#jennifer 1 would like to speak to a manager

[yasperapologist]

[locke-esque-monster]

I finished Umbrella Academy last night. The further I got into the season the messier the writing seemed to get. I've seen a few things pointed out already: like Lila totally wore bracelets before, why did Luther go chimp again, Five said Lila wasn't his type etc.. Here's a list I was compiling while I watched of things that didn't sit right or made no goddamn sense. It is by no means exhaustive (meaning that it's definitely not every issue, but definitely exhausting to write).

The whole reason Ben was killed was because he touched Jennifer. But Luther and Victor both touch "The Cleanse" during the department store scene. Luther gets stuck, but all it takes is Victor & Lila to get them out. Victor is pushed away by Ben just before he's shot. Were they both also infected and it didn't have time to stick? Or did the writers truly forget this was a plot point partway into the finale?

Quinn came in on the second meeting with Klaus's client Loretta saying "that was fast". They didn't call for him. They didn't give any indication they were done or that he should interrupt. So for all he knows, he should be walking in on them having sex. So is this poor writing in that they put in a statement that makes zero sense? Or poor writing in that they were watching Klaus "work" with surveillance camera and they just never explained that? (Which for the record that's even more screwed up.)

Speaking of which, did we just forget that Klaus has real issues with consent of his body (see season 2) and locked in small spaces with the dead (see season 1)? Or do the writers just not care and played it for laughs?

So we're down 4 episodes, but we're going to introduce 2 love triangles no one asked for (Sy, Jean, and Gene and Diego, Lila, Five)? Cool, that seems like a smart use of time.

After all the trouble Five has gone through, he's suddenly cool with changing the original timeline? Like no notes, no calculations - just down to mess things up by letting Ben live? Who are you Five? (The only calculations we saw from Five this season were a notebook he found another Five wrote - blasphemy.)

So Five is just going to conveniently find a notebook with a way out and we're never going to explain that?

Lila and Five spend 6 1/2 years searching for a way home, but Five's sad Lila picked Diego and he immediately stumbles into a Deli straight off an exit with all the Fives? And somehow that's not something he or Lila ever found?

Do the writers know how being buried alive works? Because first Klaus opened the coffin easily and then managed to accidentally fall in it and get it so stuck he couldn't get it open again. Incredibly implausible. But then wouldn't he run out of air eventually? Seems like he should have in the half a day he was in there. And I can't imagine the lighter would have been good for that situation (I'm not an expert, but any gas release, does it use air, etc.)

So Lila's family is cool with them missing for days? Claire too? I saw little to no attempt to check in, until it was convenient for the plot for Claire to say Klaus upset her when Allison calls. And multiple days seem to pass, but other than Klaus in his coffin and Ben in the hotel, there's no explanation where they slept, or that they really should be in contact with their families. And at least 2 nights pass for Ben (fight at the barn, hotel).

Ben kind of just turns into OG timeline! Ben around Jennifer. There's no explanation for his change in personality, even just that he was lonely without his family. But other than some vague "I can't stop thinking of her" there's no explanation of why they're so connected and Ben had a personality re-write. It gives us "magic made us fall in love" vibes.

I'm fully convinced that the elevator fight with Luther is a call back to CA:WS but TUA did not have either the money or the motivation to choreograph and film the fight scene, so they just waved their hands and said "close enough".

So we're just not going to explain how Five, who ostensibly is physically about 19 per canon, joined the CIA? And on top of that Five, arguably the sharpest, most paranoid character who took down the Commission in a single day in season 1, never checked into his boss or got suspicious about the CIA?

It's a 13 hour drive, but Klaus just magically got back to town on his own after ditching his family and it's never addressed? We've neither seen him drive and he doesn't seem to have a job to pay for a ride home, so I'm at a loss here. Admittedly, I'm not entirely clear how Allison got back to confront Klaus, unless she rode with Diego and Luther before their CIA trip? Though they also seems to have walked back from the CIA so I'm not sure how they got there either?

Okay, so I'll admit that Ben wouldn't necessarily know Reginald shot him. And I'm guessing Reginald wiped their memories quickly. And Ben's bullet would is less obvious in the back of the head. But you're telling me in the 15-ish years of hanging out together as each others' primary companion (12 in original timeline, 3 in the 60s), Klaus never made a dig about Ben's death? Ben never said something and Klaus repeated that weird statement from Reginald? Neither of them said anything weird about it the other one questioned? I swear that's why Klaus was written a whole separate plot with being kidnapped, so he specifically wasn't around for that scene to question or react to it. Also I'm pissed that it's very likely Klaus never knew how Ben died before he also died.

So after multiple episodes of (completely awful) jokes about Diego getting fat, you're going to actually make the character shirtless for no reason and him look exactly as he did before. I just...really?

Claire makes a comment when Allison first returns like "Why are you saving someone whose immortal?" Like what? First, okay let's assume Claire heard this about Klaus at some point (weird, but not impossible). Allison has been back for 5 minutes from the mission where Klaus got his powers back. Klaus didn't tell her. Allison didn't tell her on the phone call we saw or when she walked in. There is exactly zero reason Claire should have this information again.

Claire and Allison interrogate Quinn and all he tells them is pet cemetery. I'm concerned they don't know it's a dog or the dog's name, but I let it slide. Maybe they'll look for freshly dug holes. They're looking and they hear a dog bark to get them closer and they're like "OMG Thunderbolt". Like they're relieved they found the correct dog's grave when they have not actually been told that name before.

I'm not even going to unpack the mess that is Lila and Five here. Going to have to be a separate post.

(I will add that I'm not contesting the ending being on 8/8/24 when it should be 2025/2026 because if they've reset the timeline, the ending can really be whenever they feel like it. So I guess 1 point in the writers favor to the dozen and a half points I listed against them.)

[nx08h63bitchyobservationnerd]

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[dankusner]

Johnson and Broadnax in June 2020 after tension between the two sparked a toxic session of bickering and innuendo during a special Dallas City Council meeting

FUN STARTS AT 2 hours and 5 minutes.

Late-night Dallas City Council session offered first glimpses of police reform, but bickering stole the show

Council members pressed Police Chief U. Renee Hall about the department’s response to protesters on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge after five hours of public speakers.

Dallas’ top elected officials spent five hours Friday evening listening to public comments and another three hours grilling the city’s police chief and pitching broad ideas about reform — including divesting resources from the police department.

But as the night neared its conclusion, it began to resemble more of a reality TV show than a council meeting.

A heated line of questions from Mayor Eric Johnson to Police Chief U. Renee Hall prompted the city manager and a council member to try to interject.

The mayor instead muted their mics, which angered council members enough to later yell over each other in the virtual meeting.

The first Dallas City Council meeting since widespread protests of police brutality against black communities offered views about scaling back money for the Dallas Police Department, but also burst open drawn-out tensions between the mayor and the city manager and council members.

Whew. #DallasProtests pic.twitter.com/xSdL4CUhsQ

— Cassandra Jaramillo (@cassandrajar) June 6, 2020

"It’s not time for finger-pointing or disrespect or silencing,” said council member Jennifer Staubach Gates, who represents northwest Dallas. “We have one Dallas, and I just ask that we try to come together and maybe never schedule another Friday night meeting that lasted eight hours. This did not end well.”

Demands for reform

The day started on the coattails of a police order.

Shortly before midnight Thursday, Hall implemented the “duty to intervene” policy, the first change announced by leaders to department orders since the May 25 death of black Minneapolis man George Floyd, who died when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest.

Then early Friday afternoon, preceding the lengthy public comments from Dallas residents, City Manager T.C. Broadnax sent an 11-item memo that outlined short- and long-term police reform items.

More than 200 police-reform advocates signed up to speak at Friday’s meeting, many waiting five hours for a minute of virtual public speaking. Like in other parts of the country, they requested – and some demanded – scaling back funding from the police department.

Several council members supported that idea.

Southeast council member Jaime Resendez said he would support divesting resources from the Dallas Police Department after what he considers a poor response to ongoing protests, which started eight days ago in Dallas.

“We need to be investing in providing access to higher social, economic and political power,” Resendez said. "Because from my perspective, systemic change can only be brought about by combating systemic racism.”

Council member Lee Kleinman, who represents Far North Dallas and for years has been critical of the Dallas Police Association, called on his colleagues to pledge not to take money from police associations and unions in election campaigns. He said council members should not be taking campaign money when they vote on police contracts.

He also said this budget season needs to include a critical look at police funding. For months he’s said the budget shortfall means council members should include significant cuts to the public safety budget, including the police.

“We can’t treat it like it’s sacred anymore," Kleinman said.

In a few months, council members will need to pass a budget for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. They anticipate tough decisions as the city expects a $73 million-to-$134 million shortfall in revenues because of the coronavirus.

Public speakers spoke passionately about their experiences with DPD and systemic racism, their concerns about officers’ use of less-lethal weapons and demanded that council members dismantle or defund DPD. Several called on Hall to resign.

Nora Soto is a member of Our Cities, Our Future, a group of activists who have pushed the city to reallocate funding from public safety — $874.9 million this fiscal year — into more social services. Police and fire budgets alone total more than 60% of the current general fund budget.

The group’s calls came long before cities like Minneapolis began to seriously consider dismantling their police departments. Some Minneapolis City Council members have supported replacing the police department with a new one focused on violence prevention and community-based services, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

“I am done waiting for Dallas leadership to act," Soto said. "I demand that City Hall works to radically transform the city and end the war on black people now.”

Sara Mokuria, a co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality and a founder of the budget group, said adding more resources to the police department every year “is unconscionable.”

“You are all held responsible for decisions in this moment," she said, "and history will remember.”

Bridge sparks bickering

Council members have also been grappling with calls to act on police brutality and ensure no more black lives are lost in the hands of police in Dallas. Speakers on Friday also blasted DPD’s response to the peaceful demonstration on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge on Monday night, when 674 protesters were arrested.

Hall announced Thursday she would not charge the protesters. But Johnson pressed Hall about the kinds of weapons the officers used that night and her response to the demonstrations.

Hall said she didn’t know whether her department used rubber bullets — a term the council used broadly — and is still reviewing video footage.

At one point, when Johnson peppered Hall repeatedly about the lack of police presence during looting in Deep Ellum, Broadnax tried to interrupt the mayor to come to his employee’s defense. Hall reports to Broadnax.

The city manager said later that the line of questioning had been “different” than anything he’d seen from a mayor in his 25 years of local government.

Johnson told Broadnax he was out of order, and that he has a right to askquestions. When Johnson continued to get interrupted by both Broadnax and council member Carolyn King Arnold, he called on staff to mute both their mics above Arnold’s cry of, “You can’t mute me!”

Arnold, a South Oak Cliff representative and staunch defender of the chief, criticized the mayor for muting her mic again and told him he’s silencing her constituents.

“When you mute me, you mute them,” Arnold said.

‘I am the city manager’

The public spat between Johnson and Broadnax echoed earlier disagreements between them about the mayor’s insistence that Broadnax oversteps his bounds as city manager. Johnson told Broadnax Friday night that just because he runs the city doesn’t mean he gets to lead the meetings.

“I am the city manager. I run this city,” Broadnax told Johnson, adding that he consults with the mayor and the city council and the 13,000 employees “that report directly to me,” including Hall. Broadnax is the highest paid city employee with a salary of more than $400,000.

“I think you are confusing running this city with running this meeting,” Johnson said.

Other council members appeared shocked and angry over the mayor’s decision to mute the city manager’s mic. Adam Bazaldua said he was “embarrassed” — and when Johnson told him he was also out of order, he and Arnold yelled at him. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam McGough quelled the tensions and asked council members to “move this city forward.”

Broadnax said discussions got heated, that “emotions are raw” and it had been a long week for council members. He outlined Hall’s policy changes he had announced to the council late Thursday night. That included public reports of all traffic stops and citations and implementation of a body and dashcam policy by June 30.

“This is only the beginning,” Broadnax said, nearing the end of the eight-hour meeting. “The real change happens when we start working together.”

‘Change doesn’t happen overnight'

Hall said the department continues to learn and improve its practices, but “change doesn’t happen overnight.”

“We see where we could do things differently,” Hall said. "That’s our goal, is to be better in the future.”

Broadnax said Hall will review the response on the bridge with her team and believed “what happened on the bridge was inappropriate.”

Council members acknowledged systemic injustices against black communities and asked questions about de-escalation and the new “duty to intervene” policy the chief implemented Thursday night.

Council member Casey Thomas, who represents southwest Dallas, asked Hall what the consequences would be if an officer doesn’t intervene in a case of inappropriate use of physical force. Hall said it would be cause for termination.

“We can’t have another Botham Jean. Dallas cannot afford a George Floyd type of situation,” Thomas said. “We cannot afford any more incidents of this nature. And so that’s why I’m focused on consequences.”

CITY COUNCIL

Deny severance, memo says

Mayor asks committee to consider opposing payout to ex-city manager Broadnax

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson wants a City Council committee to meet as soon as possible to consider opposing severance pay for former city manager T.C. Broadnax.

Johnson, in a memo Thursday to Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins, asked for the ad hoc committee on administrative affairs to discuss a possible resolution against the payout.

Atkins is the chair of the five-member committee.

“I would like for the Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs to convene immediately to consider a resolution denying any severance payment to former Dallas city manager T.C. Broadnax,” Johnson wrote in the brief memo to Atkins. “Should you have any questions, please contact my office.”

Atkins said he wasn’t aware of the memo until he was contacted by The Dallas Morning News late Thursday.

After a reporter read him the memo, he said he wasn’t sure yet what the next steps would be.

“I’ve been in meetings about the police and fire pension all day, so my mind has been on that all day long,” Atkins said. “I have questions. He said to call him if I have questions. So I’ll have to give him a call and see what this is all about.”

Johnson’s office didn’t immediately respond to email and text requests for comment Thursday.

It’s not yet clear what impact the resolution would have if it were to be approved.

Typically, City Council resolutions are nonbinding.

The mayor is the only City Council member who has publicly spoken out against severance pay to Broadnax, who is now Austin’s city manager.

Broadnax’s Dallas contact said the city owed him a lump-sum payment equal to his $423,246 annual salary if his employment ended due to an “involuntary separation.”

That includes if Broadnax resigns at the suggestion of the majority of the 15-member Dallas City Council, according to the contract.

Broadnax’s resignation was announced Feb. 21 and a news release from several City Council members said he was leaving at the suggestion of the majority of the group.

Broadnax also sent a memo to City Attorney Tammy Palomino in April listing the dates and times eight council members suggested he resign.

Johnson in his objections has raised concerns that Broadnax was named a finalist for the Austin city manager job about two weeks after his resignation from Dallas and that he was formally announced as hired on April 4.

Johnson has expressed concern that Broadnax’s resignation was orchestrated to secure severance pay from the city.

Broadnax began working as Austin city manager on May 6.

He had been Dallas city manager since 2017.

Dallas officials have already factored the payout into the city’s budget.

As of March, the city was anticipating the city manager’s office being $420,000 over budget partly due to Broadnax’s payout.

The City Council on May 8 approved city budget transfers that boosted the current general fund by almost $2.8 million.

The increases included raising the city manager’s office budget by $419,797.

Johnson didn’t vote against it.

[criticalbennifer]

LA VIDA LOPEZ

Jennifer Lopez Gives the Lowdown on Marriage, Movies, and Ben’s Big Night Out

On the eve of her wedding, Jennifer Lopez speaks out about her past few tumultuous months–from the recent tabloid furor and the Gigli debacle to romantic infidelity, the beauty business, and, of course, Ben.

By: Aaron Gell

Oct. 1, 2003

Jennifer Lopez would rather not talk about the worldwide code-red state of emergency that is her personal life – the pending nuptials, the estranged former manager, the possibly misbehaving fiancé, et cetera.

Who can blame her?

“It’s our life, its not a television show,” the actress, singer and powerhouse multihyphenate says plaintively, sitting sideways on a creamy leather sofa in a set trailer in Winnipeg, Canada, where she’s filming the romantic comedy Shall We Dance? Her nut-brown skin is flawless as usual, her hair is pulled back, and she’s wearing a pair of grey sweatpants from her clothing line, JLo by Jennifer Lopez, and a white Cosabella T-shit – all to casually devastating effect. (Her engagement ring is, for the moment, stowed in a nearby safe while she works.) “Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to sit here and shoot the s— with you,” she adds, protectively hugging a throw pillow between her knees like a plush teddy bear, “but I also want to live a happy life.”

So, no. As to the particulars of the gown or the ceremony or the centerpieces, she ain’t saying. For that matter, she’s not about to admit whether she and Ben are having a spat, either.

Lopez, who turned 33 in July, ascribes this reticence to the breathless tabloid free-for­-all – complete with expert body-language analysis, handy relationship flowcharts and extreme telephoto close-ups of the most famous ring since Frodo’ s – that surrounds the couple’s every move and had, in the weeks preceding our interview, gone thermonuclear. “Literally, there’s someone shooting into my house with cameras,” she says. “I go out, and I’m going to be followed by six cars. All day long. You say to yourself, ‘It will pass. This is not who I really am. ‘But you’ re a person, and it hurts.”

Doing the occasional interview is fine, she says, part of the job. “But if you’re in the paper every damn day, people are like, ‘Who cares?’ And then nobody goes to see your movie!” She’s referring, of course, to the ill-fated Gigli, in which she and Affleck costarred. “It’s like, ‘Why should we? We see her every day,’ and then you’re like, ‘Wait a minute! That’s the only reason I’m doing this!’ “

“So we made a decision,” she continues, shaking her tight ponytail resolutely. “I’m just not going to talk about any personal stuff.”

That’s the plan, anyway. But there’s a problem. Well, two. The first is that Lopez’s personal life has always been so thoroughly intertwined with her work that it would take a team of arthroscopic surgeons to separate the strands.

Take for example, her new fragrance, Still Jennifer Lopez, the forthcoming launch of which is the sole reason her solidly built but affable bodyguard, B.O.B., has allowed a reporter to cross the carpeted threshold of her trailer in the first place. Not only does the perfume share its name with a love song from Lopez’s latest album, This Is Me…Then, but it recalls the chorus of the record’s hit single “Jenny From the Block”: “Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got/I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block” In addition to which, the scent’s advertising tag line, “In the eye of the storm, I am still Jennifer Lopez,” is an explicit reference to her rather remarkable poise amid the flurry of activity that – now more than ever – surrounds her. And the bottle’s elaborate packaging, featuring a removable faux-diamond ring perched on its neck, immediately brings to mind the $6.1 million pink bauble, custom-designed by Harry Winston, she received upon her engagement to Affleck. While insisting that the bottle design is not a reference to her own betrothal-“Why didn’t we make it pink, then?” she asks – Lopez concedes that the similarities are striking. “It did kind of occur to us later on,” she says with a laugh.

Such interconnectedness is the essence of Lopezland, a supremely polished multi­media hall of mirrors in which every facet seems to reflect in every other, endlessly amplifying the star’s own light. To wit, her four multiplatinum albums are largely auto­biographical, brimming with direct references to her romances with Sean “P. Diddy” Combs (who also produced her debut, On the 6), Cris Judd (who danced in and choreographed her TV concert special, “Let’s Get Loud”) and Affleck (who appears in the video for ”Jenny From the Block” and is the subject of “Dear Ben”). Meanwhile, such films as Selena, The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan have-perhaps unintentionally bathed Lopez’s own oft-repeated biographical story in their fairy-tale Hollywood glow.

The second problem with the newly reticent, self-protective Lopez is that, frankly, it’s not her. She is, by nature, a defiantly unguarded person. As anyone who witnessed the sartorial game of chicken she played with that rainforest-green Versace dress at the 2000 Grammys already knows, circumspection is not really Lopez’s thing. “I push myself to the limits,” she says. “I take risks. I keep myself on edge. That’s just the animal in me.”

So, sashaying right up to the edge of her own vow of silence, Lopez eschews any direct wedding talk – refusing to confirm reports that September 14 is the big day – but seems happy enough to chat about the “major transition” about to take place for her. “I’m really excited about making more time for my personal life, and making decisions that aren’t all about me,” she says. “Just having another person; a family to consider; I am so looking forward to that in my life. I have been for a long time.”

From which one might well surmise that her relationship with Affleck is …fine? “Yes!” she affirms with a warm smile. “This relationship is the best thing in my life.”

The question has taken on some urgency of late, after The National Enquirer revealed that Affleck, who spent the summer filming a movie in Vancouver, had visited a strip club on the very night that the actor and his betrothed were seen gushing about their domestic bliss in a very special “Dateline NBC.” To be sure, ogling go-go dancers is something of a prewedding tradition. But it was the other details reported by the paper – that Ben had cheated on Jen with one (or was it three?) of the strippers, and that said dalliance might have been captured on video – that soon had People and US Weekly musing, in lemon yellow 80-point cover type, IS THE WEDDING STILL ON? and WILL J.LO FORGIVE HIM?

“For me, it wasn’t an issue,” Lopez says impassively of Affleck’s night on the town. “We talk every day. I know what he does, he knows what I do. We don’t have those kind of secrets. What they put in the paper is not what happened, so it doesn’t matter. But watching that get so blown out of proportion, I was like, Wow, so this is where we’re at: You can’t walk into a place and hang out with a couple of friends without it turning into a national scandal. It was ridiculous.”

Lopez adds that she never had the slightest doubt that the reports’ more salacious details were “straight falsehoods, straight lies,” as she puts it. “Because I knew he had gone! And I knew [the story was coming out] beforehand. He’s like, ‘Hey, the Enquirer is doing a story, and I called my lawyer today,’ and I was thinking, Oh, God. I knew it was going to be a big deal in the press, but I didn’t know it was going to be like that, the cover of eight magazines at once. It’s like, This can’t be that interesting. But I guess it was. We sat there and read the articles together and said, ‘This is just insane.’ It sounds ridiculous, if you read it. It sounds so stupid! It’s like, If you’re single and 21, you wouldn’t do things like that. It’s just crazy!”

Male infidelity has been something of a leitmotif in Lopez’s work-beginning with one of her first acting roles, on “Second Chances,” a short-lived TV drama in which she played a bride with cold feet. “I do,” she declares at the altar, waiting just a beat before adding, “have reservations.” As gasps erupt from the pews, she berates the groom: ”You slept with a stripper last night!” Likewise, her characters in both The Wedding Planner and Enough deal with cheating lovers, and any number of her songs explore the subject, most prominently her very first single, “If You Had My Love,” with the fierce declaration, “First of all, I won’t have you cheating on me.”

Despite which, Lopez scoffs at the notion that men are somehow evolutionarily wired for infidelity. “They can be faithful,” she says. “They just have to want to. I don’t think it’s natural for anyone, honestly. But it’s considered more acceptable for men to cheat. It’s like men go, ‘Oh, I can’t be with just one woman…,’ But hey, it’s hard for women too, you know? Hel-lo! It’s hard for us too! Which is why I think we give our men such a hard time. It’s like, Hey, if I can [be faithful], you can do it too. Trust me.”

That said, Lopez, who became engaged to Affleck before her divorce from Judd was final, does not consider fidelity to be the only key to a good relationship. “I think you have to be honest, more than anything,” she says. “Communication, fidelity… it’s all very important, but it depends on what kind of relationship you’re in.” Indeed, Lopez has admitted she suspected P. Diddy of cheating on her when they were together, and that she put up with it. “For a little while, yes, but not in the end,” she points out now, narrowing her eyes.

Which is not to say that there aren’t some fundamental differences between the sexes. “It’s the difference between ‘me’ and ‘we,'” she explains. “Men operate from their own universe, and women are focused on family, keeping it together. Because we’re caretakers by nature – we give birth, we have to take care of that baby – and men don’t have that experience. They have to bring home the bacon, that kind of stuff. Those are different sensibilities.”

In the “Dateline NBC” interview, Lopez set eyeballs a-rolling when she declared adoringly that “Ben wears the pants” in the relationship, but in light of the extraordinary power she exercises over her business affairs, Lopez makes no apologies for seek­ing a more traditional female role at home. “It’s about being able to feel safe somewhere,” she explains. “That doesn’t mean I’m not a strong, independent woman. But I think when you’ re in a relationship, you have to submit to a certain extent.”

That attitude is a far cry from that of Ricki, the lesbian organized-crime enforcer she played in Gigli, who jousts relentlessly about the relative merits of men and women with another hired gun, played by Affleck – before, inevitably, falling into bed with him. Given the vehement hostility the film aroused, it might not be out of line to attribute some of the response to the sexual insecurity of male movie critics (still the overwhelming majority) unnerved by the sight of a beautiful woman, in the midst of a rather suggestive yoga routine, comparing their anatomy to a “sea slug.”

Indeed, one of the few critics who dared to say anything nice about Gigli was a woman, Variety‘s Amy Dawes, who says her write-up prompted readers to flood her inbox with hate mail and her boss, Peter Bart, to relieve her of her reviewing duties. “I felt like the Dixie Chicks!” Dawes says. “It’s not like the war in Iraq, it’s a movie – but there was the same intolerance of a differing opinion.”

Lopez suspects that the media obsession with her love life had a lot to do with the film’s poor reception, something she’d feared for months. “I kept warning my mom,” she recalls. “I said, ‘Mom, we’re gonna get killed.”‘

Asked how she thought such immortal lines as “It’s turkey time-gobble, gobble” and “My penis sneezes” would go over with audiences, she laughs. “It’s genius! Look, I thought it was risky, but I also felt it was juicy,” she says. “It was tough stuff to work with.” As for playing a lesbian (albeit a wobbly one), Lopez didn’t hesitate. “It didn’t define who she was,” she explains, “so it didn’t bother me. To be honest, if I actually had to do a love scene with a woman I maybe would have thought twice about it, because I’ve never done anything like that, in real life or on film. That would have been a thing like, Am I going to be able to let go that much? But it wasn’t in the script.”

As for the final product, Lopez thinks it still hasn’t gotten a fair shake. “People are saying there was no chemistry,” she says incredulously. “That’s insane! There’s crazy chemistry! Look, I’m tougher on myself than any critic can ever be. The movie had places where it didn’t work, and that’s fine. Review that. But don’t just be an ass to be an ass, you know?

“I really think it will have a resurgence on cable!” she adds. “Now people may look at me and say, ‘She’s totally off her f—ing rocker,’ but hey, that’s my theory.”

There’s little chance the film will do lasting harm to her career, but Lopez has often admitted feeling that her Bentley convertible could suddenly turn back into a pumpkin. “This business breeds that type of sensibility,” she says. “There’s always somebody there to take your place –they tell you that the first time you walk into an audition. You’re only as good as your last this or that, and you have to have something in the can.” She does: Along with Shall We Dance?, which costars Richard Gere, Lopez will appear in Jersey Girl, again with Affleck, and in the forthcom­ing Lasse Halstrom drama, An Unfinished Life, opposite Robert Redford.

Even so, it’s hardly surprising that Lopez is feeling especially vulnerable these days. In addition to the tabloid rumors and the Gigli mess, she’s in the middle of an acri­monious split from her longtime manager, Benny Medina, whom she says called recently to check in on her. “He said, ‘I just want you to know I’m always your friend and I’m always here for you,'” she says, growing a bit misty. “With all the craziness going on, that really meant some­thing to me. Benny was one of my best friends. Right now the wounds are still fresh-for both of us. It’s a transition period for me and for him to move on to a different section of our lives without the comfort of each other. Business is not easy, but I think it was really important for my own growth to kind of let go of the crutch.”

As it happens, Medina isn’t the only casualty of recent personnel changes in Lopez’s camp. She replaced her publicity firm, Rogers & Cowan, with Dan Klores Communications, a firm known for its crisis-management savvy. And on the agency front, she has raised eyebrows in Hollywood by bouncing from ICM to Endeavor to CM and back to Endeavor in less than a year. “It’s not as complicated as people make it out to be,” she says. “I’ve been doing a little juggling. You have to put the right people in place for your team to feel good. After getting out of that comfort zone I was in for a long time, I have to be a little bit more hands-on about decisions. To be honest, I feel a little orphaned right now, but I think that’s part of growing. The people I’m working with now are really smart and good at what they do.” Even so, when asked if she’s got the mix right, she admits, “It’s too early to tell.”

Despite all the turmoil, Lopez remains a world-class superstar at the top of her game. The well-received This Is Me… Then, has spawned two Top 10 singles. Her first fragrance, Glow by J.Lo, launched last September, is a run­away success. According to Catherine Walsh, vice president of the cosmetics company Lancaster, which markets Glow, the scent is ranked No.1 globally in terms of units sold ”You don’t come across a Jennifer Lopez every day,” Walsh says. Expectations are therefore quite high for Still, which includes notes of sake, Earl Grey tea, honeysuckle and sandalwood. And the fragrances are just the beginning of an ambitious House of J.Lo beauty line, including cosmetics, skin care and hair products. (Not bad for a woman whose fragrance career started at a nondescript shack in a Bronx parking lot – “Like one of those places you see that says FLATS FIXED,” Lopez recalls-where she peddled bootleg versions of Poison and other blockbuster scents of the day.) This fall the company is introducing something called the Glow Kit, a promotional sampler based on the makeup Lopez sports in the scent’s marketing materials. “The idea is to say, ‘You can capture this look,'” Walsh explains. “It’s a way to test the waters.”

Meanwhile, after a shaky start, Lopez’s Sweetface Fashion Co. is beginning to find some traction. The company’s president and CEO, Denise Seegal, describes the line as “sexy, clean, fun, girly clothing,” adding that the recently launched accessories line is doing well and that handbags, intimate apparel, footwear and outer­wear are also on the drawing board for 2004. ”Jennifer has been so successful in the past two years, and that has added a positive halo to the total branding,” Seegal notes. “But the product itself, in order to have longevity, has to be the best. Whatever happens regarding a film or a CD, the brand has to stand on its own.”

Lopez agrees. “When you put the name J.Lo on a piece of clothing,” she says, “you have a lot of stuff that comes along with that. That wasn’t my choice. I fight it to this day. Because ultimately, it’s not about my name, it’s about the product.”

Indeed, from her point of view, the whole J.Lo thing has gotten way out of hand. “I was never like, ‘Call me J.Lo!”‘ Lopez insists. “I named the album J.Lo, but now I think I was crazy. When something sticks like that, you really just don’t quite understand it, and you want your name back. You’re like, ‘Please, call me Jennifer. I was fine with that for 20, 30 years.…’ ”

Besides, ”Jennifer” carries none of the baggage associated with “J.Lo,” which brings to mind the whole music-diva persona that has bedeviled Lopez for years. It’s a reputation her friends and colleagues say is unwarranted. “Sure, she likes her diamonds, and there’s that bling-bling side to her,” says Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, who before becoming a partner at Revolution Films was Lopez’s agent at ICM. “But there’s also a side of her that’s very simple and caring and vulnerable.”

“I like dressing up and being glamorous,” Lopez says. “But for somebody like me, who really didn’t have that much, to have things is fun. It’s just really base and simple! I like looking nice. But I think people want to judge a book by its cover, and they just go, ‘Ugh, what a diva. Just look at her!'”

Notes Goldsmith-Thomas: “If being a diva is getting up at five in the morning, going to a movie set, leaving to go work on an album, then going home and doing the whole thing again, then fine. But I’ve never seen anybody work as hard as her. She worked for every opportunity she’s ever had. She wasn’t given anything.”

As a result, Lopez has an unshakable confidence in her own point of view. Goldsmith-Thomas was herself fired by Lopez after one too many disagreements (among other things, she argued strenuously against The Dress). But the two maintained a tight bond; Goldsmith-Thomas, who produced Maid in Manhattan, brought the film to her former client and still gets together with Lopez for the occasional TV night, including a recent “Mary Tyler Moore” marathon. “Jennifer will listen to other opinions,” she says, “but if you try to tell her the rules, she goes the opposite direction.”

As Lopez says matter-of-factly, “I always try to explain to everyone I’m in business with, the usual rules don’t apply to me. I’m just in a different thing, and I have to go with my gut on every specific little issue. I just make my own rules.” For the most part, the approach has worked marvelously. On the refrigerator in her trailer, Lopez has taped up a collection of supportive clippings sent by relatives over the past few difficult months. One, a newspaper horoscope for her sign, Leo, sums things up fairly well: “Your life is about to change for the better,” it reads. “You are now on the throne and will be able to rule all that you survey. Your patience has been tested, but it will be worth it in matters of love and career

[alissaming]

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

So a bit of a tangent, but I at one point thought this was the first Story of Seasons games that allows you to marry same gender marriage candidates. As I'm currently playing through Pioneers of Olive Town, I think I was wrong, as Pioneers of Olive Town seems to allow that as well, and I think it came out before FoMT. Anway, let's do this.

So this game is a recreation of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town, and a pretty faithful one at that. All the characters you'd recognize from those games are here, as well as a couple extra. There's some renaming, but nothing serious. There's a lot of options for how your character looks, with two male models and two female models, and several skin colors. Otherwise, there's no character creation to speak of. There are several outfits to choose from as well.

Like it's predecessors, there's not a lot to this game, but I do enjoy how you got the farm in this game far more than you getting scammed in More Friends of Mineral Town. In this version of the game, it was your grandfather's farm, and you inherit it from him after he passes. But the main game is just building up your farm, the house, coop, barn, upgrading the field, getting married, and having a kid. Pretty simple. The fully upgraded barn can hold a total of 16 animals. I use it as a chance to have 2 of each cow, 4 sheep and 4 alpacas. The fully upgraded coop can hold 8 animals. As chickens produce daily and rabbits produce wool every 5 days, I usually have 4 of each, so there's a day of no rabbit fur. The field has plenty of room. I usually just let the grass grow, except for the small segment area I use to farm. Even at your lowest heart level (no stamina fruit found, or only one found as you can find one in your field) you should be able to manage the 4 starter crops (3 from the store and 1 from Won the merchant) in 2 9x9 squares each. You can even have them all together as they never block anything ever, not even each other.

There are some added things. In HM: FoMT and MFoMT, there is one tree that you cannot cut that produces honey all year and, depending on the season, peaches, grapes, or apples. In this game, you can have up to 5 trees, with three trees to choose from, each producing only one fruit, plus they all occasionally produce honey. This means while you can be guaranteed to have 1 of each tree type, you can only have an extra of 2 trees. (So for example 1 grape tree, 2 apple trees, 2 orange trees.) Or you can have one of every tree and 3 of 1 tree (3 grape trees, 1 orange tree, 1 apple tree for example.) Grape trees produce their fruit in Spring and Summer, apple trees in Summer and Autumn, and orange trees in Autumn and Winter.

When having kids, you can choose the gender or choose to be surprised. If you marry someone of the opposite gender, the female half of the pair will get pregnant. If you marry someone of the same gender, roughly when the female half of a male/female couple would have a baby, the Harvest Goddess will pop up with two children, and allow you to adopt one. She'll do...something...with the other, I think leave them with another home? As to how she got the kids? I'm assuming she made them with her Harvest Goddess powers, they were orphans she took into her care, or maybe she kidnapped them. I think the funniest thing is that your partner will not question where the child came from. They're just like "Oh, we need to take care of this kid now? OK"

This game is immense amounts of fun and I'll say the team that makes the Story of Seasons game did a very good job recreating FOMT. Yes there were changes, such as Won only sells his special apples if you become friendly enough with him, Ann being named Ran instead, and the addition of Brandon and Jennifer for eligible marriage candidates. Oh, and they removed the ability for rivals to marry each other, so adding other candidates so you can avoid getting inbetween a rivalry is pointless. But most of the changes are actually good, not bad. And it looks amazing. The songs are so well recreated. I'd say a solid 4/5, maybe even a rare 5/5, considering it's a recreation and a dang good one in my opinion.

[primorcoin]

New Post has been published on https://primorcoin.com/sam-bankman-fried-says-he-will-testify-before-the-us-house-financial-services-committee-remotely/

Sam Bankman-Fried says he will testify before the US House Financial Services Committee remotely

Continuing his so-called apology tour, Sam Bankman-Fried appeared on a Twitter Space with Unusual Whales and told nearly 60,000 listeners that he intends to testify at the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee remotely on Dec. 13. He was previously confirmed to appear in person.

Bankman-Fried, who is allegedly currently located in the Bahamas, missed the deadline to confirm his appearance before the Senate Banking Committee the following day, despite the threat of a subpoena. Despite his frequent public speaking, Bankman-Fried has gone silent on Twitter himself, not posting since Dec. 9, when he indicated his agreement to appear at the House committee hearing. 

1) I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like.

But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th. https://t.co/KR34BsNaG1

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 9, 2022

John Ray, who has taken over from Bankman-Fried as FTX‘s CEO since the firm’s bankruptcy, is also slated to appear at the House hearings before the full committee. Ray, who oversaw the liquidation of Enron, has expressed his dismay at the management of FTX. Crypto skeptics Hilary Allen and Ben McKenzie are expected to appear at the Senate hearing. Allen is a law professor, and McKenzie, whose full name is Ben McKenzie Schenkkan, is an actor who has spoken out against crypto, bucking the controversial trend of celebrity crypto endorsements. Investor and former FTX spokesperson Kevin O’Leary and Cato Institute director of Financial Regulation Studies Jennifer Schulp are also expected to testify.

U.S. authorities have reportedly threatened to extradite Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas. He reportedly faces criminal charges in that country as well. The U.S. Justice Department has reportedly launched its own investigation into Bankman-Fried for fraud related to money transfers from the United States to the Bahamas carried out days before FTX declared bankruptcy.

Bankman-Fried has reportedly hired former federal prosecutor Mark Cohen for his defense. Cohen is best known for defending socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. Caroline Ellison, former CEO of FTX-linked Alameda Research, will reportedly be represented by former Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director Stephanie Avakian. 

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#CryptoExchange #DEFI #DEFINews #NFT #NFTNews

[dadsbongos]

peak romance

Warnings: none? Summary: You and Yuji have a late night chat to distract him from his late-night thoughts :) Word Count: 1.4 K ~~~

It’s late when you’re shaken awake. The movements are gentle and the hands are soft, but even so, and despite loving your boyfriend you cannot deny the huff that leaves you at having been woken up so deep into the night. You sit up and glance at the alarm clock Yuji keeps on his bedside table, 

“Does that say it’s one in the morning?”

“1:07, yeah,” he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, his phone shut off but still tight in his grasp. Yuji reaches up and scratches the side of his head, eyes bouncing from you to his phone, “So… I had to shit, right?”

“Riveting,” you attempt to rub the lingering exhaustion from your eyes.

“Well, just listen. So, I was there and I was checking my phone ‘cuz I’m not a lunatic who shits without their phone - and then I… I saw it,” Yuji swipes up to unlock his phone, then shows you the screen. The brightness, despite already being relatively low, burns at your eyes.

Squinting, you lean forward, “Damn, unlucky. Now your chances with her are totally zero.”

Jennifer Lawrence is confirmed to be pregnant. Good for her.

When Yuji can only silently shut off his phone and place it on your nightstand, you continue, “Wanna talk about it? I’m sure that was such disastrous news.”

“No, it’s just… weird,” he shrugs, lying back over your lap, “For some reason it feels weird. Like, I get that she’s a person, it isn’t that she’s gonna be a mom or whatever but it just made me think about fatherhood.”

“You just graduated high school like last year.”

“But still,” he turns his head, and through the darkness you can just make out the furrow in his brows, “I don’t think I want to be a dad.”

“Do you wanna talk about that?”

Yuji had severe baby fever at times. And he enjoyed babysitting. From what you knew about him, you’d been under the impression he wanted children, but perhaps that’s unfair to him. To assume that because he’s good with kids he wants to raise his own.

“Not really, just odd in here,” he brings a hand over to pat at the spot on his chest right over his heart, “to come to terms with that. ‘Cuz it isn’t like I don’t like kids, I just don’t think I’m responsible enough to raise them. How am I supposed to say no to ice cream for dinner when there’s no downsides to it? I’m not fake like that.”

“I get that,” you reach out and lay a hand over Yuji’s forehead, then brush your fingers through his hair, “You’re good with Tiffany Maxwell, so that’s good enough.”

“Tiffany Maxwell, my angel cat,” he chuckles, “I had to scold her again - on not chewing wires… even used the royal ‘we’ so she’d think I have a wire-chewing problem too and wouldn’t be embarrassed.”

“As you should,” your stare goes to the ceiling, “She is so spoiled. I love her.”

“I know, right?” he’d dragged out the ‘o’, turning his head to his cheek presses to your thigh, “She has her own Disney+ account to watch cartoons on.”

“We’re such good cat parents, Yuji.”

“Literally, yeah.”

It’s quiet. Your eyes close and you can nearly feel yourself dipping into slumber when Yuji speaks once again,

“Do you remember that guy you dated who just wanted to initiate you into his cult?”

“Shut up - that was before we even met! Why do you even remember that?”

“I think it’s just really funny,” as if to add to his point, there’s barely muffled laughter, “Your exes kinda suck, you really lucked out with me to be honest.”

“Man,” you huff, “enough of this. You dated a girl who posted a picture with the caption ‘I know you think of me when you kiss her’, petty as fuck.”

“Okay, okay - but which one of us tried to ‘suggest baby names’” he shook his head as he enacted heavy air quotes, “just to see if the guy would react to the name of a girl he cheated with.”

“First of all, I was the victim- “

“Never said you weren’t.”

“Second of all, I saw him sweat at the name Taki.”

“And that one guy who managed to kill your pothos plant in like two days.”

“Don’t even.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” he kisses the skin of your thigh, “You’re so lucky to have me, babe, it’s crazy.”

“I dunno, man, you still put on chapstick like a fucking baby using a crayon for the first time,” he groans, tossing his head back as you giggle, “Just - fuckin’ - relax your lips! Literally, just relax your lips. It’s not hard.”

“It’s so hard,” he denies, shaking his head, “Impossible, even.”

A hush - a comfortable one - falls over you two briefly as you card your fingers through the mess of hair atop Yuji’s head.

“I used to get told that school wasn’t a beauty salon by teachers when I’d put on chapstick.”

If you didn’t know Yuji better, you’d think that the momentary quiet was him having fallen asleep. But then, you hear it - a snort, followed by his laughter, “You’re joking! No way. No chance.”

“Yeah, it was awful - and then I got to Jujutsu Tech and Gojo would do his entire skin care routine in the middle of an assignment presentation.”

“Say what you want about Gojo but out of all the men, he wasn’t the worst.”

“Ah, right, right. He never used someone’s weight as a comeback in an argument.”

Yuji grins, “Back when you guys were supposed to think I was dead, he would make sure you, Fushiguro, and Kugisaki were asleep so I could check on you guys.”

Your fingers pause running through his hair, “Really?”

“Yeah,” your movements resume and Yuji reaches out to take your free hand in his, rubbing his thumb over your knuckles, “I just needed to see you guys sometimes. It was hard pretending to be dead.”

“Aw, poor baby,” you lean down and kiss his forehead, “At least you’re not dead anymore.”

“Yeah, that’d suck. I think I’d hate being dead. No Tiffany Maxwell and no you, that sounds awful.”

“Aww, you’re adorable. My scrimblo.”

“Okay, enough of that,” Yuji sits up and moves to sit beside you on the bed before taking your hand in his once again, “Terrible.”

“When you actually die - like years in the future - you should eat a shitload of aromatic herbs and spices before, so that when you’re cremated everyone gets hungry.”

“Oh my God,” he turns and cups your cheek with his hand, “Your mind, it’s so big and juicy, I wanna kiss on it.”

“Thank you,” you lay your hand over his and turn it up to kiss his palm, “So romantic.”

“Speaking of romantic, do you wanna hear a pickup line I’ve been working on?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” he releases your hands and sits up on his knees to face you, face falling into stone cold seriousness, “Are you from Mississippi?” when you only tilt your head, he goes on, “‘Cuz you’re the only Miss whose piss I sippy.”

“Ew!” you turn to your phone and take it, holding it up as if to summon the obnoxious AI helper trapped inside, “Google, how do you undo something another person said?”

“No,” he whines despite his own giggling, “You tell me one. C’mon, I wanna hear it.”

“Alright,” you close your eyes, “I’ll get the best one I can think of. Okay, is your partner an organ donor?” you lean closer and whisper to him with a smile, “Say ‘no’.”

He nods, grinning, as he answers, “No.”

You scoff, “Then how’re they gonna give you their heart?”

“Good one, good one,” he murmurs, “Alright - do you like pudding?”

“Huh?”

“Because,” he points at you, with a stupidly large smile that tells you exactly what he’s about to say, “I think you’ll enjoy puddin’ deez nuts in your mouth.”

“I’m breaking up with you,” you pinch his side, “How could you?”

“I’m too funny, I know,” he raises his hands up in mock surrender. Then, he drops the laughter, he tilts his head and scratches at the back of his neck, dodging your stare as he says, “I love you. Like a lot. Like if you wanted flowers, I’d build a garden.”

“Okay, you’re forgiven for the deez nuts joke,” you gently take Yuji by the shoulders and pull him forward until his head is resting on your chest, “I love you, too.”

You can feel the exhaustion pull at your eyes as they flutter shut, your careful hold on Yuji slowly weakens as sleep crawls over you.

And just as you think Yuji’s forgotten his turmoil and passed out as he usually does, you hear him quietly mumble, “Do you think anyone’s invented a virgin edible?”

“Bitch, that’s just food.”

“Oh, shit.”

[pretoriafics]

Teenage Dream Pt. 2 (Interactive story)

Man! I think this one is the most amazing thing I'd ever written! I'll request from all of you guys special attention at the end of this chapter. I'll let you a message, and I'm pretty sure you will love it!

Derek took you to his loft. While you are alone, you start to understand the environment you were now part of. Word count: 2.056 Pairings: Different Dimension!Reader x Derek; Different Dimension!Reader x Platonic!Laura; Different Dimension!Reader x Platonic!Cora; Different Dimension!Reader x Platonic!Talia Contain: It’s pretty fun; AU Warnings: English is not my main language <3 PART 1 ALTERNATIVE VERSION TEEN WOLF MASTERLIST

You finally entered Derek's loft. Oh, man... It was just like in the tv show!

You enter the loft just like if you had entered paradise. With your mouth opened in pure fascination, you swirl around your feet while looking around. Derek came just behind you with arch eyebrows. It would be funny if it doesn't be scary.

"Oh. My. Godness. Is it here that all the pack meetings are made?"

Derek didn't reply to you. Instead of it, he just stares at you. He gives a few steps forward, getting closer to you.

"What's your name?"

You swallowed hard. Derek was with his usual cold expression, arms crossed in front of his chest, and no patience for bullshit.

"(Y/N) (Y/L/N)."

"Good. Look (Y/N) (Y/L/N), you will stay right here. You will not get out, you will not call anyone, or speak with anyone. If you run away from here, I'll kill you faster than you could say to me what happens at season one. Did I made things clear to you?" Shrunken in fear, you just nod, and Derek narrows his eyes to you. "Okay. I need to see someone that you probably know, so-"

"Braeden? Jennifer? Deaton?"

Derek sounds confused to hear the first two names. So, you simply thought that he didn't meet them yet.

"Not of your business."

He gives his back to you, walking out of his loft and closing the door, locking you there. And, wow, you have Derek's loft all for you! Oh man, it just like on the fanfics!

Well, you were curious and excited as hell. Your first thought was something pretty plausible: You used to watch Teen Wolf when you were a teenager. So, being inside the series was just like time-traveling. Smartphones aren't a thing yet, and Dua Lipa music still unknown. As a way to test this theory, you walk in the radio's direction and turn it on. The music that started to fill the room was Friday by Rebecca Black. Yeah, you remind that song, and you instantly felt nostalgic. But it could be just random music on the radio, right?

You switched the radio station, and then Party Rock Anthem By LMFAO starts to play. Well, another song of 2011... But you aren't so sure yet, so you switch the radio station one last time. You almost fell on your back when Domino by Jessie J fills the room. You took a confirmation that yeah, you were back in the 2011's. You are probably during the events of season one.

Well, Scott has just been bit by Peter, Derek just came back from town, and... You are now in the middle of all of that.

"Oh, man!"

You can't do anything for a while. So, all you could do is wait for Derek and whatever he was doing now. You look around while Jessie J sings on the radio, giving you a few nostalgic feelings. Well, you would take a relaxing bath. There's just one problem: All the clothes you have is the one you're wearing now. Without giving a damn, you walk to Derek's wardrobe direction.

"I'm sorry sour wolf, but I'll borrow a few clothes of yours." You open it and take a black shirt. Man, you felt thrilled! "Jeez, this is so like the fanfics!"

You go to the bathroom's direction, taking off your kitten pajama, and putting yourself under the hot water of the shower. Man, Rude Boy by Rihanna starts to play on the radio. You couldn't contain a laugh. It was funny because you were taking a shower and would wear clothes from a legit rude boy.

And, well, you started to sing. It was everything really nice for a few minutes: You were wearing Derek's shirt, listening to a few old pieces of music, and, now, you were in his kitchen making a sandwich.

When you sat on Derek's bed, with your wet hair and your sandwich, Starstrukk by 3OH!3 and Katy Perry started to play. Yeah, that time alone was being nice! You move your body in the music's rhythm while bites your sandwich, still sat on the mattress. You should enjoy that peace while it lasts!

The sandwich was cool, the music either... But you realized that, now, you had a golden chance that every fan would die to have: You are alone in Derek's flat. What kind of things he hides there?

After finishing your sandwich, you look around. You stand up from the mattress and walk around the loft. Getting upstairs, you could find some supernatural books, some weird things that you thought could be some magic stuff, and his laptop. Oh, man! What else hides in his internet searches?

You hold yourself, trying to decide if you should snoop his history on the internet or if you should see what he hides on his bedside table drawer.

When you go downstairs, Animal by Neon Trees fills your ears. You run to Derek's bedside table and opens his drawer. You found his cell phone charger, as well as the laptop one, a coin with a triskelion and... tons of condoms.

Your eyes got widen. This is definitely the kind of thing the TV show hasn't expose.

Also, you noticed Derek's loft needed some... cleaning.

Bored as never before, you walked to the kitchen searching for some cleaning stuff. You found some on a cabinet: A mop and a few other products. Oh, perfect! You took them and, soon, you were sliding the mop through the flat while sings Animal. The flat smells like lavender now, and the floor is so clean that you are proud.

You heard Magic by Rivers Cuomo and B.o.B on the radio, and you sing with the music reminding the parties at your friend's house after school. Suddenly, the door finally opens, and you heard Derek's voice.

"...She's not lying, and I need to know if you already saw something like that before."

You froze with the mop on your hand when you saw Derek. He froze as well. It was understandable: A complete stranger is cleaning his flat and wearing his clothes.

"...Oh, hi! I've borrowed your shirt."

Then, a female voice came behind him.

"There are tons of things that could cause this kind of thing. We need to investigate."

Talia Hale came after his son, as well as Laura and Cora. They also froze with the scene of you wearing Derek's clothes and cleaning his loft. You? Well, your eyes almost had pulled out of your face when you saw them. Talia inhales the air to her lungs, clearly smelling the air.

"Are this... Lavender?"

"Yeah, it is." Laura replied her mom, looking at Derek after that "I think lavender suits you. It's perfect for your flat. It is really your thing, Derek."

You were so confused! What are they doing there? Your chin fell, letting your mouth opened in pure disbelief. Derek rolled his eyes at Laura before look at you again.

"...She'll freak out."

"Oh. My. Gosh. Oh my gosh!!" The mop fell on the floor, and you ran through Talia, Cora, and Laura's direction. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

The Hale women look at each other, and Cora looks at you.

"Well, mom came here to help Derek with, uh, you. And I guess you already know us."

"You shouldn't be here!" You stare at Cora "You should be in South America! And both of you" You stare at Talia and Laura "I can't even talk about you two! Jeez!"

You put your hands on your head, with your mind blowing while the Hale family enters into the loft. Derek turns off the radio before staring at you again.

"I thought you were used to seeing me with them."

You stare at him, with your eyes widen. Your mind was full of theories already.

"Derek, you are definitely not understanding what is happening here. Your family shouldn't be here."

He arches his eyebrows, noticing there's something pretty wrong here.

"What do you mean?"

"Look" You approach them, looking at everyone "I'll do just one question: Did your house was burned some years ago?"

They look at each other, with the engines on their head trying to work. Talia stares at you.

"Yeah, but we had fortunately escaped."

"How about your brother?"

"Peter was the only one that hasn't managed to."

Oh, man... That means one thing. Scared as hell, you sat on the mattress. Derek started to feel anxious and approaches you.

"What's happening?"

You breathe in, staring at the family.

"It shouldn't happen. At the TV show, Talia dies at the fire. Cora ran to South America, Peter got burnt and goes to a clinic, Laura turns herself into alpha, and she stays with Derek. It means that I'm not on the TV Show. I'm inside a fanfic."

Oh, man... It means, basically, that you even haven't so sure about what will happens next. If you were inside the TV Show, you could predict the future. You couldn't do it if you were inside a fanfic.

While you were in complete shock, Talia looks at her family.

"Well... I'll search the most plausible theory of (Y/N)'s arrival. I think we can start looking for some witches near. It can be some work from a coven."

While the Hale family talks about you, you still sat on the mattress, thinking about what the heck was going on. Well, what kind of fanfic did you got into? Was It an insert-reader one, or was It just a common one? Are you the protagonist?

You would test your theory, and you would do it right now.

Knowing the opportunity was just right there, you ran through the flat's door. However, Derek notices your escaping.

"She's running away!"

A mess quickly takes form inside Derek's loft: His announcement made all the Hale run after you, trying to avoid your escaping. They don't know anything about you yet. It could be dangerous to have you simply walking around Beacon Hills.

Fast, you ran through the building until you go outside. A storm quickly takes form, and heavy rain starts to fell from the skies. To everyone's surprise, you stopped in the middle of the asphalt, looking at the sky.

"Hey!" You yelled to something up there "I want a sign! Hey, writer! Readers! Anyone! Am I inside of a fanfic? Answer me! Send me a clue, anything!"

A thunder lightens the skies, and you fell on your knees with a lack of a clue that could help you to find out what was going on. Then, you felt a hand grab your arm.

"Enough, weirdo." Laura said, holding you while the Hale family surrounds you to keep you from running away "You'll stay inside the loft."

With all the last hopes of yours, you look up from the skies. The rainwater runs through your body while you wait. You just want a sign! A clue!

Then, you thought you had seen something. Laura pushes you, making you stand up from the asphalt. And when she was started to drag you to the loft again, you saw something falling from the sky. Derek saw it too.

"Laura, wait."

Everyone looks up, noticing what the heck was that: It was a post-it paper falling from the skies in your direction. When it came close enough, you took it.

Man... When you read it, your face became pale as a candle, and you simply pass out on Laura's arms. Caught by surprise, Laura holds you while everyone runs in your direction. Cora took the post-it paper from your hand and, when she read it, she stares at her family completely incredulous.

"What?" Derek looks at her, in urgency to know what was that. Cora swallowed hard, starting to read the post-it paper out loud.

"Here says: Author's note: Yeah, you are inside a fanfic. Author's note two: Your story has just started, girl."

Yeah, for sure, the Hale family stares at each other in complete shock. Of course, they weren't expecting that your call for a sign would be replied to. Especially by me, the author of your story! Ha! And honestly? I'll think carefully if I'll help you during your journey inside your favorite TV Show, because, honestly? I'll not let things easy for you.

FINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE Here's the thing about this series: I'm the author mentioned at the end of this chapter, y'all are the readers mentioned in the story AND the (Y/N) of this story. Consider that the (Y/N) is the "you" from a different dimension, okay? Why should you consider this: Because you all can communicate themselves with the (Y/N) of that story! At every ending of the chapter, I'll request you to send me something to help the (Y/N) inside the story. You will send it through my ask, right here. Well, the (Y/N) has requested to the readers sent her a sign that she is really inside of a fanfic. Send me your clue for (Y/N) through my ask, and I'll put it on the next chapter to makes her freaking out.

I'll be waiting for y'all!

[annie-mit-ie]

Glimpses: Part 16 (Kathryn Hahn x Fem!Reader)

Part 1 // previous chapter <<< >>> next chapter

Summary: A lot is happening.

Word count: 2.8k

A/N: hello again! I was away on a family vacation over the weekend and am sitting in a car on the way home. This is, one again, entirely written and edited on the phone so pls be kind 🥰

Moreover, I can’t believe how many people loved and reacted to the last part. Good confidence boost! Hope y’all will enjoy this lighter chapter as well - a new rollercoaster is already awaiting around the corner ;)

Tag List: @danvers97 @zafirosreverie @srtamercurio @wanatag @pulledbythestars17 @plantowl @spacehahn @sarahp-stan @agentbrownierso @our-blood-is-our-ink @fruityhahn @emril-osvigne

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“You told her WHAT?” Jennifer looks at Kathryn in disbelief.

Kathryn, who is sitting on the couch, tea in hand and a wide smile on her face, looks at her manager. “That I think I am in love with her. Yup. I did that,“ she takes another sip. „Because, you know, I think I am.“

She smiles to herself and looks at her tea before she continues talking. „I can’t stop thinking about her. I want her around. Preferably at all times. I know I haven’t talked to her or anyone about it, but really… the whole thing with Jeffrey really made me realize… I couldn’t touch that man. At all. I couldn’t even bring myself to think about it. Because of her. I really do think this is it, Jen.”

Jennifer looks at Kathryn and for a moment both woman fall silent. “I just… I don’t think it’s a good idea. You might be at the height of your career right now. I just have a gut feeling.”

“Eh,” Kathryn waves the remark off with one hand. “You’re wrong.”

Not giving it another thought, she sips her tea and sits in silence, as Jennifer shakes her head and leaves the room, running into Agnes who is just about to enter. Agnes reminds Kathryn that she had to leave for today’s set in a couple of minutes and collects whatever she needs with her.

Agnes seems to be in a very good mood and occasionally checks her phone to stay on track as she leads Kathryn out of the room towards the car she had called for her. The women slip into the backseat and Kathryn immediately lets her head fall back and closed her eyes.

Lately, whenever she does, she can see your face. She doesn’t mind that you didn’t say anything back after she confessed to you. After all, it was her fault for calling right after work where people usually still need her. Right after she poured her heart out, someone came running towards her and told her to meet the director for an urgent arrangement. Obviously, Kathryn had to hang up right away as the project is top secret and the actors are not allowed to have their phones on set at all to keep it that way.

Seeing the tears on her face, the crew member didn’t say anything about the rule and never planned to report her for using a device in the first place. You saw him on you screen for just a second and realized Kathryn had to leave immediately. Both of you smiled and it felt wrong but at the same time the way her eyes looked made up for it and her apologetic good bye forced your heart to skip yet another beat.

Back in reality, Kathryn opens her eyes again and smiles at Agnes who is placing her hand on Kathryn’s. “You okay, K?”

Kathryn nods. “Better than ever before. I just wish she was here, you know?”

Agnes knows.

Today’s shooting is long and Kathryn’s body aches as she falls into bed that night. Tomorrow will be just as long, especially since the crew has to leave the area for a 2-day-shoot in the mountains. She sighs as she leans up against the headrest to type out a message telling you about it all. This week, time is tight and she hasn’t had enough of it to properly talk to you again. Especially with Jennifer following her every step to make sure she takes care of herself.

Preparing for the long shoot, Kathryn puts herself in a kind of trance, especially since her scenes will be mentally and physically demanding. Two days later, she snaps out of it as Agnes and her sit in a car on their way back to the hotel. Weirdly enough, she is full of energy and beams as her team wants to go have dinner tonight to celebrate the end of the week.

She immediately strips and hops into the shower before getting ready for dinner. Thinking about how it’s only gonna be her and the team, she ditches an extensive make up and is just about to just put mascara on as it knocks on her door.

Expecting Agnes or Jennifer to pick her up, Kathryn wants to just ask for them to let themselves in. But something holds her back, so she gets up and opens the door herself.

It’s you. You, in all your beauty. Your hair the way she likes it best, some make up, an outfit that tells her you know she is on her way to dinner. Kathryn is not able to form any words and just continues staring at you as you fiddle with your hands and shoot her a shy smile.

For a moment, neither of you speak or move, until you take a sharp breath. “I am in love with you, too”, you hear yourself say, before you launch forward, cup her face with both hands and capture her lips with yours.

The kiss is long, but sweet and she holds you close after it ends. “Y/N… you are here… you are real…”

There are tears in her eyes as she reaches up to move a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I’ve missed you so much. Oh god.” She sighs into your ear as she wraps you up in a tight hug while the door falls shot behind you.

A few seconds pass before she lets go and finally faces you. Realizing she isn’t in a position to talk, you take the lead, “I heard you’re going out for dinner?” She nods and cups your face to kiss you again. Hard. Wanting.

“Hold on!” You stop her. “We gotta get going, hm?”

Once again, she nods but you also feel your self slowly being pushed towards the wall behind you. Eventually, your back meets it with a thud, blowing some air out of your lungs. Looking at her, your chore burns and you bite down hard on your lower lip because you can feel yourself spiraling, wanting her, slowly giving in.

“Kathryn…”, you say her name, nearly moan her name. Teasing her with it, you want to see what effect it has on her as you let it roll on your lips. You are finally just about to give in as it knocks on the door again.

Realizing what had just happened, you jump back and remove yourself from Kathryn by ducking under her arms that are resting to your side. She takes a breath and flattens her shirt before running her hand through her hair as she opens the door. It’s Agnes.

“Boss? I’m - oh! HEY Y/N! Nice to see you found each other.” There is a short moment of silence in which she takes in the situation and realizes how out of breath Kathryn, highlighted by the cheeky smile you’re spotting in the background.

She coughs. “The limo is waiting. I’m here to pick you up, the others want to leave.”

Apologetic, she nods once and closes the door behind her again. Kathryn shoots you a short smile, grabs her blazer and your hand and leads you out of the room, following her right away.

The trip is nice. The whole team is there and you recognize Ben, the hairdresser, who is standing with Agnes and Jennifer, right away. As always, the manager acts professional and polite but keeps her distance while Ben wraps you up in a tight hug as he tells you he missed you. There is also a young blonde, whose name you don’t quite understand - Agnes introduced her as the set’s make up artist - and another assistant, who is responsible for all things regarding the project Kathryn is still working on. She seems very busy and organizes something after welcoming Kathryn shortly.

Quickly, you realize that Kathryn invites everyone out for a nice evening as a thank you for their work. She is one of the few people who realize that it takes a team to bring life into a character and it just makes you fall for her more. She shoots you a smile and lets her hand run over your arm before getting into the car where she sinks into the soft limo-seats.

Within the group, you look like you belong. No one would raise any suspicion asking who you are, especially since Kathryn’s set assistant, who is a local, organized a table at a restaurant far away from where the paparazzi would assume an actress would go out to.

The groups time at dinner is great. Once again, Kathryn takes the time to thank everyone and ask about their time and if anyone needed anything that she could provide. Occasionally, she would touch and squeeze your leg under the table and look directly into your eyes as you talk. You love when she puts her arm around the back of your chair to completely face you and take in every word you say. Sometimes, she would even run her index finger over her lip and bits down on it - a common thing she does that makes you forget every thought you’ve ever had. Other than Kathryn, everyone else also seems to be very interested into the stories you tell and they all make you feel like you are right at home, which is a welcomed change to how ex-partners treated you. Not that you and Kathryn are an actual thing.

When dinner comes to an end, everyone is high of laughter and slightly tipsy you are the last person to slip into the car. Kathryn is already sitting in the back of the long couch that fills out the limo. Sitting down, you move a little too fast, prompting her to use your momentum to pull you closer and plant a short kiss on your lips.

Immediately, you pull back and look at the others in shock as you realize you guys weren’t exactly open about it all, but no one seems to think about it any further. Jennifer types on her phone as the make up and hair artists discuss next week’s looks. Only Agnes really realizes and shoots you a wide smile as your eyes meet. Softly, you smile back and, having gained new confidence, lean into Kathryn’s touch who is playing with your hair and place another kiss on her lips before she wraps an arm around you and you just lean against her side.

Back in her hotel room, you sit down on her couch as you are unsure what to do with yourself. Agnes, who organized the whole surprise with you, organized a separate room for you where you put all your stuff this afternoon which is why you seem a little lost right now. She is an angel. Right after Kathryn’s confession, you called Peter who gave you his number just in case you ever needed him. He not only connected you with Agnes - he also offered to take you to the airport. With their help, you managed to get to the woman of your dreams within a couple of days.

Kathryn’s head pops out of the bathroom. “Make yourself at home, honey! It’s all yours as well.”

She shoots you a small smile before she pops back into the room. Sitting there by yourself for a minute, you try to take in everything that is happening tonight and are just starting to wonder where you’re gonna sleep as Kathryn walks back into the bedroom. Locking eyes with you, she walks straight towards you before plopping down next to you on the other side of the couch you are currently sitting on.

A soft smile plays along her lips and her eyes glisten in the bright moonlight that’s coming in through the open window. A light breeze is ruffling through her hair and the whole scene is soaked in dark blue light as the night makes your eyes heavy and you sink into the cushions.

For a moment, you sit in silence as she lets her head fall back with closed eyes and her hand rests on your ankle, slowly caressing it with her thumb. She smiles.

Suddenly, she straightens her back and sits up again, facing you. “Hey.”

“Hey.” You say back with the softest voice you have in you.

“I am so happy you are here. I feel like I can finally breathe again.” Her face lightens up, elevated by the moonlight.

You need a moment to comprehend what she has said before you respond. “I feel like there is no other place I’m supposed to be at.”

Fully focusing on you, she nods as she takes in your every thought while her smile widens. Another breeze comes in through the window and you realize one again how incredibly beautiful you think she is.

Actually,” she takes, “I really don’t want to change that. I would like to have you here.”

For a moment, your brain wonders if she wants to offer you a job - which, absolutely is dumb - but you remember to listen to her as she continues speaking: “If you want to… you can stay. Here. I would love that.”

You feel honored but at the same time you feel like this situation of not talking things out will continue if you don’t take the chance and step up.

You move a little closer to her, rest your elbow on the back of the couch and place your hand (that has been propping up your head) on her cheek, fingertips softly touching her hair. For a blink, you sit there and take in the moment of intimacy before you move a strand of hair behind her air and place your palm against the back of her neck, caressing her slowly.

“Kathryn…. I wanna be with you.” You decide to rip the bandaid off. “I want to hold your hand, kiss you, I want to spend any possible moment with you and just… be.”

Once again, she nods. “I want that, too.”

You both smile. Moving forward, you cross your legs as you take a seat right next to her to take her hands into yours. Her eyes shoot up and she looks at you in anticipation.

You take in a deep breath and collect your confidence to ask a question that makes your heart rate go up so far Kathryn would probably be mad at you for. Right as you open your mouth to talk, the brunette blurts out what is lying on your tongue. “Please be my girlfriend!”

You stare at her in disbelief. It’s what you wanted, but hearing her suggest it is a completely different story. “Please,” she repeats, “I know this isn’t gonna be the easiest ride but… in the short time we’ve been… together… I just.. I want to be with you. REALLY be with you.”

It’s time, it’s time and you can’t hold onto you anymore. You launch forward and pin her down on the couch. Her hands fall over her head and disappear in her wild mane. She looks at you with open eyes and widened pupils as a cheeky grin finds its place on your face.

“Yes! Let’s do it!”, you say before finding her lips and kissing her until both of you can’t breath anymore.

It’s not the romantic situation you’ve always imagined. It’s not the grown-up situation of being with someone older you expected. But somehow, it’s perfect. You remember the countless times she drove you mad. The times you had to hold back. The dreams you’ve had about her and somehow it just seems fitting that this is how she becomes yours. Breathless, on the other side of the world, on a spontaneous surprise after blurting out sweet confessions. After all, you are head over heels for each other which put you in the position you’re in in the first place.

Remembering all the hot longing glimpses she’d thrown your way tonight, you go in for another kiss and deepen it quickly, becoming one with her under the calming moon light.

[thinkingimages]

Joan Bennett in the film Secret Behind the Door

Sexuality and Space edited by Beatriz Colomina

Elizabeth Wilson

In the early 1990s the addition of “sexuality” seemed to take the vibrant debate on space into new territory. The very title of Sexuality and Space reflects this, and as Beatriz Colomina remarks in her brief introduction to the collection of articles it comprises, to insist on “sexuality” as a component of space can be, at one level, to insert feminist concerns into a masculine discourse—although it is dispiriting if sexuality is still perceived as women’s domain, somehow suggesting that anatomy still is destiny and/or that women are still equated with the bodily in a way that men are not. As Colomina makes clear, however, the volume, like the symposium at which the papers it contains were initially presented, aims to do more than simply “include women.” Nor does it aim simply to explore “how sexuality acts itself out in space,” although this would have been an interesting subject in its own right: how actually existing urban, architectural spaces are used intentionally or illicitly for sexual purposes. We could have had papers on the role of the “cottage” (public lavatory) in gay sex, on museums as pick-up grounds for intellectual singles, on the voyeurism of peep shows, and so on. But this would presumably have been too literal a project for the theorists gathered. Instead we are invited to treat architecture as a “system of representation” on a par with film and TV, and to ask how space is “already inscribed in the question of sexuality.” Gender is inscribed in space and space is never designed in a gender-neutral way.

Accordingly, the articles range across the visual arts in a fashion that at first glance seems not so much interdisciplinary as wildly eclectic—Atget photographs of Paris, Alberti’s writings, an Australian advertisement for real estate. The approaches taken by the authors are also widely divergent.

Jennifer Bloomer has missed an opportunity to explore the purported “effeminacy” of Louis Henri Sullivan’s architectural work. She raises the interesting issue of the assumed relationship between gender identity (and/or sexual orientation) and allegedly “feminine” architectural forms and decoration, but instead of developing this theme she flirts with it, creating a theoretical bricolage that fails to achieve intellectual coherence, her discussion of the function and symbolic importance of ornament not fully meshing with the problematic figure of Sullivan. A similar collagist approach is used by Catherine Ingraham, and I can see that it may be a kind of postmodern criticism; but while it permits the introduction of a variety of interesting, if only tenuously related, points and theories, it has a modish feel, especially when the usual theoretical suspects are rounded up for an airing, Lacan’s lavatory doors making repeat appearances. By contrast, Alessandra Ponte’s essay on the 18th-century antiquarian Richard Payne Knight is very focused (as is Molly Nesbit’s meditation on the absence of “la Parisienne” from Atget’s photographs of empty corners of his city), a piece of historiographical excavation revealing the phallocentrism of 18th-century theories of architecture.

Yet most of the articles, despite their apparent divergence of subject, are united by theoretical protocols as well as by the central concern of the book as a whole, which is not eroticism but gender, and not architecture but space in a variety of manifestations, many of them historical. The main uniting factor is psychoanalytic theory.

The material throughout is rich and detailed. Beatriz Colomina contributes an analysis of representations of house designs, particularly interiors, by Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier. She explores the way in which these houses are photographed, and some of the ideas informing them, drawing out the way in which these utopian, perfect rooms are—paradoxically—theatrical sets for dramas of domestic life. There is an implied contradiction between the architect’s dream of perfect space and the actually existing mess of daily life; but either way the woman is always positioned as hidden and within, object of the male gaze. Surprising similarities (or perhaps they are not so surprising) are revealed between these modernist architects and the Renaissance architect and philosopher Leon Battista Alberti. Mark Wigley shows how Alberti, both in his treatise on the family and in his architectural writings, describes the ideal house as a building that encloses, conceals, and ultimately fetishizes heterosexual intercourse; the separate rooms of husband and wife may be entered by a private intercommunicating door, so that other members of the household need never know when the partners engage in sexual relations. More generally the domestic interior becomes, in Alberti’s propositions, a prison house for women, although Wigley suggests that this architectural manifestation of patriarchy only fully came into its own with the 19th-century bourgeoisie.

Patricia White’s paper is concerned with the filmic representation of a house, “Hill House,” as explored in Robert Wise’s 1963 horror classic, The Haunting. As she points out, this film is truly terrifying, but achieves its effects without any special effects or any actual representation of anything horrific. White identifies the underlying horror as arising from the film’s exploration of lesbian sexuality, demonstrating convincingly how the film’s central character, Eleanor, played by Julie Harris, although destroyed by Hill House, whose “gaze” she cannot escape, yet manages to “exceed” the narrative, speaking finally in voice-over from beyond the grave. White’s deployment of psychoanalytic film theory seems particularly apt and nonreductive; she uses it to bring out the ambiguity of the film, in which lesbian desire is apparently defeated and yet remains disruptive, “exceeding the drive of cinema to closure.”

Patricia White inevitably refers in the course of her argument to Laura Mulvey’s well-known article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”1 I have never entirely understood why this article became so hugely influential, given its negative and pessimistic reading (especially from a feminist point of view) of cinematic pleasure. But perhaps that was the point: as this volume itself demonstrates, psychoanalytic theory (especially its Lacanian variant) has been the basis for a “criticism of suspicion,” by which I mean a criticism that not only deconstructs the way in which effects are achieved and exposes meanings that might otherwise be hidden from an “innocent” audience, but invests all aspects of any aesthetic work with doubt and dubiousness. The excavation of cultural products must always, it seems, uncover skeletons. In this regard, architecture and cinema are two forms of cultural production particularly vulnerable to what Martin Jay has termed a 20th-century “denigration of vision” that has supplanted its earlier (Enlightenment) celebration.2 Viewing and the gaze, the totalizing vision and the nobility of sight, have been comprehensively delegitimated as (white, Western) masculine methods of control and domination.

In Laura Mulvey’s original article there was no place for the female spectator to lay claim to the gaze other than by becoming masculinized. Mulvey has since sought to modify this view, while never renouncing the underlying assumptions on which it was based, and she contributes to the present volume a meditation that considers Pandora and her box (“the box can … stand as a representation of the enigma and threat generated by the concept of female sexuality in patriarchal culture”), the Hitchcock film Notorious, and the idea of female curiosity as a transgressive exploration of forbidden spaces. For her, psychoanalytic theory as used in feminist criticism is transgressive, for “curiosity describes the desire to know something that is concealed so strongly that it is experienced like a drive, leading to the transgression of a prohibition,” and feminist curiosity then constitutes an unmasking of the patriarchal structures of popular, or indeed any, culture.

Yet, as Victor Burgin argues in his essay on the photography of Helmut Newton, Mulvey’s original article has itself been fetishized; its influence has neither diminished nor evolved. Having made this statement, however, Burgin himself makes little further attempt to develop it, confining himself instead to an analysis of a Newton image, interesting enough, but much narrower in focus than his opening sentence had led this reader, at least, to expect. Burgin is rightly dismissive of the way in which psychoanalytic theory has been “sociologized” and collapsed into a vulgar-Marxist version of woman-as-commodity. He might feel that Lynn Spigel’s essay on television and the postwar American suburban home is too “sociological,” but this is one of the clearest articles in the collection, a model of structural simplicity and accessibility, in which the ambiguity between public and private, outside and inside, created by the plate glass doors and picture windows of the suburban home, is shown to be reproduced by the advent of television with its concomitant notions of the living room as theater and the TV space as a safe, sanitized public space introduced into the home. (Indeed, although television created fears of a new generation of what we now would call “couch potatoes,” the screen community of the sitcom often seemed preferable to the real-life communities of the new suburbs.)

With Elizabeth Grosz’s article on bodies and cities we return to a more euphoric postmodern take on the relationship between sexuality and space. Grosz moves the discussion beyond traditional metaphors of the “body politic” or the humanist idea that at one time people unproblematically built cities; instead she explores the way in which “the city is one of the crucial factors in the social production of (sexed) corporeal bodies: the built environment provides the context … for most contemporary … forms of the body.” But disappointingly she does not develop this idea, falling back instead on a familiar and arguably exaggerated vision of a cyborg future: “the city and body will interface with the computer, forming part of an information machine in which the body’s limbs and organs will become interchangeable parts with the computer.”

Meaghan Morris’s contribution, too dense and theoretically “over-egged” (i.e., incorporating too many ingredients) to summarize, rewards several readings, and is a serious attempt both at a critique of theories and at an analysis of two specific cultural events concerning property speculation in downtown Sydney. It is insightful and thought provoking; nevertheless it illustrates both the virtues and the flaws not just of the book as a whole, but of the general state of cultural studies. Simultaneously populist and obscure, such studies can become both incoherent and philistine (although the latter is certainly not an adjective I would apply to her essay or any of these contributions).

Indeed, this is a (probably rash) generalization, not a comment on any particular article in Sexuality and Space, but if I have seemed to single out some authors for negative criticism, it is less on account of their specific contributions than because they are the heirs of what for me are ambiguous, indeed dubious, tendencies in contemporary cultural criticism, in which the debunking of Marx and all Enlightenment thought is married (or at least engaged) to a fundamentally uncritical appropriation of Freud (or at least Lacan). I have gone terminally off Lacan since I discovered that, when Antonin Artaud was his patient during World War II, Lacan showed little interest in the deranged playwright3; an illegitimate ad hominem argument, I know—but the grip of his theory on academic critics has always been mysterious to me. Even worse is a practice, which I fear may have been on occasion my own, whereby a critic distances herself ironically or cynically from an assortment of postmodern theorists (Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, even Derrida and Foucault) while simultaneously appropriating their thought, not infrequently in the form of spurious generalizations—a feature, Meaghan Morris suggests, of the work of Deleuze and Guattari themselves in relation to Freud. The whole is then likely to be couched in dauntingly arcane and grammatically tortuous language. Faced with this bricolage, I am totally with Edward Gibbon—who identified one aspect of the decline of the Roman Empire as the decadence of its later literary tradition, when, he complained, “a cloud of critics … darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste”4—and I cannot but feel that this kind of postmodern criticism is indeed an index of decay.

But I suppose that postmodernism in general and contemporary psychoanalysis in particular is the theory our epoch in history deserves. Psycho-analysis has certainly been reconstructed to fit; in contrast to the highly moralistic and adjustive Freudianism of the 1950s, which was in any case a therapeutic and sociological rather than a critical tool, we have today psychoanalysis as an ideologically empty vessel, a theory without consequences. A fractured body of thought pleasingly open to endless reinterpretations and deconstructions, a detheorized (or perhaps etherealized) theory, it holds up a (splintered, it is true) mirror to assist in the contemplation of ourselves, one which can be thrillingly seen as “transgressive” while remaining devoid of any calls to action or any social or moral imperatives. Truly a theory for our postpolitical times.

1. Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975): 6–18.

2. Martin Jay, “In the Empire of the Gaze: Foucault and the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth Century French Thought,” in David Couzens Hoy, editor, Foucault: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 178.

3. See Stephen Barber, Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs (London: Faber and Faber, 1993).

4. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), 83.

Elizabeth Wilson is on the faculty of the School of Information and Communication Studies at the University of North London; her recent books include The Sphinx in the City and Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader.

[theoswriting]

fault line [part. i]

summary: To y/n, freedom feels like wind in her hair, sounds like old school rock'n'roll and tastes like Elle's lips. From the fire in front of them comes warmth. With every passing second, bloodied clothes burn beyond the point of recognition.

pairing: elle greenaway x fem!reader

a/n: uhm okay, this totally got out of hand. from that request, my brain went crazy and I ended up having to cut it into two, so this is part 1. Hopefully I'll post part 2 in a couple of days. I feel weird about this story, but I hope you'll enjoy it at least a tiny bit, haha.

warnings: mentions of rape and sexual abuse (nothing graphic), murder but it's pretty lowkey, sociopathy?, bad profiling, 

ao3

Jennifer Jareau's steps are hurried when she walks from her office to Hotchner's. 

She can feel the eyes of Prentiss, Morgan and Reid following her as she crosses the bullpen. She ignores them, the files she's holding in her hands are far more important. She doesn't wait for an answer after she knocks, not caring that she's interrupting Hotchner in the middle of a phone call. 

Hotch doesn't startle at the irruption, and when he sees the urgency in the liaison's eyes, he doesn't hesitate before saying, "I'm afraid I'll have to call later," to whoever was on the other side of the line. 

"We have a bad one."

***

To y/n, freedom feels like wind in her hair, sounds like old school rock'n'roll and tastes like Elle's lips.

Elle's hand rests on y/n's thigh as she drives with the other, sunglasses covering her eyes as she stares at the road straight ahead. There's a strength in the way she holds the steering wheel, getting them to their next destination with nothing but confidence. As she looks her over, y/n feels a familiar spark wake inside her. It makes her lean towards the driver's side to drop a long kiss on the corner of Elle's mouth. 

Elle doesn't hesitate to turn her head and make it a real kiss, the kind that always leaves y/n breathless and wanting more. When Elle leans back to focus on the road again, the car has swerved to the other side of the road and Elle brings it back to the right lane. 

Not that it matters. It's been hours since they had passed another car, not  a lot of traffic in the middle of the Nevada desert. And if they were to drive off the road, what a way to go, y/n thinks. She'd happily die twice if it meant dying with Elle kissing her with all the love and passion in the world. That'd probably be the only way y/n would ever make it to heaven. 

For now, she leans her head on Elle's shoulder and sighs contentedly at the kiss her girlfriend drops on her temple. 

"I think we can stop soon," y/n says after seconds, "We're far out enough, and I really need to stretch my legs."

It's barely fifteen minutes later when y/n finally gets to use her legs after being in the car for so long. As she stretches, Elle stands beside her, drinking from a water bottle. She passes it to her and y/n thanks her. The heat of the desert is heavy around them, but y/n barely feels it. 

The warmth comes from the fire in front of them, small and controlled. 

With every passing second, bloodied clothes burn beyond the point of recognition. 

***

"LAPD called me this morning for a consultation on two cases they suspected might be connected."

Everyone looks at the files as JJ begins presenting the case. 

"First victim, Matthew McGregor, 36, was killed with a single gunshot wound to the head a year ago after he came home from a party," She explains, "Second victim, Eric Laurens, 28, two days ago, same M.O., single GSW to the head coming home from a party."

JJ sees Derek nod slowly as he reads over the information again, "Seems pretty clear to me that they're connected."

Emily hums in agreement, "And both had gotten arrested on rape charges, but weren't convicted, prior to their deaths."

"A vigilante?" Rossi theorises out loud. 

"There's more," JJ sighs as she clicks on the remote. Five more men appear on screen, a picture from their driver's license and one from a crime scene, "LAPD aren't the only ones who called about similar cases."

Spencer frowns at the screen, "Wyoming, Illinois, New York, these are from all over the country," he observes. 

"Yeah" JJ nods, "And the oldest murder goes back to 2007, the most recent being Eric Laurens two days ago."

"That's seven victims over the last 3 years," Derek observes and that's when Hotch gets up to stand next to JJ.

"Seven that we know of," He says, "We might have a transient serial killer in our hands. We'll be flying out to LA to see what we can learn from the most recent crime scene. I've already asked Garcia to look for unsolved murders with a similar M.O. all over the country, we'll debrief more on the jet. Wheels up in 20."

Without another word, all the agents leave the room to gather their belongings and get to the plane that'll take them to their case. 

***

After being together for almost four years, y/n and Elle had settled into a routine. It was inevitable, y/n guessed, that after so much time together. Some things were bound to become repetitive. 

Elle always takes the left side of the bed, while y/n prefers the right. Elle always cooks if they want their food to be edible, and y/n always cleans up. When it comes to coffee, though, y/n always makes it, Elle's always coming out too strong for both their tastes. When it comes to work, Elle excells at planning while y/n handles the social part.

Their routine is rooted in balance though, and y/n loves the way they compliment each other.

y/n lures the men, Elle shoots them. 

She worries sometimes. She worries that their lives are getting boring, that they have settled into this routine too comfortably and forgotten how to surprise each other. 

"Mmmh," y/n feels Elle stretch next to her, "G'morning."

Her worries never last very long. How could they, when all y/n has to do is look at Elle to realize that there is no way she's ever falling out of love with the woman. 

"Good morning," She replies, getting closer to her girlfriend to drop a kiss on her lips. Elle hums contentedly into the kiss and y/n can't help the grin that takes over her features. When Elle leans back, she keeps her eyes closed and settles back into her pillow and y/n bites her lip as she watches her. 

"We need to go soon," Elle mutters.

y/n quickly agrees, even though she's pretty sure no one is on their tails. They can never be too careful. Never stay in a place too long if you don't want to get trapped. They'd stopped in a random motel for the night, paid in cash, left most of their stuff in the car, ready to take off at any time. 

It was the way things always were the days that'd follow one of their… projects.

Some would consider this lifestyle tiresome. y/n, however, thinks she's the luckiest person in the world. In the last four years, she's travelled through the country and seen the most beautiful sights with the woman she loves by her side. Sure, they have a job to do, but it's never really felt like a job to y/n. She's always heard that people weren't supposed to enjoy their jobs, that's always what grownups had complained about when she was a kid. 

And y/n? Well, she enjoys her job very much. 

***

Reid stares at the board in front of him. He's just put up all the information they have so far and it's… a lot. 

Or rather, there's very little useful information, but many, many, victims. Garcia has managed to find an overwhelming number of unsolved cases with a similar modus operandi: men, killed by a single gunshot to the head on their way home from a party, all previously accused of rape or sexual misconduct. 

They are up to 32 possible victims on top of the 7 they started with, from all over the country. That number only keeps going up the longer Garcia keeps looking. 

By now, they are pretty sure all these cases are connected, even though no evidence connects them directly to each other. Even ballistics couldn't link the different shootings. 

They're missing something. Spencer only wishes he knew what that was. 

On the jet, they'd all agreed on a few things concerning the preliminary profile. Their unsub was most likely highly intelligent and had military or law enforcement training. It was most probably a man in his mid-thirties, carrying out his own justice after the system failed him or someone close to him. He was organized, evident by the lack of clues left behind. Whoever the unsub was, he might even have stalked his victims prior to the crimes. 

It sounds right on paper, but something is missing. Spencer knows it. 

Something is missing.

***

y/n's hand is wrapped around a cup of coffee as she sits on the patio of a little shop. Her sunglasses are small, barely protecting her from the rays coming from the sun above. It's almost noon.

The world is an ugly place. 

That statement had made its way into y/n's head years ago, laying roots, unmoving. With every stroke of her father's anger, with every touch of a man's hands, the roots dug deeper and deeper until they found their way to y/n's heart. The world held no justice for people like y/n. They didn't care about the bruises, the touching, the screaming for help, they never listened. 

She had learned a long time ago that if she wants something, she needs to do it herself. 

"How can you be married to someone like that?" Elle suddenly speaks up from next to her. 

When y/n looks at her, Elle's eyes are fixed onto the man they'd followed. He's at the restaurant on the other side of the street, right in front of the coffee shop. He's sitting with his wife, holding her hand and y/n tilts her head.

"Maybe she doesn't know."

Elle's eyes don't leave the couple, her face still contorted in disgust, "Then, we're doing her a favor."

It brings a smile to y/n's face. The way Elle's voice sounds resolute, confident. It's comforting. It reminds her that she's right to trust Elle, that Elle hates the world just as much as she does and that she'd gladly watch it burn with her. It makes her want to lean in and kiss her, but that would attract too much attention. Instead, she reaches out for her hand and brings it up to her lips. Elle shoots her a small smile, and y/n's heart warms.

It's impressive how a smile from Elle offers y/n a reassurance she hadn't even known she craved. It had always been her against the entire world, the only love she knew was the love she was willing to give to herself. That hadn't always been easy.

Then, she'd met Elle and she had shared a story so different from y/n's but the consequences of it felt familiar. It made sense that y/n had been drawn to her, the strength Elle exuded softened by the understanding y/n saw in her eyes each time she talked. 

The world was an ugly place, but Elle Greenaway makes it worth holding on for a little longer. 

***

"The body was found right where you're standing," Derek says as he looks back at Prentiss from a few feet ahead, "Which means our unsub must've been standing right here," He adds, pointing to the ground under his feet. 

He looks around him as Prentiss voices his exact thought, "There's no way he didn't see the unsub coming. There aren't any good hiding spots out here."

They're standing next to a fence, on the outside of a park, "The sidewalk is big, no trees, or parking allowed, so no cars to hide behind," Derek observes, "Which means our unsub is unsuspecting, someone the victims wouldn't consider a threat."

Emily nods and starts looking up, in search of camera surveillance. Two catch her eye, on the other side of the street and she points out to Derek with a raised eyebrow. Local PD hadn't found anything of use but they decide to call Garcia anyway. If anyone could find something, it was her. 

As Morgan talks to their tech analyst, Emily walks past him, then back, retracing the steps their unsub had most likely taken two nights ago. When she stops, she raises her hands, mimicking a gun and aiming at where the victim would've been standing. Whoever it is, they're a good shot which makes her think they were right in saying the unsub had some kind of firearm training. 

She sighs as she drops her hands down and puts them on her hips. As she looks around again, a thought crosses her mind, "Where did Mr. Laurens live?"

Derek who just hung up with Garcia wracks his brain to remember the address he'd read in the file, "He lived… three streets down, that way-" He points out to the direction their victim had supposedly been walking from and it dawns on him, "So why was he walking in the opposite direction to his home."

Emily nods, "And how did the unsub know they'd find him here."

"They followed him."

"Walked past him, turned around and shot him?" Emily asks as she walks back to stand where the body had been found.

"Or, he was lured out here," Derek speaks and Prentiss has to agree with him. 

"It's the perfect killing spot," She says pointing back at the cameras, "Even if Garcia gets anything from them, it'll be grainy at best, impossible to get a clear shot of our unsub."

Derek looks at the empty street, void of any passerbys, "Quiet street in the day, probably even quieter at night. Less risks to run into an unwanted witness."

"So if he was lured out," Emily says, "We need to figure out who he left that party with."

***

y/n stumbles slightly and giggles as a strong arm wraps around her waist and helps her stay upright. 

"Shoot, I'm such a klutz," She adds with a laugh and her companion replies in kind. 

His laughter grates on her nerves. It's too loud, resonating all around them and using up too much oxygen. She only has to walk with him a couple more minutes but even that feels too long. She feels his too big hand squeeze her hip and she feels anger spike inside her chest. She wants to hurt him. 

Deep breath. Clenched fist. One more minute. 

He's started talking again but y/n isn't listening. She's staring straight ahead to the street they're going to walk into where Elle will be waiting for them and the hand will finally fall from her hip. That's when you feel it, that spark you've come to call freedom. It's small but grows as you round the corner with him following you closely.

It starts burning under your skin when you spot Elle's silhouette further down the street.

The man next to you doesn't even take notice of her and isn't that ironic. He spent his life thinking of women as less than and y/n finds it befitting that what'll bring him to his end is the last woman he'll ignore. 

Elle raises her gun and with the sound of the gunshot ringing in her ears, y/n's whole body is set aflame. 

She watches as the hand lays limp next to his lifeless body and a gleeful laugh escapes her. The hole in his head oozes blood and she can't stop laughing. The hand is laying there unmoving and y/n feels the urge to step on it. 

Hurt him, hurt him, hurt him, hurt him like he hurt you. 

She's vaguely aware of Elle calling out her name but y/n doesn't snap out of it until a hand yanks her away from the body by the shoulders. She steps back, but slaps the hands touching her away. Only then does she realize that it's Elle looking at her, confusion in her eyes and something y/n doesn't want to ever see from her own girlfriend. 

Fear.

"We have to go," Elle announces slowly, like she's explaining it to a child, or a wounded animal. y/n doesn't know which comparison she likes best. She looks back at the body and regretfully nods.

They start walking away, hand in hand, but something inside of y/n doesn't feel quite right. The fire that had roared inside of her is long gone and she feels her body shiver at the cold. Elle notices and wraps an arm around her shoulders, dropping a kiss on her hair as they keep walking side by side.

She wants to smile but she can't manage it. 

He hurt her.

He was going to hurt Elle.

He hurt her.

***

"Laurens' friends say he left the party alone," Emily announces to the team as she sits down next to JJ in the conference room. At the same moment, Derek's phone starts ringing, attracting everyone's attention.

"Baby girl, tell me you have good news," Derek answers, putting his phone on speaker so everyone around the table can hear. 

"I wish, but no. The cameras on the street were of no use, it's a blind spot. I tried the cameras from neighbouring streets but got nothing. Whoever it is your looking for, they're like a ghost."

There's a collective disappointed sigh and shoulders sagging, and Garcia isn't done, "to make a bad day even worse, a body was just found in Twin Falls, same M.O."

Everyone visibly tenses at the news, Rossi speaking first, "Two kills in less than three days."

Hotch looks at JJ and before he can even say anything, she's out of her seat, "I'll call the local PD, tell them we're on our way."

Hotch nods his approval, turning his stoic gaze to the rest of his team, "Get your bags ready, we're flying out as soon as the jet is ready."

***

It is getting boring and y/n had been right to be worried. 

That's the first thing that crosses her mind as she wakes up next to Elle, hours later, in a nameless city in the middle of nowhere. 

Elle lays peacefully next to her, deep into slumber, and a smile stretches y/n's lips. She watches her girlfriend's chest rise and fall, her naked body barely covered by the sheets. It's a hot night, y/n can feel the sweat in her lower back making it uncomfortable for her to fall back asleep. As she gets up from the bed, Elle moves, getting closer to where y/n lay seconds ago, chasing the heat despite the already too high temperature. 

y/n lets herself watch her for a moment before walking to sit on the chair next to the window. There's nothing to look at, the motel they'd chosen is outside of the city and the lights are barely visible. It's dark, except for the slight light of the moon landing on the cars outside. 

She feels empty tonight. The thrill she'd felt hours ago hadn't lasted long and the only thing she could remember about it was the look Elle had thrown her way. 

Fear.

Elle had always looked at her with interest. From the moment they met, y/n had been drawn in by her hazel eyes. Something in her made her feel safe in a way she never had before and days after meeting her, she had told Elle about her unpleasant memories, how the world wasn't a nice place.

Elle had listened and, to y/n's surprise, agreed with the statement. Usually, whenever y/n told people about the ugliness of the world, they tried to make her see the parts that weren't so bad, try to make her see that some things, and some people were worth it. Elle hadn't done any of that, she had scoffed and agreed.

"Only person you can trust is yourself. The rest? Always leads to disappointment."

They had ended up in bed together soon after that, spent the night in each other's arms and imagining a world that'd be worth their time. 

Two days later, they had killed their first man together.

Their routine hasn't changed in nearly four years, and it used to be enough for y/n. She's the bait, easily transforming herself into whoever the men want to see in front of them. She pretends to be too drunk, unstable on her feet, asking for help to walk back to her place or her car, and the men never think twice before following her. 

Elle waits for them and then. She shoots. 

And it used to be enough for y/n to watch the proud look on Elle's face anytime she made a perfect shot. Smoking gun in hand and a confident smirk, y/n had never seen anything sexier in her entire life. 

What followed was always a passionate kiss and hurried hands, trying to touch every inch of skin. 

Earlier, y/n hadn't even kissed Elle, the only contact between them being the arm that Elle had thrown around her shoulder. 

y/n can feel that there's something not quite right. She feels it in her body, in the way her arms itch, in the way her chest feels a bit too empty for her too breath comfortably. 

y/n loves Elle, there's no way that has changed. She's sure of it. When she turns her head to watch Elle sleep, her heart flutters at the sight of her girlfriend curled up on the side of the bed that she had vacated. She couldn't see it, but she could picture her girlfriend's face, mouth slightly open if she were to believe the little snores she could hear. 

She is just bored of the routine. 

When she finally climbs back into bed with Elle, her girlfriend automatically drapes a hand over her waist. 

"Where did you go?" Elle asks sleepily, and y/n lays a kiss on her nose. It makes her scrunch up her face and that's the cutest sight she's ever seen. 

"Couldn't sleep."

Elle hums and goes back to sleep. y/n sighs and follows suit, not long after. 

***

"What's this, on the palm?" Morgan asks the M.E., pointing at the left hand of the victim where the skin seems slightly bruised.

The doctor on the other side of the autopsy table nods at Derek and Spencer, "His hand was broken post-mortem, although I'm having a hard time figuring out what broke it."

Reid leaned closer to the hand and frowned, "It looks like something was pushed from the palm to the other side."

Again, the doctor nods, but before she can say anything else, Reid suddenly stands up straight and looks over at Morgan, "I know what did this."

At that moment, Morgan's phone rings and upon seeing Hotch's name, he excuses himself to reply. When he comes back, his face looks somber.

"A man was killed not far from here, local PD just got the call. Hotch wants us to check it out, just in case."

[literaticat]

Hi Jennifer, Thanks so much for getting us answers on the business side of things. My question is about the "Synopsis" field in query manager forms. As a novel writer, are agents asking for my one page synopsis of the book, or the shorter 1-2 paragraph synopsis from the query letter? Just want to make sure I'm submitting what they'd like to see. Thanks in advance for your answer! -A Puzzled MG Sci-Fi writer

Hi so obviously I can't speak for other agents BUT I went to look at MY query manager form. The sections that I have are:

Title - Genre (dropdown menu) - Wordcount

Query letter (paste into box)

First Ten Pages (paste into box)

One-sentence Pitch (box)

Books similar to Yours (box)

There is no synopsis section. Why? Because I'm not interested in reading a synopsis, if I feel that I need or want to read one (highly unlikely), I'll ask for it separately. :-)

We know that the forms are customizable to a certain extent, and the agents opt in or out of what sections appear on their forms. So... assuming that this agent you are talking about also does ask for the query letter (as mine does) -- but they DO also ask for the synopsis -- I would assume that they want to see *the synopsis* -- They aren't asking you to paste the same thing twice.

I'm sure you know the difference but in case anyone is confused:

The pitch section of the query letter is where you talk about the book (the "who why where why do I care") - you don't give away the ending, or even get in to all the twists and turns, probably just about the first 1/3 of the book -- you give them just enough so the agent understands the stakes, etc, and is dying to read more. IT's the length and tone of jacket copy on the flap of a book at the bookstore, and just like at the bookstore, the goal of the query letter / pitch is to make somebody eager to spend several hours of their life reading this book.

The SYNOPSIS is a description of what happens in the book from beginning to end, and yes, you give away the ending. It can range from 1-3 pages (sometimes even longer, but hopefully not crazy-long). Hopefully it is also entertaining and highly readable of course, but the goal of the synopsis is to explain everything that happens in the book, including the end.

[foodcourtdetective]

Sleeping with Other People AU: Chapter One: First Time

summary: Dr. Spencer Reid runs into his first time Y/N after a car chase gone bad. They decide not to complicate their friendship by not sleeping together, but it proves to be harder than they think as they slowly fall terribly in love with each other. 

tags: sleeping with other people au, first time, virgin!spencer reid, slow burn, college!spencer reid but only in chapter 1, friends to lovers, TENSION, sexual themes, commitment issues, brief mention of cannibalism but it’s praying mantises calm down armie hammer

A/N: I have 12 parts planned out so please don’t let this flop girlies and non-binary buddies

word count 1.8k

AO3 x

May 13, 1999. Spencer Reid would not attempt to remember a day as unremarkable as this one. Sure, Mozart's first opera premiered, and the Bezalel Art School opened on the other May 13ths of history. But this particular date was in the midst of his finals. He was trying to work through a particularly difficult physics calculation when suddenly—

"HEYYYYYYYY!!! SOBEVICH??? YOU HERE, BUD???" The banging on his door, paired with an intoxicated feminine screeching, was incessant. Reid scoffed, maintaining focus on the task at hand. If you divide x by—

"MATTTTTHEEWWWW??!! COME GET Y'ALL'S JUICE!!" In response, he slammed the pencil down. A little shouting and banging wouldn't typically break his concentration that quickly. However, certain variables (a lack of sleep, other commotion in the dorms prior, not to mention a certain someone not responding to his AOL messages for over 48 hours) had brought him to the edge faster than a cliff diver. Rolling up the sleeves of his sweater and pushing up his glasses on the bridge of his nose, Reid stormed up to his door and yanked it open.

"Heyyyyy wait a second... youuuuuu aren't Matty boyyyyy!" The nuisance in question wasn't his type at all. Her hair was too black and choppy, her eyes too dark with liner smudged everywhere, and her skirt was basically a napkin over her lap that highlighted her purple panties that were visible to anyone with eyes. Her painted lips twisted into a pout as she looked him up in down with interest. Before he could speak, RA Gideon turned the corner of the hallway and, spotting his target, picked up his pace.

"YOU! Young lady, you're not supposed to enter a dorm without getting signed in!" The girl snapped her gaze away from Reid to roll her eyes and drunkenly face the RA.

"I'm heeere! Can't someone else sign in for me?? I'm waiting for a friennnnd!" Gideon's face darkened with barely veiled annoyance, looking over to Reid.

"Is this girl bothering you? I can call campus police to escort her—"

"N-no! It's fine! She's here to see my roommate Matthew." Reid grabbed the clipboard out and scribbled down the details, looking frantically at the girl for her name.

"Y/N L/N aaaand NERDDD BOY are besties!!" She slurred in response. Gideon huffed as he scanned Reid's face carefully.

"Are you sure, Reid? She's your responsibility if anything happens." The student nodded once in reply, muttering thanks as he handed over the clipboard. Taking Y/N by the wrist, Reid pulled her into his room. He shut the door behind them with urgency but was careful not to slam it. Y/N scratched her bare knee lethargically, accidentally flashing him further.

"Alllrighty, here you look a little cold," he squeaked, awkwardly averting his eyes and turning his attention to his dresser to grab her a Cal Tech sweater his mom made him before she had to leave home. Y/N stumbled, leaning on the bed for stability as she took her heels off. As she did so, she took notice of the two beds pushed together.

"Does Matty even live here?? The beds are holding hands?" Reid managed a pitiful laugh as he tossed her the sweater. Pulling a face, she pulled it on. He gulped, noticing the hem barely skimmed her thighs. At least the purple is put away. Realizing he had caused a long pause in the terrible attempt at conversation, Reid quickly looked away from Y/N again.

"N-no, he lives with his boyfriend at Baker." Y/N's eyes widened, her lip trembling a little bit in shock as she hugged herself with the too-big sleeves.

"Dammmn, I shoulda known a brainiac like that was a bisexual. Didn't peg him for playing so hard to get otherwise."

"Did he try to flirt with you? Because he's basically married to Adam and not to mention the stereotype of bisexuals cheating-"

"is inaccurate and offensive blah blah blah I know, I am one... Nah, I was just hoping that being more forward would seal the deal! But I would never purposefully try to hook up with someone taken... and you're no longer listening to me," Y/N cut off her rambling as he had gravitated helplessly towards his brick of a computer with a glowing screen. He chewed on his lip thoughtlessly, only looking up when he felt Y/N's exasperated gaze on him.

"Sorry, I-I've been waiting for a message..." Y/N scuffled over beside him, her bare feet sticking slightly to the wood floor. Reid winced as she leaned across him to rest her hands beside the keyboard. He tried to move out of her way, but she ended up with her back pressed against him. Don't be embarrassing. Digits of Pi GO! 3.1415926—

"Oh, I know Jennifer! We went to East Allegheny. Fucking smoke show, but she has this praying mantis vibe," she said matter of factly. Reid's mouth gaped open and closed.

"A-what vibe?"

"You know... how they fuck! With the—"

"Female praying mantis engaging in cannibalistic mating behavior, biting off the head or legs of her mate and eating them. I've heard of it, but you should know that that behavior occurs in less than 30 percent of all mating sessions in the wild." As Reid rattled on, he slowly became aware of her piercing eyes on him and the warmth of her back. He sucked in a breath, cutting himself off from going further.

"Wow! Guess you weren't really studying! I'm sorry I interrupted your terrible Thursday evening," she quipped, gesturing to the now-abandoned physics equation. He hurried to close the notebook, tucking it away in his desk as he began to sweat.

"Oh, that! That wasn't studying! I was calculating to calm down." Reid somehow didn't expect the not-unfriendly laugh to erupt in front of him. She bent down to brace herself on her upper thighs as she guffawed, unintentionally pulling the sweater up from the back. Without thinking, he pulled it down for her dignity, but she grabbed his wrist tightly as he completed the action and locked eyes with him.

"What are you, a physicist?" She asked playfully. He gulped again as Y/N watched the movement of his prominent Adam's apple.

"N-not really. I'm working on my chemistry and mathematics masters right now, but I finished my physics MA last semester." She whistled in response, impressed.

"They LET you have that many?? Wait..." Her heated eye contact wavered, flicking up and down his body.

"There's no way! You're only like sixteen!"

"I'm EIGHT-teen! And yeah, I signed a waiver saying that MIT is not responsible for any poor grades or drops in my mental state," he winced as his voice cracked on his age.

"Guess what they say about MIT being smarted than BU kids is right! My med-track major could never be as flexible as yours, virgin," Y/N quipped, cheekily checking out the dark flush of crimson on his cheeks as he pulled away from her grip, facing the wall in frustration of two different types.

"WH-WHY! Why would you-"

"Spence, you're waiting by the computer for a direct message!" Reid sputtered in response, the nickname he had signed off as in her mouth sounded both so wrong and so right as he adjusted his stance to hide an unfortunate situation going on downstairs. Y/N rolled her eyes again as Reid suddenly realized that he loved the color of her eyes more than any color he had ever seen in his life, including Jennifer's. After a long, not uncomfortable, silence, Y/N made a step toward him, suddenly hesitant.

"Don't get your sweater all wrinkled! I'm a virgin too. That's why I came— you better fix that expression on your face, kid!" Reid realized that his shock had painted his face too clearly, flapping his hands frantically as he watched her face drop. The visible vulnerability struck a nerve within him; he didn't know if it was good or bad. As she turned back to the computer, he touched her shoulder in an attempt to get her to look at him.

"NO! No! Not in a bad way! Just individuals who are sexually confident in their self-image with a certain presentation tend to have already completed the act!" Y/N scoffed, rolling her shoulder to get away as if it burned her.

"PLEASE! Now who's engaging in the stereotypes, genius?"

"I'm sorry! You're just too beaut-attract-hot..." Reid kept cutting himself off in an attempt to quantify her looks properly. Y/N chuckled to herself, charmed as she finally looked to watch him fluster himself to try to rectify the insult.

"It's okay... You don't have to say anything. I mean, I couldn't even get Matthew fucking Sobevich to fuck me. As the guest TA, he managed to make four of my classmates pass out within the hour." She cast her eyes downward, fiddling with the loose string on the sweater near the sleeve. Reid swallowed, stepping closer to her. He bent his knees, basically in a squat, to try to get eye contact.

"You deserve better than Matt. I mean, look at you!" He gestured awkwardly at her whole body before framing her face with his fingertips. Y/N finally looked at him, the inner workings of her thoughts almost visible in her eyes as she straightened her gaze to bring him standing up. She cautiously brought her hand up to his chest, right over his heart.

"Well, if you want to date someone like JJ... you might want some experience... We could-- let's get it out of the way!" Y/N carefully explained her idea, her fingers walking up to brush against his Adam's apple. Reid shivered, pulling away to retreat toward his bed, almost involuntarily giving in to her plan.

"I-this was all supposed to be very romantic!! And-and now you've gone and just fucked it up!!" He squealed, watching as Y/N crossed her arms to take off his sweater from the bottom. She came over to sit on the bed, thoughtfully taking a second to let him gather himself before curling her index finger under his chin to get him to look at her.

"You are going to drive some girl crazy someday. With your long, Kurt Cobain hair and that infuriating mouth of yours," Y/N whispered sincerely, moving her finger to trace up his jaw and to hook under his glasses. Reid's breathing hitched, but he kept his gaze on her as she pulled his glasses off and gently put them on the nightstand.

"Say the word, and I'll stop. Say you don't want this, and we won't," Y/N continued, her other hand shaking on his knee as she inched closer to him. As she closed her eyes, Reid closed the gap between them, the hiss of heavy breathing from his nose the only noise in the room. She responded immediately, wrapping her fingers in his hair as they fell against the bed. Suddenly, May 13, 1999, wasn't so unremarkable after all.

[abcreid]

The Other Woman (3)

Spencer Reid x Reader

sorry for inactive in months. i honestly busy with my life and now i have time to continue my story. Disclaimer: im not fluent in english so my grammar is bad. and im sorry if this story turned to be something awful and far for your imagination.

Part 1, Part 2 ••• Who Requested, Who Requested

Masterlist

-

You and Spencer walked together without knowing where you two headed. Silent has been the company since you and him out from his apartment building.

“How are you, YN?.” He Finally break the silenced. His voice were soft. Soft enough to notice that he was nervous.

You smiled. “Never been better.” Obviously, you lied to him. You were on your worst. “So... you and Jennifer?” You dare yourself to asked him this kind of question. Because why not?

He didn’t respond for a while. Honestly you understand how he felt. His ex fiancé showed up after weeks they didn’t speak and now she asked a very random question.

“You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my bus-“

“There’s nothing between me and JJ.” He cut off your words fast before you could ever finished it. “YN please, there’s nothing between me and Jennifer.” He held your right hand and you froze. His eyes were staring at yours. You couldn’t resist but staring at his as well. “YN YLN, please believe me.”

You nodded. “Yeah i believe you, Spence. You said it two times already.” He chuckled and you two walked again.

“So you and my mom,” he said it while we walked in silenced for 10 minutes. You could see from corner of your eye that he smiled. “What were you guys talked about?”

“About...,” you paused. “About her life, her disease, you.” When you said ‘you’, the memories about you and Diana talked popped out in your head. She remembered everything that happened weeks ago. She remembered snapped you, she never approved your relationship with his son, she hurted your feeling. She kept comparing you with JJ and she said she didn’t know you were his fiancée until last week Spencer told her that you returned back the ring and he lost it in the ditch. She even apologized to you. That moment few hours ago was the craziest thing ever happened in your life.

You still keep watching him over your eyes’s corner. He smiled. Like he was the happiest person on earth. “She apologized to me for what happened, Spence. She realized she was wrong and there’s no beef between us anymore.” “But i don’t think it will last forever.”

“Please don’t say that. That’s a progress for us.”

-

A month after Diana and you make up a new relationship, You and Spencer were in a good term. As a friends of course. You still love him, but the situation were different now. He looked healtier, better than before you and him still in fight. You could see from his eyes that he was disappointed he couldn’t get back with you. But... there’s nothing you could do.

And a month after that event, JJ and Spencer were getting closer than before. You don’t know if that was a real thing or they just faking it so you would be jealous.

“Hey kid you okay?” Morgan approached you. You were sitting at your desk watched JJ and Spencer stood together at pantry. “So you good with them together?”

You shrugged. “You tell me. You’re a profiler.”

“YLN, I’m so sorry for what happened to you. But if you fight harder maybe his mom will welcome you.” Morgan gave you a useless suggestion. You did nothing but sighed.

“I’m done with fighting, Morgan. The last time i did that, i lost Spencer. And If i did that, again, i might lose my life.” You crumbled the paper you held. Then you tossed it to trash can. “He looked happy when he was with her.”

“I’m guarantee you that Reid is happier with you.”

“I know. But what matters now that he’s happy with JJ. And i hope someday i will find my own.” Morgan couldn’t argued more with you so he left you alone.

You leaned on to your chair and closed your eyes. You and Spencer would never be a thing. You touched your ring finger. You still forgot you had no ring in it anymore. You remembered last week you met his mother and she completely kind to you. She liked you more when you were friends with his son. And she incredibly praised JJ whenever she around her. The chance to get Spencer back is zero.

“Hey YN?” Someone’s calling your name. You opened your eyes and Spencer stood before you.

“Yeah? What happened?” You stood up and faced him.

“Can we talk? In private? I need to tell you something.” His face looked so worried and nervous. You nodded and followed him to briefing room. When you and him arrived, he closed the door and shut the window so nobody could not look.

You sat on table while he still standing behind close door. “So what’s the matter?” He didn’t look at you. He kept looking on something but not you. Somethings not right. He didn’t act like this unless something bad is happening. You walked towards him slowly. “Would you tell me what happened?” You asked him softly so he didn’t freak out.

He pulled something out of his pocket. A ring. Your engagement ring from him. You shocked. Like what the hell he showed you that ring? Wasn’t that ring supposed to lost in a ditch? You looked around and nobody showed up. Are you being pranked?

“You mom said you lost it.” You couldn’t talk much to him because you didn’t know how to react.

“Yeah i manage to get it back.” He put back the ring to his pocket. He gave you a sad expression face exactly like the day you gave the ring back to him. What the hell is going on right now? He could read your mind and answer your question without hesitation. “You knew that my mother is sick and she wanted me to propose JJ with that ring.���

Your body is trembling after he said those words. Like you just kept asking yourself is it real? Your neck is choked and you couldn’t breathe.

“I want to tell you first because...,” he paused. “Because...,” he couldn’t finished his words. “Because... i don’t want to hurt you.”

You didn’t responding him and run out from the room.

The End

Tags: @cynbx @peculiarinsomniac @abschaffer2 @thelovelyrose @pandedios-carli @princessjellyfishbitch

I’m sorry this is bad

[morepeachyogurt]

a sky full of stars (and she was looking at her)

Word Count- 2.8k

Pairing- Penemily

Summary- Penemily highschool au where they are paired up on a English assignment! Based on this post.

Part 1 of my, maybe we’re from the same star, series

Read it here on ao3

Tw’s- very small mentions of substances, minor swearing

A/N- this is the first installment of a series based on my yearning posts, and my first time writing romance/3rd pov, I’d love some feedback!

It’s hard to miss Penelope Garcia. With her bright clothes and brighter personally it seems like the sun shines a spotlight on her. Her golden hair is like a halo around her, she looks like an angel, and perhaps one of these days Emily will get the courage to talk to her beyond small talk and group presentations. She’s pulled out of her thoughts when the shrill bell rings, too loudly for her tastes but this whole building seems to scream at her, so perhaps it’s fitting.

Ms. Blake starts to talk about ancient poetry. The greats from the time periods before everything got so complicated. English is not Emily’s favorite class but somehow Blake’s class is more or less interesting, is it because she’s a milf? Maybe, who’s to say. As the class nears its end, she announces, “Alright, as we close out our poetry unit, we have one last assignment that hopefully at least one of you will enjoy, it’s a group project where-” immediately two hands go up ready to ask the question that always gets asked when a group project is announced. “Before you ask, no, you aren’t picking your partners, I am,” a collective groan comes out of about half the class. Emily isn’t too mad about it though, she doesn’t have many friends, especially in honors English. JJ barely passes English as it is. She’s all alone here, so she’s glad she doesn’t have to suffer through the awkwardness of trying to find a partner before everyone else does and ending up with the one kid who she’s pretty sure has been high the entire year and likes to leer at her in the hallway. “For this assignment, you’ll have to analyze one famous poem, from whatever time period you’d like, and write an essay about the poet’s intentions. If you’d like extra credit, which I know for a fact some of you need, you can do a reading of the poem in front of the class or do a drawing that represents it. Any questions?”

The classroom fills with questions of ‘when is this due?’ And ‘this sucks do we have to do this’. Emily however, is distracted by one very colorful girl in the upper left corner of the room, her spot in the back lets her admire the view without being caught, which tends to make it difficult to pay attention, but well, some things are just more fun than others. Her attention is drawn back to Blake when she hears her name followed by Penelope Garcia.

Oh shit.

On the one hand, this is exactly the opportunity she’d been looking for to ‘make her move’ so to speak, on the other, she’s terrified of making a fool of herself. Emily realizes that she’s been sitting for a bit too long when Blake stops talking and the rest of the class has already paired off. She catches Penelope’s eyes and tries to fight the blush of her cheeks. The sound of her docs hitting the linoleum is a bit too intense for this setting, she prefers their ‘clunk’ when it’s a crowded room, and she can walk like she owns the place. Emily sits down at the desk adjacent to Penelope and gets ready to ruin her chances with her.

“Okay! Hi! I’m Penelope! Which you already knew because Ms. Blake announced it, but it’s polite to introduce yourself to people so I thought I would do that now which I’ve done so I’ll stop talking now!”

Emily can’t help but giggle a little at her rambling, she doesn’t want her to stop talking quite yet, her voice melodic to her ears.

“So, I’m not big in poetry, I’m more of a comic book gal if you catch my drift, so I was hoping that you had some thoughts?” She drags the o in hoping and trails off waiting for Emily to fill in the blanks. It takes her a second too long because her brain is short-circuiting but she manages.

“Yeah okay, um, I’ve read some Sappho back when my mother was stationed in Greece? That could work?” she hopes bringing up Sappho wasn’t too obvious of her intentions, but it was all she could think of. Sappho had a point when she said ‘Sweet mother, I cannot weave – slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl’

“Yeah okay! Cool! We’ve got like 3 minutes left of class, would you want to go to Bricks and Beans after school to work on it?”

“Uh yeah, yeah, that, um, that sounds great! I’ll meet you in front of the school?”

“Yep!” She pops the ‘p’ and Emily thinks she can’t possibly get cuter.

Emily’s walk to lunch has never been quite this mix of excitement and anxiety as it is now. Hopefully, JJ will be able to make sense of what’s happening because the wires in Emily’s brain are very much twisted.

“Okay, I’m telling you it’s not a date,”

“Yeah I know it’s not technically a date but come on. I personally have never asked my group project partner to a coffee shop before. She obviously likes you.”

Jennifer Jareau has been blessed with the right combination of looks that ensures she never had to wonder if her crushes liked her back. Emily wishes she had that special brand of confidence, but it’s simply not realistic, the number of openly queer girls at school is small, the number of them that would be interested in her? Even smaller.

“Look I’m not going to be the loser that gets my heart broken all right,” she steals a fry off of JJ’s tray before her hand gets smacked.

“Ugh I’m so bored here, promise me you’ll at least try. I need some new drama around here and you two would be so fucking cute.”

“Fine. On the condition that when* it goes south you’re buying me ice cream.”

Emily’s day goes by slowly and all at once. Hours turn into years turn into seconds and before she knows it she’s awkwardly standing outside the building waiting for Penelope to meet her.

When she does, Emily’s pulse quickens ever so slightly in her presence. It’s annoying as hell.

“I was worried you were standing me up,” a futile attempt on Emily’s behalf of trying to seem calm, cool, and collected.

“What! I would never, I’ve been looking forward to getting a macchiato and hanging out with you and Sappho all day! Coolest ladies from recent history,” she has to try and stop herself from getting too excited at Penelope’s words, they don’t mean anything, she’s just some loser that she has to work with to get a good final grade in the class. A means to an end, disposable.

“I don’t think Sappho counts as recent history but thank you, ma’am,” ma’am? God, what is she doing, this is going to go south faster than the time she tried to wear ripped jeans to one of her mother’s stupid dinner parties. To her surprise, her stupid comment is met with a giggle on Penelope’s part.

“Why thank you darling,” she replies in a phony southern accent that makes them both crack up, “Lead the way.”

Bricks and Beans is the staple coffee shop where all the high schoolers hang out after school or work during college. The owners are a sweet old couple in their 70’s who seem to be reliving the past with the vintage decorations. The pair settle into a table in the back, a window next to them showing off the highway. Emily is tasked with buying the coffees and Penelope rattles off her order filled with things Emily’s never even heard of.

“Okay, I’m pretty sure the barista is laughing at me now but here is your sugar coffee with whipped cream,” she says as she slides into her seat, placing down the coffees on the minimal free space left.

“My savior,” she says, fake swooning, “Okay so, Sappho? That’s the lesbian right?”

Emily answers with a snort before actually replying, “Yeah that’s the lesbian. I’m sure Blake will love it. I’m like, 90% sure she’s gay.”

“Single English teacher who loves Oscar Wilde? Yeah, I get it. My gaydar is spectacular by the way.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods.

“Um, yeah, okay how about this poem:

‘and in your song most of all she rejoiced.

But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women

as sometimes at sunset

the rosyfingered moon

surpasses all the stars. And her light

stretches over salt sea

equally and flowerdeep fields.

And the beautiful dew is poured out

and roses bloom and frail

chervil and flowering sweetclover.

But she goes back and forth remembering

gentle Atthis and in longing

she bites her tender mind’”

“That’s gorgeous,” Penelope had a dreamy look in her eyes, like seeing a beautiful sunset for the first time. Except, instead of a sunset she was looking at Emily, seeing her, like for the first time, “I love when artists talk about the stars,” she leans back on her chair and looks up as if she’s looking at a constellation and not an off-white popcorn ceiling. Her collarbones are exposed and Emily feels like a 17th-century peasant pining over exposed ankles, “There’s just something about the stars ya know? They’re so far away, but sometimes it feels like we’re there with them. They twinkle at us and at each other,” she pauses to make eye contact, “maybe the greatest love story is in the sky,” there’s a beat too long, Emily doesn’t know how to respond to that comment, it’s hard to follow art without ruining it.

“Or maybe I’m just a sad sap for romance.”

“No!” She gets a of couple heads turned her way, the exclamation too loud for the environment, “I mean no, I get what you mean, they’re beautiful. Sometimes at night I go on my roof just to stargaze. It’s so peaceful there,” it’s now or never, “you should do it with me someday.”

“I’d love that,” it’s almost bashful, the two of them hoping the underlying meanings of their words are being shown, lest their hopes not be conveyed and come shattering down like a falling star.

The sun slowly sets as they work on interpreting the inter-workings of Sappho’s mind. The drinks run out so Emily buys them both hot chocolate, extra whipped cream and chocolate chips for Penelope. When she takes a sip, the whipped cream sticks to the side of her face.

“You got some whipped cream on your face,” she gestures to the offender in question. The blonde tries and fails, to get it off.

“Did I get it?”

“No, it’s more,” after some failed attempts, and the failure of Emily’s common sense, she decides to just get it off herself. It feels too intimate too quick, they both freeze, Emily’s hand inches away from Penelope’s face. Their eyes lock, scared brown eyes met soft blue ones and just for a second, there is peace in between their beating hearts and hands. Emily quickly brings her hand down and mumbles an apology.

After three hours they call it a night, Emily now the proud owner of Penelope’s phone number. On her drive home, she wonders if she’d done right, and she wonders if she’d done wrong. If she was clear about what stargazing meant to her. A branch into her world, her safe space. To share the dark night sky with something is to share your soul with them. Even JJ didn’t know about her nighttime viewings. Did Penelope feel the same way? The shared smiles and small laughs pointed yes. But Penelope was Penelope and Emily was Emily. How could an angel love a human? Why would it sacrifice its virtue for the danger of love? If Penelope was pink and Emily was dark green, could they mix and make something beautiful or would they both end up a ruined brown?

Dinner is tense as always, she does not share anything with her mother, she does not want to. They tiptoe around each other hoping that they won’t step on each other’s toes and crash. Emily retreats to her room the second dinner is over and opens a window. She loves that it gets dark earlier now. The fresh fall air trumps that tacky of scented candles that fill the house in a futile attempt to make it a home. She opens her laptop to finish the concluding paragraph of their essay. She allows herself to be lost in the words of another in order to avoid her own problems of love and belonging. Her phone rings. It’s her problems. They chat with careful conversation about their project and finally, it is finished. It looks good actually, or at least, to Emily it does. It’s not going to win them a Pulitzer, but they’ll get an A.

And then, “Hey.”

“Hey?” They’ve been on the phone for a half an hour, she’s not sure why she’s being greeted all of a sudden.

“Does your offer to stargaze still stand? It’s nice out tonight and, I don’t know, it sounded nice?”

“Yeah of course! Do you, um, do you need a ride or?”

“Nah I got my license and good old Esther. I do need your address though.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll text it to you. Who’s Esther?”

“My car! She’s a lovely thing thought she needed a name. I’ll be there in say, 15 minutes?”

“Sure. Bye Penelope.”

Holy shit.

Okay, she’s got 15 minutes to both have everything ready, but also seem completely casual about the fact that her crush is coming over to stargaze on her roof. The ambassador is long retreated either in bed or into her office, so she shouldn’t be a problem. Emily grabs a couple of blankets for them to sit on to avoid the chilly breeze and a bag of popcorn. She brushes her hair and touches up her eyeliner, not that it’s really visible in the dark, but it helps her feel confident which she’s desperate for at the moment. Her phone buzzes with a text, *im here!!!* It reads. She takes a deep breath before very slowly opening the door.

“Hi,” she whispers, the wind carrying her voice, but it’s just loud enough for its recipient. She closes the door

“Hi! So! Stargazing? That’s fun, I’m like, really excited it’s been a while since I’ve done something like this,” she somehow makes a whisper seem filled with enough energy to power a flashlight that Emily definitely should have brought. They make their way to the intersection where the hill meets the rooftop, and they only trip once, on a stick, but together they stay upright. Emily throws the blankets on the roof and climbs up on the chair before throwing her body on the roof. With her help, Penelope makes her way up after a couple of tries. By the time they lay the blankets out and are sitting down, they’re both practically crying from laughter, her nerves from earlier disappearing slowly.

The laughter fizzles out, and they’re both left staring at the stars. Penelope apparently is an expert of both astronomy and astrology so Emily’s ears are blessed with the sound of her voice. Like sunshine on a sweet summer day. She thinks that Penelope and her are like the sun and the moon, both beautiful, and complementary. Emily’s gaze shifts from the constellations to Penelope’s side profile. The stars shine almost as bright as her, and she can’t help but watch her instead. She can see the stars in her eyes, perhaps they were always there, but they’re more visible now looking in their reflection.

“God they’re beautiful,” Penelope says in awe. Like she can’t believe she’s blessed with the presence of the stars when really it is the stars who should have the honor.

“Yeah, yeah they are,” at this point she’s openly gazing at Penelope. When Penelope turns to meet her gaze she thinks she’s been caught, that it’s over and this night will be one for the ages in terms of beauty and heartbreak. Slowly, a hand makes its way to her cheek, cold like the air around them, but it somehow manages to set her skin on fire.

“May I?”

Emily nods and then they are lips on hers, it is sweet just like her. She’s being kissed under the starlight by a girl who deserves only beauty. Perhaps her dark green can be the field by the sunset of Penelope’s pink in the painting they make together. They do not have to mix, they can simply be combined to create something stunning. They can simply be. They pull apart slowly, and looking into her eyes, Emily thinks that the stars in comparison are simply dull. There is nothing as bright and beautiful in the world as the eyes of your lover.

Tag list- @royalpenelope @scandinavian-punk @kermitsaysgayrights