#Anti Haze Clarke

[plumsaffron]

Scapegoating Lila and referring to Astruc haters as Lila grudge holders. LOL.

Thing is... Lila’s and their ways aren’t not the same. Sucks I’ll have to speak of Lila Rossi again of the difference of circumstances.

Ah it’s been established, the misuse of miraculous can lead to huge problems. This has been shown enough times. Heck that’s how Santa Claws happened. Back to Lila thing again.

Ladybug used her ultimate power to embarrass Lila due to her instability or rather Lila’s existence made Marinette the hero feel absolute inferiority and ensured to take her soon to be Perfect Alliance away from her. Tikki was asking if she was jealous earlier. Gets more jealous. Marinette got a special book and could have left and completed something more of priority. Instead she decides to be a clown. Even Adrien was like what’s wrong with you and concerned. Lie hater lies of an excuse to why she was foul to Lila and swings away from him because she knew that she was clearly wrong. It was really so Lila would go away or disappear. Disappear is fulfilled after Confrontation. Funny this her frolicking upon Lila and wasting her time instead of getting the book and leave for the time being indirectly helped cause the collector incident. Oof Adrien returning back to square 1 again. And the funny is Marinette in the end doing the very thing she despises or wants to despise of Lila doing when returning what she stole to Gabriel. Ironic. Choose when game eh?

Lila has to see what she wished, ripped away. Opportunities taken away later too. And the smile of the one who did this to her’s face, plaster everywhere. The hero that ruined your first day. Having to remember that awful experience for a long time. Hawk Moth and soon Nathalie orchestrate the anniversary of Lila mockery. The whole town celebrating your humiliator and allies of such. A peer in your class for some weird reason, wanting to be like Ladybug for some strange reason. You later have to later hear the theme song of who ruined you and see much merchandise. A powerful figure, Gabriel Agreste, insulting you, personally, purposely. When the day ends, it’s the same.

The next day you return to school is the first day you died. That person who went out their way against you like earlier is a class rep. The class representative is being very dirty towards Lila because Adrien. She tried to convince Alya and Nino there’s fault in her and offness. And when she realized that she screwed up and had no grounds to hold onto, that class rep went her way to try to expose her and raged cause it backfired. Literally proved that Marinette is desperate against Lila. So the rager once again proving her hatred isn’t because of what she does. It’s really cause she disrupts the destiny she wishes for Adrien. Lila is better than Marinette in her mind since her arrival and Marinette is being a flaw finder like she did in Volpina. Any means to find wrong with her so it’s ensured she can never be with Adrien.

And after Lila retaliated and left, Adrien reminded her of her first day after the anniversary of her humiliation (or whatever day. But it doesn’t matter due to Heroes Day is rather recent). Both of them are unfortunately reminding her of Ladybug. Ladybug tricks her into kissing seafood and mocks the muttering seafood and she gets split but Sarah and then Ladybug. So split into two and two. Just to be revived and Ladybug deciding to lecture her again and project.

Then the classed wanted to sit in their original seating so Lila is left to sit in the back. And everything works out for the rep who antagonized her. And then Marinette takes her threat as a joke.

Later in time, Marinette for some reason, decides to do the very thing Nino and Alya told her that wasn’t cool of her that she confessed of doing upon Lila. Because again, she sought for and desires to see something off with Lila (even though the reason she went away was because she ruined her first day). She also proves that she doesn’t trust Adrien as earlier in time he was warning her not to make things worse with Lila (and anyone in general. Like don’t give reason).

It’s almost like Marinette disregards the idea of Chloe ever bothering her or the classmates when Lila exists. It’s like she just wants to cause problems on purpose. And she tells Tikki, after taking Juleka’s bike, that she basically doesn’t trust Adrien or her friends while chasing after the vehicle with Lila, him and his bodyguard, Placide I.T.. Again, it’s not because of her friends. She uses friends will harmed by Lila as mask for her Adrien must remain pure and not corrupted (Even though Adrien knows what she knows already). She stopped badgering Lila because she discovered a flaw in Lila that ensured to her that Adrien could never want to be with Lila or any like her.

Wanna know the sugar on the cream? Lila being preyed on by a so called hero and one that shouldn’t be making Gabriel’s terrorist playground prosper. And yet… Ladybug finds it to make it about herself. And to ensure that a lot watchers are unable to see this because they purposely distract themselves with anything Lila does and wishes to make a big deal of what’s really moot and ignorable. And thus, hype it up higher than anyone else that’s shown doing similar, same, and or worse.

To the point they forget the history or discard of other characters and the environment. Too busy proxying Lila and isolating her as the exception above all. Honestly it’s actually the watcher for mastering the art of being a bigger fool than the protagonist actually. Unable to see what’s in their face all the time. That’s a good one actually. Brimmed and Scald over Lila doing something. Unable to see what’s other characters do that’s shown in their faces more frequently.

What’s really funny is the immense difficultly of realizing Lila is prompted reasons. Congrats to Sabrina and Marinette for strengthening her reasons further. How is a watcher gonna say Lila Rossi should let go when Marinette proves she can’t let go of Lila. In other words, it’s basically I want Lila’s end and I don’t care if Hawk Moth wins as a result. Lila once again became more important thing to target than the mastermind of genocide and victor of omnicide and ruination of Marinette and other characters having futures. And that’s why many watchers should hold hands around a virtual Marinette.

Wanna recall another obvious in the face ignored thing? Marinette made Kagami her Lila 2. Only problem was, not only she feels inferior like the former, she couldn’t find any means as an excuse to blast her. Even joined Chloe to try to humiliate Kagami. She even had to realize that she was in the wrong with Kagami. Sucks that she failed to try with Lila after the new insight with Kagami. Then episodes after Ikari Gozen, she reeled Kagami away from Adrien because Kagami’s existence around Adrien disrupted her. And so in feeling instead of the battle, she indirectly caused Miracle Queen.

Funny thing is the treatment of Lila 2 pretty much vanished at the end of Mr Pigeon 72. Kagami aligned to many of the viewers interests which unfortunately losers eat up. Then they get upset at her next season despite now knowing the truth of Marinette and Ladybug (and Marinette making things of herself again and Marinette almost realizing she should listen more or trust her friends). They call her the traitor cause whatever Pretension or Representation. Even though she and Felix ultimately benefitted Marinette’s interests and to end the Monarch reign once and for all which is kind of interesting.

Like do you understand the damage Marinette has done to her and seeing the failed past of her with Adrien as seeing them together now? Lila being right about what she said of Adrien and Marinette together are destroying her and Adrien really wrapped in Mari’s nette. Adrien speaking high appraisal of Marinette pretty much in her face, probably higher than he ever did with her. The two making her feel that Marinette knows best and is truly to be dependent upon. Similarly that’s pretty what happened with Felix. Convincing him that Marinette and Ladybug are more significant than themselves so Ladybug must end things and yet people get heartbroken that Kagami told Felix who Marinette is above all else. And may convince themselves she’s the traitor. Kagami is like the Lila that Adrien but mostly Marinette saved (if you know of Miraculous Secrets Lila lol).

But like for realsies. Kagami and Luka staying aligned with Marinette creed after knowing why of everything done upon them and their friends or others due to knowing who ladybug is, is quite a miraculous oof. Could be worse. They could really put everything together of what happened and why.

In short. Those Lilas can’t be Lila grudge holders because they viewers aren’t being badgered and harassed by people with the power to play with their lives and humiliate them and have to experience the harassers being seen as people with prestige and glory to want to be like and celebrate and have some fans of them going out their way to spread the propaganda against Lilas you refer to as being Lila holding a grudge on pieces of trash who could have trusted her friends and left her be.

This is also as embarrassing as when people say they met a Lila in real life. Or Haze Barfe saying Kagami bullied Marinette and projecting of her stupid childhood and disregarding what Marinette does to Kagami. Let’s add Juleka as well. How about Max? But it’s okay because Barfe thinks Lila being petty is wrong because it’s not relatable to her levels of petty. Oh how much of an oxymoron that stupid human is.

I will say, Barfe is truly an Master Andre Manipulator.

Or Pathological Marinette

Barfe and losers should be grateful they never met a so called real Marinette in their pitoful lives. Oops

Do tell me Glaze Barfe? Why does Recreation hurt you but Kagami personally hurt you the most? Is Kagami your real struggle in life?

[kulay-ng-banaag]

Filipino* Hetalians are bothered by how vocal people are to criticize the US state but not CN. We only wished for others to be as critical, because Filipino Hetalians have been criticizing the CN state for trespassing — no, literally violating international law that was settled years ago and ineffectively implemented after our former president elected to court the CN state in the name of anti-US imperialism. The coast guard of the CN state rammed the boats of our fisherfolk — one of the, if not the, poorest sectors of the Philippines. It doesn't matter who you are, if you are in their way, they won't hesitate. Why they do this has more to do with capitalism than racism per se (even while racism is ultimately rooted in capitalism).

We're critical because WE DON'T WANT IT TO ESCALATE INTO A CONFLICT THE LIKES OF PALESTINE RIGHT NOW. The White House is literally intervening because the CN state refuses to take accountability. We are forced to invoke a law that most of us did not even exist to protest before. It doesn't help that they have used the military bases they built here as a jumping point for other wars (one example with the keywords: Clark Air Base, Allen Lawrence Pope, 1958 PRRI/Permesta Rebellion). What happens is we end up holding some level of responsibility for something we as a people did not sign up for. Then, we have to pay reparations but our taxes literally get pocketed, so we only further suffer for the sins of capitalist pigs.

But since no children have died yet, I guess it doesn't matter? Our government is debating over the reimplementation of mandatory ROTC for university students. One student was killed years ago for exposing the hazing rituals that have been normalized in the ROTC system. This is the same ROTC that obliges us into military service when the state calls for our specific names, only this time everyone has to go through it, and therefore anyone can be called on. Of course, that is unlikely unless there is war. Now put that next to our West Philippine Sea issue and you see the dots connect.

You would have known that if you had just listened to Filipino Hetalians from the start, instead of scrambling for excuses and copy-pasting racist rhetoric as a clapback to defend your victim complexes.

Nobody asked for you to explain your trauma. Nobody asked because we're completely aware and SYMPATHIZE with that. That's not our problem. That was never our problem. Your trauma is not our oppression. The problem is a neighboring government refuses to acknowledge and intervene in the aggression of its own resources. Nobody said iT's yOuR fAuLt ThEy'Re DoInG tHiS, it's honestly worrisome how people hear things that were never uttered...

But what are we supposed to expect when you have informants everywhere to keep track of any form of disagreement so you're basically a panopticon over the fandom that nobody wanted in the first place? Do Filipino Hetalians have to go into detail now about how we here are under constant surveillance from the Philippine state because any form of vocal disagreement will get us red-tagged and possibly killed as retaliation for offending the egos of those in power?

You demand we respect your trauma while irrationally labeling someone else's trigger as racism? Did you actually believe that would contribute one step closer to a ceasefire? Be honest with yourselves and think it through realistically: Did you actually believe that your online, inflammatory retaliation will contribute a step towards a ceasefire?

The honest and realistic answer is NO, because you wasted energy that could have been put into organizing on the ground. You wouldn’t have to get snarky about how you spend time helping elsewhere because your lack of training in working with fellow organizers with mental health issues indicates your lack of experience. Your lack of experience indicates you have yet to touch real grass and organize beyond huddling your friends into online harassment campaigns.

You don’t get to sprinkle disclaimers of not harassing people while adding #hater tag. You literally gossiped about me in your circle. You cherry pick receipts in your favor. The worst part is I’m not the first person you’ve done this, and I doubt I will be the last one. You only visibly condemn public harassment in order to wash your hands clean of your private harassment.

And I’m not even white, yet you spit inflammatory statements about me as if I was a white racist. Between us, who’s the Westerner to the other?

This is not about racism from white supremacists anymore. This is elitism, and we Filipino Hetalians have too much of that already. It’s elitism because you constantly enforce your intellectual superiority over us like some evangelizing conqueror holding dominion over the poor, unenlightened savages. It’s elitism because being Asian by blood doesn’t change the fact that you’re entitled to privileges not so within the means of non-migrants. Note that I write “by blood” because tying identities to the state is conclusively dehumanizing. Does my being Filipino automatically make me anti-indigenous? Does someone being American by citizenship make them racist freaks, regardless if they are also black/indigenous/Asian/Pacific Islander?

We’re as upset over the racist-motivated attacks of Chinese people because of the racist framing of the CN state as the source of COVID-19. We’re as ashamed of the lingering sinophobia in SEA. At the same time, we here in SEA are in closer geographical proximity to the CN state puts us in a higher vulnerability to exposure to aggressions on a state level. You could have also learned of our genuine opinions if you had just asked. Instead, you assumed for us. We may both be Asians by blood, but what happened to the whole respecting our nuances because Asians aren’t a monolith? Please understand where the nuances lie.

Elitism is also satisfying your freedom to freely speak of your traumas while policing the traumas of other people not shared by you, because the conditions you have grown under have instilled a hostile and ableist perspective for mental health breaks in general. That is the fault of the normalization of capitalism that every one of us must live under. The good news is that it can be dismantled. The bad news is having a petty fight with someone you dislike because they explained why they disagreed with your fandom opinion on the internet is not going to leave a scratch on the foundation of capitalism we mutually want to destroy.

Lastly, elitism is also the combination of residing in Western countries — all the more in the core of all cores of imperialism today that is the United States of America — and having a significantly larger following, and therefore influence, on social media than most non-migrant SEAsians in the Hetalia fandom. You hold a privilege and leverage over other voices; I mean, just look at how much traction the racebending disk horse received. As far as I can speak for my commentary — though I wasn’t the only one — we only wish for acknowledgement of the nuances alongside the impossibility of total depoliticization of nation-state personifications.

You speak of fighting racism, yet you constantly patronize the people from the communities you demand more representation of. It should not be any harder to realize the unappreciated double standards than the history of racism against diaspora communities in white-majority countries. I hate that it happens. We hate that it happens. But the internet is not restricted to the Western experience alone. The internet is not occupied solely by Westerners. Sheesh, guys, I know the US is even colonizing the digital space but don't give them that validation lmao?

And at the end of the day, this bizarre drama was never about the Chinese identity or the anti-Asian racism or the genocide of Palestinians. It was about a neurodivergent SEAsian expressing that her sudden quiet presence on social media is because she needed to recover from an anxiety attack that was preventing her from functioning, which includes platforming her support for Palestinians and other obligations in her every day life with sincere intentions. Understand that you are enforcing an unwanted power dynamic every time you make everything about you, again and again and again and again.

Understand that in creating a false rumor in mocking someone's trigger, you are establishing that the Hetalia fandom is not a safe space for the neurodivergent.

Understand that in creating a false rumor in mocking someone's trigger, you are establishing that the neurodivergent are useless, and therefore have no right to participate, in the fight for the freedom of Palestine.

UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE A VICTIM OF RACISM AS MUCH AS YOU ARE AN ENABLER OF ABLEISM.

THE GOOD NEWS IS THIS: It can be unpacked. Here are some articles on the impact of frequent media exposure to extreme violence. Mental health wellness is as much a part of the peace process.

Media Exposure to Collective Trauma, Mental Health, and Functioning: Does It Matter What You See?

Witnessing images of extreme violence: a psychological study of journalists in the newsroom

Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings

You are free to email the authors to argue about why dedicating time for recovery is morally wrong and a privilege that can never be a right. Don't take it to me or to any other Filipino Hetalian anymore, take it to the specialists in the field. Argue against the foundations of their profession. Shake them to the core, for all we care. Tell them how you think their works supplement racism because you want so desperately to be right about your bad-faith reading. Understand that your stubborn inability to hold others in good faith for once is toxic and destructive.

EDIT (01/09/24): Here are abridged infographics of a webinar addressing mental health and systemic violence, and organized by an advocacy network that works with indigenous communities and environmentalists. To quote them: "mental health must be addressed with collective care that is inseparable from collective action in solidarity with the Palestinian people's national liberation movement." If that still does not humble you, then accept that there are Hetalians — not just the non-migrant Filipinos — who are actually uncomfortable with your constant aggression and you just don't know it because you don't listen when they choose to speak up about it.

Now that that’s all said, take the time to comprehend how our pains now stand as equals in magnitude with respect to our dignities as humans.

*Bluntly, me and my friends and mutuals in the Hetalia fandom who are all non-migrant Filipinos. I don’t want to assume for others not in my circle, but I am extremely tired of all the cop behavior over us. This is not Martial Law.

P.S. Stop using “mainlander” like a slur. Not even as a joke. Stop it before it blows into full-out racism.

[meganwasbored]

Songs that scream Varian

Most of these were inspired by a single scene or episode or simply Vibes and probably don’t make any sense but they make sense to me

I Did Something Bad by Taylor Swift

Don’t Blame Me by Taylor Swift

Bad Blood by Taylor Swift

Mastermind by Taylor Swift (specifically the bridge)

Could Have Been Me by The Struts

Waving Through A Window from Dear Even Hansen

Aimed to Kill by Jade LeMac

You’re On Your Own, Kid by Taylor Swift

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift

Something That I Want by Grace Potter (Tangled credits song)

Are You Satisfied? by MARINA

Oh No! by MARINA

Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift

Stronger by The Score

Whatever It Takes by Imagine Dragons

Burned by Grace VanderWaal

Don’t ask me why but My Ordinary Life and Discord by The Living Tombstone just give me Varian vibes

No Friends by Cadmium, Rosendale

Strange by The Score

Never Going Back by The Score

Where Do You Run by The Score

Don’t Wanna Be by The Score

Something New by The Score

Revolution by The Score

You’d Never Know by BLÜ EYES

Million To One by Camila Cabello

Headspace by Riley Clemmons

Dead Mom from Beetlejuice

Mean by Taylor Swift

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things by Taylor Swift

The Archer by Taylor Swift

I Forgot That You Existed by Taylor Swift

This Is Me Trying by Taylor Swift

Mirrorball by Taylor Swift

Lavender Haze by Taylor Swift (just a little bit, like you’ll notice how if you’re really listening)

Karma by Taylor Swift

Fifteen by Taylor Swift (you know, if he had a normal childhood)

Weird Science by Oingo Boingo

Alchemist by Good Kid

Good Kid from The Lightning Thief (the Percy Jackson musical)

My Grand Plan from The Lightning Thief (the Percy Jackson musical)

If I Killed Someone For You by Alec Benjamin

Enough For You by Olivia Rodrigo

Freaks by Jordan Clarke

Alone Sometimes by The Mowgli’s

Ready To Go (Get Me Out Of My Mind) by Panic! At The Disco

Mr. Brightside by The Killers

Raise A Little Hell from Bonnie and Clyde

Literally the entire Newsies soundtrack

My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift

The Last Great American Dynasty by Taylor Swift (pretty much only the bridge tho)

Tolerate It by Taylor Swift

Midnight Rain by Taylor Swift

Memories by Panic! At The Disco

House Of Memories by Panic! At The Disco

Top Of My School by Katherine Lynn-Rose

Average by Sushi Soucy

Brutal by Olivia Rodrigo

Look Who’s Inside Again by Bo Burnham

I Can’t Fix You by The Living Tombstone

Little Dark Age by MGMT

Maniac by Conan Gray

Pacify Her by Melanie Martinez

Tag, You’re It by Melanie Martinez

Castle by Halsey

Control by Halsey

Just Like Fire by P!nk

From Now On from The Greatest Showman

She Used To Be Mine from waitress

Difficult by Gracie Abrams

[mortishecate004]

Anti-Hero x GN! Reader

(a/n: he's the one from Unnatural Disasters on Roblox, don't judge me. Also I imagine him as Clark Kent, it's the vibes! I named him Orion since he doesn’t really have a name besides Anti-Hero. Sam, I blame you for this. :P)

Word Count: 844 Rating: Fluff, a little sadness, but happy ending!!!!

You were looking at your reflection in the mirror with a pout. Why? Because you had spotted three white hairs on your head. You continue to gawk at it, internally contemplating whether or not you should pluck them out… But they were gonna come back anyway, ugh! Your eyes moved down a little to see two more gray hairs, how did you even miss those? You combed your fingers through your hair, were you going to have to color them now? 

While you were in the middle of a mid-life crisis, you failed to spot your husband and son that had just entered the room. Orion carried the bouncy baby boy in his arms, he whistled as he looked at you from behind, “Well, if it isn’t my beautiful partner.” Orion had a wolfish smirk plastered on his face as he admired your figure, your son clapped his chubby hands with a small smile as he also spotted you. “Mama/Dada!” His little voice broke you out of your trance, you jumped a little at their sudden appearance.

“Jeez! You two need to stop doing that.” You yelped, placing a hand over your chest to steady your racing heart. Orion chuckles lightly and walks towards you, he grabs your waist and pulls you into his side. He glances down at you with his violet eyes met yours, “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” His voice was soft and caring, you could see even through the haze of ‘attraction’ in his eyes, there was worry laced in the pools of violet you loved.

“You’re gonna think it’s stupid… I’ve-” you sighed exasperatedly, “I’ve got gray hairs.” He could hear the defeat in your voice, he hadn’t seen you this sad since you two found out you were about to have a kid. The overwhelming sadness that could crush your spirit and soul with one fell swoop, Orion and your son’s face hardened similarly as they observed your crestfallen look.

Their brows furrowed and their lips pursed in a thoughtful manner, “Mama/Dada.” Your son says with a low tone, his arms stretched out for you to carry him. You complied gladly, “Oh my sweet James, such a lovely little boy you are.” You peppered his cheeks with kisses, he giggled sweetly. That was yours and Orion’s favorite sound, James’s adorable little chortles and chirps of joy. Orion chuckles. He raises his hand and cups the side of your face with a hand, his eyes were full of love and care. "You're cute, you know that?"

"Orion," You gave him an unamused look, he chuckles yet again, his thumb rubbing against the three hairs. His purple eyes were lighter, he looked like he was trapped in a trance, "I'm sorry... It's just... We're doing it. We're getting older together." He chuckles for the nth time, his fangs poking out as he admired your features with a wide grin. Orion leaned forward to place a kiss on your pouty lips, "It makes me happy, doesn't it make you happy?"

"It does, Orion. Thanks for putting it in a better perspective." You pull him in for another kiss, small hands grabbed at you as you do so. You chuckled into this kiss, "Looks like someone else wanted some loving." James stares up at you with his deep purple eyes, he gives you a toothy smile and attacks your face with kisses. Well, more cuteness aggression from a toddler.

"Hey! James, don't do that. Gentle. Gentle. Remember?" Orion scolds James softly, prying the chubby hands grasping at your face firmly. The father and son share an intense look, lavender fighting with violet. James is the first to admit defeat and kisses your cheek softly, Orion smiles at the gesture. "Attaboy, we have to show love. I get it, your mom/dad is very pretty, but last time you did that. You gave them quite the wound."

His words started to become like white noise to you, you started to feel lighter again, the world was less dimmer than it was a few hours ago. Orion really knew what to say in situations, you were lucky to have even caught his attention. Moments like this reminded you why you loved him, not to mention, makes you fall even harder than you already were. God, what did you even do to deserve this life?

Little James was signing and speaking to his father, as if he was arguing back. Orion tuts playfully, "That's it, no more mom/dad time for you. You and I are gonna have a strict talk while mom/dad watches a movie. I'll catch up later, need to tussle with this naughty boy." Little James gave him a glare for even suggesting such an idea.

You laughed loudly, he was just too cute. James gives you another toothy grin, he lets out a deep bellied laugh. Orion joins in on the joviality, "But seriously, have some me time, my love. I'll be back." The two moved to the kitchen, you knew they had ulterior motives.

Life couldn't be better.

Fin.

(istg if people judge me)

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year 2023, Part Three (The Lists)

Natural Information Society

Swapping records is fun, but when it comes down to it, we like what we like.  What’s that?  Glad you asked.  Read on for our writers’ mid-year favorites.    

Jennifer Kelly

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Robert Forster — The Candle and the Flame (Tapete) 

The Drin — Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom (Feel It)

En Attendant Ana — Principia (Trouble in Mind)

Stella Kola—S-T (Self-Release)

Mudhoney — Plastic Eternity (Sub Pop)

Sleaford Mods — UK Grim (Domino)

The Tubs — Dead Meat (Trouble in Mind)

Nighttime — Keeper Is the Heart (BaDaBing)

Purling Hiss — Drag on Girard (Drag City)

Lonnie Holley — Oh Me Oh My (Jagjaguwar)

The Toads—In the Wilderness (Upset the Rhythm)

Dan Melchior—Welcome to Redacted City (Midnight Cruiser)

James and the Giants—S-T (Kill Rock Stars)

Ben Chasny and Rick Tomlinson—Waves (VOIX)

Bill Meyer

Natural Information Society — Since Time Is Gravity (Eremite)

Elkhorn — On the Whole Universe in All Directions (Centripetal Force)

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Robert Forster — The Candle and the Flame (Tapete) 

The Necks — Travel (Northern Spy)

Milford Graves — Children of the Forest (Black Editions)

Peter Brötzman  Heather Leigh — Naked Nudes (Trost)

Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World (Matador)

Magic Tuber Band — Tarantism (Feeding Tube)

Drew Gardner — Flowers in Space (Feeding Tube)

Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch — American Landscapes (Incunambulum)

Dave Rempis/Elisabeth Harnik/Tim Daisy — Earscratcher (Aerophonic)

Alasdair Roberts — Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall (Drag City)

Jonathan Shaw

BIG BRAVE — nature morte (Thrill Jockey)

Wound Man — Human Outline (Iron Lung) 

Gel — Only Constant (Convulse)

Home Front — Games of Power (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Sleaford Mods — UK Grim (Domino)

Spirit Possession — Of the Sign… (Profound Lore)

Bryon Hayes

Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World (Matador)

Big Blood — First Aid Kit (Feeding Tube / BaDaBing)

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Califone — Villagers (Jealous Butcher)

M. Sage — Paradise Crick (RVNG Intl.)

The Reds, Pinks & Purples — The Town That Cursed Your Name (Slumberland)

John Atkinson — Energy Fields (AKP Recordings)

Joseph Allred — What Strange Flowers Grow in the Shade (Feeding Tube)

The Far Sound — The Far Sound (Centripetal Force)

Ulaan Khol — Milk Thistle (Desastre)

Powers / Pulice / Rolin — Prism (Cached Media)

Lia Kohl — The Ceiling Reposes (American Dreams)

Tim Clarke

Jana Horn — The Window Is The Dream (No Quarter)

Arrowounds — In The Octopus Pond (Lost Tribe Sound)

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Pile — All Fiction (Exploding In Sound)

Tim Hecker — No Highs (Kranky)

Califone — Villagers (Jealous Butcher)

King Krule — Space Heavy (XL/Matador)

This Is The Kit — Careful Of Your Keepers (Rough Trade)

Cory Hanson — Western Cum (Drag City)

Andy Shauf — Norm (Anti-)

Patrick Masterson

Pile —  All Fiction (Exploding in Sound)

Yves Tumor — Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (Warp)

Wednesday — Rat Saw God (Dead Oceans)

Jayda G — Guy (Ninja Tune)

Ryuichi Sakamoto — 12 (Milan)

Malla — Fresko (Solina)

Skech185 — He Left Nothing for the Swim Back (Backwoodz Studioz)

Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru — Jerusalem (Mississippi)

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Andrea — Due in Color (Ilian Tape)

Memphis LK — Too Much Fun EP (Remote Control)

BigXthaPlug — Amar (United Masters)

Andrew Forell

Algiers — Shook (Matador)

King Vision Ultra — Shook World (Hosted by Algiers)

Asher Gamedze — Turbulence & Pulse (International Anthem)

99LETTERS — Makafushigi (Disciples)

The Drin— Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom (Drunken Sailor)

Comet Gain — The Misfit Jukebox (Tapete)

billy woods & Kenny Segal — Maps (Backwoodz Studioz)

Kevin Richard Martin — Above the Clouds (self-released)

SQÜRL — Silver Haze (Sacred Bones)

The Murder Capital — Gigi’s Recovery (Human Season)

Parasite Jazz — Paradise Jazz (Disques de la Spirale)

Christian Carey

The Reds, Pinks, and Purples — The Town that Cursed Your Name (Slumberland)

Aaron Cassidy —  A Way of Making Ghosts (Kairos)

Arrowounds —  In the Octopus Pond (Settled Scores)

V/A – Red Hot and Ra: Nuclear War LP (Red Hot)

Oval —  Romantiq (Thrill Jockey)

Meg Baird —  Furling (Drag City)

Black Duck —  S/T (Thrill Jockey)

Mother, Sister, Daughter —  Musica Secreta (Lucky Music)

Natural Information Society – Since Time is Gravity (Eremite)

Alasdair Roberts —  Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall (Drag City)

Fever Ray —  Radical Romantics (Mute)

James Romig —  Spaces (Sawyer Editions)

Brad Mehldau —  Your Mother Should Know (Nonesuch)

Nina Berman and Steve Beck —  Milton Babbitt: Works for Treble Voice and Piano (New Focus)

Marc Ducret —  Palm Sweat (Out of Your Head)

Jennifer Grim —  Through Broken Time (New Focus)

Erkki — Sven Tüür: Canticum Canticorum Caritatis (Alpha Classics)

James Ilgenfritz —  #entrainments (Frequent Seams)

Brandon Lopez —  vilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevilevile (TAO Forms)

Lonnie Holley —  Oh Me Oh My (Jagjaguwar)

John Liberatore —  Catch Somewhere (New Focus Recordings)

Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes —  A Short Diary (ECM Records)

Frederic Rzewski —  Late Piano Works (Naxos)

Rebecca Saunders —  Skin (NMC)

Guided by Voices —  La La Land (self— released)

Susan Narucki and Donald Berman —  This Island (Avie)

Chamber Music From Hell —  Chris Opperman (Purple Cow)

Elkhorn —  On the Whole Universe in All Directions (Centripetal Force)

Purling Hiss —  Drag on Girard (Drag City)

Caterina Barbieri —  Myuthafoo (light-years)

Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World (Matador)

Ian Mathers

Fifteen, in alphabetical order:

Aarktica — Paeans (Projekt)

Acid King — Beyond Vision (Blues Funeral)

ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT — “Darling the Dawn” (Constellation)

Avalon Emerson — & the Charm (Another Dove)

Brìghde Chaimbeul — Carry Them With Us (Tak:til)

The Drin — Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom (Feel It)

Ladytron — Time’s Arrow (Cooking Vinyl)

loscil // Lawrence English — Colours of Air (Kranky)

Meg Baird — Furling (Drag City)

Mute Duo — Migrant Flocks (American Dreams)

The National — First Two Pages of Frankenstein (4AD)

Tacoma Park — Tacoma Park (Self Released)

Tørrfall — Tørrfall (De Pene Inngang)

Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World (Matador)

Yves Tumor — Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (Warp)

Derek Taylor

New releases

Kirk Knuffke & Joe McPhee Quartet + 1 — Keep the Dream Up (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Natural Information Society — Time is Gravity (Eremite/Aguirre)

Aruán Ortiz — Serranias — Sketchbook for Piano Trio (Intakt)

Mark Dresser — Tines of Change (Pyroclastic)

Andrew Cyrille — Music Delivery/Percussion (Intakt)

Steve Millhouse — The Undwinding (Steeplechase) 

Archival Releases

The Jazz Doctors — Intensive Care/Prescriptions Filled: The Billy Bang Quartet Sessions 1983/1984 (Cadillac)

Milford Graves w/ Arthur Doyle & Hugh Glover — Children of the Forest (Black Editions)

Abdul Wadud — By Myself (Bisharra/Gotta Groove)

Sirone — Artistry (Of the Cosmos/Moved By Sound)

Marion Brown — Mary Ann: Live in Bremen 1969 (Moosicus)

Steve Swell’s Fire Into Music — For Jemeel: Fire From the Road (2005-2006) (RogueArt)

Margaret Welsh

Wheatie Mattiasich — Old Glow (Open Mouth)

Rozi Plain — Prize (Memphis Industries)

Glass Triangle — Blue and Sun-lights  (Relative Pitch)

Andy Shauf — Norm (Anti)

Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World (Matador)

Horse Jumper of Love —Heartbreak Rules (Run for Cover)

Bill Orcutt  — Jump On It (Palilalia)

Lana Del Rey — Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Interscope)

[swiftie-blog-123]

Fictional Characters as Taylor Swift songs

Fearless

You Belong with Me: Archie and Betty (Riverdale)

Love Story: Arthur and Gwen (Merlin)

Red

I Knew You Were Trouble: Shane (The L Word)

1989

Welcome to New York: Jessie (Disney Channel's Jessie)

Wonderland: Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

Bad Blood: Prof X and Magneto (X-Men movies)

You're in Love: Alice and Dana (The L Word)

Reputation

Look What You Made Me Do: Wanda Maximoff (MCU)

Don't Blame Me: Joker and Harley Quinn (Batman)

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Gatsby (Great Gatsby)

Lover

Paper Rings: Hermione and Ron (Harry Potter), Jake and Amy (Brooklyn 99)

Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince: Graham and Megan (But I'm a Cheerleader)

The Archer: Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn), Kate Bishop (Marvel comics)

You Need to Calm Down: Glee Characters (Glee), Young Avengers Characters (Young Avengers Vol 2), X-Men characters (X-Men comics)

False God: Annabeth and Percy (Heroes of Olympus)

Folklore

mad woman: Wanda Maximoff (MCU), Morgana (Merlin), Bertha (Jane Eyre)

Evermore

ivy: Rachel and Luce (Imagine Me & You)

tolerate it: Mr. And Mrs. de Winter (Rebecca)

no body, no crime: Maxim and Rebecca (Rebecca)

gold rush: Hulkling and Wiccan (Young Avengers)

Midnights

Lavender Haze: Carol and Therese (The Price of Salt)

Midnight Rain: Jo and Laurie (Little Women)

Great War: Harry Potter characters (Harry Potter), Merlin and Arthur (Merlin)

Dear Reader: Jo (Little Women)

You’re On Your Own Kid: Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson), Karolina Dean (Runaways)

Anti-Hero: Allison DiLaurentis (Pretty Little Liars)

Vigilante ****: Harley Quinn (DCEU)

Others

Carolina: Kya Clark (Where the Crawdads Sing)

I’ll add more as I think of them! Give me suggestions if you have them!

[jbuffyangel]

Hi Jen! I know you're a diehard Stelena shipper so here's my question for you with a bit of backstory. I was a hardcore Stelena fan until when Stephan made Elena think he'd drive them off the bridge (3x10?) so she'd let him go. I understand why he did it, but that went too far for me and i couldn't ever ship them again after that. I couldn't get over him forcing her to relive her most traumatic moment, regardless of his reasoning. What are your thoughts on that moment in their relationship?

Yeah, that was a real low point in Stelena’s story. For me, not as low as Stefan drowning in a safe all summer while Elena banged his brother, but still low.

Before we get into this I’m going to just say - every viewer has to draw their own line in the sand. If that moment was your line that’s completely fine. I may have different lines for different shows and characters, but I don’t believe anyone’s lines are more valid than others.

So here’s the way I look at The Vampire Diaries Nonnie - they are all terrible people. Arguing morality with these characters is a black hole. They are all murderers. In fact, if a character runs the straight and narrow for too long Julie Plec & Co. actually went out of their way to make that character do something horrible. 

Case in point - Caroline. Pure sunshine.

She murdered only one person and it was when she was a newbie vamp. By the numbers count Caroline was doing pretty good for TVD. Then she was up on the moral high ground and threw a lot of judgement Damon’s way (well deserved in my opinion). She was extremely anti Delena in Season 4 and was not pleased with Elena’s choices as a vampire. So what did the writers do? They had her kill 12 witches in 4x17. Say goodbye to the moral high ground, Caroline.

That’s the show and you are going to do terrible things if you’re a vampire. Humans like Matt, Jeremy and Bonnie fared better, but each makes morally questionable, if not down right wrong, decisions. Their opinions about vampires and all the murderer was typically correct, but frequently viewed as judgmental by fans.

So what’s my point? Any fan of the love triangle got on board with these relationships with full knowledge the brothers were killers. Just because Stefan was a solid dude when Elena met him didn’t erase the fact he spent the better part of the 1920s ripping people’s heads off. Hell, Damon murdered people while he was dating Elena. Murder is not a deal breaker- either to Elena or Stelena/Delena fans. If Elena was supposed to end up with the most moral person on TVD she should’ve married this blue eyed cupcake.

Stefan (or Damon for that matter) being cruel to Elena didn’t really make me want to peace out on the show or stop shipping their relationship. Just because Elena is the focus of the terrible thing doesn’t suddenly make it more terrible than all the other things Stefan and/or Damon have done.

I’m not going to defend what Stefan did. You are kinder to him than I am because I think it had zip to do with forcing Elena to let him go. Stefan was still on human blood which made him a rage machine. He was pissed at Klaus for destroying his life (rightfully so) and hell bent on revenge. 

Do I believe Stefan, with his humanity switch on, would actually kill Elena? No, which is why I kind of yawned my way through the whole driving her off the bridge plan. Klaus was an idiot for buying it, but the only reason he did was because Elena was terrified. Stefan said her fear sold it. The point was to traumatize her, which makes Stefan an enormous dick. 

And yet, three episodes later he’s off human blood and Elena is begging him to feel something for her. 

This show was ridiculous. Both sides of the love triangle are abusive, co dependent, toxic train wrecks at certain points in the story. Some points last longer than other points, but I’ll side eye any Stelena or Delena fan who argues  differently.

Stefan was faaaaar too “heroic” by The Vampire Diaries standards the first two seasons. In order to make this love triangle a real love triangle Stefan had to be a dick with his humanity switch ON. The whole Ripper/no humanity thing gives him an easy pass. And The Vampire Diaries, for better or worse, was based on the love triangle.

No, in order for Elena to really struggle choosing between the two brothers, and not looking like a loony tune for giving Damon a second look while Stefan was literally the vampire equivalent of Clark Kent, they needed Stefan to go to the dark side. This made Damon step up to the plate and he became the hero in Elena’s life. And we’re off to the races with the love triangle, which was the whole point of Season 3 - ELENA’S CHOICE. If I took a shot every time Elena said, “I don’t know how I feel,” I would’ve permanently damaged my liver.

So why did I keep shipping Stelena after that moment? 

Because I knew what the show was trying to do. Stefan had to do something as terrible as Damon killing Jeremy to even the playing field. 

Do I feel those moments equate? No, but I’m a Stelena fan so that’s not a shock. I own my bias. Bloodaholic Stefan was never going to hurt Elena (no not even turn her into a vampire) whereas Damon literally killed Jeremy. 

I also kept shipping them because I knew this was the low point. I knew good Stefan would start to come back after this. And Stefan, when he’s not ripping heads off, has his humanity switch on, and his blood addiction under control, is one of the best people on that show. Selfless, heroic, warm, compassionate, protective and giving. He’s devoted to Elena and loves her deeply, but he also loves her friends and family. Does Stefan put those people first all the time like Elena wanted him to? No, but he prioritized them a hell of a lot more than Damon. 

I was willing to forgive Stefan for Wickery Bridge because I knew Stefan would feel immense guilt once the haze of revenge lifted and he allowed the full weight of all the things he did hit him. Stefan would punish himself more than I ever could and do everything in his power to make amends because that’s who he is. 

This is the same reason Elena chose Stefan at the end of Season 3. Did he “earn” his redemption by 3x22? No, the dude had been acting good for a total of nine episodes. Well, techinically five if we’re being strict about what constitutes “Good Stefan.” Elena didn’t choose Stefan because of the person he was during Season 3. She chose Stefan because of the man he had been in Season 1 and Season 2. That’s the man she loved and she knew that man had come back. 

But if we’re really being fair - Damon probably deserved to be chosen more than Stefan just based on their behavior in Season 3. Same rules apply for Season 4. Stefan deserved to be chosen more than Damon then.

***Side note. One thing TVD did extremely well was parallels. I loved that she told Stefan on the phone that she loved him in 3x01 and to hold on to that. Then told Damon on the phone that she is choosing Stefan in 3x22. 

(This is also why Elena told Damon she loved him for the first time over the phone. It was to make up for the time she dumped him over the phone and left him for dead. See? They all did crappy stuff to each other CONSTANTLY).

The difference between the brothers is not good and bad. Stefan isn’t entirely good just like Damon isn’t entirely bad. The difference between the two brothers is one fights the good in him while the other fights the bad. Neither are successful in their battles all the time. Stefan did terrible things, with his humanity on, and Damon could be wonderfully heroic and sweet. 

But Damon pushed against that goodness A LOT. Whereas Stefan pushed against his badness A LOT.  I’m not into the bad boys or the anti heroes. I like darkness in my fictional men, but I enjoy watching them fight it and not relish it. 

But I don’t glean any morality from The Vampire Diaries. It was a fantasy show. It’s crap I watched for fun and had pointless, but entertaining, ship debates with strangers on the Internet. Nor do I apply my real world principles to my shipping preferences. I am married to the kindest, gentlest, most moral man I know. I like the goody guys with NO darkness in real life. I would never allow my kid to date a Stefan or Angel or hell not even Oliver Queen in real life. Are you nuts???? THEY MURDERED PEOPLE.

But in my fantasy world, yes I am extremely forgiving. Not unlike Elena Gilbert, Buffy Summers and Felicity Smoak. Oliver Queen is as squeaky clean as I get. It’s a little easier I think with Angel (versus Stefan) because he only did horrible things after he lost his soul, which was not his fault. 

It’s really two personas. I love Angel, but I hated Angelus. I never wanted Buffy to hook up with Angelus. 

Does that erase his responsibility over Jenny Calendar? 

Nope. But simply because I knew Jenny Calendar as a viewer, and Angel was hurting people Buffy loved, doesn’t suddenly make that murder worse than all the others Angelus killed. Just because Buffy didn’t know those people, and they died hundreds of years ago, doesn’t make their lives any less valuable. But I got on board with Buffy dating Angel knowing all that before he lost his soul, so the morality factor didn’t really change after he got his soul back. Make sense?

It’s similar with Stefan. Stefan and The Ripper are two personas, but TVD liked to muddy the water a little more than Whedon with the humanity switch - a grey area. But in general I divide his character into two selves. 

Now, in real life if I was on a jury these guys would be serving 25 to life. But this is fantasy. Vampires don’t really exist. Teenage girls don’t date men over 110 years old. It’s illegal.

Characters like Stefan and Angel are an allegory. They represent the struggle between good and evil that live within all of us. The writers use vampirism to represent our sinful nature. The human struggle to be good and battle against our (hopefully) lower scale darkness/sins is the only real moral lesson I apply. That and always put Paul Wesley in a white tank top.

So, that’s how I look at that scene Nonnie. As I said before it is completely fine for that to be the moment you stopped shipping Stelena. I never stopped shipping Stelena and I never will, which is why they are one of my OTPs. They are a tragic story, but I will always love them. Despite all of Stefan’s terrible mistakes, I will always believe he was the best choice Elena ever made.

[missluthorwillseeyounow]

The Nightblood Project

Clexa / Supercorp AU where Lexa is the genetically engineered product of one of Lex Luthor’s experiments

"Miss Griffin, I’m afraid you---”

Maybe I’m just a kid to you. I mean, I’m just some dumb teenager, and Jesus, you’re Lena freaking Luthor, but.... do you know what it’s like when you’ve spent your life seeing only in black and white? Not bad, not unhappy, just black and white, not knowing any different -- and then suddenly... suddenly someone extraordinary comes along and opens your eyes. And it’s like an explosion of color -- colors you never even knew existed -- and it’s intense and overwhelming. There’s so much of it and it hurts, but it’s -- it’s beautiful. God, it’s so fucking beautiful, every color takes your breath away, and you wouldn’t go back to black and white, even if you could..... That’s her. That’s Lexa. So yeah, I’ll keep coming back until you let me see her. Because that’s who she is for me.”

Yeah, I wrote and made this moodboard at 3am and I haven’t had any sleep. Also disclaimer, I know nothing about cloning, genetic manipulation or the American foster care system. And here we go:

In this AU, Lex Luthor made some experiments to make meta humans when he was in his early 20s (maybe around 24 or so, and his baby sister Lena was 10)

He was experimenting with cloning and genetic manipulation, and he was eventually successful, producing the first cloned human, a baby girl he named Lexa.

One of the things that he was also working on was encoding his newly developed anti-alien AI (A.L.I.E) into the human genome.

After Lexa was created, Lex wanted to perform further invasive experiments on her. 

However, one of his chief scientists, Becca Pramheda, whose misgivings about the study had been previously rejected, felt it was unethical to do that to an infant, and refused

Becca took Lexa and ran away to hide the baby from Lex. In my hc, he somehow caught up to her and killed her.

But before she died, she managed to leave Lexa in a hospital. She enters the foster care system and Lex doesn't find her.

When Lex is finally sent to prison for his crimes,  Lena inherits all of his work (this would be around 2 years before the show)

Lena finds classified redacted documents detailing the experiment, called the Nightblood Project (so named because Lexa’s blood came out black as a side effect of the genetic manipulation). The documents are incomplete because Becca took some of the info with her during their escape, but Lena discovers a picture of baby Lexa and becomes determined to find her.

Lena finds her across the country in National City after an exhaustive year long search. Lexa is 15 at this time, and currently living in a group home.

Lexa has spent most of her life moving from one foster home to another, but the home she’s in now is one of the most stable she’s had. It’s run by a giant of a man named Gustus Paunovic, who is as soft-hearted as he is tough.

There are seven other kids in the group home, and Lexa is the eldest. Anya, the big sister who was the eldest, aged out of the system a few years ago and left. Lexa looks after each and every single one of the younger kids. Protects them, makes sure that none of them get into trouble, holds the little ones after a nightmare.

Lena makes contact with her, and it’s hard at first, because Lexa is distrustful and not inclined to believe anything a Luthor says, especially since Lex Luthor’s arrest made national news.

Eventually, Lena manages to convince her, using a story that they’re related (which isn’t really a lie, considering Lexa shares Lex’s DNA, if genetically manipulated). 

But Lexa refuses to go with Lena to Metropolis and leave her family (”They’re my people. They need me.”).

The social worker, a sharp, no-nonsense woman who’d introduced herself as Indra Porter, looks at Lena with something close to sympathy in her eyes. “I am truly sorry, Miss Luthor. I know you mean well, I can see that, but I cannot, in good conscience, place one of my charges in the custody of --”

“Of a Luthor.” Lena finishes, with a well-concealed note of bitterness in her tone. The look Ms. Porter gives her says that she heard it anyway.

“Yes.” The other woman’s voice is firm, but not unkind. “You know -- better than I do, I’m sure -- the notoriety that has attached itself to your last name, especially with your brother’s recent trials, and I don’t believe that it would be in Lexa’s best interest to be attached to it at this point in her life. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“You’re right.” Lena nods, thinking of the past year living under the shadow of Lex’s trials, and her own childhood blighted by the Luthor name. “Lexa’s well-being should come first.”

(I might throw in Costia there too somewhere)

Anyway, Lena concedes, and goes back to Metropolis, but Lexa agrees to visit her there.

I kinda just really want to give both of them someone they can slowly open up to so they can begin to trust family again, cause they’ve both been screwed over by “family”

At some point, Lena tells Lexa the truth. Imagine angsty little baby Lexa when she finds out she's "not human " but a "science project" of Lex's. (TW: implied self-harm)

There’s never really been anything unusual about Lexa, and it’s easy to slip between the cracks when you’re a foster kid. She’s ordinary. Normal.

But she remembers that one time -- that one foster kid she’d been living with when she was 9 -- Quint, who loved to bully the younger kids. He’d been taunting Costia because of her wild curly hair -- curlier even than Lexa’s, and flying all over the place in a corkscrew cloud that Lexa loved -- and Lexa had shouted at him to leave her alone! Quint had pushed her to the ground and she’d skinned her knee. 

It had bled, and Costia had screamed because her blood looked black and she had sounded so scared, that Lexa had forgotten about her black blood and instead reared up and tackled Quint to the ground, walloping him across the nose with her hardbound copy of Les Misérables from the library, and it had been Quint who bled then, not her.

Now, Lexa wonders if she’ll bleed black just like she did then. The only thought that permeates the numb haze in her mind as the sharp edge of the knife blade glides across her skin is that there’s only one way to find out.

Lena helps her through the crisis that follows when she discovers the truth (cos it’s not like she can just put her in therapy, considering the nature of her secret, and it’s not like Lena’s favorite repressive coping mechanism of “little boxes” is gonna help). I just want Lena to give Lexa the acceptance and the reassurance that she would need to face who and what she is

It’s not okay, not really, because how could it be, when everything she knew about herself has been turned on its head? But life goes on. It has to. And Lexa has always been a survivor.

Lexa only shares the truth with Anya (maybe Gustus and Indra). Lena makes herself available to answer all of Lexa’s questions, but the one thing she refuses to do is to perform further tests and experiments on Lexa (”Becca died trying to stop Lex from experimenting on you. The least I can do is honor that. I won’t be like my brother.”)

Just to be clear, in my AU, Lena isn’t averse to human trials and experiments (see Adam), but Lexa is different. A) she’s only 16, she’s underage and B) In a short amount of time, Lexa has become family. More family than Lillian, or even Lex.

Eventually, Lexa becomes a staple at Luthor Corp whenever she’s in Metropolis. And it's not a big deal for her to come striding into Lena's office, still in her school clothes. Sometimes she'll just lounge around in Lena's office, earbuds in, doing her homework, while Lena works at her desk.

Sometimes, Lena will be walking around Luthor Corp and Lexa will be walking beside her, quietly observing and learning

Lexa has an aptitude for science, but it's the day to day management of the conglomerate she's more interested in (”You’re a leader, Lexa. One look at you, and anyone can tell. People want to follow you.”) 

Eventually, it’s Lexa who convinces Lena to move to National City. Not only because that’s where she lives, but also because she’s seen the bad blood between the people of Metropolis and the Luthor name 

(’’There’s nothing for you here, Lena. Take it from someone who knows. I always used to hate moving homes. I hated change, I just wanted to find a place where I could stay forever and never have to leave. But I learned that sometimes, when 'home’ has become a bad place, that change is a necessity, if you want to survive. You can’t survive here in Metropolis, Lena. Lex is like a knife at your back, and being in this place just twists it in even further.”)

So a year later, Lena moves to National City and rebrands the company to L-Corp.

Lexa’s around 17 at this time, and Lena puts her (and all her foster siblings) in a good school and tries to give her as many opportunities as she herself got as a Luthor (without the emotional abuse she got from Lillian).

It’s at Arkadia Prep that she meets Clarke.

In the beginning, she sees Clarke as this spoiled little rich girl, the popular “Princess”, and Clarke sees her as competition, because from the start, Lexa proves herself to be exceptional. She may not have had the background that the Arkadia kids have, but she’s a voracious reader and a quick study, and she has street smarts they don’t.

A few months into term, and Lexa is already climbing to the top of the academic ladder -- narrowly unseating Clarke’s position at the top of the class, much to the other girl’s annoyance. It marks the beginning of a fierce competition -- Lexa beats Clarke at debate, Clarke beats her marks in Biology, Lexa kicks her ass at PE, Clarke beats her out as the lead of the school play. 

It’s something almost... enjoyable, Lexa thinks. She’s used to working twice as hard as everyone else -- it makes her better, smarter, stronger, quicker -- and Clarke likes a challenge, she can tell.

And it turns out they work even better together. They find this out when they’re forced to work together in a debate against another school in a televised event. They have fun absolutely decimating their rivals, and wiping the smirks off of Cage Wallace and Diana Syndney’s smug faces.

They begin to talk more. Clarke tells Lexa about her dad, who died in a car crash two years before. Lexa tells Clarke things about herself in increments: first she talks about the kids in the group home, then about Gustus and Anya, then about Costia, then about Lena.

Of course, Lexa doesn’t tell Clarke everything. Some things can’t be spoken of, not even to this girl who is fast becoming her friend. She never mentions Lex. Or her black blood.

Clarke introduces Lexa to her friends: Wells, Raven, Octavia, Bellamy, Monty and Jasper. They like her immediately, especially since Lexa is one of the few people who can shut Clarke up.

Pretty soon, Clarke and Lexa are best friends. Raven and Octavia would be jealous about this if it weren’t completely obvious how much Clarke and Lexa are beginning to enjoy each other’s company. 

Around Lexa, Clarke is calmer, less loud and harsh, more centered. And around Clarke, Lexa is warmer, the edges of her mouth softer and more prone to smiling.

Lexa’s first move to officially welcome Lena to National City is to introduce her to Clarke. She’s heard that Lena was practically accosted by those reporters after the Venture incident, and invites her to coffee with them (as if it were a random outing and not something Lexa’s been nervous about for months). 

Lena explains that it’s fine, the reporters were polite and mild-mannered, and one of them was quite cute. Lena doesn’t say that it was Kara Danvers who caught her eye, and not the famous Clark Kent.

Lena just sits back and sips her coffee -- watching the Clarke and Lexa talk quietly together, shoulders brushing, exchanging soft smiles over their coffee cups -- and she thinks she’s never seen Lexa this loose, this happy.

At some point, during one of Kara’s increasingly regular visits to Lena, she finds Lexa sitting on Lena’s couch (on Kara’s spot, the blonde thinks before quickly shaking her head), reading a hefty chemistry book while listening to music, occasionally asking Lena for help with a particularly complicated problem.

She first introduces Lexa to Kara as the daughter of a friend, just as she introduces her to everyone else, but Kara notices that there are too many similarities between them for them not to be related.

Not so much in appearance, though they both have the trademark Luthor green eyes, but in personality (both introverted but highly capable leaders, the keen intellect, the kill you with an eyebrow raise vibe)

Lexa likes Kara, and though she doesn’t know her that well, she knows Lena well enough by now to know that Lena is smitten.

“She called you Lee.”

“What?” Lena asks absentmindedly, her eyes still on Kara as she walks out of her office. Lexa smirks.

“You hate being called Lee. You threatened to disown me if I ever called you Lee. But you let Kara call you Lee.” Lexa repeats the name several times just because she knows it will irk Lena. “You’re such a useless lesbian.”

Lena throws her a glare through narrowed eyes. “And you hate being called Lex. As a matter of fact, Anya told me the last person who called you Lex ended up with a black eye.”

“Your point being?”

“Last week I heard Clarke say ‘Bye, Lex’ over the phone before you hung up. I’m just saying, I’m not the only useless lesbian in this family.”

“Fair enough.” Lexa retreats behind her calculus textbook, but not before Lena sees the happy little smile that can’t help but stretch over the younger girl’s face -- whether it’s at the mention of Clarke, or the word “family”, Lena will never know.

But it doesn’t matter. She’s just glad it’s there.

Eventually Lena has to tell Supergirl the truth about Lexa (I’m still undecided whether or not Lena knows that Kara is Supergirl at this point), and it causes a rift between the two of them.

Yeah, instead of a Kryptonite rift, I made Lexa the cause of the rift between Kara and Lena. Because the moment she finds out about Lexa’s true nature, the dynamic between Kara and Lexa (which had previously been friendly enough, now becomes visibly strained).

Kara becomes suspicious of Lexa. In the back of her mind, she’s like yeah she seems like a great kid, and it seems preposterous that she could hurt anyone, at this point there doesn't seem to be anything unusual about Lexa aside from her black blood

But the little voice in the back of Kara’s head pipes up ‘who's to say Lex didn't implant something in her?’ He’d already genetically engineered her, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to suspect that it was for nefarious purposes.

Kara, as Supergirl, becomes frustrated because Lena won’t even consider the possibility of running tests on Lexa.

After one particular argument between the two of them, where Kara had suggested testing for Lexa, just to make sure that she doesn't have any genetic mutations (and she's not gonna Lex out all over the place), Lena is fuming and ranting about Supergirl. 

Lexa manages to persuade her to watch movies with her while eating ice cream in bed

Lexa broaches this topic carefully over spoonfuls of Lena’s favorite coffee ice cream. "You're a scientist, Lena. Aren't you curious?"

Lena scoffs, attacking the pint with a spoon, imagining that the ice cream is Supergirl’s eyes she’s trying to gouge out. Gone is the deadly calmness she’d displayed in front of the super during their argument. Now she’s all petty spite.

"Of course i'm curious, Lexa. But I won't  let my scientific curiosity overtake my love for you.” She huffs, still seething. “This is the exact reason why Becca took you away, why she died trying to keep you from Lex. You are a person, Lexa. Not some science project. You don't deserve to be studied like a lab rat."

Lexa goes quiet for a long time. When Lena looks at her again, she finds the younger girl staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes.

"You love me?"

And just like that, the spite is gone, and all Lena feels is a lump in her throat.

This might be the first time Lexa ever heard someone say that to her, and the first time Lena ever said that to anyone and truly meant it.

Her face softens and she reaches out to tug softly, affectionately, on a lock of Lexa’s hair. "Of course I love you, Lexa. You're family -- probably the only real family I've had.... I love you, okay?"

Lexa seems too overcome with emotion to meet her eye, and Lena can understand that. She feels quite overwhelmed as well, but it’s a warm, lovely feeling she keeps close to her heart, not one she wants to store in a box.

So she lets Lexa look away and fiddle with her ice cream spoon. But she can hear the happiness in Lexa’s whispered "Okay."

Lexa does eventually volunteer to get tested at the DEO herself, as a sort of compromise to keep the peace between Lena and Supergirl. Also so Lexa can find out more about herself. She’s still trying to process the truth, but she’s gotten to a point where she’s developed a curiosity about her nature.

It still causes a bit of a rift between Lena and Kara, and Lena only concedes to Lexa's decision if she and an L-Corp lawyer are present during the testing to protect Lexa. 

Anya also accompanies them. At this point, I’m considering bringing Anya into the DEO, I think she’d be a perfect fit as a (somewhat rogue) field agent there.

The rift between Kara and Lena grows. Part of Kara knows she was in the wrong for insisting on experimentation for Lexa, but there’s still a need to know if there’s a threat.

The DEO doesn’t find anything, except for a minor anomaly in one of Lexa’s chromosomes. But it doesn’t seem to have an effect on her, except that it resulted in Lexa’s black blood.

At some point afterward, however, Lex is released from prison, and he discovers that Lena has found Lexa. He sets up a “nice family reunion”, renders Lena unconscious and abducts Lexa.

There’s no fear in Lexa when she first meets Lex, and that seems to please him. He’s sitting in front of a large computer machine the purpose of which eludes Lexa. He tells her about the AI he and Becca Pramheda created, A.L.I.E., and how he implanted it into Lexa’s DNA upon creating her. Becca didn’t know that his purpose for the AI was to use it to rid the world of aliens, and when she found out about it, she had immediately protested it. By that stage, however, it was too late to stop the process, the embryo had been created and Lexa was formed.

By this time, Lena has regained consciousness, and Lexa sees her signaling to keep quiet as she attempts to sneak up behind Lex. Lexa stalls him and gets him to tell her the machine’s purpose -- which is to activate A.L.I.E. remotely. 

As Lex cuts Lexa’s palm and feeds her black blood into the scanner on the machine, Lena hits him over the head and renders him unconscious before he can complete the sequence.

Lena and Lexa escape, just as Supergirl and the DEO arrive to capture Lex again. The DEO take him into custody, but instead of being hysterical, Lex just smiles at his sister and his clone.

Life almost goes back to normal again, but then one day, Lex is observed muttering a phrase in his cell. Once, twice, three times, just to make sure.

“Blood must have blood.”

At the same time, miles away across the city, Lexa drops to the floor in the middle of chemistry class, her nose bleeding.

Clarke is right beside her in seconds, but Lexa regains consciousness almost immediately, and for a half a second, Clarke sees her eyes flash, enveloped almost entirely by black. Then she’s standing up, and leaving the classroom without a word.

Clarke tries to follow her, but the teacher keeps her from leaving. The teacher does try to follow her, and doesn’t return. After a few minutes the class goes to check and finds the teacher passed out on the floor. No one knows where Lexa has gone.

The DEO gets a call about an attack that’s happening on an alien support group happening downtown. It’s a panicked 911 call from a K’Hund, screaming for help and yelling “She’s killing everyone!”

When they get there, almost everyone is dead. No less than ten aliens are lifeless on the floor. The only one left alive is the K’Hund, who lives only long enough to describe their attacker

(I had half a mind to have put Lexa in ALIE’s red dress, but overkill)

Supergirl and Alex get enough of the description to realize who it was. They quickly call Lena and devise a plan to stop and contain Lexa.

They’re too late.

Alex disconnects the call with a heavy feeling in her gut, and turns back to Lena’s office where she sees Kara, in full Supergirl regalia, reach out to touch Lena’s folded arms tentatively, as if unsure how Lena would take it. The other woman is so tense, Alex worries she’ll snap once she gives her the news.

Her gut twists for Lena, who must be sick with worry and anguish and fear and guilt. For her sister, who would never say ‘I told you so’ but ached at being proven right. 

Hell, for Lexa. Because Alex knows Lexa and she knows with wholehearted certainty that Lexa would never do this of her own free will -- not the girl who smiled shyly in response to Eliza’s motherly attention as she drew her blood for testing, not the girl who sat across from Alex at Thanksgiving and teased Kara for being such a dork around Lena, not the girl who spoke about her little brothers and sisters at the group home with such affection and pride.

By now, Kara and Lena notice her appearance. Lena squares her shoulders, and Alex knows she’s preparing for the worst. “Tell me.”

“Thirty-two people this time. She attacked a gathering of Starhavenites downtown...”  Alex informs her, straightforward but with as much gentleness as she can muster. God, forty-two aliens slaughtered by a 17 year old girl. She wishes the same fate could be visited on Lex Luthor, smiling serenely in his cell. “There is some good news: no one recognized her.”  

It is good news in a way, because this needs to be contained as much as possible, not just because of the threat, but because Lexa needs to have something to come back to when this is all over, and she won’t have that if the world knows what she’s done. 

“But... that’s only because she didn’t leave any survivors this time.”

Eventually, they manage to stop Lexa at the source. Lena figures out how to disable to computer that feeds ALIE, but the only problem is, it deactivates the ALIE chromosome inside Lexa, and Lexa’s body shuts down (just go with it, I don’t know what I’m doing).

Lexa falls into a coma, and she’s brought to the DEO. They try to revive her, but to no avail. Lena initially wants to bring her to the L-Corp labs, so she can work on a cure, but Alex tries to gently explain to her that Lexa still needs to be contained. Forty-two people are dead, whether or not Lexa was controlled by ALIE while she was doing it.

Lena complies only very reluctantly, and all but moves into the DEO to try and find a cure for Lexa. Kara helps her as much as she can, using her investigative skills to find out more about Becca Pramheda, while Lena tries to find out how to permanently inactivate the ALIE chromosome.

She leaves Sam and Jess in charge of L-Corp, and only returns there when Jess calls to tell her that a group of young students from Arkadia Prep are outside her office, insisting on seeing Lexa. 

She listens to Jess rattle off names until a voice that Lena recognizes as Clarke’s interjects impatiently “We just want to know if Lexa’s okay. Please!”

Lena returns to her office to confront Lexa’s friends. She tells them that Lexa is safe, but is being treated for a rare medical condition but is unable to receive visitors.

Everyone is convinced and reassured, except for Clarke. She hangs back after everyone has left.

“I saw her blood when she passed out with a nose bleed. It was black. My Mom is a doctor, and she says that's impossible. She says it might be an infection, or a side effect of drugs. Is it.... Oh, God...”

Clarke’s lower lip trembles as a look of utter devastation crosses her face. Her voice is small and barely above a whisper as she asks Lena “Is she dying?”

Lena nearly chokes, and she has no words of comfort that she can offer the young girl. “No.... No, but she’s not doing well.”

Clarke sniffs, tears starting to stream down her face. “I knew it. I knew when I saw her blood was black, that it wasn’t good. Oh, God, she... she can’t die. You can’t let her die.”

“She’s stable for now. As for her blood, I can’t tell you about that. It’s... it’s not my secret to tell.”

Clarke looks up at her, relief plain in her eyes at the knowledge that Lexa wasn’t in immediate danger, and gives a shaky laugh. “I thought -- I thought maybe her blood was black because she’s an alien. My best friend’s an alien. And that didn’t even bother me, that she might not be human. I don’t give a fuck. I just -- I just want her back.”

Lena manages to convince Clarke to go home, but she goes back to L Corp every day after school to ask to see Lexa. Lena knows the DEO is no place for a teenager, so she keeps refusing, until one particular day, Clarke breaks down and asks Lena to give Lexa her debate team jacket (”I just want her to have a piece of me, so she knows that she’s not alone, that I’m thinking about her.”)

Lena acquiesces, and brings the jacket to Lexa. She lays it on the bed beside the unconscious girl. Lena leaves her side for half an hour to have lunch with Kara, one of the few things that give Lena any consolation at this point. When she returns, she finds that Lexa has turned on her side and pulled Clarke’s jacket over shoulders, curling herself inside it. She takes a picture and shows it to Clarke when the girl shows up again at her office the next day.

Eventually, Kara’s journalistic skills pay off and she gets a lead. Becca's father had been a doomsday prepper in his time, and kept an old secret bunker under their family home for years. Kara and Lena find the unredacted files that Becca stole from the experiment inside it.

They discover that Becca had created a second AI, the Flame, and had encoded it into Lexa’s ALIE chromosome to act as a kill switch to safely inactivate it permanently, but she had been killed before she could begin the process.

Lena sets about rebuilding the machine Lex used to activate ALIE. On the day they’re about to use it, she brings Clarke along with her to the DEO, silently daring anyone to stop them (no one does). 

Just before they go into Lexa’s room, Lena stops Clarke.

“You should tell her.”

“Tell her what?” Clarke asks, confused and impatient to go in and see Lexa.

“Tell her you’re in love with her.”

Clarke’s eyes are wide, but she doesn’t say anything. She just goes into the room and takes Lexa’s still hand. Lena takes the other arm and draws some of her black blood, feeding it into the machine. It starts whirring and Lena takes a deep breath before reciting the phrase she found in Becca’s notes

“Ascende Superius.”

On the bed, Lexa begins to stir. When Lexa’s eyes open, Clarke begins to cry, tangling their fingers together and pressing them to her lips.

Lena smiles and motions for Kara to follow her out of the room. Kara looks at her curiously. “You don’t wanna talk to her?”

Lena shakes her head as she looks at the two girls in the room, their foreheads touching, Clarke whispering something unintelligible in Lexa’s ear. “I think what Clarke has to say is more important.”

Kara nods, and she’s about to walk away, to tell Alex the good news, but Lena stops her with a hand on her wrist. “I have something to say as well.”

Kara waits patiently as Lena takes a deep breath, and watches curiously with cheeks tinted lightly pink when she steps closer. “I wanted to thank you, Supergirl.”

“For what?”

Lena exhales shakily. “For... For everything. For not saying ‘I told you so’ when it turned out that you were right. For staying all this time. For caring about Lexa. For not blaming her for all those deaths. For working so tirelessly with me to make sure we found a cure for her. For making sure I didn’t drown in guilt over what happened. For those daily lunches that were my saving grace. Just.... for everything.Thank you.”

Kara sees Lena lean closer, and before she can stop herself, she turns her head ever so slightly, so that Lena’s soft kiss to her cheek presses to her lips instead.

She closes her eyes and forgets to breathe.

And for one breathless second, Lena pulls away the barest inch, so that her own name whispers against her lips. “Kara...”

Kara’s eyes flutter open in shock. “You know?”

Lena nods, still not moving farther away from Kara when she would have thought that the truth would send Lena running away in anger. “I do.”

“Lena --” Kara’s voice breaks, and her hands come up to grasp Lena’s arms almost desperately, and miraculously, Lena clings back, just as tightly, with one hand, while the other comes up to touch Kara’s cheek. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know how to--”

Lena shushes her with a finger to her lips. “Your actions always speak better than your words, Kara. After everything you’ve done for me, for Lexa....”

“For you.” Kara cradles Lena’s face in her hands, blue eyes earnestly seeking green. “Yes, it was for Lexa, but you have to know, it was all for you, Lena. All of it. Everything. For you.”

Lena silences her desperate words with a kiss, and Kara exhales into her mouth with relief. Their lips slide together sweetly, and Kara wants to cry, because it feels so much like coming home.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Alex’s exasperated voice rings out somewhere behind Kara. “I just left a scene like this in Lexa’s room. Jesus! Just so you know, Lexa is fine. So please, for the love of God, Lena, get your tongue out of my sister’s mouth, and take Lexa and her girlfriend home so you Luthors can stop gaying up the DEO.”

Lena laughs into Kara’s mouth, just as she pulls away, and Kara wants to chase after her lips to chase the delicious vibrations of that laugh again. “You do an excellent job of that all by yourself, even without our help, Agent Danvers.”

“Fuck you, Luthor.”

_________________

By SorrowsFlower

Oh, thank God. I finally managed to get this out of my head! It’s been stuck in there for so long. Hopefully, this is enough to exorcise it.

[salvatoreschool]

Legacies Recap: Fall Finale Brings Sex, Santa Claus and a Surprise Return

Thursday’s Legacies found the students dreaming of a white Christmas, blissfully unaware of the holly jolly nightmare unfolding in their own backyard �� er, chimney.

Hope first suspected that something was amiss when Mystic Falls’ perpetual haze of angst and despair was suddenly replaced by a mist of snow flurries and good cheer. And in the middle of October, no less. She watched in confusion and horror as her fellow classmates — along with Dorian and Dr. Saltzman — sang Christmas carols, downed hot chocolate and exchanged (gasp!) friendly tidings. It was awful, and Hope quickly put an end to the merry madness once she realized what was actually afoot.

And because every Christmas story needs a redeemable troublemaker, Clarke (still trapped in Simu-Landon’s perishable body) tricked Hope into letting him join the revelry, using the opportunity to wish for a visit from Malivore’s latest monstrous export. And just like that, along came Krampus, a horned beast accurately described by Clarke as the Anti-Santa. Unfortunately, Krampus wasn’t the hero Clarke had wished for; rather than bringing him the extra trident he requested, the snarly demon greeted him with a swinging hook.

It suddenly became clear to Clarke that the jig was up; Malivore knew that Clarke planned to double-cross him, and he wasn’t about to show his son any mercy. Accepting that there was no way out of this mess, Clarke volunteered to dive into the pit while the students took down Krampus. But when an arrow to the heart proved ineffective, a new hero arose, giving us The CW’s wackiest battle sequence since Mallus faced off against that giant Beebo on Legends of Tomorrow.

The person stuffed in Krampus’ sack turned out to be none other than Santa Claus, and he was itching for a fight after his lengthy entrapment. Trees fell, ornaments shattered and lights exploded as Krampus and St. Nick battled to the death, with the latter ultimately ripping out the former’s tiny heart with his bare hands. It was, in a word, perfection. Even this hand-crafted gif doesn’t do it justice:

Then came the best part of Christmas — the presents! Josie got Alaric a new headmaster sign to welcome him back to school, and Santa surprised Kaleb with the car of his dreams. (I kept waiting for that second one to have some kind of catch, but no. Good for him.) Still, it was Hope who received the best gift of all: an emotional reunion with Landon, who admitted that it was a mistake to leave in the first place.

“I love you, Hope Mikaelson,” he said. “I loved you when I couldn’t remember you. I loved you when I was dead. I think I always will.” It was very sweet, as was Hope’s response: “I love you too, Landon Kirby. I loved you when you didn’t even know it… despite the way you looked in a football uniform.”

And you have to hand it to the self-proclaimed coward for breaking things off with Josie before saying any of that to Hope. In case you missed a second of Landon’s heartbreaking conversation, here’s what he told Josie: “A person could not ask for a better partner, a better conscience. You are literally the best person who has ever had the poor judgment to hang out with me. I love the way you laugh, and your upside-down mouth, the way your face looks when you watch movies and…” She stopped him to say that she knew he was in love with Hope. “But that doesn’t mean I regret a single second, because you are beautiful and special and perfect,” he replied. “Nothing should ever be this hard.” (You can say that again, brother.)

Speaking of brothers, the episode’s final scene revealed that poor Clarke never made it into the pit. He was stopped (and beheaded!) by one of the hooded figures, who turned out to be — wait for it — the Necromancer. Honestly, I was not expecting to see his gross face again, but I’m sure glad we are.

Also worth discussing…

* While Hope was busy dealing with all of the above, Lizzy and Sebastian went searching for Landon, embarking on a road trip fueled by witty comebacks and sexual frustration. And gasoline, I guess. And although she initially rebuffed his advances, even telling him to (gasp!) put his shirt back on while he fixed one of her tires like a damn romance novel come to life, Lizzy eventually gave into Sebastian’s timeless, shirtless charms. Cue an instantly iconic sex scene on the hood of a car in the middle of nowhere. (For the sake of hotness, we’ll ignore the fact that Landon’s corpse was chilling in the trunk this whole time.)

* Rafael didn’t accompany Landon back to the Salvatore School, but he’s got a pretty good reason — he’s spending some time getting to know his father in North Carolina. Apparently Josie helped Landon track down Rafael’s relatives while he was stuck in wolf form, and Landon thought that reconnecting with his family might help Rafael feel like himself again. Considering how poorly MG’s reunion went with his own father, that was a risky little venture, but it seems to be paying off.

Your thoughts on Legacies‘ fall finale, including the Necromancer’s return, Hope and Clarke’s reunion, and Lizzy and Sebastian’s road trip? Grade the episode below, then drop a comment with your full review.

[fiinalgiirls-aa]

GENERAL INFORMATION.

FULL NAME - nuan / nadja feng NICKNAMES - fengoria, feng, nad GENDER / PRONOUNS - she/her DATE OF BIRTH - november 12, 1990 PLACE OF BIRTH - vancouver, british columbia CITIZENSHIP / ETHNICITY - canadian / chinese & white RELIGION - atheist SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS / POLITICAL AFFILIATION - middle class; nihilistic, but liberal. MARITAL STATUS - single. SEXUAL & ROMANTIC ORIENTATION - pansexual. EDUCATION / OCCUPATION - associate’s degree in business; bartender, projectionist. LANGUAGES - mandarin, english

FAMILY INFORMATION.

PARENTS - guoqiang feng ( deceased ) and megan robbie / feng / clarke ( estranged ). SIBLINGS - none OFFSPRING - none PETS / OTHER - pyewacket ( a small, black cat ) that she hasn’t obtained yet in canon, grandpa ( a blue heeler ). NOTABLE EXTENDED FAMILY - grandmother, nuan feng ( her namesake ) stepdad, preston clarke ( estranged ).

PHYSICAL INFORMATION.

FACECLAIM - chloe bennet HAIR COLOR / EYE COLOR - brown / brown HEIGHT / BUILD - 5′6″ / athletic TATTOOS / PIERCINGS - a cheesy dragon tattoo she’s embarrassed of from high school that is on her right shoulder, an A with a circle around it on her right index finger. three lobe piercings per ear. DISTINGUISHABLE FEATURES - several scars across her hands from the time she smashed her stepdad’s windows in with a skateboard. black eyeliner. a trademark smirk.

MEDICAL INFORMATION.

MEDICAL HISTORY - appendectomy at seven. adhd and dyslexia. KNOWN ALLERGIES - lactose intolerant, but largely does not care. VISUAL IMPAIRMENT / HEARING IMPAIRMENT - slight hearing loss in her left ear from too many concerts–uses earplugs now. NICOTINE USE / DRUG USE / ALCOHOL USE - uses cigarettes and alcohol to excess. occasional drug use is limited to marijuana and cocaine. thinks hallucinogens are for hippies and ecstasy is for hipsters.

PERSONALITY.

TRAITS - ( + ) charismatic, robust, loyal ; ( - ) aggressive, sardonic, contrarian TROPES - anti-hero, functional addict, good old fisticuffs, brutal honesty, jerk with a heart of gold ( sometimes ). TEMPERAMENT - sanguine ALIGNMENT - chaotic neutral CELTIC TREE ZODIAC - reed, the inquisitor MBTI - istp HOGWARTS HOUSE - gryffindor VICE / VIRTUE - wrath; diligence LIKES / DISLIKES: music, bar fights, beer, smoking cigarettes all night, movie marathons, sleeping in her underwear, diner food, her cat and dog, sleeping til three pm,  /  people, pop-punk, anything she associates with the term ‘mall core,’ motorcycle clubs, children, dogs ( in general ), conversations, her parents. QUOTE:  ❝ in the company of wolves, they respect i eat first. ❞

FAVORITES.

FOOD - congee when she’s sick, pepperoni pizza, food truck burritos. DRINK - whiskey, black coffee. PIZZA TOPPING - pepperoni. COLOR - black. MUSIC - crust, thrash metal, unironic love of power ballads. BOOKS - comics, amityville horror, some stephen king, doesn’t read much. MOVIES - horror and scifi, especially 1970-present. CURSE WORD - she has a creative vocabulary, but leans on the word ‘fuck’ like it’s a crutch. SCENTS - leather, marlboros, french fries.

BIOGRAPHY.

trigger warnings: death, murder, gore, sex mention, assault, implied racism, violence, drug mention

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : GOOD THING – FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS

it’s a whirlwind romance, so the journal of nadja’s father would tell of it when her mother finally lets her read it. megan robbie spends her year abroad at tianjin university, hoping to make a new start for her life after the death of her parents. she has no siblings to lean on for support and the once strong childhood and college friendships that had promised permanence and fortitude had failed–crumbling under the weight of complicated grief. megan finds the exchange program that will take her as far away from victoria, bc as possible. northern china connects her somewhat distantly to her mother’s mother, a woman she barely sees in her own features and hardly remembers from her own childhood. megan finds herself falling in love with the coastal metropolis.

guoqiang feng plays guitar and spends his sunny college days reading in the quad. he has long hair and wears oversized sunglasses that megan thinks only he could pull off. they take their first trip during break with some friends down to sanya on hainan island and between the romance of the salty beach air and the hum of anchor beer have the new couple swimming in the saccharine haze of young love. they don’t wait until graduation to get married.

the wedding is a tasteful, small event where everyone remarks on the glow of megan’s soft face, as it shines like the moon–even brighter than the soft cream of her delicate lace dress that floats away from her body in an a-line cut just below the knee. when guoqiang sees her the whole world melts away. in her dark hair, she wears a modern filigree comb and lets her hair cascade over her shoulders in gentle waves. they have never been completely traditional.

no one seems to notice the small changes in megan’s body beneath her bridal garb. it is not long before the wedding that baby nuan grows in her belly–just now the size of a peach pit–kicking with the thunderous force of athena banging around in her father’s head. she is guoqiang’s daughter through and through. when she is born, it is a difficult birth and megan thinks that surely all this pain is worth it. she doesn’t see her baby for hours as she hemorrhages blood and the fundal massage the nurses perform to train her uterus to do what it was engineered to after birth is excruciating. there is nothing she wants more than to be a mother, she thinks, and when she holds nuan in her arms for the first time, she knows she cannot return to work and there is nothing left for her back home in british columbia.

they name the small girl for guoqiang’s feisty mother and megan gives her the english counterpart of nadja and the middle name of her own later mother. in megan’s arms, nuan can never seem to find peace and is quieted only long enough to eat before howling for her father. megan feng cannot understand what she has done wrong, but is comforted by the soft tutting of her husband as he quiets their precocious baby girl, insisting that she is just a fussy child and only seemed preferred him because he was so often at work.

college had worked out well for guoqiang and soon he was working for future tv in tianjin. the train rides home extended his time away as did the occasional afterwork dinner or meeting leaving megan and nadja to themselves for the most part during the week. if distance made the heart grow fonder, time made the heart grow sweeter. megan was full of yearning and though she cherished her time with the fussy, mischievous toddler it soon became not enough. she yearned for stimulating conversation and found herself nose deep in any literature she could get her hands on–eager to discuss the stories with guoqiang as he entered the house late at night with slumped shoulders.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : BELA LUGOSI’S DEAD – BAUHAUS

the time comes where guoqiang feng is bestowed with the good fortune of moving up in the company. despite being dead tired everyday, he considers himself lucky even as the dust continues to build on his baby blue fender stratocaster. once relegated to the work week, guoqiang’s long hours continue on long business trips throughout the country. the time apart does not shatter their foundation, but it does take its toll on the young couple. unwilling to let megan and nuan come second to anything, guoqiang makes some important changes.

on most nights, guoqiang starts skipping the afterwork cocktails–coming back home from with a little more energy than before. he starts to plan a family vacation to sanya to revitalize the marriage and get some much needed rest and relaxation. megan takes the news to heart and enthusiastically begins planning their itinerary. there is a new glimmer to the feng household and even nadja seems to be less fussy–toddling around with a smiling face. she takes steps on her own and starts to speak; her first word is ‘cat.’ the fengs get a cat. nadja can hardly remember life in tianjin, but nearly every moment of her childhood includes that cat she cannot name. the gossamer wings of nostalgia obscure so many things.

the fengs are as shocked as the rest of the world when news hits of sarin gas in nagano. it’s a stark juxtaposition when held up against guoqiang’s busy work days in tianjin or megan and nadja playful days in the coastal city of tianjin. the fengs have never been to japan aside from guoqiang’s rare trips to tokyo for business. when guoqiang doesn’t return to his hotel room in tokyo on time from the train to make his night call with his family a year later, it’s the furthest thing in the world from megan’s mind. she’s certain–despite nuan mounting tantrums–that he simply stayed out too late with colleagues following an impromptu dinner. when he never makes it home, megan wonders if she should count herself lucky or unlucky that nadja does not have the words to ask the deeper questions–not yet.

as spring approaches, ushering in the reminders of trips to sanya, megan feng holds nuan firmly in her arms in a dark room. they are all that is left. everything reminds megan of him. guoqiang’s ghost is inescapable and he is present in everything she does. guoqiang’s mother nuan comes to mourn her son, but stays to help a mother and child heal. it’s too much for one woman to carry alone, but despite their grief the two mothers make a go of it together.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : BURN – THE CURE

every grain of sand in bohai bay carries a piece of guoqiang in it. megan cannot breathe in her husband’s shadow and, despite the love she has for her home, she knows it is time to make a new life. the goodbyes are painful, but after she is accepted to study at the university of british columbia she knows that fate has chosen a new path for her. she is blessed to leave with her daughter in tow. the cat with a forgotten name stays with nuan’s nainai in her modest house by the sea. it will be a long time before little nuan looks upon her face again.

nuan starts kindergarten in vancouver, british columbia and struggles behind her classmates. back home she was touted as gifted, if not just a little too busy, but here she feels behind. by elementary school she is taking the bus and walking home to the apartment herself while megan finishes her degree. so many kids struggle with the name nuan, even though it is the simplest thing on her own tongue. she doesn’t get to choose between nuan and nadja; it is a choice made for her by her mother and the rest of the people she comes across. it isn’t perfect, but nadja will look back later upon this time with palpable longing; it’s the only time she remembers feeling happy with her mother because, as she’ll learn in an encroaching reading assignment–nothing gold can stay.

where nadja struggles, megan thrives. majoring in literature, she puts her love of reading to good use. it doesn’t even matter that she has to start seemingly from scratch when all of her credits don’t transfer over. three years into her bachelor’s and she meets professor preston clarke and is immediately enamored by his lecture style. he is, for all intents and purposes, the quintessential cool guy professor. they meet during his office hours and discuss poetry over coffee. the romance doesn’t cross the line until graduate school, when she becomes his teaching assistant. to protect his reputation she drops out of the program and applies for a teaching program instead. megan and nadja move into his tasteful craftsman in english bay. every time preston calls her ‘naddy’ instead of nuan or nadja she bristles; she knows this man has no business playing her father.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : LEXICON DEVIL – THE GERMS

as nadja grows so do her problems in school. the letters seem to dance off the page like fall leaves and she is unable to sit still to focus like the other kids. the more nadja struggles, the more megan and preston push her. it only deepens the divide between them. the only balm for her anger is the occasional stretches of the year when nainai visits. it is the only time nadja freely speaks chinese in the household where her mother coddles her monolingual partner. when nainai is there, nadja does not break her toys or rip apart preston’s coffee table books–she runs into the arms of her grandmother and finds the comfort of her father. with grandma feng in the house, the tensions seem to lessen.

there’s an anger in her that is burning, stirring–embers glow now and soon they will be flames. she is talented at finding trouble. she hates her stepfather because he acts like he understands her mother and pretends he understands her. he is holden caulfield. he is jack kerouac. he is a thousand and one tired perspectives. he understands nothing. resentment mounts like bile in her throat and it coats every acrid word she speaks to her mother for choosing a man like him–for choosing that same man every time over everyone and everything else.

it’s the music that nadja channels this anger into. she spends her afternoons skateboarding of messing around on her dad’s old stratocaster. she paints her lips black and clings to anything that turns to corners of her mother’s lips downard in disapproval. nadja tells herself it’s her mother’s choice, this rebellion. it’s the choice she made when she plucked her small daughter from her father’s home and forced her into the hostile canadian soil. in that soil, megan feng becomes meg clarke. she blossoms and grows, building a home in old grief to runaway from new loss. nadja refuses the surname and stands her ground; she will not forfeit her father’s name.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : OH BONDAGE ! UP YOURS ! – XRAY SPEX

freshman year brings a new sense of freedom to nadja life. skipping class to smoke cigarettes and crush beer cans under the bridge beats the annoyed sighs of teachers who think ‘nadja feng just doesn’t apply herself.’ when she runs out of cash for smokes or weed at the end of the school day, nadja skates over to the university to bum a few dollars off her stepdad. she’s done it half a dozen times this month alone and there’s nothing to suggest this day will go any differently. as she approaches his office, she zips up the black hoodie she’s altered with dental floss to cover the band shirt beneath as a small act of appeasement.

instead of finding him alone, drinking scotch and contemplating the loneliness his mediocre life affords him, nadja finds him with his hand on the thigh of another bright-eyed literature major–his position as a professor adding an attraction to him that would otherwise go overlooked. she turns sharply on the heel of her black doc martens, storming out to the parking lot to the tenured professor’s coveted parking spot. the silver sedan glistens in the spring sunshine. it’s so close to the anniversary of her father’s death, which has come and gone unmarked yet again in preston clarke’s household. april showers bring may flowers, but in the parking lot it is raining safety glass as she smashes out the windows of the sedan with the trucks of her skateboard. the clarkes have always seemed to be more interested in the status of parenthood rather than the labor love takes. it feels good to break something he loves.

when preston finds out he insists that nainai’s summer visit be cancelled and megan feels pressured to oblige; she has always only wanted harmony between preston and nadja and it seems farther away than ever. the punishment does not serve to temper her into a well-honed tool. nadja anger is a wolf lapping its own blood off the blade of a knife; the meal satiates her, but it is she who is hemorrhaging. she runs away several times before it sticks–never speaking to her mom and stepdad again when she finally manages to get out.

couch surfing with friends and surviving somewhere between traincar and tall boys of steel reserve, she joins a series of moderately popular local punk bands–unable to commit to anything for too long. it builds up her reputation in vancouver’s punk community, however, and soon she has the family she’s always wanted–a large group of friends. nadja casts off her old identity. she is finding her footing in brand new velvet burgundy docs–a kickdown from some drunk girl at a show. they’re a little too big, but with a couple pairs of wool socks, she can hardly tell the difference.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : I LOVE LIVIN’ IN THE CITY – FEAR

by twenty-one, things have picked up for nadja. the girl has split her time between working at smoke shops and alternative cafes long enough to have obtained her ged and now she works the front door at a popular punk bar. at an average heigh tof 5′6″ the fast-talking, loud mouthed runaway has other ways to cut even the tallest men to half her size. her temper gets her into trouble, but her charisma and work ethic keep her employed.

without her parents’ finances, it becomes more and more difficult for nadja to see her grandmother and their visits are relegated predominantly to weekly skype conversations. nainai works with her granddaughter to keep up her mandarin and the girl dreams of returning home and spending the weekdays working in tianjin only to return to the calm beach town where her grandmother still lives in the house she was born in. it seems like a pipe dream, but it is one both women hold onto. it is the only dream either one has left. grandma feng no longer has any reason to speak to her once beloved daughter in law either, but there is no spite. she knows that nadja’s mother cannot bear to have the thorns of guoqiang’s death in her paws for a lifetime. grief is complicated, but better understood by those who’ve lived long enough to see enough of it.

after a few years, nadja becomes lead bartender, but the money just isn’t rolling in. the bar threatens to close and nadja begins taking night classes and setting money away in the hopes that a business degree will legitimize her enough for a business loan so she can buy the place herself. it cements her in bc, but with enough money she could at least afford to bring her grandmother out to see her on occasion. it’s not a homecoming, sure, but perhaps it is a homemaking.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : EVER FALLEN IN LOVE – THE BUZZCOCKS

like her mother and father before her, nadja falls in love with a boy playing guitar–spitting his own blood on the crowd of the bar like gasoline. kurt is tall and lanky with a padlock securing a chain around his throat. his long, dark hair frames his freckled face so delicately for someone with such an obtrusive frame. it’s not long before the spiteful bartender and the guitarist who lives in his van and calls himself ‘freegan’ to justify dumpster diving cheese pizzas are inseparable. he moves in quickly to her place, more or less because he doesn’t have a stable place to leave his shit when he’s on tour.

it suits her just fine when he’s away playing shows or laying down tracks on a seven inch. the bands slays and kurt and nadja have fun together. they get drunk on forties in train yards and cemeteries. they drive out to the beach and fuck in his van before tagging up the concrete retaining walls of a beachfront housing development. it seems like they might spend the rest of their lives smoking weed and cigarettes on the porch, scarfing down breakfast burritos at three am, and marathoning eighties horror movies like each time is the first time. nadja doesn’t know if she believes in love, but she thinks that maybe this is close enough. her skype calls to grandma feng become spotty in these first few months. it is the thing she will live to regret the most.

nadja becomes lax under the spell of love. coursework does not go unfinished, but she lets kurt hangout sometimes in the bar when she’s closing. eventually, her boss concedes to hire him on as a dishwasher and–though he complains about wanting a better position–he shows up to work most days more or less on time with a fresh cigarette behind his ear and an easy grin. he closes up some nights with nadja or the other bartender–a menacing looking american girl named natasha that bites her nails when she thinks no one is looking and always smells like damp patchouli and sweat.

on a moonless night in december, not long after their one year anniversary, nadja arrives to the community college to see that class is cancelled. excited to return early to the bar and surprise kurt with some burgers and garlic fries, she is crushed to find him in the arms of natasha. the pair are showered in burgers and nadja catches one of them with an empty bottle she isn’t sure she truly means to make contact with. the sound of shattered glass has always been a lullaby to an angry girl.

she’s not even all the way back to her apartment before she gets the call. nadja feng is fucking firedand kurt has given her the blame for the money he’s been skimming from the place on the sly. they’re debating on whether or not to press charges. nadja sells all of kurt’s second-rate band equipment to a pawn shop along with the things that don’t mean enough to carry on her back. she buys a plane ticket to tianjin by way of los angeles that day. with christmas lurking around the corner, it’s the best bang for her buck. nadja leaves her house keys on the empty floor. fuck leases and fuck kurt stevens.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : SPELLBOUND – SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES

the corrosive memories of kurt and natasha’s tryst are far from nadja’s mind as she finishes the skype call with her grandmother giving her the good news. understandably, grandma feng is concerned about the impulsive decision, but she knows her granddaughter well enough. even a girl as rash as a summer forest fire sometimes makes the right choice. they have dreamed of reuniting for so long, it is hard to take the news with anything but a tearful smile. nadja hears it in her voice–it colors every word. for the first time in nadja’s young life she thinks: i’m coming home.

the drive is a long one, but nadja is worried about the possibility of being forced to stay in bc due to assault charges. she can drive down the west coast and breathe in the salty air. she can eat clam strips and throw bread to seagulls in some seaside diner while she watches the tumultuous waves of the oregon coast thrash violently against the rocky shore. maybe it’ll be therapeutic, she thinks, to be one small person along a great, dark sea. a few days more. a few days and she’ll be back in tianjin and maybe she and nainai can get a new cat together. maybe the waves that beat the sands of dongjiang bay beach are softer and kinder than those in the pacific northwest.

it’s a lonely ride down and after three days of reflection and solitude, nadja feels like crawling out of her own skin. it’s too much peace for a girl born of chaos. perhaps it’s self-destruction or maybe it’s idle boredom, but when she sees the young crust punk couple hitchiking on the side of the road, she thinks fuck it, at least it’s something new and pulls over for them. they’re on the way to yuma city and she agrees to drop them off on her way to lax. they seem fine enough. she doesn’t even mind the little blue heeler they have with them, even though she’s a dyed in the wool cat person. the track marks don’t go unnoticed, but it’s nothing new to a veteran of the punk scene and nadja feng can handle anything.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : DEAD END JUSTICE – THE RUNAWAYS

after a day on the road, the trio and their small dog throw down a few bucks to sleep in one of the cabins at a kampground of america. it’s not so bad, but the puppy whines all night and pees on the floor once in the early hours of the morning. nadja lies awake on the top bunk and she can hear the pair talking below her. wes speaking in his dopey voice, hardly whispering and maya shushing him in harsh whispers. nadja eeps her movements to the minimum and her eyes closed after she hears them pause for several moments when she readjusts. she’s certain she can smell maya’s breath for a moment as she hears the bed creak and feels a steely finger in her ribs. keeping her breaths steady, she plays opossum.

it becomes clear to her, once the bed creaks and maya starts talking again that they mean to rip her off. maya even asks wes is he’s ever wondered what it would feel like to kill somebody. nadja’s seen the way he looks at her; he’d die for her. he’d kill for her. boy, have they fucked with the wrong girl, nadja thinks darkly. covers pulled up to her chin. there’s a butterfly knife in her pocket and the shape of it has left an impression on the skin of her thigh. slowly she reaches for it and works to silently unfold it, clutching it to her chest beneath the covers when she’s through. they’re gonna pay. she’s never thought herself a killer, but she’s been a fighter since she was in her mother’s belly. let them try it, she thinks. and they do.

lying in wait, knowing it was coming doesn’t prepare her for what it will truly be like. there’s a fist in her face before she can speak, with the harsh instructions to get up. sucker punched and it’s not even four am yet. helluvah night. the punch stuns her, but she means to be ready. as wes pulls the covers from her bed, she spring on maya like a cat–butterfly knife, formerly a novelty, an aesthetic–arching blood across the cabin walls. maya has to be first, because she’s meanest. the shock will stun wes long enough for her to turn on him even though he’s bigger. somewhere in the darkness, their small dog yelps and paws at the door.

maya is easily overtaken. nadja has the element of surprise and a few inches on her. she wonders what it says about her that she can dispatch a shitty person so easily. it’s not like highlander; she doesn’t gain mystical powers when she sticks maya in the neck with that cheap butterfly knife. all she gets is blood. wes, on the other hand, he’s harder once he realizes his life is on the line. easily, he has half a foot and thirty pounds on her and he gives almost as good as he gets. nadja swallows a molar and take a hit so hard her ears ring, but she doesn’t stop. her whole life has been filled with a rage that she has let out in metered doses. tonight she lets it all out; tonight she knows she can never go back to vancouver, but she can still go home. she doesn’t stop until the dog barks at her loudly to go outside and she wonders if he didn’t trust them either.

they’d named him something stupid, like chaos or dogmeat. he wasn’t a fucking fallout canine companion even if they fancied themselves raiders. heroin and the open road, punk rock and a boxcar–she knows how romantic it all can seem. they probably thought they were mad max or negan. in the end they were just assholes. nadja feng is a cat person, but she can’t just leave this poor dog in the cabin with all that blood. he’s barely more than a puppy. nadja doesn’t know what the fuck to do with a dog, but … he is kind of cute. his blue-grey fur reminds her of an old man’s beard–a little old grandpa–and so the name, while never meant to be permanent, sticks. and so does grandpa, it seems, as he never leaves her side. they’ll have to head east, farther from the scene of the crime and buy a plane ticket from somewhere like phoenix. she chides herself as she wonders how much it costs to ship a dog to tianjin and decides fuck it, it doesn’t really matter. their friendship was baptized in blood, she and the dog belong together.

▓ ▌NOW PLAYING : THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT – THE SMITHS

the open road at night in the desert has an eerie quality to it and nadja is running from ghosts. phantoms who catch her easiest when she is sleeping, grandpa curled under her arm, in the back seat of her beat up muscle car. she’s never seen a place quiet like this and maybe it’d even be beautiful if she wasn’t alone–lady macbeth on the run. at least the dog’s good company, he doesn’t seem to care what she’s done and long as she feeds him. there’s something kind of nice about the newness of unconditional love.

she doesn’t call her grandmother to tell her about the change in flight plans, not yet anyway. once nainai’s voice sound on the other end, she knows she’ll burst into tears. she doesn’t deserve a grandmother like that, but she knows that an old woman can’t care for herself forever. she can at least give her that. if she can’t give her fat grandchildren and a fancy house on the beach, she can at least be there for her–if only she could find the highway.

driving and coffee, it seems like that’s all she’s known as she focuses on getting to phoenix as fast as possible. inhumanely fast, impossibly fast. it can be an alibi or an escape. there’s no way anyone’s going to believe she was the victim when they see wes’ body. too angry for too long–she’s really fucked it up this time. she doesn’t even google news reports, not wanting to know what might be waiting for her when she finally makes it to the airport and fuck, she can still not find the main highway, but there’s hope in the form of some no horse shithole named boot hill. ahead of schedule from driving like a bat out of hell, maybe she can rest for one night. maybe her demons can’t find her in this place. it’s almost a mirage–the oasis in the desert of cartoon, she thinks. who would ever think to find her in a place like this? the don’t even have a starbucks here, let alone a prison.

before she knows it, it’s been four months. nainai was understanding when she said she’d run into some bad luck and was staying in this small town. she’s just laying low of course, and she promises her grandmother everyday that she’ll be out to phoenix to catch her flight before she knows it. maybe nainai even believes it, because she says ‘my friends in la tell me there was a murder along the freeway there, be careful, sweet girl’ and nadja cringes, because she is not a sweet girl. she’s a killer and a prisoner and only one of those truths is she fully aware of in boot hill.

[dfhvn]

Album of the Week: Deafheaven ‘Ordinary Corrupt Human Love’ // Stereogum

Feature by Chris DeVille via Stereogum After the soothing sound of the ocean tide, the first instrument you hear on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is a piano. Soon its somber neoclassical arpeggios are intertwining with the yearning slide guitar that has marked many of the most pleasant interludes on previous Deafheaven tracks, and before long the song has bloomed into an elegant suite not unlike the second half of “Layla.” A loosely swaying drumbeat lifts the music to a low cruising altitude. A woman’s voice low in the mix reads poetry about a transformative twilight stroll, evoking smoke-blinded eyes and geese “shrieking into what was left of the evening.” It all builds up so naturally and gradually that when Kerry McCoy’s guitar goes whipping upward into “November Rain” theatrics and George Clarke’s harsh black metal growl finally enters the frame, they feel of a piece with the beauty surrounding them — clouds that ominously gather for some thunderclaps before dispersing without a storm.

The downpour eventually does roll in on “You Without End,” but even at the peak of its fury it never approaches the blistering intensity that has historically introduced a Deafheaven album. Consider it a thesis statement for Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. Although unmistakably the work of the band that gave us twin masterpieces Sunbather and New Bermuda — with help from producer Jack Shirley, their very own George Martin figure — these seven tracks err on the side of Deafheaven’s most accessible impulses. Sublime atmospheric beauty lingers over everything like a haze. Gnarly classic rock riffs rip across the chaos as if beamed in from FM radio. Clarke and his bandmates actually sing a few times, and gorgeously so. It’s the prettiest and least metal album yet from a band sometimes maligned for being too pretty and not metal enough. Among skeptics, the rap against Deafheaven has always been that they’re a token fashion accessory for indie poseurs who know nothing about metal. This is at least partially true; as an indie poseur who knows nothing about metal, I’ve been a devoted Deafheaven fan ever since Sunbather fulfilled the promise of debut Roads To Judah and gave them their big crossover moment five years ago. Where many of their peers and influences have not connected with me, this group’s fusion of black metal, post-rock, and shoegaze triggered a violent euphoria in the depths of my soul. Deafheaven satisfied a hunger I didn’t know I had for grippingly visceral yet blindingly beautiful heavy rock music. The scene politics around them are as meaningless to me as the music itself is meaningful. Many of my fellow dilettantes felt the same way, but so did quite a few lifelong metal zealots: Who cares what you call it when it rules this hard? Deafheaven, however, seemed to pay at least some heed to the authenticity police. Their first album after becoming media darlings, 2015’s New Bermuda, wasn’t a straightforward black metal release by any means, but it edged closer to that polarity. The dreamy, poppy qualities that gave Deafheaven entry into the critical mainstream were riding shotgun, conceding the driver’s seat to absolute combustible brutality. New Bermuda was louder and harsher than the already loud, harsh Sunbather, less like being overtaken by a wave of magnificent translucent destruction and more like being viciously beaten by an army of invaders. Whether this was a purposeful response to the backlash was unclear — and fortunately New Bermuda was brain-fryingly spectacular regardless of motive — but the album struck me as a band working hard to show off its metal bonafides.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love swings hard in the opposite direction — or rather, at times it swings quite gently and gracefully. Rather than the ennui of Sunbather or the foreboding of New Bermuda, this is an album about love and intimacy and nature and epiphany. It sounds like the natural creative runoff from the placid, bougie LA life described in our recent cover story, the healing aftermath following years of hard living. Which is not to say every song forgoes Deafheaven’s signature heaven-collapsing-into-hell bombast the way “You Without End” does. Advance singles “Honeycomb” and “Canary Yellow” plus “Glint” add up to more than half the album’s run time, and all of them find this band doing what they do best, crafting grandiose genre-agnostic symphonies that build to peaks of ecstatic celestial bombardment. All the other elements of this band’s sound feel so much more monumental when leading up to an onslaught of blast beats, gleaming tremolo noise, and shrill indecipherable shrieking.

Yet even those songs in the classic Deafheaven mold add new details to the formula, be it the group chant that courses through the end of “Canary Yellow” or the Camaro-jamming Thin Lizzy breakdown in “Honeycomb” that regularly moves me to gleeful air-guitar outbursts. It’s clear Deafheaven are pushing not to repeat themselves and to continue expanding their arsenal. Sometimes, as on “Near” and “Night People,” that amounts to a disarmament. These are songs on which the band never revs up beyond a baseline shoegaze drift and Clarke trades his usual rasp for conventional melodic singing, in the latter case accompanied by Chelsea Wolfe. His voice is deep and maudlin, accentuating the drama in entirely new ways — not least of which the ability to make out what he’s singing about without the aid of a lyrics sheet. (Some of the album’s more impressionistic lyrics — say, “I have wondered about the language of flowers/ And you, elaborate mosaic, greeting me,” or “And alabaster lips unseal/ So I may recall the soft timbre of whisper in its stillness” — are better left obscured by screaming, when they can embody whatever meaning you want them to.)

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is bookended by two songs that split the difference between your usual Deafheaven cacophony and those decidedly scaled-back ballads. It begins with the aforementioned “You Without End,” the expansively pretty overture that has drawn more than one comparison to Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. And it concludes with “Worthless Animal,” a 10-minute post-metal epic that just builds and builds and builds, like the soundtrack to the raddest flight simulator of all time. As Clarke barks out more surrealist gobbledygook about “the ladies cradling streams of buttermilk current” and such, his bandmates rise skyward, vigorously careen through turbulence, and eventually soar out into the great unknown, presumably to discover another chapter of the Deafheaven story. In the meantime, we’ve got this one, presenting masters of tumult giving peace a chance, still capable of demolishing you but sometimes content to let beauty escape into the world unscathed.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is out 7/13 on Anti-. Pre-order it here and stream it here.

[fiinalgiirls]

GENERAL INFORMATION.

FULL NAME - nuan / nadja feng NICKNAMES - fengoria GENDER / PRONOUNS - she/her DATE OF BIRTH - november 12, 1990 PLACE OF BIRTH - vancouver, british columbia CITIZENSHIP / ETHNICITY - canadian / chinese & white RELIGION - atheist SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS / POLITICAL AFFILIATION - middle class; nihilistic, but liberal. MARITAL STATUS - single. SEXUAL & ROMANTIC ORIENTATION - pansexual. EDUCATION / OCCUPATION - associate’s degree in business; bartender, projectionist. LANGUAGES - mandarin, english

FAMILY INFORMATION.

PARENTS - guoqiang feng ( deceased ) and megan robbie / feng / clarke ( estranged ). SIBLINGS - none OFFSPRING - none PETS / OTHER - pyewacket ( a small, black cat ) that she hasn’t obtained yet in canon, grandpa ( a blue heeler ). NOTABLE EXTENDED FAMILY - grandmother, qianyi feng ( her namesake ) stepdad, preston clarke ( estranged ).

PHYSICAL INFORMATION.

FACECLAIM - chloe bennet HAIR COLOR / EYE COLOR - brown / brown HEIGHT / BUILD - 5′6″ / athletic TATTOOS / PIERCINGS - a cheesy dragon tattoo she’s embarrassed of from high school that is on her right shoulder, an A with a circle around it on her right index finger. three lobe piercings per ear. DISTINGUISHABLE FEATURES - several scars across her hands from the time she smashed her stepdad’s windows in with a skateboard. black eyeliner. a trademark smirk.

MEDICAL INFORMATION.

MEDICAL HISTORY - appendectomy at seven. adhd and dyslexia. KNOWN ALLERGIES - lactose intolerant, but largely does not care. VISUAL IMPAIRMENT / HEARING IMPAIRMENT - slight hearing loss in her left ear from too many concerts–uses earplugs now. NICOTINE USE / DRUG USE / ALCOHOL USE - uses cigarettes and alcohol to excess. occasional drug use is limited to marijuana and cocaine. thinks hallucinogens are for hippies and ecstasy is for hipsters.

PERSONALITY.

TRAITS - charismatic, robust, loyal ; aggressive, sardonic, contrarian TROPES - anti-hero, functional addict, good old fisticuffs, brutal honesty, jerk with a heart of gold ( sometimes ). TEMPERAMENT - sanguine ALIGNMENT - chaotic neutral CELTIC TREE ZODIAC - reed, the inquisitor MBTI - istp HOGWARTS HOUSE - gryffindor VICE / VIRTUE - wrath; diligence LIKES / DISLIKES: music, bar fights, beer, smoking cigarettes all night, movie marathons, sleeping in her underwear, diner food, her cat and dog, sleeping til three pm,  /  people, pop-punk, anything she associates with the term ‘mall core,’ motorcycle clubs, children, dogs ( in general ), conversations, her parents. QUOTE:  ❝ in the company of wolves, they respect i eat first. ❞

FAVORITES.

FOOD - congee when she’s sick, pepperoni pizza, food truck burritos. DRINK - whiskey, black coffee. PIZZA TOPPING - pepperoni. COLOR - black. MUSIC - crust, thrash metal, unironic love of power ballads. BOOKS - comics, amityville horror, some stephen king, doesn’t read much. MOVIES - horror and scifi, especially 1970-present. CURSE WORD - she has a creative vocabulary, but leans on the word ‘fuck’ like it’s a crutch. SCENTS - leather, marlboros, french fries.

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: death, murder, gore, sex mention, assault, implied racism, violence, drug mention

▓ ▌now playing : good thing – fine young cannibals

it’s a whirlwind romance, so the journal of nadja’s father would tell of it when her mother finally lets her read it. megan robbie spends her year abroad at tianjin university, hoping to make a new start for her life after the death of her parents. she has no siblings to lean on for support and the once strong childhood and college friendships that had promised permanence and fortitude had failed–crumbling under the weight of complicated grief. megan finds the exchange program that will take her as far away from victoria, bc as possible. northern china connects her somewhat distantly to her mother’s mother, a woman she barely sees in her own features and hardly remembers from her own childhood. megan finds herself falling in love with the coastal metropolis.

guoqiang feng plays guitar and spends his sunny college days reading in the quad. he has long hair and wears oversized sunglasses that megan thinks only he could pull off. they take their first trip during break with some friends down to sanya on hainan island and between the romance of the salty beach air and the hum of anchor beer have the new couple swimming in the saccharine haze of young love. they don’t wait until graduation to get married.

the wedding is a tasteful, small event where everyone remarks on the glow of megan’s soft face, as it shines like the moon–even brighter than the soft cream of her delicate lace dress that floats away from her body in an a-line cut just below the knee. when guoqiang sees her the whole world melts away. in her dark hair, she wears a modern filigree comb and lets her hair cascade over her shoulders in gentle waves. they have never been completely traditional.

no one seems to notice the small changes in megan’s body beneath her bridal garb. it is not long before the wedding that baby nuan grows in her belly–just now the size of a peach pit–kicking with the thunderous force of athena banging around in her father’s head. she is guoqiang’s daughter through and through. when she is born, it is a difficult birth and megan thinks that surely all this pain is worth it. she doesn’t see her baby for hours as she hemorrhages blood and the fundal massage the nurses perform to train her uterus to do what it was engineered to after birth is excruciating. there is nothing she wants more than to be a mother, she thinks, and when she holds nuan in her arms for the first time, she knows she cannot return to work and there is nothing left for her back home in british columbia.

they name the small girl for guoqiang’s feisty mother and megan gives her the english counterpart of nadja and the middle name of her own later mother. in megan’s arms, nuan can never seem to find peace and is quieted only long enough to eat before howling for her father. megan feng cannot understand what she has done wrong, but is comforted by the soft tutting of her husband as he quiets their precocious baby girl, insisting that she is just a fussy child and only seemed preferred him because he was so often at work.

college had worked out well for guoqiang and soon he was working for future tv in tianjin. the train rides home extended his time away as did the occasional afterwork dinner or meeting leaving megan and nadja to themselves for the most part during the week. if distance made the heart grow fonder, time made the heart grow sweeter. megan was full of yearning and though she cherished her time with the fussy, mischievous toddler it soon became not enough. she yearned for stimulating conversation and found herself nose deep in any literature she could get her hands on–eager to discuss the stories with guoqiang as he entered the house late at night with slumped shoulders.

▓ ▌now playing : bela lugosi’s dead – bauhaus

the time comes where guoqiang feng is bestowed with the good fortune of moving up in the company. despite being dead tired everyday, he considers himself lucky even as the dust continues to build on his baby blue fender stratocaster. once relegated to the work week, guoqiang’s long hours continue on long business trips throughout the country. the time apart does not shatter their foundation, but it does take its toll on the young couple. unwilling to let megan and nuan come second to anything, guoqiang makes some important changes.

on most nights, guoqiang starts skipping the afterwork cocktails–coming back home from with a little more energy than before. he starts to plan a family vacation to sanya to revitalize the marriage and get some much needed rest and relaxation. megan takes the news to heart and enthusiastically begins planning their itinerary. there is a new glimmer to the feng household and even nadja seems to be less fussy–toddling around with a smiling face. she takes steps on her own and starts to speak; her first word is ‘cat.’ the fengs get a cat. nadja can hardly remember life in tianjin, but nearly every moment of her childhood includes that cat she cannot name. the gossamer wings of nostalgia obscure so many things.

the fengs are as shocked as the rest of the world when news hits of sarin gas in nagano. it’s a stark juxtaposition when held up against guoqiang’s busy work days in tianjin or megan and nadja playful days in the coastal city of tianjin. the fengs have never been to japan aside from guoqiang’s rare trips to tokyo for business. when guoqiang doesn’t return to his hotel room in tokyo on time from the train to make his night call with his family a year later, it’s the furthest thing in the world from megan’s mind. she’s certain–despite nuan mounting tantrums–that he simply stayed out too late with colleagues following an impromptu dinner. when he never makes it home, megan wonders if she should count herself lucky or unlucky that nadja does not have the words to ask the deeper questions–not yet.

as spring approaches, ushering in the reminders of trips to sanya, megan feng holds nuan firmly in her arms in a dark room. they are all that is left. everything reminds megan of him. guoqiang’s ghost is inescapable and he is present in everything she does. guoqiang’s mother nuan comes to mourn her son, but stays to help a mother and child heal. it’s too much for one woman to carry alone, but despite their grief the two mothers make a go of it together.

▓ ▌now playing : burn – the cure

every grain of sand in bohai bay carries a piece of guoqiang in it. megan cannot breathe in her husband’s shadow and, despite the love she has for her home, she knows it is time to make a new life. the goodbyes are painful, but after she is accepted to study at the university of british columbia she knows that fate has chosen a new path for her. she is blessed to leave with her daughter in tow. the cat with a forgotten name stays with nuan’s nainai in her modest house by the sea. it will be a long time before little nuan looks upon her face again.

nuan starts kindergarten in vancouver, british columbia and struggles behind her classmates. back home she was touted as gifted, if not just a little too busy, but here she feels behind. by elementary school she is taking the bus and walking home to the apartment herself while megan finishes her degree. so many kids struggle with the name nuan, even though it is the simplest thing on her own tongue. she doesn’t get to choose between nuan and nadja; it is a choice made for her by her mother and the rest of the people she comes across. it isn’t perfect, but nadja will look back later upon this time with palpable longing; it’s the only time she remembers feeling happy with her mother because, as she’ll learn in an encroaching reading assignment–nothing gold can stay.

where nadja struggles, megan thrives. majoring in literature, she puts her love of reading to good use. it doesn’t even matter that she has to start seemingly from scratch when all of her credits don’t transfer over. three years into her bachelor’s and she meets professor preston clarke and is immediately enamored by his lecture style. he is, for all intents and purposes, the quintessential cool guy professor. they meet during his office hours and discuss poetry over coffee. the romance doesn’t cross the line until graduate school, when she becomes his teaching assistant. to protect his reputation she drops out of the program and applies for a teaching program instead. megan and nadja move into his tasteful craftsman in english bay. every time preston calls her ‘naddy’ instead of nuan or nadja she bristles; she knows this man has no business playing her father.

▓ ▌now playing : lexicon devil – the germs

as nadja grows so do her problems in school. the letters seem to dance off the page like fall leaves and she is unable to sit still to focus like the other kids. the more nadja struggles, the more megan and preston push her. it only deepens the divide between them. the only balm for her anger is the occasional stretches of the year when nainai visits. it is the only time nadja freely speaks chinese in the household where her mother coddles her monolingual partner. when nainai is there, nadja does not break her toys or rip apart preston’s coffee table books–she runs into the arms of her grandmother and finds the comfort of her father. with grandma feng in the house, the tensions seem to lessen.

there’s an anger in her that is burning, stirring–embers glow now and soon they will be flames. she is talented at finding trouble. she hates her stepfather because he acts like he understands her mother and pretends he understands her. he is holden caulfield. he is jack kerouac. he is a thousand and one tired perspectives. he understands nothing. resentment mounts like bile in her throat and it coats every acrid word she speaks to her mother for choosing a man like him–for choosing that same man every time over everyone and everything else.

it’s the music that nadja channels this anger into. she spends her afternoons skateboarding of messing around on her dad’s old stratocaster. she paints her lips black and clings to anything that turns to corners of her mother’s lips downard in disapproval. nadja tells herself it’s her mother’s choice, this rebellion. it’s the choice she made when she plucked her small daughter from her father’s home and forced her into the hostile canadian soil. in that soil, megan feng becomes meg clarke. she blossoms and grows, building a home in old grief to runaway from new loss. nadja refuses the surname and stands her ground; she will not forfeit her father’s name.

▓ ▌now playing : oh bondage ! up yours ! – xray spex

freshman year brings a new sense of freedom to nadja life. skipping class to smoke cigarettes and crush beer cans under the bridge beats the annoyed sighs of teachers who think ‘nadja feng just doesn’t apply herself.’ when she runs out of cash for smokes or weed at the end of the school day, nadja skates over to the university to bum a few dollars off her stepdad. she’s done it half a dozen times this month alone and there’s nothing to suggest this day will go any differently. as she approaches his office, she zips up the black hoodie she’s altered with dental floss to cover the band shirt beneath as a small act of appeasement.

instead of finding him alone, drinking scotch and contemplating the loneliness his mediocre life affords him, nadja finds him with his hand on the thigh of another bright-eyed literature major–his position as a professor adding an attraction to him that would otherwise go overlooked. she turns sharply on the heel of her black doc martens, storming out to the parking lot to the tenured professor’s coveted parking spot. the silver sedan glistens in the spring sunshine. it’s so close to the anniversary of her father’s death, which has come and gone unmarked yet again in preston clarke’s household. april showers bring may flowers, but in the parking lot it is raining safety glass as she smashes out the windows of the sedan with the trucks of her skateboard. the clarkes have always seemed to be more interested in the status of parenthood rather than the labor love takes. it feels good to break something he loves.

when preston finds out he insists that nainai’s summer visit be cancelled and megan feels pressured to oblige; she has always only wanted harmony between preston and nadja and it seems farther away than ever. the punishment does not serve to temper her into a well-honed tool. nadja anger is a wolf lapping its own blood off the blade of a knife; the meal satiates her, but it is she who is hemorrhaging. she runs away several times before it sticks–never speaking to her mom and stepdad again when she finally manages to get out.

couch surfing with friends and surviving somewhere between traincar and tall boys of steel reserve, she joins a series of moderately popular local punk bands–unable to commit to anything for too long. it builds up her reputation in vancouver’s punk community, however, and soon she has the family she’s always wanted–a large group of friends. nadja casts off her old identity. she is finding her footing in brand new velvet burgundy docs–a kickdown from some drunk girl at a show. they’re a little too big, but with a couple pairs of wool socks, she can hardly tell the difference.

▓ ▌now playing : i love livin’ in the city – fear

by twenty-one, things have picked up for nadja. the girl has split her time between working at smoke shops and alternative cafes long enough to have obtained her ged and now she works the front door at a popular punk bar. at an average heigh tof 5′6″ the fast-talking, loud mouthed runaway has other ways to cut even the tallest men to half her size. her temper gets her into trouble, but her charisma and work ethic keep her employed.

without her parents’ finances, it becomes more and more difficult for nadja to see her grandmother and their visits are relegated predominantly to weekly skype conversations. nainai works with her granddaughter to keep up her mandarin and the girl dreams of returning home and spending the weekdays working in tianjin only to return to the calm beach town where her grandmother still lives in the house she was born in. it seems like a pipe dream, but it is one both women hold onto. it is the only dream either one has left. grandma feng no longer has any reason to speak to her once beloved daughter in law either, but there is no spite. she knows that nadja’s mother cannot bear to have the thorns of guoqiang’s death in her paws for a lifetime. grief is complicated, but better understood by those who’ve lived long enough to see enough of it.

after a few years, nadja becomes lead bartender, but the money just isn’t rolling in. the bar threatens to close and nadja begins taking night classes and setting money away in the hopes that a business degree will legitimize her enough for a business loan so she can buy the place herself. it cements her in bc, but with enough money she could at least afford to bring her grandmother out to see her on occasion. it’s not a homecoming, sure, but perhaps it is a homemaking.

▓ ▌now playing : ever fallen in love – the buzzcocks

like her mother and father before her, nadja falls in love with a boy playing guitar–spitting his own blood on the crowd of the bar like gasoline. kurt is tall and lanky with a padlock securing a chain around his throat. his long, dark hair frames his freckled face so delicately for someone with such an obtrusive frame. it’s not long before the spiteful bartender and the guitarist who lives in his van and calls himself ‘freegan’ to justify dumpster diving cheese pizzas are inseparable. he moves in quickly to her place, more or less because he doesn’t have a stable place to leave his shit when he’s on tour.

it suits her just fine when he’s away playing shows or laying down tracks on a seven inch. the bands slays and kurt and nadja have fun together. they get drunk on forties in train yards and cemeteries. they drive out to the beach and fuck in his van before tagging up the concrete retaining walls of a beachfront housing development. it seems like they might spend the rest of their lives smoking weed and cigarettes on the porch, scarfing down breakfast burritos at three am, and marathoning eighties horror movies like each time is the first time. nadja doesn’t know if she believes in love, but she thinks that maybe this is close enough. her skype calls to grandma feng become spotty in these first few months. it is the thing she will live to regret the most.

nadja becomes lax under the spell of love. coursework does not go unfinished, but she lets kurt hangout sometimes in the bar when she’s closing. eventually, her boss concedes to hire him on as a dishwasher and–though he complains about wanting a better position–he shows up to work most days more or less on time with a fresh cigarette behind his ear and an easy grin. he closes up some nights with nadja or the other bartender–a menacing looking american girl named natasha that bites her nails when she thinks no one is looking and always smells like damp patchouli and sweat.

on a moonless night in december, not long after their one year anniversary, nadja arrives to the community college to see that class is cancelled. excited to return early to the bar and surprise kurt with some burgers and garlic fries, she is crushed to find him in the arms of natasha. the pair are showered in burgers and nadja catches one of them with an empty bottle she isn’t sure she truly means to make contact with. the sound of shattered glass has always been a lullaby to an angry girl.

she’s not even all the way back to her apartment before she gets the call. nadja feng is fucking firedand kurt has given her the blame for the money he’s been skimming from the place on the sly. they’re debating on whether or not to press charges. nadja sells all of kurt’s second-rate band equipment to a pawn shop along with the things that don’t mean enough to carry on her back. she buys a plane ticket to tianjin by way of los angeles that day. with christmas lurking around the corner, it’s the best bang for her buck. nadja leaves her house keys on the empty floor. fuck leases and fuck kurt stevens.

▓ ▌now playing : spellbound – siouxsie and the banshees

the corrosive memories of kurt and natasha’s tryst are far from nadja’s mind as she finishes the skype call with her grandmother giving her the good news. understandably, grandma feng is concerned about the impulsive decision, but she knows her granddaughter well enough. even a girl as rash as a summer forest fire sometimes makes the right choice. they have dreamed of reuniting for so long, it is hard to take the news with anything but a tearful smile. nadja hears it in her voice–it colors every word. for the first time in nadja’s young life she thinks: i’m coming home.

the drive is a long one, but nadja is worried about the possibility of being forced to stay in bc due to assault charges. she can drive down the west coast and breathe in the salty air. she can eat clam strips and throw bread to seagulls in some seaside diner while she watches the tumultuous waves of the oregon coast thrash violently against the rocky shore. maybe it’ll be therapeutic, she thinks, to be one small person along a great, dark sea. a few days more. a few days and she’ll be back in tianjin and maybe she and nainai can get a new cat together. maybe the waves that beat the sands of dongjiang bay beach are softer and kinder than those in the pacific northwest.

it’s a lonely ride down and after three days of reflection and solitude, nadja feels like crawling out of her own skin. it’s too much peace for a girl born of chaos. perhaps it’s self-destruction or maybe it’s idle boredom, but when she sees the young crust punk couple hitchiking on the side of the road, she thinks fuck it, at least it’s something new and pulls over for them. they’re on the way to yuma city and she agrees to drop them off on her way to lax. they seem fine enough. she doesn’t even mind the little blue heeler they have with them, even though she’s a dyed in the wool cat person. the track marks don’t go unnoticed, but it’s nothing new to a veteran of the punk scene and nadja feng can handle anything.

▓ ▌now playing : dead end justice – the runaways

after a day on the road, the trio and their small dog throw down a few bucks to sleep in one of the cabins at a kampground of america. it’s not so bad, but the puppy whines all night and pees on the floor once in the early hours of the morning. nadja lies awake on the top bunk and she can hear the pair talking below her. wes speaking in his dopey voice, hardly whispering and maya shushing him in harsh whispers. nadja eeps her movements to the minimum and her eyes closed after she hears them pause for several moments when she readjusts. she’s certain she can smell maya’s breath for a moment as she hears the bed creak and feels a steely finger in her ribs. keeping her breaths steady, she plays opossum.

it becomes clear to her, once the bed creaks and maya starts talking again that they mean to rip her off. maya even asks wes is he’s ever wondered what it would feel like to kill somebody. nadja’s seen the way he looks at her; he’d die for her. he’d kill for her. boy, have they fucked with the wrong girl, nadja thinks darkly. covers pulled up to her chin. there’s a butterfly knife in her pocket and the shape of it has left an impression on the skin of her thigh. slowly she reaches for it and works to silently unfold it, clutching it to her chest beneath the covers when she’s through. they’re gonna pay. she’s never thought herself a killer, but she’s been a fighter since she was in her mother’s belly. let them try it, she thinks. and they do.

lying in wait, knowing it was coming doesn’t prepare her for what it will truly be like. there’s a fist in her face before she can speak, with the harsh instructions to get up. sucker punched and it’s not even four am yet. helluvah night. the punch stuns her, but she means to be ready. as wes pulls the covers from her bed, she spring on maya like a cat–butterfly knife, formerly a novelty, an aesthetic–arching blood across the cabin walls. maya has to be first, because she’s meanest. the shock will stun wes long enough for her to turn on him even though he’s bigger. somewhere in the darkness, their small dog yelps and paws at the door.

maya is easily overtaken. nadja has the element of surprise and a few inches on her. she wonders what it says about her that she can dispatch a shitty person so easily. it’s not like highlander; she doesn’t gain mystical powers when she sticks maya in the neck with that cheap butterfly knife. all she gets is blood. wes, on the other hand, he’s harder once he realizes his life is on the line. easily, he has half a foot and thirty pounds on her and he gives almost as good as he gets. nadja swallows a molar and take a hit so hard her ears ring, but she doesn’t stop. her whole life has been filled with a rage that she has let out in metered doses. tonight she lets it all out; tonight she knows she can never go back to vancouver, but she can still go home. she doesn’t stop until the dog barks at her loudly to go outside and she wonders if he didn’t trust them either.

they’d named him something stupid, like chaos or dogmeat. he wasn’t a fucking fallout canine companion even if they fancied themselves raiders. heroin and the open road, punk rock and a boxcar–she knows how romantic it all can seem. they probably thought they were mad max or negan. in the end they were just assholes. nadja feng is a cat person, but she can’t just leave this poor dog in the cabin with all that blood. he’s barely more than a puppy. nadja doesn’t know what the fuck to do with a dog, but … he is kind of cute. his blue-grey fur reminds her of an old man’s beard–a little old grandpa–and so the name, while never meant to be permanent, sticks. and so does grandpa, it seems, as he never leaves her side. they’ll have to head east, farther from the scene of the crime and buy a plane ticket from somewhere like phoenix. she chides herself as she wonders how much it costs to ship a dog to tianjin and decides fuck it, it doesn’t really matter. their friendship was baptized in blood, she and the dog belong together.

▓ ▌now playing : there is a light that never goes out – the smiths

the open road at night in the desert has an eerie quality to it and nadja is running from ghosts. phantoms who catch her easiest when she is sleeping, grandpa curled under her arm, in the back seat of her beat up muscle car. she’s never seen a place quiet like this and maybe it’d even be beautiful if she wasn’t alone–lady macbeth on the run. at least the dog’s good company, he doesn’t seem to care what she’s done and long as she feeds him. there’s something kind of nice about the newness of unconditional love.

she doesn’t call her grandmother to tell her about the change in flight plans, not yet anyway. once nainai’s voice sound on the other end, she knows she’ll burst into tears. she doesn’t deserve a grandmother like that, but she knows that an old woman can’t care for herself forever. she can at least give her that. if she can’t give her fat grandchildren and a fancy house on the beach, she can at least be there for her–if only she could find the highway.

driving and coffee, it seems like that’s all she’s known as she focuses on getting to phoenix as fast as possible. inhumanely fast, impossibly fast. it can be an alibi or an escape. there’s no way anyone’s going to believe she was the victim when they see wes’ body. too angry for too long–she’s really fucked it up this time. she doesn’t even google news reports, not wanting to know what might be waiting for her when she finally makes it to the airport and fuck, she can still not find the main highway, but there’s hope in the form of some no horse shithole named boot hill. ahead of schedule from driving like a bat out of hell, maybe she can rest for one night. maybe her demons can’t find her in this place. it’s almost a mirage–the oasis in the desert of cartoon, she thinks. who would ever think to find her in a place like this? the don’t even have a starbucks here, let alone a prison.

before she knows it, it’s been four months. nainai was understanding when she said she’d run into some bad luck and was staying in this small town. she’s just laying low of course, and she promises her grandmother everyday that she’ll be out to phoenix to catch her flight before she knows it. maybe nainai even believes it, because she says ‘my friends in la tell me there was a murder along the freeway there, be careful, sweet girl’ and nadja cringes, because she is not a sweet girl. she’s a killer and a prisoner and only one of those truths is she fully aware of in boot hill.

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2019, Part II

Part I is here. ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

106. Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez)- I'm not looking at a list of films with budgets over $175 million, but I guarantee this is the one with the lowest stakes. It concerns a cyborg who tries to uncover the identity that the audience knows she has all along, and it takes place on three sets. I was intrigued by the prospect of Robert Rodriguez directing a James Cameron production, since the former uses effects to be lazy and the latter uses effects to challenge himself. Alita is more of a Rodriguez movie in that regard. Although it looks slightly better than those pictures he used to make in his backyard, it ain't by much. 105. The Upside (Neil Burger)- As good enough as movies get, good enough right up to the childish screenwriting contrivances of the third act. ("I guess he knows about wheelchairs now, so he gets a job at a wheelchair factory? Or maybe it's his own factory? I don't know--I'm still spitballing in this production draft.") Queen Nicole is criminally underserved though. Have you read that story about how Keanu Reeves's friend forged his name onto the contract for The Watcher, but Keanu didn't want to go through a prolonged legal battle, so he just showed up despite the fraud? Surely it's got to be something like that. Or maybe she was under the impression her character was still being fleshed out, but she got there and saw that nothing has been changed since the last draft? It's just like, "Yvonne looks stern. More to be added." I know for sure that no one told one of the greatest actresses in the world about the part in which she's supposed to be a good dancer. She would have prepared. 104. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Dean DeBlois)- HtTYD is still the most visually experimental animated franchise. For example, DeBlois hazes the image when a character is looking at another through a torch, there's a five-minute wordless sequence of dragons falling in love, and a lot of work has been put into crafting peach fuzz. I also appreciate that these films retain consequences. Hiccup has a prosthetic leg, and his dad is still dead. Narratively though, everything feels like a holding pattern, a brand extension that doesn't offer real stakes or real laughs. (Fishlegs has a beard now. That's his character development. That's it.) Even if The Hidden World offers an ending of sorts to the trilogy, it's a story of retreat/escape that can't help but feel like a sideways step from its already disappointing predecessor. My daughter tuned out and got really restless with about twenty minutes left. 103. Greta (Neil Jordan)- Such a boilerplate thriller that I was actually predicting the dialogue at points: "Miss, I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do if she's just standing there across the street. She's not breaking the law." There is one notable thing that happens though. In a scene at a church, Huppert makes the Sign of the Cross incorrectly. As an actress, kind of negligent. As a French person, pretty exquisite. 102. Anna (Luc Besson)- The timeline-jumping didn't work for me, but without it, I don't think there's much notable about the quadruple-crossing here at all. The awe-inspiring restaurant fight sequence is the film's saving grace; I'm awarding an extra half-star for its slashing-throats-with-plates viscera. 101. Captain Marvel (Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden)- Was I supposed to know what a Skrull was before this? Lee Pace and Djimon Hounsou show up playing Guardians characters, so I think I was supposed to connect more of the sci-fi dots of the first twenty minutes than I did. All of that inter-planetary stuff was tough sledding for me, and I preferred the Elastica music cue and Radio Shack jokes. As it turns out, especially in this genre, it's dramatically frustrating to go on a hero's journey with a character who doesn't know who she is. It was nice to see Samuel L. Jackson, with convincing de-aging effects, get a real arc in one of these movies, rather than just posing here and there. Brie Larson does enough posing for the both of them. 100. Frozen II (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee)- Frozen begins with sisters being separated after one injures the other. It plays for keeps from minute five. Frozen II, whose smaller stakes are felt in the one-or-so location, B-team songs, and forgettable new characters, never feels as real. 99. Aladdin (Guy Ritchie)- Even if the songs still bang and Nasim Pedrad is very funny, Aladdin feels as cynical and--don't say it, don't say it--unnecessary as all of these live-action remakes do. I'm looking forward to the animated remakes of the live-action remakes, which might figure out a way to reincarnate Robin Williams. One can dream, even cynically. 98. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Vince Gilligan)- Finally, the TV movie--and no shade, but this ending we didn't ask for is definitely part of the TV movie tradition--that answers a burning question for Breaking Bad fans: Was Jesse ever interesting by himself?

97. High Life (Claire Denis)- As uncool as it makes me, I have to admit that I just don't care for Claire Denis's aesthetic. Knowing nothing going in, I was captivated by the mysterious first half-hour, but once the film started to explain itself, it seemed like a B movie with more ponderous music. High Life is effectively claustrophobic, but I found myself "yes-anding" most of it. Yes, for example, space is lonely, as I've learned from every other movie about space.

96. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Richard Linklater)- From the get-go, this movie doesn't work--structurally, tonally--but the miscalculations of Linklater and Blanchett and especially the mawkish music don't have enough consequence for the film to even fail on a noteworthy level. It's not unpleasant. You just laugh sparingly and think, on the way out, "I don't think she loved her daughter as much as she said she did" or "Get to Antarctica twenty minutes earlier or twenty minutes later." Linklater, an inestimable talent, has added an entry to his filmography that might as well not exist. Making movies, especially adaptations of epistolary books, is hard. I'm being too understanding of that or not understanding enough. 95. Dumbo (Tim Burton)- Just as Dumbo begins to take chances--fashioning itself as an anti-corporate parable with Keaton playing a Disney-esque "architect of dreams"--it settles back down to its own low expectations. Expectations that come from the storytelling and characterization and not the production design, which seems grandly practical except for the CG [rolls up sleeves, adjusts glasses, tightens shoes] elephant in the room. Of the performances, Farrell comes out on top, displaying Movie Star confidence despite very little to work with. (Can a World War I veteran who lost his arm and his wife be allowed a bit more pain?) It gives me no pleasure to dunk on child actors, but both of the kids seem to be reading their lines, and their monotones nearly sink the movie at the beginning. 94. Echo in the Canyon (Andrew Slater)- A nice enough introduction to the scene, but Jakob Dylan's constant presence as an interviewer and performer turns it into a vanity project. The film shuffles among talking heads interviews, prep for an anniversary concert, and an anniversary concert, and I'll let you guess which one of those is interesting. The access that the filmmakers got is impressive, but if a person didn't participate (Carole King is the obvious one), the filmmakers just pretend he or she didn't exist. 93. Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt)- I like the notion of someone so specialized in his profession that he has a child-like understanding of the outside world, and Carloto Cotta sells the innocence of the title character. (The Donna Lewis needle-drop killed me too.) But too often this film feels as if it's focusing on sheer weirdness over satisfying narrative. Cult classics are fine, but you should try for the regular classic. 92. Ma (Tate Taylor)- There are some cool ideas here--the innocent entrees that technology provides, the way the movie earns its R rating. But the script needs a few more passes for everything to congeal past the silliness, especially with regard to the hammy flashbacks that attempt to provide motivation for the Ma figure. I respect the attempt to humanize a monster, but she would be more scary if left opaque. 91. Bombshell (Jay Roach)- The films that try explicitly to comment on our current social climate are never the most successful ones, especially if their internal politics are this muddled. The film takes great pleasure in implicating the toxic system of Fox News, taking shots at anyone who would participate. Then it starts to pick and choose who to like in that system, which is where it gets weird. Obviously, a Fox News employee who sexually harasses another employee is "worse" than an employee who gets harassed. But then the Charles Randolph screenplay starts to sort closeted lesbians and career-strivers, and it's not sure who the bad guys really are. The film moves quite swiftly in its first half, and Charlize Theron's mimicking of Megyn Kelly is eerie. But I don't think Jay Roach knows what he believes. The lurid, claustrophobic scene between Margot Robbie's composite Kayla and John Lithgow's breathy Roger Ailes is the transcendent moment. It teases out the humiliation slowly and powerfully. With a quite meta flourish, the scene makes you hate yourself if you've ever objectified one of the most objectified actresses in the world; she's that great at illustrating her discomfort.

90. Glass (M. Night Shyamalan)- 1. A great example of "story" vs. "things happening." A negative example, I'm afraid. 2. The Osaka Tower represents the literal and figurative highs that the film will literally and figuratively not reach. 3. Spencer Treat Clark back!!! 4. The flashbacks are actual deleted scenes from Unbreakable, which is amazing. 5. Not since Lost has there been a work that seems like obsessive fan service, but the fan in mind is the creator, not any member of the audience. We do not want your explanations about Jai the security guard's role in your universe, Night. 6. This is a sequel to Unbreakable and a sequel to Split, but it somehow does not feel like a third chapter of anything. 7. It makes sense that I watched this on the same day that I listened to Weezer's The Teal Album, their surprise collection of punctilious '80s covers. In both cases, there's an artist who was really important to me in formative years but who has used up the last of whatever capital he has accrued by giving in to his worst instincts. In Shyamalan's case though, at least it's a confident swing. The second act pretty much tells us that we were dumb to believe what he sold us on. Even though it's dramatically inert and completely stops halfway through, this is exactly the movie he wanted to make, which I stupidly still admire. 89. Five Feet Apart (Justin Baldoni)- I checked this out because I have the sneaking suspicion that Haley Lu Richardson is a Movie Star, and she is continuing to progress into that power/responsibility. Otherwise the movie is a by-the-numbers weepie that doesn't really have a new spin on anything but hits its marks adequately. I was surprised that Claire Forlani got neither a "with" nor an "and" card in the credits. How rude. 88. Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer)- I like the bleak dive the film takes following its second big twist, which is handled well, but there is a ceiling for an adaptation of one of King's least ambitious and most predetermined tales. 87. Wild Rose (Tom Harper)- So conventional that Jessie Buckley almost got nominated for a Golden Globe. 86. Judy (Rupert Goold)- Just as the leaves start to change, we get biopics like these: too earnest to be cliched, too safe to be original. I'm on the ground floor of the Zellwegerssaince, but Judy is a slog in stretches. 85. The King (David Michod)- Capable but superfluous. Animal Kingdom was nine years ago, so it's quite possible that David Michod, even when he has an imperious Ben Mendelsohn at his disposal, has lost the urgency. The reason that anyone should see this--at least until someone puts together a YouTube compilation of just his scenes--is for Robert Pattinson, whose take on The Dauphin is the frontrunner for Most On-One Performance of the Year. 84. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams)- There are just enough moments--the first Force battle between Kylo and Rey being one of them--that remind the viewer of the magic of Star Wars. Kylo Ren's arc concludes in a more satisfying way than I expected, Babu Frik is officially my dude, and Daisy Ridley's post-Star Wars career intrigues me. My Dolby seat was rumbling, and I was pretty charged up on candy. But, man, most of the business here feels compromised, undermined, and inessential. It's a rushed connect-the-dots compared to The Last Jedi. There's a scene in which the gang has to risk wiping C-3PO's memory to gain important information--they need a thing to get to another thing to get to another thing--and there appear to be stakes for just a second. Then, as if to reassure the audience that there will be ten more of these movies, Rey adds, "Doesn't R2 have a backup of your memory?" That's the whole movie in an expensive, nostalgic nutshell.

83. Queen & Slim (Melina Matsoukas)- Capable of tender moments but shot in the foot by its episodic nature, Queen & Slim is the most uneven picture of the year. The characters work well as foils to each other, but Jodie Turner-Smith's performance is overshadowed by Kaluuya's. I have no idea what Chloe Sevigny and Flea are trying to do in their brief time on screen, and I have no idea what the film is trying to do when it disturbs the point of view for a misguided protest sequence. 82. Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)- It has been a long time since I was so surprised that a movie was over. The coda comes up telling us about, in real life, what kind of criminal slaps on the wrists the characters received, and I got pushed out of the theater wondering what it all amounted to. Yeah, that's the point. I know. Just as none of the 2008 bankers went to jail in the wake of their destruction, none of the women who drugged and exploited them did much time beyond "14 months of weekends" either. But should I applaud moral confusion? Can I be angry about the lack of consequences for both parties? If you want me to judge the film I watched instead of the film I wanted to watch, I can be more complimentary. Some of the most electric moments in 2019 cinema are here, rooted in 2008 strip club music. And saying 2008 strip club rap was good is like saying 1890 French Impressionism was good. Nearly every performance works, from Lili Reinhart's bashfulness to Wai Ching Ho's gratitude to Jennifer Lopez's intractable confidence. Also, I don't know if anyone has noticed this before, but J. Lo has a nice butt. 81. The Report (Scott Z. Burns)- There are some interesting things going on here. For example, this feedback loop: An hour or so in, protagonist Daniel Jones watches a fabricated news feature that explains what waterboarding is, and I had an instinct as an audience member to go, "Like we don't know by now. Don't hold my hand." But the only reason I know is because of news reports like that, informed by work that the real Daniel Jones did, dramatized in the events of the first half of this very movie. Still, this movie is a lot like one of those dishes in which every single element sounds like something you would like--"Ooh, pork belly, delicious. Oooh, lemongrass. Bet those would go well together"--but you take a bite, and it doesn't taste good. Is that your fault or the restaurant's?

[unidentifiedanonfics]

Bucky Barnes 100th Birthday

100 is a pretty big deal, right? So how can I NOT celebrate my best fella’s big 1-0-0? I decided to start the celebration on Bucky’s birthday again this year, but instead of a mere weekend I’ve decided to extend it to the end of March!

Just like last year, this means I’ll be posting, liking, and reblogging Bucky and only Bucky for the rest of the month (with the exception of holiday/special posts) - from today (FRIDAY, MARCH 10TH) to the end of March (FRIDAY, MARCH 31ST).

This year, instead of doing a set list of fics, I made a list of prompts (100 in total for obvious reasons). Feel free to mix and match prompts as you like, then submit whichever one (s) to my ASK and I'll answer with a drabble/short! Also, please let me know if you’d like smut or not =)

THE LIST:

1. “How do you go out to adopt one dog and end up coming home with three?!”

2. “Are you jealous?” “No, jealousy implies I want something that isn’t already mine.”

3. “I can’t believe you talked me into this couples costume.”

4. “So if I were a pony, what do you think my cutie mark would be?”

5. “I can’t believe you managed to get us arrested for jaywalking.”

6. “Okay, Satan, slow your ass down.”

7. “You are not cutting my hair! No one is cutting my hair! Nobody even look at my hair!”

8. “You’re despicable.” “Ooh! I love it when you talk dirty to me!”

9. “I can’t believe our mascot is a chihuahua.”

10. “You look cute with your glasses on.”

11. “Did you write fan fiction about me?”

12. “Tumblr? What the hell is this? And where is the E?”

13. “A trash can lid is not a suitable substitute for a shield!”

14. “How do you accidentally kidnap someone?!”

15. “I’m just an awkward penguin, okay?”

16. “Well if I’m gonna die, at least I’m going out looking fabulous.”

17. “Are you trying to get us killed or do you just like near death experiences?”

18. “Are you insane?” “Yes, but that’s not exactly a new development.”

19. “Do not call me that. Only he/she gets to call me that.”

20. “You are a highly trained assassin. You have thousands of moves at your disposal. And you choose to BITE me?!”

21. “How is it that after 100 years you still suck at poker?”

22. “Baby, we’re married. You won. You can stop with the pickup lines.”

23. “You’re the best sniper in the entire world, how can you not make a free throw?”

24. “We’re having a spa day.”

25. “It’s sooooo fllllluuuuuuuuffffffyyyyyyy.”

26. “I watch WWE, I can do this!” 

27. “I was wrong.”

28. “Put that thing back where it came from!”

29. “He/She/They are like our children.”

30. “I’m not the mom/dad friend and he/she is not the mom/dad friend!” “Yeah! If anything we’re the cool aunt and uncle!”

31. “And it didn’t occur to either of you that using a car to parasail in downtown New York might be a bad idea?”

32. “Did you seriously just rage-quit checkers?”

33. “Looks like all that Tetris paid off.”

34. “Don’t talk about my panties!”

35. “Stop recording this!”

36. “I’m stuck and I’m not wearing any underwear.”

37. “You can have it/them back when you learn how to use it/them properly!”

38. “Clark Kent wouldn’t treat me like this.”

39. “No spoilers!”

40. “Stan Lee.”

41. “I didn’t mean to be late but _______ was on in the car and you can’t just turn that off!”

42. “It’s like a Slytherin fell in love with a Hufflepuff.”

43. “They’re the Galactic Empire, we’re the Rebel Alliance. That’s literally the only way I can describe it.”

44. “If we end up in space jail I’m blaming you.”

45. “Well this isn’t the WORST vacation we’ve ever had.”

46. “Stop suggestively thrusting your pelvis at me.”

47. “Dancing has definitely changed since back then.”

48. “What am I? 1800BODYDISPOSAL?”

49. “Why are you naked?”

50. “This is going to sound really suggestive but I’m gonna say it anyway…”

51. “You are formally invited to go fuck yourself with a cactus.”

52. “That’s mine! Give it back!”

53. We disagree on nearly everything except for our mutual hate of _______.

54. “Don’t get on the plane.”

55. “Don’t leave me.”

56. We’re fans of rivaling sports teams, lets make things interesting; what do you wanna bet my team beats yours?

57. We got into a twitter war, you found out that we live in the same area and now you want to meet up so you can “teach me a lesson”.

58. You’re my new anti-social neighbor that I’ve never met. You never turn your music down, it’s 3 AM and I’m pounding on your door in an angry, sleep-deprived haze.

59. “Teach me.”

60. You decided to do everyones laundry and ended up keeping my (article of clothing).

61. “Because of reasons.”

62. “I’m keeping you.”

63. “You’re stuck with me now.”

64. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course I like you! We’re married, it’s kinda implied at this point.”

65. “Your voice is like like sex for my ears.”

  66. “I want to do morally compromising things to you.”

67. “Let me love you damnit!”

68. “I love you. And that means all of you.”

67. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

68. “Wipe that smirk off your face before I kiss it off.”

69. “Would you PLEASE stop trying to kill me?”

70. “We’re on the same side!”

71. “You just had to steal the most obvious car, didn’t you?”

72. “Did you steal this?”

73. “We are not watching this.”

74. I sprained my ankle and you’ve been ordered to tend to my every whim.

75. “GET YOUR FILTHY HAND OFF OF HIS/HER/MY ASS!”

76. Your body runs ridiculously hot and mine runs ridiculously cold, maybe we can help each other out.

77. “Cute panties/underwear.”

78. “Why are you wearing a tutu?”

79. “Do not backflip off of that- DAMN IT!”

80. “Stop it! We’re in a church!”

81. We hate-fuck everytime we get into an argument but I’m actually in love with you and I don’t know how to say it.

82. “Don’t you judge me!”

83. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

84. “We are not watching THAT.”

85. I’ve been in love with you since we met but I’m shit at expressing my feelings and now you think I hate you when its really the opposite. 

86. We switched jobs for a day as a training exercise and let’s never do that again.

87. “I’m only apologizing because ____ threatened to take away my _____ if I didn’t.”

88. I hired you to be my sugar-baby but its been six months and you haven’t asked for anything but my time and affection.

89. You made me dinner and its the best thing I’ve tasted in my entire life.

90. “Stop trying to save the world with paperclips!”

91. “I’ve been alive for a long time. But I didn’t start living until I met you.”

92. “Surprise!”

93. We started playing (party game) and it got very sexual very fast.

94. I forced you into having a movie marathon so I had an excuse to cuddle with you.

95. Its the first time we’ve met and instead of shaking my hand you hug me. Now I won’t let go and everyone’s looking at us awkwardly.

96. “You’re my soulmate.”

97. We’ve been dating for years and I just found out that you and my best friend used to date before we even met.

98. “I don’t want to celebrate.”

99. “Dermatologists hate him!”

100.“Happy birthday.”

Along with prompts, I'll also be taking headcannon requests! Including:

-Dating

-Being Friends

-Being Roommates

-Sex

-What Bucky's Like As A Dad

-Domestic

-Kissing

-Kinks

-Anything you want a headcannon for

Headcannons and Prompts will be open until March 31st as well!

I’ll be tagging all of my posts #JBB100 for easier access for you.

Happy Birthday Bucky, can’t wait to see what you do in the next 100 years!

[philaprint]

What Is the Proper Space for Hope? A Young Black Queer Millennial's Reflection on Obama

By Vernon Jordan, III

I met one of the loves of my life the night Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected into the seat of the President -  the highest office in these United States. That night, in November of 2012, a Black man won against white moderates, conservatives, and anyone claiming they were most qualified for the job. Parading with his family, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, Malia Ann, and Natasha “Sasha”, who had already stolen our hearts during the 2008 campaign and Presidential election, President Obama was a force of joy for many African Americans, non-American Black people residing here in the states, Black people with homes abroad, in the wider Diaspora, and the continent of Africa itself. I was fresh out of high school, a first-semester freshman at Muhlenberg College and President Obama was thus the first President I had ever voted for; did I even have a choice in the matter?

I felt instant pride whenever I thought of him. You could say I even campaigned: I bought stickers and pins marked Forward, hung the “we’ve got his back” poster on my side of the dorm room, always wore my “44TH / OBAMA” shirt to the gym to spite my white classmates, and when it came time to vote, finally, I adorned that oval “I VOTED” sticker on my motherfucking face. Naturally, I argued with racist Facebook comment after Facebook comment, too -- all in the name of President Obama. I stayed up long enough into the morning to witness both final speeches by Obama and Romney and was doing so while on the phone with one of my best friends, a Black woman who then was studying at Clark Atlanta University. When I got back to my room, all was quiet. My roommate, a polite enough Italian kind of white boy and Romney voter, was asleep. A “Romney/Ryan” poster guarding his bedpost, an old historic patriotic “don’t tread on me” snake poster hanging right next to him.The morning after, he said to me, “Congrats, man.” I said, with assurance and calm, “Thank you.”  We had vowed not to talk about politics in our room, so that brief exchange was the most we talked on the matter. It was all so swift - Obama won, so I won. With a fire so many people expected to die out and be beaten, Obama’s victory in the 2012 re-election felt like an act of revenge. Now, my classmates who had so fervently been possessed by their arguments against welfare and affirmative action policies, for instance, would have to face that the leader of this country was a Black somebody. They might see “thugs” in Obama, me in Obama, and thus a “thug” in me; but they would see I’d won, and dared to be great.

Many of my associations with Obama can be said to be positive, but this positivity, this greatness, was not one that lasted long, however - and maybe I am lucky my bubble burst so early. That next semester I would take a course called Black Political Thought. I remember reading a speech given by Obama, then reading a counter piece by Dr. Cornel West (among other class readings about Liberalism, Black Nationalism, Black Conservatism, Pan-Africanism, and so on and so on) and realizing that maybe Obama could not be the answer to Martin’s dream, that Martin certainly did not “walk so Obama could fly”. Obama too deeply believed in America's capacity for rightness, righteousness, and the American Dream. I learned Obama followed a strictly Liberal course of action - the belief in individual freedoms, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness via the United States -  always with a side of hope, or change. During Obama’s initial campaign, Will.i.am and a number of celebrities and artists came together to record the song “Yes We Can”, which was another famous rhetorical slogan coined by President Obama. I was a Freshman in high school when President Obama first took office, and learned this song in the school’s choir, singing it joyously whenever I could and reveling in the sound of “Si se puede” rolling from my lips. So, I didn't know it then, but I was quite prepared to understand Liberalism and American Democracy, as I was born into it - and how many times before Obama had I sang it? Read it? Hero-ed and romanticized it? I was bluntly met with the facts that in the name of a Liberal Democracy we would drop bombs on poorer, Browner, and less Western nations; and even less prepared to see Obama as not merely a puppet, but Commander-in-Chief of this violent vessel called the United States.

Part of this role-playing President involves massive crowd control over the civilian population, an always ready indoctrination on the ideals of Liberalism -- especially in face of violence and dissent. For me, the rupture of this contradiction occurred after the death of young Trayvon Martin: for this happened under the Obama administration with little done to protect and honor and defend the life of Trayvon, who this week would be 22 years old; the ruptures of this contradiction occurred when I realized countless bombs were being dropped on Palestine, with financial assistance from the U.S. and the Obama administration; and the happy lie of Democracy cracked. It’s one thing to learn about Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, the strategies of COINTELPRO which ripped radical activists and groups from our communities, for instance, and learn dissent for your country; it's a peculiar place to be as a young Black American and not see the conditions for your people on the ground change when the leader of the free world looks like he could maybe be your uncle; and it’s another thing to begin to completely disagree with Liberal Democracy as it’s been enacted altogether -- it sobers you. I remember wanting to vomit when I heard Christopher Dorner would be chased by drones on U.S. soil because that didn’t sound like Freedom to me. I recalled a passage from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where civilians are awakened by the State and compelled to watch the manhunt of the book burner, Montag, as it’s cycled live into the news:

"Police Alert. Wanted: Fugitive in city. Has committed murder and crimes against the State. Name: Guy Montag. Occupation: Fireman. Last seen . . ." He ran steadily for six blocks, in the alley, and then the alley opened out on to a wide empty thoroughfare ten lanes wide. It seemed like a boatless river frozen there in the raw light of the high white arc-lamps; you could drown trying to cross it, he felt; it was too wide, it was too open. It was a vast stage without scenery, inviting him to run across, easily seen in the blazing illumination, easily caught, easily shot down. The Seashell hummed in his ear. "... watch for a man running ... watch for the running man . . . watch for a man alone, on foot . . . watch..."

Like the civilians in the book, in this case, all I could do was watch CNN for updates, watch Hope lean into Terror. President Barack Obama gracefully walked into a seat that inherits and propagates terrorism in the name of the country and State. He is a fine, swaggered out suit - in the tradition of American presidential suits - become war general.

Were we silly to think Obama would be a beacon and example of liberation against global white supremacy and anti-blackness? No. But we were certainly fooled. We were distracted -- great imagery can do that -- and it's no surprise that in a campaign so formidably led by college youth, grassroots organizing on the part of, it seemed, the whole country, we might feel a kind of euphoric haze not common here: for a moment we could feel together, feel a touch of another person, and feel recognized in the presence of Barack Obama. Obama slick and likable as he is, rolling Al Green and the ever-scary national anthem off one tongue, smiling so gently, laughing -- and making us laugh! Obama, slick and likable, perfect in his denouncing of absent Black fathers, drugs displayed on corners, (not to mention the least dangerous shit ever, sagging pants) without an analysis of how the united states have contributed to these phenomena.

He is the perfect ingredient for White supremacy: son to an educated Kenyan and continental African man & an American white woman. His story is a massive, international epic, where the son who belongs nowhere becomes King of the Democratic land to overlook all lands. His narrative is a full circle project, in a strange way; the perfect person to run the American machine is a dude come from a formerly colonized African country - the dark continent meets the brightest. I think about this often. I think about what America might look like when it is ready for a descendant of enslaved African Americans to take the role President - if it will be, ever.

There is no utopia to be found being Black here in the United States - not in total, anyway - but I would be a liar if I said pictures and small moments from the eight years of President Barack, First Lady Michelle (everyone's favourite Obama) and famed children Sasha and Malia Obama, the First Black First Family of the United States, did not provide momentary joys, pride, relief, and pleasure. I want to thank Barack Obama for that. I want to thank President Obama for teaching me, quite plainly, never to trust politicians; but to trust my 22 year old self, my Black and queer communities, and the strategies of Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Assata Shakur, and so many more who came into the world before me.

I am trying to find now the proper space for hope in my life - too much makes any person blind, and Andre 3000 said, “lean a little bit closer see / roses really smell like “boo boo oo”. I am trying to face forward, but not without complete regard for the past and its echoes, its livelihood, in the present. I am reckoning with the bodies broken and lost - memories equally contorted. I am looking a dangerous, frightening, and fucked up world in the eye, whenever I walk the streets of this country, whenever I dream of leaving this country for another. This is called being a young Black Millennial after and in the age of Obama.

https://www.philadelphiaprintworks.com/blogs/news/what-is-the-proper-space-for-hope-a-young-black-queer-millennials-reflection-on-obama

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Higher Education Weekly Updates!

Here are this week's Higher Ed Updates compiled by Beth Devonshire, Consultant for D.Stafford and Associates and Public Policy Coordinator. Updates each week will include topics related to specific KCs and general updates. If you would like something to be included, please feel free to send to Beth at bdevonshire76@gmail.com.

AOD Issues:

Recommendations for Recovery Communities https://hecaod.osu.edu/recommendations-for-collegiate-recovery-communities-on-small-residential-campuses/

FDA Threatens to Pull Flavored E-Cigs (Ya think) https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/12/fdae-cigarettes-teen-use-815836

Campus Safety:

Could Monitoring Social Media Stop the Next School Shooting https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/social-media-monitoring-school-shootings.amp.html

End of the Lone Wolf, the Typology That Should Not Have Been https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1419554?needAccess=true&

School Choice Promotes School Safety (Heritage Foundation Position) https://www.heritage.org/education/event/ensuring-child-safety-school-through-safe-student-scholarships

The Other Side of School Safety, Students Getting Tasered by Police https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/school-safety-students-police-abuse_us_5b746a4ce4b0df9b093b8d6a

School Safety Commission Recommends Bullet-Proof White Boards, More Police, More Counselors https://www.virginiamercury.com/2018/09/11/state-school-safety-panel-recommends-bullet-resistant-whiteboards-more-guidance-counselors-more-police/

NY Bans Use of Federal Funds for Guns https://www.newsday.com/long-island/education/guns-schools-new-york-regents-1.20986122

School Safety Commission Won’t Support Age Limits on Gun Buys https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/school-safety-commission-poised-to-oppose-new-age-limits-on-gun-buys/2018/09/12/1665c968-b6c0-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html?utm_term=.bfc3d2da20f1

DOE/OCR/DeVos:

Ed Department Reopens Case Charging Discrimination Against Jewish Students (Important switch – watch this closely) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/us/politics/rutgers-jewish-education-civil-rights.html ; https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/09/12/us-reviews-allegations-anti-jewish-bias ; http://www2.philly.com/philly/education/rutgers-discrimination-civil-rights-probe-jewish-federal-education-department-20180912.html

FIRE Statement on OCR Anti-Semitism Definition https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-on-office-for-civil-rights-use-of-anti-semitism-definition/

A CUNY Student was Investigated for Criticizing Israel http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/a-cuny-student-was-investigated-for-criticizing-israel.html

DeVos Confirmation Hearings is now a Play https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/do-you-miss-the-drama-of-betsy-devoss-confirmation-hearing-you-can-catch-it-on-stage/2018/09/10/187acb7e-b20e-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?utm_term=.b129d9d64e30

Video Urges DeVos to Reverse Course https://civilrights.org/back-to-school-video-campaign-urges-devos-to-reverse-course-and-protect-students-rights/

Student Loan Issues https://www.apnews.com/2a7f15bf7dfe4604a91b972e73633aa2 ;  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/politics/devos-student-loans.html

Judge Rules DeVos Delay Unlawful (this is bigly)  https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/12/devos-obama-student-loan-rules-818296

Enrollment:

College Students Predicted to Fall https://hechingerreport.org/college-students-predicted-to-fall-by-more-than-15-after-the-year-2025/

Navigating the Rocky Road to HE https://www.povertyactionlab.org/blog/9-10-18/navigating-rocky-road-higher-education

Should Admission be Race Conscious or Blind http://www.tpr.org/post/should-higher-education-admissions-be-race-conscious-or-blind

Two Organizations Partner to Assist Students in Assessing Resources https://diverseeducation.com/article/125555/

States Decision to Decrease Support for HE Comes at a Cost https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/09/08/states-decision-reduce-support-higher-education-comes-cost/?utm_term=.12a5534b9f8b

Duel Enrollment Students Finish Faster https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2018/09/12/students-take-dual-credits-graduate-college-year-faster

The Crazy Amount American Students Spend on HE https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/09/12/the-crazy-amount-america-spends-on-higher-education-in-one-chart/#2315f6714482

First Amendment:

9th Circuit Allows Challenge to Cyberstalking Law to Move Forward http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/9th_circuit_reinstates_first_amendment_challenge_to_cyberstalking_law

Free Speech os Protected on Campus but not Everywhere http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2018/09/university-free-speech-0906

Lawsuit Accuses College of Limiting First Amendment Rights https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11284

1st Amendment Tested as Professor States “I hate White People” https://www.wnd.com/2018/09/1st-amendment-tested-as-prof-says-i-hate-white-people/

Lawsuit Alleges Violation of 1st Students Amendment Rights https://freebeacon.com/issues/lawsuit-alleges-wisconsin-college-violated-students-first-amendment-rights/

A Lesson on the 1st (good read) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/learning/lesson-plans/freedom-of-speech-a-lesson-on-understanding-the-protections-and-limits-of-the-first-amendment.html

Gender and Sexuality:

Study Finds No Link Between Bathroom Bills and Crime https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/09/12/study-transgender-bathroom-massachusetts/

Turned Away for Being Gay https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/09/13/clarks-summit-university-refuses-let-gay-student-return

Greek Life

Parents of Penn State Victim Launch Effort to Stop Ritual (We need to listen) https://www.npr.org/2018/09/11/646567182/parents-of-penn-state-hazing-victim-launch-effort-to-stop-fraternity-ritual

Student Found Dead in Fraternity House http://www.startribune.com/student-found-dead-in-university-frat-house-in-st-paul/493091141/

Issues Involving Race:

Missouri 3 Years Later https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/09/12/administrators-students-and-activists-take-stock-three-years-after-2015-missouri

Black UNC Faculty Issue Letter on “Silent Sam” https://diverseeducation.com/article/125505/

Parent and Family:

Want to Know What your Kid is Up to in College, Sign this Form http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-dalrymple-college-parent-ferpa-20180910-story.html

Technology

Why HE is one of the Worst in Handling Cyberattacks (and its not bc they formed a committee to find out)  https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-higher-education-is-one-of-the-worst-industries-at-handling-cyberattacks/

HE Has Brainwashed Silicon Valley https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/peter-thiel-too-much-education-leads-to-the-most-brainwashed-people.html

Title IX:

What so Many Men as Missing about #MeToo https://www.vox.com/2018/9/10/17826168/me-too-louis-ck-men-comeback

Doe v. Baum (READ THIS CASE) http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0200p-06.pdf ; An Unprecedented Direction for Title IX https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/09/10/appeals-court-ruling-opens-door-boosted-due-process-rights ; https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/09/07/university-michigan-sexual-assault-cross-examination/1222728002/ ; https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-09-07/lawsuit-by-ex-university-of-michigan-student-accused-of-sexual-assault-is-revived

What Were You Wearing Exhibit http://thenewpolitical.com/2018/09/10/what-were-you-wearing-exhibit-brings-additional-awareness-to-sexual-assault-on-campus/

Navigating Claims Puts Universities Between a Rock and a Hard Place https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/navigating-title-ix-claims-leaves-universities-between-rock-and-hard-place

OSU Moves to Have Lawsuits Dismissed https://www.thelantern.com/2018/09/ohio-state-moves-to-have-lawsuits-dismissed/

Godmother of TIX Visits Campus (good to remember how and why this all came about) https://muhlenbergweekly.com/news/this-week-in-muhlenberg-history-godmother-of-title-ix-visits-campus/

Players Make Allegations at UofL Lafayette https://www.klfy.com/news/local/ex-cajun-players-make-civil-rights-claims-against-university-of-louisiana-at-lafayette/1440597325

Title IX Proposed Changes (I created a separate section based on volume)

New Policies will Upend Progress http://www.dailycal.org/2018/09/10/new-title-ix-policies-will-upend-years-of-progress/

Proposed Rules Would Reduce Inquiries https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/us/politics/campus-sexual-misconduct-rules.html

Fuck You Betsy (Editorial) https://theslot.jezebel.com/fuck-you-betsy-1828964463

Proposed Policies will Hurt Students https://www.gwhatchet.com/2018/09/10/proposed-federal-sexual-misconduct-policies-will-hurt-students/

Laughable Claim that DeVos Sweeping Under the Rug https://hotair.com/archives/2018/09/08/laughable-claim-betsy-devos-sweeping-rape-rug/

Larry Nasar, Trump Administration, DeVos and Proposed Rules http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-news-trump-administration-devos-campus-sexual-misconduct-policy-20180907-story.html

What You Need to Know About Rule Changes https://www.law.com/2018/09/12/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-changing-title-ix-guidelines-292-32602/

Would Proposed Rules Really Save Money https://www.chronicle.com/article/Would-the-Education-Dept-s/244491

Changes Will Favor Institutions and Respondents http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/09/12/campus-sexual-harassment-amy-carleton

What you need to know (good graphic) https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2018/09/12/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-changing-title-ix-guidelines-398-23193/

Washington Update:

How Lawyers Would Advice the NYT-Ope Ed Writer (seriously, who was it) https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2018/09/10/how-lawyers-would-advise-the-anonymous-nyt-op-ed-writer-and-the-white-house/

Union Urges NO on Kavanaugh NO on Funds for Guns http://edadvocacy.nea.org/edinsider

If Dems Take House, Here is What is in Store http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/09/democrats-take-house-devos-ESSA-civil-rights.html

Spending Bill Impacting HE https://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/minibus_2_-_fy_2019_labor_hhs_appropriations_bill_-_summary.pdf

General:

Deplorable Snowflakes (which would make a great band name) https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/09/11/bridging-gap-between-anti-intellectualism-and-higher-education-opinion

We Need More Early Career HE People https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/we-need-more-early-career-higher-ed-people

How One of the Most Conservative Colleges Bloomed in Denver https://www.westword.com/news/colorado-christian-university-on-being-ranked-one-of-usas-most-conservative-colleges-10757559

The Rankings are Out, the Rankings are Out https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges?src=usn_pr

Time Takes a Look at Teachers’ Salaries (sickening) http://time.com/longform/teaching-in-america/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=time

Gaging China’s Influence and Interference in HE https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/09/12/wilson-center-releases-study-chinas-influence-and-interference-us-higher-ed

For Fun:

Missy Elliot Surprises Karaoke Queen https://www.scarymommy.com/missy-elliott-surprises-viral-karaoke-queen-ellen-show/

Happy Fall (*and PSL) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LhEf6hWAIE