#Star Wars Celebration 2017

[littlekhada]

Day-off. Happy Birthday, Space Cowboy

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Bad Lip Reading - Seagulls! (Stop It Now) 2016

Bad Lip Reading is a YouTube channel created and run by an anonymous producer from Texas who intentionally lip-reads video clips poorly for comedic effect. Some of the channel's original songs are available on Spotify and Apple Music.

In December 2015, Bad Lip Reading simultaneously released three new videos, one for each of the three films in the original Star Wars trilogy. These videos used guest voices for the first time, featuring Jack Black as Darth Vader, Maya Rudolph as Princess Leia, and Bill Hader in multiple roles. The Empire Strikes Back BLR video featured a scene of Yoda singing to Luke Skywalker about the dangers posed by vicious seagulls if one dares to go to the beach. BLR later expanded this scene into a full-length stand-alone song called "Seagulls! (Stop It Now)", which was released in November 2016, and eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard Comedy Digital Tracks chart.

Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, publicly praised "Seagulls!" (and Bad Lip Reading in general) while speaking at Star Wars Celebration in 2017: "I love them, and I showed Carrie [Fisher] the Yoda one… we were dying. She loved it. I retweeted it… and [BLR] contacted me and said ‘Do you want to do Bad Lip Reading?’ And I said, ‘I'd love to…’”. Hamill and Bad Lip Reading collaborated on Bad Lip Reading's version of The Force Awakens, with Hamill providing the voice of Han Solo. The Star Wars Trilogy Bad Lip Reading videos led to a second musical number, "Bushes of Love", which hit #2 on the Billboard Comedy Digital Tracks chart.

May the 4th be with 71,6% of you!

[heritageposts]

A Jewish prayer shawl worn by Levi Simon, a British man fighting for the Israeli army in Gaza who filmed himself rummaging through women’s underwear in an abandoned Palestinian home, belonged to a celebrated Holocaust survivor who warned of the dangers of hatred and racism. Social media footage posted in November shows Simon wearing the shawl, known as a tallit, in a building in Gaza. “This tallit I am wearing belonged to a Holocaust survivor by the name of Zigi. I am right now inside of Gaza writing ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again,” Simon says in the clip, drawing a Star of David and writing the Hebrew phrase meaning “the people of Israel live” on the wall. According to the accompanying text, the tallit was donated by the family of Zigi Shipper, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Nazi camps from Lodz, Poland, who moved to the UK after the Second World War and died last January aged 93. But a close friend and fellow survivor told Middle East Eye he believed Shipper would have been "astounded and upset" to learn of the way in which his tallit had been used in Gaza. “He would have been as heartbroken as I am because neither of us imagined anything like that would be witnessed by us,” Manfred Goldberg, who met Shipper in 1944 when both were working as slave labourers at a camp in modern-day Poland, told MEE. Asked whether he would have been concerned by the conduct of Israeli forces, Goldberg added: “How can you ask such a question? Who is not upset? Zigi was a very outspoken person. He made a lot more noise than I did. He would have been beside himself.” [...] “Zigi and I had an unbreakable bond because of our experience in the camps. I know him better than I know more or less any person on earth,” said Goldberg. In his later life, Shipper was renowned for his decades of work promoting awareness of the Holocaust in countless talks to schoolchildren and through media interviews. In 2017, he was among 112 Holocaust survivors whose testimonies were recorded as part of a United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial project. “I want young people to know, especially young people, what happened because of racism and most importantly, hatred,” Shipper has been quoted as saying by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

and, more on what simon has been posting . . .

In one clip, Simon waves an Israeli flag in a school where, he says, “they teach terrorism”, adding: “We’re here, we’re here to stay, we’re not going to take your terror, and they’re going to start teaching Hebrew in this school soon." In another clip, he says he is going through “terrorist houses” looking for guns and explosives and then opens a drawer and starts pulling out and displaying women’s underwear, which he describes as "exotic lingerie".

. . . full article on MEE (26 Jan 2024)

[mariacallous]

Carrie's daughter Billie Lourd shared a tribute to her for her bday on instagram today 😞

https://deadline.com/2024/10/billie-lourd-remembers-carrie-fisher-emotional-birthday-tribute-1236122101/

Billie Lourd shared an emotional message on what would’ve been Carrie Fisher‘s birthday.

The Scream Queens actor paid tribute to her late mother sharing her process of grief.

“My mom would’ve been 68 today. Dead person birthdays are weird to say the least,” Lourd shared on Instagram. “On my mom’s birthday every year, I try to celebrate her as much as possible, but today I really wanted to celebrate her with her. Some years my grief makes me feel the warmth of her love, some years it makes me angry, some years I feel numb but today when I woke up I just felt sad. I didn’t want to celebrate, I just wanted my mom.”

Lourd, who appeared with her mom on 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, said her sadness “body-snatched” her, and she took to Google to search for an “average death-age woman.” The actress said that the results yielded that the average age a woman dies is 80.2.

“My mom died when she was 60,” she added. “60 is too damn young to die.”

She continued, “I then googled drug overdose deaths (another fun morning google!!!) and it is over 100 thousand people per year.”

Lourd opened up about helping her mother “get sober but sadly my mom couldn’t ever escape her addiction. But while she was alive she always shared the ups and downs of that struggle with others in hopes it would help them escape their own addiction.”

“As an addict, being open about the struggle is the only way through. And same goes for those of us affected by that struggle,” Lourd said. “Sending my love to anyone out there who has lost someone to drug addiction. You are not alone.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Billie Lourd (@praisethelourd)

[bedlamsbard]

periodically I randomly turn up bits of All Along the Watchtower prep, including another "crawl" -- I think this one is from 2017, since it was sandwiched in between some Backbone stuff. (I think I may have actually written it while I was at Star Wars Celebration Orlando? Which means it predates the last thing I found by at least a year. I really did spend years intending to write this fic.)

transcript:

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER

Fifteen years after the assassination of Chancellor Palpatine and the fall of the Republic, the war rages on. Striking from their Hidden Temple, the Jedi Order strives towards their near-impossible goal of destroying Dooku's Sith Knights and restoring the Republic.

Hampered by the limited resources of the Galactic Remnant, the Jedi have been forced to turn to a new source for the accouterments of war. Two Knights, Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee, have been dispatched to an arms auction hosted by Jabba the Hutt. But the Jedi are not the only ones interested in these weapons...

For as great as the evil on Coruscant is, something else has been lurking in the shadows of the galaxy Outer Rim, growing in power as the war consumes the galaxy. Soon it will reveal the time will be right for it to reveal itself, sparking the one thing that may consume both light and dark sides of the Force: war between the Sith.

[starblightbindery]

Binder's Note for Forms by Trebia

How Forms fits in the long tradition of Star Wars fanfic.

My hope is that this project captures a snapshot in time from Star Wars fandom het shippers between December 2015 and December 2017, before the franchise confirmed any emotional intimacy—if you can call it that— between Rey and Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).

Trebia, then aged 24, wrote and published the first chapter of Forms on Archive of Our Own on December 18th, 2015—the exact release date of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When posting this first chapter, Trebia noted, “I’m just working off of memory from the one viewing I saw last night.” The entirety of the fanfic was completed and posted an exact month later, making this fic historically significant in Star Wars fandom as one of the earliest published “Reylo” stories.

A serialized novella that was churned out in an astonishingly short time frame, Forms is notable for predicting many elements of The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), including the Reylo Force bond, Rey walking away from her training with Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren pleading with Rey to join him, and Kylo Ren pushing his Force energy into Rey to save her life.

Throughout the story, Trebia mashed new and old Star Wars elements together—characters like the Mandalorians and Admiral Daala, settings like Illum and Kuat⁠—evincing her fondness for the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Forms has classic tropes from this franchise, like stealing a uniform to go undercover in an enemy base and the forced proximity of a “Slow Boat to Bespin.” Present in Forms are scads of fan theories from between the release of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. These included the theory that—echoing a Legends plot line from Dark Empire (1991) where somehow Palpatine returns and Luke Skywalker joins the dark side to try and take him down from the inside—Kylo Ren had strategic reasons for his apprenticeship to Snoke. Like many Reylo fan-works set in-universe, Trebia lends justification to his many antisocial acts, part of shipper efforts to make the character more self-relevant and sympathetic.

Forms weaves in tantalizing threads that were tossed around by fans and concept artists but ultimately not pursued, including Dark Rey, Stormpilot (Finn/Poe Dameron), and Rey's saberstaff. Trebia even predicted the Kuat Drive Yards plot line started in The Last Jedi (Rose Tico’s contempt for weapon's manufacturers on Canto Bight) and continued in the abandoned Episode IX: Duel of Fates script by Colin Trevorrow. Forms also addresses loose ends that probably should have been covered for a more cohesive nine film saga, like the Chosen One prophecy and direct interaction between Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren.

No discussion of Forms can be complete without also placing it in the context of Star Wars fandom in 2016. Reylo was a fringe pairing that made intuitive sense to many Star Wars fans, particularly women; however, prior to The Last Jedi, the ship was dwarfed by the popularity of slash ships like Finn/Poe and Kylo Ren/Hux. At the time, many fans theorized that Rey was Luke Skywalker’s long-lost daughter, making her Ben Solo’s first cousin, making Reylo an incest ship.

As noted on the Fanlore wiki, the tags on this fic changed over time. In addition to “Riding the bus to hell either way” Trebia joked with tags like “Possible incest?” and “Not incest until proven guilty in the court of law.” Following the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Trebia celebrated by replacing those tags with a celebratory “IT AIN’T INCEST.”

The story's strong influence in early Reylo fandom reflected a hunger for more Star Wars romances about the pull between light and dark. After all, the sequel trilogy did not set up Kylo Ren as a horned, alien-appearing monster or a wrinkled geezer. Unblemished by the ravages of the dark side, Kylo Ren was depicted with pillow lips and a fabulous, voluminous coiffure unencumbered by his helm (which really should have flattened it to his scalp.) The groundwork for a lightsider/darksider romance was previously explored in other Expanded Universe stories. At the forefront of these were watered down lightsider/darkside romances like the tepidly written romance between Luke Skywalker and former Palpatine agent Mara Jade. Given Mara Jade was hardly a champion of the dark side, there was no risk of corrupting Skywalker. But the Expanded Universe also boasted stories that played with this dynamic, like the twisted connection between Fable Astin and Jaalib Brandl by Patricia A. Jackson for the Star Wars Adventure Journal (1994), the conflict between Jaina Solo and Zekk in Kevin J. Anderson's Young Jedi Knights (1996),or the passion between Darth Revan and Bastila Shan in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003). In this respect, Forms and the rest of the Reylo fan fiction oeuvre continues the grand fan tradition of Star Wars villain fucking.

“Darksider and lightsider conflict is one of the most fascinating points of Star Wars,” Trebia said in 2016, when interviewed by Spencer Kornhaber for The Atlantic. “Rey and Kylo represent the fight to find the balance.” Yet, at the time, the fledgling “Reylo” ship was abhorred by affirmational Star Wars fans who despised the emphasis on shipping with a female gaze, as well as scorned by media commentators who found the ship to be “problematic.” In male-dominated, established fan spaces like Reddit and Jedi Council Forums, discussion of Reylo was effectively banned by moderators through the freezing of threads. In other fandom spaces like Twitter and Tumblr, discourse about Reylo mirrored larger purity culture. The ship became a convenient target for alt-right misogynists, and also for anti‑shippers concerned that the ship “romanticized abuse.” Productive and unproductive debate arose around media consumption construed as agreement or approval, whether a sympathetic Kylo Ren lends people to give more latitude to real-life white right-wing men with anger management problems (or if it's the other way around), and if shippers can tell the difference between a fictional antihero and the same dangerous thing in real life. Critiques of Reylo fandom also included the implicit racism inherent in the sidelining of John Boyega’s heroic character Finn in favor of white whiny fascist Kylo Ren. (It did not help that 2016 also saw the election where white American women voters decided to displace a competent Black man with a white whiny fascist.)

In the September 2020 issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies, Andrea Marshall notes that Reylo “fan fiction acts as a locus of resistance to gendered oppression as feminist authors construct selves that critique the source material and the fandom for gendered oppression within tropes and attitudes.” By having Rey actually interact with and befriend a woman other than Leia, Forms already improves on the source material. It's a delight to see Forms depict older women over age fifty who are plot-significant and interact which one another, if only because Star Wars movies are fairly gender regressive. On the other hand, Rey's strategy to convert Kylo back to the light is to uh, suck the badness out of him. It's Padmé Amidala logic—sure, he arranged the wholesale slaughter of an entire village, but he can also deftly finger you to orgasm! Granted, Star Wars is infamously a franchise of excuse making, where really shitty dudes manage to turn it around and do the right thing at the last minute. Forms also doesn't push all that hard to actively resist the neo-fascist allegory in the sequel trilogy, particularly in Trebia's appendix, which dissatisfactorily explains that all of the First Order war criminals in the story ended up as instructors in military academies. (Who would even hire them, Albus Dumbledore?!)

Fics like Forms led to “ship wars” discourse, which led to the publication of ozhawkauthor's “The Three Laws of Fandom” meta essay on January 1st, 2016. “Laws” is a bit of a misnomer since there is no enforcement body; the essay is more of a request for courtesy in fandom spaces. The laws were also meant to apply specifically to shipping, not fandom or media criticism as a whole. “It’s not up to you to decide what other people are allowed to like or not like, to create or not to create,” wrote ozhawkauthor. “That’s censorship. Don’t do it.”

For fans conscious of fandom history and the impact of censorship in spaces like FanFiction.net and Livejournal, ozhawkauthor's guidelines—(1) Don't like; don't read, (2) Your ship is not my ship, (3)Ship and let ship—felt intuitive. This is reflected in spaces like my bookbinding guild, Renegade, which—similar to Archive of Our Own—takes a hands off approach to policing content. This did not prevent widespread handwringing about Reylo content. Star Wars fan ughwhyben reflected on the “gigantic fandom that is suddenly experiencing a renaissance, where an influx of mainstream folk are trickling into (or running into) the fic side for possibly the first time right now and don’t have this training. It’s like we’re flickering back and forth between the modern evolution of fic side fannish culture and what things were like in, for example, 2001 when I first stumbled in.”

Decades ago, in May 1981, Lucasfilm reacted to the publication of “Slow Boat to Bespin” by Anne Elizabeth Zeek & Barbara Wenk by declaring a ban on smut in fan fiction. I've included in the errata of this binding a letter from 1981 written by the Star Wars fanclub president to circulating fanzines threatening legal action. While slash was also caught in this net—disproportionately targeted given non-explicit gay romance was not okay even though Star Wars has non-explicit het romance—it was this fairly tame (by fic standards) heteronormative fic, featuring Han Solo and Princess Leia, that signaled to Lucasfilm that smutty fanfic was no longer on the fringes and now needed to be addressed to protect the “wholesomeness” of the franchise. Subsequently, fanfic writers had to make a conscious decision to flout Lucasfilm’s policy and go forth with propagating their smut.

And, in 2016, of all the ships in all of fandom, it was the Reylo Star Wars pairing, featuring this specific heteronormative female power fantasy (of being able to leash a villain by the dick to drag him back to the light) that led to a communal reaffirmation of these fandom norms. In her interviews with the The Atlantic, Trebia directly quotes from the Three Laws of Fandom, endorsing “ship and let ship” as a basis for creating Reylo fanworks. “I am fully involved in the garbage compactor that is this pairing, and I love it,” Trebia said. “No matter what way it goes, I will stick with it.”

After studying early romance novels from the late 1600s and early 1700s, Ros Ballaster observed a polarity between didactic love fiction and amatory fiction. Didactic love stories are sweet—aspirational, moral, and idealized—while amatory fiction is spicy—erotic, transgressive, untethered from social sanction. We do see representations of didactic love in Reylo fan fiction, particularly in contemporary romance “Modern AUs” like Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis (2021)where the Kylo's homicidal Sith rage is sanitized to a more socially-acceptable grumpy academic brooding. One can comfortably bring Adam Carlsen, Ph.D home to meet Mother. But certainly, the majority of Reylo fic written by fans gravitate towards and come with the self awareness of the amatory. For one, Trebia loudly proclaims in her Chapter Two author note: “MORE TRASH FOR THE TRASH GOD.”

Discourse over the “morality” of Reylo fan fiction tends to overlook the distinction between the didactic and the amatory. As compelling as the idea of a “Force dyad” is in fantasy, this relationship is not meant to be aspirational in a literal sense. Yet, readers of Reylo fiction were and continue to have to defend their interest in the archetype with disclaimers—yes, it's trash, yes, I know it's problematic—while men in fandom are not held to the same standards when it comes to “problematic” media they consume or enjoy, whether it's a Michael Bay blockbuster film or male-gaze pornography.

As Deborah Lutz notes, “The Dangerous Lover Romance” is a centuries old, conventional way to represent erotic desire and romantic love. The “sublimely tormented Byronic hero” is hardly groundbreaking, to the extent that Rian Johnson's depiction of Reylo in The Last Jedi subverts the trope—at the end of the film Rey isn't enchanted, she's repulsed. The same way Star Wars replicates Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey monomyth, Reylo stories like Forms reflect the broad appeal of the “how-the-turntables” Dangerous Lover romance—where the woman protagonist, initially subjugated by the debased, restless misanthrope, ends up subjugating him through her strength of will and the power of love. Trebia's Kylo even sports malevolent scars like so many Gothic male romantic leads before him—always on the face. In the Gothic romance, the heroine accesses socially undesirable aspects—power, rage, craving, desire—as expressed by her double, the Dangerous Lover. His presence in the story provides a basis for her disinhibition. The Reylo ship follows a well-trodden cultural script of transgressive female desire.

Forms the fan fiction novella is a notable cultural artefact reflecting a distinct period of time in Star Wars fandom. At the time, Reylo fanfic held all the promise of improved representation for women characters, crossed with the instinctual, regressive insistence that maintains a white male character in the forefront. Reylo fan fiction produced in early 2016 also led to the reification of anti-censorship values in fandom. Seven years later, a fandom that was once derided has gone fully mainstream, as fic writers like Ali Hazelwood, Ashley Poston, and Thea Guanzon top traditional publishing bestseller lists. What Trebia knocked out, hours after her introduction to the characters, is now it's own Star Wars literary tradition.

[phoenixspencer]

Happy 52nd Birthday, Ewan!

Showcasing my favorite of Ewan's roles (so far) to celebrate his birthday:

1. Mark Renton, Trainspotting (1996) and T2 Trainspotting (2017) 2. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars 3. Alex Law, Shallow Grave (1994) 4. Alfred Jones, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) 5. Danny Torrance, Doctor Sleep (2019)

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Timeline: Part 10 - December 11-31 2017

For earlier timeline posts: click here or here.

There's a limit to how many links you can put in a tumblr post. Who knew. Anyway, continuing where we left off...

12/11/2017: Andrew Morton announces new biography of Meghan. Rebecca English writes about Meghan's yoga influencing. Meghan's "Sexy Santa" costume from Deal or No Deal is republished. Kensington Palace announces William and Kate's trip to Sweden and Norway, and The Times debunks The Crown.

12/12/2017: Harry and his friends kill 15 boars during German hunting trip (Meghan's not happy). Harry and Meghan take credit for William and Kate showing a little PDA on an engagement, while Meghan merches her parka. Later, William and Harry attend the Star Wars premiere.

12/13/2017: Kensingon Palace officially confirms Meghan is spending Christmas with the royals. Meghan is revealed as Google's most-searched celebrity of 2017. Meghan merches her handbags, especially Strathberry's, and modernizes the monarchy.

A UK survey finds that a majority of their respondents are unhappy with Harry's engagement:

67% of women surveyed are devastated by the engagement announcement.

20% of overall respondents prefer Harry to be single.

57% of respondents are against Harry marrying Meghan.

And Meghan leaks that Kate has taken her under her wing to protect her from negative parts of royal life. She tells The Express that "Harry is like a brother to Kate and she has never seen him so happy."

12/14/2017: Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, announces that he expects to preside over the royal wedding. In the morning, the royals attend a service for Grenfell Tower at St. Paul's Cathedral (Meghan isn't allowed) and they gather again in the afternoon for The Queen's annual Windsor Christmas luncheon at Buckingham Palace (Meghan is invited). In the evening, the Kensington Palace Christmas party is held at a nearby restaurant that Harry and Meghan may or may not have attended (it's claimed they left early) while William and Kate are papped leaving.

Meghan merches Strathberry again and she is named the #4 Fashion Influencer of the Year, besting Kate who comes in at #5. (I really doubt Kate cares about this.)

12/15/2017: Kensington Palace announces the wedding date. Palace gift shops begin selling engagement memorabilia. Harry visits Sandhurst Academy and awards Cadet of the Year. Idris Elba shows support for Meghan while Meghan merches tea tree oil.

12/16/2017: Meghan teases a Canada tour post-wedding again.

12/17/2017:

The Daily Mail reminds us that Meghan is attending royal Christmas.

Harry announces that he has interviewed Barack Obama for BBC Radio 4 Today, but the interview won't air until the end of the month.

Meghan used to work at a yogurt store in LA as a teenager and everyone just loved her.

William's diary clash: Harry scheduled his wedding on the same day as the FA Cup Final, which William usually attends.

To prep The Queen and Prince Philip for spending Christmas with Meghan, Harry says he has shown them clips of Meghan in Suits.

Windsor hotels begin to profit off the wedding by marketing Meghan and Harry.

12/18/2017: The Cambridges release their Christmas card photo and Kensington Palace announces that Charlotte will begin nursery school in the new year. Meghan is voted one of the UK's ideal Christmas dinner guests and she leaks that The Queen likes her better than Kate but Buckingham Palace hits back with a denial.

12/19/2017: William and Kate attend the Royal Variety Performance. Meghan tries to ride their coattails by hinting she and Harry may be their guests and Harry is appointed Captain General Royal Marines, succeeding Philip.

Sketches of potential wedding dresses are published/leaked again.

Doria is papped at a LA laundromat.

Meet Meghan's lookalike

Will Meghan have to curtsey to Kate?

Meghan is crowned Hello Magazine's "Woman of the Year."

12/20/2017: Meghan hypes up her Kate-like style makeover from the Windsor Christmas luncheon at Buckingham Palace and merches her dress again. More wedding dress sketches are published.

12/21/2017: The royal engagement photos are published and:

Prince Philip and The Queen leave London for Sandringham.

Meghan modernizes the monarchy.

Meghan merches Ralph & Russo.

Body language analysis

Yorkies are papped at Soho House.

Meghan leaks that The Queen wants her and Harry to have a prenup and that she (Meghan) is hurt the family thinks she has an ulterior motive for marrying Harry. (Well...) In the same article, Meghan teases her and Harry's individual net worths and hints at the wedding budget - £22 million minimum overall cost and her dress budget is £375,000.

Harry debunks Meghan's PR about the prenup, saying no one asked for one and that William and Kate don't have one so they don't need one.

Meghan v Kate fashion showdown over their engagement photos.

12/22/2017:

Princess Michael's Blackamoor brooch controversy kicks off.

Cambridge vs Sussex engagement portraits showdown

Meghan merches her Ralph & Russo gown again

Press criticism of the engagement photos begin

Meghan takes credit for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner posing together.

12/23/2017: Meghan announces that Guy has broken two legs in an unprecedented Kensington Palace statement and her lookalike does a wedding dress photoshoot.

12/24/2017: Meghan leaks that Harry will not participate in the royal family's Boxing Day shoot because it would upset her.

12/25/2017: Meghan joins the royal family on their Christmas Church Walk. She merches her coat and her hat is the stuff of poo memes.

12/26/2017: Criticism from Meghan's Christmas Church Walk continues with coverage on her curtsey fail and sticking her tongue out. Meghan also merches her outfit again.

12/27/2017: Harry's interview with Barack Obama is finally released. He makes a "we're the family she never had" comment that sets the Markles off. Harry also bans blood diamonds from Meghan's jewelry and Meghan merches her lip gloss.

12/28/2017: Some poor media intern who listened to the Harry/Obama interview realizes that Harry invited the Obamas to the wedding. Meghan deals with more curtsey criticism. She deflects by announcing that she was shortlisted to be the new Bond Girl but she had to give the role up because of her relationship with the Harry. Meghan also merches the Soho House restaurant she and Harry had their first date.

12/29/2017: The royal family's engagement count for the year is released and Harry worked more than William and Kate. The Markles begin popping off about Harry's "we're the family she never had" comment.

12/30/2017: No new Meghan or Harkle stories.

12/31/2017: No new Meghan or Harkle stories.

[pascallatte]

Get to know Y/N L/N

Born Y/N M/N L/N *day* December 1987 (32) Madrid, Spain

Education The Juilliard School

Occupation Actress

Years active 1999-present

Background

Y/N M/N L/N (born on December *day*, 1987) is a Canadian actress. Known for her independent films and series participation. Born in Madrid, Spain to F/N L/N and M/N Md/N, L/N had been introduced to the film industry at a young age but never participated in any until she was recruited at the age of 9. She had a minor role in the 1999 Star Wars film; Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace as Sabe. Her breakthrough into the acting industry was when she played Sarah Altman in the Thriller/Crime film Panic Room (2002) and went on to achieve global stardom by playing Elizabeth Swann in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, beginning in 2003, and as Mary Winchester in the American drama series, Supernatural from 2005 to 2013.

Early Life and Education

Y/N M/N L/N was born on *day* December 1987 in Madrid, Spain’s fashionable residential area of Chamartín, Madrid to engineer F/N L/N and journalist M/N Md/N. Her father is of French and Canadian descent and her mother is Spanish. She has two younger brothers, whose names are unknown. Her mother’s connection in the industry had introduced her to the film industry at a young age but never sparked her interest.

L/N and her family moved from Madrid, Spain to Montreal,Quebec, Canada at 6 for her father’s job. She and her family had switched between living in Canada and Spain, specifically staying in Canada for her and her siblings' education. There she attended primary school up until high school. She is known to speak three languages: Spanish(fluent), French(semi-fluent), and English(fluent). Her notable feature as a child was her curly blond hair that had landed her roles in The Sixth Sense, Star Wars, Panic Room and The Pirates of the Caribbean film series, however, it turned into a deep brown as she grew older, inheriting those of her mother's. At the age of 17, she moved to New York after being granted a scholarship at The Juilliard School in 2004.

Career

Films

The Sixth Sense (1999) - Kyra Collins

Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (1999) - Sabe

Panic Room (2002) - Sarah Altman

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) - Elizabeth Swann

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - Elizabeth Swann

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) - Elizabeth Swann

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) - Martha

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Gwen Stacy

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - Gwen Stacy

The Man from UNCLE (2015) - Gaby

Collateral Beauty (2016) - Amy/ “Love”

Pirated of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) - Elizabeth Swann

Ocean’s 8 (2018) - Daphne Kluger

Knives Out (2019) - Marta Cabrera

Chernobyl (2019) - Lyudmilla Ignatenko

TV shows

Supernatural (2005-2013) - Mary Winchester 

Narcos (2015-2017) - Catalina “Lina” Mendoza

The Witcher (2019~) - Yennefer of Vengerberg

Upcoming films/shows

TBA

Personal life

Y/N L/N is one of the celebrities who can keep their private life under wraps despite being under the spotlight at age 11. During her rise in stardom, she has only been linked to a few fellow actors and only has one confirmed relationship.

L/N’s first relationship rumour was back in 2004 at only 17, with a childhood friend and ‘The Sixth Sense’ co-star, Trevor Morgan. Both parties denied this rumour and stated they were only close friends— siblings at most.

She dated The Amazing Spider-Man co-star, Andrew Garfield from 2011 to early-2014. The two are still great friends.

She was then linked to Narcos co-star Sebastian Vega (2015-2016) before being proven wrong when rumours and evidence of her dating co-star and long-time friend Pedro Pascal (2017) surfaced.

The pair, Pedro Pascal and Y/n L/n had confirmed their relationship via Instagram. They've been reported to have started dating in early 2015, 3-years after being introduced by mutual friend Sarah Paulson.

updated: December 31, 2019

Masterlist

A/N: Hello just wanted to put this out before the next fic comes out so everything will be in order.

[iftheresaproblem-whatever]

STAR WARS DOESN’T LIKE LGBTQ+ MEN?

(A SHORT FAN ESSAY)

First and foremost. I’m REALLY enjoying the ‘Ahsoka’ series and I can’t wait to see how episode 8 plays out.

I’ve really enjoyed seeing some of my favourite characters, old and new, translated so beautifully to live action.

Almost…all of them.

As of today, there is 1 episode left. 1 episode left of ‘Ahsoka’. Otherwise known as the “sequel” to the Animated series ‘Star Wars Rebels’.

Yet, 2 crucial characters from the aforementioned series, are nowhere to be seen in this series.

We have been very fortunate to see the Ghost Crew, consisting of Hera Syndulla, her son Jacen, Chopper, Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger make appearances in the series.

We were doubly fortunate to see Anakin Skywalker again in his true form, appearing in a greater capacity than I could have predicted, which was amazing.

Grand Admiral Thrawn has also returned in glorious fashion, portrayed by the very actor who provided the voice for him in ‘Rebels.’

We’ve seen countless appearances from characters from Loth cats to C3PO in our most recent viewing excursion.

However, the only characters missing from the series are Captian Garazeb ‘Zeb’ Orrelios, and (Agent) Alexsandr Kallus.

For those who might not know, Zeb is the ‘muscle’ of the Ghost Crew, who sadly had his planet and people destroyed by the Galactic Emprie. He believed to be the last of his species, until he discovered the secret home world of Lira San, where an entire planet of his kind live and thrive.

Agent (Alexsandr) Kallus is an ISB agent who aided the Empire in the destruction of Zeb’s home world and people. Not only that, it is revealed that he has trauma and survivors guilt because of a rouge Lasat mercenary that worked for Saw Garrera, resulting in the death of his friends on his first unit and the hardening of his heart.

During the series, the two share an episode where they crash land on the ice moon of Bahryn, where they work together to survive and learn a bit more about each other. In the fandom, the entire experience, atmosphere, the relationship between the two men and the episode, as a whole, is regarded as very homo erotic.

As the series progressed, because of his experience with Zeb, Kallus quietly changes his heart and allegiance to the Rebels and acts as a double agent under the code name ‘Fulcrum’. Eventually, escaping the Empire, he joins the Rebellion and fights alongside the ghost crew to liberate Lothal.

During the epilogue of the series, it is revealed, that after the war, Zeb had brought Kallus to live with him and his people on the hidden Lasat home world of Lira San. Zeb reveals that Kallus hadn’t destroyed his people. His people even accept Kallus as one of their own kind, in an astonishing act of forgiveness, despite his transgressions against their species.

In doing so, Zeb gives his mind, soul and heart peace.

Despite how very homo erotic the overall storyline seems, it ultimately started off unintentionally.

Fans expectations of wanting to see the two get together grew more and more in popularity during the course of the shows run. At fan conventions, voice actor Steve Blum, who provided the voice for Zeb, was also very much inclined to agree with the fans that the relationship between the two characters was indeed romantic in nature. He often advocates, to this day, for the two to get together openly, much to the delight of the fans.

Despite the accidental roots of what the fandom refers to as “Kalluzeb”, The shows creator, Dave Filoni, has stated that he is okay with fans shipping the two characters and revealed that the ending for Zeb and Kallus (which was partly the result of Steve Blum’s wishful thinking at ‘Star Wars Celebration 2017’), was left open ended for viewers to decide wether or not the two were a romantic couple or not.

For the next 5 years, that would be enough.

That is until, the announcement of the ‘Ahsoka’ series, and fans were excited to see their favourite rebels on screen once again.

Before the series started, however, Zeb Orrelios made a surprise, 30 second, live action cameo in the 3rd season of “The Mandalorian”. Zeb was seemingly working as a pilot for the Rebellion, donning a blue pilot suit. This lead to fans excitedly speculate that they would see him again in the “Ahsoka” series. This also had them asking the question: Why wasn’t he with Kallus on Lira San?

Over the course of the next few months, trailers would be released for the ‘Ahsoka’ series as well as character announcements at “Star Wars Celebration” in London. In all of these trailers, the only ‘Rebels’ characters missing were Zeb (and Kallus by extension.)

Upon the release of ‘Ahsoka’, as weeks and episodes have gone by, Zeb and Kallus still have not appeared in the series, nor were they even mentioned (until Zeb was mentioned by name in Episode 7). All the while, various characters from ‘Rebels’, ‘Clone Wars’, and even the film series made cameos and took supporting roles in the story, all the while, leaving Zeb and Kallus unaccounted for. Which is unusual, considering that Zeb and Kallus’ story was one of the most crucial plot points in the ‘Rebels’ story, and yet, here they were being left out of the “Rebels sequel”.

At the same time, it’s typical of Star Wars to do exactly this.

In the original run of ‘Rebels’, Zeb, as a character, was often overlooked and underdeveloped in terms of plot and character development. Originally intended as the comedic relief, it’s safe to say, in Season 1, not much was planned for the character. Season 2 however, is where Zeb truly has his chance to shine. From Saving Ezra and Sabine from Inquisitiors, to finding his secret home planet of Lira San, discovering he’s part of a prophecy and surviving and understanding his worst enemy turned ally, Kallus. It truly is his best season in the shows run.

In seasons 3 and 4, Zeb’s storyline was left pretty much underdeveloped and overshadowed by other plots such as the Jedi storylines, the Maul arc, Hera’s ascension through the ranks of the Rebellion, Sabine’s family conflict on Mandalore and the Liberation of Ezra’s home planet of Lothal. Zeb’s only notable story after season 2, was in the episode “WarHead” in which he was left alone to guard the base with Chopper and AP5, while the others leave to do exercises with recruits in space, almost demonstrating my point exaclty; Zeb gets left behind a lot. The episode made little to no impact on the overall narrative of the story. The only significance being that Thrawn gains a slightly better knowledge of where the Rebel base might be.

If anything, Agent Kallus’ storyline acts as a Zeb storyline extension as it was his kindness that inclines Kallus to change allegiances throughout the course of season 3.

Due to a shorter episode count in season 4, little time was spent on either Zeb or Kallus as the story had to reach its conclusion in a short matter of time. The one saving grace, is that both Zeb and Kallus had several great moments in the finale episode, resulting in their “open to interpretation”LGBTQ ending.

With the previous points in question, it has lead me to believe, that Star Wars might be trying to retcon their “maybe they are, many they’re not”LGBTQ ending and eradicate the possibility of Zeb and Kallus being in a same sex relationship in favour of “straight washing” them.

It wouldn’t be the first time it has happened.

Previously, the characters Poe Dameron and Finn from the Star Wars Sequel Series were supposed to be in a romantic relationship, but Disney never went ahead with it due to fear of loss of box office financial success from less open minded countries. (Which personally, I think is a stupid ass reason, but I digress.) In the past, any LGBTQ characters in Star Wars were often background extras that were on screen for 3 seconds or goofy comedic side characters. Only recently did the franchise include a lesbian couple in the series “Andor”, but all the same, we have yet to see two men in a same sex relationship that are leading characters and not being played for laughs. Lesser minded “fans” also often try discourage any LGBTQ content of any kind in Star Wars and will argue that Zeb and Kallus are just “best buddies”. (Because it’s totally straight to bring your “best buddy” to live with you on your highly secret home planet where your species accepts a human as one of their own kind…Yeah. TOTALLY straight.) To which I say, we’ve seen PLENTY of male friendships in Star Wars and LGBTQ people are not going anywhere, so I strongly suggest those “fans” and their fragile insecurities cop on and cop on FAST.

Only time will tell what happens to Zeb and Kallus as we head in to the final episode of ‘Ahsoka’, but my gut instincts say that we might be seeing history repeat itself. However, with the time passed since 2018, the change in LGBTQ visibility in media over the last half a decade, and the fact that ‘Ashoka’ is not constrained to the barrier of “children’s cartoon” as ‘Rebels’ was, I also chose to remain somewhat optimistic that the canonisation of my favourite Star Wars couple comes to be.

AUTHORS NOTE:

In a surprising twist, whilst writing this essay, the official Star Wars account mentioned the term “Kalluzeb” by name in a promotional video, seemingly giving validation to the canonisation of Zeb and Kallus as a romantic couple. Whilst this is very exciting for the fandom, we must also be sure to hold Star Wars to the mark that they deliver on this name drop.

Putting it simply; No take backs.

FanEdit95.

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Alain Delon, the giant French actor and film producer who worked with some of Europe’s most revered 20th-century directors, died at 88 💔 in Douchy-Montcorbon (Centre-Val de Loire). Celebrated actor and star of Plein Soleil Le Samouraï, The Leopard, and many more, was immortal, his talent, charisma, aura and melancholic unforgettable face shook up our lives and made him destined for a Hollywood career at a young age, but he chose France, which made him an international icon, and earned him enduring popularity.

Born in 1935 in Sceaux in the Paris 🇫🇷 suburbs, Delon was expelled from several schools before leaving at 14 to work in a butcher’s shop. After a stint in the navy - French Navy Fusiliers(during which he saw combat in France’s colonial war in Vietnam), he was dishonourably discharged in 1956 and drifted into acting. He was spotted by the Hollywood producer David O Selznick at Cannes and signed to a contract, but decided to try his luck in French cinema and made his debut with a small role in Yves Allégret’s 1957 thriller Send a Woman When the Devil Fails.

Alain Delon. CLH** ; Born. Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon, actor and film producer received numerous accolades, including Honorary Palme d'Or 2019; National Order of Merit 1995; Cesar Award for Best Actor 1985; Ordre des Arts et des Lettres; David di Donatello Special Award 1972; TIFF Award for Lifetime Achievement 2017; Berlin International Film Festival Award -Honorary Golden Bear 1995; Locarno International Film Festival: Lifetime Achievement Award 2012; Chevalier 1991; Officier 2005

The most beautiful man to ever live.

Alain Delon in his breakout film Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) 1960 ‧ Thriller/Crime. Everything captured in this film is beautiful... the locations, the light, and above all the people. You should watch it... obviously.

Originally the 1960 French thriller Plein Soleil – was remade for a modern audience as The Talented Mr Ripley.

The fictional town Mongibello, where most of the film takes place, was filmed around Naples, Italy. The location adds an exquisite touch to the storyline.

Adieu Alain!

RIP Alain Delon 1935-2024 🥀 🖤

**The National Order of the Legion of Honour 🎖(French: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur) ⚜️ formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour (Ordre royal de la Légion d'honneur), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil and currently comprises five classes. Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, it has been retained (with occasional slight alterations) by all later French governments and regimes.

#Alain Delon #actor #French #filmproducer #Sceaux #Douchy-Montcorbon #PleinSoleil #LeSamouraï #TheLeopard #unforgettable #OrdrenationaldelaLégiond'honneur

Posted 18th August 2024

[astriiformes]

Having some emotions about internet friendship again. As you do.

When I was still in high school, over a decade ago, I got a message from another tumblr user who was excited to see that I headcanoned Luke Skywalker as aro/ace but still enjoyed his relationship with Mara Jade in the Legends books (back then just. the books). We quickly became mutuals and have been in touch ever since -- including through some really rough patches in my life. (I still remember she was one of the people who I messaged with shortly after getting out of the hospital in 2017 when my mental health was seriously dangerous, which meant a lot). The first time we saw each other in person, at Star Wars Celebration in 2019, she picked me up off the floor and spun me around a good five times, we were so excited to hang out.

I'm in Arizona right now, finally seeing her in-person for the second time, and mostly tagging along to a lot of doctors' appointments because she's also the friend of mine who was in the really serious car accident in October. And honestly I'm just so glad to be here with her. Caring so much about people who live so far away is hard at the best of times, and even harder at the worst. But it's so worth it. I have made such good friends online, bonding over such niche, geeky things, and there's just no way to put into words how much that has meant to me over the years.

Life is rough. I wish I could protect everyone I love from having bad things happen to them, but since I can't, I guess I'm just glad I have so many people to love anyways. And especially grateful for the weird little corners where I have met so many of them.

[bedlamsbard]

Hey, big fan, I loved your AU Star Wars fics, by far some of the best stories I've read. So when I saw the trailer for the new Disney show and saw Barriss as an inquisitor I was shocked, was this always the canon? I wondered if you were inspired by some SW novels or is this just a weird coincidence?

Thanks for reading, I'm glad you enjoyed the fic!

Barriss Offee has not appeared in any Star Wars media set after TCW S5 since "The Wrong Jedi" aired in 2013. On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone was written between May 2015 (began posting in July 2015) and October 2018, when the only media that existed that dealt with the Inquisitors was Star Wars Rebels, which introduced the Inquisitor (not yet called the Grand Inquisitor) in 2014 -- you'll note that in Backbone it's the Inquisition rather than the Inquisitorius, which is a name that canon didn't use until much later. Backbone was written so early that canon wasn't even using the Brother/Sister naming conventions that appeared in Rebels S2, which the first few chapters of Backbone predates (it started posting in the summer of 2015). That is the reason that Backbone Inquisitors use naming conventions that the canon Inquisitors do not: because it predates the canon naming conventions.

Back in 2015, there was speculation that the Seventh Sister who appeared in the S2 trailer that aired at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim was Barriss, thus leading to a brief period of time when the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother were known as "Barriss and Clyde" within the fandom, and for a long time afterwards people still called the Fifth Brother Clyde. The Seventh Sister when introduced in the original trailer only appeared helmeted, leading to the speculation that she might be Barriss Offee. When her VA was announced, there was widespread dismay that Sarah Michelle Geller might have replaced Meredith Salenger as Barriss, and at one point Freddie Prinze Jr had to deny that SMG had been recast as Barriss: that was how predominant that theory was. My use of Barriss as an Inquisitor came out of the original "there are more Inquisitors!" reveal from the Rebels S2 trailer but I made the decision back then not to make her the character that would later be known as the Seventh Sister since I was pretty sure canon wasn't going to do that. That decision was not based on anything that was actually in canon and certainly not on any of the novels at the time, because back in 2015 when I started working on Backbone there were only, I think, four new canon books out.

Backbone was, in fact, so early that when I wrote it, Cham Syndulla had not been re-introduced in Rebels -- the episode "Homecoming" aired in February 2016. (He was not actually revealed as Hera Syndulla's father until the April 2015 novel Lords of the Sith; it had previously been speculated he was Hera's uncle, not her father.) It was written years before Jedi: Fallen Order came out and revealed more information about the Inquisitorius, their recruiting patterns, or their headquarters; it also predates the appearance of the Inquisitorius in the 2017 Darth Vader comics.

All that said, it's not really a weird coincidence -- TBB also made Hera's mother green, for example, the same way I made Alecto Syndulla green. (This was more than a year before we saw that portrait in Rebels S3 (October 2016) and even more years before she was actually given a name in TBB.) That Barriss had become an Inquisitor was speculated as soon as the Rebels S2 trailer revealed that the Inquisitor was not the only Inquisitor. (He was not called the Grand Inquisitor in canon until the episode introducing the Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother aired in late October 2015, which by the way Backbone predates. He was introduced in 2014 only as "the Inquisitor," which is why and some older fans will still call him Quizzy.)

Backbone is nine years old. I started working on it in May 2015, even before "The Siege of Lothal" aired. Even though it wasn't finished until 2018, it was fully plotted by the end of summer 2015 and it predates most current Star Wars canon, because the new canon only started in fall of 2014, with the novel Star Wars: A New Dawn and soon afterwards Rebels. There was not much canon then! The Inquisitors were introduced for Rebels! At the time, there was nothing else! All of that stuff we now know about the Inquisitors? It came out well after Backbone started posting. (Hell, Jedi: Fallen Order not only postdates the beginning of Backbone, it postdates the end of Backbone, which was October 2018.)

[shads-shipposts]

Anachronism Ch 1

We did it chat

We surpassed the "Fandom is six people and a shoelace" meme. We are now seven people and a shoelace!

This calls for celebration.

In the form of another full chapter of my fic Anachronism! Unproofread of course, because this page is still the furthest thing from polished and I am to keep it chaotic.

The prologue is here!

CW: Language

Wordcount: 3086

------------------------------------------

It’s all fun and games until it happens to you.

Oh, sure, we’ve all laughed at someone else’s misfortune. I’ve done it, even at the most inopportune of moments. Like a kid tripping and eating asphalt.

Or when a character gets sucked into fanfiction and must survive the HorrorsTM.

I’d read my fair share of those fics in my fair share of fandoms. Star Wars, Assassin’s Creed Three and Four, and Tintin seemed to be the main ones.

Speaking of Tintin…

Maybe it was an odd sort of gift, granted by the universe with her oh so funny sense of humor. College had my stories stuck in a rut, so this could be the big breakthrough to jumpstart my creativity once more. Or this could be karma for never finishing my own universe-yeet Tintin fanfiction.

The Day Karma Bit Back.

I figured my habit of never finishing fics all the way through would eventually bite me in the ass.

I just didn’t imagine it’d be in the form of me waking up in a 1950s style apartment in the Tintin movie, something immediately apparent by the realistic yet stylized environment.

Slowly sitting up in confusion, I peered around at the room.

That only left me more confused when I saw my phone charging on the nightstand, and my laptop charging on a dresser.

Not the weirdest dream I’d ever had, because hellfire I’d had some off the wall ones that no amount of backtracking through my day could explain.

Useful for wilder story concepts, though.

Maybe college had finally pushed me to the breaking point. When I say I contemplated dropping out last Fall… damn those fruit flies and their entire lab-grown lineage to hell.

“Mornin’!”

I yelped and flipped out of the bed as a voice sounded right by my ear. Jumping into a right fighting stance, guard up, I found myself staring at a familiar face.

Not a sailor, or a reporter, or even a Tintin character at all.

Instead, I was looking at one of my characters.

Tan skin, shoulder length black hair that fluffed in every direction, mischievous green eyes, and a body built like a brick shithouse.

“T-… Trevor!?” I sputtered, blinking rapidly as if he were merely an illusion and a few resets would make him disappear.

How was he here? Yeah, sure, he originally started showing up in a Tintin fic snippet I had from like 2017 or 2018, so him in Tintin wasn’t too outlandish… but why was he in my room?

He flopped on my bed, rolling onto his back and grinning up at me.

Hell, those teeth are sharp.

“The creator recognizes me!” He flipped back onto his stomach, pointing a finger gun at me. “Ya know, still waitin’ on you to draw me.”

“Wait-”

“I mean, come on!” Trevor sat up and gestured to himself. “You only just recently settled on a design! I’ve just be a vague consciousness that plagues your story with no set corporeal form, do you know how hard it is to flirt with people like that?”

I shook my head, waving my hands in a weak attempt to get him to stop talking so I could get a word in. “Hold it! What kind of whack-ass dream am I havin’ that you’re in?” I exclaimed. “You’ve never shown up in my dreams!”

Yeah, college really has driven me past the brink of insanity. I’m really out here arguing with a figment of my imagination asking why he showed up.

Ain’t the weirdest dream we’ve had.

True that, but still!

Trevor’s grin, somehow, got wider. “Dream? My dearest creator, this isn’t a dream!” He frowned, scratching behind his ear like a dog. “Though, suppose it is in a way. Dream come true for your hyperfixated self, gettin’ to roam the Tintin movie from 2011! Ya know, the reason you’re writin’?”

I grimaced. “Ugh, please don’t remind me of that old role-play nightmare.”

“Hey, it was a start!”

“A cringey start at that,” I muttered, then shook my head violently to erase it from my brain like an Etch-A-Sketch. “Hey, stop changin’ the subject!”

“What subject?” Trevor asked, an innocent smile on his face.

“The subject of what the hell you’re doing here, in my dream. I know you’re self aware, you little shit.”

“That I am! Well, since you’re so persistent.” Somehow managing a backflip off the bed, he then raised his arms above his head like a successful gymnast.

“Try hard,” I snorted.

“Ah, but who designed me so?”

“Yourself,” I shot back. “I never even created your dramatic ass, you just started showin’ up. Like the personification of the plot or somethin’.”

“Ah, but you can’t say I ain’t useful!”

“Broken clock is right twice a day.”

“I could boot you back to the ‘waking’.” He used air quotes around the word. “World if you’d prefer!” His teeth flashed in a devious grin. “I’m sure the Spring semester would love to welcome you in.”

Nausea rose up my throat and I felt the beginnings of a tension migraine behind my eyes.

“Ugh hard pass.”

“So stay awhile!” Trevor suggested, spreading his arms wide. “Besides, what do you have to lose?” He winked at me. “Like you said, it’s just a dream.”

Boy, I do not like the way you said that.

But, he had a point. Or, I guess my subconscious did. This wouldn’t be the first time I lucid dreamed, or was self aware in a dream. And what else could it be other than a dream?

People didn’t jump between universes. That just wasn’t a thing.

A dream.

That was it.

Just… just a dream.

Given that it was just a dream, wouldn’t hurt to go rambling. It was odd the scene hadn’t shifted yet, since my dreams were usually pretty chaotic, but maybe this was the time for a scene shift.

May as well make the best of it before I wake up on Winter Break again. Happy New Year to me.

“Alright, fine,” I groaned. “I’ll bite.”

“You sure do!” Trevor looked at his watch-less wrist. “Welp, gotta get goin’! Things to do, places to be.”

Really?!

What cosmic entity did I piss off to earn this nightmare?

“Hold it!” I barked, following him as he started for the door. “Can’t I get at least a little explanation?”

“Nope!” Trevor turned to face me, grinning ear to ear. “This is not a well-thought-out and carefully crafted type of fanfic, no no! This is a wild ride of a fic where we just take the cards we’re dealt, and we run with them!” He shrugged. “All there is to it!”

“But-“

“Besides! Explaining things only slows the chaos down, after all no one has time nor patience for exposition dumps. That’s not why they’re here! They’re here for nonsense to fuel their escapism and yearning for found-family that would kill for them!”

“Who the fuck is they?” I exclaimed, gesturing at the empty apartment. “We’re alone.”

“Are we?”

“Hey, don’t pull a Polar Express train hobo,” I said, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Can’t I get a little info?”

“It’s a dream, right? They don’t do info dumped they go straight into the crack!” He held his hand up. “But if you insist.”

The moment he snapped his fingers a wave of images and information slammed into my brain and knocked me off my feet.

Dark alleyways, crowded marketplaces, peaceful courtyards, musty attics, cluttered apartments.

Quick glimpses really, like the faded, hazy memories of dreams. Enough of a visage to distinguish where I was, to feel a sense of familiarity, but not really anything more.

Blurry snapshot rather than a true picture.

Sounds muted and unclear, like hearing things from underwater. Just past the point of deciphering. Voices, lots of those. Gunshots? Yes, those too.

One particular scene came into focus.

The library, its aisles dark and shelves overturned. Books everywhere, some intact some not. Adrenaline pulsing through my veins, something heavy scalding my hand.

A pistol, recently and frequently fired.

Echoes of gunfire, accompanied by yelling. Angry, threatening yelling, the roughness and pitch unmistakably masculine.

Yet there was another above the din, a lighter tone that had yet to really mature into the lower base of a grown adult.

A glance to the side revealed a familiar freckled face and ginger quiff, its owner hunkered down behind an overturned table with me. A flash of white fur near his leg, adding his barks to the cacophony.

Was Tintin shorter than me? No, yes… maybe?

It was always so hard to tell when crouched, as I was all leg and hardly any torso at all.

Height didn’t matter here, but numbers did.

And we were losing.

Tintin grabbed my hand, yanking me towards a fallen shelf as he fired over his shoulder and forced the attackers to take cover.

Were they the sailors? Another faction? Simple thugs?

I didn’t know, and would apparently never know as the scene vanished like a mirage on an old dirt road during a summer heatwave.

In its place came the headache of the century.

“Hellfire,” I groaned, gripping my head. “I know they say to avoid infodumps in stories, but this is a-whole-nother bitch. What the fuck, Trevor?”

I received no answer.

I slowly sat up, cursing as the room spun. “Trevor?”

No one, just me in the room.

One of the windows to the fire escape was open, however, and with great difficulty I got to my feet to see if he’d escaped that way.

You better be gone gone, ‘cause boy if I get my hands on you you’re donezo.

I staggered to the back window, leaning heavily on the windowsill as the low drone of a ship’s horn echoed off the alley walls. A quick scan of the lower street revealed no Trevor, and as I blinked away the spots from my vision I also saw no sign of him along the rooftops.

“Trickster bastard,” I grumbled, rubbing my temple.

Another low drone from a ship caught my attention, and I looked towards the source. Just over the tops of some of the building, I could see the crane arms moving back and forth.

Go.

You know you want to.

It’s a dream, right?

My eyes moved to the sketchpad on my nightstand.

What do you have to lose?

My phone chirped, which was quite odd given I’d had that sucker on silent since 2015. The screen brightened, and as I picked it up, I found myself looking at the lockscreen.

My persona Scarlett Bloodsmoke embracing two dear friends, Thatcher Morgan and Skipper Anders, on the enchanted shores of the dreamrealm.

My eyes drifted to the text alert banner, and my nose wrinkled in a scowl as I read Trevor’s name at the top.

The contents of his text only deepened my frown.

“May as well get reference sketches for the Caroline even though you sink her!”

Of all the character deaths I concocted, the wreck of the Caroline and all the men who went down with her was probably the one that hit me the hardest. It’d been two years since I drafted the scene, and two years since I’d last read it because it was so painful.

It was also the reason I had my phone thrown at me by two of my friends.

Thatcher and Skipper had perished in the wreck, something that would haunt both Scarlett and me.

And got me yelled at by my therapist, but it was honestly very deserved.

I looked again out towards the distant cranes as yet again a ship’s horn echoed off the brick walls like a siren’s call.

This was a dream. It had to be. So any pictures or sketches would remain in my consciousness only as I couldn’t pull them into the real world . But even so…

Dreams had given me very handy inspiration before.

At the very least, I could update the Caroline’s design.

She had her roots in the Karaboudjan anyways, just like Thatcher had his roots in Allan and Skipper had his in Tom.

“Alright,” I muttered, heading to the closet to find something comfy to wear. “Let’s get some inspiration.”

-Allan pov-

The hair caught Allan’s eye first. 

Dark bluish-purple in the shade, a more vibrant reddish-purple in the sun. 

The owner of the hair only piqued his interest more.

He, or she, looked so out of place it was almost hilarious. At least among the dockworkers. She had enough sense to stay out of the way, sticking close to a large wall where she was cloaked mostly in the long, mid-morning shadows cast by the warehouse. But she wasn’t even trying to blend in with the rest of the men, sitting cross legged atop a crate scribbling furiously in a sketchbook.

The odd sight wasn’t exactly concerning, but the fact she frequently looked at the Karaboudjan was. 

Surely she couldn’t be a reporter or journalist. 

Then again, that ginger nuisance Allan and his men ran across near Egypt also didn’t look like a journalist but had caused a world of hurt for Allan’s operations. Looks could be incredibly deceiving. 

But there was something else.

He couldn’t be sure from this distance, but the kid almost looked… familiar? 

Maybe…

No. 

Surely not.

His dream that morning was making him paranoid, that was all. It was embarrassing really, that a simple nightmare had him so rattled he saw Scarlett’s face everywhere now. 

Yet his eyes remained trained on her. 

He had to know. Had to know why the hell she was sketching the ship. 

It was because of her clear fascination and focus on the ship, nothing more. He just needed... needed to keep an eye out. The FBI and Interpol could have spies everywhere. 

It was purely business.

It wasn’t personal.

It wasn’t dire.

It wasn’t Scarlett. 

“Hey, Al, what are ya lookin’ at?” Tom asked, coming up beside him. 

Allan dipped his head towards the kid. “We got a watcher.” 

Another one of Allan’s men, an Australian named Neil, joined them. “Yeah, she’s been there since I started unloadin’.”

Allan glanced at him. “Talk to ‘er?”

Neil shook his head. “Didn’t see a need to. She’s outta the way, and is mindin’ ‘er business. Ain’t botherin’ anyone.” 

Allan turned his attention back to the kid. “Right.” 

“Should I have?” Neil asked. 

“Not sure yet,” Allan replied slowly. 

And he hated that he wasn’t. Uncertainty could put you at risk to be blindsided, and blindsides were a death sentence in Allan’s line of work. 

“Nice hair, though,” Neil commented with a small laugh. “Reminds me of my sister, she always liked dyein’ ‘er hair fancy colors.”

Tom tilted his head as he watched her scribble. “Purple, though? Bit anachronistic, don’t ya think?” 

Neil glanced at Tom and elbowed him with a sly grin. “Didn’t think you could manage big words like that, Tommy.” 

Tom glared at him, clearly fighting down a smile of his own. “Piss off,” he growled, shoving Neil.

“Stow it,” Allan snapped as the pair started going for headlocks and rib shots.

This was just too weird to ignore, too odd to brush off as mere coincidence. 

He had to figure out why exactly she was here, and who exactly she was. 

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked, smacking Neil’s hat off in one last blow.

Tom, you well-meaning but unobservant idiot.

“Look at ‘er face.”

Tom gave him an odd look, but peered across the docks. “Is there… somethin’ I’m lookin’ for?”

“She doesn’t remind you of Scarlett?”

Tom’s eyes widened. “Oh… shit, yeah. I see it now.”

Neil frowned. “Who?”

“Someone we ran across a few months ago. She was…” Allan struggled to find the words to describe her that wouldn’t make him look like a madman spouting about aliens. “Unique.”

“She kinda just vanished without a trace,” Tom added. “We’re still not exactly sure what all happened those few days she was ‘round ‘ere.”

“And you think the sketcher is her?”

Allan shook his head. “Not a chance. Scarlett had some… unmistakable traits.”

“Like what?”

“Not important right now.”

As far as you’re concerned, Neil.

Neil glanced at Tom, clearly hoping the man would shed some light on the First Mate’s statement. When Tom offered nothing, eyes focused on the young woman, Neil looked back at Allan.

“Am I… missin’ somethin’, boss?”

Should he offer a little more information? Neil had proven himself a reliable secretkeeper, and fairly unshakable no matter what Allan threw his way. Harry Hobbs also spoke highly of him, assuring Allan that Neil could be trusted with their… more secretive operation.

“There’s a good chance,” Allan began carefully. “Scarlett wasn’t… earthly.”

Neil blinked. “An alien.”

“She had a bloody tail.”

“A fluffy one,” Tom added. “Black and white striped. Furry feet and ears too.”

“Ah.” Neil looked at the sketcher. “That explains the fascination. Really think this kid has a connection?”

“Think I’ll go find out myself.”

Tom looked at him, somewhat alarmed. “What if she bolts?” He gestured to the both of them. “We’re not exactly the most friendly lookin’.”

“Good point,” Allan muttered, then turned to Neil. “Go try and talk to ‘er.”

Neil wasn’t exactly any less physically imposing than Allan or Tom, but him alone may not be as threatening.

“Keep ‘er distracted, but don’t engage. No threats, got it?”

No need to make a scene, not yet. Usually he wouldn’t care, after all if you acted like you had something to hide people got suspicious, but after his nightmare coincided with Tom’s, he was on edge for anything unusual.

Her face, even from this distance…

It was just so damn close to Scarlett. Blood relation close. 

Could Alphians shift into humans? He thought he recalled Scarlett mentioning that once, but he couldn’t be sure. 

Either way, he could not let this kid escape without seeing if she knew the Alphian. 

“Not… gonna do anythin’ to ‘er, right boss?” Neil asked, a new hardness to his tone. 

“No, she’s not in any danger.” Not yet. “I just have questions for ‘er.”

Neil still didn’t seem convinced. 

“Just go,” Allan ordered. 

As Neil left, Allan turned to Tom. “Alert the boys. Get ‘em to block the exits, but discreetly. Wait for my word, this could be nothin’.” 

Tom nodded and left to carry out the order. 

Allan turned back to watch the kid, eyes narrowed. 

Nothing personal. 

I need answers. 

And you’re not goin’ anywhere until I get them.

[thebetawolfgirl]

His Only Love

Pairing: Timmy/Reader

Warnings: None! Just tooth rotting fluff!

Word Count: 596 words

A/N: I had one idea then ended up going in a completely different direction.

Summary: Timothée reflects on the beginning of his obsession for his only love!

His Only Love

He was in awe of her and he had been since they met in 2017, he was doing press for a movie and she was in the country for a charity event where she was also being recognised for her humanitarian work around the world. Y/N Y/L/N was the most beautiful human being Timmy had ever laid his eyes on. Her kindness and her humility only enhanced her beauty. What he loved most about her was her passion when she spoke about one of her causes, wether that was getting medicine and food supplies to orphans of war in war torn countries or even the wildlife conservation in Botswana, Africa. She was incredible. After their first meeting he tried to learn everything he could about her. That was difficult as she rarely did any interviews, she preferred to do her work quietly and keep her private life private. The rare times she did talk to journalists she kept it about her latest projects and charity events. And even those were far and few between. He found one interview she did on YouTube when she was in the movie White Oleander where she played a small part as one of the bad girls.

He watched that over and over again just to listen to her speak, she was around 14-15 in the interview but she spoke as if she was a grown woman, wise beyond her years and older than she actually was.

Timothée was fascinated by her.

He knew he had to see her again, maybe ask her out for dinner or even a coffee. He just wanted to talk to her about anything and everything, even if they talked about the weather.

His first time at the Oscars she was there with her brother. She was presenting an award for Best Actor. He watched her talking briefly to a few journalists on the red carpet and then moved on to the long line of screaming fans. The amount of time she spent with the fans and stood and spoke to them, amazed Timmy. He pointed her out to his parents and told his mother that this was the woman he had been telling them about! His mother just smiled knowingly and patted his cheek lovingly. He watched her one stage, completely in awe of her. He was so busy watching y/n he didn’t even hear his name being called until he felt his co-star slap him on the shoulder. She was presenting the award to him. She wrapped his arms around him tightly and whispered in his ear ‘Congratulations Timmy I’m so proud of you’. He hugged her back smiling and made his speech then went backstage with y/n and began a conversation with her.

That was four years ago. After months of going back and forth she finally agreed to go on a date with him and they became inseparable and been together ever since. She stuck with him through all the PR relationships assuring him she knew what they had was strong! They kept their relationship private despite rumours going around and tabloids trying to catch them together, they succeeded in staying under the radar.

Tonight they were both at the same event celebrating more of her achievements and he couldn’t be happier. He loved celebrating her and worshiping her. He was in awe of her just as he was four years ago. And he would continue to be so when they were old and grey sitting on their front porch watching their grandchildren grow up.

@gatoenlaciudad @sufferingstarlight @lixzey @kteezy997

[fort-cozy-mcblanket]

As of The Change Constant, Sheldon and Amy have had coitus 12 times. But do we know all 12 times? 

The Shamy Coital Count: What We Know, What We Don’t, and What We Can Wildly Speculate

1. Amy’s 36th Birthday The Opening Night Excitation

Date: December 17th, 2015 Location: Amy’s bed in her apartment #314

Obviously we all know the first time. Sheldon skipped the advance screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens to be with Amy on her birthday, and coitus was his gift to her. It is implied that it lasted for approximately the runtime of the movie, which is 2 hours and 16 minutes. When they are done, Sheldon says he looks forward to her next birthday when they will do it again, to which Amy agrees. 

2. Amy’s 37th Birthday The Birthday Synchronicity

Date: December 17th, 2016 Location: Apartment 4B, most likely on Sheldon and Amy’s shared bed

Per their verbal agreement after their first time, Sheldon and Amy do not have coitus again until Amy’s next birthday. Sheldon wakes Amy up right at midnight for it, however they are interrupted by Bernadette going into labor. They do not end up doing it until after the birth and after returning from a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Harry Potter roleplay may or may not have been involved. 

3. Amy Leaves for Princeton The Gyroscopic Collapse

Date: May 6th, 2017 (estimated) Location: Sheldon and Amy’s shared bed in apartment 4B

Amy is offered a summer research fellowship at Princeton, and they break their rule of only having coitus on her birthday to do it once before she leaves. This is the first time we hear Sheldon refer to it as “lovemaking.” They fold their clothes neatly before they do it. Leonard, Penny, and Raj hear them going at it from out in the hallway of the apartment building. The exact date this occurs is uncertain, but if we assume the episode’s airdate of May 4th, 2017, to be the date at the start of the episode, they have coitus 2 days later on May 6th, 2017. 

4. Amy’s 38th Birthday The Celebration Reverberation

Date: December 17th, 2017 Location: Unoccupied bedroom in Howard and Bernadette’s house

Back to tradition, the next time they have coitus is on Amy’s birthday. It almost didn’t happen, as the day prior they both got food poisoning from the Little House on the Prairie-inspired frontier dinner Sheldon prepared. They were still sick that morning, but felt good enough later in the day to attend Halley’s first birthday party. At the party, while everyone else is distracted by the baby, Sheldon and Amy jump in the inflatable bounce house and then find an unoccupied bedroom for their own celebration. This is the first known time they do it as an engaged couple and the first known time they do it outside of one of their own bedrooms. 

5. Wedding Night The Bow Tie Asymmetry/The Conjugal Configuration

Date: May 12th, 2018 Location: Hotel room outside of Legoland California

Per The Athenaeum Allocation, we know Sheldon and Amy got married on May 12th. Nothing beyond the wedding ceremony is shown in The Bow Tie Asymmetry, but when we see them again in The Conjugal Configuration they are just waking up the next morning. Sheldon confirms that they consummated. Apparently Sheldon made Lego snapping sounds during the consummation. 

6. Honeymoon in New York The Conjugal Configuration

Date: May 15th, 2018 Location: Hotel room in New York City

Sheldon and Amy get into an argument over Sheldon’s need to schedule their coital encounters, and this comes to a head while they are on the Nikola Tesla tour. Later, they reach a compromise and decide that Sheldon can make a schedule and just not tell Amy about it. He plans to create an algorithm that will generate a pseudo-random schedule to accomplish this, and Amy’s explanation of why it cannot be a true random schedule excites him so much, they rush back to the hotel so she can explain it to him again naked. 

7. Three Weeks Ago The Donation Oscillation 

Date: January 19, 2019 (estimated) Location: Unknown, but most likely their shared bed in apartment 4B

When Leonard goes to apartment 4B to get away from Penny, who was trying to seduce him, Amy asks him why he is trying to avoid having sex. Sheldon, mistakingly thinking the question was directed at him, says they just did it three weeks ago. The exact date this occurred is uncertain. Based on the airdate and events of the episode, they had this conversation on February 9th, 2019. Three weeks prior would be Saturday, January 19th, 2019. 

Because this is a seemingly insignificant date, this could be one of Sheldon’s randomly scheduled sessions. It is important to note, though, that this does fall around the events of the Confirmation Polarization, where their super-asymmetry theory is proven by Drs. Pemberton and Campbell and they decide to fight them for the Nobel Prize. Perhaps they made love to celebrate that their theory got proven? Or as a physical manifestation of their commitment to either win the Nobel together or not at all? Something to think about. 

8 & 9. The Avengers Trailer The Change Constant

Date: December 7th, 2018 or March 14th, 2019 (estimated) Location: Unknown, but most likely their shared bed in apartment 4B

When Penny says Sheldon has had sex almost as many times as she has fingers, Sheldon corrects her and says it was more by two, thus bringing the grand total up to 12. He then goes on to say it was because of the Avengers trailer. The dialogue is a little ambiguous, but this implies that those two extra times are both because of the trailer. I’m going to go ahead and count them both here, because that is my interpretation and also because I think it’s funny that seemingly the first time they go two rounds is because Sheldon got too excited about a movie trailer release. 

Anyway, most likely Sheldon is referring to Avengers: Endgame, which hit theaters April 26th, 2019. The first trailer was released on December 7th, 2018, which potentially puts this prior to the previous list entry. However, considering this the events of the Change Constant take place in October 2019 (due to the Nobel ceremony taking place in December every year and this episode being set two months prior to that), it’s a little strange that Sheldon would bring up an example from so long ago. It’s possible too that it could have been the release of the second Endgame trailer on March 14, 2019, although that still is quite some time ago. (Unsure about any subsequent trailers.) Then again, perhaps Sheldon just knew that Penny was unaware of these two instances in particular, eidetic memory and all that.

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So, that brings us up to 9 confirmed coital encounters. What about the other 3? 

Well, I have some suggestions . . .

10. Amy’s 39th Birthday

Date: December 17th, 2018 Location: Unknown

Although Amy was not given a birthday episode in season 12, I feel very confident in saying this was one of the missing instances. It’s their tradition, after all. In the timeline of the show, this would fall somewhere between the VCR Illumination and the Paintball Scattering, so while they’re still working on their super-asymmetry paper, before it was published. 

11. Honeymoon Round Two

Date: May 14th - May 20th 2018 (estimated) Location: Hotel room in New York City

This is less of a sure thing than Amy’s birthday, but I still think it is likely that they did it another time while away on their honeymoon. Actually, I originally was counting their arrival in New York as a confirmed coital encounter, as Sheldon says they can either make love or steam their wizard robes once the bellman leaves them alone in their room. I ended up removing it as the dialogue is just ambiguous enough that I can’t say for sure, plus when they get back from the Harry Potter play they are wearing the same clothes and the bed looks untouched. I could see Sheldon wanting to remake the bed after sex, but putting back on the same clothes that they assumedly also were traveling in earlier? In any case, if not on their arrival, I think they could have found at least one more time to do it before leaving, especially considering Sheldon originally scheduled multiple rounds for them. It’s unclear exactly how long their honeymoon was, but I assume it would be for at least a week, hence the date range. 

12. Randomly Scheduled Session

Date: Unknown but between May 21st, 2018 and early-middle October 2019 Location: Unknown

I know this isn’t terribly exciting, but the final time was likely due to the pseudo-random schedule Sheldon said he was going to create. Assuming he created one at all, it would almost have to be, as there’s only one other instance that could qualify as part of the schedule (the “three weeks ago” one discussed earlier). Clearly the dates are pretty spread out, so whatever algorithm he created must be set to generate dates at a fairly low frequency. But you could also disregard my additional honeymoon suggestion and say the remaining 2 were from the schedule. 

Other opportunities that I think are less likely but still possible:

The Nobel announcement - This could have worked except remember that the announcement came in the very early hours of the morning and then they still went to work. Would they have had time to make love and still get some sleep in? Uncertain.

Wedding anniversary - Because the last two episodes had to skip ahead in time, Sheldon and Amy’s first wedding anniversary is not mentioned, but this does seem like a likely time for them to do it. 

Valentine’s Day - They never had coitus on Valentine’s Day before but there’s no reason they couldn’t start.

Amy’s return from Princeton - Seems like a great way to welcome Amy home and get reacquainted, but I do get the impression that Sheldon was still more or less sticking to the birthday tradition at this point with only the one exception before she left. 

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So, now that we’ve covered all that, where do we go from here?

The Future of Shamy Coitus

Sheldon and Amy started out having sex only once a year, but the number has been increasing. Here’s the information above placed into a handy graph:

I made some executive decisions for the dates we are unsure on. For the Avengers trailer instance, I split the 2 rounds between the 2 possible dates, and for the unknown 12th time, I placed it in 2019. 

Now, this is just for the 12 times Sheldon mentioned as of October 2019. The year wasn’t over, and I personally believe they manage a few more times before it ends. In particular: 

Make up coitus when Sheldon returns to the apartment after the Change Constant

Celebratory coitus after the Nobel Prize ceremony

Amy’s 40th birthday

So here’s a new graph:

Again, this is just speculative. 

I would like to think it continues to increase for a few years, but perhaps that’s wishful thinking on my end. At the very least, I think it’s safe to say they continue the tradition of birthday coitus for Amy, and so it never drops down to zero. 

Keep in mind, we know from Young Sheldon that Sheldon and Amy have children. How this affects their sex life is hard to say. Would the count jump way up when they’re trying to conceive? Would it drop down significantly while the children are young? Would Sheldon continue using his randomly scheduled coitus algorithm once they have a family? Would they need it?

No one knows, but perhaps as new episodes of Young Sheldon continue to air, we can get a better idea. It remains to be seen. But here’s to hoping!

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