#i know they were renewed but everything in hollywood is a hot mess

[literaryspinster]

I think the fact that Jordan didn’t shift before kissing Marie means they still have some shit to unpack, but I’m not expecting that in the next episode. Damn this short ass season 😤

[shamandrummer]

Winona LaDuke: Native Environmentalism

I had the opportunity to meet Winona LaDuke and hear her speak at a conference years ago. LaDuke is a renowned Anishinaabe environmentalist, economist, writer and past two time vice-presidential candidate (with Ralph Nader), known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as women's rights. She is from the Makwa Dodaem (Bear Clan) of the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. LaDuke was raised in Ashland Oregon, the daughter of Betty Bernstein and Vincent (Sun Bear) LaDuke. Her Anishinaabe father worked as an actor in Hollywood in supporting roles in Western movies before establishing himself as an author and spiritual leader in the 1980's. Her mother is an artist and writer who has gained an international reputation for her murals, paintings and sketches. LaDuke attended Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Antioch University. She has testified at the United Nations, U.S. Congress, state hearings, and is an expert witness on economics and the environment. She advocates primarily for the protection of the environment and the rights of women. In 1985, LaDuke helped found the Indigenous Women's Network. She worked with the Native organization Women of All Red Nations to publicize American forced sterilization of Native American women. In 1989, LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota with the proceeds of a human rights award from Reebok. The goal is to buy back land in the White Earth Indian Reservation that non-Natives bought and to create enterprises that provide work to Anishinaabe. LaDuke is humorous, enlightening and above all political. She speaks with a Native voice without altering her language for non-Natives. Her words differ from establishment thinking and offer new ways of understanding the world and the solutions we need for the great issues of climate change. She conveys a beautiful and daring vision of political, spiritual and ecological transformation. LaDuke spoke at length about Native environmental issues and challenges. Despite making up a tiny fraction of the world's population, Indigenous peoples hold ancestral rights to some 65 percent of the planet. This poignant fact conveys the enormous role that Native peoples play not only as environmental stewards, but as political actors on the global stage.

All over the world, Native peoples are engaged in battles with hostile corporations and governments that claim the right to set aside small reserves for Native people, and then to seize the rest of their traditional territory. They are confronting the destructive practices of industry and leading the charge against climate change, while defending the rivers, forests and food systems that we all depend on. At the same time, they are blocking governments from eroding basic rights and freedoms and turning to the courts of the world to remedy over 500 years of historical wrongs. Native peoples are putting their lives on the line and fighting back for political autonomy and land rights. And all the while, they are breathing new life into the biocultural heritage that has the potential to sustain the entire human race.

Native Americans often articulate alternative environmental perspectives and relationships to the natural world. Indigenous mythologies and oral traditions express a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic. Indigenous groups offer ancient tried-and-tested knowledge and wisdom based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. And, as Native peoples themselves have insisted for centuries, they often understand and exhibit a holistic, interconnected and interdependent relationship to particular landscapes and to the totality of life, animate and inanimate, found there.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Indigenous cosmology is the conception of creation as a living process, resulting in a living universe in which a kinship exists between all things. Thus the Mother Earth is a living being, as are the Sun, Stars and the Moon. Hence the Creators are our family, our Grandparents or Parents, and all of their creations are children who are also our relations. LaDuke captured the essence of this concept when she said: "Native American teachings describe the relations all around--animals, fish, trees, and rocks--as our brothers, sisters, uncles, and grandpas...These relations are honored in ceremony, song, story, and life that keep relations close--to buffalo, sturgeon, salmon, turtles, bears, wolves, and panthers. These are our older relatives--the ones who came before and taught us how to live."

The industrialized West is largely unaware of how Indigenous societies have functioned, and the strengths they possess that industrial cultures have lacked. Our notions of progress are based on the idea that high tech means better and that industrial cultures are somehow more advanced socially. The current state of our threatened environment demands that communication channels be opened for dialogue and engagement with Native environmental ethics.  

When describing Indigenous environmental activism, LaDuke said, "Grassroots and land-based struggles characterize most of Native environmentalism. We are nations of people with distinct land areas, and our leadership and direction emerge from the land up." Each nation and community has its own unique cultural traditions linked to the land.

LaDuke detailed how different groups of Native people are contending with environmental issues and are seeking to address them at the local, community level. They are also forming national and international organizations that seek to help individual nations, in large part through information sharing and technical assistance. In the final analysis, however, each nation, reserve, or community has to confront its own issues and develop its own leadership. This must be stressed over and over again: each sovereign Native nation will deal with its own environmental issues in its own way. There is no single Native American government that can develop a collective Indigenous response to the crisis we all face. LaDuke emphasized that the environmental awareness of many Native American groups translates into a high level of respect for women in their communities. A good deal of evidence has shown that when women have high status, education, and choices, they tend to greatly enrich a community and to stabilize population growth. Many traditional American societies have been able to maintain balance with their environments because of the high status of women, a long period of nursing for infants, and/or the control of reproductive decisions by women. Many of the leaders in the Native struggle today are women. LaDuke pointed out that respect and humility form the foundation of Native lifeways, since they not only lead to minimal exploitation of other living things but also preclude the arrogance of colonial missionary activity, secular imperialism, and the oppressive patriarchy. She noted that: "In each deliberation we consider the impact on the seventh generation from now. Everything we have today we inherited, we are very, very fortunate today that our ancestors were strong people. We’re very, very fortunate that our ancestors took care of this land so well. We also know that those who are not yet here are counting on us not to mess this up…they’re counting on us to make sure that there will be water for them to drink, that there will still be fish, that the air will not be so poisoned or so hot that they cannot live."

Native people are not only trying to clean up uranium tailings, purify polluted water, and mount opposition to fossil fuel extraction; they are also continuing their spiritual ways of seeking to celebrate and support all life by means of ceremonies and prayers. As LaDuke told us in closing: "In our communities, Native environmentalists sing centuries-old songs to renew life, to give thanks for the strawberries, to call home fish, and to thank Mother Earth for her blessings."

[wearevillaneve]

Some people think s4 will be the last season of KE and I don’t think so. The creator of my other favorite show, when his show was renewed for a sixth season, he decided to end the show & sent an announcement via social media saying that the show was renewed for a sixth & final season. KE would have already announced s4 being the last season when they announced its renewal. I think s5 will be the last season. I want sandra to work on a project where her character is respected & properly developed

There’s two points here and I’ll get to your first one first.  Nothing has been publicly stated by the stars or producers whether or not the next season of Killing Eve will be the last one.  There are and were reasons to think it might. In the U.S. the third season debuted to solid, if not spectacular ratings.   There’s no danger to the show being canceled by BBC America and AMC as it is both a critical darling (though not so much in S3), and has taken up residence as an award magnet for the BAFTA’s, Emmys, Golden Globes among others.   Don’t believe for a minute that these networks don’t enjoy showing off trophies in their offices.  What hasn’t received much attention from the KE fandom is the departure of Sarah Barnett as president of the AMC Networks.  Barnett, a British expatriate, has been with AMC since 2008 and was a champion of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s gender bending subversive little take on the tired spy vs. assassin trope.   With filming for Season 4 indefinitely delayed due to the global pandemic and Barnett gone, will the new president of AMC be the same champion for Killing Eve that Barnett was?   We don’t know what goes on behind the curtain at AMC, but the longer the shooting schedule is up in the air, the greater the pressure is going to be to fill that 9:00 pm time slot with something.  Killing Eve’s European locations makes it more authentic, but also more expensive than Unnamed Show X that shoots in the U.S. or Canada and all the talent in front and behind the camera is homegrown.  

(Sarah Barnett and Sandra Oh in 2018/ photo credit:  Getty Images for BAFTA LA )

Do not think for one second there are not other producers of other shows waiting for Killing Eve to delay its 2021 return  so they can grab that sweet prime time spot.  Should Unnamed Show X be a ratings and critical juggernaut KE was in 2018, do not be shocked if when Season 4 does finally drop, it ends up in a different time slot, or worse, an entirely different day than it’s previously occupied.   Most KE fans wouldn’t know Barnett if they bumped into her on the street, but being where she was and doing the job she did meant a lot when it came to getting behind a TV show shot in Europe produced by a showrunner who never had done the job before and starring an Asian lead who had never held that spot previously and and a talented young Scouser who had established herself in England, but was a total unknown in Hollywood.

Barnett might never have been the most powerful television executive in Hollywood, but that was never her game. Her programming philosophy was always about risk, discovery, and resisting the obvious. It’s the kind of philosophy that flourished during the Golden Age of TV, and it’s now out of fashion. Scale is everything, data is king, and the streaming wars must be fought at all costs. Where Barnett goes next is a mystery, but her tenure at AMC will fondly be remembered as we reminisce a now bygone era of television.

There’s always competition for a prime-time slot, so you might have to ask yourself it you would be in your feelings should  Killing Eve 2021 aired at 9:00 pm on Wednesday and not Sunday?    It never hurts to have a powerful ally in the suites, and KE has lost one.   I tend to agree with you that it will get a fifth (and hopefully final) season.   To repeat myself, I hold firm to my belief  most TV shows hit their peak at five seasons.   After that, contracts expire, actors move on, and the churn of talent exiting behind the scenes begins to show up on-screen. 

Let’s look at this way:  do you really want to watch Killing Eve when it reaches’ 22nd seasons like Law and Order: SUV?

To your second point, I too want to see Sandra Oh move on to other projects beyond playing a bisexual mouse chasing a bisexual cat.  Not that she’s bad at it, but Oh’s talents were squandered in S3.   Killing Eve would be better cutting the cord than seeing its lead actress treated as an accessory to the co-lead a second time. 

The pandemic has reset the clock for nearly every form of entertainment and with it the best laid plans of Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh’s agents.  Clearly, Comer is aching to respond to Hollywood’s calls.   She won’t continue to blow off opportunities like Death On the Nile and a chance to raise her profile to an international audience for eight episodes of a TV show that eats up months of her time.    She’s going to have to eventually choose her exit strategy should KE go beyond a fourth season.

She hasn’t asked for my advice and she’s got well-compensated pros she can do it far better, but should J.C. drop me an anonymous question, my answer would hinge upon when her KE contract expires.  If it ends after Season 4, then demand a hefty pay raise (especially should she score a second Emmy) and then head for the exit  as soon as Season 5 wraps.  

This is business. Not personal, and there’s zero chance Comer is at all interested in playing Villanelle for a decade.   Her future is too bright to be limited to simply playing a fashionable assassin for too long. 

Oh’s career opportunities diverge from Comer’s and there aren’t a lot of feature films in the future for a 49-year-old Korean Canadian actress.   I know it, you know it and you best believe she knows it better than we do.

Beyond The Chair, her Netflix comedy produced by Amanda Peet, there’s nothing else upcoming on her schedule besides voice overs in two animated projects.   Despite her equivalent skills, due to her ethnicity and age, Oh will never receive the same opportunities as Comer.   That’s not a complaint.  This is an indisputable truth.  

Oh will never stop working in TV and films as long as she is willing to take parts as the best buddy to the White lead, as Season 3 of KE reduced her to, but she isn’t going to pivot toward directing or writing.   Sandra Oh is an actress.   It’s really that simple and she is respected as a damn good one as her 12th Emmy award nomination and third consecutive for perfectly playing the hot-ass mess than is Eve Polastri.

I share with you the hope that Oh will find roles in a post-Killing Eve world that honors and validates her incredible acting chops.    “Hope” is a vague word and more than likely Oh will find her career arc is similar to than of one of her contemporaries and one of my queens, Viola Davis when she said, “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is an opportunity.”

Oh and Comer have vastly different opportunities.  

The post-Killing Eve path for Comer is far clearly defined and brightly lit because the world reacts in radically different ways to a 27-year-old White woman than a 49-year-old Asian woman, and anyone who wants to claim otherwise can kindly fuck all the way off because you don’t know what you’re talking about and I got nothing for you but scorn and contempt. 

The pie is not cut in equal slices for Actresses of Color.  Never has been, and there’s little reason to believe that will change in any of ours lifetime. Women of Color in the entertainment industry are still fighting battles thought long won decades ago.  

Yet here we are.  Knowing the playing field ain’t close to being level and not particularly giving a shit as long as our needs are being met. 

Sorry for going so long, Anonymous.   You caught me stuck in a moment I wasn’t quite ready to get out of.   U2 fans will get the reference and everybody else will have to use their Google-Fu.     

[kazosa]

Second Chances - Jeff x Reader: Chapter 12

Summary: Reader and Jeff work a project and become fast friends. The project ends and they go their separate ways, neither forgetting the other. With Hollywood being a small community, you two bump into one another either at events or projects, but there is always something keeping you apart. Will the obstacles ever end? Chapter 12 Summary: Reader and Jeff have breakfast and talk about California and Bisou

Warnings: language (probably), Anya’s crazy A/N: Please leave comments or let me know if you want to be tagged, etc. Italics are past conversations Jeff had with Anya, or personal thoughts. Please tell me if I missed a tag, Curious-sub7 I can’t get yours to tag for some reason, sorry! Word count: 2400(ish) Catch up here: Masterlist Tags: @jml509 @jasoncrouse @yellatthetopofyourlungs  @bookchic20       @prettyepiic @rizflo-blog  @curious-sub7  @backseat-negan

     “Hell no!” Jeff answered quickly. “I have zero doubts about you and me.”      ���Okay, then can you see what she wants so you can get out from under it? I think she might only get worse if you ignore her,” she said.      The very last thing he’d wanted to talk about his first night with (Y|N) was Anya, anything but her. “I’ll call her when I go back home. I don’t want anything to ruin our weekend together. When do you need to go back to work?”      You took a sip of your whisky, “Tuesday morning. It’s never a long enough break.”      He put his hand on the back of your neck and pulled you down for a kiss, “Then we’d better make the most of it, huh?”      Saturday, Sunday and Monday with the man of your dreams sounded better than anything you could ever imagine for yourself. Jeff was the physical embodiment of tall, dark and handsome and you were sitting on his lap, with only his shorts between you and him. The t-shirt you were wearing was his and it barely covered anything. Your arm was around his shoulders and you looked into his sexy brown eyes. You knew you were smiling like a fool, but it didn’t matter, he was looking at you the same way. You ran your hand through his hair, he made what you took as a contented sound, and told him, “I love you so much.”      His handsome face broke out into the biggest grin, “(Y|N), I love you, too.”      You kissed him again, slow and sweet. Smiling at him as you got up off his lap. Jeff gave you a look like you took away his favorite toy. Running your hand across his chest and up across his cheek, you tell him, “Come to bed, my love.”

     When you woke the next day, Jeff wasn’t lying in bed next to you. You had a slight panic until you smelled bacon and pancakes. He was making breakfast. You felt so lucky. The night before, you’d told Jeff you loved him, the actual words, and he returned them. You’d had a hunger for one another that only ended in exhaustion. At some point in the early morning hours, you’d managed to get into some underwear and a nightshirt…and kept them on. Now, you had a different kind of hunger and he was making you breakfast, your favorite at that. You swung your feet out of bed and your sore legs gave you a pleasant reminder of the night before.

     Jeff didn’t see her until she was almost in the kitchen. He saw her stagger a little and he smiled to himself. Her hair was a mess, and she was pink from sleep, but she had a smile on her face that he assumed was because of him.      He would have stayed in bed with her all day, but when he woke up it was already almost lunch time. He let (Y|N) sleep and had gone out to make breakfast for them both. He liked her tiny apartment. She didn’t have much in it, but it was set up nice and the view from the deck was amazing.      “I like your place,” he told her. “It’s comfortable.”      Her furniture was sparse, but it looked like it belonged in a cabin, very plush and warm. It only had the necessities, but that was part of the charm. He knew she didn’t get to spend much time in it and figured she wanted to keep it as comfortable and easy as possible.      She smiled at him, “Thanks, you like my dinnerware?”      He chuckled. When he opened the cupboards the night before, he’d laughed at her mishmash of plates and glasses. She had some Cabbage Patch Kids plates mixed in with plain white plates as well as Alvin and the Chipmunks glasses and Care Bears glasses that had a Pizza Hut logo on them.      “Yeah, they’re fun,” he said. “Were they from when you were a kid?”      She smiled remembering, but it wasn’t a bright smile. “Well, sorta. The Care Bears were mine when I was a kid. The Cabbage Patch and Alvin stuff, that I got after my grandpa died. He collected everything. He sold antiques out of his massive garage, which was full to the rafters with things and cars. My grandparents had a huge house. They only lived on the main floor. The upper floor was apartments, but by the time I came around, they were not used anymore. Grandpa filled them all up with his “junk” as my grandma called it. He actually bought a huge building to put the overflow in, which he filled quickly. The Care Bear glasses were mine from when I was little.”      He got the feeling that she didn’t talk about her family because she’d been through a lot with them. He just quietly listened to her, appreciating the fact that she was comfortable enough to share that memory with him.

     He stood there listening to you blather on about your grandparents. You didn’t like talking about your family because they all died miserable deaths. Talking about them was a reminder of how they had died. Sometimes, sometimes it was okay to talk about them and you didn’t cry immediately. The memories of them dying didn’t always come flooding back.      “Wish I coulda met them,” he smiled. He dished up a plate of pancakes and bacon for you.      You went around the counter to get the plate from Jeff. Instead he pulled you into his body and held you for a moment, his hand rubbing your back. Your face fit into the perfect spot in his neck. His heartbeat tapping a steady beat on your forehead. He smelled warm and like soap. You wrapped your arms around his strong body loving how he felt pressed against you.      You wondered if when “Hack” was on hiatus that you could actually live with Jeff. He’d offered to have you stay with him the night before. If living with him was anything like what it had been in the last 12 hours, you were pretty sure it would work. You already knew that he was probably the best friend you’d ever had. You’d told him so much more about yourself than even Todd, and you’d been with him, in one way or another, for three years. Not only was he your good friend, but everything was so easy with him. It was like you just understood what the other needed. When you were talking, there was little to no explaining what was mean, you just knew. He was the only person that you were this comfortable with.      You snuggled into him a little more, “Jeff?”      “Hmm,” you felt the rumble in his throat and chest.      “Can I stay with you when I’m in California?” you ask.      “Sweetheart, I would love that,” he said moving you so he could look at you. “Then you can meet my girl, Bisou.”

     I had three more months working on “Hack” before I could close up my apartment. “Hack” had been renewed for another season and that meant that I would be back in Philly in five months. The only thing I needed from my apartment was my clothes and even then, I only had two large suitcases that I needed to take to California with me.      In the three months that it took to finish up season one of “Hack” I’d still entertained the idea of possibly finding an apartment or someplace else to stay while in California, but it never worked out for me to get back there. Jeff came back one more time and went to the wrap party with me where I introduced him to my boss, Bob Singer. Thankfully, the two men hit it off. Bob was like another father to me and I really wanted him to like Jeff.      When I got inside LAX and had my phone back on, I had a message from Jeff.      “Sweetheart, I’m running behind but I’m on my way. I didn’t have time to drop off Bisou before coming to get you, so you get to meet her right away. Anyway, be there soon.”

     You grabbed your suitcases and took your time wheeling them outside to the pickup zone. It was a beautiful day in LA, not too hot, not too much smog. You were just about to stack your suitcases to sit on them when you heard the familiar rumble of Jeff’s truck. He beeped the horn as he pulled up to the curb and jumped out to help you toss the cases in the bed of the truck.      “I’m so sorry I’m late,” he said. “Things got crazy and this is the quickest I could get here. Bisou is in the front, I hope you don’t mind.”      You shook your head that you didn’t mind and he gave you a quick hug and kiss before opening your door for you. Bisou sat up immediately looking you over. You were indifferent to dogs, but dogs always seemed to love you. Even the ones that had a bad disposition seemed to like you. You slipped into the seat just as security was coming over to tell you and Jeff to move on. Jeff waved at them and closed the door, trotting over to his side and getting in.      Bisou was still looking at you. You held up the back of your hand to her to smell.      “Hey darlin’,” you said to her. “Can we share?”      She sniffed your hand and leaned against Jeff, seemingly unsure of this new person in her truck.      “She takes a while to warm up to people that aren’t me,” he said.      “Don’t worry about it. Dogs either love me or they don’t,” you told him. “My mom’s dog was a rotten little thing that never listened. He always barked at me when he wanted something. Little shit was annoyingly smart though. I ignored him and he just tried harder to get me to like him. It was funny cuz I would go over to her house and he would come sit by me like I was his favorite or something.”      Jeff smiled at your story and said, “Well, I hope you’re not offended if she doesn’t like you. She growls at Anya. Always has.”      “Speaking of the ice princess, how’s that going?” you asked.

     Jeff had kept you informed of what was going on with his divorce, or lack thereof. He’d called her when he got back home after their first visit to see what she wanted. She had tried to lay a big guilt trip on him about how he was away all the time and women were constantly hitting on him and it had bothered her. It didn’t matter to her that Jeff had never acted on those advances, but there had been no denying the fact that she had seen both him and (Y|N) at his movie wrap party. Anyone could have seen how they were together, the sparks flew like crazy between the two of them. She’d been jealous and couldn’t let it go, essentially pushing Jeff away even further so that he didn’t even want to try to be nice anymore.

     “I saw how you were with her,” she accused. “You can’t tell me nothing happened!”      “Anya, I swear, nothing happened, we just became really good friends. I probably spent the most time with her on set because she practically ran the shoot behind the scenes,” he’d tried to assuage her.      “Bullshit, you were looking at her like she was your favorite candy,” she hissed.      “Maybe I was! Maybe I wished you’d been there in the first place. Maybe I wanted someone to look at me the way she does. Do you know you never once made me feel the way she does? I actually LIKE her more than you. She’s been a better friend to me than people I have known all my life. And ya know what? I fell in love with my best friend. I didn’t know it at the time, but I sure as shit do now. I don’t want anything to do with you, Anya. Quit stalling this divorce, put us both out of this misery,” he barked at her.

     After that confrontation things had been better, but still somewhat contentious. She’d come to his house to get somethings out and needed to get another shot in.

     “What’s she going to do when that dog of yours doesn’t like her?” she asked.      “I don’t know. We’ll deal with it. It’s none of your business. Just because Bisou doesn’t like you, it doesn’t mean she won’t like (Y|N),” he said. He’d wanted to put his own jab in and say that almost none of his good friends had liked Anya, but he’d let it go.      Anya laughed, ire in her tone, “Boy, everybody just LOVES (Y|N). Maybe I should come by sometime and tell her about all of the shit I’ve had to go through with you. Maybe then she’ll see what a piece of work you really are.”      “Would you please just get your shit and get the fuck out of my house?” he’d countered.

     He’d debated with himself about whether or not he should tell (Y|N) about everything Anya had said, but he’d decided against it. (Y|N) already knew about how crazy Anya could be. He’d been nice when he told (Y|N) about Anya, glossing over some of the angrier outbursts, but he felt that she understood there was more he’d not said.      On the drive back to his house, he kept stealing looks at her. Three months was too long. He didn’t want to be away from her anymore. He wanted her all to himself, but he was grateful that she was going to be working in Burbank and would be able to come home every night. Philadelphia was just so far away. Bisou was laying down now. She’d done a little spin on the seat and had leaned into (Y|N) with her head near (Y|N)’s knee and (Y|N) was absently stroking her fur. Bisou had dozed off.      “I guess she does like you,” he said. He put stock in how people treated animals and how animals responded to people. It only took a matter of minutes for Bisou to warm to (Y|N) and (Y|N) was fine with his big Rottweiler mix dog laying on her.      “Dogs either love me or they don’t,” you repeated. “Maybe she knows how much I love you and she’s okay with me because of it.”      “I’m gonna marry her someday,” he thought and not for the first time.

[kazosa]

Second Chances - Jeff x Reader: Chapter 5

HELP ME NAME THIS SERIES! DON’T BE SHY!

Summary: Reader and Jeff work a project and become fast friends. The project ends and they go their separate ways, neither forgetting the other. With Hollywood being a small community, you two bump into one another either at events or projects, but there is always something keeping you apart. Will the obstacles ever end? Chapter 5 Summary: Reader goes to another party and has a chance encounter. Warnings: language (probably), slow burn, angst, crowded space anxiety A/N: I have a few ideas to continue this, but it’s still developing. Please leave comments or let me know if you want to be tagged, etc.

Word count: 2100(ish)

Catch up here: Masterlist

Tags: @jml509 @jasoncrouse @yellatthetopofyourlungs

Flash Forward 2002

Your POV:      Not gonna lie, it hurt watching Jeff walk away. I was unsure of so many things, but I was sure that Jeff at least liked me. I don’t know what I expected from him, but I thought I deserved to have a proper goodbye. What happened at the bar made me feel like a cheap mistress.      I was mad at him for a long time which was also his fault because he didn’t call me at all, not once. We could have talked things over and maybe I would have been able to forgive him sooner. By the time I’d forgiven him and let it go, I felt like I’d missed my shot, that I was too late. I didn’t have his phone number, but I could have gotten it, I’d just gotten to where I was too scared to do so.      Oddly enough, it was Todd, the first AD from the movie, that was there to help me pick up the pieces and help me through my issues. Todd was the one who gave me a business card for a producer at Fox Studios. He’d lined up a job to be AD on an episode of “The X-Files” and suggested I send in my app. I’d had a quick interview over the phone with Kim Manners and he said he wanted to meet me, so I had decided to make a vacation of it and packed clothes for a week. I ended up staying for 3 years.      Kim had offered me the job and it was awesome. I got to work on one of the coolest shows on TV and it was nice to have a somewhat regular schedule. The show had run for twelve years and wasn’t renewed for another season, so I was out of a job. The studio was going to throw us a big party in LA a few weeks after the show wrapped. There would be a screening of the finale in an auditorium and some live music, probably more, in a ballroom at the same location. Pretty much everyone that had ever worked on the show was going to be there, and the usual celebrity invites were sent.

     You were in your bathroom getting ready to go to the party. You had curled your hair and had it pinned back so the curls cascaded down to your shoulders. You decided to wear a black dress. It was somewhat form fitting but the material felt like a t-shirt and that was what sold you on it. Simple silver jewelry, your star necklace that you always wore, black heels with an ankle strap and a clutch were your accessories.      “Babe, you ready to go yet?” Todd said from the bathroom door.      “Uh, yeah. How do I look, okay?” you said giving him the full view.      Todd’s mouth was hanging open just a bit. “Jesus.”      You smiled. “So, good?”      “Yeah, you look amazing,” he said.      His eyes briefly landed on the necklace. You knew Todd didn’t really like you wearing the necklace that Jeff had bought you, but he knew that it was more to you than something Jeff had given you. It reminded you to always work hard and never give up and it had paid off.

     You’d been promoted to a production coordinator the last year of the X-Files. Kim had fought hard for you to get that promotion and you’d wanted to knock it out of the park and make him proud. It certainly helped that it was the last year and if you messed it up too much, it really didn’t have much bearing on the show’s success!      Proving again that working hard and doing a good job for your employer pays off, Kim had given your name to someone he knew. This person was going to be an executive producer on a cable show tentatively named “Hack” for HBO. Just the week prior to the party and one week after production ended, you got a call from Bob Singer inviting you down to the States to begin filming in Philadelphia in just 2 months.      You crossed the room to him and pushed Todd out of the bathroom. You were both ready now and he drove you to the party.

     Whenever you were nervous, you touched the star that hung round your neck, and you were nervous now. Todd had gone ahead to find a spot for you to sit and you didn’t like being left alone to get through this big of a crowd. You hated being sentimental, but every time you touched it, you remembered how calming Jeff had been for you and it helped to settle your nerves. Events like this one worked your crowded spaces anxiety pretty hard. You were starting to feel hot. People were everywhere and people bumping into you was something that you had the most difficulty with. You never understood how people didn’t see you. You were quite tall even in flats and people would still bump you. “How do you not see me?!”  you always thought.      Your irritation meter was pegged. Your skin started to feel prickly. You swore if one more person bumped into you, you were going to give ‘em a piece of your mind. Where the hell was Todd?! You stopped to open your clutch to pull out your cell phone when it happened. Someone had slammed into you so hard, you stumbled sending your clutch and cell phone flying. You watched as the contents of your clutch emptied all over the red carpet.      “GODDAMNIT!” you didn’t yell, but you were definitely loud with your production coordinator voice in full effect. You felt all of the eyes turn toward you and your outburst, but you didn’t care, you were sick of people being so damn rude.      You crouched down to pick up the things that had fallen near your feet.      “I’m so sorry. No, no, let me do that,” a low, smooth voice said.      It had been a while, but you knew that voice. The goosebumps let you know you weren’t imagining it. The man’s shoes were beat up boots, he wore jeans, and if you stood up to look at his shirt, you would bet it was a t-shirt, maybe a suit jacket over it.      “Let me help you up,” he said.      You put one hand in his and the other went to the star around your neck. The old habit didn’t seem to help this time. You let go of his hand but couldn’t look up into his eyes.      The man put your things back inside your clutch.      “Sweetheart,” he said.      The goosebumps again. Where the hell was Todd?!      “You gotta let me apologize,” he said.      You put your hands on the clutch and tried to take it, but he wouldn’t let you.      “You already did,” you said.

Jeff’s side:

     He hated these events. The only thing they were good for was seeing old friends and networking, otherwise, it was all meaningless bullshit. Case in point, he’d just finished talking to an old acquaintance, Jerry, about getting together for drinks some night.      He’d finished his conversation with Jerry and, as he turned to walk inside, he didn’t notice the woman that had stopped behind him and he slammed into her, sending her little purse flying. It wasn’t until he saw the light glint off the star hanging around her neck that he realized who she was.      Oh Jesus, it’s (Y|N), he thought.      He wanted to dash away, but he couldn’t, not again. He’d wanted to call her so many times. He almost did more than a few, even dialed once or twice. He had good reasons, at the time, not to call. Now, he couldn’t remember what a single reason was.      He missed her a lot, at first. He often thought about that last night he was with her, how he almost kissed her at the hotel. If he was going to be honest with himself, he knew back then that something wasn’t right between him and Anya. If he had really been in love with his wife, he wouldn’t have had those feelings for (Y|N). It took him a long time to realize that he was drawn to her for a reason, and now here he was, literally running into her at an event.      She wouldn’t look at him when he called her “sweetheart.” He supposed he didn’t deserve to call her that anymore. All he wanted to do was tell her how sorry he was and that he should never have left with Anya, at least, not without saying goodbye. He wanted to explain to her why he did the things he did, but on the red carpet was not a good place to talk.

     “No, I mean for before. For leaving without saying goodbye, for leaving the way I did. It wasn’t fair to you. Can we talk about it sometime?” he said.      You really wanted to tell him off. He actually wanted to talk now. “You mean like you should have done three years ago?”      He had that coming and he knew it, “Yes, like that. Can I meet you after the party to talk?”      “You got a lot of balls asking me that,” you practically hissed. “Tell you what, if you can find me, you can talk to me.”      “Babe, everything okay?” Todd had finally reappeared.      The moment got very awkward as Todd realized it was Jeff who had caused (Y|N)’s current irritation.      “Oh, it’s you,” Todd said, unimpressed.      Jeff gave Todd the same look. Todd had been the cause of a lot of (Y|N)’s anxiety during their film shoot. What in the hell was he doing here with her?      “Todd, you remember Jeff,” you said.      “Of course, he does. Otherwise he wouldn’t be giving me that look right now. Are you two together?” Jeff asked.      “We are and we’re very happy,” Todd said holding his arm out to you.      You took it and he led you away. You couldn’t form a coherent thought until Todd had you seated in the auditorium.      “Wanna tell me what is going on?” Todd’s voice sounded accusatory.      “He ran into me and it made me drop my purse,” you said, still a little dazed. “I had no idea he’d be here.”      Todd was the one who had helped put you back together after the wrap-party incident. You thought you’d sorted through it all, but now it all came flooding back to you. The weight of the star resting on your chest was bound to suffocate you, but you couldn’t bear to take it off.

Todd’s side:

     He saw the whole thing, the look in her eyes when she watched him walk out the door, the tears that welled up. He’d gone to her and put an arm around her shoulders and helped her back to the table. He didn’t ask her if she wanted a drink, he just pushed his fresh drink in front of her and let her go. Todd had seen the way they were together, everyone had, and no one begrudged them any of it, sometimes a person had to take happiness when it presented itself. It had been obvious to everyone that they had something special, whatever it was. Watching Jeff throw it all away and the hurt he had caused (Y|N) had made it all come across so cheap.      It took a few days for what happened to really set in. She had a lot of issues to deal with and he’d been there for her. He had gotten a job in Vancouver and suggested she put in an app with the studio, and just as he’d thought, they offered her a job and they each got a place to live in Vancouver.      His feelings for her didn’t just happen overnight, it took a while and now they were in a place where she was good without Jeff and they had a good life together. They were even talking about getting a place together in Philadelphia rather than two separate places.

     “Do you want me to kick his ass?” he said seriously.      You tried not to laugh in Todd’s face. Instead, you just smiled at his offer. There was no way he could take Jeff. Jeff had at least 50 pounds on him and was probably 6 inches taller. Jeff was also not afraid to throw down and would destroy Todd.      “Don’t worry about it, Todd,” you said putting your hand on top of his. “I really don’t think he’ll be a bother.”      “Didn’t he say he wanted to talk to you?” Todd asked.      “Yeah, but his track record for that isn’t the greatest. Let’s just try to enjoy the party, okay?” you said, more calmly than you were feeling.