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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years ago

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Taylor Swift: ‘I was literally about to break’

By: Laura Snapes for The Guardian Date: August 24th 2019

Taylor Swift’s Nashville apartment is an Etsy fever dream, a 365-days-a-year Christmas shop, pure teenage girl id. You enter through a vestibule clad in blue velvet and covered in gilt frames bursting with fake flowers. The ceiling is painted like the night sky. Above a koi pond in the living area, a narrow staircase spirals six feet up towards a giant, pillow-lagged birdcage that probably has the best view in the city. Later, Swift will tell me she needs metaphors “to understand anything that happens to me”, and the birdcage defies you not to interpret it as a pointed comment on the contradictions of stardom.

Swift, wearing pale jeans and dip-dyed shirt, her sandy hair tied in a blue scrunchie, leads the way up the staircase to show me the view. The decor hasn’t changed since she bought this place in 2009, when she was 19. “All of these high rises are new since then,” she says, gesturing at the squat glass structures and cranes. Meanwhile her oven is still covered in stickers, more teenage diary than adult appliance.

Now 29, she has spent much of the past three years living quietly in London with her boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, making the penthouse a kind of time capsule, a monument to youthful naivety given an unlimited budget – the years when she sang about Romeo and Juliet and wore ballgowns to awards shows; before she moved to New York and honed her slick, self-mythologising pop.

It is mid-August. This is Swift’s first UK interview in more than three years, and she seems nervous: neither presidential nor goofy (her usual defaults), but quick with a tongue-out “ugh” of regret or frustration as she picks at her glittery purple nails. We climb down from the birdcage to sit by the pond, and when the conversation turns to 2016, the year the wheels came off for her, Swift stiffens as if driving over a mile of speed bumps. After a series of bruising public spats (with Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj) in 2015, there was a high-profile standoff with Kanye West. The news that she was in a relationship with actor Tom Hiddleston, which leaked soon after, was widely dismissed as a diversionary tactic. Meanwhile, Swift went to court to prosecute a sexual assault claim, and faced a furious backlash when she failed to endorse a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, allowing the alt-right to adopt her as their “Aryan princess”.

Her critics assumed she cared only about the bottom line. The reality, Swift says, is that she was totally broken. “Every domino fell,” she says bitterly. “It became really terrifying for anyone to even know where I was. And I felt completely incapable of doing or saying anything publicly, at all. Even about my music. I always said I wouldn’t talk about what was happening personally, because that was a personal time.” She won’t get into specifics. “I just need some things that are mine,” she despairs. “Just some things.”

A year later, in 2017, Swift released her album Reputation, half high-camp heel turn, drawing on hip-hop and vaudeville (the brilliantly hammy Look What You Made Me Do), half stunned appreciation that her nascent relationship with Alwyn had weathered the storm (the soft, sensual pop of songs Delicate and Dress).

Her new album, Lover, her seventh, was released yesterday. It’s much lighter than Reputation: Swift likens writing it to feeling like “I could take a full deep breath again”. Much of it is about Alwyn: the Galway Girl-ish track London Boy lists their favourite city haunts and her newfound appreciation of watching rugby in the pub with his uni mates; on the ruminative Afterglow, she asks him to forgive her anxious tendency to assume the worst.

While she has always written about relationships, they were either teenage fantasy or a postmortem on a high-profile breakup, with exes such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Harry Styles. But she and Alwyn have seldom been pictured together, and their relationship is the only other thing she won’t talk about. “I’ve learned that if I do, people think it’s up for discussion, and our relationship isn’t up for discussion,” she says, laughing after I attempt a stealthy angle. “If you and I were having a glass of wine right now, we’d be talking about it – but it’s just that it goes out into the world. That’s where the boundary is, and that’s where my life has become manageable. I really want to keep it feeling manageable.”

Instead, she has swapped personal disclosure for activism. Last August, Swift broke her political silence to endorse Democratic Tennessee candidate Phil Bredesen in the November 2018 senate race. Vote.org reported an unprecedented spike in voting registration after Swift’s Instagram post, while Donald Trump responded that he liked her music “about 25% less now”.

Meanwhile, her recent single You Need To Calm Down admonished homophobes and namechecked US LGBTQ rights organisation Glaad (which then saw increased donations). Swift filled her video with cameos from queer stars such as Ellen DeGeneres and Queen singer Adam Lambert, and capped it with a call to sign her petition in support of the Equality Act, which if passed would prohibit gender- and sexuality-based discrimination in the US. A video of Polish LGBTQ fans miming the track in defiance of their government’s homophobic agenda went viral. But Swift was accused of “queerbaiting” and bandwagon-jumping. You can see how she might find it hard to work out what, exactly, people want from her.

***

It was girlhood that made Swift a multimillionaire. When country music’s gatekeepers swore that housewives were the only women interested in the genre, she proved them wrong. Her self-titled debut marked the longest stay on the Billboard 200 by any album released in the decade. A potentially cloying image – corkscrew curls, lyrics thick on “daddy” and down-home values – were undercut by the fact she was evidently, endearingly, a bit of a freak, an unusual combination of intensity and artlessness. Also, she was really, really good at what she did, and not just for a teenager: her entirely self-written third album, 2010’s Speak Now, is unmatched in its devastatingly withering dismissals of awful men.

As a teenager, Swift was obsessed with VH1’s Behind The Music, the series devoted to the rise and fall of great musicians. She would forensically rewatch episodes, trying to pinpoint the moment a career went wrong. I ask her to imagine she’s watching the episode about herself and do the same thing: where was her misstep? “Oh my God,” she says, drawing a deep breath and letting her lips vibrate as she exhales. “I mean, that’s so depressing!” She thinks back and tries to deflect. “What I remember is that [the show] was always like, ‘Then we started fighting in the tour bus and then the drummer quit and the guitarist was like, “You’re not paying me enough.”’’’

But that’s not what she used to say. In interviews into her early 20s, Swift often observed that an artist fails when they lose their self-awareness, as if repeating the fact would work like an insurance against succumbing to the same fate. But did she make that mistake herself? She squeezes her nose and blows to clear a ringing in her ears before answering. “I definitely think that sometimes you don’t realise how you’re being perceived,” she says. “Pop music can feel like it’s The Hunger Games, and like we’re gladiators. And you can really lose focus of the fact that that’s how it feels because that’s how a lot of stan [fan] Twitter and tabloids and blogs make it seem – the overanalysing of everything makes it feel really intense.”

She describes the way she burned bridges in 2016 as a kind of obliviousness. “I didn’t realise it was like a classic overthrow of someone in power – where you didn’t realise the whispers behind your back, you didn’t realise the chain reaction of events that was going to make everything fall apart at the exact, perfect time for it to fall apart.”

Here’s that chain reaction in full. With her 2014 album 1989 (the year she was born), Swift transcended country stardom, becoming as ubiquitous as Beyoncé. For the first time she vocally embraced feminism, something she had rejected in her teens; but, after a while, it seemed to amount to not much more than a lot of pictures of her hanging out with her “squad”, a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham. The squad very much did not include her former friend Katy Perry, whom Swift targeted in her song Bad Blood, as part of what seemed like a painfully overblown dispute about some backing dancers. Then, when Nicki Minaj tweeted that MTV’s 2015 Video Music awards had rewarded white women at the expense of women of colour, multiple-nominee Swift took it personally, responding: “Maybe one of the men took your slot.” For someone prone to talking about the haters, she quickly became her own worst enemy.

Her old adversary Kanye West resurfaced in February 2016. In 2009, West had invaded Swift’s stage at the MTV VMAs to protest against her victory over Beyoncé in the female video of the year category. It remains the peak of interest in Swift on Google Trends, and the conflict between them has become such a cornerstone of celebrity journalism that it’s hard to remember it lay dormant for nearly seven years – until West released his song Famous. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” he rapped. “Why? I made that bitch famous.” The video depicted a Swift mannequin naked in bed with men including Trump.

Swift loudly condemned both; although she had discussed the track with West, she said she had never agreed to the “bitch” lyric or the video. West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, released a heavily edited clip that showed Swift at least agreeing to the “sex” line on the phone with West, if not the “bitch” part. Swift pleaded the technicality, but it made no difference: when Kardashian went on Twitter to describe her as a snake, the comparison stuck and the singer found herself very publicly “cancelled” – the incident taken as “proof” of Swift’s insincerity. So she went away.

Swift says she stopped trying to explain herself, even though she “definitely” could have. As she worked on Reputation, she was also writing “a think-piece a day that I knew I would never publish: the stuff I would say, and the different facets of the situation that nobody knew”. If she could exonerate herself, why didn’t she? She leans forward. “Here’s why,” she says conspiratorially. “Because when people are in a hate frenzy and they find something to mutually hate together, it bonds them. And anything you say is in an echo chamber of mockery.”

She compares that year to being hit by a tidal wave. “You can either stand there and let the wave crash into you, and you can try as hard as you can to fight something that’s more powerful and bigger than you,” she says. “Or you can dive under the water, hold your breath, wait for it to pass and while you’re down there, try to learn something. Why was I in that part of the ocean? There were clearly signs that said: Rip tide! Undertow! Don’t swim! There are no lifeguards!” She’s on a roll. “Why was I there? Why was I trusting people I trusted? Why was I letting people into my life the way I was letting them in? What was I doing that caused this?”

After the incident with Minaj, her critics started pointing out a narrative of “white victimhood” in Swift’s career. Speaking slowly and carefully, she says she came to understand “a lot about how my privilege allowed me to not have to learn about white privilege. I didn’t know about it as a kid, and that is privilege itself, you know? And that’s something that I’m still trying to educate myself on every day. How can I see where people are coming from, and understand the pain that comes with the history of our world?”

She also accepts some responsibility for her overexposure, and for some of the tabloid drama. If she didn’t wish a friend happy birthday on Instagram, there would be reports about severed friendships, even if they had celebrated together. “Because we didn’t post about it, it didn’t happen – and I realised I had done that,” she says. “I created an expectation that everything in my life that happened, people would see.”

But she also says she couldn’t win. “I’m kinda used to being gaslit by now,” she drawls wearily. “And I think it happens to women so often that, as we get older and see how the world works, we’re able to see through what is gaslighting. So I’m able to look at 1989 and go – KITTIES!” She breaks off as an assistant walks in with Swift’s three beloved cats, stars of her Instagram feed, back from the vet before they fly to England this week. Benjamin, Olivia and Meredith haughtily circle our feet (they are scared of the koi) as Swift resumes her train of thought, back to the release of 1989 and the subsequent fallout. “Oh my God, they were mad at me for smiling a lot and quote-unquote acting fake. And then they were mad at me that I was upset and bitter and kicking back.” The rules kept changing.

***

Swift’s new album comes with printed excerpts from her diaries. On 29 August 2016, she wrote in her girlish, bubble writing: “This summer is the apocalypse.” As the incident with West and Kardashian unfolded, she was preparing for her court case against radio DJ David Mueller, who was fired in 2013 after Swift reported him for putting his hand up her dress at a meet-and–greet event. He sued her for defamation; she countersued for sexual assault.

“Having dealt with a few of them, narcissists basically subscribe to a belief system that they should be able to do and say whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want to,” Swift says now, talking at full pelt. “And if we – as anyone else in the world, but specifically women – react to that, well, we’re not allowed to. We’re not allowed to have a reaction to their actions.”

In summer 2016 she was in legal depositions, practising her testimony. “You’re supposed to be really polite to everyone,” she says. But by the time she got to court in August 2017, “something snapped, I think”. She laughs. Her testimony was sharp and uncompromising. She refused to allow Mueller’s lawyers to blame her or her security guards; when asked if she could see the incident, Swift said no, because “my ass is in the back of my body”. It was a brilliant, rude defence.

“You’re supposed to behave yourself in court and say ‘rear end’,” she says with mock politesse. “The other lawyer was saying, ‘When did he touch your backside?’ And I was like, ‘ASS! Call it what it is!’” She claps between each word. But despite the acclaim for her testimony and eventual victory (she asked for one symbolic dollar), she still felt belittled. It was two months prior to the beginning of the #MeToo movement. “Even this case was literally twisted so hard that people were calling it the ‘butt-grab case’. They were saying I sued him because there’s this narrative that I want to sue everyone. That was one of the reasons why the summer was the apocalypse.”

She never wanted the assault to be made public. Have there been other instances she has dealt with privately? “Actually, no,” she says soberly. “I’m really lucky that it hadn’t happened to me before. But that was one of the reasons it was so traumatising. I just didn’t know that could happen. It was really brazen, in front of seven people.” She has since had security cameras installed at every meet-and-greet she does, deliberately pointed at her lower half. “If something happens again, we can prove it with video footage from every angle,” she says.

The allegations about Harvey Weinstein came out soon after she won her case. The film producer had asked her to write a song for the romantic comedy One Chance, which earned her second Golden Globe nomination. Weinstein also got her a supporting role in the 2014 sci-fi movie The Giver, and attended the launch party for 1989. But she says they were never alone together.

“He’d call my management and be like, ‘Does she have a song for this film?’ And I’d be like, ‘Here it is,’” she says dispassionately. “And then I’d be at the Golden Globes. I absolutely never hung out. And I would get a vibe – I would never vouch for him. I believe women who come forward, I believe victims who come forward, I believe men who come forward.” Swift inhales, flustered. She says Weinstein never propositioned her. “If you listen to the stories, he picked people who were vulnerable, in his opinion. It seemed like it was a power thing. So, to me, that doesn’t say anything – that I wasn’t in that situation.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump was more than nine months into his presidency, and still Swift had not taken a position. But the idea that a pop star could ever have impeded his path to the White House seemed increasingly naive. In hindsight, the demand that Swift speak up looks less about politics and more about her identity (white, rich, powerful) and a moralistic need for her to redeem herself – as if nobody else had ever acted on a vindictive instinct, or blundered publicly.

But she resisted what might have been an easy return to public favour. Although Reputation contained softer love songs, it was better known for its brittle, vengeful side (see This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things). She describes that side of the album now as a “bit of a persona”, and its hip-hop-influenced production as “a complete defence mechanism”. Personally, I thought she had never been more relatable, trashing the contract of pious relatability that traps young women in the public eye.

***

It was the assault trial, and watching the rights of LGBTQ friends be eroded, that finally politicised her, Swift says. “The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy!” she says. “This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included.”

She recently said she was “dismayed” when a friend pointed out that her position on gay rights wasn’t obvious (what if she had a gay son, he asked), hence this summer’s course correction with the single You Need To Calm Down (“You’re comin’ at my friends like a missile/Why are you mad?/When you could be GLAAD?”). Didn’t she feel equally dismayed that her politics weren’t clear? “I did,” she insists, “and I hate to admit this, but I felt that I wasn’t educated enough on it. Because I hadn’t actively tried to learn about politics in a way that I felt was necessary for me, making statements that go out to hundreds of millions of people.”

She explains her inner conflict. “I come from country music. The number one thing they absolutely drill into you as a country artist, and you can ask any other country artist this, is ‘Don’t be like the Dixie Chicks!’” In 2003, the Texan country trio denounced the Iraq war, saying they were “ashamed” to share a home state with George W Bush. There was a boycott, and an event where a bulldozer crushed their CDs. “I watched country music snuff that candle out. The most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics. And they were getting death threats. They were made such an example that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Just do not get involved, no matter what.’

“And then, you know, if there was a time for me to get involved…” Swift pauses. “The worst part of the timing of what happened in 2016 was I felt completely voiceless. I just felt like, oh God, who would want me? Honestly.” She would otherwise have endorsed Hillary Clinton? “Of course,” she says sincerely. “I just felt completely, ugh, just useless. And maybe even like a hindrance.”

I suggest that, thinking selfishly, her coming out for Clinton might have made people like her. “I wasn’t thinking like that,” she stresses. “I was just trying to protect my mental health – not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn’t. I was literally about to break. For a while.” Did she seek therapy? “That stuff I just really wanna keep personal, if that’s OK,” she says.

She resists blaming anyone else for her political silence. Her emergence as a Democrat came after she left Big Machine, the label she signed to at 15. (They are now at loggerheads after label head Scott Borchetta sold the company, and the rights to Swift’s first six albums, to Kanye West’s manager, Scooter Braun.) Had Borchetta ever advised her against speaking out? She exhales. “It was just me and my life, and also doing a lot of self-reflection about how I did feel really remorseful for not saying anything. I wanted to try and help in any way that I could, the next time I got a chance. I didn’t help, I didn’t feel capable of it – and as soon as I can, I’m going to.”

Swift was once known for throwing extravagant 4 July parties at her Rhode Island mansion. The Instagram posts from these star-studded events – at which guests wore matching stars-and-stripes bikinis and onesies – probably supported a significant chunk of the celebrity news industry GDP. But in 2017, they stopped. “The horror!” wrote Cosmopolitan, citing “reasons that remain a mystery” for their disappearance. It wasn’t “squad” strife or the unavailability of matching cozzies that brought the parties to an end, but Swift’s disillusionment with her country, she says.

There is a smart song about this on the new album – the track that should have been the first single, instead of the cartoonish ME!. Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince is a forlorn, gothic ballad in the vein of Lana Del Rey that uses high-school imagery to dismantle American nationalism: “The whole school is rolling fake dice/You play stupid games/You win stupid prizes,” she sings with disdain. “Boys will be boys then/Where are the wise men?”

As an ambitious 11-year-old, she worked out that singing the national anthem at sports games was the quickest way to get in front of a large audience. When did she start feeling conflicted about what America stands for? She gives another emphatic ugh. “It was the fact that all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked,” she says. “The thing I can’t get over right now is gaslighting the American public into being like” – she adopts a sanctimonious tone – “‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’ We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.” She doesn’t use Trump’s name. “I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.”

As we speak, Tennessee lawmakers are trying to impose a near-total ban on abortion. Swift has staunchly defended her “Tennessee values” in recent months. What’s her position? “I mean, obviously, I’m pro-choice, and I just can’t believe this is happening,” she says. She looks close to tears. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s really shocking and awful. And I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help. ’Cause this is just…” She sighs again. “This is not it.”

***

It is easy to forget that the point of all this is that a teenage Taylor Swiftwanted to write love songs. Nemeses and negativity are now so entrenched in her public persona that it’s hard to know how she can get back to that, though she seems to want to. At the end of Daylight, the new album’s dreamy final song, there’s a spoken-word section: “I want to be defined by the things that I love,” she says as the music fades. “Not the things that I hate, not the things I’m afraid of, the things that haunt me in the middle of the night.” As well as the songs written for Alwyn, there is one for her mother, who recently experienced a cancer relapse: “You make the best of a bad deal/I just pretend it isn’t real,” Swift sings, backed by the Dixie Chicks.

How does writing about her personal life work if she’s setting clearer boundaries? “It actually made me feel more free,” she says. “I’ve always had this habit of never really going into detail about exactly what situation inspired what thing, but even more so now.” This is only half true: in the past, Swift wasn’t shy of a level of detail that invited fans to figure out specific truths about her relationships. And when I tell her that Lover feels a more emotionally guarded album, she bristles. “I know the difference between making art and living your life like a reality star,” she says. “And then even if it’s hard for other people to grasp, my definition is really clear.”

Even so, Swift begins Lover by addressing an adversary, opening with a song called I Forgot That You Existed (“it isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference”), presumably aimed at Kanye West, a track that slightly defeats its premise by existing. But it sweeps aside old dramas to confront Swift’s real nemesis, herself. “I never grew up/It’s getting so old,” she laments on The Archer.

She has had to learn not to pre-empt disaster, nor to run from it. Her life has been defined by relationships, friendships and business relationships that started and ended very publicly (though she and Perry are friends again). At the same time, the rules around celebrity engagement have evolved beyond recognition in her 15 years of fame. Rather than trying to adapt to them, she’s now asking herself: “How do you learn to maintain? How do you learn not to have these phantom disasters in your head that you play out, and how do you stop yourself from sabotage – because the panic mechanism in your brain is telling you that something must go wrong.” For her, this is what growing up is. “You can’t just make cut-and-dry decisions in life. A lot of things are a negotiation and a grey area and a dance of how to figure it out.”

And so this time, Swift is sticking around. In December she will turn 30, marking the point after which more than half her life will have been lived in public. She’ll start her new decade with a stronger self-preservationist streak, and a looser grip (as well as a cameo in Cats). “You can’t micromanage life, it turns out,” she says, drily.

When Swift finally answered my question about the moment she would choose in the VH1 Behind The Music episode about herself, the one where her career turned, she said she hoped it wouldn’t focus on her “apocalypse” summer of 2016. “Maybe this is wishful thinking,” she said, “but I’d like to think it would be in a couple of years.” It’s funny to hear her hope that the worst is still to come while sitting in her fairytale living room, the cats pacing: a pragmatist at odds with her romantic monument to teenage dreams. But it sounds something like perspective.

#taylor swift #interview #by taylor #the guardian #lover era #lover album #not sure how I feel about the interviewer's approach...there's a lot of irony in it #but a fun read for us nonetheless

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revisionaryhistory · 4 years ago

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Three Days ~ 56

~*~Emma~*~

Sebastian and I talked and laughed until early morning. By the time I was finished packing it almost wasn't worth going to sleep. There was no way in hell I was going to hang up before he was ready. Cathartic or not, tears are tears. And with his history of being emotionally unavailable, calling me with puffy red eyes is a big fucking deal.

Throwing my phone across the room when the alarm went off seemed like a good idea. I fought off the urge. Half an hour and a cup of coffee later I was on my way to the airport. Flying out of White Plains was a shorter drive with a longer flight. Wound up being about the same as the long drive with a shorter flight from LaGuardia. I loved flying much more than driving. Plus, TSA at White Plains is cake. Past security I got another cup of coffee and settled in until boarding. I had a lovely breakfast on my layover in North Carolina. I do love a good chicken biscuit. In Atlanta I took a picture of the “Welcome” sign and posted it with the caption, "Back where I was born." I hadn't called Atlanta home in many years. I said things like, “It's good to be back", "I missed being here.", and "I'm happy to see you guys." New York was home. Seattle was home. I rarely called Alpharetta home except as a throwaway word to avoid having to explain.

Almost immediately I got a text.

Sebastian ~ Excited for family pix

Emma ~ And live on FaceTime?

Sebastian ~ I’m not afraid of your father. I hear he's a cupcake compared to your dad. Think I can tell you and Amy apart?

Emma ~ We'll see….

We'd talked about him meeting them. I hadn't thought about how strange it’s been for him to have me all the Vedders, even texting with Ed, but not met my parents and sister. It's way more complicated with the bio family.

I had no idea who was picking me up. I exited security and immediately saw my twin and our mini-me. Amy pointed to me and Katie squealed. Amy let go of her hand and my little niece came running. I scooped her up with the reward of having my face covered in kisses. Best welcome ever. Katie wrapped her arms tight around my neck, not letting go even when we got to her mom. I was shocked by Amy's appearance. I held Katie with one arm and hugged her, "We haven't looked so identical since we were thirteen." I combed my fingers through her shoulder-length hair that was now nearly the same color as mine.

Amy put her head back and shook out her hair, "Took three visits to get the red out and tone down the brassiness."

I smiled, "If I say you look gorgeous is that vain?"

"Definitely, but also true." She hooked her arm in mine and we headed to baggage claim. "The parental units want us to drop by the hospital before heading home. They took off Monday and Tuesday. They have a full schedule for you."

I rolled my eyes, "You can fill me in as we drive. Anything we talk about I'll just have to repeat when we get to them. Right now, I want to hear from my munchkin baby girl." I tickled Katie, getting her laughing and successfully avoiding questions. I'd figure out when to tell them about Sebastian when I heard what was planned. My tentative plan was for tonight at dinner.

Katie told me all about her preschool and her toys while we waited for my suitcase and halfway to the hospital. She only stopped when her favorite song came through the speakers. After a rousing rendition of "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" I turned my attention to Amy. "What's the plan?"

"Today we're on our own until dinner. They said we'll decide on food later. A bunch of people from high school are going out on the lake tomorrow. I thought that would be fun. Mom said they'd keep Katie."

A lot of our old friends still lived in town. I hadn't seen anyone for a couple of years. "Sounds fun."

"Sunday family is coming over. Mom wants to tell you the rest. I promised."

I laughed, "Shopping and a spa day."

"I didn't tell you."

Fifteen minutes later we were swinging Katie between us across the parking lot. Mom and dad were heads of their departments. Neuro for dad and OB/GYN for mom. Our directions were always the same upon our arrival. Sign in and proceed to the fourth-floor doctor's cafe. Security would have paged them and they'd meet us there. I got coffee for us and ice cream for Katie.

Mom arrived first. She was the blond hair, blue-eyed version of me. Dad had dark hair and blue eyes. Amy and I were a great combination of them. Mom had us young and was not quite fifty. They always said we were planned, but who the hell plans kids right after graduating from college. Mom deferred her first year of med school. We had a wonderful nanny.

After a long hug, mom held my hands and stood back to look at me. "You look beautiful as always. Maybe a little tired."

Such a mom thing to say. "I was up late and slept on the plane."

She nodded and hugged me again, "A day by the pool will be good for you."

"Always. I hear family is coming Sunday?"

"A cookout." She looked at Amy then back to me. "I suppose your sister told you about Monday?"

"No." I slowly smirked, "I guessed, but she neither confirmed nor denied."

"Your father's going to give Wendy the day off and spend the day with Katie while we do a bit of shopping then a trip to the spa." She fingered my hair. "Maybe cut some of this."

I pushed her hand away playfully, "Nope."

I felt hands on my shoulders before hearing my dad’s voice, "I can not imagine what you'd look like with shorter hair."

I looked up and behind me with an incredulous look on my face. I pointed across the table at my twin. The one with shorter hair, "Possibly exactly like her?"

"No, you two look nothing alike." Worst dad joke ever. He took me away from mom and hugged me. "How is my youngest daughter?"

"Good. Waking up."

Dad sat on the opposite side of me from mom. "I've never understood how you fall asleep so fast on a plane."

"I like to float."

I turned my attention to mom, "Are we still on for Tuesday?" Mom did exams at a local woman’s shelter. The head counselor, Stacy, had worked at the rehab facility I’d been hidden away in. Going to visit her and the women was always the highlight of any trip back.

"Stacy is excited to see you."

"And me her."

She put her hand over mine," Not a problem to move my day."

"Thank you."

A man who looked to be a few years older than me approached our table. From the ID badge on his white coat, I knew his name was. Dr. Burns and he was a Neuro Fellow.

"Dr. Marcum, I didn't know you had two beautiful daughters and granddaughter."

"I’m overrun with beautiful women. I'm very lucky."

"Of course," he looked at my mom, “Dr. Marcum as well."

I looked at Amy to see her cover her mouth with her hand. Eligible doctor as bait was new.

Dad introduced us, "Emma is down from New York for a long weekend. Always hoping we can persuade her to move back home."

I looked at the bait, "I hope he's as clear with what he wants from you."

Bait laughed, "I'm lucky to have the opportunity to train with your father."

I was feeling like a prize to be won. Thankfully, there was someone else who thought I was a prize in a less icky way. I didn't respond to bait, preferring to take a drink of my coffee.

"I need to check post-ops. Nice to meet you, Emma. I'll see you upstairs, Dr. Marcum." He nodded to my mom and was off.

Amy burst out laughing, "Oh dad, that was horrible."

"What?" He shrugged, "Young, single, wants to stay here in Alpharetta. We could invite him to dinner. I know his schedule."

I groaned. I guess now was the time. "I appreciate your attempt to lure me back, but I don’t think my boyfriend would like me going on a date with someone who isn't him."

Amy perked up, "Boyfriend?"

"There's a picture of us on Instagram. I’ve been waiting for you to comment.”

"No!" She whipped out her phone. "This picture of the volleyball tournament is the only... oh wait... there is a man wrapped around you. I didn't pay attention."

"Let us see," my mom took the phone. "This is too small. Plus, he's hidden behind you in a hat. We can barely see him."

"He must be ugly." Amy stole a bite of Katie's ice cream.

"He is not ugly."

"Deformed in some way. A huge hairy mole in the center of his forehead like a third eye."

I laughed at her, "Are we thirteen again?"

"Thirteen was fun."

My parents were enjoying our banter, I was too. Mom looked at me, "Do you have a better picture?"

"I do." I pulled up the one from the festival with the teddy bear. "This was a couple of weeks ago. I won the bear."

I handed my phone to mom. Her eyebrows raised. "Not deformed. Or Ugly. Not even close. He looks familiar."

Amy took my phone and in under two seconds looked at me with her mouth hanging open, "Carter Baizen?"

"I didn't know you watched Gossip Girl?" I was in Seattle before it premiered.

"Everyone at school did. I only pretended I didn’t."

Dad took my phone, instantly smiling, "You look like you're having fun."

I laughed, "It was a fun day."

Mom looked at me then Amy, "Who is Carter?"

"He was a character in Gossip Girl. Hot, but an ass. The actor who played him went on to in the Marvel Movies as the Winter Soldier."

Dad scrunched up his face, "The brain damaged assassin who killed Tony’s mother?"

"Yes." I was not about to argue brain washed versus brain damaged with a neurosurgeon. "His name is Sebastian Stan."

I took my phone back and swiped to a picture of us at the volleyball tournament. Dad raised his eyebrows with a nod. Mom said, "He's very handsome."

Amy smirked, "If I swipe will I find nudes."

"Sorry, no."

"No, I won’t find them or no you don’t have any."

"Don't have."

"Damn."

I don't know what I expected from Amy, but this wasn't it. I hadn't told them about Jimmy. I just brought him home. He was the last real boyfriend. Amy’s current reaction was much more typical of early high school. My parents looked cautious.

Amy cut her eyes up to me, "Kissing in the dark restaurant. Go you, little sister."

Dad turned his attention to me, "Is this serious?"

I could feel the tension leech out of me and my face soften with a smile, "Yes, it is."

"When do we get to meet him?"

I shrugged, "We can FaceTime him after dinner. He's getting ready for a role and is home."

"I'm looking forward to meeting him." Mom put her hand on my arm. "What's he like?"

"He's very sweet. Awkward at times and trips over himself. We laugh all the time and have these great conversations about books, movies, and music. He's very good to me." I didn't want to talk non-stop about him. I wanted them to know of him and over the weekend they'd learn about him. About us. "I'm sure you'll get sick of hearing about him. What are we doing for dinner tonight?"

Katie yelled, "Pizza!"

"I love pizza." There was an amazing pizza place near the house. We’d been going there since we were Katie’s age.

Amy agreed with me, "Easy and we don't have to get out of the pool."

I looked at my arm, "I desperately need a tan."

Dad stood up, "I'm going to get back to work so I can get out of here to enjoy my girls."

"Tell Dr. Friendly the date's off."

Dad glared at Amy. I didn't try to hide my smile. Mom stood while shaking her head. I got up and hugged them. I stayed still while they walked away then looked at Amy, "Let's get out of here. Can I drive?" I was feeling a little out of control and needed to be in charge of driving.

Amy threw me the keys, "As long as you can talk and drive."

Any guesses what the topic of conversation was? The drive home wasn’t long. Walking into the house I felt much more at ease. I think I was more nervous than I was aware of. Sebastian's important.

Amy handed Katie off to the nanny, Wendy. That felt familiar. We'd grown up in this house. This scene had happened innumerable times when we walked into the house. I waved when Katie turned on her way downstairs to her playroom. I followed Amy up the stairs to my room. She stopped at my door, "Are you going to unpack? And call Sebastian?"

"No." I shook my head, "I'll do both later. Can you send me the picture of me with Katie at the airport?"

"Absolutely. We'll be thirty soon. Bio-clock is ticking."

I was aghast, "Amelia! Our mother is an Ob/Gyn. You know that's not true." We laughed.

"Ok, so he can see how good you look with a kid."

I sighed dramatically, "Everything is not about Sebastian. Plain old Instagram. Me and my niece." I’m not playing those games with him. "The picture I'm going to have you take of me in my bikini... that's all about him."

That perked her up, "We'll get Wendy to take a twin picture."

I rolled my eyes, "He'll enjoy that too."

Five minutes later I was jogging down the stairs and heading out the French doors. The water was sparkling with the sunlight. It was hot and sticky outside making floating perfect. I threw a couple of towels on the loungers and threw two floats into the pool. Amy was coming out the door as I grabbed my phone off the table. I unlocked before handing it to her.

Amy followed me around the pool, "Remember when we'd pretend we were models and take pictures of our fashion shows?"

"I do. Our phones would be full of them. I’ll need to learn more editing skills when the wrinkles show up."

Amy rubbed at the corners of her eyes, "Crows feet already."

"I have a great eye cream." She took some of me then we got Wendy to take a couple of us, ending with us floating in the pool holding hands. I hopped onto the pool edge and took my phone back. I waited for Wendy to go inside, "Ok, jump out and take one more of me on the float.” Amy took my phone and I took off my bikini, lying face down on the float.

"I cannot believe I'm partaking in this."

"Oh please, who better. It's my naked ass and yours looks identical."

"My ass doesn't look like that anymore. Pregnancy stretched that out too."

I looked at my twin in her black one-piece with cut out sides. She always had the thinner body I wanted. After Katie, she'd not lost the last bit of baby weight from her stomach and her butt. "You look great, Amy."

She put her hands over her breasts, "These have stayed a little bigger too."

"I think I’m insulted."

Taking the picture Amy asked, "Are you going to turn over?"

"Absolutely not."

"Seriously? He has seen it, right?"

"Yes." I slid into the water and started putting my suit back on. Anything that naked he or I was taking.

Amy was back on her float before I was on mine, "I've sent nudes. Not just my butt."

"To whom, dear sister?"

"It's been years ago now. He lives in Marietta. I met him at a playground with Katie. Single parents’ version of a bar. Only he was pretending to be single."

I cringed, "Ouch, I'm sorry. How did you find out?"

"When his wife called me from his phone. We'd been seeing each other for a couple of months I thought I was falling in love with him, but I was just a side piece. He wanted to keep it going even after." She shuddered, "Not mistress material."

I made a decision to trust her with something. It had been a long time, "I never told you why Jimmy and I broke up. He'd been cheating with another lawyer in his firm for months. As the one who was cheated on, I thank you for refusing to go on with it once you knew."

"Did you know the other woman?"

"Yep, even considered her a friend."

"I'm always paranoid now that there's a hidden wife. After Jimmy do you worry Sebastian will cheat?"

I didn't need to think, but I took a moment anyway. "I'm not worried about him cheating. I don't think he would. If he does... I've survived it before."

We shared a look I hadn't anticipated. We’d both survived things. I reached for her hand. "I love you, Amelia."

"Love you too, Emiliana."

"What about now? Seeing anyone."

"Maybe sorta. Back after Christmas a bunch of us from high school got together. Max was there. He's divorced with a daughter in first grade. He has custody and wanted to wait until summer to move back so his parents can help with her. We texted and talked some. He moved back a couple of weeks ago. We've gone out to dinner. It was good. He'll be there tomorrow."

I remembered Max very well. He was a baseball player who looked very good in those pants. He was a year ahead of us and I had no idea what he'd done after high school. I didn't keep up with anyone except the occasional text or Instagram from a couple of girls on the volleyball team. Anything I knew was tidbits from Amy. She'd tried to get me to go to her five and ten year reunion, but I didn't graduate from here. I went to my reunions back in Seattle. Kept up with more friends from there and saw them when I was home. "Didn't you have a crush on Max?"

I recognized the smile on Amy's face. She looked just like me when I'd been caught. "He won't let me forget."

We laid in the pool laughing and talking. It had been a long time since I'd felt this close to her. I can't be sure if that's her, me, or a little of both. Doesn't matter because it was just good and before we knew it mom and dad were home. They brought Katie with them out to the pool deck. "We sent Wendy home. Just family this weekend."

Amy sat up, "Remember we're going out on the lake tomorrow."

Mom smiled, "I remember. Are you two hungry?"

The second she mentioned food my stomach growled. I put my hand over, "Very."

A discussion about pizza toppings ensued. At the end I got out of the pool, "I'm going shower before the food gets here."

Amy followed, "Me too."

#Sebastian Stan #fanfiction #sebastian stan fanfiction

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smokinholsters · 5 years ago

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The Consequence of Anger - Part 1

This is an AU One Shot in two parts, it takes place about 2 years past 8:4 when Ty hits Ahmed.

“Ms. Fleming ?” The black suited man said to her as she approached with the skycap and several suitcases.

“I’m sorry I’m late, the flight was delayed.” Amy said apologetically.

“We were informed, I’m Bruce and I haven’t been here that long. Let’s get to the car and get you to Hudson.” He said after glancing down at the paper he held.

Amy was quiet and checked her messages. It had been two years since she’d been home and she watched the miles fade through Calgary and then south. She watched the mountains and the trees roll by and sighed. She had no idea what she would do when she got to Heartland.

She hadn’t ostracized herself from her family, they spoke often, rote stuff, nothing deep. Lou and Peter had divorced, she was building a diner in NY, Lisa was now living in the house, Georgie was show jumping again and Ty had an apartment in town.

Ty, they didn’t really talk much and after the 5th or 6th argument she had with him, she couldn’t take it anymore. The finger pointing, his guilt, it was all too much for her, there was nothing she could do. Amy knew when she made the decision that it wasn’t something Ty would ever be able to deal with, the root of his problem with her, her ability to earn. She was wary of it when he told her that he was uncomfortable buying a place on her money, the whole idea that this is what couples do, support each other as employment or circumstances allowed, not Ty, his abuse and the curse of his youth dug deep into his psyche and his needs.

Charger didn’t surprise her, get rich quick was his way out. He overlooked that they had screwed up and she bailed them out by the skin of her teeth. Neither of them offered her a cut, as the rider 15% would have been normal, looking back this fell right into place with other things Ty seemed to not bother thinking about. He lived at a ranch she supported for years, he never seemed to get that, Jack was his savior, it was his ranch, it was mostly Amy’s money.

They made it extremely hard for her to visit and so she opted not to. She saw Lisa twice in Antwerp during her visits to Toulon, her grandfather even came along for one. Lou and the girls came once over the summer.

She vividly remembered the RCMP officers showing up to look for him a few hours after he had hit Ahmed. He wasn’t there of course having driven away without even hearing her out.

They stayed for a few minutes and spoke with the family who reluctantly informed the officer questioning them that Ty had indeed hit the Prince but only after words had been spoken. Shortly after they were forced to admit that Ahmed was leaving when Ty ran out, turned him and hit him, twice.

Bail was set high and the charges piled on. Ahmed was a Prince, a diplomat and very high ranked. He was considered a guest in Canada and his people demanded justice, someone had assaulted their Prince.

She could see the looks on her family’s faces when they deemed to speak with her, especially Jack, her grandfather. Apparently Ahmed’s delusions were her fault.

Walking into the house from the barn she stopped as the conversation going on at the table quieted. They had been discussing what Ty’s lawyer had said “jail time for sure”, how long would be a factor decided by how much other forces outside of Hudson pushed. This was a diplomatic incident with a life of it’s own.

“Amy, how’s that new client horse of yours ?”

“Really Grandpa, do you even care ?”

“What’s that supposed to mean ?”

“It means that you were talking about Ty, my fiancé and jail, and when I walk in you stop as if any of this is my fault.”

Jack stared at her.

“Say it dammit, did I come on to him, did we walk naked on the beach, sneak into the stalls, come on what is it you think I did ?”

“Amy, no one thinks that.”

“Then why stop talking ?”

“Amy.”

“What Lou have the words you must have done something have a different meaning now or that they all don’t think it ?”

“I didn’t mean …”

“Of course you did.” Amy said seething. “Dad’s abandoned ship altogether and you all sit whispering, how can we help Ty ? Well you can’t, this is on him, I had quit once before Ahmed flew here and twice more while he was here and before that dinner. How is it my fault Ty did what he did ?”

“The truth might have helped.”

“Lou knew the truth Grandpa, just because you and Ty didn’t is that what this is, did you want to hit Ahmed ? How about Dad ? You’ve never even asked me my side or how I am, I can’t imagine how unimportant that is to you compared to Ty.”

“He’s in jail Amy.”

“I know Grandpa, believe me I know and I’ll remember it every second he is, because no one here will ever let me forget it. I won’t be joining you for dinner by the way, you can continue this after I’ve changed.”

“Where are you off to ?”

“To deal with a problem.”

She left in what could only be described as a business suit with a simple “goodbye” as she passed the dining room table.

She got home late intentionally and packed. She was up early, showered before the rush and then kept to her room. She finally came out rolling two suitcases and parked them at the edge of the kitchen in front of the mud room.

She was dressed in working slacks, a jacket and a crisp white blouse. She wore the same boots she had worn home from Europe weeks before. She actually looked almost exactly as she had looked that day, hair, make-up and all.

“I can be reached at this top number, call or text, if that doesn’t work call the other but only in an emergency and they’ll know where I am and be able to reach me.”

“Where are you going ? When will you be back ?”

“I’m going to Belgium, I have a two year contract with Ahmed’s team as a coach and trainer. Ty will be dropped off about an hour after my limo leaves, all charges dropped. It’s important you text me that you have him at that top number.”

“Amy, what did you do ?”

“I did exactly what you most wanted Grandpa, I’m giving you back your son.”

“You can’t put this on me.”

“I’m not putting this on you, this is on Ty, him alone and his damn temper, but it is the end result you wanted isn’t it ?

“Not this way.”

“This is the only way and it’s done.” She said pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“And what do we tell Ty ?”

“Tell him whatever the hell you want Lou. I can almost guarantee someone will mention the contract before he gets here, my employer will make sure Ty knows he’s won.”

“He’s won what ?”

“Certainly not the filth that statement implies Grandpa, trainer and coach and there’s no guarantee that if he touches me I won’t kill him. I’ll deal with Ahmed.”

“I didn’t imply anything !!”

“I’ve seen the look of disappointment on your face before Grandpa, you and Ty can be disappointed together, it’s easier to point your finger in a crowd.”

“What do I tell dad ?”

Amy laughed “Dad ? Tell him I’ll be back before 10 years have gone by. He gets the same goodbye I got, none at all.”

“Amy, don’t leave bitter.” Lisa said softly.

“Sorry Lisa, bitter’s all I’ve got right now. Can I at least get hugs ?” She asked looking around the table.

Georgie and Katie came in dressed for school and looked around.

“What’s going on, why are you dressed like that ?” She asked looking at Amy.

“I’m leaving back to Europe Georgie, come give me a hug ?”

“That’s it, what about Ty, you’re, you’re just going back to him ?”

Amy just shook her head, “you know, just forget the hugs.”

She turned her back then and reached back to wheel her bags through the mud room.

“Take care of Ty.” She said in tears walking through the door.

Amy sat down on the porch wishing the car would just come and sighed when she saw it seconds later and right on time. She walked down the stairs and heard the voices from the kitchen.

Georgie was speaking “that’s it, you’re just going to let her go ?”

“She signed a contract Georgie.” Lisa said.

“So that’s it ?”

“Georgie enough !!” Jack growled “She did it so Ahmed would drop the charges against Ty, he’s coming home.”

It was mercifully the last thing she heard before the driver closed his door and sat down.

“I’m Stan, Ms. Fleming, Calgary Airport, Air France First Class to Antwerp, I got you a cup of coffee, I was told black.”

“Thanks Stan, how’s traffic ?”

“It shouldn’t be that bad, relax.”

She asked Bruce to drive through Hudson on the way to the ranch, it was a large limo with dark glass and people naturally looked up as it stopped at a light. They drove past Maggie’s and Amy noted both the familiar stores and those that had changed. Heartland on the other hand hadn’t changed at all as they rode though the gate. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming home, her contract employed her by yearly season which was technically less than two years. She didn’t want the hoopla nor did she know what she was going to do though several things crossed her thoughts over the past few months as she drew closer to this moment.

Soon after she had arrived in Europe she came to an agreement with Ahmed. Animosity wouldn’t work with the horses and if he wanted to win he needed to move on and stop acting like a love lorn child. She wasn’t now, nor had she ever been interested in him as anything other than her employer, her team captain and a friend. She also informed him that any chance of that continued friendship was gone. It took Ahmed a month or two but it finally stuck. He didn’t know that by then Amy knew that she and Ty were pretty much at an impasse especially since she would not allow him to visit her, she couldn’t risk that.

Since Amy had virtually no expenses and really didn’t avail herself of much in Europe other than occasional clothing splurges she was arriving home with a tidy sum of money. With salary, bonuses and other side work she was able to do in Europe during brief breaks, combined with the other money from the first tour and Zeus it amounted to several hundred thousand dollars, no where near rich but enough she hoped for a nice down payment on a property assuming they’d grant her a loan on reputation.

She saw Lisa’s Porsche and a truck that must be Jack’s “new” one as the limo pulled up and the driver got out. She looked around and didn’t see anyone in the paddocks but some horses. “Hello boys” she whispered as she spied Phoenix and Harley wandering and grazing along with several others. “Spartan will be home in a few days.”

Lisa walked out onto the porch wiping her hands on a towel and shielded her eyes ready to give directions to the lost driver but paused for a second as Amy stood up and looked at her.

“Amy ?” She cried out dropping the towel onto the rail and rushing down the stairs.

#heartland #heartland-fanfiction #oneshot #twoparts

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crazycoke-addict · 4 years ago

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Alejandra Onieva Who rumoured to be dating Sebastian Stan posted a picture on Instagram of her and her friends wearing a geisha with the caption saying “Asian Night”. Although she’s the one who made the racist post it seems like Sebastian is the one getting called out.

I do understand why that it is because He’s been more vocalised by blocking fans whose been calling it out so that’s he getting more of the blacklash despite the fact that his rumoured girlfriend’s action. If you don’t understand on how is something like wearing geisha is seen as racist, well that’s because Geisha are female entertainers who perform traditional Japanese art forms, such as traditional dance and singing. Geisha are very respected and it even hard to become one. However people like Alejandra and the other non-Asian make it to easy because they are more focus on clothes that they wear and see it as a costume than just a well-respected in Asian culture.

Hollywood seems to exploit the Asian culture and even sees as Asian people as costumes rather than just human beings. One person comes to mind is Gwen Stefani who hired Asian women to pictures of her and were seen in her music videos. The Asian women were seen as submissive with no expressions on their face and even didn’t talk. This one of the many stereotypes that Asian people have to face.

When Gwen Stefani made a comeback back in 2013 or 14. There was an article that was published in TIME explaining how she owns asian people an apology when she basically appropriate their culture.

Another celebrity who has shown to fetishes Asian people and even did cultural appropriation in the past is Katy Perry. At the American music awards back in 2013, Katy Perry performed her single “Unconditionally” where she wore a geisha. In an interview, Katy expresses her love for Japanese people by saying she wants to “skin them and wear them like Versace”.

She's also been chosen to be an ambassador for Britian Asian Trust despite the fact that she's neither of them. More importantly she's not asian.

Asian people aren’t seen as human beings but rather objects and costumes by white people with privilege who will defend themselves by saying they are “appreacting their culture”.

#cultural appropriation #asian culture #katy perry #gwen stefani #alejandra onieva

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tacticianlyra · 7 years ago

Text

Those who Remain - original

I. May or may not have uploaded this here before? But I don’t remember if I had or not, so. Yes. (This is getting a rewrite.)

Meredith Wilde liked to think of herself as a pragmatic person, and like any pragmatic person, she counted all of her facts before making a decision regarding a problem. It came with being a lawyer, and she hadn’t lost many cases because of that mindset.

The problem she was faced with now wasn’t a case, but a personal problem. A very serious personal problem. The only facts she’d been given were that A) Jordan had been shipped off to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what, and B) that he’s dead. No how, no why. Her brother Alex wasn’t buying it, and neither were her nieces.

The Garrison isn’t telling them what exactly happened to their son/nephew/cousin, and that was sending up multiple red flags, because when the government is being vague about something, that meant something was very wrong and they didn’t want everyone to panic, and it reminds her too much of what happened to her father, who her son both admires and curses.

There is a distinct odeur-de-Kerberos to this entire thing, and that was enough to make her look through her case records to one of the few losses she had.

The Garrison—no, the Coalition—is trying to sweep this under the rug, too.

She needs to call up that client to discuss a few things.

Pragmatic as Meredith is…her gut’s telling her that whatever her son had been doing is somehow connected to the Kerberos cover-up.

Miguel is the most stubborn person in the town of Wolfbridge, and everyone knew it. It was for that exact reason that he’d refused to hire new mechanics.

No matter what that official-looking letter he’d found in the mailbox one morning said, because there is no way in hell that the two street-rats that had lived through the single most brutal winter the area had ever seen were gone.

Then he’d gotten a job that had been a mostly-technical one. It took far longer than the client was happy with, because Miguel just couldn’t make sense of computers as well as Koji could.

Can, he’d corrected himself immediately. He’d still managed to get it done adequately enough.

And then there was yesterday’s job—he’d miscalculated in how heavy that engine part was, and had gone and hurt his back.

It wouldn’t have happened if Stan had been here to help him with it, but he wasn’t.

So now Miguel was left with a major problem. He couldn’t do any heavy-lifting himself for at least two weeks, which means he couldn’t get any work done.

Stan and Koji weren’t here to help him out, nor would they ever be back, according to that letter.

He’s refusing to accept it, because damn it all his boys were not dead!

Katie Holt was forever going to curse the name of Kevin Chaucer for ratting Pidge Gunderson out when he’d walked in on her changing.

There’s nothing that can be done about it now, though—she supposed she was lucky that she’d had a contingency plan involving a very quick getaway, a meticulously-coded computer-worm, and some forged files.

The unfortunate bit was that now she wasn’t allowed within a certain distance of any sort of Garrison base, and neither was any part of her immediate family, all because of “suspected connections.”

Which meant they’d had to pick up and move.

At least she had Hunk, who’d bailed when Iverson decided to move him over to combat piloting. She had a feeling it’s because he wanted the “troublesome trio” separated.

Lance was understandably pissed about all of it; he’d cooled off after a week, and kept in touch. They coincidentally all live in the same town now.

It was at her mother’s quiet request that she went job-hunting, for something to keep herself busy, and she and Hunk both somehow managed to find one at the same place, in a garage that specialized in star-racers.

Their boss had a rotten attitude ninety-five percent of the time, and he was all melancholic for the other five percent.

It was on the fourth day that Katie notices a picture on a shelf; there was their boss with two younger boys in it. They all look just a bit too different to be related, more so with one of the boys; her boss and Kid #1 definitely were Hispanic/partially Hispanic, and Kid #2 was definitely Asian.

Unless, of course, the kids were both adopted…and suddenly, Miguel’s behavior seemed familiar.

“It’s not just the Garrison covering things up.” Colleen Holt sits up a bit straighter in her chair in response to Meredith’s words, attentive now. Meredith kept her hands laced together, waiting.

“Do you really think they’re connected?” Colleen asks finally.

“That’s what my intuition’s saying.” The lawyer paused. “Do you believe me?”.

“…yes. I do.”

She found the file completely on accident, at four in the morning, but the fact that it had the same amount of classification as the Kerberos Mission piqued her interest.

The Great Race of Ōban.

Katie first saw the assortment of names, pictures, and paraphrased information to go with the names and pictures.

Don Wei. Manager of the team, and former CEO of Wei Racing. That same business had announced a new business leader without warning some time ago.

Rick Thunderbolt. Three-time winner of the Star-Racing Grand Prix, champion of the minor leagues afterwards. Primary pilot. Lance was a major fan of his.

Jordan Wilde. The son of the lawyer they’d had that her mom had since befriended, which she was relieved about. Designated gunner…which made no sense if it was a star-racing competition.

Stan and Koji Martinez. The boys from the picture—her boss’s adopted kids. The shared surname proved it. Team mechanics.

And then, Molly. No last name. Secondary pilot.

All privately reported as deceased, save for Molly, who didn’t have any contact information either.

Katie glared thoughtfully at the screen—way too much like Kerberos, this was.

And then she scrolled down further, and saw one of the final details tacked onto the file.

“Shiro’s alive?”

The two he ended up with were diamonds in a pig trough, Miguel grudgingly admitted. Both were Garrison dropouts, one because of being subject to a surprise class-switch, and the other for reasons she wouldn’t disclose. They must’ve been friends, since they had nicknames for each other—Hunk and Pidge.

They were Garrett and Holt to him until further notice.

Garrett picked up everything about as fast as Stan had, and Holt blazed through whatever she was told to do like a maniac, and business goes on smoothly for almost a week.

Then, one morning, out of nowhere, Holt asks about Stan and Koji.

He warily gives her a brief spiel about them (as much as he can say without his voice wavering).

It's when he found himself saying that they were hired for a job that they wouldn’t be coming (haven’t yet come) back from that she stood a bit straighter, looking a little more intent.

“I think I might know what happened to them,” she said.

…maybe he’ll start calling her Pidge.

“We can all meet at my place this Tuesday.”

A lawyer and a schoolteacher―Alex had left a friend in charge of Sasha and Amelia for the time being.

An engineer―Miguel had closed up early today for this reason; he was understandably perturbed to learn that his new technician hacks government databases in her free time.

An astronomer―they were all gathered in Colleen’s living-room right now.

And lastly, a teenager―Katie, or Pidge as she likes to be called, the reason for them being here.

None of them really had anything in common, save for having missing family members.

The curtains were shut, if only because Pidge had her findings displaying on the TV screen, so they could all see it at the same time.

“Twenty-five thousand light-years,” Colleen said slowly, shaking her head in amazement. Shewas the only one standing up. “What kind of competition even was that?”

“Something big enough for the Coalition to want to keep it under wraps,” Alex replied from the couch, sitting next to Meredith.

There was a few moments of erratic eye-twitching from Miguel, who’d claimed the recliner chair, before he swore profusely in Spanish. “I knew those star-racers would end up scrap!” he exclaimeds angrily, gesturing with one hand at one of the details; the Whizzing Arrow I had exploded before it could finish its first race, and was left in an irreparable condition.

The team’s initial pilot, Rick Thunderbolt, had been rendered unable to race competitively ever again due to damage sustained by his nervous system in that same crash.

The team found a spare pilot in “Molly,” who had originally been a stowaway.

“I had to do some digging to figure out who she really is,” Pidge was saying. “Turns out, she’s the manager’s daughter Eva. Ran away from the Stern Boarding School five times.”

“He didn’t recognize his own daughter?” Meredith asked, flabbergasted.

“She was there for ten years and he never visited,” was the curt response.

There was a few long moments of silence, as they regarded her with silent shock. “What the shit,” was Alex’s only comment. “What about―?” He cut himself off, face falling. “Maya Wei…of course.”

Meredith remembered having seen that horrific incident on TV; she’d been watching the race when it had happened. The authorities hadn’t been able to determine the cause of the Cloud II’s explosion.

But she had to agree with her brother’s thoughts. To abandon his daughter like that after her mother’s death? How could someone be so callous? No wonder Eva had gone under a false name.

“Then what happened?” she asked, and Pidge scrolled down.

Colleen made a choked sound, and the others, Meredith included, all leaned forward a bit subconsciously.

An unidentifiable ship had crashed on Alwas (which was the planet they’d gone to), and inside it had been Takashi Shirogane.

Whom the Garrison had publicly written off as dead, along with Colleen’s husband and son―and Pidge’s father and brother, who’d she’d infiltrated the Garrison under a false identity in an attempt to uncover the truth for.

Not even three hours later, the island that the competition was being held on found itself under siege by an unknown assailant, labeled with a name Shiro had provided.

Galra.

Meredith has been in Garrison buildings enough times to know the names of most other alien races that the Earth Coalition has been in contact with, and that isn’t one of them.

The word “Voltron” stood out to her. Something that the Galra seemed to think was on Alwas, as they’d presumably assaulted the planet for, if the multitude of SOS calls picked up was anything to go on.

“I think I caught some of those distress signals on my deep-space radio,” Pidge was saying. “I mean, I couldn’t understand them, but they sounded frantic.” She paused. “Then there’s this last bit here.”

The message provided by the one who had supplied the Coalition with the information was one of the few non-natives to Alwas (the “Scrubs” were able to remain underwater for a length of time, apparently) who hadn’t been taken away by the Galra.

Of ninety-six different racing teams, all from different planets, none of them―save for some minor members of some delegations―were on the planet any longer.

The Earth Team’s backup star-racer, the Whizzing Arrow II, had not been identified as any of the destroyed/taken star-racers, nor had any sign of it been found anywhere on the island.

The team manager and the ex-pilot were among those taken by the Galra.

Shiro, Eva, Jordan, Stan, and Koji must have all been in the star-racer, as they weren’t among those taken…but they hadn’t yet been found, either.

The final detail was that of a second unidentified craft having left Alwas, going at speeds that no other ship had ever reached, aside from the one that had brought them there to begin with, and what was assumed to be the main Galra ship.

It had simply vanished, prior to the Galra leaving the galaxy altogether.

Alex was silent, face pale. Coleen’s eyes were watering, shining with hope once abandoned. Pidge iwas pulling off a first-class pokerface, but she’d already had time to process everything.

“They’re alive,” Miguel said gruffly, voice tinged with relief.

“They’re just…” Meredith stopped, taking a shaky breath. The truth wasn’t much better.

“They’re just lost in space,” Pidge finished, adjusting her lens-less glasses.

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novaya-model · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on Katy Perry (someone I haven't had thoughts on in 5 years, so wow): 1) How are you going to write a "diss" track 2 years late and still act like it's a diss track and not an example of your inability to move on from some truly petty shit? Like if you're going to be petty, be petty immediately. Don't wait 2 years so we all know just how much thought you put into being petty. That's not petty, that's just sad. 2) How are you going act all friendly when you're a racist homophobe? Using the n-word is not okay by any means, and it's certainly not okay when the people you're talking about tell you to stop and you keep going. Using queer culture as a sideshow act to get you more money (both in I Kissed A Girl and in the SNL performance) is certainly not okay. Appropriating cultures is certainly not okay, and certainly not when you do time and time and time again. How are you going to do all this shit and act like you're not a piece of shit for it? 3) How are you going to do all of those things, side with a potential abuser, and still fall back on "feminism" and "girls supporting girls" when you get called out? I mean, Taylor (an apparent rival, I guess?) may do this too, idk, she's about as important to me as Katy, but it's a serious wtf. 4) How are you going to be over 30 years old and still acting like this? I just looked it up, and apparently Katy got her GED and left high school when she was 15. Maybe she should have stayed in so she could've worked this childish nonsense out of her system. 5) No one liked 2013 Miley Cyrus. Why are you trying to be 2013 Miley Cyrus? Why? Why would you do that to yourself? I don't understand. Like, neither Katy nor Taylor mean all of jack shit to me, but if you're going to be critical of Taylor for cultural appropriation, having a backwards definition of feminism, and acting like a child and playing the victim, criticize Katy when she's guilty of the exact same things. And keep in mind that neither of these mediocre-at-best artists who seems completely incapable of personal growth are worth stanning.

#like these girls were the shit back in high school #but neither of them mentally or musically aged well #let's see how many stans I can piss off with one post #honestly though idc #if you honestly stan either of these women #your opinion is all but worthless to me #both of them have had some serious fuck ups #that need to be properly addressed and rectified #until then #they're nothing #nothing but fuel to fill my drama tank

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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‘Wet Ass Postage:’ Sexualizing the Post Office to Save the USPS

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stops the mail, so the USPS slogan goes—but sometimes, a bored and horny housewife can, in porn tropes at least.

The United States Postal Service, long underfunded and under-appreciated, has accelerated its slide into a threat of collapse due to terrible decisions made by the new postmaster and the Trump administration. It's a mess, and in an election year when more people than ever are going to vote by mail-in ballot to avoid coming into contact with a deadly virus at the polls, it's terrifying.

In early August, Twitter user @BonniePuns put into words something we all felt deep down: only a mass effort of making the post office sexy could salvage it, now.

Writer Ira Madison III tweeted the incredible idea that the post office should start an OnlyFans—since everyone else is doing it, from Bella Thorne to Cardi B—which also went viral:

People in uniform—cops, firemen—are a common porn trope, so it's no surprise that mail carriers are hot again. I've probably seen more of William Harper Jackson's Good Place character Chidi in a tight little mailman uniform in the last month than any other image—and in the episode he wears it in, Kristin Bell's character admits a sex fantasy about fucking a mailman.

Now that it's in danger, everyone's got a boner for the post office, but the thing is, slipping packages on doorsteps and mail through slots has always been sexualized.

Like the stripper-cop trope, the mailman-meets-horny-resident has been around forever, too. The trope used to be the milkman stopping in every day to visit the bored housewife, but that shifted to the postal worker when milk delivery became obsolete. One of the most popular examples of this in pop culture is attributed to the show Kids Say the Darndest Things, where one of the kids says, "I don't look like my Mommy or my Daddy. I look like the mailman.

In a more modern example, Paige Steele plays a pissed-off customer who makes the mailman come inside and watch her test the dildo he just delivered.

Interestingly, there's a notable lack of women mail carriers in mail-porn, even though there are lots of them in real life—slightly less than half of carriers are women, and women have been letter carriers since at least 1845.

Even with years of porn and film and TV examples, horny mail goes back farther than that. Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky's 1953 song "Dear John" was about sending a breakup letter to let a soldier know he'd been cucked back home by his own brother, and became shorthand for dumping someone via letter. Brian Hyland's 1962 "Sealed With A Kiss," the Marvelettes' 1965 "Mister Postman"—these songs all eroticized descriptions of the act of sending and receiving mail, in a time when getting a letter that smelled like your lover was probably the hottest thing imaginable.

Here in 2020, things are a little different. We slide into DMs, not mail slots, and our mailboxes are mostly virtual. And with precarious funding and incompetent leadership, the post office is in trouble.

Inspired by the "sexualizing the post office" tweet, TikTok user Siete White bought a mail bag from the USPS store and paired it with shiny black short shorts to twerk on a mailbox:

She told Buzzfeed News that the bag sold out after her post, which got more than 605,000 likes. "It’s empowering to know, wow, I made a 15-second-long video and people actually went and used their hard-earned coins to go and make their own individual difference," White said.

Others on TikTok and Twitter took a page out of K-pop stan fancam playbook and made video mashups of postal workers delivering mail and petting dogs to "WAP" and "In the Party" by Flo Milli:

Much like artists who coped with Covid-19 lockdown by sketching toilet paper and hand sanitizer Corona-chan waifus and sex workers who sold nudes to raise money for Australian wildfire relief efforts (2020 has been so weird), people are turning their concerns about the fate of the USPS into art.

Alexandra Kiselyov, a graduate student studying television writing and producing, is also selling art in exchange for proof of USPS support—but instead of nudes, she's taking illustration art commissions. While they aren’t necessarily sexualized, she was inspired by others doing similar fundraising campaigns. For every $10 or more spent on USPS stamps with proof of receipt, she'll illustrate whatever you want.

"I wanted to give people incentive to buy stamps for the USPS, primarily because I'm extremely concerned about mail-in voting and what the Trump administration has been doing in the background," she told me. She's concerned about the state of mail-in ballots for the election, but also since she runs a small business through eBay, she relies on the USPS to ship to customers.

"I'm eternally grateful to those that did purchase stamps, and I hope people will continue to support artists and the USPS in the future,” she said. “The most important part is that people are learning that the USPS is in dire straits, and that small businesses and rural communities are going to be affected by it."

Cosplayer Katie Simrell told me she decided to do a postal-themed look after being inspired by the @BonniePuns tweet. "Immediately I thought about how I could make a cosplay from this idea to raise money from the USPS," she said. "Making silly lewd/sexy costumes out of innocuous characters or inanimate objects or ideas or… govt agencies apparently (lol) isn't a new idea of course."

The USPS doesn't sell uniforms, so she found an old one on eBay, and like White, she bought the messenger bag from the USPS store. A matching blue and red microbikini and ingenious stamp pasties complete the look.

Like Alexandra's commissions, sending proof of purchase from the USPS store got you a lewd photo in her USPS-chan outfit, as does proof of texting "USPS" to 50409—which returns a Resistbot that automatically emails your local representatives to urge them to support the Delivering for America Act. Simrell said her DMs exploded with purchase receipts, she said, "which could either be a great sign of people really wanting to help the USPS and they love the idea, or equally, people just being horny."

The response has been mostly positive, which surprised her. "Usually I brace myself for a torrent of misogynistic or mean-spirited comments but there have only been a few small outliers," she said. "The most baffling response has been the handful of political retorts. Somebody tried to say 'the dems are offering nudes now to join their party,' I guess trying to demean me? Or as if the USPS is a service that only one political party can use."

Urging individuals to buy stamps and art commissions probably won't, in itself, save the post office. The job of funding one of the country's oldest and most important institutions is a lot bigger than OnlyFans can handle. But if the postal worker ever goes the way of the milkman, future generations could find themselves jerking off to a lot more UPS and FedEx porn fantasies.

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