#is how a 90s coming of age would have shaped her understanding of her own sexuality

[1nthedarknessofthenight]

﴾ i drink your blood and i eat your skin, part three.

pairing: hwang hyunjin x f!reader

genre: vampire au

word count: 4,2k

warnings: body insecurities ⋆ alcohol ⋆ smoking ⋆ mention of weed and that’s it?

masterlist

playlist

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The thing was you never truly felt beautiful. You always felt like there was nothing really unique about you. Though you think that everyone had their own unique feature, something that made them stand out from others but for yourself? You felt and looked average. Having a slightly chubbier figure made you feel sometimes insecure. There were days when you liked how you looked then there were days you just wanted to rip your skin off. Seeing that even after multiple types of diets, you still end up looking the same, you gave up. You tried so hard to expect the truth. And in some way you expect that you just were bigger a long time ago but sometimes looking into a mirror made you feel like you should’ve not expect your body.

Buying clothes was horrible. Everything was too small and when you went to pick a bigger size, it was suddenly too big for you. The funny part was that you actually loved shopping and fashion, it was your quilty pleasure since childhood. Watching America’s Next Top Model, not knowing how much problematic the show was at your young age, made probably 90% of your personality back then. It was quite laughable how much your younger self dreamed about having that model figure. Still being small, you didn’t understand that it would be impossible to achieve it because of your body proportion but a girl can dream.

These thoughts only came to you when you were looking into a full length mirror or when you were trying on some purposeful thighter clothes. And right now? You were doing both of those things.

Your hands smoothen the soft fabric on your stomach, looking at yourself in the mirror carefully so there wasn’t any angle that can be missed. You were wearing thight black dress with long sleeves and a V-neck line. Actually the first reason why you pick this dress was for its long sleeves and decent length. The dress was a bit thighter than you remember but it’s also a long time since you pick it up from your closet.

Grimacing at the view, you then glanced at the thick piece of the ribbon on your neck. It hide your scratches perfectly. ‘At least something was good about this outfit’ you thought playing with the decorative rose on the side of your neck.

“Can I look now?”

Turning to the closed door a defated sigh lefts your lips. “Yes.” Watching your blonde friend come in to your room, you quickly admired how the blue dress complimented her figure and skin tone nicely, making you a little bit more self conscious about your own outfit. You didn’t want to compare yourself to her, there wasn’t any jealousy in your friendship but still…

As Mia scanned you from head to toe, her green eyes stopped trailing your figure to meet yours, seeing the emotions you tried so desperately to hide. “What’s wrong?”

For a moment you went quiet, turning back to look at yourself. Even wearing shape wear underneath, it really didn’t do anything to thighten your figure. You hated how jiggly it was, like a loose skin. “I don’t feel good.” Was your answer, you actually wanted to say much more than that.

“And why’s that?”

The lack of emotion in Mia’s voice made you feel stupid about this whole situation. Christ you were a grown woman and this is the biggest of your worries…

“It doesn’t look good on me…I don’t look good in it.”

The blonde shakes her head, sending you a small glare. “Why would you say that? You look amazing, girl.”

Pursing your lips, you watched yourself and your friend through the mirror. “I feel like a ugly girl trying to dress as a pretty one. I just don’t like this on me but I can’t do anything about it, this is only party dress I have! Maybe if I didn’t have hip dips…” Saying that you place her hands on your hips to fill them up, imagining.

“You know I think hip dips look cute.” Shrugs Mia coming to stand directly behind you. “They are like perfect holders for your hands.” Smiling, she than pressed her own hands over yours. “Even Bella Hadid has them!”

“Yeah.” You say, not sure in your answer before looking at your friend though the mirror. “But my name…my name’s not Bella Hadid.”

Mia laughed at your words, watching as you turn around to pose a little for her. “Do I at least look okay? If you would see me out on the streets, like would you think-“

The blonde shushed you softly, making you stop your rambling to look into her green eyes. “You look pretty Y/N, you always do. Yes, you’re bigger and what? Being bigger doesn’t make you any less beautiful, it’s just a stupid beauty standard. I know I’m not the most right person to say this when I’m literally as thin as a spaghetti but even I have insecurities. Everyone does! In the end it doesn’t mater as long as you realize that the only person standing in your way it’s you. Don’t make your insecurities make you.”

Pursing your lips to stop yourself from crying from how much you appreciated her. Seeing and hearing someone say this to you, means a lot when knowing they really meant it. Still there was this feeling that you will ever hear this from her only. God, you can’t even let yourself rest for a moment.

“Trust me when we will do your make-up, it’s gonna fall all together, we’re still not fully done~”

Both smiling softly at each other, you sat down on the bed together where all your makeup was spread out. You watched your friend pick up her sponge and your own foundation which she firstly swatches onto her hand. “Thank you, Mia…” You didn’t even know for what exactly – maybe for everything.

“I know I can’t change your mind~” Dabbing the make up sponge on your face, you pull your curled hair away to give her a better access. “Just remember it, okay?” Whispers the blonde know slightly too caught up in perfecting yours foundation.

You only hummed in a small agreement looking through the lipsticks. You won’t. “I think we should do a red lip.” You think out loud holding a tube of dark red lipstick, rolling it out to see the color in the light.

The blonde gasps in delight. “Oh, yes just the pop of color you need.”

You smiled at her softly. “Love you, Mia.”

“Love you too Y/N.” Laughs softly your friend before looking into your eyes. “This is gonna be our night.”

────

A shiver runs down your spine, making you press your crossed arms closer to your chest. You grumble under your breath as your friend also shivers slightly. Mia just wouldn’t let you wear a jacket and you wished, you were more demanding for yourself and even her. The only reason you weren’t wearing one was just because it would ‘ruin’ your outfit. Maybe? But it definitely would made you feel warmer and safer. The last time you were wearing a dress didn’t end up well for you. Atleast you were on a busy street where all the clubs were located. Creeps would definitely be a better choice right now rather than some undead creature but right now you don’t want to think about that. You want to make yourself believe you weren’t actually in any danger that what happened that night will never happen again…well that’s what you hope for.

As you two turn around the left corner, you were meet with a long line of people that almost seemed unreal but after all it was the most popular club in this small city. “I already feel overstimulated and we’re just standing outside. You say to Mia as you make your way through the line, making people’s heads turn. It made you shrink into yourself.

Laughing before smirking, your friend turn to glance back at you. “Overstimulated you say?”

You roll your eyes at her words. “God…”

As the blonde laughed, you finally made it to the end of the line, well more like the beginning. At the main doors stood two bodyguards which one of them was arguing with some man that was probably trying to get inside while the other turned his attention to you. Mia smiled at the man before showing her ID as you pulled out your own, showing it to him. You tried to ignored the angry shouting of the man while the bodyguard moved to let you both in.

“You sure come here often.”

“I don’t actually but I always leave a good impression.” Smirking, the girl follows the sound of music.

Immediately after coming inside, your nose was hit with the smell of alcohol and the sudden warm, humid air made you take a deep breath. The loud bass of Just a Little Bit by 50 cent made your whole body vibrate and you for a moment admired the choice of a song and also that it wasn’t any garbage remix. Some clubs really didn’t know a way around music but you should’ve known better because your friend picked this place. You as for your friend watched how the dim place lightened up in hues of red. This place from where you stood looked huge. On the left side there was a bar and all around the room were tables with quite comfortable-looking sofas and the big dance floor in the middle couldn’t be overlooked. You were impressed.

Turning to Mia, you leaned your head closer to hers. “And who got a taste of that good impression?” Raising an eyebrow the blonde laughed, quickly scanning the crowd.

“That guy over there!” Mia pointed to the bar right where a middle aged man popped up.

You gasp in shock, watching as your friend now went to the same direction she just pointed. “Nooo Mia!”

“He’s actually a sweetheart.” Says your friend, looking over her shoulder at you. “I knew you wouldn’t get it, you always had a thing for pretty boys.” Rolling you eyes, you stayed silent after her remark, knowing that there was no way to talk yourself out of this nonsense or perhaps you agreed with her.

It’s really been a while since you had fun like this. Your constant worrying about the future almost made you forget about the present. There really was more to life than love and you knew that actually better than anyone, your constant chasing after the thing you have always wanted made you blind to see the other joyful things you can have in life. What more could you possibly want when having a friend like Mia. Sometimes you wondered if by having more friends would make you feel less lonely but then you remember that no one could possibly top your one true friend. But you were only human after all and there was nothing to do about the feeling of being unlovable.

Yes, there were people like Mia and her parents than maybe the Johnson’s family you grew to love but would there ever be a person that would be absolutely devoted to you?

Maybe?

You won’t quit fighting for this but maybe it was time for a small break. To be quite frank you don’t know if you even want someone to love you. It became a such fantasy to you that you wouldn’t know what to do if it ever happens. You don’t know if there will ever be person to love you how you wished to be loved. Your whole life was about feeling this unbearable loneliness and it became such a part of you that you were afraid to loose it and even more if it was for the wrong person.

You maybe had too much of red wine, already forgetting how many glasses you actually had. If there was red wine that’s all you would be drinking, completely opposite of your friend who know swallows down another shot of tequila and at that winning another round in the drinking contest she was playing. That girl for sure has livers made of steel. The man at the other side of the table surely didn’t expect this type of stamina from her and you from those ten shots surely would be laying on the floor by now.

Drinking down the last bit of your wine a sudden crave for some nicotine came over you. Stumbling slightly, you lean to whisper into Mia’s ear, well more like shout.

“Hey, I’m going out to get some fresh air, you coming with me?”

“Not know, I’m winning another glass of wine for you that okay?” The blonde didn’t even look up, watching the man on the opposite side of the table now having trouble swallowing his last shot. This calls for alcohol poisoning.

Humming loudly so your friend could hear, you smirked slightly. “Be right back.” Sometimes it surprised you how well you knew her friend. It was a bit hectic and difficult to get through the crowd of people but as you began pushing yourself out rather than asking for permission to make a room for to go through, it was quite easy.

Finally making it outside, you take a big breath of the cold, fresh air. It was more soothing than uncomfortable by the sudden change in temperature but you knew if you would spend enough time outside, you would definitely catch a cold.

Pulling out a cigarette and lighter from between your breasts, you maneuver your way around the few people standing there to stop at the corner of the building. When you took the fist hit from the cigarette, every muscle in your body loosens up. ‘Shit, maybe I’m an addicted little’, you laughed to yourself, leaning onto the brick wall. Maybe it was the alcohol but you actually started to feel that you looked quite good in this dress. Still no one came up to you or anything but that wasn’t really not that important because you are here with your best friend after all. The one person who made you feel good and the one person who actually loved the way you are.

You ran a hand through your hair, cringing when you felt how much your hair was stuck to your neck, the sweat damping and loosening those curls you had put so much time and effort in.

“I’m not gonna let him do that!”

The sudden loudness made you jump. Yes, people around you weren’t really quiet, laughing and chatting loudly and you could still hear the beat of the music from the inside but it was almost like someone had shouted right into your ear. It came right from behind the corner where you were standing. In annoyance from being spooked so easily, you lean over to look and maybe give them a quick nasty look back but as you do that every expression on your face immediately melts away, the smoke from your cigarette getting stuck in your throat.

You were in shock…It couldn’t be…you really must be drunk. But your vision was barely even blurry, so you didn’t have any choice but to believe what you were now seeing.

Your eyes were fixed on two figures standing under the street lamp that give them a spot light, making them perfectly be seen in the darkness. There, right there, just a few feet away from you, stood the sandy haired man, the same man that ripped someone’s heart out from their chest like it was nothing. The one of many reasons, you couldn’t get any good sleep and the man who wanted you dead. Even by seeing him once before now and in almost complete darkness, you knew that it was him and not just a fragment of your imagination. By being so in shock, your almost didn’t see the other man who was talking to him.

That man also had this – alluring aura around him that was luring you to come closer and take a closer look at his perfect pale skin, pink pouty lips and puffy cheeks. If you didn’t know better that he was most definitely also a vampire, you would’ve find him cute. The effect this creatures had over you were frightening but already having a taste of their true nature, you would like to say that it truly wasn’t effecting you that much as it seem to be.

You realized after moments of watching what this meant for you. He was here. ‘God, he must be here somewhere’. You had mixed feelings about this but you most definitely would say that you were scared. How unlucky can you be to get yourself in the situation, you so desperately prayed about not to come true? You shook off those thoughts just as you heard the men’s conversation get louder. You hope that the curiosity won’t kill the cat.

You leaned just a little back behind the brick wall, realizing how much you could be seen from your spot. Frown appeared on your face, watching the blonde man whisper something angrily to the other who seemed to try to keep a calm and collected expression. You got curious even more, thinking why this man was so angry…From the night it seemed that this emotion wasn’t quite uncommon from him but from the other man’s features, you could see that the thing they were talking about was something urgent and even important but you still weren’t close enough to them to hear.

Almost hissing in pain out loud, you felt your forgotten cigarette starting to burn your fingers, seeing that it was at it’s end, you without a second thought, throw it away but just as quickly as it lefts your hand, you wanted to scream at yourself for your idiocy. You threw it right next to you rather than the opposite direction you meant to.

Their conversation stopped the moment the cigarette hit the pavement, the sound like a gunshot because of their better hearing. Without thinking twice you quickly pressed yourself back onto the brick wall, hoping it would swallow you whole. At the exact same moment someone jumps at you.

Gasping out, you wrapped yourself in your arms in a way to protect yourself for what’s probably about to come. Looking up, you expect the worst but you were only met with the face of your best friend and you didn’t know if you should be thankful for her or punch her for her horrible timing. “Y/N, there you are!” Mia said loudly, shaking your shoulders, making you look around, scanning your surroundings. Your friend didn’t seem to catch your uneasiness and you didn’t wonder much why because you could smell the alcohol on her words miles away. ‘How is she even standing?’ “I have surprise for you!”

You frown slightly at her words. “What surprise?”

The blonde rolled her eyes at your unimpressed tone, grabbing your hand to drag you back inside. You felt little bit unsure about this, now knowing who was here with you but you didn’t know how or even what to say to your friend. Maybe you are just exaggerating, looking around yourself as you stepped back inside, the humid air hits you right across your face. There were so many people and also it was getting quite late. Your friend was basically a party animal till the clock hit a certain hour and it was now way past that. Only few more drinks and you will go back home…

Mia stopped suddenly at the middle of the dance floor, getting you both squished between the crowd of people in the process. You glance at her in confusion when you were suddenly released from her tight grip. “Wait….” Your friend said, pointing a finger at you while looking around. “Wait here!” The blonde said, giving you a small look before running away from you through the crowd before you could even think to say anything.

You stood there awkwardly around the moving bodies, little anxious from the situation you were put in. Sometimes you forgot how much you hated big crowds, the bodies squishing you and making you want to curl up into a ball. Also you didn’t want to be left alone right now and your prayers must have been heard because you could see Mia finally getting back to you. Thanks to the high heels and her light hair she shined in the darkness of the room, almost like an angel coming to your rescue.

Just as your friend stops right in front of you, you wanted to ask her what the surprise was but than you hear it…

You laughed in disbelief. “Are you for real?” You said over the music. In answer the blonde grabbed your hand, swinging it side to side as if to make you finally move in the sea of dancing people. You weren’t the only one happy as almost everyone around you started to sing the lyrics of one of your favorite songs. “What, you know the DJ too?” You asked, slowly starting to move into the beat of the music.

“He’s my cousin!”

“What?!” You spit out, laughing.

….That boy is a monster (Mo-mo-mo-monster)

The two of you twirled around each other, laughing in joy. “That boy is a monster~” You sung and finnally you seemed to get the taste of peacefulness you searched for.

“Mo-mo-mo-monster!” Shouted the blonde a little bit unnecessarily as it was almost as loud as the music but it only made you laugh more.

────

A smile danced across your lips, the smudged lipstick at the corners of your mouth made your smile even more pronounced, watching your light haired friend skipping just few feet before you. It still was dark, even in the early hours and looking upon the sky, you were a little saddened that the stars weren’t visible. ‘It was probably because of the city’s lights’ It was also a little colder than before and it made your warmer hands pressed more onto your exposed chest. You could feel the sore throat coming.

You and Mia decided to go home after few more drinks, seeing it was enough alcohol and social interactions for the week on. Your fingers spread out across your chest, trying to cover up as much skin as possible, slightly grazing over the ribbon of your necklace. The other reason to go so ‘early’ was because of this uneasy feeling you got after the occurrence on your short smoke break. You really wanted to cry in frustration, feeling yourself thinking about that again. You just can’t be left alone or you would just overthink…

‘Or was this even overthinking?’ You were scared for your literal life and that seems like a good enough excuse. You were so close to him and he…, if you weren’t fast enough he would’ve seen you. The blonde man would look at you with his dark colored eyes and only just by a small glimpse, he would know the truth. Maybe he did see you…and if it wasn’t for your friend, maybe something would’ve happened. You weren’t so sure about being seen inside the club. You are certain that you haven’t seen even one of them inside because they would surely stand out in the crowd, they were too beautiful to not to be seen. As your fingers grazed over your small scars underneath your necklace, you wondered if he was there with them but you quickly tried to shake off that thought.

Maybe your mind was only playing tricks on you. If he really wasn’t there then why are getting this feeling of being followed right now, it was like two pairs of eyes were drilling holes into your head. It was just paranoia or maybe the alcohol but you really started to hate how your friend was getting quite far from you…

“Mia?” You called out, not seeing the need to be any louder than the soft breeze as you two were the only ones on the streets. Well…you hope so.

Your friend stops at the sound of your voice, looking over her shoulder. “Yeah?” The sudden movement made her stumble on her heels and it made you realize how much your own feet were hurting.

“Can I stay the night?” You asked slowly, looking at her from beneath your eyelashes, finally catching up with her.

That question made Mia laugh out loud, slapping you softly over your shoulder. “Girl, I thought we already agreed on that!” Relief washed over you, before chuckling softly at your own words. “You almost gave me a heart attack from the face you made!” Exclaimed the blonde.

“What face?” You said in confusion, trying to reminisce the exact same expression before your friend look at you with a grin.

“Like you you have seen a ghost-“ She imitates Ghostface before laughing loudly like a maniac.

“Oh, my god, I haven’t seen that in sooo long!” You gasped in a sudden burst of excitement.

The blonde shrugged, looking down at you. “Then let’s watch the first three movies together…the night is still young!”

That statement makes you shake your head. ”I don’t think-“ You started before hiccuping suddenly, covering your mouth with your hand. “I don’t know how you want to make that work…”

The blonde raised an eyebrow, looking at you like you said the stupidest thing ever. “I think this will help?” Mia trailed off, pursing her lips before showing three blunts that were hidden in her bra. You laughed again in disbelief. Your friend for sure will never cease to amaze you.

Grabbing one from your friend, you punched her arm, making her squeal dramatically from the force. “Ok, miss ‘smoking is bad for your health’…” The only answer you got back was an eyeroll.

Yeah, the night is still young…

[jeannereames]

Should we (not) read old history books?

And by old I mean academic works from maybe the 1960s onwards. Of course I understand what you always say about dated opinions, advances on historiography & archeology. And I don't dispute in any way, shape or form that we should always read the most recent work.

But is the old academic work really that disposable? Don't we have anything to learn with history books from the 80s, 90s, 2000s? Thanks for your attention.

The problem isn’t so much that they’re old, but that—if you’re entering an area of history about which you might not know much—older books can have pitfalls that newer ones don’t. This is hardly to say, just because something is recent, it’s good. Far from it. But my caution on older books was specifically in response to the query about reading pop history, and how to know what to trust.

So that’s the caveat. In that same post, I mentioned that I still regularly recommend Brian Bosworth’s Conquest and Empire from 1988. It’s a great fast summary and he tackles several important themes in part II. I also often recommend Gene Borza’s In the Shadow of Olympus (1991). Until Sabine published her book on Perdikkas, his chapter on Perdikkas there was the best thing in print (and still is in English).

Of course, to me, the 80s aren’t old books. Ha. When I think “old” books, I’m thinking 1950s and earlier. Part of that owes to the fact some very important ideological changes happened in history as a discipline in the 1960s and 1970s.

Yet one issue with older books—even good ones—involves new evidence. The asker alludes to that. Unfortunately, one must already know something about a field to discern what information in an older book is outdated. So, let’s take Gene’s In the Shadow as an example. Two very important changes in evidence have happened since that book came out. First, the matter of language (and thus ethnicity) of the ancient Macedonians. Gene argues that we don’t know what language the ancient Macedonians spoke, in large part because we just don’t have enough of it to judge. He suggests it might not be Greek (which was how he leaned at the time). That was all true…in 1990. But we do now have enough epigraphical evidence to say the ancient Macedonians spoke a form of Doric Greek (and Attic for court business). That means they were Greeks, however “backwards” politically/culturally, to the Greek mind.*

Similarly, none of us knew then what was about to come out of the ground at Archontiko in the early 2000s. Even what we’d seen at Aigai and Sindos didn’t make it clear how astonishing the Archaic Age was, up there. All these recent discoveries have changed what we think we know about Argead Macedonia before Philip and Alexander. Gene hinted at some of it in his assertion that, from Archelaos to Philip, Macedon went through a slump, and Philip brought it back. It didn’t just emerge from the swamps with Philip (as Demosthenes and other ancient writers would have one believe). So, Gene was already on the leading curve, but in 1990, none of us had seen enough yet. I remember sending him pictures from Archontiko near the end of his life, and he was very excited, commenting how it would change our ideas about Archaic Era Macedon.

So, if you read his book (and I hope you do), a lot of what’s in there is still solid material, 30 years later. But a few things are dated. And now you know two things that are…because I told you.

But if you didn’t have me to tell you, how would you know?

Ergo my caution. If you’re entering a field that’s new to you, start with later articles and work your way backwards. Ironically, that’s how I got into Macedonian history…reading arguments in the footnotes of articles, especially between the “Three Bs” (Badian, Borza, and Bosworth), plus Green, Heckel, Carney, Anson, Adams, and Greenwalt. Before I ever knew those guys, I was reading their citations of—and commentary about—each other. From that, I was able to render my own ideas of what I trusted, and didn’t trust, about Alexander, Philip, and Macedonia.

And that brings me to my final point. YES, reading earlier articles and books is very important when you really get into a field, precisely for the HISTORIOGRAPHY. In this case, not ancient, but modern. How did a field develop over time? To grok where Alexander studies are today, one must know a bit about where they began, with the heroizing of Droysen, Tarn, et al. in the late 1800s and pre-war era, down to Badian blowing it all up post-war in the late 1950s and the revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s with Badian, Green, Bosworth, and Schachermeyer and their revisionist view of ATG. About the same time, we get the rise of Macedonian Studies apart from Alexander and Philip, under Edson, Dell, Hammond, and their students. And it all peaked really with the discovery of the Royal Tombs at Vergina when Macedonian archaeology both married and divorced (at the same time) Macedonian history. It’s really hard to express how radically ATG and Macedonian studies changed in the 1980s and ‘90s. Then is changed again in the early 2000s when everybody got tired of debating Who’s Buried in Philip’s Tomb and Macedonian ethnicty. Archaeology turned up new treasures but passed mostly into Greek hands (and was written in modern Greek) while historians started looking more closely at literary trends and Romanization overlay. More recently yet, (some) archaeology is coming back into English, and a wider awareness, welding to new literary approaches to ATG and Macedonian history. And don’t forget the important publication of Brill’s New Jacoby, making a huge contribution to source criticism! Where are we headed next? Time will tell!

So yes, reading older texts helps one situate where we are now relative to where we were then, and back then, and even before back then.

That said, if you’re brand new to reading about Alexander the Great, PLEASE please don’t pick up either Droysen or Tarn’s history of Alexander and think it’s anything close to accurate.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

———————-

* If you’ve read my Dancing with the Lion, you know that I tried to flip that, looking at Greece from the north and giving the Macedonian view of Greeks. So I want to emphasize that each side viewed the other was “lesser.” I’m not advocating, above, the Greek view as correct.

[mamamittens]

As a distraction to Sad Thoughts™, yesterday I drew a concept design for Little Helper.

For context it's a shiny Chandelure for a pokemon story I'm crafting as a pick me up. Just scroll on if you aren't interested in me rambling about that and world building lol

Light and dark background for clarity. They're supposed to look like they have little fangs both above and below the lip... Thingy, but it didn't translate well in the end I suppose.

I like the overall design even though I'm not the biggest fan of shiny chandlure's color scheme. Went for 'expensive chandelier your grandmother paid a professional to clean instead of getting a Swiffer'. Don't get me wrong, I see what they were going for, but I think it could have been a bit more interesting. Like silver metal as well as the flame and body color? Idk, it IS better than Lucario's shiny though.

Why the hell they chose yellow I'll never understand. I'll die a hater for that one.

Anyway! I figured it would make sense that a professional breeder, breeding their own pokemon to assist in their business, would go out of their way to 'create' a stunning specimen. A sort of flex. And I liked the idea of stained glass. Might redraw this to lean more into that and maybe play with the colors more. But I wanted a basic design first, which I did! Hopefully it's cohesive before I start playing with the colors lol

Since I don't have such plebian concerns like budget or complicated pixel designs to translate into workable 3D art or whatever, I can just... Make it a Thing™ that Pokemon actually have some damn variety. I mean, we get that every so often in the anime, but it's a notable exception to the norm. And I get why, don't come at me, I promise I'm not bullying the 90s anime for not handcrafting hundreds of subtly unique designs for every instance of a species we ever see.

The point is that I don't have that problem. So if I want minccino to have different fur colors aside from Normal and Shiny, I can do that. Easily. Same with everything else. I doubt I'll go so deep into the weeds it's stuff like, this is a mixed breed Squirtle with lovedisc or magikarp in there. They'll generally still follow Pokemon logic of favoring a specific parent with maybe moves or abilities passed down if they're different species. Common, out in the wild Pokemon will look pretty typical usually. But once you get into domesticated Pokemon, they tend to look notably different. You can always tell if a pokemon was wild caught instead of carefully bred.

Just different color or fur/scale/claw shape. Minor adjustments depending on how bred they are for traits. IV bred pokemon will likely have unique traits that make it easy to spot deliberate breeding. Even if it's not that big of a difference. Like Sneasel having tufted ear... Feather things instead of a smooth leaf shape. Or spots in their fur. Stuff like that.

It seems like a fun detail.

Also decided where Edna, the main OC is from as well as some little details like being really used to having Pokemon groom her from a young age. Her parents have minccinos that are pair bonded and groomed her every morning. So Yolky, and eventually the rest of her team, tend to play with her hair.

Gets a little dangerous with Toxitricity, Danny (short for Cadenza), cause he puts down poison in her hair but she gets a bit immune after a while as well as the rest of the team lol. It was either poison braids or static frizz everywhere. Gotta compromise somehow!

It'll be fun to play around with established designs for a more unique look!

[oneweekobsession]

alright alright alright some tv history, aka what i insist, *insist*, is the direct or indirect source for jo davidson flashing her badge at the guy who tries to hit on her and kate at the bar:

so between the lines, which ran in the early 90s, is a show about the police complaints investigation bureau; it is, basically, a forerunner of line of duty

the main female police officer on CIB is the excellently bisexual maureen o'connell. in the middle of the second series we get introduced to kate roberts, who will go on to become mo's long term partner.

but before they get together, there's a scene of them coming home from the pub one night, where they get hit on by an obnoxious arsehole who pulls up in his car:

obnoxious arsehole: heeelllooo!

kate: oh no

obnoxious arsehole: alright ladies. saw you were all alone and thought you might like some company

mo: we're not alone

obnoxious arsehole: i meant you don't have any blokes with you.

mo: yeah, i know what you meant

obnoxious arsehole: come on girls, why don't you hop in

mo: why don't you bugger off

obnoxious arsehole: look, how about a tenner each, eh?

mo: i'm warning you

obnoxious arsehole: oh yeah, what are you going to do, call the old bill?

mo, flashing her warrant card: i *am* the old bill

obnoxious arsehole: bollocks [drives off at speed, crashing into some rubbish on his way]

kate, very much enjoying what mo has done: that was brilliant!

so so so i would wager that this is the influence of the scene in LOD ep 2:

kate, to the waiter: two more please

nice guy arsehole: can we get those

jo, flashes warrant card

kate: have a good night guys. [to the waiter] two more please.

jo: sorry, kate. my self pity's blown your chances

kate, very much enjoying what jo has just done: nah, not really my type.  

so basically LOD updates the scene: while the 90s show gives us women who are being hit on in the street by obnoxious arseholes who overtly proposition them for sex, the 2020s show gives us women being hit on in a bar by niceguy arseholes who do not overtly proposition them for sex but who, everyone knows, have that as an intended end goal.

and LOD truncates the scene: mo and the obnoxious arsehole work through the whole scenario before she pulls her warrant card; jo cuts through all of that crap, and just pulls her warrant card. she's basically got no time for going through the motions of a scene that has been played out between men and women twelve million times before.

ok, ok, and:

so i have two theories about this.

the first, the most likely, and the most boring: jed watched between the lines, and consciously or unconsciously was recalling the scene when he wrote jo and kate in the bar

the second, the much more interesting and character developpy one, but perhaps the one that's pushing it too far: as a teenager in the early 90s (if she's born in 1979, she'd've been 13 or 14 when between the lines aired in 1993), jo watched between the lines. and it was one of those foundational tv shows which helped her to make sense of herself: here, on the telly, was a woman who liked women, and who was not afraid to show it. this scene, where mo pulls the warrant card on the obnoxious arsehole, to put him off *and* to impress the girl, is a scene which is seared into jo's consciousness. and so it's a move that jo's replicated, at odd times, now and then, and it's a move which does, of course, impress the girl.

and and and i could go further: the fact that a teenage jo had a bit of a crush on anti-corruption's mo means that - even as she got recruited into the police at the behest of the ocg - she has always had a fantasy, at some level, of being rescued by someone like mo - and then, shit, she meets kate, and then, and then, and then. well we all know how that went.  

[blorbologist]

Just barfing out my personal de Rolo quarter elf headcanons somewhere so I can keep em together and share them! Given I know mine are often a bit weird compared to everyone else’s.

90% of my thoughts have been about Vesper and Leona, due to writing fics heavily involving them, so they take up the bulk of this ahaha oops

EVERY one of these kids is queer, I don’t make the rules, it’s the law of the land.

My personal take on their ages is that Vesper’s the (accidental, oops) firstborn, the twins followed 4-5 years later, Dan a year or two after them (probably a bit of a honeymoon phase after the twins finally started sleeping through the fuckin night), and Gwen 4-6 years later. Vesper is the only one to really get a fair amount of adventuring done, so I could see her being Level 6-12 by the time she’s done while the rest of the brood end up around levels 3-5 depending on their niche and interests.

Vesper:

I am of the opinion Vesper is an Aasimar, because if my timeline knowledge is correct Vex was pregnant with her when she became Pelor's Champion (and if not, I think that's still enough to bless your bloodline enough for an Aasimar, cmon), and I highly doubt she experienced the sort of stress that made her dad go white by twenty in that Tal'dorei Reborn portrait. Plus, having an Aasimar eldest and Tiefling youngest is nice poetic symmetry <3

I decided to make her a Paladin of Erathis for a number of reasons. One, I loath seeing firstborn kids being perfect mixes of their parents' skills and specialties, and I feel the firstborn of two heros and leaders of a city would absolutely want to avoid being compared to her parents whenever possible. So instead of a DEX build like her parents, aunt and uncle, she's a front line STR heavy hitter. I settled on Paladin specifically to nod to Vax and to give her another way to separate herself from her lineage - because sure, her mom is Pelor's champion, and Pelor definitely blessed her, but that doesn't mean she has to be his paladin, too, so she turns towards Erathis instead. I also think she'd be Oath of Redemption, just because that subclass + the Lawbearer's whole thing both would help shape someone into a good leader, once she takes Cass' place at the head of the Chamber. 

Vesper’s very much an ‘everyone can be redeemed‘ person, as a logical extreme of hearing her dad’s story, and is fairly prone to black and white thinking with shades of grey frustrating her. She's also terrible with money, because please she's a noble kid of course she is, and it's incredibly funny to me that she and Vex would butt heads over this. However, they both fly together for short bursts (usually with a couple of the smaller kids with them, once Vesper’s big and confident enough to carry one with her), Vex on her broom and Vesper with her wings. She was initially very afraid of heights until Vex helped her out with that. 

She spends a few years in her early twenties adventuring, to learn how to handle herself and grow as a person. She comes out of this with a more nuanced understanding of life, and maybe she’s had to make a few hard choices of her own while out on the road she talks to her parents about. Vesper is also very close to Cass, though her efforts to distinguish herself from her parents, plus them both recovering from the trauma they’d recently endured when she was young, mean they’re not as close to her as the other kids. Vesper’s actually fairly close to Grog and Pike - Grog is a great sparring partner and helps her break down complex problems, while Pike’s ALSO fun to spar with while also being a religious mentor of sorts, alongside Yennen while he’s still alive.

A note on the twins, first: 

Leona, ‘Lonny’:

I HC that these are genuine identical twins, not fraternal twins as Vex and Vax or Whitney and Oliver likely were IF they’re cis (I’m very fond of trans Vax HCs but I digress). As a result, either Leona or Wolfe is trans. I haven’t decided which, but one is. Given they are identical and were almost indistinguishable as babies, in the chaos of the birth (kindergartener Vesper's wings poofed out the first time at this point because it was so Exciting) Vex is pretty sure they got mixed up once or twice and no one’s sure which one is the actual firstborn. Not that it matters, it’s just something she occasionally remembers that sends her into a fit of giggles.

No one is sure which of the twins is technically older, however Leona maintains that she’s the older twin so we’ll go with that. Leona’s being a little imp in the one art we have of her, and given the personality I have in mind for her I see her as being a Bard. It drives Percy completely fucking batty at times, but she spends a fair amount of time with Scanlan and Kaylie one Vox Machina dinner and that’s that. She is mostly an orator and singer, but can often be found playing a small harp (Laura Bailey, *harp music*) and looking deceptively innocent and charming before she pranks her siblings or some poor visiting noble. However, her real passion is stories and secret lore - she spends much of her time in the library looking for juicy details from history she can spin into song. I haven’t narrowed down College of Whispers or College of Eloquence for her, either could work imo! She would love Hamilton and Six the Musical, make of that what you will lmao

Leona is a complete and utter little shit. Her reaction to having important parents is to use that as an excuse to get away with all sorts of hooligan shit, because really what could they do? Her teenage years are directly responsible for Vex’s grey hairs, and she’s only interested in her dad’s tinkering so far as it can make fun toys to play with. Leona is at her least irritating when reading and looking for knowledge, though, so she and dad will spend long hour in the library chipping away at some question or another or bickering about which historical account is more accurate. Vex loves listening to her sing and absolutely eggs on half the trouble she gets into, and privately congratulates her on a well made prank once any offended parties aren’t looking and once her heartrate slows down. She’s a very weird balance of cute nerd and little shit, and smart enough to lean heavily into the former to cloak her intentions. Think how Vex would use her flirting and winks to get what she wanted, but less discrimination trauma and more Bard and Being a Lil Bastard Sometimes.

 She eventually has a bit of a crisis, realizing that because of her family she can get away with most anything and not let her grow for her own merits, on top of always being seen as part of a set with her twin. As a result, when Percy takes her on a diplomatic/Ugh Fine We shall visit Scanlan trip to Westrunn, she kinda. maybe. Runs off to join the Cobalt Soul. I’m writing that fic rn hands off :vv But long and short of it is she finds her calling with the Soul, caring for and finding knowledge and then sharing it in ways that actually stick in peoples’ heads. Maybe a bit of spying and information gathering of her own if she’s a Whispers Bard instead of Eloquence so she can put her nosy nature to good use. She takes a particular delight in either exaggerating or correcting tales of Vox Machina and no one can ever tell which she’ll go with in a given moment.

Wolfe:

Wolfe does not insist he is the older of the twins - however, he is the more mature, level-headed and not humble at all of the pair, so he absolutely implies Leona is lying about it. I haven’t actually decided on Wolfe’s class or subclass yet. I like the idea of him not having a lick of magic to him, unlike his Bard twin. However, I am dead set on Galdric (you know -  Purvan Suul’s ever-living wolf companion who now guards Whitestone and per the Tal’Dorei update can be a Warlock patron) having taken an interest in him. SO! I could see him as an Undying Warlock (because oh, man, the ties to Vax would have Vex so emotional), or a Gloomstalker Ranger hunting side by side with his mother and this huge fuckall magic wolf in turns, or a Cavalier fighter riding either a horse or Galdric into battle. 

Wolfe is very similar to a young, pre-trauma Percy, but with something similar to Vax’s bleeding heart worn on his sleeve. He’s a bit arrogant and uppity, but it all comes from a good place of trying to make his parents proud and being proud of his family in turn. His way of forming an identity of his own is really to live up to the peoples’ expectations of what he should be, and as the son of heroes, so he puts himself under a lot of pressure to be perfect (unlike his twin who deliberately fucks around). Vex and Percy reassure him as best they can that he doesn’t have to be anything, but they do appreciate that at least one kid isn’t causing havoc of somesort at a given time. He’s very much a ‘break a few eggs to make an omelet’ kind of guy, but he will cry about it after. Hunting in the forest with mom - using a rifle, not a bow - helps him get a better handle on his emotions. He likes shedding the expectations of court out in the woods, where it’s just him, nature, maybe one of his parents too. And Galdric, whose expectations are unknown to him. He’s very much in awe of most of Vox Machina and not close to them as a result, because he’s fairly intimidated. He IS the darling of Whitestone’s populace, though, and great at getting along with the everyman once he gets over his ego and lets his heart shine through.

Wolfe and Leona are not nearly as close as Vex and Vax, because that was 90% codependency as a result of the hell they went through and these two both have other siblings to rely on and don’t need an ‘us vs the world’ mentality to survive. They’re close by virtue of being the same age, but Dan is not much younger than them and both are closer to him than eachother. Which is kinda necessary - Dan keeps their contrasting personalities from blowing up into full blown arguments. Vex has next to No idea how to handle this, however Percy remembers Whitney and Oliver and is better equipped to help the twins sort out their differences. Tho one time a guy courting Wolfe ends up only being in it for the prestige and Leona makes his life a living hell, and Wolfe helps cover for Leona when she’s skipping lessons to read in some secret corner.  

He might very well keep Galdric’s patronage or protection or Whatever It Is a secret from his parents as long as he can, because he knows how it’d worry and upset them, so there might be some drama about that idk. Cass might help him keep the secret while he figures out how to tell his parents and what to do, to give the poor kid some breathing room. Galdric doesn’t see what the problem is. He might have a few brief interactions with Vax as a result of his ties to the Raven Queen through Galdric, but given he’s not directly working with RQ herself there is a measure of distance that’s enough to keep Vex and Percy from completely freaking out.

Vax’ildan, ‘Dan’:

He also goes by Freddie given he got that middle name from his dad. Dan’s the absolute softest of the family - Vex has taken each kid out hunting regularly enough as mother-child bonding time, except the first time she and Dan went out he broke down crying at the thought of killing anything so they just take walks together. He’s a Druid - not a high level one by any means. Circle of the Shepherd or Land maybe?

I like the idea of him feeling very much like the odd one out of his family - both named for his uncle (Vesper’s namesake wasn’t a world-saving hero, she was a *teenager*) and not outwardly seeming to have the traits his parents are well known for. He can’t shoot a bow, can’t handle a gun, can’t tinker, can’t do Pelor things, he’s just the kid that really loves plants. (Am I projecting a hell of a lot of autism on this kid? Yes. I Am. You can’t stop me.) However, Percy and Vex and the rest of his siblings are eager to learn with him - Percy takes up gardening more, mostly on the technical side of the science behind it, to spend time with his son, while Vex takes him on walks in the woods and they go foraging for mushrooms and fun treasures together. She makes little stick dollies and forest toys with him, like her mother used to do for her and Vax. It might be on one of these outings they find Charlie, maybe?

He spends a lot of time with Keyleth in Zephrah, or in the Patchwood or castle garden when at home, and once he’s older he might move to Zephrah completely. Dan picks up a lot of Kiki’s verbal ticks from being around her so much. He might have even been there for Kiki’s assasination attempt, if the angst is worth it >;3c 

IDK I don’t have as many ideas for Dan as the others :c beyond him being close to Kiki but not at all like Vax ;; He’s also close to Trinket’s cub Charlie, though given how bear reproduction and aging works that portrait would have needed to be completed in the early summer and Charlie would be absolutely huge come the next year. I gotta think on this kid more.

Gwendolyne:

(oh no im getting tired now gktjrngn fuck.)

Is the sweetest de Rolo and has inherited Velora’s Owlbear stuffie, given to her one time when the family Had to go to Syngorn for some contrived reason, and some elves raised a stink about this little toddler. Which was not wise; Vex blew her gasket in a big way, Percy took the liberty of voiding some important trade agreements (Cass handled the paperwork when they got home), Syldor tried to salvage the whole thing while defending his grandchild, and while they did that Velora cradled her newest niece in a back room and calmed her down with the old beloved teddy. 

I see Gwennie as 100% being a daddy’s girl. Poor Percy - none of his kids really Got tinkering until the last one. Sure they could help in the workshop and loved to watch him make things, or try to make things of their own, but none really got the itch for it until he found Gwen trying to sneak down to make something for her stuffie at 10pm. I see her as an Artificer (Artillerist or Battle Smith)! Unlike her father’s love of clockwork and pretty creations, now, Gwen is 100% all about shit that goes boom, which is super funny given how sweet she is. Vex gets so many more exploding arrows once Gwen starts helping her dad. However, there is a minor point of conflict in that she likes the guns, the bombs, the explosions,and thinks they’re cool, and cannot for the life of her grasp why her father is so upset about having invented such cool things. She really likes Tary too.

Though I don’t think she would be an adventurer, I like the idea of Gwennie leaving home to sell some of her inventions and creations. Say, stopping by one of Gilmores’ storefronts and spending a few days doing some demonstrations and sales there, just seeing the cities the world has to offer but without any monster fighting - she’d rather sell the monster killing shit than engage herself. Inevitably something of hers does get used for nefarious purposes, though, and she understands her dad a bit better after this.

I also really, really want to incorporate Tiefling virtue names into Gwennie’s life, and while away from home I can see her going by Darling. Because it’s something she associates with her mother, with love, and she’s so much of a daddy’s girl that it’s nice for her to have something of her mom’s. IDK if anyone in Whitestone castle knows that this mildly famous merchant of insane tinkering feats that goes by Darling is their Gwennie, and IDK if she’s actually deliberately hiding this or hasn’t bothered to explain. She gets her incredible salesman skills from mom ofc.

All her family learn Infernal, because sometimes when she’s stressed she’ll lapse into it, and it becomes the official language of gossip for the de Rolo family whenever they’re at some important event and have some tea to spill in polite company. 

holy fuck that was more than I expected lmao. Enjoy? or not? weee

[blackswaneuroparedux]

There are two phases of enjoyment in journeying through an unknown country - the eager phase of wondering interest in every detail, and the relaxed phase when one feels no longer an observer of the exotic, but a participator in the rhythm of daily life.

- Dervla Murphy

There are few better literary gatherings than the Immrama Travel Writing festival in Lismore, County Waterford. Huddled quietly on the banks of the River Blackwater at the base of the Knockmealdown Mountains, Lismore is a scenic enough spot but on the face of it an unlikely magnet for the global travel writing community. Yet for two decades a string of stellar travellers including Michael Palin, Jan Morris, Paul Theroux, Kate Adie, Ranulph Fiennes, Terry Waite and Pico Iyer have made pilgrimages to this small rural town three hours south-west of Dublin to share their stories.

What draws notable itinerants from around the world to this rural backwater on the fringe of Europe is the special status it holds for writers and lovers of travel literature. Lismore was the hometown of the remarkable Dervla Murphy, who died on 22 May 2022 at the age of 90.

Here are six must-read books by one of Ireland’s greatest travel writers and explorers. They are all in print and currently available from Eland Publishing, one of my favourite publishing houses of travel writers and explorers, past and present.

1. Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965) Dervla’s debut recounts an epic ride to India. Setting out from Lismore in 1963, she travelled via Europe, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan on her trusty bicycle, named Roz, facing 50ft snowdrifts in the Turkish highlands and some punishing pedalling through the heat of the Himalayan summer.

2. Where the Indus Is Young (1977) A vivid travelogue detailing Dervla’s somewhat extreme winter hiking trip through Baltistan, in the northern Kashmir region, battling temperatures that dipped to minus 20C. She was accompanied by her daughter, Rachel, then aged six; the only person Dervla ever deigned to travel with.

3. A Place Apart (1978) At the height of the Troubles, aiming to put aside the sectarian loyalties that might have come from her own family connections to the IRA, Dervla cycled to Northern Ireland to try to unpick the situation, creating a travelogue that features revealing interviews and exchanges with locals on both sides of the divide.

4. Wheels Within Wheels (1979) In the autobiography that followed seven travel books, Dervla notes: “Even at 16, I had a strong premonition that I would never marry. Possibly the predictability of the average marriage put me off; it was the antithesis of my ideal unplanned existence - travelling, writing, not knowing what was going to happen next year or next month or even next week.”

5. Through Siberia by Accident (2006) Due to a painful leg injury, Dervla had to rethink her planned trip to Ussuriland, a Russian outpost free of anything remotely touristic, to explore the vast territories of Siberia instead. There she found humbling hospitality and generosity from local hosts during a journey of self-discovery and contradiction - human warmth and kindness against a bleak, unforgiving backdrop.

6. A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza (2013) Over the summer of 2011, in her 80th year, Dervla spent a month in the Gaza Strip in Palestine. Described by Irish novelist Colm Tóibín as a “a wake-up call to the world”, Dervla’s determination to understand how Arab Palestinians and Israeli Jews might find resolution gives voice to those rarely heard in the region and offers a unique insight into a place shaped by isolation.

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[d-criss-news]

Nine Songs: Darren Criss

When Disney, Phantom Planet and Mr Hudson collide: Glee star, Emmy and Golden Globe winner and musician Darren Criss talks Andrew Wright through the pivotal songs in his life and the unexpected ways they found him.

“When we are younger, our gateway drugs to a lot of popular things don’t come from the sexiest of places. It’s up to you how proactive you want to be with your curiosity from there, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, if you go down at all.”

Choosing the songs that define you is a tricky business to say the least, especially when the power of song has provided an ongoing soundtrack to your life. “When you’re as avid a music consumer as musical artists are, trying to pin down Nine Songs is difficult,” Darren Criss laughs. So much so, his final choices only really crystallise as our conversation draws to its close. “It’s hard for me not to see the value and joy in literally everything,” he explains. “The curse of the creative person is that your ideas and your interests always move way faster than your body can execute.”

Criss is a creative par excellence. As well as his Emmy and Golden Globe winning performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, where he played serial killer Andrew Cunanan, to his upcoming role in Muppets Haunted Mansion Halloween special as The Caretaker, he’s also a prolific musician. Criss enjoyed a decadent musical consumption since childhood, so “this was a bit of an archaeological dig,” he admits. As such, everything from jazz standards, to 808s, punk rock, ‘90s teen pop, and musical numbers are excavated in the course of our extemporaneous journey through the music he loves.

Equally on his mind is how to go about approaching the task of creating his Nine Songs, full stop. “The interesting social experiment is: Are my answers going to be songs that actually shaped my life and were formative to me as an artist? Are they songs that were formative to me as a human being? Or am I picking songs that I think represent who I am to people that do not know me? All three of those things aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

He reaches a conclusion of sorts. “For the purposes of making some kind of decision, I’m gonna lean less into trying to look cool to your very cool readership, and more into the literal, ‘What made me think about music in a different way? And hit me in a very emotional way?’ I think that’s probably the healthiest route.”

Embracing the accessibility that characterises Criss’ picks - or at times the initial touchpoints that led him to them - are something he vacillates over during our chat. “I’ve seen a lot of other people’s Nine Songs and they’re super cool. It’s like Leonard Cohen B-sides and old opera records and stuff. I’m gonna be pretty honest with the pop culture zeitgeist of how I grew up but explain why there is so much value in those moments.” His contemplation continues into the next day, Criss’s publicist passes on his regrets at being tentative to admit how he encountered one of his song choices via the Shrek soundtrack.

A yearning to reinterpret accessibility and the value attached to it drives Criss, however. He tells me that a festival performance that applied the anarchic verve of punk rock to a more refined Great American Songbook number remoulded his perception of music entirely. His love of the fusion of these two genres in particular symbolises the salient musical backdrops of his childhood - the guitar bands he played in with friends, and his musical theatre endeavours that led him to Broadway and multiple Ryan Murphy juggernauts, including his breakthrough playing Blaine Anderson in Glee.

Criss employs these contrasting musical lexicons, and other areas in between, on Masquerade, his new EP. Comprising five stand-alone “character-driven” singles, it sees Criss donning different musical personas. “I’m leaning into people that might know me as an actor,” he explains. “Because if actors can do Shakespeare, romantic comedy, and then do a horror movie and wear a prosthetic nose and a wig, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do that with music.” The song “walk of shame” draws on jazz-standard chords interlaced with hip-hop production, “i can’t dance” looks to new-wave, and “for a night like this” is the product of Criss’ goal to create the ultimate end-of-the-night crowd-pleaser for a new-year bash, wedding or bar mitzvah. “This is all of the parts of me as a lifelong fan of these genres, trying my hand at servicing the pieces of them that I love.”

“I really love all styles of music and understanding what makes them unique and special and what makes them really pop. There are so many things that really make things sing - for lack of a better verb - and I like acknowledging those things and celebrating those things.”

“So, let’s begin. I have runners up and shit, and I have artists, I don’t just have the songs, so we might have to pick them as we go.”

“Part of Your World” by Jodi Benson

“When people read this, they’ll go ‘That’s cute, he likes Disney songs’, but it’s more profound than that. Some of the most formative pieces of music to hit me at a very early age would have been any of the songs that were coming from ‘The Disney renaissance.’ The early-mid ‘90s explosion of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast.

"One of the through lines between the three of those musicals was Howard Ashman, who is one of my all-time heroes. Dramaturg, songwriter - he really was the voice behind what made those songs great. I have always loved Howard’s lyrical sensibility and also Alan Menken, his partner who wrote these songs with him. There was a musical structure to a lot of the songs which I would unconsciously pick up in my own songwriting, not just musically, but the idea that not only did somebody make these songs, but they wrote them for a story.

“There’s a clip of Howard Ashman vocal directing Jodi Benson, who was the original voice of Ariel. It’s a wonderful example of his genius, where not only was he songwriting but he was storytelling in the way he would tell her how to perform it, and you can really see the song coming to life in that clip. That’s when you cross the street from ‘It’s a song’ to ‘This is an experience.’

"There are certain ingredients that are required to elevate music that goes beyond just a nice melody, a beautiful orchestration and a good voice. There are things that are required to really give a performance a characterisation, context and a vulnerability, that he architects in real-time with Jodi Benson. You see that what he’s doing is what makes the record so special, and that’s something that’s always been inspiring to me.”

“MMMBop” by Hanson

“I think my love of Hanson was because some people didn’t like it, so I was like ‘Fuck you, I like this, how do you feel about it?’ But this is difficult for me, because you know, I’m speaking to The Line of Best Fit and we’re trying to be cool! Although, do you know what’s cool? Being accessible! Writing a pop hit when you are 10 years old. Being in a band with your brothers and you’re all below the age of 15, you have a record contract where you are writing, producing and performing songs that are doing well.

“I was 10 years old when their first album Middle of Nowhere came out, and I remember reading somewhere that there were these kids that had a record. At the time, I was playing guitar and I was writing songs, but in my mind I was a kid, and that was it. I couldn’t be on the radio; you had to be a grown up to do this.

"This was the first time where I realised ‘Holy shit, kids can do stuff!’ It’s the value of seeing yourself in the media - that’s a whole other conversation to talk about - but there’s an immense value in feeling like there’s a piece of you out in the zeitgeist and doing well because it’s encouraging. You go, ‘Holy shit, maybe I can do this as well.'

“When you see children doing things, you’re ‘Wow, this is so cute and fabulous’, but then when you actually look at it you go, ‘This is miles above what most people in this age group are capable of,’ and that’s all I saw, because I was in the same age group and I was so inspired by that. This whole album was really a turning point for me, where I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do music too, because these guys can.'

“Ooh La La” by Faces

“This song really blew my mind. It became my own theme. It’s that ‘Make your heart sing’, nostalgic moment when you’re a teenager, driving in the car listening to it, playing guitar with your friends and you’re singing “I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.” You’re like, ‘because I’m an adult now, I’m 15-years-old. If I only knew what I know now.’

“I was doing theatre from a young age and I was part of a young conservatory called A.C.T. in San Francisco. By way of somebody who knew somebody, I had an audition for a movie. As a kid not being near New York or Los Angeles it was really exciting, and this audition was for a film called ‘Max Fischer’, which would become the movie Rushmore, which would become one of my favourite movies of all time by the now very distinguished Wes Anderson.

“Separate from my own objective love of Wes Anderson, when this movie came out I was just around the age of getting into my own sort of identity with music, but also movies - indie movies - and trying to assert who I was. So, I see this movie Rushmore and I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love it so much, it’s one of my favourite albums ever. This song is the end sequence, and the way it made me feel - the vocals on it, I could play it on guitar and it was part of a cool movie - it really represented a lot in my life.

“And because of the acting thing, and Rushmore being great - it’s about this kid in high-school who's misunderstood but has his own agenda - everything about it was just so fucking cool to me. To this day, I cite that song as one of my favourite records of all time.”

“Recently Distressed” by Phantom Planet

“A guy that really formed the way I would sing and write songs is Alex Greenwald, the frontman of Phantom Planet. I went to see Phantom Planet because I loved Rushmore and I found out that Jason Schwartzman [who had been cast as Max Fischer] was also the drummer for a band called Phantom Planet.

"So, when I saw their name on the bill I went, but I didn't know their music. I was barely 14, but their set blew my mind. It was Rock and Roll, but I loved Alex Greenwald’s voice. I loved everything, and I would follow their career from there. I always tell people that my voice is a combination of me trying to be Alex Greenwald, Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, but failing. Alex was incredibly formative for me.

“One of their biggest records was a little while after I first saw them, which was the song for The O.C., "California." That was more of an Elvis Costello thing, and they employed a lot of stuff that sounded to me like The Beatles and a lot of ‘60s mod/pop-rock. But later they would employ things from Fugazi, Radiohead and harder shit, and that eclecticism, again, only accelerated my love for Phantom Planet.

“Recently Distressed” is from their 1998 album Phantom Planet Is Missing. This was a cool rock song that employed these George [Harrison] and Paul [McCartney] background vocals and included all of the things that I loved. It was harder but melodic and employed minor 4th chords and more complicated chords than I was used to. I had grown up with power chords - which are very Gregorian - on a lot of alt. punk rock, like Green Day or Nirvana, and if Kurt Cobain was using power chords then that’s how I was playing guitar. Hearing this music was like ‘Oh, I’m using full chords, not sevenths, minor 4th chords, diminished chords’, shit that I would learn to use more and more.

“When you haven’t experienced much, anything that gives a hint towards possibility, even though it’s probably always been there, you’re like, ‘I like this, I’ve always kind of liked this, but it’s very encouraging to hear somebody else do it and it’s gonna make me reconsider my possibilities.’ That was literally the moment that my power chords turned into full barre chords.”

“Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright

“I forgot the other day how I got into Rufus Wainwright, because all of this stuff I was getting into quite young. It’s like when I talk to 11-13 year olds, it’s funny to think that this was when I was really starting to build my musical identity. But then I remembered, and I didn’t want to say because I didn’t want to sound uncool, because he is such a revered artist who exists in a much cooler place than what I’m about to say.

“I loved soundtracks and I would always buy soundtracks for movies that had cool playlists. I had the Shrek soundtrack, and there’s a cover of Leonard Cohen’s seminal “Hallelujah” that Rufus does and he smashes it, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Rufus Wainwright? What a beautiful voice.’ Then I saw that he was going to be at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco one week, so I go and he’s there promoting his new album Poses. I remember I didn’t have enough money to buy the album that day, so I had him sign my sneaker and I saved that shoe.

“The first song on Poses was “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, which is a very dark and reflective song about his own battles with addiction, but he’s singing it over this really beautiful, whimsical song that has a lot of really great wordplay. I always love when artists, especially lyricists, can encapsulate an idea with not exactly what they’re talking about. The song’s called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, it’s not called “Addiction”. Its talking about things that he craved and how that’s representative of other things that he’s gone through. There was a sophistication and elegance to that that I really gravitated towards, that I didn’t possess but wanted to shoot for. So when I saw him, that was a big one for me and he would also continue to influence me later in my life.

“I’ve become friends with Rufus since. I’ve performed with him and we’ve made records together, which is crazy. His songwriting was very complex and punk-rock, but he had this classic cabaret voice, the kind of voice that I don’t have. I was fascinated that there was somebody that could write this really dark material but have such elegance on top of it. He was virtuosic on the piano, which I thought was very cool because musicianship is always the thing that gets me going the most about artists.

“You know what? People say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes.' I completely disagree. Chase the living fuck out of your heroes. I’ve spent a lifetime doing so, it’s made me a better artist, and I’ve sometimes got to meet them and work with them. I’ve worked on music with Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet. I’ve performed with Hanson. I’ve performed those Disney songs with Alan Menken at The Hollywood Bowl.

"This is all because there are people that I love who I have put on my vision board, and the things that they have done are the things that are bringing me to them. So it is nuts, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Well, what else did you think would happen?’ They did stuff that some part of me connected with, so obviously there’s a magnetic pull towards that person.

“Rufus Wainwright is one of my absolute favourite artists of all time and like I said, me trying to sing like him and failing is a big part of my own journey as an artist.”

“3x5” by John Mayer

“John Mayer’s another guy that came around when I was 15. I heard a song of his on a middle-of-the-night, singer/songwriter college radio show. This is where I used to get music. You would listen to these carefully curated playlists that you wouldn’t be able to hear anywhere else, and the host played “No Such Thing”, a new song by this young kid who had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music - John Mayer.

“I’m listening to this song and I’m like, ‘Not only is this guitar playing really interesting, but the lyrical value and everything that is going on here ticks all the boxes.' It was jazz, but it was pop. And he did something that all these other guys and girls I’ve mentioned did. They made something very unique and very accessible.

“I immediately went out to buy this album, Room For Squares, and I listened to it over and over again. It was an album that was really formative for me. "3x5” is a really beautiful song that employs a lot of chord structures and melodies that blew my fucking mind at the time, and it made me wish that I could write songs like that.

“That album was a huge turning point in the way I played the guitar, because it was the first time in my life where I would look up tabs. Up until this point in my life, if I heard a song I could play it instantly. It was like a party trick, I would get how it worked if I heard it, because most of the songs I would hear on the radio - especially those that involved a guitar - were [centred around] power chords. And now I’m hearing all of these ninth chords and thirteenths, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ So I’d have to look up tabs.

“I think any young artist can attest to this - when you try and learn other people’s shit, it’s the best tool for educating yourself. Playing other people’s music really helps you lock in what your own style is. Trying to learn these songs - and sometimes pulling it off and sometimes not - really changed the way that my hands moved around the guitar and considered chords and voicings that I’d never really thought of.

“There’s another tie to musical theatre here, where I remember seeing Audra McDonald, who is a very venerated theatre actor, and she did a cabaret. If you’re familiar with cabaret culture, it’s more about performing the story of the songs – ‘Life is a cabaret’. She did a John Mayer song because she thought it was from a musical theatre show, and I was so tickled by this, because I was like ‘Yeah, if you really think about it, I don’t think he knows this and I don’t think his fan base even thinks about this, but there’s a number of his songs that feel very theatrical in the way that the lyrics play with each other and the way the chords move’.

"When I saw this I thought, ‘That is why I like John Mayer’, because yes, he’s an amazing guitar player, but he’s also a really strong songwriter.”

“Cabaret” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“Also, around this time growing up in San Francisco, as a guitar player playing music with your buddies, the number one thing that you play is punk rock. There are different parts of the spectrum of punk rock, there's the NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, like real punk, punk. And then there’s the pop-punk thing that was happening at the same time, which was also equally influential - blink-182 and Green Day.

“Fat Mike was the frontman of NOFX. I loved NOFX, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were a supergroup of different members from different punk bands, of which Fat Mike was one of the main architects. They would cover songs and turn them into punk rock songs. They have an album of hits from the ‘60s, and they also have an album called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Are a Drag, and that record is just a tonne of musical theatre covers that are done through punk rock.

“That was completely in line with everything I loved at this time of my life but didn’t really know how to articulate. I loved punk rock but I also really loved musical theatre. Not only the performative element of it, but there was a real musicality to musical theatre that wasn’t as present in some of the other shit that was popular at the time, just harmonically, or where chords would go. There was a sophistication I loved that seemed to not exist in punk rock.

“Then hearing Fat Mike at The Warped Tour going ‘Alright, which one of you Motherfuckers loves Julie Andrews?’ and hearing a mixed bag of reactions, because people were ‘What? I was not expecting that from you, sir?’ And then they start playing “My Favourite Things”, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein song which is very accessible, but sophisticated nonetheless. And I am just living. I’m like, ‘This has got the attitude and simplicity of punk rock, but the sophistication of a beautiful song.’

“That was the first time in my life where I went, ‘It’s just all music. All these categories and boxes are completely arbitrary.’ So I thought, ‘I can do that.' I was playing power chords in punk bands but I realised that you can take chords and make them into other rhythms and voicings and have the same song. I could take a punk song and make it jazz. I could take a jazz song and make it country. So, quite providentially, I would end up on Glee, where they took popular songs and would sometimes do their own versions.

“By that point, I had been doing this my whole life. The first time this ever became a possibility for me was seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and that way of thinking about music and genre. I’ve put that into Masquerade, and it’s all born from that moment of ‘Oh my God, nothing has to be one thing. It’s just about how you look at it.'

“Cabaret” is from a pretty famous musical that I would’ve probably heard about later in life, but I first heard that song as a punk song and then I went back and heard the original. It doesn’t matter how these things happen, the inspiration happens and then you can go from there. But Me First and The Gimme Gimmes were a huge gateway drug and I play “Cabaret” now every year at my festival. That’s why the festival is called Elsie Fest, because it covers the song.”

“Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche

“One of the great joys of being a younger brother is that you get to inherit the music of your elders. My brother and I were both really proactive consumers of music, so we would share stuff with each other all the time. But then he would come home from college, which is like coming home from a music festival essentially, right? He was in a new time zone with new people, so he’d bring home these mix CDs that he’d made from people that he’d heard about, and he brings home this guy named Sondre Lerche.

“Hearing this guy blew my mind, because he also was using jazz chords and drawing on musical theatre. Musical theatre’s a massive category, so I can’t just say that musical theatre sounds like one thing, but when I say this, I’m referring to The American Songbook, the jazz standard songbook. “Modern Nature” was a duet that I would go on to play many times with one of my oldest musical collaborators, Charlene Kaye. When we got to college and we both found out that we loved this guy.

“There was a much more whimsical way to how he wrote these songs. And what’s crazy is that loving this guy meant that we also loved Rufus Wainwright, that we also loved these other artists. But Sondre was the first time I considered that I loved that type of music, but I didn’t know that you could be a singer/songwriter and put out music that sounded like it.

“I don’t know if ‘twee’ is the right word to use, but with “Modern Nature” there was a playfulness about it, and again, a musicality that I really gravitated towards. There is a through line - there was a sophistication that was accessible, and me trying to learn those songs did make me rethink the way that I was writing music. The structures were weird and different and I liked that.

“To this day, I find myself writing songs that I think might be difficult for people to ingest, because they’re a little too left of centre, and I realise that I’m trying to write like Sondre Lerche, or I’m unconsciously just copying him.”

“Everything Happens to Me” by Mr Hudson & The Library

“I was in an H&M in Stockholm when I was 21, and I heard this really cool groove and the lyric was “Why must I always play the clown?” It was sung with a really thick British accent, had an 808 feel on it, and lyrically it had an attitude. Who would say something that sounds so like you’re in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, but it feels hard? It was cool.

“I went home and looked this up and it was off the record A Tale of Two Cities by Mr Hudson and the Library, which would really, really fuck me up. I bought the album immediately because I loved this song. I had to order it on the internet because I couldn’t find it. It was doing well in England and he was on the festival circuit in the early-mid 2000s, but the first song on the album was a musical theatre cover with 808s.

“It was a pared-down, sort of a hip-hop version of “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, and I’m like ‘No fucking way, this guy gets where my head is.’ I’d thought about punk rock musical theatre, but I never thought about 808s and 909s scoring these beautiful songs. I go down the track list and he has “Everything Happens to Me”, which is another very famous standard, and he had this really cool, what we would now call chill-hop, ‘study beats’ version of this song. I was like, ‘This is it. This guy gets that good music is good music and you can reinterpret it to offer it as a new song.’

“I would later become great friends with Mr Hudson. I got to meet him years later when I was with Columbia Records, and they said to me ‘Who do you want to meet?’ He was at the top of my list. I went to London and we’ve been friends ever since and have created all kinds of music together.

“He told me a story where Tyler the Creator went up to him once at Coachella and said, ‘Oh man, “Everything Happens To Me”, that’s like my song.’ We both wondered if Tyler the Creator knew that it was a Chet Baker cover. And we were thinking how cool it is that you can offer these songs to a new audience through a different lens. Tyler’s a smart guy, he’s very cultured, and I’m sure he did know. But it’s more the idea that if someone experienced this song and didn’t know that it was a cover, and this is like the first time they ever get to experience it.

“Mr Hudson would go on to do his own thing with Kanye and was on 808s & Heartbreak and has had his own career. I think “Supernova” was a hit in the UK, it didn’t really cross over here to The States, but before that moment for him, that Mr Hudson and The Library album changed my life. People use that phrase willy-nilly, but this literally was a turning point in my life. It all had to do with the same thing that happened with these other songs, where I saw someone do what I always wanted to do but didn’t really know how to pull off. Where he had this fusing of old songs delivered through a contemporary lens, but also laced it with his own original material that also employed the things that made that old songwriting interesting.

“It’s like changing the font of a great essay but finding the font and figuring out that that font is its own art form. He really displayed that marvellously on this.”

The Masquerade EP is out now

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

My dearest bouncey! I have a prompt for you if you like: Witchers as a 90s/2000s boyband 😂🤷‍♀️💖💖💖

Ellie, darling, this started as 500 words and turned into like 3.2k words and also a piece of art so... thank you so much. also shout out to my amazing art pal @mawbwehownets for the little comic!!

this contains lots of 90′s/early 2000′s nostalgia so there is also that

tw: hornyish, smooching, perilous music video situations (corny)

---

“Do I have to?” Geralt groans, letting his forehead thud down against the linoleum surface of their tour bus’s shitty dining table.

“Yes,” Vesemir says. His tone leaves no room for argument or whining. “But what if I let you pick the winner personally?”

“There have to be like fifteen thousand letters to go through! How will I manage that in less than two days?”

“There were a few more than fifteen thousand applications, Geralt. There were probably closer to five hundred thousand.”

Lambert wolf whistles and Aiden claps.

Geralt grimaces and keeps his face hidden against the table, releasing a slightly muffled: “Fuck.”

“Language,” Vesemir frowns. He tugs gently at Geralt’s loose ponytail and the singer lifts his head up from the table again, looking at his manager with beseeching eyes. “Anyway, we’ve narrowed it down to about fifty. You can go through those and choose whichever person you’d like to play your love interest. But you have to give me an answer by Friday. The shoot is in three weeks and whoever wins this stupid competition will need time to make arrangements.”

“I thought we were footing the bill for their food and their hotel room,” Geralt raised an eyebrow. “What would they need to arrange?”

“Not everyone can board their pets at the flick of a wrist, dude,” Lambert scoffs from his seat on the couch. Aiden lies draped across his lap, as usual, and the two of them are halfheartedly watching The Lion King. They can only watch movies when the bus is stationary, otherwise the VHS player might move too much while running and damage the film inside the cassette. Even taking advantage of such a rare opportunity, Lambert and Aiden still seem more interested in each other than Jonathan Taylor Thomas’s voice acting. 

“Lambert has a point,” Vesemir sighs. He scrubs his hand over his lightly whiskered face like a tired grandparent and sighs again, more heavily. “It’ll be good for you boys to have a normal person around for a few days. Maybe they’ll be able to put some things into perspective.”

Geralt can only roll his eyes a little bit and thank his manager regardless of his own feelings; he and the rest of TW5 owe the seasoned musical expert their entire careers. Without Vesemir’s help and mentorship they would never have made it past their first disastrous record deal. They certainly wouldn’t have reached the heights they’re at now, enjoying international fame and recognition. 

The begrudging frontman accepts a heavy plastic bin of file folders from Vesemir and sets them down next to his bunk. “Are these organized in any particular way?”

“Nope.”

“Cool.”

Geralt digs his hand into the pile and pulls out a piece of pale-pink stationary, eager to get started and, by extension, get finished. He can already tell that it’s going to be a long couple of days.

---

“I want this one, please, Ves.”

“Huh?” Vesemir looks up from his palm-pilot. Geralt is standing in front of him and trying to hand him something. 

“I want this guy to be in the music video with me.” Geralt holds out the letter again, fingers trapping the accompanying polaroid headshot with great care. A pair of bright blue eyes stares up from the photo, highlighting the subject’s bright smile and unruly mop of messy brown hair. Vesemir tries to hide his amusement; totally Geralt’s type, if the big oaf could admit to having one.

“Alright. I’ll get everything in order. We start shooting in two and a half weeks so get your asses to the gym, please.”

“Yes, Ves,” all five young men chorus. 

“Tomorrow,” Coen mutters a moment later than everyone else, not glancing up from his composition notebook. Vesemir nods in understanding. Coen is the best lyricist of the lot and it’s easier to let him work when inspiration strikes than beg him to focus when he can’t get a solitary idea to stick.

“So why’d you pick that one, Ger-bear?” Lambert drawls. Aiden nods and leans against Lambert’s side. Geralt can’t help the mild jealousy that overtakes him every time he sees his bandmates touch each other with such casual affection. He wants that intimacy, that softness behind the veneer of famous indifference. He wants someone to hold. 

“Yeah. What drew your attention to that poor unfortunate soul. Was it the floppy hair, the big blue eyes, or the dopey grin?” Aiden smirks.

“Hmm.”

“Fuck you,” Eskel sighs, looking between the two troublemakers with the tired gaze of an eldest sibling, “Fuck you for even asking in the first place and expecting a straight answer.”

“Straight is the furthest thing from his answer,” Lambert chuckles. He is promptly smacked in the head with one of the couch’s hideous throw pillows. The youngest member of the band rubs the side of his face and chuckles, “Alright, I deserved that one.”

---

“Holy shit!” Jaskier practically screams. “Holy motherfucking shit!”

“What!?” Yennefer comes flying around the corner. “What’s wrong!?”

“Nothing is wrong, Yenna! Everything is awesome! Everything absolutely fucking rocks!”

“Did you get hit on the head by a falling branch between here and the mailbox or what? You were whining about your finals work not five min-”

“Look at this!” Jaskier shoves an open envelope into her hands and cuts her off. Yennefer reads the watermarked documents once. Twice. Her eyes almost pop out of her head when the words and their meanings finally sink in. 

“Are you fucking with me right now?”

“No, I am absolutely not!” her giddy roommate cheers, bouncing up and down in place. “I did it! I won!”

“Holy shit.”

“I know! I get to kiss Geralt deRiv!” he practically cackles. Then freezes. “Holy fuck I get to kiss Geralt deRiv.”

“You said that already,” Yen teases. She shoves the paperwork back into his hands and grabs a takeout menu from the junk drawer near her hip. “Since you won the makeout lottery, you get to buy lunch. Lucky bastard.”

---

“So this will be your dressing room,” someone’s underpaid PA says, ushering Jaskier into a small, bright room. “Priscilla will be here shortly to get you into hair and makeup.”

“Oh, uh- thanks!”

“Yup.”

And with that, the young man disappears back down the hallway toward the sound stage. Jaskier jogs his leg anxiously as he waits for Priscilla to arrive, nervous and otherwise totally alone in the huge grey building. As the minutes tick by and his heart rate rises, Jaskier’s intrusive thoughts make an unwanted appearance: What if they forget about me being here? What if there’s been a mistake and they accidentally hired two love interests and I just sit in here for hours all alone while-

“Hi!” a bright, peppy blonde woman flies through the door and startles him back to reality. “Nice to meet you, I’m Priscilla! You can call me Priss; I’ll be doing your hair and makeup for the video this week!”

“Oh… hi. I’m Julian, but I prefer Jaskier.”

“Lovely! Well, Jaskier, is your hair naturally this color?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Perfect! I don’t want to mess with such a lovely shade of natural brown, but do you mind if I give it a bit of a trim? I have a few ideas for styles right here in my book- How do you feel about some feathering back here? I think-” she fluffs a few of the hairs around the nape of Jaskier’s neck “-I could really bring out the curls if I adjusted the length a bit and used some product.”

“Just, uhm, go for it, then! Feel free to make me as pretty as possible!” Jaskier declares. He’s committing to this experience wholeheartedly, determined to allow himself every opportunity for positive change. He wants to really let himself enjoy it, and he needs a haircut anyway. Priscilla spends an hour washing, cutting, drying, and styling his hair into a lovely fringed sweep across his forehead. It ends just above his brows, giving his face a slightly softer shape than usual. He grins over his shoulder, “I love it! I’m going to miss you when I’m back at Oxenfurt. Good stylists are so hard to find.”

Priss blushes and nudges against his shoulder, “Oh, you little charmer.”

“I mean it,” he says, examining himself in the mirror. “I look like I could really be worthy of a heroic rescue! This is going to be such a fantastic memory, and I appreciate it. Thank you so much.”

Priss bites back a genuine tear and smiles, “Now that your natural prettiness has been mildly enhanced, let’s get you over to wardrobe, shall we?”

“Wardrobe? Do I have, like, a costume? What’s the music video even about?”

“They didn’t tell you any of this when you got here?”

“Not… not really.”

“Well, my darling, I think you’re really going to like it; they’ve got you in Versace for the first scene.”

“Versace!?” 

Then Jaskier is being ushered into a bright, colorful room full to bursting with grim-faced, middle-aged women and he loses track of his only braincell for the rest of the morning.

---

“You must be Julian!” Lambert declares, bounding up to him and grinning. It’s a feral, animalistic grin and Jaskier resists the sudden urge to take a step back.

“I prefer Jaskier, if you don’t mind too much,” Jaskier corrects him quietly. Lambert rolls his eyes in a long-suffering kind of way and throws a meaty arm around the shorter man’s shoulders, completely ignoring the wardrobe technician’s wincing as he wrinkles the expensive silk jacket. 

“No need to be quiet and polite around here, my dude. We’re just a bunch of rowdy idiots, aren’t we, guys?” 

“Hell yeah!” Aiden calls back. Eskel sighs like the put-upon nanny in a Victorian Redanian comedy. 

“Speak for yourself,” Coen barely lifts his frosted tips up from his book long enough to speak. Geralt is-

Holy motherfucking Britney Spears on toast.

Geralt is the hottest thing Jaskier has ever seen in his short, unfulfilled-until-right-now life. Forget Ralph Macchio. Forget Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet and Winona Ryder. This man is… Geralt deRiv is… he’s the picture of perfection. And he’s right there, standing in front of an elaborate party set with his thick, beautiful arms crossed over his chest and his eyes trained on the floor, as if willing it to swallow him whole. Jaskier realizes that he probably didn’t have any choice in the matter; maybe this was just as awkward and uncomfortable for Geralt as it was for Jaskier. 

“Ger-bear!” Lambert whoops, yanking Jaskier closer to the brooding frontman. If only he were brave enough to struggle for escape; alas. “This is your boy-toy for the week. Goes by Jaskier, apparently.”

“Nice to meet you,” Geralt manages to grunt. “How did you like the script?”

“I haven’t uh- I haven’t actually seen it?”

“Shit. Fuck. One second,” Geralt huffs, disappearing into the crowd of technicians and machinery operators and PAs. Jaskier loves him already, for real. Sure, he was pretty in the music videos and promo material, but the way he said fuck like it was the noblest word he could think of… Geralt interrupts his train of thought by coming back with a sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. He shuffle-shoves them into Jaskier’s arms immediately. “There you go.”

“Thank you!” Jaskier smiles. It’s genuine and shy, more tenuous than his usual goofy grin. He flips through the pages, glancing between the script to his expensive suit, “So I’m guessing we’re at a party for this scene? Or something?”

“This is… where we meet. This is where… you and I uh…”

Jaskier’s eyes scan the page as Geralt’s ability to speak slowly leaves him. 

Lover ENTERS LEFT, dressed to the nines. Lover adjusts their tie/boa and takes a look around the room. S/He looks sad and a little hopeful. PULL BACK to Geralt, who approaches slowly. Their eyes meet. HOLD SHOT. PULL BACK as they move towards each other. Geralt pulls Lover into his arms and they begin to dance.

“Oh, wow.”

“I hope it’s okay! If you’re not comfortable with that kind of thing we can-”

“I’ll be alright, thank you. I came here to put my acting chops to the test. Well, that and meet my favorite band, of course. Thank you again, by the way. It’s been wonderful so far and I really appreciate you allowing me to be here.”

“Allowing? Psh. Geralt ha-” Lambert is cut off by Aiden, who elbows him sharply in the side. “Ow! What the fuck, babe?”

“I knew it!” Jaskier crows, distracted. “I knew you two were an item!”

“They’re not exactly subtle.”

“They never confirm anything either,” Jaskier retorts. Geralt shrugs his acknowledgement and moves back towards the set. Jaskier follows after the taller man like a lost puppy, eyes flicking from one thing to the next, hungry for detail even in his anxiety ridden state. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and he doesn’t want to waste a solitary second of it. “This is incredible, really just...wow. You guys do this all the time? You get to make tiny little movies for already great songs that you get to perform for millions of adoring fans? And you get paid!?”

Geralt hadn’t ever really thought about it like that. He’d been raised in the industry. He’d signed to Kaer Morhen Records as an early teen because his mother was a member of the Board of Directors and he’d been making music ever since; an outsider’s perspective to things was… new. A little strange. “Yeah, I guess that is pretty much what we do.”

“Wow.”

“It’s not that exciting, I promise.”

“Have you ever written a fifteen page paper about the history of lute-string design and manufacturing?” 

“No.”

“Then kindly shut the fuck up about what I should consider exciting,” Jaskier grins. Geralt is immediately and irrevocably smitten. Fuck. It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes! “So, which door am I entering from?”

“Left,” Geralt points. Jaskier skips over and begins to introduce himself to the sound and lights crew. His smile seems to be as infectious as his cheer and soon the entire set crew is smiling at one another. There’s been a literal shift in the atmosphere; if he didn’t know any better, the TW5 frontman thinks Jaskier might be some kind of magical creature, because he can’t just be human. Geralt is well and truly fucked, and everyone in the band already knows.

---

“What do you think?” Jaskier asks, slipping anxiously from behind the changing screen. The Versace is gone and in its place are a pair of tight, high-waisted blue pleather pants and a billowing white shirt, which has been strategically ripped in several places to reveal slivers of the lightly tanned skin that lies beneath. He looks like he’s in desperate need of rescuing. He looks like every fantasy Geralt has ever had about the perfect guy. He looks like a fucking dream.

“Nice,” he says.

Lambert and Aiden wolf-whistle and cheer as they approach. Aiden claps twice, loudly, and shoots Jaskier a set of finger guns, “Hot damn, baby. You single? You lookin’ to mingle? Because I am bi and spoon like a Pringle.”

“First of all, babe, I love you but that was the most horrific combination of words yet known to man. Second of all, yeah, I’d dump Aiden for you for sure,” Lambert adds. Jaskier is at a total loss for words. His mouth hangs open and his breath comes in uneven little gasps for a moment.

“Uh… I- Thank you?”

“Oh god, Eskel! Eskel, he’s short circuiting, do something.”

“You absolute-” Eskel groans and makes his way over to the gathered group. He tugs Jaskier away and over to the other end of the set, where a comically huge rocket/bomb (Jaskier can’t tell) is standing at the center of a vaguely science-themed room. A laboratory, maybe? Or like, a really weird spacecraft? A hospital run by rocket scientists? It doesn’t matter, it’s the Evil Lair of the Villain and that’s where Jaskier is being held captive. “Here, Cameron and Elise will help you get set up for the next scene. I’m sorry about the boys they’re... gay?”

“I understand,” Jaskier nods sagely and Eskel relaxes. Then for comedy’s sake he adds an equally dramatic, “I too am... gay.”

The set dresser, an electrician, and a few specialists (likely a rope rigger among them) come over and tie Jaskier to the bomb/rocket/villainous mechanism, ending his conversation with Eskel, who is now in a much better mood than he was before. 

Jaskier is told to make sure his hands are crossed behind the small of his back and the director instructs him to wiggle back and forth “as convincingly as possible without actually getting loose or moving the ropes too much”. Which is manageable, he supposes. 

“Then, when the chorus comes up, we’ll get a few shots of the boys dancing in front of you,” the director continues to explain. That’s… kind weird, but okay. I’ve seen weirder. “Then we’ll do the action shots, with Geralt rescuing you. Are you okay to do the kiss, or would you rather not? We have dynamic shots with or without, so it’s totally up to you.”

“I’m fine with that,” Jaskier smiles shyly. “I consent to be smooched.”

“Adorable,” Lambert calls. Jaskier blushes and the director shoots Lambert a glare. 

“He’s already pink enough, don’t make me change my gels you little shithead!”

“Sorry, Pierre!”

“Fucking sorry my ass,” Pierre grumbles beneath his breath. Then he smiles at Jaskier. “Do something nasty to him for me, will you? Not too nasty but… just a little?”

“I’ve got your back,” Jaskier winks. 

“No plotting! Not fair!” Aiden whines.

“You have a team,” Pierre retorts. “Now I have a team.”

“Rules are rules,” Eskel sighs. “Now can we please shoot this damn video?”

“Right,” Pierre claps, getting everyone’s attention. “Places!”

---

Geralt races up the stairs, trying to keep the long sleeves of his black mesh shirt from catching on any of the set pieces. The solid black t-shirt he’s wearing underneath makes his arms and back look bulkier than normal; it’s a visual technique to make him look larger than Jaskier, whose billowing white shirt will hide how wide his shoulders actually are. Fuck, those are some nice shoulders. And the smattering of dark chest hair that peeks from the front of the college student’s shirt? Geralt wants to bury his face in it.

Okay, focus. 

He reaches the top of the set and rushes towards Jaskier, ripping the ropes from around his torso and pulling him close. He cups the back of Jaskier’s head with his upstage hand, framing the slightly smaller man for the camera and making him seem even shorter, another trick of angles and body posturing. Geralt plays Jaskier like an instrument, bending him back by placing his downstage arm around Jaskier’s waist, pressing their mouths together and holding them still for as long as it takes the director to yell, “Cut!” with a satisfied tone of voice. 

Geralt’s suspicions are confirmed when Pierre laughs and claps some more and cries, “Print it, lads! That was a one-take wonder!”

He tries to ignore the way Jaskier’s shoulders slump as if disappointed. “Good job,” he manages to say.

“You, too.” Geralt wishes he could keep a picture of Jaskier smiling in his back pocket forever. No other sight could light up the world so effortlessly. “Thanks for being gentle.”

“I’m trying to sweep you off your feet,” the singer shrugs. Jaskier wiggles his eyebrows and follows Geralt down the narrow set stairs.

“Are you, really?”

“Is it working?” Geralt asks, turning to look up at Jaskier. The student pauses to look at him and his foot catches on an uneven board. He topples forward with a short cry of surprise and seems surprised when Geralt reaches out to catch him. “Jaskier!”

“Oh my god!” Lambert races over, Aiden hot on his heels. “Are you okay, dude?”

“I’m fine,”  Jaskier laughs, a little breathless. “Just a little shocked.”

“You should take him to get a snack or something,” Eskel says, nudging his shoulder against Geralt’s. “He’s been busy all day and hasn’t even been to craft services.”

“You haven’t eaten?” Geralt asks, honestly baffled. Jaskier shakes his head, face heating once again. He wishes he could stop blushing, but Geralt’s presence seems to make it impossible. He wraps one arm around the younger man’s temptingly slender waist and leads him towards the food carts. He shoves a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of punch into Jaskier’s hands, not giving him a chance to argue. “Here, I’ll have something, too.”

“Thanks,” Jaskier smiles, understanding that he is, in turn, being understood. They sit comfortable folding chairs off to the side, food spread across their laps. Jaskier laughs and chats around his mouthfuls, pulling things from Geralt like his favorite color and his least favorite nicknames. Songs he liked and dances he disliked. 

“You made it fun again, today,” the singer smiles. “Thank you for that. I wish you could be here for every video shoot.”

“Looking for another member of the band?” Jaskier jokes, doing some half-hearted jazz hands. Geralt shakes his head and laughs. 

“I wish we were,” he sighs. “But I guess five is the magic number.”

“Makes the dances look cooler,” Jaskier nods. “I agree with whoever made that decision. I wouldn’t dare ruin the aesthetic.”

Geralt laughs again and Vesemir turns to look, honestly shocked at the volume of the sound. 

“Plus, you can’t be the frontman if there’s no front.”

“Shut up,” Geralt chuckles, still grinning broadly. 

Vesemir makes a phone call.

---

2 Weeks Later, Backstage in Kaedwen

---

“He’s been sulking like this ever since Jaskier went back to Oxenfurt,” Lambert whines. “C’mon Vesemir, do something.”

“What do you want me to do, make Geralt’s boyfriend appear out of thin air?”

“Not my boyfriend,” Geralt growls, stomping past his bandmates and manager. He can’t help but feel grumpy. Jaskier had been like the sun, bringing light and wonder to everything he touched, and without that joy around it doesn’t seem worth the extra effort to smile. So he’s been moping. 

“Fucking hell,” Vesemir sighs. “Thank goodness I thought ahead.”

“What do you mean?” Eskel asks, joining the little group in the hallway outside the dressing room. “What did you think of?”

“Three,” Vesemir smiles, glancing at his watch. “Two… One…”

“Boooooys,” echoes a high tenor. “Where’s my welcome wagon, Vesemir?”

“Jaskier!” Aiden practically screams, leaping out of the dressing room and flying down the hall. Lambert follows at a sprint and Vesemir hears the resounding oof oh fuck of both giddy musicians hitting their mark. 

Geralt comes back down the hall at a jog, eyes searching frantically. “I thought I heard-”

“Geralt!”

Vesemir’s heart clenches in his chest at the way Geralt’s face lights up. At the end of the hallway, surrounded by spilled luggage and apologetic boyband members, is Jaskier. Geralt floats to him, it seems, like he’s dreaming the whole thing. Jaskier takes his hands and then releases them and wraps his arms low around Geralt’s hips instead. 

“I missed you the most,” he whispers, just for Geralt to hear. “Couldn’t sleep without listening to your CD. I know it’s silly but I really like you.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt whispers reverently into his shaggy brown hair. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to do my thesis on pop culture’s relation to music history,” he says. “And then the manager of TW5 called Oxenfurt and offered me the opportunity to do some… first hand research while I worked on finishing the paper.”

“R-Really? You’re going to be here… every day?”

“Do you… do you not want me he-”

Geralt kisses him before he can even finish the question. It’s a stupid question anyway, of course Geralt wants him here. Wants him right here, kissing him silly. The singer presses his lips desperately, crushingly against Jaskier’s; he never wants to part from this man again. He never wants to be without that glorious laughter and contagious liveliness. Who knew that life could be so full of delight and happiness if he only let it? 

He kisses Jaskier for all he’s worth and more, pouring his heart and soul into it. When they pull apart, both gasping for air, Geralt asks, “Stay with me, Jaskier? You don’t have to do anything I just-”

“I’d love to be the big spoon,” Jaskier winks, whispering again. “Thank you, Geralt, for the rescue.”

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 2

Continuing on from part 1 - 

https://rachelbethhines.tumblr.com/post/635068926214258688/tangled-salt-marathon-rapunzels-return-part-1

Summary: When Rapunzel tries to defeat the Saporians by herself she gets captured; but once Varian realizes that the Separatists plan on using one of his potions' destructive properties to destroy Corona, he and Rapunzel work together to stop it.

Let’s Talk About What a Let Down the Sapiorans Are

Throughout seasons one and two the Sapiorans were built up to be this intriguing race of people with a complex past and real problems that are sadly relatable to this day. They had a history, goal, motives, and special abilities like magic.  

Yet all we got was a really bad hipster parody. 

Heck, the crew can’t even keep it’s stereotypes right because they mostly slide into hippy territory instead. Hipsters, Yuppies, and Hippies are three distinctive counter culture movements for three different generations with completely different social concerns and fads. 

Basically Chris tried to “stick it to the kids” again and just wound up insulting his parents' generation instead because he’s that oblivious of other human beings.

And that’s not even taking into account that previously the Sapiorans were living on the run as nomads in caravans not dissimilar to common Romani stereotypes, so the show is once again making negative racial connotations due to thoughtlessness.

Why Do You Have a Secret Underground Room Hidden Behind Your Workshop Xavier?

Like that not a thing normal people happen to have lying around there workspace. We still are given zero explanation for why Xavier has all this plot convenient knowledge and rare unordinary plot useful stuff. 

Given his previous connection to Saporia and Zhan Tiri wouldn’t it not have made more sense to reveal that he is an actual plot important character in season three rather than keep him as just the exposition fairy? 

So Was This Before or After the Saporian Take Over? Cause Either Answer Makes This a Dumb Plan.

Why would the guards, especially Cap, just give up? Did they even bother fighting and then lost to Varian’s weapons or were they told to stand down by a brainwashed Frederic? If they knew something was wrong then why not stay and help? What makes them think they even could find Rapunzel given how no one knew where she was heading and her letters were infrequent? What difference would they think finding Rapunzel would do? 

Basically, just like with the “former cellmate” line, we needed to actually set up and establish this conflict rather than relying solely on exposition dumps. Because what we get here doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It goes against established character and leaves a lot of unanswered plot holes. 

More Promotion of Authoritarianism From the Show

Remember that these are the same people who formed a lynch mob to hunt down a fourteen year old all because the king told them to. The same king who had been lying to them for years and placed their lives and homes in danger for months. The same king who persecuted the poor and orphans for years. Him suddenly sending townsfolk to the mines isn’t anything new, so what are these people’s breaking points? Anyone else would have revolted by now.  

But noooo, they need Rapunzel to do it for them. Cause Rapunzel is royalty and they can’t do anything without royal permission because they’re sheep. Sheep that’s been subjugated for years and conditioned to be afraid of their “beloved ruler”. 

I understand from a meta point of view why you would want your main character to take charge but...

Like this isn’t inspiring.

It’s disturbing. 

Why are we promoting blind loyalty to a person who’s not earned it just because they were born special? In a freakin’ kids show no less! 

Oh and still no one bothers to call out King Frederic’s abuses here, FYI. 

Take Note That Quirineon is Activated By Heat

This will be important later on in the review. 

He’s Already Built Grenades For You. Wouldn’t Those Be Better Because They’re Easier to Control?

He’s already built explosive chemicals for you. You just used them in part one of the episode. And it came in an easy to use form rather than an unstable, and untested, mess that could literally blow up in your faces since no one, not even Varian himself, knows how to control it yet. 

You Don’t Hammer Out a Cast Iron Pan

It’s literally in the word. To make a cast iron pan you pour the metal into a casted mold. You don't hammer it out like you would with a sword or something. And you can’t even go with the “rule of cool” here cause Rapunzel surrounded by molten metal and fire would have been far more impressive looking.  

Yes I’m being picky cause I’m stalling. I don’t care. This is just yet another instance of the crew not paying attention to details like they should. 

Behold The Final Time Eugene Will Ever Call Out Rapunzel’s BS

This is the last time Eugene will hold an honest discussion with Rapunzel like an equal to her. By the end of this episode he will have transitioned into full on doormat mode. 

Also burying negative feelings and not addressing issues is who Rapunzel is. She’s been pulling this shit since day one. It’s what causes 90% of the conflicts in the show. Have you not noticed Eugene?  

So This Episode Has Contradictory “Lessons” 

The episode presents this idea that Rapunzel needs to open up to others and trust again after Cassandra’s betrayal. The problem is that the episode doesn’t follow through on that. It makes a knee-jerk decision to go with a “responsibility” lesson that wasn’t built up to instead at the last minute. 

More on this later.    

Varian Doesn’t Actually Interact With the Saporians at Any Point.

The only person Varian interacts with is Andrew. We have no concept of how he fits in with the rest of the group and what his dynamics are with them. What do they think of Varian? What does Varian think of them? The consequence to this is to further divorce Varian from narrative, even though this is supposed to be his redemption episode. 

As I said in the last part, you can easily write Varian out of this episode and nothing really changes plot wise. That’s bad writing. 

Also I was robbed of Khary Payton and Jeremy Jordan exchanging lines. I was this close to having audio material for my BH6 crossover, dang it! 

Behold The One Time the Black Lady Gets a Line!

I think her name is Juniper? 

You can tell it’s her because of the shadow on the wall.

Anyways they casted this part and only bothered to give the character a single line? What a waste! 

But this just goes back to the series' poor representation. The only WOC in the show are presented as “shifty” and untrustworthy, even when they are ultimately “good guys”. The majority of them are straight up villains tho, and even as antagonists they’re not afforded any real screen time. 

And the only other outright black women on the show is the inventor lady who was given zero respect and the ghost of a barbarian. 

Once again, I don’t think the crew are intentionally racist. I think they’re just sloppy. They wanted to be more inclusive but they failed to actually give voice to minorities behind the scenes and so failed in representing them well. This is a problem with the industry as a whole, not just this one show, and must be talked about as such if we wish to change things for the better. 

None of this “Stuff” Holds Any Real Meaning

We get several callbacks to season one through Cassandra’s personal things that she left behind, but none of this stuff holds any real personal meaning. It’s just there. They wind up triggering these big emotional reactions from both Rapunzel and Cassandra but the audience is just left confused because what they’re crying over are things that have little significance to these characters. Even this line from season one is just dripping with sarcasm and not some pleasant past memory that either Cass or Raps holds dear to their hearts. 

Way To Go, Dumbass

It’s not that she went alone, or that she broke down when it finally hit her that Cass left, that I’m making fun off. The episode already addresses those two points. 

No, what ticks me off is that Rapunzel has taken down killer robots, ghosts, and monsters before now with her magical hair but a handful of regular dudes can just bring her down? I don’t care how much alchemy they got. Depowering your main character for no stated reason just for narrative convenience is poor writing. 

Because If He Didn’t He Would Have DIED, Rapunzel!!!

He literally would have freakin died had he not done something! He was left inside a jail cell to rot away! Before that he was threatened with hangman’s noose! Before that violence from an angry crowd! Before that he was left alone to starve and/or die from exposure! There was no way out for him except to fight! 

And here you are inside the very prison that you kept him in and you still don't have the fucking self awareness to put two and two together! 

This Right Here the Assassination of Rapunzel’s Character and the Killing Blow to the Series

Yeah, and what about after the storm? Hun, bitch!?

We’ve spent two damn seasons watching Rapunzel stepping on people and making excuses for herself and the one time when she should realize her actions are wrong and finally own up to her behavior and she still does not fucking change.

This is supposed to be a coming of age story! That means the main character is supposed to grow and learn shit! But when it matters most, Rapunzel only digs in her heels and refuses to change! 

Why should I care about this character anymore if she’s just going to keep on being selfish no matter what? Why should I bother watching the show if it fails to deliver on its premise? How is this in any way shape or form an appropriate message for children!? 

If you’re watching the series for the first time, then it’ll take awhile to register just how awful this scene is and how it really is the beginning of the end, because they did have time to turn things around after this. But they didn’t, and here we are. 

This Isn’t a Real Apology

It’s not a real apology if all you do is make excuses for yourself. Rapunzel doesn’t address what she actually did wrong here and it has nothing to do with her stupid promise. 

She neglected and enabled the abuse of a child for a year and three months, and she’s not even sorry for it! 

You Were Never a “Friend” Rapunzel

Friends, actually do shit together. They enjoy each other’s company. They care when the other is hurt or in trouble. 

Rapunzel only came to see Varian when she needed him for something. Even now, after this confrontation, that’s all she’ll ever do. She does not actually care about Varian, because the creators will not let her care. 

And Here Comes the Death of Varian’s Characterization

In order to make this stupid, forced, “redemption” work the writers had to do a complete 180 with Varian’s character and his motivations. Instead of freeing his father, seeking revenge, or just, you know, surviving, he now suddenly cares about “being friends” and “being accepted by people”, only he has no reason to want any of that! 

Rapunzel is a shit friend. Heck all the mains are crap friends to him. They ruined his life and the townspeople tried to kill him. Why would he want anything to do with any of these a-holes!? 

Varian doesn’t get assassinated in the same sense as Rapunzel and Cassandra do. He doesn’t suddenly become a hateable dumb douchebag or anything, but he nevertheless has his character retroactively sabotaged by the writing.  

Uh, Were You Not There When Your Dad Rounded Up a Lynch Mob Against Him, Raps?

I believe you were. Also Varian literally told you to your face that he had to go into hiding cause the townspeople were willing to attack him just because those rumors that you failed to stop and pretended not to know anything about. 

Just because the characters shout something repeatedly does not make it true. The audience isn’t dumb. They can remember what happened only two seasons ago. 

Where Was the Inciting Incident For This Change of Heart?

Why should he even want their forgiveness? Why has he given up on freeing his father? Why is he having second doubts about overthrowing the kingdom that persecuted him? 

If you’re going to drastically change a character’s motivations, goals, and moral alignment then you need to present an in story reason for that change. We don’t get that. There’s no inciting incident on screen for us to see the shift in his character development. 

The audience is left to only infer, and that’s poor writing. The audience shouldn’t have to do the work of the writers for them.  Characters’ motivations and goals  should not be guess work. 

The only thing we can glean from this is that he had a change of heart while in prison and that’s a horrifying thing for the show to suggest. That’s basically justifying Frederic’s abuse. It also recontextualizes Varian’s arc into one of submission to his abusers and not one of learning to do the right thing simply because it’s right. 

Once Again, Were You Not There For Season One Rapunzel?

They had a year and three damn months of chances. These people actively tried to do him harm just for simply seeking help. He has no reason to trust them nor you. 

Why Are We Shoulding All of the Blame Onto the Abused Child?

Yes, he did do all of those things, technically, but they’re being presented here without context.

The Queen enabled his abuser who was threatening his life and destroyed his home. He kidnapped her as a last restore when all other methods to get out of his desperate situation failed. 

The princess he threatened neglected him for three months and repeatedly refused to help him, even throwing him out into a deadly snow storm. Despite him being her responsibility, thereby making her neglect a flat out abuse of power.  

He would have died a slow and painful death in prison had he not helped to overthrow the kingdom that persecuted him. 

I’m not going to pretend that what Varian did was right or that he shouldn’t feel sorry for what he did, but this is a highly skewed version of events that are being recounted here just to create bias in the viewers. It’s manipulative writing intended to gaslight the audience. 

Also, why does he even want a second chance!?   

Doesn’t This Undermine The Saporian’s Goals?

The Saporians wanted to reclaim their ancestral homeland so that they would no longer be a displaced people. How does blowing up that homeland help them? 

Season three just throws all logic out the window. There’s barely a single villain who doesn’t undermine their own goals at some point with their stupid actions. 

So Why Varian and Andrew Not Some Other Team Up?

Out of all of the various recurring baddies in the show Varian and Andrew have the least in common. I’m not saying that they couldn’t work together, but doing so required more set up than this. Because as is, this is a very contrived teamup. 

They have diametrically opposed goals and moral alignments. Varian doesn’t bring anything to the table that the Saporaions couldn’t have supplied themselves. Meanwhile the Saporians have failed to offer Varian anything that he could want. 

At best it’s a marriage of convenience for them to both break out of prison together, but even that is contrived because we don't know why neither of them were sent away on the prison barge with the rest of the season one villians.  

Better combinations would have been 

Varian & Lady Caine

Andrew & Lady Caine 

Varian & Cass

Andrew & Cass 

Varian & Zhan Tiri

Andrew & Zhan Tiri

Varian & Hector

The Baron & Varian

Andrew & Staylan 

King Trevor & Varian 

Like there were tons of options here that the writers just ignored, even though any of them would have made more sense than the one they went with.  

The Andrew and Varian Dynamic Can Be Seen as an Allegory for Grooming; Unfortunately the Writers Didn’t Consider That Implication.

Yeah... That’s pretty much what Andrew has done here. He’s groomed this desperate and lonely teen to become a child soldier for him. And one only can only pray that’s all he tried to groom him to do since they were trapped inside a confined and enclosed space together for several months. 

Listen, I don’t mind children’s shows touching upon darker subjects. Often fantasy is a good way for people to process complex themes and uncomfortable real world situations through the safety of fiction. It can even be helpful for those who have had the misfortune to experience certain traumas. 

I’m not complaining that TTS is too dark. 

I’m complaining about it being shit. 

All of the crap Varian goes through is just thrown in there for shock value. It’s not here to commentate on the real world nor provide a complex story. The situations are brought only to then be outright ignored. This isn’t thoughtful nor deep. It’s not meaningful nor heartfelt. It’s just hollow drama done in bad taste. 

You’re Not In a Position to Judge Rapunzel 

You got captured first because you decided to throw yourself a pity party. 

Would He Though?

I’m pretty sure Quirin is very well aware of how shitty Frederic is. If anything I would think he’d be pissed that his son, that he tried so hard to protect, was mistreated in such a hordenous way. 

This isn’t some satisfying ending to Varian’s arc. It’s a heartbreaking revelation that he’s been beaten down by his abusers.  

Varian’s Arc Isn’t Actually About Validation, and Rapunzel Giving It Here Doesn’t Really Change Anything 

I spoke about this before on its own, but Tangled the Series places far too much stock in validation. Yes, it’s an aspect of his character arc, but it’s not the end all and be all of his motivation. It’s not the force that drives him to do what he does. 

His primary goal is survival, both for himself and for his father. His secondary goal is gaining his father’s approval, but that’s not because he’s seeking generic praise, it’s because his father is emotionally distant. The “validation” is a mask for the real issues which are to fix his relationship with his dad and avoid the guilt of having possibly killed him in an accident. 

Rapunzel has fuck all to do with that. 

He doesn’t need to hear approval from her. He needs her to get her shit together and help him! 

Rapunzel’s and Varian’s Situations Are Nothing Alike and Rapunzel Doesn’t Know Jackshit

Rapunzel you were dumped by your bestie because you’re a shitty friend. 

Varian was neglected and abused by those who were supposed to take care of him. 

Unless you’re drawing parallels to how Frederic and Gothel treated you, and even then neither of them denied you basic fucking needs! 

This should be an “Oh Shit! I’ve become just like Mother Gothel” moment for Rapunzel, not an “Oh yay! Someone to share in my personal misery” moment. 

Man, Rapunzel suuuuuucks! 

Also This Still Isn’t An Actual Apology

Once again, Rapunzel is not admitting what she did wrong here. She’s not actually acknowledging Varian’s pain, nor what she needs to do to make admins with him. 

What she’s doing is making things all about herself again. She’s talking about her feelings. About what she is facing. Rapunzel is an incredibly selfish and egotistical person and the show is trying to present this as a positive thing by rewarding her for such behavior. 

Varian’s Redemption Should Have Nothing to Do with “Friendship”

Varian has no reason to want to become friends again with the woman who ruined his life and abused him. 

But more than that, redemption shouldn’t be dependent upon Rapunzel’s friendship, nor even her ‘forgiveness”. Varian should be able to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing, Rapunzel be damned. 

This cheepens not only his character development but also Rapunzel’s development as well. Rapunzel is not allowed to grow as a person and accept that not everyone wants to be her friend, and that people may have valid reasons to hate her even, and that doesn’t make them evil. 

It also rushes through Varian’s arc undermining what the audience had to get through to get to this point.  

OK, Let’s Talk About The Goatee

I wouldn’t have minded the beard had it just not looked like a fucking barcode. There’s production art where it looks fine. But just wiping it away ties back to what I was talking about in part one. It’s denying Varian the chance to grow up. This is supposed to be his coming of age story as well but the crew won't let him do that because “rule of funny” apparently overrides what the characters actually need in order to develop.  

Once again, the show isn’t a sitcom. You can have comedic moments but the comedy doesn’t need to outright undermine the drama. 

Once Again, Shouldn’t Eugene Be the First Person to Jump to Varian’s Defence?

You mean the orphan on the streets who stole stuff and fought to survive when the adults failed to take care of him? Is that what you’re talking about Eugene? Cause if I remember correctly that was you not just three years ago. 

You Mean Rapunzel Needs Him To Make Her Feel Better About Herself

Spoiler alert, but Varian doesn’t actually do anything after this point in the episode. His entire “redemption” is just about making Rapunzel feel better about herself after Cass has rejected her. He’s literally become the rebound. 

How Come Varian Suddenly Became Shorter Just for This Shot?

I know the meta reason is to reflect that scene back in Queen for a Day when Rapunzel promised him that she'd help him before everything went tits up. Where he was also drawn shorter in that episode to make him seem more verunable, but here he’s just suddenly shorter for only two shots and then suddenly back to his usual height. 

Crap like this is why I insist that Varian didn’t actually get any taller in season three. The show just has always been inconsistent with his height and most of the “evidence” for his growth are cherry picked instances where the show drew him smaller than usual for reasons, like here.   

So Where Did They Get That Much of the Explosives and How Did They Get Them So Fast?

Only Varian knows how to manufacture that stuff. Why would he make that much of it if he was still in the experimental phase with it? He’s even surprised that they have so much, so where did they get it? If they made it then, how did they make it so fast? 

So This Plan Goes Nowhere

Spoiler alert: Varian doesn’t actually get to do any of that. In fact he’s kind of pointless for the rest of the episode. 

Why Would the King and Queen Care About a City That They Can’t Remember?

Like this revenge doesn’t make sense. It’s just a contrived way to get Eugene and Lance out of the way.

If the Quirineon Explodes From Being Exposed to Heat Then What Good Does Just Dropping It Do?

Yeah, remember? The stuff explodes when heated. Simply dropping it shouldn’t do anything other than make a mess on the ground maybe. 

All That Build Up and Varian Still Doesn’t Get to Do Anything Useful

Up till this point, Varian was shown to be the most competent threat in the show. Yet here they have him be a screw up twice in a row just for comedy antics and to glorify Rapunzel again. 

If you got to nerf other characters just to make your main look good then you’ve failed to establish your main character as being capable in their own right. 

Remember That This Boy Was Trapped in a Jail Cell With This Guy for a Year!

No, I’ll never be over this.

Andrew is the most directly violent and scummy out of all of the villians in the show. 

If he’s willing to do this now, if he was willing to do this to his ex-girlfriend, then what the heck was he willing to do when he and Varian were trapped alone together? 

So Andrew Just Willingly Sacrifices His Own People Here....Even Though His Goal Was to Give His People a New Home....

People need to use this gif more often when concerning this show and the villains’ ass-backwards plans.

And yes they survive because of Varian alchemy. But that was on accident. Andrew had no way of knowing that would happen. He’s willing to destroy his own people just to blow up his ancestral homeland and for what!? What does he gain from this action?  

The Mind Wipe Kills Frederic’s and Arianna’s Characters; Littraly

Frederic and Arianna are effectively dead at this point. Anything that made them, well them, has been wiped away. Their personalities, hopes, dreams, their on going stories and development, just gone. And we never get them back, even when their memories supposedly return. 

Varian’s Not Even Allowed to Get the Idea On How to Save Corona...In His Own Redemption Episode No Less

This is his episode! We’ve spent two years building up to this point and you can’t even let him help? He’s denied the chance to make up for his own mistakes! Just so Rapunzel can play hero and be a very shallow representation of what a bunch of men think a “strong” woman should be! 

It’s fucking insulting. That’s what it is. 

Making a female character the center of the universe to the point where other people are just props for her is not empowering! 

No It’s Not!!

Uh you wouldn’t even be here had you just fucking helped Varian to being with you dumb bitch! This is very much you and your father’s mess! 

Even now, while pretending to be responsible, Rapunzel can’t actually be responsible and own up to what she did! 

She’s fucking 20 and the 16 year old shows more maturity than her! 

Also Your Hair Can Protect Two People at Once Rapunzel; Remember?

There’s no excuse for leaving Varian out of the action. We’ve been shown multiple times now that Rapunzel’s magic hair can protect her and other people at the same time. 

Having Rapunzel Save the Day By Herself Undermines Everything the Episode Was Trying to Establish

What happened to needing to “trust again” and letting other people help you? Having Rapunzel save the day alone just tosses out the lesson that the show was trying to build up to. 

The show tries to frame this as Rapunzel learning “responsibility” but that also does not work. For one it was never established that she needed to learn that within the episode itself and secondly, she doesn’t actually do anything different from what she usually does. 

Being an action hero isn’t the same thing as being responsible. Being responsible is being considerate of others, doing the borning shit or mundane crap that you hate, and being mature enough to recognize your own failings and admitting when you were wrong. 

So in the end Rapunzel is neither responsible nor more open to others. 

And There’s the Death of Eugene’s Character

Lance, who has maybe exchanged all of three sentences with Raps, is more distrught than the guy that supposedly wants to marry her. This isn’t heartwarming, nor it is growth. It’s just lobotomizing a character right in front of our eyes. 

In this very episode he was worried about Raps going to face the Saporians by herself and was, guess what, fucking right to do so. But he doesn’t give two shits if she gets blown up!? 

Ooookaaaay.....

This is the completion of turning Eugene into a doormat. From now own he shan’t be allowed to have any thoughts or feelings of his own that disagrees with Rapunzel. 

The Eugene we knew is now dead. 

But Of Course the Show Rewards Everyone for Behaving In the Dumbest Way Possible Anyways

Don’t expect any of these grossly out of character moments and oxygen deprived logic to be addressed nor fixed within the show. The series will keep on shoving unearned endings into our facing while insisting that this is positive development. 

How Did Y’all Get Here Before Varian?

Yes, he was left on a roof, but he can climb and y’all were outside of the city. 

Yeah... A Year and Half Fucking Later!

Ok, a year and three months, but that’s still not any better. Worse, all this implies is that Rapunzel would not have ever concerned herself with trying to free Quirin had Varian not broken out of prison. She would have literally left them both for dead and we’re supposed to find her suddenly doing the bare fucking minimum heartwarming and inspiring?

Where Was the Inciting Incident to Use the Decay Incantation for This? 

How did Rapunzel come up with this plan? When did she come up with it? 

When the hurt incantation was first found no one mentioned how it could be used to save Quirin. No one even gave Quirin a thought. Since then the incarnation hasn’t been brought back up, ever. This is a pretty big leap in logic for Rapunzel to suddenly think of this. 

All it highlights how Varian was originally meant to be there to translate the scrolls and incantations in order to establish all this but of course it got cut so now it just comes the fuck out of nowhere. 

Not Letting Varian Have Anything to Do With Saving His Father Is Even Worse Than Not Letting Him Save the Day

This has been his motivation since the beginning. It’s been the driving plot for a season, and now that the time has finally come what does get to do? 

Hold a dang bucket. 

Part of coming up with satisfying endings is following through on what you’ve established. The audience needs closure. Simply freeing Quirin isn’t enough, we need the carthartis of Varian specifically fulfilling his goal. 

I don’t know how to break this to you Chris, but this isn’t Rapunzel’s story. Not this segment of it anyways. It’s Varian’s and it just so happens to connect to Rapunzel’s. She shouldn’t have been center stage for this. 

The Series Blows It’s Load Too Early with the Incantations

This is the last time we’ll hear any of the incantations sung on screen, cause someone in budgeting didn’t know what was important to throw the money at and what was not. 

It’s not bad here, but if we could only hear one incantation only once this season it needed to be in the finale with the final heal incantation. 

Varian Was Right All Along

Also, all this does is justify Varian’s actions in season one. Rapunzel was indeed the only one who could free his dad according to this. For a series that desperately wants to shove all of the blame onto an abused child’s shoulders they sure go out their way to prove him right. 

So How Is the Hurt Incantation Suppose to Work?

There were so many fan theories after this scene because Varian and Quirin don’t respond to the hurt incantation the same way previous characters had. 

No one is gasping for breath, Varian can touch Raps without burning his hands, and Rapunzel can control the direction of her power. ect. 

Turns out there was nothing there, the writers just didn’t know what the fuck they were doing and made the hurt incantation very inconsistent just like all of the magic in this show. 

BULLSHIT!!!

You literally turn into a villain because she gave up on you!!!!

She also didn’t give two shits about you throughout the entirety of season two. 

Why are we just pretending like season one didn’t exist!? 

Why!?

The Note!!!

No It Fucking Didn’t!

Does That Look Like “I’m Proud of You Son” To You?

Chris went on to confirm that, yes, the note did hold more information that then got cut. Pretty much confirming all that we suspected. That Varian was cut from season two and his story hastily shoved back into season three at the last minute. 

Below is the link to the tumblr post he made.

https://cnotes.tumblr.com/post/190534585146/apparently-one-of-the-writers-said-a-while-back

What’s worse is that his defense is such bullshit. The below exchange pretty much sums it all up.

This Doesn’t Actually Resolve Anything and Is Therefore Unsatisfying to Watch

Part of the reason why this conclusion doesn’t work is because it doesn’t actually address any of the problems that they have in their relationship. Quirin never owns up to what he did wrong. There’s no discussion of what Varian was up to while he was entrapped, no conversation about what secrets Quirin hid from his son, and zero admission of wrongdoing on either side.   

Also Varian has done nothing significant to earn those particular words. Saying I love makes sense, but in context saying “I’m proud of you” does not. It doesn’t even work on a meta level cause the episode prevented Varioan from accomplishing anything. 

It’s empty. 

There Could Have Been More Screen Time to Fix This If Not for Season Two Mucking About

https://discord.com/channels/427940661589704715/569296212218347522/777635115978457098

Above is the link to the original storyboards. It doesn’t fix everything but there’s a lot more satisfying emotional beats including adding Ruddiger back in who is suspiciously absent for the entire episode for no stated reason. 

This version was cut due to time. Which, like with the Crossing the Line song, didn’t need to be had they been more effective with their usage of time in season two. 

They also could have had a better conclusion to Varian’s arc in general had he not been cut from season two altogether. 

So What Does Freeing Quirin Add to the Series?

I’m serious. What does freeing Quirin at this point and time do for the story?

It doesn’t add any character development, Quirin just wanders around aimlessly in the background until the finale and even then his part in that is a pointless dead end. Varian doesn’t gain his emotional closure, just empty, hollow “praise”. Nor is he allowed to accomplish any of his established goals. No new lore or history is exposed. No mystery uncovered. 

There’s no reason why this couldn’t have been done later in the season. Provide more tension and keep up the consequences of the characters actions. Give the mains something to do and work on until Cass and Zhan Tiri show up again.  

The only reason why this is here is to wrap Varian’s story up as soon as possible so he won’t “steal Cassandra’s spotlight”. That’s it. He’s rewarded for conforming to Rapunzel’s will and all the fans should shut up and be grateful, at least according to Chris.

I Like This Song But It Wasn’t Needed

It doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s just a generic celebration song. Which would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that we have a limited number of songs, even less than in previous seasons, and the story isn’t over yet. This is the wrong place to put a victory song at. 

Especially when we could have had a song that furthered Varian’s redemption instead.  Yeah, that was cut too. 

So Is Varian the New “Lance” This Season?

He’s right there! This is his dang focus episode! 

Why hire Broadway singers and not let them sing!? Why waste talent and money like that? 

Also These Lyrics!

Did Glenn Slater just not read the scripts before writing the songs? That’s all season three ever does! Give the mains what they want without earning it. Even in this very episode!

So Is This Rapunzel’s 20th Birthday or Not?

Ok I have gotten into many a heated debate about how long season three is supposed to be. And that’s because what the crew says doesn’t match what the series shows us. 

By all accounts this should be Rapunzel’s birthday. According to season two she’s been gone for one year, and there’s the lanterns that they fly specifically on her birthday. 

But no one verbally says it’s her birthday and I’ve heard conflicting accounts from different members of the crew. Some stating that it is her 20th birthday and some disagreeing that it is. 

Well I’ll take what evidence that the show actually presents to its audience on screen over what the cast and crew says after the fact any day of the week, so I’ll be gathering up this evidence and proving by the end that season three is two years not one. 

But the fact that I must comb through series to prove this, the fact that we can even have this debate, and the fact that the crew have to state basic info after the series is over is just proof of the bad writing. 

Fun Fact: Cupcakes Weren’t Invented Until the 20th Century

Yeah, that’s the fault of the OG film, and yeah it doesn’t really mean much, but still it’s one more thing to add to the pile of stuff that doesn’t fit. 

Plus I’m just a hardcore nerd for historical cooking and I like to share my knowledge.  

Yeah But How Can He Trust All of You Again?

You’re the ones who let him down first; repeatedly. And you only started to make things up to him once he became useful to you. What assurance does he have that you won’t mistreat him again next time he’s in trouble or is no longer of any use to y’all? 

Yes, Let NOT Show What the Main Character Is Actually Going Through

Yup, this is “Rapunzel’s show” but we’re not going to let Rapunzel have any focus on her feelings or give any insight into her thought process about what is the main conflict of the series now.

Conclusion

Ducktales was robbed! 

I can’t believe this shit won an Emmy for “best writing.” It utterly fails on every possible level. It fails to be a continuation of the ongoing story and it fails to be a stand alone episode. Even the very structure of the story is fundamentally flawed. The only reason why it’s not the worst episode of the entire series because the finale and the penultimate episodes exist. 

Anyways...I finally made it through. It literally took my entire weekend but I’m finally caught up. Next week I’ll be going back to the usual one episode a week schedule. 

[mariamermaid]

The Queens Gambit

Ron Weasley x fem reader

Summary: Ron had been waiting for weeks for the upcoming chess tournament in London, but what if his title is endangered by a rookie…

Words: 4k

A/N: I think it´s pretty obvious where I got the inspo from, but in case you haven´t watched the show; I can highly recommend it! (That doesn´t mean you have to watch the show before reading though) I decided to add a few more characters from the HP fandom to make the story a little more entertaining. It´s basically like a little alternate universe story (but not really??)

  “Do you have a clock?”

You shook your head as you filled out the form with your name and other information. It was your first tournament and as much as you were excited on the inside, you kept a cool exterior. In reality, your heart was pounding against your chest. You had counted the days to this precious Saturday midmorning.

“If you´re opponent doesn´t have one, we´ll loan you one. Play starts in 20 minutes”, the boy in front of you nonchalantly explained. He was tall, but his slack figure was loosely positioned on the wooden chair. His teeth were a little crooked and he barely looked up to eye you any further. “What´s your rating?”

You glanced up from the paper in your hand, furrowing your brows. “My rating? I don´t have a rating.”

“Have you ever played in a tournament before?”

“No.” Your voice was steady, but a slight annoyance grew as the rules of the tournament seemed to have decided to play against you.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Starring directly at the boy, merely a man, in front of you, you nodded. Then you handed the paper back to him. “I´m sure.”

“Then I put you in beginners”, he sighed and shrugged.

“I´m not a beginner”, you argued, but apparently, that didn´t change anything. “Doesn´t matter, if you´re an unrated player, you go in beginners and people with ratings under 1600.”

A pause fell from your lips, clearly Merlin didn´t want you playing against actual contenders.

“Is it against any rule for me to play in the Open?” The boy with dark short hair seemed taken back by your sudden and quick answers, and he stuttered when answering. Maybe it was your confidence that startled him, maybe it was the pure attendance of a female.

“Not… Not exactly.”

“Then put me in the open.”

“There are three guys with over 1800 and Weasley might show up, you have no chance.”

You didn´t answer, leaving him sitting behind the desk. You weren´t sure, if he meant to spare you with good will, or simply feared that an irascible woman could ruin the tournament.

Neville Longbottom, looked at the paper handed to him and read out the name. “Y/n Y/L/N.”

When entering the hall, that was used for all kinds of events when booked, very few decorations fell into your eye. A few flags with symbols of schools or teams and a few goblets. Pieces of sports equipment were pushed to the sides for space. The tables, all fairly small with enough space for the chessboards, were placed induvial throughout the room. Boys, mostly around your age and older were talking to each other, while other´s sat down to study their strategies. At the back was a partitioning, that’s where the big players gamed.

 Another boy, he seemed to be around your age with dark hair and round glasses joined you in eyeing the scene.

“Are the matches played random?”, you asked him quietly without looking away from the tables. You hoped for no unwanted attention, which was easier said than done. Especially giving the fact, that you were one out of two girls.

“No, they match it by ratings on their first round. After that winner play winners and losers play losers.” The boy answered. He seemed calm about his presence as well as his answer. He had clearly played before in tournaments. You nodded understanding, before walking to the first table assigned to you.

The second girl other than you, was sitting to your opposite.

You starred at the clock at the side of the chess board, you had never played with a clock. It annoyed you deeply that it made you look like a beginner. You were good and you were planning to win. The girl, black shoulder length hair and almond shaped eyes, noticed your look and offered you a polite smile.

“I´m Cho Chang. Each player has 90 minutes, after you move, you press the button closest to you. Then it´s your opponent’s turn.”

You didn´t want to talk much, you were there to play, but you appreciated her explanation. Then your eyes traveled through the room, just to find Cho´s again.

“Why do they put the girls together?”

“They´re not supposed to, but if you win, they´ll move you up. Have you ever played in a tournament?”

You shook your head slightly. “No.”

But she simply shrugged. “I´m sure you´ll do fine.”

“What about Ron Weasley, is he coming today?” Oh, the king of chess, at least currently.

You had read about him, his matches from his first years at Hogwarts. Even Dumbledore himself had praised him and the daily prophet had written multiple articles about him. You had studied his games, over and over. It was him, who you wanted to play.

“Yeah, he has to defend his title.”

 After 20 minutes, Neville heard light steps approaching. Only seconds after, he found you standing in front of him again. “What do I do with this?” You hold up the paper from your match. It took every bit of effort to hide your happiness, the first game had taken a lot of weight off your shoulders. After beating Cho, you were more determined than ever.

“Is your match already over?”

“Yes, I won”, you shrugged.

“That was fast, circle your name and drop in the basket”, he muttered and you did as said. Neville starred at the spot where you had previously stood; something tingled in his senses. Maybe you would actually get a chance to prove yourself to the higher players.

 You snuck through the rows of players still starring at their boards until reaching the dividers. Clearly, you were fast, faster than most of them, which gave you time to study the room further. But the interesting part was happening behind the dividers. You paused for second, before deciding to enter. Around the table was a group of people watching, within the crowd, the boy from before with the round glasses. It was your turn to join his side and watch the two seated players. By the red hair, you could easily make out Ronald Weasley himself. His green eyes were pierced on the board as he chewed on his lips. You had seen several pictures of him in the newspaper, but seeing him in person? It was a new excitement rushing through your veins.

“Is he a Grandmaster?”, you asked the dark-haired boy to your left. Curiosity had always been in your nature, it even more so, got you into trouble.

“He´s working on it, it takes time. You have to play a grandmaster to become one.”

“How much time?”

“Do you mind?”, Ron turned from the game, eyeing you with caginess. His green eyes pierced right through yours and you pressed your lips to a thin line, looking to the floor with guilt. Internally, you cursed at yourself, but the smallest part showed a weird reaction; Ron Weasley had taken notice of you. Not in the way you wanted, but maybe he´d remember you. Slowly, they all focused back on the game.

Weasley´s opponent, Blaise Zabini, had his arms crossed in front of the board. “Draw?”

Ron shook his head, he wasn´t cruel. However, the victory was too close and too easy for him. “No.”

Zabini sighed, watching as Ron´s Queen moved on the board to shatter his king. The art of wizard chess remained aggressively; how queens and rooks smashed and destroyed kings and pawns. It was fascinating to you.

Weasley clapped at his own win, just like the crowd, a smirk back on his lips. “Yes!”

The group around you echoed in further applause and you couldn´t help but feel a smile. The two of them shook hands, before Zabini took off in defeat. He tried his best not to show his disappointment and anger. Ron watched his tall figure leave through the crowd, until his eyes landed back on you. You felt a blush rushing into your cheeks. Did you said he´d remember you? He probably despised you already.

Avoiding his glance again, knowing you had already attracted unwanted attention, you swallowed. Ron on the other hand just realized the pretty girl, who had watched him…

 The minutes and hours took by and one after one player was defeated by you. Oh, how you loved winning. Some might decline it as a weakness, but it was the drive that kept you going.

“That´s check”, you explained after successfully beating another man. He adjusted his hair, feeling clearly uncomfortable. You on the other hand, had found your safe zone.

“I know what it is”, he then replaced his Queen, which rose from her throne, before making her way to the newly assigned field. But you had already figured out his move and even more so, your own win.

“Draw?” He asked, nervously tapping with his pencil. You had placed your head on top of your hands, watching him closely. You shook your head.

“I resign”, he admitted.

 “Dinner break, then three more rounds. Final round on Sunday 11a.m.”; Neville explained, while the players had gathered outside the hall to either chitchat or look at the charts of the past games. You eyed the chart; you had won four games already. Two games were listed above you, the next one was against Harry Potter. You furrowed your brows. “You said there were three people with ratings higher than 1800!”

Neville, the boy of drossy posture and crocked teeth, looked up from the papers. He had already guessed that you would complain. “Yes, that´s right.”

“I thought I´d be playing one of them.” Neville sighed, his love for chess, organization of tournaments and the clear instructed rules, were a little thwarted by you. “You don´t have a rating, consider yourself lucky.”

“How do I get a rating?”

“You play 30 games in the USCF tournaments and then wait four months.”

“But that’s too long! I want to play Weasley”, you exclaimed. The calculations in your head were fast and no matter how you turned it, time was your enemy. “If you win your next three games and if he does the same…”

“I will.”

 Annoyed, you stepped back into the hall. You were ambitious to win. It was all you had and the potential price money lurked you even more. At home, nothing but your mother waited for you. Money had always been a big concern, she wasn´t even able to afford for you to go to Hogwarts. Everything you knew about magic; she had taught you.  She worked two jobs to make enough money for food and rent and while she cleaned motel rooms, one of the guests that often stayed at the motel, taught you to play wizard chess; Mr. Lupin was an amazing teacher…

 At the table of your next tournament, you found the dark-haired boy with round glasses. He awaited you and smiled as you finally sat down. “I´m Harry, Harry Potter.”

Besides your prior encounter, you had seen him talking to Ron Weasley and a small wave of exhilaration rose inside you. He and Weasley seemed close friends. “Y/n, Y/L/N.”

The game started with innocent moves from pawns. In between, Harry glanced up to you, checking. But you were sure of what you were doing. Minutes passed into the game and Harry started realizing that you were better than him, he didn´t show it yet, but he was well aware. Nevertheless, he was enjoying an exquisite game of chess.

You took his queen nonchalantly, which fell off the board in debris, and nervously licking his lips, he wrote down new notes on his notepad, before making his move. Your turn again, the rook.

Harry folded his hands, starring at the game. He pondered how to get out. After more minutes passing, a few people even started to watch you. They stood in the background, far enough to not make it conspicuous, but close enough for you to notice.

You moved your king and Harry sighed. “Merlin, Y/n, you´re humiliating my rook.”

“You won´t have to suffer much longer.”

Yes, you had it all played out in your head. Your win was safe and secure.

A smile was on your lips. Two further moves, and it was done.

He stretched out his hand in defeat and you took it. “Good game, you´re very talented.”

You shrugged as if it didn´t matter, but it did. To you it did. “You really are something.”

Saturday came to an end; you had won every single game. With your head tilted high, you stepped out the building. Fresh air flowed through your lunges and you took a deep breath. Suddenly voices echoed from your right; a few steps away Harry was talking to Ron Weasley. They chuckled in ease as they continued to make conversation. Ron´s back was turned into your direction, but Harry quickly noticed you.

“Hey Y/N! You played well today; do you want to grab a butterbeer with us?”

A bitter taste spread on your mouth; you had never even tried butterbeer. But all your savings had gone into the fee of the tournament and you already expected a long lecture when coming home. You shook your head with a polite smile on your lips. “Sorry, I have to get home.”

The two boys watched as you left, silence between them.

“She´s good, better than all the other girl´s I´ve seen”, Harry added and his friend rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Harry, just because she beat you, doesn´t mean she´s some kind of unknown genius. She doesn’t even have a rating.”

Harry shrugged innocently. “Whatever you say, but be careful, maybe she´ll even beat you.”

Ron echoed in laughter as he playfully punched his friend’s shoulder. “As if!”

 Sunday came, Ronald Weasley was late.

“Mom, have you seen my shoes?”

“Ronald, if you just once tidied up you might find them at the right place!”

Ron wasn´t nervous, but as so often, he was running late. With the annual tournament of wizard chess, he was ready to defend his title as current state champion.

Finally, the shoes had been next to the dishwasher (probably Fred´s and George´s play), he threw over his jacket and made his way to the fire place. “Mom, I´m leaving.”

Molly Weasley, who always knew where every single one of her children was, came hurrying down the stairs. With swift motions she brushed away dirt from Ron´s jacket and then started fidgeting around with his red hair. “Mom!”, Ron instructed his mother to stop and hurried towards the fireplace. He took the floo powder and rolled his eyes as Molly started wiping away a tear.

“There goes my champion!”

 You sat at the table, the same table where Ron had previously won against Zabini, waiting and growing impatiently. People around you waited as well. You couldn´t help but feel a deeper reluctance towards the conceited champion. Finally, you flinched as the door opened.

“Sorry, took a butterbeer on the go”, Ron added and held his cup high to show his evidence. You wanted to let out a sigh and roll your eyes, but you resisted to do so.

He took another sip before stretching out his hand.

“Ron Weasley, what´s your name?” Quickly, you shook his hand. Ron knew your name, Harry had told him, but he asked nevertheless. It was a rude tactic to make you feel smaller against him. You on the other hand wanted to begin, not waste more time. “Y/N, Y/L/N.”

He nodded acknowledging and the game started.

Five minutes into the game, he yawned.

It drove you insane. Did he do it on purpose? To make you lose focus? Or was he as underwhelmingly annoying?

He played confidential, not even thinking he could lose. It didn´t even take seconds for him to plant his moves. It intimated you and no matter how hard you tried not to show, the second yawn as you moved the pawn, did bring you to a slight stumble. Neville as well as Harry stood in the audience watching.

You felt sweat forming on your neck and cleavage, and strain pushed against your temples.

“I´ll be right back.” You jumped off your seat and hurried into the bathroom, leaving behind their confused faces.

Cold water ran down your hands and you placed the refreshing cool on your cheeks and neck.

Your eyes were pinned in the mirror, starring angrily at yourself. Running away from the game felt like an embarrassment enough, you weren´t ready to lose.

“Come on, you can beat him.”

Slowly, your stare wandered towards the ceiling. The chess board appeared out of your imagination and the figures stood tall, just like you had left them behind. Then, they started moving and each time you found yourself in an inescapable path, they pulled back into their initial position. Until…

 As you sat down, you were steadier as before. It surprised Ron a little and he watched as you moved your knight to take out one of his pawns. His rook then took your knight and you followed by replacing your pawn. On and on. The game continued. You were dangerously calm and as you placed the bishop down, you watched his face closely.

Ever so slightly, Ron shook his head and the glint in his eyes vanished. Harry in the crowd had the smallest hint of a smile.

“For Merlin´s sake”, Ron muttered and his hand pushed back his ginger hair.

“I think that´s it.” Your tranquil voice didn´t help him at all, but it gave you the confirmation you had hoped for.

“No, I can get out of this.”

“I don´t think so.” Then you tilted your head to side, completely deserted. “Maybe, if you had gotten here on time.”

Ron´s green eyes pierced into yours, then back on the board. Oh, time could be a cruel opponent and right now, he was losing. He took another move, not wanting to admit it yet, but you sighed sounding bored and exhausted.

“It doesn´t work, I don´t have to use the Queen.”

It didn´t matter to him. This was now more and ever about his ego. “I´ll just cover it with the bishop and-“

“Move.” His voice was low and unlike his usual character, deadly serious. Harry had never seen his friend in such a situation and even though he found it alarming, what a terrible loser Ron was, he was happy for you. You deserved it.

You did as said, covering your queen, while his rook took one of your pawns. It didn´t help, all it was, was a desperate cry. Your rook moved right next to his King, which he placed further away, but then your queen came along.

“Do you see it now? Or should we finish this on the board?”

In disbelief, he shook his head once again. But this time, his eyes found yours in an amazing gaze. “For Merlin´s sake.”

The King was destroyed by the Queen. You had won.

The people around you echoed with applause and Ron clapped as well, gentle smiling.

It was useless denying it further, you had beaten him fair and square. Harry had been right, you were good and better than Ron.

He lifted himself off his seat and shook hands with you, a reassuring smile on his lips.

For the first time on this day, you could smile as well. All the worries and the lecture that lasted till late in the evening, had been worth it.

You defeated the state champion and you won the prize money.

 “Y/n?”

You had planned to go home, your mother would be enthusiastic about the money, but Ron´s voice held you back. You were outside in the hall, hand already on the railing to the staircase leading outside.

“Do you want to grab a butterbeer with me now?” He sensed your hesitation and quickly spoke up again. “Don´t worry, I´ll pay. I guess I owe it to you”, Ron shrugged and pushed his hands nervously deeper into the pockets of his brown pants. He looked different than when seated behind the chess board, taller but less comfortable as well.

“I´m not sure…”

“Come on, you can´t leave me hanging like this after taking my title.”

A small chuckle escaped your lips and Ron noticed how well it suited your face. While playing chess and debating over strategies, there wasn´t much time to give away polite smiles or studying your opponent’s traits.

You couldn´t help, but feel how the reluctance towards Ron disappeared. He sighed relieved as you nodded agreeing.

The bar was only a few streets away, a side alley and the entrance to the magical ambience was hidden. The door opened as the front side to a large dumpster and lead a few steps down into the pub. It was cozy and due to the early time on a Sunday afternoon, still fairly empty. The bartender nodded towards Ron, they seemed to know each other.

“Two butterbeers, Dean.”

Together you sat down in niche to the side, a few plants hung from the ceiling and blankets and pillows laid on the armchairs in between. Chill jazz music played in the background and a house elf washed up used glasses. You imagined how the room was filled with people in the evenings.

“So, you never played in a tournament before and yet you beat the state champion?”

Ron was curious, which was understandable and you blushed at his question.

“A friend of my mom taught me how to play chess.”

“Really? He must know a lot about it, I imagine.”

“Yeah, and he gave me many books about openings and strategies.”

“I never saw you playing in the school tournaments, when did you start?”

You avoided his glance, starring down at the butterbeer Dean just brought to your table. The yellowish, sweet smelling liquid with soft foam on top.

“I don´t play for a school team”, you admitted quietly. The topic was hard to avoid, but you didn´t have many friends anyways to talk to.

“Well, I think you should maybe start then. They often travel together to other tournaments and-“

“I´m actually not going to a public school, I´m home taught.” You voice was louder now, but still shaking enough for Ron to realize your indisposition. He maybe was a genius on the board, but construing social interactions? Not his strength. Awkwardly, he scratched the back of his neck.

“Oh.”

 An uncomfortable silence settled between the two of you and you decided to take your first sip to take off your mind. He watched carefully, how your face enlightened with joy. “It´s really good!”

Ron kept his assumption, that it was your first butterbeer, to himself and smiled nodding.

“Dean knows how to make one of the bests around here”, he paused before continuing.

“I admire you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everything I know about wizard chess, I learned in school from my teammates. Actually, everything I know, I was taught in Hogwarts. But now you come along and beat me, you´re brilliant Y/N.”

“I always liked chess, it´s a whole world on a simple board. I´m not as good in other things, trust me.” You admitted, but his compliment spread warmth around your heart.

“If you want, I could teach you a few things about magic.”

Maybe Ron Weasley wasn´t the best teacher, but he truly wanted to see you again. Something about you was so charismatic and mesmerizing, he couldn´t help himself. To his luck, excitement was shown in your face. “That sounds amazing!”

When you had finished your beers and left the pub, Ron faced you again. The two of you had talked for over an hour and he was beginning to like you more with each minute.

The thought of Ron teaching you more about magic, made you enthusiastic. Maybe it was also the fact, that seeing him again, brought a tickle in your stomach.

“Well, I see you next week, Queen.”

You chuckled at his new nickname for you, it was a pleasant flattery.

“We will see how good your gambit is when it comes to dueling.”

[sneverussape]

i finally understand why i was attracted to snape’s character even back when i was a kid and for some reason it’s given me a strange sense of inner peace?? it’s equal parts confronting my past, understanding it, and acknowledging that the trauma i experienced wasn’t my fault, and it’s glorious.

(this is personal and has mentions of abuse so i’m keeping it under a cut)

idk why i suddenly thought about it, but i guess being in this space is forcing me to reflect since people constantly ask why anyone would like snape. tbh it’s not anyone else’s business why complete strangers would like a fictional character bUT after seeing that question (demand, really) enough times, my brain just really went “ok let’s look into this shall we?” and so i did.  

for context, i’m in my 30s and the first books came out when i was about harry’s own age, so i was an 11yo reading about an 11yo in about the same time period the books were set in, which was the 90s. my family had a typical idyllic set-up -- we were comfortable, my brothers and i went to good schools, my parents were together and in love, etc. my parents, however, were opposites when it came to raising us, which was a reflection of how they were raised themselves: my dad was raised quite passively and thus was very lax, but my mom had had a domineering military father who had a habit of shouting and intimidating his kids (obvs ptsd...thanks army), so that plus corporal punishment was a regular routine and part of her parenting agenda. since my dad was also barely around (he was a businessman who always had to fly off somewhere), we were often stuck with her and our nannies (who never got involved anyway when my mom was on a tirade). needless to say, it was Not a Fun Time. she had a vicious temper too, and an even sharper tongue, often unleashed due to the most mundane things (like...whether or not you had finished your homework). i learned how to lie convincingly because of it; i could only take a verbal (which could also escalate to physical) lashing up to a certain point. 

anyway, between her, an absent father, and indulgent grandparents who were always there but who had all favored my older brother (to the point where they would leave me behind and take just him out to the mall or parks or whatever for the day), i didn’t have a lot of adults i felt i could trust. teachers and coaches at that point in my life were meh, i didn’t see my aunts and uncles often enough (and the one aunt i was devoted to habitually broke her promises to me which hurt my feelings), and the nannies we had, though i loved all of them, could never stay, so they broke my heart over and over. 

enter this trash man of a character who swooped into a classroom full of kids my age and proceeded to make the most dramatic speech of the century. i was never scared or intimidated by snape. i was enraptured by his theatricality, and the way he focused his attention on a boy he didn’t even like. i loved his wit and his sarcasm. best of all, i loved how he was described as someone who was loyal to and was proud of his house, and by extension, the children in them. to me, that was all i needed to know, and all i wanted. i was a kid who sought the security of a grown-up, one who would not hurt me (physically at least; and i had trusted him in my head enough that i knew that if he would give me hell it would have been well-deserved) but would stand by me; one that i could have depended on, had he stood living and breathing in front of me as he was assigned my head of house (i’ve always identified as a slytherin anyway lol so that wasn’t even hard to imagine). he was clever and sassy and funny too, which only added to the allure. that was why i had latched on to him, and probably why i’ve stayed latched. if i were to be cheesy about it, my love for him helped eventually shape me into the adult i had needed when i was younger: one who never raises a hand to children; one who who thinks before they say something to a child; one who keeps their promises. it’s weird that i have snape (and myself) to thank for it but i do. i loved his character so much and since the books were coming out during my formative years, i had plenty of time and opportunity to grow up alongside him. it’s been quite a trip. 

on my parents - i forgave them back in high school when i started seeing them as individuals and understood that they have their own issues that they should have resolved on their own, ideally before they became parents. since it’s nothing i can change, i’m honestly over it, and i have been for a while. it’s just...so fulfilling when something like this happens because it’s like uncovering a part of your personality, enabling you to understand why you’re built a certain way (i have deep-seated abandonment issues that i actively work on, and i balk at physical contact, i guess as a defense mechanism from the time my mom used to swipe at me, among many other issues) and in the process be given the means to try to be better. it’s also great when you remember that your favorite character was a Mess and a Work in Progress, because tbh so are you?? so is everyone else and that’s ok.

bottom line: i love snape and i definitely know why, henceforth i will love him forever and honestly no hell-raiser on this flaming dumpster of a site will ever change my mind

[racicoricofalapatorius]

Dream Companions

Nyssa 2.0…sort of 

okay so first off noone can match up to Nyssa. Nyssa is life

but…

i’m thinking a future companion 

young adult (19)

keeps the doctor in cheek

understanding

friendly,sweet, silly, scared, stands up (learns to), naive, optomistic, patient, gets along with everyone, sympathetic, empathetic

tries to understand ppl best they can

but a secret badass when need be

technical mind - smart very smart (very nyssa)

leaves for the same reason tegan does but under better circumstances = sees to much death and can’t handle it but tell the doctor “i can’t keep doing this. i’m not as brave as you. but you have to be. becouse you are the doctor and save people. so be a doctor”

i’m also thinking Ally or lesbian

A boy

like seriously that’s all i want

a full time male companion-

no part time (jack bullshit) no i want a full time primary boy companion

any character traits you want

but a boy. GIVE ME A BOY PLEEEASE

Jamie/Turlough/Jack/Adric/Ian/Ben my besties just to name a few

Last of their kind warrior race

definite Leela vibes

i’m thinking war torn young adult (17/19/23)

the doctor has to show them that violence isn’t the answer and that ppl can be nice

actual conflict back (*wink, nudge,  nudge chibs*)

goes against the doctor

sacrifices themselves to save ppl AND STAYS FUCKING DEAD (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge Moffat*)

Adric but…likeable

BOY BOY BOY

I’ve been over this I WANT A PRIMARY FULL TIME MALE COMPANION

okay so teen to young adult

always stumbling into trouble

smart and knows it

lets their arrogance get the better of them

thinking they know best

the doctor acts very fatherly towards them

they admit they don’t know wtf their doing…eventually

also plz make them asextual/pan

future companion

so someone just not from modern day please

i can’t take another modern day Londoner girl

very omnisexual

doesn’t understand modern day earth

poor unsatisfied teen

like fucking housing commission level poor

i think sixteen year old would be best

underachieving self deprecating teen

age 14/15/16/17

fighting parents

bad grades

hates their life and just wants to fly away

but the doctor shows them how to love her life 

and you can make life whatever you want it to be

leaves the doctor by their own volition and is happy about going back and has no regrets

past companions

someone not from modern day (Please)

70s = badass activist radical teen

50s = (girl) non feminist ideals/learning that she doesn't need to marry to be fulfilled

tudor dynasty

victorian England

WW2

vietnam war

90s

70′s badass activist radical teen

think young marge Simpson

baddie lesbian or best ally ever

high school to collage student

pro life/pro drugs/feminist/pro pill/pro gays

basic activist

takes charge

challenges bad guys on moral principals

A alien

Either a girl, gender fluid or a non-binary

badass but heart of gold

cus no more modern day human girls

alien rights

amazing beautiful eyeshadow

maybe like immortal/age slower/extended lifespan

little differences to humans

knowledge of other alien races

awkward and funny wtf is that on modern earth (WTF is the funcion of a rubber duck)

a few lil alien powers

doesn’t get why the doctor always helps out earth and finds them to be a primitive ape race but soon comes to realise that helping someone is the best thing you can do

absurd fashion

Primary companion so resents the secondary earth contemporary companion but over time sees that she’s pretty cool

looks: light blue skin, pointy long ears, greyey-purple hair, big eyes,purple lips

fairy/godess/witch/slayer/shape shifter/werewolf

just think about it a supernatural badass with freaking powers

telikinis

can fly

very caring

telepathic

confused about earth culture

empath

too be honest i rlly just want Buffy and the doctor to team up

Career gal

i’m thinking lawyer or A+ student

smart, decisive, confident, stickler for rules, a bit of a nag, stuborn,self centered, sassy, excellent at talking someone down

turlough/Ian&barbara vibes

got a major ego but the doctor helps her dial it down

companion intro story (sorta tegan vibe) she gets transported to a alien planet and the doctors there too all she wants is to get back home but after a quick trip in the tardis seeing the marvels of the universe she decides to stay with him

often goes against the doctor as she’s very stubborn

bitchy and self centered to ppl into a person whos only bitchy to ppl when they deserve it and need a good talking to along with sacrificing themself for others

learns to chill out

Another timelord lady

I want that Romana/four dynamic back

come up with plans together

the doctor has an equal back

she gotta like permantly die or go away but to help ppl… 

example of leaving/dying: parellel world in need of a ruler or protector/dies saving someone but can’t regenerate as they died burning/blown up/idfk just something that’d kill a timelady

have a lot of fun together

confused about earth culture

assumed couple

caring of others

focuses on the problem more logically rather than how emotional the doctor gets

vibes either: sibiling bond or besties or lovers

A princess

A actual princess

no i’m not obsessed with Nyssa……………yes i totally am :)

[fmdduri]

a headcanon about duri & titan’s title tracks.

word count: 2,422. about: this is how duri feels about each title track of titan’s thus far. duri also very much saying he doesn’t like a song because people work hard,, but you can’t help what you don’t like, right? notes: don’t perceive me for some of this, thank you <3 i believe i did this on duri’s old blog as well but this is all new information ! 

btd: duri believes that btd (before the dawn) was a rather strong debut song. it showed off titan’s concept rather well, as well as cementing titan as a strong group in vocals, rapping, and dancing - no matter what position you have in the group. btd is definitely a song that still holds up to this day, one that duri really enjoys. however, attached to btd is also the criticism that duri faced about not fighting titan’s concept and saying that he was simply only there due to be a very strong vocalist, especially for the age that he debuted at. nonetheless, god tier debut.

be mine: this was a rather strong comeback song, duri believes. everything about it was rather smooth and he thinks it really showed off titan being a strong group together, once again. even though his styling gave very, your high school boyfriend who fell into the category of emo trying to be some sort of rock god - it did manage to work with the whole mysterious concept of titan. however, duri does prefer btd over be mine, if he had to be honest. duri, yet again, faced comments about not belonging in titan due to the concept and his own image, saying that he was really only there to carry vocally. 

paradise: duri likes to forget his hair exists in this. however, it’s clear their producer is truly iconic, especially with something like this. this song tends to remind duri of the 90s songs that he had really enjoyed, but clearly with a more modern push upon it. he wasn’t entirely sure why they spent a lot of the time in a train, but it’s fine, whatever. this is also one of the songs that comments towards duri in the concept had gotten better, but they just weren’t all the way there just yet. but, it was looking up now. 

the chaser: probably his favorite of their older songs, as well as really being the song to cement titan as legends in the industry. while duri never fully watched the music video due to the fact that a car accident occurs in the music video (that he didn’t watch while on set, granted he had to walk away from the flipped car at some point, he held up pretty well), it’s still generally one of his favorites. still kind of frustrating though that titan went through all of that in the music video, only for them to not even open the box in end, even though they had the key. this was the comeback that had also solidified duri fitting into titan’s concept.  so, it was all around really positive for him and one of the songs he still really loves to perform. this just truly showed how incredible he is with stage presence and something that continued to carry throughout his career. however, the only negative was duri being faced with underaged sexualization because you could see his arms through the mesh shirts he was styled in for music shows. 

destiny: another song that is 100% one of their best, at least in duri’s opinion. he really enjoys destiny, the music video itself, and the dancing as well. generally, he just believes that it’s a really good song and something that’s really fun to perform. destiny really just is that girl and there’s nothing else that can be said about it. she’s just sitting very pretty in titan’s discography. 

fanfare: to put it simply, this is one of duri’s least favorite titan songs. he finds the beat of the song to be rather odd, to the point that he wasn’t entirely sure how to really sing it at first. also, the “la la las” in the chorus were rather odd as well and he didn’t get it. kind of wishes it wasn’t in the discography. he seemingly just felt awkward in this song.

roar: roar just feels like a continuation of fanfare, with that odd beat that occurred. he really can’t say he even understands why that became such a trend with the last two releases. again, the “la la las” in the chorus is just something that he can’t seem to really get behind. essentially was a fanfare 2.0 and it would be better if this didn’t take up space in their discography. 

easy love: easy love... she’s just that girl and you can’t say anything bad about her. this is a song that duri really, really likes from titan’s discography. this is another song that he enjoys performing from their older discography. he really likes the genre it falls in, the beat, and the choreography. after the chaser, this is the second song to really prove that duri does fit into titan’s concept, as well as solidified him even more as a force to be reckoned with in the industry. 

last romeo: last romeo definitely falls into the extraordinary part of titan’s discography with btd, the chaser, be mine, paradise, and destiny. they found themselves going back to the older vibes of your emo rock boyfriends, but they really just made that styling work. he can’t say anything bad about last romeo either, he really likes her. sure, the music video is a bit odd, but she’s fun! 

back: truth be told, duri probably didn’t fit this concept at all. but, gaia and netizens thought he fit really well, and maybe he just ended up being a rather good actor. this is a song that falls into the extraordinary part of titan’s discography as well. it’s very much god tier with the chaser and destiny. but, in general, he enjoyed this one a lot. 

call me baby: this seemingly marked a shift in titan’s sound, as well as rounding out their concept to be even bigger than it was. it still fed a bit into the mysterious heartthrobs in a way, but was also a bit brighter. duri also likes this type of genre a lot, so he really had a lot of fun with call me baby. this was also shaping to him really, really fitting into titan’s concepts and being able to put himself into multiple different concepts of music videos. really just the type of song to shake your ass to! 

love me right: the electronic and r&b genre is something that duri really enjoys, which makes love me right go pretty high up on the list of favorite titan title tracks. he gave him that early 2000s boy group that he truly wishes he was because of how much he really enjoys songs from the 90s and early 200s. he felt a little bit cool in the football uniforms as well, even though he doesn’t no one thing about american football in the slightest. but, he looked cool, so that was great. 

sing for you: sing for you is probably one of duri’s all time favorite title tracks. however, that probably more so has to do with the fact that it’s one of titan’s ballad title tracks and duri is very much a ballad singer, which definitely shows within this titan release. there’s something rather comforting about the song and the melody that it holds. he really can’t say anything bad about the song at all, and it’s really just a perfect winter song, that’s for sure. 

monster: a song that falls into the their more “funky” songs, but it’s something that works really well. duri quite enjoys this song, and holds one of his most iconic lines in a titan song of “creepin’, creepin’, creepin’.” monster is definitely a song that duri wouldn’t ever get tired of, and a song that he really enjoys/enjoyed performing, to say the least. the styling of monster also one hundred brought back the emo wannabe rockstar boyfriends, but it worked really well, so that counted the most. definitely a heartthrob song for sure. 

lucky one: probably one of titan’s weirdest music videos, to say the least. the creepy, lifeless stares that they had to do was very chilling to have to see. but, besides for the rather odd music video, she’s a very fun song! following the funkiness again, but it also just works really well. the choreography is a bit odd, mainly because of the head bopping. but, other than that, she’s a very, very good song that duri quite likes. he remembers not having to work out on this filming day because of the amount of running that went on.

lotto: she’s definitely your best friend’s sexy older sibling. while she relies very heavy on autotune for the purpose of the beat and everything else about the song, she really wasn’t that hard to sing on stage. it also didn’t diminish titan’s talents in anyway, even though so people like to drag them for using autotune - duri still really likes the song because it just works so well. plus, he also did feel a bit sexy in this music video because of the cocky attitude he had to portray for some of his parts. 

kokobop: this song means a lot to duri, simply because bc entertainment had picked his lyrics for this song. he wrote the title track completely on his own, so he’s probably a bit bias to the song as a whole, but it is one of his favorites, and would even consider it one of their god tier songs - but, that might just be because he wrote the song and he had fun with the song, it went over rather well as well. though, of course, he had to explain a few times that kokobop means “fun dancing” and also comes from the 1959 hit song “shimmy shimmy ko-ko-bop” by little anthony and the imperials. he’s really proud of this song, and it’s something for the girls and gays to shake their asses to in the summer!

power: probably titan’s most hated song and duri holds a rather unpopular opinion about the song. he likes this song, a lot actually. he thinks the song and performance is a lot of fun. yes, maybe he did get to be the hero in the music video and beat the big robot with the shield he created through the music video. but, still, it was a very fun song that he really likes! he likes fun! he likes to have fun!

universe: this is another song that duri really likes, however, it’s most likely because it falls within the genre of ballads. though, it is a bit different due to it being a pop-rock ballad. but, duri still got to shine a lot due to it being a ballad, and really just showing off balladeer duri. it’s another comforting song and generally, the whole concept of baristas and stuff is something that’s very comforting to duri as a whole. generally, he can’t say anything bad about this song at all. 

tempo: another god tier song!! though, the only thing duri might hold against the song is the fact that he didn’t get to be apart of the acapella part of the song. however, this holds another one of duri’s iconic lines, with him opening the song with “i can’t believe” and the way that he just sings it, which had often been mentioned in reviews of the song. nonetheless, this is a song that duri really likes, something that falls into the god tier. it simply falls into one of their best songs. 

love shot: another incredible song. duri can’t say anything bad about it. it’s very reminiscent of lotto and duri feeling a bit sexy due to the cocky attitude of the song as a whole. generally he just felt very cool in this song and it’s one of his favorites among titan’s discography, he can’t deny that at all.

bad: simply, another god tier song. this song kind of brought titan back to their days of being mysterious heartthrobs, rather than the heartthrobs that they had become over the years. however, it did bring back some more versatility, especially for duri, as he showed off the aggression in his voice some more, like he used to in the older titan tracks - something that hadn’t really been needed the last few years for titan over all. this is another favorite of his, and the music video was a lot of fun - even if he wasn’t really a fan of the small rooms and had a hard time with that. lots of running again.

obsession: obsession is the god tier of god tier. however, that probably has to do with the fact that, once again, duri gets to feel like he’s in a 90s boy band, simply because of how the song is. he also finds it rather cool that they’re all essentially the evil versions of their selves in the music video and performances. there’s simply just something about this song and simply, it’s never going to get old in anyway. 

now or never: essentially, he thinks this song is just okay. at least, okay till getting to the chorus. the beat is okay too, if he’s honest. he kind of wishes the choreography was attached to a different song. it’s another song that he can do without, but he doesn’t dislike it as much as he does some others. 

o sole mio: this is honestly another song that’s just really good. he doesn’t have anything bad to say about it, she’s really just a whole banger! there isn’t one bad thing about the song in it’s entirely at all. he thinks it was a really good choice for a title track and believes it fits in well with what titan had released in the past. 

enough: enough isn’t that bad, either. it’s definitely a song that falls into their emo wannabe rockstar boyfriend with the styling, and adds onto being mysterious heartthrobs. generally, it’s the second best song that titan has released from 2020 to 2021. however, he wouldn’t say it really falls into titan’s best songs either. but, it’s still a bit of a banger. 

rpm: if he was honest, this song falls right behind both fanfare and roar in being apart of titan’s possible worst songs. it seems to not really fit in with them sound wise, and the music video is interesting, to say the least. something in duri wishes that a different song was chosen, while also wishing that titan had at least one more song to release this year, rather than leaving rpm as their last comeback of 2021. 

[sinceileftyoublog]

Georgia Anne Muldrow Interview: Rhythm Is A Form of Gravity

Photo by Antoinette A. Brock

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“The people keep you fresh. They keep you on your toes,” Georgia Anne Muldrow told me over the phone last month. The prolific L.A. musician, whose output ranges from experimental hip-hop to neo soul to jazz and everything in between, is releasing her fifth record in four years on Friday, and the third overall in her beats series. VWETO III (FORESEEN + Epistrophik Peach Sound) follows last year’s Mama, You Can Bet! (released under the name Jyoti), 2019′s collaboration with Dudley Perkins and VWETO II, and 2018′s acclaimed, Grammy-nominated Overload. Unlike any of the previous albums, it was put together with some “calls to action” in mind.

Thought some of the songs were around for longer, VWETO III as an entity was made last year, “over a course of time where things were changing in terms of different recording techniques I was trying,” said Muldrow, harking back to techniques and inspirations from her early years of music making. The record was also, obviously, formed during a global pandemic that caused folks to lock down, and Muldrow is conscious to giving listeners opportunities to reach out on her very active Instagram account. Each of the album’s singles have been paired with those aforementioned calls to action. “Unforgettable”, which combines 80′s-sounding synths with 90′s G-funk, calls for vocalists to submit performances to go along with Muldrow’s vocals on the song. “Mufaro’s Garden”, inspired by an illustrated folktale book called Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, asks for visual artist submissions. On the day of the album’s release, Muldrow will ask for dance submissions to “Slow Drag”, a throwback Hammond-guitar-piano ditty named after the juke joint dance of the same name. Next month, it’ll be “Action Groove”, with calls for turntable scratch ‘n’ sampling remixes from DJs. And it’s not just the singles that exemplify Muldrow’s desire to connect with listeners on a granular level. Many of the songs on VWETO III refer to or are inspired by specific eras, from the Afrofuturist jazz of “Afro AF” to the genre tribute “Boom Bap Is My Homegirl”. That the titles are clearly referential, too, like “Old Jack Swing” or “Synthmania Rock”, shows that Muldrow’s not winking and nodding or trying to fool us, earnestly inviting us to dive in.

Moreover, VWETO III is coinciding with what Muldrow’s calling the Teacherie, classes she’s trying to develop to spread knowledge of what she’s learned throughout her own career, everything from philosophy to instrumental-specific classes. Right now, from her saved Instagram story called “Teacherie!,” you can take an assessment to fill out what you’re interested in. “It helps me to see what skill levels people have and what they want to learn in the class,” Muldrow said. “I seek to continue to stay open enough to make relevant music and have relevant things to share with people.” Overall, Muldrow is the type of artist that uses online platforms the way they’d be used in an ideal world. Her use of NFTs, too, is noble; the album art by Cape Town-based Breeze Yoko is being auctioned off, with 50% of proceeds going to prison abolitionist organization Critical Resistance. Even when the offline world returns--Muldrow’s slated to play Pitchfork Music Festival on Saturday, September 11th--Muldrow’s created a blueprint for navigating an increasingly isolating digital world, by seeking out real connections.

Below, read my conversation with Muldrow, edited for length and clarity, as she discusses making the record, being inspired by African rhythms, the influence of Digital Underground, and why her work logically extends into prison abolition. You can also catch her tomorrow on Bandcamp Live at 8 PM CST.

Since I Left You: Why did you decide this was a good time to revisit your beats album series?

Georgia Anne Muldrow: The people love it, you know? I always like to post beats on Instagram and share my poetry or state of mind of what’s going on in the world according to my people, and provide a place of joy and uplift. The voice of the people kind of determined what songs were on there. There are some songs that nobody’s ever heard. Different ideas, something a little bit more energized.

Something for the people. It’s really great that I have direct contact with them. Some of the songs are things I like to try based on the vibes I get from their feedback. It’s great; it’s a beautiful thing for me. I’ve gone through phases where critics love me, but the voice of the people that really support your work is really cool to hear. It’s like a little focus group. I just like sharing my music with folks because it’s my way of contributing love energy to the world in a direct, immediate way.

SILY: A lot of folks are still staying home and needing that connection. You’re connecting with them but also providing a platform for them to connect with each other.

GAM: Yes. I’m way into that and seek to be expanding that in an even more literal sense with my classroom project [Teacherie], like a live webinar sort of thing, that enables folks to speak amongst themselves. A more extended form of what I do on social media. An intimate look at what’s really going on in music. They can see where my emotions end and the music begins and try to make things seamless within their own music. Teach what I’ve picked up along the way, because I won’t be here forever. Spreading the love but the knowledge, too, with the music that I share. There’s a certain quality that you can achieve if you have patience.

SILY: Did you always know you wanted to do these calls for action, like for vocalists on “Unforgettable”? And how did you decide which tracks you wanted to do them for?

GAM: It’s definitely my way of trying to promote some sort of hip hop jam in lieu of the isolation that folks are weathering...I’m really inspired by the early age of hip hop where everyone had different dances. They brought their art books to the hip hop jams. The jackets with the art on it, the MCs rapping. The breakdancing, the DJs. All of the different things in place for it to be complete. That’s part of what got me hooked on production. One night years ago, [when I first played] my stuff, and folks started to dance, it got me hooked--to make somebody move. Somebody can rap over this, somebody can dance to this or draw to this. That’s the reason for the calls to action. Opening up a hip hop jam all over the world. I hope it gains some momentum. That would be nice, for more people to put themselves out there. But I do understand we live in different times right now and people are trying to get by. I still have to post some of the artists from “Mufaro’s Garden” and these rap videos from “Unforgettable”.

SILY: You’re giving people an opportunity, even if they’re just trying to get through the day, to take a break or have a beneficial creative exercise.

GAM: Yeah. Being creative together, and togetherness. The thinking that the songs aren’t complete without dance. Lyrics are a certain kind of fulfillment of music. But the movement of the body is another one. [It] goes back to gravity. Drummers harness the power of gravity and manipulate it so things can fall at a certain time. Same thing with dance--[dancers] don’t manipulate gravity, but interact with it and create an interdependence with it. When somebody’s dancing, they come back down to the ground, and you could let that go and let gravity guide what your dance looks like. Rhythm is a form of gravity--a form of gravity engaging with life. I feel like movement is the fulfillment of all the arts. I just seek to do my part.

SILY: You mentioned being inspired by a specific early era in hip hop, and there’s a lot on here inspired by genre or era-specific trends, like the G-funk in “Unforgettable” and “Boom Bap Is My Homegirl”.

GAM: [Boom bap] is one of the things that I specialize in. It’s a home base for me. In my experience, it’s a very African point of access. A lot of the boom bap rhythms are straight from Africa. Most of them are. Off the shores of West Africa. I heard so many of them, from The Gambia, Senegal, Mali. Over there, you hear so much of it. I want to be part of that. At the same time, I might wake up and make a free jazz record. I don’t feel like a traditionalist; I just want to preserve the culture of Black music from this hemisphere. I love traditional ideas, but it’s not like I’m gonna do this one idea for the sake of staying in a lane. There’s no place that Black music hasn’t influenced, molded, shaped, nurtured.

SILY: When was the last time you were able to perform in Africa?

GAM: I believe it might have been 2017. These years have started to run together. I don’t mind it, though. Keeps me young. [laughs]

VWETO III cover art by Breeze Yoko

SILY: How did the songs on here with vocals come together, whether the ones with your singing or the ones with featured artists? Did the words or beats/melodies come first?

GAM: The beats came first except for “Shana’s Back”. Shana Jensen is my sister; she’s the mother of my niece. Every time she’d come over and I had an idea to compose songs around her, they’d end up being huge songs. She’d be like, “Bye!” [laughs] I guess she wanted something a little more understated. I’d always end up doing big Motown sounds. There’s a song on The Blackhouse called “Shana’s Groove”. It’s a like a reoccurring situation and character. It’s kind of funny at this point.

The other ones, like “Unforgettable”, I’m very much matching the vibe, the punk-funk aesthetic. Sometimes a little hook just pushes it over the edge and gets them into the mindset I was in when thinking about it. Other songs like “Love Call” I just wanted to sound like it was in an arena. Arena rock, funk, Digital Underground-inspired, all the way.

SILY: Are you a big Digital Underground fan?

GAM: I think it shows in a lot of the music I make. I don’t think I can hide it. This record has so many examples of that. I love Shock G so much. He was so bad, as a thinker, a philosopher, a community builder, artist, pianist, maestro. The “Love Call” groove, “Unforgettable”, “[Old] Jack Swing”, you can hear it. I was raised with that kind of music in my head as a child. Unashamed to be funky and make a groove have extra grease on it. That’s what distinguished our sound from other region’s sounds. Getting greasy. While still doing the boom bap and all that other stuff. For me, it was always a goal to represent where I’m from in my music in a non-traditional way. Bringing what I love about the West Coast to whatever I was working on.

Shock G lives in all of us. He brought so many different vibes. A rhythmic pocket that breathes. Somewhat right under "Atomic Dog”. It keeps you moving. It has a breath of life in it. I’m so thankful to have lived in an era where I could hear and experience his work.

SILY: How did “Ayun Vegas” come together?

GAM: Ayun is my little brother. I think I’ve known him since 2014 or ‘15. He’s quite a talent. I love his style. He’s from [New] Jersey. I love his sense of rhythmic dynamic. His use of metaphor, double entendre. I feel like he’s really a gifted poet. He can do all types of different things. He’s an amazing MC--he just released a project with Jacob Rochester called Slaps & Hugs. I’m gonna lean towards people who are creative themselves and insert themselves into everything they do. 

Ayun is very secure in being different. He came out to Vegas, and I had this song. Usually, when I play leftfield stuff, MCs want that beat they can crush and not feel challenged by. This song is really old. I feel like it was made in 2016. I feel like that was the first time when somebody was willing to rap on an idea that was out of the ordinary. It’s not just in your face. It’s something different, but I want you to rap for your life on this. Something more like a movie score, where you find your character. He did it! He didn’t leave one beat behind. 

He’s rhythmically gifted and quite the poet. He almost went into pro football but he chose music. He’s a very enterprising brother, doing all types of apparel. He was working in the visual artist community, in the videographer community. Any time I can showcase what it is that he got to share, I’m there. He’s not afraid to speak the truth. This verse is impressionistic. It’s like somebody is taking a really big brush and making a beautiful image, strong-arming it. It’s dope. I love it.

We did another song together on the Overload album, but it didn’t make the cut. The Japanese version of Overload has a song called “What Can We Do Now”, and it has Ambrose Akinmusire, Ayun, and me. I’d love for that to be heard stateside, because it’s definitely about what’s happening over here.

SILY: Why did you choose to have the proceeds for this record go to Critical Resistance?

GAM: I’ve always wanted my music to be a tool for the motion of people. It doesn’t stop with dance and rapping and singing and drawing. It begins with that. Where it ends up, the movement of people coming into their powers, truths that in order to have a more humane society, we are going to have to throw some of this bullshit away. The spoils of enslavement. We’ve got to get rid of those spoils so we can get to a more realistic place of folks being cognizant of the activities that they take a part in. Jails ain’t gonna help people feel like they’re part of the community. They cage people and endanger their lives and run the risk of ruining somebody’s mental, emotional, and spiritual state even if they did commit the crime they’re in there for.

There’s a sense that all crime is committed from a place of fear. Many crimes people are locked up for is just folks trying to find a way. I don’t see how more fear is going to rehabilitate. The idea that punishment leads to enlightenment. People in the public school system are taught about some of the baddest people that ever lived--mass murders. But they’re not the type of people held accountable. They’re who brought over the imprisonment systems from their failed nations.

I don’t believe in reform at all. Critical Resistance seeks to abolish prisons as we know them. I love that their resolve is so sure and bold.

Photo by Antoinette A. Brock

[obscuremarvelmuses]

A smattering of Wanda headcanons. . .or, in some cases, just canon stuff and my extrapolation from it.  -  In Avengers #18,  Wanda buys tickets to see "Twelfth Night" for her and Pietro, and thinks how all her life she dreamed of being an actress and "how I love the theater!" I headcanon that Wanda couldn't afford to see movies growing up, but she adored the traveling theater troupes that came through her camp sometimes or crossed paths with her Roma troupe. The plays were not only a source of entertainment for her, but escapism, and as a little girl she dreamed of being an actress, of living in a world of glamor where her entire job was to be someone else. To this day, she adores the theater and will purchase tickets to plays whenever she has the opportunity, from classic Shakespeare to modern musicals - In Avengers #22, she claims to be able to sing well, but we don’t see any confirmation of it either way beyond her own opinion. My headcanon is she has a nice enough voice and probably sang with her family and camp, but isn’t as good as someone with formal training, and not quite the diva she thinks she is. - In Avengers #28, it turns out Wanda is a great seamstress, as she made Hank Pym a new costume. I headcanon this was a life skill she learned from a young age since her family couldn’t afford new clothes frequently.   - I headcanon she plays the harp based on literally nothing but the cover of one of her solo series issues. She specializes in slow, plaintive melodies. - She’s good at ice skating, as shown in some of the “First Class” comics stuff with Jean - When some people would turn to alcohol, Wanda turns to eating Bavarian chocolate pecan ice cream right from the tub, as seen in one of the late 90s Avengers issues -  She grew up in a rural Roma community in Eastern Europe, so she doesn't understand a lot of US references to the pop culture of our childhood (such as Barney the Dinosaur) That said, she’s not uneducated about the world and its history, as seen in instances like when she snapped at Mantis “So who are you?! Marco Polo?!” when Mantis talked about how where she comes from, a woman is taught to discover her man (”her man” being Wanda’s man Vision, whom Mantis was after at the time) - Wanda does yoga and weigh training to stay flexible and in shape - She speaks Balkans Romani, Transian, and a smattering of phrases in various Eastern/Central European tongues - Wanda prefers to refer to her mutant powers as "natural abilities" rather than, well, mutant powers. This isn't due to shame but more because she wants to emphasize that they ARE natural, which tends to have positive connotations. And also. . . yeah, sometimes she would rather the public NOT think of her as a mutant, given that she was ALMOST KILLED BY AN ANGRY MOB. - Her birth father was Ashkenazi Jewish, but Wanda wasn't raised by her birth father, she was raised by a Roma couple in a fictional Eastern European country. Roma nearly always adopt the dominant religion of where they are, which in Eastern Europe is usually Christianity or Islam. Many Roma also retain Hindu-based beliefs from when they came from India thousands of years ago, albeit changed through the centuries. I headcanon my Wanda was raised in a sort of syncretic mix of all three. She canonically has an interest in pagan nature worship as well, but that’s only after she starts practicting witchcraft, which my version has not.  - Wanda is uncomfortable with those who can alter the mental or emotional states of others, especially if they treat such a power casually (Moondragon, Eros)