#and there Andrea is across the row from me and there she goes

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

Short short shorts and long long socks

And the annoying guy who makes you put them on so he can reach in them and touch your thighs

[ao3theskyisblue]

Counting Time

Summary:

“Son.”

TK lifts his head slowly from where he had been tracing mindless shapes onto Carlos’ hand to stare up at Gabriel blankly. His soon-to-be father-in-law was smiling at him kindly, but TK could see the way it wavered.

“You should get some rest."

"I'm fine."

Written for Day 5 of @911lonestarangstweek : Recovery + “The only person I need right now is you.” 

(A continuation from the little uh...je ne sais quoi on Day 3)

Read on AO3

There are 10,537 dots on the ground.

12.5 per tile, with an occasional special individual sporting 14.

All those were approximate guesses, his eyes never straying away too long from how they were glued on to the person lying supine – and so still – on the hospital bed. Though, he hasn’t moved much himself.

The two times he had was when the heart monitor picked up speed before settling down, and each time TK felt his heart quicken at the anticipation before dropping back down to the ground when it was just a false alarm. His hands once again clenched tightly around the one lying limp beside the figure on the bed, the only warmth emitting from the places he’s touched.

He didn’t need to feel the other one to know it was likely cold to the touch, and focused on the warmth from the one he could feel right now.

Picking at the drawstrings of his yellow hoodie with his one free hand, he knew his fingers were turning pruney from squeezing and rubbing on the course material. He couldn’t remember how exactly he had even gotten changed, and only knew when each day had passed when the same nurse working the morning shift greeted him quietly. There was always a tray of food or a bag of take-out placed in front of him every so often, but he wasn’t keeping track of how much time had passed between each delivery.

The only reason he hadn’t collapsed by now was probably because of his father and Andrea. The only two people that could get him to hold onto something materialistic and gently guide it to his mouth, encouraging him to take small bites and swallow, before washing it down with water.  

“Son.”

TK lifts his head slowly from where he had been tracing mindless shapes onto Carlos’ hand to stare up at Gabriel blankly. His soon-to-be father-in-law was smiling at him kindly, but TK could see the way it wavered.

“You should get some rest. I’ll keep watch and let you know the second anything changes.” Gabriel says softly, but TK just shakes his head like he has the past three days.

“I’m fine.” His voice comes out scratchy, hollow, and he looks back to the comatose figure as Gabriel sighs.

“TK–”

“He might disappear if I close my eyes,” TK could barely get the words out from the shudder that ripples through his body at the reminder, his thoughts an originally blank canvas now filling with only the last few moments of that day, playing in repeat. He holds Carlos’ hand with both of his now, eyes peeled open to catch the slightest movement beneath the closed eyelids. “I won’t– I won’t let him disappear.”

He hears light footsteps that stop in the doorway, and quiet words being exchanged that he couldn’t find it in himself to tune into. Swiping a thumb slowly over Carlos’ wrist, he pauses at his pulse point to feel for any change, the monitors turning into mere background noise after the first day.

“We won’t let him disappear, either.”

TK feels the familiar stinging in his eyes at the tears that just refused to fall when a comforting hand carded through his hair, feeling himself leaning into the soothing gesture. He knows Andrea has pulled up a chair to sit beside him when he feels an arm brushing against his on the seat handles.

“I promise, that when you wake up, he’ll still be here.” Andrea murmurs, and TK knows he shouldn’t believe the open promise that could tear his heart to shreds at any moment, but he wants to.

Oh, did he want to.

“After you get some rest, you can keep watch again.” Gabriel adds gently, sitting on a chair on the opposite side of the bed, exchanging a look with Andrea. This time, when hands slowly pulled him in, he didn’t fight them as he allowed his head to be laid delicately on a warm shoulder. He can smell the sweetness of flowers from the garden on the Reyes family ranch, along with the hint of spices from the kitchen.

There’s a light kiss on his forehead, and TK feels his eyes starting to droop from the exhaustion he’s refused to give into for the past three days. It had been so easy to forgo sleep – the all-consuming fear that gripped him every time he realized that shutting his eyes for just a second might mean he never saw the love of his life ever again outplayed everything else.

“We’ll all still be here when you wake up, sweetheart.”

And those are the last words he hears before succumbing to the darkness.

.

He begins to engage more in conversation the more he stays at the hospital. After numerous visits from the doctors, nurses, and the chief of surgery, TK finally feels safe enough to leave for a quick shower before coming back.

“-and then, he just jumps! Real talk, I have seen my fair share of crazy on the force, but never have I actually seen someone scale a house because the suspect decides roofs are the new concrete flooring. He just grabs a nearby streetlamp and roundhouse kicks the perp and by the time I catch up he’s already got him in handcuffs and begging for his mother.” TK could feel the faintest smile on his lips when Mitchell finishes the story, hearing his team chuckling around him.

“He literally chased someone across a rooftop?” Paul was staring at her in disbelief, stance relaxed as he leaned against the wall, glancing at Carlos who was currently very unaware of the little fireside storytime that was happening around him.

“Across multiple rooftops. The dude did multiple running long jumps.”

“You’re kidding.”

They had just gotten off shift, with some of them having the day off. TK hadn’t expected them to show up at the hospital one by one like a trail of ducklings, especially considering they had already been visiting quite frequently all the other days too. It spoke volumes, and TK felt a familiar pressure building up behind his eyes when Nancy was the next one up to tell her piece.

“Okay so, this had to be…a year in, and since Michelle and him are best buddies, Tim and I hung out with him outside of work quite often.” TK reached out to squeeze her arm comfortingly when her voice shook on Tim’s name. She turned to smile at him, squeezing his hand back with a knowing look in her eyes when he didn’t have the words to say anything.

“We were so sure that he was this quiet albeit kind, and reserved guy. He was always so polite and put together.” Nancy shifts to lean against him fully, and it’s a pillar of support he is undoubtfully grateful for. He can feel Marjan’s hand that hasn’t left his shoulder since they arrived, tethering him to the present.

“Well, when Tim and I got front row seats when he outright roasted this woman during a nuisance call, that was an eye-opener.” TK’s eyes widened at that, unconsciously squeezing the hand on the bed beside him.

His eyes wandered back to Carlos’ still nature, an ache pulling at him, yearning for his fiancé to open his eyes and just join in the conversation.

“Aw man, this was the call I just had to be off shift for. Grace had to fill me in after,” Judd groaned, smiling down at his wife who was grinning up at him, patting his hand on her shoulder consolingly.

“I was the dispatcher,” Grace explained, but smiled mischievously as she nodded for Nancy to continue.

“She was a frequent 911 caller too. Practically every first responder in the city knew her, but what can you do? Well, Carlos wasn’t impressed when she called in to report in an active gunman, with dispatch sending multiple units in with bulletproof vests and guns raised only for her to explain how she just thought her neighbours were too loud, and needed a scare.” Nancy pursed her lips at the end, clearly remembering how well that call went.

“Please tell me they arrested her,” Marjan raised an eyebrow, making a sound of disbelief and TK hid his smile when he heard Mateo exclaim, “The audacity.”

“Oh, they did alright. She was screaming and yelling about how useless all of us were and there were children around. She was sprouting profanities too and we were all just so lost at what to do until Carlos just struts up to the woman, pins her arms behind her back, and slaps on handcuffs.

“She’s yelling at him now, and when she goes to take a breath, he just looks at her all nonchalantly and goes ‘are you done?’

“When she starts preaching about how he has nothing to hold her over, that he can’t just go around arresting people he just casually says, ‘course I can. For making a nuisance 911 call, for being a danger to the public, and for pissing me off,’ before sticking her into the back of his cruiser. I will never forget the look on her face!” Nancy laughs, and TK is honestly at a loss for words.

“Wow. That’s impressive.” There were varying looks of shock and surprise on their faces, and TK breathes in deeply.

“It was probably the children.”

He can feel multiple pairs of eyes on him, and yet, the one pair of eyes he longs for isn’t one of them.

Looking up to meet their gazes, he offers a weak smile.  

“He’s always been attuned to how others are feeling, and those children were probably terrified.” TK says quietly. He hears hums of agreement and understanding and is grateful that none of them push him to say any more.

Just being here, was enough.

The next few hours pass by like this, with everyone swapping stories and just talking about their days. They all made sure that Carlos didn’t miss a single second of everything that had been going on, and TK feels his heart throb with how much he loves and cherishes the family they all built from the ground up.

As he lifts the limp hand to cup his cheek, blinking against the lingering mist that clouds his vision, he hopes that Carlos can feel them all here, and that they’ll all be waiting for him to finally join them.

.

“Gloria called today.”

It was past visiting hours, the hospital entering a period of rare serenity between nurses checking up on their patients every so often and the occasional new admittances. He knows he shouldn’t comment on the quietness, as saying it out loud usually jinxed the entire thing and he’s already experienced one of those in New York and would never subject anyone to that fate.

Usually, the nurses would have kicked him out, but TK would have just stayed all night in his car in the parking lot if they did. He still hadn’t set a single foot into their home, opting to go to his dad’s place for showers. He didn’t want to feel how cold the walls were as they enclosed on him and witness the lack of a warm smile and wonderous smells coming from the kitchen as his fiancé greeted him at the door with a soft kiss.

He didn’t want to see the pictures of friends and family lining their walls when the face that lit up every single one of those photographs was laying in a coma on a hospital bed.

He didn’t want to see the single pair of shoes left at the doorway, without its usual companion pair beside it.

He didn’t want to see any of it until he could see it with Carlos by his side.

The nurses had long stopped batting an eye at his presence no matter what time it was, and most of them, especially the morning shift, would always check in on him to see if there was anything he needed.

He never knew how to answer that question.

TK trails his index finger slowly up Carlos’ arm, reaching his elbow before sliding it back down. He tries for a smile, because it had been good news, but he knows all his smiles have lost their usual light.

But still, he tries.

“She managed to secure the venue we wanted, so we don’t have to keep on planning for two different ones if this one fell through. Apparently, the couple who scheduled for that day cancelled, so the place is all ours.” It still feels a little awkward talking while knowing that the person listening couldn’t answer, and continuing the conversation anyway. But he wants Carlos to know that he’s here, with more than just the tight grip he has on his hand.

“You know,” TK looks up to peer at Carlos’ slack expression, watching his chest rise and fall in time to his breathing. “I’ve never thought I could hate my blood type until they told me I couldn’t help you.”

The moment they jumped out of the ambulance and wheeled Carlos into the hospital, his pulse having stopped twice on the way, he knew the scissors hadn’t landed in a good place. He remembered looking at his captain, seeing her face draining in colour with each passing minute as Carlos would just not stop bleeding.

And then the doctors confirmed it.

He needed a liver transplant.

Not an entire liver, just a part of it to make up for the piece that he lost from the absolutely stellar aim the woman had that would never recover.

His fiancé was O negative, and he was B positive. An automatic no.

It almost makes him want to laugh, how ironic the situation was. Here he was, part of the 9% that could help cure the rarest diseases and he couldn’t even help his fiancé by giving him half of his liver. Then there was the fact that Carlos had the universal donor blood, and yet was the worst acceptor.

They truly made quite the pair.

He hated it.

Luckily, they had found a match soon after, but it was still too soon to tell the other complications that could arise. And the most important one of all was whether Carlos would wake up at all.

Someone buttoning for the nurses shakes him out of his thoughts, and for the millionth time since Carlos was first admitted to the hospital a week ago, he’s greeted with closed eyes and stillness.

TK gently runs his thumb along the dips and falls of Carlos’ knuckles, pausing at the definite bump where his engagement ring rested. They opted to get separate rings done for their line of work for safety reasons, but he knew that Carlos always wore the authentic one during desk duty or when he wasn’t out on patrol. He remembered putting on his own in the waiting room, wanting to feel a piece of him as he stared at the doors that would determine their future.

“Last I checked, a wedding takes two people.” TK whispers, biting down on his lower lip, hard, to stop the sob that threatened to burst through at the sight of their rings next to each other.

“I can’t get married by myself, you know?”

.

He goes back to work on the 12th day.

Tommy and Nancy had immediately protested, reminding him that he could take his time – that he could take all the time he needed before coming back.

But he just offered them a small smile, and signed himself in.

“He would’ve wanted me to take a walk, take a breather.” TK says quietly, swallowing past the stones lodged in his throat and looking at them fully.

“I’m taking a breather. And then I’m going back.” TK doesn’t say anything more, and Nancy and Tommy don’t push. He feels a hand squeeze his shoulder and accepts a light hug from Nancy, before they enter work mode.

He works. He stocks up the ambulance. He checks their supplies. He saves people. He gets a distraction.  

When his dad asks him if he needs a ride back, he asks to be dropped off at home for the first time.

Owen looks at him when they reach a red light, his eyes filled with concern. TK just looks straight ahead, unmoving.

“TK, you don’t have to force yourself to-”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” TK spat, suddenly feeling a burst of anger at his father’s words, knowing how that sentence was going to end.

He wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t moving on. He was moving forward.

“I’m going home, because I need to straighten the blankets on the couch. I need to tidy up the– the wedding magazines we were too tired to clean up that night, I need to wash the dishes I left in a hurry to get to work. I am going home, because I want to make sure that when he comes back, it’s to a clean place where he can relax. So he can be at ease.” TK knows he’s talking at a volume that’s way too loud for being inside a car, and he feels himself taking deep breaths, his hands shaking in his lap. He doesn’t look up, but hears his father turn on the blinker, the gravel crunching under the wheels as they make a turn.

“Okay.”

Okay.

.

It was a split second.

He’s grown so used to looking up and seeing eyes that were shut away from the world that when he looks up again a few moments later to see tired brown orbs trained on him, he almost looks away until he realizes wait-

TK shoots up from his seat, almost sending the cup of coffee beside him splattering to the ground.

He can’t speak, the words begging to come out and clawing at his throat, but he could only stare blankly as Carlos blinked, letting out a quiet groan as he slowly adjusted to the lights.

And then his medic instincts kick in.

“You’re awake. Okay. Okay, uh, water. Your throat must be dry as hell. I need to get water. And a nurse, oh my god I need to call the nurse–” He turns around frantically to locate the red button, scowling when he can’t locate it when he swears he had seen it just a few minutes ago-

“Hey,”

It’s extremely quiet, croaky, the end coming out cracked from the long period of non-use but it’s the single most beautiful thing TK has heard in his life. There’s a squeeze on the tips of his fingers, and he just realizes that he hadn’t let go of Carlos’ hand.

“Come here.”

The two whispered words tear apart the film that guards his eyes, and he feels tears blurring his vision as they tunnel in on the smile he’s wanted to see for so long.

But no, he couldn’t go, not yet.

“I need to get a nurse. You-I can’t-” TK is about to just leave the room to barrel into the nurse’s station, but the hold on his hand tightens, the grip surprisingly strong and keeping him in place.

“The only thing – the only person I need right now is you,” Carlos rasps, his eyes turning pleading, and TK immediately stops trying to break out of his hold. But he still doesn’t move from his spot a few feet away from the bed, just staring at his fiancé who is awake.

He’s looking at him and he’s awake.

And suddenly he can’t close the distance between them fast enough.

He places a hand beside Carlos’ pillow gently, the other cupping his cheek. He lowers his head to the crook of Carlos’ neck, and though he’s done this so many times when the other was unconscious, it fills him with a new sense of vitality when he knows that this time when he looks up, Carlos will be looking back.

He lets out a soft sound of protest when he feels Carlos weakly pushing himself up, wanting to stay in his arms forever. There’s a feather-light kiss on the crown of his head, and he feels a weight rest on top of it.

“You don’t have to look up, but…” Carlos trails off, and TK finally lifts his head to meet Carlos’ gaze, who’s looking at him with shining eyes. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Something in his chest aches. It’s suddenly so hard to breathe, but at the same time, TK feels like this is the first real breath he’s taken for the past two weeks.

He can’t find the words, can’t find it in himself to do anything other than just stare at the man lying beneath him, eyes open and alert and warm.

“I didn’t miss our wedding, did I?”

The words punch the breath right out of his lungs, and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to breathe properly for a while. He couldn’t hold back a half-sob, half-laugh at that, closing his eyes as the tears, finally, steadily trickle down his cheeks.

“You wake up after two weeks in a coma and that’s the first thing you worry about?” TK laughs wetly, wiping his cheeks hastily as more laughter bubbles in him at Carlos’ startled look.

“Two weeks?” His fiancé’s eyes are wide, searching his, and TK nods, covering his mouth with a hand to try and hold back his mess of emotions right now.

“Everyone’s been coming by to check in on you. We’ve all been waiting for you to come back to us,” TK says quietly, running a hand through his curls.

Something passed over Carlos’ face then, and he looks down at him questioningly.

“You waited two whole weeks for me to wake up?” TK pauses in his administrations with Carlos’ hair. He smiles sadly, hearing the hint of awe in his fiancé’s voice. He moves to cup Carlos’ face between his hands, chuckling wetly.

Leaning down, he presses a tender kiss on Carlos’ forehead, smiling into his skin.

“I would have waited an eternity just to have five more minutes with you.” He murmurs in the small space between them, and he feels Carlos’ hold on his arm tighten. He can feel the bed shaking at the silent tears that trail down Carlos’ face, and he feels the familiar stinging behind his eyes.

Later, he would be messaging the group chat on the new developments, and he would be greeted with multiple exclamation marks and caps locked messages back as they all message him that they’re on their way. He would button for the nurses, finally procuring the button from underneath Carlos’ pillow and there would be a flurry of activity as the nurses call in the doctor for more questions and a final statement.

Their friends and family would arrive, some of them bringing food and others bringing more flowers and teddy bears to fill the already-decorated room. Andrea would wrap him up in a tight hug, and Gabriel tugs him into a hug of his own.

There would be more hugs shared, tears to be shed, and heartfelt words to be spoken.

But right now, TK lets himself immerse in the moment, as he and Carlos finally breathe.

[mrsluthordanvers]

Lena, Sam, and Andrea form a band like Hex Girls

I would like to start by saying thank you for introducing me to the Hex Girls. This took me right back to A Face in the Crowd! The song is not mine, here you go.

Read on AO3

“You could do it you know.” Kara hangs upside down on the couch, her blonde hair brushing the ground as she nearly goes cross eyed trying to feed herself a gummy worm.

“Do what?”  Lena asks as she picks up a cord to plug it into her guitar.

“Become a band.”

Andrea pauses, fingers arched over her keyboard as she stares at the blonde. “Last I checked we are a band.” She drawls.

“A real band.”

Kara feels all three sets of eyes snap towards her, huffing, she rolls awkwardly into a sitting position the couch so she can get a proper look at the three young women staring back at her.

“I mean, a professional band. Like, recording studios, sold out tours, managers, kind of band.” Kara waves her hand as if it could expand her point. “You guys are kind of awesome.”

“You mean Lena’s awesome.” Sam snorts as she quickly hits her drums, ba dum tsshh.

“Nooo.” Kara blushes quickly as her girlfriend arches an eyebrow at her. “I mean, yes, obviously. But, also, you guys, as a group, are kind of amazing.

You could be ‘The Witches’, or ‘The Hex Girls’ - you have the look already.” Kara grins as the three of them look at her, unamused. All with their dark, dark hair, and sharp features. It helps that they also all seem to have an affinity for the same striking sense of style that leaves both men and women at university swooning in their presence.

Kara’s grin grows under their scrutiny, finding humour in their lack of response. Snapping her fingers Kara jumps off the couch.

“Oh, I know! ‘The H-Exes’.” Kara laughs as all three women pink slightly. Suddenly, unable to look each other, or Kara in the eyes.

“Darken up your makeup a little, and you’ll be responsible for a whole new generation of little goth lesbians.”

Kara wraps her arms around Lena, ignoring the instrument between them as she rocks them back and forth laughing.

“Okay, I’m teasing.” Kara pulls back a little to plant a kiss on Lena’s neck before stepping back a little to look at all of them. “But I’m also a hundred percent serious, you guys could totally make it.”

As it turns out, Kara’s not wrong.

Lena writes a song for Kara, not long after, as a joke for all her teasing about them being witches.

A song that turns out to be a hit.

A hit that gets them a manager, and an album, and a spot on the Billboards top 100, just like Kara had predicted.

And suddenly, before they know it, Kara is standing front row of a sold-out stadium as smoke starts to filter across an empty stage. A tentative hush falls over the crowd as three distinct silhouettes rise from the depths of the stage.

“Hit it sisters!”

Kara smiles as a familiar voice can be heard this close to the stage, and a familiar song begins to play.

No matter how many shows she’s seen, or how many practices she’s hung out to watch, Kara is still blown away by the group. Lena’s opening notes still send a shiver down her spine as her voice carries across the crowd, low and sultry.

I’m gonna cast a spell on you You’re gonna do what I want you to Mix it up here in my little bowl Say a few words and you lose controooool

Kara pinks as Lena spots her near the stage, slowly making her way in front of Kara with a glint in her eyes.

I’m a hex girl And I’m gonna put a spell on you

Lena points at her girlfriend with a smirk as Sam and Andera sing her backup.

You'll feel the fog as I cloud your mind You'll get dizzy when I make the sign You'll wake up in the dead of night Missing me when I'm out of sight

Lena grins as she starts to walk backwards pointing shamelessly as Kara again.

I’m a hex girl and I’m gonna put a spell on you

[herpronuonsarefemslash]

Back Against the Wall - TEASER

Recent poll winner for the prompt: - Kara forgets to button the last button at CatCo event, gets swarmed by omegas.

Includes the following items in every box: * Cat Grant returns * Nia is flustered by Cat Grant * Andrea is thirsty * Lena is slightly devious * Kara doesn't "get" Earth taboos

https://www.patreon.com/posts/54179252

=====

"Well, well, well...aren't you all grown up, Kiera?"

Kara spins so fast that it has Nia coughing in a way that sounds suspiciously like 'secret identity'.

"Cat," she mumbles.

Elegant as ever, her old boss lifts her flute of champagne to her lips, her trademark platinum bracelet twinkling in the low lighting. Behind Cat is a strawberry blonde omega clad in a shimmering drape of green silk seemingly modeled after the chitons so popular on statues of Greek goddesses. It bares her legs to mid-thigh and the silver-plated clasps leave tantalizing glimpses of milky flesh between hips and ribs. The collar is turtleneck-high and crushed velvet, leading to a gold chain. The outline is tempting without being glued to her bust and her butt, and so like something at the National City University sculpture garden that no one would dare call it racy. Perhaps it's an in-joke between them about her very classical figure: all curves and heft in tribute to the ancient feminine from ages before anyone heard of 'thigh gap'. The omega's scent screams admiration and her hand never leaves the small of Cat's back. Kara spots a tiny scar on Cat's braceleted wrist. It's a better place for a businesswoman to have a bite, Kara supposes. Easier to conceal. Never let them know what the rules are, Cat once told her.

"Right," Kara finally manages. "Good point."

"Naturally," Cat retorts. "I made it. This is Vania."

Rao's mercy. The Amazon? Aella and Melanippe's daughter?

"Lovely to meet you, sister," Vania drawls. "For you it's Van, or just V."

"You haven't introduced me to your date, Kiera."

"This is Nia. Ah...a friend."

"My..." Nia pauses. "...partner is having a rough patch. We're trying to keep it low key for him. So when I go out, it's with Kara."

"Nia Nal."

"I'm Cat Grant. Obviously."

The handshake is brief and jerky and meant to show a burst of strength but also respect. Nia is making Kara's alpha feel foolish and inadequate tonight.

"The pieces on fashion, expression, and gender," Cat recalls, tapping a long finger against her wine glass. "And the op-ed on status-body divergence. I'm guessing those were yours?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ma'am," Cat huffs. "Ma'am is my mother. An association you do not want me to make. Those articles were tolerable. I thought you seemed familiar."

Nia shivers. Cat turns her all-seeing gaze back on Kara. Pale blue, almost green. Knife-sharp and intense enough to spear Kara to the spot, bracing for a verbal beat-down.

"I recommended to Ms. Luthor that she assign Nia to you, Kara."

"You did? You personally?" Nia all but squeals.

"Mmm. But I wanted you to teach her how to show some spine, Kara. Not donate yours," she teases.

Van slides her arm in Cat's and gestures towards the banquet table.

"Let Kara be, my heart."

She turns her ocean-blue eyes on Nia and waves a hand idly at the food.

"Come, little oracle. I do love a good story of Cat's handpicked proteges," she purrs.

As the trio passes by, Kara feels blunt nails scrape across her abs.

"Missed a button," one of her tormentors hisses.

=====

The 'crisis' turns out to be Lena and Andrea next door in the omega's ladies, still dressed to the nines, with the alpha waiter that they'd hijacked held between them. Andrea's long fingers are curled around the waiter's cock. Each pump is slow. Deliberate. Controlling. Lena's tongue traces the poor woman's ear--pink, puffy, and perfect--dragging strangled sounds from deep in her ribs. Andrea's bending over more than she needs to, making sure Kara has a good view of her golden skin. Up and down she strokes, up and down goes the mind-melting glimpse of her cleavage.

"Nice of you to join us," Lena purrs. "I knew I could count on Supergirl."

There's something about the waiter, too. Something familiar.

"You're the vigilante that I had to save six months ago."

The woman was good, and obviously had excellent training. Batman-level moves but no Batsuit. Bruce won't admit it, but the fifty million dollars of bulletproof armor matters.

"Answer her, love."

=====

Kara's too hasty in setting them down on Lena's balcony, making Andrea tumble out of her grip into a heap. Thankfully, she landed on one of Lena's chairs for sunbathing.

"Whatcha think?" Kara whispers to Stephanie, nodding at the tangle of golden skin, ruined designer silk and embarrassed slash horny scent. One of Andrea's Givenchy heels is dangling on snapped straps and the other probably went over the edge of the balcony. A quick glance with X-Ray vision finds it embedded in a planter. Since the falling stiletto didn't smash anyone's brains, she decides it's not Supergirl's problem.

"I think you should fuck her."

Kara nearly jumps back into the sky at the sound of Lena's voice.

Lena toes off her own shoes and walks over to the deck chair. She gathers Andrea's silky mane into a fist and yanks.

"Lee," Andrea moans. "Please."

"Please what, Andrea? Please, Lena! Protect me from a pair of alphas? Please, Lena! Let you pay me back for the way I betrayed you by letting them fuck me sore? Please, Lena! Let me earn your trust by taking their knots?"

"All of it," Andrea mumbles. "Except the first bit."

=====

Lena claps appreciatively and disappears inside, soon returning with baby wipes, paper towels and an energy drink for Andrea. Someone's phone goes off and the three of them--Andrea is working hard just to keep track of a straw--hunt through the pile of clothes until they find it.

"Fuck," Stephanie hisses. "I have to go."

Lena glances over her shoulder.

"He does not call it the Bat-ification. Does he?"

"I tried to trick him into calling the alerts 'bush', for Bat-push, but Batwoman caught me."

Andrea wheeze-laughs.

"Kate Kane knows her way around a bush, I'll give her that."

=====

Kara is not a fan of capitalism in general.

But having Lena's fridge restocked to abundance in tidy rows by some white-gloved person every day makes a case for some aspects of it.

Lena on tiptoes in a loosely tied kimono of queenly purple, straining her pretty little fingers for the switch for the stove's exhaust fan? That can excuse any injustice.

"Little help?" her best friend whines, using her scent in a way Kara doesn't remember Nia ever using to make Kara reach something in the supply closet at work. Nia's probably just not as crafty. Who is, really?

Kara walks around the breakfast counter and curls her fingers around the omega's hips, thumbs pushing in just a bit so she can stroke the delicate arch that frames Lena's pelvis.

"You could just reach up and do it," Lena reminds her, but she's short of breath.

"Gotta teach billionaires to be self-sufficient," Kara teases before she lifts her up.

"Fuck," Lena pants, bracing her hand against the exhaust hood and scrambling madly for a switch with fingers shaking so hard she can barely work it.

[darlinvandijk]

M&G

Concept: request where we’re at a m&g and really nervous and when we finally have our turn he’s sweet and basically the perfect dream boy. Like usual dm and whatnot for a request and I’ll be happy to comply! (Sorry if this is long, I just really liked this idea lmao) Hope you enjoy :)

I rush around my room looking for my shoes, considering I’m already 10 mins late to meeting my friend Andrea at the venue. I finally find them and slip them on before sprinting down the stairs and running out of the house, in hopes that maybe I can rush through traffic a bit.

I get in the car and text my friend to let her know I’m finally taking off, before buckling in and putting on my concert playlist. I sing along and drive through traffic, getting more and more anxious about the fact that I’m meeting Ruel today. Some people might think I’m being dramatic, but honestly can you blame me? How am I supposed to talk to him without being completely awestruck, because boys like him just don’t exist in the real world. It has nothing to do with him being famous, it’s everything about him. He’s gorgeous, sweet, funny, talented, and basically everything a person could wish to be. So yeah I’m going to be intimidated when it comes to talking to someone that I truly admire as a person. Also it doesn’t help that he’s so fucking attractive, I can already tell I’m going to embarrass myself.

I pull up to the venue and park my car, before getting out and looking around for Andrea. I get my phone out to call her and see where she is in line, before I spot her frantically throwing her arms around to gain my attention. I let out a laugh and jog over to where she is, giving her a small hug before looking her over.

“You look so good holy shit” I laugh as I compliment Andrea, watching strike a couple poses to truly show off the outfit.

“Says you, honestly you know that I think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met, like I’ve told you multiple times that if you ever want to date a girl I’m open to it” Andrea says with a wink before nudging my arm playfully. I laugh and wink back at her, feeling happy to have such a good friend like her. We’ve been friends since we were kids, truly going through everything together, so we’re way past just being comfortable with each other, it’s just how our friendship works.

“I’m so nervous Andy, like what if I pass out or like what if I smell bad when I hug him.. oh god what if he just decides he hates me and doesn’t want to talk to me” I mumble anxiously as we start to head into the venue, finding our seats. She rolls her eyes before giving me the look that basically says I’m about to get lectured.

“I didn’t stay up watching a countdown to get us these front row seats with the vip m&g all for you to look like you’re about to have a stroke. Suck it up bitch because you smell great and he’s not going to hate you. The only person he hates is the person who stole the acne jumper” she states watching my reaction to see if I’ll take her advice and calm down. I nod my head and slouch against the front of the stage, knowing we still have time until the concert starts.

“Honestly who really knows like maybe he’ll even like you enough to ask for your number” she whispers wiggling her eyebrows, I roll my eyes. I mean the last guy that’s ever going to notice me is Ruel.

“Please Andy, like I doubt Ruel is gonna notice me and actually want anything to do with me. He’s famous and has millions of girls fawning after him, I’m just a fan. He’s gonna see me, give me a hug, talk to me, and then I’ll be thrown to the back of his mind as he meets all his other fans around the world. I’m just a fan.” I mumble with a sad smile, coming to terms with the fact that he meets thousands of fans and will never remember me the way I want him to. Andrea glares at me ands puts her hands on my shoulders and gives me a light shake.

“Girl if you don’t quit with this sad fucking attitude, like don’t make me smack some sense into you. You never know, we just gotta wait and see.” She says with a determined face, causing me to laugh at her stern attitude about this. I nod my head and give her a hug, thankful to have someone like her as my best friend.

A couple minutes later the lights go out, causing us to scream along with everyone else, because it was finally time for the concert. The drums kick in first, before the bass hits causing the ground to shake. I was filled with so much anticipation that I didn’t even notice I was holding my breath. Finally a blue light shines onto the stage as Ruel finally comes out, causing me to freeze in awe. I was staring at the man of my dreams as he runs out on stage and flashes a grin at the crowd. Andy grabs my hand and holds it in a death grip, completely starstruck that we were finally seeing our favorite person in concert. He sings his songs, dancing across all parts of the stage to make sure everyone has a moment during every song where he’s with them.

As the concert goes on, us singing our hearts out to every song, my favorite song finally starts to play. He goes around trying to touch as many of the hands grabbing at him. He slowly moves around the stage as he sings real thing, before finally walking directly in front of us. I stare up at him in complete adoration for the beautiful boy in front of me, who’s completely singing his heart out. Andy reaches her hand out and he gives it a firm squeeze causing her to let out a small sob, overwhelmed with everything going on. She pushes me forward, knowing I’d never throw my hand out to him, to shy to make a move like that.

As I get slightly thrown forward, my hand automatically shooting out for stability, it comes into contact with something. I freeze out of shock as I realize what I was holding onto was Ruels hand. I stare straight into He green eyes as he holds my hand, giving me a small grin as he sings. Fans are screaming around us as they realize he’s not just giving the small squeeze before moving on, since he’s still crouching down with my hand in his.

He belts out my favorite part of the song, towards the end of it where he just sings out in his raspy tone, causing my heart to practically stop. He gives my hand one last squeeze before standing up and slowly letting go, walking backwards slowly with a little smirk on his face, finishing off the song. Andy is literally shaking me and throwing me around, while I stand there in complete shock at what happened. He finishes the concert, continuously making eye contact with me throughout the last few songs, causing me to freeze up every time and send a small smile towards him.

“I love you all, thank you for coming out tonight. I can’t wait to meet some of you after this, hopefully I see all of you at the meet and greet” he says with so much love to the crowd, looking over to where Andy and I stand when he says all, causing me to blush instantly, even though there was no way he was talking about me.

Andy and I make it to the m&g line once we leave the concert hall, shaking with nerves from the surreal experience. We’ve barely even spoken since the concert ended, trying to soak it all in. Finally as we wait at the end of the line, not caring if we were last, she turns to me and grips my hands with pure mischief lighting up her eyes.

“Bitch you guys had a moment. Everyone saw it and he did it on purpose. Our Australian bitch had a connection with you” she all but shrieks into my ear. I roll my eyes and give her a light shove, knowing she was being her typical overdramatic self. We talk about the concert as the line slowly dwindles until it’s our turn. She gives me a slight shove to go in front of her as we make it to where Ruel is sitting on the black sofa, waiting for the last fans to come in, aka Andy and I.

He looks up with a slightly defeated look before a grin slowly appears on his face as he sees us. Andy lets out a cough, causing me to look at her seeing her smirking. I blush at my stupid friend, knowing the mischievous games she’s trying to play. Ruel stands up and gives Andy a nice big hug, before slowly turning to me and holding a hand out so that he could pull me closer from where I was standing at a distance away from them.

I shyly place my hand into his, hearing his chuckle at my obvious nerves for the situation. He pulls me into his arms, tightly wrapping them around my body, swaying us from side to side. Neither of us notice Andy pull out her phone to record the moment. He pulls away and looks down at me, giving me a soft smile as my face heats up, a matching blush on his face. He pulls the both of us to the couch, an arm around the both of us as we smile for pictures. Once we take our pictures he stands up and turns to us with a grin.

“So did you guys enjoy the concert? I was a little nervous about real thing, do you think it went well?” He questions genuinly before slowly giving a boyish smirk as he brings up real thing. I instantly blush knowing he recognized me from the moment we had.

“Fuck yeah, concert was great, and real thing was amazing. Honestly probably the best song you did, right?” She questions giving me a nudge as Ruel lets out a laugh and shakes his head with a smile.

“Yeah it was really good, you’re honestly so talented” I mumble out looking down, trying really hard to calm my nerves and shaking hands. Ruel bends down in front of us, reaching out and taking my hands into his.

“Hey don’t be getting all shy on me, I wanna see that pretty smile of yours” He says softly, as I look up to make eye contact, watching him look me over with a look I can’t figure out in his eyes. Andy lets out a light cough, watching us with a grin on her face, causing Ruel to let go of my hands and stand up.

We talk with him for another ten minutes, mainly Andy carrying the conversation with him, since I’m too shy

“Would you guys like to hangout on the bus? There’s no other fans left and I’d like to get to know you both” he asks with a cute smile, causing my heart to speed up. Before I can even reply Andy already starts walking forward towards the back exits, yelling about how she wants to play fifa. I let out a laugh following behind her with Ruel next to me, both of us walking at a leisurely pace.

“I uhm want to know if I can have your number? You’re really pretty and I just have a good feeling about you. It’d be a shame if I didn’t shoot my shot at least, yeah?” He asks giving me a little wink, causing me to ease up around him and nod my head.

“I always knew we were meant to be friends, thank god you have a thing for my best friend, now you can’t get rid of me either bitch” Andy all but cackles out, causing Ruel to laugh and roll his eyes knowing she’s definitely a wild friend.

We make it onto the bus and sit around with one of his friends and Coco, all getting to know each other and just really having a good time. As we talk I notice something touch my hand, I glance down in time to see him intertwine our fingers, giving my hand a soft squeeze. I look up and send him a smile, knowing my face was turning pink the more he looked at me.

“You’re honeslty so breathtaking” Ruel leaned over and whispered into my ear, instantly causing me to blush and freeze up, not expecting such a bold compliment. He notices my posture and lets out a quiet laugh, giving my hand a small squeeze as his thumb rubs the back of it.

“You’re quite bold now aren’t you” I whisper back, with a teasing grin on my face. Watching the smile that lights up his face, happy that I’m becoming more comfortable and less shy. He lets out a laugh and wraps his arm around my shoulder, our interlocked hands hanging and still entwined.

That’s how the rest of the night went, not so secretive hand holding, soft glances, whispered compliments, and the night sealed with a hug and new contacts on our phones, with the promise to see each other the next day. Who would have thought, besides Andy of course, that a m&g would change my life for the better like this.

Who would have thought that a few months later, the boy of my dreams would become my boyfriend, and love of my life.

[starchildrenofdustand-ashes]

My Six The Musical Review

Once again nobody cares— BUUUT I saw SixChicago yesterday with Adrianna Hicks as Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Bolyen, Abby Mueller as Seymour, Brittney Mack as Cleves,  Anna Uzele as Parr. Here are somethings I noticed (essentially this is a rundown of everything you wouldn’t get just from listening to the album lol) ((Also im so tired and its 12.28 am and im sorry for any mistakes))

❤️💚💛💗🖤💙

👑 So before the show, they were playing a ton of pop music, but it was on an instrument that kinda sounded like a lute or harpsichord. 👑 When the Queens walked out from behind the curtain in a single file line to take their place on stage, the crowd went crazy. They all came out through a tiny crack in the curtain,, but when they belt “LIIIIVE” the curtain falls to the floor as is dragged off stage. 👑During the dance breaks in Ex-Wives, they go from dancing hip hop, to dancing with each other in a style they would’ve done back then to the beat. It was cute. 👑It was so weird hearing their accents! I’m always expecting “divooced” but it felt like they were almost emphasizing the r “ divoRRced” 👑Before Catherine of Aragon starts singing in Ex-Wives she says “Remember us from PBS??” 👑When Jane Seymour sings her bit in the song she moves Stage Left and when the Queens all say “Hey!” She looks surprised and shrugs, continuing to sing 👑Anna really played up the “JA’s” during her bit and IT WAS SO CUTE (you will find I am partial to clever, bc my gay ass is in love with her.) 👑There is so much dialogue!! After they say “Chicago!! How’re you doing tonight!!” They say we are “SIIIIX” in their harmonies and “Welcome to our divorced, beheaded, LIVE TOUR” 👑Aragon says “WE HAVE SO MUCH IN STORE FOR YOU TONIGHT— WE HAVE THE RIFFS TO RUFFLE YOUR RUFFS” before she does a really sick riff 👑A few of the other queens add on to that,, I forgot what they said but then  Howard says “AND A WHOLE LOT OF HISTORY” and Parr cuts her off and says “OR AS WE SAY A WHOLE LOT OF HERSTORY” 👑then they introduce their band (who are on the stage with then) as their ladies in waiting and I was soft 👑 So then they go on to explain the deal with the show; they are all competing against each other for the crown of the “ultimate” queen based on who had to put up with the most shit from Henry 👑 When they’re going down the line to explain why they say 💛Who lasted longest was the strongest 💚The biggest sinner is obvs the winner 🖤 I have no idea what Seymour said I don’t remember DX ❤️Who was most chased is first place 💗The most glorious will be victorious 💙The winning contestant was the most protestant (but she says it so it rhymes with contestant and then all the queens look at her like ??? And she sighs and says ‘protestant’ with its correct pronunciation 👑Aragon says “How in the purgatory are they gonna choose a leading lady??” 👑”The queen to take the crown will be the one who had the biggest, the firmest, the fullest…. LOAD OF BS TO DEAL WITH FROM THE MAN WHO PUT A RING ON IT 👑There is a reprise of Ex-wives but this time they change the lyrics to “welcome to the show to the coronation” 👑💛lol Aragon cut the reprise off and was like “It doesn’t matter, because I’m the winner” and then she asked the drummer for a beat 👑💛So with the beat, Aragon begins to tell her story, and the bass is strumming the baseline for no way 👑💛”Okay, I’m thinking its… a bit weird they want me to marry my… dead husbands brother”… 👑💛So then she continues recounting the story and she says “I saw lipstick on his collar and I’m like… okAY… so now he wants to annul our marriage and moves this sidekick into mY palace and wants me in a CONVENT” and she’s on a RANT so she pauses and breathes really heavily before smiling really widely and sighing “Now… I don’t think I look that good in a wimple so I said. No. Way.”  And the song starts immediately after that 👑💛Idk what else to say except that Aragon was a total badass and Adrianna Hicks  was a fucking QUEEN 👑💛When she asks him to name when she’s ever caused him pain, she’s all the way upstage on the same platform/semi circle that the band is on, and she’s on her knees kinda begging kinda. She pauses for a LONG time and waits for an answer and her face is smug when she’s like “no?” 👑💛She said “I had the most to deal with AND I hit that high c so that crown is mine,” 👑The other Queens stop her and are like theres another really REALLY IMPORTANT one… the one that overlapped with you who is she?? The famous one that people actually care about!” Then they all start chanting “The one you’ve been waiting for” and the lighting turns green,, while they’re chanting, Anne Boleyn looks really confused and shrugs and walks to the back of the stage and picks up her phone 👑💚The Queens eventually say “The temptresssssss” and they hold it out like a snake “ANNE BOLYEN” and they sing this very choir like 👑💚They all turn to her and Anne is just sitting there cackling at whatever is on her phone and she’s like “ Whoops sorry,,” and Don’t loose your head starts 👑💚Andrea Macasaet has SUCH a high pitched voice she was absolutely ADORABLE 👑💚When she said “get ahead” she smirked and everyone laughed 👑💚Instead of her voice going down on “Pret a Manger,” it got even higher almost In a mocking French accent. 👑💚She is pissing Aragon the fuck off this entire song lol 👑💚When she says “Are you blind??” She gestures between she and Aragon 👑💚 “What was I meant to do?” Is sung like a confused toddler lol 👑💚 So the bit where they play the wedding song, all the queens bow to her and she walks past, smiling and waving and she gets to the end of the line and is like “Hold up,, let me tell you how it went down HENRY’S OUT EVERY NIGHT …. Etc” 👑💚”Bro just shut up!” Instead of mate 👑💚She even asks the band what was she meant to do, and everyone is repeating her and she screams “OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY HE REALLY WANTS TO CUT MY HEAD OFF” 👑💚and then she grins again after a long silence and she’s all smug like “I guess he really liked my head…..” While kinda licking her lips lol 👑💚DEAR GOD HER RIFFS JESUS FUCKING HREHTTLTURHGUEHURL 👑💚And she was like “yeah… that was such a weekend… I like died… and it was so extra! So im clearly the winner. So now, I have to sing a song I wrote when I found out that Catherine of Aragon had died. Its called WEAR YELLOW TO A FUNERAL SING IF YOU KNOW THE WORDS. And the bass came in and Boleyn sings “Catherine was a massive C-” and the other Queens immediately shut her up 👑Aragon and Boleyn start arguing until Seymour is like “its my turn now…” 👑Everyone looks at het before they burst out laughing, telling her ‘bye’ and ‘girl, please’ 👑And Seymour is like yeah,, I was in love and I was really really lucky. 👑🖤 And Seymour goes into this really heartbreaking monologue about how she missed her songs future and how she had a picture of her family. She said that Henry was really sweet and that she loved him 👑Boleyn cuts her off and is like “yeahhhh,, there was this one really cute time where he, like, cut my head off :) 👑🖤Seymour said that Aragon and Boleyn were badasses. Then she said that she promised to always stay by his side and didn’t yell at him back like the other two because she loved him. Then she dedicated the song to him 👑🖤Heart of Stone started and honestly,,, its not my favorite song and I usually skip it. But mY GOODNESS. Abby Mueller is a fucking goddess wow. The amount of control she has on her voice is astounding 👑🖤(fun fact abt me— I have perfect pitch lol)  they pitch changed it into A major and it transposes into B major which was SO BEAUTIFUL. It made me actually like the song lol 👑🖤Its not really eventful,, she just stands in the middle of the stage. 👑Seymour is like,, “what hurts more than a broken heart?” And  Boleyn is like “A chopped off head” 👑Almost immediately  after it transfers to Cleves and she’s like “soo he’s running out of options in England he had to expand his fields and adjust his location settings to find his next queen. We are Heading to Germany where  he got the help of Han….. 👑At some point during the song, the other queens ran off stage to get their glasses and ruffs 👑They all run back on stage in their glasses and ruffs (Cleves still hasn’t said his last name yet) and they all whisper “Holbien” 👑WELCOME TO THE HOUSE 👑lol this song is SO funny… and Cleves is so fucking adorable (she was flossing at some point). The dancing was so… German…it was hilarious. 👑So after the song is done,, the girls still have their ruffs and glasses on and it kinda turns into a mobile app like tinder.. 👑Basically there are two queens before Cleves and they all stand up and walk downstage as they are introduced, they smile and their picture is taken and they wait for about two seconds before Henry swipes left or right. 👑The two in front of Cleves are played by Parr and Howard. 👑After Cleves is selected their is a Holbein reprise 👑❤️The other queens run off taking the ruffs and Cleves is left on the stage sighing comically several times. She’s at the back of the stage sitting on a makeshift stone 👑❤️”Its the tragic story of a princess-educated, savvy, young- deemed ugly by an ulcer-ridden, wheezing, winkled man 20 years her senior.” 👑❤️WHATS A MORE DEVASTATING FATE THAN BEING FORCED INTO A BEAUTIFUL PALACE IN RICHMOND WITH MORE MONEY THAN I COULD EVER SPEND AND NO MAN TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH IT 👑❤️Get down is also key changed 👑❤️When she sings “I’m the Queen of the castle” she is skipping across the stage 👑❤️When she gives her fur to the footman, she actually takes off her coat and hands it to one of the queens. The crowd went crazy and she’s like “guys stop,’ and like acting all shy but secretly enjoying it-she says “Okurrrrrrrrr” . Then she’s like “AS YOU WERE” and everyone is quiet lol 👑❤️the part where it slows down and she’s like “SIT DOWNNN YOU DIRTTTY RrrrrrASCALLL” she opera sings it and I shat myself 👑❤️she uses her microphone as a lute lol 👑❤️YOU CANT (nope) STOP (nuh-uh) YOU CANT STOP ME 👑❤️At some point she squeezes her boob. I love her. 👑❤️after she kills us all by belting that last note she points to a girl in the front row and is like “YOU IN THE PINK DRESS!” and she gestures for her to stand up. And the girl stands up and they bop together with Cleves ad libbing in the background 👑❤️Eventually she says “Okay sugar this is my song, GET DOWN” 👑❤️And then after a moment of silence she’s like “So yeah it was really tragic…” 👑Aragon is like that doesn’t sound difficult at all and Ceves is like “oh… yeah.. I probably won’t win this thing… WELP BACK TO THE PALACE!” 👑the queens argue more and honestly it’s iconic 👑Seymour is yelling at Aragon and her voice is so loud and Cleves interrupts her and is like “guys,… I have the plague” and they all gasp and she’s like “HAHA JUST KIDDING MY LIFES AMAZING” they roll their eyes and Parr is like “our next queen! K HOWARD!” And everyone is like who??? 👑Aragon is like “ The least relevant Catherine,,” and Boleyn is like “Yeahhh i get it and I still don’t care,,,”
👑Howard is like “You’re right… I need all the help I can compete. What happened to you was terrible,, and so were you songs,,” Then she proceeded to roast everyone. She says “Anne you obviously had it worse I mean you lost your head……. Oh wait…..” 👑💗And then she says “but seriously Anna, getting rejected for your looks really sucks…. cant relate…I’m really hot…. So yeah. I can compete like this” or smthing and then all you wanna do starts. 👑💗At the beginning of the song the queens touch her everywhere and she leans into it willingly 👑💗Blowing the flute,, she winks at the audience and when she says C-D she puts her hand in front of her crotch and squeezes. 👑💗 “There was this guy… Francis and he asked me to be his little piece of aaaasssssss…istant! 👑💗The song goes from upbeat to upsetting very very quickly after Francis she starts to become less trusting and she gets more disoriented as the show goes on. 👑💗”Apparently men only hire women to get them into their private chamber… times were different then…” 👑💗When she says “He says  we have this connection,”  about Henry Seymour comes from behind her and touches her stomach — all you can see is her hand touching her sensually. She looks a little surprised and then she’s like “I guess its not so different..” 👑💗By the time we get to Thomas Culpepper she is flustered and VERY uncomfortable. The girls are all touching her now and she looks down and stares at their hand before pushing them away and finishing the end of the song. she keeps pushes them away but they keep coming back. She looks utterly heartbroken and you can see her unraveling. 👑💗THAT RIFF WAS SO GGHRSILGBRLGKJBJL 👑💗she screams “WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH” as they keep touching her and she fails as she pushes them away. 👑💗Eventually she gets them off but she ends up by herself on the stage with her face facing up and a dim pink spotlight is on her. 👑💗There is a chilling silence and then she’s smiling and says ‘YEAH and then I was beheaded and I won this competition!” 👑Then they get into another argument. Boleyn starts talking about how her beheading was more relevant because Henry humiliated her more and Aragon was like,,, um I won the humiliation game and she counts her mistresses 👑Then they start yelling about the miscarriages they had and Boleyn says she has three and Aragon says “You know what Anne BO-LOSER I HAD FIVE” and Parr is like “this is not okay, don’t compare miscarriages, thats hella insensitive” and they push her to the center and tell her to sing her song 👑Theres a random baseline again and Parr looks like she’s about to start singing but she stops and says,,”I’m good,” and tries to go off stage. They all accuse her of being a sore loser because she survived and knows that she had no chance of winning. 👑Parr is like,,, NO its pitting us against each other and the queens all groan  and make fun of her and she’s like okay,, imma sing the song then. And Katherine Howard says “Are you sure?? Are you sure you dont want to stick to backing vocals where you belong?” 👑💙And Parr softly says “Queens take a seat,” before turning to the pianist and saying “Can you give me a Bb maj7, please?” 👑💙Parr shuts down all the queens and says her life wasn’t all rainbows because she survived. And she talks about her love tom, and I never realized that the song is a letter to tom. She starts off “Dear Tom, You know I love you boy,” 👑💙 Anna Uzele was so fucking good. And Tbh,, this is my least favorite song so I don’t remember much about the staging (I’m sorry) 👑💙Side note,, parr is such a badass and an amazing woman 👑At the end of the song, she turns to the queens and is like “without Henry we all disappear ,” and Boleyn is like “I don’t get it” and parr asks “How does anyone know who we are” and Boleyn is like “mY SiX fInGeRs-“ before Aragon cuts her off and is like “Put it away, baby” 👑Parr then asks Henry the 7 and 6’s wives names and nobody can answer. “but, when we get together as a group-“ Boleyn cuts her off and is like “EVERYONE NOTICES THAT JANE CAN’T DANCE!” “NO WE COMPARE OURSELVES” 👑when Boleyn finally gets it she explains the situation like she’s an encyclopedia and it was so funny and fast and oMG 👑”UGH if we had realized this before we started we could have done something else like make a fake competition to show everyone how messed up comparing us is and then we could reclaim our story and all become the leading ladies…” “:/ and they are all saying this dialogue its just split up and I dont remember it very well 👑IF ONLY WE HAD THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE 👑then they look at each other and smirk at the audience before reprising Parr’s song as “We don’t need your love,” 👑Which was so good bc THEY DON’T NEED HENRY’S LOVE YES 👑Then they point out “We might only be remember for marrying the same man,, but why does anyone give a sh- who he is? It’s because of his,,” then they all harmonize ’SIIIIIIX WIVES’ 👑AND WE ALL HAVE A ROYAL HAPPY EVER AFTER but Boleyn cuts Seymour off and is like “But we didn’t” 👑then they go onto explain how none of them had happy endings and they’re like,, but we can rewrite them! So they do and that leads into Six which is such a soft song. 👑Six, actually starts off very slowly. It speeds up after they say “we’re six” 👑It was such an energy ending I was speechless and gold confetti poured down on them and OMG I was shaken to my core. 

[szyf]

i just saw sixcago and i’m FEELING things

here’s a little compliation of things i liked while seeing six at the chicago shakespeare theatre.

- i know people sometimes say the sixcago cast isn’t really INTO their characters or whatever, but oh my god? the banter and the little sidebar conversations ... so good

- adrianna hicks’ rendition of “no way” HITS. oh my GOD. she’s so cocky beforehand with her little, “okay”s. especially when she’s like “then i saw henry, and i was like OKAY”

- then the banter before “don’t lose ur head” was so cute. they were hyping anne boleyn up, and the lights are all on the rest of the girls. then it goes dark, and a green light is just on anne while she’s on her phone.

- andrea macasaet is such a hyper boleyn. she kind of reminds me of a small child. but maybe that’s because she’s short

-“catherine of aragon was a huGE CUN—“

-i forgot the exact context, but i’m pretty sure adrianna/aragon makes a jab or two at andrea/boleyn being short as hell. it’s funny

-i personally typically skip heart of stone because it’s a ballad amongst pop songs, but OH MY GOODNESS. abby mueller’s speech beforehand was HEART. WRENCHING.

-“my son was separated from his mother!” “kiND OF LIKE HOW MY HEAD WAS SEPARATED FROM MY BODY.”

-haus of holbein’s whole tinder thing was so funny with the likes and dislikes

-a magical ingredient .. from your BLADDER

-GET DOWN HIT SO HARD.

-“it’s so hard.. living in a large estate in richmond..... with more money i could ever spend in my entire life...... with no man to tell me what to do... it’s so awful.. it’s... Tragic.”

- brittney mack made someone in the front row bust down it was so funny she was like “AYYEEE”

-one of the queens told anna of cleves to, quote unquote, Go Off.

-ALL YOU WANNA DO WAS UTTERLY HEART WRENCHING. maybe i’m biased because howard is my favorite and i LOVE sam pauly, but oh my goodness.

-you can see the heartbreak and realization in her eyes when howard begins talking about henry. she’s so starry-eyed and excited, like everything up to here had been a game. choreography-wise, too.

-for the first two verses, parr and seymour grab her shoulders, pretending to be henry mannox and francis dereham. howard lets them. but then, when howard says “he says we have a.. connection..” about henry, seymour’s hand trails across her waist, and howard looks horrified.

-then it continues when it comes to thomas culpeper. all the queens grab at parts of howard’s body, and she just stands there, eyes wide, her voice shaky and nervous as she sings. she used to shake the hands off, but at this point she’s letting herself be swayed.

-oh god, then here comes the ending. everyone’s off stage, howard has sung the final verse, and she’s onstage just sobbing. she stands, sobbing for a good 15 seconds before continuing on with the rest of the musical.

-“I WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL THE MEN WHO GOT ME HERE, AFTER ALL IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME BACK THEN—“

-“what could be worse than a lifetime filled with trauma and abuse?!?!”

-boleyn and aragon are competing the entire musical it’s pretty funny.

-boleyn: i had THREE MISCARRIAGES

aragon: oh yeah? WELL I HAD FIVE

parr: ISNT THIS A LITTLE INSENSITIVE????

-“wow it must’ve sucked almost getting sent to a nunnery and then not going. it must’ve almooooost sucked.”

-parr is so sweet i cry .. i don’t need your love was prefaced with her explaining how she loved someone else and how, “henry was single and looking for an unsuspecting woman to marry”

- GOLD STAR FOR CATHY PaRR

-i’m too tired to continue this but the moral of this is: IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE TO SEE SIX, I’M BEGGING YOU, PLEASE SEE IT. the soundtrack is already amazing but the banter in between each song really makes it super witty and funny

-NICE NECK

[afteriwake]

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures (16/?)

So this is the last of the new chapters I have for the moment! Hopefully, I’ll get to finish this one sooner rather than later...

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures - It all begins with an invitation to Mycroft’s wedding to his PA and seven days at a resort in Jamaica, with the assumption that Molly pretends to be his girlfriend that his mother might be under the impression that he’s going to propose to sooner rather than later. It ends up being so much more than that…

READ CHAPTER 1 | READ CHAPTER 16 | HELP ME SURVIVE? | COMMISSION ME? | BUY ME A KOFI? | MY PATREON

Molly and Sherlock went away for a few hours, enjoying an afternoon to themselves. They got back to their room as the sun was setting, taking turns using the shower and getting ready for the rehearsal ceremony. The other guests were going to be doing something different, but the six people involved in the ceremony needed to be on the beach where the ceremony was to be held. The chairs weren’t set out, but the areas where they would be were roped off so they would know where to go. Sherlock bristled as he saw Sherrinford lingering, leering at both Molly and Amanda, the other female of the wedding party, and he could see his other brother clenching his jaw.

“If he’s here, we know he’s not seeking out information,” Sherlock said, leaning over to his brother to speak to him without the officiant hearing them.

“I know, but the looks he’s giving...”

“Yes, they make me feel ill as well.”

Mycroft sighed. “I had hoped he’d have grown out of his derelict behaviors as he got older but apparently he’s simply gotten more foul. Robert went over what was found in his room. I’m not shocked, sadly.”

“He’s always been a lech?”

“As long as he’s known the opposite sex existed.” Mycroft crossed his arms. “This may pose a problem for some of the newly arriving guests. Your...goldfish, for example.”

Sherlock blinked. “My goldfish?”

“Inspector Lestrade, who is bringing Inspector Donovan as his plus one, and the Watsons. Molly said she felt lonely and you were busy with our brother, so they’re all on a private jet. I felt you would appreciate having both Gregory and John watching over her.”

“Honestly, I do,” Sherlock said as Andrea began to walk down the makeshift aisle. Mycroft uncrossed his arms and smiled at the woman he was going to marry, and Sherlock glanced over at Molly from across the way, who caught his gaze and gave him a warm smile. He was caught up in the sudden image of Molly walking towards him in some confectionery white wedding dress trimmed with yellow, holding a bouquet of flowers with that bright smile on her face.

Yes, he thought to himself. Definitely strong feelings.

Andrea got up to the makeshift altar they were using for the ceremony and the officiant began the ceremony. He was surprised that they didn’t go over the vows, as apparently Andrea and his brother were writing their own and wanted to wait until the wedding to share them. It was over far more quickly than he had expected, much shorter than John and Mary’s wedding rehearsal had been. It made him wonder again what his own wedding would be like as he was starting to gain much experience with different types of weddings.

The rest of the wedding party milled around the end of the aisle while Andrea and Mycroft spoke privately with the officiant, and Sherlock could see both Molly and Amanda glancing at Sherrinford with worried looks, as though they didn’t want him any closer.

“I mean, I can see how you and Mycroft are brothers, but your eldest brother is just a creep,” Molly said, rubbing her bare arms. Sherlock had brought a linen suit for the dinner and took off his suit jacket, draping it over her shoulders. Molly grinned at him quickly before putting her arms through the suit sleeves and then rubbing her arms again.

“I hear he’s been that way for most of his life,” Sherlock said. “It was rather something Mycroft was hoping he’d grow out of, but I doubt he’d planned on seeing him again in person ever again.”

“And you?”

“I barely have any solid memories of him, just rows between him and the rest of my family and a few fleeting interactions.” He put his arms on her waist and pulled her into his arms, running a hand up and down her back to warm her. The night wasn’t cold, but the breeze coming off the ocean wasn’t exactly warm. “I asked about him growing up but Mycroft would snap at me and my parents would change the subject. I know now that he stole money from them, and must have done more to get my brother’s ire more than I ever have.”

“But why is he here?” she asked.

“He told my father it was to repay the money he had stolen and try to make amends, but I doubt there’s any truth to that,” Sherlock said. “He’s on the run from people who want the money he stole from them and the secrets in his head, according to rumour. I still need to talk to Robert about what he found, but I had wanted to give you at least one day of fun in case it all goes to hell in a handbasket.”

“Thank you for that,” she said before leaning in and giving him a soft kiss. He kissed her back and only pulled back when he heard a chuckle from Sherrinford’s direction. He rested his forehead against Molly’s and resisted the urge to roll his eyes as his brother approached.

“Is it true that the best man and maid of honour have to have a fling? It’d be a bit awkward for some people if it was the maid of honour and groomsmen.”

“You’re foul,” Molly said, pulling away from Sherlock and glaring at Sherrinford. “Go crawl back into your hole.”

“Such a sassy mouth for a sweet looking girl,” Sherrinford said with a smirk.

“And she has such great skill with a scalpel that I’d worry about your bits and bobs,” Sherlock said. “Don’t underestimate her, Sherrinford, if you don’t want to lose something important to you.”

Sherrinford appeared to pale slightly and stop in his tracks a few feet away from them. “You would get a bird with bite,” he said.

“I carry a gun and I know how to use it,” Amanda said in his direction. “So don’t think of cornering me somewhere and having a try at me.”

Sherrinford held up his hands in front of him. “Point taken. There are other birds in the coop to have a go at.” He doffed the hat he was wearing towards them and then turned and walked back to the resort.

“What a prick,” Amanda murmured. She nudged Robert and he shook his head, grinning as he pulled out his pack. She got a lighter out of her dress pocket and lit up the cigarette, inhaling for a moment and then blowing out the smoke away from the others. “He gives me the creeps.”

“Me too,” Molly said, leaning into Sherlock. “Don’t you have enough dirt to get him to go yet?”

“Aunt Mildred says we need to keep him close. She’s gathering intelligence and making up the basis of a case to give to your friends,” Robert said. “There are enough people who want him back in England that he can rot in a deep dark hole for a bit while we get the intelligence we need from him, and then we can let him rot at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for a while.”

“That sounds better than having him on the loose,” Amanda said. “I know my sister would be happy if she could kick his arse for a bit first, though.” At Sherlock and Molly’s confused look she ashed her cigarette. “My sister was sent to Russia to deal with his mess. She barely made it out alive, and she’s in forced retirement now. She loved her job with MI-6 and the bastard...” She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “At least she’s alive.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said. He knew that someone had been injured in the process of dealing with his brother but he hadn’t realized it had led to her needing to retire. He knew, sadly, most agents didn’t live to retire, so as Amanda said, at least she was still alive.

“Not your fault, mate.” Amanda had another drag off the cigarette and then knelt down to put it out. “Never could finish a whole one of those. But when I get the creeps I just need something to steady the nerves.” At that point, they were joined by Andrea and Mycroft. “Andy, how much longer does the creep need to stay?”

“Until Aunt Mildred has things settled. Mycroft has promised Gregory that if he doesn’t get to stay for the wedding Sally can at least stay long enough to have a bit of a vacation. Right?” Mycroft nodded. “Ben is working his magic on gathering the video, Aunt Mildred is sorting out the paper trail so hopefully the rubbish will be gone before the hen night.”

“Maybe sooner if he paws at anyone,” Mycroft said grimly. “Fratricide is an option. Sherlock isn’t the only one who can beat a murder charge.”

“I had Mildred’s help,” Sherlock noted.

“As will I.” Mycroft reached over for Andrea’s hand. “We should head to the dinner now. There may be booze flowing freely and if Sherrinford is snooping...”

The others nodded and they began the walk to the resort, with Sherlock and Molly trailing behind the rest of them. After a moment Molly stopped and looked over at Sherlock. “Is it going to be safe to have Mary here?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Sherlock asked.

“Well, she has her past and all, and if your brother deals in secrets, Mary has some big ones to keep, even with Magnussen dead. Just because he kept it all in his head...”

“Damn,” Sherlock said, shaking his head. In the happiness he’d felt knowing his friends would be arriving, he hadn’t even considered that. “Mary shouldn’t have to hide in a room.”

“Or maybe she’s here to celebrate after he leaves?” Molly asked. “I mean, she could be hiding just for a day or so, but not the entire time.”

“True,” Sherlock said with a frown. Then he sighed. “Why is this all so complicated?”

“Because it’s typical of the life you lead?” she said with a half-smile. She squeezed his hand. “We’ll all make the best of the situation, but I’ll admit, it’s going to be good to have them there.” She began to walk again, pulling him along, and he allowed himself to be lost in his thoughts for a time until he needed to put a smile on his face and do his best man duties. Then he cleared his mind and went about to the task, vowing to himself that if nothing else, he would not be a burden to Mycroft like their eldest brother was turning out to be.

[anachroniisms-archived]

Hi all! I’m Rey and I’m here with Andrea!

The TL;DR version is:  ex-U.S. marshal who was just a little too trigger happy so she got put on time-out. Now she’s a journalist. Andy’s an old west gunslinger who’s been born into a different era. Above all she’s about putting bad guys behind bars and protecting good people; she’s a hunter. She’s here to kill detain Madden Coyle. And maybe a few others.

I’m always looking for plots and connections! Andy grew up in Valdez so I think there’s potential? Also you can read her super extra bio below. Feel free to hit me up here or on discord at the_revati#8487

THE HUNTER -

⋆ ◦ ° ☾ stella maeve + cisfemale + she/her — have you seen andrea shepard around? this thirty one year old known as the hunter has been hanging out at valdez town square a lot recently. they are a civilian that works as a/n ex -u.s, marshal turned journalist, and they feel vindictive about the gangs. a heteroflexible scorpio, they are tenacious + resourceful, as well as judgmental + destructive. gunpowder, lioness, bruised knuckles × rey. twenty-one+. she/her. PST. × (Madden Coyle’s connection)

tw: death, murder, self- mutilation  

BACKSTORY

Her father was a Voloshyn and that meant he was a significant part of the Ukrainian mafia that owned a small corner of the world. His family? They didn’t live in this corner. Though born in Odessa, Ukraine, Andrea was raised by her mother Alice Shepard in the town of Valdez, Colorado. Alice had grown up in Valdez and though she’d spent most of her life in New York working as an art curator when motherhood struck, she decided that returning home - far, far, far away from Odessa - was the best choice for the children. Mikhail was her first born, but her daughter Andrea was born two minutes later. When they were older, Alice would tell them they came into this world holding hands.

Valdez was a decent enough place to grow up. Like any town, it had its dark underbelly. Alice did her best to keep both Mikhail and Andrea away from it, but the two grew up a part of the town as much as anyone else. It’s where Andrea picked her first fight, had her first kiss, got drunk for the first time. And Mikhail? He was her best friend.

For the most part, Andrea and Mikhail didn’t see their father. The holidays were the exception and dinners were always silent when Alexi Voloshyn sat at the head of the table.  There was a shock in this pattern when the twins turned 11. Summer break rolled around and, all of a sudden, Mikhail was whisked off with Alexi to spend the summer in Odessa. Ever summer after that was the same. Mikhail would leave in the dead of night and Andrea would get left behind. It became increasingly obvious before long that Alexi was grooming Mikhail to step into his shoes with the mafia. The young girl grew increasingly bitter about this tradition with the passing of each halcyon season. Mikhail would return just in time for school to start with nothing but a “It was fine” as a reply to Andrea’s “Well? How was it?”  

It’s not that Andrea wanted her own hand in the criminal underworld of Europe - she was too young to understand that - she just wanted to be taken as seriously as her brother. She began to act out as a cry for attention - but all attempts went ignored. A stray comment from Alexi about marrying her off one Christmas dinner set off the final fuse. Andrea was 15 and at peak teenage rebellion. Without blinking, she grabbed the carving knife from the ham in front of her, and cut off her own ring finger. She tried not to cry when she did it and felt immensely betrayed by the three tears that managed to leak out during the act. The entire thing was very much a ‘fuck you’ to the path that had been laid out for her. It was very much supposed to be a ‘fuck you’ to her father. He wanted her to get married? Fuck that. Ring finger? Gone. Now she could never get married.

Instead of reacting with anger or fury, her father simply looked at this act of defiance and laughed. In her 15 years it was probably the first time Andrea heard such a sound. It was a warm, accepting laugh. As the family doctor stitched and patched her up, Alexi finally conceded that Andrea could join them in Odessa next summer. The young woman learned that acts of self-destruction as loyalty held a certain sort of esteem in her father’s eyes.

Sure enough, Andrea went to the Port of Odessa the next summer. It’s where she learned how to fire a gun, worked as a hired hand on a ship, saw her first dead body. She’d been brought along but it was Mikhail that Alexi continuously sent into the fray. It was Mikhail that went on the ride alongs and once again it was Andrea that was left behind. You’d think a father would be more precious with the life of his son but, again, acts of self-destruction as loyalty held a certain sort of esteem in Alexi’s eyes. One cold night, a deal went south and shots were fired. Andrea heard about it from one of her father’s friends the next morning. She heard that while Mikhail’s body had been found, Alexi’s was conveniently missing. Whispers floated that her father had managed to flee the scene. Any sadness Andrea had for her brother was swept away with the resounding notion that her father was a fucking coward.

Andrea returned home to Alice alone. The two boarded up Alice’s childhood home and moved to New York. That was Andrea’s tipping point. At her mother’s insistence she applied to colleges in New York and wound up settling on pursuing a political science degree at Columbia. There was an intense irony to the fact that Andrea was quickly falling into a path carved out for law enforcement, but the second she noticed it, she leaned into it. It was another ‘fuck you’ to the memory of her father. More than that, she had a knack for it in a way that she a knack for nothing else.

Andrea joined the NYPD fresh out of college and quickly climbed the ladder to the rank of deputy sheriff. In the police department, she finally found the family she’d been searching for. In Sheriff William Kolstad, she found the brother she had lost. Alas, Sheriff Kolstad was a good man and good men don’t last long on the force.

Only a few months into her time with the PD, Kolstad was murdered in cold blood. The incident turned Andy’s vision red. She was 21 and full of fire. She hadn’t been able to do anything about her brother... but for William? She’d find it in her track down whomever was responsible.

Madden Coyle, eighteen years old was found guilty and placed on death row for the murder of an on duty police officer in cold blood. Andrea didn’t blink an eye. The loss of Kolstad left her affected and, in the same way she handled her brother’s death, she decided that packing up and moving was the right way to cope with things. She asked to be relocated and, as a result, was shipped off the Glynco, Georgia to become a firearms instructor at the U.S. Marshal’s training center.

She was in Georgia when she heard that Coyle had gotten out on a technicality. She heard of the ruling by way of a ping to her cellphone in the middle of class and the young woman came to a full stop at the mere sight of it. It possibly right then that Andrea decided to transition from an instructor to marshal.

During her time with the Marshal’s service, Andrea was assigned to several different field offices across the U.S. She gained a reputation for being trigger happy and was thus stationed in increasingly remote stations. Alice passed during Andrea’s time in the Fairbanks office and due to poor weather conditions it was a week before Andrea got the news. Alice had left Andrea the house in Valdez, Colorado.

Her life continued in other ways. During the day she would do her job, and at the night she would come back to the husband she’d met during her time on the NYPD. For a while, life was right. When Andrea caught whiff that Alexi Voloshyn was making the journey from the Port of Odessa to the Port of New Orleans, Andrea caught the first flight she could to Louisiana. 

Cut to: two weeks later. Andrea. Run out of New Orleans by the Ukrainian mob for publicly killing Alexi Voloshyn. Out of a desire to avoid scandal and a fear for her safety, her Chief Deputy decided that it was time for Andrea to take a sabbatical. It was time for her to go home.

Andrea had no interest in hanging up her badge. She fucking despised the thought of it. She was ready to contest, she was ready to fight back. But as fate would have it, Andrea caught word through the grapevine that Madden Coyle was based in Valdez, Colorado. Any protests to the suggestion died in her throat. She took the sabbatical, left her gun and her badge, and made her way back home. She intended on going alone, deciding that she’d make the trip, handle Coyle, come back. To her surprise, her husband was looking for a change as well and so Andrea and her husband into the old estate her mother left for her. 

Valdez came with its own obstacles. The gangs infested the town and Andrea did her best to stay above it. When her partner strayed, Andrea kicked him out and never looked back. For her, it was as simple at that. Andrea had a rigid view for most things. While others saw the world in shades of grey, she saw it in shades of black and white. 

Now, Andrea lives alone with the occasional roommate that comes and goes. She keeps most of the estate boarded up and only really uses the parts she needs. To keep herself from going stir-crazy, she has taken up a part-time job as a freelance journalist. Old habits die hard though - hunting is in her bones. She plans on cleaning up this town. 

PERSONALITY / OTHER

an old-west gunslinger born into a different era

trigger happy

deep seeded anger towards the criminal underworld of this city. All about putting bad people behind bars and protecting good people.

holds a mother-fucking grudge like no other. See: 10 year vendetta against Madden Coyle.

methodology: shoot it before it shoots me.

honestly, if she wasn’t wearing a badge “back in the day” she’d be pretty close becoming an outlaw herself. She walks a dangerous line but shhhh we don’t talk about that

is no-nonsense

If you missed it in her bio, she’s missing her ring finger. She cut it off herself cause she didn’t want to get married. Ever. She always wears a glove on her left hand. 

forgets to eat. Survives on a diet of scotch and gummy bears.

has two facial expressions: scowling or smiling slyly

is angry. Always. Keeps it bottled up. Always.

crime never sleeps and neither does she.

likes crossword puzzles

plays the saxophone and the piano. A fan of jazz music.  

“I think she had fun, once” - the gas-station lady

also has a goldfish that she keeps forgetting to feed it’s a wonder it’s still alive.

“Call me Andy.”

WANTED CONNECTIONS 

I’m down to get creative with any of these! Also, I love angst???

Housemate - There is too much room in her parents estate for her live there alone. Andy’s put up a “for rent” sign with the intention of renting out one of the rooms to another Valdez citizen. (taken)  

Former friends, exes, frenemies - Maybe she lost touch with them, maybe she didn’t. If your character grew up in Valdez, there’s the chance they knew each other. Maybe they had sleepovers, maybe they were childhood enemies, maybe they dated. Bonus points if they lead lifestyles she disapproves of now! (open)

Siblings - Andy and Mikhail were Alice and Alexi’s oldest, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have had other younger siblings. Also open to having Alexi have had other affairs. (open)

The Hunted - they’ve crossed paths in the past and she’s got a vendetta against them (open)

Ex-husband - He joined the criminal underworld. She left him. Simple as that. (open)

Co-worker - Other “journalist” friends. (open)

And literally anything else. 

[outofthewoods]

Secret Session Nashville Experience

Finally got my picture today and so - here is the full tea (well.......some of the tea) on what went down between me & my girl @taylorswift at the secret session in Nashville. 

Alright ladies….here’s the full tea on what went down for me at the Nashville secret session. I’m obviously not going to spill anything about the album lmao so if that’s what you’re here for I am :-( sorry. To preface tho: it’s literally the most iconic thing she’s ever done. The lyrics will kill you.

So I got a DM on twitter (like of all places, I do NOT try to get noticed on there lmao) from TN on Sunday afternoon and they called me Sunday night to invite me to Nashville for Wednesday, they said they thought my account was really hilarious. I was very very clear that I had gotten Loft 89 on tour and they asked me to come anyways which was SO amazing of them.

So I booked a flight and a hotel last minute (it’s my 21st birthday on the 27th, so my parents agreed to help me pay for it as a gift) and I flew in for literally less than 24 hours on Wednesday morning. I strolled around downtown Nashville and went to the bluebird cafe which was CLOSED…a hate crime…..and then made my way to the check in point after getting ready at the hotel.

I wore the reputation black hoodie (this is a KEY detail for my ~experience~) and black jeans and black shoes, I was really going for the bad bitch vibe lmao. So we check in with TN and I met some really amazing people (Ashlyn and Heather!!! shoutout!!!) and we were on the last bus to Taylor’s house. We got there a lot later than everyone else but we still had time to get guitar picks from Scott and eat some food before the session. The house was SO BEAUTIFUL and Kitty was running around being adorable, the cats were upstairs for the whole time I’m pretty sure.

So then everyone charges into the living room and because we were last into the house we were sitting towards the back of the room - so Taylor sits on a chair and everyone sits on the floor in front of her, and then there’s a row of chairs directly opposite her - so if you sit there you’re elevated and you can like…..just make eye contact with her the whole time which is what I did and I WAS SO HAPPY I DID THAT.

So she walks in and everyone freaks out obviously and ABIGAIL IS WITH HER!!!! They both looked so so beautiful, Taylor was wearing a grey tank with a studded camo shirt/pullover, black shorts and boots. Her hair was super curly and she had very dark lipstick. She comes to sit down and says hi to us all and then ~~~the secret sessions~~~~~~ so I can’t really say anything about what she said/the stories behind the songs at least until the album is out.

She literally made me feel like I was the only person in the room, and I’m sure everyone felt that way - she made eye contact with me SO many times, winked at me and was laughing at how I was dancing. She had little surprises planned for every song we’d already heard, and we got to see the unfinished version of the new video and that was so so cool. It’s amazing. She also showed us some other stuff from the shoot which was amazing - she caught my eye when I was GASPING at something and started laughing.

So we’re listening to the album it’s iconic, it’s wonderful, it’s glorious and LWYMMD comes on - she turns off pretty much all the lights and is like LET’S STRETCHHH AND DANCEEEE. I was on the other side of the room so I was like ok :/ she’s not gonna dance with me but UH….I was wrong sisters! So she starts slowly making her way across the room and she spots me and grabs me by my cheeks and pulls me towards her to dance, and because it was so DARK and there were so many pillows on the floor I LITERALLY FELL ON HER…..she picked me up and we hugged and danced and she twirled me around - and we were shouting in each others faces at the end of the second verse. She also circled back and danced with me again during the bridge.

So I’m like - REALLY NOT OKAY at this point, and we sit back down and start talking about merchandise during Gorgeous. And she literally looks at me from across the room and goes “Which you can all see…Zachary is modeling for us right now.” And I was SHOOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK……she just, knew me? And knew my FULL name? Literally only my mother calls me that but Taylor’s my mom too so that’s OKAY.

So the session continues and the album was SO SO amazing, Andrea/Abigail/Scott looked so proud and happy singing all the lyrics throughout the session. After it was over the TN girls told me I was really fun to watch because of my dancing and reactions and I just thanked them profusely for inviting me, they were so amazingly nice.

Then they just start picking people at random to go meet Taylor and we were there for a pretty long time and I knew I had an early flight the next morning so I asked to go and I talked to one of the TN girls whilst I was standing on the staircase waiting to meet her. I asked why I had gotten picked when I already got loft and I was told that Taylor specifically sent them something I had posted and told them I had to be there, which was SO COOL TO HEAR.

So then, I walk into the living room and Taylor’s turning around with a glass of wine in her hand and just goes ZACHAAAAARRRRRYYYY! And I……could NOT believe it. I literally went HI MISS TAYLOR….my wig….is on mars and she laughed so hard and kept hugging me and holding my hands and doing a little happy dance. She was like it’s been so long! How are you doing?? I was like um I’m doing fine THANKS…A LOT BETTER NOW THAT I AM HERE WITH YOU……and she was like oh my god I’ve been following you….I don’t want to say stalking because that sounds creepy but you know, stalking you a lot recently. I was like ALRIGHT….OKAY….ALRIGHT….I told her she looked iconic and she was like well look at you….and like pointed at my all black outfit and wiggled her shoulders.

So then she’s like so outofthewoods, what are you doing when you’re not serenading me on Tumblr with your guitar? I DIDN’T EVEN REALISE SHE HAD SEEN THAT VIDEO…I was like…you’ve heard me sing? She was like of course! I asked her if she liked it and she got confused and was like oh I didn’t like it on Tumblr because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise of bringing you here…and I was like no did you LIKE it, did you enjoy it and she was like oh my god yes it was so cute.

She was like - so you moved to New York? How has that been? I was like ahhh so amazing, I told her about school and living in the city and then that my 21st birthday was this Friday and that I was going to Vegas, and she was like oh my god!! That’s amazing, how ritzy. Have a drink for me!!! I was like okay miss Taylor I WILL!!!!! Then I was like you know Taylor…I came out to my family, and she shook her head all surprised and was like oh my god - no way!! That’s HUGE!! I was like yeah I’m so happy and started talking about something else and she grabbed me and hugged me and held my hands was like wait….WAIT….you didn’t tell me how it went, how did it go? Did it go well? 

SO I was like it went so well my family were so accepting and I’m so much happier and your music really gave me the confidence and push that I needed to do it and she was like oh my GOD Zacharyyyy you’re FULLY living!!! and I was like YESS….YES TAYLOR I AM!!! LIVING!!!! She told me she was so proud of me and I said I was so proud of her for the new album and she was like oh my god yes!! The album, did you like it? I was like Taylor…you know I’m a Red Stan - and she interrupted me and was like oh my god I know, and looked so nervous…and I was like, it’s better than Red. She started yelling and jumping up and down and was like YES!!! YES!! I’m SO happy you said that. And gave me a double high five, and I told her my favorite songs and then we shared a joke which I am not ~~~allowed to say anything about~~~ So then we talked about our picture, I didn’t feel rushed at all - Taylor was like…keeping me there longer than I thought I would be, and she was like let’s do like a sassy-hug and I was like ALRIGHTYYYYYY THEN!!!! So we took the picture and she hugged me so much and I was like I love you I love you I’m so proud of you and she was like, no Zachary - I’m so proud of you, I love you. Then she (on my way out) grabbed me and pulled me back and planted a huge kiss on my face and then I was like AOIJdsaishbdfsudbfksdnjfhisdf and she grabbed me again because I thought I had to walk away lmao and was like wait check my lipstick first - is my lipstick smudged? Is it good? Are we good? I love you! 

I WAS LIKE YESSSSS YOU LOOK FLAWLESS and then they handed me a merchandise bag and walked me out and the camera guy asked me if he could interview me about my experience and the session and I was like idk how I’m going to say anything but like OKAY!! So we talked and then we got on the bus and went back to the check in point to get our stuff and it was just. A dream, a literal dream come true. This was so much better than Loft, I wasn’t rushed AT ALL we literally just had the most normal/natural interaction like two old friends catching up. I love her so much and I love this album so much and this night was so special to me. Taylor if you’re reading this - I love you endlessly (you know that already tho) and Taylor Nation you guys killed it and made everything so seamless and fun.

[jjaywmac]

Once upon a time, in a small town in the south part of the United States, a town named Gainesville, Georgia, there lived a young couple, a beautiful young girl named Anna Louise, called “Anna Lou” and a handsome young man named Jesse Jewell – aka Mr. and Mrs. J.D. Jewell.  They lived in a small 2-bedroom, 1 bath house on a country road to Cleveland, Georgia, outside of town – called Cleveland Road. In March 1937, Anna Lou was expecting her third baby.  She was 34.  Jesse had just turned 35 on March 13th.  They had two girls, ages 5 and 7.  Patricia was the oldest – she was 7.  Barbara was two years younger – she was 5.  This photo is dated 1934. 

Jesse was hoping for a boy.  Anna Lou just wanted it over because this was her fourth try.  After this baby, she did want to try for a boy any longer.  Needless to say, Jesse wanted his boy.  At that time, Jesse was helping his mother in a chicken feed store in town.  The south was in the throes of a deep depression and everyone was doing his best to make a go of it. Franklin Roosevelt had just been re-elected for his second term as President of the United States and was frequently giving his “fireside chats” in the radio.  Jesse and his mother were struggling to help the local farmers get feed for their chickens and the farmers were struggling to pay. 

Across the “highway” on the other side of the street, lived the Lilly’s.  Johnny Lilly and Jesse had been best friends for years. And Evelyn, Johnny’s wife was also pregnant, expecting her first baby. She was expecting her baby in August.  So, in the evenings after work, Johnny and Evelyn would come over after supper and sit on Anna Lou and Jesse’s screened-in porch with Anna Lou and Jesse and talk until around 9:00 p.m.  At that time, Anna Lou would make sure the other two girls were in bed. 

Then, on March 30, a Tuesday morning at 11:30 a.m., Dr. Davis delivered another baby  girl to Anna Lou and Jesse Jewell.  They named her “Janet Tallulah”, after Jesse’s mother.  Anna Lou was glad it was over; Jesse ….  No boy.

That is the way it all began for me – March 30, 1937.  I just turned 82. Lots of life and years in between.  I have been reminded of this many times during my life. Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” and the speech that will remain indelible in my mind forever, “Let’s really look at one another!…It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed… Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners….Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking….and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths….and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every, every minute? (Emily)” ― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

Two years ago, I posted at least one picture of something I was doing during the beginning year of each decade. The selection process was random and has nothing to do with importance.  Here are the results.

1937: During the summer of 1937, we were probably swimming up at Vogel State Park.  Mother and Daddy loved to drive in the mountains (Blue Ridge Mountains) and we would go to Vogel State Park – there and back – on a drive to swim in the summers.  We did that a lot.  It was free.  Plus, Patricia looks to be around 7 and Barbara looks 5.  I would have been 5 or 6 months.  That seems about right. 

1947:  I am 10 in this picture.  It was taken at Camp Dixie in Clayton, Georgia.  Every summer, while all of us were out of school on summer vacation, Mother and Daddy would sent all of us off to summer camp.  That would give them some time together and keep us out of trouble for two !!!  months.  My kids used to hate camp for a week!!!  I loved being at summer camp.  Well, we didn’t have any choice in the matter.  But, actually, all three of us loved it –  maybe because there was nothing to do in Gainesville during the summers.  Go go Green Street Pool.  I’d rather be in the mountain lake any day.  Cold, fresh water, and invigorating!!  Plus there was horseback riding, canoeing, archer.  Nature.  I LOVED nature.  Still no.  And, the North Georgia mountains are gorgeous!  And, everything cost money which nobody had.  (Don’t you just love the “pose”?  Posing started immediately after birth.  Haha.)

(But, I digress……  Haha!)

  1957:  I am 20 in this picture.  During the summer of 1957, I went to Europe with a group of “chaperoned” girls.  There I am in the 2nd row, stage center.  I had just completed my sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin and was in love with a guy who had just graduated from U of W.   In this shot, I am 3 months pregnant, even though I did not know it yet.  (Long story for another time — maybe).  

1967: I am 30!  Happily married, with three little children, working as the Chairman of the Division of Humanities at a branch of the University of Georgia, living in Gainesville, Georgia.  

1977:  I am 40, on the set of a lemonade commercial and living in Los Angeles, California.  The cast and crew threw me a surprise party on my 40th birthday!!  

1987:  I had just turned 50. I am on the set of an ABC Afterschool Special, “The Day My Kid Turned Punk”, starring Jay Underwood.  I played Mrs. Rehnquist.  That is when I work with the exceptional Fern Field and her talented husband, Albert Brooks, producer and director.  My daughter is played by Megan Pryor.

1997:  I am 60 and back in school – second year LAW SCHOOL!!  Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California!  During the summer of 1997, I used a time share I owned and stayed in Roquebrune Cap Martins in France for two weeks.  That was when I said to myself, “I am going to live here some day.”  Pictures are taking in Monaco and Nice.

2007:  I am about to turn 70. Happily married to Steve Orlandella and practicing law in Los Angeles, California.  We are visiting Gloria Cataldo in Boca Raton. Florida, and on vacation.  Life is good!!

2017.  I have just turned 80.  Steve died on August 31, 2016. I am barely coping. In this shot, good friends have gone with me to Joel Robuchon in Monaco for a birthday lunch. 

Well, I have NOT turned 90 yet!!  I hope I will still be around.  I just turned 82.  On March 30th, Andrea treated me to lunch at Le Panier.  Excellent!!!

Plus other friends treated me during the month of March.  Pamela, Margaret at La Voglia, Christine at Geppeto.  Still lunching out with wonderful friends in Nice, France, Cynthia at Le Bistro Gourmand, and thinking about re-locating in Paris —– IF I CAN FIND SOMETHING I CAN AFFORD!!!   A big IF.  Wish me luck. I really would like to live in Paris, if possible, before my 90th birthday.  I must keep active and engaged with life.  It is too easy to wither up and die.  For the record, I am STILL posing!!  Haha!!

Best, Jay

“ONCE UPON A TIME……�� Once upon a time, in a small town in the south part of the United States, a town named Gainesville, Georgia, there lived a young couple, a beautiful young girl named Anna Louise, called “Anna Lou” and a handsome young man named Jesse Jewell – aka Mr.

[10oclockdot]

True/False 2017 Festival Report, part 2:

in which I give capsule reviews of films that I viewed on March 4 and 5, the last two days of this year's True/False, in order of best to worst. Part 1 here.

The War Show (Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon, 2016) Imagine Five Broken Cameras, but in Syria. Mix in a deeply wise coming-of-age story that tragically spirals into a tale of existential perdition with poetic voice-over to rival The House is Black and ending with the most clear-throated call for piece I've heard in ages. That's The War Show, and that description doesn't do justice to this rich, multi-modal, and severely underappreciated film. It all begins with Obaidah Zytoon, a young woman who liked shooting home movies with her friends (and who became the film's director), playing forbidden music as a DJ on a Syrian radio station. "Going on air was like dancing in a mine field," she recalls. As the anti-Assad protests begin, she films the people marching with her. "I'm doing it to breathe," says a kid named Nawarah. A bevy of catchy chants fill the air with the bracing spirit of revolution. And so we meet her exuberant friends -- Houssam, her lover, Lulu, a friend who removes her hijab for the first time, Hisham, Lulu's boyfriend and a poet, and more. But even as their spirits remain high and the crowds swell, "demonstrations turned into funerals," she tells us. Journalists are targeted, the country's "senses polluted" by the ensuing flow of disinformation. "No one raised in Syria can define freedom," says one of her comrades. Dozens of locals show off scars left by torture at the hands of the Assad regime. The friends take one final trip, and then, out of nowhere, they start to be arrested, kidnapped, houses destroyed, one is even killed, the halcyon opening smashed. As the film goes on and the madness of the conflict spirals ever farther away from believability, I found myself lost -- I didn't know where we were, when we were, or what to believe. Intelligently, the film doesn't attempt an encyclopedic or journalistic account of the conflict -- it would be impossible as yet anyway -- so what we're left with are fragments that we can barely situate or hold onto. Scenes of destruction, of protests and counter-protests between those wanting democracy and those wanting a caliphate, children playing with unsafed rifles, and, of course, an inside look into how a revolution gets co-opted by warlords and arms dealers, each staging some unreality for YouTube to further their financial cause. "There was a place for everyone in the war show," Obaidah explains, "except for the people." Many moments of brilliance follow after this, but it culminates in the very final scene of the film, just as a felt most poetically and tragically lost (which, of course, is the point). After years of prison, a disappeared friend returns unexpectedly, reconciling the lives of the few friends who remain. "Syria as we know it is gone," she intones, but kneels over a clay pot, gathering soil and planting seeds, and she says of the Syrian people, "We will plant the seed of peace around the planet." And there it is: the powerful, beautiful, perfect message of The War Show -- that the Syrian diaspora is, contrary to what every xenophobic isolationist asshole has ever said, the greatest peace movement of the 21st Century. Because the Syrian people, each scarred by the madness of their country's war, will carry the scars of that war their entire lives, scars that will always speak to the necessity of peace, wherever they live and as long as they live. It's an essential message and an essential film.

Brimstone and Glory (Viktor Jakovleski, 2017) I guess that in the back of my mind, I knew that documentary could be pure spectacle -- what, after all, are IMAX documentaries? -- but I never imagined I'd spend fully half of a feature length documentary leaning forward, mouth agape, absolutely in awe of the visceral madness taking place in front of me. Brimstone and Glory is a documentary about fireworks -- specifically the absolutely bonkers annual fireworks festival in Tultepec, Mexico, where half the buildings in town are labeled "Peligro" (they build the fireworks there, year-round), where they erect hundred-foot-high towers of fireworks (castles of fire, they call them) and where they build sculptures of bulls the size of buses and run them through downtown, shooting fireworks off of them into crowds of thrill-seeking and oft-injured spectators. Director Viktor Jakovleski spent went three years in a row, shooting with drone cameras, an arsenal of Go-Pro's, and cinematographers covered head-to-toe in protective gear diving headlong into the middle of the mayhem. Add to that eruptive sound design, sharp editing, and a driving original score co-written by Behn Zeitlin (the guy who directed and wrote the music for Beasts of the Southern Wild), and you've got one of the best adrenaline rushes you can get sitting still in a seat. Best moment: as they're setting up the castles of fire, lightning strikes one of them, setting it alight. Cut to the perspective of a Go-Pro mounted on a man's head whose job it is to rapidly scale the wooden tower without a safety harness and put things in order. Damn.

Manifesto (Julian Rosefeldt, 2017) Extreme close-up, shallow-focus, ultra-slow-motion: a fuse burns across the screen, sending sparks in all directions while Cate Blanchett quotes some delicious gobbledegook from Tristan Tzara's Dada Manifesto, culminating with, "I am neither for nor against and I do not explain because I hate common sense." Thus began a film that refused common sense and did not explain itself. Cut to old women shooting off fireworks over some abandoned Eastern bloc factory or weather station. As a drone camera flies over the tumbledown complex, we find Cate Blanchett, dressed as a shabby character that recalls Denis Lavant's Monsieur Merde, dragging a suitcase through the ruins and quoting Marx. In a flash, the opening credits are a barrage: huge white block letters on a black background, the names of artists and thinkers who wrote manifestos, each on screen for about a third of a second, like a stripped-down Enter the Void. The ensuing 90-minute film follows Blanchett as she dons a dozen different disguises in a dozen different environments -- from a puppet shop to a garbage processing facility to an anechoic chamber, all brilliantly photographed -- and speaks excerpts from a few dozen manifestos from across the last century and a half. To be clear, this is not a documentary. In fact, it began as a 13-channel video installation that editor Bobby Good transformed into a feature. Though most of the audience was probably befuddled and confused about the origin of these words (the film does not caption the quotations), they were generally amused by the absurdity of deterritorializing the tone of the manifesto into more quotidian environments (a highlight: Blanchett as a news anchor conversing with Blanchett as a field reporter in a rainstorm). I enjoyed the handsome cinematography and the Nils Frahm score, but I had the most fun whenever I recognized the origin of the words: Maciunas, Lewitt, Jarmusch, Brakhage, and a few others. As for the words I didn't recognize ("Equal rights for all materials," "One dies as a hero or an idiot, which is the same thing," "Elephants are very big and cars go very fast, but so what?"), I looked a bunch of them up and learned something. A nice provocation of a film. Perfect for screening the last week of a class on avant-garde art history.

Distant Constellation (Shevaun Mizrahi, 2017) A lovely, slow-moving film made of lovely slow-moving and somewhat haunting images. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts, making it a film that's not especially worth seeking out, but a few of the images will probably stick with me. In Istanbul, languid shots of a building under construction intercut with languider scenes of life in a retirement home. It all seems to take place neither in the past, nor the present, nor the future, but a place disconnected from time, where the overworked young build a future that won't happen while the un-visited old disappear from a past equally unreachable. Two old men ride up and down on an elevator in order to have a private conversation with each other. A very old woman who insists on being known by a pseudonym (Selma) falls asleep in the middle of an interview. One old codger, not without some charm, recounts the sexual exploits of his youth before proposing marriage to the director, saying she'll surely outlive him, which would make the marriage to her advantage. A stopped clock labeled USSR sits next to a working Western one. An old woman complains that now she walks too slowly to make it all the way across the street while the walk sign is on. The rhythms of the modern world aren't kind to everyone, but as tales of the Armenian genocide reveal, perhaps the world was never all that kind. So this constellation drifts on, and fades away.

Still Tomorrow (Fan Jian, 2016) A woman with cerebral palsy living in a remote Chinese village writes a poem that gets shared a million times on Chinese Facebook and scores her a book deal. That sounds like a good hook for a documentary, but the film lacks a clear shape or direction. For the most part, Yu Xiuhua spends the film not charismatically soaking up her newfound fame (though there's a bit of that, and it's really fun), but rather fighting with and divorcing a husband she's never loved. That focus feels strange until you notice that the poetry isn't really the object of investigation here, but rather the abuse which lower-class disabled people suffer in exchange for a caregiver. Sadly, this theme receives scant development. Still, there's plenty of her lovely poetry on display. "Silent wheat in the moonlight / the frictions between them / are the trembling of all the things of the earth." Here the image shows a wheatfield near her home. It's a choice not entirely without grace, but when a documentary's images cannot stand alongside its subject's words, the project falters.

Lindy Lou, Juror #2 (Florent Vassault, 2017) I desperately wanted to like this film. Lindy Lou served on a jury two decades ago that sent a murderer to death row. There's no doubt the man was guilty, but in the intervening years Lindy Lou has come to deeply regret this decision. So she and the documentarian travel around Mississippi tracking down her fellow jurors and finding out whether any of them changed their minds. It's a clear spine with clear motivation and all, but the structure ends up deeply limiting the film, since many of the people she goes to talk to aren't all that interesting people to talk to. The film was at its best when one of the jurors who'd also felt pangs of guilt years later suggests that their ought to be a state-funded counseling service for jurors who have to do such work. In the Q&A after the film, Lindy Lou, who was there in person, suggested that the trauma experienced by jurors on such cases was a bit like the trauma experienced by soldiers -- and she ought to know, she's a veteran herself. But she made the mistake of mentioning the film American Sniper to the fairly liberal crowd at T/F, which drew a couple of muted snarls from people seated near me. And in that moment I realized that even if Lindy Lou's on the right side of the death penalty debate, the Confederate flag flying on her property and her husband's gun enthusiasm (both depicted in the film) put her in such a different world from many of the folks in the audience that effective bipartisan collaboration might be impossible. I rarely learn more from the Q&A than from the film, but that was the case here.

[aion-rsa]

Blood Feuds and All the Feels: TorCon 2021 Highlights

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This piece is sponsored by

For the second year in a row, Tor Books and Den of Geek have presented TorCon, a virtual convention bringing the exciting panels and dynamic conversations of a book convention to your computer screens. This weekend built on the success of the inaugural con with over 30 authors from Tor Books, Forge Books, Tordotcom Publishing, Tor Teen, and Nightfire matching wits and being candid about their emotional, scary, and hopeful writing processes.

The weekend started off spooky, with horror trivia and thoughtful conversations from female thriller writers, then transitioned into a bevy of gay delights by way of deep dives into emotional storytelling in SFF and upcoming fall reads to make you shiver with antici…pation. Panels ran the gamut from one-on-ones (with assists from Den of Geek moderators) to panels playing games in real-time, all for your entertainment. Check out the highlights below, with links to relive the livestream fun or check out the events for the first time if you missed them live!

Visit the TorCon Bookstore here.

Catriona Ward in Conversation with Gillian Flynn

Listening to one of today’s gutsiest thriller writers Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, Dark Places) chat with Catriona Ward, author of the highly-anticipated The Last House on Needless Street, felt like listening in on the pivotal conversation in a mystery, where everything slots into place. “No one goes from skipping along the street to becoming a monster,” Ward said, “it’s incremental. You turn around and look back at your footsteps and you don’t realize you’ve walked the path to monsterhood.” Between this empathy for the monster and their frank discussion of female culpability in horror, it’s no surprise to learn that Gone Girl‘s ending was the easiest of Flynn’s shocking conclusions to come up with.

Moderated by Den of Geek Books Editor Kayti Burt, the conversation tackled the inherent creepiness of unreliable narrators and whether the authors know their books’ dynamic twists when they first sit down to write. A sense of place is extremely important to both writers, from the eponymous house—and its Bible-reading house cat—in Ward’s forthcoming book to the themes that ground Flynn’s stories. “Whether it’s about what it’s like to grow up in extreme poverty in the ’80s with Satanic Panic and reclaim that mentality, or female aggression and violence and what it looks like cyclically,” Flynn said, “it just happens that the mystery is the way for me to attach an engine to it and give me the discipline to actually tell this story.”

Rewatch Here!

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Chaotic Storytelling—Take 2!

Last year’s most chaotic panel returned with a new batch of ambitious authors ready to pants, not plot, their way through a speculative story in front of a live audience. How do you get from Gladys the tortured mummy in Stephen King’s castle to one of Keanu Reeves’ many incarnations saving the day? By tripping over some security lasers that emit glitter, of course. Enjoy this glimpse into the minds and creative processes of J.S. Dewes (The Last Watch), Jenn Lyons (The House of Always), Christopher Buehlman (The Blacktongue Thief), Andrea Hairston (Master of Poisons), and Neil Sharpson (When the Sparrow Falls), with plot twists and surprise d20 rolls supplied by moderator Drew Broussard of LitHub.

And while most of the panelists agreed that they were unlikely to collaboratively co-write a novel—unless it was a project like Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar’s This is How You Lose the Time War—they relished the opportunity to tap into their more unpredictable sides and go with the first plot ideas that popped into their heads without that self-editing voice. After all, as Lyons reflected, “sometimes fun is destroying stuff.”

Rewatch Here!

Nightfire Family *Blood* Feud

Tired: Family Feud. Wired: Gathering a temporary coven of authors from Macmillan’s newest horror imprint Nightfire to answer horror trivia submitted by the Tor staff. Guided by moderator Lee Mandelo (Summer Sons), these masters of thrills and chills had to answer burning questions such as… What’s the most common hiding spot in a slasher film? Which tropes are the most beloved? Who’s the scariest serial killer? (Spoiler: The shark from Jaws makes the list.)

In addition to guessing at their editors’ and publicists’ answers, the panelists let us into their own brains for some fascinating insights. Thomas Olde Heuvelt (HEX, Echo) once passed out while giving blood, while Cassandra Khaw (Nothing But Blackened Teeth) has a soft spot for Sophie Kinsella’s rom-coms. Gretchen Felker-Martin (Manhunt) has to purposely scare herself to get in the zone, while Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Certain Dark Things) fondly told childhood stories about a spot known as Blood Alley.

“We like to be scared because we all have our little dark sides to ourselves,” Olde Heuvelt said, with Khaw praising how the genre creates a space for people to process fears. Moreno-Garcia pointed out that horror doesn’t necessarily have to scare to be effective, that its tropes are in conversation with other genres and familiar stories retold. And Felker-Martin summed it up best: “Horror is about looking at things you don’t want to look at until you can expand your sphere of empathy enough to encompass them.”

Rewatch Here!

James Rollins in Conversation with Holly Black

Holly Black kicked off our conversation with the thrilling news that she’ll be publishing her first adult novel, Book of Night, with Tor Books! While Black is embarking on a new stage in her writing career with this series, for James Rollins it was like coming home: The thriller writer returns to epic fantasy with The Starless Crown, the first installment of the ambitious Moon Fall series in which he applies his love of scientific discovery on the fringes with a story that he carried in his head for over a decade before putting pen to paper.

With Den of Geek contributor Natalie Zutter moderating, the conversation delved into the authors’ shared love for the band Dead Can Dance as well as the appeal of liminal spaces—from the Faerie court to a twilight realm on a tidally-locked planet—and characters with a foot in two worlds at once. Both authors enjoy writing fantasy characters who fail to honor that old adage to be careful what you wish for, with magic bringing as much potential for world-ending disaster as for life-changing joy. As Black pointed out, “The difference between curses and wishes is just shading.”

Revisit the discussion for talk of non-Chosen Ones, fantasy jewelry, swamp bats we would die for, and the pop culture getting these authors through the pandemic. To that end, could there be some Lupin-esque heists in Book of Night? “Maybe” Black teased. “I hope so!”

Rewatch Here!

All the Feels: Emotional Storytelling in SFF

“With all due respect,” Becky Chambers (A Psalm for the Wild-Built) said to the more stoic authors on this panel, “if you’re not crying when writing a book, then what is the point?” Kerstin Hall (Star Eater) joked about how to “hack” readers, but quips aside, moderator TJ Klune (Under the Whispering Door) guided these authors in a soul-searching conversation about how they put themselves into the emotional highs and lows of their SFF stories. “It’s all about contrast, isn’t it?” asked T.L. Huchu (The Library of the Dead), comparing their writing to how artists work with light and darkness on the same canvas. “If you have these highs, when the really messed-up stuff happens, you’re bringing the characters down from a height, which creates a greater effect.”

From infusing the worldbuilding with feelings to constantly stepping back from the text and taking the temperature, these authors of everything from cozy sci-fi to cannibalistic family sagas never lose sight of the intense relationship on both sides of the page. Part of being a writer, as Alex Pheby (Mordew) pointed out, is letting readers meet you partway by “letting them have space in the text where they can engage their own feelings” instead of being prodded by the author to feel a certain way. Most important when writing from a place of trauma, Lucinda Roy (The Freedom Race) said, was for the author to be sure that they had come to terms with their own emotional starting point: “Have I reconciled my spirit to this trauma in such a way that I can stand back from it and write about it in a way that will be useful to others?”

Despite the name of the panel, it was still a heartstring-tugging surprise to see the panelists get emotional over their brief time together. When asked about inspiration, Roy said of her fellow authors, “Those kinds of people are my people.” Aww, right in the feels.

Rewatch Here!

Ethereal & Eerie: A Glimpse at Captivating Fall Reads

Bless all the authors on this panel for candidly saying that in most cases they would not want to live in the worlds they’ve created—especially because for many of them, like Catherynne M. Valente (The Past is Red, Comfort Me With Apples) and Lee Mandelo (Summer Sons), their books are set in a version of our present. As moderator Seanan McGuire (Where the Drowned Girls Go, Across the Green Grass Fields) pointed out, “Would I have written a book about where I am now if I wanted to stay?”

The panelists spoke about how they set the proper atmosphere for their novels, from Valente cribbing from an actual Florida HOA agreement to Freya Marske (A Marvellous Light) recreating a real manor house she visited in England. The most pressing question is which came first, the world or the characters? For Alix E. Harrow (A Spindle Splintered), it was walking out of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and saying, “I want to Spider-Verse a fairy tale.” While Zin E. Rocklyn (Flowers for the Sea) drew upon her “very deep respect” for the water (“that shit is scary and it’s our least explored area of the Earth”) to create the world first, her character came immediately after: “I wanted to mess with something that was catastrophic and bleak.”

What with releasing new books during spooky season, of course talk turned to tried-and-true Halloween reads and especially favorite eerie bookish characters, including We Have Always Lived in the Castle‘s narrator Mary Katherine Blackwood (Shirley Jackson sure knows how to write ’em) and the eponymous protagonist of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi. And how do these authors get in the proper eerie mindset? Everything from Rocklyn’s Spotify playlists to Valente and Mandelo each needing to do no more than step outside into a nearby cemetery. It’s gonna be a great fall ahead.

Rewatch Here!

Charlie Jane Anders in Conversation with TJ Klune

If this were an in-person con, Charlie Jane Anders (Victories Greater Than Death) and TJ Klune (Under the Whispering Door) would have been all over the place, appearing on and/or moderating in a variety of other panels. It was such a treat, then, to see the two of them in devoted conversation, led by Kayti Burt. The two found a lot of common ground, from writing for both YA and adult readers, to debating the benefits and drawbacks of standalones versus series, to speaking candidly about trans identity and asexuality.

As Burt astutely pointed out, both authors go to great lengths to depict kindness and empathy even within their more traumatic or grim stories. That intentionality is for the readers’ sake, Klune said, speaking about his YA superhero series The Extraordinaries and the second installment Flash Fire: “Queer kids deserve to have a book about queer kids that isn’t about the angst of coming out and homophobia; queer people should be able to read about happy queers who do stupid things.” And while Anders often finds that she establishes the tone at the start of a project, she’s aware that tropes can sometimes lead the story in a darker direction and that she as the writer can choose to diverge from where a story may seem like it’s turning grim: “Most tropes aren’t the boss of me! They work for me, not the other way around!”

Rewatch Here!

Space is Gay!

With books like Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit, Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater Than Death, and Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, it comes as no surprise that space is becoming increasingly gay. But moderator K.M. Szpara (First, Become Ashes) keenly started off the panel by asking the authors to define what they even mean by space. For Aoki, it was the sense of needing space: “If there’s any world you sometimes need a break from, it’s the world we live in as queers.” Anders likened the genre, with its interstellar jaunts and gallivanting, to one of the very best romance tropes: “It’s like there’s only one bed, but with the entire cosmos around you.”

“There’s only one pod!” the panel chorused, and we knew this was going to be a gallivant for the ages even if we were stuck on terra firma. But it wasn’t just riffing: When asked what should be made gay after space (dinosaurs and cyberpunk came to mind), Aoki brought up the necessary point that our work in space was not done: “Don’t just make it gay,” she said, “make it queer and trans.”

This panel had some of the most sparkling witticisms of the con, with this self-appointed starship crew of authors plotting a gay space heist involving tactical ballgowns, robbing Elon Musk’s inevitable space bank, and knowing exactly where to hide a body on a space station. Even when discussing more serious topics such as the need for queer scientists and educators (in addition to sci-fi writers), Aoki had the panel and audience cheering: “Imagine Bill Nye the Science Bi!”

Rewatch Here!

Conjuring the Diaspora: Myths, Legends, and Classics Reimagined

Moderator Lily Philpott began this panel, about the intersections between the Asian diaspora and speculative storytelling, by acknowledging how vast the diaspora is, inviting the panelists to each speak about their ancestors and formative myths and legends. With these authors based on three different continents, no two people had the same perspective on identity. To wit, in discussing the disparate influences on Light From Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki said, “I’m not doing that to show you how many places I can be, I’m doing this to show you how many places I am.” With regard to rediscovering one link to her family history in Japan while losing another, Aoki said, “I refuse, with this book and with many of my books, to see myself as fragmented.” Whereas Nghi Vo (The Chosen and the Beautiful), whose family is Vietnamese and Hakka Chinese, said that while she appreciated the discussion of wholeness, “I have no interest in being whole. I have plenty of identity in fragment.”

As for what drew them to SFF, for Aliette de Bodard (Fireheart Tiger) it was because it’s fun! “I think on some level what I’m trying to find were these stories my grandmother would tell me as a child,” the French-Vietnamese author said, “and that sense of wonder you had when finding a dragon or turning a mountain and meeting the mountain spirit.” Interestingly, Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun started out as more historical palace drama but eventually turned fantastical, especially playing with the what-if aspect by adding magic. “One of the appeals of fantasy for me is you can approach issues side-on,” said the author, who grew up in a Cantonese-speaking Malaysian-Singaporean community in Australia. “With fantasy, you can conjure up characters who evoke those same issues, like with gender, but it’s cloaked by a softening layer that makes it vague. So many true people with their own experiences can see themselves in it.”

“The experience of the diaspora is one of monsters,” Vo said. “If you start with monsters, you start in horror and SFF. When you’re operating from a place where monsters want to eat you, and realize you’re a monster as well, you have to figure out how you’re gonna eat everyone else—that’s where I’m writing from.”

Rewatch Here!

Jo Firestone in Conversation with Joe Pera

Unfortunately, this is the only TorCon event that was truly live in the sense that there isn’t a link to rewatch Adult Swim star Joe Pera (Joe Pera Talks With You) and Punderdome creator Jo Firestone dryly yes-and their way through discussing Pera’s first book A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape. A boon for socially awkward and/or overstressed readers everywhere, the book was a challenge for Pera in translating stand-up from the stage to the page, and a delight in collaborating with illustrator Joe Bennett.

Kayti Burt led the audience Q&A, featuring such pressing questions as the best wood on which to display this book in a bathroom (teak). Pera hopes that the book, intended to be read in the duration of a short but much-needed bathroom break, will be a meditative guide but not necessarily recognizable by name: “Sometimes, like with stand-up, it’s best when someone stumbles upon it and has no idea who you are,” he said, “and feels like they’ve discovered something more personal that talks to them.”

The post Blood Feuds and All the Feels: TorCon 2021 Highlights appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[rafaelthompson]

2020 U.S. Barista Champ Andrea Allen on Women in Coffee

In advance of International Women’s Day this weekend, we ask Andrea about the increase of women in coffee competitions, as well as how her own winning routine came together.

BY KATRINA YENTCH BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

When veteran barista competitor Andrea Allen won the 2020 U.S. Barista Championship last month, she became the second female-identifying competitor within two years to take the title (after 2019 champ Sam Spillman). In 2016, Andrea spoke on women’s presence in coffee competitions, and a lot of advances have been made since that time—especially since she started competing in 2014. In 2019, women had a very strong showing in the finals of all categories of the U.S. CoffeeChamps, and Andrea is now constantly interacting with female and non-cis, white-male-identifying roasters, green buyers, Q-Graders, and other roles beyond the bar. To celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, we talked with Andrea further about women’s advancement in the coffee industry, as well as how her own winning routine came together.

We wish Andrea Allen, 2020 USBC champ, the best of luck as she moves onto the World Barista Championship in May! Photo courtesy of Onyx Coffee Lab.

Katrina Yentch: 2019 was the first year that really demonstrated a female-heavy presence in coffee competitions, and your recent win makes it two years in a row of fem-identifying champions. What does that mean to you?

Andrea Allen: Well it means a lot! When I first started competing [in 2014], they were mostly male. I remember being asked about it at the time back in that 2016 article and we may have discussed it a little bit, and I just remember thinking it was interesting that competitions didn’t reflect what I saw at my own cafés, or just cafés in general, like the makeup of people. And I think that goes for females as well as other kinds of people that identify different ways, and other races and cultures et cetera. So for me seeing more women, and also just seeing the competitions begin to look and sound and feel different, has meant a ton. I think it’s just showing the people that are already working in the industry, and doing a great job regardless of who they are, that competition is open to them and that their voice is valued. I think it’s been refreshing to see that reflected at competition as a whole. I’m grateful to have been, before this opportunity, to be there and to be able to come that way for it.

“Layers” were a consistent theme throughout your routine. What are some other ways you brainstormed the incorporation of layers into your beverages?

I started talking to [my husband] Jon about the concept of this thing called a palimpsest. It’s essentially an ancient manuscript where whenever it’s time to write something different on it or something new, they actually just physically scrape the words off, and it’s usually like an animal hide of some kind, but every time they scrape, they can’t get everything off. So they put new on top of old stuff, and it’s a concept I’ve loved and thought about over the years. It feels like it really strongly connects to hospitality in terms of being where our expectations, our desires, the things that we like in cafés or in restaurants and coffees, are all things that are constantly being built on each other.

As we have experiences, they inform us about what we like or what we don’t like or what we want to see more of or what we want to stay away from. So just like, having that concept particularly in a café, where you might have several dozen tiny interactions with a customer that build up to that customer feeling connected to your coffee or connected to your café, as opposed to having this one amazing experience in a café. That concept of layering all the experiences, and then inside of that having coffee, just made me really think about how we can think of how hospitality works and the barista’s role in that, and that is just enough.

In terms of the drinks, we started the season by building the espresso and milk drink and I served it first, when I normally serve espresso [first]. The idea is, once you have something on your palate, whatever comes next kind of has that influence. So I’ve always done espresso first because I don’t want milk on the judges’ palate. But this year it’s actually really interesting to taste the espresso after you’ve already had milk, and actually layering the flavor and the body and all the characteristics of the espresso after milk was really interesting.

And then even inside of the espresso I was trying to use two coffees and I was, like, blending them, and the Eugenioides was this tiny ultra dense coffee bean and the Cerro Azul is this Gesha … all Gesha beans are typically long, large, just a totally different density. Every single shot I was making was wildly different, and it was just like, “OK, we need to totally separate these coffees and make two layers.” Inside of that it just happened to work. So we always start with the presentation and the concepts of that first. And then we work the drinks into the theme, or sometimes it just happens to work out.

Andrea’s staff at Onyx Coffee Lab is over 50% women, something she’s super proud of. Photo courtesy of Onyx Coffee Lab.

What are some ways that your company tries to incorporate women in aspects of coffee besides behind the bar?

Seventy-five percent of our management team [at Onyx Coffee Lab] is women. We predominantly, more than 50% across the board, are female in general. I think for us, I see females in our company being very detail-oriented and having really great focus, really wanting to make great coffees, make great places for our staff to be in terms of our shop community, really wanting to offer awesome hospitality to our customers. We really try to promote that and reward that inside of our team. At least for us we have quite a few females on our leadership team, and that’s something I feel proud about.

A lot of competitors have also been making an effort to feature coffees produced by women or roasted by women. Has this affected how your company has been buying coffee lately?

Two of our roasting team are females, which is awesome. And then I do get particularly inspired by certain female producers. There’s one in Nariño named Raquel Lasso. In the last couple of years she had some coffee that was really, really good, and she’s kind of the leader of the association of growers in her region. She’s also the official leader in that area and has tons of really cool initiatives like … there was this one where she basically gave cows to women that were in not great financial and relational situations, and showed them how to take a cow and milk it and make cheese and sell it, and to help them gain financial independence, which is super cool. Things like that I feel are super inspiring to me, seeing women across the world working hard at great products and making a difference in coffee. That’s something that I get inspired by, and that we try to embrace as much as we can here.

The post 2020 U.S. Barista Champ Andrea Allen on Women in Coffee appeared first on Barista Magazine Online.

2020 U.S. Barista Champ Andrea Allen on Women in Coffee published first on https://espressoexpertsite.tumblr.com/

[lslbrigade]

My expectation of the Model 3 test drive

The test drive with the Tesla Model 3 is to find out how the latest Tesla works and therefore by the way: what makes the Model 3 different from the larger Model S (apart from the length). In order to find out, I did a trip to the countryside – a short tour through the varied Lower Austria.

Introducing my individual passengers

Andreas Icha is responsible for our resort “Alles Auto” (All about Cars will come soon to the english website).

I invited three completely different passengers to my test drive. No. 1 is female, over 50, knows different cars, drives cars almost every day, but is only very interested in the topic – they should work. No. 2 is male, about 30, soaks up everything about cars, like a dry Greek natural sponge. No. 3 is female, counts 90 (!) years, still drives joyfully and safely small cars and is curious about everything new. And there is me – since my childhood infested with the auto virus and a critical observer of the mobility concepts for our future. For the personal opinions of the persons, I will use these Numbers in the editorial as 1 to 4 – that’s easier (for me).

The Tesla Model 3 variants to choose from

The Tesla Model 3 isn’t named like that because of  THREE different versions. But there are three models to choose from. You can choose from the following options:

Standard range Plus: Rear-wheel drive and partial premium interior

Maximum range: four-wheel drive and premium interior (our test vehicle)

Performance: four-wheel drive and premium interior

Model 3 does not skimp with power

Model 3 from Tesla doesn’t stint with performance. 460 HP is an announcement for a car of the middle class. The same class is Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, C-Class Benz and exotics, such as Jaguar XE or Renault Talisman. It is not the pure performance that inspires. No, the characteristic of the powerful e-drive. The full torque from the first engine revolution – that’s impressive.

Like pulled toward from an extra strong jar glass rubber, the Tesla slurps the hundred in 4.6 seconds. The top speed of 235 km / h is OK – for Austria at least sufficient. No. 2 very pleased: “Hurry, the next traffic light is red again. Give it a good gas … uh … electricity!”. The joy I like – “whoohoo” and we are gone – but only up to 50 km / h. We are still in the city area.

No. 1 notes that it is not that quiet in the interior. Although no engine hum can be heard (really now?), however, the wind and rolling noise are clearly audible with 80km/h. A well-insulated, modern oil burner is not much louder. So we roll over the Danube river highway in the direction of the airport, where “No. 3” is already waiting for us.

The Model 3 in the rain – all OK thanks to all-wheel drive for optimum traction

Tight front seats

The seats are a functional and pleasant compromise. For No. 2, the front seats have too little lateral support – compared to the sports cups of a Porsche (hm…). No. 1 means: “The upholstery could be a bit softer”. In my humble opinion, seating fits best for everyday life. During civilized driving style, the lateral support is fine, the seats are suitable for about 180 cm tall people and the tight padding helps the occupants to keep in a good mood and lively, even after long distances. A weakness: the headrests are not adjustable in height and inclination.

The front seats are well-sized and comfortable – even on longer trips.

Seat row two for long distances

Sitting back is no punishment inside Model 3 from Tesla. As in the front, the passengers in the second seat row are well and long-distance suitable lifted. Tight cushions ensure a tireless journey.

Modern sedans are generally a bit confusing. Tesla Model 3 is no exception. When parking backward, the camera at the rear and the acoustic beep tone helps anyway. So you’ll squeeze the Tesla into every tight parking space.

You can handle Model 3 almost entirely via the central monitor in the middle of the dashboard – which also impresses unicorn llamas

Operation via the central touch screen

In terms of functionality, Tesla goes its own way. In the interior, the central touch screen is the dominant design and operating element. Beside the screen there are only two steering column levers and two turn & push buttons on the steering wheel – that’s it. The menu navigation on the fixed tablet is very simple if you have seen through it once. That’s all it takes to operate a car. All functions are available here and you will be able to adapt all configurations. You can see that Tesla is a computer with a driving function. Only No. 3 is a little confused. “And how do you take the tablet down from there?” she asks doubtfully.

The clearly drawn and tidy dashboard is a trademark of Tesla

Crisp chassis for sporty driving

Model 3 you can drive crisp and direct because of the relatively high deadweight of almost 1.9 tonnes and the low center of gravity through the batteries let the load fed on the asphalt. The Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tires on the test car are top and fitting very well with the vehicle. The category “sporty sedan” characterizes the driving dynamics best. Curvy overland trails, such as along the Wagram, conjure the Tesla an imaginary grin in the front. He acknowledges tight, fast corners with the intervention of the electronic assistance systems. They down-regulate everything so that a safe course is secured. Up to the limit, the Model 3 is neutral to slightly understeering on the road. The chassis is tight and fits well with the sporty character. 

The driving behavior of the Model 3 is quite sporty – with a racing kart you should better not compete

If you drive provident you will rarely need to use the brake pedal. Simply go from the gas or accelerator pedal and the energy will be recovered by recuperation and fed into the battery. If this is not enough, the brake calipers grip the four discs and decelerate the tight two tons until they standstill.

The brakes are sufficiently dimensioned and benefit from recuperation.

Interior and Trunk

The interior of the Tesla Model 3 is simply clear. This was addressed earlier in the context of usability. The materials don’t match the feeling of other premium manufacturers. Front and back, the Model 3 offers enough space. Four people will travel very comfortably by car – five of them fit in anyway.

The (rear) trunk can hold a lot of luggage – even if the loading floor is slightly high due to the batteries.

The trunk volume is sufficient for a mid-size vehicle. The high cargo space floor in the rear cargo space is because of the batteries on the car floor. The access is a big hole – unfortunately, the model 3 has no despite hatchback. In the front Trunk of the car, you will also find a storage space – this is the advantage of the compact electric motors.

All hatches open – access to the rear luggage compartment could be more convenient if it were a tailgate.

Full equipment – all in there

Our test vehicle is equipped with everything that Tesla has to offer – this is called ‘premium interior’. The front seats are 12-way adjustable and heated. The rear seats can be heated. Enjoy listening to music with the premium audio system – 14 speakers plus subwoofer make great sound.

Sunscreen – not the greatest thing since sliced bread

Ambivalent reactions trigger the tinted panoramic glass roof. While No. 2 finds the transparent roof extremely cool, No. 1 is less positive about it. “Because the sun is dazzling. It’s getting extremely hot because of that. Why isn’t there a nice sunshade roller blind? “, so the feedback. So I start to install the not very practical sunscreen. “Well … that’s not the greatest thing, since sliced bread but ok”, notes No. 1 sullen.

The sunshade for the panoramic glass roof is an impractical thing – perhaps Tesla will consider a more comfortable solution

Autopilot – on the way to autonomous driving?

No. 2 nearly can’t wait anymore. He wants to see how the autopilot controls the car. “Come on! Take your hands off the steering wheel! Let the Tesla drive itself! ���, It sounds highly motivated from the second row. No. 3, already experienced a lot in her 90 years and would like to spend some more time on this planet, moans: “Does it really have to be that way?!”

Come on – take your hands off!

 “Autopilot” sounds more dramatic than it is. The centerpiece is adaptive speed control, which does a pretty good job on the highway. For example, change lane? Yes, it works. However, the system acts so carefully – it needs enough space and no car should be visible from behind. But that raises the question of purpose. If you are no longer able to make a lane change without automatism, then please return your driver’s license.

From the use of the autopilot function in the city Tesla advises, is clear. Don’t do this. – I completely agree. Wrong estimated boundary lines on the road, or just next to it on the sidewalk, triggers sweat attacks. Sudden braking maneuvers, because the system thinks – there is a perceived obstacle – can bring the cars behind you into dangerous situations.

The autopilot is a first step in the direction of autonomous driving – but the way is still very long.

Tesla – Heel! – The blaming “Enhance Summon” feature

The summon feature on the Tesla app seems to make sense to lure the Model 3 out of a tight parking space

There is still the “enhance summon” feature that lures out the Tesla from any parking space as if done by a magic spell. That must be tested on practicality.

Szene: Sloping parker opposite a Greek Restaurant in Korneuburg. The garden is full – about 50 curious heads stretches to the parking spaces and looking forward to a high-tech spectacle.

Model 3 is moving – but short. Connection interrupted – aha. Again. Oh, another piece out of the square. Connection interrupted. Hm … is going again like this several times. Now the Tesla stands across the road and blocks five cars that can’t pass anymore.

We all need to get back into the car quickly – bu speed is relative for a 90-year-old lady. Finally, everyone is inside. But I can’t drive away immediately, because the car rolled straight and not in a curve out of the parking space. So  I need to roll back into the parking lot again, let all (now eight) cars pass and then pulling out of the parking slot manually. The mischievous grin of the guests at the Greek restaurant bothers me – I’m just very sensitive.

Safety and Security

Active safety is GREAT on Tesla’s Model 3. Recently, the Model 3 received five stars in a crash test by ÖAMTC / ADAC (see here: https://www.oeamtc.at/tests/crashtest/crashtest-2019-07/tesla-model-3-32606934). Among other things responsible is the high-strength metal structure of the body, all-around airbags and a lot of safety assistance systems.

The high passive safety is arguable by the enormous acceleration potential. In addition, you will find that driving with an electric vehicle is very relaxing and soothing. we need more relaxed motorists in this country!

The female passengers are happy about the high safety standards in Model 3.

Clean and green without emissions

Zero emissions! Of course, it is not and only half the truth. Depending on how the electricity was produced from the charging station, it is clean (renewable energy), dirty (lignite) or questionable (nuclear power). The ecological footprint also includes the production of the batteries. However, I deliberately do not want to continue this discussion here – the top experts in the world have been arguing for years.

Model 3 on the Tesla Supercharger – charging up to 80% battery capacity is relatively fast.

Certainly, the Tesla Model 3 generates no polluting pollutants while driving – which at least contributes to better air in the city.

All sorts of charging cables for all connections can be found in the double floor of the luggage compartment.

The Pricing

If you want to buy a brand new model 3, you have to pay (i Austria in September 2019) at least EUR 46,680. (35.000 USD USA Price List) For that, you get the “Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus”.

The retail price of our test car comes to EUR 64.930, – (Tesla Model 3 maximum range with dual-engine four-wheel drive and some extras). We did not consider the huge savings of Fuel and tax savings and state fundings.

Model 3 is the cheapest way to drive a Tesla. Retail Pricing starts at EUR 45.700, –

Tesla Model 3 vs. Model S – differences

First of all – the Model 3 is in a different league compared to the model S of Tesla. The big Tesla is longer and offers more space and a plus in travel comfort. The ‘little one’ drives more agile and sporty and therefore feels noticeably more comfortable on winding roads. The Model S performs larger ranges. The interior feels a bit higher in the Model S, but the Model 3 with its minimalist approach – One display that’s it – offers an even more modern ambiance. Pricing of the Model S starts at EUR 87,980, – compared to the EUR 46,680, – the Model 3 entry price (with significantly lower equipment and rear instead of four-wheel drive).

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fast loading times at the Tesla Loading Station

Clear Design – the Tesla Logo

Interesting taillights

Cool Design – front lights

Best Loading Station – Tesla

Side Windows Detail

Gadgets: Mirrored air vent

Animal fellow traveler Unicorn Lamas do not need to be fastened..

Conclusion of the editor

The Tesla Model 3 fascinates by its agile handling and the sports car-like performance. Due to the four-wheel-drive of the test vehicle, there are hardly any traction problems. In the city, the sedan is sufficiently maneuverable and offers four people and enough space for five people. Lovers of powerful electric cars can’t ignore the Tesla Model 3.

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better not mess with a cart

Maybe a bit spartanic – but clear – Bordcomputer

Typical Tesla style clear and aerodynamic design

Mr. No.3 with Tesla rear.

Fast loading

We still have to practice that with the parking, dear Tesla.

Data & Facts of the test

Vehicle: Tesla Model 3 Maximum range

Engine: Three-phase asynchronous

Power: no transmission

Drive: four-wheel drive

Capacity: no displacement capacity

Power: 340 kW / 460 hp

Torque: 630 Nm

Battery: 75 kWh

Acceleration 0-100 Km / h : 4.6 sec.

Maximum speed: 235 km / h

Range: 560 / approx. 500 km (NEDC / test consumption)

Length: 469 cm

Width: 185 cm

Height: 144 cm

Wheelbase: 288 cm

Turning circle: 11.60 m

Boot volume: 85 / 340 liters (front / rear)

weight: 1856 Kg

CurbTires: 235/45 ZR 18 (Michelin Pilot Sport 4)

Helpful links:

Configurator – your individual model 3

Tesla Model X Maximum Range – electric crossover in the test

Detailed Test – Tesla Model S 100D

Tesla Roadster Sport – what are you listening to?

Tesla Supercharger Stations

Destination Charger Stations by Tesla

Text and Photos: Andreas Icha

*Chief Editor’s Note: The Tesla Model 3 Maximum Range has been made available to our editor free of charge for test drives. The article thus contains advertising by brand name, which, however, has no influence on the judgment of our editor. (MR)

More from Andreas’ world of the most beautiful cars you can read here:

ALLES AUTO

country outing and feature outing in Lower Austria. What happened, insights and enjoyable reading about Andreas' latest car testing. #model3 #cartesting #ecars #tesla My expectation of the Model 3 test drive The test drive with the Tesla Model 3 is to find out how the latest Tesla works and therefore by the way: what makes the Model 3 different from the larger Model S (apart from the length).

[amyddaniels]

Inside the ASMR Meditation People Are Calling a Brain Orgasm

One Yoga Journal editor replaced her daily meditation practice with ASMR YouTube videos for a week. Here’s what happened.

Curious about the ASMR meditation technique some people are calling an orgasm for your brain? We were, too, so we had one of our editors try it. Here’s her story. 

“O.K., I have to give you a shot; but it’ll only hurt for a second,” my little sister says to me as I lie completely still on her bed. We’re ages 4 and 6, and playing “doctor” is one of our favorite games. In a few months, she’ll decide on a career in dentistry (she’s since changed her mind), and our mock physicals will quickly morph into make-believe oral procedures. I��ll open wide in our cotton-candy-blue bathtub (“the dentist’s chair”) and she’ll count my teeth thoughtfully one by one.

Rarely would you find me on the other side of the table, so to speak. Being the administrator of mythological medicine never interested me. Yet being still and quiet while my sister “fixed” my feigned ailments relaxed me in a way I could never describe. It was just like the feeling I’d get when we’d sneak into our mom’s bathroom and steal her makeup brushes, taking turns whisking the soft bristles across each other’s faces: gentle tingles running up and down my spine, dancing around my scalp—like tummy butterflies for the spinal cord. But no one else I knew ever mentioned butterflies of the brain; no one talked about it on TV. So, I figured it was just me.

See also How to Meditate Daily 

What is ASMR Meditation?

Two-and-a-half decades later, and the euphoria I felt from getting fake fillings has a cult following to rival Game of Thrones. Dubbed ASMR (short for autonomous sensory meridian response) in 2010, it’s a highly relaxing, pleasurable tingling that’s felt on the skin and scalp after certain stimuli. The phenomenon gained a huge online following after someone asked the internet about “head orgasms” back in 2007. All of a sudden, people like me were realizing they weren’t alone in their tingling—and wanted to know more about what made them feel great.

Fans quickly took to YouTube, posting videos of mock physicals, face massages, and even crinkling potato chip bags—all intended to trigger the zombie-like relaxation that comes with what became known as ASMR. While the sensation itself is still clouded in mystery (no one knows why some people are triggered and some aren’t), experts now say that for those who experience it, it can be as powerful a tool as meditation. To wit: New research from Sheffield University, published in June in the journal PLOS One, found that ASMR was associated with reduced heart rate and increased skin conductance levels (a fancy term for physical arousal that’s linked with better attention and memory). The researchers determined that ASMR is, in fact, a physiological experience that could have therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health—with the potential to minimize depression, anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain.

Unfashionably late to this particular party, I first read about ASMR in a Sunday New York Times this past February. In an article titled “The Currency of a Relaxing Sound or Tingle,” reporter Andrea Marks described a therapeutic, interactive theatrical experience where participants played passive roles in scenes including “sitting at a table while someone crinkles paper in your ears, visiting a ‘doctor’s office,’ having your face stroked with makeup brushes, and a hair-brushing encounter.” (Insert brain-exploding emoji here.) The Brooklyn pop-up performance was orchestrated by San Francisco's Whisperlodge—an immersive traveling show that curates intimate, one-on-one ASMR experiences for audiences that usually emerge from the quiet cocoon in a zen-like haze.

“There’s a tangible benefit you can feel in your body after you exit our performance, but we haven’t been able to back it up with science until now,” Whisperlodge co-creator Melinda Lauw says of the University of Sheffield findings. It’s similar to meditation, she says, because “it’s about paying attention—to small sounds and sensations. You become super quiet and aware.”

See also Rx Meditation: Headspace's New Prescription Strategy Could Change the Way We All Meditate

Down the ASMR Meditation Rabbit Hole

As someone who’s struggled diligently for years to achieve euphoria through meditation, I wanted to see what would happen if I subbed a daily ASMR YouTube video for my regular meditation practice. The first one I launched was called “Taps for Your Naps,” created by ASMR darling Maria (she prefers not to reveal her last name), the personality behind popular YouTube channel Gentle Whispering ASMR.

After you skip an advertisement, tourmaline-looking gemstones fill the screen. They line a plastic sheet of paper like stars on an American flag, and a pink-and-white manicure atop ten flittering fingers tenderly strokes each row, producing tingle-inducing little tapping sounds with each stroke. There it is. That inexplicably warm, all-encompassing feeling engulfs my skull like a massage shampoo. My limbs sink a little deeper into my couch cushions as I slowly exhaust the “Up Next” queue.

Your Brain on ASMR

But what is it about soft sounds and borderline-creepy caregiver videos that make some of us—an estimated 20 percent of the population—melt into our mattresses? More neurological research is needed to know for sure, but biopharmaceutical sciences professor Craig Richard, PhD, author of the forthcoming book Brain Tingles: the Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria and co-founder of the ASMR Research Project, thinks it’s a genetic response that’s designed to help us feel relaxed, mitigating stress hormones and promoting overall health in the process. “Almost all of our biological functions and reactions are to our benefit,” he says. “So why have we evolved? Why might this be?”

The answer may be in the basic way primates soothe their offspring, he says. How a mother coos and nurtures her fussy babe: She hushes her tone, offers a caring gaze and a gentle touch, conveying with every molecule that It’s alright. You’re OK. “That’s what these videos are doing,” says Richard. “They’re sending a signal to viewers that they’re safe and cared for in a non-threatening way. When a child scrapes his knee, it’s hugging; it’s lowering your voice; it’s focused personal attention. Our brains are hardwired for patterned recognition of those stimuli.” Most likely, certain brain chemicals are at play, Richard says. Research has shown that when a parent soothes an infant, or a teacher comforts an unhappy child, a “brain cocktail” of endorphins, oxytocin (love hormone), dopamine, serotonin (happiness hormone), GABA (relaxation and sleepiness stimulator), and melatonin (sleep hormone) are released, which probably work together to evoke ASMR.

If our brains are primed to feel good when we’re pampered, why is it that we all don’t bliss-out watching Bob Ross paint on PBS (a common ASMR trigger)? It’s likely that a genetic mutation is responsible, says Richard.

We can think of ASMR like the mirror image of a panic attack, he says—an extreme negative reaction to an event or experience. Most of us might get agitated on a crowded subway platform, but fewer of us are apt to feel faint. “We know about phobias and anxiety,” he says, (genetics play a role in both). “But there was no word for the opposite—the other extreme, where people are highly relaxed by certain stimuli.” That is, of course, until ASMR earned its title.

It’s still a new frontier. Richard and Lauw hope forthcoming studies will prove ASMR’s potential health benefits by comparing blood pressure, cortisol levels, and brain scans of people experiencing ASMR against control groups. Anecdotally, devotees already claim that ASMR has helped them overcome anxiety, insomnia, drug addiction, and PTSD.

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You can access ASMR on YouTube in the comfort of your own home.

ASMR and yoga—and me

On a Friday afternoon, a week into my ASMR experiment, I propped up on my sunroom sofa to try out a new (to me) YouTube ASMRtist. I had plans to meet a friend at 5 o’clock. But at 4:47, there I remained, limp-limbed on the couch while a 40-something redhead performed “skin treatments” into the camera—wafting essential oils in front of “my nose” and encouraging me, in a British accent, to “take deep, slow breaths.” I couldn’t move—let alone call a Lyft. Like sinking deep into Savasana (Corpse Pose) at the end of a restorative yoga class, all desire to re-enter the so-called real world had diminished. In this moment, it dawned on me that I’d been experiencing ASMR in my favorite yoga classes all along.

Richard says that yoga classes that incorporate ASMR are a no-brainer, although as founder of ASMRUniversity.com, he may be biased. Not unlike the intimate in-person experiences curated by Whisper Lodge, he says, yoga classes try to foster safe environments where one can relax and make room for self-nurturing. To this end, Kim, a New Zealand yogi and ASMRtist (who goes by the moniker Miss Synchronicity and like most ASMRtists, chooses to keep her last name private), has integrated yoga into some of her ASMR videos, and her audience loves it. She’s not alone: More and more instructional yoga videos are popping up on YouTube that incorporate ASMR triggers like whispering, tapping sounds, and pretend pampering. “Just like ASMR, yoga brings together the body and mind, expressing relaxation and mindfulness through the breath,” she says.

I can vouch for this. After my daily ASMR sessions, I find myself breathing deeper, moving slower, staying more in the moment, and feeling less attached to future results and outcomes. This new-found chill can last from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.

And the best part for me? Unlike my oft-failed attempts at getting present through meditation, ASMR works every time.

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About the Author Lindsay Tucker is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.