#is this partly influenced by the shy people in my life and based off my cousins spouses who are shy?yes

[thr0vvavvay]

Random Yandere Simulator Ideas

🌸Disclaimer🌸

Since I don't really use Tumblr, I figured I'd make this account share some ideas and thoughts I had on Yandere Simulator.

Before you go any further, please keep in mind that these are -not- meant to be negative in any way. I honestly made this just to see what other people might think, but I dunno.

**If you haven't ventured far into the lore of the current game and info for it, please don't venture further if you dislike spoilers.

Now, without further ado...

🌸Ayano's personality🌸

From what I remember, the player has the ability to have Ayano fake a persona for certain tasks and situations. This gave me an idea.

If you viewed Ayano's lack of emotions in a different light, Ayano is almost like a blank slate. She could be viewed any way that the player wanted to view her.

Since the player is able to change her appearance through cosmetics and textures, why not allow the player to also choose Ayano's personality? Theoretically, this could also make the game more interesting by giving her a personality based on the choices the player makes in-game.

While Ayano would still very much hide a side of her that is 'lovesick' and obsessed with Senpai, Ayano doesn't have to be completely empty.

Let me explain the choice bit further...

Since the player gets to decide how they eliminate their rivals, (whether it be killing, matchmaking, meddling with their personal lives, or befriending them and asking them to let her win his heart) this could play a big role in her personality. Depending on what the player chooses to do, Ayano could have an affinity or disliking for certain things.

For instance.. If the player chose to have a delinquent-esque persona, she wouldn't mind threatening her rivals, and if she feels as though she has no choice, she may actually kill them.

A countering persona would be the kind persona. Ayano would prefer to befriend rivals, and somehow convince them to not take Senpai from her.

My last example of this would be a devious or ambitious persona.

As a devious or ambitious character, Ayano would have absolutely no problem ruining someone else's life for her own gain. She would do anything to have Senpai to herself- even at the cost of 'small accidents.'

This could also tie in with another lore aspect of the game.

For anyone who doesn't know this, Ayano's mother is also a yandere. The Aishi family, as far as we know, is full of them. Their condition is known to make them emotionless, but only until they find their 'true love.' At this point, they become like Ayano.

However, the point I wanted to touch on this were the tapes and her mother's secret. Her father didn't want Ayano to know.

The player could decide for themselves how Ayano reacts to the fact that her mother kidnapped her father and killed her rivals.

She could idolize this, find it to be absolutely horrid, be neutral towards it, or even possibly choose to break the ' family curse' by attempting to be different from her ancestors.

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🌸Possible love interest rivals🌸

I know that the male rival thing was an April Fools' joke, but it could possibly make the game more interesting.

If you based this on Ayano's personality, a specific character (the gender of the character doesn't matter) could join in as a new rival. Except this time, the rival is in love with Ayano.

They would follow her around, approach her at times that make it harder for her to carry out tasks, or just cause problems for her. It would be up to Ayano to decide how she would deal with this problem.

Ayano could potentially convince them that she isn't the right girl for them, attempt to help them find someone else, get 'rid' of them, or threaten and scare them off. In this way, this task would be somewhat more difficult to deal with than the rivals that go after Senpai.

Though this is not the point of the game, there could also be an option that involves Ayano actually deciding to give the character who has a crush on her a chance with her. In the process, she would slowly lose interest in Senpai.

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🌸Senpai🌸

Based on her personality and choices, Ayano could eventually build up courage to actually speak to Senpai. If she can manage to get them to fall in love with her through her actions and choices, she could confess to him at a later point, but if she does it early enough, she wouldn't have to deal with the last few rivals.

If she fails for whatever reason, Senpai will decline and let her know that they don't feel the same.

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🌸Senpai personality🌸

This is similar to the male rivals April Fools' joke. Consider this;

Like Ayano, the player would also be able to choose Senpai's personality, much like they can choose their appearance. They wouldn't get to play as senpai, nor would they get to influence their choices, to clarify.

Instead, they would choose from the personalities of the male rivals from the video, while getting to choose their appearance.

For example...

Default Senpai:

Just the in-game Senpai, basically.

-Since this Senpai has the hero trait, they will try to unmask you if they catch a masked person committing a murder. They will not run, so the player should be careful when committing a masked murder with them nearby.

Tsundere Senpai (based partly on Osano):

*Aloof towards the player, but only at first. They would have trust issues.

*Somewhat rough on the edges, but much softer on the inside.

*Tsundere Senpai would do anything for their Yandere, even at the cost of their own life.

-This Senpai would be in the Light Music Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will attempt to apprehend you. Since they are not strong enough to take on the player themselves, the player will be given the option to 'Snap' halfway through. This will kill Tsundere Senpai and end the game.

-Since this Senpai is a Tsundere, they would be slightly harder to befriend.

Sweet Senpai (based partly on Amao):

*Kind-hearted and loving. Very friendly and easy-going.

*Worries a tad too much about their Yandere's safety.

-After befriending Senpai, they would occasionally check on Ayano to make sure that she is okay. This makes it slightly harder to wipe out rivals.

-This Senpai would be in the Cooking Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will hide and call the police.

Drama Senpai (based partly on Kizano):

*Dramatic and very confident, but this is merely a guise that hides a soft, romantic personality. Basically, their personality pulls this type of 180;

"Darling! If you want to be a star, you have to EARN it! SHOW the crowd what you're made of!" to "Sweetheart, you did.. Wonderfully. No, no! I mean it.."

*Their attempts at romance when other people are around can be a little annoying, but this is due to their outright confidence and flirtatious nature.

-While this Senpai is similar to Sweet Senpai on the basis that they deeply care for the player, they are a little too busy to check on the player more than once or twice during the day. However, Drama Senpai will check the player at a random time during the day. This makes it harder to determine when he's going to show up out of nowhere, so the player should be more vigilant.

-This Senpai would be in the Drama Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will seem heartbroken or betrayed at the fact that the player would kill someone. They will immediately run and call the police.

Goth Senpai (party based on Oko):

*Soft-spoken and quiet. They would be somewhat awkward at first, but not entirely shy. This would make it harder to win a Goth Senpai's affections, since it would have to be taken slowly.

*Much like Oka, this person would avoid cameras by shielding their face.

*Once the player has gained Goth Senpai's affections, they will become much more romantic, but only when they are alone.

-This Senpai would be in the Occult Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will pull a complete 180.. Due to their belief in the occult, they will attempt to exercise the 'demon' from the player to bring back the person that they believe to be there. Once they realize that this is in vain, they will broken-heartedly call the police.

Athletic Senpai (partly based on Aso):

*Energetic and kind-hearted. They believe that with the right attitude, anything can be accomplished. (Puppy energyyyy)

*They would do anything for their Yandere, even if it puts themselves at risk.

*They would be a little behind in terms of academic studies, so the player would be able to offer to help with this in order to win their affections. However, this would require the appropriate amount of study pointy to do the task.

-This Senpai would be in the Sports Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will immediately go after the player and apprehend them. Then, they will have a friend alert the police.

Ditzy Senpai (partly based on Myjo):

*They are a bit of an airhead and are somewhat clumsy, but regardless, they are very sweet.

*This Senpai would be a bit of a coward, but as part of their duty to save lives, they would gladly take someone else on in a fight to stop someone else from getting hurt.

-This Senpai would be in the Nurse's Office and around any student who has been injured, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will immediately go after the player and apprehend them. Then, they will have a teacher alert the police.

Seductive Senpai (partly based on Mido):

*This Senpai would be very, very flirtatious and romantic, but wouldn't be afraid to get close to the player in order to do so.

*This Senpai is an absolute heartthrob; While they could capture the heart of any student that they desire, they choose not to. They're looking for 'the right one.'

-Due to this Senpai's seductive nature, the player may be unable to talk to them because of them being extremely flustered at certain times.

-This Senpai would be in the Art Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will immediately run and alert a teacher.

Delinquent Senpai (partly based on Osoro):

*This Senpai is nothing like Tsundere Senpai. They are soft and somewhat sweet on the inside, yes, but it is a lot harder to get to that layer and earn their trust.

*Again, it would be harder to earn Delinquent Senpai's trust. This is because Delinquent Senpai would have a nihilistic view of the world and would have a harder time trusting anyone. However, this Senpai would also be very protective of the player because of that.

-This Senpai would be in the Delinquent Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will not alert the authorities, but will flee the scene to avoid getting arrested. However; they will no longer have any interest in the player, which will result in a game over.

Subby Senpai (partly based on Hanako):

*This Senpai is similar to a basic Femboy. Very soft and shy.

*Since this Senpai is naive and trusting, it would be easier to earn their trust.. However, as their older brother is a Delinquent, they would be scolded for trusting 'some creep' so easily, which would make it harder for the player to interact with Subby Senpai.

-This Senpai would be in the Martial Arts Club (which their older brother put them in to protect them), which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will be afraid at first, but will apprehend the player and alert the authorities.

-Since Subby Senpai would be somewhat clingy, the player would have to be weary about them showing up at random times to hang out or check on them.

Serious Senpai (partly based on Megamo):

*This Senpai is, as the name suggests, a very serious person. They do not trust easily, but like Athletic Senpai, they believe that *most* people have the potential in them to do great things.

*Since they were sheltered as a child, they would have a hard time opening up to the player and letting them gain their trust. However, once they do, they will give the player their all and will be somewhat protective of them and their future.

-This Senpai would be in the Student Council, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will immediately chase after the player and apprehend them. They will also get a cutscene of this Senpai saying "I trusted you, Ayano.. I CARED about you, and you do this? Ayano, I.. I loved you.. But this, I.. I can't forgive you for." After this, Serious Senpai would alert the police.

Science Senpai:

*This Senpai is a very awkward, but sweet person. While they don't have any sort of trust issues, their awkwardness just makes them harder to talk to.

*This Senpai was bullied at some point in their lives. This made them somewhat sensitive about certain things, including their appearance.

-This Senpai would be in the Science Club, which makes it harder to kill your rivals in those spots once they are around. If this Senpai witnesses a murder, they will immediately alert a teacher.

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🌸Lore; Megami🌸

If the player chooses to kill Megami to take her out as a rival, one of the following things will happen:

The player kills Megami without leaving any evidence, but the body is found before she can get rid of it. As soon as her father is given the news, he decides to shut down the school permanently, since he's finally had enough of the problems that he's had with the school..

This is an immediate game over.

The player kills Megami, but frames someone else.. While Mr. Saikou doesn't shut down the school, he decides to stop overseeing it and allow his wife to take over...

With this set in motion, things become more serious. No weapons are allowed on campus, and there is to be nothing dangerous. The protocols are much stricter. This includes the installation of cameras and metal detectors.

For this reason, Ayano will have to find different ways to deal with her remaining rivals..

The player kills Megami, but it appears that she simply vanished...

Megami's friends will immediately be taken out of Akademi by their parents, since they fear that something may happen to them. For a week, Megami's father will have the school searched by detectives employed by Saiko Corp. Ayano will have to avoid these detectives while managing to take out the rival for that week. Once the week is over, Megami's father will begin searching in different ways for Megami.

#yanderesim #yandere sim #yansim #yan sim #yanderesimulator #yandere simulator #lovesick

[willowstream-hp]

An Analysis on the Character of Mumbo in Featherweight

By WillowstreamHP

I would like to start off this analysis with explaining what Featherweight is, and why I feel compelled to write this in the first place. Featherweight is a story by DoctorSiren telling the story of how Grian gets wings, and has to learn to cope with them. Now that is a VERY bad and brief summary, but it is COMPLETELY spoiler free. If you have not read this fanfic I highly recommend you go check it out, as it is the No.2 highest rated fic on Ao3. With that being said, have you not read it, this analysis will be LADEN with spoilers, going all the way to the most recently posted chapter. This is your last warning before I start getting into the intricate details of this piece of writing.

With that out of the way, I’d like to specify my motivations very briefly. Mumbo in Featherweight has always been given a bad lighting for how he reacts to situations, and his obsession with robots. This, in turn, has led people to believe that he is a bit insane. While I am inclined to agree, the purpose of this analytical piece will be to explain how this change in his behavior makes sense in the context of the story. In addition to that, I will also be explaining why he has the flaws he has, and how they make him a much more realistic character. The biggest reason as to why I am writing this is because so many people are bashing him in the comments for being unreasonable and downright stupid in the later chapters. Again, I am not refuting this point, merely explaining how it makes sense, and how it is a crucial part to his character. Essentially, stop bashing someone for having human emotions.

I’m being kind, so here’s one last warning before the big spoilers start.

Part One: The Setup

The setup to Mumbo’s character arc is done quite nicely. It’s established that Grian and Mumbo are very close, and from the beginning when Grian is hiding the wings from him Mumbo is nothing but respectful. The two share a deep bond, and it is important to both of them equally. When Grian finally decides to trust Mumbo with the information on his transformation, despite Mumbo having already known prior to this moment, he doesn’t really mention he already knew. He could tell Grian was uncomfortable with sharing, and so he didn’t bother to really press him for an answer. This is a sign of a deep, trusting bond. Mumbo understood that it was Grian’s situation, and that he needed space. He was also able to understand that Grian trusted him enough to share any important or possibly life-threatening problems with him. Yes, I know, he’s turning into a bird, that’s kind of serious. But he wasn’t going to be turning fully into a bird anytime in the next two days, and he was clearly stressed about the situation as it was. That’s a whole other analysis to write (probably not this one is already hard enough).

Part Two: The Shift

This is when things started to get dicey. Mumbo had made a few robot kids, okay. Nice. He’s allowed to do that. He wanted to have a familial bond with someone in a way that wasn’t just being friendly. It’s understandable to want to be a parent, and have a child that looks up to you and loves you just as much as you love them. Mumbo built the robots out of excitement, but also out of loneliness. Grian had been hiding from Mumbo on and off due to his own anxieties. While we tend to see a lot of this from Grian’s perspective in the early chapters, and keep out of Mumbo’s real deep inner thoughts.. we aren’t really kept from that much. When he’s building the robots, he isn’t stressing BECAUSE he’s building the robots. Building the robots was his way of shutting everything out and focusing on one task to try and ignore the situation. This is CLEAR EVIDENCE that something was wrong from the start. Go back and read it if you have to, he tends to be very clearly focused on the robots even if something bad is going on. It was his own, though flawed, coping mechanism to help him not to think about what was happening.

Part Three: Poultry Man

This was,, this was when it all went downhill. Grian and Mumbo had finally decided to trust each other, they were being a lot friendlier. So Mumbo, trying to be a good friend, decided to help him gain more confidence. He’d still been ignoring a lot of his own thoughts and problems with the whole situation, which is something that is very important to his character. Keep in mind, he wasn’t really all that expressive to Grian about his thoughts, other than he was worried about him. He never went into detail on why he was building the robots, or why he was worried about Grian. The last one might be obvious, you’d say, but is it really? He’s worried about Grian for Grian, but he’s also worried about Grian for a lot of other reasons. He’s worried for himself, he’s worried about what will happen to HIM if something happens to Grian. And so what does he do? He builds new friends, new kids to hang out with. He builds backups, in case something happens to Grian, so that he can have someone to rely on. Mumbo gets depicted as shyer as the story progresses, and this lines up with how his friendship with Grian slowly deteriorates till the fight. This leads to the important fact that his friendship with Grian is probably one of the only solid foundations he has on Hermitcraft. Sure, he knows the other hermits, but he’s definitely closest to Grian by a lot, with Iskall second. So when Grian started to ignore Mumbo.. you guessed it. More robots. The robots, which had originally been a way to keep thoughts out of his head, were now a way to keep himself sane. Which ended up backfiring. Another key factor is that he became hyperfixed on making the robots as real as possible. An easy explanation to that would be that, for example, Grumbot wanted to be more human so that he could receive better hugs. But I believe that Mumbo was doing it to convince himself that they WERE real. He had just been betrayed by his best friend, so he turned to the next closest thing: something he could PROGRAM to be loyal. Sure he gave them free will and emotions, but they were built to keep him company and support him. He made them for the sole purpose of not being alone.

Part Four: The Theme and Character Breakdown

The previous sections were a lot shorter than I expected them to be, but I’m preparing for this section to be pretty long. The point I’m trying to make is this: Mumbo is absolutely justified in having his coping mechanisms the way they are. I’ve seen a lot of people in the comments bashing Mumbo for building the robots, and calling him an insane idiot. But you have to consider what he’s gone through. He’d been overworking himself, he wasn’t sleeping, he has anxiety, his best friend betrayed him, and then later on his best friend had an outright fight with him and practically ended their friendship. Most people would probably cry for 2 weeks on end if this happened to them, but that would be because that’s their established coping mechanism. Mumbo had established another coping mechanism, and that was pushing the thoughts out of his mind through hard labor and thought. Building robots takes a lot of attention to detail and focus, which would make it extremely easy to push other thoughts out. The first robots he built, Jrum and Grum, were partly for the purpose of the mayoral campaign, but part of it was that Mumbo needed another way to anchor himself to Hermitcraft. Throughout the story he has rarely been depicted outside of his base, or with another hermit save for Grian. This indicates that he probably kept to himself a lot, and Grian was sort of a bridge between him and the hermits. His nature being shy aids to this point as well. Therefore, when he thought that this bridge might be crumbling, he decided to set up some new ones. Of course, in typical fanfiction fashion, they ended up having a huge fight and hurting each other through their words. Mumbo had already built quite a few robots at this point, you might say. Yes, he had, and guess what. They were mostly due to him trying to keep anxious thoughts out, and needing someone to stick with him when he was lonely. When did he start building his family? After Grian, who he probably considered like a brother, ditched him. There is a direct correlation between the events in the story and who he decided to build. It started off simple, with a simple, fun task. Grum was built for the mayoral race, and Jrum to go with him. The others, however, each come afterwards for different reasons. Amelia and Circuit were meant to help him and look out for him, and he built these when Grian was hiding from him. He built Sahara after they had gotten on better terms, a sign of hope that their relationship might not be ruined. Finally, he began building his family when Grian fought with him and flew off. Each robot lines up with a specific point in the timeline where something happened between him and Grian. Hence, each robot is actually a symbol of whatever trauma or emotion he was experiencing. For Grumbot and Jrum it was joy and happiness, for Amelia and Circuit it was worry, for Sahara it was hope, and for his family it was his loneliness and need for love.

Part 5: The Conclusion

Now as I stated earlier, I have seen quite a few people bashing Mumbo for how he acts in the story. The purpose of this entire writing was to explain how his character has been evolving throughout the story, and how the events around him have directly influenced him and his actions. The points that people have been calling him out for in this story are all points that have been CAUSED. Sure they’re flaws, and probably not a good way to cope with the situations, but they’re legitimate reactions. If you were to face a fight with your best friend, you’d find yourself in a bad place mentally and emotionally. Let me state it again: every action that Mumbo has done, every emotion he has felt, and every way he has dealt with it was perfectly rational based on his state of mind. He was not in a good place mentally, emotionally, and even physically. Being sleep deprived, lonely and anxious tends to lead people to make bad decisions. The people who are bashing Mumbo for what he does are blatantly ignoring the causes of those actions, and how all the reactions to the situations are completely believable.

I would like to wrap this up by pointing out that most of this is up for speculation. The points about his mental health and anxiety in the AU are pretty easy to read for yourself, but the more thematic elements are totally up to you to believe. I personally have done the best I can to take apart his character and demonstrate just how humanely written he truly is. You have every right to believe that Mumbo is an idiot for doing what he does, as that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I just encourage you to consider what I have here and gain another perspective on this. I would be happy to receive criticism or additions to my analysis and even the few theories I snuck in there. And to restate, I do not own this AU, the concept of this AU, and especially not the concept of Hermitcraft. I’m just a fan who thought that some people needed a bit of an explanation on Mumbo’s character. I hope that all of you enjoy reading this, as it did take me a bit to finish up.

#mumbo #featherweight #hermitcraft fanfic #analysis #i just thought some people needed to read this #siren approved lol

[marymccartneyphotos]

Mary McCartney Gets By with a Little Help From Her Dad

The Globe and Mail-- May, 3 2013

Mary McCartney’s life in photographs started when she was just an infant. That baby on the cover of Paul McCartney’s first eponymous solo record, released in 1970, is her, peeking out at the camera from inside the sheepskin coat of her famous father and Beatles co-founder. The photographer was her mother, Linda Eastman McCartney, who early on nurtured Mary, the first-born child of her union with the former Beatle, to share her love and passion for photography. Today an established artist in her own right, Mary McCartney has shot intimate portraits of some of the celebrities who have long orbited around the family of a Beatle: Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band artist Peter Blake, Marianne Faithfull and Vanessa Redrave to name a few. These portraits and others of contemporary celebrities such as Madonna, Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow comprise the bulk of her 2010 book, Mary McCartney: From Where I Stand, now the focus of an exhibition opening at Izzy Gallery in Toronto next week. The range of black-and-white and colour images include behind-the-scenes portraits of dancers from the Royal Ballet and of her fashion designer sister Stella McCartney’s fashion shows. Mary McCartney discloses the point of view of an insider, allowing her viewers open access to the rarefied world of fame. But as she tells The Globe and Mail in a conversation touching on growing up on the road touring with her parents’ rock band Wings and her life as a mother of four sons, making that access look easy is all part of the art.

Let’s start by talking about creativity. Tell us about your process.

I think my process is thinking about the end images so I start with an atmosphere of a photograph that I want to get, then work back from there to attain that. I have an image in mind. For instance, when I did the ballet project, Off Pointe, with the Royal Ballet, an image came into my mind of a ballet dancer tending to her feet in her bathroom at the end of a really long evening of performance. And from there I worked back, and contacted the Royal Ballet and met the dancers. But it all came from an initial mental image.

You and I share a fascination with the backstage world of the ballet dancer. Why have you chosen to portray ballet dancers far from the footlights?

That’s a good question. I chose the ballet because I think it’s a private, very personal, almost all-consuming world. It’s quite intense. I’m not so physical. I’m more visual, and I would never be able to have the endurance and lifestyle that a ballet dancer has, so I think it’s so far from the stamina that I think I have myself. So, I find it fascinating that they can perform the way they can do, first of all. Then I met a ballet dancer years ago once. We were at a party in Soho and we were drinking together, and she was smoking, and a friend of mine was like, ‘You don’t smoke; you’re a ballet dancer,’ and from that, it kind of intrigued me more, and then meeting the dancers. They socialize together; they have relationships together and there’s like a whole other world of intensity and from that I was really quite intrigued about what goes on behind the scenes. And so I met some of the dancers, and they kind of let me into that world. So I think partly because I found it so intriguing because it was a whole lifestyle I didn’t know about, and secondly, it was to do with sort of gaining that trust, to be allowed into that world to shadow the dancers, and from there I really wanted to do it away from the stage and the rehearsal rooms as much as possible, mainly because that part has been already been captured really well, and I was more interested in their lives and relationships and what goes on away from the rehearsal room.

You have one of the dancers poised over a pool table.

Yes. That was fun. That was when they had done a performance and we all went out to dinner and a party and from there we went back to someone’s apartment and they ended up playing pool. But I just love the fact that you can tell she’s a ballet dancer by the way she’s draping herself across the table. It’s very much about their lifestyle. There’s another one where I stayed over with them at one of their homes, and in the morning one of the ballet dancers, her name is Sian [Murphy], wanted to make a cup of tea, and she’s standing with her feet in a ballet dancer’s position, but, you know, she’s just got her underwear on, and a towel wrapped around her head because she’s just washed her hair, and you can just tell she’s a ballet dancer even when she’s making a cup of tea.

I understand you are continuing to work with dancers for a new project. Can you tell us about that?

I’ve been working on my new book project, called Devoted, and it is carrying on from the dancers in that they have such devotion to their lifestyle and the commitment, the time commitment, everything that they put into their career. It kind of takes over their lives. And then you have the sacrifice, a certain amount, to live that life because it is a real passion. So I’m continuing with the dancers, and I am taking other subjects. I photographed a geisha, which also has that ritual and that dedication to learning the process. I am doing various other subjects based around that devotion and that commitment.

This behind-the-scenes point of view permeates all your work, even of celebrities. Why do prefer this approach?

I am quite intrigued by what goes on before the performance. I’ve always been curious. Like, if I watch a play or a dance recital or anything really, even if it’s a kids’ puppet show, I get really distracted thinking: Who is this person performing on the stage? How did they get there? What was their life like? How did they end up performing in this way? Even to the point of, What’s their dressing room like? And what’s their ritual before they come up on the stage? What do they eat? What time do they sleep until they don’t feel too tired? So you know, I get really distracted asking myself lots of questions. I really am quite fascinated by these people and their lives, these people’s personal stories, and I suppose it’s that privacy and that intimacy before the public display. So trying to get myself into these situations where I can kind of observe them in their more personal moments has always intrigued me.

But even when you are photographing people on the stage, like Bjork for instance, the approach appears shy and private. Why?

Hmmm. I think it sort of interests me more. It’s sort of looking at something from a different angle that isn’t the one that everyone sees. It’s the kind of thing, when I look at a photograph like that it makes me ask questions or want to know more about the story. Whereas if it’s more of a typical shot taken for the more normal kind of view point then maybe I’ll look over it a bit more quickly whereas I want to get something more arresting, to make people stop and make them look at it and wonder what the story is behind it, to make up their own story around it. I like images that make you question, make you wonder a little bit.

You got your first big start photographing the Blairs while Tony Blair was still in office as the British prime minister. Can you tell us about that experience?

Um, it was quite an interesting one. I started working as a photographer working in my mother’s photography archives, and helping her edit images, and through that Cherie Blair, we had donated one of mom’s photographs for a charity project they [the Blairs] were doing, and so we met though that, and then I just got a phone call one day from Fiona Miller, her adviser, saying can we meet somewhere to discus something privately, which was very intriguing. So, when we met she said, ‘Well you know, Cherie and Tony Blair would like you to take the first pictures of their baby because they are aware there will be a lot of public interest and they would like to have someone that they trust come and take the pictures in a relaxed environment and then release the pictures that way rather than have paparazzi stalking them that sort of thing.’ So they invited me in and it was very intriguing because it worked very much in my style in that I love to gain that trust of my subjects and go into quite personal situations and get portraits and photographs that way. [Those photographs] have an intensity about them. He was only about 36 hours old when I took those pictures, so there’s a tension in the air of a newborn, and just being in Downing Street, with all the press outside. It kind of had an excitement to it.

How else has your late mother, Linda McCartney, influenced you as a photographer?

I think that in her photographic style she would take pictures that looked really easy to take and really simple. She didn’t do a lot of big lights and fancy stuff around it. But she would get very intimate, relaxed photographs. She could get her subjects to really, really relax in front of her, and she used a lot of available light situations. So in a way the pictures look quite casual but they are capturing very important moments, so I think that has really influenced me, because that is something that I like to do.

We can’t leave Paul McCartney out of the equation. How has he influenced you as an artist?

He has influenced me in that he, as a child I remember he and my mom would sit together and he would edit my mom if mom was doing a book, and they would sit around with prints and he would help edit pictures of her and so he has a really good eye, and a really good opinion on things. So when I’ve done exhibitions and books, I get my edit together but then I meet up with him, you know for breakfast, and go through working prints and ask him his opinion. I think he’s got a good eye, and he’s always been interested in photography. And he’s had a lot of amazing photographers over the years take his picture, so I think he has a really good opinion. I ask his judgment still on his favourite shots, if I’ve got a shoot going on.

You grew up on the road while your parents had the rock band, Wings. Have you ever thought to rebel against all that anti-conformity that has surrounded you all your life as the daughter of a major rock star and icon?

No, I’ve never felt the need to rebel. I think that, there was a lot of time on the road growing up, and a lot of travelling, but I had my siblings with me so it felt quite normal. There was a lot of activity around, and mom and dad would, if we were somewhere for a while, rent a house rather than putting us in a hotel so it would have a kitchen and cooking and home living around it, still. Other than that, they were quite interesting, rounding experiences and also by the time I got to 8, 9, 10, they settled down, and stopped touring for a while. So it sort of was more those younger years where you’re still quite flexible. So when I got a bit older we did settle and I was at a school kind of normally and not moving around all the time. But I think, no, I haven’t rebelled against it. It’s made me enjoy travelling and seeing new things and I think maybe I’m quite adaptable to different situations because of it.

You dedicate your 2010 book to your family. How has your sister, Stella McCartney, influenced you?

She and I have worked on a few projects together. I worked on a campaign for her photography. But you know we are close and we hang out quite a lot so we bounce ideas off each other.

How about brother James?

He’s been quite a good subject. I’ve taken a lot of photographs of him over the years. I like taking pictures. I do commercial projects and I do more personal things during holiday times and so he’s quite fun, and quite quirky and I’ve done a nice range of pictures of him. He’s a great subject. He’s got a great sense of humour, and in the past he’s sort of performed well for me before the camera, so I’ve got a lot of nice photographs of him over the years but quite quirky, which I like, they make me smile.

Digital or darkroom?

A combination of the two. I do a lot of digital commercial work but my books and exhibitions and limited editions are generally on film. It depends. Depending on what the shoot is I kind of build the kit around that, so if I’m shooting and it’s just me and the camera on my own exploring then I generally use film, and if it’s more a shoot where I need a team, then I will shoot with digital because you can e-mail the edits and it’s much more practical, but my heart is still with film. That’s how I learned. A lot of the photographs that have inspired me are beautiful black and white, grainy prints, so I like that texture.

Do you like developing the pictures, then?

It’s more the film quality and the look of it and the actual shooting with film that I like. I’m not so into printing and that side of it. But with film comes uncertainty. Yes and you wait for the contact sheets and see what you’ve got. I like that. It’s a bit more magical to me. But you know digital, when you’ve got it set up properly, it’s pretty hard to tell the difference.

Your coming visit to Toronto: Is it your first time here?

I think it will be my first proper visit to Toronto. I’ve been before when dad played there. But I just came in for the evening and went to the show and then left so it’s my first time, yeah, it’s my second time.

What’s been your experience working with the Izzy Gallery?

They’ve been very encouraging. They’ve got a good eye and they’ve worked with my images, suggesting images that they like, so we’ve kind of worked together on the edit for this exhibition, and, um, they’ve been pretty easy and nice to work with.

How do you choose the galleries you work with?

I often work in the sense that I have a request. I was approached by the Izzy Gallery and then from there I do a bit of research on the gallery and then it works that way. They approached me and I knew some of the photographers who had worked with them before [Albert Watson and Ellen von Unwerth] and so I made the decision from there. I generally work with more specialist photographic galleries that specialize in limited editions. This interview has been edited and condensed.

#Mary McCartney #Linda McCartney #Paul McCartney #Stella McCartney #James McCartney #interview #photography #family #cherie blair #leo blair #tony blair #royal ballet #sian murphy

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE: Alright, so based on quite a few reviews we have read, Fruipit and I would like to clear up a few things real quick! No one is "in trouble" and we aren't upset or anything like that; it just seems like it might be wise to cover this in one go rather than reply individually to loads of people.

Time travel works in a very specific way in Back To The Future, and that's how it works in this fic. If you change the past, it "ripples" into the future over time; eventually, it will be too late to change it back or course-recorrect. That's why Anna is still alive despite having damaged her own past. However, the future wasn't "always like that" for the person time-travelling. Anna's future is going to be different when she gets there: HOW it's going to be different won't be revealed until she gets the DeLorean nyooming into 2015, but it will not be how she remembers it. To everyone else, they will notice nothing because they have not seen the previous timeline with their own eyes before time-travelling.

To that end… no, Elsa was not an alcoholic because of what Anna did in 1985. In that original timeline, Anna had never changed the past, so she had nothing to do with it. This is precisely like Lorraine being an alcoholic purely because she started drinking as a teen in the original movie.

Yes, we know you all have a lot of little things you want to point out about how the original movies worked. They were beloved movies for a reason! But we have actually seen them ourselves and understand more than you might presume. Chances are, if you've thought of some tiny discrepancy to comment on, we have already thought of said discrepancy and either disagree on whether or not it's an issue, or have disregarded it for the sake of our fic (or you might be incorrect). While it might be interesting for you to notice these details, that kind of falls under the category of "nitpicking". And just… it's a fun little story, so lay off, will you?

That's it! Thanks for taking the time to read if you did, and I hope you enjoy the chap!

As Anna wandered around Dell Valley, doing as Doc said and trying not to look too conspicuous or influence anything else, she thought about her situation. And there was so much to think about.

Elsa was her MOM. How could she be attracted to her?! Sure, she was doing nothing on purpose to make her interested but it was still happening. The whole idea made her feel gross.

On the other hand, it also didn't. Sure, the weird flirty component was confusing, but seeing her mother so happy and hopeful, saying sweet things, looking shy… it fulfilled a need in her of which she had only been partly aware. Of course she knew she wanted more love from her mother! But she hadn't realised just how badly she wanted to see her happy until she did, and it was so striking compared with how she normally saw her – miserable, alone, unfulfilled, depressed. Empty. This Elsa was so full of life and love and hope for the future, and at some point, she had lost that.

And it might have been her father's fault. Not on purpose, he clearly also had dreams; he liked to write. Was it really only that they were so mismatched for each other that killed their happiness? It broke her heart.

At last, the time came for school to let out. Deciding to keep up her pretense that she was a student, she made her way back to the campus and hung around by Elsa's locker.

"Hey!" she almost shouted when she saw Anna leaning against it, hands in her pockets and thoughts swirling around in her skull. "How's it hanging?"

"Not bad, just, uh, chillaxing." Elsa cocked her head. "Chilling and relaxing," she added as explanation.

At that, Elsa grinned and snorted. "People talk funny where you're from. What was it that you called Hans earlier? A duck?"

"Douche," Anna corrected. And then winced because this wasn't the point. "Nevermind him! You ready to hit the road?"

"Sure, sure, just lemme put my crud away. We're gonna meet up at the mall about 4-ish?"

Anna found herself nodding. "Cool, cool, cool," she said, She wasn't looking at Elsa, which was possibly why the other girl ultimately leaned forward, grasping her hand. Most of the students had already left, getting out of school as fast as they possibly could.

"Hey, everything okay?" When Anna didn't answer immediately, she took another step closer. "Tori, you know you can talk to me about anything, right? I won't judge you, I swear."

There was nothing Anna wanted more than to open her mouth and spill everything. How was the 17-year-old version of her mother so much better than the adult version? It wasn't fair! But she couldn't. As much as she had already changed in the past, if Elsa knew she would stop being her friend, and being friends seemed key to getting her family back together.

So instead she just wound up saying, "Can- can I have a hug?"

"Ooh, look who's making all the right moves now, Tom Cruise." But when Anna didn't respond to the light teasing, Elsa's smile slipped a notch. "Um… you're serious? You want me to hug you?"

"Yeah. Just…" What could she say that would make sense to Elsa? "Just feeling kinda homesick, I guess. Sorry, it's dumb."

"Ohhh. Awww, come here. It's okay."

Elsa's arms were warm and firm, having readily accepted her new friend's reasoning for needing a quick fix of creature comfort. Anna leaned into the sensation, knowing this was weird, and wrong somehow, but also that it was the most natural thing in the world. Why shouldn't she stop and take a moment to just hug her own mother?

Because it didn't feel like hugging her mother. This Elsa was hugging her like Anna would hug Merida, or Jane. Or… Punz. Especially the latter, with the slightly shaky sound of her exhalation. They were both a little nervous, since they had barely done this once when sitting next to each other in the diner. And against her will…

"You smell nice," she found herself breathing. Stupid. It was a STUPID thing to say! Wasn't she trying to convince her mom not to flirt with her?!

"Oh, you like it?" Elsa chuckled, self-conscious again. "Um… it's just Love's Baby Soft. I really want to try 'Obsession', that Calvin Klein fragrance? But my mom saw the X-rated ads, so… yeah, I'm gonna have to buy that on my own."

But Anna hadn't been talking about the perfume. Of course she could smell it, but it was one of the more subtle scents and had mostly worn off by this point in the day. It was only now that her head was buried in Elsa's neck that she could detect it at all.

No, what Anna had been complimenting was the smell of Elsa. Between now and the 2000s, it hadn't changed much – the only difference was that it was, more often than not, covered by the smell of rum or vodka. This scent, the smell of a person, was familiar, from way back when she was a tiny child. Before her mother started drinking and her family stopped caring about each other.

But there was another layer to it, too – one Anna was not very familiar with. The skin between Elsa's neck and shoulder felt warm against her face, and Anna let herself relax further. Her arms slipped from below Elsa's armpits to somewhere closer to her waist, squeezing softly. Her eyelids mimicked the action.

Her mother felt so good in her arms. The very thought made her want to cry.

"…Tori?"

Finally, Elsa's tentative voice broke through. Anna had no idea how long they'd been standing there, and she didn't care, either. She threw herself backwards, rubbing at her eyes. This was too much.

"Hey, sorry," she said, obstinately not looking at Elsa. Her eyes burned, and she was blinking too much to be natural. "How- how about I meet you at the mall? Got- gotta make sure Kristoff knows when and where."

"Oh… Kristoff?" But Elsa didn't seem to be thinking much about that at the moment; she was watching Anna's face intently, clearly worried. Anna couldn't hold her gaze, and her eyes fell to the floor. "Hey… like, sorry if this is way out of line, but am I doing something wrong? You keep wigging out on me."

Anna dragged her eyes back up, widening them minutely. "No! N-not at all. Like I said, I'm just going through withdrawals. You're… fine."

"Fine as in 'fine bod', or just fine?" Elsa pressed. When Anna only raised both eyebrows, she laughed; it was a laugh meant to protect both of them, to shrug off the deeper questions and try to push through. "Sorry, I know, I need a chill pill. See you at the mall?"

Only able to nod, Anna swallowed hard and tried to turn toward the exit. When she realised Elsa was following her, she nearly stumbled.

"I'm also leaving school, you know," she giggled.

"Oh, right." Slapping her head, she grumbled, "Brain fart."

"What?" Her laughter only got louder. "Did you just say that… your BRAIN had a FART?!"

"Y-yeah! I meant, um… 'no duh'?!" But it was too late: her mother was already losing it, cackling so hard that she was actually snorting with laughter. She had never heard her find anything that funny! And it was the phrase "brain fart", of all things!

So Anna started laughing with her, and they were both clutching their sides by the time they jogged down the front steps of the high school. Only then did she see Doc's car idling at the curb.

"That's me. I, um, I gotta go."

She had just turned to leave when she felt something stopping her. Looking back at Elsa, at the hand that had reached out to hold hers, she found herself completely mute. And then Elsa's arms wrapped around her once more, with such strength that Anna stumbled back a few steps.

"Els…" she murmured, hands coming to rest on slim, denim-covered hips. She heard her mother swallow hard, the little gasp afterward. But she didn't linger – it wasn't like before. Within a few seconds she'd released Anna, a small smile on her face.

"For the ride home. So you don't feel as homesick."

And then she was skipping away, turning back only once to offer a wave and a smile. Anna lifted a hand to say goodbye, but she couldn't quite force that word out. A different one spilled from her lips instead.

"Fuck."

So of course, the moment she slid into the seat next to Doc, he was staring at her with wide eyes.

"Dare I ask how things went?"

"You dare," she sighed while flopping back, hitting the headrest and closing her eyes. "They went bad. You were right, and I was right, and we were right. She's too into me to care about my dad."

"This is, indeed, heavy." Putting the car into gear, he started to pull away from the school and off toward home. "Well, I presume that you have begun to construct a further plan of attack?"

"We're meeting up at the mall later. I, um… I invited Kristoff along, and made it clear he's coming. Maybe if I nudge them enough, I can get them to stop thinking each other is a space alien."

Nodding as he focused his eyes on the road, Doc redoubled his grip on the wheel. Thinking. Then he said, "I know this isn't easy for you, Future Girl. Can't even begin to imagine what you must be feeling. Though can I say, as a casual observer, that you could probably be putting a little more effort into discouraging her advances?"

"The hug? I…" Swallowing hard, she whispered, "It's my mom, Doc. How am I supposed to tell her not to hug me when…"

The rest of the thought wouldn't come out. How could she tell Elsa not to hug her when the feeling was so foreign to begin with? When she never wanted, never tried, to listen to her youngest daughter, or comfort her? On some level, it was probably a little sick that she could – and willingly chose to – accept this form of affection in place of another, but she couldn't help it. The craving was so desperate that any and all ways it could be sated were welcomed by her heart.

"Alright, alright. My words aren't intended to pass any judgment. Just keep that in mind; if you want your father to seem more appealing to her, then you yourself must seem less appealing. That part is simple mathematics."

He was right, of course. She privately thought that Kristoff McFly was about the lamest candidate for a husband, period, let alone for the incredible creature that was Elsa Baines… but if she didn't want to destroy the universe, or at least herself, she had to send them down the aisle to the altar.

"Guess I got my work cut out for me, huh?"

Doc didn't bother to grace that question with an answer. After having seen Kristoff, he was probably thinking something along those very same lines.

                                           ~ o ~

But his words did give her an idea. Obviously Elsa was pretty much infatuated with Anna, completely insane as that was, so there had to be something to make her seem less… awesome. Less captivating compared to Kristoff. She briefly went through a list in her head as Doc drove them back to his place. She didn't want to do anything drastic to change her personality – and really, Elsa would probably see right through that. But Doc was right. She had to put her foot down. No more moments of weakness.

They weren't meeting up until after four, which gave Anna some extra time to prepare. She had to start with improving Kristoff's look – probably beginning with his oily hair. No matter the decade, it didn't look good. The only consolation was that at least he didn't have a mullet.

Making sure to don her era-appropriate clothing, Anna got Doc to drop her off. Seeing as her license wouldn't be valid for another thirty years, she didn't want to risk it.

Kristoff must have come straight from school because he hadn't even bothered to change. Good grief. Glancing at her wallet, she had a sneaky fifty hidden there that Doc had given her for emergencies. Well, this was life and death – hers, if she couldn't get her parents swapping DNA. Without even greeting him, she leaned up and flicked him in the forehead.

"Do you really think Elsa's gonna be impressed when you're still wearing your shirt from lunch?"

He looked down at his chest. "There's only one stain on it!" he protested – and at least he said it with some conviction.

"Beside. The point. Kris." She pointed in the direction of the JCPenney's – still exactly where she remembered it from 2015. "I have fifty bucks to waste on you. Don't make me regret it."

Luckily, JCPenney seemed to be where Elsa and her friends were not, so they could do this part without them hanging around and chiding his choices too much. Anna took a good, long look around the clothing department, getting a feel for what was in fashion… even though some of it made her want to laugh. She had to adapt to the environment.

"Start with this," she said, pushing a T-shirt at him.

"With wh-" When he got a good look at the front of it, he gasped and whispered, "I can't wear that! It has profanity on it!"

Glancing down at the white words on the black fabric that asked, 'What Are You Looking At Dicknose', she shrugged. "I mean, you do want Elsa to notice you, right? She doesn't like guys who act like they own her, but she doesn't want some wimp with a stained shirt, either. This is, like…" What was the word that would mean it was an acceptable middle-road? She went for it: "Rad."

"Rad, huh?" Taking up the shirt, he shrugged. "Alright. Um… I'll try it on, but no promises about buying it."

"Good. That's all I ask."

When he exited the dressing room, still wearing the same jeans and shoes, Anna couldn't believe it. Maybe it was no Cinderella transformation, but he looked leagues better with such a small change.

"We're taking it. Plus, um… this one." Her hand snatched up a Purple Rain t-shirt; she knew Prince was huge back then, he couldn't go wrong there. "And…" Another light pink one with a cartoonish outline of a person on it, lines of interest radiating outward from the little dude.

"All these? Why? I have my own clothes."

"Your own clothes suck. Trust me on this, broseph."

"That's not my name."

Right – the slang thing. She needed some kind of dictionary. For the time being, she just shook her head and steered him toward the front. Anna was pleasantly surprised that the total came to just over twenty-five dollars. Kristoff looked aghast.

"I can't afford that!" he hissed. Anna just scrunched her nose up.

"Dude, I said I got this," she replied. Even better, she had enough money left over for food. "But this is the only time. You don't want your first impression – well, second first impression – to tell her you're some pig who can't even keep himself tidy. What woman is going to respect you if you can't even respect normal rituals of hygiene?"

The words seemed to be enough, and he shut his mouth. So they went to the checkout, Kristoff still slouching. Anna hoped it was because he was embarrassed about the stain on his shirt. They'd almost made it through when something else caught her eye. It was a CD, advertised as being on sale for $15. The name, a day of the week, was somehow familiar…

Suddenly, it connected in her brain. "This, too," she said. grabbing one and giving it to the cashier. They finally looked a little more interested, and gave a grin.

"Gnarly, man," he chuckled. "'Til Tuesday is really pumping out the hits lately!"

Anna smiled at him. "Oh yeah. Real uh, sick." Kristoff gave her a funny look, but she ignored him until they had paid for the stuff and were threading their way back through the crowd.

"What was that?" he asked. Anna ignored him for a second, looking for a sign for the public toilets. She kept walking as she answered, relying on him to follow her.

"It's a CD, dude," she said. "And you're gonna give it to Elsa."

"What? No! It's- you paid for it, you should give it to her. I don't have that kind of cash."

"Do you like this girl or not?" she demanded, turning around to face him. He stopped immediately, wilting under her stern gaze. When he didn't answer, she softened. "Trust me when I say that I don't mind. That I want to help."

Biting his lip, he looked at her. "Are you sure?" Anna nodded, giving him a smile. He still didn't seem particularly happy about it, but Anna had figured that he'd let it go. He didn't seem keen on arguing with her – at least, not about that.

He had plenty more to say when Anna was shepherding him into the bathroom to get redressed – and once more, it was to splutter at her, "You can't be in here!"

Frowning, Anna looked around. The men's room was undeniably empty. Ignoring him, she locked the door.

"Take your shirt off," she said. He didn't. If anything, he clutched it tighter to his skin.

"Why can't I just go into a stall and change?"

"Because we gotta wash that crap outta your hair first," Anna sighed. "And a wet shirt is not a good look. C'mon, work with me, man."

Still hesitant, he finally lowered his hand. Placing the shopping bag on the counter, he ripped his shirt off. 'Like a bandaid,' Anna thought; getting it over and done with. When the stained shirt joined the new ones, Anna couldn't help but glance.

Her father wasn't bad looking. Not at all. Strong jaw and soft eyes, for starters, but once the shirt was removed, it was plain to see that his physique was actually rather decent; a little pudgy, but that wasn't a bad thing. Apparently he kept in shape to some degree. If he could stand up for himself, he probably could get noticed – in the good way. If she had any remote interest in boys… 'Nope, still wouldn't,' she thought as she shook her head.

"Okay, wet your hair and uh, wash it. No offense but I don't really wanna touch that grease trap." She pulled a face, and Kristoff actually looked quite offended. Shrugging, she didn't take it back. "Sorry, dude, but it's true. Now, hurry up. Elsa's probably already waiting."

"But- how am I gonna dry it?" he asked. "Wet hair is probably just as bad as oily!"

"Wet hair dries," Anna pointed out. "Anyway, why do you think the hand dryer swivels?"

More bickering, more back-and-forth, and she finally got him to lather a little soap into his hair and rinse out some of the grease. It did the trick, more or less. As it turned out, he actually did have a comb with him… which she also made him wash thoroughly before he used it again. After that…

"Oh my God," she muttered, smiling very slightly. "Not half bad, McFly."

He was staring at himself in the mirror, at the slicked-back damp hair and the Purple Rain tee, the less-shiny face. It was an improvement, but he didn't seem to see that; he only saw the bad posture, the person that he didn't want to be. Anna knew how that could be, even if she had better luck than him in refocusing on the positives.

"You really think this is gonna make any difference?" he sighed, brushing up and down his chest and stomach.

"Only one way to find out. Let's go." Out they went, angling toward the food court and trying to find Elsa and her hangers-on.

They needn't have worried. Seated around a table were the mini-clique, just starting to dig into huge floppy slices of Sbarro's. Anna had to smile a little; at least some things were relative constants.

"We made it!" she said with a smile as she sank into a seat. Her head nodded toward Kristoff's bag. "Caught him picking up some new threads." She felt no reason to explain that the shirt in the very bottom of the bag was the stained one from school. She gave him a meaningful stare, and he jerked.

"Oh, I-" he faltered for a moment, glancing at Elsa's two friends. "I got you something…" His voice became progressively smaller as he continued, until he came to the last word and it was barely more than a whisper. At least it seemed to pique Elsa's interest, and she cocked her head. Plunging a hand into the bag, he brought out the CD. He didn't say anything as Elsa took it. She glanced at him, briefly, before her gaze found Anna.

"I love it," she said, words directed at him but not looking at him at all. Her eyes fell to the cover. "'Til Tuesday is my favourite band."

'Shit. Swing and a miss.' Upon reflection, it was painfully obvious that the CD had come from Anna; Elsa had never told Kristoff of her love of the band, nor were they really at the point of buying presents; he would have no way to know about it at all. Hopefully she thought that perhaps Anna had only helped him pick it out. Still, she felt a little dumb for mishandling this idea of hers.

As if suddenly realising that she was surrounded by people, half of whom were almost complete strangers, Elsa jerked her head up as a light blush coated her cheeks. "W-well, uh, the pizza's nice and fresh. Go on, eat a slice!"

"Oh, it's okay. I'll grab my own." Elsa deflated a little at that, but Anna had to remain strong. "Why don't you share with Kristoff? And next time, he can owe you a slice? Yeah, cool, sounds like a plan. Be right back!"

And then she was gone, not giving Elsa or Kristoff a chance to back out of her hasty arrangement. Hopefully.

She returned five minutes later, a slice of supreme pizza and a root beer in her hands. Everyone else had mostly finished, but Anna was pleased that the girls seemed to at least by trying to engage Kristoff. He was gnawing on a pizza crust, so at least Elsa had shared with him.

"Man, Sbarro's is good, but I do miss Papa John's. Jonesing for their Hawaiian right about now," she said as she sat down. Taking a bite of her pizza, she didn't notice anything was amiss until no one responded. "What?"

"Uh," Elsa began. "I mean. I understood all those words… sort of…"

"Who's Papa John?" one of Elsa's friends asked. Oh god, was was her name? And again, a dictionary would be a really good thing right about now.

However, her savior this time came from an unexpected place. "Is that like, a pizza parlor near your home?" Kristoff asked. "And um, jonesing. That means like… you really want it, right?"

Mouth still full of food, all Anna could do was nod. With great difficulty, she swallowed. "Uh, yeah. The pizza's not the greatest, but it's pretty cheap. They use fresh pineapple, and it makes a difference."

"Your home sounds weird," Elsa's friend spoke again, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

"Jazz!" Elsa hissed. Oh, so that was her name. Then she turned back with an earnest smile back in place. "It sounds pretty wicked. I don't know why you came to boring ol' Dell Valley."

"Just… y'know, family stuff." Her eyes flicked back to Elsa and Kristoff; she couldn't help it. Then she had to feed into the lie. "Visiting my uncle. But hey, great to meet new people, right?"

"For sure, I guess." Clearly trying to be diplomatic, Elsa turned to Kristoff. "I mean, it's not like I don't know Kris here. We just… never spoke much."

At that, he hunched his shoulders, but Anna managed to reach around behind him and poke him gently in the small of the back to make him sit up a little straighter. That was going to have to be a habit they both worked on breaking.

"Oh, you know Kristoff," she chuckled as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Always writing, or reading." The last part was a good guess; her father did still read books during his lunch breaks in the future.

"Writing what?" Jazz asked with detached interest.

"Oh, well… stories… science fiction stories, about aliens. You know, like in Star Wars?"

Jazz and Ariel were clearly about as impressed as if he had said 'poems about bread mould'. They glanced at each other, then over at Elsa as if to ask whether or not they really had to continue tolerating his presence any further.

But Elsa impressed both Kristoff and Anna by smiling and leaning against the table with her elbows. "Really? The Star Wars movies were rad; I like stuff like that. Space age fantasy. Are they any good?"

"Oh. Well… to be honest, I've never let anyone else read them. Kind of afraid of the rejection. I mean… you know, when you create something… it's hard to hand it over to somebody else."

"Yeah," Elsa sighed, her smile vanishing as she looked down at the table. "I can only imagine."

Suddenly, a pang shot through Anna's heart as she realised: that was part of why her mother had always been so disapproving of her relationship with Jennifer. Yes, the gay factor was part of it, but she had also been very critical of Wendy's dates, and to a lesser extent, John's. Maybe she was just being the world's most overprotective mother; "creating something" that she had to give to someone else someday.

"They're pretty good, actually," Anna improvised, talking out of her ass. Technically, she had read a single line of one story, so it wasn't a complete lie. "I think he could go pro if he stops doubting himself."

"Nah," he laughed, cheeks flushing with red as he grinned. Jazz and Ariel giggled, but at least they weren't acting like they wished he didn't exist anymore. "Well… I mean, probably not with these stories. But I have some bigger ideas."

"Spill!" Elsa encouraged him, and the others nodded halfheartedly. If Elsa noticed their relative disinterest, she ignored it.

"Well… alright, picture this: the moons over Alpha Centauri. We start off with humans; I mean, that's who the audience relates to, anyway, right? They're landing when they notice a strange mist rolling in from the north…"

                                          ~ o ~

They spent a good hour at the mall, but only ended up moving from the food court in the last ten minutes. Jazz and Ariel left shortly after Kristoff and Elsa began fangasming about fanfic. They didn't use that word, but Anna knew enough to figure out that both her parents were total nerds.

Finally! Something in common. And the best part was they were both really into it. Kristoff wasn't like one of the gatekeeping comic-book dudebros that Anna had come across; he seemed genuinely happy that Elsa understood what he was saying, and even challenged it sometimes. Anna was pretty sure that by the end of that hour, they'd probably planned out an entire Star Trek saga of their own.

The only thing that put a stop to their discussion was when Elsa glanced at her watch. "Oh shit," she said. And then looked up, eyes wide. "I mean- uh…"

She looked like a deer caught between two headlights, staring first at Kristoff and then Anna. Anna just stared at her, surprise written on her face because since when did her mother swear?

Fortunately, Kristoff cleared his throat. "I don't give a shit if you swear or not. I won't tell your mother, either."

And then- and then, the would-be ladykiller winked. Elsa let out a nervous little giggle, glancing between him and Anna. Her cheeks were a little flushed – a good sign, Anna hoped.

"I uh, I appreciate that. Thanks, Kris. I just- I'm really late. I'll see you both tomorrow, right?"

Anna finally found her voice – well, enough of it to say, "Yeah, sure. Tomorrow…" Giving another smile, Elsa waved and left.

And then Kristoff just slumped. "Oh my god."

"Oh my god is right! What was that?" Now that Elsa was gone, Anna couldn't not look at her father. "Where did that swag come from?!"

"I don't know! It just- it seemed like the thing to do!"

Shaking her head, Anna let out a relieved chuckle. "Well, I think it worked. See, I knew you had it in you!"

"Yes, except I don't even know what 'it' was! One minute, we were talking about science fiction, and then she was suddenly just asking me what else I liked to read, and… it got a lot… nicer. Easier talking to her. I have no idea!"

Cackling, she pounded him on the back. "Told you, didn't I? All you had to do was get things moving and the rest would just… fall into place, man! You're a natural!"

"I am not. Now you're exaggerating." But the blush and the smile told a very different story. This Kristoff, she could definitely see her mother falling for. The greasy-haired boy hanging from a tree and doing unseemly things, not even a little.

So Anna took a deep breath. "I'm not. But you are gonna have to change a couple of your habits – on top of the 'no birdwatching' thing. Obviously she likes who you are inside, but like, shower every day. Wear clothes that don't look like they came from Salvation Army. Simple things that show you actually care about how you look around other people, and that you're a man, not a little kid who can't remember to wash."

"Okay, okay," he sighed. "God, you nag me worse than my father."

Anna wanted to fall out of her seat at that comment.

                                          ~ o ~

When she breezed back in the door at the end of the evening, Doc was up to his elbows in wires, tubes, and engine grease. He had been going back and forth between his own experiments and working on the car.

"Success!" she crowed. And then winced when Doc stood up too fast and hit his head. "Oops… sorry…"

Rubbing his head, the expression of annoyance only lasted a short while. Then he was smiling, saying, "Is love in the air? And I mean between those two, not…"

Anna's good cheer rapidly fell away, and she scowled. It was less about the question and more to cover the hurt that he'd even felt the need to mention it. Did he not trust her to not mess this up? But he did deserve a response to his main question, so she brushed past the other bit.

"So far, so good. Like, today went great! But I need to go back to school tomorrow – Elsa's expecting me and Kris to be there. God, she probably thinks we're some kind of two-headed monster or something…"

Now that they knew each other, things were back on track. Thank goodness. It meant that when the lightning hit that weekend, she could go home, without fear of repercussions.

Idly, she pulled out the photograph of her family. The hug from Elsa had helped, but the desire to see her family again – her family, not these premature versions of them – was still incredibly high. No matter their problems, she still loved them. And now, she had a greater appreciation of her mother and father. Maybe… maybe they didn't hate her. Maybe they just saw too much of themselves in her and were trying to push her to be her best self, regardless of if their pushing was in the right direction. Either way, it was worth it to try teaching them to love themselves again.

Especially her mother. The past days had proved there was a warm, loving person inside her somewhere. Biting back a small smile at the thought, she held the photo up to the light.

And then her breath caught.

"Doc!" she cried out. "Doc, come look!"

There was real fear in her voice; probably the only thing that could have dragged him away from his experiments was an emergency, and this definitely qualified.

"Great Scott!" he whispered, taking the photograph from her. "Your brother has completely disappeared!"

"No shit, Sherlock," she huffed, on the verge of tears. "But- but it's all back on track!" Doc was shaking his head.

"We're missing something. You have introduced them, yes, but there appears to be something more significant. Did your parents ever say anything more about how they met? How they knew they were destined for a romantic entanglement, rather than a more passive friendship?"

Shaking her head, Anna said, "No. Mom didn't talk about it much. When she did, she always made sure to mention Dad had basically been run over. And then they went to the dance, and dated for a while, and then they got married and there was my brother, then my sister, and then lucky me."

His fingers snapped so close to her ear that she jerked her head away. "The dance! That sounds like an important social gathering – perhaps a formative one for their emotional connection vis-à-vis 'dating'. You're saying that your elder brother was conceived not long after this dance of theirs?"

"Right…" Anna tried to summon up the dusty old memories, as unimportant to her as they had been back then. "Well, yeah. They met because of the car thing… then Mom took pity on him and asked him if he wanted to go to the dance with her. Now, I'm pretty sure it was just to keep Hans from being gross at her the whole night, but yeah."

"Yes, of course; Tannen. Always a Tannen somewhere underfoot." Anna wanted to ask what he meant by that, but he was pacing again. "Alright, alright. Stick by your parents while I work on things here. This photograph is a very ominous portent, indeed, but it's not an absolute! We may yet avert disaster if we are vigilant!"

"You're the doc, Doc…" But as she bounced upstairs to the guest room that he had given over for her use, she couldn't help looking back at him with worry. Everything in her life was going wrong, and way too much of it was her own fault. How could he be so confident that they could pull her fat out of the fire?

                                          To Be Continued…

#Fractal The Future #fruipit #forkanna writes #Back to the Future #elsanna fanfiction #elsanna #forkanna the writer

[peppersandcats]

In reply to my comment on 'Bad Wisdom' you said: "Am always happy to try and discuss where my characterization comes from... or why I wrote him as acting as he does, and completely understand that there's room for other people to read him differently." And this does fascinate me, because you take a very minor character (at least, in the TV show) and really bring him to life. Does your characterisation of Axel mainly come from his comics version? Or is it mainly improvised, or a combo of both?

It’s nearly entirely prompted by the TV show, but I tend to go off in funny directions when given prompts.

(Something I feel I should make clear: the TV show brought me to the comics, not the other way around. I did not know who the Flash was before the TV show, beyond “fast guy in a red suit I remembered from one comic book panel”. I had never heard of Captain Cold. I didn’t know Barry Allen and Iris West were a thing, let alone a One True Thing. I didn’t even recognize who Barry Allen was when he showed up on Arrow.)

(I had somehow picked up that there was a thing called the Speed Force and that it made liquids float, and when the light of my life showed me the trailer that was actually what made me realize that I was watching a trailer for The Flash. The guy named Barry, the lines about a good heart and fast legs, the guy in the lightning? Vague nagging sense of familiarity. Floating liquids in a vaguely lablike setting? That tipped me off.)

(The LOML despairs of my awareness of pop culture.)

I have done some reading since; I generally characterize my knowledge as patchy, although I remember what I have read fairly well. I’m sure I’ve put in a couple of nods to the comics as I’ve read them (e.g. I know that his hair being blond when he was younger was a direct nod to that), and there are obviously parallels (Axel in the comics I’ve seen is almost always portrayed as a kid trying to live up to and get to be a part of something, and that’s blatantly in the show), but most of my headcanon for TV!Axel is either based off the TV episode, or at least checked to make sure it doesn’t contradict it.

From the TV show, boiled down to something coherent and stripping out the extra paragraphs of justification because they meandered, here’s what I got about Axel:

He is incredibly devoted to TV!James Jesse, who I feel comfortable summarizing to people who don’t watch the show as “basically the Joker.” (Let me tell you, when I started looking into the comics, I had so much to unlearn about James Jesse. So. Much. Thanks, Mark Hamill.)

Between Axel’s devotion and his desire to be like Jesse, Jesse’s master-manipulator schtick (talking a criminal psychologist into killing himself based on weekly visits), and the fact that this has been going on for ten years, we can assume that the interaction was deeply affecting pretty early on. A lot of things people do when they’re fourteen or fifteen get dropped pretty fast, in the grand scheme of things; a fifteen-year-old who kept up a relationship for ten years, especially one where exchanges were conducted at the relatively glacial pace of postal mail (as opposed to, say, texting), was one who was really into it.

(A lot of this, by the way, is me trying to articulate the gut reactions I went with. I am doing that thing humans do where they make a decision and then explain it; I think I am managing to give you a fairly accurate explanation of how my thoughts ran, but I can only do so well.)

This means that the fifteen-year-old teenager who was getting obsessed with a serial killer managed to successfully hide it from everyone who should have been keeping an eye on him; either he’s really good at hiding things or he didn’t have a lot of close adult supervision. I figured the latter was a bit easier to swallow and easier to swallow was easier to write (I am still trying to settle entirely comfortably on how the hell Jesse found Axel in the first place; I’ve got a couple of semi-solid ideas, but nothing set, so I tend towards keeping the rest of it simple), and there are already enough actively terrible parents in the Rogues, so I went with Axel not having parents present (biological or foster) and figured he grew up in state care.

Kids who age out of foster care are not often given a lot of support.

Incidentally: I (largely - I have one counter-example head-canon that I want to write up) do not believe that Jesse is Axel’s biological father; I ramble about why here, but it boils down to “that is a perfect example of a cold read and given everything you have shown me about the Trickster this episode like hell I am believing him thank you”.

Furthermore, I get the appeal of true crime geekery, but I would not write to an actual serial killer, and would expect that the general reaction would be shock and disquiet if I did. From this I’m figuring that Axel not only didn’t have much attentive supervision, but he did not grow up with a lot of close/concerned friends; either he scared people off, or he kept up a normal facade but kept the really important thing in his life a secret from everyone. (I went with both. Both is good.) This isolation also meshes with the kind of distance from other people that I feel would be necessary to bring yourself to drop bombs on small children, even if the most important person in your life was asking you to do it. (Would you do it for the most important person in your life? Like, not to save their life but as part of a plan to rob people? No? Yeah, me either.)

So far, what you’ve got is a kid who cares about Jesse, only cares about Jesse, and has not particularly bonded with social norms of behaviour.

But in a counterpoint to this… well, I can’t really imagine Axel sitting still much; he cackles, he preens, he slinks, he threatens, he giggles, he moves. So he gets a letter, he reads it, he writes a response, and then… he waits for two or three days? Five, if there’s a weekend in there? Longer, if whoever’s sneaking letters out from Jesse needs a little extra time? Axel doesn’t seem like someone who’d just sit around; I feel like he must have been doing something during the between times, and recreating a 2010s version of Jesse’s costume would only take so much time. Plus he was twenty-five; since I’ve already written off the idea that he was living with parents, he has to have been able to function well enough with people to earn money, pay rent, buy food, and avoid leaving any police records worth mentioning. Admittedly everyone on the CW is TV-pretty, but Axel does look like he’s putting resources and time into maintaining himself. He doesn’t look like a guy who over the last ten years was regularly forgetting to eat or brush his teeth or get out of bed because he’s been spending the last two days rereading this week’s letter, you know?

So: only cares about Jesse, no real attachment to social norms, but is capable of interacting with others in a sustainable way. He seems to enjoy getting reactions out of people (I think it was @notsolittlegirlevenmorelost who first made the observation to me that no-one becomes the Trickster because they’re shy), but I’ve got no reason to think he’s stupid, he was a kid without the full and active attention of a guardian, and he doesn’t have any police records worthy of mention when the cops identify him. It seems reasonable to conclude that he learned early that there are times you need to limit how much you annoy people who have more power than you - no-one else was guaranteed to be looking out for him, and yet we’ve got no indication that he ever faced significant social or societal consequences for his (probably unacceptable) behaviour. I get that this last is fully into “not contradicted by the show” rather than “actively based on it”, but hey, it works for me.

(He reads as younger than twenty-five to me, honestly; and the kind of guy who has access to a “Felicity-caliber scrambler” might also have a plausible way to change records of his legal age (or, re my earlier point, have erased arrest records). But I still read him as an adult; that’s partly the actor’s age, partly that none of the cops looking at the Trickster II react as if he’s a kid. He’s childish, but you can get childish adults.)

Another thing I got from the show (cheers to Devon Graye’s acting; really, I think he did a great job with very little screentime) was that he doesn’t seem like he’s planned out a lot of what he’s doing. He’s got a kind of “oh come on now, you suck” reaction to getting arrested, which might be not wanting to look weak or might suggest that he isn’t exactly focussed a lot on consequences. Look at his expression when he blows a hole in Iron Heights - it’s very “I need to turn this corner, and then move forward ten feet, and okay now I press the button, and– oh 💥holy💥shit!💥”; I don’t read it as smug, I read it as thrilled. He’s going into the plan without fully understanding it (e.g., Henry Allen’s kidnapping) and he’s okay with this. I ran with this as someone who can be extremely comfortable with living in the moment. He’ll play the long game for Jesse - he’ll do anything for Jesse - but left to himself he doesn’t seem especially driven. He comes across as someone who’d be happy with a kind of kid-in-a-candy-store live-in-the-moment life (and that would be convenient because it wouldn’t result in any attachments that conflicted with what Jesse wanted of him, either).

Finally - and this is not due to the episode, but there’s room for it in the episode because James Jesse is presented as such a powerful influence - I write him as not trying to hurt people unless they’ve hurt him first. I think he’s an extremely dangerous person to be around, and someone who doesn’t really care about people in the abstract. But between the kind of laissez-faire attitude to not-Jesse things and the fact that he can function to some degree around other people, I figured he was capable of being at least casually or superficially social, and he doesn’t actively dislike people, he just reads himself as being nicer or smarter than most of them. (This is a comfort-based decision; there is a limit to the amount of fun I have writing people who are actively malicious and sadistic, and I didn’t feel like doing it. Also I kind of love unreliable narrators, and Axel Walker genuinely believing that he’s a nice person in any kind of objective sense makes me giggle gleefully.)

I think that’s most of it, or at least most of it for the moment. Hope it was kind of interesting?

#axel walker #my headcanons #my commentary #s1e17 #the flash #dc tv #flash rogues #commentary #headcanon

[tumblunni]

Charon Analysis

Hi, I know you don’t know me, but I was wondering if I could share some thoughts about/analysis of Charon with you? I feel like there are a lot of interesting things about him I’ve never seen talked about.

–First of all, I think a lot of people confuse the Charon from the games with the ones from the two manga. The TVTropes page on him even says he’s completely evil and more cruel than Cyrus?! O_o This is not the case with game-Charon.

–Either Charon was smart enough to figure out more of Cyrus’s plan than the other members of Team Galactic, or Cyrus told him the most because he was in charge of working on the Red Chains.

–I heavily suspect that Cyrus intentionally chose Charon for the position of Commander to cause strife and prevent the others from questioning his plan. It also looks to me that Cyrus may have preferred Charon over the other Commanders based on Charon’s behavior, which is hilarious considering nobody likes Charon.

–Can I just point out that based on the Old Notebook, Charon’s family let him electrocute himself and fall unconscious without helping him?! And they let him wander far from home to root through a garbage dump?! It seems to me like maybe Charon’s desires for money and for being part of a team stem partly from having a neglectful, impoverished family.

–Finally, the most important point–Charon never says that he just wants money for himself! He always says that he wants Team Galactic to get rich too. He says that things won’t get done without money. He never gives any sign of wanting to replace Cyrus as the boss before he goes to the Distortion World, either–he would’ve been fine with Cyrus being the one to make money to assist his followers with. Charon is greedy, but more in a cynical way like Giovanni… he never wants to hoard cash for himself, he wants it for his organization whether he’s the boss or not.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this! I’m a little shy about sending this but I hope you liked it as a Charon fan! ^_^

++++++

Tumblunni’s reply here! Sorry, its a little awkward figuring out how to reply to submissions! Thank you much for this surprising message of Charon fandom, mystery person! I kinda wish I knew who you were, cos Charon fans are so uncommon and all. This analysis raises a lot of points I’d never even considered, and it could be fun for us to discuss our different headcanons some more! This really made my day, seriously!

Tumblunni’s random comments on some of these:

* I HAD NOT EVER CONSIDERED that Cyrus might be intentionally playing off the commanders against each other to keep them easy to control. Charon is absolutely a great agent of strife, lol! Personally I always just assumed he was so good at his job that Cyrus just put up with his annoying personality. And like.. yeah.. he does probably consider Charon the ‘best’ of his commanders, because the old grump doesn’t have a shred of goodness in him, as far as he knows. I’d imagine Charon is incredibly easy to manipulate, all you need to do is dangle some money or fame in front of him. Plus he’s always so blatantly obvious whenever he’s being disloyal! Charon is a man of no surprises and no sudden attacks of conscience, plus he has a very practical role in the group. A++ best pawn, out of everyone he hates, Cyrus hates Charon the least. I actually had fanfic ideas of how this would be Team Galactic’s downfall if Charon ever hypothetically got A Big Mushy Redemption Plot Of Rotoms And Hugs. Like, Charon seems to know EVERYTHING about what’s going on in the team, while everyone else is deluded in one way or another. I feel like Cyrus didnt feel it was necessary to give Charon any false impressions of what he was doing, I mean cynical grandpa wouldn’t even join the team if he thought he was ‘making a better world’. Plus Charon’s probably had to have a lot of info on The Big Plan if he’s the science guy in charge of making the red chain and stuff. Plus he could probably just hack into Cyrus’s computer if he ever was kept out of the loop on anything, lol! So like.. if Charon ever suddenly turned good he’d be a huge danger to his team! Its just that out of everyone he’s the least likely to do that.

* That’s actually a really good point, that Charon never does anything to follow up on his ‘I’d be a better boss!’ claims until the team is already disbanded. I don’t quite agree that he ISN’T greedy though! i think he is indeed a lot more invested in his team than he lets himself admit, but he’d still have the vice of being moneyhungry even if he wasn’t. I dunno, I just prefer characters who keep a few flaws even after they’re redeemed, yknow? It makes for more character development! Plus I kinda always feel like ‘oh no if I say Charon isn’t 100% evil everyone will slam me for it’, lol But yeah, a big part of all my headcanons for him are definately that he does secretly enjoy being part of team galactic, and is a big ol mushy mess at heart. You hugged a rotom once, Charon! You clearly do like having friends! I mean cmon there’s so much more plot potential going down that avenue instead of just making him like his manga version T_T

* I have my own mess of random headcanons about his childhood in the Old Notebook, since it never really says anything about it. But you’re right that the absence of any mentions of his family does actually imply a lot by association! To try and justify why they’d live in a forest mansion if they were poor, I had this whole complicated backstory about how his mum had married into a rich family and then the grandparents turned on her once her husband died, and were always trying to steal custody of her son. So I had a story where his mum wasn’t a bad parent, she loved him a lot, but she was very neglectful cos she had to work so many jobs to sustain the family and pay off increasingly more unfair “loans” from those grandparents. So Charon was alone a lot of the time and that lead him to becoming so mature before his time. They basically just lived in one room of this giant musty house, and there were a bunch of books piled as high as the walls, and loads of places to explore that not even his mum knew about. So he was quite the little bookworm but also became kind of a mischievious kid who’d end up making great friends with the rotom he found! And he developed a sense of money being all-important since he was poor, but also picked up a lot of ‘I am so important, I have noble blood’ stuff from the bad influence of his grandparents. ....He’s just a fun character to imagine backstory for, cos he has such an odd personality! People could imagine hundreds of different ways he could have developed that personality over his long old grandpa life. And thats why its always fun to meet new Charon fans!

* In summary: your thoughts were really good and made me ramble eighty hours of writing, ok thanks XD

[kurlykayaker]

Reflection. 4-2-19

Tonight - marks the first day, that I have ever shared some deep, deep poetry with a room full of people I do not know; I did not know one single person in that room and I arrived to the location alone, unaccompanied by a friend. (Looking back, maybe a stupid idea? Haha) It was unplanned. I was studying there and decided to “just do it.” “Fuck it, I thought. What do I have to lose?”  And in some ways, in the back of my head, whenever we make some decisions, we have everything to lose. I entered that coffee shop - slightly moody, tired, and unmotivated to study; but the tones and vibes of the place always motivate me to study, to work harder - and to stay calm. I shared 3 poems total - one about the boy with Down Syndrome (on here), and two other trans related poems- both pretty intense (re: how you see me, and 11-7-2014).  I was nervous and I imagine that’s something I could get past if I wanted to keep sharing my poetry at events like this. I used to get very nervous just talking to people and giving speeches, but lots of college and time has weathered me well. I guess I thought sharing my poetry would feel liberating? That somehow, the deep dark intensity of what I’ve experienced in life would melt through the Earth and turn into something more beautiful?...As indicated by the question marks, I did not feel that. I did not feel that.   I stayed a bit awhile after reading, to listen to other people share.  I’m a big believer in courtesy and I think leaving right after I read would an act of selfishness.�� Eventually, I did leave and a bucket full of feelings kind of washed over my semi-nervous being.  Guilt, an awkward surge of indulgent guilt and maybe shame?  For sharing such deep emotions - with power and eloquence- when most people don’t have to go through such things.  I asked myself, “Why did I impose these feelings on others?” A knee-jerk reflex. (Nerve root L3-L4, Quadriceps muscle).  Haha.  Seriously, though.  The only “safe” places for me to share such emotion is on an “anonymous” website like this, in a counselor’s office, sometimes on the phone with a family member,...and on night walks with myself and the presence of my father.  I guess it is no surprise that I feel an overwhelming amount of self-indulgence about a) sharing these emotions and also b) the intensity and depth of them. There’s been a lot of beauty that has come from writing pretty much everyday, but there’s also been a lot of tenderness, vulnerability - which I can handle.  Perhaps at some point, especially with trauma, we arrive to a point of pain?  In physical therapy, we talk about pain so much - nociceptive pain, phantom limb, musculoskeletal, referred - and we do talk about psychosomatic pain to some degree too.  Psychosomatic (which I don’t like this word usage) - possibly the hardest to “treat.” As my post yesterday was pretty heavy-dark-intense, very similar feelings of social isolation/being “alone” (in my context of the word) emanate from me tonight - sitting on my couch, short-clad, fan blowing - listening to calm music, taking some deep breaths. Have you ever cried dry tears?  Tears that come, but no fluid. Since being on testosterone, this is a common thing for me. It’s hard to explain. Often times, mid-way or multiple mid-ways, I get caught up in a Netflix series. I haven’t had a moment that like in the semester.  Partly, I am a) writing and working out more - (choosing more wholesome “well being” activities), but also I am b) really really enjoying my classes this semester -especially Chronic and Progressive (a neuro class) and pediatrics. Before deciding on PT school, I was between 3 professions - a) counselor b) a nurse and c) a physical therapist (in no particular order). I chose not to be a counselor, because I felt that working so closely with other people’s emotions would spark my own - in a negative aspect. I wouldn’t be able to keep myself safe emotionally and mentally.  Sometimes, I think I regret not being more open to the career?  It’s a mixed regret. After working in an ER for 5 years now, and seeing how *some* physicians treat nurses, I knew it wasn’t for me.  Once again, maybe I could have learned to go on autopilot - some?  <<I don’t think that’s possible for me.>> Haha (if you know me) Here we, are - option c.  I like that my future career affords me the ability to a) use science-based techniques and principles to help someone reach their goals - some of them very visible when they reach them b) moments to offer mental and emotional support (while not the crux of my job) and c) neurologically, an avenue for recovery, compensation, and prevention (there are terms we use in my neuro class).   It’s the fundamental science aspect of counseling - rehabilitating neuro patients; (Re- I firmly do believe that psychology is a science.)  A physical therapist is helping their brain literally make new synaptic connections. A PT is helping a patient believe in themselves - sometimes learning a completely new way to do something.  Sometimes, these goals can be met in relatively brief treatment sessions - sometimes, they takes weeks and weeks of long treatment sessions.  Regardless, I’m in and I’m devoted....and that brings me such inner motivation and joy to know that this could be so rewarding for me. (Re- my second full time clinical is in an inpatient neurological setting). When I was 13 years old- the semester after my dad passed, we had to write an English paper about “how if we could go back in time, how we would change something.”  It was like a creative paper based on past facts. I recall writing a paper about how I would have gone back in time, drove my parents’ car to my dad’s house, and got him to the hospital - for emergency care.  I remember rereading that paper as a high schooler and being amazed that little 13 year old Jordan understood - on a fucking deep level - what suicide was and how serious it was. When I was 15 years old, I thought I wanted to study English in college. My father had a Ph.D. in theology, my mother has a Master’s in Divinity and my stepdad does as well.  Smart fucking family, that loves words and God- basically. Haha.  I recall despising my English sophomore teacher; she was strict, she cut the room with her strained voice and constant frown.  We constantly had pop quizzes and she loved to remind us how hard it was to get a college scholarship unless we worked hard.  I felt the need to impress her?  Maybe?   We had to write a research paper our sophomore year; it was the first “research paper” we would do in our high school career.  I wanted to chose something that was interesting and meaningful to me, but at that time - I hated most science things.  What did I chose?  I wanted to write about Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and their impact on teenagers who were suicidal (re: increased risk of suicide during first few months of taking).  I recall my crabby uptight teacher looking at me and my topic and saying, “Are you sure you want to do this?  That’s pretty heavy.” All I did was nod, and say, “Yes.”  I laugh at that 15 year old kid; despite my overly shy, diffident personality, I knew what I wanted when I wanted to do it.  My mother stands by the same statement.   I suppose the reason this came up organically for me, is because suicide is more common than we realize.  The number of patients that come into the ED with suicidal thoughts- is a lot to say the least- of all ages (as young as 9 years old and up to 80+).  And, I and you, don’t have to be a mental health counselor to help someone.  We don’t have to go through a Master’s / Ph.D. program and get a license to be a positive influence on someone. Forms of trauma -> Brain injuries, Spinal Cord Injuries, unexpected neurological illnesses that occur for the myriad of reasons we don’t completely understand yet. The weight, the gravity, the intensity, damn.  Then, THEN - teaching them how to stand up again, how to use the toilet in a new way, how to get dressed, how to walk with these weird ass crutches (aka Loftstrands), how to not give a shit when you’re out in public (easier said than done), helping them understand what’s going on pathophysiologically without being a fucking robot.... I picture my father holding my hand and telling me to keep going...   because it’s so weird to be this close to being done with PT school - 1 year left (mostly clinical) and still have moments of such emptiness.  I guess I thought the feelings of “being alone” and feeling empty wouldn’t be *as bad* or perhaps less intense?   .....My mother says, “it’s an ebb and a flow.”  This is the one phrase I like, because having kayaked the whitewater rivers of the Earth and rafted, I identify with it so much (there’s really a literal meaning). there’s been so much ebb my kayak barely floating on this dry river, running into rock upon rock, the bank of the river is many feet worth inward, because the river and i     haven’t seen rain / for so long, “flow, flow, what is flow again?”, my heart asks. flow shouldn’t have to equate to working my ass off to get an 87.5 on a neuro exam, flow - organic, raw, rooted flow in the world we call “life” should bring moments of downpour happiness, excitement, connection so much of artificial flow is motivating myself, someday hoping i can find flow outside myself #oldsoul-lostmillenial