#saw a video of a guy at one of those men's boutiques where they make complete custom suits for you. thought abt taking my boyfriend there

[kissnoir]

always and forever loving men in suits. not because they have to wear them to be manly but because there is absolutely nothing that compares to their faces when they see themself in a well-tailored suit. the euphoria and confidence they exude makes me giddy to see. maybe it's the joyful trans experience of being insurmountably happy for someone else being able to take pride and enjoy the things you dislike wearing. maybe squared shoulder pads are just lovely to look at. maybe i just think men are hot. all of these things are true

[getalittleclosey]

under 25k larry fic rec

hi! i’m becca and i read...so much fic. these rec lists are an accumulation of fic that i’ve read or reread and extra loved from 2016-now. there’s a wide range of stuff here and i think there’s definitely something for everyone!! i divided them up by length so you can check out all those categories below!

please make sure to read tags and warnings on all these fics!! the only things i think i can guarantee is that these are all larry, there’s no non-con, no age play, no eating disorders, no mentions of bg, they end happy, and they’re mostly aus. oh and they’re all on ao3 and some are locked so you’ll need an account! anyway i hope y’all enjoy!!!

under 5k

under 10k

under 50k

under 100k

100k+

☆ watching the world fall by whoknows 12k

This segment has been going on long enough that Louis knows what’s coming before James starts in on it, trying to sell him on something he knows that Louis wouldn’t normally be buying. But there’s four cameras surrounding him, and an audience watching him expectantly, so if Louis wants to continue convincing people that he’s doing just fine, he’s going to have to go along with it.

“We have a whole host of single men backstage waiting to meet you, Louis,” James tells him. “We want to help you find love tonight, on Late Late Live Tinder. Is this okay? Do you want to play?”

It actually kind of makes sense that his first date after the break-up is going to be just as public as said break-up. Something like coming full circle.

“Alright, James,” Louis agrees, hopping down off his stool.

“Okay, come down to the stage,” James says. Louis can’t even tell whether the excitement in his voice is genuine or not. “Right now, come on down!”

☆ enjoy the ride by 2tiedships2 11k

“Stop sulking and get up. I have a proposition to make.”

“Niall?” Louis questioned. “Do you think I should put glow in the dark stars on my ceiling?”

He looked over and found Niall giving him an unimpressed look.

“So, no?” Louis asked. “No stars?”

“We’re going on a road trip,” Niall stated.

Louis looked back at his starless ceiling and waved farewell to Niall. “Cool. Have fun!”

“No, you idiot.” Niall let out a frustrated sigh. “You, me, Liam, and Harry.”

Louis glanced over to Niall and back to the ceiling. “Who’s Harry?”

Or the one where Louis, an omega more than tired of being treated as lesser than alphas, is forced on a road trip by his beta besties only to meet Harry who might just be the alpha he never knew he wanted.

☆ like to keep you laughing by kikikryslee 13k

Louis gasped. “Are you straight? Oh, I'm sorry, man. You should’ve just told me; I would’ve left you alone.” “No, no, that’s not it," Harry said. "I like guys. I definitely like guys.” “OK…” “Louis, I’m ace.” Louis snorted. “Kind of full of yourself, aren’t you?” --- Or, the one where Louis is a frat boy who likes to hook up and Harry is someone who doesn't hook up ever.

note: ace and aro rep bless

☆ say that you can see me (i’ll speak up i swear) by coffeelouis (streamtpwk) 20k

“Well, it’s not like anyone really RSVPs,” Liam defends when Harry turns back to him, “No one takes Facebook events seriously.” Harry rolls his eyes, still finding it within himself to get annoyed in his moment of panic. Liam has been complaining about the lack of accountability Facebook events have bred in their generation since their freshman year. Harry glances back to the gallery entrance. Yep, still there and moving closer.

“But aren’t you guys friends?” Harry asks, trying to convey the urgency in his tone.

“Well, I mean, I talk to him when he stops by the office for supplies sometimes,” Liam reasons, “But I wouldn’t say we’re friends, exactly. Maybe more like, friendly acquaintances?”

Harry groans. “You’re the fucking worst.”

[or, the liberal arts COLLEGE AU where Harry knows Louis as the best friend of the boy he has been hopelessly in love with for years now and Louis knows Harry as the boy he wished would look away from Zayn long enough to notice him.]

☆ a fire in us by hereforlou 12k

Louis had always thought it wouldn’t catch him off-guard. If he ever got his Time, he would be ready, and he would be calm, and he would make his way to wherever his soulmate waited for him and blow them away with how ready and calm he was.

When he got his Time on that Monday, years after he had stopped fantasizing about meeting his soulmate, Louis was not ready, and he was not calm. What he was was late.

(Or, the one where Harry waits and Louis worries.)

☆ just like the wolf before he bites by whoknows 11k

He’s loud, Louis is, and that’s far from unusual for him, but the volume of it still has Harry pulling back the curtain. There’s a half-formed thought in the back of his brain about telling Louis off, because it’s fucking half three in the morning, but then.

But then Harry’s eyes get stuck on the soft glint of Louis’ stubble in the light, and he’s making his way across the room before he even realizes it.

Louis, for his part, just tips his chin up to give Harry space and keeps talking, waving the joint in his hand around for emphasis. He doesn’t even bother to greet Harry, going on with his story to his semi-rapt audience, just settles a hand in between Harry’s shoulder blades and pushes him down firmly.

Harry just. Relaxes. His eyes slip closed, pushing his entire face into that spot underneath Louis’ chin, where his hair is still growing, neat and prickly. The scent of Louis’ cologne drifts into Harry’s nose, light and fresh, and it’s calming. Comforting. His breathing syncs up with Louis’ quickly, and Harry feels so much better than he had five minutes ago he almost wants to cry.

note: i’m rewatching teen wolf so this hits different

☆ wine not? by multiple authors 21k

Louis’ Wine Dive is a bar run by the people for the people. Wine Styles is a boutique tasting room that caters to a more highbrow clientele. When their worlds clash on a beautiful Charleston street, one of these owners may find that an ounce of pretension doesn’t stand a chance against a pound of perseverance.

☆ ain’t that a kick in the head by multiple authors 22k

“Well.” Niall unlocks his phone. “It wasn’t getting the traction I wanted on Snapchat. So…I tweeted it.”

What.

“You tweeted it,” Harry states, nearing a state of brain dead. “To your ten thousand followers.”

Niall nods, handing Harry the phone. “You’re a meme, Harry.”

“I’m a what?”

“A meme. It’s like an internet—”

“I know what a fucking meme is, Niall! Why did you make me into one?”

Niall has the fucking balls to cackle at that while Harry looks at the mess his former friend created. Videos of him screaming at Tomlinson about Tide Pods and his ass are being quoted and combined with memes to a create a level of memeception Harry has never seen before. That isn’t even including the thousands of tweets of him falling up the stairs remixed with random Top 40 songs.

~

In which Harry’s a disaster gay who doesn’t know shit about soccer, Liam drinks too many blue raspberry Coolattas, Niall knows everyone, Zayn looks dead, and Louis is Not Happy about sharing his breakout moment with “Drunk Hawaiian Guy.”

☆ tyger! tyger! burning bright by ryanreynolds 12k

They put on the Great British Bake Off, in a house in Donny, in England, that’s maybe inhabited by two ghosts, two lovers, stuck in the house where they used to have a life, so far away from the time they were born in. // A Buzzfeed Unsolved AU in which Harry and Louis died in a fire in the late 1800's, but death isn't the end.

☆ for the first time by mixedfandomfics 22k

The first Harry that Louis met was at his third school in as many years, and had shoved Louis’ head into the toilet when he walked into the mens restroom. Some slurs had been used, but the whole incident was kind of blurry thanks to the concussion he got when his head hit the tile floor.

The second Harry was a TSA agent when Louis was sixteen, returning from a trip abroad. The agent had smirked at Louis passport. “Layla, huh? Should think about dressing a little more feminine, no guy is gonna want you looking like that.”

Louis doesn’t want to see if “third time’s the charm” applies here. He’s finally secure in his life and happy, and he doesn’t want the heartbreak if his soulmate is just another bigot that wanted Layla and not Louis. Sue him for avoiding the pain.

☆ all i need is oxygen (and you) by lululawrence 12k

There are only two ways to navigate Bloomfield High School: become popular or make yourself invisible.

With the help of his best mate Niall, Harry’s introduction to high school hadn’t been half bad. Despite being a “bandie” – the lowest of the low in the ancient hierarchy of high school –Harry had somehow managed to survive freshman year relatively unscathed. So naturally, Harry would have been perfectly happy to resume his position of invisible trombone player number four for the remainder of high school. But one day something drastic happened, something that would change the course of Harry’s entire existence (probably).

It was the last football game of his freshman year, and the band was back in the stands after performing a rousing rendition of Bloomfield’s alma mater during half time. Harry was gracelessly wiping the slobber from the mouthpiece of his trombone when he saw him.

Louis Tomlinson.

Or...a High School AU where Harry is a bandie and Louis is the epitome of cool, so naturally, Harry must find a way to get his attention and win his affections.

☆ come together by bottomlinsons 11k

Harry and Louis slept together three weeks ago, and haven't talked.

Their coming group project is gonna change that.

☆ honey at seven by louiesunshine 11k

He’s in head to toe in khaki, from the oversized shorts showing off his thin and tanned legs to the buttoned-up shirt which is hiding his true form underneath. If his muscular arms have any indication, Louis easily assumes he’s fit and toned. A dark brown leather belt ties around his slim waist. And to top it all off, the man proudly wore a safari hat on his dark wavy hair.

Unfortunately from where Louis is at, he can’t get a clear view of the man’s eyes. But he’s able to see a strong jawline and a simple dimple curving his cheek. God.

Being the impatient guy that he is, he not so kindly pushes both Niall and Liam forward to speed them up.

“Welcome, guys, gals, and non-binary pals! Hop on in and watch your head. If you happen to miss your step and hit your head, then lower your voice and watch your language. This is a family attraction and we’d like to keep it that way.”

Or, where Louis goes to Disneyland for his birthday and finds himself a cute Jungle Cruise skipper.

☆ the switch (love is blind) by writeroffictions 13k

A Model Behavior/Princess Switch AU: Harry Styles is a doppelganger for the new face of Gucci, runway model, Dean Rose. Harry is asked to pose as him one night for an event, because the actual Dean Rose is violently ill. This leads Harry to meeting his celeb crush, Global Superstar Louis Tomlinson. Sparks fly. But are any of them real?

☆ fiction romance by orphan_account 18k

Harry has a type.

He likes older, sophisticated, mature men. Well-educated men. Men with life experience and passion for arts and social causes. Men who are established in their careers, who've sorted their lives out.

Niall knows this.

And so Harry can't understand why he's sat here opposite Louis Tomlinson.

A punk Louis/uni Harry blind date AU.

☆ under me, you by hazzafrazza (colberry) 12k

You Won’t Believe Who Was Spotted Leaving Harry Styles’ Primrose Hill Pad! If Harry was being completely honest, it probably wasn’t the best idea to be a world-renowned popstar and an infamous vigilante.

(Especially when all the comic books said never reveal your secret identity to keep your loved ones safe – which was all well and good, until Louis.)

Or: Harry wants a lot of things – fame, glory, Louis – but that last one is particularly hard to get when everyone thinks you’re dating your secret superhero alter-ego and suddenly you’ve become your own worst cockblock.

☆ superhuman tonight by rearviewdreamer 23k

A group of young offenders doing community service get struck by lightning during a storm, and begin to develop superpowers.

☆ sing you butterflies by objectlesson 23k

Louis stares for a moment before some primal sympathetic force in him activates. He has to help this boy. He can hardly walk, and he seems so young (yet ageless, beyond age, like a sea turtle or a parrot or a tree or something else odd and magical), and on top of all that, he has body glitter clinging to his skin, like that roll-on stuff his sisters used to use as preteens, only pink-gold and twice as thick. It’s, like, professional grade. He’s also wearing grass- and dirt-stained pink silk women’s underwear, so maybe he’s from London. Maybe he’s a drag queen who crawled all the way from a nightclub in Soho just to save Louis from his horribly mundane and woefully heterosexual neighbours out here in the middle of nowhere.

---

or, Harry’s a clumsy unicorn who accidentally stomps on a witch’s garden and is turned into a human as punishment, so he wanders into a nearby village covered in glitter, still figuring out how to walk on two feet, and meets the fairy-tale-fine Louis, who has to teach him how to live as a human and stop him from eating soap.

☆ i’ll be your love tonight by dinosaursmate 20k

“I don’t know how I’m ever going to walk away from you.” “So don’t.” Harry ran a fingertip over Louis’ thigh. “Stay with me.” - It's the summer of 1999 and Louis Tomlinson has been abandoned at a house party. A dispute over Smirnoff Ice and several night buses later, Louis is unsure how he'll ever walk away from this lovely, curly-haired boy.

☆ carried away like butterflies by dinosaursmate 17k

“Actually…” Liam said, scratching his chin absently. “I have a friend who is moving to London soon.” “Without anywhere to live? Who is it? Do I want them living in my home?!” “You met him at my birthday party. Harry, from Cheshire. Remember? Really tight jeans, curly hair down to here?” Realisation dawned on Louis, staring at Liam who was gesturing round about his nipples. Did he remember Harry? Did he remember Harry? He remembered Harry’s square front teeth biting into his collarbone, and he remembered Harry moaning, loud and obscene with no provocation. He remembered Harry dropping to his knees at the edge of the bed and roughly pulling Louis closer. He remembered, vividly, Harry’s lovely plump lips wrapping around his- “Lou?” “Uh- what?” Louis said, startled. “Oh, yeah. Um, I think I remember him.” - It was probably a huge mistake for Louis to let his former One Night Stand move into his spare room, especially when said One Night Stand doesn't seem to remember him.

☆ head head heart by turnyourankle 12k

After Dunkirk has wrapped filming, Harry struggles with his inability to reach subspace. He tries taking the matter in his own hands before Louis intervenes with a plan of his own.

☆ i got my eyes on you (you’re everything that i see) by balanceds 11k

“It’s not a secret, right, Harry? All of his friends seem to know--”

Harry slumps down and starts methodically banging his head against his newsroom desk. “Niall, it is a secret from him because I have spoken a total of ten fucking words to Louis Tomlinson and also he is incredibly out of my league and probably fucking straight as well!”

Or: Harry's a first-year on the school newspaper, assigned to cover the terrible men's first football team. Louis Tomlinson is the team's star defender. Harry pays significantly more attention to Louis's arse than to writing real columns. Pretty soon, everyone notices. It takes Louis the longest.

☆ then we kiss (all i wanna do is have a good time) by orphan_account 24k

Harry shuffles further into the room, timidly taking a seat on one of the chairs set in front of Louis’ table. He keeps his eyes on the floor, fumbling for words. “Sorry, I’m just—it’s just that I’m a bit nervous. And, uh, I wasn’t really expecting for you to look so—” he cuts himself off, just in time to keep himself from saying beautiful.

“Young?” Louis guesses, and Harry just nods, going along with it. “Yeah, don’t worry. I get that a lot, mate. People don’t really expect you to be head writer at twenty-nine. They think to get the job you have to be in your forties, or something.”

So a five-year age gap. Cool.

(harry is a potential new writer for a comedy show. louis is his kind-of boss. they flirt. stuff happens.)

☆ other habits (make your pleasure your pains) by jtsbbsps_dk 19k

Freaky Friday High School AU.

Wherein Harry just wanted to have lunch with his older sister, Cal sells ice cream, Gemma has a test, Anne thinks she knows (she really doesn’t) and Fate plays match maker, because no one puts her ship off course. Louis just tries to help out his best friend's little brother while dealing with a metaphorical butterfly invasion.

☆ the boy in the pikachu pants by mrsstylinson 20k

Louis stars as the bumbling idiot who's only a bumbling idiot around Harry. Harry stars as the charming bastard who steals his heart completely. They meet in the middle of a hallway with Louis in a state of considerable undress, singing Destiny's Child at the top of his lungs. Somehow that seals it for Harry. This is the boy he was always meant to fall in love with. Louis feels the same, only slightly more defeatist. It takes them a while to figure things out.

☆ all the small things by kitundercover 20k

AU. Harry is five inches tall and can't remember how he got that way, but maybe with Louis' help they can work it out. ---

Louis stares. “You’re five inches tall,” he says finally.

“I am about that.” The tiny man agrees.

“You’ve been making strange noises and scaring the shit out of me.”

“I’m sorry.” The tiny man winces.

“You’ve been breaking my things.”

“Not on purpose.”

That voice is disconcertingly deep, and Louis keeps wanting to look up and find the fully grown person that it must surely be coming from. He takes a deep breath and moves onto the next impossible point.

“You’ve been riding my rabbit,” he says.

☆ like two softened shoes by marie24 14k

He sets his laptop on the bed, backing away and running his hands repeatedly through his curls. Okay. This is okay. This is fine. This is not real.

Will peeks his head around the door frame.

“Uh, everything okay in here?”

Harry tries to keep his breathing under control. “Yeah!” he says. “It’s, um, everything’s fine!” He can hear himself talking really loudly. Will looks doubtful.

“Are you sure? Because it really seems like -”

Harry barks out a laugh, cutting him off. “Okay! So this is going to sound really strange. But.” He looks at Will, with the same shiny fringe, blue, blue eyes, and sharp cheekbones he’d been writing about the whole last week. He worries his lip frantically between his teeth. “Um. I think I… I think I… wrote you?”

Or, Harry is a writer who gets through his writer’s block by pouring his feelings for his best friend Louis into a character. A few days later, the character lands in his bed, three dimensional and with no idea how to get back where he came from. He turns out to be very inconvenient for keeping Harry’s feelings to himself.

☆ ready to fall by whoknows 21k

“Ninety and rising,” Nick says triumphantly, as though making Harry’s heartbeat pick up by thrusting an obscenely attractive person in front of his face is any kind of success. “Louis Tomlinson has just walked into our control room and suddenly our dear Harry Styles has lost all ability to speak. Could this be some kind of strange coincidence?”

“I hate you,” Harry hisses, forcing his eyes back into Nick’s direction, uncaring that the mic must have picked it up. “I thought we agreed that you were going to play fair.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nick denies, except he’s holding up a picture of Louis’ face now, sharp cheekbones prominent, soft lashes nearly sweeping against his cheeks as he looks down, and his fucking mouth –

“A hundred and two!” Nick crows, all but clapping his hands together in glee. “The highest it’s ever been!”

“To be fair, I did bend over the desk on purpose,” Louis’ voice comes crackling in the headphones. Harry practically breaks his neck whipping his head around at the sound of it, gaping at him through the glass panel. “You can’t really blame him for getting a little excited about that, can you?”

☆ gnossienne by pukeandcry 11k

Louis sets a challenge for himself; it gets a bit out of hand.

☆ tonight’s not over (come over and stay) by louistomlinsons 17k

Zayn doesn’t say anything for a moment, pausing and worrying at his bottom lip. Finally, he asks, “Have you heard that Cox guy is coming out with a new song?” Louis freezes, fingers hovering over his keyboard where they had been typing his password. “No, I hadn’t,” Louis says truthfully. “Where did you hear that?” “Tell anyone this and I’ll kill you, but I’d consider myself a big fan,” Zayn says. His face doesn’t change in expression, completely serious as he admits this to Louis. “Big fan? Like run a blog and everything?” or, harry is a famous singer and louis is a student who just wants to write his novel

☆ a love that feels this right by dontlethimgo 14k

As always, the classic high-school rumour mill is never completely reliable. Sure, there are those stories that fly around that turn out to be true—like the one about Niall getting with a model at a party a few months ago (which Louis still struggles to believe)—but this ‘rumour’ has so many versions, and none of them are actually right.  

The Sixth Form AU where Louis is the footie team captain, Harry is head boy, and no one at school has any idea that the two of them are in love.

☆ put your head on my shoulder by wayfared 18k

Niall gives Harry until the end of marching season to either a) make a move on Louis Tomlinson or b) get the fuck over him. Either is easier said than done. Basically, your High School AU with a drum beat.

☆ some nights i’m scared you’ll forget me by pukeandcry 15k

Zayn stifles a groan. He’s not terribly surprised -- Harry’d been mooning over Louis since the day they met three years ago when Zayn had moved into the house next to him -- but he’d been hoping that Harry would eventually get over it and redirect his attention to someone else. This development does not bode well for that turn of events, though. (High School AU)

note: this is zayn’s pov and has a decent amount of ziall and a lot of zarry friendship if i remember!

☆ oh how i hate this red string of fate by calamityk 14k

Harry thought being able to see people’s strings die would be the worst thing about his gift, until at twenty-two he finally met the other end of his own. --------- Or that soulmate AU where Harry can see the red strings of fate that tie everyone together.

☆ smoke dreams from smoke rings by objectlesson 18k

“When I get a craving?” Louis says, “You have to help me chase it away. Distract me”

Oh. Harry can think of about one hundred different ways to distract Louis Tomlinson. One hundred better uses for his mouth, for example. “Erm,” he squeaks, well aware of the fact that he's grinning and dimpling and blushing all at once, his whole face a suddenly mortifying warzone of transparent emotion. “How?”

“By hitting my arm as hard as you can,” Louis announces, holding out the arm in question. It bridges the gap between them, stiff and expectant, and Harry stares, not entirely sure if Louis’s being serious, if this is some prank that he isn’t clever enough to understand, or if the promise of touching Louis under any circumstances is so titillating that he just can’t process it. Louis rolls up the sleeve of his hoodie then, revealing his pale inner arm in maddening increments, pushing Harry somewhere between drooling and vomiting, he isn’t sure which. He just knows that his mouth is flooded, and the barely-there ghost of Louis’s veins through his skin is the prettiest thing that he’s ever seen. “Go on, hit me,” Louis orders. “Don’t be shy,”

--- or, Louis enlists Harry to help him with his bad habit.

☆ milkshake by speechless 13k

He's been saying it for years. He doesn't care that it makes Liam roll his eyes and Zayn sigh and Niall crack up. Lots of things he does get that kind of reaction from the boys anyway. Louis won't stop saying it, 'cause it's true. His milkshake does bring all the boys to the yard. It's a fact.

So the day he decides to get into Harry Styles' pants he says it again, when all three of his roommates are there to witness it. "I'll fuck him by the end of the month. You'll see."

☆ you drive me crazy (i just can’t sleep) by objectlesson 19k

The first time Louis ends up in Harry’s bed is a total accident.

☆ happily ever after by theneverending 19k

"It’s the Peter Pan that I work with most days. Harry got placed with us today and it’s really quite funny to watch him make starry eyes at Peter Pan from behind his camera. As if that would hide anything,” Niall claims with an eye roll, causing Harry to blush even harder.

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” Harry responds lamely, suddenly becoming interested in his food again.

“Harry, when you like someone, it’s written all over your face. You just kept staring at him.”

“That’s my job, I have to stare at him to make sure the photos come out nice.”

“You wouldn’t be getting defensive if I wasn’t right,” Niall rebukes, and Harry really can’t argue with that, so he lets Niall have the last word.

or, the one where louis and harry work at walt disney world, louis is a character performer for peter pan, and harry's the photographer that sometimes gets to work with him.

☆ like the stars that shined by butliamwhy 12k

Louis has stars in his eyes. Harry has known it since they were kids. They have their own tree, their own café booth, and so many years to fall in love. Perhaps a lifetime.

☆ green in the morning and blue afternoon by wildestdreams 14k

“Harry,” Louis whispered beside him.

Harry hummed, his hand coming up to stroke Louis’ back. Louis was still on top of him, his body sagging against Harry’s, heavy and warm, and Harry loved it.

“I don’t think it was a one off.”

“Me either, Lou.”

or

a Friends AU.

[stardancerluv]

It has been forever since I wrote a fanfic...especially in relation to the Joker. But after seeing the new movie..I was inspired! Not sure if this will end being my take on someone (maybe a young Harley Quinn or a girl seeing him...) I do not own the Joker or anything to do with the movie...I am just following my muse! Here is part 3!

Joker and I

The Dance That Started It All

His Voice - Part 3

She balanced the second bag on her hip as she stuck the key into the lock. Before she could turn it, the door flew open and her aunt was soon looming over her.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Shock spread over her, it took everything in her to not drop the bags.

“Get in here.” And her bony hand grasped one of her arms and pulled her in and shut the door.

“I, I...” she mumbled.

“I have been worried sick. The cops, can’t be bothered two of their own were attacked tonight on the subway, that maniac is at it again. Only this time its cops!” She shrilled on.

She managed to out the bags down on the kitchen counter.

“What?” She asked. “What happened?” She had heard something while in one of the stores but she had not bothered to listen. She shot her window seat a look and saw the scrapbook wasn’t where she left it. Hopefully, she could distract her enough to not get upset about that.

Taking out the milk and eggs, she listened to her go on about how there was a shooting and two cops are now in intensive care. She now put away the juice and was grabbing for the bread when her aunt grew quiet.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“What?”

“This,” she shoved the scrapbook in her face. “I told you to not keep on looking at that.” She could see the strain in her face. “He’s dead!”

“I know.” She finally sobbed. “I miss him. That’s why I keep looking at it.”

“I...you...” her lips twisted as she looked down at her. “Go to your room!” She finally mustered a holler.”

Grabbing her purse, she ran to her room and shut the door.

Panting, she sat on the edge of her bed. Darkness, and even darker shadows draped over her!

She could hear and hoarse cry then silence. She looked at her door, then heard as she flicked on the tv. Voices this time filling the apartment, discussing the incident on the subway with clowns. This movement, made her wonder what her uncle, would have thought of all that. It hurt that thought. She shook her head, shaking the thoughts away.

She leaning over she turned on the lamp on her night stand. Glancing at her door again, she sighed hearing just the news, she turned her attention back to her purse.

Opening it, she took out the tissue. Unfolding it, she smiled looking at the cigarette. Laying down on her side, she put the tissue and her prize beside her.

“Wake up, Murray Franklin is coming on soon!”

The bright light of her, open door and aunt’s voice startled her awake.

She looked at her over her shoulder. She furrowed her brow, “I can come out and watch?” She immediately out a hand over her prize.

She sighed. “I am not a monster.” She gave her a weak smile. “I know how much you love watching it.”

“Ok, I’ll be right out.”

“I made muffins, and I’ll put on some tea.”

“Thank you, auntie.” She said softly.

She nodded and went away.

Looking back beside her, she lifted up her hand. The red had left a smudge on her hand making her smile. Wrapping it up, she put it into her drawer.

Quickly, she changed into her pjs if she was going to get to bed not long after Murray since school was tomorrow.

She went and grabbed a couple of the warm muffins that she slathered with butter and jam, grabbed a cup of tea and curled up on her favorite spot on the sofa. She could still remember all the excitement filled her and aunt up that night. They were able to watch from that front row, Uncle Eddie had been so funny!

“Do you really think he will put on that guy from that awful clip he played a few weeks ago?” Her aunt broke into her thoughts.

She shrugged. “Who knows, maybe he sees potential in him.” The video made her uncomfortable, making fun of someone like that wasn’t very nice of Murray she mused as she bit into one of the muffins.

Her aunt gave a short burst of laughter, “I am funnier then that guy any day.”

“He’s brave, I couldn’t imagine being up on stage or now a live tv show.”

“You are right there.”

“Well, I am glad Murray is on. With all those riots and what you are saying about those cops on the subway, I was worried they cut into our show.”

“Jessica, what happened was tragic.”

She nodded. “It is, but it happens everyday.”

“You kids are so negative.”

She rolled her eyes, “Not you sweetie but in general they are.”

“If I’m so different, why do I have to have a babysitter?”

Her aunt gave her a look, “she’s not a babysitter, she just keeps house while I work.”

She paused and looked at her, “let’s not fight about this.”

“Ok, I’m sorry.”

A smile spread across her face as the familiar music and lights began as the show began.

If she were to be honest, she really didn’t care. One roughed her and a friend of hers up when they tried getting the coffee shop not too long long because they looked like they may cause trouble when not buying anything from that boutique. Though, Murray’s monologue about them getting hurt so bad stuck her. Not soon afterward, he welcome his first guest. The woman, talked about sex...it made her wiggle in her seat...made her uncomfortable to hear about sex so close to her aunt.

Then they played the clip again. She sighed, “This is so sad. Why does he have to show it again.”

Her aunt shrugged.

“And please welcome...Joker!”

She watched as the curtains, pulled aside and out he appeared. Her jaw dropped, it was the man who danced down her steps, he looked amazing! She loved watching as he danced across the stage. She smiled watching him, and couldn’t help giggling as he kissed that odd woman!

“That was unnecessary.” Her aunt rolled her eyes.

Murray continued to make fun of him, even more so when he took out a notebook. It reminded her of her uncle’s scrapbook.

“He’s probably very nervous.”

Her heart beat heavily as she finally heard his voice.

“Oh that was a horrible joke!”

She bit her tongue to not smile wider, something about his dark joke..made her like him all the more, she couldn’t explain it.

“Oh my god, did he really just say that he killed those young men.” Her aunt looked horrified.

“Can’t be true..nah...he’s just trying to be tough after being made fun of so much.”

Her aunt just shook her head. “Horrible..”

The rest went into a blur...

“...then you get what you fucking deserve!”

And she watched in shock as he shot Murray.

“Oh my god!”

All she could do was clasp her hands over her mouth.

[seriouslyhooked]

She’s Got Legs (The CS Mixtape) Part 146/?

Series of CS oneshots inspired by music. Collection on FF Here.

A/N: A reader prompted AU based on the ZZ Top music video for the song ‘Legs.’ If you haven’t seen the video no worries, but if you want an idea of where I am going with this, it might help. Basically it includes Emma as a kind of wallflower and Killian as the one person in town who is kind to her. It features a make over from some new friends, CS love confessions, and a more hopeful Emma than we usually get to see and by the end the fluff is off the charts and the happy ending is in full force. Hope you all enjoy!

Just keep your head down, Emma. It’s when you make eye contact that the problems start.

Ridiculous as it was, these kind of thoughts were hardly new to Emma Swan and her hesitancy to meet the gazes of her not-so-friendly neighbors made up items one through ten of reasons why she needed to get the hell out of dodge. She was close to getting there to. A month or two more and she’d have all the money she needed saved up from the shop she worked in to get in her bug and comfortably leave this place behind for good. Maybe then she could start those college classes she’d been thinking of enrolling in and get a better job with more stability. But for now she was still here and the key to time passing quickly was to stay as anonymous as she could.

“Well if it isn’t little miss thang gracing us with her presence,” one of the guys on their bikes lined in front of the restaurant said, and Emma closed her eyes, cursing that they couldn’t just leave her be for one freaking day.

“Looking good, sweetheart,” another said before giving out a mockingly approving whistle.

“She might be if she didn’t have those stupid glasses,” a woman next to him said with a sneer and a dismissive hand wave as Emma opened the door and moved inside.

God what was with people and her glasses? It’s not like Emma put them on and was suddenly hideous, but they were always a sticking point, and as much as part of her hated that, they were also a shield of sorts to keep the world at a safe distance. So was the casual, almost unflattering way she dressed and the rest of her mousy appearance. The last thing Emma wanted was attention, at least from most of the people in town.

There was one person in this place that could brighten her world though, and he just so happened to work at this very diner that she was walking into. He was the exception to the rule in this town, the only individual she’d ever met here and wanted to speak to again, and though they only ever seemed to find each other in fleeting moments, those were the moments Emma clung to. When a day was over and she lay in bed at night, dreaming of a new life, he would be there too even if they barely knew each other. Emma’s instincts said he was a good man, a kind man, and one who she was undeniably and totally attracted to.

“Good morning, Emma,” a voice said from across the counter and in that instant Emma’s heart skipped a beat. Killian was here just as she’d hoped he would be, and he was offering that same slightly tilted smile that he gave her every time they crossed paths.

Killian Jones was someone Emma had met a few months back when he took a job at the only diner/bar in town, and to say that he didn’t fit in with the rest of the miscreants in this part of the world was an understatement. Emma’s experiences with people here had proven to her that everyone was superficial and only interested in themselves. If you weren’t the prettiest or the most popular social butterfly you were lesser than them, and since Emma had always preferred a good book to the coolest parties, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

But Killian never made her feel that way. He saw past the armor she wore against the rest of the world, and he showed interest in her all the same, making Emma feel like she was more than the box she’d been put in for so long when he did. Those piercing blue eyes of his swirled with sweet sincerity and something deeper and a little darker all at once, and when they warmed like they were in this instance, Emma always felt a tightening in her gut and a rush flow through her that no one else had ever inspired. The movies would call it lust, but there was something underneath that too. The bond that they’d been slowly creating as the weeks went on felt intense and important, even if they weren’t the best of friends, and Emma’s ties to Killian felt more like they meant more than mere sexual attraction.

“Good morning. Busy today?” Emma asked, biting her lip as soon as she’d uttered the question. She always wanted to be a little more collected or well spoken when she saw him, but despite her slight awkwardness in her tone and movements, Killian’s grin remained in place and his good humor never faltered.

“You could say that, yeah. The bikers are back as I’m sure you can tell.”

Emma nodded as she took the coffee and her usual Danish from Killian, not loving the town’s new guests in the slightest. Not that she had anything against motorcycles or the people who rode them on the whole – she just found the people in this club in particular that seemed to roll through here every few weeks to be lacking in manners, politeness, cleanliness, and brains. Other than that they seemed totally fine.

“Did they give you any trouble?” Emma asked, knowing that there had been a few times when Killian didn’t put up with their crap and where things had gotten tense. She was always worried for his safety when those instances came, but Killian said he’d seen scarier men than them before, and he wouldn’t waste fear on men like that.

“Nothing I can’t manage, love. Don’t let this heinous apron fool you. I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve yet.”

Emma smiled at that, letting the lingering lilt of his accent wash over her as his words sank in. Killian was funny, witty in a way few people in this town were, but Emma believed him when he said he could handle himself. She didn’t know a ton about his past, just that there had been some element of military service at some point and that he hadn’t any living family either (thus the minimal roots that led him to this town), but she saw in him something she’d always seen in herself – underneath that smile he was a survivor, and he’d weather the storms that came because that was what needed to be done.

“So, tell me, any new adventures on the horizon today, Swan?”

Killian asked the question as he nodded toward the book in her hand and she glanced down at the cover. It was one she’d picked up at the library last night after closing the shop and she was already half way through with it, but so far it had been good. It was set in Europe, with castles and murder and intrigue and to say it put her small town life to shame was an understatement. But before she could share her opinions with Killian, as she often did in their morning talks, someone knocked into Emma at full force. The impact sent the book flying to the ground with a loud thump and if Emma’s reflexes hadn’t been top notch her breakfast would have fallen too. But as it was she spared them all the huge mess and looked to the offender.

Oh great, Zelena, Emma thought to herself as she looked at the sneering woman who never could seem to leave Emma be. She was always fighting with everyone really, but for some reason she took extra pleasure in watching Emma squirm.

“Oops. Sorry about that Gemma. I didn’t see you there.”

Emma barked out a laugh as she bent to retrieve the book and shook her head. Not only was this woman rude enough to knock her shit over and then give a fake apology, but she also purposefully got her name wrong even though she’d been told Emma’s actual name a hundred times. Not that Emma would correct her. That would only feed into Zelena’s mean spirited ploy, and Emma wouldn’t dare give her the satisfaction.

“But who could blame me? You really are so good at being invisible.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Killian practically growled from behind the counter, his hands forming tight fists as he gripped the edge, but Emma didn’t like the idea of him taking a stand like this. It was too risky, and after all this was her fight not his.

Emma’s eyes flew up to his and when their gazes clashed she shook her head, silently pleading with him not to pursue this. The last thing she wanted was for him to get fired. There were such slim pickings in this town for work that if he got canned for disrespecting a customer he’d probably have to leave and then she’d be alone. She was already alone enough as it was, she couldn’t lose Killian too. Just the thought of that happening caused a tightness to form in her throat, and it took a lot of effort to push through that horrible feeling and say anything at all.

“I’ll see you later,” Emma whispered as she handed him her money quickly, their fingers brushing against each other and sending a familiar zing of want through her, but Emma didn’t dare let their gentle graze linger despite how bad she’d like to. Instead she retreated through the front door back into the mild spring morning.

It only took a minute or so for Emma to get away from the crowd inside, but that was too long in Emma’s book. She’d never be comfortable there amongst those people, and she’d never feel like she fit in. When she was finally a safe distance away she felt like she could breathe again, yet part of her regretted that Killian couldn’t come too. Their conversation this morning had been cut short, and he had that way of calming her and helping her get through her day like nothing else ever seemed to be able to.

Thoughts of the effect that Killian had on her and the way he’d jumped in to start to defend her honor with Zelena rattled around in Emma’s mind on the short walk to work. The shop she helped out in wasn’t anything fancy, and calling it a boutique like the sign said outside was a stretch. It was more thrift store than anything else, but it helped pay the bills and her boss was mostly reasonable. Okay reasonable was putting it way too kindly. She was half way to bat shit crazy and very demanding, but today was her day off, meaning Emma would be running things on her own without the ever watchful eye of her employer. For that she was more grateful than she could say.

With the ease of a routine that she knew well at this point, Emma got the store opened and ready for customers, not that she expected very many given the mix of the unseasonably warm weather and the arrival of the bikers. Most townies would be avoiding the area until they were gone, and the bikers… well they weren’t exactly frequenting this shop. So when the bell rang not two minutes after Emma unlatched the lock on the front door she was surprised.

“Can I help you?” Emma asked the three women who walked in. They weren’t from around here, of that Emma was certain, but it wasn’t totally unheard of for people to pass through these parts. This town were off a major highway, and it made for as good a place to fuel up as any other in about a hundred mile radius.

“Honey, this is a more of a ‘can we help you’ situation,” the tallest one said with a smirk. It was a sassy reply, and one that Emma’s guard rose a little at, but there was something in the girl’s manner that said she wasn’t trying to be rude. Whatever the angle these girls were playing right now, all three of them looked eager to assist Emma in something. “I’m Ruby, and this is Mary Margaret and Belle.”

The other two girls waved at Emma and offered friendly smiles, which shouldn’t have felt so bizarre except that Emma didn’t have much experience with those. Aside from Killian, she didn’t have people going out of their way to be kind. This was new and fresh, and the fact that that was true was so totally depressing. Damn she needed to get out of this town, and she really needed to learn how to make friends.

“Emma. And I’m sorry, you want to help me?” Emma replied. “How are you looking to do that?”

“Well we were just at that diner across the way…” the pixie-haired girl named Mary Margaret said.

“Oh great,” Emma said wearily. So they’d clearly seen that less than stellar interlude.

“Yeah we saw it. She was terrible, and treating a book like that? Who would do something so monstrous?” Emma offered her first real smile at the girl named Belle’s words. She was clearly a fellow bibliophile and the dramatic shake of horror she gave pretty accurately represented Emma’s internal response when Zelena had made her move.

“She’s a real witch if you ask me,” Ruby said as she flicked her hair over her shoulder and Emma chuckled.

“You have no idea.”

“But before she so rudely interrupted, we noticed you and diner guy having a little moment. What’s the situation there?” Ruby asked, not bothering to sugar coat or beat around the bush. The mention of Killian set Emma’s blood humming again and she felt a newfound awareness that hadn’t been there a second ago, but she tried to play it off as no big deal.

“There’s no situation. We’re… friends.”

“Friends who are in love with each other,” Mary Margaret said before looking apologetic when she saw Emma’s shocked and alarmed reaction. “Oh sorry, was that a secret? You two just were so cute together. I figured it had to be love.”

“You should have seen the way he was when you left,” Belle added. “It killed him to watch you go. I thought he was going to quit right then and there and run after you. Hell that’s the reason we stayed as long as we did.”

“So…” Ruby urged, not willing to let Emma off the hook though her friends were getting distracted with the details of what they thought was happening.

“It’s – well it’s – it’s complicated,” Emma finally answered, but she might as well have said that she wanted to get married and have Killian’s babies because the three other women looked practically giddy from her reaction. Emma felt her cheeks flaming red and she pushed her glasses further up her nose in an unconscious nervous tick.

“Does it have to be?” Belle asked as she popped up on the counter top, breaking so many protocols as she made herself at home. “I think you should go for it. He was totally into you too. And after all, you never know unless you try, right?”

Belle posed a very good point, one that Emma had wrangled with time and time again. She wasn’t normally a terribly shy person, at least she never saw herself that way. An avoider? Definitely. Someone who wanted to not be on the radar of people she didn’t care about? That too. But Emma wasn’t scared of making the first move. She was scared of letting Killian in and then him realizing she wasn’t the girl he thought she was.

Right now he probably had this pretty little picture of her in his head. Emma was the town wallflower with a perfect (if anonymous) past that didn’t have scars and issues of any kind. But that was so far from the truth. She was the kid no one had wanted, in and out of so many foster homes her caseworkers lost count, and she had never known what love was a single day in her life. How could he want someone like that? He’d have to be crazy to sign up for a relationship with her.

“He’d be better off not getting tangled up with me,” Emma said, feeling a little deflated as she admitted that aloud.

“Bullshit,” Ruby said and her two friends gasped as Emma looked at her head on. “Let me guess: you’ve got a checkered past, abandonment issues, and more baggage than any one person has a right to own?”

“Pretty much,” Emma responded when the initial shock of the correct reading wore off.

“I’ve heard that story before. Maybe not your volume, but I’ve skimmed the book, and as someone with a similar… how would one of your books say it, Belle? A ‘tale of woe,’ I gotta tell you that all of this is a choice,” Ruby said, waving her hand at the store and the town at large. “That man likes you at the very least and is almost definitely head over heels in love with you. So let the man love you. It shouldn’t be so hard since you want him just as bad.”

Emma let all of those words hang heavy in the air between them and she allowed Ruby’s argument to sink in. Happiness was a choice, at least that was what Ruby was getting at, and maybe she wasn’t so wrong about that. Perhaps all the hiding and the avoiding and the running was why Emma was so lonely. Here she was, having finally found someone she wanted to let in and she was holding him at arms length for no reason other than fear. Fear of rejection, fear of being hurt, fear that she wasn’t good enough…

“So what do I do?” Emma asked. “Do I just tell him?”

“You could!” Mary Margaret said cheerfully. “Or we could have a little fun first.”

Emma was down for fun whether she was technically work or not, but when she discovered what the friends’ idea of entertainment was she hesitated. Their thoughts were straight out of one of those cheesy teen movies: give the unassuming ugly duckling a makeover and transform her into a swan. But Emma was resistant to the idea. If Killian didn’t like her as she was normally, why should she try to be someone else?

Only after all of them swore up and down a dozen times that it wasn’t about Killian but about Emma feeling more confident did Emma cave, and in the end, despite her hesitations, she was glad for her choice. The hours they spent that day going through all of clothes in the store and sharing lunch from the one good pizza place in town were easily the best times Emma had had since… well ever. She didn’t really ever do the whole friends thing, but soon enough it felt like she actually fit in with these girls. She didn’t follow every inside joke the three of them shared, but there was an ease and accessibility that Ruby, Mary Margaret, and Belle offered that made Emma feel welcome and wanted in a way she’d never been before.

The only problem was they lived a world away in some small town in Maine and they were all in college while Emma was… clawing through a life she hated for what she didn’t know. That was the one gray cloud that remained throughout the day, and for Emma it was one she tried to fend off as best she could. She didn’t want to ruin things by being pessimistic, but what were the chances any of them would stay in touch? For all Emma knew maybe they saw her as this month’s good deed or charity case and where she’d always remember how much fun she’d had, they might forget her as soon as someone better came along.

“Jackpot!” Ruby yelled at one point when she found something she clearly wanted Emma to try on. They’d made her try on at least a dozen outfits already, but the three of them were picky, and where every outfit had had at least one fan, there was always someone else that thought they could do better. “Now this is going to blow lover boy away. One hundred percent satisfaction guarantee.”

Emma laughed as she shook her head and took the outfit back in the fitting room, and she rolled her eyes when Mary Margaret insisted she try on some heels to go with it. This was not only totally out of the ordinary for her, it was ridiculous. Emma was going to look beyond stupid she was sure, wearing heels in a diner of all places, but then when she stepped out of the dressing room and everyone’s jaw dropped, Emma’s opinions started to falter. Then she caught a glimpse of her reflection and she was shocked into silence too.

“Wow,” Belle exclaimed as they all looked in the full-length mirror admiring the changes that this ensemble and the afternoon had brought about for Emma.

“What she said,” Mary Margaret and Ruby said at the same time, making Emma smile, but her eyes stayed on the relative stranger in front of her, someone she hadn’t seen in a really long time if ever.

She looked totally different now than she had when she walked into work this morning. Her glasses were gone (they’d been gone the second Emma admitted she didn’t totally need them), her hair was loose and curling up in the way it often did when it dried on it’s own, and the clothes she was wearing were actually made to fit. The soft white sweater and the pink skirt were flattering and though it wasn’t fancy, she felt pretty and that was something Emma wasn’t particularly used to.

“I can’t believe that’s me,” Emma whispered and the three friends all reached out for her in an affectionate way, a way that warmed her heart and only made the moment brighter.

“That’s all you, Ems. Remember that. We didn’t change anything that mattered,” Ruby said, giving her a nickname and in extension offering Emma so much more. This might just be her favorite day ever and she’d always be grateful for it as long as she lived.

“Thank you guys for all of this. You were, like, my fairy godmothers or something.”

Belle, Ruby, and Mary Margaret all laughed at their new titles, but Emma really meant it. This felt like magic to her, and they would probably never realize just how much their kindness meant to her. But even as Emma expressed her sincere thanks, that sadness from before permeated into the moment. The friends were all leaving town today. Actually they were supposed to already be on the road back to Maine. This town was just a pit stop on their way back home from Spring Break, and so just as soon as she’d made friends, Emma was destined to lose them.

“Maybe we could delay a few days,” Belle said suddenly, as if reading Emma’s mind. “I know we have class Monday but if we drive the whole time in shifts, we could probably stay here at least one night right?”

Mary Margaret immediately started nodding and Emma felt the flicker of hope returning. She couldn’t rationally explain it, but today had just been so fun and so different that she didn’t want to let it go. Maybe she could linger in this dream of having friends for a little while longer. But then Ruby gave them all a skeptical look and replied in a thoroughly surprising way.

“Or we could just skip that and bring Emma with us.”

“What?!” Emma said, totally not believing her. “Are you crazy? You hardly know me!”

“We know enough,” Ruby said, sharing a look with Mary Margaret and Ruby.

“No you really don’t. I could be crazy – hell I could be a serial killer!” Emma said, trying to convince Ruby that she was being stupid, even though Emma was neither of those things.

“I’m not totally up to speed on the whole identifying a serial killer thing,” Belle replied. “But I think we would have caught some red flags at this point. Something would have given you away.”

The attempt at humor soothed something in Emma, but she still held firm, if not for their sake than for hers. This was a huge thing. Moving was her goal, yes, but she’d never had any idea of moving to Maine. Then there was the question of having a place to stay or finding an apartment. What would she do for work? Would she even like Storybrooke enough to call it home? There were just too many factors and so little time.

“Come on, Emma. You’re dying to get out of this town, and Storybrooke might not be the fanciest or the most interesting place but it’s our home, and it could be yours too. I know of at least three apartments that were listed when we left, all with totally reasonable rent, and worst case we could always hook you up with a job at Granny’s,” Ruby said as Belle and Mary Margaret chorused their agreement.

“Oh please Emma, come with us! It would be great, and all you need to get in state tuition at U Maine is to live there for six months,” Belle said, tempting Emma with the schooling she’d admitted to wanting in the hours that they had bonded today.

“Plus summer in Storybrooke is the best. Days at the beach, home made ice cream, picnics in the park... You have to come, Emma,” Mary Margaret insisted.

“I want to…” Emma said, trailing off because it hurt too much to tell them no. Beautiful as those dreams might be, it just couldn’t work, at least she didn’t think that it could.

“What have you got to lose? You told us yourself you don’t have any roots here, so what’s holding you back?” Belle asked.

Killian, Emma’s mind said definitively. That was the only thing keeping her here aside from her own fears about packing up and starting somewhere new only for it to end up like this again. Whether it was borderline insane or not, Emma was truly tempted by this offer since it meant she might get the chance to have some real friendships for once in her life in a town that sounded way better than this one, but she’d always wonder what-if when it came to Killian, and despite her hang ups about telling him how she felt the past few months, Emma didn’t think she could bear to just leave him behind without him knowing the truth.

“Killian can come too, you know. There isn’t a limit on new neighbors. All you have to do is ask,” Ruby urged and though Emma expected some sort of mental resistance to this idea, she didn’t find any.

Truth was Emma was so sick and tired of living this way, stuck in this place that she never wanted to call hers and planned to leave since the moment she got here. This might be reckless and crazy, and maybe she’d regret it, but at least she’d be taking a chance. For once she’d be living instead of just surviving, and the thought of the potential pay off between finding friends, a better life, and having Killian too… it was just too sweet a possibility for Emma to walk away from.

“This is crazy,” Emma whispered, feeling herself begin to cling to this new plan like a life line. She wanted to believe in this so badly, and though in the past having faith had brought her nothing but disappointment, she was willing to give it a try.

“Maybe so,” Mary Margaret said. “But the most important thing is that you follow your heart, Emma. So what’s it telling you?”

Emma didn’t feel a need to respond with words, but when she marched over to the front door and flipped the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ her new friends followed her intentions. They eagerly scurried outside and waited for her on the pavement as she locked up the place and then, before she could lose her nerve, she strolled over to the town diner to see Killian and tell him what was what. Given the time of day, Emma was nearly certain that his shift was ending right now, but she still had to walk into the diner to find him, which required her to steady herself and prepare for the worst.

The second she walked in a hush fell over the room and Emma felt everyone’s eyes on her. All of that attention was unwanted, and the open leering from guys who had either ignored her or been downright rude before made her skin crawl. Couple that with the gawking girls who had given new definition to the term ‘mean’ since her arrival and Emma was ready to duck and run.

“Damn, book girl had legs under there the whole time?” A slime ball named Walsh asked from his spot besides Zelena in the corner booth and Emma rolled her eyes, not even deigning that with a response as Zelena shoved at the man, clearly angry that he was focused on Emma. The witch could have him for all Emma cared. She was here for one reason and one reason only.

And then Emma saw him. Killian came back towards the front, done for the day just as she’d expected. His apron was long gone and Emma’s heartbeat kicked up again at the sight of him. He looked totally handsome and a little bit like a bad boy in that leather jacket he’d had in the back all day and Emma licked her lips, thinking about shedding that thing off of him as soon as possible and getting her hands on that body that had tempted her for weeks. Then he looked up in her direction, and as soon as he saw her he froze and everything else faded away.

“Emma?”

That was it; just the reverence that he said her name with was enough to have Emma pushing through the crowd, and before she could think better of it she pulled him down right there in front of everyone and kissed him. It was a shock to the system from the moment they touched, but Killian was with her only a second after her lips brushed against his. This had been months in the making, an embrace Emma felt like she’d been waiting for her whole life, and pulling back from it was next to impossible, but she had to in order to get this next part out.

“I love you, Killian.”

A tiny trickling of fear came out to play as she said the words, but it didn’t get a chance to grow or spread because as soon as she made that quiet confession, Killian beamed at her in a way that made her heart skip almost painfully. He looked so damn happy, and there was also something more underneath that gaze, a heat and a desire that had been growing between both of them for months. Finally he was letting it out, giving up those more gentlemanly tendencies and running those tantalizingly rough hands of his over her body in an almost possessive way.

“God it’s good to hear that, love,” he replied, his voice gruff with emotion and sending a delicious thrill down her spine.

“It is?” Emma asked and he kissed her again this time with a softer touch but a lingering promise that slow and sensual would be just as dizzying as hard and fast when it came to the two of them.

“Aye, because I’m in love with you too, Emma. I have been since the first moment I saw you.”

Emma felt herself blushing at the words, and she was so wrapped up Killian that she continued to give their audience absolutely no mind at all. In the back of her consciousness she knew people were staring, and among those people were Ruby, Belle, and Mary Margaret, but all her fixation was aimed at Killian, and though she was happier than she could ever articulate that somehow he loved her too, she still had one last thing to say.

“I’m leaving town tonight. There’s this place in Maine… I’m hoping it’ll give me the fresh start I’m looking for.”

There was a level of pain in Killian’s eyes at her statement, and for a second he seemed to not understand that Emma was about to invite him along too. But even with all of that, Emma could feel his sincere wish to see her happy. She felt the way his hand ran across her lower back in a soothing motion, and the way he tried to keep his face controlled even though he was hurting. Before he could doubt himself or what she wanted for the both of them anymore, however, she gave her final pitch.

“Come with me,” she whispered, and it wasn’t a question but a real, earnest plea. “I know it’s totally nuts, and maybe you want to take back what you just said about loving me because I’m insane but-,”

Killian interrupted her words with another kiss and this time Emma knew fully that he was coming. She couldn’t imagine being more filled with love or hope or excitement. Finally things were going her way, and this was the moment she’d always look back on as the one where everything really changed. She’d made her choice to find a new life worth living, and Killian had chosen that too. But when he pulled back and brushed a strand of her hair from in front of her face and behind her ear, his words of affirmation to that effect still took her breath away.

“You, Emma Swan, are the only reason I even landed in this place at all. I met you that first day and knew I’d found what I’d been looking for. I’ve been a fool to wait so long to tell you, but you’re it for me Emma. So if you’re telling me there’s a dream you have of someplace else, I’m with you. I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, love.”

“Well technically Storybrooke is just the edge of the eastern seaboard…” Belle said from where she and Mary Margaret and Ruby had been watching, and Mary Margaret immediately slapped her arm. “Ow! I mean, sorry, ignore me. You were having a moment.”

“That’s alright, love,” Killian said to Belle while his eyes remained on Emma, looking at her like she was the sun and stars and all good things wrapped into one. It was an intoxicating sensation, and was rivaled only by his subsequent promise that this thing between them was destined to last. “I intend to have a lifetime of such moments with Emma. This is only the start.”

And it was. From that point on life took a real turn for Emma and for Killian, starting with the two of them walking out the doors of that diner hand in hand and leaving that town they’d both never loved, but had found real love in behind. They made it to Maine and found in Storybrooke all that promised possibility and a family of friends who would last them a lifetime. And most importantly they found their second chance together, one that included more love than they could ever dream of and a happily ever after worth fighting for every single day.

……………

She's got legs, she knows how to use them She never begs, she knows how to choose them She's holdin' leg wonderin' how to feel them Would you get behind them if you could only find them? She's my baby, she's my baby Yeah, it's alright

She's got hair down to her fanny She's kinda jet set, try undo her panties Everytime she's dancin' she knows what to do Everybody wants to see if she can use it She's so fine, she's all mine Girl, you got it right

She's got legs, she knows how to use them She never begs, she knows how to choose them She's got a dime all of the time Stays out at night movin' through time Oh, I want her, said, I got to have her The girl is alright, she's alright

Post-Note: So obviously with this story there is an element of suspending belief – after all, who meets new friends one day and follows them to some small town in Maine with a guy you just confessed your love for? Nobody, but I just couldn’t pass up the fluffy potential when that element came to mind. Anyway I really want to thank my lovely reader who requested this. It was such a fun prompt and definitely a different style of music to add to the mixtape, but I enjoyed every second of it. Thank you all so much for reading and I hope you all have a great rest of your day!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10,Part 11, Part 12,Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 32, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45, Part 46, Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50, Part 51, Part 52, Part 53, Part 54, Part 55, Part 56, Part 57, Part 58, Part 59, Part 60, Part 61, Part 62, Part 63, Part 64, Part 65, Part 66, Part 67, Part 68, Part 69, Part 70, Part 71, Part 72, Part 73, Part 74, Part 75, Part 76, Part 77, Part 78, Part 79, Part 80, Part 81, Part 82, Part 83, Part 84, Part 85, Part 86, Part 87, Part 88, Part 89, Part 90, Part 91, Part 92, Part 93, Part 94, Part 95, Part 96, Part 97, Part 98, Part 99, Part 100, Part 101, Part 102, Part 103, Part 104, Part 105, Part 106, Part 107,Part 108, Part 109, Part 110,Part 111, Part 112, Part 113, Part 114, Part 115,Part 116, Part 117, Part 118, Part 119,Part 120, Part 121, Part 122, Part 123,Part 124, Part 125, Part 126, Part 127, Part 128,Part 129,Part 130, Part 131,Part 132, Part 133, Part 134, Part 135, Part 136, Part 137, Part 138, Part 139,Part 140, Part 141, Part 142, Part 143, Part 144, Part 145

[dippedanddripped]

At the end of 2020, Titi Finlay, social media manager at Laced and Nike Air Max 90 guest-designer, posted a tile on Instagram to her 7,700 followers with a simple message: “We don’t want women’s exclusives. We want inclusive sizing.” In just over 24 hours, the post had been shared over 2,000 times.

Women have fought long and hard to be treated equally in the sneaker industry but being a female sneaker fan continues to be a bittersweet experience. Lack of inclusive sizing is still too common and women’s-exclusive models, like the recent Dunk Disrupt, often miss the mark and are chunky, slimmed down, or fashion-ized versions of a great sneaker that women really just wanted in their own size.

Unsurprisingly, women are fed up, but there is a positive upshot: the female sneaker community is stronger than ever. From designers to collectors, marketers to editors, female sneaker fans are uniting over their shared frustration and taking things into their own hands.

Helen Kirkum, one of the most-watched rising sneaker designers, has worked in the sneaker industry for four years and has witnessed it evolve. “Two amazing things are happening at the moment,” she points out. “One is that many women within the industry are supporting their peers, shouting each other out, which builds an incredibly strong community. Secondly, you can feel that this same network is aware that they have a responsibility to share the knowledge with the younger generation through mentorships, teaching, and inspiration. Showing that we believe that there are so many diverse and powerful female voices to be heard, that we respect and admire each other's work, and that we want to share our experience with a younger generation is a winning combination.”

As Kirkum notes, there is a growing sense of solidarity among the community at a time when action has never felt so urgent. Women are empowering women.

Copenhagen’s women’s sneaker boutique NAKED donated $5,000 to the Malala fund, a non-profit organization that envisions “a world where every girl can learn and lead,” to celebrate the release of the first women’s Dunk High colorway.

Across the community, there has been a surge in women-led platforms, podcasts, and feeds dedicated to connecting and amplifying women's voices in sneaker culture. Steph Hulbert-Thomas, global lifestyle marketing manager for On, started _Womeninsneakers, a podcast to celebrate women in the sneaker industry. She has spoken to an impressive lineup of women including Kirkum, Titi Finlay, Sneaker Freaker’s managing editor Audrey Bugeja, and Footpatrol creative lead Asheeba Charles.

“I started it for several reasons: underrepresentation, sexism, and lack of recognition — not just in my work, but for the amazing women I’ve had the pleasure of working with. _Womeninsneakers was born as a way to give teams behind the scenes a voice,” Hulbert-Thomas explains.

Her words echo those of Damaries Negron, aka @Kickitwitdd. Negron has been buying sneakers for 15 years and, frustrated at the absence of women being represented in the industry, started the Instagram channel @Kickitwitdd365. Her goal is to get 1,000 women to showcase their sneakers — and she’s already halfway there. “Every woman has a story behind why she collects sneakers. I tell women to voice their opinions about the game,” she shares. “Another reason for the project is that I saw the same women used repeatedly, and I got tired of that. I don’t think brands or blogs know how big the women’s sneaker community is and I want to show them the women who are like me.”

The sneaker industry isn’t the niche subculture it used to be, and yet seeing women in these spaces still isn’t normalized to the extent that it should be. Hulbert-Thomas speaks of her personal experience: “Being a Black woman in the industry comes with double the challenges, and I’m not talking about the ‘we have to work twice as hard’ rhetoric that I have definitely felt. It’s more having to validate, and by that I mean companies looking to you to tick the boxes — have we been diverse, are we being ‘cool,’ are we ‘culturally’ relevant? I don’t want women taking up space to become tokenized.”

Being one of the only women at the table is something that every woman sneaker fan can relate to. Award-winning filmmaker and OG sneaker collector Shernay LaTouche was recently invited to join a panel on sneakers by friends she knew from hanging out back in the Crooked Tongues days. She was one of four women in a room of 30. “All these men knew women who were into sneakers and could’ve actively put one more person in. But you don't invite us in the masses, you invite in a very small percentage to then feature in a video that you've created to say, yes, we tick the box. It shouldn't be like that.”

LaTouche is the founder of The Imprint, a collective of female sneaker industry professionals whose goal is to celebrate and share the female experience in the sneaker world. “Our stories are always told through the male gaze and the time is now for women to lead the conversation from the very start by creating their own narrative,” she stresses. “Women need to be in spaces where they can stand amongst one another, that share the same passion without any biases or prejudices.”

LaTouche brings up an important point. Women need to control their own narrative for there to be any hope of undoing the damage that has been done by portraying women through a degrading and patronizing male lens for so long. It’s without question the reason biases continue to permeate the women’s sneaker and streetwear industries. Sexualizing women makes it so much easier for the idea that they aren’t authoritative voices in the culture to propagate.

“I remember searching ‘Women’s Jordan’ in Google and the first thing that came up was a woman wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of men’s Jordans,” Parisian sneaker collector Selma Kaci recalls from when she first started buying sneakers. Growing up in Paris, her access to sneakers in her size was limited, and her aunt used to send her US-exclusives by mail for her birthday.

When she was older, she traveled to sneaker conventions around Europe, meeting other women — “I would always remember who had a US kids size 6 for when we would resell” — and eventually began posting pictures of her cops on Instagram. “At the beginning, I had a lot of guys asking me if I was into sneakers because of my boyfriend, or if he bought them for me,” she shares. “I wasn't even showing my face on Instagram back then. I was trying to avoid being stereotyped, like I was a cute girl into sneakers, that I just bought them because they were ‘hype’ or fashion at the time. I know it shouldn't bother me, but it's hard. I have a great collection and great taste, and I actually like sneakers. And that has nothing to do with my sex.”

Dismantling these stereotypes around women is critical to achieving equality, and as much as we’d like to think that everyone working in the sneaker industry would get it by now, it’s clearly not the case. The only way to encourage authentic change is by having women in decision-making positions where they can pave the way for more women to follow. Thankfully, more companies are reshuffling their senior teams, and high-profile partnerships with women are on the rise. Through them, women are breaking into coveted product spaces that have long been male-only, such as Jordan's collaborations with Vashtie, Aleali May, Olivia Kim, and Melody Ehsani (several of which now resell at four-figure prices), and Yoon Ambush's three-way partnership with Nike and the NBA, made her the first female fashion designer to collaborate on a Nike x NBA collection.

Even though men buy into these collaborations, they are still mainly being marketed as women’s exclusives. As Kirkum points out: “Men have been designing shoes for women forever, but for some reason, there can still be a stigma against women designing shoes or sneakers for men — that makes no sense to me.” The hesitation to let women take the reins on prominent projects for men is groundless and reinforces the fact that they aren’t considered authorities in their field. There is no shortage of skilled women designers — just take Charlotte Lee, designer of the highly-praised New Balance 327, as an example — so to relegate them to less prominent projects and women’s exclusives makes even less sense.

While lack of product, tone-deaf marketing, and dodgy women’s releases are still huge issues, a problem that runs deeper is that women’s voices aren’t being heard — or, even worse, are being ignored. Fortunately, the female community is only getting stronger, and depriving them a place at the table is only fueling their fight. Finlay concludes: “The female community is one close-knit family. We all know each other and we welcome and support new members because we all know what it feels like to be overlooked and not have anyone relatable to talk to about it. We’re all passionate about a common goal — making sneakers equal to everyone.”

The resounding message is clear. Gender shouldn’t affect the legitimacy of a person’s love of sneakers. Women are banding together and holding brands to a higher standard. All we need now is for them to listen.

[mtwy]

Rolling Stone

USA May 9th 1985

On sale April 23rd 

How Rosanna Arquette, Madonna and director Susan Seidelman lost tempers and found each other through ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’

Lucky Stars

By Fred Schruers

Our ostensible subject is Desperately Seeking Susan, the bargain-budgeted ($5 million) little film, directed by Susan Seidelman, that went from being an oddball artistes showcase to Orion Pictures rush-to-release entry for the Easter-season box office. Though the picture breaks many rules, both artistic and commercial, the result is one of the fresher entertainments to make it through the Hollywood bottleneck in these formulaic times.

Part screwball comedy, part satire, part set designer’s equivalent to “out” jazz, Susan turns on mistaken identity. Arquette’s bored housewife, Roberta, follows the trail of Madonna’s gutterball schemer, Susan, into a slapdash murder mystery that scrambles suburbanites and hipsters into something between farce and freaky fable. Early on, Roberta gets a knock on the head that gives her amnesia, and the two undergo an identity switch, setting up a skein of sardonic jokes that bounce off the wall at unexpected angles. Madonna owned a platinum LP when she signed on to the project and has since earned a second one. The consensus, even among industry skeptics, is that the singer has the goods onscreen, too. What clearly has Arquette cutting conversational wheelies, though, is Orion’s promotion of the film, in which she seems to play background to Madonna’s phosphorescent pop icon. “Can you blame them?” she says. “A studio sees a hot commodity and they immediately capitalize on it. It’s a little misleading, because it’s not a teen movie. I know the preview has been playing before The Purple Rose of Cairo, and it’s been booed. The audience was people who love Susan Seidelman and who would go to see me, and that’s sad.” There are precious few young actresses who can give Rosanna a power outage, onscreen or off. From a speck on the horizon, hitchhiking cross-country and arriving in Los Angeles at age seventeen, she’s built a career mostly on the kind of quicksilver expressiveness she showed in Baby, It’s You and in TV’s The Executioner’s Song; at twenty-five, she’s in the front rank of actresses arriving at stardom. Today she drove in to Hollywood from her new house an hour up in the Topanga Canyon hills, leaving a coating of ocher dust behind the back tires of her otherwise gleaming Saab Turbo. Her silky, silvery dress is a bit of a war whoop among all the cut glass and linen of this Beverly Boulevard restaurant’s cool, mirrored spaces, yet there’s something more fundamental out of place. It’s as if her heart were thudding audibly, even visibly, while she charges forward and back in a virtual self-interview. “I’ve never been like this. I’m a wreck. I get hurt easily. I don’t have a tough shell. That’s why I’m so freaked out. I’m so insecure. I’m really insecure. It’s pretty stupid for me to be in this business, isn’t it?” Rosanna pauses, then gives a little tadpole wriggle with her right hand to signal that she’s not really waiting for an answer. She glances once more at the Polaroid and tucks it away. She can’t stifle these complaints, yet she can’t stand voicing them. “We’re great friends,” she concludes in her trigger-burst style. “All these things I said to her. I think her performance is really good. All I’m saying is, ‘Let her be an actress.'” “I had a few scenes where I was really sh*ttin’ bricks,” says the twenty-four-year-old refuge from Pontiac, Michigan. “A few times I was so nervous I opened my mouth and nothing came out.” Madonna is anything but mute tonight, as she takes a break from the Los Angeles rehearsal sessions for her first tour, and though she pauses occasionally to punctuate a phrase with a Mae West-ian secret smile, she lets you into the conversation only edgewise. “I think I surprised everybody, though, by being one of the calmest people on the set at all times. I think that had to do with the fact that I was in total wonderment: I was gonna soak everything up.” One keeps waiting for the brittle bitch, the self-absorbed bombshell who’s supposed to lurk under her winking, vamping, wriggling electronic image, but the Madonna who sits talking over coffee comes on disarmingly humble. Rosanna has expressed resentment over the insertion into the movie of a Madonna song backing a quickly rewritten scene in which the Susan character gyrates around a New York club. A video clip using the unreleased tune, “Into the Groove,” spotlights Madonna. “It does take things out of context a bit,” says Madonna, “kinda calls attention to another facet, but…” What that “but” means is, it sells tickets, chumps. Still, it’s become an issue… “Yeah, really?” says Madonna. “Who’s it become an issue with – besides Rosanna?” Her laugh is quick and not unkind. Insiders say the song found its way into the film on its own virtues. “Susan Seidelman was not out to make a pandering rock & roll movie,” says executive producer Michael Peyser, 31, who worked on Susan after serving as associate producer on Woody Allen’s film The Purple Rose of Cairo. One of the music coordinators, Danny Goldberg, had no time to compile a soundtrack LP when the film’s release date was pushed up, but in talks with MTV execs, he paved the way for “Into the Groove” to air, even though the song might never show up on vinyl. Madonna is not naive about the studio’s gambit: “I have a big audience of kids for my music, and you know how they use soundtracks to push movies – I think they’re using me in the same way, and it’s really a drag, because I’m trying to establish myself as an actress, not as a singer making movies. But I’ll be happy if it becomes a commercial success, simply because it’s a different kind of movie than most of what’s out now. There are a few formulas people have been using the past five years, with Flashdance and Breakin’ and all that stuff; this movie is like a return to those simple, straightforward caper comedies Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard made in the Thirties. They give you a taste of real life, some poignance, and leave you feeling up at the end – none of that adolescent-fantasy bullshit.” If Madonna is a fan of screwball comedy, Susan Seidelman is more intent on spray-painting her own signature on the canvas of the blank generation she grew up with. “I think I’m a little bit of a satirist,” she says. “I grew up in the epitome of Sixties suburbia. You know, Dunkin’ Donuts shops, TV dinners. We had canned vegetables at home because we thought it was more modern than having fresh vegetables. So that pop-Andy Warhol-whatever aesthetic is something I took for granted. “Inside that, I wanted to make a fable about identity and appearances. But this film isn’t an essay. I dislike movies in which the theme becomes the plot, where everything is like an essay on Loneliness or Frustrated Housewives of Sexual Whatever. If you look at movies like Some Like It Hot or Tootsie, you could probably write a lot about sexual roles, but the films don’t get bogged down in their message. To be able to show something rather than tell it is much more interesting, and the best devices are the ones that work most invisibly. I mean, if Rosanna’s character is torn between her husband and another guy, and we see her in a magician’s box being sawed in half – that works great if you think about it, but it’s gonna work on an immediate level, too. To me, a script is a skeleton that I liked enough to – well, hang my skin on.” The skeleton of Desperately Seeking Susan had been rattling around Hollywood for five years before finding its skin, and it would be there still were it not for a coming together of inspired amateurs who – not incidentally in this male-run industry – are mostly women. The script was the debut effort for Leora Barish, 36, who has quit life as sometime saxophonist in Manhattan’s East Village and moved to California seven years ago. She brought it to a close friend, Sarah Pillsbury (whi indeed is from Minnesota cake-mix clan her name evokes), who went from Yale to producing documentaries, including a 1979 Oscar winner. Teamed with friend Midge Sanford, savvy in the Byzantine ways of Hollywood development deals, Pillsbury optioned Barish’s script as their first project. It floared through studio limbo, gathering praise from many women and indifference from most men, but it refused to die. “We reconceived it as a lower-budget, up-and-coming-star kind of movie as opposed to using the older, established actresses we’d been talking about,” says Sanford, and finally Orion took up the option. Sanford and Pillsbury sent Arquette’s agent the script, and a week later, in June of last year, she signed up. The producers had been fans of independent filmmaker Susan Seidelman’s critically lauded debut film, Smithereens, and they tapped the director for Susan early on. Seidelman, 32, had come out of the split-level Philadelphia suburb of Abington, studied fashion design at Drexel University and clerked for a few months at a local TV station before applying to film schools; New York University “shocked” her with an acceptance. She moved to the Lower East Side in 1974, when St. Mark’s Place was a strip of shuttered hippie boutiques. She gravitated toward directing in the three-year course and began piling up awards with her twenty-eight-minute debut, “And You Act Like One, Too,” about a too-married woman. Smithereens, begun in 1980 with $10,000 from her grandmother’s will, became the surprise hit of the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. (“I think they wanted to make a statement about mainstream American films,” she says diffidently.) In it, young actress Susan Berman played Wren, a sort of punk-rock groupie living by her wits against the harsh and indifferent backdrop of the Lower East Side and it’s punk rajah, Richard Hell. Shooting was delayed when Berman, racing along a row of loft windows, ran out of fire escape (“like some horrible Road Runner cartoon,” recalls Seidelman) and broke a leg. Still, Seidelman brought it in for $80,000, and it earned plenty more – enough to buy her a SoHo loft whose spotless varnished-wood floors and sparse, Sixties-gauche furnishing hardly mirror the unkempt world of her films. So messy and wheedling are her heroines that Seidelman’s films seem to have at least one foot in the genre pundits are calling “slob comedies.” Madonna’s Susan is an empress of trasg, a libidinous but untouchable she-wolf who washes down cheese puffs with vintage wine, cadges triple tequila sunrises and steals other peoples’ goods and services with an amiable, Pigpen-ish air. Madonna admits that when she arrived in New York in 1978, she, like Susan, “relied on the kindness of strangers.” When Seidelman heard of the singer’s interest in the part, she invited her over: “She was nervous and vulnerable and not at all arrogant – sweet, but intelligent and verbal, with such a sense of humor. I just started seeing her as Susan.” The chiefs at Orion were skeptical – some 200 actresses had read or been video-taped for the part – so Madonna was given a screen test. “She had this presence you couldn’t get rid of,” says Sanford. “No matter how good the other people were, we kept going back to that screen test.” “Susan is conniving, an opportunist,” says Madonna, “but she really did care about {Roberta’s husband} Gary Glass and her boyfriend, Jim, and all these people.” Part of her cockeyed charm is a warmth underlying her aloof facade: “Anybody who goes around acting like nobody matters obviously is protecting themselves and hiding what they really feel. So I always wanted to have that little underneath there.” What underneath may be the “little tiny girl” Arquette is sure she sees in Madonna – perhaps the girl whose mother died when she was six. “I knew I had to be extra special supercharming to get what I wanted, ’cause I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters {she was the theirs of eight children}, and we had to share everything, I did all I could to really stand out, and that nurtured a lot of confidence and drive and ambition.” Poet Edward Field wrote that Mae West “comes on drenched in a perfume called Self-Satisfaction,” and it’s a knack Madonna shared. She and Seidelman had a decent repport, but conflicts between the young director and three precocious pros – Arquette, Laurie Metcalf (as Roberta’s vituperative sister-in-law) and Aidan Quinn (as Roberta’s love interest) – were frequent. Production veteran Michael Peyser often picked up the pieces. “Susan has a wonderful quality; she guileless, totally honest,” he says, but he pegs her as a Hitchcock-style director: “She comes from filmmaking, as opposed to directing. She was working with excellent people, like Laurie and Aidan, who are and will be major stage actors of their generation; they’re used to a little more stroking.” “I really do like actors,” says Seidelman. “I’m not manipulative, at which Hitchcock prided himself. I’m not good at hiding what I feel. I can’t say, ‘Oh, brilliant’; when I’m unhappy, it’s written on my forehead.” Amid the production’s turmoil, Madonna took consolation from Mark Blum (so likably obtuse onscreen as Roberta’s husband, Gary). “If I’d get upset, he’d take me aside and tell me a joke or make an analogy about the situation, chill me out.” Rosanna, fresh from her dream collaboration with director Martin Scorsese on his forthcoming After Hours, was not to be chilled out. She and Seidelman staged tense debates over the degree of Roberta’s amnesia, and during one twenty-hour day, an angry Rosanna burst into tears. Stalled and frustrated, Seidelman cried too. “You could say it was cathartic,” says Seidelman. “You scream, cry, get it out and go on.” “Our whole souls were in it,” says Rosanna now, “but any film I’ve ever made was hard. By the second month, she would look at me and I would know what she wanted. It’s just that I had never worked with a director who needed complete control of me. See, I never rehearse my lines exactly how I’ll say them. I just memorize them and know my character.” While making After Hours, she points out, Scorsese was “never negative. In one situation he came up to me and said, ‘Do you think you should laugh in this scene?’ and I said, ‘Oh, no, Marty. I can’t see where she’d laugh in this scene.’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah. You’re right. You’re right. Forget I ever said anything.’ And he walks away. That’s what he does, very subtly. It’s like he planted the seed, watered it and split. And as I was doing the scene, I don’t know where it came from, but I just started laughing.” Arquette also had few problems making Lawrence Kasdan’s next film, Silverado. “I’m just a pioneer woman heading west who has a very strong vision. And she wants to work her land.” She’s completed two other projects, a public television play, Survival Guide (“It’s just a very bizarre half-hour comedy”) and the recent disaster The Aviator, which prompted At the Movies reviewer Gene Siskel to say, “This is garbage,” while Roger Ebert confirmed, “Transcendentally bad.” Rosanna’s one-time boyfriend, Toto drummer Steve Porcaro, had been so upset at the love scene in The Executioner’s Song that she says she made The Aviator partly because “it didn’t have any nudity, it was safe – one of those all-American kind of movies.” Her eventual breakup with Porcaro spurred her recent spate of work. Now Arquette is with L.A.-based record producer James Newton Howard, and things seem… serious: “We work hard on our relationship. We have an incredible therapist. Our guy’s name is Don, and he’s great. We’re gonna work out all the shit in our relationship before we make a giant decision like getting married. “I don’t want to talk about my relationship with Steve Porcaro anymore,” she says, with some heat. “We’re very good friends. But everybody’s gotta ask me, ‘Well, you’re the Rosanna in the song,’ and blah-blah. Isn’t it boring? Say this: ‘I am so bored talking about my relationship with Steve Porcaro.'” She made another change around the time of the breakup. “I had gone to drug program with a friend. That was another thing {reported in the media}, that I was the one with a drug problem. I did take drugs. I smoked a lot of pot. I don’t think I was an addict.” (These days, Rosanna will not touch drink or drugs, and her choice for lunch is a spinach-and-avocado salad and mineral water.) “Life is wonderful. Why do you guys have to look for the shit? ‘Cause it’s bad karma for you to do that, do you know that? It’s not proper journalism.” It has become clear that Rosanna just had a crash course on this subject: “I did nine interviews yesterday.” The actress and her publicist seem determined to blow back the Madonna promo machine by filibuster. The problem is that the quick-draw dramatics that are a blessing in front of the camera make her emotional dynamometer shudder ominously during what should be a simple talk. “I grew up pretty fast,” she says of her gypsy-like upbringing on the artsy-hippie circuit traveled by her actor father and writer mother. “I think I was nineteen when I was fifteen. And now I’m fifteen. Madonna taught me a good lesson, because she just laughs off the band press. They think they’re hurting her, and she just laughs: ‘Ah, that’s bullshit.’ But I still get hurt.” She’s balancing her promo chores with acting class: three times a week, she joins a group of about fifteen (Nicolas Cage among them) for four-to-five-hour-sessions with Sandra Seacat. “She’s also Jessica Lange’s coach,” says Rosanna. “She’s a very spiritual, highly realized being, a guru.” Her list of professional heroines includes Lange, Christie, Hawn, Winger and Spacek, but hovering above them all is Natalie Wood. The cat who shares Rosanna’s hillside retreat is named Natalie, and when Arquette was being costumed for her character in Baby, It’s You, she balked at a pageboy haircut until someone reminded her it recalled Natalie. Wood is an interesting point of reference for Arquette – two beauties whose acting carries a seemingly artless transparency. Right now, Rosanna is a capital-A Actress, and as a result she’s in many ways a considerable snob. But for the last three pictures she shot, she took pay cuts that left her with perhaps half of her real price. She’s pouring her life into her work, and that leaves rough edges. She’s walking contradiction in terms, a Topanga Canyon firecracker. Rosanna abruptly jumps up and reaches into her coat pocket, fetching a plastic bag of sizeable vitamins in assorted colours. She counts out a handful, recounts and down them with water: “Stress depletes your body of vitamin B and C.” As an afterthought, she pops one more. The ritual seems to take the pedal off the floor, and she looks across the table apologetically, coat over her arm. “This is who I am, just hyper and emotional. I always have been. My emotions have always been right there.”