#[no empathy in your son Cora]

[medicus-mortem]

@afailedkingsheart​ asked: // Cora broke his arm. That's the plot. //

Innate curiosity was always his downfall, but falling out of a building could be marked as his most unflattering of klutsy behaviors. Left arm bound tightly in a cast and held in a sling, he could feel himself wriggle with the impatience of healing. A deep pull of unenthusiastic sighs wisped from the smoke of his cigarette as he laid helpless on the sand of the beach waiting to ride out his boredom. Truly, this sucked.

Unprompted

   Law strides onto the beach, leaving his personal tent for but a moment. He could be on the Tang, working away as he so often does, but he’d rather be closer to his patient and the rest of the crew. Besides, his ship is anchored much farther out than normal, the reefs here making it hard to approach the shore. Better to be here instead of out there where he can’t help anyone.

   Sand crunches under his boots and soon enough he sees his most recent patient moping on the beach. Just laying there bored and staring. Law sighs, rolling his eyes and Cora’s pathetic visage. If he hates being out of commission so much then he should be more careful. This whole injury thing is his own damn fault, after all. The Surgeon of Death has little sympathy for his saviour in this moment. No sympathy for him and his accident prone traits.

   “Stop moping,” he says, once he is standing beside Corazon. “Read a fucking book or somethin’.”

   Law is even kind enough to drop a book beside the tall man’s head. It’s just one he had on hand. Not sure Cora will be interested in it, but it’s better than watching him lay around and huff, like a sad dog.

[viperwrites]

Ah, well, I was thinking about an Be around me AU, where they are demigods instead? 🥺😍 Sterek, maybe? *flutters her eyelashes prettily*

Anything for you sweetie uwu 🤍

Basically Sterek as Percico! Derek is a mix of Percy, Nico, and Frank, and Stiles is a mix of Percy and Luke. Stiles is the Son of Hecate and the Main Head Counselor of CHB. Derek is the Son of Hades, Ambassador of Pluto and a Legacy of Poseidon.

Will I ever learn to write something plotless? who knows.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Stiles doesn’t startle. He knows that voice better than he knows his own. He would know it in pain as he knows it in joy; at the beginning of time and the end of the world.

So he calmly pulls his gaze away from the nocturnal sky and the soothing sight, looks over his shoulder with a smile already tugging at his mouth.

“It’s okay,” he says. Stiles pats the space next to him, feeling uncharacteristically shy. “I’m just glad you came.”

“Of course I did,” Derek smiles. His eyes are soft. “I always come when you call.”

Stiles feels incredibly warm, and it’s not just because of the fire at their feet.

Derek has that effect on people.

“I didn’t call, though,” Stiles points out.

Derek huffs out a laugh. “Maybe not out loud.”

Stiles beams at him.

“Only you would find a way to form an empathy link without needing a satyr on the other end,” Derek says, fingers skimming Stiles’ forehead as he moves his bangs aside fondly. “I don’t know why they bother challenging you.”

Pride spreads throughout his bloodstream, coloring his cheeks. “Pretty neat, right?”

Derek finally, finally wraps an arm around his shoulders. Stiles breathes him in, leans into the embrace. They haven’t had much time alone, what with the oncoming war and all.

Derek kisses his temple. “I’d say.”

He doesn’t say, it’ll come in handy. He doesn’t say we’re gonna need it, either.

Neither does Stiles.

“How do you feel?”

Derek looks down at his arm where most of his wounds are mostly healed but for a few scrapes now, opens and closes his hand. “I’m fine. Doing well.”

“Good,” Stiles nods, but reaches into his pouch for a tiny square of ambrosia to feed it to Derek. “But you could be doing better. Don’t think I didn’t notice you holding your side, or that I don’t know how little sleep you’ve had lately.”

Derek accepts it without complaining nor asking how Stiles knows that and only sighs at having been caught on a lie.

They have come a long way.

Stiles only talks again once they’re settled back, leaning against each other side to side.

“What’s troubling you, Sourwolf?”

“Honestly?”

Stiles raises his eyebrows at him. What do you think?

Derek inclines his head. That’s fair.

“I miss you,” Derek says with a frown.

That actually surprises Stiles. “But I’m right here.”

“I know,” Derek says, smoothing Stiles’ hair—a habit left from Stiles’ buzzcut days. He kisses Stiles’ cheek. “I know that. It’s me who isn’t here.”

Stiles’ eyes soften at that.

“You know I don’t blame you, right?” Stiles says seriously. “What you’re doing is important, and I know we both worry. I also know that coming and going is not ideal, otherwise people might start wondering where you’ve been and that’s why we can only meet up rarely. But I would never ask you to give it up, now that you found your sister less than ever before.”

And Stiles knows Derek doesn’t regret taking up this mission from his father, not really, not when it brought him to Cora after losing Laura, but Derek purses his lips still.

“I want to be here for you, too.”

Stiles cups Derek’s cheek. They’re face to face now, and Derek’s eyes are as beautiful in the warm light coming from the fire as they are under the moonlight alone.

“And you are,” Stiles smiles genuinely at him, knowing Derek can hear his heartbeat and how steady it is. He reaches up to touch his temple with his free hand, “Here,” before settling it over his own chest, above his heart, “and here.”

Derek sighs, leaning further into the touch.

Stiles leans forward to kiss him soft and sweet. “It’s not going to be that way forever. Our dreams are getting more vivid, which, while terrifying as fuck, means it’s only a matter of time before the next Prophecy starts. But then we’ll deal with that as we’ve dealt with everything before. And after that, you and I are dropping off the face of the earth until next century.” Stiles grins.

He hums thoughtfully. “Gotta let my Dad and Peter know, though. Otherwise they’re gonna tear the world apart trying to find us.”

That makes Derek’s lips twitch up in amusement, and Stiles’ grin widens in turn.

He'll take his wins.

Stiles wraps his arms around Derek, feeling content and safe when Derek holds on just as tight.

Derek buries his nose in Stiles’ neck. “I love you.”

“I know,” Stiles smiles against Derek’s shoulder. “I love you, too.”

They stay there, surrounded by the woods that shaped their formative years, under the warm glow of the fire and the stars, the Huntress Constellation protectively watching over them.

“We’ll figure it out, baby.”

[the-al-chemist]

Hi Al, happy fwf! How are you? I have a question? If you had to chose a song to describe each of your next gen kids what would it be?

P.s Yesterday I was looking in your blog and I noticed we shared Dante's name. My Dante is also next gen , but he is Cora's son and a hufflepuff so they don't have many things in common. This was completely unintentional, I chose the name because The Divine Comedy is one of my favourite books and I didn't know you had an Oc with this name. I can change it if you want, I am really sorry. Please don't get mad about it 😔

Nela 💜

Hi Nela! Thanks for the ask! 💛 I’m tired but very well, thanks.

I actually have a playlist almost done for my next gen kids, I just keep forgetting to finish and post it! However, if I had to pick just one song for each of them, it would be:

Saffron Summers - Ride A White Swan by T. Rex

Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days

Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown

Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane

Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong

Dante Lopez Briarwood - Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams

I'm a burning effigy

Of everything I used to be

You're my rock of empathy, my dear

So come on let me entertain you

Rory McTavish - Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega

So what can I do? I really beg you, my Lord

To me is flirting it's just like sport, anything fly

It's all good, let me dump it, please set in the trumpet

Zadie Taylor-Allen - Electricity from Billy Elliot the Musical

Then suddenly I'm flying

Flying like a bird

Like electricity, electricity

Sparks inside of me

And I'm free, I'm free

Cleo Hexley - Pompeii by Bastille

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

Also, DW. Dante is a great name, and pretty common around these parts (it’s also @whatwouldvalerydo’s Jonathan’s middle name!)

[princeescaluswords]

What does Derek and Jennifer even have to do with Scott’s canon hallucination/biggest fear exactly? It was literally all about Allison having sex with his rival (Jackson)

<Rolls up sleeves.>  I am going to talk to you about a thing.  You’re lucky I’m in a good mood this morning for some unknown reasons, considering it’s snowing and 7 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  

First of all, I have to interrogate your question.  Do you really believe that Scott’s hallucination is solely about Jackson having sex with Allison?  I don’t think that anyone really believes that’s all it is about, anymore than anyone thinks that Stiles’s hallucination is solely about his father throwing a bottle at him, or Allison’s hallucination is solely about her shooting herself with a crossbow, or Jackson’s hallucination is solely about him having no face.   

I think it’s safe to say that no one thinks that the other hallucinations are that simple, so why would anyone think that about Scott’s?  I think it’s a given among fandom that Stiles’s hallucination is about his mother’s death, the distance that this created between him and his father, and the burden that Stiles imagines he puts on his dad.  I think it’s a given among fandom that Allison’s hallucination is about her ambivalence toward her family’s traditions, her desire to feel powerful, and the revelation and death of Aunt Kate.  I think it’s a given among fandom that Jackson’s hallucination is about his ambivalence toward being adopted, his desire to be acknowledged by his peers, and the lack of a firm identity which leads directly to the creation of the kanima.  All of these visions metaphorically address issues within the character’s psyche without being explicit.   So why should Scott’s be any different?

It’s not just about the possibility that Jackson will bang Allison, it’s not just jealousy and sexual frustration, anymore than Stiles’s hallucination is just about his fear of his father abusing him, and I think everyone knows that.  The vision is also about the cost of Scott’s fight to preserve Jackson’s life, which has put people in danger.  Kara Simmons is dead because Scott tried to stop Jackson without killing him.  Who will be next to die for Scott’s moral responsibility?   Maybe Allison.  The vision is also about his own insecurity about being inadequate; about failing as a son, a student, a person; about being a monster because why would Allison choose him over someone like Jackson?  The vision is also about the specific danger Allison is in because the kanima (not Jackson) came close to sexually assaulting her in the locker room.  (And we find out later that the kanima’s master, Matt, is an obsessive stalker of Allison’s).  

Now, @fanfictionfridge ‘s excellent work draws a parallel between Scott’s hallucination and Derek’s assignation with Jennifer during Motel California (3x06).  Derek’s fears and actions come from the same place which Scott’s do.  He’s dangerously hurt and weak.  His plan to stop the Alpha Pack was a failure.  His decision to conceal the coming of the Alpha Pack (like Scott’s to save Jackson’s life) has put his pack in danger, and he’s running out of options.  But then there’s Jennifer -- he saved Jennifer.  He believes she is an innocent teacher in the wrong place and the wrong time, and while his plan to stop Boyd and Cora inadvertently threatened her, he saved her!  And she’s grateful (and she might be mind-whammying him).  At that moment, Jennifer is the antidote to Derek’s fears about himself, the same fears that Scott’s hallucination in Party Guessed expressed, the same fears that Scott is concurrently expressing standing in a puddle of gasoline with a lit flare.

I want to point out that your question, in and of itself, is just another example in a long line of examples where Scott’s emotional depth is minimized and dismissed by the fandom.  Stiles’s, Allison’s and Jackson’s hallucinations draw sympathy and empathy from the fandom.  Their visions are seen as insights with which we can appreciate the characters’ complexities.   Scott’s vision is used to condemn him, to reduce his emotional complexity to a stereotype, and it certainly doesn’t elicit either empathy or sympathy.   His pain, as many, many people other than me have pointed out, is treated as all minority pain -- it’s invisible.  To them, he’s just a stupid jealous asshole.

BUT IT’S NOT RACISM.

[whump-but-make-it-gay]

Febuwhump day 2

Prompt: I cant take this anymore  

Fandom: Once upon a time

Setting: After Cora death (s2e16)

TW: Grief about a dead character, child abuse

@febuwhump

Regina stepped away from the grave, her face distorted into a mask of grief and anger. It wasn't the first time she buried her mother. Strange how time changes someone. Last time she sent somebody to kill her and they tricked her into believing that Cora was dead.

She shook her head at the thought. She was so dense at this time, so consumed by her revenge. Now, she was tricked again, not into believing her mother was dead but into killing her. The only person that was there for her. Regina laughed at the irony.

It wasn't a happy laugh, but a dark one, mixed up with sobs. She killed both of her parents. The only persons who had supported her. Her father wanted her to be happy. He never said how wrong she were. He was always a bystander, when her mother talked her down, mocked her and hurt her. And when Regina hurt herself and other ones, he watched it in silence.

Thinking about her father let the tears stream down her cheeks freely. She stumbled through her vault before sinking down a wall. Her head was buried in her knees as she sobbed. Why did she always end up miserable? Why not Miss Swan? Why did she has to be like Snow, so dense and so full of herself?

The situation felt so painfully familiar, crying alone, being alone. Henry was with Miss Swan, why would he ever choose the Evil Queen when he could have the Savior? It was foolish to believe someone could love her. Regina knew she would always love her son, even though he chose Emma.

Sobs shook her body when she thought about Henry. When she was a child she would have done anything to be loved by her mother. Looking back, Regina could notice that her mother didn't have a heart. Cora was cold, distant and always focused on one goal: being queen. She never succeeded, all she did was making her queen. Regina never wanted this life, royalty meant nothing to her.

She remembered her strict mother, how she forbid Regina to talk to others because they were beneath her. How she would be punished if she misbehaved. The beatings never stopped, no matter how much she pleaded. How often did she wished for her mother just to love her how she was? She stopped counting after years and she stopped wishing for it when she was 14.

Now she understood the incapability of loving her mother had, however, she would never intentionally hurt Henry. Knowing that she hurt him too much already made her want to cry even more. Regina never wanted him to feel as unloved as she did, when her mother hit her, locked her in her room or made her stop eating for days, so that, she stayed slim enough for possible suitors. The memory of this caused her stomach to flip.

Regina remembered clearly, it was the day just before her 15 birthday. Having to sit at the table, watching the men her mother wanted to marry her off to, not being able to say something for herself; this was always the worst for her. Two dukes were already there, watching her like a price to be won. After the second one left, she had confronted her mother.

"Why do I have to do this?" Regina screamed these words demanding at her mother.

"Because you will never find a man by yourself. You are too stupid for that," Cora hissed at her.

"Maybe I don't want to marry a man! I want a live on my own!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. It was the first time she dared to yell that at her mother. She knew she would be punished for that.

"Oh stupid child. You don't know it but you need me. One day you will be thankful for what I did for you. Now dry your tears and change that awful posture of yours. The Earl of mist haven is visiting us today." Coras' face showed no empathy for her daughters words.

"No mother! I can't take this anymore! I don't want this." Sobs wrecked her body as she tried to catch her breath again. The corset she had to wear became unbelievably tight. Before she could comprehend what happened to her, she saw her mother smiling an icy smile while twirling her finger in the air.

Regina panicked, she couldn't gasp for oxygen and her guts were squeezed in the tight fabric. Black spots clouded her sight until she could feel herself crashing to the ground.

The next thing Regina was able to remember was waking up in her bed with bruises all over her ribs, stomach and sides. It wasn't the first time Cora hurt her like this and it also wasn't the last time.

Still sobbing, the walls and the air began to make her feel suffocated. She stood up and her legs nearly gave in at the sudden movement. Without looking back at her mother's grave, she left the vault in a hurry.

[thephantomcasebook]

Preview for Chapter 10 of the Wayfaring Stranger.

“Mrs. Drewe?”

“Just missed her … punched a first-class ticket to a reasonably priced dirt nap.”  George sniffed with a hard-boiled cynicism in his voice.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, a grateful one. He didn’t turn to look at his Uncle Tom who had remained to attend to the hero of the hour. The Irishmen looked conflicted when he peered over the wall and saw the woman’s body. Tom Branson felt a deep empathy for Mrs. Drewe in that hour, and quickly defused any grudge he might have borne against her. Yet, he couldn’t stop himself from being relieved that she was gone. The ugly business between Edith and the Drewes, after so many years, was now at an end. And Tom felt guilty for feeling grateful for the threat to Marigold being over after twelve long years of walking on eggshells. But even then, he didn’t think that anyone deserved what happened to Margie Drewe at the end of her life.

“How’s the arm?” He asked.

“Had worse riding the Rodeo in South Texas …” George replied absently.

He turned to George and looked at the young man who cradled his arm. Tom Branson loved his nephew as if he was his own son. And his devotion to the lad was enhanced by, what he would consider, the spitting image of Sybil in his face and spirit. The boy, in a different world, might have been exactly the son that Sybil would’ve bore to him. It was a popular thought among so many of the family - so much so - that often Tom and Mary joked that, with Sybbie being much in mind with Mary, and George taking much after Sybil, that perhaps their babies were switched at birth.

But for all of Tom’s love and reverence for George, he often found himself tiptoeing around him. The boy, after all, had always guarded fiercely the permanently vacant spot of the role of his father. Robert had stopped trying, Henry was rejected a year into marriage, and Tom was mauled more than once for not ‘staying the hell out of people’s business’ in trying to support Mary or Cora in the wrangling of the wildly independent rebel.  As far as George was concerned, he already had a father. Nor did Tom’s closeness to Mary help his cause. George hardly trusted his uncle, never fully believing that he wasn’t his mother’s lackey who was intentionally sent to spy on him unintentionally.

Then, there was the business with Henry … the whole business. Tom was lit into by his nephew often for ever bringing that ‘fucking coward’ into their lives. He did not grudge the man his friendship, but heartily condemned him for forcing Henry Talbot on his mother, for ignoring the glaring signs of their unsuitability to one another’s lives. Perhaps Caroline would never have been born, but what was the use of the baby when she was gone in the blink of an eye? The youth would’ve rather have never known her, than to have her so briefly before she was taken from them, from him. George respected Tom, but he would never – never – forgive him for Henry Talbot. And was at the ready to wound his uncle gravely when Tom’s opinions and judgement was seemingly oppressive. Reminding him of his intrusive behavior that led to a baby girl’s suffering and untimely death at the hands of the inaction of the wonderfully superficial romance he had contrived. But when rebuked for his cruel remarks by the family, deeming it “Unjust” and “unfair”, a rage would come over George, and he spoke venomously then.

“Unjust? Unfair? What would you know of it? Huh? Unjust: is marrying a woman, because, you want to sleep with her! Unfair: Is conceiving a baby girl you hardly see! Unjust: Is freezing when your daughter is on death’s door! Unfair: Is leaving your seven-year-old Stepson to rescue her on his own! Unjust: Is allowing him to take the blame for your daughter’s death! Unfair: Is how easily your In-Laws let you off the hook for it! Don’t you ever, EVER, talk at me of what is fair and just! Cause, Henry Talbot, doesn’t know a GODDAMN thing about it! … And neither do you! So, go on, Uncle Tom … tell me more! Cause, your judgement is so reliable!”    

“Cad a bhí sí tar éis?” Tom asked in Gaelic, wishing to keep whatever madness which led Mrs. Drewe there that night private. Though, he couldn’t be sure why, other than to show some respect toward the dead.

“Vengeance ar thoil Dé agus nádúr an duine le haghaidh grá agus fuath.” George answered hauntedly.

“Did she get it?” Tom asked George in plain English at his rather profound answer to his question of Mrs. Drewe’s intentions. George was quiet for a long time.

“Vengeance is a loan. Quick, expedient, fleeting, and you spend the rest of your life paying it off, leaving your children to cover the interest long after you’re gone.” With that, the youth looked off in pondering of his words in a deeper understanding and experience of the sentiment.

[jmeelee]

Derek’s not sure what’s more alarming: that he never heard footsteps on the rickety, rusted-out fire escape, or that Stiles Stilinski is lurking in his bedroom in the middle of the night.

His eyes snap open, focusing with pinpoint precision on the intruder, who reaches long, slender fingers toward the vase of drooping daffodils on his nightstand.

“What are you doing?” Derek croaks as Stiles’ hand grazes a soft yellow petal.

He whips the wandering appendage back like he’s been burned, locking startled, bloodshot brown eyes on Derek’s prone form.

“I…” Stiles stops, glances around, eyes falling back to the small, wilting bouquet, the only spot of cheery color in the dark, sparse room. “Really, dude? Flowers? You realize a few blooms won’t cover up the fact that this loft is a shithole?”

Derek sits up, cotton sheet pooling around his waist. Stiles’ eyes rake down his bare chest, a phantom caress leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Did you break in just to insult my apartment?”

“Whoa, rude. Pot, meet kettle.” Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “Besides, your window was wide open. You’re lucky it was only me.”

Derek scrubs a hand down his face. He may not know Stiles well, but he can tell when he’s stalling. “Stiles, what do you want?”

Stiles continues as if Derek never spoke. “I never pictured you as a flower guy. Did a girlfriend give you these? My mom loved daffodils. There used to be a flower sale when I was in elementary school, right around Mother’s Day, and my dad would give me money to buy her a few. I always used the spare change to buy an extra ice cream at lunch. Hate to break it to you man, but fresh air isn’t going to do these suckers any good. They’re past their prime.”

He flicks a cup-shaped corona, spraying a fine sheen of pollen into the balmy night air, and Derek lets loose a low, menacing growl. Stiles’ outstretched hand trembles slightly with his quickening heartbeat, but one deep breath pulls a blanket of composure over his fear. He turns toward the window, shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t… I… Screw this. I’m leaving.”

A hand snaps out, encircling Stiles’ wrist before he can take a step. “What’s wrong?”

The question Derek should ask is what isn’t wrong. In the past few months they’ve faced off against a darach and a nogitsune. And before that, it was a kanima and a homicidal rouge alpha. They’ve all stared hell in the face, but Derek wagers none more so than Stiles. Weakened after his split from the fox demon, Stiles is a shadow of his former frantic self. Dark circles stain the translucent skin under his eyes, and his already-skinny frame is emaciated.

Stiles’ gaze sticks fast to the vase, steady beat of his heart thumping against the pad of Derek’s thumb. “I can’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping since…” He looks toward Derek, blinking fast. “Everytime I close my eyes, I see Allison’s face.”

Derek speaks many languages, but they all fail him in the face of Stiles’ pain. So he waits for Stiles to inevitably fill the silence, poorly attempting to convey empathy via his eyebrows. His sisters, both living and dead, always told him the expression made him look constipated, but it’s all he knows.

“I can’t go to Scott with this,” Stiles continues, as Derek knew he would. “I don’t want to hurt him—hurt anyone—more than I already have. Lydia is grieving for Aiden, Danny misses Ethan and Jackson, and Malia is… complicated. My father is worried sick and the last thing I want to do is burden him with a crazy son. Again. I don’t…” He shudders on an inhale. “It was stupid to come here, but I have nowhere else to go.”

Silence stretches between them, woeful and taut. Derek wishes, for the hundredth time in a span of seconds, that he’d inherited his mother’s soft, soothing solace, or his father’s confident gestures of comfort. At the rogue thought of his dad, Derek waves toward the sagging daffodils.  

“My father was a florist.” Yeah, Derek sucks at this.

Stiles scrunches his nose. “Uh. Okay?”

He marches on. In for a penny, in for a pound. “It’s how he and my mother met. He was a human florist. Ran a shop outside of town. Floriography was his passion, and she’d heard about him, sought him out when her pack needed help with medicinal herbs. They fell in love and she turned him.”

Stiles is soaking up Derek’s tale like a dehydrated man in the desert, so he charges on. “My father had this book my mother gave him called Le Langage des Fleurs.” The French slides off Derek’s tongue like silk. “We used to read it together, but it burned up in the fire.” The with everything and everyone else remains loudly unspoken. “Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings.”

He slips from the bed, sheet falling to the floor. Thank goodness he wore boxers to bed. Gently, he moves aside the yellow flowers to reveal violet and crimson sweet pea. “These mean thankfulness. It’s a bouquet I arranged after Cora returned. There’s a bunch on her nightstand, too.”

Stiles delicately fingers the petals again. “Why are you telling me this?”

Growing up, his father had filled every room in the house with flowers. On the bad nights, when vivid nightmares rip him from sleep, he swears he can still smell petals burning. “Because, despite everything that’s happened, they help me,” Derek explains. “Flowers make me feel closer to my family, let me express what I’m feeling.”

“I have noticed you’re really bad at that, dude.”

Derek glares. “The point is, you’ve got to find what helps you.” Derek realizes he’s still loosely holding Stiles’ wrist, and quickly drops his hand. Luckily, the awkwardness is broken by the sudden loud complaint of Stiles’ empty stomach.

Stiles laughs, and Derek’s heart breaks a little when he realizes it’s been months since he’s heard the sound. He wraps it around himself like a garland. “Food would help,” Stiles declares.

Derek bends down, grabs a pair of sweatpants off the floor. Stiles mummers something about underwear models under his breath, and Derek flips him off over his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s raid the fridge. Cora just went grocery shopping.”

----------

“Derek. Care to explain why I found Stilinski in our pantry this morning, eating Nutella straight from the jar?” Cora crosses her arms over her chest, menacing despite her striped pajamas and bed head.

Derek scowls, bracing for a fight. “He’s struggling, Cora. He didn’t want to be alone, so I told him he could crash on the couch last night. I’ll buy you a new jar next time I’m at Costco.”

She hums, crossing her ankles on top of the coffee table, painted toes almost touching a vase of stargazer lilies. “This is going to be a thing, isn’t it?”

“No.” Derek nips the insinuation in the bud.

It totally becomes a thing.

———-

Derek stills when he enters his room and finds Stiles sitting cross-legged on his bed. He can feel his hackles instinctively rise at the invasion of his personal space, Stiles’ scent already seeping into the mattress. His gym bag thumps to the hardwood floor.

“What do these mean?” Stiles questions, pointing to the fresh purple and white flowers.

“Lavender has lots of meanings, but it’s a healing plant. People have used it for centuries; it calms you down and helps you sleep.” Derek points first to the purple florets on the long, skinny stem, then to the white flowers on the thick green stalks. “And Heather is for luck, protection and making wishes come true.”

“Heather,” Stiles whispers, small smile quickly overtaken by a frown carving deep lines around his generous mouth. He shakes his head like a wet dog, dislodging whatever morose memories have tried to take hold. “So, want to watch a movie or something?”

Derek whips off his white tank top and tosses it in the general direction of the hamper. Stiles’ eyes go wide. “Sure, but I’ve got to shower first. Here,” he chucks his cellphone into Stiles’ lap. “Order us some pizzas, I’m starving.” He heads for the door, speaking over his shoulder. “Get me ham and pineapple.”

“Gross dude!” Stiles yells at his retreating back.

———-

Week three brings horehound and azalea, and a trial run of Claudia Stilinski’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. Derek, Stiles and Cora eat twenty-four cookies between them.

Week four is gardenia, morning glory and blue salvia, and Cora’s thoughtful, “He’s better, more rested. He’s thriving. Don’t you think?”

———

“What was that book called? The one your dad read to you?” Stiles is contemplating camellia, eyebrows drawn.

“Le Langage des Fleurs. The Language of Flowers. He had a first edition from 1819, and handled it like he was holding a newborn.” Derek chuckles, remembering his father’s gentle hands, the memory crisp and sweet as an apple blossom in his mind. “He was ridiculous.”

Two weeks later Derek comes home to hydrangeas, the fading scent of Stiles, and a copy of Le Langage des Fleurs lying on his desk. He picks it up, runs a finger down the spine, and his father bursts into technicolor life before his eyes. It’s not a first edition, but to Derek, it’s priceless.

———

A war rages between Derek’s head and heart, as Stiles peacefully sleeps, belting out an occasional snore and drooling on Derek’s favorite pillow.

It’s your own damn bed. Get in.

You can’t. Not without his permission. Wake him up and tell him to get his ass to the couch.

It’s only sleeping. He won’t mind.

His father might be wondering where he is. Don’t worry the Sheriff or you’ll end up arrested. Again.

“Damnit,” Derek whispers, and crawls into bed, lying down next to Stiles on top of the blankets. As far as truces go, it’s pretty weak.

The movement, though careful, wakes Stiles, and he rolls toward Derek, blinking. “You’re warm,” Stiles mumbles. “Stay.”

Derek does.

_______

“I’m planning on visiting the cemetery Saturday morning,” Derek broaches. “I usually bring some flowers for the graves.” A pregnant pause. “I could gather some for you to take, if you want to come along.”

———

They stop first at Derek’s family plot, and Stiles helps him tend to the zinnias Derek planted around the graves when he first returned to Beacon Hills.

“Ready?” Derek squints in the bright morning light at Stiles’ shadowed face.

A sigh. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

Allison’s tombstone is shiny and summer-warm, and Stiles tenderly lays a spray of willow, asphodel lily and wormwood at the base. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Tears track down Stiles’ cheeks, but he doesn’t swipe them away, letting them evaporate in the sun, leaving behind a tang of salt Derek can taste in the air. “I’m so sorry.”

An entirely different Stiles walks back to the Camaro, a familiar one. The effortless, supernatural confidence of the nogitsune and the quiet, sad stillness of grieving are shed with each step, a much-needed abscission. Rosy cheeks replace a pallid parlor, and fidgety fingers dance along the tops of headstones they pass. The return to normalcy rattles loose a content noise from Derek’s chest.

“What is it, big guy?”   

“You’re kind of like a flower, ya know,” Derek replies, before he can internally talk himself out of the confession.

The corners of Stiles’ mouth gradually rise. “If you mean I’m beautiful and smell fantastic, yes, I did know.”

Derek punches him lightly in the arm, and Stiles reels away with a dramatic flailing of limbs. “Some flowers come back year after year, after being buried under snow and ice, and they’re stronger than ever. Take a lotus, for example. It grows in the darkness and mud, but when it reaches the light…” Derek finishes his statement in reverent hush. “It becomes something exquisite.”

“So you’re saying I’m resilient?” Stiles playfully rubs the spot where Derek hit him, but his gaze is shy and tender. Derek refuses to cultivate the seeds that look plants inside his heart, desperately pruning the roots already wrapping around his ribs. “A rose grown in a concrete garden?”

“I’m saying you’re a weed and I can’t get rid of you.”

In slow motion, Stiles reaches out, twines their fingers together like creeping vines, and squeezes once. “I don’t think you want to get rid of me, Derek Hale.”

His mother raised him not to lie, so Derek keeps his mouth shut.

———

He’s roused by the creaking of his bedroom door and Stiles’ shuffling feet. They’d given him a key three weeks ago, when the midnight visits petered off and Stiles started knocking on the front door—in the daylight—like a normal person.

“What time is it?” Derek slurs, fumbling for his phone.

“Three a.m.,” Stiles whispers.

The return to nocturnal visits can’t mean anything good. Derek sits up. “Nightmares?”

Stiles stands at the foot of the bed, worrying the hem of his Lacrosse sweatshirt. “No,” he answers, voice husky. “I haven’t had a nightmare in weeks.”

“Okay. Good.” Stiles shuffles from foot to foot. “Is something… What do you need?” Honeysuckle, wisteria and coriander tickle Derek’s nose.

“You.”

Derek doesn’t hesitate, lifting up the sheets in invitation. “Come on in.”

“Yeah, no.” Stiles shakes his head, eyes bambi-wide. “See, I’m not looking for comfort tonight.”

Derek’s heartbeat trips over itself. He clears his throat, never lowering the blankets. “Well, you’re in luck. I’m shit at comfort anyway.”

“Liar liar, pants on fire,” Stiles whispers, and climbs into bed. Then, “Oh! Look at that. You’re not wearing any pants.”

———-

The doorbell rings at dinnertime, and Derek yells for Stiles to enter, but he remains planted on the hallway doormat, galloping heartbeat beckoning Derek like a siren song.

Derek slides the loft door along the track. “You can come in. You have a key for god’s s—”

The bouquet is bigger than Stiles’ head, bursting with red tulips and yarrow, jonquil and plumeria. Smack in the center is a monstrous sunflower.

“I read the book—well, an English version—before I gave it to you. I hope I didn’t screw this up.” He holds the flowers out to Derek.

Derek accepts them, cradling them to his chest. He plucks out a butter-yellow jonquil, gently offering it back to Stiles with his right hand.

To an outsider, Stiles’ rampant ramblings and Derek’s severe allergy to words would render them incompatible, but Stiles’ smile is so bright it could sustain an entire garden, and Derek knows they’re finally speaking the same language.

“I’m just as much of a mess as you are, Stiles,” Derek warns. “You need healthy soil to grow, and we’re both still healing. Maybe we’ll always be healing. Trees don’t bear fruit on demand.”

Stiles rubs at the back of his neck. “True. But, think about it. All we can do is create the best possible conditions, feed and water the right seeds. I trust nature to take care of the rest. But the parts we have control over? We’ll work on those together.”

Derek grins, and the future unfurls before them, full of potential. He steps back, and Stiles crosses the threshold.

“Together,” Derek agrees. Together.

[fuckyeah-jessicabiel]

JESSICA BIEL TRANSFORMS INTO ‘THE SINNER’

Jessica Biel has gotten the reviews of her career by going a little psycho in the USA Network limited series mystery drama The Sinner, which won her Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice nominations and has now put her in serious contention for a Lead Actress nod in the Limited Series/Movie category at the Emmys.

She truly becomes almost unrecognizable in the creepy story of a woman named Cora who goes crazy one day and kills a man in full public view, and in front of her husband and young son, on a crowded beach. Since we know who did this from the start, the eight part series is more of a “why-did-she-do-it” as she gradually unravels emotionally and the mysteries about her motive deepens. It has gotten the best notices for the USA Network since Season 1 of Mr. Robot, and it has launched a major Emmy campaign on Biel’s and the show’s behalf.

Biel, who also serves as an executive producer, praises USA as well as her return to TV where as a child actor she did more than 130 episodes of the polar-opposite Seventh Heaven.

“Television has changed so much since I was a kid…I mean specifically for women, the great roles on TV, so it just felt like a no-brainer,” she told me in a phone conversation this week. “It’s just like being up on the evolution of your business and finding where you can tell the most compelling stories, and where you can find the most intriguing characters, and that’s on television now.”

She and partner Michelle Purple teamed with Universal Cable Productions which brought her the book, they hired writer-creator Derek Simonds, shopped the pilot around town and sold it to USA. It is not as easy as it sounds due to the nature of the material, and not the norm of what USA has previously been known for. “They took a huge risk with this show, right? I mean this is really dark material. Would anybody even care to watch something like this? None of us really knew the answer to that but I’ve just been so thankful they jumped off the cliff with us and were really bold and courageous and not interested in doing the same things over and over again,” she said.

I suggested to Biel that the emotional toll this role must have taken on her would likely send anyone to a therapist. “I am glad to hear you say that. Believe me, I saw a therapist before, during, and after,” she laughed. “I’m still seeing my therapist. That’s just part of my life now. I always make this joke that I need to see some sort of facialist after the amount of crying, and forehead scrunching and eye scrunching. My poor skin after that show, I feel like I aged 10 years.”

Still, Biel said as an actor this is the kind of dream role you live for, however torturous it may seem, because it is the most creatively fulfilling. She says she did have to go deep to try to find compassion and understanding for this deeply disturbed character in some way, and tried to relate it to obviously dissimilar traumas she has experienced in her own life to help her get there.

“I think any great character actor, anybody who’s ever played a villain before would say the same thing, that to find that empathy, and that compassion for this person, you really have to start to believe in them,” she said. “You have to believe in their path or whatever it is that your character is trying to accomplish, you have to have major empathy for that even if it is insane… If you just play crazy then it is a bad performance.”

For Biel, The Sinner represents a new way of taking charge of her career, and that is also as a producer. Due to the show’s success it has now been picked up for a second season with a brand new story, ala American Crime Story. Co-star Bill Pullman will continue on as the detective with a new featured star, Carrie Coon, but Biel will be involved only as a producer. She likes the new direction.

“Our business is changing. It’s very different now,” she said. “I don’t feel that to be fully engaged in your career is just sitting by phone hoping that somebody calls you, hoping that there’s an audition that you can score out of the multitudes of amazingly talented people. It just doesn’t work like that anymore. It’s too competitive. For me, I was craving to do more anyway and I wanted some different experiences. I wanted to wear some different hats. I want to have a long career and you know I don’t necessarily feel like, ‘Well am I going to be doing this when I’m 60 or 70 years old?’ I don’t know. Maybe. That’ll be really great, but it would also be great to have another side of a career where I’m producing things for other people. I have a great company that I’m behind. I’m partnering with people, we’re making great content, and it doesn’t necessarily all have to bank on me being on screen, even though right now I’m still very interested.”

In addition to this Emmy contender, Biel also has a recurring role in another likely nominee, Netflix’s wild and crazy animated hit BoJack Horseman, in which she voices a character that is Jessica Biel! “How about that? It’s so much fun. I mean BoJack is…it’s almost like a crime that you get paid for it because it’s so much fun and those guys are so funny and cool and you just walk into that booth and you’re there for a couple hours literally just being totally insane and crazy,” she said. “I get to make fun of myself like I’m some crazy pretentious bimbo. I get to be like kind of psychotic. They write me just going anything and everything and it’s always this sort of heightened surreal kind of person or version of me and that’s just fun. I mean people don’t think of me to do things like that and I’d love to do more things like that especially on camera stuff too, so it’s a really nice kind of dipping my toe into a comedy world that feels safe.”

As for the immediate future, she will be spending the summer buzzing around Europe with her family and following husband Justin Timberlake on his latest tour, while her company continues to develop new projects. “We’ll see what bites,” she said.

Source: Deadline

[imgilmoregirl]

A Bittersweet Life

AO3 Link

Notes: Hello, I'm back with this verse! I was actually holding this first flicket because I wanted to post it in honour of the event Remembering Baelfire as he had always been one of my favorite characters to write. I have two more prompts to fill for now, but you can send me more, if you want to! I hope you guys like to get an update on Gold's life.

Goldenspinner1953 prompted:  a teenage Bae rebelling a bit and Lacey understanding him too.

A Mother’s Love

"Shit," Baden Gold cursed as he sat up on the bed, seeing Lacey cross the station with a deadly look on her face that was directed to him. "Oh shit, I'm dead."

He had never gotten himself into such big problems before. Bae was usually a nice boy, he had always been, but lately he had been showing off a quite petulant side of himself that was driving his parents mad. However, from all things he ever said and from all times he did small rebellious things like skipping class and refusing to wash the dishes, this one situation was the most disastrous he could have found himself into.

"What is the matter?" Asked Emma, who was laid on the bed in the cell next to his.

She had an arm covering her eyes, the lights of the Sheriff station making her hangover headache increase. Bae sighed, standing up and holding the metal bars as he watched Lacey Gold talking to Graham Humbert. It appeared that his phone call had just taken her from bed, she wore an oversized cardigan over a crumpled dress and her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, not something you would see her wearing every day. Her daily impeccable look had been forgotten in the hurry to discover in which kind of trouble hr stepson had got himself into.

"It's my mom," Bae breathed, eyes fixed in her, already anticipating the reprimand he knew would come.

"Your real mom?" Emma inquired in a languid voice, clearly still affected by their early drinking.

"This is how drunk you are," said Regina, who were two cells ahead from him, sat on the floor, leaning against the wall in resignation, knowing that she too was in big trouble with her mom. "Do you believe disappointing-Milah would travel all the way from Ireland to here now from all moments?"

"Don't speak so loud, my head hurts," the blonde complained.

Sighing, Baden pressed his forehead against the cold bars. He didn’t want to hear anything about Milah, she was the reason why he was there tonight being a great deception for the only mother he had ever truly had, or well, at least her stupid text message was. Bae watched as she nodded to Graham, finally turning around to look back at him again and oh, she looked really angry.

"Baden Neal Gold," Lacey said slowly, taking hard steps towards his cell as Graham picked up the key to open it and allow him to get out, but as soon as he stepped free, she smacked his arm with all the strength she had and he shrunk a little. "What were you thinking?"

"Sorry?"

"You better be," she snorted. "To the car, now!"

He nodded, not daring to look at her eyes. Baden felt ashamed for being found in the Sheriff station, for being caught drunk with his girlfriend and their friend, using fake IDs to have some illegal fun at a bar. A pity Emma was too overwhelmed by the possibility of getting sometime away from her restraining parents that she didn’t mind trying to find out if Graham was going his usual inspection around town.

"Mom is going to come and get me to the car too?" The blonde asked the sheriff, peeking a look at him over her arm.

"No," Graham answered, folding his arms. "Your father said you should spend the night here just so you learn your lesson."

"I hate my life," she whined.

At fifteen years old, Baden knew he could have done worse things. Most of the guys in school did, but he had never wanted to disappoint his parents. His dad was the nicest person in the universe, a dork with a camera, the family used to joke ever since he both his first polaroid one and became obsessed with taking pictures of everybody. His mom – Lacey, not Milah – was just funny, kind and comprehensive, although she was also a very firm parent. He loved them very much and he hated when they got frustrated with him.

Following Lacey outside, he thought he felt thankful for his father being off town, as his disappointed face he couldn’t take now. Lacey’s angry one was enough. A gush of wind hit him when they reached the parking lot and Bae felt his stomach twist, making him stop walking and curve himself to empty its contents on a bush.

"Bae," Lacey rushed to his side, petting his back as he wiped the corners of his mouth.

"Sorry, mom."

"It's ok," she guaranteed. "Breath in and breath out, it will help a little."

This hangover was getting worse at each passing second. She passed an arm around his waist and helped him continue walking, knowing his mind was a bit foggy from the drinking, which also made it difficult for him to distinguish the woman who came from a fancy red car, all dressed up in fancy clothes with her make up done perfectly.

"Mrs. Gold," Cora greeted Lacey.

"Ms. Mills," she answered in a cold tone, taking Bae directly to her blue car without even casting a second glare at the woman.

He opened the door and slid to the passenger’s seat, noticing that his little sister, Sarah was sleeping on the back, her light-brown curls covering half of her face in disarray. She was ten and something between the most annoying person he had ever known in the world and the sweetest one, but then Bae guessed that a friendship between a kid and a teenager could never be easy.

Lacey entered the car, but unlike he thought that she would do, she didn’t start to drive straight away, she just sat there, hands crossed above her six months pregnant belly and stared at the station in front of them. He waited and waited, until he couldn’t take any more silence and sighed loudly, turning around to look at her face.

“I screwed up, I know it, now can you just tell me long will I be grounded and take me home?”

“Why?” Lacey inquired, glancing at him with her bright blue eyes shining with empathy.

“Why?” Bae repeated without understanding her question.

She reached out a hand, touching his arm and giving him a half-smile. In that moment she looked as young as she had been when she first entered their house to meet him. Nobody could tell that Lacey would become the now-a-days Lacey, responsible and affectional. His father used to say, that she hadn’t changed as much as people though she did, she was still most complicated woman in the universe for him, but she was much better at showing her feelings and making compromises, which had been her biggest struggle in the past.

“Why did you do this?” She asked. “This is not like you, Bae, even when you’re in your worse days.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have done any of this, I knew it was wrong, but Regina showed up with the fake IDs and I… I just didn’t want to be myself for a while, so that’s what I did.”

Lacey shook her head, stroking his hair.

“There is nothing wrong with who you are, Bae. You have a good life, cool friends and a family that loves you very much,” she listed. “You can keep making fun of me and papa because of little Gideon if that makes you feel better.”

“Thanks mom, I’m not quite done with it,” he chuckled. “But I think not my whole family loves me the whole much you do.”

“Was Sarah mean to you again?”

“No, she had been quite peaceful lately.”

Instead of explaining the whole thing to her, Baden thought it was better to show Lacey what exactly he was talking about. Of course, everybody knew his birth mom was a mere piece of shit, but Bae sometimes still had faith she could change and as always, he was let down. He needed to learn not to trust Milah for anything as he barely saw her ever since he was five, but God, she was meant to care more for him than she truly did. Why the hell couldn’t she be a bit more like Lacey for a change?

With a snort, he took his phone out of his pocket, located the text he was looking for and handed it to Lacey, who accepted it with an arched eyebrow.

I received your father’s invite for the birthday party. Sorry, I can’t come, but you should know travelling from Ireland to the freaking United States are pretty expensive.

“Bitch,” Lacey cursed. “I’m sorry, Bae… I’m really sorry. I wish she was better for you, but Milah is lost.”

“I know.”

“Look,” she started, giving the phone back to him. “I had a shitty father too, I know how it is. I’ve lost myself once, Bae and I wouldn’t want the same to happen with you. They are not worth it, we need to fight for ourselves, because we can do better, we can be what they weren’t… Well, at least I think I did a reasonable job as a mom.”

“You did a brilliant job,” he smiled. “You still do.”

A smile took Lacey’s lips too as she reached for her keys, finally ready to start to drive. She quickly glanced at the backseat to make sure that Sarah was still deep asleep, before turning back to Bae.

“Good, because you’re grounded.”

“Oh, I knew this small talk was leading up to this.”

“You know me very well, son,” she laughed. “And be aware that your father is going to know about this.”

“Yes, mom.”

She started to drive and although Baden was starting to feel the beginning of a headache, he kept that wide smile on his face, because even though Milah’s message and her lack of affection would always hurt him, he was glad he had he most amazing stepmother and that he could call her mom for all the times he didn’t do it with his real one.

[nyxelestia]

I dunno if you've discussed this before, but I was curious to hear your opinion. Do you think the Hale family was 100% matriarchal? not only was Talia in charge but she didn't seem to take her husband's surname (evidenced by the fact that Peter was also Hale and so far only Hales are the ones capable of fully shifting) and when Deaton was talking about Laura he said that Talia had been grooming her into the next alpha, she never considered Derek for the position (it could be an age thing tho)

This turned very long, anon, so most of it is under a cut.

TL;DR - There isn't any canonical support for matriarchal werewolves, but there isn't any canonical opposition to it, either, and canon does support a feminine leadership style among werewolves over a masculine one. Meanwhile, leaning towards matrilineal or matriarchal structure among werewolves (or supernaturals in general) would explain a lot of the inconsistencies about supernaturals in folklore and mythology.

There are two parts to this: what actually happens on-screen, and my own headcanons (which is not limited to the Hale family alone).

So are the Hales matriarchal?

On-screen, in canon - we don't really know. Definitely, for the last two generations, the werewolves in charge happened to be women. Talia seems to have kept her maiden name upon marriage, but based on age and location, this isn't necessarily that unusual. (I'm slightly biased when it comes to surnames, as my parents gave me a different last name altogether when I was born to stick it to the patriarchy.)

Talia and Laura both happened to be the oldest siblings, so definitely, werewolves are not patriarchal - there's no pressure for the oldest son to be the alpha, but there does some to be a preference or pressure for the oldest child, or maybe for the child most capable of leadership regardless of their gender or age.

That said, "matriarchal" and "patriarchal" don't actually mean much in isolation - isolation, in this case, meaning one family, even a large one. Those are terms to describe communities and cultures, and in that sense, we need to look at werewolves at large - where we don't see evidence either way. There's never any concrete indication of preference for one gender over another, and absence of patriarchy is not automatically matriarchy.

Additionally, when the alphas in the 3A flashbacks are discussing what to do about the Hunters, Talia suggests going because "Hunters are matriarchal" - which could suggest that werewolves are not.

Could.

Because now we go into headcanon territory, at which point we start busting out the mythology.

Absence of patriarchy is not a canonical confirmation of matriarchy, but it is a great foundation for a headcanon of matriarchy. Something we see time and again in Teen Wolf is that the traditional myths are not reliable - they are thousand-year-old telephone games, distortions of reality with little more than a few grains of truth to their story.

From the historical standpoint, a lot of Bronze Age mythologies are very matrilineal in nature. While they weren't matriarchal by virtue of lacking any -archal structure, a matrilineal structure in a pre-accumulation society often leads to an effective matriarchy.

Somewhat interestingly, the werewolves do operate a lot on Bronze Age ethics. Very brutal by our modern standards, but pretty reasonable for Bronze Age standards.

(Bronze Age, I use not just in reference to the strict time period, but rather/also as a catch-all term to indicate cultures and societies prior to agricultural urbanization.)

History has a long, well, history of downplaying, distorting, or outright erasing the presence and contributions of women and other marginalized communities. You can read more about them here and here.

There's one which stands out, though:

“Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. ‘Virgin’ meant not married, not belonging to a man - a woman who was ‘one-in-herself’. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virle. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chastity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant ‘maiden’ or ‘young woman’, with no connotations to sexual chastity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the ‘Virgin Mary’ as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched.”

This poses a very interesting question on the nature of the "Virgins" the Darach needed for her sacrifices, and I actually posit that pursuing Judeo-Christian virgins for a Pagan ritual may've tripped her up a bit or weakened her power, but that's a digression for another day.

More relevantly, it does shed some light onto this old Tumblr post:

The "grumpy grandma" version of that story/comic is very much a matriarchal take on the werewolf lore.

Now, how does this relate back to Teen Wolf?

After all, we see both men and women in charge, the main character is a man, and we don't really get to see how packs other than Scott's work that much.

First let's take a stab at what it means to lead "maternally" or with feminine traits, vs what it means to lead "paternally" or with masculine traits. Then let's try applying it to the characters we've seen thus far.

Now, what does the difference between masculinity and femininity really entail? Well, this post actually encapsulates the femininity aspect quite well - both in the actual meta itself, and in the mass of bullshit that accompany the 4th reblog/2nd gif.

Those traits were proscribed to a character who rarely or never expressed them purely because he was the physically weakest character, and this speaks a lot to our misconceptions of masculinity and femininity as leadership models. "Strong = manly" and therefore "weak = womanly", amirite or amirite? /s

While they were projected onto the wrong person - arguably one of the "manliest" characters on the show despite also being the materially weakest - the traits themselves were summarized pretty eloquently: "feminine qualities tend to be nurturing, patience, loving, empathy".

Almost all of the protagonists demonstrate these to some degree at various points throughout the show - but the one who we see demonstrating it the most is actually a man, Scott.

Scott's going into a career of nurturing, his defeat of various antagonists often boils down to having a little more patience than them, and of course he is a very loving and empathic individual throughout the show. This is the guy whose response to someone holding a gun on him and talking about how they want to shoot him is "I get that". This is a guy who puts the safety and security of his loved ones over his pride without a second thought, not even hesitating to offer to beg for their lives if that's what the villain wanted.

Now let's compare that to someone over on the opposite extreme - Peter, as an alpha in the very first season. He doesn't strive to protect, and in fact quite the opposite - he's willing to kill his own niece for that leadership role, that power. He tries to lead through fear, not respect.

Derek sits in the middle, in that he starts out leading in a masculine way, but then transitions over time towards the feminine - very much in correlation to his relationship to Scott.

Now, let's take a look at the other alphas - when they are trying to lead with violence, with fear, or just pursuing power, they are shown in a negative light (in and out of universe), and demonstrated to be toxic leaders. This means Peter, Season 2 Derek, and the alpha pack.

However, the alphas who are portrayed in a positive light (both in and out of universe), who are respected, and who are seen as a role model of what kind of alpha to be, are Scott, Talia, Satomi, and when they aren't being subject to the violence of the alpha pack, even Deucalion (and up to a certain extent, Ennis). Scott, Talia, and Satomi are far more patient and "quiet" leaders, treating violence as a last resort instead of a first course of action. They preferred diplomacy over domination. Deucalion was described as a visionary during a time when he tried to reach out to the tremendously violent Argents with peace. And Ennis' pre-alpha-pack defining characteristic (second to Biting Paige at Derek's request) is his referral to himself and his pack as the family of a lost packmember - aka, grief borne out of love.

Another term I want to consider is what I used above - matrilineal, rather than matriarchal. Matrilineal basically just means that family is traced through mothers, not through fathers (which is predominantly how they are traced today in most cultures across the world). It's slow and more "sustainable" than "expansionary" - but, compared to paternal lineage, it's reliabe. It's very easy to mix up or lose track of who a baby's father was, but there's no mistaking who its mother is. Part of the source of matrilineal and potential matriarchal traditions and social clout/power is the ability to give and trace life. Basically, the capacity to create more people, while obviously dependent on both sexes, has largely been associated with feminity and the female sex/side of reproduction.

And what is one of the biggest differences between alphas and other werewolves? The ability to create more werewolves.

(Incidentally, while Talia most likely just had a husband whose name she didn't take, it's entirely possible that the reason why we never hear about Laura, Derek, and Cora's father is because they didn't have one. If they are a matrilineal family/culture, then paternity doesn't matter, only maternity, so it's entirely possible that their biological fathers are two or three different men (which would explain why they don't really look alike) that don't play a huge part in those kids lives. I don't consider it likely - after all, werewolves are hardly isolated away from the rest of the world - but it is possible, and it would be an example of what it means for a family or culture to be matrilineal.)

Anyway!

While there isn't really much in the way of canonical support of a matriarchal structure for the Hales/werewolves in general, there isn't much canonical opposition to it, either. Combined with all the other evidence, I headcanon that werewolves and the supernatural in general are matriarchal, or at least lean towards matriachal/maternal leadership - Hunters are just an institutionalization of it with their propensity for female leaders.

Additionally, this can also explain a lot of the inconsistencies in mythology and folklore, and in supernatural "history" in general. Most of what we know beforehand - our baseline knowledge that Teen Wolf then often subverts - is information filtered through centuries of imperialism and patriarchy. The history surrounding the Voynich Manuscript, alone, is a horrific insight into how women's history and health gets warped and wiped away under patriarchy - and men have to live with us. Humans don't have to live with supernaturals day in and day out.

So I further like to headcanon that the supernatural leaning towards matrilineal or matriarchal social structure is part of why there's been so much inconsistency in the myths and folklore about them. Whenver human men would try to record knowledge, they would do through the lens of patriarchy, in which this supernatural social system effectively becomes invisible, by virtue of being incomprehensible.

TL;DR - The Hales - or werewolves in general - being matriarchal isn't supported by canon, but it's not opposed by canon, either, and it should would explain a LOT about the supernatural world of Teen Wolf.

[lenific]

OUAT. Gold + Zelena

I blame @thestraggletag. Inspiration. Sorta. Mostly

Prompt: crawl (I swear. I meant this to be a happy Gold household moment.)

-

Royce thought nothing of leaving the older Miss Mills in mid-word as he stood up to answer the phone. He would ordinarily have at least showed her out first, giving her an empty compliment that would sweeten her into delaying their meeting without complaint; but his phone had buzzed for the third time in two minutes, and that could only mean an emergency at home.

"Papa! You gotta come home now!"

Bae sounded excited. Whatever had prompted the boy to call, it wasn't a disaster. The relief made it worth standing under the close scrutiny of a less-than-liked client.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, to make sure.

Bae laughed. "Wrong? No! The baby is crawling, Papa. Belle is calling papa on the other line, but she said to call you at once, and that you better not miss it either!"

Despite his policy not to mix the joys of home with the austere atmosphere his job demanded, Royce allowed himself a broad smile at the news. Except for brief, uncomfortable visits, he had missed the first six years in Bae's childhood and all the roadmarks involved. Belle understood that he refused to miss a single important moment in Gideon's life.

"I'm on my way," he reassured his son, already crossing the office, motioning Miss Mills off her seat with a quick wave.

A carefully plucked eyebrow lifted, offended at the treatment. "Really, Mr. Gold," she said haughtily, "a man in your position should be careful to attend to the clients he had left."

Royce chuckled at the attempt to threaten him with the loss of her business. He could only be so lucky. "Nevertheless," he told her, not bothering to explain that his clients had never sought him out for a sparkling reputation among the community, "I must cut short this meeting."

"This behavior is not why my mother holds you on retainer!" she whined, though she did come to her feet if only to make a point of towering over him.

Royce stared at her impatiently, undisturbed by the playground tactic. The woman might not see it, but even her mother’s goodwill would have been no advantage over him. As matters stood, though... It mystified him, that anyone could be so blind to the thin ice under their feet.

Cora had born with outward good grace the embarrassment of having her long-kept secret being blown open to the public, complete with an interview in the Mirror where the abandoned daughter promised to have forgiven her mother and be ready to start a new life as a family. Appearances had been satisfied, the girl's name legally changed, and now the town fondly talked of the local rags-to-riches fairytale that made Cinderella look like a mere social climber.

What was a fanciful tale of romance compared to the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter?

As ever, Storybrooke was brimming with idiots.

While Cora had thrown money at her older daughter to keep her happy (a lavish apartment on the opposite side of the Mills mansion, family summer cruises that somehow always ended with the girl alone on the ship, a hefty allowance that made it unnecessary to visit Mother Dearest to request more funds...), Cora would not spend a single cent in this new whim.

The custody battle in which Miss Mills had involved herself was a nightmare from beginning to end. But that the claimant on the other side was her younger sister had sealed the coffin on any realistic expectation that Cora would side with her.

"Your mother," Royce said clearly, looking forward to her reaction in exchange for forcing him to waste such precious seconds, "has already made her decision clear, dearie. I believe her exact words were, 'if Regina wants the brat, then of course she shall keep her.'"

Indeed, Miss Mills went pale.

Royce supposed that he should feel some empathy. Children were precious and the possibility of losing either of his sons would have him howling in agony. But he hadn't tricked his brother or Belle into sharing Bae and Gideon, and he definitely wouldn't use his child in a tug-of-war game to stoke some old sibling rivalry. After a career built on the making of shady deals and the keeping of filthy secrets on behalf of his clients, Miss Mills had managed to sink to the bottom of that cesspit.

"As you see," he said as he walked past her, using her shocked silence to let himself out without further delay, "I cannot help you at all, Miss Mills."

At the end of the hallway, he caught the beginning of her enraged screaming.

A loud crash followed.

Mrs. Knight looked up from her desk, eyes wide in alarm. "Sir?"

Royce shook his head. "Miss Mills received bad news," he said without actually pausing. "We will allow her to process the information. By herself."

The woman gave a hesitant nod, though she didn't take her eyes off his office door as if expecting some wild animal to crash through it.

Royce continued on his way, brushing aside every thought except half-formed plans for the little celebration the family would make in honor of Gideon's newest development.

There would be time enough tomorrow, after he'd tallied the damage Miss Mills had done in his office, to contact Cora to refund him for the losses.

The End 25/05/17

[gray-autumn-sky]

Happiness Can’t be Arranged, Chapter 3

After a visit from Cora, Regina finds herself doubting Robin’s sincerity; and they end up bonding over the loves they’ve lost.

Previous chapters HERE and HERE.

Regina stands in the window with tears burning in her eyes as she watches Cora’s carriage pull away from the house. Her eyes press closed and her arms cross around her body; and it’s only through sheer willpower that she doesn’t cry.

Growing up, she’d been told that marriage would be her refuge—that it would take her away. Nannies and governesses, dance instructors and a French tutor—really everyone who’d spent any time with her in her parents’ house—all told her that her mother’s critical tongue was temporary. For her entire life, she never once sat up straight enough or picked the right dress; always too casual when she should have been proper, but never able to take a joke.  She always ate too much of the wrong things, she put her elbows on table, and she ran up and down the long corridors instead of walking in way that was ladylike. But each and every time her mother lashed out at her, someone would remind her that it was temporary—that one day she’d be married and she’d have a household of her own to run; she’d have a husband and her own children, and she’d be able to set the rules. And each and every time, she’d close her eyes and picture herself far, far away.

Life hadn’t quite panned out the way everyone anticipated. She did marry and she did move away—and for those short years, she was happy with the life she’d chosen for herself. But then the unthinkable happened and she found herself back at her at her parents’ estate—she had no other viable options to support herself and Henry—and this time, her mother’s sharp criticism had a harder edge. Deep down, she knew that she couldn’t completely disagree—she’d made the decisions that she made—there was no changing any of it—but she hated the burden it would eventually place on her son’s shoulders. And now, here she was—married again, but this time in an arrangement not of her choosing, married to man she didn’t know, in a household that didn’t want her. While her new husband seemed kind enough—he smiled and he listened, and not only did he seem to genuinely like her, he was good and kind to Henry. Though, in the back of her head, she constantly wondered when he was going to tire of her, when he’s stopped being amused and when the admiration of what he believed to be her character would thin—and she wondered when he’d begin to insist on some sort of repayment for the burden he’d lifted from her family, when he’d start to expect certain things—certain marital obligations—from her.

That particular detail was one that her mother reminded her of whenever she came to visit. And her given the close proximity of her parents’ and her new husband’s estates, her mother’s visits seemed increasingly more frequent.

“There you are,” Robin says, startling her as he comes into the room. “I was…” He stops as she lets out a shaky voice. “Regina are you…”

“Fine,” she says, turning to face him. Her whole demeanor changes—her shoulders straighten and she puts on a smile as she blinks away her tears—but her eyes focus just beyond him, giving her away.

“You’re not fine.”

“I… am,” she says, looking back to him, “Or as fine as a person can be after tea with my mother.”

A smile tugs onto his lips. “Would tea with your mother be anything like a few hours of hunting with my father? That usually ends with me silently praying that my gun will misfire, and take me out rather than some poor unfortunate bird.” She can’t help but laugh and when she does, she can’t help but notice the way his smile warms. “Perhaps you can put it out of your head long enough to go for a walk with me?”

“Oh, I don’t…”

“Please,” he cuts in, his smile glittering in his eyes and making it impossible for her not to smile in return. “My reasons aren’t purely selfish,” he tells her. “Often times after long interactions with my father, I find that fresh air helps with the nausea and self-deprecation… and, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

She’s not sure why, but she finds herself nodding—and then a few minutes later, they’re walking together across the rolling green grass of the estate. Robin does most of the talking—telling her about an old oak tree he used to climb as a boy and a cobblestone path that leads to the garden. He tells her about the estate—talking about architecture and additions that are now hundreds of years old and he makes a quip about having memorized all of these details a teenager in an effort to charm the young ladies who attended the parties his parents’ hosted.

Regina smiled at the anecdote, vaguely remember a night of champagne and dancing in the house’s ornate ballroom—an evening she spent sulking in the corner and thinking of Daniel.

“So… are you going to tell me what your mother said that had you so upset?”

“I wasn’t upset,” she tells him, trying her best to sound aloof. “You just startled me.”

“You were practically in tears.” She sighs and shakes her head, but when she looks over at him, ready to spin a story and dismiss his suspicion, something in his eyes stops her. “It… might help to talk about it,” he adds.

Taking a breath, she nods. “My mother was just… reminding me of… my…” Her eyes close and she turns her face away, “My obligations to you.”

“I see…”

“In not so many words, she reminded me that I need to earn my keep.”

Robin blinks as she looks back to him and she feels her cheeks flushing with embarrassment; but when her eyes meet his, its somehow hard to feel embarrassed. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Don’t I?” She shrugs her shoulders as Cora’s words echo in her ears. “At some point, one would assume…”

“You shouldn’t make assumptions.”

Her eyebrow arches. “You say that now…”

“And I’ll say it in a week and again in a month… in a year…” He pauses for a moment, and she watches as he tentatively places his hand on her arm, stopping her and waiting for her to look up at him. “Can I be… honest with you?”

“Of course…”

“I like you, Regina; and the more I get to know you, the more I like you.” His voice trails off, and she watches as he hesitates, his eyes narrowing as he tries to select his words carefully; and in her chest, she feels a little nervous flutter that almost feels like anticipation—and she feels guilty for it. “And… I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in a… more intimate relationship with you, but I won’t force it.”

Swallowing hard, she tries to look at him, but finds it difficult to let him hold her gaze and not wanting to have this discussion. “And… how long before you tire of that? How long before the desire for another child or for… that sort of companionship begins to outweigh your patience and courtesy toward me?”

“Never,” he murmurs. “Regina, I mean it when I say that I won’t force you. That sort of relationship would only be enjoyable if it were something we both enjoyed.” She nods a little as her eyes shift to his and she watches a smile draw onto his lips. “As for a child… well… I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again—you’ve already given me a child. Day after day, I find myself not-so-slowly falling in love with Henry.”

She feels a smile tugging up onto her lips—and then a churning in her stomach.

There’s a part of her that wishes she could hate him; a part of her that wishes her were vile and unlikable, that he didn’t always seem to say the right thing at the right time, that he didn’t have such good intentions, that his heart wasn’t kind and open, that his eyes weren’t soft or his words seemingly so sincere. Because if he were anything other than what he’s is, it wouldn’t feel like such a betrayal.

She feels herself beginning to crumble—her jaw trembles and tears flood her eyes—and suddenly, the only thing she can think of is Daniel and how much she misses him.

Robin softens, his eyes widening with empathy as he takes a tentative step toward her. Her breath catches and his arm folds around her shoulders and though it’s a little awkward, he pulls her to him. He holds her loosely and his rubs between her shoulder blades as she cries—and despite not knowing what it is, he tells her over and over again that it’ll be alright.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a few minutes as she pushes herself back and out of his hold. “I… shouldn’t have…”

“It’s really alright.”

Her cheeks flush with embarrassment and she presses her eyes close. “No, it isn’t.” Her breath hitches in her throat and her eyes flutter open. “None of this is alright. It’s… it’s not that I’m ungrateful because you’ve been so wonderful to me and to Henry, but this isn’t where we’re supposed to be.” Shaking her head, she lets out a shaky breath. “He wasn’t supposed to die.”

Robin reaches for her hand and leads her to a bench that’s situation beneath a willow tree. “I know how you feel,” he murmurs as he sits down beside her. “And I’m… I’m sorry.” She fumbles with her hands as her eyes shift back to him—and she’s not sure what to say. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

A little smile tugs onto her lips and she shakes her head. “You’ve heard it. Everyone has.”

“I’d rather hear about it from you.”

“I already told you what hap…”

“No,” he cuts in as his smile warms. “You gave me the bare bones of the story. Tell me something… real.”

“Real,” she repeats in a skeptical voice, unused to people inquiring in way that wasn’t caddy. “I… I don’t know.” Her lip catches between her teeth as she looks up at him. “What do you want to know?”

Robin leans back on the bench and crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know. Anything,” he says as a grin pulls onto his lips. “You decide.”

Regina nods and takes a breath, and for a moment, she doesn’t say anything at all because she’s not sure what to say. Everyone knew about the love affair they’d had—they knew some of the most intimate of details. But all of the little blips of memories that get her through the darkest of days seem to somehow diminish him—and it’s almost impossible to choose just one story to tell, one story that captures who Daniel was and what he meant to her.

And then a soft smile tugs onto her lips.

“I… may have told you that after we ran away, Daniel found work at an inn?” She turns her head to look at him, watching as he nods—and she can’t help but notice how genuinely interested he seems. “Well, the inn was his cousins—he and his wife ran it—and they rented us a room on the top floor in exchange for help at the inn.” A little laugh rises into her voice as a slight grin works its way onto her lips. “I was completely useless. I couldn’t even boil an egg, but Daniel used to bartend and work in the stables, tending to guests’ horses and… we were happy there.”

“It sounds like you had a quaint little life there.”

“We did,” she nods—and smile warms and for a moment, he gets lost in her memories. “Daniel used to work late sometimes, and he’d come in long after Henry and I had gone to bed—and every single time, he’d wake Henry up to play. They’d get out the blocks and Daniel would read to him or sing to him and… Henry would get all riled up and Daniel would inevitably fall asleep and…” Her voice trails off as her eyes meet Robin’s. “It’s funny, the things that used to make me crazy are the things I miss the most.”

“Marian snored,” Robin says flatly as he reaches for her hand, giving it a tight and understanding little squeeze. “For months after she died, the silence kept me awake and… still, there’s little I wouldn’t give to wake up in the middle of the night to that god awful sound.”

She looks down at his hand over hers and taking a short breath, then turns her hand over in his and gives it a soft squeeze. “We are quite the pair, aren’t we?”

“I’d like to think so,” he says as he slowly stands and pulls her up. “Now come on, there’s something else I’d like to show you on the other side of the garden.”

There’s a little fluttering in her chest as he gives her hand a tug, leading her across the grass. They walk slowly toward a destination he’s yet to reveal and she finds herself—for the very first time since their marriage—unbothered by the unknown ahead of them. Neither says anything and she suspects he’s just as caught up in the not-so-distant memories of lost love as she is—and somehow, that’s a comfort.

“You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about,” she says after awhile, breaking the silence between them and watching as his brow furrows for a moment—and then, there’s a spark of recognition in his eyes, and a little hesitation as his lips part. “Should I be worried?”

“No, no,” he says, “I just… I was thinking that it’s time we hire a ladies maid for you. I hope you don’t mind that I placed an advertisement.” Her breath catches and her stomach drops—and for a moment, her chest feels tight at the memory of the short-lived relationship with her previous maid. “I was hoping we could go through the applicants together and that you’d sit with me during the interviews.” A little smile stretches across his lips. “I’d really like to be able to choose someone you like, someone you feel comfortable with, someone who…”

“That’s thoughtful,” she cuts in. “Thank you.”

“Is that a yes?”

For a moment, she hesitates—and then, she finds herself nodding. “It is.”

He laughs a little and again, she feels that soft fluttering in her chest as he offers her his arm—and as she takes a short breath, she links her arm through his—and they continue to walk together, trading happy memories of another lifetime.

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

  Archive

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J from President's Corner https://ift.tt/2JLNkb0 via IFTTT

[princeescaluswords]

Had Derek and Stiles been brown or black? Fandom would've latched onto Jackson instead, claiming he was ~more interesting~ as a rich popular jock who is adopted turns out and is possibly Peter's son and omg! Hale Family feels! And Scott is bad for wanting to kill Peter, the last of Jackson's family blah blah.

Well, we have a test run, don’t we?

Mason Hewitt was completely human.  He was very intelligent.  He was absurdly loyal to the people he considered his friends.  He was even possessed by an ancient evil and the pack struggled to free him.  He had unique aspects as well, mostly that he was adoringly enthusiastic and thus wasn’t a self-absorbed asshole who coped with stress by attacking and demeaning other people.  

And it is worth repeating that he had 38 episodes which is three times the number of episodes as Cora Hale, but don’t worry, she has three times the stories in which Mason appears.  I guarantee you that Mason Hewitt was more important to the story line than Cora Hale.

Nothing is more enraging than the way members of the fandom treat what might have been with Jackson.   Aside from the absurd claim that Jeff Davis intended Jackson to be the True Alpha (because of his virtue, because of his strength of character, because of his sheer force of will, LOL), there is always the way they imply that Jackson would be loyal to Derek Hale if he had come back or that he would somehow doubt Scott’s leadership. (I never thought about him being angry about Scott wanting to kill Peter to cure himself of lycanthropy, but  I wouldn’t put it past them.)

You get the general theme of their speculation.  It’s completely rational for them to think that Jackson would look at Derek and Scott – Derek, who found him bleeding black in the bathroom, knew what it meant, abandoned him, and then spent eight episodes trying to kill him, and Scott, who tried to save him and had every reason to let him die, but didn’t – and chose Derek as the side he’d rather take.   Uh-huh.   It usually goes along the lines of he would want an alpha who could make the tough choices and kill him if reverted.  This is Jackson – who was warned that becoming a werewolf might make him kill people and wanted it anyway.  

This is not a slight against the Jackson who actually appeared on the show.  I think Jackson in Season 3 would have been awesome, and I am sad we didn’t get it.  I’m just 100% sure he wouldn’t have been playing for Team Derek.  

But that’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?  It doesn’t matter what white characters like Derek Hale or Stiles Stilinski do to people, they’re always going to be given empathy and sympathy and another chance to be hero.  Becuase that’s the privilege of being a white character.

Meanwhile, Mason is unimportant.  Deaton is an evil Mastermind.  Braeden is a ‘bed-warmer.’  And Scott became a useless tool the moment he was manipulated by Derek into wanting to kill Derek’s uncle, because you only get to kill the people who torment you if your skin is white.

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

  Archive

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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Pop Picks – May 24, 2018

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alycia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

Archive

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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