#maybe the british media would like to write some think pieces on how the team shouldn't be going out the night before a race too?

[thissying]

Max taking the team out to dinner, GP Hungary, 2024

[candy-and-writing]

Mr. Brightside

Request by @mmmmm-11​: Can I request a Cap fic in which he's pretty cold to the reader because he really doesn't know how to process his feelings and there is some jealously their in feeling both sides and then the smut 😅🤩

Warnings: 18+, smut, unprotected sex, oral sex, fingering, jealous! Steve, Steve is low-key a dick

A/n: so this took way longer than I meant it to and it's also a lot longer than anticipated. Thank you so much for requesting this!! I had so much fun writing this piece

I am NOT responsible for your media content consumption. This work is not intended for those under the age of 18 due to explicit sexual content and/or dark themes. By reading this work you agree that you are at least 18 years of age. I do not consent to have my work posted on any third party app or website; if you are seeing this work anywhere other than tumblr and archiveofourown, it has been reposted without my permission.

Steve was silent as you sat in the back of the quinjet, your forehead bloody and uniform pulled down to your torso as Bruce tended to the bullet hole gaping in your shoulder. His shoulders were tense, his features drawn into a scowl as he glared at you, stewing in his own anger.

You knew you fucked up, if the blood seeping out of your shoulder and the burning building you barely escaped was any confirmation. Steve huffed, his hands slamming down on the table placed in the middle of the jet.

You had grown used to this—the sudden flip of his mood with you. Ever since you first joined, he was cold and angry with you. It didn't matter if all you did was try to make him happy, there was always something you did that made him annoyed with you. You had learned long ago how to hold yourself up against the angry super-soldier.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Steve suddenly shouted at you, his loud tone sending a dull throb through your temples. "I gave you an order, you could've blown the mission!"

"I was going after Strucker," you groaned, wincing as Bruce pressed a rag against your wound. "I didn't see the detonator. I'm sorry."

"'Sorry' isn't gonna cut it, Y/n. You compromised the mission. You're lucky I cut him off or else you'd in a lot more trouble."

"I get it, Cap, I do, but can we talk about this later. . . when I'm not bleeding out?" Your vision was blurring and your body was feeling alarmingly numb.

"No, we're gonna talk about this now."

"Steve," Bruce cut in, "I think Y/n is right. Maybe we can talk about this when she feels better?"

Steve's jaw clenched. He was quiet for a moment, and you were worried he was going to explode on you again. He looked over his shoulder, where the rest of the team was watching, and sighed. "Fine."

You let out a breath as he walked to the front of the jet. You leaned back, resting your head on the wall as you closed your eyes.

-

You left Bruce's lab an hour after you landed, your bullet wound all but healed and given painkillers for your concussion. You were still a little dizzy as you wobbled back to your room when you ran into Steve. He was wearing a slim workout shirt that looked two sizes too small and dark sweatpants, probably heading to the gym. You straightened your shoulders, bracing yourself. He looked you over, scowling before he pushed past you.

You stood there for a moment, shocked he hadn't started screaming at you the second he saw you. You blinked, jogging after him. "Steve, wait!"

He stopped, looking down at you as you stood in front of him. You let out a breath, your world spinning.

"I'm sorry," you said. "I should've listened to you. I should've waited for backup and I didn't and it almost cost us Strucker. I'm sorry."

Steve didn't say anything. He looked at you, irritation gnawing at his features. He mumbled out a small, "It's fine," before turning away.

You bit the inside of your cheek to distract you from the pang in your chest. You should be used to it by now—his aloofness. That didn't mean it still didn't sting, though.

You had no idea what you did to make Captain America hate you. Hell, you didn't think he had the capability to hate anyone. When you first joined the team, scared and defensive, you were just there to follow orders—because Fury had not-so-subtly given you an ultimatum that threatened your life. You were good at what you did, you were good at following orders. You stood in the background and did what people told you to do. Being a HYDRA pawn will do that to you.

But then people opened up to you. Bucky was the first one—being the former Winter Soldier, he knew what it was like to have your life taken away by HYDRA. And for some reason, he trusted you, even if you hadn't spoken a word to him. Natasha and Clint were next, then Tony, and soon the whole team treated you like you were apart of their family. But Steve didn't. You'd been with the team for months, and you were no closer to him than you were to that automatic corkscrew in the kitchen that you could never get to work.

You showered, changed, and sat on your bed for exactly twenty seconds before you realized you were done. If Steve wasn't going to tell you what his problem was, maybe someone else could.

You walked into the lounge area, finding Bucky and Sam squabbling over the remote.

"C'mon, man," Sam argued. "I got a recorded episode of the Voice that is callin' my name!"

"Watch it in your room, Wilson. The Great British Baking Show is on and I'm already watching it."

You smirked to yourself, moving to stand in front of them until one of them finally noticed you. It was your best tactic with the two of them, waiting patiently until they were done with. . . whatever they were doing. You rested your hands at your sides, eyebrow quirking when Sam called Bucky's hair 'greasy', which highly offended Bucky.

Bucky had just pulled the remote out of Sam's hands when he finally saw you. "Oh, hey, doll. How long ya' been standing there?"

You shrugged. "Not important. . . can I talk to you?"

Bucky kicked Sam out of the lounge area, who dragged himself out of the room mumbling to himself about his show. You sat down beside Bucky, crossing your legs and folding your hands in your lap.

"So," Bucky ran a hand through his hair, " what did you want to talk about?"

You chewed on the inside of your cheek for a moment, looking down at your hands as you asked the question that had been haunting you since you arrived at the Compound. "Why does Steve hate me?"

Bucky blinked, then started chuckling. You frowned.

"What?"

"You think—" he paused, sucking in a breath. "Well, I don't blame you. He hasn't exactly been kind to you, has he?"

You scoffed. "No, he hasn't. Did I do something? Is. . . is it because of what I used to do—you know—before this?"

"No, doll, it's not that. Trust me."

You weren't convinced. "Are you sure? Because—"

"Trust me, Y/n, I'm sure." Bucky smiled at you. A teasing smile, like he knew something you didn't.

"Well, can you tell me what's going on, then?" you sighed. "Because I'm getting a little tired of the cold shoulder."

Bucky pursed his lips, his eyes squinting slightly like he was thinking. You stared at him, waiting for his answer.

"You know the party Tony's throwing tomorrow?" Bucky said suddenly.

You frowned, not seeing what that had to do with the conversation. "Yeah. . . ?"

"All you have to do is show up. And wear something cute."

You raised an eyebrow, a smile breaking your lips amidst your confusion. "Don't I always, Soldat?"

--

You had managed to avoid Steve's austere glare until the party. You knew he would be there for professional appearances, being Captain America and all.

You had shuffled the dress up your body—the silky black fabric tickling your thigh. You stood in front of your mirror, back facing the glass as you struggled to turn your head at the right angle and tie the criss-cross strings racing down your back. This dress had been Natasha's, but had grown too small for her, so she gave it to you. She and Wanda did that with many of their clothes, seeing as how when you showed up at the Compound you had half a duffel bag of clothes to your name—all of which you'd stolen from different shops.

You had opted to leave your hair down, letting your locks fall past your shoulders in loose curls. You did your makeup in record time, finishing the look off with a red velvet lipstick.

Dragging your hair over one shoulder, you clipped the pearl choker necklace Tony had given you for Christmas around your neck, letting it rest on your collar. You weren't expecting anything from anyone for Christmas—you'd never even celebrated Christmas before coming onto the team. Tony's gifts were personal, whether they be deep and meaningful or jokingly hilarious. As he handed you a long, thin box, he had apologized—you were so quiet and reclusive he wasn't sure what you wanted, so he bought you this necklace. That was the first time you hugged Tony.

Slipping on a pair of sleek black heels, you looked yourself over in the mirror once more before leaving your room. You could hear the commotion of the party from your area of the living quarters, music echoing off the walls and people dressed in button-down shirts and fancy dresses.

As you stepped down the stairs, your eyes fell on Bucky, who was playing pool with Steve and Sam. Steve was smiling, laughing at something Sam had said as he sunk the ball into the corner pocket. You smiled to yourself, ignoring the pang of jealousy you felt in your chest. Why couldn't he smile like that at you?

Bucky had noticed you descending the stairs, perking up. He said something to Steve, walking off towards you. Steve frowned, his gaze following Bucky's path when his eyes landed on you. His shoulders stiffened and he shifted on his feet as looked back at Sam. You met Bucky in the middle of the room, giving him a small smile.

"Damn, doll," Bucky smirked. "You look good." You chuckled, cheeks heating up.

"Well," you looked down at your dress, "you said to wear something cute. What exactly do you have planned?"

"You'll see." He laughed at the scowl you gave him. He grabbed two cocktails from a wandering server, handing one to you. "Here—have a drink and come join us."

"Oh, no, I shouldn't. Steve looks like he's enjoying himself and. . . I'd hate to ruin his good mood." Your gaze turned sad without you even realized. Bucky wanted to smack Steve upside the head all over again—he was hurting you, alienating you and all you were trying to do was be a part of the team.

"You won't, trust me. Please? Sam keeps bragging about being the best pool player of his squadron and I'm having a hard time not punching him in his big mouth. It'd be nice to have someone around who isn't on their high-horse."

You giggled, struggling to take a sip of your drink. "Fine, but he starts chastising me, I'm out."

You followed Bucky back to the pool table, Steve glaring daggers at you and Bucky as the soldier picked up his cue stick.

-

You weren't sure how long you watched the boys play pool, but four drinks later you were tipsy and almost oblivious to Steve's lingering stare. Bucky knocked the eight ball into a corner pocket, yelling out a shout of victory as he won the game. Sam rolled his eyes.

Someone stood beside you and cleared their throat, prompting you to turn your head. Thor stood next to you, his hair pulled away from his face and donning a long red coat and dark wash jeans.

"Lady Y/n." He smiled at you, holding his hand out as you blushed. You always blushed when he called you that. "Would you care for a dance?"

"Uh—" You looked over at Bucky, who was smirking. He tilted his head, motioning for you to go. Your eyes wandered up at Steve, who looked like he was about ready to throttle Thor. He really did hate the idea of his team socializing with you. Smiling to yourself, you looked back at Thor. "Actually, I'd love to."

You walked off with Thor, stopping just before you left their line of sight. It was petty, what you were doing—using Thor to deliberately piss off your Captain. But he didn't leave you much of a choice. Thor rested his hand on your waist, his large fingers brushing against your bare back. You shivered, putting your hand on his shoulder. He held your other hand as you two swayed to the music.

"You look lovely tonight, Y/n," Thor said, looking down at you through his eyelashes. You thought your cheeks were warm from the alcohol, but after that comment, your face was burning. You were sure your cheeks were a bright red.

"Th-thank you," you stuttered. You cleared your throat. "You. . . uh—you look nice, too. I like your jacket."

Thor chuckled. "You do not have to be so nervous, Y/n. It is only a dance."

"Yeah, well, I've never really danced before. . . like actually danced. I've danced for missions before, but things never really ended well for my partner."

"Well, I do hope things end better for me."

You giggled. "Well, I haven't been hired to kill you, so I think you're good." You nervously laughed at your joke, hoping it wasn't as awkward as you thought it was.

You danced with Thor until he invited to get a drink with him. You sat at the bar, nursing a cocktail Natasha made for you while Thor was telling you about the time he battled a pack of trolls in the mountains of Svartalfheim.

When the party was over, you were still talking to Thor. You thanked him for dancing with you, making sure to tell Bucky goodnight. You walked up the staircase, heading toward your room when you stopped. Steve stood in front of your door, arms crossed and frowning.

"Steve?" He turned his head, meeting your confused gaze. "Can I. . . can I help you with something?"

"We need to talk," he said curtly.

"O-Okay." You were overtly aware of the click of your heels as you opened your door for him, letting him enter your room. You carefully let the door slide closed behind you, staring at Steve. "Do you want anything to drink? I can get you a glass of water? Or I think I still have some beer Bucky left in the fridge?"

That had been the wrong thing to say. You watched his eyes darken, lips curling into a snarl as he shoved you up against your wall. His grip on your biceps was borderline painful, his nose inches from yours and you could feel his hot breath fanning your face.

"Don't talk about Bucky. Not now."

You swallowed thickly, Steve watching the line of your throat. "Okay, I won't. I'm sorry."

You fell silent, stuck staring at Steve's features. The barely-there green in his eyes, the crease of his eyebrows, the lines of his frown, his lips. You didn't realize he was doing the same to you until his breathing calmed. You licked your lips nervously, Steve staring at the dart of your tongue. And then his lips were on yours.

You stood frozen—shocked—for only a moment before closing your eyes and moving your lips against his. He let go of your arms, letting you wrap them around his neck and pulling him closer, moaning into his mouth. His tongue darted into your mouth, kissing you like you've never been kissed until you were breathless and had to pull away.

Your lips were red and swollen, eyes closed as you rested your hands on Steve's chest, playing with a button on his shirt.

"Steve—"

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, voice husky. "I'm sorry I've been so mean to you. I just—I didn't know how to deal with my feelings about you."

"Shut up," you breathed. "And kiss me."

His lips crashed onto yours again, his hands on your hips as he pulled you closer into his body. The kiss was needy and possessive, the intensity of it almost frightening, the raw need and hunger behind his actions overwhelming you.

His mouth moved down your jaw, leaving a trail of sloppy kisses down your neck. You fumbled behind you, undoing your dress and letting it pool at your feet. He picked you up effortlessly and you wrapped your legs around his narrow waist, hands cupping his face. He tossed you down on your bed, ripping open his blue button-down and throwing it on the floor. He pulled the white undershirt over his head, dropping it with his shirt while you kicked off your heels.

He crawled up the bed, hovering over you as he leaned down to kiss you. Just a quick peck before he moved to kiss your collar bone, his hands roaming up your thighs. One hand reached under you and you arched your back, letting him unclip your bra and slide the straps off your shoulders. He kissed along the skin he exposed, pulling the fabric down past your breasts.

He mouthed at the soft swell of your chest, sucking a red mark into your skin. He pinched your nipple lightly, rolling it between his forefinger and thumb and you jumped, arching your back. You inhaled a sharp, shaky breath when Steve popped a nipple into his mouth, his tongue lapping over the bud and swirling it around.

He continued to work down your body, kissing lower and lower and sucking marks into your skin at random intervals. He sucked a bruise in the divot between your ribs, one above your belly button, and one just above your underwear. As he peeled your lace panties off your legs and dropped them on the floor, he kissed back up your leg, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of your thigh.

You were panting, squirming as his lips met just shy of where you needed them most. You almost screamed when his tongue finally connected with your little bud. He used the tip of his tongue first, just circling your clit as you whined, his thick finger slipping into your center. He pumped his finger in and out of you leisurely, suckling at your bundle of nerves before he quickly added a second finger.

You continued this until you were right on the precipice of orgasm, and when his fingers curled and brushed against that spot inside of you, your moan broke in your throat. The taut rubber band in your stomach snapped, muscles spasming as your head fell back against your pillows, Steve licking up your mess.

Steve moved up your body and kissed you, your release coating his face and you could taste yourself on his tongue. His hands went to your hips and he suddenly flipped you so you were straddling his thighs. You deepened the kiss, your hands coming up to cup his cheeks as Steve adjusted his length to meet your center, letting you slide onto him at your own pace.

He was large. Thick and long and your tight heat clutched around him in a marvelous way and he wasn't even halfway in. Steve had broken the kiss, leaning back and his eyes fluttering shut as he marveled in the feel of you clutching him like a vice.

"Shit, sweetheart," he panted. "You feel so good."

You bottomed out, letting yourself adjust to his size before you rocked forward. You both moaned. Your clit rubbed against his pelvis as you rolled your hips harder, your hands falling to his chest for stability. His hands rested on your waist, letting you move as you desired.

"St—Steve," you whimpered, picking up your pace. The tip of his length hit a certain spot inside you and you gasped, your nails digging into his skin, his body moving in tandem with yours.

You were unbelievably close. Steve hugged you close to his chest, his lips meeting your breast as he mouthed at your nipple, groaning as he ran his hands up and down your sides. He worked his way up your neck, sucking your sensitive skin as he thrust his hips up into you and that was all it took before you were coming. You cried out his name, gasping and whimpering as your head fell into the crook of his neck.

"Fuck!" Steve groaned, thrusting several more times as your walls hugged him and he stiffened inside you, throwing his head back as he growled, his cock pulsating as he came.

Panting, he carefully laid you next to him, admiring your blissed-out gaze as he pulled your blankets over the two of you, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear. You smiled at him, your lipstick smeared as you opened your eyes.

"So I guess this is what Bucky was talking about?" you asked, mostly to yourself.

"What do you mean?"

"I talk to Bucky yesterday after I ran into you, I thought he might know what was going on with you. He just kinda laughed at me and told me you didn't hate me. . . . Did he know? About how you felt?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, he did."

You chewed on your lip in thought. "He said he had a plan. That during the party—oh m.y God."

"What?"

"Thor. Thor was the plan." You looked up at Steve. "Bucky knew you would get jealous so he asked Thor to dance with me."

Steve laughed. "In my defense, Thor was getting way too handsy."

You giggled. "Remind me to make Bucky some cookies tomorrow."

Steve rolled over you, caging you in his arms as he grinned down at you. Your eyebrow arched playfully. He bent down and kissed you, your hands coming up to run along his pecs. He pulled away, his smile sparkling even in the darkness of your room. You swooned, knowing that his smile was something you would never tire of seeing.

"Sleep," Steve told you. "I'll be here when you wake up."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

[docholligay]

Please rant/rave (well, we already know which one it will be here) about Harry Potter!

GEE I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH WAITING FOR

OH MY GOD. The level of hatred I have for Harry Fucking Goddamn Potter, the culture around Harry Fucking Potter, extending its poisonous tentacles even to the concept of young adult fiction, fantasy, and the United Kingdom as a country and people. 

When you being on this, you may think, “Oh, Doc will explain that Harry Potter sucks because JKR hates trans women” and I will say, oh no, dear reader, that is a fantastic reason to hate the author, and I really suggest we all continue to hate her, and perhaps not purchase the QUEEN’S TONNES of officially licensed merchandise and movies and theme parks that give her stupid little fucking hands all that cash, but no, that is not why I hate the work. There are a number of great works done by terrible people, and the further out the lens of history gets the truer this is. 

I hate Harry Potter because it fucking sucks, and mentally stifled an entire fucking generation. 

“Well, Doc, Harry Potter was really there for me when--” Oh my god I could not fucking care LESS about your personal emotion connection to “orphan wizard boy turns out to be a rich aristocrat yet somehow less woke than Cinderella though” I have personally emotional connections to hot fucking garbage pails of media properties, and if someone came barreling through talking about the myriad ways in which they were horrible, I would be like, “Oh, you aren’t fucking wrong, pal” 

Harry Potter gained wild ass popularity in part due to its magnificent sorting system of Smart, Brave, Evil, and Other, because there’s nothing liberals like more than being able to put everyone’s personality into an easily labeled box, which is why astrology is so popular, or for the intellectuals, Myers-Briggs, which is just as fake but with the veneer of science. This allowed people to give into the tribalism they so desperately liked to pretend they did not possess, and also allow them to write thinkpieces about “The misunderstood Hufflepuff” or “Slytherins aren’t all bad!” or really anything that allows them to write a very real piece about their very imagined oppression for being a part of a totally fake house in a children’s book. Excellent use of your sociology degree, Kai, I thought the addition of phrases like, ‘Content of socialization” and “axes of oppression” really spoke to the struggles you face when wearing a green and silver scarf. 

The other reason it became popular is that it’s essentially wallpaper paste formed into characters. I have read all of the books, and I could not tell you even remotely what Harry’s defining personality traits are other than “protagonist”. In American, at least, a large part of it was the fascination with all things British, with the idea of boarding school and prefects and uniforms that aren’t inexplicably chinos and polo shirts for nine year olds. It allowed children to project onto something so bland that it could be anything. And for children, THAT’S FINE. There is a great deal of bland media made for children, but what I’m speaking to is the fandom, which is largely well over the age of 18. 

Because if we look at the books, are they...actually good? Was it good, or did I experience it as a child? I mean, honestly, on a literary level, are they, or was it just like we all watched Friends, we did it because everyone else was doing it, because I have a distinct memory of a series that involves such greats as “magical geegaws with poorly defined rules that are quickly forgotten despite being able to solve later problems quickly” or “Everyone loves Harry or is a bad guy, or secretly loved Harry all along” 

Oh, speaking of, man, if this was an actual well-written book, wouldn’t it have been wild to have Snape’s whole thing be to teach us that sometimes people do good things for the wrong reasons? Instead of naming your fucking child after the guy who ‘protected you’ because he still wanted to bone your mom? “After all this time” “Always.” 

While all this could have been explained, we have Quidditch added into the mix instead because 20 pages of the goddamn Puppy Bowl is exactly what I was looking for while I was waiting for JK to move the goddamn ball on literally any of these actual magical concepts. 

Harry Potter is a fucking trust fund baby, star quarterback, who grows up to be a cop and marries his high school sweetheart. (Speaking of, why were we shocked that JKR turned out to be a piece of shit when this was and always has been the conclusion of Harry Potter? Why are liberals so fucking into this series that upholds structures like it ain’t no one’s business? It’s a series that opines that those beneath us “Muggles” should be kept in the dark from us) Literally, he finds out he is a wizard and has a dragon-guarded fucking VAULT OF CASH. At 11. It’s such a series for little tyrants, you are special from birth and need do nothing to prove it, here is a letter certifying as such. Oh, not only are you rich and the greatest seeker and have excellent quips, but also your parents were not only rebels, but the best of rebels, and so deeply involved that your parents were killed by the big bad personally, again, because you are so special. His mother’s love literally saves his ass over and over again, because he was SO SPECIAL. He fought Voldemort FROM THE BEGINNING, and WON.  It’s literally the most privilege baby fantasy in the world. 

“But Doooooooooooc, it’s for chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren” 

A) Yeah, and you’re 32, you’re making my fucking point about Harry Potter setting an entire generation up for intellectual failure to launch. 

B) Okay, and? I can think of a bunch of kids’ books off the top of my head that in no way require specialness to be given by birth so as to roll out the red carpet for master protagonist. The Hunger Games. Watership Down. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Chronicles of FUCKING NARNIA, about which I have only a small handful of particularly kind things to say. I’ve never read Percy Jackson, but it’s my understanding that despite his being a literal demigod, the attitudes of the supporting cast are allowed to fall between the extremes of “Appreciates Percy” and “naughty or will learn” Harry does nothing to improve himself even after knowing that he is HUNTED BY THE BIG BAD! “I won’t do this because I don’t like Snape”. So There” which, again, if this series were written with the slightest bit of care or know-how, could be a humbling fucking plot point! BUT NO THAT WOULD BE NAUGHTY. 

But the real reason I hate Harry Potter so much has everything to do with the fandom surrounding it, and how it intellectually stunted a generation of adults. The promise of Harry Potter was that it was supposed to make a new generation of readers, and so the popularity of them was pushed, and so there was discussion of teaching them in schools, but I tell you fucking what, I know a whole lot more folks who grew up reading Harry Potter that never advanced beyond reading YA, or even just rereading the entire series every year and that’s pretty much them done and dusted. 

In the attempt to recapture whatever it was about Harry Potter that attracted children (A lot of it was your peers doing it. I read them all as they came out, and it was literally the equivalent of watching the game so you could talk at the water cooler. That was never going to be recaptured) people, who by this time were likely in their teens, kept getting recommended stuff at the same and same level. No one ever felt pushed to read things that are challenging, to read things that have some of the concepts or themes of Harry Potter but maybe complicate. I know FAR more adults who read adult books that aren’t into Harry Potter, even if they were as children, than the reverse. 

But Doc, why is reading only books meant for 14 year olds a problem??? I mean I suppose I can’t convince you that comfort is not the job of literature or of life, it is the job of an easy chair, because Americans especially are decadent as fuck about being comfy cozy all the time and if anything causes them distress or pain it should be immediately avoided. But Maybe I can convince you that you’re fucking up these books for actual ass children who deserve to have their own writing section without adults bringing their fucking asses into it. They deserve their own spaces. There’s a number of YA editors who have talked about the difficult space YA now occupies because since Potter’s blowup, it’s no longer a niche category, but basically “adult easy reads” and so they have been buying books that are more about the tastes of adult buyers than of literal 14 year olds. 

Is that not...sad? To anyone else? Honestly, and this is not part of the essay because it’s a broader reaching problem, but CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS FOR FUCKING CHILDREN. The fucking 40-23 set really needs to get their shit together and grow up a little bit and engage in some fucking adult media, and maybe, if we support what we’re actually looking for FOR ADULTS, it will come to us. No one is saying you can’t read Harry Potter or watch some Cartoon Network show, but like, search your heart and come the fuck on. Engage in something more complex. If not for yourselves, for the kids getting shoved into simplified adult stories. It should not be about us. 

ANYWAY, my larger point is that it was Harry Potter, a badly written series about a magical boy who was chosen and magic and also rich and also a favorite of the headmaster and also more clever than most adults and also spoke the same magical snake language as the big bad and was also star quarterback, but at least there was a system in which you could buy a scarf in block colors and feel like you belonged to a team. 

(But not a sports team! lol handegg! I’m cool I don’t get into sports! Except Quidditch.) 

[mistergrass]

a dump of podcast thoughts/recs

I have been listening to a whole lot of podcasts in the last month, and so I thought I’d just lay out what I’ve listened to so far and my general thoughts (but I’m not gonna tag any of them because I might get too honest - which means REALLY no one is gonna care about this lmao) 

I would also love some recs for both fiction and non-fiction if anyone’s got any! 

Fiction:

The Magnus Archives - This is, unsurprisingly, my top top recommendation for podcasts. The story being told is so intricate and well thought-out. I love pieces of media where I can turn my brain off and trust that the creators know exactly what they’re doing. And I love anything that knows its intent from episode 1. I think I could go on for ages praising this podcast, but tldr; 

HIGHLY RECOMMEND 

The Penumbra Podcast (Junoverse) - I am not a fan of high fantasy, which is the main reason I haven’t listened to Second Citadel (other than the one-off eps in s1), so I’ll just focus on the Juno Steel stories. But I listened to this after catching up with TMA because so many people seemed to recommend it. Because of that, I think I might have gone into it with slightly higher-than-necessary expectations....

Here are things I like about it: the environment is well sound-scaped (especially in later eps), the universe is really cool and fun to learn about, and the romantic subplot between Juno and Peter really is a great time. 

That being said, I can get a little frustrated with the writing at times. Story beats are sometimes paced oddly, and at other times the narration can over-explain what’s going on -- especially wrt character emotions. S2 I think is the biggest culprit of this “tell don’t show” method, and it can expand to hurt the individual mysteries and the set-up of the metaplot, too. Overall, S2 was a real dredge to get through. (But credit where credit is due, Juno Steel and The Monster’s Reflection were incredibly crafted episodes of that season). 

But it was worth it to me for S3, which is a fun vibe and shifts from focusing on individual mysteries to character explorations in a found-family dynamic. The real strength of this podcast are the unique and engaging characters and their dynamics (which is why when Juno isolates himself in S2, it gets kind of dull). It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely been a very entertaining season. 

Uhhhh, kind of recommend? Maybe only if you’re really into the noir/sci-fi/detective genre. 

Death by Dying - The worst thing about this podcast is that there’s only five episodes. Oh my GOD what a gem of a show. The deadpan, absurdist humor in this show is so insanely up my alley and so well-written. But one thing I love about this podcast is that even in five episodes with a format that is mostly obituary-of-the-week, the emotional arcs of the characters are really well-maintained. Charolette, in particular, is a tragic character to follow through the MC’s eyes, but in a way that makes total sense considering the situation. This show is so clever, so fun, and finds ways to be really poignant at times, too. 

HIGHLY RECOMMEND 

Two Princes - I know I said I don’t like high fantasy, but I’m also gay and sometimes that just beats out. Who doesn’t like a light, fluffy story about two princes falling in love in some perilous magic forest? It’s a gas. Also, it’s just really well-produced and an easy listen. You very much get what’s on the tin,  and that tin is some high-quality and very tasty cheese. 

RECOMMEND 

Limetown - God, I’m so upset about this one. 

The first season is a masterpiece. WONDERFULLY produced, beautifully sound-scaped, insanely intriguing and engaging, along with a wonderful MC who is far from perfect in her endeavor for forbidden knowledge. I don’t think I can recommend it enough. 

The second season... is fine! You still want to know what’s going on, so it’s easy to keep listening. But, tbh, it takes a bit of an odd turn. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but I would’ve been okay with the shift in direction if it was leading somewhere satisfying. But the S2 finale is... well. Choices were made, I guess. I’ll just say that I was really cheated out of an emotional pay-off. 

If there was a promise of a 3rd season that would explain these things in more depth, I might let it off. But it looks like the production team is shifting its focus to the TV series being made out of this. I might watch it -- but I am worried now that they won’t know how to land the plane no matter how smooth the take-off is. 

Despite everything, RECOMMEND 

Archive 81 - (I have only finished through S2) 

My feelings on this show is that I do not have the auditory processing skills required to keep up, lmao. But I don’t think I can really hold that against this podcast. This show doesn’t hold the audience’s hands, which is something I actually really like (even if I do get lost sometimes in what’s happening, lmao). This is obviously another case of the creators knowing EXACTLY where they’re going in the story, too. I also don’t think I’ve heard any other podcast with sound-scaping at this level. The biggest themes of this show are sound and ritual, and itreally follows through on that wrt how the sound is edited. The vibe of it is so mysterious and unique, it does such a good job of making you feel like you’re in a totally different world.

RECOMMEND

Wooden Overcoats - (I have only finished through S1)

This show definitely has a Fawlty Towers feel to it, and the humor is very fast-paced and British in that very specific UK-sitcom way. Because of that the humor is very dry, but definitely fun to listen to. And the characters are a real hysterical bunch.

My biggest critique, however, is that sometimes the episodes end in a way that feels like a big bummer. British sitcoms of this nature usually hinge upon an incompetent/anti-hero MC who tends to deserve the different comical misfortunes that fall upon them. Usually they get up afterwards, having learned nothing, and the cycle continues in a harmless way. But sometimes that vibe doesn’t really hit, and a few episodes will end with these big tonal shifts where the schadenfreude ends up drying out. You sort of just end up feeling bad for everyone involved instead lol. It’s what has me hesitating going into the next season, but I’ll definitely start it up eventually. It’s well produced, and honestly the characters are just too fun to keep away from (Antigone in particular is my favorite). 

If you like British sitcoms, I’d recommend. Or if you’re looking for a cynical laugh. 

Other podcasts I’ve started are EOS 10, and Dreamboy. I really didn’t like the first episode of Dreamboy, but I’m gonna give it another try since it’s so short. EOS 10 seems well-produced, but not really up my personal alley. 

Non-Fiction 

I’m not gonna give these ones as long of blurbs, just know I recommend them all highly. 

You Must Remember This -  Old Hollywood history that is wonderfully researched, and focuses a lot on women of the time. The recounting of these histories feels very honest and she really doesn’t pull any punches when giving detailed and accurate accounts. A truly wonderful show. 

Welcome to Your Fantasy - A deep dive on the history of Chippendales that is WILDLY entertaining. I sort of can’t believe I got as sucked in as I did. The host has a wonderful humor about her, but is still great at getting to the heart of some of the heavier issues at hand. 

Last Podcast on the Left - My favorite true crime/conspiracy podcast by a long mile. It’s equally hilarious and well-researched. I know a lot of people are kind of anti-true crime lately which is very understandable, but I do appreciate each of the host’s personal philosophies on the matter, which I think comes through in a lot of their episodes. 

[ollyarchive]

Olly Alexander: ‘I want to make the community proud. I don’t know if I've always got it right’

By

David Levesley

As Ritchie Tozer in Russell T Davies’ devastating 1980s-set drama It's A Sin, Olly Alexander told a story from a tragically formative decade in gay history. As himself and as frontman of synthpop trio Years & Years, he contributes to a new narrative. But, as he reveals here, the insecurities and anxieties written into minority identities are not just a personal challenge: they can shape stories told by, for and about all his peers

It is the afternoon before It’s A Sin is broadcast to the nation and its star, 30-year-old musician and actor Olly Alexander, is buying a cat cushion. “It’s for a friend!” he says, mortified to be caught in the act of buying a plush feline.

Where once being the star of a primetime Channel 4 drama might mean greenrooms, watch parties and a celebratory afters, this is January 2021, so a flame-haired Alexander is sitting in his kitchen, drinking a smoothie the exact same lilac as his top.

“I’ve had a lot of restless energy,” he says, having binge-watched The Real Housewives Of New York City in between doing lots of squats and “watching homoerotic YouTube workout videos”. It’s not quite the normal build-up to a game-changing drama, but is there a better way to remember peacetime than watching a show filled with period pieces such as “friends drink indoors” or “strangers have guiltless sex at a house party”? It’s A Sin is both a masterpiece and a reminder that someday we will, once again, be able to be eaten out by hot men. “You’re so welcome,” Alexander says, laughing. “If I can bring anything to the British public, it’s a lesson in anal hygiene.”

Anal hygiene are two words we have probably never published together in GQ, but, more importantly, are probably not the subject of many – if any! – scenes in a piece of media not uploaded to OnlyFans. They are, however, the subject of a crucial scene in the first episode of It’s A Sin, in which Alexander’s character – an 18-year-old fledgling queer from the Isle Of Wight called Ritchie Tozer – gets rimmed by his campus crush, Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis). No gay men watching came out of that scene not feeling seen and, like all the other sex scenes in It’s A Sin, it feels deeply realistic and fantastically homosexual.

“I can tell you I’ll never forget being practically butt-naked with my arse in the air in front of colleagues,” says Alexander, laughing. But by that point, he says, he had done so many sex scenes that it felt somewhat rote. “‘Ritchie’s got a dirty bum! Stick that arse in the air and look disappointed!’” What was interesting, he says, was the dynamic of trying to produce the most authentically gay experiences possible on camera.

‘WE UNDERSTOOD THESE CHARACTERS WITH A KIND OF SHORTHAND THAT GAY PEOPLE UNDERSTAND’

They were working with Ita O’Brien – a movement director and arguably the OG intimacy coordinator – but, for her sins, not a gay man. So while everyone would have an input in how a sex scene would be best shot, “There came a point when they would say, ‘Please tell us, because we’re not gay men.’” So then the writer, the performers, the director and O’Brien’s team would come to a consensus on how to make a threesome look like three men shagging, yet also make it look the best it could on camera and make sure “you never touch each other’s genitals, basically”.

Alexander says O’Brien’s input was a “lifesaver” for him on set. Although by the end he felt comfortable, he was at first intimidated by just how exposing this would be. “I had a bit of a hysterical breakdown. I was really worried I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t feel safe.” This was interesting to hear from Alexander, the proudly queer frontman of the band Years & Years, who “spent four years on the road performing and finding this character that I do feel sexy in”. It was then that O’Brien and the team asked him to bring whatever made him feel comfortable on stage into the room before the cameras rolled. “So I would sing before the takes, be a little bit of Olly on stage,” he says, laughing. “That was my way of tricking my brain and thinking it was a character. Which, of course, it was.”

Before he was Olly Alexander, consummate gamine artiste, Olly Alexander Thornton was a singled-out kid at a primary school in Gloucestershire (where his mother ran a music festival). He was, like many other gay kids growing up, bullied and harassed for being something “other”, which everyone is able to see long before you can define it yourself. “I remember being in primary school and I had long hair and people would call me a girl,” he says, and the wound still feels raw when he recounts it.

“I knew that was bad for boys. I didn’t like the things that other boys liked: I just wanted to play with the girls and watch Disney movies. Which obviously straight boys do as well,” he mentions, always making sure to provide caveats to include all facets of the human experience. Although the bullying began to subside by secondary school in Monmouthshire, he still stood out: he had big curly hair – “I was trying to hide my ears” – and would wear make-up or a choker sometimes on nonuniform days. “I think I was trying to figure out who I was,” he says. “Imagine getting to discover your own sexuality without any preconceived ideas! I mean, maybe that’s impossible. But it would be nice, right? Why should people bullying you be your first brush with your own sexuality?”

Like Ritchie Tozer, Alexander moved to London at 18 to pursue acting, but he also had designs on becoming a musician. “Because when you’re writing a song, you’re the director, the star, the producer, the writer. I wanted all of that! I needed that to be able to express myself,” he proclaims with faux hysteria. For years he found success as an actor in a diverse selection of roles: he appeared in Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void, costarred with seemingly every other white British actor in The Riot Club and also in God Help The Girl, a musical film written by Belle And Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. “Then Years & Years just got to a place where it was going to take over and needed my full time,” Alexander says. So his focus moved to the music.

‘IMAGINE DISCOVERING YOUR SEXUALITY WITHOUT ANY PRECONCEIVED IDEAS!’

It was on their third single, “Real” – released in 2014 – that Alexander first felt his art and his sexuality really intermingle. “It was the first time I put in a male pronoun – I say ‘Do it, boy’ – and it’s quite subtle, but it was a big deal for me at the time.” This was when Years & Years were trying to get signed to a major label, so doing something so consciously queer felt like a risk (the band went on to sign with Polydor later that year).

While pop music has long had an element of queerness about it – you need only look at the artists featured in It’s A Sin to see how gay 1980s pop was – Alexander has long been frank that sexuality and success are not always seen as natural bedfellows. At a Stonewall event in 2018 he recounted being told during his media training, “Maybe it’s better not to say anything about your sexuality at all.” In the same year, he told NME there had been progress, but that “I just know there are people who are hiding their sexuality, so it’s still not gone completely”.

Alexander doubled down on it with the music video – featuring his Bright Star costar Ben Whishaw – where he “purposefully made it gay. There’s a cruising element to the very beginning. It’s slightly ambiguous, though, because back then I wasn’t quite ready to launch into being the gay crusader I think I am now.” In 2015 the band won the BBC’s Sound Of 2015 poll, releasing their first album, Communion, the same year. It became 2015’s fastest-selling debut album from a UK-signed band.

‘I JUST WATCHED LIAM PAYNE TAKE HIS TOP OFF, BUT NOW I’M NOT ALLOWED TO?’

But despite the success, and the realisation that audiences were either supportive of – or simply unfazed by – the queerness of Years & Years’ music, there is always an anxiety for Alexander about just how accepting people are willing to be. “I’ll tell you for real,” says Alexander, “I go out on stage – even if it’s for our own audience – and I’m like, ‘What if some of them don’t like me? What if some of them have an issue with me today?’ I always feel like I’m going to try a bit harder next time, try to do a bit more.”

While the character of “Olly Alexander, Years & Years frontman” is one that bespangles its performer with confidence, being queer in the music industry isn’t always an easy thing to navigate. He remembers seeing a tweet from someone who said Alexander’s sexuality was a ruse to try to attract the pink pound – a term for the spending power of gay men – “And it had an impact on me, because I’ve consciously tried to [be openly gay] in a lot of circumstances where I wouldn’t normally. And then for someone...” He tries to think of how to put it and comes up short. “It can chip away at you.”

He wouldn’t change a thing about his success, he says, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when it isn’t hard to be out and proud while also getting your foot in the door. “When we’re playing a pop music festival, I’m looking at the other acts in the lineup and there aren’t that many gay people on them,” he says. “You see how quickly your show isn’t family friendly any more because I want to take my top off and I’m like, ‘Well, I just watched Jason Derulo and Liam Payne take their tops off and have all these women in underwear, but now I’m not allowed?’ What do you do with that?”

It’s A Sin marks a return to acting but, also, a chance to refresh Alexander’s musical batteries too. Following Years & Years’ second album – 2018’s Palo Santo – the third album was proving hard to pin down. “I’ve been trying to make this album for about 18 months at this point, stopping and starting, listening to all the songs and... it’s just not feeling relevant any more.” Alexander had always loved Russell T Davies’ work, so when he heard Davies was making a new TV show he “had to be in it. I would just jump at the chance to work with him. And that was before I read the script.” Years & Years had just finished touring Palo Santo and, to Alexander, it felt like the stars had aligned.

While the anxiety of performing queer sex scenes might have been particularly exposing for a gay man like Alexander, there were huge benefits for him being in a cast and crew that were predominantly LGBTQ+. “It was a revelation. I’ve never been on a set with so many queer people. I’ve never even worked with a gay director, so it was a completely new experience.” Plus, being asked to play part of a group of gay best friends, portrayed predominantly by gay actors, meant the chemistry came very quickly: “We understood these characters [with a] kind of shorthand that gay people understand.”

An inclusive, comfortable environment was beneficial for more than just sex scenes and simulating a decade of friendship. It’s A Sin also required its cast to grapple with the issue of HIV and aids, not just as a part of the furniture – as we do in the 21st century, with our knowledge of viral loads, sleeping with undetectable partners and new medications such as Prep – but really putting a forgotten part of British queer history under the lens, who it affected and how it changed the LGBTQ+ community irrevocably. “It’s an issue that is deeply surrounded by stigma and there’s a lot of trauma there and a lot of fear,” Alexander explains. “I know, personally, it was an area that I was scared to really engage with.”

He mentions that just before filming he made friends with an older gay couple at his gym and in talking about the show with them he was offered a rare opportunity to hear about personal experiences of the aids crisis. “It can be so difficult as a gay person to feel like you have intergenerational support,” says Alexander. “Elders are so important in our community. You can get so much from the people who have gone through so much before and fought that fight.”

For Alexander and the cast, It’s A Sin was a rare opportunity: a chance to be brought together with a whole group of men and women who were there at the time and who were willing to share their experiences with them. “I feel so lucky that I got to engage with that and keep learning. I was just scratching the surface and there are so many stories you can tell from this period. It’s impacted us all the way until now and it will in the future.”

Starring in It’s A Sin has also changed what Years & Years’ third album is going to sound like. After the initial writer’s block, Alexander says, he focused instead on the music of the show (Bronski Beat, Kelly Marie, the titular song by Pet Shop Boys) “and it really took my mind back to the club” – especially in the midst of a pandemic, when the queer nightlife venues that are the backbone of our community are so desperately missed.

“All the music I wanted to listen to in lockdown was high energy. It was dance floor. It was club music.” This was the music that had played such a huge role in his early life in London, had inspired the first Years & Years album and a genre that owes a great debt to the LGBTQ+ community. “I think at their heart, lots of these songs are about joy despite crushing pain. I just thought, ‘God, imagine hearing “I Feel Love” on the dance floor for the first time.’ What a transcendent experience that would be.”

‘ELDERS ARE SO IMPORTANT IN OUR COMMUNITY. YOU CAN GET SO MUCH FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE FOUGHT THAT FIGHT’

And so Alexander went into the studio – as soon as it was safe to do so – and created a bunch of new songs. Is it easy to find collaborators behind the scenes who get it when he says, “I want it to feel like Britney meets Rihanna meets Hot Chip via New Order”?

“It can be a challenge to find someone that really understands,” admits Alexander. He recalled being sent round the songwriters and producers in Los Angeles that all artists are sent round at a certain point, “And some of those people are amazing – some amazing queer people as well – but predominantly... You know, they’re straight, so it can be quite challenging.”

Feeling safe with his collaborators hasn’t been an easy journey, but now he’s in a good place for it. He also pointed out that it’s not just queers who can understand his vision: his bandmates are straight, he points out – “I really believe in working with straight people! Some of my best friends are straight!” – and his frequent collaborator, the producer Mark Ralph, “is a real ally to us gays”, who was always willing to vibe along to Paris Hilton singles with him.

A new sound – a queerer sound – isn’t just a risk in a world where Alexander’s performances are held to double standards and the linchpins of queer culture can still be seen as synonymous with perversion. The impossible standards queer work is held to don’t just come from the straight world: gay men can be terrible recipients of work designed for them too.

Russell T Davies has dealt with it his entire career: “There’s the problem of lack of representation, but there’s the problem that when you are represented, it’s just not seen,” he explained when I spoke to him recently. “You just learn to cope. I worry about it. I probably worry about it more than I say here, but at the end of the day it’s never stopped me writing the next thing.” But he gets it because he, too, is a gay man who consumes art and he sees the same biases coming out when he watches other queer-centric work.

Yet he was amazed that artists younger than him are still dealing with the same crises: “It’s what comes with being a minority. It’s what comes of oppression and you kind of expect this to pass. But then you talk to young people like Olly, who’s a different generation from me, and you find them thinking the same things,” Davies said. “I was lucky to have my training during an age when you’d be lucky to get one review in the Times. Now you live in a world of reviewers.”

When I ask Alexander if he worries how gay men will respond to a gay artist’s work, it is no easier for him to respond than it was for Davies. “Oh, God, you’re making my heart race now,” he says, breathless. “I should be careful, because I don’t want to demonise anybody. But I tried to really unpack this myself and... I’ll just sort of say it.” It is clear that this is intense for him: his eyes are looking watery as he tries to phrase it delicately.

“I have this – I think irrational – anxiety about gay men tearing me down. And I tried to interrogate that within myself and I think it’s complicated, because a lot of it has to do with internalised phobias and shame, about how I see myself versus how other people see me.” He begins to cry. “What I do know is that I want them to not hate me. And I want to make the community proud. It’s been at the heart of pretty much every decision I’ve ever made. And I don’t know if I’ve always got it right.”

‘I HAVE THIS – I THINK IRRATIONAL – ANXIETY ABOUT GAY MEN TEARING ME DOWN’

It’s tough being an actor asked to shed light and humanity on a complex phase in British LGBTQ+ history; it’s just as tough to be a gay man trying to make pop music that speaks to the queer experience. But Alexander is doing both and, what’s more, he’s being unapologetically queer in the public eye. There aren’t many LGBTQ+ people in the position Alexander is in and it must be exhausting, I suggest, to be expected to speak for the needs and fears of an entire spectrum of sexual and gender identities. After all, he’s just one man who wants to be proud of who he is. “Sometimes, when I feel the most anxious, I have a voice in my head that goes, ‘Oh, Olly, why on earth did you put yourself in this position? You really are not the strong person people think you are.’” But, he says, he is learning he can’t speak for everyone, even if people expect it of him.

Instead, he’s focusing on being proud of what he’s done – the visibility, the audacity, the bravery – rather than the critique of his anxieties or Twitter trolls. “I’m always thinking about me as a teenager and how I’m creating the person I wanted to be in the world. I’m actually doing it! Holy fuck!”

[artificialqueens]

Galactica, Chapter 2 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: Okay so, to be honest, we really thought that we were doing this for ourselves and that maybe a few people would read it. The fact that so many of you guys have been SO kind and supportive is just lovely and we are infinitely grateful for you all!! Here is Chapter 1. Here’s a link to AO3 if you’d prefer to read there. 💫

Last Chapter: Violet received the thrilling news that Fame intends to promote her to design as soon as she finds and trains a new assistant.

This Chapter: We meet the other department heads.

***

Violet looked out on the conference table one final time, consulting the list in her notebook to make sure that nothing was forgotten. It was Wednesday morning, the 9am monthly creative meeting starting in less than 15 minutes.

The table was set with a light breakfast spread, no one but Trixie and Alyssa ever actually eating at these things, but she had made sure there was a selection of fruits, and that everyone had their favorite beverages besides the ginormous coffee order. Keeping track of the department heads and their various likes and dislikes was almost a job in itself, but Violet had gotten it down to a science.

There were frosted Pellegrinos for Fame, Raja preferring grapefruit juice. Alyssa liked Redbull, Alaska preferred diet Doctor Pepper, Trixie was a regular coke kind of guy while Pearl was a wildcard, but Violet had a good feeling about the chocolate milkshake, since she had heard the rumor that Pearl had been out partying.

Violet had spent most of last night writing the job description for the new assistant, falling asleep with her notebook in hand, only to wake up in a panic at 3 am to realize that the electricity was out yet again. She had slept restlessly for the rest of the night, then missed her first alarm, barely making it to her gym for a shower before coming in to work at 7.30 sharp, and while Violet knew she looked flawless, it felt fundamentally wrong to take a stop at her gym without working out.

The only bright spot so far had been how HR had accepted her initial proposal right away, giddiness bubbling in her chest at the thought that the process of finding her replacement was actually happening.

“- and don’t forget to bring the swatches.”

Raja Amrull was standing by the window, her phone to her ear, a cup of coffee already at her lips as she spoke to her assistant.

Raja Amrull was the chief creative officer, co-founder of Galactica and one of Fame’s very best friends. Violet took a moment to watch her as she gave order after order, her voice filled with a natural authority that always made Violet’s stomach do a flip.

Raja was wearing a mustard fitted pantsuit, the black hair that almost reached her waist put in intricate braids, and Violet knew it was the work of her girlfriend. Raja’s tan skin was practically glowing in the morning sun, the dark brown tattoos on her left hand standing out.

Even though she was in her 40s, 41 if Violet remembered correctly, she still looked every bit the supermodel she had been in the 00’s.

Raja wasn’t a naturally sweet person, but in Violet’s opinion that didn’t matter. She was competent and got her business done, which was something Violet admired in a leader.

“Violet?”

Violet blushed, the sound Raja’s voice cutting through her daydream. She had been so caught up in watching her that she hadn’t actually paid attention, but Raja had never been known for her patience, so she simply snapped, pointing at the room's thermostat, and Violet quickly made her way over, turning it down four degrees to the temperature she knew Raja preferred.

She felt like an idiot for forgetting, and she promised herself that it wouldn’t happen again.

Alaska, head of makeup and fragrances, was the first to arrive. The blonde wasn’t particularly talkative before her third cup of coffee, her every word drawn out in long lazy vowels. Alyssa came second, Violet counting her blessings that the marketing director had shown up on time. Alyssa always got the job done, but getting her anywhere on schedule was always an experience, the woman forever off in her very own world where she was the star of everything.

Fame was third, her first words as she stepped through the door, “Why is no one ready?” and Violet felt her stomach clench.

The meeting wasn’t scheduled to start for another 10 minutes, but that was one of the most terrifying things about Fame. She was never early, she was never late, everyone else was simply supposed to be there the exact moment she wanted them.

Violet was just about to open her mouth to apologize for Pearl, when the woman in question came in through the door.

“Morning everyone.” Pearl smiled, her voice a slow drawl. She was wearing a black turtleneck crop top, a black miniskirt and Violet was pretty sure she could see pieces of golden glitter in her unwashed blonde locks.

Alaska waved, but Fame gave her one single slow judgemental once-over, the kind that Violet had witnessed cause several interns to burst into tears.

“What are you wearing?” Fame’s voice was icy cold, but Pearl only smirked.

“You don’t like it?”

“Did you sleep in your makeup?” Fame reached out, touching Pearl’s chin with a single finger and tilting her head up, turning her face from side to side. “You know how I feel about this mistreatment of your skin.”

Fame dropped her hand, and Violet immediately handed her a tissue. Fame wiped her fingers, giving the now crumpled paperback to Violet, the whole exchange taking less than 10 seconds.

“You smell like an illegal teen party.”

“It’s because I’ve been to one.” Pearl smiled brightly, Fame’s disapproval and rudeness clearly not touching her at all. “Wait until you see the photos. Half the partygoers were wearing our newest print. Trixie was absolutely right-”

Just as Fame said those words, Trixie pushed through the door, the senior creative team of Galactica now all present, to Violet’s relief.

“You rang?” he said with a cheeky grin, earning a fist bump from Pearl.

It had taken Violet months to realize how much of a genius Trixie actually was--his close-shaven brown hair, obvious bald spot, a fondness for colorful t-shirts and love handles all doing everything they could to hide that he was one of the main forces behind Galactica’s success. But Trixie (who’s real name was Brian, though Violet had never heard anyone call him that) was wildly creative, known for his effective management style and outside the box thinking.

While Raja handled the broad creative direction and was the face of the company to customers and consumers, Trixie was in charge of the day to day operations of the design departments. He ruled the design atelier and the tailoring department with a gentle touch, though no one dared cross him, Trixie just as willing as anyone else in the boardroom to do what it took to get the job done.

“I’m sorry I’m late-” Trixie yawned, barely hiding it behind his hand.

“I take it the collection is going well?” Raja smirked, her knife cutting through an apple.

“Don’t even ask.” Trixie groaned, sitting down in a chair, grabbing the coffee - two-pump caramel, whole fat milk - Violet delivered to his hand and drinking it down greedily. “My machine broke and ate most of my prototype.”

“So it’s not here?” Fame raised a brow, but Trixie shook his head, reaching into the paper bag he had brought along.

“I’ve been remaking it all night on Katya’s shitty theater machine.”

“Oh, my poor darling.” Fame leaned against the edge of the table, gently running a hand through Trixie’s buzzed hair. “We’ll get you a new one.” “Thank you.” Trixie smiled, and Violet grabbed her notebook, knowing that Fame without a doubt expected her to find the exact same machine Trixie had broken and get it delivered to his apartment before the workday was over.

***

A knock caught Violet’s attention. She was back in the office, writing out her to-do list from the meeting, her nails clacking away on the keyboard.

“Violet?” Max Malaphany was standing in the door, a smile on his lips. “Is she in?”

Max was an impossibly tall British man, his soft short hair grey, his eyes blue.

“Sorry,” Violet quickly pressed save, turning her chair. “Fame is in a meeting, but I can pencil you in for later?”

Max was Galactica’s main photographer, and one of Fame’s treasured darlings. He had a studio on the top floor, his sure hands and endless patience capturing all in house media, Galactica producing every single shot for their website themself, and while Violet wouldn’t have believed it made that much of a difference, their online portfolio had thousands and thousands of visitors every single day.  

“I’ll just wait here.” Max was carrying a portable light table under his arm, and Violet could only guess what would be in his backpack. “I’ll only be a moment.”

If it had been anyone else, she would have protested, ushered them out of her little front office one way or the other, but Max was different. He was one of the few calming presences at Galactica, he never probed, rarely gossiped, and Violet truly enjoyed that about him.

“Do you want some water?” Violet had a mini-fridge under her desk stocked with the most important supplies, since she never knew when Fame’s cravings or the mood of her guests would strike.

“I’d love that.”

She quickly grabbed him a water, and Max settled down in one of the plush armchairs normally reserved for visitors. He didn’t start talking, wasn’t trying to make chit chat that would inevitably turn awkward, which was why Violet had allowed him to stay.

She went back to her memo, working for a little while but her eyes were stinging, and she only barely managed to hide a yawn behind her hand.

“Are you feeling alright, Violet?” Max asked gently.

“What?” In spite of her exhaustion, Violet was in a fairly good mood, and while she didn’t have the sunniest disposition, she wasn’t actively annoyed at the moment. She quickly checked her face in the glass door to the office, smoothing down her hair.

“You look lovely as always, Violet.” Max smiled. “I was only asking because, well, I’ve never seen you slouch before. Are you feeling unwell?”

“Oh…” Violet straightened her back, her fingers in her thick black locks. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Okay.” Max nodded. His expression was so understanding, his manner so patient, that Violet did something she rarely ever did. She offered more information.

“I’m just tired, I-” Violet swallowed down a nervous chuckle, her tongue feeling like it was growing in size in her mouth. “I don’t sleep well these days. The electricity in my building, isn’t, it isn’t very stable, and I keep having these nightmares where my phone runs out of charge so I miss an important call and-”

“Oh dear.”

Violet realized how stupid she had to sound, but she had woken up covered in sweat thinking she had missed calls from Fame, any rest she got broken up by the worry that she wasn’t doing her job.

“I’m sorry. It’s nothing to worry about really,” Violet assured him. “The landlord said they’ll rewire the building-” Max didn’t need to know that her landlord had been promising that exact thing the entire time Violet had been living there, but she didn’t really have any other options, her student debt way too much for her to even consider spending another penny on rent. “I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”

“Well, I wish you the best of luck with that,” he said sincerely. Just then, the door opened and Jaida, the company's CFO, came out.

“Max!” Fame appeared in the doorway, a delighted smile on her face.

Violet’s stomach turned to ice, everything in her begging that Fame hadn’t heard her complain.

“Hello Miss. I know you’re terribly busy, but I wondered if you could spare a few minutes to discuss the test shoot for the new brochures yesterday?”

“Of course, anything for you!” Fame said. She truly was a different person in Max’s presence, Violet noted. Softer and calmer--as most people were.

“Wonderful.”

***

“Oh I don’t know about this light for orange, it’s so ghastly-” Fame was chewing her lip, a lens in her hand as she went over the pictures Max had brought in for her.

“Fame?”

“Yes dearest?” Fame looked up. She loved Max. When Pearl had told her of a British wildlife photographer she had met in LA and bullied into taking her picture, Fame hadn’t been interested. As always, Pearl had proven to have an eye for talent that few could compete with, her social media director not only able to sniff out trends like a bloodhound, no, she knew people, and she knew them instantly.

Max had a rare talent for capturing the natural beauty of an unnatural world, so much of fashion made up of things that didn’t matter, but when he shot, when he turned his lens on someone, he captured all the best they could offer each and every time.

“I heard Ivy moved in with her boyfriend.”

“Mmh?” It was indeed true. Raja’s assistant, Ivy, had been living in the building Fame and Patrick owned for a few years. Fame and Raja had almost gotten in a fight, something that never happened, when Ivy’s house in Queens had been torn down, but in the end Raja had gotten her will, Ivy moving into the studio apartment on the top floor. “She left two weeks ago.”

Fame had meant to find someone else to take the apartment, but that building was special. It wasn’t just an apartment complex, it was a place where she kept her chosen ones, a safe haven she offered to talent that she trusted.

“You know, Violet doesn’t have reliable electricity. In her building. I mean.”

“Oh Max.” Fame smiled, touching Max’s knee. “You have always had such a tender heart.”

[drawlfoy]

Faux Diplomacy p.2

pairing: draco x mugglebornslytherinilvernmornyfem!reader (a mouthful i’m so sorry)

request: nah i’ve always always wanted to write this

warnings: draco malfoy being a class A dickwad, swearing

summary: reader is an ilvermorny student who was given an opportunity to travel abroad and spend a year at Hogwarts. At first she’s thrilled, but things start to get weird--why is everyone on the trip muggleborn? why were they all put into slytherin, no questions asked? and what is that draco malfoy kid doing? takes place during 6th year so peak angst

a/n: i apologize for the fact that i’m clearly favoring this story over Sound of....Magic? but it’s mostly because i’m writing what i know and i don’t know how to adult lol. also i hope you’re enjoying the slowburn! we might hate draco a little bit but i swear i’ll mend it soon!

music recs: i have a writing playlist specifically for this fic that i might share one day

word count: 2,240

The door was hard under Y/N’s fist, something that she should’ve guessed but the fact of which still managed to surprise her. Maybe she was more intoxicated than she originally assumed.

She knocked four times, slowly but loudly enough for anyone awake to hear her. The last thing she wanted to deal with was an angry racist. 

Three seconds passed by, each little mississippi begging her to run the other way before the door opened. She prayed that he was gone or at least deep in sleep. There was no telling what he’d do if he saw her. He couldn’t kill her, at least, but there were hundreds of other things that could happen to her if he was evil enough.

Her worst fear came true as the door flung open, revealing a very disgruntled and very pissed Draco. His pale hair was tousled with some pieces hanging in front of his forehead, breaking Y/N’s conception of his perfectly kept hair.

“What on earth do you want?” He hissed, his eyes burning with an intense emotion that Y/N couldn’t quite put a finger on. 

Y/N suddenly felt very silly standing outside his room with an outfit to rival Cher from Clueless as she took in his slightly rumpled silk suit. He was doing whatever important job he seemed so focused on while she was trying to get him to come out and join a party he was so clearly avoiding.

“Um,” she began rather lamely.

“Um,” Draco repeated back in a nasal voice clearly meant to mock her accent.

“Pansy uh..she wanted you to come out. It was a stupid game of truth or dare and she slipped Veritaserum into my drink so I can’t lie and say I did it when I didn’t-”

“You do realize that’s complete bullshit, right?” Draco interrupted. “The Veritaserum? Do you seriously believe that Snape would let us get out hands on that? First years fall for that every year. First time I’ve seen anyone over 12 believe it, though.”

Y/N’s cheeks grew hot as she realized he was probably completely right. Now that she actually thought about it, she couldn’t guess how Pansy could get her hands on something that dangerous much less spike drinks with it. 

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.”

Draco nodded with an “uh, yeah” look in his eyes and made his way to slam the door in his face when a glimmer caught her eye.

In her inebriated state, she told him point-blank, “Cool necklace. Who’s it for?”

Draco froze as he turned to look at his bed, the same one that had a very ornate necklace laying on it. He slowly turned back to Y/N with a terrifying expression on his face. 

Uh oh.

He grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and dragged her inside his room, slamming the door shut behind her and shoving her against the wall.

“What the fuck dude-”

“What’s your allegiance?” he hissed, stepping in her eyeline so she couldn’t see the necklace anymore. Their proximity was uncomfortably close. Y/N could smell peppermint on his breath, no doubt remnants of a cup of tea he’d had earlier.

“My allegiance.....sheesh, I don’t know, I don’t know where I fall on the political spectrum, but I am really frustrated with the Senate for impeding any type of impeachment proceed-”

“No, you bloody idiot!” He cut in again. “I mean in the wizarding world. Not.. whatever the fuck you’re going on about.”

“Oh, you mean like... the issue with Death Eaters and everything? I dunno, I haven’t read enough about British politics to know but it’s so ridiculous, y’know? Like, someday all of them are gonna wake up and realize they’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid and that they’re never gonna get rewarded the way the think. It’s really sad, they’re basically in a cult.”

Draco stared at her with wide eyes and a defensive expression on his face. He was still gripping both of her wrists in one hand, pinning them above Y/N’s head and making it impossible for her to weasel out of his grasp.

“I mean, pretty general stuff. American wizarding media is always like, ‘look at these idiots thinking that they’re gonna restore blood purity, aren’t they crazy? BLESS the fact that we left in 1776’ and whatnot. I don’t know, we all kind of chuckle at it and make memes about the fact that there’s even people out there that still buy into that shi...”

Y/N’s eyes managed to catch a quidditch uniform hung up on the bedpost with the name MALFOY printed across the back in silver letters. Suddenly it all made sense--she had just read about his father being incarcerated for being a Death Eater. She trailed off when the realization set in.

Oh no. 

“You know, with that thought, I think I’m just gonna go back to the party...I normally don’t get this political. Forget I said anything. Please!”

Draco’s face was the definition of fury. Now that Y/N knew he was Lucius Malfoy’s son, she had no clue what he could be capable of. She briefly wondered if he would kill her before immediately casting the thought aside.

That’d be absurd she reminded herself. He’s still just a teenager, just like you. He’s not gonna kill you.

He took a few moments to glare down at her before opening the door and pushing her out.

“You’re never speaking of this to anyone,” he snapped. “Go back to your party and fall for more of the pranks we like to pull on 11 year olds. Just don’t ever come back here. I mean it. Don’t ever.”

With that, Draco slammed the door in her face. Y/N stood in front of it for a few seconds as she regained her bearings. What had just happened? She was very tired, she realized suddenly. 

She was just turning around and walking away when his door cracked open just an inch. 

“Are you deaf? I said, go!”

Y/N turned to send Draco a dirty look before walking away for real. 

♥♥♥♥

Professor McGonagall was a complete sweetheart and the embodiment of what an empowered witch ought to be, but she had messed up one crucial point when it came to just how dining space would be available for the Slytherin table.

With all the new students, there was rarely a portion of the table empty enough to sit alone or even with a respectable amount of space between oneself and another person. 

Y/N suffered the consequences of this the most out of her classmates considering the fact that she was always late. By the time that she got to the Dining Hall for any meal, there was only one part of the table that was consistently open--spots next to Draco and his goons.

The rest of the house was wise enough to know to avoid them and did so well, but Y/N was not so lucky. Nearly every day she was forced to squeeze in next to either Draco, Pansy, or Blaise and was subject to listening to whatever drabble they wanted to discuss each day.

However annoyed she was, she couldn’t help but notice some interesting changes. As the fall days grew shorter, Draco’s appetite seemed to grow smaller. At one point, Y/N was taking portions nearly twice the size of his, and she was a rather light eater to begin with. She heard his irritatingly posh accent less and less, and slowly meals turned into conversations between Blaise and Pansy while Draco stared off into space. 

One of these days, Blaise turned to look Y/N straight in the eye, startling her enough to near drop her fork. They never looked at her.

“So,” he began awkwardly. “I hear that you played Quidditch as a seeker while you were at Ilvermorny.”

“Yeah, and what about it?” 

Y/N was not about to take any shit.

“Well, you see,” Blaise told her, a sincere look in his eyes, “Draco here is our seeker, and he’s a little busy, so he won’t be joining us this season.”

“Tragic.”

“And you were good, right? Like, really good? I saw your record. It was impressive.”

“Thanks. I didn’t suck.”

A tiny smile cracked on Pansy’s face. Had Y/N actually amused her?

“Okay, enough of the niceties,” she cut in. “Blaise wants you to play for us. Please?”

She batted her eyelashes in a way that Y/N prayed was ironic. 

“Well, I suppose,” Y/N answered. “What’s in it for me?”

“For starters,” Blaise told her, “Instant status. People like you if you play Quidditch.”

“So I’ve heard. Is that why Draco dropped out? People didn’t like him enough anymore?”

“You shut up,” Draco grumbled, refusing to look her in the eye.

“So you’re in?”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m dropping out the second either of you mess with me, though.”

Blaise grinned and Pansy kicked his foot under the table. Y/N immediately felt like she was witnessing something that she was not supposed to see.

“Get a room, you two,” Draco reprimanded them, rolling his eyes as he pushed his food around on his plate. 

♥♥♥♥

Y/N’s first Quidditch match came and went. The Slytherin team creamed the Hufflepuffs so badly that Y/N probably didn’t need to do any work at all, but regardless, she still caught the snitch. 

In Slytherin fashion, her team decided to throw a giant party in the common room. Everyone was permitted a plus one, which was ridiculous since Y/N wasn’t friends with anyone from any other houses. She jokingly extended the invite to Bella in a very dramatic gesture with roses and everything, and her best friend just as dramatically accepted, leaping into Y/N’s arms and requesting that she be carried away.

It was the biggest scene the dining hall had witnessed all year, enough so that when the news of Katie Bell being cursed and nearly killed broke, it took the dining hall a few moments to calm down. 

Everyone stared as Dumbledore addressed the student body.

“Students.” He cleared his throat wearily. “If you are not already aware, one of your fellow scholars has been cursed, presumably by a necklace that was gifted to her. Please do practice caution as you accept gifts going into the holiday season. These are dark times indeed.”

Nervous chatter filled the room back up with noise but did not distract Y/N from her pondering.

A cursed...necklace? Where had she heard that before?

♥♥♥♥

Y/N was never a perfect student, but she did enjoy potions and especially appreciated Slughorn’s teachings, so much so in fact that she was invited to join the Slug Club after a few weeks of classes.

Blaise was also there, and the two often sat together and joked about the overenthusiastic Gryffindors and the unresolved sexual tension between Harry and Ginny. It was hardly a secret that the two were into each other, but it seemed that the only people who weren’t aware of it were Ginny and Harry themselves.

“Pray for Dean, Y/N,” Blaise would often whisper to her as they observed the two flirt awkwardly with each other. 

The budding friendship between them was odd, but very platonic. Y/N knew he had no trouble excusing prejudice considering the fact that he put up with Draco’s nonsense, but he seemed to see some flaws in the practice.

The most shocking part of their newfound connection happened to be what Blaise confided in her about Draco. 

“He’s hardly sleeping anymore,” he told her one cold winter day. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s lost weight and he’s not talking to me. Have you heard anything?”

“No,” Y/N had told him. “Draco doesn’t particularly like me.”

♥♥♥♥

After a particularly energetic Quidditch party in December, Y/N exited the common room and decided she wanted to take a walk about the castle to clear her head.

The snow fell softly outside the window, flurrying about and blanketing the ground in a gentle pristine white. She climbed the stairs of a random tower slowly, savoring the brisk air and relishing the silence that came along with it. 

Y/N wasn’t the least bit afraid of getting reprimanded for curfew--she deserved a break, and she was nearly an adult, for Christ’s sake. There was less underage drinking outside than there was inside her current common room, so she could always pull that argument.

She prayed that the top of the tower would be one with an open side so she could be closer to the snowstorm, and as she climbed  higher, her desires seemed to be more likely. The breeze was becoming chillier by the second.

Reaching the top of the staircase, she was overjoyed to see a railing overlooking the campus. Y/N jogged up to the barrier, leaning over the edge and taking solace in the freezing air and the cold snowflakes coating her hair. 

“What’s it with you and your insistence on interrupting my alone time?”

Y/N turned to see Draco Malfoy curled up in the corner of the tower. His hair was slightly mussed from the wind and his suit crinkled from sitting down, and as Y/N drew closer to him, she came to the most shocking revelation.

His silver eyes were pools of salty liquid, rimmed red at the edges and puffier than she had ever seen them before. His cheeks were shining with dampness, doing nothing to hide the dark bags under his eyes.

Draco was crying. 

final a/n: i swear a new update will come soon! i’m sorry that it seems like i might be rushing it. i promise im gonna slow it down a little and focus on the *subtle* fluff

[kumeko]

A/N: Written for the @batfamfashionzine! I hadn’t written an interview style piece before (and it’s been ages since I wrote first person). This was a lot more fun than I’d expected to write. (Alfred is a gushing grandfather, you all know it to be true)

Summary: Alfred Pennyworth, butler to the illustrious Wayne family. What scandals does he hide behind his smile? Watch as this investigative reporter infiltrates the Wayne Manor and finds out!

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…

The grand Wayne manor. An imposing building with 2 floors (that we can see), an east and west wing, and more windows than you can count. Where the flirty Bruce Wayne, charming Dick Grayson, elusive Cassandra Cain, intelligent Tim Drake, bad boy Jason Todd, and rebellious Damian Wayne all live. As well as his paramour for the day. This day, it’s Selina Kyle (and do I hear wedding bells? Their on and off romance has been on for quite a while now).

 I approach hoping for an interview with any of these elites. Maybe not Bruce, I don’t fancy getting into a catfight with Selina over him. I can settle for Stephanie Brown, who is either one of Bruce’s adoptive kids or just dating one of his children. Tim? Cassandra?

Unfortunately, no one is home but Alfred Pennyworth, the family butler. Graciously, after I lie about arranging an interview earlier, he agrees to give me one. At least, I think he does. He’s British and that polite accent could just as easily have been him asking me to go.

 To be honest, while Alfred is the butler, he’s more than that too. “I started serving Thomas and Martha Wayne,” he states as he dusts the mantle in the ornate reception room. As a condition to the interview, he requests that he can continue his daily tasks. The man is nothing if not dedicated to his job. “Then, after the tragedy, it was only natural I continued to stay.”

 And stay he did. While most would be intimidated by the task of taking care of a little boy, especially a little boy who had just lost his parents, Alfred never lost his stride. Aside from his butler duties, he handled cooking, cleaning, shopping, gardening, and a whole host of tasks that any other manor would have a whole team handle. That didn’t change even as Bruce grew up.

 “He was very different before,” Alfred admits, pausing to show a picture from the mantle. It depicts a smiling boy holding the hands of his parents. There’s something innocent about him, something precocious, and nothing at all like the man with the come-hither eyes he grew up to be. “He smiled more then.”

 I would argue he still smiles now, just a bit differently, but something tells me that’s not what Alfred meant. Several other pictures on the mantel depict Bruce throughout the years—there he is, taking his first martial arts class. Another one with him sitting under a tree, a pile of books at his side. A graduation photo. His smile is gone in all of them, a boy still coping with the loss of both his parents.

 “I could not fill that gap but I tried to ease it.” Alfred sets the photos back, his eyes lowered as he remembers.

 And maybe he couldn’t, but he certainly tried his best. While Bruce’s hoard of girlfriends might indicate a psychological issue that needs to be dealt with, his gaggle of kids show something else. A need for family. And while I cannot tell how much of the personas they show are just for the media, for their fans, they all seem happy enough.

 “I was surprised when he brought in a little lost boy,” Alfred softly murmurs, thinking back to the day that Dick Grayson had joined the family. An orphan too, Dick Grayson had just lost everything when Bruce took him under his wing. “It was like going back in time.”

 And the second time around it was easier. “Laughter sounded through the halls again.” Something about having a kid in the manor brought life back to it and it wasn’t long before we started seeing a serious side to Bruce’s playboy persona. Something almost fatherly, but not quite. Children took to him and it wasn’t long before Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Cassandra Cain joined the group.

 “Jason is a wild one,” Alfred comments dryly, his hand pausing as he dusts the couch. “Always picking one fight or another. Dick tried to reign him in but there was only so much he could do from college.”

 By the point the eldest son had moved out, Jason Todd had moved in. Maybe Bruce couldn’t handle the quiet in the halls. He got more than he expected with the rambunctious Jason. Not much is known about his past. Same with Cassandra Cain, the fourth child of the family. Considering how mysterious their pasts are, rumours are that they’re Bruce’s illegitimate children, from one of his many hookups.

 Alfred frowns disapprovingly at the thought. “They are children who needed him, that’s all.” And that is all he will say on that matter. Maybe he’s right, that Bruce’s philanthropist side got the better of him. Or maybe Alfred just doesn’t want to think of his ward like that.

 Either way, once Jason left the house (and we’re not quite sure why, but it seemed like a big fight), Tim Drake joined. A quiet child in comparison, and perhaps that was what Bruce needed after dealing with the troublemaker. While much is known about Tim Drake, it isn’t quite clear how he got introduced to Bruce Wayne. Tim had a family of his own at the time—a mother, a father, and a girlfriend even. Stephanie Brown, a girl who flits in and out of the manor, sometimes with her arm hooked in Tim’s, sometimes with Cassandra’s. Cassandra Cain also came in at this time and it was clearly a very full house.

 “Stephanie really livened everything up.” At this, Alfred smiles fondly, thinking of the bright, sassy girl who people have come to love for her twitter feed. Her relatable content has made her a star of her own right. “Tim would sometimes withdraw into himself and Cassandra…well, she didn’t always know how to play with others.”

 The trio were well documented at the time, and it was hard to find one without at least one of the others. Even now, the house is full of pictures of all three, most of them selfies taken by Stephanie. Looking at them chronologically, it’s a stark contrast between how Cassandra looks in the first few, stiff, out of place, awkward, and how she looks in the more recent ones. She’s learned to smile, that’s for certain.

 “She takes after Bruce the most.” And perhaps Alfred has a soft spot for her for that very reason. It seems cleaning is no longer on his mind as he now takes me on a tour of the ground floor. The second floor is off limits and he refuses to acknowledge any possibility of a basement. We go from room to room and he points out family photos, taken on skiing trips and parties. There’s one of Cassandra, Stephanie, Koriand’r and Barbara Gordon at a pool. I wonder how that went, considering both Koriand’r and Barbara are Dick’s on and off paramours, but the two women seemed to be hitting it off in that photo. Another photo shows Dick tugging Damian Wayne’s cheeks up into a smile.

 “Dick has been a good brother to him.” Alfred points out several photos in the same vein, of Stephanie tugging Damian along on skates, of Tim and Damian glaring at each other. “They all have been.”

 Damian Wayne, the only child to actually carry Bruce’s last name. The only official child of the bunch. Heir to both the Wayne and the Al Ghul inheritance. At the mention of Talia Al Ghul, Alfred frowns. At least as much as he will professionally allow it. Clearly there is some bad blood between the two, though I can’t blame him. Talia’s family is rumoured to have connections with the mafia and other underground groups. For a while, Jason had even joined them. “It’s a good thing he’s here,” is all Alfred will say.

 Despite their different statuses, the children get along with each other. Though maybe I shouldn’t call them children—at this point, everyone but Damian is either a teenager or an adult. While they might not be siblings, they are certainly friends.

A testament, perhaps, to the Alfred’s real powers in the family. He is a constant and while you don’t find him in any of the magazine spreads or celebrity tabloids, you often find him in the wings of any event, ready to help his family. Even in these photos, he’s often in the background, buttoning up a child’s coat, setting up a meal, cleaning up a mess. The occasional one where he’s in the focus, he’s surrounded by his surrogate family.

 While he admonishes me and refers to himself as “only a butler”, I think otherwise. He dotes on them like a grandfather and it is very clear that they share that feeling back.

 A sentiment that’s only cemented when he starts doling out baby pictures. “Dick really liked the disco scene—”

 There’s a loud screeching in the manor and before I know it, Dick and Jason are hurtling down the main steps, yelling at Alfred to stop. Tim is hanging behind, his face beat red, while Stephanie is laughing loudly. Cassandra doesn’t know what to make of this and looks at Damian in askance, who only scowls. In a corner, I see Bruce rubbing his forehead, a wry grin on his face.

 A family. That is certainly what they are.

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

An Informal Lesson on Communication: A Rant, and an Apology, on “Proper” Spelling and Grammar

I would like to apologize to everyone whose spelling and grammar I've picked apart and "corrected" without being asked to do so. It sucks, and it is one of the easiest ways to tear someone down. It's low effort and low investment, and, funnily enough, is one of the classic "I'm just trying to help you" gaslight-flavored moves.

Sure, it might not seem important. This might not feel like a big deal. Maybe it doesn't feel like something that should warrant an apology. I don't know, I just live here, fam, and I feel the need to apologize and showcase how I'm going to be better.

But first off: why bring it up at all, if it's only to make myself feel better? The answer: because it's not (just) about making me feel better.

Communication is a process that has many unspoken and unacknowledged moving parts based on the culture(s) you are raised in and interact with. I was raised in the US, and here communication is typically a process that looks a bit like this: 1) a message is formulated; 2) the message is transmitted; 3) the message is received by the audience [either the person/people you're talking with, a discussion group, a reader, a viewer, etc. Someone who consumes the message]; 4) the audience parses the message with the goal of 5) understanding the message. The communication of this message is now complete.

That's a lot of moving parts! it's easy to forget that communication is sometimes complicated because we think something along the lines of "Oh, we're just flapping our lips and making noises, that's all." It's a bit of a process, and we learn and internalize the rules as we grow.

So what happens when, instead of listening to you, I pick your work apart and point out how you've misspelled things? These are some things I accomplish:

derail the conversation and make it about your apparent lack of education or skill

ignore your point entirely

"correct" you with the intent of shaming you out of the conversation, like I'm your damn teacher or your god or something

find ways to say, implicitly or explicitly, that you're not good enough to communicate with other people

What's missing? Oh, actually having a conversation about the point you just made!

It's a way to fog up the actual discussion and derail further comments. If I use my critical thinking skills and put them to good use, I could, instead, pick apart your argument. That often leads to somewhere interesting and is a hell of a lot more productive than pointing out that you used the wrong "your" or "their" (which, really, are some of the most common word choice mistakes out there).

Being pedantic about spelling and grammar, and all the associated bits and pieces that go into writing, is also leaning heavily on elitist and classist ways of thinking. Oh, obviously you're not well-educated if you can't correctly spell. Obviously, you went to a low-class school if you can't write "effectively." I am, obviously, better than you because I can pinpoint exactly where you're lacking. Whether these things are true or not isn't the point, but when I tear apart your words, these are things I'm saying.

I haven't even touched on what it's saying about language and dialect and implicit/unconscious racism! I often use "y'all" instead of "you all" or "all of you" because it's easy, it's effective, and because I like the word choice. It's also one way of speaking I grew up hearing. This is an important thing: dialect shapes the way we talk and spell, even when we speak the same base language. Ask anyone who speaks AAVE or literally any pidgin language in this country and they'll tell you the same: when we police language, we're policing the actual people. We dismiss people for the little things because it's easy, and the little things are more insidious to explain away. "No, I was pointing out that [xyz] isn't 'proper English' and how are you expected to communicate effectively if you don't speak 'proper' English?"

[Fun side note, speaking of proper English! I was recently made aware of the fact that many UK/BBC/British productions ask actors with accents other than 'British' to act with one because it's the desired and socially acceptable sound. Welsh, Scottish, and Irish actors are forced to work around their actual way of speaking because it's lesser-than. Yay.]

Messaging "effectively" is for marketing and media teams. It's for Public Relations aficionados. It's for formal communication. In the meantime, we can, and SHOULD, be more flexible when we're not getting something notary sealed or sent to the President or something. Comment boards and community forums are for talking to your community, not workshopping messaging points. Don't be a dick and derail the conversation so you can clutch at your pearls in the name of "effectiveness;" your misdirection takes *away* from the conversation, not adds to it. (Who's being ineffective now?) If someone wants to actually go through and finesse their points, they'll ask. Or, if you absolutely *must* do it, ask if they want feedback on their post. Don't just rustle up to the comment section and add your two cents about the formatting of the post for the sake of adding them.

Believe me, your two pennies aren't worth anything.

Tl;dr: Don't be a dick on comment threads and forums and other places. Actually work to think critically about the message itself, about the point being made, rather than tear apart the spelling and grammar.

So, bringing it back to my point: Policing spelling and grammar isn't my job when you're not asking for it, and doing it without your input is really harmful to the conversation we're trying to have. It took me a long time to figure that out. When I point out these mistakes, I'm no longer arguing in good faith and am, instead, focusing on you as a person, rather than on the points you're making.

I'm sorry to everyone who I flexed on in learning this lesson. I was a dick, and I'm still one, and I'm working on being better about recognizing it. I no longer am worried about harping on about spelling in Facebook threads or comment boards, because it's not my business. Did I understand what you're getting at? Yes? Good, you did your job and I did mine. We can have a conversation.

Go out and converse, folks, but don't suggest edits when no one has asked for you to do so.

-

[totally okay to share if you want. I originally posted this to my Facebook account.]

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Just a mess but post whenever you're bored lol. Great blog btw.

My advice to Harry for HS2 (this eh… got away from me)

First would be head over to Sweden to Max Martin and beg him to write songs with a kind of racketing Northern UK 80s vibe (think Jessie’s girl), some rollicking early George Michael, and a little bit of Tom Jones cheese on top. No hair metal, no 70s dreariness, no bombast. (Stop trying to reincarnate FM and GnR through a British xfactor contestant Irving – its making everyone look silly!). Second he should head back over to Nashville for some nice country song songs he can pour his wee heart into. It’d be a mixed bag but so were Midnight Memories and MITAM and they’re great albums imo. ‘Girl name’ songs and hook-up songs are mostly banned because HS1 has forever tainted Harry singing songs like that with a truly nasty level of misogyny. Instead the songs should be as follows but in no particular order:

‘A boat from an Island up my Own Arse’ (James’ song) : about what happens when you fall for your own follower count and start acting the arse – relatable for loads of kids in these days of social media notoriety.

This song could be deep and introspective and Harry could get Kodaline to help him write it (they already have a good one on this called The Answer) or it could be a fun rocking slap up his own head, a tongue in cheek send up of his own hype. His choice, artist input is important. You could have loads of fun with this video but Jaffsen (James, Jeff, Ben) are banned from any involvement, except they can cameo as themselves maybe.

2 ‘Look At You Now’ ; continuing on from the theme of 1. This song could be a counterpoint, fast where the other is slow or vice versa. Its not a love song, it’s about that one friend you took for granted, and mean-girled in front of your cooler friends just because they were all awkward laughing and train-track braces but now they’re all grown and fit and you’re looking a bit past your sell by date. Also relatable in a post high school sort of way to a lot of people. Perfect chance for a bit of open-ended homoeroticism - like a love song to how fit and thick your former best male friend has gotten and how you kinds wish you were him.

4. ‘Guess I’m just a Tool’ ; about what happens when the only friends you have, only met you when you were already famous and all your old mates got sick of you. Not a ‘waah haterz abe jealous’ song (the world has had enough of those) – a little insight and something new to say will be required. Sloppy lyrics or ideas not accepted.

5. ‘Looking at me, looking at me’ ; this could be Abba-esque, and the. one. song. where Jeff is allowed to adlib, with ‘Ah-Haaa’ (he must dress as Alan Partridge for the video though that’s non-negotiable). This one is about narcissism in the present day when you realise even on other people’s birthdays you’re always just checking out yourself in the selfie. Could be all deep and sorrowful eiher – but then no Jefe, no adlibs. It would be most fun as a joke song though. We’ll leave it to Harry and his hopefully new therapist to figure out where the song goes.

(Corden would almost certainly want to do the video but he’s banned, along with all the Kardashians. Jefe could cameo as above but not contribute any ideas at all. This could not be Kendall does Protest levels of bad, it’s a song about narcissism, not an exercise in narcissism)

6. ‘You’re to coo-ool for meee, in all the ti-ings you beee’ ; this is about what it’s like when your best friend always looks like Apollo fcked a Disney princess and sent the child to be brought up by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix. Also a good chance for open ended homoeroticism. Every piece of clothing you own looks better on him and he just does everything so much cooler. You hate him but you love him, this love is tainted. A mea culpa for the dark sided shit team Azoff have almost certainly pulled on Z.

7. ‘Don’t you wish you could be Louis’ Girl’ ; a straight up rip off of Jessie’s Girl really. This sounds bad but in a surprise twist it would actually be a paean, a celebration of the string of fit girls Louis has loved, in the best tradition of Northern UK rock. It would be updated to include an element of empathy for, and celebration of, the millions of us who aren’t size E.

The song would also have a note of the longing that comes from your best friend always being in long term relationships along with lots of nice non-misogynistic celebration of women of all shapes and sizes and family types. A mea culpa for Kiwi and all the other nastiness of HS1. Girl Almighty but raunchier music and better lyrics.

Larries will be happy thinking it’s about Harry wishing he was Louis’ girl, but the kindness in the lyrics will cut off the nastiness they tend to spew. Harry will pull on his big boy pants and reiterate the need for fans to stop trashing other women in interviews, while humbly admitting the song is a rip-off, a tongue in cheek homage to

8. ‘Untitled’ ; this is about what happens when your best friend gets on a leetle too well with your love. They have all the same interests, they start to finish each other’s sentences, they get each other’s jokes when you don’t…. they touch each other alot … ‘jokingly’. You don’t wanna act Zealous but fucks sake! …. Cue 1 million Zouis fan vids and Zourry triangle angst fics! I live for them!

9. ‘I got caught up in the wrong kind of love’ ; this one could be serious, country and western vibes, that pulls together a lot of the earlier themes. Its about what happens when you let down the love of your life because you get too caught up in loving your own career. That hot friend from song 8 ends up being their shoulder to cry on and they end up comforting each other in all kinds of ways. You’re all wronged but you all did wrong. Everybody hates everybody but no one can move on. There is potential for two more songs looking at same situation from different angles.

Ssshh, these don’t have to be real - cue aaall the fics, this fandom runs on them after all.

10. A cover of ‘I can’t help falling in love with you.’ Don’t … touch me.

11. Bonus Track: Harry, Liam and Tinie Tempah cover Don’t Worry, Be Happy. It is released as a single and they donate the proceeds to a shelter in Thailand that rescues trafficked girls.

TLDR: Harry ceases to be as ass about 1D and himself and remembers that he got famous by being fun and light and bringing a little joy to people’s lives. He doesn’t have to abandon attempts to write his own deep and / or experimental album, he just has to postpone it until he has the groundwork done, musically, intellectually, spiritually.

Promo: Jaffben are not allowed anywhere near the recording process except for Jefe on song 5. Jefe does not go to RS or NME for promo. He goes to Closer and OK. Harry goes on Loose Women and Elvis Duran and Jonathan Ross and gives intelligible answers about the end of 1D, his last album, his new direction etc and doesn’t act all disingenuous like he doesn’t know why the interviewer would want to know. He gives 0 long-form masturbatory interviews to glossy magazines.

He can draw whatever lines he likes around his personal life as long as he states it clearly, gives a reasonable explanation on his take on privacy now vs the family feel of early 1D, and then sticks to it. Jefe does not use the gossip rags as promo. If he’s being all private then his mother and sister are 100% silent on him too, no backdoor gossip mongering, no nepotism, no encouraging invasive stalkers. He ceases to let all and sundry use him to shill their shit. This fandom has been bled dry enough already. He gets his passive aggressive tendencies under control and only uses them to silence the nastier elements of his fandom.

There is no perfume ad, no docuwank, unless Jaffben want to film themselves actually jerking off to their HS shrines - they can put that on pornhub at their own discretion. Basically Jaffben and Apple are not allowed to monetise the shit out of this fandom. Harry puts himself out there and sells his music. The End.

Or y’know he carries on as is, lets Jefe bag him some more film roles, maybe a romantic ‘comedy’ with the same nasty misogynistic undertones as his album and the shitcom? (Think Apatow but worse) Does another derivative album, gets Irving to pull strings so its praised no matter what, rinse repeat.

[phanarchy-blog]

My II M&G Experience

Hello all! So it’s been a hot minute since I attended Interactive Introverts in Schenectady. By a hot minute I mean over a week and I’m only now getting to this post, RIP. I’ll get right started then.

So my show was approximately 2.5 hours from home and I drove with a friend into Schenectady. We started super early and checked into the hotel around 12, though the m&g didn’t start until 4. Naturally we had to find something to do and decided to go to a mall nearby. I made a joke in this mall that maybe Dan and Phil also went to the mall and we would bump into them there. By this time it was about 1:30 and my friend pointed out that it may be cutting it very close to the start time for them to be anywhere but the theater. I disagreed. This is relevant later.

We went back to the hotel breifly and got ready while I showed her some videos that I thought may be important. She liked Dan and Phil, but had only had time to watch a few videos of theirs. The hotel was only a few minutes walk away from the venue, so we began walking at about 3:15. We were in line by 3:30. There was already a line queueing when we arrived and as we stood it filled in behind us. At a point, Sarah (who works closely with Dan and Phil and modeled for Dan’s merchandise) walked by and someone in line in front of me shouted and cheered her name. I explained to my friend as we walked by who she was. It was at this point that it first began getting surreal, as Sarah was the first person I recognized from their work with Dan and Phil.

A few minutes after 4, the line started moving and people began funneling in. They checked our tickets to see that they had VIP access, they did not check IDs. We were led to a table where we were given a wristband and then ushered towards doors across the merchandise area. This was where I had my second surreal moment of the night, as I couldn’t quite be sure that I was going the right direction and looked up to see Marianne standing nearby. I gestured to the doors and nodded as if to ask “this way, right?” And she very sweetly told me yes and pointed me inside.

Now I don’t know if it’s just me, but she has a very thick English accent. I assumed that I’d consumed so much British media that the accents just kinda faded away into the background for me, but I was taken aback by hers. It was beautiful.

So anyway, inside we were lined up and put in our seats very orderly. Marianne wandered in and out but mostly it was directed by theater staff. The screen was up and facing the opposite direction from the seats. They had a playlist going in the back ground, the only song of which I caught was Party Tattoos by dodie, which I thought was a very sweet choice, not only for them to support dodie like that but also the meaning of the song was very poignant for this event. If you don’t know it I highly recommend.

There was also a door on the opposite side of the room from where we entered and the crowd kept their eyes studied on it. It was partially covered by a screen and it had the vibe that Dan and Phil would enter from that direction. Security kept walking in and we would all gasp and collectively sigh. Poor guys.

As the room was filled and we were all waiting, Marianne stood at the front and gathered our attention. This is when she said that the guys were “on their way”. Remember earlier I said my friend thought 1:30 would be cutting it close to not be in the theater? Yeah it was 4:35 and they still weren’t there. Lol. Marianne also explained how it would work. There was a table we could put our bags on if we didn’t want them in our photos. We would go around and meet them, get our hugs, get one item signed, and Dan would take the selfie “because he’s got the long arms and he knows what he’s doing”. A couple people raised their hands and Marianne pointed out that it was like a lecture hall and she was the teacher and we laughed. They asked about going up in pairs and filming the experience. Marianne said that way fine, but they could not record video messages for friends as that would prevent everyone else in the room from getting their fair share of time.

I’d like to point out now that the person sitting to my left was having them sign a box of Mac and Cheese, and she is my hero. The crowd chatted a bit and finally, Dan and Phil entered through the doors we all thought they would! Finally, a huge cheer from the crowd! Now this was the first moment I realized how large they really are. Now I know we’re not meant to I tell them to their faces, so of course I didn’t, but here in the privacy of Tumblr I’ll say that I think part of it is honestly their presence. I think they feel so tall because they mean so much to us. It’s an overall larger than life experience, and I think that translates to our perception of them because yes, they’re objectively tall, but my friend also kept going “Yeah but my husband is 6’5” so I’m used to it” and let me tell you, these boys felt so much larger than her husband.

Back to Dan and Phil! They looked super cheery and laughed a bit at how we were all just sat quietly and orderly in the seats waiting patiently. There was a giant screen in the room like a movie theater and Dan made a joke about all watching a movie together instead. And like, you cowards, we should have. We had the time. Alas, they said their piece and walked behind the screen. Again in a very orderly way, the front rows began and lined up in order to meet them. I noticed their shadows visible behind the screen and ‘awww’d” as I saw them crouch for a little one. The person then rounded the corner and was a full grown teenager. They are very tall.

I was the 34th person to meet them! When it was our turn, Marianne took the items we wanted signed and asked if we were ready. I directed my friend to film my meeting. I rounded the corner and was affronted by Phil, already looking directly at me and arms spread wide open, so of course I hugged him quickly. It didn’t last very long though, as I immediately saw Dan opening his arms as well as it felt like rejecting him to wait any longer. We said hellos and thank yous as we hugged. As if by magic my copy of DAPGO appeared (thanks Marianne) and they asked to sign it, which I agreed to of course. It all happened very very fast and I forgot to look at whether they crossed arms or not. I was very busy looking at them. Dan quickly asked if I’d like a picture and we all leaned in. He took 3 in rapid succession and I could tell in the moment that I didn’t like the lighting for me, but I was not about to stop him at all.

After I took my phone back, I addressed Dan and told him I’m a mental health counselor and so I wanted to thank him for everything he’s done to normalize that. I probably should have left it at that where I would have sounded coherent, but of course I somehow managed to both ramble on and trail off the rest of what I’d said. I mean, I can’t blame me. Dan was looking at me. Like, directly into my eyes, and nodding and really listening to what I had to say. I don’t know that I’ve ever been listened to that well. When I finally shut up, as I didn’t wanna waste much more of their time, Dan nodded again and.. said something. Haha, it was something to the effect of “Thank you for doing that as well” or “and it’s great that you do that as well”. Dan validated my career to my face and suddenly the measly $27k salary seems worth it. I thanked him for probably the fifth time and decided this was a good time to wave in my friend.

I gestured to her and said “and this is my friend, she’s seen like 5 videos but she’s a really good sport.” They both chuckled and said it was okay, and asked if she’d like a selfie as well. I looked on as they took it, and I couldn’t hear much of their exchange. We said final goodbyes and shoo’d ourselves it really quick.

Around the screen again was a team member who cut off our wristbands and dropped them in an outstretched bag, then handed me my own VIP bag. I took it, grabbed my own purse from the other table, and booked it out of the room high on adrenaline. My hands were shaking.

I confirmed with a member of theater staff that I could leave the venue and come back for the show, which we did. It was about this moment that I had totally forgotten to address Phil like I planned. When I had my speech in my mind about normalizing mental health care, I wanted to point out that his light-hearted videos did great things for that as well. I regret that for a bit because I’d focused so much on Dan and left Phil out. About a day or two later I realized that Phil is probably not hurt that he didn’t get the chance to talk to me. Again, sue me, I got lost in Dan’s eyes. I’m sure Phil would understand.

Believe it or not, the meet and greet is not the part of my experience that makes me tear up looking back on that night. It was the actual show that does that to me. Perhaps I will write out about that bit too. But until I do, let me just say here that Dan and Phil are two beautiful, kind, and genuine guys that care about us very much. I am so so grateful for that night.

[leastrachan123]

Making performance 2 blog Performance overview The key themes and issues within our performance were, sex trafficking, violence, abuse, sex, rape, prostitution, grooming, abuse, child abuse, suicide, and nudity, loss of identity, curupt society, and modern society. Our vision for the performance was to create a documentary piece that would educate, entertain and enlighten. By including statistics in our script it made the performance become a reality. Linking the performance to delight, We wanted to put our own twist on it and how the victims can gain back their identity and the delights in life. Enlightening our audience on the matter and structuring the performance in a way that does not horrify them meant we enlightened them on the subject, and did not push them away from wanting to help and educate others. In relation to the dramaturgical decisions, we took a lot of time discussing what movements would work and not, throughout the performance we made pre recorded sequences which included, cat walks, chair duet, and walking sequences. The reasoning for these choices was to make our performance as physical as possible and now covid regulations have changed we thought we would make the most of it, and give the audience a sense of liveness online and in person. The start of the performances started with Iona, Josh and I with bags on our heads and a pre-recorded video beforehand, we used breathing techniques at the start to create an atmosphere for the performance which then led to the opening monologues. Our lighting remained neutral for the monologues however we used red lighting in our pre recorded videos to represent the colour of love and sex, despite us playing the victims it represented how the victims are treated /perceived, yet a simple thing like sex which is so personal and private has been taken away from them, and is viewed by them as unsatisfying and tiring. We used props such as stockings, toothpaste, red lipstick, condoms and perfume. We wanted to make this live section very intense and seductive. Despite the realisation that the victims are being forced to work for traffickers it showed their day to day life of getting ready, we physically spat out our toothpaste, we slowly put on the stocking to create a sensual atmosphere, applying lipstick slowly and then getting close to the camera asif we was kissing the audience, little moments like these really structures the performance. The last section of monologues included our shadow work, we made the movement slow and meaningful and in one section the victim would get slapped which then sped up the rhythm of the piece, we ended the piece with Iona playing a victim who is spotted by charity workers, you see her struggle with leaving the pillow case and walking off, which then led to our last pre record video of a fire that had all the victims names on pillowcases that were then placed into the fire. Research into For our performance we chose the genre documentary, this meant that we would have to devise and write our own script, whilst researching possible sources and interviews which we could use within our script. Before deciding on this we did research into Derek Paget and all the information we needed to create a successful documentary performance, ‘when Derek Paget first wrote of the use of tape recorders to make documentary theatre, he noted that documentary forms were situated at the ‘edges of the professional theatre’ (1987: 317, sited by Cantrell, 2013:1), documentary theatre has come a long way and has become very popular, and today is seen as a ‘mainstream british theatre tradition’(Cantrell, 2013:1). We found sources from interviews, articles and government reports, which helped put together our script and what angle we wanted to take to structure our performance. Documentary drama is also known to contain many other elements and theatre techniques,‘The genre typically includes or is referred to as verbatim theatre, investigative theatre, theatre of fact, theatre of witness, autobiographical theatre, and ethnodrama’(Wikipedia, 2021). This genre has allowed us to be more creative and develop our own performance around a very significant matter, sex trafficking. Our two main influences for our performance were frantic Assembly and Berkoff, we decided on these because we wanted to focus on physical theatre. Whilst researching frantic assembly we thought it was crucial to follow some exercises that frantic assembly would do in workshops, ‘In the early stages of rehearsal we may ask our performers to improvise using rolls and lifts without ever coming off the floor, (Hoggett, by Scott Graham and steven, 2004:87). With our performance being so physical, exercises like these really helped create ideas for our physical movement/moments. Berkoff and Frantic Assembly both have similarities as they both like to focus on physicality, Our monologues/dialogues within our script was well thought through, therefore too much movement would distract the audience from the dialogue, however whilst researching Berkoff it was found that ‘Berkoffian actors use techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions, and mime to explore further the ways in which Berkoff approaches exchanges between two characters’, in our performance we worked with shadowing and background movement so that it does not distract the audience, but still creates meaning. Both Berkoff and Frantic Assembly worked well together with our research and gave us ideas/techniques on how we could make our performance physically successful, whilst still focusing on the speech. Sex trafficking was the most interesting to research into for me individually, as it was educational and shocking when finding statistics and articles. Shockingly from our findings it is aparant there is far more sex trafficking happening then what we know about worldwide, and although ‘UK authorities have began to launch aggressive anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts to uncover trafficking and identify victims’, the media and individuals still have a guard up around the sensitive subject. After researching individuals who have been victims of sex trafficking we wanted to share their experiences and stories, looking into research studies it was found that ‘one participant talked about being angry at anyone and everyone, another participant talked about being angry specifically at her trafficker, herself, and that no one had ever come looking for her’(Mumey et all, 2021:187). It was evident our main focus was to create justice for all the victims and create a physical piece that would symbolise all the emotions developed before and after being trafficked. Victims’ attitude and views of the world soon changed after being trafficked, and some would say ‘all men became potential “clients,” relationships became transactional and not for pleasure, and family became the other individuals working for the same exploiter’(Mumey et al, 2021:187). Reviews and analysis Shakesqueer by Tom Marshman Tom Marshman executed a wonderful digital performance, creating a sense of liveness, a montage of shakespeare plays, and queer atmopshere. What I took from the performance and would use in my own work was the idea of a moveable trolley, so that movement can be more fluid and moments with the audience could be more intimate,e.g getting close to camera and using eye contact and facial expressions. He embrased his sexual ora and used it in his favour to create a queer alternative view on shakespears plays, whilst also enteraining the audience. He quoted in the Q&A that his inspiration was heavily focused on David Bowie and his use of mime, this is also something that was used effectively and created an abstract illusion with the editing to create a mirrored effect of Toms face, whilst also quoting from A midsummers night dream. His change of costumes and backdrop developed on the idea of how crazy and vibrant shakespeare plays are, him and the tech team used appropriate music to compliment the scenes, overall the performance was very creative, however when performing we have to try and remain in character and focused despite whatever distractions occur. Sharps teeth Sherlock in Homes Sharps teeth did an amazing job of creating a live murder mystery and really engaged their audience, the main element/moment for me was the idea of breakout groups, this allowed them to create a personal relationship with the audience and also use improvisation for them as their character. We would ask the character we was investigating questions about the murder and at the end of each investigation they would give us a slight hint about the muder and leave, for me this small technique seemed to draw me in even more, even when i knew it was coming. Another element that impressed me was the costuming and background, they really did embrace their characters and not hold back, for me this virtually allowed me to put myself in that exact room with them and see in the backgrounds of the potential tools they used to kill the victim, which was also purposefully intended by the director. This performance brought many emotions alive and really made the audience active members whilst also entertaining them. Chang and Eng and Me Chang and Eng and Me was a well devised abstract performance that investigated many ideas of what theatre is and can be, one moment i vividly remember is the touching and sculpting of clay, which linked to the quote ‘I can count the times i’ve feared for my safety of my ethnicity on one, maybe two hands’, whilst quoting this the use of hands and pressure into the clay almost represented society and the anger ethnic individuals have towards society, yet feel stuck and trapped just like clay itself, for me this was a visual metaphor which was used so emotively/discreetly. The digital performance was not like many i have watched before and used the online platform to create liveness, what i also think worked well was the discussion of sexuality/race and the bareness that came with the performance, by getting changed infront of the camera and showing vulnerability just like many homosexual individuals feel scared about doing, it almost connoted that you should love yourself for who you are. I also picked up on the focus of puppetry and how these items can speak to audiences meaningfully, the focus of this performance was very creative and artistic with the use of drawing and sculpting e.g it painted a story without having to physically say anything. ShakesQueer. Tom Marshman. (2021). [Online, 27th February]. -Sherlock in Homes: Murder on Ice. (2021). Sharp Teeth Theatre. Directed by: Stephine Kempson. [Online, 4th March] Chang and Eng and Me: Wattle and Daub Figure theatre (2021) (online, 14th May) Evaluation following the performance Originally i developed the idea of an online meat auction, which we all as group discussed and put forward different ideas for, this was to symbolise that the victims are treated as meat and can be sent off globally, with this idea we explored breakout groups however the concept became too complex and we had a creative block for the middle section, therefore instead of still continuing with the idea we explored other ideas and researched into physical theatre. The research we found within sex trafficking and physical theatre inspired us to make the performance about physicality, the bareness of victims and how they are invisible, feedback from Laura helped us understand that if we was to approach the performance by making the audience feel to uncomfortable and shocked, it would make them less likely to keep watching, so after we had fully developed our script we decided to make a lot of the dialogue upbeat so that it would juxtapose with the speech itself. As a group we all worked very hard and put in a lot of time and effort, me and iona were the main editors for our flip grids and material for the piece, my strengths within this performance was to motivate and make sure everyone was always there, thinking of the slight movements and moments needed within the piece, charlotte and myself became the creative directors for the physical theatre (chair duets), personally i naturally take on a directing role, however we all equally put in ideas and bounced off eachother, and was definitely my favourite group to work with so far, my weaknesses are that i can be overwhelming with ideas, but the group helped turn these ideas into what became our performance. If we were to change our performance I would definitely like to explore some type of breakout room, however research and extra technical help would definitely be needed to make it successful and easy to follow. We were put off by making it too physical as our research from Berkoff shows that background movement can be more symbolic than up close and personal physicality. For me this year of online theatre making has changed my outlook on acting and theatre, we have managed to create an appropriate, well thought out/rehearsed performance about a topic that does not get spoken about enough, whilst also including all the dramaturgical elements i have learnt and explored this year, what i learnt mostly from devising 10,000 cases was that audience like repetition and difference, so by using the catwalks as a motif it allowed the audience to take in what was being said without even saying anything, and the repetition was the continuing of monologues with the pillow cases over our heads, and we used these to lose our identity and make the audience really listen to what was being said. I learnt a lot of elements in our rehearsal time and in class sessions. This year has definitely made me open to creating online pieces and understanding that theatre can be anything that you make it. Bibliography Cantrell (2013) Acting in documentary theatre. Acting Psychological aspects.; Acting; Experimental theater. Available at: https://www.vlebooks.com/Vleweb/Product/Index/680079?page=0 Mumey, Audrey; Sardana, Srishti; Richardson-Vejlgaard, Randall; Akinsulure-Smith, Adeyinka M (2021) Mental health needs of sex trafficking survivors in New York City: Reflections on exploitation, coping, and recovery. Available at: https://library.bathspa.ac.uk/items/eds/pdh/2020-79438-001?resultsUri=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary.bathspa.ac.uk%2Fitems%3Fquery%3Dsex%2Btrafficking%26checkbox%3Deverything%26facet%255B0%255D%3DEdsRecordOptions%253A%2522IsFullText%2522%26target%3Deds#availability Morgie BTECH acting ( 2015) Steven Berkoff’s techniques. Available at: http://morgiebtecacting.weebly.com/epq-extended-project-qualification/steven-berkoffs-techniques Graham, Scott, 1971- author; Hoggett, Steven, 1971- author (2014) The Frantic Assembly book of devising theatre. Improvisation (Acting); Frantic Assembly (Group); Theatrical companies Great Britain.; Experimental theater Great Britain. Available at: library.bathspa.ac.uk/items/eds/cat06393a/bath.106158?resultsUri=https%3A%2F%2Flibrary.bathspa.ac.uk%2Fitems%3Fquery%3Dfrantic%2Bassembly%26checkbox%3Deverything%26facet%255B0%255D%3DEdsRecordOptions%253AIsFullText%26target%3Deds#availability Wikipedia (2021) Documentary theatre. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_theatre#:~:text=Documentary%20theatre%20is%20theatre%20that,altering%20the%20text%20in%20performance. Wikipedia (2020) Human trafficking in the united kingdom. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_United_Kingdom

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Our way succeeded that America can still rise to the occasion we can put our differences aside and find commonality government can tell the truth and can build trust we can judge by content of character rather than color of skin we can care for one another that Americans can work together and forge community and a Morning Wood Running Team Start Hard Stay Hard Carpenter Vintage Retro T-Shirt competent government and of course we will wear masks because we are smart and because I care about you and because you care about me of course we will socially distance because staying away shows how close we actually are yes we will set up testing and tracing into whatever we need to do to mobilize to win this battle because we are America we win wars and we are the greatest country on the globe and for all the pain and all the tears our way worked and it was beautiful we show that our better angels a strong and that Americans will rise to their call we saw that even at the end of the day even if it is a long day that love wins America’s eyes have been opened and we have seen in this crisis the. Number and I look forward to that election and then that was just made up propaganda nap I am but by some of the many people that are working writing little statements I see all the time statement made you say says statement made per Joe Biden sleepy Joe he did make the statements that somebody did but they said he made it now I let him know I I’m not thinking about it or not it’ll not allow Madison in the report I haven’t seen the please go ahead and say anything this Saturday only nobody knows where he is so he obviously couldn’t have said it if you have a this is breaking news give Yellow Medicine on Saturday at oh thickset okay go ahead and listen to Leslie one more place in the back so yeah we’ve lost a lot of people but if you look at what original projections were 22 million were probably heading to 60 007 it has its far too many one person is too many for this and I think we met a lot of really good decisions the big decision was closing the border doing the band people coming in from China obviously. It hears that big showdown over Obama care which is the week after election day but the Republican rush to get her confirmed and the Senate’s refusal to even consider president Obama’s election year nomination to fill Justice Scalia’s vacancy has led to calls from many Democrats to increase the size of the Supreme Court if Biden is elected which of course the ideas to dilute the strength of the conservative justices so Biden saying he would have a commission to study at the Constitution does not specify how many justices the court should have that is set by Congress that number is changed half a dozen times it’s been nine for about 150 years but making the court bigger remains a highly controversial idea even among Democrats and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposed that she said last year that nine seem to be in the number savanna cam course is not just the presidency at stake is the makeup of Congress as well with Democrats obviously helping a strong performance in Job I would help them retake control the

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People that want to do harm we say stay the hell out its berries and when I can open the floodgates radical Islamic carriers and when I doing identity influx of refugees from terrorist regions you know that and I’m keeping the jihadists and the violent extremists the hell out of our country Tijuana maybe Michigan I think about what anybody like them to come to the wonderful sentiments I thought I knew you pretty well is not easy to of the evidence is very unpopular they people go after him again ultimately it what’s right people understand the together we will continue to protect American families fight for American workers support our police defend our Second Amendment which has been under say if I were not your president you wouldn’t have a Morning Wood Running Team Start Hard Stay Hard Carpenter Vintage Retro T-Shirt second amendment secure our borders as you are more broader on proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase may in the USA soaking wet because the media is getting it on the thing you look like how the day his hair was terrible it was all horrible bad man like he was named as. Medical care they quoted many of them and if we can help Republicans the superintendent running Simone F Mann North America correspondence to those who joins us at life in Los Angeles at the coming of the programs that give us an idea of how the president’s return has been received good morning Don it’s been received with the funky load of anger when he goes home and tells Americans not to let the virus donate them to be afraid of the reaction from other people as they will try telling that to the families of the 210 000 Americans dives because of the nine taking it was an extraordinary choreographed return to the White House from the moment they stepped out of the hospital it was primetime evening news time in America to the moment they got back to the White House walking up to the balcony immediately taking off his mosque and posing for that only pictures but it seemed as if he is making some sort of video succumb paying video it will stay in the coming days and is been strongly criticized for taking. Is Jesus a great big ovation worse you to their room with you on the back you’re not just Wilmington or Memorial campus right now also go alive Cypressand Katieand around the world will give everybody a great big ovation love you guys by that is that everyone of your here in fact very for some with this on my name is Jeremy this is my sweet beautiful lovely amazing wife Jennifer you like I like your hair like a rise of acceptance review with all of our kids this is this is my beautiful wife taking care of all of our kids to give her great big head Mother’s Day you have a lunch iron but were were we got an amazing weekend on the fact that we can crazy for us this week you all last night was Jaden’s James promand she would sure the problem do you still with us you still allow for now all actually see you were so busy all week to get all that readyand yesterday when it like we had a freedom cop riddle crazy stuff thought you may sod as the home to to make sure that I was in the picturesand make sure that up with the Bureau of God your boyand all subject was like dad to the British deputies at the door the doors like you will meet you at the door she was again accused with the doorsand I will give oceanographers know what she was like that oh my God do not do the shotgunand my dad was in town but that was still there but I was like as all good I got right hereand my dad had a piece like right there like that you’re in the house why are you so country where you will moment that my dear Dr McGrady began fighting Gaza was in high happy Mother’s Day one weekendand it was prominent with our still in only that no girl is extraand so we had we the disease in the makeand hairand many many epic talk a lot of money but I was right there beside her taking her wish to go monthly for this nominatesand so we were doing on thatand then only wrap them off like the fourth time I had a moment where I thought to myself I didn’t say that thought to myself weekend by in the world you now that I quickly came out outand got back into reality because you know what we were mom they were 24 Saturday we rarely get a breakand when I break is offered to us we pretty much probably won’t even take it in so it is great is great being a momand we we got it all taken care ofand she looked beautiful that I even with beating myself up over the fact that I wasn’t able to be there when she was putting her makeup on her she was getting dressed because we were behind on thingsand I was doing some running around steel like you that the house getting ready but that’s what we do we beat ourselves that over the slightest little thing so if your mom after reading the paperand just repeat after me say I am dealing a good joband you are my man you are doing God Aliand get everything right every not always the perfect okay you can let your baby the way that you can let them write only you can raise your babies can do it like you said don’t believe anybody they try to tell you you’re not doing it right that you’re not doing a good job you are in here at city we honor you guys today we honor all the nonsense that mom the foster mom than the others who maybe have lost their babyand that is Angel baby there shining down on you right now from heavenand they let you images on you kindly want you to have a very blessed day happy Mother’s Day to all the otherand our hope city kids team collaborated with our hope city worship team we use some of your kids at our worship teamand to gather they wrote an amazing song that I think you just gotta blow your socks offand so right now we captured it all on video without further ado IS perchance together city kids but also for our team is so weird to moms from the world what was the best meal that you won’t pursue dressing O Jesus is okay too much right as you timesand penetrating your mom first Godand is your mom one word is mom rhymes home on you as a result Simon with a you will we went to Joeand I gave you what’s your favorite thing to do with you all know what your most is is your monthly result formation just as a note in an inand out in the words this video will be going viral later todayand I’ll promise you will be walking in HEB this week to be like yours so majestic I just want to hug the white wears a gem like you don’t even know will give a great big candidate awesome job I think is funny but that’s actually the first recorded song from the city worship so guys can we please do an album hello amazing we we love mom’sand we we honor youand my mom is in the building it blessed you know I don’t know about your mom I don’t know your story I know that many of you come from varied backgroundsand with you knew your mom or not whether your mom was a challenge live with or not or maybe your mom was amazing I want to share account want to share my mom with you on this we can only give you some things that my mom has always told me my mom is always said mama momand my dad have always been reinforcers of faith I come from a long line of pastorsand preachers in church plantersand I remember when I was a kid we started the church in Winston Salem North Carolinaand when you start a church kind of weird people account to come out of the woodwork I don’t know if the enemy sends him like all the weird people are like hatersand of the church start let’s go try that one out would be kicked out of every other oneand so like this dude shows upand on like the first year there’s like 80 people in the church where this little building the center aisle in his blue pewsand that what you know the church was cut a smaller’s back door in the the stage in the right next to the stages of the outside doorand this dude comes in a startling part will down the middle on white rolling in the know we have a security team here we did have a security team therefore we how is my momand that might like this during worship but that such a gangster he just goes back there instead of stopping the got the start had to go back as I go okay so you keep doing part wills but I was gonna grab themand call them out his pats on the back all the way down the middle all the way across a broad that spat them on the backand the dead is open the side door padding right outand shut the doorand locked it that’s a thought he was strong arming a great job great job awfully sure you know my mother remember what’s on this specific we can service we had this guy come inand I don’t know there was mental deficiencies or challenges what he was going through at that time but he wore trenchcoat that day the churchand I was that was that there there was nothing elseand ought was telling everybody it was his birthday which was just wasn’t a good dayand we did have a security teamand auditors did know what to do so I go to my momand the like what we do shoes like all handled this right now I’m a mother will walk out the lobbyand my mom is small but your daughter Mike comes in small packages we have a great security team here at our church are pretty sure my mom could take all of them at once on the problem prayer Jesus in mom’s karate chops she walks up the stairs she says I don’t think so not to dice are not in the house of the Lord your God will act like this he looked at it is that you’re too littleand she stepped to him she said may be little but my God is bigand I tell you when I get out of this chart right now go get some clothes out there was like okay that’s that’s what was raised by I couldn’t help but live for God to automate but I of a mother or father report big faith into me the parade big prayers for me my mother would tell me this is she told me thisand she still says that she says God’s you usually got to do great things in your gotta learn to trust him she would say this you you can make a difference even when no one else’s first my next is that you can make a difference you can make a difference you can make a difference even if nobody else’s I believe it mother told me she got got something special for you these got an amazing anointing on you he’s going to use you to change the world powerful anointing on how believe it but I thought I was the only one also given a liaison to happen I gotta do something great for God he needs me I had no idea the got is a great anointing for every person has a great plan for every person God has a powerful moment a powerful anointing for every person before that verse of Scripture that says many are called but few are chosenand I’ve lived long enough to learn that those were chosen choose to be chosen at some point you gotta say I’m not going to go along to get along anymore I’m not going to just live to get to get bought home to say Lord here I am use me I’m going all in to whatever whenever however wear whatever you want from me that you were doingand hope city you’re never going to come hereand feel quite all the way comfortable drop jokes is okay not do that I tried to preach super series before work drive but I’ve always been a push you little bit outside your comfort zone because as regards pulled your callingsand comfort zones don’t go hand in hand Scott’s called you to go all inand do something amazing at our church we try to make it easy for you to do that we give your growth track AS you go through growth track you can learn more about our churchand you can learn more about yourself is ultimately got called you to do something specific that is some point you gotta say okay I can just be anonymousand the kingdom you got a plan for me you got a purpose for meand I want to go all in what would happen if today you went all in I asked people at our church but say this is the beginning of our church if you just give me one year just give me your go through growth track get in a group get in the group turns my next is a unique group saw me on the life or Bob group she automateand integrate to be in a group of people are helping you grow or help you learn your help you study the word of God Jesus when Jesus is first whenever he started his earthly ministry to go to group to follow disciples 12 he built a group he left his his kingdom he left the expansion of the church to a group you need to be in a group jump on the dream team watch what God does in your life in a year will happen if you went all in there many of you were here at one of our campuses for the very first timeand you came because your mama use the mama car on youand she was like the only thing that I want for Mother’s Day is for you to get yourself in church like I mama go to churchand you’re hereand you know what were not agreed upon you went on to make you feel bad for the honorand celebrate you become the church today thank you for what would happen if next week if you blow your mom’s mindand you showed up at just walked in this episode as I find joy last week on here this weekend for me not just for you your mom but you never know God called you to do something great you want to just go all in stop making excuses also part of the hard things got got great things for you but sometimes you gotta make a commitment Thomas Edison said most people miss opportunities because it’s dressed in overallsand looks like work what if you went all in it’s okay God I know this thing they look like a challenge him actually give you my life to give you my future to give you everything that I have all of me what would it unlock in your life if you just said okay I believe that I can make a difference even when nobody else’s nobody else in my families ever done this or maybe nobody else in my friend group is ever done is is going to go all in the challenges oftentimes we don’t we don’t want to take personal responsibility actually go all in words a dads that was all the dads that were your dad list of all of our dads a great big guys so you’re saying why are we honoring fathers on Mother’s Day that’s weird I will tell you here’s why because I want I want to encourage men or encourage our men because oftentimes this out outside of Easter the second typically the second largest attended weekend service in a year in American churches is Mother’s Day because mom is like everybody’s going to church with me todayand we honor moms like mom you’re amazingand one of the lowest attended weekend servicesand all the year is Father’s Day I don’t know why that is but I tend to think that is because on Mother’s Day weekend churches like mom you’re amazing chocolate covered strawberries or some sorbet we love you hear some rosesand a policy right about yourself a lot lately but I think would be an idiot not hope city we honor fathers were grateful for the men here who believe we love our menand our chart having said that some thousand sometimes bills because certain responsibility right now not your work in a condo city are hard working men all miss that you were hard working men but when we get home like hard Reston manual me like mom is never quit they never stop working it’s constant they can work 87 hours during the week will make somebody’s bed both bodies of dirty clothesand change 17 dirty diapers kicked somebody in the seat of the pants like predicate inadequate acting crazy that comes always I was remote list you know intelligence because like that Amy you come home you go get that plastic cup that weird plastic of this like faded but you keep itand you go go to the refrigerator you go get some ice in it because the mice in your overflow lies in it falls on the floor going to pick it up to you now kick it on the fritz don’t to death know why I know is what your boy does know what was wrong with you what came to pick up unlike us water is evaporated to go become a cloud on the help of Jesus some of we like to take responsibility not just meant everybody manual me like wherever we go shopping with our wives bless America my wife told me couple years ago she said I must go to the mall’s like your boy don’t do the ball so we’re on our way to the mall I already pantyhose my family don’t you don’t you be questioning with the malland would win when moms go to the mall like looking for a sale they’re looking for a deal they’re looking for the discount rack promote somebody you spend just as much money you just want more for your money right men when we go shopping with you we are not looking for a deal were not looking for sale not looking for the discount rack will look at one thing what are we looking for fellows for chair that’s right perch I just want to see a godforsaken chair that is not in the shoe department all the way over there effective you own a department store on his will give you something extra to sprinkle chairs liberally throughout your store we would love to go shopping at your store if there’s a chair will sit on anything your domain willing to push some for some shirts are likely to we find that share that share is like a waste is in the desertand we run for were like they are more sinister one because we know that other men are like vultures looking for that chair to get a firstand then you trick us trick is to sit in the chair for 30 minutes what I’m ready to goand we know the story those if your newly married let me educate you just a little bit okay when she says I’m ready to go site are you going to the checkout line yes I’m going to check out liable right do you have everything you need to start naming off places in the store that she might’ve forgot to go because once you relinquish your chair is fair game I think there should be like a 10 foot rule you want me what you get 10 feet off the check is us what happens to me all the church is like all honey I forgot you turnaround is like a 78 year old man Artie sit in your territory like finders keepers alike best playgrounds are should give me a chance few years ago we were in a department storeand I’m looking for a chairand I found one but it was a part of the decoration it’s a benchand they actually have manikins sitting on unlike why I saw this is just a number of moving your resolve this matter manikin so as I moved in beside the medicand I guess I’ll brush your arm I don’t know what happened in her arms like thisand whenever I set up so she was like like it my leg is if you do you gotta know what was in our raw guys are starting to move her arm back upand when I try to move your arm back up her arm came off in my head like youand I like looking women try to put her arm back on to try to put her on the whole upper body fell overand this is what I ended up with you right here Soma picture this when I in the prior site is legal because the bids like she was prayingand if you look at the you see her forearms is laid out on thereand I was like walking awayand as the walk away as managers like when I was a kid undecided See Other related products: Jesus These Bones Will Come To Life Again T Shirt

[antoine-roquentin]

Pity the conservative film critic. Suffering through so many juvenile, raunchy flicks and mindless blockbusters. Why even the great films are marred. No matter how extraordinary the film, something comes along to spoil it. Something…politically correct.

Maybe it’s the villain, an evil giant multinational corporation dumping oceans of toxins into the local river, which also happens to be the town’s water supply.

Maybe it’s Mr. Potter’s bank threatening to foreclose on the old homestead.

Typical liberal pablum, snarls the conservative critic. All corporations are evil. Banks are foreclosing on everybody’s sick grandma’s farm.

It hardly matters that socially conscious films like A Civil Action, North Country, Norma Rae, Silkwood and Erin Brockovich are extraordinarily entertaining films with Oscar-level direction and performances. What matters to the conservative film critic is that they are mere whored-up vehicles for socialist propaganda. And only he (and it’s always a he) is wise enough to see it.

Whatever would American film audiences have done without the conservative film critic to enlighten them as to the “awfulness” of Jordan Peele’s Get Out? The film boasted a perfect 100 score from critics on the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That is until National Review’s Armond White reviewed the film. Where other critics saw the “satirical horror movie we’ve been waiting for, a mash-up of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and The Stepford Wives that’s more fun than either and more illuminating, too,” Armand, who is African American, saw a film—which he dubbed “Get Whitey”—that was “tailored to please the liberal status quo.”

The Chicago Reader’s J.R. Jones must have been watching another horror-comedy called Get Out, because he saw a brilliant film “that sticks closely to genre convention even as its ribbing of white liberals hardens into a social point.”

Selma was another film with a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes whose perfect score was spoiled by a critic from a conservative publication, this time Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times. Andrews, unlike every other reviewer, panned Selma as “a dead-as-a-plank re-enactment of a pietised ‘then’: a 50-year-old battle of ideals between Good Guys (MLK, LBJ in civil rights reform mode) and Bad Guys (Governor Wallace, keeping the Alabama hate fires burning) that seems exactly that: 50 years.”

Unsurprisingly, National Review’s White similarly hated the film (though he loved that jingoistic homage to endless war American Sniper). White called Selma “a mediocre and disingenuous film” and criticized the movie for “rubbing soft spots” and “sore spots” (i.e., depicting the murders of black children and white allies) instead of “making meaning.” (“Soft spot” is certainly a strange way to describe the murder of four black girls by a white supremacist.)

Until recently there was a paucity of films starring, written by or directed by African Americans. Blacks largely played the role of thugs or servants. As the role of blacks in Hollywood has slowly begun to broaden it has presented a unique problem for conservative magazines. How to criticize socially conscious African American films without sounding blatantly racist?

National Review seems to have hit on a successful solution when it hired Armond White. As an African American, White can freely trash socially conscious, historical “black  films” like Selma and Twelve Years a Slave with little fear of a racial backlash. White can say things that white conservative critics are thinking, that they would have easily spouted twenty years ago, but dare not say in public today. And he says a lot of such things. For instance: “Who can forget the throwback image of British director Steve McQueen jumping Jim Crow at this year’s Oscars?”

Then there was White’s depiction of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four African American girls as “one of The Movement’s Greatest Hits.”

Not to mention his constant dog whistles that Hollywood Jews control the media’s image of black people.

When Twelve Years a Slave (Academy Award: Best Picture) came out National Review cautiously asked scholar Thomas Hibbs to review the film. Hibbs turned in a thoughtful piece which lauded the film. The editors tried again. In the print edition, conservative New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat reviewed the film. Again, a positive review.

Soon after that, National Review hired White. He had dismissed Twelve Years a Slave in CityArts writing that it “belongs to the torture porn genre with ‘Hostel,’ ‘The Human Centipede’ and the ‘Saw’ franchise.”

Wrote White:

These tortures might satisfy the resentment some Black people feel about slave stories (“It makes me angry”), further aggravating their sense of helplessness, grievance–and martyrdom. It’s the flipside of the aberrant warmth some Blacks claim in response to the superficial uplift of ‘The Help’ and ‘The Butler.’ And the perversion continues among those whites and non-Blacks who need a shock fest like ‘12 Years a Slave’ to rouse them from complacency with American racism and American history. But, as with ‘The Exorcist,’ there is no victory in filmmaking this merciless. The fact that McQueen’s harshness was trending among Festivalgoers (in Toronto, Telluride and New York) suggests that denial still obscures the history of slavery: Northup’s travail merely make it possible for some viewers to feel good about feeling bad (as wags complained about Spielberg’s ‘Schindler’s List’ as an ‘official’ Holocaust movie–which very few people went to see twice). McQueen’s fraudulence further accustoms moviegoers to violence and brutality.

Just the thing National Review was looking for. A black reviewer who could spout highfaluting  hokum for its racist white audience.

White was immediately given a chance to write about the film. He went profoundly negative calling the film “decidedly unpleasant (and unpopular).” It was “awarded (Best Picture) purely to make the Academy feel good about itself as a defense against Hollywood’s standard segregated practices.” It “distorted the history of slavery while encouraging and continuing Hollywood’s malign neglect of slavery’s contemporary impact.”

Conservative film criticism is so easy any conservative can do it. Simply choose a film with a social justice theme (say, family farmers versus the bank), then ignore everything else about the film. National Review critic Kevin Williamson carried this off spectacularly when he was tasked with reviewing Hell and High Water. Again, the film garnered overwhelmingly glowing reviews, including a 96 top critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Hell and High Water, which pitted two rural everymen versus The Bank, seemed to resonate with everyone: snobby film critics and conservatism’s base in the boonies. One might think that in this day and age when conservatism’s base is rabidly anti-Wall Street, a conservative film critic would go ga-ga over Hell and High Water.

Wrong.

“[M]an, is this movie stupid,” wrote Williamson. Who then spends 700 words nitpicking ways other than bank robbery that the heroes could have raised enough money to save the family homestead. Like asking for a loan.

Conservative critics often seem unable to comprehend the basics of theme or characterization. One tried-and-true theme is that of the underdog battling some powerful entity–for example, the family farmers in Places of the Heart taking on The Bank, or the spunky legal assistant battling the giant chemical corporation poisoning a small town in Erin Brockovich. Conservatives would have us turn these themes on their head, so that we would root for the poor beleaguered chemical company that was only trying to maximize shareholder value like any true blue American company is expected to do.

Williamson offers an alternative movie pitch: Two brothers walk into a financial institution with an oil-lease document and say, “Hello, there, Mr. Banker! I’m about to have a passive income of $600,000 a year and would like a $40,000 loan to pay off the lien on my property until that first monthly check comes in. Would you like to be my banker?”

Perhaps this is why there are few conservative screenwriters in Hollywood. They think a man with a line of equity walking into a bank and getting a loan would make riveting drama.

This is not say conservative film critics hate every film. They love most Clint Eastwood movies. They love the Left Behind series. Not long ago National Review put out its own list of “greatest conservative films.” Among them, the amateurish B-movie Red Dawn, about the Soviet Union invading the US. Many of the films on the list have nothing to do with conservatism. A Simple Plan? It is hard to see what conservatives like about a greedy guy getting away with countless murders–unless they simply have a hard on for greedy guys. Braveheart? Why because of Mel “fucking Jews” Gibson? Team America: World Police. Conservatives don’t seem to realize this film was satire. Ghostbusters? Groundhog Day? Okay, fun films, but they are about as conservative as Bernie Sanders and far from the greatest anything.

It’s not all doom and gloom for the conservative film critic. Clint Eastwood still has a few movies left in him before he shuffles muttering and drooling into the sunset. As does Mel Gibson. And now that Steven Bannon has vacated the West Wing we will likely be treated to more documentaries about Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. But in the end it’s more fun to pan a great film than to praise a mediocre one. Besides, the base doesn’t tune into FOX News and Rush Limbaugh for good news or good reviews. It tunes in to feel angry. That’s why it reads conservative film reviews that begin “Man, is this movie stupid.”

They get off on it.

[pubtheatres1]

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR DAVID FURLONG/EXCHANGE THEATRE Moliere’s MISANTHROPE including performances in both French and English Drayton Arms Theatre 13 June – 8 July 2017 Presented by Exchange Theatre Off West End Best Director nominee David Furlong, chats with us about his unique approach, fresh from his stint at the Royal Opera House. The play is being presented to coincide with Bastille Day. What does this anniversary mean to you? Last year was very significant for us as we were on stage during the Nice attacks. It brought us together in the face of tragedy and it reminded us of the deeper meaning of the day, as a celebration of a unified France. As there are around 500,000 French people in London, it can be important to feel together. The Drayton Arms Pub always plays along with us and put a special dish on their menu. Growing up in Mauritius with Indian origins, (and being bi-lingual English and French), is Moliere an important part of your cultural heritage? When I moved to France as a teenager and started drama, then Moliere became very important in my training. Just like Shakespeare is the epitomy of English theatre, Moliere represents the essence of French theatre. As I trained in the National Theatre of Chaillot, it really became part of my DNA. A decade later, when I moved to London, I could sense that the work of Moliere and many other major French writers were rarely produced in Britain. And I think that because I grew up on a cultural bridge, I felt I could easily build one with my company and start bringing French-speaking plays in the Uk. It took us nine years before we actually did a Moliere. Having trained in France at the prestigious National Theatre, are you bringing a particularly French take on The Misanthrope? Or other influences? I don't have so much a French approach than one that is fed by theatre-makers who are seeking the same contemporary relevance. Also, part of my training was in improvisation, and led me to perform ten years in Street theatre shows in France. This also had a huge influence on my work as a director because the actors are at the centre of the work, in their need to create bigger than life figures. Do you find having experience as an actor, changes your approach as a director? How? My experience makes me put the actors at the centre of my work: I take almost everything from their 'impulse' as they rehearse. For my part, it's crucial and empowering for actors. Also, acting is seeking the truth in dialogues, and as a director I will always look beyond a formal shape of a scene, and I won't be satisfied with scenes where I can feel that more can be done to reach the true multi-layered meaning of the lines, even if the scene looks really good. You’re also a French translator. What’s your approach to translating plays and are you picky about who translated the Misanthrope? The vocation of the company is to produce faithful translations. Over the ten years we’ve been translating French plays to English, we’ve experimented with several different approaches: we worked with a university professor on our Claudel piece, I updated an old translation for Sartre’s ‘The Flies’, we’ve workshopped the play with actors for a more contemporary writer, and we also sometimes found an original translation that worked perfectly. So, with this important body of translated works behind me now, I decided I would be able to come up with a version that combines the best of previous translations. Of the language of the play, of course, but also its spirit. Our company is comprised entirely of fully-bilingual people, some of them Franco-British, so when we have doubts about a line, we always look back to Moliere’s original words. Any language has echoes and nuances, so it’s essential for us to have a bilingual team that really understands both cultures intimately. What do you see as the heart of the play? It is a (bitter) comedy about Alceste, an honourable and outspoken man who is in love with Célimene, a bright but slightly vain socialite. It's originally set at the King's Court, in a world of gossips and of people going on trial for anything they say. In our world of permanent fast breaking news and social networks, the play finds unanticipated echo today, as we transform the 17th century society salon into a contemporary newsroom. The play, seen too often only as a deep philosophical essay, is also a very concrete and funny take on justice, the news, the gossips and our own emptiness. What are you particularly looking forward to in directing this production? What was the most astonishing is to see how relevant the play is today and how our relationship to news or gossip is just the same as it was in the 17th century. For me, the only difference is that now everything is public, and people are willingly exposing their lives on Facebook live or Instagram 'stories', so in addition to Moliere's take on falseness, I am exploring this idea that nothing ever happens privately, any action is always relayed online, on a screen or seen from behind a window ... So, the production took naturally the direction of a world of medias and videos, just by following Moliere's humour and criticism of his times. What’s your approach as director? An image on a stage can be anything as long as you can clearly connect the story being told, to what you see. I inherit this idea mostly from Opera directors such as Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser whom I had the chance to assist at the Royal Opera House, but also from French-Canadian Robert Lepage or from Daniel Kramer who now runs the ENO. I was only an actor in my twenties when I discovered this operatic approach, and I went from seeing the stage from my personal performer's perspective to understanding a global view of a stage on a much bigger scale. In Opera, you have to offer such a definite and strong take on the piece. I've also had ongoing training through Young Vic directors program, Living Pictures and a general openness to discover new territories all the time. Through training, devising, experimenting, researching, crafting and developing my work with others, it finally reached a shape of its own, always evolving. Many of the cast are bi-lingual and some are French. Will there be marked differences between the English version and French? The two versions are exact mirror images of the same production. So, we work at finding the same actions and intentions for the actors. Sometimes the French language is more straight than English and helps us to find something more direct, whilst sometimes, the musicality that you find in English feeds the French version by adding colors and layers. We reach for very singular profiles of actors: who generally have parents of two different origins, who grew up being multi-lingual, in a place which isn't their parent's culture, mostly. They fit a recently-named group called third-culture people and they've been used all their life to shift from one state-of-mind or culture to the other. They also bring a great variety of identities to the piece. It's not related so much to the French identity than the French-speaking world and the language we have in common. We have an Iranian Célimene, a Mauritian Alceste, an Ivorian-Swiss Oronte, an Italian-French Acaste, as well as Anglo-French people. It simply reflects better the time we live in! In your experience does a French audience respond differently to an English audience. From experience on our previous Moliere and 'A Family affair' three years ago, the first thing you notice is that the two audience laugh at very different moments, they are not shocked by the same moments, or the same events. Which audience will be the most appreciative, the English or the French (And is diplomacy your thing!)? Both audience are equally important for us. The English theatre audience is adventurous and I am certain our work at crossing cultural boundaries could not have existed elsewhere than London. Equally, the French community is a very supportive base. The lungs of our work are French and the heart of our art is English and they're both equally important to create life for us. (My father was a diplomat, so maybe diplomacy is slightly inherent) @June 2017 London Pub Theatres Magazine Ltd All Rights Reserved Exchange Theatre The original vocation of the company was to present French-speaking plays to the British audience. It is an English company, working from London Bridge studios. Along the way, they became resident company at the Institute Francais for three years, started drama classes in French, and producing work for the French community as well. Biography David Furlong is from Mauritius and grew up speaking both English and French. He trained in France at the prestigious National Theatre where he also worked with international directors including Deborah Warner and Hans Peter Cloos. Totally bilingual, he’s an experienced actor on stage (Lead rôle in Montserrat, in Paris, and Orestes in The Flies in London, Huis Clos, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, among others), as well as on screen (American Blockbuster Flyboys, with Jean Reno and James Franco, Award Winning British Indie Diagnosis Superstar, among others). He works both in Paris and London in French, and English, with or without accent and also runs a theatre company: Exchange Theatre for which he also directs, writes and teaches drama. MISANTHROPE by Moliere Drayton Arms Theatre, 153 Old Brompton Rd, Kensington, London SW5 0LJ English (June 13th – 17th, 26th – 29th and July 7th and 8th) French (June 20th – 24th, 30th and July 1st and 4th – 6th) All performances at 8.00pm Running Time 90 mins Ticket Price £14/£10 concessions Box Office: www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk Exchange Theatre returns to the Drayton Arms Theatre with Misanthrope, by Moliere, as part of their yearly Bastille Festival – a celebration of French theatre, performed in English and French. In a time of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’, Misanthrope finds unanticipated echoes in the world today. Alceste, the most loyal man in the world, lacks only one virtue: indulgence for other’s behaviours. His search for genuineness against hypocrisy, special interests and treachery calls for a new London production in 2017.

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Diamond Princess Evacuations, Xinjiang Document, ‘Love Island’: Your Tuesday Briefing

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Good morning.

The U.S. observed the Presidents’ Day holiday on Monday, so the news has been a little slow from our New York and Washington newsrooms. But we have a host of updates on the coronavirus, a new leaked document about how China tracks detainees and why young Somalis are stepping up.

China’s critics seize on fringe theory of virus

There’s no evidence for it, and scientists dismiss it. But a rumor about the coronavirus has nevertheless gained traction: that the outbreak was somehow manufactured by the Chinese government as part of a biowarfare program.

It’s the kind of story that resonates with those who see Beijing as a threat to the West. The theory has gained an audience with the help of powerful critics of the Chinese government, including right-wing media outlets and a U.S. senator, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who later walked his claims back.

Reality: Experts dismiss the idea that the virus was created by human hands, saying it resembles SARS and other viruses that come from bats. Here’s a reminder of what scientists know and don’t know.

‘Infodemic’: The World Health Organization is fighting a flood of misinformation about the coronavirus in partnership with tech companies.

How China tracked Xinjiang detainees

Going on religious pilgrimages, praying, attending funerals, wearing a beard, having too many children.

These are all acts, among other signs of piety, that would have been flagged by the Chinese government and warranted monitoring or even detention for Uighurs living in the western Xinjiang region, according to a leaked government document obtained by The Times.

The document, one of numerous files kept on more than one million people who have been detained, illuminates another piece of the Chinese government’s coercive crackdown on ethnic minorities and what Beijing considers to be wayward thinking.

Details: The document, a 137-page spreadsheet, outlines the kind of minute detail that the authorities in Karakax County (also spelled Qaraqash) in southwestern Xinjiang collected on more than 300 detainees and hundreds of their relatives and neighbors from 2017 to March 2019.

Follow-up: Three-fourths of the detainees listed have been released, according to an expert who studied the spreadsheet. But the document also shows that many of those released were later assigned work in tightly controlled industrial parks.

If you have 6 minutes, this is worth it

Young Somalis step up

Somalia has endured three decades of crises, making its government incapable of providing even basic services. So young Somalis have sprung into action as volunteer medics, road-builders, educators and more.

After a 2017 truck bombing in Mogadishu killed 587 people and injured 316 others, hundreds of volunteers, like Dr. Amina Abdulkadir Isack, above right, identified victims, created social media campaigns to appeal for global attention and collected tens of thousands of dollars to help with ambulance services.

“It showed us we could do something to save lives,” she said.

Here’s what else is happening

Burkina Faso shooting: A gunman attacked a church during Sunday Mass and killed at least 24 people in the country’s northwest, security sources said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible, but jihadist groups have been seeking control over rural areas of the country.

Michael Bloomberg campaign: As the billionaire and former New York mayor rises to the upper tier of Democratic presidential candidates, political reporters at his news media outlet are increasingly feeling pressure over a perceived conflict of interest.

Caroline Flack: Fans of the “Love Island” host, who died by suicide over the weekend, are calling for a new law to stop British tabloids from publishing articles that reveal “private information that is detrimental to a celebrity, their mental health and those around them.”

Snapshot: Above, an orangutan in Tanjung Puting National Park in Indonesia. Our correspondent and his family developed a special understanding of Indonesia’s island jungles with the help of a network of one-man conservationist organizations.

What we’re reading: This collection of letters. “British newspapers’ letters pages are a peculiar sort of joy,” writes Peter Robins, an editor in our London newsroom. “Recently, readers of The Guardian have been debating how old you have to be before it’s eccentric to keep boiling up your annual 18-pound batch of homemade marmalade. Bidding started at 77 and has escalated rapidly.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: Cheesy baked pasta with sausage and ricotta is like lasagna, but faster. (Our Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter has more recommendations.)

Read: “Apeirogon,” the latest novel from Colum McCann, delves into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of two grieving fathers. “I think people wouldn’t have trusted it as much if it wasn’t real,” he said.

Smarter Living: We collected a few items that will help you make the most of an off-season getaway.

And now for the Back Story on …

Somalia’s future

Abdi Latif Dahir is The Times’s East Africa correspondent. A Kenyan of Somali descent, he reports in and about some dozen countries. We reached him in Nairobi, to talk about this briefing’s featured read: his story about the young Somalis who are filling in the gaps their government can’t.

This is such a powerful story of resilience and hope. How did you find it?

Late last year, there was a big attack in Mogadishu, the worst by Al Shabab in two years. And one thing stood out. Almost all the news stories mentioned that a lot of university students had died, young people who wanted to be doctors or were studying other specialities that would help the country.

On Jan. 1, I flew to Mogadishu, to follow up on the attack and to write about these students and what they mean to Somalia.

My first story was about that, but also on how things had been getting so much better in Mogadishu — and it was all these young people doing it.

What else inspired you?

I went to this crisis center. They were collecting the names of the victims, and reaching out to their families. I wanted to sit amongst them and see what it was like. They were checking in, asking the families, how are you today?

And maybe they’d hear that the hospital bill had been paid so that was OK but the family hadn’t eaten breakfast that day. So they would corral someone to get food over to them.

I wanted to write about the chutzpah to invent these systems, to stay strong with all that was happening.

People could rattle off all these names of people they’ve known who’ve been killed. But then they would say, we want to stay here and be the ones to fix this country. They’re creating tech hubs, and restaurants and delivery services that are thriving. Because of the attacks on hotels and restaurants, it’s safer to stay home, have friends over and order a meal.

How is it being the East Africa correspondent?

I’ve had the job since November. It’s incredible. This is a dynamic, evolving region that’s changing socially, geopolitically, economically. It’s a great place to be a journalist. Honestly, you could write a story every hour.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Melina

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Andrea Kannapell, the briefings editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • “The Daily” was off for the U.S. Presidents’ Day holiday. But try our “Modern Love” podcast. This week’s is titled “When Cupid Is a Prying Journalist.” • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Part of a navy (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Last week, we told you that our Visual Investigations team would be answering reader questions. Here’s the YouTube video of them doing just that.

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