#which was not known when the tweet was made/when I wrote the first draft of the fic back in march

[endercasts]

red blue light

this outfit, picked out by drakos:

combined with this:

turns into this drakos/ender fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48033475 (rated Mature for sexual content)

[mercuryonparklane]

Just decided to check my drafts for the first time in months and figured I may as well post some…

Honestly, I think I made a similar post a while back, but this little paragraph about Liz haunts me:

Where did the woman who wrote this in her book about Taylor get this info? Because it does match what a fan, who attended that 13 hour meet and greet Taylor did in 2010, said that Liz told him.

He said that Liz told him she met Taylor when she only had one song out (that song being “Tim McGraw):

So, if the author of that book is correct, this means it’s possible that Liz and Taylor met in summer 2006. Taylor played her first show in LA at Whisky a Go Go on July 24th, 2006 (yeah, this is the “Emily has a boyfriend…” show), which was almost exactly a year before she played the OC Fair (Liz was there with the radio station she was working for at the time), where this picture would be taken:

Liz tweeted about how the manager of The Runaways booked her first gig in West Hollywood when she was 15. So Liz was playing shows in West Hollywood, where Whisky a Go Go is located, years before Taylor played there. Being that Liz is a fan of country music and wanted to be a country singer, it’s possible that she was aware of that show (which was actually headlined by Jack Ingram). 

Here’s what Taylor said about how they met in an interview about the mv for TSOU:

Taylor said that she told Liz she should “audition for some TV talent show”. Lo and behold, Liz tried out for American Idol in August 2006, a couple weeks after Taylor’s first LA show. According to her vocal coach’s website, she made it to the Top 50. 

I have watched every video out there from the LA auditions-Top 50 from that season and I haven’t even seen a glimpse of her, but I did find this picture (where they spelled her name wrong):

And this comment someone made on a blog post about the LA auditions when that episode aired in January 2007:

That would match up for that LA show in July 2006 being the actual first time they met. Then, Liz supposedly went to the BI show in SB in December that year. The SB show was obviously after debut was released, but technically “Tim McGraw” was still the only single she had, so this could have still been their first meeting. 

So, possibly they met in July 2006 at the Whisky a Go Go show, where Liz could have sang for Taylor and Taylor suggested she try out for a talent show. Two weeks later, Liz tried out for AI. 4 months later she went to Taylor’s show at BI in SB. She then met Taylor again at the OC Fair show in July 2007. The next time they met, that we know of, was in February 2008 when Taylor performed on DW, the talent show that Liz competed on (this is when Taylor wrote the Myspace blog with the whole “there was always something different about her”). 

This is where it gets even more speculative... when Taylor was on DW, she insinuated that Liz had been going to her shows “all the time”:

One reviewer even went so far as to refer to Liz as a “Swift groupie” based on what Taylor said on the show:

To me, this makes it seems like they met more than just the two known times (at the BI and OC Fair shows) before Taylor’s DW appearance. Taylor played quite a few shows in California between July 2006 and February 2008. Liz worked for a country radio station for some of that time and was obviously a fan of Taylor, so it’s not that much of a stretch to say that it’s at least possible that she went to some of those other shows. 

Of course, the auditions for DW were in September 2007, so it could have been the OC fair show where Liz actually sang for Taylor and Taylor encouraged her to try out for a talent show. Liz did try out for DW a few months later. Then, coincidentally, Taylor just so happened to perform on an episode of the show and was the only musical guest (aside from the High School Musical cast, which makes sense because Disney owns ABC). Of course, Julianne was there that night, as well, watching her then fiancé compete on the show.

I know I have mentioned this before, but there is potentially so much missing between whatever date it was when they actually first met and when Liz first performed with Taylor. It seems so different from how she met pretty much every other person who has ever been in her band. It would be such a wild coincidence if Liz really went in to the audition to be Taylor’s backup singer with no clue as to who she was auditioning for. And maybe it doesn’t mean they were vague about the whole thing because they are hiding a secret relationship. It could be that Taylor (and/or her team) decided it was best not to encourage fans to think they too could be handpicked to join Taylor’s band out of a meet and greet line.

[2018shawn]

prohibited | th x oc

If you grab a dictionary and look up the word ‘inconvenience’,

 you’ll find Tom Holland’s name printed in huge, bold letters. 

a/n: yoooo I actually forgot I wrote this so I'm pretty nervous about posting it actually. this is obvs gonna be a multi-part fic, no idea how many parts lmao. any feedback appreciated 💓

warnings: none 

troupe: strangers → f.w.b → lovers (aka a rocky road)

word count: 1.7k

⌜intro⌟

One of Evie’s most annoying habits, and believe me, she’s been told more than enough times to know, is biting the end of her pen - or pencil - and twisting the plastic cap in-between her teeth. She’d done it since she could remember, it was just a way of releasing tension and nerves, but, considering it’s her boss’s pet hate and he picked up on it every time he entered the room, she really needed to nip it in the bud. 

Evie twirled the black biro in between her index finger and thumb, the lid rattling against her teeth as she sunk further into the chair. Her chair was almost central in the line, pulled up to the longest conference table she’d ever seen in what she believed to be the largest meeting room of the building, and boy is it a gigantic building. “Lindsay on sixth floor said we’re finding out some new big ass movie plot,” Evie’s colleague and friend, Paris, whispered whilst leaning over to her chair from her own. Evie and Paris had been tight ever since she’d started as an intern after leaving school, she almost took her under her wing, showed her the ropes - even went as far as showing her where the fancy coffee capsules were kept. Evie soon learnt that coffee was very much needed when you worked at Sony Picture Entertainment, fancy capsules or not. 

“Yeah well, Lindsay on sixth floor also said Tom Hardy tried to follow her into the ladies bathroom...” She rolled her eyes and turned to her friend, who simply shrugged and pulled away, sitting back straight in her chair. The door to the meeting room buzzed open, a key card access needed for entrance and everyone’s quiet muttering and speculations came to an immediate dead silence. 

Much like the rest of the room, Evie straightened her back, crossing her legs underneath the table in an attempt to sit as presentable and professional as possible. As quick as everyone poised themselves into business mode, they relaxed just as quick. Maria, the super cute food and drinks assistant, who always snuck Evie an extra piece of bacon in her Friday morning sandwich, rolled in her trolley, laughing at the unsubtle atmosphere from the participants in the room. Paris leant over to Everly again, her blonde hair falling in between them both. “Champagne?” Her aggressive whisper drew more attention than she’d wanted, resulting in everyone else concentrating on the huge and expensive looking bottles of fizz on Maria’s trolley. 

Evie’s mouth pulled to the side in confusion, knowing that Champagne only came out on the most appropriate of occasions. Maria set up her display, making sure the champagne flutes were crystal clear as she delicately placed them on the serving table. Another 5 or so minutes of muffled chat and theorising went by when the buzzer sounded again, only this time it wasn’t Maria and her trolley of tricks. 

The amount of nerves that filled the room were uncountable as Mr. Big Boss walked in, otherwise known as Michael Stud. Michael Stud had intimidated Evie, since way back when, but she wasn’t the only one who felt like that. It was normal to be scared of your boss, sure, but when he came storming down your office hallways just because someone from the floor had tweeted about a movie review - it was extra scary. Said twitter user was never seen in the offices again, FYI. 

Michael Stud wasn't alone. Behind him followed a small bundle of five individuals, talking and laughing amongst themselves, which made a nice contrast from the extremely silent room. Evie pulled the lapels of her spring coloured suit jacket together, trying to cover the stupid slogan tee-shirt and she suddenly wishes she picked the formal white shirt this morning. She also wishes she opted for a nice pair of heels instead of the white, canvas converse that she tucked under her chair, also in a bid to hide. Michael began with the formalities, introducing the crew behind him, some of who he offered to sit down, apart from the man with incredibly styled run-your-fingers-through hair who stay attentive at Stud’s side, eyes scanning the room as he admired all the faces in front of him.

Evie felt Paris’ presence yet again, Michael getting knee deep into the reason of why all senior department supervisors were bundled in the extremely warm room on a Thursday afternoon. “He’s been in... films n’ stuff,” she whispered, and Evie tried her hardest to remain professional, keeping eyes forward at all times. “I think maybe that tsunam...”

“Ms. Kershaw, is there something you’d like to add?” Michael asked, his eyes being the only pair that didn’t turn to face her because Michael could hear anything and anyone that would try talk over him. Evie winced, internally, lips pulling into a straight, thin line as she clicked eye contact with Miles who sat opposite. He slyly brought his hand up to his neck and mimicked running a knife across it, making it even harder for her to remain professional. 

Paris shuffled awkwardly in her seat, picking up her pen and looking at her notepad as if there was going to be some miracle excuse written down on there. “Sorry, Mr Stud. I was just speaking aloud really...” Her palms were sweaty, but once she started talking she could never stop. “I thought I recognised our new friend here, and I think, maybe it’s just clicked, from that tsunami... impossible?... film?” 

The handsome boy next to Michael beamed a wide smile, raising his eyebrows, “remind me to hit you up for the next pub quiz” was the first thing the young man had spoken since he’d entered the room and he even sounded attractive. Evie had dealt with her fair share of movie stars, she composed contracts for them for crying out loud, but never in her life had she come across someone who was so incredibly sexy and cute at the same time. 

Luckily, Michael seemed to be in a good mood - probably something to do with the champagne announcement - and laughed along with the guest and everyone else in the room, only making Paris sink further into her chair, wanting the ground to swallow her whole. The five minute introduction felt like five years, not just for Evie but for the entire room. No thanks to Michael’s long and in depth ramblings about the man stood at the front of the room, anyone who didn’t already know learnt his name, the movies he’s been in and yes, it did include the ‘tsunami... impossible... film’ - to which Paris hid her head in her hands as everyone joint in the laughter again - and finally that he was here because he was going to be involved in the remake of something incredibly exciting. “So, everyone, meet Spider-Man!”

Joyous cheers and claps filled the room, not one person in there ashamed to say they were huge fans. Evie was most definitely not ashamed to be fan-girlling, she loved the previous movies and had always been a fan of superhero’s but she pinned that down to the fact she grew up with brothers, and chick flicks were the last thing on the movie menu. The drinks were poured and passed around, Tom giving a small speech about the usual - how grateful and excited he was to be working with everyone, how he couldn’t wait to get started and put his take on the classic.

Tom was his usual, charming self as he made his way around the room to meet everyone and introduce himself; all the time keeping an eye on the girl in the yellow suit. He admired the way she looked smart and professional, but also how her converse and tee shirt brought her back down to normal level. He loved the way her caramel hair hung in loose curls from her pony tail, the shorter front parts of her curls framing around her face, apart from when she would reach up and took them behind her ears.

Evie kept her flute in her hand, not once taking a sip from the fizzy liquid in the glass. She wasnt one to mix business and pleasure, and considering she was head of contractual agreements, she figured she’d have to be drafting up a pretty quick signable paper for Tom to ensure he would not leak the news. Michael was big on secrets, he thought it added to the suspense of a film release. “This is our quiz buff and apparent movie researcher, Paris Kershaw,” Michael spoke, interrupting the conversation between Paris and Evie. Paris’ cheeks flushed red, once again, as Tom outstretched his hand, shaking hers firmly. He’d probably given more handshakes than he’d had hot dinners, so it was very strong and Evie couldn’t help but bite her lower lip as his bicep muscle flexed, the hem of his shirt sleeve stretched against his skin. “And this young lady, is here to make sure what happens at Sony, stays at Sony,” he smiled, holding his hand out to her to signal who he was talking about and she brought her own hand up, modestly waving and smiling. Tom outstretched his arm again and Evie reciprocated, taking his gentle offer. She thought she stopped breathing for a short second when they touched, his thumb wrapping around the back of her hand and gripping with power.

“Evie.” She smiled, realising she was yet to introduce herself, most probably embarassing herself in front of not only her boss and colleagues, but now a movie star.

Tom’s hand tugged at Evie’s arm, surprisingly to her, as she stumbled forwards, the front of her body crashing into his. “Tom.” he had smiled back in the process, as if he hadn’t been introduced a million times and was the sole reason everyone was there. His other hand snaked around Evie’s back, resting on the lower part and she became suddenly nervous, only continuing to hold onto the hand shake in the meantime. “Nice to meet you.” He added, face hovering next to hers and breath fanning against her ear. It was at that moment she got goosebumps, tensing up and only able to nod in return. 

[petersasteria]

Write Like Hamilton - Tom Holland

Pairing: Tom x Author!Reader

Requested? Yes! By anon x

Hamilrequest #41

“I wrote my way out when the world turned its back on me.”

I actually really like this request! Thanks for this anon <3

P.S. there’s some truth in this one. Hint: it’s the Chris Colfer thing. Let’s just say that Y/N was based on me lmao. I’m also finding it cute that this has 1998 words hihi

Everyone has opinions about someone or something. These opinions root from an issue that went viral and spread like wildfire. Regarding the said issue, the audience may say good things or bad things. Of course those who are victims of the said issue speak out and for some reason get hate or love for it, depending on the audience. Some victims choose not to speak out and they get all the hate in the world for addressing something the audience aren’t even included in. Some victims speak out, out of nowhere and just like that, they win in the issue.

An example of that would be James Charles, who single-handedly saved his own career by releasing a video. We won’t dig deeper into that, but James really did well in that part. Of course, there were people who still hated him, but at this point, I’m sure he doesn’t care about that anymore.

Like James, you became a victim of a certain issue that sparked out of nowhere. You were a very successful author. You wrote a lot of things from short stories to novels and from poetry to children’s books. You really wanted a wide range of people reading your books and that’s why a lot of people liked you, because families can read all of your books in one household and you were proud of yourself for that. 

With the money that you earned from writing, you were able to donate books to different schools around the world especially in third world countries who really needed it. You were basically an angel in the community of education.

Of course, not all people thought of that. They thought you were pretentious and that you were only doing it for publicity and money. They even had the audacity to say that you had a ghost-writer, but that was immediately debunked by your loyal readers and yourself, because you uploaded a video on your YouTube channel about the process of you writing a book. 

Life went well after that. Your career was sky-rocketing and you were able to catch the attention of the world’s famous heartthrob, Tom Holland.

He tweeted you first when you were bored out of your mind and decided to take a break from writing. You thought it would be a fun idea to interact with your fans, because they deserved it after all the times they’ve supported you and backed you up. So you tweeted that you’d be doing a #AskY/N. Tom obviously had your notifications on, because he was such a fan and he got really excited when he saw that. 

He wasn’t an active Twitter user and he normally wouldn’t check it, but he decided ‘fuck it, I’ll send in a question’. He wanted his question to be different from others so he asked you if you’ll be releasing a book that year.

You saw it and you were surprised that THE Spider-Man actually liked your work. You, of course, responded in a professional way: “@TomHolland1996 as a matter of fact, yes! I’ll be releasing a book this year. I’m actually working on it right now as we speak. It’s a children’s book.”

From then on, you both started talking a lot and somehow ended up dating. You’ve been dating for two years now and you loved every second of it. Both of you were really supportive in each other’s passion and career. Sometimes, he would even help you in writing a plot. In return, you would help in practicing his lines. You’d also help him and Harry with the script that they were working on. 

Your life could’ve been better if it weren’t for that person on Twitter who had a lot to say about you. That person tweeted something about you stealing ideas from Chris Colfer.

Glee star. People’s Choice Award winner. Teen’s Choice Award winner. Golden Globe award winner. Screen Actors Guild Awards winner. Emmy nominated actor turned author, Chris Colfer.

The tweet went viral and most of them didn’t know how to feel. Some people didn’t know who Chris was. Some people didn’t think you were stealing ideas from him. Some people agreed with that Twitter user who started it. Some took the time to read both yours and Chris’ books that apparently had major similarities and concluded that there were none.

You didn’t know what to do. You didn’t cry, because if you were being honest, that situation wasn’t worth crying for. The people who knew the truth was you and the people around you who knew where your ideas are from. You were really hurt, because of the accusation made against you.

You saw what happened to James Charles after Tati Westbrook uploaded that ‘BYE SISTER’ video. He was destroyed. You knew that the issues that were brought up against you and James were very different, your situation wasn’t. It was very similar.

Like Tati’s video, the tweet came out of nowhere. In this situation, the Twitter user was Tati and you were James. You couldn’t imagine how James must’ve felt when his mentor did him dirty like that. You also couldn’t imagine how alone James felt when he lost everyone.

You decided that you’d address the situation once everyone has calmed down. Tom wanted to argue, because he was really mad. He wanted to defend you like the good boyfriend he was. After all, before he met you, he was a massive fan and he still was. He read all of your books so he had no problem defending you.

You told him that he didn’t have to, because you had it under control. Besides, he couldn’t defend you when he hasn’t read the books of Chris Colfer, himself. You told him that he should at least read one book from Chris Colfer before saying anything. Tom felt stupid, because he never even thought of that. You assured him that it was alright, though.

You were really thankful that, like you, Chris Colfer hasn’t said anything. He’s an unproblematic public figure and you wanted him to live his best life.

The storm like issue started to calm down and as promised, you addressed the issue. You didn’t want to write a really long thread on Twitter, because you wanted to express everything that was going on in your mind for the past week. You made a wise decision by speaking out about it on your blog. You wanted it to be short and simple yet concise and full of information. After that, you tweeted: “Here’s my take on the issue said against me. *insert link to your blog*”.

Tom was really proud of you for writing your way out of that messy situation single-handedly. The person who accused you publicly apologized on Twitter and of course, being the forgiving person that you were, you forgave them and decided that the past was in the past.

After reading your statement, Chris Colfer tweeted you and said that he knew what was going on, but he wanted to hear your side instead of other people. He thanked you for being honest and he even DMed you on Twitter, asking if you wanted to collaborate for a children’s book.

Hi! It’s Y/N and in this week’s topic, I’ll be talking about the issue that I was involved in. I’ve been writing since I was fourteen and it wasn’t until I was eighteen when I started REALLY writing books. I sold my first book ever and I was really happy it was a success.

Then it turned into a full-time job over the years and I couldn’t believe it. All my dreams were coming true all because I decided to write down my imaginations and turn it into books. I haven’t stopped since and I don’t plan on stopping which is why I wanted to clear my name.

Out of all my years in writing, this issue was the first to really drag my name down and I’m not proud of it. After all, who would be proud to have their name dragged around for something they didn’t do?

To those of you who are confused, I was recently accused of stealing ideas for children’s books from Mr. Chris Colfer. Specifically, my first children’s book. A Twitter user said that when they read my first children’s book, it was very similar to Chris Colfer’s ‘The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell’. I haven’t had the blessing of meeting Chris Colfer yet, but we both follow each other on Twitter. You could say that we’ve became acquaintances over the years of replying to each other’s tweets and participating in every QnA one of us tweets.

I’ve known Chris for a long time more so than he’s known me. You see, I’ve been a fan of his ever since he starred in Glee. You know, the tv show about these teens in glee club and their struggles in high school. This show has been diverse ever since the beginning and it’s one of the reasons why I love it. 

Chris was the reason why I wanted to write books and publish them. I was first in line when he released his first book ‘The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell’ and it wasn’t until his third book ‘The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning’ when I realized that I wanted to write and publish my own book. I sold my first ever book a year later and it was a success. 

For those of you who really know me, you’ll know that my first book wasn’t a children’s book. My first book was a love story and it was inspired by real people and my brain just decided it would be cool to mash them all up together. Kind of like that movie Valentine’s Day. 

The moment I realized that I could write a children’s book was when I babysat my niece and she asked me to tell her a bedtime story. Naturally, I picked a book from her book shelf but she told me she wanted story that was done by me. I wouldn’t tell her the story of the romance books I’ve written so, I racked my brains out to produce a story that a 6 year old could understand and like. She liked it. No, she loved it. I thought it wasn’t book worthy so after she went to sleep, I just wrote it in my drafts to include it in a short story compilation. I forgot all about it, but then a few months later, she died in a car crash. I was so heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to grieve.

Then I remembered the story I told her, the one I made up on the spot; the one she loved. I decided that instead of crying my eyes out, I would continue writing that story. That, my friends, was how my first children’s book was born. That book was to pay homage for my 6 year old niece who would never grow up to see and feel the magic of life. That plot of that book was sincerely made on the spot and I kept making things up as I continued writing it. I’m very sure that there were no similarities from my book and Chris’ book. I know this because I’ve read ‘The Land of Stories’ a bunch of times. Maybe the magical part was the only similarity, but all kids love magic. It’s a given when you’re going to write a children’s book. Magic would be the first one to come up.

I don’t want to fight. Instead, I’ll be the bigger person. This statement is simply just addressing all the facts. I do not wish for my name or Chris’ good name to be sullied.

I’d like to end this statement by thanking Chris Colfer for inspiring me to pursue this career and Chris, if you’re reading this, I just want to tell you that I love your work and I support you and I hope we get to meet each other one day.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

* * * *

wow that was a long one and I loved this!! I’m really really proud of this one so I hoped y’all liked it <3

𝐓𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @abrielleholland​​​​​​​ @peachmaybnx​​​​​​​ @superheroesaremytea​​​​​​​ @ella-whyte

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @marvelousell​​​​​​​ @justasmisunderstoodasloki​​​​​​​ @rubberducky-jrr​​​​​​​ @petersholland​​​​​ @osterfieldnholland​​​​​ @miraclesoflove​

[kellyvela]

i love the deranged dany/jon shippers trying to position themselves as some kind of authority on what grrm would and wouldnt do and insist that grrm would! never! hook jon up with his cousin when he actually intended to do that with jon and arya (in a love triangle with tyrion).

Hello Anon, 

Are you serious? There are people who believe GRRM would never hook up cousins?? And the same people ship aunt and nephew??? 

GRRM has no problem at all with incest, in ASOIAF we have siblings incest in Jaime and Cersei; and father daughters incest with Craster an his daughters. And we also have all the Targaryens ffs. 

He also has no problem with cousins getting involved in marriage alliances and romance, no matter if they aren’t Targaryens.  About cousins, we have Tywin and Joanna Lannister, and Rickard and Lyarra Stark. And about uncles and nieces, we have Jonnel and Sansa Stark, and the frustrated union of Cregan and Alys Karstark.  All these unions weren’t considered incest tho…

But GRRM does have a problem with “outlines”.  Let’s talk about “outlines” then:

FEBRUARY 2015

A reddit user spotted a tweet from UK bookseller Waterstones which contained three photos of a 1993 letter GRRM wrote outlining the entire ASOIAF series.

The tweet has since been deleted, but not before the images made it to the internet.

Here is the reddit post.

And here is an article with the three photos of the letter and the transcription.

As you said, GRRM “originally” planned for a Stark cousins romance between Jon Snow and Arya Stark: 

Jon Snow, the bastard, will remain in the far north. He will mature into a ranger of great daring, and ultimately will succeed his uncle as the commander of the Night’s Watch. When Winterfell burns, Catelyn Stark will be forced to flee north with her son Bran and her daughter Arya. Wounded by Lannister riders, they will seek refuge at the Wall, but the men of the Night’s Watch give up their families when they take the black, and Jon and Benjen will not be able to help, to Jon’s anguish. It will lead to a bitter estrangement between Jon and Bran. Arya will be more forgiving … until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night’s Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon’s true parentage is finally revealed in the last book.

And a love triangle with Tyrion Lannister: 

Tyrion Lannister will continue to travel, to plot, and to play the game of thrones, finally removing his nephew Joffrey in disgust at the boy king’s brutality. Jaime Lannister will follow Joffrey on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, by the simple expedient of killing everyone ahead of him in the line of succession and blaming his brother Tyrion for the murders. Exiled, Tyrion will change sides, making common cause with the surviving Starks to bring his brother down, and falling helplessly in love with Arya Stark while he’s at it. His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Jon Snow.

So yeah, GRRM planned for a pseudo incest romance between two major characters of the same House, and a love triangle with a main character of a rival House.  

MAY 2016 - BALTICON 

A bit more than a year after that tweet from Waterstones, GRRM attended the The Maryland Regional Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention - BALTICON. There he was questioned by fans about the Jon and Arya romance:

After the Coffee Talk just outside the room:

My Con Friend asked about Arya and Jon again. This time GRRM gave some very pointed replies:

GRRM finished (in the hallway now) by saying that he “wished some past things weren’t such strong foreshadowing,” and that he, “wished some new things had stronger foreshadowing then.”

Friend: Ok, if you foreshadowed something in the first book, like, really cleverly hidden, would you then follow through on that hint? For sure?.. 

GRRM: “Well, this goes with what I said before, the story changes and expands as I write. I wish I was able to go back and make revised drafts, but that’s not going to happen.”

Here is a transcript of the outline discussion and Jon/Arya portion of the coffee talk:

[question about Jon/Arya]

GRRM: “Alright, you’ve thought about this more than I have. I mean it’s simple, Jon is very fond of Arya. They were the two odd birds in the Stark family nest, here. They didn’t quite fit in with the others, they look like each other, they both had the brown hair, you know, as opposed to the auburn hair of Sansa and Bran and Rickon and Robb. So there was always that closeness between them. And, you know, Arya didn’t mind that Jon was a bastard, and Jon didn’t mind that Arya was a tomboy, so there is that closeness there.”

[question about Jon comparing his lover to his sister]

GRRM: “If he did it, uhm… I began writing these books in 1991, and, uhm, I worked on it in 91 and then I got a tv play, so I put it aside to really work on ‘Doorways’ tv pilot and did a tv show in 92-93. In 94 I returned to it [the books] and worked on it. You know, up till then, in my career as a writer, I’d always written the entire book before I opted for sale. That’s unusual. Most writers do chapters and an outline. They write a few chapters, they outline the rest of the book, give that to the publisher and the publisher says ‘oh okay, I’ll take that’.

“As some of you may have noticed, those who have been paying very, very carefully attention, I’m not good with deadlines. And, uh, and I’m not good with outlines, either. I always hated outlines. So with Fevre Dream and with Armageddon Rag and with Dying of the Light and all my novels, I wrote the entire book. I didn’t do chapters and outline. I sat down, I wrote a whole book, and I sent it to my agent and said ‘Look, here’s a whole book, and it’s finished’. That way I ran into no deadline, it was finished before it even went on the market. And it worked well for me. And my initial thought was to do this the same way, but what happened, you know, was in 1994, uhm, when I returned to it and I’m working on it and I’m very enthused about it and I say ‘I really wanna write these Game of Thrones books as the next part’. But I was still in Hollywood and I’d just lost all this groundwork on ‘Doorways’, I was still in… The studios and networks still wanna work with me, so I’m getting other offers, like ‘We want you to write this movie’, ‘we want you to do another tv pilot’. And, you know, I took a couple of them and was ‘Oh god, I gotta have to put the book away again’. Cause I have no deadline [for the book]. You know, when you think Hollywood, they will give you a deadline, you know, they say ‘here, son, write this movie, we want it in three months’.

“So, I said ‘look, if I wanna get back to being a novelist, I’m gonna have to sell this even though it’s not finished’. So I had my 200 pages of Game of Thrones at that point, but they wanted outline. I said ‘I don’t do outlines. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, I figure it out as I go. And that’s how I always did it.’ No, we had to have an outline. So I wrote two pages, a two-page thing about what I thought would happen. It’ll be a trilogy, it’ll be three books, Game of Thrones, the Dance with Dragons, and Winds of Winter. Those were the three window titles. And, uh, it’ll be three books and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen. And I was making up shit.

“And I had thought that those two pages were long forgotten, because, of course, the books did sell. They sold in the United States and in Great Britain, both. They sold for enough money that I didn’t have to take any more Hollywood games. So I was able to say ‘no’ around. I had a few less [?] to wind up in in 94 and 95. Once I had, I said ‘no, I don’t want any more movies or tv shows, I’m going to write these books now’. And I started writing the books. And in the process, I pretty much disregarded the outline. The characters took me off in entirely different directions. So, for 20 years I had forgotten that that two-page thing even existed. And then someone in my British publisher, HarperCollins, they got a new office building, uh, brand new offices, and new conference rooms, big conference rooms that they decorated with books and stuff like that. And they named the conference rooms after the writers, so one of the conference rooms [?], and they put up these plastic display cases, including the outline. The two-page outline, yes. [?], they didn’t ask my permission, they just put it up. And in that two-page outline, Jon and Arya become a romantic item.”

“You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and  a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.””

[someone says they have 5 minutes left]

“You know, I was pretty pissed that that outline got out there. It should not have happened. Outlines and letters like that are meant only for the eyes of the editor. They shouldn’t go on public display. And, uh, they also [?] my papers on [?], all my papers and correspondence. You know, I’ve been sending that stuff there for years, and it’d be, you know, available for future scholars or whatever, just like the papers of many other writers. Somehow, in the back of my head I was like ‘yeah, 20 years after I’m dead some scholar will go in and find them’. They’re going in right now!”   ”

[question if he is still going with the 1991 ending]

“Yes, I mean, I did partly joke when I said I don’t know where I was going. I know the broad strokes, and I’ve known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who’s going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who’s gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who’s gonna die and how they’re gonna die, and who’s gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know, I, uhm…Did I know in 1991 how Bronn, what was gonna happen to Bronn? No, I didn’t even know there’d be a guy named Bronn. I was inventing him along the way when I was writing, ‘Okay, he gets kidnapped. Let’s see, there are a couple sellswords there, their names are Fred and Bronn’.“It was actually Bronn and Chiggen, and then one of them dies, I flipped a coin ‘okay, who dies? Chiggen dies, cause his name is stupid. Bronn is a better name, so I’ll keep Bronn’. And then Bronn became quite an interesting character and plenty of these characters take on minds of their own. They push to the front till you [?] speech and you think of a cool line and you give it to Bronn because he’s trying to talk, and now Bronn is somebody who says something cool. [?]. That’s how characters grow on you.“So a lot of the minor characters I’m still discovering along the way. But the mains-”

[question if he knows Arya’s and Jon’s fates]

“Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah.”

This report appears in the following sources:

fattest leech of ice and fire blog [Source 1] 

asoiaf.westeros.org [Source 2]  

westeros.org [Source 3]

As you can see Anon, according GRRM the “original outline” was “a two-page thing about what [he] thought would happen”… “And [he] was making up shit.”  

He also said that: “[he] pretty much disregarded the outline. The characters took [him] off in entirely different directions. So, for 20 years [he] had forgotten that that two-page thing even existed”.

But then he clarified that: 

“I did partly joke when I said I don’t know where I was going. I know the broad strokes, and I’ve known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who’s going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who’s gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who’s gonna die and how they’re gonna die, and who’s gonna get married and all that. The major characters”.

From all this information, I think that the romance between Jon and Arya was discarded: 

[He] “wished some past things weren’t such strong foreshadowing,” and that he, “wished some new things had stronger foreshadowing then.”

The story changes and expands as I write. I wish I was able to go back and make revised drafts, but that’s not going to happen.”

But the romance between two major characters of the same House (Stark cousins) is still there.

But a romance between two major characters of the same House could also happen between aunt and nephew, and if we follow the Show, this was the new route GRRM took.  

We just have to wait to certainly know if GRRM will give us the Stark cousins romance that was promised or if he has already changed his original plan.  

[phroyd]

White House staffers, working in the secure, soundproof Situation Room in the West Wing basement, listened in and chronicled the conversation . National Security Council personnel edited a memo written about the call. White House lawyers, according to a government whistleblower , directed that the memo be uploaded into a highly restricted classified computer network. And there were the staffers whose keystrokes on a computer made that happen.

They represent a universe of people, little known outside their vital circle of national security officials, who can either support or disavow the whistleblower’s account. Their roles could well become more public as the impeachment investigation unfolds and Congress seeks additional witnesses.

Some staffers involved with the call still work at the White House; others have left. But what was thought to be a routine conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned into anything but that, when Trump asked him to investigate Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election and the activities of Democratic political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

___

30 MINUTES THAT CHANGED THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

By the time staffers in the Situation Room got the president of Ukraine on the phone at 9:03 a.m., Trump had just finished firing off tweets claiming complete vindication from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony the day before about the Russia investigation. On the call, Trump was first to speak. He showered the 41-year-old Ukrainian, a novice politician and former comedian, with praise following his party’s victory in parliamentary elections. Zelenskiy chatted about how he wanted to “drain the swamp” in Kyiv and how he wished the European Union would provide more financial support. He told Trump that Ukraine was ready to buy more Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States.

The next 10 words that came out of Trump’s mouth — “I would like you to do us a favor, though” — are what triggered the House impeachment inquiry that has imperiled his presidency.

Trump asked Zelenskiy to work with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr to look into Biden and his son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

Trump says it was an innocent, “perfect” call. But some White House staffers, worried that Trump seemed to be asking Ukraine for dirt on Biden, sounded alarms. They suggested the memorandum of the call — “telcon” for short — be transferred into a restricted server, usually reserved for documents about covert operations.

___

BEFORE THE CALL

This call, as well as others Trump has had with foreign leaders, was unusual in other ways, too. In past administrations, top foreign policy officials routinely briefed a president in person right before a call and provided written materials as well.

A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul worked at the NSC during the Obama administration and helped write briefs to prepare for dozens of calls with Russian leaders, including Vladimir Putin.

“Judging from the content of the Trump-Zelenskiy call, Trump was not reading talking points,” McFaul said. “No one on our team ever would have prepared a call package prompting Obama to ask for a personal favor that would help him win reelection. I also doubt that Trump’s NSC staff would have written or cleared such a talking point for their boss.”

One individual with firsthand knowledge of how the Trump calls with foreign leaders are handled said the president “hates” such “pre-briefs” and frequently has refused to do them. Trump doesn’t like written background materials either, preferring to handle the calls himself, often in the morning from the residence. Occasionally, while on the phone with foreign heads of state, Trump has handed the receiver to his daughter, Ivanka Trump, so she can talk with the leader, according to this individual.

The person said a six-page pre-brief with attachments was once prepared for Trump before a call to a foreign leader. But that turned out to be too long, as did a single-page version. Preparing pre-brief note cards that offered about three talking points for Trump to make on a call was the norm, according to this person, who feared retribution for describing this process and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The individual said that when Trump is done with the note cards, he often rips them up and tosses them in a burn bag. Staff who handle records have had to retrieve the burn bags from the residence, put the papers out on a table and tape them back together to preserve them as official presidential records, this person said.

___

RUN OF THE MILL

Calls between a president and a foreign leader typically start with U.S. intelligence officers detailed to the White House gathering in the Situation Room, a process that has been in place for decades, according to two people familiar with the operation in the Trump White House and past administrations. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss how Trump’s calls with foreign heads of state are handled.

During the Ukraine call, several others listened in. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Keith Kellogg, national security adviser for Vice President Mike Pence, were on the call. It’s unclear if they were at the White House or listened in on “drop” lines, secure hookups top officials can use from outside the White House.

Others who typically would have listened in would have been the president’s national security adviser, John Bolton, or his deputy, Charles Kupperman, who have both left the White House; the NSC’s director of Russia and Europe, who currently is Tim Morrison; the NSC’s Ukraine expert; and possibly someone from White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s office.

Lawyers who handle NSC issues include John Eisenberg and his deputy, Michael Ellis. It’s unclear what, if any, role Ellis played, but the former counsel for the House Intelligence Committee has been in the spotlight before.

The New York Times reported in March 2017 that he allowed his former boss, the then-committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to review classified material at the White House, seeking to bolster Trump’s claim that he was wiretapped during the 2016 campaign on the orders of the Obama administration. The intelligence reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about trying to develop contacts in the inner circle of then President-elect Trump. The report was not confirmed by The Associated Press.

The NSC declined to confirm who was on the call.

Down in the Situation Room, several others would have been listening. One person monitors the call to make sure the line is not interrupted. Others are tasked with documenting what is said. No audio recordings are made. The memorandum of the call, the telcon, which the White House has released, is the closest thing to a word-for-word transcript that is produced and is the official presidential record of the conversation.

“When I got to the Situation Room and my predecessor explained this incredibly inefficient process that we use, I had a lot of questions,” said Larry Pfeiffer, a 30-year U.S. intelligence veteran who managed the Situation Room during the Obama years. “I said ‘Why don’t we just record the call and write a transcript based on that?’”

Pfeiffer said his predecessor told him that the White House stopped taping presidential calls in the 1970s when President Richard Nixon recorded 3,700 hours of conversations, transcripts of which were used by Watergate investigators and during impeachment hearings that followed.

Pfeiffer said White House lawyers finally approved the idea of having a duty officer, wearing a headset, sit in a separate room, and repeat what was said on the call into voice-to-text software — again without creating any audio recording.

Individuals familiar with Trump White House procedure say one Situation Room staffer, using voice-to-text software, repeats each word the president says and another listens and repeats what the foreign leader says. The software turns the words they repeat into text and a rough draft of the telcon is produced.

That draft is given to subject matter specialists on the NSC, who edit the draft for accuracy. Each draft is separately preserved. After it’s finalized, it’s turned over to the national security adviser — Bolton, at the time — or the deputy, who was Kupperman, for their approval. White House lawyers also play a role in approving NSC documents.

After that, the telcon is given back to staffers tasked with preserving the document as a presidential record.

___

WHISTLEBLOWER SOUNDS OFF

Somewhere during this sequence, people privy to the call questioned whether Trump was pressuring the Ukrainian leader to investigate the Bidens. Trump has denied that he did and publicly released the telcon recounting what was said on the call.

He released it after a whistleblower, a CIA officer, filed a complaint about the call with the intelligence community’s inspector general. “In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to lock down” all records of the phone call, the whistleblower wrote. “This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”

The unidentified whistleblower — one of two who have come forward — said White House lawyers directed that the telcon be taken off a computer server where classified documents on foreign leader calls are normally kept. They directed it be transferred to a computer network with restricted access for documents about covert operations or other highly sensitive information. The telcon, which was classified as secret, did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.

One of the two people familiar with how foreign leader calls are handled in the Trump White House said putting a document classified only as “secret” into a server holding very highly classified information is not against any rule, but is a means of “leak prevention.”

That person also said it wasn’t common practice to put telcons into the more restrictive server, but that around the same time Bolton became national security adviser in the spring of 2018, it became standard not to share the telcons with the State Department, the national intelligence director and the Pentagon.

Those officials were told that if they wanted to see them, they could read them the next time they were at the White House, the individual said.

Phroyd

[alpha-centari27]

If you’re unhappy with The Rise of Skywalker, and hoping that the holy grail of the #AbramsCut will make you feel vindicated, here’s some relevant news: The Abrams Cut is probably bullshit, but there might be yet another Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly script for Episode IX, that could be the answer to everyone’s unrealized Star Wars dreams.

According to writer and Hollywood insider Robert Meyer Burnett, at least one version of Trevorrow’s unfilmed Episode IX was called Duel of the Fates, and, even if you loved Rise of Skywalker, this leaked script sounds pretty incredible. On Monday, Burnett dropped a lengthy description of the unfilmed, alternate Episode IXon YouTube, and the details are compelling.

The trouble is of course, in determining the validity of the script Burnett claims to have read. Published on his YouTube channel, “Robservations,” Burnett talks for about 18-minutes about his background before getting into the nitty-gritty of the alleged Duel of the Fates script. Presumably, Burnett is making it clear that he’s been in and around Hollywood for a long time, and it’s not that weird to get your hands on an unfilmed script.

“Everything is gettable,” he claims, pointing out that after a movie is actually made, the interest in unfilmed versions of the movies is less important to the general public. Historically, he has a point, but relative to Star Wars, there’s obviously a huge interest (particularly now). Burnett also goes out of his way to sort of obscure how he got ahold of this supposed early Trevorrow draft of Episode IX, and even “jokes” at several points that “maybe I made this all up.”

On paper, the fact that Burnett cops to maybe inventing the script could scan as an admission that the whole thing is fake. But, the problem is, Burnett’s background indicates he has no reason to lie. Unlike full-time leakers like Jason Ward or infamous fake-Star-Wars-news guy, Mike Zeroh; Robert Meyer Burnett is a legit filmmaker who’s worked in Hollywood as a director for a long, long time. Along with Mark Altman, he co-wrote and directed the 1999 film Free Enterprise; a romantic comedy about two Star Trek fans who happen to meet William Shanter IRL. (It’s a pretty good movie!)

Burnett also is known for his work on DVD and Blu-ray special features and if you own any of the Star Trek series on Blu-ray or DVD, the chances you have at least one or two mini-documentaries produced and directed by him are pretty high. He also appears regularly on the podcast Inglorious Treksperts with Mark Altman (a huge, and respected journalist and producer of sci-fi/fantasy shows like The Librarians and Pandora). So it’s not like Burnett is a fanboy. He may be outspoken about his opinions on the directions of various franchises and has frequently tweeted out scathing viewpoints on the direction of Star Trek since its relaunch on CBS in 2017.

I don’t share Burnett’s viewpoints on Discovery, but even if he’s not everyone’s cup of Earl Grey, the reality is, he’s a guy who has worked in Hollywood for a long time and knows a thing or two about sci-fi franchises. So, the question with this Star Wars Duel of the Fates leak is: Why would he make this up and risk ruining his reputation?

Inverse has reached out to Burnett for clarification on a few aspects of the Duel of the Fates script and he has yet to respond. We will update this piece when he does. But for now, here are six major differences between the alleged Duel of the Fates script and The Rise of Skywalker.

Spoilers ahead.

6. The title and crawl

First off, you can tell right away this would have been a different movie. “Duel of the Fates” obviously references the John Williams composition of the same name, which was such a big deal in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Here’s the alternate crawl:

The iron grip of the FIRST ORDER has spread to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Only a few scattered planets remain unoccupied. Traitorous acts are punishable by death.

Determined to suffocate a growing unrest, Supreme Leader KYLO REN has silenced all communication between neighboring systems.

Led by GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, the Resistance has planned a secret mission to prevent their annihilation and forge a path to freedom…

5. Luke Skywalker’s role was much bigger

In this version of the story, the ghost of Luke Skywalker would have had an ongoing role throughout the film, and he wouldn’t just have been helping to train Rey. In this version, Luke’s ghost haunts Kylo Ren, too. In fact, Kylo Ren’s very first scene in the movie would have involved the ghost of Luke chastising him for going down the dark path. According to Burnett, Luke’s ghost says: “This is where the dark path leads; an empty tomb.”

This is pretty interesting, and clearly is a direct follow-up to Luke’s threat to Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi: “If you strike me down now, I’ll always be with you.” So, in the Duel of the Fates version, Luke takes that pretty literally, following Kylo Ren around, bugging him about being evil.

Luke also trains Rey in this script, (who is rocking a double-bladed saber from the very beginning) and even has a debate with her about the nature of the “balance of the Force.” In what seems like a meta-criticism, Rey questions Luke’s credibility in a pretty awesome exchange:

Rey: Balance? The dark suffocates the light, light extinguishes the dark. Over and over and over again. How is that balance in the Force?

Luke: I know that anger. My father had it too.

Rey: So says my master and his master before him. A thousand masters so eager to tell us how to live.

This is clearly very different than the chummy Luke and Rey we saw in The Rise of Skywalker. 

4. Palpatine is in one scene and he isn’t Rey’s grandfather

The dead speak! Only this time, it’s through a hologram. Just like in The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren does return to the planet Mustafar, but it’s to get a Sith Holocron, not a “Wayfinder.” In this scene, the Emperor reveals to Kylo Ren that he had a back-up plan for Darth Vader if Luke and Vader ended-up being the last two Sith standing. In this recorded message, Palps tells Vader to go the planet Remnicore because there’s a secret Sith master hiding there named Tor Valum.

The Emperor is not alive, and Rey is not related to Palps in this version of the story. Also, the version of Mustafar that Kylo Ren hits-up is very clearly Darth Vader’s castle and not the random woodland area of the planet we got in The Rise of Skywalker.

As for Tor Valum, secret Sith Lord, it’s not explained how the existence of this new character would have been reconciled with the Sith “rule of two,” if at all. But Burnett does say the script describes Tor Valum as “7,000 years old” and “an alien of unknown origin [with] spindly, intense sinewy muscle…very Lovecraftian.” So, basically, a Sith monster.

Notably, Kylo Ren’s face would have been badly scarred by the Sith Holocron and he would have been forced to wear some kind of new mask that was partially made of Mandalorian armor.

3. Duel of the Fates would have returned to two hugely important Star Wars planets

According to Burnett, Unlike The Rise of Skywalker, the important events of Duel of the Fates would have taken place on two very pivotal and famous Star Wars planets: Coruscant and Mortis. In this version, the First Order has constructed a galaxy-ruling citadel on Coruscant, with Hux serving as Supreme Chancellor.

Thanks to Luke Skywalker’s journals, Rey discovers a “Force Beacon,” hidden deep within Coruscant, which would allow the broadcast to be sent out to all the possible allies of the Resistance. A subplot involves Rose, Finn, C-3PO, and R2-D2 heading to Courscant to “light the Beacon.” This feels like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which is weird, but also pretty cool. It’s very clear Rose had a bigger role in this movie as well. (Burnett claims she’s a major character, but based on the summary it’s hard to see how much more dialogue she has. She certainly has more to do, though!)

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren and Rey would eventually get to the planet Mortis, where they would basically battle to try and balance the Force. At other points in the script, Luke would point out that Rey was “something new” and not related to anyone and that the “Force chose her” for a higher purpose. 

2. Kylo Ren wasn’t redeemed

Although Burnett says Luke, Yoda and Obi-Wan’s Force ghosts would try to “release Ben Solo” in one scene, they aren’t successful and it doesn’t seem like Ben gets redeemed at all. There’s also no overt romance or kiss between him and Rey. It’s also revealed at one point that although Rey’s parents were “nobodies,” that Kylo Ren is actually the one who straight-up murdered them because Snoke told him to do it. (Snoke is not a Palpatine puppet in this version either.)

It’s tough to really see how Kylo Ren would have been redeemed or become the heroic guy we saw in The Rise of Skywalker. Basically, in this version, his journey ends as a giant bummer and in total tragedy.

1. The basic ending would have been similar, but for totally different reasons

Finally, Burnett notes that the idea of “good” Stormtroopers coming to the aid of the Resistance originates in this version of the script, but also says that it’s handled a little more organically. Another subplot early in the script involves the Resistance stealing a Star Destroyer, complete with AT-ATs and TIE Fighters, and then needing an army to operate them. Apparently, the rogue Stormtroopers help fix part of this problem, but, in the end, Lando rounds-up a bunch of smugglers and that fleet of ships seems to help turn the tide against the First Order. Which, though is similar to The Rise of Skywalker, happens for seemingly very different reasons.

Unsurprisingly, the First Order still loses, but the overall conclusion and climax to Duel of the Fates still feels murky. It’s not clear if he only had part of the screenplay or just chose to summarize the ending (or if the whole thing is a hoax) but at this point, it seems like one could imagine a similar ending to The Rise of Skywalker in terms of a space battle, just happening over a decaying Coruscant instead of Exegol (which sounds way cooler).

Is any of this legit? Does it matter? Right now, we don’t know, but if any aspect of what Robert Meyer Burnett presents as Duel of the Fates was ever really under consideration to be the real Episode IX, you have to ask yourself: What happened?

Was Lucasfilm totally against Kylo Ren ending up as such an irredeemable character? Was their pressure from elsewhere to bring in Palpatine back as a legacy villain? For the most part, for all of its specific differences, the broad strokes of this story are relatively the same, at least in terms of the larger galactic politics and the eventual balance of the Force. So we’re in a situation where the Dark side was in the details, and for whatever reason, those details caused a civil war inside of the Disney empire itself.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Extras - Episode commentary notes for Sarah

Episode commentary with Lilla and Nora Zuckerman. Comments from me in [square brackets] everything else is from the Zuckermans, though not necessarily word for word.

Known as “the time travel episode” it may be surprising we haven’t done a time travel plot before this on Haven, although it could be said we weren’t allowed to do one until season three and actually at this point in the series is a good time to do time travel because we’ve established a lot of mythology, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to delve into the deeper history of Haven, Audrey and the Crocker family curse.

When we first pitched a time travel idea, the one thing for sure we knew we wanted was to meet Sarah, who you don’t know very much about yet.

What’s interesting about this first scene [Duke reading the Crocker journal] is that in the original draft this was actually the third scene of the episode because we had a dream sequence where Duke had a nightmare that he was being attacked, and he killed his assailant and turned on the lights and it was Audrey Parker. And so he was woken up by this disturbing dream and that was what started him on the path of examining his family’s journal. That scene was shot but in the end was deemed unnecessary so the story started a little later.

The beach Duke lands on was Hubbard’s Beach, not far from where they Grey Gull set is.

In thinking about a cell phone appearing in the ‘50s, we switched Duke’s phone to a more sleek, brick-like device so that it wouldn’t have any weird buttons on it. One of the other debates we had at the beginning was how does the time travel work in the sense of; what travels with him? Does his cell phone travel with him? Do his clothes travel with him, or is he arriving on the beach naked, Terminator-style? That would have posed some problems maybe, but I’m sure some of the fans would have loved it. But then we would need to deal with Duke having to find clothes etc.

The Shore Club is a real place in the area where we shoot and on summer weekend evenings, this is the happening place to be; packed with people and a band playing. We were amazed to see how populated this scene is; the crew went above and beyond to get a whole crowd of people in there and everyone in period dress. It looks amazing.

The existing Haven PD set was redressed for 1955 and we figured things might not have changed all that much. The set looks great and this episode was a challenge for almost every single department, from the sets to hair and make-up and the actors, especially Emily who really had to reimagine a whole new character. And everyone really stepped up to the challenge and we couldn’t be happier with the result.

And even for the present-day scenes the crew got no rest because they still had to transform Haven again into an alternate timeline with the comic shop. So the crew really worked overtime to transform Haven twice.

It was funny because there were people in the town tweeting photos of the comic store set, like ‘omg you guys are doing a comic booked themed episode’. So maybe we will do that eventually!

One of the challenges that we had with sending Duke into the past was, how are we going to deal with the fact that he has long hair? Becuase you probably wouldn’t see many guys in 1955 with hair that long. And if there were, they might have found themselves in some trouble with everyone looking at them sideways. So we thought it was really funny that everybody thinks he’s Native American.

So [as Duke is having the idea to write to Audrey] we may have borrowed this a little from Back to the Future II, but we figure Duke has also seen Back to the Future, so it works. And why wouldn’t he write a letter to himself? So we have fun thing planned; we dug up the original text of what the letter says, which I don’t think you get to see on camera, but you have to have it in case it did end up being visible on screen. So if you would have seen it, this is the letter that Duke wrote:

“Dear Audrey,

Help. I’m stuck in 1955. The morning you should receive this letter, I visited a guy named Stuart Mosley. I found him at [“whatever address we ended up using”]. Surprise! He’s Troubled and I think he’s sent me back in time. Go out there and get him to fix this. I’m looking for the younger version here, but apparently he doesn’t exist in 1955 Haven. In the meantime, I’ll be at the Shore Club at noon every day, drinking until I’m dead. I’ll be waiting there for my nice shiny DeLorean. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to start betting on baseball games and making stock investments, but if anyone can help me, I know it’s Audrey Parker.

See you in the future, I hope,

Duke.

P.S. If this doesn’t work, I may send a letter to myself, so hurry.”

So, to the question everyone asks (of Why doesn’t he send the letter to himself?); he knows that Audrey is more adept at helping him than himself. Plus he doesn’t even know if there is a Duke there in the present and all of those time paradoxes. And as you can imagine we had many debates about how time travel works.

And we worked with our Writers’ Assistant, Nick Parker, who had a brilliant diagram that was drawn out, and whenever anyone had any questions we just pointed to this diagram of converging alternating timelines… “That’s how it works!” And it was great to have some Doctor Who fans in the writers’ room who were familiar with time travel discussions.

And one of the reasons we worked Duke’s gold dubloon into all of this was to demonstrate how these rules work. So our main premise is; whatever happened, happened. Whatever happened in the past happened and the gold coin ending up back with Duke was intended to help demonstrate that. So we had a lot of debates about the gold dubloon constantly travelling through time in an endless loop.

And there were also questions about where is Duke’s father and mother, and if we had two hours to play with we would have loved to delve into these questions but unfortunately we had to be pretty sparing with what we addressed in the past. For example, Shawn Pillar was very curious about the younger Vince and Dave, and we would love to see them as well, but with the epsiode constraints, and we felt that if we met them we wanted to spend time with them, and we just didn’t have the real estate to do it. But one day you will get to see a bit more of them.

This is one of my favourite scenes where they [Nathan and Duke] discuss the time travel rules . It’s great becuase they come at it with their own Haven rules but also whatever rules they have in their heads from watching time travel stuff; the same questions we all talked about in the room. I just love that we made Nathan say “space time continuum” at some point. And it makes sense because if any of us got sent back in time, these are the things we would be thinking about; Back to the Future, Terminator, Peggy Sue Got Married. And we watched all of those movies again and again, to make sure that what we were doing made sense with pop culture thinking. And one of the other big influences on this epsiode that Matt McGuinness forced us to watch was City on the Edge of Forever - a great classic Star Trek episode. But whenever Matt was confused we would always go back to that as a good example of how to do the right version of this kind of story. And it’s also a time travel epsiode with heart, which is one of the things that we aimed for - both in relation to Nathan and Audrey but also Duke and his family legacy.

Originally the story was going to be mostly about Duke and his grandfather and Sarah was an interesting incidental but that grew to become more of the meat of the story as we started to think about who she is and how Nathan would react to her. If you got to be back in time with the doppelganger of the love of your life, how would you spend that time? And then those two stories converged at the end of the episode, which was the eureka moment when we figured that out.

And it was also an exciting thing when we decided to have this episode as Sarah’s introduction to Haven; because you get to discover her as she discovers Haven. And in a way it could be another pilot for a 1950s version of the show.

Now, [as we see Nathan outside the police station], everyone on Twitter was asking how Nathan got his hat. There was actually a little moment at the end of the last Shore Club scene with Duke where he grabbed a hat and coat off the back of a chair, but it was cut. So, Nathan did in fact steal that hat.

And this is one of my favourite scenes where Nathan meets a young Garland Wuornos as a child; this very touching character moment which, because it doesn’t really have that much to do with the plot, I was always convinced it would get cut. But thank god, the powers that be saw what a lovely little moment it was and fought to keep it.

We also see in this episode that the Guard has been around for a while and that probably in all the earlier cycles there has always been an opposing force to the Troubled in the way that The Rev. was, and in this particular cycle it’s this group of guys and this cop [who we see phoning Roy] and Roy and in every cycle the Crockers are probably going to be exploited. Some Crockers more unwilling than others; obviously Simon took to his role of killing the Troubled like a fish to water. But here we get to see Roy struggling with his role in Haven and what he’s expected to do vs the kind of person he wants to be, in just the same way that Duke struggles with it.

It’s interesting because prior to working on this episode we probably all had an idea in our minds of what Sarah was like, who she was, who the Colorado Kid was, but we hadn’t addressed any of that specifically until now. So for this epsiode we “had to get everyone in the writing staff on the same page and it was really interesting the debates we had about who people thought the Colorado Kid was, who they thought Sarah was. Nobody ever pictured that Nathan or Duke would be back in 1955 to influence the present world of Haven.”

This location [Nathan and Duke at the harbour where they first see Sarah] is Lunenberg. We wanted this to be ferry boat which felt very Haven to us. And hopefully you don’t notice this is Sarah until she turns around. And as everyone commented, Emily Rose looks gorgeous as a redhead, and we were very excited to create a whole new look and persona for her. The crew did great work transforming Emily; the make-up, the hair, which is a wig but it’s a fancy wig that it took an hour for Emily to get into, so it was a big deal. But she looks great and when the pictures started coming back from set, everyone in the room freaked out, we loved it she looked so great. The uniform she wears is a vintage outfit they found from the time and really wanted to use but it was the wrong size for Emily - so they literally sewed her into the costume every time before she was going to shoot. And at the end of they unsewed her, until the next day.

There was a lot of debate in the writers’ room about Sarah as a character and how is she different from Audrey. Does she have the same soul? The same inner being? Do they have the same mannerisms? But in the end we figured that Emily Rose being Emily Rose unified Audrey and Sarah enough. So we gave Emily the freedom to change her voice and really invent a new character for the role of Sarah. And we wrote Sarah’s lines differently than we would write Audrey’s lines. And from the different mannerisms Emily uses and even just the way she holds herself, you can see that she did a ton of work creating a new human being. Audrey I think watched a lot of old movies; Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. And that poise and classic energy comes through in her performance. And it was really great to see that transformation.

“Sarah Vernon” is Writers’ Assistance Nick Parker’s high school girlfriend, so that was where the name came from.

Nathan and Sarah on the beach was also filmed at Hubbard’s Beach, right down the road from the Shore Club. And this is the same beach where Nathan and Audrey have their big talk at the end of season one. I love this scene because we pushed really hard to have Sarah be kind of a flirt and a little bit of an aggressor. Because we’ve seen Audrey deal with so much devastation that her and Nathan are basically afraid to get together, but now here he is with Sarah and she’s going for it.

The ending of this scene was a little more ambiguous in the script because we weren’t quite sure how far it should go and there was this constant push and pull between the writers, and the producers, and the network. So at first we suggested, let’s have this flirty moment and then have him get up and walk away and end the scene there. And they liked that so we pushed it a bit further and had him turn to look back at her before the scene ended. And then by the time we got the dailies back, it was a full on make out in the sand, and we couldn’t have been happier.

But we should also talk about the Colorado Kid, because much as we would like to think that we have all of our ideas planned out meticulously and how everything works in Haven, things are always fluid when you’re writing. So who the Colorado Kid was, was kept very much up in the air, and there were many circulating theories and points of view amongst the writers about what should be discovered about who the Colorado Kid’s father was. And it really wasn’t until this episode that we were presented with the idea that the Colorado Kid was Nathan and Sarah’s son. Brian Milligan, one of our writers, is always saying “It’s the Terminator baby!” And we were thrilled with the way it all came together at the end of the season.

This actor who played Roy, looked very much like Eric and we felt these two had great chemistry together. He’s got a great future ahead of him and we felt very lucky to find someone who seemed very Eric-like.

This alternate timeline in present-day Haven [Claire and Audrey] was a treat to write. And in thinking about what would be cool to see in an alternate Haven, we thought, what if Garland Wuornos returned and it was awesome to be able to bring Nicholas Campbell back.

I’m not quite sure if all of these facts [that Sarah tells Stuart about the orchids] are true; I did as much research about orchids as I could, but we were under a deadline. Somewhere out there there may be a botanist who is very upset that this is not technically true. But sometimes as writers, you just … have to cheat. And the other nice thing about that scene is that you see that before Sarah is even aware of the Troubles or her role in Haven, she naturally has an inclination to help people. Which is one of the reasons we decided to make her a nurse, because she is good with people and taking care of people. And even though the entity that is Audrey and Sarah changes, there is always this heart to her. And we thought, in the ‘50s, the Women’s Army Corp would have been a good equivalent to Audrey’s FBI Agent role. And by all accounts from what we’ve read, the Women’s Army Corp really were incredible; they were heroes. And actually, our grandmother on our mother’s side was a Women’s Army Corp nurse.

I love this scene [as we see Nathan telling Sarah she has to run] and they played it perfectly. And this was shot before the scene with the two of them on the beach, so when they were shooting this, Lucas and Emily didn’t know exactly how far things had gone on the beach, or exactly what we would end up seeing there. But I think the one thing we told them is that they were playing a very deep, deep connection, even if they don’t quite understand it yet.

And this scene has my favourite line of the episode; “He has long hair. But you can trust him.”

One thing that was interesting to think about as well in writing this was that Nathan is still Troubled; he’s still numb to everyone, but he can feel Sarah.

And this epsiode is the second time we have written ear-abuse for Nathan; Audrey flicks him in the ear in Audrey Parker’s Day Off in season two, and Sarah drags him out of Stuart’s room by the ear here. I don’t know why we keep tugging on Nathan’s ear.

I think this [Sarah and Roy pointing guns at each other] was shot underneath where the Haven Herald set is. We end up doing a lot of creepy scenes as interior scenes on Haven because we shoot up in Nova Scotia and the days are so long there, there isn’t much night-time to work with and it makes it hard to shoot outdoor night-time scenes, or spooky/creepy scenes.

And [as Sarah shoots Roy] this is the City on the Edge of Forever moment, as Matt McGuinness would like to call it. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also the awful choice that Duke has to make.

And [as Roy’s blood touches Duke’s skin] there was also a lot of discussion here, about would Duke’s eyes go silver here? And it made sense to us that he would have that super-strength but not use it; it’s more of a private moment between Duke and his grandfather. And it’s kind of a nice gracenote that no matter what he does, he’s still inflicted with this family curse. Which is kind of sad and depressing.

[As Audrey gives the gun back to Nathan] I always thought of this scene as the Wizard of Oz scene where she’s grappling with the fact that she has to say farewell to all of these new friends she’s made and she’s going to be in this strange world without them.

And we see here too that even though she’s not Audrey she still has that same desire for answers and she wants to know from Nathan what’s going on. And so Nathan ends up being her introduction into what’s going on. So when we do that spin-off show about the 1950s, she goes off and solves a myriad of Troubles on her own. And it would be easier to write because there won’t be any internet or cell phones or anything getting in the way; just good old-fashioned detective work.

And so now we get to see Sarah’s first ever “curse-whispering”, which is what we call it here in the writers’ room because we don’t know what else to call it; her special ability to connect with Troubled people. She’s like Super-Therapist. And he’s trying to guide her towards it, but the truth is Nathan himself doesn’t quite understand how she does what she does.

And as writers we always try and make the resolution of the Trouble different every week and it’s one of the challenges of each episode.

And we are a little ambiguous here about how much Duke has figured out about what’s gone on between Nathan and Sarah. In the two-hour version of this epsiode, when they get back to the present day, Duke grills him about what happened.

Emily Rose really did double time in this episode and we kind of have a history of over-working her because we kind of did the same thing in Audrey Parker’s Day Off where she was in every single scene. But she was really excited about this and I think the cast liked this epsiode a lot. And we’re really proud of their work here.

This idea of the rewinding alternate reality [as we see the bullet that nearly shoots Audrey retract back into the gun], was something where if we had all the money and time in the world, we would have seen everything zipping backwards, back to the moment where the timelines converged.

And by the way, Stuart Mosley is obsessed with growing tomatoes because Nora is obsessed with growing tomatoes. As is Matt McGuinness.

This was a cool scene [Nathan telling Audrey about Sarah] I wish we could have had a little more here becuase it seems like Nathan could have told her a bit more about what happened with Sarah, until Audrey tells him the crazy truth about the Colorado Kid being her son, which immediately makes Nathan blanch, smile … I imagine a whole host of emotions. It would be great if we had more time to play that out.

This was a really cool addition [as we see Sarah in the phone box]. We knew we wanted some version of Agent Howard and this turned out to be a really cool solution. The actor got to come back for one day and it was a great moment.

[inaheartbeat-phff]

Chapter 1

Monday, January 5th 2015, 8:30am Noordeinde Palace, The Hague, Netherlands

Her Royal Highness, The Princess of Orange will be representing His Majesty King Willem-Alexander for the Royal tour this year.

The Princess of Orange will be touring the United Kingdom for 14 days.

The Princess of Orange is excited to spend time with her Godmother, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The Princess of Orange will be staying at Buckingham Palace during her stay in London, Balmoral Castle when in Scotland and Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland.

The Princess of Orange will be posting on her royal highness' official twitter and instagram page before and during her tour.  

"I think that should do it." Princess Arabella said as she finish reading the subsequent tweets that announce this year's royal tour. "Thank you Adam." she thanked her press secretary for the announcement.  "Hopefully we'll get some positive responses." Turning to her private secretary, Jane,  "Let's start our itinerary for the trip shall we? Please take out the catalogue as well, we need to see which jewellery to bring."

"To start off, the royal tour will kick start in March 11th and it will end on the 25th. You'll be greeted by the Prime Minister, David Cameron at the Tarmac along with the press and a few members of the public. You'll have a 15 minutes walkabout and then you'll be having lunch with the Queen and her family. After lunch is free and that night you'll have a state dinner at Buckingham Palace." Jane said the itinerary for the first day.

"Yes, I will be wearing the Rose Cut Diamond Bandeau for the state dinner, but bring the Laurel Wreath Tiara as well for back up. Make sure Eva pick a selection of dress and outfits to wear for the trip by Wednesday if possible. I want to be able to choose and pack asap."

"Yes your highness. I will also forward the tiaras selection as well as the outfits once its finalised to Julia so she can plan the makeup and hair." Jane said as she wrote it down in her tablet.

"We have been liaising with Her Majesty The Queen's security details as well as Scotland Yard to go over the security measures. Everything is on track and if anything were so to happen, you will be escorted to a bunker nearest to your location. All locations you are to visit or go have been checked out and will be checked out again nearer to the day. Every possible exit and entry has been thought out and barricades will be made once you’re there. MI-5 and MI-6 agents will be spread out undercover when you're outdoors and all personnel's have been checked." Arabella’s head of security Finn reported.

Two hours later and the meeting was finally over. They’ve gone through so many scenarios and finalize their schedules so that all that's left to do is to actually go on the tour. Standing up, Arabella said her thanks to everyone and walked back to her office. Once she entered the office, she took a deep breath and sat down on her really comfortable chair.

While checking on her emails and her charities, someone knocked on her office door once before opening it. It was a custom to do that here, whenever a royal member was in a room, closed door or not, the staff will knock once before entering the room. It was a sign as respect and it was easier without her having to say come in all the time.

Her butler, Pieter, who goes everywhere with her, stepped into the room and announce one of her ladies in waiting with a bow. "Ms. Sara your highness." With another bow, he exited the room. It was tradition that whoever visited her, or wanted to speak with her, they would be announced first by her footman or as you can say, butler. That's why Pieter, the fifty something year old man, have worked with her for years, since she was eighteen and took up more royal duties.

"Your Royal Highness" Sara spoke with a small curtsy. Once she have straightened up, she came closer to where Arabella was sitting and gave her a document of papers. On that document were her day to day activities for the month.

Arabella, also known as the Princess of Orange or as the crown princess of the Netherlands, has an army of entourage, there to make her lives easier and would require to go everywhere with her. Her private secretary, Jane, is the one who arranges meetings and all the important royal stuff. However, her ladies in waiting, Sara and Anna, were the ones who schedule her days, whether it will be with lunch or meetings or even her royal duties etc. Without Sara or Anna, her life would not be as systematic or as organised as it is, which is an important thing as she is a senior member of the Royal family and is the heir apparent.

"Your Highness, your schedule for this week starting today is as follows, Monday 05/01/15 - 2:15pm, meeting with parliament    5:30pm, high tea with Her Majesty, Queen Maxima    8:30pm, dinner with hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg Tuesday 06/01/15 - 9:00am, breakfast with the prime minister    1:30pm, lunch with HRH Prince Henry of Wales    5:00pm, afternoon jog/walk at the palace gardens    8:30pm, Dinner with HRH Prince Henry of Wales Wednesday 07/01/15 - 7:00am, morning jog          11:30am, brunch with Children's Peace Foundation          5:30pm, tea Thursday 08/01/15 - 10:00am, visit the Centre for Safety and Development     8:30pm, dinner with His Majesty The King and family Friday 09/01/15 to Sunday 11/01/15 - Birthday Weekend retreat to the Alps joined by HRH Prince Henry of Wales, HRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, HRH Hereditary Grand Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg, HRH Princess Madeleine and her husband, Christopher O'Neill, Ms Charlotte Casiraghi and Mr Gad Elmaleh.

The following week after your return from the Alps, there will be many celebrations of your 30th birthday ma'am. That includes a parade on Monday, a portrait reveal on Tuesday, a press conference and photo op with international and national television on Wednesday, State dinner on Thursday, a new hospital wing in honour of your name on Friday, a charity concert celebrating your birthday on Saturday and a charity football match on Sunday, Your highness."

Reading through the papers and the additional information given for each event, she signed the confirmation document before handing it back to Sara to be processed. That was how it works here, the schedules are just rough drafts that is acceptable to change. Once she'd been briefed, she would put in Arabella’s input, whether she want to do the engagement or not before signing the confirmation document. Once she'd signed that, the schedule will be sent to the communication's department to be written out and put out to the public. It will be a concise version and only official engagements will be added in. This way, the Dutch press will have a few days' notice to send their designated photographers on those events. It is known that there is an agreement with the press and the royal family in the Netherlands, that while we are working, they have every right to take pictures and film, however, during our private time, they are not allowed to take pictures.

"Is that all Sara?" Arabella asked her lady in waiting, going over my schedule once again.

"Yes your highness." She then did a small curtsy again before going out the door.

It was eleven thirty when Sara was done briefing her about her engagements and fifteen minutes later, Pieter knocked on the door again before coming inside.

"Lunch will be served at 12pm your royal highness and your glam team will arrive there at 12:45pm to get you ready for the parliament meeting." with a bow, he then exit the room and Arabella was left to finish up on her paperwork about her charities before she need to go to the dining room.

Right now, She was at the Noordeinde Palace at The Hague. That's where all the royal offices are located just like how in the UK, their offices are at St. James palace. They generally like to keep their offices at the same place so all their meetings will be held here. Of course they have their own private offices at home but this is where typically most of their staff works.  

Her father, King Willem-Alexander's office is located at the Ring, which is at the centre of the palace, her step-mother, Queen Maxima's office is located at the West wing and her offices are located in the East wing. Joint meetings and offices for the three of them is located at the ring as well. There is only three offices in this palace as her half siblings are only eleven, nine and six years old. Right now, all the announcements or anything important will come from her father's or step-mother's offices, however, once they have grown up and have their own offices, it will all be located at the West wing together with her step mother as they are not in direct line of the throne if she were to have children. That is if they decide to have a royal public life.

This is how the line of succession will go, her father is the King. As a first born, Arabella will be the first in line and heir to the throne. Right now, her sister Amalia is second in line, while Alexia is third and Ariene is fourth in line to the throne. At fifth in line to the throne is her uncle, Constantijn, followed by her cousins Eloise, Claus-Casimir and Leorore respectedly. And finally, the last in the order of succession is her great aunt, Margriet, who is Oma's sister. (Oma is what she call her grandmother, Beatrix)

When the clock strikes twelve, Pieter knocked and announced that the food is ready. With a sigh, she saved my work before shutting off the computer and putting the important documents where they should be. Standing up, she walked out the door and turned left. Walking down the hall, she turned right before going into the second door on her left, which is the dining room.

Sitting at the head of the table, food quickly got out from the side door and was served promptly. After the delicious three course meal, Arabella stepped out of the dining room and went back to the hallway. A few doors down was her dressing room and usually where her glam team would prep her if she was at Noordeinde Palace and are needed for an engagement.

When the clock strikes quarter to one, Pieter knocked on the door before announcing the glam team, or as she likes to call them, the glam squad. They are there to make her look good and look poised and as regal and all that fun stuff. Arabella can do her own hair and makeup as well as pick her own clothes. However, if she were to do that, her hair would be in a braid, with minimal makeup and wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Something not appropriate for the crown princess to be seen in Public.

"Your Royal Highness, Mr. Issac, Ms. Eva and Ms. Julia has arrived. Do I let them in Your highness?" Pieter asked.

"Yes yes, let them in. If anyone would like to reach me, connect the line. I don’t have my phone with me right now Pieter." She told him.

"Yes Ma'am." He said before bowing and leaving the room. Not a second later, the three musketeers knocked on the door before entering. Each of them bowing and curtsying in respect before moving closer towards her.

"Madam Arabella, How are you?" Issac asked. He's there to do her hair. I swear he is such a hair god, he can make her birds nest of a hair look amazing.

"I am well thank you Issac, what look are you doing for me today?" She likes to ask and chat with her stylists and make conversation during their time together. That way, they bonded and she feel comfortable with them. She didn’t want to be that person who doesn’t like to talk to them and just sit there and play with their phones like a spoiled brat.

Before working with Arabella, Issac was a freelance hair stylist that works on mostly bridal hairstyle. When she turned 18, he was 25 and was looking for a more permanent job. She sat through a lot of interviews with many hairstylists doing her hair the same kind of style, and each of them either is too flamboyant, used too much hairspray, made her look old or just plain nervous. When Issac came in, he greeted her with a bow, asked her how she was that morning and calmly did her hair. While he was working on Arabella’s hair, he kept the small talk. She didn’t feel any harsh tugging or any pulling. Once he was done, he gave her a mirror and asked her what she thinks. It was the same hairstyle that has been done by various other hairstylist, some who have done other royals before, but it looked amazing. It was the same simply hairstyle, yet he added his own twist to it that made it unique and amazing. That was when she knew she had to keep him. He's been with her ever since.

"I was thinking of doing some lose curls and just let it fall naturally. Since it's only a parliament meeting, I don’t want to overdo it." Issac said as he start shampooing her hair. The dressing room we have is one that is like a salon and spa. It has one of those seats where there's a sink and chair so you can wash your hair and all that stuff.

"Madam Arabella, your skin is absolutely glowing this morning!" Her makeup artist Julia exclaimed. "Perhaps we should keep it natural today."

"Anything is fine." she said

Arabella met Julia when she had an even in the UK when I was 16. It was a state dinner, and at that time Oma wanted to bring her along. It was a really fancy event so she had to have a makeup artist to do my makeup. Her hair was done by Oma's hair stylist at the time. They clicked instantly and Arabella love how Julia knows her skin type and what works. She doesn’t make her look cakey and she always look flawless and glowing at the end of the session. Immediately, whenever she have events or even a dance at school, she would call her and ask her to do the makeup. Once Arabella turned 18, she hired Julia permanently to be her makeup artist.

"As for your outfit today, I was thinking of something nude but still chic and regal." Her stylists, Eva said.

Eva has been her stylist since she was ten years old and her mother had just passed away. She had been there for her when she went on her first date, her mother's funeral and everything in between. She is the only person Arabella would trust with her outfits as she knows her style and respects me if I didn’t want to wear what she had suggested.

An hour later and she was ready to go.

The meeting with Parliament took a few hours and it was half past four by the time she has finish and is on her way home from Binnenhof.

Arabella was really tired and have a pounding headache from that meeting with parliament. Since she became heir apparent in 2013, it was her duty to represent her father in parliamentary meetings. The more important ones that decides the fate of the country are the only ones that her father attends. Monthly meetings and others are the ones that she is required to attend. Don’t get her wrong, she loves being a part of all these decisions and having her input put into consideration, but most of the time, these meetings are extremely boring and usually there isn't much to discuss. The monthly meetings are just to keep each party informed about what the other is doing that month and to keep the royal family in the loop of everything. Since she's turning 30 next week, this particular meeting was about her finally settling down and get married. Of course they knew that she was in a relationship with Harry for three years now but the topic of marriage hasn’t been in the conversations yet.

Both families have known about the relationship and how serious they are in each other. It's mostly just a matter of WHEN he would propose, not if. Since Harry's turning 30 later this year, Arabella is sure that he's getting some talks about marriage soon enough. She would very much like it if they were to get married, its just he would have to sacrifice more than she would since she is heir and not fourth in line.

Once she does marry, she still have to go to these boring parliament meetings but at least she would have someone by her side to make things less boring for her.

Speaking of Harry, her phone was ringing in her clutch so she took it out and accepted the call.

"Pinky's Pleasure Palace…. What's your pleasure?" I answered the phone in a low voice, hopefully coming across as seductive.

"I really hope you know who you answered the phone to and not just answering them with that line all the time." she heard a deep voice chuckle on the other line.

"Of course I knew who was calling ginger. Can you imagine me answering the phone like that to aunty lilibet?" She laughed, relaxing to her seat.

"How was your day love?" Harry asked on the other line. Arabella could hear some rustling of papers on the other line.

"It was long. Had a meeting this morning with my advisors on the tour this year. We've set a date and the place where we will be going." she said smiling to herself. I wonder if he knows or not. He probably does. The announcement was made while I was in the parliament meeting. She thought.

"Really? Where will you be off to this year Your Royal Highness? Can I guess that you'll be with your charming boyfriend for two weeks?" he ask slyly on the phone.

"Are you? Spending my engagements and travel with me? Oh Harry, is it true?" She asked him hopefully. It really would be amazing to have him with me on the tour. Especially for her to see whether or not he is cut out for this life. Being crown prince is different from being third in line to the throne like he has been his entire life. He was the spare. He knows he will never be in King one day. Arabella on the other hand has been raised, bred and breathed being the heir. She was in William's place growing up, when her Oma was still Queen. She knew what to do once her father becomes king and what responsibility she has.

"Yes. Granny thought it would do me good to be with you on your engagements. Of course there are some engagements I'm not going and even if I am, its mostly as a guide and also to accompany you during your tour. Do you have your schedule for the tour yet?" he asked excited to be able to spend two weeks with his other half, even though most of the time she would be working.

"No not yet, Jane, Adam and Finn are finalising the technical part of the tour before passing it over to Sara and Anna to work out the schedule part of the trip." She shrugged looking out the window, seeing the greenery pass by.

"I tend to forget that you have an army of people doing your work and a whole bunch of protocols and process you need to follow. Whenever Granny sends me for a tour, her office is usually the one planning the trip and I just show up and look pretty." Harry laughed on the other line.

"Yes well, my office has been trained to do this for forever so I think I'm used to it I guess."

"What else did you do today Bel?" He asked. It was quiet on his end of the line meaning to say that he was paying attention to her now and not multi-tasking.

"I got a briefing for this week as well as my birthday celebrations the following week. January is always been a busy month, its mostly meetings about the upcoming year, events and all that. I also had a parliament meeting this afternoon. Actually, I'm on the way from Binnenhof to Huis ten Bosch. It was really boring. They brought up marriage again. Saying things like, I'm not getting any younger, I need to have an heir before I turn forty. Stuff like that. I just told them that when we're ready, we're ready." Arabella ranted to Harry. It was really annoying for her to have the parliament try and control her life. Not that they have any power against her or anything, really, she can do as she pleased as long as its legal. It just gets really frustrating for her when the parliament thinks they can control her. News flash, no one can control her, and her father will be damned if he let them pressure her into doing something she doesn’t want to do. "Anyways, I'm on my way to have tea with Maxima now, and tonight I'm having dinner with Guillaume at some restaurant I don’t know where."

"I see." Harry said lowly. Since he was turned thirty last year, his grandmother and the office have been pressuring him to get married as well. only in his case, they can control his life and will probably make him do something for the better of the family. Lately, they're ratings have been low, due to Kate not doing much public engagements and the press not seeing enough of George in public. The Family's rating have been dropping and if he doesn’t do anything soon, he was afraid what would happen. Arabella on the other hand, has been a total star the past two years, stepping up as heir of the throne and doing everything she possibly could to please the public yet keep to herself. In a way he was jealous of how the press is over there and wish that the agreement they had with the press would be the same in the UK as well.

"My flight is leaving tomorrow morning at 9am. I should be there around 11am." he said on the phone.

"hm, I have breakfast with the PM tomorrow morning at nine. After that I'm all yours. What did you do today love?" She asked him, seeing as they have 10 minutes left of the journey.

"Not as busy as you were Bel. I just have a few meetings about Sentebale and also about the Invictus games next year." He said.

"Oh, no engagements today?" she asked him.

"Nope. I don’t have one until towards the end of January so for the next two weeks, I'm all yours." he said on the other side.

"Are you serious? You're not joking are you Henry? You mean to tell me that you're staying for my birthday celebrations? All the events? Have Aunty Lilibet gave you permission. Please say she has, I don’t want you to get into trouble." Arabella said with hope in her voice.

"Yes. I am serious Bella. She was the one who suggested that I stay there since I was there already." he said over the phone. Harry knew why he was staying there for her birthday celebration. It was a surprise so he wasn’t going to tell her why.

"Oh Harry! That's wonderful news. I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Will you be staying with me?" She asked him smiling.

"I know love. Yes, I am staying with you, I hope you don’t mind."

Arabella could see Huis Ten Bosch in the distance as she was approaching the gates. "Harry, I've got to go love. I'll see you tomorrow okay? I’ll have Pieter and Mina prepare your suite for you. Barend will pick you up from the airport tomorrow, so look out for him will you?" Arabella asked.

"I will love. Take care. I love you." Harry said on the phone.

"I love you too Charming." She replied before hanging up. Arabella turned to put her phone back inside the purse and looked up to the front seat, which was occupied by Markus, her driver and Finn, her protection officer.

"Finn, isn't it exciting? Harry spending two weeks here as well as attending my birthday events. I hope he got what it takes, I'll be so heartbroken if he's not cut out for the job." She sighed in her seat.

"I'm sure he will be the right man for the job ma'am." Finn replied

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Monday, January 5th, 5:30pm Huis ten Bosch

"Her Royal Highness, The Princess of Orange, Princess Arabella of the Netherlands, your majesty."

Maxima was in her sitting room watching the news when Arabella got there.

She just changed her outfit quickly when she got there and pulled her hair into a ponytail. It was a semi-formal event so there was no need for her to wear her skin tight dress. 

When Arabella was within two feet of her step-mother, Maxima, she gave a small curtsy of respect for her queen. Once she was standing straight again, she quickly gave Maxima a hug and kissed her cheeks.

"How are you today mija?" Maxima asked her as she holds her step daughter at arm's length, checking her over to see if she was okay.

"I'm doing okay mama," Arabella started calling Maxima mama when she was sixteen years old. It was one of those days that she wanted to be a normal girl and not second in line to the throne. It was an emotional day and Maxima was there to console her soon-to-be step-daughter. Maxima told her that being normal is not that much fun. How she should be lucky to be a royal and be proud of herself that her voice is heard at such a young age. It was then that Arabella knew, Maxima will never replace her mummy, but she will be her mama. One who would love her unconditionally and will help  shape her into a strong beautiful woman.

"I'm happy to hear that my dear." Maxima smiled. "Come, let's have tea and catch up." She beckoned her eldest to the couch where their tea sat waiting to be poured.

Once they each have their tea in their hands, they caught up with each other. Arabella would always try to find time in her busy schedule to meet with her step-mother every week if possible. She needed to tell her everything that that’s going on and what she should do. She always goes to Maxima for advice because Maxima will always be the voice of reason in Arabella. Her father on the other hand is always the goofball teddy bear and wouldn’t know how to advice the young girl at all. Follow your heart, he would say. That doesn’t help anybody Arabella thought.

Arabella told Maxima about the upcoming weeks as well as the royal tour to the UK. She also told Maxima how excited she is to spend her birthday with Harry and how he's staying for the duration of her Birthday week.  She also told Maxima about the parliament being pushy and pushing her to marriage when she doesn’t know if Harry is fit for this life or not.

"I mean, I know that he's no common boy, but he's always been so carefree you know mama. He's one of those people that jokes around and make everyone laugh. He doesn’t like all those political stuff and you know how he doesn’t want to be king. He could see the stress of it in William and had assured himself he would never be king. By marrying me, he would have to sacrifice so much. He wouldn’t be able to spend much time with family, he will be three hours away, he would have to spend Christmas and other holidays here instead of England. I don’t know if I could do that to him mama. I don’t think I can take his freedom away." Arabella spoke. Her heart broke just thinking of not being able to spend the rest of her life with Harry. He was her anchor, the one who keeps her from losing her mind and staying down to earth.

"I don’t think that's your choice mija. He knows what he signed up for when he got to know you back in 2011. He definitely knows what he was doing in 2012 when he asked you to be his girlfriend. I don’t think he would have stayed this long if he is not cut out for this job. Mija, he has grown up thinking he was third in line to the british throne. He has grown up treated as a spare. He knows that you will be Queen one day, he knows what he signed up for. Trust your heart Mija. It knows what's important. Do you want a life with him mija? To grow old together and have kids?" Maxima asked her daughter.

"of course I do mama. I dream of that all the time. I don’t think I can see anyone else to be with than him." Arabella confessed.

"Then you have nothing to be worried about Mija." Maxima smiled at her eldest daughter. Even though Arabella was not her biological daughter, Maxima would always think of her as one of her own. She saw her mija grew up from an awkward teenager to a beautiful woman and she couldn’t be more proud.

"Now, tell me how you feel turning thirty." Maxima asked smiling at her daughter. No matter what happens, she is proud to call her, her daughter.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Two hours later and she was done with tea and caught up with Maxima. She then went up to her room in the west wing of the palace and got ready for her dinner with Guillaume. She hasn’t seen him in ages as they are quite busy people.

She was super tired from the day but knew that this was only the beginning. She could feel it in her gut that her year will only get busier as it pass on.

Next Chapter ->

[aion-rsa]

Screenwriter Ed Solomon on Soderbergh, Noir, and How Bill & Ted Saved His Career

https://ift.tt/2Vq97R3

Steven Soderbergh’s noir crime feature, No Sudden Move, is set in 1954 Detroit: back when automakers drove the city and mobsters rotated their tires. This isn’t just another heist movie from the director of Ocean’s 11, even though it centers on a big score and hosts an impressive cast. Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro play two small-time criminals hired to steal a document which is very valuable to some powerful people. It’s a big-ticket item which can revolutionize the auto industry, and the price keeps going up.

For the movie, Soderbergh colludes with the Big Four Automakers to cloud the atmosphere. The caper careens through a smoggy set of turns, picking up passengers like Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm, David Harbour, Brendan Fraser, and Bill Duke (in killer shades) for a wild ride downhill. It all stops with Mr. Big, played with beneficent malignancy by Matt Damon.

Nothing is what it seems in No Sudden Move. It was written by Ed Solomon, a veteran best known for his work on Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Charlie’s Angels, Men in Black, and The Garry Shandling Show. And Solomon spoke with us about exploring dark themes, working with Soderbergh, and how he intends to continue changing how stories can be told.

Den of Geek: I really, really enjoyed No Sudden Move, and I agree, ulterior motives are sexy.

Ed Solomon: That’s very funny. I remember the moment I wrote that [line] and I was like, “Is this just me? And is this an indication of something maybe not so great about my personality?” I actually thought that, I literally thought that, and it’s funny. You’re the first person who’s ever said that. That’s really hilarious.

It made me ask the same questions about myself. Was that the creative key to the script? 

Yes. The drive that got me excited about every character at every moment was that they had a secret motive. Every character had a secret motive that they weren’t letting on, to the other characters. And that’s what gave it its energy for me as a writer. It gives a kind of excitement, because what happens then is the actors don’t get to just act with so much subtext. But as a writer, you get to, you know that you’re writing people that are saying one thing but thinking something else, and that’s where all the energy is for me as a writer.

When you were first brought together with Soderbergh, how much of a story was there, or was it just a concept?

We had a concept. We wanted to do just a spare, noir drama for Don [Cheadle], and maybe a couple of other people. The concept was some guys get called together to pull off a little heist that just goes drastically sideways. And are these people? And where is it set? We decided on Detroit. We were thinking about what era does it take place in? We were thinking maybe the ’50s. And that led to Detroit, because ’50s Detroit is just so American, and a lot of things were changing in Detroit at that time. There were fascinating things happening, and there was a lot of racial tension, and the city itself was remodeling itself in the way that America was remodeling itself. It was going from trolleys and cities to freeways and suburbs.

A lot of communities were getting displaced. And knowing we were writing, that Don was doing this, it was like, “What’s going to give Don’s character the courage of his convictions?” It just seemed like the right backdrop for it. So really we came in at a concept and then started throwing story ideas around together for a few days. Then I went off to do my outline. And then I gave him a beat sheet, which he gave me the thumbs up on, and then I had a few ideas for the end. Like the big seven-page aria that comes toward the end of the film. That was an add after Steven read the beat sheet. He’s like, “Let’s bring it to this kind of operatic conclusion, with these intersecting sectors of society.”

He gave me the not undaunting charge of, “Write a seven-page monologue.” I said, “Okay, I’ll do my best.” And then, he obviously read the draft and he had some notes. We did a revision, and the next rewrite we did was when we got the cast on. It was not one of those scripts that was constantly developed. That’s one of the great things about working with Steven. Also, I wrote it on spec, so I didn’t have to worry about studios giving notes or anything like that. Because again, I had Steven there, and Steven and I both knew how he was going to end up making the film. So we got to make it how we wanted to see it before giving it to the studio.

How do you personally get into the head space for a period piece?

Several ways. Yeah, I watched the movies, but really the bigger thing was going there. Going there and really being in the spaces that these people existed in at that time, those that are left in Detroit. Talking to people who were alive then. Spending time, there was an exhibit at the Detroit Public Library that a woman named Emily Kutil, had put together called “Black Bottom Street View.” They had taken all these photographs back in the ’50s of these neighborhoods that later got raised, and Emily recreated the experience of moving through, those neighborhoods, by using photographs in the library. She basically blew the photos up and you would walk down these aisles, which represented each.

I listened to music from the time I listened to people speaking from the time, I listened to recordings from the mid ’50s, in Detroit. I searched out as much as I could to get a tangible feel, a visceral feel. But at the end of the day, it’s about using all of these pieces to create an emotional space as a writer. I tend to write more from an emotional state than an intellectual state. So, once I could find myself in what felt like, the emotional frame of mind of each character, I found it easier to really be there in that time. And we had some very helpful consultants, as well. A man named Jamon Jordan is credited in the film, ironically and totally coincidentally, he’s an extra in the film. And his picture, he is in the frame that my screen credit is. My screen credit comes over his picture, which he and I [are] thrilled about.

Jamon runs an organization called the Black Scroll Network and they do walking tours of the African-American history of Detroit. He and I went through the script together, and of course Don and I went through the script together. I mean, every actor, we all went through the script together. But at every turn, it’s about trying to keep making it more authentic and more real, and more inhabited and more alive.

So you played Joey Biltmore in a 10th grade production of Guys and Dolls.

Whoa.

Reading that tweet made me have to ask you, what was it like being a staff writer on Laverne and Shirley?

Of course, it would make you think that. Oh my God, that’s amazing. Well, this is Den of Geek, after all. I could expect nothing less, then that kind of deep dive. That’s amazing.

Actually, here’s what’s funny. I will happily tell you about Laverne and Shirley in one second, but that experience on Guys and Dolls had more of an influence on the language of Bill and Ted. Meaning Damon Runyon, and that strange cadence and odd use of sometimes, somewhat anachronistic language was an influence for me. Not for [Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure co-writer Chris Matheson]. I asked Chris about it. I was like, “Were you into Damon Runyon as well, or was that just me?” And he’s like, “That was just you.” And I was like, “Oh.” That had more of an influence on the creation of Bill & Ted, for me, than anything else. More than surfer dialogue or valley talk, or stoner talk. Any of that, it actually was Damon Runyon to me, funnily enough. And it was because I had been in Guys and Dolls that I got into Damon Runyon.

But Laverne and Shirley, it’s a really interesting thing. It changed my life in many ways, but probably not the ways I would have thought it was going to change my life. It made me a professional writer, but I wasn’t great at it. In other words, I was in over my head with a bunch of real professional ’80s comedy writers, and I was a senior in college. I wasn’t quite ready. I had gone from writing jokes for comedians and writing plays that were performed at UCLA to being in a room of pros, and it was stressful and difficult, and I was still a senior and I didn’t get hired back into another sitcom. And in a way, I am really grateful.

At the time, I thought I had failed, because it took me about two years. Where I was doing standup again and writing jokes, and selling jokes, and writing for a game show, and doing anything I could to stay afloat, and borrowing money from my parents to live. I almost gave up, almost thought, “I’m my own worst nightmare. I’m a flash in the pan,” but had that not happened, I wouldn’t have approached Chris Matheson and said, “Hey, would you like to write something together?” And he, and I would not have written the Bill & Ted script, which is the thing that actually turned my career around and got me back on the map. It got both of us on the map, and then it relaunched my career from a different angle.

I think had I actually succeeded on Laverne and Shirley, in a certain way, I probably would have fried [out], as one of those ’80s TV writers, as those ’80s TV writers often did. Not just from drugs. But the environment itself – I don’t think was a super healthy one for a writer at that time. For me, at least. It was just a lot of competition, not the way I would want to be as a writer.

Plus, I think there’s a certain state of mind you have to maintain that I was unable to maintain. So, in a way, I attribute my failing out of Laverne and Shirley to the relaunching of my career in a way that was probably more appropriate for where I wanted to go. It was hard. It was a very stressful experience, and I never felt like I fit in. And I never felt like I could contribute comedically at the level that those people were. It took me about four years or five years to be able to feel comfortable in a writer’s room with other comedy writers.

And in the Garry Shandling writer’s room I met some of the funniest people I’d ever met in my life, and I could never get to the comedic level they could, but I was comfortable enough to be able to add whatever my two cents would be to any situation. And that room was much more fun. I think I had just grown up a bit.

Why does Bill & Ted continue to strike a chord?

I have asked myself that question because when it first came out, it was eviscerated by critics. It was pummeled. Every serious critic, and in particular, the non-serious critics. Because for the most part, they didn’t even let serious critics review it; they’d give it to their third- or fourth-year critics, and they just trashed it. So I was like, “Well, why did it sustain? Why did it not just last, but weirdly grow, over a few decades?”

Look, it started as the characters. It was how Chris and I, who originally played these characters just screwing around, but what Chris and I were always really attracted to in Bill & Ted, was this ebullience, this sweetness, this lightness of spirit and this sort of ‘yes!’ quality to them. They feel things deeply, but they adjust quickly and come up with a plan and move forward with the best, best, best of intentions at all times. That’s a really lovely place to inhabit, as a writer.

And then when the baton was passed to Alex [Winter] and Keanu [Reeves], they took it over so beautifully. And I think there is a beneficence of spirit, of kindness to the characters, a sweetness, that I think floated to the surface and kept Bill & Ted alive over the decades. And it did fine, it did well enough as the first film to warrant a second film, barely. It’s not like it did that well, but over time, people discovered it. And it’s what made it difficult to make a third movie, because there were no “numbers” to support it. “Why should we make a third movie? The first two didn’t do all that well.” It was more anecdotal. “But everywhere we go, people seem to know it, and people seem to want a sequel. And couldn’t we do it for them?”

It took John Wick getting where it was, but it also took the rise of social media to let audiences have a voice. So that when someone would say, “Is there going to be another Bill & Ted movie?” Then the studio finally started to see, or I should say the powers that be finally started to see, “Holy moly, there’s a lot of people out there that seem interested in this.” It took that, to get the movie made.

Going back to the tweet, when I read your responses, I thought you had a bit part on Kolchak. And then I found out that you were a real suspect on the Night Stalker case. Was that the worst review you ever got?

Well, that’s hilarious. Let me just put it this way. Being a suspect, which lasted only about 15 minutes and it was a misunderstanding. It was basically, my roommate’s car, which I had cosigned for, was stolen years later and taken to the scene. It was stolen by Richard Ramirez, it was still registered to my address and to me, I guess. So for 15 minutes, people were like, “Wait, is it you? You’re the prime suspect.” And then it was like, “Oh, wait, no, it’s not you. It’s not you, you’re asleep in your room, in Westwood and this murder took place 90 miles away.” But for a few minutes there, it was kind of weird and surreal.

But that was not even as bad as those initial reviews of Bill & Ted. I remember a review of Bill & Ted where the reviewer was reviewing a movie the following week, Friday the 13th, it was Jason Takes Manhattan. And the guy was like, “Here’s an idea. How about Jason Takes Bill and Ted?” I go, “Come on, dude. You don’t have to kill us again. You killed us last week, geez.”

It’s pretty funny because here in my office, somebody printed out one of the headlines. After I tweeted that, of course, I should have known that this thing was going to follow me in a way that I didn’t expect. Meaning when I tweeted it, I thought it was just kind of a funny anecdote. I didn’t expect the barrage of clickbait headlines saying things like “Bill and Ted writer was once suspected of being the Night Stalker killer.” Plus, for about two weeks, if you Googled Richard Ramirez and went to his Wikipedia page, my picture came up with it. It was funky. And then the headlines that they were doing were crazy. So people at my parents’ retirement community, friends of my parents, would be like, “What is this?” Because for people who aren’t actually reading beyond the clickbait, they’re looking at a picture of Richard Ramirez and a picture of me, saying I was a suspect along with him.

It was hilarious, and it was a little freaky. But of course after a week or two, the news cycle shifted, and you no longer found it. But for about a week, if you Googled me all you got was that I was a suspect in the Night Stalker [case]. It was not good. And I was just recently single, too. My girlfriend and I had broken up a month and a half earlier, and that meant if I was going to date someone and their friend was going, “Let me Google your date to see if I can find out anything about him,” it would not have boded well. It did not bode well, but it was pretty funny.

When you worked with Soderbergh for Mosaic, you were changing the way stories are delivered, and I want to know if you have any other plans to bend visual arts?

Yeah, I do. And we do. And we’re working on a new thing that I’m not allowed to get into any detail on, I’ve actually been asked not to. But it’s another thing that we’ve designed to be able to be told in various different styles. And what was the ultimate challenge of Mosaic was also the greatest gift of Mosaic. There was a moment when Steven and I looked at each other and went, “How often, especially when you’ve been doing this as long as we have, do you get to do something that is so challenging, that flexes so many muscles that you’ve never used before? That you can’t help but come out the other end of it, a better writer.” And that, to me, was one of the many great gifts of Mosaic.

One was working with Steven, which was an absolute high point, developing a relationship with him. Which led to No Sudden Move, which led to this new thing, which led to me bringing him on to help us get Bill and Ted Face the Music off the ground. He was an exec producer on that. So that was of course, one great thing, but just on a creative level. Having to design a story, where each character in the story has to be worthy of their own movie, because you’re also going to tell the story from their point of view, just like you can tell it from someone else’s point of view.

The notion that every villain is the hero of their own story, or every human is the central character of their own movie. That was really at work in Mosaic. It forced me to really upgrade how I thought about what I wrote. And it also was so difficult an endeavor, it took so long and it was so difficult and so invigorating that it made other writing seem easier. Because every decade or so, I really think a creative person has to really look at the work they’re doing and make sure that they’re not falling back on old habits or old tricks. Or, for sure as a writer, not getting into a mindset of, “Oh, I know how to do this.” I think that’s death for a writer.

I think, for me, the healthiest balance is that combination of confidence and insecurity. Not even confidence. Faith, I think is probably a better word. Like, “I don’t know if I can do this, but I think if I stay with it long enough, I’ll figure it out.” To me, that’s the sweet spot. No Sudden Move was a genre I’ve not written in and a tone I hadn’t written in. That alone was reason to do it, with a director I trusted and I really admire, and with whom I love working. For an actor, I’ve always wanted to work with? Don. That was like, “I’m going to do this and I’m going to work my ass off to get it right.” That’s that was my attitude on it. “And when I get out the other side of it, I want to be a better writer.”

And that’s my goal with everything, now. “When I get out the other side of this, I want to be a better writer than I was when I started it.”

No Sudden Move is a twist on noir, gangster, and industrial crime films. How did you come to the catalytic converter, and what research were you doing on the actual crime of it?

There’s always a relationship between research and writing. How to do the right amount of research without getting bogged down, and how to learn from the research and how to use the research to help you with where you want to go with it. I knew that the characters were going to be trying to steal something and we also said, “It might be cool if it’s initiated by one of the smaller auto companies, against one of the bigger ones.” I was looking for interesting innovations that happened in ’54 or ’55 that might have happened with GM or with Ford, or with Chrysler, that maybe Studebaker would have been wanting, or Nash, or something.

And then I thought, “Wait a minute, it’s going to be much more interesting if it’s an innovation that they tried to bury, as opposed to that they tried to actually bring out into the world?” And I was like, “What kind of stuff? What were they doing wrong back then? What have they uncovered that they forgot?” That led me to discovering this notion of the pollution control technologies that the automobile industry was forced to collude [on]. And so, for the first time, there was a lawsuit, the City of Los Angeles sued the Big Four, the Big Four lost, and the Justice Department ruled that the Big Four had to collude. For the first time, they had to collaborate, share technology, to come up with ways to reduce emissions in the automobile.

So for the first time in history, the auto industry, the Big Four, collaborated on something. And what they ended up collaborating on was not coming up with an answer, but finding an answer and then burying it. And I thought, “Okay, that’s more interesting.” In my research on Detroit in the ’50s, I discovered the deep potency of this idea of the cities re-landscaping themselves. And then those same companies were pulling up the trolley tracks, red-lining districts, making it so certain people couldn’t live in other communities. They destroyed Black Bottom, Paradise Valley, which were these thriving, African American residential and business communities. And I thought, “Well, that’s an interesting backdrop. And so, what if we set it against this changing landscape of Detroit?”

I knew we had Don, and so it also made sense that the person that he would be with would represent the other side of the spectrum, someone who is racist, and these two guys have to work together. [And the other guy] is not only racist, but he’s dealing with someone who’s smarter than him, and ahead of the game more than he is. So he’s got to deal with a kind of appreciation for this guy, that he’s kind of grown up distrusting, without knowing him. It seemed to give a deeper fuel to the back and forth between these two guys, as they’re trying to fuck each other over, over the course of the movie.

We were not trying to do a “socially conscious film.” We were really trying to just make a fun yarn. And to me, it just added to the fun, because it added to the potency of the characters. Like it gave Don’s character more muscle and more of a sense of righteous indignation. And it gave Benicio’s character more of a deeper character place to come from when dealing with Don’s character. It was not designed so that it would be “about something bigger.” It was actually designed to just give a bit more weight, so that the characters were more fun. It’s funny, because I’ve heard it referred to as a gangster movie, and it literally never crossed my mind, that this would be a gangster movie. Never. Until today.

Read more

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Examining Bill & Ted’s Excellent Pop Culture Adventures

By Chris Cummins

I’m the gangster geek at Den of Geek, so I have to look at it that way. And I got to say, Matt Damon’s character is scarier than Luca Brasi.

You know what? I appreciate your saying that. And that’s why I’m like, “Yeah.” And that guy, he’s not in any kind of organized crime, but he’s legit scarier. And yet, he’s probably the most civilized of everybody. I appreciate what you’re saying, actually. Very much appreciate that. Luca Brasi, that’s so funny. I was thinking about Luca Brasi, just recently.

I think about him all the time. Almost everything you’ve worked on has pushed barriers. The Garry Shandling Show changed television, you changed entertainment.

I’ve always wanted to try to push boundaries, wherever I could, partially for purely selfish reasons of not getting stale. And not falling back, as we were saying before, and not falling back on so-called old tricks or old habits, because I’ve always wanted to have longevity. I’ve always wanted to constantly improve as a writer, and be vital. I don’t want people throwing a bone at me, just so I can work. I want to be able to have something to say that’s meaningful. It’s been both good and bad for me. It’s been good for me in that, it has kept me growing, but it’s been bad in that I’ve fallen on my face a lot.

I’ve really taken some swan dives and landed on cement. And that’s hurt. However, I think truthfully, taking chances and failing has probably led to more success and longevity than the successes I’ve had. Weirdly. It’s great to have success, because it makes you be perceived as viable by the people who make movies and who hire writers. But honestly, as a writer, it’s better to have failures as long as you have the emotional resolve to be able to get up and keep walking, and look honestly at where those failures are your fault.

I don’t think it’s possible to have all success anyway, but if I guess if you have all success, nothing’s a problem for you. But I think most of my friends who have a lot of success and don’t have a lot of failure, who are writers, don’t usually have a lot of longevity, which is interesting. And I don’t exactly know why except I think you stop challenging yourself, and your work stops becoming relevant. I think. I’ll know more in a decade or two, and we’ll get back on it. And we’ll see if my strategy worked or didn’t.

The new movie finds relevance today by going back to the past, and by going back to the filmmaking styles of the past.

I’m so grateful to hear you say that. Steven used these Kowa, I think that’s those anamorphic lenses that he had fixed on top of the RED monster camera, the digital camera. So that’s why it has the look it has, and I really appreciate the way everyone really went for authenticity. I think sometimes you can speak better about the present when you’re speaking, and you set it, in the past. Because sometimes you need that distance to be able to actually see yourself. And then when you’re just looking at a current, cutting edge, modern story, it somehow doesn’t resonate as much. It doesn’t have as much poetry.

No Sudden Move is available to stream on HBO Max.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3xu5wQ9

[kitsoa]

Lyric Comic Q&A

So it turns out when you work on a project for half a year, you get a lot of Thoughts and want to express them whether people are actually curious or not. Without further ado, your un-requested Birdmen Lyric Comic Q&A

(Warning: I’m long winded)

*Why a Lyric Comic?

Dude, lyric comics are cool. I’ve always been fascinated by the beautiful, multifaceted artistic experience they provide, because of my love for music and art. Furthermore, I am often plagued by cinematic trapped in my head, spurred by the movement and lyrics of my favorite songs. Since I have no means or experience in the animation category (which would free these phantoms from my head) the lyric comic was a godsend of a medium for this inspired idea of mine. Kiki-kit of the Gravity Falls fandom and Tides-miraculous’ lyric comic in the Miraculous Ladybug are my main inspirations, I’ve adored their sense of motion and emotional savviness. It’s quite the powerful medium.

It’s also a good medium for me personally. I am a ‘looper’ with my music, allowing me to listen to something over and over without tiring. This is useful in the drafting stages! I loved the challenge (though I definitely didn’t anticipate it’d take this long).

*Why this song?

“Out of Mind” was one of those songs that spoke to me, in an overly cathartic, heart-yearning-- almost funnily sardonic ways. Birdmen being on the brain, I started to easily see how much the singers voice reflected that bombastic frustration our Eishi is so known for. The Pre-Chorus “Are you kidding me?” speaks to me the most, reminding me of his cry of frustration during his first blackout, screaming against his fate as he fell from the sky (this exact image did not make the final cut in the end, but I certainly vied for it until other themes overtook it-- let’s face it, there are many screaming Eishi’s to choose from).

This period of time between Takayama’s disappearance and the inevitable reunion is super intriguing to me. Eishi’s in the role of the heartbroken singer, hopelessly betrayed and unable to get over the good thing they had.

*Breakdown the story:

The progression goes like this:

Eishi’s loneliness consumes the first verse, Takayama’s empty seat, Eishi standing alone… all the while peppered with Takayama’s broken promise, which culminates with Eishi’s defiant Death Tweet. The Refrain then serves as these hallmark moments that define them. This is what they had. Every rescue, every proclamation or venomous defying of fate-- it’s what made them. And you’d have to be out of your mind to think that these moments could be forgotten.

Verse 2 is all about that shift in Eishi to follow him. Wistful memories drive Eishi as he chooses to leave and depart from everything he knows, just to get him back. Meanwhile, that opinion of Takayama is still weighed down by that grating irritation (like hell he’s in touch reality, how could he do this?) culminating to his call for him in the Himalayas. The Refrain fires again with the same point as the last but this time I tried to go for a more fervent angle, some of the scenes actually focus on Takayama’s feelings for Eishi and ultimately the pull they have towards each other.

The Bridge is where things get desperate. The moments in the manga where Eishi is in physical pain because of the Whiteout shake me so much. It reminds me of a straight up panic attack. I let this crescendo with the music, making the black void swallow the chaos in a quick snap. Building to the final chorus.

The whiteout is special because Eishi both yearns after this figment emotionally (his friendship with Takayama) and intellectually (what the hell is it and what does it mean?). It represents his unique position in the realm of the story being able to see it, but it ultimately captures the almost divine force behind the relationship of Eishi and Takayama. The outro then brings us back to Eishi failed call at the Himalaya’s, the whiteout ripping him up and forcing Takayama to save him. All the while calling back to that first interaction between them. A mysterious moment that obviously held more weight than any world shaking rescue. And I cap it off with a warmer depiction of their reunion.

*Are you shipping in this comic?

Despite the romantic song, my affections for the pairing, and any other subtext I’ve provided, I went in with the project with a platonic angle. Like I’m not lying. I’m on the ace spectrum or whatever so I kind of interpret every strong bond in the same realm. So that means, if you think it’s a romantic interpretation-- then you’re right. If you think it’s not, you’re also right. Love comes in many forms. Have fun kids.

*What was your process?

Storyboarding

Listen over and over and figure out where to phrase the panels. I then divided the lyrics up accordingly in a draft and reviewed the pacing over and over again. Does it flow? How many words would comfortably fit with each panel?

Determined the thematic arc. At this point I already had a few anchoring moments so I wrote a description of the panel in the draft. I went with the formula of Verses= move the ideas, Refrain= emotional accents, and the Bridge is like… the climax with an epilogue of an outro. This was tricky step. I debated a lot of ideas and some lyrics didn’t feel like a good fit until I really sat on it for a while.

Fill in the draft. This is where I sketch the general shape of panels. This is also where I look at the gestalt of the thing and make sure the composition is easy on the eyes. I tried to make it dynamic and zig-zaggy so as not to be boring. This is the step where one gets really excited about the project. Cause it’s no longer trapped in your head.

Sketching

Gathered references. Surfed the web, made some myself.

Made time to sketch, I did a lot of them at my summer job, made sure to draw about 2 or 3 a day. I had the time then because it was before I took on my day job. I was very surprised to find that I rarely went back to edit a picture or dispose of a draft. I went through with the mantra that I was going to finish the picture no matter what.

Stayed disciplined with said time. I would not let myself take a break from drawing because half the success came from the fact that I was on a roll.

When I finished them I then went through the process of scanning them (my scanner broke between the first 20 panels so RIP)

Coloring Stage

...Good lord. This is where I probably went the most wrong. Make sure you have a good process in place before starting out this stage.  I was not one to digital art much as of late so my familiarity with my program was lackluster (and it also is literally the worst program  in the world), and my laptop couldn’t handle more than 10 panels. So hurray for a very desperate fix. I did everything from my brothers computer, in his room. Sometimes at terrible hours because that's the only time I’m home.

Color planning. I rushed this process but I pulled up the textures and color pallets and reference images from internet searches and stock piled them. While planning I approximated the overall ‘tone’ of each pane; (is it a dark shade, a light shade, blue, or red in hue…) and then I adjusted that so the colors didn’t repeat or blend unless the panels where connected in the same scene. There was a lot of problem solving in the actual coloring so some of this was not as smooth and I paid for it later.

Sketch Editing. I was able to go back in, move around things and edit certain aspects of the sketch without compromising the entire work. This was a life saver.

Actually coloring. Because I color sketches it’s actually a painstaking process where I can’t use a wand or a fill. I’m not familiar with certain masking and coloring methods that would have sped the process up and I wanted to be consistent. This would take 3 to 5 hours a panel which I would do in small bursts.

Type-setting

Deciding font. I was hunting around for a good font for ages until I just decided… to use my own handwriting. This meant that I had to makes sure my tablet pressure specs were up to date and I had to practice my style. It’s not perfect but its cool.

Apply font to panel. There were moments when I literally said ‘screw it’ and left my handwriting a little more sloppy than standard.

Consultation. I worked with my graphic designer friend on improving the placement of text and the color choices. This was an interesting step she is a saint.

Finalize

Every single panel is extremely large. I had to resize each one. Before this I had many tests in the drafts to see how certain sizes would load or format.

*Will you make another?

Probably. Like, there is nothing more satisfying than getting something stuck in your head out of it. I have a lot of tunes I am fond of but barely any qualify for lyric comics (need to have a good pace, easy to latch on musical phrases, thematic content that works etc.) The fandom is important too. Now that I think about it I have storyboards for an old DCMK ‘lyric comic’ idea to Imogen Heap’s “A-ha” (it was like some hidden dark side!au shit I still come back to it). I can’t let my interest wan or it straight up dies. Birdmen is a really unique series for me because its held on for a remarkable amount of time and strongly at that.

Fun Facts:

I colored a total 77 panels, 11 of which were scraped versions of the core 66 because perfectionist tendencies.

It took me 3 months to sketch all the panels out, sometimes drawing 3 a day. I would often cradle my sleeping kitten while I drew.

Panel 54-- the final chorus, whiteout splash page-- took three days to draw. At first it was two pages taped together, then it was three. I had my friend mend the images together into a massive pic for me to color, then break it apart for blog distribution. The full version is used in her video edit of the lyric comic.

I didn’t use pressure sensitivity on my tablet until I got to the last chunk. RIP

It usually took me over a day to do one picture.

I do not have a computer in my room that utilizes the art program I need. I literally did every panel after #10 in my brothers room. Sometimes hella late at night too. Props to my generous brother, he tells me he likes the company.

I took a few notable breaks. All of Inktober was used on the art challenge. The weeks leading up to Birdmen Week. And at least half of the Christmas season was spent on coloring hiatus.

I like adding a ring around the pupils of the seraph eyes. This is not canon, but an error that I really liked. You can see it as a sort of glow.

I am having my friend edit the panels into a video for your convenience. I have no idea how long it will take but I’m tired.

[mercuryonparklane]

I seriously debated keeping this one in the drafts...

Okay, I felt compelled to analyze the timeline of all of Taylor’s rumored/alleged boyfriends (barring any that she supposedly dated pre-fame) and why I believe they could have been fake/pr setups...

Disclaimer: this is all speculative and is just my opinion. No one has to agree... we don’t all have to agree because really the only people who know the truth are Taylor and those she has shared it with. I do have a very skeptical view of the entertainment industry and pr, so that is a bias I will own up to. I especially think Taylor, for a very long time, was willing to play along with the pr side of things, but eventually reached a breaking point (as any normal human under that amount of pressure and scrutiny likely would). Whether that means she has faked all of her public relationships or some of them or just aspects of them... I can’t really, truly know that. So, just keep in mind that this is one little, insignificant person’s view of Taylor’s public relationships and that I do not personally know any of the people involved...

Don’t take this too seriously, peeps... I’ll even tag it as crack theory...

Joe J.: June/July-September/October 2008

If nothing else this feels like a typical pr setup of two young stars. He had Camp Rock, a Jonas Bros’ album and a tour and concert film to promote. Camp Rock came out on 6/20/2008. The Jonas Bros’ third album, A Little Bit Longer, was released on 8/12/2008. In August, Taylor joined the band on stage during the filming for a concert movie that would be released in February 2009. 

Taylor had an album that was released just weeks after their alleged breakup. An album which contained a few songs that would be attributed to Joe J. due to the publicity surrounding their relationship. Hmm... what a great way to drum up interest in an album that includes quite a few heartbreak songs. Not saying I know that is the case, but they both had a lot to promote between June and November 2008.

Lucas T.: March-April/May 2009

He was in the Hannah Montana movie, which was released 4/10/2009. Taylor had a cameo in that movie and also wrote a song for the soundtrack. Lucas also played Taylor’s love interest in the mv for YBWM, which premiered 5/2/2009 on CMT. He was in one of her Myspace vlogs in April 2009. IMO, this was a setup to promote the Hannah Montana movie and the YBWM mv, but it didn’t really take off. Lucas later said they dated briefly, but he realized that he just saw her as a friend...

Taylor L.: August-December 2009

 They played a couple in Valentine’s Day. In September, just days after the VMAs where KW interrupted Taylor on stage as Taylor L. stood a few feet away, Taylor went to an Owl City concert at the Bowery Ballroom where she met the man who would supposedly inspire “Enchanted”. Umm... “please don’t be in love with someone else”... even though I am currently dating Taylor L. and he is my forever crush, but like, I am totally crushing on you actually. I have no clue if any Swifties have ever picked up on that discrepancy.  

Oh, and Taylor L. also “dated” Selena in early 2009 and I doubt Taylor would go there, even if they ended on good terms. I mean, it’s possible, but idk it seems unlikely to me. 

John M.: December 2009-February 2010

I think Taylor admired him as a musician (this seems to have been mutual with John praising her talent multiple times) and she may have seen him as a mentor at first. I do not believe that anything happened between them beyond that. I think he was so thrown off by “Dear John” because of that. He was already tweeting in the spring of 2009, hinting at wanting to collaborate with Taylor. The album their duet was on came out in November 2009, right before they started “dating”. Although it wasn’t released as a single until June 2010.

Besides, Liz (friend or otherwise) has remained a fan of John and even went to his concert a few years back. So, either she didn’t care that he screwed one of her supposed good friends over or it didn’t go down how people were led to believe it did.

Jake G.: October 2010-December/January 2011

Unless this relationship started much earlier than everyone has been led to believe, it is very unlikely that ATW is about him. It certainly seems to have been written prior to the maple latte/scarf/sister’s house articles that were abundant after that pap walk. Either Taylor used him as a scapegoat for a song that wasn’t about him or he was a willing participant in a pr scheme to make sure people thought the song was about him. 

He couldn’t have been setup with his costar, Anne H., because she was already in a long term, committed relationship. At the time Taylor was still good pr since she was still known as a kind of girl next door, all American type with genuine talent. 

I’m not saying I know for a fact it was fake. I’m saying there are plenty of reasons why I think it was. Everyone has different perspectives... mine is that this was purely a pr setup.

Will A.: sometime in 2010 and/or mid or fall 2011-January 2012 or May (?) 2012

They were likely just friends, but people did think they were dating back then. The songs that people think he wrote about Taylor (”White Dress” and “Kiss Me Slowly”) were recorded in 2010. So, if she started dating him in September 2011, which people think because the dress she wore to his May 2012 birthday party was the one she is wearing on the “Begin Again” cover art, then those songs aren’t about her. About the party dress...  Sarah B., who took the picture, was also friends with the Parchute guys, so maybe the photoshoot that the picture on that cover art came from happened earlier that day. 

He was friends with Liz’s ex Jason and one of his best friends is still to this day very close friends with Liz, so that’s probably how he met Taylor. I think Taylor hung out with that crew a bit back then. AND those times Will and Taylor were seen hanging out in late fall/early winter 2011, Jason and/or the other friend were there. Yes, I am saying that Taylor was hanging out with Jason in November/December 2011, just a few months after he and Liz supposedly broke up. She was also still hanging out with Liz a lot at that time and after, though, so I think it was all good.

Conor K.: July 2012-September/October 2012

This was Taylor’s worst pr. If it was a real relationship... it is borderline predatory. If it is fake... still a big yikes... I don’t have much to say about this one. I think it was fake and an attempt at making him the muse for “Starlight” (how cute, this song she wrote about his grandparents sort of became about them), “Begin Again” (nevermind that the copyright record say the song was written in 2011), and EHC (nevermind that the song was written in May 2012). It would have been great pr, though, if he was a couple years older. Taylor should have fired Paula after this one... (because the public should have never known about it, real or fake).

Harry S.: November 2012-January 2013

Similar to all the others before (and after), there were “random” sightings, including a birthday trip to “the lakes” and blatant pr (go on and wear that fox sweater and paper airplane necklace, Taylor...). That NYE kiss, though...

Calvin: February 2015-May/June 2016

Taylor finally dropped her old publicist and brought on Tree. First step, was to erase the “boy crazy”/“man eater” label (and possibly the “professional beard” label) and become an independent woman who just wants to have fun with her gal pals. It got a bit gayer than expected (whether Kaylor was really a thing to some degree or not is irrelevant to the point). The gay rumors were actually catching on even faster and people were like “oh, that’s why she couldn’t keep a man” (sexist/homophobic as all of this is/was, ofc). 

Enter Calvin... a playboy DJ who some might deem “tall and handsome as hell” (peeps, I am not really the best judge of a man’s attractiveness, so this is just how I think people see him). He seems sooo straight. I don’t know how else to say it. All of her other supposed boyfriends had gay rumors, whether or not those rumors were just people gossiping or had some basis in reality... I think he is the only one that doesn’t have them, that I know of anyway. 

I know a lot of people think they were really together, but I think this was an attempt to have her in a more serious, long term relationship to counteract both the gay rumors (not necessarily as a cover for a woman because I don’t think all of the guys have been or need to have been covers for a secret relationship with a woman, it’s about appearing straight) and the “can’t keep a man” narrative that had followed her around. Even if they were in some sort of situationship (not what I think, just theorizing here), it wouldn’t have been a steady thing and they seemed to not like each other very much when all was said and done.

I still laugh that he said Taylor was the opposite of his type (and specified that he likes brunettes) in November 2014 and then he allegedly dated her for almost a year and a half, starting literally a few months after he made that comment. If that was a real relationship, he was either playing it cool when he said that or he misjudged her or Taylor was determined to date him because it was a challenge.

Either way, it seems like her team controlled the public narrative and maybe Calvin was okay with that at first, but over time it seemed like he wasn’t a big fan of that. Maybe that visit to the strip mall massage parlor was a bit of a rebellion... 

At least they both got some royalties out of it...

Joe A.: September 2016-Present

Taylor’s team absolutely has control of the public narrative and he seems okay with that. He is a literal mirrorball. He is whatever Taylor supposedly says he is in her songs/whatever Swifties want him to be.

He likes to drop fun facts like how his family jumps into a freezing pond at Christmas or that he worked at a yogurt shop as a teenager. Whether they are real or not... he seems to be playing into the pr. Dropping little bits of information that will tie him to her songs... it is very “maple latte”/“paper airplane necklace”/dark jeans and Nikes... OR Taylor is just taking the few facts people know about him and using it to pin songs on him.

If he is a beard (which imo he likely is), I think he gets along with Taylor and doesn’t mind the minimal pr of it all.

I don’t think he is WB, either way...

Again this is just my view of things. This has no bearing on which women Taylor may have dated. I could do a separate post on what I think that timeline might look like.

One point I will reiterate is that I do not think that a beard would always be a cover for a secret relationship with a woman. I think it sometimes is, but it can be more of a general cover for someone who is gay. So many people think Taylor is the straightest person who has ever lived simply because of her public dating record. I mean, heteronormativity and homophobia also play a big part in that...

Edit: I completely skipped Tom lol. I just don’t buy that one either. Maybe he thought it would be good publicity or maybe he was led on to think it was more real than it was or maybe he was just having fun. Idk. All kinds of articles written about them at the time included some caveat about how they seemed fake or were maybe filming something...

[inbonobo]

#informthyself Why #ShoutingFireInACrowdedTheatre can never be an #argument against #FreeSpeech but it is proof that the proponent is uninformed. #education #edumacation #censorship

To me, this argument (abridged OxfordLearner version) is so obviously flawed that it doesn’t need a rebuttal. That free-speech is paramount is so self-evident that it’s difficult for me to understand how others are (or allow themselves to be) fooled by flawed arguments to the contrary. So when a friend brought it up recently, I suggested that she googles it, (since she did not want to hear me “mansplain” it), but apparently could not find counterarguments. 

I don’t want to see my friend suffer. Whenever we argue about something, she gets emotional and hyper and she seems afraid of being proven wrong. She would interrupt me before I even make an argument, sometimes after the first three words in a sentence, comes out with a (usually wrong) idea about what I’m trying to say, then proceeds to fight the strawman thus created ‘til death do us part. OTOH I cannot sit idly while violently absurd arguments are passed as axioms. Since I’m quite sure I’m not the only one seeing the problems with that argument, I could let others explain it to her.

Apart from the video above, here’s what else I could find.

Firstly, just to contextualize, both the US Supreme Court as well as its Canadian counterpart (perhaps the latter more so) have repeatedly ruled that there are limits to free speech. “Shouting fire in a crowded theater” is actually a quote from a unanimous decision of the USSC (”SCOTUS”).

Let’s now look at what we could find about this case. From Wikipedia:

"Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular metaphor for speech or actions made for the principal purpose of creating unnecessary panic. The phrase is a paraphrasing of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draftduring World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The paraphrasing does not generally include (but does usually imply) the word falsely, i.e., "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater", which was the original wording used in Holmes's opinion and highlights that speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is dangerous but also true.

Holmes, writing for a unanimous Court, ruled that it was a violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 (amended by the Sedition Act of 1918), to distribute flyers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war. Holmes wrote:

<<The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.>>

The First Amendment holding in Schenck was later partially overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot). The test in Brandenburg is the current Supreme Court jurisprudence on the ability of government to proscribe speech after that fact. Despite Schenck being limited, the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has since come to be known as synonymous with an action that the speaker believes goes beyond the rights guaranteed by free speech, reckless or malicious speech, or an action whose outcomes are obvious.

To summarize, this came about against a few Jewish socialists who were distributing pamphlets in Yiddish against the draft in the First World War in the USA, and the very judge writing this decision came to a change of heart in a later case.

And there’s more.

Without fail, whenever a free speech controversy hits, someone will cite this phrase as proof of limits on the First Amendment. And whatever that controversy may be, "the law"--as some have curiously called it--can be interpreted to suggest that we should err on the side of censorship. Holmes' quote has become a crutch for every censor in America, yet the quote is wildly misunderstood.

The latest example comes from New York City councilmen Peter Vallone, who declared yesterday "Everyone knows the example of yelling fire in a crowded movie theater," as he called for charges against pseudonymous Twitter @ComfortablySmug for spreading false information during Hurricane Sandy. Other commentators have endorsed Vallone's suggestions, citing the same quote as established precedent.

In the last few years, the quote has reared its head on countless occasions. In September, commentators pointed to it when questioning whether the controversial anti-Muslim video should be censored. Before that, it was invoked when a crazy pastor threatened to burn Qurans. Before that, the analogy was twisted to call for charges against WikiLeaks for publishing classified information. The list goes on.

But those who quote Holmes might want to actually read the case where the phrase originated before using it as their main defense. If they did, they'd realize it was never binding law, and the underlying case, U.S. v. Schenck, is not only one of the most odious free speech decisions in the Court's history, but was overturned over 40 years ago.

First, it's important to note U.S. v. Schenck had nothing to do with fires or theaters or false statements. Instead, the Court was deciding whether Charles Schenck, the Secretary of the Socialist Party of America, could be convicted under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft during World War I. As the ACLU's Gabe Rottman explains, "It did not call for violence. It did not even call for civil disobedience."

The Court's description of the pamphlet proves it to be milder than any of the dozens of protests currently going on around this country every day:

It said, "Do not submit to intimidation," but in form, at least, confined itself to peaceful measures such as a petition for the repeal of the act. The other and later printed side of the sheet was headed "Assert Your Rights."

The crowded theater remark that everyone remembers was an analogy Holmes made before issuing the court's holding. He was explaining that the First Amendment is not absolute. It is what lawyers call dictum, a justice's ancillary opinion that doesn't directly involve the facts of the case and has no binding authority. The actual ruling, that the pamphlet posed a "clear and present danger" to a nation at war, landed Schenk in prison and continued to haunt the court for years to come.

Two similar Supreme Court cases decided later the same year--Debs v. U.S. and Frohwerk v. U.S.--also sent peaceful anti-war activists to jail under the Espionage Act for the mildest of government criticism. (Read Ken White's excellent, in-depth dissection of these cases.) Together, the trio of rulings did more damage to First Amendment as any other case in the 20th century.

In 1969, the Supreme Court's decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio effectively overturned Schenck and any authority the case still carried. There, the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action" (emphasis mine).

Today, despite the "crowded theater" quote's legal irrelevance, advocates of censorship have not stopped trotting it out as thefinal word on the lawful limits of the First Amendment. As Rottman wrote, for this reason, it's "worse than useless in defining the boundaries of constitutional speech. When used metaphorically, it can be deployed against any unpopular speech." Worse, its advocates are tacitly endorsing one of the broadest censorship decisions ever brought down by the Court. It is quite simply, as Ken White calls it, "the most famous and pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech."

Even Justice Holmes may have quickly realized the gravity of his opinions in Schneck and its companion cases. Later in the same term, Holmes suddenly dissented in a similar case, Abrams vs. United States, which sent Russian immigrants to jail under the Espionage Act. It would become the first in a long string of dissents Holmes and fellow Justice Louis Brandies would write in defense of free speech that collectively laid the groundwork for Court decisions in the 1960s and 1970s that shaped the First Amendment jurisprudence of today.

In what would become his second most famous phrase, Holmes wrote in Abramsthat the marketplace of ideas offered the best solution for tamping down offensive speech: "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out."

In @ComfortablySmug's case during Hurricane Sandy, that is exactly what happened. Within minutes of sending out his false tweets, journalists discovered he was spreading rumors and quickly corrected the record, sounding the alarm not to trust his information. Regardless, no one was hurt because of his misinformation. The next day, @ComfortablySmug (whose real name is Shashank Tripathi) apologized and resigned from his job as the campaign manager of a House Republican candidate in New York in response to the public's reaction to his actions.

The truth prevailed, not through forcing censorship or jailing a person for speaking, but through the overwhelming counterbalance of more speech. As Holmes said after his soliloquy in Abrams, "That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution."

(via TheAtlantic)

A Reminder About Shouting ‘Fire’ in a Crowded Theater

By Susan Kruth March 16, 2015

Few argue that there are or should be no limits to freedom of expression. Last week on The Torch, I discussed the boundaries of several categories of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment, such as true threats and incitement to imminent lawless action. When arguing that expression that falls into one of these categories should be punished, there is ample case law to cite—still-valid Supreme Court holdings that are directly applicable to the speech at issue. But too often, would-be censors who have nothing else with which to justify their efforts at silencing others fall back on that old standard: “You can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”

Trevor Timm, writing in The Atlantic, and Popehat’s Ken White both implored the public back in 2012 to stop employing what White called “the most famous and pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech.” Their message has not spread far enough, and we at FIRE think their thoughtful analyses of the historical context and the ramifications of the quote are worth pointing to.

(..)

In White’s article on the overused phrase, he provides a thorough look at how deeply the Court carved into freedom of expression during wartime and how furiously Holmes tried to backpedal. Finally, in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court announced a new standard to govern speech like Schenck’s, setting a much higher bar for what could be punished by the government: speech that is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

Regardless of whether one believes that the current boundaries of unprotected “incitement” are too narrowly drawn, the Court’s holding in Brandenburg at least ensures that people voicing opposition to the draft, or otherwise criticizing the government, will not be put in prison for their advocacy.

Post-Schenck, Holmes wrote a dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States (1919), another speech-restrictive Espionage Act case. Holmes’s writing in Abrams, however, is much more consistent with the current state of First Amendment jurisprudence:

[T]he ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution.

As Torch readers may know, the Court has since characterized universities as “peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas.’” They are places where we should especially foster “free trade in ideas” and be especially hesitant to censor speech based on concerns that it may potentially, at some indeterminate point in the future, inspire someone to break the law or obstruct the functioning of a government entity.

So when it comes to racist speech, speech that could cause emotional discomfort, or speech that might not conform to vague notions of “civility,” it’s not enough to say simply that these types of expression should be censored because “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” As White aptly sums it up:

Holmes quote [stands for] for the proposition that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. But this is not in dispute. Saying it is not an apt or persuasive argument for the proposition that some particular speech is unprotected, any more than saying “well, some speech is protected by the First Amendment” is a persuasive argument to the contrary.

Click over to Popehat and The Atlantic for more analysis, and check out FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus to read about how (current!) First Amendment law affects the free speech rights of students and professors on college and university campuses.

Even Jordan Peterson has apparently used this flawed argument while virtue-signalling in the Hill, according to an article published in a Ryerson paper:

What are the outer limits to free speech? Oft cited is the example of yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson invoked just this image in a contribution to the Washington, D.C.-based paper, The Hill. Peterson has attracted a lot of media attention by refusing to accommodate requests that he refer to transgendered students in his classes by pronouns other than ‘him’ or ‘her.’ He complains that he will be the victim of hate speech prosecution, like holocaust deniers, if he does not respect these requests. For this reason, he claims, freedom of expression principles are engaged. Free speech “is so fundamentally important that restricting it in any manner carries serious risk”. “Nonetheless,” he writes, “we shouldn’t be allowed to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre.”

There is a lot of confusion here. Surely we should want to encourage folks to shout “fire” if there were flames licking at their feet. This cannot be a limiting principle to freedom of expression. Peterson appears to want to paraphrase U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous opinion in Schenck v. United States.

(via Ryerson)

As modern-day statists decry or attempt to explain the Constitution; something they often neither respect nor understand, they use the example about yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater as an example of how the restrictions of government as enumerated in the Constitution are not absolute, are outdated, and sometimes just wrong.

Regarding the absolution of it; I assure you that while the Constitution was designed to be amendable if We the peopleoverwhelmingly agree to do so, it is absolute; or at least it was intended to be. Yet, arresting someone for falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater, believe it or not, does not violate the 1st amendment in any way. It can, and should be a crime without freedom of speech having ever been infringed upon.

Last week in my article Why Can’t I have a Nuclear Warhead, I explained how owning an AR-15 versus owning a nuke is a frivolous argument that people who wish to abandon our Constitution often use. So this week, I’ll do my best to debunk this one as well.

If you are in a movie theater, you may freely say the words fire, bomb, I just farted, or whatever else you may exclaim that could scare the heck out of everyone if said loud enough.

Conversely, if there were a fire, you would be right, and frankly a hero, to warn everyone by yelling “Fire”. This being true, using those words in a theater will not get you arrested as a general rule either when appropriate.

The issue is not the action of exercising your free speech, it’s about creating a hazardous environment for people by virtue of yelling fire or any other method you might use. Because this then creates a panic, and thus a dangerous situation where people could be trampled or otherwise harmed in some way as they attempt to evade a danger that only existed in your sadistic mind. You could pull the fire alarm, not yell anything, and you’d be guilty of the same violation; so the speech used is never the issue.

By creating a panic, you infringe on someone’s right to life, as enumerated in the Constitution, since a panicked crowd becomes a serious health hazard to everyone involved.

Sadly, our Constitution is misunderstood, violated, and under attack every day. As Americans, we should understand that the Constitution was right long before we even fully understood how to implement it. We were slave owners declaring all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights, after all.

The Constitution has never been the problem—it had it right all along. People violating it has, and always will be. So let’s not let the left destroy it with false premises, logical fallacies, or misdirection. We the people should take the time to read, understand, protect, and promote the Constitution responsibly. Our liberty depends on debunking such false arguments. Hopefully, as people like me explain away them, you’ll be better prepared for your next debate.

(via logicallib)

Please Stop Using the ‘Fire in a Crowded Theater’ Metaphor MARCH 4, 2013 BY ED BRAYTON

After the last meeting of CFI Michigan, a bunch of us went out to a restaurant as we always do, and sat and talked. In a conversation about some First Amendment issue, one guy trotted out the trite and false “you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” analogy (which was not even remotely analogous to the subject we were discussing). If you’ve ever used this argument in arguing for some particular restriction on freedom of speech, please stop.

First of all, not only is it virtually never analogous to the argument being made, it wasn’t even remotely similar to what was going on in the very case in which it was invented. The full statement — “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic” — comes from a Supreme Court ruling in 1919 in a case called Schenck v United States and it was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a first ballot inductee into the Vastly Overrated Hall of Fame.

This case is also where the phrase “clear and present danger” comes from. That was the standard that the court established for when the government could suppress the free speech rights of citizens, until it was overturned in 1969. The case involved Charles Schenck, the secretary of the Socialist Party of America, who had printed up and distributed pamphlets during WWI urging people not to comply with the draft. Those pamphlets argued that the draft violated the 13th Amendment ban on involuntary servitude (and he was right, in my view).

Schenck was arrested for this and convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which handed down an appalling 9-0 ruling upholding his clearly unconstitutional conviction. Holmes’ written opinion said:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic…The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

It is important to note here that the analogy of shouting fire in a crowded theater was utterly absurd even when it was invoked, since nothing in the Schenck case was even remotely similar to such an act. The most that could possibly be said is that Schenck might be able to convince a small number of people to defy the draft, with the impact on the war effort negligible at the very most. No one was put in danger by his words, imminent or even in some far-fetched string of causation.

The metaphor was absurd in the very case for which it was invented; it is even more absurd in most other cases. And it’s almost always used to justify some totally unrelated restriction on free speech, as if the mere fact that the court recognizes some narrowly defined exceptions to the First Amendment somehow justifies the particular exception the person arguing wants to carve out. The fact that a right is not absolute (no right is, of course) is not an argument in favor of any specific exception that someone wants to argue for. So it’s just an illogical argument to make all the way around.

For nearly a century now, our discourse on constitutional matters has been haunted by a ridiculous analogy that was meaningless when it was created and even more meaningless now. It’s time to put this tired cliche to rest, once and for all.

(via Patheos)

Elsewhere, in a Second Amendment site, the Schenck case is fully explained and the reasoning behind the First Amendment protection is applied to the 2nd one. YoExpert briefly explains both the Schenck and the backpedaling case. Volokh finds issues with the word falsely. On Quora, a few lawyers explain it as it pertains to current criminal law in the US, and the general limitations on free speech.

In conclusion:

This is one of the most egregious example of Supreme Groupthink, an error SCOTUS partially corrected shortly thereafter.

There is no question that the law in both USA and Canada restricts free speech (nobody denies that), the question is whether that is justifiable or not. In my view (and that of others) it’s not.

Some arguments are semantic and thus weak, focusing on the fact that the phrase is often misquoted with “falsely” omitted. I think that’s a waste of time. Surely the word “falsely” is important, but the whole idea does not instantly become correct or valid simply by adding “falsely”. It’s still invalid.

A lot can be said in support of one’s right yell “fire” in a crowded theater. Maybe one day I will. In the meantime, one can go through the above and come up with their own argumentation.

[vroenis]

2020 Music In Review

When this was a draft, it opened with a bit about me not writing, but then I started playing board games again and wrote two bits on board games. In the trashfire that 2020 was (add “trashfire” to dictionary, no I did not mean “trash fire”), and 2021 continues to be, somehow I ended up getting back into board games. Actually there are good and logical reasons I returned to them and if you’re interested in that, I go into some of it in those journals, but more interesting is just playing the games so you should totally HMU if you’re local, sorry I don’t do virtual/digital, I like handling physical pieces and sharing food.

The most natural way for me to wrap a year for me is in music and since Melbourne locked down in March, I spent a lot of time working from home and listening on my own gear which I can’t express enough the joy at being able to do - firstly at having good reference transducers and secondly not having to listen to trash radio.

Writing about art is always a bit weird but it’s good fun so we do it anyway so let’s write some words about art. There are three main ways I engage with music in no particular order - more or less however I happen to notice them;

Music and musicianship - tonal and rhythmic composition

Technical production - recording, editing/manipulionation, processing/production, mixing and balance, and mastering

Song-writing/lyrics - should there be any - excludes vocal performance as this is covered under the first one.

To get weirder about it, I tend to have both emotional and also pragmatic responses to those three things separately so that means there’s a wackadoo matrix of 6 criteria I seem to be assessing every piece of music I encounter against and yep, that’s a thing I do, all the time, every time. The better a piece of music is, tho, the more the line between the emotional and pragmatic blurs as the overall quality of the work is established. I might begin with an initial pragmatic appreciation of an excellent mix and balance, and technical execution of a recording and production, then come to get a feel for how emotional a work is - and vice-versa. Sometimes on rare occasions, it all happens at the same time - an album is just a smashing work of excellence in every way and I just love every aspect of it more over time.

It’s worth mentioning I don’t really have any great axe to grind with pop music - there has always been and continues to be great pop, and good pop isn’t by any means easy music to create. For me at least, and likely many people, what destroys pop as a listening experience is repetition which usually isn’t under the listener’s control, but an unfortunate side-effect of the underlying culture that sustains pop as an industry. I still appreciate and admire so much about pop-music and always keep a little in my collection from each decade. No matter what, always remind yourself that the kids are OK and that there’s always great pop-music around - stay in touch with it. Some of it is truly awesome, and I use the superlative with sincerity.

Albums Of The Year

A few things happened on the way to me actually getting to write this journal, including some surgery (I’m fine), but also I ended up nominating no less than 4 Albums Of The Year. I think they deserve their own lengthier write-ups, in a weirdly me thing to do, I feel like I want to talk less about them and you should just go and listen to them but they have been getting a lot of air-time on my channels - in any case, here’s a lazylink to the instagram post I did for them. They’re all great and they feature in the lists coming in this entry so give them a listen, they’re outstanding.

Personal Charts

When I set out to write a musical summary of the year, I went to my last.fm page to see what I’d listened to by number of plays polled. As mentioned, given the Covid lockdown and working from home so much, I’ve actually gotten to register a lot more of my listening on the site whereas in general so much of my listening happens offline, so to speak, be it in the car or on my mp3 player. This year has also seen a serious shift in my buying habits shift entirely to Bandcamp for a few reasons; Google shut down their Play store in favour of streaming because naturally it favours them and not artists - it also just makes sense for them from infrastructure and administrative perspectives, but also I just did more and more research and naturally found more and more artists and Bandcamp just made sense. I want to write a digest as to why you should do the same but I feel like people need to find their own way there or approach me directly so the motivation comes from them. Streaming is bad for artists and while I and indeed artists don’t want you to close your premium accounts just yet because closing any revenue streams to artists in any way is bad, I encourage you to do some research into just how much revenue there is in streaming, and what your expectations are for how you think the artists you love so much are supposed to make a living. I guess if your engagement level is fairly low, or the culture you’re into is pop-music, then this is the end of the discussion and that’s OK, we don’t need to take it any further. If you’re in any way curious about what this issue is, this video by Benn Jordan is a great place to start.

There are two charts I’d like to share - one is my top 10 albums I’ve chosen, the other is the same albums by number of plays as per my last.fm polling. These aren’t the top 10 albums I polled, mind-you. Sometimes I listen to an album a whole bunch just because I’m into it or because it slaps, but it isn’t one I’d nominate as an album that encapsulates the year.

You’ll immediately notice not every album was released in 2020, however my conditions are that they either had to have been released close enough to 2020 that I’d have done heavy listening in the year, or I had to have purchased them in 2020 so they were new to me in the year.

Here are the 10 albums I chose;

And here they are by number of plays polled in 2020 - bear in mind I probably played one or two favourite tracks a few times more, so they don’t neatly divide by number of tracks listed on the album;

A few immediate things to note;

- Dreams Are Not Enough is significantly underrepresented because I don’t listen to it at my PC while I work. In general, I definitely listen to this far more in environments offline, but also it’s not exactly an all occasions album given its tone and atmosphere, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t - give it a listen and find out.

- La Favière on the other hand is more or less a bit of a party so I play it a lot… yet when it comes to my personal rankings, it’s not that I like it less per se, it’s just that I love the other albums more - tons of respect to Iversen. It still made 10th on a list of hundreds of albums and netted 161 plays out of thousands of files I have.

- Had I done this kind of list in 2019 and known about Reid Willis, I suspect The Longing Device would have been an Album Of The Year then. It was a dead ringer for an Album Of The Year for me this year except then he released Mother Of and that is an absolute killer, so he outdid himself and I selected that instead. Reid Willis is a genius.

- There’s a long story as to why I only bought Hanan Townshend’s soundtrack for To The Wonder in 2020 but at least I was delayed long enough to not produce any more plastic, given my original intention once upon a time was to get it on CD. In any case, I had to buy it on iTunes and was bedstricken from illness for days after. iTunes is cursed.

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough (October 2019)

In 2009, Telefon Tel Aviv released their album Immolate Yourself and then Charles Cooper died. I didn’t actually find out about his death until after I’d heard the album a few times over, but the album stayed with me for the 10 years to the new album as a landmark like no other. In part for the mourning of Charles, but simultaneously and separately as something that stood apart as some sound for my life that no other music could touch. Maybe The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation, maybe Darkside’s Psychic, but each of those in different ways.

10 years later and Joshua Eustis continues his long journey and releases Dreams Are Not Enough in the Telefon Tel Aviv name. After my first listen, I tweeted to him that I felt like deleting the rest of my music collection which we had a laugh about (he’s a very sociable person, by the way, if you’re not an asshole - he’s also someone you can learn a lot about the industry from). The thing is - I want to have these kinds of exaggerated reactions to the art I engage with - I want them to be world-destroying. Sure, not every piece of art has to be immense and euphoric and devastating, but it can’t all be run-of-the-mill either.

It’s difficult for me to describe Dreams Are Not Enough in practical terms, it is still a Telefon album, it is also Telefon without Charles, it’s also mourning him, is it moving on in his absence? It is definitely its own art for you to engage with as a unique work, to you the individual. It’s uniquely Telefon Tel Aviv in a way that no other electronic artist does the same way - it feels a specific way and there are times when no other music will do. One of my running jokes is that Porpentine’s Howling Dogs and Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero will be my Game(s) Of The Year every year forever and Dreams Are Not Enough now with Immolate Yourself are going to last 10, 20 years - longer - as Albums Of The Year forever too because there’s just never anything else like them.

Reid Willis - The Longing Device (January 2019)

The good thing about having made my choices earlier in 2020 is that Reid WIllis’ Mother Of wasn’t out when I wrote-up the list, so I get to talk about The Longing Device.

Reid Willis was an absolutely random find on Bandcamp. Occasionally I like to dive into subgenres and just go hunting. You can imagine that 9 times out of 10 this is a fruitless endeavour and might think this is frustrating but I really enjoy doing it as an exercise in critical listening. By whatever turn of divine Bandcamp listing, I came across the first chronological album he has up, Crude Healing (2016) and from memory listened to four tracks before instant-buying his entire discography available. I did go hunting on the Google Play store before it was shuttered and buy the most recent album from 2013, The Sunken Half listed from his older works before he jumped over to Bandcamp for all his newer albums and it’s definitely a transitional work to what he does now and well worth having. While Crude Healing initially blew me away, The Longing Device is a more mature album that has been more carefully shaped, skills having been honed and focussed into a less raw and yet more powerful sound. Very rarely am I ever an “I liked your old stuff better than your new stuff” kind of person, in general I tend to go with an artist when they evolve and grow unless on occasion they go in a completely different direction in which case hey - I respect it but sometimes it’s just not something I feel.

Here Willis’ orchestrations are careful, beautiful and languished in the right moments - cut with beats and edits, and the beats and edits likewise deftly cut with orchestrations. This is such a stunning exhibition of creativity, it’s one of the more esoteric examples of my music collection and also in some ways perhaps one of the more approachable works. Then in November Willis released Mother Of where he just takes everything to the next level.

Mat Zo - Illusion Of Depth (October 2020)

In July of 2020, Above & Beyond released their ongoing regular compilation Anjunabeats volume 15 and finished the first disc with a bangin’ Mat Zo track called Problems, an instant favourite of mine as soon as I heard it. It’s a tough year for DJs and musos all round not being able to tour, Josh Eustice and many others have been doing year-round commentary about irresponsible alleged “underground” gigs have nothing to do with the old-school spirit of underground at all and have turned into superspreader events, and how publishers and labels haven’t supported artists through Covid. Leading up to October, Anjuna and Mat Zo promote his forthcoming album and I have to admit, I’m pretty hyped and then it drops.

Holy shit.

In a year of such terrible events, this felt like such a timely dose of positivity that arrived at just the right time. I wrote a whole damn entry for this on instragram, and it’s one of my Albums Of The Year, but far out the digest of this album. On one hand, it’s a hugely technically accomplished work - it’s a diverse exhibition of styles, musicianship, stellar production, and absolutely pristine mix and balance - on the other hand, it’s just an absolute fucken banger-riot-party of an album. The album stands up to a clinical listening on reference transducers, it’s such a delight to audition and examine in every way, but you can set all of that aside and just enjoy the experience, front to back through the tracks in order and as an album, that’s becoming quite rare. There are levels of production discipline on display in this album, especially for electronic music in difficult mixing environments with potentially cluttered frequency ranges that a lot of artists need to learn from, yet Maz Zo executes with ease. This has a lot to give no matter who you are, whether you want to sit down and listen, dance all night or go for a drive - a word of warning, it might make you want to drive fast!

It’s also worth noting that Mat toured this album virtually in Minecraft in order to be Covid-safe and that is absolutely freaken amazing.

Hanan Townshend - To The Wonder (April 2013)

Not the best choice of cover-art, but to be fair, no-one likes Terrence Malick films so it doesn’t really matter. Like most things, getting into music tends to be multifaceted. To The Wonder is my favourite Malick film and yes, I love many of them (you can check the Film Notes page), probably because it’s the most intimate and grounded of his narratives. I still like the more grand and abstract stories he tells, they’re very much my bag, too, but To The Wonder really is a simple story about people told from a closeness that is for some perhaps uncomfortable, but I love that closeness. There’s a dream-like quality to Malick’s filmmaking and indeed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography that is both surreal and organic that makes the film feel very real and then like recollection once it’s done. Hanan Townshend’s music perfectly matches it, and then like all good soundtracks transcends the purpose for which it was written and can be applied to life outside of its matching media. There is a certain framing I have in my mind and at times, with the way I quite literally see, that makes me cue this soundtrack. Very few other soundtracks have this kind of power - Kenji Kawaii’s work for Ghost In The Shell (inclusive of Innocence), Hajime Mizogughi’s Jin-Roh and Cliff Martinez’ Solaris would be some of the others.

Daniel McCagh - Altered States (April 2020)

Another semi-random Bandcamp find, I was chuffed to learn that Daniel McCagh is from Albury, NSW, Australia. It’s always amazing to find local artists who are this astonishingly talented. I tend to associate Australian musicians at the not-quite-there-yet level of art and still do. That’s not a criticism of the artists themselves, it’s a criticism of our government and their backwards attitude towards arts funding and economics in this country. We are a developed country in the age of the internet where information and culture is shared instantly but we deny our people opportunities in so many ways - in education, facilities, commerce and economic infrastructure - the state of internet services in this country for a start is appalling and has been behind global standards forever. It will take us so much time, funds, resources and coordination to catch-up and of-course the longer we wait, the greater the cost and each successive government makes their excuses as to why we can never quite afford to do things right.

Props to individuals who can make it stick, tho, and Daniel McCagh is one of them. It’s probably shockingly unfair to hold someone up on a pedestal every time they do well but I can’t help it - Altered States is on par with Reid Willis’ and other dark ambient/electronic works or whatever genre you want to put them into. On Bandcamp these darker synth and drone-centric artists are a dime a dozen and to be fair, a lot of them are quite good but finding works that truly stand out in excellence can be difficult. The low play-count is due to having only found and bought the album quite late, but it goes into rotation fairly often and it’s a growing genre in my collection.

The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form (May 2020)

The closest thing to pop music to hit this list, NOACF was going to appear at some point - just getting pipped at the finish-line by Reid Willis, all told. I listened to this in the car quite a bit when I was still in rotation in the office before full lockdown.

Writing about The 1975 will be a Thing - either you’ll know something about them or nothing at all. For me, I guess I engage with them entirely differently from superfans - I’m in my late 30s so it won’t surprise you that I don’t have a TikTok account nor do I op a Spotify account and I’m not active at all on Facebook altho neither are gen Z. That said, I’m not entirely sure who their core fanbase will be - they don’t strike me as chart-topping, TikTok everpresent pop-culture icons. Their lead singer certainly has the awareness of pop-culture to communicate with their fan-base to keep up, but they don’t seem to engage at the same level of the lists you see on say, Todd in the Shadows - but I’ve not watched enough of him to know if he’s ever mentioned them.

Anyway I’m enough of a musician (read: snob) to dig their lofty musical stuff - it’s the perfect follow-up and follow-on from ABIIOR and I Like It When You Sleep... before that. Their sound stays uniquely theirs while slowly evolving with contemporary sounds, all the while the production stays top-notch and I’m always pleased with what I hear from a mixing and balance perspective. It also sort of launched with one of the most exciting singles I’ve heard in a while If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) which has to be one of the absolute best recreations of the quintessential 90’s sound yet with contemporary production discipline I’ve ever heard. Many have tried yet most have failed. I always have so much respect when an artist can nail this kind of thing because it’s immensely difficult to do and I’m so proud of The 1975 for pulling this off. All of their genre homages and tilts on this album - actually on all of their albums since I Like It When You Sleep… have been stellar and I continue to be impressed.

I’m also completely onboard with their performative behaviour - they remind me of the angsty political U2 et al of old, but with the necessary contemporary tilt we need. Matty as a front-person is grounded, sensible, vulnerable, flawed - been thru some shit and talks openly about it. I don’t care how much of it is genuine, it reads and plays genuinely. I’m not a superfan so I don’t have posters of him on my wall nor hang on every word he says, but if I was 16 or 23 and did, I think he’s saying the right things. Setting that aside because it doesn’t matter, as a late 30’s adult, this album is fucking great and the band is aging, whether the fanbase likes it or not. There is so much creativity in it and I feel like while they play like they don’t care whether anyone comes along with them or not, they actually really sincerely hope we all do - and I also hope we all really do come along with them because I am coming along with them. None of this “play Antichrist” bullshit - leave the past in the past. Play Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied. They just cancelled their 2021 tour plans due to Covid which was a really good move, and confirmed a new album in the works, and I can’t wait to hear what they have coming.

The Midnight - Monsters (July 2020)

One of the most exciting releases last year, I was amped for the drop and was anticipating another solid, top-notch contemporary synthwave album from who I regard to be one of the very best in the genre. They’d released America Online some months prior which I really loved but it didn’t really indicate what the album was going to be like. Monsters ended up being waaaaay better than I expected - and I expected it to be really great. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision by the band that perhaps the synthwave space was perhaps wearing out the 80’s a little bit - even pop-music was starting to take nibbles at the genre albeit pretty poorly by comparison, not that radio-punters would know it. With the new album tho, we’re taken into this wonderful in-between of not fully 90’s but not wholly 80’s either and even some contemporary r’n’b thrown in there but always stellar production and it’s just a massive album. It’s like a film you watch that ends up being an instant favourite you wish you could watch again for the first time because that first experience was so great. EVERYTHING lands perfectly in this album… with perhaps the exception of the lyric 

“friends become lovers under covers” 

in the song Prom Night because celebrating teens being sexually active is probably not something I cherish too much but hey, whaddayagonnado some things are just facts LET’S TURN THIS INTO A TEACHING OPPORTUNITY ABOUT CONSENT let’s not at least not right now.

Jeremy Blake - Object Permanence (December 2019)

Jeremy Blake is also known as Red Means Recording and he is a Synthlord. He has a YouTube channel and I am a superfan of his, so much so that I wrote a feature about him right here in this journal. I have a lot of his albums and Object Permanence is one of my favourites.

Jeremy is the definition of good faith. Everything he does is done with the intention of creating goodness in this world, in whatever way it can, somehow. Whether it’s just by listening to something that you might find pleasing, or whether it’s watching a video intended to help you create music on a piece of hardware or learn about software or licensing or platforms, distribution or business in some way. I happen to really dig the kinds of music styles he’s into as we seem to have had similar roots when it comes to some of the rock and electronic music we grew up on and have been into in our music lives, so the music he makes now really gels well with me. It was super difficult to choose between the album he released before this called Soft Music To Do Nothing To and Object Permanence but ultimately I think this is the right choice as far as an exhibition of his talent goes. Soft Music is still great, it’s more of a long jam he performed with only three pieces of gear which is pretty amazing and I listen to it all the time, but Object Permanence has some distinct tracks in varying styles I really get into.

I highly recommend Jeremy’s YouTube channel as an entry-point into his style, but if you’re a synth-head and like beats, breaks and groovy bleeps and bloops, you definitely won’t go astray by dropping into any one of his albums on Bandcamp.

The Paper Kites - On The Corner Where You Live (September 2018)

File The Paper Kites under “holy shit another Australian artist that isn’t rubbish” and from Melbourne, my hometown at that. In 2018, they split their new tracks effectively into two albums which works really well. The first is called On The Train Ride Home which is wholly downtempo and almost entirely acoustic with no drums, the second is this album and is a more energetic. I don’t actually prefer one over the other and have just made myself a playlist with contributions from other artists that only includes songs from On The Train Ride Home, but for this list I chose the second album for its exhibition of the band’s overall breadth of song-writing, performance and production. I guess I associate this sound with bands like Rogue Valley and other north and Pacific Northwest bands in the US but to be fair, I don’t really go hunting for this kind of sound - Nashville?? I don’t associate this very cooled-down acoustic-electric sound with Nashville, it’s not very Country (I have some Country in my collection which probably doesn’t surprise you), it’s almost like ultra-chilled mid-90’s ballad in a sense. Someone will have to tell me what it really is and where to find more but only of this calibre because I’m picky about quality. Google says they’re “folk music, folk rock, indie rock, alternative/indie” and that’s useless so throw that in the bin where it belongs.

This sound is definitely a mood. I hunted thru my entire collection including the aforementioned Rogue Valley and started a first playlist of just this kind of thing. I have the acoustic list done and will do an electric counterpart that will include more material from this album, as well as the one song I bought from Night Traveler called Don’t Forget Me as long as it’s not too energetic, it all depends on what makes it to the final list. This music speaks of drives thru rural landscapes, late nights in the city, time alone or with just one other person, closeness, loneliness, introspection, of long journeys and separation.

Iversen - La Favière (August 2018)

The story of how I got this album is hilarious - one of my gaming friends who buys stuff on Humble Bundle and itch.io and god knows what else tweets me this link and says “hey there’s this synthwave bundle for like $2 you should get it it’s $2 it has all this music in” and as someone who won’t buy bad music for even $2, I go investigating and you can listen to some samples and lo-and-behold, most of it is pretty great. I paid a lot more than $2 as that only got you 4 albums and for another $5 or something, you got another 4 albums plus I always pay more because I want more revenue to go to the contributing artists. I ended up not liking about half of the music on offer but in the bundle I discovered Lost Outrider, Morgan Willis and Iversen, all of which I’ve gone on to buy more music from on Bandcamp. As for La Favière, I bought it again on Bandcamp because I love the album so much and wanted to support the artist - it’s really excellent. Oddly tho, two of the best tracks from it were bonuses that only came with the bundle version and not the Bandcamp version, called Sunset Rider and Visions of Blue, so if you want those, I’m not entirely sure how you can get a hold of them - I’m sure if you contact Josh Iverson and tell him you want to pay for them, he’ll try to sort you out unless there are labels involved in which case, not his fault. Regardless, you still get one of the best chilled synth tracks of all time In Dreams which is worth the price of admission all on its own, it is absolutely epic and you should give it a listen.

Goodbye 2020

Time of writing is Sunday 16th January and what a ride it’s been already, hey. I might still write up my actual Albums Of The Year given two of them didn’t get mentioned - Reid Willis -  Mother Of and Gidge - New Light, so I cheated a bit, but they’re my nominations, awards and lists so I can do whatever I like. I’m always excited about music, both listening with a critical ear and also emotionally engaging with it. There’s never a shortage of good new music or discovering material I hadn’t from years past. Sometimes it feels like wading thru endless fields of dross to find the gold but it’s always there and getting to it is a true delight.

There were honourable mentions and I couldn’t quite get the list to 10 - there are 8. I might write them up but for the moment, here they are in vague order of vagueness. Importance? Order of purchase? I got into Lapalux and Enter Shikari very late in the year. Apparat’s - LP5 is a very special album to me, almost Dreams Are Not Enough special. I do want to talk about how Jacob Collier’s album is both very very good and also not good enough. 

The majority of the music listed here can be purchased on Bandcamp. There are links to most of it on my Bandcamp profile if you want to go hunting - I might add lazylinks later-on if I get the time.

Here is my last.fm full listing for 2020 if you’re curious about that kind of thing. Stats are great.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

SpaceX’s ‘Resilience’ Lifts 4 Astronauts Into New Era of Spaceflight (NYT) It’s not yet the same as hopping on commuter flight from New York to Washington or renting a car from Avis, but Sunday’s launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station in a capsule built by SpaceX was a momentous step toward making space travel commonplace and mundane. In the future, instead of relying on spacecraft built by NASA or other governments, NASA astronauts and anyone else with enough money can by a ticket on a commercial rocket. NASA designated Sunday night’s launch as the first operational flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft built and operated by SpaceX, the rocket company started by Elon Musk. The four astronauts aboard—three from NASA, one from JAXA, the Japanese space agency—left Earth from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A Crew Dragon took two astronauts—Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley—to the space station in May, but that was a test flight to shake out remaining glitches in the systems.

The Hot New Covid Tech Is Wearable and Constantly Tracks You (NYT) In Rochester, Mich., Oakland University is preparing to hand out wearable devices to students that log skin temperature once a minute—or more than 1,400 times per day—in the hopes of pinpointing early signs of the coronavirus. In Plano, Texas, employees at the headquarters of Rent-A-Center recently started wearing proximity detectors that log their close contacts with one another and can be used to alert them to possible virus exposure. And in Knoxville, students on the University of Tennessee football team tuck proximity trackers under their shoulder pads during games—allowing the team’s medical director to trace which players may have spent more than 15 minutes near a teammate or an opposing player. The powerful new surveillance systems, wearable devices that continuously monitor users, are the latest high-tech gadgets to emerge in the battle to hinder the coronavirus. Some sports leagues, factories and nursing homes have already deployed them. Resorts are rushing to adopt them. A few schools are preparing to try them. And the conference industry is eyeing them as a potential tool to help reopen convention centers. Civil rights and privacy experts warn that the spread of such wearable continuous-monitoring devices could lead to new forms of surveillance that outlast the pandemic—ushering into the real world the same kind of extensive tracking that companies like Facebook and Google have instituted online. They also caution that some wearable sensors could enable employers, colleges or law enforcement agencies to reconstruct people’s locations or social networks, chilling their ability to meet and speak freely.

2 states announce new virus restrictions as US cases hit 11M (AP) Michigan and Washington on Sunday joined several other states in announcing renewed efforts to combat the coronavirus as more than 11 million cases of COVID-19 have now been reported in the United States—with the most recent million coming in less than a week—and as many Americans prepare to observe a Thanksgiving holiday marked by the pandemic. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration ordered high schools and colleges to stop in-person classes, closed restaurants to indoor dining and suspended organized sports—including the football playoffs—in an attempt to curb the state’s spiking case numbers. The order also restricts indoor and outdoor residential gatherings, closes some entertainment facilities and bans gyms from hosting group exercise classes. The directives from Michigan come on the same day that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced the state would enforce new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings for the next month as it, too, continued to combat a rising number of cases.

After Trump, will the presidency recede a bit for Americans? (AP) Calvin Coolidge, known by some as “Silent Cal” during his time in the White House, used his autobiography to live up to his nickname. “The words of a president,” he wrote in 1929 after leaving office, “have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately.” The world is very different now. Communication is instantaneous. Americans—even a president—are often measured by the quantity and volume of what is now called their “content.” Since he took office in 2017 (and for many years before that), Donald Trump has been a different kind of president when it comes to communication—a more-is-better kind of guy. You can adore Trump or despise him. But from late-night tweet storms to oft-repeated untruths to provocative statements about everything from the kneeling of pro football players to canned beans to buying Greenland, there’s one thing it has been almost impossible to do with the president of the United States these past four years: ignore him. “No one can get away from it. It’s never happened before. I’ve always cared about the president, but it’s never been like this,” says Syd Straw, an entertainer and artist who lives in the Vermont woods. “Even people who like him feel that way, I think.” Now, as another administration prepares to take the reins of American power, have the Trump years forever changed the place that the presidency occupies in American life and Americans’ lives? Has Calvin Coolidge’s statement become woefully outdated in the era of the ever-present presidency, or is it an idea whose time has returned, as voiced by a sign on the fence at Lafayette Square near the White House last week: “Enough!”

Hurricane Iota roars onto Nicaragua as 2nd blow in 2 weeks (AP) In a one-two punch, Hurricane Iota roared ashore as a dangerous Category 4 storm along almost exactly the same stretch of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast that was devastated by an equally powerful Hurricane Eta 13 days earlier. Iota had intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm during the day Monday, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center said it weakened slightly as it neared the coast late Monday and made landfall with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph). It hit the coast about 30 miles (45 kilometers) south of the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas, also known as Bilwi. Iota came ashore just 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall Nov. 3, also as a Category 4 storm. Eta’s torrential rains saturated the soil in the region, leaving it prone to new deadly landslides and floods, forecasters warned.

Crisis-hit Peru elects centrist lawmaker as third president in a week (AP) Peru’s Congress on Monday elected legislator Francisco Sagasti as Peru’s interim president in an attempt to defuse a sharp political crisis in the Andean nation after angry protests and the departure of two presidents in the past week. Sagasti, 76, from the centrist Morado Party, won enough votes to head the unicameral Congress, which means he would constitutionally assume the presidency of the country ahead of national elections called for April. The move makes Sagasti Peru’s third president in a week, after interim leader Manuel Merino resigned on Sunday, five days after being sworn in following the ousting of centrist Martin Vizcarra. Sagasti, a former World Bank official and engineer, faces a formidable challenge to bring stability to the world’s no. 2 copper producer, which was already hard hit by COVID-19 and heading for its worst economic contraction in a century.

Brexit Negotiations Are Running Out Of Time (Foreign Policy) The European Union and United Kingdom continue trade talks in Brussels today, following months of stalled debates and stalemate. At this point there have probably been more “pivotal” weeks over the course of Brexit negotiations than there are European Union member states, so what makes this time different? The most important factor is time, and the lack of it. The so-called transition period for Britain and the EU ends on Dec. 31, bringing in a new era of trade relations. The next few days will decide whether that era is relatively smooth or chaotic in the event of a no-deal outcome. Time also weighs on the European parliament, which ultimately has to read the draft deal (after it’s been translated into the bloc’s 24 official languages) and approve it before that end of year deadline.

Northern Ireland and Amazon (Foreign Policy) Amazon may be powerful enough to get away with a light tax bill, but erasing international borders is likely a step too far, despite the inadvertent efforts of the company’s online customer service team. Replying to a frustrated customer in Northern Ireland wishing to watch a rugby match on Amazon’s streaming service, the helpline unwittingly took a side in one of the world’s longest running geopolitical conflicts and told the customer that the reason he couldn’t see the game was because it was only available for viewing in the United Kingdom. Amazon’s response quickly went viral, causing gleeful Irish nationalists to ask the company to help cancel Northern Ireland’s nearly 100-year-old membership in the United Kingdom, as it had been “automatically signed up.”

Mixed messaging in France (Washington Post) The French government is bristling at international criticism of its response to recent Islamist terrorist attacks, accusing foreign leaders and journalists of misrepresenting an attempt to target extremist violence on French soil as a crackdown on Islam. But some French Muslims say the government’s own mixed messaging is to blame. In the wake of the beheading of Samuel Paty, a middle school teacher who had shown his students caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, and the stabbing of three people inside a basilica in Nice, the French government has closed a mosque and is investigating more than 50 Muslim organizations it has accused of fomenting violence. The actions follow a broader initiative unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron in early October to combat “Islamist separatism” and to “reform” the practice of Islam in France, mostly by targeting foreign funding for Muslim community organizations and by creating certificate programs for French-trained imams. But in so doing, Macron called Islam a religion “in crisis all over the world” and said he seeks to create an “Islam of the Enlightenment,” comments that raised eyebrows in the Muslim world. Amid the furor, the government has rejected accusations that it is Islamophobic and voiced exasperation at what it perceives as a smear campaign that amounts to little more than victim-blaming in a time of national mourning.

Cyprus split? (Foreign Policy) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for Cyprus to be split permanently during a visit to the island over the weekend. Erdogan met with the Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, whom he had backed in recent elections in the northern part of the island. Erdogan added that Tatar would soon visit Azerbaijan, which suggests the country could soon join Turkey as only the second nation in the world to recognize the independence of Northern Cyprus. “Ankara has absolutely no respect for international law, European principles and values, and its obligations towards the EU,” the Cypriot presidency said in a statement reacting to Erdogan’s comments.

New Asian Trade Deal Pushes West to Margins (Foreign Policy) On Sunday, 15 countries in the Asia-Pacific region signed the world’s largest trade agreement, which is expected to accelerate a shift in global trade toward East Asia and away from the West. Negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), spearheaded by China, began with a slow start in 2012 but gained new urgency as the Trump administration pursued a protectionist trade policy. The United States is not party to the new deal. The RCEP will reduce tariffs over a 20-year period, streamline customs procedures, and replace a number of bilateral trade agreements in the region with one set of rules. The pact establishes the Asia-Pacific as the world’s largest trading bloc, bigger than the European Union or North America, accounting for $26.2 percent of global output—some 30 percent of the global economy. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that by 2030 the deal could increase global GDP by $186 billion, although China, South Korea, and Japan are expected to benefit more than other signatories.

Asia at a crossroads as cases surge (Reuters) Countries across the Asia-Pacific region reported record new coronavirus numbers and fresh outbreaks, with Japan facing mounting pressure to reimpose a state of emergency and South Korea warning it was at a “critical crossroads”. The resurgence of the virus in Asia comes as travel restrictions are gradually being eased in the region. New daily cases in Japan reached a record 1,722 on Saturday, with hot spots in the northern island of Hokkaido and the western prefectures of Hyogo and Osaka. In South Korea, officials reported more than 200 new cases for the third consecutive day.

Bach says Tokyo Olympic “participants” may need vaccinations (AP) Olympic participants and fans arriving for next year’s postponed Tokyo Olympics are likely to face requirements to be vaccinated to protect the Japanese public, IOC President Thomas Bach said Monday after meeting with new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. “In order to protect the Japanese people and out of respect for the Japanese people, the IOC will undertake great effort so that as many (people) as possible—Olympic participants and visitors will arrive here (with a) vaccine if by then a vaccine is available,” Bach said. “This makes us all very confident that we can have spectators in the Olympics stadium next year and that spectators will enjoy a safe environment.” The Olympics are to open on July 23, 2021.

They Once Ruled Ethiopia. Now They Are Fighting Its Government. (NYT) When it comes to mountain warfare, the people of Tigray—an ancient kingdom in the far north of Ethiopia, spread across jagged peaks and lush farmland—have decades of hard-won experience. Tigrayan fighters led a brutal war through the 1970s and ‘80s against a hated Marxist dictator of Ethiopia, whom they eventually toppled in 1991, becoming national heroes. For most of the next three decades, Tigrayans ruled Ethiopia. But after Abiy Ahmed, a peace-talking young reformer, came to power as prime minister in 2018, he brusquely sidelined Tigray’s leaders. Tensions exploded violently on Nov. 4, as the world was focused on the presidential election in the United States, when Mr. Abiy launched military strikes in Tigray. Now Tigray is once again at war, fighting the federal government. The battle pits the nation’s army and Mr. Abiy, an internationally feted winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, against the ruling party of Tigray, which commands a large force of well-armed and experienced fighters who know their own mountain terrain well. Already the conflict has escalated at alarming speed with intense fighting that has involved airstrikes and artillery barrages, sent thousands of civilians fleeing across borders—some in boats or even swimming—and led to reports of civilian massacres. The rush to war has exacerbated ethnic divisions so badly that on Friday it prompted warnings of potential ethnic cleansing and even genocide.

The Pandemic As A Welcome Lesson In Humility (El Espectador/Colombia) What a drag. It’s so exhausting. I can’t take it any more. These are the kinds of everyday complaints that come with the pandemic, and they’re understandable, because the situation really is an energy drain. And yet, the pandemic also offers some benefits. By pulling the curtain back on some painful inequalities, it may trigger fundamental changes around the world, even if they must happen under duress or fear. Events are forcing us to consider outside realities, but also to look inside ourselves for purpose. We may be wondering what our lives mean. Threats strip our life goals bare like surgery without anesthesia. Without them, life may become painful and depressing, but this may precede a recovery toward a healthier spirit. and that’s because anxiety is an unexplored source of creativity and resilience that is usually only approached by the brave or saintly. Our hidden resources emerge under the pressure of hostile surroundings, when they might have remained hidden and dormant. Uncertainty has recovered its rightful place as an essential part of existence, without the comforts and structures we use to cushion our lives. We are not in control. Science is not an all-powerful god and, believe it or not, Google can’t answer all of our questions. As we do not know what will happen tomorrow, the wisdom is to follow the age-old counsel of living in the present. One day at a time, trusting in God, loosening our expectations and letting go of the absurd ideas about control. It’s better now to be a humble bamboo that bends with the wind than a colossal, and unyielding tree that could come crashing down.

[blueeyedgrlwrites]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

1. List of works published this year:

All the Little Moments

Ship of Dreams (collab with @m-aleciseverything)

And You Have Always Been Mine Too

A Tiny Spark

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

A Tiny Spark because it’s the first fic where I have actually known what is going to take place in each chapter, and it’s the first fic that has made me feel somewhat confident in my abilities as a writer. 

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

Renuion from the “All The Little Moments” series.  It’s not that I hate the moment it’s based on, I think we need more Jace & Magnus centric moments. But it was told from Jace’s POV and that’s not a voice that I’m really totally comfortable with. 

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

There’s a couple.

This moment between Alec and Izzy in ch. 1 of A Tiny Spark: 

Alec looked down at his shoes as he rocked back on his heels. He didn’t see Isabelle dab at the corners of her eyes as tears threatened to fall. He didn’t see her set the folder on the coffee table and stand, crossing over to him. But he felt her arms slide around him, pulling him into a hug, and he held tightly to her in return, hoping to absorb some of her quiet strength because he wasn’t sure how much more fight he really had left in him. He clamped his eyes shut and pressed his lips together in an attempt at keeping his own tears from falling, and the paralyzing fear that this would all be for naught once more contained within him.

And this moment between Alec, Magnus, and Lydia in ch. 2 of A Tiny Spark:

“Do you think you’re stronger because of that adversity?” Lydia asked.

Alec knew without a doubt that they were, because they had fought to be—sometimes literally. He knew that there had been times he had wanted to give up. He was certain that there were times when Magnus likely had too. They had come out of it bruised, battered, and not quite the same as they had been, but they had made it out together.

Magnus nodded, tightening his fingers around Alec’s hand. “The steel that goes into the fire is always stronger when it’s taken from it. It’s not the same as it was when it went in. It becomes malleable with the heat and the flame, and can be changed and shaped into whatever it will eventually become. But it’s stronger. Alec and I are no different. We aren’t the same people that we were when our first adoption fell through ten months ago, and our marriage isn’t the same as it was then, either. I think it’s better, as strange as that may sound, because we both put forth the effort that was needed to make it work. It was never completely one-sided. And I know I love Alec more now than I ever have.”

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received:

There’s no way to choose a favorite. I adore them all and am so grateful for every comment, every tweet, every message. I’m just grateful for all of you who read what I put out into the world, more so than I can ever truly say. 

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

The last six months of 2017 were hell for me personally. There were so many ups and downs emotionally that much of the time I didn’t have it in me to do any writing, or things happened that made the project I was working on something that triggered a negative reaction rather than a positive one. 

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

Alec challenging Magnus to give his life direction in chapter 1 of And You Have Always Been Mine Too. It wasn’t in the original draft of the chapter, and it was more the intensity with which Alec challenged him than anything else. 

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I’m learning not to give up and walk away when the muses go silent, or when writing gets difficult. 

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

I hope to plot and start my first original novel inspired by my grandfather’s passing back in June. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for the emotional roller coaster that it’s going to take me on, but I also think it might be very cathartic to channel my grief over his loss into words. 

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

@otppurefuckingmagic. There isn't even a question. I don’t know that I can put into words how much she’s meant to me this year, but here goes. 

I honestly don’t know where I would be without Sam and her love, wisdom, guidance, encouragement, and ability to know exactly what I need when I need it. She’s the reason that I keep fighting when all I want to do is give up, whether that be with writing or with everything going on in this fucked up world. When something happens, good, bad, or ugly, she’s one of the very first--if not the very first--person I turn to. 

She has been a mentor, a friend, a beta, an unbiological big sister. When she says ‘be someone’s champion’ it isn’t just empty words. She has been mine in so many ways, and is a major reason that I am becoming the writer I am and am fighting to become a better version of myself every day. 

So thank you, Sam, from the bottom of my heart for being my rock. <3

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Occupational hazard of being a writer is that you draw from real life experiences or base characters off people you know in literally everything you write.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Trust yourself. Trust your process. Trust the good times and the bad times because writing is hard. And never, ever, ever give up. Write for you. Publish your work and be proud of it regardless of how many comments or likes you get. If you are happy with it, that is all that matters. 

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

I’m looking forward to finishing A Tiny Spark in 2018 and am very excited for the fic I’ll be (hopefully) publishing around Christmas 2018 (even though I know we JUST HAD Christmas a week ago....)

Tag writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I don’t know who hasn’t been tagged in this, so tag! you’re it (if you want to do it, of course).