#Theater Virtual Tours

[squeeb100]

Sitting on my frontier arlines flight hungry and in pain and taking a virtual tour of the world's most ridiculous $14.5 million dollar golden oaks Disney home

[soon-palestine]

So it turns out that Elons trip to Israel wasn't just for kosher theater and an IDF propaganda tour.

A secret meeting took place while he was there that went virtually unreported by any news media outlets.

In attendance was Netanyahu, Musk's tour organizer, investor Omri Casspi, Brigadier General Danny Gold, Head of the Israeli Directorate of Defense Research & Development and one of the developers of Iron Dome, Aleph venture capital funds partner Michael Eisenberg, and Israeli cybersecurity company CHEQ CEO Guy Tytunovich who is ex-israeli intelligence unit 8200.

The six men talked about technology in the service of Israel's defense, dealing with fake content and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments, and the use by non-democratic countries of bots as part of campaigns to change perceptions, including on the X platform.

The solution Musk was presented was the Israeli unicorn CHEQ, a company founded by ex-Israeli intelligence unit 8200 CEO Guy Tytunovich that combats bots and fake users.

Following the meeting, Elon signed an agreement with cheQ, and apparently, the reason for the quick closing of the deal was Elons "direct involvement" with the company.

Now. What they won't tell you.

Israel is primarily responsible for the creation of bots. There currently exists dozens of ex-Israeli intelligence firms whose sole purpose is perception management, social media influencing/manipulation, disinformation campaigns, psychological operations, opposition research, and honey traps.

They create state of art, multi layer, AI avatars that are virtually indistinguishable from a real human online. They infiltrate target audiences with these elaborately crafted social-media personas and spread misleading information through websites meant to mimic news portals. They secretly manipulate public opinion across app social media platforms.

The applications of this technology are endless, and it has been used for character assassination, disruption of activism/protest, creating social upheaval/civil unrest, swaying elections, and toppling governments.

These companies are all founded by ex-Israeli intelligence and members of unit 8200. When they leave their service with the Israeli government, they are backed by hundreds of billions of dollars through Israeli venture capital groups tied to the Israeli government.

These companies utilize the technology and skills learned during their time served with Israeli intelligence and are an extension of the Israeli government that operates in the private sector.

In doing so, they operate with impunity across all geographical borders and outside the bounds of the law. The Israeli government is forbidden by law to spy on US citizens, but "ex" Israeli intelligence has no such limitations, and no laws currently exist to stop them.

Now back to X and Elon Musk.

Elon met with these people in secret to discuss how to use X in service of Israel's defense.

Elon hired an ex-Israeli intelligence firm to combat the bots…. that were created by another ex-israeli intelligence firm.

Elon hired an ex-israeli intelligence firm to verify your identity and collect your facial biometric data.

Do you see the problem yet?

Israel now has end to end control over X. Israel can conduct psychological operations and create social disinfo/influence campaigns on X with impunity. They now have facial biometric data from millions of people that can be used to create and populate these AI generated avatars.

They can manipulate public opinion, influence congressmen and senators, disrupt online movements, manipulate the algorithm to silence dissenting voices against Israel, and they can sway the US elections.

When the company that was hired to combat the bots is also Israeli intelligence…

Who is going to stop them?

Cyberspace is the wild.west. There are currently no laws on the books to regulate foreign influence on social media. There is nothing to stop them from conducting psychological operations and disinformation campaigns on unsuspecting US citizens. These companies operate with impunity across all geographical boundaries and there is nobody to stop them. But don't take my word for it.

For anyone wondering what the end game is for this, it was recently verbalized by Vivek Ramaswamy here on X. To narrow and completely eliminate the gap between what we say (think) in private and in public. In practice, the thought police of the future. And X is actively working on it.

[notearsnora]

You can now take a virtual tour of Elphaba’s and Galinda’s dormitory at the Shiz University website!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

by: Beck Levy

“Maybe now vocalists will finally start bringing their own mics,” I tweeted in the first days of March 2020. My virtual audience was mostly friends I met by participating in subcultures in and adjacent to the DIY tendency of hardcore punk rock. In those early days, we on the cultural fringes shared a sense that the pandemic, in its capacity as a social intervention, could meaningfully disrupt the oppressive ruling order.

When I booked and played shows before COVID-19 hit, I tried to harness energy and rally when crisis arose. Touring band is lost on the road? I was ready to DJ to keep people from leaving between sets. No one came to unlock the club? Let’s play in the parking lot. The last show I’d played, just weeks earlier during Mardi Gras, was on a trailer being pulled by a dump truck. We’re responsive to shifting circumstances, right?

I couldn’t get a clear look at the new terrain through the brutal haze of my first-wave infection. I was disoriented, waking up breathless, fevered, delirious from nightmares about drowning in my own blood. I could not fathom taking any action that would contribute to COVID-19 circulating, and my symptoms made me believe I would be a risk to my community. With home tests scarce, every flare had me conceiving of myself as though I might be a biological weapon.

Friends texted their fears to me frantically: “Is music over? Are shows done?” I thought back to informal and unconventional gigs, the freedom and potentiality those moments held, and reassured my friends, sequestered in our separate biomes. I said and believed: “Music always finds a way, youth culture always finds a way, underground culture always finds a way.”

Slowly, reimagined, remote, and socially-distanced events returned. In lieu of Jazz Fest, New Orleans radio station WWOZ charmed us with “festing in place” on the airwaves. I did a solo set in a virtual anniversary showcase for my old record label. Another friend live streamed a show from a cavernous church. I’d guessed performances mediated by technology might salt the wound, but desperate for connection, I treasured those experiences.

I watched my place in the world creep away from me. There were rumors of scandalous secret shows during lockdown. But the first real sign was pictures on Instagram of people traveling and touring again. Scroll to that last image: a row of COVID-19 tests, all negative, smug. Or positive, chagrined but only a little; a mismatch to the scale of: “For fun I traveled as a disease vector and personally participated in the proliferation of an airborne pathogen that can kill or maim.” Was it a character limit? A limitation of character?

The world passed me by, carouseling through normalization phases, like COVID-19 tests phasing their way out of tour posts. I watched scenes regroup from my new vantage point in biopolitical exile. Pandemic gloom catalyzed a spate of reunions, which is wholesome and beautiful except for the fact that at least one band knowingly toured with a member who tested positive.

Was I overreacting? While COVID-19 left me with an immune system that attacks my body, my mind attacked itself with this question. I’d traded amps for this mental feedback loop. The counterargument was implicit: people need unfettered access to music more than we need safety.

Live music came back. It just didn’t bring me with it.

I didn’t see a critical mass of bookers, venues, or bands advocating for COVID-19 safety with measures like outdoor shows, improved ventilation, livestream options, or just adding tests and masks to the earplug bin at the door. Some hand disinfectant; a little hygiene theater at conventional venues. The will just wasn’t there. I thought our deal was fuck the state, we’ll do it our way. I found myself slipping through the subcultural safety net that exists for outcasts who are slipping through the cracks of mass culture and late capitalism.

Of course, punk was already inaccessible to some. And I actually believe a certain amount of gatekeeping is necessary to protect punk from posers, jerks, and cops. But among the nebulous community clustered around shows, the sexism and racism people have experienced has always been very real, to the tune of entire zines, books, films about that exclusion. I monitored my heartbreak, critically. Resource-scarce, informal, and underground operations often exist at a quagmire of conflicting access needs. Was the sting of betrayal just this painful because it affected me, directly? Can the subaltern mosh?

There was a brief period where my baseline had plateaued, and I enjoyed medium-functionality between flares. Clinging to my modest recovery, a memorial service was my first congregant risk. That was the last time I tried to play guitar. I got the twisties, psychic vertigo from grief and from the contradiction of my setting and my experience, but the band played on, complete with a brass section. And at that otherwise beautiful event, I was ceremoniously reinfected by an asymptomatic tuba player. My health has been steadily deteriorating ever since.

Isolation is hard: it can feel like rejection, it can feel real personal. I struggled to adapt. I know I can have a persecution complex, but I also know I’m materially being made surplus. So what do I tell the complex? Are people being thoughtless, or do they explicitly not give a fuck about immunocompromised people like me?

Life is never totally safe, danger is often exciting, sometimes risk is the point. I know that. I’m not (just) a joyless scold. In the era of potentially deadly airborne pathogens, we’re playing with other lives when we make “individual” health decisions—I thought we’d learned that, but there was no such reckoning.

Punks accepted the sociological production of the end of the pandemic, moving in lockstep with the state, sacrificing medically vulnerable people on the altar of pleasure, just as the state had sacrificed us on the altar of capital. I thought our ingenuity would create new forms of shows. Instead, it exposed our limits under duress. To quote the band Allergic to Bullshit, “If this is what we’re for, this is what we’ll get.”

Maybe my shock seems naïve—after all, there’s a difference between “subculture” and “counterculture”—but there’s a reason I expected better. There are visionaries with love, passion, and fearlessness who organize shows in strip malls, caves, skateparks, churches, parking garages; shows with immediacy like distributing free Narcan, and conviction, like benefits toward Palestinian liberation. I await, with diminishing faith, the eruption of that tendency in the bioethical arena.

Since immune ableism is hegemonic, congregating is a question of building a realistic threat model, making decisions with people who are directly impacted by your actions, and taking all possible precautions. I’m encouraged by radical formations with accessibility modifications, particularly those connecting social abandonment, climate crisis, and genocide. I see this reflected in art book fairs that require masking, outdoor Shabbatot, test-first leftist reading groups. Queer and drag events are making adjustments. Mask blocs and clean air clubs collaborate, with limited resources, to make spaces more accessible. These are people who insist on collective health, demanding freedom to live and breathe clean air.

For those of us with severe Long COVID, exclusion from live music represents a profound loss of humanity. This disconnection feeds into my daily despair; in medical terms, my depersonalization/derealization. Having hoped this crisis would push us closer to communism than complacency, I feel whiplash, what Naomi Klein calls “political vertigo.” Millions of Americans with Long COVID have disappeared from the workforce. Data on the underground music scene are unavailable. It’s hard to count ghosts. I’ve wanted to ask: Have you noticed that some of us are gone? Do you ever miss us?

Four years later, I still can’t even make it to a well-filtered show. My last recreational outing ended in hospitalization from merely ascending a steep hill. I hear about shows from my roommate, the only person I see, who is also the only masked person at them. I tell myself I could try to go to an outdoor gig one day, maybe, if my governing health planets aligned. Instead of being an active musician, I pretend I’m like Jandek, a reclusive genius, but really I’m too clumsy and unfocused to play at home.

I do what I do with everything: act like I’m in a different world. It’s not difficult, because I am. The Well do their thing out there, I do mine in here. I moved across the country in search of better healthcare and, homebound, routinely forget I’m not still in New Orleans. Either way I am inside. I gave up and I don’t fight the world leaving me behind. I am back here, rolling the boulder of my body up steep hills.

In spite of everything, I’m glad shows continue. It’s bittersweet comfort knowing freaks are getting raucous in basements, with noise made by other freaks, sprayed with wet yells, aggressively jostling with teens; in a reprieve from control, experiencing music together. I’d die for your right to do that. And thanks to you, I just might.

[silentglassbreak]

Oh babe I hope I can make it!!😂💗

How about Noah dating firefighter? I love women in those fields, they are queens!

Maybe some angst like Noah being away on tour and reader having hard days at work, trying to hold it in cause she doesn't want to worry Noah when he's away, but she's avoiding daily facetime calls lately and Noah gets worried?

Doesn't have to be angst, I'll leave it up to you!

Thank you💗

Wow! We’ve finally made it to your ask, love! I’m sorry for how long it’s taken, but I promise to give this one some extra love - just for you! 😘

After Writing Notes: don't hate me

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Uhm...all of'em. No smut this time. Stressful situations. Angst. Mentions of death. Injury. Hospital setting. Burns.

All You Wanted

Noah was having a really bad day.

Not just shitty, or annoying, or rough.

Bad. Plain and simple.

First, his car wouldn’t start. He tried to turn it over so many times he killed what little juice was left in the battery. No one else was home to give him a ride to the auto parts store, so he had to call an Uber - heavy battery with him - to pick up a fresh one. After the new one was installed, and his car was back in commission, he realized that had taken up two hours.

Next, due to the car issues, he was late to the movie he planned to go see. By the time he was able to make his way to the theater, it was already half over. Rather than wait for another showtime, he elected to not even bother. He was too irritated to enjoy a movie.

Then, as he tried to relax at home and let the frustration of the day pass, he managed to spill his bowl of cereal all over his carpet.

“Did I break glass, or something?” He wondered too himself as his shop vac sucked up the milk and soggy Cinnamon Toast Crunch off of the floor.

However, his day was due to get worse, much to his dismay. He didn’t realize it, but when he set his bowl on his nightstand next to the bed, he slid the candle he kept there over as well. That would’ve been no issue, normally. However, in his haste to grab the vacuum before the milk set in to the carpet, he flung his duvet over the nightstand…

The smell of smoke wafted through his room, and he was almost too angry to notice it. Once he did, he turned to see the corner of his blanket on fire, spreading slowly to the rest of his bed.

Jumping back, he yelped in horror.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” He screamed, grabbing the water bottle he kept on his computer desk and spraying the half-empty contents onto the blaze.

It did virtually nothing, and he groaned, darting downstairs. Faster than he thought he could, he ran to the kitchen and grabbed the extinguisher from under the bathroom sink.

By the time he made it back to his bedroom, his entire bed was ablaze, pillows smoking heavily, and bed frame catching.

“Fuck!” He pulled the pin on the extinguisher, releasing the fog desperately, losing his breath as the mixture of fire retardant and smoke filled his lungs.

“Dude!” A voice came behind him, and he turned to see Jolly staring at him, grocery bag still in hand, a look of shock on his face.

Noah was coughing harshly now as Jolly’s hands came to wrap around the extinguisher.

“Go! Go outside and call 911! You need to breathe!”

Noah just nodded, backing out of the room and swiping his phone off of the desk. As he made his way down, his fingers dialed.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Noah and Jolly sat on the tailgate of Jolly’s pickup, staring at the house. Smoke still billowed out of the upstairs window of Noah’s room, and firefighters moved in and out of the house periodically.

The fire was out, but they still wouldn’t allow the men inside as they cleared it.

Noah’s room was about 50% burned, as he was told by the fire Captain. Luckily, the burn was contained to the bedroom, and nowhere else in the house sustained more than smoke damage. It was a relief, but also devastating. He didn’t know how much he lost of his belongings, but - at the very least - he’d be sleeping on the couch for a while.

“Guys?” Both of their heads looked up, seeing you stood in front of them. Your face still had soot coating your cheeks, and your hair was disheveled from the helmet you wore. “We’ve got the house secured and stabilized, so I’ll be able to take you in soon. The room will be off limits until the Fire Marshall can come through and confirm no structural damage to the walls or ceiling. We’ll seal it.”

Noah’s eyes fixed on you, wondering how, despite the gray cast on your skin and obvious sweat sheen on your forehead, you could manage to be so cute. You weren’t petite, per se, but you were small. Smaller than what he’d expected in a fire fighter. You stood with your shoulders square and tall, all business. The frayed, frizzy hair on your head was pulled back in a low ponytail.

“Have you both been checked out by EMS?” You pointed to both Noah and Jolly, and the two of them nodded in response. “Good. You want to take a look?”

Jolly clapped a hand to Noah’s shoulder, and hopped off of the truck. Following suit, Noah paced slowly behind both yourself and his brother, the guilt creeping in.

He had set his house on fire…

His home. His sanctuary. His haven. He lit it on fucking fire.

This was some kind of cosmic metaphor for his luck, right? That’s how his entire day had been…a dumpster fire.

Following you into the house, and trekking up the stairs, the guys stopped at the doorway to Noah’s room. Two additional firemen were poking around, checking for any embers.

First thing Noah noticed was that his bed was gone. Not burnt…gone. Reduced to ash on what used to be the carpet beneath it. The raw wood flooring was below, blackened. His nightstand was charred pretty badly, but one side of it was still the red oak color it was previously. His computer desk seemed virtually untouched, and he breathed relief from his lungs.

“Whose room is it?” You looked between the two boys, and Jolly looked at Noah from the side of his eyes. With a heavy sigh, Noah raised his hand begrudgingly. “Okay. If you need anything out of here, now is the time. We’ve taped off the areas you cannot walk in at all, so don’t step over the tape. Other than that, go ahead and grab your stuff.”

Noah nodded, taking a careful step into the room, the floor creaking with his weight. He clenched his jaw, and walked over to his laptop, pulling it from the desk and unplugging the charger. He gathered several other things he assumed he’d need for the next day or so, and stepped back out.

“The Marshall will be able to come by in the morning to inspect. After that, you can begin getting the repairs done.”

“Thank you.” He spoke to you directly, but didn’t look at you. Jolly had retreated to his own room, shutting the door behind him.

“Hey?” He looked up at you, eyes saddened. “You going to be okay?”

He nodded, moving past you down the hall. You followed him. “Yeah. Just kind of jarring. I’ve never had a fire before.”

You both padded down the stairs. “I get that.”

His shoulders bounced as he walked, and even three to four steps ahead, he was taller than you. You took note in your head of how large he was, and it made you smirk.

“You sure you're going to be alright?”

He didn’t answer verbally, rather just shrugged his shoulders and dropped his items on the couch. You began making your way toward the door, but turned around to look at him.

“Just out of curiosity,” His eyes flashed to look at yours, and you couldn’t help but notice that, like the rest of him, they were so big. “What started the fire? We couldn’t find the ignition source. We just knew it started on the bed.”

He scratched the back of his head, his lips turning up in a nervous smile.

“A candle.”

You raised your eyebrows. “A candle? On the bed?”

He shook his head. “No, it was on the nightstand. I dropped my blanket over it on accident, I think.”

Teeth biting into your lower lip, you suppressed the laugh that was bubbling in your chest. What an interesting way to start a fire? You had heard a lot of candle-related incidents, but this was a first.

"Well, probably best to not have candles in the room anymore?"

His eyes widened, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Never burning another candle again, actually."

You couldn't help it, the giggle escaped without being able to catch it. "Alright, well be careful in that room, okay?"

He acknowledged you silently, and you wanted to turn to leave, but you were distracted by the walls, decorated with framed vinyl, guitars, and magazine covers blown up to poster-size. You noticed in some of the photographs, him and the other man were posed with two other guys.

You pointed a finger to the poster directly in front of you. "You in a band or something?"

He smirked, leaning back on his heels. "Something like that?"

Nodding, you heard Ramos, your Captain, calling for you from outside.

"Well, what's it called? I'll listen to it."

"Bad Omens."

Turning your body toward the door, you probed a little further. "Right on. Rock, I assume?"

He nodded. "Metal."

Your teeth flashed, and you saw his eyes light up just a little. "Nice." Your name was called from outside again. "I didn't catch your name?"

You held your hand out for him to shake, and he took it gracefully.

"Noah."

His hand gave yours a firm shake. "Y/N. Nice to meet you, Noah."

With that, you began heading for the door.

"Uh," His voice chimed behind you, and you turned your neck back to him. "Could I, maybe, get your number?"

Your chest warmed, and the grin that spread across your face threatened to break your jaw bone. You thought about it for a moment, pulling your brows together. That was a bit forward, so you responded as appropriately as you could.

"125." And you began walking away.

"Wait, what?"

Still walking through the door, you turned around, and waved. "You'll figure it out."

It took three days. Three long, annoying days for him to figure it out.

But he did.

You were sat in the dorm, shaking off the two hours of sleep you had achieved before the alarm woke you up. It wasn't your turn to head out, but there was no sleeping through that noise. The last twenty-six hours had been grueling, and you couldn't wait to get through the next ten, and go home for your two days off.

You stalked into the kitchen, waiving at Gillman and Reed in the training room. The coffee was heavenly, warming your insides enough to fully wake.

"Y/L/N?" Your head cocked to the bay door, Ramos standing on the other side. You had your hips leaned against the counter, and you were too tired to stand at full attention. "There's someone here asking for you."

Cocking an eyebrow, you huffed away from the countertop, setting your coffee down, and walked to the door. Who the hell was going to come see you at work?

You pushed the heavy door open, and behind it, stood right next to engine #14, was a tall, brown-eyed boy, smiling at you. It had been such a long few days, you had honestly forgotten about your encounter with him back at his house. After you finished up the paperwork, it had been jammed into the back of your head.

"Hey?" You asked, crossing your arms in front of you. "I see you figured it out?"

He nodded, pursing his lips. "Station 125. Yep, took me a while."

Shaking your head, you laughed. "Well, what can I do for you?"

In his hand, he held a small brown paper bag, and presented it in front of him. "For you."

"What's this?"

Smirking, he handed you the gift. "Just a token of my gratitude."

Unfolding the top, you scoffed when you saw what was inside.

"A candle?"

He snorted. "Not just any candle." He took it from your hands, showing the label. "This is a WoodWick Sagewood scented candle." He placed it back in your hands. "It's exactly the same as the one that burned my bedroom down."

You laughed at this, gawking at the glass in your hand. "And why did you want me to have one?"

Suddenly, he looked unsure. "I had a really cool, witty reason, when I picked it up at the store. I can't seem to remember now, though." He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "To be honest, it's my favorite scented candle."

You nodded, recognizing the sweet gesture. "Thank you."

It fell quiet between you both, and you put the candle back in the bag.

"So." You set the bag down on the step of the engine, and recrossed your arms.

"So." He repeated. His eyes darted around the bay, taking all of it in. "You're a fire fighter, huh?"

This made you outright cackle. "Yeah? What gave me away?"

He sighed out a defeated chuckle. "Yeah, that was a dumb question."

"Why did you come here, Noah? Just to give me a candle?"

He shook his head, hands buried in his pockets once again. "No, I uh," He took a deep breath and looked at you. "I came to ask you on a date."

Your eyebrows shot up. "A date?"

"Mhm." Noah chewed on the inside of his cheek.

"Noah, you know nothing about me."

He leaned forward for emphasis. "Right, usually what people do on dates - " He put a hand up to gesture between you. "get to know each other."

Well, hard to argue that.

"I mean, you don't know if I'm married or have a boyfriend."

"Do you?" He didn't seem bothered by your statement, his question sounding more like a formality.

"Well, no."

"You're allowed to say no." He smiled, then. It was genuine, and it made one of your own creep onto your face.

"I wasn't going to."

6 Months Later

"Noah, it's not that big of a deal." You trudged through the airport toward the Delta desk, and stood behind at least twelve people, your phone pressed firmly to your cheek.

"It's a huge deal, babe!" He sounded so exasperated. "I haven't seen you in two weeks, and I miss you!"

You giggled, leaning your head back. "I miss you too, honey, but shit happens. I'll catch the next available flight, and I'll be there before you know it."

"Think they'll have another one today?" You glanced around the airport, seeing the groups of displaced, disgruntled passengers.

"With this storm? It's doubtful. I overheard one of the workers saying winds were as strong as one hundred miles per hour."

"Okay, but once you're up at altitude, none of that matters."

You rolled you eyes. "Can't get up to altitude if the plane blows out of the sky, babe."

"I know, I know. I'm just pissed off."

The line was crawling, but you were slowly getting closer to the desk.

"It's alright. I'll make something happen, okay? As soon as I have news, I'll call you?"

"Okay, babe. I love you."

Your face blushed. You still weren't used to that. "Love you too."

You disconnected the call and took a deep breath.

The woman working for Delta Airlines looked as stressed as a person could be without physically combusting.

"Hello, are you here about the cancelled flight?" You just nodded, showing your boarding pass on your phone. "Okay. Well, all of our flights have been cancelled until further notice. We have no way of knowing when the storm will die down, so right now, we're not rescheduling any flights. We're only offering a credit."

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying not to get too upset. "Do you know if any other airlines are still booking flights?"

She shook her head. "We've all been grounded until the wind dies down."

Shrugging hard, you gave her your information so she could put in for the credit, and walked away from the desk. You decided not to call Noah back right away, needing to deal with the irritation and disappointment yourself first.

You called an Uber outside the airport, and made your way the short distance back to the apartment. After you had huffed your bag down onto the couch, you sat on the edge of your bed, allowing yourself a moment to sulk.

The last six months had been a dream. After your first date with Noah, which included a dinner at a beachside restaurant in Santa Monica and arcade games at the pier, you and him were absolutely intertwined together. The clicking noise you made was loud and strong, keeping you both in a stranglehold over each other.

As different of people as you were, you learned that Noah was not nearly as different from you as you had assumed. He grew up in West Virginia, a rough life, dropped out of high school, joined a band young, and ended up a successful rockstar after twelve years of hard, rigorous work.

Your life had been quite the opposite. You had lived in Los Angeles your entire life, namely Orange County. You lived with both parents, who were mostly well-off with high powered careers. They wanted a lot for you, growing up. Education. Career. Family. Marriage.

You wanted none of it. You wanted to be free. You wanted to get tattoos and go to festivals in the desert. You wanted to know who you were spiritually. You wanted to paint and sketch. You wanted to find out who you were.

Somewhere along the way, in your twenties, you learned more about yourself than you ever wanted. You learned that you trusted too easy. You were easily persuaded and pressured. You weren't prepared for the life you thought you wanted.

So, like a lot of young, naive women do in the city of angels, you got run down, stepped on, and burned out. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, that's what it was all about right?

It wasn't until your last relationship ended - badly - that you decided you were done. You wanted chaos, but the kind you could stop. The kind you could help. You found firefighting. It was a big adjustment, but you took to it well. You did the courses, you took the classes. In less than a year, you were out in the field with all the men, running into the blaze and extinguishing the flames.

It was incredible.

So, where did that leave you and Noah? You worked thirty-six hour shifts with eight hours in between until your mandatory two days off every ten days. It was grueling, but he stuck it out. He'd visit you on your overnights when it had been quiet, bringing food and promising not to get in the way. When you had your days off, he typically kidnapped you, holding you hostage in his bed for the duration.

Noah's life was busy as well, constantly touring, it felt like. Currently, he was in Philadelphia, a show later that evening. You had taken your seven vacation days and had planned to fly out to Pennsylvania, travel with him to his next two shows, and fly home with him from New York City. He had four weeks off before he had to head over to Europe, and he claimed to spend as much of that time with you as humanly possible.

Imagine how much of a kink this storm put in his plans.

The phone rang on the other end while you waited for him to pick up. You laid flat on your back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Hey! I go on stage in ten minutes. Did you rebook the flight?"

You sighed hard. "No."

"No? Why not?"

"Noah, all of the flights are grounded because of the storm. They don't know when they'll be back up, so they wouldn't rebook me."

You could hear the agitation leaking out of his voice. "God damn it!"

"Don't get too worked up before the show. I'll be out there as soon as I can, okay?"

"Has there been any news of how long this shit's supposed to go on for?"

You threw an arm over your eyes. "The weather report I read says it could last through Monday."

"Monday?! We're supposed to be on our way home by then!"

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you kept your voice even. "Noah, please don't yell at me."

"Doesn't this bother you?" He was frustrated, and you knew that it wasn't your fault. You knew that he knew that, but it didn't help the feeling that he was angry with you for something completely out of your control.

"Of course it does, babe, but there's nothing I can do." You sat up, crossing your legs in front of you.

He scoffed on the other end. "Yeah, alright, whatever."

You rolled your eyes. "Baby," He didn't say anything. "I get you're mad, but please don't take it out on me?"

"I got to go."

Your heart sunk a little, a stinging in your eyes emerging. "Okay. Have a great show okay?" Again, he didn't respond. "I love you, Noah."

"Yep. Bye." And the line went dead.

The night had drug on. You waited as patiently as you could for the concert to end, and to give Noah enough time to relax before you tried reaching out. After three hours, you decided enough time had passed, and you dialed him.

But he didn’t answer.

Instead of blowing up his phone like your internal anxiety was trying to convince you to, rather, you decided to send him a simple text.

You: Hey, I know you’re upset, baby. I’m sorry this didn’t work out the way we wanted, but just know that I love you, and I will see you as soon as I possibly can. Call me when you get a chance. ❤️

You dropped your phone on the bed and sighed loudly, walking over to the couch to begin unpacking your bag.

By the end of the night, you hadn’t had a single text or call from Noah, so you had tried to accept that he just wasn’t going to reach out anymore tonight. You’d try again tomorrow. You loved Noah, more than you could’ve ever expected, but the speed at which he threw a tantrum like a child was a turn off, and you were combatting the urge to cringe at the thought.

You had only been together six months. You had no baggage together. You lived apart. You had no pets or plants together. You didn’t have any financial ties. If things didn’t work out, it was as simple as goodbye.

And as much as you loved Noah, you couldn’t help but feel the tug inside, reminding you that this wasn’t the first fit Noah had thrown over not getting his way.

He wanted to take you out for your birthday six weeks ago. You didn’t know where, it was a surprise. But you ended up called in to work, and it was an all hands on deck. Forest fire. They were everywhere lately, and when you were called, it was non-negotiable.

Noah hadn’t taken that too well. He begged you not to go, asked you to fake sick or pretend to be out of town. That was not happening. You had a job - an important job. It wasn’t as if you didn’t go in, the work would be there tomorrow. This wasn’t cancelling a concert. There were lives on the line.

He didn’t comprehend that in the moment, and stormed out of your apartment. He didn’t call you until the following day, after you had been out for sixteen hours and had finally fallen into your pillows to sleep for five hours before going back out. He was apologizing frantically, and begging you to forgive him.

And truly? You were too tired not to. You let him come over and snuggle you a while before you had to leave again.

Then there was the time you were too sick to come over. That was earlier on in the relationship, so his reaction was slightly less dramatic, but it was still frustrating nonetheless.

You had been fevering and vomiting the entire day. It was one of your off-days, and he wanted to you to go to his place to watch movies and whatever else came with that. In the state you were in, it was entirely out of the question. Besides the fact that you were likely contagious, you were disgusting. Your hair was greasy from sweat, your skin was a sickening pale, and you spent 80% of the day hugging the toilet and emptying your stomach violently.

Rather than throwing an all out fit, he just resorted to texting you here and there to check in, but kept his messages cold. He showed up the following day with supplies, mask on, and claimed he really didn’t care if he got sick or not.

You overlooked it.

There were small things that happened here and there, but it never was enough to stick out in your mind.

But tonight, this just felt off-putting. More so than before.

You tossed and turned on the mattress, your heart begging for your phone to chime, proving your assumptions were wrong…but it never did.

As your mind drifted closer to sleep, the memories began rolling into your brain.

“Noah, I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me where we’re going!”

His lips were plucked up into a playful smirk. “Wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you!”

He guided your hand, trailing you behind him, and trekking through the trees around you.

“Are you bringing me out here to murder me?”

He turned, stopping, look of absolute horror on his face. “Who told you?!”

You lowered your lids and shifted your weight one one leg, rolling your eyes. He giggled in response.

“Babe, just trust me, okay?”

You continued to follow him deeper into the forest, losing your way from the path further and further.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Before you could get a response, you hit a break in the treeline, and a large clearing laid out before you. It was beautiful and picturesque, looking to span about a square quarter mile. So out of place among the expanse of greenery, you gazed around, taking it in.

“Oh wow.” The air in the clearing was sweeter than the woods, and you could see white butterflies catching the light pooling on the grass.

“Come on.” He was still pulling you toward the far side of the clearing.

At the edge, he stopped abrupt, and gestured with a hand toward some large stones near the trees. Taking a step closer, you could see more clearly that the moss-covered fixtures weren’t any stones.

They were headstones.

Stepping forward carefully, you pulled a large arm of vines off of one that was cross-shaped, revealing the crumbling rock, engraving nearly illegible. You took a step back, and noticed rows and rows of them along the trees. They blended in naturally, overtaken by the Earth.

“Noah,” You turned to look at him. “whose graves are these?”

He shrugged his shoulders, walking up to one that was broken in half.

“I found this clearing about a year ago while hiking. There’s twenty-two graves here. Most of the etchings are illegible or worn off now, but the couple I found date back to the early 1900s.” He approached one in particular, smaller than the ones around it.

Squatting down, he brushed the moss off of the plaque and read it aloud.

“Emily Wheatley. Born 1913. Died 1918.”

The thought made your heart hurt. “She was five…”

Your voice was somber.

“Yeah, from what I gather, these are all people who died during the Spanish Flu pandemic.” He patted the tiny stone with care, and stood back up. “Back in that time, so many people were dying so fast, a lot of folks just ended up buried on their own properties or in their communities. Maybe that’s what happened here?”

You nodded, bending down to another grave, running your hand over the decaying concrete. “These tombstones look handmade.”

He nodded. “I bet they were.”

Your fingers touched the cracks of the stones, feeling the lives that were laid to rest here. Such a beautiful place to spend eternity.

“These are incredible, Noah.”

Looking up at him, he smiled down at you. “I’d hoped you’d like it.”

Your eyes danced from each grave. “Like it? It’s so serene. So stunning. I could stay here for hours. I love it.”

“I love you.”

If you had been any more entranced with your surroundings, you would’ve missed it. It was so quiet and uncertain.

Your eyes peered up to Noah, who looked wrecked with nerves.

“What?” You stood, looking directly at him.

“I love you, Y/N.”

Your bottom lip twitched, a heavy tingling sensation covering your face.

“I love you too.”

His eyes lit up, but he didn’t smile yet.

“Really?”

All you had to do was kiss him. That’s all you could manage, overwhelmed with emotion. His lips pressed against yours, hands wrapping around you and lifting your feet off the ground.

His admission was so raw, in this beautiful, wonderful place of death and rest. You had never felt more sure about anything other than the fact that you loved Noah, and you would never stop.

The ringtone sounded like a shrill scream, waking you from the memory that was laid softly in your brain, buzzing you in your sleep and helping you forget your worries or concerns.

For a split second, your heart leapt, thinking only one person could be calling you at whatever hour this is, right? The clock on your nightstand told you it was four-thirty in the morning.

Your hand scrambled to your bedside table to answer the call, failing to even check the screen for who was calling. You were so sure of who it was…

“Hello?”

“Y/L/N?” Ramos’ gruff voice rang through the receiver. You flopped your body back onto the bed, internally groaning.

“Yes sir?” 

“Did you make it out of town before the flights were grounded?”

You scrubbed a hand over your eyes. “No, sir. I was going to try and get another today.”

“No dice, unfortunately. The storm’s gotten worse.”

This time, your displeasure came out audibly. “Lovely.”

“Sorry about that, kid. But, listen, we have an all hands situation.”

You sat up now, already swinging your legs off of the mattress.

“Yeah? Where?”

“The Cajon Pass. LA Fire’s called in hands in six additional counties. They’ve so far had over a hundred acres burnt and the wind is causing a rapid spread.”

You stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and put your phone down on the counter, now on speaker.

“Any aerial attempts yet?”

“Mhm. They’ve dropped 4,000 gallons so far.”

Sucking your teeth, you let your head fall back. “Damn.” You began running a brush through your hair. “Alright, when do we head out?”

“Thirty minutes.”

You picked up your phone, staring at the screen. “I’ll be there.”

You ended the call, and quickly swiped to your home screen. 

No missed calls. No missed texts.

Despite the volume of people riding in the engine, the air was silent. It always was when you headed to the site of a wildfire. No matter how much you thought you knew about it, it was always worse than you were expecting, so you never found any lightheartedness in the atmosphere.

You sat next to Ramos as he tightened the boots on his feet. Your back was leaned heavy against the side of the rig, the bench bouncing beneath you as you headed toward the approaching disaster.

Your mind should’ve been running through the brief again, or reciting your safety protocols. But you were too focused elsewhere.

You couldn’t stop thinking about Noah. 

Fingers hooked onto the gold chain you wore around your neck, the small glass stone smooth as you twirled it back and forth. The necklace was newer to you, only haven been gifted it two months ago before Noah left on tour, but even then - you hadn’t removed it once.

It was a custom piece. The glass was hand-blown and a beautiful shade of amber. It was clouded with ash - specifically from burnt sage. Noah had told you it was a representative of the both of you, and it signified that although you had met under such unfortunate circumstances, you had managed to find something so stunning in the process - much like the stone.

While thinking of this, you felt conflicted. Emotions over your relationship with Noah were so back and forth, frustrating you. 

The look on your face must have been telling, because a hand dropped on your knee, and you looked up to Ramos.

“You alright there, kid?”

Nodding, you gave him a half-smile. “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind.”

“Bummed about having to change your plans?”

Shrugging your shoulders, you ran your palms over the tops of your thighs.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not too convincing. Weren’t you going to see Noah back East?”

“Right.”

He leaned back, turning his head to look directly at you. “Was he upset?”

Lifting your eyebrows, you breathed heavily. “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, hopefully once this fucking wind dies down, you can head out there.”

You let your eyes fall to the window on the opposing side of the engine, letting your vision unfocus.

“Or not.”

This caught him, his eyebrow raising suspiciously.

“Oh?”

Over the years, you’d come to learn that Ramos was more than just your Captain at times. He also had become one of the few people in your life that you could consider a friend. He was a staggering twelve years older than you, so he gave an older-sibling, protective type persona. It made life easier when you had a safe place to come to with your personal problems.

You sighed heavily, rubbing your temples. “I can’t say for sure if I I’ll be joining Noah.”

“Because of the transportation issues?”

Shaking your head, you fiddled with you fingers in your lap. “Not just that. He hasn’t even texted me back since last night.”

He grunted. “Why? Was he mad at you?”

“I don’t know if he was mad at me, but I know he felt like I didn’t care that our plans were cancelled. Which is ridiculous, you know that.” You looked up at him, and he nodded in return.

“Right.” He gave a short response so he could leave space for you to continue.

“So I don’t fucking get why he catches such a fucking attitude with me!” You slapped a hand down on your leg in irritation. “Like, who does he think he is? I didn’t cause the God damn storm! I didn’t force the planes down on the ground! I wanted to see him just as badly! I’m just an adult who understands that throwing a tantrum gets us nowhere, so fuck me, right?”

Letting out a hard breath you had been holding, you let the words vibrate off of you, lifting a weight off of your spine you didn’t notice before.

He chuckled low, staring down at you. “How’d that feel?”

You had your eyes closed, enjoying the lighter feeling. “Good. I had been holding it in.”

“As usual.” He bumped your shoulder, making you look up at him. “Give him a little time, Y/N. He’ll come around. He always does.”

You shrugged. “I know he does. But how many times is he going to do this? It’s stupid, and it makes me anxious for literally no reason every time. Sure, he says he’s sorry after, but that’s doesn’t erase the feeling.”

Considering this, Ramos nodded his head. “That’s valid. You know better than I do that maturity doesn’t exactly come naturally to us men. He’s, what, twenty-nine?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Right, so he’s practically a teenager, still. I’m not saying that excuses his behavior. Not at all. But I’m just saying, I was very similar at that age. I get it.”

You shrugged. “How long did it take you to quit acting like a child?”

He laughed again. “Ask my wife, and she’ll tell you I never did.”

You smirked, your hand finding your necklace again, twirling it around in your fingers. His words permeated you.

Maybe he was right. Maybe you just needed to give Noah some time to navigate his own emotions. At some point, preferably soon, you’d need to talk to him so you both could work out the behavior. Maybe there was something you were doing that could be improved as well as him? 

Maybe the consideration of ending things was a bit premature.

Pulling out your phone, you checked and saw your messages had still been unread. Shaking off the sinking feeling, you typed out a quick message.

You: Hey babe. I got called out to a wildfire in the Cajon Pass. Flights are still grounded. I’m so sorry this didn’t go the way we wanted, but when I get home, I need to hear your voice. I know you’re upset, but I really think we should talk. I’ll call you as soon as I’m headed home. I love you, Noah. I hope you had a great show, and slept well. Talk to you soon.

Noah stared out of the window, rain pelting the glass, creating designs in the cityscape below. 

“You going sit there and brood, or are you going to come eat?" Folio's voice bounced off of the glass he stared into. He wanted nothing more than to tell him to fuck right off and not bother responding, but he knew that wasn't going to get him anywhere he wanted to be.

With a huff, he stood up out of the chair, and stalked over to the table the rest of the guys sat at. Nick was shoveling bacon into his mouth while Jolly sipped coffee from his mug. Folio was finishing off the last of his pancakes with urgent bites.

Noah stared down at his breakfast, grimacing at the plate. He wasn't hungry, but if he didn't eat now, he couldn't even guess when he would be willing to try again. Reluctantly, he picked up his fork and dug into the scrambled eggs.

"Dude, if you're so bent out of shape over it, why don't you just call her?" Jolly set his cup down and leaned back in his chair.

"If she wanted to talk, she would've called. She's probably pissed at me." Noah rolled the bland food around in his mouth, setting his fork down and groaning. "She should be. I was such a dick."

"Or," Nick spoke up from across the table, looking up at Noah with deep seated, irritated eyes. "she's waiting for your tantrum to be over, and for you to call her. You are the one who hung up on her, remember?" His best friend was the least patient with Noah's temper.

"Alright, I get it, okay? I already said I was a dick." Noah threw himself back in the chair, snarling back at Nick.

Nick, however, wasn't having it. Instead, he set his cup down and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you get it? Or are you just saying that until the next time you act like a baby?"

The words came off Noah's lips like venom. "The fuck did you just say to me?"

"Let's keep it calm, guys." Jolly's Dad voice started emerging. Folio eye's flashed between his two brothers anxiously.

"You fucking heard me, dude. I'm so sick of your mood swings every time you decide to be an ass to her. That girl isn't going to put up with you forever, you know that?" Nick was nonchalant in his tone, but his words were just as sharp as his counterpart's.

Noah stood, catching the edge of his plate and making a sharp clattering on the table.

"Fuck you, dude!" He tossed a stray apple from the fruit bowl in the center of the table at Nick. "You don't know shit!"

Nick caught the apple, standing nearly in sync with Noah.

"No? I haven't known you longer than everyone else here? I haven't watched you drive away girl after girl after girl?" He gestured with his hands in a circular motion.

Noah scoffed. "What difference does it make to you? It's not your relationship." His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

Nick snorted, incredulous. "Well, for starters, every time this happens, we all have to deal with your bullshit attitude!" His eyebrows raised, and the other two men at the table looked away.

"On top of that," Nick kept speaking before Noah could rebut his argument. "this one actually fucking loves you, you jackass." These words came out just a touch softer, and Noah deflated like a punctured balloon. His shoulders fell in, signaling his instant defeat.

Nick continued. "Y/N is a rad fucking girl, man. We all like her." Jolly and Folio nodded in agreement. "We don't want you to fuck this one up. She deserves better than you throwing a fit like a toddler when you don't get your way."

That stung.

Noah didn't enjoy being this way. He never tried to hurt you. If there was one thing that came with a lack of upbringing and a tumultuous adolescence, it was a complete and total absence of understanding emotion.

He didn't know how to deal with it. Anger? Sadness? Happiness? Those were - for lack of a better term - big fucking emotions, and he never knew where to put them. Reigning them in was not something he was fluent in at all, and he hated that about himself.

Every time this happened, and he found himself lashing out or turning cold toward you, he told himself that was the last time. He wouldn't keep doing this. It wasn't fair to you that he didn't know a better way to express himself than to take it out on you. To Nick's credit, he was right. It was surprising you had stayed.

"I don't-" Noah cut himself off, biting his own tongue before another excuse rolled off of it. He instead opted for the far more bitter option. "I know."

He shrugged back down into his chair, face falling into his hands. "I can't keep doing this. I'm going to lose her if I do." His words came out muffled, but they had heard him.

"Just call her, man." Nick's voice was relaxed, now. Back to it's normal cadence.

"I'm going to." He stood again, heading for the other side of the room where his phone sat on the bedside table. He picked it up, noting still no notifications on the screen. His insides clenched.

"What do I even say?" He chewed his bottom lip.

"Tell her you forgot to take your phone off Do Not Disturb after the show." Folio said around the food in his mouth.

Noah rolled his eyes. "I don't think lying to her is the right choice, bro."

Folio just lifted his shoulders, smirking.

Swiping open the phone, it opened to his banking app, which was the last thing he had used before he fell asleep the night before. But before he could close it, against the dark background of the screen, he saw it. Upper left corner of the screen.

The tiny white moon.

"Oh fuck!"

Nick's face fell. "You fucking didn't."

"I always turn it off! I never forget!"

Jolly spoke up. "You were worked up last night..."

Noah swiped to the home screen, seeing the 2 icon on top of the message app. He also saw the signal of missed calls. His fingers ripped through his hair, and he stood up.

"At least you're not lying to her!" Folio added as Noah pressed the phone to his face, immediately calling you back.

Your phone rang, but he was eventually met with your voicemail.

"Fuck! What time is it in California?"

"Seven." Jolly responded.

"She's probably sleeping." Noah maneuvered to the messages, seeing the message from last night first, his heart sinking.

He felt like a combination of dirt and that residue that gum leaves on the bottom of your shoe.

He then saw the message from this morning, and sank down onto the end of the bed, staring blankly.

"What's wrong, dude?" Nick nodded to Noah, trying to get his attention.

"There's uh," He tried to calm his racing thoughts. "there's a fire in the Cajon Pass. She got called down to help."

"How long ago did she text you?"

Noah sighed heavily. "Two hours ago. She's probably just getting started out there."

His fingers began frantically typing a response to you.

Noah: Hey baby. I'm so fucking sorry. My phone was on DND overnight, and I'm such an idiot and didn't turn it off. I'm an idiot for more than just that. I'm sorry for how I acted. I know that wasn't okay, and I can't even begin to tell you how awful I feel. I promise I will make it up to you as soon as humanly possible. Please call me as soon as you can. Please be safe. I love you, more than you could ever know.

"How long does she usually stay out?"

Folio and Jolly stared at Noah, the sounds of all of the people moving around the room blurring together as he stared at the unread message he had sent over twelve hours prior.

"It really varies. Sometimes hours? Days? Depends on the fire."

Folio was staring down at his phone now, eyes fixed on something on the screen. His elbow tapped Jolly, handing him the device. Jolly's eyes scanned the text on the phone, and sighed hard. This all went unseen to Noah, who was just spacing out at his own text.

"Why don't you try calling again?" Folio chimed.

"I've tried to call six times." His voice was solemn.

"Have you called the station?" Noah's eyes flicked up to Nick, who was now staring down at him from where he stood directly in front of his legs.

Noah hadn't considered it, but what could it hurt?

The line rang twice before Reed answered. "Station 125. Is this an emergency?"

"It's not. I don't think. Reed, is that you?"

"Who's calling?"

Noah tried to keep his patience. "It's Noah."

"Oh." The man on the other line paused. "Hey Noah, hang on, okay?"

For a split second, he felt bad. He was calling her job. They had more important things to worry about than him and his paranoia.

This only lasted that split second, when the line picked back up.

"Noah?" The deep, raspy voice was unmistakable.

"Ramos?" Why was he talking to your boss, and not you? "Hey, is Y/N around?"

"She, uh" He cleared his throat. "she's not right now."

"Did she go home already?"

The line was silent. Eerily blank, white noise buzzing through the receiver.

"Are you in town, Noah? Can you come to the station?"

Something in Noah's stomach twisted hard, the little food he had eaten that day threatening to make a reappearance.

His words. His tone.

"I'm in New York." Was all Noah could get out without retching.

Ramos sighed. "If it's possible, I think it's best you get here soon."

"Ramos..." Noah was standing, back stiff as drywall. "Where is she?"

"Listen, I'm going to tell you this, but I need you to stay calm, alright?"

Noah didn't audibly respond, praying he would just continue.

"We don't know exactly where she is."

The ground fell out under his feet. Noah was free-falling through space and time, only the words swirling around him.

"What?" The word came out as a breath, or what was supposed to be one.

"The fire had spread to several neighborhoods. She went out with a unit lead by LA Fire. There were some collapses, and they're still trying to get everyone evacuated and located."

English was no longer Noah's first language. It was panic.

"What?!" His voice topped out, cracking hard at the end. "What do you mean?! Was she in a building when it collapsed?! Is she hurt?!"

"Noah, calm down."

"Calm down?!" Hands were on his shoulders, trying to physically restrain his arms flailing. "Why are you in Calabasas?! Why aren't you out there?!"

"Noah, I had to come back and get some food and rest. I'm headed back out in five minutes to rejoin search and rescue. We're going to find her."

The water flowing down Noah's cheeks went entirely unnoticed. He couldn't form any more words.

"Like I said before, it's best if you get here soon."

East to West Coast flights are already long. However, they tend to be much longer when you're working hard to not go into full panic attack mode.

Noah hated flying. Despite Nick being sat next to him, soothing small circles into the back of his hand every time he would begin to tremble, he was a semi-catatonic mess the entirety of the plane ride.

It wasn't until they were pulling up off of the highway, right to the barricades set up by the fire engines, did he feel himself come back to life. Ramos met them at the edge of the blockade, waving them through. He then took them on a short drive in his Jeep through the hills. What started as plush greenery, soon turned to charred, blackened, ashy mess. The sky grayed over them, the rising sun not having a prayer of breaking through the deep hue of sobering truth in front of them.

The small, hillside town hidden within the Pass was completely leveled. Buildings barely stood, crumbling horrifically around them.

"Now listen, you two will do as I say, when I say it, is that understood?" His voice was stern, all business.

Nick answered audibly, but Noah just shook his head as he watched the destroyed town around him. Civilians sat in ambulances, wrapped in blankets. Firemen in all different uniform colors roamed the streets around them. It resembled a warzone.

"How did this happen?" Noah spoke against the glass.

"We haven't determined the cause yet, but our best guess is a series of bonfires. Add the high winds?"

Noah's spine tingled at the thought.

"Now, listen, you two are here on a volunteer basis. There will be waivers to sign, and we'll get you some gear. I'm going to take you to the neighborhood where Y/N was last seen. We're looking for any and all civilians. Alive, or otherwise."

Noah's neck snapped to his left, staring at the large man next to him.

"Otherwise?" He swallowed hard. "People died?"

"Seventeen confirmed deaths so far. Eighty-six injured."

Noah's heart rate sped up to an alarming pace. "God."

A hand clapped over his shoulder. "We'll find her." Nick's voice rang in his ear.

Noah walked through the strip mall, poker in hand, and overturning debris. So far, he had found a lot of nothing. A few burnt rats, a lot of smoldering wood from building rafters. No sign of life in any of the shops he had wandered into, Nick on his heels.

"I don't think anyone's in here." His brother's voice rang behind him. He sucked his teeth.

"I don't think so either."

The radio on the heavy coat he wore began blaring, startling him.

"We've got six survivors, four are critical." The voice rattled off the location, which was less than a quarter mile from where they were currently searching. Their eyes stared at each other, before they made a dash for the exit, headed for the street toward the area where the people were found.

Noah ran toward the ambulances, a heavy hand catching him in the chest. Peering down at him was Ramos, a serious scowl crossing his face.

"Wait here." He let out a breath. "We've got her."

His breathing picked up, and he removed his respirator. "She's alive?"

"She's hanging on. EMTs said she's got full thickness burns to her legs, face, and back. She didn't have her helmet on."

His eyes caught the ambulance leaving, sirens screaming. "Where are they taking her?"

"UCI. She'll be taken to the remote area where she can be airlifted."

Noah began ripping the gear off. "I've got to go with her."

Noah didn't like airplanes. He really didn't like helicopters.

In all fairness, this had been his first time on one, but given the circumstances? He hated them. They were terrifying, but it didn't matter.

He stared at the stretcher, your body covered in heat-protecting blankets. What little of your face he could see under the bandages was charred, blistering and bleeding. It made his heart invert, his entire being hurting at the sight. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have had the audacity to hang up on you, give you attitude, and then not return your calls? It was unforgivable. He deserved for you to hate him. Leave him. Never want to see him again.

But all he could do was watch you. Listen to the heart monitor beep to remind him you were still here.

How could this have happened? You were so smart. You had taken so many courses. Why would you take off your helmet and respirator, exposing your face to the flames? Your jacket was found with you, and was one of the only ways they were able to identify you.

Aside from your hair, build, and general appearance, you were unrecognizable. Your body was mauled so badly by the flames.

The hospital staff frenzied around you, ripping your hand out of his without question, and whisked you to the ICU. He was told he had to wait, and if that wasn't the most devastating thing he had heard...

Nick, Ramos, and Reed all joined him at the hospital an hour later, as quickly as they could. They received updates every few hours. You had stabilized quickly, and they were keeping you under observation, treating the smoke inhalation and infection risk before moving you to the burn unit.

Jolly and Folio showed up six hours later, having caught a later flight than Noah and Nick. All of the men sat, deathly silent, until a nurse called Noah's name.

He walked over to her too quickly, but she was unbothered.

"Mr. Sebastian," She held a clipboard in her small hands. "Y/N will be moved to the burn unit as soon as a room becomes available."

"When can I see her?" His words were shaky, his hands knotting in the hair on top of his head.

"The doctor has advised she can have up to two visitors." Her eyes glanced back at the group sat behind Noah. "You have to change into sterile clothing that we can provide. The risk of infection is extreme."

Noah nodded. He looked back at Ramos, who was now standing behind him. "Okay, we'll go in."

She smiled sweetly. "Follow me."

The nurse led Noah and Ramos to a small locker room, sealed packages of lime green scrubs laid on the bench.

"Once you're done, come to the nurse's station."

Noah changed as quickly as possible, sitting on the bench while he waited for the other man to finish. He was annoyed at how long it was taking, but he used this moment to take a deep breath, leaning his head against the lockers behind him.

"It's good that you came, man." The voice that came out was so tired. It sounded the same way Noah felt.

"Of course I did. How could I not?"

Ramos chuckled at Noah's humorless tone. "I just mean, I know it'll mean a lot to her, that's all."

"I love her." His words weren't spoken to convince or persuade. They were just fact. They hung in the air on an invisible thread.

Ramos stood, staring at him, a blank expression on his face. "She loves you too. Don't forget that."

With that, they both made their way back to the nurse. Gloved and masks on, they were allowed behind the large glass door. A heavy white blanket pulled up over you to your shoulders. Bandages now covered the entirety of your face, small amount of hair sticking out in random places. Your body was propped up slightly on the side, likely due to the burns covering your back. Small spots of blood were etched into the pillow and sheets beneath you. Your eyes were closed, and a large tube was jutting from your lips.

Both men had been instructed not to touch you. Noah felt the physical ache in his fingers to not reach out and touch what little unmarred skin was left, signaling somehow that he was there. He was never leaving.

Ramos took a heavy seat in the chair next to your bed, staring down at you, disbelief painting his features.

"I've been at this job for twenty-one years, Noah."

The deep brown eyes flashed over to him, now wet with tears.

"I'll tell you, this never gets easier."

Noah tears fell freely, his hand bracing on the rail on the side of the bed.

Hours passed, Noah and Ramos unmoving except for when the nurse came in to check your vitals. He had been told you would not be allowed visitors in the burn unit, so he was getting as much time as he could with you.

He was, however, worn down.

After a while, Ramos stood, stretching his arms over his head. "Noah?"

He tore his eyes off of you, staring up at your friend. "Take a minute. You look like you're about ready to fall over."

Shaking his head, Noah breathed for the first time in what felt like days. "I'm fine."

"At least see if they've got a pillow. You can recline this chair and try to relax."

His stare challenged Ramos, but was met with an even more intimidating glare.

"I'm not asking."

After a moment, and an unwavering stare, Noah finally receded, backing slowly from the room. Once the door slid shut behind him, he let his shoulders sink, ripping the gloves from his sweaty palms, chucking them in the bin.

He stepped over to the nurse's desk, smiling as genuinely as he could.

"You wouldn't by chance have a pillow?"

Her grin was warm, her small frame standing. "Of course, honey. Give me a second."

She disappeared from her chair, pacing to a small room next to the desk.

Noah's eyes wandered as he waited, his teeth ripping at the dried skin on his bottom lip. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shiny plastic on the desk under the counter. His tall stance leaned over, hand reaching down to run his fingers over the smooth bag. It was clear, and he could see the shredded remains of a navy blue t-shirt, yellow pants, and...

A stone?

His palm gripped the bag, lifting it over the counter and up closer to his face. Inside the sealed plastic, he could see it shining back at him, small amount of soot coating it.

Your necklace.

The nurse returned, two pillows and a folded blanket under her arm, pulling him from his focus.

"Hey, uh," He set the bag down on the counter. "these are her belongings. Can I open this?" He pressed a finger into the bag.

She adjusted the glasses on her face, and pulled the bag away from him, looking down at the label. Her lips puckered, eyes reading the words.

"I'm sorry, honey. This is someone else's."

Noah's brain blanked out.

"No. No, this is her stuff. That's her necklace."

She shook her head. "No, dear. This came in with someone else."

His hand slammed down on the counter with a sharp thud, making the nurse visibly jump.

"No, no! This is hers. I gave her that necklace!"

Her eyes deadpanned at him.

"Sweetheart, I think you're confused. This came in hours before she did, with another person."

Noah's eyes stared deep at her, working to make sense of her words.

"What do you mean? Who had her necklace?"

She sighed hard. "I can't tell you anything about other patients."

His voice snapped. "No one else could have that necklace! It was made for her!"

"Mr. Sebastian, I need you to calm down."

"Who had the necklace, damn it! Those are her clothes! That's her stuff!"

The nurse squeezed her eyes for a moment. "You're certain?"

"Where is the person who came in with these?!" His hand snatched the bag from her hand.

"No, you have to be mistaken, Mr. Sebastian. You identified her."

He stopped, heart seizing.

"Where are they?"

"You identified her, right?"

"Where are they?!"

His fingers squeezed the bag until his fingers nearly ripped into it. The nurse, fully stunned, spoke quietly.

"Mr. Sebastian, your girlfriend is in that room. These can't be hers, because these bags," She patted the stack of plastic on the desk. "are on their way to the morgue."

His chest imploded, his knees shaking.

"That's not..." His brain sparked and sizzled at her words.

"That's not hers." The nurse repeated back to him, but he couldn't hear.

He dropped the plastic, and his body turned. His fingers plucked the mask up over his mouth, his eyes wide as saucers as he slid the door open. He could hear the footsteps behind him.

"Ramos?"

A deadly calm fell over Noah, his head quirking to the side.

The man's head picked up from where he was staring down at the bed. "What's going on?"

The nurse behind Noah looked panicked.

"How did you identify her?" Her voice was shaky.

"Her, uh" Ramos stood, his words uncertain. "her coat. Her name is on it."

"And?" Noah was monotone.

"Well," Ramos looked down at the bed, gesturing to it. "look at her."

"Does she have any identifying marks? Scars? Birthmarks? Tattoos?"

"What is going on?" Ramos' voice raised an octave.

"She has a tattoo."

They both turned their heads to look at Noah.

"It's on the back of her right bicep. It's new. We got them together six weeks ago." He felt a tear sliding down his face, absorbing in his mask. "It's a headstone."

The nurse just nodded, padding to the bed, and reaching a gloved hand to pull the blanket down, exposing some of the only untouched skin. Back of the right bicep.

And there it was. Clear as day.

Nothing.

It was instantaneous. No one could have prevented it. Nothing could have stopped it.

Noah collapsed.

One Year Later

Fingertips ran over the stone, smooth and unharmed. Gold chain holding it together. Only one single micro fracture in the glass. It was perfect. It always would be.

His fingers twirled it, knees bouncing up and down, eyes closed and lips moving silently.

'I love you, more than you could ever know.'

"Noah?"

His eyes opened, catching Nick's easy smile looking back at him.

"Ready?" His bass hung comfortably over his chest, ski mask in hand.

Noah's lips lifted, returning his grin.

"Yeah, let's go."

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with the Los Angeles Times (2024)

“This is where all the cruising happened.”

Jonathan Bailey and I are standing in Pershing Square on a bright, blustery spring afternoon, nearing the end of a homemade queer history tour of downtown L.A.: One Magazine, Cooper Do-Nuts/Nancy Valverde Square, the Dover bathhouse, the Biltmore Hotel and this, the city’s former Central Park, a haven, since before World War I, for “fairies” and “sissy boys,” servicemen on leave and beatniks on the road.

“Is it still happening now?” he asks.

“Probably not as much,” I venture.

“Well, you let me know if it’s happening,” he teases, a mischievous smile lighting up his face.

Bailey understands the uses of the charm offensive. As Sam, the handsome Lothario of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s delightful pre-”Fleabag” curio, “Crashing”; Anthony, the romantic hero of “Bridgerton’s” second season; and John, the jerk of a protagonist in Mike Bartlett’s love triangle play “Cock,” the English actor, 36, has swaggered up to the precipice of superstardom. With roles in such studio tentpoles as “Wicked” and “Jurassic World” on the horizon, he may just break through. Yet he delivers career-best work in Showtime’s queer melodrama “Fellow Travelers,” as anti-Communist crusader-turned-gay rights activist Tim Laughlin, by leaving behind the self-assured rakes and tapping a new wellspring: soft power.

Tim may be, as Bailey puts it, “an open nerve,” but as it turns out, the devout Catholic and political naïf — who falls for suave State Department operative Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) just as Sen. Joseph McCarthy tries to purge the federal government of LGBTQ people — is formidable indeed.

Stretching from the Lavender Scare to the depths of the AIDS crisis, in scenes of tenderness, cruelty and toe-curling sex, Bailey’s performance communicates that little-spoken truth of relationships: It takes more strength to submit than it does to control. The former demands discipline, courage, trust; the latter requires only force.

“In ‘Bridgerton,’ [Bailey] is like a Hawkins Fuller character — he is very sexy and has lots of power, has that kind of confident charisma that absolutely is not Tim at all,” says “Fellow Travelers” creator Ron Nyswaner.

But any doubt about Bailey’s ability to mesh with Bomer, who boarded the project early in development, was put to bed with the actors’ virtual rehearsal of a meeting on a park bench in the pilot. “‘Well, that’s a first,’” Nyswaner recalls an executive texting him. “I cried in a chemistry read.”

‘Am I inviting people in?’

Bailey grew up in a musical family in the Oxfordshire countryside outside London, and this, coupled with an appreciation for the morning prayers, choir practice and Mass he attended as a scholarship student at the local Catholic school, fed his precocious talents. (“I loved the performance of it,” he laughs. “Not to diminish the celebration of religious process, but I did love the idea of wearing a gown.”) By age 10, he’d appeared in the West End, playing Gavroche in a production of “Les Misérables,” an experience he now recognizes as an encounter with a queer found family — albeit one shadowed by the toll of the AIDS crisis, which peaked in the U.K. in the mid-1990s.

“When I’m asked about my childhood, there’s so much I don’t remember, and I think that’s true of anyone who’s been in fight or flight for 20 years,” he says. “I would have been in a cast of people whose friends would have died in the last seven years. I think of where I was seven years ago. I had all my gay friends then. It’s only retrospectively that I can retrofit a real gay community around me [in the theater], that I just wasn’t aware of [then].”

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, American and British culture presented queer adolescents with a bewildering array of mixed signals. As beloved celebrities came out in growing numbers, and the battle for marriage equality became a central locus of LGBTQ political organizing, the media continued to propagate harmful stereotypes of gay men as miserable, lonely, perverted or worse — and, Bailey remembers, callously turned George Michael, arrested on suspicion of cruising in a Beverly Hills restroom in 1998, and Irish pop star Stephen Gately, who revealed his sexuality in 1999, fearful he was about to be outed, into tabloid spectacles.

No wonder Bailey, like many LGBTQ people of his generation, should feel the “chemical” thrill of “validation and acceptance” during London Pride at age 18, then embark on a two-year relationship with a woman in his 20s.

“Dangerously, if you’re not exposed to people who can show you other examples of happiness, you think that’s the easiest way to live,” Bailey says. “It’s funny. You look back and you can tell the story in one way, which is that I always knew who I was and my sexuality and my identity within that. But obviously at times, it was really tough. I compromised my own happiness, for sure. And compromised other people’s happiness.”

Disclosures about his personal life have become particularly thorny for the actor since the premiere of “Bridgerton,” the blockbuster bodice-ripper from executive producer Shonda Rhimes.

“The Netflix effect does knock you off center completely,” he says, recalling the experience of finding a paparazzo waiting outside his new flat before he’d even moved in. “Suddenly, you do start having nightmares about people climbing in your windows... Even now, talking about it makes me feel like, ‘Am I inviting people in?’”

He is also critical of the media for churning out headlines about the smallest details of celebrities’ private lives, often detached from their original context. In an interview with the London Evening Standard published in December, Bailey described a harrowing encounter in a Washington, D.C., coffee shop in which a man threatened his life for being queer — and, in recounting the experience, offhandedly mentioned the “lovely man” he’d called, shaken, after it happened. Although Bailey acknowledges that the original story handled the subject with aplomb, he felt dismayed that more attention wasn’t paid to the intended warning about rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment: “The only thing that got syndicated from that story was that I had a boyfriend, and it wasn’t true,” he sighs. “It was kind of depressing, if I’m honest.”

Still, Bailey, who once turned down a role in a queer-themed TV series because it would have required him to speed along revelations about his personal life he wasn’t ready to make, is prepared to embrace the power of vulnerability when it feeds the work. Although a member of his inner circle expressed doubts about “Fellow Travelers’” steamy sex scenes, for instance, the actor intuited that they were what made the project worth doing: “I was like, ‘I’m telling you, they are the reason why this is going to be brilliant.’”

‘He’s changed my trajectory in my own life’

To those who would complain about the state of sex in film and TV, “Fellow Travelers” is the perfect riposte. All of it matters, from Tim’s first flirtation with Hawk to the finale’s closing minutes, because the series, at its core, is about the importance of soft power: the strength required to bend, but not break; to adapt, but not abandon oneself; to survive without shrinking to nothing in the process.And depicting that through sex, specifically gay sex, makes “Fellow Travelers” radical indeed.

Bailey understands that baring so much comes with certain risks. When I tell him that research for the story has filled my algorithmic “For You” feed on X (formerly Twitter) with speculation that his onscreen relationship with Bomer has a real-life element, he notes that “shipping” fictional couples and costars alike has long been part of Hollywood fantasy. But he bristles at the implication that he and Bomer are anything but skilled actors at work.

“I would love for people to know that the success of our chemistry isn’t based on us f—. It’s actually about us leaning into the craft,” he says. “It’s a vulnerable situation to be in, talking about it on record. I don’t want to rob people of their thoughts. But I do have a set of values, and as an artist, you don’t need to be f— to tell that love story.”

Underlying that craft, Bailey adds, is the confidence to speak up, as with one scene in “Fellow Travelers” that was adjusted because he said, “I don’t want to be naked today.” He learned to use his voice the hard way: In his early 20s, he recalls, he was once “bullied” on set when “someone was threatened” by him and vowed to himself, “I’m never going to do that to someone. I’m never going to allow that to happen.”

This impulse to direct his influence in support of others has blossomed further with “Fellow Travelers.” On the day of our interview, Bailey enthuses about an upcoming meeting with legendary gay rights activist Cleve Jones and shares his idea for a docuseries recording the stories of elders in the LGBTQ+ community while they are still here to tell them. He describes lying in a hospital bed on set on World AIDS Day, in character as Tim, surrounded by gay men who had lost friends and lovers during the crisis, and finding himself thinking, “What do I want to leave behind?”

“I think he’s changed my trajectory in my own life,” Bailey says.

This is, perhaps, the most common reaction I know to diving deep into queer history — the understanding that we, like our forerunners, are responsible for shaping the queer future, whether in politics, society or art. No one is going to do it on our behalf.

As we stand on the nondescript corner now named for her, I relate the story of the late queer activist Nancy Valverde, who was arrested repeatedly while a barber school student in the 1950s on suspicion of “masquerading” because of her preference for short hair and men’s clothing, and later successfully challenged her harassment by the police in court.

“What a hero!” Bailey exclaims, wondering at Valverde’s bravery. “The thing that’s so interesting with power battles is, ultimately, identity is the thing that gives you the most strength and power in your life, isn’t it?

“Because that’s one thing people can’t take away from you: who you are and how you express yourself.”

Source

[protoindoeuropean]

Can you tell us more about you're trip to Kazakhstan!

I recently watched a doc about their crazy population struggles over the last century and it has made me v interested. What was it like travelling there, how did you get around etc

Of course! I was there for two weeks with my friends and though we covered quite a lot of ground all things considered (Kazakhstan is just huge; it can fit 134 Slovenias :p), we had to pick and choose what to see (read: I had to pick and choose and the others agreed hahah) and still out time there was pretty packed.

෴ anyway I love talking about stuff like this, so I'm putting it under the cut, it's gonna get long Ꜣ) ෴

We started out in Astana and the city is really interesting, I have to say the authoritarian architecture with the central promenade is really fascinating,

but the other parts of the city are also interesting and I liked both the Expo center and the National Museum.

It does feel more plain than Almaty, though, and the planned-city aspect does come to fore when there's the slightest bit of rain and half the roads are suddenly under water.

Then we flew down to the Caspian sea (as predicted :p), the Mañğystau region, and started our 2-day tour (and had breakfast), setting off to the Karagiye (Qaraqia) depression (the road we were on goes to -116 m, the lowest point of the depression is at -134 m), the Ustyurt (Üstırt) plateau – the Sor Tuzbair (Tūzbair sory) dry salt lake (yesterday's pic is from there), the Sherkala (Şerqala) rock, the Köqala rock with petrified plants and trees, the valley of balls, the Shakpak Ata (Şaqpaq Ata) underground mosque – all just really really awesome things to see.

Honestly, I initially wanted us to go to the more inner part of the plateau as well, but we were there for just two days and that was already more than enough off-road driving, especially since there was more to come. Oh and our guide did have an English dictionary in the car lol but my best friend is fluent in Russian so she was translating for us – she also dealt with finding the tour because that's easier to find and cheaper to arrange on Russian-language sites.

Initially, I also wanted us to go to Baikonur, but that's officially Russian territory and a military object, so visitors from unfriendly countries are unfortunately (– in the tour organizer's words) not welcome ("hopefully that changes in the future"). And though it would be interesting to see the Aral sea up close and Baikonur even from some distance, the 30-hour train-ride + missing out on some other part(s) of the trip was not worth it.

Instead we took a plane from Aqtau to Shymkent (Şymkent) – I did end up seeing the Aral sea from above! – and then a taxi to Turkistan (Türkıstan). There we saw the Mausoleum of Ahmed Khoja Yasawi, went to the 8D flying theater (as cringy as the history of Kazakhstan presentation part is, with fake props and stuff, the part where they strap you in and have you virtually fly around the country is pretty awesome, ngl), had an interesting airbnb experience (tl;dr at the insistence of others we switched to a hotel) and went to the Otrar (Otyrar) archaeological site, again with a taxi, and almost died of the heat there – coincidentally we were there on the first of the two days when the hottest day on record world temerature records were broken one after another; it was something like 45°C and very little shade.

It was really interesting being in this part of Kazakhstan, because it was obvious that while Russian still got you farther than English, fewer people had a good knowledge of it. For some, my level of Russian was closer to theirs than that of my friend who speaks it fluently.

Anyway, then we did get on a train and took a 17-hour overnight ride to Almaty Ꜣ) We spet a day washing our clothes there, walked around the city a bit (went to the Baikonur metro station, at least, lmao) – it reminded me much more of Bishkek than Astana, it's much greener than the latter, for one. But the next day we were already on our way on a 4-day tour around this part of the country.

We spent two days in the Altyn Emel national park – both the white mountains and the volcanic rocks of Qatutau were awesome, but the best part was still the sand dunes (even if we didn't hear them sing) and seeing a Przewalski horse with a foal galloping around (my pic of that is not the best, but still)! Though I made a mistake in taking my shoes off before going up the sand dune and leaving them there at the bottom because when we then ran down the steeper part of the sand dune and ended up on another side of it, the sand there was extremely hot and I had to run from one grass bush – and the minimal amount of shade that provided – to another... but I made it, eventually. That day we had lunch in the only Uyghur-majority village in Kazakhstan (and were again wondering what makes lagman lagman because the different versions we've had on the trip differed to the point that no ingredient was the same, but it was still called lagman... we never got to the bottom of it) and slept over in the radioactive spa (not what it's actually called, it's just that the hot spring water there is rich in radon, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

The following day we continued on to lake Tūzköl (which is not included in most of these tour plans that are offered, so we had to ask for that to be included separately because I insisted; initially I was looking at a tour that goes on into the Bayankol (Baiynköl) valley, but that tour provider turned out not to exist anymore so I was looking for something similar, and there was nothing really – the tour we found was on indyguide, I believe, and ended up being great, but it was also a compromise of what can fit into a 4-day tour anyway) – this was probably my favorite part of the tour, including the road to there (whence the pictures of the bus stops – one of my friends who's really into this Soviet-style architecture was so overjoyed when we stumbled upon them, she almost cried hahah), and I've posted pictures from the lake before too :D I went a bit around the lake on my own and I met some Kazakh ladies, one was there with a daughter who's an art student (in Almaty) and spoke English as well so we could chat a bit more (I did talk to the older ladies in Russian too), it was just really nice.

On the way to Charyn (Şaryn) canyon, which was also really impressive, we had lunch and danced with the ladies who prepared it lol, and the last day with lakes Kölsai and Kaindy (Qaiyñdy) was also great – both are mountain lakes, so that's a bit more familiar, but Kaindy especially with the tree spikes was quite fascinating. By the time we got back to Almaty we were really tired, but still went out for drinks – and just walking around, on the wall on some random hospital, I saw the most beautiful mural I'd ever seen...

We did also go to the Almaty market (that was when I could ask the taxi driver about the Uyghur situation, as I'd posted about), where I got a nice book and also had to do a double-take at this old lady walking around polishing a dildo – and then I saw that they're selling them just like that on the stands among other random stuff like shirts and tea pots and chess sets, as you will... Then we also just walked around the city – went to a small gallery, to a student quarter and ended the trip by going to the Auyl restaurant nestled in the mountains above Almaty.

There was a lot that happened in just those two weeks and I loved it!

[heyftinally]

Swifties do love setting Taylor up.

Just what I saw on Twitter Yesterday:

1989 is a pop Bible that everybody knows. - Well if it's trash maybe.

Reputation is hip hop ??? - What?

Reputation is goth Rock ?? - Lol

That Reputation is also supposed to be R&nB - like where?? wtf?

And her new album the Treacherous Dead Poets Default is an album with a new sound.

Or this yt lady on tt that was claiming that no other artists has transcended genres as successfully as taylor did. 😭 And she mentions Rock? Girl where? And literally there are tons of artists who did it way better than her.

Or that one video which they have now deleted bc taylor was getting dragged. It was a video of her just walking on stage and singing (not live) and the caption was like: I can't believe she was doing that for the first time. ' - Some small part of me does feel sorry for these delusional fanbase. Cause she has the highest grossing tour right now. Big emphasis on right now cause that record is not forever. Anyways they can not post much about her performance anywhere without people using it to drag her. Cause let's face it. She can't perform. She's not serving. She's giving nothing. Her dancers slay more than she does.

Pffffft Taylor went from pop country to pop and never changed again. Slightly different vibes? Sure. Still pop. She wouldn't know rock if it smacked her in the head.

Missy Elliott is hip hop. Early P!nk (ie Most Girls) is R&B. Sumo Cyco is goth rock (+ others, but still). Taylor Swift wouldn't touch any of those genres with a 10ft pole, and quite frankly she'd suck at them if she tried lol.

She doesn't "transcend genres", and considering she can't even make different versions of pop sound good, I think we know why.

And no, she can't perform. Let me flex my expertise here: I'm a trained dancer. Specifically with 26 years of training in tap, jazz, ballet, theater, and contemporary, with additional training in commercial/street jazz (aka music video and tour choreography) and various other styles in sporadic classes. I've literally been choreographing since I was about seven years old, and have been analyzing commercial choreography since I was 15.

That said,

Her performances are not only weak, but they show me that her tour choreographer either

Doesn't exist and she created all of her own "dancing" herself

Doesn't know how to adapt choreography for someone with virtually no dance technique

Actively has something out for Taylor and is trying to make her look bad

I'm going to reference "Look What You Made Me Do" from the Eras tour, because that's the most recent and clearest to illustrate my point

A video of the performance in question, for reference.

Okay, first off, right off the bat, her hand floating on her hip looks awkward and uncomfortable. It's giving "over-excited 8yo at recital". For someone with as much experience as she has performing, I'd expect her to look more settled in her beginning pose. She looks like she's overthinking, and thus it looks under rehearsed.

Then we have that flexed hand - yes it's a nit pick, but that pose belongs very few places outside of a 6yo's tap dance.

Movibg on, her robotic movements look messy as fuck. Sharp isolations like that are HARD. A lot of dancers with years of training struggle with getting the kind of sharpness you would expect to see from that choreography. And on the scale of a stadium like she's in, everything is amplified. If it's messy, it's going to look five times as messy as it might on a smaller scale, because the further away the audience is, the more detail gets lost. So you're movements need to be SHARP in order to translate to the audience. Add to that that this is clearly filmed professionally/intentionally, and it really just looks unprofessional/poorly planned.

Meanwhile the things like the "don't like you" scolding (besides looking childish) are so small that you wouldn't see them beyond the front row. When you're choreographing even for a normal stage, the #1 rule is make everything BIG and intentional. If you're kicking, you're hitting AT LEAST a 45° angle, and with the force of trying to kick the winning soccer (football) goal. Taylor doesn't do that. Those movements are small, sad, and weak, and it honestly looks lazy. I know a 10yo currently doing a competitive dance solo to this song, and I shit you not that 10yo is 50x more interesting to watch perform than Taylor.

So yeah, her music has been one note since Fearless one note (uninspired pop), and her "stage presence" is about on par with an 8yo who doesn't want to be here.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Hey I have trouble with sending asks so if you see this twice pls disregard. I just wanted your opinion.

In regards to the “Tour” post, I’d love to see it actually. I’d love if the big four break up the states in one big visit to cover more territory. Nothing against C&C. If anything they should handle the DC, New England elite circle.

Will & Cathrine can take Appalachia. Kate has drug addiction patronage, if it’s not too touchy (hard to avoid though) they can also listen to the addiction problems that plague the indigenous & rural community. Cathrine can deal with education and early years and Will can touch on the biodiversity stuff.

Sophie & Will can touch on the Civil Rights south. I’d love to see them partner up again. Very touchy, I’d know 👋🏾 but better to face it and get the backlash then keep avoiding it. Sophie does a lot of visits on the African continent & well, William is the heir, of & Tusk.

I can see Edward & Sophie in the northeast, maybe going to meet the migrant community. Visit some of the fruit farms. The US still sends fruit/food to the UK right?

It would be cool to see Artsy Cathrine & Edward in something art related. You can find that virtually anywhere in this country, bonus points if they avoid Hollywood. Visit some small local theaters. They can also meet up w\ The Princes Trust and definitely with some to the celebrities that work with the organization.

Will should definitely visit some public transportation systems. Places like NY, LA & even Chicago are likely out of the question because of the safety risk, and they’re well used but Sacramento and South Florida and even Atlanta would be good to visit. That would be nice to encourage more cities to adopt/expand a light rail/buss system. I know Florida needs to.

I would also absolutely, embargo this whole trip. Only mention that “members of the firm are coming” in advance then state the trip\visit the day of or the day before. Then have the big four with C & C meet up in DC for a very glam visit with the president( whoever it is) . By glam I mean, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring out the tiaras. The president or First Lady should borrow one from and American jeweler too. Americans may not understand royal visits and what it is the Firm can do for charities but we understand bling and how much we love-hate to see it. Like the MET Gala and all those Bridgeton shows people go crazy for.

Cathrine in Diana’s sapphire choker in DC & possibly the Wales kiddos on a school bus would be the absolute highlight in the fanfic tour of mine. ( I wouldn’t bring them for the whole tour, just DC). Make a school stop, early years plug or something. Especially in DC since the government is often talking about expanding maternity leave and Woman’s (reproductive) Rights.

So much potential but it’s worth it because it’s such a big country. It sucks to mention the obnoxious two but I’ve always dreaded them here (im over it now) and sometimes I’m surprised at the things they didn’t do. I’ve always expected them to do a “Harry learns America” type thing to win over the nation. They put out more PR about how much “America” was their new forever home and how much “the country” loves them, than they actually did visiting anywhere and showing it. Might have done them more good than going all the way to Nigeria and Columbia. Also, I don’t just mean LA & NY. Their NF (granted I never watched it)deal could’ve been all about that. Make visits in smaller overlooked places etc. I guess they went to Texas & allegedly partied with the wealthy in Wisconsin was it ?but that was always for their own photo op on a situation that others were already paying attention to. ( ex: Texas school shooting & some race in Miami, Just like this hurricane. It’s so inauthentic but that’s not new to them. Oh & I guess he’s surfing now. For all their loud mouth talk about colonialism and how evil the firm is they visited no plantations, no soul food restaurants to have well “SeAsonnED FoOD”? They really capitalized on the pre-existing anger we rightfully have against the firm and the blame its current members have inherited but there were so many other effective ways they could’ve really hammered the nail in. The best thing about these two is how shortsighted they are, because it does more to sabotage themselves better than anyone else could.

*********

It's a nice thought but it's never going to happen. If Charles, Camilla, William, Kate, Edward, and Sophie are all in the US at the same time, that means Andrew, Harry, or Beatrice will be deputized counsellors of state, alongside Anne, since the law requires 2 counsellors of state to act in the King's absence. So no way, no how.

I'm not going to lie - I really did expect one of the Netflix projects to be a "coming to America" docuseries where Harry adjusts to life in California all the weird idiosyncrasies that comes with living in America and being American, only because the Beckhams did it and Meghan is nothing if not a copycat.

(I deleted your comments about Kamala because it's going to rile up tempers but I did want to address one of them: "the powers that be" determining who the president is is the American public that goes to the polls and votes. If you think there's something, or someone, else choosing who the President is, then this is really not the blog for you.)

[between-myself-and-me]

It seemed only a matter of time before Julien Baker would combust. Monday at the first of a sold-out three-night residency at Thalia Hall, the singer-songwriter performed with the kind of extreme intensity that can be difficult to watch and feels both thrilling and draining to witness. She made it impossible for anyone to look away, and matched the fervor of her lyrics with spontaneous body language and unfiltered banter that underlined her tightly wound passion.

Raw and unscripted, the 90-minute concert marked a memorable way to start a tour, Baker’s first headline outing in two years. Aside from sticking to an apparent setlist, the 28-year-old approached the show by refusing to trade in predictability or artifice. Backed by a five-piece band amid a spartan stage setup, and venturing deep into her catalog, she stood as the antithesis of most peers and predecessors with her degree of success.

Nervous, excited, jittery, sincere and occasionally unable to keep her focus, Baker operated on a wavelength that brought her to an eye-to-eye level with fans and established her as a relatable person rather than an untouchable, unknowable celebrity. That didn’t mean she didn’t take her craft seriously. Indeed, Baker’s recurrent concerns about getting everything right, her admitted apprehension over remembering words and playing tunes alone, demonstrated a heightened conscientiousness and unguarded honesty few entertainers openly share.

Yes, Baker and company erred at several points, though her worries about the hoarseness of her voice — she said she overtaxed it in rehearsals — largely proved unfounded when she opened her mouth to sing. The various missteps and imperfections felt as if they belonged and, oddly enough, enhanced the fearlessness and courage with which Baker addressed harrowing topics ranging from mental illness and violent abuse to debilitating doubt and loneliness.

For all the pain and anguish in her songs, Baker continues to enjoy an ascent that a majority of burgeoning musicians would envy. Her still-developing career is evidence that listeners can still suss out singular talent even in a pop-culture landscape overstuffed with countless options and here-today-gone-tomorrow hypes vying for attention.

A decade ago, using studio time given to her by a friend, Baker recorded what became her debut in just three days while studying to be a teacher at Middle Tennessee State University. Though she didn’t expect many people outside her immediate orbit to hear them, the songs became a word-of-mouth sensation. After an indie imprint signed her and formally released the material as the “Sprained Ankle” LP, Baker landed on record-label radars and major media outlets’ best-of-year lists.

Virtually overnight, the Tennessee native went from pursuing a college education to headlining a national tour. She shared a compelling backstory that included candid details about her evangelical upbringing, battles with addictions and decision as a teenager to come out as queer to her parents. Baker’s critically acclaimed sophomore album (“Turn Out the Lights,” 2017) further expanded her profile and, the following year, she formed Boygenius with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers.

Despite releasing just two EPs and one full-length to date, Boygenius has won three Grammy Awards and cultivated enough interest that it finished touring last fall with a capacity show at the Hollywood Bowl.

Who knows, Baker’s own material might work in such settings, but its personal intimacy and intricate architecture — moody violins, atmospheric keyboards, spare guitars, chamber-inspired orchestrations — are better-suited for halls and theaters. Her three solo turns on Monday, which included the disarming “Guthrie” and a searing rendition of “Something” during which every utterance of the titular word registered as a self-inflicted gutpunch, benefited from the coziness of the mid-sized venue.

Wearing a white button-down shirt and jeans, with her hair pulled into a ponytail bun, Baker, too, appeared comfortable in an environment in which she could forge a close bond with the audience. Having previously dealt with stage fright, she revealed she no longer enjoys playing without a support band and encouraged anyone who knew the words to sing along. With rare exception, the latter request went unheeded. The hushed crowd treated Baker’s emotional outpourings with reverence of scripture.

During the faintest moments, the faint hum of amplifiers framed Baker’s delicate vocals. Expressed as whispers, asides, exhales and shudders, her gentle singing confirmed quiet moments can have as much volume as full-throated cries. Well-placed screams and howls also figured in Baker’s repertoire. She frequently delivered loud passages when standing feet away from the microphone stand or shifting her stance.

The movements altered her words’ pitch, and instilled the sensation that she was either trying to flee a bad situation, engaged in a heated confrontation or yelling into an abyss. Even with a guitar or keyboard shielding her rail-thin physique, Baker couldn’t disguise the physical impact the songs registered on her body or the anxiety they triggered in her mind.

Pointing at her temple, running her hands through her hair, covering her mouth with her forearm, shaking her head, squeezing her eyes shut, unconsciously transferring the weight from one leg to another: Baker looked as if she’d pull the bones out from beneath her skin as she chronicled traumas, faults and hurts with unsparing conviction. Far more dynamic live than on the studio recordings, the taut rhythmic structures of the songs accentuated the struggles with faith, forgiveness and optimism the singer explored via bruised, bloodied narratives.

Baker’s music is not generally fun or always easy to digest, particularly given the explicit references to suicidal thoughts, toxic relapses, self-destructive behaviors and all manner of failures. Yet it often sounded momentous and freeing — the balladic frameworks of fare such as “Crying Wolf” and “Funeral Pyre” beautiful and melodic, the crashing urgency of “Tokyo” and “Hardline” effervescent and cathartic — and spoke to vital issues without coming across as self-serving.

“I’m so (expletive) happy, you just can’t (expletive) tell,” Baker announced, typically subdued and aware of the irony, as she explained how much playing matters to her. She later gave a few clearer signs of her temperament. Baker climbed atop the drum riser to bash out punk-style chords on her electric guitar; stomped around and double-over her instrument during another explosive sequence and, ultimately, let her hair fall over her shoulders.

That, and led the band through two live premieres (the obscure seven-inch B-side “Conversation Piece,” the brand-new and unreleased “Middle Children”) and waged a conflicted war for snatching some semblance of goodness out of the jaws of despair. In the fractured episodes of “Ziptie,” “Appointments” and “Ringside,” Baker didn’t identify fixed solutions or guaranteed redemption. Still, the songs hit on the potential of mercy and hope, and of trying against all odds to conquer sensations of dread, sadness and emptiness.

For Baker, and everyone now struggling to reconcile the notions of kindness and decency against the evils that humans continue to do to one another and the planet, it’s a start to a long-overdue conversation.

[a-d-nox]

Heyy I just wanted to come on here to say that I reallyyy love your blog. I was just messing around and found an old post of yours titled "Pluto in Aquarius: what's to come" and I thought it was soo well written. I love the choice of pictures for the post as well. You don't even have to answer this ask. I just wanted to come on here and appreciate your work, that's all. Keep up the dedication!

pluto retrograding back into capricorn: a prediction of what's to come

hahaha too funny!!! "i didn't have to answer this" but it was so well planned! i was in the middle of drafting this post when this ask notifications popped up!! so thank you so much for the compliments and i hope you enjoy this one equally!!

house matters:

THIS IS THE FIRST OF TWO PLUTO RETROGRADES THAT WILL OCCUR - this one will last from june 11th to jan 20th, 2024. we likely won't see too much wildness because we only recently started experiencing what pluto in aquarius is like. we know the vibe of pluto in capricorn already and likely still feel comfortable with its predictability. THE FINAL RETROGRADE BACK INTO CAPRICORN will be september 1st, 2024 to november 19th, 2024. then we are full steam ahead with pluto in aquarius until march 9th, 2043.

live in the USA so my post likely will be slightly more focused there examples wise so i apologize in advance! feel free to comment, dm, or reblog with other examples from your country based on my prediction key phrases.

i personally am NOT a witch or anything wild, everything i am saying is purely theoretical - it is not fated to happen just because i am saying it. i am simply socially aware. i know what's up generally in the world today and what was up in world when pluto was in capricorn.

like last time i am going to start light and get darker so mentally prepare yourself for that (tw: COVID-19, assassinations, and other abrasive topics that may make people uncomfortable) depending on where they are currently reading from - but we are talking about pluto so... expect the unexpected?!

let's get to it!

time and schedule changes

in the US people have been saying that daylight savings hour should be concluded indefinitely because it is unnecessary. we don't need "daylight" like we used to because we have advanced technologically. there are more risks with keeping time change then there is with getting rid of it. i could also see this being about the 4-day work week because it was trialed at the beginning of the aqua pluto transit and it was a success. capricorn is a worker and can be about workplace efficiency too, so we could see the work week become "refined" to be 4 days only.

the rise of new non-tech and/or tech-intensive careers

where there are AI doomers, there is a market. we will see old-school businesses and professionals trying to justify and reestablish their career without AI involvement - ground zero for this prediction is real-estate (people fighting virtual or 3D-tour technology) and politics (look at the tiktok ban nonsense - i can see them saying their jobs are necessary 100% of the time... or they don't need to evolve...). capricorn again represent efficiency when it comes to working, so we could see people commingling with tech to make the most out of AI in new ways to make their careers and the work they do more efficient (and less time consuming to piggyback off of the 4-day work week prediction).

the collapse of dead space

there is a chance we will see some sort of conversation about what to do with places we no longer use - strip malls, movie theaters, mineshafts, etc. pluto retrograde makes me think of fear mongering (yes, i see the irony between that statement and this post) - i can see where with climate issue and the haze that is falling over old-money US currently that people might start talking about building bunkers in preparation of a mass natural disaster or "apocalypse." my logic behind this is that capricorn represents reliability, money, and underground places while pluto is demolition and extremes.

technology failures and setbacks

enjoy your air conditioning when you have it and if you have it - i sense that we will likely face more blackouts and rolling blackouts this summer than ever before. i also think we could see AI doomers in full swing or we will see that AI is monitoring more than it should and people will distance themselves from it.

extreme weather and climate shifts

as we have seen in the past few days, wildfires are on the rise across canada. pluto can represent extremes and electrocution while capricorn can be ashes, dryness, and old trees - people are predicting "dry thunderstorms" and stating that wildfires can occur because of these storm systems/conditions. while it is not winter here in the US this retrograde, the second retrograde will be near enough to the season: expect an extreme and EARLY winter. capricorn symbolizes cold, ice, and snow. the extreme of that being a blizzard, of course. this past winter in buffalo, new york we saw how bad it can get. where i live (almost three hours from buffalo) we had no solid snowfall... i don't think i will say the same in 2024 - the movie the day after tomorrow comes to mind.

repression of freethinkers

pluto retrograde can make people less likely to "fight against the patriarchy". we might see those who were fighting back being prosecuted or jailed (incarceration is pluto ruled). while aquarius welcomed change, shifting backwards into traditionally-minded capricorn can cause this silencing.

real-estate crisis

real-estate is starting to straighten out but i want to point out that when pluto initially entered capricorn in 2008, there was a huge scandal surrounding the housing market. the subprime mortgage crisis caused a recession to occur because the market crash and lenders couldn't return on their loans. we might see similar problems again. right now lots of homes are overpriced and if certain lenders are using the money on loan and we crash again we can see another market crash.

recession or depression

speaking of market crash... it's the roaring 20s. i don't think it is a coincidence that the Great Depression was in the 1920s, while the Great Recession was when pluto initially entered capricorn in 2008. could there be a Great Depression part two? MAYBE. considering pluto in retrograde typically indicates trouble with power dynamics and capricorn can represent business and the economy.

the death of politics and/or the church

2024 the year of the election - it's early to be talking about it for some of us, i know, BUT the campaigns are beginning. i want us to be aware that going between tradition capricorn and utopian aquarius during this time may cause some chaos... we have biden and trump again on the trial... two recent POTUSs... there are a lot of extreme people who are not happy with either of their times in office. i want to just put out there that JFK was just passing through texas on a friendly visit when his assassination occurred. pluto represents assassinations, so it might be in the stars during the retrograde seasons (hopefully not though). i feel like it will be someone close to the presidents if so because capricorn can be a "watchman" while pluto can be betrayal. since capricorn is the church, we could see the death of a pope or higher church official that causes havoc as well. alternatively, we could see people saying (towards the end of the second retrograde) / questioning why we even need a president.

capricorn terms i can't think of change in but seem important to note / keep in mind: colds (COVID being labelled the common cold while it is mutating?), hair, hysteria (another outbreak? panic early in a presidency?), limitations (lockdowns? maybe for COVID or the air conditions because of wildfires?), minerals (running out of them), mining industry (the end of this industry all together and switching to renewable resources by the end of this cap pluto era), old age (the boomers are dying off? or are we going to make a discovery of some sort about aging or age related diseases), orderliness, responsibility, tile, afghanistan, greece, lithuania, mexico, and tombs (are we going to say goodbye to cemeteries?).

plutonian terms i can't think of change in but seem important to note / keep in mind: aliases, alibis (governmental riffing similar to how no plan was in place when for COVID-19), cemeteries (removal of that method if too many are dying at any giving time - mass graves?), convicts (prison release due to overcrowding? the mega-prison of el salvador?), corruption (governmental likely?), earthquakes (more environmental issues on top of the wildfires?), liars, massacres (the rise of crime?), murder, nihilism (the rise of philosophy at the time of war?), ransom (war?), satire (rise of political satire?), stolen goods, and taxes (trump-esque no? likely to be brought up during the presidential campaign).

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© a-d-nox 2023 all rights reserved

[celia-baker]

[cis woman and she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [CELIA BAKER]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [MAUDE APATOW]. You must be the [TWENTY-SIX] year old [COSTUMER FOR THE CHARLES LEVIN THEATRE/FREELACE COSTUME DESIGNER AND SEAMSTRESS]. Word is you’re [DETAIL-ORIENTED] but can also be a bit [SELF-SACRIFICING] and your favorite song is [SATURN BY SZA]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [SEABROOK QUARTER]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

@aurorabayaesthetic

Full Name: Celia Mae Baker Nickname(s): Cece, C, C. Mae Age: 26 Birthday: September 1st, 1998 Astrological Sign: Virgo Place of Birth: New York, New York Parents: Edward and Miriam Baker (62 & 62) Siblings: Aaron Baker (33) Children: N/A Pets: Dionysus “Dio” (1-year-old male Ragdoll/Orange Tabby cat) and Thalia (4-month-old female Ragdoll cat) *Relationships: Jamie Ryder (ex-boyfriend/first love(NPC)), **see wanted connections** Scars: A light one on her knee from reconstructive surgery Tattoos: A small spool of thread on her left ankle (that she absolutely hides from her parents) Other Physical Distinctions: Gets seasonal freckles across her nose in the summertime Sexual Orientation & Gender: Pansexual and Panromantic ;; Cis Female Occupation: Lead Costumer for the Charles Levin Theater/Owner of CMB Designs *subject to change as roles are taken

bullet points

• tw: mention of broken bones, medical issues, chronic illness, reckless behavior, self-destructive behavior•

○ summer was still hanging in the air as the clocks turned to midnight. at that moment, on september 1st, 1998, celia mae baker was welcomed into the world on her exact due date. that ‘fun fact’ seemingly predicted her future, as she grew into a child that thrived off perfection and preciseness.

○ her child was felt as if it was out of a storybook: two college sweetheart parents who were brilliant scholars, a brother who was nothing less than her closest and dearest friend, and the entirety of the Lower East Side as her playground? it was a dream. family means everything to this girl and she would both die or kill for any of them.

○ september 1st, 2004: it was celia's birthday and that year's gift? tickets to go see the lion king on broadway. from the moment the newly six-year-old stepped her black mary-janes into the lobby of the theater, she was hooked. it was like magic to her. every moment, every song, every performer: she had found her calling. after hours of begging the next summer, the baker's finally allowed celia to take acting lessons. and what would you know? she was seemingly born for the stage. instructors were suddenly sending her on auditions, getting her gigs, and even had her touring for a year with a professional production of secret garden. it was like a dream come true for the girl.

○ when she wasn't at rehearsal or doing a show, celia was shut up in her room playing all the classic cozy games. her summer nights and free weekends were filled with whatever sims or harvest moon game was out at the time. to this day, she still can be found with a blanket wrapped around her, a bowl of chips by her side and her little virtual life on the screen in front of her.

○ she is also a blossoming cat lady. she has two currently and they are her pride and joy.

○ to no one's surprise, celia decided to major in musical theatre. she hoped to soon transition into either performing on broadway or return to touring as an adult. however, during a production of into the woods in which she played cinderella her third semester (and in front of talent scouts), there was a part in her performance of steps of the palace where she went down to her knees. everything before that was going swimmingly; a shoo-in for an invite to audition for their summer program. when that first knee hit the stage though, all celia remembers was hearing a loud crack and feeling as if her entire leg had exploded. she was soon whisked away to the hospital where they discovered her kneecap had completely shattered, requiring her to get a full knee replacement. 'devastated' wasn't a strong enough word for the feelings that overcame her when she found out she couldn't dance for at least a year after the surgery.

○ but everyone in her family had one question on their minds: how did a completely healthy nineteen-year-old's knee completely shatter from a simple landing? well, after extensive and invasive testing, the culprit was revealed: systemic lupus erythematosus causing osteoporosis. it made sense; she had been feeling achier than usual (chalked up to her getting older and less flexible as she grew), got exhausted so quickly (usually blamed on lack of sleep or doing too much), and was starting to see a rash pop up across her cheeks (which was misdiagnosed as eczema). she thought the year ban on performing was bad, though? once she heard her doctors recommend she not do any professional touring ever again at the risk of her doing irreparable damage to herself as he condition continued to progress, the sound of her heart shattering felt louder than hearing her literal bone split open. her whole life had been planned by her since she was seven. and now? she had to start back at square one.

○ after a gap year of healing (and moping. and crying. and wallowing), celia went back to school (this time in aurora bay as she wanted to be as far from the broadway signs that were a reminder of everything she had lost) and began to fall in love with another aspect of the theatre: costuming. she poured herself into the world of storytelling through clothing and creating pure magic on stage. if this was the path her life was to take, it was time to throw everything she had into starting off on the right foot. getting both her BA and MA in costuming and fashion design plus getting a 4.0 GPA both times was absolutely a coping method for losing her past love. though it was bittersweet getting her highly coveted position at The Charles Levin Theater, she could not be more happy to be close to the industry that has brought her so much joy.

○ celia has grown into a highly respected costume designer. so much so, she was advised to start freelancing as well (since so many people gushed over her creations on stage). and celia agreed. in 2022, she started CMB Designs and it took off faster than she could have ever expected. it's almost turned her into a workaholic. it seems she can only be found hunched over her sewing machine, working on some elaborate costume for either the theater or for the many drag queens who have added her to their 'designers' list

○ however, as these past few years have gone by and her lupus has progressed, celia is starting to feel the toll all this work and stress is taking on her body. the aches have been stronger, her fatigue putting her out for days. but will she stop? no. she's never stopped. yeah, she's being held together by a string with the structural integrity of one of her most worn character shoes' buckle but what's a little breakdown every once in a while, right? ....right?

○ to be honest, celia has been trying to 'let loose' a little more. it started with simply breaking up with her high school boyfriend when she moved to aurora bay. then she just started partying with her college friends. however, she may be swinging the pendulum a little too much to the other side these days. between the only 'romantic relationships' she's had in the last few years have been some one-night stands and partying too hard too frequently, it's obvious her behavior is more reckless than a liberating 'fuck you' to her proclivities for perfection. after all, it's easier to not care about yourself when your body is only going to degrade.

wanted connections/plots

the frenemies ;; are they friends? do they hate each other? you’ll never know with these two. the one night stand ;; hit it and quit it (is there more of a relationship past that? we'll just have to see) the one? ;; these two flirt so much, they might as well just get it over with and date. however, many steps have to be taken to get there. are they willing to make those steps? fwb ;; having a friend is good. having a friend who has sex with you is better. no strings attached. onesided love ;; either celia or this other person has feelings for the other, but the feelings aren’t quite reciprocated customers;; simple: these people go to celia for costumes for work or recreation! the fan ;; it can be known or not, this person just really appreciates and enjoys celia’s work.

[glassprism]

I’ve only ever seen Phantom on Broadway, and I’ve been so curious how the show looked in comparison when it went on tour. I’ve asked family members who saw it, but they don’t have the same level of interest in shows that I do, so they couldn’t remember any specifics. How would they do the chandelier and the candelabras coming out of the stage? Or the theatre de-aging at the beginning? Was there a proscenium constructed for the Phantom to do his appearances during Il Muto? Or the moment with the angel? Thank you in advance for all your Phantom knowledge! ❤️

Well, it depends on the tour you're talking about.

The Phantom of the Opera has had four tours in the United States (and also Canada, which the third and fourth tours went to). The first three tours, which collectively ran from 1989-2010, were extremely similar to Broadway in almost everything: sets, costumes, blocking, even the actors (many actors would get their start on the tour then move to Broadway, or switch back and forth between them). If there were any changes, it would be very minor and done because the theater they were in did not have capability to do a certain thing, e.g. the Red Death running offstage instead of going down a trapdoor. So whatever they do on Broadway, assume it is done the same way in the first three national tours.

The fourth tour is what a lot of fans called the restaged tour, as it radically altered all of the above, while still retaining just enough of the look to show that it was inspired by the replica. I've made this gifset and this post explaining the differences, but to also answer your specific questions:

The chandelier is already half-raised when the show starts and covered in a sheet. During the Overture, the sheets are sucked into the chandelier and it rises to where it will be for the rest of the show (until it falls of course).

There are no candelabras in the Phantom's lair in the restaging, apart from some small ones on his desk. The candles float from the ceiling (actually the inside of a big "drum set").

As there is much less in the way of drapery and backdrops to move around, the de-aging is done mostly with the actors. As the chandelier rises (a short distance), Raoul remains onstage. The rest of the people at the auction move offstage and are replaced with the various dancers and actors for Hannibal, moving in a dream-like manner. As Raoul goes offstage, they move into rehearsal mode, indicating we are now fully in "the past". Finally the boxes spin into view and a false proscenium is lowered.

There is a false proscenium, as indicated above, but the Phantom does not use it; when the chandelier drops, he is in one of the boxes instead.

There is no Golden Angel in the restaged tour either; instead, the Phantom sings his reprise on an anatomically correct Apollo statue that is on the stage floor.

If you want even more information about the restaged tour (again, the previous three national tours were virtually identical to Broadway so I assume you don't need more info about them), you can also take a look at a bootleg here. I hope that helps!

[beautifulpersonpeach]

This is an opinion piece. Many will not agree with me, so I have laid out some facts. Scooter’s wife divorces him and his biggest clients leave him by the end of 2022. As if the pandemic wasn’t hard enough, hey Scooter? Karma?

2017

-On May 21, 2017, BTS won the Billboard award for Top Social Artist, beating out Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and Shawn Mendes. Beiber and Grande at that time were both signed to Scooter Braun’s agency. Everyone took notice.

Except Justin that is, lol.

2018

-Here he is in August 26, 2018 answering fans questions about Jungkook and BTS. He had listened to one song - FIRE.

https://youtu.be/aDHRFWrM08g?si=_0ql84of_Z6R1lVw

2020

-Jan 14, 2020 Justin announces he has been diagnosed with Lyme Disease

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/justin-bieber-lyme-disease

-July 23, 2020 Justin announces tour dates - previously delayed because of Covid pandemic

https://www.cp24.com/entertainment-news/justin-bieber-announces-2021-dates-for-rescheduled-tour-1.5036378b

2021

-April 13, 2021 The Redemption of Justin Bieber. Justin has struggled. With addiction, depression, anxiety and the law. He has been isolated from his peers and elevated to celebrity superstar status before reaching adulthood. In the western world that’s a recipe for disaster. Whether you like his music or not, there’s no denying Justin Bieber has talent. The numbers speak for themselves.

https://www.gq.com/story/justin-bieber-cover-profile-may-2021

-May 6, 2021 covid pandemic causes Justin to cancel tours until 2022

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/05/06/justin-bieber-postpones-canadian-summer-tour-dates-until-2022/

-April 2, 2021 Scooter sells Ithaca Holdings to Hybe.

https://www.reuters.com/article/hybe-ma-ithaca-idUSL4N2LV13C

(Interesting that 11 days later that month the redemption of Justin Bieber article in GQ is published)

-And a month later, June 25, 2021, Scooter flies to South Korea to meet his new company, the vast potential of new, polite, trainees, various established groups under the Hybe umbrella and world superstars, the BTS members. I have to sigh here, the author of this article can’t even be bothered to include each member’s name. Just a general Scooter says “they’re great”. Because he couldn’t care less? He had his wonder boy Justin, and potentially a whole new generation of talented people to work with should the need arise in the future. I believe the members of BTS individually or as a group weren’t his priority at the time. I remember that period when fans were asking if a collaboration with Justin Bieber would be possible in the future. BTS handled these questions very delicately.

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/scooter-braun-experience-meeting-bts/

And during the epidemic, all is quiet except for the BTS members who work continuously through this period, appearing virtually on several shows aimed at the western audience.

2022

-March 13, 2022 Hybe’s gross profit from of PTD concert one night show in theaters is a Blockbuster Hit! $32.6 million in revenue earned from 3711 cinemas.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/bts-permission-to-dance-on-stage-seoul-llive-viewing-gross-1235203444/

-June 8, 2022 Justin postpones North American tour dates (Look at the scheduled list of dates)

https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/why-justin-bieber-postponing-north-american-tour-dates-singer-says-sickness-getting-worse

-September 4, 2022 BTS’s PTD tour reportedly earns $ 230.7 million in concert revenue

-September 15, 2022 Scooter to pay $20 million in divorce settlement but gets to keep private jet

https://people.com/music/scooter-braun-ordered-pay-ex-wife-20-million-divorce-settlement-keeps-private-jet/

2023

-January 24, 2023 Justin sells his music catelog

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/media/justin-bieber-music-catalog-sale/index.html

-January 25, 2023 Scooter becomes sole CEO of Hybe America

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/scooter-braun-hybe-ceo-bts-1235500913/

- February 9, 2023 Scooter buys Quality control music

https://www.thefader.com/2023/02/09/scooter-braun-quality-control-music-hybe-deal

-February 10, 2023 Hybe buys 14.8% stock in SM entertainment

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/media/south-korea-hybe-sm-entertainment-deal-intl-hnk/index.html

-Feb 23, 2023 Justin cancels remaining tour dates

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/02/28/justin-bieber-cancels-justice-world-tour/11368719002/

-March 5, 2023 Hybe to raise up to $769 million to purchase shares in SM Entertainment

https://www.kedglobal.com/mergers-acquisitions/newsView/ked202303050002

-March 24, 2023 Hybe sells shares in SM Entertainment

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/hybe-sm-entertainment-k-pop-1235563480/

-March 26, 2023 Records are broken worldwide with Jimin’s album release FACE on March 24, 2023

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbenjamin/2023/03/26/bts-jimin-sells-over-1-million-copies-of-face-solo-album-worldwide-for-record-breaking-24-hours-in-korea/

-August 23, 2023 ABANDON SHIP!! Is everyone leaving Scooter?

https://www.koco.com/article/scooter-brauns-artist-roster-what-we-know/44894780

Everything I have ever read about Scooter, I don’t respect him enough to write his proper name, is that he puts himself first. Previous clients do not speak highly of his management. Taylor Swift for example.

Interesting fact, Taylor Swift, Halsey (Boy with Luv collaboration with BTS) and Camilla Cabello (Shawn Mendes is her ex) gave a great performance of “Shake it off” at the American Music Awards in Nov 2019.

Perhaps when Justin’s health issues became too grave to hide from the public or Justin himself refused to be held to his contract, (and perhaps Justin sold his catalog to cover his costs/penalties of canceling his tour) Scooter had an empty sandbox with no one to play with.

And, having lost his main source of income and having a keen head for business, (vulture capitalist) he had already set his sights on a new revenue stream. Of the seven BTS members, one in particular had released songs by Justin Bieber, proving he had what it took to be successful in the western market.

Jungkook has been a Bieber fan since he debuted with BTS. He ticks all the boxes needed for the western market, doesn’t he? Masculine build, tattoos, piercings, outstanding vocal ability and dance skills/technique and is a member of the greatest musical group in history?

No wonder Scooter went to the White House with BTS. Had to be sure to be there at the Grammys too. Front and center as though he was responsible for their success.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hybe-is-raising-380m-to-fund-more-music-acquisitions-in-the-us-report/

Confusing isn’t it?

1) Hybe buys Ithaca holdings April 2021

-$ 1 billion + reportedly

2) Justin Bieber Tour is canceled several times, and he pulls out of remaining tour dates February 2023

- $ unknown

3) Scooter buys Quality Control music one month after being named CEO of Hybe America February 2023

-$ 300 million

4) Hybe buys 14.8 % stock in SM entertainment February 2023

-$ 334.5 million

5) Hybe sells stock in SM entertainment for

+ $ 191.8 million March 2023

Well thank goodness for BTS. In 2022, their PTD tour earned:

+ $ 230.7 million concert revenue for PTD Tour

+ $ 32.6 million from PTD theater showing, limited engagement, in 3711 cinemas

Someone had to keep the lights on in that new building and families of the employees fed.

Which brings us back to Jeon Jungkook, Bieber admirer, a man who most definitely fits the “western audience appeal”, possessing talent beyond what we in the west have seen in many years.

And then there’s his equally talented, gifted dancer “Bro” Jimin who broke all the records right before him but does not bow down to those who whisper behind his back, lol.

And by coincidence, their music videos, promotional materials for their solo albums and many of their conversations seem to hinting at something 😉

Oh Scooter, it isn’t fun when someone beats you at your own game, is it?

When in doubt as to what is going on in an organization, follow the $$$.

I firmly believe the budget allowed for BTS’s chapter 2 “solo period” was capped due HYBE’s financial acquisitions at the same time.

In my opinion.

***

Now, @westcoastgal1,

I commend the effort you've put into this ask and I can tell you're trying to build a case for your theory(-ies), but I'm not sure what exactly that theory is.

Is it that "I firmly believe the budget allowed for BTS’s chapter 2 “solo period” was capped due HYBE’s financial acquisitions at the same time." ?

Is it that Scooter is broke and HYBE shifted financial resources from BTS to support him and their SM acquisition? Didn't HYBE tap capital markets precisely to raise proceeds for that purpose though? Or is it that Scooter is looking for a windfall in BTS now that his old roster of artists have abandoned ship?

But then, what is the implication here?

"And then there’s his equally talented, gifted dancer “Bro” Jimin who broke all the records right before him but does not bow down to those who whisper behind his back, lol.

And by coincidence, their music videos, promotional materials for their solo albums and many of their conversations seem to hinting at something 😉"

Is it that Jimin wasn't willing to play Scooter's balls like JK did apparently? But he had no issues accepting the Fast & Furious gig? And if so, what's the takeaway here? How does this tie in to the similarities in their concept pics styling, etc, so far?

You've already put quite some effort into building out this timeline so I hate to ask you to do more work, but I'm afraid the dots aren't quite connecting for me just yet. If you'd like to send me a follow up ask succinctly explaining what you mean, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, all I can say is this looks like a variation of the same fan theories I've seen people come up with to explain Jimin's solo rollout relative to Jungkook's. The fact there's so much discourse around it indicates something else to me, but I'll let the dead horse be.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

he holocaust educators I met across America were all obsessed with building empathy, a quality that relies on finding commonalities between ourselves and others. But I wondered if a more effective way to address anti-Semitism might lie in cultivating a completely different quality, one that happens to be the key to education itself: curiosity. Why use Jews as a means to teach people that we’re all the same, when the demand that Jews be just like their neighbors is exactly what embedded the mental virus of anti-Semitism in the Western mind in the first place? Why not instead encourage inquiry about the diversity, to borrow a de rigueur word, of the human experience?

Back at home, I thought again about the Holocaust holograms and the Auschwitz VR, and realized what I wanted. I want a VR experience of the Strashun Library in Vilna, the now-destroyed research center full of Yiddish writers and historians documenting centuries of Jewish life. I want a VR of a night at the Yiddish theater in Warsaw—and a VR of a Yiddish theater in New York. I want holograms of the modern writers and scholars who revived the Hebrew language from the dead—and I definitely want an AI component, so I can ask them how they did it. I want a VR of the writing of a Torah scroll in 2023, and then of people chanting aloud from it through the year, until the year is out and it’s read all over again—because the book never changes, but its readers do. I want a VR about Jewish literacy: the letters, the languages, the paradoxical stories, the methods of education, the encouragement of questions. I want a VR tour of Jerusalem, and another of Tel Aviv. I want holograms of Hebrew poets and Ladino singers and Israeli artists and American Jewish chefs. I want a VR for the conclusion of Daf Yomi, the massive worldwide celebration for those who study a page a day of the Talmud and finally finish it after seven and a half years. I want a VR of Sabbath dinners. I want a VR of bar mitzvah kids in synagogues being showered with candy, and a VR of weddings with flying circles of dancers, and a VR of mourning rituals for Jews who died natural deaths—the washing and guarding of the dead, the requisite comforting of the living. I want a hologram of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks telling people about what he called “the dignity of difference.”

I want to mandate this for every student in this fractured and siloed America, even if it makes them much, much more uncomfortable than seeing piles of dead Jews does. There is no empathy without curiosity, no respect without knowledge, no other way to learn what Jews first taught the world: love your neighbor. Until then, we will remain trapped in our sealed virtual boxcars, following unseen tracks into the future.

[oneinathousand]

Every once in a while the subject of digital necromancy and bad biopics will pop up and create a lot of discussion, and when it happens, a lot of the same subjects will be brought up repeatedly. However, there's one movie I came upon several months ago that combines "bringing dead actors back to life" and the disrespectful biopic in a completely unhinged way that I've never seen done elsewhere, but I never hear anybody on English-speaking parts of the internet bring it up because it's virtually unknown outside of Russian-speaking areas. Let me introduce you to a little movie called Vysotsky: Thank You for Being Alive.

First, some context on who the subject of this biopic is: Vladimir Vysotsky was a Russian singer/songwriter/poet/actor who was incredibly popular among much of the Soviet Union; you could consider him the Russian equivalent to John Lennon or Edith Piaf, all being artists, who - because they died relatively young - were elevated after their deaths to becoming cultural icons of almost mythical status.

So, in 2011, this movie was released, based on a screenplay and partially produced by Vysotsky's son, Nikita Vysotsky, and it tells a story about Vysotsky having a near-death experience while on tour in Uzbekistan in 1979 as KGB agents are spying on him. The producers apparently wanted viewers to see the "real" Vladimir Vysotsky, and to do that, they took a very... unique approach to his portrayal in the movie.

They had the actor who played Vysotsky go through six hours of makeup every day, then used CG on top of that (to what extent, I don't know, maybe it was just a general digital airbrushing, though I also heard some shots might have his face be entirely CG, but I can't confirm since there's not a lot of info about this movie in English), and then had Nikita Vysotsky dub the voice.

So far, not so unusual, other than the filmmakers being incredibly obsessive about making the actor look exactly like Vysotsky because they didn't think audiences would accept anything else.

Here's the batshit part: They didn't credit the actor, Sergey Bezrukov, upon release. They kept his involvement a secret. Instead, they credited Vladimir Vysotsky as playing himself.

It wasn't until the next year when Sergey Bezrukov admitted to playing Vysotsky, and apparently for a 2013 TV version they finally credited him. Also, this review from before the confession indicates that many people managed to figure out it was him all along. Still, that just goes to show that keeping it a secret was a pointless endeavor.

Maybe this movie is actually really good and tells this episode of Vysotsky's life in a factual, even-handed way, but I wouldn't be able to tell you since, again, not a lot of super-detailed info on Vysotsky in English that's easy to find. What I CAN say is that regardless of its quality, all those efforts pretty much go down the drain by the producers deciding not to credit the actual actor for a time. Pretending Vysotsky played himself feels like putting words in his mouth postmortem, it would be kinda like if I made a biopic about somebody and then at the end of the movie I put up a disclaimer being like "We held an Ouija board session and communicated with our subject's ghost who TOTALLY gave us the stamp of approval."

I haven't seen the whole film but from what I have seen, the use of all that makeup, CG, and dubbing plants the performance pretty firmly in the uncanny valley, and if I were a Russian who had grown up listening to Vysotsky's music and watching his acting roles, then saw this movie in a theater or on TV, I'd be creeped out and insulted at the notion that this is as good as the real deal.

The effect looks fine in some angles and lighting conditions, but otherwise it's generally weird-looking. The face is overly smooth, Bezrukov clearly couldn't emote much underneath all that makeup, and the dubbed voice doesn't always match the facial expressions, or lack thereof. It doesn't help that this movie is REALLY brightly lit and saturated as if it was shot by a 2000's video game developer who just figured out how to do bloom effects, so there's really not much the film could do to obscure the face. The creepiness is something you have to see in motion to feel, just posting pictures wouldn't get across what I mean, so if you do want to see it, the movie has been uploaded here.