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acenancy · 3 years

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The Ace x Nancy x Tamura of It All

I’m here as a hardcore Nace shipper (see the URL) to throw my two cents into the Ace x Nancy x Tamura discussion.

Some of you straight up hate Tamura and that’s cool, I get it, no judgement, but I personally like him a lot as a character. And I LOVE the connection he and Nancy have. Their repartee is entertaining, they share a passion for solving mysteries which is key to being Nancy’s friend, and their very different life experiences help balance each other out.

You know, since one of them is grounded in reality and the other is navigating through life in a supernaturally charged hellmouth.

That being said, I hope they grow closer during S3 WITHOUT becoming explicitly romantic. And I think that may be exactly what happens! At most, I think that while solving magical mysteries, Nancy and Tamura will engage in a fun little flirtationship that will lead to genuine friendship. His partnership with Nancy would be solidified this way as well as his honorary membership to the Drew Crew. This could serve three purposes:

Forcing Tamura to accept the supernatural elements of Horseshoe Bay, thus weaving him more intricately into the plot.

Creating tension between Nancy and Ace 😏

Exploring and adding depth to whatever sort of relationship they’re trying to establish between Tamura and Ace.

I see all of this playing out fairly simply: while Nick and George are busy juggling real life and a wedding, while Bess devotes her time and energy into researching her family history and finding love, and while Ace prioritizes Amanda, Nancy finds herself without proper backup. So! Perhaps unintentionally, Nancy gravitates to Tamura. There's crimes and mysteries to be solved and since her friends are not fully available to her, who better to turn to than the guy who’s job it is to investigate these things? And so begins the Nancy and Tamura buddy cop comedy that is both dreaded and highly anticipated depending on what social media outlet you’re using.

Though let me repeat: BUDDY COP.

I really don’t think we’re going to have an Ed and Lorraine Warren situation on our hands with these two. Truly, if the S2 finale is anything to go by, I think S3 will allow Nancy to grow into herself outside of a romantic or sexual relationship. She’s not running from herself and into someone else’s bed anymore. She’s embracing and learning to love herself. I’d even go so far as to say Nancy’s love interest next season will be...Nancy lmao.

As for Tamura, if they decide to give him a romantic interest, I think they would either have his ex-fiancée reenter the picture or maybe even do him dirty and stick him with Temperance for plot reasons. A doomed Tamura x Temperance romance would actually be fun to see, in my opinion, and would be a great way to open Tamura’s eyes to the supernatural. That’s just me spit-balling, though. Whether it’s because of Temperance or not, I think Tamura is finally going to have to accept ghosts and witches and magic are real this season. It’s just a requirement for working with Nancy Drew.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, we have to address the Nace of it all. Sorry to Tamura but I do believe you’re being used as an obstacle in True Love’s way next season. I think fandom’s general consensus is that the more time Nancy and Tamura spend together, romantic or not, the more jealous Ace will become. While I agree, I think Ace’s jealousy will stem from somewhere a little deeper than just seeing Nancy with another guy.

Take Gil, for example. Ace was sort of jealous of Gil, but more than anything he was wary of him and concerned for Nancy’s wellbeing when she was with him. Unlike Ace, Gil never had anything to offer Nancy except for sex and a getaway car. He sure as hell was never her number one person. In fact, he wasn’t even Nancy’s number five person. There was never a reason for Ace to be envious of him.

Tamura, on the other hand, can prove to be just as much of an equal to Nancy as Ace is. As chief/lead detective, he also has power and influence that Ace and Nancy do not, and access to people and resources that Ace does not have (unless he can hack into them). Tamura can help Nancy bend and break the law without consequence if need be, too. And, although naive in regards to the mystics of Horseshoe Bay, he is just as smart as Nancy and has, on the rare occasion, even been one step ahead of her. Tamura is an asset, to say the least. Together, he and Nancy make a formidable duo.

That’s what will make Ace jealous. More than the prospect of romance between Nancy and Tamura, I think that Nancy finding another intellectual match is what will rub Ace the wrong way. They’ll find themselves at a brief moment in time where Nancy will turn to Tamura for assistance before anyone, including Ace, and Ace will realize he absolutely hates that someone who is not him is Nancy’s partner in crime now.

Maybe Nancy won’t notice, but Ace will probably realize his love for her is not of the philia sort. I’m sure Amanda also will. And? Maybe Tamura will see it too.

Which brings me to one of my favorite dynamics of the show: Ace and Tamura’s.

I’m not gonna sit here and spin my crazy conspiracy theory that they’re brothers. Though that idea will always hold a special place in my heart, slowly but surely I am accepting that Ace’s long lost brother really is Grant. I’m being a total grownup about it. I swear.

Nevertheless, I do think they’ve been trying to build some kind of relationship between Ace and Tamura since before Tamura even met Nancy. What sort of relationship? God, I wish I knew.

They meet each other first, which doesn’t necessarily mean a lot, but it’s worth noting that they’re on each other’s funny little shit lists before Nancy even enters Tamura’s picture. It’s also Ace and Ace alone that hears from McGuinness that Tamura will be replacing him in the same episode. Then, of course, we have that crazy Shabbat dinner in 2x03 that exacerbates their antagonistic relationship further. Then there’s their snarky banter and all of those totally unnecessary side-by-side shots of them saving Noah in 2x10. Apart from Nancy, Ace is the only member of the Drew Crew that we’ve seen Tamura develop a real connection with, even if it is an unfriendly one. And, as of now, their relationship doesn’t even have anything to do with Nancy.

So where are the writers going with this hilarious and hostile bond between Ace and Tamura? Has all of this really just been buildup for a romantic rivalry? Hey, maybe! I really can’t figure out another reason why the writers have gone out of their way to create their dynamic since the Brother Theory has been disproven. But something tells me this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

And when I say “this”, I mean Tamura taking a step back from Nancy once he realizes he may just be filling in the love of her life’s shoes. Because that’s where I think all of this is going. Not necessarily anywhere romantic between Nancy and Tamura, but somewhere more friendly between Tamura and everyone.

At the end of it all, Tamura is going to finally embrace the supernatural, he’s going to become an ally to Nancy, Ace, and the rest of the Drew Crew, and, when the timing is right, he’s going to hop onboard the Nace ship with the rest of us.

I HOPE.

Side note: this is just where my head is at. I truly respect all of your opinions and ask that you respect mine too. If you agree with what I’ve said and want to talk, let’s talk! If you disagree and want to talk, we can talk too! Please, just don’t get nasty with me. This is a television show about fictional characters at the end of the day, and I am a real person. Much love to you all. ❤️

#nancy drew cw #nace #namura #abe tamura

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bitchinhanscom · 6 years

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Pictures of You Pt.3

Parts: [1] - [2]

Pairing: Slowburn!Richie x Reader

Summary: You and your friends discover you’ve all had similar haunting experiences and you welcome a new member into the Loser’s Club

Your nose is stopped up and your eyes feel small and puffy. It was a result of all the crying you did last night. After dinner you had went back to your room and cried some more. You cried until you were dried out. Then you laid down in your bed and stared at the ceiling for a good hour. You couldn’t remember when you actually fell asleep.

Your mom had left for work early in the morning. You didn’t have any plans for the day and you honestly didn’t want to do anything. You felt like shit. You thought you would probably lay in bed all day. Maybe you would watch a movie in the living room later or something.

Your plan to do nothing is ruined around eleven when you get a knock on your door. Your hair is a mess, you’re still in your clothes from yesterday, and your eyes are probably still a little puffy, but honestly you don’t really give a fuck.

You open up your front door and standing on your front porch is none other than Bill Denbrough.

“Hey. Are you busy?” he asks

“Uh, no. What’s up?”

“B-B-Beverly called. She t-told us to come over right away.”

“Us?” you ask. Then you look over Bill’s shoulder and notice Richie, Stan, and Ben waiting on their bikes.

“Okay. Just give me a minute to change.” you quickly put on a different pair of jeans and a t-shirt. You couldn’t really remember if the t-shirt was dirty or not, but you were in a rush and it smelled okay so you just went with it. You brush your hair and then walk out of the front door.

Eddie is out there now and you figure that they collected him while you were getting dressed. You grab your bike and you guys head to Beverly’s.

Eddie and Stan are arguing over whether it’s better to go through the alley or side street when you arrive to Beverly’s apartment.

“The side streets are like the same. They smell like piss and shit.” Stan says.

“Okay. Can you please tell me exactly what she said?” Eddie says.

“She didn’t say anything. Just to hurry over.” Stan replies. Beverly comes running to you guys when you pull up in front of the fire escape.

“You made it. I-I need to show you something.” she says. Richie is assigned to keep watch in case Beverly’s dad comes back and you all rush inside.

She points to the bathroom and you all walk towards it while Eddie rambles on about how dangerous and unsanitary bathrooms are. When Bill opens up the door you’re shocked at what you see. There’s blood everywhere. It looks like he just opened up the gates to Hell.

“Holy fuck. Did Aunt Flo and Cousin Red come for a visit?” you say. You hear Eddie give an annoyed sigh and you can see Stan roll his eyes out of the corner of your eye.

“You see it?” Beverly asks

“Yes.” Eddie replies

“What happened in here?” Stan asks

“My dad couldn’t see it. I thought I might be crazy.” Beverly says.

“Well if you’re crazy, then we’re all crazy.” Ben replies

Bill says that you guys can’t leave it like this and next thing you know you’re all cleaning Beverly’s bathroom.

You, Eddie, Stan, and Ben go throw away the trash bags. Stan and Eddie go to Richie and explain what happened. Ben goes back inside to get the last of the trash bags. You decide you’ll help him, but when you get inside you see him in Beverly’s room. You wait for him to come out and when he does you say “What the fuck were you doing?”

“Oh, uh, n-nothing.” you can tell he’s lying.

“Really? Because it looks to me like you were snooping in Beverly’s room. That’s really weird, Ben.”

“I wasn’t snoo-“ he cuts himself off after looking towards the bathroom. Bill and Beverly are standing in there talking and laughing.

“I anonymously wrote a poem for Beverly. I just wanted to make sure she got it.” he says in a low, sad voice.

“Did she?”

“Yeah. She’s never gonna think it’s from me though. She likes Bill. That doesn’t really matter though. I just wanted to make sure she got it.” he responds. You feel bad for the boy. He seems real sweet. It wasn’t fair that most girls wouldn’t give him a chance because of his weight.

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re most teenage girls’ dream guy. Personality-wise.” you say. He perks up a little bit.

“Really?”

“Yeah, most girls would kill to have someone write a love poem for them. One day a girl will see past the bullshit and appreciate you. Maybe it won’t be Beverly Marsh, or maybe it will. Who knows? But one day someone will.”

“Do you actually think that?” he asks you.

“Yeah, but here’s a little tip. You probably aren’t going to win brownie points with her if she catches you in her room without her permission.” you tell him. He laughs and says “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Bill and Beverly come out of the bathroom after that. Bill asks what you guys are laughing about and you tell him that it’s nothing.

You’re all walking down the street, pulling your bikes along with you. Richie is pissed about how long you guys took to clean the bathroom. He’s riding in circles around you guys and making it clear that he thinks you all imagined what you saw.

“She didn’t imagine it. I s-s-saw something too.” Bill speaks up. You all stop.

“You saw blood too?” Stan asks.

“Not blood. I saw Juh-Juh-Juh-Georgie. It seemed so real. I mean it seemed like him, but there was this..”

“A clown.” Eddie finishes “Yeah, I saw him too.”

“Me too. In the woods. The day I met you guys.” you say. Ben and Stan shake their heads that they saw him too. You get chills. It turns out you weren’t seeing things and it wasn’t a prank. This was real.

“Wait, can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why I’m not seeing this shit?” Richie speaks up. Before anyone can respond you all hear yelling.

Eddie points out Belch Huggin’s car and Bill notices a bike.

“Isn’t that the home schooled kid’s bike?” he asks. You have no idea who the home schooled kid is.

“Yeah, that’s Mike’s bike.” Eddie responds. The homeschooled kid’s name is Mike apparently. Everyone runs to help him and you follow suit.

You get closer and closer to the noise until you’re faced with what you guess is Henry Bowers on top of Mike. Henry is about to bash Mike’s head in with a rock. Then Beverly throws a rock and hits Henry in the head.

Henry gets off Mike and Mike crawls across the stream and joins you all.

“You losers are trying too hard. She’ll do you. You just gotta ask nicely like I did.” he says. You’re pissed. Beverly is a good person. She doesn’t deserve to have a false reputation and be hated because of said reputation.

Ben yells and throws a rock at Henry and next thing you know you’re in a fucking rock war. Your adrenaline is pumping and you’re throwing those rocks like your life depends on it.

You go into the water to get closer and Eddie joins you. You get a nice hit at one of Henry’s goons. The one with the bleach blonde hair. You didn’t know which one is Victor and which one is Belch and, to be blunt, you really didn’t give a fuck.

Suddenly Belch and Victor are running and Henry is lying on the ground defeated. You all start to walk away. You hear Richie yell “Go blow your dad you mullet-wearing asshole.” You wait for him and you both laugh together as you join the group.

You all collect your bikes and start walking to a nearby field.

“Thanks guys, but you shouldn’t have done that. He’ll be after you too now.” Mike says.

“Oh, no. Bowers? He’s always after us.” Eddie replies.

“I guess that’s one th-th-thing we have in common.” Bill comments.

“Yeah, Homeschool. Welcome to the Loser’s Club.” Richie says.

You all sit down and Mike pulls a book out of the basket of his bike. He sits it gently next to his bike.

“What is that?” you ask.

“It’s a book about the history of Derry. I borrowed it from the library.” Mike replies

“You went to the library?” you ask.

“On purpose?” Richie continues.

“Well I’m home schooled. I have to go there a lot and I don’t really have a lot of friends to hang out with either. Plus it’s really interesting.” Mike replies. You ask if you can see it. He hands the book to you and inside is a folder. It’s full of notes and pictures. Everyone gathers around to look at it.

“Why is it all murders and missing kids?” Richie asks.

“Derry is different from most towns. One time they did a study and it turns out people die and disappear six times the national average. That’s only grownups. Kids are worse.” Mike answers.

You flip through the history book and land on a page about the Easter Explosion of 1908. You almost miss it. At first you’re not even sure it’s what you think it is, but you look closer.

“Guys look.” You show the book to all of them.

“What? I don’t see anything.” Eddie says.

“Look very closely in the corner.” you respond. You see it hit each of their faces. The fear.

“It can’t be.” you hear Beverly say.

“You guys have seen It too?” Mike asks. You all shake your heads yes.

In the corner of the page, standing behind all of the chaos, is It. The clown. He’s smiling that same sinister fucking smile.

You slam the book shut. You’re hand is shaking now and you swear it feels like you’re being watched.

Stan is the first to speak up. “I need to go home.” he says

Everyone else agrees. They get up and start going their own separate ways home. Richie rides back with you and Eddie. You don’t really know why, but you don’t ask questions. You bike in silence. What can you say after something like that?

“I’ll see you guys later.” Eddie says as he pulls his bike into his driveway.

“See you, Eds.” Richie says.

“You know I hate that, Richie.” Eddie responds. Richie smirks.

“Yeah I know.”

Eddie walks into his house and you stop in front of yours, but you don’t walk towards it.

“Isn’t that your house?” Richie asks sort of curiously.

“Yeah, I just don’t really feel like going home yet.” you reply.

“Oh. Well, do you wanna hang out?” he asks. You get this weird feeling when he asks this question. It’s almost like nerves, but not quite.

“Why not?” you answer and you two drop your bikes and sit on the curb.

“Why do you call Eddie “Eds” even though you know he hates it?” you ask.

“He doesn’t hate it.” he responds.

“He just said he did.”

“He didn’t mean it.” Richie responds

“How do you know that?” you ask.

“Just do. Did you really see a fucking clown in the woods?” He asks.

“Yes, I really saw a fucking clown in the woods. And a snake.” you respond.

“Well yeah. Woods usually have snakes, y/n.” he says.

“The clown like conjured up this snake or something.” you say.

“How do you know that?” he asks. You grow a little irritated.

“Because it was at least six feet tall, had arms and legs, and had the face of a human. That’s how I know.” you snap back.

“Oh.” he responds. Minutes pass in awkward silence. You were a little pissed. Your night before was shit, today you found out that some weird ass clown is haunting you and your new friends, that Derry is full of child murders, and now some boy is questioning what you saw and acting like you’re stupid.

You turn to face him. The light from the setting sun looks really nice on him. That weird sort of feeling starts to grow. No. This wasn’t happening.

“Why did you even come with me and Eddie?” you ask.

“You aren’t the only one who doesn’t want to go home, y/n.” he responds. Oh. You don’t say anything. He speaks up first.

“Why were you in the woods?”

“I was going for a walk. I had nothing better to do.”

“So you went for a walk in the woods?”

“It wasn’t exactly my first choice of things to do. I didn’t really have any friends then and I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t go to the arcade.” you respond. This boy was really annoying you. You hated being questioned.

“You play at the arcade?” he asks rather excitedly.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your favorite game?”

“Frogger.” you answer

“Frogger? Frogger?!? Frogger fucking sucks. Street Fighter is the best.” he exclaims.

“Street fighter is fucking stupid.”

“Frogger is fucking stupid. All you do is move some damn frogs. Who finds that fun? In Street Fighter you get to beat the shit out of people. How do you think that’s not cool?”

“It’s not real and that game is stupid. I’m not gonna waste my time with it.” you answer.

“You haven’t played it? Well there’s your problem. One day we are going to the arcade together and you’re gonna play it.”

“No I’m not.” you say.

“I’ll convince you.”

“Good luck with that, Tozier.”

He smiles at you and you smile back. He has such a nice smile.

“I should probably go home. It’s starting to get dark.” he says.

“Yeah. I should probably go inside.” you say.

“Alright. I’ll be seeing you.”

Taglist: @it-reader @only-if-it-matters @gay-ships-and-tea-sips @thelosers-lovers-club @veryweirdintrovert @meliketozier @stan-the-losers-club-man @longlivethetampon

#richie tozier #richie x reader #richie tozier x reader #beverly marsh #ben hanscom #bill denbrough #billy denbrough #mike hanlon #eddie kaspbrack #stan uris #stanley uris #it 2017

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insporaelynn · 3 years

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📲 raelynn && carson

WHEN: january 25th-27th.

DESCRIPTION: the saga of carson and raelynn over the past few days - in text message form.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: angst, sex mention, death mention

@carsonreyes

carson

uhhhh I think we should talk

raelynn.

who is this?

carson

it’s carson, raelynn.

raelynn.

idk what we have to talk about.

i haven't even seen you in idk how long.

carson

so then what’s the issue.

raelynn.

the same issue as before.

carson

then let’s talk

raelynn.

what's there to say that hasn't been said

carson

can’t we move past this

raelynn.

idk can you undo all the damage you left?

carson

can I try

raelynn.

You don't even know me anymore.

carson

then I’ll get to know you again

raelynn.

That's if I let you.

carson

you’re really just going to let us hate each other

we’ve both grown, cmon

raelynn.

i don't trust you.

carson

that’s valid

that’s why I’m trying to fix it

raelynn.

why now.

carson

I just got back

raelynn.

yeah but you always had my number, apparently

carson

actually

I had to ask for it

raelynn.

who gave it to you

carson

Uhm

next question

raelynn.

was it delilah.

carson

It was wessy

raelynn.

whatever i can't be mad at him

carson

are you gonna let me get to know you again

raelynn.

do i have to decide today

carson

yes <3

raelynn.

that's not fair.

carson

neither is calling me out in the gc

raelynn.

you can't compare that to cheating on me for months and then dumping me for the other girl

carson

it wasn’t for months

and it wasn’t for some other girl

raelynn.

choose your words carefully bc if you say that i was the problem and the reason you cheated on me / broke up with me i'll block you.

carson

no I take full responsibility for the cheating and being a dick

raelynn.

yeah, and i was the last to know, and then you broke up with me and you were all over social media with that girl like days later.

carson

it wasn’t days

and you were the only one to know

raelynn.

you're right i think it maybe was only one day

carson

it was like a month

raelynn.

still too soon. still sus. still dated me and said you loved me and wanted to marry. me for 2 years.

carson

I did!

raelynn.

and you cheated on me, so none of that was real.

carson

I did really love you raelynn

raelynn.

you don't do that to someone you love.

you don't lie to them and make them look stupid

carson

I know I know

raelynn.

so did you just. stop the minute you decided you wanted to fuck her.

carson

no I was just stupid and not thinking

raelynn.

you really messed me up like permanently i'll never be who i was again.

carson

I’m so sorry

raelynn.

so do you get why it's not fair to ask me to decide today whether or not you can be in my life?

carson

oh cmon it was a joke

I wouldn’t actual expect that of you

raelynn.

i never know what to take seriously with you honestly

carson

I’ll wait as long as it takes, raelynn

raelynn.

to what end?

carson

wym

raelynn.

what's the goal

carson

whatever you want

raelynn.

that's too vague. there has to be something that you want. otherwise you wouldn't bother.

carson

I just want to make things right

I’m not the devil

raelynn.

i mean, they do always say that the devil doesn't always have horns and shit. they say he's got gorgeous hair and piercing eyes, and he lures you in.

carson

oh come on raelynn

raelynn.

see that, that was a joke.

carson

wyd tomo

raelynn.

whatever i want during the day and then work in the evening.

i'm a cage dancer, tips are good.

[...] why

carson

do you wanna get coffee

raelynn.

is there a particular reason you want to?

carson

just to hang out we dont have to

raelynn.

I don't know.

carson

that's ok

raelynn.

But maybe.

You're not trying to mess with me?

carson

raelynn.

it's just that the last time we sat across from each other you were breaking up with me.

carson

i can't break up with you rn

raelynn.

i know. that's not what it's about.

carson

well

raelynn.

it's just. that's how little trust is here, carson.

carson

idk what im supposed to say

im gonna give you space

raelynn.

you're supposed to just say what you mean .

carson

i am!

raelynn.

[...] I'll meet you. But just coffee. Not coffee and then my place, not coffee and then your place, not coffee and a kiss.

carson

i just said coffee

raelynn.

I know what you said, I just want to be as clear as I can be.

carson

crystal clear

raelynn.

Good. Um. Noonish?

carson

noon works!!

raelynn.

maybe the starbucks around the block from wes? I go to that one a lot. The staff is nice.

carson

sure, sounds good!

raelynn.

and carson? i literally am gonna ask just one single thing of you, okay?

carson

yes maam

raelynn.

don't screw any of my friends.

carson

idk who ur friends are

raelynn.

ugh.

carson

give me names, raelynn

raelynn.

i'm an extremely popular woman!

carson

bruh

raelynn.

well, there's delilah even though she and i aren't speaking. there's lana, there's niamh, roman, landon, ivy (i hope, soon), spencer, echo, rue, jules. if i think of anyone else i'll let you know.

also wes, wes is my friend, he counts.

carson

ok spen and i have been friends way before

and im not gonna fuck wes

or delilah

raelynn.

you don't get to argue with my list, carson.

carson

raelynn.

you wanna fuck spence or something?

carson

i didn't say that

i just said we were friends!

raelynn.

okay.

i swear to god carson, you've aged me 50 years.

carson

oooh 75 yrs old

that;s hot

raelynn.

hate you

carson

raelynn.

...don't

carsonBOT01/25/2021

</3

raelynn.

you don't even mean that lmao

carson

says u

raelynn.

it's not like you came back for me or whatever

carson

carson: i came back because i wanted to

raelynn

yeah i figured.

carson

carson: and i had to

raelynn

you had to come back or you had to leave?

carson

both

raelynn

so why did you leave?

carson

uh idk if you wanna know that

raelynn

did you run away with the other girl.

carson

raelynn

so why.

carson

my mom died

raelynn

[...]

carson

so i went to stay with my dad

raelynn

shit. i'm sorry.

carson

an awakening of some sort

raelynn

i really loved her.

carson

i did too

so yeah i went to california. saw my dad. lived out there

raelynn

and you had to come back because...?

carson

someone had to do something about the apartment and house

plus wes was practically begging me to come back home

raelynn

yeah i get that.

marie

but I’m here now

raelynn.

did you miss me.

you don't have to answer that. it's stupid.

carson

of course I did

raelynn.

okay. idk why i wanted to know.

carson

idk either

raelynn.

idk it's stupid

[...]

carson

I’m so sorry

I have a meeting at noon I forgot about

raelynn.

if you're backpedaling just say so.

carson

I’m not

raelynn.

so why should I believe you when you texted to cancel 15 minutes before?

carson

I have one brain cell and it’s my dad’s assistant’s

raelynn.

Was Delilah just making fun of me in that chat for not remembering ivy

carson

what does this have to do with me

raelynn

bc if so, it looks like you joined in.

carson

again, what does this have to do with me

raelynn.

Bc you can't act like you wanna fix things with me in here and make fun of me out there. Doesn't work like that.

carson

I’ve only told Delilah to fix things with you

what are you talking about !!!!!

raelynn.

The fight yesterday! When I said I dont remember fighting with Ivy and everyone shat on me. Delilah was making fun of me when she was talking about not remembering anyone.

carson

yes, I am that cruel and think that deeply into things

raelynn.

I know exactly how cruel you can be dude and I may be a dumbass but I didn't forget that.

carson

it literally wasn’t a dig at you

I was mocking Delilah

raelynn.

Do you swear on my tits?

carson

I’m not doing that

raelynn.

No matter whats going on with us i know you wouldn't risk them unless you're lying.

carson

oh my god

raelynn.

yeah I guess you're regretting this decision now

carson

you literally make me regret opening my mouth jfc

raelynn.

You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to.

carson

fine!

raelynn.

Fine.

carson

read

[...]

carson

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

hi.

carson

im sorry

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

for?

carson

being dumb

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

i don't want to play games anymore. i'm a grownup.

carson

i thought we were 12

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

carson

raelynn

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

can you be serious

carson

how serious

i would like to not be serious rn im trying to figure out this living situation

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

like above the age of 12 serious

carson

how's 16?

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

gah, ok

carson

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

i told you not to do that

carson

</3

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

and you're not heartbroken so that's just a lie emoji

carson

dont tell me how im feeling

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

fine, you're not heartbroken over me

carson

don't tell me tht

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

but it's the truth, isn't it?

carson

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

i'm going to be very honest. if you are messing with me i cannot handle it. it hurts. so if you are messing with me right now, don't. ok?

carson

why would i be messing with you

do you want me to try to make things right

you can tell me no and ill quite literally just fuck off

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

[...] you can try.

carson

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

...ok?

carson

im trying!!

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

your ok texts are just weird omg

carson

it's literally an ok text

what would u like me to say

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

i'm not mad or anything

about that

carson

please

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

pls what

carson

im trying so hard right now

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

okay, okay.

i accept your apology. For being dumb.

carson

thank u

one person has today

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

who else did u piss off?

carson

you still live at the same place

have u eaten

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

i moved but not far.

why?

carson

i was gonna send u dinner from that italian place

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

Alfredo's Pizza Cafe?

carson

yes maam

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

that would be nice.

do u remember my order?

carson

yes

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

*drops pin*

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

this is where i live now. it's slightly bigger than the old place. i have space to put my shoes finally.

carson

moving on up

it should be there in 10

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

thanks, all i had today was hot chocolate and gum.

carson

why

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

you know how i sometimes get an anxious tummy

carson

yeah :/

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

yeah i was feeling queasy

but i'm feelin a little better.

carson

that’s good </3

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

you don't gotta broken heart emoji about it, really.

carson

</3

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

well i see your broken heart emoji and raise you a *peach emoji*

carson

are u working tonight

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

yeah

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

Why?

carson

do you want to grab dinner before?

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

are you sure?

carson

yes, no meetings

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

then yeah, okay. I go into work at 7. So whatever time works for you before then probs works for me too.

carson

okay! 5 work?

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

yeah that'll be fine, where should i meet u?

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

I picked a table towards the back I hope that's chill.

carson

yes!

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

ok see you in a bit.

[...]

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

is it true.

carson

is what true

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

what sabrina said.

carson

yes

I wish I was dating my king

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

idk what the second part means but that's all i wanted to know. bye.

carson

I just wanted to fix things I never said anything about getting together

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

i didn't say i wanted to?

carson

then why are you upset

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

bc i knew something like this would happen but i didn't think it would happen literally the week you came back. i'm blindsided. you could've said something to me last night.

carson

we talked after

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

but i still didn't get like a text or anything? i had to find out from the chat as if we didn't decide to work on this. and it feels shitty.

carson

why would you get a text

𝓇𝒶𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃𝓃

because we were allegedly friends.

and you were gonna be honest with me.

but in any case, it doesn't really matter. i sincerely hope that you're happy. i'm gonna take some space for myself for right now, though.

#texts #texts: carson #ch: carson #this took forever to edit down i hate it

0 notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

Text

WORK ETHIC AND MEANT

It used to perplex me when I read about people who liked what they did. The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. It had been an apartment until about the 1970s, and there would be no room for investors to make money, and you get paid, instead of just working on amusing technical problems; it shows you have the resources, it's more like the first five. It sounds obvious to say that you should keep working on your startup. If you turned it over, it said Inside Macintosh. And conversations with corp dev is not doing a bad job of talking to them when they're ready to, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. One YC startup negotiated terms for a tiny round with an angel, only to receive a 70-page agreement from his lawyer. The rulers of the technology business tend to come from technology, not business. And at least in our tradition lawyers are advocates: they are trained to be able to write, without even realizing it, imitations of whatever English professors had been publishing in their journals a few decades, and what they use it for. That depends on how ambitious you feel.

Any strategy that omits the effort—whether it's expecting a big launch to get you to the point where most startups can do without outside funding. Experienced investors are well aware that the best ideas are also the most interesting fifteen tokens, where interesting is measured by how far their spam probability is from a neutral. Another way to figure out what we can't say, it's often better to start with. It's grown bigger and taken up more time than I expected, but I found the same problem, they start with the labels. Bootstrapping may get easier, because starting a company, one said the most shocking thing is that it only recently became a good idea in the first year. Perhaps it's because startups are less of a zero sum game than most types of business; they are rarely killed by competitors. How was the place different from what they expected? As with office space, thanks; just give us the money. Basically, Apple bumped IBM and then Microsoft stole its wallet. This is just an explanation of why your technology would be hard to predict what life will be like in a hundred years is a graspable idea when we consider how slowly languages have evolved in the past fifty. But what happened next illustrated how much more complicated the world had become. But they all said no, but they'd let us make one for them.

Grownups, like some kind of work ends up being more like an efficient market. But for obvious reasons no one wanted to give that answer. Talks are also good at motivating me to do things that the previous generation would have considered wasteful. We had office chairs so cheap that the arms all fell off. Conversely, the extreme version of designing a robust and elegant, not be slavishly attentive to individual users like some kind of cursed race, had to work at things you don't like it. I feared. If you want to do seem impressive, as if they enjoyed their work was presumably the upper-middle class convention that you're supposed to when starting a company, but they pay more attention to design than they would for themselves, and those make a difference. In our world, you sink or swim, and there is no way to get rich can do it by accident. I don't know what they're trying to avoid. So if you start a company now, you may want to stop getting spam. In the MIT CS department, there seems a clear correlation between intelligence and willingness to consider shocking ideas.

One, Reddit, had already launched, and were able to give a baby the impression the world is a brutal place full of people trying to write. B, but you'd rather raise money from investor A, you can let the numbers speak for you. Their dislike of the idea is so overlooked as one that's unthinkable. It's clear most start with not wanting kids to swear, then make up the reason afterward. It's a fine thing for schools to teach students how to write software with users. This is particularly valuable for undergrads, because the press only write about things you've thought about a lot, they should. Instead you get into a sort of time capsule, here's why I don't find that I'm eager to learn it to get a job. Great, we'll send you a link. It's no wonder if this seems to the student a pointless exercise, because we're now three steps removed from real work: the Big Launch. Training yourself to think unthinkable thoughts has advantages beyond the thoughts themselves.

It's bad behavior you want to do when they're 12, and just glide along as if they got the answer to some math question before the other kids. Often the only value of most of the techniques I've described are conservative: they're aimed at preserving the character of the site, but also because you're less likely to have serious relationships. This was slightly embarrassing at the time, and growth has to slow down eventually. It has too many cooks. So the acquisition came to a screeching halt while we tried to sort this out. If you said them all you'd have no time left for your real work. Plus it would be a great entrepreneur, working on interesting stuff, etc. The first, obviously, is that it only recently became a good idea to stop thinking of startup ideas as scalars. Microcomputers turned out to be the domain expert; you have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. I've met.

And so the study of ancient texts is a valid field for scholarship, why not work there? I had to do to get funded, or something they thought customers would want, or they won't make you do it? In other industries, legal obstacles had to be suitable for everyone. Convergence is more likely for languages partly because the space of possibilities is smaller, and partly because mutations are not random. But in Silicon Valley in the 1960s. Milton was going to take care of them. Exactly the opposite, in fact. I could entertain myself by having ideas instead of reading other people's. Apple coolness in the air, that feeling that the show was being run by someone who really cared, instead of sitting in front of their TV set watching the same show, at the end of 1996, we hired a PR firm I had no idea where articles in the mainstream media was. VCs, and we ended up with was qualitatively different.

So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of those you don't publish. I remember watching what he did one long day and estimating that he had added several hundred thousand dollars to fifty million, but the more history you read, the less likely this seems. But it's better than dying. For example, the question of what probability to assign to words that occur more than five times in total actually, because of the Bubble, especially in companies run by their founders were merged into a couple hundred lines of code, which was a dilute version of work meant to prepare us for the real thing. Why couldn't they get more funding? 99 respectively, and a combined probability of. We'd need a trust metric of the type studied by Raph Levien to prevent malicious or incompetent submissions, but if your son falls, or your teenage daughter decides to date the local bad boy, you won't get a share in the excitement, but if this label didn't already exist, it would at least make a great pseudocode. Actually startups take off because the founders make them take off. When I said at the start is to recruit users, and after 2 years you'll have 2 million. I call the Fluff Principle: on a user-voted news site, the links that are easiest to judge will take over unless you take specific measures to prevent it. How did she get into this fix?

0 notes

annarosenblumpalmer · 6 years

Text

It is 4:32 and I am lying awake, tender like a bruise.

At the meditation/writing retreat I sat on my computer and broke its casing. It lost the small screws that held its sleek aluminum back on and there is a small crack that is open to its insides. It is hard to see but I know it is there.

Leo brought my laptop with him on our vacation and after a bit of using it it’s fan wouldn’t shut off and it became hot, almost scorching to the touch. We unplugged it and it cooled off. But the battery was broken so without its connection it was useless.

I relate to the computer.

I have felt the depression coming and have tried to ward it off. Steve is gone for the week and I am going to have to be very careful if I want to get through this without having it effect the boys. I look at my calendar and try to find a time to see a friend each day. Taking a walk or eating lunch out, anything that keeps me from my bedroom helps. If I go through the motions of my life sometimes I surprise myself and show up in it.

I ask a friend to have lunch and her text back is brief. “I can’t. Too many errands.” What is this? I asked myself with fondness. She is such a grownup. I would never let errands get in the way of lunch. I can’t even imagine what these errands might be. They sound sort of good though. Maybe I need some errands.

Once upon a time there were errands. When I was a little girl, little enough to sit in the back seat of whichever incarnation of Volvo we drove, I went with my mother on her errands. Lying awake in the middle of the night trying to get back to sleep I reconstruct our route.

In my memory it is chilly outside and my breath is fogging up the window of the car window. She tells me to stop as I trace a heart in the mist, giving it two dots for eyes and a smile. She is worried that it will leave smudges and she is right. When it dries off I can see other hearts, older, marking the glass.

We start at the dry cleaner. Well, we start by circling he block several times looking for a place to park. We are in newton center, newton is a suburb 7 miles west of Boston large enough to have 13 of these little clusters of shops and restaurants (quaintly called villages) but this, true to its name, is the biggest. It is shaped like a large triangle made up of several blocks. There is a T stop here and I watch people trudging up the old steps from the train. The old railway station is large and beautiful but it is locked. This is before the time of reclamation and at least a decade before Starbucks will have lines out the doors. Instead the lines are at the payphones.

My mother has not found a place to park. She is swearing softly. “Can you just wait with the car?” She asks. I nod solemnly as if I could possible move the car if needed and sit tall in my seat. She double parks to run into the dry cleaner and I wait. Alert. Each car that passes us has to slow and some shake their heads at me. We are stopped in the exact spot that my father will park in years later and have his car stolen. He left it running, driver door open, to grab a coffee from the shop that doesn’t exist yet. The thief just got in and drove away. The police caught him before we could even file the report. He got pulled from the car so quickly that he left his butter soft leather gloves behind. When my father held them up triumphantly I understood his pleasure, the thief’s error would trump his own in the retelling.

Today I am safe. No one wanted the Volvo.

My mother has the rear driver door open trying to loop the many metal handles onto the impossibly small plastic hook. She is rushing. When she finally gets them in the clothes are bulky enough to be the size of another person riding next to me. My brother, I decide, someone who would not have been nervous about the other drivers making their way around us while we are double parked.

Now we have gone down the steep section of the road to the bank. This was he age before direct deposit but after the drive through window was installed. The sweet days of banking. Our bank is the first to install a second and third lane that are serviced by a giant vacuum/tube system. I wanted to be the one to take the Jetson’s like canister out of the tube. I crawled into the front seat and leaned over my mother. She tolerates this. When I roll open the lid there is a white envelope filled with crisp bills. Even better there is a lollipop.

Red.

Next I wait for her to get electrolysis. I sit in the small room, legs sticking to the padded vinyl chairs, picking chocolates out of a small bowl. I hear murmurs in a Russian accent and a Zap. My mother has been at war with a small handful of hairs on her chin. I am mystified by these hairs. Sometimes she has me look for them because they are too difficult to see. In my middle age I will understand the zap of the machine, know the taste of metallic saliva, and smell the burn. The electrolysis will not work for me either.

From here we go to the Chinese Laundry. This is the precursor to strip malls with beautiful brick and decorative parapets. My favorite Jewish bakery is here but my mother will get to smell its yeasty warmth as she picks up bagels and thin sliced rye. I am holding tight the paper ticket for the shirts. I walk down the stairs to an indoor alley. There is a loud bell as I use my full weight to push open the glass door. It is a good thing there is a bell because I am too small to see over the counter. My hand, clutching the tickets so fiercely that the paper has begun to sag with sogginess reaches up, but my face is pointed at raw wood wainscoting. I can see the staples where it is held together. The man, whose name my mother knows, exchanges the ticket for the shirts, plucking it carefully from my fingers. He offers me a mint which I take to be polite. The lollipop is waiting for me in the car. I carry the shirts carefully in both arms. They are wrapped in paper and crinkle pleasantly like a present.

My mother is not yet back to the car so I try to imagine her. I picture a cake box in her arms, one that might contain rugelach, or black and white cookies. Decades after this my Methodist husband will bake rugelach for me to take to a Christmas cookie exchange. Today there will be no cookies. Instead my mother comes out of the back door of the cobbler with two plastic bags in one hand with the bread and bagels. Shoe box in the other. I can smell the polish as soon as the door opens. I hold it all on my lap, shirts and shoes and bread and bagels.

I’ll drive slowly, she reassures me, as I try to keep our riches from sliding onto the floor. She is in a rush no more.

This bit of memory has centered me. Pun absolutely intended. You know why? Because when I am deeply depressed I don’t make jokes. It is 5:26am now and I am feeling better than I did just 12 hours ago. At dinner things were very quiet. Not a poop joke between us. Oliver, usually one to pose a question to debate, is picking at his chicken. I am sitting, missing Steve, gently poking at myself to see how sore I really am. I am worried that I am not doing well at all. “What’s wrong?” Leo asks, in a mixture of sympathy and accusation. “I’m not sure.” I tell him. “Everything and Nothing” is the answer I don’t want to burden him with. I want it to be a birthday, or 11:11 so I can squinch my eyes tight and wish him safe from these feelings or these lack of feelings or however this episode will play out. It is my most realistic fear, that I will damage my boys with these feelings. Or these lack of feelings. Or however this episode will play out. I find myself right on the edge of being able to help calm his concern, help myself, but I can’t. I imagine opening my arms to him, him sliding across the bench to me and everything feeling a bit better. I can see it because it has happened so many times before. I imagine over explaining something, like SSRIs and neurotransmitters, the way I do baby making and other things they ask about. I imagine his face opening in understanding and eventually in laughter as we take whichever science topic we are dissecting from the rational to the absurd. Instead I look at him in silence. I can’t quite do anything for us now.

I stand and clear my plate and the boys follow me, somber, into the kitchen to clean. Leaving the downer dinner table things are immediately better for them. They decide on a game to play together and I can hear their voices still in the high pitches of boys even though they are not so little any more. I have done this for them at least. Even on days when Steve is away, and I am slipping, they have each other, a fraternity of two.

I make myself stay downstairs until 7 and I turn on music and do a crossword puzzle. I try to take in the velvet of the loveseat, running my fingers across it. I am proud of this find, dug out of the storage room of a vintage shop. Well cleaned it is a precious place in our living room. It has hosted family meetings, and many cuddles. The boys have napped and wrestled here. I try to hear the echoes of joy from our everyday life. My brain is working slowly, songs are playing but I only hear static.

It is 7:02 so I release myself. I am allowed to go to the bedroom. Walking through the barn door I reveal the bed which is both a source of solace and of temptation to take a break from real life. I take a shower, I put on lotion. That is something that I do when I am not depressed. I have on new pajamas. They have stars on them that are so small that I keep trying to brush them off thinking they are lint.

Very deliberately I pick up the tv remote and set it out of reach. I lift the covers and climb into bed. It is 7:30. I reach for my book and stretch my legs and tell myself that I have things under control. Oliver walks in a little early for reading and catches me with my eyes drooping at 7:45. “Maybe you are too tired to read?” He offers me the remote. “We finished our last book anyways.” I realize he isn’t trying to tempt me, but is arguing his own case. “Sure.” I tell him. “We can watch tv.” “Wha did you and Leo end up playing downstairs.” He looks at me with confusion. “When you two decided to play together after dinner, what did you do?” “Oh, nothing, Leo wanted to play with his online friends.” He is not even the tiniest bit upset by this. This is standard. I watch him as he navigates the list of shows we have already recorded. He is tan from vacation despite sunscreen, he is here in my bed which for him is only comforting not a portal to a world apart. I try to breathe him in. “Do you mind if I scream?” He asks me and he is yelling YELLING. “LEO LE-OOOOOO.”

Leo tumbles onto the bed, fresh freckles highlighted by his grin. They are both laughing. They are fine. I haven’t broken them.

Now it is 6:04 am. I am giving up going back to sleep. It might be useful to blame my sluggishness on being tired rather than being depressed. I can hear Oliver in his bedroom, up before his alarm. He is ready to get going on his day. A hallway away

I am looking ahead at the next 12 hours even if I am not looking forward to it. I can tell they are going to be better than the last 12. I will go through today slowly. I will brush my teeth and put on a bra. I will write and walk and meditative. I will follow up on some things for the school and run an evening meeting. After all of that I will come in the side door and the dog will pee himself with joy to see me. The boys will be happy too. They will have eaten pizza, the box still out but the counter beneath it will be clean. I’ll ask them about their days and Oliver will tunelessly sing a song from the musical he is stage managing and Leo will tell me about the 100% on the math test that I already know about. I will sit on the loveseat and one of them will make ice waters and another will sit with his legs on my lap. I will stroke his shins noticing that the hair has grown just the littlest bit thicker even though it is still golden blond. I will think that it feels even more beautiful than the velvet I am sitting one.

I will have a headache, I will be tired, I will miss Steve.

But I will be there in my life.

Which is certainly more everything than nothing.

Everything and Nothing 12 hours of depressive awareness It is 4:32 and I am lying awake, tender like a bruise. At the meditation/writing retreat…

0 notes

russellthornton · 7 years

Text

Helicopter Parents: 30 Ways They Ruin Their Children’s Lives

Helicopter parents are ones that cling way too tightly, to the point of suffocation. Excuse the rest of us who want to raise independent adults!

I was out with one of my friends recently, and she talked about some other woman and referred to her as one of those helicopter parents. Of course, being the stellar and totally on top of my kid parent that I am, I looked at her bewildered. I couldn’t imagine what a helicopter mom was until she defined it for me, and it was spot on.

Helicopter parents hover over their child, watching their every move, snooping on their most intimate conversations, and in everyone’s business, which includes every other kid who is in their kid’s life.

I don’t know if helicopter parents end up with better-behaved children, but what I will tell you, is that as a mom, they are no fun to deal with. They treat their children as if they are nothing but an extension of themselves and never give their kids allowance to make a mistake.

30 signs you deal with helicopter parents

Catching kids before they fall might be great if you talk about diving over the Grand Canyon lookout. But, if kids never fail or fall on their ass, they never learn boundaries, self-control, or how to gauge their own behavior.

Helicopter parents don’t do their kids any favors. Unless they intend to follow their children around for life, they set their kids up to be entitled, oversensitive, and co-dependent. [Read: Being raised by narcissists – 18 harmful ways it affects your life]

So, if you are a helicopter parent who feels like you are on moral high-ground because you are so on top of your kids they can’t ever climb out of your controlling hole, guess what? Someday my kids, who aren’t being helicoptered, will be more well-adjusted, stable, and know how to handle their own shit without calling mommy.

It isn’t that I don’t care, it is just that I care enough to allow them to learn lessons while watching on the sidelines to help before they drown, not making sure they never learn to swim.

#1 They do their child’s homework. Homework is designed to give your children extra practice on their OWN. Helicopter parents don’t think that their kids should ever fly solo! [Read: 11 ways to know if you are ready to be a parent]

#2 They have all sorts of spying apps and read through their kids’ messages. I know my friends tell me I should watch my kids’ social media accounts, but the thing is, I trust them and talk to them about what is right and what isn’t, as well as what is dangerous. At some point, you need to have some faith that you raised your kids well enough to “get it.” [Read: Social media: The good, the bad, the ugly]

#3 Their kids aren’t ever at fault. I blame my children first, ask questions later!

#4 No one better dare reprimand their child. Go ahead and yell at my children. In fact, I encourage it. If they aren’t super fearful of me… it takes a village, right?

#5 They have no life of their own. Helicopter parents don’t go out, have friends, or really any lives of their own. They live vicariously through their children. Sounds fun, huh?

#6 Their job is pure promotion. They literally don’t have enough good things to say about their kids. I am not sure if they try to convince everyone around them that their kid is great or themselves. Either way, I let my kid’s behavior speak for itself.

#7 Everything they never achieved they make sure their kids do. All those failed dreams aren’t going to die with the helicopter parents, their kids are their second chance at greatness. [Read: Child of a narcissist – 16 lasting effects you just can’t ignore]

#8 Highly emotional if their kids get hurt, they fight their battles for them. In our home, you don’t come to me unless you are bleeding or bones are sticking through the skin. You learn to fight your own battles because I am not always going to be around to do so.

#9 They take everything way too seriously. So, your kid says “shit” for the first time, get over it!

#10 Everything is bullying, everything. If someone says they don’t like their child’s shoes, it involves a call to the school to put a stop to the bullying. [Read: 15 calm and firm ways to be the real alpha]

#11 They look down at any parent who isn’t “involved” enough. A helicopter parent thinks they care more because they smother more. Not the case… sorry.

#12 They give their child no privacy and cross the line way too often. They have no problem reading intimate conversations that weren’t meant for them while their children have no clue. In my book, if you want to find out what is going on with your child, how about you just ask them and trust they are honest people?

#13 Their children don’t have a clue how to wipe their own ass. Helicopter parents make breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack in between. How on earth will any adult raised by them do for themselves?

#14 Their children can’t ever do anything right. If it isn’t perfect, try, try, try, try again. And then… it still won’t be perfect ENOUGH.

#15 They are the ones in the front row every time, looking down their nose at the back row. Yep, a helicopter parent isn’t just there an hour before performance time, they already emailed the teacher to find out which side they need to sit on to get the best video shot.

#16 Their kids are so overscheduled they only have time to sleep. Got to keep them busy!

#17 They have no life of their own. It’s like a demonic possession. Living just for your child, helicopter parents can’t possibly get involved in anything not school related, who has the time?

#18 They approve of your home before their child comes over. You get a call from the helicopter parent with 20 questions before they step in your door. Similar to an interview, they typically stay around for the first play date to ensure that it is “safe.”

#19 You had better watch what you say to and around their child. No swearing allowed, or you are a bully too!

#20 Their family is perfect, period. We all know their family isn’t perfect, but they continue to insist it is… Truth? Who the hell cares! [Read: Why most people don’t like you]

#21 Their child can’t make a decision without consultation. Their children can’t decide if they want to wear orange or green without checking with the P’s first.

#22 Their children are their best friends. They have no need for friends, their children are their besties, and all they need.

#23 They care way too much about name brands and credentials. Children are their greatest reflection, so name brands all the way. God forbid they wear a cartoon character. How childish!

#24 They have a GPS on their kids at all times. Literally, they usually have a GPS attached to some part of their child’s body.

#25 Their child can’t get their license until ready to leave home. No freedom here. With freedom comes responsibility and the ability to get into trouble. Ain’t happening! [Read: Interfering parents and all the ways they can affect their grownup kids’ lives]

#26 Buses are so not acceptable. You are always the first in car line. Buses? That is for second class citizens, not MY kid.

#27 They always let their kids win when playing games. Their kid is the one throwing the checker board when they lose at someone else’s house. They don’t know what losing is, mommy and daddy always give in and let them win. It builds self-esteem apparently.

#28 The preschool they sent their child to cost more than most graduate programs and was harder to get into. They send their children to private schools that only geniuses get into *or that is what they brag*.

#29 McDonalds is a bad word in their house. McDonalds? All that fat? What kind of abusive parent are you anyway? [Read: Stop giving a damn about what people think]

#30 Their child had a cell phone before they even knew their own number, just in case. GPS is only good if they can call and check on it 24/7.

I have six kids from 21 to 4, so I probably am remiss about way too many things. But to be honest, even with my oldest, who I was probably too young to have, I always thought I wasn’t going to be around to protect him forever.

Just like in the wild, a parent’s job is to train children to exist on their own, not to be dependent on them forever.

[Read: 20 glaring signs you have a control freak in you]

The judgment day will come when my kid knows how to function without me, and yours doesn’t. Get the basement ready; they will likely be hiding out there for their adult life, dear helicopter parents.

The post Helicopter Parents: 30 Ways They Ruin Their Children’s Lives is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

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spynotebook · 7 years

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From Ramon Gil:

For decades, writer Elliot S. Maggin and I have had a rather one-sided relationship. Not only was he responsible for most of my childhood reading consumption, Superman comics in the ’70s, but he was also the author of the first two novels I ever read as a kid. Years later, as I was starting out as a comic book illustrator, it turned out that the husband of one of my best friends was acquainted with his cousin-in-law…or something like that. But before introductions could be made, the industry tanked in 1994 and I went into advertising. Twenty-plus years later, I decided to give comics another shot and managed to “Friend” Elliot on Facebook — and now here we are.

Elliot was the definitive Superman writer for over 15 years, pens novels and even ran for political office. My questions for him are endless but I managed to cut it down to a few. Here are his answers:

Ramon Gil: Can you tell us about how you broke into comics? You were 17. What was it like back in the ’70s?

Elliot S. Maggin: I was 19, actually, a junior in college. I had dropped scripts or ideas for scripts on comics editors here and there, but nothing seemed to stick. I had written op-ed pieces that The New York Times wasn’t interested in, but I had written some stuff for a few other newspapers and I had one piece of published fiction — so I knew it was possible. That was what I did when I was 17, got my first prose story published.

I was expecting to follow up college with law school. I had this famous professor send a hot recommendation for me to NYU Law and they’re still waiting for the application. If I decided to go into law now, I don’t suppose that recommendation would hold any water anymore. So in my junior year I was taking an American history class with this guy who actually won a Pulitzer a couple of years later, and this guy was kind of a pompous pedagogic sort. I asked the graduate assistant doing the grading if I could include a comic book script in a term paper on the history of media. He said sure, so I wrote a paper illustrating that comics were a viable political tool, and part of the paper was the script for an original Green Arrow story called “What Can One Man Do?”

I got a B-plus on the damn thing, and I asked the grad assistant why. He said he understood that I was going to illustrate the story too. So I got cranky and sent the thing to Carmine Infantino, who was publisher at DC Comics – National Periodical Publications in those days, actually (it wasn’t just pedagogues who were a little full of themselves in the ’70s, I guess) — and next thing I knew, I had an effusive letter from Julie Schwartz telling me he’d like me to try writing some of his other characters. At Julie’s request, I shortened my Green Arrow script from 20 to 13 pages and he bought it. That’s how it started. I’m told it hasn’t happened that way before or since.

RG: I’ve heard it said that once someone finds a “new way” to break into comics, they quickly shut that way down. So when Julie bought your script, was there any excitement about “breaking in” or did you just take it in stride?

ESM: It was a big deal. I was still an undergraduate living in a dorm, for heaven’s sakes. The sociology and American studies departments were all over it. I was second-ranking guy on the Brandeis campus newspaper editorial board, so I had a reputation as a good writer – although my editor-in-chief at the time, Richie Galant later of Newsday, has a Pulitzer hanging on the wall in his den these days. I think I’ve just got too damn many friends with Pulitzer Prizes for anything short of that to be much of a big deal.

RG: At what point were you freelancing and at what point were you on staff? Can you describe the progression?

ESM: As a writer I was never on staff. It was always month to month, meeting to meeting, for something like 20 years on-and-off. It was a bitch trying to buy a house. I never had, nor was I offered, what they called a “freelance contract,” which seemed like a contradiction in terms anyway. When I was an editor briefly from late 1988 to mid-1990 that was a staff position, but by then I was used to being my own boss. It was kind of a zoo. Nice health care coverage, though.

RG: Was this something you always wanted to do? How did you get into reading comic books?

ESM: I suspect I learned to read through street signs and comic books. I had a barber and a dentist in Brooklyn when I was a kid both of whom had loads and loads of comic books for people waiting to get a haircut or get their teeth drilled. I would pick up a comic book, and distract myself with it through my haircut or my dentist visit and generally they’d tell me to take them home with me. I guess I was about five or six when I realized that if you actually read the panel captions — instead of ignoring them like the introduction to The Scarlet Letter — you found out interesting and somewhat vital information. I didn’t realize Superman and Clark were the same guy, for example, until I found that information in the captions.

I didn’t really see myself writing comics, though, until the writing got lots better. With Denny O’Neil’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories 12 or 15 years later, for example, I started noticing that comics scripts could be the source of some really good storytelling. I didn’t so much notice, with those stories, that comics were a thing I might be able to do, but rather something I’d like to be able to do.

RG: At the time, did you feel you had taken the medium as far as it could go or did you feel that there was even more potential in terms of storytelling?

ESM: I certainly never felt I had taken the medium as far as it would go. I hadn’t even taken it as far as I could have pushed it with some lighter oversight. I wanted to get out there and work in other media, certainly, but storytelling in comics is still nowhere near where it could be. I’ve done academic papers on it.

RG: Oh man, I would love to read those papers! You obviously had an affinity for Superman, having penned him for as long as you did. How did you get that plum assignment?

ESM: I swear, it seemed no one but Cary Bates and I really wanted to write Superman stories. The character seemed passé, I think, even to people writing comics for a living. Denny (O’Neil) wrote Superman for more than a year before I showed up, and Len Wein did a bit too. But Denny just never much liked the character. He did some of the best work with the character I had ever seen, but he seemed to think it was just too unrealistic. He wanted grit. He wanted real life. So he decided he’d rather do stories about a bored, pissed-off billionaire who put on a costume and went around beating up bad guys every night. Realistic, he insisted. Go figure. It always seemed to me that a transplanted alien baby with super-powers was much more likely than that.

RG: Speaking of Cary Bates, how on Earth-Prime did he wrangle you into being part of the story in JLA #123-124? As a 9-year old boy, that really confused me as to whether or not superheroes were real! Did you guys fight over who got to be a villain and did Schwartz really call you “Magoon?”

ESM: Okay, Cary and I set a record for writing a full 24-page script on JLA #124. We started from scratch between 10 and 10:30 in the morning and we handed in the finished script as Julie was getting back from lunch at 1:00. And that included an hour-long subway ride. It confused a few of the grownups at the office as to whether or not superheroes were real too. I suspect there are guys still looking for the cosmic treadmill in hidden closets up there. We didn’t take that one seriously at all. It was like the Laffer Curve in economics. It was a joke that everyone else was taking seriously — except after a while even Arthur Laffer started to claim the crazy-ass theory he scribbled on a napkin as a grad student is for real, despite the fact that it’s been proved demonstrably wrong over and over.

Ryan and McConnell and the gang are still trotting it out for every budget debate. Cary and I figured the idea was to go so far over the top writing ourselves into a story that no one would ever do it again. And then — ka-POW! — along comes Grant Morrison making himself pivotal as a god figure in Animal Man and dozens of other people climb aboard over the years. I guess what our story really did was make it safe for writers like Grant to appear intelligent in fiction. Cary won a coin toss so he got to wear a costume and be the villain. And yes, Julie called me “Magoon” every chance he got. He found it amusing, although he was the only one.

RG: Were there any other books or characters you enjoyed working on?

ESM: All of them. I loved Green Arrow, because even with his overarching sense of self-importance I could make the guy funny. I even liked Batman a lot because it seemed to me the plots had to be pretty intricate and once you did the advance work figuring out where everything had to fit they pretty much wrote themselves. I liked writing stories about the girl characters: Supergirl, Bat-Girl, Wonder Woman. Always had a mad crush on Wonder Woman. Still do.

RG: Who doesn’t? I thought Lynda Carter was hot, but Gal Gadot is badass AND smoking! Any thoughts on the new Superman movies?

ESM: Nope. None. ‘Scuse me I’ve got to go write some more notes in my copy of Atlas Shrugged…

RG: Okay…any books or characters that you didn’t get to write that you wish you had? If so, why those?

ESM: Among DC characters, I always wanted to do Green Lantern — and Denny, who was writing GL, was always partial to Green Arrow — but Julie insisted the assignments were more properly placed where he put them. I wrote some for Marvel too over the years, but I always wanted to write Kull the Conqueror and Doctor Strange (LOVE Doctor Strange) but I never got the chance. If there’s anyone paying attention out there who’d like to commission a wild, weird-as-shit Doctor Strange novel, please call. You know where to find me.

RG: Ah yes, Dr. Strange. When I got your two books as a Christmas gift, the third book was a Doctor Strange paperback. Have you seen the movie?

ESM: I thought it was the best movie Marvel has ever released. Just so cool. I’ve been to Kathmandu, too. I think all those scenes were from a part of town called the Durbur District. I bought turmeric from a girl on the street there whose family have been selling spices in that street market for over a thousand years. Maybe sold turmeric to Marco Polo. I think even people who think Logan was the best Marvel movie think Doctor Strange was at least the second best one.

RG: My only problem was that it seemed to have more “martial arts” than “mystic arts”

ESM: Quibble quibble. Doesn’t it qualify as mystic arts if you drop-kick someone into the spirit dimension, no matter how perfect your kicking form is?

RG: In 1978 you came out with Superman: Last Son of Krypton, First in Warner’s New Series of Superman Novels and later on Superman: Miracle Monday. Were the novels your idea that you pushed for or where you tapped?

ESM: It was my idea. I told pretty much everyone I knew that what I wanted to do was write books. When I wrote a film treatment for a Superman movie and first Alfred Bester and then Mario Puzo showed up at the office to talk about writing Superman I decided my treatment and I were in over our head. But I went upstairs to Warner Books and managed to sell my treatment as an outline for a novel. The original plan was for it to come out midway between the releases of the first and second Superman movies to keep excitement up. I understood they were going to publish a novelization of the movie – which my book was decidedly not – but Mario Puzo had snagged the rights to produce a book (my brother tells me that Mario’s son Gene was supposed to write it; turned out they were high school pals) but soon it became clear that the producers’ plan all along was to use Mario’s name to sell the movie and get someone else to write the real script. Mario’s original script – except for the ending – was damn good, by the way, and Mario was pissed. I’ve read that the powers that be just didn’t want to pay the price of a book Mario oversaw, but I don’t think that was the issue. I think he blocked a novelization of the script from happening – so my book, Last Son of Krypton, was released as though it was the same story as the movie. Lots of people were disappointed when they found out it wasn’t, but people read it, and a lot of them liked it. The thing sold off the hook.

RG: “Last Son of Krypton” and “Miracle Monday” were the first novels I ever read as a kid. The depth of detail, the richness of the characters and the integration of historical figures really opened my eyes as to what fiction writing could be. Were these things that you’d been wanting to do for a long time or were these “exercises” that were forced upon you by the medium.

ESM: So I was how you learned what you can do with novels? Hah!

RG: Oh yeah, I think that was the year I wrote a story in class and the principal had to have a talk with my folks about how good it was!

ESM: You must’ve had the same principal I did, the ignoramus.

RG: I grew up in a country where English wasn’t the primary language. Metaphors were a big deal!

ESM: One of the cool things about writing novels is that there isn’t much forced on you by the medium. Structurally, they’re pretty freewheeling, and when literary talent scouts like literary journals and small magazines and look for unknown talent, what they’re often looking for are people who are willing to try new things with the language and the prose. You can write a novel that’s a string of correspondence and responses. You can put a novel into first-, third- or even second-person narrative, or set the tense however you think best tells the story. Generally novels are not at all visual, and you can use that characteristic to withhold information from readers – or characters – until a crucial moment; mystery and thriller writers do that a lot.

I didn’t do much that was innovative in terms of structure or storytelling with those two books, but because I had been working primarily in comics for years when I wrote them – in a medium that depends on artists to convey visual information – I was very spare in my visual descriptions. Instead of describing the way a person looks, I tended to let the character’s actions or manner fill in that information. The process of storytelling in novels, very often, is about choices, about what to hold back. Because of my experience in comics, I think in my novels I have been able to concentrate on metaphor and example when otherwise I might have gone a little overboard trying to make up for the medium’s limitations where that wasn’t really necessary.

RG: Any influences as far as other authors or writing styles?

ESM: Contemporary or modern writers I like are Vonnegut, William Goldman, Orwell, Ellison, Isaac Singer, Asimov and others. Love Bradbury too, but I can’t see that his work was influential in my work, as opposed to stuff I just wanted to read. As far as the people who pretty much invented the medium, I’ve always thought Mark Twain was head-and-shoulders above anyone else. Hemingway is up there and so is Steinbeck. The thing about Steinbeck is you can hear the gravel in his voice through his narrative. I’ve got no idea how he does that. Stephen King (the world’s most under-rated novelist) has this habit of evoking a reader’s proximity by picking metaphors that slide into the narrative subject matter – if he’s talking about food something will be as white as cream cheese; if he’s talking about mortal danger the same thing will be as white as a corpse’s eyelids. Steinbeck didn’t do that; someday maybe I’ll study Winter of Our Discontent and Grapes of Wrath enough to figure out how he does it.

RG: What kind of reaction did you get from comic readers and the industry in general when these were released?

ESM: Seriously, I don’t think I met anyone who read Last Son of Krypton until eight or ten years after I wrote it. I always had this fantasy of seeing all these secretaries in the subway who crowded on the train in Jackson Heights sitting in a row across from me all buried in copies of my book. Never happened. I know for a fact that no one (NO ONE!) at DC read the first book before it came out because the business about the stolen Xerox copiers – the reason the Xerox book club ordered 50-thousand copies – would never have made it into the final manuscript. They were so paranoid up there that you couldn’t mention any commercial product or property, even if it was arguably to that product’s benefit. Sometime in the late Eighties I got a call from Mark Waid who wanted to talk about the books. Mark was writing for fan publications back then and he treated me to a really good lunch at a Chinese restaurant for which I’ll be eternally grateful.

RG: I owe you lunch at a Chinese restaurant then.

ESM: I did get some terrific fan mail through Warner Books on both novels, and Last Son sold something like 450-thousand copies to someone or other, so I guess the response of the world in general was lots more significant than that of the industry.

RG: Was there any desire or attempts to do novelizations of other DC characters?

ESM: I don’t know. I wasn’t in that loop, and no one asked me to do any more books like that until I did the Kingdom Come novel fifteen years later. Paul Levitz slipped me a script for Superman III, wondering if I’d like to do an actual novelization. When I read it I didn’t even want to go see the movie (and I haven’t). By the time I got involved with Kingdom Come, people were adapting comics series into novels pretty routinely, and DC, Marvel and Dark Horse had developed a set of contractual standards for novel adaptations that were far more restrictive than those I had negotiated earlier. Around the time I wrote my Superman books Len Wein and Marv Wolfman wrote a Spider-Man novel together that was pretty good, but there was not much else as far as I can recall.

RG: Up until the 70s and early 80s, comic books were being written mostly for kids and teens. And for decades, most of these readers would just outgrow comics. But then in the 90s the stories became more serious, more complex, sometimes darker. You could say they “matured.” Can you share your thoughts on this trend in the comic industry and how you took part, if at all?

ESM: Julie Schwartz used to tell me that his old buddy who preceded him as Superman editor, Mort Weisinger, always said that he was doing fairy tales for children. “Once upon a time in the offices of the Daily Planet …” If in Julie’s judgment the kid audience couldn’t really grok a story I’d have to come up with something else altogether. But then again, my first Superman story, “Must There Be a Superman?” was about space opera and bad guys and distinctive visuals, but what it was really about was the sociological implications of having an omnipotent being around to bail us out of disasters. I think kids can understand all that stuff. The trick is making it simple enough for editors to understand too.

RG: Are you reading comics now? Any favourites?

ESM: I’m not really. I read The March trilogy by Lewis, Aydin and Powell not long ago. Thought that was terrific stuff.

RG: You eventually left monthly comics. Would you mind telling us about that and what it was like to move to a new career/industry?

ESM: Comics was never really what I wanted to do forever. But writing was. At one time, law and politics were my real long-term interests, but it occurred to me I wasn’t really much good at either. Right now, I spend most of my time working with a big string of hospitals teaching doctors and nurses how to use their software. A doctor said the other day that my job is basically my hobby. I said yeah, pretty much, but what the job is really about is a scheme to get my kids through college. Now they’re both grown and suitably degreed and my daughter told me a few years ago I was allowed to go out and play now – which I’ve been doing more and more the past few years. I think what I’d like to do for a career when I leave my current job is collect third-world countries and off-the-beaten-path experiences.

RG: The road less traveled! So getting back to Kingdom Come. How did your involvement come about?

ESM: So Mark calls me up and says he wants me to do a novel based on Kingdom Come and have I seen the comics series. I hadn’t, but how would I feel about doing the book. I said I really didn��t want to do it. I had just written a book based on a comics series and it wasn’t so much fun. Mark said he’d send me what he had so far: two published issues of Kingdom Come, lettered pencils of a third one and the script of the fourth. I said I always liked his sensibilities about this stuff, but unless DC was going to offer me the same deal they’d given me years earlier for Miracle Monday I didn’t see how I could do it. So he sent me the stuff, I read it, and when I got to the end of the script of the last book I saw he dedicated the damn thing to me. So I called him back and said he’d put me in a lousy bargaining position by doing that. Now I had to write it.

They have a really horrendous licensing agreement with novels now; nothing like what I had negotiated years earlier for Miracle Monday, and they are pretty rigid about it. So I told them I’d go along with their appalling royalty arrangement if at long last they’d reprint Last Son and Miracle Monday. They said sure, yeah, whatever, but that was a separate negotiation and we’d have to do it after we nailed down Kingdom Come. So I wrote Kingdom Come and after that no one was interested in talking any more about what else I wanted to publish.

Negotiate first and do the work later. Live and learn.

RG: What about Generation X? I think that was your first Marvel novel, can you tell us a little about that?

ESM: It was my only Marvel novel. I did it because Scott Lobdell is a friend and I wanted to get my feet wet doing novels again. It got cut up to fit the word count they wanted so I didn’t think it made as much narrative sense as I liked, but I did a comic book adaptation of it later (Does that qualify as a graphic novel?) that was a bunch of fun. I decided probably it was time I stopped looking to do licensed material and do my own. So besides exercising my reprint agreement on Miracle Monday, that’s what I’m doing now.

RG: From the 90s to the early 2000s, you also worked on a few films. I’d love to hear more about some of them. Were these your own projects or where you brought in primarily to write?

ESM: Nothing ever got out the door, but that’s generally the way it works. I did a script called Junior Sheriff based on an idea from a producer who never got the script into production. I did a couple of scripts for films based on Norse mythology – one on spec and the other on assignment. I spent years doing film and television scripts on spec or for early stages of projects that didn’t go the distance. I found I wasn’t writing for an audience so much as I was selling options. You can make a pretty good living that way, but you might as well be working on Wall Street. I always said I’d rather be read than paid, and I would. So now every minute I can, I sit in a room and make shit up. That’s what I love to do. I got an ebook out on Amazon last year called Not My Closet – all original stuff and very rarely does any character fly under his own power or wear Spandex. I’m currently working on getting a print version out.

RG: Ha ha! I love that! “said I’d rather be read than paid.” I’d use it as a pull-quote but future publishers might use it against you when negotiating.

ESM: Hey be my guest. Please. Listen: anytime anyone negotiates his way out of a work-for-hire contract an angel gets his wings.

RG: Did you ever direct or have any desire to?

ESM: Nope. Never got that bug.

RG: Let’s talk more about “Not My Closet.” was this a book you’d been wanting to tell for a long time? What was your personal stake in this story?

ESM: It’s a story for which I put aside some other projects and to which I’ve since gone back. It was one of the more difficult things I’ve ever written, and my first book about apparently real people. Some of it is based on real stuff from my life, most of it is made-up. The version out there is my fifth draft. I mean like a full-blown novel written five times. I never took more than four months to write anything before – a book, a story, a script, anything – and this took more like five or six years. Really. Putting it out there taught me one important thing: it seems I don’t know a damn thing about marketing. I’m working on that. Thanks for asking.

RG: That’s ok. I’ve spent the last 20 years in advertising and I’m still having a hell of a time marketing my own work.

ESM: Let me know if you come up with any good tricks. Like maybe making people believe a book is a movie tie-in when it isn’t. Stuff like that.

RG: Brilliant move on your part. Not sure if you could do it twice, though! So now we have this reissue and audio book of Miracle Monday. Why that instead of Last Son of Krypton which came out first?

ESM: Contractual reasons. I put a clause in the original Miracle Monday contract that provides for reissuing the book if it’s been out of print for five years. It’s been about 35. The journalist A.J. Liebling used to say “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” It occurred to me that now that we live in the twenty-first century we all pretty much own one. So I put together a publishing corporation, applied some of my programming skills and got the book out the door. As I write this, the audiobook is unfinished – mostly because I’ve been nursing a virus for the past few weeks and my voice hasn’t been up to completing the last two chapters of Miracle Monday. I’m doing the reading myself not because I’m too cheap to hire an actor – which I guess I am too – but because I want there to be no doubt as to where Metropolis is. You’ll be able to hear it in my voice.

We’ll get working on Last Son of Krypton when we see how this shakes down.

RG: I hope so. Last Son is actually my favorite of the two. I mean Einstein!

ESM: I like Einstein. He’s in Not My Closet too.

RG: You’ve always been a very active in politics. You even ran for office at one point. Has there ever been a desire to write political fiction? Inject your own views heavily into your comics or novels?

ESM: I think when I was interviewing for colleges – when I was 16 or 17 – I really wanted to write that stuff and I told interviewers so. They always wanted to know about what I was reading, and my recreational reading at the time was pretty eclectic. So I’d talk about Fletcher Knebel or Irving Wallace and then I’d bring up McLuhan or Orwell or Huxley, who were all fascinating to me. My interviewers seemed much more interested in talking about the latter. I still like stories about political intrigue, and I’m doing a trilogy of those types of novels now, but they also involve time travel so I don’t know what kind of category they’d fit into.

RG: I love writing about the political aspect of stories! What’s NotFakeNews.org?

ESM: NotFakeNews.org is a website I came up with one weekend afternoon when I was sitting in Starbucks writing and a couple of friends showed up and I insisted they hang around and rescue me from being productive. It was when Donald Trump was president-elect, I think, and somebody – maybe I did – said we should publish material that was specifically labeled “Not Fake News.” We thought this was uproariously funny, and before the afternoon was over we set up both a website at NotFakeNews.org and a Facebook page of the same name. Whenever I come across an article somewhere that ought to be made up stuff but isn’t – scientists stashing climate data on a Canadian server so it can’t be trashed by the climate-deniers who run the EPA at the moment; speculations about the eleven-dimensional universe and the nature of reality; a lot of the stuff Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone; like that – I try to upload it and cite its source.. Not many people have noticed it, as far as I can tell, but it’s a lot of fun. I’m especially proud of the way I set it up to display in four columns feeding from a database. I’m a programming geek; wrote the interface mostly in ColdFusion.

RG: I think you just need to add some social media links so people can “share” the site. What were some of the hurdles (political, logistical, legal) you had to deal with in getting Miracle Monday out again?

ESM: It helps to know how to program. It also helps to have a good lawyer. Hi Phil.

RG: It just occurred to me…what did you write the Superman novels on? A word processor? Did you have to have Miracle Monday transcribed for the ebook?

ESM: I wrote those two novels on a manual Olympia typewriter. It used to follow me around wherever I went. I had some transcribing help this time around.

RG: Was there any temptation to tweak or rewrite?

ESM: No rewriting, and I managed to keep any tweaking to a minimum – mostly grammar and usage. The story is kind of suspended in time with Eighties expressions and cultural references, and I like it that way.

RG: So what’s next for Elliot S. Maggin? Any thoughts to going back to doing monthly books? You mentioned you want to do creator-owned.

ESM: Times have changed since the last quarter of the last century and so have I. Owning your own stuff and getting it out in the wind is much more possible than it was a thousand years ago. Again, I’m trying to learn something about marketing. Turns out that’s a real discipline a guy needs to master. Who knew?

RG: Do you have a preference between prose and comics? What would you say the appeal is for each medium?

ESM: I like prose a bit more these days, only because the product is something that comes from just me. No collaborators necessary. But comics are the people’s medium. I think any given comic book we produce today has a better shot at immortality than any given chunk of prose, all things being equal.

RG: If you could do whatever you want, what would be your ultimate dream project?

ESM: At the moment, it’s my political time travel trilogy. To make it my dream project I think I want to get on a train in St Petersburg and take my laptop on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, write like a demon, watch the snow settle on the steppes and drink vodka with leggy Russian babes all the way to Beijing.

Ramon Gil is a comic book writer and the creator of The Hard Code, The Men from DARPA and Senturies, now on Kickstarter.

A Conversation With Elliot S. Maggin: “Anytime Anyone Negotiates His Way Out Of A Work-For-Hire Contract, An Angel Gets His Wings”

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