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amyscascadingtabs · 3 years ago

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don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you [chapter 1]

“Actually, I want to add one more rule.” “Yeah?” Jake leans back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head and flexing his biceps through the green shirt with a smug grin. “You’re not allowed to fall in love with me.” "Won't be a problem."

Amy Santiago doesn't date cops. Jake Peralta's sworn never to date a lawyer again. When a couple of drinks and the returning of a borrowed shirt ends with the two of them in bed together, Amy decides to take control of the situation the best way she knows how: a comprehensive set of rules. There's just one little thing she hadn't anticipated – Jake Peralta is full of surprises.

Written for the B99 Summer 2021 Fic Exchange.

AO3 link // playlist

My contribution to this year’s fic exchange, for @fezzle! @b99fandomevents 💛

1. i never saw you coming (and i’ll never be the same)

He gets out of the car, and before Amy can gather the courage to shout after him, he’s disappeared from her sight.

She leans her forehead against the steering wheel, squeezing her fist and punching it in frustration. It doesn’t feel better, just makes her hand hurt. Amy pretends that’s what’s making her eyes tear up, and not the thought that she just screwed up her chances of ever seeing Jake Peralta again.

five months earlier.

The cop is five minutes late entering the courtroom, and Amy vows to dislike him from that point onward.

What's worse is that he doesn't seem ashamed. He simply gives Judge Stewart an apologetic grin, runs a hand through his already messy hair, and sits down on the bench next to the sergeant Amy recognizes as Terry Jeffords. Amy gives him a polite faked smile to tell him she's noted this presence and she's going to win this case, but the cop doesn't seem to notice the toxicity in her facial expression, because she gets another wide grin back. Judging from the colorful marks on his teeth, it looks like he had candy for breakfast – could it be gummy bears? Either way, Amy's respect for the man sinks even lower.

At least she won't have to worry about him, she tells herself. She already knows this case is about to be a win.

That is until it turns out this man has a reply for everything. She’d been certain the evidence against her client was circumstantial at best, nowhere near enough to get him convicted on, and the notes she’d gone through from the initial police questioning had lacked significant information. It had been nothing short of sloppy, and she’d entered the courthouse this morning filled with glowing confidence. That same confidence is now seeping away, dripping onto the polished floors of the courtroom in exchange for heated frustration as it turns out the detective – Jake Peralta, she learns – was present at the scene earlier than Amy had gathered, and from the vantage point he had, saw her client running from the corner store at full speed.

“Would you say it’s possible my client was running for a different reason?” She asks, staring coldly into the detective’s eyes as she speaks. “Such as exercising, perhaps?”

“Well, he was carrying a huge green backpack, identical to the one he was wearing when my partner Charles caught him ten minutes later. So, no,” he says, meeting her look with a smug smile of his own. “I would say that’s unlikely.”

“But not impossible?”

“Considering we also found the stolen goods in that same backpack, I’d say the chance is pretty solid it was him.”

“The bags couldn’t have been switched? Or, as my client claims, the goods couldn’t have been dropped in there by someone who wanted to get rid of them?”

“With all due respect,” says Jake Peralta, and the self-assuredness in his voice is enough for her to know the case is lost. “The streets were more crowded than a Taylor Swift concert, your honor. Someone would have seen something.”

It’s late Friday afternoon by the time Amy returns to the office of Newsom & Associates, but there’s still plenty of her coworkers left to watch as she throws her briefcase on top of the chair before closing the door to her office and digging out her pack of shame cigarettes from the bottom drawer of her desk. The only window in the room opens out to a back alley with trash cans and forgotten bikes, which is a drab view most of the time but comes in handy for secret shame-smoking. She closes her eyes and leans back against the wall, trying to savor the first inhale. She hates the habit and always tells herself she’s going to quit soon, but at times when work stresses her out like this, there’s no better fix. It’s all Jake Peralta’s fault, anyway. He’d waved at her when they’d left the courtroom, looking genuinely pleased to see her, and that had only worsened her frustration. It’s one thing being defeated – it’s worse when the winner acts like it wasn’t even a big deal.

“You should stop that.” The sound of Rosa’s voice appearing in the doorway to Amy’s office causes her to inhale too much smoke, coughing and tearing up as she hurries to extinguish the cigarette butt on the windowsill. “It’s gross.”

“I needed it,” Amy coughs again before drying her eyes with the sleeve of her blazer. “You should’ve been there. That fucking detective ruined my defense.”

“So? It happens. Doesn’t make you a bad lawyer. Stop pitying yourself.”

“You’re just saying that because you win nearly all your cases,” Amy mumbles. “And everyone’s terrified of you.”

Rosa does a little shrug, but Amy thinks she can spot the hint of a smile on her lips. She can’t be certain, though. Rosa almost never smiles, but that’s not nearly the most terrifying thing about her. She also rides her motorcycle to court and wears leather jackets and skin-tight black jeans to trials, and somehow no one's ever dared to police her on it. Amy once asked her out of curiosity if putting on a blazer would really hurt that much, and the stare she got back told her she’d be a fool to make that mistake again.

“Either way, it's not that. It was that cop who ruined everything. I mean, he showed up late, for god’s sake, with candy in his teeth and a wrinkled suit! But he somehow had an answer and explanation for everything,” Amy snorts. “And he smiled the whole time like he’d already won. And he referenced Taylor Swift! During the trial! Who does that?”

Rosa lets out a laugh. “You're a Swift hater? God, please don't tell me you took Kanye’s side too.”

“I didn't – that's beside the point!”

“Which is?”

“That he has zero respect for the sacred rules of a courtroom, and gets away with it all because of that super-charm smile.”

“Yeah, you mentioned the smile. Twice.”

“It was just so…” She clenches her fist until her red nails press into her palm to the point of pain, then releases it. “It's fine. I’ll win my next case, and there are lots of cops in New York. I probably won't ever see him again.”

Amy can barely hide her frustration in court the next week when she hears the doors open and looks up from the papers she was sorting, only to see Jake Peralta for the second time in her life. He’s on time today, which she supposes is progress, but there are stains on his shirt that seem to be coming from the can of orange soda he’s holding in his hand. She wonders if it's his breakfast. If that's his diet, he looks surprisingly fit in a grey suit for it.

He grins again when he sees her, raising his hand in a lazy wave. Amy gives him a forced smile, then returns to her papers. She’ll have to make sure to win this time.

But despite her confidence and very best efforts, she loses to Jake Peralta yet another time.

And another.

It's not that she's suddenly magically unlucky, because she still manages to win several other cases, but every time Jake Peralta shows up to testify, without fault, Amy loses.

It infuriates her.

The worst part is that Jake seems oblivious to her anger. He smiles at her every time they leave the courtroom, even though she returns them with little to no genuineness at all. She once spots him doing a childish victory gesture outside the courthouse, but he never once takes the opportunity to brag about his win to her face.

Aside from his surprisingly good manners when it comes to bragging, though, he's a mess. There's always some kind of stain on his shirt or his cheek that he seems unaware of, his ways of describing things involve one too many pop culture references for Amy’s liking, and she starts preparing to meet him every time a detective is five minutes late. She wonders if no one's ever told him how one is supposed to behave in a courtroom, but he’s usually accompanied by the precinct’s sergeant, so that seems unlikely. The more likely option, Amy figures, is that he just doesn't seem to find it that important; especially considering he seems to get away with it every single time.

She swears it's all because of that stupid infectious smile.

It pleases Amy to no end when she learns that Jake Peralta is going to be the witness in one of the strongest cases she’s had in a long while. The client was clearly acting in self-defense, she has a witness of her own who can testify to that, and although she knows that nothing is for certain until the verdict falls, she’s got a good feeling about this one. Finally, the day has come for Jake Peralta to watch her win.

At first, the state attorney’s case seems solid. Jake is assisted by a short, round-faced man with dark brown hair and an expression that looks like he’s seconds away from apologizing for taking up everyone’s time, but his suit is matched and perfectly straight and he gets right to the point without any odd references, so Amy still earns a fair amount of respect for detective Charles Boyle. He and Jake had entered the subway car after hearing about a fight taking place, and stepped on just in time to watch her client aim a closed-fist punch at the face of the man on top of him. It’s clear and convincing, but Amy knows that after the recess, it will be her time to shine. She loves these moments, when it’s obvious the other side thinks they have it in the bag but she knows something they don’t, and they have no idea what’s coming. She knows trials are about justice and not personal victories – but she’s only human. Winning is always a thrill.

She’s thinking about how she’s going to be celebrating her win later this evening when Jake Peralta bumps into her at the coffee shop neighboring the courthouse. As in, literally bumps into her, with his elbow when he hurries forward to grab a plastic cup with whipped cream and so much caramel syrup on top of the coffee that Amy pities his dentist.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry… wait, it's you!” He shines up as if he’d just seen a past good friend, and Amy’s once more taken aback by how polite he is. A lot of cops she meets during trials either tend to make fun of her profession or glare bitterly at her from a distance, but Jake's doing neither. He even reaches out his free hand to shake hers, so she accepts. “Jake Peralta – wow, you have a very firm handshake.”

“I took a seminar. Amy Santiago.”

“Where?” He asks, but she ignores him and moves forward in line to order her coffee with milk.

“Nothing for your client? Wow. I’d expected you to have better manners than that, Santiago.”

“I offered, but he wanted to spend recess with his partner for moral support. See?” She raises a brow at him. “I do have manners.”

There's that smile again, up close this time, and Amy's relieved when the barista hands her the coffee so she can hide the involuntary blush in her cheeks. She never noticed he had dimples before.

“So, how are you feeling about the rest of the trial, then? Ready to go defend the guilty guy?”

“Innocent until proven guilty, Peralta. Famously one of the most sacred principles in the American justice system. And I was born ready.”

“And lose. The whole question was, are you ready to go defend the guilty guy and lose, and you said you were born that way.” Jake grins in a way that makes him look like an overgrown mischievous school kid. Maybe not that far off, Amy thinks.

“Twist my words all you want, I am winning this case.” She hesitates for a moment, noticing Jake's detective partner looking at the two of them from a table in the corner of the room. Not normally something she'd be that creeped out by, if it hadn't been for the fact that the man isn’t tearing his eyes away from them, and he looks weirdly overjoyed. “Uhm, is detective Boyle okay? He's staring at us pretty intensely.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, he has… an eye condition.” Jake turns around and mouths something that looks to be BOYLE, and the man rolls his eyes before stalking away. “Ignore him. Anyway… so what do you think about the judge?”

Amy's about to launch into a description of her good experience with judge Myers when someone brushes past her with their iced coffee in a hurry, losing control of the plastic cup. The unsecured lid wobbles, and before Amy realizes what’s about to happen, cold coffee splashes onto her earlier pristine white blouse. “Fuck!” She reaches for a bunch of paper napkins and tries to dab the worst away with them, but the milky coffee is already seeping through the fabric and leaving an obvious stain that her blazer can’t hide.

“What a jerk,” Jake mutters, glaring in the direction of where the stranger disappeared.

“Never mind that! I don’t have another shirt! I can’t go into a courtroom looking like this! Unlike you, I actually care about whether my clothes have giant stains on them!”

“First of all, rude, and second of all, they’re not giant.”

“I don’t care. I’m screwed. Fuck, I don’t have time to run back home before the trial starts – I guess I could call Rosa –”

“Hey, hey.” Jake holds up his hands as if trying to calm her down, which only makes Amy more frustrated. “I know this is kind of crazy, but, I have a shirt in my car that I was planning to return to my ex. But emphasis on ex, so…” He shrugs. “You could borrow it?”

Amy considers her options. On the one hand, she figures there’s about an eighty percent chance that whatever Jake has in his car also has some kind of mysterious stain on it, but on the other hand, she took the subway today and there's no way she’ll make it to her apartment and back before the court is back in session. Asking for a longer recess is an option, but making everyone wait simply because she needs a change of clothes makes her too uncomfortable to even consider.

“Fine,” she relents. “Where's your car?”

Jake's car turns out to be an old Mustang, which Amy can tell even from her strictly limited car-knowledge is pretty impressive, but she doesn't understand how he can find anything in there. The backseat is a mess of empty orange soda bottles, a couple of frisbees, candy wrappers, what looks to be cartoons and old CDs, and the cup holders have shaving foam next to another can of orange soda. She's equally surprised and impressed when he pulls out a clean, dark blue charmeuse blouse. Whoever Jake's ex-girlfriend was, she seems to have both taste and money.

“You're totally saving my day today,” she says as he gives it to her. “You really didn't have to.”

“Prove that cops aren't all bad?” Amy rolls her eyes, and Jake laughs. “Just kidding. You have to give it back, though.”

“As soon as I’ve washed it. Wait, we have to be able to get in touch.” She digs in the inside pocket of her briefcase and pulls out two of her business cards. “I’m assuming you don't have any, so write your number on the back of that one.”

“Rude, but correct.” He scribbles down something on one of the cards before giving it back. “I’ll see you up there, then… Amy Santiago.”

Something about the way he says her name, slowly and with perfect pronunciation, makes her want to hear it again. She hurries back into the building and toward the bathrooms, hopefully before he can tell that she's blushing.

“The defense may call the next witness.”

“The defense calls Elinor Simons.” Amy can feel everyone's eyes on her as well as the witness as a young girl, no more than eighteen, walks up to the stand. She's pale, but she looks determined, and Amy gives her a comforting smile as she swears the oath.

Elinor’s voice trembles at her first words, but Amy keeps steady eye contact with her, and soon she’s speaking louder and less hesitant. She had been on her way to her friend’s house when she entered the same subway car as the two young men, and had overheard the two of them fighting over something. Sitting only a few seats away from them in the near-empty car, she’d noticed the defendant looking scared, and out of curiosity, had turned off her music. She’d heard the man who’d later gotten attacked – Mr. Lorentz – scream that the defendant was an asshole, and then she’d seen him push him to the floor, much unlike the way the prosecution had described a course of events in which both men had slipped. It had scared her, so she’d gotten up to walk away, but before she could move she’d seen Mr. Lorentz leaning down.

“It looked like he was about to hit the defendant,” she says without wavering, and Amy can see a few of the jury members nodding in understanding. “And even if they were about the same size, Mr. Lorentz looked really strong. The defendant tried, but it seemed to me like he was unable to get up. I remember thinking this wasn’t going to end well, so I headed for the end of the car before they noticed me.”

“And you’re sure of what you saw?”

“Completely sure. I only found out later that the defendant was a cousin of my sister’s boyfriend, which is how I learned about the trial.”

Amy nods and clasps her hands together, trying to assume a confident stance as she keeps her eyes focused on the witness stand. “Elinor, in the position he was in, do you believe that the defendant would have been scared?”

“I think anyone would have been.”

“So the punch witnesses watched the defendant throw, could it have been in self-defense?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

Amy smiles. “Thank you. No further questions.”

The prosecution’s closing arguments are short and precise, sticking entirely to the part of the events that took part after the police walked in. The district attorney, a balding man in his fifties, as good as overlooks Elinor’s testimony in favor of focusing in on detailed descriptions of the headaches Mr. Lorentz had experienced after the event, and that alone is enough to make Amy’s blood boil; but instead she just sits there, waiting with a polite smile on her lips.

Finally, the other attorney sits down, and the judge nods at Amy to stand up. During her very first trials, this moment used to freak her out – everyone’s eyes on her and waiting expectantly – but with time she’s come to love this. It reminds her of the thrill of getting the last word in a heated fight with her siblings when she was younger, only now, she doesn’t have to shout to be heard. Everyone’s already listening.

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury: it’s correct that the defendant hit Mr. Lorentz on that train. He admits to doing so himself.” Amy nods to the young man sitting next to her, fidgeting nervously with the cuffs on his shirt. “But there is one key aspect which the prosecution has so conveniently chosen to ignore, and that is the events which led up to Mr. Petersen’s actions. A background which he not only has explained clearly himself, but which is also backed up by Ms. Simmons’ testimony.” She gestures with her hand to Elinor.

“You see, Mr. Petersen wasn’t acting unprovoked. When the incident happened, he had been pushed to the floor, and like both my client and the witness described, he was unable to get up. Mr. Lorentz himself admits to practicing weightlifting; he’s not a weak man, and in the moment, he was clearly upset with the defendant. As Ms. Simmons put it… “ She takes a break to gather the attention of everyone in the room. “Anyone in that position would have been terrified.”

“Under New York Law, Penal Law paragraph thirty-five point fifteen, a person is justified in using physical force against another, when that person is under the reasonable belief that the physical force is necessary to defend the person from what they reasonably believe to be the illegal imminent use of force or the illegal use of force. Mr. Petersen was stuck, and under the reasonable belief that Mr. Lorentz could hurt him unless he managed to free himself. He acted in self-defense, which I remind you that the prosecution has not been able to disprove. In fact, the case against Mr. Petersen cannot be proved against reasonable doubt, which means that you must find him… not guilty.”

From the other side of the room, she swears she can feel Jake’s eyes on her. When she looks up, she sees him mouthing nice job.

“What did you say he looked like, now again? Except for crazy hot and adorable?” Kylie takes another sip of her mojito, spying over the crowded bar.

“Okay, I said neither of those things.”

Kylie shrugs. “Didn’t have to.”

“Ugh. Whatever. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium height, I guess kind of a bigger nose… and I don’t know what he wears outside of court, but there was a leather jacket in the front seat of his car, so maybe that?” She strains her neck to try and see through the Friday night crowd. She’s never been to this particular Brooklyn bar before, but Jake had suggested it when Amy asked about a good place to give him back the shirt, and she’d figured after a long week, she might as well treat herself to a couple of after-work drinks with a friend. After being asked about the so-called mystery hottie five times, though, she’s starting to regret bringing Kylie along.

“Mm, that’s like, all the guys in here… oh, wait, that one’s waving to you!” Kylie points to a figure near the door, elbowing Amy in the side and causing her to nearly choke on her wine. She’s still coughing when Jake walks up to them, trying to offer him a smile while drying her eyes. Jake looks politely confused, but shakes Kylie’s hand in the meantime.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” she says with a meaning wink to Amy before sliding off the leather barstool, leaving it for Jake. “Have a good night!”

“Ignore her.” Amy sighs. “Sorry, I…”

“No, no worries,” Jake says, and the honest care in his expression makes her feel oddly warm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry.” She waves a dismissive hand and picks up the dry-cleaning bag hanging on the back of her chair. “Well, here’s the shirt. Thank you for the loan. Or thank your ex, I suppose.”

“Dry-cleaned, really? You truly are type A.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing, it makes sense.” He nods to the glass in her hand. “Celebrating Tuesday’s win?”

“Something like that. It was Monday, though,” she can’t stop herself from correcting him. “I don’t get a lot of time off. Gotta make the best out of it.”

“Yeah, me neither. Do you mind if I join you for another drink? Or maybe you should do water, in case you choke again?”

Something about the way he poses it like a challenge makes her take the glass, put it to her lips, and swallow the rest of the wine in one gulp. “I think I can handle it.”

They pay for their own drinks, because whatever this meeting is, it’s definitely not a date, and it makes Amy relieved that Jake doesn’t seem to think so either.

“A toast,” he suggests. “To your win this week. I gotta give it to you, those closing statements were solid.”

“To justice,” Amy says, and they raise their beer bottles in unison. “And my win. Finally.”

“Yeah, what has it been, like, five wins for me?”

“Four, but dream on, Peralta.”

Jake laughs. The dimples in his cheeks become even more prominent when he laughs, Amy notes. “Have you always been this intense about winning cases, then? Or is it something that comes with law school? Like there’s a class in being petty about this stuff?”

You’re intense too, she thinks, but doesn’t say it out loud. “Maybe. I have seven brothers, and I was the only girl. I got pretty good at winning fights using other things than physical strength when I was a kid. Actually, sometimes physical strength, too.”

“I feel like you could beat someone up if you wanted to. You could surprise them.”

“Oh, I could most definitely beat someone up if I wanted to. But I stuck to arguing. I got good at it. And I always had good grades, so I ended up at Columbia, and I’ve never really regretted it.” She takes a swig of her beer. “Not even when cops call me the devil.”

“I wouldn’t call you the devil,” Jake says. “I mean, do I think you lack a bit of a moral compass? Probably. But each to their own.”

She leans her head a little bit to the side, eyeing him closely. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, you have to defend people that you know did awful things, right? Doesn’t that make you feel sick sometimes?”

“I don’t have to defend their actions. Most times, it’s not even about that. It’s about making sure the trial is fair, the evidence is sufficient and their rights are respected, so that if there’s a conviction, it’s actually beyond any reasonable doubt. I like to believe most people are better than their worst moments. I see it as my job to make sure they’re treated that way.”

“Huh.” Jake nods slowly. “Guess I never thought of it that way.”

“Plus,” she winks, “someone’s gotta hold you guys accountable, right?”

“Fine.” He shakes his head. “Hey, did you say you went to Columbia? My captain’s husband teaches law there. Did you ever have a Kevin Cozner?”

“No way! Your captain is Raymond Holt?” She’s speaking way too loudly, she can tell from the way other people are glancing at her, but Jake looks entertained. “Sorry, it’s just – Professor Cozner was my favorite constitutional law teacher. I still send him and Raymond Christmas cards every year!”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.” Jake grins. “But, how weird is that? Almost like the universe is bringing us together or something.”

Amy thinks that it’s not that weird, since Kevin must teach hundreds of students every year that g on to become lawyers, but she kind of wants to keep seeing that smile on Jake’s face forever, so she nods. “So weird.”

They order another drink, plus some chips and nuts when Jake realizes he forgot to eat dinner, and move to another table in the back of the room. Amy’s surprised how comfortable she feels in his presence. It’s like she can’t wipe the smile off her face but doesn’t want to, and with time and a little more alcohol, jokes that she barely would have noticed on any other day become laugh-out-loud funny. It feels natural, even though she’s not sure how, and she tries not to glance at the clock on the wall when he doesn’t either. She’s got work to do tomorrow and she can’t stay out forever, but she doesn’t want to be reminded that this evening has to end at some point.

“So what made you become a cop, then?” She asks when she realizes she’s the only one who’s shared her origin story tonight. “Childhood superhero dreams?”

Jake shines up like he’s been waiting for the question all night. “Oh, that’s easy. Die Hard.”

“Really?”

“For sure. Actually, my mom said I was always good at protecting people, so I ended up doing it for a job. But I think that’s bullshit. It was definitely Die Hard.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Amy confesses, and Jake stares at her like she just insulted his entire being. “But if you want a cop movie, my top three’s Training Day, Lethal Weapon, and Fargo.”

“Wrong, wrong, and wrong! How can you not have seen Die Hard? It’s classic, man!”

“I just never did! How many lawyer movies have you seen, then?”

“Uhm…” Jake squints. “Charles made me watch Legally Blonde once? It was pretty good, honestly.”

“Well, duh, that movie is a cinematic masterpiece and a feminist work of art. How feminist is Die Hard, from a scale of one to ten?”

“Hey! Holly Gennaro does plenty of cool stuff throughout the movies! You’re just going to have to watch them yourself.”

“I can almost guarantee you I won’t.”

“Fine, but you’re missing out.” He grabs a couple of peanuts from the jar between them, throwing them in the air and catching them in his mouth. “Cool trick, right?”

Amy raises an eyebrow. “Is this what you do at work all day?”

“I did teach myself that during stakeouts, but no. Whatever. Throw me another one.” She does, and he catches it again, this time almost sliding off the barstool in the process. She laughs a bubbling laugh as he does it another time. “Now you.”

“Fine. Try me.” The peanut flies through the air between them, and she tries to dive for it, but it just ends up landing at her feet. “Okay, another one.” She misses that one too. “Okay, there must be something wrong with these nuts.”

“Title of your sextape.”

“Title of my what?”

“Nevermind.” Jake laughs. “You just need some practice. Maybe at work? It could liven up a trial.”

“Nuh-uh, don’t need practice. Just need a better tactic.” Without thinking, she grabs a handful of them this time, throwing them in the air. This time, she catches a few of them in her mouth, while the rest end up spread over the couch and floor. “The key is volume!”

“Yeah, and the bartender is looking at you like he wants to kill you, so maybe don’t do it again or we’ll get thrown out.”

“It’s fine, I’m a lawyer.”

“That phrase works well to get out of trouble?”

“If you know what you’re doing. We could order more drinks to keep him happy?”

“Shots?”

“I’m down if you’re down.”

Jake orders a Kamikaze shot for each of them, and as she reaches forward to take the second glass, her hand brushes against the top of his for a moment longer than necessary, resting there. It’s warm, and it feels calloused but somehow soft at the same time. They look at each other, his light brown eyes staring into hers, and she feels instantly hyper-aware that they’re around far, far, too many people.

She lets go of his hand, taking the shot and swallowing it before anyone can notice what’s happening. It smells like sour hand sanitizer and burns going down, and she laughs at Jake’s grimace when he drinks his.

“God, every time.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “Hey, I know this is crazy, but… do you maybe want to get out of here? We could have another drink at my place… watch Die Hard… whatever.”

“Mm, yeah. Maybe I should check that the shirt gets back to your place properly?”

“Shirt? What shirt? Oh, right, fuck, the shirt!” Jake spins in place, rushing back to the table where they were just sat. “Shit, I probably spilled beer on it, Sophia’s going to be pissed now...”

“It’s still in the bag, smartass.” Amy shows him. “Ta-da. Shirt’s still clean. Comes in handy being type A sometimes, huh?”

Jake sighs. “I know you're making fun of me, but I could seriously kiss you right now.”

Maybe it’s the four drinks, maybe it’s the thrill that comes with how rarely she does this, or maybe it’s just sheer and wild impulse, but Amy finds herself whispering,

“Maybe we should get out of here, then.”

Amy learns a lot of things that night.

She learns that Jake Peralta is a seriously good kisser, tasting faintly of orange soda beneath the alcohol and salt, and that being pressed against his front door with his hands protecting her head strikes the perfect balance between feeling adventurous and safe. She learns that he’s never really quiet, soft moans and sighs filling the room in the breaks between their kisses, but that the sound only makes her want more.

She learns that he wears even more layers than her. Beneath the leather jacket and hoodie is a checkered blue flannel that has way too many buttons for her liking right now, and she curses her slight tipsiness while working at them one by one. When she's finally done, Jake pulls the grey t-shirt over his head, and she barely has time to pause to admire how he somehow can look fit despite that catastrophic diet, or the curls on his chest that are begging for her to run her fingers through them, before he's asking “my turn?”. She learns that Jake Peralta is impatient, that his hands work fast on the buttons of her cerise shirt, and that he gets adorably confused when he can't find the button on her suit pants.

“It's on the side,” she tells him and shows him the zipper, and then they're both giggling until she kisses him like that and it's back on again.

She learns that his hands feel good, sliding slowly up the sides of her stomach and back and rubbing against her shoulder blades. She unclasps the white t-shirt bra for him, smiling to herself as he swallows quickly.

“God, you’re hot,” he whispers, and the soft bites he trails down her chest and stomach make her feel that way, too.

They move to his bed, leaving a trail of clothes behind them, and then she’s underneath him and breathing hard as his mouth moves lower, closer. The anticipation of it all is driving her mad, but then he looks up at her and asks “okay?” with the most sincere and caring expression, and Amy’s had very, very few one-night-stands in her life, but she’s certainly never had one like this.

“Okay,” she nods, and there’s that familiar grin again, but this time it makes her feel warm in a very specific place.

She learns that Jake Peralta can do a whole lot more with his mouth than talking people’s ears off. His breath ghosts over her through her underwear at first, warming her up even though it’s barely even necessary, and then he’s finally pulling down the black material and helping her kick them off. His tongue is careful at first, just tasting her as if to gauge her expression, but then she nods at him to continue and the next second, her head is thrown back as she lets out a gasp.

She learns that he likes it when she pulls his hair. At first, her hands are just lightly tangling in it for practicality, but then she holds on tighter as a means of control when her legs begin to tense up and the familiar pressure is starting to rise. She’s raising her hips slightly only to lower them again, helping him get her there, and the curls of his hair are just begging to be pulled.

“Do that again,” he pauses to say, so she tugs his hair harder and he straight-up moans.

She learns that he can make her scream, which she wasn’t expecting, and she rocks through the euphoric waves and pants and practically melts into the bed as she comes down from it.

“That good?” He winks, and she wants to roll her eyes, but he did just make her come harder than she remembers doing in a long time, so she kisses the smile off of him instead, tasting her arousal on his lips.

She learns that he's respectful and a gentleman, telling her that they can stop this here if she'd rather, but she doesn’t want to, and they don’t. He has to rifle through the drawer in his bedside table for a while before he finds a condom – maybe he doesn’t do this as often as she’d thought, maybe it’s another sign of his poor organization skills, but he finds one soon enough so she’s not sure she cares – and then it’s a little bit of a blur, but she rolls it on him with precise strokes and lowers herself on top of him and oh my god.

She learns that when he looks at her, when he touches her, it makes her feel powerful and special all at once. He plays with her boobs as she sets the pace, his thumbs rolling against her nipples in a way she didn’t realize she liked, and she picks up her rhythm, clenching around him and leaning back on his raised thighs.

She learns just how enjoyable it is to watch him fall apart underneath her. His pace stutters and he curses, groaning a confession of how close he is, and she could almost come again from watching him alone but she brings two fingers to her clit and touches herself anyway. He finishes before her, spilling out inside the condom with a moan that she can only imitate, collapsing against his chest as she brings herself to orgasm again right after him.

When they're done learning, they collapse together in his bed. For a moment, Amy considers turning around and calling a cab home, because that would be the most responsible thing to do, but then Jake throws an arm around her to pull her closer, and after all, she's still a little tipsy.

What harm could it possibly do, anyway?

Sharp, unforgiving morning light wakes Amy up before her alarm the next morning. She must have forgotten to close the blinds last night, she thinks, and rolls over on the other side so the light doesn't hurt her eyes. She expects the usual greeting of a sea of pillows, and has to stop herself from letting out a yelp of surprise when instead, she's hit with a wall of Jake sleeping with his back to her. A vague memory of them falling asleep like this hits her. He’d wanted to be the little spoon, she remembers.

At first, knowing that intimate fact about him makes her feel proud. Then it makes her panic.

She jumps out of bed, throwing off her part of the comforter in search of her clothes. She finds her underwear and bra together with her shirt, trying to dress as quietly as possible, quick before Jake wakes up and discovers that she's half-naked in his apartment and they have to have a very, very awkward talk –

“Amy? What are you doing?”

Too late.

She freezes on the spot, chewing on her lip as she fumbles for an explanation. Jake’s eyes rake over her with curiosity, which somehow feels a lot more exposing today than it did last night, and it's making her lose track of her words. His bed head curls and disoriented smile is decidedly not helping her focus.

“We slept together last night,” she manages.

Jake’s smile grows wider and prouder as he sits up fully in bed. Amy blushes as she notices the shadow of two hickeys way too close to his neck to be professional.

“Yeah, I was there.”

“Very funny.” She sees her pants thrown across the back of a massage chair and quickly reaches for them. “But this… You know this can’t be a thing, right? Just so we're on the same page about it.”

Jake frowns. “What do you mean with a thing?”

“This – us – we can't date, Jake. I know that. You know that.”

He’s silent for a moment before he fakes a shudder. “Yeah, yeah, no. I’ve dated lawyers before. Never ends well.”

“You have?” The reveal surprises her. “It doesn't matter. This can’t happen.”

“I know.”

“Good,” she exhales. “I’m just going to find my clothes, then, and then I’m going to leave.”

“Hey, wait.” He twists his hands together, bringing them to his chin with a smile. “This is going to sound weird, but… even if nothing can happen between us, I’m still glad we had sex last night.”

The confession takes her by surprise, and Amy wonders again if she just doesn't know anything about one-night-stands. Sleep together, have fun, sneak out in the morning before anything can go deeper – isn't that how it's supposed to go? If so, she's majorly failing, because she can't stop herself from giving him another shy smile in return.

“Me too. Just because, we were like… really good at it.”

“Stupid good!” Jake exclaims. “It makes no sense!”

“We still can't date, though,” she reminds him. “So how do we work this out?”

“Well, it sort of looked like you were planning to just leave, and I’m not going to stop you if that's your choice, but… there is one more option.”

“What are you thinking?”

“We could be friends with benefits,” he shrugs. “None of the commitment, none of the weird incompatibilities between a cop and a lawyer, just us and some stupid good sex.”

“Friends with benefits? Do the kids really say that, still?”

“I’m saying you could consider it.”

Amy's first instinct is to protest, to say absolutely not and leave on the spot. Her relationship history may not contain that many names, but at least they’ve all been fairly straightforward and conventional. She's never done something like this before, and the mere idea of jumping into something so unknown with someone like Jake scares her shitless.

Then again, she's also never been with someone like Jake. Yesterday hadn't been a date, but it had still been better than all the awkward dinners and half-hearted walks she's been at since she broke up with Teddy a year ago. And the sex – well, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't already thinking of doing that again.

“There would need to be rules,” she says.

“Sure, we can come up with some.”

“I’ll write a contract.”

“We need a contract?”

“Yeah,” she decides. “If this is going to work, we need a comprehensive set of rules, and they need to be written down, because I don't trust you not to adjust them in your head last minute.”

“How am I attracted to you? But, fine.”

Amy shakes her head, closing the last button on the shirt that had been left unbuttoned until now. “So… I’ll put together a draft and bring it over tonight? Your place?”

Jake gapes at her for a moment like he can't believe what he hears, but then he nods. “I’m free.”

“Cool. I’ll see you tonight, then.” With that, she pulls on her socks and shoes, leaving before she can freak out again.

“Cool, cool,” she hears just before closing the door. “Friends with benefits. Cool, cool, cool, cool… cool.”

#b99fandomevents #b99 summer 2021 fic exchange #my writing #b99 #peraltiago #jake x amy #b99 fic #b99 fanfiction #jake x amy fanfiction #peraltiago fanfiction #MY FIRST AU PLEASE ENJOY #three more parts to come hahah but i'm only going to post one before the deadline #read on ao3 if you want line breaks since tumblr has ruined those

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verobatto · 6 years ago

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Destiel Chronicles

(Vol. IX)

It was a love story from the very beginning.

Are you flirting with me?

(5x02//5x03//5x10)

Hi my friends!!; How are you? Enjoying the hiatus???

I'm here with another volume of these Destiel Chronicles.

This one is about how flirty was Dean in this season.... I woul say if CAS would managed the pop culture knowledge back then.... Things maybe would be different... A shipper can dream 🤣🤣

Ok... Let's start. I want to say thank you to my friend @agusvedder for the gifs she made for this meta. You are amazing girl!!

"I feel naked"

When Castiel met Dean and Sam at the hospital in 5x02 he had a plan, he wanted to find God.

Bobby was there, and asked him to heal him, but Cas revealed something very hard for him...

CASTIEL: I'm cut off from heaven and much of heaven's power. Certain things I can do. Certain things I can't.

This is very important, because is one of the consequences of becoming a rebel angel, and after this, there was a conversation between Dean and Castiel about God, but I will talk about it in another volume.

What I will take from that scene... Will be the intense gaze Castiel gave to Dean when he borrowed from him the necklace.

BOBBY: You didn't drop in just to tear us a new hole. What is it you want?

CASTIEL: I did come for something. An amulet.

BOBBY: An amulet? What kind?

CASTIEL: Very rare. Very powerful. It burns hot in God's presence. It'll help me find him.

(...)

BOBBY: Well, I don't know what you're talking about. I got nothing like that.

CASTIEL: I know. You don't.

This gaze Castiel gives Dean is full of dominance and sexual tension. His eyes fixed on the hunter and then the necklace, and then again on the hunter. Should make Dean feel very uncomfortable... Even so... He should feel too a little confused, Castiel uses to look at him with that intensity, but this time, was almost scandalous... So that could be taken as a flirtation? Dean couldn't tell... Just because CAS was an angel...

Yes. Too close. Dean feels a little awkward, that could be seen as a sexual scene... And the way Cas keeps looking at him...

Castiel wants the amulet... He really wants it. And that's kind of a treasure to Dean. He finally decided to lend it to the angel. He trusts Castiel.

CAS: Dean, give it to me.

And after that, Dean said this...

This could be taken as two things...

1) he always wears the amulet, so not having it now made him feel "naked" but also...

2) the intense way Castiel was staring at him, maybe made him feel that way, if you know what I mean... 😏

Walking on the edge

So, immediately after this episode, we had "Free to be you and me", in which Cas went to ask Dean for help. We had the classic personal space..

Because Castiel always was standing too close to Dean, even if Dean didn't move, that was something put Dean on the edge. A very attractive and dominant angel standing so close... Was like awkward to him, but maybe not less exciting.

DEAN: You find God yet? More importantly, can I have my damn necklace back, please?

CASTIEL: No, I haven't found him. That's why I'm here. I need your help.

DEAN: With what? God hunt? Not interested.

CASTIEL: It's not God. It's someone else.

DEAN: Who?

CASTIEL: Archangel. The one who killed me.

DEAN: 'Scuse me?

CASTIEL: His name is Raphael.

DEAN: You were wasted by a teenage mutant ninja angel?

CASTIEL: I've heard whispers that he's walking the earth. This is a rare opportunity.

DEAN: For what? Revenge?

CASTIEL: Information.

Here is Castiel trying to convince Dean to help him, and Dean maybe thinking "is not going to be that easy" after the "keep your opinions to yourself" God discussion they had the previous episode on the hospital (topic I will talk in another volume) the thing is, we can observe in Dean's facial expressions and the way he was talking to CAS, he should suffer just a little and he will enjoy see how the angel asks for his help.

DEAN: So, what, you think you can find this dude and he's just gonna spill God's address?

CASTIEL: Yes, because we are gonna trap him and interrogate him.

Dean is giving Cas more of the same, but he was really enjoying it, just as a prologue for the flirtation. Cas looked at him so intensely that sometimes he couldn't figure out that was the angel flirting with him or not.... now they were alone, why not just try something? and suddenly...

This classic quote with that classic Destiel scene I'm which Dean was SO BLANTANT IN TRYING TO SEDUCE/FLIRT WITH THE ANGEL, playing with the edge. Why not? He was always standing so close to him, looking at him so intensely... Was Castiel trying to seduce him? Well... If that was so... He will try this shot... But this shot is like trying to flirt in Spanish with a Japanese. Ofc Castiel wouldn't understand that reference. He was an angel without knowledge about pop culture, as Dean could noticed. But he went and tried anyway. And immediately after that, the frowned expression on the angel's face, and Dean realizing what he was trying to do.... "What am I doing?" That's the expression he showed there. "I'm flirting with CAS and he didn't even noticed... I'm so stupid, better stop here."

DEAN: Give me one good reason why I should do this.

CASTIEL: Because you're Michael's vessel and no angel will dare harm you.

DEAN: Oh, so I'm your bullet shield.

And then... Castiel begged Dean... Beacuse he had been cut off from heaven, he hadn't friends or angels to help him, he just had Dean. Because when he decided to follow Dean, to fell for him, he lost his privileges... He lost everything, as he'd told him in the hospital. He only had Dean... Now was his time asking him for help... As that time in the green room... It was time for Dean to help Castiel... And he begged him, ashamed...

How could Dean said no? Ofc he was about to say yes from the beginning... He was just enjoying the moment. You can tell for his face when he accepted to help. He checks Cas and lick his lips. Yeah... The sexual tension, the attraction Dean feels for CAS is so evident in Dean's facial expressions...

"Last night on Earth"

This is Dean line to get laid, is obvious it worked that night with Anna... But why he had to tell this again in this episode.... And to CAS???

If this scene wasn't followed by these lines....

I wouldn't think what Dean was trying to do here... He was trying to guess if CAS was on it or not... But this time was more directly that with the Thelma and Louise reference, this time he explained, openly, that two characters were gays and more than friends... He gave him a guide to understand he was trying to figure out what was going on there between them. But Cas didn't get that again. So Dean continuing his torture... He was enjoying this whole situation. Make this angel getting nervous. Asking inappropriate questions. Castiel was cute. He was a badass and all of that. But he was cute. He was discovering that. He really was having a great time.

I will talk about what happened later in my other volumes, now I need to make a jump into 5x10... Another... Last night on Earth...

He loves Jo as a sister, but hell if he would have time to get laid with her... He will certainly do that. And this was an excellent opportunity. He will use his line again... But he was rejected because Jo was too smart for that.

And certainly... This cycle about this line to pick up people and get laid will have to stop ...

He used it with Anna, successfully, with CAS... Just making some research on him... And now on Jo. Well, who ended it? It was CAS again... Castiel using Dean's quote to pick up ladies... Ended with CAS. Cas will become his one and only.

To conclude

Dean felt confused by the way Castiel stays so close to him or just looked at him so intensely, so he tried to test the angel by flirting with him.

And beacuse Can was always so dominant and badass, he really enjoyed making him trying to convince him for helping him.

He really enjoyed this hunt with Castiel, as we will see in the next volumes!

Castiel lack of pop culture knowledge gave Dean the opportunity of walking on the edge between flirtation and friendship. He allowed himself to do that knowing Cas wouldn't pick up those advances from him. He just needed to do it... Because he is Dean Winchester after all... And Cas was that perfect mix between badass, innocent, cute and sassy.

I hope you like this volume! C-u in the next one!

Tagging @metafest @gneisscastiel @mrsaquaman187 @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @agusvedder @weirddorkylittlediana @michyribeiro @castiellover20 @whyjm @koshisekisen @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @cheerstofandomfamily @drsilverfish @savannadarkbaby @angelneedshunter @trickster-archangel @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfatmydoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @mishka-the-angel-of-saturday @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @hippyatheart80 @xsghn @foxyroxe-art @authorsararayne @anonymoustitans @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @wildligia @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow

If you want to be part of this tag list, please let me know.

If you want to check the first volume from season 5 is here.

Buenos Aires May 2nd 2019 8:27 PM

#supernatural meta #destiel meta #estiel chronicles #volume ix #season 5 meta

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kuuderekun · 6 years ago

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Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question.

For the second week in a row Magical Girl Site is the only show I really want to comment on. But I'm still enjoying all the shows I'm currently watching. I mentioned in my Astolfo post how I don't use the term "Trap" to describe characters who are actually Trasngender. The only problem with making that hard distinction is Japanese media doesn't always use the same terminology we use in the west, so it's not always clear what the writers are going for. For example I'm still not sure what we're supposed to think of Ruka in Steins;Gate, I like that in the new series they seem more comfortable with their gender identity, but I'm still unsure what it's supposed to be. Episode 7 of Magical Girl Site introduced the character of Kiyoharu Suirenji. Going off what we see in this episode alone I would have to conclude she is a Transwoman and not merely a Crossdresser because of her using the girl's bathroom and that being an issue. I don't think a CisMale Crossdresser would use the girl's bathroom. However her seemingly not objecting to others calling her a boy complicates the matter, but it could be she's just someone who doesn't want to get confrontational about it. But I also could have missed something there since I'm watching it Subbed because there is no Dub. In the episode's MAL forum one user who's read the Manga says the character is definitely a Transwoman. That user is defending using the proper terminology to refer to her. However there is at least one user there being very blatantly Transphobic. Most of what we see of the character in the episode I like. However we are given a glimpse of the character having a dark side, with her saying she'll get revenge in the distant future. Now this is a Dark Magical girl show where most characters have something dark about them. But I'm still recovering from the disappointment of my favorite Western TV show of all time, Pretty Little Liars blowing it with it's handling of this issue. People sometimes ask whether bad representation is better then no representation. It is interesting that if this show had never brought the issue up I would probably have never singled it out to criticize for lack of Trans representation. But as soon as they provide some representation it doesn't take long for me to start being on edge about her being mishandled. I'd been praising the show for it's unsanitized depiction of Bullying, I should then be thrilled to see that theme expand to showing the bullying Trans Women endure. But instead I'm worried about the implications of this character either turning evil or dying. But I now realize that, yeah, I should be criticizing Magical Girl shows for failing to include trans representation (and even Sailor Moon fails to include any true Trans representation, the Starlights were simply a gender bending gimmick). They frequently try to have very diverse casts allowing many different kinds of girls to be magical girls, representing many different forms of the adolescent female experience in Japan. I think we're long overdue for a Trans Magical Girl and it's unfortunate that the Dark Magical Girl Genre people are back lashing against now was the first to do it. This subject happened to be on my mind already before I saw episode 7. You may have noticed I posted about a Batman movie that features The Riddler yesterday. Well Batman and The Riddler being on my mind reminded me that back when I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what kinds of Batman films I'd make I had came up with a concept that re-imagined The Riddler as a Trans Woman. But then decided that I wasn't comfortable casting a Trans character as a villain in our current climate. Homosexual representation in media has reached the point where you can have Gay villains without it automatically reinforcing the same harmful stereotypes that used to keep Gays only as villains or victims in American fiction. But Trans representation, especially for Trans Women, has not, as clearly shown by what happened with Pretty Little Liars. I absolutely believe the writers of that show had the best of intentions, they wanted to say Transphobia is the ultimate cause of the tragedy, but regardless Charlotte being the only Trans representation the show had left the LGBT community who at one point loved the show deeply offended. Ironically this Trans Woman Riddler idea had developed in my mind before season 6 of PLL happened. And yet my vision for The Riddler was influenced by PLL before the Trans Woman aspect was a part of it. PLL started airing back when Batfans were still hoping The Riddler would be in the third Nolan Batfilm. And I from day one immediately felt how -A operated on PLL was a good reference point for how to "Nolanize" The Riddler. So in hindsight Charlotte DiLaurentis kind of resembles the Trans Woman Riddler concept I'd been thinking of. And how that whole controversy helped shape how I think about this issue is probably a factor in why I dropped the idea. Still my envisioned backstory for her (which I don't entirely remember) was far from identical. And of course I also regardless of the character's gender or ethnic identity prefer The Riddler to not be a murderer. It would be admittedly hard to keep that in tact when making The Riddler the main antagonist of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, but I do think it's workable. So in that sense my Riddler was closer to Mona then Charlotte. But now I can't help but wonder if outright abandoning it was simply the Cowards way out (Realistically I'll probably never get to make a Batman film anyway, but this is hypothetical). For example if I have good guys in the movie who are also Trans that could certainly help make it salvageable. Part of what was so harmful about the Charlotte story-line was caused by the need for it to be a twist, that the character who turned out to be "Charles" had been posing as a Cis Woman. And that's the main problem with my initial concept here. The starting premise before any Gender issues factored into it was allowing a Batman movie that's actually a Mystery/Detective story by having us not know who The Riddler is. But I now realize that the concept can be reworked so that whatever name She is using before the reveal she can still be openly Trans. The thing is I'm kind of killing that mystery aspect for future use by giving it all away publicly now. Only way it could work for someone who'd read this post is if multiple Trans Women are in it. Oh wait, that happens to also help fix keep her from being the only representation. The YouTube Channel FilmJoy did a video last year called The Batman Question which I watched today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzE2J7bo0c&t It was about the idea of allowing more then just CisHet White Men to play Batman and other major Batman characters. Janelle Monae was a choice brought up a lot, and she responded that she'd rather play The Joker. And that reminded me how members of Batman's Rouges Gallery are Pop Culture Icons and that almost every Actor wants an opportunity to play one. And I personally would cast an actual Trans Woman to play the role (The Pedantic Romantic could make a good Riddler). So perhaps we shouldn't exclude the Trans Community from being able to play those roles out of fear of how it can go wrong. The Riddler is often viewed as Batman's smarted nemesis, his greatest intellectual threat. After all Eartha Kitt wasn't counterproductive for Black Women. KyleKallgrenBHH in his recent video on The Watermelon Woman talks about how for a long time Black Women weren't allowed to be Sex Symbols in America. So in that context one getting to play the greatest Sex Symbol of American Pop Culture was downright revolutionary. And so in today's climate maybe Catwoman should be the first Bat Rouge to consider allowing to be a Transwoman? You may ask, why was it that my mind went there for The Riddler first? Another question you may ask is, how would I handle naming this Transwoman reinterpretation of Edward Nygma? Well the answers to those questions are kind of the same. When I starting of thinking about what I'd do for a Nolanesque Riddler story. I first decided "The Riddler" should be a name given to them. They would identify themselves in their messages as simply -? Again influenced by -A on PLL. Then I first started thinking about the character's Gender as I was playing around with the inherent pun of E. Nygma, and the idea entered my head to use the name..... ....... Annie Nygma...................... And from there I thought first just of making The Riddler a woman, an idea which technically had done before at least by Cosplayers. But I also thought about having her use multiple names and for the sake of Nolan style realism not having any Nygma name be her birth name. Then I heard of this Edward Nashton name that had emerged as an alternate name for The Riddler, I don't know who used it first but I heard of it via The Riddler Blogs, a fan film project derivative of The Joker Blogs. And then I thought about how Transmen and Transwomen naturally tend to change their names from what they were given at birth. And so the idea popped in there to have Edward Nashton be the name assigned at birth, and Annie Nygma the name she chose when she accepted her Gender Identity, because she was into Riddles and Puzzles. I'm not Trans, I can't actually relate to these issues. So I simply don't know what the right answer is. Perhaps it's a good idea for me to put this experience out there and let someone who is Trans use it for their own Fanwork if they see value in it. Part of the reason I was ashamed of this for awhile is it didn't originate much from a place of caring about representation. I've always been a believer in Trans rights, but it was in recent years I've become much more sensitive to this and other Social Justice issues. The more recent ideas I've come up with for characters who are Trans have been making them heroes. Like the idea of the Vordenberg who Carmilla had a romance with being a Transwoman. Or my desire to tell a story about Lancelot as a Transwoman (using the name Lanzelet), as well as Perceval as a Transman. And my idea for a fictionalized French Revolution shared cinematic universe innovated using Chevalier d'Éon in the Captain America/Wonder Woman/King Kong role as the one who's origin story film is set in a previous era. And interpreting d'Eon as a Noble Honorable and Heroic Transwoman, not doing weirder ideas like the Anime about her and Fate Grand Order do. The only Fantastical aspect will be keeping the character young in the 1790s.

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adoranymph · 4 years ago

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Let’s face it, 2020 has been trolling us all hard. Some worse than others, but I think we can all agree that it’s spun so out of control that we’re all a bit a dizzy with so much going on. In times like these, it’s important to keep up with what’s important, never lose the momentum of revolution, never lose heart.

But never forget that you’re still allowed to indulge in your guilty pleasures either. Naturally, times like these, indulging in such can make you feel…well…guilty. Then again, don’t they always?

I have a long list of such, as I’m sure most people do. This weekend though I added another to my list, one that will perhaps stick in my mind as a particular favorite among my own guilty pleasures because of its timing. Because it came out now, at a time when I think we all needed a guilty pleasure like this.

I don’t know what it is, but Will Ferrell seems to have managed to nail down how to do the underdog story more than once and still be entertaining with it. With movies like, Blades of Glory, Bewitched, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, it’s almost as if, when he’s getting into his next project, part of that involves him finding some sort of competition or highly competitive career path that he’s really wanted to get into and so ends up making a movie about being a character involved in that, one that has to work his way up from the bottom of the rung and win people’s hearts along the way, regardless of whether he and whoever he’s working with ends up actually winning.

The premise gets mixed up of course, in terms of how it is his character got to the bottom rung initially. Either he was someone who was formerly on top and then crashed and burned and let that ruin his whole life until he has to climb back up, or he screwed things up in the past and has to join forces with whomever it was he screwed things up in order to get back to the top. Or he’s just hit a slump in his career and needs a reboot of an old sitcom to give him a boost. Just to name a couple off the top of my head.

And, for the most part, I enjoy these romps for what they are. Especially when I know from experience past that I can get treated to a feelsy performance from Will Ferrell, not unlike what happened with him in Stranger Than Fiction. Which reminds me, I should totally have a copy of that in my movie collection on the mere principle that it speaks to me as an author and how I would feel if one of my characters knocked on my door and begged me not to kill them off.

So I start to I see ads on YouTube for Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, starring Will Ferrell and Rachel MacAdams, premiering on Netflix. And as a side-note on her, I’ve enjoyed watching her since first seeing her in Mean Girls. Naturally, her being cast in Dr. Strange as Christine Palmer is a huge plus. Moreover, her chemistry with Will Ferrell in Eurovision is pretty great. They make it work, considering that at first glance, many I think were under the impression that this movie as a whole would be an outright parody of the Eurovision Song Contest.

I don’t have too much experience with Eurovision, personally. I was very vaguely aware of it as a song contest that was, well, done in Europe. And I knew of one song from it, and that was thanks to an NPR podcast reference on “Pop Culture Happy Hour”. That said, I loved the song they dropped, that being “Love Love Peace Peace” by Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede. And that was enough to be interested in a movie that would showcase a slew of songs that had that same synthy energy that create, for lack of a better way of putting it, “happy bubbles in my brain”. Even if it was going to be a parody, I figured watching something like this movie would be a nice brain-cation from the horrid state of things outside of my apartment at the moment. Plus, I pre-listened to “Ja Ja Ding Dong” and “Lion of Love” off the soundtrack, and was like, “Okay, I need this.”

Better still, the movie was definitely a love letter to Eurovision rather than an outright parody. Even if it did star Will Ferrell and Rachel MacAdams acting with Scandinavian accents, it didn’t feel silly. It felt genuine. Genuine fun, for the most part, but genuine nonetheless.

It felt like a colorful celebration of music, a showcase that, due to a certain pandemic, had to be cancelled this year in the real world. Then that hometown song, “Húsavík (My Hometown)”, and I got that wonderful feeling of the whole world rallying around a moment of wholesomeness, even though I just watching a movie. Even the whole running gag with the elves was interwoven with that brand of dark comedy that also seems to pop up in Will Ferrell films, from accidental decapitations via ice skate blade to party boats suddenly exploding.

Now, after having watched it, I can’t stop listening to the soundtrack, I’ve got it on loop in my head like a catchy ABBA song, and I’m not even ashamed to say that several times already I’ve flounced around my place pretending to scream into a mic while listening and lip-syncing to “Double Trouble”. Fully aware that all this goodness is coming from a film that didn’t do anything too groundbreaking, or hit the world with a particularly weighty message. It was just a damn good time, and that’s what all good guilty pleasures should be. And why there’s no shame in indulging in them, especially in times like this.

This is something that I am going to ride the feelings for for a good while. That’s just as valuable as something that’s intellectually enriching or mind-blowing, and definitely shouldn’t be discounted in anything else that’s being created for any media. So, if you have a minute to drop what you’re doing and are tired of feeling depressed in this time of social distancing and quarantine and uncertainty, I highly recommend kicking back and checking this one out.

Lowkey, I really hope Lemtov finds happiness in Greece.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Keeping this link up!

Guilty Pleasures: Let’s Talk About “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” Let's face it, 2020 has been trolling us all hard. Some worse than others, but I think we can all agree that it's spun so out of control that we're all a bit a dizzy with so much going on.

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scrawnydutchman · 7 years ago

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Some Movies I like but Everyone Else Hates

Ah, here’s a fun topic. Everybody’s got opinions on this sort of thing. While the collective consciousness tends to deem some films as good and some films as bad like it really is as black and white as that, the fact is sometimes you can see value in something that nobody else can. And you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. You should never be ashamed of feeling like your money was well spent on a piece of entertainment. As well, these kinds of opinions, even the most disagreeable, I find to be the most refreshing because the arguments as to why these films are bad are so rinse and repeat you swear whoever was saying it was just reading some old review they found online. With all that said, here are some movies I love but everyone else hates.

1. Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

You saw the opening bumper; might as well get this one out first. Alright, so for most of the entries on this list I can kind of understand where they’re coming from. Sometimes these movies can be paced a certain way or can have obvious crutches or can straight up be VERY non sensical and annoying at times. As such, I find most peoples criticisms on these films to be firm but fair. But this movie . . . this movie got a bad rep for COMPLETELY illegitimate reasons. Yeah, you heard me. All I ever hear about this movie is “Oh, it’s not as good as the original movie. Oh, Gene Wilder is so much better! Oh, this REMAKE is so dumb! This is just a stupid REMAKE!”. I’ve got a little bit of news for the people who make this kind of baseless criticism, alright? You listening? Okay, here goes:

THIS. IS. NOT. A. REMAKE. OF. THE. GENE. WILDER. FILM. IT IS AN ALTERNATE INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK BY ROALD DAHL. THERE IS A HUGE GODDAMN DIFFERENCE!!

People always let their bias and their nostalgia blindness for the Gene Wilder movie cloud their judgement of Tim Burton’s swing at the classic tale, and it pisses me off. Get it out of your head: This movie is not trying to be the Gene Wilder film again. It never CLAIMED to want to be the Gene Wilder film again. It only ever set out to be it’s own thing; it’s own original take on the source material. And that’s completely fine. Because believe it or not, you can adapt a famous novel more than once and in more than one way. It’s a method that keeps timeless stories like Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland relevant in our culture in fact. So if you’re going to judge this movie, judge it by it’s own terms, not by what you want it to be and not by standards it didn’t set for itself. Beyond that, I also hear criticisms like Johnny Depp is terrible. He’s awkward, uncomfortable and seems like he lacks direction. But guess what? It’s actually closer to the book. I’m sorry it’s not just Gene Wilder again. A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE SOURCE MATERIAL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! This movies bad rep is a product of the fact that people associate their knowledge of the story and characters more with the movies they’ve seen than with the source material they’ve taken from. I get it guys, nobody has the time to sit down and read a book anymore, but if you’re not going to do it than don’t talk about the proper interpretation of a story or character like you know what you’re talking about.

I like this movie. I think it’s a solid retelling of the story. It hits the story beats it needs to hit and it’s very creative and stunning in both it’s visuals and musical score. I like some of the more experimental choices it makes like giving every bad kid a different genre/era of music to coincide their lesson. I also like how it uses the source material to give a different message from the book. This is another thing a lot of people had issue with, and to be fair with every interpretation it’s important to have some elements say the same for the sake of consistency. But listen; bottom line, if you want everything to be like the original book or the original movie, just go read the book or watch the original movie. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in interpreting a story again if you don’t have new territory to explore with it.

2. Superman Returns

So I’ve commented on Superman Returns a number of times (I’ve even made a previous article called ‘Why Superman Returns is the Best Superman Movie’) so I’ll try to keep this brief without repeating myself TOO much. Yeah, I know this movie is slow paced. I know Superman doesn’t really fight anyone in this movie. I know it hinges a little too much on the Reeve legacy from time to time. But I have no regrets. Not only is this movie beautifully shot with some of the most stellar frame composition choices I’ve ever seen in a movie. Not only does the film very cleverly integrate practical and CGI effects like how they put Brandon Routh in a swimming tank and used his swimming movements as a reference for Supermans flying, giving him both the sense of weight AND sense of grace that you expect from the superpower. Not only is Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor the most entertaining part of this movie (kind of fitting that he played such a manipulative egotistical bastard in retrospect, eh?). Not only does it have awesomely suspenseful scenes like the incredible saving the airplane scene or the part where Superman gets shot in the eye and doesn’t even flinch. But bottom line: This movie gets Superman. Supermans whole character dilemma is that he struggles between his identity as a human and a kryptonian. He wants to live comfortably among people but in reality he always feels like he’s a stranger among strangers. This is made stronger by the fact that he left earth for a time after rumors that traces of Krypton came up and left without warning. When he came back empty handed, he realized the error of putting his past home before his present; there are people right now that he needs to be there for, whether they are Kryptonian or not. All this is displayed beautifully in great symbolism like how Clark’s ceiling is decorated with stars, one of which is read and stands out, FANTASTIC imagery like Superman floating above the planet listening in on the human race, and finally, my favorite quote in the movie. “You say that the world doesn’t need a savior, but everyday I hear somebody crying for one”. Granted the whole Supermans child thing never went anywhere and some parts like the Superman and Lois flying scene were blatant rehashes of the Reeve film, but overall I think this movie demonstrates the finest understanding of who Superman is in his cinematic history. In case you’re still not convinced; I have a favor to ask of you:

Watch the Reeve Superman movie. Then watch Man of Steel RIGHT after. Then watch Superman Returns. What you’ll find is a Reeve movie where Superman doesn’t hilariously break the logic of his own film to save the day, and a Man of Steel film where Superman actually PREVENTS major damage from happening rather than causes it. As for the pacing . . .for one reason or another the slowness of this film never bothered me.

3. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Okay . . . . this is a very problematic movie. It’s plot is all over the place, some things about it are over the top silly, it tries to do too much at once and some of the dialogue is cliche as all hell. But you know what? I went into this movie at the theater wanting some good ol’ fashion web slinging action and that’s exactly what I got. I’m a simple man: I see a Spider-Man action scene, I like. Plus, I just really like a lot of the aesthetic choices this movie makes. Visually it’s a HUGE improvement over the first movie. The colours pop a lot more, the action is easier to make out and really appreciate, it doesn’t have as many dull tones. It LOOKS like a Spider-Man comic. the first movie seemed too unsaturated for me and took place at night a little too often. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the spidey costume in that (though i always appreciate honest experimentation). A lot of people had issues with certain things like the dubstep Electro theme, and yeah while I admit it’s VERY goofy (especially the “he hates-a me” line) i think the choice to give Electro a dubstep theme was pretty neat. Plus I just liked the way Electro looked in general. It was a very different take on how lightning looks and while it may not technically be accurate I think it was ultimately a better choice than if they just want to making it look like real lightning. That’s something we’ve seen done a million times. People also had an issue with how little the Rhino was in it (and yes, I will say the trailer was blatant false advertising) but really I’d rather have this than just have him appear in basically the same amount of time and then immediately die or something. It’s too bad that sequel never came. Really, a lot of this movies problems are more things about the Spider-Man universe that have stuck around than issues with the movie itself. And at the end of the day it’s no more ridiculous than any of the Raimi movies. It’s just a dumb romp that even with all it’s shortcomings delivered what I was hoping for.

#superman returns #movies #film #charlie and the chocolate factory #film making #amazing spider-man 2 #marvel #dc

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snowbazcomeoneileen-blog · 7 years ago

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Game Co. Chapter 2.

The First Date

Simon

So, I was right, he doesn't have a boyfriend. And he did agree to go out with me. By the time Baz walks out of our office door I am already starting to regret the whole thing. How much time will it take for him to figure out that I suck in the relationship department? It took one night for Augustus to figure me out. And a few nights more to further prove his point. Well, at least I know one thing I am good for. Except for the part when I was apparently not good enough, even for that.

Ok, just be your miserable self and he will never go out with you again. I try to avoid Baz’s questioning stare, as if he thinks that I know how to handle this weird situation. Instead I stare aside, catching a glimpse of his postman bag. I take sharp breath in, trying to embrace the fact that I am going on a date with a man who has that thing and a classic suit on. Alcohol, I remind myself, I can always drink alcohol.

“So, where exactly are we going?” I hope Baz won’t drag me to some fancy joint where the only thing you can do is sip an expensive wine with some unpronounceable name. Because really, what other kind of place might he know.

He startles. “Just– Sorry, I have to check something out.” Baz pulls out his phone, trying to hide his embarrassment. Don’t tell me that he has to check his working email right fucking now, because I bet that is exactly what he is doing.

“Take your time.” I shrug. I don't care. If this is that kind of a date, when we are both allowed to hang nose deep in our phones, I don't really mind. As long as I can do the same. I quickly check my WoW group chat. There is this raid planned for tonight, that I definitely can’t miss. Because my asshole teammates will kill me for sure or worse they will just kick me out of our guild and then, yeah, my life will finally reach its holy forever emptiness.

An elevator arrives and we step in simultaneously. Baz bumps his shoulder awkwardly against mine and then blushes. Well, that is kind of adorable. Why do I even pay attention to that? He stands a little bit behind me like it’s any other of our elevator trips, like we are not going on a fucking date together. Which makes me wonder how often have we had the same kind of ride before. When I haven’t even noticed what he looks like, what he wears or even the fact that he is a little bit taller than me. Which is annoying, but also makes me curious if it would make kissing feel any different. And then I make my mind shut up because really.

“Found it!” Baz shouts finally and looks up. Then he blushes a bit more. “I mean I found how to get to a bar I was telling you about.”

“Ok.” I shrug once again bringing myself to stare back at my phone.

“Postman bag yes or no?” I text Penny, because I need some distraction.

“Don’t tell me you’re stuck in an elevator with Baz again.” She texts back almost immediately and I smile. Stuck and going on a date, I think to myself, but since I don't wanna be killed by Penny through the mobile phone, I decide to keep that information to myself as for now. Yes, she has that power.

We get to the first floor and I walk out from an elevator. This time deliberately avoiding bumping into Baz. Or maybe it's him avoiding bumping into me. I can probably ask him what kind of music he is into. Or what he likes. And I would if it was somebody else. But I doubt he cares about music that much. At least, I’ve never seen him wearing any earphones. I doubt if he cares about anything at all, except for his stupid job and his fucking posh car. Which are two topics I have zero interest in whatsoever.

“I can give us a ride in my car.” He almost reads my mind and I suddenly feel irritated. Dude, chill out, we all know about your fucking BMW.

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.” I hear my voice that sounds too angry. “We are going for a drink. Which means alcohol. Which means no car.”

“Ok.” Baz agrees in a soft voice and I immediately feel ashamed for my behaviour. I really should be nicer to him. It’s not his fault that he is, well, him.

Ok, let’s try from the other angle. He does work at the games industry, right?

“Do you play any computer games?” I try to ask as friendly as I can.

“Sorry, no.” Baz says. “I came here from the book publishing business.” He adds as if he is trying to justify himself. Oh, ok.

“Never mind.” I shrug. “I will call us a cab then.” Which gives me a perfect excuse to stare back at my phone again, while Baz stays silently near me on a windy parking lot. It’s so painfully obvious that we have absolutely nothing to say to each other and I wonder why did he even agree to go out with me. I am obviously not his type. I am not a cardigan guy. And I never will be. I don't have fancy clothes, a fancy apartment or a fancy car. I don't care about the things that Baz obviously cares about, like his job and being successful and owning things. In other words, I am a mess. All I have are my computer games and my manga obsession, and none of them count towards something a grown-up should even care about.

So maybe my psychotherapist was right and I need to change something. But it definitely wasn't why I went to him in the first place. The sad truth was that I felt kind of empty since Augustus left me, even though I knew that our relationship was mainly a relationship in my head and not in reality. The worst part was that deep down, I was ready to forgive Augustus his one night stand with the other guy, if only he was willing to come back to me; which of course he wasn’t. And this is what I hoped to talk about, instead, we ended up discussing the lack of grownup responsibility in my life, and thank you very much, it’s not something you wanna hear, when you just came over to talk about your fucking breakup and the fact that you miss your boyfriend, even if he really never was one.

You will hurt everyone around you. That what my shrink said. I give Baz a quick look, but he is so silent and awkward that I immediately look back at my phone. Well, this evening will be fun. Simon Snow and his phone, making terrible dates bearable since forever.

Baz

We walk inside and I give the place a quick look. Fuck . It's a sports bar. I can’t believe that I dragged Snow to a fucking sports bar for a first date. Idiot . Apparently, I suck at searching bars while being on intensive rides in elevator cabins with my crush. While having Snow stuck by my side in two by two meters closed space. While being so pumped up about it that I couldn't concentrate on fucking anything.

Snow hangs near the entrance, hands deep in his pockets, giving the place a suspicious look “Are you into sports?” He asks finally with surprise.

It's too late to back up now. “Well, kind of.” I say picking up a table as far from the TV with a football broadcasting as possible. “And you?”

“I am.” Snow nods and grins at me. “Mostly Quidditch.”

I frown. “Is that a pop-culture reference?”

“Kind of.” Snow just shrugs (he shrugs a lot). “So, who is playing?” He asks without any interest whatsoever and pulls out his phone once again.

“Manchester against … somebody. ” I desperately try to read the screen, blaming myself for leaving my glasses at the office. But Snow just nods, not even bothered to look up.

“Oh, great.” He says and then snorts from something that he sees on his phone’s screen.

I look around trying to not concentrate on the fact that I am sitting at the same table with Simon Snow. Alone. And I am desperately out of words again. Except for a brief exchange about my sport preferences earlier we haven't said a lot to each other. That is how entertaining I am. If he stands up and walks away right now, I won't even blame him. At least the bar is half empty and not exactly the place some of our co-workers will ever choose to hang out. Which means that Snow won’t freak out about running into somebody. Because who would be thrilled to be seen with me.

Once again, I try to come up with something witty to say. “Well, our project sucks lately, doesn't it?” No, not that. I see that Snow visibly shudder, then frowns, then puts his phone down.

“Please, let’s not talk about work.” He says narrowing his eyes. As if pretending that there is something else between us, except our project, is an option.

Fortunately, a waiter comes to our table, saving my ass. Snow looks at him with a visible relief. “Hi, my name is Ben. I will be your waiter tonight.” I give Ben a hateful look. I bet Snow would rather spend the evening with this guy than with me. I wish I was smart enough to pick up bar with uglier service.

Of course, Snow gives him a smile. At least Snow flirting with everybody else besides me is something I am used to. “Ben, bring us two shots and two beers. And please bring it quick.” He says and as Ben goes away, I try to remember anything, just anything that I know about Snow that can keep our conversation going.

“Do you like manga?” I ask remembering the pile of manga books that usually lay on his table. Snow looks at me with surprise.

“I do actually. How did you know that?” Because I am stalking your desk daily. “Do you like it too?”

I wish I could say “Yes”. I bet even Ben loves manga. “Not really.”

“Yeah, I know, it's stupid to read manga.” Snow mumbles. “I am too old for that. You just read one and then you hate yourself, and then you end up re-reading it and you hate yourself even more. As I said, it's stupid.” He sighs.

“It’s not stupid. It’s kind of cool actually.” I say, wishing I could squeeze his hand right now or let him know any other way that actually anything he might do seems cool to me.

His face lights up. “Really? If you want I can lend you some.”

“Thanks.” I nod and flush a little bit. “It would be nice.”

“So, what sports do you like?” Snow asks in the careful voice and I almost say None before remembering my white lie.

“Anything.” I clear my throat. “Football, tennis, basketball-” I get stuck in the middle trying to remember what other sports there might be. “You name it.” Smooth Baz, really smooth.

“So, you're into sports and I am into manga and WoW. Great.” Snow rolls his eyes in his slightly annoying manner and I almost turn around to see if maybe Bunce is somewhere near.

“WoW like in World of Warcraft?” I frown trying to remember what this game is about. Some multiplayer online role game. “Do people still play that?” I say before I can make myself shut up.

“Do people still watch sports?” Snow snaps back, but then just shrugs obviously losing interest on the topic, pulling his phone back.

Ben comes with our drinks and Snow immediately gives him a smile once again. A hot one. A sun shining all over this shitty bar one. And while I die inside, he just casually drinks his shot with one sharp move.

“Wow.” Ben says at that and gives me a look from tip to toes. Bet, he is thinking how could I even pick up someone as handsome as Snow. I wonder that myself. “Another one?” He says with a wink.

“Yes, please.” Snow nods enthusiastically, already starting his beer. I give him a worried look. He probably needs something to eat with that.

“Can we have some fries please?” I say and Ben nods before walking away.

“You know, I have this bet with Penny about you.” Snow’s face is a bit flushed after alcohol. “We bet on how long you will wear the same white shirt to the office. And as far as know I am winning. Because I said forever.”

I feel my whole face going on fire. “It's not the same one.” I protest furiously, but at least Simon is laughing. And he is not looking at his phone anymore.

“Prove it. Wear something else. This will win me twenty for sure.”

“Only if we are splitting the profit.”

“Oh, now we are talking.” Snow grins and continues drinking his beer, while I helplessly look at my shot. “You know, you have to drink it eventually.” He pushes my drink closer in my direction, but when I reach for it he pulls the glass away.

“Change of plans. Let's play a game. I will ask you a question. You will drink and then you should answer it as fast as you can. Don’t think too much.”

I nod. Snow considers a question for a while. “You are a long-term relationship kind of guy, aren't you?” He puts a drink back in front of me and shoots me a quick look. I look at him startled, but Snow just points with his eyes at my drink. I quickly take a shot and while the hot wave goes over my stomach I start to panic. What kind of question is that. And then. Am I that obvious. And then. Yes, I would like that. With you.

“Yes.” I say, trying not to look down.

“That's what I thought.” He takes his beer and makes a few large gulps. Fuck. What if I shouldn't say that. Who admits such stupid things nowadays.

Ben saves my ass once again, bringing Snow’s second shot and fries.

“Wait.” I pull his drink away. “It's my turn. I ask, you drink.”

“Oh.” Snow looks at me with surprise. “Ok.”

It's not really hard to come up with a question, as I’ve had one on the tip of my tongue this whole evening. “Did you ask me out tonight just to get back at your boyfriend?” I say and push him his drink back. Snow grabs it and once again drinks it in one quick move.

“If you mean the guy, who cheated on me with the first cute mouth he could get on his dick, then no. We are not together anymore.” Wow. I look at his sad face and that very moment I wanna kill his ex. I wanna kill everyone who ever hurt him. “I asked you out because you are cute.” He adds quickly, but I just raise my eyebrow. I know for a fact that it's a lie. I might be cute enough to get a drunk one night stand from time to time, but definitely not as cute as one of Snow’s boyfriends should be. Not as cute as his ex. Who turned out to be a cheating bastard and I hate him, but anyway.

“Eat this.” I push him the fries. “You are obviously drunk if you think that way.” Snow doesn’t pay attention to is food, instead he just finishes his beer. After he puts the empty glass down, I see that he is all messed up. His face looks sad and without looking at me he just reaches for his phone. Again. Oh, no.

What an idiot I was, thinking that this evening might turn out to be a fucking Cinderella story. Because here I am still pathetic and desperate not even able to keep up a conversation. No wonder that Snow stares at his phone all the time. It's hopeless, unless …

Unless it’s about sex. Snow obviously misses his ex and even if it's not about getting back at him, as he said, it might be about getting even. I take a sharp breath in. Can I turn this evening around if I ask him over? Is it possible that he will be interested in me at least in that way? I tense my grip around my beer glass. If it's about a one night stand, I can totally do it. It doesn't matter that I wanted Snow since forever. Because that’s what normal people do. They go to a bar and they fuck.

The uncomfortable tension crawls over my spine. I imaging inviting Snow over. I imagine Snow in my apartment, in my bed. I imagine touching him, kissing him. And then I imaging a different kind of universe where I am actually good at that, where I have at least one chance compared to all of his perfect exes.

“Snow.” I say with a dry mouth. “Do you wanna come over?”

The question hangs in the air and I almost can see with every passing minute of silence how it becomes more and more transparent. Till it’s almost invisible and I consider how exactly embarrassing it would be to repeat my invitation once again.

“Sorry.” Snow says quickly, not looking at me. “I have a WoW raid tonight.”

It feels it like a kick in my guts. What the fuck. What does that even mean? Is this even a thing that people use as an excuse nowadays?

“Speaking of that. I really should be going.” Avoiding my eyes, Snow reaches for his pocket and pulls out a twenty, leaving in under his empty beer glass. “See you at the office tomorrow.” He quickly stands up and almost runs to the exit. Except that half-way he turns just to wave his hand to the waiter and give him one last smile. And then he is gone.

I stare at my almost full beer glass, hearing only my heart pounding. “Great game tonight, huh?” Ben comes over and points at the TV screen. God, he is cute. I wish I could be brave enough to talk to him or to ask for his number, but what the point anyway, he is not Snow.

“I hate sports.” I say almost kicking the table. “And I do know what quidditch is.”

“Man, relax. Everybody knows what quidditch is.” Ben grabs empty glasses “It’s from fucking Harry Potter.”

Exactly. I stay at the table just a little bit more, finishing my beer, trying to watch TV, but mostly giving Snow a time to call up a taxi and get the fuck away from here. Because I really don’t wanna to bump into him on the way out. Or in the office tomorrow. Or ever.

An hour later, I turn on the light in my empty apartment and stare at the wall in front of me. It’s a good thing that he ran away, I remind myself. At least I haven't had a chance to embarrass myself completely. Bet I would be too anxious to touch or kiss him properly anyway.

As I take off my jacket and my shirt, the one that Snow apparently hates so much, I look around and try to imagine my apartment the way he might see it, if my stupid plan to drag him to my place for some kind of an intimate intercourse would work out. He definitely would see the same things that he usually sees when he looks at me. Nothing interesting, just boring empty walls and flat clean surfaces. Yet, I can’t stop wondering if he ever would sit on my couch, or drink my coffee or talk to me the way that he talks to people he actually cares about.

I wonder what his place does look like, bet it’s something awesome. Rainbows and happiness all over the place. Stop it. You will never see it. Just get used to the thought that it was your first and last time together.

I wish I wouldn't have face him tomorrow though. Should I just pretend that the whole evening never happened? Because he obviously would. It’s not like this night changed anything. Except for the part when I invited him over and he said no. Oh God, I would have to quit. At least in that case I won't have to finish this fucking report. Speaking about a funny night ahead.

I look at my watch, it’s almost midnight. With a sigh, I open my laptop and make myself stare at the document. I work for a few hours until I am too exhausted to think about Snow, to think about anything. I put my head down on my arms and fall asleep in the most pathetic way ever, right on the table near my opened laptop, with the report that of course I haven’t even managed to finish.

Read on ao3

#My fic #carry on #snowbaz fanfiction #snowbaz

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undxunted · 5 years ago

Note

💐 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘢 & 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭 💐 OR 💐 𝘴𝘪𝘥 & 𝘮𝘪𝘬𝘬𝘺 💐 OR 💐 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘢 & 𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘺 💐 OR 💐 𝘴𝘪𝘥 & 𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘴𝘵 💐 OR 💐💐𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 & 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨-𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘨𝘢𝘣𝘦 💐💐

Annona & Basil

Okay, listen to me, at some point I sad that Basil wouldn’t know who she is because he is too disconnected from pop culture, but after giving it more thought, I realized that he’d be a big fan of her work in general so listen to me:

Before meeting he’d send her bouquets of lavender, lilacs and some poisonous flowers (upon ingestion and constant exposure to it, not like poison ivy stuff).

He knows almost every episode of Annona & Joe by memory because it was probably what he watched whenever his mom neglected him as an escape route.

They most likely meet when she’s half-retired or taking a break from the acting world and he recognizes her immediately, but he is pretty stoic so he wouldn’t make a big deal about it.

They are both obscure, affected by death and seem to vibrate in a different frequency so I am guessing they get along.

They hang out at some place like the park, either at the busiest hour or in the middle of the night; they spend most of the time just observing (maybe she’s smoking) and barely exchange any word or opinion but that’s how... they hang out?

Basil has lucid dreams (the only one of my charas that can do it actually!) but every now and then he has dreams that are uneasy and somehow... disturbing even though he cannot point out why. Annona is in all of them. He usually wakes up and runs to throw up.

Basil lives in an ancient god delusion so what’s Annona? A god slayer in another life? An enemy? A friend? He’s decided to find out and hopefully drag her to the same delusional state.

Basil likes to visit antique shops and stuff like that, he’s pretty much anti-21st century and should’ve grown up in either the Dark Ages, the Victorian Era or the 80′s, but anyways, he visits these places and probably looks for something unsettling and/or visibly haunted and that’s what gives Annona for Halloween (what’s even Christmas??) or her birthday.

Mocking the living.

Equally strange ways of dressing, living goth doll and Post-apocalypse war boy. They scare the little kids with their presence alone.

Horror movie marathons.

I saw this post earlier but Annona wants to go to the cemetery because she needs haunted dirt and Basil goes walks along while playing Pokemon GO. They like reading tombstones and playing “haunted or not?” and half-joking about spirits following them home. Strange things do happen for some weeks after they return from their graveyard trip.

Idk, might make a Pinterest board to settle down more ideas for them but lmk what you think!

Sid & August

Unlikely friends. Adventure partners.

They get dragged by each other to unwanted trouble and shenanigans.

“You lived in the streets, can’t you talk to the stray cat or something? ..... Sorry that was offensive”.

“How did we end up getting chased by Japanese gangsters?!” “Yakuza” “WHATEVER”.

Buzzfeed Unsolved vibes!!

Visiting haunted houses and places full of history with August never shutting up about the lore.

August being really scared of (everything) dark alleys, low neighborhoods and clinging to Sid’s sleeve but still decided to go in because “ThErE iS a MyStEry To Be SoLvEd, SeEd”.

August giving him the lunch his mom gave her because “you’re probably more immune to poisoning than me”. Y’know, rude but true friendship.

Oooh! August inviting him home and his parents being weirdly attentive and nice and August doesn’t trust them because “ARE THEY GONNA KILL MY FRIEND??”

Sid dropping some acid jokes while they are having lunch (it’s okay, August always invites) and August just laughing softly cause he didn’t get it and late that night he wakes up at 2 am and calls him because “I GOT THE JOKE NOW AND I DON’T KNOW IF I SHOULD BE LAUGHING OR DISGUSTED BUT YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED EITHER WAY”.

Virgin club! (Is Sid even a virgin? aslkjldk)

Video games night that turn into horror movie/slasher movie night and both are probably a little more scared than they’d like to admit.

Sid getting August drunk for the first time. August becomes really sarcastic and a hugger. He also cries.

August’s parents referring to Sid like “Oh, honey, is your dirty friend coming over today?” “How is Grimey Sid doing, champ? I heard they are bathing pets at the Johnson’s” and August can’t believe how incredibly rude they are but... he knows they lack empathy whatsoever so he tried to dodge the questions as much as possible and actually gets really upset about it, but he never dares to speak up.

BEING THERE FOR EACH OTHER AT ALL TIMES, GETTING IN FIGHTS WITH BULLIES AND BEING PULVERIZED BUT ALWAYS STANDING UP WITH A BUSTED LIP AND SWOLLEN PURPLE EYES LIKE “YO LEAVE MY FRIEND ALONE YOU... YOU... UNEDUCATED PUNK!”

#meme;#( the usurper )#August F.#opp. Sid W.#opp. Annona B.#I hope these are alright and would love to keep talking about them!!!#uglysunsets

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eichy815 · 7 years ago

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Cry Yourselves A River

For weeks, pop culture connoisseurs and “armchair sociologists” alike had been awaiting Justin Timberlake’s much-anticipated headlining of the halftime show at the Feb. 4 Super Bowl LII. Last Sunday, Timberlake’s big moment arrived at the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis – and public reaction was...not surprising.

At the center of the Timberlake-centric suspense was the question of whether Janet Jackson (or even Timberlake’s former N’Sync bandmates) would make a surprise cameo during the performance. Others took the public position that the onus should have been on Timberlake himself to broker a deal for Jackson to appear alongside of him – essentially, as “penance” for the public-shaming that Jackson had endured following her infamous 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” at Super Bowl XXXVIII’s halftime show.

But first, let’s take a look at what actually happened this year.

As someone who never watches the Super Bowl myself, I ended up viewing Timberlake’s 2018 halftime show days later on YouTube. In his nearly 14-minute showcase, Timberlake performed a mashup containing some of his most memorable covers – including “Rock Your Body,” “Sexy Back,” “Cry Me A River,” “Until The End of Time,” “Mirrors,” and “Can’t Stop The Feeling.”

But the obligatory controversial item during his showcase came when Timberlake sat at a piano doing his rendition of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.” Meanwhile, video footage of the late multigenre vocalist was suspended in midair above Timberlake on-stage. While many fans loved the tribute, others accused Timberlake of disrespecting Prince’s memory with the presence of a “hologram.” Newsweek’s Dante A. Ciampaglia, for example, pointed out how Prince (during his lifetime) had expressed his disdain for holographic technology, characterizing it as “demonic.”

To top it all off, when Timberlake emerged into the audience toward the end of the halftime show, pundits had a field day gushing over how thirteen-year-old Ryan McKenna – a New England Patriots fan, who has now garnered the nickname “Selfie Kid” – managed to snap a selfie with Timberlake using his camera phone as Timberlake danced past the kid. In short order, McKenna’s Instagram account blew up, netting him more than 8,000 new followers almost overnight.

While many in the media have greeted Ryan McKenna’s experience with positive intrigue, plenty of naysayers will find a way to disparage this memory he’d created for himself as “white adolescent entitlement.”

Let’s dispense with this first stigma, and get it out of the way: any such criticism of McKenna harkens back to the widespread public-shaming of Ashley Ferl in 2007. At the age of fourteen, Ferl gained notoriety when a cameraman famously captured a close-up of her sobbing with overwhelmed happiness during the live May 23, 2007 season finale of American Idol. The timing for Ferl was particularly bad given how her “Kodak moment” happened in synchronization with a song by Sanjaya Malakar – the mediocre contestant who ended up being disproportionately maligned by a “media army” far greater than Idol’s own fanbase.

Few people may remember how, three years later, Ferl herself auditioned for American Idol’s ninth season (albeit without disclosing her identity to the panel of judges). She was cut early, not even making it past the initial audition round. However, the bile toward Ferl largely dissipated – whereas the anti-Malakar rhetoric (enabled by a combination of racism and ageism) remains to this day.

Although the Ferl/Malakar outrage occurred under much different circumstances than any McKenna/Timberlake criticism has, the culture of shaming that surrounds both scenarios remains palpable.

As Daily Beast writer Ira Madison III reminds us, a large amount of the ire directed against Justin Timberlake is due to the perception that he left Janet Jackson “out to dry” back in 2004. We all remember how Timberlake spontaneously ripped off Jackson’s breastplate during their duet – but the protective covering also fell off, momentarily revealing Jackson’s lone exposed nipple for the entire world...for a few seconds.

The FCC tried to impose a fine for the “Nipplegate” indignity, which later was overturned in court. Jackson herself was disavowed by CBS and MTV (the producer of that particular halftime show), and her music videos and songs were blacklisted by those networks, their subsidiaries, and Viacom-affiliated radio stations.

Timberlake, meanwhile experienced no such backlash from the networks or the Entertainment Industry at the time. For years since then, social activists have proceed to “kabob” Timberlake for his interaction.

Let me take a moment to give my view on the whole “Nipplegate” hullabaloo, in the first place. I believe it was truly an accident. I don’t think it was a “publicity stunt” coordinated by Timberlake and Jackson together. Why would either of them want to take that risk, knowing how puritanical our society is? (any claims from the two of them, after the fact, were probably made in the hopes of placating the indignant Puritan Patrol) I think the breastplate fell off, and both Jackson and Timberlake did what they could to regroup from it in that moment.

The uptight American citizens who complained about Jackson’s bare nipple were ridiculous. I distinctly recall, at the time, one of my Internet forum foes (with the screen name of “Knightstorm”) huffing about how shameful it was, and how “someone had to pay for it.” By the way, “Knightstorm” was a conservative Republican who thought that BOTH Timberlake and Jackson (plus CBS and MTV) should have been held accountable with collective punitive financial damages paid out by both of them.

On the other hand, I don’t think ANYONE should have been “held accountable.” It was just a damn nipple. Furthermore, as far as we know, it was an accident – the burden of proof is on the complainer to prove otherwise. It wasn’t like Janet Jackson intentionally tore off her bra to knowingly expose herself on live television!

I absolutely agree it was a sexist double standard (in terms of the fallout, afterward). Janet Jackson should never have been persecuted for that “wardrobe malfunction.” Neither should have Justin Timberlake.

It was no big deal.

If I had been Timberlake, I would have vociferously defended Jackson in public to anyone who would listen. Should he have done so? Morally, yes, he should have. Although I’m sure that Timberlake was terrified (as was Jackson) about the Puritan Posse coming after him with legal sanctions to “make an example out of” their performance. This was a time period, after all, where mainstream Republicans and conservative Democrats alike had no qualms about throwing LGBT people under the bus solely for political gain.

Again, the nipple exposure was hardly criminal. Women frequently breastfeed in public. Men who happen to have enlarged mammary glands are legally allowed to go shirtless in full view of spectators. Jackson had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of!

Perhaps I’m biased because I’m a much bigger Janet Jackson fan than I am a Justin Timberlake fan. But that’s how I feel.

Now, fast-forward fourteen years to Super Bowl LII. If we consider how Madison and so many other like-minded commentators have taken Timberlake to task: should Timberlake have insisted that Jackson be allowed to perform with him in this year’s Super Bowl?

If I had been Timberlake, I would have viewed it as the right thing to do. But how can we be sure that Timberlake DIDN’T suggest it, and that NBC didn’t veto the idea? How do we know that Jackson herself even WANTED to participate in this year’s Super Bowl halftime show? Were any of us privy to those behind-the-scenes negotiations? Do any of us know the specifics of Timberlake and Jackson’s present-day relationship, one way or the other?

I do agree that it was tacky for Timberlake to perform “Rock Your Body” (the song they were performing the “wardrobe malfunction” happened) as part of his 2018 mashup. In fact, they probably should have picked someone else other than Timberlake to headline the event, entirely. Why not Luis Fonsi?

I think what’s more relevant is the lack of self-awareness Timberlake possesses regarding some of his own words and actions. For example, at this year’s Golden Globes, Timberlake tweeted a photo of himself along with his wife, actress Jessica Biel, dressed up during the award ceremony. As his tweet read:

Here we come!! And DAMN, my wife is hot! #TIMESUP #whywewearblack.”

The fact that Timberlake tweeted the #TimesUp hashtag in reference to his spouse’s physical appearance only shows how tone-deaf he is to the reality of where we need to go, as a society, amid the #MeToo movement (as I wrote about in my November 2017 op-ed entitled “#MeToo: Oh, But Not You”).

An even more pointed criticism of Timberlake was made by Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of Woody Allen. Last month, Farrow called out Timberlake for hashtagging #TimesUp at the Golden Globes while pointing how that Timberlake himself had no qualms about participating in Allen’s recent film, Wonder Wheel. Farrow has gone public with her claims of how Allen had sexually-molested her as a child.

Farrow’s criticism of Timberlake is actually valid. Not so when it comes to that from Ernest Owens.

For those of you who are unaware of who he is, Ernest Owens is a Philadelphia-based journalist, editor, and social activist who writes for Philadelphia magazine. In June 2016, Timberlake had tweeted the hashtag #Inspired after Jesse Williams gave a much-lauded speech on multiculturalism at the BET Awards.

To which Owens cattily tweeted at Timberlake:

So does this mean you’re going to stop appropriating our music and culture? And apologize to Janet too. #BETAwards

And, in response, Timberlake basically patted the outspoken tool on his head, clearly having none of that overwrought showiness from Owens.

As reported by journalist Elizabeth Wellington, upon learning that his negative June 2016 interaction with Timberlake had inspired Timberlake’s hit single “Say Something,” Owens comments:

My response is that I’m not impressed. He doesn’t understand his privilege. He’s an artist with impact and he will not for the life of him admit the role he played in the gentrification of a genre created by black artists.

In hindsight, Timberlake has proven Owens correct insofar as Timberlake’s own cluelessness and shortsightedness goes. That doesn’t change the fact that Owens himself is a wannabe pundit who (at that point in time) was obviously trolling Timberlake so that Owens could shoehorn in a contrived reference to “cultural appropriation” to gain attention for himself. Apparently, Timberlake being influenced by the R&B sound of Prince, James Brown, and Michael Jackson is an example of “cultural appropriation.” Heh...

Owens is all the more hypocritical, in a sociological context, because he’d supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential primaries – you know, the same Hillary Clinton who made a glib “SuperPredator” remark about criminals of color back in 1994. Owens also flouted this hypocrisy during a public civic forum he’d hosted under the guise of trying to “objectively” explore the differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

But as we saw with the whole “White girls can’t dress up as Moana” flap, from last Halloween – some illiberals who masquerade as “intersectional feminists” or “progressives” will try to insert racial gentrification into the conversation wherever they can find a dubious excuse to do so. They will try to popularize the misallocated shaming of white teenagers (oh, and Sanjaya Malakar!) to prove how #Woke they are, such as all of the people two summers ago who accused Ryan Lochte of white privilege (even though Lochte is half-Cuban).

Besides that, in my not-so-humble opinion, Timberlake’s performance at this year’s Super Bowl wasn’t even all that great.

I agree with the assessments of Sharon Osbourne and Eve Jeffers-Cooper the following morning on CBS’s The Talk. Osbourne and Jeffers-Cooper both thought that the Prince-inspired portion of Timberlake’s mashup was well-done and respectful. But Osbourne felt that, when taking in Timberlake’s performance as a whole, he came off as a bit of a “try-hard.” Jeffers-Cooper, for her part, said she’s still a fan of Timberlake’s – but his Super Bowl halftime show this year felt too chaotic (more like an awards show number) from her perspective, and she lampooned his wardrobe as being “Duck Dynasty chic.”

So, based on all of the buzz (both positive and negative) that arose from Timberlake’s halftime show, I subsequently watched it.

I wasn’t impressed.

There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Justin Timberlake...especially his lack of nuance and comprehension when it comes to the intent of specific social movements. But, despite the insistence of Ernest Owens, it wasn’t “cultural appropriation.”

Timberlake isn’t in the wrong for paying a sincere compliment to Jesse Williams.

Timberlake *IS* culpable for agreeing to work with Woody Allen and for misinterpreting the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

They should have picked Luis Fonsi, instead.

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myindynow-blog · 7 years ago

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HIV & PrEP Hayden Thomas

As a gay man, HIV is a terrifying and sensitive topic that many others fear as the imperceptible disease spreads across the world and remains in our cities.

I am HIV negative and I hope to remain that way for the rest of my life. Thanks to modern day medicine, scientists and doctors have come up with a prevention medication called Truvada; also known as PrEP.

PrEP stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on July 16, 2012 and the administration recommends it to high risk individuals. That being said, PrEP is not an excuse for individuals to have unprotected sex.

Kalob Gossett who is a PrEP Spokesperson for IUPUI, Popular Opinion Leader, and Program Manager at the Damien Center explained to me in a unique way how the medication works. “Truvada works by creating an armor, or protective layer, around each of your immune system cells that HIV uses to infect the body.” Gossett went further to say, “In addition, the armor is only at its strongest when the medication is taken daily as prescribed; and when doses are missed the armor begins to rust (to continue with the analogy).” Side effects for the medication are basically minimal and many patients don’t have any. In the rarest of cases, doctors have seen some patients endure side effects like liver problems and even lactic acidosis.

I have been on PrEP for almost a year now and I have not encountered a single issue with the medication. There aren’t even any withdrawals, but like Gossett stated, if an individual misses taking their daily dose (which I am guilty of), the medicine will stop working almost immediately. The scary thing about missing doses is if for some reason you become infected, the virus could possibly become resistant to the medication.

The Damien Center is one of the leading HIV clinics here in Indy. They offer many different services that include free HIV/STD testing and helpful counseling. This chart, from this year, helps give a good view on the age ranges, number of people and percentages that the clinic sees. Ages 23-30 are the most sexually active with ages 31-40 being the second most sexually active. These ages would be considered “high-risk” and mostly likely to be on Truvada.

While there are no PrEP usage statistics kept for the city of Indianapolis at the moment, Gossett mentioned to me that, “It is estimated between 120,000 and 145,000 (It’s a moving target since it’s always changing) individuals are on PrEP across the United States.”

The process for getting on Truvada is fairly simple. All you need to do is set up an appointment at a clinic or with your primary care physician, and fill out some paper work and after a series of questions followed by blood work, you’re all set. Once results from the bloodwork are received, you’re able to get your prescription.

I only encountered one problem with getting set up; I was still on my parents’ insurance and I knew I had to be upfront with them about getting Truvada. Having come out as gay to my parents in high school, they used to always have the safe sex talk with me and it always included the context of HIV. At one point when Truvada came out, both of them thought PrEP was for people who lived a profligate lifestyle. How was I supposed to get their insurance card and ask them about being prescribed something they found unreasonable?

At the beginning of last year, I spoke with a counselor at the Damien Center named Dexter Etter who helped me find ways of explaining it to them in terms of how it only takes one time for someone to get infected with HIV and if something nonconsensual were to every happen to me, Truvada would prevent HIV at all costs.

When I approached my parents about getting prescribed Truvada, my mom commented back to me and said, “We’ve been waiting for you to ask that.” All along they had been wanting me to get on Truvada and all the while they thought it would be “insulting” to ask me first. Life lesson #82367: don’t underestimate your parents’ opinions.

I reached out to Etter for this story because I wanted to get his view on where he thinks PrEP stands with society now. As society changes everyday, views and opinions have also changed which helps things such as medicine evolve. With that in mind Etter stated, “Consumers and providers both questioned the efficiency of PrEP and wondered if there would be unintended consequences. Some said that it would cause people to become careless and engage in promiscuous, unprotected sex, which would lead to an increase in other STDs like gonorrhea and syphilis.”

As for the past year, PrEP is becoming more and more acceptable in society as something that helps stop the spread of HIV and that is evident almost everywhere. Not only the United States, but the whole world is embracing it rather than beating it down.

“Now we know that PrEP is 99% effective at preventing HIV for people that take it as directed. Use of PrEP increased as time went on, study data got stronger, friends recommended it to friends, information spread, and pop culture began to reference PrEP,” says Etter.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did statistics for HIV in the U.S. between 2011 to 2015. One of the statistics I looked over was “Trends among gay and bisexual men have varied by race.” The stats set me back.

For white men, there was a decrease of 10% in diagnoses while African American men saw an increase in diagnoses of 4%. Hispanic/Latino men had an increase of 14%.

Jeff Kim who is a nurse practitioner at the Damien Center commented on this topic saying, “I would say it is due to the lack education, socioeconomic status, lack of access to care, mistrust in the healthcare system and fear of getting tested.”

There is a generic form of Truvada in the works at the moment. It will cost much less; possibly somewhere around $300. Insurance companies might make patients switch to using the generic form so companies can save money. Etter informed me how this could cause an issue because consumers, “will have to pay out of pocket because there are no copay cards for generic drugs.”

Indy is a growing city that flourishes with diversity and culture. I find our city to not spread the word of HIV around enough as it should because STD’s have had their own mini epidemics in Indy. Last year Indy had a “code red” for syphilis. Kim gave me his opinion on this subject saying, “No, the city of Indianapolis does not advertise, promote, or educate individuals on HIV awareness testing or Truvada. I feel our PrEP program has been proactive and gone out into the community to help educate and bring awareness to HIV/PrEP.”

There is still a lot of work to do so that we can teach generations from now to take care of themselves. Being on Truvada is not something to be ashamed of. It’s a way of taking action in your life and preventing an outcome that no human should ever have to endure. I can only hope that there will be a cure for HIV in the future.

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kizardofkoz · 7 years ago

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Life Robbers

My now-middle-child sits three feet from me, wearing a ridiculously cute alligator pajama top, holding a juice box of apple water (yes, this apparently exists for the crunchy parents’ juice-box solution), completely transfixed on, and interacting with Diego and Dora - or the two most annoying voices on television, while he is naked from the waist down, sitting on his training potty.

When he stands, there is a red horse shoe around his bottom from sitting on the training potty for so long. And we wait. He drinks liquids, and we wait. There are the remnants of blue face paint and silver glitter on his left cheek from a birthday party yesterday afternoon, which looks more like he spent a rager at Studio 54 last night - because if we had a kid who did that, it would be this one. He drinks more liquids. And we are still waiting. He has no idea what he’s doing but he’s so damn cute doing it. Blair is the embodiment of effervescent joy mixed with hilarity, roaring, and fuzzy, light. Potty training is definitely challenging, but this moment is actually quite amazing.

I am present and I am grateful.

For now.

I feel like I am continuing to have the same theme and conversations repeating in my life right now. I read once how God will keep giving you the same lesson over and over again until you learn it. Well, I’m finally listening to you, Oh Beautiful Relentless One, so you can cut the crap, because I’ve got it:

Life Robbers.

*Side Note: At this chapter in my life, it takes about an entire day to write, edit, and post one essay, because, damn, life. It is now 3:01pm in the afternoon. The two youngest are napping, the oldest is enjoying a day and overnight with cousins at Gemmy & Pop Pop’s, and I feel I have probably a precious 30 minutes, 1 hour max, to pump this bad boy out. The REAL reason I write this excerpt, is to say: Friends! Blair has successfully peed AND Pooped in the potty! Holy shit!!! (Emphasis on the later) The excitement I have felt the first time my sons have peed or pooped when potty training, is possibly one of the biggest highs of my last 5 years. I don’t even care if that is pathetic because to me it was pure elation. And it is equally as amazing to see your child so proud of himself. And by proud of himself, I mean also very excited because he knows if he poops he gets a cupcake.

I am trading in size 6 diapers for type 2 diabetes, and I am perfectly fine with that.*

Anyways!

LIFE ROBBERS:

Life Robbers are the thoughts and feelings of pain, disdain, disappointment, and jealousy because you feel you, your life, your possessions or job, are not enough.

We get so hyper focused on enough, and more, and how much income, how much house, what kind of car, obsessing over clothing, shoes, obsessing over our children’s clothing and shoes, the new rug, instrument, gadget, vacation, what gym, what school we send our children to, what nice restaurant we go to celebrate after getting into that school, what amazing meal to order, what freaking mattress we go to sleep on and what white noise machine we need playing in the background as we are trying to fall asleep, looking at our phones, surveying and measuring ourselves against other people’s parades and photos of all of the things they had obtained, and we are subconciously seeing who’s winning. And the answer is no one.

As a culture, we are spiraling one another into a complete obsession of what will make us happy only by comparing ourselves to what seems to make everyone else happy, and we have become this massive ouroboros.

We look at what our neighbors (Facebook, Instashit, etc.) are doing and buying and vacationing and experiencing, and then we can’t help but feel like we aren’t happy or successful enough. And the crazy thing is, the very people we are comparing ourselves to, have quite possibly done the exact same thing to us. And I have literally allowed hours and afternoons be robbed from me because jealousy is a beast. And she’ll rob you blind.

I didn’t even know I was unhappy until I had gotten on Facebook.

And I know I am not alone.

*Side note, it is now FOUR DAYS LATER. ! In this case, my life and time have been robbed by, life and time. And work and boys and nursing and meals and one really hard workout that my legs are still paying for, a dinner with some new friends, lots of sausages (you can interpret that in any way you want and it’s likely accurate) and zero alcohol. !!! Mama’s gone back hard-core, on the Paleo wagon. I’m driving that bad boy. Or perhaps, I’m pulling that wagon behind me as part of my daily W.O.D., while I sweat, cry, and shake from muscles that are so confused by my 5 year pattern of pregnancy, getting into shape, repeat as desired. And those damn simple carbohydrates that I worship during pregnancy, happen to be the #1 enemy of baby weight. So now I have to act like I don’t even like them anymore while I consume all things protein, veggie, and coconut. Except for Saturdays. CHEAT DAY. When my heart rate and insulin levels try to match my enthusiasm.

Donuts, champagne, cheese, or pizza?

OR?

ALL!!!

FOR BREAKFAST!!!*

ANYWAYS!

I have been having repeating conversations with other women in my life about this same struggle of feeling like crap because our lives aren’t measuring up to what we think they should be. Or often, we didn’t realize they weren’t measuring up until we saw someone else’s.

I am so guilty of putting wealth and things on a pedestal. I don’t know where this comes from, but one of the saddest, deepest parts of me is so enthralled by sparkly, beautiful, interesting, vapid, material things. I do, however, also possess this marrow that also craves minimalism, ease, wants to live off the land and wear nothing but linen and hemp. I will say, I actually feel like my *style* rather reflects these two worlds, in what my husband likes to refer to as “global glam” when he’s being kind, or “art teacher chic” when he’s being honest. In his defense, I’m always about two strands of turquoise away from being the woman that you picture listening to NPR while painting watercolor in her library.

So unfortunately, the More-ness-Life-Robber-Beast comes in many other forms, not just the insatiable need for material things. A girlfriend opened up about the hurt and jealousy she felt when she saw a group of friends from her past had met up without her. That all-too-familiar feeling of 6th-grade ache and agony sucked time, energy and happiness from her day. Which is so ashamed, because this girlfriend is one of the most caring and selfless people I have ever met, and that group should have felt robbed of the joy of getting to hear her laugh.

And all of this, I believe, is a byproduct of the gash damn social media bullshit.

This was not an issue for our mothers and I think that is part of the disconnect in our generations. They have no idea what it is like trying to be an adult woman and parent in the world that has Nothing But Exposure to:

The grossly demonstrative overshare of what everyone else is doing (which people tend to naturally only share the best parts)

Status, wealth, and luxury, and how the middle class can, could, and should be striving to obtain this - or at least exhaust ourselves trying

A complete myriad of blogs (Why, hello there!), articles, journals, websites, and endless information of how to live, raise thriving children, and exist in this world that is constantly trying to tell us that what we have is never enough and shame us for feeling like that, at the same time.

We praise metallic Birkenstocks, Farm-raised-anything, rose gold everything, exercise, Madewell, and mindfulness, all in pretty much the same breath. Or Prayanama.

It is completely exhausting and we are the byproduct of this technological avenue of awareness -- and it makes me even more scared for our children, and what type of technology will exist then, and what kind of pressure that will place on their lives, hearts, and relationships.

We are already robbing their lives every time we show them that we value things, our phones, and our money, more than we do them.

And Ourselves.

So what do we do?

(*I DON’T TOTALLY KNOW*, but let's just start by being honest...)

1. Get Off Facebook. Get off Instagram. Take a step back to breathe again, and reset the priorities for our lives. I took an unplanned week off of Facebook a week ago, as did another girlfriend. Each day I felt lighter and happier. I had no idea how often I reach for my phone to kill time on that damn app. I was way more content with my life, not comparing my lack of vacations or experiences this summer to others. And I wasn’t trying to capture the perfect photo of the favorite moment of my day to share. In the morning when nursing, instead of scrolling through my feed, I prayed. Holy shit what a novel idea.

I was free. And it felt amazing.

(I have also since returned to Facebook, but already use it much less, and I feel way more relaxed and removed -- which is exactly how I want to feel when regarding media and the internet. And AI.)

2. A few weeks ago we stayed home from church for a reason I can not remember but I’m sure it was completely valid. To redeem our souls, we decided to spend a little time reading, meditating, and praying. Pretty positive we were 1 for 3. It’s not like gestating boys.

However. My husband read this to me and it was one of the most profound, overwhelmingly reverberating passages I have ever come across in my life.

The Encheiridion (or Manual)

by,

Epictetus (FANCY!)

Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion; and in a word, whatever are our own acts: not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices, and in a word, whatever are not our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint nor hindrance: but the things not in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, in the power of others. Remember then that if you think the things which are by nature your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will blame both gods and men: but if you think that only which is your own to be your own, and if you think that what is another's as it really is, belongs to another, no man will ever compel you, no man will hinder you, you will never blame any man, you will accuse no man, you will do nothing involuntarily, no man will harm you, you will have no enemy, for you will not suffer any harm.

What I feel this is so brilliantly saying, is that we are released from the pressure of responsibility or obsession that we feel to make our lives as perfect as possible. The idea of “the body” not being in our power is a beautiful and mind blowing philosophy, yet echoes the several moments in the bible when we talk about how our “flesh is weak”.

And I feel this so poignantly puts how I have been feeling:

We can be free.

Other people’s possessions were never ours, so why give them the power to weigh us down? We no longer need to feel the weight or pressure of what others have acquired or obtained because we have no ownership over it.

I truly belive by choice and practice, we can have freedom from:

A.) Jealousy and worry, that we don’t have enough, or the newest, most interesting, cool, or clever, etc. bull shit.

B.) The universal need to gratuitously exhibit our lives. It kills me to think that someone ever looked at my photos or life and felt jealousy or longing.

Our affluence isn’t the kind that brings valuables into our lives, but our riches are the kind that make our lives valuable.

(Like what I did there?)

I have a husband who loves me, even when we can’t agree on the importance of excel spreadsheets.

I have three healthy boys that are the cutest and hardest creatures that I have ever encountered.

I have a house with a working air conditioner the St. Louis summer. And sometimes fall and spring. And likely the winter.

And I have a tribe of girlfriends that are perhaps one of the best daily displays of God’s love, humor, and armor for me.

I am actually implausibly wealthy.

At the same time, I have loads and loads of laundry that needs to be washed, folded, and heaven forbid, actually put away.

I have a baby that 95% of the time, can not nap longer than 45 minutes because of his horrible reflux and gas.

We have a backyard that is likely 70% identifiable and unidentifiable species of weeds and plants we did not plant, or that we neglected and they took over - which, I get it, they earned that real estate.

There are very likely at least three things that are rotting in my fridge at any given moment.

I am scared of switching to my fall schedule where I will *mom all day* and then teach piano lessons until 9:00pm at night.

I am scared of paying for the preschool tuition for our older two boys and how that will undeniably affect the rest of our month / lives.

I am scared that the part of me that has struggled with weight and body image issues since I was 8 years old will still be anxious and unsatisfied when I’m 80.

Will we ever live in a bigger home where I can have my own, physical, studio for my business?

Will money ever not feel tight?

Are we raising our boys to be empathetic, kind, compassionate, and confident - while instiling the responsibility and maturity to know how to possess and demonstrate those virtues?

Will Blair’s hair ever change? I both really hope it won’t, and I also really want him to have friends.

These things, these are also my Life Robbers.

The bone in me that is industrious and strives for success and hustles and runs businesses, it is the same bone that lies awake at night worrying about all of these things and so much more.

And I fear it’s starting to break from the pressure.

So now, when I am online, and I start to feel the sensations - usually beginning with a heat and tightness in my throat, a bit of lightness in my head, and an uncomfortable weight in my chest, I will recognize that jealousy, hug her, and let her go. Because that ungrateful wench has never really done anything nice for me anyway, even when I bought her so many beautiful things.

Or at night when I want to cry from the anxiety of imagining how I am going to make our future work with my lesson schedule and being able to both afford all of the opportunities and activities that will spark my children - make them feel excited, strong, and proud, and how will I ever attend a practice, game, or performance when I am stuck behind a piano bench because of my work hours, especially when I need to work to pay for the very practice they are attending... I will take that anxiety, embrace her as well, and exhale her back into the night.

First like a dragon, and then like the ocean.

All of these concerns, while they are in my periphery and path, they are not completely in my power.

And I daily and hourly remind myself that there is a Greater Power that I can breathe my faith, energy, and concern into.

And I know I no longer want to sacrifice minutes, hours, or days to my Life Robbers.

I absolutely no longer want to sacrifice a single minute of sleep to a Life Robbers.

Because this mama has way more important things to focus on.

Like pretending I am going to do laundry.

And potty training a bubble.

And even after all of that, I still post my photos. Because, tradition.

Imma need this cookie and lightning bolt to match my shirt, 100%.

Sorry, Brix. You get a slumber party with cousins, we get delicious ramen.

Steve’s eyes, Brix’s lips, Satan’s gas.

Christmas pjs in July? I’m sorry, do you not like to party?

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