#of the three i actually saw santiago's version first

[for-a-longlongtime]

Oooh, I actually never really thought too much about that, so let me overthink this here for a bit:

The only fic/smut I wrote with a specific kink/act in mind was my Ezra pegging fic for PTMAM 2024 -- I actually did struggle having that come together storywise (which is why it took me so long to write), and then it even turned into a threesome (why with young!Benny Miller? God knows, really. I'm not even really into him hahaha).

Generally, my fics are things that suddenly come to mind for me -- I've never really been able to just decide 'I want to write this thing with these/some characters' and go from there. I've tried this a few times and I just end up getting stuck, it's like the fic decides to cancel itself. Whenever I have scenes or situations come to mind, I would say the majority of the time it's not only 'seeing' it in my mind's eye like a movie, but I get commentary on what's happening from one of the characters, and them 'telling me' is what makes it turn into writing on the page. It always is very character specific though (and often with a load of backstory, which may or may not end up making it to the final edit) - I guess readers could definitely disagree with me, but to me you can't really swap out my characters with different ones by just replacing the names in the text. My Tim is very distinct (at least in my head, I hope it also comes across in writing) in bed versus, say, Javi, even if they both can be dominant. And Ezra is not at all like Frankie or Santiago. I guess maybe also because I haven't really been using tropes a lot?

I basically have three large WIP series atm. Maverick I very much try to freestyle and not think too hard about it, just write whatever comes up in short chapters - but then those characters fucked me up and made me write down an outline for what's to happen in the next 10 to 15 short chapters, and that also halted my writing process because now I overanalyze it.

The Pena Rockford WIP is a massive doc, which originally started out with the idea of Javi and Tim having a threesome with reader at Tim's office -- but that one went so very different than I could've imagined (am I the only one who sometimes argues with their characters because they're derailing things and making the writing harder? No? Should I just get some new medication for that? LOL), because it became a Tim x Javi focus and a much longer story (and reader actually is gonna be an OFC, I think, since she's only in that office scene). I haven't written a 'clean' version of that chapter yet, but it unfolded in chat while sort of brainstorming with friends. That doc/wip has a rough outline and right now a lot of smutty scenes or outlines of things that came to mind, nothing that I 'tried' to write deliberately. Interestingly it was the first time that I ended up writing a kink I wasn't into (spit kink) because I suddenly saw that scene playing out in front of my mind's eye, but it felt like the characters were adement about it - and when it was done I was like, shit, this is actually really hot, and it did become a kink I like to read at times (haven't written much of it yet). Anyway --- this fic decided to screw me over a few months ago and throw such a specific scene at me that I suddenly wrote 3.5K words nonstop on my cellphone (which I hate doing), as a threesome, and just as I thought I was getting close to wrapping it up a fourth character popped up. So that ended up again being a situation where I was mentally arguing with the characters "this is fucking inconvenient", "this doesn't need to be in the fic", "why won't you leave my head until I've written this all down", to "oh shit - okay well this clarifies things in the overall WIP narrative" etc. The result of that was Let Me Get What I Want (Tim x Javi x OFC + surprise guest), which took over my life for many weeks and I ended posting it as a one shot intro to the full series.

Nothing That I Didn't Know is my 'baby' (very first fic I wrote and the only reader insert series I have) and it wrote itself by merely announcing it to me. I knew the smut would happen in the restroom (which I've been very annoyed about tbh because it makes everything so much harder than it would be in a bedroom setting, but I can't 'convince' the characters to change it - they won't let me), and part of the specific way they'd end up fucking in there. But because they 'showed' me how that was going to be, it is now hard to properly write the transition of making out to them getting handsy/let's call it foreplay and to finally segway into how they're gonna fuck. You know what I mean? I've rewritten parts of it already three times and it's still not quite hitting right -- so, THAT annoys the fuck out of me. I feel like I can't just throw something at it and call it a day, because the characters will just glare at me and tell me it's wrong.

As for inspiration... literally from anywhere, including experiences/desires and other people's fics, but also things that just pop in my head - but I wouldn't say there's a specific inspiration source. I'm not a Bellesa House person, but it's definitely happened that I've watched porn and go like 'oh shit, this would totally be Frankie or Joel or Santi', and it'll give me a general idea that I file somewhere in my brain or write just a few lines down, then promptly forget until I run into it months later. What I do have happen is that when I end up writing a scene and I've got a very specific idea for it/that popped up in my brain, I'll go look for some porn videos that match that vibe or position/kink, just to game play it a little when I write it into my fic.

And every now and then I swear I'm just gonna buy a bunch of those wooden art model mannequins with movable limbs/joints, just so I can keep track of where everybody is at during threesomes. LOL

this was a completely unhinged chaotic brain dump to try to track my process, sorry for that - but you ASKED. LOL.

Question for Fic Writers

So I'm curious about something. If you write smut, how do you come up with the scene/scenario?

For me it just sort of comes to me when I'm thinking about my characters. Like especially for my chaptered series, I'll be thinking about the characters and their progression and then a smut idea for them will just pop into my head like a movie scene. I rarely feel like I'm struggling to come up with a scene bc my brain just sort of fills in the blanks if that makes sense?

But I wanna know about other writers. Do you have a kink/trope you want to write and just fit it in wherever? Are you writing from irl experiences? Do you just have a specific type of smut you want and then write for it? Do you see something on Bellesa House and want to recreate it (LMAO)? Do you have people requesting a certain fantasy/kink/trope and write based off that?

Please share bc I'm super curious!

Sound off in the comments or reblog with extended commentary if you're a yapper like me.

full pressure tags (if I forgot anybody I'm sorry!):

@frannyzooey @ezrasbirdie @joelscruff @atticrissfinch @perotovar

@swiftispunk @kedsandtubesocks @chronically-ghosted @ghostofaboy @ghoulettesinspace

@toxicanonymity @umnitsa @quinnnfabrgay @bizarrelove-triangle @ozarkthedog

@agentmarcuspike @beardedjoel @magpiepills @noxturnalpascal @beelzebeth87

@not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @sp00kymulderr @luxurychristmaspudding @janaispunk @max--phillips

@covetyou @strang3lov3 @iamasaddie @iamskyereads @cavillscurls

@hier--soir @romanarose @goodwithcheese @neverwheremoonchild @netherfeildren

@beefrobeefcal @for-a-longlongtime @burntheedges @missredherring @qveerthe0ry

@grogusmum @prolix-yuy @demonsandbullets @leslie-lyman

[artistrybyarielle]

Me: *sees Richard Chamberlain*

Me: Will there ever be a more iconic Aramis?

Me: *sees Igor Starygin*

Me: Will there ever be a more iconic Aramis?

Me: *sees Santiago Cabrera*

Me: Will there ever-

[ohheyitsokay]

first base

part 6 of the ‘hey batter batter’ series

pairing: Francisco Morales (Frankie, Catfish) x reader

wordcount: 2.7k

warnings: strong language, illusions to part trauma

summary: it’s a Triple Frontier Baseball AU! Trust me, you don’t need ot know anything about baseball.

In this chapter, the guys start to explain baseball both as a game and a career to the reader, and Frankie takes a step in the right direction instead of running.

>> 

It was Francisco’s idea for someone to walk you to your car, but Will ended up doing it, his mind too lost in thought for his usually sharp eyes to see. They missed the drop in Frankie’s shoulders, the tilt of Santi's head, and the way that even after the goodbyes, your fingers waved an extra  wave at just one of them before you turned away. He didn’t say anything as you walked and thanked him again for inviting you to his grandparents with everyone, and apologized for James’ absence.

“Thank you,” he said finally, his accent was more pronounced and you almost thought he was going to shake your hand before he pulled you into a rough hug.

“What for?” the Millers, you were learning, were physically affectionate, but there was something in the way he did it, something in the way he said it that made you pause.

“The other night, and,” he shrugged, for once not quite knowing what to say, and you could almost see the words swimming behind his deep blue eyes. With a content sigh, you perched on the edge of the hood of your car, settling in for a real conversation with William Miller. Ironhead, they told you, a golden top athlete and responsible older of Ben, and the whole group. There was a huff, as he acknowledged it, smiling a little bit.

“You guys protect him,” you offered, and he crossed his arms, leaning next to you. Will blinked, then uncrossed his arms again.

“Yeah,” his hands moved along the grooves of the car, as if he was concentrated on being open with you. “We have to.”

“You’re his big brother.” 

You didn’t ask, but they’re not? but it was implied. The sturdy first-baseman stilled, looking right at you. If this had been less of a conversation, it would have occurred to him that the prolonged time alone with you was creating a curiosity what was killing his friend inside.

“We were all him, a few years ago,” his eyes felt like they were boring into yours, intense in a comforting way, like he would ask permission before peering into your soul. “High on attention, moving too fast to think, caught up in the parties and girls and... all of it.”

Nodding while he talked, you muttered not relatable underneath his voice and he half smiled as he continued. Still, you understood what he was getting at.

“It got bad,” he said it like he had rehearsed it, or maybe had said it before. “Redfly wants it back, bigger, better. He could do it, too, if…” Will talked with his hands just enough to wave off the end of that sentence. “We all made mistakes. Did shit we aren’t proud of. Still sort of recovering from that. Just… don’t like seeing him make some of the same choices.”

“He’s got a big heart,” you said, asking not for confirmation, but out of curiosity. He grinned, breaking his frustrated reminiscing and nodded.

“You’re good for him,” he pushed off the car, a signal that he said what he needed to. Another hug, and at the same time as you said, “I like you guys,” you could’ve sworn he added, “For all of us.”

Pulling back, you stared, but he didn’t repeat himself, and you finished your goodbyes. The drive home, you forgot to turn on the radio the whole drive, thinking.

There was a place for you, with those five boys, it wasn’t a crazy once-in-a-lifetime thing. And maybe it was time to stop fighting it.

-

There was nothing about Francisco that you didn’t like – except he spilled your secret.

I actually don’t know anything about baseball.

Frankie was mad he shared it, too. His daydreams of having you pressed against his side – or better yet, in his lap – as he explained the beautiful game to you dwindled before his eyes. His friends were yelling, indignant, and excited. Already the evening was being planned, to watch a game and explain it to you and with resignation he knew they were all looking forward to it.

So, two evenings later, he found himself trying to get a seat next to yours on the little couch of Santi's rental. You brought snacks and a recording James had given you, and were wearing an old team tshirt that made his heart flip over in his chest.

It was silly, how eagerly they all waited for the recording to start, just boys excited to strut their stuff and show off.

“So exactly how much do you know?” Will was on your other side, the most relaxed of the bunch, sipping something fizzy. He seemed amused, more than anything.

“Let’s just assume I know nothing,” you shrugged. They were sure that wasn’t true, but it made it more fun.

“That’s me!” Santiago said, raising his eyebrows and pointing. It was, which you obviously knew, but you asked for it. Tom, who was gripping a beer while hovering by the food and texting, coughed a laugh.

“Okay, smart-ass,” you grabbed a handful of candy off the coffee table and threw one at Santi’s head. “You’re the pitcher. What do you do, other than throw the ball?”

He caught it, grinning, before Ben chimed in.

“Nothing.”

Santi made an offended noise in the back of his throat. He explained it to you – he was in control, throwing the ball in different ways to manipulate the batter.

“So, if all goes well, the batter misses and you catch it,” your eyes found Frankie’s, confirming, and he shrugged, more focused on restraining himself from pulling you against him. They then explained, strikes were good, but sometimes it was equally good to make the batter hit it badly.

“What’s a bat hit, at this level?”

Benny’s chest swelled a little with pride as he said anything he could catch. They corrected him – anything anyone could catch. That would give the other team an “out" faster than three strikes.

His voice was deep, but his laughter was lighter as Benny launched into a story like a overgrown kid trying to share. You could barely follow it as he jumped around and the others began to interject the pieces that he missed. It made you smile, how passionate they were about what they did.

Frankie saw a chance in the midst of the loud conversation, swallowed hard, and took it, sliding a little bit closer to you. He kept his voice low, as he explained that he and Pope would communicate the plan with hand signals. It was a gift from them, really, to let him show them you, your eyes alight as you looked at his broad, scarred hands.

The snap of the ball hitting a bat broke the moment, and all of you turned back towards the screen. Tom tuned in, telling you what he did in the outfield – mostly standing and running and catching and throwing – before he excused himself and slipped out. There was a joke somewhere, about the differences between infielders and outfielders, but no one made it.

You watched a tiny version of Will hit the ball, and the camera followed it as if flew all the way over the heads of the opposing team, past the fence and into the crowd.

“A home run?” That was one thing you didn’t really need to ask, but Will looked proud, anyway.

“Who has the record?” The real question, executed with raised brows and a conspiring sip of your drink as Santi made a face at you. At this point, you had their measure - jealousy wasn’t stronger that their comradery. 

Your elbow bumped Frankie’s ribs and even though it didn’t hurt, he winced. “Will,” he said, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“It’ll be me in a few years,” Benny added with his wide smile, not even trying to dodge the pillows and pretzels thrown at his face.

“Sore subject?” eyes in Frankie’s, it made him thaw -that you were talking just to him.

“I’m a bad batter.” It was the truth. It wasn’t really in his skill set and he normally didn’t mind because it meant he had to do it less, but… he really didn’t like letting you down. It didn’t seem like you really cared, though, he hoped with all his heart that he wasn’t hallucinating when you slid closer to him. You made a joke about how you would certainly be worse, and his daydream about teaching you returned in force.

“Actually,” Santi’s quiet voice seemed more thoughtful than teasing, and he leaned in so only Frankie could hear him. “Recently you’ve been better,” he punched his friend’s arm and added, “Because you’ve got a good luck charm.”

They both looked at you, squinting at the screen and comparing your score sheet to the correct one.

“I guess so,” Frankie’s tone was just as thoughtful.

-

Throughout the evening all the remaining men were affectionate with you, and it was weirding you out. You had just gotten used to being friends with minor celebrities, and now? 

It may have been the fact that you were just letting them show off their skills but something had definitely changed. It was like it was settled, your place with them, your value to them. Ben had sat in front of you, and asked you to run your fingers through his hair like you had before, as he explained what a shortstop did. He played it off like he didn’t do much, genuinely humble – but as it turned out, they were the most valuable player on the team, the core to communication and guidance. It was sweet, that he got so excited to share it with you, and accidentally let it all spill out.

Will remembered your drink, and teased you more than he ever had, letting himself banter with you and Santi.

Their hands were on your shoulders, ruffling your hair, on your arm, your knees, brushing or squeezing like they were trying to communicate to you how thankful they were that you actually cared. It was nice, but most of all, it was comfortable. It reinforced what Will had laid the foundation for - you really were a part of this, for the long haul.

Best of all was how close you were against the solid warmth of Francisco’s side. His arm was over the top of the couch, respectfully, and his fingers caught on your shoulder and the tips of your hair, like his restraint was crumbling. 

When the game was over and the Miller boys faked yawns and slipped out, the weight of his arm settled, finally, and you leaned into him. Soon, you would have to pull away, pretend you hadn’t wanted to cuddle him fully so you wouldn’t overstay your welcome, but it was hard when it seemed like he wanted you to stay, too. 

You made the time less awkward for Santi, though, since your final question was for the two of them, anyway.

“Will talked to me the other day, about before.” They snapped to attention, looking at you cautiously. “Would you guys… tell me, sometime? About all of it?” Knowing what you meant, the air was thick as they exchanged glances.

They didn’t have time for it all. Frankie’s hand fidgeted on your shoulder, and his grip on you tightened. You reached up and touched his hand, a reassurance, or maybe insurance for his overthinking mind, before you forced yourself to pull away. It didn’t need to be right now.

“Yeah, if you want,” Santiago was a man prone to talking, charming, working his was out of unpleasant situations. He fought the instinct. 

It came out haltingly, the high of their success, and how each one of them had crashed down in their own way. They didn’t share too many details of the other men just themselves, and how it had felt.

For Santi, he threw himself into the game, overworking his mind and body until his knees gave out. It cost him a small fortune in treatments, a lost contract with his last team, and forced him into a break with his long term girlfriend. He thought his life was over, shot straight into the ground, and ended up in continuous therapy for both his mind as well as his knees. Will dated a girl who was in it for the wrong reasons, had his proposal on tabloid covers before he saw it, and locked himself away. Tom drank himself into a quiet, secretive 30 day rebab. 

It was the hardest to share - Frankie’s drug use, his spiral as he balanced the two extreme sides of his life. He mentioned his family, his sister and he baby like weights on his shoulders, and his eyes told you and Pope both that he would tell you more later, when and if you wanted him too.

They each had been devastated by their mistakes, and you were almost in awe of them as they talked about keeping each other accountable, building and holding each other up, these past few years. There was plenty, like Will said, that was still healing, still being worked on, but it was amazing to see how far they’d come.

Francisco watched you closely, also fighting himself internally. It was a miracle you hadn’t run away, and he could see it like a sunrise on the horizon - hope. An actual real chance that he would get a shot with you, a real shot without secrets and faking it and anxiety. 

You were thanking them both, hands cleaning up as you asked them if there was anything you should be conscious of in the future. He wasn’t jealous when Pope hugged you for a beat longer than normal, and he had to smile at his friend’s excitement as he talked about what baseball had become to them, and how tight their friendships were.

“Now you’re stuck with us,” Santi really meant it, and Frankie made a sound so you knew he agreed.

His mind was running as you walked together to your cars, but the feel of you wouldn’t leave his chest and he couldn’t stop just... talking to you. 

The conversation had turned back to the game, and your growing love for it had nothing on his growing feelings for you. When you stopped at your car, he couldn’t bring himself to keep going, to move past and head home. The flow of words lulled and he found himself hovering close to you, above you like he had in the kitchen of your abuelo’s home. Your eyes flickered across his face, and he watched your tongue wet your lips subconsciously, and it was all over.

 Frankie pulled you into him, kissing you as gently as he could manage. He meant for you to be able to pull away, if you wanted to - if it was too much, all of the information. You didn’t take it, kissing him back and letting him press into you until your back was against the cool metal of the car. 

When you had watched them play, really watched and understood, Frankie had loved the way you looked at him, had thought nothing would feel better than your adoration. 

He was wrong. 

Feeling you in his arms, pinned between his body and your car, kissing him back like you wanted this as much as he did was the most intense thing he’d ever experienced. 

Pulling back, his voice was rough as he asked you if you’d want to talk, sometimes soon, just you and him. You were just as breathless as he was, and your affirmation felt as good as a homerun. When he stepped fully back so you could open the driver’s side door, your head ducked as you smiled at him, and he wanted to eat you alive. 

But he let you go, and as you drove away he thought about stealing after you, but he didn’t. There was a time and place for that, but after such a  perfect moment, Frankie was content biding his time. He still had more work to do. 

>>

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[peralta-guaranteed]

Jake and amy putting presents under the tree while mac's asleep at Christmas

“You need to be quiet! He’s gonna wake up!”

“I am being quiet, Jake, and nothing short of an earthquake is gonna wake that kid up after the day he had at the softplay centre.” Amy gives him a quick glare, setting the first laundry basket of gifts hidden high up in their bedroom closet down on the couch.

They usually go to the Santiago family home for christmas - a massive affair of the whole gang, especially for Nochebuena - and end up bringing only a select few of the gifts Mac receives because hiding things in a car for a three hour drive with the most inquisitive toddler in the world is kind of difficult. But this year, some disastrous shift shuffling and a case that had Jake working until 11pm yesterday when they were supposed to start their drive at 5pm meant that they had to cancel those plans, and only ended up facetiming abuela and abuelo for a while until the grandkids that were at their house pulled their attention away. Amy’s worried that Mac will feel sad about it all - he loves to meet his cousins, and the uncles that throw him around and roughhouse with him, and the grandparents that keep feeding him sweets before Jake can steal them away - so she’s tried to keep him occupied with their own version of celebrations, spending the day before christmas morning at his favourite softplay space, getting hot chocolate from that little cafe with the sweet kids corner, and allowing for four instead of 3 extra chicken nuggets with his veggie dinner.

Seeing the mountain of gifts they’re currently collecting on the couch, though, lets her know that Mac is not going to be missing anything at all.

Terry, Rosa and Charles, all working just as late as Jake, had handed their gifts to them yesterday instead of waiting until after Christmas to give them to Mac at the precinct like they usually do. Captain Holt and Kevin had presented their gift a week ago, of course, to be as polite as possible. Karen had brought over her own little basket of gifts a few days ago, ignoring her son’s pleas of ‘not spoiling Mac like that’ like a proper grandma should. Even Gina had sent something via singing + dancing messenger, which Mac was absolutely delighted about even if he didn’t get to open the box yet, and Amy’s parents had promised to overnight as much of the family gifts as they could without breaking the bank.

Adding all that together - plus, of course, the most sensible gifts he’s getting from his parents, who’ve handed out all the actually fun gift requests to their friends and family - amounts to a good two and a half laundry baskets of packages that Jake and Amy are now standing in front of.

“If we stack them all right, it’s probably gonna be taller than Mac himself.”

“If we stack them, it’s gonna be taller than the tree.” Amy eyes their little christmas set up in the corner of their living room, barely up to her hip - they’ve never really needed a bigger one, and there wasn’t any space for it in a Brooklyn apartment anyway.

“We could make an arch over the tree.”

“Some of these things are breakable, Jake, and Mac is gonna topple that arch in seconds.”

“Why are we getting breakable things for mini-Hulk?!”

Amy sighs before an idea blinks into her head.

“Easter egg hunt.” She says with a grin that rivals the Peralta one, and Jake only gives her a questioning eyebrow raise.

“Wrong holiday, babe.”

“No. Imagine. We hide the gifts all over the apartment. The smaller ones, at least.”

Jake’s eyes light up from her explanation. Mac has been the most inquisitive toddler they’ve ever known, able to take apart pretty much anything to find out how it works, climb up things they never imagined as climbable, and generally being a perfect little detective in the making.

Having him hunt for his presents instead of simply presenting them in the living room will make sure Christmas morning entertainment will be pretty much sorted.

“Ames, you are a genius.”

-*-

It takes a lot longer hiding gifts in places that a toddler could safely find, but also won’t discover in the first few seconds, than simply putting them under a tree. It is a massive amount of fun, though, as well, as Jake and Amy keep exclaiming to have found the perfect place for the next box, giggling about hiding things behind curtains and under cushions. Amy has started a list to keep track of what hides where, so they don’t randomly forget a box tomorrow. Jake, meanwhile, has been a bit shifty, disappearing into the bedroom once or twice - where they’ve agreed not to hide any of the gifts in fear of Mac absolutely wrecking the place to find them. When all the boxes are stashed, and Amy sticks the list behind the to do schedule on their fridge, she gets a quick peck on the nose. “You go first in the bathroom.” He says, totally not suspiciously, when they usually share the bathroom for their night routine. “I’m gonna check in on Mac first. We were pretty noisy after all.”

No we weren’t, Amy thinks, and you’re not fooling anyone, but only nods and tries not to smile when she catches him with an awkwardly wrapped tiny box in his hands through the only half-closed bathroom door. She pretends not to notice when he slips under the covers almost an hour later than her.

-*-

Christmas gift hunt might have to become a new tradition for the coming years.

Mac is absolutely going crazy toddling through the place, Amy or Jake in tow to make sure he doesn’t break anything or hurt himself, squealing and giggling and running back to show off the next box he’s found. The stash around the couch keeps growing, and half of them haven’t even been opened yet, because he drops them and immediately runs off to search for the next one instead.

He even finds the one hidden behind all the pots and pans in the kitchen cabinet, a hiding place Amy definitely didn’t notice Jake picking, but he’s the one sorting all of that stuff back into the cabinet, so she can’t complain much.

They all end up cuddled together on the couch several hours later, still in their pyjamas although it’s almost noon, with Mac making vroom noises along with the new toy car he’s gotten from Charles.

“Absolutely brilliant idea, Ames.”

“Yeah. I’m glad we found all of them now, though. It’s almost time for lunch, and we promised to call my parents after...” She trails off as Mac hops off her lap to find another one of his new toys to play with, giving Jake an almost apologetic look. “We can do our own gift exchange tonight, maybe? When things have calmed down?”

“Mh, I don’t know.” Jake grins at her in the most mischievous way, and she kind of knows what’s coming, but she’s still getting nervous. “I have your gift right here.”

He holds up a little envelope that Amy snatches out of his hands maybe a tad too quickly - that is definitely not the box she saw him hold yesterday.

“Is it a coupon?” She asks, trying to play along, but Jake’s rolling eyes tells her he knows the jig is up as well.

“Open it and see, no guessing.”

So she does, and unfolds a wonkily folded paper to reveal -

a handwritten crossword puzzle.

“I suppose it’s not really a gift.” Jake explains. “But I think you’ll find that the clue at the end is going to lead you to one.”

-*-

It takes her pretty much their entire lunch to solve it. The little clues are about them, of course - some reaching as far back as their early dates, and she half considers texting Rosa to ask for help with some things, but then again insists she can do it herself. (Mac helps, though - practically shouting a few of the answers that seem to be geared towards him, as Jake only grins and feeds him some more brokkoli.)

She practically jumps from the table when the final word clue is revealed to be ‘paperstacks’, and races over to her desk. How she didn’t notice the little box hiding between her binders during Mac’s hunt through the apartment is beyond her.

Jake walks over with Mac on his hip as she unwraps it, clicks the velvet box hidden under the gift paper open to reveal her favourite necklace - the one Mac’s grabby hands broke over a year ago, ‘irreparable’, the jeweler she went to had said, and that she’d dropped into her jewelry box with a sad sigh. It’s joined by matching little golden earstuds.

“You fixed-...?”

“No, I asked the goldsmith we got it from and even she said she couldn’t mend it. But she did have another one from that discontinued collection, and the new earrings that match.”

She smiles at him with the biggest Aww expression on her face before kissing him, and Mac in his arms squeals.

“Y’found it!” He yells, repeating what they’ve been saying to him all morning whenever he came back with a new box. “A gift!”

“Yeah.” Amy laughs as he leans over to switch from Daddy’s arms into hers. “I did. I found the best gift ever.”

“So cheesy, Ames.” Jake quips, but his smile and his soft eyes show that he’s more than agreeing with her.

[guessimwritingficsagain]

To be seen, part Three (Frankie Morales x Reader)

Summary : The birthday party comes and goes. You're pining but get a grim reminder that Frankie has a daughter (and a spouse ?). You want to take a step back from that blooming relationship but things don't go according to plan. You want to surprise Jessie with a nice present.

Author’s note : I rewrote this thing like 4 times but here we are. Just so we are clear, we are NOT about to have a lot triangle between OFC, Frankie, and random new character James. I just want OFC to have some wholesome relationships and to be her own person besides her new relationship with Frankie and the boys (which, btw, a writer, a friend of mine actually, told me "sometimes you write about what you can't have" and boy didn't that hurt because I'm currently in the process of grieving a friendship that could have been so good if not for the fact that we have very different ways of seeing friendship ... so I guess that James comes from that, a little). The former version had Frankie being more forward but I do like a slooooow burn and also it felt OOC.

Anyway,

the song Sweet is by Porridge Radio.

The song Canción sin Miedo is by Vivir Quintana.

The French radio that only plays women, trans and NB people is a real thing : it's called Radio Tempête and I like it very much. Give it a try !

There had been questions. Linda had grilled you hard and actually told you to go for it. It felt nice, all of it, up until you’d asked Linda why she was here. She'd grown sheepish.

« I need a new start. A change of pace. And I- I miss you, not, you know, like that, but I miss my friend, and I figured a new start with an old friend, that could be nice. »

You’d nodded, wondering if there was something she was not telling you, but figuring she’d get to it in her own time. In the meantime, she was here. And it was nice. She got along immediately with both Jessie and Anna and could make Phil laugh like no one else. Still, there were things that you couldn’t bring yourself to tell her. You two had a history, just like you had with Jessie and Anna, but not the same kind and five years was a long time not to see each other.

That’s why you waited until Linda was playing with Clara to tell Jessie, quietly :

« That fifth guy who used to hang out with the boys ? »

Jessie looked surprised. She was usually the one fishing for information. You knew why you were telling her that : to share the epiphany you had, to remind her, and yourself, that these men were real people. And maybe, just maybe, to remind her in a way that there was a real world out there.

« He’s dead. »

The air grew quiet at that. You looked at her face. She nodded, juste the once. And then, never brought the boys up the way she used to. She asked for news, once in a while, but never again in the giddy way she used to do it.

———

Right. So maybe, maybe, you’d gone a little overboard with that birthday party, but the kid had lost her father a year ago and she deserved nice things.

Right ?

They didn’t have to know the bar didn’t actually own fancy, festive plates and an army of balloons. Besides, everybody had pitched in. And Phil had made an extra nice menu. It’d been a team effort, really. Except that when Linda came in to grab a coffee after work - she was working at the local bookstore and that made your heart clench a little - she raised her eyebrows and said :

« You said seventeen, right ? Because I think you’re going for seven, here. »

So. You were a bit nervous, which, what the hell ?? They weren’t your friends. They were paying consumers. Except you were fooling yourself there because you were pretty sure that paying consumers didn’t quite cover it.

But when Santi came in with her, the girl swallowed by a huge scarf to protect her from November’s chilly air, you saw the smile on her face, you knew it’d been worth it. Santi actually came and hugged you and whispered « thank you, Starbuck » before giving Anna a high-five.

Yeah, the Starbuck thing had stuck. And you might have started calling Santiago Santi.

You were introduced to the birthday girl -Sarah- who was lovely and perhaps, you realized quickly, a tiny bit smitten with Anna, in a when-I-grow-up-I-wanna-be-her kind of way. Anna, of course, was completely oblivious. They sat down at the counter first, waiting for their friends to get here, her with a coke, him with a beer, and you were content to just let them be. It was a moment you felt was too private for your tentative relationship.

Sarah hugged Frankie as he came in and you did not let your mind wonder what it would feel like. Beers to serve. Mind out of the gutter. But he came to find you, and he looked at you with those soft eyes and he leaned in a bit and you couldn’t help but smile. And he smiled back, elbows on the counter, so close.

« You didn’t have to do all that. »

His voice was barely a whisper, and you answered the same way :

« I know. »

He was looking at you like he was seeing you and you got that warm feeling again, at the center of your belly. There was nothing, for a few seconds, except his brown eyes, until Anna cleared her throat and you were reminded you were at work. You turned back to get a beer for Frankie, but were interrupted again by a hand on your arm. Anna was looking at you and asked, as quietly as possible :

« What was that ? »

Her eyes were kind, there was no teasing in her voice but you shrugged the question off anyway. You didn’t know what that was. And it wasn’t the time nor the place.

———

The birthday party had been a success, and the night would have been perfect if not for Phil’s pragmatism. He knew you, he could tell, and your little admission a while back, when under the fire of Linda’s questioning that maybe you had a tiny little crush hadn’t fooled him.

Oh, the mortifying ordeal of being known.

He’d came up to you when you’d been cleaning the coffee machine and he’d said :

« He has a kid, you know that. »

He’d left it at that, knowing it was enough.

And that was just the thing, right : you knew. And with kids usually came a spouse. He probably had a lovely one, someone pretty and smart and funny and soft just like he was. So you’d decided to take some emotional distance, just to keep it professional. Paying costumers, after all.

Of course you were fooling yourself, you were protecting yourself from something that had the possibility to break you heart. And that, that was the worst part, the scary part, because you remembered vividly not thinking about Linda that way and then she’d said I like you, I really like you, you know, in a way that makes me want to make out with you. And you’d realized you liked her in a way that made you want to make out with her too. Back then the closet had been a thing, a hard one to get out of, even though your parents loved you unconditionally, no matter how many tattoos they disapproved of covered your body, no matter who you dated. You just hadn’t realized what you’d felt for her until she’d spelled it out for you. It’d been beautiful and simple and safe.

Here, though, you were thirsting on a man a tiny bit older than you, who had a daughter, who was probably married. And you’d been avoiding thinking about that, and he never mentioned anyone. But you knew you needed to get a grip on those spiraling feelings.

You needed to refocus, and in doing so, you realized something that filled you with shame and guilt : you’d overlooked Jessie entirely. The Christmas Holidays were coming up and you hadn’t made any plans with her. You’d been so caught up in your world that, for the first time in years, you forgot about her. The fact she worked day shifts and you night shifts now meant that you saw less of each other. And since Linda got here, and the boys were around more, and you didn’t need to babysit Clara as much, you’d seen even less of her.

But you had a plan.

———

The plan showed up on your doorstep a few days later, greeting you when you opened the door with :

« I hope you finally threw away that ugly couch and that the new one is comfortable. »

Here he stood, in all of his stupid glory : James. Their parents probably had a weird sense of humor to call their first born Jessie and their second one James. Or maybe you had a weird sense of humor for noticing it.

Here’s a bit of a backstory : James was your age, and you’d actually been friends since you were ten. Attached-to-the-hip kind of friends. I-don’t-care-about-anyone-else kind of friends. He used to be your only friend, back then, because he was just enough. Jessie, being five years older, had no real interest in you whatsoever so you only befriended her later, when her ass of an ex-husband skipped town and you got a panicked call from James one morning asking if you could help his sister to find a job because she used to be a stay-at-home mom and now she really needed the cash. James couldn’t come home to help her, so you’d had to help Jessie. Not that it’d been a problem.

And James, James was spectacular in the way he never settled for anything. He’d left home to go to Harvard and then became a bloody CIA agent because why not. Except he hadn’t liked that so he’d quit the bloody CIA and opened a restaurant in Washington. The President of the United States of America ate there, on a regular basis.

(Sometimes, when life got too hard and you got too caught up in your own mind, and you felt you weren’t enough, you wondered why a man like that bothered to skype you twice a month, and one time, drunk and alone on your birthday, you’d left him a voicemail asking him that very thing and he’d given you so much shit for that you never asked again. You were his girl, forever and always.)

So you’d called him, explained the whole Jessie thing, and the guilt that came with it.

Now there he was, ready to hide in your apartment while you got everything set to give your girl Jessie the surprise she deserved. You let Phil and Anna in on the secret that was James, just so he could come to the bar when he wanted and no one would tell Jessie about it.

That’s how you found yourself jumping slightly at the abrupt change of a song, one night at the bar, and you declared, knowing who it was :

« Costumers don’t get to change the music. »

The only answer you got was a laugh. You turned around to see James, bending over the counter to get to the computer, all crinkled eyes and white teeth.

« Don’t tell me you don’t like hearing Sweet. » He quipped.

« I like that song », you explained as you secretly rejoiced in hearing the familiar notes. « But that doesn’t mean you get to play anything you want. I know you, you get too comfortable. »

He sat down at the bar, a bit away from the boys who were joking and laughing at the counter. Benny had won his fight and got a girl’s number so it was a good night for him, the kind of night you didn’t want to intrude on. Except you wished you could, and that, that was a red flag in itself because usually, when James was around, there was nobody else in the world but you still thought about Frankie, about how you wished you were sitting on the other side of the counter, pressed against him, laughing at whatever it was that had been said. Paying consumers, right ?

You’d been serving beers left and right, only stopping a moment to get another round to the boys when you heard :

« Where the fuck is that French radio playlist ? You know, radio that only plays songs by women, trans and non-binary people ? I know you have one, can’t seem to find it. »

« James. »

You turned around. He was standing behind the counter.

« How on earth did you get there ? »

« I jumped. You were busy, didn’t see it. Anyway. That playlist ? There’s some good shit on that. Though we might want to avoid the songs too obviously sexual, right ? »

You let out the biggest sigh. Of course he'd jumped. Of course he’d find that absolutely normal. You waived him away and got to find the playlist.

« I wanna hear Canción sin Miedo. » He added, all but propped up on the counter.

« Get down. Also your accent is shit. » You hissed. You complied, though.

As the Mexican song started playing, Will gave you a look.

« That’s Jessie’s brother. » You explained, your voice still a touch exasperated.

« But that’s a secret. » James added, still very much sitting on the counter. He smiled and said : « Hi, I’m James. Like Bond. James Bond. Nobody ever saw the two of us in the same room, by the way. »

He winked and you ugly snorted.

———

The noise was overwhelming and the place reeked of beer and sweat but Anna was steering you gently through the crowd and Linda’s hand was grounding, on your shoulder. MMA fights were not your scene but Benny had asked and Anna had said yes before you could get a word in. You’d called Linda in a panic, muttering you know how I get in crowded spaces and she’d offered to come.

You still didn’t know how Anna managed to get your boss to give you both the day off for that but you were glad.

You heard Benny come in more than you saw him, and Anna guided you to the place where Santi, Frankie and Will were. Santi made a jab at Linda, who laughed it off and introduced herself at the others. She was blending in with ease, as always. You, though, felt lost, until you sensed someone right next to you. Lifting your head, you saw Frankie hand you a drink, before his hand came and gently grabbed your arm, guiding you to a sit right next to him.

« You okay ? » he asked in your ear, close enough that you could feel his breath, his hand still on your arm.

You explained right in his own ear :

« Crowed spaces. »

You felt his hand give a squeeze and, without thinking, tapped his thigh in a way you hoped would convey your thanks. Then, you held onto your drink for dear life, as Benny started beating the shit out of the other guy.

———

Benny was breaking down his fight, as the other men pitched in with a comment, once in a while. You hadn't exactly enjoyed the fight, but Frankie's presence and explanations had made the whole thing better. You drew the line, though, at debriefing, so you turned to Linda :

« So, how was your date ? »

« Nice. »

« Nice ? Just nice ? But she was bloody gorgeous. You showed me pictures ! »

You weren’t as quiet as you thought you were because next think you knew, Anna was leaning in, wiggling eyebrows, and the rest of the table grew awfully quiet. You turned to see all the eyes on you.

« Who was bloody gorgeous ? » Santi inquired.

« My date. »

Everybody was listening, now. You motioned her to go ahead.

« Well, her yoga lessons came in handy, if you know what I mean but … yeah … yoga. Pilates. Rabbit food. »

« Well, you still got her to do some yoga » you replied with a wink.

That got Anna to spit her drink.

« She was plenty good at that, but, yeah. »

She shrugged and too a sip of her beer.

« Wait, she ?»

So yeah, Santi hadn’t caught on the Linda’s a lesbian train yet. Though to be fair, he’d seen her once, twice counting tonight.

« Got a problem with that ? » Linda asked.

You felt the tension roll off of her and you couldn’t blame her. You never really knew how people were going to take your coming out, no matter how well you knew the person. And she didn’t know Santi at all.

He hurriedly shook his head.

« No, I just didn’t expect it, is all. »

He lit up, then, and you could almost see the bad idea that came to his mind.

(Maybe you were starting to know him after all.)

« I could be your wingman, and you my wingwoman. »

« No fucking way, Santiago. »

You laughed as you listened to Linda give a few more details, sweet Anna beaming in awe as the discussion went to Linda’s great adventures in dating.

« So, you’re a serial dater. » the younger woman exclaimed.

« She was never good at settling » you confirmed.

Linda turned to you and, with mock outrage, asked :

« Never good at settling ? Do those two years with you mean nothing ? »

You laughed and she laughed and Anna laughed and Benny all but shrieked :

« You two dated ??? »

That only made your belly clench even more, the laughter an unstoppable force, Linda warm by your side, Anna crying from laughter, Santi and his existential crisis because he’d hit on a lesbian and suddenly everything made sense because nobody said no to Santiago - at least that was what your were feeling he was thinking. And Benny, just confused, said :

« I didn’t know you swung that way. »

The sentence was meant for you, you knew that, but before you could calm down, another voice, one you’d recognize anywhere, anytime, answered for you :

« Oh, she swings every fucking way, right, baby ? »

You turned around sharply and there he was, again, James. Right on time. He settled right next to you, his warmth a comforting presence. You swallowed the anxiety down. Everything would be alright.

And everything was.

Because fifteen minutes later, Jessie was coming in, Clara in her arms, wondering what the emergency Phil called about was. You would forever remember the look on her face when she saw her brother sitting right there. The blinding smile, the way James took Clara in his arms and cooed.

It was going to be a good night (again).

———

« That was real nice of you », Frankie mumbled. « What you did back there, with Jessie and her bother. »

You’d stepped out to have a smoke and he’d joined you, hands in pockets, just standing there, not close enough to touch you but close enough that you could feel him.

« You two seem close », he stated after a bit.

That wasn’t jealousy. That you could tell.

« He’s my best friend, I guess. »

« He seems nice », Frankie stated. « A bit over the top but then again, I’m friends with Pope so … »

You had a flashback, then, of your first encounter with Benny, and asked :

« What’s with the nicknames anyway ? »

« We served … » Frankie started. You cut him off.

« Yeah, I know, but. What does it mean ? »

Frankie just smiled, then, took a step closer to you, shoulders brushing. You felt hot, all of a sudden.

« A callsign is trust » he explained and then quietly added :

« Starbuck »

You managed to keep it together. You kept it together because paying consumers. You kept it together because that man had a daughter and was probably married and what he’d just said was said out of friendliness.

[erzherzog-von-edelstein]

I would love to know more about Prussia and Chile!

So this has been sitting in my inbox for a very long time, so I’m sorry. But here we go, because this is a relationship I have strong feelings about:

- I am going to give a very quick summary of who Chile is, because I don’t explore him much on this blog. He’s much more present on my LatAm blog. So, the quick version of Santiago: He’s a man of few words, but many thoughts. He grew up with big ambitions, but being often overlooked. Once he was independent, he decided to pursue his ambitions at the expense of his neighbors.

- The first time he met Gil, it was actually because Chile was approaching France about military training. He knew that after he needed military expertise in case he came into conflict with the bigger military threats in South America. But while he was in Europe he also visited Berlin. Seeing a Prussian military parade stuck in his head.

- After the War of the Pacific (which he won, but wanted to be better), Chile thought that he needed a military mentor. And based on the previous experience, he reached out to Gilbert.

- Now, Gil was not in a position where he wanted to take on a student. It was 1885, and he was in the process of finding the right balance of being a brother to Ludwig and stepping back to let Ludwig be independent. His initial reaction was to say no and to tell Chile to find someone else.

- It took a half year of Chile persistently showing up on his doorstep and trying to convince him for Gil to take him seriously. Once he realized that Chile was determined, he took some time to talk to him and get to know him. Once he heard about Chile’s success against his neighbors, he saw the potential and changed his mind.

- On a personal level, once he got to know Chile he started feeling a more personal connection. Chile was a young man with military prowess, ambition, and the determination to make his mark. Gilbert relates to that, because that’s who he was at that age. He didn’t have a close mentor at that age, so he decided to be that for Chile. 

- The “trial period” of military training turned into nearly three decades of very close military and cultural exchange. During that time Prussia took Chile under his wing as a kind of younger brother. 

- Their relationship became less of a formal mentorship after WW1, but they stayed personally close. 

[uncuentofriki]

Coco or “How to pretend to be woke because of a fandom” and other ghosts.

After hearing the posibility that Parasite could get a remake, I heard that it wasn’t necessary -and ultimately, useless- because the director wanted to show how, despite the localization and the theme of the story everyone could resonate with the story and its themes. I saw it and yes, despite that the working-class family eats ramedon while I do wonders with tortillas to survive, the struggles of making ends met whatever it takes are mostly the same. And I don’t want a Parasite mexican remake either, as they did a years ago with indian movie 3 idiots. The movie is perfect on their location and you just need some empathy to understand what the other is feeling or living, even if your language or uprising wasn’t the same. 

A while ago I did a post explaining the feeling of exclusion in the fandom of Coco. Despite that it’s a movie that occurs in some part of Mexico, the mexican creators were displaced by people that just had the movie and some cartoons like Mucha Lucha or El Tigre as a reference for our culture. We tried to reach to “the other side of the bridge” by translating songs, fanfiction, comics and whatever we made, out lof love and excitement for sharing our culture for the first time masively on this media. I even translated historical documents and cursing words. And it was fun and interesting to see people engaged on our culture... only to soon be displaced or unheard of. Come to think about it some time later, it was cultural appropiation. It was “woke” at the moment to say you liked Coco, it was a way to say “oh, yes I like diversity” but  the actual people represented on that story were massively ignored (I wonder if in less divisive time for inmigration it would be as beloved as it was). I like the story... but whatever the people that live that culture explain about it, I don’t care.  I’ll take for example Rossanna Pansino (Nerdy Numies) with her Pan de Muerto. She said that the decoration of the bread is a marigold flower, which isn’t true (It’s boooooone! -read this in Captain Holt’s voice, please-). The recipe was mostly correct (Orange blossom water isn’t that easy to find, I know, plus it’s expensive), but that part made me lost any interest on her channel forever (haven’t seen her channel since). Rossanna could had done a research, see photos of the bread, watch other channels on Youtube (there’s a recipe on english on youtube), whatever. Yet she disrespected a beloved tradition and dish. No, we don’t do different versions of it. It has bones on top. End of the story. You don’t move ANYTHING from it, period, because it’s symbolic of the legend of the creation of the men, the four cardinal points and our own mortality as human beings, and it’s one of the most important elements on the Altar.  (Also I’m a baker’s daughter and if you recall how strict the Rivera’s are about their traditions, that’s how strict we are with recipes -the only ones allowed to move something from them are other mexicans and it’s only to make it tastier, like the shrimp pozole, not whatever Barefoot Contessa did to it).

The fandom felt... colonialist. The questions, which I answered with all the love and patience first, got more and more tiredsome to answer because people wanted reasons and ways to adapt the story to occur on their country or on a situation that doesn’t happen here... despite that seeing another culture was what supposedly made them fall in love with the story. One of those was wanting the lake on Santa Cecilia to freeze. While certainly it snows on the north states of Mexico, if we take in account some hints of the location, Santa Cecilia is nowhere near the north. And even when it has snowed on Guadalajara -where I live-, it’s not cold enough to freeze the Santiago River or the Chapala lake. But for some reason fuck geography (and if the lake freezes then we’ll be damned because that’s how bad global warming is to give a such a cold winter to a valleythat’sabove 25 grades Celsius almost all the year).  We explained over and over how some social situations aren’t the same, how incomes on certain profesions doesn’t translate. It’s more frustrating as an EFL teacher to see that I can perfectly explain social situations to my students and they get it, yet I explained over and over and over and my time investigating, translating and answering those same questions about my culture was basically, ignored or glossed over like “yes yes, you live it, you were born into it, buuuuut my idea of how your society and culture works is better”. IT’S NOT. It’s just different. I won’t try to mexicanize something from an american -or in my time as a hardcore otaku, japanese- culture. I won’t make, IDK, Chihiro from Spirited Away to serve Pozole to Kaonashi just because it’s easier for me to do so. (And also that’s why I hate lots Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it shits over martial arts... and I tried hard to see the story as a parody but no). That’s also why I left the Rock AU incomplete and most of my fics are untranslated (and why a lot of mexicans ran away from the social media created around the movie). Why translate it, why continue it if the apparent love for my country and its music and traditions didn’t translated when I took time to craft a story that shows more about the modern musical scene here (along with other social issues). Why keep helping people that asked and yet ignored what I said or tried to make me justify stuff that DOES NOT (AT ALL) happen or happened here. Why even bother if someone who isn’t even from my country is the one that they prefer to get the information, as wrong as it can be. 

It’s amazing also that I got silenced and dismissed over my last rant about this feeling. It’s not jealousy, it’s a wake up call to fandoms in general. You can’t call yourself woke or culturally aware or whatever if you consume media from or based on foreing cultures and silence the people who live it or try to adapt it into your culture just because it’s easier or if you like characters that are people of color. Fandom it’s not absent of colonialism or racism, even on this kind of works. And we should be aware and learn of the mistakes we made along the way, because it’s disheartening for future media creators from other cultures (me included) to see that while we’re trying to adapt our culture and what we love -and hate- the most of it (even if it’s a fantasy counterpart, like it’s the case of the novel I’m working on), it’s going to be ignored over or tried to got converted over to whatever they want (creative fan freedom has a limit and that’s the societal and geographic rules of the setting). Because that’s the actual point of diversity in narrative, not trying to make everything more uniform like most american/european series that have a two-three whites and two-three people of color (if feeling lucky) but they’re barely different from each other in culture (except if there’s an asian on the cast, most of the time). The point of stories like Coco or parasite to show how despite the differences, we all can live similar situations, we all love and laugh and lose and keep going, in our own unique way, even if we’re miles away.

So please, if you’re aproximation to any work set in another culture is just that you thought it’s pretty and forget about the people that live it everyday... stay away from it. Or decolonize yourself first and don’t use the work to make yourself seem more socially aware. You will just contribute to systematic exclution of other creators.

[boasamishipper]

all the top gun Kids™️

i have decided to answer this for all of my top gun faves, i apologize in advance if this is not what you meant lol

maverick mitchell

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | Someone Please Give Him A Hug

listen you already know i love maverick mitchell but i Really Really Love Maverick Mitchell with all my heart and i HATE that people refuse to see him for the three-dimensional character that he is (and that tom played him as). he’s determined and confident and has every right to be, he’s a badass pilot, but i love his character arc about learning how to be a team player. i LOVE his relationship with goose and carole and baby!bradley (and ice, in any capacity) and i am so ready for said relationships to Destroy me in the sequel. (also when mav is Sad i am Sad, and it looks like he has had even more to be sad about btwn tg1 and tg2. what happened to you mav. what did they do to you. mcq if u do not give this man a happy ending a hug and some therapy i swear to GOD-)

iceman kazansky

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive (i refuse to consider otherwise) | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

the fact that ice is as much of an ensemble darkhorse / breakout character has everything to do with val kilmer (whom i also love) being a fantastic actor, bc lets be real the script did not give him a lot to work with here. i love his hair and his face and his very pretty eyes (whose color i can STILL not discern after many rewatches) and his absolutely warranted confidence in himself (and as a pilot). i love that he isn’t afraid to call mav out for being unsafe (srsly, he is the Only Sane Man in this entire movie) but appreciates mav’s outside the box / ‘dangerous’ thinking as his wingman. he’s got a big heart (as evidenced by the 'i’m sorry about goose’ scene) behind those ice cold walls, and i cannot WAIT to see how his relationship with mav has grown by the time the sequel is finally released. give me respected admiral iceman kazansky or give me death. if they kill ice off i AM disowning canon mcq, do you hear me.

goose bradshaw

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | rip cinnamon roll too good for this world

i love goose SO FUCKING MUCH, every bit of him, from the not-at-all-regulation mustache to the bad jokes to the country-fried southern vibe to the singing and piano-playing to how much he respects and cares about mav (and how much mav respects and cares about him in return). his relationship with carole is my favorite thing on this entire earth, followed closely by his relationship with mav and also his relationship with ice. (like ice really respects goose and vice versa, and they clearly knew each other pre-canon, and one of the few times ice smiles genuinely in the movie is at goose - i really wish canon gave us more goose&ice, there’s so much to analyze there.) his death scene makes me tear up every time.

carole bradshaw

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | ray of sunshine too good for this world

carole is the BEST. actual ray of sunshine in human form and also a fashion icon. i adore her optimism and kindness, even in literally the worst times, and i especially love how much she adores goose and mav. forever bitter that they didn’t recast meg ryan to play her in the sequel though i’m sure jean louisa kelly will do a good job bringing carole to the big screen. (NOT a fan of the fact that it looks like she and mav and bradley by extension haven’t spoken in a long time and i Demand an explanation, even if it’s angsty.)

bradley bradshaw / rooster

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

last we saw bradley he was a little kid who clearly worshipped his dad and by the time the top gun 2 trailer rolled around, he’s the spitting image of his father, serious and determined to make a name for himself (with possible authority issues like young!mav, given he’s still a lieutenant in his late thirties).  i am very excited to meet him, and i’m also super excited to see his relationships with phoenix and the other pilots, and with jean louisa kelly’s carole bradshaw. (if bradley is playing great balls of fire on the piano in that one clip in the trailer i am going to just. straight up drop dead.) 

speaking of the trailers it’s clear bradley holds a serious grudge towards mav - “my dad believed in you, i’m not gonna make the same mistake” GOD. what happened btwn mav and bradley? what happened to their relationship?? (who taught him to blame mav for his dad’s death bc i hope to god it wasn’t carole - i’m leaning toward jon hamm’s character bc he seems like an asshole who does not like mav, or maybe even mav just refusing to correct bradley’s assumption bc he blames himself too.) anyway, PLEASE tell me bradley realizes he’s being an asshole by blaming mav for his dad’s death and works on repairing their relationship (and works through his own grief as well).

phoenix

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

one of the people i am most excited to meet in the sequel! i don’t know anything about her besides the info from a 2017 casting call describing her as a “fierce pilot, gifted leader, kind of a loner, eager to prove herself, who falls for bradley aka rooster,” but that is enough to make me Very Excited to meet her - ESPECIALLY if the bradley/phoenix is going to be set up like icemav, which i have a strong suspicion it’s going to be, complete with height difference. (phoenix: *does anything*, bradley: top me top me top me.) also, a potential mav&phoenix father/daughter relationship????? Sign Me The Fuck Up. this movie is just going to end with me in tears and with custody of seven or eight new children.

fritz

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

listen apparently he is just a cryptid because we only know his name and i THOUGHT he was gonna be a main character since he was one of the first to get named, but we have only seen him on the periphery of some scenes in the trailers, even after all this time, so now i kinda doubt it. but he is played by the gorgeous manny jacinto and he and bradley sat near each other once so i am assuming they are friends in some way, and also my headcanon of him as amy santiago trapped in the body of jason mendoza has made me love him very much. pls don’t kill him, canon. also pls @ manny and mcq and kosinski give me SOMETHING to work with here lmao. 

hangman

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

look. i know mcq and co are probably going to set up hangman vs rooster to be like mav vs ice, enemies/rivals to friends, but honestly, i’m not all that here for it??? i do like that from his callsign alone, hangman is probably going to be a darker version of ice (less kind, more focused on the job, maybe more like charlie than like ice if that makes any sense at all) and his rivalry with bradley is already clearly a lot more heated than mav’s ever was with ice. anyway, glen powell is an excellent actor, so let’s hope he makes hangman a 3d character in his own right and not just an iceman expy. 

payback, fanboy, and bob

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

i’m already lowkey shipping payback/fanboy and i love bob for looking like a dorky 21st century radar o’reilly, but honestly, not super on the edge of my seat to meet these guys. i do want to know whose WSO bob is - my guess is phoenix’s since they were sitting next to each other at one point, but he could also be hangman’s - and my worry is that since he’s the only named WSO right now, they could very well Pull A Goose and kill him off in a training accident. (i hope not since i don’t want a complete canon redux, but it would definitely be angsty.)

put a fictional character in my ask box and i’ll rate them accordingly

[vernonfielding]

Life Writes Its Own Stories

Chapter 12. (AO3.)

Leo James looked like hell, faced bruised all over, eyes bloodshot and swollen. The Narcan may have saved him from an overdose death, but Jake thought it was going to take a while to recover from what must have been a brutal assault.

He made Jake and Rosa close his hospital room door before he would talk. His voice was thin and rough, like he’d been strangled on top of everything else.

A cop is running Jazzy Pants, Leo told them. No, he didn’t know the cop’s name. The cop has a few mid-level street dealers on the front lines doing the actual dirty work. He promised to protect them if things turn, but one of them got freaked and snitched to Leo. Leo’s been trying to leak to Jake, but there’s been an ugly vibe on the streets, and he was nervous. He never saw the guys who took him down – it happened fast, and after they’d beat him they’d dosed him with the Jazzy Pants and left him for dead.

“Been a long time since I was this scared,” Leo said.

“Looks like you were smart to be scared,” Rosa said.

Leo nodded, and Jake patted him vaguely on the arm. What Leo had given them was huge, but Jake had no idea what to do with it, where to even begin investigating one of their own on so little information.

“We’ve got an officer watching your room. Try to get some rest.” Jake turned to leave, but Leo grabbed for him.

“Not done yet, Peralta,” he said. Leo nodded toward a chair near the door, where a stack of clothes was neatly folded. “The jacket on top. Inner pocket.”

Jake raised an eyebrow at Rosa, who shrugged. He picked up the jacket and unzipped the pocket. Inside was a Ninja Turtle figurine (Donatello, not his personal favorite). Jake held it up.

“It’s a thumbdrive,” Leo said. “Don’t know what’s on it – didn’t want to look – but it came from the guy who tipped me off. He’s dead, by the way.”

Jake closed his fist around the Ninja Turtle. “Get some sleep, Leo.”

He and Rosa swapped theories on the drive back to the precinct. They agreed that it was possible the whole thing was a lie – Jake trusted his own CI, but Leo’s information was secondhand. A story about an NYPD cop running a drug ring sounded insanely far-fetched, the stuff of urban legends. Taking bribes, sure. Shaving a little off the top of a bag of heroin, yeah, it happened. Every now and then entire kilos of cocaine went missing. But running an entire operation was another matter entirely. Rosa hypothesized it could be a former cop, maybe someone who’d worked undercover in drug enforcement. They didn’t know for sure it was even someone in the NYPD, she pointed out.

Jake didn’t say it, but he was praying that Manny wasn’t involved. It was unsettling that they’d been told the Seven-Eight had a task force. Depending on what was on the thumbdrive, that precinct was probably where they’d have to begin their search for a dirty cop.

Back at the Nine-Nine, Jake glanced at Pembroke’s office to confirm he was still out and wouldn’t be trying to Vulture this investigation away from them. His door was closed and the lights were off. Jake inserted the thumbdrive into his computer; there was only one file, and he clicked it open. 

“It’s a ledger,” Rosa said. She was leaning over his shoulder, one hand planted on his desk.

Jake scrolled through the entries – it looked like about eight months of data, starting the previous May. He pointed a finger at one of the rows. “We’ve got dates, times, addresses – looks like they were getting drops two or three times a week.”

“So that’s-” Rosa closed her eyes, lips twitching. “About 80 entries. At least.”

Jake stared at her. “How do you do that?”

“Not that hard, man.” Rosa tapped the screen. “Print this out.”

They set up shop in the briefing room, where they could use the map to pin the locations in the ledger and spread out their paperwork. Right away they figured out there were four main drops, all warehouses in or near Brownsville. They each took two addresses and got to work.

Tracking addresses to possible suspects was tedious work. Most of them led back to holding companies or developers that almost certainly had nothing to do with the drug ring – they were just unlucky enough to own under-utilized property that the dealers were basically squatting out of. One of Rosa’s warehouses turned out to have ties to a known drug cartel, which they filed away for further investigation down the line.

After a couple of hours Jake brought them bags of chips and pretzels from the break room, plus cups of disgusting vending machine mochas because the kitchen coffeemaker was broken again. An hour after that, he gave up on his warehouses and turned back to the ledger.

There were a few stray addresses they had pinned to the map but hadn’t researched yet, so he sighed and began looking them up. Most of them were small units – loft apartments, run-down artist studios – in the same neighborhood as the warehouses. One was a private storage company.

And then there was an outlier: A penthouse property in Dumbo, overlooking the river. It probably had really killer views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.

The owner was an LLC, and the owner of the LLC was a man whose name tickled at the back of Jake’s brain – he was sure he’d seen it before but couldn’t place it. He googled the name but still nothing clicked, and then he did an image search. He glanced over the first row of photos, and sucked in a sharp breath.

“What?” Rosa looked up from her laptop.

Jake swallowed thickly, letting the pieces slot into place. “Remember the missing Rat-Dog case, a couple months ago?”

Rosa’s brows furrowed, but she nodded. “Yeah, we chased it down for the Vulture’s frat buddy.”

“Well, frat bro owns one of the drops on the ledger.” Jake spun his laptop toward Rosa and pointed to a photo of the man, his arm slung over Pembroke’s shoulders. “I think we found our cop.”

Rosa gaped at the photo for a second, then turned and locked eyes with Jake. A spark of understanding passed between them.

Jake slammed shut his laptop. Rosa began gathering up the stacks of papers they’d strewn about and Jake pulled pins out of the map. They bolted out of the briefing room, both looking toward Pembroke’s still-dark office. Jake checked the time on his phone – it was almost 8 p.m.

“What do we do?” he hissed to Rosa.

“We get out of here,” Rosa said. “Shaw’s?”

It was probably too close, but they needed to get out of the precinct now and Jake couldn’t think of anywhere else safe. He nodded and led the way.

+++

Amy glared at her notepad and the to-do list she’d been crafting for the past hour and a half. Usually lists were so soothing, sort of her go-to for coming down after a hard day, but even the perfectly shaped bullet points and the evenly spaced title letters weren’t helping her relax now. She tapped her favorite list-making pen (it was different from her note-taking pen and her just-jotting-down-thoughts pen and her supposed-to-be-taking-notes-but-actually-just-doodling pen for Terry’s monthly metro staff meetings) on her notebook and racked her brain for more things to put on her list.

She started to write “grocery shopping” – got so far as g-r-o – and then she tried to remember if she had orange soda at home and then she sighed and dropped her pen. That was the problem. Everything on her list came back to Jake.

She knew she should go home already. It was after 8, and Terry and Holt and most of the other reporters were gone; Hitchcock was still at his desk, presumably watching a live feed of a development board meeting, but his eyes had been closed for hours. As lonely as it felt here, Amy dreaded the idea of returning to her dark and empty apartment and not even having work to distract her. Not that work was helping much now.

Her email pinged, and Amy looked up hopefully – maybe someone had shot the mayor or a fire had broken out in a high-rise. But it was just Charles again.

The subject line said: “Just to confirm, neither you nor Jake said the words ‘break up.’” There was no text in the body of the email.

Amy deleted the email and looked up from her desk. Charles was watching her from his spot on the copy desk. She slid a finger slowly across her neck. He gave her an overly dramatic shrug and turned back to his computer.

Charles had figured out after witnessing several hushed conversations between Amy and Gina that something had gone down with Jake. Amy had given him the extremely condensed version of the story – that Jake was mad about Gina’s column and blaming Amy for it – and Charles had been instantly devastated. But he’d rallied an hour later and started pestering her for details. A little after noon, he’d latched onto the fact that they weren’t technically broken up because neither of them had said they were broken up.

At first Amy had found that thought somewhat comforting – it was true, after all – but eight hours later she was fed up. And it wasn’t just Charles she was fed up with. She’d realized, at some point late in the day, that her feelings about what had happened with Jake went beyond just hurt. She was angry with him. Even furious. He’d either never trusted her at all, or his faith had been so fragile, so superficial, that it couldn’t pass even the most obvious of tests.

That thought was heartbreaking and infuriariating and flat-out depressing, all at once.

Her email alert sounded again and Amy groaned and thought about marching straight to Charles’ desk and ordering him to just leave it. But when she looked at her inbox, the email wasn’t from him. And the subject line made her breath catch: “Jake Peralta.”

Amy glanced at the sender but she didn’t recognize the address: b00bman-at-hotmail. “Gross,” Amy muttered. She warily clicked it open.

“Dear Amy Santiago. Peralta has been selling the street drug Jazzy Pants. I HAVE PROOF. He also takes bribes and thinks women shouldn’t be in the NYPD. He also hates puppies AND kittens. ASK ANYONE. I can give you details.”

The email wasn’t signed, and it ended with an address and a time to meet later that night. Amy’s hands were shaking when she went to delete the email, just on reflex. Then she thought better of it and printed it out instead. She ran to the printer so no one else could grab it before her and read it again, her heart racing. When Charles popped up at her shoulder she actually yelped.

“What’s wrong?” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “I saw you run over here. What is that?”

“Nothing.” Amy held the printout to her chest so he couldn’t read it. “I’ve got to go.”

She hurried back to her desk and shut down her laptop, and slung her purse over her shoulder. She was just at the door when it occurred to her that she had no idea what her next move was. She needed to talk to Jake, but she was afraid if she called or texted he’d ignore her, or tell her to stay away.

“Charles?” She approached his desk with caution. “Do you happen to know where Jake is right now?”

“Oh, thank god,” Charles said, clapping his hands in delight. “I’ve actually been texting with him all day and right now he’s at Shaw’s with Rosa, and he said I definitely shouldn’t-”

But Amy was already headed back to the door. She heard him calling after her, “Yes! Go get him! Love finds a way!”

She paused just outside, feeling weirdly vulnerable, like someone was watching her. She realized she’d left her jacket inside, but she wasn’t going back for it – she already felt like she was running out of time.

Her hands were still unsteady as she called for an Uber. While she waited for the car, she peeked at the email again. She couldn’t explain why the note had triggered such an urgent, demanding sense of apprehension. There was something in the tone of it, a familiarity, that set her teeth on edge. She didn’t think it was just that Jake was the subject, though surely that was the most upsetting part.

Amy studied the email address again, and frowned. Gina’s source had emailed too. It wasn’t unusual to get tips via email, of course, but Amy had a strange feeling. She texted Gina to ask what her source’s email address was. She wasn’t expecting an answer, actually – reporters were generally very protective of anonymous sources, and rightfully so – but they’d reached a sort of truce today, and Amy hoped Gina might feel like doing her a favor.

Her heart stuttered when her cell phone buzzed in her hands. Amy looked at the screen: “b00bman-at-hotmail.” It was followed by a vomit emoji.

Amy’s car pulled up, and she yanked the door open and jumped inside. “As fast as you can,” she told the driver. He rolled his eyes at her in the rearview mirror, but the tires squealed when he took off.

+++

Jake and Rosa were at their same table at the back of Shaw’s, though with pints instead of Shirley Temples (and they’d both done a shot of whiskey, because “what the fuck, the Vulture is a drug runner now?” Rosa had said).

They’d done a bit more googling on their phones on Pembroke’s frat buddy. It wasn’t clear how friendly they were, and the photo of them was about a decade old, but the fact that Pembroke had them running cases for the guy as recently as August was pretty damning. It didn’t prove that the Vulture was associated with, much less running, the Jazzy Pants operation, but Jake knew they had enough leads to launch an investigation.

The question was what to do now.

“Go to Wuntch?” Rosa said. She was tilted back in her chair, looking cool and casual, but Jake saw the way her eyes kept darting to the front door and the exits. Shaw’s was pretty empty, which was good and bad – there weren’t any other cops around to spy on them, but they also were pretty exposed, even in the dimly lit back end of the bar.

Jake thought over Rosa’s suggestion and shook his head. “Wuntch is going to want more evidence. And she may not like Pembroke much right now, but she could still ask him about it and tip our hand. If he’s already twitchy enough to go after at least one of my CIs, no telling what he’ll do if he knows we’re onto him.”

Rosa blew her hair out of her face in a huff of frustration, but she didn’t argue with him. Jake was fidgeting with the Ninja Turtle thumbdrive, twirling it between fingers, and Rosa yanked it away and stuffed it in a jacket pocket. She shot him a glare that he read as “stop playing with the evidence, idiot.”

Jake said, “I could talk to Leo again. He might have a name he for us, maybe one of the dealers working with Pembroke.”

“Dude’s pretty scared,” Rosa said. “Even if he has a name – and that’s a big if – you think he’s going to give it up?”

“No.” Jake closed his eyes and tugged at his hair with both hands. “This is crazy. Is there seriously no one we can trust?”

“Shit.” Rosa’s chair dropped to the floor with a thud.

Jake looked up, alarmed. “What? Is he here?”

Rosa jerked her chin toward the front door. Jake spun in his chair, and it was like everything around him stopped for a moment, and just faded away. All he saw was her.

Amy’s hair was down, framing her face in dark waves, and her eyes glittered as she peered all around the room. She was biting her lip, and twisting her hands together in a nervous way. When her eyes landed on him, her face lit up for a second. And just as quickly the light was gone, replaced by a determination he recognized from their nights working together and something less familiar, a brutal sort of stoicism. His heart fluttered in his chest as she approached their table.

“Jake.” Her voice was flat, and she projected a bit so she could be heard over the music.

Jake wasn’t sure what to say (or do) – too many competing thoughts were bouncing around his head suddenly. He wanted to apologize and he wanted to tell her he still wasn’t sure. He wanted to kiss her and he wanted to send her away and he wanted to take her hand and run with her, he didn’t even care where.

Rosa cleared her throat. “I’m going to- leave.”

Amy stepped back to give Rosa room to squeeze past the table, then took her seat. She leaned forward, hands clasped together again, tightly this time so she couldn’t fidget.

“What are you doing here?” Jake said, bending toward her so he could keep his voice low.

Amy started at that, and a flash of anger creased her brow. “I thought you were done hiding,” she said, the words short and sharp.

“Amy-”

She held up a hand. “Never mind, obviously that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not why I’m here anyway.” She pulled her purse into her lap and took out a slip of paper, which she read over first, then handed to him.

Jake squinted at the printed text in the dim light. It was an email – his name was in the subject line. As he read, he felt a hard knot form in his stomach. When he was done, he quickly folded the paper in half and then half again. He looked around the room, saw Rosa at one end of the bar and caught her eye, flagging her back to them.

“Do you know who sent it?” Jake said to Amy.

“No, but-”

“Read this,” Jake said, passing the note to Rosa as she walked up. Rosa pulled over a chair from a nearby table and straddled it, then read.

“What the hell.”

“He’s trying to pin it on me,” Jake said.

Rosa closed her eyes, crumpling the note in her fist.

“Who’s trying to pin what on you?” Amy said, looking furiously between them.

“The Vulture,” Jake said, under his breath. “Ames, I can’t explain it now, but this is bad. We need to get you out of here.”

“I don’t understand,” Amy said. “What’s he trying to pin on you?”

Jake glanced quickly around the room again before turning back to Amy. “It’s about Jazzy Pants, and I mean it, I can’t tell you everything right now. But another one of my CIs got hit today, and if he’s sending messages to you now-” He paused, because spelling it all out made it much more terrifying.

Jake felt for his gun at his side. Rosa saw him, and quickly did the same. They locked eyes and nodded.

“Jake, wait,” Amy said, sounding breathless, “what about you?”

“Rosa and I can take care of ourselves. We need to get you somewhere safe – maybe Gina, or Charles.”

“Charles is closer,” Rosa said.

“And he’s been texting me all day, so we know he’s around.” Jake stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugging it on.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Amy said, but she stood up too, and let herself be hustled toward the front of the bar.

“We should split up,” Jake said, when they reached the door.

Rosa nodded. “My bike’s out back. Where do you want to meet?”

Jake thought it over but his mind was blank – he wouldn’t be able to think clearly until he got Amy settled. “I’ll text you, half an hour.”

Rosa took off for the back door. Jake set a hand on Amy’s lower back, but he pushed ahead of her, and opened the front door slowly so he could make sure there was no one outside, waiting for them. It was dark and deserted. Jake pulled out his phone to call them an Uber, ushering Amy along.

He said, “I’m sorry you got dragged in-”

A solid weight tackled Jake from behind. His phone flew out of his hand and he heard Amy scream. Jake thrust an elbow back, hard, and heard a satisfying grunt as he connected. He reached for his gun, and then there was a sharp, nauseating pain in his shoulder, radiating all the way down his arm. Jake fell to one knee and he was tackled again, the weight crashing into his back and knocking the wind out of him. Jake tried to kick out but he was pinned, and he couldn’t catch his breath, and then hands were pulling his arms behind his back and binding his wrists, and he groaned in pain. He turned his head, tried to find Amy, and something dark fell over his eyes and he couldn’t see a thing.

He was dragged up to his feet and tugged forward a few stumbling steps, only to be thrown again a moment later, landing hard on his shoulder. He rolled onto his back and heard doors slamming shut, felt the jerk of a vehicle taking off. Someone yanked him up so he was sitting.

He called out, “Amy!”

“I’m here!”

The relief was immediate, and followed just as quickly by terror. At least they were together, and alive. For the moment.

Jake moved his head, tried to see anything through the black veil over his eyes. “Are you okay?”

A fist punched into his stomach and Jake grunted, folding over himself. He felt the unmistakable press of a gun into the base of his skull.

Someone leaned in close to him, breath hot on the side of his face. “No more talking.” 

CHAPTER 13

[hethak-blog]

Article on Elisa Lam

Elisa Lam: Canadian tragedy turned American Horror Story .

Of the thousands of theories circulating about the death of Elisa Lam, the one best worth considering comes from the case's lead investigator.

Los Angeles police Det. Wallace Tennelle gave his thoughts in a deposition.

The veteran detective was answering questions posed by a lawyer for the notorious Los Angeles hotel where the 21-year-old passed her final hours.

Tennelle took the call in February 2013 about a Canadian national who was missing from the Cecil. And he had peered into the open hatch of the rooftop water tank and seen Lam's lifeless body.

"My opinion is that she fell off her medication, and in her state, she happened to find her way onto the roof, got into the tank of water," Tennelle told the lawyer.

"At the time, I think that water tank was maybe full. But as people used the tank, used water, unknown to her, the level was dropping to a point where she could no longer reach out and escape, and she died that way."

A Tragedy Linked to L.A. Legend

Tennelle's deposition was filed last month in response to a lawsuit launched by Lam's parents, David and Yinna Lam, who claim the owners of the 91-year-old Cecil failed to properly control guest access to the roof and water tanks.

The new court documents provide insight into a mystery that has only grown in the nearly two years since Lam stepped anxiously off a hotel elevator and into popular imagination.

The B.C. student's fate has inspired movie screenplays, an episode of Castle and — most recently — the fifth season of American Horror Story.

Tourists flock to the hotel. A four-minute surveillance video of Lam gesticulating to an off-screen presence and frantically pressing buttons before sidling off the elevator is the subject of endless internet speculation.

And by sheer coincidence, elements of the tragedy are linked to L.A. lore.

The detective who reviewed the tape is a consultant on the TV version of Michael Connelly's gritty Harry Bosch thrillers. The serial killer known as the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, reportedly lodged at the Cecil. So did Jack Unterweger, an Austrian serial killer and minor celebrity.

"Elisa Lam was young, pretty, on her own, in a country not her own," says L.A. crime historian Joan Renner.

"I don't think people are deliberately callous, but when they sink their teeth into something they feel is mysterious or otherworldly, they lose the importance of the actual victim in it. It becomes a puzzle."​

Mysterious Visitors

The facts are as follows: Lam made internet reservations to check into a shared room for three nights on Jan. 28, 2013.

She was first assigned 506B, but the hotel's general manager said Lam's roommates complained about her "odd behaviour." She was then moved to a private room.

According to the coroner's report, Lam had a history of bipolar disorder. Medication was found among her belongings, but tests were inconclusive as to the presence of the medication in her bloodstream.

Her parents reported her missing when she failed to contact them on Jan. 31.

Tennelle set up a command post at the hotel when police intensified the hunt days later. He testified that "every nook and cranny of that building where we thought was a room, locked or unlocked, it was to be opened. It was to be searched."

The detective said Lam's appearance in the elevator video wasn't the only time she was seen on hotel surveillance tape.

"We did see her come in with two gentlemen. She had — they had a box, gave it to her," he said. "She went up into her — to the elevator. We never saw them again on video."

The search included the roof, but came up empty. Lam's belongings had been moved to the basement: a backpack, laptop and "things of value" that led police to believe she had planned on returning.

And then, nothing.

'It Was My Opinion ...'

Maintenance man Santiago Lopez discovered the body on Feb. 19. A guest in room 320 complained about the lack of water pressure and he went to check out the four large rooftop tanks.

Lam's body was found in a water tank on the top of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. (CBC)

There are only four ways onto the roof: three fire escapes on the sides of the hotel and one alarmed door connected to an interior staircase.

The hotel's engineer said he tested the alarm regularly. It was in working order when Lam went missing.

"I think she went through the door," Tennelle told the Cecil's lawyer.

Lam was naked when her body was found, but Tennelle said her clothes were in the tank. They're detailed in the coroner's report: a green Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale shirt, black shorts and a red American Apparel sweatshirt.

The coroner concluded there was no evidence of foul play, and that "a full review of circumstances" didn't support the idea Lam intended to harm herself.

With 35 years on the force, Tennelle has investigated rape, robbery and murder; he's no armchair internet sleuth.

He also knows first-hand the effect of a senseless death on a family. His son Bryant was slain in an apparently random shooting in 2007.

Tennelle concluded his deposition in a lawyer's office 15 minutes away from the roof where Lam died.

"It was my opinion that she climbed in on her own," he said.

"My partner and I tried to figure out how somebody could have put her in there, and it's difficult for someone to have been able to do that and not leave prints, not leave DNA or anything like that. So she climbed in on her own."

Written By: Jason Proctor

[honeyyros]

Hey you guysss so I’m doing an extended version of my stories. This one is a part 1 of the introduction so tell me how you like it or you can comment some pointers, or ideas you would like for me to add next.

Introduction: Lola Rae

It use to be a time where you can tell who was with you and who were not. Now, you can’t even tell the difference.

Bleurayne, Jasper is a planet discovered by my mom and a few others shortly after planet earth was destroyed and after months of searching the galaxy for a new home; we settled here in Jasper; where the ground is as blue as rain and the planet itself was illuminating a red, Jasper-like glow(hence the name). My mom was one of the first to settle so we’re like one of the first families here. I was only 3 at the time and my brother jackson was a year younger than me. Our dad died in the crossfire so he didn’t get to see this beautiful new beginning— rest his soul.

My name you ask? It’s Lola Rae; soon to become the infamous storm Santiago or santí for short. And this story is not a walk in the park, sissy story about a girl who had a hard life and overcame and all of that crap. But more so about a girl who never had a break in life until she broke life and became what most people are to afraid to become— A dangerous weapon.

Locus:

Get the general!” One of the soldiers Said to the other. “We are about to land”

The soldier goes to the phone hanging on the wall and picks it up and says into the receiver “ hey, we are coming up on something so we are about to land at 0500. Yes sir …uhhh no sir….we are not sure yet sir but we know that what you are looking for is most definitely here or at least you will be able to get some answers.”

Meanwhile up in the chambers, sat Gabriel Artemis loctorium. A very overly-ambitious, yet prickly man. One who would soon become the slimmest con-artist that ever walked the face of jasper.

Bleurayne, Jasper. Such a lovely place really. The streets was as blue as rain, and when the weather changed the planet would give off this reddish hue; its rather beautiful really. The snow gives off pink crystals in the sun. Just as the day I dreamt of one day ruling this planet and taking the one thing that would make me all powerful—Breaking down the source of the planet; Storm. My apologies I meant to introduce myself; I’m Locus—the coldest shapeshifter that ever lived, or least would be soon. After I destroy the one person who was destined to bring me down.

As Locus stares out the window of the spaceship, footsteps approach. A slender, slick and rather tall fairskin woman walks up behind him and says in a low, raspy voice “ Locus darling, we are almost there. We must go over the plan?”

“Plan? I don’t really do plans; if you hadn’t noticed I’m kinda of a spur of the moment kinda guy”

“ so you think that it will be so easy to spot a shapeshifter where we’re headed?” The lady laughed in efforts of mockery. “Earth didn’t see you coming so again I ask— how do you suppose to seek out the enemy without a plan?”

In utter frustration locus replies “ uhhh as much as it pains me to say it—you are right; I do need a plan but… if we are to do this, we do this my way not yours. The last time we went with your plan it ended with the world being destroyed. No! We can’t be messy, we have to be slicker in our efforts to weed out the shapeshifter destined to destroy us… destroy ME!

Lola Rae:

Upon arriving, there was much needed work to do. I don’t really remember much because I was only three at the time, but my mom would tell me and my brother stories all the time about how we grew up and before we were alive. My mom had many pictures and videos laying around the house of me and my brother and some included my childhood friend samurai but we call her Sam for short. She was the ying to my yang much like my bro who stayed trying to hang around us growing up; annoying yet cute I suppose. She was the more rebellious type and I was more logical. Where she was quick and hasty; I was more slow and steady— always analyzing every side of everything.

We grew up in the south region of Jasper; which technically would have been considered the north on earth. According to my mom’s history, she grew up in the south on earth so it kinda makes sense. Here on Jasper, the south was like the north on earth and the west was like the east on earth and so on and so forth. I think you catch my drift.

My mom was one of the first on the board upon arriving to Jasper so she basically ruled everything amongst 11 others. However, my mom she liked her space so we grew up on this big farm, 150 acres of land. Of course Jasper didn’t have any animals at first so the families who first settled managed to escape earth on time with a few animals brought over from earth and over time as more people started to migrant here they brung many other things along the way which we were able to plant, produce, and severe for survival. Which making this earth number two with a little twist.

Sam and her family settled here not too long after we did, and they stayed not to far from us. Sam was around our age so she really took to us and we to her. She would call our house the big blue castle because compared to everyone else in our region, our house was the biggest; very spacious, many rooms, and it actually was white but over time the hue of this planet turned the houses many colors and ours happen to be a very fluorescent blue with a hint of pink and red.

Sam on the other hand, came here with her aunt and uncle, kori & Gabriel and her boy cousin pumpkin. My mom being who she was; welcomed them with open arms and helped them get on their feet. She managed to help kori start a supermarket business in the downtown area of Bleurayne called soaking oaks which sold many products from my mom and other local farmers farms as well as day to day supplies you would need for vehicles, houses, etc. Meanwhile, Gabriel ended up being a deputy for the local sheriffs department and years later got bumped up to sheriff when the original sheriff died mysteriously in a robbery gone wrong at the local corner store. Pumpkin on the other hand, was a very odd person. He kept to himself mostly and some may even compare him to a modern day gothic, sociopath, but he never got in our way or never told on us when he watched us do something against the rules. Pumpkin was 10 when he first arrived so he saw things differently than we did. When he turned 20, he mysteriously disappeared into the night never to be heard or seen again. Sam wouldn’t really talk about what happened to pumpkin but mysterious things happen a lot around Jasper but no one speaks on them; they just look the other way.

Gabriel managed to woo my mother so when I turned 4, they got married and my life has been rocky ever since I can remember. Gabriel, also known as locus, was in fact the step father from hell and I wish my mother could see that; I wish everyone could see that but it’s something about him that never sat right with me and I guess he could say the same.

To be continued….

[maxsevenbetterplaylist]

somewhere only we know – jake peralta x reader;

author’s note: still the cheesiest woman alive. no surprises here. i like this one better though jake’s slightly ooc and the end kiiind of sucks. you’ll see what i mean. i also would like to say most of the songs here are songs i quite like. hope y’all like it too;

pairing: jake peralta x reader;

request: all me, but i feel like i should tell you it’s a “your soulmate can listen whatever song you’re listening to in their head” soulmate au;

word count: 2316 (back at it with decent sized one shots yes);

TW: uh i think there swearing. a lil alcohol. that’s it;

You grunted against your pillow when, for the third time that night, Lionel Richie's voice resounded loud and clear into your head. The only thing you actually wanted to be doing all night long was sleeping, for you had a long day coming up on the next morning, but your soulmate didn't seem to know or care about that. It was actually quite weird. By now, you were used to the violent swings on his music taste – 90s hip-hop in one minute, 80s disco in the other, you just didn't get it at all –, but listening to stuff at three in the morning? No, this wasn't like them. 

I mean, yes, they had this weird thing going on. Usually, they'd only blast stuff out loud during the day, but on the most random timings. Lunch? Usually pretty silent. But three thirty-six in the afternoon on a a Tuesday, when they should be working and you were in the middle of an important meeting? Funky Cold Medina would come at full volume. Nights were thankfully quiet, yes, but at times he seemed to randomly pull an all nighter and listen to music in a pretty psychotic pattern. As you discovered after some research, they also enjoyed very much Die Hard's soundtrack.  None of your friends' soulmates were weird like this, and, at this point, you'd narrowed it down to two possibilities – either their personality (which had to be very creepy) or their work (maybe he was something like your friend Amy, from the 99th, a night shift detective) was to blame, and you were hopeful that someday you'd figure out which. 

When All Night Long came on again, you decided it maybe was time to fight back with some of your music. You rolled through your sheets, sighing audibly, and picked up your phone, trying to think of the calmest thing you could. Snap, that was it. Quickly opening Spotify and your sleep playlist, you hit play on Of Monsters And Men's Love Love Love, turning the volume up so your soulmate could hear it through Lionel's voice. After a while, the song stopped for a good half an hour, and, when it was put back on, it was immediately cut off. You were finally, finally at peace, but you somewhat knew they weren't. Before finally going to bed (and actually sleeping, thankful for the silence), you picked one last song: The Moon Song, by Karen O. 

Jake had been having quite a night. He was sure thankful for finally coming back to New York after all the time in Florida, not to mention being reinstated to NYPD and his precinct; but despite saying that it was nothing, being on the night shift was starting to get to him, and Boyle wasn’t helping too much (although that wasn’t his fault, and he knew it). That said, when he asked his friend repeatedly to blast the Night Boys newest anthem while heading from one precinct to another, he didn’t exactly pause to think about the fact that his soulmate would probably be trying to sleep while he was working.

He was kind of surprised when calm folk music started playing inside his head, why were they up until now and listening to music? And, although it wasn’t Jake’s kind of music, it was good, he had to admit. Better if you were trying to sleep, yes, but still good. Oh, shit, they’re trying to sleep. He realized it was probably a big inconvenience for his soulmate that he was listening to Lionel Richie at 4 in the morning, but, well, what could he do? It was the job. And it wasn’t as if his soulmate never listened to stuff when he needed to focus – he recalled very well the first time his soulmate had listened to Funky Cold Medina. He was chasing after a drug dealer, and, when he finally caught him, instead of reciting the Miranda Rights, he asked the guy why he was so fly, and, very confused, the suspect answered “Funky Cold Medina?”

Still, the next time Charles put the song on, Jake told him to cut it. He told himself it was because everything else was garbage that night, but deep down he also didn’t want his soulmate to hate him for working the night shift. In response, he heard a quiet ukulele song playing inside his head. He knew that one from the movie Her! He took the song as a thank you, smiling slightly as the melody finished and it all became silent again.

You hated being stood up on, but it seemed to have happened again. There you were, at Shaw’s Bar, Brooklyn, waiting for your so-called date, who should have showed up one hour ago except they didn’t. You rolled your eyes and sighed. You weren’t asking for a knight on a shining armor or even your soulmate, you just wanted a decent night and maybe a fling with whoever your friend had set you up with this time. But no, not even that you’d get.

You tapped your feet to the rhythm of Ice Ice Baby, which was playing on Shaw’s speakers. It was usually the kind of thing your soulmate liked listening to. You smiled a little thinking about how they’d probably be hearing it inside their head right now, but thinking of it made your mood even worse. Leaning over the counter, you waved at Hank. The man turned to you, a kind smile on his face. “Hi, Y/N! You look great. Anything special?”

“My friend set me up on a date, but they stood me up.” You told him, and he frowned. “Yeah, it’s no biggie. Same as always, Hank.”

“Beer it is.” He told you, turning around to grab a bottle and open it. You flashed a smile at him, taking it.

“Thanks, Hank.”

“Always a pleasure, Y/N.”

You looked around the familiar bar, sighing. You’d lived in Brooklyn for most of your adulthood, and had to admit there was no place like Shaw’s. It was always a very alive place, with a good ambience and nice people. Your favorite days to be there were the Fridays when the 99th precinct’s squad hanged out there after work hours. It had always been cool to observe them, but, for a while now, you actually started talking to them and they liked it when you stuck around. Most people found their cop stories too weird or bloody, but there was nothing better for you than listening to the detectives talk about their work with little interventions that mostly concerned yogurt or Die Hard. Even when they weren’t there, however, it was like home to you. Plus, Hank knew you by now, and you got some pretty cool discounts for that.

You knew your soulmate was up to something when, as Vanilla Ice’s voice faded out, a song you knew very well came on – Somewhere Only We Know, Keane’s version of it. You made a face at nothing. That was so not your soulmate’s kind of thing. They had done this before, yes, but always to prank you just when it was getting good or to draw your attention – and, right now, they had it. When the song started playing again, for no apparent reason, you blinked twice. What the heck were they doing?

You hadn’t noticed someone sitting right across from you, so you jumped slightly when Amy Santiago’s voice pulled you from your daydream. “Hey, Y/N! You’re here again and – wait, is there anything wrong? Why’re you all dressed up?”

You blinked at her, trying to find  your way around words. “Uh… Date. Got stood up.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” The detective said, reaching across the table to put her hand on yours. “But you know what, it’s probably – ”

“No, it’s no big deal.” You cut her off, and Amy frowned at you. You smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. It’s just… My soulmate’s been messing with me.”

“Oh, really?” She asked, eyes plugged on your face but an uncomfortable smile on her lips. As if she knew something you didn’t. “What are they up to?”

“Um, Ice Ice Baby was playing right before you came in, right?”

“Oh, no, the squad and I came in as it was fading out.” Amy told you, sounding more surprised by the second.

“Right.” You nodded dismissively. “And they really like that kind of music. I think that when they realized I was listening to it, they wanted to do something back for me, so they started playing a song I like but they never did. I thought they were gonna prank me or something and ruin it completely, but they didn’t. They’re actually still playing it.”

Amy seemed to be staring and someone behind you, but, when you did, you only saw the squad. She turned back to you with a smile. “Okay, okay, cool.”

“So… You’re the detective. Any theories?” You asked her playfully, but Amy swallowed hard.

“Maybe,” Amy started, and you could see her struggle. “Maybe y-you – ”

“Is there anything you wanna tell me, Ames?” You asked her, still smiling, and she sighed. Before saying anything, she looked around, downed her shot and leaned over the table.

“Look, I think I know who your soulmate is.” She secreted and your jaw dropped. “But calm down.”

“How?!” You blurted.

“On our way here,” she said rather carefully, “someone in the squad could hear Ice Ice Baby inside their head. Then, when we got here and heard it playing in the exact same timing, they thought their soulmate might be in here and decided to try and play a certain song, because they knew their soulmate liked it, to see if they could find out who that person is.”

You blinked. Then again, and again. Your soulmate was a cop? You weren’t sure of what to say. “Who is it, Amy?”

She pursed her lips. “I probably shouldn’t tell you.” Amy confessed, and you sighed. She was probably right – you couldn’t risk any coincidences –, but that was a really big bummer. “I know, I know, it sucks. But, uh, I do have an idea.”

Your eyes lit up. “Tell me. Now.”

“Okay, but you have to relax.”

“AMY!”

“A-ah I’m sorry!” She said, sitting up straight defensively. “Th-they told me they had one version of that song on! Why don’t you put the other and see if they realize it?”

“That’s actually a really good idea.” You told her, sitting straight again after the little threat. You smiled at the woman. “Thanks, Ames.”

She straightened her collar, trying to look normal again. “My pleasure to help, Y/N.”

You picked up your phone and earphones from your purse, feeling Amy looking at you and then at someone behind you. You took a deep breath as the song in your head stopped for the 3rd time, hitting play on the same moment. This time, along with the guitar and drums from the original version, there was a soft piano, from Lily Allen’s last cover of it. You didn’t even have the time to look around before someone else barged into your table.

“Amy, you’re not gonna believe this!” You look up to see detective Jake Peralta, one of Amy’s friends from the squad, now sitting by her side, showing her his phone excitedly. He had a huge smile on his dork-y face, and a single earphone on his left ear. “My soulmate played the other version! My plan worked! Now I just need to find someone who’s using earphones and – oh, hi, Y/N, I didn’t see you there. Sorry, I’m just kind of pumped about a soulmate thing.”

You blinked at him. Then blinked again. Was the universe kidding you? A detective? A childish, eccentric, fun and extremely hot detective? Jake didn’t quite understand what was going on – he wasn’t exactly the most observant person you knew. Amy smiled rather knowingly now, picking up her empty cup as she got up from her seat. “Hey, Y/N, why don’t you show Jake what you’re listening to?”

Shaking slightly, you turned your phone’s screen to him. His confused frown slowly turned to a gentle smile. He looked up at you, checking your earphone before taking his own off. He shoved his phone inside his pocket, along with the white strings, and sat down, looking at you. “Soo… I guess this is a thing?” He said, trying to break the ice, and you blinked once more before ripping your headphone off and slapping his arm. “Ouch! Wrong start here, Y/N!”

“I had to, after you blasted All Night Long through an entire night when I should be sleeping!” You told him but rather playfully. Jake frowned back, trying not to laugh. “But, seriously, Lionel Richie, man?”

“I was working the night shift with Boyle! We needed motivation!” He replied, and you giggled slightly. For a second, neither of you said nothing, then Jake cleaned his throat. “You look great. I mean, yes, you are beautiful, but you’re like… Dressed up.”

You smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, I know. I was supposed to be on a date tonight, but I got stood up on.”

“Oh. Sorry for that.” He said, then hit your arm playfully. “But hey, think positive! If you had gone, you might not have met your incredibly handsome soulmate AKA me, so that’s cool, right?”

You looked away from him, blushing slightly. “I guess so.” Another moment of silence went by, and you put your phone away before he cleaned this throat and went,

“Hey, should we get drinks and a booth? I feel like we could use some talking. Maybe I should buy the drinks, as an apology for the Lionel incident?”

You smiled at him, pursing your lips again. “Yeah, sure. And after that, if you have a minute why don’t we go – ”

“Somewhere only we know.”

[4thworldfeminism]

Ni Una Menos: What America can learn from the Latin American feminist movement

According to The New York Times, “the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California released a study on Monday that found that of the 100 top-grossing films each year from 2007 to 2018, only three percent featured Latino actors in lead co-lead roles” (Holson, 2019.) Additionally, producers and casting executives also only made up 3%, and directors only made up 4% across a 12-year period (Holson, 2019). In total, only 4.5% of speaking roles in the sample were played by Latino actors (Holson, 2019). The representations that do exist often are inaccurate, racist, and sexist. Latina women are often represented as “maids, housekeepers and nannies,” usually playing “submissive and obedient women who can do anything for their families and jobs” (Lopez, 2013). 

“Rita Moreno, the first Latina to win an oscar,” said that she was limited in the roles she was offered, being given the “little senorita Lolita, conchita Lolita kind of spitfire roles, everything but an American girl. I was the utilitarian ethnic” (Andrews, 2017). These stereotypes that normalize Latinas’ “sexual desirability, proficiency, and availability,” work to infantalize, sexualize, and racialize bodies “linked to conquest, difference, and disembodiment” (Hinojos, 2019). These all have serious effects on the Latinx community and their identities. Maria Hinojosa, a famous journalist, said she “grew up feeling invisible,” which led her to founding Futuro Media, a “nonprofit organization with the goal of producing content from a people-of-color perspective” (Reyes, 2020). According to Gina Rodriguez, an American actress, she “missed out on learning perfect Spanish because Latinos weren’t the ‘good guys’ on-screen, so god forbid anyone thought that way of me. My parents feared we would be discriminated against so they taught us English first” (Shinn-Morris, n.d.).

These representations are not only untrue, but they also contribute further to the hypersexualization of Latina bodies and violence against Latina women. By dehumanizing Latina women and reducing them to sexual conquests or subservient buffoons, these mass media stereotypes bolster America’s xenophobic and racist policies toward the Latinx community. Meanwhile, Latina women are fighting for their very lives. While many women are rallying in the United States against inhumane detention and deportation policies, one of the greatest counterexamples to the long list of media stereotypes of Latina women is the Ni Una Menos movement in Latin America.

Ni una menos means not one less in Spanish. It’s a shortened version of the phrase “Ni una menos, ni una mas!” which translates to “not one woman less, not one more death!” (Friedman & Tabbush, 2016). The line has become the rallying cry of massive protests against femicide, or the killing of women because of their gender, in Argentina and, increasingly, the rest of Latin America. In 2015, in response to a slew of femicide cases, hundreds of thousands of women across Argentina organized and executed incredible protests with unprecedented participation, marching to the congress in the capital city of Bueno Aires (Pomaraniec, 2015). In 2016, in reaction to the violent abduction and gang-rape of Lucía Pérez, a 16-year-old high school student, feminist activists organized both a strike and protest in less than a week(Friedman & Tabbush, 2016). For the past five years, the movement has grown to include other issues and has reached other countries in Latin America, such as Mexico, which recently saw countless women participate in a massive women’s strike and march on and following International Women’s Day (Gonzalez, 2020).

These demonstrations show the incredible organizing power of Latina women and their capacity to drive social and legislative change, contrary to what the images of the “sexy maid” or “spicy (but stupid) Latina” suggest. In Chile, the demonstrations “were central to the Chilean feminist movement’s accumulation of power,” working to “narrate shared suffering, question adversaries, and democratize the field of political visibility” (Martinez, 2019). According to Mason W. Moseley, author of Protest State: The Rise of Everyday Contention in Latin America, the Ni Una Menos movement has been so powerful in Argentina that it has “typified the nature of the Argentine protest state” (Moseley, 2018). Meanwhile, the United States actually has a higher rate of femicides - from 2010-2015, Argentina registered fewer femicides per 100,000 women than the United States (Moseley, 2018).  That said, it is important to note that the stereotypes perpetuated by American mass media are not only proven false (in dramatic fashion) by the Ni Una Menos movement, but also that these stereotypes simply continue to reinforce the very violence that the movement seeks to end. Furthermore, the lack of American reporting on the movement contributes to the erasure of Latinx activism and Latina agency.  

What Ni Una Menos also points out is that there is a severe underreporting of femicides in the United States, which lacks a definition for the word “femicide,” unlike many of the Latin American countries mentioned above (Anguiano, 2019). Even as I was researching this topic, I struggled to find information on American femicides - my “femicide” searches in the University Library portals returned only “homicide,” not even recognizing the terms I was using. This may be because the United States only tracks and registers domestic violence killings as gender-related homicides, which means there is a massive gap in American data on femicides - and these murders are risks to all women in America, not only the Latinx community (Anguiano, 2019). The rate for murdered trans women is even higher, despite still being underreported (Human Rights Campaign, 2019). Given the severity of this invisible “epidemic,” the American media would do well to pay greater attention to the model that Ni Una Menos sets and reexamine its standard reporting and depictions of Latina women.

Citations:

Andrews, K. (2017, May 1). (Mis)Representation of Latinos in Media. Retrieved from https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/art-and-culture/misrepresentation-latinos-media** **

Anguiano, D. (2019, April 11). The nurse tracking America’s ‘epidemic’ of murdered women. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/11/the-nurse-tracking-americas-epidemic-of-murdered-women

 Hinojos, S. (2019). Lupe Vélez and her spicy visual “accent” in English-language print media. Latino Studies, 17(3), 338–361. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-019-00194-y

Holson, L. M. (2019, August 26). Latinos Are Underrepresented in Hollywood, Study Finds. Retrieved April, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/movies/latinos-hollywood-underrepresented.html

Human Rights Campaign. (2019). Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2019. Retrieved from https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2019

 Lopez, J. (2013). Speaking with them or speaking for them: A conversation about the effect of stereotypes in the Latina/Hispanic women’s experiences in the United States. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 25(2), 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1002/nha.20020

 Martínez, S. (2019). Contributions to an ethnography of feminist movements: Expressive recourses in the #Ni una menos and #8M marches in Santiago de Chile. Antipoda, 2019(35), 115–124. https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda35.2019.06

 Moseley, M. (2018). Tracing the Roots of the Protest State in Argentina. In Protest State. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190694005.003.0005

Reyes, R. A. (2020, April 6). Love and hate in our America: Journalist Maria Hinojosa talks about both in upcoming memoir. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/love-hate-our-america-journalist-maria-hinojosa-talks-about-both-n1177616

[juniorformulamotorsport]

Friday, 12th July 2019 – Porto, Day 2

Friday morning saw Lynne creak into action rather late, but in good time for our first activity of the day. I’d already been out to try and purchase some yogurt for her because she insists it’s needed to kick start her digestion. I’d found a lot of lovely buildings, but despite Google Maps insisting there was a supermarket at the destination it had sent me to, there really wasn’t. I’d given up and returned to the Intercontinental where the staff in the restaurant let me have a yogurt for free (we were on a room only booking so breakfast was meant to be €25 per person which was part of the reason I’d gone out to hunt for fermented dairy products – we didn’t actually want breakfast proper because of our plans for the day).

We had always intended to skip breakfast because we were booked on a food tour of Porto, starting at 10:00 and lasting around 3.5 hours. Our experience of food tours so far (in Helsinki and Krakow) had taught us that it’s best to arrive hungry for this sort of endeavour. This one, the Vintage Food Tour, with the lovely and very knowledgeable Maria from Taste Porto would prove to be no exception. First, however, we’d ordered a pair of Porto cards, including the Andante card that gives you access to Porto’s public transport network. The cost was €33 each for four days so it wasn’t exactly expensive even if we didn’t use it in all the places it was valid (which wouldn’t be possible in 4 days unless you rushed in and out of everywhere and I’d rather not do that, unlike some people).

First we walked up to the cathedral where, after a couple of false starts, we finally located the Tourist Information office, and were soon in possession of the cards as well as a very useful city map.

From there we walked back down the hill to get to our rendezvous point. We met over by the Mercado do Bolhão (which apparently means big bubble because it’s on the site of a small creek that’s now underground, and that used to produce lots of bubbles). The neoclassic building that’s on the site now was built in 1914 and provides the main market in town. It’s currently undergoing a full refurbishment, and most of the traders have been moved to a massive all nearby for the duration while the art deco building is restored to its former glory. It had apparently fallen into a bit of a state of disrepair, but a massive grant from the EU coupled with local money means it will stage a come back. When it does I’d like to see it because I’m sure it will be glorious once again. It’s been classified as a Property of Patrimonial Interest since 2006, and a Monument of Public Interest since 2013. They started the work in 2018 and it’s supposed to be complete in 2020. The traders are apparently looking forward to returning because they’ll be back in the open in the courtyard area after 2 years inside. Work does seem to be progressing nicely, at least from the outside…

After the 8 of us on the tour had introduced ourselves to each other Maria walked us to the first destination on the tour, the Mercearia do Bolhão, an utterly wonderful old-style grocery shop selling food and drink, but also with a small household cleaning section. There’s a bakery section as well but that’s been moved to a second building a handful of doors down.

Inside we were presented with a selection of local goodies, including a lovely selection of cheese, crackers, quince paste and a local sausage. We nibbled our way through these (Maria told us she’d be disappointed if we didn’t eat everything and explained that the locals have very big appetites). The cheese was especially good, made with milk from cows, goats and sheep. It was soft, creamy and had a slightly pungent finish where you could clearly detect the goat’s milk flavour. The crackers were slightly sweet with a good crunch, and the quince paste was grainier than the sort I’m used to, but went perfectly with the cheese. Apparently having both together is known as Romeo and Juliet!

From here we walked towards the famous Porto café, the Majestic Café, which is a terrific looking place complete with smartly-uniformed waiters. It’s also a complete tourist trap, and charges around €5 a coffee. The locals don’t go there, and as this was a tour to show us where the locals do go, Maria walked us along to the second café owned by the same people, the Guarany Café, close to our hotel on the Avenida dos Aliados. Here coffee costs around €1, and breakfast is €15 instead of €30. We sat down and had a coffee each, a very strong but smooth blend, preferred by the locals. The café itself is also lovely, but has the advantage of not being rammed with tourists. Apparently there are a number of regulars including a local poet in his 90s know who comes in every morning for a coffee and to read the newspapers. Apparently the original owners made their money in Brazil and then returned in the 1930s to open this café. Its website also provides a good example of something we would continue to experience all the time we were in Porto, with translations into English having quite obviously never been anywhere near a native English speaker before being committed to print/the internet. It was enough to make my inner editor weep!

Fortified by coffee, our next stop was at the magnificent São Bento station, where we had a brief run through the history of Porto and of Portugal and an opportunity to admire the 20,000 tiles that make up the decoration of the main hall. The station is the main starting point for train journeys through the Douro valley, and it is also the terminus of a number of local lines. Like our hotel, it too was once a convent, with the last nun only dying a number of years after the first train service ran! The tiles date from 1905–1916, and depict scenes from Portugal’s history, including the entry into Porto of King John I and Philippa of Lancaster to celebrate their wedding. There are also scenes of local life, including a cattle fair and a pilgrim camp (Porto is on one of the many routes to Santiago de Compostela and thus sees a lot of pilgrims walking the path even now – we saw quite a few walkers with the pilgrim sign of a scallop shell hanging from their rucksacks), along with scenes showing vineyards, the grape harvest, wine shipment down the Douro and work in a watermill. As Maria pointed out, all the work seems to be being done by the women.

From the station we headed up the hill back towards the cathedral where we stopped off at a shop selling canned fish. This was not the madly touristic version either, but rather somewhere very civilised that is run by the associated of tinned fish producers with intent to promote their products. There was a table waiting for us in Loja das Conservas (other branches are available, including in Macau, which I wish I’d known sooner), with a bottle of wine, crackers and two different types of tinned fish to try, one the obvious sardines, the other needlefish. Both were very tasty indeed, once I’d recovered from trying a drop or two of the chilli sauce known as “the bastard” and my tongue stopped throbbing! In addition to hundreds of different types of fish in tins, with all sorts of sauces, they also sell some purely fun things including these dangly sardines, and I’d really recommend a visit. We were all given a 5% discount voucher to use in the shop, and Lynne and I decided we’d come back later and collect some supplies. The vinho verde served alongside the fish was also very good.

From here we went to Ö Tascö, a very modern looking restaurant in what we were now beginning to realise was the standard Porto building with a very narrow facade at the front but that go back for forever, very much like Belgian buildings. I asked if it was for the same reason (the wider the building the more tax you paid) and was told that yes, that was indeed the case. Here we were offered more wine along with some petischos, salt cod fritters and some Alheira sausages, apparently also known as Jewish sausages. These are sausages made of meat (veal, duck, chicken quail or rabbit) and bread, usually along with alho (garlic) which is where the name comes from. Apparently they were invented by the Jews of Portugal in 1497 when they were given a choice between being expelled from the country or converting to Christianity. The conversos who secretly retained their beliefs avoided eating pork but where at risk because they didn’t have sausages (containing pork) hanging up in their smokehouses and so, to avoid the Inquisition noticing, they started making sausages from other meats. They are tasty, with a texture that’s very mushy, and are very filling. The cod fritters were a model of lightness in comparison!

After a second glass of wine the conversation was very animated, and we all seemed to be getting on very well. We were in even better form by the time we reached Taxca, a pub rather than a restaurant, where we drank an espadal wine, a sparkling, light rose, kept in a cask and served from a pump and produced in the vinho verde region. With it we had a typical snack, a hefty serving of presunto ham in a bread roll. Maria reckoned this was the sort of place she and her friends would come to at the start of a night out to get things off to a good start. The hams are hanging up above the bar, and the menu is a pair of metal plaques with the words cut out of them, fastened to the wall. Presumably it doesn’t change very often!

  Now we were full of food we were ready for the final stage of the tour. Stopping off at a bakery for some sweet treats, we headed on to a port and wine shop, Touriga (named after one of the many grapes used to make port), where we would have a short session on port, and a tasting of three different ports along with the treats. We had the good fortune to try a 10-year old white, a 2013 late bottled vintage, and a 10-year old tawny.

The went perfectly with the sweets, a tiny almond tart, and a sticky brigadeiro (a Brazilian ball of chocolate and condensed milk and butter formed into a ball and coated in chocolate sprinkles). And half an hour later we realised that a) we were going to have to buy some port and b) we weren’t going to make it to our scheduled tasting at Graham’s port house by 14:15 because it was 14:15 and we’d gone way over the scheduled time. We didn’t care; we’d been having fun. We cared even less when Maria called Graham’s and rescheduled it for us for the following day. She apologised for the overrun, but we’d really enjoyed it and really, really wouldn’t have wanted to rush off.

Before we left the shop we ordered a case of the wines we’d tried (6 of the white, 6 of the tawny) and arranged to have them shipped home for a very reasonable extra €37. The American on the tour were disappointed to find they’d have to pay €173 to ship 12 bottles and instead planned to bury them in their suitcases. I do hope it all survives the trip back to Michigan. Ours arrived 6 days later, safely packed, and with a lovely note thanking us for supporting small wine producers. I suggest the pleasure will be all ours! We’d had a fabulous food tour, and I could see why the Guardian ranked Taste Porto’s tours as among the best anywhere.

It was now around 3pm. We dropped some things off at the hotel, and then decided it was too stick to do anything productive so we’d join a bus tour to take a look at the Atlantic coast. It was a hop on hop off tour but we couldn’t raise the energy to hop off so we stayed put on the top level, letting the breeze cool us off, and watching the world go by. I do have to say that I’ve been on better tours with the same company. The commentary was almost inaudible even with the volume turned up full blast, and had clearly been read by someone with only a passing familiarity with English. It was, however, also considerably cheaper than in most European countries at €15 for 2 days. And we got to sit down for an hour or so, which was by now very welcome!

At the end of the tour we hopped off and went and peered into the MacDonalds, to see if we’d been told the truth. We most certainly had!

I’m pretty sure there are no MacDonalds anywhere else that are quite so spectacular on the inside…

Or the outside! We didn’t need any prompting not to stay though. Maria had recommended a gelateria close by, and as it was a sticky day we figured what the hell, we’d have one and then go back to the hotel to get cleaned up before dinner. The 1927 Gelateria Portuense is brilliant. It’s a tiny place, tucked away down a sidestreet, and it serves the most fabulous gelato. By the time we got there, they’d started to run out of several flavours, but they still had the pistachio left, enough for a single portion, so Lynne had that and I had the mango, and we swapped spoonfuls. It was definitely among the best ice cream or gelato I’ve ever eaten. They also do a tasting selecton where you can have 6 small tubs of different flavours for €7 which seemed like a bargain for that quality level.

Now decidedly sticky as well as sweaty we retreated back to the hotel for a pre-dinner shower and a drink before going out for dinner (we had a bottle of the white port from the tour to hand and intended to enjoy it).

Travel 2019 – Porto, Day 2 Friday, 12th July 2019 - Porto, Day 2 Friday morning saw Lynne creak into action rather late, but in good time for our first activity of the day.

[boopliette]

I was tagged by @eternatea who is just the sweetest,, ahh ive never been tagged to do any of these before, thank you :) 

Rules: Answer the questions, and tag nine people you want to know better.

Relationship status: UGH (that basically sums it up, just as well as a tumbleweed would)

Lipstick or chapstick? chapstick (which i didnt realise was lip balm until i literally googled it just now,, wow i am not smart) because its cold here and chapped lips are a nightmare (WHOA I JUST GOT IT)

Last song I listened: weirdly enough the last song i actually heard was Finale from In The Heights when I saw it at the weekend (rip) but the last song i listened to was Finale from the workshop version of In The Heights, because that bit with Lincoln at the start is just 👌👌👌

Last movie I watched: Inside Llewyn Davis

Top 3 shows: Brooklyn Nine Nine, Bob’s Burgers, Gravity Falls (and musical wise its In The Heights (obviously), Spring Awakening and Hamilton)

Top 3 characters: Sonny (In The Heights), Amy Santiago (Brooklyn Nine Nine), and i dont know just a joint third spot for Poe Dameron, BB8, Finn and Rey (Star Wars) because who ccan pick really?

Top 3 ships: the big three from in the heights takes the joint first spot (so nina/benny, vanessa/usnavi and sonny/pete), then Jake/Amy (Brooklyn Nine Nine) and Lupin/Tonks (Harry Potter, like my lowkey constant otp forever and ever)

imma tag some of the people who make me super happy whenever they reblog my stuff because they leave the nicest tags or asks and things or are just incredily always reblogging everything straight away (do some of you guys ever sleep??) so @pika-ace @babyboyramos @gentlebreadslice @summerkid423 @epsilon-exe-has-stopped-working

to be fair theres tons of people that could be on that list because i get excited by every nice tag and these are just the first few i could think of,, so i also tag anyone who wants to do it beause you’re all great and i want to get to know you all :) :) :)

also because this is an art blog here is a dood of how being tagged made me feel

[siannet4]

Two days in Budapest

29/30 June 2014.

Not finding this blog easy to navigate.  Maybe it is the iPad version of Mapquest (the original blog platform I wrote this blog on) vs the laptop format I was used to and I think I should have practised a bit more before I left.

Anyway, here goes, feedback on two days of Budapest.   I cannot believe how quickly the time has passed and we have not done even a fraction of what we planned to do.  My impressions?  I am totally taken.  This city is right up there with Paris, dare I say, maybe even more  alluring?  I cannot believe the beauty all around me!  When I first arrived, Budapest and its buildings and roads reminded me of Buenos Aires or Santiago, then there was a flash of Paris and the Champs Élysées.  

Our apartment is in Pest and we are so centrally located, everything seems within reach.  Attractions, restaurants, bars, beautiful architecture, museums and what not.  A 3-day stay is definitely far and far too short, especially when you do a lot one day and want to do more the next but your body is telling you to take it a bit easier. A lot easier, actually.  Yesterday, we walked for 6 ½ hours and went home for a break and went out again for another long walk……boy oh boy.  There is so much to see.  The exquisite old world architecture all around me stops me again and again just to capture it on ‘film’ until I came to realise I should put the camera away and just enjoy the moment.  Suck it all in and savour it right there and right then.  Burn it into my memory, enjoy the experience.  

A few things stood out more than others, one was the Viking cruise ship terminal with a number of these long-boats.  These cruise ships are huge!  But then it happened, heehee, I could not help myself when we saw the buses with the prospective cruise passengers pulling up.  What? It suddenly dawned upon us that we will be travelling on the boat with all OLD PEOPLE!!!  One after the other creaked and groaned down the steps, easing themselves out of the bus.  Unbelievable, and, yeah, they all looked over 60!!  Geez, haha.  And they are found all over the city as well, strolling along, sitting at cafés or just relaxing in the sun.  Yep, they are everywhere, it is like Cocoon all over.  A wake-up call for us, made me laugh, though.  Yeah, accept it, girl, that is you!!  That is us. But we do not feel old and I bet none of our companion travellers do either, so who cares?  

We are really looking forward to the cruise and visiting all these places along the way.  Just looking at Budapest, in anticipation of the cities and towns to come, it will no doubt be an amazing journey.  Budapest.  What words can I use to describe this historical city?  Most impressive are the buildings, opulent, large and majestic, e.g the Art Museum apparently used to be a castle/palace (Queen Sissi - Romy Schneider, anyone remember?) and the place we are staying at used to be connected by interior doors to all the other apartments in this block and owned by one or two families.  Now they are all separately owned units.  

A few Budapest highlights? Wow, what can I say?  There are so many: the MACCAs shop in a beautiful, old restored railway building (three of the photos), the beautiful bridges crossing the Danube, the intricate carvings in the stonework of many buildings, the grand tree-lined  boulevards with al-fresco dining.  The amazing castle on the hill.  The ruin pubs along Kasinczy Street and one of the eclectic out-of-this-world pubs there, deserving its own photo album  on Facebook.  I do need to list and even describe these places of interest for myself because after travelling, I often seem to forget so many places and only by mentioning them now, will it jog my memory in future when I look back at this trip.  Just like the movie The Notebook.

Today, a cool and rainy day, we dragged our sore bodies up to Heroes’ Square with a head full of plans and a list on what to do today, but instead we jumped on the Hop On and Hop Off bus, the Big Red Bus.  Best money spent.  The bus took us to so many places, both on the Pest side and across the river into the hills of Buda.  The views from up there are spectacular.  During the trip I felt tears welling up in my eyes, more than once.  I was listening to the audio tape relating Hungary’s history, at the same time taking in the magnificent sights and just could not help myself.  My eyes and ears were on overdrive.  I love being able to feel beauty around me and do not mind it affecting me like this.  It hasn’t been the first time and won’t be the last either, I hope (I refer to the gold museum in Cuzco). This is what I so like about being retired, about being able to travel, it is the ability to stop and smell the roses, the ability to experience my surroundings on an emotional level.  The ability to let not only my mind, but also my heart connect with the environment I am in.  OK, enough is enough.  I do waffle on sometimes, but it is sincere.  Pictures speak a thousand words.  

And that is where I seem to be stuck.  I am unable to upload my photos!!!! Dang, back to the drawing board!!!!!