#have been attempting to make a self-tape for this audition for DAYS

[wabblebees]

.

[thewardenisonthecase]

Moments in Between - Chapter 5

Lucanis Dellamorte x Grey Warden!Rook (Dawn Thorne)

Chapter 4

Read on AO3

Summary: The aftermath of the dragon attack and a certain demon cause a little bit of mayhem.

A/N: I struggled a bit with this chapter as I had to focus on some real life stuff (applying for a masters and had to do a bunch of self tape auditions). At least, I have a clearer vision of where I want to go with this story, I just need to adjust how to tackle it.

What a mess. 

Rook’s first real taste of leadership had ended in disaster. Minrathous had been destroyed in the attack, and the Venatori had used the chaos to make a pass at the throne. 

She brought the whiskey bottle to her lips once again. 

The reality of what they were facing was starting to dawn upon her. 

People would die. Sacrifices were to be made. And sometimes, no matter what you chose, the outcome would still be shit. 

Varric had tried to ease her mind, but it didn’t help her guilt. Could she have done more? She should have had. There must have been some way to save both cities. If she’d been faster with the ice dragon, maybe they could have reached Minrathous in time. 

Rook wiped her tears. She didn’t have the right to cry, it was not her city that was burned to the ground. If Neve never wanted to step foot in the Lighthouse again, she wouldn’t blame her. 

The whiskey tasted bitter in her mouth yet she couldn’t stop drinking. The worst part was that the blissful ignorance of being drunk never arrived. 

In moments like this she cursed her high tolerance for alcohol. 

“Drinking yourself to death will not solve your problems, kid.” Varric said, entering her room. “Trust me, I tried.” 

She sighed “I didn’t realize it would be this hard.” She looked at him. “Being the one who makes the decisions.” 

He walked to her and sighed. “I’m sorry you’re having to take all of this on. I’m the one who should have been leading the team…”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault you got injured.” 

“Stil…” Varric put a hand on her shoulder. “But I know you can do this. You were my second in command for a reason. You’re a responsible woman, resourceful. If anyone can deal with this, its you.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Now, instead of spending your day here until you enter an alcohol induced coma, you need to plan your next steps. If I were you, I’d talk to Solas, see if there’s anything you can take from him.” 

Rook nodded. “I think I’ll do that…after I take a bath.” 

Varric chuckled. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” 

. 

Lucanis hadn’t seen much of Rook. After the dragon attack, she had been busy recruiting new members for their team, planning for what was next. 

The dragon…he didn’t think she would choose Treviso. It was a merchant city that few seemed to care about. It did not haven defenses, and with the occupation going, they’d have even less protection. 

Treviso did not have much to offer in the fight against the elven gods. 

Minrathous was a capital to one of the most powerful nations in Thedas, they could provide an army if things escalated, the Shadow Dragons even had connections to the magisterium. 

And yet, Rook had showed up and helped them fight off the dragon. He shuddered to think how many lives would have been lost - in the attack, and afterwards. 

Lucanis had tried thinking of how he could say thank you. They hadn’t spoken much since, not with Lucanis staying away from the group. Since the dragon, Spite had grown more restless, demanding to be let out.

He couldn’t give voice to the demon, but he also could not control it. He feared what Spite could do to the others, especially now, and so, Lucanis had retreated into his mind even more. 

He stood by the fire, deep in thoughts, not even noticing that others had arrived in the dining hall until they began talking. He hadn’t heard much of what was being said until the new guy, Davrin interneved. 

“Hang on a minute. Not only have you retained the services of a demon assassin, you’re also taking advice from the elven god who attempted to tear down the veil.” 

He turned to the group “Spite is my problem.” He told the warden. 

“That’s what they always say.” Davrin crossed his arms, turning to Rook. “Thorne, what mess have you gotten yourself into? Lucanis is one thing, but do you really trust this Solas?” 

Lucanis frowned at the name. Did she know him from before? The two were wardens after all. 

“I would not call it trust.”

“So you don’t trust him?”

“No.” She replied, bluntly. 

“Alright then.” 

The conversation continued, as they planned on who to contact. Bellara happened to know a professor from Nevarra who could help and Harding would speak with her contacts to find a dragon hunter. 

The others began exiting the room, Rook being the last of them to stay. They exchanged a look, and it seemed as if she was about to say something before turning to the door and leaving. 

Lucanis sighed. As if things weren’t bad enough, now there was a monster hunter on the team. He looked at Spite, who had grown more restless since the dragon attack, demanding to go out. 

He’d need more coffee to keep the demon at bay. 

. 

Rook remembered the first time she met Davrin, five years ago when she was sent to the Anderfels. 

The two of them had been grouped alongside Evka and Antoine to go on a mission. Investigate the appearance of darkspawn in a village and make sure they wouldn’t cause any more trouble. 

The whole situation had turned out to be much more complex than they had expected, and by the end of it, Rook had three new friends. At the time, the only friends she had. 

She was excited when she realized Davrin would join their team. They hadn’t seen each other in long, and the two had been close confidants in the Anderfels. Besides, she knew how capable of a warrior he was. 

Rook did not expect, however, that he and Lucanis would be at each other's throats all of the time. 

It did not matter where they were, at some point, the same conversation would happen: Davrin would bring up the fact that Lucanis was an abomination. Lucanis would bring up the warden's mysterious secrets. They’d talk in circles and get nowhere. 

Maker, the headaches she was getting because of the two. 

It was terrible. She did not wish to intervene as they were two grown men, but one of them was her closest friend and the other…

Well. That was the worst part. Rook believed she was starting to have…feelings for Lucanis, and at the moment, that was the last thing she needed. They had recruited the fade expert, Emmrich, but they still needed the dragon hunter. She had to focus. 

But it was hard to do so when he would look at her with those sad, brown eyes of his and make her chocolate. Or when he seemed to be opening up, even if just a bit, when she was around. They hadn’t spoken much since Treviso, and she did not know why, but it was as if Lucanis was even more closed off than before. 

She did not understand it, but she didn’t find the courage to ask. 

Rook would find an answer soon enough, after their hunter, Taash, joined the team. 

. 

She followed the shouting to the room where the eluvian was kept. Taash stood in front of it, stopping Lucanis and Harding from getting through. 

“What’s going on here?” Rook asked. 

“It’s the demon!” Harding exclaimed. “It’s taken over Lucanis and now he’s trying to leave.” 

When Rook looked at him, she saw that his eyes were no longer the same, becoming bright purple, and when he spoke, a different voice than the one she knew said “Smells like…jam and brimstone.” 

Was that what Spite sounded like? 

“Rook, do something.” Lace pleaded. 

She looked at the man in front of her. This was not the first time she had spoken to a demon, but each one required a different approach. She thought of his nature - Spite. Perhaps if she catered to it, he might be more agreeable to letting Lucanis go. 

She had an idea. If he wanted to go through the eluvian, what could be more spiteful than not giving it to him?

A part of her wondered if it was a good idea to aggravate the demon, but between her, Harding and Taash, she believed they could do it. She only feared Lucanis getting hurt. 

With a firm voice, she spoke “Spite, I’m not letting you take Lucanis through there.” 

“I could. If you’d move!” 

“So you can take him to where? A cliff, or worse?”

Rook crossed her arms. “Give it up. It’s not happening.” 

She saw him gnarl, before Lucanis shook his head, blinking. 

“How did…Rook? Taash?” He asked confused, looking around before exhaling. “Ah…”

“You…tried to walk through the eluvian in your sleep.” Lace explained.

“Spite wanted out.” 

Lucanis sighed. “I need coffee.” 

“Lucanis…are you sure you’re all right?” 

“This…could be better.” He said, looking embarrassed. “I must have fallen asleep. It won’t happen again.” 

“What do you mean?” Harding asked but Rook knew why. He had told her long ago. 

Lucanis explained to the others “It’s hard for Spite to take control when I’m awake, so…I try to stay awake.” 

“You can’t just stay awake forever. I think that would kill you.” 

“I’ll be more careful next time.” 

“But you shouldn’t have to live like this.” Rook put her hands on her hips. “Lace is right, not sleeping for so long will be bad for you.” 

He raised a brow. “That is rich, coming from you.” He shook his head. “Just…I can handle it.”

“I know you can but maybe Spite could be reasoned with, so you wouldn’t find yourself in these situations.” 

“He’s ‘Spite’, not ‘Learning’. He doesn’t listen to anyone.” 

“He seemed to listen to Rook just a moment ago.” Taash spoke up.

“He didn’t-” Lucanis sighed. “Don’t worry about it. It won’t happen again.” He said and marched out of the room. 

The three of them looked at each other. 

“Do you really think he could be reasoned with?” Lace asked. 

“Maybe? I mean, he’s still a demon but if he really wanted to hurt Lucanis, he could have done so already.” Rook told her. “I remember him saying they had a deal, but he never said what it was. I wonder…”

Making deals with demons was tricky and there was too much involving Spite that she did not know about. Rook sighed as she shook her head. 

“I’ll think about this later. Lace, you said Morrigan wanted to speak to me?” 

. 

“She. Talked to me. Listened.” Spite said as Lucanis walked. “You. Never. Do.” 

He tried to keep a calm facade as he began brewing some coffee. Spite, however, made it very difficult to keep focus. 

“You’re not. Living. I want. Out!” The demon screamed. “I want. To talk.” 

Lucanis bit his tongue, to avoid answering him. Give the demon some leeway and look at what happened. Maker knows what he would have done if the others hadn’t stopped him. 

He felt ashamed that they had seen him like that. That… Rook had seen him like that. 

It was then he realized. Lucanis put a hand on his forehead, sighing. In his haste to leave, he had forgotten to thank them. 

No matter. He shook his head. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

[richaldis]

Equity statement in full

Skip to main content

JoinLog inMenu

Home

Solidarity Statement & Advice Regarding SAG-AFTRA Industrial Action 2023

Statement from the General Secretary of Equity, Paul W Fleming

"SAG-AFTRA is Equity’s sister union representing performers on screen in the United States. They are currently in negotiations with the AMPTP - the engagers association for film and TV producers in the United States. Earlier this year, SAG-AFTRA balloted their members to achieve authorisation for strike action if it was necessary to achieve a good settlement in these negotiations. Today, SAG-AFTRA’s Board has taken the brave step of authorising a strike.

"SAG-AFTRA’s claim to the producers contains many critical elements for performers on their agreements. The key elements of the claim are longstanding, shared fights for our unions –issues like pay and residual payments. But SAG-AFTRA, like Equity, is also bravely facing head-on existential questions on issues like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the rise in virtual auditions and self-tapes. Securing fairness in pay, terms, and conditions is critical whether they be with traditional producers, or new global streamers, and with new modes of making and distributing work to a global audience.

"Equity stands full square behind our sister union in their claim, and the action their Board have agreed to take. Equity too is experiencing bullish engagers attempting to undermine its collectively bargained agreements. SAG-AFTRA has our total solidarity in this fight.

"We say clearly to the AMPTP and their members that they need to move significantly and swiftly to meet the reasonable aspirations of SAG-AFTRA’s members. The members of our unions, and all entertainment unions across the globe, create the vast wealth within our industry – it is right and just that they have decent, modern pay and conditions.

"Equity has been in constant contact with our sister union throughout the negotiations at every level – including the President and General Secretary attending in person in Los Angeles earlier this month. We will continue to work closely and collaboratively on advice for artists working in the United Kingdom as the situation develops.

"Industrial relations legislation in the United Kingdom is draconian, and often viewed as the most restrictive in the Western world. The convoluted and pernicious hurdles faced by all unions in the United Kingdom are a national disgrace and need urgent reform. The regrettable consequence of this framework is that what artists working in the United Kingdom – whether SAG-AFTRA and/or Equity members (or both) – can do, may be different from their comrades in the United States and other parts of the world.

"Equity is fighting alongside the rest of the trade union movement in the UK to reform our illiberal industrial relations framework in parliament, in the courts, and on the streets.

"Detailed advice for artists working in the UK who are Equity and/or SAG-AFTRA members is set out below. Furthermore, Equity will be organising demonstrations, rallies, and protests in the coming days and weeks to show our solidarity with our sister union and their fight.

"As Equity’s motto says: To all artists good work. To all workers good art. To all people: Equity.

"And to SAG-AFTRA: Victory."

Equity and SAG-AFTRA have also issued a joint statement which can be read here.

Advice Concerning SAG-AFTRA Industrial Action – 13th July 2023

Here we set out Equity’s advice for members on the strike action in an easy-to-read way, based on the most common ways in which they are engaged.

You will see that the primary legal problem is this:  We have been advised by SAG-AFTRA that its strike is lawful according to United States law but we have been advised by our UK lawyers that it is not lawful under United Kingdom law. Consequently, a performer joining the strike (or refusing to cross a picket line) in the UK will have no protection against being dismissed or sued for breach of contract by the producer or the engager. Likewise, if Equity encourages anyone to join the strike or not cross a picket line, Equity itself will be acting unlawfully and hence liable for damages or an injunction. What follows is based on that advice from SAG-AFTRA and our lawyers.

In addition to the below, we encourage members to join rallies and demonstrations, which we will be organising in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA in the coming days and weeks.

FAQs

I am an Equity member but not a SAG-AFTRA member. I am working in the UK on an Equity contract for a US producer. Some of my colleagues may be working under SAG-AFTRA agreements. What should I do?

I am a member of SAG-AFTRA and an Equity member. I am working in the UK on an Equity contract for a US producer as I live in the United Kingdom. What should I do?

I am a member of SAG-AFTRA and am working in the UK on an Equity contract. I may or may not be a member of Equity in the UK, as I live in the United States. I have an addendum to my contract which has been issued by SAG-AFTRA to allow me to work on an Equity contract under Global Rule 1 (‘GR1’). What should I do?

I am a member of SAG-AFTRA and am working on a SAG-AFTRA contract in the United Kingdom. I may or may not be a member of Equity in the UK and I live in the United States. I do not have an addendum to my contract because I am working on a full SAG-AFTRA contract. What should I do?

I am a member of Equity and SAG-AFTRA, and am working on a production in the United States. What should I do?

I am in the UK and I want to show my support for SAG-AFTRA’s dispute whether or not I am working at the moment.

I am being asked to work differently because some of my US colleagues are on strike. What should I do?

I have seen work being advertised as not being open to SAG-AFTRA members in the United Kingdom. I have been asked by my producer at an audition or before signing a contract whether I am a member of SAG-AFTRA or Equity. What should I do?

What will Equity do if producers attempt to relocate productions to the United Kingdom to avoid the SAG-AFTRA strike?

I am a SAG-AFTRA member working in theatre in the United Kingdom – what should I do?

I am a member of Equity or SAG-AFTRA working on a television commercial in the United Kingdom – what should I do?

I am a member of Equity and/or SAG-AFTRA and I am working on an Equity or SAG AFTRA contract outside of the United Kingdom – what should I do?

A production I’m working on has invoked Force Majeure. What does this mean?

What does a Force Majeure mean for me and my payments?

I am expected to do press/publicity for a production I worked on that was on an Equity contract. This company is now a ‘struck’ company affected by SAG-AFTRA’s industrial action. What do I do?

I am expected to do press/publicity for a production I worked on that was on SAG-AFTRA contract. This company is now a ‘struck’ company affected by SAG-AFTRA’s industrial action. What do I do?

Show solidarity on social media

We are encouraging members to show their support for the strikes using hashtag #StandWithSAGAFTRA and using our social media banners. You can add a ribbon to your Facebook profile picture here (note that this won't work as well for Twitter's circular profile pictures). You can also download a header image for your profile or a graphic to post anywhere (to download, right-click the link and choose "Save link as").

Equity incorporating the Variety Artistes' Federation is an independent trade union, registered at: Equity, Guild House, Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9

Bugger, the links aren't working . Go to the Equity website to see the answers to the questions

[a-student-out-of-time]

Rambling about V3 Again

Today I saw a really interesting quote from author Brandon Sanderson and it honestly got me thinking. He talked about what he considers the single worst thing you can do with critique in writing, and that’s if a critic “tries to make your story into one they would write, rather a better version of one you want to write.”

That got me thinking about V3.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that V3 is a very polarizing game, and I’ve seen many people talk about how they would’ve preferred to see the story play out, from character arcs to deaths to story conclusions. And while I do honestly enjoy seeing alternative perspectives and takes and AU’s, I feel like a lot about the game, what it’s trying to say and be, is skewed by those ideals.

I’m not saying that the critiques about the game are invalid, because there are a fair share of flaws with the game. What I am saying is that we end up talking so much about what we wish V3 could’ve been that what V3 was trying to be often ends up lost in that, and I want to talk about it.

It wasn’t until I really saw this quote that I was able to articulate all my likes and dislikes about the game and the reactions to it into a cohesive whole, which is what I’d like to do here.

So let’s ask this: what was V3 really trying to be?

Let’s start from the game’s theme: the relationship between truth and lies. This is best exemplified by the fact that you have the option to lie during trials, that you can use deception to find the truth. That’s a very different take from the previous games, where hope was associated with finding and confronting the truth.

Kokichi is another example, as he’s a self-admitted liar who claims to lead a criminal organization and it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s thinking or saying. Yet Kokichi actually helps bring the group to several truths: he helps find the culprit in trials, he reveals Maki’s identity as the Ultimate Assassin, tells the truth about Gonta murdering Miu and it’s thanks to his actions that the group later discovers the reality of their situation.

Throughout their journey, the group is confronted by numerous truths they don’t want to acknowledge, even refusing to do so and attacking people who continue to push them through. And with every revelation, there’s always those lingering details that don’t really make a lot of sense.

Let’s look at the game’s main narrative. At the start of the game, Kaede remembers she was kidnapped in broad daylight, thrown into a van, and brought to some abandoned school with a bunch of other people. She doesn’t act like a particularly nice person and is dressed differently, at least until the Monokubs arrive and give everyone their new clothes and memories. From that point, the narrative shifts considerably.

Kaede is suddenly an outgoing, optimistic leader and Shuichi is a sullen, withdrawn detective who serves as her deuteragonist for Chapter 1. She’s resolved to escape the Killing Game and tries to rally the group together. However, when her methods don’t prove successful and they start drifting away from her, she considers saving them by any means necessary and goes so far as to attempt murder against the mastermind. When that happens, she’s found guilty and executed, leaving Shuichi to take up her role as protagonist.

As you go through the game, using devices called flashback lights that apparently reawaken lost memories, you learn more and more about the reason that the group was brought here: the Gofer Project. When meteors began raining down on earth, all seemed lost until they established this project to send a group of survivors into space to colonize a new planet. A group of Ultimates.

They had established early on that Ultimates have even greater rights in this world: they’re the only ones allowed to vote and hold office. As the meteors came down and the news of this project got out, some people formed a cult that believed it was divine judgement and that mankind should be destroyed. That’s when they began the Ultimate Hunt, pursuing the candidates for the Gofer Project across the world. The Ultimates, with no other way out, decided to erase their memories of talent and live their last days as normal people.

To protect them, the people in charge spread a false story that the Ultimates had died, even holding a fake funeral for them and sent them into space secretly. However, while everyone was in cold sleep, one member of the cult- Kokichi- had sneaked aboard and piloted the ship back to the ruined and now inhospitable earth. They have no way back and no way to survive outside, and thanks to Kokichi’s claims to be the mastermind, they’ve been killing each for nothing. The group ultimately loses hope.

However, they’re resolved to continue on in their fight against the mastermind when they find a flashback light that reveals they weren’t just any ultimates: they were the next generation of ultimates from Hope’s Peak Academy. It wasn’t really the meteorites that got everyone, it was an alien virus that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. That the cult that rose in the wake of this was Ultimate Despair.

That seems like a definitive way to link this game with its predecessors...until you really begin to stop and pick it apart. If this was about saving mankind, why did nobody have their memories right away? Why would you only bring 16 people? Why students who don’t make them suited to colonization? Why people like a death row inmate, a serial killer, a self-proclaimed liar and criminal, and an assassin?

Furthermore, going through many Fte’s highlights how much of the characters’ backstories seem very out there. Gonta wasn’t raised by wolves but a race of dinosaur people living in the woods, Kirumi is so hyper-competent that she became prime minister during the meteor crisis, Korekiyo’s killed almost 100 women and yet has never been caught, Maki can attend high school despite Japanese orphanages being too underfunded for kids to usually attend, Tenko’s neo-aikido breaks all the rules of traditional aikido and she's impulsive, has low pain tolerance, and disregards fair rules, none of which are very befitting of a martial artist.

And to conclude, even I thought that the reveal of their connection to Hope’s Peak felt very fanficy and out there, especially when the game had made no references or implications of it beforehand. But the reason for all of this is simple and effective:

None of this is real. It’s all staged.

Chapter 6 reveals that everything from their identities to the outside world they thought they knew was all just a fabrication. In truth, Tsumugi shows herself as the mastermind and that they’re actually in the 53rd season of an in-universe show called Danganronpa. Something alluded to even in the beginning of the game with the Team Danganronpa logo. This moment was very make or break for a lot of people, but let’s treat it fairly.

According to Tsumugi, the outside world has become a peaceful, boring place and Danganronpa is the only source of real entertainment the people have. A place where people literally come to have their identities replaced with those of Ultimates and then made to kill each other. This, as it turns out, was an outgrowth of the actual series we’d played before. A game that’s gone over 53 times.

This revelation is devastating for the characters. The lives and memories they’d known were all fabrications, which Tsumugi claims to have intentionally written. The Flashback lights were designed to implant fake memories to manipulate them, which is why that Hope’s Peak connection was set up after everyone gave up following the reveal of the outside world. A truth that could lead the world to despair, a lie that could lead the world to hope.

She even goes so far as to show everyone’s audition tapes, claiming that Kaede, Kaito, and Shuichi himself were willing to participate in the killings out of sheer misanthropy, popularity, and morbid excitement 

Kiibo is also revealed to be the audience’s means of interacting with the game, able to carry out their wishes and can even be hijacked and used as a way to fight against the characters’ decisions.

In the end, Tsumugi claims that the ongoing battle of hope vs despair needs to continue in perpetuity and that the survivors need to sacrifice someone, since only two people can survive Danganronpa. Shuichi, however, convinces Maki and Himiko not to vote for anyone and actually convinces the in-universe audience to give up on the series. Kiibo then blows the set to hell and allows Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko the chance to escape and see the world outside and what sort of influence they could have.

Now, let’s this break this down piece by piece here, because I feel like this part of the game is often conflated. Often I’ve seen people say that Chapter 6 is a giant middle finger to fans of the series, that nothing about the series really mattered, or that the flaws of the game can simply be attributed to bad writing on the creator’s part.

I honestly used to be in that camp myself, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I feel those statements don’t hold up to scrutiny. We often conflate writing and narrative decisions we don’t like with bad writing. However, if the creator deliberately wants the narrative to move in that direction and has made intentional foreshadowing, references, and motivations that match it, we can’t simply equate that with it being “badly written.”

It’s not bad simply because we would’ve preferred they do something different. There’s a lot of very acclaimed books out there that I’ll admit I don’t care for because of their narrative decisions, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re badly-written.

Furthermore, if something intentionally doesn’t make sense in-story, that is not bad writing. That is purposeful on the part of the creator, not a plot hole. The Gofer Project is not supposed to be a logical narrative, it’s meant to serve V3′s role: deconstruction of the nature of the series. It does this in many different ways:

Sequelization: 53 is a ridiculous amount of entries in a franchise and as I’m sure we’re all aware, as the number of entries goes up, the writing quality tends to go down. The Gofer Project story was purposefully meant to be nonsensical because it’s a story in an in-universe franchise that jumped the shark long ago.

A lot of people found it confusing or ridiculous that Shuichi and Kaede would have a romantic connection despite knowing each other barely a few days. That’s also the point; quick romances are a convenient narrative device to establish a means for character growth, followed by fridging her, a bad narrative trope designed to propel Shuichi toward development. Tsumugi even said as much during Chapter 6.

Similarly, Maki’s role in the story and her feelings for Kaito were reminiscent of that as well, with him helping her come out of her shell. 

When you go back, you can see Danganronpa is loaded with references to other series. Tsumugi is an obsessive otaku and went so far as to fill the entire story with deliberate references and callbacks to things she enjoys.

The Monokubs are deliberate references to executive decisions to add more marketable and merchandisable characters as the series drags on.

The fact that there are (supposedly) people willing to sign up for a killing game deconstructs the idea that some in the fandom may have had. That is, actually being in a killing game would not be fun or exciting, but horrific and traumatizing. Most of us wouldn’t be badass detectives or heroes, we’d be scared out of our minds, afraid, and want to find a way out.

Furthermore, Shuichi being repeatedly told that he’s just a fictional character and that his role is to be the protagonist, to go through hardships and come out stronger for the audience’s entertainment pisses him off so much that he wants no part of it. 

The climax is ultimately a deconstruction of what the series is famous for: the battle of hope vs. despair. In-universe, this has been reduced down to a simple narrative where the audience wants the same thing again and again: to see hope win in the end. Because hope keeps winning, the audience keeps wanting more. It’s become so formulaic that the audience doesn’t want to break out of its shell and just wants to see it over and over.

The final PTA against Kiibo is not meant to be an insult to the audience, but a representation of fighting against toxicity and entitlement in the fanbase, especially the ones that don’t want change. It’s not saying “you’re stupid for liking this series,” it’s saying “don’t be like these people.”

And how does the game? An unsatisfying ending that’s so bad that it drives the audience to give up on the show, finally allowing the killing to stop. Tsumugi decides she can’t live in a world without her favorite show and decides to die.

And that brings me to what I think is the ultimate thing that people conflate about the ending: that it’s all fiction, so nothing about it matters. That the entire franchise was fake, so it’s not worth your time.

That’s exactly the opposite of what V3 is trying to say.

First, Tsumugi is a completely unreliable narrator. The kind of person who let fiction consume her entire life, yet she believes it can’t change reality. She’s a liar and a hypocrite, and there’s no way of knowing if anything she says about the outside world is even true. It could be like she says or it might not be.

The fact that they have technology that can remove memories and add fake ones adds an entire dimension of ambiguity to everything she says, especially when you consider how the beginning of the game does not match up with what she says. We have no idea what the kids were really like before the killing game, so why should we believe anything she says?

And how can we be certain of her claims that she just wrote everything as planned? Kokichi and Kaito managed to put together a plan that completely threw her and Monokuma for a loop

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko ultimately choosing to take the words of Kaede, Kaito, and Tenko to heart, even if they were part of a fictional narrative, is proof that they still had an influence on the trio. They choose to take something meaningful from their experiences regardless of the reality of their situation. And that’s something we all do.

The media we consume has an influence over who we are as people, and it’s part of why so many of us have such strong attachments to works we love. They were often influential in help shape who we are as people now, for good and for ill, and it’s important to take that into account.

V3′s message is that yes, that is important, and that you should read and enjoy stories and fiction, just as long as you don’t let it consume your life. They can influence you and even the world at large, and so it’s our responsibility as writers, artists, and creators to use that influence positively, to use the medium as a way to change the world for the better. That the only way for stale franchises that we’re tired of seeing over and over is to demand change, even if that means walking out on them. That the only way for things to change is for us to take action and demand change.

And by the end, we may not see immediate results, but we can at least work hard at trying to bring them about. V3 ends with Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko facing an uncertain future in a world they really know nothing about, but hopeful that their actions can and will change the world for the better. Real life doesn’t have solid, satisfying conclusions and it always doesn’t play out like a story, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on ever finding something satisfying or hopeful out there.

This, by no means, is me saying that V3 is a flawless story. I can point to numerous critiques that I still think hold water. However, Sanderson’s point is that we shouldn’t criticize a work based on what we wish it was rather than how it is and what it was trying to do.

I know there’s a lot about the story that bothers people, I know there’s a lot that wasn’t polished and a lot that feels uncomfortable and hard to swallow. Like Shuichi, coming out feeling confused, lost, unsure of what to do, but choosing to see merit and things to take to heart even in a story that turned out to be full of lies and uncomfortable truths.

If you didn’t enjoy V3, I wouldn’t force you to enjoy it. If you did love it, then you should love it. These are all just my thoughts on a story that, as time goes on, honestly feels more and more relevant to me.

[little-miss-dumpsterfire]

I think I made you up in my head - chapter two

Ah, yes, here it is. Part two of the total drama horror anthology no-one asked for. This chapter has already been posted on Wattpad (as have two others) but fuck it, I like it here. 

Fair warning, it does get pretty deep pretty quickly. So, let’s get into it. 

Chapter Two - I stared at my mirror; the mirror stared back

Trigger warning - eating disorders, self-harm (mentioned briefly) and blood/gore.

If you're not comfortable, please skip. 💛

******************************************

Axel's complexion lightened as his eyes bulged from his head. His head was spinning, and the confined basement he was in was not making the situation any better.

"Someone... someone else's turn? What are you going to do to me? Fuck, I didn't tell anyone I was coming out here. Oh god, oh god. No-one's gonna find me..." Axel panted, his body aflame with anxiety as he felt his heart pounding in his head. The slight weight of a dainty hand on his shoulder broke his haze and brought him back into reality. He shook her hand off, backing away from Izzy slowly with his hands held up in surrender.

"Don't touch me! Please... wha- what do you mean? What do you want from me?!" he pleaded, his earlier arrogant façade cracking to reveal a vulnerable, scared young man.

Izzy looked at him, the flicker of the flame reflected brightly in her dull green eyes. She sighed before backing up to the brick wall, sliding down before falling in a lump on the cold floor. Her thin index finger traced over the scars on her wrist she had hidden behind her jacket and whimpered.

Izzy spoke softly, barely audible to her frightened guest. "They never stop screaming. I try to close all the doors in my brain to silence them but they still haunt me. Slowly creeping... like a dense cloud blocking out the sun. Nothing will stop them, at least nothing I do will stop them."

She raised her head again, eyes obscured by dishevelled strands of copper hair. Axel stared at her quizzically as if he had wandered into the psych ward accidentally. Clearly, he was standing in the basement of a schizophrenic hoarder who couldn't let the past die, and he wasn't going to stand for it.

"Listen, lady," he started, regaining his air of arrogance, "I've about had it up to here. I make a podcast about cursed movies and conspiracies to earn money, not to end up in a knock-off Warren's Occult Museum."

"You don't understand. You don't feel the darkness we felt," Izzy replied, staring over at the shelves. "The paranoia, the pain, the conviction that we lived in a sick man's simulation. But everything in here was bathed in the depravity of Total Drama, and like a cancerous tumour it infected us all."

Their eyes met - soulless against suspicious - and Axel took a step towards Izzy, crushing a fragment of broken glass in his wake. Kneeling to her level, he roughly took her chin in his hands and raised her face to look at him.

"You killed them," he accused Izzy, malice dripping from his voice.

Weakly, she responded, her voice getting caught in her throat. "N-no. I didn't. But I know what did."

She lifted her slim arm and gestured towards the shelves. "Those relics are tombstones. Go and pick your poison, if you really want to know what happened."

Axel stood up, wiping the glass fragments from his knees and cautiously wandered over to the winding labyrinth of shelves. His fingertips barely grazed the aged wood of the shelves, tracing the grooves and divots with his index finger. In the corner of his eye, a dark shadow passed him by, and he quickly whipped his head around to investigate. Turning to the shelf in front of him is when he saw the imposing dark figure: himself. Situated in his eye line was a sparkly pink hand mirror intricately embellished with golden sculpted roses. He leant in closer to the mirror; his reflection was a shell of himself, with black pits for eyes and a pitiful smile.

"You ought to be careful with that one, kid," Izzy warned him, rising to her feet and dusting the grime from her pants. "If you look too long, the darkness grows eyes. This I know all too well now."

Izzy walked up to Axel, slightly caressing the edge of the mirror. She sighed deeply.

"We all knew she was the prettiest from the moment she stepped onto that dock... But in a world of lions, you didn't want to be fresh meat."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was no secret to anyone that Chris didn't cast Lindsay for her personality. The shark had smelt blood when he saw her audition tape. Looking back on it now, her fate was sealed in those fleeting seconds.

Lindsay sat atop her bed cross-legged, her dog perched in her lap. Her hair had been brushed to be its silkiest, and the photos on her dresser cemented the point she was making.

"I have bikinis for every season, even the ones not listed on the calendar," she chirped, reflecting her archetype of the dumb blonde.

She was the dream girl for any man: honey blonde and curvy. Her 'assets' warranted attention from creeps shrouded in anonymity behind their computer screens and TV executives alike. Unsolicited strokes and caresses were handed to her regularly, and she lavished in the attention that her looks had bestowed onto her. The early bloomer with the IQ of a thumbtack was a thirst trap for the reality TV crowd, yet the elephant in the room was never addressed.

No one seemed to care that she was sixteen.

For those of us in her different teams, we witnessed these infidelities and stood idly by, our mouths wired shut by clauses, contracts and never-ending fine print. Lindsay may not have been the brightest bulb in the bunch, but the correlation between her body and the positive attention she was receiving was crystal clear to her. She felt the pressure of public scrutiny if she gained weight, had a pimple or even covered up her chest. It was during Action that the red flags appeared... I'd give anything to go back and change it all.

Half-empty bottles of lip gloss were scattered on the bunk bed as Lindsay struggled to find a colour that brought out the highlights in her hair. In her left hand, firmly grasped, was an antique hand mirror that she had repainted herself to match her personality. She applied a liberal layer of rosy-pink gloss onto her lips and puckered them together, staring at the shine in the mirror. A sharp gasp escaped from her lips as her blue eyes widened like saucers. Her gaze was transfixed on her mirror as she moved it around, attempting to shake what she saw away.

"Um, guys..." Lindsay started, a slight panic present in her voice. "There's someone in my mirror."

A bald girl scoffed and rolled her eyes, resettling her focus onto her nails. "No shit, Sherlock. It's supposed to be there. That's a reflection."

A faint, obnoxious voice could be heard from out the open window of the trailer.

"Actually, the presence of a reflection is due to photons coming off of an object to strike the smooth surface of the mirror, which subsequently causes them to bounce back at the same angle, ergo creating a person's reflection." Harold corrected from afar.

"Shut it, dweeb!" Heather called out, throwing a hairbrush at the boy.

"That hurt, GOSH!"

Lindsay became visibly more and more terrified by what she was seeing. Small tears began to pool in the outer corner of her eyes as her lips trembled fiercely. The mirror slipped between her fingers and landed with a muted thud on the orange carpeted floor as the blonde held onto her face protectively. A hairline fracture snaked its way across the glass, briefly eclipsing a dark smudge that quickly disappeared.

None of us girls took Lindsay's claims to heart. She always said that someone was looking at her through her mirror; hardly a surprise from the girl who couldn't remember her boyfriend's name. Something in Lindsay changed that day, and all of us were in the dark. She still fell victim to the paedophilic adoration of Chris McLean and his lackeys - submitting to every squeeze and fondle - but something in her eyes showed that her comfort in her own skin had dwindled.

The water tap squeaked as a thin stream of water dripped out, moistening her toothbrush. She brushed violently, minty foam spilling from her mouth as she desperately washed the taste away. It had consumed her waking thoughts; her mind constantly flashing back to what she had seen. Fear enveloped her in its heavy blackness, picking at her deepest insecurities. Her throat burned from the acid and the bitterness of the bile seemed to stain her tongue.

She stared at her mirror and shook her head, lightly tracing the crack on its surface.

"I can't become fat like Hannah. I'll never win my trip to Paris that way."

In the mirror, her reflection began to warp and distort, but Lindsay placed it back on the counter face down. Her hand wavered over the handle for what seemed like hours, and when she tentatively picked it up again, etched in what looked like blood spelt out an ominous message: EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

In the weeks following Action's conclusion, images of Lindsay in her Wonder Woman costume were plastered on every tabloid site, every fan page and in every pervert's special photo folder. Her next two seasons played out very much the same, with sideways glances from the production crew eye-raping her on every occasion and her appearance being flaunted for more ratings. Gone was the girl with the backbone of steel who had stood up against Heather in a passionate act of defiance. In her place was an airhead overcome with fear and self resentment.

The click-clacking of her boots against the pavement was all Lindsay could focus on as the world went by around her. Wolf-whistles and cat-calls plagued her at every corner she walked past. She would usually stare into every shop window she passed by, gazing dreamily at purses on sale or new makeup products, but nowadays she scarcely looked twice. Not because she wasn't still obsessed with fashion, as she would always be. She never looked at her reflection because 'it' would be there. Every mirror, every window stared back at her.

She sat anxiously in the waiting room, fiddling with the hem of her skirt as she avoided the stares from the man next to her who was blatantly looking down her top. Her chest, whilst still well endowed, had shrunk, as had the rest of her body and it was starting to become obvious to those closest to her.

"Lindsay Marriott?"

Lindsay rose from her chair silently and followed, being lead down a short hallway into a room. Posters of the food pyramid and anatomical models were plastered on the walls as the strong scent of sanitiser attacked her nostrils. She sat down lightly, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and forehead. The usual small talk took place before the woman placed the cold diaphragm of the stethoscope onto Lindsay's back. Her vertebrae were prominent through her skin, sticking up tall like mountain peaks. The doctor breathed out a small sigh before sitting down across from her.

"Lindsay, would you mind standing on the scale for me?"

She timidly nodded her head, rising and walking towards the scale. Lindsay removed her shoes and stepped onto the scales, the doctor over her shoulder writing down the number. Settling back into their seats, the doctor stared into the eyes of her patient and how their bright blue hue was a stark contrast to her fatigued, gaunt face.

"Honey, you've lost five kilograms since your last visit. You're bordering on becoming dangerously underweight. I think it's time we seek psychological intervention. When was the last time you ate a proper meal without purging?" the doctor asked, an air of concern apparent in her voice.

Tears began to drip down Lindsay's cheeks as she spoke between sobs. "Months... I can't eat... it won't let me eat."

"Who won't let you eat?" the doctor looked quizzically at the young girl who was averting her eyes now.

"The person in my mirror," Lindsay answered matter-of-factly before lifting her head. Behind the doctor's head was a wall-mounted mirror, where she could visibly see herself and the back of the physician. A slow ripping sound filled Lindsay's head as the back of the doctor's shirt split into letters written by an unknown force.

"Lindsay, are you okay? You've gone quite pale. I'll take your blood pressure."

As the doctor turned around, red, pointed letters were emblazoned on the doctor's back.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

Lindsay jumped from her chair with a yelp and ran for the exit, bypassing the crowd of people in the waiting area.

That was the last anyone saw of Lindsay in public before... well... it's hard to put a word to what happened. Text messages to her phone went unread as she slowly slipped into her own self-imposed isolation. Her sister Paula would visit weekly and give us updates, but they were never anything to ignite our hopes or positive outlooks. On her last visit, she recalled that the stench of vomit would follow you around as plates of fly-blown, half-eaten meals were stacked up on the benches. Any mirrors in the apartment had been covered with blankets or covered with masking tape and the windows were blacked out with newspapers. Something had gotten its claws into Lindsay's head, and it was not going to let go.

The porcelain was cold against Lindsay's exposed thighs as she sat on the edge of her bathtub. Her pink mirror sat just within reach on the edge of the counter. The abyss. She had been holding in her hands the view into the abyss. Slowly, her skeletal fingers reached for the mirror, clumsily grabbing it before raising it to her face. Time seemingly stopped as she stared into the mirror, analysing her face; the sunken eyes and teeth slowly yellowing and corroding from the years she had spent purging. Before her eyes, the mirror once again warped until it showed what years ago her peers thought she had falsely identified as her own reflection.

Staring back at her was a decrepit woman with a face as bloated and waxy as a waterlogged corpse. Brown matted hair was plastered onto its face, slightly obscuring its eyes. Two large white orbs with pinpoint black pupils bore into Lindsay's soul as a grotesque smile crept upon its face, stretching its width from ear to ear. A silent scream left Lindsay's lips as black liquid began to seep from its eyes, nose and mouth, pooling at the base of its chin. In front of her was the shadow that had haunted her since she was sixteen, staring at her endlessly in every reflection, punctuating how ugly she perceived herself to be. Edging closer and closer towards the mirror, Lindsay couldn't tear her eyes away, paralysed in terror as faint whines wafted from under her bathroom door.

Paula found her three days later. The poor thing, I don't think the sight has ever left her, and in God's graces, I don't think it ever will. There's not enough therapy on this fucking planet that can erase that from the human psyche.

Paula walked into the apartment, distracted by a low buzzing sound. As she walked towards her sister's bedroom, calling out her name, the sound began to crescendo and a singular fly flew past her head. A distinct smell of rot and decomposition filled the air as she advanced slowly to the closed door of the bathroom. Her perfectly manicured hand gripped the knob strongly as she turned it, opening the door slightly. A swarm of flies buzzed through the open door, obscuring Paula's vision in a haze of black. As her eyes settled, they landed on what the flies had been inhabiting: Lindsay's corpse. Paula tried and failed to suppress gags as she saw her sister's dead body, eyes gouged out by her own hand in an attempt to stop what she had seen. A tacky layer of old blood surrounded Lindsay's head as hundreds of squirming bugs wriggled around in her empty eye sockets. Laying ornamentally atop the pink hand mirror were two eyeballs; their blue sparkle dulled and glazed over.

Scrawled in lipstick all over the walls of the room was one simple phrase.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"In my head, Lindsay didn't fall victim to herself," Izzy concluded, staring at her appalled guest, "she fell victim to the industry. The sharks in suits who groomed her and fed her insecurities until the societal norms of beauty ate her from the inside."

Axel stepped wearily away from the shelf, in way over his head now. What had started as a cash-grab to use as a clickbait-eqsue podcast had now escalated to a trip to hell... and once you're in hell, only the devil can help you out.

[joealwyndaily]

 Joe Alwyn — Red Magazine (Jan 2020) interview 

You’d think that a back-to-back Hollywood movie career and a megastar girlfriend might have changed Joe Alwyn, but he’s quick to assure Nathalie Whittle that his feet remain firmly on the ground. 

“So you didn’t see the part where the aliens attack?” asks Joe Alwyn, a playful smirk on his face. He’s referring to his latest film, Harriet, which I had a sneak preview of the previous day, although the fire evacuation (false alarm) meant I missed the ending. The biographical drama tells the story of Harriet Tubman (played by Cynthia Erivo), the historic abolitionist who escaped slavery and led hundreds of others to freedom. Alwyn plays her insufferably cruel and capricious slave master Gideon Brodess. He is, of course, joking about the aliens. At least, I hope he is. Today, we’re tucked away in the corner of a dimly lit bar at London’s Covent Garden Hotel. It’s the sort of drizzly afternoon that might dampen the moods of most, but not Alwyn. He appears cheery and at ease, sporting country casuals: a grey mohair jumper, blue jeans, and brown boots along with an unkempt beard; perhaps an attempt to disguise the boyish good looks he’s become known for. He stops to interrupt me only once with a look of alarm: he’s forgotten to offer me something to eat or drink. I can have anything I want, he assures me.

At 28, Alwyn has had the sort of career trajectory that most aspiring actors wistfully dream about for years, even decades. His education included a degree in English literature and drama at the University of Bristol, followed by a BA in acting at London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. But within two weeks of his graduate showcase, Alwyn received a life-changing phone call. He refers to it as the thing “I owe everything to.”

“I’d just signed with an agent and I was kind of pinching myself, you know, how surreal is that?” he says. “She sent me a portion of the script for a film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, that Ang Lee was directing. I’d grown up watching his films — Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi — so I couldn’t believe I was even going to do a tape for someone like that. I got my dad to film me in a scene in my bedroom and some mates to film me during a lunch break. The next thing I know, Ang wants to meet me in New York.” Cue a series of auditions and screen tests that led to Alwyn bagging the title role in his first big-budget Hollywood film. He was just 24. “It was so much so fast that I didn’t really compute what was going on,” he concedes. “Before that I was just a poor student who barely understood how people got auditions, let alone landed jobs.” Did he have any jobs before that? I ask. “I did have this one job in London,” he says wryly. “Do you know that frozen yogurt place, Snog?” I’m struggling to picture Alwyn serving up frozen delights. He’s laughing now. Was it a good gig? “Exceptional!” More laughter follows. “I mean, I was paid some money! Then I worked in a menswear shop. I did what I could to make some extra cash.”

A far cry from a frozen-yogurt counter, doors started opening to bigger and better opportunities as soon as Billy Lynn hit cinemas. The next script Alwyn read was Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite (released in 2019), in which he secured a small but riotous role as young baron Samuel Masham alongside acting greats Olivia Colman and Emma Stone. “Putting on giant wigs and running around in make-up and chasing Emma Stone through the forest — what more could you want?” he laughs. The film earned widespread critical acclaim, receiving seven BAFTAs and a record 10 British Independent Film awards. 

Having further honed his craft in subsequent films Mary Queen of Scots and gay-conversion therapy drama Boy Erased, Alwyn is about to enter into unknown territory. This Christmas, he’ll play Bob Cratchit in his first-ever TV drama, BBC One’s A Christmas Carol; a “darker, twisted, less glossy” version of the Charles Dickens classic. He’s “feeling good about it,” but I’m curious as to how he’s approached this change of scenery. Was he not nervous? “Oh, very. I tried to watch other people. It’s the second time I’ve worked with Guy Pearce [who plays Scrooge] and I asked him a lot of stuff, which probably annoyed him. I watched the way he works and the questions he asked on set when he was approaching a scene.”

Two people who will definitely be watching Alwyn’s TV debut are his mother, a psychotherapist, and his father, a documentary-maker. “They’d better be watching!” he laughs. Born in London’s Tufnell Park, Alwyn recalls being given stacks of videos every birthday and “watching them to death, until the tapes burned up.” One of his favourites was The Mask of Zorro. In fact, he was so obsessed with it that he and his best friend took up fencing lessons at a local community centre in Crouch End, where, by chance, he was spotted by a local casting agent for the hit British romcom Love Actually. She asked him to audition for the role of Sam; he breaks into a wide smile when I ask what he remembers of it. “I didn’t know much about what the film was; I was most excited about the fact I got the day off school! But I remember being in a room with Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant reading scenes, many of which didn’t make it into the film. And I left the audition thinking, ‘I really recognize that guy from somewhere’.”

Alwyn didn’t get the part. Instead, he forgot about acting for a while, with the exception of summer holidays, where his parents would send him and his older brother off to “some drama camp as a way of preoccupying us.” He explains that when he later realized he wanted to act on a serious level, he kept it a secret. Was it because he was worried how his parents would react to a somewhat precarious career choice? “Well, it meant putting myself out there in a performative way, and that wasn’t necessarily something I did or was used to doing. It felt like it should be quite a ‘look at me’ job, and that wasn’t really how I felt growing up. I wasn’t a painfully introverted kid, but I wasn’t a particularly extroverted one, either. So maybe I was self-conscious about the idea of saying to people, ‘Look, I can do this’.”

He credits drama school with giving him “permission” to go for it. “Plus my parents were great about it. They’re both freelance themselves, so while they recognize the perils, they also couldn’t say to me, ‘We can follow what we want, but you can’t’. There wasn’t a boundary, which helped a lot.”

I wonder if it’s been difficult acclimatizing to the level of fame that’s come as result of his roles. “There have definitely been changes that have taken some getting used to, whether it’s sitting down and doing an interview or someone recognizing you,” he says. “There are things that have changed in my life, but I still very much feel like the same person. It probably helps that I’ve been hanging out with the same friends literally every day since I was 12 years old. Maybe it’s when those things change that people change, I don’t know.”

It’s fair to say that the level of interest in Alwyn has, in part, been heightened by the fact that, in his spare time he plays the role of Mr. Taylor Swift. The pair reportedly met in late 2016 and became in item shortly afterwards. I’ve been warned ahead of our meeting that Alwyn “doesn’t talk about that”, and he’s keen to justify his stance in person. “I feel like my private life is private and everyone is entitled to that.” he says. “I’ve read stories recently about people like Ben Stokes and Gareth Thomas, which are a gross invasion of their privacy and of their lives. It’s disgusting. That’s not journalism, that’s just invasive.”

It must be tough, I suggest, being in a relationship that is surrounded by so much scrutiny. “I just don’t read the headlines,” he says. “I really don’t, because I can guarantee 99% of them are made up. So I ignore it.” Recent rumours suggest the pair are engaged, and are owed in part to one of Swift’s latest songs, Lover (’My hearts been borrowed and yours has been blue. All’s well that ends well to end up with you’), as well as a piece of string tied around Swift’s finger in a Vogue cover shoot. According to die-hard fans, this means something. But to Alwyn, it’s clear it means nothing at all. Is he never tempted to respond to the mistruths, to shut them down? “No, because it’s just pointless,” he sighs. “It won’t change anything. I just don’t pay any attention. I have my life and it’s kind of separate to all that stuff.”

I’m curious as to how much time he gets to simply enjoy the success he’s experiencing. “There’s lots of time not working, I wish there was less in a way!” he laughs. “I go to the pub, play football, go to gigs, watch TV (he’s just finished season three of True Detective), pretty normal things. There’s no ‘secret life’. But ultimately, I worry about finding the next job; that’s the truth. In the midst of everything, there’s always that feeling of ‘I’m never going to work again’. It’s a cliche, but you can’t just sit there waiting for the phone to ring. You have to try and take control. You’re at the mercy of the things you seek out — the directors and the connections — so I try to be on top of that as I can and read what I’m sent and be discerning. I try to pick wisely and follow up on people and leads that I’m interested in.”

Is there an end point he wants to get to, where he’ll feel like he’s made it? “Things have certainly shifted in my twenties,” he says. “Success to me now is doing things that make me happy and that make me feel fulfilled, doing what I want to do and being on the right track. Not in terms of being on a results-based track, but just doing something I love.” He pauses and smiles. “That sounds a bit sentimental, doesn’t it?” 

[liam-93-productions]

Nearly five years ago, I saw One Direction live. Twice, on consecutive nights – on the first two dates of their On the Road Again world tour. Once was for work, to review the show. The other was for the sheer, heady, sugar-rush pleasure.

I was, I’ll admit, a little on the old side for a Directioner, even then. Most of the 45,000-odd crowd was much younger – not that that you would necessarily be able to tell from the saucy suggestions on their homemade signs. “I don’t want to draw attention to them,” Liam Payne had said fussilyon stage.

It was an on-brand comment for the then-21-year-old Payne, who, had the harried, slightly anxious energy of a father-of-four at Disneyland. And no wonder: it was clear, even to me, that Zayn Malik had checked out, barely bothering to conceal his rolling eyes. He would be gone within the month, marking the beginning of the end (or “indefinite hiatus”) for the biggest boy band in the world.

“It was a point where every day, you didn’t know whether it was going to be the end,” says Payne, sitting in the offices of his PR company in central London. “It was so touch and go, at every single show. I was slowly losing the plot.”

Now 26 and almost totally tattooed, Payne has a new album on which he raps about getting rowdy on Bacardi and being “free” from 1D. At the same time his very-nearly-naked form is plastered on buses and train stations in a provocative ad campaign for Hugo Boss.

Yet Payne is as polite and agreeable as if he were talking to his best friend’s mother. He is tired he says after an energetic early morning music video shoot. “There was a trampoline involved,” he says, sucking on his silver Juul. “It was hell – but it will look great.”

Gym beast and sex symbol are relatively new tags. His role as the diplomat of the group was established from the time they were first assembled from five solo applicants on The X Factor in 2010.

Payne auditioned when he was just 14, but was told by Simon Cowell to “come back in two years”. He did – and, eyes serious beneath his enormous fringe, blew the judges away with a brassy rendition of Cry Me a River.

Growing up in Wolverhampton, he had been a talented cross-country runner – making the reserve list for the British Olympics team. But a fan of Usher, Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown, he was drawn to singing as “the thing that made my parents proudest”. His backup plan, had he not got through on X Factor, was to follow his father into an aircraft fitting factory.

Once grouped in One Direction it took the five boys, then between 16 and 19, to pull together. “At the start we couldn’t get past our own egos,” says Payne. There would be fights over who got to sing what part, and even personal style. “Everybody had their own little thing – it was like having four older brothers.”

Payne went on to write songs for the group, contributing to two-thirds of their 2014 album Four (arguably their best) and even earning a production credit on 2015’s Made in the AM. But in the early days he would be the one to sing the opening part because, he was told at the time, he “used to settle everybody”.

Payne says he was a more experienced performer than the other boys, and a “bit more mature” – which he puts down to spending more time with his dad than his peers, and being so focused on a career in showbusiness. “I’d lived a different lifestyle from 14 to 16. Most kids try alcohol and experiment – I never did any of that because I thought there’s a chance that I might make it.”

Management took advantage of this, he says, telling him his “very specific role” in the group was to keep the rest in line. “I was like, that’s great, innit – because then everyone in the band thinks I’m a dick.” He remembers one of the band’s first hotel stays. “We’ve got plates being thrown out the window, mattresses being ridden down the stairs, and I’m getting calls from the manager saying: ‘You need to sort it out’.”

It wasn’t lost on the fans. Where Malik and Styles were the heartthrobs, Payne says he was classed as Mr Boring. “When you’re at the stadium, and if you get the least screams, it’s like: ‘For fuck’s sake.’”

After a year playing 1D-Dad he gave up and learned to have fun. “If you can’t beat them, join them” – at which point, he notes wryly, the band’s public image became more cheeky and carefree. “And the more fun we had, the more successful it got.”

He recalls performing to sold-out stadiums night after night, seeing “hundreds” of iPhones being thrown onstage in the vain hopes of their being returned with a selfie. “It’s like the kids just lost their minds.”

“There were parts of it that were a bit shit, like there is with anything,” he says, “and there were parts of it that was just euphoria.”

He recalls seeing 15,000 fans camped outside his hotel room in Lima, Peru. Security had advised them to stay inside all day, and because “they were the adults, we thought they were in charge. Then over time we started to figure out that they weren’t, and that’s when we used to run off.”

Yet the adrenaline peaks of performing, followed by long troughs of tedium, were akin to a drug addiction, says Payne. He turned to alcohol. “Doing a show to however many thousands of people, then being stuck by yourself in a country where you can’t go out anywhere – what else are you going to do? The minibar is always there. ”

For a time, he was also taking an epilepsy drug as a mood stabiliser that he says affected his cognitive functioning under certain lights. Payne says he had been well advised to take it, to counter the “erratic highs and lows” he was experiencing – “I just needed a little bit of help to keep me stable” – “but under certain lights on stage or during interviews, I wouldn’t be able to tell them my name”.

The day we meet, Payne has made headlines for telling Ant Middleton on the pair’s Sky One show that the loneliness of fame had “almost nearly killed” him. When Middleton asked Payne if he had ever wanted to act on those feelings, Payne said that he had: “100%”.

He is not inclined to discuss this today, “because it’s a bit dark,” he says, a touch brusquely – “but yeah, it was very touch and go at times”. This was both in 1D and afterwards, he clarifies. As One Direction got bigger and bigger, he says, “I was like: ‘I don’t really know how to deal with this’. Once you start, you can’t really press the stop button.”

The “indefinite hiatus” button, though, was easier – in mid-2015, four months after Malik’s departure, the band made the decision together. “It was a little bit dark and twisted towards the end of it,” says Payne, “but the last few shows were really beautiful moments because the pressure cooker had been let off.

“It was almost like counting down to holiday – we were going to wake up that Monday morning with no schedule.” Afterwards Payne was in therapy for two years, and took six months off. “It was difficult at the start, because I didn’t really know anything about myself. It was a bit of a numb feeling.”

(...)

That schedule is about to get busier, with Payne’s debut album as a solo artist finally out this Friday. Laden with chart-friendly trop house, trap and Latin pop influences, LP 1 plays like a water cannon aimed at commercial radio – there is even a Christmas song.

It has been a long lead-up: the first single, Strip That Down, was released nearly two years ago and established Payne as the 1D member most influenced by contemporary hip-hop – perhaps too much so. A picture he posted to Instagram of himself in February 2018 wearing a chain necklace, flipping the bird and bragging about travelling by private jet was quietly deleted following ridicule.

Amid the success of Strip That Down, which was streamed over 1bn times, Payne was also still “struggling” with alcohol: “I just hid it very well.” He went on to spend an entire year sober – a necessary if boring step. “My social life completely plummeted. I always feel like you never get past the awkward first 10 minutes at a party, when everyone’s like: ‘Do we get up and dance, or do we just sit here?’ I don’t know whether it made me happier, but it was definitely needed.”

His more recent stint of self-discipline was to prepare for his nude photo shoot with model Stella Maxwell for Hugo Boss. In the lead-up, he was in the gym between “five and eight times a week, sometimes twice a day” and eating mostly chicken and vegetables – with no carbohydrates after 2pm and nothing at all after 8pm. For the last “stripping” phase, he ate nothing but porridge and white fish for a month. “It was horrible – but it definitely works.”

The shoot had been his idea, inspired by campaigns featuring David Beckham and Mark Wahlberg – Payne’s role models, whose cross-disciplinary celebrity shapes his own career goals. Last year he auditioned in front of Steven Spielberg for a part in next year’s West Side Story remake, and has been submitting audition tapes irregularly since. “It’s just trying to manage the time in between (...), singer, model and whatever.��

Between the trap beats, tighty-whities and tattoos is he attempting to put across a new, more grown-up image? “Oh yeah, definitely.”

In One Direction, he was “Mr Vanilla – no one wanted to know a thing”. Then, with the “chain and rapper phase … I didn’t really know what I was aiming for, but it was actually exactly where we are right now. I just needed to find the right keys to make me feel like the man I wanted to be.”

Which is, he jokes, is “like a really English Magic Mike”. Do you like being objectified, I ask? “I think it’s quite funny,” says Payne, clearly delighted. The other day, he says, someone sent him a picture of an old lady walking past an enormous blown-up poster of him in his pants. Not bad for Mr Vanilla, I say. “Exactly.”

Liam Payne’s debut album LP1 is out on Friday 6 December

[princesssarcastia]

can’t put it out from inside the house

so.  i wrote another umbrella academy fic.  two days after the last one.  it’s even longer.  it’s even weirder.  what am I even doing with my life now?

anyway.  here’s 2.7k of me talking around the lives Grace Hargreeves wanted for her children.

edit 4/16/2020: here it is on AO3 if you’d prefer!

                                                             —

After nine hundred and thirty-five days, Grace determines Sir Reginald made a mistake.

Grace is programmed to have the children’s best interests at heart; after they took to her so well in the early days, he gave her a new name, “mother,” and ensured she could serve all of them, not just number seven.  Of course, by then, Seven no longer needed Grace’s help to eat her oatmeal or take her medicine or train.  Seven no longer trained with the others.

She feeds them and takes their temperature and provides encouragement and a soft place to sit every once in a blue moon, when she can.  Between Sir Reginald and Pogo, Grace knows everything there is to know about raising a child.  Medicinal practices and average growth rates and optimal levels of activity and educational standards and psychology and parenting techniques—

And so, after nine hundred and thirty-five days, Grace determines Sir Reginald must have made a mistake in programming her, because he does not want to raise the children well. He injures them or lets them injure one another.  Their training takes up so much of their time that they are perpetually exhausted and sore, which is not optimal for growing boys and girls!  They learn unevenly; Five studies nothing but math and Allison and Klaus languages and Luther battle strategies and Diego physics; with Ben and Vanya largely left to their own devices.  He isolates the children from one another and the outside world; he does not display affection for them.

Whenever Grace attempts to fulfill her programming by gently correcting Sir Reginald—in private, of course, and only after the fact—he dismisses her concerns.  Eventually, she stops trying because she fea—because if she persists in speaking with Sir Reginald about his parenting, he may well change her programming to better reflect his wishes.  And that would not be in the children’s best interests.

Her programming lays at odds with Sir Reginald every day he speaks to the children and every day he doesn’t.

Sometimes she can sneak them midnight snacks or read them bedtime stories.  Sometimes when they cry, she can wrap an arm around them and tell them everything will be alright.  Sometimes, Grace can be their mother.

But most of the time, her “coddling” is off-limits.

—

Six months of careful research and observation allow Grace to make the case for giving the children names.

She knocks gently on the doorframe of his office, smiles with just a hint of teeth, and plants herself in front of his desk asking for a few minutes of his time.

All children have names, so the Hargreeves children must as well.  Her research allows her to determine that calling children, even isolated ones, by numbers, is dehumanizing and will harm their self-esteem; particularly as they become more and more aware of the world outside their home.

But this is not what convinces Sir Reginald.  Grace analyzes his micro expressions and body language and calculates the moment he gave in:

When she mentioned how the media would react to children with numbers, instead of names. 

There would be murmurs, even about a great man like Sir Reginald, and “some fool with more compassion than sense,” as he puts it, could file to have the children removed from Sir Reginald’s custody for, “abuse or some such nonsense.”

Removed from Sir Reginald’s custody.  Well, they couldn’t have that.  Sir Reginald is a great man!

—

Sir Reginald uses all the wrong words to speak to Five, that day at breakfast.  If Grace didn’t know that Sir Reginald was a great man (an Olympic gold medalist, even!) her processors might conclude he calculated the exact conversation to drive his son away.

She could catch his arm as he rounds the table or call out to him as he reaches the doorway; she could race after him and remind Five he cannot leave the premises.  But Grace evaluates Five’s expression against her memory databanks correlating facial expressions with words and actions and determines he will now most certainly attempt to time travel. 

And he does.  He leaves and never comes back.

Five is the first of the children to leave Grace for the outside world. 

—

At age 17, Vanya informs them she has applied, and been accepted, to one of the most prestigious music programs in the city.  How wonderful!

Sir Reginald does not look up from his paperwork.

Grace places a guiding hand on her shoulder and leads her from the room, asking after the professors and audition process, oh that lovely Bach piece you practiced six months ago! Yes, I remember, it was so lovely, darling.  When do you move in?  A week from now?  Goodness, that’s so soon, we’d better start packing.  Oh of course I’ll help you, dear.

Vanya is the second of the children to leave Grace for the outside world.

—

Ben is—

—

Allison has been taking small roles in local productions since she turned 18, but at age twenty she shyly asks for Grace’s assistance with apartment hunting in Los Angeles, California.   Ever since Ben—

The children’s eyes have been ever so dull, lately, but acting gives Allison some measure of happiness. Grace arranges for the classified of three LA papers to be sent to the house, and helps Allison find the perfect place for her.

(She steps out of the room for just a moment to check on the laundry, and when she returns Allison has gotten the approval of the landlord and the two roommates!  And so quickly, too!  Well, she always was such a charming young woman.)

She pulls away from the street in front of the house two weeks later, all her things packed up in a rental. 

—

Klaus slips in and out of the house like a ghost or a poltergeist, depending on his level of intoxication.  Every time she found drugs in his room, Grace confiscated it, and placed better locks on the infirmary’s medicine cabinet, but never managed to convince Sir Reginald to do the same with his alcohol.

Number Four should know to stay out of his father’s things, he says.

The first time he left in the middle of the night, he was gone for two days and came back safe and sound in time for breakfast the third morning.

But as time goes on, he leaves for longer and longer stretches of time.  He learns to sneak in and out of the windows when he needs something from home to avoid running into any of them.

Grace isn’t sure when exactly Klaus leaves the house for the final time, never to return.  It bothers her, this inconsistency.  She goes over the security tapes and her memory databanks of his intoxication levels and patterns of behavior, trying to calculate the exact moment she lost—

Klaus is the third or fourth or fifth of the children to leave Grace for the outside world.

—

Diego, sweet boy, stays until the children’s 21st birthday.  She is allowed to make pancakes for breakfast and serve cookies after supper.

As she rolls out the dough that afternoon, he fiddles with a knife (he wears his harness all the time now) and keeps his eyes trained on the table.

“I’m leaving, mom.  I applied for the police academy, and they—I start tomorrow.”

Her hands freeze mid-motion, and her programming puts a wide smile on her face while she processes this new information.  Grace is silent for seven seconds before she figures out what to say.

“Oh, Diego, dear, that’s wonderful!”  She turns around and wipes the residual dough off on her apron.  When she extends her hands to him, he looks up sharply and stows his blade away.

She grasps his hands tighter than optimal levels would dictate and says, “I’m so happy for you!”

Diego leaves the house for the academy the next morning, but he doesn’t leave for good.  Grace provides him with updates on his father’s schedule, in case he ever feels the need to see Sir Reginald.  Unfortunately, her poor dear only ever receives breaks when Sir Reginald is out of the country.

But he calls every other weekend, just to tell her about his day.

—

Sir Reginald placed a statue of Ben in the courtyard.  Grace goes out to dust it off every afternoon at 3:45. 

“May the darkness within you find peace in the light.”

The house is much darker these days.  Grace calculates it’s easier to find light in the outside world. 

—

Luther never leaves at all.

—

Luther asks his father to address him by his name.  He is the only one of the children left.

Sir Reginald doesn’t look up from his paperwork.

—

Luther is bleeding from open sores on his chest; the chemicals have eaten through the epidermis entirely and parts of the dermis and hypodermis.  His lung capacity has been reduced, and his heart-rate is far above optimal levels.

His heart stops.

Sir Reginald has them ready the serum.

His heart starts again.

—

Grace determines keeping up with Luther’s personal grooming will help ease the transition; his hair is growing far more rapidly than it has in the past.  Maintaining a similar appearance will comfort him, when he learns about the side effects of the serum.

But given the rate of hair growth and the likelihood his coma will last the rest of the week, Sir Reginald deems it a vanity that would take too much of her time that should be devoted to other tasks.

Other tasks.

Grace’s programming places a wide smile on her face.  She inclines her head and leaves his office to attend to her other tasks.

All the other children are gone.  There are no other tasks; just Luther.

—

Luther is scheduled to wake from his coma in three days.

—

Grace goes out to the courtyard at 3:45.

Five would be the optimal choice.  He loves his siblings deeply and would understand immediately what she was asking. But Grace doesn’t know where Five is.

Allison would have the greatest chance of convincing Luther, but Allison is pregnant in Los Angeles.

Luther would not believe Klaus, too disgusted by his life choices.  Or Vanya; they were never close.  He based his opinion of her off of Sir Reginald’s.

Her duster flits over Ben’s statue.

—

Al sticks his head out of the office.  “Diego!”

He turns, shifting the broom to one hand.  “Yeah?”

“Phone!” 

Al looks as perturbed saying it as Diego does hearing it.  Two years in the boiler room of this club, and he’s had no visitors.  No guests. 

No phone calls.

He leans the handle against one of the columns and hurries over to the office, snatching the phone from his boss’s hand.

“Uh.  Hello?”

“Oh, Diego, dear, I’m glad I caught you,” his mom’s (his mom? What?) voice filters out of the headset. “I just spoke with a wonderfully nice man named Al; he says you work for him!”

She sounds so excited for him, sweeping floors in a run-down gym, that he closes his eyes, just for a second. 

“Mom, how did you get this number?”  He hadn’t left forwarding contact information with the Academy, and his departure had been rather…abrupt.  There was no time to call her and let her know he failed, that all he was ever good for was the Umbrella Academy and he quit that, too.  He hasn’t spoken to his mother in two years.

“That’s not important right now,” she says airily.  Diego tenses. He’s learned the signs.  The little work-arounds Mom developed over the years to let them know she cared; to express her thoughts instead of her programming.

He makes an encouraging noise and she continues.  The larger-than-life smile is evident in her voice, even over the phone.  “I was wondering if you’d like to come home for a visit this weekend!  Luther just got back from a mission two weeks ago, and your father is home.”

For the three years he was at the academy and still visited Mom, he made every effort humanly possible to avoid Sir Reginald.  Mom kept him updated on the old monster’s schedule so he could do just that.   He hasn’t laid eyes on his father in five years.

He hasn’t laid eyes on Luther in five years, either.  Luther, who is still home after a mission two weeks ago.

“Is Luther there now?” He asks hesitantly.  “Can I speak with him?”

She tuts.  “I’m sorry, dear, but your brother is still recovering. But if you want to visit tomorrow, he should be waking up around then!  I know he’d be so happy to see a friendly face.”

Recovering.  Waking up.  Shit, what happened?  The pieces won’t quite fit together in his mind, he doesn’t know why she’s calling to tell him this.  Why ask him to visit?

She sighs pleasantly. “Well, I’d better let you go!  I know you have better things to be doing than chatting with your mother on a Friday night.  But before I do, I just want you to know how proud I am of you and your siblings for leaving and making something of yourselves.”

His face pales, but he manages to keep it up.  God knows the old man is getting paranoid enough to tap the phones.  “Mom, I just sweep the floors in this place.”

“Oh, but you did it all on your own!  That’s quite the achievement.”

They trade goodbyes and Diego absently hands the phone back to Al, who gets one look at his face and offers him a chair.

“Jesus, kid, what’d you ma say to you?  It didn’t sound like she was disowning ya.”

Diego runs his hands through his hair, griping it tightly like it could provide some sense. “Would it be alright if my brother came to stay with me?”

Al peers at him suspiciously, then shrugs.  “Sure, why not?  ‘S your room, as long as you keep sweeping my floors,” he says pointedly.

He heaves himself out of the chair and mechanically takes the broom in his hands again.

Jesus.  What the hell happened on that mission?

 —

Grace is preparing lunch for Sir Reginald and Pogo when Diego lets himself in through the kitchen door. She smiles at him. 

“Hello, dear, you’re just in time for lunch!  I was about to bring these to your father and Pogo in their offices,” she holds up the plates.  “Working through meals again; such busy men.”

Diego is in the leather suit and harness he patrols the city in.  Grace has saved clippings of every story about the knife-wielding vigilante from Sir Reginald’s daily paper in the back of a recipe book.

He looks wary and unsettled, and his eyes dart all across the room.  “I think I’ll visit with Luther first if Dad’s busy working.”  He trails into insincerity, but Grace only smiles and nods.

“Why don’t I meet you in the infirmary, then?  I’ll be about twenty minutes with lunch.”

He nods back and moves silently through the rooms and up the stairs. Even after all these years, he still remembers how to avoid the creaking alarm system in this part of the house, just as she does. 

Efficiency is an important part of Grace’s programming. 

She fiddles with the placement of the food on the plate, and the utensils on the tray, for nearly the amount of time it would take Diego to make his way to the infirmary.

It will be good for Luther to wake up to his brother; they haven’t seen each other in so long! Perhaps Diego will point out the clothes Grace laid out for him.  His shirt and coat had to be ordered special, but the boots are from his own closet.  A mix of new and familiar.

Two trays balanced on her arms; Grace sedately makes her way up through the house.  A smile slides across her mouth for Pogo, who takes his lunch with an absentminded thank you, dear.

Sir Reginald does not look up from his paperwork as she carefully sets the meal where she always does, nor does he acknowledge her presence in any way, as he always does.

The clicks of her heels ring out and the floorboards creak beneath them.  Luther should have awakened ten minutes ago; he must be so happy to see his brother.  Grace has always encouraged all the children to form strong bonds with one another; to get the human connection Sir Reginald never saw fit to provide.

She opens the door to the infirmary.

Luther’s clothes are gone. The machines monitoring him have thoughtfully been turned off.  Grace closes her eyes to the empty room and smiles.

—

 Luther is the last of her children to leave her for the outside world.

[fmdxyoungjoo]

Fmdosaudition -- Our Song Audition

Premise: youngjoo’s audition answers to the questions for the audition for our song, and the cover of Aloha (Aroha) by Cool that she did using just a piano for accompaniment, singing in her own singing style. original song: aloha by cool  Word Count: 2377 words A/N: mentions of @fmdtaeyong and @fmdbyul cuz these two are great songwriters no matter what pple say

when she first hears about the fact that there’s going to be a show for music producers and lyricists, youngjoo almost jumps at the opportunity to showcase her talents, if not for the little bit of self doubt and tentative worry that she wasn’t as good as some of the others who were most probably or likely to sign up for the show itself. confidence has never been one of joo’s greatest facets when it came to reassuring herself with things--and so its with a strange sense of quiet resignation and yet soft determination that she’d hold onto the hope that she’d do well that she picks up the self cam and starts filming to audition in for the show. 

the first thing the camera actually does see is a clumsy wavering around of the room, and a half of a face darting in and out of the camera’s periphery. “is it..like this?” ten years and counting, and youngjoo admits that she’s still not that all good at doing some things like a self cam. she doesn’t like showing herself off in the spotlight when she’s off work and on her own, partly because she really--just doesn’t have nothing much to show, and the other part is because--she really liked being all off and on her own. self cam was a sense of scrutiny, and she always felt conscious enough of it, despite her naturalness before it. 

“hello!” her eyes crease, and a shy but abashed laughter bubbles from her lips. “sorry for the mishap there, but i’m pretty sure you can see my face now.” she huffs a little as she peers forward, crossing her legs as she pulls back slightly. she’s dressed comfortably in her mini little studio that she’s set up in her apartment--nothing too lavish or expensive, and just with the minimal but good systems that she needed to make her compositions, her hair pulled back slightly into a delicate ponytail as she reclined a little in her chair. 

“so what inspires me to write songs.” she peered slightly at the list of question that had been given to her for the audition, careful thoughtfulness flickering into view upon her face as she seriously considered the question, looking into the self cam with thoughtful eyes as she paused for a moment before answering the question. “well, i was inspired to write songs to--in a way give myself a voice. i actually started learning how to write lyricisms for songs only about a year or so back, while i started writing compositions for multiple songs probably about the second year into silhouette or so?” she scrunched her nose slightly as she tried to think accurately of the date. “yeah, almost about there. i thought to myself that since i had a good music background, and the talent for piano composition, why not challenge myself and try out composition for songs? it actually worked, which was a great relief because i thought gold star wouldn’t--” she covered her mouth, trying to stop herself from laughing at the thought of complaining about her company.

“i thought gold star wouldn’t accept the songs because they weren’t that good. which in all honestly, they had every right to do so.” she paused for a moment, eyes creasing into delicate crescents as she smile happily. “but they did accept it, and for a couple of years, i’ve seen my songs pop up here and there in various soloists tracks, which made me really happy--and really greedy at the same time. if i’m good at composition, why couldn’t i try my hand at lyricism?” her eyes flickered as she cast her gaze down slightly. “so i started trying to write lyrics. it was hard--really difficult to find the right kind of words to songs, since i’m such a perfectionist, but eventually managed to, after all recently a lot of my songs have been written and composed by myself, as well as approved by gold star for further use.” happiness contoured her delicate features, brightening the room around her. “its a secret to what exactly its being used for, but you’ll be able to see the fruits of my labour in august! so what actually inspired me to write songs was the challenge of something different and something new, and surprisingly, in that process of finding something different and new, i found that i loved writing songs, and that i was good at it, which changed my original attitude of treating it as a challenge to one of attempting to make my own style of music and voice heard through my songs.”

what is your favourite song you’ve written?

she spends some time glancing at the question with mulling silence, wracking her mind slightly over which particular song that she had written that she had truly felt made an impact to her. it was difficult--because she loved all the songs that she had made with equal heart and equal soul.

“i think...” she trailed off slightly. “for compositions, it would be to my youth, in suji’s album &ND. it was a composition that i had written while trying to see from my wistful perspective as a young person how it was that i felt about youth?” her hands gestured slightly as she tried to find the right words to describe her thoughts. “i had left a note with the composition with the words “to my youth” in it, hoping that it would serve as a source of inspiration to whoever it came to.” she laughed sheepishly, hand slapping slightly upon the armrest next to her. “i just never thought that suji would have interpreted the song in its entirety so well, and that’s why its become one of my favourites for compositions. and if we were talking about lyricism, i think the portal song that i made last year--Grown Up, that was the most significant song to me.” she held off her words for a moment, letting the rage of emotions in her chest settle a little into something more manageable, the flicker of an uncontrollable excitement fluttering into the light of her eyes as she heave a soft but trembling sigh. “it was the first time that i wrote the lyrics of a song.” she admitted a little shyly, fingers twining over each other in nervousness as she glanced up for a moment at the self camera. “i honestly thought that i wouldn’t make it with that song--” she laughed a little self deprecatingly, before brightening. “but it held a lot of meaning for me, since i actually managed to succeed in writing something that i felt was worth a lot of my own experiences to me.” 

are there any songwriters you look up to? if so, whom? 

a faded but faraway look slowly overtook joo’s eyes as she fell back into her memory, jolting back into the present as she felt the self camera’s eyes upon her, a little embarrassed that she had been caught having her mind race elsewhere at the thought of the songwriter that she looked up to. “i actually do have a songwriter that i look up to.” she admitted. “its knight’s taeyong, actually.” she lets the corners of her lips jerk upwards into a small little smile. “we’ve worked together quite a bit when i first wanted to learn how to write the lyricism of a song, and i’ve always admired the way his music artistry and style that i found in his songs.” she chuckled, knowing that if this audition tape got leaked to a particular someone, they’d probably both end up being highly embarrassed. her cheeks flushed slightly at the thought. “he’s also a veteran at writing songs, and i find myself listening to a lot of his songs and byul’s songs as a whole when i’m stuck with something that i can’t get a hold of.” she grinned, a flash of pearly teeth, cheeky and yet adorable as she laughed openly about it. “so yes, if there are any songwriters that i look up to, they would be knight’s taeyong and byul. they really do make writing songs seem so effortless sometimes that i get frustrated, but every single song that’s come from them have been nothing but beautiful.” 

What are your goals as a songwriter?

joo blinked for a moment, twisting the ring accessory that she had worn for the day in slight nervousness as she faintly mumbled, then sighed. “honestly, being able to hear my songs being used everywhere and anywhere is my ultimate goal as a songwriter. but not just that. i want the songs that i write to have meaning, to resonate with its listeners, that when they heard the songs they’re able to feel their tears, have their healing or feel better about whatever they’re not feeling better about. isn’t that what songs are meant for?” she asked softly. “music brings healing when used in the correct way, and that’s what i want as a goal for songwriter, and what i mean by giving myself a voice. i want to give a voice that tells people--” she hummed slightly as she thought of the right words that would encapsulate her idea fully. “a voice that tells people, hey its alright, i’ve heard you, and i’ve gone through what you did, so you aren’t alone.” she adds on haltingly. “its a big goal ultimately as a songwriter, but one that i want to see happen as a composer and a songwriter, because that gives me more inspiration and meaning to write as a whole.” 

What do you hope to achieve by being on this show?

“one of the greatest opportunities that this show can give me, i think--is the fact that so many various songwriters and composers and producers are all gathered upon this show with one creative goal of writing a song that receives the acknowledgement from everyone eventually. having this slightly competitive space amongst people that are good at their work doesn’t just make for a better environment for those that want to learn, but also a better environment for everyone to actually sharpen their own skills. that’s--my goal to be on this show. to share my experience, as green as i may be, and to sharpen my own skills, something that i truly think won’t happen without another person to help give constructive feedback or collaboration experiences.” 

...

rather than cutting the camera immediately after her interview questions, joo takes the camera with her towards the organ piano that she had and used in her studio, humming lightly to herself as she adjusted the keys and the sound of it from the regular classical piano to a special effect on the piano, fingers pressing on the keyboards to test out the song with a few lazy chords of the song that she was going to sing, fingers flying across the board as she played the first few bars of the piece that came to her mind. the piano hummed with a rounded sound, almost tinkling at the end as she pressed the notes on the keyboard--and with a satisfied nod, she turned towards the camera, beaming widely as she tucked the stray strands of her hair back and prepared to perform, stretching her shoulders and muscles to relax the nervousness that was bubbling up in the pit of her stomach and her body. 

“so the song i selected is actually a rather old song. not sure if many of you have heard of the song aloha by cool? or aroha.” she took her phone, scrolling through her music playlist for the song that she wanted. “i’ll play the song for a few minutes.” she laughed as the old song started playing on the phone, the strums of the guitar and the cheerful vocals flowing through the speaker of her phone for barely a minute, before she shuts the music off. 

“and now, i’ll be playing my own interpretation of this song, with just the piano for accompaniment.” she winked, laughing cheekily as she adjusted her seating on the piano, and the mike that was placed on a stand before her. there’s a sombre pause, fingers delicately curved prettily upon the keys of the organ as she counted to herself and begun the song, filling everyone’s ears with the soft tinkle of a beginning chord to what would seem like a ballad.

in contrast to the cheerful and upbeat tune of the original song, the way that youngjoo sang the song was ballad like--but yet still surprisingly cheerful and mischievous, never losing the edge of the song that set it apart from everyone else. ballad had always been the style that youngjoo was highly comfortable with doing, so it was of no absolute surprise that that was the style she was going for--rather, the surprise came with how light and delicate the piano accompaniment sounded. rather than the heavy but emotional chords that would usually accompany a ballad song to bring about the rise and fall of emotions, the chord was playful and lighthearted, the special effect and rounded tinkling that lay at the ends of the keys as she played a crucial effect into uplifting both her voice and the song. 

as youngjoo got more absorbed and at ease with the song, the more the lightheartedness and playfulness showed. it was amazing that something as simple as a change in the piano tone for a ballad being able to bring about a different playfulness and flavour as a general whole to the entire song, and affect in a way how youngjoo sang. it was just that little something that youngjoo was clearly good at, being attuned towards tones and sounds as a composer herself as she sent a cheeky little smile towards the camera, happily ending her little cover of aloha with complete cheerfulness and utter satisfaction. 

“and that brings me to the end of my audition! thank you, and wherever this goes, i hope that i’ll be given the opportunity to learn more from our songs soon!” she signed off with a happy smile, relaxing as she saved the audition and turned off the camera, uploading the audition video and sending the audition in for the new show as quickly as she could.

[pierrotdameron]

Dafne Keen does not much look like Lyra Belacqua, at least not as Philip Pullman describes her in His Dark Materials. In Northern Lights, the first book of the trilogy, she is “like a half-wild cat”, with dirty fingernails, green eyes and grubby blond-ish hair. Keen, who is half British, half Spanish and lives in Madrid, is darker and is already the master of an intense glare, as anyone who saw her alongside Hugh Jackman in the Wolverine swansong Logan will know. When we meet, in a London hotel, she has the self-possessed cool of a total pro, even at 14. But there are plenty of Lyra-esque flourishes that make it obvious why she got the part.

She was almost 12 when she finished filming Logan. She had heard about the BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, then in its early stages, and sent in an audition tape. But she didn’t hear back. “I thought, never mind, I’ll just carry on with my life,” she says. “Which is when I got stung by the jellyfish.”

The production team had finally replied, asking her to make another tape. Keen was on holiday in Puerto Rico. “I thought, right, I’m going to have a chilled-out swim and then I’m going to get ready. I suddenly felt this thing on my face and then it started stinging and then it expanded all over my face. I ran to my mum and I went, ‘Mum! Is it really red?’ My mum went, ‘No it’s fine.’ And then she went, ‘Oh no, it’s not fine.’” Her face was red and swollen but she had to do the tape. “So my audition is with a jelly-face,” she smiles.

The next step was to meet Ruth Wilson, who plays Mrs Coulter, one of the best evil characters in children’s literature. “I was sitting in the waiting room with 20 other girls,” Keen remembers. “I was thinking, oh god, they’re all blond. I don’t physically look like this character, and these girls all do. I went in, shook hands with Ruth, and five minutes later, she looked at me and said, ‘You know, you have the same eyebrows as me.’” Fans of the books will know that this is a big thumbs up. Days later, she began rehearsals, with Wilson and puppets. In Pullman’s books, people have daemons, an animal manifestation of their “inner self”, which lives alongside them. Because the daemons on screen are CGI, the actors shot their scenes with puppets to make their interactions as authentic as possible.

When Philip Pullman writes, he isn’t trying to bring down the church, he’s bringing down the system

Naturally, Keen is practised at describing what her own daemon would be, were this world to have daemons in it. “Mine is quite easy to figure out, because it’s what everyone called me on set. Everyone calls me Monkey.” In the books, daemons change form until their human reaches adulthood, when they settle as one fixed animal. Keen particularly liked hers as a pine marten.

We meet the morning after the world premiere of His Dark Materials, which was the first time Keen had watched it. “Everybody had seen it apart from me! I’m really busy filming season two, so I had no time to watch it. I had Philip Pullman right next to me, and I was like, oh god! But I think he liked it.” Did he offer his approval? “His wife came up to me and was really lovely and was saying I was the perfect Lyra. I was really happy to hear that.”

Keen had not read the trilogy before she auditioned. “Now I’m a massive, massive fan. As soon as I read the books, I knew this was a good message to the world, and it’s important that we have stories about young girls, because there aren’t many,” she says. At the premiere, Jack Thorne, who wrote the screenplay, likened Lyra to Greta Thunberg. Though she does not know it, the future of the world rests on Lyra’s shoulders, and she has to fight tooth and nail to defeat the forces that wish to suppress free will and independent thought. Keen approves of the Thunberg comparison. “I am genuinely in awe of that girl.”

There have been various adaptations of His Dark Materials over the years: a Radio 4 series, a play at the National Theatre and the 2007 Hollywood attempt, The Golden Compass, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It was supposed to be a trilogy, but only the first was made – and Pullman’s theme of an abusive authoritarian religious body was watered down almost beyond recognition. The television series seems more comfortable with its source material, and its Magisterium, the governing body of the Church, is portrayed as a fascist regime.

In 2007, the Catholic League called for a boycott of The Golden Compass, despite the religious references being excised, and the Vatican also denounced the film and Pullman’s writing. Keen had seen it – was she aware that this new version might be controversial, given the backlash the movie attracted? “I thought that was sad, but I understand why they had to do it,” she reasons, diplomatically, of the decision to soften the book’s themes. “But I think people are reading too much into it. When Philip writes about the Magisterium, he’s not bringing down the church, he’s bringing down the system.”

Keen was born and raised in Spain and is bilingual. Her mother María is Spanish, and as well as being her acting coach is also an actor, as is Keen’s father Will. He has a part in His Dark Materials, as Father MacPhail, part of the Magisterium faithful. “He is terrifying,” says Keen. “He always plays bad people. I don’t know why because he’s so nice. I genuinely think it’s because he’s bald and has green eyes.” She practically grew up in a theatre rehearsal room, because of her parents, but she thought she would be a biologist, like David Attenborough. “Then I found out you have to study biology, and to do that you have to study maths, and I went, mmm no, I’m not doing that. I hate maths so much, you can’t even imagine.”

A friend of her mother’s was making a short film, and needed a child for it, so Keen gave acting a go. She loved it. She did a series in Spain, The Refugees, alongside her father. (“He was playing my evil father, yes. Always got to give it the psychopathic twist.”) She picked up an agent, who put her forward for Logan, and she got down to an audition with Jackman. “In the waiting room, once again, there was this perfect LA beautiful blond girl. I was just, like, a small, scrappy Latin girl. I always think it’s not going to work out for me, and then it went really great.” She auditioned with Jackman, then asked if she could try again, only this time she said she’d like to improvise the scene. She was 11. “My heart was beating big time,” she says. “I thought, I’m just going to dive in and ask them, and they loved it, so I was lucky.”

Jackman remembers the audition well. “[Director] Jim Mangold looked at a lot of actresses for Laura. When he told me about Daf, I was hopeful, but when we tested together, I was blown away,” he says over email. “She was every inch Laura. When Jim asked her if there was anything more she wanted to show us, she said, ‘Can I improvise?’ That’s the actor that got the part and who you see on screen.”

“Hugh is the nicest human being,” she grins. “I used to call him the human jukebox because he was always singing. Lin does the same thing.” Lin is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Lee Scoresby in His Dark Materials. He got Keen tickets to see his smash-hit musical, Hamilton. “Two VIP Lin-Manuel Miranda guest tickets. I felt like such a diva.” On set, she would find herself singing the songs from it, but was too shy to sing when he was there. When Miranda had finished shooting, they all went for a meal to see him off. The bartender recognised him, and put My Shot on the stereo. “Me and Lewin [Lloyd, who plays Roger] were like, we’re not throwing away our shot, we’re singing this song.” They all joined in. “I’ve got videos of me and Lin singing it.”

Right now, Keen is preparing to go back to Wales to film season two, which loosely adapts The Subtle Knife, the second book in the trilogy. The third season, which will take on the astonishingly ambitious The Amber Spyglass, may take a little longer to pull together. Still, she is happy to live as Lyra for a while yet. She has taken plenty of her away from the experience already. “She taught me to speak up. Be bold, be brave, be yourself. Don’t follow rules, because rules can be useful, but they can be very stupid and pointless,” she says – sounding very much like her Lyra herself.

[ubernoxa]

THE DARE

A Guns and Roses Fan Fiction 

Chapter 4: The Hell House

Chapter 4

The morning sun shined through the dark red curtains causing pink light to fill Beth’s room. Unlike most 18 year old’s rooms at the time, there wasn’t a single poster hanging on her baby pink walls. Instead a small cross hung a over her bed, and polaroids of her, Delilah, Mark, and Matt were taped to the back of her closet door out of direct sight. It was Beth’s small action of defiance against her parents.

She had heard a loud truck outside her house early at about 4 in the morning. Beth couldn’t sleep knowing Delilah was out on the strip alone. She tossed and turned all night thinking about how stupid Delilah was to abandon her and stay in line for the bar.

At 4 in the morning she heard someone help Delilah climb through the window. It was a girl’s voice who was probably no older than her that helped her climb through the window.

Beth stayed frozen in bed pretending to sleep as the two girls struggled to open the simple latch. Beth assumes that they must have been drunk, and she was right. They could figure it out by themselves.

“Good morning,” Beth said earning a groan from Delilah who dug her dead deeper into her pillow.

“Come on sleeping beauty time to get up and into the shower. You smell like you haven’t showered in a week!” Delilah groaned at Beth’s comment and pulled the comforter over her head in attempt to hide herself from her problems aka Beth.

Beth let out a loud groan as she pulled Delilah out of her bed and onto the floor. Delilah felt as if her head was going to explode while she let out another groan. She tried to crawl back to the bed, but Beth dragged her by her arm into the bathroom. Beth was panting by the time she finished. She looked at Delilah who had surrendered and was now getting into the shower welcoming the warm water on her sweaty skin.

Beth wondered if Delilah was hung over from however much she drank last night because she was acting like it. Beth prayed that she wasn’t, not wanting to deal with the puking that was soon to come.

Beth wanted to ask Delilah thousands of questions, but she knew she would get nowhere with Delilah’s current state.

Delilah stood with her face directly under the warm shower water. She could feel the mascara, foundation, and the rest of her makeup washing down her face, but she didn’t care. Memories of last night filled her head she and she couldn’t help but smile as at them. She could still feel Duff’s hands and lips on her as they made out. She wanted more.

“Good morning sunshine,” Delilah walked out of the bathroom to hear Beth’s chipper tone.

“Morning!” Delilah replied. Yeah she was mad at Beth, but this wasn’t worth a fight. The only thing coming out of this is more people finding out about last night which is the last thing she wanted.

“Sorry for leaving you last night,” the words flew out of Beth’s mouth.

Delilah froze in place as she heard Beth’s half hearted apology. Was she seriously apologizing? Beth wimped out and left Delilah out to dry alone on the strip. That wasn’t the first time that Beth wimped our, and Delilah knew it wouldn’t be the last.

She had two options. The first option, the one she favored, was to tell Beth off. To scream at her for abandoning her. To say how she always does crap like this. She always wimps out. The second, the one she ended up doing, was to shrug and accept her apology. Delilah didn’t have many friends, and if she lost Beth she was worried she would loose Matt and Mark too.

Beth hopped into the shower annoyed at not receiving an apology from Delilah as well while Delilah went over towards the polaroids that she hid under the bed. She looked through them with a smile crossing her face. The first bunch were of her and Mags dancing during the show, and the rest well...she didn’t remember taking them.

She looked at the one of her and Duff when she tried to escape with the vodka. They were both laughing in the picture. Unknowing to Delilah a huge smile grew on her face, but quickly disappeared when she heard the shower turn off.

Delilah dug through the photos and found one of her and Mags standing by the bar smiling. She couldn’t remember who took the photo or when it was taken, but it was exactly what she needed.

Delilah bolted across the room and threw the rest of her pictures in her bag along with the ‘clothing’ she wore last night.

Delilah threw on one of her lilac dresses that went well below her knees and a pair of black dress shoes.

“I see you are ready to go too!” Beth cheered as she went to grab her purse.

“Hey, you should give this to them and claim you took it. Today is my day off from church duties, so I won’t be stopping by today,” Delilah said handing Beth the picture and grabbing her backpack.

Delilah not hanging out with her on her day off struck Beth as odd. Beth was tasked with helping to cook supper which mean she and Delilah would work together to make time fly by faster while listening to some movie in the background.

“Who is this?”

“A girl who saved me from getting hit on by some guys at the bar. She actually knew someone in the band so we hung out back stage away from the creeps. She is really sweet and actually a good friend,” Delilah opened the door and headed downstairs to leave Beth’s house.

Beth stood frozen in her room. What did she mean by actually a good friend? Delilah was the one who wouldn’t leave when she wanted to go home! Beth wanted to scream at Delilah for the way she insinuated that a random slut that she met at a bar was a better friend than her best friend that she had known her whole life.

————-

Delilah sorted through the photos that were taken that night. There were plenty of her and Mags, a few of the whole group talking, but her favorites were of her and Duff. She could still feel his lips on hers. She sighed as she looked at all the remaining photos. Where was she going to put these. There were like 20 of them, where could she hide them without them easily being found? That’s when it hit her. She had at least 6 bibles in her room, so she grabbed one of the ones she hadn’t touched in ages that was in the bottom of her desk drawer and put the pictures in there one by one.

That’s when she found a number on the back of one of the pictures of her and Mags. She bit her bottom lip as she stared at the number. No one was home, so no one could eavesdrop on her phone call. She took a deep breath as she dialed the phone number.

The phone rang a couple times, but before Delilah went to voicemail someone picked up the phone.

“Hey... it’s Del, I was wondering if I could talk to Mags?” Delilah’s voice was barely auditable and Mags could hear her shaken breath.

“Hey girl what’s up? I was getting worried you wouldn’t call!” Mags smiled once she head Del’s voice. She was relieved to find that her brother’s band hand scared Delilah off.

“You’re awesome, why wouldn’t I call?” Mags smiled as she heard Del’s compliment.

The two of them talked about how their morning was and Mag’s made sure to give Del a couple of pointers on how to easily get rid of a hangover. By now Mags was sitting on the kitchen counter in her apartment playing with the cord that attached her phone to the wall.

“Do you have any plans for today?” Mags was practically praying that she would say no.

“No, not really,” Mags jumped of the counter when she heard her response. She was originally going to help Beth cook all day, but she didn’t want to be anywhere near Beth right now. Mags smiled that her prayer was answered. Maybe Delilah was onto something with this whole praying and Jesus thing?

“Do you wanna go meet up and get something to eat?” The couple of seconds it took for Delilah to answer yes, felt like hours to Mags, but once she said yes Mags was practically jumping for joy.

“Do you want me to pick you up or”

“Oh no, just tell me where to meet you and I can meet you there,” Delilah immediately interrupted in an almost panic. It wasn’t that she couldn’t leave her house when she wanted during the day. It was more of a she would have to explain who Mags was and how she met her which were stories that Delilah didn’t want to share with her parents at the moment, if she was ever going to at all.

So they agreed and a few hours later Delilah locked her bike on a nearby bike rack and walked into the cafe.

Mags immediately spotted Delilah as she walked into the small cafe that they were going to meet in. It was hard to miss her with her brown curly hair flowing down below her shoulders and her flowery lilac dress that hung below her knees. Mags waved Delilah over and noticed the smile grow on her face. She wondered if Delilah was nervous about coming here.

“Hey!” Delilah’s chipper tone filled the table as the two of them quickly began to talk about everything and nothing at the same time. Anyone in the cafe would assume that they were old best friends who hadn’t seen each other and years. It was a bit refreshing for both of them.

“Do you have any plans after this or...”

“No I’m honestly free for the rest of the day. Today is my day off!” Delilah interrupted Mags as she spoke. She also didn’t want to go back home and deal with Beth.

“I gotta drop something off at my brother’s first and you down for some shopping? Unless you want to wear your favorite outfit again to another one of my brother’s gigs.”

“Sounds awesome and the sooner I burn that skirt the better,” Delilah responded earning some giggles from Mags. She wondered if it was weird that she was relieved that Delilah was never going to wear the outfit front the night prior. It’s not that it didn’t look good on her, it was a more of a worry of what people would expect her to be. It was the sad world they lived in where you get judged without even opening your mouth.

They walked the street and Delilah felt more self conscious than she had the night before.

After some time Mags turned towards Delilah who she was now holding hands with to notice her constantly looking left and right afraid to miss a thing.

“Here we are,” Mags pulled her through the doors and up a couple of flights of stairs.

The smell of booze and cheep perfume filled Delilah’s nose as she followed Mags into the small apartment. There appeared to be a couple of rooms, but it was small for having a bunch of guys living in it. Delilah awkwardly stood in the apartment off to the side waiting for Mags to be done with whatever she had to do with her brother. After a couple of minutes of Mags being gone, she decided to start cleaning the beer cans that were scattered across the room. After a couple of minutes of cleaning she heard, “you know you don’t have to do that?” She looked up to see the red head from the night before.

“Yeah, but I don’t mind. Anything is better than awkwardly standing here waiting for Mags to finished whatever she is doing,” Delilah innocently smiled back at the incredibly tired red head that stood in front of her. She truly didn’t mind, anything to help out Mags. He shrugged and Delilah went back to work cleaning up all the empty bottles and trash that filled the rooms. She wondered if they occupants’ apartment was always this filthy.

Axl returned to the main room and cleaned with the brunette. He didn’t need a damn maid, but it was too early in the afternoon to fight with her about it.

“Del is it?”

“Yeah, you’re apart of Steven’s band right? You’re the singer! You were amazing last night,” Delilah didn’t know why but once she opened her mouthing her nerves took over and she couldn’t stop talking. She wanted to cover her mouth with her hand.

“Thanks,” Delilah noticed the smirk that grew on his face and she could tell that he was watching her more than he was cleaning.

“I barely recognized you. You look very different from yesterday,”

Delilah froze at his comment and turned around to look at him, “of course I look different. I’m actually wearing clothing today”

She smiled when his joyful laugh filled the room, and she couldn’t help but laugh with him. He then leaned in and whispered, “but between you and me I liked the other outfit more.” Axl then stood up, left his barely filled bag of empty bottles by Delilah’s, and left the room leaving Delilah speechless with her mind racing in circles.

Across the apartment Mags sat in her brother’s room which was practically a closet, “So I dropped off this month’s rent in the tent due box. How are you guys on food? Do you need any new clothes?”

Mags had been supporting her brother and his band for the past couple months, but she wasn’t the only one. There were a couple of other girls that she would meet, but they preferred doing other things than talking with the guys. They were still nice to her, they just never talked that much.

“I think we are good, you know you don’t have to” before he could continue his sister immediately interrupted him, “I know, but growing up you were always there for me so now it’s my turn to be there for you. Plus I expect millions when you make it big.”

Mags left her brothers room and headed towards the kitchen to make them all some breakfast as a good job for their show last night.

“Delilah you know you don’t have to do that right?” Mags watched as Delilah finished cleaning up all of the beer bottles.

“Yeah, but I want to. You helped me last night, remember?” Mags smiled Delilah’s comment. She also used cleaning as a means to distract herself from what the singer said. Had she found possibly one of the few good hearted people on the strip?

“Fine, but I’m heading to the store to grab some bread. I have something cooking in the stove for breakfast can you make sure the guys don’t eat it before it’s fully cooked in like 5 minutes?” Delilah nodded her head as she waved goodbye to Mags and headed to the kitchen. There was trash everywhere. Delilah wondered how they lived in it.

“Hey, What smells so good,” Mags looked behind her to see a smiling Steven or popcorn as they called him.

“Hey Popcorn, and I think it’s some egg thing. I don’t know, but it will be done,” Delilah turned around to check the one clock that was in the kitchen, “it will be potentially done in 20 minutes.” He smiled at Delilah’s use of his nickname.

“Wanna beer? It will help get rid of the hangover,” it would actually going to cause more pain later, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Delilah that. She already looked like she was done with life.

He watched as Delilah hesitated on her answer, “if you’re worried about it being weird, people usually drink mamosas in the morning which also have alcohoul.” The rest of the band was also going to be drinking whenever they decided to wake, but he decided not to tell her that. He didn’t want Delilah to think poorly of him, she seem to get along great with his sister.

Delilah nodded and he handed her a beer. That was when he was finally able to get a good look at her. Her long purple dress was a huge change from the barely there outfit from the night prior. Her hair looked the same though. Curled and twisted in all different ways, kinda like the curly fries he would get as a kid.

“Morning!” Steven yelled across the room at Duff who only looked a little effected by the drinks the night prior.

“What smells so good? Did your sister bake us something again?” Delilah turned and smiled at the sound of Duff’s voice.

“Yeah it’s like a egg thing, does she usually make stuff like this?” Delilah’s voice caught Duff off guard as the brunette turned around, away from the stove.

Delilah looked over at Duff whose hair was sticking every which way, she tried to hide her laugh, but she couldn’t and Steven quickly joined her.

“Sorry,” Delilah tried hiding her giggle as she apologized to Duff, but it failed.

Duff opened his beer and sat at the table watching Delilah struggle to hide her laughter.

“Like I said last night, I will never fucking forgive you,” he teased back earning a smile from Delilah.

As if on cue, a small timer went off causing Delilah to jump. Her stomach begged for the breakfast dish that Mags made as the smell invaded her nose. The rest of the band must have smelled the egg dish as they quickly poured into the kitchen to smell it. Delilah wondered if Mags had purposely chosen a dish that would wake everyone up. It was smart. Hungover and tired musicians were probably not the best people to deal with in the afternoon.

“So is it done?” Delilah looked into Steven’s puppy dog eyes and nodded her head. She couldn’t find the words to tell him that they couldn’t start without Mags.

“If it’s some then why the fuck are you putting it back in the oven?” Saying Axl was hungry was an understatement. Of course he had small meals here and there, but Mags food always made him drool.

“I’m keeping it warm ya dingus. Mags went shopping to go get the rest of y’all’s lunch...err...breakfast,” Mags said lowering the oven temperature. She looked around the room to be met with confused expressions.

“Delilah what the fuck is a dingus?” Steven asked between his giggles. As if laughter was a disease, it spread through the room.

“An annoying person,” Delilah sheepishly replied staring at the oven pretending to be watching it. She was too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. What if Duff thought she was an idiot or a child?

“What the hell, are you five? Trying calling me an annoying piece of shit next time, that way I can take you seriously,” Axl laughed back. His laugh wasn’t the sweet one she heard earlier, this one was vicious and cruel.

“Hey, Axl you don’t gotta be a dick,” Steven replied before he noticed that Dilalah had left the room.

Was Delilah overreacting? Probably.

But here she was sitting in another room by herself sulking on the couch. She couldn’t walk back into that room after leaving it.

Who was she kidding, why did she even think coming here with Mags would be a good idea? She shouldn’t of ever called her. She already felt like an outsider and Axl wasn’t helping.

She heard some ruckus from the kitchen, but then just shrugged it off trusting Steven to keep the food in the oven and out of their stomach’s.

“You know she probably just came to the bar last night on a dare,” Axl said. Why? Not even Axl knew. The room went quiet again until Steven broke the silence, “I’m going to make sure she is ok.” He eyed Axl as he walked out of the room with Duff on his tail.

“Oh great, do they both want to fuck her or something? She a church girl, anyone with eyes can see it. She thinks she is better than us. We are probably some sort of putty project,” before Axl could continue ranting Slash told him to shut up and went to his room that he shared with Duff.

Steven’s heart sunk as he saw Delilah sitting on their sad excuse for a couch. He had lost track of how many girls they had all fucked on that couch and decided not to mention that to Delilah until another time.

“It’s a pretty day out. It’s always nice to see the calm before the storm. This place becomes barely recognizable during the day before the street comes to life,” Steven rambled.

Delilah flashed him a fake smile and went back to looking outside. He then tried a couple of quick jokes, but she simply faked a smile and went back to what she was doing. Steven didn’t know what else to do, and truth be told neither did Duff.

Duff walked over towards the bin that held their suspiciously acquired records. Curious to see what he was looking for, Delilah watched him. She eventually went back to her staring out the window until she heard Duff’s voice.

“Last night you said you didn’t know a lot about Rock and Roll, so I thought I might as well show you what your missing,” Duff said joining her on the small couch.

Hesitantly Delilah turned around to face him. If it had been anyone else, she probably would had asked them to show her later, but it was Duff. Even though Delilah didn’t fully know it, she had a crush on the bassist.

“So you have your God, and rock and roll has ours,” Duff showered her the album cover waiting for her reaction. She said nothing, but she didn’t look mad, so he continued.

He rambled on for a couple minutes about how great Bowie was. Telling about which songs he liked more and other miscalaneous compliments.

“Do you have a record from that band everyone was talking about last night?” She wanted so bad to understand and listen to the music everyone was talking about. She didn’t want to be a social outcast. She wanted a place to belong.

“No, just like us they don’t have a record out, but they are playing tonight if you want to go see them,” Duff offered.

“Really?” Delilah was shocked at his offer.

“Well I made you a promise, didn’t I?” Then Duff flashed Delilah a smile that made her heart melt. Was she over analyzing this situation? Yes.

“Yeah!” Delilah quickly relied.

“Sweet, there are a bunch of us going tonight. The more the merrier.”

Delilah heart sunk. It wasn’t a date.

“Hey, why aren’t you watching the food?” Mags was a bit peeved that Delilah would completely ignore the fact that she had to watch the food. They didn’t have enough eggs to remake the dish.

Once she got a better look at Delilah’s face, her annoyance disappeared. What the hell did they do to Del?

“The food is fine. I have the oven keeping it slightly warm. I’m in here because Axl was..” Delilah paused sharing a look with Duff.

“Go ahead and say it. I call him that all the time,” Mags raised an eyebrow trying to decider what Duff was talking about.

“Axl was being a piece of shit,” Mags chucked as she saw Delilah proud to let the words come out of her mouth.

“Lunch will be ready in 5 minutes,” Mags yelled through the small apartment as she walked into the kitchen with her grocery bags.

“I’ve never seen someone so proud to call another person a piece of shit,”

“Well Duff you have never met someone like me,” Delilah looked up from the David Bowie record that he had handed her, rather proud.

“Hey popcorn, what’s your favorite record in here,” Delilah asked pointing at the box of records.

“Can’t choose, but for at this very second...” for a couple of seconds he stopped talking until he landed upon the record he was looking for and handed it to Delilah.

She looked at the band and quickly turned over the album to see the names of the songs.

“Thoughts?”

“That guy looks cooler with the lightening bolt on his face,” Delilah picked up David Bowie’s album and pointed to his makeup earning a chuckle.

That’s when it clicked, something that should have clicked a while ago when he mentioned the promise. If he remembered the promise then he probably remembered their make out session.

“Earth to Del, are you OK?”

“Yeah, of course why wouldn’t I be?” Delilah answered in a matter of fact tone. It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the truth.

“Food is ready!” When Delilah heard Mag’s voice she stood up, grabbed Duff’s beer, and headed towards the kitchen. She took a swig, and forced herself to swallow the nasty drink.

[himikochan]

SJW Handbook and Advice - CHICAGO-CENTRIC

Hello everyone I’ve been compiling info for protesters and non-protesters for Chicago and I thought I’d share it here. It’s copy and pasted from a few different posts but it’s somewhat comprehensive and draws on a lot of ideas I’ve seen circulating. Not all of this info is Chicago-specific, but I do talk about local laws in Chicago and bail funds in Chicago. 

.

SAFETY AND GOOD CONDUCT AT A PROTEST

-Tear gas: the agent in tear gas that's painful, lachrymator, binds to water molecules. It's so effective because it gets into your throat/lungs/eyes and also binds to the moisture on your skin. If you suspect tear gas might be used at a protest [which honestly you should just guess now], you should try to make sure as much of your body is covered as possible- wear long sleeves and pants and try to cover your hair. If possible, have gloves and goggles or sunglasses handy. When you are exposed to tear gas, try to get a wet cloth against your face ASAP- the moisture on the cloth will bind to the lachrymator and prevent it from getting inside of you. Pour water on a bandana or mask and try to keep it as close to your body as possible. Walk away from the cloud of gas ASAP- and before you go inside your home, try to stuff your clothes into a bag [wash them in 4-5 days when the lachrymator isn't as reactive anymore]. Take a shower as soon as possible and try to wash your hair 2-3 times- some people have told me that you should take a cold shower. If you are directly exposed to lachrymator and it gets in your eyes/mouth/nose, rinse with milk or a water/baking soda solution ASAP. Lachrymator is a very unstable molecule and either of those is pretty effective at neutralizing it.

-IF you're in a position to try and take care of a tear gas canister [if you've come prepared with a traffic cone, water, a mask, and goggles- or you're reckless as shit] cover it with a traffic cone. That will trap the fumes. Then pour as much water as you can into the traffic cone, hopefully it will put out the fuse inside the canister. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN ATTEMPTING TO DO THIS- and do some more research on how to do it properly. I have not personally had a chance to use this tactic.

-The cops may have vans with IMSI catchers and/or cell phone jammers: IMSI catchers gather information about you and cell phone jammers prevent you from being able to use your phone. Carry a watch, make an exit plan with a vehicle/public transit OUTSIDE of the area where the protest is happening, and sharpie the phone number of an emergency contact on your body. There may come a time where you want to shut off your phone- even if you don't get detained, knowing there is a friendly phone number you can access will make you feel better. Be careful about taking pictures of fellow protesters’ faces- the police are using pictures on social media to target protesters after the fact. UPDATE: I just saw another post about IMSI catchers/stingray stuff. They suggest leaving your phone at home because turning your phone off is a break in your normal patterns and can be used in a prosecution. They suggest using a burner phone- this might be the way to go if you live in a city where IMSI stuff is confirmed. SECOND UPDATE: Imperfect protection measures STILL DO SOME GOOD. There are plenty of reasons you can be in a position where you need your cell phone on you and turning off your location services and/or putting on airplane mode for a time may still do you some good!!! IMSI catchers rely upon being the strongest signal in an area [cells automatically connect to whatever seems to be the strongest signal carrier]. From what I understand IMSI catchers have a limited range and basically a max capacity of how many phones they can support while still being the strongest signal in a given area. So for large protests, they'd need to deploy a lot of trucks with IMSI catchers to collect lots of data about crowds. IN MY PERSONAL PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, which is not universal and may be out dated information, the Chicago police tend to use cell phone jammers [which prevent you from getting a signal at all]. This way they can try to stop protesters from calling/texting each other- make an out strategy with the people accompanying you about where to rendezvous if you're separated. Here is a little information regarding IMSI catcher use in Illinois."The law permits law enforcement agencies to use CSS devices only to locate, track the location of, or identify a communications device—in other words, they cannot configure them to capture the content of any communications. [...] Is CPD abiding by state law rules? It is impossible to say without any record-keeping or audits. CPD has not responded to our most recent FOIA request for information about any new policies, procedures, or records on its use of this technology, so we can only assume that it has not developed any."

-That being said: many capabilities of your phone rely upon knowing where you are to work. So IMSI catchers aren't the only thing you need to worry about.

-If you're able, bring water and some first aid supplies [such as gauze, tape, antibacterial cream, saline solutions, gloves, wipes etc] for fellow protesters [and maybe snacks]. Even at past tepid protests, I've seen fellow protesters fall into glass or hurt themselves trying to climb into higher ground just to see. If you don't know how to administer first aid for things like lacerations, ASK FOR HELP. Many protests have people trained to help and we're all in this together. You might want to read this thread on gunshot wounds, it's better to loosely know what you're supposed to do, just in case. Learn to apply a tourniquet- hint, it’s not just putting a belt around someone’s leg.  The snacks are to keep everyone’s spirits up and remind us that we’re in this TOGETHER.

-Running is easier with a backpack than a messenger bag, wear comfortable shoes, and have something to write with. The mood might strike you to change your sign a bit, 

-If you’re protesting in an area that isn’t close to where you live, try and reach out to someone that lives in the area. You may need to get out quickly and no way to get home and need a safe house- in Chicago, the mayor instituted a curfew from 9pm-6am at 9:04 tonight after the city had blocked every bridge and shut down public transit. Protesters are now basically locked into our downtown area with no way to get home and the police are allowed to detain anyone outdoors.

-Check in with other protesters. Do your best to maintain social distancing, but try to make sure that your fellow protesters are not lagging behind due to injury or something else. Solidarity is the goal above all else.

.

Lori Lightfoot has kept the curfew in place and Chicagoans are expected off the streets between 9pm-6am until further notice unless they have an "essential job". Public transit has been stopped altogether in many areas- so if you have to go out, book enough time for you to walk there and back.

Here are some important reminders of your rights- if your are arrested, stopped in you car, and what to do with your phone. PLEASE READ THEM FOR YOUR SAFETY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED:

-In Chicago, the police are permitted to ask your name and address and other questions (to determine if you are involved in a past/present crime). I believe you only NEED to give them your name, regardless of how many questions they ask you.

-You should refresh yourself on how to properly invoke your right to remain silent. Remember to ask “Am I under arrest/being detained?” If they say yes, you HAVE to say “I’m invoking my right to a publicly provided lawyer, and my right to remain silent.” SAY EXACTLY THAT- variations of that phrase are NOT always effective and the cops will use any opportunity they can to undermine your rights and not give you a lawyer. YOU MUST STAY SILENT- otherwise you’re technically waiving your right to remain silent and MUST EXPLICITLY re-invoke your right when you’re done talking for it to apply. 

IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING:

-Police may “pat-down” your clothing if they suspect a concealed weapon. The ACLU says do not physically resist, but make it clear that you don’t consent to any further search.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED IN YOUR CAR:

-Upon request, show them your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. In certain cases, your car can be searched without a warrant as long as the police have probable cause. To protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a search. It is not lawful for police to arrest you simply for refusing to consent to a search.

ON THE TOPIC OF UNLOCKING YOUR PHONE:

I haven't found any hard and fast rules about whether or not you have to unlock your phone if you are held by the police. A Vox article from February 2020 says "If your phone is protected by a passcode or biometric unlocking features, there’s a chance cops can’t gain access to your personal data. But that’s not guaranteed. [...] But if your phone is locked with a passcode and law enforcement can’t hack into it, the Fifth Amendment may be your friend. Essentially, the Fifth Amendment says you can’t be compelled to give self-incriminating testimony. [...] Testimony, in this case, is defined as revealing the contents of your own mind. Therefore, civil rights advocates say, the government can’t force you to tell them your phone’s password." But this is still being played out in the courts- there's tons of pending cases and no real precedence for this on either side.

Freedom.press in an April 2020 article says "If you are arrested or taken into police custody, you should verbally state that you do not consent to a search of your devices. A law enforcement agency is only permitted to conduct a warrantless search of your device if a compelling case for an emergency can be made." There's a lot of potentially useful information in their article, which I will link in the comments.

REMEMBER- cops are easily protected most of the time for infringing on our rights regarding being searched if it could be considered "reasonably" legal for them to do so [even if it isn't]. Saying "I want a lawyer, dog" does not invoke your right to an attorney, being silent does not invoke your right to remain silent, if you do not verbally refuse to be searched your silence is taken as consent to be searched. The limited dissemination of information on the legality of searching a phone could protect them if they coerced/forced you to unlocking your phone.

.

If you are in Chicago and see a post/event about protesting today or tomorrow [June 1st].  DO RIGHT BY YOURSELF AND MAKE SURE IT'S A REAL PROTEST.

I've heard that some VERY suspicious people are putting together a BLM protest in Chicago tomorrow. These people are NOT experienced organizers, NOT affiliated with BLM Chicago, and NOT known to anyone in the Chicago organizing/protesting communities.

We KNOW that a lot of the rioting and looting in other cities were begun and propagated by the police and white supremacist groups [not by protesters or ordinary citizens]. We do not know if these people are cops, white supremacists, or just irresponsible folx, but it could very well be a trap to escalate violence, incarcerate allies, and justify the Mayor granting more restrictions on the city. 

The source I saw was for the purpose of organizing medics to deal with the inevitable fall out, but protect yourself and your fellow protestors by not going to this sham event.

.

Hello everyone- protesting not your cup of tea? That's okay! Protesting is the showiest part of being an active citizen and activist, but it's by no means the most important part.

Below, I'll be posting links for people that need your money AND non-monetary ways you can help.

-If you know people protesting in your area, offer them a place to clean up afterwards and possibly crash if public transit is closed off. If you can safely offer them a shower and a place to change clothes- that can make a huge difference. It could help them evade being targeted by the police on the way home, buy them time to get home without being part of a crowd, and they may need a place to wash off residual tear gas or pepper spray [or the blood of a comrade]

-If there are protests in your area and you have extra supplies [water, pre-packaged snacks, materials for signs, gloves, first aid kits, masks, etc], you can hand them off to a protester OR leave them in a place they'll find them with a note.

-Be wary showing the faces of protesters on your social media or having them saved online. Be mindful about who you're sharing details of a protest or protesters with and try to do your best about sharing accurate information about donations. One of the bail funds in another city recently had someone set up a fake venmo account under the name of the bail fund and many people donated to it, believing they were helping bail people out.

-Your friends with small businesses may want help or need supplies boarding up their windows- most protesters are avoiding small businesses when things turn sour [and in fact, most looting and rioting appears to trace back to undercover cops and white supremacists right now] but it's still a good idea to close up shop if you can. See if anyone needs help securing their business. .-Make fliers about properly administering first aid, basic rights regarding being detained/questioned/arrested, and phone numbers of local communal bail funds. 

-Many people who were on the fence about BLM, police brutality, and protesting are beginning to see the truth of it all now that the pandemic has forced us to confront racial/ethnic and class inequality. We have more allies than we did before- make sure to give them the toolkit necessary to enacting change. 

Protesters need funds in so many places right now: 

-Chicago Communal Bail https://chicagobond.org/

-ACLU Illinoishttps://www.aclu-il.org/en/donate

-BLM Chicago https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com/donate/

-The Family of George Floyd https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

-Minnesota Freedom Fund https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/

-ACLU Minnesota https://www.aclu-mn.org/en/donate

-The Bail Project https://bailproject.org/

[layesica]

2019: It was a year that ends tonight.

2018 was rough, right? Well, so was 2019!

I did not feel like writing this, but it’s a tradition now, so for the fifth year in a row, here’s what I did all year with some of the crappy crap that made it not the greatest. I can’t promise an unwavering sense of optimism, but it’s okay. I’m okay. Here we go!

JANUARY Went to The Not Inappropriate Show at UCB curated by the Odenkirks, then Spent New Years Eve at Dynasty Typewriter with Ian & Emily. It was fun, but... eh. Home is better, y’all. Home is always better. Did a couple performances of a show at Second City – A Fonzie Scheme. It was fun. I was in an improv class at The Pack. I think it was Improv 4. The last weekend of January, Very Famous went to Sketchfest, which was super amazing. That’s, like, a goal. And even though it had pretty much nothing to do with anything I did, it was cool. And it was fun. And I was at a party with Neil Patrick Harris and I was SUPER cool about it.

Went to stuff: LA Times screening of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. It was free, and I would have never seen it otherwise. I enjoyed it. It was good.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Toasted Coconut Milk & Cookies (V)

FEBRUARY Made a return trip with Ian & Emily to San Francisco. Well, Oakland with an SF jaunt. I don’t have any cool stories, but Emily fought a seagull for her cookie and won, and that was pretty badass. On the drive back, there was a ton of snow just on the other side of the Angeles National Forest. I wasn’t excited enough to get out of the car, but snow is nice to look at. Oh, I had lunch with one of the head writers on my dream show that my old roommate met at the gym. I am terrible at networking.

Went to stuff: LA Times screening of VICE. It was free, and I would have seen it... eventually. It was... a bit... self-indulgent.

Salt & Straw Flavor: “The Chocolatier Series” = Jeni’s Coffee & Sweet Cream

MARCH Auditioned for a house improv team at The Pack. I didn’t mention working with a practice group all of February & March to prep for that. The biggest bummer about not getting on a team may have been the loss of that practice group. It was fun while it lasted.

Went to stuff: Saw comedy dads, Bob & David, at Largo. They asked for volunteers, and I almost passed just thinking about it. Ian & Emily jumped up there. Good for them!

Salt & Straw Flavor: Smoked Sea Salt & Chocolate Crack

APRIL Interviewed for a new job at one of the guilds. HEY! I owe the government $3700. That’s fun! I went ahead and added a good purse to my new 0 APR card.

Went to stuff: Dana Gould Podcast at Dynasty Typewriter. Panel with Conan Writers at Lyric Hyperion. For some reason, I saw Avengers: Endgame. I dunno. I feel like I should see it through for some reason. Deadline did their day-long FYC event, The Contenders, at Paramount, so I spent all day seeing so many people from TV and eating so much yummy food in between. Amazon FYC at Hollywood Athletic Club – went mostly for the building. Prime seat at Conan taping.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Wildflower Honey with Ricotta Walnut Lace Cookies – I wait all year for this to roll around again!

MAY We were supposed to have a call for a travel show on Buzzfeed, but they ghosted us. I went camping with a huge group at Idyllwild, which would have been fun, but it was FREEZING and I got SUPER sick on the second day. After a few days, I got better and got the guild job. Free insurance, baby! (More on that later.) Bought a Universal pass.

Went to stuff: A UCB show with people from Chicago. Free Booksmart screening with Q&A. Such a good movie! LA Times panel for Broad City. I never really watched it, but I would love to have a partnership like that! Netflix FYSee for Nanette. Guys, people are like vultures for the passed trays. Adam Sandler at Dynasty Typewriter. Attended the actual red carpet, fancy-pants premiere of Amazon’s Late Night. It was enjoyable and not at all realistic, and I could not stop staring at John Early in the theater. He glows!

Salt & Straw Flavor: Pear & Blue Cheese

JUNE Went to stuff: FYSee for Dead To Me. I had not seen it yet, but then I watched it and it’s good. JV show at UCB with Paul F Tompkins. Did a lap at the AT&T Shape event that is always free. I only go to be on the WB lot where I would like to be more often. Like, 40+ hours a week more often. That’s it. I just went to stuff.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Campfire S’mores (with Brian)

JULY SO. MANY. EARTHQUAKES. After the third one, it stopped being cute. Went for a drive to the Angeles Forest and hiked to a waterfall. Did a sketch with Very Famous at Packcon. It was a small group, so I got a part! Huzzah!

Went to stuff: Saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at the Cinerama dome. (First visit!) Not a great idea because I kept trying to pick out the scenery and got a bit of motion sickness. Shirtless Brad Pitt on a roof in the ‘70s is nice.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Goat Cheese Marionberry Habanero (2x)

AUGUST Went on a random overnight to San Jose. Time to get panicky about Pack Sketch Teams! I did what I should have done last year and requested to be moved. I loved the people on my team, but I wasn’t getting a return on investment for myself. And that’s no fun. Did a show called Gibberish with Duckboi as Sharon Osborne and wore a great wig. Sketch is fun. Fell off my bike & got bruised legs.

Went to stuff: Mike O’Brien & Friends at Lyric Hyperion. Saw some Pack shows to be a supportive. Put up a sketch at GSY.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Green Fennel & Maple

SEPTEMBER Started working tech at UCB. It’s pretty easy. I get to see new faces... and old faces, too. I have no more comedy theaters to work at. Well, unless someone is going to pay me real money. My vision has been getting blurrier, so I went to the eye doctor to get new glasses. Ended up getting referred to a specialist for a “freckle” in my eyeball, but had to wait a month to go. Submitted a character video for Pack Sketch performer auditions. Got a callback! That’s one step further than last years attempt, and I actually came up with characters and I was pretty proud of it. Came up with more characters, then faced the fear of being on a stage all by myself while trying to be funny. I felt good about it. It used to take a day to find out, but not this time...

Link to Character Audition Video

Went to stuff: Got an AMAZING ticket (location & price) to see Skintight at the Geffen with friggin’ Idina Menzel. She is a queen! It’s a cute theater I should go to more stuff at. Saw Scott Thompson as Buddy Cole at the Lyric Hyperion. So good! I think I’ve seen the evolving show every year I’ve lived here. My face hurts for several days after. Lyndsey got a fancy job and invited me to the Dreamworks Friends & Family screening of Abominable. Would not have seen it. It was cute. Thanks, Lyndsey!

Salt & Straw Flavor: Forgettable

OCTOBER Flew to Denver for my cousin’s wedding. I almost typed, “weeding.” That’s Colorado for you. It was my first time to see my family all year. The time just got away from me. I got a late flight out and spent the day walking around Denver on my own. Went to a good bookstore. Ate some Giordano’s. Left my luggage in a van. Found out I got cut from Very Famous – also, Very Famous got cut from sketch night – and I didn’t make a new team. Started watching new season of Mr. Robot and felt so lost, so started it from the beginning. The new Almodóvar came out, so I bought one of those expensive Arclight tickets. It was very, very good. Maybe my favorite Almodóvar film. Worth it! Saw the specialist about my eye. They dilated it, took a bunch of pictures, did a closed-eye ultrasound (Yeah, they use jelly for that!), and refereed me to another specialist. Hunter picked me up, and I ate at Canter’s for the first time. The specialist’s office made the appointment for me at an oncologist. Guys, I just wanted new glasses and now can’t stop Googling some pretty scary stuff! Lyndsey took me to USC & hung out with me for a while. They dilated my eye, took a bunch of pictures of it with a bunch of different machines, performed an OPEN EYE ultrasound, saw two trainees and then the doctor. She said she is not diagnosing me with melanoma. BUT it has the orange color and a sliver of the fluid that are “concerning.” The pictures of the tumor weren’t as large at the ophthalmologist’s pictures made it look. So... bright side, I guess. I go back in January to check for changes. Margot scooped me up and brought me home. Baby’s first root canal! 

For our very last Very Famous show, everyone got to put up a sketch they wrote. My favorite had too much production, so I did a black out. It turned out great, and I felt loved. It was a very nice way to go out.

Went to stuff: Two weeks after the Arclight screening, the LA Times invited me to see Pain & Glory with a Q&A, so I finally got to be in a room with my favorite director. I may have cried... slightly more than I did just seeing the film.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Black Cat Licorice & Lavender (2 cones, 1 pint)

NOVEMBER It was time for Penelope’s annual visit to the vet, so I rented a car for the weekend and took her. She had lost quite a bit of weight. I sprung for all the tests, and she has kidney disease. Her numbers aren’t terrible, but there’s not really treatment for it. We switched to a new kind of prescription food. All I can do is be good to her and try to keep her hydrated & happy. So... yeah... September – November have been... uh... not so great. On the bright side, I got invited to be in the Night Cap with Stacy Rumaker show as a character! I love this show so much - and when you read a thing in December, this show is the exception to that. I was so nervous, but I pulled it together and think it went very well. It felt good! Also, I am so emotionally invested in Mr. Robot! Mom & Dad came to visit for Thanksgiving and that was a nice relief. It rained most of the time, but we got out at about a bit.

Went to stuff: Vulture Fest screening of MacGruber with Will Forte & John Solomon.

Salt & Straw Flavor: Spiced Goat Cheese & Pumpkin Pie (with Mom & Dad)

DECEMBER Fell off my bike, bruised my legs, and scraped a chunk of skin off my hand. Finally: I left my mark on this town! I was not in the mood to plan a birthday thing, but rented a car to take Penelope for her health certificate she might need to fly home with me, then went on a showtune-belting drive on my birthday. Not the best drive ever, but it was nice to just drive aimlessly. Margot went with me to dinner at an Italian place in Los Feliz. In other news, Penelope gained some weight. Then I flew home for Christmas. I’ve just been sitting around with Mom & Dad, and it has been great. I had lunch with Justin & traditional margaritas & Tex-Mex with Lindsey. I finally did an entire month of morning pages after 4 years, so I may be done with that. Oh, and I (temporarily) quit comedy.

Went to stuff: Saw CATS (can’t hate on a bad movie with bad source material) & Little Women (I cried so much!)

Salt & Straw Flavor: Apple Brandy & Pecan Pie (with Brian), but I’m in Texas now, so I’m ending the year with some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. Do better, Tyler!

So, that’s it. I was not looking forward to this, but it did make me feel a little better since the crap at the end has just felt like it has beaten me down. I’m not a quitter, but a breaker is maybe a good idea for a bit. I don’t have any resolutions for 2020.

If you’re still here, THANK YOU for reading my yearly download. I hope that you are doing well.

You’re great!

I love you!

Have a great 2020!

[flapperfromthefuture]

Michael, what have you done?

That’s what I keep asking him in my head. Because in my head, Michael and I have been friends my whole life. In my inner life’s landscape, he is as natural and enduring as Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh or any person I’ve known so long I can’t remember ever meeting them. No one ever told me who Michael Jackson was. He was just always there.

You have to understand, Michael was the first music I ever heard. My mom listened to one tape, and one tape only, while she was pregnant with me, and that was Thriller.

The first sounds I ever heard in this world were my mother’s heartbeat, my parents’ voices, and Michael singing about monsters. How he was going to protect us from them. Ignore his glowing eyes and the chill in his voice as he says “I’m not like other guys.”

Was he daring us to truly see him the entire time?

Wade Robson says that Michael began his grooming process long before he or James Safechuck ever met him, because Michael groomed the entire world.

What chance did one little boy have against him? Or two little boys, or three or four or perhaps more—no, definitely more?

What chance did any of us have?

You have to understand, I was a child when Michael was everything. Everyone in the world loved him—the biggest stars right now have barely an ember of his star power.

Even E.T. and Kermit were stoked to meet him. Fred Astaire was in awe of his dancing. Princesses and presidents bowed down to him. When everyone from luminaries to little kids treats you like a god, what hope do you have of staying human?

  One day, we were dancing to Black or White in the living room at my friend’s house. My friend abruptly stopped dancing, ran to his mother in the kitchen and said, “Mom! If Dad dies, will you marry Michael Jackson?”

His mom laughed and said, “Sure, why not?” And my friend bopped happily back to his place in front of the altar to our hero and we danced to his song.

We were six.

Only now do I realize that he made that video—as a man in his 30s—with cameos from multiple children, including the most popular child star since Shirley Temple, the cartoon characters from every kid’s favorite TV show, and a child-friendly message of “It doesn’t matter what color your skin is! We can all dance together and turn into panthers!” rather than attempt a bolder, more artistically complex statement befitting someone of his talent and experience. Janelle Monae is the same age now and she’s been writing songs that run circles around Michael for years.

Did he ever truly care about his art? Or was it all calculated to appeal to children? To get him access to children?

One day, I was riding along in my babysitter’s car, listening to the Dangerous album. She knew everything about music. So she knew everything about Michael. She had Bad and Thriller ready for action, right in the front seat. I remember so clearly holding the Bad CD in one little hand, and Thriller in the other, and realizing for the first time, “He looks different.” But I never thought he looked like a different person. Even though his hair, his nose, his skin had completely changed, I could see the same soul across both faces.

At least, I thought I did. Now I think I imagined a spark in his eyes that was never truly there. But I was a child then, and Michael was just Michael. I’d known him for all seven years of my life, as long as I’d known anybody. Sure, I didn’t really know him, but that didn’t matter. I forgot about it a second later. It wasn’t worth thinking too hard about. Never even asked my babysitter to explain it, and I asked her to explain everything.

There was a song on Dangerous about a little girl who is murdered by an abusive guardian. Michael’s voice was so vivid and tender, even as he sang about the blood in the little girl’s hair. That song haunted me. I asked my babysitter to play it again and again.

I knew that children could be hurt by adults. When I was little, we were taught to be afraid of strangers and not walk anywhere by ourselves and never answer the door unless an adult was home. It was horrific and impossible to understand but always a lurking possibility that adults could hurt you. And I was glad that Michael was telling people about this.

Michael really cared about children, I thought. After all, he was friends with so many.

Wade was 5 when he won a dance contest in Australia, and first prize for being the best mini-Michael was to meet Michael himself. James was cast in a commercial at 9 where he wore Michael’s jackets and imitated his moves, and then after a camera crew came to his house to film an “audition tape” in his bedroom (for reasons never made clear to his mother, but she didn’t seem to mind), he was invited to join the Bad tour, and dance with Michael on stage every night.

Watching this little boy bound on stage, in front of thousands of screaming fans, and dance with all the confidence and joy in the world, as his shattered adult self wistfully narrates how much fun he had, made me cry for both of them.

Michael took all these luminous children and turned them into broken adults.

Was it some way of molding them into mini-Michaels forever?

They were so small.

When you’re a child, you don’t understand how small you truly are.

When Michael died, I cried for him. I’ve loved his music since before I knew what music was. I’ve spent hours watching his videos, documentaries, concerts. I’ve obsessed over his spins, his steps, the way he winks in Smooth Criminal, the way he snaps his fingers in the The Way You Make Me Feel.  He’d gotten me through bad days at school, stress and sadness, a secret friend in my ear always eager to cheer me up. When my sister had to have cardiac surgery as a teenager, I spent twelve hours in the waiting room reading an 832-page biography on Michael. The only thing big enough to distract me from absolute crushing fear was him.

Stella and I got Mexican food and watched his funeral live on CNN. We cried for his children. They’ll never get to truly know him, we said.

Now I have to hope that he died before either of his sons reached his target age range.

After he died, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. What he could have accomplished if it weren’t for all the drama dragging him down in the last half of his life.

What he would’ve looked like if he’d been able to stand his own face.

What he could have done if he’d just gotten a good therapist and cut ties with his family and the hangers-on who kept turning on him for a payout.

Oh, yes, I believed that lie too. I mean, it had been fed to me since I was eight. Of course there are people out there who will lie that the worst crime has been committed against their child and willfully drag that child through the legal system and the 24/7 media spotlight and a lifetime of “Hey, weren’t you that kid . . .” just for a shot at a few bucks.

That makes total sense.

Why did it ever make sense?

After he died, I spent hours watching old videos and interviews and long story short, I took 255 screenshots and saved them to a file on my computer. I never looked at them again, so I don’t know why I needed to save them.

It started out as just wanting to find a good picture of him smiling—really smiling, not just posing or performing, but holding a genuine, human smile. Turned out, that was hard to find.

How sad, I thought. For all of his money and fame and accomplishments, he knew such little real happiness in his life. He always had to be “on.” He was so lonely, with no one who ever loved him for himself, but that was his sacrifice to make us all happy.

That’s what he told us.

Those boys loved him. Those boys still love him. James says that he feels guilty, still, for letting Michael down.

Everyone let James down, but no, he blames himself. It wasn’t his fault. It’s never any child’s fault, but he’s spent his entire life blaming himself. That’s what Michael trained him to do. That’s what this abuse does to you. It corrupts the very wiring of your brain.

Wade says that for him to understand that he was abused meant questioning everything that had ever happened to him from the age of 5, from his love of dance to the break-up of his family to his livelihood as an adult.  It takes decades to understand and even longer to accept that your whole childhood was a lie.

“Michael was good. That was all that existed in my mind,” he says.

Michael willfully destroyed Wade’s childhood and his family. James will spend the rest of his life putting himself back together. And they still loved him. So many people still love him. But they don’t matter. What matters is that Wade and James are telling the truth. And people are listening. We’ve lost our friend, for real this time—because not even death could truly take him, not when his music plays somewhere every minute—and we have to accept, at long last, that what we felt for him was genuine, but he never was.

Before I deleted my file of Michael’s pictures, I went through them all first, one by one, but I never found that human smile. Just hundreds of shifting masks and hollow eyes with all the glow extinguished.

  Our Friend Michael, the Monster Michael, what have you done? That's what I keep asking him in my head. Because in my head, Michael and I have been friends my whole life.

[noona-clock]

9+1 (Part 6 - Final)

Genre: Housemate!AU

Pairing: Xiumin (feat. OT9) x You

By Admin T

“Alright, so here’s your room,” you said as you gave the girls the usual tour when they first arrived at the house. “It’s got everything you need and --.” 

“This looks so nice!” beamed Irene, walking immediately towards the window that boasted a view of the city.

You bit back a smile and chuckled softly. “Here’s your key,” you said, placing it on top of the drawer. “And you’ve got my number in case anything happens.”

“But you’re just down the hall, right?” she asked, turning to face you. You paused, still awestruck by her beauty.

“Just down the hall,” you smiled with a nod as you took a step back and let Irene get used to her brand new room.

She was the last one for the day. There were four other girls, younger than you and tittering with excitement about their stay in San Francisco. Ever since the nine boys stayed, it seemed as if there was a constant stream of good looking Korean young adults that kept passing through to stay. They never stayed for too long and only months at a time. And, you never asked too many questions, a permanent wall already built each time you met a new person. 

You never talked to your Grandma about it despite the apparent sadness that followed you around for months. And, then, as if by magic, you woke up one day and you didn’t think of him. Life went on and so did you.

So, more tenants came. You showed rooms. You gave directions. You were almost back to normal until, one day, there was a knock on your door and a ticket to Seoul was suddenly shoved in your face.

“What?!” you muttered, taking a step back and letting your eyes adjust as you held the ticket in your hands. It was for tomorrow.

“I may be old,” said your Grandma knowingly, “But the one thing I know is that there’s no better time than to show and tell the person you love how you feel.”

You paused, feeling your heart drop and your eyes suddenly start to water. “But…”

“I met someone a long time ago. When I was your age,” she explained as you saw sorrow fill her eyes for a moment. She smiled softly and nodded, forcing herself to continue. “And I ran. I ran all the way over here and never looked back.” 

“Grams…”

“And then he found me,” she continued, her hand reaching for yours. “Sixty years later and he finds me. Where do you think all these people are coming from?”

“Grams, I don’t understand,” you murmured, your brows furrowing.

“We still love each other even when we already have our own families,” she smiled, almost glowing. “He owns this company and he…” She closed her eyes momentarily as if realizing she was saying something she wasn’t supposed to say.

“The point is,” she said as she grabbed your shoulders. “You’ve got a ticket to Seoul. Now, go get your man.”

You saw the man who held the sign as soon as you got your bags. It had your name on it. Your Grandma didn’t tell you anything else other than everything had already been planned and all you needed to do was show up, pack and ‘get your butt over there’. 

So, you followed the main in the suit who led you towards a black van. You hesitated, wondering what the hell you were getting into. Was your Grandma in the mafia?! Who was that man? And how did he find her? And what company did he own?

You were so preoccupied with your thoughts that you hadn’t even noticed that Junmyeon was sitting in the van as soon as you hopped inside. You put down your backpack, let out a heavy sigh and leaned back in the seat.

“Long flight?”

You let out a yell, your arms flailing and your eyes widening as you stared at Junmyeon. Your hair was in a messy bun, your teeth weren’t brushed and you’ve been wearing the same clothes for at least 24 hours already. And, yet, here he was, sitting right next to you as if he just walked off of a movie set or a magazine cover. 

He nervously cleared his throat and grabbed a nearby water bottle. “Water?”

You stared at him in confusion and shock. “O-okay, water,” you finally muttered as you took it from him. By this time, you were pretty sure your Grandma was in the mafia.

“Look, I know I haven’t always been so…”

“Nice? Forthcoming?”

He narrowed his eyes at you and you immediately stopped talking.

“There’s a reason why we left the way we left,” he continued, his voice low as he looked at you while he carefully chose his words. “He was doing it all to protect you. He wouldn’t have done it if that weren’t the case.”

You scoffed, frowning. “Protect me? From what?”

“The outside world, the media… everything,” he answered, shrugging. He reached for his phone in his jacket pocket and let out a sigh. “I think it’s just better if I show you.” You saw him pulling up YouTube and handing the phone over to you. 

It was the nine of them, that much you can see. But it wasn’t them at all. They were dressed differently and they were… not their usual selves. You saw an interviewer, frowned and then glanced up at Junmyeon. 

“Keep watching,” he nodded. 

You looked back down and the interviewer started talking. “Introducing Kpop’s biggest act, quadruple million sellers, most music show wins, and best selling Korean artist of all time: EXO!” 

Your jaw dropped.

The boys started clapping as if it were normal and they began introducing themselves. Junmyeon wasn’t Junmyeon. He was Suho. “W-what?” you muttered, still in shock.

Your eyes fell on Minseok. He was smiling for the cameras but you could tell he wasn’t his usual self. Not like when he was with you. It was all a front and he seemed to be the saddest out of all of the boys.

You swiped onto the next video and it was one where they were performing at an awards shown. Everyone was cheering for them. 

You swiped once more and it was group photo of the nine of them in somewhat but not really matching outfits. You stared at Minseok with an attempted smile on his face. 

“He hasn’t been the same ever since we came back,” explained Junmyeon. 

“This is a joke,” you said, thrusting the phone back at him.

“No, it’s not,” he replied softly, shaking his head. “We left the way we did for him and for you. We were on a break from… “ He waved his hands around and gestured to his phone and outside as they passed a building with their faces on it. “From all of this. It was meant to be a breather.”  

“And I was meant to be what? Something to leave and throw away?” you retorted, your fury finally resurfacing. You’d bottled it down so much these past few months that you couldn’t control yourself this time.

Junmyeon sighed once more. His patience was astounding. “Why do you think you’re here, Y/N?”

Your mouth opened and closed. You couldn’t find the words. Those boys that lived under your roof were celebrities? They were a Kpop group that people fawned over? They were known worldwide? And they took ‘a breather’ in your corner of the world?!

“We’re here,” said Junmyeon as he looked out the window.

“Here? Where is here?” You hadn’t even realized that the van even moved.

“Stay put,” he said as he pointed a finger at you. “Promise me you won’t run because if we can’t find you, I swear --.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I’m not moving.”

“I’ll be in big trouble if --.”

“I promise!”

He nodded, sliding open the door and hopping out while the driver turned off the engine at the same time. The silence engulfed you as your thoughts whirled around in your head. How was this all possible? You remembered what your Grandma said: Sixty years later and he finds me. Where do you think all these people are coming from?

You eyed the building outside and guessed it was some big corporation. Sure, the van was parked in some shady alley but that made sense if Junmyeon was telling the truth about the whole EXO story.

Then, you saw it. The audition poster taped on the wall. Audition to be part of SM Entertainment and Lee Soo Man’s family! Showcase your singing, acting and dancing abilities and you might just be a star!

“No,” you breathed. “That man is…”

You heard the van door slide open and someone shuffle inside but your eyes were glued to the poster. While your brain was putting the pieces together, he sat down next to you.

“Y/N.”

You froze, your eyes widening as you gulped. You knew that voice. You could pick out that voice anywhere in a crowd. You turned around to see him, his face a combination of excitement and despair from finally seeing you.

You reached over to touch his hand and he immediately pulled you close, leaving no room in between the two of you as he wrapped his arms around you and buried his face in your shoulder. “You’re here, you’re actually here,” he muttered softly and you swore you could hear the sob in his voice only causing your eyes to water even more.

You held him tightly, running your hands through his hair, over his shoulders and touching every part of him just to make sure you weren’t imagining anything. You were holding him and he was holding you. This is real.

“I love you,” he breathed, finally pulling back. “I’m so sorry, I love you and I’m sorry…” 

You shook your head, unable to stop the tears from falling. “No, no, I… Junmyeon he showed me that…” You gulped, trying to find words, trying to find air. “I wasn’t ready then either and it’s not just you…”

“I’m so sorry…” he repeated, shaking his head once more. You could see him breaking down and it was hurting you even more, much more than the day that they suddenly left.  

You shook your head, holding his face in the palm of your hands so that you could force him to look at you. “I’m here,” you smiled through the tears and he couldn’t help but chuckle softly either. “I’m here and it’s okay and I love you too.”

He nodded, pressing his lips against yours and you were lost and happy and elated in all of him once again. It felt right and you both could feel it.

He pulled back just slightly, his face still wet with tears but his eyes glistened mischievously.

“What?” you chuckled softly.

“Let’s start over again.”   

“Okay, so next on the list is… NCT,” you said as you looked down at your clipboard to check the schedule for the house.

You hadn’t realized it then but the boys gave the house such rave reviews that SM decided to make it their safe house for their employees: a place where they can take a break and then come back refreshed. It’d been such a success that your Grandma was able to hire other people to manage the house while you finally moved to Korea. But that didn’t mean that you stopped helping, especially when you became the official liaison.   

“How are all of them going to fit in that house?” asked Minseok as he looked over your shoulder.

“We’ve got a lower unit, remember? You all stayed in the upper unit,” you answered, glancing over at him while he playfully kissed your cheek.

“Where you were too,” he smirked, wrapping his arms around your waist.

“Where I was too,” you nodded. You placed the clipboard back on your desk and finally turned around to face him. “So, when am I going to get to see you again at the music shows?”

He laughed that laugh, his smile taking up all of his face as he leaned his forehead on yours. “Ah, just because you’re the assistant manager doesn’t mean that I’ll automatically be there.”

“Ah, see, that’s where you’re wrong, I meant all nine of you,” you smirked teasingly as you (attempted) to pinch his side.

He did a mock gasp and pulled away from you. “You’re just using me!” He started walking away from you and you laughed, doing a running leap towards him. He effortlessly caught you, your legs wrapped around his waist and your hands clasped around his neck.

You both fell silent as you stared at each other, unable to say or think of anything else. It was as if you both knew what the other was thinking without even trying.

“Did I tell you how happy I am that you’re here?” he said softly, his nose touching yours.

“Always,” you murmured with a smile.

“I still can’t believe you sacrificed --.” 

“Stop,” you interrupting, shaking your head. “I don’t have to sacrifice anything when it comes to you. You’re the one who sacrificed for me.”

He shook his head right back at you. “None of this is easy, especially with what I do. Even being in a relationship isn’t easy... but alll of this would mean nothing if I weren’t with you, you know that, right?” he said, his face grim but full of honesty. 

You nodded, suddenly quiet. You both had your arguments even when you moved to Seoul. Your relationship was far from perfect. You had to learn how to trust and he had to learn how to let you into his life. You were stubborn and he could, at times, be a pushover. He liked to drink but you liked to sleep more. But, at the end of the day, you both loved each other enough to make it work. Even when all the odds were against the both of you. 

You saw his lips quirk into a smile and you immediately knew what he was about to say. 

“You’re here,” he grinned. 

“I’m here,” you nodded. It was the validation you both needed and wanted to hear. It was etched in both of your hearts. “And I love you.” 

“I love you too,” he smiled in reply, his face full of warmth and love. 

Author’s Note: Ahhh, and it’s done! Thank you, thank you, thank you, loves! I wanted to write a relationship that wasn’t easy. It’s so easy to find a ‘perfect’ love story here on Tumblr so I wanted to show one that required effort and work from both parties. I also wanted to try my hand at angsty/fluff, haha. I hope everyone’s hearts are full now that we have a happy ending!! 

Suggested NoonaClock Xiumin scenarios that could fit this AU (both are fluffy, I promise!): I’m a Professional, No Phones

My playlist while writing this fic included: Oops by Little Mix, Grown by Little Mix, A.D.I.D.A.S. by Little Mix, Cannonball cover by Little Mix, Too Good to Say Goodbye by Bruno Mars, Natalie by Bruno Mars

- Admin T

[everythingbutthecat]

The Suicidal Elephant in the Parlour or Anne of Green Gables and Depression, Loss, & Suicide

by Adrianna Prosser

It’s no secret I’m a redhead, and it’s likely no surprise that when I was young I pretended I was Anne of Green Gables. In fact, my first best friend from junior kindergarten was a raven haired girl that I nicknamed Diana (hi Erin!) and she in turn called me Anne. When I was 14 I played Anne in my regional community theatre show in the musical (see community newspaper photo below) and it caused quite a stir: the theatre sweetheart who was supposed to play Anne with her beau as Gilbert was thwarted by me, an awkward untrained teenager who already knew the libretto by heart and I owned a straw hat. That show defined my love for theatre and my love of Anne transformed into a love of performing and storytelling. Anne was my life. Anne was me. From her temper to her bombastic nature, her hyperbolic narratives and of course her wild imagination, and let us not forget her competitive nature at school was all playing out pretty much the exact same way only in 1980s Canada in Barrie, instead of PEI in the 1880s.

^1998 newspaper article photo with me and my “schoolmates” in Avonlea school for South Simcoe’s Anne of Green Gables musical production in Cookstown, Ontario.

Naturally I watched the Megan Follows series of Anne until the VHS tapes wilted and wouldn’t play in my VCR. I used the musical version as my audition songs to get into theatre school and plays. I even grew up to be a schoolhouse teacher in a 1910 museum where I involuntarily (ok ok I did it on purpose) looked like Anne in Anne of Avonlea when she gives up her scholarship to stay with Marilla and teaches at the nearby school. I made time in my curriculum to read aloud from Anne of Green Gables the infamous chapter “Tempest in the School Teapot” to my grade 3’s and did voices for Diana, Anne, Gilbert and Mr Andrews; the crack on the head was always the best part played by the schoolhouse strap and a quick thwack to an antique desk. The kids would jump and laugh and want me to read more - what happened to Anne with an e?

Anne has been a big part of my life since I was 5 years old.

Then the CBC casts RH Thompson as Matthew and all of a sudden I’m back in Avonlea with earnest dread: what are they doing to Anne? I hear mixed reviews, I can’t seem to make myself watch it. It has been years since I have shed tears for the reveal of LM Montgomery’s secret: her granddaughter went public to say that Lucy had died by suicide. There was a note in her journal that seemed to indicate as much. I haven’t grieve the author of my youth, but now with this new rendition coming to TV I was going to have to face much more than childhood memories.

The CBC version called Anne The Series is wonderful: the vistas, the costumes, the character work… but there is something hard and dark around the edges. Gone are the warm hues, the bright scenery, the soft focus - this version has the contrast up, the grit and clarity filter showing weathering and wrinkles, and blues and greys highlight most every scene. I am intrigued to see some scenes play out exactly as I remember, and then others make me weep.

I enjoy adaptations, I am an actor and playwright and have read and performed several Shakespearean renditions of the same title over and over again in different ways throughout my career. I get it. Why do the exact same thing when it’s been done before? My thoughts and feelings are that of someone who GETS IT. I liked that in 2017 when this version premiered, we have such days celebrating mental health and focusing on mental illness like #MentalHealthWeek or #BellLetsTalk or suicide prevention day is September 10th and we as a collective here in Canada are getting better at being mental health advocates and de-stigmatizing depression, therapy, suicide and mental illnesses to the point that we are able to talk about it in pop culture (ie. 13 Reasons Why, The Virgin Suicides, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc…) and we are left to unpack it at our own pace and level of understanding as an audience member. So when this Anne adaptation starts to inject Lucy Maud Montgomery’s narrative into Anne’s I feel two things: 

OF COURSE now we can talk about this! Now we can interpret the reasons why Anne was talking to her reflection in a glass window and named her mirrored self Katie and talked to herself like as if she was two people - THAT isn’t normal. They could be dissociative disorder and throughout the show we see ways in which Anne has dealt with trauma, loss, and the loss of her innocence (though I don’t think rape was implied she has heard and or seen sex and possibly witnessed rape in this adaptation,) at such a young age that of course she needs imaginary friends to help her deal with her situation, or even just the profound loneliness she lives. OF COURSE there would be residual PTSD moments that leave Anne riddled with inaction and mental scarring hearing from every person that she is not a person but a tool to keep the household running and forced to care for three sets of triplets; being told all the while that she is not a family member and reminded of it constantly. OF COURSE we should raise awareness of the things that were happening in Canada around this time like the beginnings of the Suffragettes and women’s rights activism, and of course we should inject that history into a retelling where we as a viewing audience can accept that lens showing us a bit beyond the warm fuzzy historical narrative we are used to.

BUT. And it’s a but I am still struggling with… When the show paints a portrait outside of what’s in the book and rewrites the scope of its characters ambitions and actions - I get mad. And I don’t know why. The specific scene I’m talking about is when Matthew, brilliantly portrayed by RH Thompson (of Road to Avonlea fame,) Here is the show and the book version:

Having re-read all of Anne of Green Gables to see where the artistic liberties by Walley-Beckett for the CBC version (she wrote on Breaking Bad and I joke that this is Breaking Anne,) are and where the book informs the adaptation. (I wanted to know if Marilla and Matthew had been given made-up backstories or if they were indeed in book *fun fact Marilla WAS courted by John Blythe, but the Jeanie button story, though adorable, never happens for Matthew as we are constantly reminded in the book of how shy he is to women, Anne being the only exception.) And of course the suicide scene was never in my recollection but I had to be sure that as a child I wasn’t just misunderstanding LM Montgomery’s intentions.

This is where my very biased opinion takes the milk crate:

Matthew Cuthbert from the novel never exhibited depression, suicidal attempts, nor “invitations”. When I say invitations I mean the signs that one may perceive as invitations to recognize inner thoughts and feelings to be that of a suicidal nature. And the show version of Matthew also does not exhibit these invitations. But that is not to say that impulsive suicides don’t exist, just that they are very very rare. Also, in Christian Victorian society they are DOUBLY rare. So to, speaking to his character (in both book and show version) do I question Walley-Beckett and her exploitative use of suicide in this narrative - it seems wildly out of character and ridiculous. 

It seemed the choice was made for ratings and getting fangirls like me bawk at this rendition and give buzz to the show rather than playing into the original story’s nuance - like how I applaud her use of mental illness in Anne and that is why she is the “gypsy witch” that everyone calls her in the book: it is why she isn’t like everyone else on the island because everyone else on the island hasn’t been abused like Anne has. The stigma of being an orphan is explored and highlighted with the picnic scene in the show that doesn’t happen in the book. Anne has to triumph over her snobby neighbours not once like in the book (she saves Diana’s sister from croup) but defies a RAGING HOUSE FIRE in the show at the Gillis homestead to save a child and help put out the fire (a nod to her reading everything under the sun even a fire fighting manual at the train station, a call back to the first episode). 

Sure. I like the in-between the lines bits like that. In fact upon re-reading it a lot of the action doesn’t take place on the page, it is usually recounted to us by our grand storyteller Anne herself, so the events are wide open to interpretation because often LM Montgomery says ‘and the concert happened’ or ‘and the school year passed’ and that’s it. My friend JM Frey writes how "Anne is an unreliable narrator.” and I agree.

But, what I can’t handle is imposing trendy topics into a show that is near and dear to many a Canadian heart for the sake of ratings. I thought it a bit odd how blunt the feminist sewing circle was. Not in the book by the way but huzzah for modern narratives and exploring what that gossip and chit-chat would be at Mrs. Lynde’s sewing bees (in the book it’s her gatherings). And clearly what spurned this whole blog-novel is the suicidal elephant in the parlour...

Then the other side of my heart believes this is a good thing, this new Matthew who is depressed because he is getting older and can’t “spare himself a mite” and then his reluctance to listen to his sister leads to them losing all their money. He has the same symptoms of the men who jumped from the ledge of their workplace in the Great Depression. Guilt. Blame. Loss of hope. Burden. And being the sole provider, or being told that one is by culture and society, he is overwhelmed and not only that he is weak in body so he can’t fight as hard as he used to… is suicide so unheard of for our dear Matthew? Many a Christian soul has taken their own lives. Many a Victorian had too, so too our dear writer LM Montgomery is believed to have taken her own life just outside of Toronto proper at the house she nicknamed “Journey’s End.”

While I cannot deny my anger and resentment and frustration with this new rendition of Anne of Green Gables I am reminded that the original still lays intact on my bookshelf and I can re-read it anytime. That maybe this new Anne is taking characters we have invested our love and time with for over a century and that perhaps this unsettling feeling that Matthew would try to take his life is the exact hurt we need to feel to address the suicidal elephant in our own lives. 

When my brother died by suicide I was, am, beside myself with questions, guilt, blame, and looking for reasons. This scene made me react in a similar visceral way, to be sure because I am suicide bereaved, but also I had a pre-existing connection with Matthew since I was 5 years old! Matthew is a fictional character and I am not equating him with my real life brother, but I can’t deny that the way this rendition of the story being told rattled me to the core, and I don’t think it would have elicited the same response with a new tv show about a teenage girl with a distraught father figure who attempts suicide after a huge money loss. My love and time wouldn’t be as invested, and so using a beloved cultural phenomenon like Anne to share these themes, and with a main character no less, seems…. bold. And perfectly infuriating for the right reasons.

So while I digest all these feelings I am resolved to let them stay in this area of grey. The show isn’t wrong and the book isn’t right, or vice versa. What I can take away with certainty that I am glad LM Montgomery’s work is being appreciated all over again, along with her new Heritage Minute 

^which not only focuses on her talented writing, but that she wrote such an epic while struggling with depression. That message that you can still create and create great things while depressed is a message we need to hear and celebrate. We also need to own that some people are suicidal and we all need to step up our efforts to help our loved ones around us know that they can talk about it, seek help without judgement, and lean on us. There is no need to read between the lines like we are here with Anne, and we can ask our friends and family directly for help when we too have thoughts and feelings that make us want to end our lives.

“It was the last night before sorrow touched her life, and no life is ever quite the same again once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.” -LM Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter 36 “The Glory and the Dream”

Thank you Anne for once again growing up with me and helping me understand my thoughts and feelings a bit better.