#sally was the only contributor to that relationship

[insanityislife101]

Others childhood idols:

My childhood idols:

[saintmeghanmarkle]

NYT piece raises questions. Have the Suss-exes have turned the Royal Family into the Kardashians? They certainly have undermined the dignity of the institution in my opinion. by u/Von_und_zu_

NYT piece raises questions. Have the Suss-exes have turned the Royal Family into the Kardashians? They certainly have undermined the dignity of the institution, in my opinion. I didn't see this when I looked, but there has been so many posts, I may have missed. https://ift.tt/rLfATv0 excerpt:“People of all ages and backgrounds still take the British royal family very seriously,” Sally Bedell Smith, the journalist and serial royal biographer, said of its American fan base, dismissing any suggestion that they are seen as a British version of a reality television family like, say, the Kardashians. “They are interested in their lives and their history and they respect their work.”But there has always been detachment in the American attitude toward the British royals, which holds fascination and curiosity but has evolved for some to include resentment and even ridicule. The Windsors are not funded by American taxpayer dollars. Nor are they deeply woven into the fabric of American society as they are in Britain, where in recent weeks public consensus on the royals, which resists easy interpretation and remains tied up with centuries of tradition, was to leave the princess alone.American interest in the royals waned after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, especially among older generations. [I don't think this is true.] King Charles III, who recently underwent cancer treatment, has yet to inspire the same degree of affection. [Ditto.] But the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex created a younger fan base in the United States, many of whom began to feel negatively toward the royal family following the fracturing of relations between the Sussexes and the Palace. [ I think that was the Sus-exes plan, but that hasn't worked long term, in my opinion.] The couple’s subsequent relocation to California, Prince Harry’s autobiography and a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey have married the conventions of a royal title with the business of modern celebrity with products to sell and a more commercialized relationship with fans. [Confirming the commercialization of royal titles.]The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wished Catherine “health and healing” in a statement on Friday. But many of the Sussexes’ followers continue to be vocal contributors to online conversation around the Princess of Wales, comparing the treatment of the Duchess of Sussex and the Princess of Wales by the faceless “palace,” as well as what modern royalty should look like. [They are undeterred. If anything, they seem to have doubled down.]“Queen Elizabeth was famously private and people accepted that for a woman of her generation,” Ms. Naugle said. “Now Meghan and Harry have prompted some people in younger generations to question the true costs of the monarchy. They want transparency and expect authenticity.” [The irony. While they cling like limpets to their titles and rank, where is the transparency and authenticity in the Suss-ex household?] post link: https://ift.tt/arMmQHj author: Von_und_zu_ submitted: March 26, 2024 at 02:31PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[rptv-starwars]

2016 Article: “Iconic Star Wars Actress Carrie Fisher Dies at 60: 'She Was Loved by the World and She Will Be Missed Profoundly'“

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PEOPLE MAGAZINE

By Lindsay Kimble  •  @lekimble

Posted on December 27, 2016 at 12:44pm EST

https://people.com/movies/carrie-fisher-dies/

[this article was updated after it was published, including adding another contributor]

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Carrie Fisher, the actress best known as Star Wars‘ Princess Leia Organa, has died after suffering a heart attack. She was 60.

Family spokesman Simon Halls released a statement to PEOPLE on behalf of Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd:

“It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,” reads the statement.

“She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly,” says Lourd, 24. “Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers.”

Fisher was flying from London to Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 23, when she went into cardiac arrest. Paramedics removed her from the flight and rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for a heart attack. She later died in the hospital.

The daughter of renowned entertainers Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Fisher was brought up in the sometimes tumultuous world of film, theater and television.

Escaping Hollywood in 1973, the star enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she spent over a year studying acting.

Getty Images

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Courtesy Debbie Reynolds

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Just two years later, though, the bright lights of Hollywood drew her back, and Fisher made her film debut in the Warren Beatty-led Shampoo.

Her role in Star Wars would follow in 1977 – and she detailed the experience, including her on-set affair with costar Harrison Ford, in her latest memoir, The Princess Diarist. She was only 19 when the first installment of the beloved sci-fi franchise was filmed.

Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox/REX/Shutterstock

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In addition to the second and third Star Wars films – and last year’s The Force Awakens – Fisher starred in 1980’s The Blues Brothers, The Man with One Red Shoe, Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986 and, later, When Harry Met Sally.

Steve Larson/The Denver Post via Getty

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Fisher wed musician Paul Simon in 1983. It was an explosive marriage, according to Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon author Peter Ames Carlin, and was cut short by swinging stages of depression, the actress’s drug use and an array of personal insecurities. The relationship continued, though, on-and-off for several years after the pair divorced in 1984.

Paul Simon and Carrie Fisher (Credit: Ron Galella/WireImage)

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Fisher was candid about her substance abuse issues over the decades, starting at only age 13 when she began smoking marijuana. She said she later dabbled in drugs like cocaine and LSD. Fisher explored her own issues with addiction in her 1987 bestselling, semi-autobiographical novel, Postcards from the Edge, which was later turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep.

“I never could take alcohol. I always said I was allergic to alcohol, and that’s actually a definition to alcoholism — an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind,” Fisher told the Herald-Tribune in 2013. “So I didn’t do other kinds of drugs until I was about 20. Then, by the time I was 21 it was LSD. I didn’t love cocaine, but I wanted to feel any way other than the way I did, so I’d do anything.”

In 1985, Fisher was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she subsequently became an outspoken advocate for mental health awareness.

Throughout much of the ’90s, Fisher focused on her writing career, publishing Surrender the Pink and Delusions of Grandma. In addition, Fisher helped craft the scripts for numerous Hollywood films, going uncredited, for films like The Wedding Singer, Hook and Sister Act.

Billie Lourd, Fisher’s only child, was born in July 1992. The Scream Queens star’s father, talent agent Bryan Lourd, dated Fisher for three years and is now married to Bruce Bozzi.

Getty

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In 2005, Fisher was recognized with the Women of Vision Award by the Women in Film & Video – DC. Three years later, Fisher’s Wishful Drinking autobiography was turned into a one-woman stage show and eventually an HBO documentary.

Of returning to the role that launched her career – Leia – for The Force Awakens, Fisher told PEOPLE in 2015, “I knew that something enormous was likely going to impact my life from this film and that there was absolutely no way of understanding what that was or was likely to be.”

The film – which brought Fisher back into the spotlight – earned  her a nomination for the 2016 Saturn Award for best supporting actress. She had already filmed scenes for the next Star Wars installment, Episode VIII, due out in December 2017.

Just last month, Fisher also revealed her surprising on-set affair with Star Wars costar Harrison Ford in The Princess Diarist, telling PEOPLE of the three-month fling during the making of the 1977 movie, “It was so intense.” The memoir, which drew from Fisher’s old diaries and notebooks, brought up mixed feelings for the actress.

“I had forgotten that I’d written them, and I’ve never written diaries sort of like that,” she said. “I write when I’m upset … it was about two or three months of upset.”

Fisher added, “It was sad because I was so insecure, and it’s very raw and obviously I didn’t expect anyone — including myself, I suppose later on — to read it.”

She is survived by her mom Reynolds, daughter Lourd and beloved French bulldog, Gary.

[personalcoachingcenter]

Emotional Intelligence and Career Success for Women

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/emotional-intelligence-and-career-success-for-women/

Emotional Intelligence and Career Success for Women

A Research Paper By Lauren Moy, Career Coach, UNITED STATES

Women Emotional Intelligence Progress During Pandemic

While women have made some progress, they still have a long way to go before they are equal to men. Only 7.4 % of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women, yet this is a record number. The pandemic has widened this gap. “Out of the 1.1 million people who left the workforce in September 2020, roughly 865,000 were women. Latinas and Black women are leaving at higher rates than white women.  The financial price paid for the average woman who opts out and tries to re-enter the workforce is an 18% decrease in their earning power on average—and a 37% decrease when they’re out for three years or more. This will have a lasting impact on families and the U.S. economy.  Senior-level women are 1.5 times more likely than senior-level men to think about downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce because of Covid-19, according to Lean In’s Women in the Workplace 2020 report.  Almost three in four cite burnout as the main reason, with increased caregiving duties playing a big role. Reentering the workplace once you’ve left may mean taking a lower position, and a slower path to promotions.” 1 This research paper will cover:

What Emotional Intelligence is and its Benefits

Emotional Intelligence Assessment Tools

How Increasing EQ can Help Women Counter the 12 Habits that May Hold Them Back from Advancing in their Careers

Coaching with Emotional Intelligence

Research shows that women can become more effective leaders than men because women can manage conflict well, women encourage employees to grow and women have greater chances of influence.2  Women are more inclined than men to coach and mentor employees and give inspirational advice. This can help them excel in professional relationships. Women tend to focus on managing conflict well and mentoring others and less time focusing on how they can have more influence at work, while their male counterparts are more focused on growing their influence.

What Is Emotional Intelligence and Its Benefits?

According to Dr. Travis Bradberry, Award-winning co-author of the #1 best selling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, as well as The Seagull Manager and the cofounder of TalentSmart®, “Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships. Dr. Bradberry states that “Decades of research point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.  Depending on the position, some roles require higher levels of EQ to be successful. Research showed that 90% of top performance is also high in Emotional Intelligence. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. Naturally, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make more money- an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of emotional intelligence.” 3

Emotional Intelligence Assessment Tools

There are several emotional intelligence tools on the market.  These assessments can be a useful starting point to coach a client in improving their EI. Dr. Steven Stein is a clinical psychologist, and the founder and CEO of Multi-Health Systems (MHS), a leading publisher of scientifically validated assessments for more than 30 years.  https://mhs.com/about-mhs/  MHS administers “the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) measures an individual’s emotional intelligence with five composite scores measuring distinct aspects of emotional and social functioning including 1) self-perception 2) self-expression 3) interpersonal 4) decision making and 5) stress management.4

“MHS also administers the Emotional Quotient 360 (EQ 360) is an emotional intelligence assessment that allows leaders to receive feedback from peers, managers, direct reports, and others on how they leverage their emotional intelligence.

How Increasing Eq Helps Women Counter 12 Habits That Hold Them Back

Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith’s book How Women Rise, Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back From Your Next Raise, Promotion or Job, presents the twelve habits that hold women back in their careers.

Knowing how these 12 habits may be linked to Emotional Quotient (EQ) may be helpful to a client in identifying the area(s) that she may want to focus on in coaching to help her get unstuck and advance in her career. Many women leaders can benefit from coaching especially when they were previously in a technical or single contributor role and are newly promoted to lead and manage a team of people. This requires a different set of skills and a higher level of EQ. Identifying some of these habits and creating a plan with goals and accountability can help women to grow in their EQ and advance in their careers.

Habit Holding Women Back EQ-I 2.0 Scale(s) that Can Affect the Habit How Increasing EQ can counter the Habit 1.    Reluctance to claim your achievements Self-regard and assertiveness Self-regard is needed to say “Thank you” when receiving a compliment rather than dismissing the compliment which some women tend to do. Assertiveness is needed to speak up about your achievements. Many women are passed over for promotions because their achievements are not recognized. 2.    Expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions Self-regard, assertiveness and Reality Testing Self-regard and assertiveness are needed to acknowledge and communicate one’s value and contributions. This is important when women are requesting a promotion or interviewing for jobs, Reality testing is needed to recognize when people may not notice unless you speak up and let them know about your contributions. 3.    Overvaluing expertise Reality testing and interpersonal relationships Reality testing is needed to realize that not only is building skills important but also building connections to move you forward in your career. Interpersonal relationships are needed to build those connections. 4.    Building rather than leveraging relationships Self-actualization and interpersonal relationships Self-actualization is needed to pursue promotions. Both self-actualization and interpersonal relationships are needed to believe in oneself to reach for higher levels. Women also need to think strategically and learn to leverage interpersonal relationships. 5.    Failing to enlist allies from day one Reality testing, assertiveness Reality testing is needed to realize the importance of enlisting allies, mentors, and sponsors to help women advance to higher levels. Assertiveness is needed to take the initiative and reach out to others first. 6.    Putting your job before your career Independence and assertiveness Independence is needed to not become dependent on others on the team and stay longer in one job because of your loyalty and relationships even though it is not best for your overall career. 7.    The perfection trap Self-regard and stress tolerance Many perfectionist tendencies are linked to low self-regard, compensating for not feeling good enough. Low-stress tolerance and fear can keep women from taking risks, and stay in the same job for a long time, and can keep women from getting promoted. 8.    The disease to please Self-regard and assertiveness Assertiveness is needed to set and communicate boundaries and say no. Self-regard is needed to prioritize one’s own needs and not only consider the needs of others. 9.    Minimizing Self-regard, Emotional expression Self-regard is needed not to minimize one’s feelings, thoughts, and presence. Emotional expression is needed to communicate emotions and thoughts with confidence. For women to have executive presence, they need to maximize their space, both verbally and non-verbally. 10. Too much Self-awareness and empathy Women are often told by men that they overcommunicate and need to be more concise. Self-awareness helps one to identify and understand emotions. Empathy is needed to understand how the other may feel or respond if too many emotions or words are used so that adjustments can be made. 11. Ruminating (clinging to the past) Self-awareness, flexibility, and optimism Self-awareness is needed to realize the negative impact that ruminating is having on one’s thoughts and feelings. Flexibility is needed to change one’s thinking and feeling. Optimism can help to let go of the past and have satisfaction with your life in general. 12. Letting your radar distract you Self-regard, independence, and reality testing Self-regard is needed to trust and respect one’s thoughts and feelings, independence and reality testing is needed to be able to filter out unhelpful distractions and not let what others say impact you too much.

Coaching With Emotional Intelligence

A Coach According to Daniel Goleman, “a coach can frame gaps between self and other ratings as “news to use,” guiding the client to identify her desired areas for growth. Ideally, a coach can help clients cultivate competencies that align with their goals.  A coach can help a client cultivate self-awareness to recognize their emotions, habits, and triggers. When a coach notices a negative pattern in a client’s perceptions and actions, a coach can bring it to their client’s attention to help them understand where they’re getting stuck. A coach can ask powerful questions to help the client to reframe their perspective, create new learning, and help the client to develop a plan for change and accountability.

By starting with emotional self-awareness, which is the foundation of emotional intelligence, clients can learn to recognize their emotional triggers and limitations. The coach’s ability to help clients discover or rediscover their purpose and values is important to staying motivated for growth. A coach’s ability to listen attentively, offer objective, yet highly tailored feedback and support can make a difference in creating lasting change for the client.”8

Results

Given all the changes and demands on women in a post-pandemic world, there is a greater need for women to have higher levels of emotional intelligence to navigate so the many changes in their personal and work lives. A woman who works with an effective coach may hold the key to helping her reach her personal and professional goals, and lead a more fulfilled life.

References

What the Pandemic Means for Women in Leadership, Corbett, Holley, Forbes

How Emotional Intelligence is the Secret Tool for Women to Succeed as Leaders/, Cribb, Rachel, Thrive Global article

The Massive Benefits of Boosting Your Emotional Intelligence, Bradberry, Travis, TalentSmart, World Economic Forum

MHS website: https://storefront.mhs.com/collections/eq-i-2-0

Stein, Steven, Ph.D. and Book, Howard E., MD, “The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success”, Josey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, Ontario Canada

MHS website: https://storefront.mhs.com/collections/eq-360

Helgesen, Sally and Goldsmith, Marshall, “How Women Rise, Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion or Job”, Hachette Books, New York, and Boston

How a Coach Works with Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, International Coaching Federation (ICF) Blog

Original source: https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/research-papers/coaching-with-emotional-intelligence/

[aion-rsa]

Den of Geek's Best Books of 2019

https://ift.tt/2F47xc4

Here were the 20 books that meant the most to our Den of Geek contributors in 2019.

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To cover and consume popular culture in this era of #PeakContent is to constantly be making choices. This means it is more important now than ever to reflect on the ways in which "best of" lists, just like pop culture itself, are subjective—shaped by a group of people with specific identities, interests, and storytelling sensibilities.

Therefore, in presenting our list of the Best Books of 2019 to you, we note that these stories are not just what may have felt Important in a year when we are more desperate than ever to understand the seemingly increasingly destructive forces at work in the world, but also what meant the most to us personally.

Here are 20 books, in no particular order, that broke through the #PeakContent cacophony to mean something to our Den of Geek contributors this year...

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

A time travel novel that soundly rejects the Great Man Theory of history, The Future of Another Timeline is uninterested in telling the same old story about a singular white dude traveling through time to heroically and simply save the day. In Annalee Newitz's second novel, making positive change in the timeline is mostly conducted by women and people of color, must be done collectively, and is a heck of a lot of work. 

Told in alternating perspectives, The Future of Another Timeline follows middle-aged, time-traveling academic Tess and 17-year-old Beth, a high school student exploring the punk scene in 1992 California. Both characters are deeply informed by their interpersonal contexts. For Tess, that means the support of the Daughters of Harriet, a group of women and non-binary folks fighting to stop a group of time-traveling misogynists known as the Comstockers from securing a timeline in which women have no rights over their own bodies. For Beth, this means her high school friend-group, which represents an escape from her abusive home until they start seeking violent "solutions" to the abusive men in their communities.

read more: Autuonomous by Annalee Newitz — Robots, Love, and Identity Under Capitalism

Wonderfully nerdy and refreshingly radical, The Future of Another Timeline is the angry feminist time travel novel 2019 both needs and deserves, a speculative fiction experience that feels all too real in its depiction of how fragile women's rights can be while also representing the kind of collective action organizing that stands the best chance at saving us all. 

"We deeply need hope right now because we're in a very precarious, self-destructive historical moment," Newitz told Den of Geek this year regarding the hopepunk movement. "I think of hopepunk as narrative therapy for historical trauma—it's a way to ease pain, to tell stories about the healing process as well as what has hurt us." The Future of Another Timeline is a story about what has hurt us and what can heal us.

- Kayti Burt

Read The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

An assassin and a dragon-rider need to save the world from a dragon horde in this doorstopper. The Priory of the Orange Tree’s scenes more remarkably quick compared to the intimidating length of the book, with the author demonstrating a keen understanding of cliffhangers, dramatic timing, and creating characters who care about each other and their world.

Ead Duryan has been assigned to protect Queen Sabran of Inys, but also has to wrestle with the way Inys twisted a true story into an oppressive religion while hiding her true mission and her attraction to the queen. On the other side of the world, the dragon-rider Tané finds that her path to becoming a great warrior isn’t as straightforward as she had hoped, and that her choices will have global ramifications. Side characters, especially the grieving and miserable alchemist Niclays Roos, stuck with me long after I finished reading the book.

High fantasy is a hard sell for me lately. Monarchy, destined heroes, elves and dwarves—It doesn’t feel comfortable, it just feels old. I picked up Priory on the promise of dragons, though, hoping for something new to be done with the quintessential fantasy creature. Samantha Shannon delivered with fantasy that both embraces and improves on tropes. The world is a loosely changed version of our own, with fantasy cultures drawn from and paralleling real ones. It offers beautiful imagery and lush characterization. Explanations for how the magic of the world works and how it’s connected to that world’s history are smoothly threaded into the plot. The book also doesn’t lose sight of wonder, with enough cinematic fight scenes and detailed description of clothing for any HBO adaptation.

- Megan Crouse

Read The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

If you don't regularly read middle grade fiction, you may recognize Carlos Hernandez's name from his beautiful and well-received short story collection The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria, which came out a few years ago (or from his entertaining Twitter account). If you do read middle grade fiction, especially if you've been following the really excellent middle grade fantasy from the Read Riordan imprint, you've probably already met two of my very favorite characters of 2019... Sal and Gabi were breakaway leads in my fiction reading, and they're welcome to break my universe any time (especially since they're promising to fix it in May 2020).

Here's the conceit: middle school magician Sal has this uncanny ability to accidentally breach the multiverse. Sometimes this means he can do some pretty nifty tricks (which he passes off as illusions), like putting a dead chicken in a bully's locker. But it becomes a big problem when he keeps accidentally bringing back his Mami, who died several years ago. His father has remarried, and Sal loves his American Stepmom, but he misses his mother.

Sal is also a Type 1 diabetic, and when his ability to breach the multiverse makes him forget to regulate his blood sugar, he ends up in the hospital—something he's unfortunately used to. Initially, Gabi doesn't know about any of this, but she's the student council president, future journalist type who's not about to let any mystery lie without figuring it out. Because her baby brother is also in the hospital, fighting for his life, her story and Sal's become intertwined, and while multiverse hopping hijinks ensue, so does a story with so much heart that it's hard to put down.

I can't wait to spend more time with these characters as their adventures continue.

- Alana Joli-Abbott

Read Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

At first glance, Leckie’s newest book could not be more different than her Ancillary Justice series, not least of all because she’s smoothly stepped from science fiction to fantasy. The Raven Tower is a standalone fantasy novel, and a slim one at that; instead of a whole universe, its action encompasses two cities across a strait, and one family within them. But it’s how the story is told that cements this as Leckie’s brand of unique invention: A sentient rock god narrates in second-person to a trans protagonist.

Like with Breq, the spaceship AI constrained to one body, Leckie has once again pulled off a cunning experiment in giving voices to the most unusual of genre characters. The passages in which the stone god details its centuries of existence, and evolving relationships with human petitioners and priests, are some of this year’s most daring fantasy writing: slow and unhurried, filled with complex discussions of the power of language to change the very molecules of the world. Despite its brevity, The Raven Tower is wonderfully dense and thought-provoking.

What’s more, the human side of things is so authentically lived-in, a fantasy retelling of Hamlet that nonetheless is full of twists. In the city of Vastai, the Raven’s Lease, a human whose lifespan is entwined with that of the Raven god’s Instrument (an actual bird), has disappeared without paying up. As soldier-turned-heir’s-attendant Eolo investigates the truth, he and his master Mawat confront divine debt, issues of personhood, and the troubling disillusionment that the old ways and religions might be no more than cold comforts in an inexplicable world.

- Natalie Zutter

Read The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Normal People by Sally Rooney

From the jump, it's easy to understand why Sally Rooney's second novel, Normal People, has taken the literary world (and much of Book Twitter) by storm. It's a story of two teenagers, Connell and Marianne, growing up in vastly different circumstances West of Ireland. The book follows their magnetic pull on (or perhaps dire fascination with) one another as they grow up and make their way in the world.

At only 28, Rooney writes through her two protagonists to get at incisive commentary on that strange, fleeting feeling of obsessive youthful love, as well as class, family, what it means to "get out," and the many small ways people are awful to one another, while also loving one another rather tenderly. Considering how often love stories and the (young) women who tell them are diminished, it's also lovely to see Rooney discussed (mostly) with terms like "intellectual rigor."

Hulu is adapting Normal People as a limited series in 2020, so there's still time to read the book before the show starts. Reviewers talk of page turners, but Normal People is one that forces readers to cancel their plans and stay up until first light, ruining their ability to function for the next day, just to squeeze in a few more chapters, a few more lines of Rooney's entrancing prose. Much like the plot summary, the text might seem simple or even commonplace at first glance, but that is Rooney's great deception: she's working overtime to make sure you don't ever see her sweat. Normal People envelopes readers quietly, completely, and so steadily that you might not realize anything has happened until you come up for air hours later, or see the drip of a tear on the page.

- Delia Harrington

Read Normal People by Sally Rooney

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

Elaborate YA fantasies are all the rage right now, and 2019 had several great ones. But Margaret Owen’s debut novel The Merciful Crow is far and away the best of the lot, combining immersive storytelling, a diverse cast of characters, rich worldbuilding and a truly unique magical system into something that will stay with you long after you turn the last page. In short: Everyone in Sabor is divided into castes named after various birds and based on their particular Birthrights, or magical ability. The Crows, the lowest caste of undertakers and mercy-killers, perform magic using the teeth of the dead. It’s…very grim and very cool.

The story is fast-paced and exciting, and for all that it deals with typical fantasy themes (a girl coming into her power, a kingdom on the brink of revolution), The Merciful Crow fearlessly tackles issues of racism, persecution and the difficulties that face any marginalized group that’s mocked and looked down upon for being Other. Even better we see characters openly grapple with their own beliefs and question the things they’ve been taught to believe about others in a way that feels both compelling and natural. The book’s sequel, The Faithless Hawk, is due out this summer, and if it’s not already at the top of your most anticipated books for next year, it should be.

- Lacy Baugher

Read The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion was one of my favorite books in 2017, so when I heard her next endeavor was a space marine time travel story, I could hardly wait. The Light Brigade delivered. It’s an exploration of the military industrial complex, the psychology of a soldier named Dietz, and a meticulously organized time travel story. The action scenes are vivid and grim, the dialogue energetic, the stakes clear. Hurley has a lot to say about the nature of war, of trauma, of the psychology of being thrown into unexpected battles every day. (The “light” of the title is a teleportation system that Dietz is experiencing as time jumps.)

This is a writer’s book, with an impressive structure: scenes end at what could have been abrupt moments but instead become a tool to increase suspense throughout the novel. The author has posted images of the chart she used to keep the time jumps in order, and you can tell the process of outlining the book was a feat of not just writing but also a kind of engineering, resulting in a convoluted but utterly understandable sequence of out-of-order events. It’s hard science fiction rooted in classics but utterly suitable for today.

- Megan Crouse

Read The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

In a future generations after humanity has fled an uninhabitable Earth, humans live on January, a tidally-locked planet with two declining cities living in the twilight in-between the two extreme climates of the world...

Bordering the blistering side of the planet, we have Xiosphant, an authoritarian city with a constructed diurnal cycle where "timefulness" is sacred. Bordering the frozen side of the planet, we have Argelo, a libertarian society ruled by nine family-affiliated gangs who keep the city locked in a cycle of violence. As the generation ship technology brought with humanity decades before begins to fail, decline feels inevitable for both examples of human society.

We follow two main characters through the story: Sophie, a working class student studying at Xiosphant's university who is exiled into the night after taking the fall for the upper-class object of her affections Bianca. Rather than dying a lonely death, Sophie is saved by the crocodile-like telepathic aliens native to January. Elsewhere, we follow Mouth, a jaded smuggler from an otherwise extinct nomadic people known as the Citizens.

An exploration of working towards radical change in the face of climate catastrophe, personal and collective trauma, and interpersonal complications, The City in the Middle of the Night is a classically science fiction novel tapping into the most anxiety-inducing of contemporary struggles, and somehow finding a measure of hope there. "I can't do this thing anymore, where we live in a tiny space and pretend it's the whole world," Sophie tells Bianca in the novel. "People always have brand new reasons for doing the same thing over and over. I need to see something new." 

- Kayti Burt

Read The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

If you know the names Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly it is likely only due to the reason for their deaths. These five women are the canonical victims of the infamous Jack the Ripper, and are generally only considered remarkable because of the fact that they died violently at the hands of a serial killer no one ever managed to catch.

Author Hallie Rubenhold’s book changes all of that. In the world of Ripper lore, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper feels revelatory, in that it focuses on life, rather than death. It tells the real story of each of The Five, who they were, where they came from, and the tragic reasons that led them to a life on the streets of Victorian London. And it gives them their voices back, possibly for the first time since their deaths.

Meticulously researched, this book brings to life a group of women who have too long been silenced, or worse, reimagined in a way that suits history best. The majority of these women weren’t prostitutes, as the contemporary papers positioned them and history likes to remember them. They were women who struggled and scraped, who suffered repeated hardships and abandonments, who struggled with poverty and alcohol addiction, and who deserved better than deaths that left them forever in the shadow of a monster. Read this, and remember them.

- Lacy Baugher

Read The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

The Grace Year by Kelly Liggett

In a year where Margaret Atwood herself wrote a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s probably not that much of a shock that some of 2019’s most affecting stories have to do with female rage and empowerment. The Grace Year is a technically a YA novel, but it packs an outsize punch, reckoning with a dystopian future that nowadays feels far too much like it could in some way become reality.

read more: Feminist Science Fiction Novels to Read after The Handmaid's Tale

In the world of Garner County, young women are banished on their sixteenth birthday, condemned to spend their “grace year” on an isolated island to purge themselves of the dangerous and manipulative magic men believe they possess. The bones of Kim Liggett’s story are familiar ones, particularly the harmful culture these girls are born into and the cruel things they’re willing to do to one another in the name of maintaining it, but its story is ultimately one that points a way toward a future where change is possible. It’s not often you finish a story like this and genuinely feel hopeful, and yet, The Grace Year accomplishes this feat – all without giving anyone what you might call a happy ending.

- Lacy Baugher

Read The Grace Year by Kelly Liggett

Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles

The Beatles' film Let It Be appears to be a documentary on the breakup of a band. The album they recorded after it, Abbey Road, has always been touted as the album they made to go out on a high note. Kenneth Womack's Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and The End of the Beatles, says that's not the case. They were recording what they thought was just their next album when they happened to break up. The band was especially excited about playing with new musical toys.

As should be evident by the name, the book starts with the sound board. The only eight track recording console at EMI. It was bright and shiny and new, and only a privileged few engineers were allowed to tinker with it, and they had to wear lab coats. The band was far away from the caper-chasing characters they played in A Hard Day’s Night and Help! but they were still fab enough to abscond with the apparatus and produce their flawless farewell to studio albums.

Almost the entire book is set in the studio. We learn about a car crash John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and their respective children survive from how it impacts the sessions. Paul McCartney's marriage happens barely out of reach of the soundproof panels and the Bed-In for Peace is placed far away from the mics. Even the breakup itself is captured as the same kind of ambient noise McCartney recorded on George Harrison's Moog synthesizer for the segues between songs. Like the surround sound created for Ringo Starr's only credited drum solo, the music is front and center.

Womack is a thorough researcher and interviewer who casts new light on old Beatles mythology. Several stories which are well-known to fans are challenged and a few more obscure bits are uncovered. The read itself is fun.

- Tony Sokol

Read Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles

Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff

Modern Irish literary greatness is alive and well, and anyone who reads Last Ones Left Alive can see why. Sarah Davis-Goff's spare post-apocalyptic tale follows Orpen on a largely solitary journey from her home on a remote island, away from the vicious, otherworldly creatures called the Skrake. The novel flashes back to Orpen's childhood alone on the island, with her Ma and Ma's wife, Maeve, as Orpen trained to survive against the unseen enemy while trying to decode what happened to the world, and fending off her own loneliness. In Orpen's present tense, she makes the difficult decision to search the mainland for help, accompanied by her dog, some chickens, and pulling a wheel barrow.

To say more would spoil it, and certainly part of the book's power is in the way it slowly reveals the truths of the Skrake, Orpen's upbringing, and what led her to go on the road. Beyond that, it's a story of self-reliance with feminism baked in, rather than discussed or layered on top. Orpen's instincts keep her safe and she is largely a solitary creature, so the novel has a desolate, almost animalistic quality to it that captures the Wild Atlantic Way and the feral nature of civilization gone to hell. Davis-Goff evokes the setting - both physical and emotional - so intensely that it feels like Orpen walks around with you even when you put the book down. It's a book that knows exactly what it set out to do, creates that world, and then cuts the reader off from it once the task at hand is finished, with the kind of efficiency Maeve taught Orpen to keep her alive.

- Delia Harrington

Read Last Ones Left Alive by Sarah Davis-Goff

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Set in an alternate universe where the United States elected a female divorcee Democrat from Texas to the presidency in 2016, Red, White, and Royal Blue follows the secret, enemies-to-lovers romance between first son Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince of England Henry. In the process, author Casey McQuiston invites us to spend time in a world that is, as described in her author's note, "still believably fucked up, just a little better, a little more optimistic." 

The result is an intensely cathartic reading experience that prioritizes comfort over grit, hope over pessimism, and empathy over bitterness, while also depicting tough subjects such as mental illness and civic exhaustation. In a year when to stay actively engaged in the news cycle often felt like a neverending battle, Red, White, and Royal Blue offered a brand of escapism that is all too rare in the mainstream: queer, filled with male characters who do their own emotional labor, and unapologetically millennial. The world needs more stories like this one, as well as the cultural space for more people to find guiltless pleasure in their enjoyment.

- Kayti Burt

Read Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

Confession #1: I picked up this book on NetGalley because it has a gorgeous cover. Confession #2: My NetGalley copy expired when I was 80 pages from the end. Confession #3: I went out and purchased the book the same day my NetGalley copy expired, because I had to finish it.

The Good Luck Girls is Davis' debut novel, and it packs an incredible punch. Set in an alternate world—possibly a future dystopia on a different planet, but there are fantasy elements that make it hard to place entirely—where people with shadows have more rights than those who don't, the book centers on five young women fleeing life in a brothel.

Dustblood, or shadowless, girls are frequently sold by poor families into "welcome houses," given the promise of a better life: regular meals, fancy clothes, luxury. The condition, of course, is that they have no rights over their own bodies, and they are never allowed to leave, branded with a magical tattoo that reveals their identities, and glows and burns if they try to cover it.

When Clementine accidentally kills a violent brag, she, her sister, and their friends make a daring escape, turning to a life of banditry in an effort to reach the legendary Lady Ghost, who can offer them a different future—if she's real. The result is a twisted Weird Western that feels like the Wild West, while twisting its tropes and delivering a story about victims taking back their own destinies and carving a new path toward a better future.

- Alana Joli-Abbott

Read The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

There are two phrases from this year that my friends and I shout at one another whenever we’re in the same room. One flesh, one end (from Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth) is a fun little rallying cry, but it is this piece of poetry from Martine’s debut novel that makes me tear up every time I utter it: "Released, I am a spear in the hands of the sun."

While I have always enjoyed space opera well enough, considering how many stories fit within the subgenre, this is the first book where I found myself delighting in all of the trappings. Martine dives deep into this byzantine far-future universe, clearly so excited about every detail that you cannot help but be equally enthusiastic… even when you rationally know that you should not be so captivated by colonialism.

But that’s the point. Teixcalaanli civilization, with its alien-yet-logical naming conventions and obsession with its own epic poetry, is so addictively interesting that readers are automatically as emotionally invested as diplomat Mahit Dzmare. After an upbringing on the empire’s fringes in independent Lsel Station, Mahit finally gets to visit Teixcalaan’s famed city-planet capital, only to be thrust into a political thriller full of mysterious deaths, sex-as-diplomacy, and an emperor with an unusual agenda. Not to mention, Mahit has her own cultural capital that she must keep from getting assimilated into the empire like everything else in the universe.

Read A Memory Called Empire knowing as little as possible, aside from the fact that you will meet a bevy of damn competent women and find yourself murmuring about spears released in no time. The fact that Teixcalaan is a culture obsessed with repeating the patterns of its epic stories in contemporary life is so endearingly geeky and very relatable to our present moment.

- Natalie Zutter

Read A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

You Look Like A Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works 

Janelle Shane became internet-famous through her blog AI Weirdness and its social media offshoots. Her wacky computer-generated lists have been making me laugh for years, so I was quick to jump on her first paper book of artificial intelligence and humor. Half of the appeal are the lists of computer-generated things: the title comes from a list of comically nonsensical and occasionally sweet pickup lines. There are plenty of lists like these in the book, providing a break in the science for some high-quality random humor. The networks she trains don’t know what words they should be putting together, so they surprise in a way that a human could never quite do.

The other half of the appeal is the science. Shane outlines what in our daily lives counts as artificial intelligence and what doesn’t, why asking “what the program was thinking” is a nonsensical question, and how artificial intelligence (specifically, certain kinds of machine learning) actually works. Ideas are explained with precision, clarity, and ease. The science is also funny without being twee. This was both one of the most informative and most fun books I read all year. To be one would be nice; to be both is astonishing.

- Megan Crouse

Read You Look Like A Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

I had never read any of Winterson’s work, but her modern, queer retelling—not just of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but of the entire process around writing the first science fiction novel—makes clear just how lacking all other Frankenstein adaptations are in innovation and relatability. Most concern the doctor and his creature locked in a cat-and-mouse game of wits and horror, yet still so predictable that they all blur together whether period piece or futuristic cyborg story or police procedural. Yet Winterson’s take is so radically different from its forebears that you find yourself not guessing how the story will turn out, despite the fact that she lays out the narrative beats in the beginning and follows them—with the occasional detour to a sex robot convention or London’s waterlogged underground tunnels.

read more: 16 Best Fall Reads

Because Winterson knows that the heart of the story is in Mary’s life, pockmarked by so much loss, and in her frankly incredible writing process. Instead of the two Frankensteins, the interweaving duo in this book is writer Mary Shelley and Ry Shelley, a trans doctor who finds himself falling for the charismatic, otherworldly transhumanist Victor Stein. Winterson lays out the blueprints for the story by first visiting Mary, her husband Percy, the insufferable Lord Byron, her bimbo stepsister Claire, and the awkward Doctor Polidari at that life-changing rainy weekend writing retreat on Lake Geneva—which, honestly, has all the makings of a Mary Shelley biopic right there. Then, once you know enough about the characters, Winterson leaps ahead 200 years to the familiar strangers of Ry, Victor, and sex robot designer Ron Lord and his perky creation Claire.

Frankissstein is a creepy, sexy, soggy, surprisingly hilarious demonstration of how time is just a circle and history repeats itself. Except this time with cryogenically frozen millionaires and filthy-mouthed pleasure bots.

- Natalie Zutter

Read Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

Protect the Prince by Jennifer Estep

I may have raved a little bit last year about Jennifer Estep's series launcher Kill the Queen. Estep has written in a number of genres over her career, but Kill the Queen showed me that epic fantasy is her true home; it went delightfully above my expectations, creating Evie, a compelling protagonist who's both a reluctant hero and a natural one: she takes risks for others without thought and only truly fears her own destiny, because for years she's been convinced that she's not worth claiming a loftier mantle. There's also a gladiator troupe, shapeshifting magic that creates a whole new mold for what those powers can look like, and some excellent romantic tension and humor.

Estep's sequel, Protect the Prince, raises the stakes, thrusting Evie deeper into the intrigue between kingdoms as she hopes to forge a lasting peace, while also driving a wedge between her and her love interest, a bastard prince who—like Evie—has been told his whole life he'll never amount to much. Evie must manage the nobles of her own kingdom, prevent war with other nations, and fight against the constant sabotage of power-hungry Mortan king, whose spies have been plaguing Evie's life even longer than she realized, and who are continuing to try to kill her.

Even as Evie sets her own plans into action, playing the long game against her enemies, the story leaves room for romance and friendship, and for Evie to find a way to become the Winter Queen everyone expects her to be. The trilogy wraps in March, 2020, with Crush the King, and you can bet I've already got that on preorder.

- Alana Joli-Abbott

Read Protect the Prince by Jennifer Estep

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes 

The book lays it out for you right away: Evvie (her name rhymes with Chevy) was leaving her husband when she got the call that he had died. That emotional quagmire is where NPR's Linda Holmes, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, plants her witty and warm romantic comedy of a novel. Evvie rents out a room in her house in Maine to Dean, a former Major League Baseball pitcher hiding out from the world after he left the game when he woke up one day with a bad case of the yips and simply couldn't throw anymore.

Grounded in the complicated reality of grief, the book has so much to say about platonic mixed-gender best friends, single parenting, re-learning how to relate to parents as an adult, and life in a small town. There's so much room in the world for smartly written adult romance, and Holmes knows how to bring the heat when she wants to. Yes, it's a romance, but there are no short cuts, easy answers, or guarantees of a perfect happy ending. Evvie and Dean test one another emotionally in ways that feel organic to their characters, rather than plot-driven, and their victories are earned on the page. Charming, hopeful, and with great emotional depth, reading Evvie Drake Starts Over means getting all the joy of a romcom without having to sacrifice on quality or consent.

- Delia Harrington

Read Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes 

Giraffes on Horseback Salad by Josh Frank & Tim Heidecker

The Marx Brothers were at the peak of their popularity when Salvador Dalí presented then with a screenplay called "The Surrealist Woman." It was only a few pages and they turned it down for not being funny enough, but it still carries mythical significance in both the art world and cinema history. Josh Frank's graphic novel Giraffes on Horseback Salad fleshes out the sparse notes to present the how the film would have looked on the screen.

Giraffes on Horseback Salad is a love story. But the world hangs in the loss of balance. The book includes a preface which tells the story of the artists relationships with each other and placing the film them in a historic context. It would have been made after A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races, which were produced by Irving Thalberg, who died before this would have been up for consideration and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer declared it too expensive and too surreal. There are quite a few surprises.

The biggest is Harpo speaks. Not only does he speak but people hang on to his every word. Gone are the curly locks and tattered overcoat. Here Harpo’s Jimmy is an important man who wears impressive suits and has an A-list significant other who ultimately pales in significance to the lady of surrealism. The illustrations by Spanish surrealistic artist Manuela Pertega, capture what could have been possible to put on the screens. The surrealistic jokes added by comedian Tim Heidecker may explain why Groucho passed on the work, but you can see the magic such a film may have conjured. Even the name of the book's publisher, Quirk, feeds into the skewered reality.

- Tony Sokol

Read Giraffes on Horseback Salad by Josh Frank and Tim Heidecker

Read and download the Den of Geek Lost In Space Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature Kayti Burt Alana Joli Abbott Delia Harrington Megan Crouse Tony Sokol Lacy Baugher Natalie Zutter

Dec 30, 2019

from Books https://ift.tt/37lr7MV

[thisweekingundamwing]

TWIGW RoundUp (May 5th - 18th)

We’re doubling up the party this time. Here's your roundup from contributors for the past two weeks. Check out their stuff and show them some love!😊💖

~Mod TB

Fanfiction:

ammiehawk, Life Happened (Ch. 1 - 2) *More to come*

Rating: T

Gundam Wing + Harry Potter Crossover

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Underage

Characters: Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Treize Khushrenada

Summary: After the events of the Goblet of Fire, Harry gets some surprising news. Now with the help of friends, both old and new, he prepares for his greatest adventure yet. Prequel to Hurry Home.

arkadyevna, Opalsong (co-authors), Getting To Know Your Local Terrorist (Ch. 1 - 2) *More to come*

Gundam Wing + Venom (2018) Mashup

Rating: T

No archive warnings apply.

Relationships: Gundam Boys & Symbiotes

Characters: Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Relena Peacecraft, Original Symbiote Character(s) (Marvel)

Additional Tags: Oral Not!Fic, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Skeevy Doctors, Bonding, Revenge, bb!Symbiotes, Humour, Angst, (Duo & Wufei get All The Angst), Friendship, Podfic, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming

Summary: To pilot a Gundam one needs a symbiote to properly interface. How each of the guys got theirs and what they think of each other. (Relena realizes these boys are Not Normal and has Theories.)

Part 8 of Arkadyevna & Opalsong's Gundam Wing AU Not!Fics

@bobo-is-tha-bomb, Come Find Me (Ch. 1 - 5) *More to come*

Rating: M

No archive warnings apply.

Relationships: Chang Wufei/Reader (You)

Characters: Chang Wufei, Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Reader

Additional Tags: Mild Smut, Fluff, Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort

Summary: In a last, desperate attempt to fix your broken marriage, you agree to a road trip through Southern Europe. Just the two of you, trying to find back what is lost. But with so much anger and pain between you, is it even possible? There is only so much a broken heart can take...

Burn To Cinder (Ch. 1 - 3) *More to come*

Rating: M

Warnings: Major Character Death

Relationships: Zechs Merquise/Reader, Treize Khushrenada/Reader

Characters: Zechs Merquise, Treize Khushrenada, Lady Une, Mariemaia Khushrenada, Relena Peacecraft, Chang Wufei

Additional Tags: Romance, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Violence

Reader-Insert

Summary: Your path had been laid out for you from an early age, allowing you to move into the higher circles of society and catch the attention of one of the most powerful men in the Earth Sphere. As Treize’s mistress, you watch his rise to power and the disastrous war breaking out on Earth and in Space, putting your loyalty to the test. You are torn between your duty to His Excellency, and your unquellable lust for one of the top soldiers under his command. And when he rises to power in Outer Space, there is nothing you can do but stand back and watch them tear each other apart. This is no game of hearts, but yours is at stake, and the consequences can be felt for years to come. Labeled as OZ’s whore, you struggle to find your way, only for things to fall apart around you again. But then there is still Zechs, and the undeniable way he makes you feel…

First Mother’s Day

Rating: G

No archive warnings apply

Relationships: Heero Yuy/Reader

Additional Tags: Romance, Fluff, Family, Reader-Insert

Summary: There's a first time for everything.

@doctormegalomania, Eldritch Holiday (Creature of the Night) Ch. 19

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei/Original Female Character(s)

Characters: Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei

Additional Tags: Horror, Body Horror, Occult, Comedy, Eventual Romance, Post-Break Up

Summary: There’s something wrong with Happiness. Duo doesn’t know what, and he’s determined to find out. The rest of the Gundam Pilots tag along to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.

Chapter 18 -  Riko gets distracted. Quatre is the first to notice. Wufei really isn’t dating any of them.

@duointherain, Beneath (Ch. 6)

Rating: T

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Relationships: Duo Maxwell.Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner

Summary: Duo goes to get his sphere. Prisoners fight back. Quatre has a fit over Duo's chemistry skills.

KageKagi, The Heir of House Black (Ch. 36)

Rating: M

Gundam Wing + Harry Potter Crossover

No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell

Characters: Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger

Summary: Harry attends Sirius's will reading and learns that there was more to the black family than anyone expected

kracken, Black Dog Blues (Ch. 5)

Rating: Unknown

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationship: Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

Characters: Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Original Heero Yuy, Zechs Merquise, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Trowa Barton

Additional Tags: gundam wing - Freeform, Yaoi

Summary: Duo is a troubled detective who solves cases with the help of visions of the supernatural. Unfortunately, those visions are driving him slowly insane. Can his new partner Heero Yuy save his soul and his sanity? AU

liraeth_archive, Tsukino Akari

Rating: Unknown

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon + Gundam Wing Crossover

Originally Published: Jul 6, 2001

luvsanime02, Nothing Right (But Nothing Wrong, Either)

Rating: G

No archive warnings apply.

Characters: Hilde Schbeiker

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Angst, breaking up, Mild Language, Cocktail Friday

Summary: Hilde knew that their relationship was going to end eventually. She just wasn't expecting this.

Picturesque

Rating: G

No Archive Warnings Apply

Trowa Barton, Duo Maxwell, Hilde Schbeiker, Heero Yuy

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Humor, Innuendo, Friendship, Cocktail Friday

Summary: Trowa resigns himself to the fact that he’s going to have to deal with three very drunk friends by the end of the night.

Saint-Miroku, The Lieutenant and The Count

Rating: T

No archive warnings apply.

Relationships: Zechs Merquise/Lucrezia Noin

Skarla, Send In the Clowns (Ch. 4)

Rating: G

No Archive Warnings Apply

Characters: Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Jane Foster (Marvel), Darcy Lewis, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton

Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Parallel Universes, birthday present fic, Post CATWS

Summary: Clint Barton had a secret, one that he had been carrying for so long that it didn’t even really seem like a secret anymore. It was just another thing in the long list of things that he didn’t talk about, along with his time in Korea or that mission in Budapest. The trouble was, now that Shield was in tatters with every third agent loyal to Hydra and being hunted like the rats that they were, his helpful support system had evaporated along with his second favourite bow and his salary.

@softnocturne, Date Night

Rating: T

No archive warnings apply.

Relationships: Zechs Merquise/Lucrezia Noin

tb_ll57, Whiten Out (Ch. 38)

Rating: E

Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con

Relationships: Treize Khushrenada/Zechs Merquise, Treize Khushrenada/Duo Maxwell, Duo Maxwell/Zechs Merquise, Zechs Merquise/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

Characters: Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Quatre Raberba Winner, Trowa Barton, Treize Khushrenada, Zechs Merquise, Leia Barton, Mariemaia Khushrenada, Relena Peacecraft

Additional Tags: Future Fic, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Gundams Lose War, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Politics, Rape/Non-con Elements, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Coercion, Prisoner of War, Grooming, Mentor/Protégé, Forced Separation, Established Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Gundams, Resistance, Angst, Really a lot of angst, It eventually bends toward happiness, Eventual Happy Ending, I swear

Summary: Zechs Merquise never left OZ to become the leader of White Fang. The Gundam Pilots never banded together at Libra to emerge victorious. Treize Khushrenada never died. There is peace-- of a kind-- but how will a new world order shape itself? This fic explores an alternate ending to a familiar tale with familiar faces.

@terrablaze514, Ionic Victory, Covalent Destiny (Ch. 1 - 2) *More to come*

Rating: M

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Underage

Relationships: OT5 Friendship (eventual 1x2, 3x4, 1x4, 3x1, 5x3, 4x2, 5x4, 2x5), Zechs Merquise/Lucrezia Noin

Characters: Trowa Barton, Chang Wufei, Duo Maxwell, Quatre Raberba Winner, Heero Yuy, Zechs Merquise, Lady Une, Lucrezia Noin, Sally Po, Relena Peacecraft

Additional Tags: Preventers (Gundam Wing), Post-Endless Waltz, Homoeroticism, Dark, Terrorism, Betrayal, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Organized Crime, Crime Fighting, Torture, Kidnapping, Kink Negotiation, Eventual Relationships, Secret Organizations, Multiple Pairings, Slow Burn, Threesome - M/M/M, Murder Mystery

Summary: Four months after the Mariemaia incident, the Gundam pilots turned Preventers share the same living space, keep track of missions, and everything in between. When lightning strikes amidst foul play on campus, a fire ignites for five agents to resolve their innermost frustrations. Besides, the only life they knew was war…

@wingslanding, Broken (Ch. 8)

Rating: M

Creator chose not to archive warnings.

Relationships: Heero Yuy/Relena Peacecraft

Takes place after Eve Wars; cancels FT.

Summary: One of the greatest love stories never told... this way.

WhiteWitchDark, In Which Lady Une Searches for the Pilots

Rating: G

No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Trowa Barton/Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell/Quatre Raberba Winner/Heero Yuy

Characters: Lady Une, Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei

Summary: The Wars ended 10 years ago. The Gundam Pilots disappeared into legend and obscurity, but Lady Une is determined to bring them to the Preventers.

Fanart:  

@ARHDian, Monthly Fanart Pic - Quatre

Amir Zand, Gundam Style

Forwarded by @pixalry.

Concept art. Illustration.

Please don’t remove artist credit.

@bluesquishylemon, I Used To Be Sweet

Inspired by: @theresareasonforthiswritingblog 

Source: Gundam Wing; character Quatre Winner 

Media: Pen and marker on 8.5x11 computer paper + Photoshop; Line drawing 4-27-19; Colored 5-16-19 

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any character associated; I also do not earn any financial compensation for this fanart. 

Request: Please credit this artist for this work when reposting - thanks! 

Personal comments: Inspired by @theresareasonforthiswritingblog ‘s post titled “Headcanon: The GW Boys As Things From My Quotes List” with Quatre’s comment: “I used to be sweet, but then the world hit me in the face.” All credit for that incredible Quatreism belongs to @theresareasonforthiswritingblog ‘s genius.

@deathscythe-demiguy, Wuffers fresh out of the shower

@deejayers, Character doodles (Duo and Quatre)

@freshthoughts2020, Gundam drawing

@gundayo, Messy Quatre Sketch

@gundayum, Adulting is hard (2xH)

@GunplaBuilder45, Wing Gundam Zero

Heavyarms Prime

@ito_katsumi, 6x9 at the beach

“Don’t drink with two and eat no snacks.”

@kuhsohshokutaku, Relena, Mariemaia and Sylvia

@lemontrash, Some sketches (various GW characters)

@signales, Mille has flowers for his mom, Noin. (Mothers Day Special)

@snufffie, Heero and Trowa baking

Made for Anon.

@tiwazmannaz, LOTR/Gundam Mashup

@tomy-ogswr, Drawing of Treize and Zechs

Cosplay:

@exasperatedagent, Lieutenant Noin and Colonel Une

Photosets/Screenshots/GIFs:

@caterpie, Heero in Wing

@clair-audients, Treize, Heero and Epyon

Duo facing the colony

@disturbed02girl, The Gundam pilots from a page in Glory of the Losers.

Dorothy and Zechs, Glory of the Losers

Trowa and Heero, Glory of the Losers

Relena and Heero, Glory of the Losers

Duo and Wufei, Glory of the Losers

Trowa and Catherine, Glory of the Losers

Duo, Heero and Howard, Glory of the Losers

Lucrezia Noin, Glory of the Losers

On the Peacemillion, Glory of the Losers

@gundayo, Gundam Wing + Wizard of OZ Mashup

“How many more times must I kill that girl and her dog?”

@gundayum, Rashid’s height

Rashid’s height #2

@evacuateplanetearth, Fortnite comparison

@incorrectgundamwingquotes, Hilde Schbeiker + Text Posts

@janaverse, Quatre’s stats

@longhairedanimeguyoftheday, Duo Maxwell GIF set

@waywarddoodles, Comparing notable scenes (Gundam Wing + Gundam Build Fighters Mashup)

@wingslanding, Relena Peacecraft in Glory of the Losers

Heero Yuy (winged) in Glory of the Losers

1xR in Bambi Takada (Doujinshi)

Starcrossed lovers (1xR)

Happy Style (1xR) by Bambi Takada (Rated M)

Photo Prompts/Prompts:

@yourfavsaysgayrights, Quatre Raberba Winner says gay rights!!

@your-fave-is-a-cinnamonroll, Quatre Raberba Winner is a Cinnamon Roll

Requested by @lookitsmorefandomtrash 💖

@yourfaveplaystf2

Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing plays TF2 and mains Spy!

requested by @lookitsmorefandomtrash

Chats/Dialogs/Discussions:

@incorrectgundamwingquotes @gundaaamn @simulacraryn @novas-grimoire

Includes discussion

@noirangetrois, Episode 4 Recap (with a funny twist)

Zechs-y insanity! (Rated M)

@janaverse @gundayum @terrablaze514 @incapableofgivingup

@wingslanding, Which Heero did Relena marry?

Alpha versus Beta

@seitou @angel-no-crux @terrablaze514

Includes a meme contribution by @incorrectgundamwingquotes

Quotes:

@incorrectgundamwingquotes,

A convo *ahem, argument* on seeds. Nat Geo special with Duo, Heero, Wufei and Quatre.

Direct quote from Quatre.

Duo as a priest.

After Heero kills the peaceful politicians

Star Wars spin-off

Driving... (Heero and Wufei)

Tips for Falling Asleep

At the bar.

Duo and Heero talk 50

Vine: Duo and Professor G

Nat Geo #2 (Trowa & Wufei)

Knock, knock (Wufei & Quatre)

Submission by @vegalume, starring Heero and Duo

Submission by @timelordnomad, starring Heero, Duo and Trowa

Heero and Relena

Kidnapped Quatre

Texting gone wrong

Nonverbal communication

Duo’s arrest

Disrupted appetite

Duo, Wufei and Trowa

Partners in crime…

Disney characters

Sharing a safehouse

Breaking out of the Lunar Base (5x2)

At the Lunar Base

Lady Une is the BOSS.

Tarot Reading

Group Therapy with Quatre

Cute moment (3x5)

Submission by @gwkimmy

Zechs vs. Heero

Stupidity

Submission by @janaverse

Morale

Holding Hands (3x4)

Plan B

Positivity?

Group Chat

Refrigerated Shirt

Sister Helen and Duo

Cool Socks (3x4)

On the Lunar Base

They’ll be Une’s Problem (It’s okay ‘Lena)

Getting ready to fight White Fang

Cute moment (1x4)

Bets are on! (1x2)

Unhappy Duo

Relena questions height

Duo and Quatre

Sleepover!

Random submission

Church

Relena and Dorothy

Taylor Swift

Numb

In the group chat

Advice

Test Tube Baby?

Bubble Wrap feat. @softnocturne @terrablaze514

We’re Gundam Pilots!

Catfish

Olive Garden

Pet Names (1x2)

In the group chat #2

Feelings (3x4)

During Mariemaia’s rebellion

Hate

Crime in Sanc

@official-amuro-ray,

A quote from Quatre

MoodBoards/Aesthetics:

@bobo-is-tha-bomb, Gundam Wing Goodies!

Feast your eyes on these.

@gundayum, Fandom Trash Bag (featuring 2xH)

Mod’s note: One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!

Another shot of this bag.

Gundam Wing & Two-Mix

Calendar Events:

“Rhythm Generation” goes LIVE! @acworldbuildingzine

The RHYTHM GENERATION After Colony worldbuilding zine is out!!!  To receive your FREE PDF copy, ping @acworldbuildingzine and/or @lifeaftermeteor. ♥️

@gundam-wing-bingo, Trope/Kink Masterlist

Our Master List is at 100! The questionnaire for choosing your cards will be completed before long, and then we’ll get these prompt shindigs going!

You can see some card examples here. Note however, that they are NOT entirely correct.

Theme Selection (Mini Bang) @thisweekingundamevents

It seems we have a winner!

The theme for our soon-to-be Mini Bang will be: Unorthodox Undercover Work!

Mini Bang Dates (poll) < Please cast your vote if you haven't done so already. (Google Form included)

Mini Bang Rules

Mini Bang Poll Results + Voting part 2 < Until May 25th, those interested in participating can choose which months they want the Mini Bang for by responding directly to the post. Even if you don’t participate, this is your chance to see what you’d like to see from others!

Brief FAQ

@seasons-of-gundamwing, Prompt Time!

For Summer of Zechs 2019, July has received the most votes.

If there are any prompts you would like to see please send in an ask/comment/submit your idea/message us!

~*VOTE HERE!*~ Effective until May 31st.

Videos/AMVs:

@christianmswanson, 2nd Gundam Wing Intro

Features the Gundams from Endless Waltz.

Rhythm Emotion opening theme. 2nd attempt.

Added SFX.

Made from phone.

Headcanons:

@helmistress, How Fanon becomes Canon

@peachandbetty, 1xR headcanon

@terrablaze514, Secret Magic, Duo Maxwell

Memes:

@gundayum, Modesty Scale

F-bomb around kids - @incorrectgundamwingquotes

@itsthatwybshitson, Phone fell in the toilet

The pilots as Keanu Reeves

Gunpla:

@bobo-is-tha-bomb, Gunpla Madness - RG Tallgeese

An overview of this gunpla set.

Results included.

@christianmswanson, Custom Case Building

Experimentation with lighting.

Features five Gundams.

@cyberbeastswordwolfe, P-Bandai: RG 1/144 Tallgeese III

Comments, memories and interests by @kilsikon7 @bobo-is-tha-bomb @darkmaster07 @shookmcgookqueen @terrablaze514

@reversemoon255, WMS-03 Maganac

Building results and review of the pros/cons.

@HobbySite, PROMO: "RG Tolgiss III" starts reservation today at 13:00-Premium Bandai! We reproduce each arming such as characteristic face and mega cannon, heat rod by new modeling! Commercialized in the RG series in pursuit of unparalleled fine expression and “real” in 1/144!

Where to get their Merch

Their Twitter page

Meta:

@gundayo, Gundam Wing Snapshots ~ Part 1

Episode 9 Recap, featuring Zechs, Noin and Otto.

It’s a Gundam! (Tallgeese)

@jortford, Overview of Episodes

[illustratedtapes]

Welcome to Illustrated Tape’s favourite releases of 2018 that sounded and looked good, chosen by this year’s contributors. We’ve put together a playlist featuring one track from each of the releases featured so you can check out the sounds we were digging this year. Happy listening! 

➔ spoti.fi/2LCgrQp Listening in order recommended

Delta Sleep - Ghost City Big Scary Monsters, 10 August  Artwork: Owen Findley at Or8 Design Selected by Megan Reddi // IT014

This is my favourite music/artwork combo of 2018! The whole album is just amazing - it is beautifully arranged and has this lovely dreamy quality to it, with repeated musical motifs woven throughout to really pull the whole album together. Not only is Ghost City musically fantastic, but the artwork is beautiful and so fitting for the album. It is designed and screen printed by Owen Findley and the warm colours, imagery and textures are just spot on.

Definitely my favourite release of 2018. It is my go-to driving album and I will be blasting it while we’re driving around this Christmas!

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 014: Nautical Dusk by Megan Reddi

Okay Kaya - Both Heavy Body, 1 June  Artwork/design: Kaya Wilkins, Aaron Maine, Phillip Wong

Selected by Hannah Buckman // IT016

Okay Kaya’s Both as an album that came out this year which I enjoyed, and which I feel has a strong visual component to it. To me the album feels sickly (in a good way), gloomy but still pop. I think the mood is conveyed really well through the Adinah Dancyger directed music vids and the album art. 

I liked finding out more about Kaya’s thinking behind the project, like how the twin in the videos is like a physical manifestation of trauma... it’s something that once I read I couldn’t stop thinking about. The idea of something traumatic inducing this birth of a second self, a kind of split off part that is still attached in some way to the whole, but there being a kind of safety in acknowledging what might be a darker part of yourself, from a distance. Also the album art kind of conveys the idea of duality and how that relates to race/sexuality, but I didn’t feel like that was really explored as much. I think I like this album ‘cos it kind of ties in with things (mentioned above) I’m currently interested in, but maybe it feels a bit surface-y at times.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 016: Protect Your Extremities by Hannah Buckman

Quavo - Quavo Huncho Capitol / Mowtown / Quality Control, 12 October  Artwork: Mihailo Andic 

Selected by Conner Perry // IT020

I think my favourite music/design combo of this year has to be Quavo’s Quavo Huncho. Not only is it full of bangers, the cover by Mihailo Andic is just brilliant. It really sets itself apart from the Migo’s visuals and changes the way you listen to the record. Definitely check out the rest of his work, especially the stuff for Lil’ Yachty. 

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 020: Nice one bruva by Conner Perry

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! Rough Trade, 18 May  Artwork: A. Savage

Selected by Holly St Clair // IT021

I was really late to the Parquet Courts party, but actually both of my initial encounters with their two recent releases have been solid arguments for the importance of decent album artwork. For both Wide Awake! and Human Performance I ran into - literally - the artwork before the music. Twice, two years apart, whilst wandering around London I turned a corner and came face to face with Adam Savage’s superb cover work. He smacked me in the face with poppy colours and amorphous dancing forms and I loved every moment. Add in an anarchic use of type and you’ve got me shouting, “Oh shit! A new Parquet Courts album!” to no one in particular outside an old meat market in Shoreditch.

A. Savage is both front man and painter and that adds a special flavour to the whole affair. Album marketing can be a laboured, commercially driven affair, there’s something authentic - a little DIY flavour - about this relationship between artwork and music. It’s a nice parallel to the musical throwbacks typical of the bands style. Wide Awake! dropped earlier this year and it’s fab. (Although, I love the artwork so much even if it was god awful I’d still buy the record and hang it on my wall.)

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 021: To: You, Love: Me by Holly St Clair

D.A.L.I - When Haro Met Sally Burning Witches, 23 May  Artwork: Luke Insect

Selected by Thomas Hedger // IT017

According to my recently played, I’ve been stuck on a pre-'90s loop. I've crept slowly into 2018's releases picking out albums like books - by their covers - and it really paid off! I don’t often delve into electronic but I love this album, it’s a perfect blend of hopping on your bike and hitting the tracks, nailing the look of how the album feels in all its haze. A solid sunny day good time.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 017: Sink by Thomas Hedger

Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar Ninja Tune, 9 March  Artwork: Tom Hingston

Selected by Katie Chandler // IT003

This cover was immediately striking and memorable to me. Upon listening to the album, I found that the artwork resonated with this feeling of odd, unrestricted expression. It's a little unsettling, ultimately bold and intriguing. Much like the music, it feels hot and cool all at once, like a burst of energy that leaves you in a sweat. It's the exhilarating soundtrack to your runner's high, and you're not really sure why you're running or what you're running from.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 003: Porch Light by Katie Chandler

Gesu no Kiwami Otome (ゲスの極み乙女。) - Suki Nara Towanai (好きなら問わない) Taco Records, 29 August  Selected by Greg Stasiw // IT009

Although it’s not the ambient and electronic fare I usually enjoy, Suki Nara Towanai (好きなら問わない) by Gesu no Kiwami Otome. (ゲスの極み乙女。) is a hoot. The artwork features a stylized neon pachinko machine. Or maybe it’s a console in a rad indie pop spaceship, which would also make sense for this funky fresh group! It feels somehow familiar, somehow alien, and altogether really, really cool.

The neon suggests something retro, and there are some retro leanings in their funkier tracks, but it's definitely neon as seen in 2018. Modern pop (and J-Pop) tropes emerge, but infectious basslines, tight drumming, and smart keys make this album something special. Some math rock even surfaces at times, and the remix included proves that this group goes for whatever feels fresh. One look at the artwork reminds me that this is one of the funnest albums I've listened to in a while. “Funnest” is definitely a word when you’re talking about this band!

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 009: Atmospheres by Greg Stasiw

Aphex Twin - Collapse EP Warp, 14 September Artwork: Weirdcore

Selected by Alex Vissaridis // IT002

2018 was a great year if you grew up listening to the music I was into. Some of my all-time favourite artists released new stuff this year, and they didn’t disappoint. The artwork was pretty excellent too, but nothing grabbed my attention like the world created around Aphex Twin’s Collapse EP. Album art doesn’t seem to mean as much as it once did, so it’s always exciting when it appears outside of the little square on your screen in unexpected ways. 

This year, Aphex Twin logos appeared all over the world, from Elephant & Castle tube station to the side of a record store in Tokyo, designed in a way that made it look like the logo was collapsing into the environment around it. I’m a sucker for stuff like this; random cryptic messages that send internet detectives into a frenzy. It was eventually announced as marketing for the Collapse EP, but they kept the ‘collapsing logo’ visual going on the EP artwork, in the music video for the track ‘T69 collapse’, and even through to projection-mapped videos around London (again announced in typical smoke-and-mirrors fashion) and a collaboration with Crack magazine. Way more than just a collection of pixels.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 002: Tape Fuzz by Alex Vissaridis

Flohio - Wild Yout EP Alpha, 2 November Selected by Rachel Maughan // IT012

I got into Flohio after I saw her on COLORS in January with 'Band'. She's fucking explosive on that track, you can feel her spitting straight into your chest. She's been savvy with her producers and killed her work with God Colony - 'SE16' was my most played track of the year. Her 2018 EP, Wild Yout is a cocktail of perfection. 

Mashing up genres it's a high energy listen with punchy, grimey hip-hop that is uniquely South London. The artwork is beautiful simplicity - her achingly slick androgynous aesthetic, the clean photographic composition, with a flowing chain to bring it tightly back to SE. Gorgeous.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 012: High Rise by Rachel Maughan

Sudan Archives - Sink EP Stones Throw, 25 May Photography: Jack McKain Design: Jeff Jank

Selected By Tom J Newell // IT004

Sink submerges the listener in flowing loops and beats, with splashes of violin and vocals floating above the sunken monolith, which stands tall on the deep blue cover art. The composition is reminiscent of two of Jank’s other iconic Stones Throw sleeves, Donuts and Madvillainy and continues his striking yet varied art direction for the label.

Check out the ‘Nont For Sale’ video from the EP too, which adds powerful choreography and styling to create another successful visual accompaniment to the music. Much love to Sudan Archives and hats off to Jeff Jank. I painted a tribute to the cover art on a 12x12” piece of wood.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 004: FEAR. by Tom J Newell

Drinks - Hippo Lite Drag City, 20 April Selected by Molly Fairhurst // IT015

Hazy, dazed, an album I hold dearly to 2018 (and many strangely lit walks in a then new, unknown city).

A collaboration between Cate Le Bon and White Fence’s Tim Presley, the pair took an (isolated) retreat to St Hippolyte-Du-Fort in the south of France to record, frankly, crudely, seemingly, whatever the fuck they wanted to. Hippo Lite is born, a joyful, playful, sometimes quiet, sometimes screaming object.

What senses like an eavesdrop through closed doors rightly has a cover that can’t be quite understood- a narrow column of, at the glance of the reader, ‘nonsense’ notes, which flank photos of Le Bon and Presley. Both are snapshots of an absurd holiday we have been invited along to, so long as we sit across the table. A tender and private piece.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 015: The Wilder Woman by Molly Fairhurst

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - King of Cowards Rocket, 28 September Artwork: Sophy Hollington

Selected by Drew Milward // IT010

First off, this album is wall to wall, solid gold bangers. Kind of like the lovechild of The Fall and Black Sabbath, who has been cautioned by the police for possession of a massive bag of skunk, a bong in the shape of a skull and a copy of ‘The Holy Mountain’ on DVD. 

Aside from the fact it’s a full on riff-o-rama, the artwork by Sophy Hollington is absolutely incredible. It summons up the sound of the band, via folk horror infused wildness. It really captures the sonic landscape of the album, yet completely avoids any of the cliched imagery that could so easily have taken its place. It really is the whole package.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 010: BE GONE, YOU CREATIVE GREMLINS! by Drew Milward

Djrum - Portrait With Firewood R&S, 17 August Artwork: Michael Mitsas

Selected by Sam Ailey // IT001

Portrait With Firewood is one of those rare gems within the electronic genre - a true ‘album’. With holistic production, emotional range, and a captivating narrative, this really is a stunning listening experience from start to finish. Felix Manuel combines electronic and acoustic sounds seamlessly on this intimate record, with exceptional attention to detail in his sampling and tender piano sections played by Felix himself.

Michael Mistas’s cover art is a real departure from the typical design aesthetic of electronic albums and caught my attention straight away. I love its composition and rough, imperfect execution. To me these feels reflective of the range and depth of emotional states explored across the album, and the feeling that some things are easier to express through your craft than with words. Plus I’m a sucker for pink things.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 001: Quiet by Sam Ailey

[temaporal]

Is the Rom Com Dead? Breaking Down 79 Romantic Comedies | Vanity Fair

There is one statistic in this breakdown that I disagree with: If J.Lo has the greatest number of leading roles, with four titles, then Meg Ryan at least ties with her. When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, Kate & Leopold--that makes four. They even featured clips from each of those films in the video.

And then there’s Julia Roberts with Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Notting Hill--another four. Am I missing something here? Maybe MBFW didn’t make the cut because the leads knew each other before the start of the film (ergo, no meet-cute). But that film is popularly considered to be a romcom. And even if it were disqualified, couldn’t America’s Sweethearts take its place?

Other than that, it’s a pretty cool survey. Seeing the genre’s tropes quantified makes clear just how normative it is, down to the ties and dresses on its respective male and female actors. When romantic comedies are good, it’s because they rise above their formula with magnetic leads, smart dialogue, unique art direction, or interesting world-building. When they’re bad, they simply go through the motions, coming across as lazy, stale, or even cynical. A love story can only be told in earnest, after all, and a manufactured one feels phony in a way that an equally manufactured action movie doesn’t.

In an article on Vox, the culture team has a comprehensive discussion about the nature of romcoms (they’re about joy and wish fulfillment); why we perceive them the way we do (sexism and snobbery); why they’ve declined in recent years (lack of prestige and cultural legitimacy); their 2018 reemergence (via Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and Set It Up); and how they might sustain a comeback. When asked how they would advise studio executives to handle a romcom resurgence, one contributor, Genevieve Koski, says:

The recent indie/Blumhouse horror revival is the model to follow here: Think small but distinctive, cheap but memorable. Invest in lesser-known talents with a passion for the genre who are eager to bring something new to it while respecting its roots...The rom-com could and should be a strong part of a studio’s portfolio, but overinvesting [financially] in a genre that tends toward the small and the intimate by design is a recipe for a resurgence that’s DOA.

Bonus: This article in Glamour isn’t as well-written or -edited as I would like (it reads like a middle school essay), but it was the only one I could find that concisely traces the history of romantic comedies from the days of silent film to the present, touching on key subgenres, social contexts, and formative works in the genre. I would do independent research on the topic if I had the time.

Other titles I want to throw out there: Selfie is another romcom for the TV era. It was hampered and ultimately doomed by viewers’ disdain for its title, as well as some truly dumb writing; but I enjoyed Karen Gillan in a comedic role, and in the end, I was sad not to see her relationship with John Cho’s character play out. As for movies, TiMER (2009) and Wristcutters (2006) were two very original love stores.

[dearsleyart]

ORIGINS OF ZINES RESEARCH

https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/rbc/2017/10/25/a-brief-history-of-zines/

'Zines are self-published or published by a small, independent  publisher. Self-publishing allows marginalized voices to express  themselves beyond the constraints of mainstream media, and also lets  authors take control of the process of publishing. Zines also present an  alternative to the hierarchical and commodified world of mainstream  media.

Zines are non-commercial, and are printed in small numbers,  circulating only through specific networks. They are underground  publications that tend to have niche audiences.

Zines provide a vehicle for ideas, expression, and art. They build  connections between people and within groups, and provide modes of  communication in addition to information dissemination.

There are exceptions to every rule, and though many have shared characteristics, there is no formal definition of a zine.'

Zines were first created in the science fiction fandoms of the 1930s,  taking their name from fanzine, which is short for “fan magazine.” Long  before the advent of the Internet, zines allowed fans to create  networks, share ideas and analyses, and collaborate on writing and  artwork.The counterculture movements associated with the Beat generation of  the 1950s and 1960s saw a growth of the underground press, which played  an important role in connecting the people across the US. Although the  underground press often involved significantly more people and resources  in the production of materials, it provided a function that became a  key part of zine culture in the 1980s and beyond: giving people a voice  outside the scope of the mainstream media.Art and literary magazines of the 1960s and 1970s were based on a  similar need to circumvent the commercial art world, and were printed  cheaply and spread through small, niche networks. Many of them combined  art, politics, culture, and activism into a single eclectic publication,  redefining what a magazine could be, and influencing the rise of  activist artists’ magazines that shaped the punk and feminist scenes  later on.Presence, a collaborative poetry magazine with various contributors from the Beat generation.

The punk music scene of the 1980s expanded upon the self-published  format by creating a wide of array of constantly evolving zines  dedicated to the musical genre that were both fanzines and political  tracts. Punk zines were more than just magazines–they represented the  aesthetic and ideals of an entire subculture, a condensed version of  this cultural revolt against authoritarianism.Similarly subversive, the riot grrrl movement grew out of the punk  subculture and developed a zine culture of its own, focusing on  feminism, sex, and chaos. The Sallie Bingham collection at Duke  University’s Rubenstein Library has a large selection of zines by women  and girls created during this period. The collection’s

website

also provides a short description of the role of zines within the riot grrrl movement:

“In the 1990s, with the combination of the riot grrrl  movement’s reaction against sexism in punk culture, the rise of third  wave feminism and girl culture, and an increased interest in the  do-it-yourself lifestyle, the women’s and grrrls’ zine culture began to  thrive. Feminist practice emphasizes the sharing of personal experience  as a community-building tool, and zines proved to be the perfect medium  for reaching out to young women across the country in order to form the  ‘revolution, girl style.'”

Examples of zines can be found at the

Sloane Art Library

as well as in the Rare Book Collection. Within the Rare Book Collection, zines comprise part of the Beats Collection, the

Mexican Comic Collection

, and the Latino Comic Collection. All three collections provide diverse examples of the genre.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/88911/brief-history-zines

The first zine is often traced back to a 1930s effort by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago. It was called

The Comet

,

and it started a long-lasting trend of sci-fi related zines. The important sci-fi zine

Fantasy Commentator

began in 1943, and ran in various iterations (though not continuously) until 2004. One of the pieces serialized in Fantasy Commentator eventually became Sam Moskowitz’s book on the history of sci-fi fandom, The Immortal Storm. The interconnectedness of zines and sci-fi is reflected in the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) Hugo award for

Best Fanzine

, first given out

in 1955

and still awarded today. (As the name of that award shows, zines were originallY

called fanzines alluding to the fans who made them. Eventually, fanzine was just shortened to zine, and the range of topics widened to include practically anything.) The relationship between zines and sci-fi deepened after 1967, when

the first Star Trek fanzine

Spockanalia,  was produced. It gained plenty of attention, and the second issue  included letters by members of the show, including writer D.C. Fontana  and actors James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, and Leonard Nimoy. (The actors  all wrote their letters in character.)

In 1968 Star Trek was reportedly going to be canceled after two seasons, but a letter-writing campaign—partly organized through fanzines - that generated over 160,000 missives was able to help get the show back on the air for another year. The technological innovations of the ‘70s made zines easier to create  than ever. In particular, the rise of copy shops allowed zine-makers to  produce their work cheaply and quickly. (Previously, zines had been  produced using mimeographs, which push ink through a stencil to make multiple prints, but the process was impractical for large-scale production.)

Steve Samiof

, one of the people behind the popular punk zine Slash, told Dazed  in an interview earlier this year that the copy shops of the '70s were  “extremely inexpensive—you could pay under $800 for 5000 copies and that  would be the actual printing cost.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/29767022?seq=1

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02615479.2013.805194

[rockislandadultreads]

Come on in and meet someone new, but be sure to #maskup! 

New Biographies that have hit our shelves

The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery by Robert Weintraub

3.89/5 stars on Goodreads

The story of 1930s tennis icon Alice Marble, and her life of sports, celebrity, and incredible mystery.

Who was Alice Marble?

In her public life, she was the biggest tennis star of the pre-war era, a household name like Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. She was famous for overcoming serious illness to win the biggest tournaments, including Wimbledon. She was also a fashion designer and trendsetter, a contributor to a pioneering new comic called Wonder Woman--and friend to the biggest names in Hollywood and society, like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, and members of families named Bloomingdale, Loew, and du Pont. She helped integrate tennis with her support of Althea Gibson, and even coached two young women who became stars in their own right: Billie Jean King and Sally Ride.

Yet her private life provoked constant speculation while she was alive, and her own memoirs added layers of legend upon stories. According to Alice, she married a man who was killed in the skies over Europe during World War II. But who was the man she loved, and had he even existed? She was widely known for her patriotism during World War II. Had she really nearly given her life for her country as a spy, shot during a wild car chase fleeing foreign espionage agents?

In The Divine Miss Marble, bestselling author Robert Weintraub traveled the country to uncover her fascinating story. And the more he learned about her, the more her mysteries and contradictions deepened. Alice was a powerful woman who knew her worth, demanding equal pay to men decades earlier than other female athletes; yet she was held in sway by a domineering, highly successful coach with whom she had a volatile relationship. She was renowned for her California style, and had a brilliant mind and the guts to overcome a lifetime of physical trauma.

For the first time here, we come closer than ever before to the truths of this unforgettable life, and somehow it's a story even more extraordinary than everything we already know about the divine Alice Marble.

Rocket Man: The Life of Elton John by Mark Bego

3.73/5 stars on Goodreads

Here’s the book every pop music lover has been waiting for—full of the scandals, addictions, affairs, and tantrums that underscored the life of arguably the world’s greatest pop musician. Flamboyant, iconic Elton John is as much part of the American musical landscape as he is in his native England. In the 1970s, when popular music on both sides of the Atlantic fragmented into disco, soul, hard rock, pop, and folk, Elton John embraced them all with his signature creative panache. Emerging in the late 1960s as a singer/songwriter, Elton was widely acknowledged as the most prolific pop and rock star of the decade by the mid-1970s. His peerless musical style and ability to jump from sensitive ballads to bawdy rock anthems to campy pop have made him a musical superstar for the ages.

From his heartfelt ballads like “Tiny Dancer” and “Your Song” to his rock roll hits including “Bennie and the Jets” and “Crocodile Rock,” Elton has lived one of the most outrageous and colorful lives in show business.

Having met the “Rocket Man” the first time in the 1980s, Bego has drawn upon his personal observations and vast research, and has been able to interview dozens of Elton’s collaborators and lifelong friends to produce the the ultimate story on the amazing and larger-than-life Elton John

No Way But to Fight: George Foreman and the Business of Boxing by Andrew R.M. Smith

3.67/5 stars on Goodreads

Olympic gold medalist. Two-time world heavyweight champion. Hall of Famer. Infomercial and reality TV star. George Foreman's fighting ability is matched only by his acumen for selling. Yet the complete story of Foreman's rise from urban poverty to global celebrity has never been told until now. Raised in Houston's "Bloody Fifth" Ward, battling against scarcity in housing and food, young Foreman fought sometimes for survival and other times just for fun. But when a government program rescued him from poverty and introduced him to the sport of boxing, his life changed forever. In No Way but to Fight, Andrew R. M. Smith traces Foreman's life and career from the Great Migration to the Great Society, through the Cold War and Culture Wars, out of urban Houston and onto the world stage where he discovered that fame brought new challenges. Drawing on new interviews with George Foreman and declassified government documents, as well as more than fifty domestic and international newspapers and magazines, Smith brings to life the exhilarating story of a true American icon. No Way but to Fight is an epic worthy of a champion.

Queens of the Resistance: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by Brenda Jones, Krishan Trotman

3.59/5 stars on Goodreads

Not long ago, no one could even imagine a twenty-eight-year-old Latina upstart running for Congress representing Queens and the Bronx: It required facing the city's nearly all-white, all-male political machine. But since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez graced the scene in all her bartending, tweet-talking, mold-breaking glory, the face of politics in the twenty-first century has changed. Today, Ocasio-Cortez is a foremost advocate for progress, whipping up support among her colleagues and gaining the secret admiration of her foes. She's jousting with an outrageous president and a conservative media sphere that place her under relentless attack. Why? Because they fear her gift for speaking truth to power. With illustrations, deep research, and writing as endlessly quotable as she is, Queens of the Resistance pays tribute to this phenomenal woman.

A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston by Robyn Crawford

4.11/5 stars on Goodreads

After decades of silence, Robyn Crawford, close friend, collaborator, and confidante of Whitney Houston, shares her story. Whitney Houston is as big a superstar as the music business has ever known. She exploded on the scene in 1985 with her debut album and spent the next two decades dominating the charts and capturing the hearts of fans around the world. One person was there by her side through it all--her best friend, Robyn Crawford. Since Whitney's death in 2012, Robyn has stayed out of the limelight and held the great joys, wild adventures, and hard truths of her life with Whitney close to her heart. Now, for the first time ever, Crawford opens up in her new memoir, A Song for You. With warmth, candor, and an impressive recall of detail, Robyn describes the two meeting as teenagers in the 1980s, and how their lives and friendship evolved as Whitney recorded her first album and Robyn pursued her promising Division I basketball career. Together during countless sold-out world tours, behind the scenes as hit after hit was recorded, through Whitney's marriage and the birth of her daughter, the two navigated often challenging families, great loves, and painful losses, always supporting each other with laughter and friendship. Deeply personal and heartfelt, A Song for You is the vital, honest, and previously untold story that provides an understanding of the complex life of Whitney Houston. Finally, the person who knew her best sets the record straight.

[pixelgrotto]

RIP Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog comic (1992-2017)  After 25 years and nearly 300 issues, Archie’s long-running Sonic the Hedgehog comic was officially cancelled earlier this week. The writing’s been on the wall for a while now, since the comic went on a forced hiatus several months ago and none of the creators were allowed to publicly discuss it due to ongoing negotiations between Archie and Sega. But this Thursday, the book’s final fate was declared, and it looks like the Freedom Fighters - who once announced that they could handle anything - couldn’t quite beat the threat of cancellation. A lot of people dunk on the Archie Sonic comic for being overly convoluted, going through some pretty low points or appealing primarily to furries, and all of these things are kinda true, except for maybe the furry one. But warts and all, Archie Sonic is a glorious beast of monstrously complex proportions. First of all, let the fact that Sonic holds the record for having the longest-running North American comic for a licensed character sink in. Seriously, this series ran from 1992 to 2017 and nearly reached 300 freaking issues. In a time when most comics from Marvel and DC can barely reach double digits before either being renumbered to generate a temporary boost in sales or flat-out cancelled, Sonic the Hedgehog kept chugging along, stealthily reinventing itself from its original status as a slapdash funny book to an ongoing saga that manifested lore so deep that it warranted the release of an entire encyclopedia to help people keep everything straight. 

What’s even more interesting is that Archie Sonic became the one place where you could still see characters carried over from the DiC Saturday morning Sonic cartoon show, which was produced in 1993. The show, affectionately dubbed SatAM by everyone who watched it back in the day, frankly doesn’t hold up that well and is a good example of nostalgia goggles at work. It had an incredible theme song, though (SONIC! HE CAN REALLY MOVE! SONIC! HE’S GOT AN ATTITUDE! SONIC! HE’S THE FAAAASTEST THING ALIVE), and the show did do an admirable job of developing a backstory for a mascot who, at the time, had no characterization other than the fact that he was fast and collected rings. SatAM fixed this by putting Sonic in the surprisingly dark world of Mobius, a place ruled by Dr. Robotnik, a dictator who had “roboticized” the population by turning them into droids. It also gave the hedgepig a variety of characters to play off of, like Princess Sally, Antoine the cowardly French fox, Bunnie the half-roboticized rabbit and Rotor the walrus. Along with Tails, this lot was collectively referred to as the Knothole Freedom Fighters.  Archie Sonic got its start telling stories with the Freedom Fighters while they were still on air, and even after the show was cancelled, the comic continued using them, essentially turning itself into season three of the cartoon. As the decades passed, the SatAM characters and story threads evolved and changed in wondrously unexpected ways - Sonic and Sally fell in love, the original Dr. Robotnik was killed and replaced with a robotic version of himself from an alternate dimension, Bunnie and Antoine got married and Mobius was revealed to be a future version of Earth that was attacked by the Xorda, aliens who had unleashed gene bombs on the planet, mutating the wildlife into anthropomorphic animals. (This was my goddamn favorite batshit crazy bit of Sonic comic lore ever.) Furthermore, the comic increasingly began introducing more elements from the actual Sonic video games, which had finally developed deeper stories of their own thanks to the advancement of technology. So you had stuff like Sonic and the Freedom Fighters teaming up to fight Perfect Chaos and meeting Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat. It was an unusual, unique combination of Western and Eastern concepts melding together in one pictorial arena, and it made Archie Sonic feel special. 

Speaking of the games, the book was also special because it damn well carried Sonic’s presence in North America during the years when the blue guy wasn’t starring in many video games (the Sega Saturn era) and couldn’t star in any decent video games (the Sonic ‘06 era). Even when Sega was releasing shovelware that damaged the brand, Archie Sonic kept pumping out issues, and its sheer determination to keep going won it legions of dedicated fans. Many of these people, including myself, got stuck on the comic at a young age and stayed long-term. I personally started picking up issues in 1994 or 1995, so basically only three or so years after the book was out. I think I was seven years old. A few years later, I got a subscription and had the comic delivered to my mailbox every month. (I still remember my first issue - it was number 41, when Sonic, Sally and that douchebag skunk Geoffrey St. John went to the Zone of Silence to rescue King Acorn.) The subscription continued until I was in college, and only ended around my junior year, when I forgot to renew it because I was too busy applying to go abroad after graduation. 

In short, I subscribed to a periodical about a damn blue hedgehog for a large majority of my life. Even when I stopped regularly reading around issue 180, I always kept abreast of the book’s developments (like that crossover with MEGAMAN!) and told myself that I’d eventually catch up on the stories I missed, likely in the excellent Sonic Select and Sonic Archives trade paperbacks that Archie was publishing. And there were tons of others like me. The Archie Sonic community is such a vibrant one, filled with 90s kids who grew up on this book and even older folks like the crazy Dan Drazen, a 60-something librarian who wrote the most detailed (and overly picky) online reviews of every issue. Many of these fans went on to work for the comic at one point or another, like the incredible Dawn Best and fan favorite Ian Flynn, who swooped in as a writer in the late 2000s and saved the book when it was suffering from a spell of plodding stories. For a lot of us, Archie Sonic was the preferred Sonic canon, and we got pissed when Sega pulled awful jump the shark moments outta their butts - like having Sonic hook up with human princesses in his broken 2006 game - when there was a wealth of solid lore in this weird little comic coming out in America that they always seemed content to ignore.

In fact, the only time Sega really paid close attention to the book was when Ken Penders launched a lawsuit against it, which may have been a contributor to its eventual cancellation. People better than me have already scripted lengthy writeups about Mr. Penders, and I encourage you to read this extremely in-depth take on the whole fiasco, which is a bizarre tale of copyright arguments and delusions of grandeur worthy of any John Grisham novel. But in a nutshell, Ken was a former writer who helped guide Archie Sonic away from simple gag strips and into the realm of full-on adventure tales. His control over the book was major until he was fired, and a few years later, he went on a vehement quest to prove that he owned all characters he had created while working for Archie, including series mainstays like Julie-Su, Knuckles the Echidna’s girlfriend. He ended up suing Archie multiple times and won on legal loopholes, which prompted him to start attacking the book’s current team while declaring that a buttload of barely-related story concepts were his. He also tried suing Sega when Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood came out, claiming that the enemies in the game were too similar to ones he had whipped up. Archie eventually had to come up with a plot device to kill off (trap in another dimension, really) all of the characters he had created during his tenure, and eventually they instituted a full reboot to wipe continuity clean and remove all traces of the lawsuit from history. Unfortunately, the legal issues did some pretty heavy damage to Archie’s relationship with Sega, who were reportedly pissed that the American comic company had let things get so screwed up. And I don’t blame them. To the Sonic fan community, Ken Penders is largely loathed as a megalomaniac who sabotaged a long-running comic for personal gain. But he doesn’t deserve all of the blame, and he did put out some good stories in the day before going bonkers. Archie’s also at fault, both due to their not-so-great freelancer deals as well as their incompetence at handling lawsuits. (At one point the company even fired their entire legal team and hired new attorneys, yeesh.) In recent years, Archie also seems to be terrible at handling their finances, even though they’re currently spearheading Riverdale, a successful show on the CW that’s made all of their high school characters into hot, emo Millennials. (I call it the “Archie Sex Show” in my head.) I’ve heard rumors that company management wants to streamline their output to ONLY focus on Riverdale-related stuff, and seeing as how the Ken Penders business was a tremendous waste of time that ripped some large holes in their relationship with Sega, it only makes sense that both companies would decide to part ways.  So where do we go from here? Well, it was suddenly announced today that IDW Publishing would be the ones picking up the Sonic license for a relaunch of the book in 2018. IDW’s a fit place for Sonic, since they currently publish the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…which Archie once owned the license for. (Funny how these things go in circles, eh?) Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the current arc that was going on in the Archie books - a charming retelling of the Sonic CD story - is going to go unfinished, and I’m also fearful that we’ll be saying goodbye to the DiC Freedom Fighters. I’d LOVE to be proven wrong, and it would warm my heart to see Princess Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine, Rotor and Nicole survive a change in publishers. But since Sega’s never “officially” acknowledged those characters in a game (except for Sonic Spinball, which was made by an American studio and doesn’t really count) they’re likely going to be classified as expendable cannon fodder that are no longer relevant. There is some hope, though. Perhaps a miracle will occur and IDW will have the good sense to re-hire guys like Ian Flynn or maintain some semblance of the continuity that an entire generation knows and loves. Until the day we know for sure arrives, I’ll just have to re-read my old issues, revel in the glory of covers drawn by SPAZ, laugh at insane crossovers like the time Sonic met Spawn, and remember an era when a hedgehog with attitude and his Knothole friends kicked Dr. Robotnik’s butt and brought me twenty plus years of wonderful adventures.  For Mobius! For freedom!

The header image of the Archie Sonic cast was drawn by darkspeeds and found on Deviantart. The cover images are just a few of my favorites from the days when I was subscribed to the book, and were taken from Comic Vine and Cover Browser.

[mousedetective]

Coffee And Other Loves (A “Uni Days” Story)

So here is another very late Christmas present to @mcbangle, one of @doctor-molly-hooper-holmes‘s picks for my Femslash February claims (D1) and a late Day 5 entry for Molly Hooper Appreciation Week Part Deux (Nothing Greater Than ___). ::takes breath:: A lot of stuff. But it’s some Hoopervan university AU cuteness, so please enjoy!

Coffee And Other Loves - When Molly runs out of coffee at 3 AM the day before she has an important paper due, she begins to panic, but Sally has a rather brilliant idea...one that gets an unexpected reaction from Molly.

Fandom: Sherlock (TV)

Relationship: Sally Donovan/Molly Hooper

Characters: Molly Hooper. Sally Donovan

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, College Student Molly, College Student Sally, Coffee, Coffee Shops, All-Nighter, Research Paper, Molly's Out Of Coffee, Sally Saves The Day, Awesome Sally Donovan, POV Molly Hooper, Poor Molly, Established Sally Donovan/Molly Hooper, Love Confessions, Awkward Molly, Awkward Confession, Fluff and Humor, Sally Donovan and Molly Hooper are Cute, Mentioned Greg Lestrade - Freeform

Read @ AO3 | Buy Me A Coffee? | Send Me A Prompt

She stared at the canister in horror. It was empty. She’d swear up, down, left right and any other which ways you could think of she’d just bought the damn thing a week ago. Surely she couldn’t have drunk that much coffee in a week? But then she looked in the rubbish bin she hadn’t emptied in she didn’t know how long and saw the sheer amount of white, coffee stained filters threatening to overflow out of it.

Oh. Apparently, she could drink that much coffee in a week.

She yawned and then her eyes widened. This was not a good sign. It was only three in the morning and she had a critical paper due for her anatomy class that she hadn’t even known about until a week ago because the professor had assumed he’d put it in the syllabus and then told them about it. When the class had said he hadn’t, he’d been a cold-hearted bastard and said it was still due in a week anyway, and she’d had to fight the other thirty-plus students in the class for research materials and books in the library.

She was a mess, she was, and if she blew this class she could kiss uni good-bye. And now she was out of God’s gift to pre-med students and she wanted to cry.

The knock at the door kept her from breaking down, and she walked over and opened it to see Sally there. The smile on her face turned to a frown almost instantly. “What’s wrong? Who died?”

Molly barked out a tiny laugh. “My academic hopes and dreams if I don’t get enough coffee to stay awake and write this bloody anatomy paper my godawful professor foisted on us a week ago.” She gave her girlfriend a hopeful coffee. “I don’t suppose I can run by your room and take all of your coffee off your hands, could I?”

Sally’s mouth did an O shape. “I didn’t realize you were one of the unlucky bastards to be in Campbell’s class.” Molly gave her a confused look. “At the coffee shop, I’ve been helping out a bit since Rosalee left to go backpacking across the continent with no notice. We’ve had a huge uptick in sales from people in his class cramming to try and get this paper done.”

“Ah,” Molly said, trying not to yawn again. “Why did you come by here?”

“To see if maybe you wanted to hit a late party some of the blokes who performed at the shop were going to throw at a house nearby campus,” she said. “But I think I have a better idea.” She reached over for Molly’s hand and pulled her towards the door and then stopped. “No, wait, grab the things for the paper, then let’s go. It’ll be better that way.”

“What will?” Molly asked, letting go of her girlfriend’s hand to go get the notes she needed.

“You’ll see.”

---

Sally unlocked the door to the coffee shop and then opened it, walking in, followed by a more cautious Molly. “Are you sure you won’t get in trouble?” Molly asked.

Sally nodded as she locked up behind them. “I’ve done this before during finals last semester. We have the owner’s blessing as long as we only use the staff lounge coffeemaker, we stay in the lounge and we only eat from the stuff he’s going to donate to the shelter in the morning. Besides, he’s fond of you. You’re a good tipper and you’re nice to everyone who works here.”

Molly nodded and followed Sally back to an area of the coffee shop she hadn’t been to before. Sally opened another door and turned on the light. She could see why he wouldn’t mind; this lounge was definitely set up for university students to catch naps if needed or stay up and cram for finals. The couches in the room looked comfortable, and there were pillows and throws piled up on one end of all of them, and she could see collapsible cots stacked up as well in the corner. The coffee machine was as big as the one used for customers with everything to make the same gourmet coffees, and even some of the syrups, too. “He really likes everyone here,” Molly said.

“He used to be homeless, actually, when he was a teen,” Sally said with a grin. “His mum booted him out and so he knew when he got up on his feet he’d set up a place for people to relax and be kind to people who might need a leg up. Every so often people crash here in the lounge for a while and work in the shop until they can get on their feet again. And he’s a big contributor to the shelter, too. They get the baked goods in the morning for breakfast and he always makes sure they have enough coffee for the evenings and mornings. And the good stuff, too. He thinks they deserve it.”

“Your boss sounds like a good man,” Molly said.

“Greg’s a very good guy,” she said with a smile. “He deserves all the best.” She went to the coffee machine and got it started. “Alright. You start on your paper and I will keep you supplied with coffee. I’m thinking maybe double shot mochas? With some hazelnut syrup and whipped cream?”

“I love you so much,” Molly said and then she froze. “I mean...I...”

“Well, it’s a good thing I love you too, brief as our relationship has been,” Sally said. “It’s not every woman I would put off sleep for to keep them caffeinated.”

Molly smiled widely and then went over and wrapped her arms around Sally’s waist, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I think I might love you more than coffee right now,” she said.

“I like hearing that,” Sally said with a chuckle. “And you can show me how much by letting me sleep I your bed while you’re in class. Your mattress has less lumps.”

“Deal,” Molly said, giving her another kiss before pulling away. She was going to get through the night, finish this paper and let Sally take her bed while she dealt with the Professor With No Heart, and then when it was all over she was going to join her girlfriend in blissful slumber and…

Well, who knew what might happen after that?

[thisweekingundamwing]

TWIGW May 13-19

Hello Amazing Fandom!

Thanks to everyone who submitted something, and thanks to everyone who keeps contributing and helping our tiny fandom truck along! 

Here’s the round up for this week - if we missed anything, drop us a line! And don’t forget to leave the creators some love!

XOXO

Mod CB

Fanfiction:

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing

The archive is being ported to AO3! Check it out!

ammiehawk

What Do You Say?

On the road with a new companion after the events in St. Louis, what will Sam and Dean do with a supposed civilian now traveling with them? Will Sam and Dean be able to keep their secrets? Or will secrets between the brothers break them apart?

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Trowa Barton, 1x5

Warnings: Supernatural crossover, slash, supernatural elements

@anaranesindanarie

Death Unspeaking - Final Chapter!

What happens when a Gundam Pilot is mute? Will the other Pilots look down at him because of it? Will he overcome the odds or will the odds overcome him?

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of Violence, Underage, Mute!Duo, Gundams, Eventual Canon Divergence, Mobile Suits, Fighting, Eventual Yaoi, AU, Sign Language, just pure awesomeness, Blowing Shit Up, blowing ships up, Circus

@claraxbarton and @kangofu-cb

Bad Company

"The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

Years after the wars, Preventers has decided to tackle one of the most powerful and oldest of all the Terran crime syndicates. Embedded dangerously deep in an undercover operation targeting the violent and bloodthirsty Sinaloa Cartel, Trowa Barton is pushed beyond even his flexible morals - and when his new "partner" arrives in the very unexpected and unwelcome form of Duo Maxwell, the one person he'd been trying to protect at all costs, both men must deal with the realization that preserving peace for humanity is turning into a bloodsport. What follows is race against time to uncover the evidence they need to bring Sinaloa, and its beautiful but deadly leaders, down - all while keeping each other alive in the process

Pairings: 2x3, 1x4

Warnings:  Graphic Depictions of Violence, Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas

@duointherain

Perfection

Heero is a very good Preventer agent. Duo used to be his partner. Now he's stuck with Burt Gummer. If he could find Duo, he'd love to confess his love. Life is not fair. Then, in order to get Burt to resign from Preventers, Heero, Wufei, Quatre, and Trowa agree to an easy mission of delivering supplies to Perfection National Monument. There they find Duo. Things are going to get grabby, and not just with the graboids!

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4

Warnings: none

Terminal Velocity

Duo comes looking for Heero after a long absence.. there is make-up sex. Well, then they have the whole effort of learning to live together like normal people. Mistakes will happen.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: none

@gundamwing-ellesmith​

Heero's Inheritance

A headcanon/drabble: Heero has often wondered what it might be like to have something to hold onto...

Pairings: none

Warnings: headcanon-ish, illustrated

KageKagi

The Heir of House Black

Harry attends Sirius's will reading and learns that there was more to the black family than anyone expected,

Pairings: 2x4, Drarry, Ron x Hermione, 1x2

Warnings: none

Lithle

Salt

Three months after the events of Like Oxygen, Duo shows up on Wufei's doorstep. As familiar, dangerous patterns assert themselves, Wufei's left wondering if there is, or could be, anything between them beyond self-destructive desire.

Pairings: 2x5, 1xR

Warnings: Unhealthy Relationships, Post War Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, no EW, Post-War, Explicit Language, Sex, Bad Decisions, POV Chang Wufei, everyone is broken, But Maybe Trying to Get Better?

LittleMouse

WarCraft

Alternate Fantasy World - A world where people have ‘Talents’ that allow them to control certain elements. Different Talents can ‘Join’ to become a specific entity - some can heal, some can repair damage to land and buildings, some are weapons. The Talents you ‘Join’ with are called your Others. The perfect Joining is of five separate Talents. One lonely Fire Talent far to the North has given up waiting for his Others - good thing they haven’t stopped looking for him.

Pairings: none

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, Alternate Universe, Fantasy, Non-con touching

luvsanime02

Identifying the Problem

Wufei has a problem. The other guys want to help, once they can figure out what the problem actually is.

Pairings: None

Warnings: None

A Cocktail Friday submission

Maldoror

The Source of All Things

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

Pairings: 3x4, 2x5, 1x2x5

Warnings: alternative universe, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technologyl brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Two Halves

The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for.  But there isn't just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated.  Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Fantasy AU, medieval setting with magic, starts with our heroes as children, Cousin Incest, sort of, eventually, being royalty this is in fact the norm and rather expected of them, Canon-Typical Violence

Shinigamiinochi

A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)

Duo Maxwell has been stuck his entire life. With an abusive father, a mother who doesn't even realize he exists, severely bullied at school, and hiding his sexuality, he has given up all hope for a better life. When he falls in love with his bully's boyfriend, he needs to make a choice about his future. Will he continue to let himself be abused or will he fight back?

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 2x3, 1xR

Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Noncon, Underage, Child Abuse, Bullying, Angst, Suicide, Incest, Alternate Universe

@stoic-rose (Alithea)

Lose By Winning

Wufei goes in for an interview. Short drabble takes place after Endless Waltz. Inspired by @lbro009

Pairings: none

Warnings: none

Sylvieforaday

Neighbors

A/U - Meilan is learning, not everything happens the way you thought it would. Sometimes you fall for the perfect girl next door when she gets knocked off her pedestal.

Pairings: RxM

Warnings: none

white_fox

Life Is A Highway

On an impulsive plan to travel from California to New York City to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Heero Yuy did not plan to pick up a hitchhiker in nowhere Texas. Faced with some setbacks and a growing attraction to his passenger, Heero goes through more challenges than he planned on facing.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: light slash, Fluff, Road Trips, Dubious Morality

Snippets:

@lifeaftermeteor

The Vote, pt 1

The Vote, pt 2

@remsyk-blog

Feel good fluff

@terrablaze514​

Teaser Tuesday - Secret Magic AU, Rated M; I’ve pulled this scene out just to play with the pair itself, for a late 2x5x2 (Duo/Wufei) moment. It is a combination of silly, dark, and h/c. 

@vegalume

From Collide, a 13x1

Black Adder quote prompt

WIP Wednesday

Photo Edits/Manipulations

@gundamwing-ellesmith

What if Gundam Wing was real? - Chang Wufei’s office ft. Sally

Headcanons / Meta / Discussions:

@disturbed02girl

Postcard 11

@lbro009

Characterizations by Japanese vs non-Japanese fans

@lifeaftermeteor

Quatre’s (not)sleeping habits

@terrablaze514

HeadCanon Time (Secret Magic AU): The G-Boys encounter problems behind the scenes + how Quatre and Wufei reconnected. 

@whenwillmailcome

Chang Wufei - MemeLord

Multiple Contributors

Q&A with Gundam Wing producer Hideyuki Tomioka and fans

Wufei and stringed instruments

Why was Zechs kept alive?

Fanart:

@chronicwhimsy​

Duo and Wufei for Mermay

@duointherain

Duo

Duo

@lemontrash

Duo chilling

@zibelinbelt

Gundam Wing minifanbook about Gundam Wing 

Calendar Events:

Cocktail Friday

https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/

A new prompt every Monday!

Submissions should be posted Fridays between 3 and 5pm EST, and tagged with @gwcocktailfriday, and are included in the This Week roundup on Sundays.

Interview with a Creator by @remsyk-blog @interview-with-a-creator

Remsyk has created an online interview for fandom creators to fill out and then she features one each week so that everyone in the fandom can learn a bit about each other.

If you haven’t filled out her interview, go! do! now!

This week’s featured creator is @gwepisode50 check their interview out here!

30 Day Gundam Wing Challenge

Daily questions about Gundam Wing. Please tag your participation posts with @gundamwing30daychallenge for them to be recognized.

Challenge questions and more information can be found here

Pick and choose which questions you wish to answer (or tackle them all!). The point of this challenge is to stimulate fandom participation and to promote conversation and interaction between all fans!

Submission Box Open for Diamond in the Stars (OT5) Challenge

Challenge information can be found here

Submissions due September 23, 2018

Current posts:

@terrablaze514

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 8, Day 9, Day 11, Day 12, Day 15, Day 17, Day 19

@lbro009

Day 15

Day 18

@chemicalcrush

Day 13

Day 15

Day 17

@lifeaftermeteor

Day 18

[collegesaidso]

Perhaps me being a woman makes me bias, but I have always perceived the biggest contributor to homophobia being the social dialogue that demonizes femininity or presents it as inferior, or just general sexism.

I'm not unaware that ignorance and fear of what is not understood or common is a major element as well, but how much fear of gay people stems from a dislike of men dressing and acting like women? Why does someone perceived to be male but asking to be called a female name face literal death threats some times? Why is when a woman says she has no desire to live life committed to a man make her a target for harrassment?

(The only instance that comes to my mind where homosexuality was praised while sexism was still present is ancient greek practices where man was viewed as intelligent and woman savage. Loving another man was a sign of intelligence because one was loving an equal mind, while to love a woman was standard and in line with loving nature, and following nature's desire for one to produce children. Obviously the sexism has prevailed the trials of time, but the acceptance of homosexuality has returned to American society)

In my own eyes, a world without sexism would be a much more open place for queerness. If one side of our contrived gender binary is no longer considered greater than the other, we might no longer be so obsessed with how our gender is presented at all.

This leads me to hoping that queer representation in film will one day be more equil, reflecting the world around us and not necessarily what is popular.

Maybe one say this class will include an equal number of films about lesbians as it does gay men.

As much as this class has been about the genre of queer cinema and its purposeful choose to go against the grain of modern cinema, if the future is to be about acceptance of queer individuals, either society or the individuals will need to assimilate(and both likely will a little).

Maybe one day 'Steven Universe' wont be an outlier cartoon depicting queer-coded relationships and a majorly fem-nonbinary cast.

Maybe one day films about lesbians will considered standard viewing in line with 'When Harry Met Sally' or 'The Notebook'.

Maybe one day the obligatory romance subplot in an action film will be as likely to be between two men as it is any other couple combination.

Maybe one day historical retellings will include queer romance ala 'Titanic', ESPECIALLY where queer romance has been historically erased.

Maybe one day queer films won't be a genre, and we won't have to cling to the scraps tossed to us by horny straight people, or the garbage Marvel considers queer representation.

When I first watched 'Citizen Cane' I hated it, I thought it had been over-hyped, and I couldn't understand why it was considered a classic. That was because what was considered innovative I'm that film was replicated and standard in every film since that it was just not new to me as it had been to audiences who first saw it.

I hope one day people think 'Love, Simon' is dull and over-hyped because queer is as standard in film as it is in real life.

[zipgrowth]

School leaders must find their voice: It matters!

The public voice of school superintendents and school leaders has been muted for too long, largely due to school improvement mandates that have them on the defensive.

Often, their voices are interpreted as support for the status quo–or, worse–as an impediment to positive change. It’s time for all that to change.

Engaging in conversations about success for ALL students is not a choice. Educational leaders must be present in these conversations, and help find solutions.

A school superintendent cannot focus on only what happens within the boundaries of the school district. Nor can they let the narrative for school improvement be dominated by outside interests. Change that matters is led by leaders who see opportunities in their educational system, and who understand their role in navigating the influences, political and otherwise, that shape educational policy.

Complex legislative conversations at the local, state, and federal levels necessitate that superintendents and other school leaders develop a strong voice on these issues. For many leaders, this means playing a new role. Researcher Todd Hurst at the University of Kentucky explains:

The modern superintendent does not have the luxury of ignoring the politics inherent in the position. Shifting cultural norms and an increasing politicization of the educational system have forced superintendents to become active political players. Everything from the content standards to public school financing is fodder for political dialogue playing out at the local, state, and even national level. In response, superintendents must develop coalitions among broad stakeholders within their communities regarding policies and political topics inside and outside of the schoolhouse.  

In our own research, Dr. Sally Zepeda and I found that a superintendent voice is critical to school success. But a strong voice first requires credibility:

Superintendents, your voice must be the loudest and strongest if we expect to educate all children in this country. The challenge in creating your voice remains with the level of credibility garnered in the everyday conversations and the trust established at the local level and beyond.

Stepping out with a strong voice introduces certain risks. These risks mean that superintendents have to be both purposeful and tactful when they speak out on critical issues. The ability to voice ideas without wading into personal attacks is key in establishing credibility and integrity.

So, what steps can superintendents and school leaders take to establish a strong, credible voice when speaking out on critical school issues?

Superintendents should be transparent with every member of their school system. Create opportunities for school boards to express themselves and stay informed about the positions they take on local, state, or federal policies. Make sure staff and teachers are informed of action or works that might impact their professional work.

Establish working relationships with local government agencies and use joint strategic planning to move forward together, with the support of other local agencies.

Get to know local and state legislators by reaching out when they are not in legislative session. Have conversations before legislative actions and before they become contentious debates to build trust and credibility.

Engage community agencies and faith-based organizations in conversations on shared work, and by serving as advisors for each other’s organizations.

Actively engage in federal and state professional organizations through committee work at all levels to influence policy and regulations. Every involved educational leader contributes to developing effective solutions.

Work closely with local Colleges of Education to bring new insight into educational policy and establish a strong unified coalition from Kindergarten through postsecondary. Colleges and universities are significant contributors to these conversations.

Ensure community stakeholders–including students and parents–have a voice in important policy debates by actively asking them for their feedback and providing easy ways for them to make their opinions heard.

The voice of the school superintendent matters! How have you used your vision and experience to influence policy? Does the narrative to improve come from the experts or outside interest groups in your community? How do you lead with your voice? Tell us in the comments.

For more insight into the emerging role of leaders, read The Emerging Work of Today’s Superintendent: Leading Schools and Communities to Educate All Children. Dr. Philip D. Lanoue and Dr. Sally J. Zepeda’s goal in writing this book published by Rowman & Littlefield, and as a joint publication with AASA, is to engage superintendents and leaders by asking different questions about their roles in leading schools and communities.   

The post School leaders must find their voice: It matters! appeared first on Trusted.

School leaders must find their voice: It matters! published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

[opticien2-0]

A year till Brexit: how retail is set to be affected

The UK is on course to make its official departure from the European Union a year today. We’ve gathered together some voices from the retail industry and related sectors on the subject for a progress report.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium [IRDX VBRC]: on the need for tariff-free trade

“With exactly a year to go to Brexit day, last week’s breakthrough in the negotiations logjam couldn’t have come soon enough. The agreement on a framework for a standstill transition period is something we’ve long argued is vital to avoid a cliff-edge by giving businesses and government time to adjust, plan ahead and invest.

“Another encouraging development comes from both the UK and EU-27 negotiators appearing committed to a tariff-free deal, which is important for consumers. This is particularly important for food as around 20% of products sold in a supermarket are imported from the EU and adding high tariffs would have a significant impact on hard-pressed consumers.

“Securing tariff-free trade with the EU is only part of the equation for sustaining low prices and availability of goods for UK consumers. Retailers also need a deal that helps them fulfil the skills requirements of an industry undergoing profound transformation. From distribution and stores, to head office, there’s no doubt that our EU colleagues make a vital contribution to British retailers’ ability to deliver the goods consumers want, when they want them and they deserve certainty and security to continue living and working here.

“There will be opportunities for consumers from better trade deals and new markets, but the risk of not achieving a deal with the EU is enormous and its impact would be felt immediately by millions of us from the transition’s end. So over the next few months until the June European Council and beyond, the negotiations should focus on reducing potential customs friction and creating a new immigration system fit for the future.”

Sally Gilson, head of skills at the Freight Transport Association: on this week’s Migration Advisory Committee’s interim report into the status of workers from the EEA

“[The report] has confirmed what the logistics sector already knew, however it is yet to provide the clarification which our members require on the future status of European workers in the logistics industry.

“This lack of certainty over workers’ future status is causing huge concern for employees as well as employers, which rely on European labour to ensure that Britain’s supply chain continues to operate at the optimum level. Government needs to take note of the interim report and decide future systems now.

“Of particular concern are those lower skilled EU workers, who under current migration systems would not be considered eligible for special terms under the skills shortage occupation list. These workers provide vital manpower in an industry which is often highly labour intensive, and their contribution to Britain’s trading relationships cannot be ignored. It is encouraging that the final report will investigate whether the skills shortage occupation list methodology needs to be revised, to accommodate these vital professions, but that work will come too late for logistics businesses which need certainty on workforce levels now to plan with confidence for the future.”

The FTA says the logistics sector is heavily reliant on EEA workers, with 14% of LGV drivers, 12% of van drivers and 24% of warehouse workers from those countries, especially the new member states. Logistics is currently experiencing an LGV driver shortage, with 52,000 vacancies already registered and more likely to occur as European workers leave to return home as Britain’s departure from the European Union approaches.

“Although employers are working hard to fill the skills shortages that the sector is already experiencing, skills funding is not necessarily directed in the correct way to do this,” Ms Gilson said. “At this time employers still don’t know what the post Brexit immigration will look like and how onerous the administration process will be. It is hard to prepare for an unknown future, particularly when it is unclear what training will be provided, and who needs to be trained.

Gary Lynch, chief executive of supply chain and data standards organisation GS1 UK: on continuing demand for British goods

“British produce remains a byword for excellence around the world and our food and drink is exported to the four corners of the globe. With official Government figures showing that £22bn of it was sent overseas in 2017, there is clearly a lasting taste for British products and our members have optimistic expectations for the coming years. Whisky and salmon are very much our export staples, but the thirst for our beer and gin also continues to intensify.”

GS1’s Brits Abroad: UK Food & Drink Exports in 2018 finds 15% of food and drink manufacturers’ business is now exported. That’s up from 11% five years ago, and expected to rise to 23% by 2023. In 2017, UK food and drink exports were worth about £22bn.

Paul Souber, head of Central London retail at Colliers International: on continuing demand for UK and London store sites

“Following the Brexit vote, sterling devalued significantly, making London more attractive to tourists; particularly those from China, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who quickly began taking advantage of the ‘Brexit bargains’ on offer. Of these, Chinese tourists were the biggest contributor to international sales, accounting for 35% of tourist spend.

“As a result of the currency-led tourist boom, many retailers noticed an escalation in shopper footfall and we initially saw a rise in the number of active requirements as a result. However, with shopping habits increasingly moving online and an uncertain UK economy slowing the rate of consumer spending, many retailers are feeling financially squeezed and are subsequently focusing more on controlling their overall occupational costs.

“The focus on the bottom line coincides with a recognition from brands that their bricks and mortar stores must be repurposed so that they seamlessly connect and enhance all parts of their retailing platform, be that online or instore.

“In practice this translates to retailers being more discerning over the number, size and location of physical stores and, in turn, these stores become more experiential and personalised.

“As consumers become more time challenged, it is essential that the locations they visit provide them with a convenience led menu of experiences, from great shopping to a huge array of dining and entertainment options, cultural experiences, health and fitness pursuits, relaxation and leisure, all easily interconnected and accessible by transport and digital infrastructure.”

<h3Tim Walker, managing director of IT services provider Aura Technology: on preparing for Brexit

“A year to go may seem like a long time, but businesses are acting now to mitigate any problems and also to capitalise on the opportunities that Brexit brings.

“We work extensively with mid-market businesses, and what we are seeing is that the smartest ones have one eye on a post-Brexit Britain and are actively looking to invest in their technology whether their business is domestic or international. I would predict that Brexit, combined with regulations such as GDPR, will see more and more organisations reviewing the operational aspects of their business over the next year as they look to ensure compliance, maximise efficiency and reduce costs.

“There will undoubtedly be challenges ahead, but I think many businesses see it as a great British opportunity. As a nation we have always been innovators and there are a growing number of entrepreneurs among us, so I see no reason why we can’t approach Brexit with an overwhelmingly positive attitude.”

Retail Economics and Squire Patton Boggs: on the potential cost of no deal

The analysis from these two organisations suggests £7.8bn could be added to the cost of retail goods if the UK fails to agree on a deal with the EU. They say the risk of higher costs from new tariffs is greatest for food and drink from the EU.

“Firstly, the exposure of the UK market to imports from the EU is the highest compared with any other retail sector, with more than 70% of UK food and drink imports originating from within the EU.

“Secondly, the standard rate of tariffs that would apply to imports of EU food and drink is far higher than the rate for non-food goods, with duties for some meat and dairy products rising to 80%.

“Thirdly, to continue tariff-free trade in food and drink post-Brexit, the EU is likely to demand compliance with a wide range of non-trade regulations which may be difficult for the UK to accept.

“Fourthly, potential alternative non-EU sources of food and drink are limited by either high tariffs and/or non-tariff barriers.

“Finally, any new immigration system for EU citizens would need provision for non-graduate labour to ensure that the UK retail industry has access to the workers it needs or we could see a rise in labour costs due to competition within the industry and its supply chain.”

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