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newagesispage · 3 years ago

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OCTOBER 2021

THE RIB PAGE

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We miss U Charlie Watts!!

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The Stones performed at a private party for Patriots owner Robert Kraft of all people. The test run looked like just that. Shark jumped. I am becoming disillusioned.

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SNL is back with Owen Wilson as first host of season 47. Kacey Musgraves is the musical guest. Episode 2 will have a ridic choice for host. Halsey will sing. I suppose $ is power with the Kardashians. I could think of about 10 million other people to host but more and more Lorne goes for the shiny object , what he THINKS people want instead of taking risk. Beck Bennett is out.

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Is everybody watching the Amber Ruffin Show?? I loved her before but now… I learn so much from her show. Sometimes it takes a comic to get to the real serious shit. For example: Have you heard of drowning towns? Towns like Oscarville, Kowaliga, York hill, Seneca Village, Prentiss and countless other black towns that were drowned out to make lakes for the local whites. Central Park was also made after a black community was erased from history. Development displacement? Alleyway dwelling authority? Even those rabid for history can find out new things everyday. Thanks Amber!!

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Bob Woodward and Robert Costa are finally giving us Peril !!!!!! I’ve been waiting!!** I was in political nerd heaven on Sept. 24 when Yamiche hosted Robert, Bob and Weijia Jang on Washington Week. All of my favorite pundits all together at one table, my dream team!!

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Iman looked great at the Met Gala!! Other great looks belonged to AOC, Tessa Thompson, Maluma, Helen Lasichanb and Pharrell Williams. Gigi Hadid, Kiki Layne, Ashton Sanders, Hailee Steinfeld, Kehlani, Zoe Kravitz, Michaela Cole, Lili Reinhart, Kate Hudson and Shai Gilgeous- Alexander were great. Whoopi Goldberg seemed a bit off.

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Jason Isbell is back with his latest offering, Georgia Blue.

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I see a lot of Title Max type establishment are closing down. Are they a thing of the past? Let’s hope.

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Law and Order is coming back to NBC for season 21. Dick Wolf will own 2 entire nights of television. Some of the old cast is reported to be returning.

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Britney Spears Father was suspended as her conservator.

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Timothy Chalamet, Rowan Atkinson, Sally Hawkins and Olivia Coleman will star in Wonka.

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The 2022 Super Bowl halftime show will bring us Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar.

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People are doing test runs for school board positions to see if their political ideas will play well for the big leagues. If they don’t seem to work, at least they can sometimes change the rules in their own area.

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Joe Rogan got Covid.

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Lake Michigan beaches were closed down thanks to a US Steel plant chemical leak.

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Is this country the master of endless administrative work? None of us should have been surprised at the red tape that the slowed down the end of the war in Afghanistan.** Uber donated 50k for rides and meals to the Afghans when they arrive.**And why do so many waste taxpayer $ on useless recounts and recalls when people need real help with food and healthcare? They must really hate humanity.

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R. Kelly was found guilty of 8 counts of sex trafficking and 1 count of racketeering.

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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Texas has put a law into effect to allow most Texans to carry open without permit or training.

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Texas has banned abortion at about 6 weeks. Uber and Lyft will pay drivers legal fees if sued under Texas abortion law. Lyft donated $1mil to Planned Parenthood. ** Look for the ruling in the Mississippi law over Roe V. Wade in June 2022.**Hear us roar!** BTW.. Go Jen Psaki!!!!!!!

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They seriously banned plastic straws and abortion before assault rifles? – Eden Dranger

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Please stop banning abortions, the last thing the world needs is more Americans. –Sarah Beattie

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Women don’t inseminate themselves. Vasectomies are reversible. Should every man have one until he’s deemed financially and emotionally fit to be a Father? – Bradley Whitford

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90 year old William Shatner will go to space for Blue Origin.

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The Q Anon Shaman pled guilty to a felony for obstructing the Electoral College proceedings. I say 20 years and a $250K fine.** 600 others have been indicted.

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Days Alert: The Beyond Salem thing was ridic but it was so great to see some old characters. Days is so great at visiting old family. Who can resist Shane, Austin and Carrie, Billie and the old Kristen? I do wish that Peacock would get their kinks out!! Back to the real Days: Are we smelling an Emmy for Susan Seaforth Hayes and Bill?? ** Good to have Abigail back. It is always fun to wonder which actress and or personality it will be. ** Deidre Hall got her star on the walk of fame.**And just in time for Halloween, the Devil is making a comeback. The end of the year in Salem is always the best!! It is so brave to give the 96 year old man the old switcheroo into the Dark Lord. It was fun to see the grandkids discover Grandma Marlena’s story. Delicious!! Hail Satan!!** It is past time for Tate and Teresa to come back to town. Brady needs to be put in his place. And thanks for the Philip and Chloe flashbacks!!

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The breakdown of the vaccinated: 90% of Atheists, 86% Hispanic Catholic, 84% Agnostic, 79% White Catholic, 73% White mainline protestant, 70% Black mainline protestant, 57% white evangelical. 1 in 500 Americans have died of Covid.

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So Mike Lindell and Jim Baker have teamed up to sell children’s Bible pillows.** Piers Morgan has returned to the Murdoch organization by joining Fox. That sounds about right.

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Please stop saying the vaccine does not have severe side effects, I took my shots and now I’m alive and have to keep working. –Mohand Eishieky

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In theatres Oct. 22: The French Dispatch.** October also brings us a new season of Curb your enthusiasm and Oct. 17 will catch us up on Succession. Whew!!!

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So people under conservatorship are not free to marry who they want? What?

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46% of Americans believe in ghosts.

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Simone Biles, Mckayla Maroney and Aly Rasiman testified at the Senate judiciary hearing about the FBI’s handling of accusations against Larry Nassar and it was eye opening!

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We wanted a no -nonsense Dem who pushes on and does not puss out. I am a bit surprised to see we have it. There are so many pressing issues that I hope Biden works a bit more on Haiti though.

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The National Police Act was passed to celebrate cops. Still no police reform.

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John Mulaney and Olivia Munn are going to have a baby.

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The Emmy’s were a little different this year with more of a Golden Globe look. Cedric the Entertainer hosted with Reggie Watts as DJ. Lots of minority noms but barely a win. It was a white people night. Ted Lasso had a great night. Mare of Eastown took home a few with Evan Peters, Julianne Nicholson and Kate Winslet. Now, Kate is great but how did Anya Taylor- Joy not walk away with that? Queens Gambit did win a couple and gave the longest speech with the seemingly arrogant director Scott Frank who opened up 2 page acceptance. Categories were tough but I was routing for Renee Elise Goldberry and Bowen Yang but perhaps next year. The people in England who had their own party for all the statues that the Crown won seemed to be having more fun! Hacks won for writing and directing and Jean Smart!! It was nice to see the Norm Macdonald love which was barely mentioned by Lorne but celebrated by John Oliver. Colbert ‘s election night special won as did JB Smoove. Hamilton won and Debbie Allen got the big one. I do not understand why real singers and or musicians have to be there for the in Memoriam. It takes me out of it a bit and concentrates the focus on them. Do they think that people will pay attention more? Do they want to keep the home audience or live audience from the bathroom? My best dressed were Anya Taylor-Joy, Michaela Cole who won for I may destroy you, Jean Smart, Josh O’Connor, Kathryn Hahn, Billy Porter, MJ Rodriguez, Keenan Thonpson, Leslie Odom Jr., Catherine O’Hara, Trevor Noah, Eugene Levy, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, Bowen Yang, Anthony Anderson, Leslie Grossman, Amber Ruffin, Allyson Felix, Renee Elise Goldberry, Samira Wiley and Rege- Jean Page. My worst were Sarah Paulson, Gillian Anderson, Beanie Feldstein, Elizabeth Olsen and Aidy Bryant. To me the best part of the show was the enthusiasm of Conan and the way he injected himself into much of the evening .He was the show. Go Conan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Next year there must be some Emmys for Sarah Paulson and Cobie Smulders in Impeachment!!!!!

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Oh Boy!! The Eyes of Tammy Faye!!

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Looking forward to the Electric Life of Louis Wain with Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy.

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Abba has a new album!!

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Shang Chi is the biggest Labor Day opening with a $71.4 mil opening.

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Sen. Amy Klobuchar has announced she has breast cancer.

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Is it the 70’s? A streaker ran past the studio of the Today show.

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Rascal Flatts Joe Don Rooney was arrested for DUI.** Nicholas Cage was thrown out of a prime rib pace in Vegas after being drunk and disorderly.

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Jennifer Eckhart has filed a lawsuit against former Fox news anchor Ed Henry for rape and retaliation after allegedly being handcuffed and beaten.

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Scarlett Johansson has settled her Disney lawsuit.

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Pete Buttigieg and Chasten had twins they named Penelope Rose and Joseph August.

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I noticed a commercial for Dancing with the Stars. Are we onto the E list because I have heard of hardly any of these people. ‘Stars’is really stretching it. And as I post this I see there are some covid issues there as well.

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Virgin River was renewed for 2 more seasons.

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Trevor Noah is right? Why do they stop giving lollipops to adults at the doctor?

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Jon Stewart is back on Apple tv with ‘The problem with Jon Stewart.

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Brooklyn 99 had about the best finale (other than Newhart) that I can recall. I had my fingers crossed that Chelsea would be back. Will they honor us like they did in the show and come back for a special about once a year? That would be fucking awesome!!

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Don’t expect compliments from an insecure person.- Mr. Pickles

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Thousands and thousands of people are in need. Haitian refugees and other immigrants have seen nothing like this what with assassination, a hurricane and earthquake. The Southern border is a mess.** Why does Fox news keep telling refugees the border is open as they sit back and laugh at Biden’s predicament. Spreading false info to intentionally hurt poor, distressed people has no end for them.

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Do companies know how fucked up their employment websites are? It is true that some people do not want to work. It is true that people schedule interviews and don’t show up. It is also true that companies have made it so hard to apply that many can’t. I suppose it is easier for them but the poor who may really want to work have a hard time. Paper applications are almost completely gone. The old fashioned way of walking into low paying job sites and finding a connection with a manager rarely exist. Some places only accept texts or have long ridiculous psych tests that a working Mother may not have time for. A Father working many hours already, may not be able to go to the library to get online if they cannot afford a computer. Many websites tell you that there no positions available in your area while there is a huge sign in front of the establishment. Can’t find people to work.. Gee I wonder why?? And treat people with respect once you find them, how about that?

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Keep your head up in failure, and your head down in success. –Jerry Seinfeld

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Hey.. There was a van air B’n B biz going that got busted. Hey.. The poor need vaca’s too. It is wrong but If they are willing to sleep in a van, why not. I truly think that many do not understand how much people are struggling.

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Free coffee day came and went but only a few places really gave you free coffee without rules to govern the promo. Some places wanted to sell you something else and some made you belong to their club. Starbucks held that customers had to come inside for the free cup of Joe, handicapped or not.

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One would think the Republicans would run out of $ for recounts but they have deep pockets. Just think how much good they could do for the huddled masses with that scratch.

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Sad to lose Mick Brigden, protégé of Bill Graham who managed The Stones and worked with Frampton, Dylan and Santana.** And the comics were very vocal about the loss of Norm Macdonald. He was one of a kind and he will be missed!

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R.I.P. Ruth Marx, Lee Scratch Perry, Willard Scott, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Isadore Bleckman, George Wein, Michael K. William,George Holliday, Anthony Johnson, Basil Hoffman, Al Harrington,Willie Garson, Mick Brigden, Tommy Kirk and Norm Macdonald.

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justfandomwritings · 5 years ago

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Urban Legends (Part Four - Chris Beck)

Pairing: Chris Beck x Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: nada

Summary: (Y/n) Watney was something of an urban legend at NASA. Commander of the Ares I mission, (Y/n) was the first human to set foot on another planet. She heard names like Neil Armstrong and smirked. She was on her way to being the most famous astronaut in history, and she was determined to bring her brother along for the ride. She recommended Mark to Vincent Kapoor. She helped him get on the Ares III mission to Mars.

Her brother was stuck on Mars because of her, and she was determined to bring him home.

After all, if he was the first human to die on another planet that would thoroughly steal her thunder; and she couldn’t have that.

Start From the Beginning With… Part One

Previously On... Part Three

‘What’s in a name?’ For a rose, not much. Roses weren’t sentient beings. Being called a rose didn’t shape them in any way. They didn’t respond to their name. They didn’t know they were called roses. They didn’t have personalities or lives that were in any way shaped by experiences tied to that name.

A rose would smell as sweet by any other name because a rose wasn’t conscious to choose how sweet it smelled.

A person, in fiction or in life, did not have that luxury.

Names held great power and sway over minds.

Sure, if you chanted Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror three times no woman was going to miraculously appear over your reflection’s shoulder to kill you. But every bump for the rest of the night, every creak of the house settling, hoot of an owl outside, thud of a family member on a midnight snack run, was going to unsettle you.

Because the woman showing up to kill you would mean that she had the power, but your frightened attentiveness proves her name holds a weight all its own.

In reality, names can hold just as much sway. They shape who we are. They influence our friends, our attitudes, our lives. They are by far the most important thing in your life over which you have no say.

Unless of course, we’re talking about nicknames.

Then again, most people don’t get any say over those either.

(Y/n) and Amy came to a quick and surprisingly easy understanding.

Like her brother, Amy was a doctor. Though Amy had no ambition of going to space, she applied her trade to similarly impressive, groundbreaking fields. She was, as (Y/n) only learned after weeks of living with her, one of the country’s foremost leaders in cancer research, a job that had brought her to MD Anderson, and by extension Houston.

While the hours weren’t quite as hectic as running shifts in a hospital, Amy still found herself in and out of the apartment at odd, though thankfully predetermined times.

At the beginning of each week, Amy would walk into the kitchen and paste a magnetic calendar to the fridge detailing her schedule for the week and when she would be out of the apartment.

(Y/n) used this as a template to work out when she could take over the living room. While she’d been staying there, (Y/n) had preferred working from the hotel room, and that continued when she’d moved in with Amy. There were too many eyes at NASA, curiously watching her every move. Every mouth went still when she walked in the room, and on more than one occasion, (Y/n) had walked down the hall to find coworkers pressing ears to the door of the office she’d commondiered, trying to listen in on her.

The hotel had been easy and convenient to turn into one massive office, the apartment less so.

(Y/n) was acutely aware of the favor Amy was doing for her and just how above and beyond she had gone for a woman she’d never met. (Y/n) had to help her brother, but she didn’t want to repay Amy’s support by trashing her place.

(Y/n) “borrowed” a rolling whiteboard and several rolling supply carts from the Space Center. Knowing when Amy would be out, (Y/n) could spread her supplies all over the apartment and pack them away just in time for her roommates return.

Amy would, quite regularly, walk in to find (Y/n) only just rolling the last cart back into her room. In which case, she would always ask, “Anything?”

And (Y/n), unable to bear answering out loud, would shake her head.

It was on one particularly rare occasion that Amy came home early and found (Y/n) sitting on the floor surrounded by maps of what appeared to be Mars surface.

Amy was by no means a ninja, but most people would’ve thought she was because her entrance to the room didn’t seem to wake (Y/n) from her papers at all. She could’ve let her keep working. Amy actually considered slipping past and saying nothing. (Y/n)’s concerted efforts to clean up before Amy got home were largely unnecessary. Amy didn’t really mind the mess. What she minded a great deal was (Y/n) seemingly working herself to death, and that glazed look to her eye was what changed Amy’s mind.

Amy let her bag hit the floor at the corner of one of the maps with a loud thud.

(Y/n)’s head jerked up. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know it was so late. I’ll clean up.”

“No, I’m early.” Amy waves away the suggestion and joined (Y/n) cross legged on the floor. “Any progress?”

(Y/n) wordlessly shook her head and diverted her eyes back to the map she was clutching in her hands. “He’s still on the move, has been every day.”

“Maybe it’s just an extended test run?” Amy suggested. “You said it would take a significant amount of planning to get to Ares IV.”

(Y/n) unclenched her fists folding the map in front of her and laid it out on the floor between her and her friend. “Some people at NASA think that,” (Y/n) nodded, “but I don’t.” (Y/n) traced a circle around the Ares III site, “Before he embarked, Mark drove this loop on a charging cycle, always staying within walking distance of the HAB.”

Amy followed (Y/n)’s finger carefully, “So he was making sure his vehicle functioned properly?”

(Y/n) snapped and pointed a finger to Amy, “Exactly! But why? That’s the question we’re all arguing over. Some people at NASA think the loop was just a quick check to see if his adjustments worked, and that this drive is meant to be a long-haul test for Ares IV.”

“And you?” Amy prompted.

(Y/n) ran a shaking hand through her hair with a heavy sigh. “My brother’s too intelligent for that. I mean, I could buy that he would do a longhaul test to get estimates of the rover’s power supply and capabilities, but he was so cautious the first time to stay at a distance where he could save himself. He wouldn’t just abandon that. If this were Ares IV prep, he’d have stayed in close to the HAB. I think the laps around the HAB were prep for this.”

“Maybe,” Amy pondered for a moment. It’s not that she thought she could come up with anything new; she wasn’t the rocket scientist after all. Amy imagined (Y/n) had thought of everything by now. She really just hoped that she could be an ear for (Y/n)’s ideas. “Maybe, he wanted to try it over different terrain? You said the Ares III site is flat, right?”

“Then why wouldn’t he go this way?” (Y/n) lined a rough path towards Ares IV. “Wouldn’t you naturally head in the direction of your end goal? Any little bit of practice helps; he wouldn’t waste it heading the opposite direction.”

Then a thought occurred to Amy. “You say you’ve all been arguing over the why he’s doing this right?”

“Yeah,” (Y/n) tossed the map back into the piles scattered around the floor.

“Well maybe that’s the wrong question.” Amy snatched up the map (Y/n) had just abandoned and held it up for her. “If he was going the other direction, you wouldn’t be questioning it. You would assume it was a test run because that’s the direction of Ares IV.”

“Right.” (Y/n) didn’t really see where this was going.

Amy snatched up a sharpie off the mess on the ground and drew a generically straight line towards Ares IV, not at all the path Mark would have to take but it made a point. “You would never ask ‘the why’ if he’d gone this direction because you know ‘the what’. So start asking yourself ‘what’ is he going to that’s more important than Ares IV.”

There was a moment of silence. (Y/n) stared at the aerial photo of Mars Amy was clutching in her hands. Her expression was, for that long pause, entirely unmoving. Her chest didn’t rise or fall. She didn’t blink. To Amy, it was like someone hit the pause button on her roommate.

And then, all at once, they were in fast forward.

(Y/n) threw herself across the floor, grabbed Amy’s bag and shoved it into her hands. “Drive.”

“Where are we going?” Amy asked.

(Y/n) was in a flurry, snatching a folder off the couch, grabbing a map from her cart that was almost as tall as she was, and ripping the Sharpie from Amy’s hand.

“NASA.”

(Y/n) raced out of the apartment at top speed, and Amy didn’t ask question, only followed hot on her heels.

(Y/n) didn’t even notice. Her eyes and ears were tearing through her pockets till the moment she sat down in the car.

“My phone, damnit!” She finally pulled it out of her back pocket as Amy cranked the car.

“Henderson!” Amy was sure whoever (Y/n) called must’ve been on speed dial because no human could type as fast as she got that man on the phone. “Meet me in Meeting Room 13A with Kapoor, Sanders, and Montrose.” The usual pause of one-sided conversations followed. “Yes, it’s important! I’m on my way in now. Tell the gate I’m coming.”

As Henderson went to hang up, (Y/n) shouted down the phone, “And get JPL on the line!”

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“Please state your name and purpose for your…”

“She’s with me.” (Y/n) cut off the guard, shoving her pass across the driver’s seat into his hand.

Amy sat as far back as her seat allowed and stared straight ahead with bug-eyed horror.

“Miss Watney,” The security officer ducked down to check that it was, in fact, her. “Apologies.” He handed back the pass and waved their car through.

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“So you’re going to be, like, famous.”

(Y/n) snorted, immediately followed by a pained groan as she felt her beer going up instead of down her throat. “Yeah, I guess,” she wheezed. “But not in the celebrity way.”

“No,” Mark rolled his eyes, “in the ‘my-face-will-be-on-the-cover-of-history-textbooks’ sort of way. Poor you,” he mocked sympathy.

(Y/n) stole a cheese covered fry from Mark’s plate and made a show of dropping it into her mouth. “Yep,” she smacked down with a smug grin.

“Do you get to pick your nickname?” Mark asked. He grabbed his next cheese-coated fry and inelegantly slurped the sticky yellow off his fingers as he talked. “Cause you don’t want it to be something weird. It’s going to be under your headshot for millennia.”

(Y/n) hadn’t really thought about her nickname. She hadn’t thought about millennia either. She’d been far too present in the here and now to think to think past the news she’d received that morning. She hadn’t made it to customizing her spacesuit yet, and she definitely hadn’t confronted the fact that soon, very soon, every human alive, potentially every human for the rest of forever, would learn her name.

She was a bit busy confronting the contract NASA’s in-house attorney had just made her sign. A boring suit in a back office at Johnson Space Center had just confirmed for her, ‘Congratulations, Miss Watney. You’ve been named Commander of Ares I. It seems you will be the first person to set foot on Mars.’ The finer details like eternal glory and monogrammed jackets hadn’t really crossed her mind yet.

“Why don’t you pick one for me?” (Y/n) stole another cheese fry. She felt like she’d earned it.

Mark thought about it for a second. “Well you could just go with Princess. It’s worked for you this long.”

(Y/n) glowered.

“Fine, fine,” Mark dismissed. “You could play up the space theme, go with something like Nova or Andromeda.” Mark immediately shook his head, thinking better of it. “Nova’s overused, and people might mistake it for your real name. Then you wouldn’t be the famous one. Plus, Andromeda’s a mouthful. Gotta have something those little first graders can spell out on their pop quizzes.”

(Y/n) shook her head and laughed under her breath. Mark pretended not to notice, and (Y/n) didn’t press the issue. She’d let him have his fun.

“You could play up being first!” Mark faked excitement. “What about Gold or Alpha, maybe Uno!” He clapped his hands like a child on Christmas.

(Y/n) arched an eyebrow and waggled a fry, soggy with cheese, in his face. “Don’t think I won’t throw this at you.”

“War?” He pushed with a smirk. “Ya know, because Ares is.”

The fry flew out of her hand and smacked Mark across the cheek.

“Hey! I wasn’t done! I’m full of great ideas!”

(Y/n) snickered all the way to the bathroom to wash her hands, her brother shouting nicknames after her as she went.

“Big Red?” He called out. “What about Pathfinder, first rover, first human?”

In the end, her team had named her Skywalker. She wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not.

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(Y/n) stormed into the room already unrolling the map under her arm as she went.

Amy followed sheepishly behind. It wasn’t that she felt out of place. She’d spent her life dealing with high pressure situations. That sort of setting wouldn’t phase her, and neither would the company. She wouldn’t have made a very good doctor if an important director or important decisions made her clam up.

It was more the banging down doors and disturbing what was an otherwise serious atmosphere that wasn’t Amy’s forte.

“This is Dr. Beck.” (Y/n) didn’t turn around. Already her attention was stolen away by magnetting her massive map to the massive whiteboard taking up the back wall. “No, not the one who’s up in space, his sister. Who as it happens, has just figured out what my brother is doing.”

“She has?”

“I have?”

The questions came up from Teddy and Amy.

Amy knew it was Teddy because she’d met Mitch Henderson on several occasions, and Vincent Kapoor once. Annie Montrose did the usual NASA press conferences, including the one where Amy’s brother was announced as a member of Ares III; Amy kept a recording of it saved to her computer. She didn’t understand his interest, but she was proud of him nonetheless.

Teddy’s face had only graced Amy’s memory once. Watching the announcement that Mark Watney was alive.

“She has.” (Y/n) turned. “You have,” She smiled at Amy.

(Y/n) produced her stolen sharpie from her pocket and turned back to her map. The cap had ruptured from the ill-treatment (Y/n) had given it on the drive over, and dark blue ink was slowly leaking out over (Y/n)’s fingers, not that she noticed.

Standing on her toes, she drew a circle around the top corner of the map. From their usually brief conversations and the simple process of osmosis, Amy knew it was Ares IV’s campsite.

(Y/n) extended the line down a few inches across the paper then paused to draw an arrow.

Amy was smart enough to guess that was where Mark was now.

Then she continued the line down to the bottom corner of the paper and drew a massive X.

Turning back around, (Y/n) stabbed the tip of her marker into the crosshairs. “He’s going for Pathfinder.”

Crackling over a speaker in the center of the table announced another member of their gathering. “Oh God.”

“Bruce,” (Y/n) braced herself against the wood. “Can you get it working on our end?”

“Yeah, but there’s no telling what state it’ll be in when Mark gets there.”

“He’ll fix it.” (Y/n) said.

“It’ll take a lot of work. Pathfinder’s been abandoned up there for decades without any kind of maintenance.” Bruce contradicted.

(Y/n) leaned over the intercom and said with unwavering certainty. “He’ll fix it.”

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Taglist:

Forever Taglist:

@maybe-a-fangurl / @libbymouse / @geeksareunique / @deathbyarabbit / @spilltheearlgrey / @ryanbarnesrogers /

Series Taglist:

@multifandombabelover / @cutiepiemimi13 / @captainscanadian / @harishaanne / @andtheytoldustotellyouhello / @diabla-seis66 / @thebestofoneshots / @harishaanne / @bitch-imma-head-out / @hero-ically

#chris beck imagine #chris beck x reader #chris beck fanfiction #the martian fanfiction #the martian imagine #chris beck x you #chris beck x y/n #sebastian stan fanfiction #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine

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notalwaysthevillian · 5 years ago

Text

Parent Trapped

Warnings: Anxiety, self-deprecation, food mention

Pairings: Eventual Romantic Remile, platonic LAMP

Word Count: ~3k

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Masterlist

Chapter 2: First Week of School

The next morning should’ve been absolute chaos, but it went surprisingly smooth. Emile woke first, getting ready for the day before heading downstairs to make breakfast for the boys. Patton was the next to rise, jumping in the shower as Virgil came downstairs to eat. The two switched places when Patton was done.

Once everyone was ready to go, the three of them made sure they had everything before jumping in the car.

“Are you guys excited for your first day?”

Virgil shrank in his seat. “You mean our first day in the middle of the school year? When we know absolutely no one and we’re the freaky new kids?”

“V, it’s okay.” Patton reached over and squeezed his hand. “We have a few classes together, and since we’re new we’ll probably sit together. And we share the same lunch.”

“I’ve talked to the principal over email.” Emile glanced at his sons in the back. “He seems like a very nice man. When I mentioned your anxiety disorder he said that he’d let the teachers know.”

Shrinking even further, Virgil threw his hoodie up. After a moment, he bolted upright. “What if they make me take my hood down?”

“They won’t, I made sure of it.” Emile said, his voice stern. “And if any of the teachers give you trouble for it, I want you to tell Mr. Sanders at the earliest opportunity. He understands that it helps you feel less anxious, even if it’s only a little bit.”

They pulled up to the school. There were kids pouring in from the buses, as well as the parking lot. Patton looked excited, but Virgil looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“I believe in you.” Emile smiled at him in the mirror.

Steeling his shoulders, Virgil got out of the car. He hunched over immediately, glancing at Patton who was still in the car.

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Patton just caught Emile’s nod as he got out of the car. Once the boys were at a safe distance from the curb, he drove off, waving in the mirror.

“We should go find our lockers.” Virgil mumbled, fidgeting with the strings of his hoodie.

The two of them fell into step as they headed down the hallway. A few people turned to look at them, but for the most part people kept to themselves.

The whispers were what worried Virgil. Especially when he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

They’re talking about you.

They think you’re a freak.

You’re not going to fit in here no matter how hard you try.

Luckily, Patton had noticed as soon as Virgil started to sink into his thoughts. He bumped their shoulders together, getting Virgil’s attention.

“What’s your first class?”

Virgil pulled out his schedule. He scanned the first column, glad that the school had been kind enough to give them a map along with their schedules. Not that the building was very big anyway.

“Um...Physical Science.”

“I’ll run into you as you leave then.” Patton said, putting his schedule up to Virgil’s. “I have that one second hour. You’ll have to warn me if there’s a pop quiz.”

Virgil couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Definitely. And you’ll have to warn me about any in English.”

“Of course.”

They reached their lockers, which were side by side, and quickly dumped what they wouldn’t need until after lunch.

“I can walk you to science if you want.” Patton offered.

Virgil shook his head. “I can’t be the freak that needs his brother to walk him to his classes.”

“V…”

“I’ll be okay. Promise.”

Virgil held out his pinky. Patton took it and they shook.

“See you in Algebra!” Patton said as he headed off.

Virgil turned around, heading in the opposite direction. It took him about two minutes to find the science hallway. He walked down the hall, checking the room numbers against his schedule, double checking when he found the right room.

He walked in, heading up to the teacher’s desk immediately. Mrs. Calypso glanced up as he approached, giving him a genuine smile.

“Virgil, right?” She said, keeping her voice low. “I’m Mrs. Calypso. Tho - Principal Sanders talked to me about your anxiety, so I won’t be introducing you to the class.”

Reaching into a drawer, she pulled out a textbook. There was a toucan emblazoned on the cover. “This is our textbook. You guys actually came in at a really good time, most of us are starting new sections today. I don’t think Le - Mr. Anderson is starting anything new, but volleyball is pretty easy to pick up.”

“Thank you.” Virgil took the textbook from her. He shifted his weight. “Um...where should I sit?”

“Oh! Right.” She glanced at a sheet of paper in front of her. “Logan sits by himself, you could join him.”

She pointed to a small boy with perfectly styled red hair. His glasses were a lot different than Patton’s. Patton preferred round glasses, but this boy seemed to prefer the square ones. It made him look smart and slightly intimidating.

As Virgil approached, Logan looked up from his book. “Hello. My name is Logan.”

“Mrs. Calypso told me.” Virgil said, wanting to mentally smack himself immediately. “I’m Virgil.”

Logan nodded, glancing at the clock above Virgil’s head. “I suggest you skim over the chapter. It’ll help you be able to answer Mrs. Calypso’s questions faster.”

“Cool.”

Virgil pulled out his notebook, folder, and a pencil before dropping his backpack at his feet. He started going over the first few paragraphs of the chapter, interrupted when the bell rang.

“Alright, class, if you’d open your books to chapter eight, we can get started.”

Virgil’s first few classes went by fairly quickly. Mrs. Calypso was extremely nice. A few times he’d panicked, thinking she was going to call on him, but she called on Logan instead. He was obviously the smartest kid in the class, something Virgil was grateful for.

When science had ended, Logan had given him a smile before heading out. Virgil bumped into Patton on the way to English, letting him know there wasn’t a pop quiz and getting a giggle in response.

Mx. Stokes was just as cool as Mrs. Calypso was nice. They had a huge non-binary flag up on the wall, informed Virgil of their pronouns right away, and had handed him a small Shakespeare anthology.

“We’re working our way through Hamlet right now.” They’d said as they handed the book over. “If you know the Lion King, you’re good.”

Virgil was glad he wasn’t picked on to read any of the lines, knowing he’d mess it up. Instead he gave his opinion on what a few of the pieces of foreshadowing were, earning a smile and nod from Mx. Stokes in the process.

By the time he reached math, he was a lot calmer. None of the students seemed to really care that there were some new kids, ignoring him since he was ignoring them.

“You look happy.” Patton said once Virgil had sat down next to him.

Mr. Lockwood shut the door as soon as the bell rang. One unlucky student showed up a few seconds later, opening the door and slinking to their desk.

“We have a few new students today.” He gestured to Virgil and Patton. Virgil immediately started sinking in his seat. “Virgil and Patton Picani. You can get to know them on your own time. Our new unit today is polynomials.”

There were a few groans from the class.

“Yes, yes, I know, math sucks. It’s still my job to teach you and get you to understand the material by any means necessary.” After a moment of silence, he pulled out a remote. “And today’s means are a video.”

The class cheered as the projector was turned on, starting to warm up.

After one more class without Patton, since he’d opted for Spanish and Patton had opted for ASL, they met at their lockers.

“ASL is so much fun!” He gushed as they dumped their morning books and grabbed their stuff for the afternoon. “Our teacher, Talyn, shows us videos while we do the signs. It’s so much easier to figure it out that way!”

“That’s really cool, Pat.” Virgil slipped his backpack straps over his shoulders as they walked to the lunchroom.

Since the school was small, the lunchroom was too. Virgil was relieved to find out that it wasn’t the giant, two-story area he was thinking of. High School Musical wasn’t the best depiction of high school, but it was all he knew.

They moved through the line, grabbing some rubbery looking pizza, a fruit cup, and a sugar cookie.

“This looks nasty.” Virgil said as they sat at an empty table in the corner. “I’m definitely packing a lunch the rest of the year.”

“It might not be that bad!” Patton took a bite of the pizza. “The pizza is okay. No Little Caesar’s, but it’s...edible.”

The two of them choked down their lunches. By the time they were finished, the cafeteria was mostly cleared out. Following the few students left, Patton and Virgil found that most of the students headed off to wherever they wanted to, using their spare lunch time as a little bit of a free period.

Virgil glanced at the kids before starting to shuffle down the hall. “I’m gonna get my stuff and head to History.”

“Okay!” Patton started walking with him. “I’m gonna head to the gym. Mr. Anderson should probably know how clumsy I am before he decides where I’m going on the volleyball court.”

“You’re not that clumsy.”

The two of them burst into giggles at Virgil’s claim. Patton was known for tripping over the slightest thing. Sometimes that included his own feet. But Virgil and their dad never made him feel bad about it, telling Patton that it simply added to his charm.

Once they’d gathered their stuff from their lockers, the two of them went their separate ways once more. Virgil headed off to history with Mr. Foote, and Patton headed to the gym.

There were a few students already over there, heading into the locker room. Patton went into the gym first, hoping to talk to Mr. Anderson before class started.

“Woah, you need your uniform tod -” Mr. Anderson stopped himself. “I apologize, you must be one of the new students. Let me see...Patton?”

“That’s me!” Patton said, giving him a smile. “I wanted to warn you before class started. I’m really clumsy.”

“Even the clumsiest among us can be great athletes.” Mr. Anderson looked up, marking a few students off on his clipboard. “Don’t worry, Patton, I’m here to make sure no one gets hurt, whether it be intentional or an accident. And when I can’t prevent that, Nurse Britches does an excellent job at patching people up.”

Patton giggled, leaving Mr. Anderson to talk to the students who had just walked in. He quickly changed into his uniform and tennis shoes, throwing the rest of his stuff in his gym locker.

“You’re new.”

Green eyes looked up at Patton from the nearest bench. The boy was tying his shoes, the red accents matching his bandana perfectly.

“I’m Patton.”

The boy stood, flicking his hair out of his eyes. “Roman.”

“I thought we had to wear the uniform.” Patton said as they headed out of the locker room.

Roman shot him a mischievous grin. “If you check the handbook, the rules say we have to wear the uniform. It doesn’t say anything about us not being able to add anything to it. Though once Principal Sanders figures that out, he’ll probably fix it for next year.”

Patton let out a giggle. “I mean, you’re still following the rules.”

“Technically, yeah.”

They filed into the gym with the rest of the class. Mr. Anderson, who insisted Patton call him Coach Leo, split them up into teams before letting them loose.

Patton was lucky enough to be on Roman’s team. “I’m pretty clumsy, so…”

“Everyone gets a turn in each spot.” Roman said, nudging him into the back center. “Of course, that’s if the other team can hit the ball back over. I’m the best server in the class.”

Class flew by, with Roman scoring point after point. Once he’d fully decimated the other team, Coach Leo called out a rule that servers could only score five points in a row, and then the team had to rotate.

“Doesn’t matter, we’ll still win.” Roman mumbled under his breath.

And he was right. Their team was the winner at the end of class, with no losses on their record.

“Tomorrow we’ll work on some of the basics again.” Coach Leo said as the bell rang.

Roman and Patton headed to the locker room to change back into their normal clothes.

“So where did you sit at lunch today?” Roman asked, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Over in the corner with my twin.”

“You have a twin?!” Roman practically shrieked.

No one gave them a second glance, telling Patton that he must do this a lot. “Mhmm. His name is Virgil.”

“Well, I cannot wait to meet your twin tomorrow.” When he noticed Patton’s confused look, Roman continued. “You two have to sit with me and my friends. And my brother.”

“Your brother isn’t your friend?”

Roman waved a hand in the air. “Kinda sorta. I gotta run to English, see you later!”

By the time the day was over, Patton was loaded down with homework. He was happy to see Virgil when he reached his locker to get all the books he’d need.

“Why is there so much to do?!” Virgil asked as he packed practically all of their textbooks into his backpack. The zipper refused to go up all the way, so he just left it open a crack.

Patton shrugged. “Because we came in during the middle of the year?”

“Nah, it’s just because everyone started a new section on the same day.” Tanya told them as she walked up. Her bubblegum snapped as she popped a bubble. “It’s not normally like that.”

“I guess we’re just lucky.” Hoisting up his backpack, Virgil slung it over one shoulder. “We should go find Dad.”

Patton nodded before turning to Tanya. “Did you need a ride home?”

“Nah, I take the bus.” Tanya adjusted her backpack. “Gives me some time with my friends. But I’ll see you guys later.”

“Bye!”

The Picanis headed out of the double doors, finding their dad waiting a little down the block. As soon as they got in, he gave them a huge smile.

“How was school?”

Virgil and Patton looked at each other. Virgil waved his hand and Patton started talking first.

“It was a lot of fun, even though we have a lot of homework. I met a lot of people and I made a new friend! His name is Roman, he’s in my gym class. Oh! And my ASL teacher is super cool. They show us videos to learn the signs and it makes it a lot easier. Um...I think that’s it.”

“I’m glad you made a friend! He’ll have to come over sometime soon so I can meet him.” Emile switched his gaze to his other son in the rearview mirror. “Virgil? How’d it go?”

“It went alright. My English teacher is really cool. We’re doing Hamlet, which they told me is just like the Lion King. And I think I made a friend? He’s in my science class and we sit together. He doesn’t talk a lot unless he’s answering a question.”

“What’s his name?”

“Logan. And he’s short, so I think he might have skipped a grade or something, but I didn’t want to ask him.” As he finished his sentence, Virgil flipped up his hood, putting in his headphones.

The next day at lunch, Patton dragged Virgil over to where Roman was sitting. Virgil noticed Logan sitting at the emptier end of the table, eyes moving over a book in front of him as he ate.

“The name’s Roman.” Roman said to Virgil, who responded with a half smile and a wave. Waving his hand down the table, Roman introduced everyone else. “That’s Alex, Quil, and Nessa. The one at the end who’s ignoring everyone is my brother, Logan.”

“Logan’s your brother?” Virgil asked.

Logan finally looked up when he heard Virgil’s voice. “Sadly.”

“Hey!”

“If you want some semblance of peace and quiet, I’d suggest you join the loner end of the table.” Logan continued, ignoring his brother’s shout of protest.

Virgil immediately moved across from Logan, hearing Roman grumble under his breath. Patton easily distracted him with a question, leaving Virgil and Logan to themselves.

“How are you two related?” Virgil asked as he watched Roman talk with his hands.

Logan flipped a page in his book. “We’re not. By blood, I mean. I was adopted.”

“Oh.” Virgil bit his lip, not sure what to say. “Um, that’s cool.”

“It would be if my father and brother weren’t such lunatics.”

The only thing tipping Virgil off that Logan was joking was the tiniest twitch in the corner of his mouth. Once Virgil started laughing, Logan did too.

“Oh my god, he laughs.” Roman teased from the other end of the table, earning himself a rude gesture from Logan.

That, combined with the offended gasp from Roman and a scolding from Patton, made Virgil laugh even harder. Tears started streaming down his face as he continued, unable to stop for a good minute or so.

The rest of the week became routine. Patton and Virgil ate at Roman and Logan’s table every single day. The four of them became fairly good friends by the end of the week.

Good enough friends for Roman to come in on Friday, excitement sparkling in his eyes, and say, “My dad said you guys could sleep over tonight.”

Ice spread through Virgil’s veins at the thought. He stammered out some sort of excuse before taking off, leaving his lunchbox behind.

“Was it something I said?” Roman asked as he stared at were Virgil had been.

Patton quickly got up, grabbing Virgil’s lunchbox. “He - it’s - I’ll text you later and explain, okay? I don’t want to say something he doesn’t want me to say.”

Roman simply nodded as Patton took off to go find his brother.

#platonic moxiety #platonic logince #platonic lamp #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #emile picani #anxiety #self-deprecation #food mention

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maddie-the-princess · 4 years ago

Text

If You Love Me, Let Me Go Part 3

Fandom: Sanders Sides

AU: High School

Pairing(s): LAMP

Summary: Virgil and his family are new to the neighborhood. He starts a new school where he learns to love himself, and maybe, love his new friends.

Warnings: Mild language, Gay panic, Slight panic attack

Thank you to @kuroyurishion for helping me with this chapter. Please enjoy the story.

Chapter Three: Logan, Remus, Remy, and Roman

Virgil’s POV

I compared schedules with Dee and found out we had most classes together. The morning was split into three classes, then lunch, and then another three classes. In the morning I had Math, Science, and History. In the afternoon, I had a Study Hall, English, and then Art. I shared most classes with Dee except for Science, History, and Art. Dee was taking Psychology as his science while I took Anatomy. As for History, Dee was taking Public Speaking as his course. And when I had Art, Dee had Study Hall. I quickly packed my things and stood up before I heard the bell ring.

“C’mon shortstack, I’ll walk you to your next class. Mine is in the same direction.” Dee said, walking out of the classroom. The two of us walked down the hall, talking about how the school works, before stopping in front of what looked like a science lab. “Here you go shortstack.” Dee said, waving goodbye as he walked to his class. Taking a deep breath, I walked into the classroom.

The science teacher looked a lot nicer than the math teacher. He smiled at me and gestured to his desk. “Welcome to science class Mr. Sullivan!” he exclaimed politely. “I’m Mr. Williams and I’ll be your Anatomy teacher this year. I understand that you took both Biology and Chemistry in your old school, correct?” he asked. I nodded to his questions. “Wonderful. I told everybody about you coming here last week, and the class is ready to make you comfortable. Here, take your textbook and syllabus. Your seat is in the back of class.” He smiled apologetically at that last statement. I gave him a brief smile and a nod of thanks before taking my seat and taking out my things. I doodled in my notebook while waiting.

The rest of the class shuffled in, some of them looking in my direction curiously. I didn’t look up from my doodles until I heard Mr. Williams got out of his seat after taking attendance. I snapped my head up. I like science class better than math because at least there’s an explanation for something. And anatomy is pretty cool too, which is a bonus.

“Alright class, today we will continue our study of the human body by looking at the human body’s cells. Now, who can tell me what the study of cells is called?” No one in the class answered Mr. Williams right away. I racked my brain for the answer. It was definitely something I learned in freshman year at my old school.

‘Cytology.’ I thought to myself, going to raise my hand, but I stopped. Should I actually raise my hand and answer? What if I get the question wrong? Will everyone laugh at me? Oh god, Mr. Williams seems like a pretty nice guy, so if I answer wrong and he’s disappointed in me, he’s gonna see that I’m such a dumbass. My thoughts were spiraling until I hear Mr. Williams call on someone.

“Cytology is the scientific study of cells. Cytology is mainly used to screen for cancer or other diagnosis.” a cool voice answered. I looked over to see who answered. It was a boy about my age. He had dark brown hair and matching eyes and wore glasses. He wore a black polo and dark washed jeans with a dark blue tie and black shoes. He looked stoic and dedicated to his work. I cursed.

‘Oh of course I get to sit next to a nerd. He’s a hot nerd, but- ok, Virgil let’s stop these thoughts right now before you have a gay panic.’ I thought to myself, fighting the blush that was appearing on my face. I quickly turned my head so he wouldn’t notice me staring at him. The class continued like that. Mr. Williams would lecture and ask questions, Mr. Owens answers, and I get to stare at my neighbor while also taking notes. I just hoped and prayed to whatever cryptid out there that he didn’t notice me. Those prayers didn’t work.

Why? Because Mr. Williams let us have the last five minutes of class to ourselves with our only homework will be to study the lesson we had today. Quickly, I put my books away and buried my head in my arms, groaning quietly. I needed to breathe, so I turned my head. I saw Mr. Owens reading a book, and with the sunlight streaming through the window, he looked even better than before. I froze. ‘Nope, not happening. I’m not gonna have a gay panic over this one.’ I thought desperately. I didn’t notice I was still staring at my seatmate until he turned and looked at me curiously. He smirked, like he knew I was sneaking glances at him, and winked.

He winked. At me.

When the bell rang, I gathered my things and bolted out of the classroom and tried to find my next class.

***

I had lunch with Dee. I walked into the bustling cafeteria, scanning for my one and only friend. He spotted me first and waved me over, and I walked toward him and his table and sat down next to him.

“Hey there short stack.” Dee greeted me fondly. “How were your morning classes?” I gave him a groan in response and he laughed at me. How dare he. “Lift your head up, short stack, I want you to meet some people.” I groan again but comply. Dee smirks and it’s now I notice there were two other teens at the table. One of them was wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, even though we were inside, and sipping a Starbucks coffee. The other had messy brown hair and wore a green shirt and black pants.

“‘Sup babe.” the teen wearing the leather jacket teased. “The name’s Remy Anderson.” I blushed lightly at his teasing

“And I’m Remus King!” the other teen piped up. He took his fork and started poking Dee with it. “And who’s this little one?”

“My name is Virgil Sullivan. I just moved here.” I introduced myself, then I glared at Remus. “And I’m not little.” This caused Remus to cackle out loud, drawing other people’s attention to us. I lowered my head instinctively.

“Holy shit Double Dee.” Remus breathed. “I like him already!”

“He is kinda cute, isn’t he.” Remy mused, sipping his drink.

The rest of lunch passed with us bantering and eating. I felt comfortable with these guys. They seemed cool, and we all have some things in common. We exchanged numbers before the lunch bell rang. Maybe this school will be different from the others.

***

Everything went smoothly until after study hall. I thought I could get through the end of the day without any more issues. I was wrong. So very wrong. Study hall was spent by doing homework while listening to music and doodling in my notebook. Mostly, it was me daydreaming about the people I met. After study hall, I gathered my books in my arms and was out of the room and into the hallway.

I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, so I accidentally bump into someone, knocking my books to the ground. The other person and I both groaned and I kneeled to pick up my things. This was embarrassing. The other quickly joined on the floor, helping me.

“Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Il said shyly. He was a mess today.

“Ah, no, don’t apologize. I should apologize because I bumped into you.” the other person said quickly. The two worked to gather all of Virgil’s books and stood up. It wasn’t until l put my books in my bag that I realized the other teen was staring at my sketchbook with wide eyes. He kept staring at the sketchbook while I stared at him. The other teen looked very handsome. He looked like Remus, but his attire was more refined and cleaner. He wore a red shirt and blue jeans with matching red converse. He had dark brown eyes and slightly tanned skin.

‘Oh no. I think I’m gonna panic because of this one.’ I thought helplessly. He looked over with me with a wide smile.

“These drawings are really good!” he complemented, holding out my book. I squeaked out my thanks before taking my sketchbook and dashing away. My breathing was getting heavy and I could feel the heat on my face. I could feel people looking at me and whispering. I raced towards the bathroom and leaned over the edge of the sink. Thank goodness no one was there to see me panic. I leaned against the wall and slid down, pulling my knees to my chest. I took a deep breath in, trying to calm down, but I couldn’t. I buried my head in between my knees.

I didn’t hear the bathroom door open, so I didn’t notice another person standing there until they called out to me.

“Are you alright?” I heard a familiar voice asked. It was Mr. Owens from Anatomy class. “May I touch you?”

I nodded my consent and I felt two hands gently grasp my hands. “You need to breathe for me Virgil.” he said. “Follow my breathing.” And I did. I followed his rhythmic breathing. In for four counts, holding it for seven counts, and then exhaling for eight counts. We did this repeatedly until I was ok, picking my head up from my knees. “Good job Virgil.” he said, helping me up.

“Thank you.” I said gratefully, my heart hammering in my chest. “You’re the guy in my science class. I never got your name.” .

“Ah. my apologies. My name is Logan Owens, pleasure to meet you.” he replied. “And I would shake your hand, but…” I followed his gaze to where he held my hand. I gasped and went to remove my hand and apologize, but he held on when I tried to let go. He smirked at me and squeezed them reassuringly.

“No, no, it’s fine. I just wanna make sure you’re not going to panic again.” he said. He pulled me out of the bathroom, still holding my hand. “You have English class next, yes? You’re new here, so I’ll take you there.

‘No. no, you stupid hot nerd, you’re going to be the reason I’ll be in a panic again.’ I thought. Thankfully, the hallways were nearly empty when we got out, so no one really was paying us any attention. He led me all the way to English class. Before he left for his own class, he squeezed my hand one last time. “Have fun in there, short stuff.” He left me gaping.

English class went the same way as Science did. She explained that her English class will be more interactive because she enjoys making students partner up and do projects. She gave me a textbook and syllabus and pointed to my desk right near the window. I sat down and watched the students walk in, including the handsome teen that bumped into me. He dramatically greeted the teacher, who’s name was Mrs. Davis, and everybody else in class. Then he noticed me and his smile somehow became brighter.

‘Oh god, please don’t let your desk be next to mine.’ I prayed desperately. Again, my prayers were not answered as he plopped down in the desk next to mine.

“It’s you! The one with the pretty sketchbook!” he exclaimed loudly.

“Keep your voice down.” I whisper to him. I didn’t want to have any attention on me. “I’m Virgil Sullivan.”

The teen smiled apologetically. “I’m Roman King!” he stage whispered. “It’s a pleasure to finally introduce myself to you.”

I opened my mouth to say more, but Mrs. Davis quieted the class and began her lesson. She said the class will start their first book of the year, and today would be an introductory day for it. She passed out papers about The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and advised us to look over them tonight. Then she concluded her lesson and let us have ten minutes of free time. Roman turned to me.

“So, tell me gatito, what do you have after this class?” he asked innocently. Oh of course the handsome boy next to me can speak a different language. Of course.

“Art.” I managed out, blushing when he smiled.

“Are you gonna show off your pretty drawings to the teacher? I think he’ll be impressed once he sees them.”

I pursed my lips as I looked at my closed sketchbook. “You think so? My art really isn’t pretty.”

Roman gasped. “How dare you say that about your art! Your art is absolutely beautiful. Magnificent! Stunning!” he rambled, complimenting my artwork as I stared at him in disbelief. No one has ever complimented my art before. People always said it was weird and not creative. The bell rang when Roman was still talking. “I’ll see you later, gatito, ok? Get to class safely.” he teased. I didn’t need to be told twice. I waved him a goodbye and went to my last class.

As I walked into Art I was greeted by Patton, who was happily smiling. He grabbed my hand and brought me over to a man who I’m guessing was the teacher. “Hello, I’m Mr. Moore. You must be Virgil.” He smiled softly, I nodded and he told me about what we would be doing in art and told me I could sit wherever I would like. Patton, who was still holding my hand, brought me over to one of the desks and we sat down, and after a few minutes the rest of the class had come in and we started on the lesson. Mr. Moore had decided to give us an easy day and let us sketch whatever we wanted to, as long as it had some sort of meaning behind it. Patton and I started talking about random things and I looked over to see small puppies and kittens scattered on Patton’s page as he talked with me.

“Um, Pat you do know that it’s supposed to have meaning behind it right?” He looked back with an ‘Oh’ sort of expression.

“They do have meaning! Well, sort of… They’re just so cute I couldn’t help myself!” I giggled softly at the bubbly boy’s reaction and went back to my drawing. “So what are you drawing Virge?” Patton peaked over my shoulder trying to see my drawing and I pulled it off to the side in embarrassment.

“Please? I won’t judge you or anything!” He pouted giving me the cutest pair puppy dog eyes. After a minute or so I moved my arms away so he could see, Dang those puppy dog eyes! “Ooh Is that a raven?! It’s beautiful Kiddo!” I nodded and blushed in response. “Aw, you're such a Lil cutie pie!”

‘Ahhhhh! Pat, not you too!’ I mentally screamed. I felt my face heat up for what was like the umpteenth time today, This school is definitely different from my last. Maybe it’s because there are a lot of pretty and cool boys here and wow I’m a disaster. Fortunately, before I spiraled further, the bell rang. Patton and I gathered our things and walked out the door. We stopped by our lockers before walking out of school.

“Bye kiddo! See you tomorrow!” he exclaimed and hugged me before walking off. I stood there, frozen for a couple moments before walking home in a daze. My parents weren’t home, probably because they were at their new jobs, and I was so glad they weren’t because they would have seen my blushing face and questioned me relentlessly. Taking some food with me from the cupboards upstairs to my room, I locked my door behind me and attempted to do whatever homework I had.

When it was late at night, I reflected on my first day in my bed. I made a couple new friends, and I’ve met three people who sent me into a gay panic one after another. Groaning, I turned over in my bed. Hopefully, I won’t panic when I see them tomorrow.

Anyone wanna be in my taglist? Let me know!

Taglist:

@sure-i-exist

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #polysanders #ts lamp

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loganslowdown4 · 3 months ago

Text

Tweet From August 23, 2024

Me:

You can’t question ART Thomas

Its whimsical! 😁❤️🤍

(video from If Wes Anderson Directed Sanders Sides)

Him:

😁😁😁😁😁

#sometimes convenience works so well it just becomes lore #it’s cool that he has a medieval aesthetic but carries a samurai sword #it makes Roman unique and sets him apart from other princes #he should have more swords actually I’m just saying #a whole arsenal #thomas sanders #sanders sides #roman sanders #ts roman #ts updates #my journey with youtube #if Wes Anderson directed sanders sides

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artist-in-space · 5 years ago

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Otherworldly

A Marvel/MCU x Markiplier fanfic (specifically, Wilford Warfstache). Because I’ve been in a writing binge and somehow this happened. Thanks, @sunflower-chan. What is this.

The alert to call the Avengers—which was set-up by Tony for JARVIS to implement when a situation goes south too quickly for police or any other government armed official could respond to—went off around lunch time. As it was, it really was ridiculous that only Hawkeye and Captain America were near (and by near, they were in another mission under SHIELD, in Ohio).

“Oh wow,” Steve muttered under his breath as he sat inside the car. He looked at his phone and saw the alert: hostages, three cops down. “Hawkeye, did you just get—“

“Yeah.” Clint answered, and opened his window as Steve revved up the gas. “That’s surprising, Ohio’s usually quiet. Quieter than most states, at least. This is the first time I’ve ever gotten an alert for it.”

Steve nodded, following the directions given by JARVIS on the GPS, though he heard the blares of the police sirens from a mile away. He turned around the curb and his eyes widened; there were more than five cars already that had encircled the vicinity. It was a relatively-small TV building, belonging to a news station.

“Hawkeye, do you have eyes on him?” Steve asked as he went outside of the car. Clint had walked out already and positioned himself beside one of the police cars, and Steve took the central point.

“I don’t see him yet.” Clint reported over his comm. Steve saw him lean down to talk to a hiding police officer, and heard him ask the description of the culprit.

“P-Pink hair, with a pink mustache Hawkeye!” The police officer stammered. He was probably new to these kind of stuff. “Wearing a yellow shirt and pink overalls. Brown pants.”

“Pink hair? Pink mustache?” Clint repeated, incredulous. “Like—colored? Colored in pink?”

“The top part.”

Steve squinted in front of him, turning to the police officer next to him. “Ma’am, we got an alert that there had been three casualties. Where are they now?”

“One’s inside.” The policewoman reported, a worried look on her face. “One of the audience was shot. One is here—SPO3 Jim Sanders. Cap,” she furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t think we can deal with this guy alone. I don’t know how he does it but he’s—he’s not from around here.”

That took Steve’s attention; it just means that it really was better for the Avengers to take hold of this matter. They were more well-versed in out-of-the-world enemies.

“Not from around here?” He inquired, keeping his eyes on the entrance. He could hear a scuffle inside; he hoped that those were the hostages surviving whatever this guy was doing. “Alien?”

“No.” She shook his head, seemingly sure of herself. “Looks as human as you can get. But the man—he doesn’t—I’m no physicist Captain, but even I know that this guy doesn’t obey any single law known to man.”

Steve was just going to ask when his arm automatically raised in defense, just in time for a bullet to ricochet onto it. Steve’s eyes were wide, and he looked at Clint on the other side, who was tense. Then another shot out, and Clint was looking at him, eyes tight.

“I can’t see him,” Clint muttered, frustration in his tone. “Cap, I can’t see him!”

A laugh broke out of the scene, and Steve knew he had to act fast; he spotted the bullets before it rained down on a team of police officers trying to engage the culprit. He threw his shield just in time, swallowing as the barrage of bullets pinged on his shield and took the brunt of the attack.

“Oh wow,” someone suddenly said beside Steve. He turned around and, eyes wide, recognized that this was the culprit: the shock of pink hair wasn’t hard to miss. “I’ve never seen that before.”

But how did--? He thought, shocked.

He composed himself; the man was shorter than him, and leaner, but he exuded—exuded madness, somehow, and Steve could feel it.

The shield returned to his outstretched hand, and he used it to put a barrier between the pink-haired man and him. The man had put his revolver on his side, and if Steve wasn’t as perceptive as he is, he’d just think he had imagined the gun. But no; it really did just disappear from his sight.

“I’ve experienced lightsabers but never shield Frisbees.” The man continued, terribly intrigued with his weapon. “I say, how delightful!”

He could feel his grip tighten on his shield; he was suddenly nervous that this man would suddenly just get ahold of his shield and he wouldn’t know what to do next.

“Thank you?” Steve said out of courtesy. The police beside him were weirdly quiet all of a sudden. “I uh, specialize in it. Not a lot can wield this shield because it confuses people on how to… maneuver it.”

“Delightfully interesting!” He said, wonder in his whole visage and tone. He reached out, but he was—was timid, in a sense. “May I? I won’t wield it, no. How does it feel?”

“Metallic,” Steve answered promptly, and he felt his cheeks color. Oh wow, that came out of nowhere. “It’s—like holding a large metal disc… I guess. It’s more of a personal weapon, anyway.”

The man knocked on the shield, and huffed in amazement. He wiggled his mustache; Steve noted that it curled in a cartoonish way. “Vibranium! I’ve never seen it curve like that before! That’s a mind-boggler!” He nodded. “That’s a very interesting way to use that kind of… metal? Is it metal? Oh well. I’ve once seen that be used in a train! Couldn’t be destroyed. Were you there?”

“…train?”

“You look like someone I’ve met in a train. You’ve got to fight it till the end to understand what it all means though. Phew, did I jump out of that unlucky situation!”

Steve was becoming lost—or, well, more lost that he could ever be.

The pink-mustached man didn’t seem to notice his speechlessness, and continued on to his spiel. “You wielding such precious metal is positively astonishing!”

Again, Steve didn’t understand how to respond. “Thanks, mister…?” He trailed off, hoping to at least take an alias.

“Wilford Warfstache.” The man grinned. “It was nice talking to you, we should meet again sometime!”

Then suddenly, a bang happened; Steve whipped his head towards the entrance of the building, and saw Wilford again—saw him with his revolver outstretched, the almost-nonchalant smile on his face quirking into a pleased grin.

“Oh hello there!” He greeted towards Hawkeye’s direction, but as Clint reacted with an arrow stretched, Wilford frowned.

Steve felt ice in his veins; he vaulted over the car to race towards Clint immediately, watching the man in almost like a slow-mo pace as he prepared an arrow to launch.

Clint released the string towards Wilford’s direction, but Steve was ready to get Clint and the other officer down; they all landed with a thud on the sidewalk.

The policeman was shock-white, but the archer just gasped at the fall, and cursed. He looked annoyed, rolling to a sitting position.

“Cap what the fu—“

The arrow whizzed towards them and electrified the whole field of where they were previously standing. Clint muttered something—and the officer went we could’ve been shocked to death but Steve paid it no attention.

Instead, he was on his feet again, shield poised. He squinted his eyes, surveying the scene for the pink-haired man; but all traces of him were gone. He eyed the building, and noticed that someone was raising a handkerchief on the third floor; someone was still alive in there.

“Someone get him!” The officer that Steve met earlier—Lieutenant Anderson—shouted.

Apparently, the pink-haired man had chosen to decide to leave the area with flourish; Wilford was at the other end of the road, far from the building. Steve met his gaze; Wilford gave a happy salute, rotating his gun in goodbye. He disappeared from his view; the cops ran in pursuit.

Hawkeye was moving as well, but Steve didn’t; Clint turned around in exasperation.

“Cap!”

“No,” Steve whispered, walking backwards towards the building. “He’s gone. I need to see the people inside. They’re the priority.”

“But Cap—“

Steve broke into a run, entering the building.

Turns out, there were five casualties, but it didn’t include the first one to be thought to be as the first victim. He, however, had multiple stab wounds, and it was only due to the glorious advancement of technology that he survived. It also helped that the guy had an iron will, apparently, and enough medical knowledge to keep pressing on his wounds before help could arrive.

Scarily enough, it just took at least five minutes for the whole ordeal to commence, and that was in Clint’s view.

“He’s currently not allowed to take visitors.” The doctor said, “—therefore, I am requesting you to leave.”

Clint understood why. It was their duty, after all. He wasn’t going to hate medical because they wanted to follow the law; he’s been over that ever since he was put into SHIELD. But he was also on duty here, and it didn’t really settle well in his mind that this guy—whoever this guy was—had lived and apparently had been interviewed by Pink Man earlier.

Steve called him ‘Wilford Warfstache’. Clint called him a dick.

“Look.” He said, a sigh adorning his lips. “I’m not asking for his vitals. I just want to know if he knew the guy earlier. We are, you know, on an Avenging Business? It’s kind of important to know these details and he’s the one that was closely interacting with him.”

“Mr. Hawkeye,” the doctor said with an even more exasperated tone. Clint wanted to scream, but the urge to do it was quelled once he felt a familiar presence walked up behind him.

“Sorry doctor,” Steve said as he placed a hand on Clint’s shoulder, forcibly turning him away from the annoyed doctor. “—we understand. We’re just peeved; he had been so close and it wasn’t… an ideal scenario.”

The doctor nodded, grim. “I understand as well. I will alert you when the patient wakes up; right now, I have to restrict access to you. You may conduct your investigation in another area or contact the police.” She spun around, leaving the two.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Clint muttered as he raised his hand, already anticipating Steve’s incoming lecture. “—that I should respect hospital and medical rules because it’s the law. But fuck, Cap-- that guy somehow made my arrow go back in a straight line without a bow and I’m sure as hell that he didn’t have anything on hand.”

Steve steered him towards the cafeteria, offering him a can of soda and a biscuit. He waited for Clint to eat it before responding, and even then he was timid. “I wasn’t going to reprimand you.” He said honestly, which surprised Clint. “I was… going to ask you. If you saw how he did it but apparently not.”

Clint made a huge gulp of his soda before frowning. He reviewed his stance, his position, and no. “No, no I really didn’t.”

It, on some level, scared him. He’s faced aliens before, Chitauri. He’s faced an overzealous gang called the Wrecking Crew once. He’s faced a god (though that didn’t go so well, but he did threaten him with an arrow after Hulk had injured him, so it was a win). But this guy—just a few feet away from them earlier, had a look that was very distinct. He’s never seen those looks together in one man before.

A look of pure craziness but also a so-so distinction of awareness. And Jesus Christ, the aforementioned ‘teleporting’.

That was just an unfair advantage; even Thor, a god, had to swing his hammer before flying.

Steve mumbled something that was incoherent, both word and mouth-wise. He waved a hand over Steve’s face, and gestured to his hearing aids. “’Ey. Don’t mumble. It hurts team morale, Cap.” He joked at the obviously bothered-Steve. The man didn’t laugh though, which piqued his worry even more. “Steve?”

“Sorry.” Steve flickered his eyes towards the different patients around the cafeteria. “You… I guess you didn’t witness my… small talk with Wilford.”

Clint put his drink down and eyed him. “You… spoke to him? How? When?” He didn’t even have time to breathe between the occurrence of that laugh and the man actually appearing in the entrance with a gun cocked and loaded. “There was no time!”

“That’s the thing.” Steve murmured, and even if they were spoken in low tones, he could hear the man as clear as day. He could hear the doubt and worry. “There was.”

#markiplier #lmao what is this #wilford warfstache #fic #honestly this was just something ive been stewing about as;ldka;lk

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i-dont-even-know-anymore921 · 5 years ago

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Outsiders Reclist

This is an Outsiders Fanfiction Reclist- This will be a constant work in progress(I’ll be adding to it whenever I find something I think is worth reading or if I get sent something from someone who wants something added) It will be organized by the main character but keep in mind the fact that just because a fic is under one character doesn’t mean it won’t have a very strong influence from another- I hope you enjoy:))

All of these are currently on Fanfiction.Net but I do plan on adding fics from here on tumblr in the future, i just have to go through and find them

*ALSO- If I don’t specifically state that a fic is unfinished, assume that it’s done*

PONYBOY

The Origin of Asthma - “After a small incident while on a family trip to the lake, a young Ponyboy gets diagnosed with asthma.” K - Words: 2,120 -

In the Depth - “In his school essay, Ponyboy reflects on his soul and the dark depths where it resides.” T - Words: 1,234 -

Home For Thanksgiving - “It’s 1969. Michelle Randle has been away studying at NYU but has come home to Tulsa for a big family Thanksgiving. It’s 1969. Ponyboy Curtis has been away studying at Columbia University but has come home to Tulsa for a big family Thanksgiving. Both of them are hoping for a nice, calm, happy Thanksgiving - especially as it’s their first one together as a couple.” T - Words: 1,934 -

Prom Nights - “Ponyboy and Angela both being dateless on prom night sets off very interesting conversations, and more” T - Words: 3,152 -

Sneaking In - “Pony takes a risk when he helps his brothers sneak back in.” T - Words: 2,631 -

The Bear and His Boy - “It is a truth universally acknowledged among children that there is no truer friend than one’s childhood doll or bear and after all even greaser’s were children once.” K - Words: 1,542 -

the clouds will drift away - “She’s barely on the edge of 14 and the world already feels like it’s ending.“ K - OC - Words: 2,649 -

Dumb Drunk - “Ponyboy comes back home drunk and the gang decides to find out what he’s been hiding from them.” K+ - Words: 2,050 -

Snakes - “Young Pony never intended on becoming a writer” K - Words: 4,081 -

Eye of the Storm - “When Ponyboy was a baby, he was taken away and adopted by another family. Years later, he meets his brothers again. One-Shot. Ponyboy is aged down at the beginning.” K - Words: 6,365 -

strawberry lips - “his first kiss left him with the taste of strawberry on his tongue.” K+ - Words: 473 -

Multi-chapter

Ten Years Later - “Just my take on what things might be like ten years after the setting of the book.” T - Chapters: 19 - Words: 87,146 -

Maybe Someday - “For Ponyboy, it was only the story of his luckless romance. But in reality, it was so much more than that. Ponyboy’s problems are far from over as he continues to grow up on the rough side of Tulsa, and life gets more complicated by the day.” T - Chapters: 30 - Words: 86,720 -

Esoterically Yours - “Ponyboy Curtis meets an acquaintance he has been trying to dodge for years” T - Supernatural - Chapters: 21 - Words: 52,860 -

On a Long Road - “Sometimes, I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I’d never written that stupid theme. If I’d been allowed to stay with my brothers. If I hadn’t been forced to move from home to home.” T- - Chapters: 30 - Words: 133,229 - *ABUSE*

Out of the Blue - “After constant attempts by Mr. Syme at coaxing Ponyboy into sending his theme off to a publisher, he finally does it.” K+ - Chapters: 8 - Words: 19,292 -

*Series*

Splintered Ties That Bind - “One letter sent the family in different directions, each seeking the peace that comes only from being together. Time takes its toll, and love is bound by nothing” T - Chapters: 62 - Words: 118,974 -

Braided Ties - “Continuation of Splintered Ties That Bind, the brothers have found each other, and their lives move forward…Will things ever be the same?” T - Chapters: 21 - Words: 52,860 -

Summer Adventures - “The school year is over, and the lazy days of summer begin. Adventures -good and bad- loom on the horizon.” - T Chapters: 47 - Words: 166,736 -

Autumn Leaves - “Crisp air, falling temperatures - the summer is over. The Curtis brothers face a new set of challenges, and each will be forced to confront a pain they haven’t felt in nearly two years” - T - Chapters: 42 - Words: 127,663 -

Winter’s Soliloquy - “A new season, a new story. Ponyboy’s adventures in growing up with only his brothers and the gang to guide him continue.” T- Chapters: 23 - Words: 57,901 -

Spring’s Resurgence - ”Letting go of the past is hard enough, especially when the future is filled with uncertainties. Spring is calling; new life, new chances, new possibilities. A new adventure beckons them all.” T - Chapters: 34 - Words: 99,873 -

Wealth Versus Class - “We were studying The Great Gatsby at the time and yeah, I got that the book was saying Jay Gatsby could never be a part of the elite no matter how rich he became- but I had been looking at my own life- at real life- at girls like Cherry Valance and guys like Randy Anderson- and thinking the only thing that made us really any different was money.” K - Words: 1,739-

The Quarter - “’“I’m sorry I bothered you,” I called after him. “Must be a real pain having the vending machine right out here. People shaking it at all hours?” He stopped and looked back at me almost curiously. “Well, I don’t mind when they’re as cute as you.” I don’t know who blushed more deeply but I’d probably bet on him.‘” K- Words: 1,581 -

The Other Version - “"This wasn’t the gentle giant that carried spiders to safety when I threw my shoes at them. This person was steady and determined; ready to hit another person in the face for the sake of a few dollars.“ After an attempted mugging, Lizzy isn’t sure she knows Ponyboy as well as she thought.” K+ - Words: 1,999 -

Love Me Tender, Love Me True - “Lily Smith isn’t your typical Greaser girl. She wears decent clothes and doesn’t drink or smoke. Lily has skipped a grade in school and now she is all alone. That is until she meets Ponyboy Curtis and the gang. She and him fall for each other. The road to happiness is a bumpy one, but is always worth it in the end. Part One of "Love Me Tender” series.” T- OC - Chapters: 35 - Words: 135,241 -

All My Dreams Fulfilled - “Part Two of the “Love Me Tender” series.” T - OC - Chapters: 20 - Words: 118,700 - *NOT FINISHED*

SODAPOP

Due Diligence - “Trigonometry. Already the bane of Sodapop’s existence.” K+ - Words: 1,757 -

Dividing Lines - “Now that Sodapop’s reached high school, he’s suddenly aware of Darry’s godlike status and isn’t quite sure of where he stands.” T - Words: 4,911 -

I Don’t Understand - “The one time Sodapop doesn’t get it. The one time he doesn’t understand what pain his younger brother is bearing.” T - Words: 2,117 -

Telling Soda - “Jo Curtis has some important news to tell little Sodapop Curtis. One-Shot.” T- Words: 2,660 -

Multi-Chapter

Windward Circle - “This is the story of Dallas Winston’s little sister, Brooklyn. When Dally dies, her world falls apart. That is, until Sodapop Curtis swoops in and forces her to see that there is still good in the world.” T- Chapters: 29 - Words: 46,506 -

Lightnin’ Strikes - “‘That was Joanne. Met her at work today.’ Seems like a sensible place to start. Tie in to, and overlapping with, 'Our One Rule’ and 'Love Me Two Times’, but don’t tell Soda and Jo. As far as they’re concerned, this was always their own story…” T - Chapters: 32 - Words: 109,002 -

STEVE

20 Reasons - “20 reasons why Steve Randle severely dislikes – or so he likes to think – Ponyboy Curtis” T - Words: 1,354 -

Lighter Fluid - “Twenty facts about Steve Randle, in no particular order.” T - Words: 2,313 -

Stay with me (Just a little longer) - “He can’t stay. He knows that. He knows the longer he stays, the more it will hurt… but then, why is it so hard to go?” T - Words: 1,689 -

Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair - “Evie wasn’t the only woman in Steve Randle’s life. It’s just that this particular one sort of haunts him.” K+ - Words: 3,073 -

STEVE/EVIE

Apple Blossom - “You get it, he’s good looking. But he knows it, and you can’t stand that.” T - Words: 7,089 -

Bite Me - “Evie has a little explaining to do for the strange mark on her neck.” T - Words: 1,244 -

Can’t - “And for some reason I can’t keep my mind off him, and I don’t mind that at all.” T - Words: 980 -

Never Again

Emotions - “Evie Sanders’ eyes were planted on Steve Randle, and his eyes were, unfortunately, planted on a car.” T - Words: 1,249 -

Next Contestant - “Everyone knows Buck’s can get wild and crazy, but what they don’t know is that the very people they are befriending and talking to are willing to take advantage of them at any moment.” T - Words: 1,428 -

Only One - “All the girls fell for Sodapop Curtis. All except one.” K+ - Words: 836 -

Single Girl - “She only ever had eyes for Steve.” T - Words: 3,687 -

Turn This Engine On - “Steve is working late by himself at the DX, and Evie stops by for some extracurriculars.” T - Words: 2,224 -

Multi-chapter

Fatherhood - “Steve experinces the joys of being a dad and pounders the moments that led up to it.” T - Chapters: 2 - Words: 2,325 - *NOT FINISHED*

let’s pause this moment in time - “and I just wanted to say thanks, you’re the only reason I’ve smiled in days. :: a series of stevie drabbles.” T - Chapters: 6 - Words: 1,469 -

*Series*

The Only Kind - “'I knew that look. That look had been pulling me into trouble since kindergarten… ’ When Sandy gets Evie a date with Steve Randle, things begin to get complicated. Because Sandy and Sylvia have a hidden agenda and Evie’s getting caught up in the lies, at the same time as she’s falling for the guy she thought she disliked. Set in the months leading up to the book.” T - Chapters: 24 - Words: 73,218 -

Our Kind - “'Maybe Sylvia was right. Whatever I thought about her motives. Whatever I thought about her actual relationships. She did get the guy she wanted when she wanted him.’ Sandy’s gone, their lives are about to be turned upside down. Whose advice will Evie take and how far will she go, to get Steve back? Sequel to 'The Only Kind��.” T - Chapters: 24 - Words: 86,927 -

Our One Rule - “Evie and Steve are back together and everything is great. Until it isn’t. Because revenge is a way of life on the North Side and Evie is about to find out exactly how that works. Third story in series, following 'The Only Kind’ and 'Our Kind’.” T - Chapters: 26 -Words: 95,907 -

Love Me Two Times - “'He didn’t say it often, but when Steve Randle told me he loved me, I believed him. Of course, when he said that 'nothing in this world’ would keep us apart, I believed that too…’ Fourth story in series, following 'The Only Kind’, 'Our Kind’ and 'Our One Rule’.” T - Chapters: 30 - Words: 96,521 -

DARRY

ETOH - “Darry learns what happens to Ponyboy when left to his own vices.” T - Words: 2,854 -

He’s Wrong - “As she prepares for her senior prom, Audrey Holden is forced to face just how much people - and their opinions - can change in just a year.” K+ - Words: 2,692 -

Vivere Pro Aliis - “’You see me every day. We share a room. I spend more time with you than anyone else on the planet. And right now, I’m going to a movie with my friends, and you ain’t comin’.’” K+ - Words: 3,496 -

Slippery - “Wet floors can be a handful and rather surprising. You’ll never know where you slip. Darry/TwoBit” T - Words: 1,667 -

First String - “Darry knows making the football team could change his life.” T - Words: 2,985 -

Multi-chapter

Sticky Leaves - “Darry has lost his parents. Diana has lost her boyfriend. Maybe, in the end, they’ll both find something they can hold on to.” T - Chapters: 32 - Words: 124,496 -

DALLY

Beneath the Surface - “There’s more to their relationship than jail and cheating. No one else knows it, and half the time they don’t know it themselves. A collection of real moments in Dallas and Sylvia’s relationship.” T - Words: 3,853 -

*Series*

Arrogance and Aggression - “Arrogance and Aggression’ is a frothy Jane Austen-esque AU about love and friendship among the greasers (and their sisters). Dallas Winston is aggressive. Lucy Bennet is arrogant. Though she vows to hate him for the rest of her life, she begrudgingly realizes she may be wrong about him and about herself.” T - Chapters: 15 - Words: 63,651 -

Impatience and Impulsivity - “Lucy Bennet is impatient. Dallas Winston is impulsive. Somehow, they are still surprised when these traits eventually catch up to them and bite them in their backs.” T - Chapters: 12 - Words: 92,530 -

See My Friends - “The year 1968 was signalized by a single piece of mail, a terrible and senseless request, which undoubtedly, no one would ever forget.” T - Chapters: 8 - Words: 79,766 - *NOT FINISHED*

JOHNNY

The Date - “Johnny had just realized that Hanna Matthews is not a little child any longer” T - Words: 1,602 -

Late Hormones - “After finding a place to stay for the night, Johnny discovers an unusual change in his body which Dally helps him relieve.” M - Words: 2,564 -

Multi-Chapter

The adventures of Jonathan Cade and Dallas Winston - “What if after the murder Johnny went on the run alone, not taking Ponyboy with him. What if instead of Windrixville Dally told him to run to New York. Perfect for all you Johnny and Dally fans as well as everyone else.” K - Chapters: 11 - Words: 29,770 -

TWO-BIT

Crescent Moons - “Or, how Two-Bit Mathews got it in his head that seeing his daughter kissing his buddy’s son in the Sunday school classroom on Easter was the worst possible thing that could happen. Also, said daughter may or may not have an obsession with whether or not she’s named after the Virgin Mary. In short, the Easter of 1989 was one of the family’s weirder ones.” T - Words: 8,774 -

The Society Pages - “The society pages the next day spoke almost exclusively of how Two-Bit Mathews had been seen gallivanting around town with the newly crowned prom queen. Everyone agreed that Miss Stevens looked dazzling in her pink formal, and could pull off a tiara. And no, we still don’t know who slashed Steve Randle’s tires.“ T - Words: 7,349 -

TWO-BIT/KATHY

What Chicks Really Want - “Evie’s conversation with Two-Bit, regarding Kathy and what he ought to be doing.” T - Words: 1,564 -

First Date - “Two-Bit picks Kathy up for their first date … half an hour late.” T - Words: 3,572 -

Love Fool - “Three toxic words change everything, but is it for the better or worse?“ T - Words: 3,979 -

TWO-BIT/MARCIA

Banana Clip - “I got the usual for Christmas, thanks for asking. Mostly more librarian clothes […] I swear I have enough for a week straight now without having to wear one twice. One of them’s in that pink you like, though, so maybe you won’t make too much fun of me—not that I don’t love your two-bits (I know you think I’m funny). (Or, Marcia writes Two-Bit, half a world away.)” T - Words: 6,256 -

Keeper - “A post-book oneshot about Two-Bit and Marcia.” T - Words: 1,353 -

Multi-Chapter

Unlikely - “Two-Bit and Marcia run into each other a few months after that fateful night. What happens is, to say the least, surprising.” T - Chapters: 2 - Words: 4,258 -

GIRLS

The Girlfriend Coalition - “They weren’t really friends. They were just girls who knew each other because of who their boyfriends happened to be. Evie’s left to wonder if she’ll ever actually get to meet someone who likes her for her, who doesn’t hang around her just to keep up appearances.” T - Words: 3,110 -

Multi-Chapter

God Help the Girls - “…But with the girls, the rivalry was played out in near silence; psychological warfare. Nasty rumors and snide remarks. Girls will be girls, just as boys will be boys. It was that way all over America, and surely Tulsa was no different. But, no. It was oh so different in Tulsa.” T - Chapters: 20 - Words: 118,775 -

CURTIS FAMILY

The Detective - “You’re a detective and his eyes hold a mystery for you to solve.” K+ - Words: 1,591 -

The Birth - “The Curtis parents prepare for the birth of their second child.” K - Words: 1,041 -

The cake thief - “ Mrs Curtis. Verging on, if not complete, fluff…” K+ - Words: 969 -

A Mother’s Love - “A summer trip to visit Grandma takes an unexpected turn when someone shows up earlier than expected.” T - Words: 3,123 -

Solemn Simplicity - “The boys cope through their first Christmas without their parents and the recent loss of their friends.” T - Words: 2,811 -

Little Liar - “It’s Ponyboy’s first ever rumble, and the Curtis brothers try to hide it from their parents.” T - Words: 4,647 -

That’s My Boy! - “Everyone thought Darry was named in honor of his dad; they’re wrong.” T - Words: 920 -

Multi-Chapter

The Beginning - “Ponyboy isn’t the only Curtis with a story to tell.” T - Chapters: 10 - Words: 33,863 -

TIM

the more is my unrest - “Being the man of the house is a job with few benefits, but someone has to do it.” T - Words: 1,582 -

Breakfast With Shepard - “…Once we even found Tim Shepard, leader of the Shepard gang and far from his own turf, reading the morning paper in the armchair… What if Tim Shepard had decided to stay for breakfast?” M - Words: 2,314 -

Multi-Chapter

Going Back Home - “Tim Shepard drove out of Tulsa and swore he’d never return, but 14 years later a phone call brings him back to face the past.” T - Chapters: 14 - Words: 29,319 -

CURLY

Spin - “Little did Katie Mathews know that she didn’t need the luck of a coke bottle to kiss a certain greasy hood.” T - Words: 1,962 -

Totally worth it - “Pony goes to visit Curly in the reformatory” M - Words: 1,416 -

Multi-Chapter

Wild Ride - “To Ponyboy, Curly was the love of his life. To Curly, Ponyboy was just an expendable sex toy. Will Ponyboy bring back the Curly he supposedly remembers from their childhood, or will Ponyboy be left even more heartbroken than he already is?” M - Chapters: 25 - Words: 90,809 -

Curly Shepard Has A Plan - “Pony and Curly started 'going steady’ for a month. Pony didn’t want to go further until he was sure of himself, to which, 17 year old, Curly, frustratingly respected. Can a game of Truth or Dare changes things for better? Or for worse?” M - Chapters: 15 - Words: 14,597 -

ANGELA

They Were Gold - “Angela and Ponyboy used to be gold. But then…he changed them.” T - Words: 2,790 -

Young Girls - “When’s the last you fell in love, Angel?” T - Words: 8,746 -

Multi-Chapter

Trust - “As the youngest in her family Angela’s got a whole lot of reputation to live up to. Usually she enjoys the challenge, but when things go badly wrong there’s only ever one person she trusts to make things right.” T - Chapters: 2 - Words: 7,618 -

OTHER/OC POV

A Work of Art - “She never expected anyone to understand her—she expected them to learn from her, for through expression and knowledge deep within the soul is what brought art to life.” T - Words: 5,454 -

Looking back on a burning ember - “It has been twenty two years since the Windrexvill fire but Barbara has never forgotten the hero who saved her from the inferno.” K+ - Words: 1,025 -

I spent way too much time on this and i still havent added fics from tumblr yet and sbahkfdsbjfbjvbfsdfjb but pls do send any fics y’all like to me and ill add them:))

@insanitycaver @sunny-impalas @staygoldponebone @sodapopsundae

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flexiblefish · 6 years ago

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Source:[X]

by Gavanndra Hodge 12 JANUARY 2019

Gillian Anderson is hard to pin down. Is she American or English? (Her accent slips between the two, depending on who she is talking to.) Guarded or warm? (She can be either, based on her mood.) Tough or vulnerable? (Or both?)

'‘Because my parents were American and we lived here in the UK, there was always a sense of not quite fitting in. Because of that I’ve always felt a bit of an outsider. I have perpetuated that because that is what feels familiar to me, it is what feels comfortable,’ she explains. When we meet Anderson is English and warm, talking about the birthday parties she has to organise (she has three children, Piper, 24, Oscar, 12, and Felix, 10); and although she is very petite, wearing white patent stiletto boots and slender black trousers, she exudes the commanding charisma that makes her perfect for her imminent roles. Rumour has it that she will be playing Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming series of The Crown, the Netflix series created and co-written by her partner, Peter Morgan. No one is confirming this, but no one is denying it either. Meanwhile, this month she stars in a new Netflix series, Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist who lives with her teenage son (Asa Butterfield). And in February Anderson has another plum role: Margo Channing in Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove’s much-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve, also starring Lily James as Eve, with music by PJ Harvey. The play – a modern reinterpretation of the 1950 film, which starred Bette Davis as Channing, a blazing Broadway star who is gradually supplanted by a younger rival – is about ambition and betrayal, femininity and anger, stardom and personal sacrifice. Anderson’s is a bravura role, one that requires not just the cool intensity that we have come to expect from her, but also humour. Channing is deliciously droll, delivering endlessly quotable lines with comic precision (‘I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut’). ‘A couple of years ago my boyfriend Pete said to me, “You know what would be a great role for you? Margo Channing,”’ Anderson says. ‘So I rewatched the film and I thought, “Oh my God, how much fun would that be!”’ Anderson, not one to wait for opportunity, discovered that theatre producer Sonia Friedman had the rights to the script and was working on it with van Hove – Cate Blanchett was set to be Channing. ‘So I thought, “Ah OK, I’ll just slink into the background.” Then my agents got a call to say that she [Blanchett] had backed out due to scheduling conflicts, and there was interest, and was I interested? So I was like, “Yes! When’s the meeting? Now?”’ Van Hove, on the phone from New York, is equally excited to be working with Anderson. ‘Margo needs someone who understands what the theatre is all about, someone who can carry a play, who can occupy the whole stage, and Gillian can do that; she is a fabulous theatre actress. Although, of course, she became iconic for me in the 1990s when she was in The X-Files.’ There is something a little surprising about Ivo van Hove, an avant-garde director celebrated for his reinterpretations of plays and operas such as Hedda Gabler, Antigone and Lulu, professing fandom for a mid-’90s sci-fi series; but that is to forget the huge cultural impact of The X-Files, its quality and its ingenuity. The series was about two FBI agents, played by Anderson and David Duchovny, who attempt to unravel various natural and supernatural mysteries. No one expected it to become such a success, least of all Anderson, who was 24 when she was cast in the show. It was her first major role and it made her a star. She won multiple awards for her portrayal of the sceptical Dr Dana Scully, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. But such stardom often involves sacrifice and Anderson was suffering. The production schedule for The X-Files was brutal, involving 16-hour days for nine months of the year. Furthermore, in 1994, aged 25, Anderson married Clyde Klotz, assistant art director on the series, and nine months later she gave birth to their daughter, Piper. After three years she and Klotz divorced. It was while she was pregnant that Anderson started having severe panic attacks. ‘I was having them daily,’ she explains, experiencing palpitations, numbness, ‘hallucinations, all of it’. Things didn’t get better once Piper was born. ‘I was a young mother, and shortly after that we were separating, and I was working these crazy hours. I remember periods of time when I was just crying, my make-up was being done over and over again and I was not able to stop crying.’ Anderson sought solace in meditation. ‘I went to somebody and there was a meditation we did together. We went to some quite dark places and I got to see that I could still survive those dark places, I was stronger than they were, and after that the panic attacks stopped.’ Anderson had been having panic attacks, on and off, ‘since high school’. As a teenager she was a daydreamer and a troublemaker who felt different from her peers in Michigan because of her childhood in Harringay, having left the ‘incy-bincy flat with a bathroom outside’ that she and her parents lived in when she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to the US. ‘I started falling in with groups and trying to fit in, until it got to the point when it was like, “I don’t f—ing want to fit in. I want to look completely different to all of you, and stop staring at me because I have a mohawk.” I’d shave the sides of my head with a razor blade and dye my hair different colours.’ Anderson’s parents, Rosemary and Ed, were living in Chicago and were both just 26 when she was born. Soon afterwards the family moved to London so Ed could attend film school, while Rosemary worked as a computer programmer. ‘My parents were working very hard and would often work late. I have lots of memories of playing by myself in the back garden and searching for friends in the neighbourhood because I didn’t have siblings.’ After moving back to America, Rosemary and Ed had two more children, a son and a daughter. Anderson admits that her adolescent waywardness might have been related to the arrival of two new babies in the house. ‘I made trouble and I got attention that way.’ Acting is another way to get attention, something Anderson learnt early on. ‘I remember being in a play when I was in primary school. I was meant to be a Chelsea fan. I started chewing gum on stage and blowing bubbles and got all the attention. I thought, “This is all right, everybody is watching me!”’ But when she reached 16 and started doing more professional productions in America, performing became fundamentally important to her. ‘I enjoyed the connection between performer and audience, the control. And I remember thinking, “I can do this. They are showing me I can do this.” 'It changed everything in my life, knowing I could do something. Prior to that there hadn’t been that moment yet when I found purpose and direction.’ Anderson decided that she wanted to pursue acting as a career and was accepted at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. ‘From the very start of school I didn’t go into the dorms, instead I found an apartment with a roommate in a funky neighbourhood. I was the only one who was living out of school. That is my pattern, carving my own thing. 'All through [theatre] school I dressed like I was a member of The Cure. That was how I was in the world, grungy, not considered, not mature. I was forthright and gutsy – I drove myself to Chicago in my dad’s VW van – but slightly falling apart.’ She always knew she would return to England. ‘My childhood here, the smell of north London, it has such a massive tug on me. I really felt, when we moved to the States, that I would eventually have a life back here.’ She and Piper moved to the city after The X-Files ended its original run, and she went on to have two more children, Oscar and Felix, with her now ex-boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths (there was also a marriage to British documentary maker Julian Ozanne, which lasted for two years, with the couple separating in 2006).

In the UK Anderson’s career developed in a way that might not have been expected for the golden girl of ’90s sci-fi. She took juicy roles in big-budget period dramas – Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations – and appeared on stage, at the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse. But it was her performance in the BBC detective drama The Fall, starting in 2013, that solidified her reputation as the go-to actor for female characters who are charismatic and powerful. Anderson, as DSI Stella Gibson, was imperious in her white silk shirts and high heels, unwavering in her pursuit of the serial killer played by Jamie Dornan. The screenwriter Allan Cubitt created the role of Gibson with Anderson in mind. ‘I wanted Gibson to be an enigmatic figure. Gillian is a riveting actress, but there is an aloofness to her as well. Also I was attempting to reclaim the idea of the powerful femme fatale, without the fatale; someone who is aware that her beauty can be used to help her ends. That she is unafraid of that was radical.’ Anderson was deeply involved in the creation of Gibson’s look, altering the way she thought about herself in the process. ‘What fascinated me about her, and I feel that we were able to find that in the costume design, was that the way she dressed never felt like it was for anyone else but her. I don’t think I have necessarily changed the way I dress since her, but I feel like I am certainly more conscious of what I wear and what it says.’ As a younger woman her style was ‘messy, like a discarded urchin’. She would wear oversized suits and ‘floppy dresses that I had probably stolen from the thrift store’. Whereas now her look is sleek, and she favours brands like Jil Sander, Prada and Dries Van Noten. The Fall was about gender, power and desire; and it was while filming it in Belfast that Anderson began thinking more about the struggles that women face in the 21st century. ‘I was reading all these statistics about young girls being suicidal and having such low self-esteem and I thought, “Surely, given everything that we know, and the fact we are all having these feelings, can we not start a conversation about whether we want this and how to deal with it?”’ This morphed into her writing a book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, with her friend, the writer and activist Jennifer Nadel, in 2017. Alternating between pieces by Anderson and Nadel, it details their own personal struggles, and includes practical sections on how to deal with issues such as anxiety and low self-esteem using practices such as meditation, affirmations and gratitude lists. ‘We both know how it feels to be in emotional pain,’ says Nadel. ‘Both of us have felt lost, and found a spiritual way out. Both of us have experienced radical transformation as a result of the things that we wrote about in that book.’ Cubitt and Nadel each say that among the most impressive things about Anderson, as a collaborator, are her focus and drive. ‘I have never met anyone with Gillian’s ability to focus. And she has a certainty about things, she is not mired in indecision,’ says Nadel. What this means is not just an incredibly long CV, but numerous satellite projects. Anderson has a line of smart, grown-up clothes that she has developed with the brand Winser London (‘I didn’t realise I was so opinionated about buttons!’). She also works for numerous charities, focusing especially on women’s rights and environmental issues. ‘Because of my work ethic and also having had such high expectations, both of myself and other people’s of me, at such a young age, I think it became near to impossible for me to relax at all, to do anything that wasn’t work-related, so a lot of my later adult life has been trying to force myself to do that, and I struggle so hard, and sometimes I lose sight of it. So there is a part of me that wonders if I am slightly addicted [to work], I learnt it so young.’ The scant spare time that Anderson allows herself is spent ‘going to the cinema, to the theatre, watching documentaries’. Piper, who has just completed a degree in production and costume design, is now living in her mother’s basement, and the two of them recently went on a trip to Amsterdam to see van Hove’s four-hour stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel A Little Life. That might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but Anderson loved it. And despite all the seriousness and the self-examination (or perhaps because of it), she is good company, thoughtful and witty. She has, she says, got happier as she has got older, less self-critical, more self-accepting. ‘I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not normal. But fortunately I have enough abnormal people around me to help me feel that it is actually OK.’

#gillian anderson #all about eve #nice article #a little more depth than usual

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heresince93 · 6 years ago

Text

Full transcript of Gillian’s Telegraph interview

When we meet Anderson is English and warm, talking about the birthday parties she has to organise (she has three children, Piper, 24, Oscar, 12, and Felix, 10); and although she is very petite, wearing white patent stiletto boots and slender black trousers, she exudes the commanding charisma that makes her perfect for her imminent roles.

Rumour has it that she will be playing Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming series of The Crown, the Netflix series created and co-written by her partner, Peter Morgan. No one is confirming this, but no one is denying it either.

Meanwhile, this month she stars in a new Netflix series, Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist who lives with her teenage son (Asa Butterfield). And in February Anderson has another plum role: Margo Channing in Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove’s much-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve, also starring Lily James as Eve, with music by PJ Harvey.

The play – a modern reinterpretation of the 1950 film, which starred Bette Davis as Channing, a blazing Broadway star who is gradually supplanted by a younger rival – is about ambition and betrayal, femininity and anger, stardom and personal sacrifice.

Anderson’s is a bravura role, one that requires not just the cool intensity that we have come to expect from her, but also humour. Channing is deliciously droll, delivering endlessly quotable lines with comic precision (‘I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut’).

‘A couple of years ago my boyfriend Pete said to me, “You know what would be a great role for you? Margo Channing,”’ Anderson says. ‘So I rewatched the film and I thought, “Oh my God, how much fun would that be!”’

Anderson, not one to wait for opportunity, discovered that theatre producer Sonia Friedman had the rights to the script and was working on it with van Hove – Cate Blanchett was set to be Channing. ‘So I thought, “Ah OK, I’ll just slink into the background.” Then my agents got a call to say that she [Blanchett] had backed out due to scheduling conflicts, and there was interest, and was I interested? So I was like, “Yes! When’s the meeting? Now?”’

Van Hove, on the phone from New York, is equally excited to be working with Anderson. ‘Margo needs someone who understands what the theatre is all about, someone who can carry a play, who can occupy the whole stage, and Gillian can do that; she is a fabulous theatre actress. Although, of course, she became iconic for me in the 1990s when she was in The X-Files.’

There is something a little surprising about Ivo van Hove, an avant-garde director celebrated for his reinterpretations of plays and operas such as Hedda Gabler, Antigone and Lulu, professing fandom for a mid-’90s sci-fi series; but that is to forget the huge cultural impact of The X-Files, its quality and its ingenuity.

The series was about two FBI agents, played by Anderson and David Duchovny, who attempt to unravel various natural and supernatural mysteries. No one expected it to become such a success, least of all Anderson, who was 24 when she was cast in the show. It was her first major role and it made her a star.

She won multiple awards for her portrayal of the sceptical Dr Dana Scully, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. But such stardom often involves sacrifice and Anderson was suffering.

The production schedule for The X-Files was brutal, involving 16-hour days for nine months of the year. Furthermore, in 1994, aged 25, Anderson married Clyde Klotz, assistant art director on the series, and nine months later she gave birth to their daughter, Piper. After three years she and Klotz divorced. It was while she was pregnant that Anderson started having severe panic attacks.

‘I was having them daily,’ she explains, experiencing palpitations, numbness, ‘hallucinations, all of it’. Things didn’t get better once Piper was born. ‘I was a young mother, and shortly after that we were separating, and I was working these crazy hours. I remember periods of time when I was just crying, my make-up was being done over and over again and I was not able to stop crying.’

Anderson sought solace in meditation. ‘I went to somebody and there was a meditation we did together. We went to some quite dark places and I got to see that I could still survive those dark places, I was stronger than they were, and after that the panic attacks stopped.’

Anderson had been having panic attacks, on and off, ‘since high school’. As a teenager she was a daydreamer and a troublemaker who felt different from her peers in Michigan because of her childhood in Harringay, having left the ‘incy-bincy flat with a bathroom outside’ that she and her parents lived in when she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to the US.

‘I started falling in with groups and trying to fit in, until it got to the point when it was like, “I don’t f—ing want to fit in. I want to look completely different to all of you, and stop staring at me because I have a mohawk.” I’d shave the sides of my head with a razor blade and dye my hair different colours.’

Anderson’s parents, Rosemary and Ed, were living in Chicago and were both just 26 when she was born. Soon afterwards the family moved to London so Ed could attend film school, while Rosemary worked as a computer programmer.

‘My parents were working very hard and would often work late. I have lots of memories of playing by myself in the back garden and searching for friends in the neighbourhood because I didn’t have siblings.’

After moving back to America, Rosemary and Ed had two more children, a son and a daughter. Anderson admits that her adolescent waywardness might have been related to the arrival of two new babies in the house. ‘I made trouble and I got attention that way.’

Acting is another way to get attention, something Anderson learnt early on. ‘I remember being in a play when I was in primary school. I was meant to be a Chelsea fan. I started chewing gum on stage and blowing bubbles and got all the attention. I thought, “This is all right, everybody is watching me!”’

But when she reached 16 and started doing more professional productions in America, performing became fundamentally important to her. ‘I enjoyed the connection between performer and audience, the control. And I remember thinking, “I can do this. They are showing me I can do this.”

'It changed everything in my life, knowing I could do something. Prior to that there hadn’t been that moment yet when I found purpose and direction.’

Anderson decided that she wanted to pursue acting as a career and was accepted at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. ‘From the very start of school I didn’t go into the dorms, instead I found an apartment with a roommate in a funky neighbourhood. I was the only one who was living out of school. That is my pattern, carving my own thing.

'All through [theatre] school I dressed like I was a member of The Cure. That was how I was in the world, grungy, not considered, not mature. I was forthright and gutsy – I drove myself to Chicago in my dad’s VW van – but slightly falling apart.’

She always knew she would return to England. ‘My childhood here, the smell of north London, it has such a massive tug on me. I really felt, when we moved to the States, that I would eventually have a life back here.’

She and Piper moved to the city after The X-Files ended its original run, and she went on to have two more children, Oscar and Felix, with her now ex-boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths (there was also a marriage to British documentary maker Julian Ozanne, which lasted for two years, with the couple separating in 2006).

Anderson, as DSI Stella Gibson, was imperious in her white silk shirts and high heels, unwavering in her pursuit of the serial killer played by Jamie Dornan. The screenwriter Allan Cubitt created the role of Gibson with Anderson in mind. ‘I wanted Gibson to be an enigmatic figure. Gillian is a riveting actress, but there is an aloofness to her as well. Also I was attempting to reclaim the idea of the powerful femme fatale, without the fatale; someone who is aware that her beauty can be used to help her ends. That she is unafraid of that was radical.’

Anderson was deeply involved in the creation of Gibson’s look, altering the way she thought about herself in the process. ‘What fascinated me about her, and I feel that we were able to find that in the costume design, was that the way she dressed never felt like it was for anyone else but her. I don’t think I have necessarily changed the way I dress since her, but I feel like I am certainly more conscious of what I wear and what it says.’

As a younger woman her style was ‘messy, like a discarded urchin’. She would wear oversized suits and ‘floppy dresses that I had probably stolen from the thrift store’. Whereas now her look is sleek, and she favours brands like Jil Sander, Prada and Dries Van Noten.

The Fall was about gender, power and desire; and it was while filming it in Belfast that Anderson began thinking more about the struggles that women face in the 21st century. ‘I was reading all these statistics about young girls being suicidal and having such low self-esteem and I thought, “Surely, given everything that we know, and the fact we are all having these feelings, can we not start a conversation about whether we want this and how to deal with it?”’

This morphed into her writing a book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, with her friend, the writer and activist Jennifer Nadel, in 2017. Alternating between pieces by Anderson and Nadel, it details their own personal struggles, and includes practical sections on how to deal with issues such as anxiety and low self-esteem using practices such as meditation, affirmations and gratitude lists.

‘We both know how it feels to be in emotional pain,’ says Nadel. ‘Both of us have felt lost, and found a spiritual way out. Both of us have experienced radical transformation as a result of the things that we wrote about in that book.’

Cubitt and Nadel each say that among the most impressive things about Anderson, as a collaborator, are her focus and drive.

‘I have never met anyone with Gillian’s ability to focus. And she has a certainty about things, she is not mired in indecision,’ says Nadel. What this means is not just an incredibly long CV, but numerous satellite projects. Anderson has a line of smart, grown-up clothes that she has developed with the brand Winser London (‘I didn’t realise I was so opinionated about buttons!’).

She also works for numerous charities, focusing especially on women’s rights and environmental issues. ‘Because of my work ethic and also having had such high expectations, both of myself and other people’s of me, at such a young age, I think it became near to impossible for me to relax at all, to do anything that wasn’t work-related, so a lot of my later adult life has been trying to force myself to do that, and I struggle so hard, and sometimes I lose sight of it. So there is a part of me that wonders if I am slightly addicted [to work], I learnt it so young.’

The scant spare time that Anderson allows herself is spent ‘going to the cinema, to the theatre, watching documentaries’.

Piper, who has just completed a degree in production and costume design, is now living in her mother’s basement, and the two of them recently went on a trip to Amsterdam to see van Hove’s four-hour stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel A Little Life. That might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but Anderson loved it.

And despite all the seriousness and the self-examination (or perhaps because of it), she is good company, thoughtful and witty. She has, she says, got happier as she has got older, less self-critical, more self-accepting.

‘I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not normal. But fortunately I have enough abnormal people around me to help me feel that it is actually OK.’

All About Eve is running at the Noël Coward Theatre from 2 February to 11 May 2019

#gillian anderson

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