#still some interesting snippets

[muzaktomyears]

John Lennon by his friends and son: ‘He got eight years more than Jesus’

The former Beatle would have been turning 84 this autumn. Now his son Sean and those who knew him best are keeping his spirit alive with the rerelease of his classic solo album Mind Games

Everyone wonders what John Lennon could have become. When he was murdered in New York on December 8, 1980, the 40-year-old was in his post-Beatles prime. The superb album Double Fantasy had just come out and he was plotting a world tour. His second son, Sean, whom he took time off to bring up with his wife, Yoko Ono, was five, and Lennon was feeling inspired. Seven solo records since the Beatles had split ten years earlier; a reconciliation with Paul McCartney.

“Everyone gets the time they get, and he got eight years longer than Jesus,” says Bob Gruen, the rock’n’roll legend who took photographs of everyone who mattered in the 1970s. He captured Lennon and Ono’s time in New York and is confident and chatty — until conversation turns to what Mark Chapman took outside the Dakota that day.

“John should be alive now,” Gruen says, clearly still affected 44 years on. Gruen had spent the weekend with Lennon before he died and was developing his photos when he got the call. “He didn’t die in an accident or of a disease. His death broke my trust in everything. He was grounded at the time. He learnt a lot from raising his son, about enjoying his life and being sober. Then I heard he was dead.”

Lennon would have been 84 in October — and at least we are left with his songs. But legacy is complicated. Over the years McCartney has stolen his crown as chief creative in the Beatles. Partly because Lennon is no longer here to speak. Also because, during Peter Jackson’s 2021 film, Get Back, Lennon was largely stoned, while the charismatic McCartney conjured up magic. So to redress the balance, this month’s innovative rerelease of Lennon’s Mind Games (1973) pushes design and immersion in ways few box sets have before. It features new mixes — some that amplify Lennon’s voice, others that emphasise the instruments.

It is the work of Sean, 48, who has been at the forefront of the Mind Games rerelease. Lennon’s younger son is a musician and artist based in New York near his mother, 91. “The title track is one of the most beautiful songs ever written,” he says.

The songs answer questions Sean never got to ask his father. Despite being very young when his father was around, Sean does have memories of him — talking, watching TV, playing guitar and saying, “Good night, Sean.” The song Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) on the record is an apology from Lennon to Ono.

“One thing that distinguishes my dad’s solo career,” Sean says, “is how personal his lyrics became. It is like a diary, and it is my duty to bring attention to my father’s music. Not just my duty to him, but a duty to the world. With the world as it is now, people have forgotten so many things that I never imagined could be forgotten. I refuse to let that happen to this music — it means too much to me.”

Two years before Mind Games came out, Lennon moved to New York and met Gruen. Living in New York was simpler for him and Ono. They were hounded in Britain. “One paper called Yoko ugly,” Gruen recalls. “But in New York they were just treated as the quirky artists who came to town.”

Gruen’s eyes light up. “He was just funnier than everyone else,” he says. “I’d have loved him on Twitter, he was so cool with one-liners.” He smiles. “And, also, he learnt to cook. I’d always try to go to the Dakota for mealtimes.” What sort of food? “John used to be a meat and potatoes guy, but he met [the actress] Gloria Swanson in the vegetable store and she gave him a book that acted as a way into a macrobiotic diet from a western one. He got really into healthy food, baking vegetables and steaming fish.”

And this is the frustration. In the late 1970s Lennon was cleaning up his act. For himself, for Sean — a son he was involved with, as opposed to his first child, Julian. He had changed, from the man who went on his fabled “Lost Weekend” in Los Angeles in 1973. The weekend actually ran for months, during which Lennon left Ono, on Ono’s suggestion, for their assistant, May Pang, then 23. After Lennon went back to Ono, Pang carried on in the music business and married the producer Tony Visconti, but the Lost Weekend era remains her headline. During that time Lennon enjoyed chaotic recording sessions with Phil Spector. “I wondered if he’d ever make it back to New York,” Gruen says. “I thought he might get a place in Hawaii, or just die.” But Lennon returned in 1974, for his final six years.

What does Gruen think about how Lennon is remembered? Especially in Get Back? “Well, who’s the last one standing?” Gruen scoffs. “Who gets to write the history? The survivors get to write the history. That’s the way it goes.”

Tony King was the vice-president of Apple Records at the time of Lennon’s Lost Weekend. “We’re here to talk about my friend,” he tells me sweetly. King was out in Los Angeles working on a Ringo album when Pang phoned to say that Lennon needed help with his Mind Games record.

“I wasn’t looking forward to it,” King admits. “John could be sharp-tongued. But, in LA, he was super-friendly. I was straightforward. I told him he had to repair his reputation. After Imagine [1971] he’d gone in a different direction, making songs with a political edge. It was quite easy for John to get caught up in things. He had this tendency to see someone, decide he loved them and then go in their direction. I was lucky he went in my direction for a while. He realised he had lost some fans. Mind Games was more what people wanted.” Its songs were simpler and less political.

Personally, however, Lennon was in turmoil. “May on one arm, Yoko on the other!” King says. “He was juggling a lot.” Did Lennon talk about McCartney? “They were not getting along, but he was still fond of him,” King recalls. And what about that Lost Weekend era? “He was off the walls, to be honest.

“We went to Las Vegas and John interrupted Frankie Valli during a show, saying, ‘Get your cock out!’ We got thrown out and on the way back to the hotel he was pissing up against trees and then throwing his chips around the lobby. I put him to bed. It was difficult when he drank. John had taken way too much acid and so when he drank it flipped him into another style of person. One day it was great, the next it was very hard.”

King remembers the night his friend died clearly. “I was out at dinner in LA and the waiter said, ‘He’s dead.’ I returned to a very lonely, sad hotel room.” Does he ever think about what Lennon might have achieved later in his life? “Elton and I talk about John,” King says. He means Elton John. “We say, ‘I wonder what he’d be up to?’ Well, he’d have pounced on the internet and got into AI. And he’d still campaign. I could see him hopping on a plane to see Zelensky. He was a busy person, with an arresting personality. You’re never going to forget him.”

The Mind Games reissue is a beast, a lavish celebration of a fine, melodic rush of songs. Bonuses include the Ultimate Mixes, which bring Lennon’s voice to the fore; Raw Studio Mixes; there is a Super Deluxe Edition “presented in a 13in cube”; puzzles; and even an experience on the free Lumenate app that is described as a “consciousness-expanding psychedelic meditation” and uses the phone’s torch and Lennon’s tunes to guide users into “a state of consciousness between deep meditation and psychedelics”.

We are a long way from 1973 — when the session musicians David Spinozza, on guitar, and Ken Ascher, on keyboards, were asked to play on Mind Games. They recall the recording as efficient — Lennon left his partying for later. He was in a creative peak, with Mind Games his fourth album in three years since the Beatles.

“He was a Beatle!” Ascher says. “I was thrilled to get the call. Yoko told me, around 10pm, that John would like to meet. I called my wife and said, ‘I’m not coming home — I’m meeting John.’ He played me music he liked, and we talked for hours. His humour helped me relax.”

Spinozza worked with Lennon and McCartney in the 1970s. How did the men compare? “Paul would do one song for six hours, even for a day,” he says. “With John we never worked on one song for six hours. He worked quick — he was all business. I’m not saying one was better than the other, but Paul could work on a drum sound for hours. John just wanted to get it done.”

How does Sean feel about his parents, looking back? “Their story is a love story,” he says. “They found each other across a great divide and certainly struggled through ups and downs, but never doubted their love. It is important we remember them as an example. Even through rough patches you can see my father thought about my mother. They were simply, irrevocably intertwined.”

Lovely words — and as for John Lennon himself? “Generally it’s whatever comes out, like diarrhoea,” he once said of his recordings. “A bit personal, a bit political — someone told me Mind Games was Imagine with balls, which I liked. It was like an interim record between being a manic political lunatic back to a musician again.”

Speaking in the early 1970s, after a decade of super-fame, he said he did not feel different to how he had before. “I’m still a bit adolescent,” he said in one of his final interviews. “My old friends from Liverpool got jobs after school. I’d see them six months later and their hair would be thin and they’d be getting fat. They were becoming old men — while I just keep going.”

(source)

[vermillioncrown]

ands snippet: fast and furious

Summary: Vivienne delivers on a promise and expected only the self-satisfaction of a “job well done.” His Dark Grace decides otherwise.

or tldr: the batmobile's first, official iteration gets its christening 😏 (making out + some d/s vibes) this is a write up of this post on how bruce (the batman, really) and vivienne "get together," originally written to entertain @rozaceous (and here's the link to the og concept) the gist is that it's pre-NYE party debacle, ros and vi are practically u-haul lesbians but it's no one's business (not even their authors') how involved they are with each other, and ros and bruce have not resolved their UST yet.

“—and there might be tolerance issues with the panels, but they should be resolved by next month.” Neel Singh, the Experimental Manufacturing lead, concludes his briefing and falls half a pace back.

“We’re not racing the clock, Neel.” Vivienne jots down her thoughts in her notepad, and adds, “The winter holidays are coming up. I don’t expect anything more until February, the earliest.”

“Y-Yes, of course.” After pressing him for continuous updates for the past few months, of course he’d feel discombobulated by the sudden release of the gas pedal, so to speak. Neel pulls out his phone to type a message. “Should I call anyone else to show you around, Vivienne? Someone from Facilities for the test track?”

Vivienne looks up and out past the glass, into the indoor test track where the subject of their discussion sits parked. All aerodynamic sleekness and curves, the diffused polish of a practical matte black coating, and the intuitive physical sense of power and nimbleness in its form…

Now that—that is her son, midwifed by the hardworking and circumspect members of her handpicked team.

A thought comes to mind. “We’re dealing with carbon fiber, yes? RTM process?”

Neel nods warily. “The team assessed it to be the best fit for purpose…”

“Let me see the molds. And I may have some thoughts on the trickier shapes.” At this point, it’s better to do things right than to play coy with knowledge. There aren’t any patents on the line, or papers to publish.

Bless Neel—he’s not the most inspirational team lead out there, but the man can get things done, keeps track of his flock, and does not put them in the line of fire if he can help it. It takes the entire hallway’s length to convince him that no, Vivienne isn’t here to take heads and draw blood. And yes, she does have some experience with composites. Thankfully, what she knows and has retained is relevant enough for their use case.

The setup tour and the technicians present are all of acceptable quality. There’s nothing wrong with their process, per se…

“I appreciate the team’s rationale in using vinyl ester. However, in application, the easier forming and mechanical properties with using epoxy should make it an appropriate trade-off,” she declares her verdict. No one is impolite enough to interrupt her (or they’re not green enough to), but the manufacturing team does exchange serious side eye among each other.

When dealing with technical experts, care must be taken to speak their language. Always acknowledge someone’s hard work, and give good faith that they’ve made their decision with good judgment behind it.

And, of course, one should give explicit reasoning when suggesting an alternative. “We won’t be seeing the same type of corrosion nor UV exposure on average, or most of the expected causes of catastrophic failure”—here, Vivienne meets their gazes directly, pausing deliberately so they get her gist— “will render long-term considerations, hm, superfluous.”

Various noises of scoffing and muffled chortles come from the team before her. “It’s likely to explode, GTA-style, before we care about actual sunlight in Gotham,” someone mutters. “Got it.”

Bonus: appeal to their good humor, show that you’re on their side. Show that if they work with you instead of against you, everyone benefits.

“Then, we’ll put the order in for epoxy instead?” Neel announces to the group.

“Let me liaison with the Testing guys, see which specific one they recommend,” one of the technicians answers while the others debate quietly between themselves. “And we need to check the MSDS for any changes needed.”

“Shouldn’t be much—I think we can relax some of the workflow, too,” another one calls out. “It’ll go a lot faster this round.”

Neel turns towards Vivienne, implicitly waiting for her approval.

“Go ahead,” she confirms. “No rush. You should have enough budget; if not, CC me on any requests.” She waits for Neel to nod before turning back to finish her notes.

One of the technicians whistles low and, undeterred by his coworker’s elbow to the gut, asks out loud, “How the hell are we getting the funding for this? It can’t be government.”

Vivienne pauses, looks up to raise an eyebrow at him. She gives it two seconds—enough to make it awkward but not enough to be aggressive—before answering nonchalantly, “Does it matter? As long as we can all go about our day without the mob brazenly shaking people down in public, or an attention-seeking wack job gassing the streets and locking down the expressway, I do not care.”

The emphasis nets her a “fair enough” gesture and no further questions, with the general atmosphere being one of jocular compliance and satisfaction.

Very good.

She turns to Neel, while announcing to the group at large, “That will be all. Everyone should make sure to confirm with my PA on their way out, so you all can receive your bonuses in a timely manner. Have a happy Thanksgiving.” Then, more directly at Neel: “I’ll meet with Facilities before closing the site for the holiday. Official half-day.”

He gets her unspoken “clear everyone out” order and turns to usher the technicians along, all while starting a phone call with other leads in the testing facility.

---

Vivienne takes the scenic route towards the direction of the Facilities Management suite, walking leisurely to keep her baby in her sights the entire time. She returns absent hums of acknowledgment to the people that greet her along her way, dismissing them when they try to ask if she needs anything, and eventually, the facility is empty.

Instead of turning into the Facilities suite, she goes to the nearby elevator to scan her card and wait.

The building lights dim to their low-occupancy standby state. Then, one of the shadows in the empty hallway distends into a vaguely humanoid form, stalking forward until there’s a glint of whited-out eyes.

Ever the dramatic. His Dark Grace’s penchant for positioning is comically perfect.

“I assume you’ve looped the cameras?” Vivienne tilts her head towards the Facilities suite.

The Batman gives a little, “Hm,” and continues towards her and the elevator.

Yes, duh. Vivienne doesn’t roll her eyes. It’d be wasted on this bat-shaped mime.

She instead flips her notepad to a later page, where she’s noted down the information received from Facilities via email a week ago. Meeting with them was entirely unnecessary. Her mind runs through what would be the most efficient loop of comprehensive testing—and if they waited until sunset, she could set up and open the outdoor portion of the track for “realistic conditions.”

It’s rather easy to ignore the looming shadow next to her—she’s had practice and more important things to think about. Normally, anyone impolite enough to look over her shoulder at her notes would be told to back off, but here she can hope that he’d absorb some proper methodology for fucking once. To be fair, any thought of “proper” leaves her head upon reaching the ground floor of the track.

The so-called “Batmobile” is gorgeous. If not in her heels, Vivienne would have sprinted over to him.

Her beautiful baby boy.

She tucks her notepad and pen away into her handbag, and loops the shoulder strap across her torso. All hands are needed for properly admiring this work of art.

“Ah—the slight ripples Neel mentioned,” she talks His Dark Grace through the visual inspection. “Project Lead Neel Singh,” she adds for clarification, letting him know who and what to satisfy his paranoia. “Yes, the matrix voids will be easier to mitigate with the modifications to their vacuum assistance setup, the tooling support, and of course, not using vinyl ester. More workable.”

She walks around the car, eyeing the front and back tires, noting the height of the chassis, and internally debates the optimum between aesthetics, performance, and practicality.

“Hm. This tire size is special order, but still commercial-off-the-shelf. The concern is that typical road conditions won’t allow for anything lower, but we need to balance the handling with the overall weight…especially since the chassis will be so lightweight.” She backs up and takes in the whole of the car’s form. “I…I’m actually a bit worried—we might not have the right balance between the aero and weight for the CG, being not for track purposes, so we can’t go as low as actual motorsport designs—”

“—then let’s test it,” Batman cuts through her fretting. He’s been following along with her inspection, practically hovering over her the entire time. The fingers of his gauntleted hand carefully trace where she was pointing out, trailing behind her hand’s path. “That’s why we’re here.”

Credit where credit is due—that’s true. At least he didn’t immediately demand to do so; his interjection is a polite ask, the bat and all things considered. And Vivienne wouldn’t have let him within a zip code of her new son if he wasn’t ready to handle. She can allow His Dark Grace some fun, for once.

She takes out the prototype key fob—slow enough to rile up the menacing furry next to her—and clicks. The doors unlock and pop slightly ajar before she dangles the fob in front of Batman.

He’s finally trained enough to be polite during their handovers; he takes the fob from her possession without force, and waits for her to situate herself in the passenger side before getting in himself.

“No helmets. Well, you better not get me killed,” Vivienne says blandly when Batman starts up the car. He purrs, lovely and smooth like a spoiled cat. “Or I won’t offer custom hubcaps. Ones with little bat decals.”

There’s a faint smirk on His Dark Grace’s face. “I’m better than that.” He teases with a brief revving of the engine.

The test track comes into hyperfocus in front of Vivienne; on a whim, she clicks an additional control up top near the rearview HUD of the car that opens up the gate to the outdoor track. She can recognize the adrenaline building up—it’s what follows a good challenge, either mental or physical, and she welcomes it with relish.

“Let’s see it, then,” she nods towards the gate, unable to help her toothy grin in return.

---

Her baby boy “handles,” is what Vivienne can say for now. She didn’t expect the response to be buttery smooth on first iteration, and for something experimental. The seeds of something are present—His Dark Grace pulled them into two hairpin turns in sequence—and coupled with the snappiness, she thinks they have an unpolished gem in their hands. The car is like having a barely tamed big cat, leashed up and ready to let loose on one’s orders.

It’s fucking exhilarating.

The stupid showoff figures out how to manage the car quickly enough. He pulls another turn that lets them slide perfectly against the side of the track into the bay that’s meant to be a small pit area. The uncovered half of his face is not as expressive as he pretends to be, day-to-day, but the expression present is full-on cocky as hell.

(Honestly, Vivienne can admit to liking it—or at least, this is much more tolerable than the public-facing himbo she needs to politely shake hands with whenever he deigns to muck around at the office.)

“Proven enough?” His typical growl is less forced, and more of a pleasant rumble that harmonizes nicely with the idling engine. In the full furry get-up, subtle side glances and all that aren't really possible. His Dark Grace turns to stare at her, goading for a response.

The cowl and the whited-out effect of the lenses are eerie up close, but dealing with the devil is much less intimidating when one has leverage. In Vivienne’s case—he knows she’s capable and motivated enough to possibly add something like a kill-switch to the car, just to fuck with him if he pisses her off. His Dark Grace wants her baby real bad, and with proof of concept she can probably get him to do anyt—

Hold up, Vi, say that again? Her inner Ros stops that train of thought.

“Differential adjustment shou—well. Acceptable,” she gives him the compliment, leaning back into the seat with a more relaxed posture. They never make the ergonomics of them fit for anyone of average height; her hairpin has slightly loosened from how the back of the seat rubbed against her updo, and she pulls the pin free to restyle her hair. She feels the Batman’s stare as he waits, and she keeps him waiting. “You’re competent and quick on the uptake. Adaptive.”

Wrangling the Batman was the equivalent of wrangling a division of egotistical engineers working at the cutting edge of everything—all very competent people that will step on each other’s toes, get in each other’s way, and are too used to being correct that they forget their purpose. The balance was slightly off here, becoming the classical joke of “one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses.”

But everyone has their leverage points, and all are susceptible to The Carrot versus The Stick in personalized ratios and applied judiciously. Vivienne didn’t aim to do anything as Machiavellian as put the Dark Knight of Gotham under her thumb, but that’s where he somehow ended up. She, by sheer grit, found the winning combo of getting him to listen to her—at least when it came to nonsensical designs—and actively soliciting her opinion. She’s not dumb enough to lose that leverage when she sees it in her hands. Maintaining it requires work: showing agreeableness to an extent, with the occasional reminder that he’s in her territory and he would do well to remember it. A little flick to the ego, occasionally.

It helps to put into perspective that, at the end of the day, Bruce Wayne the Batman is nearly five years younger than her. Engineers and technicians under her, the ones ranging from two to ten years younger, with a plethora of tertiary degrees between them—her mind can’t help flagging them as “children” until they temper themselves with a real project, from bid to deliverable.

So, of course her brain demoted the fucking CEO of her company and its parent conglomerate to being a “boy” as soon as he called her Lucius’s PA. She has found no evidence contrary to that ever since. With him neatly categorized, accounting for unique attributes and handling, Vivienne knows very well how to deal with “boys,” because she wouldn’t have gotten this far otherwise.

“Hah. If you had wrecked my shit, as with your typical M.O., maybe I could’ve gotten a nice dinner out of you tonight.” Her tone is intentionally sharper, diction and accent more crass with the habitual New Jersey attitude rather than her usual featureless cosmopolitan speech pattern. Dusk was here, steadily eating away the evening hours as autumn progressed. They’ve stayed later than she anticipated, but…

…for once, in a very long time, she was having fun. The evidence is on her teeth—she was grinning wide enough to catch some of her lipstick on her canines, which her tongue can clearly feel the slick of it.

“Well. We’re done here. Keep up with”—she gestures at the whole of him with a dismissive hand— “that well enough, don’t piss me off, and maybe you’ll earn your new toy by the end of next quarter.”

That whole posturing—after prolonged proximity and the hot-and-cold of seemingly hard-won praise versus snide dismissiveness—is supposed to make His Dark Grace harrumph and skulk away.

Today, he grabs her hand. It’s not violent or anything, but he doesn’t touch her. She’s lost her temper enough to jab her finger in his cowled face, and he’s been taken aback enough and in the position to let her. He’s never touched her.

That—that’s not in the script.

His Dark Grace continues to stare at her, his exposed jaw not quite clenched enough to denote a possible temper tantrum incoming. So, she minutely cocks her chin up, adding a slight challenging tilt to her expression with a raised eyebrow and the slight baring of her teeth in a sneering smile. What are you doing? Are you really—really?

He has her wrist with his left hand, and his full attention and facing is towards her. The right hand comes closer. And because he doesn’t pull her that she lets him, it’s so much closer until—of all fucking things—she feels the gauntlet leather past the corner of her mouth and pressure on her teeth.

The thumbpad has her lipstick stain on it from him wiping it away.

She scoffs, half-between a laugh and an incredulous squawk, and tries to tug her hand away. It doesn’t budge. “How badly do you want this car?” The tone isn’t right—wrong mix of scathing versus levity. And yet, it seems to draw him in closer, the tireless masochist that he is. “Didn’t I say ‘don’t piss me off’?”

“I’m hoping to do the opposite.” This close, he doesn’t bother with the growl at all. He’s almost inaudible over the engine. The lipstick-stained gauntlet cups her jaw, the thumb carefully avoiding her skin, and he leans in when she doesn’t resist.

What the fuck. What is happening. Did he bug the apartment, overhear the sleepover-bullshit talks with Ros?

It’s fascinating, clinically speaking. From what Vivienne’s heard of local gossip, especially among the secretary pool and their particular brand of romantic fantasizing, the Batman is expected to be rough. Wild. He’s supposed to fulfill all sorts of “tall, dark, and handsome” daydreams and lonely imaginings at night, along with fighting crime—what a busy guy.

So, to have him soft and insistent at her mouth, but more like asking for permission than forceful, is a fascinating gap between expectation and reality. He’s not a shabby kisser at all; the playboy types usually have something else going on that makes everyone else do the work for them, and they get to reap all the pleasure. That is apparently not the case here.

Eventually, he pulls back so they can breathe and reassess.

Vivienne looks. She really looks—his face may be mostly covered, he’s still staring, but he’s flushed, visibly steadying his breathing, and her lipstick stains his mouth in a viscerally appealing way that makes her want to lick her teeth. He’s paradoxically much more exposed than she is.

And with that, His Dark Grace is really such a pretty boy—something Vivienne has constantly lamented with Ros over for his pissy attitude. He’s perfectly amenable now, though.

“You really want this,” she says this again, her free hand coming down to pat the console between them and leaning closer.

He’s still a cheeky shit, though. “I want it,” and tilts his head again, ready to close the distance at her say-so.

She means the damn car, but— “Then you’ll have to work for it,” and she closes the distance herself.

[bonefall]

Voted for Bumble bc of course but also if you think Alex would not pspsps Bumble you are wrong. If they could communicate they would go to therapy together /s

If then could communicate they would go to therapy together

/GEN

Kyle/Green Lantern resurrects her but then he becomes convinced that she's not the same person she was before the incident, OR SOMETHING SOMETHING Black Lanterns aren't ACTUALLY bad they're just misunderstood Grim Reaper types, in either case Alex ends up breaking it off with Kyle because they've become very different people.

And then Bumble's there

And then they go to therapy or Alex adopts Bumble, and then uhhh Bumble's like one of the superpets. Like Krypto the Superdog. Free premise go forth and play with it if ur a DC fan

[desognthinking]

👀 More haunted house designer au?! 👀 I love that concept so much so would be overjoyed if you ever decided to revisit it :)

😎i love it too. i wish i could tell you there are finally actually haunted houses in this one but unfortunately the girls are still working through it 😭 also i am working through it (editing 😭)

so in this one they're on a scouting-slash-forced teambuilding trip and it's um Going. it's a few thousand k of Meet The Ava wherein Ava is frustrated + up against it + dramatic, but also Meets The Beatrice.

anyway anyway it starts like this (subject to me finding it too cringey and editing it):

Ava sees her at the end of the pier, a dark figure in the already-dark; a smudge of barely-moving ink on the line between wind and water. Barely, indeed – wavering less than the yearning swallow and swoop of the waves interrupted by pillars of wood, and, further back, stone. 

At night, after everything’s shut, this place is quiet until the fishermen get out in the early morning. In the off-season, even more so. Rain slings down frequently, and it’s not warm enough for balmy walks by the rocks. Not many come out, if any. Ava’s one.

She calls out as she walks down the planks, only thinking belatedly that perhaps she might not want to be disturbed. Out here behind the motel, unmoving under the preliminary drizzle of rain, embraced and cocooned by temperamentally warping air. It is, after all, that tremulous transitory phase between spring and summer that borrows its faces from both, and switches its masks sharply in the slit-time of blinks.

[avantguardisme]

ive spent like the past week finishing up putting together a literature curriculum for a spanish class im teaching over the summer & man, there's nothing like trying to give an overview of spanish lit to a bunch of teenagers in just 4 weeks to make you feel the weight of The Canon. like, on one hand i want to give them an overview that doesn't just pretend that the only people writing anything good or important were just a small group of men who only spoke castillian spanish (or even just who lived in spain, the class is focusing on spain in particular but im still including sor juana and ruben dario on account of sheer influence, and if i had time i'd probably throw at least one latam boom author in there), but on the other hand-- with the amount of time we have and an average language level of the class, we can't actually read a whole lot of material, so i feel like i cant leave out some of the biggest names regardless of personal taste. like sure, i generally preferred reading maria de zayas to cervantes, but we only have time for one siglo de oro prose author and i'm not going to leave out miguel de fucking cervantes, are you kidding me?

this is doubly complicated by the fact that'd i'd be completely justified in using emilia pardo bazan as my example of an Important Canonical Realismo author who is also a woman but i simply refuse to do that to myself on account of jesus christ have you tried to read her prose. i'm not doing that to a high schooler

[nachosncheeze]

Sending lots of asks today, but I was curious:

I don't think you've written XF fic (which is my exclusive fic wheelhouse, usually), but if you WERE to write XF fic, what would you focus on? Friendship, RST, UST, casefile, MOTW, in-between scenes, or just a drabbles (LOVE me a good drabble.)

Hah! Well, I guess now is as good a time as any; you've outed me! Or, I'm outing myself, since you asked. I actually have written some X Files, but I've never posted any of it. I got back into writing fiction fairly recently, being wildly inspired during lockdown by a tv show called Blindspot (which my original blog @nachosncheeze is based around - I later made @nachosncheezies for other fandoms). I was encouraged by a writer I really respect, and recklessly gave it a go.

I started dabbling with XF a few months ago, when I found myself getting lost in the details on a couple of my Blindspot WIPs. XF has characters I can connect with, but I'm not too much in their heads, if that makes sense. Playing with the Spooky Squad is giving me some practice (especially with dialogue, which I've felt weak at - the ways they talk to each other [and the ways they don't] are SO interesting) and a bit of distance from my other WIPs. The original goal was just to be able to come back to those other ones fresh, but I'm finding I'm enjoying it now, too!

To answer the hypotheticals I suppose it's easiest to look at what I've written in the past. In general, I'm a sucker for angst, I do introspective sorts of character things a lot, and so far everything has been canon-compliant fill-in-the-blanks/extra scenes. At this point AUs, casefic, etc feel a bit too ambitious for me. I've done some ship work but no smut, so not much you could call UST/RST. I think the lion's share of it has been one-shots around siblings and different iterations of [found] family.

When it comes to XF, anything I have/can imagine doing probably fits a similar pattern. My first exercise was an extra Scully/Bill scene for the Reduxes. I wrote it before I knew there was a deleted scene for Memento Mori and I was delighted to find some overlap because it kinda felt like I must be on the right track. 😆 Mostly, I've been playing pretty extensively with season 8. It hits the angst button pretty hard, moved fast enough to leave lots of space for in-betweens, and the second half has some useful places to practice fluff while still indulging my usual angsty "traumatize those suckers!" shenanigans. My house is currently watching 8 too, and I've been challenging myself to try to do a 150-word drabble from Doggett's perspective for each episode. That man is just so earthy and reliable. 💕 Soooo yeah, I suppose if I were to write XF, it would be something like... *gestures broadly*... that. ;D

Huh. Now that I'm chatting about it I guess I actually have a lot. Maybe I'll actually post something sometime. 😂

[bumblingbabooshka]

From: Incident at Arbuk [Novel] I know they mean this in the straightest way possible but in my brain Neelix would be jealous because he wants Tuvok to compliment him too v_v

[clownandout]

[coldercreation]

"

“Hope you realise that if you mess up my ink -” Kit said quietly against the side of Liam’s head, his voice too soft and too silky, his sharp smile carving into each of the letters falling from his lips, “- I’ll put you in a fuckin’ muzzle.” 

"

Good lordy, I hope that makes the final cut, though I may need a fan... and an ice bath... or a very cold shower :-D

Loving all the little snippets!

Hehehe thank you so much! ;')

Love to hear you've liked the snippets, posting them keep me feeling more connected and they help me keep writing too! So I refuse to feel too bad about spoiling all my work lel xx

[eyivibyemi]

✧ I won’t really write descriptions for these, but see original post tags for explanation/commentary on the song snippet ✧

[lhrry]

x

[princesssarcastia]

here, have the start of the next story in that one series I wrote two years ago, about what would have happened, if ahsoka tano thought to ask maul who his sith master is.

in which time has passed, old wounds are healed if still tender, and there is a new generation to shepherd and nurture.

—

Ahsoka meets Cilghal for the first time when Obi-Wan volunteers her to lead a group of younglings to Ilum with Master Windu.  Normally, the Temple respects her status as a Ranger too much to snatch her up for missions during those periods she’s on Coruscant to rest, but somehow, this time was different.

She has to jog through the hangar to catch the Crucible in time, which she also doesn’t appreciate.  Force, she didn’t even manage a real shower, just a quick run through the sonic in her quarters, which means her montrals are a touch out of sync with the rest of her; it’s not quite a headache, but it makes her…cranky. 

That’s something she can admit to herself, if not Master Windu, who eyes her when she sheds momentum by nearly sliding up the ramp into the ship, projecting faint irritation in the Force.

Catching his gaze calmly, she pulls her emotions back behind her shields and gives a faint bow.  “Master Windu, it’s nice to see you again.”

“And you, Knight Tano,” he returns, and they walk deeper inside together, the younglings already scattered to set up their bunks in the berth.

It’s been a while since they’ve spoken at any length; most of their interactions are consigned to polite acknowledgement as they pass one another in the halls of the Temple.  Ahsoka honestly wouldn’t put it past Obi-Wan to be forcing them to finally get over themselves, after all these years.  They don’t dislike each other, it’s not that.  But there’s a hum-thrumming of sensitivity itching under her skin whenever they spend too much time together, force-memory of a shatterpoint shared and echoes of tortured laughter cut brutally short.  That’s something she’s spent the last eight years trying to put down.

Though on rare occasions, that edge of a reminder at the back of her head makes for a spectacular spar between them in the salles, and their last bout drew what felt like half the Temple before it was over.  Her musing actually pulls that particular clash out of both of them and into the surrounding Force, and they both soften at once.

Just in time for a little Rodian youngling to dash into the room across from them, chanting, “Knight Tano!  Knight Tano!  Padawan Katooni said when you took her to Ilum you were kidnapped by pirates is that true?  Are we going to be kidnapped by pirates?”

She gets a blinding flash all her own of Ganodi pouting in disbelief at the idea of learning from a droid, but before she can even smile, a chorus of half a dozen other younglings gasp, “Pirates?” and practically stampede into the room in the wake of their fellow.

Mace audibly sighs, and Ahsoka’s not-quite-a-headache has definitely solidified.

But she spends the next hour or so recanting the frankly ridiculous series of events that followed her last trip to Ilum, including being attacked by pirates, being kidnapped by pirates, the worst circus acts she’s ever seen in her life, teaming up with those same pirates, and a brief and terrifying battle with General Grievous. 

Fucking Hondo.

By the end of it, she has all their attention wrapped around her like a cloak, wide eyes following her hands and, in some instances, seeing what she saw through the Force.  A few of them definitely have a talent for clairvoyance, if not outright precognition, which will make this trip interesting, to say the least.  Ilum is strong in the unifying Force.  She does her best to tuck the sheer desperation of that final duel away as she tells it because it’s just another fun story, for them.  Jedi, fighting the forces of evil!  The ups and downs of battle are exhilarating, not horrifying, because they still know in their hearts a Jedi can do anything they set their mind to.

—

Creating a lightsaber is a sacred process, one that unites every Jedi.  These younglings will remember one another for the rest of their lives, remember the feeling of each other in the Force every time they held the physical manifestation of their lives in their hands.

All the crechémates Ahsoka built her first lightsaber with are dead.

—

aaaaand that's as far as I got, back in 2021. Cilghal is a real star wars character, a healer-knight from the days of the new jedi order. i figured bariss and ahsoka probably ended up sharing a padawan, given the ending scene of Had we but World enough, and Time.

[comfhurts]

One of this days I’m gonna write a scemma smut fic where the whole plot is that Scott can’t cum bc of his ssri side effects. It’ll be the most useless smut piece in existence but imma do it anyway

[izzy-b-hands]

I might have a thing

I don't think it's an amazing thing

but it's a finished thing and maybe that's the best I can ask for

[ace-in-a-shopping-cart]

Okay, I really didn't expect it to get that long but it did so now I'm sitting on a fanfic that's about 4.6k words unedited. That's a lot of words for the initial title still being "Cutie Angst Fic".

So, I guess I just gotta ask: Redacted fandom, want some juice?