#I do like the bit where the editor describes him 'as kind off the ice as he is ferocious on it'

[thornescratch]

Dylan Strome is featured in October's DC Magazine, part of Modern Luxury Media's Annual 'Men of Style' issue.

[sharkselfies]

The Minds Behind The Terror Podcast Transcript - Episode 1

Since some folks requested it on Twitter, I’ve started transcribing The Minds Behind The Terror podcast episodes! Below the cut you’ll find episode 1, where showrunners Dave Kajganich and Soo Hugh talk to Dan Simmons, the author of the novel The Terror, about episodes 1-3 of the show. They discuss Simmons’s initial inspiration for writing the book, the decisions they made to adapt it into a television series, and the depictions of some of the characters such as the Tuunbaq, Hickey, and “Lady Silence.”

The Minds Behind The Terror Podcast - Episode 1 

[The Terror opening theme music plays]

Dave Kajganich: Hello! Welcome to Minds Behind The Terror podcast. I’m Dave Kajganich, I am a creator and one of the showrunners of the AMC show The Terror, and I’m here in the studio with executive producer and co-showrunner Soo Hugh.

Soo Hugh: Hello!

DK: And we welcome today the author of the sublime novel The Terror, on which our show is based, author Dan Simmons, calling in from Colorado. Welcome, Dan! Hi! 

Dan Simmons: Hi Dave, thank you. 

DK: So let’s start with the very beginning. This was a mystery from actual naval history that you decided to transform into a novel that was crossed with Gothic horror. Can you tell us a little bit about where you got the idea from this, how you went about preparing to write it, anything that can give us insight into how you blended all of these remarkable genres into this incredible book.

DS: I’ve known since I was a kid that I wanted to tell a story about either the North or South Pole. And the reason is in 1957, 58, when I was very young, actually I was just a fetus, they had the international geophysical year, and that really caught my imagination. Now the international geophysical year saw cooperation between American and Soviet scientists, it was the height of the Cold War, that’s the first time they submit(?) a permanent base at the South Pole, and I fell in love with Arctic stories. I had one book left on a book contract with a publisher I really liked, and we hadn’t decided what that book was, and I wanted to write a scary story about the Arctic, in this case the Northern Arctic, and that happened because I was doing a lot of research on Antarctica and just couldn’t figure out what the macabre, Gothic, scary part would be. I wanted to put it in, but I didn’t think they’d go for, you know, an eight foot tall vampire penguin. 

[laughter]

DK: You might be surprised! 

DS: There was a footnote on a book I was reading about the Franklin Expedition, which I had never heard of, and I decided that’s what I was gonna write about, and it had a tremendous amount of the unknown that I could fill in, that’s what novelists love. And so I told my editors excitedly that this was what I was gonna do, I would call it The Terror after the HMS Terror that went with the Erebus, got stuck in the ice, all the crew disappeared in history… And they said no. 

[laughter]

DS: ...it was the first time the publishers did that. I said, “Why not? I think it’s gonna be a pretty good novel.” And they said, “Look, nobody’s interested in a bunch of people that’ve been dead for 150 years.” 

SH: That sounds like some of our meetings.

[laughter]

DS: So I did what maybe you do, in such a meeting, I just thanked them, and I liked them all, and I had a good dinner(?) and I said goodbye, and bought back my last book on the contract and went out and wrote it on spec. 

SH: Well why don’t we take a step back, Dave, and why don’t you tell us about how you found Dan’s book and that experience?

DK: Sure! Dan, you might remember some of these steps from your side of it, which is that originally this was auctioned by Universal as a feature, and I sort of tried to get the rights and was a bit too late, and tracked them down to the producers at Universal who were running the project and got myself hired as the screenwriter for a feature adaptation. By the time I was ready to start actually committing an outline to the paper, Universal had let the rights go because there was a competing project. It was interesting to sort of rack up reasons why people wanted to make it but didn’t feel that they could pull the trigger, and we were so grateful when AMC finally called us back and said, “Look, we’ve figured out a model where we can do this as a limited series,” it really felt like ten episodes was a great length for this, because we could blend genres in a way that, you know, we could unpack sort of slowly, more slowly than a lot of shows would’ve done, and drive the plot as much as we could, like the novel, with character choices and decisions as opposed to just horror kind of entering the frame and taking over for one set piece after another. So it was a long journey, getting this to AMC, but at the end of the day I think we found the right home for it.

DS: I can no longer imagine a two hour version, feature film version of this story, and I can’t imagine a second season of this story, I think it was just right.

SH: It does feel like we did a ten hour cinematic novel. 

[audio from the show]

Crozier: Only four of us at this table are Arctic veterans. There’ll be no melodramas here--just live men, or dead men. 

SH: Dan, Dave and I talk about how addictive the research gets for this when you start going down the rabbit hole, how did you approach the research?

DS: I think most novelists run into that, but since I write a lot of quasi-historical novels, at least set in history, I get totally addicted to going down the rabbit hole. Readers say, “Well, Simmons’ book is too long, and the descriptions of things are too exhausting,” but I watch your characters go on deck and there are all the things and views and everything that I tried so hard to describe and then people tell me, y’know, “talky, verbose,” and in print I have to do it that way, but you just pan the camera a little bit. 

DK: You have words, we have images! For every thousand of yours, we get one!

DS: Yeah.

SH: But I remember this passage in your book where it talks about all the different ices, and you vest it with so much psychological import. We talk about that passage a lot in the writers room, it was one of our highlights, of this is how you do great descriptive writing.

DK: And you made so many parallels between things like the environments of the ships and characters, you built a kind of code book for the show without realizing you were doing it, which is making visual metaphors out of a lot of these things that would normally just be exposition or historical detail.

SH: Well especially between Crozier and the ship, I mean when you hear about Crozier’s relationship with Terror, and you have so many amazing passages about, you know, the groan of the ship and how it, y’know, and you cut to a scene with Crozier and how you feel that the bones of Crozier is embedded in the ship, and we really took a lot from that. 

DS: Well I noticed that on one of the episodes where Lord Franklin [sic] is trying to get back in touch with Crozier, you know, trying to be friends with him again, I think it’s a brilliant episode you guys wrote.

[show audio]

Franklin: You’ve succeeded in avoiding Erebus most of the winter.

Crozier: I’m a captain. I’m--I’m peevish off my own ship. I leave it and I hear disaster knocking at its door, before I’m ten steps away.

DS: And that was beautifully written, that. You got so much of Crozier right there.

DK: It was a pleasure to write these characters on the backs of your writing of these characters, because you really--I mean, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, as you know, from having written, you know, a whole long string of historical books, is to make these people’s psychologies feel as modern as they must have felt in their day, while still being able to articulate some of the blind spots of being from the eras they were from. 

I’m curious from sort of a history nerd point of view, if people watch the series and like the series, and read the book and like the book, and want to know more about this expedition, what’s the first book about the Franklin Expedition you would point people to? What was most helpful or most interesting in your research? 

DS: I apologize, I can’t think of the name of it, but it’s a collection of stories about both the South and North Pole, and so it’s a short section on the Franklin Expedition, but it didn’t make mistakes, and most of the other books that I read, uh, keyed, and videos for that matter, like PBS did a story about the Franklin Expedition, but they keyed off a 1987 attempt by several doctors to figure out what happened to the crew, and they exhumed three crewmen’s bodies from the first island where they stayed the first winter, and those crewmen had only been on the ship a couple of months, but they decided because of a high lead content that the lead had poisoned them and then made them stupid, and made them paranoid and everything, but they didn’t compare that test of lead with any background people in London at the time, and later they did, so I didn’t believe the lead thing.

DK: Well that’s the fascinating thing about a mystery with this many parts and pieces, kind of in flux, is, you know, you can create all kinds of competing narratives about it, and what’s fascinating about writing a fictional version is you can’t have that kind of ambiguity, you have to make a decision. I think people will enjoy very much ways that the show and the book have a similar point of view, and also ways that they diverge in their points of view, because there are so many ways to tell this story--

SH: Well you know how much we invest responsibility in the audience as well, right?

DK: Sure.

SH: In terms of your book and our show as well, we’re not against interpretation, that there’s a responsibility on the audience’s part to put together--we’re not gonna hand feed them. There’ll be some people who put more of an onus on Franklin, and others who would say, “You know, if I was in that position, I probably would’ve made the same decision,” “Oh no, this definitely killed the men,” “No, this killed them!” and that dialogue is exciting, you know, when you read fans talk about your show and your books and really smart, insightful ways. 

[show audio]

Franklin: Would it help if I said that I made a mistake? 

Crozier: You misunderstand me, Sir John, I--I only meant to describe why I brood, not that I judge.

DS: I don’t worry about who or what my reading audience is. People ask me about that and I don’t imagine a certain reader. But I’ve always tried to write for somebody who’s more intelligent than I am. My perfect reader would be just smart as hell, speak eight languages, you know, have fantastic world experiences, and I want to write something that will please that person, and I think your show does the same thing.

DK: Well we were--that was our motto! We wanted to be sort of the dumbest members of our collaboration and there’s a sort of horrifying moment when you realize that’s come true. 

[laughter]

[show background music]

DK: Tell us a little bit about why you made the decisions to tell the story in the order you told it, and whether you sort of felt like there was anything from the way you had told it that we were--or a missed opportunity. We’d love to know sort of what your experience of that was. 

DS: I don’t think there were any missed opportunities in terms of not adapting my way of telling it, and I can’t remember all the reasons for why I broke it down that way, some of them were just very localized to, you know, when I was writing that particular bit. But I do know that it gains a lot by being told chronologically the way you’re doing it, so for me that seems now the logical way to tell it again.

DK: Have you ever read the novel in chronological order? When we hired writers for the writers room, we gave them a list of what the chapters were like in chronological order, and I think we asked half the room to read it in your order and half the room to read it in chronological order so we could have a discussion, a meaningful discussion about whether there were things about telling it without being in chronological order that we wanted to embrace or not. It was a fantastic experience and I wonder if you’ve ever read your chapters in chronological order? ‘Cause it’s also a fantastic book!

[laughter]

DS: I haven’t read it that way, they were that way in my mind before I started getting fancy and breaking them up and moving them around in time and space, but I would love to have seen that experiment.

DK: The reason we can get away with it in the show is because there is a loved book out there that people trust, and you know, it is a classic in this genre, so I mean this is a perfect example of, you know, the amount of gratitude we owe the book, because we got away with a lot of things that maybe we wouldn’t have been able to get away with because you came before us. 

SH: And speaking of those rabid fans, Dan, it’s been really interesting reading audience reactions to the show from people who’ve loved the books and who just naturally will compare the two, and we’ve been heartened by just how supportive our fans have become--are of the show. There is this controversy, some people like our choice to give Lady Silence a voice and some people feel it was sacrilege to your book, where do you fall on that? DS: At first I was surprised. In fact when you were hunting for an actress for Lady Silence and I read about that, it said somebody who’s fluent in this Inuit language and this Inuit language, and I said, “What the hell?”

[show audio]

[Silna speaking Inuktitut to her dying father] 

DS: Having seen her with the tongue and heard her, and knowing the different reason they call her Lady Silence, it all works for me and I was also surprised when Captain Crozier could speak fairly fluent, you know, dialect, ‘cause I had him just not understanding a thing.

[show audio]

[Crozier speaking Inuktitut to Silna in the same scene as above]

DS: I love it when readers get rabid about not changing something from a book, and I have to talk to them sometimes, not ‘cause I have a lot of things adapted, this is the first one, but I love movies. They say “Aren’t you worried it will hurt your book?” and first I explain Richard Comden(?)’s idea that you can’t hurt a book anyway, except by not reading it, I mean the books are fine, no matter how bad some adaptation becomes. Books abide, and so I wasn’t concerned. With the changes that I see, I get sorta tickled, whereas some readers get upset, and they just have that set. So I think that the vast majority of viewers haven’t--well, I know the vast majority haven’t read the book, haven’t heard of the book, probably, they’re gonna keep watching because of the depth of the characters, and that’s based on the first two episodes, and I agree with them completely.

[show audio]

[Silna speaking Inuktitut]

Crozier: She said that if we don’t leave now, we’re going to “huk-kah-hoi.”

Blanky: Disappear. 

SH: We get asked a lot of questions about the supernatural element of the show and the way a monster does or does not figure in the narrative, and seeing our episodes, did it feel surprising or did it feel faithful to the way you imagined it as well to your book? 

DS: It was surprising to me at how well it was done, because it’s hard, I know, to show restraint in a series like this, and certainly in a movie, but it’s hard to show restraint at showing and explaining the monster. 

[show audio]

[ominous music, Tuunbaq roaring, men screaming]

DS: The way you did it in the first few episodes to me were just lovely, just, you know, a hint of a glance at something and then you see the results of this creature, so that’s what I tried to do in the novel, one of the reasons I moved around through space and time, part of what I wanted to do was not cheapen the story and not cheapen the reality of these poor men dying by just throwing in a monster, and so I tried to do it in a way that would not disrespect the true tale, and I believe you’re doing it the same way I tried. 

DK: The way you incorporated the supernatural into the book, I mean, I was a fan of it when I first read it. It was jaw dropping the way that it fits so well on a level of plot, on a level of character, and on a level of theme. So when we got the green light to adapt it I was so confident that we were going to be able to do something with it that would be able to be nuanced because the bones of it are so organically terrific.

SH: It helped us know what we didn’t want to do. That formed so much of our conversation, of “this is what we do not want, this is what we do not want,” and slowly you whittled down to getting down to the essence of what this thing had to be.

[show audio]

[Tuunbaq growling]

DK: Another character from the book that really stands out for fans that they are wondering what in the world we’re doing with is Manson. [laughter] And I was curious what you made of the fact that he is pretty invisible in the first three episodes of the show, and that some of his plot beats have been given to a character called Gibson, who I don’t remember is--I don’t think he’s featured very much in the novel. And I wondered if that caught you off guard or if you sort of intuitively had a sense of what we were doing in making that change? 

DS: Any discussion of Manson to me leads to Hickey converting him to his future, his tribe, the tribe he wants to have, group of worshippers, that I think Hickey wants to have, but he does it by sex below decks. Hickey’s not gay at all, he’s a manipulator, to me, and he was manipulating Manson who was big and dumb, in my book, he’s manipulating him by this sexual encounter. But I was curious whether you were worried about showing that?

DK: Well, we weren’t worried about showing characters having same-sex affairs or relationships. We wanted to make room in Hickey’s character for actual affection, or if not affection then companionship, or some kind of connection.

[show audio]

Hickey: Lieutenant Irving! I was hoping we’d meet. 

Crewman: Mind the grease there, sir. 

Hickey: I wanted to... thank you… for your help. For your discretion, I mean. 

Irving: Call it anything but help, Mr. Hickey. Please. I exercised clemency for a man abused by a devious seducer.

DK: We wanted to make sure that Hickey had access to command in some way that a steward, an officer’s steward, would be able to provide him, that an able seaman wouldn’t be able to provide him, and that was really valuable to us in terms of charting out all of these character stories, was how does he know what he knows about how command is dissatisfied or where the fractures are if he can’t see them from where he’s sleeps in his cot in the forecastle. 

SH: I mean we know that there were relations between the same sex on ships, it just was part of this world. Not to belie that there was serious consequences for it, but you know, we have 129 characters, and we wanted them to feel fully fledged and rich, and, you know, passions do naturally develop and have no characters engaged in sexual relations would have felt just as odd and perhaps even more controversial, and when Irving discovers Gibson and Hickey, his shock is from such a subjective point of view of his moral center. It’s not the camera’s perspective, right? Our camera’s very neutral in that scene. It’s Irving, that character at that point in the show, that is infusing a sense of horror, that’s his horror moment.

DS: I’d like to add that it’s not the gay connection that would cause criticism, but I was flayed alive because the most openly quote “gay” unquote character, that is, Hickey, you know, maybe hunting for affection but definitely hunting for power, he’s the only one they said in reviews, and he’s a killer and a bad person, so I’m homophobic, but I was flayed alive for that. The word homophobic appeared in about 80 reviews. Nobody mentioned the purser, who uh--

DK: Right, Bridgens and Peglar.

DS: Yeah. I thought he was a fascinating character. I loved getting glimpses of him in the series because he’s super smart, he’s super wise, he’s probably wiser than any of the commanders, ahd he’s obviously in love with--who is it that he’s in love with in the show?

DK: Peglar. 

DS: Yes, that makes sense. And, uh, so Peglar says, you know, “Is this another Herodotus?” and, “No, I’m giving you Swift now,” he’s educating the man he cares for. 

[show audio]

Hickey: I understand you cleared up our “association” for Lieutenant Irving? Gibson: You spoke to him.

Hickey: Mhm.

Gibson: Directly?

(beat)

Christ, Cornelius, I’d reassured him.

Hickey: Cornelius Hickey is a “devious seducer.” That was your--that was your reassurance? You’ve got some face, you know that? 

DK: We wouldn’t have dramatized Hickey’s story if we weren’t also going to pull in Peglar and Bridgens’ story, because we knew that people, you know, are predisposed to sort of make that kind of quick assumption, and we just wanted to make sure that the show didn’t have that blind spot and reflected the book, which also doesn’t have that blind spot. 

SH: We had those same questions with Lady Silence, and I’m sure you did as well. When we meet her, she’s a frightened young woman who’s about to lose her father, and that’s a universal character moment that anyone can relate to, and the otherness is sort of--is secondary, but then once--in the end scene of 1.02, when she’s sitting there grieving her father and then you have that language barrier with everyone else, we worked with Nive on this because we wanted to make sure the language itself was as accurate as possible, so when you say disappear making sure that the disappear in our language means the same thing as disappear in her language. I think whenever you have characters that feel othered in most media and you’re bringing them into your show, Dave and I also just wanted to make sure we weren’t swaying on the pendulum on the other side and being almost too careful about touching them, and with Nive I think when you have an actor of that talent, she was strong, she was representing a voice that she felt very confident in, and that was very reassuring for us.

DS: And it works well, and when her father’s dying, she throws herself on his chest and says “I’m not ready, it’s too soon, I’m not ready,” and I love that in the show because if she’s gonna become a Shaman he’s dying you know it’s not reached that point of education yet where she feels secure and later on you know beyond what we’re discussing today she becomes to me in the show I see her as more and more majestic.

SH: I do love the word majestic ‘cause I think it describes pretty much all of our characters. I agree, I do think there is something very sublime about who they have become at the end because when you go through that much trials and tribulations, it’s this beautiful human spirit to endure. 

DS: I think that’s one of the central themes of the story that you’ve brought out so clearly. In most post-apocalypse, you know, terrible situation movies and shows, everybody turns nasty as hell, they start shooting each other, it’s just like WWIII when they should be helping each other survive, and I found even though there was controversy, even though there was opposition in this story, people opposing against each other, still that they rose to the occasion. And that is so rare I think in much media these days or even books where the characters are themselves and they do the best they can, and when things get bad they rise to the occasion.

DK: The first conversation you and I had about the book, you know, I was basically pitching you sort of what I thought thematically the book was about, and I talked a lot about, that in a disaster like this, a kind of moral emergency, that we would get a chance to unpack what is sort of best and worst in these characters’ souls.

DS: I confuse readers often when I was on book tour for this book, and it was a long time ago, I’ve written a few million words since then, but I confused people by saying that if you want a theme for the survival story of The Terror, it’s love. It’s love between the men. And just unstinting love. And this came out in a piece of dialogue, in the first two episodes.

[audio from the show]

Franklin: I’ll not have you speak of him uncharitably, James. He is my second. If something were to happen to me, you would be his second. You should cherish that man. 

Fitzjames: Sometimes I think you love your men more than even God loves them, Sir John. 

Franklin: For all your sakes, let’s hope you’re wrong. 

DS: That to me was right the theme I was working with, and with Crozier who shows it a different way, with Fitzjames who’s struggling to show leadership, and between the men despite their hierarchy and the British hierarchy, the rank and lieutenants and so forth, eventually they come down to loving the men they try to save. And I found that lovely. 

[The Terror opening theme music plays]

DK: Thank you so much for listening to The Minds Behind The Terror, join us in our next edition when we talk about episodes 4-6 with the additional guest Adam Nagaitis phoning in from London. We will see you soon!

[preview snippet from the next episode plays]

DS: I’ll confess something else to Adam, the first time I watched it, I thought your character was a good guy because he jumped down in that grave to put the lid back on.

[laughter]

[period-dramallama]

The Man on A Donkey: The Not So Good

I hesitate to say ‘bad’. Some spoilers below.

- A bit of dated history: Richard III’s crown was not picked off a thorn bush that’s kind of a myth. But, I will give Prescott benefit of the doubt she might know that but be using it for the mental picture of the simile, rather than meaning to imply that it was true.

- Mantel and Prescott seem to be in agreement that dogs are Good and cats are Bad. Yes I do consider that a negative. No I am completely objective in all of my criticisms. It is in fact a weakness in your writing style if your analogies for nastiness are creatures that are not nasty, because then the analogy just collapses.  It’s like saying “as ugly as a butterfly”. It makes no sense!

- There’s a plot hole! Princess Mary is told of Elizabeth’s birth from a message from Katherine of Aragon in a chapter that’s headed 4 September. Yet Elizabeth wasn’t born, IRL, until 7 September. So Mary can’t have been told by Katherine until at least a few days after Elizabeth was born on 7th September. Furthermore, Anne, in the chapter 6 September, thinks of Elizabeth as 1 day old. That means she was born on 5 September. Not only is that too early IRL, but that means she was born after Mary, in this novel, was told. I have no idea how that error snuck in. But, given the size of this book, maybe Prescott and her editor just missed it.

- Another inaccuracy: Katherine of Aragon in 1536 is described as coming to England “nearly thirty years before”. At that point it would have been more than thirty years.

- Anne feels “loathing for the girl who should have been a boy”. Nope.

- I get the impression that Prescott disapproved of Margaret Cheyne’s behaviour and wasn’t terribly sympathetic to her. I just find it Inchresting how the most promiscuous female character in the book also happens to be the nastiest. I wonder if Prescott being a devout Anglican born in 1896 writing in the 1940s was quite possibly lowkey slutshaming her. She makes Margaret sleep with Aske- when there’s no evidence that happened IRL- she makes her (fictional) sister Julian hate her. She’s compared to ice and fire, she can be ‘cruel’. To be fair she acknowledges the fact that Margaret has no power in the face of patriarchy and her adultery with John Bulmer is not entirely her fault given that Cheyne tricked her into marrying him. But this woman was a real person burned at the stake for her involvement in the Pilgrimage of Grace. Not only do we not see it, her own sister doesn’t even mourn her. She doesn’t care! We don’t know the real Margaret’s personality but I think it’s telling that Prescott chose to give her *this one*.

- Also Margaret being described as a woman who ‘catches’ men feels like it absolves the men who sleep with her of responsibility. I’m not sure if that’s entirely Prescott’s intention.

- Also also not only do we not see Margaret’s execution, we never see her arrest and when she’s at the trial we never see her reactions to anything including the verdict. And Julian thinks her own sister deserves to burn to death jesus please will someone be sorry for Margaret for like 2 seconds please.

- Nan Bulmer at first seems like the voice of reason but then all of sudden turns into a cruel jealous woman-hating person for no obvious reason??

- Chapuys described as a “good judge of men even when judging himself”. Yeah press X to doubt. 

- There’s a big scene where Henry is playing a nunc dimittis on the harp when he’s told of the gory deaths of the Carthusians. This is actually a very effective scene but i think it would be even better if Henry kept playing the harp during the scene, especially as nun dimittis is ‘now you may leave’. 

- Norris seems amused by the executions? That feels unfair to the historical dude. He also seems to genuinely want to marry Anne in this book, “t stand in [Henry’s] shoes”. Also I don’t think it’s ever explicitly said what Norris’ fate was so that kind of goes nowhere.

- Not a lot of Thomases More and Cromwell. More is only in a handful of scenes. His head is described as ‘the wisest and wittiest in christendom’ but he never says any witticisms. The point of including him at all seems to be “ooh look how bad king henry is now, how little he pays attention to the law” given that the focus of more’s trial scene seems to be not conscience but More poking holes in the legality of the king’s actions.

- I can’t help but wonder if this book would be more focused and streamlined if it just focused on the little people rather than the big people? Focused on the main five instead of Henry, Anne, Cromwell, Katherine of Aragon, Mary, etc. The divide in attention makes the book longer than it needed to be. It keeps cutting back to Henry and I think he’d be much scarier if he was like Sauron, like this terrifying storm cloud hanging over everyone’s heads who hardly ever appears in person, except for scenes where he interacts with the main five. Like we don’t need Anne giving birth to Elizabeth or Anne and Henry looking at Cardinal Wolsey’s property that’s now theirs. Anne, Wolsey, Katherine of Aragon, they’re not interesting or fleshed out, they’re distractions from the characters we should care about- the main 5. Like we don’t even get to the beginnings of the Pilgrimage of Grace until volume 2 aka after 300 pages!

-I also feel like the scenes just reinforce the same character traits in major characters rather than revealing new ones, like most major characters can be summed up in like 1 sentence each. Gilbert Dawe is Resentful Self righteous asshole who relishes the day his enemies burn in Hell. Margaret Cheyne is Catty Slut. Malle is Holy Fool. Christabel Cowper is Hardheaded businesswoman Nun. Julian is shy bullied teenager in love with Robert Aske. Darcy is “we must do something about the king and also cromwell and wolsey suck” nobleman. The nuns of Marrick with their petty local rivalries with other nunneries and their silly squabbles among themselves... we get the point, Prescott. These are narrow-minded humans, not divine beings. No need to constantly re-establish this point.

- These characters just feel like archetypes more than full people, with the exception of Robert Aske who feels more complex than just Bold Noble Honourable Lawyer.  Even though this book is long, I fear there are just SO many characters that the main 5 don’t get all that much time to be fleshed out beyond like 3 personality traits before the midpoint of the book- nearly 300 pages in!

- Julian ‘listening now with all her ears’. Prescott, babe... that’s not what the phrase ‘all ears’ means.

- Mary wipes her hands on her gown PLEASE WILL SOMEONE TELL HISTORICAL FICTION AUTHORS THAT FUCKING HANDKERCHIEFS EXISTED FOR THAT EXACT FUCKING PURPOSE! EVERY NOVEL! WHY!

- No onscreen executions in the first half of the book, but we do get a tooth pulling scene that doesn’t move the plot forward.

- Around 330-350 pages in I’m just impatient to get to the rising like

- Aske gets in a fist fight with some guards but that happens OFF PAGE. WHY. A fight is dramatic as hell put that on the page Prescott you NUMPTY. 

- Aske’s niece is really familiar with him for some reason?? Do uncles and nieces interact this closely?? Do uncles call their nieces sweetheart?? She’s gleeful to see him, she unbuttons his doublet at his neck?? That’s a bit weird??

- We cut away from Henry and Aske’s convo on a cliffhanger. We then cut back to Julian and her married life. NO. I wanted a full scene with Henry and Aske, a delicate balance of power, I don’t want more of Julian and her boring husband. Like yeah, it is suspenseful to have a cliffhanger but it would be more suspenseful to see Aske and Henry, with the reader knowing that Henry is dangerous and not to be trusted. We’re told what happened in the offpage convo after the fact, when Aske tells everything to Julian in London at Christmas.

- Aske is hanged in chains, according to the novel on 15 July but it’s not until 22 July that he dies. I’m pretty sure if you’re hanged in chains you die of thirst or exposure after like 3 days max, not a whole week. Like Aske is not getting any food or water while he’s hanging all that time.

- Also Aske’s trial happens largely in summary, we’re told Aske’s words are twisted into treason. Can’t we see that happen? In dialogue?

[purplesurveys]

1111

Something a little bit random and silly for my 1111th, just because.

survey by joybucket

List three things you love that start with each letter.

A: Art and most forms of it; anchovies, in most cases; and Angela.

B: Burgers, Beyoncé, and buffets.

E: Escargot, the name Eloise, and elephants.

F: FISH, Friends, and some folk indie.

S: Sleeping, signing off work at the end of my shift, and all kinds of seafood.

T: I’m obsessed with tteokbokki; trying out new food; and table tennis.

Q: I like the quiet time I occasionally give myself; quail eggs, especially in the form of kwek-kwek; and quattro formaggi pizza.

R: Rainbows, the rain, and riding planes.

O: Old movies, the ocean, and Okinawa milk tea.

List a phrase including an adjective, noun, and verb for each letter. Examples: "angry artist anticipating", "rude rascals running", "dirty dogs dancing", or "empty elephants eloping." Have fun!

A: Adorable animals appearing.

F: Fabulous fingers frolicking.

C; Chummy classmates cooking.

S: Suspicious self salivating.

R: Rambunctious raccoon running.

T: Tired turnip tumbling.

Q; Questioning quail quipping.

J: Joyful joggers jamming.

I: Inquisitive igloos imagining.

L: Luxurious lemonade luminescing.

Z: Zesty zebras zoning out.

E: Ethereal eagles embracing.

List three different occupations starting with each letter.

O: Orthodontist, oceanographer, opthalmologist.

E: Engineer, equestrienne, elementary school teacher.

F: Firefighter, flight attendant, farmer.

S: Scientist, singer, seamstress.

T: Talent agent, tricycle driver, tennis player.

I: Illustrator, inspector, IT technician.

E: Economist, editor, electrician.

L: Lawyer, librarian, lifeguard.

A: Accountant, actor, architect.

Y: Yoga instructor, youth pastor, yogurt maker?? if that counts, lol. Otherwise I got nothing else.

List three adjectives that begin with each letter.

A: Affable, abrupt, adequate.

B: Broken, blunt, bleary.

C: Crazy, clear, clingy.

D: Daunting, delirious, dark.

E: Existential, enraged, exemplary.

F: Fantastic, far-flung, flavorful.

G: Ghastly, gentle, gigantic.

H: Harrowing, healthy, hopeful.

I: Intelligent, identical, impervious.

J: Jovial, jaded, joyous.

List three nouns that being with each letter.

K: Kangaroo, keychain, kiwi.

L: Lemonade the album, lemon the fruit, and Liz Lemon.

M: Mall, maple syrup, and mop.

N: Nightingale, nest, napkin.

O: Ogre, olive, orange.

P: Piano, panini, and pizza.

Q: Queen, quill, quilt.

List three verbs that begin with each letter.

R: Running, raking, reliving.

S: Singing, sailing, surfing.

T: Tricking, tossing, teeming.

U: Understanding, urging, unwrapping.

V: Villifying, venerating, vaccinating - get vaccinated, folks.

W: Wandering, washing, wriggling.

X: I don’t know if there are any and I can’t bother to look it up.

Y: Yawning, yelling, yearning.

Z: Zipping, ziplining, zapping.

List three...

girl's names you love: Olivia, Mia, Emma.

boy’s names you love: Mason, Jacob, Lucas.

girl’s names you dislike: Karen, and our local versions of Karen, Marites and Marivic.

boy’s names you dislike: Chad, times three.

things you hate about summer things you hate about winter things you hate about spring things you hate about fall things you love about spring things you love about winter things you love about fall things you love about summer Crossing these out because my Southeast Asian ass can’t relate, but if you do decide to take this survey feel free to un-strikethrough them!

things you miss from your past: Having more freedom to make mistakes; not having to worry about the future; and friends I’ve since lost.

people who have really hurt you in the past: Gabie, my mom, Marielle.

names of people you have had crushes on: Gabie, Andi from 5th grade...and that’s it, really.

names of people you have gone on a date with: Only Gabie. And I guess maybe Mike? Since he asked me to go with him to his ball as his date.

places you've been and would love to go again: Sagada, Jeju, Bali.

places you want to visit before you die: Morocco, Spain, Thailand.

items on your bucket list: See Times Square, live in a condo, plan a solo trip.

health conditions you have: Scoliosis, lactose intolerance, and very possible depression.

health conditions you've had in the past but don't anymore: Dehydration, UTI, and some kind of weird low-platelet-count thing that was just that, and never diagnosed as anything.

things you are allergic to: Possibly some types of grass, and maybe face masks. Idk how to confirm it really; I just know my skin gets irritated around them sometimes.

youtube channels you love to watch: Good Mythical Morning; the KBS YouTube channel mainly for clips of Return of Superman and 2 Days 1 Night; and Binging With Babish.

favorite drinks: Water, coffee, Long Island Iced Tea.

favorite foods: Sushi, chicken wings, pizza.

favorite desserts: Cheesecake, MACARONS, cupcakes.

favorite holidays: The only one I care for and get super excited about is my birthday, if that counts. Christmas is fine, but I only get the excitement for it on the actual day itself.

favorite colors: Pastel pink, white, maroon.

people you would like to meet: Ysa and Bea, my teammates at work. I’ve met them only once before, and I wish we can be allowed to report to the workplace physically soon so that I get to see them more often and strengthen my relationship (both working and personal) with them. I’d also love to be able to chat and chill with Hayley Williams even for just 30 seconds.

people you want to meet in Heaven: I don’t believe in that, but I’d love to have met my great-grandfather on my maternal grandfather’s side. Also, Audrey Hepburn and Princess Diana.

good names for a dog or cat: Depends on their personality.

reasons why you get up each morning and keep on living: Because I’ve been able to see myself get better, and why stop all the progress?; because I’d want to be able see if the future will get better; and because I’m afraid of what will happen to/who will look out for my dogs if I’m suddenly gone.

For each name, think of three people you know with that name, and list their occupations.

Amanda: I only know one Amanda, and she’s a friend of my ex’s younger sister. She’s only in senior year of high school. I know an Amandine which is close enough I suppose?? and she’s a dentistry student.

Sarah: She’s a media contact and I’m constantly in touch with; she’s the editor-in-chief of a local magazine. I think she’s the only Sarah I know.

Ashley: Also a media contact. I’m not sure about her title, though.

Beth: @bionic-beth is a teacher! :) But I don’t know any Beths in real life, I think.

Katie: Well I know Kate, and I’ll sometimes playfully call her Katie. She works in a government agency and she’s one of their PR people. The HR person who recruited me to come work at my current employer is a Kate, but I have never and have no plans to call her Katie.

Matt: That’s too foreign-sounding a name where I live.

Emily: Don’t know any Emilys, either.

Chris: Media contacts. They run blogs or news sites of their own.

Mike/Michael: The one Mike I know is currently a med student. Not sure if he’s working on the side - I think he is, since I saw him post about a job update on his Facebook a few months ago; but I can no longer remember what he does, or if he’s still doing it.

Jessica: I went to high school with a girl named Jessica but I don’t follow her on social media, so I have no clue what she’s up to now.

Becca/Bekah: Rita’s sister is a Becca. I think she is currently a grad student.

For each name, think of three people you know, and list one adjective to describe each person. (Skip if you don't know anyone with that name.)

Laura

Michelle: Hilarious.

Victoria: Strong.

Tessa: Friendly.

John

Claire: Influential; motherly.

Briana/Brianna: Bitch.

Vanessa

Brittany/Britney, etc.

Allison/Allie/Ally, etc: Kind. 

Olivia

Jordan

Jo/Joe: Ambitious; pretty.

Corey/Kori

Sophie: Sweet; quiet.

Mitch/Mitchell: Tall.

Madison/Maddie/Maddi

Out of all the people you know or have met, list three...

redheads: Yeah, you’re not going to find them in most of Asia. West Asia and some parts of East Asia, probably, but definitely not for the rest.

tall people: Jo, Chesca, and Shaun.

people with really curly hair: I know Kleo has naturally curly hair from her Aeta roots, but it’s been straightened for a very long time now. I think Chesca also has curly hair, albeit slightly. There is also Liana.

sets of twins: My sister had two sets of twins in her high school batch, but I can no longer remember their names. I also had an English class with a pair of twins named Ardy and Thirdy.

of the cutest babies you've seen on social media: My workmate’s baby. My friend Jar has a super squishy niece/nephew pair of twins as well.

people you miss: Angela, Kate, my grandpa.

people with beautiful eyes: I can only think of my ex.

people with nice hair: God I have not been around people for so long, I can barely think of anyone for this.

people who are the same height as you: Aya, Hannah, Tina.

own one of the same clothing items as you: Angela since we went to the same high school and have several of the same school shirts; Laurice since we share a college org and we have our own trademark polo shirt; and my brother and I have our own pairs of Nike Cortez shoes.

make you laugh: Andi, Hans, and this girl I had a couple of history classes with, Rose.

List three celebrities who...

are the same height as you: Lady Gaga and AJ Lee are the only ones who are coming to mind. I wouldn’t call AJ a celebrity though.

have the same hair color as you: Mila Kunis, Kelly Rowland, Dita Von Teese.

look like you: Only based on comments I’ve gotten in the past and not because I necessarily claim these for myself, Lucy Hale, Anna Akana, and Kakie.

List three....

adjectives to describe you: Timid, stubborn, sensitive.

academic courses you enjoyed: Philippine social history, international relations, anthropology.

words you always forget how to spell: Rhythm, committee, accommodate.

things you wish you were better at: Singing, dancing, drawing.

things you are really good at: Writing, reading people, and knowing the best things to order at most restaurants hahahah.

jobs you'd like to have: Ideally, a lawyer or doctor. But realistically, I’d love to have a leadership position in the PR sphere.

jobs you've considered having: ^ Again, lawyer and doctor. Also a journalist or news anchor, back when I still thought I was passionate about journalism.

jobs you'd hate: Journalist, an LTO clerk, an assistant to an asshole celebrity.

things you miss: Being a student, many parts of the past, and deceased family members.

names your mom considered when naming you: Ariel, Kathleen, Katrina.

things people call you: Robyn, Byn, Bynbyn.

*Bonus*: what is your name? (first and middle)? I always feel like just sharing Robyn.

[artificialqueens]

interlude 1.2 (Branjie) - PinkGrapefruit

A/N - I feel like i’ve been working on this for ages but it’s the last of my backlogged fics so you’ll get what you get after this. Thanks to the branjie discord for brainstorming with me and to Qtip and Meggie for reading it through to make sure i hadn’t messed it up

This is a 5 time fic prompted by an anon on AQ and i hope you enjoy!

‘five times they follow the rules and one time they break them’

*

1.

[no teams. it just doesn’t end well.]

They’ve strewn themselves over a couch (and each other) somewhere in between episodes three and four. It’s a weekend and to be honest they’re both a little giddy coming off the high of the TV challenge - each feeling that maybe Vanessa should have won but also knowing that there’s still a tomorrow.

They might also be high on their new relationship (or whatever they’re choosing to call it). It’s cute and sweet and a nice distraction from everything going on in the competition just to slow down and cuddle for a bit. Vanjie’s just repositioning his head when Brooke speaks and it sends low vibrations through him. “Nessa,” he starts, quiet and slightly apprehensive. Vanessa props himself up on his elbow and turns a little. “Nessa, do you think we could have some rules?”

The other man hums and tilts his head, examining the thought before carefully replying, “Like what, boo?”  

This is Brookes calling. “Maybe easy things, like not too much on camera and nothing too explicit?”

Vanessa hums again in agreement. He scratches his stubble lightly. “So like, no teams and shit?” He muses. “We weren’t bad yesterday, but I get ya.” They kiss and it isn’t discussed again.

In fact, they forget it was ever a conversation until Brooke wins the reading challenge in episode nine. He’s assigning pairs and for a second Vanessa hopes it’s him, wants it to be him so deeply that his face falls when he chooses Nina instead. And then he remembers the rule, his rule and knows that this was the way they planned it.

He can’t stay mad at Brooke for long anyway.

2.

[gigs are professional. and also too dangerous.]

They’re lucky they share management. They say it all the time because it’s the only way they’ve arranged to not end up booked at the same time. Where possible, Jason and Steve schedule the two in different states, time zones apart and yes, it hurts everytime Brooke waves his man onto a plane but the feeling of welcoming Vanessa back home (back to him) - it’s worth it. Going to bed knowing that when he wakes up, his man will have snuck into his bed and curled around him like a koala, their own personal Noah’s Ark at their feet - that’s happiness.

From episode three, they got calls from everywhere, begging them to co-host gigs or do shows together but it was never going to happen. They’re both volatile with tequila and god knows gay bars have enough of it.

Vanjie does shows everywhere and it takes very little to get him to say things he shouldn’t - to spill little nibbles that could turn into a whole lot if you look at them the right way, connect the dots in the right order. Brooke would like to say he’s different, likes the idea that he’s the sane one - ice queen, impermeable. This is incorrect. He drinks tequila fast and hard, lets it burn on the way down only hoping it won’t burn later in a bathroom that isn’t her own. She’s eight deep at Roscoes when it really starts going. Everything Vanessa has said has been, while true, very Vanessa - it’s made just enough sense to get fan blogs whirring while no one can understand what he’s on about. Brooke, on the other hand, reads like a morning paper. Easy and well-spoken and even when he’s making jokes like ‘I’ve been inside of her.’

It wasn’t a joke and people have the common sense to know that only because it’s Brooke that says it.

After that, Brooke decides to get sober. He reckons it’s safer and he can’t keep being this messy with a crown on the line. The next time he’s at Roscoe’s, he’s not drinking and still makes jokes about all the things he probably shouldn’t but they feel sincere. He realises why they can’t do viewing parties together one week when they’re finally allowed to be together while they watch. Vanessa is curled up in his lap, swathed in blankets and cradling a hot chocolate like it’s the thing tethering him to reality. they don’t really move throughout the episode, spend ad breaks nibbling on necks and whispering things they could easily say aloud in the comfort of their own homes but they feel safer to say in private. They couldn’t do this in a bar - maybe the rule is a blessing in disguise.

3.

[competitors first. boyfriends second]

It’s Brooke’s rule, of course it is. He’s the one who keeps watching Vanessa beat himself into the ground - taking every hit like it is breaking him. He can’t help but worry that if it comes down to it  - to the two of them - he might give up. He is worn down, Brooke can see the fear through his skin, hear torments when he lays his head on his chest. He is so tired. It would be so easy.

So he makes it a rule, when they are sinking into a couch in the workroom, the cameras rebooting for the god-knows-how-many-th time - he makes sure he knows that he has to fight. It wouldn’t be fair if he didn’t, he would feel like he wasn’t supposed to be there. And if he’s being a little more honest than usual, he kind of want to see what it would feel like. He wants to feel that adrenaline pumping through his veins, a chaser to the overwhelming fear of knowing that he could send him home.

Vanjie sits quietly as he talks, never arguing with what he says and when he is done, simply nods. He knows that Brooke is right - cannot argue with the overwhelming evidence that maybe he has a little less fire in him than he did at the beginning.

He follows the rule to the bitter end, fights like he doesn’t know that he will beat him if it comes down to it. When it does go there, he pushes forward until he hears the bitter echo of ‘sashay away’ and knows that he did everything he could. The rule may have been competition before boyfriends but he doesn’t hold this against him. He can’t - it wouldn’t be fair.

It’s not fair, Brooke decides as he watches Vanessa walk away. It’s not fucking fair.

4.

[keep it for the camera.]

They don’t choose this one but that doesn’t mean they don’t follow it. A production assistant corners Brooke in his room the night after the Rusical. She - in more words - tells him that he needs to keep what he and Vanessa have for the cameras, don’t be too sweet when they can’t film, don’t hang out outside of cast times. He bites back a thousand remarks, swallowing down half-made jokes about zoo animals and fucking on camera. None of them are appropriate for the situation and he is sure they would all get him some sort of punishment. The PA looks almost sad, a little solemn and worse for wear. He understands she is just doing her job, can’t be mad at her but at the system for being so damn hard. He just wants Vanessa - why the fuck is it so difficult?

Brooke wishes he was there when they told him, can picture the crinkle of his eyes, the fire in his belly that they will have heard before they saw. He’s not comparing Vanjie to a dragon - no ma’am, but had he seen smoke down the corridor, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

Just because they follow the rule, doesn’t mean they don’t push it, too. They count their small victories like kids count pennies: the more they have, the closer they are to a bigger prize.

So what if they talk more than they kiss in the vans? The journeys are long enough for a little bit of both, and their castmates are glad to hear a little less smacking on the daily commute. They bond in a way that isn’t just skin on skin, warmth gliding between them like bonfire toffee and daisies - it brings them closer together as they intertwine fingers and rest heads on top each other. Their hushed voices don’t carry far (or at least that’s the excuse they make for being so damn close together when ‘you’ve got four whole seats bitch.’ They talk between orange slices and hot coffee, over breakfast, lunch, and dinner when the cameras can’t roll and the PAs are off eating their own meals. They find ways to thread inside jokes through their sentences (something the editors hate later on because ‘it’s fucking hard to edit when you have no idea what they’re on about’). Maybe they do it as a quiet rebellion, if the moments are uneditable, they won’t have so much airtime - they can be their own people before they are clumped as one - if they do, no one confirms it.

5.

[emojis only]

It’s a month after filming finishes and they decide that words are too obvious. They can be bent, misconstrued and they know they’ve been given explicit instructions not to give anything away but god, sometimes they want to show a little online affection. He’s sick of hiding it already, dreading when the show comes around because the NDA already says to let things play out onscreen first and he’s way too all over his man.

They pick out some emojis, safe ones that do not allude to anything in particular but also do. The orange heart is Vanessa’s personal favourite, reminiscent of episode four of Untucked. It was his favourite, not only because god, Brooke looked good in that outfit but because even though he was scared, it reaffirmed that he had everything he needed to be fantastic. He comments the heart and hopes it conveys everything he needs Brooke to hear, everything he can’t type because ‘god babe if you thirst on all of my posts this is going to become way too obvious,’ and ‘remember the NDA’. Those words will be the death of him and he knows it.

The knife and the coffin are probably sexual, Brooke decides as he types them on a picture of Vanjie -  he needs way too many words to describe it with eloquence and only two to describe with accuracy. The words are ‘fuck me’ and whilst it he can’t say it, he’s grateful that he can impart that sentiment on the confusing comment section of Instagram. He likes the detective too; it feels like an ‘I see you’ even when their mouths are gagged and their hands are tied and they’ve got a million other things to think about.

The emojis are all fun and games, neither here nor there and nobody really minds. And that’s okay.

*

1.

[don’t fall in love. showmances don’t last]

Looking back, they’re unsure when they broke this rule. They made it as a joke, a little drunk on prison sangria and competition stress. It’s a joke, they told themselves whenever their hearts fluttered a little too hard. It’s just a joke, Brooke tells himself when he watches Vanjie lipsync for the second time. It’s a joke Vanessa reminds himself when he jokes about putting a ring on it, two days before they can all go home. Maybe they convince themselves it’s true. They stay under the radar and try to pretend that the roses growing in their veins isn’t love, it’s lust, longing, a symptom of a bigger problem. Brooke goes back to Nashville, and Vanessa goes back to LA and it’s fine. ‘Cause it ain’t love.

It takes two days. He sits at home for two days feeling hollow, empty. He lays alone in bed at night but this time he feels it, deep in his bones like a heaviness. They feel under pressure like they will shatter and he wants to scream because this-this is why you don’t fall in love. He’s felt it before and he’ll feel it again as it burns its way through his insides, a trail of fire left in the mussed bed sheets he’d barely laid in. His head thuds back onto the pillow, and he lets the deeply unfamiliar scent of his detergent consume him. It feels like home and like foreign ground, simultaneously and all at once.

He caves, calls him with the number Brooke had said to call as soon as he got home. He hopes he won’t be mad.

*

It takes two days. Brooke flies to Nashville and greets his apartment like an old friend. It was never very decorated - he’d always insisted he wouldn’t have to stay for too long - but compared to a hotel room, it is bustling with life. He spends the first day drowning his sorrows with cheap liquor and his cats, lets Celine Dion fix whatever Drag Race broke. He’s not sure how he can still listen to her but somehow she reminds him of Vanessa and he can’t be mad at that. After two days he wakes up sober and lonely and his head is pounding like a heartbeat so very far away. It’s a joke and he feels like a clown because how did he fall in love like that - with him?

Vanessa calls him and it’s 3 a.m. and he’s never pressed accept so fucking quickly in his life.

*

“Um, hey baby, it’s Vanessa - no wait it’s Jose.”

“Hey.”

I miss you.

I love you.

Move to Nashville.

“How are you?”

I love you.

Move to Los Angeles.

This is bullshit.

“I’ve missed hearing your voice.”

“I know, bitch.”

*

[societybabylon]

Oof wait an au where harry is a photographer and allie is a model

Harry had been staring at a computer screen so long that his eyes were beginning to burn fromthe strain. He was only two hours along in his Wednesday workday, and alreadyhe wanted to go home.

It was three weeks into Harry’s summer photography internship, and he had donelittle other than respond to emails and make basic Photoshop edits. He hadn’texpected his job with the famed photojournalist Ed Bristol to be glamorous,exactly, but he had hoped it would be more exciting.

Instead, he spent almost all his days in the same way: alone, hunched over a computerscreen in a tiny cubicle for eight hours. Today was shaping up to be the same.

He was adjusting the lighting on a photo when someone knocked on his cubicle. Heswiveled around in his chair. It was his boss. Ed was beaming in his pinstripesuit.

“I’ve got something good for you today,” he said.

“What is it, sir?” Harry said, making sure he kept his tone deferential. He might notbe enjoying the work, but he would enjoy the referral that came afterward.

“One of my friends at Vogue just called me. She said that the photographer who was supposed to shoot the November cover of their magazinejust dropped out, and they need someone to fill in for him. Normally, fashion shoots aren’t my thing, but because she’s a friend, I told her I would help out. Would you like to come with me?”

Did he even need to ask? “Of course. I’ll get my camera ready.”

“Great. Meet me in the parking lot in five minutes. We’re going to Vogue.”

—

“That’s great, Allie, really great. Now, if you could just turn a little bit to your left—there you go, that’s fantastic.” Ed said, yelling out directions to the model on set.

Only two hours ago, he had been stuck at his cubicle. Now, Harry was at a Vogue photoshoot. He could hardly believe his good luck.

While his boss took center stage, he lingered in the background, snapping photos whenever he saw something that inspired him. Which was often. The model for the cover shoot, a woman named Allie Pressman, was incredible at her job. One moment, she would be baring her teeth, looking ferocious and wild. The next,she would be wearing a closed-lip smile, blushing and demure.

She was dressed in a light green gown with a high slit that went up to her hip. Crystalson the bodice glittered and shimmered in the light. Her eyelids were paintedwith clear gloss. She was stunning.

After the photoshoot, the editors of the publication gathered around a laptop to get an early glimpse of the photos his boss had taken. Harry sat in a chair a few feet away, listening in to their conversation to see what he could learn from them.

“Well,” said one of the editors, an old man with a shock of white hair, “I think this is the cover shot. It’s just gorgeous.”

He was pointing at a photo that showed Allie lying on the ground, her long hair splayed out around her. She was staring at the camera through barely open eyes, almost as if she was near sleep. It was a nice photo, Harry thought, but not worthy of the cover. The photo made her look too submissive and calm—nothing like the fascinating, complicated woman he had witnessed on set earlier that day.

“Well,” he heard his boss say, “I don’t want to pat myself on the back too much, but I think that’s a damn good photo.”

“So, we’re decided?” A young woman with large hoop earrings asked.

“Ah, wait, I almost forgot. Let’s take a look at Harry’s shots, see if he got anything good.”

“Who the hell is Harry?” The white-haired editor asked.

“My intern, the one who’s sitting right over there.”

The editors seemed hesitant, as thoughthey thought it was a waste of time to look at his photos. “Ed,” one of them started to say, “he’s just a kid. I don’t think—”

“Nonsense,” Ed cut them off. “He’s a great photographer. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have hired him to be my intern. Maybe none of his photos will make the cut, but I think we should at least take a look at them.”

His boss motioned him over. Harry stood up and walked over to the group. He plugged his camera into the computer and waited as the photos loaded.

If the photos that Ed had taken were polished and perfect, Harry’s were the opposite. His photos were raw and flawed. Most of the time, Allie wasn’t even looking at his camera, but hisboss’ instead. Other times, his camera caught her in clumsy moments, such as when she accidentally tripped and fell.

And yet he loved the photos he hadtaken.

His boss did, too. “These are fantastic. There’s a look about them that just can’t be replicated, a kind of quiet loving quality. Tell me, how did you capture that?”

“I’m honestly not entirely sure. I just tried to photograph what I saw when I looked at her.” And what he saw when he looked at her was magnetizing and complicated.

His boss’ eyes twinkled with a knowing gleam. “I see.”

“I agree these are lovely photos, but they don’t work with Vogue,” one of the editors burst out. “They’re too rough. Each photo shows howinexperienced the boy is.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but let’s look at a few more.” Ed said. His boss flicked through a few more pictures before settling on one. “There. Look at that. That’s the one.”

It was one of the few photographs where Allie was actually staring at Harry’s camera. She was looking over her shoulder. Her blue eyes challenged the camera, as if daring the viewer to test her. Her pink lips were barely parted and her dress was slipping off one shoulder. She looked beautiful but untamed.

The editors were stunned into silence.

“Alright,” the white-haired one finally spoke, “I think we’ll be able to find a place for that in the magazine.”

Harry was overjoyed and shocked. “Really?”

His boss patted him on the shoulder. “That’s how you do it, Harry. Great work. Now,would you mind getting me an iced coffee? You’re still my intern, and don’t you forget it.”

For once, Harry was more than happy to go on a coffee run.

—

Later that day, as the set was being taken apart and the shoot officially wound to a close, Harry flicked through his photos by himself. It was nice to get a chance to review his work withouthis boss and the Vogue editors. And, if he were being honest with himself, he enjoyed having the excuse to gaze at Allie again.

“Can I see the photos that you took?”

Harry jolted upright, startled. It was her. Allie Pressman, the model from the photoshoot. She was still wearing the green dress from earlier, although most of her makeup had been taken off.

“Yeah, of course.” He fumbled with his camera as he handed it over to her.

She clicked through the photographs slowly, scrutinizing each one carefully before going on to the next. Her gaze was unreadable. Did she love them? Did she hate them?

Harry’s leg jittered up and down, a nervous tic he couldn’t control. It was one thing for editors of a magazine to dislike his photographs. It was an entirely different thing for the woman in his pictures to dislike them.

“So?” He asked after she had flipped through dozens of images. “What do you think?”

“Would you be interested in photographing me again?” she said suddenly, turning away from the camera to look him in the eyes. “I know it’s not as glamorous as Vogue, but I’m always looking for someone to help curate my Insta.I would pay you small sums for each shoot that we did. And I would tag you in every photo you took. With any luck, it would help build both of our names.”

That, of all things, was not what Harry had been expecting her to say. There was a playful gleam in her eyes and a slight smirk on her lips. She had just offered him a business opportunity,but she was staring at him in a way that could only be described as flirtatious.

“That sounds amazing,” he said, notentirely sure what he was getting himself into.

“Great.” She winked at him. “Meet meat Ember Falls, next Saturday, noon. Oh, and don’t forget a bathing suit.”

[lonelypond]

Can’t Get Started

Love Live, NicoMaki, 3.5K, 1/2

Nishikino Maki is trying to make in the piranha fishbowl of movies, music, and Hollywood. Yazawa Nico already has. And they keep crashing into each other.

Can’t Get Started

No matter how many luxury, fancy, five star, $$$$$ hotels Nishikino Maki would spend time in, she would never get used to the powder room lounges, with interior design as fancy and challenging as the living areas of the ‘finest’ homes. This one had a wood and platinum motif, with large low sofas scattered over a space the size of her moderately luxurious apartment. There were pitchers with cucumber water and a thick book full of very unclothed photography, which actually interested Maki, as a photographer herself, but here, where women came in and out every few minutes, she felt too exposed to pick it up, have a look, and see who had made that particular editor’s cut. So no lingering after the deed is done. In a room seemingly designed for lingering. And one fidgety blur of movement in a corner Maki made certain to only catch out of the corner of her eye. No staring. Time to move on, no matter how tempting the couches seemed compared to the roomful of noisy chatter and chummy elbows.

Maki was back to continue her decor appreciation jam session after only ten minutes because of a small accident with the soup. Award shows should be like the Oscars, someone else in your seat when you needed air, not occasions where you not only had to juggle nerves but also food. Maki shook her head at herself, looked at the curry down the front of her dress and wondered if water would make it better or worse.

She stopped. There was the blur, now in the center of the ‘lounge,’ a tiny dark haired woman, pacing and muttering, hands flying back and forth, making shapes in the air, leaning into a couch, patting an imaginary cheek, turning to one side, smiling and waving, unusually...red eyes wide and friendly. And then they spotted Maki, and narrowed.

“Sorry…” Maki coughed and ducked her head, pointing to her dress, “spilled soup. Just…” Maki smiled shyly, “thought I saw you in here ten minutes ago. Are you okay? I get nervous too.” A flip of her finger across the still damp soup stain to demonstrate empathy.

Now there was staring. The eyes were red, almost rubies, with that same illusion of faceted depth that the best jewelers carve into their efforts, bringing out magical warmth from mineral cold. Then an incandescent smile happened that knocked Maki back, “Nico is fine. Nico is just rehearsing her acceptance speech so fans like you,” a broad, broad wink, “aren’t disappointed.”

Nico. Yazawa Nico. Maki took a better look, this woman was so tiny, but yes, the eyes should have been a giveaway, set deep over a nose that was much sharper than Maki had even seen in any of the movies where Yazawa had bled out all of her emotions for an audience eager for stories of romance, tragedy, and triumph with an actress unafraid to be as unapologetically gay on screen as off. From superhero to Empress, Nico had swept the international cinema scene, scoring box office hits in both small indie films and action blockbusters. Maki had been impressed by the actress’s range, cried and laughed over her performances, and maybe had a slightly illicit dream or two. Like every other gay and bi woman on the planet.

“Hello?” Yazawa’s hand was waving in front of Maki’s nose, “Nico can help you with the spill. I have a stain stick in my purse, It’ll keep it from setting.”

Maki nodded. That sounded sensible. Like a plan. And Nico’s dress was silver slashed with black fringe, that went with the silver slashes across sharp cheekbones above lips that could really only be described as a sensuous dark plum.

The actress was waiting for some kind of verbal reply, but Maki had half turned and was just staring at a pattern on the couch and running a hand through her hair, as adjectives and screenshots kept flashing on her internal movie screen. Then Yazawa’s hands were on her shoulders and she was being shoved into a chair, “But first you listen to Nico’s speech…” Yazawa paused.

“Um…” Maki realized her elevation had changed and she glanced up, Nico watching her critically.

“Name?” Nico urged.

“Maki.” Easy question.

Nico nodded and the tension eased. “Okay, Maki, hi I’m Nico, I have a big presentation in…” Yazawa glanced at a delicate twist of a silver watch, “20 minutes, so it’s kinda urgent, can I run something by you? So I don’t sound like an idiot.”

“Yeah, I always sound like an idiot too.” Maki blurted.

“Well,” Nico stepped back, “thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Sorry, Ms. Yazawa...” Maki bit her lip, “you’re always so polished on screen….”

“It’s Nico. And I never write my own dialogue. On set improv is lame.” Nico stepped back, her eyes focusing somewhere else, hands seeming to measure out where the stage and microphone were, “Writers work as hard as Nico does so they deserve respect.”

Maki thought Umi would be pleased and surprised to hear that from a celebrity she had occasionally doubted the work ethic of. Maki, as a composer, was usually immune from actors altering her artistic choices but it was a near daily struggle for Umi. Maki wondered if Nico would be interested in reading their latest, an intimate musical…

Nico’s hand again, fingers snapping this time under Maki’s nose this time. She jumped as Nico began to sound testy again, “If Nico can keep your interest, she can keep anyone’s…”

“Not, that’s not...I just...my friend Umi is a writer and always complains about actors who want to improv.”

“Posers.”

Maki grinned, “Exactly what she says.”

Nico patted Maki encouragingly on the shoulder, amused, “Introduce Nico later. Now you listen. We only have 15 minutes before...” Nico flung her arms wide, nodding to each side, gathering in imaginary shouts and whistles.

“Okay.” Maki stood, stretched her arms out in front of her, sat, leaned forward, slammed her hands into her knees, the picture of alert attention, and winked at Nico, “Go.”

Nico laughed, stepped behind her imaginary podium, whispered, “clap” so Maki did while Nico’s hand gestures called for more. Then the flip of the hand for quiet.

“Thank you. Tonight is very important to Nico…”

###

Sundance...party...one pissed off caterer...Maki had no idea what she did to annoy the woman...oh wait, yeah that...but Umi was going to be SEVERELY disappointed when their party, intended to impress award winning designer Minami Kotori turned out to be Maki smiling awkwardly and handing around a bag of stale chips and a growler. It was a weeknight, the Thursday before the second weekend, and Maki had had hopes of catching the ska documentary she’d connected a musician friend with. But no, here she was frantically searching for...a pizza place, maybe? Fewer crowds than last year, when they’d come the first weekend, but still enough people bustling that Maki felt like she was elbowing people awkwardly in the halls of high school again. And then her heel hit a patch of black ice and she sssssssslllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiid down the sidewalk until some obstacle forced her back on her butt. That was going to be sore, Maki thought as she reached a hand behind her, levering herself up was going to be at least a three limb job, both legs and one arm.

“Here let me help you. Are you okay?”

Maki recognized the voice and winced. Yazawa Nico once again catching her in an imperfect moment. “Hi. No, I’m fine.”

Nico snorted. She was in a black snowsuit with cute pink flair, fake fur, and patches scattered all over her arms and legs. She took Maki’s hand and when the redhead nodded, pulled. Maki rose and stumbled forward, suddenly finding herself with A list celebrity arms supporting most of her weight while dreamably delicious, not even mildly chapped lips pinched back what was probably a belly roar of laughter.

“Sorry.” Maki stepped back, hands brushing the snow off her leggings. Why hadn’t she dressed for the weather? Leggings based on samurai armor, an oversized Northwestern hoodie and a Reign ballcap would not have been any stylist’s choice.

“No soup stains?” Nico teased, clapping together pink mittens that looked like Muppet fur. Maki thought there might be eyes on the palms. She wasn’t sure if that was cute or creepy.

“No food at all.” Maki sniffled, feeling the cold soak into what was going to be a sitting bruise, and having no real options as her mind raced through possibilities. Umi and Kotori would be headed back with a small crowd after the premiere of Umi’s latest film and Maki had nothing, “I have to go. Nico to see...I mean nice to see you, Nico.” Maki tried to smile but she knew her face was giving away how many non options she was discarding per second.

“What’s the matter?” Nico asked so casually, so quickly, Maki almost forgot where she was.

“I pissed off the caterer. And Umi…”

“Your writing friend….”

“You remembered…”

Nico tapped her temple, “Nico keeps future industry connections who know cute redheads in the most secure part of her memory.” Nico frowned, “Sorry, Nico meant intelligent and attentive test audiences. Nico’s not a creep.”

“Then why are there eyes on your mittens?” Maki couldn’t help asking.

“Huh...” Nico laughed, raising one of her hands, turning her mitten into a sock puppet, the pitch of her voice dropping, “Hey, friend, let’s make a snowman…”

Maki glanced around, a little frantic, not sure how to react, especially as this new conversation track was her stumble entirely, “Sorry no...there’s not really anywhere...I really...Umi’s going to be so upset…”

“They make my little brother laugh. He’s 13 and I’m trying to keep him silly.” Nico rolled her eyes, “They grow up too fast.”

“Oh.” Maki hated being this confused. And feeling this incapable. But Nico was grinning at her and cute and surely Umi and Honoka could charm Kotori without catering. There was ice cream in the freezer. Probably.

“So what did you do to the caterer…?”

Maki shoved her hands in her kangaroo pocket so she wouldn’t just throw her hat somewhere as she remembered the scene. “Ummmm...ran over the main dish because I was running late and backing out of the condo driveway when they were unloading…”

“Sounds like a movie meet cute.” Nico’s eyes were twinkling while Maki was getting shorter and probably tilting toward the left as her hip contracted from pain and cold. “So is it a private party...why did Nico miss getting her invite?”

“Oh, it’s for anyone who goes to Umi’s premiere.” Maki glanced at her watch. “Which is going to be over soon.”

Nico pulled out her phone. “What’s your address?”

“Why?” There wouldn’t be much of a party, and Honoka would surely just hit Nico with every project her clients might need an actress for.

“Nico knows someone. Is this Umi or who she’s trying to impress allergic to anything?”

“Minami? I’m not sure.”

Nico whistled, “Kotori, the Divine Kotori of Floating Feather Atelier….Nico really needs to come to one of your parties. Nico hears she’s big on cutesy food…” Nico frowned, considering. “I might know a place...”

“Where?” Maki got ready to run.

“You are not touching anything breakable, droppable, or poisonable. Nico will send her assistant.” Nico handed Maki her phone, “Just give me your contact info and Cocoro will take care of it.”

“Okay.” Maki took off a glove and tried typing but nothing registered. She kept punching until Nico took the phone back, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Just talk.”

“Okay.”

Nico typed in the digits as Maki recited them. “All right, Nico will send a rescue party to your wreck. Don’t back over them.”

“I’m walking everywhere from now on. Rogue Salmon spaghetti carbonaras are obviously stalking my car.” “Probably safest. Are you hanging out this weekend? Nico’s chairing a diversity panel. People are going to be talking about it for months.” Nico kept typing, biting her lip as she muttered things Maki couldn’t make out.

“Flying to Tokyo in the morning.” Nico looked disappointed so Maki explained. “Family business. My parents...”

“Oh. Nico will text you a snap of her agenda and her dress so you can see what you missed.”

“Okay.” Maki nodded at Nico, who had finally glanced up from her phone.“Thanks, Nico. I’d better get back.”

As Maki turned, Nico giggled. “Send Nico back a pajama selfie.”

Maki whirled, “What?”

Nico, with a too innocent expression on her face, was watching her mittens out dance each other, “We should go to a party TOGETHER sometime.”

“Stop by tonight. You have the address.”

Nico’s mittens dropped to her sides, her voice apologetic before it dipped back into a teasing edge. “Guest of honor three places. Already late for the first. And Nico has to hurry her assistant because there’s a cute redhead with no food to stain her clothes…”

Maki blushed and bolted. Nico had a very distinctive, short, snorting laugh and Maki feared that further conversation would draw a crowd. Plus, the liquor delivery was probably waiting.

###

Maki’s phone vibrated with a text from an unknown number, “We’re here.”

“Who?”

“Food.”

Maki had changed into jeans and a turtleneck, and was about to put her last layer on. Shoving her arm quickly into the formal jacket, she hopped down to the door.

One young woman, leading three young men with huge insulated bags, stood, impatiently tapping her fingers against the doorframe, “Maki?”

The grim tone made Maki wonder if she should pull out her ID. “Yes.”

The woman turned, “Take everything inside, find the kitchen, set it all up, my sister said not to let her touch anything.”

The staff nodded and shuffled past Maki once she stepped out of the door and onto the porch so they could get through.

The young woman glared at her. “Nico already tipped them.”

“Okay.” Maki was staring. This young woman was almost identical to Nico in coloring, but no amusement had ever lurked in her blood red eyes and her entire expression screamed “Not on my watch, you don’t.”

“You should probably go back inside.” The not Nico pointed.

“Okay.” Could this be over soon, Maki wondered.

“I have to text Nico a picture.” Nope.

“I’ll take you to the kitchen.” Maki had said something right, but it was too late to score any points. The “thank you” in response was perfunctory.

“I’m Maki Nishikino.”

“I know.”

Maki knew Nico had mentioned a name but its memory was as slippery as the Park City pavement.“You are?”

“Ms. Yazawa, Nico’s assistant.” Stated slowly.

“Right. Thank you.”

No reply. Ms. Yazawa racewalked into the living area, and Maki could hear her ordering the three young men around.

Maybe everything would be self serve. And Nico’s...sister? Evil clone? would make a quick exit. Maki wasn’t looking forward to the party and extra scrutiny would make it so much worse.

“Maki!” Honoka Kosaka cheerful trill echoed as the front door banged open, ‘Everyone loved Umi’s script. And they can’t wait to meet you.’ Maki waved at her old friend and agent as the ginger in a kilt and shawl bounced into the living area. The food had arrived just in time. But a smile was more than Maki could muster as the memory of the younger Yazawa’s frigid attitude kept scalding her.

###

The condo was finally quiet. Umi, Honoka, and Kotori had gone off somewhere to continue what Umi called ‘negotiations’ while Honoka had whispered date. Which Maki wasn’t thinking about. Because the condo was finally quiet. And then her ringtone went off. Maki groaned and grabbed her phone, wondering what the new crisis was.

A text from an unknown number: ( ˘▽˘)っ♨ how was the party? My sister said you didn’t spill anything while she was there.

Maki smiled. Nico.

M: （－－；exhausting

N: In bed already? Pajama selfie?

M: Collapsed in chair fully clothed so not terribly exciting.

N: Depends on the chair ପ(⑅ ॣ•͈૦•͈ ॣ)ଓ

Maki shot a quick pic of the fabric pattern.

N: 10/10 would slouch right there with you

M: I’d be terrible company. During party: |_-｡), after party (o_ _)o

N: And yet, here we are...(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Maki ran a hand through her hair and sighed. What she really wanted to do was soak in a bath for hours, candles lit, music low, but past experience had taught her that as soon as Honoka came back she’d barge into wherever Maki was with an update.

N: Is the rest of Team 'Slide In Through My Window' there?

M: You know the script title?

N: Nico talks to people. Your friend Umi made quite a splash at the writing panel. Bet actresses are swooning to get a look at the script ヽ/❀o ل͜ o\ﾉ

Maki frowned.

M: Are you?

A pause...Maki could see Nico typing, then the bubble disappeared. Then more typing,

N: (,Ծ_ლ) Honestly? There’s no good way for Nico to answer that.

Maki leaned forward, her fingers flying.

M: Why not?

N: *groans* Because of course, duh...hot new thing and turns out I love the score for the 'Déshabillé and Disaster' short and YOU composed that, but mostly, Nico is swooning over an excuse to keep talking to you.

Nico knew her work. The first thing people mentioned was usually the hit steamy summer bop she’d written with Carly Rae Jepsen last year, not the Le Cristal d'Annecy winning animated short so Nico had either done her homework or was a genuine enthusiast. Either way…Maki found herself typing too quickly to reconsider anything she said.

M: You don’t need an excuse.

N: Are you going to be in LA for awards season?

M: Yes.

N: Nico will see you then. Cocoro hasn’t overscheduled me yet…So let’s crash a party together.

M: Can it be a small, quiet party? *yawns pathetically*

N: Get some sleep. And don’t forget to send Nico a pajama selfie when you get to Tokyo. Or at least a chair pic. Nico needs to know your furniture preferences.

And Nico had attached a selfie where she had the most serious of faces, one eyebrow quirked to its sharpest, most questioning extreme.

Maki couldn’t help it. The guffaw just rolled out; there was no other word for it. This was flirting. This was nice. No one staring and making her feel uncomfortable. A minute to think. Maki relaxed into the chair, legs pulled up, remembering Nico’s grin. This was flirting. A nudge. A wink. A dare. Maki took a risk.

M: Not too well padded.

N: (╯‵□′)╯︵┴─┴ Rude. Nico’s furniture is padded perfectly. ಠ‿↼

Guffaw followed by giggle. Maki was feeling better. Maybe she could actually sleep before leaving for her flight. IF she taped a huge DO NOT DISTURB ME, HONOKA to her door.

M: Thanks for your help, Nico. You saved me. Although I don’t think your sister likes me.

N: She’s not the deciding vote in the Yazawa family. Chat up Cotaro, he likes donuts, you might be able to swing a majority. Nico will put in a good word for you.

M: You’re probably exhausting in person.

N: All the to die for parties are ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ)

M: *collapses further into chair, CRUSHED under weight of brush with celebrity*

N: Nico is not fatal, Ms.OVERdramatic, just friendly.

M: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

N: Sleep it off, recluse ❤⃛ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ )

M: (b~_^)b

N: Cute. See you in LA.

See Nico in LA. It was now a plan. And Nico would be in one of those dresses designed to show off every perfectly padded curve. Maki felt herself redden and then panic jumped to her memories of red carpets and last year. The crowds. The cameras. And how everyone sweeping by, svelte and confident, had brought out every clumsy twitch in her body. But Nice was certainly not the watch the red carpet on a laptop with takeout and TWIG commentary type. Maki sat up, maybe if she started with a dress. Could Umi and Honoka talk Minami Kotori into coming back to the condo for some fashion talk? Maki could use a little divine design intervention.

A/N: Enjoy this first half. I started this while finishing up Jingle Bell Jazz when I heard Nancy Wilson's version of "I Can't Get Started." Juggling a few storylines so I'm not sure what'll be next after this as summer and Shakespeare and crimes against humanity by the government of my country continue.Thanks for reading. Take care!

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

chemistry (my heart’s a city you’re out to destroy) - [ii/iii]

Kylo Ren - superhuman, mercenary, and the world’s most dangerous man – has recently resurfaced after a mysterious three-month disappearance.

Rey Niima, listicle writer by day and investigative reporter by night, is way too busy to worry about that. Seriously, she’s got a million things on her plate - she doesn’t have the time to think about anything else.

Especially now that news editor Benjamin Snoke has returned to the office and seems hell-bent on making her life… interesting.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s chapter two of my superhuman!Kylo/reporter!Rey AU! Get ready for five thousand words of the world’s dumbest love triangle ever. Poor Rey.

Chapter 1 Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter and Ko-fi?

Enough has changed about The Outpost in the last two months to put Rey on edge.

The skeevy club looks the same as always, but it’s the unfamiliar faces slipping out through the back entrance and disappearing into the dark alley that have Rey on edge as she hides in the bushes across the street and strains her eyes to make out distinctive features through her crappy Amazon binoculars. Even worse than the unfamiliar faces are the familiar ones, the ones she’s only ever seen in dossiers detailing crimes that make her stomach turn, and it’s almost enough to make her pack everything up and rush back to the safety of her home.

But this is what she’s been waiting for, this is what she’s spent the last six months looking for–

Her blood turns to ice as her ears discern a rustling of leaves from behind her, and Rey reaches for the knife in her boot just as a gloved hand claps over her mouth.

“Still playing Lois Lane, I see,” Kylo chuckles in her ear, voice distorted by that awful modulator of his. Rey allows herself a sigh of relief before she nips at the fleshy part of his palm and turns around to greet him with a scowl.

“Sadly you’re no Superman,” she huffs, willing her heart rate to return to normal as the last bit of terror drains away. Would it really kill him to just announce his presence? Or maybe have the decency to approach her rather than drop out of the sky with no warning?

Kylo shakes his head as he settles in next to her, heedless of the grass stains forming on his suit. “Hey, I might be getting there.”

Rey sets aside her binoculars in favor of studying him. The mask gives nothing away, it never does, but that just means she’s spent the past two years learning to read every other bit of him. The way his shoulders tense when he’s being particularly vulnerable; the way his fingers curl into and then away from his palm when he’s frustrated or hesitant or even scared; the way his head droops sometimes because even if she can’t see him he can see her, and there are times when he just can’t look her in the eye–

“Is… is that what you’re doing? Are you one of the good guys now?”

It feels wrong, reducing things to black and white, good and bad after everything she’s learned about him since the day they first met. To suggest that Kylo was bad before, that he was ever entirely bad… it’s way off the mark, and Rey knows that better than anyone. But she can’t think of any other way to describe this sudden shift in his MO, allegations of murder suddenly replaced by acts of vigilantism since his return a week ago.

Kylo shrugs, his eyes – well, his mask – fixed firmly on the exit she’d been so closely monitoring just minutes ago. When he speaks, his voice comes out in a low rumble she’s learned to recognize as a whisper. “Everyone loves a good redemption arc, don’t they?”

He keeps his eyes on the club even as Rey stares at him so intently she’s almost surprised she hasn’t burned a hole into the side of his helmet. But she can’t help herself, entranced by this puzzle just like any other.

Because here stands – or squats – Kylo Ren, leader of the world’s most dangerous team of operatives, a five-person superhuman team capable of regime change overnight, of broad daylight assassinations, of heists that should not be physically possible. And now suddenly, after a three-month disappearance he still won’t talk to her about, he’s a lone wolf dropping off wanted criminals at the local precinct’s doorstep and… ‘liberating’ confidential records leading to the downfall of key players in the city.

He’s always puzzled her but this… this is new. This is more than anything that has ever come before, than everything that has ever come before combined, and Rey can’t even begin to make sense of it, of him.

Eventually, Kylo turns to her. “What?” he asks, and Rey hates that she thinks she hears a smile in his voice but can’t see it, can’t see him. In the early days she’d been desperate to figure out who the man under the mask was for all the reasons one would expect of a journalist, but then that desperation had turned to frustration when she couldn’t put a face (or even a real voice) to her midnight fantasies, and eventually that frustration had morphed into unreasonable hurt as the days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years and still he refused to share anything of himself with her.

And it’s only gotten worse since his return.

“What made you change your mind?”

Kylo is quiet for the longest time, and with every passing second of silence a lump grows in her throat and sits heavy on her chest. Will he ever tell her anything again? Did he even tell her that much to begin with? Throughout their… whatever the hell this has been, Rey has eagerly taken every tiny crumb he’s tossed her way in the hopes of eventually puzzling him out, and all along she’s been too busy slotting the tiny pieces into place to ever take a step back and realize she barely has anything.

“I didn’t,” Kylo finally says, and his next words are so predictably vague Rey can’t even bring herself to feel disappointed. “I just finally became my own boss.”

But then who was the boss before? Why did she not know there was one? The whole world thinks he’s the one in charge, he’s the one pulling the strings and leading the rest of the Knights – and where are the rest, anyway? Did they decide not to come back from their break? Were they the reason for the break?

She opens her mouth even before she’s picked out a question to begin with, only for Kylo to hush her and pull her down to the ground.

“I think that’s enough investigative work for tonight, sweetheart,” he says as gunshots pierce the silence of the night and trigger a symphony of chaos.

This, at least, is familiar to her – yet another one of the many little skirmishes that frequently break out among the lower-ranking members of the gang who like to hang around the club. Rey doesn’t even need to look up to know that no one of interest is involved here, or even on the scene; all of her targets know better than to hang around such a spectacle.

Kylo tugs at her arm and motions for her to follow his lead, staying low to the ground just in case. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.”

Rey turns back to gather her equipment only to find that he’s already handled it, her ratty canvas backpack bouncing against one shoulder with every move of his arms.

“No car tonight,” she whispers back as they crawl away. “I took an Uber.”

He stills and turns back to stare at her. Rey can almost imagine the look of exasperation on his face – a featureless one, composed of ever-changing eyes and lips and noses. “Rey,” he groans, and the note of concern he can’t quite hide even with the modulator squeezes her heart in the most painful way.

“It’s less risky than having someone recognize my car.”

Kylo concedes her point with a huff, and they continue to crawl until he deems them a safe distance away. “Let’s get you out of here and somewhere safe enough for an Uber driver,” he says as he helps Rey to her feet, and she brushes away blades of grass stuck to his front to buy herself some time.

The offer’s been on the tip of her tongue for months now, and one of Rey’s greatest regrets when he disappeared and she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again was not just blurting it out when she had the chance to. But now that she’s here, and he’s here, and she can feel how warm he is even through the leather of his suit…

She takes a deep breath, forces herself to look up at him. “Or you could walk me home.”

His sharp inhale crackles through the modulator but he doesn’t look away, and even through the mask Rey can feel his eyes on hers. Lately she’s been thinking they might be brown. Not the dull kind, but a rich, deep tapestry of mahogany and chocolate with little flecks of amber, dark but expressive, stern but kind, so easy to misread until you get close enough to realize–

Kylo drags her back before she can get too distracted. “Would you invite me up for a nightcap?”

Blood pounding in her ears, Rey forces a laugh as she swats his bicep and ignores the little thrill that runs up her spine from smacking against a solid wall of muscle. “I’ll have you know I’m a third date kind of girl,” she protests even as her lips twitch with a smile and she feels herself leaning into him.

A big, warm hand curls around her waist as he laughs. If she could just hear him laugh for real, just once, without that goddamn device… Rey thinks she might die happy.

“I’d say we’re well past our thirtieth at this point, sweetheart.”

It’s ridiculous, really, that she made it through the entirety of her teen years without once experiencing that heart-skips-a-beat, butterflies-in-stomach sensation all her friends gushed about only for it to hit her now.

“So we are–?”

A drop of water splattering against her nose silences her, and Rey looks up at the dark sky just in time for the heavens to open up and unleash a storm none of her seven weather apps predicted. “What the hell?”

Kylo slips his hand into hers. “Come on, let’s make a run for it.”

Alternatively he could just do that disappearing thing he does so well, as long as he takes her with him and brings them somewhere dry, but before Rey can suggest that he’s tugging at her hand and breaking out into a run she can’t help but keep up with. At some point the sight of Kylo Ren running in the rain and turning to her every minute or so with a quiet laugh makes the experience bearable, and she decides to just go with it until they find themselves standing in front of a closed café with a tiny roofed patio.

Raindrops are tracing little paths down the curve of Kylo’s helmet and dripping down onto his suit, and for some reason the sight brings to mind the image of a drenched cat. To his credit, he doesn’t react when a breathless Rey suddenly doubles over with laughter, just waits until she eventually straightens up again before he brings one gloved hand to her face and brushes her clumpy, wet hair away.

All lingering humor evaporates into the air as she stands stock still, holding her breath as his hand slowly moves down to cup her cheek.

Rey darts her eyes down to where his lips would be as her heart rate suddenly triples, looks back to where she thinks his eyes are as her throat goes dry. The same brown eyes from before, from her dreams, flash in her mind and she finally recognizes them just as her eyes begin to flutter, gives Kylo the tiniest of nods and parts her lips even as something in her hesitates–

He caresses her cheek with his thumb, and then drops his hand back to his side. “Call a car. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

She blinks, eyes still stuck on his mask as he presses something – her soaking wet backpack – into her hands. “Wait, what–”

Kylo’s gone with a single leap into the night sky, black leather impossible to pick out in the darkness.

And Rey, Rey is left alone to deal with the same old frustration and loneliness she’s taken to bed with her for the past two years.

Two weeks pass without any sign of Kylo at their usual haunts. She’d be wary of another months-long disappearance, but every other day her Twitter feed is spammed by pictures of him going about his vigilante business all over town. He’s saving little old ladies from muggers, he’s dropping off criminals at the precinct’s doorstep, he’s sneaking into top-floor offices to ‘liberate’ incriminating evidence… he’s everywhere except their usual haunts, running into everyone but her. Part of Rey – a huge part of her, really – wants to feel angry and betrayed and sad, but… but she’s got better things to focus on.

Like the fact that the top dogs in the Guavian Death Gang are now hanging around The Outpost. Plus her article about imposter syndrome has now been trending for three days straight. And she’s pretty sure Ben’s been leaving muffins on her desk every morning.

That last one is on her mind as she wraps up another late-night meeting with Amilyn after her third stake-out – sans Kylo Ren, who apparently can’t be bothered anymore. “Hey, Amilyn?” Rey hesitates at her editor’s door, hugging her files close to her chest.

“Yes?”

She turns away from the door and walks back into the office. “Can I… can I ask you about Ben?”

Amilyn gives her a knowing smile. “He’s quite a looker, isn’t he?”

Oh yes, so much so that her subconscious has decided to give dream Kylo his eyes and hair, but there’s no need to tell her editor that. “No, that’s not– well, I mean, yes, but– it’s not about that,” she declares firmly, slumping into her previous seat even as Amilyn raises one delicate brow in skepticism. “It’s just… when I first started here, I heard some stuff about him. A lot of stuff, really, from almost everyone here. But now that he’s actually here, none of that really matches up.”

“Oh?” Amilyn asks, leaning forward as her eyes gleam with interest.

“He’s… he’s sweet,” Rey mumbles, looking down at her hands as her cheeks heat up. “And he does these things… just little things, really, but…”

“Ben…” her editor sighs after a moment of silence. “Ben’s never been the friendliest person, but he has so much to offer once he warms up to someone; I wish the rest of the office could see that. But I will say there has been a change since his father passed away.”

“His…” Rey gapes at her. “His father passed away?”

Amilyn frowns. “That’s the reason he was on leave, dear. I mean, we all referred to it as family business, but I thought everyone knew.”

“Well, no one told me.” But then again, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you just throw into casual conversation, and it’s not like Rey had ever asked. She’d been told on her first day that the news editor was taking some personal time off, and that had been that. “Oh my god, poor Ben.”

“At the risk of sounding indelicate… I honestly think this might be one of the best things that ever happened to him.”

Rey finds herself staring at her boss, completely speechless.

“It sounds awful, I know,” Amilyn hurries to explain, “but they never had the best relationship. In fact, Ben used to come talk to me all the time because he had no one else to turn to and his father was so overbearing it drove him up the wall. But ever since he came back, he’s been… lighter. Freer, I think, and maybe even happier.” She offers Rey a shrug. “But that’s just my opinion.”

“Right,” Rey says faintly, her mind elsewhere as she tries to process this information and make it fit with the rest of the puzzles pieces she’s collected so far. So Ben had a bad relationship with his father, but it’d taken him three months to deal with his death. And she’s heard all kinds of things about him since she first joined Raddus, but maybe all of that is outdated now that Amilyn says he’s changed? And are the muffins – and the shy little smiles he gives her when they catch each other’s eye – part of that new change?

Hell, the first day they met, when they bumped into each other and he so rudely walked away – had she been too quick to judge? Maybe he just wasn’t prepared to talk to anyone yet, maybe he was overwhelmed by being back at work after so long, maybe he was thinking about his father…

As always, Ben Snoke remains a giant question mark in her mind. Everything about him – from the sudden change in his behavior towards her to his appearance in her dreams – confuses the hell out of Rey. She gets up and bids Amilyn good night in a daze, completely distracted by her reframing of every interaction they’ve ever had. It’s only when she hears the clatter of someone dropping a spoon into the sink that Rey looks up and sees a light on in the upstairs breakroom.

Somehow, she knows who she’ll find in there before she even decides to check it out.

“Another after-hours meeting with Amilyn?” Ben asks as she appears in the doorway, large hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee as he leans against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, I, um… couldn’t wait to get her approval on this article about… poisonous butterflies?” Rey offers weakly, internally cursing her complete inability to lie for the thousandth time. This is exactly why she’s hesitant to move into the undercover work part of her investigation.

Ben stares her down.

“What?” she demands defensively even as her skin prickles under his observation.

“You’re hiding something, Rey Niima,” he announces casually as he lifts his cup to his lips.

Rey’s heart stops. “Am not,” she shoots back unthinkingly, only for Ben to laugh and shake his head at her.

“I saw you, you know. The other night at The Outpost. You need to be more careful.”

Oh, this is bad. This is so, so bad. “How did you– who else– wait.” Her panic comes to a screeching halt as she narrows her eyes at him. “What were you doing at a strip club on the wrong side of town?”

“I–” Ben hesitates, falters, falls silent for a beat as Rey watches his throat work. “Why else?” he finally says with a rueful little grin on his lips, but–

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rey confidently refutes as she walks further into the breakroom.

Ben laughs, a curt little puff of air that’s more self-deprecating than amused. “I’m a single, straight man, Rey. I’m pretty sure it makes all the sense in the world–”

Rey shakes her head. “You do realize there are at least ten people in this office who’d jump at the chance to get with you, right?” she asks with a frown. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Ben probably doesn’t spend nearly enough time with them to see the way Poe’s always checking his ass out or hear the things Jess says about climbing him like a tree. “You don’t actually have to–”

“What about you?” Ben asks abruptly as a flush creeps up his neck and stains his cheeks pink. Oh. He’s shy. That’s… strangely adorable, made all the more so by the fact that she catches sight of one red ear when he runs a hand through his hair.

“Me?” Rey blinks. Oh. The strip club. “You know, I just happened to be in the area–”

Ben cuts her off almost immediately, and she can’t even blame him; in a lifetime of bad lies, that one might actually be bad enough to make it into the Hall of Fame. “No, not that. I meant… what about you? Would you… would you jump at the chance?”

For the second time in less than ten minutes, Rey’s heart stops.

But this time… this time it’s not ice-cold fear that fills her veins and lungs. This time, it’s butterflies in her stomach.

“Oh.”

Ben sets down his coffee without looking away from her. “Or not. You don’t have to, you know, jump at the chance, just maybe consider it–”

“Oh.”

This is… this is unexpected. This is new. Worst of all, this is nice, and Rey can feel herself starting to smile, and how dare her stomach get butterflies over someone other than–

“Never mind,” Ben mumbles, looking down at his feet. “Just forget it. Sorry. That was stupid of me, I’m just… I mean, I’m no Kylo Ren–”

He gives Rey as wide a breadth as possible as he walks past her, and all she can do is watch, paralyzed by the mention of Kylo, by the reminder–

The reminder of what? Of how she’d put herself out there only to be left wanting? Of dreams that’ll never be anything more? Of almost-moments that he always shies away from at the last second? Of two years of waiting, and hoping, and dreaming like a foolish, deluded child scaring off one prospective family after another because she couldn’t go with them, couldn’t leave, not before her real family came back–

No. No. Rey’s ruined her life once before waiting on a dream, and she swore to herself years ago that she’d never make that mistake again.

So she turns around and lunges after Ben, wraps her fingers around his wrist and tugs.

“You’re no vigilante superhuman,” she agrees, voice weak and wavering but growing more certain with every word, with every passing moment, “but you’re something better.”

Ben turns around and looks at her with stars in his eyes, and it hurts because all she’s ever wanted was for Kylo to look at her that way but she doesn’t know if he even looks at her at all, will never know how he looks at her or how he feels about her or anything.

But Ben… Ben looks at her like she’s a little miracle, and Ben leaves muffins at her desk, and Ben stops by sometimes to teasingly rib her for her latest listicle.

Ben is real, and here, and he wants her. He wants her.

So Rey takes a deep breath, and lets go of everything she’s held onto for so long. “Kylo… Kylo Ren’s great and all, but he’s… he’s a fantasy, isn’t he? He’s like a Marvel superhero or a Disney prince, something everyone wants, something out of a dream. It’s a nice dream,” she acknowledges, taking a second to remember it fondly before she shatters it to pieces.

“But that’s all it’ll ever be,” Rey finally admits to herself, and even as a part of her dies there’s a bigger part that can finally breathe again.

“But–” Ben begins to say just as Rey steps closer and moves her hand up to his forearm.

“He’s a fantasy,” she says again, and the words come easier this time. “But you…you’re something better, Ben. You’re real.”

Ben stares at her for the longest time. He’s holding his breath, she can tell, and he’s looking at her like she’s the single most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, and his bare skin under her fingertips is better than any dream she’s ever had.

And then finally he speaks, words spilling past him in a single breath. “Would you like to go out sometime?”

Rey smiles, and slowly, hesitantly, so does Ben.

“How about this Saturday?”

Three days before her date with Ben, Rey goes on one final stake-out. It’s the last one, she promises herself, no more getting scared or backing down after this, it’s high time for her to move on to stage two–

A hand covers her mouth.

“I see someone’s back for more.”

This time, Rey swats his hand away and scowls at him.

“And I see someone’s finally deigned to grace me with his presence,” Rey bites back, pausing just long enough to give him a scowl before she turns back to her target.

She told herself she wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t let Kylo catch on to any changes in her, but now that she’s buried all… pleasant thoughts about him deep, deep down, there’s nothing to distract her from the nights she wasted hanging around a closed museum, waiting and hoping and worrying, only to finally trudge home with disappointment weighing her down…

When Kylo steps closer, her throat fills with unexpected bitterness. It’s not his fault that she’d allowed herself to be a delusional, pining fool for two years, not his fault that she’d taken his obviously casual flirting as something more, but all the same she hates him for being able to make her feel things just by stepping into her personal space.

“Rey, about last time–”

She tenses and grits her teeth, keeps her eyes fixed on the club. “Don’t–”

And that’s when The Outpost explodes into a million pieces of flaming shrapnel, a significant amount of which seems to be headed in her direction.

Kylo pulls her behind him before any of the burning projectiles can make contact, and within seconds he’s sweeping her into a bridal carry and getting them the hell out of there. He stares straight ahead, completely focused on navigating the darkness at high speed, leaving Rey to look up at the harsh angles of his mask as a lump forms in her throat.

Their first meeting had gone a little something like this too. A disgruntled former employee of First Order Funds had threatened to blow up the entire financial district, and the city watched on in slack-jawed shock as the Knights of Ren, previously spotted only in grainy security footage in the dead of night, showed up in the middle of the day to handle the threat. Most people were happy to watch the event play out in the safety of their homes, news chopper footage streaming live on their phones, but of course Rey hadn’t been prepared to let this chance pass her by.

While the police set up an evacuation parameter and enforced it, Rey stealthily crept closer and closer to the action until finally she was just ten feet away from Armitage Hux’s turned back, half-hidden behind a car as she fiddled with her phone and looked up–

Only to find Kylo Ren looking at her. Well, at the time it had been hard to tell, what with the mask and all, but somehow Rey just knew he was looking directly at her – which is probably why he moved towards her the second Hux hit the detonator and quickly scooped her up before he set himself to the impossible task of outrunning the flames that were rapidly consuming one closely-packed building after another.

As soon as he deemed them far enough, he set her down and called her an idiot, and she poked him in the chest and called him a monster, and they’ve been something like friends ever since.

Or more.

Rey loses herself in her memories and only comes to when Kylo starts snapping his fingers in front of her face. They’re far from the club now – she can’t even see the fire – and at some point he must’ve set her down because she’s back on her own two feet, a safe distance away from him.

“Rey, are you even listening? You need to stop doing this, it’s too dangerous–”

She bristles at that. “This is my job, Kylo. And you don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do,” Rey states with a scowl as she crosses her arms over her chest. The nerve of him, honestly. Too dangerous. If it hadn’t been for him distracting her, she would’ve spotted the bomb and gotten the hell out of there in time. Perfectly fine, and with her scoop, and all without Kylo Ren.

Who softens at her words and curls a warm hand around her waist. “Sweetheart, please. I just… I don’t know how I’d live with myself if something were to happen to you.”

Even through the modulator she can hear the sincerity in his voice; even through the mask she can see the concern in his eyes. It’s everything she’s ever dreamed of…

And it’s about two weeks too late.

Rey shrugs his arm off and steps away, steels herself for her next words. “You… you shouldn’t touch me like that anymore. Or say stuff like that.”

Kylo steps forward. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Rey nods. “I’m… I’m seeing someone now. Well, I mean, not yet, our first date is on Saturday–”

“How exciting,” he says, and the truly awful thing about it is that he means it – she can hear the smile in his voice, the teasing note that isn’t all too different from the one her friends had used to react to her news.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does – the realization that Kylo really doesn’t care, that maybe he never cared at all. Why should it matter to her, after all, when she’s already let go of him and is truly, genuinely excited for her date with Ben?

“Yeah, so, um… this, us–” Except there was never even as us to begin with, was there? “– we should stop. I just, I really like this guy, and I’d hate for him to see pictures of me running around with masked men in the middle of the night, you know?”

The only thing that assuages her guilt is that she really, truly means that. No matter how confused she is about her feelings right now, she knows with absolute certainty that she would never want to hurt Ben that way.

“I understand,” Kylo assures her. He’s much more serious this time, but there’s still that hint of a smile in his voice, completely devoid of disappointment or jealousy or hurt…

But that’s not what Rey wants, anyway. She’s not some high-schooler trying to use jealousy to bait her crush into making a move. She’s a grown woman setting boundaries with her… work friend? Acquaintance? Almost-lover?

It’s all too much to think about, especially here and now. “Thanks,” she tells Kylo. “Okay, I… I’m just going to go now.”

He nods. “Get home safe, sweetheart.”

She always does. He always makes sure she does, and something tells Rey that’s not about to change. After all, as far as he’s concerned nothing’s changed between them.

But then, just as she’s about to turn away–

“Rey?” Kylo reaches for her wrist, his voice unusually gentle. “He’s… he’s a lucky guy, your date. I hope it works out for you two.”

He’s not you, Rey almost says. He’ll never be you… but I’m starting to be okay with that. Instead, she gently withdraws her hand from Kylo’s and gives him a small smile. “Yeah, me too.”

A moment passes between them, one last chance for either of them to say something.

“Good night, Rey.”

And then it’s over.

Rey nods and turns her back on him. “Goodbye, Kylo.”

Oops, it's been a week. In case y'all were wondering, this is why I usually stick with one-shots.

Another reason I stay away from multi-chapters: more opportunities to mess up and ruin the story! I'm really uncertain about this chapter and how fast things are moving (and that's after I adjusted my original outline and tried to slow things down), so I really, really hope I haven't messed up. Oh well, in any case: it'll all be over soon, friends. Only one chapter left!

As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope you liked it. And please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/comment!

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Review and Digression: The Black Magician Trilogy and Fantasy in General

by Dan H

Friday, 04 January 2008Dan remains unnecessarily complicated~

I don't read a lot these days. I'm lazy and easily distracted. When I do read, I tend to read fantasy. Growing up on Narnia, D&D, Warhammer and Terry Pratchett left me with the kind of mind which adapts to fictional worlds far more easily than real ones. Unfortunately despite having an abiding infatuation with the Fantasy genre, I don't actually ... well ... like it very much. Leaving aside the fact that a lot of it just isn't very good (a criticism which could be levelled at any genre, including literary fiction) it tends to be overlong, rambling, and full of annoying details about the history of imaginary places. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, for example, began amazingly, creating a rich and detailed world with a complex multiple-viewpoint narrative, creating a real sense of the unfolding of history, and I loved the early books with a passion. The later books, however, got horribly bogged down in history and worldbuilding and the annoying obsession with detailing every last second of events in the Seven Kingdoms as it unfolded. Similarly while I loved The Hobbit, I could never get past the first book of The Lord of the Rings because of all the goddamned scenery. And the least said about Harry Potter the better. 

I picked up Trudi Canavan's The Magician's Guild out of a smug sense of irony. The blurb on the back, which describes a none-too-original situation with a Magician's Guild who march through a city protected by a shield of pure magic driving out vagrants, only to find that a plucky young slum girl can penetrate their defences by means of her hitherto unknown magical power, left me with the impression that the book would be at best amusingly awful, but worth picking up on buy-one-get-one-free.

I started reading the book with the same patronising self-assurance, quietly laughing at the rather generic fantasy names and the peculiar made-up wildlife. About three chapters in, however, something happened. I realised that I was actually really enjoying reading the book. I wasn't storing up scathing comments to put on the internet at a later date, or constructing detailed point-by-point analysis of why the series was subtly advocating neo-Marxist doctrines through the medium of a story about wizards. I was actually enjoying it. Taking a moment to think about it, I realised that the source of my enjoyment was something I had seldom seen before in a fantasy novel: the plot was actually progressing. Every chapter, something happened which built on the things that happened in the previous chapter, and set up the things that were going to happen in the next chapter. It introduced conflicts and then resolved them, usually in the space of less than two hundred pages. Not only that but, wonder of wonders, once something had been resolved, it stayed resolved. There were no "protagonist gets captured, protagonist escapes, protagonist gets captured again, protagonist escapes again" sequences. Not a page in the book is wasted on irrelevant descriptions or pointless sidequests.

On her website (which I will say more about later) Trudi Canavan describes herself as having a short attention span, if she is bored writing something - says Trudi - then she assumes people will get bored reading it. Perhaps the reason I loved these books so much is that Trudi's attention span seems to match my own almost exactly. Every time I found myself thinking "okay, I've had enough of this plotline now," the plot would be resolved within two pages and taken in a completely new direction. Each book in the Black Magician Trilogy is in two parts, and in between parts one and two, the book changes gear completely. In The Magician's Guild, for example, the first half of the book focuses on Sonea (the protagonist) trying to avoid being taken in by the magician's guild, while the second half focuses on her trying to avoid being thrown out again, and the transition comes at exactly the point where you start thinking "okay, I've had enough of this girl running away from people now". This pattern repeats in books two and three, with the change of pace at the half-way point being both refreshing and genuinely surprising.

Canavan's mastery of pacing extends to the overarching plot of the trilogy as well as to the individual books. A common problem in Fantasy series is for it to be obvious from chapter one of book one how the series is going to end, which makes the rest of the series into so much pointless preamble. I know I promised I wouldn't bring up Harry Potter, but the last three HP books are an excellent example of this problem. Once Voldemort comes back, it's obvious that we're just waiting for Harry to hit eighteen so he can confront the bugger, and books five, six, and seven are just 1500 pages of buildup. Canavan, on the other hand, very carefully reveals her plot elements only at the point at which they become relevant. The plot of book two is set up in the last chapters of book one, the plot of book three is set up in the last chapters of book two. At no point do we have to ask ourselves why we care about subplot X when main issue Y is clearly more important.

To put it another way. Trudi Canavan is blessedly aware that she is writing a novel, a work of fiction intended to entertain a reader. There is a popular adage that a fantasy novel is like a window into another world, and too many fantasy writers take this literally, seeming to view their books as something which you look through in order to see whatever happens to be going on in their secondary creation at a given time. Canavan never loses sight of the fact that she is writing fiction, telling a story, trying to entertain people.

This becomes ever more apparent if you look at her excellent

personal website

, which is full of beautifully down-to-earth bits of information and opinion. A rather nice section on her weblog explains the sorts of fanmail questions she won't be answering, one of which is "Pedantic Irrelevant Detail Questions". In particular she points out that "You know, if I didn't mention it, it was probably not relevant". As our esteemed editor has already pointed out

elsewhere on Ferretbrain

there is a nasty tendency for modern writers (particularly fantasy writers) and modern readers (particularly fantasy readers) to view works of fiction as having some kind of set, external reality, and to view questions like "is Dumbledore gay" or "how do you explain the discrepancies between the Star Wars prequels and the implied backstory of the original trilogy" as having a definitive, relevant answer. Throughout her website, Trudi espouses a beautifully sensible view of her work. She views writing as a craft you get better at by practising, and her books as works of fiction she created to entertain an audience. She also comes across as charmingly geeky (check out her pinboards full of notes and hand-drawn maps).

Looking back at the above 1200 words, I seem to have been rather embarrassingly gushy. I'd love to redeem myself with some sarcastic barbs about style or characterisation, but I genuinely don't have any. I could make some kind of joke about the made-up animals (all of the animals in Canavan's worlds are fictional, with the peculiar exception of horses) but it seems frankly churlish to do so (particularly given the fact that she has explained and defended her decision to pack her world with invented rodents on several occasions). The Black Magician Trilogy is by no means great literature (which is good, because great literature bores my tits off), but it is well written, engaging fantasy. It's tightly plotted, masterfully paced, the protagonists are all interesting and likeable.

I still wish she'd call a cow a cow though.Themes:

Books

,

Trudi Canavan

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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~Comments (

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Wardog

at 16:31 on 2008-01-04Also she's hotter than Scott Lynch...

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Rami

at 18:26 on 2008-01-04Yay! I liked the Black Magician trilogy too -- although I thought bits of it did seem just a tad contrived -- and I'm glad it's not been ripped to shreds :-)

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http://davidlynch.org/

at 08:03 on 2009-11-25This is an excessively late comment.

I, too, really enjoyed the Black Magician trilogy, but there were two things in the final book which annoyed me enough that I'm unlikely to ever go back and reread it.

(Spoilers ahoy, gentle reader.)

First: Akkarin's death felt pointless, and seemed to mainly happen so that the trilogy could end on an "awesomely tragic" note. It sat poorly with the tone of the rest of the series, and broke my immersion in the world. Actually, the death itself I'm okay with... it was Sonea finding out she was pregnant that really got to me.

Second: The only character in the series who's sympathetic to gay people turns out to be gay... it's just he could never admit it to himself until now! This just bugged me. All it would have taken is for him to not be the only tolerant person, and I'd have been fine with it.

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Dan H

at 11:22 on 2009-11-25I'm okay with Akkarin dying - I kinda felt it was heading that way. I mean once you've got life-energy transfer magic it's pretty much mandatory for somebody to sacrifice themselves with it.

The "and then she turns out to be pregnant" thing was a little bit irksome. If only because I'm beginning to get sick of the fact that people in fantasy settings only *ever* seem to get pregnant after their partners die (and then *always* do). It's like some kind of extremely severe population control policy in Fantasyland.

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Wardog

at 13:27 on 2009-11-25This is completely off-topic but zomg, you write WoW add-ons! That is way cooler than being a director.

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Rami

at 17:12 on 2009-11-25

zomg, you write WoW add-ons! That is way cooler than being a director.

I almost agree. I mostly think

lj.py

is much more amusing than Mulholland Drive;-).

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[sleemo]

How Star Wars authors work with Lucasfilm and earn creative control

— SYFY WIRE

Is there a franchise more secretive than Star Wars? Disney and Lucasfilm are notorious for keeping upcoming projects locked away in an inaccessible vacuum and maintaining an air of mystery and secrecy around every aspect of the franchise (at least the stuff that happens on screen). In an age when trailer and spoiler leaks are the norm, Star Wars is air tight.

But that secrecy isn't limited to the films. Every aspect of the Star Wars universe — films, television, books, games, comics — is held to the same standard. Book and comic announcements are major news, and nearly everything — across all media — connects to tell the story of a cohesive galaxy.

Star Wars is one of the few transmedia properties where "canon" is given nearly equal weight as solid storytelling.

Enter the Lucasfilm Story Group, which was formed in 2014 (following the Disney purchase) and is composed of roughly a dozen people responsible for maintaining order — and keeping all of the creative ducks in a row — within the Star Wars universe. No small feat, that.

Since then, one of the most persistent questions among fans is how much creative control the Story Group has over various projects. And when it comes to books (of which there are many), how much freedom do the authors really have to tell their own stories?

Turns out, they have quite a bit! SYFY WIRE reached out to a number of Star Wars authors, and if there's a common theme among their answers, it's that they have almost total creative freedom.

Leland Chee, the official "Keeper of the Holocron" is one of a few people on the Story Group who also helped control the creative strings before the Disney purchase. In other words, his experience managing "canon" predates the Story Group. Because of that, he has a unique view on how the role has changed.

"We've got more content [now] then I ever thought we'd have. Before we had a Story Group, what George did with the films and The Clone Wars was pretty much his universe," Chee said. "He didn't really have that much concern for what we were doing in the books and games. So the Expanded Universe was very much separate. What we had to do in the Expanded Universe was, if George did something in the films that contradicted something we had done in the Expanded Universe, then we'd have to change the EU to match what he did in the films."

"[For example,] all of a sudden, lightsabers can only be blue, green, purple, or red. That means we've got to take out these yellow lightsabers. OK... Jedi can't marry. So, this Jedi over here that got married, we'll have to figure that out. So there was a lot of that — having to retcon to compensate for what's being done by George in the films.

"So with the Story Group overseeing all of the content in film and television and elsewhere, we don't have to retroactively make those changes. We can anticipate those changes. We can seed things in one medium [and see them grow] in another. So we might be seeding things in books or TV that you might not realize is substantial until years down the road. And if people knew what the road map looked like, they would just be floored."

Perhaps the most public face of the Story Group (thanks to social media), Pablo Hidalgo clarifies their surprisingly hands-off role: "All of us in the Story Group are here to help creatives find the story they're trying to tell in Star Wars. Sometimes that means feedback regarding continuity. Sometimes that just means feedback based on how we think the story is shaping up."

And that sentiment was overwhelmingly echoed by the authors with whom I spoke. They almost all describe approaching their respective projects with a bit of trepidation, expecting the Story Group to micromanage their stories and mandate story/character changes in the interest of continuity. The truth, as it turns, is something quite different.

Chuck Wendig (Aftermath trilogy) describes the process almost verbatim with Hidalgo: "I had a lot of freedom to develop and shape the story; guidance from Lucasfilm was about sharpening that story and bringing my vision in line with the storyworld at large. It was pretty much the ideal relationship, and I never felt stifled or managed."

Adam Gidwitz (So You Want to Be a Jedi?) describes the process as empowering and exciting, even though one of his ideas was nixed by the Story Group. "One thing they did shoot down was an idea I had early on in the process. [I wanted it to] be a Jedi teaching a young Padawan this story soon after [Return of the Jedi] concluded. And they had said that because J.J. Abrams had been contractually given a perfectly clean slate for Episode VII that I could not even imply the existence of Jedi after Episode VI."

Still, Gidwitz got to retell The Empire Strikes Back in the second person, an unconventional approach that shows the flexibility of the group.

And according to Tom Angleberger (Beware the Power of the Dark Side!), it was Lucasfilm's willingness to roll with Gidwitz's non-traditional take on Empire that gave him the courage to suggest a similar creative risk with his adaptation of Return of the Jedi.

"I remember being really nervous about telling the story the way I wanted to. And then we were there at Skywalker Ranch, and I'm so nervous that I'm just going to get shot down when I say I want to have the 'dear reader' style of writing," he remembered. "And then Adam goes, 'I'm going to tell mine in the second person!' And then I was like, 'Oh, I'm doing dear reader.' Because Adam broke the ice with that second person thing, and they were so supportive of it! They were like, 'Go for it!' So I realized that, wow, they really do want us to go for it."

Angleberger confirmed that he had "almost no parameters" while writing the book. "But we knew that eventually the Story Group was going to have to look at it. We knew we wouldn't get away with everything, but we also knew that we were allowed to at least try to get away with stuff. And I got away with some really fun stuff."

For her part, Alexandra Bracken (The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy) was not allowed to read Gidwitz's or Angleberger's adaptations of the original trilogy in advance of writing her adaptation of A New Hope, but she was told about Gidwitz's decision to use the second person.

"It was in the sense that they were trying to show me that I could do whatever I wanted with it. [My editor] told me that, first and foremost, they wanted me to have a ton of fun writing the book," she said. "And initially I was not having fun writing the book because I was so stressed out about it. And then I had a separate visit to Lucasfilm, and the Story Group said, 'You can make little changes and alterations. We just don't want you to contradict something that's in the film itself or anything that's upcoming in The Force Awakens. But you can make little scene adjustments and alter the dialogue a little bit to better suit your needs.'"

Claudia Gray (Lost Stars; Bloodline; Leia: Princess of Alderaan) was initially approached to write a YA "Romeo & Juliet in space" set adjacent to the events of the original trilogy. With a few relatively minor exceptions, she was set loose to write whatever story she wanted. "I thought, when they came to me, they were going to tell me what to write, but that was very much not the case. I had a lot of freedom. The outline had to be approved, but it was my outline and they really let me tell the story I wanted to tell. It was wonderful."

John Jackson Miller (A New Dawn) is one of only a very few authors who straddle the line and has written for the franchise both before and after the Disney purchase. His novels exist in both the "old canon" (now Legends) and "new canon."

Miller explains, "Back before 2014, Lucasfilm had their fiction team proofread everything and approved the stories that go forward. But I think, then, it was more a matter of air traffic control—of them being aware of all the other things that were going on and coming out, and just wanting to make sure that things we did didn't collide with things that were going on elsewhere."

From his perspective, there are a few changes with the Story Group in place, but it's "not so much a matter of content flowing in our direction as the authors, but like 'Hey, here's a character you should name-drop.'" For example, when he was writing his short story "Bottleneck" (which appears in The Rise of the Empire), he was asked to insert a character who would later appear in Alexander Freed's Battlefront: Twilight Company.

"It wasn't a heavy-handed 'This is what this story is about,' but it was guidance in the sense of 'Here's something that's going to come out fairly far down the line, and if you insert this character now, it'll look like we planned it.' And in fact, we did! In the past, it was possible for characters in one medium to pop up in another, but it kind of happened organically and it wasn't something that was done by design."

Cecil Castellucci (Moving Target) had a similar experience. "You have to understand, [I was writing] before The Force Awakens came out. We didn't know what was going to happen, and nobody was allowed to know anything. So there were things in my book, and I didn't even know what I knew. I wrote a framework for the story and then [the editors] would come in and pepper little things in. It kind of worked like that. I knew that Leia was going to be giving her memoirs to a droid. So I just named the droid whatever. But then they were like, 'No, this is the name of the droid: PZ-4CO.' Because they knew he would end up in the movie. And he does! You hear his name! I was probably the only person who was excited about that. It was kind of like, you do your thing, and then other people come in and course correct."

So how much freedom did Ben Acker and Ben Blacker (Join the Resistance) have when they started writing their series? Blacker doesn't even hesitate. "Oh, so much freedom. It is absolutely the book that we wanted to write. I would say, there's not really oversight, but there's guidance, and that's really an editor's job. And [our editor] did a really terrific job with it. The big thing that the Story Group (who reads everything) provides is just their knowledge of what's going on in every corner of the Star Wars universe. They're really good at looking at an outline of the manuscript and saying, Well, you can't use this kind of droid because it's no longer in use 30 years after Jedi, but what about this kind of droid? Or instead of using this kind of alien, why don't you make up a new alien so it doesn't have ties to anything and you get to own a piece of the Star Wars universe? That's been a really cool and surprising thing."

What's fascinating about the Star Wars publishing machine is that there's also an entire library of "nonfiction" titles that dive deeper into the details and minutiae of the universe. Adam Bray (Ultimate Star Wars; Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know) is intimately familiar with these.

"In 'nonfiction' Star Wars writing, the freedom I have varies a little from project to project. My primary objective is to work within existing canon and tell it like it already is. But sometimes there are gaps that need to be filled in. In these instances, the Story Group folks give me a lot of freedom to invent new information, as long as I run it by them later for approval. This tends to be background details rather than storylines, though occasionally these details might suggest a little story waiting to be told.

"When I worked on the guides for the animated Star Wars Rebels series, the show was new, so there were lots of vehicles and technology that needed names and stats, so that kept me busy. Numbers and droid names are a fun thing to invent, especially if you can tie them to something meaningful. If I have questions about obscure details, I can consult Leland Chee or Pablo Hidalgo at Lucasfilm. And one or more members of the Story Group always reads my manuscripts, fact-checks, and provides feedback for both in- and out-of-universe content."

The amazing thing about Star Wars, though, is that the members of the Story Group are very accessible to fans. Find me another fandom that can say that. Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo), Leland Chee (@HolocronKeeper), and Matt Martin (@missingwords) are all very active on Twitter and responsive to fans. But please be respectful and reasonable.

Hidalgo's Twitter bio used to read "2 rules: Don't pitch anything. Please don't ask me about the future."

You can bet they've heard it all.

— SYFY WIRE

[the-royal-courier]

Azeroth Works: Writing is Fullfilling Work

By Sky Stoneseat

(Editor’s OOC Note: This interview was conducted on a real life author who just so happens to find interest in our little roleplaying community. She does not play World of Warcraft but we wanted to share this in the hopes of inspiring all of you out there who write on tumblr or in game. Please take the IC as a little tongue in cheek.)

While we here at  the Royal Courier strive to be the best source of news in Azorth, today we offer up something a bit different. We bring you something that is from another realm in the hopes that you may find it interesting.

We know that many of you write in your spare time, so I sat down with an author from "Earth" who was kind enough to share some tips that she uses. J.M. Frey is an author, fanthropologist and professional smartypants on AMI Radio’s Live From Studio 5. She’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. She also has an addiction to scarves, Doctor Who, and tea, which may or may not all be related. Her life’s ambitions are to have stepped foot on every continent (only 3 left!)Her debut novel TRIPTYCH was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards,  won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.

Lucky for us dear readers that she found time to sit down and chat.

Any tips for getting into the mood for writing?

For me, writing is a full time job, so to get in the mood to write I get up, get dressed, have tea, and basically prepare to sit down at the computer as if it is a real dayjob. That gets me into the headspace required, that “this is work, so work” mode.

But in terms of environment, I like it as uncluttered as possible. Nice lighting, daylight, and only the notes for the project that’s currently on the docket pinned to the board beside me. I really prefer silence, too. I absolutely cannot write in public spaces, and if there’s any noise at all, it’s got to be white noise – either from outside of my window or an online digital generator.

The only raging, noisey mess should be inside my head. When creating a character what are some ways to build an interesting back story's that feel fresh?

There’s a idiom that creatives use about avoiding the low-hanging fruit. The thought is that the first idea within grabbing range might be the most appealing, but it’s also probably going to be the most obvious and the most over-used.

However, sometimes your first instinct is the right one. I always grab the low-hanging fruit, but then – to stretch the metaphor – figure out the best way to turn it into fruit salad. Clichés are clichés because they work, but that should always and only be a starting point.

I like to come at my stories from the perspective of the person who is least often allowed their own voice in common narrative. For example, my series The Accidental Turn is a standard sword-and-sorcery epic fantasy. But instead of making the muscle-bound hero or the scrappy sidekick the narrator, I chose the hero’s overlooked, overshadowed little brother.

The low-hanging-fruit approach to this brother character says that he ought to be craven, cowardly, perhaps even sneaky or secretly the villain. So I thought, yes, okay, let’s give him those traits. Because that’s what’s expected. But let’s figure out a different reason for them. Why does he behave like that? What made him like this? How much is nature, how much is nurture?

Instead of being craven because he’s “just a bad person”, the little brother is quiet and withdrawn because his older brother used to bully him. Instead of being sneaky because he’s plotting, it’s because he’s actually secretly a spy for the king, on the side of good. This led to all sorts of neat things to explore in his backstory – who chose him to be a spy? Why? Who trained him? How? What purpose is there to have a spy planted in the home of the hero?

When you try to find different motivations for common traits, then you start to get into really interesting territory for backstory and character creation. And their reactions are going to be totally different, too – the way these characters address problems or react to violence will be fascinating, because the motivations and backgrounds you’ve created for them is new and interesting.

Any thoughts on a character who a bit go big or go home vs a slow burn sort?

For me, characters fit the kind of story I am telling and the kind of narrative and growth arc they need to have.

Kintyre Turn, the hero of my fantasy series, is defiantly a Go Big guy. He starts out with being gifted a magic sword at the age of eighteen, and the complete inability to ever lose. He’s got a big ego, big muscles, bit personality. And he’s great, he fits what I needed from him perfectly; but I also found with him that there was nowhere left to go. He was too big. There was no upward growth available. I found an arc for him by letting him shrink inside his own skin again. He puts away the sword, and the mantle of the hero, and starts to attend to his own mental health, in repairing and nurturing the relationships around him, and swapping places with his little brother to become the caretaker of their family estate, in allowing himself to stop running from commitment and finding domestic peace and a loving partner. Pulling Kintyre away from the Big and Bold gave him growth.

His brother Forsyth was the opposite. He started small – physically skinny, shorter than Kintyre, swaddling himself in too many house robes and the mantel of the prim, fastidious Lord of the Manor. He even stooped and stutters. He’s the King’s secret Spymaster, but even then he works from behind a desk and lets others do the legwork. He is a Slow Burn character. He grows by increments as he becomes surer of himself and his worth. He stands straight. He learns not to be ashamed of his stutter. He goes out into the world and wields a sword and becomes a hero.

But, going back to what I said about backstory above, his background and motivations mean that he is a Ravenclaw hero rather than a Gryffindor. He would rather talk his way out of things, or think through loopholes, or outwit his opponents than beat them down with a blade.

Both Go Big and Slow Burn types of characters are useful. It’s just a matter of knowing (or learning as you go) which kind is better for the sort of story you’re telling and where you need it to go. And always remember that there’s always an avenue of growth available somewhere; you just need to find it.

Dialogue can be tricky to get right, how do you create conversation that both moves the plot but is not an info dump? My first rule is to completely avoid “As you know…” or “As I said before…” or “I just remembered that…” in dialogue. If the characters already know, then the audience should already know.  And if the audience knows already, there’s no need to repeat it. If they don’t know it already, then you’re telling the story in the wrong order, or writing the wrong moments.

Focus your scenes on the moment when the character learns the information, rather than on the scenes where they report the information.

If you can’t do that, then try to keep as much of a natural flow in the dialogue as possible. Listen to people in coffee shops or pay attention at your own family dinners. Note the natural ebbs and flows, where people interrupt for clarification or pause to gather their thoughts. Watch what they do with their hands, their bodies. Watch how they fidget, or pace, or tap their sugar packets on the table top. Describing the body language will help break up large paragraphs, especially if you can use that body language to convey the character’s emotions or reactions to the news. To show instead of tell.

When I’m not sure if the dialogue is working, I strip it down into a script – dialogue only – and ask a friend to read the scene out loud with me. If it sounds unnatural or repetitive, it trips and jams in my ear. Reading your dialogue out loud, either alone or with a friend you trust to be brutally honest with you, is a great way to catch unnatural errors.

There’s also the trick of giving the characters something to do. They don’t have to be sitting in an office, or in a car, or at the kitchen table. They could be hiking, or chasing a suspect, or fighting off a barbarian horde, or slaying a dragon, or skulking through an abandoned spaceship. There’s nothing saying that the info dump has to come at a moment of stillness and quiet.

And remember that the moment of revelation should be the climax of the scene. Each scene should have its own mini-plot-mountain-rising-action-course. Instigating, rising action, climax, and then either cut to a new scene or a brief denouement. Something should happen in every scene – some information discovered or revealed, a character changes or grows, there’s a scene of action, or the plot leaps forward, etc.

Scenes that do more than one of those things are even better. Info-dump scenes don’t feel so boring if they’re happening in the middle of a sex scene, or a fighting scene, or a scene in a laboratory, or a travelling scene.

Is the look of your characters set before you start writing or do they change as you get to know them? Sometimes my character walk into my head fully formed –Forsyth strolled in one day, prim as you please, a skinny ginger amalgamation of Eddie Redmayne, Mark Gatiss, and David Thewliss. But some characters I deliberately sit down to design to compliment the world and what I need from them. For example, if Forsyth was the skinny ginger kid, then Kintyre had to be big, buff, tanned, and straight from the cover of a Harlequinn novel.

From there they sometimes change as the need arises – like, knowing a certain physical trait would be useful to solve a problem, so I go back and retroactively put it in.

But I try to be deliberate about my choices too. In the final book of The Accidental Turn series, our heroes step off the pages and into “the real world”. So I made a point of making every other character around them non-white. Fantasy tradition, which is what the series is commenting on, dictates that the heroes are always white and the PoC-representative characters are always monsters or half-something-or-other. I wanted the “real world” to reflect the world I actually live in. And choosing a variety of ethnicities for each character meant that I had an idea of how they would look and – stereotypically, based on their social standing, religion, personal culture, and country of origin – how they might dress.

But even then, I had a great time flouting those stereotypes. One of my favorite new characters is a first-generation Indian girl living in Toronto named Ahbni, who is totally into both respecting her parent’s home culture and a rainbow unicorn pastel-punk.

Once the character has been nebulously envisioned in my head, I write down the basics so I don’t forget them – eye color, hair color, height, weight, identifying features like freckles or piercings or tattoos – but then I don’t worry too much about it. If something important to their appearance comes up in the text (like Forsyth’s fear that his little tummy paunch means that he’s getting fat) then I describe it. But after I’ve described the character on the page for the first time, I don’t really bother doing it again.

I know that no matter what I say, the audience will envision them how they like, and I don’t mind that. Though I do make a point of trying to give a really clear, and quick, and immediate description of the character when we first meet them, something that really stands out to the reader.

And I try to avoid describing my narrator characters except in the comments of others. Nobody stands in front of a mirror and describes themselves or evaluates their own bodies for sexiness in real life. Please, can we chuck that narrative trope straight out the window?

There’s no need to tell the reader outright exactly what the narrator looks like, unless it is an extremely important narrative reason. Reveal it through showing, not telling. Reveal it in the character’s choices, what other characters say about them, how they react to situations. Find a way to be active about it, not passive.

Your readership is clever – let them put the clues together themselves. Trust them.

You can find out more about J.M and her work at http://jmfrey.net/books/ or follow her @scifrey here on Tumblr.

Editor Note: Do you have an interesting job? Is your work something out of the ordinary? Do you simply take great pride in what you do?  Columnist Sky Stoneseat wants to interview you!

Reach out today and be a part of this exciting new column. We want to highlight you and your line of work!

(OOC Note: We are looking for individuals who want to share the ins and outs of their RP job. These interviews will be conducted solely over tumblr.  You’ll be sent a set of questions and asked to reply in private to Sky. Once she has your responses, you may get a few follow up question over Tumblr chat. The responses will be used to write up short and sweet profiles of interesting jobs around Azeroth. Contact @skystoneseat today to schedule your profile!)

[lisacongo2-blog]

‘Shrill’ Shreds Hollywood Stereotypes About How Women of Size Eat

The first time you see Annie, the protagonist of the new Hulu show Shrill, eating, her meal doesn’t look particularly pleasant. Played by SNL cast member Aidy Bryant, Annie grabs a plastic container from the fridge, opening it to reveal three white disks — supposedly pancakes — from a Tupperware labeled “Thin Menu.” While standing in her kitchen, she tries to break off a slab, puts it in her mouth, and wrinkles her nose in disgust. Her roommate, Fran (played by Lolly Adefope), walks by to witness the three doughy pucks, and says, “Good God.”

It’s not the only time Annie eats in her kitchen. Later in the series, Bryant opens a sealed container of leftover spaghetti, standing alone over an island near the sink. She twirls noodles around her fork, grinning in anticipation. She looks confident, blissed out, holding her hand under her chin as a noodle inches toward her lips. She scrunches her eyebrows and crinkles her nose, the perfect opposite of her look of disgust eating the Thin Meal pancakes. She nods and smiles while chewing, enjoying the moment.

The annals of TV are full of stories where women change themselves, from Mad Men’s Peggy Olsen to Eleanor Shellstrop in The Good Place. But Shrill, the six-episode adaptation of writer Lindy West’s memoir of the same name, is a different kind of “transformation” story, starring a woman of size. The show tells the story of Annie, a Portland-based calendar editor for an alt-weekly newspaper, trying to jump start her career, earn the love of Ryan, a painfully oblivious loser, and become a more honest, self-assured person. What Shrill is not is a story of body transformation, of a fat woman getting thin. Although it shows Annie eating diet meals and exercising with her mother, her real goal goes beyond the universal challenge of self-acceptance — she wants to feel powerful, as a woman of size and simply as a woman. She wants to demand respect from the people around her.

Those people often fat-shame Annie, whether it’s her obsessive online troll, her perpetually sneering editor, or an invasive personal trainer who eventually devolves into calling her a “fat bitch.” Still, Annie’s relationship with her body is more nuanced. Her insecurities are more often portrayed in physical details or unspoken interpersonal choices she makes because she feels that, in her words, “there’s a certain way that your body’s supposed to be and I’m not that.”

In media where a woman’s relationship with her body plays its own role, the eating scenes are telling. There are countless movies in which women devour ice cream during break-ups or lonely moments. And for years, when a person of size ate on screen, it was portrayed as comic relief, from Melissa McCarthy consuming a napkin in Spy to a cross-dressing Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live inhaling his friend’s french fries while asking, “Can I have some?”

Even in shows and movies celebrated for their representations of non-normative bodies, eating is reserved for emotional distress. In HBO’s Girls, Hannah Horvath (played by Lena Dunham) is often caught eating during low moments, like when she eats cake with her hands after her purse is stolen on the train. In Real Women Have Curves, it takes a conflict with her mother to get the protagonist, Ana (America Ferrera), to eat a bite of flan in a moment of overall positive defiance. Rarely do women of size get the opportunity to eat happily on screen without some tumult, some churning emotional hang-ups or interpersonal conflict. The exception, of course, is when people of size are shot eating healthy foods, like when the contestants on The Biggest Loser marvel over turkey burgers. But if a not-thin character is caught eating a cupcake, the audience is meant to laugh or cry at their expense.

When Annie eats so-called “indulgent” foods in Shrill, she’s not considered a failure, and it’s not used as a comic device. Instead, it’s often tied to a moment of personal or thematic triumph completely unrelated to her weight. By simply showing Annie eating the foods countless people love in a way that’s empowering, Shrill reinforces the idea that people, regardless of size, have the right to enjoy food in its entirety — not just salads and apples and other pious things, but rather the foods that are seen as permissibly comforting and luxurious for people of a smaller size. Like last year’s hit culinary travel show Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, Hulu’s new series rewrites the rules for who gets to enjoy food on television.

Annie isn’t the only big millennial woman eating spaghetti on TV. In a scene on Girls, Hannah grabs handfuls of noodles from a takeout box, dangling them into her open mouth. There is an element of watching this scene that feels relatable, especially for anyone who lives alone, but nothing about that moment is sexy or empowering. At its best, it’s a moment of comic relief born out of universality; at its worst, it’s Dunham’s self-ridiculing humor shaming herself — and other women — for eating without control while not thin.

This is far from the only moment when a woman eating sugary, greasy, and otherwise “bad” foods on television works as a boiler-plate scene representing rock bottom. In her essay “Why is it sad and lonely women who turn to chocolate?” Telegraph culture writer Rebecca Hawkes recalls similar moments in romantic comedies, like when Renee Zellweger devours chocolates under a blanket in Bridget Jones’s Diary, or when Sandra Bullock turns to ice cream in Miss Congeniality. “When you look at the trope in more detail, the implication is that eating chocolate is something ‘naughty,’” she writes. “It’s something that (calorie-counting, figure-obsessed) women shouldn’t be doing, but can’t help resorting to in moments of extreme trauma — or simply due to a comedic lack of discipline.” In her essay, Hawkes also brings up another classic plus-sized person comically shamed and punished for their gluttony: Augustus Gloop, the rotund little boy in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, presumably killed for wanting to eat some of the chocolate in a literal river of chocolate — as if anyone wouldn’t.

Ryan (Luka Jones) and Annie (Aidy Bryant)

Photo: Allyson Riggs/Shrill

But still, beyond little boys, beyond thin ladies, it’s plus-size women whose eating is most often used as a thematic example of a psychological and/or personal failure, whether it’s comical or supposedly tragic. “With any overweight, unruly woman, there’s always a tendency to pathologize their relationship with food,” says Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, author of The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. “[For] women who dive in to the quart of ice cream or the box of chocolate, food is a source of comfort because life is not giving them other types of comfort.”

If women get fat as a plot device, they’re often shown eating something like pizza, ice cream, chocolate, or other sweets — take, for example, Goldie Hawn gorging herself on frosting post-breakup in Death Becomes Her. If a character appears to get them out of a slump, a chicken wing might be yanked out of their hands. And they won’t reach personal fulfillment until they’re skinny again. Meanwhile, women who are thin and confident — whether it’s Drew Barrymore in Charlie’s Angels, or the titular Gilmore Girls — are free to eat as much as they please, to the delight of all who watch them.

Annie didn’t originally eat the spaghetti. It was made by Fran’s brother, Lamar (Akemnji Ndifornyen), who spends the third episode, “Pencil,” visiting his sister and her roommate. For most of the first few episodes, Annie is busy obsessing over a man (Luka Jones) who is so embarrassed by her that he sends her out the back door of his apartment so his roommates can’t see her. On their first date, she eats a salad. When she arrives home after Ryan has stood her up, Lamar and Fran offer her the spaghetti. She turns it down.

Lamar, a chef, spends the episode quietly fawning over Annie. When he arrives, he gives her a box of chocolate turtles, an elaborate reference to a memory from their past. He lights up when she enters the room. And later, when she comes back after choosing not to see Ryan, he admits that he likes her, and that he always did. After they have sex, Annie tiptoes downstairs to the kitchen, where she finds the pasta he made. The scene is romantic and almost sexy, in a totally subtle, maybe even unintentional way. He didn’t make the pasta for her, specifically, but it was made by him.

But beyond the romantic arc of Annie and Lamar, the scene’s impact comes directly from what it means for her, in her path to self-respect: she’s giving herself what she wants and deserves, on her own terms. And the bewildered delight in her face as she eats is so contagiously joyful that the context of her weight becomes irrelevant.

Annie (Aidy Bryant) and Lamar (Akemnji Ndifornyen).

Photo by: Allyson Riggs/Shrill

Beyond the men in her life, one of Annie’s most fraught relationships is with her mother, Vera (played by Julia Sweeney), who’s responsible for the Thin Menu meals. During a pivotal rant, when Annie describes the ways the people around her have made her size seem like a moral failing, she says, “At this point, I could be a licensed fucking nutritionist because I’ve literally been training for it since the fourth grade, which is the first time that my mom said that I should just eat a bowl of Special K and not the dinner that she made for everyone else so I might be a little bit smaller.” One of Annie’s most significant plot developments with her mother, when she pushes back against her health policing, starts with a meal of meatball subs with her father. And when the season ends, we leave Vera lying on the ground with a bag of chips, suggesting that Annie’s number one advice giver also needs respite from controlling everything.

“Whether they’re very curvy like Mae West or they’re slender, I think what we haven’t seen in a long time is the ability of women just to be seen enjoying food,” Karlyn says. “Food is enjoyable (to women), not because they’re neurotic, not because they’re crazy, not because they’re sex-obsessed, just because food is a natural pleasure of life.” That’s how Shrill treats food, but also most of life’s joys: dancing at a party, swimming in a pool, having sex, being honest. Counter to the ways television and movies have previously presented plus-size women, as victims of their own lack of self-control, Shrill shows how restrictive life as a plus-size woman can be, and how often that’s a direct result of their self control. Shrill seems to be advocating for more self-designated freedom for women of size — the freedom to live with abandon. As Annie says, lying in bed and taking charge, “I’ve got big titties and a fat ass — I make the rules.”

Brooke Jackson-Glidden is the editor of Eater Portland. Edited by: Greg Morabito

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2019/3/28/18284128/shrill-hulu-aidy-bryant-food-eating

[ellimac2016-blog]

Warmth of a Thousand Suns- Ch. 1

Hello everyone!!! This is my first fanfic and the first chapter of this series! It is a Yuri! On Ice AU fic. It will be long with a good few chapters (if people enjoy it). It is a slow build and will go from pretty PG to mature only. This first chapter is PG, but like I said it is only the first part. Please repost and follow my page if you enjoy this one so I know if I should make more. Feed back is also very welcome! This is my first one so go easy on me!! Enjoy!!

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Sun beaming and warmth flooding his body and soul Yuri sighs loudly, finally content. For the first time in his life he feels the warmth of another hand on his own with a face up towards the blue sky and eyes shut against the harsh light from that giant yellow orb. Outside soaking up nature where he has always dreamed of being, he turns to look at his beloved next to him… Abruptly his dream comes to a halt with a heavy thud on his lap and something wet. His eyes flutter open to his dreary reality, nothing like the magnificent dream he was having moments before. He looks to see two giant, fluffy, mud covered, mocha colored paws covering his, previously clean, black dress slacks. Being that he just woke up from his ‘before work in the local park’ nap, Yuri stares at them dazed and confused until a sloppy lick to his face and another man yelling loudly pulls him from his stupor. “MAKKACHIN! What is wrong with you!”

A tall fit man with striking silver hair is running full speed towards Yuri now. Obviously disheveled, face reddened and beaded with sweat.

“I’m so very sorry!”

He starts, almost yelling, much too loud for an early morning.

“Um…”

is all Yuri can get out before the beautiful man in front of him continues.

“She is usually much better behaved! I never use a leash anymore because she always stays by my side! I am so sorry!”

He begins to pull the well groomed poodle from Yuri’s lap, almost to his displeasure, he loves dogs and clicks his tongue at himself for not petting her while she was on his lap. He is still a little confused why the man is apologizing so fiercely, until he looks where those large paws were seated. Yuri now has a lap full of mud and a shirt full of slobber, not only that, but the man’s face has gone white. Yuri quickly realizes that he has misinterpreted Yuris tongue clicking, thinking it was in reaction to his dog rather than Yuris own negligence. Yuri quickly puts a smile on his face to reassure him.

“Don’t worry about it, she is a beautiful poodle I wish I would have pet her while she was being so affectionate!”

Yuri practically beams because, he really does love poodles and she really is very cute.

“You said her name was Makkachin?”

Luckily the man seems to relax a bit and Yuri smiles a bit thinking a relaxed, almost heart-shaped smile suits the man incredibly.

“Yes, this is my Makkachin! My name is Viktor by the way.”

He wipes his damp hand on his jogging suit before extending it towards Yuri. Yuri takes it happily and stands for a proper greeting.

“Im Katsuki Yuri, it’s a pleasure.”

He shakes Viktors hand and thinks it would have been more of a pleasure if he wasn’t now wet and muddy a little over an hour before he has to go into work.

“Once again Yuri, I am so very sorry… were you at the park to relax before work? Do you have a change of clothes or do you live nearby?”

Yuri almost blushes from Viktors blatant use of his given name, although Yuri has to use Viktors, it was all he was given. But this man is obviously not Japanese. If having to speak to him in English didn’t give it away, or his silver hair for that matter, his eyes would have. They are the same stunning blue as the sky in his dream was.

“Unfortunately no” Yuri looks down almost embarrassed as if the situation was his fault. “I work near here and I live more than a half hour by train, I just like to enjoy the sun a bit before work and this is the best spot near here.”

Yuri begins to kick himself for not moving closer to work and this beautiful view of, not only nature and the sun, but the bustling city like he had originally planned when he changed jobs almost three years ago. Viktor stays bright and hopefully

“I live a few minutes from here, would you like to wash your cloths at my apartment?”

Yuri does not want to intrude into a stranger’s home immediately upon meeting. Viktor can see the doubt in Yuri’s eyes.

“There is also a store nearby, I could buy you a new set-”

Viktor barely finishes before Yuri can tell this man is going to stubbornly make him agree to one or the other. He defiantly doesn’t want to make Viktor buy him new clothes. The thought itself starts to bring a very embarrassed blush.

“The wash is fine I guess… I have a little over an hour before I have to be to work.”

Viktor beams with happiness, but his face wavers for a moment.

“Please excuse my apartment if it isn’t to tidy. I very rarely have anyone over but my editor”

That was the first time Yuri heard him speak meekly, since they started talking he was bright and eccentric. Editor? Does Viktor write? Seeing this man its bound to be a travel journal or some off the wall books. Yuri isn’t worried about the apartment though. He also lives alone and doesn’t clean as much as he know he should. They start to walk, Yuri following closely behind Viktor with his briefcase attempting to cover how messy his clothes are from any passers-by, unfortunately this morning there seem to be many. Suddenly Viktor’s hand is extended towards Yuri again this time holding the jacket he was wearing.

“Would you like to cover up with this? I just started my run with Makkachin so it should be clean and comfortable. Better than trying to cover with your case”

Viktor’s eyes scan over Yuri, who is now painfully awkward. Yuri takes the jacket with a meek nod and zips it up. Its very large on him. He could tell Viktor was tall but Yuri didn’t think he was this much shorter than him. His heart sinks a little realizing how plan he is compared to Viktor who seems to just beam constantly. It doesn’t help that Viktor is now wearing a thin white tee damp with sweat, it’s practically transparent in the light of the sun. Finally, after what feels like an awkward eternity, they reach Viktor’s apartment. Of course it is more upscale then Yuri’s and his heart sinks again at his own lackluster existence. He wants to go back to his dream where he could be in the sun rather than his cubicle in an office building. Where he has someone to call his own and can beam with the same confidence the man before him does. But no. Yuri has none of those things. He works as a regular salary man, he’s alone, and his appearance isn’t anything to admire. Sure he is actually pretty fit, but no one could tell with clothes on and he wouldn’t dare let anyone see him in a… compromised… state due to his own anxiety and poor body image. He keeps his messy black hair down mostly and wears large glasses over his chestnut eyes. Yuri quickly pulls himself from his thoughts as they reach Viktor’s door. He is becoming exceedingly nervous about the situation, but nothing can be done. Plus Viktor may seem a bit over-the-top, but he also seems very kind. Enough to put Yuri at ease. As soon as he opens the door Makkachin bolts inside and begins to lap up water and crunch the extra food in her bowl.

“This is why we have to keep you running Makka”

Viktor says to himself with a small smile and shakes his head. He leads Yuri to the bathroom so he can change cloths.

“You can take off your wet clothes here and throw them in the bin”

He points to the already almost full laundry bin by the shower.

“If you would like you can rinse off too, you got pretty wet and it’s chilly today so I wouldn’t want you to catch a cold. Towels are by the basket so I’ll leave you to it!”

Viktor leaves very abruptly and shuts the door. What an odd, loud, extravagant, and beautiful man he is. Wait. Beautiful? Yuri shakes his head at himself. Why describe a man as beautiful, why think it in the first place? Yuri has never been one to think much of other people. He has been alone, romantically, for his entire life. Sure he has friends and he’s close to his family, but love and romance was never in the cards for Yuri. Even though it’s something he has wanted so desperately. After he throws his clothes in the bin he decides he might as well rinse off, his skin is chilly and damp so the steamy water from the shower feels amazing. He doesn’t want to leave the warmth, but he also has work and doesn’t want to overstay his welcome. Yuri walks out of the shower and grabs a plush teal towel and wraps himself in it slicking back his wet hair. While he was in the shower the basket had disappeared. Did Viktor come take it while he was showering? The thought brings a new blush to his face that he quickly tries to dismiss. He looks to the sink and sees extra clothes sitting for him. They look like brand new fleece pajamas in soft blue and grey. Something he could see Viktor wearing. He smiles thinking that Viktor is pretty adorable in his own way. He is so strange and even though they just met Yuri feels comfortable by his side. Nervous, sure. How could you not? But comfortable like home. Just like these oversized pajamas… Yuri looks himself up and down in the steamy mirror. He looks like a girl wearing her boyfriend’s baggy clothes. Its utterly embarrassing. He doesn’t want Viktor to see him like this. Exactly as that thought passes, Viktor knocks on the door loudly.

“Yuriiiiiiiiiiiii, are you dressed?”

Yuri cringes instantly

“Yes but-”

To late. Viktor has the door opening already and Yuri can see he is wearing the running jacket again, it’s even a little big on Viktor, at least Yuri isn’t actually as small as he feels right now. Yuri hangs his head and clutches the hem of the pajamas. As he hangs his head he suddenly realizes that the clothes smell like Viktor and he blushes again. Shit.

“Yuri, you’re kinda cute”

Vikor laughs and it is the sweetest sound Yuri has ever heard. But Yuri still feels ashamed. A man in his mid-twenties should not be called “cute” by another man. Especially one as stunning as Viktor. Yuri feel his heart sink again before Viktor speaks up.

“Yuri-”

Viktors voice is quiet now and Yuri looks up to see Vikor looking in dismay.

“It wasn’t meant to come out that way i’m sorry. To me that’s not said as something to be hurt by. I’m just- nevermind”

Viktor stops mid sentence and smiles, for the first time it looks forced. Viktor turns around and starts to walk away.

“Come Yuri, I made tea for before your clothes finish. I have them in the dryer now.”

Why did Viktor stop mid sentence? Viktor ‘is just’, what? He didn’t seems to mean any offence when he called Yuri cute. He knows he overreacted, but he didn’t think Viktor would take it to heart like he did. Once again pushing his thoughts aside Yuri sits to his cup of tea and sips on it carefully. Green tea. His favorite. Yuri smiles and practically hums as the heat rolls down his throat.

“Thank you Viktor, you have been more than kind to me today.”

“You’re welcome, it’s my fault really, well Makkachins…”

They both turn to look at the poodle, who now has a full head tilt at the mention of her name. Both men laugh softly at her adorable fluffy self. Yuri turns to look at the giant book shelf lining the wall behind Makka. There seems to be hundreds of books there. Besides from the very organized shelf, Viktor was right. The apartment was pretty messy. Mostly covered in cloths, books, and a lot of loose papers.

“You can look at the books if you would like, i’m going to check your clothes”

Yuri gladly takes to Viktors offer this time. He loves books and really wants to know what kind will be along this eccentric man’s walls. To Yuris surprise the shelf is mixed half with, what seem to be serious novels, and the other half fun and flirty books. Those must be the ones written by Viktor. “Lover 101”, “How to Please your Partner”, and “Best Resorts in Japan”, were just a few of the titles. As Viktor returns with Yuris clothes in hand, Yuri picks up the least embarrassing book, “Best resorts in Japan”

“Did you write these Viktor? You had mentioned your editor earlier and there are a lot of papers strewn about.”

Yuri can see Viktor’s eyes fall softly this time even though Yuri tried to seem enthusiastic, some of the titles made Yuris stomach knot up with butterflies.

“No not those. My ex lover wrote those. The reason I came to Japan really. Mine are to the left.”

The left? Viktor wrote the serious novels? Unlike his outward appearance he must be much more than the confident, bubbling man Yuri is seeing. Before Yuri sets the book back to take his clothes from Viktor he quickly flips to the back. He became curious of the previous lover Viktor spoke of coming all the way to Japan for. Surely she will be a beauty with stunning features like Viktor. Yuris eyes go wide and his mouth falls open slightly. Beautiful, yes. Stunning and eccentric features, yes. Women? That one was a no. On the page before him was a masculine, yet highly feminine and sexy man. Much to Yuri’s surprise, Christophe Giacometti was the name written below. Quickly Yuri slammed the book closed and put it where it belonged before, almost roughly, grabbing the clothes from Viktor’s hands.

“Thank you, I will go change.”

Was all Yuri could manage and didn’t meet Viktors gaze. Quickly he went into the bathroom and closed the door. A man? A man was his lover? Yuri’s mind was ablaze in amazement. Sure he knew some people had the preference of being with others of the same gender, but Viktor? He was stunning. Any women would gladly throw herself at him. Same with the Christophe that was previously Viktor’s lover. They both stood out like a diamond shining in the sun among mere stones. And Yuri was one of the stones of the world. Yuri had never put much thought into “straight” and “homosexual” relationships. Love was just love. But the thought of Viktor being with men? He previously said Yuri was cute to! Did he mean it like?!

“No!”

Yuri yelled at himself internally.

“Viktor is a kind man and no matter how he meant it, it was a compliment!”

He began to converse with himself in his head while getting his normal clothes on. But what makes a man define as gay? Yuri starts to reflect on how he was looking at Viktor previously. Thinking he was strikingly beautiful. Well shit. Yuri’s mind is wandering and nowhere good. Especially when he is going to be late for work. Yuri opens the door and runs out to see Viktor sitting at the table with his tea.

“Viktor- I need to get to work now or I will be late, thank you for your hospitality.”

Yuri put his hand out to Viktor, but still can’t seem to make his gaze. Viktor is quiet this time. Something is on his mind.

“You’re welcome, would you like me to show you out Yuri?”

Viktor shakes his hand gently, but let’s go almost to quickly.

“No i’m alright, thank you!”

Yuri snaps back and rushes out the door getting one last pet on Makkachin’s head before the door shuts behind him. Why did he act like such a scared child? Blushing from the compliments given to him earlier simply because Viktor dates men? Childish. Yuri scoffs at himself, but it’s too late to regret it now and he rushes out of Viktor’s building and down the street to make it to work by 8. He barely makes in time, but lands with an exasperated huff as he sits in his chair in his little grey, dim, and lifeless cubicle. He starts to miss Viktors bright light of a personality immediately and shoves his hands in his pockets wondering if he will meet Viktor again one day. Pulling his full hand out of his pocket Yuri smiles more than he should. Looking down holding onto a wallet that is not his, but none other than Viktor Nikiforov, the name is strewn upon a russian ID card, but the Viktor in the photo has long silver hair and is just as striking as the man he met today. Nikiforov, that’s his last name. It looks like they will be meeting sooner than Yuri thought. A warm blush floods his face and heart. He can’t wait to see that silver haired, blue eyed, extravagant man again.

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

James Dennis Casey IV

James D. Casey IV is a southern poet with roots in Louisiana & Mississippi. He currently resides in Illinois with his Beautiful Muse, their retarded dog, and two black cats. Mr. Casey has authored five books of poetry, and his most recent title is Isomorphic released September 24, 2018, through Cajun Mutt Press. His work has also been published extensively by literary magazines and small press venues including Outlaw Poetry, Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, Dope Fiend Daily, Under The Bleachers, Zombie Logic Review, Horror Sleaze Trash, Pink Litter, Spillwords Press, and several others internationally. Mr. Casey mainly spends his days writing poetry, but also enjoys practicing magick, and cooking Cajun cuisine. Links to his books and other projects can be found here: https://­cajunpoetjames.wordpr­ess.com/

Drunk on Metaphors cajunpoetjames.wordpress.com

The Interview

What inspired you to write poetry?

It was a few things that happened to me throughout my life, then some things that hit me all in the same year. I started writing at a young age, but I didn’t begin to take it seriously until I broke my neck and back in 2009. Then my Mom passed away of cancer, and a good friend of mine overdosed and died on my living room couch. I had a lot of down time and was severely depressed so I was writing really heavily every day, and I decided to submit some work to a few places. After I had a few publications under my belt I decided to go through all the back-log of poems I had written over the span of 20 years or so and publish a book. Now here we are, five books later, and it’s the love of my life. If I didn’t have writing I don’t know where I’d be today, probably dead.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

It was something I kind of stumbled upon on my own. My Mom was an avid reader, but she wasn’t really into poetry, though she used to take me to the local library with her when I was young. I remember running across a book by Robert Frost, and that sparked my interest. As I got older I started reading a lot of the beatnik generation poetry, and that’s what really made me want to become a writer. I love Bukowski, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, but especially Buk. His work just resonated with me on a level nothing else could.

3. What was it about Frost that sparked your interest?

I’d never read poetry before his work, and I fell in love with it. I even wrote one titled Fire & Ice not too long ago that was a nod to his poem with the same title. He was the first rhyming poet I remember reading, and it was so musical to me, that’s what drew me in. Since then I’ve steered away from the rhyming end of the spectrum when it comes to writing, and it’s still something I enjoy now and then, but I’m not a big fan of it like I was in my youth. After reading more free verse and other unstructured styles of writing that’s where I found my true love for the craft. But it was Frost’s musical way with words that sparked my interest.

4. How would you describe the level at which Buk resonates with you?

He has a way of slipping in between sleaze and beauty with an ease and style all his own that I’ve never seen anyone else able to achieve quite like he does. I dig that. He can speak to me on so many different levels. My favorite poems by him are from two completely opposite ends of beauty and sleaze as well. One is The Roach Hotel and the other is The Laughing Heart. It’s incredible the amount of ability he has to write in such a no filter way. He can express human emotion like no other writer I’ve read, and I love him for it.

5. What is your daily writing routine?

I have two different routines when it comes to writing. Sometimes I’ll wake up early, make some coffee, put on some tunes and have a mellow day just pecking out a few poems. Other times I’ll wake up late, start drinking booze, and chain smoke while I’m violently clacking away at the keys for hours without a single break. But both methods usually produce several poems, and I do write every single day. Even on days where I feel a bit mentally blocked I’ll force myself to sit down and write. It may not be any good, but I do it just so my head doesn’t explode. There’s always so much going on up in my grey matter that it feels like it will sometimes anyway. Writing has always been a therapeutic tool for me.

6. Is therapy the only motivation to write?

No, I write for several different reasons. If I need to get something off my chest, express myself in various ways, for creative or artistic purposes, personal goals, love, hate, all forms of passion whether it’s good or bad, and I find that most times writing is the only way I can say some of the things I need or want to say in the way I intend them to be said. Poetry is language in its most distilled form, and it’s easier for me to communicate that way most of the time.

7. What Is your work ethic?

Well I do admit, writing is definitely a full-time job for me, even though not a very profitable one. Especially doing it all on my own. Self promotion can be a bitch sometimes, but I put 100% of myself into everything I do. I also run Cajun Mutt Press, initially I started it to publish my own books, and now I’m publishing other writer’s work. I put 100% into that as well, and I love doing it. We have 5 titles published so far, two of which are mine, and we just started in early August.

8. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I feel like I’m part of the old Beatnik Poetry scene, even though it’s in the past and there’s a new generation of poets at the helm. They still influence me now that I’m older. Sometimes I feel like I was born into the wrong generation because it’s so different and more complicated now. Even poetry, you can read from the old greats and see that things were different – better in a way – and now things are on a totally different level. There’s still some of the same stuff going on in poetry, but it’s magnified into a whole new creature. The writers I read in my youth, and still to this day, influenced me to concentrate on simpler things in life. I try not to get caught up in the hype of today’s bullshit and just live in the now of my own reality, because everyone’s reality is subjective. That is how they influence me today.

9. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

There are a lot of great writers out there today, and I’m a big fan of a lot of the stuff I’ve been seeing on Facebook and other social media platforms. If I was to name them all the list would be ten feet long, but there are a few I can name from the top of my list of poets/writers that I admire. Ron Whitehead, I love his style of Kentucky Gonzo Poetry. John Patrick Robbins, not only a great outlaw writer but also a dedicated Mad Editor to more than one venue – The Rye Whiskey Review being my favorite. Ryan Quinn Flanagan, that man is one of the most prolific poets I’ve ever had the pleasure of running across. K.W. Peery, I love how he integrates blues and outlaw history into his work. There are several more, but like I said the list is ten feet long. These are just a handful of my favorite current writers that also happen to be friends of mine.

10. Why do you write?

I don’t really have a choice in the matter. I’m a writer, that’s what we do, we write. If I didn’t write every day I think my head would explode, it’s as simple yet complicated as that.

11. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I think you know if you’re a writer, I’ve always known. No matter how many degrees you earn or brevity you claim, good writing isn’t something you can teach. It has to be learned by personal experience. I’ve been writing for many years, but I’m no master of the craft by any means, and it gets to me when people say they are. Especially young writers with a degree from somewhere and a cocky attitude about it. Some of the best writers I know weren’t taught, they learned on their own. So to “become” a writer I guess you kind of need to already be one, and know it, in the first place.

12. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have several irons in the fire right now. Also, I just published a book that will be the first in a series I plan on doing titled Owls in Hot Rods with Pink Elephants and Dead Bats. That one came out on August 2nd, and I just published another book of poetry September 24th titled Isomorphic. They’re both through my own publishing company, Cajun Mutt Press. I’ve also published a few other writers’ work, and have a couple of books in progress from myself and various others. So I’ve been pretty busy in that department, but I love doing it. We also have a featured writer spot we do twice a week on Wednesday and Friday. If anyone reading this is interested they can look us up on Facebook for details.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews:  James Dennis Casey IV Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[demitgibbs]

Adam Rippon Talks Finding His Gay Power, Fetish-Inspired Costumes

Being yourself can take you places. If you’re Adam Rippon, born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it can take you all the way to Pyeongchang, South Korea, where the 28-year-old set fire to the ice last February, becoming the first openly gay male athlete to win a medal — a bronze — for Team USA in a Winter Olympics.

Rippon’s mere existence as a brazenly gay global inspiration with a tongue as sharp as the blades on his skates is notable. Writer Peter Moskowitz recently celebrated Rippon in a piece for Splinter titled “The Faggy Magic of Adam Rippon.” And at a Stars on Ice show in Detroit, Michigan, in April, Rippon garnered by far the most enthusiastic response, winning applause from tween girls, a squadron of proud queers, and suburban moms, alike. Reese Witherspoon loves him. So does Elmo. And like any good mother, Sally Field tried to set him up with her gay son.

Rippon would make his Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) debut a couple weeks after our call, slaying a Vogue-fortified cha-cha to RuPaul’s “Sissy That Walk.” I caught up with the phenom via phone as he put on his face inside the locker room of a Rhode Island arena (a Stars on Ice stop). Rippon opened up about how booze kills his wit game and what he tells guys on Tinder who want a second chance, all the while, being his irresistible self.

WATCH:

[Editor’s Note: This issue of Hotspots went to the printer before ABC’s live DWTS finale, so as you may know, Adam Rippon and his partner Jenna Johnson won the Mirrorball Trophy]

I want to give you a phone hug and say thanks for giving this 35-year-old man a new level of realness to aspire to.

I’m hugging you back.

You stood next to Britney Spears at the GLAAD Media Awards recently for a pic. I hear she liked the way you smelled.

Yes, she did. I congratulated her on her award, and she was like, “You smell really nice,” and I was like, “Thank you so much, ’cause that’s so important to me.”

Your fellow gay Olympian, [freestyle skier] Gus Kenworthy, kissed you on stage that night. How exactly would you describe your relationship with Gus at this point?

Umm [laughs], so, I mean, we’re just friends, obviously. His boyfriend was backstage laughing at him, and so he was just trying to be funny. Gus is a nut.

But you’re so close. And both of you being gay Olympians, it seems you’ve really bonded.

Oh, absolutely. We’re just like brothers — brothers who kiss, I guess. But no, I love him. He’s so nice, and we’re very good friends.

What was it like competing against Tonya Harding on Dancing with the Stars?

It’s not a super big deal, but I think she’s got a lot going on, so I’m just gonna let her do her own thing, probably. Probably best.

Team Tonya or Team Nancy?

Well, I mean, Tonya tried to kill someone, so I’m Team Nancy, probably.

What did you think of I, Tonya?

I loved it. I thought Margot Robbie [who played Harding] was great. Amazing.

Who would you cast as Adam in I, Adam?

Well, Margot did so well. So, maybe Margot Robbie?

Who inspires your on-ice style?

The skating world inspires it a little bit, and then…  you’re gonna know that I’m trashy. I look at like, um, sex stuff and stuff people wear — harnesses and stuff — and the design is quite amazing. I bring [stuff] to my costume designer, and we make them more appropriate for a competition.

For a PG audience?

Yes. Actually, it’s not for that audience. But I make it for them.

That harness you wore to the Oscars in March: Where is it?

It’s in [fashion designer] Jeremy Scott’s office. The suit was by Moschino, so it was from Jeremy’s office and he lent it to me. I’m obsessed with Jeremy. He’s amazing.

Do you get to keep these costumes?

I keep my own costumes. Because, like, I bought them, outright. But the Oscars outfit was for the runway — so, from the red carpet back to the office.

Hard to give that up. So many opportunities to wear something like that.

I know! Like to a wedding. The grocery store.

Were you a sassy kid?

I don’t think I realized how sassy I was till I was at the Olympics and people were like, “Ahahaha, you’re so sassy.” And I was, “Ahahaha… you think so?” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, you’re, like, sassy.” And I was like, “I just thought I was fresh?” And they’re like, “No, you’re sassy.” Oh. OK.

Who inspires your sassiness?

The person who inspires me to be sassy is my mom.

So it’s in the blood.

[Laughs.] Yeah, it’s definitely in the blood. It’s something I can’t control.

Born this way.

Born this way, for sure. Genetics.

Your future: What’s off the table? Where do you draw the line?

Like, I’m not gonna do porn. That’s drawing the line, I guess. I don’t think I would do a reality show — I mean, I did Dancing with the Stars. That’s a reality show. I’m not gonna do, like, Big Brother or anything.

You’re getting a lot of offers. What percentage are you turning down?

I’m talking a little bit to everybody. But honestly, my schedule’s so crazy right now, I barely even know where I am.

The media loves getting you drunk.

Here’s the thing: I don’t drink a lot. Barely anything. And so everyone’s like, “Haha, come on the show and just have drinks!” And I’m like, “OK.” So, I’ll have a little bit, but I feel like I’m way funnier not drunk. I’m not as sharp, I’m not as witty; I’m not myself when I’m drunk. I mean, I like to be in the moment. If I’m in the moment, I can focus, and then I can be quick and witty.

You’ve been on this wild ride: the Olympics, Stars on Ice, Dancing with the Stars. How will you spend a day off when you finally get one?

Um, probably napping.

The whole day?

The whole day.

You have a new man, Jussi-Pekka Kajaala. He’s very good-looking.

I do. He’s super cute, but more than that, he’s super nice and funny.

Before you met, what criteria did you have for a boyfriend?

I really wasn’t looking for anybody. I was on Tinder just for fun. If you’ve ever been on Tinder, you know how you swipe left and right, and it basically turns into this game?

Oh yeah. It’s like the new Hot or Not.

It’s absolutely that. My criteria for a good boyfriend would be somebody who has passion. Passion is super important to me because, no matter what you do, if you have passion for it, then that’s kind of what life is all about — that you have passion for something. [Laughs.]

I’m being so serious. Usually when I get asked this question, I’m like, “a job, goes to the gym” — which is also important.

How many people on Tinder believed you were really Adam Rippon?

Nobody gave a shit that I was Adam Rippon. But I can tell you that everyone I ever matched with who ghosted on me has messaged me since the Olympics. My favorite is, “Oh, it’s been a while. How ya doing?” And I’m like, “Bye.”

You give them more than they deserve, honestly.

Usually I don’t answer.

Do you expect there will be a day when an openly gay figure skater can just be a figure skater?

Yeah. And I hope there’s a day that an openly gay Olympian will just be an Olympian. But I think right now it’s important to share your story.

For me, it’s not being gay that I share; I share my coming out. It’s not like, “Oh, I’m gay and I’m powerful” — which is, like, so true. It was [during] my coming out experience when I started to really own who I was and that’s where I found a lot of power. I was always me, but I didn’t always own it. And when I owned it, that’s when I found I was my strongest.

Have you had any particularly moving exchanges with young queer fans?

Yes. There’ve been many. I’ve run into a few young people who told me they tried to kill themselves at one point, which is incredibly hard to hear, especially from really young kids.

It’s bizarre to be thanked for just being who you are, and for someone to tell you that you really helped them, it’s incredibly humbling. I was not expecting that kind of response after the Olympics.

Do you feel pressure to act or be a certain way because of that?

No more than the way that I’ve been acting.

Good. To end, which Golden Girl are you?

Probably Blanche. Isn’t everyone Blanche? And I’m a little — OK, I’m mostly Dorothy.

It’s the snark.

It is the snark.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/05/24/adam-rippon-talks-finding-his-gay-power-fetish-inspired-costumes/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/174210916115

[cynthiajayusa]

Adam Rippon Talks Finding His Gay Power, Fetish-Inspired Costumes

Being yourself can take you places. If you’re Adam Rippon, born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, it can take you all the way to Pyeongchang, South Korea, where the 28-year-old set fire to the ice last February, becoming the first openly gay male athlete to win a medal — a bronze — for Team USA in a Winter Olympics.

Rippon’s mere existence as a brazenly gay global inspiration with a tongue as sharp as the blades on his skates is notable. Writer Peter Moskowitz recently celebrated Rippon in a piece for Splinter titled “The Faggy Magic of Adam Rippon.” And at a Stars on Ice show in Detroit, Michigan, in April, Rippon garnered by far the most enthusiastic response, winning applause from tween girls, a squadron of proud queers, and suburban moms, alike. Reese Witherspoon loves him. So does Elmo. And like any good mother, Sally Field tried to set him up with her gay son.

Rippon would make his Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) debut a couple weeks after our call, slaying a Vogue-fortified cha-cha to RuPaul’s “Sissy That Walk.” I caught up with the phenom via phone as he put on his face inside the locker room of a Rhode Island arena (a Stars on Ice stop). Rippon opened up about how booze kills his wit game and what he tells guys on Tinder who want a second chance, all the while, being his irresistible self.

WATCH:

[Editor’s Note: This issue of Hotspots went to the printer before ABC’s live DWTS finale, so as you may know, Adam Rippon and his partner Jenna Johnson won the Mirrorball Trophy]

I want to give you a phone hug and say thanks for giving this 35-year-old man a new level of realness to aspire to.

I’m hugging you back.

You stood next to Britney Spears at the GLAAD Media Awards recently for a pic. I hear she liked the way you smelled.

Yes, she did. I congratulated her on her award, and she was like, “You smell really nice,” and I was like, “Thank you so much, ’cause that’s so important to me.”

Your fellow gay Olympian, [freestyle skier] Gus Kenworthy, kissed you on stage that night. How exactly would you describe your relationship with Gus at this point?

Umm [laughs], so, I mean, we’re just friends, obviously. His boyfriend was backstage laughing at him, and so he was just trying to be funny. Gus is a nut.

But you’re so close. And both of you being gay Olympians, it seems you’ve really bonded.

Oh, absolutely. We’re just like brothers — brothers who kiss, I guess. But no, I love him. He’s so nice, and we’re very good friends.

What was it like competing against Tonya Harding on Dancing with the Stars?

It’s not a super big deal, but I think she’s got a lot going on, so I’m just gonna let her do her own thing, probably. Probably best.

Team Tonya or Team Nancy?

Well, I mean, Tonya tried to kill someone, so I’m Team Nancy, probably.

What did you think of I, Tonya?

I loved it. I thought Margot Robbie [who played Harding] was great. Amazing.

Who would you cast as Adam in I, Adam?

Well, Margot did so well. So, maybe Margot Robbie?

Who inspires your on-ice style?

The skating world inspires it a little bit, and then…  you’re gonna know that I’m trashy. I look at like, um, sex stuff and stuff people wear — harnesses and stuff — and the design is quite amazing. I bring [stuff] to my costume designer, and we make them more appropriate for a competition.

For a PG audience?

Yes. Actually, it’s not for that audience. But I make it for them.

That harness you wore to the Oscars in March: Where is it?

It’s in [fashion designer] Jeremy Scott’s office. The suit was by Moschino, so it was from Jeremy’s office and he lent it to me. I’m obsessed with Jeremy. He’s amazing.

Do you get to keep these costumes?

I keep my own costumes. Because, like, I bought them, outright. But the Oscars outfit was for the runway — so, from the red carpet back to the office.

Hard to give that up. So many opportunities to wear something like that.

I know! Like to a wedding. The grocery store.

Were you a sassy kid?

I don’t think I realized how sassy I was till I was at the Olympics and people were like, “Ahahaha, you’re so sassy.” And I was, “Ahahaha… you think so?” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, you’re, like, sassy.” And I was like, “I just thought I was fresh?” And they’re like, “No, you’re sassy.” Oh. OK.

Who inspires your sassiness?

The person who inspires me to be sassy is my mom.

So it’s in the blood.

[Laughs.] Yeah, it’s definitely in the blood. It’s something I can’t control.

Born this way.

Born this way, for sure. Genetics.

Your future: What’s off the table? Where do you draw the line?

Like, I’m not gonna do porn. That’s drawing the line, I guess. I don’t think I would do a reality show — I mean, I did Dancing with the Stars. That’s a reality show. I’m not gonna do, like, Big Brother or anything.

You’re getting a lot of offers. What percentage are you turning down?

I’m talking a little bit to everybody. But honestly, my schedule’s so crazy right now, I barely even know where I am.

The media loves getting you drunk.

Here’s the thing: I don’t drink a lot. Barely anything. And so everyone’s like, “Haha, come on the show and just have drinks!” And I’m like, “OK.” So, I’ll have a little bit, but I feel like I’m way funnier not drunk. I’m not as sharp, I’m not as witty; I’m not myself when I’m drunk. I mean, I like to be in the moment. If I’m in the moment, I can focus, and then I can be quick and witty.

You’ve been on this wild ride: the Olympics, Stars on Ice, Dancing with the Stars. How will you spend a day off when you finally get one?

Um, probably napping.

The whole day?

The whole day.

You have a new man, Jussi-Pekka Kajaala. He’s very good-looking.

I do. He’s super cute, but more than that, he’s super nice and funny.

Before you met, what criteria did you have for a boyfriend?

I really wasn’t looking for anybody. I was on Tinder just for fun. If you’ve ever been on Tinder, you know how you swipe left and right, and it basically turns into this game?

Oh yeah. It’s like the new Hot or Not.

It’s absolutely that. My criteria for a good boyfriend would be somebody who has passion. Passion is super important to me because, no matter what you do, if you have passion for it, then that’s kind of what life is all about — that you have passion for something. [Laughs.]

I’m being so serious. Usually when I get asked this question, I’m like, “a job, goes to the gym” — which is also important.

How many people on Tinder believed you were really Adam Rippon?

Nobody gave a shit that I was Adam Rippon. But I can tell you that everyone I ever matched with who ghosted on me has messaged me since the Olympics. My favorite is, “Oh, it’s been a while. How ya doing?” And I’m like, “Bye.”

You give them more than they deserve, honestly.

Usually I don’t answer.

Do you expect there will be a day when an openly gay figure skater can just be a figure skater?

Yeah. And I hope there’s a day that an openly gay Olympian will just be an Olympian. But I think right now it’s important to share your story.

For me, it’s not being gay that I share; I share my coming out. It’s not like, “Oh, I’m gay and I’m powerful” — which is, like, so true. It was [during] my coming out experience when I started to really own who I was and that’s where I found a lot of power. I was always me, but I didn’t always own it. And when I owned it, that’s when I found I was my strongest.

Have you had any particularly moving exchanges with young queer fans?

Yes. There’ve been many. I’ve run into a few young people who told me they tried to kill themselves at one point, which is incredibly hard to hear, especially from really young kids.

It’s bizarre to be thanked for just being who you are, and for someone to tell you that you really helped them, it’s incredibly humbling. I was not expecting that kind of response after the Olympics.

Do you feel pressure to act or be a certain way because of that?

No more than the way that I’ve been acting.

Good. To end, which Golden Girl are you?

Probably Blanche. Isn’t everyone Blanche? And I’m a little — OK, I’m mostly Dorothy.

It’s the snark.

It is the snark.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/05/24/adam-rippon-talks-finding-his-gay-power-fetish-inspired-costumes/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/05/adam-rippon-talks-finding-his-gay-power.html