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ifuckinglovestvincent · 4 years ago

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LATIMES: For St. Vincent, life under COVID has meant recording a soul-baring podcast and binging on Stalin

Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, in her home studio: “I divide my life into albums.” [Leah Lehrer]

By RANDALL ROBERTS

STAFF WRITER

AUG. 26, 2020 2:15 PM

During a recent conversation, Annie Clark, the Grammy-winning musician who performs as St. Vincent, confessed that she had, quite literally, nothing else scheduled for the day. She had awakened, she explained, knowing that her only obligation would occur at precisely 2 p.m.

“The crazy thing is, because there’s nothing to divide a day, having anything on the calendar to do feels almost overwhelming,” she said. “Like, what am I going to do now that I have this one 20-minute thing that must happen at this specific time? It’s very strange. It’ll be interesting to go back, in some way, to all the spinning plates.”

On Monday, Clark’s new audio project, “St. Vincent: Words + Music,” premieres on Audible, the online audiobook and podcast platform. A 90-minute first-person deep dive into her life and music, the program is interspersed with revelatory new versions of some of St. Vincent’s most popular songs. She offers a fresh rendition of 2007’s “Marry Me,” for example, that highlights dizzying string arrangements absent from the original version.

For St. Vincent obsessives, these versions are essential listens, as are her recollections on her early years as part of the Texas music collective the Polyphonic Spree and her decision to embark on a solo career under a pseudonym. For passing fans, Clark’s conversational way of speaking about the evolution of her work across six studio albums (including “Love This Giant,” her 2012 collaboration with David Byrne) provides a glimpse into her creative methods. An artist whose work has evolved from guitar-driven indie rock to increasingly experimental work filled with electronics and vocal effects, St. Vincent’s music has at this point transcended genre.

The project is part of Audible’s “Words + Music” series, which includes “Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane,” James Taylor’s “Break Shot,” Common’s “Bluebird Memories: A Journey Through Lyrics & Life” and Rufus Wainwright’s “Road Trip Elegies: Montreal to New York.”

Clark, 37, recently spoke to The Times from her home in Los Angeles.

“I have this theory,” says St. Vincent, “that people who are creative for a living were really dumbstruck, creatively, by the pandemic.” [Leah Lehrer]

How much podcast and audiobook listening do you typically do?

I’m obsessed with podcasts and audiobooks. I probably listen to more audiobooks than I do music. I mean, I certainly listen to music — for enjoyment, for research, for just making sure I know what is happening. Luckily, maybe because I’m a musician, I can retain a lot of information that comes through on the auditory side. I mean, I’ve really been brushing up on my Stalin.

You’ve brushed up on your Stalin?

It makes me feel much better about where we are today. Because they had it bad.

It’s pretty bad now.

It’s really bad now. But it was worse. I’ll go ahead and say it was worse in Stalin’s Russia. So there we are. That makes me feel bright and sunny. I’ve been on a real saucy Gulag Stalin kick for the past many months. Cold war, espionage — all of it.

You want to recommend any specific podcasts or books?

Oh God, we shouldn’t be talking about Stalin. This is already a disaster. I haven’t done this in a minute, you know what I mean? I don’t have my talking points all figured out.

I hope this isn’t a disaster.

No, but if we lead with Stalin, it’s not going to go well for me. Let’s talk about this Audible thing, because it was a lovely experience. It was fun to take old songs and reinvent them. There’s a version of “Digital Witness” on this that’s really funky and I love it. I’m glad they gave me a reason to look at my back catalog and reinvent some old songs.

Did you enjoy the process of recalling where you were in your life during various points?

I did. I divide my life into albums, instead of the other markers of time that most people have. I can go, “Oh, I was in the middle of this tour, and this is what was going on in my life and this is what I was writing about as a result.” That part of it was kind of an archaeological dig.

You reveal a few experiences in the program about your family and private life. I didn’t know, for example, about your father’s white-collar crimes, which landed him in prison in the early ’00s. Did you have any hesitation about engaging with parts of your life that aren’t related to your music?

I would have a long time ago, and I certainly did while it was all going on. I’ve always wanted people to enjoy and take in my music for what the music was. I don’t want it to be like a piece of art on the wall that needs an explanation in order to enjoy it. I want it to be enjoyed and interpreted on its own merit. I don’t think that it makes art more valid because it came from really horrible circumstances. I don’t necessarily want to mythologize something that’s actually quite normal. Things happen. And the crazy thing is to expect otherwise.

I think that in the past I felt way more protective of my family and my privacy because he was still in there. But since then, he’s been released, and we have a great relationship. It’s been a wonderful story of reconciliation, change, forgiveness, all those things. That’s why I feel fine about throwing it out there, because frankly, it had the happiest possible ending.

Another story you share is about being groped during a performance while you were stage-diving, and reacting by hitting the fan with your microphone. Have you stopped stage-diving since that happened?

Yes, stage-diving in that particular way. During the “Strange Mercy” tour, I was straight up hurling myself into the crowd and getting some pretty sick dives in. But then during the “St. Vincent” tour, I was definitely going into the crowd but more like jumping on the backs of security guards and running through that way. I still love the fan interaction. It’s not necessarily the end of my stage-diving days.

youtube

A lot of creative people I know are having a hard time with their muse right now. How are you doing with that?

I’m doing OK. It’s been a really productive time, but in a different way. I have this theory that people who are creative for a living were dumbstruck, creatively, by the pandemic, because we all need an element of chaos in our day to be able to grab inspiration. I know that’s a cheesy word, but we need to be able to be walking down the street, see that strange thing that somebody did and think about it, metabolize it and write about it.

People who are creative for a living have had a very hard time being creative during the pandemic. But a lot of people who aren’t necessarily creative for a living are like, “It’s a great time. I’ve finally learned how to knit and I finally wrote that short story that I‘d been meaning to do.” My informal poll of my fellow writers is that they’re banging their heads against the wall. But other people learned how to crochet or how to play “Sweet Home Alabama,” and that’s awesome.

Have you considered how you might present yourself as a performer going forward if, because of the coronavirus, the concert experience evolves into something unrecognizable?

I think about it every day. I wouldn’t imagine that things will ever be exactly back to normal, in terms of live touring. There’s a whole lot of other ways to get creative about how to reach people. And not just how to reach people but have the actual intimacy and energetic exchange of a show. The need for that kind of communion isn’t going to go away. I don’t think that’ll ever go away. It’s going to change, and it’s changed many times over the course of history. But yes, I think about it every day.

I think things that people love, they’re going to love even more, and they aren’t going to fall for things that they don’t love. Everything’s been put into sharp focus. Everybody’s figured out, more and more, what they actually need and what they don’t in these crazy times. I certainly don’t mean to minimize the actual human condition on the ground. But I think it’s going to be an exciting time for art. And that’s a silver lining.

#st vincent #annie clark #audible #interviews #A DEEP DIVE #INTO HER LIFE #AND MUSIC #YALL #also ‘passing fans’ like #have they met a st vincent fan #ALSO I DID NOT KNOW HER DAD WAS RELEASED #!!!!#!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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lligkv · 4 years ago

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a starting point, not the sum total

The magazine Harper’s recently published a feature in which a bunch of writers talk about “life after Trump.” They cover various topics: reality, tabloids, movies, relationships, manners, imagination, gold, conversation, punctuation, apologies, golf, literature, and Trump himself. Some of the writers are covering their usual beats: “literature” is covered by the book critic Christian Lorentzen, “movies” by film critic A. S. Hamrah. And some writers cover topics that I know from Twitter they’re already interested in: I’ve seen a number of tweets from Jane Hu, for instance, with quotes on Adorno’s thoughts on punctuation, which also opens her Harper’s piece. Other writers speak to subjects that seem more random, like Liane Carlson’s examination of the decline of the public apology that we saw so often in the early 21st century (with Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, and their like) or Yinka Elujoba on gold: the color, the substance, why it appeals to a certain brand of aristocrat in a certain type of declining empire.

A few of the pieces are inane—showing what can happen when you assemble a piece by giving a bunch of writers a topic to just do whatever they want; different people take mandates differently, and they won’t always be deep—they won’t always be hits. For instance, there’s not much to “Golf” by David Owen. Basically: golf was staid and boring when he first took it up in the early 90s, then it became kind of cool with Tiger Woods’s fame in the late 90s, or at least something people knew about and many people watched, and then all that was undone by Trump’s love of golf the last four years. And that’s well and good, but who cares. Ultimately, Owen’s contribution registers as a marginal blip in the midst of more robust discussions.

But the most inane entry might be Eileen Myles’s contribution to the feature. It’s ostensibly about “relationships.” What it’s actually about is Myles’s feelings. We’ve established before how much I’ve come to distrust writing about how we feel about major developments in politics or about disasters like climate change, rather than the developments and disasters themselves. And at least Elisa Gabbert’s The Unreality of Memory is a genuine attempt to explore something, even if there are moments when the essays in it drift into ponderousness or sentimentality. In fact, I’ve come to feel less harshly about Gabbert’s book as I’ve thought about the pandemic the last few weeks—how unreal a number like 400,000 deaths feels to me, and how I struggle to know whether this is a natural response. Is a pandemic, with its enormous scale of death, a hyperobject, a phenomenon so vast it can’t really be countenanced by a single human mind? Do large-scale tragedies ever feel real and not abstract to those living through them, when they’re this diffuse? Or is this flatness I feel unique, a sign of some special psychic damage in those of us who are alive today, from social media or the ubiquity of news in the times we live in? I’m more willing to grant that this, how to countenance disaster, is Gabbert’s question; she certainly engages it thoughtfully.

Myles is not thoughtful. It’s striking to read their contribution after you read, say, Hamrah’s brief, potent account of the streaming services’ ascendance in the COVID era, now that we’re all stuck at home and at the mercy of whatever pricing schemes the streaming giants want to set for the movies they release if we want any (legal) entertainment, and how this reflects similar moves last century by studios to force theaters and theater-goers to pay for shit movies as well as better ones. Or Mike Jaccarino’s recent history of tabloids: how Trump depended on them to inflate his image in the 90s and aughts, and how the dynamic reversed over the course of his presidential race and term, with the task of tracking changes in Trump’s image now sustaining them—revealing again the inversion of structures like the media over the course of neoliberalism’s evolution and aftermath. Myles’s piece, so focused on them and how they felt about Joe Biden winning the presidency in 2020, is just so narrow by comparison. Even Charles Yu’s account of the damaging effect the Trump presidency has had on (consensus) “reality” is more interesting. It’s flawed, to my eye, because it so often presents what Trump supporters or QAnoners believe as merely an inferior narrative, a fiction they’ve subscribed to at least somewhat consciously and don’t want disturbed, as though they were all ostriches sticking their heads in the sand rather than people inhabiting the same physical space as Yu himself. And you’re never going to succeed at changing someone’s mind if you’re just convinced they’ve subscribed to a false and inferior narrative—because, as Lauren Oyler notes in her contribution to “Life After Trump,” differences in opinion often come down to different interpretations of the same facts. But even Yu’s contribution is interesting, because it’s not just Yu talking about himself as though his own experience is ours.

Myles’s piece, on the other hand, is just “I, I, I, I, I.” “I was crossing lower Broadway to look at a show,” they write: “I’m a fan…of the work of the artist named Sky Hopinka,” “I had allowed that monster”—Trump—“into my body,” “I went inside the gallery,” “I could hear [the spoken parts of the Hopinka exhibition] pretty well,” “I was in Texas during the earliest parts of COVID and I stayed there for a while and I was keenly aware that this was the first true crisis I had missed in New York”—and on it goes.

And Myles is so irritatingly convinced that their “I” is heroic, or part of a heroic “we,” standing in opposition to Trumpists and to the people in Chelsea, bourgeois and apolitical, who aren’t happy when they see a friend of Myles’s, Joe, pumping up the crowd at the election celebration:

He put his Biden-Harris T-shirt on which was brilliant. Everyone cheers when they see him. He’s like a sign. He starts acting like a sign, saying yay to everyone. Women always say yay, some couples won’t. Or they say a little. Not everyone in Chelsea is happy. They’re doing their Chelsea thing. Shopping, getting some food. This is a disruption. It’s like they didn’t even know there was an election.

I’m not on the side of the Chelsea shoppers here. I’m not on the side of anyone who’s indifferent to their environment, or who sniffs at a public display of any kind of emotion, enforcing some arbitrary idea of seemliness. But how radical is an election, really? How much does this one ultimately change? It’s a minor fluctuation in a long interregnum. I see these lines of Myles’s and I think, If you were really radical, you’d know that. You’d know that, and you wouldn’t devote this piece that professes to be about relationships to celebrating yourself and your milieu as though it speaks for the Chelsea shoppers’ or for mine. You’d think about the world you were in. The whole world, not just your part of it.

Some of the frustration of reading “Relationships” in the larger context of “Life After Trump” is the frustration of watching someone practice a mode that’s been outmoded as though it were still revolutionary. It’s part of Myles’s project as a poet to write from their own perspective. And it was likely groundbreaking or at least interesting when they first began writing: a way to speak to the experience and subjectivity of artists and creatives in late 20th-century America and make that real to those who did not know that world. Or a way to speak to those who wanted to join that world. It’s a poor mode now, in this time. Artists have long been integrated into the mainstream and the market—they’re no longer a vanguard. They’re not even people whom the mass media organs of the culture consciously turn to for a reflection of what life looks like now and what it could look like in the future. (Here, I’m thinking Sontag, Mailer, Dwight Macdonald, whoever—a small and biased set of examples, but the ones that come to mind.) The work of artists now feels like just another kind of content you might prefer to consume, just another piece of fodder for an identity (say, “literary person”) that you can espouse—and the presence of even critical artists and creatives is a marginal one that you, again as an individual consumer, can pay attention to if you like or just as easily ignore.

What’s more, in a time marked by widespread use of social media, everyone’s a poet of Myles’s type today. Everyone’s a relentless “I,” broadcasting their feelings and impressions of situations and history, talking about what everything and anything that happens feels like for them and what it means for them. I’m doing it right now! And I read magazines like Harper’s and Bookforum and the London Review of Books and more for a break from that mode—or a practice of it in which the “I” is a starting point, not the sum total. That is, when it comes to writing about the culture, I’m looking for writing that goes beyond the “I” to say something genuine about the world we’re in. Something that helps me understand that world better and then to change it.

#harper's magazine #eileen myles #a. s. hamrah #christian lorentzen #jane hu #charles yu #lauren oyler #elisa gabbert

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letsbenditlikebennett · 4 years ago

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Unbreakable || Ariana & Morgan

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Morgan comes by to visit Ariana after the falling out with Deirdre. They watch the sunset and have a good talk.

Even in the midst of most things going to hell around her, Ariana found there were always some small rays of light to hold onto. As alone as she had felt running away from Deirdre’s home, the moments that followed reminded her that she was anything but. Kaden showing up and talking with her. Coming home to Athena. Morgan’s messages assuring she’d still be there as long as Ari would have her. All of these things reminded her that not all was lost. She still missed Deirdre. There was no denying that. An ad for Mario Kart had come up on her phone and it caused a sharp pang to run through her chest. She’d see roadkill along the road and think of how Deirdre would enjoy the bones. Even her usual playlist filled with Post Malone songs reminded her of how Deirdre filled her room with Post Malone posters and listened along with her. It was obvious they wouldn’t still be getting tickets to that Post Malone concert. It’d almost seemed like a certainty that losing Deirdre meant losing Morgan. The fact it wasn’t something she’d take for granted. Morgan had been there for her in so many ways during some of the darkest weeks she’d known yet. That wasn’t something she could write off easily and it was she found herself eager to let Morgan visit her. A nice rooftop sunset would do them both well. She had packed up a giant thermos full of warm mulled cider. She wasn’t sure if zombies enjoyed cider, but she figured it’d be nice to have something warm up there. When she heard the knock on her door, she leapt up from the couch and opened the door to reveal Morgan. She was quick to pull Morgan into a tight hug and said, “Thanks for coming.” Because now it wasn’t so obvious that Morgan would just be here. Things weren’t quite so simple anymore. But she remained all the same. “I’ve got chairs and stuff already set up on the roof. We usually get some nice sunsets up there.”

Deidre had never come to Ariana’s apartment before, had she? As Morgan walked briskly up to her unit, familiar thanks to her visits to Nell and Blanche, she couldn’t help but rack up an inventory of all the things Deirdre had cut herself off from. No glimpse of the dried-blood red brick, no leaves rattling like tiny skeletons over the little step toward the entrance. No speculation about the past deaths or chats with the Irish landlord. No glimpse at the place Ariana had made for herself. Maybe that was why she was just as ready to scoop the young wolf into her arms as soon as she opened the door. She held her tight, burning and shaking inside from the unfairness of it all. Of all stupid, reckless things Deirdre had done, she understood this the least. How could she look at the young woman Ariana was trying to become, the hurt she carried so bravely, and want to do anything but hold her close?

“Of course I came,” she said. “Thanks for inviting me.” She let her go, beaming warmly, and scooped the gaming console out of her bag. Deirdre had burned the real one, but she wasn’t about to tell Ariana that, and she was still entitled to the things that had been given to her. “This is still yours. And while I won’t be able to practice, I would like to step up my game. It’s been kind of nice. I never got to play video games when I was a kid, so.” Her smile weakened; was this a bad reminder or a poor substitute for what had been taken from Ari? “But, I want to see me a good sunset. I miss the open skies back in Texas. Show me the way, huh?”

A wave of emotion came over Ariana as she held on to Morgan tightly. She’d been so afraid that losing Deirdre meant losing Morgan, too. It didn’t quite take away the sting or make her miss Deidre any less, but it was a reminder of what she still had and that was a person who listened to her through the best and worst of times. Who was more than content to lay beside her on the floor when she didn’t feel like moving through the world when her heart was aching. Someone who truly understood just how difficult loss and grief could be and knew just the perspective to provide. She held on tighter than she normally would have before she finally pulled away noticing the console she had brought. She shoved the feeling of sorrow down. It wouldn’t be quite the same playing without Deirdre, but Morgan could still come over and play. She smiled weakly and said, “Thanks for bringing it by. Mario Kart is a fun distraction from well… everything. And of course, I’m glad I actually get to show you the place. It’s not big or anything, but Blanche is right across the hall which is nice.”

How much they shared was always funny to her. Video games hadn’t been a luxury she could afford as a kid either, though she much preferred the outdoors anyhow. They’d both lost so much and kept their strength up too. Ariana could only hope she continued on in life with the kindness Morgan still possessed despite everything. She never wanted to become hard or cruel. There was more than enough of that in the world. “I guess that means you’ll have to come over and practice sometimes,” she said with a small grin. Surely she could figure out something good to make with brains for Morgan. “Right, sunset. I have some chairs set up on the roof and some warm mulled cider if you’d like some.” She led Morgan to the staircase that led to the roof of the building. The sun was already starting to get lower in the sky and she cozied up in one of the chairs. “So…,” she started somehow at a loss of what to say. There was a lot on her mind, but none of it felt right to say. “Anything new I should know about?”

“Eh, apartments don’t have to be big to be special. This is bigger than the dorm I had when I was your age, or some of the studio places I had after,” Morgan said. “It’s cozy, and it’s yours. And it’s something you can share with your friends. That’s what matters. I’d say you’re doing pretty good for yourself.” She stayed close to Ariana as they journeyed to the roof. Her world felt smaller and more desperate, like everything she could squeeze her arms around was going to fly away. Would Ariana, if she knew Morgan had mistakenly encouraged Lydia to hurt her? If she knew what Morgan was really up to with her resident evil ghost? Morgan decided she’d do that math later, when the dust had settled and the deed was done. She busied herself pouring the cider, a serving for each of them, to show she appreciated Ari’s efforts. It didn’t taste like anything to her, just a little hot, but she remembered the cider she’d had on that one family vacation to Colorado, and the awkward attempts she’d tried with her grad cohort to be festive. Ari’s cider, with all her outdoors experience and simple pleasures, was probably better than them all, and she mumbled that it was the best drink she’d had all season.

Morgan let the silence settle between them while she chewed over the young wolf’s question, in case there was something Ari wanted to talk about in particular. At last she said, “Well, one of my coworkers was a giant termite for awhile because of a costume. The headless horseman is real. And, uh—” Stars above, there was no way they could just jump back to normal, could they? Deirdre had broken this good and proper. “I love you, Ari. No matter what. And Deirdre loves you too, even if she’s not in a place to be good to you right now. You should know that. I can encourage her to reach out, but I haven’t yet because I want to make sure that when she does, it’s gonna stick. You’ve lost a lot, especially this year, and I don’t want to make it worse by bringing something into your life that might be unstable. And, uh—” She gave a shaky, laughing breath and drank down the rest of her share of the cider. “I don’t know. There isn’t too much going on right now except your average White Crest angst, more or less. I miss my family a lot this time of year. My dad died at the end of October, and my mother in—” she winced. “A few days from now. We were never a family anyone would want to see on TV, so it’s a complicated kind of missing. I don’t want to go back, necessarily. But it is weird, not being close to where they are. But I also feel like here is a good place to be, all things considered. But I’m more interested in what you have to say. How’re you doing? I know everything’s not really okay right now, even before, well. I mean, we don’t have to get into heavy stuff. I just—you can tell me whatever you want, honey.”

Ariana nodded in agreement. There was something special in the way her apartment had started to feel like home. Without Celeste, Ariana hadn’t been sure anywhere could ever really feel like home again. The fact still remained home was more than a place, but the people who filled her home had been part of what made it. Blanche and Grace in the same building always joining her for meals or movies. Athena settling and carving out a space for herself in their small shared space. Friends coming over and filling the air with laughter or even just quiet sadness. It wasn’t the same, it never could be, but she was doing her best to learn how to be happy without the one person she’d always thought would be her side. “You make a good point there. I think this place has been good to me so far,” she said softly as they settled into their spot on the roof. The warm cider was enough to keep the chill from hitting her bones.

For a few moments, they sat in a comfortable quiet. It was something Morgan had proven to be good at. After she lost Celeste, afternoons spent lying quietly on the floor with Morgan by her side had been a grounding force. Even now, Ariana felt a certain sense of comfort with having Morgan by her side. That maybe some things weren’t so fragile. She’d been so worried she’d lose Morgan, too, but it was clear the woman wasn’t letting her go that easily. For a while, she could sip on warm cider and feel a bit of ease. She looked to Morgan as she spoke, her hands wrapped firmly around a warm mug, and her eyes widened, “A termite? What? Headless horseman?” She shook her head as she tried to get a grasp on what any of that even met. Before she could, Morgan was reminding her that she loved her and was talking about Deirdre. She froze momentarily, unsure of where to even begin. For now, it was probably better that Deirdre didn’t bother reaching out to her. She’d only be more angry after all was said and done. There was no turning back on their plan now. Part of her knew Morgan would be upset by it, too. It wasn’t lost on her that this could be one of their last moments together despite Morgan’s reassurances. “I love you, too, Morgan. Always. I know-- I don’t necessarily understand, but I know Deirdre cared about me. I’m sorry I couldn’t just… Sammy was my friend. I couldn’t just leave him there to die. And I miss Deirdre, I really do and of course I still love her, I just don’t think-” She felt her voice wavering and wanted to melt into herself. Not feel all of this again. “I think you’re right. If she’s going to reach out, it has to stick. I don’t think I can do this again.” It was a different loss than death and it stung more in its own way, that Deirdre could just choose to cut her out like this. It made everything they shared feel smaller and less important somehow even though she had cherished their time together so much.

Ariana was quick to wipe away a lone tear fell to her cheek. She didn’t want to be sad again. She didn’t want to contemplate whether or not she was ever as important to Deirdre as Deirdre was to her. It was all too much and she welcomed the change in subject. Even if it wasn’t much happier. She watched the sun dip down in the sky as Morgan explained and noted the slight change in hue. She’d never be able to see all the colors, but there was something grounding about it all the same. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “I know White Crest angst is a beast all in itself, but missing family-- I think that’ll always be tough this time of year. I wish I had the answers or some way that just made it better. I just think we’ll always miss the people we lost. Being with loved ones can help, I think, so here is as good a place as any. I’m-- I don’t know. I keep losing people and it’s hard to not feel like I have something to do with it. Like I should have been, I don’t know. I guess I’m just tired and a bit sad to be going into the holidays without Celeste. There are still good things though, I won’t be alone at the very least.”

Relief rolled off Morgan with the autumn wind as Ariana took to the more lighthearted news. Her eyes got a little wider, her confusion tinged with curiosity. In spite of everything, Ari could still be happy and awed by the strange wonders in their world. “Oh, yes and yes,” Morgan laughed. “I didn’t see the giant termite myself, but Mr. Horseman definitely waved at me as he passed by. Very impressive, but not as scary as the old cartoon would have you think. He only goes looking for you if it’s really your time.”

She reached out for Ariana’s hand and gave the girl’s fingers a good squeeze as she digested the news about Deirdre with resignation. It was better that Morgan didn’t have to explain that, in this case, holding love for her wasn’t enough to make someone safe to be around. But she hated how much Ariana had been through to come to that place. “She still does,” Morgan whispered. “What she did was wrong and she knows it and she still cares. It’s just things she was taught, things she’s afraid of, getting in the way. And she’s trying to work on it. She’s already so different from when I first met her. But you shouldn’t get hurt while she...figures things out. When she gets there, really gets there, enough that she’ll be as good to you as she should be, I’m sure you’ll be one of the first people to know.” She smiled, hoping to reassure Ari, but there was a sorrow in her eyes that suggested that they might be waiting a long time for that day.

Of course Ariana knew plenty about loss. Morgan wouldn’t have spoken so candidly with her about it otherwise. And while there was no curse on her head, her feelings about watching people slip through her fingers mirrored Morgan’s to a degree that made the zombie ache. “Hey, you don’t need to make anything better for me,” she said. “Just spending time with you is better. And I’m an old pro at this stuff, it just takes the edge off to talk about it. You don’t have to do anything. But listen: nothing that’s happened to you has been your fault. And that’s— stars above, I know that’s not at all as comforting as some people think it is, as it should be. At least if something’s your fault, you can pretend that if you had done something different, things would be different too. But none of your losses this year are like that, Ari. You didn't do anything. And it’s not fair. Especially a first holiday without someone. Do you know what you want to do this year…?” Her question lilted up with hope that there might be something, anything to look forward to that she could give Ari.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Ariana that the headless horseman existed, but somehow it still did. “Huh,” she said as she nodded along with ease as she tried to envision it. There was a small smile on her face as she imagined him giving Morgan a wave as he rode on by. Not that she was too familiar with the cartoons, but it was amusing to imagine all the same. She was mostly just happy Morgan got to have some lighter times in the midst of everything else the world seemed to throw at them.

For a moment, she opted to focus on the feeling of Morgan’s hand on hers before digesting the words she was saying. The gesture was much more comforting than what she was saying which only left her more confused. Hope was becoming a terrifying thing. If she held on hope that Deirdre would forgive her, it’d hurt even more if she never did. With what her, Athena, and Kaden had planned, the likelihood of Deirdre ever wanting anything to do with her again seemed to diminish more and more. It was a different kind of hurt than loss through death, knowing Deirdre would ultimately choose to no longer be part of her life. “Yeah,” she responded in a somewhat resigned tone, “I know she does.” She did know that though it didn’t make her feel any better. It just meant Deirdre was hurting, too, and she didn’t want that as much as she wanted her to be in a better place. A place where she could see people as people and not fae’s property. She sighed softly and said, “I’m glad she’s working through things. I just don’t think we can be good again until I know it’ll stick. I’ve never really… Death is so different, you know? People who die don’t choose to leave you. This is- I need her to be sure she can accept what happened with me and Lydia before we start talking again.” She couldn’t let herself in good conscience try to fix things with Deirdre with what she had planned for Lydia. If Deirdre decided after the fact maybe she could forgive her, they could go from there. Trying to remedy things right now would only hurt both of them more.

“I know I don’t have to. That doesn’t mean I don’t want better for you anyway,” Ariana said as she leaned to rest her head on Morgan’s shoulder. They’d both lost a lot. More than any one person ever should, but somehow they were still here together. Still trying to make their way in life. “I get that. Keeping it all inside makes it harder. I’m glad I can be here and help. Being with you helps me, too. I just know you get all of this. I know loss is different for everyone, but to a degree, you know what I’m feeling.” Morgan was assuring none of this was her fault though it still didn’t seem to echo within her own thoughts. Winn was decidedly not her fault, but to some degree, she could have done things differently with Celeste and Sammy. There was no turning back now and she knew they would never blame her, it was still hard to stop wishing things had been just a little bit different. “Yeah, I know. I guess I just wish things had been different for Celeste and Sammy.” The mention of holidays both made her miss Celeste more and somehow feel a bit brighter. “Well, I talked about maybe doing a little something with another one of the wolves in town. There’s also-- well, there is someone else I’d like to spend the holiday with, too. I figure we will be since she’s staying with me, but yeah.” Her cheeks flushed slightly pink as she realized she’d brought up Athena. Everything was still new and she hadn’t come out yet, but it still felt nice to think of. She quickly diverted the subject, “What about you? Are you doing anything nice for the holiday?”

“I know, honey,” Morgan said, giving Ariana’s hand a squeeze. It was a different kind of terrible, knowing that Deirdre was just a car drive away and the only thing keeping her from doing that was her fear and her fae bias. “I’ll make sure it’s only then, and not a minute before. I know I can’t do a lot, but I want whatever’s best for you, whatever good and safety can come your way.” She had never felt as comfortable as Deirdre saying that the protectiveness and endearment she felt to Ari was practically maternal. She didn’t exactly have too many good associations attached to that word, and there was no replacing a spot in a heart, much less one that had been ravaged by death. But hearing herself, it was hard to keep the admission to herself. Morgan settled for squeezing her hand again and a smile she trusted the young wolf would understand.

“I guess I can understand the feeling,” she replied. “It does feel pretty nice, knowing you’re looking out for me too.”

She let Ari steer the conversation away from her guilt and losses. There was plenty in front of them both to reckon with. “I think a small something with some friends you think will get along is a good plan. But who is this someone?” Her voice lilted upwards, teasing. “Is that a blush, Ariana?” She laughed softly and poked her arm. “I won’t ask you to tell me if it’s highly classified information, but…” She quirked a brow. “If things go well I’d like to hear something.” She wanted to stay there, in that place of hope and excitement. Her own ideas about Thanksgiving and Yule were so much less defined. She wasn’t even certain if she would still have enough friends to fill a table by then. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been to many big family gatherings except as a third string guest. And this year hasn’t been the greatest for throwing parties or dinners. But maybe by Yule things will be better. A nice fire, some baked goodies, maybe a savory pie for people to enjoy. A little gift-giving. You can tell me if it’s not, but I hope it’s okay if I get you something. You know, sometimes a lot of little celebrations with all the clusters of people you care about can be good, too. And Yule goes for twelve days anyway.” Maybe it would be worth having two or three if it meant she could keep Ari company at one of them.

“Thank you,” Ariana said just above a whisper. As much as she wanted to hear from Deirdre, talk to her again and try to reach an understanding, she didn’t know if she had it in her to just have it fall apart again. She loved Deirdre, she truly did. When it felt like her world was falling apart, Deidre had opened up her home and had provided all the comfort she possibly could. Deirdre and Morgan both. It wasn’t something she’d ever forget or cherish any less, but she couldn’t place her relationship with Deirdre above everyone that Lydia was hurting. She accepted another squeeze of her hand from Morgan and relished in the fact she still had this. They both deserved more stable relationships in their life with how much they’d lost and she was going to hold on to it as best she could.

“Good, because I always will be,” she said with certainty. It felt good to talk about lighter things as their conversation progressed on. She took small sips of her mulled cider which felt like the perfect thing to do to get in the holiday spirit. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Maybe several smaller things to fit everyone in.” She smiled brightly as she realized Morgan caught the blush. She shrugged and answered, “I don’t want to say who it is yet since she’s still coming out to people.” Even in the midst of everything else, thinking of Athena still brought a genuine smile to her face. “Things are going well though. She’s pretty incredible.” She wouldn’t say much more than that, but it was nice having a bright spot in all of this. Especially with the holidays coming up. She’d never done anything big either as it had always been her and Celeste, but she cherished those moments all the same. “Me either, Celeste and I always did some sort of holiday bonfire together. There were usually s’mores. Okay, by usually I mean always. We both loved marshmallows a lot.” Morgan’s idea for a Yule gathering sounded nice though she wasn’t sure it was something she’d join. She smiled anyway and said, “That does sound pretty nice. Either way, I’m okay with a gift as long as you’ll accept one back.”

“She, huh?” Morgan said. “It’s good, that you’re taking things slow. I think that’s popular advice in general, even if I’ve always been bad at it. You’re still so young, and coming out is so...it can be a lot sometimes. I don’t envy you the hard stuff about doing this at your age. But I think the nice stuff, where it’s all new and your face feels funny from smiling more and you just want to be close all the time, that’s timeless. And--listen, you are still whole and amazing just the way you are, whatever happens. Sharing yourself with someone, it should make you and your world feel bigger. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you two.” She tried to imagine Ari with her sister, the crackle of the fire, the simple contentment of smores. She knew a lot about having to take her delight in small things, how wonderful it felt right up until you held it up to someone else’s standards. “I’ll make a note of those marshmallows. I might have to try brewing some hot cocoa, or stealing your for a yule fire of our own.” She winked, trying to pour out just enough hope to make it happen, not so much that it would bring either of them a disappointment. “I know you’ve had your fill of promises, so let’s say I...declare my intention to be with you for a little while over the holiday, and exchange whatever kickass gift I can come up with for you. Whatever else happens, if we’re both still here, I’ll make something happen” She reached over and poured Ariana some more cider. Beyond them, the sky looked like fall itself, crimson, gold, and russet with yellow streaked clouds. “Now, what I really want to hear about is more about those s’mores. You think melted chocolate would taste alright with pureed brains?”

“Yes, she,” Ariana said with a grin spreading over her face, “It’s probably popular advice for a reason. I’m not too worried about that. We’re definitely taking things at our own pace. I want her to be able to come out as she feels comfortable. I think you’re right about the smiling thing though. This is kind of my first time doing all of this, so I totally catch myself goofy grinning out of nowhere which is… really nice. I’ll keep all that in mind though. The world does feel a little bigger and better though.” It felt nice to talk about all of this with someone, especially Morgan. The woman had a sense of understanding and care that so greatly mirrored what she knew with Celeste her whole life. It always made her want to hold on to Morgan just a little bit tighter. “I’d like that a lot,” she responded easily, “You can tell me all about yule.” While her holiday plans would be different than normal, she was finding she had so many people she loved that could still make them special. “I like that intention and I intend to do the same. Kickass gift and all.” The sky continued changing overhead and she gladly took the cider Morgan poured for her. Both the drink and the company left her feeling a little bit warmer. She laughed freely as they discussed ways to incorporate brains into s’mores. Any worry she had that she’d lost Morgan along with Deirdre slipped far away from her as they talked and watched the sun dip lower into the sky.

#unbreakable #morgan #wickedswriting #idk it's pretty soft

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lee-at-the-movies · 4 years ago

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Powder

(1995)

Director: Victor Salva

*Spoilers*

I’m not sure I've ever seen a movie that insists upon itself to the degree 1995′s Powder does. Director Victor Salva is relentless in his campaign to tell the audience they are being moved. There is not a solitary element of this film that isn’t contrived to the point of parody. The average Lifetime channel flick is more confident letting its audience process emotions without being steered, groomed if you will, at every moment. Powder uses its score to evoke sympathy and warmth the way sitcoms use laugh tracks to let you know something funny is happening. Had the filmmakers given the audience more room to freely interpret the events taking on place screen, they would have ran the risk of having people see Powder for the ludicrous freak show that it is.

To quickly run through the plot of Powder - a pregnant lady gets struck by lightning and dies, but the baby lives. The father rejects the baby at the hospital and it’s raised by some hick grandparents. Sixteenish years later a the grandparents die and a social worker discovers the then teenaged boy living in a dank, book-filled basement out in the country. His name is Jeremy, AKA Powder. He’s albino, hairless and agoraphobic, but he’s read Moby Dick, so the social worker knows he must be a gifted kid. She takes him to a boys home, enrolls him in the local high school, he displays misunderstood powers, hearts are allegedly warmed, minds are expanded, yada yada yada....

It’s all tone deaf. The first act seems like it should be leading up to Powder turning on society and hurting people. That would have been more compelling! The people in town are actually a little nicer to Jeremy than you would think. There is obviously the one implausibly vicious bully and his bitchboys who instantly target him, but Jeremy is literally some kind of Nosferatu-lookin, bald-headed ass, cellar dwelling, electrical warlock monster. Upon going to school for the first time, he is only bullied for 30 seconds before he opts to use fucking psycho-electric telekinesis on the whole cafeteria in what would, in real life, be a TERRIFYING display. People SHOULD other him for that! Instead, he doesn’t even get detention and a hot girl suddenly has eyes for him - the chalk white, hairless MONSTER that recently crawled out of a dilapidated basement on the outskirts of town!

His persecution is:

A) not as extensive as a movie like this calls for

B) warranted, for the most part

Sakes! I’m not in favor of hunting, but I’m also not in favor of mind rape! There is a crucial scene in this movie where Powder is disgusted to witness one of the sheriff deputies hunting deer with bully kids. His response is to grab the guy by the arm and TRANSPORT HIS FUCKING CONSCIOUSNESS into the body of the dying animal! Since when is it okay to brain swap people without their permission? Two wrongs don’t make a right, Powder. He’s supposed to be perfect! That is the text of the movie. The movie explicitly tells you that Powder IS better than you. This kid is literally an ascended being.

I rented this movie because I wanted to see something featuring 90s Jeff Goldblum. He plays the physics teacher at Jeremy’s high school. After being accidentally electrocuted by the dangerous monster child Goldblum apparently feels smarter and fucks better. This causes him to postulate to powdery ole Jeremy that he must being living proof of some misappropriated Einstein theory about humans being able to become light energy. In the movie, Goldblum is presenting it to Powder as a theory, but as a viewer you know the film is basically declaring that is how we are to understand Powder from that point on. Jeff Goldblum touches him inappropriately in this scene. He begins to stroke Jeremy’s body and head, caressing him sensually. There is a justification given for this, but it is false and Goldblum is still his fucking physics teacher! Sick!

The whole time this dusty little ghoul has been seeing the social worker played by Mary Steenbergen - the one who pulled him out his wet book-hole. Jeremy has one last blowup with the jock kids after randomly walking into a gym and staring at one of the “bullies” taking a shower. The jocks get rightfully weirded out. He is, after all, a dangerous Magneto-esque goblin who can steal their minds and electrify their bodies. They pull his pants down and push him in a puddle of mud. You would think that being covered in mud might limit Powder’s ability to extoll psycho-electric violence, but you’d be wrong. He fucking KILLS one of them for this, but he brings them back to life so it’s still Powder being perfect and too good for this world. It’s not dark at all.

This last kerfuffle is the last straw for Jeremy, his social worker and his physics professor. They decide that Powder will have an easier time finding acceptance in a different environment. (They were probably going to move to Austin or something. I think this movie took place in Texas.) Jeremy seems onboard with this plan. He has his neighborhood watch logo rapist costume on, his briefcase at his side, but then it begins to storm. So instead of getting in the car waiting for him, Jeremy sprints wildly into a field. Nobody knows what the fuck he’s doing, but they do not give much chase. A bolt of lightning strikes the bald teenager, either vaporizing and or consuming him. This is all a good thing. Everybody instantly intuits that Jeremy had decided to become light energy. They felt him in their loins or something after he was zapped. Nobody entertains the possibility that he was simply exploded and killed dead by a giant lightning bolt. That’s what their eyes observed, but they’re all going with the random hypothesis of a high school science teacher and choosing to believe the ashy kid in the fedora was some kind of Akira like god being.

How did Powder even decide that was a possibility? Was Jeff Goldblum telling him he had 100% usage of his brain before molesting him all he needed to hear to figure out that he had the option of becoming lightning? I choose to believe that he didn’t ascend to a higher state at all. In my mental canon, Powder commits suicide via lightning storm and everybody looking on is fine with it, because he is a dangerous little creep. They all knew he would eventually turn on humanity, so they put it in his head that he could become electricity by letting lightning strike his body. By the way, if that’s NOT the case, then did Jeff Goldblum discover that superhumans can be made by electrocuting pregnant women? That’s how Powder got his freak abilities. His fucking mom was struck by lightning while he was in the womb. Nothing about this movie was okay. None of it made emotional sense, sci-fi sense or basic common sense. I have so much more to say about Powder, but I’m cutting myself off. Life needn’t be so Powdery.

Verdict - it’s bad

I’m glad to have seen Powder. It’s fun to hate and pick apart, but it’s insultingly pushy. Speaking of which, apparently this director is a pervert. He abused some kid on the set of a movie called Clownhouse. Imagine that. Maybe that scene with Jeff Goldblum fondling Powder’s dome was exactly as problematic as it felt. If you are not a jaded individual or somebody that enjoys picking apart shitty movies, there is no reason you should ever subject yourself to this movie. It’s a bizarrely bad movie made by a sick child abuser.

Note: I did not know the stuff about the director going into this viewing. As I said, I was looking for a 90s Goldblum movie and this is what I settled on. I only learned the director was a pervert afterwards. Same guy directed Jeepers Creepers. What’s up with him and abandoned country basements? I wonder if there’s something worth investigating there.

#Sean Patrick Flannery #Jeff Goldblum #Mary Steenbergen #Lance Henrikson #1995 #Victor Salva #90s movies #sci-fi #fantasy #drama #bad movies #movie reviews #review #outcast movies #gifted people

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silenthillmutual · 5 years ago

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what Classic Film(TM) you should watch based on who your fave Danganronpa 1/2 character is

disclaimer - obviously as a film dude i’m gonna say you should watch all of these. but maybe watch the one correlating to your fave first!

Makoto: 12 Angry Men (1957, dir. Sidney Lumet) - strong themes of justice, it’s about a jury trying to determine a man’s guilt. it’s basically what Makoto does for the entire game. you’ll also like it if you’re a fan of Phoenix Wright.

Sayaka: A Star is Born (1954, dir. George Cukor) - it’s all about a girl’s rise to fame and how her relationships change with that. there’s three versions of this film, most recently with Lady Gaga.

Mukuro: Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - themes of murder and hiding your identity, losing yourself to a cause.

Leon: Animal House (1978, dir. John Landis) - a comedy about a fraternity. it’s THE college frat movie and i think Leon would enjoy it a lot.

Chihiro: WarGames (1983, dir. John Badham) - two teenagers might have accidentally started a world war during the cold war by trying to play computer games...fitting for the series, no?

Mondo: On the Waterfront (1954, dir. Elia Kazan) - struggling to do the right thing and being sort of frustrated about your circumstances as they pertain to class and missed opportunities. being dragged into bad situations by family. also Marlon Brando is a bicon and very hot in this movie.

Taka: Rebel Without a Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray) - a lot of turbulent shit happens to three teenagers over the course of 24 hours. one of - if not the first canonically gay teenager on film. i think we all know by now that James Dean was mlm, but so were the director and Sal Mineo. big bi polyam vibes; if you like chishimondo as a ship you’ll probably like this film too.

Hifumi: Akira (1988, dir. Katsuhiro Otomo) - had a hard time figuring out what to put for Hifumi, but overall i think if nothing else he’d appreciate how impressive the animation was (and honestly, still is) along with the fact that the mangaka was also the director. so although there’s a lot cut out (the manga had not finished before the film came out), it’s still roughly the same plot as the manga.

Celes: Dracula (1931, dir. Tod Browning) - probably the most iconic iteration of Bram Stoker’s novel, this is the one staring Bela Lugosi. not terribly true to the novel from what i remember, but it’s peak aesthetic and exactly the kind of thing she’d enjoy.

Sakura: Rashomon (1950, dir. Akira Kurosawa) - finally getting onto films i haven’t actually seen but that are on my list. sakura’s another person i had a hard time deciding on a film for, but the “several characters telling different accounts of the same plot” reminded me a bit of her case in the game.

Hina: West Side Story (1961, dir. Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins) - admittedly i had a different film in mind for her to start with, but Maria’s final monologue fits with Hina’s motivations during Sakura’s case.

Toko: Gone With the Wind (1939, dir. Victor Fleming) - another one i haven’t actually watched yet, but it’s based on a famous novel, described as “epic historical romance.” i think that vibes with Toko pretty well.

Byakuya: Citizen Kane (1941, dir. Orson Welles) - if you’re really interested in film, you’re gonna be made to watch this sooner or later. famous for being the “best film ever made”, it’s more or less about newspaper moguls like William Randolph Hearst - who is also the main reason why this film is famous at all. it’s not exactly a flattering depiction of those kinds of people and boy, did that ever piss Hearst off. if he hadn’t made such a big deal trying to keep Citizen Kane from seeing the light of day, something much better might have made it to the top spot.

Hiro: The Music Man (1962, dir. Morton DaCosta) - based on the Broadway musical of the same name, a “travelling salesman” (read: con artist) starts to work his latest con on a gullible small town, but actually starts liking the people in it.

Kyoko: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - not to be confused with the other Hitchcock film from the 30s also titled The Man Who Knew Too Much. this is the one with James Stewart and Doris Day. it’s a highly suspenseful film that gave us the song “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”.

Junko: Gaslight (1944, dir. George Cukor) - ever heard the term “gaslighting”? this is where it comes from! based on a play in which a woman’s husband psychologically tortures her into believing she is going insane.

Monokuma: Duck Soup (1933, dir. Leo McCarey) - all Marx Brothers films are as utterly silly (and sometimes as incomprehensible) as one of Monokuma’s MonoTheatres. i watched about half of Duck Soup and had to stop because it was finals week and i was supposed to be doing something other than losing my shit.

Hajime: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, dir. Frank Capra) - you probably already know this film. if you’re Christian you know it as That Film Your Parents Watch Every Year On Dec 24th Around Midnight. if you have seasonal depression, don’t watch it then; warning for suicidal ideation. it’s supposed to be uplifting. your mileage may vary on that one.

Impostor: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, dir. Robert Mulligan) - i don’t have a good reason to pair these two up other than gut feeling. as far as film adaptations of books go, it’s pretty damn good, and Atticus Finch is the original DILF. themes of childhood innocence and racism.

Teruteru: Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, dir. Blake Edwards) - apparently much different from the novella on which it is based, but i think Teruteru would really dig the aesthetic and romantic vibes of the film. Holly Golightly is probably the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Mahiru: Rear Window (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - like It’s a Wonderful Life, chances are good you know this film - or at least, you’ve seen its plot recycled a hell of a lot. a professional photographer recovering from a broken leg thinks he witnesses a murder take place and is determined to get to the truth.

Peko: Seven Samurai (1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa) - another one on my to-watch list, but it’s oft referenced and remade in film. a village hires seven ronin to protect them from bandits who will return to steal their crops.

Hiyoko: East of Eden (1955, dir. Elia Kazan) - i’ll be honest here, i didn’t really know what to put for Hiyoko because i’m not sure i understand much about her, but i seem to remember her family playing a pretty big role in her being Like That and for “shitty family” the first two things to come to mind were this and Giant. and unless you like 3-hour long movies about the state of Texas, i’m not about to recommend you watch Giant.

Ibuki: A Night at the Opera (1935, dir. Sam Wood) - another Marx Bros film in which they help a girl both to be with her lover and to achieve her dreams of stardom as an opera singer. the kind of silly, manic thing i think Ibuki would like.

Mikan: The Shining (1980, dir. Stanley Kubrick) - i hate hate hate putting this on here, but since this is for film and not books i couldn’t exactly state to read the book. the book is about the cycle of abuse. the movie is more about... a trapped man going crazy in a spooky hotel.

Nekomaru: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963, dir. Stanley Kramer) - comedy about five groups of people racing to get to a large sum of money buried by a recently escaped convict they stopped to help out after his car crash. it’s a comedy, and just kinda seemed like Nekomaru’s thing.

Gundham: The Seventh Seal (1957, dir. Ingmar Bergman) - i watched this in like 10th grade and all i really remember is a man playing chess with Death and if that doesn’t say Gundham Tanaka to you, i don’t know what does.

Nagito: North by Northwest (1959, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - i don’t really have a reason for this one either but it’s a spy film and i think komaeda could get behind that kind of intrigue.

Chiaki: Metropolis (1927, dir. Fritz Lang) - not to be confused with the anime, this is a 1927 German expressionist film that seems to be about socialism and unionization. it’s also famous for its (purposeful) use of the Male Gaze and being one of the first sci-fi films ever made. be warned: it is a silent film.

Sonia: Strangers on a Train (1951, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - another one of those films you’ll get told to watch if you’re interested in the queer history of film, i was gonna put something else but honestly the character of Barbara kinda reminded me of Sonia. a famous tennis player meets a man on a train who attempts to plan a double-murder with him.

Akane: My Fair Lady (1964, dir. George Cukor) - i was trying so hard not to double up on the post about musicals, but Akane really does have Eliza Doolittle vibes. they’re both feral and nothing would be able to really domesticate them. for whatever it’s worth, this film and the musical on which it is based is itself based on the play Pygmalion, in which your typical rich cishet white dude bets he can turn any street urchin into a real lady because he’s just that good. you might know the plot better as Pretty Woman.

Kazuichi: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, dir. Elia Kazan) - i don’t really have a good excuse for this one, either; i haven’t even watched it yet (although i have read the play on which it is based). all i’m gonna say is i want Souda to have his gay awakening via Marlon Brando, as we all do.

Fuyuhiko: Casablanca (1942, dir. Michael Curtiz) - despite his love and adoration for Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart decides fighting Nazis is more important. i think Fuyuhiko would like the aesthetic, and the film. don’t let him know but i think he’d probably cry watching it.

Usami: To Sir, With Love (1967, dir. James Clavell) - issues of race and class intersecting in a film about a teacher working with inner city students. i was going to put Singin’ in the Rain here, because it’s what Usami would want people to watch...but i think this better fits the effect she wants to have as a being.

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inawickedlittletown · 4 years ago

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I’m With You (9/?)

Summary:

Having a crush was nothing to be ashamed of...lying to the family and friends of said crush about being the guy’s boyfriend, that was a whole other problem. When Buck saves the life of Andrew Diaz and accidentally makes a nurse think that he’s Andrew’s boyfriend, Buck soon finds himself lying to Andrew’s firefighter friends/coworkers as well as Andrew’s family including Andrew’s very suspicious and attractive brother, Eddie.

Based on the 1995 movie While You Were Sleeping.

Words: 3,527

Notes: I think I wrote this entire chapter in one sitting. It’s one of my favorites. Enjoy. ;)

Read on Ao3

Masterpost

Previous Chapter

The first time that Buck was on his own with Chimney since the time Chimney overheard him talking to Andrew happened the next morning when he found Chimney already sitting at Andrew’s bedside.

“Hey, liar,” Chimney said with a smirk.

“Maybe don’t say that too loud,” Buck said.

Chimney laughed at that and Buck walked over to sit down across from him at Andrew’s other side.

“How’s it going, Buck? Have you found a way to tell the truth yet?”

Buck let out a sigh. He leaned his elbows on the bed and placed his face in his hands. “No,” he said. “And I know it’s just making it worse and worse. He’ll wake up any day now and the truth will come out.”

Chimney didn’t respond at once. And then he faced Buck directly. “Look,” he said, “I get how hard this is even if I’ve never dug myself into a hole like this one. But everyone will understand if you explain. I know they will. They might get mad...but they’ll understand, Buck.”

“I don’t know about that,” Buck said and he was thinking about Eddie.

After the truth came out, Buck was pretty much resigned to having a clean break from all of them. Maybe not Chimney because he already knew, but certainly everyone else. They would be angry at him and maybe hate him. They wouldn’t want him around and there was no reason for Buck to stick around no matter how much he liked them and how much he loved the way that they were so warm and welcoming to him.

“Everyone likes you, Buck,” Chimney said.

“And I’ve lied to them,” Buck reminded him. “And I don’t think he’ll be happy about any of that at all.” Buck motioned to Andrew.

“Or he’ll surprise you and find the whole thing funny,” Chimney said.

Buck rolled his eyes at that. They fell into silence for a while. The thing about Chimney was that Buck could tell that he meant well and that Chim could tell it was an impossible situation and yet he wanted to be optimistic and hope for the best. Buck knew to not hope for something he couldn’t guarantee. And people...no matter how much you wanted to stay, they left.

“So, the dog,” Chimney said eventually. “That’s not really Andrew’s dog, is it?”

“I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that the hospital gave me Andrew’s things and there was a dog collar. And I went to his place and there was a dog.”

“You went to his house,” Chimney said. “You’re a bit pushy, aren’t you? I can see why you’re in this mess.”

Buck groaned. He sat back in the chair. “If there was a dog, I didn’t want it to be starving if no one was checking on it.”

“Okay, fine,” Chimney said. “But doesn’t all of that just make it even worse? You let yourself into his house while not being his real boyfriend. You have told any of us. Eddie? Instead, you went to his house.”

“I had a key,” Buck said.

“His keys. Keys you had entirely because you’re pretending to be his boyfriend,” Chimney said.

Buck groaned again. “I know I screwed up. It’s such a big giant mess.”

Chimney didn’t deny it.

A knock on the door had them both turning and Buck was surprised to find Josh there.

“Hey,” Buck said.

“Finally had time to stop by here and see our coma patient,” Josh said as he walked in. He stopped at the foot of Andrew’s bed. “He looks like’s he’s having the most peaceful sleep. Asshole.”

“Hi,” Chimney said. “And who are you?”

“This guy’s best friend, that’s who,” Josh said and he pat Andrew’s leg.

“Buck’s?” Chimney asked, still looking a bit confused.

“Andrew’s,” Josh said.

Buck let out a sigh as Chimney and Josh stared at each other for a while.

“Right,” Chimney said, “so I’ve heard nothing about you.”

“You’ve heard nothing about him either,” Josh said motioning to Buck.

Chimney glanced between them and then sighed. “I want nothing to do with whatever drama this is. There’s enough of that going around.”

“You both know the truth,” Buck said. “About me not being his boyfriend.”

Chimney’s shoulders relaxed a little at hearing that. “Oh,” he said. “Alright, then. Still, never heard of you Josh. Or his dog. What else is he hiding, a wife? A kid? You think you know someone.” The way that Chim smiled a bit cheekily after he said it made Buck relax.

“Well, I still think Andrew will take this well,” Josh said.

“Or not well at all,” Chimney said even though he’d been saying the opposite earlier.

Buck actually didn’t want to think on it too much so he changed the subject, asking Chimney about Andrew’s neighbor from the day before.

“She’s good,” Chimney said. “You made a difference, Buck.”

It felt good to hear that just as good as it had felt for Bobby to tell him that maybe he should consider becoming a first responder. The idea had merit, but with everything else going on, Buck didn’t know if he should. Or if he would actually be good at it and a right fit. The whole thing might end up being like the Seals all over again.

“Thanks,” Buck said.

“With him too,” Chimney said, “seeing as he was a stranger.”

Buck glared at him and Josh just laughed.

“And what do you do Josh?” Chimney asked.

“I work at dispatch,” Josh said.

Buck was suddenly hit by why he’d thought that Josh was familiar. He must have seen him before on the few times that Buck had visited 9-1-1 dispatch back when he was with Abby.

“Buck?” Chim asked.

“My last girlfriend worked as a dispatcher,” he said. “Abby.”

Josh looked pensive for a moment. “Abby,” he said. “I think — I think I remember her. She left after her mom died. Just up and never came back even though...she was supposed to.”

Buck nodded. “Yeah. Didn’t even break up with me before she did,” he said.

He kind of hated thinking about Abby and the heartbreak that had followed her leaving. He’d been waiting for way too long before he realized that things were over between them. There had been a delusional part of him that just expected to somehow get back to her apartment and find her there.

“That’s rough,” Josh said.

Buck shrugged. It was easier to not let anyone know that it affected him still. “It is what it is.”

—-

Eddie woke up to his son poking him. He was fully dressed already and apparently just waiting for him. Since having his parents around, Eddie had admittedly been getting more sleep. In some ways, that made him dread them leaving soon.

“Hey, kiddo,” Eddie said.

“Daddy, breakfast is ready.”

He could smell it. The bacon and the coffee mostly. He got out of bed, grabbing Christopher. His son laughed and giggled as Eddie dropped him on the bed. Christopher scrambled off as quickly as he could and together they walked out to the kitchen where Eddie found not just his parents but Abuela and Isabel too.

“I didn’t know we were having a party,” Eddie said and he walked over to kiss Abuela’s cheek. She smiled and wrapped an arm around his waist.

Ever since his talk with Buck about how little family he had, Eddie had realized that he had to appreciate his more because even when they were annoying and pushy they were still there and Eddie loved them.

“Sit, sit,” Abuela said.

Christopher was already seated at the table and digging into his food next to Eddie’s mom and Eddie dropped down into the chair next to him. He was still a bit groggy and more focused on eating and drinking the mug of coffee that Pepa handed him to contribute or even pay attention to the conversation happening around him.

By the time that he was more awake, he found Pepa already doing the dishes and cleaning up and his parents talking about going to the hospital.

“Unfortunately we can’t stay much longer,” his mom said. “A few more days and we have to get back to Texas. At least, Ramon does.”

Eddie had already expected that.

“He was looking a lot better yesterday,” Pepa said. “Had a lot of his color back. The doctor is optimistic he’ll wake up today or tomorrow or so the nurses were saying.”

Eddie hoped that was the case. He knew his parents would likely go back to El Paso if they had to, but it wouldn’t lessen their worry. His mom especially. It would mean hearing from her every minute of every day for updates and Eddie did not have time for that.

“Eddie, Christopher estaba hablando de up perro?”

[“Eddie, Christopher was talking about a dog?”]

Eddie looked to Abuela. “El perro de Andrew. Buck lo hesta cuidando.”

[“Andrew’s dog. Buck is taking care of him.”]

He could practically feel the confusion coming off of his parents. Even Abuela looked surprised.

“That’s so nice,” Pepa said. “They have a dog together.”

“Your brother doesn’t like dogs,” his mom said. “Or is it Buck’s dog? He didn’t mention having one but it would make sense if he had one.”

Eddie shook his head. “No, it’s Andrew’s dog. I was shocked too but he even has a doggy door installed on his backdoor. I took Christopher over to meet Legolas yesterday and he’s this sweet golden retriever.”

“And he never mentioned getting a dog?” his dad asked. “Come on, Eddie, that’s — you both live in the same state and work at the same fire station and yet you share nothing. You didn’t know about the boyfriend and now the dog.”

Eddie shook his head out of annoyance more than anything else. “I am not his keeper. I have a son and things that keep me too busy to be looking out for Andrew all the time. He’s a grown man and he doesn’t always tell me everything. Clearly. I don’t know why but we’ll find out more when he wakes up.”

No one said anything and Eddie picked that moment to go get changed so they could head out.

The hospital parking lot and the hospital for that matter was becoming all too familiar for Eddie and he was a firefighter and making many trips to the ER doors. He’d just never spent as much time there past dropping off a patient. It was different to be visiting someone at the hospital all the time. Pepa had driven ahead of him with his parents which had left Eddie with Christopher and Abuela and as soon as Eddie had helped Christopher out of the car, he was walking with Abuela at his side. Eddie followed a few paces behind and that’s how he managed to spot Buck.

Buck was talking to a man that Eddie didn’t know. They were laughing a bit and standing close together and then Buck leaned into him and hugged him and the guy hugged back. The hug lasted longer than Eddie thought a regular hug would and then when they broke apart, the guy leaned in and kissed Buck on the cheek and Eddie was sure that Buck was blushing and none of it made sense. Who was that guy and why was he all over Buck and why was Buck letting him?

Something sparked inside of Eddie, it made him angry and annoyed in a way he hadn’t felt possibly ever. His eyes remained trained on the guy with Buck. He saw them laughing again and then the man walked away and Buck started heading back towards the hospital. It was lucky Abuela and Christopher hadn’t spotted him, but Buck did see Eddie and he smiled and waved, stopping to wait for him, but Eddie wasn’t feeling friendly.

“Hey,” Buck said as he approached.

Eddie didn’t know what came over him. Was it protectiveness over his brother? He didn’t know. All he knew was that seeing Buck hugging that guy wore on him.

“Who was that?” Eddie asked.

“Who?”

“The guy you were hugging? The guy that maybe you’re cheating on Andrew with?” The words left him before he’d even realized he was going to say them.

Buck looked taken aback. “Josh? That’s your brother’s best friend.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes at Buck. “I’ve never heard of a Josh before.”

“Yes, well you haven’t heard about a lot of the people your brother is friends with,” Buck said with a sigh. “And I would never cheat on Andrew.”

“Well, I’m not even sure you’re really his boyfriend,” Eddie said and he knew it wasn’t fair.

Buck laughed, but it was strangled and humorless. “What would I even gain from lying about it?”

“I don’t know. But there must be something. Andrew is straight and he—”

“And he also hates dogs and he also doesn’t have a friend named Josh and he’s not someone that you apparently know very well at all,” Buck said and Eddie could see some spark in him. Anger and maybe something else.

“So prove it,” Eddie said. “If he’s your boyfriend then there should be a way to prove it.”

Eddie had never demanded anything point blank before even though a part of him had wanted to. Buck didn’t respond, instead he shrugged him off and turned and walked towards the hospital doors. Eddie didn’t take long to follow him. He didn’t know what to make of the lack of answer. Was Buck going to give him some sort of proof? Or was this him avoiding giving Eddie an answer. Eddie didn’t even realize they’d made it to the hospital room until he looked up and saw Andrew on the bed. His parents were sitting on one side of the hospital bed. Abuela on the other. Pepa and Christopher weren’t there but Eddie trusted his family to look after him.

And Eddie knew that being there with his family should have stopped him, but he was still just so angry and he didn’t even know if it was about this or because of something else.

“So, you’re not gonna say anything,” Eddie said, looking at Buck.

“Eddie come on,” Buck said.

“Because not saying anything and not giving me proof is really making me doubt everything you’ve ever said to me.”

Buck glared at him. Everyone in the room was looking at them and when Buck’s glare fell away, he seemed to be looking at Abuela as if to make sure she was okay.

“Eddie, what is going—” his mom trailed off.

“Anything at all?” Eddie asked.

Buck sighed.

“Hijo, que estas haciendo?” His dad asked.

[“Son, what are you doing?” ]

“I want answers. I’m sure we all do,” Eddie said. “I want to know if Buck is actually telling the truth because I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that he’s Andrew’s boyfriend.”

Eddie heard Abuela gasp. “But he is,” she said. “He is his boyfriend.”

“Holy shit,” Chimney whispered and Eddie hadn’t even realized he was there.

They were all looking between him and Buck and the part of Eddie that really liked Buck, it made him feel horrible for putting him on the spot. And then Buck coughed. He looked at all of them and then his eyes settled on Eddie.

“Andrew only has one ball sac,” Buck said.

—-

Buck had never expected to actually need to use that piece of information, but after Eddie had come at him about Josh and then not let up at all despite his whole family being in the hospital room, he really hadn’t had a choice but to use it. A part of him wished that Josh had stuck around to hear it, but then again apparently hugging Josh had been the thing to set off Eddie for some ridiculous reason.

No one said a thing after the words were out of his mouth and then Chimney coughed.

“So, uh, who gets to check on that and see if Buck here is telling the truth?” Chimney asked.

He could see the panic in Chimney’s eyes, like this was going to be the moment when everyone figured Buck out.

“Or we could just believe him because he’s telling the truth,” Helena said and she was shaking her head at Eddie.

“Eddie, come on,” Ramon said. “You’re acting crazy.”

“Well, how about he was hugging someone outside the hospital. Some guy,” Eddie said. “Kissed him too.”

“Yes,” Buck said. “I hugged Josh. He’s Andrew’s friend and he was just here visiting.”

Chimney jumped in, then. “I can confirm that.”

“And the kissing?” Helena asked.

“On the cheek. Josh is a tactile person,” Buck said.

Eddie looked like he didn’t want to back down, but he closed his eyes and he took a deep breath and then he just walked out of the room and Buck felt like somebody had reached into his body and just squeezed all of his organs together because Eddie’s anger and the resigned way he walked away made him want to tell the truth and come clean about everything.

“I’m so sorry about him, Buck,” Helena said. “I think he’s just being protective of Andrew.”

Chimney met Buck’s eyes and it was hard to not just burst out and tell them that Eddie was right and that he’d been lying all along.

“But we know you’re not lying, Buck,” Isabel said.

“It’s okay,” Buck said and he felt terrible about the lying but also about Eddie and whatever Eddie was feeling.

When Christopher entered the room with Pepa, everyone relaxed a little more. Buck ruffled his hair when he passed by and Christopher grinned at him, but he got busy putting another drawing for his uncle on his bedside table. One of the nurses had actually taped a few of them up where they weren’t in the way and where Andrew could see them when he woke up. There were a few other cards on the bedside table as well that had joined Christopher’s. Harry and Denny were responsible for two but there were others. Once again a display of how loved Andrew was.

“I can go find him. Talk to him,” Buck found himself saying and he didn’t know if it was for Eddie’s sake or because he didn’t want to be in that room anymore watching a family that he wasn’t fully a part of and actually shouldn’t be a part of.

He didn’t actually find Eddie at once because he wasn’t out in the waiting room or near the vending machines. So Buck wandered outside to see if he could find him there and found him leaning against a wall.

“Eddie,” Buck said as he approached.

Eddie turned his face to look at him. “What are you doing out here?” Eddie asked.

“I — I wanted to understand something. Why are you so...why is it easier to believe that I’m lying or cheating or whatever? Am I just giving you the impression that that is what I’m doing or that that’s who I am? I just...I don’t get it.”

Eddie groaned. He leaned his head back against the wall and Buck wondered if he should leave him there, but then Eddie looked at him again and his stare was piercing.

“Because it’s easier to think that there’s some weird reason for why you could have lied about this than to believe that everything I know about my brother is a lie. And maybe I was a bit hasty when it came to — what was his name? Josh?”

Buck nodded. And he wanted to tell him. He wanted to confirm that everything Eddie was doubting was true and that there was a lot that didn’t make sense. Hell, Legolas didn’t make sense and Buck didn’t even have anything to do with the dog.

“Okay but that still—”

Eddie cut him off. “No...no, I was out of like. And I should tell you the truth and why it bothered me so damn much because I can’t keep doing this. Even if it—” Eddie ran a hand through his hair and he looked agitated and annoyed and like he was trying to figure out how to use his words.

Buck had to tell him everything first. It didn’t matter what Eddie might need to say because maybe it was that Eddie already knew. His heart was beating wildly in his chest. But the truth needed to come out at some point.

“Because I don’t want—”

“Eddie, no, you need to know—”

They spoke at the same time, but neither of them got to finish what they were about to say because before Buck could properly build up his courage or make the decision to actually say something or figure out how he was supposed to say it, Chimney was running out of the hospital.

“Eddie! Buck!”

Buck turned and Eddie pushed off the wall.

“What happened? Chim, what’s—”

Chimney looked between them and then he said it. “He’s awake. Andrew’s awake.”

Next Chapter

Notes: So, does Andrew have perfect timing or what?

I actually had no plans for Andrew to wake up quite yet...but then it felt just a little unrealistic to keep him in a coma for too long. And as I was finishing up this chapter when considering all the tension that had grown and this last scene with Buck and Eddie, it just fit.

Let me know what you all thought!

And if anyone wants to be tagged in future chapters let me know. :)

Tagging: @tranquility-or-chaos @diazbuckleysworld @stilesgivesmefeels

#911 fox #911 fic #buddie #buddie fic #buck x eddie #911 fox fic #fic #my fic #I'm With You

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kelyon · 5 years ago

Text

Nephila 2: Unexpected

The long-awaited (and totally unplanned) next chapter of Nephila, aka The One Where Rumple is a Giant Spider

In this chapter, Belle talks to Ruby and figures out what she needs to do

Read on AO3

In a perfect world, Belle French would have never known that you can buy pregnancy tests at the dollar store.

Wandering through the aisles of the Dahllah Hahbah, Belle imagined what that perfect world would be like. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t be alone for this trip--unless she had a plan to surprise the co-parent of her child, but even then she would probably have brought Ruby along with her. In a perfect world, she and her significant other would have gotten the most precise pregnancy test available. It probably would have been expensive, the sort of thing you need a prescription to get. In a perfect world, this would have been an expected baby, a wanted baby. In a perfect world, Belle would have already been trying to conceive, with the help of a committed partner. She would have been charting her cycle and taking her basal temperature and regularly injecting her uterus with human sperm.

In a perfect world, she wouldn’t have to specify human.

Without really thinking about what she was doing, Belle piled junk into the green plastic shopping cart. Halloween candy was half off, and the tiny packs of beef jerky were only a dollar. She had been especially hungry for meat lately. In the clearance section, orange and black spider decorations stared at her. Their googly eyes were equal parts friendly and ominous.

She backed away from the Halloween stuff, back into the comparative comfort of a Christmas display. She grabbed a box of candy canes and made her way to the check out lane.

The middle-aged cashier in a green polo shirt wore the dead-eyed glaze of someone who isn’t getting paid enough to express emotions on the clock. She didn’t talk to Belle as she scanned her purchases over the blinking red light. If she noticed the pregnancy test amidst all the junk food and paper products, she didn’t mention it.

And that was fine by Belle. She didn’t want people to mention it. She didn’t want it to be real. That was part of why she had gone to the next town over to make this surreptitious purchase. She didn’t want to run the risk of anyone recognizing her. Even if no one saw the test, even if they were supportive and encouraging, Belle didn’t want to think about what was happening at all. If not thinking about something could keep it from being real, then Belle would have no troubles in the world.

There was a used book store in this town, with a wider variety of subjects than the university store’s collection of last semester’s textbooks. Belle parked her car on the street and walked in. Maybe the smell of books would help her calm down.

It was the best kind of used book store, with towering shelves and hidden nooks and endless rooms leading into each other. There was even a cat wandering around, pestering patrons to pet her. Belle breathed deeply, content even in the sections that had no appeal to her. She brushed past cookbooks and theology, lingered briefly over a shelf of “Personal Relationship/Self-Help,” and eventually found herself in the most daunting section of all.

There were several copies of The Book. The book she didn’t want to admit she was looking for. After all The Book was the sort of thing the average woman only needed for nine months out of her life. Belle would probably donate her copy once all this was over with. However it would be over. However it could be over. There was so much that she didn’t know. It would be good, at least, to have a baseline of information, to know what was normal for a human woman carrying a human child.

She held The Book in one arm, making a conscious effort not to cradle it. As at the Dahllah Hahbah, she tried to camouflage The Book by surrounding it with decoys. She picked up a romance paperback, a history of lobster fishing, and a handbook for learning American Sign Language. After a moment of hesitation, Belle also pulled out a hardcover copy of Arachnology Through the Ages. When the stack of books was heavier than she could hold, Belle decided she was safe to check out.

Unlike the Dahllah Hahbah, this bookstore was staffed solely by the woman who owned the place--a retiree with her long hair in a loose bun and reading glasses on a chain around her neck. Midmorning on a Wednesday, she was obviously thrilled to chat up each and every customer who walked through the door.

“Looks like you got a good haul!” the woman said brightly.

Belle made herself smile and put the books on the counter. “It’s mostly gifts for people.”

“Early Christmas, that’s a smart move!” The owner began to ring up the books. “Oh, Texas Destiny is such a good read! Wait til you get to the part with the wild horses. Do you like horses?”

Her smile was still fixed in place. “A… little.” Belle didn’t give a shit about horses, but this was not the time to talk about it. Maybe if the shopkeeper was distracted by Texas Destiny, she wouldn’t notice--

“Oh!” The woman’s voice rose to a pitch that could only mean the worst thing in the world for Belle: She had seen The Book.

Belle could only be grateful that there was no one else in the store when the woman held up the copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

The shopkeeper looked Belle up and down, her smile even wider than before. “So can I say congratulations?”

Belle bit her lip and looked down. “Maybe? I--I don’t really know yet.”

“Oh sweetie!” the woman said. “If you’re buying this book, then you know. And even if it’s not this time, it’ll be soon, I can tell. You look very fertile.”

Mortified, cheeks blazing red, Belle couldn’t say anything.

The woman just kept talking. “This is the gold standard for moms-to-be. And they say it’s easy to read, doesn’t make anything too science-y.”

At that, Belle found her voice. “I’m actually working on my PhD at the University of Maine. I’ve already completed my masters in Zoology. Science-y stuff doesn’t bother me.”

The shopkeeper took that in stride. “And your... husband? Boyfriend? Partner? What do they do?”

Lives in a cave and spins gold webs, Belle thought but couldn’t say. Instead she pulled out her wallet. “It’s kind of complicated. Where do I swipe my card?”

“Oh, we’re cash only, sweetie.”

“Sure,” Belle barely kept the annoyance out of her voice as she put away her debit card and pulled out the twenty she saved for emergencies. “Of course you are.”

****

When she got back to her crappy apartment, Belle thoroughly read and re-read the instructions on the pregnancy test. She wanted to believe that this was a complicated, mysterious process. Maybe she had been wrong the whole time. Maybe she had misread the signs and miscalculated the dates since her last period. Maybe she would go to the bathroom and find her underwear stained with blood, wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that be so much better than the alternative?

Overthinking was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the longer Belle dithered and avoided the inevitable, the more worked-up she found herself getting. She would have less anxiety as soon as she had some idea of what was happening.

On the other hand, every second she didn’t know if she was pregnant was another second when she could pretend she definitely wasn’t pregnant. It could be true. She could be just imagining things. But she wouldn’t know until she peed on the goddamned stick.

Before she began, she set the kettle on for a cup of tea. By the time the water boiled, it was done. Belle held her mug of Earl Grey close to her chest and looked down at the little blue plus sign.

It had happened.

She was pregnant.

From a motherfucking spider!

****

“I’m coming over and I’m bringing margarita mix!”

Ruby’s voice was loud, even considering the amplification of being on speakerphone. She had to shout to be heard over the noise of the road and the static of her phone and the pounding of Belle’s blood in her ears.

Belle had managed to keep her composure for five entire minutes before the reality of her situation had come crashing down over her head and left her a sobbing mess. In her distress, she’d called her best friend, and Ruby had answered with her usual love language: girl time and booze.

“But I can’t drink!” Belle wailed. “I’m fucking pregnant and tequila will fucking kill my baby!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll drink your tequila, and you can just have the lime juice. Vitamin C is good for zygotes, right?”

“I don’t know.” Trying to pull herself together, Belle wiped her eyes with the heel of her hands. There were all kinds of vitamins she needed to be taking now--or at least, there would be if she was having a human baby. What would a spider baby need? What kind of thing had taken up residence in her body? “I don’t know anything!”

“Okay, okay,” Ruby tried to soothe her. “Don’t panic. Everything will be worse if you panic. I am so close to your apartment, Belle. Just hang on until I get there. How about you look at the table of contents for your new book?”

Normally, there was nothing that calmed Belle down more than reading the table of contents to a book. There was something so comforting about knowing the progression of a text, to have all the steps and developments laid out in a simple outline, to get little teases as to the meat of the book. It was like reading the menu before sitting down to a feast, anticipating all the good things to come.

But if Belle looked at the table of contents to What to Expect When You’re Expecting, she would be peeking into the progression of the next nine months of her life, and that was not a timetable she could think about right now.

“I’ll be okay,” she told Ruby through wobbling lips. “Are you bringing food, too?”

“What, you think I’m an amature? I’m gonna hang up now so you don’t hear me freak out about parallel parking, but I’ll be up soon, hun. Okay?”

“Okay.” Belle nodded, even though Ruby couldn’t see it. She hung up the phone and took a deep breath.

Ruby’s breezy confidence was exactly what Belle needed right now. It made her feel normal, even in the middle of the most un-normal thing she’d ever heard of. Ruby had been an RA while they were undergrads, a faithful post-breakup bar companion, and the recipient of teary late-night calls from friends going back to her high school days. She knew everything about how to deal with someone who was scared and alone and crying her eyes out. Belle wasn’t the first person to call Ruby up in tears, and she wouldn’t be the last.

It helped to think that her problems were not unique. Every day, women all around the world discovered that they had an unplanned pregnancy. For every one of them, it was the end of one world and the beginning of another. And Belle was just the same. The unorthodox manner of conception didn’t change the fact that Belle was merely one of thousands or millions of women who had been put in this exact same situation since the dawn of time. And, like so many of her countless sisters, Belle found solace in reaching out to other women, to find help and comfort and solidarity.

Laden with grocery bags, Ruby burst through the unlocked door like an inverse Santa Claus. Instead of a fat old man bearing gifts for the nice, Ruby was a skinny young woman offering solace to someone who had been decidedly naughty. Belle was more happy to see her friend than she had been on any Christmas morning of her life.

“Hey,” she tried, with a watery smile.

“Baby!” Ruby dropped the bags on the ground and pulled Belle in for a hug. “Or--no. That was a bad choice of words, wasn’t it? How do you feel? Am I allowed to say the B-word?”

Belle laughed and cried at the same time. “It’s fine,” she shook her head. “Don’t worry about saying the word ‘baby.’ That’s what it is, kinda.”

Ruby let Belle go and started unpacking her bags. “I know,” she said. “But ‘baby’ is an emotionally charged word. We can say ‘embryo,’ if that makes things easier on you. We’re almost doctors, Belle. We can be scientific about this.”

Scientifically, the word we should use is ‘larva,’ Belle thought but didn’t say. Ruby was her best friend and the most supportive person in the world right now. But even she would balk if she knew what Belle had really been up to on her trip to Australia.

Together, they cleared the clutter and books off the coffee table. Then Ruby made Belle sit on the couch and watch while she spread out her feast.

“Okay, so the tequila is just for me, but I did bring Sprite--it’s caffeine free and it’ll work with the margarita mix. Additionally, chips and gauc, cheese puffs, cheesecake bites, chocolate chip cookies--”

“Did you sort your shopping list alphabetically?”

“And--” Ruby went on, “a whole goddamned rotisserie chicken. I figured we could just rip into it with our hands like old-timey kings, like we’re going to throw the bones on the floor for the dogs.”

Belle let out an incredulous giggle. “That’s ridiculous! And perfect. Thank you so much, Ruby.”

“Oh! I also got this fancy salt for our margaritas. It’s made with black ants! Can you believe that?”

“Ants?” Belle whispered as her hand drifted over her stomach. Suddenly nauseous, she leapt off the couch and ran to the bathroom.

When she finished throwing up, Belle stayed on the ground next to the toilet. Ruby had lingered in the doorway but didn’t come in until Belle was done. She offered her a glass of water and Belle took it gratefully. Ruby sat on the edge of the bathtub, her face full of concern.

“Has the morning sickness been bad?”

“I don’t know if this is bad, I’ve never had it before!” Belle took a sip of water and closed her eyes. “Isn’t it supposed to be bad? Isn’t pregnancy supposed to be divine punishment for promiscuity?”

“If it’s punishment for anything, it’s for poor planning. I thought you were on the pill?”

Belle shook her head. “I kept it up for a few months after Will and Ana got back together for the fifth time, but when it looked like they were sticking I didn’t bother to refill my prescription. I don’t have sex with men often enough to justify taking a pill every day.”

“Except for when you do.”

“Yeah,” Belle took another drink. “Except for when I do.”

Ruby took a breath and rubbed her hands over her knees. “Listen, you know I’m here for you no matter what, right?”

Belle was still shaky, but she rested in that certainty. “Right.”

“And I’m not going to pressure you or make you do anything. You don’t even have to make any decisions today, okay?”

“Okay.”

“But I gotta ask: Belle, what do you want to do? Have you thought about your options? Do you want to keep it? Do you want to… not keep it?”

Leaning her head back against the cool tile of her bathroom wall, Belle opened her eyes slowly. It had been such an ordeal to even confirm that she was pregnant, the thought of what came next had been too much to consider until now.

She took a deep breath, eight counts in, eight counts out.

“I think ‘abortion’ is an even more emotionally charged word than ‘baby.’”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Ruby said. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. I can drive you to Planned Parenthood, I’ll be with you every step of the way. If that’s what you want.”

“I know,” Belle said softly. Ruby’s support was unconditional. She would paint a nursery or hold Belle through a difficult procedure, both with equal willingness and sincerity.

But Belle had an instinctive terror at the thought of going to a doctor’s office in her condition. What would a real urine test reveal about the nature of her child? What kind of image would show up on an ultrasound? Even if she wanted to get rid of this thing, would a regular abortion procedure work? Or would they have to go into her uterus with insecticide?

“I don’t want to go to a doctor,” she said softly.

Ruby’s eyes widened. “But you have to go to an OB! Or even just talk to Victor. I mean, if you’re going to stay pregnant, you have to stay healthy and safe.”

“I know,” Belle closed her eyes again. What could she say? How could she explain any of this? “But… I… I don’t know what will happen.”

“What, like with insurance or something?”

Belle’s eyes shot open. That worked. “Yeah,” she lied. “I don’t want to deal with crazy medical bills.”

Ruby nodded thoughtfully. “Does Australia have universal health care?”

Now it was Belle’s turn to nod, slowly, saying words only slightly after the thoughts came into her head. “We… do. I should go back home… because of the healthcare.”

“Yeah, no, you definitely should. Besides, your parents are there!”

At the mention of her parents, Belle’s tenuous hope crumpled. “Oh God!” she let out a wrenching cry. “My parents are gonna kill me!”

“Nooo,” Ruby crooned. She slid off the bathtub edge and joined Belle on the floor, pulling her into her arms and slowly rocking her back and forth. “I know it’s scary, but parents can be okay with things. My mom didn’t want to tell Granny about me until I was almost born, but it all turned out fine!” She gave Belle a chaste kiss on the temple. “Even if your mom and dad freak out at first, they’ll come around soon. Babies are cute. They’re easy to like.”

Belle shook her head and let the tears fall silently. “Not this baby.”

“Don’t say that.” Ruby held Belle by the shoulders, twisting their bodies so they could look into each other’s eyes. “If you’re gonna keep this baby, Belle, you’ve got to own it. It will be a lovable baby because it will be your baby. You’ve got to fight for it! If you’re this thing’s mom, you have to be its biggest fan. Does that make sense?”

Still teary, Belle nodded. “It’s my baby, right or wrong.”

“Unless you want to go to Planned Parenthood. That is entirely up to you. But once you make that choice--” Ruby balled her hand into a fist and shook it in a display of fierce determination “--then it’s yours.”

“Mine,” Belle whispered. Her hand drifted down to her stomach. It was still flat and lifeless. There was nothing about her body that spoke of the life that grew inside her. Nothing that could tell her what manner of creature her child would become. But Ruby was right, it was hers. And not just hers. “I should tell the father too.”

“Yeah, you never mentioned what happened! Who was this guy? What was he like? How was the sex?”

“The sex was amazing,” Belle admitted with the candor of the overly distraught. “But it was just sort of a one-night stand. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.”

“Do you want to see him again? Do you think he’ll want to be involved?”

“He’ll have to be involved,” Belle said with a dawning sense of relief.

Of course the creature in the cave would be a part of their offspring’s life. If she was going to give birth to a spider, then it would have to be raised by a spider! And that thing… that thing was intelligent. It could care for its young. Maybe it could even take care of Belle.

She just had to see him again.

Belle felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. As she stood up, she nearly floated off the bathroom floor. She offered her hand down to Ruby and helped her get up.

“Tomorrow morning, I have to call Dean Mills to see if someone can teach my classes for the rest of the semester.”

Ruby cocked her head at Belle. “And why is that?”

“Because I’m going back to Queensland.”

#Nephila #rumbelle #rumbelle fic #sorry there's no smut in this one #not a lot of spiders either #next time baby

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thefloatingstone · 5 years ago

Text

MST3K Recommendations for people who’ve never watched it

So if you’re somebody on the internet under the age of 22 there’s a chance you may have HEARD people talk about Mystery Science Theater 3000 or “MST3K” for short, and may even know exactly what it is, but you’ve not watched it and have no idea where to start. Or if you’ve never heard of it, this is me telling you you should probably watch it.

In the early to mid 2000s, when the only people on the internet where nerds and teenagers who were nerds (like literally. I have no idea how to explain to the Today’s Kids(tm) that the internet use to ONLY consist of nerdy people and fandoms. None of this “Influencer” shit.) Anyway, back when the internet was just nerds, before video was easily available, MST3K was still being talked about via audio clips, usually made by holding microphones right up to the TV, and when youtube launched in 2006, some of the very first videos were MST3K episodes cut up into 10 parts (because originally you couldn’t upload videos to youtube that were longer than 10 minutes and they had to be 240dp). And before google bought youtube, you could find full, complete episodes of MST3K on Google video.

It’s kind of a staple if you’re a nerdy internet person, and you’ll probably see it get referenced by fandom people and youtubers in their late 20s a LOT. Or use some of the things MST3K introduced in their own videos (like the Stinger after the credits for instance)

So MST3K is kind of essential viewing imo. And luckily, because of the nature of the show, unlike... basically EVERYTHING tv related, sharing links of MST3K is actually actively and honestly encouraged by the show creators.

The show ran from 1989 to 1999, changing from airing on one channel to another as it went (I’m not American so I never caught it on TV). And at the end of literally every single episode throughout its entire 10 year run, you would see this after the credits;

The show actively encouraged its audience to tape the episodes to video and share those videos with friends and family. This is because the show was never about “building a franchise” or becoming monetarily valuable for its creators, but it was about people actually watching the show. Even to this day, with copyright claims and “Subscribe to our streaming service to watch this show” running rampant, MST3K continues to be a show whose prime focus is to get people to watch it. (unless you want to buy it on DVD in which case the prime focus is for you to be rich to try and afford them because they’re like $70 for 4 episodes).

As such, some episodes are available for free on the MST3K official youtube channel completely for free. Some episodes you can buy from the Rifftrax website (which is where the show creators now work, doing basically the same thing as MST3K minus the puppets and host segments unfortunately) but I would be honestly shocked if ANY episode is unavailable online because sharing the episodes is.... just kind of the point of the show? I literally managed to find each and every one in 2008 (although that dark drive doesn’t want to work with my newer laptop so I might have to download all the episodes AGAIN. Thanks Technology...)

But if you’re somebody who has NO IDEA which episodes are “the good ones” or you just want to jump in and watch but you’re scared you’ll get a complete dud as your first experience and then not know what all the fuss is about, or you just want to know some good episodes to watch, I decided to throw together a list, along with links.

And with that VERY lengthy intro out of the way, here we go!

In no order

The Touch of Satan Year: 1971 S09E08 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain guy and Bobo

Despite the movie title there is no Satan in the film. A baffling movie where a good looking “All American Boy” named Jodie drives through a small town while road tripping from Texas to San Fransisco. There he meets a really pretty girl named Melissa who lives with who she claims is her mother and father on a walnut farm, as well as her insane grandmother. For seemingly nonsensical reasons (other than he’s attracted to Melissa) Jodie decides to spend the night at the farm. Eventually he gets pulled into the family curse and learn just who Melissa really is (It’s not Satan).

The movie is incredibly stupid and WOULD be pretty bland if not for the absolutely ridiculous dialogue, bizarre little details you can’t help but focus on (why a Walnut farm? Why is the father always so sweaty??) and just how.... 70s everything is.

Mike and the bots are super on point with their jokes, and it has a few of my favourite jokes and host segments in it.

https://youtu.be/ZebKhabJItE

Gamera Year: 1965 S03E02 Host: Joel Mads: Dr Forrester and TV’s Frank

Look. If you’re gonna watch MST3K you’re gonna have to watch a Gamera movie eventually. And since I could literally put ANY of the Gamera films here, I’m gonna start with the first one. Especially since the following Gamera movies the host and bots have running jokes and references to the first films.

Gamera is a Japanese Kaiju movie franchise originally created to compete with Godzilla. And completely misses the point of Godzilla. Whereas Godzilla was originally intended to be a metaphor of Atomic weaponry and Japan’s national wound following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... Gamera is about a giant flying turtle monster who is friend to all children.

....and I friggen LOVE Gamera. It’s because of MST3K’s episodes that I ended up buying a DVD boxset of every single Gamera movie. It’s good stuff. Start with this episode and watch the others as you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rly_1NPCXAM

Pod People Year: 1983 S03E03 Host: Joel Mads: Dr Forrester and TV’s Frank

This is MANY people’s favourite episode in the whole show, and was my favourite as well until I couldn’t pick a favourite any more. However this is the only episode of the show where I had to pause it the first time I watched it at one part because I was laughing so hard.

Originally intended to be an alien slasher movie, the producers asked the director Juan Piquer Simon to include a subplot where a cute child makes friends with one of the aliens so that they could market the movie as an E.T. rip off (E.T. had come out the year before) If you think this would make the tone of the movie confusing where half the aliens are killing off teenagers and half the aliens are being friends with a small, badly dubbed child... you are absolutely right. But it’s the Host segments and jokes within the film that make this one of the top 5 best episodes in the whole show, if not top 3.

It is the episode that people will most commonly reference even 30 years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCl2ZNkfnS8

Jack Frost Year: 1964 S08E13 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain Guy and Bobo

One of the many badly Russian films that deserved much better than the shitty dub they got. I was THIS CLOSE to putting “The Day the Earth Froze” here instead, but I felt Jack Frost is the easier watch of the two (however I do recommend checking out The Day the Earth Froze as well).

Honestly, this film isn’t that bad at all. It’s shitty dub is a shame but even with the silly voices and calling Baba Yaga “The Hunchbacked Fairy” for reasons I will never understand, the film is actually pretty charming, and if I had it on video as a kid I probably would have really liked it. It’s a classic fairy tale about a pretty and kind young girl who is treated badly by her stepmother and stepsister, but she finds true love in a handsome prince who had been turned into a bear until he could learn humility. Also Jack Frost is there (I have no idea who he’s suppose to be in the original language of the film and I doubt its Jack Frost). The movie is innocent and weird and overacted and the main character of Nastenka is so pretty and big eyed and innocent it’s an easy target for jokes on just how silly and whimsical everything is. The jokes are never outright mean spirited or nasty, just in line with the whole silly movie, and honestly this is a great episode to introduce your kids to the show as it’s not scary and doesn’t have any gore (like some of the other films showcased)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVpOaeBtr7w

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies Year: 1964 S08E12 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain Guy, Bobo

Yes. That is the real title of the movie. And it is also the most exciting thing about it. This movie is..... incomprehensible, to say the least. I am only BARELY aware of what the fuck it’s even about. There’s a fortune teller on the amusement park wharf? And I remember a terrifying robot monkey asking people to buy tickets, and the main character (I use the term loosely) becomes evil? I’m sorry but this movie is so cut to ribbons in editing and has so little dialogue it’s barely even a movie. It’s held together by the thinnest threads of recurring images. However, unlike some of the other episodes in MST3K with the same problem of barely being movies, I find the jokes by the hosts land much better and they’re not in as agonizing pain as “The Beast of Yucca Flats” which I still consider the worst movie I have ever seen in my life.

I have no way to describe this movie. It’s not even crazy enough to garner enthusiastic “this movie is batshit insane” praise. Watch this one for the jokes by the hosts. And for the title so you can tell people “I watched a movie called The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jLGqN3XG-Q

Eegah Year: 1962 S05E06 Host: Joel Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

Ugh. This movie. Ok. “Starring” Arch Hall Jr. who was a sort of actor and one of those 60s “teen heart throb” singers before boy bands became a thing after the Beatles. He never made it super big, but it was considered a big selling point to films he was in (he went on to being an airline pilot and good for him). This movie is about him and his girlfriend his girlfriend’s father finding a giant caveman in the desert outside their town (in a cave which is NOT made of burlap sacks). The giant caveman falls in love with the girlfriend and follows them to the suburbs.

It’s not the most remarkable movie MST3K ever did. It’s not the best movie they ever did nor is it the worst movie they ever did, but for some reason this film has a tendency to stick in people who watch MST3K’s minds. Maybe the jokes are just THAT quotable, but for whatever reason, it’s one of the staple episodes to watch. And hey, at least the movie is WATCHABLE. MST3K went on to reference things in this film for the rest of the show’s history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvFBKsW3Aew

Santa Claus Year: 1959 S5E21 Host: Mike Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

A Mexican movie about Santa Claus and his friend Merlin who live on the moon and watch the children of Earth through a telescope to make sure they’re all being good. We focus on the devil Pitch who is sent by Satan to make children misbehave, most noteably a 4 year old girl named Lupita who is from a poor family and wishes she had a pretty doll to play with, and a rich little boy who wishes his parents would spend Christmas with him.

This movie is.... weird. In case the whole “Santa and Merlin are friends and live on the moon” thing didn’t already tip you off. The movie’s pretty harmless overall but it’s just WEIRD. Santa’s castle on the moon is full of children from all over the world wearing the most stereotypical clothes of all time (Japanese children in full kimono, American children all dressed as cowboys, African children dressed in tribal clothes etc etc) and they.... I think they make the toys? I’m not sure. Santa’s reindeer are terrifying wind up toys who laugh maniacally when they’re turned on. There’s a giant mouth on the wall that’s part of Santa’s computer? And an ear that can hear what all the children are saying on earth or something?

It’s just... it’s bizarre. And an excellent episode to watch for Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTWs3zvz1z4

War of the Colossal Beast Year: 1958 S03E19 Host: Joel Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

I am recommending this one not actually for the movie itself, but for the short which plays first, which is “Mr. B Natural” and which is easily the best and most referenced MST3K short in the whole show.

It follows a little boy who wishes he was cool. He’s visited by Mr. B Natural, the spirit of music. Mr. B Natural is played by Betty Luster and is a bizarre character in himself, being completely androgynous and using male pronouns while being played very obviously by a woman with a very obviously female voice. Mr. B is presented as a sort of pixie character and possibly meant to be like the stage version of Peter Pan which is also traditionally played by adult women. The episode of MST3K aired in 1991 LONG before the concept of Non-binary was even a thing. As such MST3K plays along with the weirdness that is Mr. B, using only male pronouns for him and addressing him as a man, while also commenting on how attractive he is.

Mr. B teaches our little boy main character that if he wants to be cool he needs to buy a trumpet and join the school’s band, and goes on to be one of the most beloved MST3K “characters” who they often keep making references to and who shows up in the host segments now and then as a cameo.

Oh. And then there’s a movie following the short that’s a sequel to another movie. It’s about a man who keeps growing larger and larger in size but the bigger he gets the more he loses his intelligence. It’s directed by the notorious “Bert I. Gordon” whose movies are always more vehicles for cheap special effects than story, plot or characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRL8umsMe28

Squirm Year: 1976 S10E12 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brian Guy and Bobo

I am a little biased towards Squirm because I’m pretty sure it was the very first MST3K episode I ever saw (not counting the short “Are you Ready for Marriage?” which was the first anything MST3K that I saw). But even if it wasn’t I think Squirm is still a great episode to check out, and it comes with the double whammy of having the short “a Case of Spring Fever” in front of the film which, if they had the short in an earlier season, would definitely have become a running joke throughout the show. Sadly They only aired it here in the 10th season, but even being in the last season, it’s one of the show’s most famous shorts they’ve done.

As for the film, it’s actually pretty great too. It takes place in Georgia and is SUPER southern to a point of coming across as a parody almost. Our main character is the boyfriend of a local girl, a “city boy” who she met antiquing (a hobby they both share and talk about a lot throughout the film). However, a powerful electrical storm struck the small town a few nights ago, and as a result, it has turned all the earthworms underground into blood thirsty, violent predators (without actually growing in size). The movie is a silly and ridiculous B-Movie, but honestly a LOT of the effects are pretty damn impressive. Before he made it big in Rocky, Sylvester Stallone really wanted a role in the film but didn’t get it. All the worms in the film are real, and bought from the bait and fishing industry. So many worms were used in this film that they completely used up the entire New England’s bait supplies for the whole year following the shooting of the film.

Erm... so don’t watch it if you’re squeemish about bugs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3msPmLpLTUM

Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders Year: 1996 S10E03 Host: Mike Mads: Pearl, Brain Guy and Bobo

omfg this movie X’D this fucking movie.

Ok. So what kind of movie do you expect with a title like that and if I tell you it starts off with a grandfather telling his grandson a story about how Merlin’s magic is real and has come to benefit mankind and help others?

You’re probably expecting some whimsical fantasy low budget Princess Bride knock off, right? This is exactly what the film THINKS it is, too. It THINKS it’s a magical child friendly story about magic and Merlin and him and his wife running a shop that sells magical items to better the lives of others.

So it’s kind of a fucking problem that the stories in this movie are based off of Stephen King horror Novellas!!!

And that’s basically all you need to know about why this movie is kind of a disaster. It thinks it’s an all ages magical romp when in reality it’s a horrifying double feature of pet deaths (warning for a dog dying in the second story) an abusive husband (warning for domestic abuse in the first story) and demonic powers.

Also, despite the film being made in 1996, the second story uses footage from the director’s earlier film “The Devil’s Gift” which was made in 1984. As a result, despite the 1996 release, the child in this part of the movie is playing with Star Wars toys and wearing an E.T. shirt through most of it.

This movie also has one of my favourite jokes by Mike right at the end of the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Q-RuAx4V4

Ah crap that’s already 10 movies and I haven’t even mentioned “Werewolf” or “Puma Man”. dkfhskdhfks Go watch Puma Man and Werewolf!! They’re great!

and finally, special mention;

Manos: the hands of fate

Year: 1966 S04E24 Host: Joel Mads: Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank

The great grandpappy of ALL the MST3K episodes. Of all the episodes they’ve ever done and all the movies and shorts they ever covered, Manos is the one that crawled under the skin of the hosts and the audience the most. Many people say it’s the very worst film they ever did EVER. As I said, I personally think the Beast of Yucca Flats is much worse if only because it’s painfully boring, but in terms of sheer “this is so fucking bad I can’t even process this”, I guess Manos wins. Being terrible because you’re boring is one thing. Being terrible because you’re completely batshit insane is another.

The story BEHIND the movie Manos is fascinating. Made when the creator of the film made a bet with a friend that he could make a movie despite never having done anything with film before, he went ahead and did it, with a screening and a premiere and everything. The actor playing Torgo was high on LSD the entire time of filming. The Camera used to shoot the film got so hot they could only film 30 seconds for each scene before they had to cut to a new one. The entire movie was filmed without sound and dubbed afterwards. The actor who was going to play the main character broke his leg before filming started and had to be replaced last second.

The movie is indescribable. It is PAIN and it is SUFFERING and it is BAFFLING and you should really build up a resistance to bad movies before attempting to watch this episode. I do NOT recommend starting your MST3K viewing with this one. But eventually, if you like MST3K, you’re gonna have to watch it. There’s just no escaping it.

The only way I can properly explain what Manos is like is to quote Crow who comments in the opening credits (which the film but forgot to put the actual credits over) “Every frame of this movie looks like someone’s last known photograph.”

And that’s it. That’s the whole movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ5baft7Kv0

I forgot to add my links!

⭐️Patreon⭐️ Or consider ☕️Buying me a Ko-fi ☕️

#MST3K #Mystery Science Theater 3000 #Keep Circling the Tapes #long post #links #Gifs #youtube #recommendations

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nanonaturalist · 6 years ago

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Yo! I’m an Anthropology student but I’m super fascinated with entomology n’ the like. Any tips for how to self study entomology/get started? How did you become the bug lover you are today?

Sup! I am a HUGE animal lover. Like, I don’t think you understand how much I love animals. Back when google image search was this crazy new thing, I would google things like “puffer fish” and literally start crying from how cute and precious they were. I don’t remember ever not liking bugs. I was bringing in caterpillars when my age was single digits, which I named and kept in shoe boxes, and who would invariably wander out and make a random cocoon somewhere.

STORY TIME! (what? you wanted a short answer? Sorry!)

… (actually check out this post from a while back [link] about tips for getting started, it was written for a high school student but most of the things I mention are good for all ages)…

Thing is, this was the point in history when you needed to use a card catalog to look a book up in the library. No idea what I’m talking about? That’s how long ago this was. If there was a book about bugs in the school book order form, I would ask for it (and sometimes I’d get one), but that was the full extent of my knowledge pool for things that we weren’t directly taught about in school. In 4th grade, we had a unit on marine animals (with the most amazing field trip on a research boat ever, omg the scuba divers brought up things for us to touch, and we got to look at plankton in the microscope eeeeeee!), and it was like I was reborn. I memorized everything we learned, including the taxonomy of cnidaria (jellies, anemones, corals) and strange eating habits of echinoderms (starfish, urchins). I got REAL into this stuff, to the point where 4 years later, I told anybody who asked me that when I grew up, I was going to get a PhD in Marine Biology.

There was just one problem. You can’t get a degree in any kind of animal biology without doing dissections or killing things. Remember, I’m an animal Lover with a capital L. I wanted to be a vegetarian starting at age 4 (parents said no, but I picked meat out of everything until I made it official at 12). So I gave up on biology real quick. Flash forward about ten years to 2006. I had graduated from college (with a psychology degree that cost me $70,000), was working soul-sucking jobs, and needed a hobby. But wait, DIGITAL CAMERAS ARE A THING! WOW! So I picked up “crappy nature photography” as a hobby. And what did I take pictures of with my First Ever Digital Camera when I bought one that summer?

I found this longhorn beetle on the hood of my car at a rest stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. But back in 2006… What are you going to do with pictures of bugs when you have no background in biology? I posted some on LiveJournal, and that was that. What kind of bug was it? I couldn’t even tell you that it was a beetle at that point. And when I was going through my old photos more recently, I couldn’t even remember seeing it.

I still took photos of basically everything I saw, but nothing ever really happened with them.

Who are these? At the time (photos are from 2006 to 2009), the most I could have told you was “dragonfly, wasp, spider, caddisfly larva.” Which is pretty good, I guess, but I didn’t even realize how much diversity I was missing out on by not going any deeper.

Me + Slugs: Left - Banana Slug in Redwood National Forest, CA (2008); Center and Right - Chocolate Arion Slug at my apartment in Redmond, WA (2006)

Time passes, nature photos are taken. I will take photos of any bug I see, but I don’t intentionally seek them out and I never know what any of them are. Now flash forward to 2013, when I moved from Seattle, WA to Austin, TX.

My mind was blown. The bugs were huge, strange, and EVERYWHERE. I NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE! But… It was still hard. At this point, looking things up on the internet was just what you did, but … what was I supposed to look up? “Giant screaming thing in my potted plant that looks like a leaf?” “Pile of handsnails?” I took pictures, shared them on Facebook (nobody used Livejournal anymore!), and went about my day.

At this point, I had gone back to college to study engineering (I moved to Austin for grad school), and somehow ended up watching a lot of youtube. SciShow got me onto VlogBrothers, which got me onto The Brain Scoop (@thebrainscoop), which got me onto tumblr *waves*. And I was thinking some hard thoughts about what I actually wanted to do when I grew up because I was tired of soul-sucking jobs. Hey, I love museums (that’s actually where most of my science knowledge came from), so I started thinking about careers in science museums, and I followed UT’s collection page on Facebook. One day in 2015, they shared an event for a Bioblitz, sponsored by several groups associated with UT and Texas Parks and Wildlfie. What’s a Bioblitz? I had no idea. So I clicked.

Basically, you take as many pictures of living things as you can. There were subject matter experts who would lead you on hikes and tell you what things were and how you can tell them apart (WAIT, WHAT?!?). The event required that you download this new nature app called iNaturalist (@inaturalist), which is where you would post the photos you took. With the data you posted from the app, other users of the website would identify your photos, and the state park we were at would use that data to create species checklists to track what occurred there. Your iNat account kept a permanent log of all of your observations. I tend to be extremely skeptical/resistant to new technologies and being told to do things, so at first I wanted to know what was wrong with the way I took photos NOW, I didn’t need some stupid website telling me what to do.

But then I started testing it out before the event.

Two of my first iNat observations (both butterflies). Left: Henry’s Elfin caterpillar; Right: American Lady butterfly. Links to iNat observations.

I had no idea where to start with identifying either of these, and the Henry’s Elfin caterpillar took me a few years to ID myself. But the American Lady? People told me what it was within hours of me posting it. Within hours.

About a week later, the Bioblitz happened. It was perfect. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who were just like me. They wanted to go on long slow walks through nature, turning over logs and walking directly into ponds and poking at insects, all while taking photos of things and identifying them. I was spending the weekend with real life biologists and I was learning everything I could. And the things I saw?

HOLY CARP. Texas has dung beetles?! (top left) Parasitic wasps REALLY DO THAT? (braconid wasp cocoons on inchworm caterpillar, top right) Diving beetles?! (water scavenger beetle, bottom left) Giant fishing spiders?! (bottom right)

This event was the moment I “got started” with entomology. I regularly used iNaturalist, and in the process of trying to identify my observations with BugGuide.net [link], I quickly began to learn some of the “basics.” For example, stink bugs are a thing. So are green lacewings. And there are a LOT more kinds of spiders than orbweavers and wolf spiders (who knew?). I was so smitten with iNaturalist that I professed my love for all to read on tumblr [link] (all being… 3 people?). I used iNaturalist regularly, but still, unless I was on a bioblitz, I didn’t seek things out. I mentioned I was a grad student, right?

Then 2016 rolls around. I’ve had enough of school and drop master out of my program. I get a Real Engineering Job and Buy a House with a Yard. I started my new job when I was finishing up my thesis (probably not the best idea…) and so my back yard took on a life of its own. By the time I had finished my thesis, the grass was hip height, and the HOA had no rules about what my back yard had to look like, so I just never mowed it. And the bugs… oh man, the bugs. The bugs were good. By January 2017, I was getting more confident in my Bug Knowledge, and I was using iNaturalist every week. I had joined clubs centered around nature (Texas Master Naturalists and Travis Audubon). I signed up for a birding trip in Malawi. Then in April, I found a pile of butterfly eggs and a chrysalis. And the guy leading the Malawi trip (one of the directors at Travis Audubon) asked me to do an insect table at their outreach event. Then City Nature Challenge 2017 happened (and I am *very* competitive). And… uh… I guess I just never looked back?

The thing to remember here is: the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. What I love about iNaturalist is that I can create a time capsule showing what I did and didn’t know at the time. And what I didn’t know is… really amazing. I taught the entomology class for my Master Naturalist chapter’s training course this year, and I told the people in the class that one year ago, I didn’t know any of the things I was going to talk to them about. I know it sounds like I’m putting on a commercial for iNaturalist (which is actually exactly what I’m doing, I love that website), but besides the curiosity about nature that I had to begin with, iNaturalist is the single most important thing that has enabled me to nurture and grow my love for our invertebrate friends.

Through my use of iNaturalist, I have met real people and made real friendships. Many of the people I meet are professionally biologists, but there are just as many randos like me who crawled out of the internet to hang out with nature freaks. One of the great things about this community is there is no elitism, and even professional entomologists are just as willing to admit they have no idea what something is and will listen to me explain what I know, as they are to explain something I don’t know and answer my questions. The people I have met are absolutely awesome, and the general attitude people on iNat (online and in person) tend to have has really rubbed off on me. If someone I’m talking to doesn’t know something that tends to be commonly known (example: my coworker is a gardener, but hadn’t heard about the ant/aphid relationship), oh boy, it’s awesome, let me TELL YOU about ANTS fighting off PREDATORS so they can DRINK APHID PEE!!!

Above: Crematogaster ants farming keeled treehopper nymphs on sunflower SO THEY CAN DRINK THEIR PEE

One of the best things you can do to get more into entomology is to just be observant. Look. Notice patterns. Pay attention to relationships between “higher” and “lower” organisms. When you travel, look there too. What is different from home? What’s similar?

The other best thing: meet people. Find groups/clubs for people into nature. Go on hikes with entomologists. Go to “nature days” events (these are always geared towards kids, but ADULTS ARE WELCOME!). A lot of nature clubs and organizations are heavy on the retiree demographic, which means the meetings may not be easy to learn about online. I actually joined the Austin Butterfly Forum after hearing about it from the people I was sitting next to at a Travis Audubon event (Victor Emanuel’s autobiography had just published and he kicked off his book tour with a live interview in Austin), and I’ve met several new friends through ABF.

I don’t even know how to explain it, but naturalists are a totally different flavor than any other person I’ve known. It’s like, there are other people who would rather be crawling through the swamp in 105°F weather for 8 hours straight than sit and watch TV? There are other people who will skip two meals and stay up until 2 am to get really good bug pictures? I mean, I can’t describe what it feels like to be slowly picking through the deserts of west Texas with 15 other people, when one of them yells, “SNAKE!” and suddenly EVERYBODY RUNS TOWARDS THE SNAKE AND IMPATIENTLY WAITS THEIR TURN TO HOLD HIM.

I know this is long and maybe not entirely what you were expecting, @marichuu, but want to make sure that anybody reading this knows that if you like nature, even if you don’t know very much about it now, there are a ton of people like me and those weirdos up there who are so excited to share the world with you that you can’t even imagine it now. Want to stay online because you’re nervous about meeting new people? That’s great! Tons of us are online! But if you’re ready to put yourself out there and meet people in person, chances are, they’re awesome and will love answering your questions (and if they’re not awesome tell me and I’ll YELL AT THEM FOR YOU YOU DESERVE BETTER).

Anyway. Bugs are awesome and I hope they think you are just as awesome. Also anthropology is super neat and there’s a lot of intersections with entomology [link] that you can look at from an interesting angle.

Posted June 4, 2018

#asks #informational #how to #teach yourself entomology #entomology #inaturalist #inat #citizen science #insect photography #nature photography #tl;dr #wall of text #tmi #nanonaturalist's life story #resources #bioblitz #naturalists #master naturalists #audubon

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tonguetiedmag · 6 years ago

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interview: as it is

Wrapping up The Great Depression Tour with only a handful of shows left , I caught up with Patty Walters from As It Is just before the group rocked out a set at The Hi-Dive in Denver to learn more about his favorite vegan eateries, rare studio-moments during the recording of the band’s latest release, and what it’s been like welcoming in a new permanent member.

What’s been your favorite part about this tour apart from other tours you’ve done?

“I think the camaraderie. We love the bands we brought out as bands, and as people. We didn’t know Point North or Hold Close as human beings before this tour, but we were fans of their music and their art, and we’ve gotten to know everybody over the course of however long it’s been, probably about a month now-- it’s bittersweet. Sharptooth were some of my closest friends on warped tour of last year, we’ve seen them on pretty much every day off as well. It’s just been one big happy family honestly this tour; I think that’s the bittersweet part, is you have such a good time when everyone’s here and that just makes saying goodbye a little more difficult. It’s been one of my favorite tours we’ve ever done over 6 or 7 years now.”

What’s been your favorite song from The Great Depression to play live?

“The Wounded World i s always going to be a standout because of the relentless energy of it--I’m just a big fan of songs that really go 100 miles an hour throughout the whole thing, it’s absolutely one of those songs. Equally, opening with The Reaper has been so much fun, and The Question, The Answer has been a nice intimate moment. We weren’t sure if we were going to be playing it out here; it’s been such a fun part of the set, it makes it so much more dynamic and intimate. So there’s a couple standouts, but I think The Wounded World is probably my favorite moment of the set, which is why it’s last in the set and it’s the biggest climax and finale that we possibly could have created.”

Is there any song you wanted to put on the setlist that didn’t make the cut?

“Yes-- and part of the nature and the reason behind is that Ronnie [Ish, lead guitar] is a very new member and only knows so many of our songs right now, so we were limited to songs that we were playing on our most recent EU and UK headline run, which is why this setlist bears so much similarity to that one. But equally, we put so much time and effort and thought into this set so that it does feel theatrical and ... special-- It’s a set that we have all crafted and believed in. Adding “Such Great Heights” [The Postal Service] t o the equation out here has been really fun, so there were a couple that we did manage to sneak in. I think we’re getting Ronnie there maybe one or two songs per tour, just learning the entire As It Is discography slowly.”

When did you guys know you wanted Ronnie to become a permanent member?

“For a while, it’s been a long time coming. Ron was in the studio when we were writing and recording The Great Depression, but Ronnie has been family for a long time--we met Ronnie in 2015 on the Vans Warped Tour, he was living on our bus. He, in the interim period, served as every different touring crew member...you could imagine, as tour manager, guitar tech, driver, and merch. The thing about it--and I think it’s often a thing that gets viewed from one perspective-- is it’s not only ‘Did we want Ronnie to join?’ (which of course we did), it’s ‘Does Ronnie want to commit to these four people, this lifestyle where he doesn’t get to see his friends and family very often, where he doesn’t get paid as much as he probably could back home. For that reason I think we’re really flattered and humbled that he wants to commit the next however many years of his life to this band and us as people. The first real trial period of tour was warped tour of last year. That was Ronnie’s first time playing onstage with us, but we just kind of knew it in the back of our minds, and the back of his, that this was what we were meant to do together.”

Has the dynamic changed at all?

“Oh massively. Ronnie has the biggest personality of anyone I’ve ever met, for better or for worse; some days you’re not in the mood to be surrounded by such a loud presence. He’s one of a kind and he brings so much more energy and sincerity to what we do to our live performance, and engaging and interacting with our fans on and off stage, before and after the set.”

What’s a favorite memory you’ve made with another band on this tour?

“That’s a great question! Doing Disney world with every band on this tour was really fun, that was a really nice moment. We did an escape room with Sharptooth and Doll Skin in Arizona, that was really fun-- I had never done an escape room before, I don’t think most of us had. We were divided into four, which became two teams due to the nature of the escape room-- it was tons of fun.”

With the stark difference sound-wise between Okay and The Great Depression, how have you seen the dynamic of your fanbase change, if at all?

“Well, that’s one of the most interesting, kind of humbling things is that, we were uncertain as to who was still going to relate to this sound, enjoy this sound. One of the most humbling things is that so many fans from all around the world, that have been with us for upwards of five years since we’ve been touring internationally are still coming out to shows-- and it’s like nothing has changed, even though so much has changed. I think it speaks to the authenticity of the art that people can totally really love what we do and really believe in what we do. Yes, we’ve embraced a much more aggressive, darker sound, but it was the only natural evolution for our sound as a band for sure.”

Whatever you guys release next, are you gonna take it slow? Do you have ideas?

“I have ideas. Although, it was a conscious decision to be more present and engaged during the release of The Great Depression. We started writing The Great Depression three weeks before Okay was released, so when everyone got to really appreciate and consume okay, we were busy creatively, consciously invested in this next album. We didn’t get to live in the moment of Okay as much, and I was very aware that it would be a mistake to do that again. We all have ideas for the next record, but we haven’t started writing just yet. Equally, there are exciting expansions of The Great Depression that people are gonna get to enjoy pretty soon--we’re really making this one last.”

What motivates you to get up and keep going every day?

“Honestly, I’ve just made more of a conscious effort to live every day for me, as selfish as that sounds. Being as painfully introverted as I am, the most minute interaction often claims a big piece of myself and my energy. So I very selfishly at times hide myself away in my bunk, or in a cafe or something like that. We’re just working on so many exciting things right now that I don’t really have the time or the opportunity to slow down-- speeding away on a million different As It Is related projects, that’s pretty exciting.”

With you spending a lot of time in cafe’s and such, what’s your favorite place when you’re traveling to stop and eat, a place you look forward to?

“I wasn’t familiar with, but loved Arlo’s in Austin, Texas. Although, the thing about seeking out vegan restaurants on tour is that they’re not always healthy, and I’ve made a more conscious, mature decision to be healthier on tour for everyone’s well being, because I feel like trash if I just eat fake meat and cheese all day. Some of my favorites... I wanna say it’s called ‘Blackbird’s Cafe’ o r something, but it’s in Philadelphia. They do an amazing vegan philly cheesesteak, vegan wings-- they have these root beer barbecue wings. That was a rare, indulgent, ‘eat the trash, feel like trash’ moment, but it was worth it.”

How do you personally fight against writers block?

“Something that I’ve found only more recently--over the last year or so-- is that I hold some of my biggest influences to such a high standard, I put them on the tallest of pedestals. Some of my favorite writers/lyricists are Adam Young from Owl City, Lights, Motion City Soundtrack, Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service. Something I’ve done more recently is--yes, these artists have written some of my favorite songs--some of which I believe to be the greatest songs ever written-they have also written songs that I just don’t enjoy. I seek out those songs to remind myself that everybody is human, everybody falls shorts at least in my standards [when it comes to] music that I enjoy, and remind myself that just because these people are my biggest influences in the world, doesn’t mean that they write perfect songs every time. I love starting songs, and hate finishing songs. I start a lot more projects than I finish; partly because the potential of an idea becomes very romanticized in my head, and a lot of the time the actuality of finishing that idea isn’t as great as the potential that I see in it-- and that is a very difficult battle to win some days. What I do is remind myself that every great songwriter is human, and falls short, and doesn’t write 10/10 songs every day of every year.”

Who did you guys pull inspiration from when writing The Great Depression?

“So, we very consciously paid homage to post hardcore and emo bands, such as Armor for Sleep, Underoath..But equally, being a band from the UK, and having lived in the UK since i was five years old, I listened to so many british post hardcore bands that never got the international recognition that this band is fortunate enough to have recieved. We paid homage to bands like Hero for a Friend, Hell is for Heroes, Hundred Reasons-- the third track on The Great Depression, The Fire, The Dark is co-written with Larry Hibbitt of Hundred Reasons. If you’re from the UK, and you grew up in the 90s and 2000s there was no way to not know about this band. They were on mainstream radio, playing festival mainstages, a giant in UK rock music--but I guarantee none of our fans ever hear of that band, and getting to write one of our songs alongside one of the acts that we were paying tribute to was very cool, very surreal.”

The Great Depression also features a lot of smooth, instrumental transitions between sings--what was your favorite one of those to create?

“I think my favorite to create was the transition between The Reaper and The Two Tongues (Screaming Salvation). I don’t know if anyone knows this, I don’t know if I’ve ever said this, and I don’t know if you can even tell--but in the buildup into The Two Tongues there’s a sample of a song called The Prisoner’s Song, and I don’t even remember who its by, but it was written in like 1925. There’s all this guitar feedback and eerie soundscapes, and our mad scientist of a producer, Machine, had the idea of screaming into the guitar pickups-- because screaming “salvation”, it made sense. [There’s] this never seen, never released video of Machine screaming “salvation” into the guitar. You probably can’t hear it- I can hear it ‘cause I was there: right before the song kicks in , there’s this very distorted sound. It’s a guitar, but you can hear that Machine is screaming “sal-va-tion” into the guitar, and maybe if you really listen closely you’ll hear it now. It’s one of my favorite moments, because i feel like modern music--not even just modern rock music--modern music isn’t as indulgent as it used to be. I used to read about all these incredibly indulgent studio stories that I just feel like don’t exist anymore, ‘cause no one has the time nor the budget to be as indulgent as some of the greats used to be. Getting to play around with silly things that ultimately don’t matter, but equally fulfill you; that’s why they matter.”

If you could spend one day jamming with a favorite musician dead or alive who would it be, and why?

“For me it would be Adam Young in Owl City. Just my biggest influence of all time, somebody that I just respect so endlessly. I think he’s just an expert in sound just as much as he is in songwriting, I just love everything he’s ever done.”

What’s a song--either on the setlist or not--just a song of yours that you hold a lot of personal meaning to?

“Hey Rachel. Just hearing audiences from every end and hemisphere of the world sing your sisters’ name is always going to be hugely sentimental and personal, and it’s a very personal moment of every set we play.”

What is a song you can rage to no matter what, something that gets you hype every time?

“Clever Girl by Sharptooth. Anytime [when] we were on warped tour of last year I would seek out the Sharptooth set and just get a little more fired up, and a little bit more pissed off at the state of the world, and get a little more inspired-- it’s something that I’ve tried to catch as many times as I could on this tour, cause it makes me so much more excited for my set--it’s such a great song.”

If you had to describe your music to someone who doesn’t hear, how would you describe it?

“Where optimism and pessimism come to kick the shit out of each other.”

If you want to catch the group on their upcoming “The Intimate Depression” run, or see when they’ll be playing near you next Check them out Online:

https://asitisofficial.com/

https://www.facebook.com/asitisofficial/

http://www.fearlessrecords.com/artists/as-it-is/

https://twitter.com/ASITISofficial?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Interview by: Liz Holland

#music #as it is #liz holland #interview #patty walters #patty walters interview #as it is interview #live music #denver #colorado #hi dive

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maloneymaloney7-blog · 6 years ago

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whereisfootball · 7 years ago

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2018 MLS Kit Branding Reimagined

The 2018 Major League Soccer season is nearly underway. It’s been a long offseason and we’re hyped to have it back.

Our friends Tap In have a lot of new, exciting MLS content coming this year on their guide, and in celebration of that, we decided to partner on a fun little project.

In a bid to add a little more personality to what is largely bland, impersonal sponsorship real estate on each kit, we reimagined every team’s jersey with something new in the middle of it. Some of these are local companies, others are prospective partners who have some fun link to the team, and others will probably just be arcane jokes that won’t land.

Nevertheless, we thought this was a fun way to bring a few of our favorite things together: Friendship, Photoshop & American soccer.

Please enjoy.

Atlanta United — Waffle House

An iconic southern restaurant with its roots in Atlanta, Waffle House is open 24/7, 365—and it’s the best. As Waffle House FC will tell you, this is a perfect sponsor for a team that’s tasty on and off the pitch. Their supporters never waver, refusing to shut off for even a single second when they pack the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They aren’t afraid to do things their own way—which, yes, can sometimes get a bit messy ... but most of the time it’s spot on.

Chicago Fire — Portillo’s

Sorry, it’s important we let you know now that this is probably going to be a food-heavy list as we’re rather fond of eating.

Portillo’s is a Chicago institution known for its hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, and an extremely healthy, 100% good for any diet cheese sauce.

While the Fire aren’t yet a Chicago institution themselves, we hope one day pictures of Bob Bradley, Hristo Stoichkov & Ante Razov will line the walls of a Portillo’s near you.

Colorado Rapids — Coors

The beer with mountains on the can that turn from white to blue when it’s cold enough to drink...

The beer that you knew and loved so well from ages 21-24...

The beer brewed with spring water from the very same Rocky range you can spot from the Colorado Rapids’ 18,000-seat soccer specific stadium...

Headquartered in Golden, Colorado and responsible for some of the best nights of your life, we give you Coors on a Rapids jersey...

“Like if Chelsea’s 1994 kit did a gap year in America.”

Columbus Crew — Wendy’s

As the red-headed stepchild of MLS, this one kind of feels right. And the disappearance of the club would be just as sad as when Wendy’s (founded in Columbus) got rid of their spicy chicken nuggets.

#SAVETHECREW

(Note: The actual kit is pretty great and it’s honestly insulting that we did anything to it. We’re sorry.)

DC United — Geico

The Chevy Chase, Maryland-based Geico gecko had some good years there. We all liked him for a while. It was a good bit. But it got stale right around the time Freddy Adu left town. Since then, DC United and the gecko have struggled mightily to find consistent form. Here’s hoping they both find success this year from a new approach.

(And, hey, while we’re here: All the best to you, Freddy.)

FC Dallas — Dr. Pepper

Everyone’s second team, Dr. Pepper, is a lifestyle in Texas. A Lone Star State-staple that pulls a talented 23-flavor squad from all-over—here’s to you Waco and Dublin— Dr. Pepper is an underrated, over-performing outfit with immense local significance … just like their imagined partner in Dallas.

A lot more to be proud of than their trophy cabinet will tell you.

Houston Dynamo — Swishahouse

As Mike Jones, noted soccer superfan, Swishahouse OG, and Everyone’s Favorite Rapper from 2005, once said:

Let ‘em know: Houston Dynamo.

Good enough for us.

LA Galaxy — SpaceX

Space. Galaxy. You get it.

Headquartered a stone’s throw from the LA Galaxy’s stadium in Carson is SpaceX, Elon Musk’s influential private “outer space things” company as it’s scientifically known.

Much like MLS’s most famous and successful franchise, SpaceX is a trailblazer famous for its glamour and willingness to break the mold. This isn’t to say it’s always smooth sailing—for either—but at the end of the day they’re both respected for their vision and performance.

This crossover is too perfect and it’s something that we’ve seen terrific mockups of in the past (though we wish we knew who to credit!). Also worth a shout is this awesome piece from LA Galaxy Confidential, which mentions Tesla as a fun potential partner.

LAFC — The Boring Company

If the Galaxy is SpaceX, LAFC is The Boring Company.

Elon Musk’s newest endeavor is going to revolutionize Los Angeles by … making tunnels for cars? Oh, and by creating giant vehicles that can travel those tunnels and move lots of people at once … like a train. Hmm. The Boring Company seems like a well-backed but ordinary idea that lacks direction and distinction, with a lot of hype for reasons no one can really explain.

To be blunt, we haven’t really seen much to this point.

The Galaxy have sent a Tesla up into space and revolutionized how we build rockets... but LAFC have so far just made a bunch of flamethrowers and sold out their entire stock. So, we’ll see.

For now, all we’re really sure about is how much better their kit would have looked if they hadn’t put their sponsor in red.

Minnesota United — Prince. Duh.

You can have a Dirty Mind or even be a little Delirious, but you’ll still end up right back here with no Controversy. You can wear it in a Little Red Corvette, in a Purple Rain, When Doves Cry or even put it on Bambi. With this kit, you’ll be a Sexy MF.

Montreal Impact — Cirque du Soleil

What’s wilder than benching Didier Drogba because you’re better without him? One person doing acrobatics on the head of another person while a third person flies through the air holding fire. In French.

Born and headquartered in Quebec, Cirque du Soleil is now the largest theatrical producer in the world. The Impact aren’t even the kings of Canada yet, let alone MLS, but this could be the year they flip their way to the top. Holding fire. In French.

New England Revolution — Sperry’s

Put those Sperry’s on to look the part and take your dad’s boat out on the water. You’ll be as close to Boston as Gillette Stadium and the deck of your boat will probably be as soft as the turf too.

NYCFC — Sbarro.

The Michael-Scott-approved best pizza in New York. The only logical choice.

Sorry, sorry. We’re kidding. Don’t go to Sbarro.

...Let’s try that again...

NYCFC — WeWork.

Much like City Football Group, WeWork is trying to change a model.

For CFG, it’s football clubs. For WeWork, it’s the office space game. WeWork started in New York, born out of an inability to find affordable and available office space in the city—a problem NYCFC knows rather well—and now has an operation that spans across the globe.

Like CFG, it might not be your cup of tea, but it certainly works for a lot of people in NYC and has offered plenty of enterprising young professionals a place to grind. #JackHarrison

New York Red Bulls — Become the MetroStars again.

#Metros4Ever. That is all.

Orlando City — Publix

This one is a no-brainer.

Publix is an employee-owned supermarket chain that serves up some truly delicious food and has fans almost as fanatical as those found on The Wall in Orlando.

Floridians are vocally, passionately, sometimes a bit frighteningly #TeamPublix—and the same can be true for the way purple-clad City supporters get behind their squad.

Philadelphia Union — Wawa

If you know, you know. In their words:

“Wawa is your all day, every day stop for fresh, built-to-order foods, beverages, coffee, fuel services, and surcharge-free ATMs. The stores offer a large fresh food service selection, including Wawa brands such as built-to-order hoagies, freshly brewed coffee, hot breakfast sandwiches, built-to-order specialty beverages, and an assortment of soups, sides and snacks.”

Wawa 4 ever. #SheetzOUT

Portland Timbers — Powell’s

Powell’s City of Books is (supposedly) the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world. It is ginormous and fantastic and you should go if you’re ever in Portland.

We don’t know of any football clubs sponsored by book stores, but if there was ever going to be one, it would play in the Rose City.

Real Salt Lake — High West

Tucked away in a state known primarily for its gorgeous vistas and as the home of the Mormon religion is a really wonderful distillery that will knock your socks off. It also comes with that beautiful mountain view, not unlike Rio Tinto Stadium.

San Jose Earthquakes — Yahoo!

Nothing says cool like needing an exclamation point at the end of your name. Kind of like building a brand new stadium and needing to tell people that you have a really long bar.

As the kit sponsor of the Quakes during their two title runs, we think it’s time for Yahoo! to make a return. (Not sure anyone will use it, though.)

Seattle Sounders — Starbucks

Sorry, we’re those guys. Seattle gave the world Starbucks and we needed to see what that logo would look like on these new kits.

Plus, much like Starbucks invented coffee, the Sounders invented American soccer.

Sporting Kansas City — Hallmark

A proudly Kansas City company that is all about good vibes, with extensive Wizard of Oz involvement over the years.

That sounds a lot like Sporting KC to us—a team that needed a rough start in order to find its way. Much the same, Hallmark probably would have never become what it is today without extensive setbacks in its early years.

Toronto FC — Tim Hortons

Timbits and trophies: That’s what Toronto does. Nowadays, anyway.

We only had three Canadian teams to give the Tim Hortons love to, so we figured the toast of MLS deserves the world’s most lovely quick-service cafe and bake shop.

Vancouver Whitecaps — Lululemon

Set on the water, with an amazing mountain view, you couldn’t say a bad word about how great Vancouver looks. It’s straight-up cool. And local company Lululemon makes activewear that looks similarly awesome. We are officially here for MLS yoga wear.

————

This post was a collaboration between Where Is Football and Tap In Guide. Check out their stuff—it’s awesome.

A special thanks to Tap In’s graphic designer Mike Arney for helping bring our ideas to life, and to our buddy Ryan Rosenblatt for developing those ideas with us.

As always, you can follow us on Instagram @whereisfootball.

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clementine-lominsan · 3 years ago

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WHY I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE

2018-12-02

In an era of utter insanity, reaction is the only way to preserve one’s moral conscience.

Why am I not a liberal? Because I admire the luxuriant giant tree of civilization, including its roots. So it seems being a conservative is the “natural” answer. But what does it mean to be a “conservative”? What do conservatives “conserve”?

A conservative today is usually an economic liberal. He promotes free market whose major principle is free trade and free market. The goal of all this, is actually nothing else than the goal of a socialist: the increase of efficiency, the increase of employment, the increase of living standard, the increase of literacy, the decrease of fetal mortality and the advancement of technology.

We are told that the increase of total social wealth is what actually made these goals possible. Surely I do not oppose the increase of total social wealth, but what does that mean? In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, the word “wealth” usually means one thing, the material profit. As the classical liberals boasted, “it was the capitalist who created the condition where any socialist activism is possible”, and “without capitalism, 80% of world’s people would not be there!”

But is humanity better just because we have more people? Does the happiness of humanity hike with the sharp improvement of the material life? No matter how much the material condition improves, one could not help wondering why, despite all this material progress, the spiritual, or mental wealth is shrinking.

The rise of suicide rate in the more materially wealth parts of the world, and the prevalence of drug abuse and the political consensus of both left and right wings on pot legalization, the trend in legalizing non-hetereosexual “marriage”, and the vulgarization of popular culture.

Even worse, the mind and the behavior of the deracinated masses are now being engineered by social media giant corporations. One may argue “but this is not the intention of free market capitalism!” But the road to hell is paved good intentions, and moreover, I am not sure urging young kids to engage in computer games with gambling functions (“microtransaction”) is “good” intention.

The obsession with the material, is perhaps inherent in the bourgeois mind. Historically, they have no real sense of loyalty to any land, any king, any belief, any community or even any family. Nor do they have any fixed social function. As the great conservative thinker Edmunk Burke put it, “the laws of commerce…are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God.” (Maybe Burke and his students believe in Hermes, the God of Commerce? “Orthodox Christians” without charity, what a paradox!)

In other words, they are materialists. What does it take to go from this kind of materialist to the Marxist dialectic materialist? Hegelian dialectics, the black magic of sophistry, that is. Besides, after the rise of industrial capitalism, there has been more and more giant companies which is not actually owned by any private person. Yes, everyone can buy their stock shares, but what is the separation of management from private ownership, aside from being the sheer violation of the private property right?

Of course, usurers need this, so they can concentrate their attention in the financial industry, which makes everyone else “proletarian” – whose only possession is the labor-power. The ideological and economic continuity means industrial capitalism is the prelude of socialism. Surely there are free-marketeers, and there are mainly two sorts of them, “minarchists” and anarchists.

The so-called “minarchists” ask for such as minimal modern sovereign state: it has a standing army, a nationalized police and a centralized legal system. One has to remember the first economic liberals, i.e. Physiocrats called for an Enlightened tyrant – it means compared to the ancient free states supported by pious and loyal people, the so-called “minarchy” is nothing but a tyrannical modern state supported by deracinated masses: the instrument of a Leninist state is already there.

As for anarcho-capitalism, there is no anarcho-capitalism or anarcho-communism; there is only lawless anarchy, where physical violence and “smart” backstabbing are the eternal law of survival. In reality, the so-called minarchy is being practiced, and here we are, bound with quantity over quality, efficiency without purpose, property without ownership, and snobbery without organicity: the greatness of a modern industrial capitalism!

The eternal state with its permanent laws, seems to be ingrained in the mind of the eternal Anglo conservative, and conservatives in other spheres of culture are believing in it as well, thanks to the neoconservative Wilsonian order. It is said, that only by trial-and-error, we will know what works the best.

It is also said that we must preserve the traditional political institutions unconditionally. These two are in fact contradicting each other. The change in the internal and external, material and spiritual environments, requires the relevant changes in the social and political institutions, so a civilization can survive.If we see certain political institutions as god-given eternal entities, the fate of the Late Qing Empire will be repeated: the state is getting paralyzed by European colonists, peasant rebels, cult terrorists and radical revolutionaries – from 1851 to 1863, China’s population declined by more than 200 million! Why? Because they were overly obsessed with their ancient political traditions without making any effort to revitalize them.

As T. S. Eliot put it, “Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, ‘tradition’ should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition.Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.” This political sloth has proven to be causal to the repeated defeat of conservatisms in history. Surely, many conservatives care words more than reality, so much so that they would sacrifice anything for their “political values”. They are too persistent on political values but sometimes too flexible on moral values. I wonder how much this overintellectualization is related to “sola fide” of Martin Luther.

It is the central conservative dogma that the state can do little, if nothing, to promote moral thoughts and behavior. Edmund Burke once said, “It is in the power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in anything else.”

But is it true? Centuries before Burke, St. Augustine of Hippo believed that the state simultaneously serves the divine purposes of chastening the wicked and refining the righteous. Many conservatives argue, based on the minarchist doctrine, that the state is an evil, but a necessary one. Meanwhile, they also argue that the state should be impartial, and by “impartial”, they mean amoral. From the theoretical point of view, anyone committed to the mission of promoting evil must start his adventure by convincing evil is “necessary”: “Only Catholics soaked in canon law and papal superstition maintained the old prohibitions against usury”, wrote Cotton Mather; “If we did not nuke Japan, we would have suffered unbearable losses”, argued the 21st century neoconservative.

Even worse, conservatives like Andrew Sullivan are actually the pioneers of various postmodern progressive social movements. So, political amorality becomes political anti-morality. Again, if one looks back into the history of the progress of such a political ideal, despite of its ostensibly just claims, what it has wrought us is one license to vices after another. Virtues need no license, because anyone with moral conscience know that virtues are hard to maintain so there is no real legal restriction on them.

By contrast, an interesting observation from the generation educated under Estado Novo or its Spanish counterpart is said to be extremely polite and respectful. “It can do very little positive good in this”? History seems to disagree. For a traditionalist, as opposed to a conservative, what must be permanent are the moral values, and the political values can be flexible and the political institutions must serve the purpose to preserve the moral values, not the other way around.

Needless to say, the flexibility on moral values has cost conservatives a lot, besides the well-known political defeats. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn once said, “the urban conservative…is nothing but an inhibited ‘progressive’.” From Lawrence v. Texas to the eventual legalization of non-heterosexual marriage, one sees this pattern, especially from the opinions of the conservative judges, such as this opinion from Clarence Thomas on Lawrence v. Texas, “Although he agreed with Scalia’s dissent for the most part, Thomas felt obliged to write separately to point out that the law was ‘silly’ and should be repealed”.

Is this law really “silly”? One would wonder why CDC stopped publishing data about AIDS back in the years of Obama administration. The progressives are convinced missionaries of their progressive previsions, while conservatives are half-hearted followers of social traditions.In reality, I really do not think any Old Whig could tell others to obey the traditional political values when they themselves were the revolutionaries who destroyed the legitimate ancient institution via the “Glorious” Revolution. Those “eternal” Angloes who boast about Magna Carta never pay any tribute to Alcuin of York: so much respect for tradition! So it is not really surprising that conservatives are just Fabian progressives – progressives with a 10 year jet lag.

Thus, it is not difficult to understand why conservatism lacks real content and has no actual proposal. The conservatives today are more radical than the Radicals back in the 19th century. Paul Joseph Watson, “the defender of gay rights and women rights against bigotry”, once said, “conservatism is the new counter-culture!” By that I guess he means it is the new urban fashion among spoiled middle class kids. Maybe in 10 years, Kanye West will become the new William F. Buckley Jr. yelling “Stop!” in his hip-hop songs.

Why am I not a conservative? Because conservatism is insufficient for the mission of restoration and regeneration: there is little to “conserve” in modernity and postmodernity (or, “neo-modernity”). In an era of utter insanity, reaction is the only way to preserve one’s moral conscience.

#oldblog

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authorgirl1111 · 7 years ago

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Emperor’s Daughter Ch. 14

Chapter 1

Chapter 13

Callie’s first birthday comes, and Natalie comes back up. A little stuffed Apollo doll in her hands as she walks in and gives it to Callie. Callie smiles and starts giggling hugging the doll tightly in her hands. Silena hugs tightly to Johnny, who turns up and gives Callie a little rattle. That she immediately starts to shake as hard as she can. Silena gives her daughter a book on Greek mythologies. A children’s book with lots of pictures. Brenda gives her younger sister a kiss. “I lub you” She says. “I’ll take care of you” They have cake and ice cream and Brenda makes a mess all over her self. At the end of the party Johnny and Silena share a long heartfelt kiss. “I can’t wait to call you and the kids mine?” Silena smiles. --- 2 months later it’s Brenda’s Birthday. “Your kids have their birthday’s way to close together” Natalie complains when she walks through the door. “It feels I was just here!” Her belly is just starting to show she’s now in her third month. “Yeah sorry I’ll plan my births a little better next time” Silena says. “Hush Cass, you know what I meant” Natalie says with a shrug. “You know I love you.” “Auntie Natalie!” Brenda cries running up to give her daughter a hug. “You’re here!” “Yes, I am, and how old are you now princess?” “I’m Four!” Brenda says holding up four fingers. “Momma says I’ll be starting kindergarten in a year! I’m just in preschool now” She says. “Little Callie is just in daycare, she’s too little to go to preschool like me!” She says proudly. Brenda is wearing her nicest jeans with a green sweater. In her arms is the Tyr doll she’s had since she was two, it’s obvious it’s been through some rough times. There are patches all over it where Silena has had to sow it back together. “Do you want to show Natalie your doll?” Silena asks softly. “It’s the Norse god Tyr” She says. “Momma reads me stories about him sometimes, she says it’s im-important, that I know Norse Mi-myth-Mythology.” Natalie kneels and gives Brenda a big squeezing hug. “And what’s your favorite” “When Thor has to wear a dress, so the giant man can marry him” She says with a laugh. “It’s so funny.” Natalie nods and gives Brenda a kiss on her head. “Can you show me where Callie is?” Brenda takes Natalie’s hand and leads her to the other room. “She deserves to know her roots” She says to Johnny. “Who knows? It could help her one day.” “I know” Johnny says. “But those myths can be a bit bloody” “I know, I’m going for the most kid friendly versions I can. Telling them in the most kid-friendly way I can, I plan to do the same for Callie when she get’s older.” “What did you get Brenda this year?” Johnny asks. “A collection of figurines, that range from wizards to hunters, to rogues. “With all the play fighting she likes to do I thought it would be something she likes.” She smiles up at him. “You?” “A collection of toy vehicles.” The party goes on, Natalie gives Brenda a toy Sleipner, Odin’s mighty steed, that has eight legs. Brenda immediately puts Tyr on it and starts pretending, she uses the other figurines in a made-up story she came up with in her mind. Using the toy cars and planes and vehicles as carnage in her destructive path. Callie takes one of the toys and tries to put them in her mouth, but Selina rips the car out of Callie’s hand and gives her the rattle Johnny gave her two months before. “When’s the wedding?” “In ten months” “I should be fine” Natalie says. “I can find someone else” “Please, I’ve known you longer then anyone here, it has to be me, after all the crap you’ve been through, I want to be apart of the biggest night of your life.” “I think the birth of my two kids trumps that, besides travelling with a baby is difficult…” “I’ll have Fred with me” “Yeah speaking of Fred…” “I can do this Cassie, please have some faith in me?” “Ok, I do, I’m sorry” She says raising her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry.” “Yeah you better be” Natalie gives her a hug goodbye. “See you at the wedding.” “By!” --- Planning a wedding hurts her head. Johnny is sitting on the floor with his own wooden sword pretending to have a sword fight with Brenda. While she looks through different venues for the wedding reception. “Can’t decide on a venue, I want to at least have it cut down to my final ten before I go to bed tonight” “How many people are we inviting.” “Natalie” She says. “Since she’s my maid of honor. I think she’s bringing Fredrick and Annabeth as her +2, apparently Fredrick’s been acting a bit morose.” She says with a roll of her eyes. “Natalie is pregnant with the Norse demigod?” Johnny asks pretending to dodge Brenda’s attack. “Annabeth the Greek demigod?” “Yes” She says. “Anyway that’s 3 technically four if Magnus is born before the wedding” “There are my parents” Johnny said lunging slowly his wooden sword hitting Brenda’s own sword. “That’s six, plus JD and his wife that’s 8” “My kids, that’s ten.” “Isn’t Brenda in the wedding, she’s the flower girl” “Yeah speaking of, are you going to have a ring bearer?” “I have a little nephew, I wanted to ask” “That’s 11 plus his parents that’s 13” “My grand parents that’s 15” “You’re friends from the Nome, sorry the entire Nome so that’s another 20, so… 35” “I have a few friends outside the Nome too, people I met in college, and people I met at work.” He says, and Brenda stabs him in the side. He groans and pretends to die to Brenda and her mother’s amusement. Johnny works at as a DJ at the local bar, and, occasionally does gigs at local clubs with a few of his buddies in the House of Life. He plays acoustic guitar and sings in the band. It does not pay much, but it pays enough. “Should have thought to make friends while I was in the orchestra, I could totally invite a few over.” She says with a sigh. “My side is going to look so empty” she says forlorn. Johnny jumps up and picks and Brenda who squeals in delight. “We’ll divide wedding differently so there are people on both sides” He says kissing her forehead. “Why did my family have to be a bunch of jerks?” “I’m not marrying your entire family, I’m marrying you and if your family couldn’t see the amazing woman you are then that’s their problem” “That one looks pretty” Johnny says picking out a venue. The room is cream colored and has a maximum of 100 people. “I have some friends from when I studied in Egypt, and I know Desjardin is going to be pissed if I don’t invite him. An invitation to Iskandar couldn’t hurt” She feels uneasy, while Johnny’s parents accepted her with open arms, (However hesitant they may have been at first” And the rest of Texas has accepted the fact that she has roman blood and two demigod kids she’s not entirely sure the rest of Egypt would be so accommodating. “Stop it, Iskandar is not as closed minded as you fear he is, Desjardin is not going to dare go against the chief lector and literally everyone else does not matter.” Johnny says kissing her on the for head. “Is mommy ok?” Brenda asks. She smiles at her daughter. “Yeah, daddy and I are just figuring things out for the wedding?” “Is that when Daddy will become my real daddy?” She says her eyes lighting up. Silena laughs and nods her head. “Yes, Brenda that’s exactly what that means.” --- The months pass, Silena agonizes over every choice. Where to honeymoon, if they should honeymoon, what to serve, where to host the actual wedding, what kind of wedding to have wedding. Suddenly the wedding is here, and she’s scared. Not that she’s making a mistake marrying Johnny but that something will go wrong. She’s nervous and anxious. “Ready?” Natalie asks. She’s in a Lilac dress. “Where’s your son?” She asks. The boy is now five months old. IT’s now June, Callie’s birthday is coming soon, she’ll be two. She thinks of how Callie has already started talking, can sit up, is already eating full foods. And Brenda is starting kindergarten soon. She remembers Johnny playing with her. She remembers Johnny making funny faces at Callie, making her laugh. She smiles. Yes. Marrying Johnny was right. She has no qualms about doing this. “He’s with Fredrick, Sitting with Annabeth in the front row.” “It was nice of Johnny to open a portal, so you could get here easily.” “Yes, it was,” Natalie acknowledges. “We really shouldn’t keep him waiting, forcing him to wait any longer to see the woman he loves looking lovely in that wide wedding dress.” The dress is white, her sleeves start off the shoulder. A string of pearls dangles from her neck. It belongs to Natalie. She’s wearing her bracelet that can transform into a shield. In her hair is her hair clip that can transform into a sword is fastened to her hair. Blue stones are glued to it. Her bouquet is filled with daisies, the blue lotus, roses, and lilies. She’s clutching them tightly and Natalie smiles and Silena turns and follows Natalie out the door. --- The wedding goes by in a blur. She spends the entire wedding eager for it to be over, so she can finally call Johnny her husband. They recite their vows. There the simple traditional vows that most people op to say. Silena is not as good with words as she is with music, and nothing she could say could beat the vows that have been there for several generations. She speaks calmly and surely giving her vow that she will love and cherish and love him for the rest of his life and Johnny is promising the same. She can feel her heart fluttering when Johnny takes her hand and slips the golden wedding band on her ring finger. “With this ring, I thee wed” He says softly. She places the wedding ring on his finger. “With this ring, I thee wed” She echoes him. Then the reverend announces. “I now pronounce you man and wife, you may now kiss the bride.” Johnny places a hand on her waist pulls her close and kisses her so deeply that she loses her breath for a moment. --- The reception afterwards is hectic. She stands outside in the hot sun receiving guests many whom she doesn’t know. Fredrick looks like a dear caught in headlights as he walks up with Annabeth. (Magnus Chase is in Natalie’s hands, under the shade of a tree.) Brenda is standing beside Selina shaking hands with everyone that comes by. Callie is already inside with her step-grandparents. Brenda wanted to stay with Johnny and Brenda since she’s a flower girl. But Callie was still a baby, and though she is a demigod she didn’t want her to be overheated so she asked Johnny’s parents to take Callie inside. “Brenda if he gets too hot, you tell me immediately ok?” She says as she shakes hands with an elderly man and a man with dark skin and black hair walked up to them. “Chief Lector Iskandar” Johnny says to the old man. “I’m so glad you could make it.” Iskandar is smiling. “There was no way I could miss a wedding such as this.” Iskandar says, his voice has a heavy Egyptian accent. Iskandar smiles at Selina. “I hope you are happy here” He says. “A girl with a burden as yours deserves the chance to have it shared.” “I would not wish my burdens on anyone Chief Lector” She says respectfully. “But I thank you.” “Have you met Michel Desjardins?” He asks motioning to the man beside him. Desjardin gaze is cold and uncaring. Selina can’t help but shrink under his gaze. Johnny holds her hand. Brenda clues in immediately and cuts in. “Stop making mommy scared” Brenda says, and she stomps hard on Desjardins foot. Desjardin gasps in pain and clasps his foot. “Brenda!” Selina cries picking Brenda up. “Say your sorry” “He was scaring you!” Brenda cries. “Never the less he did not deserve that, say your sorry” Brenda pouted. “I’m sorry” She forces out. “I want to go inside now” “Go” Natalie stands in. “It’s getting to hot, I’ll take her to her step-grandparents” Natalie says. “I’m not a baby” Brenda pouts she says stomping inside. “Nice child” Desjardin says sarcastically. “She seems to really care about her mother, it is a wonderful thing” Iskandar cuts in. “That should be acknowledged even if her show of her loyalty was a little to forward.” “She’s never done something like that before” Selina says. “Hmm” Desjardin says before he walks in with Iskandar beside him. --- “So, you’re Roman” Desjardins says. “A fact I hate more then you do.” She assures Desjardins. She’s not surprised he knows she hadn’t kept it a secret after she had told Johnny. She had even told Johnny to tell any one ‘who should be made aware.’ The entire Texan Nome new, as did Iskandar and Desjardin. But other then being made aware to the other Nomes that other mythologies are indeed real. Not much else was made aware of her background and her kids background. “Who already as two kids from two different mythologies, must be the Roman conquering blood in you.” “Get to the point” She says to him annoyed. “Betray the House of Life and you will answer to me.” “I betray the house of life, I’ll hand you my own sword.” She says. “Cassie!” Natalie calls running out to her. “Come on, what is the point of giving a speech to the bride and groom, if the bride isn’t there” She gives Desjardin a look. “You should sit too” “Thank you” She whispers once she’s out of Desjardins sight. “No worries” Natalie says. “Take a seat by your husband.” --- “So as most of you know, I am the brides best and only friend.” Natalie turned and stuck her tongue out at Selina, who returned the gesture. “I met her when she lived in Boston, already pregnant with little Brenda, she would stand out in rain and snow, playing her violin, making as much money as she could, trying to support herself. She endured all the glares and disgusted looks she got as her baby grew within her, and she never rose to the insults. She continued to play. Then after Brenda was born, I would take care of her, or my mom and dad would, ‘G-d bless their souls.” She says, Selina’s eyes started to tear up. “She tried to push me away, scared of what would happen if I got to close, so she told me her secret, told me that her father abused her, her first love was killed in front of her, her mother was killed, and still she found reason get up in the morning. I can still see it, she thinks she’s a coward for running away, but honestly to me… she’s the strongest woman I know.” Silena bit her lip. “Then she got a job as a violinist in an orchestra in New York, and met Callie’s father, and I thought, maybe she had nothing to worry about, maybe she’d finally be happy, she could stop worrying, she could be happy.” “I only wish I could beat the crap out of the guy who broke up with her over a fight, no scratch that, I wish I could beat the crap out of both the guys who broke her heart. But She did not beg, she did not cry, she let them go, and moved on.” “When she met Johnny, I could hardly hope that maybe she would find happiness with you, oh she had met other guys, that weren’t fathers of her children, but it seemed the second she mentioned that she had two kids by two different fathers they would find a reason to walk away. I found it a good sign that Johnny did not walk away, I found it even better when he treated Brenda with respect. He was understanding and kind, and he made Silena’s face light up brighter then the sun, she was the happiest I had ever seen when he asked her to marry him. He loved Brenda and Callie like his own children.” I love her kids, Brenda is feisty, and loyal, and a joy to be around. And I cannot wait to see the little spitfire that Callie grows into. They are all treasures and I am so happy that they get to have a father to help raise them.” Natalie sighs. “I hope the best for you two, after everything you’ve been through, Silena Cassie Julia Claudia Romano Maglieri,” Silena’s eyes widened at the use of all her previous names. “You deserve only the best.” Silena stood and gave Natalie the biggest hug she could. --- After that there was a quick speech from the Best man JD who gave a short quip over how Natalie’s was far better then his mainly because Johnny didn’t have a tragic backstory. But reaffirmed sweet things like Johnny was happiest he’s ever been, and they deserved to be together. It was cake, and dancing, Johnny danced with his mother and though Silena could not dance with her own father she decided to instead dance with her eldest daughter. Brenda was clumsy, but she had fun being spun around by her mother. After the parent-child dance Johnny and Silena danced together. “I love you, Lena” He whispered to her. “Forever and for always” Silena gave Johnny a long kiss, oblivious to all the people watching. “As I love you, Jonathan.” --- Brenda and Callie had been arranged to stay with their now official step-grandparents while Johnny and Silena went on their honeymoon. They went to Egypt and had phone seeing the sights, the pyramids, and he took her to see the special tour of the Hall of Ages, in the first nome. She watched in surprise as she saw her wedding play right in front of her. Iskandar let them sleep together in the nome, and she met some of the newest recruits to learning Egyptian magic. They spent a week in Egypt seeing the sights, before they headed off to Rome. To see Silena’s past. She saw the ruins of the palaces still standing, she saw the colosseum, she heard things about her father a former emperor that made her nearly cry. She saw everything Rome had to offer, and after those two weeks the two of them returned back home. --- A year later she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was surrounded by Natalie and her husband, and her two perfect kids. It had taken a long time to get to where she was going, but she finally felt happy and safe. “Kamilah O'Hare” She named her baby with a kiss to the baby’s forehead. “Little Ilah.” Perhaps not everyone in the community likes her, perhaps they are a little distrustful of her, but so long as her family is ok, and they are like. Silena Cassie Julia Claudia Romano Magileri can handle just about anything that stands in her way. For the first time in a long time, she’s not just the emperor’s daughter. She’s a mother, a wife, a friend, a violinist, she’s strong, she smart, she is so deeply in love and is loved in return. And she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Epilogue

#the Kane Chronicles #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #trials of apollo #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #silena maglieri #Johnny O'hare #Michel Desjardins #iskandar #Brenda Romano #Callie Maglieri #magnus chase #annabeth chase #Fredrick Chase #natalie chase #julia claudia #cassie romano #Kamilah o'hare

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