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bytheangell · 3 years

Note

If you are still taking prompts, what would you think about writing something(s) based off of this, either/both, the Professor/TA, or the Writer/Editor?

Dedication (modern AU, Herongraystairs, check the link in the ask for full writer/editor prompt, a wonderful plot idea by @high-warlock-of-brooklyn!) (Read on AO3)

This is the first book Will and Tessa are collaborating on. They’ve written plenty of books individually and Jem’s worked with each of them in turn. But this is the first time they’ve co-authored, an experience that’s proving unique and challenging for all of them.

Being with Will and Tessa while they work on a new project is always a blessing and a curse. They’re two of the best writers of their generation and when they work on their own they’re brilliant, but when they work together - well, they’re also brilliant, but that brilliance is coupled with the occasional near-catastrophic clash of opinions and emotions.

Which is where Jem comes in.

Where Will and Tessa are so driven by passion and feelings, Jem finds it much easier to distance himself from their project (and from the writers themselves) enough to see the bigger picture and find solutions before the issues build up. Like many things about the three of them, it’s a perfect balance - they just work, better than anyone (including Will, Tessa, and Jem) ever imagined possible when they first got together.

It’d been a messy start, with Will and Jem already together but both developing serious feelings for Tessa after they met during a book event. The three of them quickly became very close. There were whispers of which of them would end up leaving, then confusion when the answer was none: instead of two of them growing closer and shutting the third out, they all seemed to adjust and adapt naturally around the three of them coexisting. They aren’t perfect, but they are perfect for each other, at least as far as Jem’s concerned.

Jem knows that what they have is special, which he reminds himself of over and over as Will and Tessa sit on opposite sides of the sofa, voices quickly elevating to nearly shouting over an issue with one of the characters Will is in charge of writing: one he’s chosen to give a pretty damning curse from a trickster faerie in this land of magic their current collaboration is set in.

“Tell him he needs to make the changes, Jem,” Tessa insists, the third time she’s repeated the demand now.

“Tell her that this plot adds depth, and without it, he’s boring,” Will counters. “Sometimes people - characters - need to be brutally honest about their own faults and issues. Sometimes people are disappointing.”

That’s how Jem can tell things are spiraling: when Will and Tessa - who have effectively communicated and collaborated on half a dozen bestsellers and who love each other more than Jem’s ever seen two people experience love - refuse to speak directly to one another. The moment they start talking around each other and at Jem instead is when he knows he has to step in and diffuse.

Usually, it’s a matter of taking a break, getting some fresh air, and coming back with clear minds. Jem normally isn’t one to pick sides, but this is different. He isn’t worried about the direction of the book… but after reading the latest draft from Will, which Will wrote while refusing to speak to either of them for a full week, he’s worried about Will. And he knows Tessa is, too.

“Perhaps a good starting point would be admitting this isn’t really about the character at all,” Jem says softly, gazing closely between Will and Tessa. Will looks a bit guilty and Tessa looks away entirely, which tells Jem that he’s right in guessing their concerns are also less plot-based.

“...what else would it be about?” Will asks defensively. But they can all sense how he’s been pushing them away lately, much like the cursed character undeserving of love he’s written in. It’s obvious that Tessa isn’t sure how to bring it up or else she would’ve already. Or maybe she already had and it hadn’t gone well.

“Tessa, would you mind making some tea?” Jem asks, waiting until she’s out of the room to turn back to Will.

“Will… you know this is about you. You barely talk to anyone for a week then come back with this character in such a self-deprecating mindset…”

“That’s ridiculous. He’s just a character,” Will says, but Jem can tell he’s entirely unconvinced of his own words.

“So if Tess came back having written Evangeline that way?” Jem counters, and there’s that look of subtle guilt, right back on Will’s face as he frowns and pieces together why Tessa’s so upset with him.

“I fucked up, didn’t I?” Will sighs.

“We’re not mad at you,” Jem’s quick to point out. “We’re just worried. It’s been a while since you tried to push us away like this, I just want to make sure you’re okay. We both do. Take it out in the writing if you want, but talk with us, too. Alright, my love?”

Jem’s tense as he waits. This has one of two options: Will relents and listens to him and they all have tea and talk this out, or Will storms out and they don’t see him again for another day or two.

Will stays. “I’m just letting the pressure get to me,” he admits. “I’m sure that’s all it is... But yeah. Okay. Tea.”

Tea, meaning ‘I’ll stay. I’ll talk. I’ll try.’ Jem leans over and places a barely-there kiss on Will’s lips before he relaxes back in his seat. Reaching out a hand that Will readily takes, Jem gives it a tight squeeze as they both wait for Tessa to return.

They talk.

In the end, the character arc stays. With a few redeeming modifications at Tessa and Jem’s entirely unbiased suggestion, of course.

---

A little over halfway through the first draft things seem to stall out. They have a progress deadline that week with the publisher and they’re cutting it close - mostly because Tessa keeps tossing everything she writes without giving Jem the chance to look it over. Recently she’s let her curiosity get the best of her, delving into research she should be allowing Jem to help with.

...and when he says ‘delving’, what he really means is stubbornly obsessing over, nitpicking bits of lore to streamline, and doing hours and hours of research for single-line references.

“When was the last time she slept? Like, an actual night of sleep?” Jem asks Will one day after a quick touch-base meeting that went… not terribly, but not particularly great, either.

“You need to get her out of here. No books. No wifi. I tried to kick her out but… well, you can imagine how well that went,” Will admits, and Jem winces in sympathy.

“The Time Out Cottage?” Jem asks, referring to a small cottage they own for unplugged getaways, where the wifi signal is nonexistent and a landline exists for emergency calls. “That means we’ll both be out of easy reach, and with that Friday deadline-”

“I can handle it,” Will cuts him off. “She’s been getting in her own way for days now, but she refuses to listen to me.”

A few minutes later Jem tentatively knocks on the door to the small study that does, in fact, look more like a makeshift research library. He nearly doesn’t see Tessa behind the small mountain of books on the floor, but he hears her pen tapping rapidly against the hardwood. No, not just rapidly - anxiously. He knows that action all too well.

“Tessa, what number is that?” he asks, the question needing no further explanation past his accusatory tone and pointed look at a coffee mug, which is next to a second coffee mug, which is next to a cup of black tea.

“Four? No, wait… what time is it?” she glances around and seems surprised by the height of the sun in the sky. “It’s afternoon already?”

Jem sighs. “It’s nearly four o’clock, Tessa, and your blood is probably about 90% caffeine. Come on, get your things, we’re taking a trip.”

Tessa looks immediately horrified. “No! I can’t, we can’t! The deadline, and I still have to streamline the fae lore between the two-”

“Will has it handled for 24 hours. That’s all we’re asking. 24 hours without research.” “Jem, you know-”

“-that you’ll be twice as productive once we’re back and you’re refreshed instead of running on fumes and fever dreams?” Jem cuts her off, his tone kind but insistent. He bends over and picks up a piece of paper. “Tessa, my love, this is nearly incoherent.”

Tessa reaches up to take the page from him and frowns. “I… okay, I can make out some of this, but I’m pretty sure that bit talks about aliens which isn’t any more reassuring. Will did say I was writing myself in circles, but I thought he was just, well, being Will, so... Yeah. Okay. Maybe I need to step back for a bit.” Tessa sighs. “The Time Out Cottage?”

“I already packed you a bag,” Jem confirms with a soft smile, leaning down to kiss the middle of her forehead before reaching out a hand to help her up off the floor.

When they return exactly 24 hours later, Tessa gets back to work and the lore practically falls into place between the two of them.

They meet the Friday deadline without a problem.

---

Jem spends his free time playing violin while Will and Tessa go through the first draft and begin to brainstorm fixes for plotholes, new minor characters to add to scenes that feel a bit lacking, and other small improvements to really round out the story and the world they’re weaving. They both claim to think clearer with his music in the background so he stays, even if he doesn’t feel particularly useful for this stage of the process until they have a single, coherent draft to hand over to him.

These are the moments Jem’s own insecurities and flaws float to the surface. The moments he watches Will and Tessa, so alike, so perfect for each other, connect on a level he isn’t privy to. He knows it’s a silly thought, that he and Will have their own things, as do he and Tessa. But sometimes he wonders if they truly need him around, or if he’s simply just become too much a part of the routine to actively get rid of.

He watches them sit next to each other with shoulders touching, hunched over a small screen, whispering back and forth. There’s a small smile on his face, one that’s wistful and tinged with hints of longing that, much to his dismay, they pick up on.

“I know that look,” Tessa says, catching Jem’s gaze and drawing Will’s attention before Jem can wipe the expression from his face. “Get over here. I think we’ve done enough work for today.”

Will is the first to move over, making room for Jem in the middle of them. After placing his violin back in its case Jem heads over to join them on the sofa, embracing the way Will and Tessa immediately crowd into his space once he’s settled, both placing a comforting kiss to his temples simultaneously before resting their heads on each of his shoulders and a placing a hand in each of his own.

They talk a bit, not about the book, but about anything and everything else, and fall asleep there, still entwined together.

---

It’s rare for any part of one of their books to be a surprise to Jem upon publication. He sees all the drafts, talks them through the acknowledgments and dedications, double-checks the reference pages against the chaotic piles of books and notes around their home.

So he’s immediately (and rightfully) suspicious the moment they hand him the first advanced copy and tell him to open it, watching his every move with eager expressions. Excited, but anxious.

‘A dedication to the one most dedicated to us:

This book would not be what it is without the kind heart, encouraging words, and infinite patience of James Carstairs. Neither would we. Jem, you are a light in our darkest hours, and we don’t know where we’d be without you.

We hope we’ll never have to find out.

Jem, our love, will you marry us?’

Jem reads, then re-reads the dedication. He closes the book, then opens it again, reading it a third time for good measure.

“Well?” Will asks impatiently, earning himself a nudge in the ribs from Tessa. Will huffs.

“I see you’re as dramatic as always,” Jem says quietly, instead of answering the question posed in the book. He knows his answer. He’s known for a while now what his answer would be, should the topic ever present itself, but he gets a bit of joy from making Will wait in anticipation just a short while longer.

“He wanted to be even more dramatic and show you at the event tomorrow,” Tessa admits. “But we decided against it. We thought you deserved the chance to say no without two hundred sets of eyes on you.”

Jem raises an eyebrow. “You think I’ll say no?”

“You haven’t said ‘yes’ yet,” Will points out, but he doesn’t sound nervous about it. Nor should he be.

“Yes,” Jem says, smiling brightly. “Of course it’s yes.”

#herongraystairs #will herondale #tessa gray #jem carstairs #tsc #thanks to Jay for letting me play around with that prompt!#SORRY THIS TOOK A MILLION YEARS #making prompt progress between weekly codas and bingo fills slowly but surely #i hope you like it my anon friend!#elle writes a few deadbeat lines #anon glamour activated #ask rune #long post #elle talks too much

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wunderlass · 5 years

Text

Time of Your Life

For Candy & Milkshakes, though angstier than this event was meant to be. Hastily betaed by @queenrikki - my haste, not hers.

It’s a good day in a long string of good days. Truth be told, Max Evans doesn’t have bad days.

The afternoon sun has burned the fog away from San Francisco Bay, so when he sits out on his apartment balcony with his notepad and mug of tea there’s a blue sky overhead and a distant view of the hills rising up behind Sausalito. One day they might be able to afford a better view—actual water, or the San Francisco shoreline—but then Liz always teases that they need to move to Poet’s Corner, where the houses are low and trees obscure the view.

She knows Max’s dream is to live in a Victorian, and they’ll probably have to leave Berkeley to get it. It’s another thing she teases him about: like him writing by hand instead of on a laptop. She calls him her old-fashioned gentlemen, but he’s learned how to ballroom dance with her so it seems to be old-fashioned in a way she likes.

He can take her teasing with ease. Anything to bring a smile to her face, to coax sparkling laughter from her like champagne.

This balcony has turned out to be a productive area for him. He’s written two novels on it since they moved in, and sold one of them. He’s not setting the bestseller’s list alight but it’s a steady income to supplement Liz’s paycheck, especially with how simply they live. It goes a long way at the farmer’s market, where he heads in the morning to pick up produce for dinner. Liz likes to refer to him as her house husband, with the way he does all the cooking and taking care of the apartment, though she glows with pride whenever she reads the reviews for his books.

He’s not capturing the feeling of home in his writing he’s been striving to since he was a teenager. But he’s working on it. The day he can say he’s been able to suspend how he feels about Liz in ink is the day he’ll have succeeded. For now, he keeps trying, pushing his characters through tests and troubles he’s never really faced in his life, leaving them chasing the home he managed to secure for himself so long ago.

His mug is empty, so he heads inside to set the kettle boiling for a refill. A pot of chili simmers away on the stove—his father-in-law’s recipe, solemnly handed over on their wedding day. Arturo had been worried that with them being so young when they married, they weren’t capable of taking care of themselves or each other. This was his way of making sure Liz didn’t starve while they tried to live on student grants, barista wages, and the occasional sale of a poem. Max had gradually persuaded Arturo to hand over many recipes in the decade since, but this remains a staple.

Even if it’s far smaller than what they could afford back in Roswell, Max likes their apartment. Sure, it’s a 1950’s box, but the balcony makes up for the lack of indoor charm. Liz is all the charm he needs. He’s lined the walls in cheap IKEA bookcases, all of them filled to the brim and overflowing, and it feels all the cozier for it. They don’t need more than they have, and he’d rather spend their money on the things that count. Things like traveling: where books haven’t swallowed wall space, Liz has insisted on photo frames of their adventures, right back to that original road trip after senior year. Six weeks across the US, cataloged through Polaroids and an old disposable film camera, followed by other journeys: Canada, Mexico, Europe.

Liz’s face smiles at him from one the of Polaroid images, right next to his own, her arms curled around him with the Grand Canyon in the background. It was when he’d first started trying to grow out facial hair, abandoning his razor when they left Roswell behind, and the fuzzy results made him cringe when he looked back at them, but Liz loves this photo. It had been the first one taken after he told her the truth: who he really was.

She’d accepted him, no questions. Well…there had been many questions, but that was Liz, rattling them off a million miles an hour trying to understand his physiology. None of his answers changed how she felt about him. Nor did they stop her accepting his spur-of-the-moment proposal on their way back to Roswell at the end of summer.

Nobody had approved—Rosa was the most vocal opponent, but even she’d come to the wedding in the end. Approval didn’t matter. Max had loved Liz his entire life and would love her forever. And because of that time he’d got a little carried away and accidentally forged a handprint bond with her when they were first becoming intimate, he knew she felt the same way.

Their wedding photo takes pride of place over the fireplace. Maria Deluca took it, by way of a gift. Rosa found Liz a vintage beaded gown in a thrift store, an ivory that goes so well with her skin tone. She doesn’t wear a veil and her hair is in a simple twist, curls escaping from it to frame her face and neck. Next to her, Max is in a borrowed grey suit, his hair much shorter than he wears it nowadays, slicked back with gel and hope. His facial hair had grown in enough by that point that it didn’t look like the desperate attempts of a teenage boy, though to his own eyes now he looks drowned in the suit. Doesn’t matter. What’s clear from the photo is how happy they both were. That hasn’t diminished at all; not through three degrees, six half-drafted novels, and eighteen countries.

The kettle comes to a rolling boil and clicks off. Max goes through the motions of brewing his tea. This break has really been to allow his mind to work through a sticky plot point, one that wouldn’t be solved staring at a blank page.

A comment by a reviewer in a prestigious newspaper column recently suggested that Max’s writing is callow because he gives his character happy endings. He doesn’t see the problem—why take readers on a journey alongside characters, have them grow to love them like friends, and reward them with nothing at the end of it? Liz told him to pay the review no mind and to write what he wants. But this time, he’s been contemplating ending on a tragic note. What if there is no happy ending to be found? If he wants to be one of the greats, maybe he needs to consider showing that sometimes struggles are futile.

The break has cleared his mind. That’s not the right path at all. He writes to give people hope. He writes, however unsuccessfully, to provide a lifeline to people who need it, a shining beacon of everything that life, love and happiness can be.

On that note, he hears the turn of the key in the door. His own shining beacon is home.

The morning birds wake him, their timing ever cruel. The moment before he’d see Liz again.

In truth, Max doesn’t know what Liz Ortecho looks like anymore. He carries the memory of her face in crystal clarity within his minds’ eye, but that’s the face of a teenage girl who left Roswell ten years ago and never looked back. What changes time has brought to her, Max doesn’t know. Social media has its temptations but he’s resisted them, in the knowledge that he doesn’t have the right to seek her out.

Not when the memory of her face is tangled up in the blank face of her sister, twisted together by his own guilt.

Despite this, in his dreams he’s begun seeing a Liz that doesn’t exist, living a life with a version of himself that doesn’t exist either. A simple, happy life, the kind of life Max hoped for as a foolish teenager. Where his dreams have always been vague jumbles of shapes and sound, fleeting with the morning, over the last few weeks they’ve become sharp and clear.

He sees Liz, in the kind of detail he never thought himself capable of imagining. He watches them share a life: he’s been able to do more than look at her at night, sharing casual, affectionate touches, kisses and caresses. Tumble into bed with her with all the accrued intimacy of a decade together, knowing her body as well as his own.

Other details linger from his dreams, making them feel as tangible as the real world. He knows how the pot of chili is going to taste. He’s never been to California, or seen the ocean, but somehow he’s able to construct an entire cityscape from nothing, the memory of salt and fog on his skin and in his lungs. If he was still writing his imagination’s sudden uptick in activity would be a boon, but he hasn’t felt the urge to put pen to paper for months.

He should be asking the question why now?, but he knows why. This is a fresh form of his guilt, tormenting him with what might have been. A decade ago they’d been making plans to leave Roswell together and go on that roadtrip. This is his imagination throwing in his face all that might have been, with barely over a month to go until the anniversary of that night.

He wants to return to sleep, hoping that even if time has moved on in that other world, he’ll still be mid-kiss with Liz. It’s another way his imagination is excelling itself in fleshing out the details of how she feels, tastes, of the noises she makes. And because he wants it so badly, he’s locked out, condemned to wakefulness.

Instead he gives up, getting up and going through the motions of another day.

Those motions bring him to the Crashdown at lunchtime, nursing a coffee he won’t drink. Arturo is too busy to talk to, but Max won’t ask about Liz this time. The words feel too heavy when it’s so close to that day.

He doesn’t order any food but he swears he can taste chili as he leaves. He wonders if Arturo would have been the amenable father-in-law he seems to be during the night.

All Max wants is to make it through the day until he is tired enough to go home and sleep. He doesn’t want to have to wear the mask that helps him pretend he is fine. And yet, here Isobel is outside the Crashdown, making a beeline for him.

The mask goes on. He wonders if she will ever notice.

“That’s weird,” Isobel says as she approaches. “I haven’t been here in ages, but today of all days…” She drifts off, shakes her head.

“What do you want, Isobel?” He sounds as tired as he feels, even to his own ears.

“Lovely to see you too. Maybe I just wanted to say hello to my brother in passing since he never seems to go anywhere or do anything these days?”

Max flinches. He’s been going out less and less, turning down the invitations he’s always accepted out of obligation, out of the need to pretend that his world hasn’t shrunk to a little patch of gray disinterest. “I’ve been busy.”

“No you haven’t. And I need your help as a volunteer to decorate the school reunion.”

Now Max really regrets getting out of bed. “I don’t remember volunteering.”

“I’m organizing it, of course you’re helping me.” But she’s distracted, her gaze flicking back to the Crashdown behind him. She absently plays with the wedding band on her finger. He’s never seen her do that before. “Do you remember Liz Ortecho?”

Max stiffens. He hasn’t mentioned her name in years. Isobel definitely hasn’t. “Of course I do,” he says between gritted teeth.

“I had the weirdest dream a few nights ago. She was in it.” Max doesn’t ask for more details, but Isobel volunteers them anyway. “I wasn’t married, but you were. To her.”

Max holds his breath.

“It was so vivid,” she continues. “Like, you weren’t even here in Roswell anymore, but I was. Alone. I didn’t like it.” She shakes her head, as if shaking the feeling away. “As if you’d ever abandon me like that.” She smiles at him and it’s all he can do to force a smile in return.

She’s right. He wouldn’t. Even if it meant giving up Liz.

When he continues on his way, climbing into his cruiser for an uneventful tour of the city, he isn’t unduly concerned about the similarity of his dream to Isobel’s. If it was anyone else, sure, but they have the twin connection. They’ve never spoken about their dreams before, but is it so strange for their dreams to blend together at night?

This new dimension should make him feel guilty. In this dream reality he is forcing Isobel to be lonely, abandoned in Roswell—though why his imagination doesn’t have her finding Noah, he doesn’t know. But these are only dreams. In the daylight, she has Noah. She has Max and Michael, and she is loved. Max doesn’t have that.

If he has to chase it at twilight, he will, Isobel be damned.

There are no bookshelves in the bedroom. Liz’s rule, although it doesn’t stop Max’s nightstand being stacked with a precarious pile of them, each bisected by receipts and ticket stubs and whatever else was to hand when he needed a bookmark. Liz’s nightstand is neater, even if it’s not exactly neat: she has her own disheveled collection of papers; the case for her mouthguard; baby wipes; lube.

He’s propped up against the headboard reading while she brushes her teeth in the en-suite. He gets glimpses of her as she paces: hair tied up in a loose bun, a camisole and pajama pants that speak more to comfort than enticing him. Not that it takes much to entice him, and knowing Liz is comfortable around him only adds to that effect.

He waits for her to finish spitting and rinsing, flicking off the overhead light so she’s lit only by the glow of the bedside lamp. She clambers into the bed beside him, burrows into his side. He can read like this, with her head resting on his shoulder, as they first discovered on the senior year road trip. Something about him being awake and reading helps soothe her to sleep. They’ve never figured out why, but it’s the same for Max, who struggles to sleep any other way these days. The times she’s gone off to conferences to present her research, he’s had to return to Roswell to spend time with Isobel, because being alone in their home without Liz’s presence is the opposite of soothing. They have a rhythm and being without her throws it off.

“Max,” Liz murmurs into his chest.

Evidently tonight she doesn’t intend on going straight to sleep.

“Hmmm?” He closes his book, marking his place with a fridge magnet they bought in Mexico City, and places it on the nightstand.

“Do you ever wonder about starting a family?”

She must be able to hear his heart pounding. He’s wondered. Of course he’s wondered.

“We don’t know if that’s possible,” he says gently. It’s why he’s never dared raise the subject before.

“I think it’ll work,” she replies, raising her head so she’s looking at him. Big brown eyes, glowing in the lamplight. “I’ve looked at our DNA and there’s no reason to think it won’t.”

He chuckles. He can’t help it; of course Liz has done the research before coming to him. “Is that so?”

“I think if we can conceive, then the pregnancy should be viable. Conceiving may be the hardest part.” Her expression turns playful. “But also the most fun.”

He can’t argue with that.

Max’s mood is more sour than usual. He’s felt fragile since he woke up, like he’s on the verge of a meltdown: he doesn’t know if he wants to cry, or throw things, but being around his brother isn’t the best way to find out which it will be.

If only he’d not been taking the first step towards creating a family with Liz when he woke up.

Michael hasn’t been arrested for a few weeks and it’s making Max concerned. Even Isobel has commented that he seems to be preoccupied, going to the Pony less (because it turns out Isobel keeps tabs on Michael too).

When he emerges, it’s not as bad as it could be. He’s not in the drunk tank. He isn’t being ticketed. No, he seeks Max out, something that hasn’t happened in years.

His voluntary presence in the sheriff’s office draws stares from everyone when he saunters past the front desk.

“You don’t have any outstanding warrants,” Max tells him when Michael reaches his desk.

“I know. If I did, I wouldn’t be here,” Michael replies, like he’s talking to an idiot.

“Then why are you here?”

Cam’s out patrolling and the Sheriff is in her personal office so they actually have privacy. Nevertheless, Michael lowers his voice to barely above a whisper.

“You wouldn’t happen to have been having weird dreams?”

The pencil in Max’s hand snaps in two.

“What have you done?”

Liz is sleeping in this morning. It’s the weekend and without an alarm set, she will doze for hours. It’s always tempting to stay curled up with her, but Max gets restless too easily, so he’s up making pancakes. Hopefully the smell will entice Liz to emerge from her cocoon.

He plates up and sits himself down at their tiny dining table. It’s next to the kitchen wall, right below a set of photos from their youths: Liz and Rosa’s quinceaneras, Max and Isobel with the family dog, Max and Isobel and Michael out in the desert the year before they graduated high school. Michael has a guitar in his hand and a smile on his face. It’s a rare photo of him, and a rare example of him smiling. Possibly the last time Max ever saw him this way.

All Max knows is that something happened to Michael at the end of high school, something that left his hand mangled and his hope in tatters. He turned his back on humanity, preaching to his siblings that there was nothing good to be found on Earth, and sought comfort at the bottom of bottles of whiskey and acetone. The two only seemed to curdle his bitterness and there was nothing Max could do or say to reach him. No, Michael had taken Max’s happiness with Liz as a personal affront and walked away from him.

Max hasn’t seen Michael for a few years: not since he was arrested for credit card fraud. The charges were shaky but Michael had nobody to bail him out or pay for a decent lawyer, so off to the state penitentiary he went. Isobel visits him in there sometimes, but Max isn’t welcome. Michael’s sentence keeps getting extended because he can’t stay out of fights, though he’s managed to evade suspicion of being an alien. Probably because people don’t know he’s from Roswell and don’t associate him with the legend.

Liz pads into the living room wearing one of Max’s t-shirts, which hits her at mid-thigh. “Those smell amazing.”

She hasn’t brushed her teeth yet so kisses his forehead rather than his mouth, not that Max cares. She grabs her plate and sits opposite him, digging in with relish.

“I’ve been thinking,” he ventures. “We could get a dog. You know, if the baby thing doesn’t work out. I know it’s not the same, but a dog would be nice.”

Max likes dogs, and they always like him. He thinks he wants a dog even if the baby thing does work out.

Liz smiles sympathetically and covers her hand with her own. “It’s going to work out. One way or the other.”

“What do you mean ‘alternate universe’?”

Michael sighs. “It’s complicated if you aren’t already into multiverse theory and—”

“I don’t need the physics explaining to me,” Max cuts in. “I need you to explain why you think I’m experiencing one when I sleep.”

Michael holds his hands up sheepishly. “So I may have been collecting spaceship pieces in my trailer, and I may have recently been experimenting a little with quantum mechanics using subpar equipment.”

“In your airstream.”

“Yeah.”

“And you started having these dreams yourself?”

Michael shoves his hands into his pockets. “Can’t say they were much fun.”

“No. You’re in prison there.”

“Anyway, I’m working on untangling it all so it’ll go back to normal real soon.”

That’s the last thing Max wants. “No,” he says, too sharply and too quickly. Michael’s puzzled frown demands more of a response. “No more experimenting. If this is bad as it gets, I can live with it. I don’t want you making it worse.”

Nor does he want his nights with Liz snatched away from him. Not now he knows how real they are. It’s not his reality, but it’s one he’ll willingly disappear into for as long as he can.

“I know what I’m doing,” Michael protests.

“Clearly you don’t. Leave it alone.”

All Max needs is time. Time with Liz. Time in the life he should have had.

Max hasn’t felt the twin connection to Isobel for years. Somewhere along the way they’d stopped using it, long before Max left Roswell.

It comes screaming back at the most inconvenient time. Liz is unwrapping a trio of pregnancy tests, ready to find out if their first month of baby-making was successful or not.

And Max is on his knees, groaning with the surge of pain that runs through his head.

Liz is in front of him immediately. “Max! Max, are you okay?”

“Isobel,” he pants out, and Liz scrambles for the phone, dialing his parents.

It doesn’t take long to get an answer. Isobel has been hospitalized. It’s unclear why: his mother is hysterical, in a way he’s never heard her become. But Max is booking flights back to Roswell, ready to find out what’s going on.

Liz can’t come with him. She has to stay and work—her project is at a delicate stage.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he tells her.

“I won’t use the tests until you return,” she promises.

Isobel is waiting for him outside the Crashdown. There are dark circles under her eyes and she holds her left hand like it’s heavy, rubbing at her wedding ring.

“Did you see it?” she asks. “When you were dreaming?”

“What happened?” When he woke up, he was still on his way to Roswell, having only just said goodbye to Liz.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she says. “No Noah, no Michael, no you. What a horrible reality.”

Max can’t agree. “So the other Isobel—”

“It wasn’t the other Isobel. It was me. She put a mask on her loneliness and went on like it wasn’t killing her, so I made her do something about it. To bring you back.”

He staggers back, as if she’s actually punched him rather than done it verbally. “What?” He shakes his head. “We can’t influence—”

Isobel squares her shoulder. “I can. My powers are mental. I found a way.”

How does Max even begin to explain what Isobel is interrupting? “That’s not our world, Isobel. We have different lives—we can’t interfere in them. You have a good life here. You should focus on that.”

“What good does that do me if the other one haunts me when I’m awake?”

“How can you say that? We aren’t killers in that reality. Isn’t that better?”

He’s never been able to figure out why, what the little differences were that made all the difference. No camping trip when they were fourteen meant Isobel didn’t have blackouts, and for some reason that meant Rosa Ortecho never died. Isobel’s loneliness seems like a small price to pay for that, compared to a universe where Max is a killer and still has to bear his guilt alone.

“No,” Isobel insists. “I hate it. If I have to keep going back there, I’m going to do everything I can to keep you in Roswell with me. Even if I have to get inside your head and make you stay. I can’t cope alone, Max. Not when I know what I could have had.”

“Isobel’s okay,” Max says to Liz down the phone. “Sedated. She didn’t mean to harm herself, they think it was accidental.”

“That’s good. Though she can’t have been doing all that well—”

“No, I know. Mom and dad haven’t noticed anything, but…” It’s Isobel, and it’s his mother. Neither are very emotionally available people.

“Stay as long as she needs you,” Liz urges.

“I need you.”

“I need you too. But you’ve always been good about me running off to help Rosa. It’s your turn.”

Max knows what he needs to do, for the sake of the other Max. But even hearing her voice over the phone is like a hit of opium. As much as the other Max relishes any form of contact with his Liz, it’s nothing to what Max feels in this reality. He’s been denied her for years and every morsel, every scrap she throws his way, is a slow drip of what he needs through his veins.

How can he give her up?

Isobel isn’t responsive in the hospital. He sits with her a while, holds her hand, strokes her hair, but she doesn’t wake up.

Does she dream of her life in the other Roswell, where she has a husband and her family around her?

Seeing Isobel persuades him. In both realities she’s not in a good way, and only one person seems to know how to fix it.

Michael is hard to pin down, even if he supposedly lives and works in the same place, so Max leaves him a voicemail.

“Do what you need to do to make the dreams stop, Michael. For Isobel’s sake.”

“Max?” Liz’s voice is soft, happy. “I know I said I wouldn’t use the tests—and I haven’t!—but you should know I’ve been feeling kind of nauseated today. And yesterday. And the day before that.”

“And you’re excited about that?” he teases, but he can feel a bubble of happiness rising within his own chest. “Isn’t it a little early—”

“Not necessarily.”

He pauses. “Take the test, Liz. There’s no point waiting until I come home.”

“Okay. I’ll call you back when I know.”

It feels wrong, sitting outside Isobel’s room, almost vibrating with happiness, but he can’t help it. He has a good feeling about this.

He’s wrenched awake. It’s the middle of the night and there’s no reason for him to be awake, but he is, and he feels adrift, like he’s been cut off from something.

His phone blinks on the nightstand. A message from Michael.

Fixed it.

Liz is gone. The other universe is lost to him.

He hadn’t thought it possible for this universe to feel more barren to him until this morning. The desert dust is ash under his boots, the rolling emptiness around his home a valid reflection of what he feels inside.

He’s on a later shift, doing traffic stops on the highway, and he knows despite the Sheriff’s best efforts they’ll probably have unwelcome company park up with them. First, he has to go to the warehouse the school reunion is being held in and lug boxes and tables around for Isobel.

Her dark circles are gone. The spring in her step has returned.

He made the right choice.

Later, on the dark highway armed with a torch and his weariness, he indicates for a car with Colorado plates and a broken light to pull over. Gets hit with a mouthful of fire.

And then there she is.

“Liz.”

#roswell new mexico #fic #echo #candymilkshakes2019 #liz x max #tw implied self harm #very non specific

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a-lluring · 5 years

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｡･: * ◜ she stood in a dress that made her look like 𝖘𝖎𝖓 ❟ and it was fitting that her eyes drifted like 𝖘𝖒𝖔𝖐𝖊 above her red lips . there is no 𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖑 that is more 𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖈𝖎𝖓𝖌 than her ❟ drag me beneath the 𝖋𝖑𝖆𝖒𝖊𝖘 ◞

hello, there !! call me latte, twenty-one, and i go by they / them pronouns. activity will be sporadic as i have other characters but if i had to really pick, i’d say a seven out of ten. my timezone is est but - let’s not talk about my sleeping schedule - i’m probably online when i should be sleeping rip i’ve been writing for years but always finding ways to improve. i’m very chill and love love love plotting back in forth between characters, so feel free to message me if you’re interested !! sooo- let’s have some fun facts about me, ay ?? arctic monkeys is one of my favorite bands ( alex turner owns my entire soul ), i draw digitally but like once a year, and my favorite color is orange / tangerine !! i don’t have a preference between im or discord ( latte#8593 ) but i’d love to hear from you !! here’s my chaotic girlie !!

✧･ﾟ( circe + ariana grande + cis female ) 𝒎𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒂 𝒎𝒊𝒂 !! have you seen ( willow forlani ) around ? ( she / her ) has been in kaos for ( three months ). the ( twenty-six year old ) is a ( professional hairdresser ) from ( edenton, north carolina, usa ). people say they can be ( domineering ) but maybe that’s not too bad ‘cause they can also be ( intrepid ). whenever i think of them, i can’t help but think of ( lithe fingers caressing sun kissed skin, boasting about a bouquet of vibrant flowers framed to look like it was sent by a secret admirer when it was actually the sendee and touching up mauve lipstick in a tastefully decorated restroom ). ･ﾟ✧ ( penned by latte, 21, est, they / them ).

I. BASICS

( full name ) willow evangeline forlani

( job ) hairdresser, social media influencer

( age ) twenty-six

( gender ) cis female

( sexuality ) bisexual

( status ) single?

( greek goddess ) circe a goddess of magic or sometimes a nymph, enchantress or sorceress

( zodiac ) cancer sun, aries moon, libra rising

( myers briggs ) entj

( alignment ) lawful evil

( body type ) short in stature, petite

( height ) 5ft 1in

( weight ) 108Ibs

( hair ) coffee bean, brown

( eyes ) dark chocolate, brown

II. ABOUT

ever since willow could remember, she knew she belonged somewhere extravagant; that she was amounted to greatness. she was born in edenton, north carolina in a dingy starter home with only a single mother to support her and her sisters. being the youngest of three girls, she had to face a lot of obstacles to get the acknowledgement she deserved and outshine any competition. this included her siblings. whenever they’d show any form of accomplishments, willow does everything in her power to one-up them - which, with enough drive, she eventually does. willow was known as little miss perfect in her small town. she’d bake cookies for her neighbors, helped fundraise for charities and made sure anyone caught in her radius recycled their wastes. she was pretty happy with her younger years until she got into her first relationship in high school where looks became a little bit more important than community service. ( tw : cheating ) her boyfriend was her everything. she loved everything about him. from that sexy strand of hair to those harley davidson boots he always wore. it was great, they were young and in love. but things got messy quick, as high school romances tend to do. when he was seen remotely close to any female figure, platonic or not, willow would imagine the worse. she’d always berate him every chance she got until he reached a boiling point where he angrily confessed he’s been sleeping with one of her best friends. her world after that shattered. willow became bitter and pushed away her remaining friends in high school. despite winning prom queen with honors to upstage her sisters, as she always does, she didn’t feel happy at all. she focused more on her looks, eventually finding satisfaction in social media. she gained a sort of comfort when they related to her posts in terms of heartbreak and made quite a following throughout the years with her style. one of her first followers, whom she eventually became close friends with, talked her into pursuing cosmetology. another got her into witchcraft. well, she was weary at first. regardless, she made a voodoo doll of her ex to test the waters but gave up midway when it didn’t look exactly like he did - or not nearly as beautiful as she remembered him - so she threw him out into a bin. a week later, the news reported found said ex in a dumpster, seconds away from being crushed by a garbage truck. it might’ve been a coincidence but she knew that power was something she needed to obtain. so she researched, practiced, and made use of it. willow, with her luck and witchcraft on her side, made otherworldly success. she became an ambassador for versace which popularized her social media and made her a socialite of sorts, had opportunities to style runaway models’ hair, and just recently opened her own professional hair salon located in kaos, greece. now she’s enjoying her time in the sun as much as she can before she moves on to the next thing - attempt to settle down with a lover. behind that well-spoken and mannered facade, willow is a force to reckon with. she may be childish at times, vain, and harsh; but she can be sweet when you least expect it, mainly for a purpose but who’s to know. she has little to no grip on reality, always living life as if it were a dream made in her creation. her arrogance proves it so.

what she lacks in self-awareness, she makes up for it in self-assurance. she’s driven in terms of her career and romance, always dancing between normalcy and obsession, so there’s little to expect from her. one thing’s for sure, she’s a luminous star above a night sky.

III. CONNECTIONS

( platonic ) willow knows a lot - i mean A LOT - of people. she just so chooses to have a close circle that she keeps near and dear. a tight pack that really knows the real her and sticks to her side despite how much of a mess she is behind the cameras

( romantic ) back on willow knowing a lot of people, a majority of them have probably been romantically involved with her. although magazines exaggerate a lot, her relationship count is more or less accurate to what they print

( antagonistic ) a handful of people can see past her mask and probably hate her for it. there may be things she's said in the past that rub people the wrong way - just her real personality showing through, funnily enough. anyway, she has a big following online, it’d be a miracle if there weren’t any haters in the mix.

( wanted ) wishlist muse tag here, i will give my left kidney for these !!

#kaos:intro #this is so obnoxiously huge i'm so sorry #pls give me all the plots pls #♡

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crystalnet · 7 years

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State of the Art: JRPG Spotlight-

Issue #1- 2017 at a Glance- A quarterly or bi-annual journal on the JRPG at large, focusing on recent releases, trends, quarterly reviews/analyses and upcoming release hype.

The other night I was getting yet even deeper still into the freshly minted minor-masterpiece that is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 when it dawned on me just how good 2017 was to the quaint little genre known as the JRPG. I knew all year while it was happening that some special games were getting released with a certain regularity, but now that the dust has fully settled, we can look back and be conclusively impressed by such a stellar stretch.

3 or 4 years ago I think people were getting ready to pen their moratoriums on why big developers and JRPGs should soon plan on never intersecting again save for small-scale handheld releases, and now here we are and Japan is seemingly back on top as far as role-playing goes. That return-to-form didn't always seem so inevitable as it is now that it's fully underway, especially after a somewhat shaky stretch for the genre during the 7th generation. Indeed, high-definition graphics and devs who catered to Gatorade-guzzling gamer bros seemed to not be the boon to the genre that old-school role-players really needed, and even the first couple of years of the 8th generation saw the genre to still be on slightly shaky ground, without a ton of great titles to point to from those initial years.

But then throughout the 7th gen a little franchise called Dark Souls (a JRPG in spirit, though not quite in practice, in many ways) started to build a little following, generating new interest in things like difficulty, customization, and innovative diagetic story-telling. As of the middle of this decade though, the genre still doesn’t have all that much of a presence compared to the late 90s heyday of JRPGs. Cut to 2016 though and Square drops FFXV which is a solid, if not-perfect realization of the 30-year-old standard-bearer of the genre, (a herald of sorts, if you will) and BAM. 2017 begins and in quick succession Nier Automata, Persona 5 and Breath of the Wild drop, all to stunningly positive reception. Now BotW, like Dark Souls, is not as much of a JRPG as the other 3 releases I hope to focus on, but Zelda has always had it's toe in the same waters as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, borrowing and simplifying elements of role-playing games from an action-adventure perspective, and in turn, also influencing those very JRPG franchises it seemed to pay homage to.

This wasn't just a coincidental blip of releases though, proved largely by the fact that all the way at the end of the year, Xenoblade 2 would also drop, and show yet again how the JRPG can be fresh and vital, and can be a Nintendo-exclusive at that. Indeed, I hope to demonstrate my thesis that it was a particularly strong year by triangulating my discussion around Nier A, Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2. Not only are these three very strong titles, they are also all pretty vastly different styles of JRPGs, which I think displays the health and potential of the genre even better than the fact that they are so individually good. First of all we have an industry veteran and mad-hatter in Yoko Taro finally coalescing a fully-realized vision of action-JRPG greatness by collaborating with Platinum games to make something as heady, and intellectual as it is well-designed and fun to play. That game is something like a Hegelian Philosophy PhD driving a Lamborghini in terms of the amount of stuff going on with the writing and character development, all while sporting a super classy luxury sports-car, six-cylinder engine. For long-time fans of Taro, I don't think this direction could have ever been predicted, though they may have secretly dreamed of such a fusion of form and function.

The best thing about how simultaneously weird and playable Nier A is for me is the way it hearkens back to the golden age of PS2 JRPGs for me personally. Without pinning it to a single PS2-era title, it gives me the same feeling that games during that console could consistently deliver on: a fully realized fantasy/sci fi world, a deep-yet-approachable combat system, a weird and very-Japanese, but also deep-as-hell plot, and a certain functionality that games like Kingdom Hearts 2, Rogue Galaxy and Final Fantasy XII delivered on back then. I don't mean to say it's derivative or stuck in the past, it's just that, the highlights of the PS2 days are my go-to precedent for what a good modern, post-16-bit JRPG is, since that equally sweet ps1 era can only be reasonably emulated on smaller and/or handheld retro-style releases. And while the story’s depth and esoteric nature recall the plot’s and worlds of PS1 and 2 greats like FFX, Xenosaga or Vagrant Story, the combat itself feels as fast-and-furious as hack-n-slash classics from then like Devil May Cry.

So while Nier had action-(j)RPG style gameplay covered, Persona 5 was there for all the turn-based devotees, and oh boy were we there for it also. That game was a huge victory lap for Atlus, who has built up a deep fanbase over the past decade, largely because of youtubers (at least in the west we can thank the cult-y presence of its fans online for the slow-burn development of an army of Atlus acolytes, whereas P3 and 4 were only barely noticed in the States back when they actually first came out.) And they finally capitalized on that hard-earned interest by finally following up P4 after nearly a decade, and while they were at it, they also showed everyone that fully turn-based (not even slightly active-time) systems can still melt faces, please crowds and feel fresh, which is no mean feat at all in a world where some question if turn-based is officially dead save for retro-homages.

And while Nier captures a kind of ethereal PS2-esque quality, Persona very literally pulls some of the PS2-era goodness into the future by updating and refining the awesomely deep and OCD-enabling systems of the now holy-grail-level PS2 era Persona games. Yes, wandering around Shinjuku, going on supportive dates with classmates, building up your relationships in general, and working a part time job between study breaks has been fully realized for the modern gamer, and it is glorious to behold.

And that takes us to Xenoblade which out of all the titles I might be most surprised by. Being a bit of a Xeno-noob, I wasn't sure if the release was going to be a major or minor event for role-players, especially given Nintendo's spotty track-record with the JRPG, usually sporting all of maybe one or two truly notable ones per generation, as well as their tendency to censor and/or smother developers. But alas, Xenoblade is fully-formed, proper, brimming-with-life and as deserving of the title of new standard-bearer to the genre as any of the other fantastic JRPGs released that year, many of which I won't even get to.

As is the case with the others, it seems to draw on PS2 era greatness in someways, by building on battle systems like the ones in FFXI and FFXII, while also being an actual descendant of the Xenosaga series that rocked that console, and also still draws on PS3-era titles that were successful (though smaller in number there were some good ones!) like Ni No Kuni and the Last Story. This is a round-about way of saying the combat system is an excellent take on the free-moving active-time auto-battling-but-with-real-time-triggers-style combat that started to show up towards the end of the PS2's life-cycle just when people were realizing the days of pure turn-based role-laying may be limited. And it also delivers on all those other check-marked boxes that any truly great and special JRPG must deliver on including: emotionally stirring and unique soundtrack, a deep and rewardingly complex story with all sorts of specific and detailed lore, a really nice visual style, and some incredibly beautiful locales. Okay that last thing isn't even a thing JRPGs usually have to deliver on, but it sure is a highlight. Some of the locations you move through during your travels in this game are breathtaking, and even more impressive than the similarly psuedo-cell-shaded style of Breath of the Wild, whose open-world Monolith Soft also worked on (though you can't climb all over these areas I should say).

I'm as blown away by the suddenly addictive combat (once it fully kicks in and you are given full control over 3 blades around the 15 hour mark) as I am by the surprisingly moving, funny and immersive story. I can be a little skeptical sometimes when approaching JRPG stories, but by all three of these aforementioned titles, we were treated to surprisingly mature and complex narratives, with refreshingly grounded and/or thoughtful characters. Indeed, with this many games firing on all these different cylinders (I didn't even mention the soundtrack to Persona 5 or Nier OMG), you know something special is happening.

So there you have it, three wildly differently styles of JRPG, only unified by their consistent top-tier quality. An old-school turn-based lite-novel hyprid, a full real-time action-RPG for philosophy students, and a MMO-style combat fantasy epic. And on top of all that there's myriad other fantastic releases, or even re-releases like the Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age remaster of FFXII, one of my favorites and oft-forgotten FF titles that I think got overlooked slightly upon initial release precisely because of the way it showed other developers the way forward from pure turn-based combat.

And then the behemoth that is Breath of the Wild saw a tried-and-true franchise get fully revitalized in a way that drew on the weapon system of Dark Souls as much as it did the food system of Odinsphere of all games. And like I said, though not a true JRPG, it shows that role-playing adjacent titles are also showing a come-back. Survival components in video games were always the more practical, realist cousin to role-playing/stat-grinding after all.

So where do we go from here? Well 2018 will show us whether 2017 was a stand-out year or just the beginning of a trend, but all signs seem to point to an ongoing upward trend if releases like Monster Hunter World are any indication. Ni No Kuni 2 is due out soon, Octopath Traveler, which should make good on the idea of a retro-JRPG, and Kingdom Hearts 3 at the end of the year all help to paint the picture of an equally formidable year. Alas, Nippon is poised to continue its domination in coming months. All in all, fans of the genre should be very pleased, and if you haven't checked out one of the aforementioned titles get to it, because all of them are excellent, even if Xeno takes about 15 hours to truly get rolling and Persona takes a whopping like 20. All good things come to those who wait, after all.~

#xenoblade chronicles 2 #xenoblade #nier automata #nier #persona 5 #persona #jrpg #state of the jrpg #role-playing #role playing #role #playing #ps4 #switch #turn-based #combat #real-time #state of the art

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folklore-musings · 7 years

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When The Curtain Falls

Summary: AU. Jughead wins a scholarship to one of the most prestigious arts schools in the country. His dream is to be an award winning director, but to get there he must first try his hand at acting. He wins the lead role in the senior showcase alongside Betty Cooper, daughter of the infamous actress Alice Cooper. Will Betty and Jughead crumble under the pressure, or defeat the odds set against them? Bughead slow burn leading to eventual smut.

A/N: This was my original description of this story - maybe it sounds a little more appealing now? It’s an AU world where Riverdale meets La La Land meets Step Up. Very subtle hints of ED (won’t happen until later chapters) and some drug abuse. After all “We’re all just prisoners here, of our own device.” - I shit you not that line was what inspired this whole story.

Read on AO3 here

Prologue: The Golden Ticket

Forsythe (Jughead) Jones,

We are happy to announce that we have selected you as the winner of the Presidential Scholarship Award. You will receive a one year's full tuition to New York Academy of the Arts acting and directing program. Classes start at 8 a.m. Tuesday September 5tth, 2017. Please be sure to create an account at www.NYAoA.edu. There you can register for classes, browse extracurricular activities and create friends in a safe, online environment.

Welcome Week begins the week before classes. All new students are invited to join in on the fun and get well acquainted with the campus. We hope to see you there.

If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us:

Email: [email protected] or

Phone: 918-555-1267

Sincerely,

Sierra McCoy

Headmistress

New York Academy of the Arts

Jughead can recite the whole acceptance letter by heart he’s read it so many times. It’s 3 a.m. and he’s on a bus to Queens. The knuckles on his right hand are covered in dried blood and beginning to bruise. He winces as he attempts to open and close his fist, ultimately giving up, the pain too much to bear.

Jughead wasn’t supposed to leave school until the day after next, but like always, something had to go wrong in the Jones family.

His dad had come home from the bar that night reeking of Tennessee whiskey an old ashtray. Jughead lay awake and bed, listening to the disgruntled voices of his parents arguing in the kitchen. “Not again,” he murmured, glancing at the clock on his night stand. It was midnight and his dad, FP Jones was annihilated.

Jughead turned off the video games he had been playing and pulled on a pair of pajama pants. Walking down the hall he stopped in his tracks at the sight that welcomed him in the kitchen. FP had his mom up against the wall with a thick hand wrapped around her neck. She was struggling against him, but too weak to fight him off.

“Get the fuck off her!” Jughead yelled, making his presence known.

FP whirls around, giving his mom a chance to escape. “Go to bed Jughead, this doesn’t concern you.”

His words were slurred to the point Jughead could barely comprehend what he said. He shook his head, his lips tightening, curling his right hand into itself. “Don’t fucking touch her again.”

“Are you threatening me? My own son threatening me? I can’t fucking believe this.” FP slams his fist on the countertop, causing the silverware drawer to clatter. “I said go to bed.”

“No.”

FP came for him, a mess of heavy limbs. His reaction time was reduced due to his blood alcohol level, giving Jughead just enough time to react. He swung his fist, knocking his dad to the ground out cold.

Jughead’s mom ran to him, tears streaming down her face. “You need to leave Juggie.” She blubbered through her crying. “Before he wakes up.” Jughead wrapped his arms around his mom and kissed her on the forehead, terrified of what would happen once he left.

“I love you mom,” he whispered into her hair.

Quickly, he grabbed his duffle bag, already pre-packed for the trip to school. Before departing, he tip toed into his little sister’s room and hugged her goodbye. “Stay safe JB. I love you.” He wished he could’ve brought her along to school, to protect her from a life she didn’t deserve.

He fled into the night, taking his bike to the bus station in town. He bought a one way ticket from Jersey to Queens, the road in front of him much brighter than the darkness behind.

Jughead relives the memory over and over on the four hour trip into the city. When the driver signals that they’re nearing the end, he finally allows himself to be excited. His knee doesn’t stop bouncing and he clutches the letter tighter in his good hand. He is one step closer to achieving his dreams.

For as long as Jughead could he remember he wanted to produce and direct movies, like Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino. To create a cinematic masterpiece that would test the ages of time. He started crafting scripts when he was 8 and for his 13th birthday his family scrounged up all money they had to purchase him his very own video camera. Every class project he was able to convince his teachers to allow him to turn in homemade videos instead of papers, and when he did write papers he wrote them as playwrights.

His mind was whirl wind of concepts, constantly thinking up new plots. Whether they are thrilling and chilling or dramatic and romantic, he wrote them down. He had notebooks full of old napkins, receipts and ticket stubs for brainstorming new ideas. No matter when inspiration struck he always made sure to write it down and save it for later, never knowing when one may strike gold.

That’s how he landed himself here, on this bus. Jughead had gotten word of New York’s most prestigious art school offering up a scholarship to one lucky winner. He was in his junior year of high school and figured what the hell, why not? He flipped through his notebooks, searching for a story. Something with the perfect hook that would grab the school’s attention, slap it in the face and say, “We need Jughead Jones.” Little did he know his life was about to change forever.

The bus comes to a whining stop and Jughead grabs his duffle bag, eager to stretch his legs and explore the new opportunities New York had in store for him.

New York Academy of the Arts is centered in the heart of the city. Jughead is taken aback by the sprawling green lawns and towering buildings. The sight leaves him breathless. He arrives just in time to see the sun rise on the horizon. He checks the time on his watch, both cursing and thanking himself for arriving so early.

Nothing is open so he finds a bench to sit on near the library. Jughead pulls out one of his many notebooks and begins to write, losing himself when he brings his pen to the paper.

More than an hour passes and Jughead is pulled from the new worlds he’s created by the sound of an enchanting voice. He looks up and a pretty blonde girl is descending the steps of the library, singing from sheet music clutched her in delicate hands. He recognizes the song but he doesn’t know where from. Realizing he’s staring he quickly diverts his attention back to his most recent work of genius, before the girl has a chance to call him out.

Once she passes Jughead checks the time on his phone. He’d been writing for longer than he thought. He shoves his notebook back in his bag and studies the campus map provided to him with his invitation letter. Zeroing in on the Admission’s Office he jumps to his feet, ready to collect the keys to the dorm and his new home.

#bughead #cheronica #betty cooper x jughead jones #veronica lodge x cheryl blossom #jughead jones #betty cooper #veronica lodge #cheryl blossom #bughead fanfiction #there will be smut #and fluff #and angst #my writings

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richmegavideo · 5 years

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Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect

For me and all the other mid-80s millennials, 1999 didn’t signal the end of an era. It was the start of our definitive teenage years, rich with all the compulsive hormone-driven drama that would ultimately shape us into the adults we went on to become.

1999 was the year I started high school; the year that I got what was, at the time, a state-of-the-art three-CD player on which I blasted TLC’s FanMail, Backstreet Boys’ Millennium, and Sugar Ray’s 14:59 on endless loop. It’s also the blessed year that 10 Things I Hate About You was released.

I’m guessing many adolescent girls—and boys, for that matter—at the time could relate to at least one of the characters in 10 Things I Hate About You. There was quippy sidekick Michael (David Krumholtz), doe-eyed and floppy-haired new kid Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), effortlessly and often infuriatingly twee Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), the tragically underrated Mandella (Susan May Pratt), and of course, the mewling, rampallian wretch herself, Kat (Julia Stiles).

Like Kat, I existed on the fringes of my fairly affluent, mostly white public school’s society, although my banishment was less self-inflicted than hers. Yes, I haunted bookstores in my spare time and plastered my room with torn-out pages from Bust Magazine and dELiA*s catalogs, but I was neither thin, blond, or a voluntary member of any sports team. I couldn’t understand how someone who could effortlessly bare an enviably toned midriff be so bold as to snub male attention, which was the only type of attention I craved as a swarthy 13 year old who had yet to be kissed.

But her defiance of conventional feminine attitudes captivated me. The idea that one could subscribe to their own ideals rather than conform to anyone else’s expectations was a completely new concept in a time when teenage self-discovery was only just taking root. I did give a damn ‘bout my reputation… but maybe I didn’t have to.

In 1999, Kat’s brand of feminism seemed pretty extreme. But looking back on it 20 years later, it’s surprising how mainstream certain aspects of it now come across.

“Every time I watch this movie Kat seems more and more relatable,” explains Sarah Barson, co-host of Bad Feminist Film Club, a podcast that reviews movies through a feminist lens. “At the time this movie came out, I think Kat was supposed to be a super ‘out there’ radical feminist, but the stuff she talks about feels very relevant to modern conversations about pop culture and a woman's right, or even responsibility, to speak up and challenge social norms.”

But according to 10 Things I Hate About You writers Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Kat may have ended up differently if written for today’s audience.

“I think Kat would have to have a more extreme form of rebellion,” says Smith. “We’d have to dig her even further into a counter-culture, because in that era, it was all pretty simple.”

Rather than merely dreaming of playing in a riot grrrl band, Smith says Kat would’ve already been shredding on her pearly white Stratocaster, playing her angsty songs at different gigs. Had 10 Things been written in 2019, McCullah sees a version of Kat that’s more in touch with the activism of today’s teens.

“Like, kind of the Parkland student vibe, I think. We would add a little bit more of that,” she says. ”I think those kids are amazing, what they’re accomplishing. When I think of teenagers right now, that’s where my brain goes first.”

Smith agrees. “That’s a good point, yeah. When we wrote it, we were kind of in a freewheeling 90s bubble, not really thinking about the larger world around us. Now, as Karen pointed out, the experience of the youth is much different. They’re much more global in their thinking than we were.”

10 Things I Hate About You has its share of shortcomings, although it’s held up better over time than other teen flicks of previous eras, like Sixteen Candles. I’m willing to bet that a fresh audience today wouldn’t laugh quite as hard when Kat flashes her soccer coach to help Patrick (Heath Ledger) sneak out of detention—even with his swoon-worthy dimples—or let it slide when Bianca drops the R-word during an argument with Kat. And let's not forget how “nice guy” Cameron manipulated the entire love triangle just so he could have a shot with the younger Stratford sister. Oof.

Even so, the characters' relationships with one another and even their personal shortcomings hold up relatively authentically in a way that few other movies have been able to accomplish.

“The Craft was the perfect movie for any woman who felt disenfranchised, and Never Been Kissed really did stress the importance of self-confidence and self-acceptance, but 10 Things I Hate About You was about real characters to whom average women could relate,” says Dr. Randall Clark, author of At a Theater Or Drive-In Near You: The History, Culture, and Politics of the American Exploitation Film and associate professor of Communication and Media Studies at Clayton State University.

Dr. Clark’s students have expressed surprise that Kat was open about her sexual experience and yet managed to escape some of the consequences that society tends to heap upon young women who have sex at what they consider to be a young age.

“It was just a fact of her life,” he says, giving credit to the movie for being “not at all judgmental about her past.”

The filmmakers’ non-superficial portrayal of an unapologetic and (one-time) sexually active feminist was a groundbreaking achievement at a time when few other feature films even dared to explore the complexities of teen girl relationships. In the 90s, and to some extent today, feminism is often mistakenly equated with man-hating, an idea that both writers resoundingly reject.

“Feminists need love too!” laughs Smith.

Earlier teen-centric comedies like 1995’s Clueless helped lay the groundwork for 10 Things by weaving together real-life scenarios with tongue-in-cheek banter that managed to entertain, but also illuminate some of the basic pillars of modern-day feminism. The fact that both are remakes of classics— Clueless being a contemporary version of Jane Austen’s Emma and 10 Things I Hate About You being a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew—that revolve around young women with BIG personalities makes perfect sense. Women finding their place in the world, and being tamed by men, is by no means a novel idea.

But one thing that many of these iconic films of the late 90s and early 2000s lack is a sense of intersectionality. Bad Feminist Film Club co-host Kelly Kauffman cites Bring It On as one example of film from this era that addresses issues of race and class that other films—including 10 Things—shied away from.

“There's definitely some parts that haven't aged as well, but on a recent rewatch, I was struck by how the movie [Bring It On] touched on sensitive issues that most mainstream movies try to actively avoid,” says Kauffman.

10 Things I Hate About You may have helped shape the modern definition of “girl power” and inspired movies like Bend It Like Beckham to depict alternative stereotypes of femininity, but it’s not perfect. The one major theme I find particularly problematic upon rewatching is the apparent lack of understanding about consent throughout the film. Kat and Bianca’s father Walter (Larry Miller) doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that sex tends to occur between two people choosing to participate. His fears are clearly distorted for comic effect, but his misguided worldview holds his daughters hostage (as Bianca points out) rather than holding their partners accountable.

This concept extends to the prom scene when Bianca’s BFF-turned-nemesis Chastity (Gabrielle Union) smugly informs Bianca that pretty boy villain Joey (Andrew Keegan) “was gonna nail you tonight,” as though Bianca wouldn’t have had a choice in the matter. Then there’s the entire plot of the film’s inspiration: in The Taming of the Shrew, multiple men scheme and plot over who could obtain the most submissive, docile wife.

But the writers are adamant that the idea of “taming” doesn’t carry over to the film.

“I think at the end of the movie, you never get the sense that her character is going to be controlled by Patrick, in terms of Taming of The Shrew,” says McCullah. “Obviously, she’s not tamed and we don’t think Patrick is the type of guy who would want to control her. That’s why she likes him.” She goes on to call him an ally, or at least a prototype for one.

Seeing a privileged angry white girl like me grapple with trust, relationships, and finding herself inspired me to follow a more unconventional path in my own right. By the end of 1999, I had moved from Sugar Ray to crust punk, spiked my hair, and amassed a collection of ballpoint pen-decorated Chuck Taylors. I eventually dabbled in dating and going to art school, although I unfortunately never did start a band. But seeing someone chase her unorthodox dreams in a world designed to stifle misfits allowed me to dream outside the box in a way I'd never been shown before.

Compared to 2019, 1999 was a relative vacuum of women in media. “There were not a lot of female writing teams when we first started,” recalls Smith. “Now it seems like the appetite for female voices and female-fronted stories is ever-expanding."

Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Captain Marvel, with Brie Larson starring in Marvel’s first female-fronted superhero film, prove that we’ve come a long way with female representation. Both Smith and McCullah hope the trend continues, both in their future work, in the entertainment world at large, and with the resonating impact of 10 Things I Hate About You.

As McCullah says, “I hope it keeps inspiring young girls to be badasses and not let other people define them.”

Follow Beth Demmon on Twitter.

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richmeganews · 5 years

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Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect

In 1999, Kat’s brand of feminism seemed pretty extreme. But looking back on it 20 years later, it’s surprising how mainstream certain aspects of it now come across.

But according to 10 Things I Hate About You writers Karen McCullah and Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Kat may have ended up differently if written for today’s audience.

“I think Kat would have to have a more extreme form of rebellion,” says Smith. “We’d have to dig her even further into a counter-culture, because in that era, it was all pretty simple.”

Even so, the characters' relationships with one another and even their personal shortcomings hold up relatively authentically in a way that few other movies have been able to accomplish.

“It was just a fact of her life,” he says, giving credit to the movie for being “not at all judgmental about her past.”

“Feminists need love too!” laughs Smith.

But the writers are adamant that the idea of “taming” doesn’t carry over to the film.

As McCullah says, “I hope it keeps inspiring young girls to be badasses and not let other people define them.”

Follow Beth Demmon on Twitter.

The post Twenty Years Later, '10 Things I Hate About You' Is More Relevant Than You'd Expect appeared first on .

from WordPress http://www.richmeganews.com/twenty-years-later-10-things-i-hate-about-you-is-more-relevant-than-youd-expect/

#Breaking News

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buytabletsonline · 7 years

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In 1993, TV—and TV writing—were much different entities than what we know today.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, Exhibit 5,768: the current golden age of TV has clearly inspired a golden age of TV writing. And if you follow today’s TV criticism at all, chances are a handful of names immediately come to mind (people like Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker or James Poniewozik at The New York Times, for instance). But time and time again, stories on the rise of this format in recent years end up pointing to one writer—Uproxx’s Alan Sepinwall—as the dean of modern TV criticism.

While landmark TV writing sites like TV Without Pity (1998) wouldn’t come along until the Internet matured, Sepinwall was on the Web back when “Lynx and Mosaic were the only two browsers and you had to drive uphill through the snow both ways to get to the Yahoo! homepage,” as he once put it. Back in 1993, long before he started his own blog or went on to contribute to the Star Ledger and Hitfix, Sepinwall was just a college sophomore posting about NYPD Blue to Usenet.

DS9 recapper / physics teacher, Tim Lynch.

MKA.org

Ask Sepinwall about the origins of modern TV writing, however, and he has something different in mind: Usenet’s rec.arts.startrek.current and a certain Deep Space Nine recapper extraordinaire named Tim Lynch.

“Tim was, I think, a CalTech prof by day. I tried tracking him down once to thank him for inspiration, to no avail,” Sepinwall tweeted when reflecting on his 20 years as a critic in 2016.

Luckily, Sepinwall ultimately got his chance. In fact, the underground TV writing/DS9 legend recognized the name. “I remembered Alan Sepinwall from my days on Usenet,” Lynch told Ars recently. “He didn’t tend to post to the Star Trek newsgroups all that much, but I remember seeing his stuff here and there. And when I later moved back to New Jersey, The Star-Ledger is where he was writing for years. I read that column and I said ‘I know him.’ He found me a few years ago when someone was doing a feature on him, and he ended up sending me a signed copy of his book.”

Enlarge / Ah, a delightful Usenet terminal.

Ground zero(ish) of Internet TV writing

Ahead of the recent anniversary of his start with DS9, Lynch happily revealed he didn’t start modern TV criticism, either—he actually got into it because his college buddy Mike was already reviewing Trek on mailing lists and Usenet back in 1988. “After about half a season [of reading], I said, ‘You know, I can do that,” Lynch said. “So very early in The Next Generation S2, I started writing reviews.”

This was the late ‘80s, and Lynch would review TNG all the way through S6. His early work doesn’t resemble what you’d necessarily read in Entertainment Weekly or on The AV Club today: the pieces include recaps of the main plot and any notable subplots before getting into how he feels about the episode (see an early review from 1989 for TNG’s “The Icarus Factor” as an example). Each ends with a rating out of 10, sometimes rating individual storylines or performances even.

But in January 1993, things changed. That’s when, 25 years ago this month, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered.

“I even said it in one of my reviews, I wasn’t planning on reviewing DS9. The time suck was too large,” Lynch said. He had just started his first year of teaching (which was “also not a time-light activity”). “I warned people not to expect reviews, but then the show premiered. I thought ‘I can’t not talk about this.’”

Here, Lynch’s writing evolved into the forebear for modern TV writing. To start, Lynch didn’t shy away from or hide his personal preferences. For instance, slapstick Ferengi episodes? No thanks, see his review of S6’s “Profit and Lace”—“I wrote something to the effect of: ‘There were some nice moments of pathos, some nice cliffhangers, and Armin Shimerman did a great job, but enough with this week’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” Lynch recalled. “That got a lot of people’s attention.”

Lynch skipped his prior recaps in favor of individual episode discussions involving themes, writing, and performances. His pieces got longer, and separate season wrap-ups emerged. For another example, Lynch looks back at DS9 S2 as a high point, and a late-season review like his take on two-parter “The Maquis” demonstrates that reverence. While all the reps (Lynch imagines he penned well over 100,000 words in total between TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and some film reviews) clearly helped him develop a certain style, Lynch acknowledges DS9 also provided a richer text to engage with.

“From early on, DS9 struck me as something with so much meat in the premise. There was an awful lot of stuff they could do with it, and I got very into its potential,” he said. “TNG was depicting a very utopian society, which was challenging for the writers at times. But DS9 and later Voyager dealt more with, ‘How do you maintain a utopia’ or, in Voyager’s case, ‘How do you build one?’ Voyager ran away from that premise as fast as it could, but DS9 mostly tried to keep that. In the end, I wasn’t 100 percent thrilled that they decided to go on a war footing instead, but there was a lot of stuff they did that spoke to more complexity of character and theme than TNG. I love TNG, but DS9 usually gave me more to think about.”

Sisko explains to Bashir that humans of the 21st century rebelled against the government that kept impoverished people in ghettos.

The actors who played Bashir and Garak on Deep Space Nine played up the romantic chemistry between the two men.

CBS

Deep Space Nine is on the wormhole front in the Dominion Wars, yet its main characters remain fundamentally humane and strive for peace.

Deep Space 9

A genuine Internet impact

Though he covered TNG, Voyager, Enterprise, and some films/books, Lynch’s writings on DS9 are what ultimately earned him a lasting place in TV criticism lore. If the Sepinwall namecheck isn’t enough proof, his work eventually inspired fans to create an entire wikia just for these reviews, and his writing decisions (like when he took on Enterprise or eventually retired) made TrekToday headlines just like the announcement of a new film would. (No, he insists his work didn’t inspire the First Contact character, though.)

Lynch kinda, sorta even had an idea at the time that he was gaining more readers than just his other Usenet pals. Early in his DS9 review, Lynch taught science at a school in California “and I was teaching Rick Berman [Gene Roddenberry’s successor]’s son, just luck of the draw,” he said. “I don’t know that his dad was reading my reviews all that much, but his son certainly was. And he asked me for copies of a couple of them from Voyager and DS9 to print out and show dad.”

Lynch would later hear from people like writer Brannon Braga (TNG, Voyager, Enterprise, and now The Orville) and artist Michael Okuda (supervisor on many films and Enterprise), plus fellow TV writers like Bad Astronomer Phil Plait. A UK magazine called TV Zone asked Lynch to review Trek books based on the strength of his DS9 work, studios approached him with sci-fi scripts to review, Tor nearly published a compilation, and the Marc Alaimo (DS9’s Gul Dukat) fan club even asked him to attend an official farewell dinner at the end of DS9 (both Alaimo and Casey Biggs, DS9’s Damar, chatted Lynch up that evening).

Yet the pièce de résistance of his impact seems clear in retrospect—the TNG writers room once invited Lynch to pitch an episode based on the strength of his work near the beginning of DS9. Lynch recalls he wrote an episode following up on Data dreaming as laid out in TNG’s “Birthright;” the writer dug into Trek dream symbolism and Data’s emotions or lack thereof.

“Obviously, I wasn’t taken, but that was very flattering,” Lynch said. “I’m flattered and still somewhat amazed that the decade or so of writing I did was seen as so valuable.”

Born at the wrong time?

If Lynch came up reviewing Trek during today’s TV writing culture, it’s quite likely he would’ve been scooped up by some major outlet (if not a sci-fi show writer’s room directly) to write full-time. But his experience came during a different era of recaps and reviews, so Lynch still teaches science to generations of young students. And if he were to shift careers back to writing, he’d rather pursue science writing than entertainment writing at this point anyway. Yet, today he has no regrets about how it all played out.

“Those reviews made me realize my writing was somehow valuable, and it encouraged me to keep doing it in some shape or form,” Lynch said. “It made me better as a teacher, and it leads to the occasional moment of hilarity when students stumble upon it and say, ‘Wait, is this you?’ A friend who was dean of students at one of my previous schools referred to me as her favorite science nerd, and she said it was because I didn’t write like one.”

A few years have passed since Lynch rewatched any DS9, but he keeps up with new Trek films and intends to follow Discovery once its distribution method becomes a bit more viewer-friendly. Given how much a certain series shaped his life, however—Lynch’s DS9 writings spanned the entire run of the show, which coincided with ages 22 to 29 for the teacher—it’s unlikely his answer to “what’s the best Trek?” will ever change.

“As much as I tended to ride DS9 for not living up to its potential at times, in a lot of ways it was a high-water mark for writing in the Star Trek Universe,” Lynch said. “The advantage of being in a stationary setting versus a starship setting is, you couldn’t run away from the consequences, which is something virtually every other series did quite a bit. In DS9, they really had to push themselves in different ways, so some of the cultural questions and political questions it brought up are still to this day very, very strong pieces of work and things I think about.

“I would love to have some other Trek series come up where I can say, ‘I think we’re finally equalling the strengths of DS9—and without the occasional lows.’ But that remains a pipedream.”

Lynch joked he likely won’t be so eager to chat when Voyager hits its 25th anniversary in 2020. So as far as legacies go, he notes, DS9’s is not a bad one to have after all these years.

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