#the greatest artist of this entire generation said she wanted to be there for me shut the fuck up

[didnt-hear-idsb-live-again]

sometimes I spend a little too long reading my blog title and like. Taylor Alison Swift born in 1989 3x AOTY winner literally said to me, "you've always been there for me. I want to be there for you right now". that is so fucking tender what the fuck is that what the actual fuck is that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[retropopcult]

"Thirteen" is a song by American rock band Big Star.  Rolling Stone describes it "one of rock's most beautiful celebrations of adolescence", and rated it #396 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was written by Alex Chilton and Chris Bell.

The name of the album was #1 Record, which was bitterly ironic, as it ended up selling under 10,000 copies upon its initial release in 1972 (the name of the band also proved to be an unfortunate misnomer, because outside of critics and other musicians, they remained virtually anonymous during their brief time together).

Bell and Chilton wanted to emulate the Lennon/McCartney formula as much as they could, so they shared credit on many of their songs even though there was in fact little writing collaboration between the two. “Thirteen" was in fact entirely Chilton’s creation, and he also delivers the aching vocal that vacillates between hope and heartache and that many cover versions have tried to emulate but never quite matched.

The yearning acoustic ballad focuses on an age that is somewhat underrepresented in pop and rock music. Chilton found that bittersweet spot when innocence still lingers but more complicated emotions start to work their way into the picture.

Over tender guitars, he begins with a question that thirteen-year-old boys have been asking thirteen-year-old girls for generations: “Won’t you let me walk you home from school?” “Won’t you let me meet you at the pool?” he follows, again treading lightly so as not to scare her away. He eventually suggests a date at the dance on Friday; “And I’ll take you,” Chilton delicately sings, as if anything more forceful than a gentle plea will destroy his chances.

In the second verse, the narrator for the first time reveals an obstacle blocking the path to this girl for whom he is clearly falling hard: “Won’t you tell your Dad get off my back?” he asks her. His response to the doubting father is brilliant: “Tell him what we said about ‘Paint It Black.’” By drawing a parallel between his own musical tastes and that of the father, he’s hoping to show that he’ s not just some punk kid with bad intentions.

The final verse finds him struggling as she remains seemingly unknowable (“Won’t you tell me what you’re thinking of?”) resulting in his sweet but awkward follow up (“Would you be an outlaw for my love?”) His final lines redeem him in terms of his integrity and honor, even as they suggest that he’ s losing his opportunity with her in the process: “If it’ s no then I can go/ I won’ t make you.” The final “Ooo-hoo” that Chilton utters is a real killer, tinged as it is with the sting of implied refusal.

Over the decades there have been some fine cover versions of this classic, with brilliant and diverse artists like Garbage, Wilco, and Elliott Smith taking their turns, among many others. But they’d likely all agree they were playing for second behind Chilton’s one-of-a-kind, haunting performance. “Thirteen” is as good as it gets for those looking to relive that moment when life is still rife with possibilities but love seems stubbornly impossible.

Music critic Simon Robinson rates it as Big Star's best song and one of the most important of 1972, praising the "catchy melody and jangly guitars that perfectly capture the carefree and optimistic spirit of youth" and the "simple yet poignant" lyrics that evoke the "experience of teenage romance and heartbreak."

[comfect]

playlist meme

Rules: You can usually tell a lot about a person by the type of music they listen to. Put your playlist on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, and then tag 10 people. No skipping!

I was tagged by @rosyfingered-moon; so nice to find you here!

To be honest, this took a long time because I don't, um, listen to music that I am responsible for very much? The computer I'm typing this on doesn't actually have any music on it at all. So this meant going to my car while driving, where I do have a USB stick with songs (courtesy of @penguinity filling it with music). So I put that on shuffle, and here's what came up!

Half A Heart, Barenaked Ladies. So in general but especially while driving I have a strong preference for soft '90s/early '00s music, and all the BNL on my USB stick is my fault.

My Hometown, Bruce Springsteen. The Springsteen is all (yes, there's another one on this list) from college, specifically working as assistant technical director of The Gondoliers, when my boss was from New Jersey and listened to Springsteen's greatest hits while we worked. He gave me a copy of the CD when the show ended and I listen to it for that nostalgia hit.

Always, Rilo Kiley. This is entirely for driving vibes, which are very similar to my partner's sermon-writing vibes, which is where this song got into rotation.

Great Provider, Barenaked Ladies. I mean, I said I listen to them, but actually this is (I think) my single least favorite of their songs. Oh well.

Black Sand, Jenny Lewis. Since Jenny Lewis is the lead singer on Rilo Kiley, she's pretty well-represented here. This is a great song to not listen to but fill the air with sound while driving.

epiphany, Taylor Swift. You're going to notice a lot of repeats in the artist list. Taylor Swift is one of them. Slow, lingering, good for listening without actually distracting.

If I Fall You're Going Down With Me, The (Dixie) Chicks. (Dixie) in parentheses since they changed their name. This is the opposite of the previous songs; uptempo, makes me want to clap along. But strangely, still really good for the car.

Acid Tongue, Jenny Lewis. I literally never remember the name of this song, because it should be called Liar, because she drawls that word out forEVER, repeatedly.

seven, Taylor Swift. I rarely pay attention to the lyrics, but I think this song has good ones.

Streets of Philadelphia, Bruce Springsteen. You can tell I got this off a greatest hits CD because I had no idea it was a movie soundtrack song for years.

And there we are! So many overlapping artists, because there's only so many vibes I want while driving.

Tagging @penguinity (since you're responsible for most of the playlist existing) and whoever else wants to do it, consider yourselves tagged!

[calronhunt]

So like what are the biggest differences Ava and Mattias bring to the shadowhunter group in COB! (Like you said they're better at math and Mattias seems to be really big into video games n such!) Like it seems Mundane folk and Shadowhunters seem to have different views n such. Just how different is it being born mundane vs into shadowhunter stuff and how does that benefit the group! (if this isn't too spoilery to answer of course!)

YEAH i can answer this! This mostly dives more into the lore of shadowhunters more than anything so sorry if it sounds like a big lore drop.

This...answer really got away from me and turned into a big old info dump so i am. so sososo sorry. it's all below the cut

Being born "mundane" is basically being born a regular old human being like you and me in the modern age. Mundane is simply the term the shadow world uses when referring to normal folk. Generally Mundanes cannot see magical creatures like shadowhunters, the fae, werewolves, vampires, etc because of the glamours that they have, but (as far as I remember) sometimes humans can randomly just be born with The Sight (aka the ability to see past these glamours and see magical creatures). Ava and Mattias are both cases of this. Mattias saw fae and werewolves outside his house when he was a young child, and his mother, who had just went through a very messy divorce around him, assumed it was his child's brain way of coping with the experience by allowing his imagination to go wild and indulged in it. Ava on the other hand did not notice her Sight until she was a teenager, when she and her friend group got attacked by a group of vampires and was the only one who noticed what they were (all her friends had said that they were jumped by a bunch of weird drunk dumbasses). Shadowhunter picked up on both of these cases of mundanes seeing things no one else did, and got a hold of them to take them to the academy (lore wise it's because shadowhunters got FUCKED over during the mortal instruments and lost a shittt ton of people because of 2 back to back wars and they need to replenish their numbers).

Also since the shadowhunters don't want normal mundanes to learn about the shadow world, they told the Mattias and Ava's parents that they were going off to an academy of some kind (just not the kind for killing demons)

Mattias' mom basically believes he got picked up by military recruiters and is currently doing work locally, while Ava's parents were told she was going to an art academy, and they think she's working as a freelance artist somewhere.

As well, being born "mundane" means that they aren't able to wear runes which are a shadowhunters greatest strength because it would literally kill them because they don't have angelic blood like shadowhunters do (which a human CAN become a shadowhunter by way of ascension, where they drink from this thing called the mortal cup and if they survive the process they are a full shadowhunter. which is what mattias and ava did). but also I don't draw the runes on them very often because haha i'm making a comic and i'm not drawing these complicated ass runes every single panel (if you want an example)

SO BASICALLY mundane folk like Mattias and Ava have experience in the Normal Real World and got a Normal Real World Education while people like Theron, Nerissa, and Dominic dooooo not. There are some benefits to this (mostly to have an outside perspective on things) but most of the reason Mundanes are brought into shadowhunter society is simply for necessity.

Being born a shadowhunter is like. an entire different culture than being born a mundane. If I remember right, shadowhunter children receive their first runes at around the age of 10, and begin training from there on. They also learn to draw all of the different runes fast and effectively, learn all major kinds of demons, learns several different demon languages, and learn defenses for taking on different kinds of downworlders. They do have time for hobbies like painting and writing, but the main drive in every shadowhunters life is their ability to kill demons. Dominic was given more leeway because he was picked up by a shadowhunter at a young age but was born mundane. Cicero was going to give him the option of joining regular society, but Dominic really wanted to be a cool demon hunter like his dad. But Theron and Nerissa weren't really given an option. this was what they were told to do and they did it.

Shadowhunter society is also often behind the times in regards to regular society (or at least my personal headcanon they are that way). Since they rarely interact with mundane or mundane goings on, they don't notice the progressive changes made, instead keeping to tradition. One of the shadowhunters main phrases is "the law is hard but it is the law" whenever someone questions a rule put into place. Which is why Theron and dominic (and nerissa. we'll get to hers in comic eventually i promise) have such internalized homophobia, while Mattias and Ava do not. That's not to say shadowhunters haven't made progress (in the books Alec Lightwood just got gay married to his warlock husband magnus bane and also he's the consul which is basically top dog of all shadowhunters), but I think they're a lot slower, if that makes sense.

[lizzygrantarchives]

Rolling Stone UK, March 9, 2023

After a decade of feeling unexcited after the critical response to her debut album Born to Die, the greatest American songwriter of the 21st century is finally inspired about her career and life again. Rolling Stone UK meets her in LA to discuss the “overculture”, romance and her new album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd.

Lana Del Rey had not felt enthusiastic for more than a decade. Her career wasn’t animating her like it used to. Everything felt like an endurance test. This went on for a terribly long time, she says, but it’s over now. It ended three months ago, actually. She and her younger brother Charles, with whom she is highly energetically in tune, went to a mall in the Valley with their sister Caroline’s baby. It was a slow day of total serenity. They breezed through the aisles with their face masks on, invisible to people. After they pulled out of the parking area in separate vehicles, Charles called her and said, “Do you feel like something’s different?”

And Lana Del Rey took an emotional and metaphysical reading of her atmosphere and said, “That’s so funny. I really, really do.”

There was no obvious logic to why this change occurred. “That’s the funniest thing about life,” she tells me in her breathy Old Hollywood voice, sitting on an outdoor sofa in a backyard in Los Angeles. “You can pray and pray and pray to feel unburdened, but for no explanation for why and when, all of a sudden everything lifts.”

Del Rey’s persistent lack of excitement began with the scathing critical reception of her 2012 debut album, Born to Die. Despite its hit status with the public and immediate cult relevance to fans, the hip-hop-inspired orchestral pop album was initially mis-assessed by music journalists and bloggers. Her detractors said she was a hack, a fraud, a rich kid whose entire identity was a construct of a major label and her management. Last-minute changes to the album’s production altered it drastically, which didn’t help in framing who she was. “I was like: ‘This sounds really, really different now. Ballads sound like pop bangers.’ For that reason, instead of being assessed as a more left, thought-based, diaristic or whatever artist, it was assessed on a regular level, which was challenging,” Del Rey recalls. “Having such a heavy critique makes it harder to progress in a cheerful way.”

Her ideas were before their time and heralded a new era of alt-pop where Lorde, Halsey, Sky Ferreira and the next generation’s biggest pop star, Billie Eilish, emerged young, moody and sad. Maybe if some people her own age — Del Rey was then 27 years old — had reviewed and written about her, it might have been different, she thinks. That’s not to say that some critics couldn’t recognise her distinct star power. In an article in the Guardian — one of many that circled the unimportant question of her ‘authenticity’ — a pop-culture magazine editor defended her, saying, “I think she cares about the art that she is creating. I don’t think that’s fake at all,” and adding that, “Lana Del Rey can go anywhere she wants to go. She’s going to one day be the cover of Rolling Stone.”

The year of the album’s release, Del Rey left New York, the state she grew up in, for LA to escape the media and people on the street who treated her with visceral negativity. Experiences and encounters throughout her mid-twenties to mid-thirties further compounded the feeling that the world was not reflecting how she felt about herself. “It was like being in upside-down land,” she remembers. The driving impulse behind her work was no longer self-expression, which was true of that debut and, to a dwindling degree, her follow-up, 2014’s melancholic, stripped-back Ultraviolence. “It was not about anything other than surviving and trying to add a little bit of glamour and explanation of how I planned to get through some of the stuff I was singing about,” she says. In the case of Ultraviolence, that was contemptuous romance, being the ‘other woman’, isolation and loss. Later, it would be co-dependency, passivity in relationships, fame and her complicated connections to men, her mother and America.

As Del Rey explains how she regained her former lust for life, she wonders in real time if the way we currently relate to each other more positively around mental health and trauma could have contributed. “It’s almost like no one can do any wrong, unless you’re Kanye talking about Nazis, which is, you know, a problem. But other than that, you can kind of be like, ‘Well, when I was ten, a tree fell and ever since then I haven’t felt that I could walk to the store…’. Everyone has these nuanced but specific stories that are so universal to people, and I think the culture shifting and softening had something to do with it, without me knowing about it.”

It’s a good thing because Del Rey was really wondering, ‘Where’s the regeneration period?’ Finally, she beams, after 11 years she is excited again.

Meeting Lana Del Rey in person is strange given the degree of iconography around her. She’s not in monochrome or sepia tones, nor is she wearing one of her favoured white dresses complete with palpable A-list aura. Instead, you have the uncanny sense of experiencing a deceptively understated human being like a David Lynch or Joan Didion or Patti Smith: an artist who either created a world, documented the world or really lived in the world. If you’re Del Rey, you simultaneously and prolifically do all three.

It’s mid-afternoon a few days before Valentine’s Day. I’m in the garden of a modern West Hollywood home seemingly made of stone, glass and pure light. Del Rey is exactly as any fan obsessed with her everyday paparazzi photos would hope. When she steps out through the patio doors for our interview, she’s dressed in a white V-neck, brown zip-up hoodie and yoga pants, bare-faced except for light kohl and eyelash extensions and with her long brunette hair down like a gorgeous off-duty soccer mom. She juggles a red vape, the keys to her truck, a venti Starbucks cup and an iPhone she smashed on the way here. In short, this is the most normal genius you’ve ever seen.

Del Rey moves as she speaks, with the mannerisms of a 50s luminary transported to a world of Brandy Melville, Sephora and Instagram. Her answers to questions are elusive and seem to curl and drift away like a wisp of smoke, which only underlines the fact that we don’t know much about her. She’s funny in the unsanitised and undecipherable ways your favourite creative friend would be if they were famous, like when she tweeted Azealia Banks, the rapper who started a feud with her: “U know the addy. Pull up anytime.” Or when she did an Instagram live from a Denny’s restaurant with her then-boyfriend as he gave presidential election updates to her and her fans. Or, if the rumours are to be believed, when she paid for a billboard to promote her upcoming album in an ex’s hometown — and only that town. Her casualness is at unambiguous odds with her image in photoshoots and music videos — the coiffed brunette housewife meets movie star — because she’s predominantly a songwriter and, since the release of 2019’s ambitious state-of-the-nation folk-pop album Norman Fucking Rockwell!, widely considered one of the best currently working today.

Daily life for Del Rey is just as basic and uncomplicated. Her friend and the producer of some of her most recent and best work, Jack Antonoff, is a constant witness to this. “Lana is in her truck at a gas station in LA, thinking and writing some lyrics, FaceTiming me, going to visit her friend, going to a different gas station, just sitting in the parking lot in her truck and thinking. It’s not a ‘bit’, that’s not a character,” he says. “People often don’t understand this about her, because so many people are playing characters these days. She’s just a wild soul.” As she said in an interview with Billboard a few years ago, when the muse takes her, she’s writing, but when it leaves her alone, she’s just in Starbucks, talking shit with her friends.

The mystical ordinariness of Lana Del Rey has been heightened by the fact that she decided to escape the “overculture” sometime in 2021. That year she announced she would be leaving Instagram to focus on her creative projects. She continued to use a private Instagram account, where she posts to the two million fans who didn’t miss the brief periods it was made public and accessible. The idea of an overculture — as coined by psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés to mean the dominant culture we try to navigate without being over-assimilated into, thereby losing our unusual talents — was presented to Del Rey by her psychic Tessa Dipietro, who she sees weekly every Thursday. “I was talking to Tessa about feeling that there just wasn’t really a place for me to land, physically and psyche-wise,” she says. “I think if you’re a singer and people’s opinions of the work change so many times, you kind of realise: OK, there’s something to be learned from what you hear. At the same time, I’m definitely not one who thrives from outside validation, other than from a few people. It was very important to me to not have any influence from the outside culture that didn’t resonate with me. I always knew that I was going to do something else as well, aside from singing. To be more connected to what that path was going to be, I just needed to tune in more to my gut.”

By retreating, she believes she has begun to see the culture more clearly. Her albums have followed suit, increasingly humorous and observational in their commentary. Meanwhile, regardless of genre, her sound has distilled into something that is pure Lana: classic and glamorous with her trademark airy, theatrical vocals. She found a fellow partially off-grid companion in Antonoff. “Jack Antonoff and I are super similar in the way we know about so much that’s going on culturally, but we have no idea how. We definitely don’t read that much about it or hear that much about it, but all of those turning points in culture, somehow we’re always aware,” she explains. Often, she and Antonoff will sit together in the studio and discuss what they’re doing to try to survive the negative waves of trends in tech, self-promotion, music and society. “I think even if I was in a remote area, I would always know what’s going on and I’ve always had a little bit of an intuitive finger on the pulse of culture,” she continues. “Even when I started singing, I knew it wouldn’t completely jive right away.”

A spiritual instinct is ever-present in Del Rey, the person. As soon as she sits down, we’re laughing about astrology and the time she tweeted her birth time and everyone realised — along with her — that she’s a Cancer, not a Gemini. “Once I had a thousand dollars, I bought this beautiful Gemini medallion which is no longer relevant to me,” she hoots, clapping her hands together. She’s so impressed with her regular psychic that every time someone tells her that she must be proud of her music, she thinks, “‘You should see what these people in the wellness community can do’ — especially in LA, it’s the mecca.” Singing is a talent too, but psychic abilities to her are magic. “It’s so validating when I meet someone like that because it’s very affirmative that there’s so much more going on.”

This fascination with the otherworldly began when she was young growing up in Lake Placid, New York. “I had fun playing sports and meeting new friends, but I was concerned about why there were no television shows or talks from people and parents about where they thought we came from and why they thought we were here. It deeply troubled me from the age of four,” she remembers. “So, my parents did have their hands full with a lot of esoteric questions. I think that’s just a predisposition.” Attending a Catholic elementary school only encouraged this search for knowledge, as did her philosophy class at age 15. In the mid-00s, she went to Fordham University in the Bronx to study for a degree in philosophy with a specialism in metaphysics. “I tried to get as many questions answered in four years as I could,” she says, sagely. “And then I was taught that philosophy was a study of questions, not answers. There were no answers, which almost made things worse.”

Plenty of girls who were drawn to the idea of being looked after by a divine plan grow up to become women who exist with the exclusive purpose of knowing an all-encompassing romantic love. An impassioned relationship offers escape from the greyscale existence of living out the complicated family dynamics they typically grew up with. Del Rey announced herself as one of these women with her first artistic statement: “They say that the world was built for two / Only worth living if somebody is loving you.”

That first single ‘Video Games’ captivated restless listeners with its repeated, self-abandoning call of “It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you”. Of that sentiment Del Rey can only say, “We were in a town of 600 for most of my life, so that seemed like what the trajectory was: school, junior college, trade school… get married?”

If you made a Venn diagram of people who narrativise their pain to survive and those who make a man the protagonist of their lives and encourage his self-mythologising, you’d find Lana Del Rey acolytes in the intersection. For obvious reasons, young women and gay men were largely possessed by the dark star of Americana when she debuted. Her early music synthesised the all-consuming concerns of my late teens and early twenties: seeking out money and nurturing from men, the ways in which sex (and the withholding of sex) was weaponised and how I resented and desired that, the exhausting and obsessive project of love that could be so easily dismissed by an idiot playing video games. In the female empowerment era of the 2010s, Del Rey represented the pleasure and fun of being a woman but also the indignity of being one when you believe romantic love will solve any material or emotional problem.

When I mention this adoring cohort of fans from the Born to Die era, Del Rey responds with a breathy gasp: “I thought it was going to be for the boys! But again, it’s funny how it turned out to be the opposite. What an amazing lesson to foray into your people: The Girls.” Her eyes widen conspiratorially. “Love the girls. Girl’s girl. How awesome is that? But no, I definitely wrote Born to Die for the boys.” A big laugh from Del Rey at how ironic this is. “I mean, if you listen to it, it’s kind of…” This impression of herself she does almost inaudibly: “Pick me! Listen to me!”

From Ultraviolence onwards, male and female critics accused Del Rey of glamourising abusive relationships. Meanwhile, other women — including Del Rey and her fans — were living out those common painful or toxic relationships. “The one thing I’ve never been spared from is having these normal, somewhat contentious relationships,” explains Del Rey, punctuating thoughts with raised eyebrows or a pointed tone. “It’s not like if you become a singer, when you date people, they feel like they have to be nice to you because if they’re not, maybe they’d be called out. That never happens. They’re still themselves completely. And I think that’s why some people might call some of my stuff polarising, because either you’ve been in a contentious family dynamic or interpersonal relationships, or you haven’t. So, if you haven’t you might use the words or phrases I’ve heard like ‘feigning fragility’, or ‘glorifying being submissive’. OK. Maybe it’s also just trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel?” To bring these narratives into a musical context and make them sonically depressing or the accompanying visuals unappealing wouldn’t work for Del Rey. “You’re writing what happened but you’re also trying to lift it up a little bit, maybe melodically in the chorus,” she says.

If emotionally abusive relationships are all you’ve ever known, there are relational lessons that have to be completed to proceed to healthier dynamics. That’s probably why Del Rey’s songs are increasingly self-possessed and full of humour about these relationships (“God damn, man child,” she practically winks to us as she opens ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’). Often these lessons come directly from specific people, Del Rey says, referring to a relationship with one particular man: “The lesson was so shocking and it didn’t even really take the sting out of it. But I realised only that person with that particular look and stature and cheerful disposition that people considered him to have — that almost made me look like I wasn’t the positive one — only that kind of person could’ve brought me to my knees in the way that I needed to see what else I could add to my life to have a baseline foundation so that I could always come back to myself.”

In a poem from her first collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, she describes desperately travelling to an AA meeting, knowing that she must leave her unpleasant relationship with a secretive man. She cries to the women and rehab teens while she tells her story. Del Rey ends ‘Thanks to the Locals’ with the lines: “I don’t have a pretty couplet to give resolution to this poem / nothing very eloquent to say / except that I was brave / and it would’ve been easier to stay”.

This was completely autobiographical and it’s amusing to Del Rey that no one knows she and this man were in an on-off relationship for years because they were never pictured together. “There’s also a lot of carnage that can come from being the partner to the person who is the funniest, sparkliest bar fly in the room,” she says of this relationship, laughing when she adds, “Now I’m like, ‘Get your sparkle away from me.’” She considers this person briefly, looking across to the swimming pool that takes up most of the backyard. “Everybody wants you…” Which is funny, she says, because you’d think as a singer that everyone would want her, pay her attention, not her partner. “That’s probably why I am interested in those kinds of people because it’s never about me in those cases, it’s always about them. And I love that because I don’t have to think about what people are thinking.”

The conversation moves towards our generation’s current inability to maintain a relationship. I ask if she thinks this is less because our ideals around marriage or commitment have changed and more because we’re conscious of ourselves and how we evolve which makes it harder to meet people and stay together for more than…

“…a year,” she says, finishing my sentence. “I never understood the saying ‘timing is everything’ but I get it now.” I suggest that you can torture yourself wondering if the timing had been right, you’d be together still. “That’s my whole thing. I’ve literally in the last couple of months left that whole question on the back burner. Because it would bother me.”

The metaphysical and the romantic are entwined in her mind. A recent relationship she had with someone entrenched in their own personal problems comes up and Del Rey describes the mysterious way the question of whether to go or to stay in a partnership can manifest change. “I was laying on the grass and I was so pleased with myself because I was committed to this idea that I was like, ‘It doesn’t really matter, things don’t have to be traditional or perfect, you love him, that’s fine,’” she recalls. “And as I committed, he came home and was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ Tessa always says as soon as the person who is somewhat ambivalent tries to put two feet into the relationship, if it’s not right the universe has a way to sweep both people out immediately.”

So, when I ask why the overarching theme in her work is romantic love, the answer seems so obvious, as though we’re repeating ourselves. “Everybody finds themselves in a different way,” she replies. “Some people really find themselves through their work, some people find themselves through travelling. I think my basic mode is that I learn more about myself from being with people, and so when it comes to the romantic side of things, if you’re monogamous and it’s one person you’re with, you just put a lot of importance on that.” It’s different to her now, though, as part of this puzzling mood shift. Now in life and in writing she is orientated towards what’s happening day to day, “not being reactive to what appears to be the reality of the current circumstance and being as proactive as you can but letting everything go.”

If you had wondered why Del Rey released two albums in 2021, it’s because one was a reactive album. It was a final decision to respond directly to circumstance. The Chemtrails over the Country Club cover art was a black and white photograph of a group of women, including Del Rey, sitting around a table presumably at one of these clubs. Some commented that given the political climate around Black Lives Matter it wouldn’t hurt for her to feature Black women on her album artwork (the women on the cover art were Del Rey’s friends and some of them were women of colour). Immediately after being condemned for her response to that criticism, Del Rey decided to create and release more music about the accusations of cultural appropriation and previous claims that she glamourised domestic abuse. “I was just like, ‘Let me try and write an album that maybe could explain why, if that was true, let’s say, I could potentially identify with certain modes of operating,’” she says. “So, Blue Banisters was more of an explanatory album, more of a defensive album, which is why I didn’t promote it, period, at all. I didn’t want anyone to listen to it. I just wanted it to be there in case anyone was ever curious for any information.”

Del Rey’s music once had a cool distance. It felt like she was melancholically singing over your shoulder. Now, however, her lines are played straight to the camera and then knock the fourth wall aside entirely to speak to you directly. There’s a playfulness, freedom and an honesty about her immediate reality on her new album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Tracks flow in a jazzlike trance; classic piano and acoustic songs blend into hip-hop, pop, gospel and choral numbers. Colloquial lyrics move as fast as a Beat writer’s poem: they seamlessly speak to a friend about culture, offer mundane updates on what’s going on in her daily life, present notes on dark relationships. But songs frequently, as Antonoff notes, come together with a “voice of God, some joy or hopefulness”.

Antonoff returns as a producer on multiple tracks. “You have a weird whiplash of not knowing what you’re supposed to feel,” says Antonoff of the second single, the horror folk meets internet rap track, ‘A&W’. “That sensation is across the album: you could dissect the tone of whether it’s hints of gospel or bringing back some of the 808s and the fucked-up side of things. But in the studio, it was just about finding what is shocking in the moment.”

The tunnel under Ocean Boulevard is a real place. In LA’s downtown Long Beach, the abandoned Jergins Tunnel will still gleam if you cast a light on its white, sand and caramel-coloured tiles and beige mosaics on the floor. People walk above today not knowing what lies beneath. In the late 60s, it was sealed off and closed to the public, but once upon a time it was a subway for holidaymakers to access the beach. Cotton candy and souvenir vendors lined those walls. Not to be too literal, Del Rey says of Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, but “would it be a worrisome concept to be boxed out and sealed up with all these beautiful things inside with no one able to gain access except maybe family?”

It’s a revealing query that shows Del Rey’s sensitivity around how she’s perceived and understood has softened but remains an enigmatic concern. “That was a question I had because that’s a very plausible thing that could happen with the music, with how pointed people’s perceptions of my music can be,” she explains further. “Would it probably, plausibly, get to the point where it became a body of work that made me a vessel that was sequestered to the point where only family would have access to the metaphorical tunnel?”

This album is a box of treasures of its own dedicated to family. You hear it in the constant reminders that this is what Del Rey calls a “name-out or call-out album”. She mentions her father, sister, brother, Caroline’s baby and all those loved ones around her to “keep them close in the music” because they’re with her every day. Some jokes and lines are drawn directly from conversations with her girlfriends, like on ‘Fishtail’ when a friend’s date promised he would come over to her house to braid her hair, but he never did. “If people think my music is good it’s because there’s other people involved in the songs and in the process of making it. So many people,” she says, with a smile at just how good it is.

On the title track and first single, Del Rey asks longingly, “When’s it gonna be my turn?” Though she says this refers to wondering when it’s her turn for anything to happen for her, the question of whether she will carry the family line on by being a mother and when (and whether marriage and love is included in that) appears multiple times across the album. As for maternal yearnings, she’ll only talk about the passage in The Bell Jar when Sylvia Plath’s protagonist considers the metaphorical tree of life choices that face a woman: marriage, children, career options and so on. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet, Plath wrote.

“It’s giving fig tree,” says Del Rey. “It’s giving Sylvia Plath, so many figs and if I don’t pick one first, they’ll all wither away and then there will be no figs to choose from.”

There are questions of knowing and not knowing when it comes to love on the album. On a fairground-style meditation that wouldn’t feel out of place on a remake of Amélie (‘Paris, Texas’), Del Rey travels from Paris to Alabama barely needing to wonder about her failing relationship back home anymore: “When you know, you know / The more you know, it’s time to go”. Later, on the delightfully rom-com-esque ‘Margaret’, we learn that The One is not a myth. It was written for Antonoff’s fiancé Margaret Qualley as the kind of song that could hypothetically be played at their wedding. “So if you don’t know, don’t give up / Because you never know what the new day might bring,” Del Rey says brightly to anyone not as sure as Antonoff and Qualley. For those still searching for their person, there is always the devotional love that overarches the 77 minutes in the form of God, preacher’s lessons, and a warm and wistful spiritualism.

In the vein of including the loved ones around her, Del Rey’s ex-boyfriend, the cameraman and DP Mike Hermosa, also features as a producer on the album. If it weren’t for him the album would not exist. Every Sunday, Hermosa would play his guitar around Del Rey, who began to sneakily record him. On one occasion, she asked if she could sing along and out came ‘Did You know’ in full. “Music is like a little bird who is always right on my shoulder,” she says. “Even when I’m looking for respite someone always comes in and plays a little tune and I’m like, ‘Shit, it’s happening again.’”

From then, every available Sunday, they’d record a song on her phone. Five of those appear on the album. “When we broke up, I was like, ‘You know at some point we’re going to have to talk about the fact that you have half of this album. It will come out,’” she says. Thankfully, Hermosa heard the finished album and called her to tell her he loved it. “The water is warm out there to be a couple of different things, so he’s definitely warmed-up to it. He has to be, he’s on the album sleeve smoking a vape. He’s fucked!”

That Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd feels once again so different from what she’s done before and yet a collage of everything she’s ever made — it even ends with the grimy, heavy, original and unheard version of ‘Venice Bitch’ — is testament to where Del Rey is nine studio albums into her career. “Lana is boundaryless,” says Antonoff. “She’s reached a point in her work, which is really my favourite place to work from, where there’s nowhere to go but way out into the fucking wilderness artistically. Go chase radio? That’d be so stupid. Go chase trends? So stupid. She created all the trends. It’s a freeing place, if you can accept it. The only place to go is to be a leader.” So, she sauntered ahead with the bird on her shoulder to create what was, according to her, the easiest album she’s ever made.

Do you know about telomeres? They’re the strange, hand-shaped nerve endings that shrink as you age. Experts think that within a decade we’ll be able to preserve them. During the creation of Did You know, Del Rey continued her research into telomeres and the concept of the extinction of death, wondering if she and her family will be all right, will they reach this ten-year mark? Something so freaky is naturally fascinating to Del Rey. “Why not have that be the focus: self-preservation. Just to stay around and see what happens, you know?” she says encouragingly, seeing my concerned expression. “It’s a good thing — or at least my dad has always said that it’s going to happen and he’s been waiting. He’s very in touch with the scientific revelations that have been happening throughout the past ten years, or more. But I keep seeing it now, there’s been two articles in the last two weeks.” Why not live forever!

She’s excited now, elegantly bulldozing away on a tangent. “No matter what happens from here on out, I already learned everything — I can tell — I’ve learned everything I need to know, I don’t need to experience anything else,” she says. “I’m just really happy that I pushed through all those turbulent times that were sometimes brought upon by myself and sometimes were suppressed onto me by other people and things to the point that I’m just so lucky that my heart isn’t fragmented all over the world, bits of it with other people who it doesn’t belong to, that my head is clear enough to not have my self-will run riot all the time.”

“And,” she says as a grin strikes her face, “to still enjoy the fucking fact that I’m on the cover of Rolling Stone. Are you kidding me?! To be able to enjoy that and also to know that it’s about the experience of it. To enjoy the fact, the fun literal fact, that you’re on the cover of Rolling Stone. The first time I was on the cover of US Rolling Stone, I couldn’t believe it but what’s more unbelievable is 11 years later to be on the cover of UK Rolling Stone. That’s unfathomable. I can’t actually even register it. It’s wild.” Later, she’ll pass through the patio doors into the open-plan kitchen and use her hands and upper body strength to spring off the table like a baby lamb, saying, “I’m on the cover of Rolling Stone!” It’s a jubilant surprise for anyone in the room who witnesses it.

The interview on the patio has essentially finished because we’ve segued into Lana Del Rey giving me advice on her specialist subject (men). We hunch over her iPhone to see a photo she took of a forgotten copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience that she discovered when going through her old belongings. Years ago, Del Rey wrote something on the sleeve. “What a beautiful concept: to have a bottom line of what you will not do. I myself would love to be with someone who doesn’t believe in pressure and someone who ignites passion not just safely, someone whose look reminds me of why I love living, a person whose naturalness reminds me of my own and that beauty is to be enjoyed.”

We sit back on the garden furniture, and she gives me the patient look of an older sister imparting knowledge. Then she says, delicately and so off-handedly it’s coy, “I had a lot of ideas there.”

Originally published on rollingstone.co.uk with the headline Lana Del Rey: she does it for the girls.

[letterboxd]

In Focus: The Mummy

Dominic Corry responds on behalf of Letterboxd to an impassioned plea to bump up the average rating of the 1999 version of The Mummy—and asks: where is the next great action adventure coming from?

We recently received the following email regarding the Stephen Sommers blockbuster The Mummy:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you on behalf of the nation, if not the entire globe, who frankly deserve better than this after months of suffering with the Covid pandemic.

I was recently made aware that the rating of The Mummy on your platform only stands at 3.3 stars out of five. … This, as I’m sure you’re aware, is simply unacceptable. The Mummy is, as a statement of fact, the greatest film ever made. It is simply fallacious that anyone should claim otherwise, or that the rating should fail to reflect this. This oversight cannot be allowed to stand.

I have my suspicions that this rating has been falsely allocated due to people with personal axes to grind against The Mummy, most likely other directors who are simply jealous that their own artistic oeuvres will never attain the zenith of perfection, nor indeed come close to approaching the quality or the cultural influence of The Mummy. There is, quite frankly, no other explanation. The Mummy is, objectively speaking, a five-star film (… I would argue that it in fact transcends the rating sytem used by us mere mortals). It would only be proper, as a matter of urgency, to remove all fake ratings (i.e. any ratings [below] five stars) and allow The Mummy’s rating to stand, as it should, at five stars, or perhaps to replace the rating altogether with a simple banner which reads “the greatest film of all time, objectively speaking”. I look forward to this grievous error being remedied.

Best, Anwen

Which of course: no, we would never do that. But the vigor Anwen expresses in her letter impressed us (we checked: she’s real, though is mostly a Letterboxd lurker due to a busy day-job in television production, “so finding time to watch anything that isn’t The Mummy is, frankly, impossible… not that there’s ever any need to watch anything else, of course.”).

So Letterboxd put me, Stephen Sommers fan, on the job of paying homage to the last great old-school action-adventure blockbuster, a film that straddles the end of one cinematic era and the beginning of the next one. And also to ask: where’s the next great action adventure coming from?

Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah in ‘The Mummy’ (1999).

When you delve into the Letterboxd reviews of The Mummy, it quickly becomes clear how widely beloved the film is, 3.3 average notwithstanding. Of more concern to the less youthful among us is how quaintly it is perceived, as if it harkens back to the dawn of cinema or something. “God, I miss good old-fashioned adventure movies,” bemoans Holly-Beth. “I have so many fond memories of watching this on TV with my family countless times growing up,” recalls Jess. “A childhood classic,” notes Simon.

As alarming as it is to see such wistful nostalgia for what was a cutting-edge, special-effects-laden contemporary popcorn hit, it has been twenty-one years since the film was released, so anyone currently in their early 30s would’ve encountered the film at just the right age for it to imprint deeply in their hearts. This has helped make it a Raiders of the Lost Ark for a specific Letterboxd demographic.

Sommers took plenty of inspiration from the Indiana Jones series for his take on The Mummy (the original 1932 film, also with a 3.3 average, is famously sedate), but for ten-year-olds in 1999, it may have been their only exposure to such pulpy derring-do. And when you consider that popcorn cinema would soon be taken over by interconnected on-screen universes populated by spandex-clad superheroes, the idea that The Mummy is an old-fashioned movie is easier to comprehend.

However, for all its throwbackiness, beholding The Mummy from the perspective of 2020 reveals it to have more to say about the future of cinema than the past. 1999 was a big year for movies, often considered one of the all-time best, but the legacy of The Mummy ties it most directly to two of that year’s other biggest hits: Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace and The Matrix. These three blockbusters represented a turning point for the biggest technological advancement to hit the cinematic art-form since the introduction of sound: computer-generated imagery, aka CGI. The technique had been widely used from 1989’s The Abyss onwards, and took significant leaps forward with movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997), but the three 1999 films mentioned above signified a move into the era when blockbusters began to be defined by their CGI.

A year before The Mummy, Sommers had creatively utilised CGI in his criminally underrated sci-fi action thriller Deep Rising (another film that deserves a higher average Letterboxd rating, just sayin’), and he took this approach to the next level with The Mummy. While some of the CGI in The Mummy doesn’t hold up as well as the technopunk visuals presented in The Matrix, The Mummy showed how effective the technique could be in an historical setting—the expansiveness of ancient Egypt depicted in the movie is magnificent, and the iconic rendering of Imhotep’s face in the sand storm proved to be an enduringly creepy image. Not to mention those scuttling scarab beetles.

George Lucas wanted to test the boundaries of the technique with his insanely anticipated new Star Wars film after dipping his toe in the digital water with the special editions of the original trilogy. Beyond set expansions and environments, a bunch of big creatures and cool spaceships, his biggest gambit was Jar Jar Binks, a major character rendered entirely through CGI. And we all know how that turned out.

A CGI-enhanced Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep.

Sommers arguably presented a much more effective CGI character in the slowly regenerating resurrected Imhotep. Jar Jar’s design was “bigger” than the actor playing him on set, Ahmed Best. Which is to say, Jar Jar took up more space on screen than Best. But with the zombie-ish Imhotep, Sommers (ably assisted by Industrial Light & Magic, who also worked on the Star Wars films) used CGI to create negative space, an effect impossible to achieve with practical make-up—large parts of the character were missing. It was an indelible visual concept that has been recreated many times since, but Sommers pioneered its usage here, and it contributed greatly to the popcorn horror threat posed by the character.

Sommers, generally an unfairly overlooked master of fun popcorn spectacle (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is good, guys), deserves more credit for how he creatively utilized CGI to elevate the storytelling in The Mummy. But CGI isn’t the main reason the film works—it’s a spry, light-on-its-feet adventure that presents an iconic horror property in an entertaining and adventurous new light. And it happens to feature a ridiculously attractive cast all captured just as their pulchritudinous powers were peaking.

Meme-worthy: “My sexual orientation is the cast of ‘The Mummy’ (1999).”

A rising star at the time, Brendan Fraser was mostly known for comedic performances, and although he’d proven himself very capable with his shirt off in George of the Jungle (1997), he wasn’t necessarily at the top of anyone’s list for action-hero roles. But he is superlatively charming as dashing American adventurer Rick O’Connell. His fizzy chemistry with Weisz, playing the brilliant-but-clumsy Egyptologist Evie Carnahan, makes the film a legitimate romantic caper. The role proved to be a breakout for Weisz, then perhaps best known for playing opposite Keanu Reeves in the trouble-plagued action flop Chain Reaction, or for her supporting role in the Liv Tyler vehicle Stealing Beauty.

“90s Brendan Fraser is what Chris Pratt wishes he was,” argues Holly-Beth. “Please come back to us, Brendaddy. We need you.” begs Joshhh. “I’d like to thank Rachel Weisz for playing an integral role in my sexual awakening,” offers Sree.

Then there’s Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bey, a member of the Medjai, a sect dedicated to preventing Imhotep’s tomb from being discovered, and Patricia Velásquez as Anck-su-namun, Imhotep’s cursed lover. Both stupidly good-looking. Heck, Imhotep himself (South African Arnold Vosloo, coming across as Billy Zane’s more rugged brother), is one of the hottest horror villains in the history of cinema.

“Remember when studio movies were sexy?” laments Colin McLaughlin. We do Colin, we do.

Sommers directed a somewhat bloated sequel, The Mummy Returns, in 2001, which featured the cinematic debut of one Dwayne Johnson. His character got a spin-off movie the following year (The Scorpion King), which generated a bunch of DTV sequels of its own, and is now the subject of a Johnson-produced reboot. Brendan Fraser came back for a third film in 2008, the Rob Cohen-directed The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Weisz declined to participate, and was replaced by Maria Bello.

Despite all the follow-ups, and the enduring love for the first Sommers film, there has been a sadly significant dearth of movies along these lines in the two decades since it was released. The less said about 2017 reboot The Mummy (which was supposed to kick-off a new Universal Monster shared cinematic universe, and took a contemporary, action-heavy approach to the property), the better.

The Rock in ‘The Mummy Returns’ (2001).

For a long time, adventure films were Hollywood’s bread and butter, but they’re surprisingly thin on the ground these days. So it makes a certain amount of sense that nostalgia for the 1999 The Mummy continues to grow. You could argue that many of the superhero films that dominate multiplexes count as adventure movies, but nobody really sees them that way—they are their own genre.

There are, however, a couple of films on the horizon that could help bring back old-school cinematic adventure. One is the long-planned—and finally actually shot—adaptation of the Uncharted video-game franchise, starring Tom Holland. The games borrow a lot from the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll be interesting to see how much that manifests in the adaptation.

Then there’s Letterboxd favorite David Lowery’s forever-upcoming medieval adventure drama The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander (who herself recently rebooted another video-game icon, Lara Croft). Plus they are still threatening to make another Indiana Jones movie, even if it no longer looks like Steven Spielberg will direct it.

While these are all exciting projects—and notwithstanding the current crisis in the multiplexes—it can’t help but feel like we may never again get a movie quite like The Mummy, with its unlikely combination of eye-popping CGI, old-fashioned adventure tropes and a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble of overflowing hotness. Long may love for it reign on Letterboxd—let’s see if we can’t get that average rating up, the old fashioned way. For Anwen.

Related content

How I Letterboxd with The Mummy fan Eve (“The first film I went out and bought memorabilia for… it was a Mummy action figure that included canopic jars”)

The Mummy (Universal) Collection

Every film featuring the Mummy (not mummies in general)

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

[rein4r1]

Mr. Artiste

Wc: 2.7k

Warning/s: Mentions of possessive behavior

Pairing/s: [Titanic AU] Jean x F!Reader, Floch x F!Reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Smut

Synopsis: Meeting him was like breathing fresh air in her already suffocating life. (Titanic Au)

MINORS DNI

“What is it? A sapphire?”

“A diamond. A very rare diamond, called the Heart of Ymir.” She watches Jean as he examines the exorbitant jewel. “I want you to draw me like one of your Maria girls.” He continues to examine the diamond, clearly finding it’s luxury unbelievable. “Wearing this.” She stared at him and smiled, “wearing only this.”

He did this many times before, drawing different kinds of women not only in Maria but in Rose as well, the place of his hometown. As an artist, women’s bodies were one of the greatest subjects to draw, they were intricate to draw but not intricate to understand. This kind of artwork is often shunned upon by the simplecrowd who were too fickle to understand, viewing this kind of art as licentious. Jean begged to differ, whenever he draws women, their eyes bore into his soul, as if whispering to him a secret that they can only emanate through their nude form.

Jean waited patiently, sharpening his set of pencil with a knife. His sketchbook open, ready to feel each stroke of Jean’s gifted hands. Seeing her withdraw from her room, he can’t help but swallow a lump in his throat; completely enamored by his lover in front of him, he could only look away. Wearing only a nightrobe and The Heart of Ymir underneath, she teasingly spins the tie of her robe, only to worsen the forming bulge in his pants. No matter how alluring and charming the woman is, he knew that as an artist, he must keep everything completely professional.

“The last thing I need is another picture of me looking like an oriental doll. As a paying customer, I expect to get what I want.” Quickly tossing him a silver coin. Jean could only watch as she parted her nightrobe in a teasing manner, the article of clothing slowly drops from her body to the floor. ‘Ah shit’, he can’t help but feel the tightening of his already harden bulge. Poor Mr. Artist, trying so hard to ignore the aroused pain in between his pants.

“Sit down, uhh yeah there on the… yup.” He awkwardly point for on the chaise lounge. She happily obliges, eyes never leaving his brown orbs. “What now Mr. Kirstein?” He then proceeds to give instructions on where to place her hands. “Keep your eyes on me, and try to stay still.”

“I believe you are blushing, Mr. Big Artiste. Do you like what you see?” He could only chuckle, the deep tone of his voice resonating the quiet room. She watches as he starts drawing on his sketchpad, looking at his seriousness adoringly. She cannot deny the affection she holds for this man, to her, Jean became the fresh air in her already suffocating life.

She spent her entire life conforming to her mother’s standards, doing anything to please the woman. Becoming the perfect Marleyan lady, she grew up in her mother’s strict surveillance, from hiring the best of the bestgoverness in Liberio to sending her to the most exclusive boarding school in Marley. She grew up a life of servitude to her family’s glory, she felt no different from a luxurious porcelain doll; handled with care for her expensive value.

After the death of her father, they were left with nothing but numerous debts under a glorious name. Needless to say, all of the wealth her family has accumulated throughout generations are gone, they were just a penniless family with a noble name.

The widower then met a young wealthy man and heir to a mining company in Paradis, Floch Forster. Since he had the money to salvage whatever dignity they have left, she immediately forcibly subjected her daughter to an arranged marriage with the young heir.

You see, Floch and her mother weren’t any different, treating her like some beautiful garment to parade in gatherings and parties, she secretly came to loath whatever her life became. And in order to please her mother and save her family’s face, she begrudgingly accepted the proposal. They were set to marry in winter, after their arrival to Paradis.

“So, this is the ship they say is unsinkable” Her mother noted as her eyes glanced at the large ship, taking its aesthetic and magnificence. “It is unsinkable. God himself couldn’t sink this ship.” Floch said condescendingly and bumptious. In front of them is the largest ship known to man, the Colossus. The servants proceeded to handle their possessions as Y/N could only marvel at its glory.

She couldn’t accept her mother’s selfishness and her fiancé’s possessive behavior any longer, leading her to the edge of the ship’s deck in a break down. She reluctantly looks at the ocean below with tears cascading her skin, she could only hope for a life where she isn’t treated less than a luxurious property.

“Don’t do it” She whips her head to see a young brunette man in white shirt and brown slacks. Glaring at the young man, she turns her head away, her sight getting blurry of the tears.

“Stay back! Don’t come any closer!”

“Take my hand I’ll pull you in.”

“No! Stay Where you are. I mean it. I’ll let go!”

“No, you won’t.” She whips her head back to the man, looking at him with an unbelievable expression. “What do you mean I won’t?” She noticed how calm this man was, but unbeknownst to her, the man internally panics and fears for the girl’s life. He could only retort her that if she really meant what she said, she would’ve jumped without having second thoughts.

She noticed him taking his boots off one by one. Carefully threading near her as to not scare the girl. “I’m a good swimmer” he said, “but I’m more worried about the water being cold. You see I grew up in Trost somewhere in Rose, and God the winter there is cold. I went ice-fishing with my father, well… Ice-fishing is where you-“

“For God’s sake, I know what an ice-fishing is!”

“I apologize, you don’t come off as an outdoor kind of girl. Well, you see, water that cold,” he points to the dark ocean below, “It hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can't breathe, you can't think... at least not the freezing pain that welcomes you.” He proceeds to offer his outstretched hand on which she could only look with a bemused expression.

“I know I look crazy, but I don’t really look forward to jumping with you… That’s why can you take my hand?” She reluctantly reaches for his hand, “My name’s Jean Kirstein, and I promise I won’t let go.” He pulls her away from the railings, resulting in falling together onto the deck with Jean below her. She could only wrap her arms tightly as she whimpers on his neck, he then brought his hand to pat her head, hoping it would stop the tears that continuously descend from her eyes.

Jean knows of the girl, well not her name, but how could he forget such an ethereal lady that managed to entrance his artistic eyes, ‘the lady from the upper deck’ as he dubbed her. Just a few moments ago, he was just lounging around some bench, smoking as he thought of the winsome girl from the upper deck, clearly a place that penniless folks like him could only dream of.

After a couple of minutes of sniffling on his shirt, she looked up to Jean. And in an instant, she quickly stood up, failingly brushing off the creases that already formed on her dress. They quietly studied each other’s appearance, feeling as if there’s something there. Their moment only lasted a short while when Floch came in running towards her, dragging her away from Jean.

“Who are you? And what did you do to her?!”

“Floch stop! He saved me! It was silly actually; Mr. Kirstein was there when I almost slip from the deck.” She had her arm around Floch, tugging him to appease his anger. He eyed at him suspiciously, as he took her hand to drag her off the deck, she could only look at his retreating figure, hoping that he could see the man in the morning to thank him properly.

She saw him again, at the interior part of the third-class general room, talking to some fellows she assumed he’s acquainted with. “Hello there Jean” she glanced at the two men beside him, they quickly stood up to leave the both of them to converse alone, clearly not wanting to intrude. They quietly walked along the deck, her eyes wondering at the laughing faces of the children who passes them.

“Uhh, so you got a name by the way?”

“Y/n, Y/n L/n” She paused for a bit, as she completely turned to Jean to look at him. “Jean... I feel like such an idiot. It took me all morning to get up the nerve to face you.”

“Well, here you are.”

“Look, I know what you must be thinking! Poor little rich girl. What does she know about misery?”

“That's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was... what could have happened to hurt this girl so much she thought she had no way out.” She could only smile at his statement. Truthfully, she ranted to him how tiring it is to stand still like some wired doll, how disrespected she felt when they used her. She truly felt used, but this man didn’t invalidate her feelings, rather, he listened to her attentively. This was the first time she was able to talk to someone like this, it felt refreshing. Conversing with Jean brought comfort she didn’t knew existed.

“That turnip yesterday, is he with them?”

“Turnip? Oh, Floch! Ugh he is them.” She displayed her engagement ring, symbolizing the beautiful prison chain on her finger. “God he’s much worse than being just them.”

“So, you felt trapped in a loop ‘cause you’re marrying turnip?”

“Yes! Exacty!”

They continued to converse, more about how she should just run away and not marry the turnip looking man. If only it was easy, then she would’ve been away from those snobbish people, away from the circumstances that led her to this. The feeling she felt with Jean was… different, she spent her whole life being dismissed by the people around her. Having someone to listen to you in a genuine manner was stimulating.

“What’s that on your hand?” Glancing at the brown envelope on Jean’s hand.

“It’s nothing…”

“No let me see.” She then snatched the envelope away, revealing a sketchbook with sublime artwork. With her already existing fascination in art, she can’t help but feel astonished.

“These are really beautiful Jean…” she continues to flip the pages of the sketchbook, “you have a gift.” As she flipped to the next page, she saw drawings of women, wearing nothing but themselves.

“Amazing… are these drawn in, you know, real life?”

“Yup, that’s what’s great in Maria girls, willing to take their clothes off.” She then noticed a reoccurring subject in his artwork.

“This woman, you used her as your muse several times.”

“Well, she really did have beautiful hands.”

“If I may presume, you must’ve had a love affair with her.” She looks at him playfully at his rather defensive demeanor.

“No! I swear, just with her hands.” He laughs. Jean feels the erratic beating of his heart as he gets lost at the depths of her eyes. He felt it, this woman, no matter how imprisoned she felt, is a someone strong who can handle even the harshest of waves and the most blinding light from sun. He could only stare at her elegance, feeling the heat rising up to his cheeks, Jean felt different from this young lady, like he knows her all along. He wanted to take her away, no he didn’t want to save her, because he knew that the only one who can save her is herself. But he wants her to depend on him, become her solace and provide her the serenity she deserves.

They spent their days together in the Colossus; learning about each other and teaching each other knew things. They could not deny the growing feelings that’s starting to form, she knew it was wrong to fall in love with him, considering her engagement to Floch. But she doesn’t love Floch, how could she grow to love such a chauvinistic man. Floch viewed her as a possession, but Jean viewed her as a person. It wasn’t long when they acknowledged their feelings for each other, sharing a kiss on the bow of the ship, the setting sun becoming a witness to the couple’s profound love.

“It’s finished” He gestured her to see the finished artwork. She wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder as she studies the intricacies and pencil work on the drawing. They turned to look at each other with loving eyes as they shared a slow but sensual kiss. They pulled away from the kiss as Jean’s hand found place on her face, rubbing his thumb on her cheek affectionately, as their foreheads press together.

In fear of Floch and his lackey learning Jean’s presence in their cabin, they quickly ran away to God knows where. They arrive at the ship’s luggage room as they saw a car parked at the middle. Jean pulled her hand towards it as he sat on the driver’s seat, and she sat the passenger’s seat just at the back of Jean.

“Where to Ma’am?” He playfully asks as his hands are placed on the wheel, pretending to drive her to places. She wrapped her hand around him, as she whispers to his ear, “to the stars.”

She pulls him inside, sitting on the backseat of the car, they stared at each other with a loving but lustful gaze. With a growing desire to embrace each other, Jean felt her hands travel to his already bulged member, rubbing it slowly as if to tease him.

“Fuck Y/n don’t tease me.” He proceeds to kiss her full of thirst, like a starved man, starved of her. She sat on top of his lap, she knew she needed him now, she guided his hands to her breasts as she slowly grinded on his clothed dick. “Want you know, please Jean, I want you to make love to me.” He instantly discarded their clothes as he left wet kisses on her neck, treading his hands slowly on her back to her already wet core as he rubbed small circles on her hardened nub, she could only burry her face on his neck, face contorting in pleasure as she continues to grind on his hardened cock.

“Feels so good, your cock feels so good” Grinding to their high, Jean shoots his cum towards his stomach. He lifted her up to position his member on top of her core.

“Are you sure you want this? With me?”

“Yes, fuck, Jean hurry!” He then proceeds to enter her throbbing core, feeling her walls tighten around him. Placing his hands on her waist, he slowly began to buckle his hips. “Fuck Y/n you’re so tight, so fucking tight around my- ugh” he holds her hips only to slam it back down on his cock, eliciting a moan from her pretty mouth. He started to quicken his pace, her hands around his shoulders as she they traveled towards his chest. His thrust hitting that one spot that made her drown more in pleasure.

“Baby you feel so good around my cock, fuck.” He felt her tighten around him, signaling the coming of her second high.

“Jean ‘m coming! I’m coming!”

“Cum baby, don’t hold back,” As his thrusts getting faster and deeper, she felt the height of her sex and she came around him. He continued to thrust into her as he chased his own high and he shot his load of cum inside her. Jean then slowly removed his member, as he places her once again in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her figure while he kisses her temple, embracing her like it’s his last day on earth.

Not knowing that their first night together will also be their last.

An: I had to rewatch some of the clips from the Titanic aaohaoigha anyway I'm still trying to learn how to write smut sooo

[innerspeaker]

tag 9 people to learn more about their interests

Tagged by red  @jackharkness, thank you so much!!! ♥️♥️♥️

MUSIC

fave genre? post-punk and indie/alternative rock

fave artist? too many to name, to be honest; as for bands, the first that come to mind are definitely muse, interpol, radiohead and queens of the stone age but like, the list could go on forever; then last year i crossed paths with miss phoebe bridgers’ work and she became one of my favourite artists of all time, too.  also i have an entire sideblog dedicated to arctic monkeys and another one for linkin park, so...yeah

fave song? “i appear missing” by queens of the stone age

most listened song recently? “trouble’s coming” by royal blood (in the wise words of a wise man i recommend it to everyone instead of drugs)

song currently stuck in your head?  “all eyes on me” by bo burnham cause i’ve just read red’s 8 songs tag game

5 fave lyrics? 

“I sucked the moon / I spoke too soon / and how much did it cost? I was dropped from moonbeams and sailed on shooting stars” — sail to the moon, radiohead

“Driving out into the sun / let the ultraviolet cover me up / went looking for a creation myth / ended up with a pair of cracked lips / Windows down, scream along to some America first rap, country song / A slaughterhouse, an outlet mall / slot machines, fear of God / Windows down, heater on / big bolts of lightning hanging low / Over the coast  everyone's convinced it's a government drone or an alien spaceship /either way, we're not alone / I'll find a new place to be from, a haunted house with a picket fence to float around and ghost my friends” — i know the end, phoebe bridgers

“And I was on the island and you were there too / but somehow through the storm I couldn't get to you / oh St Jude, somehow she knew / and she came to give her blessing while causing devastation / and I couldn't keep my mouth shut, I just had to mention / grabbing your attention” — st. jude, florence + the machine

“Shock me awake / tear me apart / pinned like a note in a hospital gown / deeper I sleep / further down / the rabbit hole never to be found Don't cry / with my toes on the edge it's such a lovely view / Inside / I never loved anything until I loved you” — i appear missing, queens of the stone age

“I guess what I'm trying to say is I need the deep end / keep imagining meeting / wished away entire lifetimes / unfair we're not somewhere misbehaving for days / great escape, lost track of time and space” — r u mine?, arctic monkeys

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie | loud or silent volume (i try to keep an average volume actually but my phones always reminding me to turn it down so) I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on  

BOOKS

fav book genre? i used to like fantasy/dystopian books the most but i just enjoy narrative books and novels in general

fav writer? george orwell my beloved, the greatest journalist ever and also the most misunderstood and misquoted author ever (not me going fully political on a tag game but everytime a r*ght p*rty politician mentions him i literally die inside)

fav book? “1984″ by george orwell (unfortunately, what i said about him right before applies for this absolute masterpiece of a book, too :(((( )

fav book series? the lord of the rings by j.r.r. tolkien

comfort book? i dont really know??? i dont want to repeat myself so i wont name the book with number in the title once again, so i’d say something i read during my childhood, probably, like “the secret garden” by frances hodgson burnett, the warmth and comfort that book irradiate are unparalleled tbh

perfect book to read on a rainy day? i’d say something introspective and not too long, like “identity” by milan kundera??? i usually don’t choose what i wanna read depending on the weather, so i dont know if that’s an actual nice fit

fave characters? scarlett o’hara from gone with the wind, frodo baggins and legolas from lotr, lady macbeth from the macbeth, clarisse mcclellan from fahrenheith 451

5 quotes from your fave books that you know by heart?

“Perhaps one didn’t want to be loved as much as to be understood”  — 1984, george orwell

“As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill, as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.” — gone with the wind, margaret mitchell

“You said I killed you, haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe, I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” — wuthering heights, emily bronte

“These walls - are you going, gentlemen? - these walls are solidly put together”; and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!” — the black cat, edgar allan poe (i just want to add: i know this is supposed to be frightening and terrifying, but i think this is one of the funniest parts of a book ive ever read,it makes me crack up every.single.time, truly peak comedy tbh)

“There was another crash. Someone had picked up the glass paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth stone. The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!” — 1984, george orwell (jdshkjhk ive got one braincell and it was wasted to read one (1) dystopian book only and it shows)

hardcover or paperback | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending (so, i had this bad habit i read the last line of a book before even knowing what it was about and it ended up spoiling me the whole book a couple of times (which is like. obvious and absolutely fair??? but im different :) ), so i decided maybe it wasnt a great idea and im not doing it anymore, i eventually read the last words just for fun but im trying to get rid of this habit, too) | reliable or unreliable narrator  | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary | rereading or reading just once 

TV AND MOVIES

fave tv/movie genre? drama/mystery/thriller/noir

fave movie? i know what my favourite animated movie is, surpirsingly: “sleeping beauty” (1942)! as for movies in general, again, i’m gonna name a handful of these cause i cant really choose just one: the three colous trilogy by krzysztof kieślowski (”three colours: red”, in particular), “the double life of veronique”,  “parasite” by bong joon-ho,  “jaws” by steven spielberg, “paris, texas” by wim wenders and “we all loved each other so much” by ettore scola, but, again, the list is potentially endless

comfort movie?  “the terminal” by steven spielberg!!! also “the postman” by michael radford, “my neighbor totoro” by studio ghibli and “cinema paradiso” by giuseppe tornatore

fave tv show? this is so difficult so ill pick my favourite 5 too: 1) twin peaks, 2) bojack horseman, 3) f.r.i.e.n.d.s., 4) better call saul, 5) this is us

most rewatched tv show? definitely bojack horseman

5 fave characters? dale cooper (twin peaks), leia organa (star wars), dr frank-n-furter (the rocky horror picture show),  cosmo brown (singin’ in the rain), walter white (breaking bad) 

tv shows or movies| short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once

Tagging: @inejghafta, @jennifersbod, @drewbarrymoore, @alexcabotgf, @surrendertothesounds, @donniesdarko, @ruinism, @1918, @bronteskafka and whoever wants to do this!!

[afrival]

Hetalia Characters and Their Music Tastes

I’ve been in the hetalia fandom for like a year now and I stg thinking abt what these bitches listen to NEVER gets old

no warnings

will feature mostly modern day music, like 1950s-2010s

I don’t know a lot of artists that don’t sing in English so there’s probably A LOT that I’m missing on here, not even including shit from like the 1800s

The Allies

Alfred:

Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood, The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, Crazy In Love by Beyoncé

- Listens to basically everything, but particular fond of like 80s rock and early 2000s shit

- Likes country music bc ofc he does, a huge fan of Carrie Underwood, Sam Hunt, and The Band Perry

- Got his love of rock from England 💀 Especially during the like the 60s-80s when Queen, The Beatles, and Elton John really popular

- They really only bond over their love for this period of music lmao like they would absolutely go ape during karaoke

- He loves more mainstream artists like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, all those iconic mfs

- Probably enjoys old wartime music just for nostalgias sake. Shit from the 40s and he listens to Civil War tunes (Union Dixie lmao)

- Definitely listens to musicals and forces Ivan to as well. His favorites are Hamilton, Hairspray, and Chess

- LOVES LOVES LOVES The Backstreet Bogs holy shit. This man had a whole phase where he dressed like they did. Don’t even dare play I Want It That Way because he WILL sing along

- Speaking of which he’s actually a really good singer, like he probably used to sing at clubs and shit back in the day

- It’s very specific but I imagine his voice to sound like Taron Egerton’s cover of “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John

Arthur:

Killer Queen by Queen, Set Fire to the Rain by Adele, Tiny Dancer by Elton John

- Old man who had a weird punk phase in the 90s. Definitely listens to The Beatles and Gorillaz

- Like I said, he and Alfred bond over Queen and Elton and Bon Jovi and FUCKING Michael Jackson

- Refuses to admit he really likes Elvis

- Oh boy. He had so much fun in like late 2000s and early 2010s— Panic at the Disco, MCR, Green Day, he absolutely got his ears pierced during this time

- Doesn’t listen to like current mainstream music that much he will sob to Adele and probably really likes the Cry Baby album by Melanie Martinez.

- Francis plays so much Lady Gaga in the car that at this point he really likes her music

- He likes Ed Sheeran I am so sorry </3 and he absolutely gets bullied for it

- He can sing too honestly? I know I just said he listens to Ed Sheeran but I honestly think he kinda sounds like him too just maybe a little deeper

- Listen to Galway Girl and you’ll get a basic idea of what I imagine he sounds like

Ivan:

Dance and Cry by Mother Mother, Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, смерти Больше нет by IC3PEAK

- THIS MANS MUSIC TASTE MAKES NO SENSE. It ranges from fucking Aerosmith to Ic3peak to Lady Gaga

- Literally has every Mother Mother album downloaded and probably on Vinyl bc he’s a fucking dweeb

- Also a huge musical stannie, loves Wicked and Hairspray

- He and Al will split the parts to sing along to in the car

- Alfred made him listen to Britney Spears ONCE in like the 90s and now he’s obsessed

- Speaking of the 90s he went absolutely fucking ape during this time. The USSR wasn’t very big on western music but when it fell there was a HUGE influx of it and suddenly like it was just his favorite thing ever

- Alfred also got him into Carrie Underwood, literally lost of his music taste comes from Alfred forcing him to listen to shit

- During the 70s/80s he got really into Fleetwood Mac and Aerosmith, maybe even a little bit of disco but not a lot

- Went to a club with Al a few times and he won’t ever forget dancing to Footloose by Kenny Loggins at like one in the morning and having the absolute time of his life, easily one of his favorite memories

- Like I get so soft thinking about him just letting loose and actually having fun, even though he was very stiff and shit during the 1900s

- He can’t sing LMAO but my friend and I said once that he could lowkey rap really well and now it’s all I think about

Francis:

From Eden by Hozier, La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf, Primadona by Marina

- If you look up the gay agenda his playlist would just show up

- I mean seriously he has it all: Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Lorde

- HOWEVER she does really enjoy softer sounding music. Edith Piaf, Louis Armstrong, and Vera Lynn are favorites of his

- Listens to the Les Mis soundtrack like once a month

- REALLY REALLY loves Hozier, like a whole lot. He’s probably one of his favorite artists along with Sufjan Stevens

- Even more of his homo playlist includes Marina, Madonna and Troye Sivan

- Bullies Arthur for liking Ed Sheeran but he also really likes Ed Sheeran, just refuses to admit it

- Stromae ofc 🙄🤚 can’t just not include like the most popular French musician or whatever

- He can also sing but he sounds kinda raspy, it’s nice tho

Yao:

- I don’t think he listens to music LMAO, if he does it’s probably instrumental

The Axis

Ludwig:

Elastic Heart by Sia, From Now On from The Greatest Showman, Natural by Imagine Dragons

- Also doesn’t really listen to music but my friend said that when he does it ranges from classical to heavy metal

- For some reason I think he really likes Sia, he seems like a Sia kind of guy

- Doesn’t listen to Hozier but really loves Take Me to Church

- Most of his music listening comes from giving Feli the aux in the car

- The whore listens to Imagine Dragons like he fucking loves them

- When The Greatest Showman came out he had the soundtrack on repeat for a solid month, From Now Onis one of his favorite songs ever

- Cannot sing Jesus Christ do not let him near a mic

Feliciano:

Thank u, next by Ariana Grande, Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder, Bella Ciao by Manu Pillas

- Pop music! So much pop!

- Loves Ariana Grande and Conan Gray

- Probably listens to A LOT of classical because of his time with Austria

- His music taste is kinda all over the fucking place and it’s mostly happy and peppy shit

- Weirdly tho he listens to GRLwood? Like it’ll just shhow up on shuffle and suddenly he’s an entire different person

- Will listen to absolutely everything just to find something that Ludwig likes, was so proud of himself when Ludwig really ended up loving The Greatest Showman

- Doesn’t sing but plays like 5 instruments. Violin and piano are his faves

Kiku:

It’s Been So Long by The Living Tombstone, Faded by Alan Walker, Ophelia by The Lumineers

- LISTEN. LISTEN. HE LOVES VIDEO GAME MUSIC AND FUCKING THE LIVING TOMBSTONE

- The fnaf songs are his guilty fucking pleasures, he fucking loves them

- Loves loves loves the Undertake Soundtrack

- Listens to a lot of anime openings 💀 Me too tbh they’re so good at for what

- Big fan of TheFatRat

- In general he enjoys techno shit? Idk what the word is but it’s a lot of instrumental

- Listens to regular music as well (The Lumineers especially)

- Likes listening to Elvis because it makes him happy to see Alfred having fun

- Feli also introduces him to a lot of music but he can never fucking remember the names of the songs or artists

- He hums a lot rather than sings, and it’s really soft and gentle

If anybody wants any more characters lmk bc I love coming up with these, also I do have playlists for these bitches 😎✌️ Spotify is in my linktree (bio)

[mimipagemusic]

An open letter to Lorin Ashton (Bassnectar) from Mimi Page:  A call for true accountability, responsibility, and healing action on behalf of the music industry.

Dear Lorin,

You have willingly and openly invited healing on your part with anyone you have hurt in your past. While I am aware you are calling every past sexual partner you’ve had, you haven’t bothered to consider the trauma your actions have caused to your female colleagues. You haven’t reached out to me once. I am taking this opportunity to respond to your offer of healing by “calling you in” in this open letter. I am a relatively private person and would have preferred to call you and read my letter to you directly. The truth is, I don’t trust you. You have claimed to care about the healing of those you’ve harmed, but the recordings released prove that you manipulate and gaslight whoever confronts you. I  privately confronted you about “Butterfly” back in 2016, so I’ve directly experienced your manipulative behavior. Because you have harmed so many people in your personal and professional life, my hope is that this open letter will bring forth clarity and healing to anyone who reads it. Healing to me, to you, to the young women you have sexually and emotionally abused, to the creative collaborators you have taken advantage of creatively and financially, to the professional team members you’ve betrayed and let down, and to the dedicated fan base you’ve mislead and abandoned.

While I am processing my own feelings of anger, confusion, and disgust, I am also writing you from a place of love. Tough love, that stands for healing, integrity, and transformative justice. Principles you claimed to stand for as a leader in the music industry. This situation is devastating on so many levels because you’ve also created a lot of good in this world. You have inspired millions of people and played a pivotal role in our culture. You’ve provided a platform for so many independent artists to be heard, myself included. I am forever grateful to you for that. But with the platform you helped me build, I am now speaking out on it. My hope is that deep inside your soul, you can listen, learn, and take accountability with an open heart. My own heart is broken, but it is also open. So with this open letter, I will address the evidence of both your “romantic” victims and my own negative experience with you, from my own perspective. If you can take true accountability and healing action with our best interests in mind instead of your own, then I believe you can still be a catalyst for the true change and healing we need in not only the music industry, but in our world. 

My personal reasons for coming forward:

In response to your sexual abuse allegations, you have publicly denied “the rumors” yet claim to welcome responsibility and accountability. You have admitted to the possibility of hurting others, yet you have not clarified what pain you have actually caused. You have claimed your own romantic relationships were “positive, consensual, legal, and loving.” You have claimed you are an “ally of women” offering free therapy to “true survivors of sexual abuse.” As an action, you have chosen to step away from your musical career and abandon your non-profit organization without further clarity or closure with all of us. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at ages 5, 13, and 16, I have lived with the PTSD that comes with experiencing both Pedophilia and Ephebophilia. I have spent many years in therapy unpacking my own trauma, healing it, and learning what true sexual health is. As a “true survivor” responding to your statement, you have absolutely no right to define what a “true survivor” is. To do so gaslights the women coming forward about the abuse you inflicted, and manipulates the public into doubting their truth. This creates victim shaming and I won’t stand for that. 

The legal definition of a child is ages 0-17. Rachel was 17 when you groomed and pursued your sexual relationship with her. The definition of Ephebophilia is an adult who is sexually attracted to adolescents between the ages of 15-19. Ephebophilia is not a sexual preference, it is a sexual perversion. While the argument stands that some teenagers welcome a relationship with an adult partner, many survivors realize they were psychologically damaged by that relationship once they mature in their mid 20s. Clarity and healing takes time, I speak from experience. There’s a reason that by law, teenagers are still considered children. While it’s completely healthy for teenagers to date other teenagers, they have no business being sexually groomed and manipulated by adults, especially those with power and influence. Ephebophilia has been glamorized and normalized in the music industry for generations and it needs to finally change. Countless rockstars like you have gotten away with this illegal and psychologically damaging activity with their underage fans. Many of them are still massively successful to this day. As an artist who has built your brand and activism on the principles of compassion, equality, and integrity, why are you grooming and dating your teenage fans? According to your victim Lauren’s statement, you explained why you don’t date women your own age. You told her you aren’t interested in older women because “they have too much baggage.” Lorin, it is men like you that create this “baggage” for women. And because of this, perhaps it is you who actually needs the therapy you are offering your victims. There is something very wrong with the way you view and interact with our world.

As a female artist and collaborator of yours for over 8 years, I wish I could speak up in defense of your character and your treatment of women through the reflection of own relationship and your treatment of me. I can not do this. While I hate seeing your career destroyed, I can’t help but honor the karma. I have carried your baggage for far too long. You have leveraged your power and your fame over me during every creative negotiation we have ever had. Always manipulating me into taking less of a writing percentage than my actual creative contribution because you claimed your platform, “the bassnectar factor” as you called it, would benefit me as a “smaller artist.” You hid behind a public mask of humility and activism when in private you lead with entitlement and greed. As a collaborator of yours, I am also a survivor of you. Not of your sexual abuse, but your psychological manipulation and financial abuse. You have taken advantage of my vulnerability and creativity since I was in my early 20s. You used your charm to manipulate me into thinking you cared about me while you stole my creative credit and royalties. You used your fame and influence to manipulate me into feeling grateful for the benefits I did receive from working with you, gaslighting my own reality and pain. You strategically belittled me creatively and financially in order to assert your dominance and control in ways where I was brainwashed into continuing to work with you. You have said some incredibly inappropriate and hurtful things to me over the years which negatively affected my self esteem to the degree that I almost quit music. Like so many others, I put you on a pedestal and looked up to you before I experienced your darkness. Even when I experienced your darkness, it was like I was under a spell. I have been conflicted for years and your name has been brought up in my own therapy sessions many times. You are a master manipulator, and I believe that is your greatest talent. In light of these allegations from both your victims and collaborators, so much becomes clear. The spell you cast not only on me, but the world, has been broken.

Your undeniable abuse towards women:

The evidence and statements being released by women who you say have been your “consensual, legal, and loving partners” provides contrary evidence to the innocence you claimed in your public statement. In an audio recording with Rachel, you verbally admit to her statutory rape when she was 17. She explains to you that at age 17, she “had no idea who she was.” She expressed that she was impressionable and that a relationship with someone your age with such an extreme power dynamic was beyond inappropriate for her. You validate this by agreeing with her and regretting your actions. You then offer to take accountability directly with her, but ask if that accountability means being “raped and beat up in a Tennessee jail.” This type of response to someone you’ve harmed is not called accountability, Lorin. This response is called gaslighting and manipulation, and it is equally abusive. It subliminally asks your victim to doubt the severity of her own experience and put your well being above her own.

In an email correspondence that Rachel shared during her senior year in high school, you congratulate her good grades on a school paper. You then request she spend 4-5 hours writing you an essay for your own pleasure. In a second email, you admit “she is overloaded with school work” but confess you are “so curious about what goes on outside of school in her social life.” You then tell her she “so rarely reaches out” and you “want to hear her voice.” Rachel wasn’t a groupie who pursued you as so many of your defenders claim. You groomed, pursued, and manipulated her. This isn’t the behavior of a mentor, a teacher, or a caring friend. You were an adult celebrity taking advantage of your teenage fan. This is called predatory behavior. You were a grown man in your mid 30s who chose to groom and sleep with an underage teenager, knowing full well how old she was at the time. In seeking the truth for myself, I spoke at great lengths with Rachel over the phone and heard her entire story. I also spoke to Lauren and have heard hers. While I was disgusted by the trauma you inflicted on these women, I was equally inspired by their grace, wisdom, and bravery to stand up to you. 

Rachel (age 17), Lauren (age 21), and another young woman have claimed you put thousands of dollars in cash in their purses and backpacks after their sexual encounters with you. They all have clarified that they did not ask for this money, were surprised and confused by it, and had to hide it from their parents and friends as they were sworn to secrecy by you. According to them, you were paranoid and made them communicate with you through encrypted apps so that your communication was hidden. In Lauren’s public statement, she claims she was “sexually groomed and manipulated” by you as your fan. According to her story, she was hand selected via Instagram and won a meet and greet with you. After thanking you on Twitter, you provided her your private email and asked her to continue communicating with you. When telling you her age, you said you were “surprised” because she “looked younger than 21.” You then requested she travel alone to visit your home. When telling you she wanted to inform her parents so they knew where she was, your response was that her parents “had no business knowing the details of her personal life”. If she was to inform them of her travel, she was to lie about your identity and say she was “dating a teacher named Gabe.” While demanding her sexual exclusivity with you, you refused to be sexually exclusive with her. You also requested she consider you a “life coach” as you would help guide some of her “biggest decisions.” Some of your advice included informing her that “every man she would ever meet would only want to have sex with her and would do anything to get it.” You offered to “protect her” from this. This is not a loving relationship Lorin, this is a manipulative, controlling, and psychologically abusive relationship. There are many other women you have harmed who have privately come forward but are too afraid to publicly share their stories. Several of them have stated that they were under the age of 18 when they had sexual relations with you. The amount of young women you’ve harmed is mind blowing, and they are all your “true victims.” In order to take true accountability, you have to be willing to own up to your actions and take legal responsibility for what you have actually done. 

Our professional relationship:

I’ve spent the past few days going through my own emails and memories with you, trying to find clarity and understanding of who you really are and how you could have harmed so many people in the ways that you have. While going back to my early correspondence with you, I was disturbed to find the same style of inappropriate communication with me. Our relationship has always remained professional and I’ve considered you more of a dysfunctional “big brother” type throughout the years. An email you sent me back in 2012 reminded me that this wasn’t always the case. I had completely blocked out this email because it made me feel so uncomfortable at the time. I now remember that I chose to shelve this away in my psyche because I was conflicted with how excited I was to get the chance to work with you.

(Email Context: I had just sent you my vocal hook for our song “Butterfly")

As a female artist who has endured the gender inequality in this industry, I am used to putting my head down and tolerating inappropriate jokes and conversations with men as long as it never escalated to a place where I felt unsafe. Fortunately our collaboration was remote, and I was in the safety of my own home studio when I read this. Your email response to my creativity was not only disrespectful, it was completely inappropriate.  It’s alarming you felt entitled to speak to me in this way, being that I was a professional collaborator and I barely knew you at the time. I responded to your email with a “haha thank you” but I wasn’t laughing. I was extremely uncomfortable and afraid to tell you how I felt because of your power and celebrity. I wanted to work with you and was afraid I would jeopardize that so I put the opportunity to work with you above my own comfort. I regret doing this. I am only sharing this email now as it corroborates the evidence of your language and inappropriate communication with the other women who have come forward and shared their own email correspondence with you. They are being attacked and doubted for sharing their truth, and I won’t stand for that. I’ve spent the majority of my time these past few weeks processing this horrific situation. I’ve had a lot of tears and a lot of sleepless nights, as I know so many others have. In the process, I had an epiphany. Your email of wanting to “fuck my voice” was actually a metaphor, foreshadowing our future dynamic as collaborators. You did end up “fucking my voice,” not as an artist but as a human being. While my voice in our collaborations soared throughout stadiums and radio stations around the world, my actual voice was silenced. 

In 2012 when we negotiated our splits for “Butterfly”, you manipulated me into believing that music didn’t make money anymore because of music piracy. As a young artist that was new to the industry, you told me that touring was the main source of income for artists, and buying me out of 100% of my share of the master royalties of “Butterfly” would be in my best interest. I spent 3 months alone in my apartment writing and creating “Butterfly” for you. Your offer was to pay me $1,000 for each month I worked on the song. You convinced me that because music didn’t make money, "Butterfly” may make nothing. A $3,000 buyout would ensure that I would be protected and taken care of financially. I had requested an equal split of the writing and publishing of “Butterfly” because I had clearly created the majority of the song. You took that opportunity to lecture me on what “equal” actually was working with an artist of your caliber. That because of your administrative fees and expenses due to your platform, a 50/50 split of writing and publishing wasn’t fair to you. Regardless of my creative contribution, 33% was the number I actually deserved. As the main composer and co-producer of our song, you knew I wrote and created the majority of the creative content in “Butterfly.” Not only did I write and perform the vocals and piano, I composed, produced, and sound-designed the synths and ethereal pads. You never gave me credit for this. Not in the liner notes, and not in the press. You took full credit of the production of our song, allowing me to be viewed as a vocal feature with a piano performance. When your album Vava Voom came out, I saw that every male producer who collaborated with you had an “and” producer credit. I was young and naive at the time, I didn’t know what a producer credit was and you knew this. As a self-proclaimed feminist and someone promising to protect me in this industry, you knew better. You should have done better.

Watching our song "Butterfly” find it’s wings was a dream, but also a complete nightmare. It became the staple of your live show, to the degree that Butterfly confetti fell from the sky. I had fans tattoo butterflies and my song lyrics on their bodies. “Butterfly” was ranked the #4 best song of your entire catalog by Billboard. It was in rotation in terrestrial and satellite radio, licensed to network TV shows, films and video games, and was even featured in an art instillation at the Disney museum. While I did get my 33% cut of my writing and publishing, I watched you absorb 100% of every sale and stream. I saw how many sales “Butterfly” sold in the mechanical royalty statements from Amorphous Music, your own record label. That small $3,000 “buyout” you gave me under the pretense you were “helping me” covered 2 months of my rent. Had you given me an equal share of my writing and publishing and literally any percentage of the master royalty of “Butterfly”, it would have drastically changed my life. Had you given me the creative credit I deserved on our song, doors would have been a lot easier for me to open as a female producer and composer in this male dominated industry. I continued to work with you over the years because I was brainwashed into believing this was how the music industry worked. I was brainwashed into feeling “grateful” for the opportunities I received and the success I did generate from your platform. I convinced myself that I was less than you, and I had to pay my dues like everyone else in order to earn my worth as your creative equal. This equality never came. While I continued to fight for a small share of my writing and publishing on every song we did, you still refused to offer me a percentage of the master royalty. To this day you still collect 100% of the master royalties on every one of our collaborations. 

I tried justifying our creative dynamic by your invitations to perform live with you. While it was only 3 times, those performances were, and will forever be, some of the most beautiful and magical moments of my life. What was odd to me was the way you financially treated me when I performed live with you. At Lighting in a Bottle I performed for free and got changed in a port-o-potty. After my performance you thanked me and handed me a bottle of wine as compensation. At Red Rocks and Bridgestone Arena you offered me $1,000 as an appearance fee. A fee that I had to deduct the airfare of my manager, my wardrobe, and all my food and traveling expenses from. I’m not sure how much income you take home after each one of your sold-out stadium shows, but I’m sure you could have afforded to treat me a little better. At the end of the day, I actually ended up paying out of my own pocket to perform with you. With what’s come to light, I now understand that you’ve had huge expenses paying out thousands of dollars to these young women, several underage, with the hopes of buying their silence and loyalty. As your female collaborator, I can verify that you are no feminist. You are a hypocrite, and the way you have treated me as an artist is absolutely disgusting.

In 2016 I was unaware of the extent of your corruption behind the scenes, but I found the courage to confront you about my own situation. I texted you that I was uncomfortable about our business dynamic with “Butterfly” and we hopped on a call to discuss it. We had a long conversation about my feelings, and you validated my belief that you were wrong and that you should have given me producer credit. You agreed that my deal wasn’t fair and said that you wanted to make it up to me. While I was grateful for this, the end of our conversation ended up haunting me for years. When talking about “fairness,” you lectured me on the difference between us as artists. You told me that if I were to release a song of ours by myself, that it wouldn’t sell nearly as many copies as it would if you released it. That your “Bassnectar factor” was the  reason for the success of Butterfly, not the creative content of the song. I agreed that you clearly had the bigger platform, but argued that my creative contribution to your art not only rewarded you financially, it helped define your brand in a new way. That the majority of your music is intense and aggressive, and my feminine, ethereal, and peaceful aesthetic helped diversify your musical catalog. I opened up and told you that if you had treated me equally and hadn’t taken 100% of my master royalty, my life would look very different because of the success of our song. That I have bills to pay just like any other person, and that my husband also battles multiple sclerosis which is a hardship we privately face. Your response to me was cold, and cruel. You told me that the music business is really hard. That many of your friends are extremely talented like me, and that you tell them all the same thing. That if it’s too hard for me to keep going financially in this business, that I pursue music as a hobby and find something else for work. Even so, you would find a way to make “Butterfly” up to me. You would get with your team and figure out a way to make me “happy.” Lorin, I can’t tell you how painful this conversation was, it crushed my soul. Writing one of my favorite songs with you and watching it receive commercial success while you took 100% of my royalties was one trauma. Seeing my worth through your eyes was another, it damaged my self-esteem. For a while, I did contemplate quitting music. If it weren’t for the love and support of my family, friends, fanbase, and my own inner work in therapy, I probably would have quit music. 

A week later you got back to me after discussing my request with your team. You indicated that you couldn’t renegotiate the terms of Butterfly, that the deal of that song was over and done with. What you did offer was a deal for a new song. This song would be credited as “Bassnectar and Mimi Page” so I would receive a producer credit. I would also receive 25% of my royalties across the board. I asked you why I wouldn’t receive 50% if I actually write an equal share, or even 33% like you offered me in Butterfly. You refused to negotiate and stated that’s the offer that was on the table. You then sweetened the deal by offering me an advance of $10,000 of this song, with no deadline to create it. At the time I not only needed the money, I foolishly believed that you actually wanted to create another song with me. Over the past 5 years I’ve sent you so many creative ideas for this song, and your response to me has always been the same. You were “too busy" to work with me. The only song we created together since then was “Was Will Be,” a last minute topline request with another small publishing cut and no master royalty. As always, this collaboration was attached with more empty promises to write our “actual song” with no followthrough. With what’s come to light in the accusations against you, it’s alarming to see where so much of your time has actually gone. Like your female victims, I can’t help but look at that $10k you gave me as hush money for my own silence against the issues I confronted you with. Watching other legal cases appear by other artists over the years brought me a lot of clarity on how you’ve been taking advantage of not only me, but other artists this entire time. I never spoke out publicly about my dynamic with you because I valued the peace and healing of the fans who enjoyed our collaborations. Now that you have destroyed not only your reputation but the trust and peace of your community, I am choosing to share my story now. Not just on behalf of me, but all the artists you have taken advantage of and ripped off throughout your career. There are so many.

After speaking with several of your victims, I’ve been horrified to learn that “Butterfly” was the song that lead many of them to the actual discovery of you as an artist. That the beautiful and euphoric qualities of “Butterfly” didn’t only function as a catalyst for peace and healing like I intended. Many of these women were mislead into believing those gentle, peaceful, and ethereal vibrations actually came from you because you took full credit for the song. My most grotesque epiphany of all, is that you never did care about me or actually value my talent and wellbeing as an artist. Instead, you used my artistry as bait for the facade you projected to the world, ultimately luring more young women to you. As a survivor of sexual abuse, music has always been my saving grace and escape from the horrors of my own reality. I can’t tell you how traumatizing it is for me to be associated with you after realizing what you’ve done. I am deeply disturbed and depressed in regards to our creative relationship. I am grateful that our songs have brought peace and healing to so many, and I will forever stand by the love and light that I personally contributed to it. I won’t let you take that away from me. Had you lived your life with the actual care and integrity that you claimed to lead with, we could have created so many more beautiful songs together. Instead, you chose the darker path and in the process, took advantage of my talent, my time, and my respect for you. 

Our last and final collaboration was on your new album “All Colors,” and this was the final straw for me ever working with you again. During a pandemic that is killing people, destroying our economy, and shutting down our industry, you sent me an email “checking in”. Like always, your emails have tons of smiley faces indicating you “love me.” You reminded me that we “still need to do our song” but asked for a “little favor” on your new album. You wanted me to replace a vocal sample of another girl singing “dreaming of you.” No writing, no harmonies, no creative contribution, not even the consideration of me knowing what I was contributing to as you wouldn’t let me listen to the song. Just “a little favor” of singing and recording for you, for free. I almost said no, and I wish I had. The only reason I didn’t, was because you had just offered me a spot to perform my own acoustic set on the main stage at your festival Deja Voom. A gesture that shocked me and actually meant a lot to me. After years of you blowing me off creatively and taking advantage of me financially, that was a gesture that felt like it validated my worth to you. I will humbly admit that deep down, I have always wanted you to care about my art and creativity. So, like always, I did the mental gymnastics in my head and justified the reasons why I should do your little favor and I did it. I did it against the wishes of my own manager and attorney, that’s how strong your influence has been over me. After I sent you my vocal file, I also took the opportunity to tell you that we experienced a food shortage during this pandemic and I learned how to garden in hopes that I could feed not only myself, but my neighbors. This must have struck a chord, because you changed your mind about asking me for free work and you sent me this email:

It’s almost August and I’ve yet to receive your $250 for pumpkin seeds. In regards to my creative contribution on your new album, I found my vocal sample on the end track you called “Optimism.” I wasn’t credited as a featured vocalist, and I checked the liner notes and there was no reference that I even sang on the song. After 8 years of working together, you didn’t even give me a shoutout on social media, telling our mutual fans about my contribution being that they loved our past collaborations so much. After all these years, and the massive amount of income you have earned off the back of my own creativity, this is what you have reduced my talent to. During the horrific times we are living in, your expectation of an independent artist giving you free work is absolutely despicable, and $250 for pumpkin seeds is ridiculous. It is clear the amount of healing I have needed to do in regards to reclaiming my self esteem. I am saddened by the dynamic I allowed myself to participate in with you for so many years. I have been battling a lot of shame for this. Thanks to several of your colleagues who have experienced similar dynamics with you, I have found a lot of healing. I am saddened to see this is a trend with so many of your collaborators, but I’m also grateful to be in their company as we all try to find the light in this darkness. I am now shifting my perspective and looking at all of us as hard workers who believed in the original vision you claimed to have for humanity. We took your creative and financial abuse because we are all  trying to survive in this dark and difficult industry and shine our light within it. One day I hope the industry changes, and hopefully this entire situation will be a catalyst for it in some sort of way. 

It is painful, but also healing to write this letter to you. I feel like a giant weight is being lifted from my soul. It is healing to see corruption being outed on a mass scale in our society, and ironic that you were one of those activists that spent so much time outing that corruption. For years you’ve used Twitter as a platform to call out the corruption of political leaders. Now that you are the subject of your own corruption, you’ve gone silent and disappeared. I will remind you we are experiencing a pandemic and the state of the world is in a very dark and fragile place. Your fans no longer have a safe space to turn to and this hurts their mental health. A lot of your fans are getting bullied for following you, having your tattoos, and being a part of your community. While you take your millions and “go off the grid” I won’t stand for your hypocrisy. I have received over a hundred emails from fans expressing their own private traumas and being survivors of sexual abuse themselves. How damaging it has been to discover they have been mislead by you all these years. You have accumulated your wealth and lifestyle from the money and dedicated support of your fanbase. You have built the diversity of your brand off the backs of collaborators like me, Dylan, and so many others. You owe us way more than an apology. The time you have spent manipulating and abusing your teenage fans could have been better spent creating with the artists who have contributed so much to you and your community. How you’ve treated Dylan (ill-Gates), an artist who inspired and nurtured your own talent, is utterly repulsive. The sad reality is, your behavior isn’t just a reflection of the darkness within your own psyche, it’s a reflection of the power-hungry, abusive, and narcissistic behavior in the music industry. We need a deep healing and change in perception with the ways business is run inside the music industry. We need a safer space for artists to create and fans to experience our art. Music is sacred, it brings healing and unity to our world. We need to make an example of the mess you have created and transmute it for positive change.

As you walk away from your musical career, you also walk away with not only my royalties, but all your collaborators royalties as your future financial stream. I wouldn’t label your career cancellation as “unemployment,” I would label any future income as theft from those of us you collect from. As a collaborator of multiple songs, the only control I have to help save the integrity of my songs and heal this community is a promise to donate my own small writing and publishing percentages to non-profits that support sexual abuse survivors. After learning that you have spent thousands of dollars to silence your own victims, you need to rectify this behavior with all of us. You manipulated our bad business deals by using your fame to convince us the “exposure” we would receive would benefit us. While it did in the past, it is now traumatizing us. As a survivor of sexual abuse and an actual ally of women, I find it unacceptable for you to have committed criminal behavior with my royalties being a source of your income. I don’t find it acceptable that you continue generating any future income from my creativity moving forward. I want my royalties back and I want to use my royalties for goodness. I’d love to partner with a non-profit or even start my own with the royalties you’ve taken from me and will continue to take from me. I’d love to incorporate your past collaborators, ambassadors, and fans in whatever healing endeavors I pursue from these royalties. My goal would be to focus on sound healing and meditation for survivors of sexual abuse and use the symbol of the Butterfly as the emblem. This would redefine my song and represent that we actually transformed some of this darkness into beauty. This is one idea I have of how you can take accountability and healing action directly with me, on behalf of everyone in your community.

The abusive dynamics in the music industry have existed for far too long, we can use this experience to help stop it. While you were a part of this problem, I hold space for your healing and redemption. You can take true accountability for your actions and use this experience as a catalyst for massive change. The only way we can create actual change in this world is by living by example and being the change we need to see. Lorin, please step up. Stand in your integrity and take true responsibility and accountability for your actions no matter what the cost to you. At the times you caused harm to others, you didn’t consider the cost to them. Own up now to what you did, publicly admit it, and take the healing actions required to make true amends. Use your wealth and platform for the goodness you originally intended, it’s not too late.

                        Sincerely,

                                Mimi Page

[fancyfade]

I really like the way Hardware (1993) addresses the topic of superhero ethics.

Quick synopsis of the set-up: Curtis Metcalf, genius inventor, comes from a working class family and winds up from his perspective being set up to be the heir apparent to the inventor/businessman, Edwin Alva, who takes him under his wing and funds his schooling and, once he graduates, his projects. However Alva was actually just funding his schooling and appearing to encourage him in his endeavors so he could lock Curtis in a contract that gives him no rights to the royalties his inventions makes Alva (unclear if he has any like legal right as in copyright to his inventions as well I would assume not but it was not addressed yet). Curtis can’t work for a competitor either in the same field so he’s essentially stuck working for Alva if he wants to do what he’s dedicated his entire life to (inventing technology stuff).

Curtis initially tries to get some blackmail material on Alva so he can get out of his contract, but finds out Alva is involved in the criminal underworld via weapons and drugs dealing and smuggling.

also the character’s races are important to the story: i’m going to not comment a lot on this because I don’t want to be talking out my ass, so I’m going to just be like... relating things without commentary or sourcing what the original intent was from the creators: Curtis is a black man and likens what Alva did to him as slavery. Denys Cowan, one of the co-founders of Milestone comics and artist on hardware 1993 and the new series, who worked with the main author of hardware (1993) dwayne mcduffie, mentions that Hardware’s experiencse and the way he is treated (especially the glass ceiling) are part of how it felt to be a black creator in comics (link). (Back to the comic, not the interview) Curtis points out how many people perceive him as angry and bitter with a chip on his shoulder (Curtis describes himself as angry for good reasons). Alva is a white man who is too big and has his hands in too many pockets for the evidence curtis initially got on him to stick.

This is why Curtis created hardware: initially, his plan was to blackmail alva, when he finds out what Alva is up to he tries to send the evidence to the authorities because it goes beyond his personal problems with Alva. Then when that fails, he creates his armored suit (which he calls Hardware) to interfere with Alva’s operations and prevent him from doing more damage while getting revenge.

When he initially starts out as Hardware, Curtis has very little social life, he divides himself entirely between working his day job as cover for Alva, then working his night job as Hardware. he barely sleeps due to this. When he’s hardware, has a variety of lethal weaponry, the biggest of which is his omnicannon (which seems to like.. explode everything? he KOs a helicopter with it). He uses his weapons only on people working for Alva who are usually trying to kill him as far as I can tell. He’s also pretty unconcerned with killing them. He blows up a helicopter with someone still in it, shoots people, drops a guy he had pulled out from a helicopter from an unsurvivable fall, and cuts off a the arm of a construction worker who was holding a gun on him.

Curtis is more thinking on his end goal (getting revenge on Alva and stopping Alva’s criminal enterprises) than he is the means he takes to get there.

Pretty early in the run, Curtis is injured and found by his long term female friend Barraki. Since she finds him in his Hardware armor, he has no choice but to tell her what’s going on and she is disgusted. She views Curtis as extremely selfish -- she refers to it as him killing people “because his boss wouldn’t give him a raise” with no visible remorse. Curtis says he has no remorse period, not just no visible remorse. Barraki leaves and says doesn’t feel like she actually knows him.

Curtis obviously cares a lot about her opinion, because once she makes her stance on it clear he is kind of at a loss of what to do. When she asks him what he wants, he says he just wants her approval (also that she’s his only friend and he doesn’t want to lose her).

He winds up solving things as Hardware non-lethally for a while (replaces his omnicannon supershot with a neural net to paralyze people rather than blowing them up, tho he still has access to the omnicannon’s main shell for when he needs it), gives alva’s employees in the stuff he’s blowing up time to evacuate, etc

Then he has like I guess this... dream sequence? Guilt induced dream? Where he is seeing the people he harmed (the guy who’s arm he chopped off talking to him about his injury and losing his job, the dead bodies of the people he killed) and then Curtis talking to him as he is Hardware (like a his non-armored civilian version is berating his armored version for his life choices) and giving him a running commentary on his own life up to this point. People who are either personally important to him (Barraki) or socially important (a priest, Oprah) attack him for his decisions. Then when it comes to who speaks in his defense in his dream, it’s his employer, Alva, who created this situation from when Curtis was a kid to exploit him and benefit off Curtis’s talents and treats Curtis as no more than a cog in his machine (When Curtis initially approaches Alva for his profits, he does so with the assumption he’ll get them, because he had believed Alva to be like a father to him, Alva laughs at him and says he’s not respected, merely useful, and dehumanizes him by likening him to a dog).

Dream Alva’s defense of Hardware’s previous actions is that as Hardware, Curtis is doing what he was supposed to do -- treating other people as expendable resources in pursuit of his goals. So in Curtis’s guilt, he likens himself to Alva, the man who has been treating him like a tool.

I think this is kind of interesting because it’s something I’ve seen a lot in recent discussions of whether it’s okay for superheroes to kill people and one of them is that when you kill a person you’re not just killing that person. You’re killing whoever they were to the people who cared about them, if they’re looking out for anyone you’re affecting whoever they were providing for as well -- I think that’s why the initial person who appeared in Curtis’ guilt-dream was not someone he killed but the man who’s arm he cut off. There’s sort of this commentary on humanizing people I suppose with how the villain so clearly dehumanizes Curtis and treats him as a tool to his own ends, and then how we see Curtis imagining how the people he injured or killed while being Hardware might be affected not just in terms of “they got injured or killed” but also he imagines whatever their lives beyond working for Alva were. Curtis’s guilt is humanizing them in his head where earlier he said he had no remorse whatsoever.

Throughout the comic, there’s this metaphor for being trapped in a cage and then getting out but not actually being free (initially told through Curtis’s pet parakeet he had as a kid -- the parakeet flew out of his cage and tried to get out via the window, but only kept busting his head against the window, unable to understand he couldn’t go outside)

[image: 3 comic panels from hardware 1993 #1 showing young curtis metcalf standing in front of a window where a parakeet is laying down on his side with his  feathers ruffled. curtis grabs the parakeet gingerly in his hands and puts the bird back in the cage with a clang. his internal monologue reads “my bird made a common error. he mistook being out of his cage... for being free.” end image]

Curtis straight up says that his earlier actions as hardware were not letting him be free: he turned hardware into another cage.

[image: 3 comic panels from Hardware (1993) #4 showing barraki young and Curtis Metcalf standing and talking. Curtis is initially looking down regretfully at his hardware helmet. He says “I built the hardware armor to help me escape from the cage that alva put me in. Then I proceeded to turn hardware into yet another cage.” he looks at a parakeet that is flying around his house (his new pet) and says “see, Alva will make a mistake... eventually. And then I’ll put him away for good. That’s still very important to me. But it’s not going to be my whole life.” end image]

I don’t know whether the cage was supposed to only be in terms of how he conducted himself as Hardware or whether it also extended to work life balance (right after this he says that he was not going to make putting Alva away his whole life, he is letting Barraki in rather than pushing her away and he got the parakeet) and also his general view of the world (I already analyzed how he changes the way that he views the people working for alva). Either way I feel like the way that it was addressed was in a very satisfying manner that never wound up being preachy but did ask a lot of questions.

EDIT:

more commentary on the parakeet analogy from the writer of hardware: season one (the new relaunch)

The original Hardware #1 opened with a flashback of a young Curtis Metcalf remembering his pet parakeet escaping its cage only to be stopped by a barrier of glass, mistaking “being out of the cage for being free.” A brilliant meta-commentary, Thomas believes that it is “one of the greatest monologues in the history of comics,” and perfectly captures the entire story of being black in America.

[strawberrielarrie]

Music Industry Stunts and why they happen

Stunts are a big part of the music industry, you may not know it, but they are.  The purpose of stunts is to push a certain narrative to the general public. Now this could mean many different things, PR relationship; coverups; or to peak the publics interest. Why? You may ask, why would the artist do this, why wouldn’t they just be truthful? Well, many don’t have a choice, the music industry is a place that I wish no one would have to be in, it is a cruel and awful place to be if you don’t know how to get around it, or if you don’t have the correct connections. In the past (and still now), many big brand music industries, such as Sony Music and Warner Music have controlled artists immensely.

George Michael

As a legend in the music industry, George Michael is a well-known name in the average household. From his time in the hit duo “Wham!”, Michael’s music was distributed through CBS, but in 1987 Sony took over and that’s when things went downhill. Michael reveled in the popularity of his hit album “Faith” in 1987, and so did Sony, because he was earning them money.

But that ended quickly with the news of his next album “Listen Without Prejudice” in 1990, Sony refused to promote the album and appear in the music videos for it. Michael in turn, disputed his contract with Sony, but he could not do close to anything, because Sony possessed the power of approval over everything that he put out. Meaning, George Michael could not release music without it going through the board of Sony, and if he did, he could get sued and fired.

(Sony is a whole other world of fucked up, they fucked MJ up so badly, Sony Kills)

During this whole time, George came clean, saying that the board of Sony, used many different homophobic slurs against him, and wouldn’t let him release any music that seemed to allude to the fact that he was gay.

George Michael brought Sony to court in 1993, claiming that between 1987-1992, he had made worldwide profits of £7.35 million ($9.8 million) compared to Sony making £52.45 million ($70 million). Ultimately, the case lasted till June 1994, and Michael had lost, the judge claiming that it was fair. Michael retaliated saying how Sony is “Professional Slavery”.

Suzanne Kessler, Entertainment attorney at Bone McAllester Norton and former in-house attorney at A&M Records and Universal Music Group stated, “There are two sides to this tale,” she said. “The music business is a relationship business, and he was uneasy with what was happening. A label often wants an artist to continue to trade on their established brand with the public. But after “Faith” Michael was trying for a new direction, to be taken more seriously as an artist instead of just as a pop star sex symbol.”

This brings me to my next point,

 Closeting in the Industry

(Now I could go on for day about closeting in the music industry, but I will only give you the basis and then I will link another post that goes further in depth.)

Closeting is not a rare thing in the music industry, it in fact happens more than you might think. Many different artists have come forward, saying how their management said they should remain closeted to the general public, in order to maintain the brand that has been established. A popular example of this would be Sam Smith, they were offered multiple times by their management to have a beard. More closeting in the industry comes from Colton Haynes, who has been open about how his management closeted him because he “could not be gay and work in the industry”.

Colton link

Beard: A woman or man who fake dates a person of the LQBTQ+ Community, to hide their real sexual orientation or identity

 The Types of Stunts and Stunt Songs

“Pap Pics”

Stunts are common, we all should know that. From the amount of staged paparazzi pictures and videos that get posted to twitter on the daily it is not surprising that stunts happen. One of the main reasons stunts happen is for publicity, I can tell you now, living in LA for as long as I did, the paparazzi aren’t at every corner just waiting for a celebrity to walk past. They are called to meet at a place where the celebrity is going to be, in order to get pictures. This call is made by the artists management normally, and many times it is done against the artists will.

“Relation-shit”

These types of stunts are the relationship stunts, normally it is two popular celebrities dating to gain publicity for a movie or song that they are doing. A popular reference to this would be Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato, Joe was approached by a head of Disney, who asked him to date, at the time, co-star Demi Lovato. This stunt was to push the new Disney movie that both were starring in, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. Now at the time Demi was unaware that Joe was approached to do this, so when Joe and hid dad approached her about it… wow that must have hurt.

Another example of a relation-shit would be Shawmilla. Now before you attack me for this, let’s look at all the facts. Everything that relationship has done has been staged, let’s look at the timeline.

 August 2015

-       the first time they publicly hung out (at the 2015 VMA’s), sparking rumors of them dating

September 2015

-       pictured together at the iHeart Radio Festival, sparking rumors of Camila branching off of Fifth Harmony

November 2015

-       “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was released and performed many different times, Camila was still in Fifth Harmony at the time

June 2016

-       Shawn and Camila win an award for IKWYDLS and accepted together

-       Camilla ultimately starts her solo career

December 2017

-       Shawn is pictured with Hailey Baldwin (Bieber)

February 2018

-       Camila is in a serious relationship with Matthew Hussey, confirmed by a trip to Mexico together

April 2018

-       Shawn and Hailey go to the Met Gala together (Iconic)

December 2018

-       Camila hints at music between her and Shawn on twitter (6 months before Senorita)

https://twitter.com/Camila_Cabello/status/1070381510740598785?s=20

May 2019

-       Matthew and Camila last spotted together, returning from a vacation in Italy

-       Met her family on May 14th

June 20th, 2019

-       Senorita is released, now this had been in the works for over 6 MONTHS, so this was all very planned out

-       On release day, the Senorita music video was also released, which is literally soft porn, I do not know how it is still on the internet, gross

-       But, Camila? Aren’t you still dating Matthew? Why would you release this very VERY touchy music video with Shawn, if you are still dating Matthew?

June 21st, 2019

-       Shawn and Camila in V Magazine, still very touchy

June 26th, 2019

-       Breakup articles about Matthew and Camilla, Weird since he met her family only a month before.

July 3rd, 2019

-       Staged photos of Shawn and Camila out and about

4th  

-       more staged pics

5th

-       Camila at Shawn’s Concert

6th

-       Shawn denies that him and Camila are dating

 https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1147700409919778816?s=20

7th  

-       Shawmila in San Francisco all day

12th

-       That god awful making out pics that shook the entire internet

-       More pics in SF

 Ok you get the point, they are pictured together only when one of them has music to promote, In this case its Senorita. Now for more recent proofs of this entire relationship being a sham. Shawn just released an album called “Wonder” and guess what we wonder Shawn? Why do you not post any pictures of Camila until you have an album to promote? And now you have a puppy? Pulling an Elounor are we?

Senorita is a total stunt song to “prove” to the public that they are together.

“Style”

Now this type of stunt gets its name from the queen of stunt songs herself, Ms. Taylor Swift. The notorious song Style, supposedly about “Ex” Harry Styles, is probably one of the most stunty stunt songs I have ever heard. Like come on! “James Dean Daydream look in your eyes” if you didn’t know, here is a short recap on the icon himself James Dean.

Taylor has time and time again written amazing songs, I would be lying if I did not call her one of the greatest lyricists on the 21st century, the woman can write extremely well. So why would she put a nod to James Dean, a famous actor, who was a closeted, RAGING bisexual in a song so clearly about Harry Styles? She knows what she is doing.

Talking more about the “Haylor” stunt, can we please end that? It was a 3-month PR stunt that happened 5 years ago, please just get over it, they never really dated. And to the hardcore Haylor fans, there is no chemistry between them.

Haylor; The Stunt

“I hate you because I’m getting paid to!”

Now I do not go into this one much, but basically it is when you see two artists publicly fighting and releasing diss tracks. A popular example of this would be, Machine Gun Kelley and Eminem, with their songs called “Rap Devil” and “Killshot”. Their “beef” was totally staged to boost views on both sides, its even more prominent because they have the same record label, INTERSCOPE.

Eminem v. MGK

 I will be adding to this the more things happens, but it you have and questions feel free to ask them!

[realm-sweet-realm]

Angel of the Ink Machine, Chapter 1: An Unlikely Encounter.

Alright, this was a long time coming. And by a long time, I mean I have literally had it in mind since Fall. As a result, I’m going to ignore new information from TIOL so that I can do it as I originally planned.

The premise of this AU is simple: Sammy leaves the studio instead of Henry, and as a result, Joey needs a new partner in crime. He finds one in Allison. Power struggles, sacrifices, passion, ecstasy and tragedy ensues.

---

Sammy never even bothered to formally quit the studio, and it fell on Henry to explain to Joey what had probably transpired.

“He told me a few days ago that he wanted to get Mr. Arch’s attention and maybe a job from him. Sorry to say, Joey, but I think he got what he wanted.”

Joey’s face twisted with disbelief and anger and then back to serenity. “No, Sammy loved it here! I’m sure he’ll be back soon- he’s probably just sick. And even if he isn’t, well, we don’t need him anyhow, do we, Henry? So long as we have each other.”

“Hm? Yeah.” Henry didn’t tell Joey that Nathan had made him an offer as well, and that he was beginning to regret not taking it.

After a few days, Joey accepted that Sammy was gone and promoted Jack to the head of the music department. It was better that way, anyhow- Jack wasn’t so demanding, and let Joey have more run of the music room when he wanted it.

For the next decade, things went along as usual. The studio grew, Henry remained Joey’s finest and most hardworking artist, and Joey even began to look into some dark magic that could help him make his vision for the studio a reality. Joey was, however, beginning to feel increasingly alone in his vision. Henry had grown bitter and distant to him over the years, and then quit. It was disappointing, but not a surprise. It left Joey feeling rather empty in the realization of how little he’d lost. The loyal, invaluable partner he’d once had had turned into just another artist years ago.

Joey needed another person who truly understood his vision. Sadly, he didn’t know anyone that could have fit the bill.

And then he found her.

The place he’d found her had been a speakeasy during the prohibition- a hub of all sorts of illegal affairs. Joey had come here for booze and the occasional round of cocaine during the prohibition and had discovered magic that way. Now, the prohibition was over, but criminals still came to peddle their wares, and Joey, a frequent user of magic now, still came to supply himself with books and reagents that couldn’t be found anywhere else. It was a sleazy place- dirty, greasy, full of prostitutes and men who looked like they could rob you. So it didn’t surprise Joey when a woman- mid-twenties, curvaceous, and on the tall side- approached him while he was buying potions. He figured it was just a prostitute trying to find a customer.

“I need three of the generic restorative ones.. And a vial of clean animal blood, and a liter of chloroform, please.”

The woman next to him chuckled. “You know that restorative potions are horrendously marked up, right? And you could get the animal blood... from an animal.”

Looking at the woman for the first time, Joey realized two things. First, the nearly knee-length pink dress and grey leather jacket she was wearing looked far too new and expensive and a bit too modest to be a prostitute’s, and she looked awfully healthy and clean for one. Secondly, he recognized her from somewhere. Still, he wouldn’t let the woman embarrass him. “Well, yes. But I haven’t practiced making my own yet, and I don’t want to test the first few on myself! And I just so happen to have plenty of money for them.”

The woman finally made eye contact with him. Light grey eyes, Joey noted. “Really? So, you been into magic long, Mr…”

“Drew. Joey Drew. And not too long. My specialty is in the demonic, but I’m experimenting with a bit of everything. Trying to figure out what will work with my vision. Yourself? Actually, why don’t we have this conversation somewhere more pleasant.” Joey paid the man for the potions, and the two walked out of the dark alleyway and into the city lights.

“My specialty is potions. I brew my own. I also really like charms.”

Joey’s eyes went wide. “Charms? You criticize me for buying potions, and you buy charms? There’s no way of even knowing if they work!”

“Well, unlike you, I’m not working towards any grand vision. I think charms work. I think they make my life better. And that’s good enough for me. Honestly, some magic users forget that magic is meant to enhance life, not fill some kind of void in it. Heck, I could say the same of some artists.”

“Funny you should mention art. I’m an artist. And my life’s goal is to reflect life in art. It seems we have a similar view on life, don’t we? It’s just that I want to be the one to show it to other people. Say- would you like to see a bit of my vision tonight?”

“Sure!” Allison said with a smile.

Joey took her to his car and held the door open for her.

“Oh. A gentleman. And a rich one, it looks like!”

“Yes. I own one of the greatest animation studios in the world: Joey Drew Studios.”

Allison giggled. “I’m no cartoon expert, but if it’s one of the greatest in the world, then why haven’t I heard of it?”

“Well, it might not be the very best yet, but it will be! Especially once the project I’m about to show you takes off.”

“Great!” Joey could see the excitement in her eyes, and he loved it.

“And what do you do, Ms. Pendle? I feel like we’ve met.”

Allison’s face darkened a little. “Well... I used to be a Broadway performer. I quit. You see, I have an ugly history with cocaine, and some of my coworkers were getting me back into it. I knew I couldn’t stay without it ruining my health... so I didn’t. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, though.”

Joey could remember her now- a backup dancer in one of the plays he’d seen. He committed everything she’d said to memory, knowing it could be useful later on.

Before long, they were at the studio, and Joey showed her to the pedestal room.

“Wow. You got your entire staff to participate in your rituals? That’s amazing.”

“Just a few of them, actually. But yeah, a little power goes a long way when you’re dealing with magic. And this isn’t even half of it. Come. I assume you aren’t a vegetarian witch?”

“Well, I’ve never slaughtered an animal for magic, but I’m up for it so long as it’s not too often. It’s no different than meat, really.”

“Fair enough,” Joey said. Maybe it was stupid to trust this woman that he’d met this same night, but he got a good feeling about her. He just had to share everything with her. The elevator wasn’t romantic enough, so he took her to the ink machine, suspended with chains, and watched the amazement on her face as it lowered until its top was at floor level. Joey stepped onto the machine and pulled Allison along with him. He held her waist as the machine lowered until it hit the floor of the very basement.

“Wait a moment,” he said, before climbing down the machine and running to turn on the lights.

Allison’s heart was beating a million miles a minute looking at all the pentagrams on the floor, the supplies on the shelves, and the strange machinery. A small part of her was glad she’d packed a knife in her jacket pocket, especially given the human-sized iron cages. Mostly, though, she felt like she’d died and gone to magic-user heaven. Joey had thought she wouldn’t be scared off by this, and was more than happy to be proven correct.

“This is amazing!” Allison beamed. “What do you use it for?”

“Well… nothing good, yet. I’m trying to create life, but there’s only been failed attempts. Let you show you my best one.” Joey led her to a supply closet that only he had the keys for. The door opened to reveal a metal cage and little else. When Joey clicked on the lights, a mound of black sludge, maybe a foot and a half tall, made itself visible. A cartoonish mouth floated down about where an ear should be, and two black mounds that vaguely looked like pie-cut eyes rested at its base. “I don’t know what to do to improve results,” Joey admitted. “Ultimately, I want to bring my cartoons into the real world. But can you imagine me presenting this old thing on a stage?” Joey laughed. “Wouldn’t exactly have them cheering, now would it?”

“Hmm... well, it’s a long shot, but a while ago while I was traveling, I stayed with a witch for a while and learned the recipe for a special potion. I kind of... stole the recipe from her, so I don’t know all about how it works, but it’s had all kinds of effects on the substances I’ve used it in in the past. I once burned all my hair off by mixing it with shampoo! So, you wanna to see what happens when you mix it with ink?

“Why not?” Joey said. He was sure to hear an earfull from Thomas the next day about some mechanical nonsense, but at that moment, Joey didn’t care.

“Alright,” Allison said, digging out a small vial of clear liquid from her bag. “Where do I put this?”

Joey directed her to the insertion nozzle. Allison put in the substance. Joey gathered some film of Bendy and added it in as well. And then, Joey started up the machine. What came out was an abomination- a strange, humanoid creature made of ink, its spine and joints jutting out at sharp angles from its body. It had Bendy’s horns, his smile, and one of its gloves, but the similarities ended there. It looked around at its surroundings before beginning to wander off.

Allison yelped. “What do we do? I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be,” Joey said in an extremely calm voice. “Just be calm. Find an iron cage big enough and open it for me.”

Allison did as she was told, and Joey calmly approached the beast as it took in its surroundings. “Hey, there, buddy. Come with me. It’s okay.” He offered the beast his hand and led him towards the cage. He and Allison wrestled the creature into the cage and locked it. Joey sighed in relief. “That could have been ugly.”

“Yeah. That was amazing. But I’m sorry for causing it!”

They made eye contact. “Don’t be! That’s the closest I’ve ever come to making a functional toon! I mean, it still needs something... but thank you.” Joey ran his hand over her arm. “Allison. You can sing, right? You sang on Broadway?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been looking for a person who understood me- this side, the artistic side, the lust-for-life side- for years. Would you like to join my studio as a voice actress and help me with this grand project? Help me to do what no magician has done and create sentient life with me?”

“Yes! I’ve been looking for the next adventure since I quit Broadway!”

She hadn’t hesitated. This could only end well.

“Okay. Now, I’ll want you as a partner in crime and voice actress either way, but would you like to go out to dinner on Friday?”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, pentagrams and demonic machines were one thing, but dinner? Now you’ve gone too far.” A pause. “I’m joking, Joey. Of course I will.” Dangerous just so happened to be Allison’s type, and she knew she could handle this little adventure if it turned sour.

[emblem-fire]

Black Eagle!Dedue AU

Dedue starts classes in the Blue Lions House, but he isn’t totally loyal to Dimitri like he is in the canon. In this AU, he is bitter about the Murder of Duscur and about Dimitri’s refusal to do anything in terms of reparations.

Dedue spends two moons in the blue lions and in that time, he is consistently belittled and degraded by Felix and Ingrid for his heritage. He doesn’t get this treatment from his other classmates but they seldom defend him. This refusal to take action leads to a rift between the Dedue and the rest of his class. For a while, he feels totally alone.

One day, Ingrid gets exceptionally racist in the mess hall and it draws attention. Again, none in the Blue Lions stand up for Dedue but to Dedue’s surprise, quite a few Black Eagles come to his defense immediately. This leads to a spat between the the black eagles, Petra, Dorothea and Ferdinand in particular, and Ingrid and Felix. Seteth breaks up the argument but before they leave, the Black Eagles invite Dedue to their table. Dedue thinks on it a minute before he stands with his food and he goes to join them. He starts sitting with and just generally hanging out with the Eagles from then on, but it doesn’t push him to switch classes.

From then, Dedue builds relationships with most of the Eagles.

Petra becomes friends with him first, and they bond over their mutual feelings of homesickness. They become good friends doing cool friend shit like hunting and fishing together and kicking the shit out of racist monks and students. Idk I just want them to be bros, dude.

Dorothea becomes friends with him by asking him about the arts of Duscur. He’s wary of her initially, but he eventually warms up to her and he even sings the songs he remembers for her.

Ferdinand tries to be a protector to Dedue at first but that annoyed Dedue more than anything. Dedue tries to explain that he doesn’t need a defender and that while he appreciates the thought, he would rather not have Ferdinand stick his neck out like that. Ferdinand obliges, albeit a bit confused as to why someone would refuse a noble’s protection.

 Caspar becomes friends with Dedue because of how built he is. They train together all the time, and though Caspar is a bit too rambunctious for Dedue’s tastes, he indulges him anyways and he develops a friendship with him.

What pushes Dedue to leave the Blue Lions is his paralouge. Dimitri refuses to defend the Duscur rebels. He says that there are more important matters at hand, so he turns his back on the people who just want their homes back. Desperate and enraged, Dedue turns to the eagles and begs them for their aid. Without question, Byleth and Edelgard agree to help him and together, they help the Duscari rebels fend off the battalion of Faerghus soldiers. Afterwards, Edelgard offers the rebels a haven in Enbarr, so that they may live in peace. The rebels accept her offer and they go to Enbarr as temporary refugees, but with plans to take their lands back in one way or another.

Dedue is thoroughly shocked that Edelgard was so ready to aid his people who have been seen as lessers for so long and he’s even more shocked when she offers the people of Duscur her protection and a temporary home in Enbarr. It is here where Edelgard confides in Dedue that when she is Emperor, she wants to create a world of equals in terms of rights and protections. It’s vague but it’s enough for him to turn his back on Dimitri all together and join the Eagles because in this one act of aid, she has done more for Duscur than Dimitri has in his entire life.

Ingrid is predictably vindictive about his choice to leave, but everyone else is amicable about it, ranging from sad to indifferent.

When the war rolls around, Dedue doesn’t think twice about siding with the empire.

Dialogue vs former classmates

Dimitri

Dimitri: Dedue!

Dedue: Your Highness.

Dimitri: I don’t understand, how could you side with her? Can you not see the destruction that she has wrought?

Dedue: With her help, Duscur can reclaim what it has lost. She offers a future for my people, whereas Faerghus sees us as little more than a remnant of the past.

Dimitri: Faithless turncoat! Very well, then. If you fight for her despotic visions, then you’ll die too!

Ingrid

Ingrid: Duscari scum! I will rid you from the world for your treachery!

Dedue: No, Ingrid. You will only die trying.

Felix

Felix: Even if you’ve left the boar, you’re still nothing more than a dog. The only thing that’s changed is your master.

Dedue: I have no words for you.

Felix: Good. Come fight me and die.

Sylvain

Sylvain: So, this new world Edelgard wants to build is one where crests are insignificant?

Dedue: Yes. If you lay down your arms, I can promise you that you’ll have a place in it too.

Sylvain: Tempting, but I’m afraid I’ve already found a cause worth fighting for.

Dedue: Your sense of duty will get you killed.

Sylvain: I have the Lance of Ruin on my side, Dedue. I’ll take my chances.

Annette

Annette: I know I should hate you for siding with her…

Dedue: …

Annette: But, I don’t. I really do understand why you did.

Dedue: We don’t need to fight, Annette. Surrender, and I will see that you are treated with fairness and dignity.

Annette: I’m sorry, but I can’t. I will not lose my father again. Prepare yourself, I won’t go easy on you.

Ashe

Ashe: I was hoping we wouldn’t have to fight.

Dedue: As was I. I don’t suppose I can convince you to lay down your bow and surrender?

Ashe: I’m sorry, but no. I have a duty to fulfill. Even if it means I’ll die fulfilling it.

Mercedes

Mercedes: Oh! It really is lovely to see you again. It’s a shame that it’s like this, isn’t it?

Dedue: I don’t want to fight you, Mercedes. Please, stand down.

Mercedes: If only it were so simple, Dedue.

Endings in Crimson Flower route

Solo Ending

After the war finally came to a halt, the people of Duscur were able to reclaim what they had lost and then some. Dedue was widely celebrated as a hero to his people and he became the first leader of Duscur. The people wanted him to rule as a king, but he proposed a more democratic rule. Even so, Dedue was never voted out of office and under his selfless leadership, Duscur was able to bloom into a wealthy nation with rich art and world famous cuisine.

Ending with Ferdinand

After the war had finally came to a halt, the people of Duscur were finally able to reclaim what they lost and then some. Dedue became a hero to his people and together with the aid of Ferdinand von Aegir, Duscur healed from the scars of it’s past and it blossomed into a vibrant nation which was rich in trade and art. Later, after both Dedue and Ferdinand had passed, letters between the two were discovered, the contents of which were described by poets and scholars as the most beautiful and intimate expressions of love and gratitude to ever be written.

Ending with Petra

After the war had come to a close, Petra was finally crowned as the Queen of Brigid. From the very start of her reign, Petra worked hard to establish strong diplomatic relations with not just Fódlan, but with Dagda, Almyra, Morfis and the newly rebuilt Duscur. Dedue, as the new leader of Duscur, would meet with Petra regularly to make sure that their two nations grew strong together, though later, these meetings would become more private affairs. Eventually, Dedue announced that he would not be running for another term and he left Duscur to be with Petra, to whom he was wed almost as soon as he arrived in Brigid. The people were initially skeptical of him but Dedue’s tireless devotion to his new subjects earned him their love and admiration. To this day, Dedue and Petra are revered in both Duscur and Brigid and the two nations enjoy a high degree of camaraderie.

Ending with Dorothea

When the war finally came to a close, Dorothea accompanied her husband, Dedue to Duscur. Together, they got to work rebuilding Duscur, though in two very different ways. Dedue became the first elected leader of Duscur and his policies made sure that the country was built strongly in terms of infrastructure and with its economy. Dorothea, on the other hand, became a patron of the arts and she oversaw the creation of a new Opera company in Duscur which took in talent from all over the world. This diversity of artists effectively revolutionized art itself, and before long, Duscur was known far and wide for it’s wide array of arts. For as busy as the couple was, however, they always made time for one another and it is said that no union was ever as happy and serene as theirs was.

Ending with Caspar

In recognition of his daring deeds during the war, Caspar was offered the position of Minister of Military Affairs, but he declined. Instead, Caspar accompanied Dedue and his people to help rebuild Duscur. Unfortunately, hatred for Duscur persisted in the north of Fódlan. This led to the creation of a military dedicated to the defense of Duscur, helmed jointly by Caspar and Dedue. Thanks to their tireless efforts, Duscur remained safe and in time, the nation was able to heal and bloom into a wondrous country of wealth and formidable military might. To this day, Dedue and Caspar are remembered as the greatest of all of Duscur’s heroes, even being called the sons of the War God by some.

Ending with Bernadetta

After the war had finally come to a close, Bernadetta was granted the Varley territory, but instead of taking over, she chose a more adept successor and relinquished all claims to the territory. From there, she became a traveling artist of great renown. She ventured far and wide, from Brigid to Sreng to Almyra, but eventually, she found herself in Duscur and she fell in love with the culture. Her paintings of Duscur and it’s denizens became beloved by the people to the point were Dedue, the new leader of Duscur, had to beg her to stay. She inevitably stayed and with her help, art museums were established in Duscur. In time, these became among the finest in the world, filled to the brim with the beautiful works of Duscur’s many artists.

This was pretty cool to write haha. If anyone is interested in me writing more endings for this AU or maybe even Dedue’s supports with the Black Eagles and the Golden Deer let me know!

[lilacerull0]

LITTLE WOMEN FANFICTION

CHAPTER 3: SEVEN

Escapism

"Please, picture me in the trees...

...before I learned civility."

- seven, Taylor Swift

***

one.

- Let's run away.

It's barely a whisper. It's said more to the open sky above them than to anybody else.

- Let's run away.

It's more than a whisper now. It's a call. An invitation for something greater than both of them. And Laurie would gladly buy a ticket for that particular train. He would. But the sun is so wonderful and the clouds are so enchanting in their unusual shapes that even getting up seems like a chore. He wants to stay here. On the grass. But Jo is persistent in her wishes. Jo March never, never, gives up.

- Won't you say something, Teddy? Can't you just see it? We could be anything, do anything, go anywhere! The world could be ours!

She, unlike him, is on her feet. She always seems to be. Gravity isn't very fond of Jo. Or at least that's what Jo will tell you. Laurie doesn't know if that's true or not, but he likes hearing her talk. He finds himself generally attached to sounds. The chipering of birds. The first note you play on the piano. Amy's chaotic laughter. Beth's soft chuckles. Meg's little mumbles. Jo's wild exclaims. That's one of the many reasons why Laurie loves the Marches. It's like these sisters have discovered an utterly fresh, vivid and extraordinary way to be alive. It's a pleasant contrast to what he's used to.

It's always quiet at home.

"What do you say Theodore Laurence, kindest and most noble of knights of this kingdom? Shall we follow the wind and see where it leads us?"

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

"Then you accept my proposal?"

"I sure do, Miss March."

People's faces usually look radically different when lightened up with smiles. They look prettier, more beautiful and somehow truer to themselves as opposed to non smiling faces. Jo's doesn't. She is smiling at him right now and her face doesn't look any different. It's just as true and warm as it was a thousand smiles before. And would Laurie even be allowed to call himself a comrade of Jo's if he didn't gift her with a smile of his own in return? He grins at her with no specific thought behind the expression. This is how people are supposed to be smiling, he thinks. Wide and real. Yes, people are supposed to be smiling just like this.

For a second, Jo and Laurie are the same person. Hair wild, shirts half unbuttoned, cheeks flushed. Laurie's hands are splattered with dirt from the ground whose hostility he was taking advantage of moments prior. Jo doesn't seem to care about that. Once he's up and standing, she grabs his arm a bit forcefully (which he doesn't mind), a bit theatrically (because this is Jo and life is a theatre piece) and they start running, both of them now embellished with dust. There's a lot of stumbling (and stumbling is blamed on the seemingly nonexistent objects that appear and disappear under commands of fairy like creatures) and there's a lot of laughter (laughter that comes in its most natural form and doesn't show any interest in being contained under anyone's wishes, especially not the ones of the world).

"Oh dearest, the world might not be for us, but us we are for the world."

***

two.

Freedom is both the most basic and the most complicated aspect of life to be gained. It is so simple of a concept, one could easily and rightfully so believe how all of thought guardians (more commonly referred to as humans) should have the right to not only experience, but spend their entire lives swimming in shinning lakes of freedom. But it's not how it all works. Some have tiny bits of freedom. Some don't have it at all. Some have loads. Some have just enough. Too much, sadly or sadly not, have none. 

Jo sometimes wishes she were a tree. High up in the sky, stretching out her branches towards infinity. She isn't a tree though.

Imagination is of grave help despite what anyone says. To a normal person, the tree is just a tree. Tree and nothing else. To Jo March, a tree is so much more. It's an opportunity. An adventure. It's a solace and a home. A sanctuary. She's climbing up one of her leaf providing friends as she's trying to figure out how to describe this moment the best. Her reflections are interrupted by a voice which surprisingly doesn't come from the bellow, but from the above instead. Once Jo spots the speaker's ground conquerors (or "shoes" if you are of dull old sameness and don't find the pleasure in crafting phrases unlike our Jo), she immediately recognizes their owner. She still isn't sure why Teddy let Amy paint his shoes with images of flowers, but she is mesmerized with the final result. And although she shall never share this with the oh, so great artist, Jo thinks Amy's creations to be exquisite.

"I presume you are coming here to put your mind at ease."

"That is correct, my boy, and I suppose you are here for the same cause. "

By the time they exchange these lines, Jo has already climbed up to the place where Laurie is. She finds herself a steady enough branch and rests her head against the surface of the wood. Her friend is positioned in a similar way, his leg gently swaying to a peculiar beat of his own making.

Two figures, who almost seem to be one with the wooden fellow, occasionally take an exceptionally deep breath. Their hands colored with bruises, souvenirs from many extraordinary expeditions, their clothes decorated with leaves. Seemingly they are flowers, nature is their most beloved companion.

It's quite a story how Jo and Teddy, these flower resembling humans, coexist without many syllables shared. The phrases they do sometimes grace each other with can end up being translated as meaningless or lacking in thought. But Teddy and Jo, among everything else, are inventors. They invented a language which only functions for them. What is mean to others represents to them a code. What is strange to some, playful and witty to them it is. What is impossible to comprehend, they understand with little to no effort.

"Language of flowers is the language of flowers for a reason. Nobody, but flowers, thinks it much sense."

***

three.

"I'M ALIVE! LOOK AT ME, EARTH!!! I! AM! BREATHING!"

This is just one of the many declarations that have furiously been shouted at the void today. Young people often have trouble befriending compromises, especially if those compromises are to be made with the creatures you live in close proximity with. Jo has again been fighting with her sisters for reasons she cannot exactly recall right this instant. It's funny, because this always happens to her. Something sparks her temper, she recklessly gives into it and at the end, it's all about the anger she doesn't know how to release. She usually goes on long walks or takes deep breaths. She basically tries to isolate herself from everyone until the storm passes.

Teddy has a different solution for her troubles, troubles that naturally turn out to be his troubles too because they are Jo and Teddy, Teddy and Jo, and they have the same troubles (which is both wonderfully relieving and awfully annoying at the same time). Jo wouldn't even call Teddy's solution a solution. They are both making these announcements of nonhuman frequency and dancing their heads off, and as ridiculous as it is, Jo feels it liberating. They aren't improving anything (just the opposite, screaming random things into the air represents the peak of impulsive behaviour) and the conclusion is: no profitable discoveries in the "containing yourself" department. But who cares? Sometimes you have to let it all out. Dance and shout the worries away. It wasn't a coincidence that Jo met Teddy under the circumstances that she did. They were both of hot tempers, strong wills and free spirits. And they needed to dance it all out out. Despite the absurdity and inappropriate mannerism a foreign eye would most certainly find in their actions.

"There exists no right nor wrong way to express one's self."

***

four.

Laurie is surprised with how much he is enjoying this. It's all very simple. Yet, he feels at peace. He feels like everything inside him has a chance to rest.

It's the fireplace and captivating movement of the fire flames.

It's the soft "click" he discovers every time Meg takes a step. Her shoes are marvellous singers.

It's the chattering of dishes he recognizes somewhere in the background. It must be Beth, cleaning the table after the meal.

It's Amy giggling mischievously after coming up with what Laurie supposes to be some kind of scheme or more accurately, a master plan. He wouldn't know what is it about, but whatever it is, Amy is destined to succeed in it.

It's Jo. This is all because of Jo. He wouldn't have come across the hidden delights of the "uncomplicated" and "boring" if it weren't for her. She takes a seat beside him interrupting the spectacular date he had with the fireplace, rests her head on his shoulder and sighs. It's like this with them. Touching has never been a big deal.

"Beautiful."

That's all Jo says. "Beautiful." He doesn't question it. He understands what she means even though he cannot explain it. He understands.

"Warmth. Choreographed chaos. Lines overlapping. Minds intertwining. Familiarity greeting you "hello". People. Family. Home."

***

five.

She cut her hair. She cut her hair and everything is supposed to be at least a little better if not completely fine. But she can feel the tears forming in her eyes as she's approaching the house. The money in her pocket is so incredibly present. No, the money is not just present in her pocket. Everything those dusty pieces of paper represent carries weight. A weight so grand Jo could swear there is somebody following her, kind of like the money has taken the shape of a person and is now accompanying her, monitoring her every move. What kind of world sees a green, ugly paper and claims of it a metaphor for greatest treasures? And the tears? The tears she cannot comprehend. Why would she care? It's just hair. If anything, she should be bursting with joy right now. She got rid of the womanly burden. But it doesn't feel right. It's all extremely selfish of her. Selfish and thoughtless.

Her sister is... not well. Her father is out there doing all sorts of heroic things and instead of crying over her sins, she's crying over this. For once she does something right, for once the part of her that's wrong different isn't screaming. And then it hits her. It's not just a part of her that's different wrong. It's her. The moment she realises this she steps into the house. Everyone is either too distant or too close to notice all that is hiding underneath her seemingly admirable actions.

Her body is barely handling the atmosphere. It's barely cultivating the facade. But her body is also covered with Teddy's waistcoat and just as she remembers this little fact she sees her best friend right there in front of her. He is not too distant nor too close. He is right where she is.

They have the same hair.

Jo is pulled towards him because this is Teddy and hugging Teddy is like hugging herself. They stay like that for a few moments, their realities greeting each other like two fellow soldiers, finally reunited in battle.

It doesn't make her feel any less hollow. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't alter the wrongs. But it does make it a little better. It offers an assurance. An assurance embodying validity so present, money can do nothing but hold a candle to. An assurance of rational absurdity. Because that's what Jo and Teddy are.

They are rationally absurd.

"It's a childish belief that all twins look the same. There exist many ways to be somebody's twin."

***

six.

She is holding his hand.

He has just told her how he doesn't fit within himself. He has just told her that and she is still here, laying on the floor with him, covered with blankets. She said it made sense. She must have been too tired or something. She must have misheard. She must have.

"Jo, are you there?"

She does not respond. She only squeezes his hand. It's not about the gesture itself. It's about everything the gesture holds.

Promises. Lifetimes. Daylights. Midnights. Setting suns. Growing spirits. Flowery Youths.

She is holding his hand.

" Mutuality sure is a wonderful creation. What is more wonderful though is mutual understanding. Mutuality means the returning of the same. Mutual understanding means accepting and loving of the different."

***

seven.

"I could run away for real this time. Explore the unknown, unravel the mystical. Encounter the miracles. Touch the heavens..."

Her words are empty. They don't mean much. They are empty and desperate. Empty, desperate and meaningless.

Her sister got married. Meg got married and she is talking to herself about running away. The wind is dancing with her again long enough hair, tangling its fingers into her rough curls, reminding her of the countless times it has done the exact same thing before. Mocking her with its endless supplies of stability and comfort. Jo is leaning over the wooden fence, despite the wishes of her dress which keeps complaining about her unlady like methods. Jo honestly does not care about the fancy bridesmaid dress and its wants. If one has the will to climb fences, one shall enjoy the act of doing so, no matter what some piece of fabric might have to say. She is trying to hold back rivers her eyes miserably wish to let flow. She cannot cry. She must not. She has an ongoing bet with Teddy about this. He was daring enough to assume she will turn herself into a paddle today and she ought to prove him wrong.

"What might a lady like yourself be doing here instead of enjoying the jolly ceremony out there in the open?"

"I am no lady Teddy, my being is in no need of such chains."

Laurie doesn't pressure her into answering the question (she would have answered it in the first place if she had the intention to) and steps on the fence beside her. He starts humming a random melody, rhythmically moving his fingers to the sound.  He must be composing something again, thinks Jo and silently envies his creative range. It's been too long since she's written anything worth sharing.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Everything."

"Isn't that a bit too much of things?"

"Oh, it's just a little over the top Teddy, but I believe I can handle it. This mind is no stranger to overcrowding."

The same tree they used to climb when they were younger is now observing them, representing an eternal and haunting reminder of everything that once was. Jo is frightened. That silent way in which Teddy is looking at her is frightening. He is looking at her in ways she longs for to be different and his eyes have too many freshly discovered stories to tell. She is frightened she won't find those stories to be very pleasant.

"Do you remember that day when I told you how I wanted to run away?"

"How could I not?"

"I need to run away again."

Laurie doesn't need to hear it twice. He jumps over the fence and starts running, his arms widely spread, his tie and jacket long forgotten. It isn't real. Jo knows they will never go anywhere. The sun is setting and the lines of separation are clearing up. The sun is setting and challenges, struggles and complications lie ahead. She knows all of this. Yet, she hikes up her skirts like she's sixteen again and follows the path her boy has chosen for as long as she knows how to. Jo and Teddy run through the endless fields of gold, specks of sunlight meeting their bones. Teddy and Jo, Jo and Teddy, high in the sky for one last time before nightfall.

They keep falling over each other and eventually end up wrestling on the grass, occasional screams and consistent laughter adorning the air around them.

The last song of Meg's shoes. The last symbol Amy will ever paint on Jo's hands. The last wide smile of Beth's. The last understood conversation of birds. The last fellow of the trees. The last arrangement of flowers.

The last.

The last.

The last.

"Oh, to live in a world where there are childhoods, fields of gold and raging hearts."

"Grab a coat, leave a note and run away with me."

- William Chapman

[kali-writes-meta]

Oscar and Ironwood Part 2: The Toxic Bromance

I apologise for taking so long to post this essay. Recent events haven't been conducive to a contemplative state of mind. In Part 1 I covered the pile of rather ominous foreshadowing of Oscar and Ironwood's relationship, now let's see how it actually played out.

Oscar and Ironwood's relationship has the rhythm of a toxic bromance story. Ironwood is pining for someone else to come sweep him off his feet, and he gets Oscar instead. Ironwood makes no bones about the fact that he would prefer Ozpin, and spends their every moment together trying to turn Oscar into Ozpin. Then, at a dramatic moment, Oscar saves Ironwood by doing something that Ozpin would never do, proving that Oscar is the better man for this moment. And does Ironwood thank him? No, he's still too busy pining for Ozpin, unable to appreciate the man standing in front of him. Finally, Oscar makes one last attempt to reach Ironwood, who cruelly dumps him. It's a perfect example of a toxic bromance.

But, maybe I'm wrong. There are people who say that the final scene with Oscar and Ironwood in Volume 7 had Ironwood acting completely different from how he had previously acted towards Oscar. I didn't see that big of a difference, but maybe I missed something. Let's look at every single interaction between the two characters and see what we find.

When they first meet Ironwood warmly greets a bunch of people he hasn't seen in over a year, but doesn't ask about the one stranger in the group. It's a small incivility that could be put down to the stress of discussing highly classified information, if he didn't then proceed to discuss highly classified information in front of a COMPLETE STRANGER. Whether you see it as an etiquette failure or a security failure or both, it's clearly a failure.

Ironwood announces a new plan that will undo and replace Ozpin's plan, since Ozpin is gone and he has to use his "best judgement". Then he is introduced to the strange kid as "the next Ozpin" (Really, Qrow? You could have worded it better than that.)

Ironwood is overjoyed. He smiles broadly and quickly races to Oscar's side, even going down on one knee in front of him, at the thought that Oscar might not really be Oscar.

Let's pause on the kneeling bit. Who is Ironwood kneeling for? One kneels before a child, one's lover, or one's monarch. Ironwood might be kneeling before the child Oscar, but he NEVER kneels before Oscar again, so he's not kneeling for the child. He's kneeling before a lover or a monarch. I highly doubt it's for a lover, and "monarch" seems closer to how he was treating Ozpin earlier. But it is definitely someone for whom Ironwood feels a passionate bond. There's no doubt that this is the most emotional we have seen Ironwood to this date.

After Ironwood goes down on one knee, he learns that this is not the Wizard he has been looking for. Ozpin.exe has gone offline, and only Oscar is at home.

Ironwood is crushed. Instead of responding to Oscar's introduction and without saying a single word to the young man he's just been introduced to he looks away from him,

turns his back on Oscar,

and walks away!

If one of the main cast had been that rude to Oscar we still wouldn't have heard the end of it, but for some reason Ironwood gets a free pass.

Ironwood: Ozpin told us that too, once upon a time. (turning to face them) At least we have you, Oscar. You're safe here in Atlas. Maybe together we can figure out how to bring Ozpin back.

That's an interesting statement. Notice he still hasn't exchanged pleasantries with Oscar. He's saying that Oscar is safe, but he's not saying that he will take care of Oscar or do anything at all for him, except "figure out how to bring Ozpin back". He's setting the terms of their relationship at the start. He doesn't see Oscar as his own person, but only as an obstacle he has to get through to reach Ozpin.

Note the discrepancy between Ironwood's tone and his wording. Research has shown that some people pay more attention to tone than they do to word choice, so when there's a discrepancy between tone and wording they'll give more weight to the tone and dismiss the actual words. (It's a valuable tool for unscrupulous salesmen and con artists.) Ironwood's tone is warm and friendly towards Oscar and apparently it fooled some viewers, but his words are much cooler and less friendly.

Oscar notices the discrepancy, and it confuses him. He responds first to the warm tone and then to the cool wording.

Oscar: (grinning) Thank you, sir. (stands at attention) I mean, uh, general. Uh, Ironwood? (smiling awkwardly)

At this point their relationship is spelled out. Ironwood is deeply disappointed and dissatisfied that Oscar isn't Ozpin, and is going to try his best to turn Oscar into Ozpin. Oscar, responding to Ironwood's warm tone, is going to do his best to cooperate for Ironwood's sake. Ironwood's stance reminds me of what was said to another Atlesian back in Volume 1:

Port: "So the outcome did not fall in your favor. ...(I)nstead of fretting about what you don't have, savor what you do. Hone your skills, perfect every technique, and be... the best person you can be."

Ironwood is fretting about what he doesn't have. He isn't interested in helping Oscar be the best Oscar he can be. Ironwood just wants to turn Oscar into Ozpin as fast as possible.

We see the difference in the two mens' attitudes play out in the mine clearing story. Oscar expresses concern about how they are treating Ironwood.

Oscar: Ruby, hiding things from Ironwood, doesn't that feel like what Ozpin did to us?

But Ironwood shows a lack of concern for Oscar by not inviting Oscar to a surprise party Ironwood throws for Oscar's friends. If he was concerned for Oscar, why not invite him? But if Ironwood's only concern is turning Oscar into Ozpin, it makes sense that he would not even think to invite the young man. Such an action would not serve Ironwood's purpose, so why do it?

Later, Ironwood begins training Oscar.

Ironwood: You might not hear Oz anymore, Oscar, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to jog him loose.

Once again, Ironwood's tone of voice is warm and friendly, but his words are not. Notice that Ironwood doesn't say that he is training Oscar for Oscar's benefit. His sole stated reason for training Oscar is to "jog (Ozpin) loose". Ironwood has a good reason for believing this sparring technique will work to bring out Ozpin, but that topic deserves an essay of its own, so I'll cover it separately later. However, it doesn't work to jog Ozpin loose. Instead it helps Oscar improve and make more friends, to become more "the best Oscar he can be."

When sparring doesn't work to turn Oscar into Ozpin Ironwood falls back on the classic trope of the lovesick swain, he shows the substitute the special place where he and his idol made special memories.

Ironwood: I hoped bringing you down here might jog some memories.

This interaction is the third time that we've seen Ironwood speak to Oscar, and it's the third time he's said he wants to turn Oscar into someone else. There's no canon evidence that they have any other relationship at this point.

But, I can hear some people saying, how is this different from what the main cast did to Oscar? Didn't they treat him like a walking meat suit as well? It's true that in a fit of rage Jaune accused Oscar of being Ozpin in disguise, but he quickly dropped the delusion and apologized to Oscar at the next opportunity, and that was the end of it. There's never been another time when they have treated Oscar as if he was Ozpin when Oscar was in control of his own body. Ironwood is a different story. He persists in trying to turn Oscar into Ozpin.

For the third time, his tone of voice is warm and friendly, but his words are all about how he doesn't want to be here with Oscar. He wants to be with someone else. He seems to look forward to a day when he believes Oscar will be gone and Ozpin will stand in his place (in spite of all the evidence to the contrary) to Oscar's noticable discomfort.

Oscar: It feels strange, knowing that part of me helped come up with all this.

Ironwood: You’ll get used to it, I’m sure. Eventually, you won’t even know who’s who anymore.

Then, in that special spot, Ironwood tells Oscar his dream for the two of them.

Ironwood: We... didn’t always see eye to eye, but... I wish I could ask Ozpin what he thought of all of this.

As is common with lovesick swains, Ironwood is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses. They didn't merely not "always see eye to eye". Ironwood was constantly arguing with Ozpin, keeping secrets from Ozpin (Penny), and going behind Ozpin's back to undercut Ozpin's authority (taking over the Vytal Festival). It's doubtful how much he would listen to Ozpin if Ozpin was there, but Ironwood is still making himself heartsick imagining the encouragement that Ozpin would give him. (You can tell he's viewing the past tinted with nostalgia, because if Ozpin were really there Ironwood would be getting a tongue-lashing.)

Imagine how dehumanizing this must feel to Oscar. It's entirely to the young man's credit that he does what he does next.

Oscar: Well, I can tell you what I think. The path you’re heading down where you’re the only one with the answers, where you do the thing you think is right no matter the cost, it’s not going to take you anywhere good.

Oscar has been giving Ironwood what he thinks Ironwood wants, to no avail. Now he gives Ironwood what Oscar thinks Ironwood needs.

And it seems to help Ironwood open up a little bit.

Ironwood: We have to stop Salem. Nothing matters more.

Oscar: Some things matter more, I think. Keeping our humanity. It’s what makes us different from her.

Ironwood: Sometimes I worry that’s her greatest advantage. Without humanity, does she still feel fear? Does she ever hesitate? When Salem hit Beacon, even with all my ships, all of my soldiers... I was no match for her. I’ve never felt so helpless. The way she told me she was there.

Oscar: It’s okay to be afraid. You just can’t let that fear control you.

Ironwood: I am not going to end up with Lionheart. Do you believe in me?

Oscar: I do believe in you, but not only you. I think the best thing you could do is sit down and talk with the people you’re most afraid to.

And how does Ironwood express his gratitude for Oscar's help?

Ironwood: (chuckles) Now you are starting to sound like him.

By denying Oscar's humanity once again.

Then comes Jacques' ball --, er, dinner party. Oscar is worried about what will happen to Ironwood there.

Oscar: Ironwood's going to be locked in a room at his rival's own dinner party. I know Jacques says he's happy to moderate, but all that really means is he'll be the one controlling the conversation.

Ironwood doesn't appear to show the same concern for Oscar, but drags the young man along into a potentially dangerous situation. Why? It's not for anyone's entertainment. It's not so Oscar can testify before the Council, which is the excuse for bringing the others. Oscar's secrets are not ones that Ironwood wants out. The only plausible reason left is so that a 14 year old kid can provide a world leader with advice and emotional support.

To everyone's surprise, that's what happens.

Jacques' treason and Watts' shenanigans come to the surface, culminating in a simultaneous cyber attack with a major DOS, riot, and Grimm invasion. Ironwood freezes in the clinch, unable to decide what to do.

Clover: Sir, we need ground support now.

Robyn: What we need is to start evacuating Mantle. If it's completely overrun, it's not going to be safe anywhere. Use the fleet to get--

Ironwood: If I move the fleet, then Atlas is vulnerable. I… I tried to keep the kingdom safe. And now we're losing everything.

It's Oscar that comes to Ironwood's rescue.

Oscar: General? Earlier, you asked for my advice.

Ironwood: I wanted Ozpin's advice.

Ouch. For the fourth time, Ironwood shows that he sees Oscar as nothing but a poor substitute for Ozpin. But then Oscar shines.

Oscar: And his advice probably would've been to keep your secrets. When we first got here, you already knew that wasn't the right course. You had a new plan.

Ironwood: It's time to give up on that plan. It's all falling apart.

Oscar: The panic you were worried about? It's already happening. The secrets you're keeping? They're about to be in the open anyway. It's time. Tell the truth.

Here is where Oscar does what Ozpin couldn't do, proving that he's not just a second-rate substitute for the real thing. This time he was better than Ozpin.

At this point Oscar has just pulled Ironwood's fat out of the fire, and what does he get? The only thanks Ironwood gives him since they first met, right before Oscar is literally told to go to his room.

Ironwood: Thank you. Oscar, I think it's time you get back to the Academy.

Afterwards Oscar tells Ruby, "He's finally choosing the truth over fear. We should do the same" and with her permission tells Ironwood the rest of the story.

Ironwood -- some folks think he took the news well. I don't. That looks to me like monumental "just this side of throwing up" shock, to be followed by monumental rage. As upsetting as he finds the news of Salem's immortality, he's even more upset that his adored hero kept secrets from him.

Ironwood: (distraught) Why? Why would Oz keep this from us? From the people who trusted him?

(You mean the person who went behind his back and undermined his authority?)

Oscar: He was worried you would lose hope. We're sorry we kept it from you, too. We didn't know who to trust. I figured you should know before you make any… sacrifices.

It's Oscar who prods Ironwood away from his pain and back to the present.

Oscar: Sir? What are you gonna do?

Ironwood: I… (collects himself) All we can do for the moment is what we can to save Mantle. That's what's in front of us.

Oscar: (smiling) He'd be proud of you. You're bringing the hope that Atlas was meant to inspire. A city in the sky is held to a higher standard.

Ironwood: You say that... like you were ther--

One again, the only compliment Ironwood can give Oscar, even after Oscar has done what Ozpin couldn't do, is to tell him he sounds like Ozpin. The man needs to work on some new lines.

Oscar goes back to JNPR's room with an escort of robot guards. Ironwood goes to deal with the crisis, and makes a good show until Cinder and Salem rattle him. The good news is that his monumental shock subsides. The bad news is that it's followed by monumental rage.

In the middle of a battle Ironwood decides to arrest the allies whom he now considers questionable, instead of using the age-old tactic of dealing with such a problem by sending them to the front line. (You can tell these boys haven't fought a war in a while.) He sends an Army unit to capture a same-sized Marines unit, and things go as well as could be expected. Meanwhile Neo goes to retrieve the Lamp of Knowledge, currently in Oscar's possession, from Oscar and JNR, and things go as well as could be expected.

Then in the middle of the Great Escape, Oscar turns back to try one last time to do what Ozpin couldn't do and would no longer have tried to do -- talk sense into Ironwood. Talking sense into Ironwood is something Ozpin had been failing at since Volume 2, and going by what he said to Oscar about Hazel during the Battle of Haven, "He's wounded in a way that cannot be healed", we can safely say that by now Ozpin would have given up on Ironwood as a lost cause. But, just like with Hazel, Oscar is going to try.

Their sixth and final interaction starts with Ironwood repeating basically what he said in the other five interactions, another variation on, " Are you Ozpin yet?" Even after Oscar has done for him what Ozpin wouldn't do, he still wants Ozpin over Oscar.

Ironwood: And... whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?

Oscar: Still just me.

Then the conversation takes a different turn. Ironwood knows he's crossed a line, and he knows Oscar knows. The warm and friendly tone is gone. But Oscar tries to de-escalate the situation.

Ironwood: It was smart of you not to bring the Lamp down here. I wouldn’t trust me either right now.

Oscar: Trust is what I’m hoping to fix. I know we can still figure this out, all of it, together. Please.

Ironwood: Do you intend to fight me?

Oscar: No. That’s exactly what she wants.

Note that Ironwood anticpates a beating for what he's done. As the adult in a room with a teenage boy, HE should be the one pointing out the importance of not being bullied, manipulated, or coerced into doing anything stupid. Instead it's the teenage boy's job to point it out to him.

I've posted about this conversation in detail before, so I just want to make three points this time. The first point is that Ironwood's refusal to admit he's afraid is what triggers his violence.

Ironwood: You still think I’m afraid?

Oscar: We all are. It’s what we do in our fear that reveals--

Ironwood: That’s easy for you to say!

The second point is that Oscar finally understands what Ozpin meant about some people being "wounded in a way that can't be healed." Whether he agrees with Ozpin is something we'll find out in Volume 8, but he understands Ozpin better now.

Finally we have the end of Ironwood's toxic bromance with Oscar. And just as he did at the beginning, he insists on being the one to set the terms.

Ironwood: I am done letting others’ inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what’s right. Robyn, the council, this kingdom... even you.

Oscar: Then you’re as dangerous as she is, James.

Ironwood: James is what my friends call me. To you… it’s General.

That's pretty much the way I saw it play out while watching the episodes in real time. I missed the discrepancy in tone and word choice the first time around; in my defense I'm a Southerner and used to hearing violent death threats dripping from honeyed lips. But I saw no discrepancy in Ironwood's behavior from beginning to end. He always wanted Oscar to be someone he wasn't, and when it became clear that Oscar was never going be what he wanted Oscar to be, Ironwood threw him away like a petulant child throwing away a broken toy. This wasn't the man I wanted Ironwood to be, but it's the same man we've seen since the beginning -- brave, charming, intelligent, and fatally short-sighted.