#my accent becomes aggressively australian

[swamp-gremlin]

My Old Nick hc's, interpretation, analysis, and other odd bits PT.1

Part 2

This is long overdue but I feel I oughta get something out of the way. I've had a incredibly aggressive special interest in him for like 3-5ish years and at some point in writing hc's I just started making shit up(I mean isn't that just hc's are?) because I really just took a guy with a whopping 14 lines of dialogue and just started sprinting.

I'm choosing to actually leave a few things out as I wish to explore those ideas more in This isn't over Jack, Ill probably swing back around to this after I wrap that up. In the mean time if you wanna swap ideas I'm down(please please please pleaseplea)

Turns out I hit text limit with this oh my lord, ill post pt2 tomorrow, i'm sorry

Can't think of anything particularly triggering in this but i'll warn it gets just kinda bleak

Human turned Fae- I will not elaborate, this will be explained later...

would actually break your legs if you called him a fairy

I've never actually pinned down any specific powers for him for some reason? like i just cant think of like any that i could write/ illustrate that wouldn't feel too gauche... So I just kinda nebulously imaged so weird fae-fuckery type of magic- though I think the most compelling interpretation of his powers was in Scouts Australian Christmas (pls go read it, its a really good fic)

Gay, but I cant imagine he's like particularly out about it; like its a iykyk sorta think because I definitely feel there probably some shame or internalized homophobia there (smth smth homophobic senator caught in a gay bar joke)

Autistic, but most definitely not diagnosed- he would become absolute incensed if you suggested it, like "There is nothing wrong with me, I am normal" but you can tell that he knows there's something "wrong with him" but he has no idea what and is incredibly afraid of even attempting to confront that

Can't imagine there's a moment where he's not masking, he doesn't understand his own limits and will keep doing things until he quite literally can't anymore

Probably has some ~effeminate~ interest he's deeply embarrassed by, but like in all reality its very normal and even if it was thats not a bad thing, he just makes it a big deal for no reason

STRADDLING the line between infodumping and mansplaining

Could be genuinely into a topic but he's just so condescending about it

High functioning alcoholic, kinda in that 50s/ rich way but it's very obvious he has a problem but everyone always brushes it off as "thats just how he is/ things are"

Nick could honestly just be summed up in his impact as a *a systematic bad thing happens again and again* "thats just how things are, get over it" sorta thing or a "Heart warming: student raises funds to prevent orphans from being sent to orphan grinder" and then no-one questions why the orphan grinder exists in the first place

He has been meticulously constructing his public image/ brand as "Old Nick"/ "The Spirit of Australian Christmas"

He is a liar, but he's a very good liar

His accent is fake, his laugh is fake, his public lore is fake and he's not even Australian he's British! (Which is arguably worst thing he has done)

He's basically been voice training to keep up a modern australian accent for years now, but his real accent is more of that 1700s british (which actually sounds different from modern a modern britsh accent) but sometimes he's has moments and his accent slips (mostly when he's yelling)

Has practiced his evil villain laugh so hard, like its a good villain laugh but if you listen hard you can tell its not real

Genuinely so fucking embarrassed by his actual laugh which i can only describe as if a goose that has been smoking a pack a day was being strangled to death

I kinda go back an forth on Nicks upbringing sometimes, because I kinda feel I went the kinda overplayed sorta tragic backstory; but also growing up in 1700s England was probably not fun if you weren't rich and also have you ever met a miserable boomer who does the whole "kids these days are too damn soft back when I was a kid *recounts an incredibly traumatizing event*!" Thing? Yeah he probably does that a lot and it makes everyone kinda uncomfortable

Maybe orphaned? Probably had brothers because he has strong younger brother "your oppressing me by giving me a task" energy (btw this relates to a super stupid hc that im not gonna share because its incredibly dumb)

Expressed a lot of attention seeking behavior from a young age, would purposefully get into trouble so someone would notice him

This behavior followed him into adult life and it would just keep getting worst and worst, like getting into bar fights that he would definitely lose and petty crime

Eventually he just kept ramping up the severity of his crimes till he actually had a warrant/ bounty placed for his arrest

To avoid getting arrested he became a sailor in his late 20s and jumped between ships and trades up until his 50s/60s

Eventually he was arrested and then get shipped off to Australia

After a few months he stuck there he was like "actually, fuck this" and started plotting an escape

He stole a boat and with his previous knowledge from being a sailor he was so full of himself he thought he did single-handedly sail and navigate back Britain or a British sympathetic colony and then lay low for the rest of his life

Of course he didn't happen and due to the fact he is stupid he got stranded in antarctic and the rest is history

If you wanna know how we got from "random crusty criminal" to "Spirit of Australian Christmas" you have to stick around for my shit ass comic and videos fucker

anyway where was i, Nick proceeded to twists that into "Yeah i totally meant to do discover antarctic, even though i was a 1780s peasant who would have not have even known that antarctic was even thing" he kinda sorta dropped the rest of it and made up more shit Homelander style

I don't believe that Nick was like well off in anyway when he was still mortal, and despite being just bludgeoned over the head with the effects of classism and a nightmare capitalist hell society he developed this horrible idolization of the rich and developed this almost "by your bootstraps" mentality but with like the brutality rich bushiness owners would treat there workers, where he though if he became horrible and ruthless he could trample and climb on the backs of his fellow men till he made it to that oh so coveted high society life.

probably doesn't help he would do absolutely anything for money either

and the thing is he made it, he's just unfathomably rich(that is till all those gambling debts catch up to him...) he got what he wanted, he got he's gotten all the money and attention he could have wanted... and yet he's miserable, nothing will ever be enough for him.

Throw back motif that's still my favorite- "decaying luxury". Nick is like obviously rich as fuck and yet just refuses to fix anything, like his sweater has so many little holes in it he just stopped bothering to fix, he's patched his pants so many times, stairs worn down to the point the rug is thread bear and the wood is dented, intricate arsenic and lead laced wallpaper that's now water damaged and peeling, his favorite chair's seams are ripped, and the stuffing and springs are just compressed and flat to the point its not even comfortable to sit in anymore. Like he can fix it, he has the money, and yet he just won't for some reason.

Oh speaking of arsenic and lead- mans is just absolutely FULL of lead, arsenic, asbestos, any other harmful thing the Victorians where just absolutely HUFFING

tangent on a tangent, i really associate him with the Victorian era despite him being born in the 1700s, maybe its the child labor, maybe its the stupid chops, he just looks like he should be in super tall neck-line and doing coke for a headache

Nick is just both incredibly self absorbed but also so fucking insecure, like very big insecure man makes his problems everyone else's problem and take his out on other people to feel better about himself energy

He's just so vain too, like i image he's just obsessed with himself and his image, probably doesn't help he's quite literately has been decomposing for like the last two centuries (IT WILL BE EXPLAINED WHY LATER I PROMMY) so he just has this like incredibly extensive Patrick Bateman ass self-care routine so he doesn't get moldy

#hey have you ever wanted to listen to the ramblings of a fucking mad man? here you go bc god does writing this out make me sound crazy #i did not expect to hit char limit with this dear god... #and for a guy that hasn't been relevant since 2011 #im genuinely so nervous to post this bc this is just so much but this is what its like in my head 24/7 i have to live like this #tf2 #tf2 headcanons #tf2 old nick #from the mouth of madness #old nick tf2

[asktonks]

mate i happen to think your face is pretty great. big fan of it, i like what you did with it. - ron

#harry potter #hp rp #harry potter rp #every time i say 'mate' even when i'm just mouthing it #my accent becomes aggressively australian #and i feel like you can see it in the first gif asdjfls #Anonymous

[whatisthiswritingthing]

I’m Batman - USWNT x Reader

Prompt: if you have the time, muse, energy - would there be a chance you MAYBE could write something in the line of r being the baby of the team and getting surgery, like wisdom teeth out and in her high as a kite state afterwards calls the team by cute pet names and refuse to believe they have actual names...?

Apparently you guys need to send me more prompts before I go for a run; I wrote this in my head while I ran. 

Hey, how’s she doing?” Christen asked softly as she walked into the hotel room.

“Ask her yourself,” Lindsey smirked.

Y/N had gotten her wisdom teeth out the day before camp was set to start in Portland. It was an odd circumstance, normally players wouldn’t be at camp immediately after surgery, but since Y/N lived alone no one would be able to take care of her, she would be in the hotel with everyone else.

Christen gave Lindsey a weird look when she saw the suspect grin on her face. “How you doing Y/N?”  she asked softly, reaching out to sooth a stray hair down.

“I’m batman,” Y/N lowered the tone of her voice, doing a terrible batman impression, the gauze in her mouth muffling the sound. She scrunched her face, attempting to glower at Christen.

“Oh,” Christen pulled her hand back, looking to Lindsey and Tobin on the other bed, “you get your wisdom teeth out and you become batman?”

“Justice League was playing while she had surgery, we are slowly working through them all; right now its batman, after surgery it was Wonder Woman. The Wonder Woman accent was hilarious with the swelling and gauze,” Tobin offered, large grin covering her face. “Hey Batman, how is your mouth feeling?”

Y/N flopped her to look toward Tobin, eyebrows squinting, scowling at the brunette, “Good, batman feels no pain.”

The three laughed, the younger woman’s scowl deepening.

“Hey Y/N, how are you doing?” Alex pushed the door open.

“I’m batman,” Y/N rolled her head toward the forward walking in.

Alex paused mid step, looking to the rest of the women in the room, mouth forming an ‘O’, eyebrows shooting up. “What?”

“You heard her, she’s batman,” Lindsey laughed, pointing to the medicated soccer player.

“Someone is on the good drugs I see.”

“Nah, Y/N just doesn’t handle painkillers well.”

“I’m batman!” Y/N raised her voice, interrupting the conversation.

“Tobin don’t insult batman like that,” Lindsey gave Tobin a sly grin.

“Thank you, Horan,” Y/N kept her low and gravelly, “you are a good friend.”

“Anytime Batman, I got you,” Lindsey winked at her.

They continued to talk while Y/N slept on the other bed.

“Did you guys see that?” Y/N sat up abruptly in the bed.

“See what?”

“Exactly,” Y/N did her best to smirk around the gauze, easing her way back on the bed. The gravelly voice gone from before.

Tobin mouthed the fuck.

Y/N looked left and right as quick as her delayed senses could, smirk still on her face, “vroom! There I go again.”

“Who is she now?” Alex whispered to the group.

“Umm no idea, let’s see,”

“Where’d you go?”  

“I’ll go again,” Y/N turned to the group, “and I’m back! You guys didn’t even see me,” she smirked, swollen cheeks puffing out more, her voice mumbled with the gauze.

The group all slowly nodded, still confused.

“So, batman,” Horan started tentatively, seeing how she will react on the name.

“Flash,” Y/N cut off, head lolling to the side to look at them again, “so fast,” she awkwardly thrust her arms in and out one at a time.

Sonnett and Kelley walked in the room, both tilting their heads to the side, faces full of confusion. “What’s with Y/N?” Kelley pointed to the bed, watching Y/N bring her arms in and out.

“Oh, she’s the Flash,” Alex said it like it was the most obvious thing.

“Oh yea, she’s the Flash,” Kelley replied sarcastically, “what a stupid question to ask.”

“Obviously we missed something,” Sonnett motioned to Y/N who was flopping her head back and forth, whispering so fast under her breath.

“She watched Justice League while she got her wisdom teeth out, now she’s baked as a cake and will only respond to the Justice League character she thinks she is for the minute,” Tobin filled in for the defenders.

“And right now, she is the Flash,” Sonnett nodded along.

“Yea, look at those hands, she’s so fast,” Lindsey mocked, everyone looked over to see Y/N still thrusting her arms in and out.

“Hey Flash, we need to change your gauze,” Christen said soothingly as she approached the bed with fresh gauze in her hand.

Y/N puffed her cheeks out, Christen sat on the bed next to the young soccer player, “watcha doing?”

Y/N then blew the air out of her cheeks, sticking her tongue out, attempting to push the gauze out of her mouth, dramatically making spluttering sounds.

Everyone in the room laughed as the bloody gauze tumbled out of her mouth, rolling down on to her chest, “aww,” Y/N looked at her chest.

Christen delicately picked the gauze up, tossing it into the garbage can Alex held up, “what’s wrong Flash?”

“My powers are gone, the dentist took my wisdom.” Y/N pouted.

Christen delicately placed more gauze in her mouth, “there you go Flash, more powers again.”

Y/N puffed her cheeks out again, creasing her eyebrow again.

“What’s going on?” Sonnett whispered to Lindsey.

“No idea, this is kind of how she’s been all day.”

Y/N let out all the air in her mouth, exhaling loudly, then inhaling again and puffing her cheeks out again.

“So do we just wait until we figure it or does she tell us?” Kelley asked, watching as Y/N repeated the action.

“She kind of just does stuff, then she snaps at us when we get it wrong,” Tobin shrugged.

“You better now that you have your powers back… flash?” Alex asked, pausing before she said Flash.

“We should go swimming!” Y/N shot up on the bed.

Christen gently pushed Y/N back down, “woah you, you should sit back down. Let’s save swimming for another day.”

Y/N puffed her cheeks back out, nodding along.

“Fish are friends, not food,” Y/N firmly nodded her head, a poor Australian accent lacing her words.

“She’s Bruce from Finding Nemo now?” Alex asked the group, confused.

“Dude, she’s high, not sure we can question the thought process.”

“Hey, umm Bruce?” Sonnett called out. Y/N rolled her head to the side to look toward the defender.

“Here’s Brucey!”

“You ready for soup Brucey?”

“I’m a nice shark, not some mindless eating machine.”

“So pudding?”

“Yes!” Y/N whipped an arm out, pointing aggressively at Sonnett.

“Why is she such a weird kid?” Kelley whispered.

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagines #uswnt imagine

[gigslist]

34+ Voiceover Roles & 3 Musician Open Calls - Work From Home - Paid

'F*cking Sober' Podcast

22 + Roles

3 Open Calls for Musicians With Their Own Music

PAID WORK FROM HOME NON UNION

Deadline : September 15, 2021 2:00 PM

Somehow9am Productions // F*cking Sober: the first 90 days Podcast

Katie Mack, coord.

:"A call for artists in recovery for the 2nd Season of The Webby Award Winning Podcast Series 'F*cking Sober: the first 90 days.' We are looking for voice over talent and musicians/music producers for 'FS: Shadai.' 'F*cking Sober' is a semi-comedic mostly non-fictional narrative podcast following Shadai’s first 90 days of getting sober. Thirty-five year old Shadai is the black, queer, strong female in advertising— so what if she keeps shots in her bra for between meetings, right? But after a shitshow holiday party, a fuzzy cop encounter, and a disaster presentation with the new big account, Dry January doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Maybe Dry Forever is better. This is what it looks, acts, and feels like to get f*cking sober. This 8 episode serialized show features music by artists with their own story with recovery. F*cking Sober Season 1: Anita has received 15k downloads since it’s release in Nov 2020, and received a 2021 Webby Nomination for Best Limited Series, and a Webby Win for Best Writing for a Podcast. At this time we are only looking to work with artists who have a relationship/understanding of recovery. Please follow instructions for submitting and what to include in the cover letter to be considered! Thank you! Listen to Season 1 to get the vibe: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f-cking-sober-the-first-90-days/id1538804959?i=1000499155627 And check out: www.fckingsoberpodcast.com @fckingsober90_podcast More information about Somehow9am Productions & Katie Mack (Producer): www.somehow9amproductions.com www.mackstage.com"

Roles

Shadai (Voiceover): Female, 18+WORK FROM HOMEproduction states: "Note: We are only accepting submissions from artists who have their own story in recovery, TY! 35 year old, black, queer, cis gender female attorney with a dry sense of humor, who has strong opinions and shares them sometimes, is a powerhouse and knows it all… until… until she doesn’t. Please note your experience with improv/comedy in your cover letter If you have writing experience or are interested in writing please note this in your cover letter. We will be giving writing credits to the right candidate who desires to contribute to the molding of this character."Required Media: Voice Reel

Other Characters (Voiceover): 20-70

"Note: We are only accepting submissions from artists who have their own story in recovery, TY! We are looking for diversity in every sense of the word, from all genders, to ages, to ethnicities, to lived experiences, to food preferences!! In short, we are looking to cast dope, interesting people. Looking to cast various characters through out the S2 Shadai, including but not limited to:

Dad (black, army veteran, a dad’s dad)

Mom (black, hyper critical, the opposite of Shadai)

Dana (any ethnicity, work enemy)

Coco (white, work bestie)

JewBoo aka Therapist (Jewish, confidant, motherly, with a special sense of humor)

Miriam (black, best friend and ex-lover who tells it like it is)

Galen (white, gay, best friend who is warm and caring and pushy)

15 other characters Please note any experience you may have with comedy/improv if any. Please submit your reel along with your cover letter."Required Media: Voice Reel, Cover Letter

Musicians (BIPOC Artists in Recovery) (Voiceover): 18+ music from BIPOC identifying artists.

Musicians (Queer Identifying Artist in Recovery) (Voiceover): 18+ music by Queer Artists.

Musicians (Non-BIPOC/Non-Queer Artists in Recovery) (Voiceover): 18+ music from non-BIPOC or non-Queer Identifying Artists in recovery.

"To be produced over the course of October 2021 - January 2022 Shadai’s commitment is estimated at two hrs/wk. Other characters 30mins. Musicians, all work should already exist. Please be prepared to send stems or stripped down tracks."

Compensation & Union Contract Details

Stipend: $25 - $75Production states: "Shadai (Lead Character), $550 for full season. All Other Characters: $25-$50 per episode. Musicians: $25-$75 per song per episode. Sync license contract."

Seeking talent: Nationwide (United States)

Website:http://www.fckingsoberpodcast.com

======================================

'Rain: Series III'

12 Voiceover Roles

PAID WORK FROM HOME NONUNION

Deadline: September 14, 2021 8:59 PM

JKPRising James Klim, filmmaker

Seeking voiceover talent for "Rain: Series III," a web-series, created in the video game Halo Reach on MCC via Xbox/PC. "This series will have a total of 13 episodes. I have many characters to cast, 12 specifically. If you wish to learn more about the show, you can check out my documentary series regarding the show. You can view the first episode here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlzPQvJS3og A little bit about me, I am a freelance filmmaker who actually got into film through making Halo videos as a kid when I was younger. You can check out some of my work here - www.jkprising.com/ I've always wanted to return to my roots & finish a series I was never able to before, but now I have the time to focus on it. This is a paid position. Rates depend on each character as some have more lines than others & vice versa. I am not the wealthiest person in the world, but I will to compensate each voice actor for their performance. My budget per character is between $100 - $300. This again, all varies per character. In this post, there is a video of what the character will look like in the series. I have also attached a single page from a random episode script from the show. The highlighted lines are what the character will say. There will also be non verbal lines highlighted, this is meant to be voiced kind of like an anime, where every movement usually has sounds. Typically, how would you make a sound if you did any of the following, head turn, turns around, surprised gasp, sighs, etc. Since this a paid gig, I am expecting a professional voice audition & if hired, continued professional audio. This means minimum to no background noise. The audio needs to be crisp."

Roles

Chloe Moody (Voiceover): Female, 18-35WORK FROM HOME29. Voice type: English/United Kingdom accent, polite, doesn't get mad often but when she does, she loses it, anxious, low self esteem, hopeful. Chloe Moody used to be a psychiatrist, but after the death of her soon to be husband, she spiraled into insanity. She met someone later on in life named Tom Rains, who looked exactly like her dead boyfriend. She became obsessed with him & tried to get with him, which sunk her further into a deep depression. She finally hit rock bottom, which causes her to seek out help from the very people she used to serve. Chloe meets a psychiatrist named Jennifer, who is able to help herself almost fully recover. Chloe eventually accidently runs back into Tom, which triggers Chloe to try one last time. After a final rejection, Chloe comes to the realization that she is not redeemable & decides to take her own life in front of Tom. Chloe's death, triggers a massive event for Tom Rains, which has massive ramifications for the series. Chloe is a major character and will appear in a couple episodes.Languages:

English

Accents:

British

Australian

Voice Styles:

Soft

Softspoken

Crazy

Compassionate

Sad

Angry

Required Media: Voice Reel

Dark Daryl (Voiceover): Male, 18-40WORK FROM HOME

32, voice type: Very dark presence, evil. sadistic, look at examples like Yami Marik from the Original Yu-Gi-Oh - www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xaa_ycud6o, manic, darkness. Dark Daryl is the darkness of his original persona, Daryl. Daryl accidentally acquired a powerful technology known as an imperium. This caused Daryl to lose himself to it at some point & was taken over by an alternate personality named, The Professor, which caused tons of damage. When Daryl came back to his senses, the damage had been done & others abandoned him, which caused him to grow angry at something that he didn't consciously do. Daryl once again loses himself to the imperium, which turns into Dark Daryl, a representation of all the anger & hatred he endured over the course of his past uncontrollable actions. Dark Daryl is very aggressive, sadistic & wants to destroy the people who wronged him in the past. Eventually, he comes face to face with Daryl & fights to stay as the one who remains in control, even if that means killing Daryl & anyone who gets in his way. Dark Daryl is a character who appears in the second half of the show, & becomes the series main villain. He will appear in many episodes.

Languages:

English

Voice Styles:

Aggressive

Angry

Evil

Commanding

Straightforward

Scary

Dangerous

Intimidating

Demonic

Required Media: Voice Reel

Nikki (Voiceover): Female, 18-35 WORK FROM HOME

25. Voice type: Energetic, passionate, caring, open-minded, loving, positive, independent, fighter. Nikki used to date Tom Rains. She didn't really have much going for her, as she had no ambition at all during that time of her life. After Tom broke up with her, this was quite the shock to Nikki. It caused her to really dive deep within herself & from that moment, she tried to learn more about herself. She discovered a love for storytelling, & so went into journalism. Nikki is now dating Jennifer & they have been together for almost a year. Nikki eventually gets wrapped up in a major conspiracy, which drags many of her friends in with her. She is in for the story of her entire career. Nikki is a major character and will appear in many episodes.

Languages:

English

Voice Styles:

Comforting

Compassionate

Caring

Amusing

Animated

Brave

Heroic

Required Media: Voice Reel

Talent works remotely with professional recording equipment.

Professional Pay: $100 - $300Pays between $100-$300 depending on character.

Nationwide (United States)

Additional Materials

Website: https://www.jkprising.com/

Nikki Audition.pdf - https://d26oc3sg82pgk3.cloudfront.net/files/media/uploads/casting_call/7f95c65b-ab53-43d3-a66b-9e59d1041acb.pdf

Dark Daryl Audition.pdf - https://d26oc3sg82pgk3.cloudfront.net/files/media/uploads/casting_call/00cfdf46-84c1-4da6-9dee-91c7bcdeed3d.pdf

Chloe Moody Audition.pdf https://d26oc3sg82pgk3.cloudfront.net/files/media/uploads/casting_call/186cbe9e-9c7e-4ce5-bcbe-2407a9dec00b.pdf

#voiceover casting calls #work from home voice over work #music wanted online #jobs for musicians #remote jobs for musicians #music writer jobs #gigs for recovering addicts

[moviediary]

Grease 2

So, this movie kind of slaps in the worst way ever. You have to watch it with the knowledge that it’s terrible, it makes it a lot better. The songs are pretty underrated, a lot of them are low key bops and I would probably listen to them without watching the movie. It’s a product of its time so of course it’s aggressively heteronormative even though the main guys are very queer coded just like most 80s movies. The main girl is a fine singer, but her character is kind of boring and really just an ass most of the time. She also has no business being in a movie about the 50s (or maybe the 60s it’s not very clear) she is so obviously a quintessential 80s chick from her hair to her leather pants, she’s basically Sandy’s makeover as a person. In my opinion the main love interest could have done a lot better. He spends the whole movie doing the reverse of the first movie, going from geek to biker??? Yeah, they all ride motorcycles now, but they’re still called T-Birds which really doesn’t make sense but nothing in this movie really does. Oh! And Frenchy is in it, she came back to high school to complete her chemistry credits?? The whole movie is a mess but honestly, I enjoy watching it. I’ll watch it again, I already have.

Basically it’s the first movie but gender swapped and with a talent show and biker gangs.

The T-Birds really make this movie, they’re the most interesting characters in it. Their leader Johnny is funny and likeable despite being a dick, he has very obvious vulnerability and growth during the film which makes the audience not hate him. His goons are hilarious, they have some of the best lines in the movie and I actually laughed out loud at some of the shit they said. I could do without the gratuitous sexualization of high schoolers but what can you do. I don’t really understand why they have beef with this 20-person biker gang of full-grown adults that apparently have nothing better to do than antagonize 4 teenagers but hey I get it they need a common enemy. I also get that they were going for anger and jealousy when Johnny looked at Michael every time he was being his sexy mysterious biker persona but maybe they should have told him that because that definitely isn’t what’s coming across in his face. He has the biggest man crush I have ever seen I swear.

Michael, who is apparently Sandy’s cousin even though he’s British and she was Australian, really drives the story; everything happens because he wants to date Stephanie even though the only real conversations, they’ve had are just him being nice and her being a dick the whole time but I guess she’s pretty? So he becomes a biker to be what she wants because she wouldn’t date a hot smart guy with a British accent, no way he’s a loser. I guess. So instead he spends the whole movie trying to live up to her standards which is more than a little infuriating but lets be honest the plot isn’t really why you watch this movie. It really only starts happening in the 3rd act anyway, most of it is taken up by talent show hijinks and motorcycle themed music numbers. And a surprising amount of bowling. I wasn’t expecting the coolest kids in school to have their own bowling league but that bold choice did lead to a very confusing but fun musical number in which we see that Johnny sings high sometimes because he’s basically Danny in even tighter pants (somehow) and Paulette (a pink lady played by Judy Garland’s daughter) has an amazing voice that doesn’t get used enough in the songs.

There’s a lot of odd running gags in the movie that really don’t need to be there. Rhonda’s obsession with her “huge nose” even though it’s really not that big. The random teacher that had a nervous breakdown and keeps almost dying. The teacher whose whole gimmick is that she’s hot and maybe sleeping with her students? But definitely sleeping with the substitute teacher. The fact that Johnny’s right-hand man’s name is Goose? A reference to a movie that hadn’t even come out when this movie take place? I think anyway, like I said it’s really hard to pinpoint when this movie is supposed to take place. Also the T-Birds are on the football team I think? Or they’re running drills during PE which also doesn’t make sense with their characters. I don’t know man the whole movie is so strange they say stuff and then never bring it up again.

The ending is where I think the movie really lets you down. After a very weird talent show scene Where Steph has a very boring song and is all sad because she thinks Michael is dead, they have a party. And the party is a Luau and it’s quite possible one of the whitest things I’ve ever seen its so embarrassing. They have a long song about how they’re having a Luau and then they have a bunch of shirtless guys carry Steph and Johnny into a pool on a big throne/raft thing? And then the biker gang bursts in because they have nothing better to do and everyone’s screaming and throwing things it’s very chaotic. The continuity errors in this scene are absolutely outrageous. Then Michael shows up out of nowhere and Johnny literally quivers when he sees him (yeah he’s straight) and he singlehandedly kicks out all those hardened criminals. Then there’s a very long and awkward moment where they initiate Michael into the T-Birds even though school is basically over at this point and then Steph and Michael make out. One of my most hated scene tropes in movies, the very intimate confession and make out in the middle of a crowd. And then finally we have the last song of the movie in which Steph and Michael start off with a duet and their voices sound terrible together (it’s a sign and I refuse to believe otherwise) and then everyone else joins in and they try way too hard to tie up all the character’s storylines even though as the audience you weren’t really all that invested in greaser number three and pink lady number three’s sex life and most of these things didn’t really need to be sung out loud they were pretty minor parts of the movie. And oh, okay, everyone now ends up in a relationship even Paulette’s younger sister who I thought was in like, middle school but now I guess she’s dating the dumb guy from the T-Birds but they’re all seniors?? Okay…yeah, the ending fucking sucks it’s the worst part. The song is long and boring, and the choreography is bad but then they recap a bunch of the better songs during the credits and it’s all fine again!

Overall, the movie isn’t nearly as bad as I’ve heard other people say, I’ve seen much worse. And the thing is, the bad parts are kinda what makes it great in the first place. It’s kind of like when they made mean girls 2. It’s not really a sequel because non of the actually important characters are in it (except for Frenchy but she’s only there for like 10 minutes tops). It’s a cash grab but not the worst one. The songs are fun, and the characters are pretty fucking funny if you ignore how weird it is that they’re all like 30. I’d say watch it if it’s free to stream, don’t rent it. I probably get more out of it than a normal sane person because I read into character’s and their emotional connections way too much I basically am rewriting it in my head. I doubt anyone would be interested but I definitely broke down all the characters and their motivations and tried to figure out their actions, also known as me trying to create queer characters off of very unstable reasoning. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Anyway, the people in this movie are pretty hot and most of the songs kinda slap so even if the plot is questionable other things make up for it.

As of now this movie is available for streaming on Amazon prime.

Final Verdict:

On my scale 7/10

Actual good movie scale 4/10

#grease #grease 2 #movie review

[mixedfeelingsproject]

Anonymous

Where are you from? Australia

How would you describe your race/ethnicity? Sri Lankan/English Australian

Do you identify with one particular aspect of your ethnicity more than another? Have you ever felt pressure to choose between parts of your identity? It's tricky, because I identify more with my Sri Lankan side given that I have closer family connections on that side, more cultural background, and was raised primarily by my parent on that side. However, some people see me as fairly white-passing so there's a pressure there from those people (and even from some members of my extended family on the Sri Lankan side) to identify as white. 

Did your parents encounter any difficulties from being in an interracial relationship? Yes - my white parent's parents were not supportive at first, and there was definitely some conflict there. They also had to deal with people giving my white parent weird looks when he was walking around with 2 brown-looking children, and with people asking my brown parent if they were our nanny. 

How has your mixed background impacted your sense of identity and belonging? I've always felt that I'm both Sri Lankan and white, and belong to both of those groups fully and equally. However, most monoracial people don't tend to see it that way. I've found that most people in each of those groups see me as an outsider, as not belonging to their group - which kind of leaves me feeling like I don't belong anywhere. Also, I have a complicated relationship with my identity in terms of colonialism, as one side of my family (Sri Lankan) is from a colonised country and have been HEAVILY impacted by colonialism in ways that still impact our lives today, but the other side of my family (English) were the colonisers and continue to benefit from colonialism today. So it's very hard to understand and come to terms with where I fit in.

Have you been asked questions like "What are you?" or "Where are you from?" by strangers? If so, how do you typically respond? Yes. So many times, and it's awful. Sometimes it's from acquaintances or service workers trying to make small-talk, sometimes it's from friends. In high school someone in my grade once walked up to me and just bluntly (and loudly) asked 'So what are you?' But the worst thing for me is how often I am asked by doctors/medical workers what my 'country of origin' is. My gut instinct is always to just say 'here' (Australia), because that's the truth. But they're not actually asking what my country of origin is - they're asking about my ethnicity/genetic background. It just really hurts me when people assume because I don't look white, I must be from another country. And it hurts when I answer with my ethnicity (Sri Lankan/English) and they only latch onto one of those components and ignore the other.

Have you experienced people making comments about you based on your appearance? Yes. A lot of people make comments about my appearance - mostly I think in attempt to compliment me, but it often comes off really weird and slightly racist. Eg. a white relative once went on a long spiel about how beautiful my natural skin colour was (like it wasn't too pale, and wasn't too dark), and how I didn't have to tan or anything. I've also had so many comments from white people about my hair. I don't brush it every day, and I don't brush it all the way from root to tip because when I do it becomes uncontrollable and incredibly puffy and difficult to manage.  So normally I just brush the top so it's neat, and leave my natural curls. I get lots of comments about having 'messy' hair, and I often get told to brush my hair or tie my hair up to look presentable.

Have you ever been mistaken for another ethnicity? So many times, and for so many ethnicities as well. No one's ever actually guessed correctly. I've been called Greek, Persian, Middle-Eastern, just plain white, Indian... the list goes on. It's interesting because to some people I'm white-passing, but others don't see any white in me at all (based on appearance). That's why I think being white-passing is a lot more complicated/nuanced than either simply being white-passing or not.

Have you ever felt the need to change your behavior due to how you believe others will perceive you? In what way? Yes. I tend to refrain using Sinhalese/Tamil words and Sri Lankan slang around other Sri Lankan people (extended family and friends) because so often when I do I get strange looks and get made fun of for my accent. But at the same time, I feel like I have to overcompensate when I'm around other Sri Lankan people to 'prove' I'm one of them? Like proving that I can handle spice, proving that I like certain curries etc., proving that I know what different slang terms mean.

What positive benefits have you experienced by being mixed? It's nice to be a part of 2 different cultures and to have values and practices from both of them. I feel like I have broader cultural knowledge than most people for that reason. It's kind of hard to think of positive benefits, to be honest.

Have you changed the way you identify yourself over the years? Yes. I used to call myself a 'halfie' when I was a kid, and self-identified as half-Sri Lankan and half-English. Now, I don't like to refer to myself as 'half' anything. I'm a whole person and I am fully Sri Lankan, fully English, and fully Australian. So now I just call myself 'mixed' or Sri Lankan/English Australian. 

Are you proud to be mixed? Yes

Do you have any other stories you would like to share from your own experiences? I have this example of an awful experience that I think a lot of 'white-passing' people can probably relate to. I was lining up to use a public bathroom, and there was a long queue. Then, a dark-skinned woman with a little kid walked past the line straight towards the bathrooms. The white woman in front of me roughly grabbed this woman by the arm and told her she had to stand in the line. The woman with the kid couldn't understand what she was saying, and was speaking another language. But, the white woman aggressively insisted she go back in the line. I was too shocked to react, and to this day I regret that I didn't say anything or tell the white woman to back off. But the thing that really gets to me is that when the woman with the kid left (I think she took them into the disabled stall), the white woman turned to me, smiled, scoffed, and shook her head. As if this were some kind of inside joke for white people. As if she expected me to respond in kind (ah, damn those silly brown people!). I just glared at her and turned my back. That happened almost 2 years ago and yet I haven't been able to forget it. Being white-passing to some, I definitely have white privilege. But it also means I have to put up with shit like this - with white people making racist comments and jokes and doing racist things around me because they think I'm 'safe' to be racist around. I've since learned to call that stuff out immediately.

#mixed #srilankan #australian #english #white #identity

[rosa-berberifolia]

The Man at the Bar 3|Mortal Kombat x Reader|Kenshi x Reader

A/N: Part 3 to The Man at the Bar, probably the last one…idk

Be Warned: violence, kidnapping, panic attacks, not NSFW but still kinda iffy

Word Count: around about 2500

---

It had been a month since your first time with Kenshi, and honestly you two couldn’t be happier. You spent a lot of time with him, either at his place or yours, and sometimes at Takeda and Jacqui’s. You would do cute things together like help him train by laying under him while he did push-ups so that he could kiss you every time he went down; or he would come and help you study, sitting in each other’s arms as you read your material to him, and at the end of each chapter you would make out a little. It had only been a month, but you knew your feelings for Kenshi ran deep. You loved him. You hadn’t told him yet though. You felt it was too soon.

Recently, however, you started having this feeling like whenever you were going from one place to another, that you were being followed. It always felt like the hairs on the back of your head were standing on end. Like you felt eyes on the back of your skull. One night after work you were walking over to Kenshi’s. You had called him on the way with the reasoning that if something happened to you while you walked he would hear and be able to call the police.

“Hey babe.” You greeted. You didn’t want to worry him though, so you kept the conversation light, just talking about how your shift went at work. But again as you walked down the street the hairs on your neck stood up. You glanced behind you to see a woman in red walking. You recognized her from the other day.

‘Kay. Maybe she just lives around here.’ You thought to yourself. But still suspicion ran through you so you decided to try to out move her. While continuing to talk to Kenshi about each other’s days, you turned left down a side street and walked to the next intersection. The woman followed. Then you took another left and halfway down the street you looked back and the woman was still there. Taking another left at the next intersection you walked a ways and then checked again. She was still behind you. You came to the next intersection which was a block back from when you first turned. You had gone in a full circle and the woman was still following you. Panicking you picked up your pace.

“Kenshi,” You started. Your voice was shaking with fear.

“What’s wrong? Your voice sounds off.” He responded on the other end of the line.

“Someone has been following me.” You said in a hushed tone. You picked up your speed hoping that you might be able to get to the compound before she caught up to you.

“What? Who?” Kenshi immediately sounded afraid. “Describe them to me.” But as your pace quickened, so did hers, and soon she was sprinting towards you. You started to run but she was fast and she grabbed you and pulled you into an alley way. Your scream was quickly silenced by her hand over your mouth. She grabbed the phone out of your hand and spoke into it.

“Kenshi,” She said with a palpable accent, but you weren’t sure where from.

“Skarlet.” You could hear Kenshi talking from the receiver. “Please, don’t hurt her.” The panic was obvious in his voice.

“That depends entirely on you.” She said, amusement clear in her attitude. “You will come quickly. And you will come alone.” She laughed, and moved her hand away from your mouth. A long knife seemed to materialize out of red goo that looked and smelled like blood. Then she plunged it into your shoulder, causing you to scream out in pain.

“NO!” You heard Kenshi yell through the phone before Skarlet crushed it in her hand.

Your vision started going dark and you blacked out from the pain.

///

You woke up in a large empty room. It looked like a warehouse. You were tied to a chair with tape over your mouth and one light hung over top of you.

“Oh, looks like our little dove has woken up.” Said a male voice with an Australian accent. Your eyes cleared to find a big muscled man with a beard and mutton chops, and an artificial red eye crouching in front of you. “Hello.” He greeted you. He put his two fingers on your knee and walked them up your thigh getting incredibly close to your centre. You tried to move your leg to kick him but you found that your legs were also bound to the chair. Instead you made the whole chair move as you tried to scoot back away from him, all the while trying to yell at him past the tape on your mouth. He laughed at your attempts. “Oh, we’re gonna have fun with you little dove.”

“Mfff mmm!” You tried to say ‘Fuck you!’.

“Let’s just get this done, Kano.” Said Skarlet’s familiar voice.

“Ah, you’re no fun.” Said Kano as he stood up and walked over to where Skarlet was. Then all of a sudden the light went out. All that you could see was the glowing of Kano’s machinery.

“What the hell is going on?” Kano complained.

“He is here.” Skarlet notified. “Get the lights!” She ordered Kano, and then you saw his lights move to the other end of the room. As Kano was leaving, from the other end of the room came a bright blue light. It looked like a glowing sword that came running into the room. The unfortunately familiar goopy sound of Skarlet’s sword materializing sounded next to you. As the blue sword came closer you noticed that it was accompanied by two glowing blue eyes.

The clanking of swords and grunting of the two fighters were the only things you heard as the blue sword swung around and fought Skarlet.

“Oi! I got it!” Kano yelled from the back of the warehouse and the lights switched on. You saw Kenshi in full battle gear wielding the blue sword. This was the first time you had seen him without the bandana on his face. You were in absolute shock. His eyes. What was wrong with his eyes? Why did he never tell you about them? What was going on? Skarlet and Kenshi backed away from each other for a moment and you watched stunned. Then Kenshi’s glowing blue sword lifted into the air and started spinning. Kenshi raised his hand and as he did so, so did Skarlet. She started screaming as she floated closer and closer to the spinning sword. You watched in horror as she was put through the blade and was slashed into small pieces.

Kano came running at Kenshi from the back. You tried to warn him but it only came out as a muffled scream. Kenshi’s sword came back to his hands and he was able to block Kano’s attack.

“Don’t worry, Y/n. It will be okay.” Kenshi’s voice sounded in your brain and your whole body froze. What the fuck was that? Why did it sound like Kenshi? You realized after a moment that you weren’t breathing, so you tried to gasp for breath. But it was all too much. Being stabbed and kidnapped. Seeing Kenshi with what? Jean Grey powers and a light saber? What the fuck was going on? Nothing was making any resemblance of sense. Neurons were firing in your brain faster than you were able to process them. And that’s when your breath started to become labored. Your body started shaking.  Your throat was tight. You couldn’t swallow. You couldn’t breathe. You were light headed. You tried desperately to make sense of anything that was happening to you, but you couldn’t.  You closed your eyes so that your brain had less to try to process.

Then you felt hands on your arms. You opened your eyes to see Takeda kneeling in front of you. He shook your arms as he tried to speak to you. But the ringing in your ears from your panic attack made it impossible to hear him. When you just looked at him blankly, not saying anything he looked behind you. You hadn’t noticed that the tape from your mouth was gone and that the ties on your wrists were broken. Jacqui came into your field of vision and she too started to talk to you. Slowly you started to come back enough that you heard her saying your name.

“Y/n?” You heard her voice quietly. “Y/n?” She said again. “Oh Jesus, her shoulder!” Jacqui yelled and she started to put pressure on both sides of the wound. You screamed in pain and Takeda took your hands in his.

“It’s gonna be okay, Y/n.” He promised giving you a warm but concerned smile. For a moment you forgot about everything, but the sound of Kano screaming as Kenshi drove his sword through his skull reminded you. And then all of your panic came back. Words were hard to form. How could you ask what was going on?

“Kenshi?” Was all you were able to say. Even though you were seeing a side of him, a blood thirsty, violent side, you still needed him to be okay. Because even though this side of him was aggressive, he saved you. Kenshi saved you. And you were entirely grateful for it.

“He’s here.” Takeda said and then he looked over and yelled, “Dad, get over here!”

Kenshi cleaned off his sword that no longer glowed blue and put it behind his back. He ran over to the chair you were sitting in. You watched him come over as your breaths became ragged and sharp. You were hyperventilating.

“Wha – what – the – wha –“ You could hardly speak as the three crowded around you. You closed your eyes again, trying to find a little bit of peace in the chaos that was going on around you. When you opened your eyes again you were on a helicopter. You didn’t know how you got there, but you were glad to not be in that warehouse anymore. You were sitting on a seat and Kenshi was sitting on the floor in front of you while Jacqui still held your wound. Cassie and Takeda were at the front of the helicopter.

“You’re okay, sweetheart.” Kenshi tried to help. He cupped your cheek in one hand and moved Jacqui’s hand away with the other to examine your wound. “Cage, get a med bag in here!” He said into the room.

“I sa – I saw you li – lift her, a- and y-you…” You started to cry in-between breaths. You shook your head, trying desperately to make sense of what had just happened. “Your eyes?” You gasped for breath, “I heard you…” You looked at Kenshi cautiously. “I heard you in my head.”

Kenshi sighed sadly. “Yes.”  Cassie came in with a duffle bag. Kenshi took it from her. He nodded at Jacqui and Cassie and they nodded back and left you two alone. “I should have told you sooner. But we were just so happy together. And I didn’t want to lose you.” He hung his head low. Kenshi opened the bag and pulled out a vile of medicine and a needle. “I was selfish, and you paid the price.” He said as he drew some of the medicine into the needle.

“What is that?” You were surprised that you were able to even form the words to ask the question.

“Antibiotic.” Kenshi said. “It might sting a little.”  He injected the needle into your arm and pressed the plunger. He was right. It stung. But it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as getting stabbed in the shoulder with a blood knife. He put the needle down and paused.  “I am so sorry, Y/n.” He started.

“H-How?” You asked hoping that he would understand that you meant ‘how’ to everything. The blood knife that Skarlet had; his eyes; the sword; his abilities; everything. He took a steadying breath before nodding.

“Skarlet uses blood magic. She uses it to manifest weapons.” Kenshi started to explain. “As for my abilities, well…” He reminded you of the story he told you on your first date, of Song and Shang Tsung and the sword, but he went into greater detail. He told you that he has the ability to read mind, put his thoughts into others’ minds, and to move objects with his mind. He told you of the souls of his ancestors in the sword.

You sat there watching him talk while he bandaged up your shoulder. You tried so hard to absorb and understand everything that he was telling you. It was a lot to take in. You were having a hard time with it and it showed on your face.

“I understand if it’s too much. I thought we could be normal. Have a normal relationship.” He sighed heartbreakingly. “But being with me is dangerous. I understand if you don’t want to continue to be with me.”

It was that last sentence that woke you from your daze. You looked at him with worry. Did he not want to be with you anymore? Was he breaking up with you? No! No, no, no, no. He couldn’t.

“What?” You asked bewildered. “What are you saying?”

“I want you to be safe. And if not being with me is – “ Kenshi started to explain, but you interrupted him.

���No!” You paused to look at him pointedly. “I’m not going to leave you because of this.”

Kenshi looked shocked. “You’re not?”

“No. I can’t. You mean too much to me. If you wanted me to be able to leave you then you shouldn’t have made me fall in love with you.” You said without realizing. And immediately your heart sank. ‘Oops.’ You thought. ‘Now you’ve ruined it.’ It had only been a month since you met Kenshi. You knew already that you loved him. But you thought that it was too early in the relationship to tell him. You wished so hard that you could just suck the words back up. Pretend like they never came out. But they did. And judging by how silent Kenshi was, it was definitely too soon. ‘Shit.’

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” You started to apologize but Kenshi took your face in his hands and brought you to his lips. The kiss was deep and passionate. It sent chills down your spine. You moved your good arm so you could put your hand behind his head and keep him to you. Your lips moved together, adoring each other, and loving each other. Kenshi pulled away first and rested his forehead against yours.

“Don’t be sorry.” He said and then gave you a small peck on the lips. “I love you too.”

#mortal kombat imagine #mortal kombat x reader #mortal kombat #kenshi #kenshi x reader #kenshi imagine

[inahazzze]

Wayfaring Stranger

⭐ Please enjoy this fluffy meet cute one shot featuring AU poet dad!Harry and a bisexual singer OFC! It’s roughly 7.7k words. ⭐

***A/N: I’ve been working on this for a while and I’m really proud of it so I would super appreciate any likes/reblogs/asks/feedback about it!! Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think :) x ***

Sav’s eyes are mostly shut against the blinding sun when she slows to a stop to catch a breath with her hands on her knees. After 45 straight minutes of running, the sound of her own heartbeat has started to compete with the electronic rock pumping through her headphones. She makes sure that she’s out of anyone’s way on the sidewalk and leans against a boarded in shop front to relieve her aching legs. She drinks deeply from her water bottle and holds one finger against her wrist in concentration. After a minute, she starts counting under her breath so that she doesn’t keep losing track of what she’s up to. Sav can usually complete this routine on autopilot, but this morning she can’t stop thinking about the text she received from Erin about two hours ago. Which is saying something that it’s taking up all her brainpower, as she hasn’t even read the text yet. She could only see the first line, which was enough to lead her brain to comprise every possible follow up to I’ve been thinking about sending this text for days. Sav wasn’t even meant to go for a run this morning, but it seemed like a better idea than walking circles around her apartment until she had to leave for the afternoon shift at work. Who texts their ex at 8am on a Friday morning?

It’s already been two hours since the text came in, so Sav decides to get it over with and finally read it before she chickens out. She pulls her phone out from her bra, cleans the screen against her leggings, and reluctantly opens the message.

I’ve been thinking about sending this text for days. I’m sorry for what I did. And for everything I said. I miss you.

It feels like her heart has been ripped out again. Right when she feels like she’s finally starting to move on and heal, Erin has to go and do this. All she can do is stare at the screen and try not to cry. Erin was the one who broke up with her two months ago and now she thinks she can just text and Sav will come running?

It’s at this point that Sav realises that there’s a man sitting only about a metre away, watching her with a slightly concerned expression. He’s wearing a grey newsboy cap and a striped white button up that’s undone to the length of a hanging cross necklace. Countless tattoos peek out from his pushed-up sleeves and his hands are adorned with large silver rings that reflect the sunlight. The man is leaning back against his chair, one hand around his phone and the other wrapped around a steaming cup of black coffee. Sav hadn’t even realised that she’d stopped next to a bustling cafe.

“Can I help you?” She asks him, only realising that she sounds a bit aggressive after she’s spoken. She hadn’t even registered that he was there, so she’s just a bit taken aback to notice that someone had been watching her.

When he smiles at her, it’s genuine and kind. “Are you alright?” He asks.

Sav immediately feels bad that she snapped at him and took her frustration about Erin out on this stranger.

“Yeah, um. Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Don’t sound too convinced, if ‘m honest,” he says.

Sav doesn’t know what to say back, so she just looks back down at her phone as if it will give her any answers on what to do. She’s thinking about what to respond to Erin when she hears the man speak again.

“Are you Aussie?”

“Um… yeah. Why?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I get it, I’m just a random guy on the street.”

“No, it’s all good. I’m just… I’m having a shit morning,” she says.

“I only ask ‘cause my daughter’s Aussie. Well, technically.”

“Oh,” Sav says with eyebrows raised. She didn’t think he looked old enough to have any children. “What do you mean technically?”

“Her mum’s Aussie. And she lives with her mum, so she’s been picking up all sorts of things from her.” Sav doesn’t miss that he casually slips in a comment about his daughter’s mother living separately to him. “She’s only visited Australia twice, but already fancies herself a real Aussie Sheila,” he says, badly mimicking a Crocodile Dundee sounding accent for the slang term.

Sav laughs and loosens up a bit, feeling slightly better about talking to this stranger. He’s nice, and their casual friendly chat is taking her mind off of Erin – even if only just a little. He seems harmless, and isn’t asking her anything inappropriate or invasive like men on the street usually do when they try to talk to her.

“I’m sure your daughter is a real Sheila if she sounds like… that.”

“Hey!” he says, drawing out the word. “Are you saying that my incredible impression of a very standard Australian accent isn’t a realistic one?”

“No, you’re right, it’s absolutely perfect.”

“That it is,” he says, clearly trying to keep a straight face. The subtle beginnings of dimples begin to peek out the sides of his mouth from under his blushing cheeks. You smile lightly and let your tense shoulders relax a little more.

“Um… do you wanna talk about it?” He asks after a moment in a slow drawl.

Sav hesitates a moment, unsure of whether she should open up to this virtual stranger. It usually takes her a while to trust people but for some reason she finds herself answering him honestly. Gesturing at her phone, Sav releases an unnecessarily dramatic shrug. “It’s just my ex, s’all.”

“Ah,” he nods in understanding. “Recent break-up?”

“Yeah, but I’m okay,” Sav says, unsure if she’s trying to convince him or herself. He waits patiently as she gathers her thoughts. “Been a few months. This morning she texted me out of nowhere.”

“Tough one, that,” he says with sincerity. Sav’s relieved that he didn’t make a comment or seem to react in any way to the she pronoun that she let slip. London’s a progressive city, but she always tries to be careful just in case. Sometimes people make a big deal about it and start to ask invasive questions, and other times people will very clearly show their surprise or disgust or arousal. The fact that he didn’t do any of those things makes her immediately more comfortable around him.

Sav is shocked out of her thoughts when a nearby bus honks at a passing car. She meets his eyes dead on, and notices how light they are. In overcast London, most people’s eyes look a standard brown until you really look. Today is sunny enough to show off how his are tinted a mossy green, like a dull blade of grass after a really hot day. She finds herself wondering how the colour changes based on the light. She wants to see him again solely to know if the green in his eyes will become brighter, or softer, or bluer.

“Did you want a coffee?” He asks, and she notices how smooth and soothing his northern accent is.

“Oh, I…” Sav looks down at her watch to see if she even has time before work to sit and have a coffee with him. She hadn’t realised how long she’d been running and it’s later than she meant to be out for. She’s considering saying yes, even if she’ll be forced to rush into work a bit late. He’s nice, cute and funny, and maybe this is exactly what Sav needs. But on the other hand, he is a complete stranger that she met on the street. He seems completely harmless and even told her about his daughter, but she can’t help but feel weird because she doesn’t know him. They’ve only had a short conversation, after all. And to top it all off, Sav is now more confused than ever since Erin’s text this morning, so she just wants to be alone to process and think. On a better day, she might have agreed.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, by the way,” he cuts in to her thoughts.

“I do, I just really ought to be getting home,” she says with her best attempt at a genuine smile. She tries to convey her thoughts to him but he breaks their eye contact.

“No worries, have a wonderful day, then,” he says with a finality that Sav doesn’t like. His voice isn’t cold, but it’s definitely more distant and polite than a minute before.

“You too,” Sav says as she starts to walk away.

“Wait,” she hears and spins around. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, right. It’s Sav.” She hadn’t even realised that they hadn’t introduced themselves.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Sav. I’m Harry.” His warm smile returns for the briefest moment.

“Have a good one, Harry.”

Even though a part of her regrets rejecting his offer of coffee, Sav leaves feeling like her Friday morning has already drastically improved.

~

TWO WEEKS LATER

The Thursday afternoon set at the Barwon Lounge Club is never the most exciting one, but Sav still feels grateful that there are a handful of people here to listen to her music. She often prefers days like this to the busier weekend shows, even though she doesn’t get as many tips, because at least some people listen to her when it’s not so busy. It’s not that she blames people for talking over her - they came here to eat, drink and have music in the background. They didn’t come here specifically to see her. She accepted that a long time ago and considers it a part of the job. At least she can still do what she loves, unlike her bartending job where she pours beer for grumpy old men for hours.

It’s just Sav and her guitar on the tiny stage in the corner of the dining room, playing to a large open space filled with tables and couches. She plays Thursdays to Sundays, doing an alternating set of all the slow, low-key songs she knows. Her boss likes to remind her regularly how it’s most important that she blend into the background. She’s not there to entertain, but to fill silence.

She’s almost halfway through her standard set when she’s pulled out of her trance. Her eyes go wide in surprise when she sees Harry enter from across the room. Harry, who she’d met almost two weeks ago and has thought about countless times since. She doesn’t normally talk to strangers on the street and she definitely doesn’t usually think about them after their interaction. There was just something about him - he stuck in her head like a catchy song on the radio.

She’s frozen in place, forgetting to immediately transition to the next song. A few people eating lunch look over towards her, because nothing is as noticeable as absolute silence. When Harry meets Sav’s eyes, he breaks out into a wide smile. He’s wearing loose blue jeans and a black t-shirt, with his hair held back in the same newsboy cap she’d seen him wear on the day they met. He moves closer towards the stage to find a table to sit at, and once he’s closer Sav can see that he’s not alone. He’s holding the hand of a young girl, maybe four or five years old, with beautiful dark olive skin and rich chocolate curls atop her head. She’s hiding behind a chair that’s taller than her and looking up at her father with a furrowed brow, communicating something to him. He sighs and smiles at her, bending down on his knees to speak softly to her face-to-face. Sav can’t hear what he’s saying but notices the child nodding her head before pushing her curls into her father’s chest. Harry wraps his arms tightly around his daughter and peppers her with multiple quick kisses to her cheek.

At this point, Sav’s boss peeks his head around the corner and raises his eyebrows at her. She knows that he’ll tell her off if she doesn’t restart soon, so she gathers herself with a deep breath and tries not to think about Harry now being here. She clears her throat and spontaneously decides to play a song that she wasn’t planning on doing today. Eva Cassidy’s Wayfaring Stranger is one of her favourites, plus it’s one of her most polished songs vocally. It wasn’t necessarily for Harry, but it was a little bit because of him. When she sang the song in a set last week, she was thinking about him as her wayfaring stranger, who she’d probably never see again. In a city as big as London, it didn’t seem all that likely. The lyrics of the song aren’t at all reminiscent of their first run-in a few weeks ago, but for some reason the song is now connected to him. It was a passing thought that has been growing in her mind like a vine since.

As she gets into the song, Sav closes her eyes and forgets she has an audience. That often happens when she sings her favourite songs; the ones she knows like the back of her hand and doesn’t need to think about while singing them. It takes her somewhere that she can’t explain, and the music flows through her as if it’s yearning to be heard of its own accord. When she sings, she goes to a place that she can’t get to while doing anything else. It’s a place somewhere outside of herself – somewhere peaceful and powerful all at the same time. When she sings, she feels free and like the truest version of herself.

As the song comes to a close, she slowly opens her eyes to a smattering of applause that brings her back into the real world. The most enthusiastic applause is coming from Harry and his daughter, which makes her smile. It’s the most applause she’s gotten by far today, and it makes all the difference in the world. Sav’s boss peeks his head back into her view and holds up one outstretched hand at her to signal that she has a 5 minute-break now. She usually gets one roughly halfway through her set so that she can go to the bathroom, or get some fresh air. Sav nods at her boss as she places her guitar into its stand and reaches for her water bottle with the other hand.

Glancing back up, she notices that Harry’s staring at her with a focused intensity. Even as his daughter bounces up and down in her seat and tugs at his sleeve, he’s watching Sav with a look she didn’t see when they first met. The look is strangely intimate and vulnerable, and she feels like in this moment he can see straight through her. See everything that she is, has been, and wants to be. She doesn’t know what look she’s giving back to him, but she knows that she certainly wouldn’t say no if he asked her to have coffee with him again.

Harry gets up from his seat and holds his daughter’s hand securely as he helps her jump out of the chair like it’s a game. They start walking towards Sav, leaving their things at the table because it’s that kind of venue.

“That was amazing!” The young girl says enthusiastically, drawing out the word amazing for as long as she can hold her breath.

Sav smiles widely at the bouncing child. “Thank you very much young lady. What’s your name?”

She pokes Harry’s leg incessantly. “Daddy, she sounds like Mummy.”

“That’s right, sweets. She’s Australian too,” he says to her in a gentle voice.

“Ooh!” She says while jumping up and down. “What’s your favourite animal?”

Sav giggles a little and Harry emits something in between a sigh and a laugh. “Love, the nice woman asked you what your name is, will you tell her?”

“I’m Asha,” she sounds out proudly.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Asha, I’m Sav. And my favourite animal is definitely dogs.”

Harry shows off his dimples when she responds to his daughter with ease. She clearly knows how to speak to children without talking down to them, and this fact warms Harry’s heart even more than her singing did.

“I love dogs.” Asha beams. “My favourite animals are elephants.” She says the word like ewephants, and Sav has to restrain herself from vocalising how cute the gorgeous girl in front of her is.

“I bet they’re like this big,” Asha continues, stretching her arms to her sides as far as they’ll go and throwing her head back.

Harry and Sav chuckle and share a quick look of adoration for the child.

“Would you believe that they’re even bigger than that!” He says to her, eliciting a gasp.

“Even bigger than-“ She nudges Harry’s arms up until he plays along and stretches his arms out to his sides too. “-That?” He nods seriously and she drops her jaw open in dramatic shock. They all giggle, and Sav is reminded of why she loves children.

“By the way, Asha’s right.” Harry says after a moment. “That was really incredible, Sav.”

“You remember my name,” she reflexively voices her first thought.

“Course I do,” he says with a furrowed brow. She likes how he displays his emotions clearly on his face. “Couldn’t forget you,” he says a little softer.

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Asha says with a masterful pout.

“I’m gonna go order now for you, sweets. Chicken fingers?” He asks her with raised eyebrows, clearly unsurprised by the animated response he gets from his daughter.

“I need to go finish my set anyway,” Sav tells him, shifting a bit to pick up her guitar.

“I’ll see you again after, yeah?” He says. She nods, and he takes Asha back to their table.

For the rest of her set, Sav has to force herself to not keep staring at Harry. He’s also trying to avoid looking over at her too much, but is grateful that he can always hear her voice even if he can’t watch her. He cuts up his daughter’s food and asks her about this morning’s lessons at school, but has one ear trained on Sav’s music all the while. He’s entranced by her voice, even just her presence, and wants to take up this opportunity to make sure that he gets to see her again.

At the end of her set, she slowly packs up her things and thinks about whether she should go over to speak to Harry again or see if he comes to her. Luckily, he waves her over before she loses her nerve and heads home.

“Again, that was amazing,” he says as soon as she walks up. He stands and takes a step away from the table, where Asha is engrossed in colouring an ocean landscape with crayons.

“Thanks,” she says, not knowing what else to say.

“Did you- um. Did you want to grab coffee?” Harry asks.

“Now?”

“No, uh. I’ve got Asha today, so it’ll have to be another time. What are you doing tomorrow? Oh wait- you didn’t even say yes yet, did you-”

“I’d love to get coffee with you, Harry,” Sav cuts into his anxious rambling with a smile. “I’ve got another set here tomorrow though, then I bartend afterwards, so I can’t in the day.” His face begins to drop until she quickly clarifies what she was insinuating. “But I’m not working the night shift.”

She’s rewarded with the brightest smile he’s shown her yet. “Can I- I know we don’t really know each other, but I’d love for that to change. Can I make you dinner?”

A smile creeps on to Sav’s face. “It’s a date.”

Harry heaves an audible sigh of relief and puts his hands into his pockets. “It’s supposed to be a nice evening tomorrow night, so how do you feel about a picnic in the park?” He looks down and blushes. “I’d really like to cook for you.”

“That sounds really lovely,” She replies softly, silently relieved that he doesn’t want to take her to a fancy restaurant. She never feels like she belongs in really upscale places and always manages to embarrass herself somehow.

“It’s a date,” he repeats her phrasing with a broad grin. She can’t believe this is happening. She’s not just going on a date – she’s going on one with a man she’s been thinking about for weeks but thought she’d never see again.

They agree to meet at a park nearby at 6pm the next evening, and Harry gives her his phone number in case she’s running late from work or has any issues finding him. He then needs to take Asha home for a nap, so he gives her one last bright smile before saying goodbye and leaving.

Sav makes her way to the bathroom to hide from her boss and jumps up and down with giddy, childlike joy at what just happened. She’s going on a date with a cute boy and she couldn’t be happier. She knows that there’s no guarantee for how it will go, but something inside of her says that it will go well. She just has a good feeling about it. And about him.

She sits down on the closed toilet seat, thinking about how long it’s been since she’s been on a date. That’s when she remembers that she never responded to Erin’s text from two weeks ago. She kept putting it off but never knew what to say, so she just said nothing.

Sav takes out her phone and decides that seeing Harry again was a sign. She texts Erin one last time, and it feels so good.

I’m moving on, Erin. And so should you.

~

There’s a larger audience for Sav’s set the next day, but it feels like something’s missing without Harry in the audience. After she saw him again yesterday, he became all she could think about. She felt a bit silly about it as she’d only met him twice, but truthfully she was just relieved that she was no longer thinking about Erin. She replayed all their interactions, thought about his smile and his kind eyes, and how he looked at her when he watched her sing. She thought about his gorgeous daughter and how he looked like such a good dad even though he must’ve had her at a fairly young age. She thought about how he remembered her name and said that he could never forget her, and how excited he looked when she agreed to go out with him.

It’s lucky that Sav knows the music of her set so well, because she’s so distracted thinking about the date that she’s mostly running on autopilot. Her brain is so jam-packed with thoughts about tonight’s date that she almost misses Harry in the back of the room, watching her set.

“How long have you been here?” She asks when she’s finished and able to approach him.

“Not that long. Didn’t know when you started so I thought I’d try a bit earlier than I was here yesterday.”

She’s absolutely dumbfounded that he’s standing before her. “You came back.”

“I did.” He’s blushing a little. “I wanted to hear you sing again.”

“Oh,” she lets out in a heavy breath. “That’s… no one’s ever done something like that before.”

“Really?” She thinks he might be sarcastic at first, but he’s genuinely surprised. “Your voice is… it blew me away. Plus, I like you,” he says, his cheeks reddening even more.

He’s laying it on thick and Sav doesn’t know how to react. No one has ever been this forthcoming and complimentary to her before. She opens her mouth to respond but can’t think of a single thing to say.

“I hope this is okay- me coming back. It’s only just occurring to me that it might look a little creepy,” he says, holding his bottom lip between his forefinger and thumb.

“No, it’s not creepy,” she says quickly to ease his mind. Her mind is still spinning that he just said plus, I like you. He added it on so casually. “Um. Tonight- do you still want to…?”

“Yeah, course I still want to go out with you tonight, that very much has not changed – uh, has it for you?” A dash of panic flickers over his previously confident expression.

“I still want to,” she assures him.

“Plus, I realised that I forgot to ask you – do you have any allergies or food preferences?” He says, slightly startled when Sav laughs at him instead of responding.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing, that’s just – you’re really thoughtful. It’s a good laugh, I promise.” He smiles sheepishly, and the expression shows off just how much his daughter looks like him. “I’m vegetarian, actually. Hope that’s okay.”

“It’s great, I’m glad I checked!” His enthusiasm also mirrors his daughter’s, even though he’s obviously a fully-grown man. “Alright then!” He claps his hands a little too loudly, and a few patrons look at them. Sav pretends that she doesn’t see her boss watching them from behind the bar.

“I should really be getting back to work.” She says, unsure of how to say goodbye when they’re meeting again in a few hours.

“Course, just – should I pick you up? Want to be a perfect gentleman,” he says with a cheeky smirk and a comical gesture as if he’s tipping his hat at her. “But we can meet there if you’d rather.”

Sav blinks up at him in disbelief. He’s really thought of everything, and impressed her more than she thought a man could at this point in her life, and the date hasn’t even started yet.

“Meeting there is good,” she manages to say. “Six still fine?” That gives her enough time to get ready after work and still enjoy a few good hours of sunlight with Harry in the park. She’s more excited than she’s been for something in a long time, and her ex is out of her mind completely for the first time since their split. It couldn’t be better.

“Perfect.”

~

Even though Sav had thought about it all day, she hadn’t managed to decide on what to wear to the date by the time she got back to her apartment. She didn’t have time to dawdle, but still managed to try on eight outfits before settling on skinny jeans and a flowery blouse. She wanted to strike a delicate balance between casual and dressed up to look good on her first date in a while. Even though Harry’s already seen her today, Sav feels pressure to leave a positive first impression tonight.

She doesn’t live too far from the park they’d arranged to meet at, so she decides to walk the half hour to ease her nerves. Fingers dancing in her pockets to let out some anxious energy, her mind fills with every possible scenario of how the date might go. She’s excited but worried that she’ll somehow ruin it or do something to scare Harry away. It’s a good thing she arrives when she does, because her worries start to spiral and lead her to the assumption that the date’s going to go wrong for one reason or another. She enters the park a few minutes early to find Harry standing next to a small fountain in the centre of the green. He’s doing something on his phone but puts it away as soon as he sees her.

“You look beautiful,” He says with a genuine smile once she’s within hearing distance. She mumbles a thank you and stumbles over her words until she tells him that he looks nice as well. She has a feeling that he’d look nice no matter what he wore, but finds him particularly attractive tonight. He’s changed his outfit from earlier today too, and is now wearing tight-fitted black trousers with a slightly unbuttoned silken white blouse. The shirt is a bit see-through, so she can tell that he’s inked much more than she thought. She hadn’t previously noticed what look like two birds on his chest, and all she wants to do is brush his silken shirt aside so that she can properly admire them. A small tuft of chest hair peeks out at her from between a few parted buttons, and she has to tear her mind away from thinking too much about what he’d look like without any buttons done up.

“Great, shall we find somewhere to sit then?” He asks, reaching down to pick up a picnic basket and blanket that Sav hadn’t noticed. As he leans down, she’s suddenly extremely grateful to whoever perfectly tailored his trousers. She doesn’t know what’s gotten into her, and desperately wills her mind and body to behave.

“Over by that tree looks nice, don’t you think?” He suggests and begins to lead them through the park. He sets up the blanket in an unoccupied shaded area and offers her the first choice of seating.

“I cut up some fruit and made some vegetarian quiche for us,” he says. “Hope that’s alright.”

She raises her eyebrows, already impressed by the effort he’s put into their evening. “Quiche? Damn, sounds fancy.”

“What, have you never had it before?” He’s clearly shocked.

“Should I have?”

“Well I guess there’s a first time for everything,” bringing out the smirk she’d seen glimpses of before. Harry serves her a piece of quiche on a plastic plate and leaves a small platter of fruit in between for them to pick at. She takes a bite, only a little self-conscious that he’s watching her intently.

“So?”

“It’s… terrible. Inedible. I think I’m getting food poisoning, actually.”

His face drops for only the slightest moment before he rolls his eyes and bites his bottom lip with a smile. He tries to act annoyed but Sav can tell that he’s trying not to laugh. “Very funny.”

“I think you might have to take me to the hospital, now that I think of it.” Sav presses both arms across her stomach in a dramatic gesture and almost loses her composure in the process.

“Oh, stop it,” he laughs, trying to swat at her folded arms as she pulls away giggling.

When their laugher dies down, she takes another bite of the quiche and reassures him. “Being serious, though? It’s delicious. Thank you for making it, it’s really sweet of you.”

Harry looks down at his lap and blushes, clearly pleased that his effort has paid off with both banter and a genuine compliment. As they eat, Sav asks Harry about Asha and mentions how sweet and well mannered she was yesterday. He brightens up immediately at the sound of her name and Sav feels her heart flutter in her chest. He tells her about how his daughter is joyous, funny, loveable, cheeky and thoughtful.

He tells her a story about one time that Asha broke out into Man, I Feel Like A Woman at the top of her lungs in a supermarket even though she didn’t know any words beside the title line. This somehow morphs into Harry telling her another story about how Asha believed she could speak Italian by merely putting on an imitation of the accent when they travelled to Italy for a holiday last summer.

“Sounds like you already have plenty of material to embarrass her with when she’s older,” Sav says, grinning ear to ear.

“Gotta collect ‘em early, I hear,” he says. “To blackmail her as a teenager.” They both devolve into a fit of giggles and exchange blushing smiles back at the other. A few moments of comfortable silence pass with mouths full of watermelon and berries before Harry speaks with a completely different tone of voice.

“You know…” He’s a little hesitant and takes his time. “Sometimes I think that Asha’s the one true love of my life.” Sav just about melts.

Before long, their natural rapport eases her completely into Harry’s company. She unconsciously leans against the scratchy picnic blanket with one wrist and gives Harry her full, undivided attention. He asks her about how she started working at the Barwon Lounge Club, and compliments her again on her voice and guitar skills. She doesn’t know how to react to the repeated compliment and instead changes the subject to ask how he found himself in her workplace with his daughter on a weekday afternoon.

“So, were you stalking me or something?” Sav playfully asks, trying her hand at initiating some light flirtation.

He laughs but answers seriously. “Just a happy accident, m’afraid.”

“Happy indeed,” Sav says, looking down at her empty plate. She thinks about how this is going so much better than she’d even let herself hope.

“She’s usually in reception at that time on a Thursday, but I had to take her for a dentist appointment next door. And then she was suddenly hungry, and I wanted to hear where the beautiful voice was coming from.”

She wants to tell him off again for his sneaky compliment but lets it slide because she’s secretly enjoying it. Then she realises that he’d mentioned a word she’s unfamiliar with. “Sorry, what’s reception?”

“Oh, it’s like kindergarten, or kindy I think it’s called in Australia, right?”

“Course, I should’a guessed that.” She says. “Yeah, it’s kindy. We basically call everything a shortened nickname of the actual word.”

“Yeah, I’ve certainly noticed that. Asha likes to pick up some of them that her mum says, like ‘footy’ instead of football, and she’s started asking for a ‘biccy’ when she wants a biscuit.”

Sav laughs. “Now that’s someone who speaks my language.”

“It’s pretty cute, I’ll admit,” he says with a grin.

“I’ve been in London long enough that I should really know all the lingo by now, but I keep finding that I obviously know nothing.”

“How long’ve you been here?” He asks.

“Two years. Was living in Scotland for a few years before that, though.”

He whistles in response as if he’s impressed. “I love a worldly woman,” he says, and somehow makes it sound sweet instead of weird or creepy.

They spend the next hour talking about the places they’ve lived and travelled, and all of the places that they want to go to next. Sav tells Harry about how she hiked through Spain and stayed in strangers’ homes each night before continuing on. Harry tells her about the time that he got drunk in France and woke up in Belgium. They talk about how much they both love Japan and how they’d both love to do a coast-to-coast road trip of the US. They each manage to eat two pieces of quiche and a sizable amount of fruit while they chat. He’s so enamoured by her presence that he almost misses her pre-emptively, even though the date hasn’t ended.

“Wait,” Sav says suddenly. “I don’t even know what you do, how have I not asked you that yet?”

“Oh, well, I’m a writer.”

“What kind?” She’s not surprised – he seems like the type.

“I write poetry,” he says with a blush. “’And I teach at a college a few days a week.” Sav is about to respond when he continues. “’Ve got a few poetry collections out.”

“Harry!” She says, lightly hitting the side of his arm. “That’s amazing!” His cheeks redden even more but she can tell that he’s pleased by her reaction. “Would you… could you read some of your poems to me?”

He thinks on this request for a moment before coming up with an idea. “I will if you’ll sing to me again.”

“What? Now?” She’s sure it’s a joke, but he looks deadly serious.

“One sec, I’ll be right back.” Harry pushes himself up hurriedly, running back towards the street and leaving Sav confused and unsure of what to do or think. What’s he up to?

A few minutes later, he comes back in sight with a large case slung over his shoulder. He sits down and opens it to remove an old wooden acoustic guitar. There are a few handwritten notes and stickers along the body, including a haphazardly stuck-on rainbow and the words Black Lives Matter.

“Where did that come from?” Sav asks, taken aback. He only smirks at her, placing the guitar in his lap and making sure it’s in tune.

“Would it make you feel better if I sang with you?”

“You can sing?”

“I… yeah.”

Sav agrees only because she wants to hear what his voice sounds like. “You’ve got a deal.” She reaches out for his hand to shake on it, mostly as an excuse to touch him. He’s very warm to the touch, and his skin is soft as butter. Only his fingertips are rough against her skin, and their hands feel instantly comfortable and right together.

He clears his throat and regretfully draws his hand away from hers and instead towards the resting guitar. “Can we do a Fleetwood Mac song?” He asks, already knowing that she’s familiar as he’d heard her play three of their songs during her set at work. He thinks on it for a moment and she waits patiently. “Do you know the lyrics to Gold Dust Woman?”

“Course I do,” she says. “Who do you think I am?” He chuckles and holds his hands up in front of him as if to plead his innocence. She takes a sip from her water bottle and is suddenly nervous. It was one thing when she was doing her job and on a stage – it was only a small stage, but still. This is intimate and personal.

Harry begins to play, and Sav quickly looks around them to check that there’s no one too close by. There are two or three lingering passers-by who may be able to hear but none of them seem to care about Harry’s playing. One has headphones in and the other two are distracted on their phones. It’s nerve-wracking to unexpectedly sing in a public park, on a first date no less, but Sav also finds it kind of exhilarating.

She misses her initial cue because she’s so nervous, so Harry loops the intro chords until she’s ready. Closing her eyes, she focuses on the pleasantly hypnotising lyrics and music. Harry lets her get comfortable in the song and joins for the harmony in the chorus. And Sav isn’t ready.

His voice is like soft leather, or dark chocolate melting on your tongue. It’s like the feeling of someone’s hands playing with your hair, right at the moment when it sends tingles down your spine. It’s like dripping silver, or a feather on skin, or a fresh breath of wintry air after a long summer.

She stutters to a stop in shock but he continues, and she’s grateful because all she wants to do is listen to him endlessly. She can see his hesitation and his reddened ears, so she jumps back into the song as soon as she can gather herself together. She leaves him to tackle the second verse alone as she sung the first, and she’s entranced by how beautiful it is. She’s truly enamoured with his voice and this date and… him.

When they finish, they share a long look before Sav suddenly speaks. “Um, excuse me?”

“What?” He’s surprised by her slightly aggressive tone after what just happened.

“You were complimenting my voice when you can sing like that?”

“Well thanks, but I’m nowhere near as good as you-“

“You’re delusional then.” She puts on an exaggerated pout. “You’re next-level good. I bet you’re one of those people that’s just naturally great at everything.” She picks up her water bottle again and hides behind it by taking a long sip.

“That’s not true,” he shakes his head. “I’m not good at asking you out for another date.” Sav almost chokes on the water. “I’ve been meaning to for a little while and haven’t had the guts.”

She’s now fighting a huge smile, not wanting to give away just how much she wants to squeal in delight at the shameless flirting.

“Smooth,” she says, trying to play it as cool as she can. “But you haven’t held up your part of the bargain yet.” He scrunches up his eyebrows before remembering that he agreed to read some of his poetry in exchange for the song.

“I better get to it then,” he says with a smirk and rummages through his backpack. He pulls out a very worn brown leather notebook, held closed by two long strings that have been wrapped loosely around the book and tucked into itself. It’s covered in what Sav assumes is his own doodling and graffiti – it doesn’t look like the kind drawn by a young child Asha’s age. The words one and only are scribbled carelessly along most of the spine.

Harry takes a minute to decide which poem to share with Sav. He eventually decides on one and she curls her knees into her body, getting comfortable to give Harry her full attention as he reads. He takes a deep breath and slips right back into the gossamer tone of his singing voice to read his poetry.

“This one’s called Woman,” he mumbles, and then begins.

I’m selfish, I know. but I don’t ever want to see

you with him.

I’m selfish, I know. I told you but I know

you’ll never listen.

I hope you can see the shape that I’m in, while he’s touching

your skin.

he’s right where I should-        (where I should be)

but you’re making me bleed. woman

I’m tempted, you know. apologies

are never going to fix this.

I’m empty, I know.

promises are broken like the stitches

I hope you can see the shape I’ve been in. while he’s touching

your skin

this thing upon me, it howls

like a beast.

you flower you feast. woman

When he finishes, something new and palpable hangs between them. It’s not that anything has changed – but an unspoken bond settles into place between them. They’ve shared parts of each other that are unreachable through mere conversation and rarely exchanged on a first date. Either could comfortably say that it’s the best first date they’ve ever had, and possibly would ever have.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Sav whispers. It seems appropriate to only whisper after that. She looks into his light green eyes, trying to convey to him how his poem made her feel. How she can’t quite put it into words but she can put it into feelings. He stares back at her just as intensely, sensing her warmth and gratitude and understanding.

“So would you like to go on a second date with me, then?” Harry says, resting his palm on the picnic blanket close to her knee. He leans his body forward and she unconsciously mirrors him.

“I’d like that,” Sav breathes out. She’s staring at his lips, and wondering how they’re naturally almost the colour of raspberries. She’s slowly leaning towards him with quickening breath, unable to stop the magnetising pull of her body to his. He’s leaning into her too, and moves his hand even closer until he brushes her knee with the back of his thumb. Her whole body erupts in tingles at the unexpected touch – and she’s certain that her goosebumps are visible – but she doesn’t dare look away from him. Harry licks his lips under her gaze and they’re left parted and slightly glistening. She’s now close enough to see every line, pore, and stubble hair on his face, and she wishes she could study him from this distance for hours. Maybe she’ll get to one day, but for now, there’s only one thing on her mind.  

The moment their mouths meet, they seem to melt into each other entirely. She’s immediately overwhelmed with how he tastes sweet like watermelon along with something musky and deep that she can’t describe. He can’t believe how soft she feels against his lips, like he’s brushing up against pure silk. He moves his hand up to rest against her cheek, and caresses his pinky finger against the sensitive underside of her jawbone. She lets out a light moan at the feeling, widening her lips to allow Harry to deepen the kiss. She feels entirely lost in her senses and the feeling of him everywhere.

Their tongues touch and set both Sav and Harry’s skin alight. They both forget where they are and become utterly lost in one another. He’s dizzy with her scent of jasmine and taste of berries, and wishes he could bottle it up and take it with him everywhere. He’s never felt so worked up from just a kiss, no less a first kiss – not to mention they’re in public. It’s like he can feel every nerve ending screaming out for her.

She’s so desperate to feel him as close as can be that she finds herself cupping his cheeks as well, pressing her mouth into him passionately. It’s definitely too lewd for a public park, but neither of them care anymore. She can feel the hard muscles of his jaw flex under her palms and her back arches a bit at the thought of everywhere she wants him to kiss her. She starts emitting light moans that only he can hear, and she can feel the vibration of a growl wanting to form in the back of his throat.

Eventually, they break apart to come up for air, but still remain almost touching. They’re both breathless and eyeing the other with heavy lids that suggest their arousal. Harry takes in her state and is pleased that she’s just as worked up as him.

He smirks, showing off his dimples. “Can the second date be now?”

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles au #harry styles imagine #harry styles smut #one direction fanfiction #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles x ofc #ofc #writing #my writing #wayfaring stranger #harry styles fic #one direction fic

[ludicrousperson]

Get To Know Me Questions (Very long)

thanks for tagging me bubs @meeresnaechte <3

1. What is your first name? Michelle

2. What is your nickname? Michi, Ischi, E.T., Valera

3. What is your zodiac sign? Aries

4. What is your favorite book series? Definitely the Harry Potter Book Series

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? I believe in ghosts but not really in aliens? The term ‘aliens’ is so stigmatized, that I don’t support this term and it’s definition. But somehow I slightly believe that humans are not the only ones in space.

6. Who is your favorite author? Haruki Murakami

7. What is your favorite radio station? I don’t really listen to radio, but when I do, I skip along through every station while driving car.

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? I love to try the variety of all the flavors, but my go to flavor is definitely chocolate hehe.

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? Lovely or Cute/Adorable. I love it when something or someone is just themselves and it’s so pure and lovely and I want to give it/them all my heart.

10. What is your current favorite song? Don’t Settle - Ben Kyle

11. What is your favorite word? It may seem so casual but the word ‘Thanks’ or ‘Thank you’ (‘Danke’ in German) holds so much power and lots meaning. For me it is another way to express my thankfulness and love I hold for my friends and family. ‘Thank you for seeing me’, ‘Thank you for making me laugh’, ‘Thank you.’.

12. What was the last song you listened to? I am You - Stray Kids

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? Breaking Bad, Narcos, Stranger Things & Goblin (KDrama).

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban & Therapie (by DieAussenseiter, German Youtuber).

15. Do you play video games? Currently I play ��The Last of Us’. But rather than playing I really loooove to watch Let’s Plays of for example ‘Detroit: Become Human’, ‘Resident Evil’ aaand so on.

16. What is your biggest fear? Darkness & Loneliness. 

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? I can be really spontaneous and would steal a car to drive to the ocean just for one hour so we can watch the sunset. Also I am really honest. You did something bad that’s not quite acceptable? Let’s talk it out and I will stay by your side to help you change your thinking/behavior or simply your mistake (vice versa counts for me).

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? My mind. I get nervous and tell myself that I am weird and that I am just annoying. That happens even when I am with my closest friends. Plus, I am sometimes very hot tempered. In a conflict I want to understand what my opposite thinks and what their opinion is, but it turns into me shouting quite fast.

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? Honestly I like both, but since I am allergic to cats, I love and praise doggos.

20. What is your favorite season? Spring Spring Spring and a bit of Autumn.

21. Are you in a relationship? No.

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? I miss that my parents never lived together and that I have never seen them together in one room.

23. Who is your best friend? I have 3. One I met through the Internet in 2013. One I met in school 4 years ago and that I didn’t like at the beginning and one who reached out to me in 2017.

24. What is your eye color? Brown

25. What is your hair color? Brown

26. Who is someone you love? My friends and my granny

27. Who is someone you trust? My friends

28. Who is someone you think about often? Someone who I can share my happiness with but haven’t met yet.

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? I am always excited for the little things. But right now I am lowkey excited for what this semester in University will gift me.

30. What is your biggest obsession? Music & Photography

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Spongebob and Disneys Recess

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? I have more male friends than female friends and I can talk as openly to them as to my female friends.

33. Are you superstitious? Slightly

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? I wouldn’t count it as a phobia but I get panicked as soon as I see too many people around me.

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Behind it. I love to capture the pure beauty of the nature and of my friends being themselves. I want to capture their beauty forever, even when ways start to split. The memories won’t disappear.

36. What is your favorite hobby? Photography.

37. What was the last book you read? Ein Kind - Thomas Bernhard

38. What was the last movie you watched? Annabelle 3. Saturday at a drive-in cinema with my best friend and her friends.

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? I can’t play one but I am trying to learn the piano.

40. What is your favorite animal? Whales, Koalas and Birds.

41. What are your top 5 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow? Definitley @loewen-gebruell, kuss an dich

42. What superpower do you wish you had? Teleportation & Invisibility

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? At the ocean. Just watching the waves and the sun and the wind and the people. It feels like time stops while time is running by.

44. What makes you smile? When other people are happy, doesn’t matter if it’s because of me or because of something/someone else.

45. What sports do you play, if any? Zumba/Dancing, Handball and Badminton.

46. What is your favorite drink? Waaaaater

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? For my best friend on her birthday as a present in May.

48. Are you afraid of heights? A bit, depends on my current anxiety level haha

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? Aggressiveness. I am so afraid if people get aggressive. 

50. Have you ever been to a concert? Yes. K.I.Z. in Essen & Monsta X in Berlin.

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? No.

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? I always wanted to teach or help children. Now I am trying to fulfill my wish into becoming a psychotherapist.

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? Aaaaaall the way Hogwarts.

54. What is something you worry about? I worry about my own future and about my family.

55. Are you scared of the dark? I am literally so scared when it gets dark. I need someone by my side to keep calm.

56. Do you like to sing? I love to sing and I would have already become a popular singer but sike my voice sucks so bad I don’t even like to speak in general because of my voice.

57. Have you ever skipped school? Yes hehe

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? Wherever I know I am not going to stay forever.

59. Where would you like to live? I want to live in so many countries, but I am afraid to settle down somewhere for the rest of my life.

60. Do you have any pets? No.

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? Early bird, but lately I am more a night owl uhu

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunrises. Even though I find sunsets so surprisingly beautiful, I cherish sunrises a lot more. My heart feels like ‘here we are, leave it behind, you had time, it is a new start, you can do it in your own pace’ and it just feels warm.

63. Do you know how to drive? Yes and it’s the only thing I am 100% confident in lol

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? Earbuds.

65. Have you ever had braces? Yes I had and I plan on getting some again.

66. What is your favorite genre of music? Ballads & a mix of EDM and POP

67. Who is your hero? May I say ‘Gronkh’?. He is a Youtuber and I watch him and his videos since I am 12. He has been with me for all the past years and he is still with me even though I am 20. His words always gave me courage and gave me what I never received from anyone else. He has a strong Father Role in my eyes.

68. Do you read comic books? No.

69. What makes you the most angry? Lies

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? A real book.

71. What is your favorite subject in school? German & Chemics

72. Do you have any siblings? Yes, 4 Half-Siblings, all younger than me.

73. What was the last thing you bought? A hoodie for the drive-in cinema at night.

74. How tall are you? 170 cm

75. Can you cook? Since I live on my own I cook a lot and I didn’t get food poisoned yet so I think I can cook.

76. What are three things that you love? Late Nights, Spontaneous Roadtrips & Laughs.

77. What are three things that you hate? Toxicity, Self-Centered People & Hate in general. 

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? More male friends.

79. What is your sexual orientation? Straight by now but I don’t care who I am going to fall in love with.

80. Where do you currently live? In Austria for my studies.

81. Who was the last person you texted? My bestie @meeresnaechte

82. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday night.

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? Gronkh.

84. Do you like to take selfies? Depends if I need a new profilepic.

85. What is your favorite app? Spotify & Tumblr

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? Not good at all. My father disappoints me and breaks my trust to him everytime I visit him and my mother tries to be my best friend since she can’t act as a mother.

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? Slavik and Australian.

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? Mongolia, Southern America and Antarctica.

89. What is your favorite number? 16

90. Can you juggle? No

91. Are you religious? I have been raised strongly catholic but I got myself out of this close minded thinking. Even though I don’t practice any religious “doings”, I try to compare my experiences with the religions opinion.

92. Do you find outer space or the deep ocean to be more interesting? The deep ocean. The deep ocean is all around us and is covering 71% of the world we live on. So many lives live deep down in the ocean we have never seen and it’s the most undiscovered place on earth.

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? No.

94. Are you allergic to anything? Cats, Dust & Wheat

95. Can you curl your tongue? No

96. Can you wiggle your ears? No

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? 60% wrong, because I always try to see the good in someone and while not only hurting myself because of another disappointment, I hurt my closest friends as well.

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? The beach. But the forest has something magical that will always leave me stunned.

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? “Do what makes you happy.”.

100. Are you a good liar? No and I don’t want to be.

101. What is your Hogwarts House? Hufflepuff

102. Do you talk to yourself? Most of the time since I live alone uhm

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I am a situational extrovert.

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? No, my Tumblr Blog is my diary since 2013.

105. Do you believe in second chances? Yes.

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? Search for an ID and try to reach out to the person who lost it or give it straight to the owner of the place where I found the wallet or give it to the nearest police station.

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? I have split opinions on it.

108. Are you ticklish? Yes.

109. Have you ever been on a plane? Yes.

110. Do you have any piercings? Yes, recently got a helix.

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? Neville from Harry Potter, just imagining him as a best friend wow

112. Do you have any tattoos? Yes a Plumeria on my right arm.

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? Not listening to others and making my own experiences.

114. Do you believe in karma? Yes.

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? No.

116. Do you want children? Yes, 3 to 5 children, but only if I am financially stable and if I can rely on my partner.

117. Who is the smartest person you know? Smart is anyone who found a way to live happily.

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? I don’t want to get reminded ciao

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? These dark circles under my eyes aren’t from sleeping.

120. What color are most of you clothes? Black & maybe some red here and there.

121. Do you like adventures? Always down for them, text me and I will show up at your front door with backpacks full of snacks and drinks and blankets let’s get it

122. Have you ever been on TV? No god thanks stay like this

123. How old are you? 20

124. What is your favorite quote? I have so many saved on my phone and written down in my notes, but one which I get reminded of most of the time is ”Erkennst du die nächste Gelegenheit, wenn sie passiert?” (”Do you see the next possibility when it’s happening?”).

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? I have a sweet tooth but spicy food has a special place in my heart.

People I want to get to know better:  @perrfectly @kuntergrau-mohae @loewen-gebruell

[queensofrap]

Most Misunderstood: Iggy Azalea's American Dream    

he early reality of Amethyst Kelly is difficult to imagine. There was once a small home in the tiny Australian town of Mullumbimby, made of red brick, cemented by mud and laid by her father's careful hands. Her mother would spend her days emptying trash bins at a motel as a vacation rental cleaner, a path Amethyst would eventually follow at age 14. Water didn't always run, clothes were never new, and bathrooms were separated from the home by a muddied path. It's a tale of immensely humble beginnings, a hemisphere away from the life she would come to inhabit as Iggy Azalea a decade later. And while her origins are unfathomable for some, it's Amethyst's American dream that remains universal.

I first witnessed a glimpse of that dream in the fall of 2011. It was through a cracked iPhone screen, held casually by my friend. "You have to see this bitch," she announced, flicking her perfectly coiled locs and turning up the volume. "She's every-fucking-thing!" There, on the screen, was a tall, curvy woman with ice-blonde hair and creamy incandescent skin. She was surrounded by two brown cheerleaders in matching green uniforms, strutting in towering heels and rapping furiously: My world, rhyme vicious/ White girl team, full of bad bitches. Immediately, I recognized her: this confident, eccentric girl who didn't fit into preppy white hierarchies. While others girls were quoting lines from Mean Girls, imagining themselves Regina George, she appeared as someone I knew. A girl unruly and self-possessed, always late to class, always blasting D4L. I could see her crafting beats with her knuckles and strolling into class hours late, another detention slip placed on her desk. We were sold.

If "My World" was the bait, "Pussy" was the hook, line and sinker. Iggy, Iggy/ Pussy illy/ Wetter than the Amazon/ Taste this kitty! Her accent was thick and affected, reminiscent of our cherished childhood favorite Diamond from Atlanta's Crime Mob. The "Pussy" video was a Boyz N The Hood homage with ATLien pastiche. There were ice cream trucks and babysitting, front porch posing and concrete runways, sherbet-colored pants and shredded shorts. And we weren't the only ones taking notice of Iggy and her ways. Seemingly overnight, our private cafeteria secret had become a viral phenomenon.

“ Here I am at the darkest period of my life, contemplating suicide, and I'm singing "Switch.“

Press came quickly, grand and bold. The New York Times suggested that "all this proximity to blackness characterizes Iggy Azalea as a person who is no stranger to black culture and communities, suggesting it's no anomaly for her to rock the mic." The Los Angeles Times described her flow as "brash and aggressive," while Complex decided that she was ready to "really make her mark on the game." Classmates had her image as their screensavers and sprawled across their Tumblrs, and were dropping her name in new music debates. She performed at small venues in Atlanta and cars across the city boomed with Never not better/ Law should ban it! A few months later, when "Murda Bizness" featuring T.I. dropped, her dream was actualized. She was not a one-hit wonder. She was a star, poised to rise.

There are many forgotten Iggy freestyles from that era. In one, she raps over Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now," prophesying her divisive nature. In another, titled "Home Town Hatred," she reflects on her time in Australia and her desire to leave. Over Kanye West's ominous "Hell of A Life" beat, she details how industry executives told her to dumb it down. But it was her 2011 "D.R.U.G.S." freestyle that first illuminated the parameters of her ignorance.

Reflecting the industry's tendency not to look at things too deeply, at first the song went unchallenged. (It would be a year before its lyrics were critically examined). In fact, Complex covered the freestyle, commending her craft and comparing her to fellow white rapper Yelawolf. The following January, Iggy signed to major label Interscope, tweeting, "Get used to me + Jimmy [Iovine] smashing shit, cause that's the plan."

In February of 2012, she landed the coveted cover of XXL's Freshman Class issue: an annual declaration of hip-hop stars poised to break big. Between up-and-comers French Montana and Future stands Iggy in a lush green fur. She was the first woman to ever grace the cover — a backhanded achievement. For many, XXL is a bastion of hip-hop excellence. To be a cover star and stamped with their approval was to suggest an imminent dominance. If Iggy could be shot, styled, and photographed for her buzz, where were the black women who broke the boundaries, paved the lanes, and inspired her craft?

It was Harlem-born musician and artist Azealia Amanda Banks who first articulated concern about Iggy's image and her space within hip-hop. On Twitter, Banks wrote, "Iggy Azalea on the XXL freshman list is all wrong. How can you endorse a white woman who called herself a 'runaway slave master'? Sorry guys, I'm a pro black girl. I'm not anti white girl, but I'm also not here for any1 outside of my culture trying to trivialize very serious aspects of it."

Media outlets immediately crafted Bank's criticism into a heavily publicized rap beef, thrusting Banks into the insidious stereotype of bitter black woman. The line Banks referred to was a re-interpretation of a Kendrick Lamar lyric on Iggy's "D.R.U.G." freestyle. In Kendrick's 2010 track "Look Out For Detox," he raps, When the relay starts/ I'm a runaway slave. In Iggy's version, she says, When the relay starts/ I'm a runaway/ Slave master/ Shittin' on the past/ Gotta spit it like a pastor.

Conversations surrounding the lyric lacked necessary context. Journalists missed questions and painted simple proclamations. In October of 2011, Banks had tweeted, "how sexy is iggy azalea?? It's kind of ridiculous…*tugs collar to let out steam*." In January, she wrote "Iggy Azalea's hair looks really great in her new video. How long do you all reckon that hair is? 40" in? By March 2012, the dream was dented, with Iggy being called out as misappropriating at best, racist at worst.

She issued a heartfelt apology, which fell on mostly unsympathetic ears. Two months later, Iggy was dropped by Interscope. Her debut album, The New Classic, stalled indefinitely. But still, there was room for redemption. In April 2013, Iggy signed with Mercury Records, a UK subsidiary of Universal Music Group. After recording new music in England, she returned stateside, armed with a completed album and a firmly set 2014 release date. During press runs she's tested: asked if she's an imposter; if her body is enhanced; if the cringe-worthy assumptions about her mentor T.I. are true. Old tweets were dug up, which made the disdainful murmurings worse. She's asked to freestyle on Sway, but instead inexplicably recites a line from her own album. Her music begins to change, becoming less lyrically explicit and trap-influenced, and more poppy and prim. Now a Complex cover star, she fumbles when asked about her divisive rapping accent. She's quoted saying, "This is the entertainment industry. It's not politics." Soon enough, that statement would no longer be true.

In 2012, political discussions had begun to dominate all forms of media. The slain lives of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis became proponents of combustible change. Movements like Black Lives Matter materialized, refusing silence or forgetfulness of the innocent and slaughtered black people, churning hundreds of American murders into global narratives. Each case, though singular and specific, represented the transgressions of America's not-too-distant-past and its perpetual present. If there was once a time when innocent victims could be smudged from history and their murderers left unscathed, that clock no longer ticked. Images of callous violence circulated more than music. Cellphone and camera footage displayed women being beaten, children being shot, and men being strangled. Language seemed to shift, relegating all ignorance to silence; expanding itself to capture the expansive feelings of others. And at the top of the same year, "Fancy" was released. Like lightning, Iggy's dream merged seamlessly with reality. She was now a star with a verifiable hit.

With her Clueless themed video for the inescapable track, 2014 became the year of Iggy's art. She held the number one spot on Billboard's Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks. She luxuriated in the second spot too, appearing as a featured artist on Ariana Grande's "Problem." Billboard claimed Iggy tied with The Beatles and attached her name to the legacies of Mariah Carey, Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill, and Nicki Minaj. She was now booking prime-time television spots — appearing on Good Morning America with Charli XCX — and on the covers of grocery store aisle magazines. Forbes declared her "Hip Hop's New Queen of Rap" and she was nominated for four Grammys. Simultaneously, America's racial rhetoric and division began to feel claustrophobic. In early February, Yvette Smith was murdered on her front porch. In August, Michael Brown Jr. and Ezell Ford were shot and killed. November was the month Laquan McDonald and Tamir Rice became portraits of unfinished lives. In July, Eric Garner was placed in an illegal chokehold, his last words becoming a symphony of unbearable sadness. The dichotomy between a world callously slaughtering black people on one end and rewarding a white rapper with success and visibility on another was dizzying.

What is it like to attach oneself exclusively to a dream, to pursue it even as the odds are stacked against you?

By 2015 the dream dissolved completely. Iggy was accused of racism, cultural appropriation, minstrelsy, and ignorance, becoming the perfect conduit for whiteness and all of its horrors. Her silence during racist events was considered complicit. A world tour was canceled, and neither a follow up album or a Top 10 hit reappeared. In 2016, she announced Digital Distortion, her sophomore album that was ultimately held after three singles — "Team," "Mo Bounce," and "Switch" — and a leaked music video. This year, Iggy released "Savior" with hopes of a refresh.

To some, she was an untalented white supremacist Barbie, infiltrating a space crafted by black people and laughing to the bank. Her dream — an innocent one of music, money, and acclaim — had become grotesque. To others, she was an iconic legend who was just easily projected upon. Now a refracted mirror for public opinion, a line was permanently drawn: black or white — no in-between.

But for me, there's always been a gray area. In art, in music, and in life, there is a space where the eye can shift inward to ask and answer questions. What might it look like for a young girl in Australia to re-discover life through hip-hop? What did it look like to want to manifest a world of make-believe, to create art once unseen? What is it like to attach oneself exclusively to a dream, to pursue it even as the odds are stacked against you? What do you do when you can't separate criticism from hate? When each day you're bombarded with projections based on media machinations? What does it look like when your dream comes true, when it's finally real, only for it to be mocked? To me, it's a perfect portrait of America.

At The Roxy Hotel, in New York City, I sat with Iggy Azalea. We spoke about her life, her dream, her craft, and her upcoming music. She was thoughtful and articulate, eyes glinting with Gemini humor and intellect, deeply apologetic and severely misunderstood. This is what transpired.

Can you take me back to your childhood? I read that your hometown is called "The Biggest Little Town in Australia." What was it like?

I still don't know why the fuck they call it that. It was a really small town, incredibly rural, but there's a looser, less stereotypical element to it. There were a lot of crystals and hippies, weed smokers, and horoscopes. The town was split between this hippie, carefree fairy spectrum, or conservative farmers and their crops. My parents were on the fairy spectrum, but I went to public school. Everyone there was straight-laced with names like Amber and Stephanie and there I was as Amethyst, with platform shoes, and immediately it was like, Okay, bitch prepare to get bullied.

What were the students like?

There were two schools. One was private and more artistic, and that's where all the people that could be considered carefree and more imaginative were able to go. The public school was very sterile, very conservative. The private school was expensive and my family had no money for that, so I went to the public school and I was miserable. These were the children of bricklayers whose parents drove tractors and guys who played football on the weekends. I got teased for everything. Literally everything, there was no winning with those kids.

I'm ignorant to Australia — I've never been — but there is the classic stereotype of the tanned, athletic, white Australian. When we think of whiteness, we often forget its specifications, even the types that are lauded and coveted. For instance there's the archetype of the popular blonde. You were tall, pale, and curvy…

Oh my goodness, yes! And I was never that girl. Not even anywhere near that girl's posse. I never fit in and there was a time I really tried to fit in. I remember getting teased because I hadn't shaved my legs yet. I was only in sixth grade and I had never even thought of something like that. They would call me "monkey" everyday. One day I got my mom's razor and shaved my legs thinking it would finally be over and it wasn't. There was always a new thing. My hat. My mole. My weight. All of these things now seem so dumb, but I didn't do anything like them and there was no appeasing those kids.

When did you first think of leaving?

I always knew I was going to leave because I knew I didn't belong with any of the people that lived there. I only decided I wanted to go to America when I visited the states with my grandparents. I was 11, and I remember seeing all the showgirls in Las Vegas, all their sparkles and rhinestones. They were the most fabulous girls I had ever seen. I had only seen something like that on TV, and it blew my mind. Then we went to Hollywood, and there were all these wig stores and the Star Walk, and just seeing all the ways people dressed, how they styled their hair, the color of their wigs, I wanted to be able to do all of those things. When I wanted to dress like this in Australia, I'd get shitted on. But coming to America and watching people put on a show, watching them being ridiculously fabulous, no one was doing that where I was from. Nobody was even wearing high heels in Mullumbimby.

When did you put the plan in action?

That happened when I really started to get into music. I was insanely confident, with the kind of deluded grandeur that I think you need when no else believes in you. I thought I was good at it even though in retrospect I was bad still. I was about 14 and that's when I started writing music. I'd go to open mic nights and take the bus all over the city. I'd go to battle raps, I'd get booed. There was a sound audio engineering school, called SAE, and the first music I ever recorded was there. From 14 to 16, that's when the plan formed. As soon as I started writing, I knew music was what I had to do. Even if I wasn't a rapper, I thought I could be a sound engineer or a writer. I just knew I wanted to be involved in music. And I knew I had to get the fuck out of where I lived. It was suffocating me. I wanted to live in a place where the sky was the limit, a place where my dreams weren't strange or weird, where others had even crazier ideas than me. I knew all of that was in America, and that's where I had to go and that's where I thought people were going to accept my wild thoughts. I tried Sydney and Melbourne and they just weren't it. Nothing else was.

"I wanted to live in a place where the sky was the limit, a place where my dreams weren't strange or weird, where others had even crazier ideas than me. I knew all of that was in America."

Why Miami first?

They had a SAE campus in Miami. I thought I would be able to get in and get a student visa. I saved up enough money to live there for a couple of months, but I didn't have enough to live and go to school, so I ended up not going.

Next was Houston. What was that like?

I only lived there for a year. This producer found my music through Myspace, and he said if I was ever in Houston to let him know. Then he told me all the people he produced for, and I was so excited because I really loved Rap-A-Lot records, so I went. I met him and he was really cool. We recorded a bunch of songs and we would go to Metropolis. It was in a strip mall and everyone would just hang out in front of their cars, and inside one side was reggaeton and the other was a Slim Thug record chopped n' screwed. The plan was to give the DJ your cd and hopefully he'd play it, which they never do. Then you'd hangout in the parking lot until someone has a fist fight and then you go home. Those were my nights there. Just absorbing everything. I made some friends and then Hurricane Ike hit. Most of my friends were moving to Atlanta because their homes were destroyed. I went too.

How were you making money?

Two of my friends introduced me to their sound engineer and his girlfriend would come to the studio and drop him off lunch. She and I ended up becoming roommates. I told her how I had gone to Thailand before and how fascinated I was with the hair. How you could get in bundles and stuff. She said we should save up money to go and then bring it back and sell it to salons. So we saved up and went on our last dime. She had just graduated college and was working at Bank of America and we went out there and got a bunch of hair. When we came back we sold it super quick, wholesale, to all the salons. It was insane. Technically, even though I didn't have a work visa it isn't illegal if you invest in someone's business. So she registered it as little corporation under her name and I invested in it.

There's this idea that there was "Fancy" and then boom — immediate success! But there were a lot of setbacks.

Obviously there are years that people don't know about. I was in Atlanta for nearly two years just writing for people. I was doing so many writers camps for other known artists, just trying to get my spot. That's why there were a lot of pop demo references that came out. Everyone accused me of wanting to be a pop star and that wasn't something I've ever been interested in. I would write pop music with other people and try to get it placed. I've always rapped. Even the video that came out of the pop song, that was just some shit I did with my friend. We were playing.

The wildest thing is that there are so many reports that I used to be a model and that's always been strange. Just last week on my Spotify profile my bio says, "Iggy Azalea was a high profile model before she became a rapper." When?! I would have loved to be a high profile model, but last time I checked I'm a fucking size eight. What the fuck runway or editorial model do you know that size? There's so much of those kind of rumors that have a mind of their own now.

How did you end up in LA?

The music I was making in Atlanta, I started putting a couple of songs online. They didn't have anymore than 300-400 views. I still don't know how the fuck they found me, but an A&R at Interscope messaged me. He told me he had asked his girlfriend at the time, "Who do you think is cool?" And she played him my music. I was skeptical but he ended up being legitimate. He said I should move to LA and as soon as my lease was up, I went.

When I moved there they put me with a bunch of people. They were trying to help me make connections, but they didn't really understand what I was doing. I met these guys who make up "D.R.U.G.S." about a year after I moved to LA. We'd record in their garage. YG was there. Mustard was there before he was DJ Mustard. Ty Dolla $ign was there all the time. That's where I made Ignorant Art and put out "Pussy."

That song was such a success, Interscope must have been happy.

I had gotten to the end of things with Interscope and was at the point where I felt like since they didn't understand me, this would be a "fuck you." As soon as I put out "Pussy," they called me and said they totally understood the vision. It was a "what the fuck" moment. For nearly a year I had been trying to explain it to them, and suddenly when I did it on my own they want me? I don't think they truly got it, I think they just saw the numerical element to it.

Were you signed to Interscope yet at that point?

I finally had my meeting with Jimmy Iovine after that, and they wanted to sign me. The problem was my A&R wanted to manage me. Interscope, at the time, was working on an in-house management team with LMFAO. They wanted me to sign a document that literally detailed how signing would be a conflict of interest. They gave me two options: sign or leave. I had so many potential deals with other labels but in the end I chose Interscope. We got all the way down to the agreement and, the day of, the deal was dead. Completely done. I had bigger offers, better offers, and I stayed to be loyal to the people who helped me when I was in Atlanta.

What happened?

That was a Jimmy situation and it had a lot to do with Azealia Banks. They wanted to sign her and it became a conflict of interest. Once that happened, everyone wondered why I wasn't signed, why Jimmy didn't want it, and it brought into question my worth as an artist. No one wanted to fucking touch me at all. I couldn't get a deal anywhere after that. Before this I could've asked for a fucking elephant, a Ferrari, four monkeys, and a million dollars — after there was nothing. People wondered, What was wrong with Iggy Azalea? That's how it works with these things. I was done.

What'd you do next?

I had to go to England. I got new management based out of the UK and went and recorded a bunch of music in Wales with a few producers from America. I recorded "Work" and most of The New Classic there and went and shopped a deal in England. They were the only place that didn't give a fuck about what had happened in America. I signed to Mercury Records and after putting out my music there, I came back to America to get upstreamed through Universal Records. I put out five singles through Def Jam before I ever had "Fancy." I toured with Nas before "Fancy." I toured with Beyoncé before "Fancy." I toured my own tour in Europe and North America before "Fancy." I had done five tours before I ever made "Fancy." "Fancy" was truly the last attempt. Not for me to quit music, but for the label to quit me. They had given me four video budgets, none of them exceeded their expectations, and "Fancy" was their last hurrah. For them it was like either this works or it doesn't, but we're gonna put the album out and see if it sells. I decided to do something left and do Clueless, and it worked. Luckily, we had so many attempts before that with the label and this one worked.

What was that moment like?

I was really happy and surprised. I've always known the art I make is pretty left. I didn't expect it to connect. Music has changed a lot from when I first started, but at the time, my music was considered left. There was a lot of monumental success from "Fancy" that I didn't anticipate. All these people were discovering my music and suddenly I'm doing shows with 6,000-7,000 people. It was way more than I ever imagined. I thought I'd be doing basement shows or college parties and even that was so cool to me. I thought I had fully made it! I didn't think beyond that. To see brands that I knew, magazines, all of these mainstream fixtures, people, and media embrace my music, I never could have dreamt that.

When "Fancy" gained such visibility, the media seemed to adore you. Billboard said you tied with The Beatles and bested Michael Jackson. Forbes declared you "Queen of Hip Hop." What were your thoughts during that time?

It was very strange. I never said I was the queen of rap, I've never even thought that. I truly think it was like a great white hope, similar to the film Rocky. All of these people were championing me and branding me these things because of their own projections and not only were they outlandish, they were all incredibly premature. I had just started and there was this influx of, "Queen of rap! Queen of the world! Best record ever! Song of the century!" And so everyone starts saying, "No she's not, fuck her! She has some fucking nerve!" And all of those are things I never said.

What were your thoughts when you were then nominated for four Grammys, including Best Rap Album and Best Record of the Year?

I remember sitting at the Grammy's praying to God I didn't win, literally crossing my fingers, hoping there was no media frenzy. I didn't ask to be nominated. I don't even think I deserved nominations. People were so frustrated with those headlines and all those articles became attached to me personally. People assumed that's how I saw myself, or how I thought of my music. It's never been that. There was this element of trying to humble me, a moment where it seemed like, "Oh this bitch thinks she's this? We're gonna fucking show her that she ain't shit."

Did you ever anticipate that side of fame?

I've always known that I'm controversial. I love to move the needle. Things like "Murda Bizness," yes — I'm going to put toddlers and tiaras in a music video and I know many won't understand it. Or with "Pussy," yes there is a child and I know it pushes buttons. But I think that the best things in pop culture are polarizing. I knew I would always come with controversy, but that was a different kind of controversy. I didn't anticipate that. I didn't even anticipate the success. I didn't think that would be the thing that made it all come crumbling down.

"I think that the best things in pop culture are polarizing."

What is your biggest regret during that time?

I wish that I would've handled criticism better in the beginning. I knew I was polarizing. I aim to be polarizing, sometimes too polarizing where I've pushed the limit too far. When I first got here, there was so much I thought I understood that I really didn't. I've really had to learn a lot of things by being here and having friends and seeing things play out in real life. Especially in the last few years in culture and how far conversations have come, I look back and cringe.

Like what?

Things like the Kendrick lyric, something I profusely apologized for and have learned from. That wasn't okay. It was insanely ignorant. That wasn't an experience to toy with. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way, specifically with that line, like fuck, I hate that I said it. There was so much criticism that came with "Fancy" and I wish I would've handled it better, but it felt very thick.

Everything was coming from every angle. My success. Being worn out. Having lawsuits. I had five different court cases and all of that factored into my responses. It was hard to decipher what criticism was valid and what criticism was just hate. Even with Azealia, we've since spoken and in retrospect, I'm sorry that I trivialized the way she felt about her experience as a black woman navigating the music industry. She and I have our own history and beef about other shit, but when she went on the radio and spoke there was validity to it. Those were her experiences that many others could relate to and I can't take those away, but at the time I thought it was her saying 'fuck you' and trying to hate on me.

You felt what she said was valid in the end?

There were so many critiques she made that were valid. I wish I hadn't been so defensive and emotional, but it invalidated important conversations that shouldn't be overlooked. It created a situation where it looks like I'm unable to be accountable, or I'm unable to accept criticism, that I'm tone deaf, and a fucking idiot. I felt like I had to defend myself against everyone, and that attitude didn't work in my favor. I wish I didn't give impulse responses and say things that made it worse. I was just popping off shit, and I wish I would've thought before I spoke. The problem got so big that I didn't know how to handle it, and I just thought I'll just go away and wait until it blows over or gets better. But it won't just get better, I have to acknowledge it and have conversations about it because otherwise it seems like I don't give a fuck or I'm not ready to take accountability.

Why do you think you weren't able to hear the criticism at the time?

I think when you're an artist and you're just starting out, especially as someone who isn't American, there's a difficult line to walk. I came here when I was 16 and people don't seem to understand that that time period truly defines who I am. They don't get that a lot of these things are my genuine influences, the same way they were informed and influenced by their surroundings. I really did live here. I lived in apartment full of people from Jamaica and after work we'd battle rap by the pool. I really did have friends that were involved in illegal activities. I was actually in the south, recording with Dem Franchize Boyz, listening to Outkast, Dungeon Family, Field Mob, Crime Mobb. And that seems incredibly hard for people to swallow. People think I should rap about Australia in an Australian accent but I'm 28-year-old woman now. I can't rap about being 10 and living in Australia. That never inspired me. My time in America, my time in those cities, were when I really started having life experiences that were worthy of going into my music. It all happened here in this country.

"I wish I hadn't been so defensive and emotional, but it invalidated important conversations that shouldn't be overlooked."

On some of the leaked tracks for Digital Distortion you didn't seem afraid to acknowledge it. Tracks like "Middle Man," "7Teen," and "Elephant" were incredibly aggressive and direct. What happened with that era?

For the record I love Def Jam, there are a lot of people that I truly respect and like. The problem I had during this time was that I was preparing to address how I felt. I had gotten so pop, and when you have success as a pop artist it makes the label a lot of money, so they pushed me to keep churning out hits. They pushed for more branding money, more endorsements — that's their job. And I made the conscious choice to go along with it because I was making a lot of fucking money.

But in doing that I think I isolated a lot of my original supporters. I also stifled myself creatively because I wasn't making the kind of music I wanted to make. If I wanted to make endless hits, I would have been making pop music from day one. I just lost my passion. I didn't feel motivated in the studio. When I told them I was going to make an album, I sat there with the president of the label and told him that his 10-year-old daughter is probably not going to like the songs. I said, "She's not gonna want to come to the concert," and I could see a look of pure horror etched on his face. The expression of, "Fuck, the money maker is going to make some weird, non-radio album."

They weren't backing you up.

There was no support in my decision. They couldn't understand it unless it fit into a radio format, but I knew I would never have success again unless I connected with my original fans. That's what I knew I needed for me to have authenticity and for me to feel passionate. Not only that but for me to just endure life. Everything was falling apart and I need to love the music I'm making and truly believe in it. When I delivered the album, they wanted to know where the radio hits were. All they wanted to create were songs like "Switch." And those songs are great, but pop records don't work without a foundation. Those big songs are supposed to be cherries on top, not just a roof with no house. Pop records are like Skittles, they taste really good but if you eat too many you'll feel sick. They're not a creative meal. Here I am at the darkest period of my life, contemplating suicide, and I'm singing "Switch."

Can you tell me a bit about this new era — Surviving The Summer?

Releasing "Savior" was incredibly therapeutic for me. It felt good to have a record where I can talk about depression, and just let down all my cards. It's completely different from a lot of the other tracks which are heavily rap.

Who are you collaborating with?

I'm working with Detail. I'm working with Pharrell. There's still going to be those unexpected Diplo elements like my early mixtapes. I'm really taking it back to that place. I started with Digital Distortion, but that was really aggressive and angry. I'm not in that place anymore. I'm happy. I know my fans want me to rap and I want to give them that. I want to give them the hard shit that they love, the shit that's different, that moves the needle. I hope people will support it.

From your rapping accent, to your pop accolades, you're constantly criticized for being inauthentic — specifically within the hip-hop realm. What do you think, ultimately, of those debates?

The way I've always felt about music is that I never approached anything as partial to a genre. There's never been a sense of this is a pop record, this a rap record. Even with the way music is today, there are so many melodies and variations to any song, any genre. I think a big part of the judgement in those things — not exclusively for me, but for most women in the music industry — is misogyny. Do you know how many men are on pop records? When they do it, it's rewarded and they're considered smart for reaching a bigger audience.

People like to pick and choose the rules. We bury things that don't give our theories sense. Everyone does it, it's human nature. I feel like with me, there's a lot of reasons why people are trying to invalidate me. Is it not authentic because I make pop music? Or is it because I'm from Australia? What about the fact that I've been here for 12 years? What about white rappers who are saying the most absurd things about hip-hop, but in the club everyone's singing their songs? Other rappers are allowed to do the things that I do — even things I would never even think of doing — but it's okay because they have likability, or a different perception attached to their image, or a fucking dick. People are misogynistic. It is what it is.

"Fuck what I was doing before, I'm doing new shit. It's exciting."

Do you feel like you're a new artist now?

Yes, 1000 percent! It's almost harder now because when you're new people have no preconceived notions about what you are or what you represent. When you become mega successful and you go mainstream, no longer is the sky the limit. It becomes, "Oh she's mainstream, she's had a Steve Madden deal, she's on Cosmo," and the art becomes dissected in a new way with more eyes. But I like it. Sonically, when I'm in the studio, it's fun approaching music as a new artist. Fuck what I was doing before, I'm doing new shit. It's exciting.

#a really insightful and great read #iggy azalea #rap #rapper #female rap #female rapper #hiphop #hip hop #paper magazine #paper mag

[the-british-pineapple]

Valkyrie and Skulduggery for short story writing :)

Notes: This takes place before the events of Mortal Coil.Words: 1564Also if anyone wanted to draw anything from this please do, I’d love to see some interpretation. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Skul andVal

Valkyrie sat on the swing set by herself waiting forSkulduggery to show up. He had asked to meet her here, she didn’t know why shejust knew it was urgent, so she waited. Car after car pulled up and subsequentlyleft leaving her wondering if Skulduggery forgot about her, again. He once lefther in a biker bar after leaving to grab some “fresh air” which was somethingshe didn’t know skeletons needed. The Sun was dipping low over the horizon, thechill was beginning to set in, but she couldn’t feel it thanks to the clothesGhastly made for her. It was starting to get dark and she didn’t want to leaveher reflection alone for too long, plus she was feeling hungry and couldn’twait for dinner. Valkyrie got up from the swing set and started her walk home.

“Excuse me, where do you think you’re going?” Said a voicefrom behind her. She turned around and saw a figure standing tall and slimsilhouetted against the sunlight.

“You’re a dick.” Valkyrie responded with no hint of sarcasm.

“What do you mean? Last time I checked I was a skeleton anda detective so I guess I’m a skeleton detective, oh and I’m also a sorcerer sothat makes me a skeleton-detective-sorcerer and I’m also a gentleman so I guessI’m a skeleton-detective-sorcerer-gentleman…. But maybe not in that order.” Heresponded, Valkyrie could only imagine him smirking whilst he said that.

“Nope, you’re a dick. A gentleman dick in fact. The worstkind of dick.” She fired back, still slightly pissed.

“Fair enough, I mean I am but I see no reason for you to becalling me such profanities.” He said leaning against the bar on the swing set.

“Ok, just of the top of my head you’ve left me here forhours. I texted you when I got here and you never responded so I sat on theswing set by myself like I was in some foreign film dealing with my internalstruggles of being too French orwhatever!”

“Too French?” Skulduggery questioned.

“I don’t know, I don’t watch foreign films.” She saiddefensively.

“It shows”, Skulduggery said under his breath, Valkyrie shothim a look that spelled something along the line of ‘if you don’t stop talking I will rip your head off and use it as abowling ball’. “I mean yes I am a dick. But you really can’t blame me, Iwas lost in a dimension where time was irrelevant, where Gods used me as theirplay things where each day I would get ripped apart and have to put myselftogether again. So sorry for being a tad late.”

“You do notget to use the “Alternate-Dimension-Card” this time.” Valkyrie said.

“Of courseI can, it was traumatic.” Skulduggery replied matter-of-factly.

“Last weekyou used it so you didn’t have to go on the mission and track down that guy whokept making fountains and taps squirt out custard instead of water and a fewdays before that you used it to get out of helping the Sanctuary contain theprison break.”

“It was allunder control they didn’t need me.”

“Thecustard guy was one of the guys who escaped…”

“A merefault on my part but remember, giant Gods ripped me apart, bone by bone. Soit’s ok.”

“NoSkullduggery it’s not,” Valkyrie pleaded but Skulduggery stood quietly.“Nothing I say will change what you do will it?

“No it willnot. I thought you knew this by now.”

“I mean Ido but we’ve been at this whole saving the world thing for a while, I thought Imight have some sway in what you do.” Valkyrie said, her sentence trailing off.

“My dearValkyrie of course you, you just don’t realise it yet.”

“Crypticbut slightly assuring. Classic. Anyway, this getting slightly too sentimentalfor my liking, so why did you ask me out here?”

“Well yousee—” Skulduggery’s words were interrupted by a flash of light and faintbuzzing sound. “Ah, impeccable timing as usual.”

“What’sthis?”

“Oh, you’llsee.” Skulduggery replied with what sounded like a cheesy grin. The buzzing inthe air got louder, almost electric. Another flash of light shone, this time brighterand for longer. Suddenly the air ripped itself apart and a man fell through andlanded on his face with a muffled grunt. The bag slung over his shoulderclanged as he fell as if it were full of pots and pans. He stood up wiping dirtfrom his face and picking up various knick-knacks he dropped, the hole behindhim closed, sealing away another world or time. The man’s hair was black andslicked back, he had a bit of stubble and was quite short for his height, helooked around trying to gather his bearings. The sun had almost completely setand the long shadows kept Skulduggery and Valkyrie out of his sight.

“Who isthis guy?” Valkyrie asked in hushed tones.

“Shh, I don’tthink he realises weare here.” Skulduggery replied, cocking his head in interest.

“Who is he?” Valkyrie asked again a little more aggressively.

“His name is Jarred, he’s not magical in anyway but somehowhe got tangled up in magical affairs. He took an interest and has become atrader on the black market. He steals, bribes and charms his way through life,selling to the magical and non-magical. We’ve been sent to stop him.”Skulduggery said keeping his eyes on Jared at all times.

“You really couldn’t have told me this through a text?”Valkyrie asked.

“I mean sure, but this is more interesting, I want to seehow you handle this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I need you to bring him in.” Skulduggery said leaning closeand giving her a strong nudge. Valkyrie stumbled forward into the ever-fleetingsunlight and caught Jared’s eye.

“Who are you?” His voice was weighed down by a thickAustralian accent. Valkyrie shot a look back to where Skulduggery was standing,trying to express her anger but he was gone. She was alone, again. She turnedback to Jared and did her best to improvise.

“My name is Valkyrie Cain and I’m with the Sanctuary. Youare…. under arrest…. I guess.”

“The Sanctuary? You got to be bloody joking. I just escapedyou lot.” Jared said, slightly annoyed more than anything.

“You gotta come with me.” Valkyrie said sternly.

“Yeah, I hear what you are saying but I’m gonna have to respectfullydecline, I need to be somewhere you see and if I don’t get there…well it won’tbe pretty.” He said as if he could talk his way out of the situation.

“I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice.” She held up herhand and ignited a fireball.

“Ah elemental. Nice, I got just the thing.” He fumbled inhis bag, metal clanging against metal and the odd sound of a dog toy wasfollowed by Jared pulling out a spherical object that had various engravings.He twisted it and the top half turned, clicking every few degrees it rotated.He let go and It sprung back to it’s original shape, releasing a wave of paleblue energy outwards. Valkryrie’s fireball puffed out with a wisp of smoke. Sheclicked her fingers trying to reignite the fire but nothing happened.

“What did you do?” She demanded.

“I actually have no clue, I stole this of this warlordlooking guy and I heard it was good against you types. Never needed to use ittil now.”

“You dick.” Valkyrie snarled. She ran forward hurlingherself towards him. Jared quickly reach into his pocket and pulled out whatlooked like a lighter. But when he triggered the spark a bright light flowedforward, blinding Valkyrie. She stumbled forward waving her arms around tryingto connect with anything to grab her bearings. She could hear his faintwhimpers every time he dodged her flailing arms.

“Just give up already darl’. There’s nothing you can do, you’realone.”

“That isn’t entirely true.” Said Skulduggery. Valkyrie heardhim cock his gun, presumably it was pointed at Jared’s head. “One move and youwon’t have a face, not that you are good looking or anything. Your faceliterally serves no purpose, aside from letting you see, taste and smell Iguess. I mean you could live without it and you wouldn’t be any uglier is whatI’m trying to say. But I’m sure you like your stupid face don’t you?”

“Y-yes.” Jared stammered.

“Hey Val, you ok?” Skulduggery asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine, my vision and powers are returning…slowly”She said, she was blinking furiously trying to get her vision back faster. Shecould just make out the silhouettes of Skulduggery and Jared.

“Is your vision good enough for you to knock out Jared?”

“Oh you bet.” Valkyrie said, smirking.

“Wait wh-“. Whatever Jared was going to say was cut short bya clean right hook and probable broken jaw. He sprawled out on the dirt as ifhe passed out drunk.

“Good job.” Skulduggery said with a tone of pride.

“Yeah no thanks to you.” She replied.

“I helped, I held the gun to his head and everything. I evencalled him ugly.”

“You did alright, just cuff him and let’s go. I’m ready tosleep.”

#skulduggery pleasant #valkyrie cain #i hope this story is good #i tried #there may be continuity errors from the books #currently rereading #also sorry it any grammatical errors or spellng errors

[artificialqueens]

For The Gains Ch. 1 (Shalaska) - Ennik

A/N: HIIIIIII! This is my first Shalaska and rpdr fic ever! It’s a gym buddies au hehehe also I’ll go by the pen name Ennik for AQ. :)

umm just a few notes and disclaimers i guess?

I actually don’t go to the gym myself, so what I write about is mostly based off what my brothers, sister, and cousins talk about, little research I’ve done, and what i see from Khloe Kardashian’s workout snaps lol. So if you guys actually know how to gym, I’m sorry for any inaccuracies lol. It’s fiction anyway /shrug

Another thing I’ve changed is that the characters who are in real life vegetarian or vegan, are not in this story. Everyone is in their early to late twenties.

Also!! Sharon works for a popular company here and i have not personally worked for the company either or know anyone well enough who did. Again I based it off a little research and what i heard/read from people and some acquaintances.

That said!! Please enjoy the story i hope you like it despite me writing like a kid and yeah, pls leave me comments or anything if you like the story!

Sharon Needles was dragged to the gym by her best friend Willam Belli. Let the records show that she did not go there, on that first day, of her own free will.

It all started when Sharon complained about work during one of her many lunch breaks spent with Willam.

“Sharon, you’ve been in a work slump. Hell, you’ve been in a life slump!” Willam had said, jabbing aggressively at the contents of her croque madame that’s long come apart.

“No. I love my job,” Sharon countered pointedly, “And it’s not a slump. It’s just… been routine for a while.” She sighs, lazily stirring her fruit shake with her straw.

“A slump.” Willam says with finality in her tone. “C'mon, just join me for one session! I have free trials for friends!”

“How will exercising help me with ‘a slump’?” Sharon air quotes with her fingers, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“Okay miss thing,” Willam starts, “First of all, it will break routine, cause you never go to the gym and second, exercise releases endorphins, and endorphins make you happy!” She explains, her tone becoming light and cheery.

Sharon groans. Has it really come to the point where Willam has to quote her Legally Blonde to convince her to try something new?

“I promise you’ll feel better!! I always do after a good sweat!” She urges.

“Can’t I just have sex?” Sharon says dryly, idly twirling her pasta. She’s already over Willam basically telling her how boring her life has gotten.

“You can if you could find someone.” comes Willam’s snarky reply.

“Excuse me, miss Belli! I could so find someone to hook-up with if I wanted to.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Sharon shrugs, “I dunno. I don’t feel like it.” She had no good answer. Sharon was never the type to live too cautiously or too routinely for that matter. She loved to go out and have fun and party. She loved spontaneity. It was very unlike her to ‘not feel like’ going out or meeting someone or trying something new and Willam knew this very well.

“Slump.” Willam states, effectively ending any argument that was gonna happen.

“Fine! I’ll go to your stupid gym.”

Willam cheers. “You won’t regret it!!!”

So it is with the utmost reluctance that Sharon, after work, trudges into the gym that one evening in early August.

-

Willam had picked Sharon up from work in her gorgeous BMW X5, the last spoiled-rich-kid gift Willam’s parents had given her. It was her college graduation gift. Willam maintained her car well because even after almost 4 years, it was still a looker.

“Leave your non-gym stuff in the car,” Willam tells Sharon as she turns off the engine, grabbing her keys, phone, and duffel bag and exiting the SUV. Sharon watched as Willam walked away from her car with an air of confidence. She was wearing a matching electric-blue number in the form of a compression shirt and yoga shorts.

Sharon grabs her bag too when she gets out of the car to follow the blonde. She’s in sweatpants and an uncomfortably tight fitting shirt that she had just borrowed from Willam. Not only is she more well-endowed than her best friend, Willam just liked to wear tight clothes, so there was that. She wasn’t dressed for the gym at all. With her non-matching clothes screaming “newbie”.

“It’s almost 8pm, until what time is your gym open?” Sharon blinks as they walk inside. Willam swipes her membership card, allowing her and Sharon entrance.

“They’re open 24 hours, the name is literally 365 Fitness, they’re open all the time.” Willam says snappishly. She goes up to the counter and the employee behind the desk immediately greets her. “Hey Willam!”

“Hey Naomi,” She greets cheerfully, “This is my friend Sharon, she’ll use one of my free trials today!”

“Oh great! She’s the first friend you’ve brought since coming here.” Naomi smiles, then turns her head towards Sharon and politely introduces herself. “Hi I’m Naomi, it’s a pleasure to have you here, Sharon.” Sharon flashes an awkward smile. “I hope your experience is pleasant.”

Naomi hands Sharon a piece of paper where she had to fill out a few things about herself, the paper was marked as a free trial under Willam’s membership, and they let Sharon venture further into the gym. They walked past the stationary bikes, ellipticals, and a TRX room. She saw machines and equipment she didn’t even know existed. Sharon was really intimidated by everything and everyone who knew what they were doing so she kept close to Willam.

“What do you do here?” Sharon asks looking around confused at all the materials.

Willam sets her things down and then looks at Sharon. “It depends on the day. We got leg day, arm day, cardio, core… y'know, all that.” She explains in her typical breezy manner.

“No. I don’t.” Sharon scoffs under her breath, “So what’s today?”

“For me I’m gonna do cardio and maybe some weights…”

“And for me?”

“You can do cardio too. Treadmills are easy enough.” Willam grins at Sharon. “I mean, they aren’t the most famous cardio machines for nothing!”

“Oh ha ha. Tell the newbie to get on the easiest machine there is.” Sharon rolls her eyes.

“Well can you work any of the other machines?” Sharon stays silent. “Thought so.” Willam says.

“And besides, the treadmill never gets old.”

Before Sharon could retort, Willam had already whipped out her phone and was checking her messages. Sharon had never been more self-conscious. She was always confident about herself and how she looked, but the gym was a place she didn’t know much about. She prided herself in her intelligence but in this gym, with all their heavy equipment, Sharon didn’t feel so smart, not knowing what to do with them.

She’s pulled out of the doubts eating at her mind with Willam calling for her attention.

“Sharon!! These are my gym friends.” She introduces. Suddenly there are 2 more blonde girls in her line of vision. A petite one and a statuesque one. “Guys this is my best friend from college, Sharon Needles. Sharon this is Alaska Thunderfuck and Courtney Act.”

Courtney, being the prim and proper polite person that she is immediately holds out her hand for a handshake. Sharon thought it too formal, but she shook Courtney’s hand anyway. Alaska waved at her, big bright smile on her face.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sharon.” Courtney says. Sharon immediately identifies an Australian accent.

“Yeah, finally a face to all the stories Willam has told us about you.” Alaska drawls cheekily.

Sharon shoots Willam a look, raising her eyebrow. Willam doesn’t look guilty at all and just shrugs. Before Sharon could say something to Willam, yet another blonde approaches them. Why were they all blonde? Sharon touches her dark hair, feeling out of place.

“Hey guys! You’re finally here!” The fourth blonde says, “Oh hey, aren’t you Willam’s friend? Sharon is it?”

“Yes!” Willam replies for her. Sharon was stunned. At the forwardness of the stranger but mostly because she already knew her name. “Sharon this our other friend, Katya Zamolodchikova.”

“Katya.” Sharon repeats, storing the information in her brain.

“Did you guys just get here? I’m almost done with my workout.” Katya asks the group.

“Yeah, Court and I just arrived. I think Willam and Sharon too.” Alaska answers.

“Cool, cool. I’m going on the stepmill and I’ll be done with all my sets for today.” Katya says.

“Right now?” Courtney asks, eyebrows furrowing, “I saw Moo on it.” she tells Katya.

“Oh yeah we passed by and Moo was on it.” Alaska adds.

“Aw man, he’ll hog the step machine for an hour, at least.” Katya groans.

Sharon blinks, she was so very confused by the conversation now. “Wait. What? Moo?”

The 4 blondes chuckle. Alaska moves closer to Sharon, the obsidian color-haired girl stiffens on the spot when the tall blonde invades her personal space. Clearing her throat, Alaska whispers, “Oh yeah, there’s this guy we call Moo, cause he’s all calves, no upper body.” She snickers, and the rest of the girls cover their mouth trying to hide a laugh.

Courtney moves closer as well, and it kind of looks like they’re in a small huddle now. “We give everyone nicknames.” She whispers explaining to Sharon.

“Needles, I told you about this!” Willam says, not trying to lower her tone. Katya shushes her in between laughs.

Suddenly something clicks in Sharon’s head, Willam has talked about her gym crew before. “Oh my god, are you The Ashleys?” Sharon asks the group.

The four of them chuckle and nod.

The Ashleys is the name of Willam’s gym crew group chat. Sharon recalls Willam talking about them a few times before. The name comes from a cartoon from their childhood called Recess where there were 4 girls all named 'Ashley’ that formed their own group. Their famous catchphrase, “Scandalous!” was what prompted Willam, Alaska, Courtney, and Katya to name their group chat because the only thing they did more at the gym than work out was gossip.

Their group chat used to be called “buns of steel” but when they realized they talked more about the people in the gym than worked on toning their asses, it had to be changed.

“So is this your first time at the gym?” Courtney asks Sharon when they cleared up everything for her. She nods.

“It’s really fun, I promise!” Alaska adds in. “Especially when you’ve got friends.” She flashes Sharon a bright smile, nodding encouragingly.

“I sure hope so. Willam forced me to come.” Sharon admits.

“Oh, we should start you off easy then…” Courtney says.

“Uhhhhh… that’s why gyms employ trainers, Court.” Katya says, mocking their friend.

“Well Willam said to get on the treadmill…” Sharon supplies.

“No that’s no fun!” Alaska interjects. “Oh!! Do you think she could do HIIT? Courtney and I are doing a HIIT circuit tonight.” Alaska looks at the other blondes for answers.

Katya barks out a laugh, “She might die, Alaska.”

“No, I think it’s possible if we take it slow.” Courtney says reassuringly.

“Obviously not as high intensity as ours but it’s really fun! I think Sharon will really like it.” Alaska nods enthusiastically.

“Wait.” Sharon says, eyebrows extremely furrowed. “What even is hit?”

“HIIT.” Alaska drawls out, “It stands for high intensity interval training.”

“That sounds terrifying.”

“It’s really fun, actually.” Willam affirms. “And you can trust Courtney to lead you in the right direction. This is what she studies…”

“Well not exactly–” Courtney starts, but Willam gives her a look saying are-we-really-going-to-go-into-technicalities-right-now, “But that’s not really important. Sports science, yes.” She ends up mumbling awkwardly.

“We can start her with the ladder…” Alaska suggests. Sharon shrugs not knowing what to say, or who to agree with, because she did not know what on earth they were talking about. “And then maybe the battle ropes!!!” The tall blonde says excitedly, getting ahead of herself.

“I’ll be stalled for an hour because of fucking Moo, I can babysit.” Katya offers.

“You good with that Sharon?” Willam makes sure her best friend is okay with it. She’s assertive by nature, but will never force Sharon do anything she isn’t comfortable with.

“I guess…? Can I watch you guys first?” Sharon looks towards Courtney and Alaska.

“Of course!!! And if you really don’t like it, you can go stretch with Katya.” Alaska snorts.

“Hey! Don’t make fun of my stretches, they’re still considered workouts you bitch.” Katya bites back.

“She’s all yours then!” Willam grants Alaska and Courtney temporary custody over Sharon for the time being, putting away her stuff and letting them know she’d be on the elliptical for the first half of her cardio set. “I’ll see you guys in the weights room later?”

The other 3 blondes nodded. Willam told them to take care of Sharon and told her best friend she shouldn’t overexert herself and just to have a good time.

Alaska and Courtney bring Sharon to the HIIT circuit, closely followed by Katya.

The tallest blonde makes small talk while they make their way to the circuit, commenting on Sharon’s shirt. “Is that Will’s shirt?” She chuckles, motioning to Sharon’s top.

Sharon looks at Alaska a little confused and laughs, “Oh this? Yeah. Can you tell I’m not ready for this at all?”

“Honestly, no one will notice your clothes when they’ve got a face like yours.” Alaska grins.

“Oh…” Sharon’s cheeks turn a little pink, “Thanks?”

“So you agree?” Alaska suddenly says. “You think you’re really pretty?”

Sharon barks out a laugh, she couldn’t believe Alaska quoting Regina George at her. She found it hilarious. She decided to take her chance and hop on the joke. “Oh my god Alaska, you don’t just ask people if they think they’re pretty!” Sharon says in her best Gretchen Wieners sounding tone. It’s Alaska turn to laugh out loud now, and the two of them look like crazy people giggling at each others’ jokes, smacking each others’ arms. Courtney and Katya shoot them weird looks.

“You’re funny, Alaska.” Sharon comments, a pleased grin on her face.

Alaska laughed along with her. “I’m kidding, I’m totally not a mean girl!” She quickly says. Sharon shakes her head, letting Alaska know that she knew she was joking.

“You are really stunning though, I mean that.” Alaska says it almost nonchalantly that Sharon turns ever redder this time.

The dark haired girl scratches the back of her head. “T-thanks, Alaska.” Sharon replies awkwardly. If Sharon was being honest, Alaska was one of the most visually stunning people she’s ever seen. And someone that aesthetically pleasing telling her she had a good look boosted her confidence a little. She had no idea why she was stuttering or why her cheeks were heating up. Alaska had just complimented her, Sharon was the type of person who usually ate that up.

Alaska flashes Sharon a genuinely smile at her stuttered thank you, and before Sharon realizes, they’re already at the circuit. Courtney leading the way for everyone.

They showed her a full minute of their basic circuit and Sharon thought it looked do-able, and dare she say, pretty fun. At least, Courtney and Alaska breezing through it made it seem that way. Alaska was absolutely right about the gym experience being fun especially if you were with friends. It definitely helped Sharon’s overall experience that Alaska, Courtney, and Katya were easy to get along with, and really funny to be around also. Katya had really snide, funny remarks, Courtney was last to get the joke which was hilarious, and Alaska made really witty comments.

They made Sharon do the circuit slowly at first, and told her to do whatever she could in the amount of time. Eventually, Sharon got the groove of things and felt comfortable following the workouts Courtney and Alaska did.

-

The next day, Sharon’s body is so sore that she had to call in for someone to take her shift. That meant she’d be working the whole of a day next week. She stays at home, in her bed and it’s not till Willam decides to drop by her house during her lunch break that Sharon gets to eat.

“I got you take out from that Mexican place you like!!” Willam says as she enters Sharon’s room with a doggy bag. Sharon groans and struggles to sit up. She can’t believe she allowed Alaska and Courtney to coax her into doing ab workouts.

“You did a plank for 2 seconds!” Willam says exasperatedly when she sees Sharon struggle to sit up.

“Doesn’t matter! It still fucking hurts to sit up!” Sharon bites back.

“Did you take any medicine?”

“I had an advil first thing waking up.”

Willam chuckles and looks at her apologetically, “Sorry, I didn’t take into consideration how much first time workouts hurt… I completely forgot.” Sharon rolls her eyes. “Did you have fun at least?”

Sharon sighs, she thought about her experience last night before answering Willam. “I did have fun. Your friends were definitely fun, that Katya was hilarious, and the workouts weren’t as scarily difficult to do as I thought they would be…” Willam’s face lit up every word that came out of Sharon’s mouth.

“What about Court and Alaska! What did you think of them?”

“They’re both really nice. They made the whole gym experience a lot better actually. Courtney really seemed to know her stuff! And Alaska’s gorgeous! Does she model?”

Willam snickers, “Nah, but she likes to do the workouts pretending that she does.” Sharon wants to laugh but it would hurt her abdominal muscles.

“But I still don’t really see the point in going to the gym, y'know?” Willam frowns at this.

“Don’t you wanna get fit?!” She exclaims.

Sharon shrugs, “I’m happy with how I look…”

“It’s not about how you look, it’s about how you feel!” Willam quickly counters, “Sure you’re gorgeous as hell,” Sharon smiles at this, “But you can’t climb what, like 2 flights of stairs with me without getting winded.” Sharon chuckles cause that was true. She also decided she didn’t really wanna argue or explain to Willam so she just sighs, reaching for the doggy bag.

Willam beats her to it and starts unrolling the top, pulling the take-out out.

“Okay well, I took a half day, and said I’d just work from home so I can take care of you today. I feel really guilty.” Willam confesses, handing her the container.

Sharon smiles appreciatively, “Aw, thanks Wills. Can you go get me plate though? I don’t wanna mess up my sheets.”

Willam spends the whole day in Sharon’s apartment, basically doing her bidding. Sharon didn’t abuse the offer, though. Only asking Willam to do the things she absolutely couldn’t. They spend most of the day watching re-runs of Married With Children. With Willam’s focus going in and out as she answered and composed emails for work. That night they ordered in take-out for dinner as well, and Willam left Sharon’s apartment at 11pm.

-

The next day, Sharon was still sore but the pain-relievers were working better so she could at least do the bare minimum at work. Unluckily for her it was a Saturday and that meant a lot of people coming up to the counter.

Sharon (and Willam) had studied business management in college. But during her four-year course, she just completely fell in love with makeup and beauty and then by her last year, she had little to no interest in having a profession in said course. She took up makeup classes and built up her credentials in her free time and once she graduated university applied as a makeup artist for MAC and got accepted.

A little over 3 years later, she still loves her job but it’s hard to move up the corporate ladder with businesses like these.

“Sharon, Adore’s out front asking about some reservation?” Violet, one of Sharon’s closest and favorite co-workers, comes up to her in the back room.

“Oh! Yeah, I have her stuff, lemme get them.” Sharon says quickly grabbing a couple of items that were rubber banded together. Adore was a regular at Sharon’s MAC branch.

“Hey Adore!” Sharon greets happily when she steps out the back room into the store.

“Hey Sharon! Ya have my stuff?”

Sharon shows her the goods, carefully plucking them out of the bound rubber and naming them for Adore. “Antique Teddy, white kohl liner, Soft Ochre paint pot, and our Spice lip liner that’s always sold out.” She chuckles.

“Lifesaver!” Adore exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Sucks that this is one of my most used shades and now everyone’s buying it because of fucking Kylie Jenner. Thank you for always reserving stock for me, Sharon.”

“It’s no sweat. You’re part of the family, Adore!” Sharon smiles at one of her favorite customers.

Aside from Adore, only a couple people had walked in the store. Sharon expected it to be busy, considering it was a weekend, but since she was still sore, she wasn’t complaining.

“It’s cause Benefit’s having a sale.” Violet rolls her eyes when Sharon wonders out loud why there’s no customers. Benefit was one of their neighboring boutiques.

It was already later in the afternoon and Sharon’s only patrons after Adore were a mother and her 7 year old daughter, who Sharon happily gave a kiddie make-over to. She loved kids, and despite her dark look, kids seemed to like her too. The mother reluctantly bought her daughter a $16 lipstick. She had only come in to look at powder and mascara but her daughter was getting very antsy so Sharon had offered to entertain her, giving her a makeover while Violet showcased to the mom their different mascaras and the fan favorite Studio Fix Powder.

“Sharon?” A familiar voice calls her name. Sharon had to do a double-take because it took her brain a while to process a name for the face in front of her.

“Oh hey! Alaska, Courtney!” She greets, finally remembering, as the 2 blondes walk into her store.

“I didn’t know you worked here…” Alaska drawls. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Yeah, I’ve been stationed here for 3 years!” Sharon smiles happily.

“Well we just came from that Benefit sale.” Courtney says, to which Sharon and Violet look at each other sharing a grin. “Alaska and her brow products.”

“A girl needs good stuff, okay?” Alaska says defensively, “And when the good stuff are on sale, you go get them.”

“She makes a point.” Sharon agrees. “Oh, this is Violet.” She introduces her co-worker as she approaches them. “These are… friends,” Sharon decides she doesn’t want to explain to Violet that they’re really more her best friend’s friends than her actual friends and that they’ve only met once at the gym. “That’s Alaska, and that’s Courtney.”

“You guys are gorgeous.” Violet comments. The 2 blondes pink at her comment. “It would be stunning to paint your faces.” She adds.

“That’s what Violet means when she calls people gorgeous, by the way.” Sharon clarifies and the other girls laugh.

“So wait, this is so interesting!” Alaska says clearly fascinated, “Can you like… do your whole spiel for me? Like how would you sell me a product?” Alaska walks over to the lipstick displays and picks one up, and then looks at Sharon.

“Oh, you want me to do the whole like, thing?” Sharon clarifies. Alaska nods. “Okay.” She laughs.

Sharon clears her throat, straightens her posture and begins. “Hi my name’s Sharon, how can I help you today?”

Courtney groans at Alaska’s shenanigans, so Violet offers to do the same for her. “I could show you our products too, if you’d like.” She says kindly, which Courtney accepts.

Alaska grins excitedly. “If I’m not looking for anything, what do you do?”

Sharon blinks, she opens her mouth but then closes it again, she composes herself before saying, “Would you like to see our newest collection? is usually one of the most common things we ask. But for the situation right now… hmm…” Sharon pauses to think, her brain racking through the files of what she’s read in their handbook multiple times. “I think it’s more appropriate to ask.. is there anything here you seem interested in?”

“Oh there are a few,” Alaska replies with a little smirk. Sharon raises an eyebrow. “What’s this?” Alaska absentmindedly picks up another product.

“That’s a brow mascara.” Sharon says slowly, observing Alaska’s movements carefully. Alaska puts the brow mascara down and smiles at Sharon, batting her eyelashes expecting her to continue. “Alaska, I can’t do my thing if you never answer properly.” Sharon finally says, chuckling.

“Okay, okay. I’ll play along.” Alaska concedes. “Umm… I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m a college senior who wants an easy every day look.” She says trying to sound scripted. Sharon laughs at this.

“Oh! For just an every day look like, a light and fresh looking beat,” Sharon shrugs as she’s talking, hating how 'YouTuber’ she sounds, but Alaska is enjoying the whole thing and you can see it in her face. Sharon starts walking towards the face products display, ushering Alaska to follow her to see the items, “I recommend our… Mineralize concealer,” picking each one up as she says their name, showing Alaska the products individually, “Our Studio Fix powder, our Extended Play mascara, and this brow pencil.” Sharon has handed Alaska the concealer and powder, and she’s holding the mascara and brow pencil. “And of course Fix+ to set everything.” She adds, pulling the spray bottle from one of the pockets on her black apron.

“Oh my god, Fix+!!!” Alaska exclaims, “I’ve actually been meaning to try it…” she says setting down the powder and concealer and taking the Fix+ bottle from Sharon.

“You haven’t?!” Sharon looks slightly offended. Fix+ is holy grail for any MAC girl.

“No. I just told you, I’m a college student. My Nyx one works fine.” Alaska counters. The girl really did have a quick tongue.

Sharon laughs cause she understands. She’s been there.

“Do you want me to do a look on you?” Sharon offers.

“Do I?!” Alaska exclaims excitedly, eyes going wide. “Yeah I would really love that!” She turns towards the direction of where Courtney is. Violet is showing her all their different pure pigments when Alaska calls out, “Court you should have Violet do your face too!!!”

“Yeah we can’t actually decline when people ask us to paint their faces.” Violet informs Courtney.

The two make-up artists seat Alaska and Courtney a chair away from each other, so they had space to move around. Violet decided to give Courtney a very bright look. She painted her using one of their new Personality Palettes, bright pink and a lot of peach tones. Sharon, as she promised Alaska, gave her a very quick, fresh looking makeup look.

“I’m gonna use some eyeshadow, but very light, not completely necessary to complete the look, if let’s say, you’re rushing for class.” Sharon says as she brushes the pigment on the blonde’s eye lids.

“Aren’t you supposed to be selling me the products?” Alaska laughs, trying her best not to move her head. Sharon chuckles stashing away her shadow brush.

“Yeah, but we’re friends so I’m gonna be honest.” Sharon says, grinning as she picks up the eyeliner. “Okay, I’m gonna get really into this eyeliner, cause you’ve got a really pretty eye shape.” Sharon let’s Alaska know what she’s going to do before she applies anything on the blonde’s face. “Close your eyes?” Sharon leans in close, carefully applying the gel liner. Alaska’s breathing speeds up at how close Sharon actually is to her face, she could feel the warmth of her breath. Did makeup artists really get in this close? Alaska was trying to remember the last time someone had done her face.

Sharon pulls back slowly looking satisfied with her lines. “Don’t open your eyes yet.” she tells Alaska, grabbing a piece of paper and fanning her client’s lids. She let Alaska know once the liner was dry, and the blonde opened her eyes slowly.

“Do you want me to touch your eyebrows?” Sharon asks.

Alaska chuckles, “Yeah, why not?! I wanna see your style on me. You can make it different from how I do mine.” Alaska grins at Sharon.

Sharon works on filling in Alaska’s eyebrows. When she’s done with that, she curls the younger girl’s eyelashes and applies the mascara. “I think I’ll skip blush,” Sharon informs her and goes right into applying highlighter on Alaska’s cheekbones. “Your bone structure is gorgeous, by the way.” Sharon adds as she dusts the product on Alaska’s face.

“Thank you!” Alaska says in a high pitched tone, sounding very pleased.

“Okay, now for your lips.” Sharon announces, “Pick a shade.” She holds out 2 lip pencils and 2 lip sticks.

“Oh! This one looks cute!” Alaska picks up a lip pencil in the shade Rosy Rim. “But this one looks really nice, too!!!” she whines a little, when she uncaps the lipstick in the shade Hug Me.

“We can do the lip pencil then the lipstick over it, Alaska. It’s not a problem.” Sharon chuckles.

“Yes let’s do that!!!” Alaska cheers and Sharon smiles at how absolutely adorable she’s being. Wait, did she just think Alaska was completely adorable? She shakes the thoughts out of her head and applies the lip products on her client. And in Sharon’s thoughts, emphasis on the word client.

She finishes up the look by spraying the blonde with Fix+ and she’s smiling proudly at her handiwork. Alaska looks fresh to death. Her makeup was light and it accentuated her eyes and cheekbones, which were, to Sharon, her best features. She also thought Alaska had really pretty lips too and was really satisfied with the color they chose. It was a really good MLBB color (my lips but better).

“Oh my god, Sharon! I love it. This is really pretty!” Alaska admired her look in the mirror. “Next time, I want you to do your look on me!” She turns to the makeup artist, flashing her an excited smile.

“This mug I’m wearing right now?” Sharon asks a little surprised. Alaska nods enthusiastically, and Sharon laughs. “Sure, no problem!” She says. “I’m just here, come drop by anytime, Alaska.”

“Oh yeah I definitely will!” Alaska replies, hopping off the chair. She goes over to Courtney where Violet is still finishing up the rest of her face. Alaska gasps, “Court you look stunning! You should always wear this much makeup!” the tall blonde comments.

Violet burst out laughing, she had to stop working on Courtney’s face or she would mess up her lines. Sharon laughed at Alaska’s shady comment as well. Courtney scrunched up her nose, “Are you saying I look ugly bare faced?!”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Also on a regular day, your makeup is terrible.”

Alaska was relentless, and Sharon thought she could definitely get along with the feisty blonde.

-

Sharon and Violet were glad that Alaska and Courtney had come in; their last interesting clients of the day had been the two blondes.

That night, Sharon had dinner with Willam after work ended late for the both of them. Willam invited Sharon to a place she newly discovered that served all-day brunch food.

“The most interesting part of the day was Alaska and Courtney visiting.” Sharon tells Willam.

“Oh? You saw them today?”

“Yeah they spotted me at work and went in. Vi and I gave them like makeovers and they actually bought some stuff so it worked out.”

“We’re actually planning to go out Friday next week for drinks and stuff.” Willam said. “You should come join us!”

“Oh the gym crew?” Sharon asks. “I dunno… I might feel out of place.”

“Nah!!! It will be fine!” Willam encourages. It didn’t really take much to have Sharon agreeing though. Willam had a really fun gym crew, and Sharon wouldn’t mind spending another night with them. Especially outside the gym.

#sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #willam belli #courtney act #katya zamolodchikova #violet chachki #shalaska #fluff #gym buddies au #for the gains #cisgirl au #ennik #rpdr fanfiction #submission #lesbian au

[gapimnydiaries]

Diary Entry #21: White Gays are better Filmmakers: What I learned about inclusivity from being a Gaysian filmmaker

Dear Diary,

“The Less I know the Better” by Tame Impala was playing on Apple Music as a good friend consoled me. I was in a space no larger than a handicapped single-stalled restroom. There was just one tiny single bed, a small TV and what you’d call a closet (but wasn’t really). There weren’t any windows and the only source of light I had was a mood lamp I bought at Ace Hardware™ in a mall called Grand Indonesia in Jakarta. I remembered I was trying to play it cool when, in truth, I was crumbling on the inside.

Earlier in the day, I had a Skype call with television development executives from Los Angeles who initially hired us to write a “diverse and progressive” series. But after a series of drafts, we found out that, like most people in a place of privilege, they weren’t as woke as they thought they were. After whitewashing and slashing the storylines that explored the complexities of being a person of color in America, they wanted us to reduce the women characters to serve the interests of the straight, male protagonist. “It’s a post-racial Millennial world” they explained. To make matters worse, the entire call was filled with attempts to other-ize me, from asking what it’s like to live in a rural village in Singapore to pointing out that my iPhone text-tone -- “ding!” -- was some kind of Asian praying bell.

Afterwards, I really wanted to email them and write: this type of behavior is ignorant and unacceptable. But, considering that I really needed the job and I had a writing partner who told me to let it go because we didn’t want to be rude, I remained silent. The silence of course, was really painful because obviously, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. In fact, it happens all the time. When people like me speak up about micro-aggressions or feeling left out, the people in power get angry and then I have to take care of their fragile feelings instead of validating my own. I’m always left feeling silenced, powerless and usually attacked for being “oversensitive.” The only thing I could do at the time was to call my friend and be temporarily consoled while listening to Tame Impala (Yes, I should’ve picked a better band for the occasion).

By this time, I had been alone in Indonesia (not Singapore) for 5 months. I was deep in pre-production on a short film called, Pria. During this time, I’d traveled across Java for months and interviewed countless gay Indonesians who either lived or had lived in rural areas. The film ended up being an amalgamation of their experiences told from their perspective, the perspective of the minority. So, within this context, the experience of that not-so-woke-ignorant phone call felt like such a step backwards, especially after being in Indonesia and realizing how ignorance of minority experiences can have such negative consequences. With these LA Execs, I met privileged people who wanted to promote and capitalize on the “global and diverse” world that “we live in right now,” but were so out of touch with the reality of what diversity really means that they ended up, perhaps unknowingly, becoming part of the problem.

◆◆◆

The author directs a scene on the set of Pria

Curious villagers watching the playback monitor during filming

The author and crew filming a scene in the morning

The author and producers stroll through the village “set”

◆◆◆

Out of all my intersectional identities, my “Asian-American-ness” has always been the hardest to fully embrace. I was born in Indonesia and moved to the US in elementary school. In Indonesia, I’m a minority because I don’t look Indonesian and I’m not Muslim. I’m mostly ethnically Chinese but none of my family members know any Chinese or anything about China. When I returned to Indonesia to do Pria, the locals there thought that I was from anywhere BUT Indonesia. When I came to the US for the first time, people were confused AF. They’d mock my accent and would always yell out “Ni Hau!” I’d try to correct them and tell them that I’m not Chinese, but that only confused the shit out of them. They would counter with the only two other Asian countries they’d heard of: Japan and Thailand (I mean really, if you wanna mock someone, get educated, people). There were definitely other FOB children at school, but most, if not all of them, were actually Chinese or Korean so they’d form their own communities out of their shared culture and language. Plus, the word FOB never felt like it applied to me; I came here on a plane, not a boat.

◆◆◆

(Far Right) The author with his siblings at a mall in 1996

◆◆◆

While I had such a confusing time trying to fit within the definition of Asian American, Gay was something that was always clear. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a hard time; like most queers, it was a process. But I always knew that I was gay and there was no question where I fit within that definition. So, when I started making “professional” short, queer films in 2011, I felt like I finally found a community that embraced me for me, for my work, and not the way I looked, or sounded, or how I presented myself. The LGBTQ film community has always supported me. Since I started, my shorts have been accepted to most LGBTQ film festivals domestically and internationally. But a troubling pattern began to emerge as I attended these festivals year after year. The majority of the films I saw were not diverse and mostly affirmed and celebrated the str8 white male ideal. There was always a lack of diversity, not only in the films, but also the filmmakers and organizers. I would always be one of the few (if not the only) minority filmmakers on the Q & A stage.

◆◆◆

The author attends a photocall at Frameline39: San Francisco LGBT Film Festival in 2015

The author at the Q&A for his short film, “Pipe Dream” at the Castro Theater, San Francisco (June 2015)

◆◆◆

This didn’t bother me at first, but after continually facing micro-aggressions at these LGBTQ festivals, in clubs, apps, and other Queer spaces, it started to really impact the way I saw myself and how I fit within the community. It already sucked enough having to deal with ignorant str8 people, but it’s much more hurtful when it comes from the community that you thought you were a part of. A community that promotes itself as being inclusive, a community that knows what invalidation feels like, and a community of film festivals run by, well, mostly people who identify as LGBTQ.

When I arrived at the centerpiece party for the 2017 Frameline: San Francisco LGBT Film Festival, the majority of the attendees were Gay White Men. I felt like I had just stumbled into an exclusive Mean Girls clique. It honestly felt like I was in a Gay club trying to scan for anyone with an interest in talking to an Asian. The way that everyone looked at me, just looking right through me, made me feel like I didn’t exist. When I told them about my short film from Indonesia, I was met with all sorts of assumptions. One sleazy, white producer from New York (who was trying to fuck an Australian actor all night) told me, “I’ve always wanted to go to Indonesia, it’s so exotic!” He then patted me on the back, “It must be so tough for the ladyboys there.” I guess even in a creative, inclusive, “safe” space like a Queer festival party, it’s as hierarchical as it would be in any other social Gay space, with whites taking the top spot. I wanted to think that this was an isolated incident because I’d been to this same exact party twice before and had a fantastic time. But, I slowly remembered, those other two times, I went with my white friends. There were, in fact, other incidents that occurred throughout the week including (but not limited to): being mistaken for another Asian on 3 different occasions and being grabbed in the ass by someone as I was leaving my Q & A (the latter could just be straight up sexual harassment and has nothing to do with race… but, in my experience, just looking like an “Asian Twink” in a Gay space usually gives other men the permission to violate our bodies...plus the Australians and Norwegian there didn’t get their asses grabbed).

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The author attends a photocall for the shorts program, “Worldly Affairs” at Frameline41: San Francisco LGBT Film Festival

The author during the Q&A session for “Pria” at the Castro Theater, San Francisco (June 2017)

◆◆◆

Of course, how can these white people understand wtf is going on with us “ethnic folk” if most of the films in these programs just affirm their str8-white privileged personhood ideal? There’s already a lack of Gaysians in the mainstream media and when we are ~lucky~ enough to make it on screen, we are only reduced to exotic stereotypical objects of desire or sexless, unattractive background players. If these are the only images shoved down everyone’s throat, it’s no wonder we’re always considered an Other…

Because these LGBTQ film festivals promote themselves as an inclusive safe space, this time, I decided to speak up. Surely, they would somehow understand. These organizers would know what it's like to grow up and not see (LGBTQ) characters like themselves on screen, or at least ones who weren’t child molesters, rapists, villains, creepy psychopathic old men or “sissies” serving as the butt of the joke that reduces their personhood to a minstrel show. They would understand what it would feel like to be erased, othered and/or misrepresented.

I sent out a mass email, Bcc-ing every LGBTQ festival that I’d been accepted to this year (and ones I was rejected from). In the email, I detailed how, when attending these Western festivals, I was always seen and treated as “other” because of my race. I told them how much their programming affects how LGBTQ POC are seen and treated within the general community. I tried to explain that by not including films like Pria, films from the other half of the world, in their LGBTQ Film Festivals, they are effectively erasing our stories and shutting us out. If there are minority films, we’re almost always grouped by race or by issue (why do white people only like us when we’re a cause to fight for? Even then, they want us to be a cause with hope). Are we not good enough to be part of the regular gay white programming? In times like these, programmers, the gatekeepers and privileged people in power have the responsibility to really examine what diversity means to them. Honest and complex representations of minorities are important (as well as minorities behind the scenes). This also means being strategic in programming these types of films. Not only do they determine how other people in the majority see and treat us, but they also shape the way we think and feel about ourselves.

The responses to the email were varied. “Seriously. Well-put,” said one LGBTQ festival. The rest refused to consider my point of view and instead resorted to belittling me and accusing me of being bitter for not having gained a spot in their program (like, honey, please. I sent the email to festivals that I DID get into too). But, to be honest, I am fucking bitter. These invalidating responses automatically reminded me of what happened in Indonesia a year before: that Skype call with the executives, and the many other times where I was either whitesplained and/or mansplained.

So yes. I’m absolutely bitter and I’m fucking angry.

How can I not be when I see these LGBTQ programmers complain about Donald Trump or say that they’re promoting diversity when their actions (or inaction) speak otherwise? Diversity isn’t just literally black and white, it’s something more complex; it occupies the gray area in the middle. Many people seem to think that just because you put a handful of Black people on screen (there are OTHER races too, you know?) and showcase minority “issue” films (on Gay refugees, Gays in the Middle-East, etc.), they can solve racism and inequality.

In truth, however, the work is far from being done. It doesn’t matter how many POCs are on screen if we are only reduced to stereotypes or, in the opposite case, neutered to the point where our complex experiences are distilled to white-people-cause-of-the-moment or worse, erased altogether. I just want to see my goddamn experiences represented accurately and truthfully.

I know that the work is hard. We have to dismantle a system of oppression that has been in place for hundreds of years that’s still an ongoing problem not just within the LGBTQ community but society at large. But, still, I expected better from our own community. How can a community that is fighting for equality perpetuate a system that promotes the invalidation of members within their own community?

It’s a system that allows for my bosses in LA to ignorantly make insensitive comments about my race via Skype.

It’s a system that enables a white, friend-of-a-friend at a Thanksgiving party to confidently assume, because of where I met the host, my appearance, and my non-English name, that it was my first Thanksgiving.

It’s a system that excuses gays when they put “No Asians” on their Grindr profiles and justify it as just “preference.”

It’s a system that allows an African American drag queen in New York to call me up on stage and mock my race and question my Americanness, while excusing such behavior as jest.

It’s a system where, when I was 17, a white, visiting professor took me to his home and raped me, assuming that I wanted it because I’m a “submissive Asian Bottom” who should’ve “relaxed more so that it would’ve felt better.”

It’s a system where, if I do speak up against the people in power who are supposedly on my side, I’d be dismissed and made to feel that I was the problem, that I was the one who was being overly sensitive and needed to check my feelings.

But, the thing is, I’ve been checking my feelings. I’ve been checking my damn feelings every day of my life. And you know what? I’m tired. I’m tired of them saying, “I can’t be racist or ignorant, I have black friends...” or “You obviously haven’t seen our program, we have an eye for colored people!” or whatever dumb-fuck excuse they use to deflect from the actual problem and validate their inaction/behavior/ignorance. It’s time for them to check their own damn feelings and realize that for real change to happen, they need to shut the hell up and listen. I’m sure they’re all well-meaning, but in the end, good intentions won’t matter much when the results are tone-deaf and continue to facilitate segregation and inequality.

I think that as we gain more acceptance within the mainstream, those who are now in a place of privilege tend to forget what it felt like to be in the minority. They forget those in the past who helped fight for our rights, they forget other members of their own communities who are still suffering, they forget what it felt like to be degraded for who they truly are, they forget what the real MO of the LGBTQ community is: Equality. There isn’t just one answer that will fix this Racism problem. The work needs to be highly personal and it starts with examining our own selves. It starts with listening to other members of the community without preconceived judgments and really examining the whys and hows of this system (of privilege) operating within our own lives. And look, I really get it. It’s hard to ask yourself why you’re not attracted to Asians, or why you’re still repulsed by femininity, or why this minority still feels left out when you went out of your way to create a safe space for them. We all want to believe that we’re fighting and living for the right things. And I think it’s now time to stop believing and start doing the real work.

As the Tame Impala song came to a close, I stared intently at my Ace Hardware™ Lamp. It was my only source of (literal and somewhat figurative) light, so after being in this dark room holding in my feelings, the warm glow of the light was oddly comforting. I started sobbing and my friend said, “Don’t worry they’re just hypocritical wannabe-liberal white execs… What else can you do?”

“But..,” I responded. “One of them is black.”

With much love, forever and always, Yudho Vanderhof Aditya

--

Yudho is a recipient of the 2016 Director’s Guild of America Best Asian American Student Director Award. He’s working on a feature film about gaysian Americans, if you’d like to share your experiences with him (which he will repay via coffee or tea at most NYC cafés), contact him: 📧: [email protected] IG: youdough

#gay #gaysian #gay asian #racism #diversity #queer #gaysiandiaries #gapimny

[imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul]

Fellow Aussie - Digger Harkness

Requested by @aryn-the-wolfheart

You walked into the room, pulling on your gloves. Harley popped her gum as you walked in and smiled at you. You winked at her as you walked in, and stood at Floyd’s side. He nodded down at you and you bumped his shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, sounding as grumpy as he looked.

“What’s up?” you asked, tying your hair up in a ponytail. 

“New mission, old member,” he said. You raised an eyebrow as the door across the room opened and Amanda walked in with a person who looked vaguely familiar. He had a smug look on his face as they both walked in. 

“Welcome. I see we’re all here, so let’s get started,” Waller said, looking around the group who had surrounded her. 

“Most of you know Boomerang,” she said, motioning to the man on her left. “Y/N, Digger Harkness a.k.a. Captain Boomerang.” You held out your hand but he didn’t take it.

“Alright,” you said, smirking slightly. He looked at you strangely now, seemingly finding something interesting about you. 

“Sorry,” he said, holding out his hand. You got the same look on your face when you heard him speak.

“Y/N,” you said again.

“Digger,” he said with a toothy grin. “Where are you from?”

“Leongatha, Australia.” His smiled wider as he pulled his hand away from you.

“Korumburra.” 

“That’s like a town over!” you said excitedly. 

“I know! It’s so great to have a fellow Aussie with us!”

“Okay, if you two are done,” Waller said, shooting you both a look. You nodded and backed up a little bit, not refraining from smiling. She got to the briefing, telling you all about the mission you were being sent on. “So, this location just happens to be located in Australia,” she said carefully. 

“You’re kidding!” you shouted, too aggressively. Digger laughed gleefully on the other side of the room. Floyd gave you a dirty look, so you coughed your way out of the laugh. 

“I am not kidding. We take off in an hour, be ready.” She gave you all a weary look before walking back out of the door she came from. Everyone started to disperse, while you tried to casually make your way over to Digger. He rushed over to your side just as fast.

“I'm glad you are a part of our team,” he said.

“Me too.” You pulled out your copy of the briefing and started flipping through the pages. “So do you know if this place is near home?”

“I hope not.”

“Yeah, this seems like more of a city. I don’t think the rest of the crew could handle living the Australian country life,” you said. He laughed at your joke as he looked over your shoulder at the briefing.

“So when did you join?”

“A few months after I was in prison,” you said. “I tried to rob the Bank of Jumbunna.”

“You’re kidding!” he said, smacking your arm happily. “I robbed that bank before, too.”

“Right! I can’t believe I got caught doing it.”

“I know, but I’ve been caught there before, too. They’ve got wicked booby traps.”

“I know!” He laughed and rubbed his upper lip as he stopped.

“So, we should probably get ready for this thing, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said. He nodded and followed you to your bag across the room. You started digging through it, grabbing your weapons and the rest of your gear. “What do you have?”

“What I’m wearing,” he said, motioning down to himself. “Oh, and this.” He pulled out a boomerang from his pocket, and suddenly his nickname made sense.

“Captain Boomerang,” you said, nodding appreciatively as you took it from his hand.

“Be careful, Y/N, that ain’t the only thing that’s curved,” Floyd shouted from across the room.

“Eh, fuck off!” Digger shouted back, flipping him off. You laughed as he turned back to face you. 

“Don’t worry about Floyd.”

“I’m not,” he said, frowning a little. 

“Good. So, I should go finish getting dressed. I’ll see you later,” you said, grabbing your bag. He nodded as you walked over to the bathroom. A second you came back, with a better ponytail, and your black pants and purple jacket on. 

“Nice jacket,” Digger said, walking back to your side. 

“Thanks. It seems that we’re the only two who know how to dress,” you said, tugging on the collars of his blue jacket. He smiled happily and looked down at your hands. “It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to, and not have to explain my slang to them.”

“Oh god, I know,” he said, smacking his forehead. You giggled again as everyone started to make their way towards the plane. 

“Wanna sit together?” you asked. He held out his hand and you did a weird high five mixed with a handshake.

“Oh, absolutely,” he said with a smile, his accent becoming thicker as he spoke. 

“See you there, mate,” you said, slinging your bag back over your shoulder. He followed close behind you as you ascended the steps of the plane. The two of you sat together in front of Harley and Floyd.

“Are you two gonna make out the whole time?” she asked, smacking her gum as she spoke. You rolled your eyes and shook your head.

“No, only if you two are.” You looked over at Floyd who blew air out of his nose.

“We’ll see,” he said, snuggling into his pillow. You snorted as you sat back down next to Digger. 

“Wanna share?” he asked, handing you his headphone. You nodded and popped it into your ear, becoming happily surprised to find your favorite band playing.

“This is my favorite band!” you said excitedly.

“Mine too!” You both laughed and high fived again once more before relaxing into your seats for a long plane ride back home. 

#hope you like it!! #requested #aryn-the-wolfheart #digger harkness #digger harkness imagine #digger harkness fanfic #digger harkness oneshot #digger harkness fanfiction #digger harkness x reader #captain boomerang #captain boomerang imagine #captain boomerang oneshot #captain boomerang fanfic #captain boomerang fanfiction #captain boomerang x reader #suicide squad #suicide squad imagine #suicide squad fanfic #suicide squad fanfiction #suicide squad oneshot

[chardscarf12-blog]

What the Label Won't Tell You: How to Buy a Good Bottle of Olive Oil

[Photographs: Max Falkowitz unless otherwise noted]

Have you ever tasted a tomato leaf?

As a bona fide black thumb who’s never taken to backyard gardening or the great outdoors, I sure haven’t. But ‘tomato leaf’ is a big tasting note in the olive oil industry, apparently, and at Cobram Estate’s reception lounge in Woodland, California, technical director and chief olive-oil maker Leandro Ravetti tells me it’s a common characteristic of oil made from picual olives. A minute before, I’d swigged a dram of chartreuse oil from a plastic pill cup, and sure enough, it tastes vividly of ripe tomato flesh warm from late-summer sunlight. There’s also a touch of bitter and bracing, as if I’d just mainlined a pile of fresh basil leaves. No—not basil, the taste is meatier, muskier in that compelling tomatoey way, but also inescapably verdant. It’s a breezy October morning and all I can think about is my sudden roaring hunger for raw tomatoes on toast.

Huh. I guess that’s what tomato leaves taste like.

Olive oil is one of those foods we embrace on faith. Science says it’s good for you, chefs say the quality stuff makes other foods come alive, and pretty green bottles of it can hit $40 on store shelves. We accept the idea of ‘good’ olive oil the way we accept the idea of ‘grassy’ flavors, despite never munching on blades of grass. But what is good olive oil? What makes it good, what should it taste like, and how do you shop for it if you can’t taste it beforehand?

These are the questions I came to California to figure out. Little did I realize the answers have as much to do with the weird world of food supply chains as they do with growing olives.

Most people can tell you how to spot a good tomato, but the traits of good olive oil, a food many of us eat every day, are surprisingly opaque. Take Colavita, which is Amazon’s best-selling extra-virgin, and at 29 cents an ounce you could call it the Two Buck Chuck of cooking fats. If you shop at a major American supermarket, you’re likely buying a commodity extra-virgin like Colavita. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, per se, but you should know what you’re paying for.

To vastly over-generalize the byzantine global olive oil trade, large commodity olive oil companies buy oils from all over, then blend them into a consistent product. The brokers and aggregators they buy from are in turn buying smaller lots of oils from regional producers, which are in turn buying harvests of olives from dozens to hundreds of small farms. A three-liter tin of commodity extra-virgin could conceivably contain oils from thousands of orchards, which is pretty cool when you think about it, but consider that for every one of those sources, there’s that many more ways for the processing to have gone wrong, or for the oil to have been mishandled. Assuming, of course, that it’s actually pure olive oil sitting in there, and not, say, adulterated with half a dozen refined fats.

Amazon says that bottle of Colavita is "imported from Italy," which is a clever way of saying the bottle itself was shipped from Italy without guaranteeing the provenance of the oil inside. If you squint at the back label though, you’ll see a fine print disclaimer: "Contains oil from one or more of these countries," with a legend you can use to decode the country codes printed on the bottle itself.

By olive oil standards, this is actually pretty responsible labeling! Other brands aren’t as above-board. The famously fraudulent global olive oil industry has little interest in arming consumers with actionable information about their product. Agents along a complex supply chain often blend Italian oils with olive oil from other countries and sell it as pure Italian. Companies stretch good batches of extra-virgin with tasteless soybean or safflower oils, or blend in oil made from older olives that’s refined just enough to make it palatable. A 2014 congressional report on adulterated foods, including olive oil, details these scams.

Fraud aside, even 100% pure extra-virgin olive oil will deteriorate in the bottle, and if it’s stored improperly or sits on a supermarket shelf for a year or two, it could taste rancid before you break the seal. Regulations exist to combat these practices, but they’re rarely enforced. After all, olive oil is a commodity governed by the iron laws of capital; for much of the industry, yield and profit matter far more than quality.

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

Then there’s the minority: small-batch boutique olive oils made by skilled producers around the world, either directly from their own olive orchard or from nearby sources. If Colavita is the Two-Buck Chuck of olive oil, these specialty brands are the natural wines and grower Champagnes. They’re intense and complex. They taste vividly of olives and give you a sense of place. They are, theoretically, good olive oils. You can expect to pay $1.50 to $3 an ounce for these, a price that reflects not just ostensibly higher quality olives, but the higher cost of labor, manufacturing, and distribution that accompanies artisan food production. Of course, there’s no guarantee that a $40 bottle of olive oil will actually be good, or if it is, that you’ll like its particular character. Like any specialty food, the relationship between price and value gets tricky on the high end of olive oil.

So what if you just want reliably good olive oil—less expensive than the boutique stuff, but still responsibly made, fresh, and delicious enough to make you smile? You know, like a good table wine, a bottle in the $15 to $20 range that has a lot going on but won’t break the bank. Brands like Manfredi Barbera & Figli's Frantoia, California Olive Ranch, and Cobram—where I visited—excel in this category. These are companies that sell olive oil in the vicinity of 75 cents an ounce, about triple the price of that Colavita, but half the price of a super-premium bottle.

Just like in wine, a lot of California companies are making good olive oil these days. California Olive Ranch is the biggest, but since launching in the US in 2014, Cobram Estate is one of the fastest growing brands in the category. It’s actually an offshoot of an Australian company called Boundary Bend, founded by agriculture school buddies Rob McGavin and Paul Riordan in 1998, that’s captured 30% of the Australian olive oil market. In addition to loving flat whites and having funny accents, Australians are big fans of olive oil; the average Australian consumes 1 3/4 liters per person per year, compared to just under a liter per person in the US. (Greeks, Italians, and Spaniards consume about 10 times that American figure, just so you know.) Boundary Bend’s success in Australia has translated to winning dozens of international olive oil competitions and a $360 million valuation.

So when Cobram’s PR team offered to fly me out to see their Central Valley orchard and factory firsthand, I was intrigued. I’m skeptical of press junkets, but the Cobram people pride themselves on transparency, from their on-site lab that reports findings to the California Olive Council to more than a dozen peer-reviewed industry papers on olive oil science. Besides, I’ve liked their olive oil for years. The first time I tried some, as an editor at a magazine that received free food samples several times a day, I swiftly palmed the half-liter office bottle to hoard in my home kitchen. It lasted about a week.

In a stark departure from the big commodity brands, Cobram Estate is completely vertically integrated: the company grows olives (directly or through contracts), picks them, mills them into oil, then bottles and ships them, all on-site. Most of California’s olive oil companies work the same way, but thanks to Boundary Bend’s vast coffers, Cobram has been able to expand aggressively, scale up production, and invest in pricey equipment. The idea, McGavin says, is to couple stringent boutique standards with a massive supply of raw material, using advanced technology and industrial scale to raise the standards of oil-making while keeping competitive with larger commodity brands. Here, then, was a chance to see what ‘good’ olive oil means at both ends of the manufacturing spectrum, and how they might meet in the middle.

A mechanical olive harvester looks like a car wash on wheels. As the 14-foot-tall leviathan rolls through the orchard, it swallows olive trees whole while rotary bristles inside the arch whack olives off their branches. While the harvester trundles down the row, a truck drives in tandem one row down, and a conveyer belt on the harvester reaches over the trees to deposit fistfulls of olives into the truck’s hopper.

The olives that Cobram is harvesting the morning of my visit are a mix of green, purple, and black; while color is an indicator of olive ripeness, Ravetti’s team relies more on the olives’ oil accumulation, flowering times, moisture levels, and other environmental factors. In July, the team starts testing olives, lot by lot, to determine the order in which they’ll be picked. Then they work out an action plan with president of US business, Adam Englehardt, to match that picking order with the factory’s capacity. California olive season runs a tight eight weeks in October and November, and once it starts, picking, processing, and milling becomes a 24/7 operation. Cobram’s factory sits in the middle of their 475-acre orchard with 10 different olive varieties planted, though as most of those trees are too immature to bear fruit, 90% of the company’s olives right now come from nearby growers that in many cases have exclusive contracts with Cobram.

With an orchard that size, scheduling picking and milling becomes a massive challenge of logistics and engineering, Englehardt explains. That’s because every olive is milled the same day it’s picked, usually within just a few hours, so it can be blended into larger batches for a consistently fresh product. Olives left off the tree too long undergo an enzymatic process called hydrolysis, where triglycerides (fat molecules) in the presence of water break down into diglycerides and free fatty acids. Meanwhile, oxidation breaks down chemical bonds in fatty acids, releasing peroxides that further break down into other compounds that cause rancidity in oil. Eventually the olives ferment, and after that, rot, and every stage of this degradation introduces off flavors to the finished oil. This happens a lot in regions where small commodity olive growers have to wait for space in a nearby crushing facility to become available. If the facility is backed up enough, the olives turn before they can get crushed, and the resulting oil will have to be heat- and chemically-refined in order to be edible. So once the olive is off the tree, the clock is ticking.

Cold-pressed olive oil is just that: olives crushed and ground into an oily juice, solely with mechanical pressure. About 20% of an olive’s fresh weight is oil, McGavin explains, but the oil itself is essentially flavorless. You have to rupture an olive’s oil sacs so the fats can marinate with the fruit’s flavorful skin, flesh, and seed. Cobram grinds the olives into a paste for about 45 minutes using a traditional hammer mill, which works on the same basic principle as those giant car crushers, then runs the paste through a 3,000 RPM centrifuge to separate out the now olive-infused oil.

But the clock ticks on. For one, the newly freed oil needs to rest so any residual water and solids can separate out. But even once you’ve removed any hydrolysis-inducing moisture, fresh oil in the presence of air will keep oxidizing. So after Ravetti’s team takes initial readings of the fresh oil and tastes it to see which batches to blend it with, it gets piped into steel tanks for cold storage, which are flushed with nitrogen to halt further air exposure. Sitting in these tanks, sequestered from heat, light, and oxygen, is as close to cryogenic storage as olive oil gets. But even under optimal conditions, the oil is deteriorating: you can’t halt oxidation completely, and enzymatic activity that began the minute the olive was crushed continues on, though at a slower pace. As we talk through the forest of tanks, Englehardt says that they aim to keep oil in this condition for no more than a year.

We move on to a smaller room with some crates on wooden pallets. Englehardt explains that these are boxes of bottled oil, ready to be shipped. “Is this it?” I ask, surprised by the meager size compared to the giant tanks we just left behind. He nods. Even the minimally air-exposed act of transferring olive oil to nitrogen-flushed bottles accelerates the oil’s deterioration. “We try to keep only four weeks’ worth of inventory in these bottles,” he says. The rest is sitting in cold storage as oil or still on the tree as whole olives.

Extra-virgin olive oil is generally defined as 100% cold pressed olive oil with a maximum of .8% acidity and no sensory defects. Virgin olive oil, the next grade down, allows up to 2.5% acidity with minor defects. Beneath these two tiers lie an assortment of lower quality grades that all require heat and/or chemical refinement to taste palatable; these make up the bulk of the commodity olive oil market.

You can measure acidity—and a whole host of other related critical factors, such as peroxide counts and signs of pests or disease—in a lab, but sensory defects come down to a tasting panel of experts trained to look for flaws like rancidity, barnyard or alcohol flavors, and ‘fustiness,’ a sign of fermentation. Nancy Ash is one of those experts. In addition to working as an California Olive Oil Council, a regional trade organization dedicated to raising standards for the California oil business and communicating those standards to the public.

“An olive oil that shows no flavor defects and passes chemical analyses such as acidity tests can be called extra-virgin,” she says, “but a passing grade just means you didn’t fail. It could be a D; would you be happy with a D?” An oil that lacks manufacturing defects could still taste bland, unbalanced, or just plain unenjoyable, yet it can earn the same grade as an award-winning bottle. That may be for the best, since the alternative, maybe something like a Robert Parker-esque point-based scoring system, is probably more cumbersome and subjective than it’s worth. The bigger issue, Ash goes on, is that since olive oils deteriorate over time, the grades they receive from a tasting panel aren’t necessarily reflective of what you get when you open a bottle.

“Even the best extra-virgin olive oils are going to taste rancid three years later.” For regular cooks in search of great olive oil, this is the most important thing to keep in mind. If you buy or receive some fabulous bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, don’t save it for special occasions in the back of the cupboard. Use it now, while it’s fresh and punchy and delicious. It’s not a collectible.

[Photographs: Vicky Wasik]

So what, then, is a regular American cook to do? Ash’s biggest piece of advice is to seek out oils with best-by dates as far ahead into the future as you can find. Very small specialty producers may put harvest dates on their bottles, but larger companies working with multiple lots and orchards, as well as the commodity giants, mostly go by bottling dates. In the EU, a best by date is typically 18 months after the bottling date, while in the US it’s closer to two or three years. A far-in-the-future best by date doesn’t guarantee an oil has been handled well along the supply chain, but it at least increases the likelihood that the oil in the bottle isn’t too old. Dark bottles are more resistant to heat and light deterioration than clear, and even though small bottles might cost more per ounce than three-liter tins, they’re generally preferable; once you open the bottle and expose the oil to air again it’ll begin to degrade even faster, and unless you’re cooking restaurant-sized batches of food on the regular, you probably won’t finish a hefty tin of olive oil before those flaws become noticeable.

Ash goes on to explain how California producers are getting more technical on labels to build demand for higher quality oils. The California Olive Oil Council has launched a pilot program of an endorsement seal for certain brands. Some producers are putting harvest dates on their labels, and others are listing polyphenol counts, which range from 150-200 on the lower end up to 600 or so. Higher polyphenol counts generally correlate to oils that last longer, Ash says, but that’s not a guarantee, and some may find the bitter, pungent taste that comes with super-high counts to be unpalatable. Cobram’s Australian division prints antioxidant data on each bottle, and McGavin says that once the US team gets enough data, they’ll replicate the practice here, possibly even this year.

For Cobram, coming to America was about more than venturing into a new market. With orchards in opposite hemispheres, the company enjoys the nifty advantage of two separate growing seasons roughly six months apart, which translates to fresher olive oil year-round.

Which has me thinking, finding a bottle of good olive oil is a lot like buying a tomato after all. Buy from reliable purveyors, seek out what looks fresh, don’t rely on fancy names and labels, and trust your instincts. After all of one day in a field and a few months spent thinking about olive oil, I don’t feel qualified to say what good olive oil really means. But I know it involves a lot more than the words ‘extra-virgin.’

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

When it comes to oils that she keeps in her pantry, Ash admits she’s a biased source—many of her favorites are made by friends, clients, or both. But she says she happily "blind buys," that is, orders without tasting the new batch to make sure she’ll like it, from Katz Farm, the Sicilian-leaning Bondolio, Grumpy Goats, and Frantoio Grove. I was also curious about great olive oils made in Europe, so I reached out to Nick Anderer, the founding chef of New York’s Marta, Martina, and Maialino, a trio of Italian restaurants from Danny Meyer that specialize, unsurprisingly, in high-end regional Italian specialty foods. Every fall, he and his team place advance orders for the first pressings of the following year’s olives from a small list of Italian producers he’s come to trust year after year.

“I’m looking for oil that’s alive,” he says. “I want vibrancy; I should cough if I’m tasting it raw, and I want peppery and grassy notes that feel very present.” Beyond that general principle of robust intensity of flavor, Anderer prefers different producers’ oils to finish different types of food. “For red meat dishes, I want more of a gut punch of bitterness,” he says, so he reaches for a high-polyphenol Tuscan oil by Laudemio. But an oil that strong would be overkill on, say, delicate fish or vanilla ice cream. His “rounder, almost drinkable” oil of choice for those foods is an unfiltered bottle from Capezzana, a deep-green oil that’s “super rich on the tongue,” ideal for a simple pasta like aglio e olio. He’s also a fan of Olio Verde, a Sicilian oil made exclusively from Castelvetrano olives, as its brininess works wonders with seafood. And for special occasions, he breaks out his bottle of Manni, a super-premium bitter Tuscan oil that mostly sees action in the fine dining restaurant market.

If you’re just starting to explore the world of high end olive oil, go try something similar. Hit up your favorite Italian restaurant—or Spanish, or Greek, or New American, or Lebanese—and ask what olive oil they keep in the kitchen. Then splurge on a few bottles, buy some pita or baguette, and get to tasting as much as you can. After all, they say olive oil is good for you.

This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.

Source: https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/02/what-the-label-wont-tell-you-how-to-buy-a-good-bottle-of-olive-oil.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

[neurotribe]

“I don’t see colour” or The Complicated Dishonest Politics of Identity

I didn’t blog last week because this post took me a lot longer to write than I thought. So please accept this post as last weeks and this weeks reflection. It’s quite long so grab a coffee or tea, and settle in for a bit of a read.

I was on my way home from a conference I was speaking at some years ago. It was a Melbourne December so for my northern hemisphere friends, that means one of the hottest months of the year.

In the warmer months, I tend to keep my hair quite short. This time, my hair was clippered to the point of almost being bald. I had a serious case of the five o’clock shadows and in addition, I tend to tan quite significantly during the summer months, a benefit of my Maltese genes.

So there I was, stopped at a set of traffic lights at a busy intersection in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. It was hot, the window was open, my elbow sticking out the side of the car probably listening to a 24 hour news station, nerd I know.

It took a few seconds for me to hear the yelling over the sound of the radio. I looked out the window and I could see the source of the yelling. It was two, twenty something white Caucasian males. The seemed to be yelling and it appeared to be aggressive. I turned the sound down and listened.

“Go back to where you came from you f***ing Arab!” they yelled. I looked in the opposite direction trying to find the target of their vitriol. I was the only car in this part of the intersection waiting for the lights to change. I looked back at them and once again in the opposite direction, thinking now that their target was someone walking on the other side of the road. I scanned the footpath and it too was empty as far as the eye could see. As I looked back at the young men still screaming, it suddenly dawned on me, they were yelling at me.

It was half way through December 2005, a time when Australia was experiencing a thing we now call the Cronulla Race Riots.

Putting on my best Aussie bogan accent, I yelled out “I am mate, back to Diamo! Cheers!” “Diamo” being the truncated version of Diamond Creek, a very white settler suburb close to where I live which ironically has experienced a shift in demographics since that time.

I didn’t really think about the incident until after the conference. I had some time to reflect and as I did so, in particular in the light of national events surrounding the riots, I realised the effect that this and many other incidents prior to and since that one continue to have on my sense of identity.

You may have missed something significant last week. A question was asked on the ABC’s Q&A program (you can see the question here, skip to the 32 minute and 15 second mark). The white, middle class Australian man who must be at least in his 60′s asks, “After working and paying taxes for about 50 years myself, I believe that no person living in Australia today should be entitled to any special benefit or recognition, which is based not simply on need or achievement, but on race or how long their ancestors were here. What do the panel think of that?”

The host threw to Sami Shar. Lucky bloke. I thought he responded well given no notice and the incendiary nature of the question. “It is easy to dismiss the value of race when it is not something that has been a defining aspect of your life, when it’s not something that has been used to vilify, deprive and destroy community ... when you’ve never had that kind of vilification ... it’s easy to say it’s a fair go, everybody is born equal, and “I don’t see race”.

In the US, yet another Trump inspired political firestorm is unfolding, this time as a result of a tweet telling four congresswomen of colour they should go back to where they came from.

I am not sure if you have heard of the term “identity politics”. The phrase, these days is often used in a pejorative sense however that was not originally the case. Back in the 1970′s was articulated as a framework that helped “those feeling oppressed by and actively suffering under systemic social inequities to articulate their suffering and felt oppression in terms of their own experience by processes of consciousness-raising and collective action.” The intent of identity politics was a mechanism that was "seen as ways to gain empowerment or avenues through which to work towards a more equal society.”

If you could for a minute, put aside your thoughts and feelings regarding the phrase for a minute.

Think with me for a minute.

If there were a mechanism that could help us see the systemic ways in which we could clearly see that for example black women experienced a significant and disproportionate level of violence over and against that experienced by other demographics, surely we can agree that this mechanism is a good thing? If this lens helped us to see dynamics at play that we were unable to see prior to the introduction of such lenses, again surely that would be a good thing? If this lens enabled us to begin imagining solutions that empowered this demographic, and helped us collectively move towards a more equal society, again surely we would consider this to be a good thing?

Now remember, prior to the previous paragraph, I said that in order to see the goodness of such a mechanism we would need to park our bias concerning the mechanism and the name of this mechanism, namely identity politics. So if you can’t quite see the goodness that I am referring to in the above paragraph, perhaps skip back up the article and try again?

Regardless of how you are feeling at this stage of the post, this was exactly the intent of the origins of identity politics. Namely:

A framework that helped us see something that we could not see before and,

Once seen, solutions could be conceived of that would move us towards a more equal society.

Arguably, identity politics as a mechanism is responsible for some of the most significant social transformations during the last four decades including but not limited to the ongoing struggle for women’s rights (in all spheres), the civil rights of minority groups and the civil rights of those who do not conform to gender or sexual “social norms”.

Fast forward four decades and we have all sorts of people using the phrase identity politics negatively, almost as a profanity. The arguments against identity politics are many including but not limited to:

It is a concept that emerges from Marxism, Socialism (insert whatever “ism” will gain the most negative of reactions in the audience that the critic seeks to persuade),

It is destructive,

It is negative,

It divides people rather than bringing people together.

The use of the phrase “identity politics” and the associated negative attributions are one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate around who holds power and more importantly alternative visions to the status quo that may emerge after honest reflection.

And it is the lack of honesty in these criticisms that angers me most.

Those who seek to criticise identity politics as a divisive tool are employing the very same mechanism they seek to discredit in their attempts to discredit it! In their attempts to discredit identity politics, critics use a specific form of identity politics referred to as “white grievance” or “white identity” politics, a form of identity politics!  

Professor Ashely Jardina, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duke University noted that Trump’s “go back” tweet was a strategic and well thought through strategy designed to speak directly to the anxieties of two groups of people:

"The first subset are white voters who are racially resentful, who have hostility to voters of colour, they don't believe they play by the rules," she says. "Telling women of colour in Congress to go back to the countries they come from is going to resonate with racially prejudiced voters."

It will also play well, she says, with a different subset: voters who are worried about the changing demographics of America but don't harbour the same hostility towards racial minorities."For these voters, the idea elected officials don't uniformly look like them is symbolic of the loss of political power that white Americans have enjoyed for a long time."

So critics of identity politics,

using the very same framework,

on the basis of an identity “white anxiety” or “white grievance”,

on the basis of the fears of real or perceived loss of power,

and therefore as a consequence of using identity politics to clearly articulate the fears experienced by this demographic,

attempt to shut down debate arising as a result of identity politics.

Dishonest. Brilliant. But yeah, dishonest.

It seems to me that when one group becomes aware to their lack of power, and when that group seeks to find it’s power, and when a society needs to adjust and specifically when those who are accustomed to having a monopoly upon power find themselves in a position of needing to share their power with others, well quite frankly it gets ugly.

Case in point the national debate surrounding Australia’s treatment of Adam Goodes as a result of the release of the documentary The Final Quarter.

So where to from here? I have four thoughts (and an optional fifth):

1) The dishonesty needs to be exposed When those who attack the use of identity politics use the exact same tactic, well firstly, to be totally honest, I congratulate them. Well played. However the fact that they are using the same strategy to reinforce the status quo, that dishonesty needs to be exposed.

2) Be compassionate when dealing with people who are afraid (including yourself) There is something exhilarating about discovering and beginning to use ones power. Conversely there is something quite terrifying to discover that you are about to lose power, especially if the power you are about to lose was something that you didn’t realise you had and the imminent loss comes as a surprise. I have written about this before. The full post appears here. This quote which I used from that post speaks to this phenomenon well:

“To the privileged, equality can feel like a loss. Over time I have come to the idea that independence requires equality and, therefore, a sense of loss for many.” - Jesse Alan Downs

3) Holding power as opposed to holding power to account I am a geek, I have noted that several times. So to make this point, I reach to sci fi, in particular The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. In describing the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, the writer reflects they are simply "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes".

Revolutions are dangerous things. How many times do we need to go through he cycle of replacing one set of ruthless dictators with another? How do we move towards a more equal society if the process requires creating a new minority without power?

This is the trickiest of issues. Why? Because in order for minorities to take their place in a society and be involved in wielding power,  those with a monopoly on power need to have the wisdom and courage to recognise this and relinquish their monopoly. That takes a profound kind of leadership. Which brings me to my final thought.

4) Encouraging and getting behind honest, compassionate and wounded leaders of the status quo I jumped into my car and therefore came part way into an interview. I thought I recognised the voice of the person being interviewed but couldn’t quite place it. I listened to this political leader discussing identity politics. They noted the when identity politics are used in ways to identify those who suffer and help us imagine alternative futures, identity politics is a good thing. However when identity politics are used to divide groups of people and deny us the ability to imagine creative solutions, it was a bad thing.

I listened to this interview for about twenty minutes and only at the end, discovering that the person being interviewed was Barnaby Joyce. That’s right, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia who lost his seat because he was a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand, only to win the seat back and then lose his position as Deputy Prime Minister because his affair with his former staffer and expected child became public news. (And so on and so on and so on).

It struck me as I listened to Joyce describe the ways in which identity politics helps us see groups who suffer that we are unable to any other way, and then to creatively imagine solutions, I was listening to a man who had experienced not just one, but several national humiliations. (I couldn’t find that interview, if someone can, by all means let me know and I will post a link to this article. However, I was able to find this article that you might find interesting.)

Another powerful white male who has given me pause to reflect upon the judgementalism I carry in my own heart is Eddie McGuire. There were many moments in the Adam Goodes doco that moved me. One of them however came from an unexpected place. There is a very short scene, where McGuire, after making several racial gaffes has had a moment to reflect publicly on the effect of his casual racism on Adam Goodes. Suddenly Eddie struggles to find words and chokes up with tears that he tries to hold back. He stands emotionally in the place of “the other”. He realises that he has hurt another human being in a way that will most likely leave a mark for the rest of his life. Yes Goodes may heal, however whenever Eddie interacts with Goodes, he will be mindful of the scar on Goodes’ soul, a scar that he inflicted. So as I have reflected on this doco, the world we find ourselves in, and as I have despaired at the apparent lack of a way forward in this tribalised world, I wonder if part of the way forward is to look harder for and then encouraging the honest, compassionate, wounded leaders of the status quo, or at the very least, looking for opportunities for their formation?

5) Optional fifth thought I have a fifth thought, exclusively for my sisters and brothers of the Christian faith. I have spoken at length with many a sister and brother in Christ about this stuff. One of the most demoralising things is the idea that issues of race are not “core gospel concerns”. In many of those discussions, Paul’s statement from Galatians is cited: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” as thought this somehow confirms the fact that this collection of my thoughts in this post is at best peripheral and at worst irrelevant to the practice of the Christian faith. However, after reflecting on Paul’s words and more importantly the context, I realise that they cannot be used to dismiss the issue. Paul in Galatians is taking on the fact that everyone seems to have succumbed to the negative dimensions of identity politics, in the way that Barnaby Joyce warned about in his interview. When you work your way through Galatians, everything up until this statement, it is clear, Paul is not commanding people to cease and desist. He is not telling people to cease playing the worst kind of identity politics game. He is in fact offering us a vision of what could be, a vision of a community where many tribes, tongues and cultures come together, as equals under the lordship of the only person we can trust to hold power, therefore relieving us of all of our fears.

#TheFinalQuarter #IdentityPolitics #Discipleship #Theology #Culture