#also like all due respect but so many have come at me with that finn thing since i posted my silly poll

[tuiyla]

For Santana’s birthday, I think Aug 21 is accurate. Finn’s is Aug 24 and it’s mentioned that Finn is younger than her by three days. She’s a Leo and I think that fits her more than a Scorpio

I'm sorry Anon but not amount of reminders of 1x15 will convince me that's canon and accurate. Finn as a Virgo, that's fine I'll take it but Santana Lopez is most definitely not a Leo. Source: I'm a Leo trust me. Each to their own, the zodiac is not that serious but there are like three signs I feel strongly about and two of them are Leo and Scorpio.

Rachel Berry, however? Hmm Leo material. @youngmachines back me up on this lol

Glee's horrible with inconsistencies so if they're gonna be like that I'm going to be selective about what I consider to be canon.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Why do you think so many fans, even those who wouldn’t be considered casual viewers of the show think that those who romantically ship Mike and Will are kidding themselves? Sometimes I feel like I’m missing something, like we’re not even watching the same show. From my perspective, it’s beyond me to how someone could look at Mike and El’s romantic relationship, especially after s3, and think it’s proper.

Great question. I’ve touched on this issue a time or two before, but perhaps never in such a direct manner. I think there’s several things in play here that lead to the more “mainstream” fans considering it crazy when Mike and Will are seen as a romantic pairing. I think these same causes also lead to fans missing how improper, to use your terms, Mike and El’s relationship is. Some of these things are more valid than others, but they’re all valid in the sense that they are real, meaning that people aren’t just being petty. There are those out there who are petty, of course, but I think it’s unfair to cast all fans we disagree with in with that group.

First, let’s get this out of the way, heteronormativity maintains quite the stranglehold on American culture. Yes, we’ve come a long, long way. Gay characters and couples are portrayed in a much more positive light compared to twenty or more years ago. Still, they continue to be treated as a shock, either in behavior or reveal. By that I mean that these characters are either blatantly obvious or a complete surprise. There is seldom any middle ground here. This is, in my opinion anyway, a remnant of the transition of gay characters from caricatures to genuine characters. Fans, American fans at least, want to seem accepting to gay people, but they also want it crystal clear that gay people are different from them. To quote Homer Simpson from Homer’s Phobia, a 1997 episode of The Simpsons, “I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming!”

The 90s were a time when gay people were starting to be seen as decent people instead of deviants. They still weren’t equal, though, and were often used as props and novelties. The Gay Best Friend trope came out of this idea that gay people were fun and exotic, and many would also use them as a way to show how progressive they were. It was a step in the right direction, perhaps, but gay people were still not seen as equals.

Why is this important? Well, maybe it’s not, but not only is Stranger Things the product of two brothers who grew up in that era of thinking, but so is the largest segment of the viewership. Most Stranger Things viewers fall in the 18-29 and 30-44 demographics. I, myself, fall in the latter category. While we all laughed at Homer’s idiotic homophobia, we all knew deep down that we were similarly taken in by stereotypes and heternormativity. That is to say, that being straight was the normal, expected way of things, and gay people was something neat and trendy, but that only happened to other people.

This mindset persists today, though it does seem to be slowly eroding. We still expect most characters to be straight. I suppose, in some ways, this makes sense. The majority of people in America (and likely the world) still identify as heterosexual, so, technically, statistically, being LGBT is “abnormal.” Still, the degree to which I see LGBT people being open about their identities sometimes catches me off guard when I stop to think about it. It’s something that was unimaginable when I was a teenager, barring being in an identified gay club or neighborhood. The fact that it catches me off guard, despite identifying as bisexual, is proof that those mechanisms of my upbringing persist.

I am able to see the romantic undertones of Mike and Will’s relationship because I’ve been there. I’ve been in love with a same-sex friend and been afraid to say anything about it. I’ve agonized over whether it was real or just a phase. I’ve struggled with hiding it. I’ve tried to keep my feelings hidden while also letting them slip out in controlled bursts of not-quite-platonic gestures. I’ve even wondered how I could be “like that” when I acted and dressed just like any other guy I knew. Despite living it, I still saw “it” as something foreign and different. It’s only because I lived it that I can see through the heteronormativity and recognize homosexual love in “straight” TV and movie characters. I’m sorry, but Poe Dameron was definitely into Finn, and Finn, at the very least, idolized Poe, and you can’t convince me otherwise, no matter what Disney tried to pull by giving them both inconsequential female love interests.

(Christ, this is turning into a real rant here, oh well, the bottle has been opened.)

So, yeah, heteronormativity basically tells us that if characters are gay then they’ll act a “certain way” so we know. Mike and Will don’t do this, so, to most fans, they aren’t gay. Heteronormativity and pop culture tropes also tell us that male and female leads are meant to end up together. Now, in defense of other fans, the Duffers do play around with all sorts of tropes, so it’s understandable that people would expect things to be just as formulaic in Stranger Things. The problem these fans don’t see, however, is that the Duffers seem to like subverting the tropes.

For those of you who aren’t aware, subverting a trope means that we are led to believe that we’re being shown something we’ve seen time and time again, only to end up with something else. Season 1 was so big on this that I fell in love with the show. Adults Are Useless? Joyce did not sit around while the kids solved the mystery. Hopper wasn’t the ineffectual drunk cop I was expecting him to be. Jerk Jock? No, Steve is actually a nice, if dopey, guy once he stops letting his friends influence him. Virgin Survivor? No, sex is not seen as a vice needing to be punished, so Barb dies instead of Nancy. The Duffers know what we expect to see, they tease us with it, then pull the rug out from under us.

So, what do we expect in terms of romance? We expect our opposite sex leads to pair up. This would mean Mike & El and Joyce & Hopper as our kid and adult lead pairs, respectively. Mike & El, in particular, seems to be something they’ve tantalized fans with, both in the show and marketing. We can look at that relationship, though, and see that it’s not built on much. That’s somewhat in line with many kid relationships, so, really, it’s expected that it would similarly fizzle out as those relationships generally do. These are two kids who knew each other for a week, then spent a year apart. If anything, they’re more in love with the ideas of each other they created in that time apart than anything else. This could explain why their relationship was so shallow once they’re together again. We all experienced this type of crush or relationship before, the one where we don’t really know the person so we create a version of them in our minds. This version often clashes with the real one once we get to know them. Still, we’ve all been there.

This brings me to my final point: identification. We identify with characters when we watch TV shows and movies. I dare say most, if not all, of us can identify with these kids getting these crushes and early relationships. The youngest fans probably identify even more since they’re currently in those stages of life. I’m sure many young fans identify with either Mike or El, and perhaps fantasize about being with the other (or both?). Whether we realize it or not, we’re casting our own wants and needs onto the characters. Some fans want Mike and El together because it validates their own feelings and experiences.

I know that I certainly identify with Mike and Will through my own teenage experiences. I identify with other characters for more mature, adult reasons, as well. Yes, a part of me ships Mike and Will because of this. The difference here, compared to other ships I’ve gotten behind, is that this actually seems real. There is canon evidence that Mike and Will appear to have non-platonic feelings for each other, feelings built over a very long friendship. Mike legit seems like the closeted, possibly not even aware, gay kid going through the motions of a straight relationship. Will seems like he’s actively suppressing any romantic urges because he’s spent his life being bullied for being queer. They’ve been written to have more genuinely romantic moments than Mike and El have had. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the writers will have some explaining to do if they don’t get together. Many fans will miss it, due to the reasons mentioned above, but it’s all been laid there before us. Nobody should be surprised, but they will be.

[liunaticfringe]

(via Lucy Liu's Independent Woman - Interview Magazine)

There have been many great sidekick pairings in the history of modern literature. Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet…the list goes on. Yet, it seems there has never been a delightfully tumultuous relationship that comes close to echoing the one embodied by rogue detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful friend and assistant Dr. John Watson. Written in the form of short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the opium-den loving Holmes would terrorize London with his intellectual, astute, and stubborn prowess, with Dr. Watson providing medical expertise and chronicling their entertaining exploits along the way.

Doyle’s works have now long been entered into the public domain, with many film and television adaptions cropping up every few years. Still, when CBS announced in 2012 that it would be turning Doyle’s works into an hour-long crime-drama series titled Elementary, it elicited an unusually high response—this was mostly due to the news that a woman would, in fact, be portraying Watson. Her name would be Joan, not John. And she’s now a fallen from grace surgeon-turned-sober companion and private detective, forfeiting her “Dr.” title in the process. The woman chosen to take on this exciting, contemporary role of Joan Watson was none other than seasoned actress Lucy Liu.

Liu, who’s best known for her roles as a fierce and ill-mannered lawyer in Ally McBeal, an ass-kicking “angel” in the rebooted Charlie’s Angels, and an equally ass-kicking bad girl in the Kill Bill series, certainly provides the yin to the yang of Jonny Lee Miller’s gritty portrayal of Holmes. Elementary chronicles the duo’s relationship as they consult for the NYPD on various criminal cases while living in a shared brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. Initially starting off in Season One as a substance-free friend to the fresh-out-of-rehab Holmes with a keen interest in solving crimes, Watson quickly transformed into a sharp and observant right-hand woman who now clearly has the aptitude to work on her own. And it appears she’ll be doing just that—the end of Season Two left viewers witnessing Watson’s decision to move out of the brownstone and start a new career as a solo private detective, seemingly fed-up with Holmes’ erratic behavior.

The warm and delightful Liu recently called up Interview from her home in New York City to discuss Elementary’s upcoming third season.

DEVON IVIE: Were you on set today?

LUCY LIU: I was running around like a maniac, yeah. It’s beautiful today, it started getting a little bit cooler again. But of course I’ve been bitten by the two mosquitos that are still alive in New York City.

IVIE: I know you were recently at New York Comic Con. How was it?

LIU: It was amazing. It’s such a spectator place. Not only do you get super fans, but you also get people who are curious and inventive and imaginative. It’s fun.

IVIE: Did you run into any cosplayers dressed as Joan Watson?

LIU: Oh, no, I don’t know about that. That’s funny! We did a panel with a huge audience so I couldn’t really see if anyone was wearing anything specific, but it’s an excuse for kids and adults to get dressed up and just be crazy. You know you’ve made it when you have super-fans out there.

IVIE: When you first read the scripts for Elementary, what was it that attracted you to the role of Joan?

LIU: I liked the fact that it was going to be about [Joan and Sherlock’s] relationship and their friendship, and bringing that into modern times. And I thought it was wonderful to change up the gender.

IVIE: Did you immerse yourself in Arthur Conan Doyle’s work as preparation at all?

LIU: I did, I did! I started reading the short stories. I never read them before so it was a really great excuse to read them. I can’t believe it was written so long ago, because it’s so current. The characters are so colorful, which is why I think there are so many incarnations of Watson and Holmes.

IVIE: Do you have a favorite story? I love “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

LIU: There were some pretty amazing stories. The one that stood out to me, which was a Watson story that I got to know him a little more through, was “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” He really is on his own in that. Of course it turns out that Holmes has been there all along, but it’s interesting looking into his interior.

IVIE: Yeah, the entirety of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” is narrated just by Watson. And his diary and letters, too.

LIU: Yeah, I think it’s really cool. We started incorporating that into the show, too, the letters and journals.

IVIE: Has this detective genre always appealed to you? Did you grow up watching or reading detective whodunits?

LIU: I remember more of the old school Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys sort of thing. I also grew up with the Scooby-Doo mysteries. Remember when the villain would go, “I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you rascal-y kids!” Those were the kind of the things I immersed myself in. I have to say that my mother has always been a huge fan of Columbo and Murder, She Wrote, so this show was her dream come true. I don’t think she totally understood what was going on with Ally McBeal. [laughs]

IVIE: I’ve enjoyed witnessing Joan’s evolution throughout the course of the show, starting off as a sober companion and eventually ending up as a trusty sidekick and confidant to Sherlock. What can we expect from Joan in Season Three?

LIU: When you see them in the third season, you see some friction between the two characters. Joan is now on her own, she has her own detective agency, has a boyfriend, and has been without Sherlock for eight months. She’s got her own apartment, she’s settled, and he shows back up. I think she’s a little bit hurt by what happened and how their relationship and partnership ended, which was basically his decision and his choice, and he left it all in one little note for her. I think she felt that their relationship was much deeper than that, and that he was dismissive in the way that he handled that.

IVIE: How would you define the relationship between Joan and Sherlock?

LIU: I think that it’s a really positive and good relationship, overall. They really have a good chemistry together, work really hard together, and understand each other. They acknowledge each other and respect each other, which is a really important way to have a friendship. And they can learn from each other, you know? She’s very curious about him and I think he sees that she’s a very smart person—that’s vital for him in having respect for someone, having them be intelligent and thinking for themselves.

IVIE: Do you see any of Joan in yourself?

LIU: I do to a certain degree. She’s a lot more measured and patient, for sure. She’s a very curious person, which I think I am, and I think she isn’t afraid of change. She was a doctor, and then became a sober companion, and then jumped off and became a detective. I think sometimes it’s good to make big leaps.

IVIE: You’ve probably been asked this question many times, but do you think a romance between Joan and Sherlock could ever fittingly happen?

LIU: It’s a question that’s often asked and I think it’s really up to the executives. Rob Doherty, the creator [of Elementary] really feels incredibly strongly about keeping their relationship platonic. He has already taken great strides to keep the relationship as clean as possible according to the literature, but he has also changed so much of it by changing the gender of Watson. To have them have a romantic involvement would turn the whole thing upside-down in a way that might really jump the line. [Doherty] felt really strongly about it and I think that’s the one thing he really wants to stay true to.

IVIE: I totally agree. Even on the BBC’s Sherlock, there are campaigns to get Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Watson to become romantically involved. It’s like, enough already, no!

LIU: No way, that’s so weird! People do have that level of friendship oftentimes, but it doesn’t mean it’s physical. I think that everyone just assumes because there’s chemistry the next thing should be happening. I would vote “no” for a romance. I think for sure the creator would vote no on that, too.

IVIE: I’ve talked to both women and men who watch Elementary, and they all consistently mention how well dressed and fashionable Joan is. Do you collaborate with the wardrobe department on styling decisions at all?

LIU: That’s awesome. Yes, I collaborate with Rebecca [Hofherr], who’s the costume designer, who’s wonderful. She’s very easy to work with. One thing we try to maintain about Joan and her style is that she’s a bit wrinkled, you know what I mean? Sometimes it looks like things are really put together, but we always want to make sure things aren’t too tight and are comfortable, kind of like she throws things together. We don’t want it to seem so business-y, so we go away from suits. Chic, but not corporate. Also just to make her seem like her outfits aren’t so put-together all the time. But I’m glad that people really seem to like it, it’s a relief! We don’t splurge a lot on the show, we try to do cheaper things, like things Joan would wear a lot. She wears the same white jacket and shoes frequently.

IVIE: Will we be seeing more of the infamous Clyde the Turtle in the upcoming season?

LIU: Clyde will indeed be in it again. We have to share custody of Clyde.

IVIE: Is it true that Clyde is actually two tortoises? Pulling a Mary Kate and Ashley in Full House on us?

LIU: Yes. It’s just like having twins on a show. Just in case one is crying and screaming and passed out or something.

IVIE: You made your directorial debut for an episode of Elementary last season [“Paint It Black”]. Do you have plans to direct an episode again soon?

LIU: That was so exciting. I’ll be directing another episode again very shortly in December, so you’ll be seeing it in a month and a half.

IVIE: Where did your interest in directing come from?

LIU: I guess I was curious about it. Having been in this business for a while, you kind of see and get a glimpse of everything doing film and television. I think it seemed like a natural progression to go into directing, and I hope to explore more of it, because it’s very exciting and a really good way to collide all the things that you’ve known and experienced in the business and put them all into one.

IVIE: Is there an ideal guest star that you’d like to see on the show in the upcoming season?

LIU: I would love to see Mycroft come back. I really think there was a wonderful tension for Mycroft and Sherlock as well as the triangle that occurred when Joan became involved with him. There’s something very deep about that relationship, and I also think that Rhys Ifans is a fantastic actor. He commands the screen, but off-screen he’s incredibly lovely. A real treat to have on the show.

IVIE: I remember the first few episodes that I saw Rhys in, I was like, where have I seen this guy before? So I looked at his Wikipedia page and it became obvious: he was the crazy guy from Notting Hill!

LIU: Yes, the roommate! So good! Everything he does, he just kills it, no matter the role.

IVIE: And it’s always good to have some MI6 action on the show, which Mycroft provided. Some international flair.

LIU: [laughs] International flair, exactly, some added spice. Just throw some spy stuff in there to throw people off their game. You just don’t expect it, you know? It came out of nowhere.

IVIE: That whole three-episode arc at the end of the second season…

LIU: That was awesome. I was lucky enough to direct one of those episodes, which is more narrative in tone. It’s more fun in some ways, too.

IVIE: You’ve done a range of acting work for both television and film. Do you now find yourself preferring one to the other?

LIU: I love both of them equally. The lack of predictability with television is something that’s constantly changing what your perception of who you think your character is. Suddenly I have a father that’s schizophrenic, or I discovered something else, or I have a relationship with Mycroft. The things that pop up and change the game for you and always keep you on your toes. The wonderful thing about film is that you have something that has a beginning, middle, and end, and you have a concrete amount of time to shoot it. And the process of that can be longer, like editing and advertising and testing the movie, so it’s very different. Television you just continue going, no matter what’s happening outside of your world. You get lost in that vortex a little bit.

IVIE: It’s interesting that America is now embracing the “mini-series” format that has already been so heavily utilized overseas, where there are a set amount of short episodes, and that’s it. In a way, it’s kind of like a cinematic experience.

LIU: I like that, too. It allows you to have a freedom of creativity and at the same time you don’t feel like you have to be contracted to something for that long; you’re really working on a piece of art. And then you’re done and you move on, or it comes back, like Downton Abbey. You don’t know. Those things become little masterpieces. The thing about television is that you see a range of actors now that you may not have seen five years ago even, 10 years ago absolutely not, and I think now there’s no wrong about doing television. There’s no definitive category for what kind of department you fall into anymore.

IVIE: What’s a fun, secret fact about your costar Jonny Lee Miller?

LIU: A fun fact about Jonny Lee Miller is that he oftentimes does handstands on a wall before he does a take, sometimes with pushups, to get blood to his brain and get him geared up for a long monologue that he may have. He stays there, hangs a little bit, and then turns around and does the scene. Most of the time in the brownstone more than anywhere else. He’s in full costume and everything. That’s trivia!

IVIE: I wish I could do wall-handstands by myself.

LIU: Oh my god, I need someone to push my legs up and then hold me there. I’m a cheat!

ELEMENTARY PREMIERES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30 ON CBS.

[starside-selfships]

Replication (Star-4 x Atraks-1)

Crypt AI: Clarity Control breached. A single unregistered Exo and a single life form of unknown biology detected in the Crypt Laboratory. Status: Disastrous. Notice: Vacate the premises immediately. This will be your only warning.

Star-4: Not today. We have a mission to finish.

Featuring cameos from the fireteams of @nevermore-selfship, @cozyships, and yours truly! Small spoilers from the DSC raid!

Our fireteam has just triggered Atraks-1's encounter within the Deep Stone Crypt and half of the Guardians were already on their way upstairs to the space station, known as Morning Star, to eliminated the Servitors blocking from using our terminals, as that was the only way we were to be able to beat Atraks and her replications upstairs and downstairs. Calling it upstairs and downstairs was easier for our fireteam and we rolled with it. As Xerna killed the specific Vandal, she became the Operator and hopped into the pod, ascending towards the Morning Star, the game was to begin. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but I was certain that I was the only Guardian on the fireteam who knew Atraks, but also knew her personally. I've introduced myself to the House of Salvation previously and have grown to love the Kell and her commanders, due to my fixation on the Eliksni that grew on me after the Red War. Unfortunately, it couldn't be all that safe and I sometimes regret fighting Eramis, seeing her become frozen in Stasis after our encounter. Maybe, in another timeline, we could've been associates. In another, I join the House. For now, a job was needed to be done. Me, Rabbit, and Xerna were on "base team" while Angel, Finn, and Enoch were on "space team". Enoch and I were the dedicated "Scanners" on space and base respectively while Xerna was "Operator" for space team. Minutes into the encounter, base team and I eliminate our set of Servitors and inform space team that we've done so, and therefore, it triggers a new voice through my comms. "Ah, the Guardian. Star-4." It was the voice of Atraks. She recognized me. She's familiar of my time spent with House Salvation. The death threats that the Kell sent my way, but fortunately, they always went into one ear and out the other. With me being one of the dedicated Scanners, I had a set task and I didn't want to be the reason that we failed to journey further into the crypt. Switching quickly to a private communication channel temporarily to speak with the Eliksni Exo, and to not mix the comms with my teammates, I continued to act relaxed, waiting by the terminal for Atraks' Extinction Protocol to begin. "Hey, Atraks. Lovely seeing you again." I replied, focusing on the Shanks and Vandals trying to fire at me. "Eramis informed me about you. Told me much about you. I won't harm you. But the others..." She said with a chitter. At first, I was relieved, but then that content feeling subsided and was replaced with fear.

After many rounds of endurance, lots of switching back and forth of communicating with my fireteam and the Eliksni Exo we were combataning, who was attempting to flirt with me and distract me from my goal, we were doing damage towards Atraks, despite my inner request to not do so, but my fireteam needed me and I didn't plan on letting them down anytime soon. "I will be seeing you soon, Star-4," she replied, activating her final Extinction Protocol, therefore, requiring everyone from base team to rush towards the pods and head towards the Morning Star as fast as possible. I passed Scanner upstairs for Enoch and yelled at Rabbit and Xerna to get to the pods ASAP. "Or should I say...Elijah?" Atraks finished with a chuckle, her replicants disappearing from downstairs. Technology after the Golden Age was definitely something else. Fear struck my body as she said my name, the title of the individual I was in my past life. The past life I knew nothing about. How did she know my name? Rushing towards Morning Star by getting into the pod, I concentrated on finishing the encounter, following my Guardian teammates and waiting for Enoch to pinpoint the correct replication of Atraks. Whipping out the Lament and impatiently waiting for him to choose the right one. There was very little time as Atraks was halfway through her protocol and upon completion, wiping the team. "On me, on me!" The five Guardians pushed onto Enoch's position and began shooting and slashing the replication, successfully eliminating Atraks, or so I thought. "Multiple hostile intruders detected within the orbital platform. Orbital confinement protocol initiating. Status: Pathway to nuclear cores obscured. You have no warnings left. Nuclear descent protocol: Initiated." The doors were open and our next job was to prevent the destruction of Europa. A fireteam of six trying to stop Europa from, simply, blowing the hell up. What could go wrong?

Me, however, I wasn't done with this room just yet. "This way!" Xerna called out, everyone following suit to the open door while I remained, watching Europa behind glass, looking down out at Europa, miles away. "How high are we?" I thought to myself, seeing how beautiful space was, the stars dancing along the sky and around Europa, followed by a Fallen Ketch or two. "Eli, you coming?" My Hunter friend, Angel, questioned, the rest of the team heading towards the next encounter, most likely to take care of Taniks. "Y'all go ahead without me, I'll catch up. Just...just give me a sec, yeah?" After convincing the rest of the fireteam to move forward, I remained and waited until the rest of the Guardians were out of the room, standing in place for a few seconds and admiring the view before finally hearing the familiar sound of Atraks-1's replication. Fear struck me once again and I turned around, spotting it, sitting in the corner of the room, a heavy feeling surging in my circuits. Making my way towards the back of the room, eyeing the replication, I began reaching towards it and hearing Atraks' voice emit from it as well. In case shit went sideways, I had ricochet bullets to hit the replication off of my head if need be. Fortunately for me, that wasn't the case. Touching the replication spawned Atraks and in front of me was the Baron of House Salvation herself, standing at an incredible 12 feet. Maybe Kells and Barons were always this tall as I recall a long time ago that Skolas, Wolf Kell, or self-proclaimed Kell of the House of Wolves, was around the same height, but to be honest, seeing one right in front of you, standing inches away from your face, not attacking but instead watching and examining you, it made my circuits' temperature rise, causing my Exo self to feel warm. I may have been Exo, just like Atraks, but I still had Human attributes. I informed my Ghost, Comet, to keep quiet as much as possible and to ignore the current interaction I was to have with Atraks because if I was trusting my instincts, I knew where this would be leading. "Elijah. We finally meet again." She greeted me, her bright pink eyes shining down on me, a soft chitter filling my ears. Weapons away, I raised my hands in an act of non-hostility, showing that I meant no harm towards the Exo Eliksni in any way, shape, or fashion. "Yeah, didn't think I would be seeing you again honestly," I replied the nervousness slowly fading away, replaced with confidence. "Your team isn't with you?" She questioned and therefore, I informed her that I would join them, needing to take care of this first. "This won't take long, right?" Atraks' chitters clouded my head. No answer. My confidence disappeared.

[bimswritings]

Games and Prizes

Warning:none

Ships: Reylo/Finnpoe

A server event that I recently took part in, with the prompt I received being carnival for @perry-the-rebelpus! I've never written for in show ships but I loved doing this. It leans more towards fairs since that's what I have more experience with, but never the less, I hope you enjoy! I also took a more modern AU approach as I felt it was the best way to tackle this!-Bim

_______________________________________________

“Really Rey, we don’t have to do this.” Kylo tried to convince her for what felt like the thousandth time, and most likely was. Ever since she had discovered he had never been to a fair, she insisted on going, even calling and finding someone to cover her shift at the mechanics. The stubborn girl wouldn't have it though, ignoring his protest as she hopped off the motorcycle, grabbing the helmet from his hands and tossing it along with her own under the seat.

“Nonsense. Carnivals are an important part of growing up.” Her hand interlocked with his own, guiding him in the same direction as the crowd that was steadily streaming in. Ranging from families with excited and energetic children, to young couples such as themselves. “There was one that came through town every year when I was a kid. My parents always took me for a special treat at the end of the harvest.”

Rey’s eyes took on a softer, more distant look. One that Kylo knew all too well. It was the same one he got when talking about his own family, feelings of both sorrow and yearning for better times. Times that, despite how much they both may want to, they can’t go back to.

He lifted their intertwined hand, bringing Rey’s attention back to the present as he placed a light kiss to her knuckles. A small smile curved her lips, and they continued on to the increasingly bright lights of the carnival, the setting sun only highlighting their peaks further.

Once inside, they were quick to buy their wristbands for the rides, Rey practically bouncing with excitement the entire time in line. As soon as the offending neon green bands were in place she was pulling him towards the rides, her eyes bouncing between each one.

“Oh, let’s go on that one!” She pointed towards what could only be described as a giant wheel. It was as if a ferris wheel had been taken and laid down on its side, with the seats all inverted and its spinning capabilities dialed up a thousand.

“I’m not sure. Those seat belts don’t look like they would do a very good job of keeping me from flying off.” He eyed the offending items warily, to which Rey simply rolled her eyes as she pulled him into line.

“Children go on it and live. I think you’ll be fine Mr. ‘Tall and Brooding’.”

It didn’t take long for their turn to arrive, and it seemed like only in the blink of an eye were they strapping into the seats, the ride operator barely giving the belts a tug before moving to his operating booth in the center. With the press of a button the ride was whirring to life, slowly picking up speed until they were all but plastered to the side of the ride. The seats they were strapped to began moving up slightly, and it was only now that he noticed they were on rails that allowed them to move up and down with the increased G-force.

The pressure pushed his face back, though nothing he wasn’t used to. It was hard to focus on the ride with Rey beside him however. Her laughter spilled above the loud whirring of the ride and excited and terrified yells of the other riders. It was something he would never get used to, with how carefree and joyful it always sounded. Something he would always strive to hear as often as he could. Nothing could compare to the gut churning reaction he had when he heard it, though the sight of her stumbling, off balance and clearly still slightly disoriented, as they got off the ride came in a close second. It did nothing to deter her, still smiling as she pulled him to the next ride.

On and on they went, ride after ride all evening. It was only after she had proceeded to destroy him in bumper cars time after time that he suggested they go and get food.

“We can ride a bit longer!” Rey had tried to protest, not content to take a break until they had ridden all the rides at least twice. It was the first time she had been able to go to such an event ever since her parents had passed, and she was determined to make the most of it, even if she went a little hungry. Her stomach seemed to have other plans however, cutting her off in the middle of her protest with a loud growl of its own. Her cheeks flushed as Kylo chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and steering her towards the vendors. All night the smell of the overpriced and greasy food had been tempting him, though he dared not to eat any of the potential nauseating treats while Rey was still determined to ride so many things that spun.

After paying for a slice of pizza each, as well as an almost comically large elephant ear to split afterwards, they settled down on one of the far tables away from all the action.

“Thank you.” Rey spoke, finally breaking the comfortable silence that had developed as they watched others pass by. He cocked his head slightly to the side, confused and prompting her to clarify further.

“For agreeing to come, I mean. I know places like this aren’t really your style.” She grew suddenly shy, finding her fingers more interesting than anything else at the moment. Her nails nervously picked at one another, though there was nothing much to pick at. Years of working at the mechanics had left them short and cracked in places, much tougher than you would think for the rest of her looking so soft. Yet her hands were one of his favorite things. Hands that held his own softly, as if they weren’t the hands of a man who had killed dozens; that would softly card through his locks while absentmindedly laying on the couch. Hands that would hold his face close, brushing over each scar tenderly as she whispered soothing words for minutes, hours. As long as it took.

He thought her hands were the most beautiful things in the world, both then and now, as he took them in his own.

“For you, I would go anywhere.” He leaned in closer, locking games as he lightly pressed his forehead to hers. She was warm, her skin almost burning in contrast to the cool night air. Though it was anybody's guess how much it was due to her body temperature, and how much was caused by the quickly rising blush that consumed her face. “Especially if I could see you as happy as I have today.”

“You two really need to get a room.”

The third voice took them both by surprise, so wrapped up with one another that they hadn’t even noticed their audience, and in his surprise Kylo jolted forward, bashing his skull against Rey’s before falling backwards off the bench and landing painfully on his tailbone.

“Finn!” He heard her joyous shout. Propping himself up on his elbows, he spotted the named man, who was currently receiving a hug from his girlfriend, as well as Finn’s own boyfriend.

“Dameron.” He nodded, climbing to his feet as the man returned the gesture silently.

It wasn’t that they didn’t like one another, quite the opposite actually. They held nothing but respect for each other, both having spent time in the air force. The only rift came from the fact that Kylo had run more covert missions, often flying solo or with just a single partner, while Poe was in charge of and flew an entire squadron. He thought of him as more of a mercenary, while Kylo would consider his potential wasted on such general missions. Still, the greatest offense in his eyes was still the fact that he had chosen to date someone from the marines. The marines. Of all the branches, he had to choose someone from the one known for shooting first and asking questions never. The two might have never seen each other after serving, yet fate had other plans; of which being in the form of their respective partners having been best friends through high school and college. They had only met again by chance after moving to the same small town in hopes of living a quiet, simple life.

“I should have known you guys would be here. You’re never one to miss a fair.” Rey continued, moving back around the table to sit next to Kylo once again, who was still rubbing at the sore spot on his head, briefly wondering what her bones could possibly be made of to have not even flinched at such a hit.

“Maybe if we told you, we wouldn’t have to be subjugated to your nauseating sweetness.” Poe teased, leaning across the table while Finn rolled his eyes. “I have to say, I’m disappointed in you Ren. There’s children around here you know.’’

Kylo said nothing, only gathering their trash and standing, the rest following in suit as he spoke.

“Well, it was nice seeing you again, but we were about to continue our date night and-”

“You guys should join us!” Rey cut in, taking him by surprise. Even if it was her best friend, she was never really one for group outings, preferring just one or two other people.

“It would be just like old times!” Finn agreed.

Kylo was about to protest, and from the way Poe had opened his mouth he was too, but before either male could get a word out the two had already linked arms and were strolling away, deeping in conversation and leaving their dates forgotten. So, begrudgingly, the two men followed.

By this point night had fully set in and the activities of the fair were in full swing. Brightly colored tents lined the venue, creating makeshift paths that helped to funnel the large number of people into a form of organization. It seemed that Rey had had her fill of rides, as she and Finn continued on deeper into the games and shows section that ran along the outside. Here, vendors yelled and mocked, teased and prodded; anything they could do to get the attention of the passersby. Games of skill, strength, and pure luck, though anyone with half a brain knew that the majority were all rigid. Above and lining all the booths were more stuffed animals than Kylo had ever seen in his life, and though some of them he found creepy and downright ugly, he could see the appeal of some.

“Hey Rey! Look!” Finn pointed to one of the stalls, highlighting a create he had never seen before. It looked like a penguin, except the eyes were far too large, and it lacked a beak as well as the stark black and white of the animal in favor of more neutral tones.

The two were at the booth in a flash, the vendor already talking to them as Kylo and Poe caught up. Just from the looks of the man, Kylo immediately didn’t like him. He had spent enough time around others to be able to get an accurate read on them, and this guy had the same shifty, fox eyed look to him that all new recruits who were too big for their breeches had.

“Well hello there.” He leaned in, far too close for Kylo’s liking, and he felt himself tense, his pace quickening to reach them as the man continued his speel.

“Feel like testing your luck against the mysterious and dangerous kraken to free one of its victims.” He gestured to the creatures above.

Rey was immediately digging in her bag, looking for her wallet with Finn doing the same beside her. Before she could get too far however, he was there. Stepping between her and the booth, he pulled his wallet and slapped the five dollars on the counter. Poe did the same next to him.

The vendor collected the money with one fell swoop, tossing two balls onto the counter for them to load at the suction cup guns laying there. He did so with ease, the object feeling almost childishly small and fragile in his hands as he raised it to the target; a kraken shaped cutout a number of feet away. A spiralled target rests dead center in the middle of its forehead.

He fell into proper shooting position naturally, bringing the poor excuse of a sight to eye level as his arms locked.

‘Pop’ ‘Pop’

A jolt traveled through his body. Not because the dinky little object had any form of recoil, but because of how far he had missed the mark. The ball had barely even glanced the side of the creature, and from the look Poe had he had missed just as badly.

He shook it off, ignoring the amusement he felt coming from the two beside him and blaming it on the simple differences of the object from what he was used to. Of course it wouldn’t fire like a normal gun. Expecting the accuracy to be anything more than lacking would be stupid of him. Now that he knew just how off it was, he could adjust accordingly. Both paying for another round, the shooters were loaded and aimed in seconds. Going of where it hit last time, he raised the end a bit and brought it slightly to the right.

‘Pop’ ‘Pop’

They fired again, and again they missed.

“Oh, too bad my friends. I guess you’re not as skilled as your little dates thought you were.” The vendor taunted, sending a wink Rey’s way.

Feeling anger quickly starting to rise within him, there was no way Kylo was about to give up now. He paid another five, giving him another ball.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

Several minutes and thirty dollars later he was nowhere closer to winning, his shots, instead of coming closer, were going more and more astray from the target. With each miss his anger rose, and Poe was doing no better beside him.

“For the love of-”

“Ah ah~ Watch your language.” The vendor smirked, only making his temper worse. “There’s children around here after all. What example would you be giving them if you showed how much of a sore loser you were.”

Kylo genuinely thought he was going to hop over the booth and wipe the smug smirk from his face. A gentle hand brought his attention as Rey gently pried the shooter from his grip, a concerned smile on her face.

“Hey, let me have a shot at it.” He hesitated, not wanting her to feel the same discouragement and embarrassment he currently was. The look in her eye stopped him short. It was the same look she had whenever she was working at the shop or on his car at home. A look of utter confidence in what she was doing.

The three men stared at the two friends in astonishment as they high five, already moving on to picking out which of the stuffed creatures they wanted.ly the same position he had been in early, evidently having taken Poe’s place as well. The vendor leaned in closer, Rey clearly doing her best to ignore him as she focused on the target.

“Now sweetheart, what you’re going to want to do is-”

The familiar simultaneous pop of the ball leaving the suctioned end sounded, just as it had with his previously. Unlike their attempts however, instead of silence the pops were answered with the sound of a loud buzzer and the muted cry of the kraken as its eyes lit up red.

The three men stared at the two friends in astonishment as they high fived, already moving on to picking out which of the stuffed creatures they wanted.

“The one in the very back! He looks the softest!” Rey exclaimed, pointing. There was nothing left for the vendor to do but grumble as he grabbed the creature, along with Finn’s choice. All but tossing the animals he was quick to shoo them away, his persona turning from sour to cheerful on a dime as he lured the next group in to the nearly impossible game.

“I just don’t understand.” Poe shook his head in disbelief. Finn gave him a comforting squeeze.

“Rey and I grew up with these games every year. We’re practically professionals.”

“Yeah.” She nodded from under Kylo’s arm, which was thrown around her shoulder. “The vendors hated us. We nearly got banned the one year when we were going around seeing how many we could win before they closed.” They both laughed at the memory, leaving their boyfriends to simply shake their heads.

By now it had grown late, the group foregoing to visit any of the barns due to Poe’s hay allergy. They could always come back tomorrow. After walking the other couple to their car, they made their way back to their Rey’s ride. After pulling the helmets from under the seat, Kylo was surprised when Rey tossed the stuffed animal to him.

“Here.”

His brows furrowed questioningly as he glanced back between her and the creature.

“Are you...are you giving this to me?”

She nodded, slipping on her jacket to protect her from the wind.

“But you were so excited for it.”

“You said that you’ve never been to a fair before, so I assume that you’ve never gotten one of the ridiculously large stuffed animals from one.” She spoke, turning to him. “It’ll be a nice way to mark the occasion. Besides,” she smirked, moving to pull her helmet on. “,it's not like we don’t share a bed anyways. He’ll be there no matter what.”

With that she pulled on her helmet, tilting her head cheekily before tossing her leg over the bike. He climbed on after, his chest feeling lighter than it had all week as he wrapped his arms around her waist. The stuffed animal was sandwiched safely in between them, ready for the journey home.

There was no one more perfect for him, and he reminisced on the fact as the bike roared to life underneath him. He could already picture the stuffed animal and how ridiculous it would look in their otherwise modern styled and well kept room. Normally all the small trinkets and knick knacks Rey would bring home were restricted to her hobby room, him not being able to handle the clutter they created. This however? This would fit perfectly in their room.

She still had to be the one to name it though.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

whats the rational behind those classpect assignments... 👀

Finn: Knight of Hope. Superficially, a Knight of Hope is the classpect you’d assign to a protagonist character like Finn, someone who fights for his moral code. And this is what he does early in the show. However, the Hope aspect connects with Finn in a much more intimate way later on.  In Homestuck, “Hope” characters include Cronus, Eridan, and Jake, who are HOPELESS when it comes to romantic relationships. They’re terrible partners too. Jake has tons of people lusting after him but doesn’t know how to deal with any of them. His friendships with them all collapse, just like Finn. They also lose hope at some point in the story and have low self esteem.  Finn in season 4 starts to do some shady stuff to impress women. He becomes a creep. He tries to get Flame Princess to fight Ice King literally so he can get off on it in his dreams (no joke, no exaggeration, that’s what the story tells us), and he doesn’t think about her at all, so he loses her trust and she breaks up. Finn rebounds onto PB - who he already knew was not interested in him at all - and acts creepy with her, but messes up HER trust in him too. He ends that episode with her disappointed that he can’t take an adult situation seriously. Then Flame Princess tries to rebound on FP, and does creepy Eridan/Cronus stuff like touching her shoulder and not respecting her at all. It doesn’t work and he just... falls into despair. 

Finn tries to cover his teen angst, and save face by saying he doesn’t want to date princesses because he wants to focus on his “knight” duties. Finn disguising his feelings, by acting as a knight, screams “knight” to me. And everything about his relationships screams “hope”. 

But... Finn REGAINS hope in the episode “Breezy”. By being knighted!!! He has a hallucination that he’s being reknighted and suddenly the flower on his arm blooms and he’s able to function again. 

For the rest of the show he’s a sincere champion of hope. He deals with things more maturely. At one point he puts hope into the universe to save his life, and it does. At another point he protects the world by using nightmare juice against his own boss, hoping it’ll knock some sense into her, and it does. But Finn can fall into despair again, as he does when the Finn sword is smashed, and sometimes his blind hope can cause him to fall into naive traps, like when he was used as a trojan in Gumbaldia.  

Jake: see this post

PB: PB is just Dirk Strider if Dirk was a better character. Seriously you could absorb Dirk into her and nothing would change about her other than maybe adding his fondness for smuppets (...though there’s nothing proving she DOESNT have a fondness for smuppets already). They’re both shut-ins, they’re both heartbreakers, they raised themselves from childhood, they’re both tech geniuses, they both ride hoverboards, theyre both repressed gays incredibly clingy about a specific bisexual who have to push away advances from pushy straight people, they both make killer robots, they both have 10,000 splinters of themselves represented as other characters who often become evil due to their shared characteristics,  they’re both coldhearted parents, they both have hero complexes, they both have god complexes, they both make the weirdest shit for no reason, they’re the most neurotic in their ensembles, they’re both scared that they can become monsters because of their most natural instincts, and they both DO unfortunately become monsters because of ultimate self shenanigans outside of their control, with the main difference being Dirk’s ultself breaks the fourth wall and isn’t undone, but PB sings the fucking intro song in the elements series so I guess that can count as a 4th wall break.  PB is literally an extension of what Dirk would become if he were a candy girl, he didn’t meet Roxy, Condy wasn’t around, and sburb didn’t exist. They even have a similar parallel where they didn’t become as evil as their splinters because they had a brother, and some early influence from family to be good. 

BMO: Okay, so like I said BMO could have been a Hope player as well, or a Bard, and it wouldn’t have made much difference. I chose Rogue of Mind ultimately because BMO is so creative, and can be unexpectedly helpful. BMO’s mind is dangerous and lead them to go on crazy misadventures. But he can show up out of nowhere and change a situation for the better.  BMO’s also incredibly cheerful with some hidden depths.   I FEEL Rogue of Mind for BMO. It’s hard to justify how, becuase what would a Rogue of Mind even be? 

But BMO is a gremlin wild with imagination just like Terezi. You can’t deny that at all. 

Marceline: I will admit I put less thought into Marceline’s than Finn’s. I always saw Marceline as a Time player though, and I always wanted her to be a passive class like a rogue or a page! Marceline has always fallen victim to being passive in her circumstances. 

She is like Tavros and Jake because she feels like she can’t control what happens to her. Marceline gives up really quickly because she think she can’t improve the world or her situation.  Like how Jake thinks he’s full of hope, Marceline is superficially seen as a master of time, because she’s a vampire. She’s lived a long time, right? But actually she hasn’t come to terms with her immortality. She hates it, and she hates that time keeps repeating itself. Marceline is intimidated by the prospect of living forever and sees it as a burden put on her by the Vampire King’s assault. A traumatic experience she can’t move on from. 

There are many ways in which she relates to Aradia and Dave as well - how she handles traumatic experiences.  Marceline pretended to be a monster because she was fed up of people abandoning her, and thought she WAS a monster, and if she put on a facade and acted like a huge jerk, it would push people away so they can’t get close to her and hurt her. But this only made her unhappy. Dave did something very similar, with his cool kid persona. Aradia dealt with being dead by pretending she was a robot who had no feelings.  Marceline tries to shed her vampire identity and thinks this is going to make her feel better, but it wouldn’t have done. She’d have spent the rest of her life still hanging onto that trauma even as a mortal.  She is filled with overconfidence which all collapses, like Jake and Tavros, and she spends a good chunk of the final episode having given up on her ability to change fate. 

But where the Page aspect shines is its potential. Marceline speaks to Ice King and realises that, in being a survivor, she has a kind of strength. She decides to use her strength to grip onto the wheel of fortune, and in one fell swoop, ANNIHILATES the vampire king with her massive hidden potential. Then it is locked away once more.     

Marceline doesn’t understand the extent of her abilities. She’s at a very early stage in her immortal lifespan. But she’s learnt that even though everything repeats itself, it changes ever so slightly each time, and she DOES have control over her fate. She shares this epiphany with Aradia, who took control of HEr own fate in Homestuck. Marceline will only get more and more acquainted with her aspect over time! She has so much potential because she will live for many years. 

[spaceorphan18]

No one really mentions The Quarterback in meta or postings, is this just because of the sensitivity of the episode that the fandom don't talk about it, out of respect for Cory, and now Naya, I guess? You can clearly see that most of that episode is not actually acting, but genuine pain of loss for their friend. All credit to Chris, Naya, Matthew, Dot-Marie, Jane, Mark, and especially Lea for their acting in specific scenes. Lea's performance is heartbreaking, including the reactions of all the people in the choir room, when clearly some of them were struggling to keep it together.

So - first of all, one of the things about this episode is that it's more about Cory then it is about Finn. You're right in that a lot of real emotions are coming through here, and part of that is that they only did one or two takes for each scene because it was a very hard episode for the actors (and production) to shoot due to the sensitivity of the topic. And it's such a heavy and sad subject that it's not one many people want to go back an revisit when we discuss all the things. I mean, break ups are hard, etc, etc, but since this is based on a real event, and since it blurs the lines between reality and fiction it's not much fun to pick apart.

As for meta -- it makes me curious as to what you'd like to discuss? I know I've read plenty of discussions about grief and how this episode specifically showcases all the different kinds of grief. I also have read (and written myself) about how this particular event kind of hangs over an otherwise sunny and glossy season 5. Kurt in particular is effected for pretty much the whole season (Rachel, too) and it's baked into his arc for the season.

I do wonder if this new group of fans coming through have the same connection with Finn and/or Cory. I don't think Finn was a beloved character. But I think a lot of fans knew Cory, and knew that he was a really awesome guy -- I've only really ever heard great things about him, tbh. But Finn isn't really as beloved (and honestly, it wasn't until Cory's death that I think the character was elevated a bit) so maybe people don't have the same connection to the episode as people who were more attached to Cory? Hard to say!

I also think The Quarterback as an episode, is somewhat simple (understandably so) in design. Unless we're talking about grief and reactions to death, I don't think there's as much meta to be pulled out of it, since it's very much about one thing. I mean - there's a lot to talk about with grief, but there aren't forty story lines going, and there aren't Glee's usual anvils and subtleties. Everyone and everything is on the same level. And while we can talk about after effects, I don't know how picked apart the episode can get.

I'm curious to whether or not there's something you'd specifically like to talk about Nonny!

[juniaships]

Actiontoongorlz's Top 8 Canon x OC Ships 💖💖

I've been looking at OTP/Couples memes for a while and decided that it's time for me to make my own! For an extra surprise I'm not putting Ben Tennyson x Jora Holiday on this list because I focus too much on them anyways & I want my other OCs & their loves to have the spotlight for a change. The timing couldn't be more perfect as we're close to Valentine's Day!!! If you don't support canon x oc or find my ships displeasing then move along because this is a Happy Place! 😁😁 Again these are couples that I consider my personal OTPs in regards to canon x oc. That and making more content with my ships in general! Be warned the text is long and contains spoilers for certain shows and such!!

Clarify: these are my own ocs so there's not going to be anyone else's oc/canon. I might have to save that for another post in the future! 💚 But yeah these are characters that I came up with :]

Alright I'm done ranting, let's get started!

1. Sonic x Lani: I never quite gave much thought into this pair as I should so I promise to do something with them in the future! I promise! What I appreciate about SonLani is that there's little drama, like everything is super chill because both parties are chill. It's not a big deal and they don't need grand gestures to show how much they care about each other. Unlike Preboot Archie with its carts full of poorly written romance and strangely OOC moments on Sonic's end, SonLani had a lot of time to grow, while keeping his established personality in check. They actually communicate with each other, and stick by each other thick and thin. Lani loves Sonic for who he is & has no plans on changing him. Likewise Sonic has someone he can rely on when things get tough; not to mention he can really be himself around her without going all "iLl sLOw dOWn fOr U." Plus the ship name I gave them is a huge nod to the games ^_^

2. Jason x Vanessa: A recent pair due to Vanessa being a new creation but I'm honestly in love with them right now. In-universe they are regarded as the prime example of 'Opposites Attract' in Odyssey. They didn't get along very well in Jason's first couple of months in town due to his hardheaded self and her aloof demeanor. But through events such as Blackgaard and Novacom they gradually learn to trust one another. They see each other in a different light, Vanessa realising that Jason is a lot more thoughtful than he lets on, and Jason discovering her hidden fun side and kindness. Vanessa provides challenges and a sense of normalcy Jason can enjoy away from spy business. Meanwhile Jason fulfills her thirst of adventure & simultaneous desire for a peaceful life as well as spirituality. They're a equals, regarding each other as such and not to mention the BANTER! Hard to believe a former nun can keep up with a secret agent both physically and trading barbs XD. There's also the Forbidden Love factor of Vanessa being the duaghter of Regis Blackgaard, Jason defending her because he KNOWS she is nothing like her old man. Their friendship and romance overcome so many obstacles. I can honestly say that if Vanessa was canon she'd be the type of person Jason would like to be with especially over Jillian Marshall *gags*

3. Kaysha Wallace x Leo Hamato: Now here's a ship that I want to get more into 😁😁 Honestly I love the idea of this pairing: the serious leadee x bubbly spirit! Kaysha is very perky yet understands Leo's feelings on shouldering so much responsibility (she being the oldest child in her family). She's very willing to support him because she doesn't want to see him get all weary from burden. Likewise Leo can be himself around her, and teach her to be more responsible. He doesn't doubt her potential and sees her as an equal even during those periods where she was not on par with the other ninja. Kaysha shows Leo it's okay to relax and let other people help him out and not shut everyone out. When Leo expresses his ability to give her a safe life she simply laughs it off; the way she sees it him simply there in her life is enough. The most interesting facet is their dynamic varies between shows, so you'd see different scenarios and reactions as well as similarities and differences in their romance subplot.

4. Artie x Rhodanthe: Another couple I seriously need to give more attention to, they're meant to be is the foil to Shrek and Fiona in several ways. Artie and Rho may come from different social classes but they're both searching for a purpose to prove their haters wrong. Artie lacked confidence while Rho was overconfident believing she didn't need help. Together Artie learns to stand up for not only for his kingdom and loved ones hut also for himself; Rho's pride gets tempered by Artie's kindness and willingness to compromise. Another thing I like is that Artie has someone who loves him for him not because he is attractive and of royal blood. Likewise Rho has someone who respects her in spite of her social standing & shares her beliefs in making life easier for the poor & outcasts. While both lacke the physical prowess of Shrek and Fiona they rely on each other's resourcefulness and strategic thinking to get by. Unlike Shrek and Fiona they don't get married at the end of their focus movie, resolving to figure out where to take their relationship next. They still have their own life goals and don't want to rush into a relationship which sends a pretty good message. However they have their disagreements - in fact they got a huge argument that became a plot point in Shrek Forever After - but through it all they rediscover the things that made them fall in true love with each other. I'm really loving the subplot I have planned where they forget their memories and slowly fall back in love again.

5. Finn x Alma: Surprise! Yes8 I have a Cars OC (that was originally a fanon Disney Princess) who is the niece of Tow Mater in my verse and she enters a relationship with Finn McMissile. The thing I love about this pair is that it allows Alma to use her skills to flourish, treating amd healing injured spies. She's also into travel and adventure so she can pretty much keep up with Finn. Likewise Finn realizes she is more than just a pretty face or a one-off fling but someone with the passion to face challenges head on; Finn seems to love a good challenge! But overall they'd make a nice pairing, Finn showing Alma the world and Alma showing Finn some of the more simpler things in life.

6. Alexander Paine & Qiu Jin: Well well well look at what the cat dragged in? If it isn't our first villain pairing? XD Just kidding only one half is a genuine villain. What makes this couple so unique in that their storyline goes way back to before the events of the show, he being a agent and she a mechanic. They loved each other deeply, even to the point of starting a family, but forced apart due to some troubling events. When they do get back together it's not so much a bittersweet reunion as Paine became a full villain and Qiu Jin had spent years in&out mental institution before being released There's visible pain & regret, Alexander desperately wanting a semblance of what they once had. He seeks power not just for himself for to heal her. But Jin refuses to go along with his schemes wanting nothing more than to move on and see their children. Jin is a huge Mortality Pet for him, but his own selfish desires for power is a major obstacle their love can't overcome. It's the more bittersweet of my pairings but an important one nonetheless.

7. Bruce Wayne x Nicola Holden: Ok the Brooding Guy/Gentle Girl trope is a mixed bag these days but I really like this trope in regards to Brucola. Like with Artie/Rho, Bruce and Nicola come from different social classes but has that same compassion and drive to help others. Nicola is someone Bruce can trust but at the same time she lets him know there are boundaries (aka don't use my weaknesses as a contingency plan). I also feel like Bruce needs a sort of normal love interest, while he has canon normal girlfriends most of them were pretty boring. At least with Nicola she has has a life outside being a love interest her own goals and motivations. She also loves Bruce for him, not because of his money and good looks. It's a generally healthy dynamic built on honesty & empathy. Another reason why I find this pair adorable is that it actually matches with the rest of the Trinity; you know, like how Superman is with a journalist and Wondy is with a soldier/agent. Nicola & Bruce having different ways of pursuing justice while still sharing similar moral codes. It helps that Nicola is actually a hero rather than an antihero/villain/straight villain (Bruce dating a villan would only make him look like a hypocrite). Nicola sees all facets of Bruce's life and makes the choice to stay; provides some much needed light not just in his life but also the rest of the Batfam. In turn Bruce has another connection to the normal world that is willing to be in his life and see him genuinely happy. They're mature adults who ground each other and build each other up.

8. Optimus Prime x Malina Lovelace: Okay is it just me or do I think TFA Optimus Prime needs more love? What's funny is that at first Malina didn't like the thought of being outshined by newcomers in her superhero career. Spending time with Optimus makes her realize that there's more to being a superhero than fame. Optimus doesn't look down on her, and is more than willing to work with her and appreciate her work. She becomes touched by his friendliness and aceepts him and the other Bots. At the same time Malina reminds Optimus that it's okay to make mistakes and move on, and that it's okay to cut toxic people out. I even wrote a noncanon ficlet where Malina calls out Sentinel and Blackarachnia for the way they treat Optimus. OptMalina is a romance built on respect despite the obvious differences. Not to mention they have each other's back, and they learn about each other each time. And just like with KayLeo and BatRose there's different continuities which means unique versions of the Optlina pair. The Bayverse *chortle* and Prime versions are a few I'd love to explore in the future!

Miscellaneous

- Chad Charming x Soraya Nedakh: Essentially snobby rich kid who learns to be self sufficient and see past appearances through a positive influence. Soraya helps Chad to understand that being royalty isn't just pretty clothes and parties but actually using that status to help others. And Chad actually has his views challenged: Soraya doesn't back down easily.

- Jetta x Zane: The concept of JettaZane (or A Touch Of Snow/IceMagic) is that the robot teaches the human what it's like to be human. Jetta started out as an extremely cold person and a loner, but her time with Zane - the literal ninja of ice - gradually melts her heart & she becomes more caring and accepting. So the robot programmed to be human helps the human raised to be a cold machine unlearn her toxic traits and reclaim her humanity. Also Pixane is kinda boring imo, like they're only together because they're both robots. Not very compelling if you ask me.

- Brian Crown x Kelly Arbol: The wellmeaning goofball and the beatnik poet are something I rarely see much of, but that pretty much sums up their ship. Brian may be a bit self centered but he has a heart of gold and through Kelly's influence he becomes more confident in being a worthy successor to his dad. Meanwhile Brian respects Kelly in and out costume and teaches her how to have fun. Not to mention Kelly interacts with someone outside her circle, which is a welcome change from the trope of only dating someone within your circle.

- Janus Lee x Lenora Rose: Another pair from the same show as Paine and Qiu Jin, there's not much to say on them other than it's one of the most tragic couples. Lenora died a long time ago due to circumstances beyond her & Mr. Lee's control and it's her death that was the catalyst to his gradual descent into evil. As the show goes on we see glimpses of their life together and realize that Lenora is more than the Ghost, she was someone with her own dreams and motivations. She and Janus were outcasts who found companionship in each other, and were able to build a life together using their hard-earned resources to help others. Even in the last few months of her life she didn't go down without a fight, wanting her legacy to be one of love and hope. It's her memory that may be the key to redeeming Mr. Lee in the future of A.T.O.M.

- Ben Florian x Paige: Again not much else to say but they're the antithesis of Mal x Ben. One thing that bothers me about Mal & Ben is that they are supposed to be equals when it's pretty darn obvious from the scenes they were not. With PaigeBen it's clear that they ARE equals who respect each other. Ben's agency isn't reduced to just love interest, he has someone he has good communication with and wants to see him succeed. Paige has someone who shares her interests and see her more than just that One American Newbie. They LEARN to work together without love potions involved. Plus we haven't had a commoner Disney Princess in a while so Paige fills in as someone who works her way into high status then uses that status to help others with Ben at her side.

That's enough of my Canon x OC OTPs! I hope to explore them more throughout the year :) I work hard to flesh out my OCs and their romantic storylines as if they're real 💚😌

I do have KayLeo week planned for Feb 14 to Feb 21 so don't be shocked when I start posting rottmnt stuff or art of Kaysha! Anyways these are my personal ships that I enjoy despite the lack of content I made of them, so hopefully I have the creative juices flowing to make more stuff! Final note I'm working on a platonic oc x canon meme to show that love doesn't have to be romantic. A

[hitbythunder]

Chandrilan Moons -3

A Kylo Ren x Reader story with much angst, possessiveness and dark themes (warnings will be updated as the story progresses) –> Read also on AO3

Summary: Growing up under the loving care of your foster-mother, Leia Organa, there had been nothing for you and Rey to want for. Though not of kin, you loved Rey as your sister and spent a happy childhood with her on Chandrila. But when the boiling galactic politics demanded for Leia to take action, for the Resistance to rise and fight, the girls could no longer evade the cruelty of the world. Kylo Ren sought a map as a key to revenge, to freedom, and had no use for a force-unsensitive young girl like you. You were simply a means to an end. Until his darkness latched onto you, drawn in by your light as you were by the demon that is Kylo Ren - inevitably gravitating towards each other, bound to be one. Like the Chandrilan moons.

**** WARNING: description of violence, mentions of rape

____________________________xXx____________________________

3- A disturbance in the Force

+Takodana - neutral territory+

 Flying through space was amazing and although two experienced and trusted Resistance pilots had accompanied us girls on our mission, the glistening stars as far as one could see was worth it all. While Rey remained slightly pouting for most of the flight, I was glued to one of the side-windows of the ship. It was a small but bulky transport ship, for a star-fighter couldn't hold that many people and would have attracted too much attention once we landed on Takodana. Albeit its neutrality in the war, one should never act foolishly, especially since neutrality itself depended heavily on the benefits of a foregone alliance. But with Maz Kanata, the owner of the famous castle that granted sanctuary to everyone for one night, and proved friend of the Resistance, nothing could go wrong today and the whole mission seemed as good as done.

Leia had sent us there to retrieve the Jedi texts Maz had bought from a smuggler who had passed through weeks ago, hoping that they might help Rey's training in the Force. Or so I assumed as I curiously scanned the texts before Rey put the few scrolls and loose pages in a safety-box inside her back-pack.

 "There's one more thing." Maz rummaged in a small chest among the sheer endless heaps of stuff in the castle's vault, leaving me to wonder how she could possibly remain an overview of what was down here. But perhaps that was why it was such a good hiding-place for forbidden artifacts such as Jedi-texts - as well as the light-sabre Maz now held solemnly in her wrinkled hands.

"Oh my stars, Luke Skywalker's light-sabre!" Rey was beyond herself with joy, her hands trembling slightly as she took the legendary weapon and gingerly inspected it from all sides. Ever the technician, Rey simply had to understand how that thing worked exactly and probably would disassemble the sabre if it hadn't been Luke's.

While I shared my sister's excitement, I couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy as I watched Rey posing with the sabre. As so often, I found myself lacking as compared to my sister and Maz's talk about destiny and great deeds to be done with that sabre didn't make it any better. So I zoned out, sulking quietly in the background, until the three of us left the stuffy vault via seemingly endless stairs. We reemerged back into the dining hall of the castle's ground-floor where the canteen was, without drawing attention of the guests there. In one corner of the hall, a band played jolly tunes, which echoed off the thick castle walls and arched ceiling in a cacophony with the chatter of people. Because of many nooks and columns, the canteen could house many guests without seeming stuffed and a social-introvert like me could feel quite overwhelmed by all the noises, smells and visuals. I had never seen such variety of alien races, humans and droids gathered peacefully in one place.

 With our mission virtually accomplished, the Jedi texts secured, it was time for us to return to the base and thus I scanned the canteen for our two escorts. But fate had other plans, for suddenly three very familiar faces appeared at the entrance of the dingy dining hall.

"Han Solo!" Maz cried out, shifting everyone's attention to the smuggler and his companions Chewie, a startled guy in Poe's jacket and Poe himself, his loyal droid BB-8 at his heels.

 What in the galaxy are they doing here? I wondered while they approached us, an uneasy tingling overcoming my nerves. In hindsight, to give in and investigate this strange feeling more closely would have spared me so much trouble. But instead I pushed it down and greeted the guys as friendly as ever and soon later we found ourselves seated at the last available table. After getting us some food and beverages, Maz joined us at the round table, listening intently to the quiet conversation. We informed Han about our mission before he could get any wrong ideas (e.g. that we stole a ship and went against Leia's orders) and it felt nice that he cared about our well-being.

 "Kriff, that is amazing!" Rey nearly burst with excitement as Poe, with interruptions of Han and Fin (the new guy), told us about what had happened on his mission. To sum it up, Poe had been on Jakku to get a map leading to Luke Skywalker but had been caught by the First Order and tortured by Kylo Ren himself. I shuddered at that part, because everybody knew not to cross paths with this merciless demon. Ren's cruelty and thirst for blood-shed seemed endless, his hatred for the Resistance only fueling his powers, and I could not fathom to imagine what Ren had done to squeeze every ounce of information out of Poe.

Luckily, Poe had entrusted the map to BB-8, who had remained hidden on Jakku the whole time, until Poe had managed to escape by the help of Fin, a renegade stormtrooper. Well, and as if fate had decided to stir things up even more, they had bumped into Han and Chewie on the way - something concerning smugglers and gross aliens, I didn't listen too carefully then - and due to low fuel and necessary repairs they had to make a stop here on Takodana.

"Wow, what a ride..." I said with awe and respect for their courage and luck, which had at least Fin and Poe smile proudly.

"Yeah, didn't exactly go to plan-" Poe replied between sips of his beer, Han scoffing beside him and mumbling something to Chewie about the recklessness of youth. "-but here we are, map in hand."

 "And as soon as the Falcon's refueled we're leavin'!" Han declared as soon as Poe finished, his tone harsh but one could tell he only meant well for all of us. "Gonna make sure y'all get back in one piece." Obviously, Leia would have Han's head should anything happen to her girls, her best pilot and the map under his watch. And although I sensed his reluctance to face Leia, I was looking forward to the resemblance of a family. Hopefully they wouldn't quarrel from the start on.

 Somewhat lost in my fantasies of a happy family life, I hadn't registered the growing debate between Finn, Rey and Poe.

"... you don't know them as I do! There's no fighting the First Order because they'll slaughter us for even trying. I've seen enough of their horrors and I want nothing to do with them!" Finn declared heatedly and barely kept his voice low as Poe repeatedly urged him to, also keeping the renegade in his chair.

"But that's the point! You have so much detailed insider-information which we could use to fight them! Why would you waste that and cling to the illusion of outrunning them?" Rey retorted with unabashedly directness and not less heatedly, the spirit of the Resistance burning fiercely in her hazel eyes. "Fleeing like a coward."

Finn rose then, anger and shame written across his face, though he didn't come up with a response and after a few seconds gave in to Poe tucking at his sleeve, sat back down and glared into his cup. A tensed silence hung over the table, until Maz subtly changed the subject by engaging Han in a conversation about a mutual smuggler-friend of theirs. With a fuming Rey beside me, I shot Poe a questioning glance, but he looked as helpless beside Finn as I felt and began to talk some sense into Finn in a calm manner. That he should come with us to the base, at least for a little while.

 Next to Han, Chewie was eager to get out of here, groaning impatiently beside his friend and rubbing his bandaged arm.

"All right, Chewie, go on and check on our baby." Han said between Maz's babbling and quickly grabbed his beer before Chewie would knock it over as the giant jumped to his feet.

"I'm coming with you." on impulse I rose too, dismissing everyone's questioning looks as I added: "I need some air anyways."

 Let them cool their heads while I'm gone, I thought and jogged after Chewie.

   Since Maz's castle was built on a cliff surrounded by the ocean on one side and dense forest on the other, the landing-places were spread to a few clearings nearby. So we had to walk a little and although Chewie wasn't particularly chatty, I didn't mind either and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. At the bottom of the weathered castle's stairs, we turned right and followed a lovely path between lush grassy hills at the border of the forest, the rush of the nearby sea accompanying our steps. Suddenly Chewie halted, his hairy arm on my shoulder stopping me too, and pointed towards the thicket. There, half-hidden by the greenery, two humans were carrying a seemingly shut-down BB-8 further away from the castle.

 Hasn't BB-8 been with Poe and us the whole time? I wondered briefly. But then, BB-8 was a small droid and many people had squeezed themselves past our table in the brimming canteen. Perhaps we had all been too distracted by the heated conversation between Rey and Finn to notice BB-8's absence.

"I'll follow them and stop them from leaving. You go use that long legs of yours and get the others, Chewie! Rey'll find me through the Force!" I declared in a split-second-decision, already dashing away into the dense forest and leaving a groaning wookiee behind.

  Deeper and deeper I ventured in my pursuit, steadily closing the distance between myself and the thieves without alerting them of my presence. As children, Rey and I had often played hide and seek in the forests of Chandrila and I had to develop some pretty decent sneaking-skills to diminish her advantage with the Force. Rey had only once admitted that she wouldn't have won all those times if she hadn't used the Force to sense my approach. Thus, even if my sneaking skills should fail me I trusted that Rey would be able to find me. I just had to stall some time, delay those thugs from leaving, until Rey and the others would arrive. At one point, the two thieves halted to catch their breaths and looked around. I quickly ducked behind a tree, easing my nerves. Suddenly I noticed a bright red stroke on the otherwise blue sky above, far away yet ominous to watch. Though I had no clue what it was, I instantly had a bad feeling about it. But more pressing matters were at hand, and after another deep breath I dared to peek around the trunk. There was only one thief beside BB-8 then.

 Kriff, where did the other go?!

  Maybe Chewie should have chased them, not me, I admitted to myself as I was hauled by a pair of large hands and thrown very harshly on the forest floor next to the motionless droid.

"Look what followed us, mate!" said the gruff guy to his companion, who looked terribly scrawny in comparison. Both reeked of ale and whatnot, their ugly visages distorted by sinister smiles.

"A pretty thing like that will make a good price, I wager. Not as high as for the droid though." the scrawny one snickered as he mustered me, while the bear-like guy's eyes roamed over my body with a different kind of greed.

"How 'bout a taste..."

 "No!" I screamed as he grabbed me, trashing against his hold, and somehow I managed to draw my small combat-knife from its holster at my hips. I thrust without much consideration, nor proper aim, stabbing bear-guy right above the knee. The blade sunk hilt-deep into his thigh-muscle. He howled in pain and repaid me with a hearty slap across my face, sending me flying back against BB-8 and onto the mossy ground. The impact caused the droid to reawaken and a small safety compartment at its front jumped open, the object within landing a few feet ahead of me.

 The map! my dizzy mind concluded with horror.

 Ignoring the rising pain in my body, I crept on all fours and frantically scanned the forest floor with my hands in a panicked search for the map. Scrawny guy was still laughing at his companion. Knowing that the guys and Poe in particular, had risked their lives for this map and that finding Luke was vital for the future of the Resistance, I simply couldn't loose it nor let it be taken by those thugs. It was my chance to prove my value as part of the Resistance and failing wasn't an option.

 What would Leia think if I screw this up? Or Poe?

 Then, finally, my right palm touched a metallic longish object and instantly I closed my fingers tightly around it. The very moment I did so, a flash of energy shot through me, momentarily blinding all my senses in its immense light and suddenly the outline of a star-constellation appeared before my inner eye. Planets and stars twinkled in a blueish hue, in between a red dotted line that led to a particular oceanic planet. Though somehow familiar, I could not place this constellation and this strange vision lasted only a few seconds, before a sudden sharp pain in my hand brought me back to my present predicament.

  +++

  In front of Takodana castle, the fight between stormtroopers and Resistance had just begun by the time Kylo arrived there. His ship landed like a looming black bird among the First Order transports and agitation spread in his muscles upon the pending blood-shed, especially since he had sensed another force-user inside the castle. By far not as strong as him, but hopefully they would do for some entertainment compared to the other scum-bags that died like flies at his hand. Kylo was marching determinedly towards the building, when he felt it.

A disturbance in the Force within the forest to his right, faintly but clear as a lightning-bolt at distance and vanished just as quickly. Kylo paused, scanned the area with his powers and concluded that the other Force-user was up ahead at the bottom of the castle - not in the direction of the disturbance. Weighing his options, Kylo dismissed the distraction for being just that and walked on to find his opponent. The Force, however, tickled his senses again, rippling with distinct restlessly as if to tempt him and now it seemed foolish not to inquire further.

 "Find that droid at all costs! And take no prisoners!" Kylo barked towards a nearby officer, before he stormed off into the forest.

 The lightning-bolt had pinned down the exact location and the closer he got, the stronger the Force seemed to pull him there, becoming more insistent with each step. Faster, it seemed to whisper and spurned his steps beyond the capacity of men, neither rocks nor tree-stumps posing a real obstacle in his path. Kylo felt some human presence long before they came into view, two men beating and kicking a woman cowering at their feet. Judging by their appearance, they were either smugglers or Resistance-fighters and either was good enough reason to kill them.

Silent in his approach, Kylo descended upon them like a dark shadow from behind, the hiss of igniting his light-sabre the only foretelling sound of their demise. Effortlessly, the red crackling blade cut through cloth, flesh and bone, drenching the nearby greenery and earth with blood.

[agentnico]

The Prom (2020) Review

Last musical film I watched was Cats. That is all.

Plot: A troupe of hilariously self-obsessed theatre stars swarm into a small conservative Indiana town in support of a high school girl who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom.

Ah Christmas, the perfect season to enjoy the festivities, where one can go spend time with their families and friends and loved ones, go to the local pub with your mates, have a German sausage at the city Christmas market, sing carols and go to parties, check out the big Christmas releases at the cinema.....oh wait, sorry, that’s me talking about normal Christmas. We are in Christmas 2020 where the holiday isn’t really a holiday and the biggest Grinch of them all - Coronavirus (oh yeah, I said the C word!!) - is here to steal the fun. But hey, at least Netflix has stepped up to provide us with a major merry musical, and following that totally accidental piece of alliteration, I’m gonna talk about it!

Right, anyone here doesn’t like musicals? Anyone? Lets see some hands, come on, don’t be shy? Ah, there you are! Well, to you sweet peeps I have to bid a swift adieu, as you don’t need to read further on into this review. If you don’t like musicals, you are not going to find any enjoyment in The Prom, as it is as musical as musicals can be. It’s over the top, whimsical, colourful, with many cheesy songs and big set pieces, with folks jumping into distinctly choreographed dance sequences without a care in the world. If you’re into that kind of stuff, you guaranteed to find the movie a least bit delightful. It’s in no way ground-breaking for its genre, this musical is not going to reinvent musicals going forth, but there is nothing wrong with staying old school. The movie plays it safe, and rightly so, and you’re left with a jolly show for the end of the year. 

That said, its not perfect. It is a bit too long and certain parts drag quite a bit, and also don’t get invested in too many characters, as you don’t see much of them. Most of the actors are doing a solid job, but they simply aren’t provided with enough screen-time to leave a strong impression. Also, certain things don’t make sense. For example, characters become friends too quickly in this thing. The main high-school girl and Nicole Kidman’s character become besties out of nowhere and during a breakdown the girl confides in Kidman like they are old time buds. Look, I get that getting lost in Nicole Kidman’s eyes is very very easy, but let’s think realistically here. Like, the girl only met Kidman a day ago, and hasn’t even interacted with her much, and all of a sudden she allows Kidman to stay over at her place for a few days like they are childhood besties Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn! Okay, I feel like I may be looking into this too much, but dammit, I like logic and this is not logical! Then again, this is just a silly little musical so maybe I should just be quiet. But no, I shall not be silenced!! I shall nit-pick this thing and you cannot stop me! So, moving on, the film’s main message is about acceptance and love and being true to who you are. Its a good message and I respect the movie for it, but as typical with other Ryan Murphy productions, it becomes too preachy. I totally understand that activism can be important, but when you are bashed over the head with it every single second, you end up feeling like you’re in some seminar rather than what is supposed to be an enjoyable movie. Also, the movie is predictable. If you read the plot, you can guess exactly how things will pan out. There are no surprises there! So save the WOW factor for when you open your Christmas presents instead.

The soundtrack is good. Look, it’s not the best musical I’ve heard, but there are some very catchy tunes here too. “Tonight Belongs to You” and “Love Thy Neigbour” are proper showstoppers, but my favourite one was actually one of the slower numbers. Midway through the film, Keegan Michael-Key (on top form by the way) sings a song about escapism and how the arts and theatre provide a temporary form of freedom and expressionism that cleanse one’s mind from the problems of the real world. It was especially powerful hearing it now, when due to the pandemic so many entertainment venues have been forced to close, causing a lot of them to lose money and go out of business, and as such looking at a future where entertainment and the arts will never be as they were before is scary and frightening. 

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. No, I’m not insinuating anything about his size, but I am indeed talking about James Corden. Upon release this movie was hit with controversy over the casting choice of James Corden as a gay character. Look, it is a long running debate of whether actors such play roles that are of a different sexuality. In my eyes, I think that any actor has the right to play any role, as long as he provides a quality performance. Personally for me, I think Corden did a good job. Having had experience working on Broadway before, as well as his work on his talk show, he’s got the vocal chords and the showman qualities to play this character to the fullest. And yes, you can assume that he may be offensive with his portrayal of the gay character with the stereotypes, however if you look at the original Broadway performance of The Prom, the character there is played really flamboyantly and campy too. So in my eyes if that is how the character was written, Corden was simply working with what he’s been given. Again though, I myself am not a gay man, so maybe I am missing something here. Nevertheless, I thought James Corden wasn’t bad at all.

All in all, The Prom is an old-school silly musical with a good message and all the sparkle and gloss one can take, and though uneven and rough along the edges, this one can be enjoyed for what it is. 

Overall score: 6/10

[write4tomorrow]

The General and The Spy

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Genre: Adventure / Fluff

Word Count: 2138

Summary: About a year after The Rise of Skywalker, peace in the galaxy is fragile. The Resistance is faced with new diplomatic problems as they try to maintain the peace. Trade routes are especially tricky and has forced Y/N to test her abilities as a negotiator. Due to tirelessly, negotiating with different planets and systems, Y/N has become the new face of peace and hope. Does this make General Poe Dameron jealous? 

A/N: Spoilers!!!!

PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 Epilogue (Complete)

This was the six, no seventh, meeting of the generals and you were running late. Was it your fault that General Dameron had called a last minute emergency meeting? If this were on the schedule, maybe you would be on time. Still, you hated being late or absent from these meetings. In the months following Rey’s monumental showdown with Emperor Palpatine, a small council had formed which was comprised of the most loyal and top ranking members of The Resistance - including you. Walking briskly through the halls of the small star base turned head quarters, you ran through the list of names of the people that would be present at the meeting.

“The sitting members are Lando Calrissian, Finn, Poe Dameron, Lieutenant Connix-” 

“She’s not a Lieutenant anymore, y/n.” Walking by your side was Nix Altross. He was an imposing presence: tall, a few years older than you and an uncanny knack for teasing. But he also had a smile that could be used to charm anyone he met. It was one of the reasons he was such a good diplomat. Almost as good as you. 

“Sorry,” you shrug off the mistake, “it’s a habit. Who am I forgetting?” Nix gave a small laugh and sent a good natured elbow your way. He could tell you were nervous. This was the first of the seven meetings where everyone would be present. You had missed the first one, General Dameron missed the second, third and fourth one, (he was on some top secret mission that no one knew anything about) and you missed the fifth and sixth one. You hated that you missed the council meetings, but Nix had spoken on your behalf. You had been on a diplomatic mission to the planets on the outer rim, negotiating a deal with some former bounty hunters which meant that you and General Dameron had never met. 

“You mean besides the two of us?” Nix asked. You and Nix were the only two “diplomats” that were considered sitting members of the council. It was not uncommon for strange guests at the meeting. They usually gave advice or input on a situation, but there were only six members who were allowed to vote on matters. Besides you and Nix, the other four members were generals during the war and had the respect of the soldiers in the Resistance. You and Nix, on the other hand, did not have any such titles. The two of you were skilled negotiators and you served the Rebellion by spying on the First Order during the war. The two of you were the best of the best. Well, the best of what was left anyway. 

As you and Nix arrived in front of the meeting room, Nix gently grabbed your elbow. You knew he was taller than you, but when he stood so close, it was impossible to not feel like a small child. As if sensing your discomfort, Nix smiled down at you.

“The others love you. Don’t let General Dameron get in your head, okay?” You knew he wouldn’t allow you to enter the room until you agreed. Collecting all your grace and confidence, you nodded at Nix. Besides, you had done your homework on this Poe Dameron. You were an excellent spy and knew how to get under someone’s skin if necessary. Still, you hoped it wouldn’t come to that. 

“You decided to come, Altross?” A warm voice greeted you as Nix lead the way into the meeting. You couldn’t help but notice how rigid Nix became as soon as that voice spoke. You could only assume it was Dameron.

“I’ve never missed a meeting, General Dameron. How many have you been to, again?” Nix crossed the room to his seat at the round table. Nix was too much of a smart ass for his own good. You tried to hide your smile as you made your way to your own spot, across from Nix and between Connix and General Calrissian. 

“So this is the elusive, silver tongued negotiator. I hear you’re the most dangerous woman in the galaxy,” General Dameron said with a grin. He looked you over as you took your seat. Suddenly, you felt out of place. While he was wearing a pilot’s uniform, you wore a long sleeve, form fitting top and a pair of gloves that hid the scars on your arms. It was neatly tucked into creaseless, grey pants. General Dameron’s tousled hair seemed to fit more naturally with the environment than the simple but sleek updo that you kept your hair in. Despite all this, you found that you couldn’t help but smile at him. There was something, mischievous about this general that caught your attention. 

“Poe, meet Y/F/N Y/L/N. I’m surprised the two of you haven’t met before.” Connix made the introduction for you. “Her piloting skills might rival your own,” Connix explained with a sly look at you. You and Connix had been close during your youth. The two of you were often found racing in an attempt to avoid cleaning duty. You always won. 

“That’s only a rumor,” you replied, but felt thankful for the support from Connix. 

“We’ll race sometime and settle any of these rumors,” General Dameron promised, his eyes never leaving yours. There was something brewing behind his eyes, you just couldn’t tell what. 

“Let’s cut to the chase,” General Calrissian interrupted. “We’re here because there needs to be a negotiation on Coruscant. We need to make a plan of action. The meeting is scheduled to begin in three hours from now.” This caught your attention. 

“Three hours- wait, I thought we were going to meet tomorrow after we exchanged a transmission negotiation with the last member of the outer rim.” You needed the last bounty hunter in the outer rim to agree to the new trading terms so you could sweeten the deal for the negotiation on Coruscant. The small collection of traders and farmers that you were meeting on Coruscant were hesitant to join the Rebellion and their plan for peace. Historically, it had not gone well for them and had once led to a small war with the outer rim. They would only agree to terms with the Rebellion after things were settled with the outer rim. 

“I’m sorry, but the group of farmers sent a transmission this morning,” General Calrissian explained, “they wanted to cancel the meeting altogether, but Altross convinced them to meet today. The ship to Coruscant is being prepared now.” You shot a look at Nix, wondering why he didn’t mention this sooner. 

“Okay, so we send Altross to Coruscant and I’ll finish the deal with the last member of the outer rim. We’ll be crunched for time, but-” you were interrupted again, this time by General Dameron. 

“Altross is needed in the outer rim,” General Dameron spoke with a grimace, as though he didn’t like the idea, “Y/N, you’re going to negotiate on Coruscant.” 

“I’ve heard rumors that the members of the outer rim might pull out of the trade deal,” Nix explained, “There is something happening out there that is making them uneasy. I will go out and investigate while you are on Coruscant. Stall the talks if you can. Give me some time, Y/N. Besides, the negotiation on Coruscant is a much more delicate matter and could use your attention more than mine.” You glare at Nix, hoping he could feel your anger. Why did he blind side you with this information? 

“Okay,” You finally say, “I’ll go and I’ll stall, but I need to leave now.” You stand back up, reeling from the unbelievably short meeting. You wouldn’t have time to even pack a bag. 

“I will escort you out. I will have some of my guards go with you-” Nix rises to his feet but General Dameron silences him.

“I’m going with you,” The General pushes himself to his feet and looks to you. Was he waiting for permission? 

“Poe, why are-” General Finn breaks the brief silence but General Dameron cuts him off too.

“There is something troubling about all this and I don’t want our best spy walking into this alone,” General Dameron explained. You noticed that Nix squared his shoulders at the comment from General Dameron but the general continued, “This meeting was something so quickly thrown together and I just can’t shake a feeling I have.” General Dameron is staring at you. It seemed like he was waiting for someone to disagree. However, you had a bad feeling about this meeting too. There was something twisting in your gut and a small voice in your head that seemed to faintly whisper, don’t go. Perhaps General Dameron’s company would be a good idea.

“Great!” Poe clapped his hands smiled at everyone in the room when no one disagreed. “It’s settled. Y/N and I will take a trip to Coruscant. It’ll be like a little vacation. C’mon, I’ll drive.” General Dameron gestured towards the door and didn’t wait for you to follow. 

“We’ll send updates to you as soon as we can,” General Calrissian said as you hurried after General Dameron. You could feel Nix’s eyes on you, but you ignored his glance. All your focus needed to be on this negotiation. 

Sitting on a small ship with General Dameron is strange for you. His energy seems infectious, though, and you were eager to experience his piloting. However, as he landed the ship on a landing base in a populated part of Coruscant, you found that you were disappointed by the incredibly smooth ride. Although, you noticed that he turned the two hour trip into an hour and a half. 

“You don’t talk much,” General Dameron commented as the two of you hop out of his ship. BB-8 trails along behind you and chirps in agreement. You spent almost the whole trip reviewing case notes about the negotiation you were about to walk in. Nix knew more about these people than you did, but you were determined to give Nix as much time as possible to settle the complications in the outer rim. The most interesting part of the trip happened when Nix sent you a message.

Careful with that one. I don’t trust him. 

You only rolled your eyes at the message and replied, 

Who am I supposed to trust? You? Why didn’t you tell me about the information you had on the outer rim? 

You knew that you were acting out of anger. When Nix replied, you didn’t open the message. Instead, you studied his notes on the situation on Coruscant. 

“I’m sorry if my silence makes you uncomfortable, General Dameron,” you answer, “Nix and I learn more from listening than anything else,” you explain with a smile. You could hear the venom in your words, but couldn’t stop yourself from feeling hostile. Out of habit, you aggressively pulled your sleeves a little farther down your arms. This was not how you thought your day would go.

“Hey, Y/N,” General Dameron stopped in front of you, forcing you to also stop walking. “I don’t know what is happening right now, but there are a lot of things riding on this negotiation. You and I both want peace, at least I hope you do-”

“Of course I want-”

“Right now, you and I are the only friends we have, okay? I trust you. I need you to trust me or this isn’t going to work.” General Dameron dropped his happy-go-lucky demeanor and seemed like the battle worn man you suspected him to be. His voice was hard like stone but he seemed… genuine. That was something you missed about people these days. It was a quality that you believed to be wiped out in the galaxy. Entranced by his honesty, you nod. 

“Good,” General Dameron let out with a sigh. His voice had returned to the warm and welcoming tone that you enjoyed. He still seemed genuine, despite the mood shift, but this was a different side of the General. 

“I want you to call me Poe,” he said as warmth crept back into his features. 

“We’re going to be late for our meeting, Poe,” you reply gently. You step around General Dameron before he could reply. It doesn’t take long for him to catch up to you, though. When he does, he linked his arm through yours and smiled at you. With a questioning glance, you rested your gloved hand against his arm. 

“I’ve never been to Coruscant,” General Dameron explained as he moved a small collection of dark curls out of his eyes, “but I’m glad I can say I have the most dangerous woman in the galaxy by my side.” Before you could stop yourself, you let out a bright laugh.

PART 2

A/N: THANK YOU for reading through this! I guess this could be read as a one shot? I think I would like to make it a series in which case it would have 5 chapters. Please let me know what you guys think!!  

[mistersshelby]

Finn having a twin sister who he gets into all sorts of trouble with and the two nearly drive Tommy and Arthur into an early grave

hey hi hello this took me soooo long but i hope you guys like it, please let me know what you think!!!

questions, comments, concerns

masterlist

It was a known fact that of the Shelbys, you and Finn were most likely to get everyone killed. It probably shouldn’t have been something to be proud of, but everyone was so bloody serious all the time, they had to admit that without you and Finn life would be peaceful, sure, but boring,

There was the time when you were eight and encouraged Finn to steal John and Arthur’s guns during a meeting. The meeting had been interrupted by Charlie running in, out of breath, yelling that two Shelby devils were running around his yard firing guns at each other.

When the two of you heard Tommy’s voice thundering across the yard, Finn had stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide with terror, but you? You kept giggling and fired the gun one last time, grazing Finn’s arm.

Tommy cussed out John and Arthur for leaving their guns out in the open and then told you and Finn that the next time you tried to kill each other he’d let you.

Finn didn’t talk to you for a whole week until you stole a knife for him he had been eyeing at the shop down the road.

There was the time when you were twelve and got both you and Finn kicked out of school. You had told Finn a boy had been pulling on your hair and to do something about it. The next day Finn had taken a knife to school, cornered the boy and pulled the knife on him.

“If you ever even think about touching my sister again, I’ll cut you. Understand?”

The boy had nodded profusely and Finn looked down with satisfaction to see that the boy had wet himself. He had immediately told an adult, who had then called Tommy to have him come get the both of you.

“Why me?” You had asked the teacher, “I didn’t pull a knife on him.” 

She shook her head at you, “We all know Finn doesn’t come up with these bright ideas on his own.”

Tommy didn’t speak to either of you as he drove you home. Once inside, he motioned for Finn to give him the knife.

“I wasn’t gonna hurt him,” Finn insisted as he handed it over, “Just wanted to scare him so he’d leave Y/N alone.”

“Which one of you wants to explain to me why I was forced to leave an important meeting to pick the two of you up from school?”

You frowned, “They didn’t tell you what happened?”

“They did,” Tommy stared you down and it took everything in you not to shrink away from him, “But I want to hear it from you.”

You looked down at the floor, “The boy who sits behind me in class kept pulling my hair. He wasn’t afraid of me because I’m a girl, the teacher wouldn’t listen to me no one cared, so I asked Finn to scare him, that’s all.” Tommy was quiet, “I’m a Shelby too, you know. I won’t let people walk all over me just because I’m a girl. You wouldn’t let people walk all over you.”

“You are not me.”

“Why? Because I’m a girl? I’m sick of you lads thinking because you have a cock–”

“No, Christ, not because you’re a girl because you’re twelve, you’re just a kid, Y/N.” Tommy sighed and looked at Finn, “Finn, you can go. Stop bringing your knife to school.” Finn looked hesitant to leave Y/N, but after an impatient look from Tommy he left. “What are you trying to prove?” He asked, curling a finger under your chin and tilting it up so you looked at him.

You jerk your chin from his fingers and he sighs, letting his hand fall back to his side where he reaches into his pocket to grab his cigarettes. “I see the way you all treat Ada.” You start as he lights one. You wonder what he’d say if he knew the reason he was always running short was because you had been pick pocketing him, stealing a couple, and then running to Charlie’s yard to smoke them with Finn. “I’m not like her. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines while the rest of you fight. I don’t want to be stuck in the gambling den while you all sneak off to get into trouble. I want to be like you.”

Tommy took a long drag and then sat down on a chair, craning his neck just a bit to meet your eyes, “You’re a fuckin’ Shelby, you know?” He pointed at you with two fingers, his cigarette between them, “Just as much as me, as Arthur, as John, as Finn. Just because you’re a girl doesn’t make it any different–”

“Spare me the excuses Tommy, the girls in this family have very different roles than the men in this family, let’s not pretend any different.”

“Let me finish.” He said, though his eyebrows rose at your interruption, his only indication that you were toeing the line of outright disobedience, “If Ada had ever come to me and expressed that she wanted to learn how to shoot and do the things we did, I would have let her. As I will let you.” You tried not to show your elation and Tommy could tell so he smiled at you, “You have nothing to prove to me, you know. You can stop trying to act tough around me. I know you’re tough. Tougher than the rest of us, I think.” He cupped a hand around the back of your neck and pulled you to him, crushing you to his chest in an act of affection you rarely got from him. “Just stop getting in trouble in school, okay? I can’t keep picking you up in the middle of the day.”

You froze for a moment, face pressed against him, but you finally reached around and held him tight, grateful to let go of the weight you’d been carrying. 

***

Now you’re eighteen and Tommy held to his word. You and Finn were regularly sent out on missions together. When Tommy sent the two of you out for the first time, the rest of the brothers had protested, even Finn wanted to coddle you, but Tommy put his foot down, gifted you with your first gun, and sent you on your way. 

“Tommy, Arthur,” You said as you opened the door to the private room in the Garrison, Finn on your heels, “Can you give us something fun to do? We’re bored.”

“You want us to send you out on a dangerous task because you’re bored?”

You and Finn exchanged a look and nodded, “Yeah, exactly.” Finn said.

Tommy and Arthur also exchanged a look and Tommy raised his eyebrows, “Yeah, fine,” He said sighing, “Send them.”

“The bar down the road,” Arthur started and the two of you nodded eagerly, “Go sack it. But don’t be starting any other trouble, ya hear? They give you trouble, you leave.”

You stood, taking the glass of whiskey from Tommy’s hand and knocking it back before handing the empty glass back to Tommy, “Thanks brothers,” You say, smiling sweetly, “Let’s go, Finn.”

“If I get word back that the two of you did anything other than what you were asked, I’m confiscating your guns and no more peaky blinders work for a few months.” Tommy said as you both began to leave the room.

“We’re adults now, Tommy, you can’t keep punishing us like kids.” You said.

“Start acting like adults and I’ll stop treating you like kids.”

You rolled your eyes and headed out of the Garrison. Finn caught up and threw an arm around your shoulders, “If we don’t fuck this one up, maybe they’ll stop putting us in time out.”

You smiled at your twin and let him pull you closer, “Or we do it our way and they finally see we were right all along.”

Finn chuckled and ruffled your hair which prompted you to shove him away and lecture him again about touching your hair.

You and Finn were reckless, it was true, but sacking a bar was something the two of you had done for Tommy so many times you had to switch it up. If that meant causing trouble for your brothers, so be it.

The two of you waltzed into the bar and it immediately quieted. This had to be your favorite part of being a Shelby, the way fear spread through a room like the plague at the sight of any of you. Those who had seen you grow up had the sense to be afraid of you, as well, despite your gender. 

But sometimes people slipped up. Sometimes they scoffed at your pants and high heeled boots paired with your long hair and makeup. And sometimes you slipped up too. The difference was, when you slipped up, people died.

The first time you and Finn had walked into the Shelby house declaring that you had killed a man who dared cross you, Tommy had simply nodded and said, “Next time you ask me first.”

But you never asked. If people had the dim wit to cross you, a Shelby, they would pay the price and you would deal with the consequences from Tommy later. And eventually people stopped crossing you, for the most part, they showed you the same fear and respect they showed your brothers. 

“Two whiskeys, neat.” Finn ordered and surveyed the bar.

“Should I be worried that the two of you are here?” The bartender asked as he slid over your drinks. You quite liked him, he had never given you that up and down look of distaste that most people did. Had never asked stupid questions about your clothes or how Tommy felt about you putting your nose in men’s business. He was different, and it wasn’t all due to fear.

“Yes,” You answered honestly, “But no one will be hurt.”

He nodded, “You’re gonna sack the bar.”

“We’ll give you a cut of the money if you cooperate.” Finn said.

“Okay,” The bartender said calmly, “But you should know those men in the corner,” He nodded towards a booth near the door, full of men who were eyeing the two of you carefully, “They won’t let the bar go without a fight.”

You couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face, “If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’ll get.”

But Finn was frowning, “Y/N, maybe we should go back to the Garrison and tell Tommy, we’re clearly outnumbered—“

“If you want to back out of a fight Finn, by all means, I’ll handle this myself, but I’m not going back to cry to Tommy.”

“We could die.” Finn said lowly, “They’re bigger than us and there’s more of them.”

You only smiled at him, “Where’s the fun if there’s not a little risk?” Before he could respond, you held your gun up and fired at the ceiling and spoke over the few screams, “This bar is now ours, by order of The Peaky Blinders. I suggest you all leave.”

“Fuck.” You heard Finn curse before he took out his gun and cocked it.

Patrons dutifully filed out, but the four men in the corner stood, “Big words from such a tiny girl. What if we don’t want to leave?”

He was playing with you, you knew, “Then I hope you like the smell of burning flesh.” You smiled sweetly and pulled out matches.

Bless his heart, your partner in crime, Finn walked behind the bar and started dousing the floor with alcohol. You made a mental note to apologize to him for this later. Because the two of you could do this, you would best these stupid men.

There was a bit of fear on their faces, knowing they couldn’t stop you from lighting this place up unless they shot you. Something you had learned about men was that they would always hesitate to shoot you.

But what you didn’t take the time to consider was that they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Finn. And while Finn was pouring alcohol all over the bar, depending on you to watch his back, one of the men lifted his pistol, “You idiots talk too much,” and he fired.

You heard Finn scream and before you could let the panic choke you, you shot back. Being a girl, you always had to be ten times better than any man who came along in order to be taken seriously. As such, you could shoot a man through his head every time even if he was moving up to thirty feet away. You hadn’t really wanted to kill anyone tonight, but shooting at your twin was a line that could not be uncrossed. You shot the man who shot Finn and the man who called you a “tiny girl” and waited to see what the other two would do. Predictably, it was enough to get them to run away.

“Fuck, Finn, I’m sorry.” You said, running to him when they were gone, the door still swinging behind them. Assessing the damage, you saw he was hit in his shoulder, an easy fix and not the first bullet he’d taken. It made you feel like passing out with relief.

“You were supposed to be watching for me.” He ground out through the pain.

Knowing he was alive didn’t make you feel any less guilty, “I know, I’m sorry, it happened so fast, I didn’t expect them to–” Police were driving down the road, heading here. Someone had snitched. “Fuck.” You swore at the same time Finn saw them. He scrambled off the floor as you ran to grab all the cash from the drawer.

“Just fuckin’ leave it, Tommy’ll kill us if we get caught!” Finn was yelling, getting ready to toss a match on the bar once they were safe.

“I’m coming.” You insisted, you didn’t go through all of this and get your twin shot with nothing to show for it. The police were getting out of their cars.

“Y/N!” Finn was more insistent now and you slammed the drawer shut, running over to him.

“Go out the back,” You shoved him out, “I’ll shoot it up we don’t have time, go.” You said when he tried to pull out the matches. Once you saw he was gone, you shot through the front windows to delay the cops just a few more seconds before shooting at the floors where Finn had dumped the alcohol and watching it go in flames before sneaking out the back. You snuck around the back of some more buildings, following the river to Charlie’s yard and then to the Garrison where you assumed your brothers still were and could help with Finn’s wound.

When the two of you burst into the bar, Tommy saw you first and for the first time in a while, the anger on his face when he spotted Finn genuinely scared you. “Everyone out.” He said loudly. There were groans from the patrons, but they didn’t need a second command, no one wanted to cross Tommy.

“What happened?” He said deathly quiet, his gaze pinned on you.

Arthur guided Finn away so they could take out the bullet, “Why do you always assume it’s my fault?”

“I asked you a question.” He said, ignoring you. He was running out of patience with you, you knew. 

You sighed, “There were four men at the bar who I assume were from the gang whose territory the bar was in, they weren’t going to let us take the bar. Finn wanted to come back to get more men, I told him we could handle it ourselves.”

“You thought you could take on four grown men yourselves and you didn’t listen to your brother. When the fuck are you going to learn? When you get Finn killed? When you get one of us killed?”

Tears were burning the back of your eyes and you couldn’t meet his stare, “I’m sorry.”

But Tommy just kept going, “Did you get Finn shot because you were running your big fucking mouth again? Knowing they wouldn’t shoot you? But you forgot about your fuckin’ brother, didn’t you? The one who always looks out for you, but you never return the fuckin’ favor?” Tears poured down your cheeks in earnest now, but Tommy didn’t care, you needed to learn, “You only ever think about your goddamn self, you constantly think you have to prove yourself when no one here doubts your abilities except you—“

“That’s not true—“

“Like fuck it isn’t! Everyone in this family, in this shit hole of a town knows what you’re capable of, but you still think you need to raise the stakes, why? Because deep down you know you’re the only fuckin’ person holding yourself back.”

“Tommy, come on, that’s enough.” John said softly behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder. You still stood tall, chin lifted, though your body trembled with silent sobs.

Tommy shrugged John off, “You’re done being a blinder. Maybe I’ll reconsider once you learn to stop being so fuckin’ selfish.”

“Tommy, please—“ You were ready to beg, he couldn’t kick you off.

“No, I’ve given you chance after chance, you won’t learn until you get one of us killed and I’m not willing to risk that any longer. Be grateful that I’m sparing you the guilt of being responsible for one of our deaths.”

Then Tommy stalked away from you to go check on Finn. John gave you a sympathetic look and a squeeze of your shoulder before doing the same. You wanted to see Finn, but doubted he wanted to see you either so you left. You wandered around Small Heath aimlessly by yourself all night, trying to figure out what you were going to do. Eventually you wandered over to Aunt Pol’s.

When she answered the door and took in your red face and puffy eyes she only pulled you close to her chest and let you sob.

A while after, when you had finally calmed down, she sets a cup of tea in front of you, “Tommy can be harsh sometimes, but he only does it because he loves you, you know?”

“I know he’s right,” You take a sip of the tea, your insides warming, “I just don’t know if I can fix it. What if all this time, my whole life, all I’ve wanted is to be like Tommy. What if I’m nothing like him and I never will be?”

“Sweetheart, you are nothing like him and you never will be, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of your story. You toughen up and you get back out there and you listen to your brothers. They know what you are capable of, they will never think less of you because you’re a girl, so you need to get that out of your head.” You stared at your teacup while she spoke, feeling numb, “Have you ever thought that maybe Tommy is trying to save you from becoming like him?”

Your eyes snap up at that and you frown, “Why would he do that?”

Polly shakes her head, “Tommy hates himself, Y/N, hates how selfish he is, how he can never let anyone in, that anyone who gets close to him always gets hurt. That is the last thing he wants for you, but it’s clear you’re following in his footsteps. And that’s why he kicked you out. To save you.”

You sat back and pondered this for a while and eventually Polly left you alone, kissing your hair as she went to bed. Maybe you were too much like Tommy, maybe Pol was right. Leaving a note for Polly so she knew not to look for you, you headed to Tommy’s office, knowing he was still probably awake this late at night.

“How’s Finn?” You asked as Tommy bent over his desk, writing something that seemed very important.

He looked up at you, “He’s fine, sleeping.”

You sat in the seat across from him, “Aunt Pol says the real reason you kicked me off the Blinders was because you think I’m too much like you and you want to spare me from a life of self loathing.”

He began writing again, “Well, Polly has always seemed to know my ulterior motives even when they weren’t clear to me.”

“So she’s right, then?”

“It doesn’t matter, doesn’t change anything.”

You sat back and listened to him write for a few more moments, “I love you, Tommy. I don’t think I say it enough, but it’s true. I think of you more like a father than a brother most of the time. I just– I want you to know that even when you think no one needs you that I need you.”

He stops writing and looks you over, “Polly was wrong.” He starts, and you raise your eyebrows, “I don’t want you to be less like me, I want you to be better than me. I’m so hard on you because I think you could run the company one day and I want you to be ready. Do you understand?” You nodded and he picked up his pen, “Good. Now go get some rest, you have a lot of self improvement to do.” You stood and headed out of Tommy’s office door, but he called out to you while you were in the doorway and you turned, “I love you too,” He said, “More than you know.”

You smiled at him and nodded before closing the door behind you and heading off to bed.

[foolurfriendsfunatparties]

U m Dewey x reader with an artistic/art teacher reader?? Am i projecting? A little

Thank you for ending my boredom! Please feel free to like and reblog, I also really get a kick out of feedback! I insist even if you want to tell how  trashy this is!

One artsy reader coming up!

Also I doubt anyone wants to know but swiss posters are a very cool form of artwork!

Horace green was a real step up from public schools. Every extracurricular activity was chosen with care and the instructors for each subject were chosen with care. It had been a very long hard battle for you to get this job. There were so many good artists that you thought would be more qualified but lucky you! Miss Mullins loved how well you were with not only the children but the parents.

"Okay everyone, your unfinished swiss posters are up in front. Grab your things and you may get started!" The children all grabbed their own masterpieces as they went back to their chairs. You couldn't believe how fast they had progressed with their artwork. Most of the time you would sit at your desk drawing in your sketchbook, answering questions, or just walking around the room watching the kids go at their art.

"Excuse me L/N." Summer had her hand held up high as you made your way over to the very intellectual little girl.

"Yes Summer?" You squatted down to her level as she made eye contact with Zach who was sitting next to her drawing a guitar. "Our substitute wanted us to get to class early and I was wondering if we could leave 10 to 15 minutes early?" The girl pleaded with you as you tries to hold back a chuckle.

"Well I'm not sure, Miss Mullins wouldn't be too pleased to hear about this." You were in a predicament as you paced back and forth in your mind. Contemplating the idea you found a way to both satisfy your students and your boss. "How about this I will let you all go 15 minutes early," the kids began to grow excited. "Only if you let me take you to Mr. Schneebly." The kids grew silent as they looked to each other.

"Will you give us a moment?" Summer said as you giggled.

"Of course Summer take your time!" You beamed as she grabbed Katie and Zach and pulled them to a secluded corner. After about 3 minutes of discussing and debating the three came back.

 "You've got yourself a deal." Katie said trying to sound intimidating almost like a judge.

"Oh do I?!" You said humored by the children. "Well I will look forward to it then!" To be honest you have heard about this new teacher but you've never seen him. There were about 30 minutes left until the kids could go to class early which in general was a weird thing for children to be excited about.

"Okay everyone let's head to your class." You said closing the sketchbook looking up to see everyone already packed up and ready to go. Going through the halls quietly you found the room. Opening the door you walked in to see a bunch of music equipment and the back Schneebly as he was setting the equipment up.

"Okay who's ready to ro-" The man turned around to see you as his eyes widened. "READ! Read yes read, because I'm a teacher and teachers, teach." The man was rambling as you took in the surroundings. It was almost a second before the teacher had realized he had never seen you before. "Oh uh I'm de-Ned! Need Schneebly!" He held out his hand.

"Y/N L/N!" You returned the shake. "I'll just be out of the way. I'll see you all tomorrow!" You said heading towards the door. "Have a fun time 'reading'." You shot a wink at the teacher as he gave you a smug look. Dewey released a breath he didn't know he was holding as the students did their normal routine.

"Okay that teacher just earned my respect." Dewey already knew he was going to get into even more trouble with you. Not only were you not too bad to look at you were totally cool with his music addiction. A perfect vision to him, and art! It was meant to be in his mind, and if there's anything rock and roll is about it's scoring chicks.

You sat at your desk looking through the artwork of the students and giving them scores based on the criteria of the assignment as you heard a knock at your door. "It's opened!" You shouted as Mr. Schneebly came through the floor. "Oh hello Mr. Schneebly." You said getting up as he closed the door.

"You can call me Ned!" He said as you smiled lightly at him.

"You can call me Y/N then, nice tradeoff!" You grabbed the stack of papers and headed towards the children's cubbies where you placed their art along with their scoresheet in the respective cubbie. "So what's up?"

"Informal slang." Ned practically moaned in satisfaction. "It's been so long since someone here has been as chill as you." You loved his enthusiasm as he dramatically leaned his head back.

"Well I guess I feel the same way!" Your tone was a mixture of happiness and relieved. "No but really, what do you want." You asked leaning slightly against the nearest table.

"Oh I just wanted to invite you to get some food with me." He had a very homey welcoming smile that was so contagious that you immediately accepted the invitation. He headed towards the door happily as he leaned against the doorway. "I'll meet you there at 7!" He gave you a wink as he left in good timing before noticing the blush creeping up your face. You rushed home in a panic to get ready. Knowing that the roadhouse diner was big place influenced with classic rock you tried to find your best clothes to go along with it. Just a simple jean and Black tank top along with a jacket you had embroidered. It was a jean jacket with a very detailed embodiment of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall album cover on the back. A personal favorite of yours because it turned out better than you thought it would be.

Pulling up to the diner you could hear the music shaking the earth around you as you headed in. Looking around to see the many drunk or just excited people around until your eyes finally found Dewey's. He waved excitedly as you walked over. "So roadside huh?" You said slipping into the seat across from him.

"She's an oldie but a goodie!" He beamed as you took your jacket off you started to put it beside you when Dewey stopped you. "It that Michael Jackson?!" You shake your head yes. "Wait?! Did you make that?!" He said even more excited. Another shake came from you as he went crazy over it demanding you made one for him but with Led Zeppelin on it.

"Yeah I can try to do it during the break." You said as he grabbed two glasses.

"Let's drink to that!" You both raised you glasses and drank the liquid inside of it. The two of you talked the entire night and had so much in common. It was sad when the night was over and you both headed out after saying your goodbyes.

A couple weeks went by and the two of you hung out more. Mr Schneebly had finally told you the truth about him being Dewey Finn and at first you were appalled by the fact. It wasn't until you heard the children talk about how much he impacted their lives that you started to sympathize with him. School had just ended and all the children were gone. You stepped out into the hallway to see Miss Mullins panicking as the parents were going ballistic due to the disappearance of their kids.

You practically ran to your car as you drove off to where the supposed battle of the bands was held. Before leaving you grabbed something from your car. Going into the venue the showed had just started as some band was up playing their song. You found your way to the front and waited. You look behind you to see that Muss Mullins and the parents had found the place as well as they all tried to rush backstage. You were tempted to but decided that the parents would be enough. It was finally the kids turn as they came onto the stage to sing Teacher's Pet. You actually were surprised with how amazing they were, and this made you fall in love with Dewey even more. He was so happy and energetic on the stage that you wanted to go on there and dance yourself. The song finally ended as you cheered for the band and ran backstage.

"Dewey that was amazing!" You screamed as Dewey spun around shocked to see you but accepted the giant hug you forced him into.

"You came!" He was thrilled to see you putting his arms around your waist. It had been a bit rough with the whole teacher thing but you were slowly letting it go.

"Oh!" You grabbed something from your bag. "I brought you a great first concert gift!" You opened the bag and pulled out the leather embodied jacket.

"No way!" Dewey immediately put it on. "I love it! Which reminds me." He beamed stepping closer to you as his arms held your hips. "I got you a present too." He said with love in his eyes as his lips connected with yours in a very soft but passionate way. Your hands went to his neck as you played with the collar on the jacket. It wasn't until you heard someone coughing to get your attention. You both broke apart to see Zach.

"They want us on stage to sing another song." He said as Dewey just nodded. Turning back to you he gave you one last quick kiss.

"Go and teach rock to the world." You said as he held you hand.

"I will Y/N, I will."

[saiilorstars]

Dare To Forget Me

Ch. 16: Facing the Beast

/ Previous Chapters /

Fandom: Law & Order SVU

Pairing:  Rafael Barba x Original female character

Warnings: Due to the nature of the series’ plots, I do have to rate this as ‘mature’ for constant mentions of rape.

~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ` 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~

Chapter Summary: The trial against William Lewis begins and despite her best efforts, Montserrat is succumbed by the fear of her own demons of the past.

There were few employees left in the SVU bullpen by 7 pm. It was one of the rare slow days that many employees heard of but only few actually saw. Montserrat was one of those.

She gave a light knock on Olivia's office door and walked in with a few papers in hand. "I'm ready to go but I wanted to drop these off first."

Olivia pulled her glasses off and put them on her desk. She seemed wearier than usual. "Thanks. What were those again?"

Montserrat approached the desk and discreetly saw the papers Olivia had in front of her. Though she meant to be discreet, what she saw left her visibly surprised.

"Those papers…?" Olivia called when she noticed where Montserrat's gaze was.

The detective blinked back to the present and handed Olivia her papers. "Paperwork on the Jenson case. Tedious as was Jenson but it is all done." Montserrat offered a smile that became a bit too teethy.

"Can I help you with something else, Novak?" Olivia raised an eyebrow, her seriousness going over Montserrat's head.

"Please don't call me Novak - you sound like Rafael," Montserrat rolled her eyes. "I'm just curious as to why a sergeant is wasting time going over an old case that's good and closed."

"Because this case is not completely closed," Olivia admitted and since Montserrat looked confused she added, "One of the children I found is still being moved through foster homes."

Montserrat continued to be confused until it donned on her what case Olivia was talking about. "Is it baby boy Doe? The baby you found from that couple who went around 'adopting' unwanted children?" Olivia nodded and leaned back against her chair. "I read about that on the news. The other kids were returned home, weren't they?"

"Yes, but this baby doesn't have parents nor next of kin," Olivia wearily rubbed her forehead. "He's gone through 3 foster homes in the last 5 months. It's like none of these parents want to take care of him."

Montserrat tilted her head at Olivia, clearly questioning where Olivia got this knowledge from. "Who do you have on the inside?"

Olivia playfully rolled her eyes. "I've been going to his hearings in family court. It breaks my heart we can't find the right home for this baby."

Montserrat was quiet for a minute as she thought. "Well...sometimes bad things happen in order for something exceptionally good to happen."

Olivia smiled but only briefly. She reached for her glasses on the desk and started to gently tap them against the wood. "Well I'm waiting for that exceptionally good thing to happen. He has another hearing next week so maybe it'll be then. But what are you doing tonight? Sitting with the boss and talking about cases? Go home, Montserrat."

Montserrat only agreed because she had set up an appointment that she couldn't miss. She bid goodnight to Olivia then walked out of the office. She made it all the way to her desk and looked around to see the few detectives left with her.

"Go home you old men," she said to Sonny and Fin. "Take a leaf out of Amanda's book and go have a drink or something."

"Same can be said for you," Fin quipped within the next second.

"And I'll have you know that I'm actually going out on a date in about…" Sonny's eyes widened in alarm after seeing the time on his watch, "...crap! Now!" both Montserrat and Finn burst into laughter while they watched Sonny scramble to get his things from his desk.

"Kara is going to kill you! And then finally my horror of this dating thing will end!" Montserrat calmly went to gather her things.

Sonny threw her a sharp look for her words. Little did she know that his date was actually a trip to visit the place where Kara had planned her surprise birthday party. And that's the thanks I get? He planned on getting a real date with Kara after this. It was only fair.

"Where you headed, then?" Finn asked Montserrat once Sonny had left (ran).

"Oh you know... Here and there, not really sure yet," Montserrat tried being nonchalant about her plans. "Have a good night."

"You too," Finn called once she got going.

~0~

Each week that Montserrat visited her therapist she felt as if things were getting better for her. And in reality, they were. But, her birthday was nearing. It meant it was almost a year now that her life had changed.

"It's not even the fact that I'm turning 30 - usually that's the bit that upsets you - but...turning 30 is the least of my problems," she spoke quietly but there was a shakiness in her voice Dr. Weslin detected. "In fact I'm pretty sure Kara doesn't get the memo that I don't want anything to do with my birthday."

"Have you told her why?" Dr. Weslin inquired even though she knew the answer.

Montserrat shook her head. "Telling her why means I'd have to tell her what happened. I don't think I can do that."

Dr. Weslin studied Montserrat fidget in her chair. "Montserrat, have you ever considered attending an anonymous abuse meeting?"

The detective seemed startled by the question. She drew some hair behind her ear then gave her therapist a curious look. "Those exist?"

Dr. Weslin briefly smiled. "Yes. It's just like alcoholic anonymous group or a gambler's anonymous group. You are doing phenomenal but...I think the fact that you don't feel comfortable to disclose to anyone else, including your closest friend, might be hindering a part of your recovery. A meeting like this would be completely anonymous. You can share what happened to you without having to face anyone that you know. Does this sound like something you would be interested in?"

Montserrat couldn't answer straight away, mostly because she wasn't sure. The only people who knew about her rape were Casey and her old Queens precinct Captain. She couldn't muster the courage to tell anyone else, not even her own family.

"Montserrat?" Dr. Weslin brought the woman back to the present. "Should I give you locations?"

There was a silence over Montserrat that couldn't be waived.

~0~

The following work week brought the awaited trail Olivia had been waiting for a while now, and when she meant a 'while' she really meant months and months. And though it finally came, she still felt as if there were loose strings that couldn't be tied up now.

When Montserrat arrived at the precinct, she came to see only Sonny around. He was blatantly staring at Olivia's office. Though the office was closed but she could see Rafael talking to Olivia, Amanda, Fin and Nick. "What's going on there?" she dropped her purse on her desk.

Sonny glanced at her with a small smile. "Trial we're not exactly part of."

"Which one?" Montserrat made a face.

Sonny turned his chair to face her. "The Lewis Williams trial. It starts tomorrow."

Montserrat wasn't as caught up with Manhattan's SVU cases before her time. There was hardly a need, and even then she had taken a look at some of the more bigger ones...and perhaps that one may have shown up. "Lewis case…" she repeated quietly while she tried to remember. She drew in a breath when she came up blank. "I'm going to sound so unprofessional but what case is that?"

Sonny barely got to raise an eyebrow when they both heard the office door opening up. Rafael had led the rest of the squad out and when he walked, he made a purpose to head for the two detectives who were out of the loop. "You two, keep your mouths shut. Don't talk to anyone, got it?"

There was a mutual confusion between Montserrat and Sonny.

"...you know, you could just say 'good morning' like a normal person," Montserrat quietly said and looked away before she could meet Rafael's deadpanning look.

Rafael rolled his eyes as he assumed she was being sarcastic - which was too early in his opinion. "Do you understand, Novak?"

Montserrat helplessly glanced at Sonny then at the others coming out of the office. "I wish I did but I don't. I don't know what's going on."

"That makes two," Sonny's agreement helped her out in that she wasn't being rude this time.

In fact, it seemed as if it re-directed some of Rafael's annoyance towards the others. He looked back at the rest of the squad with disbelief. "You haven't caught them up? Are you serious!?"

"It didn't seem pertinent," Olivia was the one to answer, even though it revolved entirely around her.

"What didn't?" asked both Montserrat and Sonny, making Rafael nearly slap his forehead with deeper irritation.

"You two," he dropped his hand only to point at them, "Get yourselves caught up. You're the only detectives allowed to be in the trial from beginning to end. But your strength is also your weakness: your absences in this case make you easy preys for the defense. They will try to weed out any information from you so be on guard."

"With all due respect, councilor, I think Montse and I know what we're doing," Sonny leaned back in his chair. "But it wouldn't hurt to discuss more about this."

On that note, Rafael agreed. He glanced at the rest of the squad with a warning glint in his eyes. "Do it. Better safe than sorry." He took off but briefly stopped next to Montserrat. "And good morning," he greeted her with one of his usual smirks.

A smile came to Montserrat's face when he took off again. It was short lived after seeing the grimness the rest of her co-workers carried with them. "Okay, seriously, someone tell us what's going on?"

~ 0 ~

Montserrat wished she would've never asked.

She seriously meant it.

To learn what her sergeant - and more importantly her friend - had gone through with the animal that was Lewis Williams was terrifying, and heartbreaking. Montserrat couldn't believe that someone as strong as Olivia Benson had the misfortune of crossing paths with Lewis. It definitely made Montserrat look at Olivia in a new way.

So, on the first day of trial Montserrat presented herself at the courthouse earlier than the others would. She walked through the crowds of people down the hallway until she spotted Olivia sitting alone on a bench. As she got closer, Montserrat could see the distant look on Olivia's face that was really a cover up for all the nervousness she must have been feeling.

"Here," Montserrat offered Olivia the coffee cup in her hand. Olivia was, of course, surprised to see Montserrat there so early. Montserrat just continued to smile and motioned Olivia to take the coffee.

"Thank you," Olivia quietly said before taking the cup. She hadn't been able to eat nor drink anything that morning - she didn't think she could stomach it.

Montserrat still felt at a loss for words. In her experience, nothing anyone could say helped her get through her trauma. "When you were looking at the Baby Boy Doe case the other night...were you thinking about...this?"

Olivia pursed her lips together, letting the warmth of the coffee hit her lips from the inside. She gave a slight nod of her head in the end.

"I did notice you were...a little more distant but I didn't imagine it was because of this," Montserrat sighed. "Liv, I don't even know what to tell you. I'm sure whatever I do say it won't be enough."

Olivia still offered the detective a thankful smile. "Your presence is appreciated. And trust me, I didn't think it was important to burden you nor Carisi about this. You weren't there anyways-"

"-but we're your friends, Liv. And I don't mean that as a 'you should've told us something' because it doesn't entitle us to anything. I just…" Montserrat sighed again and moved to sit next to Olivia. She licked her lips with a new sense of nervousness, as if something she could say would tip Olivia off that she was speaking from a similar experience.

Olivia studied Montserrat, much to the detective's luck, and got the feeling she was holding something back. It reminded Olivia of the early days when they'd hired Montserrat. Every now and then, Montserrat would become cryptic with her words and she would exhibit odd actions and expressions. She hadn't seen it in a while, actually.

Montserrat released a breath and shifted a bit to better face Olivia. "Do you think that if you would've told me or Sonny about this...it would've made you feel any better about this whole thing?"

Olivia tilted her head as she tried to understand what Montserrat wanted to know. "Well, it wasn't much of a secret to begin with. Everyone else saw what I went through...what...happened…"

"I know, I know," Montserrat made a motion for Olivia to stop so she could better explain, "I meant like...everything Lewis did to you, it's traumatic no doubt. Would talking about it to someone, someone besides a therapist, make you feel better about it? Like, if you sat down with one of us and just...let it all out?"

Olivia admitted that she never considered talking about the four days with Lewis with anyone but her therapist. Sure, the squad had been witness to the crime scenes but she'd never actually talked with any of them about what went on during those days. She didn't feel ready for it, and when she'd finally gotten to a better place...she didn't want to tell anyone else. Her therapist was helping her anyways. What was the point in poking holes in her recovery?

Just when Montserrat thought she was about to get an answer, the rest of the squad arrived. She did her best to hide her disappointment, but maybe she didn't do a very good job in those first seconds because Olivia kept giving her strange looks.

"Looking strong, Olivia," Fin offered the Sergeant an encouraging smile.

"You all came," Olivia was truly surprised they'd go to the trouble of coming all together on the day that each would testify at different hours.

"We got your back, Liv," Nick reminded her.

Rafael emerged from the trial room and was thoroughly confused to find the whole group there. "What are you people doing here? You know you can't watch the trial. You're all witnesses."

"We're here for moral support," Amanda assured him they knew the rules.

"And Montse and I are going to be there for all of it," Sonny gestured to himself and the ginger still sitting on the bench. His words of support weren't as good since said woman seemed to be staring to the side.

Her mind had gotten to somewhere else.

"Montse?" Olivia was the one to bring Montserrat back to the present. The sergeant rose from the bench and held a hand out for Montserrat.

Realizing she'd lost reality for a second, Montserrat cleared her throat and got on her feet. "Sorry, yes. Ready?"

Olivia slowly nodded and glanced at the others to reiterate she was alright.

"Counselor, don't mess this one up," Fin told Rafael, as if the latter was thinking of it.

"I was gonna tell you the same thing," he quipped then shot the rest of the squad a sharper look. "Remember why we're here." His look lingered on Montserrat for her obvious unresponsive self.

Least she wasn't a witness this time.

~ 0 ~

As far as Montserrat could see, Lewis William was a manipulative, calculating man. He had a terrible scar that curved the left side of his face - a scar that Olivia had allegedly left on him. When Lewis would walk - because oh yes, as a last way to taunt Olivia he had decided to defend himself - he would purposely make a bigger limp than what it really was. He didn't fail to mention the fact the NYPD Had a vendetta against him while he interrogated Finn and Amanda.

By the time Lewis got to cross-examine Nick, both Montserrat and Sonny had learned that he was a conniving man hellbent on making it look like the NYPD was framing him and covering up that Olivia was the one to initiate a relationship with him.

"So, it's impossible to know conclusive who actually shot that officer, isn't it?" Lewis knew very well he had murdered an officer but the jury didn't, and as far as he was concerned they would believe Olivia could've had a hand in it.

Nick was barely holding himself to just glare at the man. "Oh, there's no way she did it. She was duct taped, lying on the car floor."

"Again, that's what she told you?"

"Yes,"

There was a moment of silence that passed by before Lewis would ask another question. "Do you remember the first time that you and detective Benson interrogated me? How would you characterize her demeanor? was she physically close? Flirtatious? Did she seem aroused when I spoke to her?"

Nick despised Lewis even more at that moment, because no matter how he would answer it would make Olivia look bad. "She may have acted provocatively, but that was for your benefit. During an interrogation, you role-play."

"Is rape considered a sexual act amongst SVU detectives?"

"No, it's not about sex. It's about power, control, humiliation…"

"So why, in your opinion, when your partner was questioning me about rape, did she sexualize the interrogation?"

"It's a technique to find a way to connect to the suspect," Nick answered almost through gritted teeth.

"Well, I would say it worked," Lewis turned in time to see Rafael practically slam his pen on the desk in anger. With a smirk, Lewis said, "Withdrawn."

As soon as the trial was finished, Montserrat was the first to get up to go. She felt revulsion for that man, sick to her stomach, so she knew how Olivia was feeling at the moment.

"You should go home," Montserrat advised Olivia once they were in the hallway. For the case's benefit, the rest of the squad except for her and Sonny had departed the moment they were finished testifying. "Try to do something to get your mind off this for a bit."

"Not gonna tell me to get some rest?" Olivia asked since that was what everyone always told her in the early days after the kidnapping..

"No, that never works in the beginning," Montserrat said far too quickly and too matter-of-factly. Olivia once again felt there was something this detective was keeping back. It felt as if Montserrat knew what she was talking about.

"That was awful," Sonny was telling Rafael as the two walked out of the trial room.

"But fixable," Rafael said with utter confidence. He expected such manipulations from Lewis but he was confident that he would outsmart this man no matter what. "Liv, you should go get some rest-"

"-don't tell her get rest, it won't work," Montserrat all but practically snapped at him. She looked mighty distressed for someone who'd only sat in on the trial.

Olivia placed a hand on Montserrat's arm and nodded at Rafael. "I will try, but...you know it'll be difficult to sleep for the next couple of weeks."

"Just try," Rafael persisted. "And Novak, maybe you should consider it too since you're all riled up."

Montserrat momentarily glared until she realized he was right. It wasn't her place and it certainly wasn't her right to be upset. Olivia was the one who needed all the support right now. She was the one who would have to face her attacker soon, the one who would have to talk to him...look at him…

The moment her face went pale was instantaneous. Now she truly looked sick. "I'll see you. Take it easy Olivia," she said in a quick blue before turning to leave.

There was mutual confusion as well as concern between the remaining three.

~ 0 ~

The last thing Casey Novak was expecting that night was for her cousin to knock on her apartment door.

"I need you," Montserrat uttered the three words nearly in tears.

Casey might not have had the context she needed to figure out what led Montserrat to her door, but she was pretty sure what it was ABOUT about. She brought her cousin inside and took her to the living room where Montserrat opened the floodgates of her problem for the day.

"And I know it's not my case, it's not my trial, but it's making me remember what I went through last year," Montserrat spoke rather fast but Casey was used to the speedy relaying of information.

The two cousins sat on the couch, Montserrat draped under a blanket Casey brought for her. It was their comfort blanket each had held in their worst moments.

"It's Olivia's case and I should be a better friend who puts aside their trauma to help them," Montserrat drew in a shaky breath. "But I can't. It's literally against me. It's been almost a year, why is it still affecting me like this?"

"Well-" Casey tried to answer but Montserrat wasn't finished rambling.

"I've done everything right. I've moved cities, I've found new friends, a new job. I got a therapist and I've gone to each of my sessions. I've tried being happy and making better, new memories so why is this happening?" by the time Montserrat finished her question, new tears had spilled down her face.

"It's a long, long process Montserrat," Casey spoke in a gentle tone. "I've seen victims take years to fully recover, but even then there's always going to be a wound."

"So I'm just going to relapse every few years?"

"What you're feeling doesn't mean that you're undoing all of your progress," Casey first said to make sure Montserrat understood she wasn't doing anything wrong. "You were violated and that is a traumatic event that will, on occasion, cause these moments of pain. It's normal. You're human, Montse."

Montserrat sniffled. "I'm a detective, I can't afford these moments."

"As a lawyer, I advise you not to bottle it up. It's good that you're talking it out with someone," Casey offered a kind smile for her cousin.

Montserrat thought back to her therapist's suggestion and even when she'd asked Olivia her thoughts about talking with people. "But I'm supposed to be supporting Olivia right now."

Casey understood what Montserrat meant, and even though she loved Olivia she had to think about her family first. "Maybe you can support her outside of the trial room." The suggestion didn't seem to sit well with Montserrat. "It's obvious that this Lewis case is bringing up memories and feelings. If Olivia knew about this, she would understand. But even without the knowledge of your rape, she won't be upset if you don't show up to the trial."

Montserrat brought a hand to her forehead. "I'm supposed to be her moral support. Now I'm becoming the one who needs the support?"

"There is nothing to be ashamed of, Montserrat," Casey said in a sharp, almost warning, tone. "You need your time too. And let me put it in a way that might get me to understand: if you're not at your best, then can you really support Olivia?"

Well, that she understood.

~0~

While the trial continued, Montserrat listened to Casey's advice and stayed away from the trial for a few days. She decided there was perhaps another way she could support Olivia.

She rarely visited Family court and it was honestly not a place you wanted to be at so much. It just brought back too many memories, too many decisions that she would rather forget. but this was a better way to support Olivia without harming herself in the process.

She took a seat in one of the empty benches and listened to the hearing of Baby Boy Doe.

A social worker was giving her rendition of a finished investigation concerning Baby Boy Doe, and it seemed like things could be getting better for this baby. "Your Honor, ACS have thoroughly conducted an examination of a new Foster home for baby boy doe. It is our belief that baby boy doe would be well cared for by these Foster parents."

The judge herself seemed rather relieved this was the case. She looked over her copy of the paperwork the social worker was reading from and gave a conclusive nod. "Let's hope so, Miss Carlisle. This would be Baby Boy Doe's fourth home in the past 5 months. I grant the motion to place Baby Boy Doe in the care of the Walkers." The judge slammed her mallet over her desk and adjourned the court.

Montserrat rose from her seat and moved towards the social worker before the latter could leave. "Excuse me, I'm detective Novak," she flashed her badge then put it away, "My sergeant, Olivia Benson, sent me in her place today to see how the case was going."

the mention of Olivia's name seemed to ease the social worker. Clearly, they knew each other. "Sergeant Benson, yes we've talked. Is she okay?"

"Um…" Montserrat was surprised that the social worker didn't know about the ongoing trial, but she wasn't going to tell her either. "She just couldn't make it. She's very attached to this baby."

Miss Carlisle agreed with a nod while she finished packing her things. "Yes. She's the one who found him."

"I heard. So is this new home really the best one for this baby? I just heard from Olivia that he's been moved quite a lot for the few months he's been in ACS custody."

"Yes," Miss Carlisle side. She moved around once in awhile and started walking towards the accident the room. "we've had to move him for safety reasons. There was one home that was already housing more foster kids than we realized. Then there was another one that wasn't as safe as we thought. The third one actually gave him a fungal disease so we need to immediately get him out of there."

"Poor baby," Montserrat said. She followed Miss Carlisle into the hallway. "Listen, I don't know if usually do this...but because Olivia wasn't here I was wondering if you could give me the new address of this baby."

Miss Carlisle offered a nervous smile. "I'm not sure that's really in protocols."

"Well, it's just as you said...my sergeant was the one who found this baby so she's pretty attached to him. I'm sure it would make her really happy if she could just visit the baby. Unless if you think the Foster family wouldn't like that…"

"No, no, I don't think they would mind. It's just not really seen as much…"

"My sergeant isn't like the others," Montserrat subtly insisted.

Miss Carlisle looked around the hallway that was pretty empty save for them. "Well...I suppose it wouldn't hurt anyone. Would you have time to come by my office?"

"Of course," Montserrat smiled and gestured for her to lead the way out.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Cassandra Jenkins Interview: What I’m Dealing With

BY JORDAN MAINZER

I’ll always remember where I was when I found out David Berman died: on the highway, driving back from a beautiful hike in Southern Illinois, unable to pull over and look up exactly what happened, instead occupied by my own thoughts. Singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins processed his death in a similar mind’s isolation, though she was closer to Berman than many. Set to play in his Purple Mountains band and finding herself mourning and grieving mere days later, she had to make a change. Her old songs didn’t feel appropriate; she had to write about her loss. She got on a plane to Norway and starting writing what would become An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, her remarkable new record out next Friday on Ba Da Bing! Records.

An Overview on Phenomenal Nature is not so much a record about Berman’s death as it is one about processing things that are out of your control. Yes, he’s mentioned by name, and Jenkins’ self-described “diaristic” details refer to her story, like on “Ambiguous Norway”, where her Purple Mountains tour outfit comes in the mail and she looks at it wondering what could have been. But the album’s a document of a period in Jenkins’ life rife with general change and her responses to it. Knowing she’d need some songs she could feel good getting up and singing for an opening tour for The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, after writing in Norway, Jenkins returned to New York to flesh out the new tunes with multi-instrumentalist, producer, and engineer Josh Kaufman. The songs are rich, but simple, leaving space for Jenkins’ matter-of-fact singing and storytelling with efficient instrumentation. On “New Bikini”, she considers how much immersing oneself in nature as a healing force really helps, thinking out loud about Berman over acoustic strumming and Stuart Bogie’s layered saxophone. “Michelangelo” is an alt-country ripper about the eternal limbo of dealing with trauma, Jenkins comparing it to a virus (“Treatable, not curable”). The epic “Hard Drive” starts with a voice memo of a tour at The Met Breuer as Jenkins reflects on different people in her life that have affected her, big and small, spoken word over Bogie’s sax; “The mind is just a hard drive,” she posits, storing information, unknowing of when a small moment might just turn profound. It’s these small moments--interactions with strangers, birdwatching in Central Park--that pepper An Overview on Phenomenal Nature and simultaneously prove to be further artistic fodder for Jenkins, a sort of symbiotic relationship of inspiration.

When I call Jenkins from her home in upstate New York, it’s clear she’s still embracing these small moments, especially as ways to cope with the push-pull of change. She had just come back from a walk in the woods and was considering going again after we were finished. “Walking has been the thing that gets me through everything right now, especially if you can find a little patch of nature wherever you are,” she said. Gearing up to release an album after being in essential isolation for a year due to COVID-19, Jenkins released “Hard Drive” on January 20th and was surprised by its rapturous response, as it landed on best-of-the-month lists and garnering a coveted Pitchfork Best New Track designation. Now, she’s receiving a slew of interview and live stream performance requests, balancing between being outwardly social and retreating to her isolation. She gets through it with her walks, and talking to friends, including those who work at Ba Da Bing!, fully aware that the significance of any given instant may or may not immediately present itself.

Read my conversation with Jenkins below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: Is it weird to put out a new record at this moment in time?

Cassandra Jenkins: It is very weird, [but] I’m very fortunate. There’s no part of me that’s bummed out that my record is coming out during COVID. It’s really the opposite--this is the most I’ve been in touch with people this entire time. It’s so nice to be feeling connected to people through my music. I feel like this record is different than my other records. I don’t feel precious about it. It has launching pads for conversations. We’ve put out two songs so far, and it’s reached more people than I thought it would ever reach--it’s been really wonderful but also overwhelming, to go from spending all of my time very alone, in complete solitude, to hearing from a lot of people in my life I admire and who I feel shy around because I look up to them so much. I’m having this very strange cognitive dissonance of being totally alone and getting really comfortable with that, to talking to a lot of people. It’s sort of like being in two completely different gears at once.

SILY: Was it the Pitchfork review of “Hard Drive” that caused a lot of that?

CJ: Yeah. I blame Pitchfork. [laughs]. Those rascals! They’re blowing up my solitude. But yeah, Pitchfork was very unexpected, especially right now. I was set to put this [album] out in the spring [of 2020] on Bandcamp. But I’m thankful that this record is coming out at this moment in time. A lot of the record is about processing a difficult moment in my life. I think a lot of people are in that moment in their lives for a lot of different reasons. Oddly, though it’s very personal, it seems to be resonating with people. Had I talked to you a week ago, I think it would have been a different conversation. But the music stays the same. I’m feeling really excited by it but overwhelmed by any amount of attention, to be honest. Hearing from a few friends would be overwhelming at this point because I’m so alone. [laughs] I can’t underline that enough. We all are. It’s bizarre.

SILY: David Berman’s death was the catalyst for this record, but is it the focal point of the loss that comprises the record? Or did it inspire you to reflect on past losses and trauma?

CJ: That’s a good question. While it’s the catalyst, I wouldn’t say it’s the center of the record. It’s what launched me into this moment in my life, where I thought things were gonna be one way, and then they were not. And then they changed again. And then they changed again. A lot of rapid change in my life, and writing the record was partly out of necessity. I was planning on going on tour with the Purple Mountains band, coming home, and then going on another tour opening for Craig Finn. I was gonna play my songs I had in the bag. Once my tour got cancelled, I couldn’t play my old songs anymore. I’m really obsessed with Tig Notaro, and I heard her talk about what it was like getting a breast cancer diagnosis, and getting up on stage telling [old jokes], she just couldn’t do it. She had no choice but to write about what she’s going through. I’ve listened to her so much through this pandemic because I find her spirit and general approach really inspiring. In a similar way, I had that moment in my life, too, where I was like, “I can’t get up here and play these songs anymore.” So I wrote it all really quickly, partly so I could go on tour and sing songs I could actually sing. I tried--I booked a show at one point a month after [Berman’s death], in September, and I tried to play my songs and ended up completely abandoning them and doing this weird, pseudo stand-up set. [laughs] It was definitely not good, and after that show, I was like, “I definitely cannot get up and do this every night on tour.” I really respect Craig, and I’m not gonna open his shows this way. I had to write new songs. I have this thing, which is a tour, and what I’m doing on this tour is singing songs, and I need that, so I’m gonna make new songs.

SILY: Did you do stripped down, acoustic versions of these tracks from this record, opening for Craig?

CJ: Yes. And Craig has a great saxophonist in his band, Nelson Devereaux. Usually, it’s Stuart who plays on the record, but this was this [Nelson], and he ended up joining me for my set near the end of the tour. I usually end up playing things a little differently every night. I’ve never been too streamlined about what I do. I like staying on my toes. Usually, by the end of the tour, I’ve collected a musician or two playing with me. I was glad to have a saxophonist, because these songs have a lot of saxophone.

SILY: There are a lot of biographical moments and specific references to David on here and what happened. In the songwriting, how did you balance those more concrete moments with broader metaphors about what you were going through?

CJ: Except for “Michelangelo”, which was the only song I had worked on before, so it’s kind of an outlier, I was pulling from my journal and from my song journal and voice memos. Things I had written on scrap paper and on the subway on the way to the studio. It was very much a sound art kind of process of pulling together pieces and fragments of a lot of different moments from a very short period of my life. I was really just processing what I had been through, and what I had been through was this brush with playing with a band that was a dream come true and meeting this person I felt immediately attached to. It was strange to only know him for 4 days and have so much of my life really change. Total strangers can have that effect on me. I think that’s what I was taking away from a lot of my observations at the time: You can have very brief encounters with people that will dramatically change how you see the world. It’s a chemistry that can happen if you’re in the right mindset. They [can] say something to you that can be transformative. I’m not always looking for that. I walk into it. It’s really profound, and they’re not really trying to do that. David is one of those people, and he’s so much more than that. It’s very strange to be writing about someone who was such a brilliant writer and feeling, “I don’t feel like I have any business writing about this person, except in the way they affected me.” That’s my experience, and that’s my experience alone. I can write about that experience, but it still felt strange at the end of the day with anything outside of my direct experience of this person, because it feels really silly to think about approaching him or his work any other way. 

SILY: The emotional centerpiece of the record to me is “Ambiguous Norway”. You reference your tour outfit coming in the mail, and you’re never able to use it.

CJ: It was super weird. We all wore our suits to some of the memorials that happened

SILY: There’s a line on there that sounds like something David would have written: “The poetry, it’s not lost on me / I’m left asking how it found me.” I was interviewing someone else yesterday who had an album coming out about various types of loss, and on it, she questions how much meaning there is in loss. At what point do you stop trying to find meaning in it and accept the chaos or randomness of it? Is that something you were thinking about here?

CJ: Yeah! I feel totally inadequate so much of the time with language. It feels impossible to translate the bizarre and exquisite experiences and naturally occurring events in my life that might be brief and fleeting. How do you encapsulate that in language? It feels impossible. It’s just everywhere around me, and it will go just as quickly as it came. Sometimes, grief and loss, which may not have inherent meaning, can activate a certain way of seeing in us that allows us to see meaning everywhere, and it’s this manic, supercharged way of looking for meaning in everything. I’ve had other tragic losses in my life in the past. I remember a high school friend’s mother came to me at a funeral once and came to me and said, “There’s nothing like someone dying to make you feel alive.” There’s that element of it that turns you on to things in a heightened way. I was in that heightened mourning space and also travelling. When I got home, I felt like I was seeing everything through the lens of a traveler, observing my surroundings with so much more open space. It reminds me of reading Michael Pollan’s book on How to Change Your Mind. [When you take psychedelics], your inhibitors are knocked down in this new way. Extreme experiences like grief and loss can have that effect as much as they can also be painful. I think I was just in that space of seeing meaning and seeing connections between things and feeling blown away and not knowing what to do with them. I was like, “I am just gonna let this wash over me.” Only I can really see this harmony, and it’s pointless to explain it to someone else. It feels like I’m the only one that can make sense of it in a particular way and feel tickled by it, for lack of a better word. To feel a sensation of two things coming together in front of you.

One thing I was thinking about was this conversation I had with someone when I was out in Norway. Here I am, sitting on a dock by myself, almost at the edge of the ocean. I was writing my journal about my experience with David--it hadn’t even been a week. This Danish fellow rolls up and starts talking to me about clouds and how in Denmark, the cloud formations there look like mountains, partly because they don’t have a mountainous landscape, so they get to have the mountain feeling from the clouds. He said it in a much more poetic way, but I was thinking, “This guy doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I’ve gone through. Here he is talking about mountains turning into clouds, and David’s middle name is Cloud. Like, what?” Then Katie Von Schleicher texted me this cartoon that David had done. It was the drawing of a house that said “Ambiguous Norway” at the bottom. In the middle of having this uncanny conversation with a stranger, and she sends me this cartoon, it’s all this swirling stuff. I was really overwhelmed, but it was really funny, also. I felt like I didn’t know what to do with any of it, and I was writing it all down, but feeling like I was always falling short. It was isolating, but I didn’t feel alone--I was dissolving into whatever atmosphere and landscape I was in.

SILY: Your mention of the stranger reminds me of the line in “Crosshairs”: “All I want is to fall apart in the arms of someone entirely strange to me.” Of course, post-COVID, people might look at that line and think you might miss being around people.

CJ: I thought about that. It could totally read that way now!

SILY: You also have the line about a virus on “Michelangelo”.

CJ: That freaked me out, too. It does feel strangely prescient. I felt squeamish putting out a song like that. Right before COVID hit, the last performance I saw was Renee Fleming singing Bjork’s "Virus” with an orchestra. It was so beautiful and so surreal. It’s not the first time that someone’s dropped a metaphor about a virus in the song, but it’s still weird it’s on there.

SILY: Is it possible to understand this record without knowing the context?

CJ: I hope so. It’s strangely diaristic. I’ve always thought that we should be able to appreciate any art, whether a watercolor or a piece of music, without knowing the context. There are works of art that of course are incredible when you appreciate everything around them, like the footnotes of T.S. Eliot. Reading it for the first time, and how much context there is, this deep web, and how great it is to get into that person’s world and mind. But I appreciate art most when you can walk up to it and appreciate it as is, and learning more about it might deepen your appreciation if you’re curious. The fact that something deeply personal can be appreciated without context, if it’s coming from a real place. I’m embarrassed to think that it would have to be dependent on the context. I hope there’s both a reverence for the experience I went through as well as realizing there’s one of many experiences, and maybe the experience I had of running into someone at the farmer’s market can be at equal weight when thinking about our lives and the way we take things in.

SILY: We haven’t yet touched on the instrumentation of the record; it’s so layered and beautiful. How did you and Josh approach complementing your words with arrangements and instrumentation?

CJ: That was very intuitive. Josh is an incredible musician. We were just playing with stuff in the studio. We knew we wanted to get Stuart Bogie in there on the saxophone, and he also plays the flute. It’s actually kind of a stripped down record compared to my last one. I thought I was gonna go into the studio and walk out with an acoustic guitar and a vocal, and that would be the record. But we started playing with things, and Josh was playing with things while I was on my way to the studio in the morning, and suddenly there’s fretless bass on it! We’re both like, “Man, I love that!” It was never going in with an expectation and working with someone who I really trust. Josh and I really worked on these songs together. It was always guided by a lyric and a lyrical structure already in place. It kind of reminded me of working with soft clay: taking something out, putting something in. Versus walking in with a slab of marble and chipping away at it, which my last record was a little bit more like.

SILY: “Michelangelo” was started before this record, but I really am intrigued by the contrast you pose in it about the three-legged dog in the song: “Looking for what I lost” versus “Working with what I got.” Do you think that dichotomy is exemplary of the entire record?

CJ: That’s funny. I didn’t think of those things as being on polar sides of the spectrum. It’s a metaphor that’s kind of funny to me, because it falls apart when you see a three-legged dog. They’re not looking for what they lost. They’ve adjusted their gait. They’re such a beautiful model for what it is to lose something, work around it, and build balance. They do that naturally in their physiology and psychology, and they’re playing frisbee just like every other dog as if nothing happened. Of course, some of them do have mobility issues--I’ve met a few more [of those] recently. But it’s the human experience to add so much aversion to any feeling of loss. You have that analogy of getting shot with an arrow, and it’s often in our nature to shoot another arrow into the same wound by saying, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I was shot by an arrow,” instead of mending to it.

I have some medical issues, and I often am really frustrated by feeling like I’m handicapped. All of us have to face at some point or another the limitations of our bodies. To feel, “This is what I’m dealing with.” I can either be frustrated that I’m not a perfect specimen, or I can work with it. I can be myself and just enjoy that self as long as I get to live on this earth, amidst all this chaos and imperfection and wonder. That’s what “Michelangelo” is about for me, and feeling similarly about trauma. “Gosh, if I hadn’t had this traumatic experience as a child, maybe I’d be President of the United States by now, but instead I have all these bad habits because I have this deep, limiting self-belief.” But coming back, I’m like, “My trauma is actually a portal for me to connect with people and myself and get closer to a more universal experience. That’s a great gift, and I have to work with that.” That whole song is me being, “God damnit, why am I imperfect in this way?” but it’s actually the thing that will teach me more than anything.

SILY: On “New Bikini”, you sing a lot about the water. Do you find the water to be a particularly healing thing to be in or by?

CJ: Yeah. I was born right next to the ocean. [But] that song is not totally sincere. It’s a little bit of me collecting advice from people that at times brought me solace and at times was frustrating. It’s like, “Hey, get in the ocean, it will make you feel better!” “Yeah, but it’s not gonna bring someone back from the dead, and it’s not gonna fix my DNA, and it’s not gonna heal this person.” At the same time, it’s going to help me. I’m taking mineral salt baths every night and finding them to be really healing for my nervous system and thinking about that song. [laughs] I also ironically got very sick on contaminated water at the very beginning of 2020 and hated that song for a minute, as I was feeling really dejected about water. When I play that song on tour, I love that there were people in the audience who heard it, and came up to me after the show and said, “I never feel better than I do when I’m by the ocean. Thank you. I love being by the water, and that song took me there, even though we’re in Dallas.” This middle-aged woman was able to think about her really good time being at the beach. [And I’m thinking,] “I’m happy this is a space for you that you can access and that we can access together.”

SILY: When did you realize you wanted to release “Hard Drive” on Inauguration Day?

CJ: It was logical timing for when the release date was, and I saw it was on Inauguration Day and questioned whether it was a good idea. But it is a good idea because the song embraces change and struggle and a moment of time where we can pause and breathe because there’s change happening. It’s been a tough time for a lot of people. If we can talk about that, then great! It was really nice on Inauguration Day to have a song come out and not really pay attention to it. I actually felt, “All of America is having the same experience right now.” Really, the whole world is looking on. To get to experience again, very alone, a universal experience, watching the shift of power happen. I’m not really sure I love attention--I think I’ve always been way more comfortable not having attention--so I really loved, “Hey, here’s this song, gotta go, let’s watch the President now!” There was something about that moment. That people got to hear it days after the Inauguration because the type of people that gravitate towards my music were experiencing a collective relief. We could actually take a breath. So it may have reached people in a way it might not have otherwise. I didn’t realize how much it would be felt or how much I’d be feeling that day. I cried a lot that day. I think a lot of people did.

SILY: Is “Hailey” named after the actress you mention in the song, Hailey Gates?

CJ: [laughs] Yeah. I had a song called “Halley” on my last record, and I wanted to make a follow-up Halley. Halley 2.0. The other one was written by my friend Ian, and it’s a love song for the comet. So I figured I would write a love song for Hailey Gates. She’s a friend of mine and is someone I’ve often thought of when I’m going through a difficult moment, like, “You know what? That woman is so incredibly powerful in everything she does.” I look up to her so much, and I don’t think she really knows how much I look up to her. When I got really sick from drinking contaminated water, I would think that Hailey was a reporter for several years of her life, traveling, getting food poisoning, and still managing to get her message across with such grace and gusto. She has a real grit to her I admire. Grit is something that I look for in people. The fact that she has that and is also stunningly beautiful and very feminine is a cool model. I also like the challenge of writing a platonic love song and writing about another woman and letting it be about celebrating someone. In the end, it was nice to have this contrast: Mourning, but celebrating people who are alive and inspire us while we’re here. I feel kind of bad: if someone wrote that song about me, I’d be really embarrassed. I felt a little bit of shyness about it. But I hope it’s just a sweet way to celebrate women in general, and she’s sort of my mascot in that moment. Women who are really smart and powerful and have this gentleness about them as well. She’s got all these qualities that are really striking. She’s a really brilliant person. She deserves to have a million songs written about her. I’m probably one of many.

SILY: Has she heard yours?

CJ: [laughs] Yeah, she has. I think she got embarrassed. I finally sent it to her a few weeks ago, and was like, “Hey, I’m putting out a record and wrote a song about you, I hope that’s okay.” She said she was really honored to be on the record. I also reached out to Lola Kirke, and she joked, “Why didn’t I get a song about me? I just got a mention on ‘Hard Drive’.”

SILY: In the lyrics sheet for [instrumental] “The Ramble”, you have a link to a YouTube video of Chris Cooper birding in Central Park.

CJ: The Ramble is a place I went very much every day at the beginning of the pandemic. I was really saddened by the story of Chris Cooper but really impressed by the way that he handled it. I really thought of him as a role model for how we can handle intolerance. There are a lot of ways to handle intolerance and ignorance, and the way that he handled ignorance in that moment I thought was so beautiful. That interview with him is great because it’s really more about him and how he relates to birding and what a great person he is as opposed to the hatred we could walk away from the story with. He really shifted the emphasis away from behavior that was ignorant and racist towards a conversation of tolerance. He exemplified that. It’s rare you see that. I found him to be really inspiring. That’s one of so many things that happens in “The Ramble”. It was added later on. I recorded “The Ramble” when a lot of the protests were happening in New York. I went from being in The Ramble [alone] every day and birdwatching, which is something I do in a meditative way that really grounds me...to me going to some of the protests. I watched Central Park really transform into this place of progress, I guess, but it also has this life at night, known for nefarious things like drug deals, sex. It’s this wild place that I was starting to see as my sanctuary. When I saw the Chris Cooper story come out, it really saddened me, because the birding community was something I thought of as untouched. It’s so pure and beautiful. I’d seen Chris many times, and I was really sad someone treated him the way they did, and to see how in that moment that story became really important because there was a broader story happening in the public eye. He had this moment to be himself.

So “The Ramble” isn’t as much about him as about me wandering. Janet Cardiff is an artist I really love. She has a Central Park walk you can go on. It’s an audio guide that she made. It’s a poetic collage of songs and history. It really transforms the way you hear. I originally recorded my own binaural audio guide to The Ramble and ended up taking it out. I realized, “Ok, this is an album and there might be someone in Australia listening to it. How can they enjoy this walk? It’s probably better without me narrating how to walk in the space.” But it originally had this timed narrative with a start and end where you’d go on a walk with me. The ghost of that narration is there, and it’s ended up instead a spatial experience--hopefully.

SILY: The record ends with these two lighter tracks, a tribute to a friend and to a place. Was it important for you to order the album such that you talk about the loss in the beginning but it ends on this different note?

CJ: Definitely with “The Ramble”. I made every other song before COVID. I wanted “The Ramble” to exemplify how much life has changed for everyone since these songs were written. I wanted to bring it into the world we’re in now. And I want to bring it into a world with peace and hope in it. Those are two big words that are corny sounding, but I want there to be a moment for you to find peace and tranquility in a world of chaos. It is still there, and it’s okay for you to take that for yourself. Not only can we find that peace within ourselves, but we can find beauty in it and admire our surroundings. We can still appreciate everything we’re given, even in a total crisis. The Ramble was a place for me where I’d find that every day. I’d wake up at 5 in the morning every day and look at birds and feel myself vanishing in that landscape in this tiny corner of nature. I wanted to leave everyone on that note: Nature is gonna figure this out. It’s gonna take over and come in through the cracks in the sidewalk. If I can end the record with the dandelion coming through the cracks in the sidewalk, I’d like it to be there.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

CJ: That’s by my friend [Ole Brodersen]. He thought it was an interesting photograph. He’s the one in “New Bikini” that I’m visiting and he left me a post-it note that said, “Get in the water, it cures everything.” He’s a good friend of mine. We visit each other every few years. I love his work; he’s an incredible photographer and has a large-format photography darkroom he created, on an island, off the coast of Norway. In this photograph, he uses long exposures and kites. He plays with light in natural landscapes around where he lives, with this kind of unknown element in a really static environment. It’s hard for me to speak for him, but he likes to have a lot of control over his photography, and this beautiful landscape is his origin, and there’s this element of an unknown variable in all of his photographs. I looked at that photo as a beautiful example of what I’m talking about in “Ambiguous Norway”. It’s almost like there’s this intangible spirit that’s this element of poetry in the air that you can’t quite identify what it is. It’s almost a literal interpretation of that, where you see this floating magical orb in the middle.

He was such a wonderful host. When he wanted to give his partner a gift--he wanted to give her a down pillow--he shot the ducks himself, created the down pillow, and I ended up eating a bone broth made out of the bones of those ducks at some point in his house. I was like, “This is really living in your environment and thinking about the way you interact with people and objects and your environment around you.” If I can touch a fraction of that, I’m doing great.

SILY: Are you planning on playing these songs live?

CJ: I am getting a lot of calls now to do stuff online. I would love to play with a band in real life. I think about it every day. I didn’t realize how much I was going to miss playing live. I can’t wait to put a band together. I have all these different fantasy leagues in my head of which band I’d want to bring with me on tour. If this record has any kind of positive reception, I’d love to be able to pay my band really well, finally, after years of not being able to and my friends coming on tour with me because we like being with each other. I realize I can’t do that forever, and we need to make a living. That would be so great. It’s a dream of mine.

SILY: Have you thought about how you’re adapting the songs to the stage? Or is that dependent on the configuration of the band?

CJ: I think the songs are pretty flexible. “New Bikini” is only 2 chords. The songs themselves are really simple. My last record has fancy stuff. This one is “A” and “B” and that’s the whole song! I love songs where it doesn’t matter who is there and what instruments are playing, as long as we listen to each other, the song will just flow. It’ll depend on whether I’m opening for someone, how much I can afford, what feels good in the moment. I think they’re gonna take their own shape.

SILY: Is there anything else next for you in the short or long term future?

CJ: I have to be honest. I’m having a lot of anxiety because I feel like when I’m able to do things again, I’m not really ready for that yet. But I’m going to be. I feel like there are certain dreams I have about getting to play music. I’m working towards being capable of seeing those dreams come true. I hope that my health is in a good place and my mental health is in a good place. It’s been a really hard year for all of us, and I want to make sure I can be easy on myself as I ease back into the world. As much as I want to go to a party, I actually will need a lot of gradual time to ease back into the world again and process the path. We’re all going through a lot right now.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to or reading or watching lately?

CJ: I’m reading a book called The Peregrine. It’s one of Werner Herzog’s favorite books. It’s really cool. The author is English, and he’s studying birds to the extent that he almost becomes them. He talks about transmutation of landscapes and clouds and birds in a way that I was like, “Oh my god! He’s drinking the same tea I am.” But he takes it to an extreme degree where he’s questioning his sanity--and you might be questioning mine, too, at this point. [laughs]

I was just listening to Caroline Shaw. I’ve been listening to Tig Notaro’s podcast. I wait for it every week. It comes out every Wednesday, so today was my lucky day. [laughs]

[f1chronicle]

Dear Mr. Mark Webber- Max Verstappen Doesn’t Have To Be Lewis Hamilton!

Does Max Verstappen have to be Lewis Hamilton? What a random statement, right? The way it seems, Mark Webber is popular as Aussie Grit. It’s a sobriquet he earned, never asked for. When the famous driver from Queanbeyan was an active FORMULA 1 driver, there was one thing that did set him apart from the rest, not to mention, that ability to focus on the race and just race alone.

He’d talk less and perform more on the grid. But, hey wait! Did that make Mark Webber a world champion?

Hardly.

Despite competing in the highest annals of Motor Racing for over a decade driving for no fewer than six consecutive seasons with Red Bull, the former FORMULA 1 driver didn’t exactly come agonisingly close- or did he- to a world title.

Well, unless one’s determined to count his 242 points (with Red Bull) in 2011 to that seaon’s world champion Vettel’s 256 (also with Red Bull) an incredibly close margin- but would you?

Yet, Webber- nine wins, make no mistake- has made a headline recently, one that seems to offer a glimpse at what becomes of former FORMULA 1 drivers when they are either too idle or not in the tune with reality.

Has Mark Webber caused me harm. Heck, no! He surely has better things to do in life such as exchanging pleasantries with the Australian Men’s cricket team’s coach Justin Langer about Martial Arts.

Both Aussies, it’s common knowledge, are gifted in the same incredible art where Jean Claude Van Damme has made some very retired movies (with all due respect to the great Muscles from Brussels).

But Mr. Webber when you say that a Max Verstappen and I quote you here, “Is he (Verstappen) already Lewis on Sunday? No, he is not,” what do you even mean?

This precisely leads me to a question whose time has come, if only after 250 words:

Does Max Verstappen have to be Lewis Hamilton?

If so, what’s Lewis Hamilton doing then? Imagine what good grief might two Lewis Hamilton’s cause the very grid where tackling one is hard enough? In 2020 alone, Hamilton won ten races.

Surely, you didn’t mean Max to become Lewis, but obviously, right? On the contrary, you were actually alluding to the lack of consistency shown by Max Verstappen- the youngest pole-sitter aged 17 years, 166 days- when compared to Lewis Hamilton.

Fair enough.

But ever wondered about that thing called race-craft, sir? Does that not carry the DNA of one’s psyche or that thing called mental make-up?

Truth be told, the moment I’d say “we are all different and hence our different levels of performances,” you’d either go off to sleep or slap me. Wait actually, you’d reserve that for ‘Ubermensch’ Seb (Malaysia, 2013).

Such a cliche!

But it doesn’t require one Einstein-esque grey matter to note that no FORMULA 1 driver is the same. On race day, things happen. It’s a combination of various factors- but obviously- one of which is the way a driver competes, rather to put it succinctly, “attacks!”

Your suggestion that Max Verstappen is not on the same level as Lewis Hamilton, a seven time world champion, a driver twelve years his senior isn’t bigoted but is incredibly lame.

For starters, Lewis Hamilton has no match.

The only one who came close to Lewis Hamilton is the driver whom record Stevenage’s great son recently drew level with. In Germany, they consider him Das Beste or the best, everywhere else, he’s still considered the King!

Purely on race entries, Hamilton’s beaten more drivers than Max Verstappen has probably competed online with. And trust me, I have no idea whether Lando’s done more E racing or Charles.

Truth still is, the comparison that you ended up making- albeit only when asked- reads:

Lewis Hamilton: 266 race entries, 95 wins, 98 poles, 165 podiums, Seven World Titles

Max Verstappen: 119 entries, 10 wins, 42 podiums, 0 world titles.

The above includes nothing on these driver’s personalities, that important arsenal that ultimately plays a key role in winning and losing races.

Should you wish this Motorsport fan recount it for you, this remember is someone who’s been as many times inside an F1 car as you’ve won world titles, I’d love to draw your attention to:

Hamilton– focused, aggressive but doesn’t lose his sh*t, mighty consistent, ability to mentally seize up the opponent (we’ve seen Rosberg, we are seeing how hard it is for Valtteri), aware of the advantages of the car and what his own experience brings.

Verstappen– resilient, rabid, super aggressive, consistent in quali (by your admission), aware of his talent and the fact that the machinery he’s been aligned with isn’t the same level as Mercedes.

That said, fair to remember when Lewis Hamilton entered the sport, Max Verstappen was ten.

Today, thirteen years since Lewis first unfurled ‘Hammertime’ by winning the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, he’s found a competitor, who is, at least, trying to muster up a fight. Did Verstappen not win the final race of the year from pole, in the process of which he led every single lap?

And make no mistake Mr. Webber, this is what a certain Charles Leclerc was doing too in 2019: competing and pushing Lewis.

Fact is, if you got to beat Lewis Hamilton in his own game- and heck, he’s nearly owned FORMULA 1 by demonstrating mesmeric consistency- you’ll need not just the car but the experience and not to mention, the mind-set.

And that’s the key differentiator for me.

We are all hardwired differently which is why we respond to challenges differently.

2019 German Grand Prix, Sunday – Max Verstappen (image courtesy Red Bull Racing)

Hamilton is spurred by the innate desire to improve and get better each time he gets inside that car. It’s not that he’s not faced heat or been found wanting. But see how he reacts even when the odds go against his favour.

The 70th Anniversary Grand Prix- won by Verstappen eventually- saw Hamilton winning on three wheels. Did you see that?

That’s all it takes- not losing your composure and finding that positivity somehow. And speaking of not losing one’s cool, there’s also a certain Kimi Matias Raikkonen who kept his whilst many beside him were losing theirs at the Abu Dhabi GP 2012. You were in that race right sir?

Now Max Verstappen, on the other hand, responds differently to situations. In a seemingly Senna-esque fashion: be bold, brave and go for the chance if it’s there- Max takes his chance.

Call it age, call it irrational exuberance, but Max won’t relent. Just like he didn’t at the Turkish GP knowing well that pushing extra hard on getting past Bottas would compromise his tyres and see the outcome?

As a matter of fact, did Charles- vastly respected already- not push a bit too aggressively at Monza 2019? Who are the black and white flags waved for back when a young man beat Hamilton in his own game?

Max Verstappen or Charles Leclerc?

So my problem with drivers like you sir and no you haven’t borrowed a dime from me, in fact, I keenly await my salary for the month is this:

Why is Max Verstappen being compared to Hamilton when there’s little need?

Surely Albon’s priceless podiums in 2020 were brilliant news for a team that put its faith in a driver who isn’t considered all too great at the moment. But, who kept Red Bull in the fight?

Incidentally, who beat Valtteri Bottas driving a Red Bull when the Finn, usually hired to win, as they say (not that Raikkonen would care) was in a Mercedes?

We know how this has panned out in the past too whenever the subject of being in the same league as Lewis has arrived.

Nico- Brittany to some, world champion to many others- was the last guy to defeat the incredible Briton. But which other FORMULA 1 loose wheel nut has managed to keep his sanity in check ever since Nico packed his bags and left?

If Max is not on the same level as Hamilton- then so is every other driver who has the capability and perhaps competent machinery, if not the greatest package designed ever to overcome a Mercedes.

This year alone, there were more cars that nearly matched the RB 16- Racing Point’s RP 20 (second-hand Mercedes, shall we?), the MCL 35, and the RS 20 (or shall one say, the cause of Cyril Abiteboul’s possible upcoming tattoo)- than there are wins in your entire career.

That you don’t get it probably explains why you are making strange headlines nowadays unlike the fine stint with the FIA World Endurance Championship.

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