#what do you mean people born in 2007 are already old enough to live by themselves | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

canonicallyanxious · 2 years ago

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[huge disclaimer up top that I am incredibly lacking in knowledge as to queer/lgbtq+ history and culture in Thailand, especially outside the context of globalized queer identity, so this post should absolutely not be taken as any sort of authority or statement on the topic; i'm just in the very beginnings of doing my own research and wanted to sort through some thoughts as well as see if anyone else out there knew more or could point me toward other sources]

so one thing i was thinking about is that if Jim is in his mid-late thirties, this means he was probably born in the early-mid 80s, which means he came of age in the 90s. i must confess my ignorance of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic [particularly social stigma against the lgbtq+ community] outside of a western context but even still i can't not find this timing significant. so i'm starting to do some research on the situation in Thailand during this time period and have come across some really interesting sources i wanted to share [under the cut, if you please!]

First is from Untold Stories originally published in 2002. The full video/transcript is super interesting and has a lot of information about Thailand's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 90s. one thing i wanted to highlight [bolded emphasis is mine]:

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Viravaidya is confident Thailand’s infection rate can be contained once again. Awareness is high, as is literacy, as is the availability of condoms. The big problem is how to deal with the one million or so Thais already infected. Tens of thousands of previously symptom-free HIV patients are now in the visible, advanced, or terminal, stages of the disease. The campaigns may have raised awareness, curiosity, and even generous donations, but patients like Phra Choochart, one of about a dozen monks here, say that doesn’t translate to sympathy or compassion.

PRA CHOOCHART: I keep secret for many years. But finally, something happened in my skin. It beginning to appear. I cannot keep secret anymore. So, I come to be a monk because in society if you catch HIV, nobody want you; also your family.

Untold Stories also has a follow-up story from about 5 years later in 2007. again the full video/transcript is super interesting imo, but here are some personal highlights regarding the social stigma of hiv/aids in Thai society [bolded emphasis is mine]:

REV. MICHAEL BASSANO: He’s 50 years old, but his family just left him. They came over and dropped him off. And they left him here with us. [...]

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Many, like this man, are dropped off, their disease unattended, many with tuberculosis, a daunting infection they must survive before they are physically fit enough to go on the AIDS medicines.

[...]

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Thirty-two-year-old Nok Eng came to the temple when her skin showed rashes, a classic HIV symptom. She left when her health improved but came right back in a few months. Health care was hard to find for her and her HIV-positive husband. And it was especially tough at her factory job, where people knew she was HIV-positive.

NOK ENG (through translator): Every day at lunch, I could hear people whispering next to me, gossiping about me, being sarcastic. I just couldn’t take the criticism.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The most painful, her parents, who live in a rural community, wanted little to do with her.

NOK ENG: I told my parents that I wanted to come and visit, and they said, “Just stay where you are.” They said that I would humiliate them.

still trying to find sources for what the attitude/stigma is like in more recent years, as well as information about social stigma regarding the gay/queer community outside of this specific context [also worth noticing these sources don't really focus on HIV/AIDS stigma in the context of the gay/queer community specifically], but even still, considering the huge impact the HIV/AIDS epidemic had on social stigma against the lgbtq+ community as well as the generational trauma of living as a community through such a thing in western society, i would be really interested to know if that context had a significant impact on Jim's coming of age as a gay man - i don't think it's something that they would ever explicitly get into on this show but still, that social/historical context could help put some things into perspective, particularly the emphasis on family relationships being the most painful part of the social stigma

i mean idk. i just think about jim running away from home with his sister, and referring to himself and Jam as "two great survivors", even in the context of the homophobia he had to face from his own sister. and i think about his flashbacks with Beam, how even at the peak of their relationship there was hesitance on his part [like when Beam loudly declared their love in the temple for example], and how quickly and easily he accepted that Beam couldn't tell his family about them, and how the tension between being open about yourself in your personal life versus your family/public life is already a lot to deal with even outside of the context of Beam living a whole separate life with a woman his family set him up with. and i can see how even as an older gay man who has been out for some time now there's still a lot of fear and pain Jim carries with him, as someone who seems to value family quite a lot. i really hope we can see him get to the point where he can begin to accept and understand that even after all that he's been through he has created a loving and supporting family of his own, and that's not in spite of the person that he is but because of it.

#sarah.txt #moonlight chicken #mlc meta #seriously i feel like there's a lot i might be missing in context of thai society/culture watching this show #it feels like something that has a fairly significant influence on the story/characters even if not explicitly engaged with #i would really love to learn more if i can!#story meta #ql tag

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cjsinkythoughts · 4 years ago

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In Need of a Breath

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Word Count: 4007

Warnings: !FATWS SPOILERS!, Cursing, Zemo, Feelings, Another PTSD Flashback

A/N: So…Part 4 is going to have a couple parts to it. Maybe even three. I didn’t even make it half way through the episode on this one, mainly because I really wanted to fit in the Reader’s backstory and I wanted her and Sam to have a heart-to-heart again. I’m suuuuper tired, so I probably won’t be posting the next part for another few hours (it’s 5 am right now and I haven’t slept), BUT it’s my day off work and I won’t be doing anything I planned because my grandmother had a stroke a couple days ago so plans have changed and I’m staying in to help her, meaning I’ll mostly be writing all day.

This Part is kind of a mix between off-screen and shot-by-shots, but it’s mostly off screen/what’s going on inside Reader’s head.

I’m really excited about future parts and the characters that are being introduced! I will say that after these parts, I will be doing one shots of previous MCU movies with the Reader, due to the information that is being given about the Reader now. You kind of see more of how she was affected/how she affected the previous MCU movies and what she was doing during that time.

Like always, this hasn’t been beta’d, again it’s SUPER early in the morning, and I’m really tired, so please excuse any mistakes! I hope you guys enjoy this part! Stay tuned for more to come later today!

FATWS MASTERLIST

cjsinkythoughts MASTERLIST

!SPOILERS UNDER CUT!

“You know…I’m really starting to regret saying yes to this.” You huffed out, craning your neck and squinting your eyes against the sun as you stare at the facility in front of you, hating the skin-crawling feeling of being back.

“Would you relax? Whenever you’re nervous, I get nervous, and I don’t wanna be nervous about this.” Sam shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Do either of you have a better plan?” Bucky grumbled, crossing his arms.

Gnawing on your lips, you finally take the lead and breathe out, “alright. Let’s go then.” You could feel the hesitance from your - what were they? Partners? Coworkers? Teammates? - the fellas before they started after you.

There was a sick twist in your gut as you entered the building, going through the lobby and security.

You had been there.

You had been there when Zemo impersonated Bucky. You had been there when Zemo unleashed the Winter Soldier at the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre Building in Berlin. You had been there during the battle at the airport. You had been there when Zemo turned Tony and Steve against each other in Siberia. You had been there when Zemo tore the Avengers from the inside out. Your family. The only family you’d ever known.

But you’d always been good about pushing your personal feelings aside for the sake of the mission. It’s what you’d been born to do. All you ever knew.

“Hey. Doll. You hear me?”

“Hmm. What?” You looked up from the ground to look into those enchanting blue oceans Bucky had for eyes, staring worriedly down at you, eyebrows pinched and forehead creased.

“I’m going in alone.” You frowned, opening your mouth to argue, but he shook his head. “Sam already agreed-”

“I didn’t necessarily agree-”

“You’re an Avenger, sweetheart.” Bucky tilted his head, speaking softly, those eyes of his worried. Worried for you. It made your stomach flip. “And you were there in Siberia, and that almost makes it worse. Especially considering you went after him. Just…just let me do this, okay?”

You cracked your knuckles nervously as you thought. It was a terrible idea. But it was an idea. And it was all they had. “Okay.” You finally relented, shrugging as your hands hit your thighs and slid up to your hips. “But don’t do anything stupid.”

“Steve took all that with him.”

Knowing about their little inside joke, you scoffed. “Sure he did. Go before I change my mind.”

You watched him walk down the hallway, hands fidgeting with excess nerves. “I think you’re the only one he actually seeks approval from.”

“Good thing I’m so lenient then, huh?” You joked, turning to Sam with a strained smile. Your smile slipped at the curious expression on Sam’s face, his eyes darting to each of your features. “What?”

“Are you doing okay?”

You groaned, throwing your head back. You thought you got out of talking about your feelings back in Baltimore. “Oh my God, Sam-”

“I’m serious. You…you just don’t seem like yourself.”

You shook your head, looking down the hall to where Bucky disappeared before turning back to him. It was weird to have a self that people recognized. Your whole life you’d been searching for it and when you finally found it…everything went to shit. “Honestly, Sammy, the only time I’ve ever felt like myself was with the team. Zemo took that away from me and now we’re here, practically begging him for help.”

Sam hummed, leaning against the wall. “Have you thought of taking a break?”

“What?”

“A break.” At your bewildered look, he rolled his eyes. “Cher, this time last year most of us were dead. This time a few months ago you found out about Wanda. This time last week you were out looking for her. Maybe you should just stop and take a breather.”

Shoving your hands in your pocket and looking at the floor, you couldn’t help but snort at his advice. “I haven’t taken a breather since I was eighteen.”

He clicked his tongue. “That’s my point. FBI academy as soon as you graduated. SHIELD recruit by 21, undercover operations leader by 24? Slow down. You’re in your thirties. Next thing you know, you’re gonna be ninety something, lying on your deathbed, wishing you had stopped to smell the roses.”

“If I live to be ninety, shoot me.” He chuckled in amusement. “I’m so fucking serious, Sam. I will not be put in an old folks home to play Bingo and be pushed around in a wheelchair. It ain’t happening.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” There was that infectious smile, which you unconsciously grinned back at. “Y/N…I’m serious. You’ve been in and out of missions since you were a teenager. What’s the shortest undercover operation you’ve done?”

“I dunno.”

He gave you an unimpressed look. “Yeah you do.”

Licking your lips, you turned away and shrugged. “A couple months. Seven weeks and three days, to be precise. September to October in 2012.”

“And the longest?”

“August 2007 to May 2009. Twenty one months.”

Letting out a puff of air through his nose, Sam pushed himself off the wall and caught your chin between his fingers to make you look at him. “That’s nearly two years under cover. And I’m sure you went right back under after-”

“I was sitting at a desk for four months doing paperwork on it.” You defended yourself.

He shook his head, brows knitting together, lips drawn down. “You say that as if four months is enough time.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Sammy. I’m out. I’ve been out since Ultron and Sokovia. I haven’t been under in almost a decade-”

“A decade half the world was dead for half of-”

“I wasn’t!”

“I never said you were.” Sam sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. You were always amazed at his ability to keep his emotions in check. To stay cool under pressure. Sometimes you forgot how experienced he was with dealing with other people’s trauma. It was no wonder why Steve thought he’d be good for Bucky. “Listen. All I’m saying is once this is done…don’t go diving back into searching for Wanda. Don’t go running to the kid every time he calls - and I know you’ve been doing that-”

“It’s just been homework and stuff-”

“Y/N.” You stopped, biting your lip at the stern look he gave you. “Go home. Order take out. Binge watch TV. Go for a jog through the park. Actually meet your neighbors. Go grocery shopping. Just…live. If only for a couple weeks. Don’t worry about anyone else. Don’t pick up the phone, don’t drop everything because someone needs you. You need you.”

“I-I…” You shook your head, looking at him, sincerely apologetic. “I can’t. I wish I could. But I can’t. I’ve never had one normal day in my life. I’ve never had someone to care for, never had someone to care for me. I can’t let people I’ve come to…I can’t let them think I don’t care. I don’t even know where I’d go.”

“Whaddya mean?”

You winced, not thrilled for his reaction to your next statement. “I, uh, I sold my apartment in D.C.”

He gaped at you in complete disbelief. “You got it in December!”

“I know, I know. I liked it. I really did, but…I dunno. Nomadic life has always suited me better. It’s what I grew up with.”

He took a breath, making you cringe again. You don’t think you’ve ever legitimately gotten on his nerves like this before. “Have you ever thought that, instead of going with the flow and jumping place to place, putting down roots might actually help?” He cut you off before you could say anything, holding up a finger to stop you from talking. “I can’t imagine going from foster home to foster home like you did. I can’t imagine not having a home for as long as you can remember. Louisiana’s my home. Always has, always will be. But I understand your life has been anything but stable. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why you need some stability.”

You clenched your jaw, crossing your arms. “The Avengers were my stability. Steve was my stability.”

“Because you loved him.”

“I’m not doing this with you again.” You turned to walk down to the lobby to wait for Bucky there, but Sam caught your arm.

“You were in love with him! It’s okay! You two were super close! No one would blame you! Why won’t you just admit it? I’m trying to understand! Why won’t you-”

You tugged your arm away, finally snapping at him. “Because he could never be mine, Wilson! Is that what you wanna hear?!” Sam took a step back at your exclamation. You closed your eyes, swallowing the lump in your throat and pushing down the tears. “He could preach all he wanted about moving forwards, Sammy, but we all knew he was stuck in the past. He visited the museum every Thursday because her interview showed in his exhibit on Thursdays. He carried around that broken compass because her picture was in it.” You looked back up at him sadly, shrugging. “And I get it; it’s hard to move past your first love. I get it because…that’s what he was to me.”

There was a silence that blanketed the hallway, before he spoke up hesitantly. “What about Bucky?”

“I thought - I thought I was projecting my feelings for Steve onto him because I knew Steve couldn’t ever…”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “You thought? What do you think now?”

You cleared your throat. “I’m still figuring that one out.”

“If you ever need to talk, I’ll be here.”

You chuckled, nodding slightly towards him. “Back atcha. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you not being yourself lately, either.”

“It’s…a tough topic.”

You nodded in understanding. “Just know that I’ll support every decision you make as long as you think it’s the right one. Because I trust you. Steve trusted you. It’s all we can do to try to do what’s right. That’s what makes you a good man, Sammy. He gave you that shield for a reason, and if you think what you did was right…I’ll stand by it.”

The two of you stared at each other for a moment, calming down in each other’s presences and taking comfort knowing you’d be there for each other through thick and thin. “Thank you, cher.”

“Of course, Sammy. Now let’s go see what’s taking the old grump so long.”

He laughed at that, nodding in agreement, taking your offered hand and squeezing it as you made your way down the hall.

****************

“What?”

Bucky eyed you as you spluttered, coughing on the water you were drinking. “Please don’t choke, doll.”

“Break him out of jail?!” You repeated his words and blinked at him, absolutely baffled by his plan. “Oh my God.” You groaned as Bucky and Sam started arguing, moving your flashlight around the room. “Where the hell are we?” There was no response as they kept going back and forth.

“Zemo’s gonna mess with our minds! Especially yours! No offense.”

“Heelllloooo!” You tried again. “Where the hell are we?!”

Bucky turned on the lights, giving Sam a look. “Offense.” Glancing at you he quirked an eyebrow. “Stop worrying your pretty lil’ head, sweetheart. You trust me, dontcha?” Your breath hitched at his words. You quickly recovered, huffing and pouting - although you’d deny ever pouting - and crossing your arms. You stood between the guys like that, eyes darting to whoever was speaking, waiting for them to stop so you could actually think.

“Look. Let me just walk you through a hypothetical. Can I walk you through a hypothetical?”

You and Sam exchanged glances. “What did you do?”

“I…didn’t do…anything.” Bucky shrugged.

“How is it that you, one of the most deadliest assassins basically ever, are one of the worst liars I know.” You tilted your head at him, an eyebrow quirking up in confusion.

“Shush it you. Just, okay. The weakest point in any system isn’t the software, the hardware, it’s the meatware. The human element.”

The more you listened to Bucky’s “hypothetical”, the stronger the gut feeling telling you this was a terrible terrible idea got. You brought your hands up to your head, eyes wide as he spoke.

“I don’t like how casual you’re bein’ about this. This is unnatural.”

You couldn’t help but agree with Sam’s words, your head falling back and your eyes closing. “Sweet Jesus. Listen, God, I know we don’t talk much these days, but please, please don’t let this not be a hypothetical. I’m fucking begging you.”

A noise to your right made your head snap over. “Oh hell to the fucking no!” You shook your head as Zemo himself walked in, wearing a prison guards uniform. “Uh-uh! No way! Bucky, this was not part of the plan!”

“What did you do?!”

“We need him!”

“You’re going back to prison.”

“If I may-”

All three of you faced him, simultaneously shouting, “no!”

You held your face in your hands as your head dropped, shaking back and forth, your eyes squeezing shut, tuning them out for just a minute to think. Bucky had a point. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that, and the Avengers were technically disbanded, which was Zemo’s whole objective in the first place, but…God. You were good at compartmentalizing, but not that much. You were willing to put your feelings aside for the mission so Bucky could talk to him. Not for you to work with him. But he had connections, you knew he did, and he had information…

“Doll?” You looked up, Bucky anxiously licking his lips as he met your gaze. “I need you to say something.”

You looked to Sam, who shrugged, gesturing to Zemo. “What do you think?”

What did you think? What did you think?! You thought that it was the worst idea in the history of ideas and you should turn back and find another way! But…you knew this was the fastest, probably most reliable way to get information that you needed.

Dammit, since when were you the deciding factor?

You sucked in a breath, looking over Sam’s shoulder at Zemo, who lifted his hand in greeting. You raised your eyes to the ceiling, pointing your finger accusingly. “This is why we stopped talking.” Gaze dropping to the still waiting fellas, you gnawed on your lip, before hissing out, “ffffine…” Running a hand through your hair, you threw your hands up as you shrugged. “Fine. Okay. Fine.”

“Okay.” Sam nodded, taking charge again.

You couldn’t believe this was happening. Except, that was a lie. You could. You’d seen weirder. You’d experienced the impossible. Lived through the unbelievable. This…this was completely imaginable.

Which is why, with a lot of hesitation and very little confidence in this plan, you followed Zemo through the auto shop you were in until you reached a large room with a ton of different old cars.

Bucky’s hand found yours as Zemo explained what the plan was, rather vaguely, in your opinion, but at least he was explaining. Point for him. Not that it would make up for the level of distrust you held for him, but it was something.

You looked up at him, giving him a puzzling frown. He usually only grabbed your hand in front of other people when he was feeling anxious. Which, yeah, he had a right to be anxious right now, but it wasn’t the right kind. The type of anxiety caused by large crowds and loud noises, ones that startled him and threw him into a defensive mode.

But the look on his face made you squeeze his hand in reassurance. He was pouting, staring at you although he did something wrong - a puppy that tore up a pillow - and all you wanted to do was give him a hug.

“You’re mad at me.” He mumbled as the four of you headed out with Zemo in the lead.

“No I’m not.”

“Yeah you are.

“Bucky, I’m not mad.”

“Listen, if I had a better idea I wouldn’t-”

You brought your linked hands up to your lips, pressing a gentle kiss to his gloved knuckles. “I’m not mad.” You repeated more firmly. “It’s just…a lot for me, right now.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on, Buck, I-I just…” You thought about your and Sam’s earlier conversation and suddenly understood what he meant. “I need to breathe for a second.”

His features twisted into ones of uncertainty, eyes squinting as you stepped outside. “Do you…do you wanna leave?”

You shook your head, tugging his arm to stop him and grabbing the sunglasses on his collar, slipping them over his eyes. “No. I just need some time to think. Hopefully the plane ride to wherever the hell we’re going will give me that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, James. I’m sure.”

He lowered the glasses on his nose to scan you over the frames, before nodding and sliding them back up. “Okay. You ready for this, then?”

“No.” You breathed, turning back to where Zemo and Sam were still walking. “Let’s do this.”

*****************

Climbing onto the private jet, you raised an eyebrow at Sam, who shrugged, giving you a bemused expression. A Baron…huh…who knew? You feel like you should’ve, yet there you were.

You sat besides Bucky, across from Zemo, crossing your legs and leaning back while staring at him through narrowed eyes.

His butler seemed nice, which made you even more suspicious. You obviously didn’t know as much about Zemo as you wanted to. It was a habit you picked up after years of undercover work; once the mission was complete, that was that. There was no looking back on it. No sitting on it. It was over and you moved onto the next one. It was a bad habit in cases like this.

The moment you spotted the notebook over Zemo’s book you knew something was going to happen, yet you still flinched when Bucky lunged at him, grabbing his throat. You leaned back in your seat again, steadying your now racing heartbeat. You decided you were too tense, trying to relax your muscles as Bucky sat back down in his seat.

“I’ve seen that book. It was Steve’s when he came out of the ice. I told him about Trouble Man. He wrote it in that book.” Sam seemed so proud of himself that something he recommended was written in Steve’s little book and it made you smile.

You remembered that; Steve and you were supposed to meet up for coffee after his run, but Fury called him in so you rescheduled it for when he got back. He asked you about Marvin Gaye. For your opinion. You told him to check it out and make his own.

You remembered asking him about that little notebook of his, and he just shrugged you off telling you about his list. He would read items off to you, but he never let you read the book yourself. You never found out why, and you supposed you never would now. The thought made an ache behind your ribs that you’d come to familiarize yourself with appear.

You smiled a little more as Zemo and Sam told Bucky how awesome Marvin Gaye was. “C’mon, baby. Back me up.”

Chuckling, you looked at Bucky. “They’re not wrong. But,” you quickly added before Bucky could whine at you, facing Sam again. “Neither is Buck. I mean, c’mon. You can’t find music like the 40’s anymore. Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Fred Astaire. Ol’ Blue Eyes himself.”

“Thank you.” Bucky grinned at Sam, who rolled his eyes.

“Okay, okay. But, I mean, c’mon! Everybody loves Marvin Gaye.”

“I like Marvin Gaye.”

“Steve adored Marvin Gaye.”

Your face fell as Zemo started talking about Steve and icons and Red Skull, your mind once again slipping away from reality.

“Kids love you.” You giggled as you finally made it out of his exhibit. You’d wanted to show it to him since he moved to D.C., and you’d finally got an opportunity after coming back from being undercover for ten weeks. “You’re their hero, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just trying to do what’s right.”

You nudged him, scoffing at his answer. “You’re too humble. You’re a national icon, you know.”

Steve shrugged, looking around the museum at the planes surrounding them. “I never wanted to be.”

“Why not? Everyone loves you.”

“I’m sure not everyone loves me.” He rolled his eyes. “And…I just wanted to help. To fight. Protect my country and the people I cared about. I-I didn’t ask for…all that.” He waved behind his shoulder where his exhibit was getting smaller with each step they took away. “People were dying. Bullies were winning.”

You shook your head, spinning and walking backwards besides him to face him. “Sure, but you did that. And you became someone people could look up to in the process.”

He narrowed his eyes at you before asking, “why do you do what you do?”

“...because I’m good at it?”

“Honey.” He gave you a look. “Answer the question.”

You hummed in thought. “Because I couldn’t stand by, knowing there would be orphaned kids if I didn’t help any way I could.”

“Alright. Why do you do it in the dark?”

“Whaddya mean?”

He shrugged. “Why don’t you come out and take credit for all the lives you’ve saved?”

“Because that’s not why I do it. I don’t want that attention. I just want to know I’ve helped people. I’ve kept them safe.”

He gave you a soft smile. “I just wanted to beat the bully. I never wanted to be a dancing monkey, too.” You looked at him in a new light then, understanding where he was coming from. “Watch out, honey!” He grabbed you and pulled you aside before you could crash into a wall, arms wrapped firmly around your waist. He gave you that charming smile of his. “Wouldn’t want you hurting that pretty lil’ head of yours, now would we?”

“Y/N!”

You snapped back into the conversation, moving your eyes from the window to Bucky, who tilted his head, eyebrows pinched and eyes narrowed. “Sorry. So, Madripoor. That’s a fun place.”

You ignored the side eyed glances Bucky and Sam exchanged, Sam turning to you curiously. “You’ve been?”

“Once. Back in 2010 for a few months”

Zemo raised his eyebrows. “You’re lucky to have gotten out.”

You shrugged nonchalantly. “Lucky, maybe. Skills were a part of it, too, though.”

“Good.” Zemo nodded. “Because we’re going undercover…and if we blow it. We’re dead.”

You breathed out, shaking your memory away and getting your head back into the game. Because like the man you were severely wary of in front of you said, if you blew this, you were dead. And, sure, you didn’t want to live until ninety, but you weren’t even half way there yet. So dammit if you were going to die soon.

“Hey.” You looked over at Bucky’s murmur, his head tilting as he grabbed your hand and pulled you from your seat closer to him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Are you okay? You know you’re going to have to be-”

“I know.” He nodded. You watched his Adam’s Apple bob as he swallowed thickly. “I’ll be fine. Just…tell me right now if you need to step out for this one.”

You gave him a smile that you knew he didn’t buy, just by the slight narrowing of his eye, his lips pressing together. “No. No, I’m good for this. If you think I’m gonna let you two idiots go into Madripoor with him - alone - oil that cyborg brain of yours, because there’s no way.”

He squeezed your hand, eyes still filled with uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“If there’s even a slight possibility that I can protect you, then yeah. I’m sure, Buckaroo.”

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writerbuddha · 4 years ago

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George Lucas on attachment from 1999 to 2021

BILL MOYERS: Do you know yet what, in a future episode, is going to transform Anakin Skywalker to the dark side?

GEORGE LUCAS: Yes, I know what that is. The groundwork has been laid in this episode. The film is ultimately about the dark side and the light side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed. The issue of greed, of getting things and owning things and having things and not being able to let go of things, is the opposite of compassion--of not thinking of yourself all the time. These are the two sides--the good force and the bad force. They're the simplest parts of a complex cosmic construction.

George Lucas and Bill Moyers 1999, Time Magazine (http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,990820-2,00.html)

GEORGE LUCAS: He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can't let go of his mother; he can't let go of his girlfriend. He can't let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you're greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you're going to lose things, that you're not going to have the power you need.

George Lucas to Time Magazine April, 2002 (http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1002323-3,00.html)

GEORGE LUCAS: In this film, (Phantom Menace) you begin to see that he has a fear of losing things, a fear of losing his mother, and as a result, he wants to begin to control things, he wants to become powerful, and these are not Jedi traits. And part of these are because he was starting to be trained so late in life, that he'd already formed these attachments. And for a Jedi, attachment is forbidden.

George Lucas to CNN, May 8, 2002 (https://edition.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/07/ca.s02.george.lucas/index.html)

GEORGE LUCAS: Jedi Knights aren’t celibate – the thing that is forbidden is attachments – and possessive relationships.

George Lucas to BBC, May 12, 2002 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1989505.stm)

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, a lot of people got very upset, saying he should’ve been this little demon kid. But the story is not about a guy who was born a monster – it’s about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance. And that’s why they say he was too old to be a Jedi, because he made his emotional connections. His undoing is that he loveth too much.

George Lucas to Rolling Stones, 2005 (https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/george-lucas-and-the-cult-of-darth-vader-247142/)

GEORGE LUCAS: The core issue, ultimately, is greed, possessiveness - the inability to let go. Not only to hold on to material things, which is greed, but to hold on to life, to the people you love - to not accept the reality of life’s passages and changes, which is to say things come, things go. Everything changes. Anakin becomes emotionally attached to things, his mother, his wife. That’s why he falls - because he does not have the ability to let go.

No human can let go. It’s very hard. Ultimately, we do let go because it’s inevitable; you do die, and you do lose your loved ones. But while you’re alive, you can’t be obsessed with holding on. As Yoda says in this one, [The scene in which Anakin seeks Yoda’s counsel] You must learn to let go of everything you’re afraid to let go of.’ Because holding on is in the same category and the precursor to greed. And that’s what a Sith is. A Sith is somebody that is absolutely obsessed with gaining more and more power - but for what? Nothing, except that it becomes an obsession to get more. The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth, they’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So, what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.

J. W. Rinzel - The Making of Revenge of the Sith page 213, published in 2005

GEORGE LUCAS: Anakin wants to be a Jedi, but he cannot let go of the people he loves in order to move forward in his life. The Jedi believe that you don’t hold on to things, that you let things pass through you, and if you can control your greed, you can resolve the conflict not only in yourself but in the world around you, because you accept the natural course of things. Anakin’s inability to follow this basic guideline is at the core of his turn to the Dark Side.

George Lucas to sci-fi online, 2005 (http://www.sci-fi-online.com/Interview/05-11-01_GeorgeLucas.htm)

GEORGE LUCAS: Love is a secret to the universe, which is compassion, which is love others, take care of others, help each other. (…) Struggle in Star Wars is about passion against compassion. Which is greed, against giving and giving up primarily and the whole issue is the flipside of greed is fear of losing. So you are either trying to get things or afraid to lose things that you’ve got and the idea is to let go of those things." - George Lucas, 2007, Devin Kumar Productions (http://www.devinkumar.com/interview-with-george-lucas/)

GEORGE LUCAS: The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he cannot hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first years and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.

But he become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.

He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the Dark Side.

(...)

Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the tusked raiders.

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones DVD audio-commentary, 2008

GEORGE LUCAS: It’s fear of losing somebody he loves, which is the flipside of greed. Greed, in terms of the Emperor, it is the greed for power, absolute power, over everything. With Anakin, really, it’s the power to save the one he loves, but is basically going against the Fates and what is natural.

George Lucas, Revenge of the Sith DVD audio-commentary, 2008

GEORGE LUCAS: It’s pivotal that Luke doesn’t have patience. He doesn’t want to finish his training. He’s being succumbed by his emotional feelings for his friends rather than the practical feelings of “I’ve got to get this job done before I can actually save them. I can’t save them, really.” But he sorts of takes the easy route, the arrogant route, the emotional but least practical route, which is to say, “I’m just going to go off and do this without thinking too much.” And the result is that he fails and doesn’t do well for Han Solo or himself. It’s the motif that needs to be in the picture, but it’s one of those things that just in terms of storytelling was very risky because basically he screws up, and everything turns bad. And it’s because of that decision that Luke made on [Dagobah] to say, “I know I’m not ready, but I’m going to go anyway.

George Lucas, Empire Strikes Back DVD audio-commentary, 2008

GEORGE LUCAS: The core of the Force–I mean, you got the dark side, the light side, one is selfless, one is selfish, and you wanna keep them in balance. What happens when you go to the dark side is it goes out of balance and you get really selfish and you forget about everybody … because when you get selfish you get stuff, or you want stuff, and when you want stuff and you get stuff then you are afraid somebody is going to take it away from you, whether it’s a person or a thing or a particular pleasure or experience.

Once you become afraid that somebody’s going to take it away from you or you’re gonna lose it, then you start to become angry, especially if you’re losing it, and that anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Mostly on the part of the person who’s selfish, because you spend all your time being afraid of losing everything you’ve got instead of actually living. Where joy, by giving to other people you can’t think about yourself, and therefore there’s no pain. But the pleasure factor of greed and of selfishness is a short-lived experience, therefore you’re constantly trying to replenish it, but of course the more you replenish it, the harder it is to, so you have to keep upping the ante. You’re actually afraid of the pain of not having the joy. So that is ultimately the core of the whole dark side/light side of the Force. And everything flows from that. Obviously the Sith are always unhappy because they never get enough of anything they want. Mostly, their selfishness centers around power and control. And the struggle is always to be able to let go of all that stuff. And of course that’s the problem with Anakin ultimately. You’re allowed to love people, but you’re not allowed to possess them. And what he did is he fell in love and married her and then became jealous. Then he saw in his visions that she was going to die, and he couldn’t stand losing her. So in order to not lose her, he made a pact with the devil to be able to become all-powerful. When he did that, she didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore, so he lost her. Once you are powerful, being able to bring her back from the dead, if I can do that, I can become emperor of the universe. I can get rid of the Emperor. I can make everything the way I want it. Once you do that, you’ll never be satiated. You’re always going to be consumed by this driving desire to have more stuff and be afraid that others are going to take it away from you. And they are. Every time you get two Sith together, you have the master, the apprentice, and the apprentice is always trying to recruit another apprentice to join with him to kill the master. The master knows that basically everybody below him wants his job. Only way to overcome the dark side is through discipline. The dark side is pleasure, biological and temporary and easy to achieve. The light side is joy, everlasting and difficult to achieve. A great challenge. Must overcome laziness, give up quick pleasures, and overcome fear which leads to hate.

George Lucas, explaining the Force to the Clone Wars writing team, 2010 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nFMBBrliyQ&t=41s&ab_channel=StarWarsCoffee)

GEORGE LUCAS: When you start to care about yourself and the things that you own and the things that you have and you’re greedy and you want things all the time and you don’t want to give them up because you’re afraid to give them up, you turn to the dark side. And that’s what happened to Anakin.

George Lucas Q&A: Field Museum, Chicago 5/8/2010 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRaVjM_goKM)

GEORGE LUCAS: The thing about Anakin is, Anakin started out as a nice kid. He was kind, and sweet, and lovely, and he was then trained as a Jedi. But the Jedi can’t be selfish. They can love but they can’t love people to the point of possession. You can’t really possess somebody, because people are free. It’s possession that causes a lot of trouble, and that causes people to kill people, and causes people to be bad. Ultimately it has to do with being unwilling to give things up.

The whole basis here is if you’re selfish, if you’re a Sith Lord, you’re greedy. You’re constantly trying to get something. And you’re constantly in fear of not getting it, or, when you get it, you’re in constant fear of losing it. And it’s that fear that takes you to the dark side. It’s that fear of losing what you have or want.

Sometimes it’s ambition, but sometimes, like in the case of Anakin, it was fear of losing his wife. He knew she was going to die. He didn’t quite know how, so he was able to make a pact with a devil that if he could learn how to keep people from dying, he would help the Emperor. And he became a Sith Lord. Once he started saying, “Well, we could take over the galaxy, I could take over from the Emperor, I could have ultimate power,” Padmé saw right through him immediately. She said, “You’re not the person I married. You’re a greedy person.” So that’s ultimately how he fell and he went to the dark side.

And then Luke had the chance to do the same thing. He didn’t do it.

George Lucas, 2019 (https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history)

GEORGE LUCAS: They (the Jedi) trained more than anything else to understand the transitional nature of life, that things are constantly changing and you can't hold on to anything. You can love things but you can't be attached to them, You must be willing to let the flow of life and the flow of the Force move through your life, move through you. So that you can be compassionate and loving and caring, but not be possessive and grabbing and holding on to things and trying to keep things the way they are. Letting go is the central theme of the film."

George Lucas, "Star Wars Archives 1999-2005" p. 72-73 (2020)

GEORGE LUCAS: Luke is faced with the same issues and practically the same scenes that Anakin is faced with. Anakin says yes, and Luke says no. (…) We have the scene when Anakin decides to save Palpatine and join him, so they could learn how to save Padmé. The equivalent scene in VI is when the Emperor’s trying to get Luke to kill his dad so he can save his sister.”

George Lucas, "Star Wars Archives 1999-2005" p. 421 and p. 212. (2020)

GEORGE LUCAS: The secret ultimately like in Star Wars is that you have to not be afraid. Fear is the enemy; fear is the Dark Side. If you afraid, you are going to the Dark Side. The Light Side is compassion. As long as you love other people and treat them kindly, you won't be afraid. So, the secret is to just love everybody - I know that sounds very 60s but that's what I grew up in - but it its fear that cause the problem. So you have to stop being afraid and be kind to everybody.

(...)

The main theme of Star Wars is that compassion is the good side, fear is the bad side.

(...)

I kind of lost control of Star Wars so it’s going off a different path than what I intended but the first six are very much mine and my philosophy. And I think that philosophy sort of goes beyond any particular time because it’s based on history it based on philosophy. (...)

The thing with Anakin is that he started out a great kid he was very compassionate , so the issue was how did he turn bad. How did he go to the Dark Side? He went to the Dark Side, Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments. They can love people, they can do that, but they can’t attach, that’s the problem in the world of fear. Once you are attached to something then you become afraid of losing it. And when you become afraid of losing it, then you turn to the Dark Side, and you want to hold onto it, and that was Anakin’s issue ultimately, that he wanted to hold onto his wife who he knew, he had a premonition that she was going to die, he didn’t know how to stop it, so he went to the Dark Side to find, in mythology you do to hades, and you talk to the devil, and the devil says ‘this is what you do’ and basically you sell your soul to the devil. When you do that, and you’re afraid and you’re on the Dark Side and you fall off the golden path of compassion because you are greedy, you want to hold on to something that you love and he didn’t do the right thing and as a result he turned bad.

Mellody Hobson, George Lucas - Virtual Speaker Interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRqVdcE5oyI)

GEORGE LUCAS WAS ALWAYS CLEAR ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOVE AND ATTACHMENT, AND HOW "PREQUEL-ERA" JEDI PHILOSOPHY WORKS.

#george lucas #anakin skywalker #jedi culture #jedi order #attachment #love without attachment #star wars prequels #star wars #luke skywalker #light side #canon

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sudoscience · 5 years ago

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New In Town: Background Info

Click here for a version with working hyperlinks.

Although it's never explicitly stated by the games, I'm going to assume the story is set in the US, or at least a country like it. The existence of monsters likely altered the course of several events in human history, so it's possible things are actually radically different. For the purposes of this story, I'll assume most things are still the same unless stated otherwise, (e.g. the American Revolution was still in 1776, and World War II was still in the early-middle of the 20th Century.).

Let's also just go ahead and say the story takes place in 201X for now.

[For the record, I pronounce 201X as "twenty-ex-teen". I guess you could say it "two-oh-one-ex", but why would you? I also assume it refers to the whole decade, so, for example, when I say "the early part of 201X", that could mean anywhere between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2014.]

Navigation:

Humans and Monsters (Current headcanon)

Humans and Monsters (Old) (Preserved for posterity)

Footnotes

Master Post

Humans and Monsters

Humans and monsters have always coexisted relatively peacefully, at least as well as humans and humans. There have been some smaller wars over land and resources, but nothing like the war in Undertale (hereinafter "The War").

Someone still remembers that other universe, though. The universe where monsters freely used magic. The universe where a monster could absorb a human SOUL. The universe where the monsters were sealed underground and later systematically slaughtered by a human child. Perhaps that someone is W. D. Gaster. Perhaps it is Chara. I haven't decided yet. Until that time comes, I'll call that person Individual 1.

Individual 1 remembers the world of Undertale, but the version they remember is the one in which the genocide route takes place. After that world is destroyed, Individual 1 uses their DETERMINATION to bring the world back. They restore the world to long before The War takes place. Individual 1 convinces the King of All Monsters (who is probably someone other than Asgore) to strictly curtail the use of magic. It is Individual 1's belief that the only way to prevent The War from occurring is if humans never learn that monsters can absorb their souls. This is why we don't see evidence of magic in Deltarune.1

Sometime in 1965, a man in Twin Falls (Bill Hammond) learns of the monsters' hidden power. He attempts to alert the government, but it's years before anyone in power takes him seriously. Most people view him as a crackpot; he's this universe's Alex Jones. However, he begins to gain a following among the commoners, who take to calling themselves the Arcane Enforcement Unit. Hate crimes against monsters become more frequent, and the government establishes the Directorate of Inter-Species Relations to combat this.

Hammond's influence grows, and he runs for president multiple times, though he rarely gets more than 2% of the vote. In 1996, his campaign performs surprisingly well, but he is assassinated. His following was strongest in Twin Falls, and it once again becomes a hot spot for anti-monster sentiment, only this time it extends to humans who are considered "monster sympathizers", including Kris's birth parents and eventually Rudy, who is born around this time.

Paul and Judy Harper are DISR employees in Twin Falls. In 2003, the year Asriel is born,2 the DISR begins a joint operation with DHS and FBI to infiltrate the AEU, which is now suspected as a terrorist organization. The Harpers are assigned to the team, Operation Golden Flower, as undercover agents in 2005. In 2007, Judy becomes pregnant. Later that year, their cover is nearly blown. In order to keep their child safe, they begin making arrangements with some old friends of theirs, the Dreemurr family in Hometown. Their son is born in December,3 and adopted by the Dreemurrs immediately. A few months later, Paul and Judy are killed; their death is not publicized classified in order to avoid jeopardizing the operation.

In the early part of 201X, an AEU supporter named Noah Trey Ullman is elected mayor of Twin Falls. This is when things really start to go south. Ullman incites violence against monsters and monster sympathizers. They usually stay out of the majority monster neighborhoods, but they tend to target monsters who are known to affiliate with humans. This is what prompts Rudy to move to Hometown.

Humans and Monsters (OLD)

Humans and monsters have always coexisted, but there's always been a lot of tension between them. For most of their history, they've lived more or less independently of each other. As humans began to industrialize, they began to expand and encroach on monster territory.1 Interactions with monsters became more frequent, as did altercations. While there hasn't been an outright war between humans and monsters, there have been frequent skirmishes, akin to the US and the Native Americans. There was a period where humans sought to make use of magic, primarily by employing the monsters. The monsters were often subjected to inhumane conditions, and uprisings, while infrequent, were not unheard of.

Knowing that a monster with one or more human souls could become a being of great power, this practice was eventually outlawed. Humans became reluctant to hire monsters at all, and most monsters eventually relocated to their own settlements. These are similar to Indian reservations, with the distinction that they are not considered sovereign. In order to keep things under control, the government created the Directorate of Inter-species Relations in the mid-19th Century. Under the pretense of fairness, the DISR banned the use of magic about 100 years ago;2 this would theoretically allow more monsters to be hired, so long as they weren't being exploited for their magical abilities. In practice, because magic is so central to a monster's existence, this drastically changed the monsters' way of life. Initially, smaller acts of magic were allowed, but as more monsters moved into settlements, their interactions with humans became less frequent, and the humans became more fearful, having only the legends and rumors to inform them rather than their own experiences. Eventually, all magic was banned, and the Arcane Enforcement Unit was created in 1956 to enforce said ban.

Of course, some monsters remained in the human cities. They felt they still had ties there, and refused to move. They are largely relegated to their own neighborhoods, and the AEU does its best to "gently encourage" them to relocate. Other than the AEU, very few humans interact with monsters.3

What happened five years ago?

There was a change in leadership at the AEU, and they became much more aggressive in their policing.

[I think this was a separate subsection because I originally planned on writing more, but now it seems pretty silly to have a subsection with just one sentence.]

Footnotes

Notes for New Info

There are several reasons I decided to scrap the old backstory, but this was probably the main one. I really liked the theory that Deltarune takes place after the Genocide Route, and I wanted to expand on that. I'm no longer sure I buy that theory, but I still think it's a cool idea. ↑

As noted in the "Headcanon for Existing Characters", I originally planned for Asriel to have started college early, which would further demonstrate how exceptional he is, and also factor into the resentment Kris wishes they didn't have of him. This is also his first semester of college, which is why Kris is so worried he'll have changed. I think I'll keep him a freshman, but increase the age gap between them. When Asriel gets back from college, he'll have just turned 19, while Kris will be turning 14 very soon. I'm assuming he's returning for Thanksgiving Break (and also that Thanksgiving still exists in this world), and this is the first time he's been back home since he left for college. ↑

Yes, Kris's full name is Krismas (no, not really). Their birthday is 22 December, and Asriel's is 15 September (unless there's an official birthday listed somewhere, in which case it's that). I hope it's okay if I write that Kris is biologically male, even though they identify as non-binary. Since I've already changed their pronouns in the main story, this is probably the only time it will ever be mentioned, unless maybe they go swimming or something. I got the idea from @caretaker-au and how they represent Chara as male non-binary (is that the right way to say that?); I know some people find that blog to be problematic, but I think that was more to do with them drawing porn of Chara and Asriel, not because they drew Chara as biologically male. (For the record, I was not aware of that when I started following them, especially since Tumblr banned porn a year before I even bought Undertale.) ↑

Notes for Old Info

Another reason I dropped this: I'm pretty sure this was inspired by @wolven0ne-universe's "Long Road" AU. Actually, there's a lot that was inspired by Long Road, even in the new backstory: the decision to have multiple OCs, the way magic supposedly works, humans exploting monsters for their magic, a shadowy organization that abducts monsters because of their magical abilities, etc. Some of this is attributable to the fact that I never read fanfics prior to playing Undertale, so some of these were "inspired" by Long Road simply by virtue of it being, like, the second fanfic I ever read, ever. (The first was "Flowey is Not A Good Life Coach".) Anyway, my point here is that I dropped this backstory in part because I didn't want it to be too similar to Long Road, not because I suddenly stopped liking Long Road. ↑

Here's an additional reason I changed the backstory: I wasn't sure if this was a believable timeline. I feel like it's plausible that human society would forget that monster magic involves a lot more than just a monster's ability to abosrb a human soul in just 100 years, but that doesn't seem like nearly enough time for monster society to forget that monsters can use magic. Plus, if monsters and humans have coexisted for all of human history, and monsters have been using magic for like 99% of said history, that seems like it could have created a lot of ripple effects that I would spend way too much time thinking about. Like, what if the existence of magic resulted in the first Industrial Revolution happening in the 15th Century? What would Earth look like in 201X if that were the case? I just didn't want to deal with all of that. ↑

Other than wanting to believe that Deltarune takes place after the Genocide Route, the next most important factor in my decision to scrap this backstory is that it's just really dark. The story has enough potentially depressing shit that I didn't need to add a monster Trail of Tears on top of it all. Plus, I was worried it might come across as racially insensitive. ↑

#New In Town #deltarune theory #deltarune fanfic #story notes

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years ago

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2099 Alpha #1 Thoughts

This was a confusing set of teaser trailers.

This is partially a post covering the issue and a rant about the entire premise of the series.

Throughout this comic book (and F4 2099) one prevailing question kept crossing my mind.

“Who is this even for?”

It was a question that became louder when I looked at both the cover and the blurb at the back explaining how this project came to be about.

Matthew Rosenberg, author of the most controversial and derided X-Men run in recent memory (so you know that bodes well), pointed out that 2019 was both the 80th anniversary of Marvel comics (even though most people would argue Marvel truly started in 1961 with F4 #1) and also 80 years away from the real life year 2099.

The idea was dismissed but then Nick Spencer decided he liked it and after one thing led to another this event was born.

This event being a ‘reimagining’ of the 2099 universe but with ‘a similar methodology’ to the original 1992 line (that is to say avoiding the ‘common traps’ of descendants of known characters*), with a mind towards how the future was perceived in 2019 vs. 1992.

Right off the bat there are inherent problems with that entire premise.

First of all the original 2099 line presented a version of the future that if anything is MORE relevant now than it was in 1992.

Futurism in any era is never just one thing, but the futurism of 2019 is generally speaking understandably cynical and nihilistic. It’s a world which foresees a future where there isn’t even an illusion of freedom, where the gap between rich and poor has grown even wider than it already is with little-no feasible way to close it, where corporations run the show (more openly than they already do) and where environmental disaster is ravaging mankind if not having already wiped it out. This is to say nothing of a world where artificial intelligence and mechanisation will probably compromise a lot of people’s employment opportunities, and pose direct physical and mental dangers to human lives.

That is the general ethos of how a lot of people and a lot of fiction reflects the future NOWDAYS. And that’s what the 2099 was doing in 1992! Not only was the line set in the future it was literally ahead of it’s time as the world we live in if anything has grown to reflect it more and more.

Secondly when you are approaching the notion of making a futuristic version of Spider-Man and the Punisher in the year 2099 and applying the same ‘methodology’ as the LAST time someone tried to make a futuristic version of Spider-Man and the Punisher in the year 2099 the results at best are not going to be that different, rendering the exercise pointless. In fact in all likelihood you are going to be worse or at least derivative. Even if you are not the fact that the 2099 line resonated with people enough for it to continually pop up every so often for nearly 30 years means that your new take is unlikely to hold up to people’s nostalgia.

And make no mistake, this is a project that exists for nostalgia. It doesn’t exist just for the sake of exploring a possible future for the Marvel universe, otherwise why revive a popular and famous Marvel brand to do it?

And therein lies my fundamental question.

If this project exists because people are already invested in 2099 then why reboot it and thus mitigate their emotional investment?

Nostalgic 2099 fans don’t simply want to see any iteration of these characters. They want something at least mostly in line with the original 1992 iteration, which is why when Spidey 2099 was scheduled for a spin-off in 2014 the fandom spoke with one voice, they wanted Peter David back. And whilst the iteration of Miguel and 2099 as a whole he presented was not identical to the 1992 version(s) it was at least a helluva lot closer than 2009’s Timestorm (a pathetic attempt to essentially do Ultimate 2099) and wound up being more successful as a result.

This is literally the exact mistake the Nu52 made in that it erased the iterations of the DC characters and DC universe people knew and loved and replaced it with new versions (‘coincidentally’ closer to the versions the DC higher ups knew and loved as kids). It alienated readers to the point where DC Rebirth practically reverse rebooted the Nu52, rendering the characters much closer to their pre-Nu52 counterparts, and in Superman’s case having the pre-Nu52 Superman literally replace his successor.

With the 2099 event though the attempt at rebooting is even more wrongheaded considering that this isn’t even a lasting universe that might in theory develop new readers over time. It’s a string of connected one shots associated with a Spider-Man story arc. If there is any aftermath to this event at all it will be fairly minimal and at most follow Miguel O’Hara.

And that brings up the other end of this event’s problems. This holds little appeal to (the already miniscule number of) potential newer fans.

Consider how this event started. You are a newer fan reading Spencer’s ASM run. You pick up issue #25 and randomly this other Spider-Man looking guy you maybe recognize from some video games and the post-credits scene from Into the Spider-Verse shows up, looking half dead.

For less than 20 pages across 3 issues you follow him stumbling about spouting nonsense before he delivers some weird line about possible futures (that you’ll only understand if you already know about the 2099 lines) and then he blows up.

Okay, at best you get the idea. He is a Spider-Man from the future and the present day has erased his future, that’s bad.

Then you pick this up and you maybe figure out that this Miguel character in this comic book is in fact the same guy, or a VERSION of the same guy you met back in ASM. That’s confusing. It’s confusing because you need to deduce that this issue is the newly rewritten timeline, making your investment in the preceding ASM issues kinda pointless. It might also be confusing because time travel stories tend to be confusing unless written with a lot of clarity.

But say you just picked THIS up, maybe because you recognized Spidey 2099 on the cover (and god forbid you picked it up due to recognizing the classic 2099 characters).

Spencer in this comic book doesn’t write a story. He writes a series of teaser vignettes strung together by the Watcher and Doom spouting a load of cryptic nonsense.

Nothing is explained, nothing is clearly conveyed, the world building is quite frankly awful, you merely get an impression of this future, you are not actually organically introduced to much of anything. In comparison the first few issues of Spider-Man 2099 already gave you a great idea of what this world of the future was like.

It’s not just that the presentation is bad and thus likely to alienate newer readers (I was lost with it and I’m familiar with the older 2099 stuff to a degree) but it’s also frankly inferior to the 1992 rendition of the future.

Perhaps the 1992 Marvel line wasn’t the single most original vision of the future ever conceived, but it at least combined older ideas together and presented a consistent vision. Perhaps the microcosm of the 1992’s vision of the future was the notion of the ravaged ruins of old New York being the foundations upon which new super sky scrapers were built, the rich literally living above the poor.

But this issue never brings that up, it doesn’t bring up the narrative and literal foundations of the world this takes place in. My personal impression was that this 2099 doesn’t even incorporate such an idea. It’s a microcosm of how off the rails this reboot is.

Everything feels downright generic sans the city of traffic and the colony of Thor/Asgardian worshippers.

Even those are derivative though. Transverse City rips off (a much better executed) idea from a 2007 episode of Doctor Who ‘Gridlock’ which is regarded as something of a modern classic by fans. And the Thor worshippers was something that came directly from the original 1992 2099 line, but weirdly is being used to tease...Conan the Barbarian???????? Conan hasn’t got anything to do with Thor besides coming from a warrior background. It might as well be Silver Samurai!

Perhaps the best microcosm of this issue’s failings at world building and presentation, can be found in the opening scene.

In the scene Thor’s hammer is frequently relocated and seems to be maybe or maybe not moving on it’s own volition. That isn’t to say the story is building in mystery as to whether or not it is moving on it’s own. It’s just that poorly conveyed to the audience. I honestly have little idea what was happening in that scene sans the authorities going to war with Thor’s worshippers.

The scene also contains a microcosm of this book being for nobody. In said scene a police officer gets their face revealed and is referred to as ‘Jake’. If you didn’t already realize it, this is Jake Gallows, Punisher 2099. He does nothing else in the course of the issue beyond get injured fight and tell his friend a confusing police story. Then the issue ends teasing him as Punisher 2099.

Like I said nostalgic 2099 fans will be turned off by this on principle because it’s not the character you know and love (his costume will also be different too) but if you are a newer reader...what are you even supposed to make of this? He’s just a random cop, it might as well have been his cop buddy who was the Punisher. It was at best a lame first impression.

And that’s true of virtually EVERY character teased in this comic exempting maybe Ghost Rider 2099.

He at least got a little more personality, you got a little more insight into how he operates, but only as a normal guy not as anything associated with the classic Ghost Rider or the 2099 counterpart you know and love.

Miguel’s background was confusing as he seems to already have his powers but is chummy with his dickhead boss/Dad/archnemesis Tyler Stone and the brief flashbacks to his origin are both different to the original 2099 line and nonsensical.

Conan didn’t even appear to my recollection but he’s still teased.

And the F4 tease was laughable as it didn’t even feature the F4 but rather HERBIE and a newly imagined take on Venture, effectively the first super villain of the 2099 line.

When this event was announced I was sad that Peter David was uninvolved.

But now I see why.

They didn’t want him involved and this is frankly an insult to his and the other 2099 creators’ works.

Don’t read this.

*Gotta love that subtle shade thrown out at the MC2 universe, a universe which lasted longer than the original 2099 line and you know....was way better than this reimagining has been so far. Why does modern Marvel punch down on Spider-Girl.

#Spider-Man #Spider-Man 2099 #Marvel 2099 #Nick Spencer #Miguel O'Hara #Fantastic 4 2099 #Ghost Rider 2099 #Conan 2099 #Conan the Barbarian #punisher 2099 #MC2 Universe #MC2 #Spider-Girl #Tyler Stone

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b0rtney · 5 years ago

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Why I Do What I Do: 1. A Human Being with a Place of Birth

You can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you’re from, so today I’ll talk a little bit about where I’m from, and why I do what I do. This first part is about where I’m from as a human being.

I was born and raised in a nice little suburb of Missouri, about twenty minutes from downtown St. Louis.

For kindergarten, I went to a nice Henry school and attended a nice Baptist church on Sundays, and maybe one other day of the week if I’m remembering that right. These were the kinds of places that would make any moderate person’s skin crawl. My older sister would scream and pout when my parents wrestled her into a church dress, but it would be a scandal if she tried wearing pants– that kind of place. My parents got divorced when I was six or seven, and that kind of thing had every person in that church turning their backs on my family, the fact that my mom soon began working to support me and my siblings was, I’m sure, the talk of the congregation for a little while– that kind of place.

After my parents got divorced, I switched to another nice Henry school, and I moved to new houses: one for each parent. That nice Henry school didn’t work out for long. My mom couldn’t stand Henryity in almost any form anymore. And the tuition was too expensive for an electrician with a declining business and a brand-new real estate agent in 2007. So, public schools. My dad was zoned for a school with the best public schools around, so we used his address. Kehrs Mill Elementary was where I went starting in second grade, and where my brother went starting in Kindergarten. My sister started sixth grade at Crestview Middle.

I went about half the year friendless in second grade, and then I met Fernanda. She was the only Hispanic girl in the whole school (there was one Philipino boy, two Chinese girls, an Indian girl, a Middle Eastern boy, and everyone else was African American or Caucasian). She, kind of literally, yanked me by the arm and dragged me into friendship, and I’d never been happier. We played Warrior cats (yes, based on the books, don’t look at me like that every school had some kids that did it… although I think the part where we lapped water out of the sink and hissed at her mom was a little weird). We made up a version of “Cowboys and Indians” where we would be two Chieftesses with inexplicable numbers of children and no husbands, facing moral dilemmas like what to do with prisoners of war when they won’t hear of peace– while our brothers (my one and her two) tried to shoot at us with Nerf guns.

At this point, if you had asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I would have told you what I considered an impossible joke: I wanted to marry a woman, run an orphanage, adopt a bunch of teenagers and babies, and drive a van big enough to fit everyone in it when we went grocery shopping together.

In third grade I took a long test in the school’s brand-new computer lab and I scored so well that they took me, once a week, on Wednesdays, to a different campus with other kids that scored really well on that test and we learned about lazers and climate change and cloning and other things for “gifted” kids. But otherwise, third grade passed in much the same way as second grade, but nothing exists without complications and so there came along a boy named Henry. He was new to school and he had what could have been called a cool haircut, for 2009, and Fernanda loved him. I didn’t. But she did, so I thought it was normal to like a boy, so I said I liked him too. And then he said he liked me better than her because she was weird and I kicked him in the shin and said something mean that I don’t remember anymore. But Fernanda didn’t like that, and she didn’t like me. So at the beginning of fourth grade she told me she wasn’t going to be my friend this year so that she could try being friends with someone else.

So, I was alone again in fourth grade, for a minute. But by this time my real estate-mom had moved us to house number three (four, maybe?) since the divorce: a condo with blue carpets and mostly old people living there. This was where I met Branch, a kid from my class who visited his grandma in the condo directly above us. Branch and I each had a little brother, and by now my sister had taken to locking herself in her room and not talking to anyone, so Branch and me and our little brothers played “Hup-hups,” a war game where there were two sides, each with a commander and an infantryman who would respond to commands like “stay,” “go,” “attack,” and “attention.” It was pretty fun, so Branch told his friends at school about it, and they all wanted to join my faction, and this went on like a domino effect until I was running an army comprised of something like 30-50 fourth-grade boys, depending on the day, at recess. I don’t think I realized how weird that was at the time. We mostly just screwed around until another boy formed an oppositional army, calling themselves the Arachnids, because that was just about the biggest word you could know in fourth grade, and they started guerilla warfare. They would just straight-up attack us and try to hurt us. I would scream at the boys following me to run away, because I never wanted anyone to get hurt, but then the oppositional army leader had his arm around my throat and I was choking so I couldn’t yell very loud, and all the boys on my side just went to town attacking the Arachnids back. Somehow, none of the recess monitors– these were two grouchy old women who would always yell at me and Fernanda for trying to climb the trees– ever saw this, or stopped it. The violence continued until people got tired of it, and by the end of the year I was alone again.

Fifth grade was when the depression I’d had since I can remember really kicked it up a notch. It should be noted that I had no idea what depression was. I thought it was normal to just not want to get out of bed in the morning, to want to die all the time, to dig needles into your skin and try to make yourself bleed because at least then you have control over something. By then my mom had moved to house number five, within walking distance from the school, so my brother and I would walk together every morning. I made one new friend, named John, and he talked me out of suicide not once but twice, once by yelling at me over the phone and once by just existing, which is very impressive for a fifth grader, if I’m honest, but also I think I’ll always feel a little horrible for putting that pressure on him. I convinced myself that I loved him, at the time.

You may be noticing a pattern with me and boys, but we’re not quite there yet.

Of course, between fifth and sixth grade my family picked up and moved across the country from Missouri to Southern California.

I spent sixth grade and most of seventh grade friendless, and met a few friends in eighth grade– two of those friends are still with me to this day. In eighth grade I met a girl named Chloe, who had three pregnancy scares in a year and who convinced me to make out with her in a pillow fort in the room I shared with my sister while my sister was out with her boyfriend– and that was the first kiss I ever had and it felt like liquid lightning in my veins. But in eighth grade I also listened to my Republican parents on the matter of gay rights– of course, I barely knew what gay was, I just knew it was something you called people you didn’t like because that’s all that a Missouri elementary school teaches you about it– and so I thought gay people were a little gross, and I was a little gross for liking it when I kissed a girl, and I buried that part of me. In eighth grade I also met the boy who would be the first one I would date: Chris. I dated him from the middle of freshman year to the end of sophomore year in high school. We went on a few awkward dates, we held hands even though his were sweaty and we couldn’t get the timing right, we kissed even though it felt about as exciting as eating plain bread– not exactly bad, just not exciting or fun.

Now the pattern might seem more clear. It certainly became very clear to me.

I didn’t like boys. I like girls. I’ve liked girls since forever, and no amount of shame or repression was going to “fix” me because I. Wasn’t. Broken. I was depressed and I was anxiety-ridden and I was introverted maybe a little too much, but being homosexual was never an issue.

I broke up with my boyfriend. I came out to my friends, then my siblings, then my parents, then everyone else. I had a girlfriend, and she lost interest, so I broke it off. I had another girlfriend, but I had never been interested, so I broke it off. Then I put dating aside.

I continued to get straight As in school, take all the AP classes, run three clubs, rank nationally for field hockey goalies, help a friend of mine transition from straight girl to gay girl to nonbinary kid to straight boy, and accumulate a solid group of five friends.

Then I got rejected from every college I applied to because of a clerical error I didn’t know about until a year later (after appeals were already a lost cause), so I got a job, I went to a community college, tried to go for a business degree and hated it, switched to a creative writing degree, and now here we are! With my applications submitted and one acceptance in the bag (thank you, University of Iowa!), now I want to focus on my writing and try to get published next.

Now that you know where I’m from, you know at least a little of what I care about. I deal a lot with mental health, so does my writing. My sexuality was a major unknown for me for a large portion of my life, so I include that a lot in the hopes that I can help someone else not be so lost with that. My hometown had very little racial diversity, so I want to represent more diversity in my writing.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself: in the coming posts, I’ll show you what I’ve written and read, so you can have a better idea of where I’m coming from as a writer, now that you know where I’m coming from as a person.

#lgbtq+#lgbtq characters #mental health #backstory #childhood #how do i tag #idk guys i think my warrior cats phase might have been weirder than yours #i conveniently forgot that i ran an army in fourth grade for YEARS #i almost broke a guys arm once too but we wont talk about that because almost is the key word #school #college

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asarahworld-writes · 6 years ago

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I made my choice a long time ago

A Thirteen/Rose Human Nature AU.

There was a knock on the door.

Ryan Sinclair looked at his companion, crossing the room to open it.

Yasmin Khan sidestepped him, blocking her friend from the entrance. “What if it’s not Graham? What if they’ve found us? The Doctor never said what to do if we were in the TARDIS when they came for her.”

Ryan cracked the door open. “Or, it’s a person,” he turned to face them. “Sorry, this police box is out of order.”

Yasmin rolled her eyes, pushing past Ryan and slipping out. “I’m PC Khan, can I help you?” A policewoman, stepping from a police box. Nothing suspicious about that.

The woman averted her eyes. “No, sorry. M just looking for someone.”

“In a police box?” Yasmin frowned.

She shook her head. “It’s a long story.” Ryan and Yasmin shared a look. Whatever strange story the woman had, it could not be weirder than theirs. The woman reached out to touch the wooden exterior. And gasped. “The TARDIS.” She looked at the pair, lips trembling. “Where’s the Doctor?”

They looked at the woman. And ran.

They had been found. “Jinxed it, you did,” Yasmin said, her breath choppy as they ran back to the flat.

“Me? What about when you said, ‘what if it’s not Graham’,” Ryan retorted, skidding to a stop and wrenching the door open.

“What didn’t I do now,” Graham’s voice came from the kitchen. “John’s just put the kettle on, tea’ll be ready in a mo’, though where she’s run off to now, I don’t know.”

“She left the kettle on? You know, she does that on the TARDIS too. I’ll go in the kitchen and there’ll be half-made sandwiches and kettle overboiling,” Yasmin laughed.

“And she shows up twenty minutes later, with those goggles strapped over her eyes and grease on her hands, wondering where her tea went because she’d only been gone a mo’,” Graham chuckled. “But I think the two of you were saying something before I interrupted?”

“There was a woman and she knew about the TARDIS,” Yaz looked at Ryan, “and she was asking for the Doctor.”

“Did you lock the door?” Ryan looked at Yasmin. “Because I didn’t lock the door.”

“You were still inside, I didn’t lock the door. I was heading that woman off.”

At a different time, Ryan might have taken a moment to laugh at the spectacle they were creating. A young Pakistani woman, a black man, and an old white man, all running desperately toward an old police box.

The door was unlocked.

There was a woman in the TARDIS.

“We told you this box wasn’t in service,” Yasmin put her best police voice on.

“And I told you that I was looking for somebody. Where is he?”

“You’ll need to be a touch more specific.”

The woman looked at them, studying them. Yaz felt a touch uncomfortable, normally she was the one trying to get a hold on people, writing out parking tickets.

“None of you are him, but you’re not shocked at the inside of this place, so you’re familiar with it. Which means you know him. I’m… a friend.”

“Whose friend?” Graham stepped forward. It sounded as if she was looking for someone who had perhaps formerly travelled with the Doctor. “Who are you looking for, love?”

“The Doctor.”

They had been found. And it was in the TARDIS.

“Well she’s not in here.” Ryan stepped forward, unsure of what his next move was but knowing that they had to get her out of the ship. They had been so close, literally hours away from time running out.

“Ryan, get to the Doctor,” Yaz hissed. “Get her safe.”

Ryan stood, rooted to the ground.

The stranger’s head snapped back. “She?” Something beeped. The stranger looked absently at her wrist, frowning.

The charging cycle hadn’t started yet. She was trapped.

“Is that a vortex manipulator?” It looked nothing like the one Krasko had used in Montgomery.

“No, it’s a… no. Sorry, how do you know about vortex manipulators?” The woman’s frown deepened.

“Sorry, we’ll be asking the questions here,” Yaz said with a false bravado. The Doctor had explained that the aliens looking for her were dangerous. They were smart, she’d said. Intelligent. “You’re looking for a man called the Doctor. What’s he look like? Why did you enter the box when I said it was out of service?”

“I didn’t know he’d regenerated. Or that becoming a woman was possible. He… she could look like anybody. That’s why I’m looking for the TARDIS.”

“How do you know about the TARDIS?”

“Travelled in it. Her, really. She’s quite sentient, did you know? The Doctor used to call her ‘Old Girl’. She always took us where we needed to go. I suppose she still does for him… her.”

“What does your doctor look like?”

“Tall. Brown hair, really great hair, and brown eyes. Last time…we were together, he wore a brown suit and coat with chucks,” the woman smiled fondly.

“Your somebody isn’t here,” Yaz said firmly. “Now how did you get in. The box was locked.”

“I have a key.” The woman held up a silver Yale key. “But just because he’s regenerated that doesn’t change that I’m still looking for him. Her. I made them a promise, which I intend to keep.”

Graham closed his eyes. “I lost my wife two months ago, nearly to the day. I’d do anything to have her back. Almost.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman reached out, touching Graham’s shoulder gently. “What was her name?”

“Grace. Her name was Grace.”

“I lost my Doctor, a year? Two years ago. It’s hard to keep track of the time.” The woman said softly. “We were separated. He said that he couldn’t come back for me, that the cracks in the universe were healing. But they’re not. I need to find him and tell him that. The multiverse are at stake.” The woman paused. “Sorry, her. I need to find her.”

“You’re certain this is the same person you’re looking for?” The woman nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Rose. Rose Tyler.”

“The Doctor doesn’t talk about herself. For all we know, she could be telling the truth.”

“She’s looking for a man, remember,” Ryan refuted Graham’s optimism.

“The Doctor can regenerate. Changes his whole look, superficial personality quirks. When I left, he was tall and brown haired, really great hair.” She smiled. “Before that, first time I met him, cropped light brown hair ‘n blue eyes.”

Yaz looked at Ryan. “Half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman,” she mouthed. Ryan looked back to the woman, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Yeah, all right,” he muttered. “How do we know your telling the truth? That you’re not one of the creatures hunting us?”

“Because the TARDIS wouldn’t have let me in,” she said simply. “We shared a heart, once. To save the Doctor. The TARDIS knows me. It’s coming back, in pieces. I think I remember what happened that day,” the woman addressed the last statement to the ship, looking at the console.

The time rotor bobbed gently. She looked back at the companions of the Doctor. “I looked into the TARDIS and took the Time Vortex into myself. The TARDIS and I created an entity that saved the Doctor.” A viewscreen emerged from behind some of the roundels. I am the Bad Wolf, she mouthed along the recording. “I killed him?” Her voice broke.

“From what it looks like, that bloke chose to save you,” Graham said gently.

“Thank you,” Rose touched the console. “But where is the Doctor now?”

“She’s not going to recognize you. The TARDIS did something to make her forget she’s an alien.”

“Sorry, what’s your name? All of you, I suppose we can finish introductions now?” Rose smiled warmly, asking the question just quickly enough that Graham suspected she was trying to process the information they and the TARDIS had thrown at her.

“Well, my name’s Graham. And these here are Ryan and Yaz. Yaz is a police woman and Ryan’s my wife’s grandson.”

“Yasmin Khan,” Yaz stuck her hand out.

“’lo,” Rose nodded, shaking Yaz’s hand. “Rose Tyler. And, apparently, Bad Wolf.”

“Are you an alien too?” Graham asked, curious.

Rose laughed. “No. Born ‘n raised in London. Lived with my mum in a flat, down… well, my mum had a flat.”

Past tense. Graham wondered where her mum was now.

“You’re lookin’ for the Doctor and you’re not an alien. Who’s Rose Tyler, then?” Ryan asked.

“I travelled with the Doctor. We got separated. And I came back. We need her, in the parallel universe. The stars are goin’ out.”

“When?” Yasmin asked. Graham and Ryan looked at her. She shrugged. “It’s a time machine. Maybe this already happened for the Doctor.”

“It was the Battle of Canary Wharf. 2007.”

“That was more than ten years ago,” Yaz said gently. She didn’t remember much from that day. It had been during the summer holiday between Years 7 and 8. She had been eleven years of age, old enough to recognize that something important was happening, young enough to be kept from the interesting conversations.

Ten years. In as linear a fashion as the Doctor could manage. Rose wondered how long it had been for the Doctor. He’d been nine hundred when they’d travelled together. How old were they (was she?) now? The Doctor(s) she knew never talked about their past. After being alive for so long, could they even remember all the places they’d visited, the people they’d met? (A small voice in the back of her mind wondered if the Doctor remembered her.)

“Right, well, we’d probably get back to the Doc. She’s got to open this watch in about two and half hours so that she remembers everything, assuming the aliens don’t catch up to us.” Graham looked at Rose.

Two and a half hours, and she could see the Doctor. A different Doctor than whom she was looking for, but the Doctor just the same. Rose had made her decision before she’d even thought about it. “I’m coming with you.”

The walk back to the flat was short, and quiet. Contemplative, each of the gang caught up in their own thoughts.

“We’re back,” Yaz called, stepping through the unlocked door and sighing when she saw the kitchen. “Do not tell me that you’ve gone and taken the coffee maker apart again.”

“Nope,” came a voice from under the table, “that was your mobile. Thought I could fix it to get a better signal. I’m sure that I used to be able to do that.”

Yasmin looked at the shambles of her phone.

“Right, well, we’ve brought a friend back with us.”

“Hello,” the voice under the table said cheerily. “Any friend of Yaz’s is a friend of mine, I’m sure. John Smith,” the voice under the table introduced herself, before sliding out.

“Rose,” Rose shook the woman’s proffered hand, taking in the sight of the new (new new) Doctor.

“Tea? John went and decided to bake yesterday; I think it’s a bit obvious she went overboard,” Yaz gestured at the counter vaguely, which was covered in baked delicacies.

‘John’ shrugged. “Still don’t know what came over me. It was like I’d never baked before in my entire lives.” Lives. The four humans looked at each other, concerned. “Do I know you?” She changed her expression, looking over Rose with great interest.

“Tea would be lovely,” Rose ignored ‘John’s’ question.

“How do you know Yaz?” ‘John’ continued to ask questions.

Rose considered the question. It was clear from her interactions with the others that the woman still had some semblance to her Time Lord self. “We have a mutual friend,” she settled on an answer that was true enough.

‘John’ looked at her. “Sorry, I’ve just got the strangest feeling that I know who you are. Have we met before?”

The kettle whistled shrilly. “John, why don’t you pour the tea?” Graham clearly sensed the building tension that the Doctor had unwittingly created with her questions. “Rose, come on to the other room.”

Rose followed him. “She’s so different.”

“People change,” Graham said simply, not unkind.

Rose snickered. “Literally, in the Doctor’s case.”

Graham had to laugh at that. “They’re going to be out here in a minute. I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay. It’s difficult enough to lose someone you care about. I can’t imagine what it would be like to meet them again like this.”

“It’s…it’s weird.” Rose shook her head. “And that’s saying quite a lot, with everything I’ve seen round the universe. Multiverse, really.”

Tea was an interesting affair. The Doctor/John had her own pot of a special tea from a place she couldn’t “quite remember the name of”. It was tangy, yet sweet, and Rose recognized it as something she’d tasted once before on one of her adventures with the Doctor, before he’d regenerated. An assortment of biscuits had been haphazardly dumped into a bowl, mixed with tarts, and a stack of fresh bread.

“I don’t know what it’s been lately, with all the baking. I need to do things with my hands and then Yaz said I wasn’t to take any more of the electronics apart…” ‘John’ pulled a face.

Rose glanced at the timer on the dimension cannon. It was fully recharged. She slipped it back into her pocket. What if this version of the Doctor could still help them? Wasn’t it worth waiting? An hour and a quarter, and she would be with the Doctor, if she stayed.

I made my choice a long time ago and I’m never gonna leave you.

That answered that question. She took a sip of her tea, watching the Doctor from the corner of her eye. There was a lightness to this new Doctor that hadn’t been there before. (Whether that was part of the Doctor Doctor or just this human!Doctor was a different question.)

The light camaraderie between the foursome was easy to follow, and Rose was able to join in on some of the jokes, especially ones that poked at the Doctor’s eccentricities (some things could never change).

(One hour.)

Tea was over, Graham was stacking mugs and crumpled napkins together. Ryan and Yaz were laughing about something. Rose made to help Graham, but he shooed her towards the Doctor, a sad twinkle in his eye.

(Forty-five minutes.)

They talked. About their (Earth-based, non-time/alien) travels. About the people in their lives. Rose even adapted some of her alien traveling adventures and told those stories. (Her travelling companion, couldn’t be called the Doctor or John Smith. He was therefore dubbed Jamie, after the little boy he had saved during the Blitz).

“Sounds like you were in love with this Jamie. What happened to him?”

Rose looked at the Doctor, a sad smile on her face. “I suppose we’re about to find out.”

“Well, it’s been three months,” Ryan whispered, watching the Doctor. “Shouldn’t we give her the watch?”

“I say let’s do it,” Yasmin looked to Graham. “We followed her directions to the letter.”

Graham nodded. “All right then.” He pulled a pocket watch from the drawer in the kitchen. “Er, John,” he cleared his throat. “Could you take a look at this watch for me? Not sure if it’s working.” Behind her, Ryan rolled his eyes.

“Course I can!” ‘John’ beamed, clearly excited to take something apart. She opened the watch. And blinked.

“Is that it?” Ryan asked lowly.

“Yes, Ryan, that’s it. It’s not as glamourous as they make it in the movies,” ‘John’ rolled her eyes. “We did it, gang! Fam? Which word were we using, again?” The Doctor stopped talking as her memories caught up to her brain.

“Was I asleep just now?”

“No,” her three companions answered at once.

“Where’s the TARDIS?”

“You parked it in the street, remember?” Yaz said.

“Oh, yeah. Funny how memory works.” The Doctor smiled. “Well, shall we be off then?”

“Er, do you remember the last three months, Doctor?” Graham asked, somewhat hesitant.

“Course I do. Chameleon Arch works the other way round, Graham.”

“Then you’ll remember that there’s someone here to see you.”

The Doctor looked around the kitchen. “Right, the TARDIS is just outside. We’ve got Yaz, Ryan, Graham, and myself. And that’s everyone.”

“Where’d she go?” Her three companions looked at each other.

“Where’d who go?” The Doctor’s face furrowed, concerned.

“There was a woman, here to see you,” Graham looked around. “Did she leave?”

“Rose was here?” The Doctor’s voice trembled. “That was properly real?” Her friends nodded. She steeled herself. “It’s okay. Really. It works out in the end. She’ll find the proper version of me, and they’ll go off with their own TARDIS. Trust me. Speaking of the TARDIS, let’s go!” She clapped her hands together, her wide grin not reaching the longing still present in her eyes.

The Doctor led her friends up the street, her hand resting against the open door for a moment. “I missed you,” she closed her eyes, listening to the familiar hum of the ship.

The TARDIS was positively ecstatic. “I wasn’t gone that long. And you were here the whole time, it’s me that’s been away,” the Doctor grinned cheekily.

“Actually, I think I’ll win any contest for being away the longest,” a familiar voice came from behind the console.

The Doctor froze. “Rose.” The name fell from her lips, almost as a whisper.

“Hello,” the other woman smiled nervously, her tongue poking out from behind her teeth.

I’ve decided to leave the ending ambiguous. Does Thirteen change her past and let Ten figure out what to do about the stars going out by himself? Does Rose stay with 13&Co.? Do they have fantastic sex before Rose has to go back to Pete’s World and maintain the timeline? Who knows!

Also, did you know… treacle tart is Cockney slang for ‘sweetheart’?

#thirteenrose #thirteen/rose #ficandchips #dwfemslash

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

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A Padre Pio Inspirational Story

I feel all your troubles, as if they were my own. – St. Pio of Pietrelcina

A Testimony by Fr. Louis Solcia, CRSP

Amelie Gonzales was a little girl at our parish who taught me many things. She taught me much about both life and death. Her short life was a blessing to her family and to all those who knew her. It certainly was a blessing to me.

Amelie’s mother, Amata, and her grandmother Marlene, regularly attended our Padre Pio prayer group at Our Lady of the Rosary. The family was very devout. Amelie, who followed the good example of her mother and grandmother, was a very spiritual child. Amata told me that when she took Amelie to the store each week, Amelie always wanted to buy a bouquet of roses to place in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Amelie was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer called Pluropulmonary Blastoma. It is a cancer that occurs most often in infants and children but has also been reported in adults. The doctors hoped that chemotherapy treatments would arrest the cancer. Finally, the doctors told the family that they had done everything in their power to save Amelie. They had used every modern medical means at their disposal. There was nothing more they could do.

Amelie grew weaker as the cancer progressed but strangely enough, she never looked sick. She had a desire to receive Holy Communion. Children ordinarily do not receive their first Holy Communion before the age of seven. Amelie was just five years old. But because she had a spiritual maturity beyond her years and because of her terminal diagnosis, I was able to give her Holy Communion.

Amelie told her mother that Padre Pio had come to her and had given her a blessing. One day, near the end of her life, she was lying in her bed, looking up at the ceiling in her room. Suddenly, the ceiling disappeared, and in its place she saw the evening sky, studded with brilliant stars. Jesus and Mary were there in the sky and they were smiling at her. Later, her mother showed her a holy card of Jesus. “Amelie, did Jesus look like this?” she asked. “No, he didn’t,” she replied. “He was so bright!”

Our Padre Pio prayer group had prayed for many weeks for Amelie. We all hoped in our hearts that she would be healed. But it was not to be. Amelie died peacefully in her mother’s arms on December 14, 2009. On the day that she died, she saw a white butterfly. “Mommy, don’t you see the butterfly?” she asked. But her mother could not see it. No one saw it but Amelie. After her death, Amelie truly looked like a little angel.

I had a desire to visit the cemetery where Amelie was buried and I went there on several occasions to pray. Beautiful red roses in a heart-shaped pattern had been placed on her grave by her mother. In my heart, I felt a great sadness. I wondered why God had taken such a beautiful little girl and left us all with such heavy hearts. I especially felt sorry for Amelie’s family because of their grief. But then I reasoned to myself that God never allows something bad to happen unless He can draw good out of it. I have been a priest for more than fifty years and I have always believed that. But in this situation, I struggled with God. Although at the time, I could not see past the pain of the situation, soon I would see the good that God would draw out of Amelie’s death.

Amelie’s best friend was her eight-year-old cousin, Alexis. The two girls were inseparable. After Amelie’s death, Alexis’ sister, Cassandra, had a vivid dream. In her dream, Amelie was looking everywhere for Alexis. “Where is Alexis?” she asked. “I want to find Alexis!” It was shortly after Cassandra’s dream that Alexis announced that she wanted to take instructions in the Catholic faith and be baptized. Everyone in the family was surprised. Alexis’ desire seemed to come out of nowhere. There was certainly no one in her family encouraging her to take that step. Alexis’ mother had no religious affiliation and she never took the family to church on Sunday. However, she was willing to let Alexis take instruction in the Catholic faith. I had the sense that the dream of Amelie was instrumental in Alexis’ desire to become a Catholic. Amelie’s mother now brings Alexis to our parish once a week. I am giving her the instructions myself and preparing her for baptism, confirmation and for her first Holy Communion.

God can and does draw good out of the hard and painful situations in life. We only have to look and we will see.

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven – A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot … a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones. – Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 __________________________

Joey Finn of Hudson, New York had been coping with severe asthma for most of his childhood. In 2005, when Joey was ten years old, he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, an incurable disease that makes it difficult to breathe and eventually destroys the lungs completely. Joey’s lungs already showed the damage from the disease and he would have to have breathing treatments twice a day for the rest of his life. The median survival age for those who have the disease is in the early thirties.

Shortly after Joey’s diagnosis, his mother, Melissa Finn was introduced to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a nonprofit organization which offers children with chronic, life threatening diseases, the opportunity to make a wish and have it granted. For the youth who daily struggle with incurable illnesses, the chance to have a wish come true can lift their spirits and enrich their lives. It gives them something positive to look forward to in life. The Make-A-Wish Foundation, in its ministry of compassion, has brought happiness to countless children.

When Joey said that he would like to submit a wish to the Foundation for consideration, his mother assumed that he would request a trip to Disney World in Florida. However, when he told his mother what he wished for, she could not have been more surprised. Joey wanted to travel to San Giovanni Rotondo to pray at the tomb of Padre Pio. He also wanted to see the holy father in Rome. Where did the desire come from? That is a good question. Joey did not grow up in a particularly religious household. Although the Finns were Catholics, they did not attend Mass on Sunday. As it turned out, Joey had seen a documentary on the life of Padre Pio on the History Channel which had greatly inspired him. He learned about Padre Pio’s stigmata, his prayer life, and his deep faith in God. Like Joey, Padre Pio had suffered most of his life with poor health. He was afflicted with chronic breathing problems, including asthma and bronchitis. It was an acute case of asthma that was a contributing cause of Padre Pio’s death in September 1968.

In thinking of her son’s wish, Melissa had one deep concern. She was afraid that Joey would be crushed if he expected a miracle from Padre Pio and did not receive one. She talked to him about it and he assured her that was not the case. He had a devotion to Padre Pio and wanted to pray at his tomb. He intended to offer up his prayers for all the people in the world who were stricken with cystic fibrosis and to pray that there would someday be a cure. He was certain that there would be no disappointment in that.

One recalls that Padre Pio felt a great call to help the sick and suffering, not only through his daily intercessory prayers but also through concrete action. He founded the Home for the Relief of Suffering for that very reason. He spoke of it as his “earthly mission.” There were many scoffers and detractors who doubted that the project could ever succeed. But against all odds, the Home grew and prospered and has helped countless lives.

Joey Finn’s wish was certainly one of the most unique that had been submitted to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Some of the popular requests included a shopping spree at the mall, an outdoor playground, and a trip to the Super Bowl. Occasionally, children requested a trip to Honolulu or Hollywood. But the request to visit San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy had to be a first. The Foundation checked with Joey’s mother to make sure that it was his wish and not hers. She assured them that she was just as surprised as anyone else when she found out Joey’s wish. Joey’s request was finally approved and in June 2007, twelve-year-old Joey along with his mother, father and thirteen-year-old sister made preparations to travel to Italy. Their first surprise came, shortly after they boarded the plane. The pilot came over the loud speaker and proposed a question to all the passengers. “Is it true that Joey Finn, who is sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, is on board the plane?” the pilot asked. Joey’s excitement intensified when the pilot asked him if he would like to step to the cockpit and turn the key to start the airplane. His reply was an enthusiastic, “Yes!” It was the beginning of an extraordinary journey for the entire Finn family.

The first stop on their remarkable pilgrimage was to Rome, where they toured the Vatican. They spent time at the beautiful Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Catacombs, the Holy Stairs and more. Along with a multitude of others, they were able to see the Holy Father and to receive his papal blessing. Joey took many excellent pictures of the Holy Father.

In San Giovanni Rotondo, the pilgrims who were waiting in line to make a visit to Padre Pio’s tomb, prayed the Rosary while they waited. Joey and his family joined in the prayers. They literally just squeezed into the church as it was closing that evening. Melissa was the very last person allowed to enter before the doors were locked.

Padre Pio’s tomb was below the main altar of the church and was surrounded by an iron enclosure. People were able to draw very close to the tomb but the iron enclosure prevented anyone from actually touching it. On the evening of the Finns’ visit, the little iron gate was unlocked and opened. All those who were present that evening were allowed to place their hand on Padre Pio’s tomb. Melissa Finn was later told that the iron gate is customarily closed and locked at all times.

The Finn family never imagined the impact the trip to San Giovanni Rotondo would have on their lives. Melissa Finn felt compelled to go to confession while visiting the monastery church of Our Lady of Grace. She had not been to confession in more than twenty-five years. Joey told his mother that when he stood and prayed at Padre Pio’s tomb, he had the sense that Padre Pio had heard his prayers. “Padre Pio has taken our family in as his own,” Joey said to his mother.

For the Finns, the time spent at Padre Pio’s monastery was a time of spiritual renewal and positive change. After returning home, they began to attend Mass together every Sunday as a family. It was something they had not done for a long time. Joey had a desire to learn more about his Catholic faith and to serve the Church. He soon became an altar server each Sunday at Mass.

Joey had been able to purchase some very meaningful souvenirs of Padre Pio while in Italy. Back in Hudson, New York, he set up his own little shrine dedicated to his patron saint and placed it on display in his home. Quite unexpectedly, he even received a third class relic of the saint. A nurse who had heard about Joey was touched by his story. She sent him a very special gift. It was a Rosary which had been blessed by Padre Pio. One of her elderly patients had given it to her. “I believe that Joey found something in Italy which is of equal value to finding a cure for his disease,” Melissa Finn said. “He found his faith, the strength that he will need in his lifetime to endure the challenges that lie ahead of him. He prayed, he listened, he learned … He did this of his own free will and with great determination.” In the final analysis, the greatest healings of all are those that take place in the human soul. __________________________

Judy Hayes of Holiday, Florida woke up one morning to find that a large lump had appeared on her neck. She went to the doctor that very morning and was put through a multitude of tests. The results were not good. Judy was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma in stage four, the final stage. The cancer had already spread to her bones.

Before her first chemotherapy treatment, Judy went to a Catholic Gift Shop. She wanted to get some prayer and novena cards of her favorite saints. She was nervous about receiving chemotherapy and planned to pray throughout the treatment.

In the Catholic Gift Shop, the prayer cards and novenas were on a small rack that could be turned in a circular fashion. Three times Judy turned the rack and three times it stopped at a holy card of Padre Pio. However, her devotion was to St. Jude, St. Anthony, and the Infant of Prague. When she found what she was looking for, she made her purchases. She was just opening the door to walk out of the shop when she stopped and turned back. Judy felt guilty. It truly seemed like the little prayer card of Padre Pio had been calling to her. “O.K. Padre Pio, I will take you home with me,” Judy said silently. “I pray that you will be with me and heal me of the cancer.”

The chemotherapy and radiation treatments made Judy very ill. In December, she came down with pneumonia and had to be admitted to the hospital. She became weaker by the day. She lost the ability to walk. Her condition seemed to go from bad to worse. She developed dangerous blood clots and had to be treated for congestive heart failure. She was in and out of the intensive care unit. She had to go into surgery to have her gall bladder removed. Finally, after many months in the hospital, she was sent to a nursing home. However, she soon developed an infection and had to be readmitted to the hospital.

But her condition did not improve. She was placed on a ventilator for nine days. She drifted in and out of consciousness, barely holding on to life. Through the long days and nights, she petitioned Padre Pio to help her. She prayed to him, dialogued with him, entreated him, begged him. For some reason, it was Padre Pio that she addressed her urgent prayers to rather than to the saints that she had been devoted to for years.

One particularly day, as Judy lay silent and immobile in her hospital bed, she heard the nurse supervisor talking to some of the other medical staff. “Before you leave your shift tonight, prepare Judy Hayes’ death certificate,” the nurse supervisor said. “Make sure you have the doctor sign it before he goes home. I have been observing her throughout the day. She is going to die tonight.” Judy was devastated by the words. Everything within her cried out against it. She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t die! She begged Padre Pio to help her.

People everywhere were praying for Judy Hayes. One of her dear friends, who was in a nursing home, prayed a Rosary for Judy every morning at 2:00 a.m. To the amazement of everyone, Judy’s strength slowly returned. She was eventually discharged from the hospital and was able to return to her home.

After Judy’s recovery, she had a great desire to promote Padre Pio. She was convinced that she was alive and well because of his intercession. She made it a habit to keep Padre Pio prayer cards in her purse at all times and she found many opportunities to give them to others. People were inspired by her faith and trust in God. Many people were helped, just by meeting Judy.

One afternoon when Judy was enjoying an afternoon out in the Florida sunshine, she happened to see a woman that she felt urged to speak to. The woman was a complete stranger to her. Not knowing what possessed her, Judy went up to the woman and asked her if she was a Catholic. Judy was not in the habit of asking people their religious affiliation, especially not a perfect stranger. It simply did not seem like an appropriate thing to do. The woman however, did not mind the question at all, and answered in the affirmative. Judy then gave her a Padre Pio prayer card. She told her a little bit about Padre Pio and showed her the beautiful prayer on the back of the card. “Oh, you are an answer to my prayers!” the woman said to Judy. She then went on to explain her situation. For weeks, the woman had been taking care of her dear husband who had a terminal illness. She had become very depressed as she watched him slowly dying. She had not wanted to leave her husband that day but she had done so at the insistence of a friend. Her friend was adamant that she take a needed break. Her friend was taking care of her husband in her place that afternoon.

The woman explained that she had been praying when Judy came up and spoke to her. “Oh God,” she prayed, “Please send me a sign of hope. I need greater faith in You and I need strength to go on. I am so depressed. Please send me someone who will help me!” With her eyes brimming with tears, the woman thanked Judy for the holy card of Padre Pio and assured her that she would pray to him. __________________________

Marsha Jacques felt very fortunate to possess four shirts which were blessed with a first class relic of Padre Pio. The shirts had also been blessed by a holy priest. Marsha decided to give one of the shirts to her neighbor, Julie Bouldin. Julie suffered from chronic pain and many serious health issues. Julie, who had a devotion to Padre Pio, was very happy to receive the shirt.

Julie was not the only person in her family who could benefit from the relic of a saint. At that time, her brother-in-law, Jim, was in critical condition at the hospital. Jim had suffered a massive heart attack not long before which required quadruple bypass surgery. He made it through the surgery but soon after, he developed pneumonia. His condition deteriorated and his bodily organs began to shut down. He finally had to be placed on life support.

The days passed but there was no change, no improvement in Jim’s condition. He was in a deeply unconscious state and machines were now keeping his body alive. After some time on life support, the doctor told Jim’s wife, Mercy, that Jim was not going to recover. It was just a matter of time. He said that it was time to talk about the idea of discontinuing the life support.

Mercy was in a great state of distress when she called Julie, her sister, to tell her the news. Julie advised Mercy not to make any quick decisions. It was almost Christmas. It would be too hard to even think of removing the life support at Christmas time. She advised her to wait until after the holidays to consider it.

Julie wanted to bring the shirt blessed by the relic of Padre Pio to the hospital and pray for Jim. Mercy thought it was a wonderful idea. Jim was not a person of faith. He was an atheist. Although he did not believe in the power of prayer, his wife and his sister-in-law certainly did.In the Intensive Care Unit, Julie and Mercy placed the blessed shirt over Jim. They prayed the Novena to the Sacred Heart for him and put their complete trust in God. Jim remained completely still and unresponsive.

The next day, when they returned to the hospital, his condition was the same. But on the third day, there was a change. When they went into his room, Jim’s eyes were open. He seemed to be trying to communicate with them but he was not able to since there was a large tube down his throat. Mercy told him that they were praying the Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for him. She spoke to him of Padre Pio and told him about the relic that they had placed on his chest. She asked him if it was all right with him if they continued the prayers for his healing. Through the expression in his eyes, it seemed as though Jim was trying to tell them that he was glad they were praying and wanted them to continue.

Each day of the novena, Jim became a little more aware, a little more conscious of his surroundings. The doctor was incredulous at his improvement. “Even if he lives, he will be permanently disabled,” the doctor told Mercy. “He will have to spend a long time in a nursing home, relearning motor skills. He will never be able to work again.” But Mercy was not concerned about that. Her husband was now slowly recuperating. Her prayers and her sister’s prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus had been answered.

Jim was discharged to a nursing home where he received physical therapy and continued to improve. He insisted that the blessed shirt remain with him at all times. He was either wearing it or had it right beside his bed. His atheistic beliefs are now a thing of the past. He was eventually able to return to his full time job. Jim is convinced that he has been given a second chance at life through the prayers of his family.

As for me, I will always have hope, and I will praise You more and more. – Psalm 71:14

#padre pio

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drews-diary · 4 years ago

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21.08.19

today’s diary entry is gonna be weird. also hi, its been a while. a few days ago, i learned that the fourteen year old i tutor has a boyfriend. and while that is a perfectly reasonable age to have a boyfriend i just cant get over the fact that someone born in 2007 is already capable of typing let alone dating. I remember when my friends little brother who was also born in 2007 was crawling around and cried cuz he hit his head on the table. but to be fair that didnt really bother me too much as i always felt as though i was stagnant and things around me were the ones always changing.

But then today i was listening to taylor swift’s old albums cuz i was feeling nostalgic and i listened to fifteen from the fearless album that came out back in 2009 and i realized that she released that song when she was around twenty which means she probably wrote in when she was in her teens writing about how she knows so much more than she did back when was starting high school that she wish she could tell her younger self. and i remembered listening to that album as a child and expecting myself to feel the same by the time i became an adult. yet here i am at 21 no thoughts head empty. and i realized that even if i met 15 year old me there is next to nothing i would want to tell her because i still feel like i am more or less still the same ignorant uninformed person. the only thing i would tell her is to stop fucking around and focus on school.

i feel like i dont have as much experience as the other people around me. I never used to care that i’ve never been romantically involved with someone, but i always thought it would happen eventually when i got to college but a three semesters have passed and i have yet to take a single class on campus.

to be completely honest the only reason i am even fever writing this right now is because i had a ice cream blending cold brew from starbucks this evening because i had to get up excruciatingly early for class registration (which i completely failed at) and had three tutoring classes today meaning i didnt have time for my daily afternoon nap so the coffee was the only thing making sure i didnt fall asleep during my last class. I purposely dont drink coffee regularly so that i can use it like a magic potion when i need it and the caffeine hits me like a bus. it has been six hours and i am still wide-eyed i should not have gotten a grande. today was also my first time trying coldbrew so there’s that. i was kinda grateful for the effects because it made sure i was awake for today’s episode of hospital playlist but now i kinda wanna sleep since i didnt get much last night and i would like to make sure i dont miss my class tomorrow morning, i have to get up at at least ten, but here i am typing this.and i think i am just going to keep going.

my family moved recently, and for the time being my entire room is surrounded by bookshelves because my brother’s bed is too big and we cant fix any bookshelves into his room and i am only using a mattress topper thing for the next few months. this is because i finally convinced my mom to let me throw out that horrid bed with the curved head and foot board with the flower decorations that always dug into the back of my head, neck, and back when i was trying to read. so that is the situation in my room until the end of the year when hopefully my brother’s whole situation will be over and we can finally go furniture shopping and switch rooms. (we are also currently living in each other’s room because his permanent room aka my current room cannot fit his fucking gigantic boat bed. actually i really love that bed i wish he was still young enough to use it its so cute.

i find our new neighborhood unsettling. like its probably because i got so attached to our old house that we lived in for nine years but i dont know. the place we moved to is a location that i used to spend some time in when we first moved to korea but i literally havent been here in nine years as mentioned earlier, and i am slowly piecing my memories of the geography as well as blending it with the incredibly limited knowledge i have of the nearby surroundings that i built riding the bus and when i was learning to drive because the school that i went to is kind of near our new place. anyways to get back to the subject this new neighborhood is full of too many happy families with these little kids that run around with their sticky little fingers flailing around. like hello we are still in the middle of a global pandemic i swear to god parents of little kids will go loose their minds when their children get sick yet they let them just run around spreading their disgusting little disease to the rest of us. ugh i hate kids. but thats besides the point the reason i think the new neighborhood feels dystopian is because all of the families, children and the elders too (why are there so many elders like i dont hate them or anything most of them are fine but like where are they all coming from?) look so happy. where are the depressed high schoolers and burnt out college students? my brother and i dont seem to have any friends in this bitch. anyways so the sheer amount of happiness that seems to radiate around me reminds me of books and movies like the giver you know or like the uglies series where you start off in this utopian-esque world until you find out that it is actually fake. its unsettling.

okay now i am kind of tired good night. wait also the public transportation at our new place fucking sucks i know it’s pretty good by regular standards but i am used to subway stations, convenience stores, cafes and bus stops all being 30 seconds away from the entrance of my building. okay the bus stop took more like two minutes but whatever. and buses used to come every five minutes but now i have to walk at least ten minutes to the nearest subway station and the bus stops only have three buses and even those take so fucking long to arrive and they dont even arrive when they say they will they are always late which is why i end up fucking walking twenty minutes to the subway station because that way at least i can guarantee that i am not going to be completely late. unreliable ass buses.

fuck there’s a lot i dont like about my new neighborhood. oh wait we are also far from malls now i have to walk like half an hour to get to the nearest mall when at our old house i only had to walk ten minutes and the mall close to our new house is worse than the old one. this one’s movie theatre isnt even famous. but dont get me wrong i guess there are things i like about our new place like how you can call the elevator from inside the house or how there’s a gym and the fact that i now have ac in my room. i am just being a brat because i really loved our old house. it was perfect. even if i felt as though i was being burned alive during the summers sometimes. i also like my new blinds that let in light in the shape of constellations.

i dont currently have a desk in my room so i dont know what im going to do when school starts again in a few weeks i guess i’ll have to take my lecture on the floor or maybe on the kitchen table idk.

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chasholidays · 7 years ago

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Bellarke au of the 2007 film Stardust there is in fact a wikipedia page but the movie is also something you'd like so watch it if you get a chance. Please and Thank you!

It starts off simply enough: Bellamy’s sister is sick, and if he brings her the heart of a star, she’ll be healed. And, of course, finding a star isn’t so easy, but if that’s the cure, then that’s what he’ll do. He doesn’t have another choice. She’s his sister, and his responsibility; he’d never let anything happen to her.

So he’s going to get her a star. There’s no other option.

It’s just his good luck that a star falls when he needs one.

“It’s your fate,” his mother says, when he tells her. “You were never meant to live here.”

“It’s your house,” he points out. Most of his attention is on packing, but there’s always time for mouthing off, too. “You’re the one who decided I was going to live here.”

“And I always knew you’d go someday. This is what you were meant to do.”

“Taking care of my sister,” he agrees. “That’s what you always told me.”

Aurora smiles. “I did. But–this is about more than just your sister, Bellamy. You’re going home.”

She’s always said his father came from across the Wall, but he can’t say he’s ever believed her. It felt like a polite kind of fiction, a father he could be proud of, instead of whatever father he really had.

His life is simple: he’s the only son of a seamstress, and his sister is ill. He’s going across the Wall to find a cure for her. That’s all that matters. That’s all there is to it.

As quests go, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Bellamy thought he knew what to expect from the star. When a star crashes out of the sky, it looks huge, but by the time it hits the ground, it’s just a little piece of rock, an ordinary, everyday thing. He can believe there’s magic in that because no matter how ordinary it looks, it’s still a magical event. And anything that happens over the Wall is, by definition, magic. He can let himself think that the part of the star that lands beyond the Wall is the heart, and that it can cure his sister’s illness.

So it’s very annoying when he gets to the valley where the star fell, and someone else already has it.

“Look, I appreciate you probably need this thing too,” he tells the girl, approaching carefully, as if she’s a wild animal. She looks a little disoriented, as if she wasn’t really planning to take the star, or maybe just didn’t notice it until it struck the ground. “But my sister’s going to die if I don’t take it home.”

She blinks a few times. “Excuse me?”

“The star you picked up. I need it.”

“The star I picked up.”

“We can share it,” he says. “I don’t think she needs to eat it or anything. Just–be exposed to it. I don’t know. I just need to save my sister, and then you can have it back.”

“Have the star back.”

He rubs his face. Is this a Wall thing? Can she just repeat whatever he says? “Fuck, I don’t have time for this. Will you just give me the star?”

“So you can save your sister.”

“What part of this hasn’t been clear?”

She scowls, which he can admit might be justified. He did come out of nowhere demanding that she give up the star she’d rightfully claimed. “I don’t owe you anything, whoever you are.”

“You’re right, you don’t. I’m sorry.” He offers his hand. “My name is Bellamy Blake. My sister is ill, and I was told the surest way to save her was to bring her the heart of a star. I don’t think she has to keep it. It’s your prize, but–I can’t let her die, and I don’t know if another star will fall in time to save her. So–please.”

The girl looks him up and down. “You think you can just take a star home to your sister and cure all that ails her?”

“I’ve been told, yes.” And then, desperation coloring his voice, “I don’t have anything else. If the doctor says this will save her, then this is what I’ll do.”

“And then you’ll come and find me and give the star back?”

“On my sister’s life.”

Her mouth twitches. “So if your sister dies, I don’t get the star back?”

“If she dies, it’s not worth much as a magical item,” he points out. “I’ll give it back no matter what. On my life, and my sister’s. You have my word.”

“The word of a stranger I’ve never met.” She wets her lips. “Where is she? Your sister.”

“Across the Wall.”

“How far?”

“I was able to travel quickly here, but I have to walk back. It’ll take a week or two, I think.”

The girl looks him over again, and then nods, as if agreeing to a statement he didn’t make. “All right. I’ll go with you. I’ll hold onto the star, until we reach your sister. I don’t have any reason to trust you.”

“I guess you don’t. Thank you,” he adds.

“Will she make it? Or will two weeks–”

“She’ll make it,” he says, making himself believe it. “She has the time.”

“Still,” says the girl. “We should hurry.”

“We should,” he agrees. “Thank you. Again.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome again. Now, which way are we going?”

Over the next few hours, he starts to suspect there’s something off with the girl. Her name is Clarke, but that’s about all she seems sure about telling him. When he asks her how old she is and where her family comes from, she hesitates, and when he asks what she wants with the star, she only shrugs.

“Stars are lucky.”

“I don’t see why a fallen one would be,” he points out. “If it fell out of the sky and ended up here, how lucky can it be?”

“Lucky for whoever finds it.”

“And you need luck?”

“Who doesn’t need luck?”

He shakes his head, smiling, and she looks pleased, as if she’s won something. And maybe she has. Probably, she’s one of the fairy folk, someone whose life is incomprehensible to Bellamy. That’s how it’s supposed to be, across the Wall. Magic is real here, and thriving, and whatever Clarke wants to do with a star is almost certainly outside of his understanding.

“How did you get here?” she asks, a few hours later. “You said you had a way to travel quickly, and that’s why you came just after the star fell.”

“My mother had a Babylon candle.” He pauses, but if there’s anyone he can safely tell about himself, it’s this girl from beyond the Wall, whom he’ll never see again once she’s gotten her star. “She came here, she said. Before I was born, she said she came beyond the Wall to the market, and that’s where she met my father.” He rolls his eyes. “It’s a nice story, but I know better than to believe it.”

“Why don’t you?” Clarke asks. She sounds curious, as if she really doesn’t know. “If she had a Babylon candle, she must have gotten it somewhere. Why couldn’t your father be some man from this side of the Wall?”

He glances at her sidelong. “Because she knows so many more from the other side. I know she wanted to make me feel better, about not having a father, but–I’d rather she just told me the truth.”

“You’re the one who decided she didn’t. If you’ve already made up your mind that she’s lying, what’s she supposed to do?”

“For someone who refused to tell me anything about her family, you have a lot of opinions about mine.”

“If I wanted your opinions on my family, I would have told you about them. Since you did tell me–”

He has to smile. “Fine, you’re right, it’s my own fault. But no one’s going to worry about you?”

“They know where I am.”

“This cryptic thing is already getting old, in case you were wondering.”

She beams; it feels as if she’s getting more cheerful as it gets later, which is not how Bellamy tends to experience the world. “Not really, no. It’s working out very well for me.”

“As long as one of us is enjoying this,” he mutters, but there’s a smile tugging at his mouth.

Whatever else she might be, she really isn’t so bad.

A week later, he’s feeling much less patient with her.

“You need to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“What makes you think I know?” she asks, but he knows her well enough by now that the tone doesn’t fool him. He just scowls until she wilts. “Stars are useful. You’re not the only one who wants one.”

“So how does everyone know you have one? And what do they want to do with it?”

She bites the corner of her mouth, clearly torn. They’re actually staying in an inn for once, sharing a room with two beds because he’s not willing to leave her alone after a week of people trying to kill them. Just because they dealt with today’s sorcerer and came out unscathed on the other side doesn’t mean he can stop worrying.

On the contrary, he feels as if he has more to worry about than ever.

“Clarke,” he says, pitching his voice low. “Come on. You can trust me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I thought you’d figure it out,” she says, with a huff of a laugh. “I’m the star, Bellamy.”

He blinks. “You’re the what?”

“What do you think I was doing there? I didn’t just end up in the center of a crater with a falling star by accident.”

“How are you the star?” he asks, still trying to catch up. “You’re not a star, you’re–”

“This is what happens when stars fall over the Wall. We join you.”

“And when were you going to tell me that? Was I the only one who didn’t know?”

“No. Plenty of people don’t realize what I am. But most of them weren’t looking for me.”

His jaw works as he looks her up and down. It’s not such a huge betrayal, not as long as– “Can you save my sister?”

“I don’t know.”

The bottom drops out of his world. “You don’t know?”

She doesn’t back down, chin raised defiantly against his advance. “I don’t know,” she confirms. “I’ll do everything I can. But when we go past the Wall–magic doesn’t work, on the other side. If I’d fallen there, I’d be a piece of rock, and I wouldn’t be able to save anyone.”

“So why did you come with me?” he demands. “What did you–”

“You didn’t give me much choice,” she snaps. “If I told you I wasn’t going to give you the star, or that it wouldn’t work, what would you have done?”

He exhales, trying to get his temper under control. “So she’s going to die.”

“No,” says Clarke. “Look, do you know what I was going to do? I was going to leave you. As soon as I thought I could get away. I was going to find somewhere safe, where I didn’t have to worry about anyone going after my heart.”

“So I’m supposed to be grateful you stayed?” he asks.

“I stayed because I want to help,” she says. “I can’t go to your sister, but if you get her to me–maybe I can do something. Maybe I can save her.”

“Maybe.”

“You never knew if it was going to work. All I can tell you is that I’m on your side, and if you get your sister to me, I’ll do everything in my power to save her. I promise.”

He looks her up and down, as if he can see the lie. “What happens to you after that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you’re really as powerful as you say you are, aren’t there always going to be people looking for you? Trying to–”

“Cut the heart out of me?” she asks. “Maybe. I’ll figure something out.”

“That’s what they want to do?” he asks, horrified. “Cut your heart out?”

“That’s what you needed too, wasn’t it?” she asks, and of course, she’s right. “The heart of a star.”

“I thought whatever got down to us was the heart of the star,” he grumbles. “How was I supposed to know the star was an actual person?”

“No one sees it coming.”

“Fuck. So you just have to–live with this?”

“I’ll figure it out,” she says again.

It’s impulsive and a little ridiculous, especially given how much of his relationship with Clarke has been a lie, but he still thinks he knows, well, the heart of her. Who she really is.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Once I know–once my sister’s taken care of, you’ve still got me, Clarke. I’m yours.”

Her smile brightens. Not just that, her whole face brightens, her whole body. “Really?”

“Really.” He tucks her hair back. “You should maybe work on that–whatever’s happening right now.”

“I’m a star, Bellamy,” she says, like this is obvious. Like he didn’t only just find out. “I shine.”

He doesn’t think much of the shining; it’s just another thing Clarke does. When she smiles, or she laughs, when she’s happy, she brightens. It happens to humans too, just not quite as literally. It doesn’t seem like a big deal. Like she said, she’s a star. It makes sense she’d have some quirks.

They get back to the Wall, and Bellamy has to carry his sister across it to Clarke, finds her in their room in the inn with a knife out and ready to fend off one a man who doesn’t actually seem to be getting any closer.

“Ah,” says the man, glancing at Bellamy. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?” Clarke snaps.

He holds up his hands, dropping his own weapon, a perfect model of non-aggression. “I won’t take a useless heart. And yours won’t do me any good.”

Bellamy feels the blood drain from his face. “Clarke, what’s–”

But she doesn’t look upset. “Useless?”

“At least to me.”

“Oh good,” she says, which is even more confusing. Seeing his expression, she adds, “It’s fine. I can still help your sister. You just have to ask.”

“Ask?”

“Tell me to save her.”

It seems odd, but it’s magic. Magic is inherently odd. “Save her,” he says.

“Help him get her on the bed,” Clarke tells the man, and to Bellamy’s surprise he does. And since he doesn’t leave after that, Bellamy takes a position next to him.

“You don’t have anything to fear from me,” says the man. “As I said, she’s useless to me. The first to claim the star’s heart keeps it. Now that it’s been claimed, I couldn’t do anything with it if I got it.”

He frowns, torn between the desire to argue the point and the total lack of desire for the man to change his mind. “I had no idea I was so lucky.”

“I’m sure you still don’t. But you’ll figure it out.”

He doesn’t get a chance to, not until the next night, with everything else going on. First he has Octavia to take home and get squared away, and then he’s not even sure he should be going back, if Clarke still needs him.

But even if she doesn’t, he still can’t leave without saying goodbye.

She’s still at the inn, and when she sees him, she lights up the whole room with her smile.

“How’s your sister?”

“Completely recovered. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I should be thanking you.”

He frowns. “Because I–claimed you?”

She looks down at her hands. “You didn’t claim anything. You didn’t–” Her eyes flick back up to his, nervous but sure. “It’s my heart, Bellamy. It’s mine to give. And it’s yours.”

“Mine,” he repeats.

“Yours.”

When he kisses her, the room goes bright again, so bright he can see it through his closed eyes, and he grins against her mouth. “So I should stick with you, huh?”

“I was hoping you would want to.”

“Well, stars are lucky, right?” he teases, kissing her again. “I could use some luck.”

He gets it, too, but none of the good that follows–and a great deal of good does follow, as his mother apparently knew he would–is ever equal to the simple fact of having Clarke by his side.

She really is the best good fortune of all.

#maddyits2am

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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College Accounts at Birth: State Efforts Raise New Hopes Braylon Dedmon was 3 days old when his mother, Talasheia, was offered $1,000 to open a college savings account in his name. “I was like, ‘What?’” Ms. Dedmon recalled. Her skeptic’s antennae tingled. “I was a little scared.” Was this a scam? It wasn’t. The offer was the beginning of a far-reaching research project begun in Oklahoma 14 years ago to study whether creating savings accounts for newborns would improve their graduation rates and their chances of going to college or trade school years later. A few weeks after that initial conversation in 2007, the first statement arrived, showing $1,000 in Braylon’s name. “I was shocked,” said Ms. Dedmon, who now lives in Muskogee. “They started sending me statements every three months, and have been sending me them since then.” The experiment, called SEED for Oklahoma Kids or SEED OK, is one of a growing number of efforts by cities and states — governed by Democrats and Republicans alike — to help a new generation climb the educational ladder and build assets. This study and others aren’t finished, but at a time when the gap between the richest sliver of Americans and everyone else is growing, the results have been encouraging. Research about the Oklahoma project published this month by the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, which created SEED OK, found that families that had been given accounts were more college-focused and contributed more of their own money than those that hadn’t been. And the effects are strongest among low-income families. The approach breaks with most social policy programs created over the last half-century, which focus on income supplements. Child savings accounts, by contrast, concentrate on accumulating assets over the long term. Michael Sherraden, the founder of the center at Washington University, said the idea was to give everyone a stake — an investment — in the future. Benefits of the program extend not just to bank accounts but also to behavior. Households with the seed money — especially poorer ones with parents who did not attend college — have greater expectations about higher education, are more optimistic, have lower rates of depression and save more. College savings accounts known as 529 plans, which restrict withdrawals and grow tax-free, are used by only a tiny share of American households, mostly in the upper reaches of the income ladder. The Oklahoma program is widening that reach. The 1,300-plus children who were chosen at random to be given accounts in 2007 had an average of $3,243 saved by the end of 2019. Among the control group — another 1,300 children who were randomly selected to take part but were not given any money — only 4 percent had an account. Parents of children with accounts were also roughly five times as likely to contribute money as those in the control group. Without the SEED OK account, Ms. Dedmon acknowledged, “I never would have put a thought about saving toward college.” When Braylon was born, Ms. Dedmon was 21. At the time, she said, she did not understand that savings in a bank would generate interest income. Afterward, when she had some extra money, she added to Braylon’s account. “He told me he was going to college,” Ms. Dedmon said, and with the money he has been accumulating, “when he’s 18, he’ll be all set.” The first of seven children in her family to graduate from college, Ms. Dedmon is planning to return to school in the fall to become a pharmacist. She hopes that she and her husband will eventually have enough money to start college accounts for their two younger children. Today in Business Updated April 26, 2021, 6:10 p.m. ET “The big thing is how a stock of assets can change the attitudes of mothers and kids,” said Ray Boshara, a senior adviser for the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “College accounts change their attitude about their ability to go to college.” “A relatively small intervention has potential to change economic outcomes,” he added. “And it has a bigger impact among people of color.” Proposals at the federal level to establish savings accounts at birth, for college, homes, business or retirement savings, go back to the 1990s. Some of those efforts garnered Republican support, but more recent versions, like a plan by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey to create “baby bonds” for newborns, have primarily been backed by Democrats. Mr. Sherraden, who developed the idea three decades ago in his book “Assets and the Poor,” has been pushing for savings accounts, also known as development accounts, that would automatically be opened for every child born in the United States. Canada, Israel, South Korea and Singapore have established versions of the idea. “We need to create structures to enable people to accumulate assets over the long term,” Mr. Sherraden said. He argues that a universal program is necessary to sustain political support, but that it would nonetheless deliver disproportionate gains at the lower end of the economic spectrum. “You will reduce the difference in the gap between the highest and lowest group over time,” he said. In Maine, the private Harold Alfond Foundation started offering every child born in the state a $500 grant in 2009. Mr. Alfond, who founded the Dexter Shoe Company before selling it to Warren E. Buffett, had been writing a $500 check to each of his newborn grandchildren. “Why shouldn’t every Maine baby receive what my grandchildren have?” he said in starting the program. So far 116,000 children in the state have been awarded a total of $58 million. Additional family contributions total $114 million. In recent years, state legislatures have adopted the idea. Pennsylvania, in 2018, was the first to adopt legislation to create accounts for all children born in the state — about 140,000 each year — seeded with a $100 deposit. Last year, Nebraska started enrolling each baby born in the state in its 529 program. There is no grant money yet, but starting next year families with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty line will get matching funds for contributions. And this year Illinois started giving each newborn an account with $50. California has allocated $25 million for a similar program. Rhode Island and Nevada are among the states that have established child development account programs. There are several other programs of varying scope and size across the United States, according to the nonprofit group Prosperity Now. Several programs include incentives and subsidies for lower-income families, which are disproportionately Black and Latino. Automatic enrollment in a saving program, with the ability to opt out, turns out to have a much higher participation rate than relying on individuals to take the initiative. In the first years of the Maine program, when families had to open accounts themselves, participation never rose above 50 percent. In 2013, the Alfond Foundation switched to automatic enrollment, and since then, pretty much every newborn in the state has gotten an account. William Elliott III, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan and a co-author of “Making Education Work for the Poor,” said knowledge about how to administer savings accounts and their impact had jumped over the last decade. “It’s one of the best delivery systems” to help low-income children build assets and direct them toward college, Mr. Elliott said. He added that there was more rigorous data on the positive impact of child savings accounts than there was on student loans, government Pell grants and free college. “A savings account for a low-income kid means a lot more to them than it does for a wealthy kid,” Mr. Elliott said, and establishing it early can transform expectations about the future. Kandynace Boyd, who lives in Oklahoma City, hasn’t been able to contribute any additional money to her son Manuel’s account. She works part time in an acute care facility and is struggling to keep up with bills. But she said Manuel, 13, was already talking about going to culinary school. “He’s got nearly $2,000 in it,” she said of the account. “I wish I could do it for my other two kids.” Source link Orbem News #Accounts #Birth #college #efforts #hopes #raise #state

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pashpops · 4 years ago

Photo

LVLMAX

Debuted in 2007 as fresh-faced youngsters and back in action after completing their military service, LVLMAX are either a legendary senior group or washed up tryhards who can't accept their glory days are over, depending who you ask. But despite all odds, they've stayed together through enlistment, scandals, botched cosmetic surgery and 3 flop releases in a row. (Those odds might be pushed in their favour by a deliriously obsessive domestic and international fanbase and just enough nostalgia appeal/name recognition for the general public that they continue to sell out stadiums despite not charting in 4 years.)

Members: Duyeon/Big D (leader), San, Justin (fake maknae), Min, Jintaek, Daero (maknae), Sangwoo

Fandom name: Hundreds

Stage Name: Duyeon/Big D Birth Name: Kim Duyeon Position: Leader, Vocalist, Composer, Lyricist, Rapper Birthday: 1987 Zodiac: Leo Height: 179cm Weight: kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: Black Favourite Food: Good coffee Least Favourite Food: Bad coffee Hobbies: Writing music, DJing, making mixtapes

Facts: - LVLMAX’s musical genius, writes a lot of their music. - Very serious and passionate about his work as he is aware that everyone views him as “just an idol”. He tends to be very pushy about the “Real Artiste” thing, even when writing stupid pop songs about getting drunk and partying. - Self-proclaimed “hopeless romantic”, his groupmates prefer “idiot who falls in love at first sight”. - Ideal type at debut: someone tall and slender, with a nice smile. Ideal type now: someone with a beautiful voice.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Serial monogamist, very clingy and emotionally fragile. Has nearly gotten married about 4 times, but luckily none have happened or even made news, mostly due to San and Justin begging him not to reveal his relationships until they reach the 2 year mark. - Doesn’t have many sasaengs and didn’t even in their boom era because he would just stand outside and complain about his hardships and lecture those who would crowd around their dorm until they got bored and left on their own.

Stage Name: San Birth Name: Lee Minsoo Position: Rapper, Vocal Birthday: 1988 Zodiac: Cancer Height: 183cm Weight: 89kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: Light blue Favourite Food: Fatty beef Least Favourite Food: Protein shake Hobbies: Working out, video games, watching scifi movies

Facts: - Looks wild and hypermasculine on stage, but he’s actually quite mild-mannered. - Got picked on a lot in middle school for being into nerdy things, so he started working out, and was on the cover of a men’s magazine within a month of debut. - Still into nerdy things and has a reputation of being either the most entertaining member on variety or the absolutely most boring, with no in between. - Nicknamed “Mama-San” because he’s always fussing and worrying over his members and famously started crying on TV when talking about when Daero was called for his military service. His manly looks combined with his delicate tears became a huge meme, to the point where people who don’t even know who he is use the screencaps and gifs from that show as reaction images. - Ideal type at debut: someone smart and talkative. Ideal type now: someone strong-willed and who shares his interests.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Worries about Daero the most because he’s seen him get in lots of relatively minor trouble and doesn’t want him to get involved in serious shit just because he’s too naive to say no. His famous tears were more because he wouldn’t be able to look after him in the military than just the fact he had to go.

Stage Name: Justin Birth Name: Justin Park Position: Vocals, Dancer, Fake Maknae Birthday: 1989 Zodiac: Capricorn Height: 172cm Weight: kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: Pink Favourite Food: Candy Least Favourite Food: Pickles Hobbies: Girl group dances, making up new aegyo, teasing Minwei

Facts: - Born in Houston, Texas, but moved to Korea 13 years ago. - Was the industry’s #1 It Boy during LVLMAX’s debut and boom era, and has not changed his personality or style since then. - Infamous for his crossdressing, girl group dances, and extreme aegyo. - Well known as the industry’s “rumour factory”. Especially loves dating rumours about himself. - On every single variety show you can think of and a few more plus. - Used to have long platinum blonde hair during their debut and boom era, but had to cut it as it was literally melting off. His fans were distraught at the time, but they’re gradually coming around to the fact that he looks better with shorter hair anyway. - His predebut photos have become kind of a punchline because of how different he looks in them, having had his jaw shaved, his nose and eyes done multiple times, and his chin and cheeks changing shape every few years. He’s mostly settled into this face, but he posts with such heavy filters on social media that people can’t really tell if he’s going to change it or has already changed it. - Ideal type at debut: a pretty noona with lots of aegyo. Ideal type: the same

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Desperately, desperately wants his boom era popularity back, but can’t comprehend why doing the same old cringe shit he did back in the day isn’t working. - Knows he’s a shipping magnet and that he got a large part of his popularity from people who ship him with Daero, but Daero has proven popular by himself, and he doesn’t like that Daero calls him “hyung” despite them only being a few months apart because it makes him sound old. - Convinced that Subi of DTSY saying he was her ideal type but then taking it back just means that she’s a tsundere playing hard-to-get, and he will NOT stop bringing it up. - Very, very vain. - Best friends with Minwei, but also a little jealous of his late boom of popularity.

Stage Name: Min Birth Name: Li Minwei Position: Main Vocal Birthday: 1989 Zodiac: Pisces Height: 180cm Weight: kg Blood Type: A Favourite Colour: Forest green Favourite Food: Anything super spicy and aromatic Least Favourite Food: Anything dairy Hobbies: Writing music, playing video games, teasing Justin

Facts: - Originally from Chengdu, but he’s lived in Seoul since debut and people can hardly tell he has an accent any more. - Got a lot of panda-related things during their debut and boom period and got into a fairly big scandal for donating all of it to a local preschool. His words were “I never even said I liked pandas. You assumed it because I’m Chinese, isn’t that wrong? It’s not that I don’t appreciate gifts from fans, but please think about the feelings of others.”. To this day he still has a contingent of antis because of how “ungrateful” and “overly sensitive” he was, but he’s stopped getting panda gifts, so he considers it worthwhile. - Even though he has a shy and quiet image, he gets quite rowdy and mouthy on variety, and has started to overtake Justin on variety show appearances because of how funny and outrageous his “no bullshit, just facts” behind-the-scenes stories are. - Ideal type at debut: someone gentle and understanding. Ideal type now: the same, but also someone who’s smart with money.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Was so upset by the panda gift scandal that he considered leaving the group, but the other members, especially Sangwoo and Jintaek, convinced him to stay. To this day it’s still the only time the group has ever fractured, and he’s very glad he decided to stay because his popularity has only grown since. - Feels a little sorry for Justin because they’re best friends but he doesn’t know how to tell him to change his act up without making him angry or having him assume he’s trying to sabotage him.

Stage Name: Jintaek Birth Name: Han Jintaek Position: Vocalist, Visual Birthday: 1987 Zodiac: Taurus Height: 190cm Weight: 70kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: Silver Favourite Food: Grilled chicken Least Favourite Food: Pungent foods Hobbies: Modelling, photography, cooking

Facts: - Better known as an actor to the public than an idol, and better known for being incredibly tall and having super long legs than as an actor. - Although he has a cool and chic image, he’s actually very warm and kind and is known to convert even the most staunch hater into a fan just with one short conversation. - Advocate for mental health, has admitted to suffering from depression and anxiety and wants to change the way people speak about mental health to destigmatise what he believes shouldn’t be a thing people are scared about talking about. - Ideal type at debut: none. Ideal type now: someone trustworthy and proud.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - More than just depression and anxiety, he was suicidal as a teenager and once tried to kill himself rather than go to school the next day. Luckily, he was saved by his older brother who had just happened to sneak into his room to borrow something from him. To this day he still thinks about how much his brother cried while apologising for not understanding how he felt, and made a vow that he would try his best to be more open about his feelings and to replace those memories in his brother’s mind with happy ones instead. - Whenever he has dark thoughts, he cooks. He’s especially good at plating food, as he feels the perfect presentation can make even the most average dish seem spectacular. - Known to stick to Daero a lot, which makes a lot of people ship them. The truth is that Daero just has a high body temperature while Jintaek is always cold, and Daero is more than happy to cuddle for warmth.

Stage Name: Daero Birth Name: Yun Daero Position: Main Rapper, Main Dancer, Maknae Birthday: 1990 Zodiac: Pisces Height: 180cm Weight: kg Blood Type: O Favourite Colour: Red Favourite Food: Hamburgers Least Favourite Food: Tripe, anything with too much fat Hobbies: Working out, drawing, fashion and hair styling

Facts: - Has 20 piercings! - Has a rough and tough image on stage, but he’s actually very soft and gentle and a bit of a coward. - Despite all his piercings, he’s too scared to get a tattoo. - Even though he and Justin are about the same age, he still calls Justin “hyung”, to Justin’s dismay. - Very cuddly, loves skinship and hugs. His favourite thing is when people ruffle his hair and tell him that he did a good job, which they did a lot more back when he was the cute maknae, and not so much now after he’s returned from the army and gotten his nose bridge piercing, to his dismay. - Ideal type at debut: noona. Ideal type now: someone patient and kind.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Of his 20 piercings, 2 of them are through his nipples, and 1 is a frenum piercing (that is, just under the glans of his penis). He is heavily considering more genital piercings, but it’s hard to find the time off to let them heal. - Not very bright, and is easily convinced by others. This makes him a great target on variety, even though sometimes he’s still too dumb to realise that he’s the butt of the joke. - Gets into the stupidest scandals possible, like driving a forklift unlicensed.

Stage Name: Sangwoo Birth Name: Kim Sangwoo Position: Main Vocal Birthday: 1987 Zodiac: Virgo Height: 178cm Weight: kg Blood Type: B Favourite Colour: Light blue Favourite Food: Samgyeopsal Least Favourite Food: Limes Hobbies: Reading, hiking, singing

Facts: - LVLMAX’s ballad and OST king. - Like Daero, famous for his “gap” between his on and off stage personas. He has a dark and brooding persona on stage, but he has a fresh and simple aesthetic in his everyday life. - He’s very serious at all times and is often the unwilling “straight man” on variety. - Suffered a lot of trauma during LVLMAX’s boom era because of sasaengs who broke into their dorms and stole his personal belongings and antis who constantly sent him threatening messages and one who almost killed him by cutting the brakes of his car. - Ideal type at debut: Someone who looks cool on the outside but is innocent and kind on the inside. Ideal type now: Someone who has their own career and family so isn’t worried about being together all the time.

BEHIND THE SCENES DATA: - Because of his traumatic experiences with sasaengs and antis, he’s become very suspicious of everyone he meets and is paranoid whenever he’s in public. Because of this behaviour, he’s also become known as someone who’s very cold to fans.

#group: LVLMAX #c: Duyeon #c: San #c: Justin #c: Min #c: Jintaek #c: Daero #c: Sangwoo #profile

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cmbynreviews · 7 years ago

Text

"Call Me by Your Name" and extraordinary beauty of ordinary love

What would it feel like to see a carefree gay boy on the big screen? American cinema about gay men has generally fallen into several fairly hardened categories: personal struggle (Moonlight and Brokeback Mountain), the devastation of the AIDS crisis (Philadelphia, Angels in America), the battle for rights (The Normal Heart and Milk, which ends with real-life pioneer Harvey Milk’s assassination), over-the-top extravaganza (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, the filmography of John Waters). This is not to say that all these movies aren’t great or don’t express real pathos about what it means to be gay in the world – they are and they do. But what would it look like if a gay movie was, well, just kind of regular?

We inch closer to a portrayal of unencumbered gayness in the upcoming film Call Me by Your Name, directed by Luca Guadagnino and based on a 2007 novel by André Aciman. Even with its plainspoken and gentle portrait of gay love, the movie has already garnered the kind of buzz generally reserved for more serious or more campy films, emerging as the breakout success at Sundance, and attracting early Oscar buzz. The story revolves around a young man of seventeen, Elio Perlman, played with masterful poise by the relative newcomer Timothée Chalamet, and the will-they-won’t-they of his infatuation with Armie Hammer’s Oliver, who is staying at Elio’s family’s Italian villa as a research assistant for the Perlman father, a professor. When Elio is at last ready to profess his desire for Oliver, he does so forcefully, and without shame or embarrassment when Oliver, at first, rebuffs him. It’s not that there isn’t tension in the movie – indeed, the sexual anxiety between the two young men, who sleep one room away from each other connected by a creaky hallway, is jittery in the best way – but it evokes the type of butterflies that every kind of kid, with every kind of sexuality, has when they meet that first person who makes their heart beat faster. “Oliver and Elio are really free creatures”, says Guadagnino. “I hope that this movie defies the idea that in order to be expressing your own identity you have to fit into a mold”.

Of course, Elio isn’t just any boy anywhere: He is a privileged one, surrounded by bourgeois comforts and loving parents, an atmosphere that allows him a safe space for finding himself that, say, Moonlight’s Chiron never has access to in his struggle for self-realization. It is 1983, too, the year that AIDS first appeared in a headline on the front page of the New York Times, but before it ravaged entire cities and changed the way we think about sex lives. Over the past two decades, Guadagnino, 46, has won praise for the sheer beauty of his movies, like I Am Love and A Bigger Splash, which are filled with wealthy characters in gorgeous Italian settings. Call Me by Your Name takes place in its own isolated fantasia, a fabulous Italian utopia filled with peach trees, red wine, and fish so big that it takes two hands to carry them into the kitchen. “We wanted it to be perfect”, Guadagnino says. The big old house that the film was shot in is in Crema, three miles from Guadagnino’s own home, which he shares with his partner of ten years, Ferdinando. (“My relationship is renewing itself every day. Every day is like a new day and the first day. And I’m not saying that to be, like, cheesy but it’s true”, he says lovingly of his partner.) He had originally wanted to purchase the house for himself, but couldn’t quite afford it, so instead, still moved by its beauty, he gave it a life onscreen.

But Chalamet is the revelation. The skinny 21-year-old born-and-raised New Yorker is a subtle if eye-catching presence in his previous work, including as the young son of Matthew McConaughey’s character in 2015’s Interstellar. Here, he is the heart and soul. “We had a lunch together a few years ago and this young man was so vivid that I was immediately attracted by him”, says Guadagnino. “Young people have a capacity of wonderment that I am really drawn to. I like wonderment. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Can he act or not?’ I was more thinking, ‘This is the embodiment of Elio.’ ” Act he can, though: So poignantly does he play the anticipation of first love that often he doesn’t even need words; his shyness about Oliver sometimes keeps him from speaking his mind, but every muscle, eye twitch, frustrated collapse into bed, and sigh expresses perfectly what it’s like to love someone and, for so many reasons, not yet know what to do about it. Elio and Oliver are bonded by being Jewish in a place where the religion is practically nonexistent, and even the way Elio plays with his Star of David necklace, worn to match Oliver’s, is evocative. “It’s about letting the characters be without hinging on performance of the lines”, Guadagnino says. “Once you make the screen breathe with life, you can get to the place in which tension grows”.

There are sex scenes in the movie, too, and in this way, perhaps Call Me by Your Name’s closest analogue is a movie not about gay men, but about gay women: 2013’s French film Blue Is the Warmest Color. But the emphasis is not on lovemaking as much as it is on the flirtatious dance between Oliver and Elio that goes on before and after the hookup. “I wasn’t trying to display erotic acts for the sake of it”, Guadagnino says. The climax doesn’t involve sex at all, but a father-to-son conversation about love and pain that serves as something of the thesis for the movie. After Elio’s Italian mother, Annella (played by a sage Amira Casar), and American father, Mr. Perlman (played by a sweet Michael Stuhlbarg), realize what is going on between their son and Oliver, Mr. Perlman deals with it in a way so poetic and generous and empathetic that it almost feels unreal, particularly if you are a gay man who did not slide so comfortably out of the closet. “I never really came out. I was lucky enough to be who I wanted to be without any hiding ever. [But] maybe people can adopt Elio’s dad as their own if they go through a difficult time with their fathers”, Guadagnino says. The scene is completely counterintuitive to how we expect to see fathers deal with their sons, and though it’s sad to admit in 2017, it still feels almost shocking to see its warmth and tenderness. “It’s about compassion, trust, wisdom”.

Guadagnino is aware of the hard work that earlier films put in to prime theatergoers for the intimacy of Call Me by Your Name. “Audiences were ready for something as sophisticated as the great Moonlight”, he says of the Barry Jenkins–directed movie that won last year’s Best Picture award for its gutting portrayal of a black gay upbringing in Miami, “so I think that a great work of art arrives when it needs to arrive”. And now is the time for Call Me by Your Name, a complicated-but-not-too-complicated ode to the joy of gay love. “I think it’s about not judging the other. That’s something that is interesting to me”, he says. “Not that I don’t think there aren’t unspeakable acts of intolerance all over the world, but I think we really need expressions of tenderness. Maybe this is a powerful political statement. So many walls have been built, but this movie is my way to build bridges”.

ALEX FRANK | THE VILLAGE VOICE | 12 Sep 2017

#Call Me by Your Name #Guadagnino #timothee chalamet #armie hammer #andre aciman #james ivory #reviews #CMBYN #Chiamami col tuo nome #Elio #Oliver #Perlman

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ifuckinglovestvincent · 8 years ago

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THE GUARDIAN: St. Vincent: ‘I’m in deep nun mode’

For years, the Grammy winner was best known for her experimental music. Then dating Cara Delevingne put her in the spotlight. What’s next, asks Tom Lamont? Saturday 19 August 2017 06.00 EDT The musician St Vincent, a 34-year-old Texan whose real name is Annie Clark, is talking about body piercings. Though her outfit today includes such exotic items as a leopardskin onesie and a pink blazer made of some sort of wetsuit fabric, Clark doesn’t have any outlandish piercings herself; she just has droll and strong opinions about them, as she has droll and strong opinions about a lot of things. “Didn’t it always make you laugh,” Clark says, already laughing, softly, in the museum in London where we meet one summer afternoon, “how people in the 90s who had, like, tongue rings? How they’d always make some sort of comment, intimating that it made them, like, better at oral sex? That was the whole wink-wink thing, right? That a tongue ring meant they were kinda kinky? But then, I guess the challenge – because they were constantly fidgeting with this gross thing in their mouth! I guess the challenge became: no one wanted to get head from them.” She hoots with amusement, just loud enough to turn heads in the hushed museum. Conversation with Clark is like this: a bit unexpected, a bit arch, a bit sexy. She sometimes speaks so slowly and carefully it’s as if she’s reviewing individual words before committing to them. But, as with the lyrics of the songs she writes as St Vincent – always inventive, always making disarming leaps between ideas – you can never predict where her thinking will travel next. Quickly the chat about oral sex gives way to the matter of her own death, and her expectations of a brisk cremation. Before I know quite how, she’s got me talking about an irrational fear of being buried alive. “Get cremated!” she urges. I ask Clark – who will soon release her fifth solo album, a follow-up to 2014’s self-titled St Vincent – why she suggested we meet in London’s Wellcome Collection, to combine our interview with a tour around the museum’s collection of antique medical equipment. Clark peers with interest at a display of old enema syringes and explains that in every unfamiliar city, “you should try to see something real and strange”. It was something the Talking Heads frontman David Byrne once advised her about touring the world, and she’s stuck to it ever since. So far I’ve enjoyed the kind of success where I might get a free appetiser sent to my table. But it’s never a main That phrase – “real and strange” – describes Clark’s appeal as a musician. She is a generational talent on guitar, one of those poised, unperspiring types who can do the manually ludicrous while hardly appearing to try. Seen live, Clark’s fingers flit over the strings of her instrument with utmost precision – that’s the real in her. The strange comes via the writing and the composition, which on her four St Vincent albums since 2007 have tended towards the experimental and jagged-edged. Lyrically, she might choose a thing (prostitution, CCTV surveillance, prescription drugs) and then chew it over in repetitive, often anguished ways, before elevating the mood with a sudden joke. “Oh, what an ordinary day!” she sang on a track from her last album. “Take out the garbage… Masturbate.” Genre labels won’t stick to her. Song to song, Clark might channel Björk then Iron Maiden, then belt out a disco number before pretending to be a fey, shoe-gazing whisper-singer. In the manner of FKA twigs or Héloïse “Christine and the Queens” Letissier, she is a performance artist as much as she is a performer; last year Clark played a gig dressed as a toilet, complete with cistern, protruding bowl and flush. And like twigs, who for many years has been in a relationship with the Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, Clark has managed to cultivate a shadowy, unknowable persona while at the same time dating a wildly high-profile superstar. For 18 months or so, until a break-up made public last summer, Clark was going out with Cara Delevingne, arguably the best-known model in the world.

St Vincent and Glass Animals play in London, February 2014. Photograph: London News Pictures/Rex In the museum, while leaning over a glass display of clay death masks and shrunken human heads, we discuss Clark’s scaling achievements as St Vincent. From album to album, over a decade, her sales as well as her reviews have improved in happy tandem. The most recent album, 2014’s St Vincent, was her best to date, a wild, raucous thing, written in part during Ambien-soaked nights on tour, that eventually won her a Grammy. “It sounds like a very Pollyanna-ish thing to say,” Clark says, “but my ethos has always been to just make the music that I hear in my head. And I’ve been incredibly lucky, so far, that that’s seemed to correspond to external progress.” Where does she place herself right now in the music industry? “So far I’ve enjoyed the kind of success where I might get, like, a free appetiser sent to my table,” Clark says. “And that’s awesome, I’m thrilled by that.” She fixes a level gaze before adding: “But it’s never a main.” A word about her hair. Three years ago, while touring and promoting that self-titled record, Clark had a fantastic and unforgettable do – a triangular mountain of silver-bleached curls that made her look, in her own words, “like a scary cult leader”. I half-expected her to show up that way today, under the same teetering pile of silver, but Clark says the bleach killed off that haircut years back. She had to shear off her frazzled curls, “and then my look was less cult leader, more ‘Why do you have a rodent on your head?’” She has a flair for naming her own haircuts, having cycled through such past constructions as “the Audrey Hepburn with anger issues” and “the Nick Cave minus the receding hairline”, and when I ask about the straightened black parting she has today, Clark decides: “I want to call this one… the Lara-Flynn-Boyle-in-the-90s.” She isn’t quite such a speedy creator of names for her albums. The new LP still doesn’t have a title. I’ve heard about two-thirds of it and it’s superb – the same appealing, enigmatic, genre-spliced collision of ideas and influences that St Vincent fans cherish, only this time with a sleeker, more accessible through-line that ought to further expand her listenership. Some of the tracks, such as the scratchy, stirring Hang On Me, would work as well over the titles of a grand HBO drama as played through fizzing speakers in a dive bar. There are moments of peculiar, wonderful poetry. “Sometimes I feel like an inland ocean,” Clark sings, on a track called Smoking Section. “Too big to be a lake, too small to be an attraction.” A number of the songs certainly sound as though they pick over the end of a serious relationship, in particular an astonishing meta-epic she has written called LA, which seems to be about a break-up (“How can anybody have you and lose you and not lose their mind, too?”), while at the same time being about a fiercely avant garde musician’s reluctance to do anything as obvious as write about a break-up. “I guess that’s just me, honey, I guess that’s how I’m built,” Clark sings, “I try to write you a love song but it comes out in a melt.” Delevingne would be the most likely identity of “honey” here. But Clark is far too cool in person – and too determinedly non-specific as a lyricist – to admit to anything like that. “I don’t love it when musicians speak about their records being ‘diaries’ or ‘therapy’,” she says. “It removes that level of deep instinct and imagination that is necessary in order to make something that transcends.” She adds that such ways of talking too often become “erroneously gendered, in the sense that the assumption from the culture at large is that women only know how to write things autobiographically, or diaristically, which is a sexist way of implying that they lack imagination.” This being said, Clark concedes, “my whole life is in this record. And this is one of the first interviews I’ve done about it. And I guess I haven’t 100% figured out how to talk about it. I mean…” She laughs suddenly, a brilliant, solemnity-shattering hoot. Clark is aware there will be an assumption that a lot of her new songs are about her ex. “I’ve really got to figure this out, right? If I’m going to ever be able to talk about the record?” As is her custom whenever she’s finalising an album, Clark has currently placed herself in what she calls “deep nun mode”. Single. Work-focused. “Completely monastic. Sober, celibate – full nun.” I’m pretty sure she’s joking when she adds, in her slow, funny, unpredictable way, ��I mean there are always sex plans. But none for, like, a month.”

Photograph: Arcin Sagdic for the Guardian Clark was born in 1982, briefly an Oklahoman before her parents separated and Clark relocated with her mother and two older sisters to a suburb of Dallas, Texas. “My mom was a social worker. She dedicated her life to doing very admirable things. One of my sisters more or less followed on that path, making the world a better place. But I did not.” Though Clark would see her father during school holidays, she describes her teenage years as “matri-focal”. She was surrounded mostly by women. “And Mom’s mantra was: ‘We girls can do anything.’ She didn’t explicitly call it feminism, but it was baked into our DNA.” Her mother had a quirky, creative streak. Once, after she’d accidentally crashed the family car, she was so intrigued by the aesthetics of the wreck, she climbed out to take photographs of it. “There was probably a picture taken of me and my sisters every day of our childhood. Have I seen any of those pictures? No. Has she gotten them developed? Mostly not. It was just her way of feeling safe, I guess, as if things would last for ever because she had documentation of it.” Is Clark the same in her songwriting? Documenting and so holding on to vanishing events and feelings? “I’m trying to get rid of things,” Clark laughs. “I’m trying to expel them.” We walk to Regent’s Park, where the warm weather and an outdoor art show have drawn a milling crowd. A sculpture installed by the park entrance resembles a tall pile of replica footballs. Fitting, as Clark was quite a player when she was young, soccer one of an eclectic assembly of high-school interests. “I was probably insufferable. I was the president of the theatre club, the kid who put Bertrand Russell quotes on their wall.” When I ask who her friends were at the time, she does not hesitate: “Oh, the sluts and the weirdos.”

Clothes from a selection, garethpughstudio.com. Styling: Priscilla Kwateng. Stylist’s assistant: Stanislava Sihelska. Hair: Stephen Beaver at Artists & Company. Makeup: Dele Olo. Photograph: Arcin Sagdic for the Guardian Music was her main obsession. “I was a 10-year-old fan of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, and I would’ve got into a fistfight defending them. Art mattered.” Her maternal uncle, Tuck Andress, was a touring musician, half of a jazz duo called Tuck & Patti, and during the summer Clark graduated from high school he gave her a job assisting his band on tour. Clark enrolled at a music college in Boston after that and lasted a couple of years before dropping out and heading back out on the road, this time as a musician in her own right. She toured successfully as part of the expansive, experimental band the Polyphonic Spree and later as a guitarist for Sufjan Stevens. She’s always been a political liberal – these days, one in mourning over last November’s election (“I feel like we watched America vote on their daddy issues”) as well as the reign of President Trump, a man she refers to as “a cartoon yeast infection”. As early as her teenage years, Clark had to get accustomed to the fact that a great many political and social norms, predominant in the suburbs where she grew up, were not her norms. She believes in the essential fluidity of sexuality and of gender. (“Boys!” she sings on a new track called Sugarboy, “I am a lot like you. Girls! I am a lot like you.”) “The mutability of gender and sexuality, as you can probably imagine – that was not a prevalent subject in the suburbs of Dallas when I was growing up. Not even a little bit! And no shade on it now. I love Texas, I’m there all the time seeing family. But I was always gonna get out of there. It felt imperative that I get out of there.” I can only write about my life, and dating Cara was a big part of my life In her 20s she moved to New York, borrowing the name St Vincent from one of the city’s hospitals, by way of its mention in a Nick Cave song. (St Vincent’s hospital was where “Dylan Thomas died drunk”, as Cave sang in There She Goes, My Beautiful World.) She released a debut record called Marry Me in 2007 and toured it through Europe to dispiritingly inattentive audiences, carrying away from London a special memory of “playing in a pub where you definitely couldn’t hear me over the crowd”. Between her next couple of records, Actor (2009) and Strange Mercy (2011), her career really started to take off. She performed on US chatshows; wrote and wrote; founded an influential creative relationship with Byrne, after he approached her at one of her gigs. “I was kind of stunned,” Byrne later said, of seeing Clark play guitar for the first time. The pair would collaborate on a celebrated 2012 album, Love This Giant. By the time her 2014 album won the Grammy for best alternative album, Clark was entitled to ask, as she did ask: “Alternative to what?” Prince came to one of her shows, and she was invited to guest-guitar for the surviving members of Nirvana, later for Taylor Swift. As an award nominee at the Brits in spring 2015, Clark came and went on the arm of Delevingne – and pretty much overnight her public persona became a curious, split thing. As St Vincent, she was a fiercely respected musician, patiently fattening a fanbase in the most honourable way, by writing and recording and touring hard. As the “secret girlfriend” (Metro) who was “secretly dating” (Mirror) Delevingne, she was tabloid feed. Clark saw first-hand what it was like for somebody she cared about to be “hounded, hassled, hacked – all of that stuff”.

‘Certain levels of fame are unenviable’: with Talking Heads’ David Byrne “Having seen certain levels of fame,” Clark tells me, “having been, y’know, fame adjacent… That in and of itself seems very hectic to me. If it’s a natural byproduct of doing what it is you love? Then great. But there are certain levels of fame that I’ve seen, just by proxy, that are unenviable.” If the upward trend of her music continues, she might find herself in a similar place, whether willed or not. Clark shrugs. “I can’t control any of that stuff. So what am I gonna do? I’m just gonna keep making music. I know this is another Pollyanna answer, but it’s about the music. Did I write better songs than on the last album? Did I sing them better? Did I play better guitar? Did I connect?” Maybe it was that I heard a low-quality version of the track, but on a new-album song called Pills there was a minor failure to connect. I misheard the song as having a lyric about somebody being “defamed by fame”, something I took to refer to Clark’s 18-month stretch in a celebrity relationship and all the demeaning wrangling with paparazzi and gossip bloggers that must have entailed. Clark looks panicked and says, no, the lyric was about someone being “de-fanged by fame… What I was referring to was that people’s art sometimes suffers when they get into that too-big-to-fail mindset. How things get really boring when people get too risk-averse, or too comfortable, or when they have overheads that are too high.” She can’t seem to get my mishearing of the lyric out of her head, though. “Oh!” she says eventually. “Maybe ‘defamed by fame’ is better?” For a moment she seems to be wondering how quickly she can sprint to Heathrow from here, and fly back to America to rerecord it. In the end she decides she’ll let listeners hear what they want to hear. “There is no way to control how people perceive a song. And if you try to, my God, are you in for a sisyphean task.” In the park we walk up a promenade between neatly manicured flowerbeds. When we settle on a bench, Clark seems overawed. “This is so beautiful,” she says. “I love this. Do you know how hard we’d have to work, in the States, to keep something this beautiful this beautiful?”

With former partner Cara Delevingne in September 2015. Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Burberry She’s now ready to address the Delevingne quandary. When the new record is out, reference to her ex will be exhaustively scoured for – it’s already started to happen, as when Clark released a single called New York in June, and Vice responded with a think-piece: “Is St Vincent’s new track a love song for Cara Delevingne?” Nobody trawled through her past writing about CCTV surveillance, or masturbation, in quite that way. “Nuh uh,” Clark says. She takes a breath. “Right! Um. I’ve always kept my writing close to the vest. And by that I mean I’m always gonna write about my life. Sometimes, in the past, I did that way more obliquely than now. But it’s almost like an involuntary reflex. I can’t help but be living and also taking notes on what’s going on, always trying to figure out how to put that into a song. And that does not mean there’s literal truth in every lyric on the way. Of course not. But I can only write about my life, and that – dating Cara – was a big part of my life. I wouldn’t take it off-limits, just because my songs might get extra scrutiny. People would read into them what they would, and you know what? Whatever they thought they found there would be absolutely right. And at the same time it would be absolutely wrong.” Clark looks out across the park. “A song that means something very specific to me, a song in which I might be obliquely or otherwise exploring some really dark things, is a song that another person might hear and go: ‘Wow, this one really puts a smile on my face.’ I’m thrilled by that. I’m thrilled that people might take my songs into their life and make whatever suits them out of it.” Clark nods: done. She lets her gaze travel over the park, over the sculptures in the distance, a couple of which look like giant ice-cream cones. Earlier, she said that she’d got to a point in her career where strangers would send over free starters. If this new album does as well it should, I start to say… “I know, right?” Clark interrupts. “If I play my cards right? With this album? I might – get dessert.” She hoots. • St Vincent’s new single, New York, is out now through Loma Vista/Caroline International. • Opening photograph by Arcin Sagdic for The Guardian [ Source ]

#St Vincent #Annie Clark #the guardian #interviews

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shefa · 8 years ago

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When Will We Make the Time?

WHEN WILL WE MAKE THE TIME? SERMON YOM KIPPPUR YIZKOR 5778 – 2017 Rabbi Stephen Weiss, B’nai Jeshurun Congregation

One of my all-time favorite singers is Harry Chapin. It’s not that he had such a magnificent voice, or that his melodies were so rich, though they certainly are catchy and get stuck in my head. What makes Harry Chapin stand out above all the rest for me are his lyrics. Chapin had a magical way of using his songs to teach valuable life lessons. Okay, maybe not so much in his song “30,000 Pounds of Bananas,” though I love that song. But songs like “Flowers are Red,” which speaks to the importance of encouraging creativity and independent thought, manage to touch us deeply by uncovering every day truths that we too often overlook. Perhaps Chapin’s most famous song is “Cat’s Cradle.” It was in the top ten for 15 weeks back in 1974 and it was Chapin’s only number one hit, but 40 years later it remains a song almost everyone knows.

The song is about a father that is too busy to spend time with his son. As the son grows he asks his father to spend time with him, but the father always postpones the son’s request to the future. The son idolizes his father and wants to become like his father. At the end of the song, the father realizes his son has become like him. It is the son, now who has no time for his father. Throughout, the song is peppered with phrases of nursery rhymes to remind us how quickly this time is going by. Here are a few verses:

My child arrived just the other day. He came to the world in the usual way. But there were planes to catch and bills to pay. He learned to walk while I was away. He was talking before I knew it, and as he grew He said, “I’m going to be like you, Dad. You know I’m going to be like you.”

My son turned ten just the other day. He said, “Thanks for the ball, now come on let’s play. Can you teach me to throw?” I said, “Not today, I’ve got a lot to do.” He said, “That’s OK.” And he walked away and he smiled and he said “You know I’m going to be like you, Dad, You know I’m going to be like you.”

The final verse says:

I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away. I called him up just the other day. I said, “I’d like to see you, if you don’t mind.” He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I could find the time. You see, my new job’s a hassle and the kids have the flu, But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad. It’s been real nice talking to you.”

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, He’d grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.

That’s the song. But there is more to the story. Harry Chapin’s wife, Sandy, was the one who actually wrote the words to that song. Her poem was inspired by watching her ex-husband try to reconnect with his absent father. Harry wasn’t really interested in the poem until after their son Josh was born. It was then that he put the words top music. But sadly, Harry Chapin himself became the father in the song.

When their son was seven, Harry was performing 200 concerts a year. Sandy asked him “When are you going to spend some time with our son?” Harry promised he would make some time at the end of that summer. But he never made it. That summer, on his way to a business meeting, his car was rear-ended by a truck. The car burst into flames. Harry died in that accident before he could fulfill his promise to Sandy to make time with their son.

Just as in the song, I’m sure if Harry Chapin had it to do all over again, he would have used his time differently. The question we should be asking ourselves today is “How well do we use our time?”

We tend to live as if we had all the time in the world. But the Psalmist reminds us that is not so. In Psalm 90, we our lives are compared to the fragile grass: “In the morning it sprouts afresh, by nightfall it fades and withers.” Our time on earth is limited, and what we do with that time matters. We only have a finite amount of time to do the things that really count.

And yet we squander that time and let it slip away from us. We don’t mean to. It’s just that our lives are so busy. We rush after so many things: trying to get that job or promotion, launching a new business or project. There is shopping to do, and laundry. The house doesn’t just take care of itself. So many demands press in on us every day and it seems like there just aren’t enough hours to get it all done. At the end of the day we are so exhausted that it is hard to find the energy to do much else. As a result, we put off the very things that most deserve our time. But postponing life’s true priorities comes at a cost.

Too often we are like the farm boy, Joe, who accidentally overturned his wagonload of corn in the road. The farmer who lived nearby came to investigate. He offered to help the boy but he said to him, "Hey, Joe, forget your troubles for a spell and come on in and have dinner with us. Then I'll help you get the wagon up."

"That's mighty nice of you," Joe answered, "But I don't think Pa would like me to."

"Aw, come on, son!" the farmer insisted.

"Well, okay," the boy finally agreed. "But Pa won't like it."

After a hearty dinner, Joe thanked his host. "I feel a lot better now, but I just know Pa is going to be real upset."

"Don't be foolish!" exclaimed the neighbor.

"By the way, where is he?"

"Under the wagon."

How many times have we left a family member or friend “under the wagon,” knowing they need us but not making the time to be present for them?

According to a 2013 Pew Study, parents – no surprise – say they feel increasingly stressed about juggling work and family life. 56% of working moms and 50% of working dads say they find it very or somewhat difficult to balance these responsibilities. Though time with our children is thankfully on the rise, half of all fathers and one out of every four mothers say they spend too little time with their children.

A 2010 study in the Great Britain revealed that one in ten of us spends more time talking to our other half on the phone or by email than in we do in person. Couples now spend on average less than an hour a day talking while together, with one in five of us spending just fifteen minutes a day chatting in person. Fifteen minutes. More than a quarter of couples said they did not get the chance to have a proper chat until the weekend. That’s six days without spending meaningful time together.

We all know in our hearts that there is no replacement for spending time being fully present with others. Just ask the ingenious teenager who, tired of reading bedtime stories to his little sister, decided to record several of her favorite stories on tape. He told her, "Now you can hear your stories anytime you want. Isn't that great?" The little sister looked at the machine for a moment and then replied, "No, not really. It hasn't got a lap."

What those we care about need most from us is not things. What they need most is us. They need us to be fully present in their lives. If we are absent from our relationships how can we expect those relationships to flourish? If we fail to be present in the lives of those we love, how can we expect to them to feel our love and be transformed by it?

The same can be said for our relationship with God. A 2007 study found that the average American spends a total of three minutes on religious or spiritual activities on a normal weekday. Three minutes. No wonder then that we struggle to feel a relationship with God in our lives, or even to feel God’s presence at all. The Kotzker Rebbe taught “Where is God? Wherever we let him in.” The problem is that we don’t let him in very often.

It is not that we do not know what is important. We do know. If I asked you to list your priorities in life, most of you would not list shopping, or commuting, your job or your home. The proof that we know what is truly important is that toward the end of our lives we suddenly start scrambling to attend to all those things that we have ignored.

A rabbi waited in line to have his car filled with gas just before a long holiday weekend. It was a full-service station and the attendant worked quickly, but there were many cars ahead of him. Finally, the attendant motioned to him to move forward to a vacant pump. Rabbi, said the man, I’m sorry about the delay. It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip. The Rabbi chuckled. Oy. I know what you mean. It’s the same in my business!

That’s us isn’t it? Like the father in Harry Chapin’s song, suddenly, we get older, we realize what we are missing and we stand in line seeking to fill up on the love and good that we passed by so many times. We want to heal our broken relationships. We want to make up for lost time. The problem is, we can lose time but we can never restore it. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever The rabbis of our Talmud tell us that when we stand before God in heaven for judgment of our lives, we will be asked five questions:

Did you conduct your business honestly? Did you set times to study Torah? Did you engage in procreation? Did you hope for deliverance? Did you seek wisdom and discern one thing from another?

I think there is one more question God will ask us: How do you explain those times when projects and things were more important to you than people? If we want to be prepared to answer that question, we need to ask ourselves now: Who do we need to spend more time with? What do we need to cut out of our schedule to make that possible? What sacrifices do we need to make?

The psalmist pleads with God: “Teach us to number all our days, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” But God has already provided the teaching. It’s up to us to heed it.

Let me close with a poem by Charles Hanson Towne:

Around the corner I have a friend In this great city that has no end; Yet days go by, and weeks rush on, And before I know it, a year is gone. I never see my old friend’s face, For life is a swift and terrible race. He knows I like him just as well As in the days when I rang his bell And he rang mine. We were younger then, And now we are busy, tired men; Tired: with trying to make a name. “Tomorrow,” I say, “I will call on Jim. Just to show that I’m thinking of him.” But tomorrow comes – and tomorrow goes… And the distance between grows and grows. Around the corner! Yet miles away… “Here’s a telegram sir… Jim died today.” And that’s what we get, and deserve in the end. Around the corner, a vanished friend.”

So be present – truly present – in the lives of those you love now, because you just do not know how long you will have the opportunity. Circumstances change. People die. Children grow up. You have no guarantee of tomorrow. If you want to express love, you had better do it now.

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