#somebody free claudia from her terrible fathers

[rsephys]

it can be hard to take pics when paint is wet and when ur hands are covered in oil but my baby is coming along quite well.

[apparitionism]

Hark

A merry early Gift Exchange to @kla1991​, whose not-so-secret Santa I am this year. This is the first part of a story set somewhat in-universe: there’s no season 5 (what could that even be?), and only the first ep of season 4—basically, time wound back to right before the Warehouse exploded in Stand, which aired on Oct. 3, so the Christmas during which this story is set is happening less than three months after that momentous occurrence. I’m postulating that Helena became an agent again, and there was no Artie/Father Data business. (Oh, and Steve didn’t die, so no metronome. I refuse to force Helena through witnessing anyone being brought back non-nefariously from the dead.) I’ll do my best to post the concluding part(s) by New Year’s Day—no promises on that, but I’ll finish as soon as apparitionally possible. Anyway, happy holidays to everyone. Continuing to participate with you all in this wondrous exercise in fandom is a blessing in every tradition, and I’m profoundly grateful.

Hark

“Your upstart nation stole ‘God Save the Queen’!” Helena seethed at Myka.

For whom “upstart nation” was really too much. “Nobody owns that melody!” she fumed, reciprocally, at Helena. “You can’t steal something nobody owns, our version is perfectly valid, and anyway I’m pretty sure other countries stole it too. Look it up!”

“I’m not in other countries. You look it up.”

“I’m driving! Since when are you such a fan of the monarchy anyway?”

“Stop questioning my patriotism!”

“I couldn’t care less about your patriotism!”

“You brought up citizenship!”

“Because you don’t have any!” Myka had genuinely thought they would be having an intellectual conversation, one about documentation and—

“I did at birth!” Helena raged, and then she scowl-sang, “God save our gra-cious Queen.”

This gave Myka pause. She reflected that she had actually never heard Helena sing before. She then concluded that she never wanted to hear Helena sing again... because Helena could not sing.

However: “My country ’tis of thee,” Myka sang back, frustrated. It was the only reason she herself would ever have sung, because—

“You can’t sing,” Helena informed her, in the tone of a doctor trying to conceal joy at having to report that the patient would not recover.

“Neither can you,” Myka informed back, aiming for straightforward “snide.”

“And I never want to hear you sing again,” Helena continued.

All Myka could come up with in response to that was an inadequate “Ditto.”

Helena sniffed. “You just wanted the last word.”

Myka pointedly let Helena have that last word. To make her stew in it. In the ensuing silence, she continued to drive. On this last leg home from a retrieval, late on Christmas Eve—their very first Christmas Eve—the air between them was frostier than the South Dakota winter outside the car could ever dream of matching.

She was under no illusion that Helena cared at all about anybody saving the Queen, and she herself, while reasonably patriotic on the American side of things, hadn’t sung her way through that song since her childhood. She knew this dispute was ridiculous, and she suspected Helena knew it too. She suspected also that they both understood they were developing a pattern: A period of calm—a deepening of accord—that would sooner or later, particularly in the adrenalin-ebb aftermath of a dangerous retrieval, dissipate into some minimally motivated squabble, the respective sides of which they entrenched themselves into with such commitment that it seemed there could never be an unentrenching.

*

An early instance: Myka had threatened to storm out of their shared hotel room because Helena had mulishly refused to concede that it had been foolish to open a bottle of mini-bar water for which they would be charged five dollars.

“Go right ahead,” Helena had “suggested,” so Myka did.

In the lobby, she’d run into Pete, who wasn’t storming anywhere, just looking for free snacks. “See?” Myka demanded of him. “Like a normal person.”

“If you were normal, you wouldn’t be out here with me. ’Cause you’ve got a hot girl in a hotel room, and I know things got a little uh-oh chasing that guy today, but you’re both still in one piece.”

“Maybe not for long.”

“You volunteered for this.”

“No I didn’t. Artie said ‘Pete, Myka, Helena, get on a plane for Montgomery, Alabama,’ and so we—”

“You know that isn’t the ‘this’ I meant.”

Myka did. But she hadn’t volunteered for that “this” either. Nothing about her response to Helena was voluntary. Nothing about it had ever been voluntary.

“Fights and all,” Pete added. “After the thing”—he always called the barely averted explosion of the Warehouse “the thing,” and so did Claudia—“you could’ve let her leave. You could’ve made her leave. She would have done anything you said.”

“Not anything,” Myka said, to be contrary.

“Maybe you don’t remember how she’d hardly even sit in a chair without your say-so. Oh, but wait, I think I know somebody who remembers everything, some tall lady with a lot of hair, name rhymes with Opelika... hey, that’s you!”

“Shut up. It wasn’t... that simple.”

“It is now.”

She crossed her arms at him.

He sighed. “Lemme show you: ‘Sorry, baby,’” he said in his “Myka” voice, which was terrible. “Me too, darling,” he then said in his “Helena” voice, which was even worse. As himself, he finished, “It’s like you’ve never been in a relationship.”

In a conversation in which Pete had said several annoyingly true things, that one was the most annoyingly true. But: “It’s like,” she conceded, and he slapped the side of her head, very gently.

“Hot girl hotel room,” he said.

When Myka went back to that hotel room, the hot girl said, “I’m sorry,” as if she’d received the same instructions from Pete. “I was precipitately thirsty.”

“I’m sorry too,” Myka told her. “I was precipitately miserly.”

Myka kissed the hot girl, the hot girl kissed back, and they fumbled their way to fine.

Until the next trivial-yet-entrenched tiff... because apparently, peace was for normal people.

*

Normal people. When Myka and Helena finally made it back to the B&B, Leena, Claudia, and Steve were doing reasonably convincing “normal” impressions: drinking hot chocolate, eating cookies, and playing board games. They seemed to be playing all the board games; Leena was replacing the lid on Monopoly, which she set aside, reaching for the next box in a towering stack. “Chef’s-kiss timing,” Claudia told them. “I just bankrupted these two pathetic poser slumlords, and we’re about to start Sorry. It’s funner with four, so siddown, and you two can be a team.”

“Or not,” Myka said, glancing at Helena, who glanced back and gave a definitely not yet inhale-exhale. “Why isn’t Pete playing?”

“We’re supposed to tell you it’s because he’s doing some last-minute Christmas shopping,” Steve said.

Myka was about to ask, “This late at night?” but Claudia supplied, “Except it’s really that he goofed off today and didn’t finish inventory and thought he’d get away with it but then Artie called and yelled at him.”

“And you left him alone to keep working on it? It’s the night before Christmas, and—”

Claudia waved her hands. “And all through the Warehouse, not a creature was stirring, I swear.”

“Besides,” Leena added, “he’s a grown man.”

“Who always ruins Christmas!” said Myka.

“Always almost ruins Christmas,” Claudia corrected.

Myka demanded, “Is there anything about me that says ‘I like a close call’?”

All eyes turned to Helena, then back to Myka.

*

Of course Helena had been part of the closest of calls, and Myka hadn’t liked it at all: nothing but the outcome. The Warehouse, the saving of it, yes, the thing—but the real outcome had been the aftermath at the B&B.

That outcome was real, but it was also a dream, one that Myka had dreamed more often than she would ever have confessed to pondering in her heart, this dream of being alone with a present Helena, no disastrous endpoint looming. The dream-logic of it: I can touch her? And Myka put a hand to Helena’s elbow. Reached and did that. Helena looked at the hand, the elbow. She looked in Myka’s eyes then and said, “Don’t spare my feelings.”

Feelings? Are you really you in your skin, Myka wanted to ask. Is this your elbow. Instead, because she needed to know, she murmured, “What do you want.”

Helena didn’t say words, but she made a noise that evolution had found fit to preserve from a deep, animal past, a guttural push of sound through the throat-column: it told Myka everything. Told Myka: “Everything.”

No speaking then but by bodies, a language of desperation and culmination. Helena had a mouth that could be met by Myka’s own, clothes that could be removed to reveal a palpable body, with every response of that body real under Myka’s hands. Myka held her eyes closed for much of that night, lest sight confuse her about presence and its proof, lest she fail to attend to what her eyes could never offer: The fleshy heaviness of a tongue in response to her own. The soft give of a thigh interior under her insistent thumb. The steady pressure of a body that pushed back. No empty air, no absence; only presence.

No question marks intruded on their immediate intimacy, their immeasurable, embodied relief. Two days prior, Helena had been a sacrificeable hologram, but all at once she was Myka’s living, breathing, at-last lover. All destined... like meeting at gunpoint.

That night precipitated a fast fall into full couplehood, with seemingly little conscious choice on either of their parts. As inevitable as the gunpoint meetings, the wrenching betrayals, even the miraculous redemption.

But nothing good can possibly be so simple, Myka told herself. Or so inevitable.

“Is that what you believe?” Myka imagined Helena asking this, Socratically. She’d had so many internal conversations with Helena that she found the habit—probably a bad one—difficult to break.

“I’m tired of belief,” Myka told her beautiful, imaginary Socrates. “Sometimes I want to go back to my regular non-Warehouse life, where belief didn’t matter.”

Helena said, still in Myka’s head, still Socratic, “Or did you merely act as if it didn’t matter? Artifacts were born. Religions carried on as they do. Your ignoring belief had no effect on any of it.”

“My not ignoring it has no effect on any of it.”

“So you yourself, regardless of attitude adopted, cannot affect belief.” Socrates paused. Smiled. “Or that which is inevitable.”

Myka did, in such moments, briefly wonder why she needed the real Helena around, if the one in her head was such a reasonable facsimile. A hologram could have done that job just as well.

But the answers, the “here’s why,” came fast and thick, and Myka rejoiced that they could. The real Helena could make Myka laugh an easy laugh, because circumstances were not as they had been with that hologram, when laughter was an impossibility. The real Helena could touch Myka’s neck—not wonderingly, as Myka had known that elbow—but instead quick and hot, in that way that said “we have been intimate recently and will soon again be.” The real Helena could fall asleep and in relaxation display a face so devastating in its symmetry that Myka was inclined to regret not being Michelangelo, so as to recreate it in appropriately tributary marble.

Strange, though, or probably just ridiculous, to feel that your romantic relationship had made more sense when one of you was a hologram.

Myka should have expected Christmas, also a fraught inevitability, to loom as an existential test—yet another existential test—of that relationship.

She should have expected also that when this new existential test was administered, Pete would be the one helping to shove answer sheets and no. 2 pencils into their hands.

*

“Might be a close call or two in Sorry. Sorry!” Claudia cackled. “Anyway, go put your stuff away so we can get our Sorry on. Also our merry. We might even sing.”

“Or not,” Myka said again, and this time she got an eyeroll in response rather than meaningful breathing. An improvement? Hard to tell.

“Nobody’s required to sing anyth—” Leena began, but then she sat up very straight and cocked her head. “Do you hear that sound? Or I guess I mean, do you feel that sound? It’s not singing.”

Helena moved her head too, and not in a way Myka recognized. “I do feel that sound. In fact I believe I know that sound.”

“I do too,” Leena said.

Steve squinted. “Feels like... a weird earthquake? Is it happening all over Univille?”

Claudia said, “This is the kind of thing they blame on us even when it isn’t us. It’s why they look at us weird at the supermarket.”

“I can’t feel anything,” Myka said. “What is it?” She looked first to Helena, who was shaking her head—not at Myka, not with anger, but as if she might be able to find the right shake to rid her ears of the sound, or the feeling, or whatever it was.

“Agitated artifacts,” Leena said, performing a very similar shake. “They... rumble.”

“Agitated artifacts,” Myka repeated. “Pete’s alone at the Warehouse, it’s Christmas, and artifacts are agitated. Okay.”

Naturally, Pete chose that moment to march in, proclaiming, “I hope everybody’s ready to apologize to me.”

Steve asked, “Why should we apologize?” Now he was shaking his head too.

“Because everybody always says I ruin Christmas.”

Helena said, “As I understand the situation, the salient fact is not that they say you ruin Christmas. The salient fact is that you do ruin Christmas.”

“Almost,” Claudia corrected again. She canted her head, righted it. Canted it again.

“But this time I saved it.”

“By agitating artifacts?” Myka said, but of course he would think that. Probably encouraged them to have a party...

“More so by the minute, from the sound of things,” Leena told him.

“What? No! That isn’t what I did!”

“The artifacts are telling a different story,” Helena noted.

Claudia offered, “It’s more that they’re humming it real low. Like some geologic event that worked its way into a Björk track. Or vice versa.”

Myka—very calmly, she believed, under the circumstances—said, “What. Did. You. Touch.”

“Nothing, Mom,” he said, and his tone caused Myka to spare some sympathy for Jane Lattimer. He then said, as if it were some magnanimous confession, “Okay. Fine. I did, but I gloved up.”

“What did you touch after you gloved up?” Leena asked. “And why?”

“It was like it tapped me on the shoulder...” he began.

Still canting her head, Claudia muttered, “Sallah flashback, Sallah flashback...”

“And said ‘hey big guy’...”

Steve said, “This is already a longer story than I feel like it should be.”

“And told me it had to go the Christmas aisle...”

Myka had had enough. “If you don’t spit it out right now, I personally will Heimlich it out of you. Joyfully. WHAT had to go to the Christmas aisle?”

He turned to her and gave a palms-up shrug. “You know I don’t know anything about classical music.”

She reached to the table for the nearest board game, to throw it at him, but Helena preempted that move by saying, “Judging from Myka’s face, now is not the time for non sequiturs.”

She probably couldn’t have done much damage with a travel-size Aggravation anyway, but travel and aggravation made her think, in Helena’s direction, Oh, now you can read my face. An hour ago in the car, not so much. Then she sighed internally. Or maybe, an hour ago in the car, too well.

Pete was continuing, “But the Messiah had strong feelings.”

“Oh no,” Leena said, and Myka knew that Leena saying “oh no” in that particular way meant she knew something, and the something she knew wasn’t good, but Pete kept on, still enthusiastically proud of himself: “So I gloved up, took it where it wanted to be, and then came home. Because it isn’t Christmas till I’ve won the Trivial Pursuit Star Wars Classic Trilogy Collectors’ Edition!”

“Do I seriously have to remind you I’m the reigning champ?” Claudia demanded. “What you’re saying is, it’s never gonna be Christmas.”

“Not for a while yet,” Leena said, “because we’re going back to the Warehouse. Because I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening.”

“Why do I have to go if I can’t hear whatever it is?” Pete whined.

Myka told him, “I can’t hear it either, and it’s your fault.”

“Your ears are your own problem.”

“I might Heimlich you just for the fun of it.”

Steve said, with concern, “I’ve heard that ribs tend to break.”

Myka nodded. “Exactly.”

“Santa would not approve of that attitude, young lady,” Pete chided.

“All I do is lug around stockings full of coal,” she said. “Do your worst, Santa.”

She made the mistake of glancing at Helena, whose face betrayed a responsive ripple of disquiet. Exactly the wrong sentiment for ending a fight, even a foolish one, Myka realized: imply that nothing you carry with you is what you want. “I didn’t mean...” she began, but Claudia was demanding of Leena, “How do you know what’s happening? And what is happening?”

“He put the Messiah sheet music in the Christmas aisle,” Leena said, with what Myka considered enviable patience.

“You say that like it means something!”

“It does mean something,” Leena said. “You’ll see. More importantly, you’ll hear.”

*

At the Warehouse, when they reached the floor, they were greeted by... “Curtains?” Steve tried, because that was what they were. Tall, cream-colored damask curtains with a green floral pattern. Freestanding, blocking their path. Insistently blocking their path.

“For all of us!” Pete tried back. “Dun-dun-DUN!”

“No...” Leena said. She regarded the curtains. “I know who you are,” she said, and Myka found herself unsurprised to see the curtains rustle at that, as if in appreciation. Leena then said, “And now I know exactly what’s happening.”

“A play is beginning?” Helena suggested.

“Not quite, but you’re in the neighborhood. Surely somebody other than me knows who these curtains are really for.”

Pete leaned close to the curtains, then jumped back like they’d bit him. “Oh my god. Now that I look close—the von Trapp kids!”

“Good boy,” Leena said.

“I thought we were calling him a grown man,” groused Myka.

“Leena is providing positive reinforcement,” Helena said. Pedantic, as if Myka had never heard of such a thing.

“I know she’s providing—” But she shut herself up, sighed in frustration instead.

Leena made sure everyone was wearing gloves, then said, “Claudia, keep your goo gun in your pocket; we might find more of them taking their frustrations for a walk.”

“So do we just put things back where they belong?” Steve asked. “And they calm down and the rumble-chatter stops?”

“Any that got themselves where they aren’t supposed to be, we take them back. But here’s what else we have to do.” She paused. “Sing.”

“No,” Myka said, and “no,” she repeated. She chanced a glance at Helena, but she had closed her eyes and seemed to be pre-massaging a headache out of her temples.

Leena appeared not to have heard Myka, for she went on, “We’ll deal with the curtains first. Next, the Messiah goes back where it’s supposed to be—because that’s what started it all. After that, I think Claudia should tell us what we need to do.”

“Oh god,” Claudia said, sounding just about as dread-filled as Myka felt. “This is Caretaker practice, isn’t it?”

“What if it is?” Leena asked.

“Ugh. Thanks, Pete.”

He said, “Maybe it tapped my shoulder because it thought you needed Caretaker practice.”

Myka snorted. “Maybe it tapped your shoulder because it could tell you’re an easy mark.”

“Hey!” he protested.

“Particularly at Christmas.”

“Hey!”

Leena said, “I think the Messiah might have sensed you’d be an easy mark... mostly because you want to make everybody happy. Particularly at Christmas.”

“See? Leena understands,” he taunted Myka.

Myka once again considered the Heimlich.

They escorted the curtains back to the musicals section, passing by Ginger Rogers’s dancing shoes, and Myka was unnervingly tempted to put them on and bleed her way backwards and in high heels out of the entire situation as Leena explained, “People repurpose ‘My Favorite Things’ as a Christmas song. The curtains find that... troubling.”

Pete scratched his head. “I guess I don’t really get that. Isn’t it kinda great?”

“Wait,” Claudia said, “and this might not even be practice: I think I do get it. How they feel. So let’s say you’re you.”

“I’m me,” he said. “Gotcha. Awesome. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Exactly. But what if some holiday thingy came along and made like it was changing you into something else? They’re afraid we’ll put ’em in the Christmas aisle, and they don’t want to be there. Unlike the Messiah, I guess. Am I wrong, Leena?”

“You’re not wrong,” Leena told her, smiling.

“I feel that too,” Steve agreed. “They’re... afraid? Afraid it’ll diminish them. They’ll be about Christmas and that’s all. That’s why they’re so agitated.”

And so the curtains were serenaded with words about raindrops, kittens, kettles, mittens, and all the rest.

“Are they happier now?” Pete asked. “Do they not feel so bad?”

Leena, Claudia, Steve, and Helena all nodded, if not entirely vigorously. Helena said, “Marginally happier. Not knowing the song, I of course couldn’t participate. I hope they aren’t offended.”

But she hadn’t seemed apologetic at all while the singing took place. In fact she’d smirked. So Myka murmured, “Thrilled, more likely.”

Helena pretended to ignore her but also bared her teeth, minimally, in Myka’s direction, as she said, “Popular culture, alas, remains a largely undiscovered country.”

“It’s just one song,” Claudia said. “You’re getting your head around more stuff all the time! Take the Muppets.”

“Last week’s Christmas special,” Helena said, and Claudia nodded. Myka knew they’d been going one per week, because that was as much as Helena could take, whereas Claudia would have set up a holly-jolly IV drip if she could. Helena continued, “The one you called a ‘crash course’ in several shows’ worth of puppets?”

Claudia nodded again, even more enthusiastically. “Muppet Family Christmas! And now you’re up to speed, so for example when I say ‘Oscar,’ you say...”

“I still fail to understand how the large bird, which seems more accurately a costume than a puppet, qualifies.”

“The answer we were looking for was ‘the Grouch,’ so maybe we’re not quite as far along as I thought. I’m not going to bother with when I say ‘Fraggle,’ you say.”

“Consumer of the structures built by the devoted little workers who wear hats.”

“Aaaand that’s why not. Although your essay answer isn’t wrong.”

“Thank you,” Helena said, performing her funny little bow that struck Myka anew, each time she saw it, as a Victorian tell.

*

In fact, Myka had come home from the Warehouse just as that “crash course” was ending: Helena, as always after such a lesson, looked bemused but relieved, while Claudia was fidgeting with post-lecture satisfaction and, most likely, disappointment that she’d have to wait an entire week till the next one. Myka had asked, “Why does Helena need to know about the Muppets?”

Claudia responded with a puzzled, “Why doesn’t she?”

“Bert, Ernie, and the distinctions therebetween,” Helena said to Myka. “Would that I were you and could retain it all.” She smiled a small “but here we are” smile, and Myka leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed that smile. Because she wanted to; because she could. The smile then widened, and Myka tried not to make the mistake of wondering why every moment wasn’t like this one.

“You two can be pretty soft when you want to be,” Claudia remarked.

Myka had thought, No, we’re not this way when we want to be. It was when they weren’t actively wanting it—or needing it—that this ease stole upon them. But here it was... so Myka kissed Helena again, then asked, “What’s for dinner?”

The asking of that question, in the softness of that moment, had seemed an ideal step forward, one not about destiny or fraught inevitability, but balance and consistency. And then Myka did make the mistake: Why couldn’t every moment be like that? What was it that disturbed all the other moments?

*

Now, as they all headed for the Christmas aisle, Pete pulled on Myka’s arm and held her back a bit from the rest. “You mouthed the words,” he accused, very quietly.

“So what if I did? You know I can’t sing.”

“Maybe it makes a difference. H.G. said the drapes were only marginally better.”

“She didn’t sing either, by the way,” Myka pointed out.

Apparently her feelings about that were clear, for Pete said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I meant you and H.G. Incidentally, you walk a little bit like Big Bird.”

“We’re fine. Incidentally, if you got a chicken bone stuck in your throat I wouldn’t be at all upset about what could happen while I was saving your stupid life.”

“I sort of feel like if she choked on a chicken bone, right now, you wouldn’t want to let anybody else do the rib-breaking.”

Myka almost said a dark “you bet I wouldn’t,” but then she realized: “I think that’s always going to be true.”

Pete nodded. “Kiss her, kill her. I get it.”

Unless he was talking about vibes, he didn’t get it, not fully—Myka herself didn’t get it fully, and in everybody’s defense there was a lot to be got—but it was Christmas-sweet that he got as much as he did. She said a mollified, “Look, just don’t make me sing, okay?” Because if there was anything Myka was sure she and Helena definitely did not need right now, it was a replay of “you can’t sing” and “neither can you.”

“No promises, partner. When Leena says ‘jump’ I say ‘my knees are shot.’ You, on the other hand, when she says ‘sing’? Better say ‘how high.’”

“This is kind of a ‘my knees are shot’ situation,” Myka observed.

“What’s the matter with your knees?”

“Never mind.”

And then they reached the Christmas aisle. About which Myka felt, and felt she had a right to feel, a certain amount of post-traumatic stress.

“If you touch anything,” she told Pete, “I will turn your ribs into chicken bones.”

“That makes no sense.”

“And yet you understand me perfectly.”

He took a step away from her. “In a very mobbed-up way, yes I do.”

Helena, Claudia, Leena, and Steve had ringed themselves around a shelf, and Myka peeked over Helena’s shoulder. Only in the Warehouse, she figured, could a piece of music manage to project the idea that it was pleased with itself.

“It’s gloating at me,” Pete complained.

“It did make you do what it wanted,” Steve pointed out.

Claudia said, “It’s like it knew we’d show up right at this moment.”

“I’m pretty sure it did,” Leena said.

Myka, still at Helena’s shoulder, felt a tension in the body that was not quite touching hers. She felt a tension, too, in words that were not quite meant for her to hear as Helena murmured at the music, “What else do you know...”

TBC

[claudiafm]

𝓿𝓸𝓰𝓾𝓮  𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓲𝓮𝔀𝓼 ~> 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔲𝔡𝔦𝔞 𝔬𝔯𝔱𝔢𝔤𝔞

in this issue of vogue we have the honor of interviewing fashionista and bassist Claudia Ortega, in a 4 part series, where she delves into her musical and fashion inspirations, personal life and past

Part 1.

claudia shares with us her playlist, and explains what each song means to her

i’m so tired… Trying my best to meet somebody, But everybody around me's fallin' in love to our song. I, I, oh I, yeah. Hate it, Taking the shot 'cause I can't take it, But I don't think they make anything that strong, So I hold on, I, I, oh I, yeah. I'm so tired of love songs, tired of love songs, Tired of love songs, tired of love, Just wanna go home, wanna go home 

“I’ll be honest” Claudia starts, “my love life has never been the most successful, and sometimes you just get tired, this song feels like an ode to my nights at the bar, nursing a broken heart and breaking down once the love songs start to play” 

DKLA

And I'm counting out for that day when Residuals become imminent Because failure is not pivotal. They just be asking the same Try switch it up, I switch lanes No love in this world, I'm still sane. Right, because that's enough When the light on and you don't keep love 'Distance makes the heart grow fonder' Said by someone stronger than me. So what do I do now? Do now? So what do I do now? I don't keep love around anymore

“This song is the sadder version of the last one, I don’t keep love around,” Claudia muttered something under her breathe at this point, but refused to elaborate

The kids aren’t alright

And in the end, I'd do it all again,I think you're my best friend. Don't you know that the kids aren't al-, kids aren't alright. I'll be yours, When it rains it pours. Stay thirsty like before. Don't you know that the kids aren't al-, kids aren't alright. I'm not passive but aggressive, Take note, it's not impressive. Empty your sadness like you're dumping your purse On my bedroom floor

“despite it all, I've made some good friends, and I've spent plenty of nights laying on my bedroom floor with them crying, fighting, screaming, singing, and just not being alright. I’ve had my battles, but I’d do it all over again for the people I love.”

Dynasty

I'm gonna take the throne this time, All the words all mine, all mine It's been way too long, too far Too gone, to carry on You can't hide it in the walls Sweep it under marble floors It's been living in our lives Best told damn family lie.

(Anything to carry down our) Dynasty, The pain in my vein is hereditary. Dynasty, Running in my bloodstream, my bloodstream. Dynasty, And if that's all that I'm gonna be Won't you break the chain with me?

“it’s no secret that i used to work for vogue, just like my mother before me, and if i didn’t follow her, i was to take over my fathers business, but here i am. perfection was the only option, all work no play, business comes first. I don’t blame my parents, it was how they were raised too, but i have a lot of pain passed down from generations, ideas i was raised with i still battle to let go, and a name to live up to”

XS

Hey, I want it all, don't have to choose, And when the heart wants what it wants, what can I do? So I'll take that one, that one, yeah, that one too. Luxury and opulence. Cartier set, Tesla Xs Calabasas, I deserve it. Call me crazy, call me selfish, I'm the baddest and I'm worth it. Gimme just a little bit (More), little bit of (Excess) Oh me, oh my, I don't wanna hear (No, no), only want a (Yes, yes) Oh me, oh my, Gimme just a little bit (XS, XS)

“I like luxury, what else can I say?” (the vogue interviewer considered mentioning the true meaning of this song, but claudia forged ahead before anything could be done.) 

Comme Des Garçons (Like The Boys)

Comme des garçons, Like the boys, like the boys, Comme des garçons, I'm so confident. Excuse my ego, Can't go incognito. Every time you see me It's like winning big in Reno. Don't fuck with me, hoe. Take you down like judo. Make it rain, I'm taking names from London to Meguro.

“when a boy is confident, they’re considered powerful, yet when a girl is confident, shes a b*tch? screw that, I’m confident, i deserve everything i have I don’t care, i’m just like the boys, powerful.”

Bad friend

We were best friends forever, but the truth is I'm so good at crashing in Making sparks and shit, but then I'm a bad, I'm a bad, I'm a bad friend. So don't ask me where I've been Been avoiding everything 'Cause I'm a bad, I'm a bad, I'm a bad friend I'm a bad friend, yeah

Guess we fell out, what was that all about? Maybe I overreacted, well, maybe you shouldn't have...

“I had a very different life before joining oli and margi in the band, i lost them along the way. we had some really good nights, but i was a different person. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to party, but I hope i’m a better friend then i used to be.”

Despite what you’ve been told

I should prove true to my emptiness And stay here. Well, I'm just a kid of ill repute But the skin I wear's my only suit, And you, you're just a substitute For the one that I hold dear. You know you could be anyone, God forgive my tasteless tongue, I never should've been set free

“Some people think I’m heartless, that I just go around from lover to lover, break their heart cause I can’t settle. Maybe they’re right, I should have never put myself out into the dating world, but I don’t try to do this to people, everyone I’ve ever loved, I loved you for the time we were together, but something always holds me back. I hope they’ve found happiness.”

Fall away

I disguise and I will lie And I will take my precious time As the days melt away as I stand in line And I die as I wait as I wait on my crime And I'll try to delay what you make of my life But I don't want your way, I want mine I'm dying and I'm trying But believe me, I'm fine, but I'm lying I'm so very far from fine

“This is again a lot about control, I struggle with how people see me, view my life, I want to be seen one way, but its not going to happen. I want my way, I’ll act like I don’t mind when someone doesn’t like me, but I’m scared I mind a lot more then I let myself feel,”

Ordinary superstar

Girl on the screen, you're a queen, But you're livin' in a cloud where there's no rain Oh, what if it all went away Today? (Then what's left inside?) Because I'm just an ordinary superstar So far but always hanging where you are I'm just an ordinary superstar I'm just like you (I'm human too)

“Its so easy to get caught up in a superstar life style, and I’ll fall into this, acting like I’m so much better than everyone, or when I do sober up, ordinary doesn’t quite feel right either so where do I fall? Whats left of me without the things I think mean everything?”

That green gentleman (things have changed)

I want to go where everyone goes, I want to know what everyone knows, I want to go where everyone feels the same, I never said I’d leave the city, I never said I’d leave this town. A falling out we won’t tiptoe about. Well, everybody gets there, everybody gets their And everybody gets their way. I never said I missed her when everybody kissed her. Now I’m the only one to blame Things have changed for me, and that's okay. I feel the same, I'm on my way and I say Things have changed for me, and that's okay. I feel the same, and I say

“People move on without you, and you’re just supposed to be fine with it, but its not fine, I feel the same, and I don’t want to feel the same. It’s not fair, you can fall in love with someone, and they’ll fall in love with someone else, and you can’t help but blame yourself, cause you didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. Things move along, people don’t wait for your love, so you get left behind to pick up your pieces.” 

Get busy dying or get busy living (do your part to save the scene and stop going to shows)

But it must be said again that all us boys are just screaming Into microphones for attention because we're just so bored. We never knew that you would pick it apart, oh, I'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts. Your secret's out...

I know this hurts, it was meant to (It was meant to) Your secret's out and the best part is it isn't even a good one And it's mine over you don't, don't matter. I used to obsess over living, now I only obsess over you, Tell me you'd like boys like me better in the dark lying on top of you

“I use music as an outlet, maybe it’s all for attention, but is that not what music is? I fuck around, scream, play bass, I just wanna be loved, its terrible what I've done for attention, for a while I wasn’t even living, I was trying to get someones attention.”

𝖈𝖆𝖙𝖈𝖍 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 2 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖚𝖉𝖎𝖆, 𝖆𝖘 𝖜𝖊 𝖉𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖚𝖘𝖘 𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖔𝖋 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖒𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖘 𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖚𝖉𝖎𝖆 𝖜𝖊 𝖐𝖓𝖔𝖜 𝖙𝖔𝖉𝖆𝖞!

[a-timeless-love]

Teen Wolf 6x08: Blitzkrieg

Papa Stilinski finds and uses the red string and thumbtacks Stiles utilizes for his crime board to rebuild Stiles’ room. Stiles’ whole room and all of Papa Stilinski’s memories of his son come flooding back! All the details of Stiles’ life! His desk, bed, lacrosse equipment, knickknacks, clothes, and photos on his crime board reappear.

Claudia doesn’t see anything.

To see “Stiles,” one only needs to believe in Stiles.

Stiles has a photo of him and his mom on the day she died in his room!

Papa Stilinski closes his eyes and tells Claudia the true story of the day she died. “Stiles refused to leave your side. You were yourself all day. Stiles had his mom back and I had my wife back. Stiles couldn’t stop talking about school, all the trouble he’d gotten into. He tried so hard to stay awake. When he finally fell asleep, it was in your arms. We just sat together and watched each other. We didn’t need to talk. But, when you finally closed your eyes… I knew you were gone,” he says.

In heaven, Claudia got to be herself again and do everything she always wanted to, like spend the holidays in Big Sur with her family. 

When Papa Stilinski reopens his eyes, Claudia is gone.

He let go of her.

With Claudia gone, a bright light shines across Stiles’ room.

Papa Stilinski needs his son back, now! I can’t wait for the day he hears his son yelling back at him through their house. “Dad!”

Papa Stilinski is the first person to say Stiles’ real first name out loud!

Stiles’ name: Mieczyslaw Stilinski.

Thank God we call him Stiles!

I’m not even going to try to pronounce his name!

How do you even pronounce Stiles’ first name?! How do you even spell it?!

“When Stiles was a little kid, he couldn’t say his first name…. The closest he could get was mischief. His mother called him that.” Mischief Stilinski. That name fits him so well!

I love Mischief Stilinski so much!

Looking at Lydia, Papa Stilinski says, “I remember when Stiles first got his jeep.” 

Papa Stilinski says Stiles “was always getting into trouble. But he always had a good heart. Always.”

Daddy, 

Beautiful monologue by Linden Ashby!

He’s such a good actor!!! He’s my favorite!!!

Chris pulls Melissa in close.

My feelings about Melissa & Argent are conflicted. I still like her with Stilinski.

Mr. Hauptmann Douglas

erases Mama McCall and Daddy Argent.

“Just crack the whip,” says Melissa.

Mama McCall and Daddy Argent are gone! But, they’re still alive.

The Ghost Riders will fuck you up!

The Ghost Riders are unnatural.  

A simple bullet is no match for a Ghost Rider. It certainly isn’t going to kill them!

Scott’s plan to defeat the Ghost Riders is to get Stiles to come up with a plan.

According to Lydia, if the rift is a tear in the fabric of their world, “theoretically it could look like anything from a microscopic black hole to a free-floating Einstein-Rosen Bridge.” Lydia is so smart!

Parrish opens the rift.

He and Mr. Douglas step through, closing the rift and leaving Scott, Lydia, and Malia behind. The Ghost Riders promptly follow out. The Ghost Riders are back! How Wunderbar!

Scott and Malia face off against the Ghost Riders. The Ghost Riders aren’t just trying to erase them this time. They’re trying to kill them! Erase Malia?! Kill Malia?! Go ahead! I fucking dare you!

I’m totally game for Malia ending up with Scott as long as Stiles ends up with Lydia.

To Scott and Malia’s surprise, Peter comes to save the day. 

Peter and Malia are such father / daughter, even if they don’t want to admit it!

While Scott and Malia watch from afar, the Ghost Riders erase Peter, again.

Peter is gone… again!

Hopefully he’s just erased and not dead! Peter, my love…

Peter…

While Liam, Hayden, and Mason are leaving the police station, a Ghost Rider enters.

The Ghost Rider takes no time erasing a shocked Mason!

Mason maybe made it too easy, because he’s human.

On the bright side, he’ll be with his boyfriend Corey now, who he’s been crying over and missing.

Mason WILL find Corey in the train station and they’ll come back together!

Mason and Corey are cute, little baby cinnamon rolls!

Liam and Hayden put up a good fight.

Until the Ghost Rider’s whip ties around Hayden’s wrist!

With no way out, Hayden begs Liam to leave. “You can save me on the other side. I believe in you,” she says.

He tells her he loves her.

Poof… 

She’s gone. 

Everybody’s gone. 

Papa Stilinski is officially the only adult left!

If they all remember everything about Stiles, can they produce a new rift to get everyone back?

Best Visual:

Best Audio: Looking Too Closely - Fink

Best Lines:

Nazi: How do you stop the unstoppable? Mr. Douglas: With German efficiency.

Scott: With Stiles back, he’ll be able to help us figure out a plan. Malia: He’s good at that.

Scott: As long as somebody is left in Beacon Hills, the Wild Hunt can’t move on

Peter: Just to clarify, are you planning on biting everyone in the train station?

Peter: Lydia will be the only one left to haunt the place.

Peter: I like your plan Scott, I really do, especially the part about turning Stiles.

Liam: You got a better idea? Peter: Yeah! It’s called run like hell! So… Leave in five?

Peter (to Malia): I didn’t promise I’d help you commit suicide.

Peter: Scott, I admit that you have a flair for beating the odds.

Papa Stilinski: He’s on the lacrosse team. I mean, he’s terrible, but he’s on the team.

Claudia: There’s nothing here. Papa Stilinski: You’re here.

Hayden: At least we found his cell. That means something. Mason: It’s a relic. That only means one thing. Hayden: It means he’s not dead, Mason, and that there’s still a chance.

Mason: He only has pictures of us. There’s like a hundred pictures here and it’s just us. Is that a little weird? Hayden: No. It means he loves you.

Lydia: It’s remarkably similar to the Einstein-Rosen Bridge.

Theo: I hold all the cards. Mason: You’re locked in a jail cell. You have no cards.

Theo: I just wanna stay alive.

Mr. Douglas: You know what the best part about being a werewolf is? Supernatural hearing. Argent: *shoots him* Did you hear that?!

Malia (to Mr. Douglas): You’re the bad guy. I’m pretty sure helping you is a bad idea.

Papa Stilinski: I don’t remember your birthday last year. Or what we did for our anniversary or Christmas for… I don’t know how many years.

Claudia: I was sick, but I started getting better. The medication had started to work. The doctors couldn’t explain it. We started making plans, started dreaming again… I was myself again.

Peter: Why aren’t you running?! Go!!!!!

Liam: It’s afraid of you. Lydia: I’m afraid of me.

Papa Stilinski: I have a son. His name is Mieczyslaw Stilinski, but we call him Stiles.

Papa Stilinski: I remember when Stiles first got his jeep. It belonged to his mother. She wanted him to have it. The first time when he took a spin behind the wheel, he went straight into a ditch. I gave him his first roll of duct tape that day.

Papa Stilinski: We’re here tonight because my goofball son decided to drag Scott, his greatest friend in the world, into the woods to see a dead body.

Next on Teen Wolf:

Walk down memory lane (mainly season 3)!!! Lydia remembers Stiles, most importantly their kiss! Scott remembers Stiles, his brother!