sound of glass crashing on a tiled floor, followed by a stream of swear words. “Jou, I told you not to swear in front of the kids!” She turned back to the screen. “I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, her segment got empty.

  Her friends chuckled. “I see you were cleverer”, Taichi pointed out to Sora and Yamato, who were sitting together in front of the camera and holding their two children on their laps. Their son had inherited Sora’s maroon hair while their daughter was as flaxen-haired as Yamato. They were both visibly bored, wriggling about on their parents’ laps trying to grab office supplies that were clearly not toys in their vicinity.

  “I’m not so sure about that”, Yamato remarked, dryly as ever, as he pulled a stapler away from his son’s hands.

  “Dad, have you seen my hockey stick?”, someone called in the background of Koushirou’s screen segment.

  He sighed. “I thought you put it in the cabinet beside the shoe rack. You know, where it’s supposed to go.”

  “I did but it’s not there. And Yui and her mom will be here any minute to pick me up for training.” The voice grew whinier and more urgent.

  Koushirou bowed apologetically to his friends. “I just have to help my daughter.”

  Meanwhile, Mimi had reappeared, Jou and their two sons in tow. “Hiroshi, Sasuke, say hello to Mom and Dad’s friends.” Mimi nudged them a little forward.

  The older one, taking remarkably after Jou with his blueish-black hair and the glasses, hesitated but the younger one, sporting a daring chin-long bob with a middle parting, grinned and brightly said “Hi, I’m Sasuke.”

 The DigiDestined greeted him back with a laugh. “Say Sasuke”, Taichi started, “does your mom and you go to the same hairdresser?”

  Sasuke looked at him in surprise. “Yeah, but how do you know?”

  More friendly laughter.

  “My brother’s good at guessing, is all”, Hikari remarked, absentmindedly fastening her hair-clip. She wore her hair the longest it had ever been but subconsciously she itched for a cut. But her daughter always said that she looked so nice with the long hair even though Rika couldn’t stand long hair herself. Hikari had even caught her once as she had cut her middle brown hair with kids’ scissors.

  “Oh, I see”, Sasuke said, tilting his head. “But you don’t look like siblings at all.”

  “Sasuke!” Jou turned red in second-hand embarrassment. “Sorry, my son can be a bit blunt sometimes.”

 “I wonder whom he has that from”, Takeru mused, hand held on his chin as if he was pondering a very difficult question.

  “I heard you are a writer”, Hiroshi suddenly said, nervously adjusting his glasses.

  Takeru’s expression turned smug. “And a pretty successful one at that.”

  “Yeah, but Dad thinks you’re exaggerating at times.”

 Jou turned even redder. “That’s… that’s not what I’ve been saying!”, he sputtered. “You just sometimes spend a little too much time on one detail.”

  “That’s not what you said, Dad!” Hiroshi turned to his father, affronted. “I’m not a liar!”

  “Of course not, my dear”, Mimi said soothingly. Then she leaned in closer and whispered “Sometimes adults don’t like the truth very much.” Louder did she say “Why don’t you two go and get your guinea pigs to show our friends, mmh?”

  “Oh yeah!” They bounded off out of the frame.

  “And where’s your kid?”, Yamato asked his brother.

  Takeru shrugged. “At band practice. Don’t know where he got the musical talent from but he certainly has some. And no, Yama, he hasn’t gotten it from you. Because he’s better.”

  Yamato dramatically inhaled. “You didn’t say that!”

  “I’ve got a round of witnesses who can confirm that I just did.”

  “Sorry Takeru, my connection was a bit wobbly for a few seconds. You said something?” Taichi asked suspiciously innocent.

  Takeru shook his head. “And you call yourself my friend.”

  Before anyone could reply to that, Koushirou plonked himself down on his chair breathlessly. “I’m back!”

  “Did you find the hockey stick?”, Sora asked, glad about the diversion. She had already feared that the mood could be slipping.

  Koushirou nodded solemnly. “Yes, just in time. And it was actually me who had misplaced it because I had cleaned out the cabinet and didn’t put it back.”

  “Tststs, Kou. I hope your daughter doesn’t have to put with too much.”

  Koushirou shook his head. “Of course not. Being a single parent isn’t easy but we have a cleaning   lady who comes in two days a week and I can bring Koyuki to my parents if need be.”

 Yamato muttered something under his breath which earned him a jab in the ribs by Sora. “In this house we don’t judge”, she breathed into his ear, only audible for him.

  He reluctantly nodded.

  “These are Tom and Jerry”, Hiroshi and Sasuke announced, diverting the tension once again.

  Taichi chuckled. “They don’t look like a mouse and a cat to me.”

  “We weren’t allowed to have a cat and a mouse”, Sasuke replied.

 “You wanted a mouse?” Sora could hardly hide her laughter.

  “Unbelievable, right?” Jou seemed to shiver just at the thought of having a tiny and cunning rodent in the apartment. And a slightly dumb but very persistent cat chasing it.

  Takeru laughed, too. “Most certainly.” Then he leaned forward. “But have we just come together to get to know your pets or is there a more pressing matter?”

#digimon adventure kizuna #digimon adventure #digimon last evolution #taichi yagami #yamato ishida #sora takenouchi #mimi tachikawa #jou kido #koushirou izumi #takeru takaishi #hikari yagami #original character #sorato #jyoumi #digimon adventure 02 epilogue #5+1 fic #my stories

[mewtwo24]

Noragami Thoughts

After a few years of not looking at this series (which is completely understandable, I very much wish the creator a full recovery) I was blown away upon my first return to the story.

Granted this isn’t the first time I’ve ever felt something so deep for a polished work, but I’d like to say it all the same--returning to Noragami felt like coming home. I’m a completely different person than I was when I first encountered the series, but I was surprised to find that my high regard for it didn’t change at all.

If anything, it only increased.

Thoughts below the cut because this is long, and I just needed to get my ideas down (good old catharsis). Don’t open if you aren’t caught up with the manga! There are spoilers.

I love this manga. Truly, I do, and one of the things that I noticed going back is how expertly Adachitoka handles both Yato’s self-understanding and the perception of the other gods. I think what levels me the most about this manga is that its emotional highs and lows are not only expertly controlled (we experience the weight never quite to the point of devastation, even though things are culminating in that direction) but the way we experience the characters is just...so breathtaking?

I love that the reason we hurt so much when they’re hurting isn’t always because we see the character in question in anguish. It’s because we see everyone that loves them suffer so acutely when they’re not okay.

And how beautiful is that? Something about that choice--that narrative decision to take trauma, to take pain and make it something that is always about love, is astonishing to me. I don’t think I know of another series that does it quite so poignantly as Noragami does. It expertly executes what I like to call “the anime effect”; in which we are so easily taken in by the humor we are utterly blind-sided when the world comes crashing down on the characters with full force.

And if that seems farfetched, just look at a handful of the recent examples. (I’m positive I could find more if I went looking back.) Kazuma is in a state of utter crisis because of what happened to Bishamonten, and the sheer desperation of everything he has done is chilling. His face and his self-deprecating words do little to hide the turmoil, but I feel like sometimes that’s lost in all of his shenanigans with Yato. We feel it in the moment, but we’re so swept away by the plot that it’s almost sidetracked. Almost. Until we get to the absolutely heartwrenching panel of Bishamon crying after he reports what he’s doing--essentially what he’s always done. Being devoted to her to the point of self-destruction; because it’s precisely the outcome she was trying to avoid in using another shinki against Fujisaki.

Take another, Ebisu. We see him painstakingly working despite his adorable youth to bridge the gaps that his predecessors failed to, to right every wrong he possibly can. He’s approaching the future with fresh eyes. But then we see that, even though he’s trying hard to be strong, there’s something more there. The older Ebisu, knowing that his fate was to perish long before any great age, had come to terms with that--as best as any person could possibly come to terms with that--and was already invested in protecting his successor. Gently, earnestly, firmly. We see a younger Ebisu that is enthralled with him, and the reader naturally assumes young Ebisu sees him as a parental figure. But then we get those shocking lines, the ones that mention how scared his predecessor must have been. How hard a lifetime of secrecy must be, how hard it must be for his closest retainer to keep secrets as well. We see an Ebisu that is young, yes, and with plenty of mourning available to him--and he takes it all in stride. Seeks to alleviate a great weight that was never his responsibility to begin with. But he takes it anyway, at the sight of their struggle. He makes it his own, despite the danger, because he loves them; as most young children do, without reserve.

And the surprising one, Nana. We see Yato make an attempt to ask for her help in ending Fujisaki once and for all--and Nana doesn’t seem entirely against the prospect of a fight--but Ara-habaki banishes him at the mere prospect of lending her over for that purpose. The meaning of that gesture? Profound and undeniable. Nana is utterly touched by the implication, is moved that somebody in this shoddy excuse of an afterlife would give a damn about her feelings as compared to her value as a shinki. We see a god that once again rejects the prospect of using shinki like chess pieces, and we even see Yato’s misgivings about using her to begin with--it was an act of desperation, and he moves no further when he’s reminded that it’s wrong. When he’s reminded that this isn’t the sort of thing he should do. After all, how can he look Yukine and Hiyori in the eye with the knowledge that he used a child to protect them? An unrelated party, a person who has never seen life because of her incredible power, and has been used one too many times to win a war that was never her responsibility.

And then, we have Yukine. Good fucking god, I can’t even start on this one without crying. I truly can’t. Granted I don’t know the intention of Adachitoka when first writing this (feels intentional), but the parallels between Yukine and Yato? Absolutely destroy me. There was nothing left in my heart but sorrow for the last few chapters. Here’s why.

We have Yato, or perhaps I should say Yaboku, yes? Who takes on Yukine as his shinki. As we all well know (and probably want to scream) Yaboku was the victim of considerable abuse by Fujisaki. I probably don’t need to go into the finer points, but coercion, blackmail, and outright threats have been exchanged, to say nothing of the way he uses Yato’s emotional suffering for his explicit amusement. Yato is a tool to him, nothing more. Anything Yato wants can and will be used against him for the sake of tightening Fujisaki’s collar around his neck even tighter. 

Yato is no stranger to the kind of pain that comes from being the child of a person that does not remotely love you. A guardian who appreciates nothing, recognizes nothing, praises nothing, protects no one unless it is of use to them. Feelings, fairness, humanity--none of those things matter.

Enter Yukine. In milliseconds Yato is charged with the care of a young man who was veritably buried alive by his own father. With nothing and no one to help him, an entire life lost--devastated--by the person that was intended to care for him. That kind of betrayal on its own, is purely horrific. There are no words I can say, nothing I can offer that can speak to the monstrosity of something like that. But I would like to offer that the way Adachitoka brings us to this truth is what makes it so utterly tearjerking. That it is precisely the narrative style of tangentially enclosing on the subject that is so ruinous I can barely see my screen, even now as I write.

It’s because we knew, even when we didn’t know. 

From the very first moment, we see Yato accept Yukine and he covers his eyes with his arm. We see tears streak down his face but he makes no further comment to any of it, keeping quiet with his subsequent silly antics. 

Strike one.

Throughout the course of manga we see allusions to how Yato encourages Yukine to learn what he didn’t get the chance to in his human life, sifting through workbooks and engaging with schoolwork with Hiyori’s help.

Strike two.

When Yukine is locked inside the box the other gods enforce during the trial in heaven, trying to pressure information out of Yato? We see Yato panic at exponential degrees, begging them to let Yukine out because neither of them can breathe. 

Strike three.

Yukine’s pervasive fear of dark, enclosed spaces?

Strike four.

And last, but absolutely not least, we see Yato digging where Yukine was presumably left to die. Nora notes that he was so on edge that he was hyperaware of his surroundings, forcing her to watch from a distance. Let that sink in. Yato was already so taken with his charge, with respecting his dignity and suffering as a person, that he would be damned if he let Fujisaki interfere. Not only that, we visibly see Yato’s absolute horror, the distress in every line of his face as he races to the site of murder and digs like a madman, no thought to his own fear or discomfort.

He takes more responsibility for Yukine’s care than the kid’s own father ever did.

Strike five.

Hiyori begins to outright sob when she too, brings all of the pieces together so quickly; that moment of realization, where every fragment of odd behavior suddenly transfigures itself into a coherent image, the mosaic visible. We experience Yato’s horror twofold when it echoes in Hiyori, and we feel the depth of her sorrow to know that somebody she cares about suffered such an egregious indignity. And to top all that off, we are aligned with her in this moment as one of solidarity. Yukine is rough around the edges sure; but we love him, and his fate is one we would wish on nobody. 

Strike six.

And, my dear readers, is that enough for us? Are we feeling enough hurt quite yet, Adachitoka asks? Fuck no. 

Because now we know that Yato not only carried the weight of Yukine’s trauma, but we also know how deeply he understood. Granted, their fates were a little different, but he knows. He knows how infuriating helplessness can be, the incapacity to stop the hurt at its source; because their lives were changed irrevocably beyond their control. Neither of them got to choose who they were born to. And even so he still tries to do right by Yukine, even if his attempts at care are awkward or ridiculous or roughly hewn--they’re utterly, heartbreakingly genuine. And he chooses to be better than his father no matter how many times he messes up; never, ever sinks to those lows. Never uses Yukine, never ignores his will, would never risk his life--even if it meant saving his own (Fujisaki sees literally everyone that will not contribute to his aspirations as expendable). And that’s what makes me cry, even more than the refrigerator scene. Because Yato would never put Yukine at risk to save his own life, even though next to no one has ever given a damn about him, even though Yukine pokes fun at him all the time and hurts him when he acts out of line/immorally, even though he had every liberty to treat him like an item or coerce him. He doesn’t. Or perhaps more accurately he can’t; not when he knows how much that hurts.

The other gods assume Yato to be lazy, irresponsible, unfeeling, selfish. Yato could have dropped Yukine like a rock. Could have said lol no thanks, this ain’t it chief, and decided to find another shinki that would cause him less grief.

He doesn’t.

And that’s what’s so awful about their falling out. Because Yato cares, cares beyond his capability to express, cares to the point of unrelenting faith in him. But he’s the certified goofball. The disgrace among the gods. A no-name. And he’s fully internalized that. He struggles with vulnerability, has to be somewhat drunk or flees the scene shortly after any expression of heightened feeling--and we can thank daddy Fujisaki for that. Yato understands his love for others as a purely destructive force; if being around him isn’t enough to ruin their lives, Fujisaki will ensure it. And that conditioning doesn’t go away in mere weeks of renouncing an abuser.

He loves Yukine and Hiyori so much that he no longer cares if he dies if it means that they live freely. He spent an entire god-span lifetime trying to remain in existence by any means possible, was obsessed with surviving at any cost. And yet, the moment his loved ones are at risk, it no longer matters.

Not only is he capable of more altruism than his father was ever capable of, he directs it whole-heartedly to the people devoted to him. When he was given no love, no solace, no semblance of worth of any kind--he still gives their existence meaning and would do everything in his power not to hurt them.

And that’s why I love Noragami. Because it does precisely what so few stories do, imo. It shows us that people grow for the better only when they find love, and that love can come from unlikely places--that you can love even if it was never, ever given to you. 

In Noragami, we come to understand that love is a choice. And sometimes it brings us pain, sometimes it brings us joy, but it always brings us to a better place.

I would like to end this all with the words that bring this entire analysis together, in the beauty of knowing that Adachitoka by no means implies this without clarity.

Nana and Fujisaki are two of the strongest characters that we have ever seen in this manga. Fujisaki is motivated, iirc, by the loss of the love of his life. This aching bitterness, the sheer undying rage inspired by her life cut short is what enables him to transcend every barrier that should stand in the way of a human being, presumably. He is our insight into what happens when love is twisted, we see a potential that was utterly lost to selfishness and cruelty--one that reverberates through Yato starkly. 

We see the danger of improper mourning, of an incapacity to let go. A truth Yato understands: life must go on, that it must keep flourishing anew no matter how much the growing pains sting.

And here, we see Nana. In her profound compassion, she understands that every single life is a meaningful individual, that they are innumerable points of value and beauty and worth in the world, and as such her death cannot be a source of sorrow. There is a clarity of understanding; she knows she is not alone in her experience, she knows that all human beings encounter trials and tribulations. She knows that she is not the first to die so young, so unfairly. And that’s what grants her strength. Yato calls it self-sacrifice, and while I understand that he assumes it to be a self-martyring conviction, I don’t think that’s quite what she’s getting at. Look at her dialogue, the careful phrasing: “It hurts more when someone you love dies.” She’s not saying she would rather die 1:1, she’s saying that the worst experience a person can have is seeing their cherished one in agony. The worst feeling, the only thing that could ever hurt her beyond sanity, is watching someone dear to her suffer without any means to stop it. Precisely what warped Fujisaki beyond repair.

“He loves Yukine and Hiyori so much that he no longer cares if he dies if it means that they live.” Reread those panels with that understanding. He literally marvels at Nana’s capacity to do that, to love people with so much tenderness and generosity, when he doesn’t even seem to realize that he’s doing it himself. That he too, is noble and strong, even if he can’t believe it.

And that’s the whole point. That’s the entire grounding of this manga. That love is what drives us, that we are made to love, and through love we find peace and self-understanding even in the most turbulent of times. I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if it is to be Hiyori’s devotion to him--ever steady, ever pure in its intentions and belief--that will be what grants Yato the strength to overcome Fujisaki, and heal Yukine. 

And having said all that, I know they probably won’t see this but I still feel the need to say it anyway. Thank you, Adachitoka. Works like this are the ones that inspire me to keep trying, that bring me to tears as much as it makes me smile. I can only hope I can create somethings so wonderful someday.

#noragami #noragami aragoto #noragami spoilers #noragami aragoto spoilers #noragami yato #noragami hiyori #noragami yukine #noragami ebisu #noragami kazuma #noragami bishamonten #noragami fujisaki #bro the new chapters had me shaking and crying #deadass still can't fully process what this manga means to me #this was just a shallow attempt at getting to the heart of it #god damn adachitoka have mercy #if any of you managed to get through that you have my sincere thanks and congratulations #analysis

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Jorja Smith has unveiled a standout new video for latest track ‘By Any Means’. The powerful video (directed by Otis Dominique and Ellington Hammond) shines a spotlight on communities across the UK, complimenting the track’s vital message around social issues and the civil rights movement. As noted by Jorja about the track: "The inspiration behind 'By Any Means' really came from going to the Black Lives Matter protest and leaving thinking, what can I do to keep this conversation going? It’s not just a post on social media, it's life.” ‘By Any Means’ is the first track to be unveiled from a new project titled ‘Reprise’, curated by the team at Roc Nation with the sole aim of bringing awareness to social justice issues. A portion of proceeds will go to funding organisations that support victims of police brutality, hate crimes, and other violations of civil rights. [via Dork]

Madison, WI-bred and Chicago-based band Slow Pulp recently announced Moveys, their self-produced debut album, and shared its first single 'Idaho.' Now the band shares another song off of the forthcoming record, entitled 'Falling Apart.' The track, featuring Alex G collaborator Molly Gemer on violin, is accompanied by a fantastical music video about feeling lost in a familiar landscape. Director Jake Lazovick, places Emily in a transient world, surrounded by flying objects and missing pieces. The clip features nostalgic animations, body doubles for social distancing purposes, and an homage to Massey's background as a ballet dancer. Read more about the song from Massey below: "As we were finishing up writing the album my parents got into a serious car accident and I came back home to help take care of them. A couple of weeks later COVID-19 started getting worse in the US, and quarantine began. Life felt completely surreal, everything had drastically changed and at such a rapid pace. It was especially strange because everyone was experiencing the same thing at the same time, but couldn’t be physically with each other to support each other. I felt like I couldn’t process any emotions I had about the whole ordeal because I had to keep it together to take care of my family. It became easier to stay numb, and create a facade that I was doing ok, than it was to release any type of healthy emotion for a long time. Luckily I did allow myself to have a full on breakdown induced by a stubbed toe and confusion over taxes, sometimes it’s the littlest things that finally get you."

Soap Detox met a party, and somehow their friendship sustained during the lengthy hangover that followed. A frisky Swedish three-piece with a lust for melody and good times, their raucous garage-pop is already making waves in their homeland. A full EP is incoming, with Soap Detox trailing this with their irresistible new single 'Give Me Gore'. A three minute fuzz pop wonder, it's a clanking, cheeky, subversive statement from a group who thrive on such things. The video features their shorn-headed lead singer in full form, accompanied by her band mates. Directed by Evelyn Del Carmen and Ebba Sylvan, you can check it out above. [via Clash]

It’s been a decade since we’ve heard from multi-hyphenate musician and producer The Angel, who last made a splash as a musician in 2009 with her single 'Ultra Light,' which featured the singer/producer Jhelisa on vocals. Focusing more on her career in film/TV composition and music production in recent years, she’s planning to return to recording her own music later this year with a new LP entitled Xtra Sensory Goodness. Now we’re getting the first taste of this project, which is yet another collaboration with the vocalist Jhelisa. “Jhelisa and I have become close friends over the years,” she explains. “There’s a lot of sisterly love and mutual respect between us, so Jhelisa already understood the mournful weight of the track before I asked to feature her. I’m always grateful that she’s willing to experiment with me because it’s not something she does lightly. Jhelisa beautifully channels the essence of whatever emotion needs to come through in the most evocative and visceral way.”  The song arrives beautifully packaged with an entrancing video directed by none other than Mark Pellington (along with co-directors Sergio Pinheiro and Sweeten), known for his concert docs for Pearl Jam, INXS, and The Flaming Lips, as well as an extensive music-videography including iconic visuals for Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails, and plenty more artists. “I wanted the song to sound like a memory, like you’ve entered someone else’s dream space,” The Angel continues, noting how the video perfectly syncs to the song’s mood. “The emotion is contained, very internal, so I juxtaposed a vocal vulnerability against a driving, incessant rhythm, where you can feel the underlying tension at the same time as experiencing the gentle plea, ‘Where’s my shelter…?’” [via Flood]

A few weeks ago, Ciara gave birth to her son Win. Last night, she shared a video that she evidently recorded while she was very, very pregnant. Ciara’s new song 'Rooted' is a statement of Black pride, a clear statement of solidarity with the protest movement that’s swept across America and the rest of the world these past few months. It’s a hard, kinetic track with vocals from the songwriter Esther Dean. But the song, at least right now, feels more like a vehicle for the video. Like a lot of Ciara videos, the 'Rooted'” clip is built around bodies dancing. In this one, though, one of those bodies belongs to Ciara, who dances with her belly exposed and who looks like she’s about to give birth any second. To watch someone dance this hard while that pregnant is an actual marvel, a near-superhuman feat. The 'Rooted' video is full of Black iconography, and it features the faces of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. All throughout, Ciara presents an image of motherly strength. Annie Bercy directs. [via Stereogum]

Hazel English releases the new video for her single ‘Five And Dime’ taken from her debut album Wake UP! which is out now on Marathon Artists. ‘Five and Dime’ is a woozy, idyllic view into Hazel’s world, which is built on timeless-sounding melodies, retro-tinged soundscapes and a knack for resonant lyrics. The mid-tempo number is reminiscent of the playful love songs of ’60s pop, as Hazel frustratedly muses on a love interest who is consuming her thoughts and detracting from her focus, “Gotta get away cause you’re taking up all of my time / You know I need my space so I’m heading to the Five and Dime.” Speaking about the new video, Hazel says: “'Five and Dime' is about longing for escape and freedom so I thought it would be fun to create an idyllic beach vacation, constructed from a set with cardboard cut out waves and fake palm trees. The idea behind it is that while I'm fantasizing about escaping to a tropical place, it's clear I'm just kind of stuck in this pretend version of it. I wanted to evoke the nostalgia of Hollywood musicals from the '50s and '60s, complete with dance choreography and bright colourful costumes.”

Katy Perry has released her second video for 'Smile,' featuring the pop star playing a video game version of herself as she battles giant spiders, circus trapeze acts and more while dressed as a clown. Much of the video is in CGI, with a live-action Perry playing the video game in her house (while also dressed as a clown). [via Rolling Stone]

Global superstar, Miley Cyrus has unveiled 'Midnight Sky,' a track that showcases a new direction for the always evolving artist.  The song, which was inspired by the past year of her life, is accompanied by a video that Miley self-directed.  In creating the song and video, Miley drew from strong female musical icons, like Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett, and Debbie Harry, who have always been so generous, and have been her greatest allies and inspiration.  The video showcases Miley as her true self: unapologetic, diverse, sexy, confident, experimental, and strong. The video takes viewers through Miley’s creative vision which displays her complete control of the narrative often told through the mouths of the media. Miley is at peace with who she is and has nothing to prove. As a musician she continues to push boundaries and experiment with her sound and look. Miley has proven to be many things, but boring is not one of them.

Chelsea Collins is nonconformist pop singer with a vision. For the captivating new 'Water Run Dry,' a collaboration with rapper, singer and fellow Bay Area-native 24kGoldn, Collins's infectious pop melodies glide over a hypnotic beat. Relatable lyrics about a faltering relationship reveal a depth of experience for the 21-year-old, with a wistful chorus lamenting, "there's no good in goodbye." The Roxana Baldovin-directed visuals for the track are an eyeful — Collins and 24kGoldn play house in an oversized, colorful California dollhouse, interspersed with images of a little girl playing with literal Barbies. The message? "I wanted this song and video to execute the world that's inside of my head — somewhat similar to a weird vintage rom com where at first the drama of love is so toxic, passionate and thrilling but eventually my lover and I have a happy ending," Collins tells NYLON. "Unfortunately reality isn't as fun and it kinda feels like some cranky dude is controlling your path, who's lowkey salty whenever something feels too amazing," she continues. "My intuition will tell me to run, but I'm notorious for acting like a Stepford wife, trying to recreate my past feelings yet they're all super robotic. Maybe one day I'll get lucky and love won't have to be so bittersweet, but until then I'll learn to smile even when things blow up in my face." [via NYLON]

Kali Uchis shared the visuals for her latest single 'Aquí Yo Mando' on Monday. Featuring a verse in Spanglish by Rico Nasty, the single is Kali's first release since her TO FEEL ALIVE EP from earlier this year. The Phillipa Price-directed clip finds the pair on a weapons-filled rampage, dropping bodies in underground parking lots and filming each other along the way. With co-production by reggaeton hitmaker Tainy, the booming track sees Uchis assertively laying some ground rules over trappy 808s. "Haces todo lo que diga (You do everything that I say)," she raps. “Si estás conmigo solo mando yo (If you’re with me, only I call the shots).” [via The FADER]

#videos of the week #jorja smith #slow pulp #soap detox #the angel #jhelisa #ciara #hazel english #katy perry #miley cyrus #chelsea collins #kali uchis #rico nasty

[aliveandfullofjoy]

I’m anxious about the election and our crumbling democracy et cetera et cetera so I’m gonna distract myself by making some Oscar predictions, lol.

I don’t think I’ve officially made any yet, but with the nominations a good five months away, might as well start making some guesses!

All predictions in alphabetical order, not likelihood of happening.

BEST PICTURE

The Father 

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Mank

Minari

News of the World

Nomadland

One Night in Miami

Soul

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Keeping an eye on: Da 5 Bloods; Judas and the Black Messiah; The Midnight Sky; The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Weird year! 

It’s easy to imagine that the top four will shake out to be Mank (which will lead the nomination count, is a likely Director winner, and could easily take the whole thing), Nomadland, News of the World, and The Father. Beyond that, I have no idea! 

Miami and Ma Rainey feel fairly safe. 

I’m trying to manifest a Room-esque haul for Minari. 

I don’t see Trial having the passion to carry it all the way to March as a top contender, but it’s basic enough to make it into Best Picture with support from actors and writers. 

It’ll be neat to see if Soul can be the first animated nominee here since Toy Story 3. 

BEST DIRECTOR

Lee Isaac Chung (Minari)

David Fincher (Mank)

Paul Greengrass (News of the World)

Florian Zeller (The Father)

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

Keeping an eye on: Aaron Sorkin (The Trial of the Chicago 7); Regina King (One Night in Miami); George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom); Lee Daniels (The United States vs. Billie Holiday); Spike Lee (Da 5 Bloods)

Predicting winners this far out is a fool’s errand, but this will likely be an easy win for Fincher. 

Again, I’m holding out hope for Chung and Minari, and it’s worth noting that the directors branch tends to appreciate movies anchored around a child performance -- Room and Beasts of the Southern Wild both surprised here, so it’s not totally unrealistic. 

Unless something really wild happens, Zhao looks primed to become the sixth woman nominated for Best Director, and the first woman of color. 

Regina King stands a chance at joining her, which would be really, really cool. 

George C. Wolfe might get squeezed in if both Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis end up as frontrunners for their respective awards.

BEST ACTOR

Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)

Tom Hanks (News of the World)

Anthony Hopkins (The Father)

Gary Oldman (Mank)

Steven Yeun (Minari)

Keeping an eye on: Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods); Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami); Lakeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah)

The late, great Boseman will officially be going lead for Ma Rainey, which makes things interesting. He would have been a slam-dunk winner in Supporting Actor, but in leading, he is now competing with Hopkins, whose reviews are out-of-this-world. It’s going to be awfully tight, and honestly, I don’t know who I’d predict to win right now. Either way, it’s all-but-guaranteed that Boseman will join the likes of Jeanne Eagels, James Dean, Spencer Tracy, Ralph Richardson, and Massimo Troisi as a posthumous acting nominee. If he wins, he’ll be the third, after Peter Finch and Heath Ledger.

Depending on how well Netflix handles all of their contenders, I’m worried for Yeun and Lindo here. I’d love for both to get in, but I just can’t see Hanks or Oldman missing out, especially if both of their films end up being major Best Picture contenders. Since I’m predicting Minari to do better than Bloods across the board, I’ll predict Yeun to make history as the first East Asian Best Actor nominee over Lindo. 

Judas and the Black Messiah is basically the biggest question mark in the race right now. Its release and eligibility is up in the air and as are its category placement for its two leads (Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield). If the film comes out and delivers, I could see it sliding into Best Picture as well as nabbing a nomination for one or both of them. Actor is tighter than Supporting, though, so it might make sense for the studio to push previous nominee Kaluuya (who has the flashier role) into supporting. 

BEST ACTRESS

Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)

Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holiday)

Frances McDormand (Nomadland)

Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

Kate Winslet (Ammonite)

Keeping an eye on: Amy Adams (Hillbilly Elegy); Jennifer Hudson (Respect); Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman); Sophia Loren (The Life Ahead); Meryl Streep (The Prom)

Honestly, this category is deep this year. So much so that the five I left off (Adams, Hudson, Kirby, Loren, Streep) could make sense as a lineup in any other year, and I expect most of them will pop up at the different precursors (Streep won’t come near the Oscar -- probably -- but she is guaranteed a spot at the Golden Globes). 

I can easily see a world in which Davis is the one to beat: her role is juicy as hell and a Best Actress Oscar feels inevitable for her. However, if Boseman ends up winning Best Actor -- which is very possible! -- the situation becomes a bit tougher. It’s really hard for movies to win both Actor and Actress unless they’re, like, top five Best Picture material, and I don’t know if Ma Rainey will end up that high. 

Keeping a sharp eye on Andra Day! Early buzz is great, it’s a juicy role that’s already been nominated for Best Actress (Diana Ross in 1972), and this could end up being a real star-is-born type moment. She’s the only other person who makes sense to me as a possible winner. 

Mulligan is my wildcard prediction, lol. She’ll probably miss out to someone like Adams (unless Hillbilly gets completely destroyed) or maybe even Loren (whose narrative writes itself). 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sacha Baron Cohen (The Trial of the Chicago 7)

Charles Dance (Mank)

Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)

Leslie Odom, Jr. (One Night in Miami)

Eddie Redmayne (The Trial of the Chicago 7)

Keeping an eye on: Yahya Abdul-Matteen II (The Trial of the Chicago 7); Chadwick Boseman (Da 5 Bloods); Trevante Rhodes (The United States vs. Billie Holiday) Mark Rylance (The Trial of the Chicago 7); Jeremy Strong (The Trial of the Chicago 7); Glynn Turman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)

It’s funny, for a little bit, it looked like some of the possible Best Actor contenders would be pushed supporting (Boseman and Yeun, specifically). Now... well, it’s looking weird.

Trial, which might not even end up a top 5 Best Picture contender, could easily snag two, maybe three, nominations in this category since Netflix announced they’re pushing every actor in supporting. Baron Cohen feels like the surest thing of that cast -- he has one of the flashiest roles and Borat 2 is only helping him stay in the conversation -- and I wouldn’t be surprised if Redmayne happened. He’s basically the lead of the movie. I’m curious if Abdul-Matteen or Rylance or Strong will be able to get in over them. The rest of the cast is (I think) DOA. 

If I had to pick a winner today, I’d probably say Sacha Baron Cohen or Leslie Odom, Jr., whose performance as Sam Cooke seems to be getting a lot of attention (along with Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Malcolm X, who might be getting a leading push). That both have other huge projects this year that won’t get them Oscar nominations (Borat 2 and Disney+’s release of Hamilton respectively) only helps their narrative. 

I have no idea about Charles Dance, lol. I’m only really picking him because he’s an old veteran character actor (which this category thrives on) and he likely has a major antagonistic role in the Best Picture frontrunner playing a real person (check, check, check!). 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy)

Olivia Colman (The Father)

Amanda Seyfriend (Mank)

Youn Yuh-Jung (Minari)

Helena Zengel (News of the World)

Keeping an eye on: Saoirse Ronan (Ammonite); Olivia Williams (The Father)

Can Close finally win an Oscar? Or will Colman snatch it from her yet again!? Will Seyfried get swept up in a Best Picture sweep?! Or will Zengel be the one place the Academy can reward News of the World in an above-the-line category?! So much excitement. 

Predicting Youn over Ronan mostly in my expectation that Minari will be a bigger deal with the Academy than Ammonite, but conventional (racist) Oscar wisdom tells us that a four-time nominee like Ronan is more likely than a Korean older woman who is mostly unknown American audiences. We’ll have to see!

#oscah talk 2021 #sometimes elliott watches movies #oscars

[plsbyallmeans]

Hillary Clinton on Her Surreal Life and New Hulu Doc: “I’m Not the President, and I Got More Votes! It’s So Crazy!”

The former candidate looks back and laughs. What else is she gonna do?

Hillary Clinton sat serenely before me, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. That was my first surprise as I was ushered into a room at a Pasadena hotel to talk to the former Secretary of State and the woman who won the popular vote in the 2016 election about Hulu’s four-part documentary series, Hillary (premieres March 6). Although she’s been accused of being plodding and dour, Clinton exuded buoyant warmth. And then there was her laugh. At first I was convinced that it was deployed for effect. (Politicians get media training; is laughter training a thing?) But gales of it tumbled out so regularly and recklessly that it seemed clear Clinton was just relaxed—maybe for the first time ever?

Sure, sometimes her laughter sounded rueful, but a lot of us feel rueful these days. And while she has stopped ascending the political ladder, Clinton’s name still sparks both adoration and loathing, as well as generalized post-traumatic stress. Some people wish she would withdraw into media exile rather than shadow the current election like the ghost of campaigns past. That gave some pause to Nanette Burstein, the documentary filmmaker behind The Kid Stays in the Picture and American Teen who took on this project in 2018. Burstein knew the Clinton defeat was still a raw wound for liberal America. But it was a cross she was willing to bear, given the complete editorial control and 35 hours of interviews with her subject she was granted, along with leeway to pose any questions she wanted.

I started to ask Clinton how it felt to participate in this legacy-defining project after so many years of having her life’s narrative framed by others, but the word “framed” triggered an explosive howl of laughter. “By all definitions of that word!” she said, eyes flashing, before collecting herself again.

“I decided to do it because I’m not running for anything and I think my life and my story has parallels with women’s lives and stories and what’s going on in politics,“ Clinton told me resolutely. (This was several weeks before the rumor circulated that Mike Bloomberg was considering asking Clinton to be his running mate.) “Thirty-five hours sitting in a chair answering questions is grueling but I felt like if I didn’t tell my side of the story, who would?” she added with a shrug. “At least there’ll be a baseline: Here’s what actually happened in my life. Here’s what I actually said about it.”

That led to some very uncomfortable conversations about the many scandals that engulfed the Clintons, including her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. (“It was awful what I did,” Bill Clinton tells Burstein, barely able to look at the camera. “I feel terrible about the fact that Monica Lewinsky’s life was defined by it.”) “I had to ask the ex-president of the United States about the most personal thing in his life and why he would make such a decision,” Burstein recalled. “It was very intimidating! But it was about: How did this affect Hillary and her marriage and the repercussions of that, which followed her 20 years later, into this last election.”

The series flickers back and forth between Hillary Clinton’s youth and the present, weaving together a complicated and flattering (if not quite hagiographic) portrait of a woman who’s provoked admiration and abhorrence for much of her life. Sometimes she seems like a real-life Zelig, popping up near the center of American culture for the last half century. But Zelig was a bystander, whereas Hillary got right in the thick of the action, sometimes changing the course of events and others times being swept along by them.

Clinton came of age at the exact moment that the women’s liberation movement was rising, and her 1969 Wellesley commencement speech landed her a spot in Life magazine. As a young lawyer, she wrote briefs as part of the staff for Nixon’s impeachment hearings (decades later, in a savage irony, she saw the process from another angle when her own husband was impeached). After following Bill to Arkansas, she confronted good old boy sexism, encountering judges who thought women shouldn’t be lawyers and constituents who felt the first lady of Arkansas should take her husband’s name. When Bill cheated on her in the White House, some women were furious with Hillary for standing by him. Conversely, when Bill entrusted her with the daunting task of devising a universal health care plan 16 years before Obamacare, right-wing rage, and revulsion boiled over. Footage in the Hulu series features protesters brandishing posters with slogans like “Hillary makes me sick” and “Heil Hillary.” At a Kentucky rally, they even burned her in effigy.

“I was threatened when I went around the country talking about it,” Clinton told me of that heated Hillarycare moment, shuddering at the mention of the burning effigy. “The Secret Service made me wear a bulletproof coat at one event because they had taken guns and knives off of people trying to get into the outdoor event. I thought, Shit, I’m trying to get people health care! It’s not like I’m stealing your firstborn here! What is the matter with you?” she shrieked, howling with laughter. “It was so weird—like, what’s happening here? Were they paid? A lot of them were riled up by talk radio…. But yeah, I had a lot of very unusual experiences.”

In the Hulu series, former adviser Cheryl Mills recalls “Hillary hater sessions” during Clinton’s 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination: Women complaining that the candidate was too power-hungry or that she’d been weak for staying with Bill. “It was like watching The Exorcist: The bile would just keep coming up,” Mills said. Clinton herself told me that before she ran for president, a psychological researcher warned her she’d have problems with white women “because they don’t want any conflict with their husbands, their fathers, their sons, their brothers, their boss. And white men are not going to vote for you—they didn’t vote for your husband, they didn’t vote for Obama, et cetera. So there was a lot of pressure on these women.”

Whatever your view of Clinton’s politics, Hillary reminds us that she was voted the most admired woman in America in the Gallup Poll for 16 years in a row. (Michelle Obama knocked her off the top slot.) Clinton fervently believes she had the white woman vote nailed down in 2016 “until Jim Comey dropped that letter on me,” she said. “I was going to win, I am absolutely convinced of that…. What happened is that white women left me, because their husbands or their bosses or whatever said, See? See? She is going to jail! It was a very effective assault on me.” The series points out that not only was Clinton’s career shaped by her own husband’s infidelity, but it was derailed once again by the sexual misbehavior of Anthony Weiner, husband of her top aide, Huma Abedin. The FBI probe into his sexting a teenage girl ultimately led to Comey’s announcement that they were reopening the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server. This reignited the frenzied right-wing smear campaign and, she believes, turned off enough vacillating voters to throw the election to Trump.

Burstein didn’t want to lean too heavily on the gender angle because there are elements at play in Clinton’s turbulent trajectory that “have nothing to do with that,” she said. “They have to do with politics. With her own personality. But there are also things that are very specific to being a female when you’re trying to do something no one else has done…. You really see that play out in her story over and over again.” The documentary shows how the battery of conflicting public expectations and right-wing vilification over several decades caused Clinton to build up defenses, which made her seem ever-more guarded and humorless. That armoring process started as early as law school, where she learned to put her head down and work hard “despite whatever obstacles were put up. And when you fast-forward into an age where everybody wants to see what your emotions are and how you respond and all that... It’s really a different environment in which we find ourselves now.”

Clinton first sat down with Burstein for interviews just a few days after the 2018 midterm results came through with their record number of women elected to Congress. The former first lady and Secretary of State regards the anger-fueled impetus that drove so many women to run for political office as the silver lining to her 2016 defeat. “She doesn’t feel that it’s a tragedy, so why should I depict it that way?” said Burstein. “She’s not bemoaning her existence every day. She’s like: Okay, what’s next?”

Sitting in front of me in a nubby tweed blazer, Clinton said she tries to be realistic about the progress women have made during her lifetime. “A lot of legal barriers have disappeared, and that’s a big step. So now we deal with all of these pent-up stereotypes and judgments about what women should and shouldn’t do or should and shouldn’t be. And we have all these forces—political and ideological and religious and financial—arrayed against further progress. And we have a president who is a willing tool. He doesn’t believe any of this stuff. He has absolutely no core beliefs whatsoever.”

Clinton won’t endorse anyone in the primary, she told me: “I just want whoever can beat him to get the nomination. Beat him in the Electoral College. That’s all I care about. I’m not going through this again!” she said, dissolving into laughter once more.

I asked Clinton if she ever thought about what she’d be doing in a parallel world where she hadn’t moved to Arkansas and married Bill. She evaded the question, telling me she moved there because she wanted to decide whether to marry and just fell in love with her life there. But then I mentioned to her William Gibson’s new novel, Agency, which takes place in a world where Hillary is president.

“Oh, I’d love to read it!” she gasped, asking for more details. In our own reality, “I’m not the president and I got more votes. It’s so crazy! So I’m interested in somebody writing something about a different ending.” She smiled and wailed, “I want to live in that world!”

(Link)

#Hillary Clinton #Eek so she's going to read the alternative universe Hillary Clinton and I am living for it

[ksngdom]

make me yours (ch. 1)

summary. life on the run is never easy, but it's even harder when you've got an assassin stalking you, a government agency on your tail and a billionaire turning up on your doorstep every few years -- like a vagabond cat she'd fed one too many times.

god, darcy lewis hates her life (she really doesn't).

authors note. a bdsm au with a fuck ton of plot. i know what i'm about, son.

word count. 2.5k

read this on ao3!

In the early winter months of 1965, bitter air and tendrils of ice gracing the point of every shard of grass in the expansive field, seven-year-old Darlene Lewis often spent her days chasing Elsie, her German Shepherd, around the grounds of Lewis Farm. The ranges of land and wood reached far and wide. Never did a day pass without the young girl spending hours exploring nature and losing herself in the depth of the land. It was okay, though; whenever Darlene got lost, Elsie always knew the best way to get them back home. 

Born in August 1958, Darlene’s parents had been informed of her classification when she was three days old. 

It was unheard of for a neutral to marry any classification other than their own, so when Janice, a neutral, announced her engagement to Ken, a dom, the news spread fast and wide. Nobody could quite believe that any self-respecting dom would ever agree to settle down with a non-sub, since it was often told that doms were hardwired to necessitate a sub in their lives. Some conspired about the true nature of their relationship and whether it was a cover for something much more complicated, but it became quickly clear that Ken and Janice were simply in love despite all of the odds stacked against them. 

The Lewis family had been defying norms since the very beginning. 

When their daughter was born, the couple swore to never force their girl to be anything she didn’t want to be. They’d experienced enough oppression during their life together to know certainly that they’d never wish it upon their daughter. 

On paper, Darlene Lewis was a sub, but in actuality, she was so much more than her classification. 

The little girl was a free spirit. She preferred trousers to skirts (much to her mother’s perpetual suffering) and took after her papa when it came to getting her hands dirty. Her mornings were spent feeding the livestock and riding on the back of the tractor before her mama would give her a shower and get her dressed for a day of homeschool and exploring. 

The decision to privately educate their girl hadn’t been one that the Lewis’ had made easily, but once they’d weighed up the pros and cons and taken a cold hard look at the local school’s policies when it came to educating subs, keeping her home swiftly became an easy decision. 

They ensured that she never lacked social contact and offered her a more enriched education than any of the public institutions ever would. Each subject was approached with sensitivity, especially the ones that delved into the history of subs and the harm they often faced in society, but each lesson had a purpose. By the time Darlene was five, she could say ‘no’ to her father without hesitation and held a stronger head on her shoulders than the vast majority of subs triple her age. 

Though the farm was well-removed from the nearest town, hidden away beyond miles and miles of winding roads and cobbled paths, the Lewis family were cherished by the local community. Their vegetables were the brightest to grace the shelves of the local grocers during the spring and summer months and their cuts of meat were highly sought after throughout the entirety of the year. 

Much to her parents’ unhinged delight, Darlene thrived at the farm. Her skin was tan and constellations of freckles adorned her cheeks. Her mother styled her hair every morning but by late afternoon it’d be hanging over her shoulder in its natural curls. Her skirts were only worn on special occasions, though she constantly complained until her mama gave in or her papa snuck her away to get her changed. Her dungarees were worn until they were hanging on by thin threads and she had more pairs of patterned wellington boots than she could possibly count.

The winter was always that little bit tougher at the farm. It took more effort to harvest the fields and the livestock needed to be kept well cared for even on the coldest of days. Preparation for the spring season started in November. Ken Lewis spent his days working hard, often with his little helper (Darlene) by his side, whilst Janice Lewis took care of the house and ensured that her family didn’t spend too long working without reprise. 

It was during the second week of November when the initial symptom of things to come arose. Like she often managed to do, Darlene finished her studies early and begged her mama to let her go and explore the fields with Elsie. By the time she was wrapped up warm, a scarf around her neck, gloves on and a heavy thermal coat wrapped around her body, the fields were screaming her name. 

Two hours of playing chase with a German Shepherd was bound to leave anyone exhausted, but Darlene had always had seemingly endless bounds of energy. Days working hard as a farmhands assistant and sprinting for hours on end meant that she had the stamina of a professional sportsman, easily. 

That was why it was such a concern when after only ten minutes of chasing Elsie through the meadow, Darlene’s vision whited out and she collapsed into a heap on the frostbitten grass.  

Her parents were quick to rush to her aid once they’d been alerted that something was wrong by Elsie’s remarkably powerful barks and howls. Janice had sobbed in terror, holding the limp girl in her arms as Ken did his best to remain calm and composed as he did his best to analyse the severity of the situation. To their aching relief, Darlene stirred after only five minutes, bleary-eyed and complaining of a headache so painful that it was making her eyes throb. 

It took five months of exams and inquests before Darlene was officially diagnosed with acute childhood Leukemia. 

In 1965, though the field of medical research was thriving, Leukemia survival rates in children remained abysmal. Ken and Janice were told that their daughter, once so full of energy and now bedbound with fatigue and sickness, wouldn’t live to see her eighth birthday. 

It felt like all hope was lost.

Lewis farm closed down that summer season for the first time in three decades. 

***

It was the summer of 1976. The Outer Space Treaty had been signed and the twenty-fifth amendment had been added to the Constitution. In Somerville, Massachusetts, the sun was setting and the coral hues of the scene were encompassing a wide range of land. A family of three stand together, lost for words as they take shallow breaths of warm air. The whistling summertime breeze sweeping through the shrubs and trees reverberates gently throughout the sparse meadow, enclosing the farm in a blanket of false pretences.

Darlene Lewis, twenty-one years old, swallows roughly. 

There's so much that needs to be said but not nearly enough time. 

At eighteen, the progression of age developing her physical appearance had halted without warning. In what her mama termed disbelief and her papa declared to be chosen-ignorance, it took two years for her to discern the undeniable fact that her body was stuck in time. At twenty she looked as young as she had two years ago and there was little expectation for that to change anytime soon. 

Denial was sour. 

Darlene Lewis stares down at the tombstone and swallows roughly.

A terrible boating accident -- that was the narrative her parents had fed to the town and the state, respectively. Darlene had been sailing with her father, dipping her feet into the ocean when a harsh current had swept her into the unforgiving depths of the rough waters. Her body would be impossible to find; the sea offered no second chances. It was a devastating, perfect cover story. 

Nobody could question the empty wicker casket, nor could they wonder why they couldn’t bid a final farewell to the girl who’d become a special part of the local community over the years. It was a seamless cover-story that was undoubtedly plausible. After all, the percentage of boating accidents that ended in tragedy was considerable. 

The grey-toned stone stands upon a freshly filled burial ground, cursive writing adorning the face of the plaque drilled onto the face. 

Darlene May Lewis. Beloved daughter and friend. Gone but never forgotten. 

A shiver of guilt climbs up Darlene’s spine as her hazel eyes trace the lettering.

The Lewis family had requested privacy during their period of mourning; far from unusual in such an unexpected circumstance. Their farm was blanketed in a wave of grief, though for a far different reason than everyone believed. 

Darlene Lewis wasn’t dead but was having to say goodbye to her parents anyway. 

On her left, long hair tied into a loose plait, her mother stands with red-tinged eyes. On her right, her father stands tall but keeps a grounding hand on Darlene’s shoulder steadily. 

They stand in taciturnity as a wave of impassioned tautness encompasses them. 

When her father draws in a sharp breath, Darlene knows what he's thinking and that nothing she says will halt his self-deprecating train of thought. Remaining quiet, she pushes her lips together and purposefully re-directs her gaze away from the gravestone. 

Attending her own mock funeral was going to give her a complex, no doubt about it. 

"I love you, Darlene." Janice Lewis says. The silence that envelops the trio is heavy. She's speaking to the headstone, as though her daughter isn't stood by her side. Darlene’ss heart twinges. "And I will love you for the rest of eternity."

The woman takes a deep breath when her mother begins to cry soundlessly.

"If I had done things differently--" 

"Don’t do this to yourself." Darlene interrupts, voice unsteady as she spares a glance up at her father. "If you'd done things differently, I wouldn't be stood here today."

Ken Lewis grunts, sweeping away a stray tear with the back of his hand. "You can't know that for sure, Darcy-girl." He speaks. "I should've found another way. I could’ve found another way. But you were so small and so sick. They told me you were dying and I swear my heart truly broke into millions of pieces.” 

Janice Lewis weeps into her hand at the memory. 

"And then you saved me." Darlene reminds him, tenderly. She reaches out blindly to take her mother’s hand, desperate to give the woman as much comfort as she could. Her chest burns. "You gave me the chance to live a normal life, papa."

Because no matter what anyone in the past of future had to say about it, Darlene Lewis had defied all odds and lived a normal childhood. She’d eventually entered the public school system and made friends and memories that she’d remember for the rest of her life. She’d babysat for people in their town and saved up her allowance for two years in order to buy the perfect prom dress. She’d lost her virginity to a neutral (all of the teenaged doms in town had given her the heebie-jeebies). She’d graduated with a 3.5 GPA and decided to forgo college, which is where the majority of her friends had flocked to following the completion of high-school.

For argument’s sake, there were certain aspects to her life that were more unusual than others. Her heightened senses and agility were the most prominent as she was growing up, but the no-ageing thing had hit hard at eighteen and taken the mantle as the most apparent anomaly that separated her from the general population.   

"There is nothing normal about you, Darlene." Her father says, shaking his head. The woman almost cracks a small smile, desperate for a sense of normalcy, but his defeated tone is deplorable. "I will never forgive myself for what I did to you. I was reckless and desperate but I should’ve known better."

Momentarily, Darlene lets her gaze flicker to the horizon. She briefly wonders whether a comparable metaphor can be drawn from the sun setting below the horizon and marking the end of a day, a week, an era. 

Leaving everything behind wouldn’t be easy, she’d always known that, but they’d be safe. That was what she had to keep reminding herself, again and again. Loneliness was a small price to pay in order to keep the two people she loved most in the world safe.

"You saved me," Darlene repeats, meeting her father’s eyes. "You loved me too much to let me die. You loved me so much that you spent a fortnight in a lab finding a way to save my life and you actually did. You loved me so much that you recreated the serum that made Captain America and used it to cure my cancer, papa. You did that for me and I won't ever be able to thank you enough for it."

A lull falls over the meadow. In the far distance, a flock of birds begin to chirp and a deer sniffs at the trunk of a tree. Darlene gets lost in the depth of her senses until her mother sets a gentle hand on her arm and squeezes. 

"Where will you go?" She asks. Her voice is raw with emotion as, for the first time in what feels like centuries, she fixes her eyes on her daughter. 

Darlene breathes softly. "I'll go anywhere. Everywhere."

The possibilities were endless and though she painted a smile on her face to appease her worrisome parents, her stomach twisted uneasily at the concept. 

She'd always wanted to travel the globe but never imagined having to do it alone.

Her mom’s hand falls from her arm to grasp her hand and Darlene forces herself to breathe evenly.

They'll be safe when she's gone. They'll be safe when she's gone. 

She repeats the phrase like a mantra in her head. Again and again, until her temples begin to throb. It hurts but she doesn't stop, she can’t stop, because if she doesn't keep reminding herself why she's doing this, walking away will be impossible. 

They'll be safe when she's gone. 

"Will we ever see you again?" Her father asks, solemn. It's selfish to ask, he knows it, but the strained words fall from his mouth before he can filter them.

"I love you both," Darlene says. Her parents wince at the obvious deflection. It hurts her and it hurts them just as much. "I always will."

"Be safe, my girl." Her father places a kiss on her forehead, an act of familial dominance that makes her heart warm. Being a sub in a society governed by the two other secondary-genders had always been tough, but her papa had never let anyone treat her like anything less than the smart, beautiful woman she was. "If you ever need anything, we'll be here."

Her throat tightens when her mother leans in and kisses her cheek but doesn't manage a word between her silent sobs.

On June 18th, 1976, Darlene Lewis was officially registered dead with the state.

On June 23rd, 1976, Darcy Mae was born.

#wintershock #darcy x bucky #darcy lewis #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #marvel fanfiction #darcy lewis imagine #bucky barnes imagine #darcy lewis fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfiction #wintershock edit #wintershock imagine #wintershock fanfic #avengers #the avengers

[beginagainbugle]

A Letter to the Editor in Response to Spider-Man & Superhero Unmaskings

by Peter Parker

I’m writing in response to recent events. Not the big, world-ending ones, not the horrible wave of fear that swept the city a few weeks ago (But maybe we should be talking about that more? That was big. Jameson, do your job.). Something smaller and closer to home. 

Spider-Man has an identity, and you’ve all seen his face–surprise! Sorry he’s not better looking! This wasn’t how you were supposed to find out. I know it looks kind of trivial by comparison, but it’s important to me.

My name is Peter Parker, and I’ve been Spider-Man since I was fifteen years old. Judging by the number of “there are new people checking out your LinkedIn profile!” emails I’ve gotten, most of you have figured it out. I’m a New Yorker, like you, Queens born and raised. I recently started a job at a major tech company (I don’t need to spell it out, you know the one). For eight and a half years, I was a freelance news photographer for the Bugle. Despite being their best guy on the Spider-Man beat, for reasons that are probably now pretty obvious, I was never once offered a staff position. I could write a thinkpiece on the Bugle’s systemic exploitation of desperate, cash-strapped minors, and maybe I will, but that’s not the point of this letter.

I didn’t want people to find out like this. I didn’t want them to find out at all. I’ve closely guarded my identity for years; before this, only a very, very few close friends and family knew the truth, for safety. Here’s a thought exercise: You moonlight as an animal-themed vigilante in primary-colored Spandex (I know it’s specific, bear with me here), and you amass a good number of enemies, this newspaper included. They only know you by your mask, by your carefully tailored public persona. They call you a threat, a menace, a nuisance, a sellout. They want to see something bad happen to you. I learned a long time ago that the best way to hurt someone is to go after their loved ones, but if they don’t know the name on your birth certificate, your address, they don’t know who your loved ones are. 

Does it sound dumb and cliche to say “I’m just a normal guy”? Yeah, it super does, and I’m not, I know that. I haven’t been normal since high school, when a deeply weird field trip completely upended the course of my life. But I’m still human, I’m still trying. Yes, my current employer knew who I was when they hired me, and, no, it wasn’t contingent on Spider-Man’s signature on the Accords. I never set out to be the poster boy for Registration. I never set out to be a hero. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I got handed a set of superpowers, and the only responsible thing to do was to try to make the world a better place. (It’s called tikkun olam. Look it up.) I can’t defend all of my actions, and I live with the consequences of them every day, but I’ve only done what I thought at the time was right.

For years, I knowingly fed into the Bugle’s narrative of my own villainy, my own violence, my own recklessness. Every day, another headline, another picture I had willingly taken for criminally low pay. Over the years, I’ve developed a weird sort of respect for Jameson. He’s committed to his beliefs, I’ll give him that. Not every criticism was unwarranted, I know that. For years, I was an honest-to-god vigilante. I’ve flouted laws, I’ve caused dizzying amounts of property damage in the name of heroism. I deserve to be held responsible for my actions, and I’ve been trying. That’s why I signed the Accords. That’s why I left the Bugle. I would like to implore the Bugle to stop this irresonsible reporting and sensationalism of enhanced individuals. This is senseless rage-baiting, stoking the flames of an already precarious situation. We’re not all the good guys, but we’re trying. In the future, let’s use facts to shape our opinions, not the other way around. 

And let’s stop exploiting us, while we’re at it. I did voluntarily sell my own photography to the Daily Bugle, but I did not consent to recent images of myself that have begun circulating. I am not a minor anymore, they are compromising but not indecent, and I have no actual grounds to stop them. But I was a minor when I started this–would you have done the same thing to me then? Would you have ripped open a teenage boy’s life and laid it bare for the world to see? I feel violated, I have been stripped of agency, but I’m an adult. I’ll pull through. Five years ago? Eight? Maybe not so much. Maybe the next time you want to pull something like this, whether it’s for personal enjoyment or political gain, don’t. Maybe think about the person underneath the mask. 

Like most of you, I have people I love; it wasn’t my safety I cared about, it was theirs. I’ve already lost too many of them. I’m sure you know who they are by now, but I promise you, if you go after them, I’ll go after you. 

You think you’ve seen what I’m capable of; you don’t know the half of it.

#beginagainbugle #beginagaineditorial #char: peter parker #submission

[grisdidthis]

CHAPTER ONE: FIRST SIGHT

AKA, blessed fucknuggets, why do these fools feel the need to put themselves through high school, my sources tell me that the US school system isn’t all that to begin with, what gives?

PREVIOUS ENTRIES

(Warning: this got long. Looooong. Hence, cut, so that I don’t murder your dash like Edward doesn’t murder Bella in this chapter.)

Welcome to the first entry of a live-read that no one asked for, in which I’ll go through the first chapter of Midnight Sun, i.e. a retelling of the first Twilight book from Edward Cullen’s POV. Not to be confused with Grey, a retelling of the first volume of a Twilight fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, or the Life and Death edition, a retelling of the first Twilight book in which Bella Swan is genderbent into a dude called Beau, who utters the immortal line “I knew I must look like a gorilla on a greyhound.” Which still tickles my humerus to this day.

I’ve waited for this novel to drop so long that at some point I’d stopped waiting. If by some freaky turn of chance you stumbled on this without knowing about the hoopla surrounding the publication, here’s a Wikipedia link. The gist is that the first few chapters of the WIP got leaked, the author got upset, the book got shelved until ??? and no further information about it was forthcoming until a while ago, when out of the blue arrive the news that it’s getting released in August.

My first thought was “Oh, yay, something actually NICE is happening this year!”

My second thought was “Please let it be good, so that I can laugh outrageously at [name redacted] for mocking my enjoyment of this series!” And. Look. I know what’s said about Twilight with regards to its literary merit and Stephenie Meyer’s abilities as a writer. A lot of it is admittedly accurate. However, the metrics by which I measure the value of a book are a) did it entertain me? and b) did I gain anything by having read it? And yeah, those are personal and subjective items, but objectivity is a lie, Jesus enjoys using toasters to take selfies, and if ten years ago I hadn’t been looking for a place to post my 50k+ epic Renesmee-centric fanfic, I wouldn’t have met the people who are currently my best friends.

Which is to say: I’m too attached to this series to give a fig what color the prose is. Deal.

And yet. Me hoping that Midnight Sun would be good, in a way that people who don’t have my level of emotional investment might acknowledge, wasn’t… that farfetched?  Because the last book Meyer released before this one, The Chemist? Is an improvement on all her previous work. A huge improvement! It’s competently written! The characters read like they were intended to be flawed, messy people.

The main romance isn’t the kind of fucked up that Bella and Edward’s is, where you can pen treatises on why they’re omg so unhealthy. It’s the kind of fucked up where five seconds after meeting her love interest, the protagonist drugs him unconscious, kidnaps him, sticks a urinary catheter up his ding dong, straps him to a table and tortures him for information until the guy’s ex-CIA identical twin drops a plane on the barn they’re in and crashes through the ceiling all “HANDS OFF MY BABY BROTHER YOU DISCOUNT MATA HARI!”

Then they all make friends and go on a road trip together because a shady government organization is after them.

That’s not a fucked-up relationship that you write an essay analyzing the fucked-up-ness of. It’s something you stare at, stunned and, if you’re me, torn between thinking “Holy shit, this is so my brand of heroine!!!” and “How much crack was Auntie Steph on when she wrote this?” And it’s beautiful. I want ten more like it. So my hopes for Midnight Sun are tempered by the knowledge that, being a retelling of an established narrative, it can’t go all-out with the batshit. But I’m still optimistic that some part of it will give me that warm “Awww, you’ve come a long way from where we first met, author! Good on you!” feeling.

Now let’s (finally!) get started on the chapter proper.

…oh wait there’s an author’s note.

…uhm. Yeah. My dreams. About those. *fixed stare at faraway bonfire* Actually, let’s not talk about those and just move on to Edward Not Liking High School, thank you. Yeah. That’s good.

Edward Cullen doesn’t like high school. Edward doesn’t like that people think. Edward doesn’t like that the human student body is beside itself with the arrival of some new chick. Edward thinks his adopted siblings are super basic. (Rosalie = shallow, Emmett = simple, Jasper = psycho two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage.) We don’t get to hear his utterly unbiased assessment of Alice, because she butts in and starts a one-sided telepathic convo about how Jasper is two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage. You know. Normal sibling stuff.

WHY DO YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS HASSLE, WHY!

(Let me take this opportunity to share my pet crack theory that Carlisle Cullen is secretly the most twisted, evil vampire in all of vampiredom, and that the sending the young ones to high school bit is something he does solely because he gets his evil fix by feasting on the emotional toil it inflicts on them. Also why he’s a doctor; he can ignore the call of blood, because being surrounded by the pain of patients and their loved ones already keeps him fed. I mean. He was chilling with the Volturi way back when, and Aro gives off a handsy vibe. No way he didn’t get his mind read in every which way, and if that happened - if he were reaaaalllyyyyy that nice, why would he still ping them as a threat of any kind?)

(This has holes in it, I know. And clashes with my other pet crack theory, which posits that the whole immortal child/Let’s Catch Them All: Cullen Edition was in fact the fallout of a Very Bad Italian Breakup, with Aro being the pissy ex who wants sole custody of the kids.)

Whatever. It still makes more sense than them going through “the inert state between active periods” when. My dudes! College is right there. Some places you can even sit out 90% of lectures and still get your diploma if you don’t feel like faking one, so Jasper would be all set! And you can pick different subjects! Diversify! Why must it always be med school rehashes, there are other worthy professions! And whole fields that are useless for getting-a-job purposes, but still interesting and enriching for those who have the luxury to pursue them. Let Emmett do Viking Studies, for fuck’s sake!

This amuses me much more than it rightfully should. I’m a child.

The Cullen clan tries to pep talk Jasper into not getting his murder on. Jasper is like OMG WILL YOU GUYS LAY OFF, while Edward is busy doing his judgy Edward thing and thinking to himself that Jasper should accept his limitations, that it’s a bad idea to have him at school at all, blah blah bleh, and you know what, I’m with you there, Ed.

Although we all know that this is just setup for the irony that will ensue as soon as Bella the Delicious klutzes her way into his line of smell.

Oh yah! Enter Bella. Edward can’t hear her thoughts. Jessica Stanley is a b-word. Edward wonders whether not being able to butt into the new girl’s head may be a red flag for vampire Alzheimer. Biology class next! The teacher is a man “of no more than average intellect” and, lord. It’s lucky that Edward is the mind reader in the family, because imagine if it were one of the others and they had to put up with listening to him bitch about the world at large, nonstop, at all hours of the day. And night, since these guys don’t sleep. Angela Webber is the only soul in the whole school whose thoughts have the Edward Cullen seal of approval. I feel sorry for her. I also feel this weird sense of hey, this all seems familiar in senses other than being a retelling, have I been here before?

Wait.

WAAAIIIIIITEEEEE.

*googles for the old version*

*runs first chapters through copyleaks*

*kubrick stare* MEYER, YOU LAZY SO AND SO, HOW COULD YOU!

*slams head on desk*

Well. At least I know what I’m in for. HONESTLY! It’s been. It’s been THIS MANY YEARS since the leaked version appeared, and that was a first draft, how in the… she’s way better than this, now! Was this novel produced in a terminal state of $#%CARING#NOT?&FOUND?! Is half of it just going to be the same old thing with a thin veneer of polish? I’m.

*sigh* You know what, I’m okay. We’re just going to call this first part a re-read. It’s been ten years, so I remember not a whole lot of the specifics, so at least I won’t be bored. BUT COME CHAPTER 13 I EXPECT TO BE SWEPT OFF MY FEET, DO YOU HEAR ME?!

Biology. Bella walks in right past a fan and gives Edward a throbbing throat boner. How awkward. Then she goes and sits right next to him and saucily tosses her hair around like he’s not actively plotting her murder and that of the rest of the class. The cheek of the thing!

Fortunately, Bella’s tasty ass is momentarily saved by a stiff breeze.

…I think we may have found the solution to Jasper’s control issues. The Cullens just need to start carrying air freshener around and spray the murder out of him every time he starts looking peckish. It would look weird if anyone else did it, but since they’re all pretty and rich, it’s more likely that the trend will catch on and cause Febreze sales to skyrocket.

Anyway. We’re not done victim-blaming Bella for…

…at least another couple of pages, but at least Edward gets his head out of his ass long enough to recall that hey, vampire! Oxygen is optional! But he still spends another lot of words grumbling about what a hassle it is to be forced to hold his breath in order to dampen his murderous urges. This is why you are a virgin, Edward. No, I don’t mean the planning the assassination a classmate’s assassination, plenty of serial killers still manage to get laid heaps, consensually, even! It’s the fact that you’re this much of a buzzkill that’s the issue.

Live, laugh, love, you dumbass disco ball!

Yep, he’s still on about how he’s going to kill her, totes kill her, he feral dangerous vampire, rawr. The miracle of adequate indoor airflow only got him to railroad a quartet of brain cells into thinking up smarter ways of snuffing Bella out. Now he wants to lure her to the forest. No, he’s going to kill her at home! He hates her! No, he hates himself and is projecting!

So he flees to his car, plays some calming music, breathes in and out and thinks about his family and how disappointed they’d be in him if he were to help himself to a Swan shake. Well, I’m nobody to shit talk anyone’s self-soothing routine. I’d probably throw in a truck of food + a bath, but he’s had 100+ years to figure out what coping mechanisms work for him, so let’s just let him do his-

Edward.

EDWARD.

…do you actually think this is an appropriate time to start a ginger-off with some random desk lady? Yes, we know you’re the One True Redhead To Rule Them All. (Though Kvothe from Name of the Wind may beg to differ, and I don’t know who would win that fight.) I mean, really? You pull this crap when you just barely talked yourself out of a murder? And then you call her eyes flat! What!

One of my favorite comic book series, Y the Last Man, features a scene where two characters discuss what it is that truly binds people together. One of them presents the argument that stronger bonds are formed not by shared love, but by shared hates. By which they mean not a kiss-kiss-slap-slap, enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamic, but like… you, being someone who really hates coleslaw, having a partner who likewise hates coleslaw, with whom you can indulge in tireless verbal roastings of coleslaw and who will never get tired of your complaining, because the fire of their loathing burns every bit as hot as yours.

I’ve always felt that this concept resonated with me deeply. And if you apply it to Bella and Edward, by its standards, they have the real deal. Go through the namesake chapter in Twilight-the-book, and you find Bella thinking similarly judgy thoughts, being irked by the same shit that no one normal would bat an eye to, going “Ugh!” and “Gah!” at everything that makes Edward wince internally. So their love will be eternal for sure. Perhaps not in an epic way. They’ll live boringly ever after, until they’re ancient and onion-skinned and lurking at passerby humans through the geraniums on their windowsill, exchanging “Holy crow, I can’t believe she bought a hydrogen engine car just to show off!” / “Awful! She should know that thinning the deer population so that they produce less flatulence is the most sound way of controlling toxic emissions!” And then probably gazing at one another like idiots for an ice age or two.

Edward wants to be moved out of Biology class. Goes back and forth with the desk lady, who obviously wants to tap that, because of course she does. Every hot-blooded woman within spitting distance must crave his alluring icicle, even as he mentally eviscerates every minuscule detail of their appearance.

Except Bella, because she’s soft, translucent, deep-eyed and edible. And, I mean. You can complain all you want about “you’re different from anyone else I’ve ever met, you’re SPECIAL, better, more beautiful, more everything!” being a dead horse of a trope so old and beaten that by all rights it should have turned to smelly glue, but. That pony is still kicking. And by kicking, I mean selling. And it sells because being made to feel special, even if it’s happening by proxy while you’re immersed into the thoughts of a fictional character, is nice. Readers enjoying that experience and seeking out fiction that provides it shouldn’t be considered so… mock-worthy as I’ve seen it be, in discussion of works that feature the trope prominently.

Which doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be nicer if Edward’s narration were focused solely on elevating Bella, instead of also viciously kicking down everyone in the vicinity. Man, we get the message, okay? You don’t need to act like you’ve swallowed a Simon Cowell before coming in for school.

I swear, it’s almost a relief when Bella interrupts, heralding the triumphant return of the throat boner. Edward’s thoughts about the people around him are actually LESS gratuitously bitchy when he’s contemplating how to best murder them.

At least this time he is able to extract himself from the situation and flee speedily. (Which… in Biology, what exactly was preventing him from asking for a bathroom break? Or just saying he was feeling poorly and getting the fuck out of there?)

He meets the sibs. Only Alice has any clue of what is going on because visions, and she doesn’t explain anything to the others, who just stand there baffled while Edward decides to get his shiny ass in his shiny Volvo and run off to Alaska. Probably because it would ruin the serious mood of the scene if she told them and Jasper started doing happy cartwheels at the prospect of no longer being the only fuckup in the family.

END CHAPTER. Same time tomorrow, hopefully, and I’ll TRY to be less longwinded. Try. 

#TWILIGHT #MIDNIGHT SUN #EDWARD CULLEN #GRISREADSMS #MIDNIGHT SUN SPOILERS

[ladyfl4me]

what other writing inspires you? like other fics or stories?

Hmmmm. I haven’t been doing much new reading lately, outside of stuff I do for my coursework. That being said, there are a lot of works I like to return to. (Sorry about this long, long infodump on my favorite works, but boy howdy do I love these. I’m probably forgetting about five million other things, but those are the ones that come to mind right away.)

As far as fic goes, I used to read a lot of MCU stuff; I even wrote a few in my day, before mainstream fandom got too exhausting/the franchise went to shit and I was swept up by TAZ. I always cite @miamaroo​‘s Northern Migration as the fic that inspired me to take the leap into long-form intricate TAZ AUs. I also adore Seven Raptors by DragonWrites. If I hadn’t discovered these two stories while on a Balance fic binge last year, I definitely wouldn’t have written The Moth who Came In from the Cold. @morganeashton​‘s fic Running Home is also a stunning work that I regret not reading sooner. The chapters are short, but each one blew me away. Morgie paid incredibly close attention to even the most minor characters, fleshing them out in quick brushstrokes of dialogue and action that made me fall in love with the characters in brand new ways. I highly recommend reading it.

Outside of fic, there are three books that I always keep on my desk when I’m looking for inspiration, or just trying to find something to model/use as a guide:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. This is a big one. I keep a copy of it on my desk to page through when I have trouble with dialogue, and balancing inner character monologues with external events. It’s also a good book for me to read while trying to work out The Children of Sylvain; I have a lot of moving parts in it, much like American Gods does.

Salamander by Thomas Wharton. I read this one and was like, you can do that?? With words???? Damn, son. It’s about a 18th century book printer who makes novelty books; he gets hired by a duke who’s obsessed with puzzles, to the point that he rigged his entire castle to rearrange its own fucking floor plan like an architectural Rubik’s cube. I’m talking beds leaving their rooms to zip around the castle on rails, in the middle of the night; moving walls; entire bookshelves leaving the library to make loops around the building. Some serious steampunk shit. This duke hires the printer to make a book that never ends, and this quest leads him on a journey across the world to gather the materials to print and bind his book. It is not as boring as it sounds, I promise. I mostly remember it for the lesbian pirate who liberates slave ships, but also for the really good prose, which is one of the reasons why I keep it on the desk for reference.

Sabriel by Garth Nix. Amazing worldbuilding, excellent prose, great characters and relationships, an incredibly compelling narrative and a protagonist on the front cover (of my edition) that I’m very gay for. 

[ID: the cover of the book Sabriel, by Garth Nix. The cover art shows a young white woman, from about the knees up. Her eyes are hooded and pensive. She wears a flowing blue overcoat with white trim, patterned with silver keys. Twelve small bells in protective leather pouches hang from a bandolier across her chest. A scabbard hangs from a belt around her waist; across the bottom of the picture, just barely visible, she holds an unsheathed sword with arcane symbols carved into it. She holds one small bell in her hand. A blurred, formless black shadow with glowing orange slits for eyes reaches towards her shoulder with a gnarled hand. The woman looks slightly over her shoulder, eyes hooded and pensive. End ID.]

The titular protagonist is part of a divine line of necromancers sworn to make sure the dead stay dead. She’s forced to journey from her current residence - a country like WWII-era Europe, except everyone can do magic and has a sword - across the border into the Old Kingdom, when her father goes missing and dead things everywhere start rising. I keep this one around for help with basically everything.

Other passive sources of inspiration for me include:

Lord of the Rings. My first fandom and one I’ll always return to. It informs so, so much of how I structure arcs and characters. It’s a good thing that most of the friends I bounce things off of/write for aren’t super familiar with it, because they’d be able to guess the plot of TCOS in like 5 minutes if they did.

TAZ, of course

the MCU, before the franchise went to shit and I developed critical thinking skills

the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale (more of an elementary-middle school inspiration for me, which convinced me to take a leap into novel writing. I still have 3 or 4 of the books from this 10-book monolith)

video games:

999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

Beyond Good and Evil

Myst, games 1-3

I’m also subscribed to the Poetry Foundation’s poem of the day newsletter, which often sends me something that fucking Gets Me. At the moment, I’ve been really taken with the poems of Catherine Pierce; she came to do a reading at my college recently, and we read her collection The Tornado is the World for my poetry workshop course. I can’t recommend her enough. She’s got a gift for saying a lot in a frank, arresting way. Here’s an excerpt from “The Mother Warns the Tornado,” which is from that book (time to see if tumblr fucks up the formatting):

I will heed the warning

protocol, I will cover him with my body, I will

wait with mattress and flashlight,

but know this: If you come down here—if you splinter your way through our pines,

if you suck the roof off this red-doored ranch,

if you reach out a smoky arm for my child—

I will turn hacksaw. I will turn grenade.

I will invent for you a throat and choke you.

I will find your stupid wicked whirling

head and cut it off. Do not test me.

If you come down here, I will teach you about

greed and hunger. I will slice you into palm-

sized gusts. Then I will feed you to yourself.

Good shit. Reminds me a lot of Mama. I highly recommend giving The Tornado is the World a read! Not every poem in the book is quite as visceral as “The Mother Warns the Tornado;” some are melancholy, some are brash and cocky, some are sad, some are sinister, some are overcome with joy. It’s a beautiful anthology, and I found it very easy to read and relate to. I annotated my copy to hell and back and I’m definitely keeping it for years to come.

I’m going to regret this later, probably, but! If anyone has any recommendations for books, TV shows, podcasts, whatever, send me an ask! I’ll make a list. Or, knowing me, a spreadsheet. Have at thee!

#asks #jennifero77 #thanks jenn! #long post #recs