#is that Jess (one of my favorite characters ever probably) is sent to live with his uncle aka Luke because he’s causing trouble and his mom

[sadgirlautumn]

As much as I love Gilmore Girls I really wish I could rewrite it because so many choices the writers made me like why would you do this????

[lambourngb]

Nailing that Dynamic- Recs - Day 1

Day 1 for Creator’s Week, and I gotta say, this is my favorite fan event, mainly because it was the first one I participated last year. This little rec set is devoted to dynamics, divided into friendship, found family, and finally romantic (and yes, that’s Malex with me.)

We’ve had two seasons of this show, and while I can’t really relate to aliens or even the immigrant story, I do relate strongly to the stories behind friendship. I can say my appetite for fic with a good friendship dynamic will always be there.

Will You Be My Friend- Circle Yes or No (recs)

Finding You by @myrmidryad  (122,000) - If by chance the canon from high school bums you out, this is the story to read. Gin writing malex is always a ‘no-brainer I’m gonna read it story’ for me, but what really set this epic apart was how beautifully Gin writes the friendship dynamics between Michael & Liz, and Michael & Max. It’s a canon-divergent story with no-murder of Rosa or the shed scene, where in order to avoid enlistment, Alex disappears from Roswell and joins the Max & Liz road trip with Michael in tow. They just need to fill that gap between high school and the opening of the dorms at UNM so they can start a life together. And fill it they do with this road trip. There were moments where I sobbed with how badly Michael needed this in canon and didn’t get it. It also made me like Max, so, yeah. Great writing and characterizations here.

Hit the Road by @bestillmyslashyheart - (7,100) - One of the brightest spots for me in season two was Rosa Ortecho, and one of the most frustrating parts of season two was the fact we didn’t get any interaction between her and Alex. *screams* At least I had a few crumbs of Rosa & Maria (not nearly enough!) but still. Where there’s a glaring gap in canon, thank god there’s fanfic. Marlo treats us to a delightful story written post season 1, but had some surprisingly psychic lines about Malex, number one how they don’t think they are good for one another. I really enjoyed what this story says about leaving-  and honestly, the town of Roswell has so much pain tied to these characters, they should all take long road trips away from it.

a few drinks and some conversation by @christchex / @michaels-blackhat (5,600 ) - this one is set post-season 2, with all the complications of Michael deciding now wasn’t the right time for him and Alex, while also working on giving Maria the right space after their breakup.  I think it’s pretty clear that Michael needs a friend he’s not related to and someone he hasn’t slept with - to provide him so low-stakes genuine company outside of the alien bullshit and love triangle dynamics. Christi does this beautifully through the eyes of an OC and the number of times I’ve read this story is like 10, and also, it’s inspired my current story about Michael going on dates.

and headin’ out singing our song by @stars-and-sunshine (4,100) post season 2, Alex and Michael head off on a road trip (okay, this is a trope I apparently like since I’ve recced three stories now, hahaha) after Alex’s car breaks down. There’s a careful space in this story, of two men building a friendship again. The roadtrip details are beautiful, but what stayed with me is a scene in the museum. That summer of 2008 had some ghosts to address.

If I Follow You Home, Will You Keep Me? found-family dynamics

When You’re Gone by @bestillmyslashyheart (8,200) - Before I tell you why I love this story, I want everyone to follow the next link and read this story about email and messages and grief in the digital age [trigger for cancer death] chat history by Rebecca  Armendariz. (She also wrote a follow up called Timelines published by the Hairpin that talks about the memory function on facebook.) So back to the story, this is Rosa, opening her email 10 years after her death and reading the messages people sent her, thinking they were speaking into the void. Liz, Maria, Alex, Mimi and Arturo, all of them sending her notes, sometimes time passes without an email, then an event triggers that memory of Rosa not being there- and yeah, I found this whole thing to be so moving.

Never Ever Getting Rid of Me by @spaceskam - (4,400) this probably could have gone in the friendship side, but I feel like when you work in a high stakes place like a hospital, friends is a term that ends up being too light, and with the level of competition and stress it grows a bond like family... anyway, this is an AU where Michael and Kyle end up at the same hospital as competing interns but some elements of canon are still there.

still fixing all the cracks by @emma-arthur -  (3,400) this is a pre-canon story, set when Alex is 14. He’s still a soft child, being tortured by his dad, and soaking up the attention from Liz, Rosa and Arturo when he breaks a glass and spirals. Heavy discussion of child abuse and homophobic abuse, but a really good exploration of the canon-neglected Liz & Alex friendship, plus with that paternal Arturo Ortecho in the mix...

Ophiuchus by @planetsam - (11,600) the other bright side of season 2 was the reveal of Walt Sanders as being not only Michael’s boss, but someone who knew his mother, knew what he was, and silently looked out for him...now of course I wish he had been more overt in doing this, but fanfic once again has fixed this canon-oversight. This is an incredible look through Walt’s eyes as he gets in over his head adopting an alien child, especially one who already had issues from previous foster placements. I could read a million words in this verse.

The Michael Sanders AU by @prouvaireafterdark (17,000 ) And speaking of great AUs where Michael is raised by Walt, I would be really amiss in not mentioning this one. It’s got hot high school Malex moments, emotional/hurt comfort for both Michael’s past foster placements but also the shit Alex is living with at home. I have to say “Honey if You Stay” is my favorite, just because of how badly I wanted to hug teen Alex...

and finally, no found family rec list could be complete without mentioning the epic series To Raise a Child (117,000 in progress) by @haloud and @maeglinthebold - season 2 put some hits on my headspace and emotional reserves, not to mention 2020 nonsense, so I’m dreadfully behind in commenting on this story. It’s just a huge emotional bandaid for me right now- it takes the idea of “what if the adults in Roswell actually looked out for their children (and other peoples children) and protected them from shit” and what would that change. Michael was found at 7 and then runs away to Roswell at 10, so yeah, humans have already done their best to convince him the world sucks and only finding his siblings matters... Jim Valenti steps in, knowing what he is, and finds him a place in Roswell with Arturo Ortecho. Anyway, everyone gets a turn- Jim, Mimi, the kids, etc in the story, it’s well rounded and fleshed out. Obviously being a malex person my favorite parts are the kid-friendship/this-is-just-a-crush moments in second story, where if you hadn’t lost your heart to Michael Ortecho by then, well, you’re a goner after that story. 

I Could Build Your Heart A Home (malex recs)

time will lie down and be still by @islndgurl777 (29,600) the Practical Magic AU - which I loved but I have never seen the movie it’s based on lol... anyway, this story almost belonged up with my found family dynamic recs, because the story opens with Isobel and Michael being 7 and 8 years old alien siblings and left with Mimi Deluca to raise with her daughter Maria, because with their father recently dead, their mother would soon follow as a species level soulmate bond. Michael vows never to fall in love. Then there’s a beautiful friendship between Maria, Liz, Isobel and Michael as they grow up together that I just wanted to roll around in forever... However this is a Malex rec, so once Alex enters the story in high school and things go down similarly with Jesse, Michael is heartbroken, his soulmate (he thinks) is gone, vanished into the Air Force, and he spends the next 10 years helping Maria, going to school with Liz, and keeping in touch with Isobel. Until 2018 when Isobel finds out her perfect man was like them, an alien, and bad, and they are forced to cover up his murder. Then Alex comes to town. But the soulmate storyline is the winner here and I just re-read it again.

here everyone knows (you’re the way to my heart) by @adamsparirsh (19,700) So this story tackles a dynamic that think will be the death-knell to the Alex/Forrest relationship- the weight of the alien secret and Alex’s responsibility gland and what that looks like to someone who wants to be in a relationship with him. The exclusion. But outside of that- there’s this part of Alex that isn’t willing to let anyone in that isn’t already there, and that’s Michael. I’m fucking weak for stories where these two assholes can’t connect with anyone but each other, and this one hits it. There’s also so many lovely friendship dynamics between everyone showing up for Alex- like Rosa, Isobel, Max, Maria. Obviously this is a Malex-is-endgame story, even though it starts Alex/Forrest.

it’s a long road back to you by @magsthemagical  (17,000) This was an interesting, now AU take on what if Maria/Michael dated at the same time as Alex/Forrest, and honestly, I thought basted on the season two spoilers that was where we were heading. I was gobsmacked by 2x13. Anyway, here’s a story that discusses the tension that would happen if there had been simultaneous dating going on…the parts where Michael sees Alex being open with someone other than him were very raw and true to how I would think he would feel. For 10 years he wanted that and didn’t get it, and so of course the problem was probably him?? Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot, and again felt robbed that we are heading into a new triangle for season 3. 

untouched by @prouvaireafterdark (5,200) - okay, you know when you have an alien soulmate idea in your head and you want it to appear on the page, and then it does and it’s everything you wanted? That’s what happened to me when ‘Untouched’ appeared. Obviously it’s AU, but my reptile brain just loves the idea that Michael and Alex can’t get off with anyone else, and then that frustration builds into a sexy explosion... there’s also some communcation happening with these clowns. But seriously for 5,000 words, A LOT HAPPENS here and I loved every word.

Would you come home by @caitlesshea (1000) How great would have it been if season 2 had ended with Michael and Alex found a baby in a stasis pod instead of Beardy Jones? Like seriously, this short little fic healed so many of my wounds from season 2 that I couldn’t help but include it here. I would take 50,000 more words in this sadly AU take. 

Hoarding you by @foramomentonly (1200) okay, so the rain smell, like 2x04 was low key my favorite episode of RNM ever, especially with Alex throwing that flirty line “It’s smells like rain, that’s what you smell like under the grease and bourbon’ and this author takes that line, and fucking murders me with the idea that Alex can’t move on because of that smell. And Michael is now his, and finds out about it. This is my head canon, okay? No one can talk me out of it.

If you like any of these recs, please leave a comment on the story- a ‘this was awesome’ is enough to propell an author into the stratosphere with happiness, so don’t worry about coming up with a unique, never before shared insight- sometimes a keyboard smash and emogi makes all the difference!

[the-evil-authoress]

GX Month Day 20: Free Day 2/Support Fellow Creators

Show some love for your favorite creators, or leave the day free for whatever you please!

YES

3

2

1

READ THESE FICS

Aftermath by meggannn “Post-5DX, the recession has forced the Yu-Gi-Oh protagonists to live in an apartment building together to save money. It's not always fun and card games.”

Off the Clock by meggannn “A missing scene from the Bonds Beyond Time movie. If the tournament started at noon and our heroes said goodbye at sunset, what did they do for all that time in between?”

More than One is a Crowd by Sophisticated_Adult “Well, if anyone was going to appear on his doorstep one day without hearing from them in years toting along a mysterious time-travelling biker from the future, of course it was going to be Judai.”

What Lies Within by EntameWitchLulu “A tiny rip in time is all it takes to drag five unsuspecting young boys from their worlds and drop them into a facility of shadow and danger. Trapped in a labyrinth of darkness, will they be able to escape when all the vault doors are open? "This will be an interesting game indeed..." [Happy Halloween]”

Assemble! Yu-Tagonists by driftingstar “Summary: In which Atem has some doubts about the current team assignments. Secret agent AU. Drabble Collection.”

An Hourglass of Stars by EntameWitchLulu “When an unconscious Judai appears mysteriously in front of Yusei, Yusei has more questions than answers. And when Judai awakes and remembers little of how he got there himself, the mystery only deepens. Now, with the WRGP already close on their heels, Judai will team up with Yusei to fight this new threat - but what was the reason for Judai's appearance in the first place?”

The Sum of His Parts by klairevoyance “ “It really wasn’t your fault,” Yuya confirmed softly from the front seat of Yusaku's car. “But it may be time to retire the phrase ‘break your face’.” ”

Ephemeral by triste “Men bond better when they're naked.“

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons by Tenka “It's a small restaurant. They shouldn't be able to get into nearly as much trouble as they do. In which Atem and Yugi run a small business with some eccentric workers in their midst. [Restaurant!AU]”

Texts From Beyond Time by Eldritch “ "--hold on," Juudai said, throwing the laptop back in his bag and stuffing Pharaoh in after it, "I gotta turn off my phone before we go. I probably won't get any reception in the past, anyway." A log of messages sent and received by Juudai's phone before and after BBT, because why wouldn't you text during the apocalypse? Implied Juudai/Yubel, Juudai/Johan, and Ed/Kaiser.”

Makes Perfect Sense To Me by RaichuWrites “Juudai "Jaden" Yuki's life gets turned upside down when the new kid on the block arrives and throws him for a loop. When Jesse arrives, he's hoping things will go smoothly for him this year. Then he locks eyes with a brown eyed brunette and all those plans go down the drain. //Inspired by downwithwritersblock's monthly prompt set for May 2018, and 'Practice Makes Perfect' by Cute Is What We Aim For. Find it on your music streaming service and give it a listen while you read!”

GX Headcanons collection of fics by SoulOfAFangirl684

Manjoume Thunder(struck) by tatersalad5001 “Slade and Jagger. Yeah. His brothers. That was a thing that happened. They'd just had to go and broadcast his duel on TV, hadn't they? Try to show the world that the Princeton family dominated every aspect of life, including dueling. And Chazz probably could've proven it in a duel against most opponents, but against Jaden? He didn't stand a chance. He never had, in any point the two of them had ever dueled. That dumb Slifer was too good.”

DUEL Heroes by domino_mask “Jaden has always wanted to be a Hero, but lately he’s done nothing but save kittens from trees. When he ends up saving someone who didn’t need to be saved, he’ll get much more than he asked for.”

Stepping in Time by exuberant_imperfection “Jesse Anderson is your average 15-year-old band geek. Then he changes schools and meets Jaden Yuki, and suddenly his life takes a turn for the weird. Features lots of geeky band adventures, a bit of angst, and plenty of fluff.”

Mirror Shards by oogenesis “Snippets of Zexal and GX characters in the AU world of Arc V. Latest: The Marufujis have a prisoner.”

Forget-Me-Nots and Second Thoughts by Prismatic Bell (Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor) “Jyuudai Yuuki was not always the central focus of Johann's life. Seventeen years of it came before Jyuudai, after all.”

Anything and everything by Higuchimon, EntameWitchLulu, and Heleentje.

And a shout out to @itsashowtime for freaking gorgeous artwork.

Alternate creative piece for today over on Ao3!

[bigskydreaming]

Speaking of Riley and other friends who are excellent, allow me to take a moment to pimp some of their books if anyone’s got some spare coin and is looking for good reads while on lockdown.

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

It’s the start of Jordan Sun’s junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, she’s an Alto 2, which—in the musical theatre world—is sort of like being a vulture in the wild: She has a spot in the ecosystem, but nobody’s falling over themselves to express their appreciation. So it’s no surprise when she gets shut out of the fall musical for the third year straight. But then the school gets a mass email: A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshiped . . . revered . . . all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.

Rio’s got two other books you should also check out, I just grabbed this one at random because they’re all great (though its actually ‘7 Ways We Lie’ that’s my personal fave because Reasons).

Forest of Souls by Lori M Lee

Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing, but she’s intent on becoming something. After years of training to become the queen’s next royal spy, her plans are derailed when shamans attack and kill her best friend Saengo.

And then Sirscha, somehow, restores Saengo to life.

Unveiled as the first soulguide in living memory, Sirscha is summoned to the domain of the Spider King. For centuries, he has used his influence over the Dead Wood—an ancient forest possessed by souls—to enforce peace between the kingdoms. Now, with the trees growing wild and untamed, only a soulguide can restrain them. As war looms, Sirscha must master her newly awakened abilities before the trees shatter the brittle peace, or worse, claim Saengo, the friend she would die for.

This one is the start of a new duology and doesn’t actually come out until June 23rd, but Lori’s got a couple other books out already that are also worth the read. Her Infinite series starts with Gates of Thread and Stone and has the first two books out, there will be a concluding third volume still to come. But I’m lucky enough to have gotten to read Forest of Souls in advance cuz Nyah nyah (I’m so mature, phear my age and wisdom) and its by faaaaar my favorite of hers to date, including more than just the other two books she’s had published so far, and just look at that cover. Ugh. I love it so much. 

(It wasn’t her original cover, actually, they originally wanted to go with this cover of Suck that made me go umm how do you say “Eww” in polite, and authors have little to no feedback they can give on the cover, but Lori took a shot and sent in some examples of other cover artists she really liked and thought had styles fitting her image of the book better, and they picked one of the ones she sent and commissioned a whole new cover, and voila, ended up going with the above cover in all its spooky, thematically ominous glory.) 

On The Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

A thrilling, thought-provoking novel from one of young-adult literature’s boldest new talents. January 29, 2035. That’s the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise’s drug-addicted mother is going, they’ll never reach the shelter in time. A last-minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter—a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she’ll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister? When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

Cory is actually one of my oldest friends lmao, like, I first met her through another writing friend when we both roleplayed on this messageboard X-Men: Evolution RPG over fifteen years ago, and just....somehow never lost track of each other through all our various hyper-fixations and divergent fandoms and even with years-long ‘vanishing from the internet’ periods by yours truly (I am was mysterious and enigmatic, hear me roar). This is actually her third published novel? Or maybe second, I forget the order....her first, Otherbound, is great too, she’s written a Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in novel for Marvel, and she’s got her next book, “The Art of Saving the World” coming out this September, and its soooo good and head-trippy and the premise is so mindfucky that I have no idea how she pulled it off as well as she did and its great and you will love it or you will answer to me (lol no you won’t, I am all talk, I bruise like a peach, don’t doxx me yo). But On The Edge of Gone remains my personal fave of hers, Denise is an in-text disabled autistic black girl and suuuuuuch a fantastic main character, and her love for her family against the backdrop of an apocalypse actually in its on-going stage, no post about it, is like.....unfortunately a little too prophetic in various ways, lolol, but like, timely as hell and resonates. 

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Welcome to Andover, where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship--only it turns out to be for the towns most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, whom Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then theres the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.

I actually met C.B. on tumblr here, via this account, thanks to a mutual mutual, which just goes to show you never know who you might end up meeting on tumblr dot hellsite dot org, and only after that fact did we find out that we had various other mutual friends from our writing/publishing circles of friends, including Cory, lolol, so y’know....small world. But this series has three books out, with a fourth to come, and its such awesome fun, with superpower hijinks galore, an Asian protag and tons of LGBTQ+ supporting characters, trans superheroes, and compelling plots. She’s also writing Ben 10 comics for Boom! Studios, a comic book company that does original content but also publishes a ton of licensed properties like various other cartoons like Ben 10, the Power Rangers, etc, etc. And this reminds me there’s a certain story she was working on the last time we met up for coffee like, lololol probably three years ago now, which means I am way overdue to bug her about it and ask “Is it done yet is it done yet can I read it yet is it done yet” because I am a paragon of patience and a bastion of self-control, obvsly.

Anyway, here endeth the pimping of my friends, go forth and buy ye their novels, verily and such. Or y’know. Don’t. If you don’t want to be cool, I guess. Nerds. (LOL no but if you like my content and posts and topics I think you stand a better than average likelihood of enjoying at least one of the books by the aforementioned ladies, and you’d be supporting LGBTQ+ authors as there’s nary a straight among them. LOL, like I would ever have straight friends, hahahaha could you imagine, what would we even do).  

[angrycowboy]

A couple weeks ago, I decided that for my birthday, I was going to attempt to put together some of my favorite things this fandom has created. I say *some* because this is an incomplete list. There are so many wonderful and talented creators in this fandom that this list would go on forever otherwise. If I have I ever reblogged something of yours, flailed in the tags, reached out to via DM or sent you a message, talked on discord or even Twitter, know that I love and adore not only the things you’ve created, but you yourself as part of this fandom.

And now, without further ado…

FIC

memento by @nielrian

I was obsessed with the idea of coming up with the backstory to the photo we see Michael look at in 1x02. When was it taken? Does Alex have a copy? Did Alex bring his with him to the other side of the world? How often do you think Michael looked at his own copy? And Nicki took a little prompt of mine, and wrote an achingly gorgeous piece about one photograph, and it’s significance to Malex in less than 700 words.

a little something to make me sweeter by @partsofthesamecosmicbeing

Camluca + D.E.B.S. is like a recipe for the perfect fic. I freaking love the movie, and when I saw this fic pop up on tumblr one day? I couldn’t even contain my excitement (seriously, the tags on my reblog were just me flailing wildly because it felt like Ly had reached into my brain and written something I wanted to read before I even knew it myself). Casting Alex as Scud and including Malex in the mix just made me love this fic even more.

And the Sun Rose Red by @michaels-blackhat

A Miluca Kissing Kate Barlow AU? SIGN. ME. UP. I adore Christi, and I adore her writing. One day she was like, “miluca kissing kate barlow au?” and the only appropriate answer to that is HECK YES. Michael/Maria is also a dynamic that just works for this AU, given their canon relationship, and Michael’s penchant for fixing things and Maria’s desire to have someone just be there for her. *runs off to re-read fic*

something broken in this town by @irolltwenties

Okay so, Meagn is one of my favorite people in this fandom. We kinda ramble at each other, and one day this happened where she started talking about the parents. About the relationship Jesse, Jim, and Mimi had as kids, as teenagers, as young adults. How they got sucked into aliens and government conspiracies. How they became the people we see and hear about in S1. If you’ve ever had the privilege of talking with Meagn, you know how amazing her mind is, how she takes these characters and the mere scraps we’ve been given in canon with some of them, and creates entire lives for them, and it’s beautiful.

open up my eager eyes by @haloud

It took me a while to get into Mylex, but apparently it was just because I hadn’t read Hal’s series yet. I’m usually terrible about multi-shipping, but once I find a writer that nails the characters down, I could probably read anything they write. And Hal writes all three of them perfectly. (I mean, Hal is just a phenomenal writer in general, but I digress.)

META

Michael’s bisexuality by @chasingshhadows

There’s been a lot said in the fandom about Michael’s bisexuality and how it’s been portrayed. While the show was airing, I was having trouble finding people who felt the same way I did about how it was being shown - that it wasn’t problematic, but that it was good and accurate. Not to mention that it made me feel seen. I tried writing out what I was feeling but nothing sounded right - until Chasing wrote this piece. It was everything I’d been trying to find the words to express, and it remains one of my absolutely favorite pieces of her writing.

Semiotics of Roswell by @hannah-writes

Hannah did this amazing thing where she took the camera work of RNM and analyzed the shit out of it. And in some moments of doubt, where I was still worried about Malex because of the direction the show had been taking, Hannah’s semiotics (or better known as “Why Malex is Endgame”) pointed out how the camerawork for Malex and Echo is very similar, not to mention deliberate as fuck.

Maria Can’t Catch a Break by @ober-affen-geil

I adore Maria Deluca. She has gotten such a bad rap in the fandom because of the “love triangle” business. But fandom in general has done her dirty in that without removing the shipper goggles it is very hard to see that the show has established Maria as a character in her own right, just as much as it has with Kyle and Alex. And that’s why I love Riley’s meta about everything that Maria is dealing with, what she’s going through, and what it’s been like for her to be the one left behind 10 years ago.

GIFSETS/EDITS

i would know him in death, at the end of the world by @vlamito

I don’t even remember now who told me I had to read The Song of Achilles - it was pre-RNM hyperfixation, but I absolutely loved it (I definitely cried while reading it). And then I saw this gifset, oh mah gawd. Mich just has this ability to find quotes from other media and fit them seemlessly into Malex. And the moments she chooses for her gifsets are utter perfection. I think everyone has probably seen this now, but it’s a gifset I just keep going back to over and over again.

Are you okay? by @maxortecho

So I adore Echo. There is something about their softness, the way they look at each other, the way they act around each other that is just beautiful. Mo made this set, and pointed out in the tags that Liz pushes her arms underneath Max like she’s going to hug him, and it broke me. Like, I thought that scene in the finale was heartbreaking enough, but pointing that out? It hurts and I loved it.

Leading Ladies Appreciation by @lsobelevans

Lucie does some amazing things with color that truly make her edits stand out, and stick out in your mind. And it’s one of the things I love about her gif sets especially - it makes them uniquely hers, her own signature if you will. And this edit is no different - the splashes of color, the texture used for the background, the highlighting of the leading ladies is stunning work. 

Same page/Different book by @bisexualalienblast

Let’s just say that picking ONE gifset of Amanda’s is an impossibility for me, okay? Amanda’s sets are the reason I wanted to learn how to gif - her gifs are beautifully colored, they’re crisp, she always picks the best fonts, they’re smooth, and her ideas are stellar. Anyway, she more recently made this set, which just so perfectly illustrates Malex’s issue IN TWO GIFS. That’s it. Their entire problem in S1, right there. Beautiful.

VIDEO

Juice | Women of Roswell by @isakvaltersnake

Katie is a wizard with the video editing. She’s going to be a force when we’ve got more than one season of footage to play around with. And this video is fun and hot and LOOK AT THE WOMEN. They are smart, they are kind, they are flirty, they have agency, and they’re all hella sexy.

Weird Science | Liz & Michael - Science Bros by @soberqueerinthewild

Hands down, this is one of my favorite videos from the fandom, and definitely one of my favorite things Christina has made (though I basically love everything she does). It’s silly and ridiculous and 100% fun. She found every bit of footage in S1 and matched it to the song perfectly. It’s impossible to watch this video and not smile and laugh - it will instantly brighten your day.

MISC

RNM Texts From Last Night by @audreyblanche

I am slightly biased here, because while Irena came up with the idea, I encouraged her to actually go through with it, promising her that the fandom would enjoy it. So because of that it’s next to impossible for me to pick a favorite out of all the ones she’s done for this series (though the one where we settled on the Camluca ship name, as well as one I specifically requested for Malex come close), and I’m hoping that with the new season (and when she returns from hiatus), she can pick this up again.

[thegeminisage]

Hoiii !! 01 / Pride and Prejudice ; 02 / Morgwen ; 003 / Ian Comb :3

THANK YOOOU u were the only one who sent one

from this meme:

PRIDE & PREJUDICE

Favorite character: well obviously it’s lizzie bennet who according to that personality quiz i am a lot like, so

Least Favorite character: for the first half of the movie it was darcy LMFAO now i think it’s that creepy preacher guy who proposed to lizzie out of nowhere

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): p&p doesn’t have that many ships so i can’t really answer this one...i liked lizzie/darcy in the end tho lowkey bingley’s sis and lizzie had some huuuge gay energy

Character I find most attractive: KEIRA KNIGHTLY NO CONTEST

Character I would marry: oh i’d marry darcy for that cashmoney 

Character I would be best friends with: i don’t know her name but the goth sister that inspired jane eyre

a random thought: what stupid fucker has a STATUE of himself IN HIS HOUSE? darcy what the fuck. oh also we call him mr. darcy so like whats his first name. i know its fitzgerald but doesnt he have another friend with that name. it didnt occur to me to ask until after the credits

An unpopular opinion: i don’t think i have one except for how i think the bust is stupid. also i don’t think that youngest sister should have married that gambling soldier dude but Values Were Different back then. i couldnt figure out why everyone was so relieved at first like GIIIRL she deserves better

My Canon OTP: lizzie/darcy obvs

My Non-canon OTP: goth sister/let her play the piano

Most Badass Character: LIZZIE

Most Epic Villain: darcy’s weird fucking aunt who came in like a wrecking ball at the end

Pairing I am not a fan of: probably that youngest girl and her fuckboy husband

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): GOTH SISTER

Favourite Friendship: lizzie and her big sis :(

Character I most identify with: gotta be lizzie, right. we even have a same name

Character I wish I could be: lizzie because now she’s rich with a husband who drinks respect women juice

MORGWEN

When I started shipping them: i think like in the first episode or one of the first episodes when gwen brings her flowers to cheer her up

My thoughts: im sooo angry at the lack of good morgwen after The Poisoning morgana had NO REASON to turn on gwen and i think gwen was probably the only person she would have let pull her back from the edge but no we can’t have THAT

What makes me happy about them: like it’s a very similar dynamic to merlin/arthur isn’t it...less antgonism for the same loyalty, devotion, and intimacy, the same need to keep it hidden from prying eyes, the same longing and Keeping The Magic A Secret and wondering if your nonmagical bae will still love you after it all comes out...

What makes me sad about them: everything involving morgana going evil :(

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: i can’t think of any trope that i see specifically with these two that bugs me...there’s a lot of things people do with gwen or morgana separately that drive me bananas but generally if it’s gwen SLASH morgana the author does right by them. i guess making them a convenient bg ship rather than a ship in their own right...like of course it’s convenient but they have so much to offer...

Things I look for in fanfic: morgana NOT being evil >:(

My wishlist: a BETTER season 3!!!!

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: i’m happy to shop gwen with arthur, with arthur and merlin at the same time, or with lancelot...uh for morgana really there’s only one person i ship with her and it’s gwen! so!

My happily ever after for them: reverse stockholm beauty and the beast style. when morgana captures gwen she thinks she’s gonna brainwash her but what actually happens is that gwen is kind to her and the gap between them disappears and they fall in love all over again and morgana is like i must FREE you and gwen is like i wanna stay with YOU anyway they get married and help return magic to the world

IAN COMB!!! ah bless this boy

How I feel about this character: BABY. BABY BOY

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: BRIGITTA ONLY they were made 4 each other babey

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: i like to think the alpha djinn just lets him live because she thinks he’s really funny. i definitely think he’s really funny

My unpopular opinion about this character: all my opinions are the popular ones because i’m co-creator

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: just...more of him. i miss him

Favorite friendship for this character: aw ian and ben. what a pair of dumb fucks. not a single brain cell between them

My crossover ship: so this doesn’t count as a crossover but as for characters he never met...conceptually ian/jesse would be Incheresting

[waltoncreek]

welcome to walton creek, ashley spinelli ! i see you’re eighteen and look a lot like ella purnell. i’m sure you’ll adjust to your new home in no time. don’t forget to check the after acceptance checklist. you have 24 hours to send in your account.

𝒐𝒐𝒄 𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

name/alias, age, timezone: jess, 22, bst/gmt

preferred pronouns: she/her or they/them

𝒊𝒄 𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

character: ashley spinelli

faceclaim: ella purnell

age: eighteen

brief description of the character: 

ashley spinelli… where do i start? in a place like walton creek, this short-tempered, rebellious, tiny badass sticks out like a sore thumb. the days of third street school are long gone, but not much about spinelli has changed at all. she’ll still threaten to give you a ‘knuckle sandwich’ if you call her by her first name, and her bark is still as big as her bite.

spinelli is… many things. she’s a tomboy, a loudmouth, and unapologetically herself. despite what you may think, her abrasive and aggressive ways aren’t to be blamed on her upbringing, which was in fact pretty normal. raised by average parents in an average part of her hometown, her situation was not one to complain about. instead, her… ‘difficult’ persona can be pinned on a multitude of things: the influence from her rebellious older brothers, her naturally wild spirit, and something she’s struggled with ever since she can remember: a tendency to overcompensate for her insecurities.

spraypainting the walls of darkened alleyways, challenging her friends to fisticuffs just for fun, or standing up for the underdog – these are the things you can find spinelli doing. despite being eighteen now and having just graduated high school before being inexplicably whisked away to walton creek, spinelli wasn’t the type to go to college. instead, she was working at a skate park, teaching kids how to skateboard. not your typical job, i suppose, but one that fits spinelli like a glove. you see, despite the tough demeanor, she loves to help people. every dirtbag has their soft side, you know!

being spontaneously transported out of her familiar upstate new york life and into walton creek is sure to be an exciting concept to explore through my writing here. as someone whose life was lacking direction back at home, you could say that spinelli didn’t have as much to leave behind as some of the other new unsuspecting inhabitants did, i’m really hyped to see how she’ll grow and mature in this new setting, something that being in such unfamilar territory will require her to do.

what they think of being sent to walton creek:

as alluded to in the last paragraph of the above section, spinelli didn’t exactly have too much lose when she was whisked out of her usual setting. in fact, if she was being honest, she’d say she was getting kind of tired of the life she was living back home in the small town that she’d lived in her whole life. though, that isn’t to say she wasn’t secretly terrified. this is something that’s particularly difficult for spinelli, as she has always struggled with showing her inner, deeper emotions. after speaking to some of the other people who also seem to have magically poofed into the town, she’s learned that on some occasions, they’re arriving alongside familiar faces from back where they came from. spinelli is pretty lost without her gang, so she’s hoping she’ll be able to receive a similar stroke of luck (hint hint!)

it’s been a little while now, and she’s… well, she’s coping. she doesn’t hate the place, she’s just confused, as are all of the others who are in the same boat. despite this, though, she’s always been strong enough to pull through any situation — so she’s confident she can do the same with this one. 

her reputation back in her hometown was a bad one. scallywag, trouble-causer, public nuisance. it’s unclear yet, whether or not she’ll end up with a similar reputation in her new home of walton creek.

𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚

favorite disney movie: too many faves to pick just one, so here’s multiple: alice in wonderland, peter pan, mulan, lady & the tramp and coco.

favorite disney character: probably alice, mary poppins, or flynn rider!

favorite disney song: again, too many to pick just one fgklhjfgh. reflection from mulan, in a world of my own from alice in wonderland or hawaiian rollercoaster ride from lilo & stitch!

𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆?

a pinterest board for her can be found here!

[canaryatlaw]

okay. well. today was all around pretty good. I woke up to my alarm at 8:30 am and got out of bed despite my tiredness, put the breakfast order into uber eats, and Jess showed up soon afterwards. Food came, and we ate while prepping for our hour of the podcast marathon at 10. I threw the basic ingredients together to make tomato sauce and had that on the stove for dinner so it could cook all day and be super good. Once it was time we tuned into the live chat and everything and started talking. Since we really don’t have that much to talk about still so we talked about the upcoming content we’ll get at SDCC now that we know the pilot will be being screened and we’re getting a panel and signing, so that’s all very exciting. From there we kinda transitioned into a more general topic about cons and the importance of centering queer women in stories about queer women, kinda building off the conversation we had with Dot-Marie Jones a few weeks back, which included some fairly heavy shading of Clexacon which I give exactly zero fucks about because they deserve everything they have coming for them. From there we just talked about our expectations for the show in general based on the info we have so far and interacting with the live chat and the questions they had. So it went pretty well, I was satisfied with it. Once we were done Jess headed out because she had to run to the city clerk’s office to get some sticker for her car which was gonna take like two hours or some shit like that. So for a while I got some work done, finished editing the brief and sent it in to my boss, so I’m officially out of actual work to do until he gets back to me, which is probably a good thing really because it means I can actually get done some of the many things I should be doing but haven’t done yet because I’ve been using all the time that I would do those things to work, mainly finish my clothing switch over and cleaning my kitchen, which is such a hot mess right now. So once I finished I started the process of pulling my winter clothes out of my dresser so I can put the summer clothes in. I realized I have like, a ton of skirts in the bottom of my pants drawer that I never actually wear but keep there on the belief that maybe I’ll wear them some day, but I probably never will so I’ll have to thin those out some. I just have to keep all the work clothes in there because who knows when I might need some professional clothing. So I got through some of that before messaging Jess and planning to get lunch with her. We went to the drag bar/hamburger place because since it was the afternoon there’s no chance we could get caught in one of the many shows they do (not because we wouldn’t like the show, just that Jess feels like we’re obligated to stay for the whole thing and last time we ended up there for like, 3 hours lol. so that was good, we definitely over-ordered appetizers and I barely ate my actual meal, but I brought it home with me so it’ll probably get eaten at some point. Once we finished we returned to my apartment where Jess bugged me into playing the new BTS World game on my phone, so I decided I would at least have fun with this and read all the dialogue out loud very dramatically and pronounced the boys names as they were spelled in the game (there’s this weird thing with however the game got translated they didn’t use the like, generally accepted spellings of their names in English because some of them don’t translate perfectly, so oo’s get turned into u’s and some k’s get turned into g’s and vice versa, so instead of Yoongi and Jungkook they have Yunki and Jeongguk) which Jess thought was the worst but most amusing thing ever and was between bouts of laughter and begging me to stop doing it 😂it was very entertaining. So that went on for a while before we realized we still had some time to kill before the assemble podcast hour, so we decided to watch Krypton season 1, which I’ve seen but Jess hasn’t and tbh I didn’t remember it all that well lol. so we got through the first like 3 and a half episodes I think. My mental timeline of what happened when in the series was definitely off, but oh well. Around 7 I started making the rest of dinner, which was pretty easy, but sadly with the addition of other ingredients the sauce ended up being too salty and I was very sad about this because when I had tasted it prior it was like out of this world good, so that was a disappointment but oh well, know now for next time to be careful about that. So we ate what we could before the podcast started slightly after 8. so this was when all the hosts from the different podcasts on the network all got on the live show together and just do a kind of season sum up, and we played dc comics madlibs which was hilarious, and then go over our favorite and least favorite characters or new heroes or seasons of what show and such, which is always super entertaining to hear people’s different opinions on these things, and of course there are plenty of jokes interjected in between all of it. So that ended up going until like 10:30 when we finally signed off, and we ended up making like $2,252 for the charity (it was at $2,242 but I donated the last ten bucks so it could end in 52 because dc comics) which was pretty awesome. Everyone was pretty tired at that point so Jess went home, and I just like lazily laid on my couch for a bit before starting to get ready for bed, and now I am here. I’m super excited about going to pride tomorrow, I can sleep till like 9 which is better than some mornings at least but it’s now 1 am and I am pretty damn tired, so I’m definitely going to bed now. Goodnight dears. Hope you’re having a great weekend.

[littlebitwriter]

My TOY STORY 4: The Toy Story film Pixar would never make!

My Toy Story 4 isn’t for the kids. I’m taking it to a different place. It’s the Logan of the Toy Story franchise. The tone is true to the original trilogy but more adult. It’s like Logan meets Sausage Party meets Cabin in The Woods. It’d be a Toy Story film that would be a comedy horror film or black comedy. Going to places you would never think Toy Story or any Pixar film would go.

The bio of my Toy Story 4 is ‘Toy Story 4 is an upcoming American 3D computer-animated ‘black comedy’ film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the fourth installment in Pixar's Toy Story series, and the sequel to Toy Story 3 (2010). It is the first Pixar film to receive an R-rating. In my mind it would be the highest-grossing R-rated animated film probably of all time.

It is the finale to the franchise. If a kid who was around seven in 1995 watched and loved the first Toy Story then grew up falling in love with film and genre fiction that kid would be around thirty now. This is a film for the kids that grew up with the first two Toy Story films and cried their eyes out during the third but doing a completely different type of movie that ultimately shows why you shouldn’t have continued the franchise.

Since Pixar is just a extremely collaborative company they’d need like a writer’s room for Toy Story 4 with Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us), Drew Goddard (Cabin in The Woods, Bad Times At The El Royale), Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3), Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) and of course Pixar masters John Lassetter and Andrew Stanton. Even though it is my idea I wouldn’t ever put myself in the writer’s room for a film of such anticipation of Toy Story 4. I think this is a group of writers alongside the Pixar genius of John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton that could 100% do this film justice.

I may not be super in-depth and very vague about the film but I hope it makes sense. It probably is really bad. I’m sorry, I’m young and dumb.

The idea in terms of story is quite a bit like what the team behind Toy Story 4 is actually going to be doing. This would be a Toy Story film with a feel that’s the mix of Little Miss Sunshine and Logan with a lot of dark satirical ideas about society, a lot of plot twist and story turns, that you would never expect. It would be the craziest, darkest, and scariest Pixar film yet but also one that could go toe to toe with many arthouse indie pictures for a ‘Best Picture’ nomination at the Oscars.

The film is set ten years after Toy Story 3 and the toys are at a dumpster. At the beginning of the film you don’t know how the toys got there but they are all completely torn up and nearly destroyed, this dumpster is almost treated like a post-apocalyptic wasteland/underworld for toys. There’s the toys at the dumpster and then on the quest to find this treasure that could save everything. It’s them going across the world on this road trip and there’s this villainous character called ‘The Mad Toy Doctor’ who knows of a toy’s sentience and knows of them as living beings trying to go after this treasure as well. Throughout the film a lot happens but by the end the toys of course win but there’s a heartfelt emotional ending. That ends with a Sopranos-esque ‘Cut to Black’ with instead of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ it’s You Gotta Friend in Me.

Each character individually is going through their own thing going on, Many of the other toys are still around Woody, Buzz, Bo-Peep, Jessie, Slinky, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Barbie, the little one eyed green aliens, and all of Bonnie’s toys from Toy Story 3 are dead and their remains are seen across this dumpster, throughout the film not at all really acknowledged.

WOODY: The film opens with Woody giving a voice over narration in the film and setting the tone for the movie. Particularly with an f-bomb. Then later you get a look at Woody’s eye and you can see it has fallen off and he makes use of an eye patch looking almost like John Wayne from 1969’s True Grit. Woody feels as if he’s failed all of the toys his friends. Throughout the film he’s on this quest of redemption and for a treasure he and the toys are looking for. Woody is viewing himself as the hero this western spaghetti western cowboy who will do the hard things to save the day. Buzz reminds him that he’s just a toy. Woody doesn’t know how to handle everything and dealing with the fact that to Andy and to Bonnie he thought of himself as more than a toy almost like a father figure of some kind weirdly enough. So Woody would have an arc throughout the film and in the end make a sacrifice to save his friends alongside Buzz.

BUZZ LIGHTYEAR: Buzz Lightyear has become completely unconfident and has become the furthest opposite of everything he thought he was in the first Toy Story film. Where he thought he was a space ranger instead he’s going through this existential crisis. Eventually he and Buzz make the ultimate sacrifice.

Jesse: She is dealing with the death of Bullseye and she is in a relationship with Buzz Lightyear. She is very depressed throughout the film.

Barbie: Dealing with the death of Ken and in a secret relationship with Mister Potato Head.

Mister Potato Head: Cheats on his wife and has an affair with Barbie and feels guilty ever since Mrs. Potato Head’s passing and commits suicide.

Bo-Peep: Bo-Peep has still never come back but there’s this dark twist that the Mad Toy Doctor is using Bo-Peep as a way to get to the toys. She was tortured and killed by the Mad Toy Doctor.

Rex: Rex is personally my favorite character in Toy Story, there is a scene where I kill him off and it’s really sad.

Slinky: He gets broken and tortured by the Mad Toy Doctor.

The Mad Toy Doctor: The villainous character. He calls himself a ‘doctor’ and creates new villainous toys that he sets out to kill the Toy Story gang. The villain is almost like Sid from the first Toy Story and Donny from Ted. However he is an old, old man He sets out to make the toy sentience to the public but by the end of the film is sent to a mental institution. The voice actor of this character in my mind would be Tim Curry. He would be the scariest villain in any animated film. He’d be the guy if all the pixar movies were connected that Carl Fredrickson from UP would punch in the face. The toys he creates are his own Buzz Lightyear, a G.I. Joe/Snake Eyes eseque toy named Jon, a Transformers looking toy who goes by the name of Morpher. He’s like the Superman villain Toyman almost. He is also in love with this old lady who is his wife who is really a baby doll he aged up.

Yeah it would be a yucky, freaky but hopefully funny Toy Story movie. There’s no humor in this post that I wrote but there 100% would be a lot of humor and heart in the film. It would be a true Toy Story film deconstructing all the classic tropes. However the film would be a lot better than what I have written here particularly with the writers I would love to see behind it. It’s a film that I would want from the franchise and could potentially be a real game changer for Pixar. Making not just a good kids movie but a legitimately good movie.

This may be terrible idea but I thought people would be interested :) I hope everyone has a lovely day! It’s just my weird dream Toy Story fanfiction. Very underdeveloped. Hopefully you enjoyed it.

LittleBitWriter

1/27/19

[amirosebooks]

Dean’s Motivation for Revenge

I saw @mittensmorgul‘s post about Dean saying yes to Michael and the way that choices suck sometimes the other day. I immediately started typing a long follow up out at work and had to shelve it when we got busy enough that I couldn’t justify writing meta on the clock. (Ugh, rude.) Then I saw @postmodernmulticoloredcloak‘s follow up post to that this morning and omg, yes.

I don’t have much to add to the second post, but I do want to touch on the post from Mittens.

In the week since the finale, I’ve seen a few people pointing out that Dean was the only one on Team Free Will (or any of the shows major players) who could kill Lucifer because he was the only one who wasn’t motivated by revenge for doing so. (I cannot, for the life of me, find the post I’m talking about here. Meta moves too fast in this fandom for me to keep up with 90% of the time.) And, while I sort of agree with that point, I also kind of... don’t.

Allow me to explain.

No, Dean was never directly a victim of Lucifer’s torture or particular breed of violence. But, Dean “Mother Hen” Winchester absolutely has a reason to go after Lucifer to get revenge, or justice or whatever you’d like to call it, on behalf of his family.

Warning, I like to use a lot of gifs in my meta...

Let’s start with Mary Winchester. Yes, she’s a huge bag of worms and confusing mother-sons relationship meta right now, but let’s go back. To the apocalypse. To Dean watching the position that Heaven and Hell put Mary in. That impossible choice she was forced to make between the life of the man Heaven made her love and the vague love she would have one day for her future kids.

Now, I’m not a parent, but I’ve known enough parents who have agreed that until you have your kid and meet them you have no idea how fiercely you can love someone. So let’s play with that idea.

Azazel was sent after Mary Winchester because the children from the Campbell and Winchester pairing had the potential to make good vessels for the upcoming battle between Lucifer and Michael. The big fight that Heaven and Hell had been building up to for, literally, ever.

So, good choice or not, Mary chose the love she could feel right then in that moment and the promised safety for her future children, and took the deal. Thus sealing Sam’s demon blood fate and setting herself up to burn on the ceiling in the opening credits to the show.

And Dean watched it all. There was nothing he could do to prevent it.

We can’t talk about Mary burning without talking about the effect it had on John Winchester. Because Heaven and Hell wanted Lucifer to be free and Michael to have his sword, Sam had to drink demon blood and Dean had to get charged with an impossible task to become the Righteous Man.

John Winchester, the once bright eyed soldier who married a woman he was fated to love but otherwise probably wouldn’t have had much contact with, basically became canon fodder to set up the war between Heaven and Hell.

Dean got to see John before the fire, before the deal Mary made, too. He got to see the smiling, joyful man his father never was in his lifetime with his own eyes. He got to meet the man his mother fell for. The man John was before Azazel got involved in their lives. The man John was before revenge consumed him and turned him into, arguably, a human monster.

Dean was there. He watched it all and he shouldered the impossible task of taking care of Sam and his father, no matter the personal cost.

(Best gif I could find of Dean’s time in hell in Tumblr’s gif search.)

ANYWAY, let’s talk about that impossible task. Take care of Sammy. That’s exactly what Dean did. Especially from that moment in the gif with John above, and definitely throughout Dean’s entire childhood and most of his adult life, he took care of Sammy. He sold his soul to keep Sam from dying, to protect Sam from what the demon blood had done to him. To keep him from having to be one of Azazel’s chosen kids.

[Incoming tangent that I swear will make sense in a minute.]

It didn’t help in the way he wanted, but he did it anyway.

Now, before I got so deep into SPN that my blog became wall to wall Winchesters and Team Free Will, I was heavily involved in a fandom for the Cut & Run book series. The series is about two (canon) bisexual FBI agents falling in love and fighting crime. One of the agents is a Marine and his best friend is a Boston police detective named Nick O’Flaherty. Nick was an abused kid who spent much of his childhood protecting his siblings and learning to be strong. Nick is one of my all time favorite characters ever. (And if I ever get the time and mental energy together enough to do a proper meta series, I’ll write one comparing him with Dean because omg. I know he’s not based on Dean, but the similarities hurt my soul because I want to wrap them both in blankets.)

And, spoiler alert, in the 8th book of the series Nick get pushed into torturing someone for information in order to find a killer and save a group of missing children. There was a lot going on with Nick in that book, but that moment intrigued me.

When the book came out, the fandom wrote a bunch of meta about it and I, for one, kept coming back to the question of “why Nick?” Why was he the one out of their little group of Force Recon Marines who was “trained to torture.” So I asked the author (or she responded to a meta post, the last few years have been fuzzy, but I remember her answer).

Nick was the one of the group who was perfect to train for torture because he would hate it. Nick is the mother hen of the group. He protects people, even people he doesn’t know, it’s who he is. Which means, if you force him to hurt someone, he’ll do it and he’ll do it quick because he doesn’t want to do it. This, unfortunately, makes him more efficient at the job than other characters who might use revenge or inner rage to take out their emotions on the person they’re trying to get information out of.

[Tangent coming back to SPN now...]

THIS is the same reason, in my opinion, that Alistair was able to break Dean and get him to pick up a knife in hell. They tried with John, but John was already too prone to lashing out physically. Dean, on the other hand, has always been softer than his father or his brother. (Sam is ruthless AF when he needs to be, and it’s sadly awesome to watch sometimes.) There was never a chance for John to be Michael’s true vessel. Or even his sorta useful one, not really. If they needed a Righteous Man, they needed someone who could be broken. Someone who could be pushed into doing terrible things and doing them quick to get shit done because he doesn’t want to do them.

Now let’s take on Sam Winchester. Dean’s charge. The kid Dean had to raise while John Winchester avenged the death of his soulmate. The kid Dean watched rebel against their father and abandon Dean (over and over) in search of college and a normal life. The kid Dean tried to be everything for, but always came up a little short (by Dean’s self-loathing coated standards).

He watched Sam lose his first love in the same way they lost their mother. At the same time Jess burned, so did Sam’s best shot at the normal life he’d wanted since he was old enough to want things. Dean watched Sam mourn and could do nothing to soothe it. He watched Sam seek out revenge and grow into the powers Azazel gifted him with. He watched Sam fall victim to his demon blood addiction and say yes to Lucifer and get trapped in the cage with Lucifer. He had to commit his brother when the hallucinations of Lucifer became too much for Sam to fight through.

Dean’s tried to protect Sam their entire lives, but the one thing he was never able to stand as a shield against was the kind of psychological (and other) torture Sam endured from Lucifer.

And then there’s Castiel. It’s been known for, at least, the last seven or eight seasons that one of the keys to Dean Winchester’s heart--or at the very least, gaining his ride or die protection and affection--is to save Sam when he couldn’t or, eventually, to save Cas. Much like Sam’s psychological torture, the one thing Dean has never been able to save Cas from is himself.

Which is why watching Cas take on abuse from Lucifer to spare Sam from it not once, but twice was huge for building up the trust and such that Dean feels for Cas. (Regardless of whether you ship them, that is fucking huge and it’s fairly obvious from the canon of the show that it’s drive Dean to protecting Cas and trying to save Cas multiple times over since then.)

Dean’s felt guilty for corrupting Cas into falling probably since Zachariah sent him to the Endverse, maybe sooner. But to watch a creature who was once so powerful and mighty and sure of himself and his cause utterly break under the weight of Sam’s memories of the cage had to layer that guilt on even more. Then to find out that Cas had said yes to Lucifer possessing him so that 1) Sam wouldn’t have to and 2) to clean up a mess (the Darkness) that Dean felt he caused? Ouch. 

Dean saw what being close to Sam’s memories of the cage did to Cas the first time, no fucking wonder he spent the last half of season eleven trying to get Lucifer to GTFO of his friend and most of season twelve trying to keep Cas from doing something stupid and Lucifer related again. Which, again, didn’t work because Dean cannot protect Cas from himself (or Lucifer, for that matter), no matter how much he’d like to. (Something I think Dean finally started to grasp hold of in season 13.)

Speaking of those stupid Lucifer related things Dean kept trying to keep Cas from getting tangled up in (and ultimately failed to prevent)... Jack!

Whether you love him or hate him or think he’s annoying, there’s a few undeniable things we know about Jack after spending a season with him. 1) He’s powerful AF. As he should be seeing as he’s half archangel and the son of fucking Lucifer. 2) For all that he’s this super powerful being, he’s also innocent AF in a way that’s rubbed against Dean’s MUST PROTECT instincts from the beginning of the season (after he got past the whole shoot to kill thing) 3) He brought Cas back from The Empty. (Well, he was able to wake Cas up in The Empty and Cas did all the work annoying his doppelgänger into eventually YEETing his ass out of there... anyway) 4) He reminded Dean of Cas when Cas was dead and gone and (presumably) lost to Dean forever. 5) Dean has claimed Jack as family and part of the new edition of Team Free Will. That means Jack officially has Dean’s ride or die (or ride AND die in many cases…) level of protection.

Now, given who Dean is as a character and a person, there’s absolutely no way in fuck you can convince me he’d want to see the aftermath of what would happen to someone who is so naturally sweet and innocent and powerful as Jack after Lucifer was done with him. Dean’s already seen what the idea of Lucifer did to his mom and his father. He’s seen what it did to his brother and his best friend. I do not at all believe he wants to relive that with Jack. Not after he’s 1) finally accepted the kid into his family and 2) saved the kid from the apocalypse world.

And this doesn’t even remotely touch on Dean seeing what became of Crowley after Lucifer kept him as a dog in hell or how Rowena went a little... off the rails trying to get her power back after Lucifer killed her for the second time.

So, no, I don’t really think Dean is the only one who didn’t have a motive for revenge against Lucifer. I think he’s the one with the most reason for revenge AND the most emotional capacity (since he’s the only one, other than Jack, who wasn’t traumatized by Lucifer) to take on the task.

THAT is why I think Dean said yes to Michael, consequences be damned.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

https://fashion-trendin.com/kieran-culkins-shirt-is-off/

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

When Kieran Culkin first started reading the script for “Succession,” he wondered whether it had been sent to the wrong person. The HBO powers that be originally thought he’d be a good fit for the character of Greg, a bumbling nitwit who gets high in his first scene and spends the rest of the first season failing to sidle his way up the ladder of a massive media and entertainment conglomerate owned by his great-uncle, Logan Roy.

Almost from Greg’s first line, Culkin knew he was wrong for the part. “He’s already a lot younger than I am, and just the voice ― I was, like, this is not me. I am not right for this.”

When I met Culkin at a small restaurant in the Noho neighborhood of Manhattan last Monday, it was just as clear to me as it was to him that he’s too old to play a character like Greg. But something in the Roy family’s dark saga held Culkin’s attention anyway. He said he kept reading the script, which follows the foibles of the billionaire Roy clan as its individual members vie for power within. A few pages later, Logan’s overconfident third son, Roman, appears, led into a meeting by a man hired explicitly to burn sage.

“Hey, hey, motherfuckers!” Roman proclaims to a room full of his father’s business associates.

“And I was, like, ‘Oh, who’s this fucking guy?’” Culkin said.

Culkin eventually got the part of Roman, an incompetent and lazy man-child who believes he wholly deserves the title of chief operating officer, even though he has little interest in doing any of the work that comes with it. Among the many nefarious faces that make up Logan’s Waystar Royco empire, Roman stands out as perhaps its most cynical ― a ratings-obsessed media executive motivated solely by profit. At one point, in his interpretation of corporate disruption, he takes off his shirt in a meeting, flexing and joyfully screaming “Blood!” at the thought of layoffs. During another, he gleefully tells his sister about a new viral video that is “evidence of precisely the kind of disgusting, liberal, metro butt-love that makes our viewership angry enough to buy pharmaceuticals.” To Roman, nothing could be better.

Culkin can’t say exactly what drew him to the morally depraved heir, described by his father as a “moron” and his brother as a “walking fucking lawsuit.” But it’s not hard to imagine some small part of Culkin was intrigued by the idea of playing such a sneering member of a media empire.

After all, Culkin’s distaste for the tabloid industry is beyond well-established. (“No matter what’s written there, it’s a total lie, even the person’s name, lie, lie, lie, lie, everything’s a lie,” he once told New York Magazine.)

But let’s not lump Culkin into that hyperpartisan Level 10 “FAKE NEWS” category of 2018 American paranoia. Mostly because when he told me “Now it’s a thing, ‘fake news,’” and I said, jokingly, “Fake news. You’re a believer,” he got nervous and pushed out a quick “no,” immediately realizing the millions of different ways such a quote could be aggregated, recirculated, quoted out of context and otherwise misinterpreted. You can almost see it now, can’t you? “Kieran Culkin Joins the Chorus: Media Is ‘Fake News.’”

Culkin’s distrust is of a more justifiable form, born out of a lifetime of his surname showing up in headline-grabbing tabloid fodder. From the moment his parents, Kit “The father from hell” Culkin and Patricia Brentrup, entered into an ugly, obsessively covered custody battle to when the National Enquirer proclaimed his eternally famous brother, Macaulay, had “6 Months to Live” in 2012 (he’s still alive), Culkin’s last name has served as a way to move and make paper ― the most intimate moments of his life repackaged as factually questionable entertainment content to sell ads against. 

Ron Galella via Getty Images

Macaulay and Kieran Culkin at the fifth annual American Comedy Awards back in 1991, just months after the release of the blockbuster hit “Home Alone.”

“There are things that are out there in the world as fact because it was written in print that are just completely false. My brother did not divorce his parents. They did not fight over his money,” he said. “But that’s out in the world as fact.

“I learned at a very young age to be, like, ‘Oh, I get it: It’s bullshit,’ shit that’s written in print.”

In person, Culkin ticks most of the boxes of adulthood: In his 30s. Takes his coffee black. Enjoys talking about his favorite East Village dives. Married five years. Nice watch. Clothes that fit. Hair slicked around his head just so. Like Roman, Culkin drops a “fuck” or “shit” every ninth word or so, as when he said to me, “Hold on, I’m going to eat the fuck out of these pickles. You say something for a minute, ’cause I’ve got a mouth full of shit.”

But no matter how many fucks he lets out ― and by my count, he let out around 25 over 40 minutes ― Culkin remains stuck with a membership to the official Former Child Actors club. Macaulay, or Mac, if you’re in the know, was always the main draw ― history’s most famous kid actor without a drink named after him. But Kieran was there too, in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.” He found himself on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” before the age of 10, and schmoozed with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” before his voice dropped.  

Which is probably why ― and here I’m guessing ― Culkin might have been a bit annoyed when HBO suggested he audition for Greg.

But after 10 episodes of watching Culkin-as-Roman take part in his family’s imperious game of human chess, it’s hard to imagine the actor playing anyone else. If Jeremy Strong ― who plays Kendall, Logan’s cocaine-addicted second son ― is the show’s tragic star, Culkin is its nervous energy. There’s something in the way he pushes out a phrase like “What a pathetic beta cuck,” or belittles doctors and waiters alike.

What sealed Culkin’s interest in his character came in the first episode during a family softball game, when Roman points to a kid on the sidelines, the son of the site’s groundskeeper. Everyone grows quiet as Roman whips out his checkbook and starts writing a check for $1 million. Hit a home run in their game, Roman tells the boy, and the money is his. For the child and his family, it’s a potentially life-changing moment. For Roman, the child is nothing but a momentary subhuman toy to mess with and cast aside. After the child is tagged out at home, Roman can’t control his laughter. “I’m sorry, I can’t give it to you,” he says as he tears up the check. It is a degrading, truly awful moment of television.

“Oh, I get it,” Culkin remembered thinking, “he’s a fuck face.”

When Culkin filmed the scene, he embodied evil, letting out a cackle so cruel it sets the show’s moral compass for the remaining season. Culkin himself is not sure where his ability to play somebody like that came from.

“Being able to connect to some degree, not in a positive way, with these characters is odd to me because I don’t know the multimillionaires, I don’t know the super-rich, yet I know assholes like that,” he said. “I can’t even quite specifically pick out who I know that is exactly like that, but it’s weird that you can still, for me, relate.”

“Succession” suffered from a slow start, only truly hitting its stride around Episode 6, when Kendall leads the board in a tense vote of no confidence against Logan, who’s recently suffered a stroke, unleashing a sequence of events within the Roy family that are both comical and horrifying.

Culkin owns up to that. “The first three episodes to me, it’s not like they’re unwatchable,” he said, “but it’s not quite the show yet.”

Which, according to him, is fine. Some shows don’t grab you on first watch, and one in particular in his opinion: “I probably shouldn’t even say this on record. The example I have is actually [the British comedy] ‘Peep Show,’” which was coincidentally also developed by “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.

But the first season of “Succession” gained enough momentum before concluding Sunday evening for HBO to pick it up for another season ― making this the first time Culkin has ever been part of a television show that made it to Season 2, according to his IMDB page, a small victory in his more than two decades on-screen.

Culkin’s most acclaimed role came in 2002, when he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in “Igby Goes Down.” But that time the victory led to a full-blown existential crisis.

United Artists via Getty Images

Claire Danes and Kieran Culkin talk at a coffee shop for a scene from “Igby Goes Down.” Culkin entered an existential crisis after the film and took a breaking from acting. 

“[I] found myself at the age of 20 with a career I never chose, [and I] freaked out,” Culkin said. “I think everybody around that age has some sort of crisis. Usually, it’s like a straight-up ‘Oh, I don’t know what I want to do.’ Mine is, ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life, yet here I am doing it.’”

Culkin took a break before eventually returning to acting, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “I was just sort of doing it in the meantime,” he says now. He took parts in movies like “Lymelife” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Did two episodes of “Fargo.” Performed multiple versions of a stage play he loved, Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth.” In 2014, he was still apprehensive. “I often think about getting out of this job, but I’m terrified that there’s nothing else,” he told The Daily Beast.

Since then, Culkin said, something clicked. He remembered coming home from work one day and thinking, “Oh, I think I’m actually enjoying this.”

“I think I know what I want to do now,” he said to himself. “I think I should do this.”

Now deep into his 30s, Culkin has established himself as a stronger and more serious actor than the “essentially retired” Macaulay ever did. And in Roman, Culkin has stumbled upon something as special as it is sinister. TV Guide described Roman as “the very definition of the hate-f―k,” but he’s probably more accurately categorized as sexual overcompensation personified. He tells his brother that his “face is drowning in pussy,” despite the fact that his various partners claim he rarely wants to have sex. He masturbates to his office view of New York City while a string of emails piles up behind him. (“It’s to gain some sort of control,” Culkin surmised.)

More interesting than his sex life, though, is Roman’s complex relationship with his manipulative and emotionally abusive father. While most people want to prove their competence to the people around them, “Roman, for the most part, doesn’t give a fuck about that,” Culkin said, adding, “If his girlfriend says, ‘No, but you did a great job,’ it’s like: ‘Fuck you. Don’t patronize me.’” What he wants, Culkin said, is his dad’s approval: “That’s the only person that can get him, the only person that can look at him and make him nervous.”

Logan does exactly that when Roman prepares to stand against the tycoon in the vote of no confidence. With his father staring down at him, Roman can only muster a meek “maybe” before he slouches into his chair like an admonished child and votes with his father. Thanks to Roman, Logan lives to fight another day atop his dynasty, while Kendall is forced, temporarily, to surrender.

Earlier, in Episode 2, Roman finds himself watching as the world repackages his family’s tragedy into viral content. He and his family are huddled together in a New York hospital, awaiting information about their famous father’s deteriorating health post-stroke, like characters in a Gothic novel, when Roman starts scrolling through Twitter. His sister, Shiv, asks what people are saying.

“Eh, rumors, you know,” Roman replies matter-of-factly. “Some of Twitter says he’s dead ― and also a good deal of rejoicing at our father’s potential demise.” He notices a short video of the “South Park” kids yelling, “Oh my God, we’ve killed Logan! We’re bastards!” and asks an employee to “find out who these fuckers are and report them or screen grab their shit.”

When Culkin’s own father was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in 2014, TMZ, The Daily Mail, Perez Hilton all repackaged the tragedy as well. The National Enquirer pounced, too, running a headline that read, “Macaulay Culkin Rejects Dying Dad: ‘Rot in Hell!’” But unlike Roman, Culkin wouldn’t have been sifting through Twitter. “That would never be something that I would do willingly,” he says of social media more generally. “Because already at a young age, there was a public perception of me.” 

Francis Apesteguy via Getty Images

Kit Culkin, Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin and Patricia Bretnup pose for a photo one month after the release of “Home Alone.” The father is now estranged from his children. 

Like Roman, however, Culkin and his siblings have a less than ideal relationship with his father. By all accounts, they have been mostly if not entirely estranged from Kit ever since their mother won custody of the children in the 1990s. Patricia, the mother, claimed during the custody battle that Kit had been abusive, and Culkin’s brother Macaulay has continued to do so throughout his life.

“He was a bad man,” Macaulay Culkin told comedian Marc Maron earlier this year.

When I asked Kieran Culkin if he has spoken with his father recently, he answered with two no’s so quickly that I couldn’t bring myself to ask a follow-up question, only saying, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, “Fuck ’em.”

“Fuck ’em,” Culkin agreed. “I’ll go on record: Yeah, fuck ’em.”

After a lifetime of his last name being splattered across the front pages of tabloids, Culkin seemed ready to move on from the controversies that have dogged him since he was a child actor with moppy hair and oversized clothes. That’s not him anymore.

What we’re looking at instead is Kieran Culkin, age 35 ― no longer a Greg and fully embracing life as Roman.

[letterstomidnightkids]

thank you @velvet-moss​ for tagging me!

Is there a song/album that helped you shape some elements of your WIP or characters? What is it?

Troye Sivan’s Blue Neighborhood; Lorde’s Melodrama; Lorde’s Pure Heroine; Hayley Kiyoko’s everything but especially Girls Like Girls, Gravel To Tempo, Feelings, and Sleepover; Tegan and Sara’s Love You to Death and Heartthrob; Mary Lambert’s Bold; lots of alt pop and just things I would want in a high school movie? OMW is a book that I would want to see as a high school rom com and music that sounds like it would belong on the soundtrack of a movie like that shapes the plot+characters.

Is your character a picky or adventurous eater? What is their favorite thing to eat?

Victoria and Dani are both adventurous eaters (within reason for Dani, she’s lactose intolerant so anything with dairy is a no go). Victoria’s favorite food is the cinnamon rolls her mom makes at Christmas and Dani’s is vegan waffles.

Do you prefer to outline or wing it?

Outline to get ideas flowing and then if the story wants to go somewhere else, follow that

What is your favorite line you’ve written so far?

All from On My Way

About halfway through reminders to come to the football game Friday, Maddie bursts into class in a whirlwind of black and glitter.

- this is Maddie (one of Victoria’s best friends and 1/3 of the gay disasters squad)’s entrance and it suits her as a character for reasons that will be revealed later, she’s a performer and she tries to project this aura of cool but she really cares about her friends and what other people think of her

The silence is about as awkward as the time Caleb and I got sent into a closet during an 8th grade party. During which I promptly came out.

- I like this line bc it’s indicative of their relationship+plus there’s some irony in the sense of they get sent to the closet and V comes out? I just like it. Caleb doesn’t figure himself out til later, but this is about when he started to get the first idea that he wasn’t just into girls.

“Um, you can turn the radio on if you want,” I say. “Or plug your phone in, the aux chord should be around here somewhere.”

“Lot of trust you’re placing in someone you barely know,” [Dani] teases.

“I could take it back,” I tease back. “Or we could keep the whole silence thing going.”

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

- I just think this is neat. first time Victoria and Dani, her tutor/love interest, get to talk outside of school, idk how to flirt so i’m hoping they’re doing a better job than me

What was the first story you ever wrote?

I was in 5th? grade and my school had this thing called the all school write where everyone had a prompt and had to write something. They were usually things like ‘what superhero would you want to switch places with?’ or ‘describe yourself’, but my 5th grade year the prompt was ‘He opened the door and to his surprise he found...’. I wrote a story about a guy who found a world beyond the door and there was a blue wolf (named Sapphire of course) and a maze and magic. I don’t know where that story is now but it got me really invested in stories and the idea that I could write them too.

Did it take you a while to settle on a pen name (if you use one)?

Still not 100% settled on one. I’d keep my first name but probably use a different last name and there’s three that I go between when debating pen names.

What would you say your biggest inspiration was for your current WIP?

For On My Way:

Anna and the French Kiss, Simon Vs., and the general frustration I had with finding fluffy books about wlw (I know they’re out there but sometimes they just seem so hard to find). On My Way is super self indulgent and is a lot of things I love, and it’s for me.

Do names come to you easily? Or do characters tend to remain nameless for a while?

They come easy, but I usually have to end up changing them so it’s almost like the original name is a placeholder.

If you weren’t planning on making writing your career, what would you have gone for?

Teacher! I love working with kids, and helping other people be excited about learning! I’ll probably end up teaching for a while anyway and it’s something I love and like, all the women on my mom’s side have been teachers so it feels kinda inevitable, but not in a bad way bc it’s something that I love instead of something I was/am being told to do.

If you could live anywhere else in the world, where would it be?

I’m pretty happy where I’m at, but if I could live in Spain for a while and teach English, that would be pretty cool.

I tag @leofailsatwriting​, @xanderswriteblr​, @jess---writes​, @bodoramzap​, @progress-in-writing​, @veronicadent​, and anyone else who wants to do this!

[thebarsondaily]

Author of the Month (2018)

tumblr || twitter || ffn || AO3

Ships/Fandoms:

SVU: Barba & Benson

Harry Potter: Draco & Hermione,  Harry & Pansy

Favorite Completed Fic - A Barson Thanksgiving -  Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Barba & Benson  or 12 Days of Barson Christmas -  Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Barba & Benson

Favorite W.I.P. - Spring Brings New Life - Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Barba & Benson

What inspired you to begin writing fanfiction? I’ve been writing fanfiction since I saw The Empire Strikes Back and Han Solo was frozen in carbonite and I was beside myself. So I wrote my own fix-it, even though I had no idea that’s what it was. I was 12. Then I didn’t write any more again until I was in high school and fell in love with “Remington Steele”, “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” and “Moonlighting”. I had pages of 3-ring binder paper filled with post-episode or scene extensions or fix-its. I even wrote an original “Remington Steele” fic on my IBM Selectric typewriter. I used this yellow-orange scrap paper that my mom brought home from her Army Reserve office.

When I went to college and those shows were cancelled, I got away from it. Probably because I got to write for a living as a reporter. Then, this past summer, I discovered the world of fan fiction online. I don’t even remember how I stumbled on AO3, but I fell in love when I discovered a world of people who were writing about all my favorite tv and movie characters! After I started reading, new plot bunnies of my own started hopping around in my head.

My first Barson fic was born after I saw a rerun of “Sanctuary” last summer and essentially wanted a fix-it after the last scene when Barba asks Olivia if she’s disenchanted with him and then Dodds comes in, ruining the moment. As you can see in a recent chapter of SBNL I’m not a big fan of Deputy Chief Dodds.

Do you use a story outline or just let the story go wherever it takes you? I may have an outline in my head, but I’ve never written one down. I tend to just let the story go where it takes me. I usually start out with an end game and I work to get there, or a prompt from something I read or saw and start from there. Lately, I’ve been writing future chapters as I’m inspired, even though I’ll later have to go back and link them into the plot.

What helps get you through writer's block? Reading or writing something different. I write for two different fandoms, so switching between them helps. I try and take my mind completely off of what has me stuck.

Do you use music or anything else to help motivate you while you are writing? Please elaborate if you do. I like to listen to music, but I don’t know if it motivates me. I usually don’t need any other motivation than the thoughts in my head. 

Do you have any advice for aspiring fanfiction authors? Just write. Like that old Nike ad: Just do it. If you have an idea that you feel strongly about, chances are someone else does as well and will want to read it. But also, self edit. Proofread. Proofread again.  Read it out loud to yourself. Picture the scene in your head to see if it makes sense. If you aren’t confident in your spelling, grammar, structure skills, ask someone to beta for you. Nothing turns me off faster as a reader than a wonderful plot that I can’t get past the first few paragraphs of because it has bad grammar or structure. I can overlook spelling errors and typos even. But not bad grammar and poor structure. And check your verb tenses! Pick one and stick with it. Don’t switch back and forth.

Does writing energize or exhaust you? I would say it energizes me while I’m doing it. But if it’s late at night when I’m done and put it away I’m exhausted.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be? Don’t throw any of it away! At some point I threw away all of my old, handwritten stuff from high school and now it makes me so sad! The only one I even can remember the littlest bit is the original “Remington Steele” one. I had just watched the Shogun miniseries on television so I sent them to Japan!

What was the hardest scene you've ever had to write? It was for a WIP in my other fandom and it was a love scene. I always have a hard time writing those to begin with, whether it’s rated PG or NC-17, but in this case, I didn’t want it to read like a how-to manual and needed to focus more on feelings and emotions than actual actions. It took me quite a while and several re-writes to get it the way I wanted it. But in the end it turned out perfectly.

Do reviews help or hinder your writing process? Reviews always help! I love to hear what people say about my chapters! So far I’ve only had positive feedback. I had one where the reader wasn’t particularly happy with a chapter and I felt SO guilty because I felt like I let her down that I actually contact her via IM and apologized. She told me that she still loved the story and in the end what mattered most was that it was my story and I had to write for myself. And I LOVE when I get a new reader who tells me they’re hooked!

Is there a quote that inspires you? If so, what is it? I don’t know if it inspires me, but it sums up my feelings about writing: “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” -- Isaac Asimov

What is your favorite fanfiction trope to write? Honestly, I’ve never written a trope. Not that I don’t enjoy reading them, but writing them has never appealed to me, although I have a bed sharing one started for Noah Benson and Jesse Rollins. It hasn’t gotten very far though.

Do you have any fanfiction recommendations? Please limit the recs to Barson fanfic only. I’ve read so so many wonderful ones, this is a VERY hard question to answer.

One of the very first ones I read was by @TribalVipe called “A Hand on Your Face in the Dark” and it kept me coming back for more by her. Another finished work by hers that I love is “Don’t Look Behind You” because it includes all three SVU couples I ship. She has a new WIP, “Paraíso Perdido“ that I’m eagerly waiting for an update.

Since the episode-that-shall-not-be-named, one of my favorite completed fix-its is “The Rediscovered Country” by @theoofoof.

I’ve not read anything by @adrianna-m-scovill that I wouldn’t recommend and I very much enjoy @khughes30’s Musical Notes one shots.

p.s. I think A Hand on Your Face in the Dark is actually written by rosehips. ~untapdtreasure

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A with TRIPPER DUNGAN (PDX)

Artist Tripper Dungan creates cartoony, psychedelic, and surreal art, from personified 3D sculptures of cassette tapes and toast to paintings of ice cream cones and succulents. Dungan has been creating non stop artwork since high school, and doesn’t just stick to one medium. From painting, sculptures, to building octahedron geodesic domes, Dungan’s art blurs real objects with his imaginative world where everything is always bright, fun and super weird. We’re excited to chat with Tripper about his art, influences, and learn about his journey in this round of Art School.

Photographs courtesy of the artist

Who are you and what do you do? I’m Tripper Dungan. I paint 3D paintings and whittle little donut buddies and whatnot.

How would you describe yourself and your art? I’d say I’m pretty driven and like to make things every day. I try to be kind, and I’m pretty fuzzy (physically). My art is pretty cartoony and leans toward the psychedelic and surreal. I’ve been painting a lot of personified tapes lately. I like to use art as a vehicle for learning. I recently learned how to make an octahedron geodesic dome for an installation I currently have up at True Measure gallery in Portland. Also black panthers and cougars are the same animal; black panthers just have melanism. It’s like albinism but too much pigment.

Who were some of your early artistic influences? Chuck Jones, Hanna & Barbera, Ub Iwerks. All of the animators that were making cartoons before they were just for kids. It may sound like a throw away answer, but it’s not. There was so much put into those masterpieces. Some of the backgrounds in those old Popeye cartoon gets a guy like me a little choked up. I also really loved Bill Waterson of Calvin and Hobbs. I wrote him a letter when I was 12 and he sent me back a print of one of his comic strips and a form letter saying he didn’t read my letter.

How did you make the leap from making art to showing art to living as an artist? For me it was less of a leap and more of searching for and taking opportunities to show at whatever coffee shop, bar, or gallery that I could get into. It was a constant hustle and still is. My cousin Hilary Pfeifer is an artist as well and it’s been super helpful being close to someone that is able to make a living with her creativity since she was a teenager. I could ask her what she thought about an approach I was taking or just look over and say “ok, this can work. It’s hard, but it can work.”

What are your favorite things to work with? Paints, pens? I love old wood and pulling that acrylic paint across it. Wood readily available and holds so much character. It’s so versatile too. I tend to travel with my art, and the wood can get knocked around a bit too. Acrylic is a nice time saver too. I use a craft acrylic too, so it dries flat. I don’t like a lot of tooth in my paint. Not only do you just draw and paint, but you’ve been making some amazing sculptures. 

Is there a medium you’ve yet to try or are currently working with? I’d love to do some larger fiberglass sculptures. One of my life goals is to have an outsider art sort of theme park.

What was the first show you ever exhibited in? What was your last show? It might have been at the library in Las Vegas, when I was in high school.  I did a color pencil drawing of a tortoise. I got best in show [brushes shoulder off]. Actually it might have been at the boys and girls club in Santa Barbara when I was 5. I wrote my name backwards in Popsicle sticks. I have mild dyslexia. I’m good though.  

How do you approach a day in the studio? What is your process for getting stuff made? I tend to sketch stuff out first unless I’m making tapes. The tapes are a lot more improvisational, and studies of color and form. After I sketch it out I’ll find the appropriate piece of wood or else I’ll shape a new one. Then I lay down the background. While that’s drying I’ll tend to other projects or start five more. Then I’ll spray black where my foreground is going to be. This helps the 3D effect and makes it pop whether you’re wearing the glasses or not. Then I finish my character up, put on my 3D glasses and enjoy the ride.

What type of music do you listen to when creating? Do you find it helps motivate you or just have it for  background noise? My brain is pretty active when I’m painting or sketching. I’ve been listening to a lot of Brazilian and African psychedelic rock and soul, but I also listen to a lot of podcasts. Painting can be a very solitary act as you know, so it’s nice to have some verbal stimulation. I also throw on everything from MF Doom to Shannon and the Clams to older Beck to the Avalanches new stuff.

What are your favorite Vans? I’m wearing my black slip-ons right now, but I have a super comfy all gray (even the sole) Sk8 hi that I’m stoked on right now.

Best advice you’ve gotten as an artist? Worst advice? I think the best advice is “don’t stop”. It wasn’t going to anyway, but you have to keep moving in this racket. The worst advice I’m sure is something someone said at a craft fare. People are apt to say some dumb things to perfect strangers. “You should make hats for dogs”. “You should paint Hello Kitty in a raincoat”. I probably should, I guess. Give the people what they want, right?

What’s next for you? I have some craft fares coming up. One here (Portland) and one up in Seattle. I get to hang with my art buddies Jesse Hibert and Snaggs.

Follow Tripper  Website | http://numberstar.com Instagram | @tripperdungan Tumblr | @tripperdungan

[frazzledsoul]

Reboots and Revivals, Ranked By Frazzled! (well, the ones she has seen)

So we’re currently experiencing a revival craze. The suits have run out of ideas, few people actually want to watch the networks anymore, so why not send everyone scrambling back for the stuff they used to love?

I’m not so crazy about it. The trend seems to be to retcon the characters’ endings so we can place them back in the same places they were ten or fifteen or twenty years ago, and in many cases the characters needed and deserved those endings. It doesn’t do anyone any good to make these characters unhappy when they were happy or to pretend that life hasn’t moved on when it very much has. It isn’t the same and many times it ruins what was good about what we loved about those TV shows in the first place.

However, sometimes stuff needs to be fixed, and that’s not a bad thing.

However, since this article got all of it dreadfully, dreadfully wrong I will proceed to rank these revivals from worst to best, according to my infallible judgment.

(I won’t be discussing Roseanne, as this is Tumblr and I doubt that discussion would go well. It probably would be in the middle of the pack if I was going to talk about it, though).

9. 24: Legacy

Okay, whose brilliant brainchild was this? 24 without Jack or Chloe? How can we even think of such a thing? I mean, Tony Almeida was there, and he was still hot, but seriously . . . there is an entire plot thread devoted to whether Not!Jack’s wife wants to take her birth control pill. THIS IS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR, GUYS. Plus, they kill the female head of the CTU, the only likable character? (besides Tony, that is).

I’ve heard they’re planning to reboot it again, only still without Jack or Chloe, but with a female in the Not!Jack role. Guys, that was not the problem here. The problem is that you can’t do this without the Terrible Twosome. Don’t even bother.

8. Battlestar Galactica

I only watched the first two seasons, and I didn’t see the original. I’m not going to say a lot about it, but the human characters got to be so vicious and did so many blatantly immoral things I just couldn’t excuse that I quit. I kept rooting for the Cylons to wipe out the human characters. I don’t think that was the goal. Before then, it was a very well made show, though. Sometimes I wish I could have kept watching it.

7. 24: Live Another Day

Okay, I only suffered through a few episode of this, and it probably shouldn’t even count as a reboot. We still had Jack and Chloe and they merely removed the action to another continent. However, I just think that killing off Chloe’s entire family so she could wear black eyeliner was so cruel that I couldn’t get past it, especially since the show refused to touch a hair on Kim’s head. I don’t think moving the action to Europe really worked for me, either.

I’m glad they killed off Audrey, though. I could never really understand Jack’s obsession with her. 

6. Fuller House

This show knows exactly what it wants to be and it is. What it wants to be is not a quality show. It wants to be a nostalgia-filled, kitschy sitcom, and it is. So I enjoy it for what it is and don’t expect more. It’s ranked low because the end result is well, not that good, but that’s mostly due to the nature of the show. It’s as good as it can be, and that’s enough.

Also, #TeamSteve forever, and I look forward to the Perfect Strangers reboot so we can have crossovers.

5. The X Files

Okay, so major points off for breaking up Mulder and Scully for the purpose of this reboot, William is a bizarre alien hybrid baby and not really the spawn of our beloved duo, someone needs to inform Chris Carter about the realities of the female reproductive system, and WTF was that ending?

OTOH, I did really enjoy Mulder and Scully being adorable and making their way back to being a couple and I can live with that ending since we’re already pretending that these two are years younger than they actually are. But please, no more, ever. Done. Finito. That’s it.

4. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life

Oh, wow. So much to say about this. I know this because I have spent the past year and a half talking about it, over and over.

There was no need for this revival to exist. The only reason that it existed at all was because a large contingent of fans were convinced that the only real ending was the one that ASP could write, that only she could magically fix what was wrong with the last two seasons, even though she had caused most of the damage in the first place. It wasn’t to make Lorelai and Rory happy or to give them the endings they deserved so they could move on with their lives and not have to depend on each other so much. All of that had had already been done. 

So was it a mistake giving ASP control of the narrative back? I don’t know. I enjoyed the revival. I didn’t trust these writers. I had feared for years that if ASP got her chance to pretend that season 7 didn’t happen that she would have simply reunited Lorelai with Christopher and give them the happy ending because she hadn’t gotten to write that ship like she wanted. All I wanted from this revival was for Luke and Lorelai to be happy and for Christopher to stay in his corner and not bother anyone else. I got that.

I loved Luke’s epic speech to Lorelai and the wedding in the gazebo. I loved that Lorelai admitted that the Christopher thing was a mistake and she had loved Luke all long. I loved that they had formed this successful domestic life for themselves after so many hurdles and misunderstandings. I loved how much Jess had grown and that he and Luke were still close. I found a lot of the revival in general to be funny, quirky, and charming.

However, honestly? It was sloppily written. There are gigantic plot holes and logical inconsistencies all over the place. Prison Break and Roseanne both did a better job in resolving the stuff they retconned from their last seasons, and both of those shows brought characters back from the dead. It’s obvious to me that the two major things that season 7 did well - focusing on April as a vital and important part of Luke’s life and developing his relationship with other characters and making Logan an independent person who wasn’t beholden to his father for his entire existence - were dearly missing from the revival. And objectively speaking, that ending for Rory is horrible. Not because I think it’s really that disastrous of a situation now but because the intent all along was to ruin both Lorelai and Rory’s hopes and dreams and sacrifices. No one can ever escape becoming their parents, and neither Lorelai or Rory can really grow up and seek the futures they wanted because they’ll always be tied to the same cycle. “Where you lead, I will follow” becomes a curse, not an inspiration.

So maybe it’s better to just keep the finale we had, and believe that Rory was sent off to live her dream in the adult world that Lorelai had worked so hard to ensure for her. Lorelai moves onto a life (and a family) with Luke that they both had wanted. Neither of those things were possible unless Lorelai and Rory were allowed to grow up and have a little space from each other. The relationship the show was about wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it was necessary for them to move on and be happy. I think that’s a perfectly suitable happily ever after.

3. Macgyver

I don’t remember ever watching the original show, though I’m sure I must have at some point. This is a perfectly inoffensive and entertaining procedural. It’s exactly what it wants to be and nothing else. I quite enjoy it for that.

2. Hawaii 5-0

I am certain I never watched the original. However, like Macgyver, an inoffensive procedural that is exactly what it wants to be. I haven’t watched it since they kicked off half the cast, but until that point I really liked it and, and bonus points for the many, many guest appearances from TV sci-fi royalty.

1. Prison Break

Okay, I really did not expect to love this revival this much. They resurrect our dead protagonist, revive our OTP, have all of the returning characters basically behave in character, and we can get down to the business of illogical plot twists and impossible action sequences. And we end up with a happy ending with our formerly dead hero reunited with his family and the villain vanquished?

Seriously, I know it’s Prison Break and the expectations aren’t that high, but I wish other revivals were able to do this. Just bring back your characters and end it with the plot thread concluded and everyone we care about happy and alive. That’s all I ask for.

(This will probably be shot to hell if they go through with the second season, but for now it’s my favorite).

[agilenano]

Agilenano - News: The Design That We’ll Never Get to See in Person – AT’s Small/Cool Event + 5 Renter Hacks for a Small Space

Remember back at the beginning of March (what now feels like a year ago) when we showed you a Sneak Peek Into Our Current Design Projects? Well, today is the day to show you the “final results” of one of them. No, this isn’t our typical room reveal. A lot has shifted between then and now. And other things take priority as they should. But our ultimate goal here at EHD is to try to bring a little joy to your day and since it’s Monday morning fingers crossed this does the trick. This “room reveal” is one where neither you nor I will ever see a real photograph of but that’s okay since I stayed up late trying to recreate the space as realistically as possible for us all to enjoy by using my trusted confidante, SketchUp.

I bet by now you are asking yourselves, “Which project are you talking about?” If you didn’t already guess from the snippet above it’s our Eclectic English space for Apartment Therapy’s Small/Cool Event which officially went live (virtually, that is) last Friday. The event showcases 20 current home trends by 20 designers for the year 2020. Very clever AT team.

The trends range from Art Deco Influence by Gabriela Gargano to Maximalist Boho by Jessica Bringham and everything in between. Ok so let’s start with the design inspiration for our room!

The Trend: Eclectic English

photo source | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

I was very excited to take lead on this bedroom design project after all I know a thing or two about designing a small bedroom after my own MOTO. When the AT team asked us which trend we would want to showcase it was a no brainer. Emily had just written about her current love affair with this New (Old) Trend that was going to help her get her color/quirk back into her life and I was so on board to oversee the design. This trend is the metaphorical fresh-design-air that we have all been waiting for and like I’ve stated before I am ready to trade in the neutral world for a multi-colored one.

The Space

This all sounded great in theory until I saw the photographs for the original space where the event was to be held in Brooklyn, NYC. Talk about a design challenge. This warehouse didn’t invoke that eclectic old world at all that we wanted the expected 12k+ visitors to feel as they walked into our space. I started to think, “Why didn’t we choose postmodernism? That’s also cool right now.”

But this type of challenge is what drew me to interior design in the first place, working within a set parameters of a building to find those creative solutions that will ultimately transform a space into something new. Challenge accepted.

Emily also wanted me to point out the fact that we were designing this space from 3,000 miles away which is a challenge in itself but since starting at EHD almost 3 years ago this is nothing new to me. The two main projects that I have worked on – the Portland Project (961 miles) & the Mountain House (84 miles) – weren’t exactly distances that screamed let’s just go “swing by” for a site check-in today. Working solely based off of a few measurements and online shopping was okay by me especially for just one small room. The real challenge was creating a space that looked curated over a long period of time in the span of a few weeks from a handful of online vendors.

Yeah, you could say I was slightly stressed.

The AT team was so great and sent through this very thorough SketchUp drawing of our space including all the dimensions I could need plus the very elusive NYC fisherman. His name is Gary and he was super helpful to clue me in on the exact scale of the space we were working with. Thanks, Gary. Bye, Gary.

Now that I had a better idea of the exact measurements for the space, Emily and I did our initial brainstorm of how to add that “cozy factor” we knew it desperately needed. Let’s just say our hopes were as high as the NYC skyline: “Maybe they can add a ceiling so people don’t see the exposed ceiling”, “Could we add wood floors?”, “Some added millwork would help transform the space”, or “An overhead diffused light to make the space feel cozier”… there was some wishful thinking but one worked out in our favor. One thing I have learned in the past couple of years is that you’ll never know what your options are until you ask. And ask I did, thank you again to the AT team for answering my endless emails. I love an email. Especially those who respond quickly and they did, thank you.

You’d think that creating a space from a blank slate would be a designer’s dream. But when combining that with the fact that it also has no fourth wall and everything in the space has to “work/look good” from one angle it shifted my mindset of how I’d typically design a room. Function still played a role but in a new showcase-y kind of way that I wasn’t familiar with. So, instead of thinking about the room as a 3-dimensional space I looked at it as if it were first a piece of art that you could then jump into and walk around. It had to work as both.

The solution was layers and layers and then some more layers.

Here was my initial paired down mood board that we showed you a few months back. Giving you all a sense of the space without giving it all away. That wicker bed from Serena and Lily was the first piece I picked out that made me believe that this space could work. Followed with a close second & third by the Matrix Chair from Article and the Hay Design Matin Lamp that I think everyone in the office including myself has had heart eyes for once or twice. We’ve loved a pleated lampshade ever since Jess pointed out the newly rising trend way back when.

And this was just the beginning…

The first and probably most important layer was to cover up those stark white walls. This space needed a dose of traditional character and nothing says that more to me than the trusted wallpaper and board & batten combo. Chasing Paper’s Tree Toile in Mono was the quintessential pattern for the space. It adds that layer of depth without being too overwhelming. I’m talking to you art wall. There are two types of texture you can add to a space one is 3D like a shag rug, our millwork, or pattern. I decided to include both with our board and batten walls painted in Behr’s Red Pepper. I’ll be honest, I was a bit nervous to tell Emily that this is the paint color I wanted to use in the space. The lady likes red but more of a bright and happy red of which this isn’t really. But once she saw it on the mood board she was all for it.

There was a fine line of how high was too high or too low the millwork should be. In the end I decided that the height should be based more on the headboard height of the bed more than anything else. At first, I had it at 60″ high on the back wall and 48″ on the other two but something felt off. Then I realized that if it was that high on the back wall there wouldn’t visually be enough breathing room for all the art I had planned to go up there.

So, after playing around with it for a few hours in SketchUp (love you) I went with 54″ high on all 3 walls. It was a little over halfway up the wall which would’ve felt awkward had I not filled the walls with other visual weight. That is always something you want to consider when determining the height of your millwork and also where it will intersect your light switches (something we didn’t have to think about for our space) or other permanent fixtures along your walls. Be sure they are either included in the millwork or sit above but not half and half.

Above are the profiles I chose, with plenty of help from Charla and Justine, from our favorite vendor Metrie. They are the same two lovely ladies that helped Emily and I to pick out/design all that millwork in the Portland House. For this project, we got our material inspiration from The Gold Hive – Ashley Goldman’s Master Bedroom which included some very thin lattice which would be our flatstock with a low profile. This would take up just a little real-estate in this tiny space.

That isn’t our only small space/renter hack that we have for you today read more below.

But first…here she is our Eclectic English lady!

Side Note: Some of the items in the render like the lounge chair & dresser are not the same as in the mood board. Building detailed furniture in SketchUp can be tedious and extremely time-consuming especially ones with realistic-looking cushions. So I took the easy way out (aka saved hours of on the clock time) and downloaded similar options. It was late. I was tired. And this is a skill I am working on so I think this version is much better than what I could’ve come up with. So imagine that awesome Matrix Chair from Article and this nightstand.

As Emily would describe her she is, “…just a touch senile, with a dirty martini in her hand, perhaps some sort of old Hollywood headpiece, and head to toe in patterned clothes. She freely tells us about her affair with Wes Anderson (a younger man! Grandma!) and maybe she has tons of cash hidden around the house. But she’s a little old world too – she loves a floral print, she’s always ready to put the kettle on and share some well-earned life experience, and her shelves are stuffed with souvenirs from decades of travel. My friends love her, and my kids can’t wait to visit her because surely she will tell them something they are far too young to hear.”

Do you see her? Do you love her? Or is she just a little too much for you? You can be honest cause she would tell you the harsh truth right back to your face. But then I am not her, so I ask of you be constructive in any of your criticism you might have. Thanks

5 Renter Hacks for a Small Space:

Re-think The Gallery Wall – As we all know a gallery wall is a sure-fire way to add that needed dose of personality into those box-like apartments but then you’re stuck with patching up who know how many holes when moving out. Cause I know that for every piece of art that I hang in a gallery wall there are probably 3x the amount of holes necessary behind it. Done is better than perfect around here and I don’t have the patience with templates. So instead, consider a picture hanging rod which will require minimal holes in your wall and you have more freedom to swap out art over time. This idea works well in the space since we added the millwork which projected out from the wall which let us still overlap the art.

Layer Up – If you live in a space with flooring that you wish you could just replace or snap your fingers and make them disappear, then consider getting a rug approx. the size of your space and layer a smaller rug on top. This typically works best if the smaller rug is about two sizes down and is in the same style. Also, be sure that the rug on top has a higher pile than the one below.

When in Doubt Mount It – Want to add a coat rack to your space? Try a 6-arm coat hook instead. Thinking about getting a bookcase? Maybe opt. for some shelves. Anything that you can install on your walls to free up some coveted floor space is golden in a small room.

Double Duty – In a small space it is a great idea for your furniture to serve multiple purposes when you lack the square footage. We made sure our floor lamp had a small table attached and our dresser’s marble top was the perfect place for a martini station. Although, I know I could’ve done a better job on more storage for the space like including a nightstand with a drawer or a bench with a shelf. I choose the more visual pleasing option, form over function and I am okay with my decisions. It is a showroom after all and our hypothetical lady is a maximalist minimalist at heart. Avert your eyes on this fact I just pointed out and let’s move on!

Not Your Average Sconce – Since there wasn’t going to be any overhead lighting in the space due to the lack of a ceiling which is hopefully not an issue any of you are running into in your home… We got a little creative in the lighting department. A floor and table lamp were probably sufficient enough for the space but to bump up the quirk factor I wanted to “DIY” our own plug-in sconce. Using an iron hook and utility bare bulb pendant, the plan was to wrap the cord somehow (Sara and I were going to figure out this little factor when we got there) to create a sconce.

If any of you are interested in this look here are all of the products:

1. Floor Lamp (no longer available) | 2. Accent Chair (the original one) | 3. Blue Lumbar Pillow | 4. Wallpaper | 5. Paint Color | 6. Blue Curtains | 7. Curtain Rod | 8. Endcap Finials | 9. Stool | 10. Utility Plug-In Pendant | 11. Cast Iron Hook | 12. Bar Tool Set | 13. Bar Tray | 14. Cocktail Shaker | 15. Coup Glass | 16. Smaller Red Toned Rug | 17. Bed | 18. Mattress | 19. Green Pleated Table Lamp | 20. End Table | 21. Large Light Blue Rug | 22. Nightstand with Drawers (the original one) | 23. Curtain Hook | 24. Bench | 25. Circle Pillow | 26. Pom Pom Lumbar | 27. Bed Throw | 28. Sheet Set | 29. Blue Sham | 30. Duvet Cover | 31. Curtain Rod | 32. Endcap Finials | 33. Solid-Brass Double Jack Picture Chain | 34. Pair of Heavy Open Asymetrical S-Hooks – 1 1/2″ | 35. Art-Nouveau Picture Rail Hook | 36. Broken Clouds by Stephanie Goos Johnson | 37. Winter Wren by Olivia Kanaley Inman | 38. Semicolon by Alex Isaacs Designs | 39. The Humble Egg by Monica Loos | 40. Antique Yachts Canvas 1 | 41. In The Branches Print | 42. Remember: Lily of the Valley by Renee Anne | 43. Blue Heron Framed Print | 44. Lake Air Canvas Print | 45. Alpine Lake Framed Canvas | 46. Solid Pine Panel Mould | 47. Fingerjoint Pine Stop | 48. Fingerjoint Pine Baseboard | 49. Solid Pine Lattice

There were a lot of accessories that Sara and myself were going to play with once on-site so instead of letting all those sourcing hours go to waste we figured to round them up for all you Eclectic English Enthusiasts. Enjoy!

1. Farm House by Lindsay Megahed | 2. Ribbed Blanket | 3. Natural Hyacinth Noelle Tote Basket | 4. Organic Percale Pleated Sheet Set | 5. Wheaton Striped Napkins | 6. Bunny Trinket Dish | 7. Palomino Alpaca Throw | 8. Nesting Glass Shadow Boxes – Hexagon (Set of 3) | 9. Tomah by Lorent and Leif | 10. Foundations Bowl | 11. Oversize Wool Throw | 12. Antique Florals | 13. Fiber Dye Napkins | 14. Dara Velvet Lumbar Pillow Cover | 15. Creative Women Handwoven Cotton Napkin

In lieu of the original event plan, Apartment Therapy created these adorable illustrations (see below) and animations of all 20 spaces. You can check out our space here!

Be sure to peruse all the amazing work by the rest of the designers as well including: Hilton Carter, all-of-our-favorite Orlando Soria, one of the cutest/creative couples Nate Berkus & Jeremiah Brent, one of Caitlin’s Favorites Caitlin Murray plus many many more talented designers.

That’s all she (I) wrote! I hope this brought a bit of sunshine to your Monday morning. And I can promise you that you will one day see a real room reveal again but in the meantime I’ll be practicing my SketchUp skillzzz.

For those of you that are skeptical of the Eclectic English trend, I am curious. Does this design convince you that it is the new cool trend or does it still give you frightening flashbacks?? Let’s talk more about it below!

The post The Design That We’ll Never Get to See in Person – AT’s Small/Cool Event + 5 Renter Hacks for a Small Space appeared first on Emily Henderson.

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) https://agilenano.com/blogs/news/the-design-that-we-ll-never-get-to-see-in-person-at-s-small-cool-event-5-renter-hacks-for-a-small-space