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tutyayilmazz · 8 months

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The sheer number of older and more experienced professionals involved in Måneskin introduces a tension between the rock conventions that characterize their songwriting and the fundamentally pop circumstances under which those songs are produced. They are four friends in a band, but that band is inside an enormous machine. From their perspective, though, the machine is good.

The American visitor to Rome arrives with certain preconceptions that feel like stereotypes but turn out to be basically accurate. There really are mopeds flying around everywhere, and traffic seems governed by the principle that anyone can be replaced. Breakfast is coffee and cigarettes. Despite these orthopedic and nutritional hazards, everyone is better looking — not literally everyone, of course, but statistically, as if whatever selective forces that emerge from urban density have had an extra hundred generations or so to work. And they really do talk like that, an emphatic mix of vowels, gestures and car horns known as “Italian.” To be scolded in this language by a driver who wants to park in the crosswalk is to realize that some popular ideas are actually true. Also, it is hot.

The triumphant return to Rome of Måneskin — arguably the only rock stars of their generation, and almost certainly the biggest Italian rock band of all time — coincided with a heat wave across Southern Europe. On that Tuesday in July the temperature hit 107 degrees. The Tiber looked thick, rippled in places and still in others, as if it were reducing. By Thursday morning the band’s vast management team was officially concerned that the night’s sold-out performance at the Stadio Olimpico would be delayed. When Måneskin finally took the stage around 9:30 p.m., it was still well into the 90s — which was too bad, because there would be pyro.

There was no opening act, possibly because no rock band operating at this level is within 10 years of Måneskin’s age. The guitarist Thomas Raggi played the riff to “Don’t Wanna Sleep,” the lights came up and 60,000 Italians screamed. Damiano David — the band’s singer and, at age 24, its oldest member — charged out in black flared trousers and a mesh top that bisected his torso diagonally, his heavy brow and hypersymmetrical features making him look like some futuristic nomad who hunted the fishnet mammoth. Victoria De Angelis, the bassist, wore a minidress made from strips of leather or possibly bungee cords. Raggi wore nonporous pants and a black button-down he quickly discarded, while Ethan Torchio drummed in a vest with no shirt underneath, his hair flying. For the next several minutes of alternately disciplined and frenzied noise, they sounded as if Motley Crüe had been cryogenically frozen, then revived in 2010 with Rob Thomas on vocals.

That hypothetical will appeal to some while repelling others, and which category you fall into is, with all due respect, not my business here. Rolling Stone, for its part, said that Måneskin “only manage to confirm how hard rock & roll has to work these days to be noticed,” and a viral Pitchfork review called their most recent album “absolutely terrible at every conceivable level.” But this kind of thumbs up/thumbs down criticism is pretty much vestigial now that music is free. If you want to know whether you like Måneskin — the name is Danish and pronounced MOAN-eh-skin — you can fire up the internet and add to the more than nine billion streams Sony Music claims the band has accumulated across Spotify, YouTube, et cetera. As for whether Måneskin is good, de gustibus non est disputandum, as previous Italians once said: In matters of taste, there can be no arguments.

You should know, though, that even though their music has been heard most often through phone and laptop speakers, Måneskin sounds better on a soccer field. That is what tens of thousands of fans came to the Stadio Olimpico on an eyelid-scorching Thursday to experience: the culturally-if-not-personally-familiar commodity of a stadium rock show, delivered by the unprecedented phenomenon of a stadium-level Italian rock band. The pyro — 20-foot jets of swivel-articulated flame that you could feel all the way up in the mezzanine — kicked in on “Gasoline,” a song Måneskin wrote to protest Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. From a thrust platform in the center of the field, David poured his full emotive powers into the pre-chorus: “Standing alone on that hill/using your fuel to kill/we won’t take it standing still/watch us dance.”

The effect these words will have on President Putin is unknown. They capture something, though, about rock ’n’ roll, which has established certain conventions over the last seven decades. One of those conventions is an atmosphere of rebellion. It doesn’t have to be real — you probably don’t even want it to be — but neither can it seem too contrived, because the defining constraint of rock as a genre is that you have to feel it. The successful rock song creates in listeners the sensation of defying consensus, even if they are right in step with it.

The need to feel the rock may explain the documented problem of fans’ taste becoming frozen in whatever era was happening when they were between the ages of 15 and 25. Anyone who adolesced after Spotify, however, did not grow up with rock as an organically developing form and is likely to have experienced the whole catalog simultaneously, listening to Led Zeppelin at the same time they listened to Pixies and Franz Ferdinand — i.e. as a genre rather than as particular artists, the way my generation (I’m 46) experienced jazz. The members of Måneskin belong to this post-Spotify cohort. As the youngest and most prominent custodians of the rock tradition, their job is to sell new, guitar-driven songs of 100 to 150 beats per minute to a larger and larger audience, many of whom are young people who primarily think of such music as a historical artifact. Starting this month, Måneskin will take this business on a multivenue tour of the United States — a market where they are considerably less known — whose first stop is Madison Square Garden.

“I think the genre thing is like ... ” Torchio said to me backstage in Rome, making a gesture that conveyed translingual complexity. “We can do a metaphor: If you eat fish, meat and peanuts every day, like for years, and then you discover potatoes one day, you’ll be like: ‘Wow, potatoes! I like potatoes; potatoes are great.’ But potatoes have been there the whole time.” Rock was the potato in this metaphor, and he seemed to be saying that even though many people were just now discovering that they liked it, it had actually been around for a long time. It was a revealing analogy: The implication was that rock, like the potato, is here to stay; but what if rock is, like the potato in our age of abundance, comparatively bland and no longer anyone’s favorite?

Which rock song came first is a topic of disagreement, but one strong candidate is “Rocket 88,” recorded by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythym band in 1951. It’s about a car and, in its final verse, about drinking in the car. These themes capture the context in which rock ’n’ roll emerged: a period when household incomes, availability of consumer goods and the share of Americans experiencing adolescence all increased simultaneously.

Although and possibly because rock started as Black music, it found a gigantic audience of white teenagers during the so-called British Invasion of the mid-1960s (the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who), which made it the dominant form of pop music for the next two decades. The stadium/progressive era (Journey, Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner) that now constitutes the bulk of classic-rock radio gave way, eventually, to punk (the Ramones, Patti Smith, Minor Threat) and then glam metal: Twisted Sister, Guns N’ Roses and various other hair-intensive bands that were obliterated by the success of Nirvana and Pearl Jam in 1991. This shift can be understood as the ultimate triumph of punk, both in its return to emotive content expressed through simpler arrangements and in its professed hostility toward the music industry itself. After 1991, suspicion of anything resembling pop became a mark of seriousness among both rock critics and fans.

It is probably not a coincidence that this period is also when rock’s cultural hegemony began to wane. As the ’90s progressed, larger and again whiter audiences embraced hip-hop, and the last song classified as “rock” to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 was Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” in 2001. The run of bands that became popular during the ’00s — the Strokes, the Killers, Kings of Leon — constituted rock’s last great commercial gasp, but none of their singles charted higher than No. 4. Let us say, then, that the era of rock as pop music lasted from 1951 to 2011. That’s a three-generation run, if you take seriously rock’s advice to get drunk and have sex in the car and therefore produce children at around age 20. Baby boomers were the generation that made rock a zillion-dollar industry; Gen X saved it from that industry with punk and indie, and millennials closed it all out playing Guitar Hero.

The members of Måneskin are between the ages of 22 and 24, situating them firmly within the cadre of people who understand rock in the past tense. De Angelis, the bassist, and Raggi, the guitarist, formed the band when they were both attending a music-oriented middle school; David was a friend of friends, while Torchio was the only person who responded to their Facebook ad seeking a drummer. There are few entry-level rock venues in Rome, so they started by busking on the streets. In 2017, they entered the cattle-call audition for the Italian version of “The X Factor.” They eventually finished as runners-up to the balladeer Lorenzo Licitra, and an EP of songs they performed on the show was released by Sony Music and went triple platinum.

In 2021, Måneskin won the Sanremo Music Festival, earning the right to represent Italy with their song “Zitti e Buoni” (whose title roughly translates to “shut up and behave”) in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest. This program is not widely viewed in the United States, but it is a gigantic deal in Europe, and Måneskin won. Not long after, they began to appear on international singles charts, and “I Wanna Be Your Slave” broke the British Top 10. A European tour followed, as well as U.S. appearances at festivals and historic venues.

This ascent to stardom was not unmarred by controversy. The Eurovison live broadcast caught David bending over a table offstage, and members of the media accused him of snorting cocaine. David insisted he was innocent and took a drug test, which he passed, but Måneskin and their management still seem indignant about the whole affair. It’s exactly this kind of incongruous detail — this damaging rumor that a rock star did cocaine — that highlights how the Italian music-consuming public differs from the American one. Many elements of Måneskin’s presentation, like the cross-dressing and the occasional male-on-male kiss, are genuinely upsetting to older Italians, even as they seem familiar or even hackneyed to audiences in the United States.

“They see a band of young, good-looking guys that are dressing up too much, and then it’s not pure rock ’n’ roll, because you’re not in a garage, looking ugly,” De Angelis says. “The more conservative side, they’re shocked because of how we dress or move onstage, or the boys wear makeup.”

She and her bandmates are caught between two demographics: the relatively conservative European audience that made them famous and the more tolerant if not downright desensitized American audience that they must impress to keep the ride moving. And they do have to keep it moving, because — like many rock stars before them — most of the band dropped out of high school to do this. At one point, Raggi told me that he had sat in on some classes at a university, “Just to try to understand, ‘What is that?’”

One question that emerged early in my discussions with Måneskin’s friendly and professional management team was whether I was going to say that their music was bad. This concern seemed related to the aforementioned viral Pitchfork review, in which the editor Jeremy Larson wrote that their new album, “RUSH!” sounds “like it’s made for introducing the all-new Ford F-150” and “seems to be optimized for getting busy in a Buffalo Wild Wings bathroom” en route to a score of 2.0 (out of 10). While the members of Måneskin seemed to take this review philosophically, their press liaisons were concerned that I was coming to Italy to have a similar type of fun.

Here I should disclose that Larson edited an essay I wrote for Pitchfork about the Talking Heads album “Remain in Light” (score: 10.0) and that I think of myself as his friend. Possibly because of these biases, I read his review as reflecting his deeply held and, among rock fans, widely shared need to feel the music, something that the many pop/commercial elements of “RUSH!” (e.g. familiar song structures, lyrics that seem to have emerged from a collaboration between Google Translate and Nikki Sixx, compulsive use of multiband compression) left him unable to do.

This perspective reflects the post-’90s rock consensus (PNRC) that anything that sounds too much like a mass-market product is no good. The PNRC is premised on the idea that rock is not just a structure of song but also a structure of relationship between the band and society. From rock’s earliest days as Black music, the real or perceived opposition between rocker and society has been central to its appeal; this adversarial relationship animated the youth and counterculture eras of the ’60s and then, when the economic dominance of mass-market rock made it impossible to believe in, provoked the revitalizing backlash of punk. Even major labels felt obliged to play into this paradoxical worldview, e.g. that period after Nirvana when the most popular genre of music was called “alternative.” Måneskin, however, are defined by their isolation from the PNRC. They play rock music, but operate according to the logic of pop.

In Milan, where Måneskin would finish their Italian minitour, I had lunch with the band, as well as two of their managers, Marica Casalinuovo and Fabrizio Ferraguzzo. Casalinuovo had been an executive producer working on “The X Factor,” and Ferraguzzo was its musical director; around the time that Måneskin broke through, Casalinuovo and Ferraguzzo left the show and began working with the stars it had made. We were at the in-house restaurant of Moysa, the combination recording studio, soundstage, rehearsal space, offices, party venue and “creative playground” that Ferraguzzo opened two months earlier. After clarifying that he was in no way criticizing major record labels and the many vendors they engaged to record, promote and distribute albums, he laid out his vision for Moysa, a place where all those functions were performed by a single corporate entity — basically describing the concept of vertical integration.

Ferraguzzo oversaw the recording of “RUSH!” along with a group of producers that included Max Martin, the Swedish hitmaker best known for his work with Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. At Moysa, Ferraguzzo played for me Måneskin’s then-unreleased new single, “Honey (Are U Coming?)” which features many of the band’s signature moves — guitar and bass playing the same melodic phrases at the same time, unswung boogie-type rhythm of the post-Strokes style — but also has David singing in a higher register than usual. I listened to it first on studio monitors and then through the speaker of Ferraguzzo’s phone, and it sounded clean and well produced both times, as if a team of industry veterans with unlimited access to espresso had come together to perfect it.

“There’s hundreds of people working and talking about you and giving opinions,” De Angelis said at lunch. “So if you start to get in this loop of wanting to know and control and being anxious about it, it really ruins everything.” Here lies the conflict between what the PNRC wants from a band — resistance to outside influences, contempt for commerce, authenticity as measured in doing everything themselves — and what any sane 23-year-old would want, which is to have someone with an M.B.A. make all the decisions so she can concentrate on playing bass.

The other way Måneskin is isolated from the PNRC is geographic. Over the course of lunch, it became clear that they had encyclopedic knowledge of certain eras in American rock history but were only dimly aware of others. Raggi, for instance, loves Motley Crüe and has an album-by-album command of the Los Angeles hair-metal band Skid Row, which he and his bandmates seemed to understand were supposed to be guilty pleasures. But none of them had ever heard of Fugazi, the post-hardcore band whose hatred of major labels, refusal to sell merchandise and commitment to keeping ticket prices as low as possible set the standard for a generation of American rock snobs. In general, Måneskin’s timeline of influences seems to break off around 1990, when the rock most respected by Anglophone critics was produced by independent labels that did not have strong overseas distribution. It picks up again with Franz Ferdinand and the “emo” era of mainstream pop rock. This retrospect leaves them unaware of the indie/punk/D.I.Y. period that was probably most important in forming the PNRC.

The question is whether that consensus still matters. While snobs like Larson and me are overrepresented in journalism, we never constituted a majority of rock fans. That’s the whole point of being a snob. And snobbery is obsolete anyway; digital distribution ended the correlation between how obscure your favorite band was and how much effort you put into listening to them. The longevity of rock ’n’ roll as a genre, meanwhile, has solidified a core audience that is now between the ages of 40 and 80, rendering the fan-versus-society dimension of the PNRC impossible to believe. And the economics of the industry — in which streaming has reduced the profit margin on recorded music, and the closure of small venues has made stadiums and big auditoriums the only reliable way to make money on tour — have decimated the indie model. All these forces have converged to make rock, for the first time in its history, merely a way of writing songs instead of a way of life.

Yet rock as a cluster of signifiers retains its power around the world. In the same way everyone knows what a castle is and what it signifies, even though actual castles are no longer a meaningful force in our lives, rock remains a shared language of cultural expression even though it is no longer determining our friendships, turning children against their parents, yelling truth at power, et cetera. Also like a castle, a lot of people will pay good money to see a preserved historical example of rock or even a convincing replica of it, especially in Europe.

In Milan, the temperature had dropped 20 degrees, and Måneskin’s show at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza — commonly known as San Siro, the largest stadium in Italy, sold out that night at 60,000 — was threatened by thunderstorms instead of record-breaking heat. Fans remained undaunted: Many camped in the parking lot the night before in order to be among the first to enter the stadium. One of them was Tamara, an American who reported her age as 60½ and said she had skipped a reservation to see da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in order to stay in line. “When you get to knocking on the door, you kind of want to do what you want,” she said.

The threat of rain was made good at pretty much the exact moment the show began. The sea of black T-shirts on the pitch became a field of multicolored ponchos, and raindrops were bouncing visibly off the surface of the stage. David lost his footing near the end of “I Wanna Be Your Slave,” briefly rolling to his back, while De Angelis — who is very good at making lips-parted-in-ecstasy-type rock faces — played with her eyes turned upward to the flashing sky, like a martyr.

The rain stopped in time for “Kool Kids,” a punk-inspired song in which David affects a Cockney accent to sing about the vexed cultural position of rock ’n’ roll: “Cool kids, they do not like rock/they only listen to trap and pop.” These are probably the Måneskin lyrics most quoted by music journalists, although they should probably be taken with a grain of salt, considering that the song also contains lyrics like “I like doin’ things I love, yeah” and “Cool kids, they do not vomit.”

“Kool Kids” was the last song before the encore, and each night a few dozen good-looking 20-somethings were released onto the stage to dance and then, as the band walked off, to make we’re-not-worthy bows around Raggi’s abandoned guitar. The whole thing looked at least semichoreographed, but management assured me that the Kool Kids were not professional dancers — just enthusiastic fans who had been asked if they wanted to be part of the show. I kept trying to meet the person in charge of wrangling these Kool Kids, and there kept being new reasons that was not possible.

The regular kids, on the other hand, were available and friendly throughout. In Rome, Dorca and Sara, two young members of a Måneskin fan club, saw my notebook and shot right over to tell me they loved the band because, as Sara put it, “they allow you to be yourself.” When asked whether they felt their culture was conservative in ways that prevented them from being themselves, Dorca — who was 21 and wearing eyeglasses that looked like part of her daily wardrobe and a mesh top that didn’t — said: “Maybe it turns out that you can be yourself. But you don’t know that at first. You feel like you can’t.”

Here lies the element of rock that functions independently from the economics of the industry or the shifting preferences of critics, the part that is maybe independent from time itself: the continually renewed experience of adolescence, of hearing and therefore feeling it all for the first time. But how disorienting must those feelings be when they have been fully monetized, fully sanctioned — when the response to your demand to rock ’n’ roll all night and party every day is, “Great, exactly, thank you.” In a culture where defying consensus is the dominant value, anything is possible except rebellion. It must be strange, in this post-everything century, to finally become yourself and discover that no one has any problem with that.

#måneskin #maneskin #i had a free nyt article so here you go #the article is so painfully a middle aged american perspective #which the author admits #and like thinking the fans on stage is staged?!??#or like how there can be no more authentic rebellion - maybe that's what it's like from your cushy position #but doesn't go into tdi at all #the stuff about the industry surrounding them i agree and its worth the read though

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littlemisspascal · 7 months

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Bitter Ends Turn Sweet in Time

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Female Reader

Word Count: 7k+

Summary: There’s not a single day in a whole year that isn’t bookmarked by a memory of him. And you, you remember all of them.

Rating: T

Warnings: Pokémon au (but not 100% true to canon, just elements + some characters), time skips in non-linear manner, fluff, angst, bittersweet ending, storms, language, Reader and Frankie are same age + grow up together, high school au ish(?), inspired by 500 Days of Summer + Song of Achilles' 'name one hero who was happy' scene + this quote by photographer David Alan Harvey:

"Don't shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like."

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is mentioned to have hair, a career, wear a dress (no description), and eat sandwiches

Author Note: I've been wanting to write a Pokémon au for a long, long, long time and I've also been wanting to write a non-linear fic for a long, long, long time as well so this is the result of both those wants combining forces *awkwardly throws it into the universe* It is what it is.

-- all moodboard photos found on pinterest

-- shinx, luxio, luxray // pikachu photo references

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me through my breakdowns 💜

Day 1,695

Luxray’s a silent wall of black and blue fur for your body to brace against as the sky bleeds a deep shade of orange, and you know he knows. Doesn’t even have to use his x-ray vision to confirm what’s etched into every line of your expression. Anguish—when it’s real and unbearable and deeply-rooted—is impossible to hide. Everyone who looks at you will know.

Everyone except the one pair of brown eyes that’ll never look your way again.

“I’m such an idiot,” you say quietly, and it’s embarrassing how thick the lump of emotion is lodged in your throat. You wipe at your nose with your sleeve. “So damn stupid.”

Luxray lets out a low growl, chiding in nature, as if to say don’t talk shit about yourself.

“He was never going to stay,” you continue, ignoring the vibration rattling your bones. “But I got my hopes up anyways. What we’ve accomplished these last few weeks together, I thought there was a chance…a slim one, you know? That maybe–maybe we could actually stick together this time.”

And you don’t realize you’re crying until Luxray’s twisting his head to nuzzle against your temple, encouraging you to bury your face into the thick fur along his chest and shoulders. With your eyes squeezed shut, you can almost block out the all-encompassing numbness emanating from the cavity your heart used to reside in.

“He’s gone…” you choke out through sobs, grabbing fistfuls of Luxray’s inky black mane. “And I think it’s permanent this time.”

Day 1

The first day of classes at Uva Academy is a whirlwind of meeting teachers, racing from one floor to the next against the clock, and making sure you never lose track of Shinx in the chaos of it all, but when the last bell finally rings, you feel no sting of regret about coming here.

You split a sandwich with Shinx underneath a tree in the school courtyard, brain buzzing with the overload of information absorbed throughout the day. Maybe signing up for a full schedule of classes was a bit excessive, but unlike most of your fellow students who have some semblance of a plan for their futures your next steps are plagued with uncertainty. There are so many paths one can take with their Pokémon—the course of a Trainer, a Coordinator, a Professor, a Ranger, the list goes on and on—you don’t know which direction to take.

When you lock eyes with a boy with brown eyes across the yard, there’s nothing special about the moment. No sparks, no forgetting how to breathe. He’s just a boy with a Pikachu on his shoulder and a dimpled grin on his face.

“I saw you in Mr. Jacq’s class,” he says in lieu of a greeting when he draws closer, purple Academy tie loose and crooked around his neck. Recognition stirs in the back of your mind, a flash of dark brown curls towards the back of the room spotted before taking your seat at the front.

Actually, now that you think about it…

“Weren’t you in Ms. Dendra’s class too?” you wonder, passing the last bite of sandwich to Shinx, his little body wiggling eagerly. “And Ms. Raifort’s…?”

“Yeah, I, uh, I don’t really know what I want to do yet.” He scuffs at the ground with his shoe, grin turning a bit crooked at the corner, strangely endearing in its awkwardness. “I figure life’s short, you know? Why not try as many things as you can when you have the chance?”

“Right,” you agree, finding yourself smiling back. “Nothing wrong with making memories.”

"I'm Frankie, by the way."

“Nice to meet you Frankie,” you say, shaking his hand. It’s warm in your grip, firm and secure, thumb grazing over your knuckles. “Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

And so it starts after that—the counting of days. Days when you see him in class, when he smiles at you, when he does homework with you in the library, when he and Pikachu have a battle against you and Shinx–winner buys lunch. It’s a subconscious quirk you keep to yourself. Even after he’s gone, chasing after legends to the far corners of the earth, you still continue counting days.

Days when he crosses your mind. Days when you leave the door unlocked in case he stops by. Days when you swear you catch a whiff of his citrus shampoo on the pillowcase despite the impossibility of it.

There’s not a single day in a whole year that isn’t bookmarked by a memory of him. And you, you remember all of them.

Day 183

“I want my name in one of these books,” he tells you, Ms. Raifort’s assigned reading on the lost explorers of Area Zero spread out in front of him.

You look up from the text, fatalities and disaster and other sharp words with teeth still swimming in your head. “It won’t be easy.”

You’ve only known him six months—long enough to be certain you’ll never meet anyone else like him, but too short to realize the hidden depths of his stubborn ambition.

“No,” he agrees, mouth curling up at the corner, “but it’ll be one hell of a story.”

Day 8

The air is heavy with the sharp, pungent scent of ozone as thunder rumbles overhead. You take in the ominous black clouds, adjusting the hood of your yellow coat to better defend your hair against the pattering raindrops. Doesn’t do much to ward off the chill of the wind though.

Shinx is darting about the meadow in zigzagging lines, wet to the bone and having a blast. Pikachu follows at his heels, electricity sparking from the red circles of her cheeks before fizzling out harmlessly. If there’s any rules to this game they’re playing, you haven’t a clue. Still, their obvious excitement over the weather has you smiling despite the numbness of your toes in soggy shoes.

To your left, Frankie watches the pair of Pokémon nimbly leap over a puddle, studying their graceful movements. His dark hair is flattened against his head, curls beaten into submission, but there’s something in his eyes, a sort of wistfulness that snags your attention like a moth to a flame.

A bolt of lightning burns a gleaming white strip across the gloomy sky, halting Shinx and Pikachu’s play as they elicit squeaks of awe, but you can’t stop looking at Frankie. He’s grinning now, a wide and ecstatic thing with his head tipped back, rain streaming down his face.

“Amazing, isn’t it? Seeing one of nature’s tantrums,” he says, voice low and wonderstruck. “My mother always said it takes someone extra special to train those who can summon such raw, uncontrollable power on cue.”

You’ve never thought of yourself as someone unusual or remarkable. Looking at him though, soaked and shivering and absolutely beaming, you think if anyone’s extra special in this world it’s him.

Day 1,987

It’s a long time before you can look through photos of him without a wound violently tearing open in your chest. Longer still before you can hear his voice on the phone. He calls more often these days, mostly because you’re knee-deep in another mystery and only a little because he misses you, and that’s okay. You can smile at his jokes and it feels real. You can love him and know better than to be in love with him.

You stay busy. You photograph every inch of the nature park on Florio, even convince Professor Mirror to let you take the NEO-ONE to some of Lental’s other islands for further research. You spend hours clicking through photos on your computer, frowning at blurry ones, printing some out for the Professor to take a closer look at as well as a few for your own personal collection of albums.

Your coworker isn’t an intimidating figure by any means, but something about watching him study and scrutinize your pictures never fails to make your hands shake and feet shuffle. Even after all these months, practically living inside each other’s pockets at the Laboratory of Ecology and Natural Sciences (or L.E.N.S. as the Professor affectionately calls it), studying the Illumina phenomenon and all its effects, there’s a part of you still terrified it could all come crashing down.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Professor Mirror tells you, glaring disapprovingly over the frames of his glasses. It’s not the first time you’ve heard that remark and it won’t be the last either.

“More analyzing the photos and less analyzing me please,” you reply, nodding your head at the small stack in his hands.

He grumbles under his breath, but resumes evaluating the latest shots of your walk along Blushing Beach. There are Wingulls performing loops in the air, an Exeggutor snoozing beneath a palm tree, the splashings of a pair of Corsola playing in the waves. Luxray looking at the contents of a tide pool. A Pikachu eating a fluffruit after you’d scared her by your loud gasp, mistaking her for another of her kind. You don’t mention that tidbit to your coworker though.

That should be the last one, except then Professor Mirror’s letting out a surprised little hum, holding up a photo you never intended anyone else to ever see. Not even the subject. Especially not the subject.

It’s from your sophomore year at Uva Academy. You would call the picture ugly, edges a bit hazy due to your unsteady hands, still learning the tips and tricks of photography, except it’s Frankie. And he’s looking at you behind the lens with a fondness so sweet it makes your teeth hurt, holding a newly evolved Luxio to his chest, with windswept curls your fingers will always long to tame.

You should’ve thrown it out a long time ago. The man in the photo isn’t the same man who will call you later tonight from half a world away just to ask how your day went and if you’re willing to admit you need his help with the Illumina project. But you’ve always been too sentimental for your own good, holding onto things until there are only scraps left, slipping through the gaps of your fingers.

At the very least, you shouldn’t have reorganized your albums so close to your work station.

After what feels like the longest stretch of silence of your life, Professor Mirror finally says, carefully neutral as if wary of provoking a negative reaction, “Someone special, I presume?”

“It’s complicated,” is all you offer in response, snatching the picture back and telling yourself the ache behind your ribcage is a side effect of a papercut.

Day 389

Uva Academy teaches you battle strategies, the effects of Berries and how to better understand your Pokémon amongst other vital lessons to prepare students for a career outside the ancient brick walls and dorm rooms.

It’s Frankie who teaches you how to find beauty in thunderstorms, how to enjoy each day like it’s your last, how to dream a little bit bigger, a little bit bolder—or maybe that’s something you teach each other.

On the weekends you head into the city center together, trying different eateries and watching fellow students challenge each other on the plaza battle court. Afterwards you’ll walk along the cobblestone streets side by side, sometimes discussing classwork or pointing out items in shop windows, but usually the time is spent in companionable silence. Just sharing the same space.

You buy your first camera acting on pure impulse, drawn to it inexplicably and handing over money to the salesman in a matter of minutes. It fits in the palm of your hand, heavy and solid, buttons and knobs staring back at you, waiting to be pressed and manipulated. For the first ten or so minutes of ownership, you simply hold onto the device, studying its shape, its lens, fingertips running over the bumps and grooves.

“Well?” Frankie prompts, gentle voice breaking the silence, brown eyes flicking between your face and the camera. Pikachu echoes the question with a tiny pika?, sensing the fragility of the moment.

“I don’t know what to do,” you answer, shoulders curling with self-consciousness. At your feet, Shinx sits on your shoe and rubs his cheek against your leg comfortingly.

“Well,” he hums, a teasing smile growing on his lips as he presses a button. “Maybe start with turning it on first.”

“Shut up.” You swat at him, but there’s no real heat. “I meant, I don’t know what to take a photo of.”

“It doesn’t matter what the sight is,” Frankie tells you, grabbing hold of your hands and raising them up until the camera’s in front of your face. He steps back and you peek at him through the viewfinder, watching as he spreads his arms out wide with Pikachu still happily perched on his shoulder. “What’s important is how it makes you feel.”

You take a breath, taking a moment to hold the shutter button until it focuses, and then take the photo. No count down, no say cheese!—you simply heed his advice, focusing on how it makes you feel.

The preview screen asks if you’d like to keep the picture or delete it. Your thumb hovers over the buttons.

Focused on the way Frankie’s hair has a golden aura in the light, how Pikachu’s nose scrunches when she’s grinning, you nearly jump out of your skin when he’s suddenly at your side again, wondering, “What do I make you feel, shutterbug?”

Like I’m falling and flying at the same time, you think, quick and startling. A bolt of lightning amongst storm clouds.

You press save.

“Like spending a hundred bucks wasn’t a total mistake.”

Day 448

You take a seat in the cafeteria across from Yovanna and her Sylveon. You’re lucky she shares the same lunch hour as you. Even more lucky she likes you enough to also share her space. Her knack for securing a table each day despite the scrambling rush of hungry students is a gift from the gods. Or maybe it’s a perk of being the president of the Academy’s student council.

“You haven’t stopped smiling for days.” She points with her fork at your grin, a giddy, bubbly thing not even Ms. Tyme’s pop quiz last period could stifle. “Spill it. Who’re you crushing on? Is he a student here? You got a picture?”

“Not with me.” It’s a lie, ever since you bought your camera it’s been glued to your person and there’s always at least one picture of him stored within the device’s gallery of Luxio shots and library aesthetic and other things that make you happy. “He is a student here though.”

Yovanna drops her fork onto her plate, jostling the pieces of fruit waiting to be eaten. Sylveon catches a flying strawberry midair by jumping in her seat and landing neatly on four paws like it’s a regular trick to perform. “Shut up. It’s him, isn’t it?”

You feed Luxio a pickle off your sandwich, neither confirming nor denying.

But your grin does get a little bit impossibly wider.

“Aw man, I owe Santi twenty bucks now.”

Your eyes narrow shrewdly. “Did you seriously make a bet?”

“You two are joined at the hip, of course I did.” Yovanna leans back in her chair, arms behind her head, not a single hint of shame for her actions. “Santi said you’d realize you had feelings for him before winter break. I thought it’d take you until the end of the semester ‘cause you’ve got the self-awareness of a piece of concrete most days.”

“Rude.” She dodges the crumpled napkin you toss at her with a laugh.

“Hey, this is a good development. Now you just gotta keep the momentum going and tell him how you feel. You’re perfect for each other.”

Tucking back into her meal, she misses the brief slip in your smile.

“Yeah.”

Day 8

Ms. Dendra is the only teacher without a classroom, preferring to use the battlefield in the middle of the courtyard for her lessons rather than a whiteboard. She weaves along the line of students with her Medicham, offering suggestions and correcting forms to make the most out of their Pokémons’ moves. You keep one eye on her drawing steadily closer and one on Shinx pawing at the ground, charging up electricity in his forelegs. He still hasn’t mastered thunder shock yet, maybe Ms. Dendra can–

“Storm’s coming tonight,” a voice drawls behind you, a curious blend of casual and enthusiastic.

You turn around, finding Frankie standing there looking up at the sky. The dark gray clouds do seem indicative of bad weather, now that he’s mentioned it. Rain is definitely on its way.

And then he asks, a little sudden, “You ever seen one up close?”

A strange question. Still, you think about it, searching your childhood. All you remember are memories of cowering under the blankets in your bed and playing in puddles the next morning when the monstrous rumbling and harsh flashes had long passed. You’ve seen rain up close, felt the drops on your skin, inhaled the scent of petrichor deep into your lungs. But storms?

“No,” you shake your head, shivering as the temperature seems to drop. “Never.”

He hums, a bland note that could mean anything. At your feet, Shinx and Pikachu sit and stare at each other, little sparks of blue and yellow static crackling in the air between them like morse code.

“No wonder you’re having trouble with your partner. Can’t teach him about electricity when you’ve never seen it in action.”

“That’s not how training works,” you retort defensively. “Also storms aren’t exactly harmless, in case you forgot. They’re loud and dangerous and—”

“Beautiful,” Frankie cuts in with such firm conviction you reel back in surprise. “Absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful.” A pause follows, and you hate the smirk that grows on his face, how it taunts you, how it makes his eyes glitter with mischief. “Or maybe not. I could be lying. Only one way to find out for sure.”

A raindrop lands on your cheek. Then another on your arm. And another on your nose. It’s pouring now. Students are complaining about their lesson being interrupted and Ms. Dendra’s shouting for everyone to head back inside. Through it all your eyes remain locked in an intense staring match, neither one willing to surrender.

“Fine,” you reply with a sharp jerk of your chin. “Show me.”

Day 1,448

Your internship with Professor Oak is—good. It’s the start of a brand new chapter in your life, except the last chapter ended on a terrible note and the upcoming pages are terrifyingly blank if you fail to impress your new boss, so. Yeah.

You get along with the Professor’s other intern, a local boy named Will. He teaches you how to drive the ZERO-ONE around the sanctuary. You spend hours out on the trails, memorizing everything about the wild Pokémon who call the island home. You enjoy the assignments Professor Oak gives you, staying busy, filling up albums with photos and journals with research notes.

But when it’s quiet, when you’re staring up at the ceiling waiting for sleep to come…you’ve never felt more lonely in your life. Even with Luxray within reach, loyal and constant, there’s a persistent ache you can’t shake. A loose thread dangling in your mind, tormenting you, and you know if you were to tug on it exactly where it would lead.

Everything leads back to him.

Frankie hasn’t tried to call you. Hasn’t had any contact with you since graduation. Not even a postcard from whatever corner of the world he’s trying to accomplish his dreams.

You haven’t tried to call him either. And yes, it’s true communication is a two-way street, but he’s the one who left and took your heart with him. Why should you give him more of yourself? You hate yourself for even contemplating picking up the phone.

You hate yourself even more for wondering what your relationship would’ve been like if you’d gone with him. If it’d hurt less to just have stayed friends. If you’d been better off never knowing him at all. If, if, if…

Day 485

The problem is, you think your feelings for Frankie are just a little bit stronger than a crush. You’re pretty sure you’re in love with him. Or at least halfway there.

As much as you hate to admit it, Yovanna wasn’t wrong saying you have the self-awareness of a piece of cement. You don’t know for certain if the fluttery Butterfree sensation in your stomach or galloping heartbeat whenever Frankie smiles at you is love. But you are certain he’s gotten under your skin, triggering as many irritations as he is encouraging new ways of growth. You’re a better person, you think, simply by knowing him.

You also think it’s actually kind of scary to imagine something so strong and life-transforming could be anything else but love. Regardless, you hope it stays with you forever. This precious, nameless thing.

It won’t be until many days later—until you know what it’s like to kiss him, and hold his face between your palms, the heat of his breath tingling against your skin; until he’s fluent in myths and legends and fables, swearing he’ll be the one to make them truths and facts and verities; until you can’t picture a future without him in it, not a happy one, at least—you’ll realize you do love him. And he loves you, too, as it turns out.

But nothing lasts forever. Someone’s always got to be the first to let go.

Day 1,375

You receive an offer for an internship with Professor Oak in Pallet Town to help him complete his Pokémon Report by taking photos on a nearby island sanctuary. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to work with such an esteemed researcher, but thinking about graduation creeping up, about leaving behind this realm of familiarity now that you’ve learned everything Uva Academy has to teach, it’s—moving forward is harder than you anticipate.

It doesn’t help that Frankie's becoming more and more restless, unable to stand still as if it physically pains him to do so. No matter how many walks around the city, how many storms chased after, he’s always looking out towards the horizon, aura so thick with discontentment it’s as if he’s physically cloaked in it.

Lately the only moments he seems to settle within his own skin are when he’s talking with Ms. Raifort, discussing ancient prophecies and ruins scattered around the globe. You don’t understand it, his passionate fascination–no, obsession with mythology. Why not let sleeping dogs lie?

Frankie won’t talk to you about the future, evading the topic like a cunning Nickit. Still you cling to his hand, to hope, to the belief love conquers all, until the morning of graduation he comes to your dorm room and stares over your shoulder rather than meet your gaze. Even Pikachu hides her face in his curls, ears lowered despondently.

You let him in, the beginnings of dread stirring in your stomach, sensing whatever he’s got to say will have irreparable consequences.

“Did you have breakfast yet?” You gesture towards the kitchen, an unspoken can this wait? laced within the question.

“Not feeling very hungry today,” he answers, glancing about the room aimlessly. No, it can’t.

“That’s a first.” You take a seat on the sofa next to Luxray, grounding yourself by stroking a hand along his back. “You gonna tell me what’s on your mind or are you gonna make me guess?”

At that, Frankie finally turns to you, and his torn expression fractures something delicate inside of you, coldness flooding your lungs.

“I’ve been thinking. About us.”

“What about us?”

“I love you.” There’s no sweetness to the words. No tenderness. They are words of blood, of pain, scraping against his throat on their way out. “I’ve loved you from day one and I’ll love you ten thousand more. But what I want, what you want—it’s not the same thing. And it’s only going to hurt the longer we keep pretending otherwise.”

“Stop, please don’t—” your voice cracks, the cold gripping your heart now. Please don’t say it. Please don’t do this. “We’re—we’re good together. You know we are.”

“We were,” he amends, voice so unbearably gentle it’s a jagged blade against your soul. “We were so good. But we’re not ready for what comes next. We’ve become thunder and lightning, one ahead of the other. Our timing is off, shutterbug.”

Day 765

It’s drizzling a little when you return to campus. You shiver in your wet dress, grimacing as you accidentally step in a puddle, thoroughly soaking your flats and bare feet. Hopefully you won’t slip on the stairs and break your neck. That’d be the cherry on top of this disappointing evening.

You just want to shower, put on your comfiest pajamas, and fall asleep as fast as possible.

Except when you reach your floor there’s a figure curled up on the floor outside your door, fast asleep with a snoring Pikachu curled on his chest.

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” You nudge at Frankie’s knee with your wet shoe, raising an eyebrow at him as he jerks awake, blinking rapidly. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh, you’re back,” he says through a yawn, stretching his arms over his head. Pikachu grunts, displeased at the movement and sounds, and stubbornly curls into a tighter ball, forcing him to cradle her in the nook of his arm as he stands up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I just–I wanted to make sure you got back from your date okay. How did it go?”

Your date, Tom, is in Mr. Hassel’s art class with you. He invited you to see a new photography exhibit at the city’s museum. He was nice, if a little overzealous, and seeing lovely displays of art seemed like a better way to spend the evening instead of once again hopelessly pining over your best friend. So, you’d said yes, changed into a nice dress, and swore off any and all yearning.

Except that’s exactly what you ended up doing anyways.

Every time a photo left you breathless, you’d instinctively turn to look for brown eyes that weren’t there. Every joke Tom made you’d compare it to one of Frankie’s. Throughout the entire evening, you couldn’t stop your thoughts drifting back towards the Academy, wondering what he was doing.

You weren’t surprised Tom cut the date short, correctly sensing your heart just wasn’t into it. Still stung a bit though watching him leave you behind to join up with some other classmates hanging out in the plaza.

“Poorly,” you answer with a slight grimace.

“Oh.” Frankie blinks, looking at a loss for additional words. He’s wearing the hoodie he got from his trip to Montenevera over the holiday break and sweatpants, warm and rumpled and cozy, a complete contrast to your entire wardrobe. “Did he–did he hurt you? Because if he did anything inappropriate, I swear–”

“What? No, no, nothing like that happened.” You shake your head, ignoring the flutter of your heartbeat, touched at his protectiveness. He’s still staring at you, and you know he’s not going to let this slide under the rug. “Relax, tough guy. Tom was fine. I was the problem.”

“Tauros shit,” he immediately rejects the notion. “You could never be a problem.”

The hallway feels too hot all of the sudden despite the icy raindrops still clinging to your skin. “That’s sweet,” you say, trying to flash a grin except the muscles in your face refuse to cooperate. It feels stiff. Forced. “You say that to all the girls?”

His mouth tugs upwards into a smile, dimpled and boyish. “Once or twice,” he says, “but I only mean it with you.”

It’s dangerous and stupid to get your hopes up, but there’s something about the quietness, something about his brown eyes and his nearness, that makes you take a leap of faith. Makes you think screw it and reach for his free hand, lacing your fingers together.

“I was the problem,” you tell him softly, watching his expression sober, “because I kept looking for you.”

Silence follows, interrupted by a quiet snore from Pikachu.

Then, just as softly, Frankie says for a second time, “Oh.”

You swallow, feeling like you can’t breathe. “Yeah.”

“Silly girl, you didn’t need to look.” He squeezes your hand, leans in just enough to bump his nose against yours. “I’ve always been here.”

Day 1,375

Later, you won’t remember the particulars of how the rest of the conversation played out. There are words, so many words. Angry and inconsolable, spat out through clenched teeth and pleaded with numb lips. Tears, too. So many damn tears it’s a wonder you don’t drown yourself.

You will remember how he looks at you though. Brown eyes deep and golden, reflecting the morning light streaming through the window. He’s beautiful, and you think that’s the final straw of it all, the definitive proof that even as he’s ripping out your heart you will never feel anything less for him than love.

No passage of time or miles of distance will ever change that. You know this like you know the sun will rise tomorrow, and the next day, and the one after that.

Still, this certainty doesn’t stitch up the gaping, bleeding hole in your sternum.

No, that self-healing won’t begin until many, many days later.

Day 610

In another life, if you hadn’t discovered your love of photography, you think you would have been a great astronomer. You know each of the constellations’ names, the best times during the year to spot them, even the tales assigned to them.

Tonight, the night sky is full of stars in every direction you look, not even the distant city lights strong enough to overpower their shine. You lie on your back in the soft meadow grass, hands resting on your stomach, the scent of wildflowers as thick in the air as the fireflies Luxio and Pikachu chase after. To your left, he mimics your pose, except he’s got an arm pillowed under his head, silent except for his breathing.

“There’s Kingler, cursed to hold up his heavy claw for eternity,” you say eventually, raising a hand to trace the starry outline with your fingertip. “Cubone’s next to him, forever mourning his mother.”

He remains silent. You turn your head to look at him, discovering he is deeply absorbed in his thoughts. Physically, you could easily reach out for his hand, but the blankness in his eyes suggests internally he’s half a world away. Somewhere you can’t follow. An irrational spark of jealousy burns hot in your veins, upset your presence isn’t enough of an anchor to keep him locked in the present moment.

You emit a quiet sigh, mentally rolling your eyes at your own childishness, and start to turn back to the sky when his voice catches you off guard, asking, “You ever notice they’re all tragedies?”

“Huh?”

“The myths behind the constellations.” He looks at you then, eyes dim with an emotion you can’t recognize. “Can you name one with a happy ending?”

You think about Pinsir, exiled due to his uncontrollable rage; Koffing, releasing toxic gases as he dies; Dugtrio, punished by an angry Groudon for gouging too many holes in the earth. The list grows longer, the tales grow sadder.

“No,” you say at last. “I guess not.”

He shrugs a shoulder, like it’s nothing, like his next words aren’t going to hurt something fierce. “That’s because happy endings are the biggest myth of all.”

Day 1,375

He kisses you. It is perfect and excruciating all at once. His hand is cupping your cheek, and his touch is so tender and intimately familiar you can’t stop yourself from indulging and it’s cruel of him to leave you like this. Shattered and wanting. Falling and flying.

But when Frankie’s right, he’s right.

This split in your paths has been a long time coming. You’d just refused to read the writing on the wall, content to keep counting the days, pretending the number would stretch on into infinity.

Infinity is just another word for forever though.

And there’s truth in that old saying: when you love someone—

“I love you,” he says again at the door. His eyes drift over your face, as if memorizing every detail. “And I’m proud of you. Remember that.” There’s the briefest of glimpses of tears in his eyes before he’s wrapping you in a hug, so tight your ribs painfully protest. You savor every second of it. “This isn’t the last of us. We’ll meet again, I swear it. One day, shutterbug.”

—you let them go.

Day 1,669

You’ve been dreading his arrival, dreading how he might look at you. What might be different. What, if anything, might be the same.

All communication thus far has been directly with Professor Oak. You haven’t heard a single peep even though your number’s stayed the same. Even though you know he knows you’re here.

Luxray stays close as the hour draws closer, trying to soothe your nervous energy. You stroke his mane, eyes flicking between your computer, the window, and then back again. The cursor blinks on the screen, waiting for you to finish adding the last details to the report you’ve been developing on the Pokémon signs you and Will discovered. Bizarre occurrences where the environment manifests the likeness of specific Pokémon—always the same ones in the same places. But why they existed and what they meant remained unsolved mysteries robbing you of sleep.

It had been the Professor's idea to invite another set of eyes to examine the clues after months of no solid progress. For every one step made forward it felt like the universe would shove you five steps backwards, the hidden connection remaining just out of your reach.

If you had known Professor Oak and Ms. Raifort were old friends, that she would’ve recommended her favorite pupil…well, you’re not sure if anything would’ve really changed. What fate wants, fate gets one way or another.

Frankie arrives at eventide, bringing the warmth of the fading sun into the lab with him. He looks…unchanged. Maybe a little broader, thicker with muscle from his journeys. But still familiar in all the ways that matter. You wonder if the same can be said for yourself.

He’s looking at you, and it’s—it’s less painful than you expected. No tight band wrapped around your middle, no spontaneous bursting of tears. He’s just a man with a Pikachu on his shoulder and a dimpled grin on his face.

“Hey shutterbug,” he says, and it feels abruptly like slow motion, like you’re watching through someone else’s eyes as he comes closer, closer, closer and pulls you into a tight embrace. His arms are just as strong as you remember them, memories of graduation screaming in the back of your mind and you’re in your dorm room again watching him walk out of your life with your heart in tow.

You want to…

(kiss him, hit him, hold him, scream at him)

You want too many things.

“Hey,” you echo lamely as he pulls back. If Frankie hears the faintest of quivers in your voice, he thankfully doesn’t show a sign of it. You shoot a small grin at Pikachu, mouth stretching wider when she returns it with a cheerful pika pi, waving her paw. “Ready to help solve a mystery?”

“I always wanted to make history.” He’s smirking that same damn smirk, an intense pang of nostalgia striking you. Your fingers twitch, wishing you had your camera. “But I think it’s better this way, yeah?”

“What way?”

Distantly, you’re aware of Professor Oak and Will watching the conversation ping-ponging back and forth, both smart enough to pick up on the unspoken something between you and Frankie.

“Making history together,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “We make a good team, you and I.”

The words bounce around inside your head for a moment. A good team. Is that all we are? is what you want to ask, but the answer’s a double-edged sword shoved between your ribs no matter how he phrases it.

So you swallow the question down and bury it.

“C’mon,” you gesture towards your computer, “I’ll show you what we’ve got so far.”

Day 128

Winter sweeps in, all frigid winds and frosted windows. Together you stay at the Academy during the holiday break. It’s days of no homework, snowball fights, and parka coats. Nights spent by the fireplace, hot chocolates topped with whipped cream, wishing you could bottle these memories in a jar and keep them on a shelf.

If Frankie knew about it, he would say Jirachi heard your wish, but it’s your opinion that fate’s just got a funny sense of humor. Either way, a few years down the line you’ll have the collection of memories you desired, almost all of them starring him. They won’t be kept in fragile jars, but in captured photographs unaffected by the withering flow of time. Little glimpses of a happy life, and how much you've lost.

Day 2,000

You kiss Frankie on the front deck of the L.E.N.S. the night before he’s scheduled to leave. It’s stupid and impulsive, but he’s just right there in front of you, bathed in starlight and high off the elation that comes with solving another Pokémon mystery, further securing his place amongst the pages of historic exploration, a legend in his own lifetime, and there’s no thoughts in your head so—you kiss him.

It isn’t your first kiss, but it feels like something new. He’s got stubble now, you’re wearing a lab coat—little details of proof you’re far from the kids you used to be. He smells the same though, like coffee and evergreens and fresh rain. The quiet, awed exhale of your name, like you’re something wonderful, something mythical come true, is the same too.

And for the briefest of moments, you can almost imagine you’re together again.

But in the end it’s just a kiss, not a time machine.

Day 1,762

“For someone with a new career, you don’t look very excited,” Will says, knocking his shoulder against yours good-naturedly. You try to summon up a smile, but it isn’t fooling anyone.

Professor Oak’s treating you both to a fancy dinner at a restaurant you can’t pronounce the name of, celebrating the news of your new job as an official field research photographer working alongside Professor Mirror in Florio. It’s an amazing step forward, resulting from the success of the Rainbow Cloud discovery with Frankie, certain to give your name another added boost of recognition in the photography community.

“I am,” you say, remembering how you’d nearly passed out when you received the offer. Another attempt at a grin yields better results. “It’s gonna be great.”

Will tilts his head, a knowing look in his eyes. “You’re thinking about him. Again.”

“Not intentionally.” Your lips curl into a rueful grimace, fingers twisting together in your lap. “He just…never leaves my thoughts.”

Frankie told you before he left he didn’t have a home, not anymore, too much of a restless spirit to stay in one place. You wonder if his answer would be different, if he knew it’s been 1,762 days and every one of them he’s spent occupying your head.

“Even when he’s gone and left you behind?” From anyone else, the question would’ve been harsh, but your friend’s eyes are kind, full of empathy.

There’s a second where you contemplate lying, but you can’t. Not to him, and not to yourself.

“Especially then.”

Day 2,000

“Sorry.” It comes out of your mouth stilted—not because you don’t mean it, but because your heart’s beating like a thunderstorm. A wildness you haven’t felt in years.

“I’ve never needed an apology from you.” Frankie looks at you softly, the brown of his eyes getting lost in the dark. “Two thousand. Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday I watched you walk into class.”

You forget sometimes that he’s the sentimental type too when it comes to those he cares about. It’s why he doesn’t give Pikachu a Thunderstone, and why he only knows how to play one song on a guitar, his mother’s favorite. How sweet it is, to learn he must care about you to keep count, maybe even love you a little bit still.

“Frankie,” you start, dropping your forehead onto his shoulder. His nearness is a comfort as much as it is a distraction, but this conversation is long overdue by hundreds of days. “What are we?”

“You tell me.” A hand comes to rest on your waist, a searing brand through the fabric of your clothes. “What do you want us to be?”

You think about the question for a long moment, wondering what words pack enough meaning to give the answer it deserves.

What you want is another storm to chase, another constellation to trace. What you want is for your hands to brush during walks, never having to hear his voice on the end of a phone again because he’s right there by your side. What you want is everything that once was to align in perfect harmony with the immediate now.

“I want us to be together.”

“We are.”

“No, we’re not,” you murmur, staring down at the mud stains on his boots.

“Listen, shutterbug,” his hands move to your head, one tilting up your chin and the other gently palming your neck, forcing you to meet his gaze, “a lot can happen in two thousand days–”

“I know, I know.”

His fingers spasm, like he’s resisting the urge to tug on your hair, eyes sharpening at the interruption. “A lot can happen in two thousand days,” he repeats, and you hear it this time, the heavy weight in his tone. Rarely is he this serious. “We’ve changed, we’ve grown, we’ve been on opposite ends of the earth from each other. But tonight, of all places, I’m here and you’re here.”

And maybe it really is that simple. People say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but twice now you’ve watched him go and twice he’s been brought back to you.

You reach up, wrapping your hands around his wrists, holding him there. “Do you think we’ll ever be what we were?”

“No.” He steps impossibly closer, lips brushing against your forehead. “I think one day we’ll be better.”

Better, you mouth the word. It feels like a promise, like a turning point.

“Yeah, one day,” you agree, heartbeat steadying, matching the rhythm of his beneath your fingertips. “It’ll be worth the wait.”

#frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x you #triple frontier fanfiction #pedrostories #my fic #my writing #frankie morales

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denimbex1986 · 4 months

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'Prime Video has confirmed that the third season of fantasy comedy series Good Omens will be its last.

On Thursday 14 December, the streamer announced via X (formerley Twitter) that the upcoming season will also be its last, though the airing date has yet to be confirmed.

“We are ineffably elated to confirm that Good Omens will return for a third season!” the tweet said. “This calls for a round of hot chocolate and sweet treats!”

The show, which is based on Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s book of the same name, will “bring to life a serendipitous conversation” between the two that took place 35 years ago in its third season.

Gaiman and the late Pratchett mapped out “what happens next” in the story of angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Demon Crowley (David Tennant), the show’s production team said.

Gaiman will continue to write and executive produce the season finale.

“I’m so happy finally to be able to finish the story Terry and I plotted in 1989 and in 2006,” he said.

“Terry was determined that if we made Good Omens for television, we could take the story all the way to the end. Season One was all about averting Armageddon, dangerous prophecies, and the End of the World.

“Season two was sweet and gentle, although it may have ended less joyfully than a certain Angel and Demon might have hoped.

“Now in season three, we will deal once more with the end of the world. The plans for Armageddon are going wrong. Only Crowley and Aziraphale working together can hope to put it right. And they aren’t talking.”

The first season of Good Omens aired in May 2019 and led to the renewal of season two that premiered in July 2023 and explored the storyline of “the ineffable friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel and rare-book dealer, and the fast-living demon Crowley.”

Filming of the final season, which is produced by BBC Studios, will begin soon in Scotland, the streamer confirmed and will premiere on Prime Video in more than 240 countries.

The release date is yet to be announced.'

#Good Omens #Neil Gaiman #Terry Pratchett #Prime Video #David Tennant #Michael Sheen #Aziraphale #Crowley #Twitter

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misslavenderlady · 1 year

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A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock ‘N Roll - Chapter 11

Summary: Romance is blossoming as the cowboy and the vampire enjoy their first real date. The only problem is that a certain head vampire is still interfering with their love life.

TW: Chapter contains mentions of abuse

Music from chapter HERE

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

David really did try his best to be as casual as possible when he and the others left the party. He didn’t talk much, stayed focused on going for a hunt, and rushed to get back to the cave as soon as he was cleaned off after feeding. It had been so easy to fight off the teasing from the boys before. With nothing going on between him and Michael, it made him far more confident about shutting down the comments his pack mates made.

It wasn’t that simple anymore.

The unthinkable had happened. For quite some time now, he had imagined what it would be like to have Michael. To hear his own name through a southern drawl just before embracing the human boy. There had been a bit of doubt hanging around in his mind about Michael returning such feelings. While he had made it clear that he had some level of attraction for men, his constant use of southern charm made it a bit trickier to tell what was him being friendly and what was flirting.

Tonight hadn’t been the case. Everything was crystal clear. Michael liked him. He had honest-to-God romantic feelings for David. Enough to kiss him not once, but three times before he took his leave. Each one had been more perfect than the last. David could still taste Michael on his lips. Still feel the human warmth on his skin.

He truly didn’t want the others to find out what was going on, but they were far more observant than he gave them credit for.

“David,” Dwayne spoke first after they caught up with their leader at the cave. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

The hairs on the back of David’s neck stood up. Every sense of confidence and composure he had was being tested.

“What, pray tell, makes you think I have something to share?” he asked, tugging open his jacket to look for a cigarette. He had to settle his nerves with a smoke or else the others would notice.

“Something’s just....different about you,” the brunet vampire pointed out. He crossed his arms over his bare chest, raising an eyebrow as he looked closer at David. Marko and Paul each joined him, clinging on to either side to see what Dwayne saw.

David didn’t dare look at them. He wouldn’t have his eyes give away that their suspicions were correct. All he was focused on was finding his lighter and clicking it open so he could get a proper smoke going.

“Was it something at the party, bud?” Paul asked.

“Did Michael have anything to do with it?” Marko added.

He stumbled at the sound of the cowboy’s name. David was usually so graceful with giving the flame a flick before setting the tip of his cigarette aflame. For once in his undead life, he lost his grip on the lighter, nearly dropping it onto the cave ground below. That in turn made him nearly lose the cigarette as well.

It had only been a moment of clumsiness, but it was all that the other boys needed to confirm their suspicions.

“Holy shit, did something finally go down with you guys??”

The jig was up. David let out a sigh and forgot about the smoke. There was absolutely no way to get out of this mess. It was simply better to just confess and let the boys have their fun. Turning towards them, he smiled sheepishly.

“Well, I mean if you’re gonna make me kiss and tell..”

“OH MY GOD!”

The three of them rushed to David’s side, excitedly surrounding him in order to either hug him or give him a playful nudge. It was rather embarrassing to get such a reaction, but he knew there was no more denying it. After all, what happened with Michael was a special moment. It felt good to actually acknowledge it out loud.

He allowed them to ask their questions and make their demands on hearing the full story. Given that they already adored Michael as their friend, they were more than happy to find out that he and David had taken the next step in their relationship. Even with their lighthearted teasing, David couldn’t deny that it felt good to think back on it.

The excitement only got stronger when he shared the news that tomorrow night would be their first official date. While Dwayne had the helpful advice of bringing some kind of gift for Michael, Paul and Marko offered to lend David a pack of condoms for a night of fun. That, of course, led to a rude gesture in their faces from David.

Still, he was grateful that the three other Lost Boys were happy for him and Michael. It made him feel rather warm and fuzzy to talk about what could potentially blossom from this relationship. With the night coming to an end, the boys took their leave for their sleeping spot, giving their final congratulations to their leader.

David smiled to himself. He only hoped the day would go by quickly so that he could see Michael again. Though his thoughts were interrupted by someone else speaking up.

“You seem pretty happy.”

The blond turned his head to see Star standing on the step by one of the cave entrances. She was holding Laddie up in her arms, the little half-vampire snoozing away with his head on her shoulder. After all the crazy dancing and delicious food he enjoyed with the others, he was certainly going to get a good amount of rest.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” David admitted. “Sorry ‘bout making you lure him in. I know he’s really charming and all, but I know Paul is making up for any romance you wanted.”

He waited for Star to break into a smile, as it was common for her to do when she thought about the wildest Lost Boy. To David’s surprise, her face remained completely serious. Her brown eyes were focused on him. Determined.

“What?” he asked, cocking his head slightly.

“David, I’m worried about you,” Star said. “Not only are you way behind on the plans you said you had to make, but your judgment is getting clouded. I don’t know what happened the other night, but you looked pretty hurt. I'm worried that something worse is going to happen to you.”

The memory of Max’s attack flashed through David’s mind. Though his body had healed since that night, he still felt a shiver run through his core whenever he imagined those claws slicing through his body. He’d never felt so weak in his life. It reminded him that Max was not someone you should fuck with.

Still, he wouldn’t show weakness in front of Star. He was the leader, and leaders didn’t show vulnerability like that.

“Look, don’t get your panties in a twist, Star. I’m completely fi-”

“I’m serious!” she interrupted. Laddie stirred in her arms, but she soothed him back to sleep with a hand gently running over his hair. “I want you to be happy with Michael, I really do. But you need to be careful. If you moved too fast with him or made some risky choices....I just....don’t want to see you get hurt.”

David let out an exasperated sigh. He would never admit it to her, but she had a point. He hadn’t heard from Max all night, and he had no way of knowing exactly what he was going to do or say after the wild party. It was always so frustrating having Max breathe down his neck all the time. What was the point of living a permanent life of youth and adventure if you had a demanding father-figure bringing you down at the worst possible moments?

Still, David was willing to endure whatever punishment Max had in store for him. Just so long as he didn’t try to hurt Michael.

“Goodnight, Star,” David firmly said, ending their conversation in order to turn in for bed.

She was left standing with Laddie, believing that David hadn’t listened to a word she had said. Little did she know that it was the only thing on his mind now. Even with the anticipation for another night of romance with Michael, he couldn’t help but think about what could go wrong with this.

He could only hope that his fears wouldn’t come true.

After being around for so long, David had been on plenty of dates. He romanced all kinds of humans over candlelit dinners, intimate walks and sweet touches, all before sinking his fangs in for a deep drink. He didn’t see any need to develop long-term relationships. Humans were simply food, and he had the boys to keep him company whenever he needed some love.

So to show up at the Emerson house wearing the flannel Michael had given him and fidgeting nervously about going inside was something entirely new to him. He had debated with himself for a good twenty minutes prior to leaving as to whether or not to wear the jacket. It wasn’t like him to worry so much about making a good impression with someone he already knew quite well.

As an additional sweet gesture for Michael, he had picked out a single red rose at a local flower shop before going to the house. He had the long stem in between his fingers, the sharp thorns grazing his bare skin. At the time, he was so focused on finding the perfect flower to give to Michael that he hadn’t even thought to cut off the thorns. It only worsened his nerves.

True to the habit he had gotten into, he stepped into the house without ringing the bell or knocking. It was a little weird for the vampire, feeling that he shouldn’t just waltz in casually since this was such a special night for the two of them.

But the moment David walked into the home, his eyes moved right to the staircase. Michael was already at the top of it, baby blue eyes widening in excitement when he saw David. He was dressed in dark denim jeans and a burgundy sweater. His trusty hat was perched on top of his shiny curls.

“Looks like we had the same idea for what to wear,” Michael smiled, gesturing to the color of his shirt. It was only then that David realized the red in the borrowed flannel was the exact same shade. That little detail put a dopey grin on his own face.

“I guess I picked the right color with this as well,” David said, twirling the rose in his hand. Michael perked up, eagerly making his way down the stairs in order to get a better look at the flower.

Michael’s cheeks flushed with a soft shade of pink. He clearly loved the gift, taking it in order to smell the fragrance. It made David a bit nervous to see his fingers move over the thorns. It was the smallest detail, yet it bothered him the most.

“I uh...I’m sorry about the thorns,” the blond said sheepishly, rubbing his neck nervously. “I don’t want them to hurt you.”

Even with the warning, Michael held the sharp parts of the stem without any worry. All he was focused on was the softness of the petals and the beautiful color. He smiled at David, leaning in to kiss his cheek as a nice gesture to thank him.

“They don’t bother me one bit,” Michael assured him. “This was mighty sweet o’ ya, Huckleberry.”

David’s mind went blank, the fears and insecurities fading out as he focused on the warmth in Michael’s kiss. He had to hand it to the guy, he had quite a talent in putting anyone in the best mood possible without even trying. Who would have thought a southern gentleman of a boy would be the thing to completely turn David’s life upside down.

“So,” Michael started after finding a nearby vase to put the flower in. “Where exactly are we goin’ tonight?”

David opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out when he made a rather obvious realization.

“Oh my God, I never actually planned anything...” he admitted. “I was so excited to see you that I didn’t even think of something to do.”

The two of them burst into a fit of giggles, David’s being fueled by embarrassment and Michael’s being from amusement.

“Aww shoot, that’s alright! Tell ya what, I can think of somethin’ for tha two of us!” Michael said. He held out his hand, waiting excitedly for David to take it. The blond’s undead heart was practically melting as he graciously accepted it.

He guided David out to the back door of the house, making his way to the horse stables. As per usual, Bambi was outside, casually chewing on some hay by herself. Michael clearly took good care of her. She was always well-fed and cleaned up.

“How about we go for a ride? There’s a trail up the hill we can go on together. At the top there’s purdy view of the land we can enjoy.”

“You got a horse I can ride on too? Believe me, if I can handle a Triumph, I can handle a horse.”

Michael smirked, amused at David’s confidence. He shrugged and gave a loud whistle, signaling for one of the other horses to come on out to join them. A cream-colored horse came trotting out, happy to be called by her owner. David watched the animal with curiosity while Michael reached out to give her some petting.

“This here’s Bo! I think she’ll make a good horse for ya. Y’all got the same color hair after all!”

David chuckled in amusement. Sure enough, his bleached locks matched her natural coat color quite well. He held out his own hand for her to sniff, hoping she would react as well as Bambi did a while back.

The horse was more than happy to get some attention from him. She whinnied excitedly, nudging his hand so he could pet her muzzle.

“Another ‘B’ name, huh? It’s a cute pattern.”

“Yup! Call them my triple Bs! Bambi, Boxer and Bo! They're all darlin's I swear,” Michael grinned as he set up the saddles for the two animals. “I know that time with Boxer scarin’ Laddie was a big mess. I swear, he’s doin’ much better now. Sweeter than a bowl a’ sugar!”

In no time at all, the two of them were perched on top of their own horses. It didn’t intimidate David to be on for a ride. He was sure that muscle memory from his past human life would be an ideal guide for him as he took the reins. And if that didn’t help, then he trusted Michael to know what to do.

He would trust Michael with anything.

It was hard to believe such a beautiful trail was a part of the Murder Capital of the world. To be in such a peaceful area, slowly traveling by horse to see all the greenery and wildflowers was something David hadn’t truly experienced from his home before.

Every time he rode with the boys, they pushed themselves as fast as they could possibly go. Even for more casual rides down the roads of the city, they were focused on how fast the lights passed around them and how the winds blew their hair back. This time, it was slow and steady. It made him see the world around him with a bit of clarity.

Michael was certainly just as wild as the Lost Boys, but he was a down-to-earth guy who knew when to take life a little more slowly. He hadn’t fully appreciated that sentiment back in Texas, but he wanted to make the most of it in his new home.

When the horses carried them to the top of the path, David was surprised to find a flat space of land with thick, green grass all around. It was perfect for the two of them to sit down and take a rest.

“Ya like it up here, David?” Michael asked as he tied the horse's reins to a nearby tree.

“I never knew about this area. You have quite an eye for nice places,” David complimented him. He slipped his hands into his pockets as he surveyed the view.

The lights of Santa Carla shined brightly against the night sky. If he had been on the streets, he would have been bombarded with the sounds of screams on the amusement park rides or the crashing of beer bottles from drunks wandering around. From this distance, all was quiet. Peaceful. Certainly not the city he knew.

Michael came up next to him, sitting down in the grass as well. Something about being close to him gave David an extra dose of ease to enjoy the evening.

“Really looks like an entirely different city from up here.”

“Actually,” Michael said, pointing upward. “I prefer the view of that up there.”

David followed the direction of his finger. A sky full of stars shined down on the two of them. It was a new moon tonight, which allowed the small flecks of light to stand out against the dark sky. He was no stranger to the beauty of the sky. When you were a vampire, you got to go on quite a lot of flights through the clouds above.

But being next to Michael to gaze at them from the ground was just as nice.

“Sure is something,” David sighed. His fears were slipping away more and more. He was even comfortable enough to get a little closer to Michael.

“Wish ya could see the view back in Texas. Without the city lights, it’s the most magical thing ya ever did see.”

David’s face softened as he turned to gaze at Michael.

“You still miss it?”

Michael seemed to think about the question for a bit. There was a glimpse of sadness on his face as he silently thought back to the home he had left behind. David could tell he probably had hundreds of thousands of happy memories from there.

“I always will. My heart will always have a place there, no matter what,” Michael admitted. “But I know I can always bring the good of it with me whereva’ I go. All the hospitality and the fun and the quiet moments of comfort is somethin’ I want others to enjoy. After all, th’ boys an’ you showed me how fun California can be. I woulda been a lot more lonely without you.”

David chuckled softly, nudging up against the southern boy. The more he got to know him and the Emersons, the more curious it made him to see Michael’s old stomping grounds someday. Especially if the sky was much more beautiful.

“Well, I could say the same about you,” he said. “Especially hearing you talk about the stars. They really must look nice where you’re from.”

“Yup! Hell, there’s a reason why our most famous song first mentions the night sky.”

While the brunet boy hummed a few bars of Deep in the Heart of Texas, David continued to look at him. Michael never seemed to have a worry or care in the world. He had been so sure that it wouldn’t be much letting him adapt to the gang, but it seemed that the closer they got, the higher the risk was that it could all go wrong.

And yet, when the light of the stars reflected in his eyes, David didn’t think about that. To Hell with Max. He was in love with the cowboy with a heart of gold.

“The most stunning thing I ever laid eyes on,” David whispered, reaching forward to take hold of Michael’s chin.

The human’s eyes widened as he turned to face David. If he hadn’t been staring so intensely, he would have thought David was still talking about the stars.

With a gentle tug, David brought Michael in for a kiss. It seemed that each time their lips met, it got better and better. They both felt such exhilaration getting closer. It made it that much easier to get completely wrapped up in one another.

Their kisses got warmer. Deeper. David’s hands were cradling Michael’s face, thumbs massaging against the stubbled skin. Michael softly moaned, carefully reaching down to hold David’s hips as he got closer. It felt right for both of them to be a bit bolder with their moment of intimacy.

As David caressed the side of his face, Michael got closer, his calloused hands wrapping around the vampire’s hips. It made David feel dizzy with excitement to feel the tug of Michael’s fingers around his belt in order to lessen the space between them. His lips curled up into a satisfied smile in between each kiss.

He was completely lost in the moment, drunk on the passion they shared. In that moment, he never wanted it their kiss to end.

That was, until Michael’s hands moved upward over his back.

It was a perfectly innocent move. All he had tried to do was graze his fingers under the flannel and touch David some more. When he tried to move the fabric, he ended up moving David’s shirt up as well. His warm fingertips accidentally brushed again his back, and every part of the vampire’s body went ice cold.

“NO!” he yelled, pushing himself off of Michael.

Neither one of them had expected such an intense reaction. As David sat, clutching his chest in shock, Michael looked back at him with wide, guilt-ridden eyes. The human boy touched a part of the scar that Max had left behind. Though he had healed since that night his Sire punished him, the strength of the head vampire had left enough damage to leave a permanent reminder of what happened.

“Oh my lord, I’m so sorry, David!” Michael apologized, his hands placed over his mouth. He was mortified by what he did. Max had hurt David, and he had promised not to let such a thing happen again. It filled him with guilt to bring back such awful memories.

David didn’t know what to do. What to say. His head was spinning and his body felt heavy, the painful sensation of behind thrown aside and hurting even more after being sliced up was weighing terribly on him. It was ruining what was supposed to be a beautiful night.

“Michael, I....”

There was no was to go about this without Michael getting even more suspicious. All the secrets and all the pain were piling up the more they spent time together. Max was going to ruin everything, whether it was with the use of his blood to corrupt the family, or with his presence filling David with every terrible memory of his mistreatment. He couldn’t let that control weigh on him any longer.

David was going to have to come clean.

“There’s something I need to tell you...”

Tag List: @silvermaplealder @michael-after-hours @legal-lost-boy @britany1997 @riz-coolgirl @crustyraccoon @ghoulgeousimmaculate @kurt-nightcrawler @auntvamp @sunshine-wylan @thelostsouls1987 @pixielostboy @thornthehellhound @solobagginses @6lostgirl6 @american-idiot-jpg @bloodywickedvamp @anxiouslittleweirdgirl @juss-soupp

#the lost boys #tlb #my fic #au fic #southern michael #michael emerson #david the lost boys #michael x david #Spotify

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visaviae · 2 months

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The Great Escape

I've read an unreasonable amount of Worm Fanfiction. About 289 fanfics - all of which I've categorized and rated on this spreadsheet here. A more insane way to put that is that I've read 2.32% of Wormfic, discluding smut.

The Great Escape by ColossalMistake is my favorite Wormfic bar none.

I'm a sucker for some cover art, and it starts off with some awesome cover art by owl_hat, whose stuff you can find here. There's a ton of character just put into the designs - from how ratty Acidbath looks, the joy on String Theory's face, the mundacity of Teacher or the slightly haunting gaze of Glaistig Uaine.

The short of the premise is that after Echidna, after Alexandria, the Birdcage has a breakout, and Eidolon tries to recapture all the villains. The fic does a perfect bead on Eidolon's characterization. He's not evil, but he's not a good person. He's a little arrogant and egotistical - but he's earned the right to be. And at the end of the day, the only thing he cares about is helping people.

I stared those sins dead in the eye every morning, every time I was too slow to save someone or too weak to help in the ways that mattered.

Throughout the fic, he uses dozens of powers. They range from things that he feels are useless, or potent powers but ones that aren't potent enough. He's constantly reminiscing about his glory days, about when he used to be stronger - about when he used to be *better.* Honestly? The powers are interesting enough that I should compile a list of them one day.

The first chapter starts off a little calm. David is ruminating over the events of the Echidna and Alexandria incidents - fresh wounds for him, isolated from some of the only people he can call friends. He's ruined. His allies don't trust him, he's not on speaking terms with Legend, he's put at arms-length by Cauldron to be reserved for the final battle.

“You’re a monster, David, plain and simple. We might have to work with you against the Endbringers, but you don’t have any friends here. Not anymore.”

The Great Escape scratches an itch for an Eidolon headcanon I have - that before his powers started dimming, and even after, he acted something like Scion. Flying around the world, helping as many people as can in as many ways as he could. Becoming less a person, and more the mask - more Eidolon.

Away went David, and out came Eidolon.

The chapter continues into something a little more manic as the news of the Birdcage breakout - well, breaks out. There's this sort of building tension with each name that's been dropped, starting from more niche characters to Black Kaze, to people who had little showings of strength like Gavel, all while surrounded by this sort of *blur* of motion as things are breaking down. Snowstorm, satellite issues, frantic responses.

And then it culminates with a line.

“Confirmation from Dragon, Glaistig Uaine’s free!” An air of finality settled over the room as the last picture slid onto screen. A blonde child, her mouth twisted in the mimicry of a smile. I could have sworn that her eyes were peering into mine, despite the photo being two decades old. “It’s not a breach. It’s…all of them. Loose.” I didn’t spare Young Buck a glance, but his bravado appeared to have fled. As the din in the room rose to a fever pitch, I remained silent. I’d asked for another chance to be useful. A second chance to help as many people as possible before they put me on a shelf, a relic to be laughed at before the end of the world. God had answered. Now it was my turn.

I'll talk briefly about the second chapter, too. It's a lengthy interlude that shows a series of snips from the POV of the escapees. Each of them running through the wilderness, plotting and planning. The standout three are Gavel, Black Kaze, and Glaistig Uaine - showing three facets of insanity. The more sadistic and psychopathic kind from Gavel, the more hallucinatory and manic from Kaze - and once again, the chapter comes to a close with the Faerie Queen. A more deluded, a more inhuman form of madness.

But one that she can most certainly back up.

As it stands, there are three sorts arcs. I'll post a line from each that I think encapsulates it all.

First, there's Eidolon struggling with String Theory - delving into his powers and how he feels like a shadow of what he once was. Put into a position that he's intimately familiar with - high stakes, something that only he can do.

But this time, he's not enough.

Then the weapon shattered, its only shot arcing up into the sky. And I didn’t know how to stop it.

Next, there's Pastor and Gavel. This focuses more on how Cauldron has been treating him, keeping him at arms-length, while still giving him a chance to be *useful,* even if he's not recognized for being useful. But Pastor is the more interesting half. We see a glimpse of the earlier days, when Hero was alive and Cauldron was in its infancy - we see a fascinating OC who perverts something that Eidolon holds sacred. His religious background. In Eidolon's own words, he perverts Christian beliefs - and vilifies *him.*

I looked back at Pastor, still with the smile on his face, not in the least bit upset by my actions. Eidolon, the ideal that I was supposed to be, meant so much to so many different people. In here, the man in green was a monster of biblical proportions.

The third arc is unfinished. It focuses on Amp - an OC who's an incredible foil to Eidolon. She's naive, idealistic. She raises complex questions and presents simple answers contrasted to the more jaded Eidolon. She had built up an image of him in her mind as someone who couldn't do wrong - and seeing what her own hero has become, and how she betters him because of that makes my heart soar.

“It isn’t a question of strength,” I said. Every branch of the Elite, from strategic outposts to nerve centres like this one, I could tear them apart root and stem. “Its a question of practicality.” They would doubtlessly lose, but there would be nothing to fill the subsequent vacuum. So they remained. A cancer propping up the west coast.

I love Worm, and I love Eidolon. This fic pays respect to both in a way that I adore. Please go ahead and read it. 7/7.

#worm #wormblr #eidolon #wormfic

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superamazingalex98 · 1 year

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The Pros and Cons of the DuckTales Series Finale (Spoilers!)

So I watched the 90-part finale of DuckTales, “The Last Adventure”, back in March of last year and I do gotta say, it was indeed a spectacular ending to the most beloved reboot series and to me, it does play out more like a TV movie than a special. Which is why I made a pros and cons list about the finale.

Warning: Spoilers for those who hasn’t either finished the series or hasn’t watched it yet.

PROS

The three part finale actually did managed to wrap up almost every story arcs and mysteries that the third season had to put out.

We actually got an appearance of Daisy’s nieces in the form of clones by FOWL. May and June are really interesting characters in their own rights.

The fact that Webby confirmed as a clone/ daughter of Scrooge McDuck instead of being the granddaughter of Mrs. Beakley. Plus her true name is also April McDuck.

Ludwig von Drake is alive and the reason why he didn’t pass away is because he said that “he didn’t have the time.”

The fight scenes are really well animated.

Seeing Darkwing Duck and Gizmoduck fighting against Steelbeak is really outstanding.

Some of the comedic-parts of the special are really funny, like when Magica turned Bradford Buzzard into an actual bird.

We got to see all of the characters throughout the series in either cameos or just plain background silhouettes.

Manny the Headless Man-Horse is actually a gargoyle who is voiced by Keith David.

It’s really sweet to see Donald and Daisy adopt May and June as their own kids.

The end credits scene is really beautiful to watch.

CONS

We didn’t get to see what happened to Hortense and Quackmore Duck, the parents of Donald and Della Duck.

The whereabouts of Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s father is still unknown.

The Terrafirmians from the episode, “Terror of the Terrafirmians” didn’t make an appearance in the finale.

With the exception of that melon in Moonvasion, we still didn’t get a Mickey Mouse cameo.

Negaduck didn’t appear in the finale.

That’s all I have for today.

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mysoftboybensolo · 5 months

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New Information on Freddy's part, David Friedkin, in "Masters of the Air"

While researching for my upcoming David x Audrey fic, I came across some new information from Family Search, and I thought I might share. If you want to look at these for yourself, I would recommend looking at them on a desktop or laptop, but if you are on your phone or your eye sight is not that good, not to worry, I am going to give you a good summery of what is here. David's page (x) Audrey's page (x), and my original post about the pair (x), which I recommend you read because I will refer to this post.

So, I was trying to figure out what their religions were, since one site says David is from Russian Jewish parents, while another says just Russian. Audrey’s religion is some denomination of Christianity, because she was seeking an annulment, which is something only Christians are able to do. But before I get to the clarification on David’s religion, let’s look at what Audrey’s page provides. There is a form that is called “United States Census, 1930”, and we see that she has a brother who is three years older than her, and that her parents are natives of New York, where she grew up.

David had the same form, showing he had a younger brother who is seven years younger than him, and we get more information his parents. They came from a village in Russia called Gormel, and the population at the time they would have left was 55% made up of Jews, which confirms his Jewish background. We know that at the age of 18, he was single and seemed like he was still living with his parents, not unusual given that it was a norm back then. His page also has a form that is called “California County Birth and Death Records” which again, confirms he died on October 16th, 1976.

The thing that got me excited was seeing their marriage certificate, which is under both of their names. It was little hard to read, so I’ll help you guys out. Under their names, it shows where it was that they were living at the time in LA, and the little scribble between the address and her name is “Beverly Hills”. Below that they write in their race and their “age at last birthday”; under David’s it says “33”, which makes sense since he was born on March 8th, and under Audrey’s says she was “22” when they were married. It’s strange that some site, like IMdB claims her birthday is January 15th, 1914, and that she was born in Kansas City, Missouri, which is clearly information on her husband rather than her, since she was from Buffalo, NY, and clearly not born in 1914.

It also states what their occupations were at the time; David has written “1st Lt. AUS” which means he was a 1st Lieutenant in the “Army of the United States” at the time he was married, and going even further, has been in the army for at least 2 years, as one doesn’t usually earn the title until they are 18-24 months into service. Audrey was an actress at the time, that I did know from the website, but what was not clear was where she was working from, and she states that she is under contract with Paramount Pictures, which is a neat factoid to know.

The interesting thing here is their status at the time they were married. Audrey’s says that she was divorced, but on this site (x), it says her first husband, Arthur Hightower, had died before the annulment had finalized. So, I think what happened was that the annulment had went through and then not long after, he died. And since the only options were “Single, Widowed, Divorced”, she technically had to say she was divorced. Under David’s name, this was brand new information to me, says that he was once married before. This was unusual considering that on his wiki and IMdB page, it doesn’t say he had been married before Audrey. So, this is what I think may have happened, and it's just pure speculation; just like Audrey, he had married young, but unlike hers, it ended as soon as it began, and was such a tiny blimp in his history that it wasn’t even mentioned anywhere else. And just to the right of this, you can see that they were each other’s “2nd marriage”.

Further down, you can see that their witness was Audrey’s mother, which is funny because when I was writing that scene, I had Viola here as their witness before knowing that. Again, this makes sense, as Viola had traveled with Audrey to Hollywood and they were living together. Also, I had this revelation when revisiting the sites, that their first son, Gregory, is a reunion baby. He was born on May 23rd, 1946, and WW2 ended on September 2, 1945, nine months apart. Coincidence? 🤨

Is it a bit much for a fanfic? Maybe, but given that a 9-part series is coming out with this figure in it for however long played by an actor of whom many people are watching this series for, inquiring minds are going to want to know this story.

Tagging: @freddycarterus @purpleyin

#masters of the air #freddy carter #david friedkin #audrey westphal

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notwiselybuttoowell · 7 months

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Cargill and ADM, two of the world’s leading livestock feed companies, helped to scupper an attempt to end the trade in soya beans grown on deforested and threatened ecosystem lands in South America, a new report alleges.

Soya is one of the cheapest available types of edible protein, and is in huge demand for feed for animals around the world; as our consumption of meat and dairy has risen globally, the need for soya has soared too.

But its production has been directly associated with deforestation in some of the most threatened landscapes around the world. Last year, in response to internal concerns and growing public awareness of the issue, 14 leading grain traders worked intensively to agree a ban on buying soya beans grown on some of those landscapes, including Brazil’s Amazon forest, the Pantanal wetlands and the Cerrado savanna, according to the report.

The ban would have imposed a backdated deadline of 2020 on soya buyers, and was expected to be announced at last year’s UN Cop27 climate conference in Egypt, the report said. The backdated deadline was aimed at preventing harvested soya already grown on threatened land areas from entering global markets, and avoiding the deforesting scramble a future deadline might have provoked.

But instead of agreeing the ban, Cargill and ADM “led the push” for weaker language in the final statement, according to one person involved in the discussions between the 14 grain traders before Cop27. “If Cargill – or ADM – had not taken those positions, the outcome would have been different,” the source said.

The Guardian spoke to several of the report’s sources who confirmed their quotes but did not wish to be named.

The soya agreement that was signed by the companies, included in the November 2022 agriculture sector roadmap to 1.5C, was seen as a failure by many NGOs. A group representing retailers including Asda, Aldi, Lidl, M&S and Tesco told Cargill and ADM the agreement was inadequate, inconsistent and insufficient.

The new report by Mighty Earth, an NGO which has previously called Cargill “the worst company in the world”, follows news that soya land conversion has surged in Brazil’s Cerrado. That rise is largely driven by the expansion of soya grown for animal feed, according to Mighty Earth’s CEO, Glenn Hurowitz. “If Cargill had signed up to the ban … the other companies would have followed the leader.” As a result we would not be seeing “the forests and biomes of South America bulldozed at such an alarming scale and pace”, he said.

Two other leading commodity companies, Amaggi and Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), were committed to the soya ban initiative, Mighty Earth’s report said. Both have “stronger commitments [than Cargill and ADM] to end all soya linked to deforestation and conversion”, said David Cleary, director of global agriculture at The Nature Conservancy, an NGO. The term conversion is used to describe threatened ecosystem lands that are converted to soya plantations, whether forested or not.

#deforestation #amazon rainforest #agriculture #industrial agriculture #rainforest #pantanal #wetlands #cerrado #savannah #environment

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justforbooks · 11 months

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The writer Martin Amis, who has died aged 73, delighted, provoked, inspired and outraged readers of his fiction, reportage and memoirs across a literary career that set off like a rocket and went on to dazzle, streak and burn for almost 50 years. His scintillating verbal artistry, satirical audacity and sheer imaginative verve at every level from word-choice to plot-shape announced a blazing, once-in-a-generation talent.

He seldom disagreed with Christopher Hitchens, the journalist and essayist who was his soulmate and intellectual lodestar. But when Hitchens published a tepid review of a book by the American novelist Saul Bellow – Amis’s literary idol and mentor, who ranked equally high in his affections – Amis rebuked his friend for ignoring “all the pleasure he gave you”. Amis stirred envy and emulation, ignited controversy, courted scandal. Above all, though, he gave pleasure.

He paid tribute to his father, the novelist Kingsley Amis, by praising his “super-humour: the great engine of his comedy”. However grave its themes – later years saw him preoccupied with losses, partings, and deaths – “super-humour” likewise fuelled the zest of Amis junior’s prose. For him, “seriousness – and morality, and indeed sanity – cannot exist without humour”. His gift of laughter followed him even into Auschwitz (in his 2014 novel The Zone of Interest). Critics could find its presence an embarrassment. Admirers never did.

He published 15 novels, from The Rachel Papers in 1973 to the hybrid Inside Story – which enfolds fiction into memoirs and essays – in 2020. His essays and journalism stretch from an account of arcade video games, through literary studies and critiques of pop culture, to a meditation on Stalin’s crimes: Koba the Dread (2002).

Until a quieter last decade, spent largely in New York, he combined fertility and versatility with a reluctant role as a writer-celebrity who epitomised literary fame in an age of glitz, hype and frenzied prurience. Keystone novels of the 1980s and 90s such as Money, London Fields and The Information channel the raucous urges of their time, and kick against them in dismay.

To a degree, he played the celebrity game: he dissected showbiz phenomena in witty articles, often for the Observer. But he found, in his case, that others played with laxer rules or none at all. For decades, the life, loves and family of a gossip-fed tabloid entity known as “Martin Amis” ran in parallel with the career of the hard-working author of that name. His fiction abounds in games of doubles, pairs and twins. In his own life, too, Amis struggled to negotiate the gap between the mask forged by fame and the true face of a serious writer.

Being the son of Kingsley might have sent him early warnings of the bill that a stellar career in literature can present. Martin was born in Oxford a year after his brother, Philip. His mother was Hilly (Hilary, nee Bardwell), whom Kingsley had met while she was studying at the Ruskin School of Art. Their third child, Sally, followed in 1954.

Hilly recalled the young Martin, bright and amiable, as “a child born under a lucky star”. The spectacular success of Kingsley’s debut, Lucky Jim (1954), brought prosperity but torpedoed family life. Kingsley’s many affairs, and his mother’s distress, became the background hum of Martin’s youth.

As his renown grew, Kingsley moved with his family to Princeton, New Jersey, for a year. Martin loved America: its speech rhythms rooted in his prose. In England, his father’s best friend – the melancholic poet Philip Larkin – supplied not only paltry gifts of a few pence to Martin, but a dire example of literary greatness allied to emotional squalor. The siblings spent happier times with their cousins, David and Lucy Partington. Lucy’s vanishing in 1973, and the final confirmation more than 20 years later of her murder by the serial killer Fred West, spread an ineradicable shadow over Amis’s later writing.

In 1961, Kingsley took up a teaching fellowship at Peterhouse, Cambridge. A rambling house on the city’s edge served as the rules-free, bohemian backdrop to the shipwreck of the Amis marriage. It ended in 1963 when Hilly moved to Mallorca while Kingsley began living with his lover, the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard. Disharmony at home disrupted Martin’s education: he bounced idly from school to school. Relief came in the Caribbean when (for £50 per week) he acted in the film of Richard Hughes’s novel A High Wind in Jamaica.

As teenagers, Martin and Phil lived mostly in Maida Vale, west London, with Jane and Kingsley. They scoured Kings Road, Chelsea, for girls, and kept drugs in the fridge. Kingsley, lord of misrule, once bought his sons a gross of condoms. Jane, the much-admired “wicked stepmother”, finally presented the “semi-literate truant and waster” Martin with a reading list that ran from Jane Austen to Muriel Spark. She sent him to a Brighton crammer, where he thrived. Martin duly studied English at Exeter College, Oxford, with an “exhibition”: a scholarship, though of a minor kind.

After graduation, in 1971, he joined the Times Literary Supplement as an assistant, then as fiction editor. Starting with The Rachel Papers, his own apprentice fiction – smart, knowing, super-cool – flowed with little fuss. For Amis fils, “nothing is more ordinary to you than what your dad does all day”. In 1974, he moved from the TLS to the New Statesman: as deputy to the literary editor Claire Tomalin, then (until 1979), as books editor himself.

The Rachel Papers won a Somerset Maugham award. And the model for the “Rachel” fictionalised in his debut – his first love – introduced him to the Jewish themes that would draw him with increasing force. For a while, though, his fiction declined to grow up. Dead Babies (1975) performs stylistic somersaults around a country-house parody, although the warring foster-brothers of Success (1978) inaugurate the trademark Amis play of pairs.

Two sides of the Amis myth, or mask, solidified. With male chums – always Hitchens, often the poets James Fenton, Ian Hamilton and Clive James, or the novelists Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan – he adorned a sort of kebab-and-chips literary salon. They derided the old guard and lauded brave new voices. Yet Kingsley, old guard incarnate, remained an always honoured guest. Amis’s deep affection for his father, despite political and artistic clashes (Kingsley scorned his boy’s fancy technique, and reputedly chucked Money across the room), surprised and impressed their friends.

Like his father, Amis also picked up a reputation as an eager if inconstant lover. By his own account, he was a slow starter until the future magazine editor Tina Brown “rode into town and rescued me from Larkinland”. Soon, columnists began to chronicle – or fantasise – the romantic life of this literary wunderkind. Tomalin herself, Brown, Emma Soames, Julie Kavanagh: his liaisons with high-achieving women were mediated by salacious reporting, attracted awestruck gazes but also evil eyes. (His longest early relationship, with the photographer Angela Gorgas, left fewer media traces.)

Too short, too clever, too entitled, too rich: Amis became the author-ogre many loved to hate. Even his father remonstrated to Larkin when, in 1978, the son earned £38,000: “Little shit. 29, he is. Little shit.” Yet companions from that time recall no sneery seducer but a sweet, funny, sympathetic friend.

Come the early 80s, Amis as writer moved into higher gears. Other People (1981) heralded a mature interest in other minds and how to represent them. In 1984, the pyrotechnic satire and narrative trickery of the sensational Money both skewered an era of greed and glitz and, typically, embodied its appeal in the razzle-dazzle of its prose. The golden boy shone with a deeper lustre. His presence on Granta magazine’s 1983 roll-call of Best of Young British Novelists sealed his position on the crest of a new, media-savvy and PR-friendly, literary wave.

Also in 1984, the writer who had fretted that “childlessness will condemn you to childishness” married the American-born academic Antonia Phillips. Their son Louis arrived the same year, followed in 1986 by Jacob. With parenthood came an investment in the planet’s fate expressed in the bomb-shadowed stories of Einstein’s Monsters (1987), and the apocalyptic weather that roils around the large-scale comic dystopia of London Fields (1989). That book’s doomed antiheroine, Nicola Six, focused criticism of Amis as a serial fabricator of stereotypically damaged femmes fatales. The complaint, and the grounds for it, would persist.

At the same time, the comic craft that forged that novel’s darts-obsessed low-life Keith Talent could still make readers fall off their chairs with laughter. Visitors to the Amis work-flat in Westbourne Park loved to report on the blockish impedimenta of dartboard and pinball machine. Fewer clocked the neat editions of Bellow and Nabokov, twin touchstones of his art, on the shelves. The Holocaust motif and reverse narration of Time’s Arrow (1991) – shortlisted for the Booker prize – spoke of lofty formal ambitions, not laddish fun.

In journalism and fiction, Amis magnetised mimics and fan-boys (fewer girls) by the score. The essays gathered first in The War Against Cliché (2001) and, later, in 2017, The Rub of Time, recruited a tribe of wannabes – which rather missed their point. Hubris was ascribed to him, not espoused by him. Envious back-biters feasted on his every mishap or misstep.

The 90s saw his dental problems become a bizarre media fixation: he retaliated, gloriously, with the all-you-can-eat dentist-surgery horrors of his 2000 memoir Experience. Less reparable, his marriage broke up. He married Isabel Fonseca, an American-Uruguayan journalist and author, in 1996. Their daughters, Fernanda and Clio, were born in 1997 and 1999.

The media onslaught intensified with Amis’s most elaborate novel of doubles and rivals: the death-haunted, long-winded literary satire of The Information (1994). Its large advance drew sniper fire. So did Amis’s split from his agent Pat Kavanagh – and from her husband, Barnes – in favour of Andrew Wylie. Kingsley’s decline, after his parting from Jane, darkened his son’s horizons and turned Amis’s mind to “the information” (about mortality) that struck as a “negative eureka moment” in his 40s. What Amis called, after Kingsley’s death in 1995, the “passage to the main event” now suffused his work. He found death “always in my thoughts, like an unwanted song”.

In 2000, his sister, Sally, died, aged 46, after periods of depression and alcoholism. Griefs accumulated: the 1994 revelation of Lucy’s fate throws a pall over the superb Experience that wit can hardly lift. Still, in the mid-90s, Amis met his eldest child. Delilah was born in 1976 while her mother, Lamorna – who later killed herself – was married to the journalist-historian Patrick Seale. Larkin’s bleak emotional wilderness had terrified Amis. If anything, he overcompensated: so much life, so much love, but so much loss as well.

Amis, Isabel and their daughters set up home in London, at the other end of the Primrose Hill road where Kingsley had finally gone back to live with Hilly and her third husband. Post-millennium, his writing took a more political turn. Hitchens had always figured for Amis as the ideal type of the public intellectual. Now, the virtuoso storyteller – who identified as a centre-left gradualist – craved a slice of that gravitas himself. In Koba the Dread, Amis’s account of Stalin’s atrocities paid homage too to Kingsley and the ardent anti-communism of his circle: notably, the historian Robert Conquest.

It was 9/11 and its aftermath that propelled Amis into front-line polemics. Islamist terrorism revived a catastrophist strain in his work: the concept of entropy haunts earlier books. In the topical essays collected as The Second Plane in 2008, it threatened to elevate political foes into metaphysical demons. Rash interview statements prompted charges of Islamophobia. More soberly, Inside Story concludes that “the real danger of terrorism lies not in what it inflicts but what it provokes”. Still, the op-ed pundit Amis could drop his verbal, even moral, compass.

By the later 2000s, Amis began to look fragile, with the stiff gait of a veteran tennis player (he enjoyed the game, and wrote well on it). His mid-2000s fiction – Yellow Dog, House of Meetings – revisited old haunts: celebrity excess and tabloid depravity in the former; the lingering horror of Soviet atrocity in the latter. Calm spells with his family in seaside Uruguay raised spirits, as for a while did stints as a creative-writing professor at Manchester University.

With The Pregnant Widow (2010), his ambitions climbed again. Within its uproarious, comic-pastoral mode, the novel counts the costs of the sexual revolution that, for Amis, had devoured his vulnerable sister. To Amis, no longer a gleeful beneficiary of post-60s erotic liberation but its appalled historian, “the boys could just go on being boys. It was the girls who had to choose.”

In 2010, the Amis family began the process of moving from London to New York: Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. In Amis’s telling, the need to live near his elderly mother-in-law hastened the move. British media read it as a snub to his celebrity-mad homeland and its jeering fourth estate. Lionel Asbo (2012), with its scattergun satire on lottery-winning oiks in a plebeian nightmare, rather confirmed that view.

Amis enjoyed the Brooklyn weather, the freedom from spiteful gossip, his welcome on New York’s literary scene. But he missed British backchat: his west London patch, from the pub quiz-machines of Portobello Road to the sports clubs of Paddington, had served well as scruffy muse.

Thanks to Fonseca’s heritage, Amis now had Jewish daughters. Jewish histories, fears and hopes felt nearer than ever. Yet his concentration-camp novel The Zone of Interest affirmed that, for Amis, nothing stood beyond a joke. “How can you presume to laugh at Hitlerism?” asked a German critic. For Amis, how could he not? Any depiction of Nazi evil that overlooked its farcical absurdity lent it weight and credit it did not deserve.

His two wisest jokers had exited: Bellow, with dementia, in 2005; Hitchens, from cancer, in 2011. The loss of a virtual father and a virtual brother whetted fears of death but also (with Hitchens) sharpened the appetite for life: “the delight of sentience”. Kingsley had called a late novel The Anti-Death League, but Martin would never have signed up. “Without death there is no art,” he wrote. Bellow’s and Hitchens’s passing fed tremendous elegiac passages amid the multiform miscellany of Inside Story, where tricky “autofiction” sits beside heartfelt, no-frills memoir.

With its musings on “how busy death always is, and what great plans it has for us”, Inside Story felt like a valediction. If so, it was one in which Amis’s acrobatic wit defied both gravity and solemnity. He wrote with discipline and dedication, and wrestled with all the anguish of his age. Yet that pleasure-giving principle makes his long shelf of books feel playfully, buoyantly light.

He is survived by Isabel, and by his children, Delilah, Louis, Jacob, Fernanda and Clio.

🔔 Martin Louis Amis, writer, born 25 August 1949; died 19 May 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Martin Amis #in memoriam

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lewis-winters · 8 months

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WIP tag game

thank you for the tags @sir-mr-dr-roe and @heystovepipeboys!

I dug through my WIPs to find a coherent one that didn't have spoilers for the fic itself. But considering how I always write the more exciting parts first, I have failed. Lmao.

Anyway. Here's an excerpt of the Webgott Magical Realism AU.

David Webster is odd. Joe knows this by virtue of having known him for more than a decade, fought with him for the first three years of that, and loved him for the rest.

But he knows it too by the moments where the veneer slips, and something dark, deep, and old peeks beneath. Web doesn’t seem to be aware of it himself, the churning abyss having been a part of him since the very beginning and therefore not uncommon. But to Joe, whose life has never once strayed from the straight and narrow path until that fateful day he chose to jump out of an airplane for 50 extra dollars, the shadow that clings to Web is clear as day.

The first time he saw it, it sat in his periphery. Eight legged and still. Listening, as Web, one warm Austrian night said; “Webster is my mother’s family name.”

People like to assume otherwise, and Web does himself no favors when he rarely corrects them, but that night it pours out of him like water from a broken flask, gushing from the red of his mouth, gaping like a wound with every word he speaks.

Webster, to modern ears, takes a new form. A book of words and meanings, created from a language taken apart and put back together like jigsaw puzzle pieces poured back into its box. No sense as a whole but its pieces complete in their individuality. Always, at the price of their potential for poetry. “That is what boy Websters are like,” David had said. Though some have the potential to become something, carrying within them a small spark that, if properly cultivated amongst the like-minded, could help bring about a decent flame. But those kinds of boy Websters are few and far between, the last having been born centuries ago, and whose gifts had gotten him killed. Most Webster boys are simply broken shards of a whole– special enough to understand how different they are, but too weak to be anything but useless.

It’s the Webster women that are truly different. They’re all that are left of the old name. Ever-changing, like all things are in the face of time, but strong enough to retain their original shape, still. Adaptable. Malleable. Powerful in ways boy Websters could never be. In times of old, Webster had meant spinner. Crafter. A creature with silk in two of her eight hands, a tapestry of deadly traps adorned with beautiful opportunities falling from their lips. Words, endless. Possibilities, even more so.

Anything Webster women say, the earth bends to listen. The trees repeat. The brooks whisper. The sun rejoices. And once finished, the sky opens to weep.

Web didn’t have to continue for Joe to understand, then; the rest of the story unraveled before him as the gravity of Web’s words finally sunk in.

Every child in the world has heard of the existence of these women. Few have been lucky enough to encounter one, but even more so have been unfortunate enough to get caught in the lies they spin, the endless, glistening realities that pour from their mouths. “Beware,” Joe’s mother had once whispered to them in warning. “They are not your enemies, but to be amongst them is dangerous. Their web stretches far beyond their reach and closes around you, invisible, until you are trapped with no means of escape, even after your death.”

Teller of tales, she had called them. Soothsayers, Priestesses of the Mother of Lies—

“Weavers,” David had confirmed, and the tired finality in which he says it cracked something in Joe’s chest he didn’t know was still whole enough to break. “My mother is a weaver.”

tagging: @hellofanidea @ep6bastogne @almost-a-class-act @bobparkhurst @sergeant-spoons and anybody else who wants to do it!

#tag game #webgott #i should finish this at some point #estrella_marie

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romancomicsnews · 9 months

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Who should play Lex Luthor in the DCU?

With the DCU casting its red caped hero last month as David Corenswet in Superman Legacy, the Man of Steel's archenemy feels just around the corner.

While nothing is confirmed, names like Nicholas Hoult, Alexander Skarsgard, and Bill Skarsgard have been rumored for the role.

While I have no problem with any of these actors or these Luthors, I feel we can do better.

So before James Gunn throws out a name that will likely break the internet, I thought I'd pitch my three ideas for The DCU's Lex Luthor. Unlike my last fancast (shameless plug for My Flash Fancast Article), I have one actor who I think truly stands beyond the rest.

But first, as always, let's answer a few questions:

What performances are we looking to emulate?

Much like the Man of Steel himself, Luthor has a number of appearances across DC media, including animation, film, and live action television. So unlike my Flash article, I will not be going through all of them, even the main ones.

While I don't think any performance has been perfect, I think there are several we can draw from to create a better Lex.

I'm going to try to remain positive and only look at performances I appreciate, so instead of dunking on Jesse Eisenberg for 45 minutes, I'll just say quickly: He's doing a real good Mad Hatter in Batman vs Superman.

1. Michael Rosenbaum - Smallville

There's a lot to love from this one.

Unlike most iterations of Luthor in media, Rosenbaum begins the series an ally to Clark, even a friend. Luthor is confident, smart, but has a likeability to him I think we have lost in more recent interpretations. All those aspects should be brought over to the DCU.

We need someone who you could believe the city loves almost as much as Superman.

Rosenbaum also had a physical presence and voice to beat. He projected strength, and felt like someone who could throw hands if he needed to.

Finally, his anger and rage were bubbling just beneath all that. He could snap at a moment's notice, and in those moments is where you see the villain. That's what I want from my Lex, someone who mastered masking his demons.

2. Clancy Brown - Superman the Animated Series, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited

If it wasn't for Rosenbaum, this would be my definitive Lex Luthor.

Clancy Brown has never misunderstood the assignment, as he plays a much more aggressive and fiercer Luthor in the DCAU.

What I love about this Luthor is his ability to become a bigger threat from season to season. Making deals with Darkseid, giving speeches to Amazo, and even fusing with Brainiac, this Luthor could hang and outsmart the best of them.

While he was a little quick to anger in my opinion, this Luthor had that same strength and confidence I absolutely love in Rosenbaum.

Something inbetween these two may make the perfect Luthor.

3. Jon Cryer - Arrowverse

While there is a huge gap between two and three, I think there is a lot to love about Cryer.

While he is harder to take seriously than the other two, he does show off one thing the others don't, the fun of being the richest, smartest person in the room.

Cryer always felt like Luthor was having fun toying with heroes. Only when he dealt with the Girl of Steel did he really go off the rails.

Do I want a performance as hammy or out there as Cryer? Not necessarily, but someone who can do a little comedy may be fun here.

What ethnicity is Lex Luthor?

This one doesn't have a definitive answer.

While in most iterations of the character he appears to be white, in Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, some fans speculate he is a person of color, specifically black.

I have mixed feelings on changing a villain into a person of color, as that can have its own implications, especially when their hero wears Red and Blue.

I do think leaving Lex Luthor as an only white character can take away from the depiction. Luthor sometimes is a self made man, and making him a person of color who clawed his way through oppression only to be seconded by another white man could be an interesting take.

Again my feelings are mixed, but for now I'm going to say either way works.

Any other stipulations?

Yes, a few.

For one, I will not bring back an actor who played him before, so I'm sorry Rosenbaum fans, maybe next time.

My Luthor will be either A) a friend to Superman of the same age or B) a mentor like figure, still a friend though, at least for the first movie. So age range is anywhere between 30-50.

Unlike Superman, Luthor's are usually played by actors with a name. Jesse Eisenberg and Gene Hackman both are heavy hitters, so I will be looking for actors of similar caliber.

I also don't want to go with actors who have been or are known for different superhero roles. That doesn't mean they can't have ever been in a superhero movie (hint hint) but we're not getting Downey Jr.

If they are bald that is a plus, but not necessary.

Again I think these picks all can do it, but I really love my number 1 pick.

3. Jason Bateman

This one will probably take the most convincing but think about it.

Known for his wide ranging work such as Ozark, Arrested Development, Game Night & Air, Bateman is a comedic and dramatic force.

At 54, Bateman is my oldest Luthor, but I think he can emulate better than anyone else on this list the fun of Cryer.

I have a few problems with this casting. While he has a great calming voice, I don't know if it's Luthor. It can be sinister, and it can be friendly, but I don't know how confident it can be.

My other main problem is this Luthor doesn't seem like he can fight. I think this Luthor would feel more like someone who needs the mech suit.

Overall I think this is a fun cast and would be a little unexpected, and a challenge for Bateman. But one I think he could nail.

2. John David Washington

If we want a cool, strong, and same age Luthor to befriend Superman, I think John David Washington slides into this very well. At 38, Washington still looks like a passable 30.

Known for his roles in Tenet and Malcolm and Marie, Washington I think is our best bet at emulating Rosenbaum. The swagger, the look, and the dangerous presence bubbling beneath the surface.

My main problem with casting Washington is always the same, does he fit better elsewhere?

Washington is such a versatile actor, he sometimes feels like a blank slate. Would he better suited for Cyclops? Green Lantern? An older Firestorm? Who is to say.

In any case, I'm sure he'll be casted in one of these sooner or later, but Luthor may be an example of right place, right time for Washington.

1. Sterling K. Brown

Several years ago, I saw an episode of Brooklyn 99, which to this day is my favorite episode, where Jake Peralta and Captain Holt try their absolute best to get this killer to admit his crime or slip up.

He is so intelligent, suave, and calm, that they are unable to break him, until they hit the right nerve, and the bubbling anger boils so hot, he admits everything.

That is Lex Luthor.

And that is Sterling K Brown.

Known for hit shows like This is Us, The People vs OJ Simpson, the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and movies like Black Panther and Waves, Sterling K Brown may be the most underrated actor working today.

Brown has an intensity about him that screams Luthor. He can play likeable and caring like Rosenbaum, he can reach that rage and intensity that Clancy Brown nailed, and have the fun of Jon Cryer.

Brown also has a kindness that reads extremely genuine. You'd get the sense in another world, this Luthor would be a hero.

At 47, he's old enough to be a mentor to Clark, but still feel formidable, especially with his current physical build.

Brown's Luthor I can see as a staple character for the DCU, appearing as an overarching puppet master, leader of villainous teams, tormentor of many heroes, or even uneasy ally when greater threats emerge.

No matter where they take Luthor as a character, Sterling K. Brown is the right pick to menace the DC Universe for years to come.

Thank you for reading! Let me know who you'd like me to fancast next for Marvel or DC!

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coochiequeens · 8 months

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Saving women’s sports is more than just keeping men out of women’s sporting events. It's also about keeping predatory men with pronouns away from women and girls.

ByYuliah Alma August 23, 2023

A Gettysburg, Pennsylvania High School is making headlines over the school board’s debate on whether or not to re-hire a trans-identified male coach for the school’s female tennis team. Sasha Yates, born David, has reportedly been subject to complaint after he frequented the girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms on several occasions.

Reduxx spoke directly to board member Michelle Smyers, who reviewed the reprimand against Yates for the first time.

The reprimand outlined two separate incidents in September of 2022 involving Yates undressing in the girls’ locker room.

While a previous report by the Epoch Times had made the public aware of two of the occurrences, Smyers revealed that there were in fact three: twice in September of last year, and once again this past April. While using the girls’ locker rooms and restrooms, Yates sparked fear and discomfort from female students in addition to concern from their parents.

Yates had initially been hired by Gettysburg Area School District in 2018 while still identifying as a male, but in 2022, he began using the name Sasha after he declared that he was transgender. Reduxx learned that he had two children who appear to live in the United Kingdom with their mother.

In the fall of 2022, shortly after Yates began “identifying” as female and using women’s facilities, he stripped down to “a bra and panties” in the girls’ locker room where the teen soccer team was changing.

A board member with the district told The Epoch Times in their exclusive that the female students reported that “it was clear from what they saw that Mr. Yates was still fully a man.”

Two members of the school board have daughters playing on the soccer team, one of whom was present when the incident took place.

But a third incident has now been brought to light after Smyers and other board members were finally granted access to the administration’s reprimand against him from last fall. To their shock, not one, but two instances were outlined in September. Smyers said she believes that Yates released the same document to the Gettysburg Times upon knowing that it was finally revealed to the board.

Smyers confirmed that the first incident did involve Yates undressing down to his “bra and panties,” as previously reported.

According to the reprimand issued to Yates, many of the female students said they were uncomfortable with the man’s presence in the facility, as well as with the comments he made to the girls.

“I was too busy picking my jaw up off the floor when I read it,” Smyers said. “Because the second incident outlined where he’d gone into the same locker room and was discussing with the girls in there — talking to them about their menstrual cycles and what type of panties they like to wear.”

Smyers expressed that she was incredulous at the revelations, which went far beyond Yates simply using the changing area.

Sasha Yates. Photo Source: Sasha Yates / FACEBOOK

“Jerry Sandusky was from Pennsylvania, for crying out loud. Didn’t we learn anything from Jerry Sandusky? You know? Adults don’t belong in the locker room while kids are in there dressing,” Smyers remarked, referring to the notorious serial child molester who sexually abused at least eight young boys at Central Mountain High School while working as a football coach.

Smyers also questioned why Yates had been undressing in the first place.

“It’s tennis… why are you changing? You’re a part-time coach, you didn’t come to practice ready to coach?”

On April 12, months after his initial reprimand was issued by the school, Yates still took the liberty of using the girls’ restroom while one 16-year-old student was already inside. He followed the girl into the bathroom and “tried to strike up a conversation” with the minor, but she walked out of the facilities.

The girl texted her softball coach while she was still inside the restroom and expressed her concern for her safety. Her father, Steve Carbaugh, told The Epoch Times that this made his daughter very uncomfortable as it was just her and Yates alone in the bathroom.

Carbaugh said, “My job as a parent is to protect my child. And he had no business going into that bathroom, and his actions proved that he cannot be trusted. He went into a girls’ locker room and changed while the girls varsity soccer team was in there. They talked to him about it. And he went into a girls’ restroom facility. When is enough enough? He is not being penalized because of what he calls himself. He needs to be penalized because of his actions and the fact that he can’t follow directions. This is a grown man, going into a bathroom with a juvenile female. That’s a problem. That’s a huge problem.”

Mr. Carbaugh was told that month that Mr. Yates would not return as the tennis coach for the following season, so he decided to let the matter go.

Yates provided Gettysburg Times with the reprimand letter that Smyers reviewed, but denied having the conversation with the teens about menstruation cycles, saying he didn’t recall it. Yates did admit that the other incidents occurred, “but not in the way that has been previously reported.”

He also revealed that after the reprimand was issued, he was given a key to use a single-stall restroom that sports personnel, such as referees, are designated to use, but asserted that federal law allows him to use “any bathroom.”

Despite the complaints from parents and students, Dr. Leigh Dalton, a solicitor for the school, “convinced” members of the board not to fire Yates immediately, and instead insisted the school simply decline to re-hire him for the following season due to concerns about litigation.

But Yates’ name reappeared in July on the hiring list for the coaching post.

Smyers told Reduxx that when she saw the name “Sasha,” she initially thought she was reviewing whether or not they’d be hiring a new female coach. She had only learned about Yates’ identity “as a woman” last fall but had been told after the bathroom incident that “the issue was being taken care of,” and that Yates would not be brought back.

Earlier this month, on August 7, the school board held a vote on whether or not Yates should be rehired. The vote was 3-3, with one person abstaining from voting.

Dalton then allegedly issued a warning “urging the board to rehire Mr. Yates to avoid the risk of litigation.”

The next meeting, which was held August 21, had Yates’ employment on its agenda to be voted on by board members once again. The agenda noted Yates’ coaching salary as $2,682. The day of the second board meeting, America First Legal revealed they were representing Smyers due to concerns that Yates may take legal action against her or the district in the event they voted against re-hiring him.

Reduxx attended the most recent board meeting and witnessed over 25 members of the public provide input on whether they felt Yates should be again retained as girl’s tennis coach.

Several of the speakers held clear contempt for Smyers, accusing her of “transphobia” and alleging that she has made “hateful and biased comments against the LGBTQ community.” These individuals, in some cases, received loud applause and a standing ovation from those present at the meeting.

Many speakers cited suicide rates in transgender adolescents in their defense of retaining Yates’ employment with the school.

One father read a letter on behalf of his son, who was not present. The former tennis player for the high school stated: “Sasha is a woman. Over the past four years I have watched her realize this, and have watched as she has transitioned into her true self,” going on to urge those motioning not to rehire Yates to “fix their hearts.”

That young man’s mother, Dr. Sonya Deltredici, spoke after her husband and identified herself as a leader of an “LGBT health curriculum” at York Hospital. She said, “It does not hurt our children to be in the presence of trans people… What hurts our children is discrimination against trans people.”

Another man in defense of Yates, who shared that he teaches critical race theory, said: “If any of my grandchildren play tennis… I’m frankly not worried about this if they come under coach Yates’ teaching and care because I trust God to take care of them.”

Only three of the speakers addressed Yates’ use of the girls’ private spaces.

Eddy Fleming, father and concerned citizen, echoed the woman’s statement, saying: “I’m really gravely concerned because there’s been a lot of very well-educated and very impassioned people tonight conflating this issue and making this a trans issue … what this is about is that there was an adult coach who went into the students’ bathroom, went into the students locker room and changed there … that’s really what this is about, and we have to protect our students…”

Smyers believes that the administration is “hiding behind Title XII” which prevents discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic, but shared that she doesn’t believe it should grant anyone special privileges.

She reiterated that she would find these actions inappropriate regardless of what staff member it was.

Smyers said she believes a lot of parents and other community members are afraid to speak out against Yates because they could face the same accusations of “transphobia” and “hate” that she’s faced.

She told Reduxx that the claims labeling her a bigot are “absurd and patently false,” but feels the backlash towards her has served as a warning for others.

“They’ll get the reaction that I’ve gotten, and people don’t want that. They don’t want to be labelled. They don’t want other people to think that they’re transphobic or anti-gay… they’re afraid of that. They forget that those words don’t mean anything. They’re just words. But, you know, it’s a psychological warfare,” Smyers said.

“I’m not that person, I’ve never been that person. I think they call me [transphobic and hateful] because I’m the chapter chair of Moms for Liberty.”

Smyers explained that she has faced abuse from trans activists in the past, and recalled a Moms for Liberty event she attended earlier this summer in Philadelphia where she was subject to misogynistic remarks about her body being yelled at her through a bullhorn.

She told Reduxx that she also “took a lot of crap” from the public in the past because she “went after some of inappropriate books in [the] school.” Smyers said she had condemned the book “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” not because the author is gay but because the book discussed flavored condoms used between two juvenile boys engaging in anal sex.

Smyers asserted she has no intentions of voting to retain Yates, and said she doesn’t trust him. While she explained that she was not speaking for her fellow board members, she does believe there may be at least two others who will vote against Yates’ employment.

The August 21 board meeting moved to postpone the decision to reinstate Yates. The next meeting is scheduled for September 5. In the interim, the girls’ tennis team does not currently have an official coach, but had their first match on August 22, their first day of the school year.

#Gettysburg #pennsylvania #usa #Sasha Yates is David Yates #An adult man entered the women's locker rooms with high school students #Grown ass mem should not be talking to minors about their underwear #TRAs harassing a mom for not wanting a grown man changing around her daughter and her teammates #TRAs could try explaining to him how this hurts their cause #But that would mean TRAs were actually willing to listen to other viewpoints #The TQ+ needs to clean up their own community

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