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visionsofus · 4 years ago

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Wanda and Vision's Mixtape Masterlist (updating now)

cover by the wonderful @jjlover01

Note: my inbox is currently open for prompt/ song submissions 🥰 (1-2wk turn around)

AoU to CW

#10 Death Stranding by CHVRCHES

what will become of us if we dare to dream? Wanda and Vision spend the night at a glitzy party for a mission and get jealous when they see each other with other people. read on AO3

# 11 Happy Together by the Turtles

the only one for me is you. In which Wanda and Vision try to deliver on a promise to cook breakfast for the rest of the team but end up goofing off together instead. read on Tumblr // AO3

#12 Where the Shadow Ends by BANNERS

put your trust in the light you cannot see. Wanda falls ill at the compound and Vision panics. Surprisingly, her illness gives them an opportunity to talk about their feelings. Wanda comes to terms with putting faith in her feelings and in Vision. read on AO3

#15 Flares by The Script

did you see the sparks filled with hope? Mere days after the battle in Sokovia Wanda is still coming to terms with Pietro's absence and the new life she is faced with in upstate New York. Waking from a nightmare she leaves sleep behind and takes solace in Vision as an unexpected comfort. Read on Tumblr // AO3

#19 Feel Something by Jaymes Young

you could be the one to make me feel. Movie night at the compound isn’t going well for Vision, and that’s even before he decides to try and be a bit more human and eat food. He manages to drunkenly confess his deepest insecurities about his own existence before the night is out. Ft. angsty Vision, jealous Vision, pining Vision and basically Vision feeling a whole array of emotions he doesn’t know how to deal with. read on Tumblr // AO3

#21 Start a Riot by BANNERS

I will tear down every wall just to bring you home. Wanda has a breakdown shortly into arriving at the compound and Vision is the only one who can get through to her. read on Tumblr // AO3

#25 Remedy by Adele

I will be your remedy. Wanda comes back injured from a mission and Vision has to come to terms with her mortality, and the limits of their relationship. Tender touching and the intimacy of tending to wounds. AO3

CW to IW

#3 Rescue my Heart by Liz Longley

Rescue my heart (I'll drown without you). In which Vision arrives to help break the Cap’s team out of Raft prison post-Civil War. Wanda recalls fond memories of the compound and comes to terms with the idea of living on the run. read on Tumblr // AO3

#5 The Best by Tina Turner

a lifetime of promises, a world of dreams. In which Wanda searches Edinburgh for Vision after she arrives late at their safehouse. When she discovers his energy signature floating around the city, she decides to follow the threads to their source. Along the journey she recalls the complications of their long-distance, secretive relationship but by the end recalls exactly why they sacrifice so much to be together. read on AO3

#6 Somewhere only we know

In which nobody died in Endgame and Vision gets the opportunity to pick up where he and Wanda left off before they were interrupted in Edinburgh. read on AO3

#7 Clarity by Foxes

don't speak as I try to leave (I'll fall right back to you). A distressed Vision shows up at Wanda’s door after a particularly bad situation goes down at the compound. She comforts him as they both try to reconcile with the very different lives they are now living. read on AO3.

#8 Our Corner of the Universe by K.S. Rhoads

Our little corner of the universe. In which Wanda and Vision are coming to the end of a few weeks together in Paris pre-IW and Wanda dreams a life for them where they no longer have to run and hide. Unknowingly, she draws Vision into her dream and they both must contend with the idea that this reality isn't something that will be easy for them. read on Tumblr // AO3

#9 If You Ever Come Back by The Script

just like you were never gone. Wanda and Vision recall an argument that forced them to go their separate ways in the early days of their relationship post-CW. Upon finding out Wanda is near the Compound Vision can't help himself and seeks her out to apologise. Read on Tumblr // AO3

#13 I Know Places by Taylor Swift

just grab my hand and don't ever drop it. Wanda and Vision try to spend a peaceful evening out for dinner in Paris when they are suddenly attacked. To keep each other safe they split up, forced to make the harrowing journey to the next safe house separately. Vision is faced with Wanda's mortality. read on AO3

#14 Me and My Husband by Mitski

when he walks in, I am loved. Vision is reminded that it is Valentine's Day and decides to show up at Wanda's safehouse to surprise her. Fluff ensues and Wanda's fugitive teammates realise exactly how close the pair have become. read on AO3

#17 Can You Feel My Heart by Bring Me the Horizon

can you feel my heart. One year into being a fugitive Wanda gets cornered, Vision sees the news in real time and runs to her aid. Aka Vision going apeshit when he thinks Wanda is dead. read on Tumblr // AO3

#18 That's All by Michael Bublé

All I have are these arms to enfold you and a love time can never destroy. Wanda and Vision share a perfect morning in Paris, snuggled up together watching the rain stream past the windows. aka 1000 words of fluff. Read on Tumblr // AO3

#20 The Scientist by Coldplay

you don't know how lovely you are. Wanda surprises Vision by breaking into the compound shortly after the fight in Germany. read on Tumblr // AO3

#23 Bury This by RVRB

I should bury this. Immediately after Wanda leaves in Civil War, Vision reflects on his feelings surrounding her departure. AO3

Post-IW

#16 Through the Fire by Jake Etheridge

I was lost (now I'm found again). The Battle of Wakanda is over. Vision knows he's gone and that there is no coming back. Taking pity on Vision, the mind stone lets him see some of his most treasured memories once more, to ease his passing. read on Tumblr // AO3

Canon Divergence

#1 Last Dance by Camera Can't Lie

If this was our last chance (I'd ask you to say). In which Civil War never happened and they all lived happily ever after. Wanda and Vision dance at one of Tony’s fancy galas and are forced to address the feelings that have become apparent to themselves, and the rest of the team. Yearning included with a happy resolution after a lil bit of angsty longing. read on Tumblr // AO3

#2 Infinity by Jaymes Young

Darling my soul, it aches for yours. In which Wanda and Vision sneak out of the compound and go on a date and just revel in the act of being together in public. The rest of the team doesn't know yet so they're working had on keeping everything a secret. When they arrive back Vision is so enamoured with Wanda that he trips the Compound alarms, waking everyone up with the fear of a break in at the front of their mind only to find the pair in a compromised position. Read on AO3

#4 Light Me Up by Ingrid Michaelson

we are tonight, we are forever. Wanda and Vision spend a domestic evening together free from the rest of the team. read on Tumblr // AO3

#22 Only Us by Ben Platt

it can be us, and only us. The Sokovia Accords are renegotiated so that the team are never divided. Following the successful signing of the document a press event is held at the compound. Wanda and Vision take a moment to breath away from the crowds, both have been holding back from each other for months, worried about risking their friendship. A simple miscommunication leads to a brief moment of angst as they realise their months of pining over each other has been mutual. read on Tumblr // AO3

#24 I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkeys

I wanna be yours. Things get racy between Wanda and Vision in the compound kitchen. Vision tries to come to terms with the intensity of his feelings for Wanda. AO3

#Wandavision #scarletvision #wanda x vision #wanda maximoff #the vision #scarlet vision fanfiction #visionsofusfics #fic masterlist #my writing

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jrmilazzo · 4 years ago

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In her survey of Right-wing literature in the US since the 1960s, Carol Mason identifies two concurrent threads that occasionally intersect. First, a mainstream that includes political nonfiction by the likes of Buckley and Milton Friedman at one end, and Fox News celebrities at the other; ‘serious’ literature published by the Agrarian ‘Fugitive Poets’ in the Sewanee, Southern and Kenyon reviews; popular fiction from Robert Heinlein to Tim LaHaye; as well as a massive, often evangelical, industry of self-help. The second thread is an underground of self-published and small-circulation texts distributed through mailing lists, organisations such as the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, and other alternative networks catering to contents and readerships too incendiary for the average bookstore. The standard editions of this thread are Ted Kaczynski’s Technological Slavery (2010), James Mason’s Siege (issued serially between 1980 and 1986 by the National Socialist Liberation Front, an offshoot of George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party), and William Luther Pierce’s novel The Turner Diaries (1978), which has inspired multiple acts of terror (the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing most famous among them).

White, male and straight writers are in the majority in Carol Mason’s study, but there are exceptions, including Dinesh D’Souza, Taylor Caldwell and Andrew Sullivan. Robin, too, cites Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Disraeli, Allan Bloom and Sarah Palin, to write: ‘From the beginning, conservatism has appealed to and relied upon outsiders.’ The frontier archetypes of Republican discourse – the antiestablishment maverick, the lone-wolf vigilante, the rebel, the patriot and the self-made man – draw most explicitly from the bootstraps myth of the rugged individual at the heart of American exceptionalism, which conservative authors exploit wholesale. Mason argues that the boom in anti-liberal publishing in the mid-20th century was a direct reaction to the rise of ‘[t]he modernist antihero prone to exploring existential dilemmas’. The pro-life thriller Gideon’s Torch (1995) by Charles Colson, formerly Special Counsel to Richard Nixon, is representative of this literature in that its depiction of ‘Christian white men in a persecuted light demanded,’ as Mason writes, ‘a deft appropriation of oppressed peoples’ actual histories and a revisionism that ranged from outright Holocaust denial to comparisons that likened antiabortionists to abolitionists.’

The victim mentality proudly expressed in the idea that the European, Christian patriarchy is under siege is fundamental to reactionary thought. Referring to the Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory of pity, Robin writes:

Conservatives have asked us not to obey them, but to feel sorry for them – or to obey them because we feel sorry for them … Identifying as victims, they become the ultimate moderns, adept competitors in a political marketplace where rights and their divestiture are prized commodities.

This underdog pantomime is of course disingenuous, favouring a restoration rather than a redistribution of power, and starkly at odds with the heroes of modern conservatism: Nietzsche’s Übermensch, the ideal embodiment of the will to power; Rand’s John Galt and Howard Roark, models of libertarian independence, acting coldly in their own self-interest. This tension, between egoism and fear, pride and disgust, is the signature theme of the Right-wing romance, which privileges aesthetics in theory while eschewing them in practice, adopting a quasi-philosophical mode that is, at its best, as compelling as competent pulp. Conservative authors don’t persuade so much as they reinforce and, if their works are entertaining, the question remains: to whom? >>

#ideology #mythology #literature

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kansascityhappenings · 6 years ago

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Mosque shootings renew fears of terror by lone attackers

In his manifesto, the white supremacist charged with attacking two New Zealand mosques praised fellow “freedom fighters” as his role models. In reality, all were terrorists — most notable for acting alone.

Investigators’ growing certainty that a single gunman was responsible for the massacre that claimed 50 lives has renewed attention to a longtime concern: terror attacks by ideologically driven lone actors in the U.S. and Europe.

The shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand was “a blatant imitation. This is a copycat crime. He’s followed others who have come before him,” said Mark Hamm, a professor of criminology at Indiana State University who has charted such attacks in the U.S.

But the public’s stereotypes of such “lone wolves” risk obscuring the fact that many are not nearly as solitary as they might seem, criminologists say.

“They may be alone at the time of the attack,” said Noemie Bouhana, a professor of security and crime science at University College London who studies terrorism. “But the ties have existed that have been necessary for the attack to occur, and I would be very surprised if that wasn’t the case here.”

Those ties are key not just to prosecuting such terrorist attacks but to finding ways to prevent them, experts say. That helps explain investigators’ determination to follow all threads, even with the 28-year-old Australian they say was the lone gunman already in custody.

“We believe absolutely there was only one attacker responsible for this,” Mike Bush, New Zealand’s police commissioner, said at a news conference. “That doesn’t mean there weren’t possibly other people in support and that continues to form a very, very important part of our investigation.”

Those looking to unravel how the attack took shape have decades of history to consult. Attacks by lone actors harboring extremist motives date back decades, particularly in the U.S.

In the 1940s and 1950s, electrician George Metesky planted more than 30 bombs in New York theaters, libraries and other public places. He was driven by anger at his former employer over a workplace injury.

Theodore Kaczynski, the technophobe known as the Unabomber, was arrested in 1996 after nearly two decades of planting bombs that killed three; Eric Rudolph spent years as a fugitive while carrying out a series of anti-abortion attacks, including bombing a park during the Atlanta Olympics. In 2015, Dylann Roof slaughtered nine at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The vast spaces and lack of borders in the U.S., along with a culture of individualism, help seed such attacks, Hamm said.

But access to more powerful guns and ammunition has increased the lethality, said Hamm, who with a fellow researcher used a Justice department grant to identify more than 120 lone wolf attackers in the U.S. over seven decades.

Hamm points to the 2009 shootings at the Army’s Fort Hood in Texas that left 13 dead. Maj. Nidal Hasan, convinced that U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were an assault on Islam, used a pistol equipped with a laser sight and magazine extenders to fire more rounds.

But terrorist attacks by loners have also increased around the globe. Between 1990 and 2017, the U.S. saw 56 attacks by ideologically driven lone actors, a study by Bouhana and others found. Over the same period, Europe and other countries were targeted by 69 such attacks, they concluded.

The Christchurch attack has drawn comparisons to the 2011 massacre of 77 people in Norway, most at an island youth camp. The attacker, Anders Behring Breivik, raged against Europe’s growing Muslim population and claimed to represent what turned out to be an imagined order of Knight crusaders.

“I have read the writings of Dylan(n) Roof and many others, but only really took true inspiration from Knight Justiciar Breivik,” the New Zealand suspect, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, allegedly wrote in his manifesto.

The document cites others including Anton Lundin Petterson, who, in 2015, entered a school in Sweden and used a sword to kill a teacher and a student in an attack police say was motivated by racial hatred.

In the years since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., law enforcement agencies in many countries have stepped up efforts to detect and prevent plots by large groups.

Muslim reactionaries in Europe have continued to carry out attacks organized in small cells. But they have increasingly followed right-wing counterparts in acting alone, said Tore Bjorgo, director of the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo in Norway.

“The security environment makes it very difficult to operate as an organization, as part of a large group … so the only viable option is to go as a lone actor,” he said.

That does not mean lone attackers are entirely disconnected from others. Even Breivik, who planned his attack in isolation, had been involved in a right-wing political party and wrote frequently on political websites, said Bjorgo, an expert on the underpinnings of the Norway massacre.

Rather than plotting entirely in their own heads, lone extremists increasingly find their inspiration in what others post online, experts say. And many are prone to discuss their motives or their plans, offering one of the best chances for preventing attacks.

“They tell people why they want to engage in violence. They tell people what their grievances are. They even tell people, in some cases, what they’re going to do. It’s just in a lot of cases, for whatever reason, people don’t report it,” Bouhana said.

She and other European experts take issue with the “lone wolf” description often used in the U.S., saying it promotes a false mystique about such attackers as isolated from others and exceedingly stealthy.

But looking beyond that mythology, it is clear that such attacks are characterized by troubling commonalities in the mindsets of those who carry them out, criminologists say. While there is still much we don’t know about the prime suspect in the New Zealand attack or how it was planned, early details provide red flags.

In casting Muslim immigration as a direct threat to his existence, the New Zealand shooter’s manifesto echoes the sense of “aggrieved entitlement” that has long motivated other lone wolf attackers, Hamm said.

“They’re similar across borders,” he said, “and although elements of the conspiracy theories themselves change a bit, the theme remains the same.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/03/19/mosque-shootings-renew-fears-of-terror-by-lone-attackers/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/mosque-shootings-renew-fears-of-terror-by-lone-attackers/

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allyinthekeyofx · 7 years ago

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Small considerations between partners -11 ‘Must be an eggs-file’

Season one - Chocolate drops do not constitute medicine

Season two - You never gave up on me

Season three - Chasing his demons

Season four - Material things

Season five - There’s no place like home

FTF - To the ends of the earth

Season six - Swaying isn’t dancing

Season seven - Playing with fire

Season eight - Imperfect fish

Season nine - Sock monkeys that soothe the soul

Set pre IWTB a couple of years after ‘The truth’ Tagging @today-in-fic

I think it’s safe to say that if Scully hadn’t gotten sick I would in all likelihood have remained innocently oblivious to the deception that she had been perpetuating for the better part of half a year and while in the past we had both been guilty of keeping things from each other, I just can’t bring myself to even feel remotely aggrieved that she has been duping me in a singularly skilful way for all these months and that more to the point, I have fallen headlong for her simple ruse.

We had finally put down roots so to speak after two frightening years of constantly looking over our shoulders, afraid to stay in one place for more than a couple of weeks lest our carefully constructed and maintained anonymity be destroyed and alert the wrong people to our location. And it had been hard – harder than I could ever have dreamed it to be because the novelty of finally being together after so much collective heartache had waned real fast and while we somehow managed to keep going despite the echoes of the past that lurked darkly around us, neither one of us really had either the ability or the inclination to bring up the ghosts that I think at that time, might have literally blown us apart.

Hanging by the merest thread we had managed at least to hold on to each other long enough to allow the continued interest in us to wane and for the manhunt to be pushed to one side, being deemed, as Skinner had informed us during one of our sporadic contacts with him, no longer in the interests of the FBI to actively pursue. So although we were still fugitives in every sense, providing we didn’t draw too much attention to ourselves we were reasonably safe to finally stop; to take a breath, to find somewhere to settle and attempt to find a way to heal ourselves.

The little house in the Virginia countryside had been provided by Skinner but paid for with the money I had accrued from the sale of my Mother’s house in Connecticut and which, with a myriad of misgivings I had managed to disregard, I had once handed over to him for safekeeping. Mostly to ensure that should Scully ever need to simply disappear with William, wheels could be set in motion that would allow her to start afresh somewhere else. And God help me but when I discovered the sacrifice she had been forced to make, I found myself wishing she had chosen to do just that and had never come looking for me. But Scully is Scully and I should have known better; that she would find a way to somehow keep our son safe and still save my sorry ass just as she has always done. And if that meant sacrificing a huge part of herself in the process…..well, for her that’s just how it had to be.

And if she harboured any resentment against me for failing them both she hid it well; perhaps realising that I resented myself plenty enough for both of us, that I was hanging on by the merest thread and it would take only the slightest push for me to go toppling from the edge of the mental abyss I found myself teetering precariously close to for days and weeks and months after she gave up everything and climbed into that SUV with me to stay with me while we attempted to salvage something from the ashes of our lives.

To finally settle in our ramshackle little house went a long way to allowing us to start the healing process and even more so when Skinner came to us one cool spring evening and informed us that the charges against Scully had been dropped; that providing I kept a low profile and myself out of trouble, there was no reason why she needed to hide anymore. That finally she could emerge from the shadows, resume a career, contact her family – in short, she could become a fully functioning member of society again even if I couldn’t.

And so began the long, exhausting process of her re-certification into medicine and an internship offered after a significant amount of string-pulling by the local priest who Scully had been seeing on a semi regular basis ever since we bought the house, attempting I think to find some meaning in everything she had gone through during her long association with me.

But I missed her presence around the house, far more than I was prepared to admit to her because for the first time in years she seemed happy. Fulfilled in her work in a way I think neither of us had ever even hoped, let alone expected might happen and I was determined that her needs should take priority for once because even if we didn’t vocalise it to any great extent, we both knew that the weight of responsibility for much of what has been taken from her over the years sits squarely atop my shoulders. So I had tried to make amends to her in small ways, moving forwards in increments so as to not make it all too obvious that I was finally able to take care of her in ways I had never had opportunity to before.

I spent that first summer planting flowers for her in the small back yard and fixing up the small henhouse that leant precariously against the side of the old barn, and if Scully had raised one perfectly sculptured eyebrow when I had enthusiastically suggested we should purchase some chickens, she was prepared as always to indulge me in my latest attempt to do something meaningful, realising perhaps that my days stretched long and empty when she was gone.

And so, a few weeks later after I had researched and implemented all the various ways to keep the chickens safe from predators including digging and lining the foundations of the coop with concrete slabs to prevent foxes from digging their way in, we became the proud caretakers of half a dozen prime Sussex layers, individually named by Scully but collectively known by both of us as simply ‘the girls’ when it became clear that aside from a particularly beautiful specimen with a rogue black feather at her breast who we named Matilda, the rest of the girls were pretty hard to tell apart. It’s fair to say though that we became enamoured with them almost immediately, maybe they filled a need within both of us to take care of something wholly dependent on us for their continued survival and within a week they were rewarding us in various ways which included taking corn right from the palms of our hands and allowing us to pick them up and pet them like feathery dogs. Unfortunately their gratitude didn’t actually extend to them producing any eggs for us and while initially I made excuses for them, as days stretched to weeks I was forced to admit defeat.

It actually hit me stupidly hard, much more so that I had expected and while I didn’t know how to vocalise it, the worried frown that creased Scully’s brow every morning when I once again returned empty handed was enough to tell me that I was making a piss poor job of hiding my disappointment from her or the fact that once again, I had failed.

Stupid yes. Understandable? Maybe.

And every day she would smooth out her frown, smiling gently at me and telling me to give it a bit more time as she placed her small hands against my cheeks, standing on her tiptoes to brush her lips against mine as affirmation that she still believed in me even if I didn’t always know how to believe in myself.

Until one morning when I left her in the kitchen preparing breakfast, crossing over to the henhouse to release the girls into the grassy run for their daily sunshine fix before checking for eggs in an act of routine rather than one of hope, a huge grin splitting my face when I saw not one, but two smooth brown eggs in adjacent straw-filled boxes and quite honestly I think I felt happier at that moment than I had for probably the last couple of years.

Carefully, reverently almost I had carried those two precious eggs into the kitchen and produced them from behind my back with all the flourish of a magician pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat, feeling something tight and thin within me give just a little at the sight of Scully’s beautiful smile as she gave me that patented ‘I told you so’ look that I knew so well.

And each day after that without fail our egg yield grew until we could realistically expect at least a small clutch of four and if we were extraordinarily lucky and the girls felt particularly generous we might find a full quota of half a dozen.

Suffice to say we ate a lot of eggs that summer.

It never occurred to me to question the absolute uniformity and colour of those eggs or that they were always completely clean and totally devoid of any stray bits of feather or straw, but as a long-time city boy, my experience of eggs had been limited to the scrambled variety that adorned pieces of slightly burned rye toast at the various roadside diners and DC breakfast establishments we had both frequented over the years when we searched for truths that were as elusive as they were damaging.

Egss are eggs are eggs after all.

Or so I thought until today.

Scully had come home early from the hospital, drooping pathetically and shivering like a rain-soaked whippet on a winters day. She had been fighting a cold for the better part of a week, refusing my every effort to persuade her to slow down a little, to rest, to allow herself some respite from the punishing schedule that took her from the house and threw her into the pressured environment for upwards of fourteen hours at a time. Fiercely independent as always she had dismissed my concerns with a wave of her hand and assertions that she was of course just fine.

But even Scully for all her talents can’t fight nature and she had now pushed herself to a point where a simple cold had morphed into a nasty case of bronchitis that, she had been warned by the physician at the hospital who had quickly provided a chair for her to collapse onto when she began to sway on her feet after a particularly vicious coughing fit, was just one small step from turning into full blown pneumonia. Ordering her home to rest, sternly reminding her she was not just risking her own health but that of every patient in the hospital and arranged for someone to cover the remainder of her shift, he effectively rendered her all out of excuses as to why she should stay for the duration.

I had taken one look at her fever flushed face and ignoring her protests to the contrary had picked her up and carried her slight weight up the stairs to our bedroom where I had removed her shoes and laid her gently down on the bed, covering her with the warm down comforter we had only recently bought to replace the one that Skinner had provided when he hurriedly furnished the house with the essentials so as to be ready for our covert arrival many months ago. She had reached out for me then, eyes already half closed as exhausted sleep began to claim her and I had curled myself against her, feeling her relax into the warmth of my chest, her breathing evening out as much as I could hope for given the circumstances.

I had woken her just once to help her change into more comfortable sleeping attire - which in Scully’s case meant well-worn soft flannel of the pyjama variety - to ensure she took her meds and drank something, before kissing her temple gently as she burrowed back beneath the covers and fell back into sleep, staying until I deemed it a safe bet that she wouldn’t awaken anytime soon and then left her in order to go retrieve her medical bag from the trunk of the car, knowing she didn’t like to leave it for any length of time given the amount of drugs it contained.

Sure enough when I popped the trunk, there it was in its usual spot. Right beside a small stack of egg boxes, mostly empty aside from one which, out of the original dozen smooth brown eggs it once contained, now housed only four. Four smooth unblemished brown eggs. Four eggs that matched exactly the five I had gathered just this morning from the henhouse and placed carefully in the small wicker basket we kept on the kitchen countertop and which we had bought specially.

And suddenly it all fell into place.

The eggs we had been enjoying each day, that I had proudly collected and brought to Scully had not been provided by the six lazy Sussex girls that lived a life of luxury in our backyard, but by Scully herself as a way to give me a little of the self respect we both knew I had lost somewhere along the way, to allow me a small victory in amongst my many perceived failures; feeling my throat tighten and my face grow hot as tears filmed my eyes to blur the evidence of her continued love for me and even as I closed the trunk slowly I decided I will never admit to her that I know about the sweet duplicity she has engaged in all these months.

That the daily appearance of these shop-bought eggs will remain Scully’s secret.

A mystery that I will file under X.

Or eggs.

An eggs file.

And I start to laugh.

End

#small considerations #must be an eggs file #my fic #series #fluff #this one is pretty much feathery fluff

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leonin-pal-adin · 7 years ago

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Family Outing

(Sean is @a-smol-future-boros-named-sean and owned by @a-boros-named-seamus)

“Mmn, five more minutes, Pa…” Sean grumbled a bit as he woke up. I smiled softly at the grumpy expression on his face, and patted his back.

“Lobitito, I think you’ve had enough sleep,” I said gently. I could still hardly believe I was a father, especially to such a clever, sweet boy. “I have a surprise to show you today, anyhow.”

“Huh?” That got Sean’s attention. He rubbed the bleariness out of his eyes and sat up, blinking softly. Helping him out of bed, I waited for him to get dressed before continuing.

“I’m taking a day off from Boros work, and your Dad and your Papa have given me leave to take you off-plane,” I explained, straightening the stomach plate of my armor slightly, the montanite gem in it twinkling in the morning light.

“Really?!” He brightened- Sean had always been in possession of a curious mind, and he loved being off Ravnica, whether it was during our sojourn to Ixalan aboard the Tempest or simply taking a stroll in Lorwyn while the sun was out. I had no doubts that he would love this. “What are we waiting for, Pa? Let’s go!”

“I have to help you get there, son,” I chuckled, patting his head. I took his hand, making sure to hold it firmly, and I affixed my eyes out the window, looking towards the horizon.

I murmured a prayer of thanks for the generosity of life in giving me Sean.

The world drifted away, and we fell.

I was used to my personal style of planeswalking now, long after that first fall into Ravnica’s thread of existence, but Sean was not. I held him tight as we drifted through the Blind Eternities, heading towards a vivid green thread that I knew to be my old home.

“Pa, what’s going on?!” he called to me, voice everywhere and nowhere in the aether. “Is this the Multiverse?!”

“It’s okay, son, this is merely how I planeswalk!” I reassured, patting his back. All the same, he still braced himself against me, unintentionally shifting into werewolf form in his fear. We made contact with Andalor and fell into its reality, and on instinct I roared out another prayer, one for fine weather. As it always did, the wind responded, wrapping itself around us and guiding us gently downward. Sean kept his eyes closed all the way down, until we touched the ground, and I gently turned him around. “We are safe, darling. You can open your eyes now.”

He did- and he gasped. What lay before him was a forest of Andalor in all its glory, its thickets kissed by autumn’s red and dappled in golden dawn sunlight. Fruit hung heavy off the boughs of the trees, and squirrels and foxes frolicked through the understory, half hidden by shadow. The sight brought tears to my own eyes. Surreptitiously wiping them, I murmured, “Do you like it?”

Sean took some time to answer. “Pa… I love it!” he breathed, still in awe. “What is this place? Have you shown Dad or Papa? Can we go in there?”

“In order, it is my home plane of Andalor, Seamus and Aspen do not know yet, and we most certainly can!” I laughed, all too happy to sate my child’s curiosity. Only ten years old and so full of questions! I strode confidently towards the forest, Sean tagging along and staring with glee at everything unfamiliar. It was nothing like the dark, enclosed forests of other planes, where horrors unfathomable lurked. It was a safe, happy place, as long as you were careful. A child could find all they wanted here- fruit to eat, fish to hunt, shade in which to rest, leaves to crunch underfoot. I knew my boy would be happy here, and I longed for the day when my entire family could come. There was so much of Andalor to show Sean before nightfall, though! Even if I dared not take him near the kingdom of Summer’s Grace and its rotten court where I was forever a fugitive, I knew Autumn’s Rest would treat him well.

“Highest heavens, thank you for this life I lead,” I said softly, watching Sean cavort among the leaves and the beasts, happy, unharmed, unafraid.

#my writing #andalor

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ghostbustermelanieking · 8 years ago

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x files fic: under the stars (minimal fate required)

or: ways mulder and scully could’ve been happy

for @leiascully‘s challenge: list sort of

01.

The X-Files are never shut down and Scully is never abducted.

They fall into a comfortable rhythm of partnership: an incredible solve rate, an easy repertoire. (He never convinces her to believe in aliens, and she never convinces him not to.) They start spending time together outside of work - getting drinks, watching movies over long-abandoned paperwork. It’s at least two and a half years before Mulder realizes that she is his best friend. (Even over the Gunmen, he thinks about telling her, but how would that go down? They don’t say things like that to each other. She’s only ever called him Fox once, and he’s called her Dana a total of six times before she asked him to stop; what kind of friends are they?)

She almost dies - goes to pick up a witness while Mulder stays at the tiny local police station, doesn’t come back; he finds her five hours later in a basement with a gun pressed to her head from behind, has to negotiate for twenty tense minutes before the witness shoves her to the floor and tries to run out the back door, where the local police are waiting. His heart rate doesn’t slow down the entire time. He helps her off of the floor and pulls her into a fierce embrace. We never do anything like this, he thinks. She might smooth his hair, take his pulse, rub his neck, check for head injuries if he’s hurt, but they never full-on embrace each other. Her arms are pinned between them; she wasn’t expecting the hug. You must really like me, she teases, poking him in the arm. If you’re this relieved.

Nah, he says. I hugged Frohike like this that one time we brought him on a case and he almost took a bullet; remember?

Glad I measure up to Frohike’s standards, she says seriously. Like she really thinks he likes him better than her. He hugs her tighter because his heart is still pounding too hard and she could’ve died, really; his best friend dead in a crummy little basement because he didn’t go with her to pick up a witness or he didn’t negotiate right.

They keep meeting with Skinner, and he keeps looking at them disapprovingly over his glasses, and Scully keeps going head-to-head with people for him. Mulder, I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anyone but you, she’d said, and goddamn it, she was right. She’s vicious in a subtle, professional way that makes people want to look to her for authority, especially him (he’d make her the supervising agent if she’d take any good cases, or if it wouldn’t ruin her career).

You should ask for reassignment, he says one day over beers, studying the stem of his bottle seriously.

She flicks her bottle cap towards the trash can, and it lands perfectly. Tired of me, Mulder? That might be hurt in her voice, because she isn’t looking at him.

No. Just worried you’re never going to be able to go anywhere else. That you’ll be stuck with me forever.

Her ocean-colored eyes meet his. What if I don’t want to go anywhere? she says, taking a sip from her bottle.

He watches the motion of her throat as she swallows the beer. He smiles. So, I’ve finally convinced you of my paranormal beliefs, Scully?

She smirks. I didn’t say that.

(When she grabs his hand later, it’s not as much of a surprise as he thought it’d be. It feels right.)

02.

Melissa doesn’t die and neither does Scully. She and Melissa arrive at the same time, and as she’s unlocking the door, she hears the rustle of people inside, the cocking of a gun. She tells Melissa to keep a low profile and runs to Mulder’s apartment where she finds Skinner, and then Mulder. Skinner refuses to give them the tape and they run.

Skinner tries to negotiate the tape for their reinstatement, but it doesn’t work. Skinner meets them the next day, covertly, wearing a hood in the park. (He looks ridiculous, like he’s trying to be hip with the kids, Mulder whispers in her ear, and she has to jam her hand in her mouth because it’s definitely not a convenient time for laughing.) There are warrants out for the both of your arrests, he says. They have proof, they say, that Mulder killed his father and you’re hiding him, Scully.

Mulder pales. It’s not true, Scully says firmly, standing her ground. The evidence must’ve been manipulated. They’re trying to take us down.

Skinner looks uncomfortable, but he says he believes them. I’m going to work on clearing your names, he says (awkwardly, because, you know, he’d pointed a gun at her the other day). In the meantime, you need to disappear.

(I’m sorry, Scully, Mulder says in the car. They’re both grimy, in need of sleep and bathing. I didn’t mean for this to happen to both of us.

She tells him it’s okay; she’s sacrificed so much for this, the truth, that this feels almost mundane in comparison. Her family will be worried, but at least she isn’t dying. She thinks maybe she will resent him later, but for now, she’s just relieved he’s alive and okay.)

(She hugs Mulder for the first time since his return from the dead when they stop for gas; says I’m sorry instead of I missed you into his smelly shirt. She’d thought maybe he’d killed his father but knows it isn’t true, knows how much he must be hurting.)

The Gunmen get them fake IDs and Scully cuts and dyes her hair a dark brown in their crappy apartment bathroom. She asks them to get a burner phone for Melissa, something she can use to check in and reassure her family that she’s okay. She and Mulder leave with the burner’s twin and hastily packed suitcases with cheap Walmart clothes in a car paid for with cash from Mulder’s father’s will. What’s our identity? Married couple? Mulder asks casually from the driver’s seat, raising an eyebrow at her. (He’s been joking around since they left that gas station, after embracing for what seemed like forever, and she recognizes it as a coping mechanism. That night, when they’d stopped, she’d put her hand on his knee and asked him to talk to her - I can see you’re hurting, Mulder, please, this isn’t healthy. He got mad at first, stalked off into the darkness. He returned upset, later, cried and let Scully hold him, buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. He was a bastard, but he was my father, he’d whispered hollowly against his skin. They don’t discuss it the next morning, but they can tell a barrier’s broke. Since then, she’s let him joke, pretend that nothing is wrong.)

We don’t have any rings, she says, fingering the ends of her dark, shorn hair. (It hasn’t been this short since 1993, at least, and never this dark. She yanks it back in one of the half-ponytail things she used to wear all the time then, and Mulder smiles familiarly and tugs at it. She’s glad he’s not dead.)

They get a ratty little hotel room with one bed (married couple, remember, Mulder says, waggling his eyebrows). Scully calls her sister and pulls at the comforter with her overlong fingernails while Mulder showers. She smiles as soon as she hears her voice.

You’ve gotten yourself into a pickle here, Day, Melissa says, and it sounds like she’s teasing, but it comes out strained because she’s worried about her sister. I blame your partner.

Oh, me too, Scully says loudly as he comes out of the bathroom. He’s impossible to live with, really. She giggles - giggles, my god, has she gone off in the deep end - when Mulder lobs a balled-up t-shirt at her head.

Seriously, Dana, Melissa says. Are you okay?

Yeah, Scully says. Mulder flops on the bed beside her, mattress rippling under his weight. It’s beyond bizarre to be actually sharing a space with him. Are you? she continues, tugging a thread loose from the duvet. I’m worried about you and Mom. (Because maybe the people who were going to kill her, and probably Melissa when they saw her, won’t hesitate to go after her family. Leverage. Punishment. She thinks about convincing Skinner to put them in witness protection.)

We are, Missy says. They… question us about you a lot. About Fox. About where you are.

Scully bites her lip. Skinner swore he was doing his best the last time they talked, but she hates putting her family through this. It’ll all be over soon, she promises. I’ll be home someday. I love you.

Love you, too, Day. Melissa sounds less relaxed than Scully’s ever heard her in her entire life when she hangs up.

You okay? Mulder says.

Yeah, she says. She’d say what she’s thinking - that she’s just happy Missy’s alive, that she heard what she did before opening the door - but it seems selfish, considering what’s happened to Mulder’s father, considering Samantha. She ignores the thought. They’ve been ignoring a lot, here; sleeping in seedy hotels is an easy escape, they can joke and flip channels on the TV and pretend nothing from the outside world exists. It’s the most mundane existence she and Mulder have ever shared, and it’s somewhat blissful: Mulder is fun, almost, when he’s not absorbed into the monster of the moment, and this is the first time they’ve ever hung out, at least without work as a pretense/distraction. (Even if hanging out involves sharing a bed to keep their identity in place.)

Are you sure you don’t want me to sleep on the floor? he asks, almost nervously, as she stretches out beside him.

No, you just came back from the dead, she says. It’d be cruel. She flips off the light.

(On the first night, she ends up curled against his back, face pressed in the space between his shoulder blades. On the third night, he rolls back against her, burying his face in her chemical-y hair, soft from the hotel conditioner. By the seventh, she’s unintentionally grabbing him in their sleep and he rolls closer instead of away. They don’t talk about it.)

On their fourth week as fugitives, they’re playing Blackjack on the cracked concrete under the street lights, feet dangling in the five foot end of the pool. Mulder’s been quiet, chewing on a straw in his mouth. Hit me, Scully says.

He starts, sets a card down absently. She resists the urge to swear: 24. Are you happy, Scully? he says softly.

She’s startled by the question, tempted to say as happy as anyone can be in this situation. I’m thinking of it as an overdue vacation, she says instead.

He nods, straw bobbing in his mouth. I just feel bad about tearing you away from your life, he says. You didn’t ask for this.

Scully deals them a new hand, trying to meet his eyes. I didn’t ask for it, but they involved me when they abducted me and tried to kill me and my sister, she says. And hurt you, poisoned you, killed your father, she adds silently. And besides that, even if I wasn’t dismissed from the FBI, I would’ve come with you anyway.

He looks up at her in shock. She smiles shyly, setting the cards down between them, pokes his foot with hers in the pool.

I guess it’s just for the X-Files credential, he says finally, waggling his eyebrows. A real life man come down from the dead.

Shut up, she says, splashing him. They play cards until a family comes out with grouchy kids wrapped in striped beach towels; they never want to risk being recognized.

(Eventually, Skinner gets their names cleared and they come home and get their old jobs back and Scully hugs her sister gratefully. But for now, they play cards under the stars. It’s almost good, almost perfect.)

03.

Hey, Scully, he says, watching the curve of her neck as she puts files away.

Yes, Mulder? she replies, somewhere between amused and irritated.

He scuffs his shoes on the floor. Would you, uh. Like to get dinner with me? Jesus Christ, he hasn’t been this nervous asking anyone out since college. Of course, he’s only dated Diana since college, and that didn’t go over very well.

Sure, she says, not looking up. I get to pick this time, though. And can I put a veto on discussing certain cases? It’s Friday night, Mulder.

I know, he says. I, um, actually. Wanted to know if you wanted to go out. With me.

She looks up at him with surprise, although not rejection or disgust. His stomach flips like a pancake. On a date, he supplies, and immediately wants to slap himself.

You’re asking me on a date, Scully says. Matter-of-fact. Clarifying tone.

Um… He scuffs his shoe again, looking at the floor. They need to sweep in here; the janitor only comes down by request and he has a vendetta against Mulder for his discarded sunflower seeds. Yes? he says questioningly, and waits for the end of their friendship.

Okay.

He looks up; she’s replacing files in the cabinet calmly again, as if he’s asked her to pick up a candy bar at the store or something. Okay? he repeats.

She looks up, the ghost of a smile gracing her lips. Okay, she echoes, warmly.

The relief is overwhelming. Okay, he says another time, smiling. Okay.

04.

They kiss in Mulder’s hallway, and Scully doesn’t go to Utah.

(I wish you wouldn’t quit, Mulder whispers against her scalp that morning in bed, and Scully tugs his t-shirt and says, I’ll keep fighting. This isn’t over.)

Mulder tries to get the X-Files back, tries to convince Skinner to let Scully come back, but it nevers works. Scully becomes a doctor, takes up permanent residence in his bedroom. (She goes to Nevada with him, on a dare, and when they come back, there’s a waterbed, and she agrees to stay over at his house; every once in a while, she says sternly over his pillows. [It’s a lot more than every once in a while, and he never lets her forget it.]) He steals X-Files from their old office under Spender and Fowley’s noses and they argue about them over takeout.

(I miss it, sometimes, being at the FBI, she tells the space between his shoulder blades one morning, hugging him tightly from behind. She’s become clingier since, doesn’t quite know why. She didn’t know she could love someone this catastrophically.

I miss you being there with me, he tells her, clasping her hands and pulling them up to rest against his chest.)

After they’re dragged to quarantine and the Syndicate dies off in a fire, Spender doesn’t recommend Mulder be reassigned to the X-Files. Quit, Scully says that night. The FBI hasn’t done anything for you but ruin you. They don’t deserve you, and you don’t need them.

I don’t want to quit, he says. I don’t want this to be over.

We aren’t over, she tells him. We’re both still here. We don’t need the FBI. We can still find the truth.

It’ll be dangerous, he says into her mouth. (She’s pressed him up against the cabinets, kissing him so hard he thinks he’ll melt.) Without their credentials, there’ll be a lot more roadblocks; and no one cares if two ex-FBI agents die in a random accident. They’ll be vulnerable.

She smiles. When has that ever stopped us before?

05.

The IVF works.

Mulder doesn’t expect it to, because honestly, how the hell could anything happen in their lives that’s as perfect as this? They are the type of people who don’t get to kiss, whose sisters stay lost and whose daughters die before they get the chance to know them. He expects this to end in tragedy, expects it to end with Scully crying into his shirt and him unable to comfort her - although he doesn’t want it to. He wants to make her happy, to be able to do one damn thing right. He waits for her on her couch. The Christmas tree she’s set up in the corner sits dormant and dark; he thinks about plugging the lights in.

Scully comes home, and his stomach twists when he turns over and sees the smile on her face. She looks happier than he’s seen her in months; the last time she smiled like that is when he opened his eyes in the hospital at some point after she woke him up from Spender’s botched brain surgery; she’d smiled like he was the entire world, squeezed his fingers. Scully? he whispers in wonder, shifting on the couch to sit up.

She smiles, hand ghosting her abdomen. It worked.

He gapes at her, mouth hanging open a little. Scully, that’s fantastic! He moves towards her, expecting a hug or a chaste kiss to the forehead, but she kisses him first, hands cupping the side of his face.

She pulls away a minute later, red already spreading across her face. I’m sorry, Mulder, she whispers, I don’t want to obligate you to anything, you didn’t agree to…

He kisses her again before she finishes; he’s wanted to do that for years now. Scully, I want this, he says. I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t.

She smiles again, eyes welling up, and buries her head in his shoulder. He rubs circles on the small of her back, trying to remember how he ever got here. This is all I’ve ever wanted, she says into his sweater, so quietly he almost can’t hear her. This is it.

06.

Mulder doesn’t go to Oregon, or he doesn’t leave three days after their son is born, or he comes home to find them waiting for him and he and Scully cry in the threshold of her apartment, or Scully never gives William up and the three of them disappear into the sunset after breaking Mulder out of prison. They get to raise their son, watch him grow up to morph into a child who inherited their looks and intelligence and Scully’s snark and Mulder’s curiosity. In some cases, there is another baby, and in other cases, there’s only ever William, their miracle baby. But in every case, there is the three of them and they are happy. A family.

07.

The IVF doesn’t work, and Scully never gets pregnant. (She gets uncontrollably sad about it, sometimes, like when Bill and Tara call to announce that their second child is on the way, or she talks to an old friend who has to go in the other room because her kids won’t let her talk on the phone in peace, or - one time - because they see a baby in a dingy small-town diner, and she gets teary and tries to hide it with scratchy napkins. Mulder tries to comfort her every time, although he’s worried he’s just making it worse - it’s his fault she can never have a baby. He has his moments of teary-eyed weakness himself.)

They go to Oregon, but Scully isn’t sick and Mulder isn’t abducted. Two months later, the X-Files are shut down. Too much money towards a dead-end project, the man who comes to tell them says. Scully surprises them both by being the one to retort sharply, standing up and glaring at him like he is the scum of the earth and sliding in a sir at the end to barely pass it off as respectable. Scully, it’s okay, Mulder says quietly when they’re alone in not-their-office.

Mulder, this is your life’s work, she says, still breathing a little hard and glaring at the door.

He reaches down and takes her hand. It’s okay.

They’re reassigned to the VCS - Skinner fights hard for them to stay partners. (They go to his office to thank him, and he looks at them critically, says, As long as you don’t let… whatever this is… interfere with your work, then we won’t have a problem, agents with a spastic motioning towards them and red spreading across his cheeks. Which leads to a ten-minute bickering about who is the reason Skinner knows.)

They stay at the FBI for two more years. Things are different, darker, in the VCS, but Scully still does autopsies and they still have to travel out of town sometimes (it’s almost more exciting to be in a hotel with ten other agents; it makes sneaking into one of their hotel rooms more risky, and Scully seems to like it) and they still are a singular unit no matter how many people are in the room.

(Things come to a head when they are both taken by a serial killer, found bound and bruised and traumatized together just before the man starts to kill them.)

Let’s quit, Mulder says in the hospital that night, tracing her fingers with his. Their hands haven’t stopped shaking since they were rescued; they’ve held hands since their wrists were untied, in front of the entire task force, and don’t care.

Mulder, she says, astonished.

The X-Files are gone. And besides that, we can’t keep doing this, Scully. We can’t keep almost losing each other. He kisses the back of her hand, a small, warm patch on her chilled skin. Remember what I told you in Oregon? There has to be an end. I’m ready.

(Skinner looks almost sad when they hand in their resignations. He shakes their hands and tells them their services will be missed and not to be strangers. I’m surprised he didn’t hug us, Mulder says in the elevator. Skinman’s gone soft.

Let’s invite him to our wedding, Scully says slyly, and can’t stop giggling at the expression on Mulder’s face.)

They buy an apartment together, one that doesn’t have bloodstains or monsters in the corner, where no one has ever died. They get jobs teaching at Quantico - Scully teaching pathology and Mulder teaching profiling, at first, but eventually an additional class on paranormal investigations that takes a large amount of fighting to receive. He writes books at night, putting his insomnia to good use. (Thank God you have something to do at night, Scully says, or I would never get any sleep.) The X-Files are eventually reopened by an eager agent, Monica Reyes, and a more reluctant agent, John Doggett, who have some dark past no one asks them about and no one wants to - they’re good friends, good partners. Agent Reyes insists on Mulder consulting, which leads to them being semi-regular appearances at the apartment (there are usually arguments where Reyes and Mulder gang up on Doggett; Scully feels sorry for the guy, has to intervene at least 70% of the time; she grows an affection for these outcast agents that remind her of she and Mulder when they were young).

Let’s have a baby, Mulder says one lazy summer night almost three years after they’ve left the FBI. They have a habit of taking blankets up to the roof of their building and watching the stars (or looking for UFOS, as Mulder calls it), and Scully’s curled beside him, nearly asleep.

We can’t. The IVF process didn’t work, she says sleepily, sadly into his shoulder.

So we try again. I have more money than I did when we tried the first time - my mom left the entire estate to me. We can afford it. His palm nearly covers her forehead, brushing hair away from her face. Or we could adopt. Save someone. We could get Skinner to write a letter of recommendation.

I love you, she says. At his sharp breath of pleasant surprise, she realizes she’s never said it. She rises up on her knees and kisses him under the stars.

08.

Mulder doesn’t join the FBI because Samantha is never abducted. Dana joins the FBI, stays at Quantico. They meet by accident - she’s guest-lecturing at the university where he teaches. There’s a teacher’s lounge and a friend of hers tugs her towards him, saying she needs to try the coffee loud enough for everyone to hear, but whispering something about how she should go talk to the psychology professor because he’s cute and exactly her type, she swears.

Her friend tugs her forward and she stumbles, almost crashing into him and the table at the same time. Sorry, she says sheepishly, reaching for a mug on the rack.

It’s fine, he says. Although the coffee isn’t nearly that good. He smiles; he has a nice smile. I’m Fox Mulder. He extends his hand.

She takes it. Dana Scully.

#technically its not a list but it kind of is? it started as a list i made in the shower this morning #xfwritingchallenge #xf fanfic #i wrote this

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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At Sundance, a Glorious Diversity of Voices Breaks Through

PARK CITY, Utah — A runaway bride, wildly rambunctious women and two quietly resolute girls — the Sundance Film Festival is one movie celebration where the so-called second sex consistently comes out on top. Now in its 36th year, the festival has long made room for female filmmakers even when there weren’t all that many. In 1985, its inaugural year, it presented 85 movies, 10 from female directors, about half non-Americans like Lina Wertmüller, one of the few such filmmakers on anyone’s radar back then. Of this year’s 128 features, nearly half are from women. (The festival ends Sunday.)

These numbers are impressive; the movies even more so. At some events, female filmmakers sometimes seem to have been invited simply to check a box, a practice that, however well-intentioned, inevitably suggests that women are second-class talent. This year’s Sundance, by contrast, underscores that when women receive real opportunities — serious money and institutional support — the pool of work expands, bringing new stories, styles and worldviews. For the 2020 edition, you didn’t need to dig to find female talent, make excuses for substandard work or politely yawn through another worthy endeavor. It was right on the screen, blissful and unbound.

In the case of the very different documentaries “Time” and “Saudi Runaway,” the desire to make movies isn’t simply about having a say — getting the chance to pick up a camera and share your vision with the world freely — it is also a matter of life itself. Each documentary centers on an extraordinarily gutsy woman who put her everyday existence on camera, detailing her days and nights in intimate, pointillist detail much like a diarist. Each woman subsequently handed over what she had shot to a female director, who then shaped the material, turning self-expression into collective vision.

One of the most critically admired titles at the festival, Garrett Bradley’s “Time” tells the story of Fox Rich, a Louisiana activist, family woman extraordinaire and impressively dedicated memoirist. (The movie is a coproduction of The New York Times.) Processed in black-and-white, it tracks Rich over her decade-plus efforts to support her six sons and find her sense of a whole self all while advocating for the release of her husband from a punishing 60-year prison sentence. Using both original material and a trove of vivid home videos that Rich shot herself, Bradley creates a portrait of a woman that exponentially expands into a complex chronicle of a marriage, a family, a community and finally a country.

“Saudi Runaway” is a starkly complementary story of incarceration, liberation and self-determination. Directed by the Swiss-German filmmaker Susanne Regina Meures, “Runaway” is the nail-biting chronicle of a fearless young Saudi — known only as Muna — as she covertly plans to leave the country for good. Using a couple of smartphones, Muna clandestinely serves as her own dauntless cinematographer, shooting herself, her family and, in fugitive glimpses, the larger world. It’s a perilous activity given women’s traditionally subordinate status there, and transforms selfie-style narcissism into radical resistance. (The movie was shot before new rights were granted to women.) As her plans solidify, “Saudi Runaway” progressively resembles a thriller, one filled with harrowingly close calls and an exhilarating countdown.

The increased presence of women behind the camera at Sundance marks a crucial shift, given that not long ago the more celebrated women at the event were performers like Parker Posey and Lili Taylor (here playing a mom in the clichéd “The Evening Hour”). For years, women’s roles at this festival seemed best symbolized by the “Sundance It Girl,” a dubious honor that stretches at least back to Andie MacDowell, a star of “sex, lies, and videotape.” That’s the 1989 Steven Soderbergh game-changer that helped kick-start an era in indie cinema, one that often proved as sexist as Hollywood and just as blindingly white.

The number of African-American female filmmakers in this year’s lineup offered further evidence of what seems to be a significant, perhaps lasting sea change. A perfect example, and a highlight of the U.S. dramatic competition, “The 40-Year-Old Version” hasn’t secured distribution but deserves the widest release possible. Written and directed by the playwright Radha Blank — who also stars — it traces the rebirth of an artist with lacerating insight, a great deal of warmth and terrific comic timing. It was shot in black-and-white, a visual choice that nods to iconic New York films, most instructively from Woody Allen and Spike Lee. Here, Blank makes the city and its promise her own from the first scene to a last expressive burst of rapturous color.

The colors pop bright and hard in “Zola,” a kaleidoscopically hued, periodically discomforting, comically ribald adventure from Janicza Bravo (“Lemon”). Narrated largely in flashback by the title character (played by the game newcomer Taylour Paige), the story unwinds in extended flashback, with Zola detailing an improbable, ridiculous, often funny and sometimes dangerous adventure involving another woman, Jessica (the reliably bold Riley Keough), a stripper with execrable judgment. Bravo skims the surface with impressive control and a great deal of visual wit and, every so often — as with a shot of a Confederate flag — gestures toward deeper, unrealized ideas. (The movie is based on an epic, rather more grim Twitter thread.)

A different odyssey is undertaken in Eliza Hittman’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which tracks a teenager, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), who travels to New York City to obtain an abortion. With unforced realism, a minimum of music, spare dialogue and no histrionics, Hittman nicely sketches in Autumn’s home life — her mom dresses the kids and the dad both — but mostly concentrates on Autumn and her relationship with the cousin (Talia Ryder) who accompanies her. By refusing to grandstand, Hittman, who wrote and directed, has made the most moving, cleareyed American fiction movie about a woman’s right to abortion since “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982).

Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s much-publicized documentary “On the Record” looks at several women — notably Drew Dixon, a music executive — who have accused the music giant Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct (allegations he denies). Much of the movie includes interviews, including with writers like Joan Morgan, who puts the personal into larger context. The women on camera make their case strongly; they also legitimize the documentary, which had come to the festival tainted by criticism from Oprah Winfrey, a former executive producer, who cut ties to it, citing creative differences. The filmmakers make some unfortunate choices, particularly in some staged scenes, but the movie belongs to these women, whose truth feels unassailable.

Time and again at the festival, you saw real diversity in both the snowy streets and in the theaters, where the American experience in all its complexity was being told and retold in movie after movie. Proof of that came in two of my favorite selections from the 2020 edition, the dramas “Minari” and “Farewell Amor.” To a degree, we have seen these stories before or at least think that we have: each turns on a hardworking family of ostensible outsiders trying to find their place in a not always welcoming country.

In “Minari” (written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung), the family is Korean-American and moves from California to Arkansas to pursue the father’s dream of farming vegetables. In “Farewell Amor” (from the writer-director Ekwa Msangi), an Angolan refugee brings his wife and daughter to America after a long, anguished separation, moving them into a crowded Brooklyn apartment. Each movie solicits well-earned tears and turns on a profound crisis that can only be solved when the family pulls together, unity that works as a welcome and, in its underlying optimism, deeply moving metaphor for life in what too often feels like the Disunited States of America.

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theashen-fox · 7 years ago

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The Fugitive and The Traitor-RP Starter

@badxluckxcat

(Bear in mind, this starts in Beacon, but depending on how long the thread goes, could go to Vol. 5 and beyond.)

The youthful Faunus known as Ash Vulpes never did understand why Faunus faced discrimination. Actually, to be frank, before now he had considered them to be hypocrites, bemoaning the hate humans had for them, but turning around and calling him a “traitor”, creating a slur in Northern Mistrali vernacular that translated quite literally to his name and the names of his family before him (the slur was ”greyfox”, and it was a literal translation because all of his family’s first names had been some kind of grey, and their surname meant “fox”.) And for what? His family did some morally questionable things during the War—or whenever the insurrection took place; dates were sketchy—but they had done it for the same reason that the White Fang had been created: peace.

These thoughts hung over Ash like a cloud as he looked at his bruised and bloody knuckles, treating them as well as the other bruises. The “fight” that had happened was a result of Ash interfering with Cardin Winchester’s torment of the young rabbit Faunus, Velvet. He had tried to reason with Cardin, tried to talk him down, but the other was too angry with the interruption that he gave Ash a rather brutal right hook. Needless to say, the two were both called into Professor Goodwitch’s office, who was none too pleased with either of them. While Cardin did admit to being the instigator—he wasn’t going to lie to her—and was given a heavier punishment than Ash, she still expressed disappointment in the Faunus, saying that as admirable as his defense for Velvet was, stooping to a thuggish level in this school was unacceptable.

As he continued to treat the wounds, his ear twitched. Someone was headed this way. The boy almost instinctively climbed up the tree he had been sitting beneath, not daring to make a noise until he had seen who it was. Then, he silently cursed himself. He had left the damned first aid kit on the ground!

#badxluckxcat

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mikomischief · 1 year ago

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White hair like a cloud with jade eyes, and horns that could easily be made of amethyst, this being was not from Teyvat. He was not human either, but that was of little consequence at the moment. He assessed her much like she assessed him: for likeness, differences, and, if she had to guess, whether or not she was a threat. The sword in his possession indicated he was no mere passerby, but instead a warrior. How capable? With a gait like that, he had to be quick on his feet, and that gaze of his…

She did not miss the glare. Was it one of disdain? No, perhaps one of irritation since he seemed to be in a hurry before she interrupted him. From what, hiding? Thankfully, he seemed to decide against trying to take her down. Fighting in a place like this—who knew how it affected her electro or if it even worked here? Miko knew how the laws of Teyvat worked, but this place… the disarray in the air unsettled her. Could this other being feel it? That could explain his glare as well.

Yes, it could. A capable warrior looking for a place to hide, and a strange woman interrupts him… she would be frustrated too.

Alas, the glare lasted half a second before he changed his mind. He chose to raise a finger to the front of his mask, a universal indicator for silence, before he explained. His Excellency’s men… to avoid speaking, Miko tilted her head to her right to show her confusion. She couldn’t say she heard of His Excellency before, but he did not sound pleasant from this being’s tone alone. This being… he was on the run then. That had to be it. He was on the run from His Excellency.

Either that, or he wanted to lure her into some sort of trap. Someone he just met. Someone who just arrived in this strange world.

She had little trust to give out, but Miko knew she had limited options. She needed to see how this played out. Staying quiet, she gave the other being a solemn nod of her head.

The sound of a voice has the prince nearly jumping out of his skin. His takes several seconds for his brain to catch up with the rest of his body as his head jerks and his eyes focus in on a woman dressed in white with a practical river of pink hair, just like Rorahm-Vahree, and striking purple eyes. She says she won't reveal his location if he doesn't reveal hers but he can't bring himself to really care about her position all too much.

Someone saw him so that means his short little break to catch his breath was over and he needed to run again. He felt like he was always running. He was either running or dying and he couldn't say he was very fond of either of those options. Though, if he was forced to choose between them it would be running even if that meant once he was caught again the death resulting from it would be so much worse.

Jade eyes are focusing in on the woman and he can't help but glare for half a moment as he tries to decide what he's supposed to do about this. He has multiple options.

Ignore her completely and be on his way, but that run the risk of this woman reporting his appearance to any of Gaudium's forces that could come through looking for him.

Approach her but speak solely in his own tongue and act as if he doesn't understand her. Play the language barrier card and see how she reacts. No one else speaks Misterican in this world anyway so it wouldn't be like she could see through his little rouse should he decide to go such a route.

Tell her the truth and find out what her situation is. If she's running from Gaudium too, she could likely become an alley. But on the other hand, he knows nothing about her and it could be an attempt to get him to trust someone else only so His Excellency can viciously tear them away from him as a way of punishment for daring to run again.

This woman is either going to slow him down or get him killed. He can hear the logical part of himself begging to just ignore her and to keep moving. Even if she's seen him, she'll never match his speed.

But yet there is a hand rising with a single finger raised as he holds it just in front of his mask as if to say silence. So much for the language barrier rouse.

"Keep your voice down. His Excellency's men are everywhere. I will not tell a soul I have seen you, but you must do the same for me."

#shiroikumo #ic; never trust a fox | post #verse; the sun is out again | post vision hunt #thread: Foxes and Fugitives

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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At Sundance, a Glorious Diversity of Voices Breaks Through

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mikomischief · 2 years ago

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Having a sense of direction didn't matter in this place, it seemed. How long had she walked? Hours? Yes, it seemed so, and she hadn't come across anyone, much less a person from her crew. If people lived in this strange world, she hadn't found them yet, which was most disconcerting. Sure, much of Inazuma remained uninhabited, but lightning storms didn't make for ideal living conditions. The weather here seemed... well, boring.

This land was a puzzle, and she lacked many of its pieces. As she walked, her feet continuing at the same, steady pace she started with, a frown lingered on her face. Something powerful possessed the ability to pull her, and probably others, from Teyvat into this world. While it certainly made for an interesting story, the danger to countless lives outweighed the Mora she could make if she made it back home---if. Were she to hazard a guess, whatever force brought her here wouldn't be too eager to let her just leave.

Just her, though? No, hardly. A hand went to her chin as she continued to think. Hundreds of years of experience with Archons and the like forced her to learn one simple truth among many: she was nothing special. Her abilities and near immortality aside, she was nothing more than a drop in the ocean, especially to those who worked with grand schemes. The one in this world... she couldn't tell much at this stage, but the air felt wrong. Not like the beginning of a storm, but... disarray.

Yes, this world felt like it was in disarray. Purposefully.

How odd.

Though, not as odd as the first sign of life she just found. Trees counted, but a living, breathing life form made for much better conversation. Miko froze in her spot, not wanting to startle the one she heard just hide in the same vicinity. To this being's credit, he was excellent at staying quiet. Naturally, with her ears perked, she had to wonder what he could possibly be hiding from. This one couldn't be responsible for bringing her here. No, something was wrong.

"Should I be hiding too?" She thought it to be a fair question, and she asked it with sincerity. "I won't reveal your location if you don't reveal mine, Stranger." If there was one game she knew how to play well, it was hide and seek.

This is it.

He's free. He's not going back this time.

He will do whatever it takes to avoid getting caught and drug back to that damnable castle if it's the last thing he does. Will it ever be the last thing he does? Even when they kill him for his disobedience, he only revives. There's no such thing as a true death for him and as such that made him the perfect toy for that monster. He's not going back.

They will drag back a corpse this time because surely that pint sized pipsqueak of torment and terror has already sent that damnable plant witch out after him. So he needs to be careful in his approach. He needed to go somewhere else. He can't go back to Rorahm-Vahree just yet. If he does they'll surely find him and then they'll both be damned.

He can't risk them finding Rorahm-Vahree when he's so vulnerable.

If they do - if they do then they'll know where he keeps running off to and why. They'll know he has someone in this damnable place and that he isn't completely stuck out in this place terrified and alone. That was another thing. Another complicated ridiculous thing.

He needed to keep his emotions in check lest the beast decide to track him by them. Surely with every frantic beat of his heart the monster feeds. Feeds off him like a never ending buffet of anguish and anxiety.

He's hiding behind a rather large rock formation at the moment, sneaking to peer out around it to observe his surroundings. He needed to stay aware. He needed to remain alert because he couldn't be found by anyone. He is a genetic anomaly of his people and therefore easy to spot and easy to describe. Even if he hadn't been the only Misterican left alive - white was anything but a color that one usually found in the natural born of nearly any kind of beast.

He just needs to move. Even if someone sees him, they'll never catch him. Not with his levels of speed. So the swordsman is bracing his feet against the ground to dart into the air and fly. Fly as fast as his body will allow as a streak of blue light rushing through the air. He needs to make as much ground as possible before they catch up to him.

Before she catches up to him.

So he flies as long as his body will allow. He flies as long he his form will let him keep up these speeds, coming to a slow and letting himself sink back down to the soil below. Heavy breaths leave him once he lands. Hands on his thighs as he stops to take a moment to gather himself before he's running again.

He has to find some kind cover. He can't stay out in the open like this. He can't let anyone see him. Not until he's found his footing. Not until he's managed to forge some kind of life in this place and get his bearings. Once he's established himself then - then he can fight back.

Then he will be Little Cloud no longer...

So he's slipping himself behind a tree, letting his entire form lean up against it's trunk, so his head can tilt back and he can simply let himself for the moment - breathe.

He - He can't let himself get caught again. He won't survive that hell. He doesn't care if His Excellency says that the people of this world would tear him apart. He'd rather the people of these lands render him to nothing than to have to live in that damn castle even one more day. The people here. The people of this land.... there's no way they can be as vile as he's been told they are.

#shiroikumo #ic; never trust a fox | post #verse; the sun is out again | post vision hunt #thread: Foxes and Fugitives

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