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that-one-anxious-mango · 2 years ago

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Hi!! LOVE LOVE LOVE this series!

I was wondering how reader met all of her friend from the only you chapter?

Hello Beautiful! Thank you so much. I appreciate the love ❤️

So without further ado here is how reader met her found family and a bit of info on them as well…

Texas Native but Detroit raised, Alex Kross and Y/N met through Phoebe actually.

Alex is a broadcast producer over at a division of the Freeform network in town!

And with Phoebe being a Hospitality Manager who caters to the requests of all her high clientele, they met on the set a pilot filming while Alex overseen parts of production and Phoebe was there catering to the needs of a ridiculous client ( that included finding a jar of exactly 362 day old pickle juice for the star's sandwich to be dipped in.)

They hit off in passing and connected over their Michigan roots.

She was invited to the annual girls night You, Phoebe, Beatrice, Alana had. Immediately she fit right in and the rest is history.

Alex is the unfiltered one of the group. Do not ask her opinion or advice on something because she will give you the uncut version. She will always act as a mirror to yourself.

Fun Fact: Alex is the second youngest of eight.

Alana Montgomery is a PR agent and heavy advocate for the sleep when you're dead lifestyle.

Born in the thriving hills of Bank-Head Atlanta, Alana comes from wealth but it was made very clear by her parents that they would not support the lifestyle she had grown up in and become accustom to after the age of eighteen since they wanted her to know what it was like to work for a fortune as they had.

With her knowing she couldn't live her lifestyle any other way, Alana through a finessed full ride reluctantly found herself attending Arizona State University. She was a Public Relations Major with a Fashion Merchandising Minor.

Upon her sophomore year of uni Alana was in the midst of a difficult English class and begrudgingly dragged her self to the on-campus writing center for help. There she would meet you, who at the time was a Communication Major with a English minor.

Although she was hard and cold at first during sessions, after more time spent together the two of you became friends and you soon introduced her to Phoebe who while skeptical at first, eventually welcomed her with open arms. Rest is history.

While most times Alana gives advice and encourages her friends in instances that may rub others the wrong way, she truly does love them and her intentions are pure..most times. Nonetheless though she’ll teach anyone how to treat themselves and never shys aways from a good time!

Fun Fact: Alana's god mother is Janet Jackson.

Beatrice Cortina hails from Albuquerque, New Mexico and is a Wedding Planner turned SAHM.

She met reader years ago when Beatrice was actually the wedding planner for Reader's older sister, Grace, during the time Beatrice and her husband lived in Texas where Grace currently resides.

They became fast friends after they spent a-lot of time together since reader was maid of honor.

After the wedding was over they exchanged info and remained good friends. And once Beatrice's husband advocated for the family of four to move to California for work, Beatrice immediately looked you up to reconnect.

Once you found each other, Beatrice was quickly introduced into the group as " Mother Bea" since she was the only mom friend and the rest is history.

Beatrice is the soft one of the group. If you need a softer kind of comfort or love, or just overall sunshine to cheer you up…she's your girl. She hates confrontation and will not raise her voice unless absolutely necessary because she is a love machine!

Fun Fact: Beatrice started a influencer page on TikTok about her life as a SAHM mom while caring for her children including her youngest son who has cerebral palsy. She has over 800k followers.

Beatrice’s nickname for you is mi muffin de durazano, which translates to my peach muffin.

You and Phoebe, who is a Hospitality Manager, met long ago on the playground of Milton Buck Elementary in the third grade after she was the new girl in class that you accidentally hit in the face with a kickball during recess.

From there in the nurse's office (as you’d been polite and escorted her to apologizing for your goliath strength a thousand times) over a pile of shared stale peppermints, a friendship bloomed.

You've seen each through middle school, highschool, and parts of college, and life. You lived apart after college for about three years when she decided to move to LA for work. Soon after you'd get a job offer at a publishing house in LA and when you moved, the two of you reunited and formed your found family.

Rest is History.

Phoebe has always been your rock, and you hers!

Fun Fact: Phoebe is a very talented artist and was once featured in local papers as a kid for her art.

——

So that’s the summary on Reader and her friends. The background on these ladies will be important for future stories…including You + Me = Us.

If you want let me know what you think of the found family!

Much love *hugs* 💚

#austin butler x reader #daysofourlove #mangoasks #austin butler x black reader #askarie #mango answers

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taisvns · 1 year ago

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“ I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it because ‘romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sugary.’ It’s dark and tormented.”

taesun choe : tai . 28.09.1996, she / her. born in melbourne, australia. libra, enfp. musician, songwriter and actress. ( penned by peppy )

application ⋆ aesthetics ⋆ soundtrack ⋆ relationships

biography.

ONE. born in south korea, but raised in melbourne, australia, a land she calls home to this day. an only child, her mother is a well-known actress and model, and her father, an aspiring screenwriter who never fulfilled his dreams, and later became a bookstore owner. their relationship was the talk of the media from the start, and as a result, tai has been surrounded by cameras from an early age.

TWO. since childhood, rubbing shoulders with famous people, it was logical that tai wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps, due to her good relationships it was easy to get jobs for her daughter, it was fun, exciting, her earliest memories are of being on a set, small roles for all type of series, modeling gigs for clothing catalogs and a handful of tv commercials, nothing very significant or substantial actually, just a little girl dreaming about stars and ballerinas.

THREE. she discovers her true passion latter on, showing a natural talent for music. at twelve years old, she enters a talent show where she comes in second and everything cascades from there, signing a contract with the label and with her mother, who doubled as an agent, controlling, and taking care of every aspect of her life, at age nineteen she became a recognizable face for the australian public, soon enough there is one hit single and others coming up. and of course, tai enjoyed her profession, with an undying love for music and playing pretend.

FOUR. but everything that goes up has to come down, cruel comments began to appear sooner rather than later, 'tai is only someone daughter', 'talentless singer’, ‘industry plant’, endless variations, the seemed popular opinion, and there's only so much flak you can take before you start to believe it too, and the 'maybe they're right' appearing on her mind, little by little her presentations stopped having the enthusiasm, the accustomed radiance, in her mind it is useless to try so hard if they are going to hate you anyways.

FIVE. it all culminates in a fateful live performance on a morning show, the release of a new single, and an altercation produced by a anxiety attack, too public to be swept under the rug, and nothing was the same from then on. there isn't much left to do, her reputation already being tarnished, and the only way other than to retrieve with what's left and the goals that weren't met.

SIX. giving her music career a second chance doesn't happen until years later, in fact, she moves to california to study for a degree in history, the glitz and the glamours, the feeling of being loved by a crowd, are just so alluring, and whats the worst that can happen? it turns out, tai finds out almost right away, the worst thing that can happen it succeeding, trapped by your own ambitions, by your own dreams.

psychology.

the kind of person who can't fake a smile, but smiles often, easy-going attitude, FRIENDLY, although bad for small talk, constantly commits the sin of being to QUIET, sullen even, she likes to think of herself as a proper tortured artist. DISCIPLINED like few , she puts her tasks at the center of her life, there is a certain obsession with being virtuous, which leads her to be SELF-CRITICAL with her own mistakes. she enjoys cotidianity and a simple life, with deep-rooted customs, it is difficult for her to leave her comfort zone, which makes her a bit LONELY, but she is absurdly LOYAL, willing to take risks for those they consider valuable people in her life.

artistically.

music claims: mitski, luna li & willow.

actress claims: ( don't have a specific list yet, but she only does supporting roles in horror and drama )

wanteds.

long term crush. she literally develops crushes on anyone who is nice to her for two seconds, what happens with this specific person is that, surely, they became friends, and tai never lost her crush on them, and she doesn't confess anything either because she is terrified that the other person doesn't feel the same. can be reciprocated or unrequited, it's about the craving, actually.

ex almost something. the kind of relationship they could have even gotten married in, but nothing ever really happened, I guess things ended just because of the long term crush mentioned above. tai just can't get over it and that's how the relationship is ruined, it's really about the angst.

dearest frenemie. they just can't stand each other, but there's something there, it's not that they really hate each other, it's just their worldviews are too different, but you got to work on a project together, and you're the only other person in the whole cast with the one I can talk about, if you are insufferable the others are so much worse.

stranger like me. they are both a bit averse to public life and prefer to just live their lives minding their own business, I imagine they can spend hours talking to each other over coffee, bonus points if they can geek about music, literature, history or art in general.

this being said, i really open to plotting almost anything! .

#hillzintro #⋆ ★ 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗺𝗲 : dossier .#if you saw an error; no you did'nt :(

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aliseo · 4 months ago

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sydney-crash-course · 6 months ago

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Shopping At An Organic Grocery Store - What Are The Benefits?

In the last few months, I have started shopping at an organic grocery store in Surry Hills. This was mainly because it was convenient (the store is literally 10 minutes from my house!) but also because I was intrigued as to whether organic food could really benefit me, like so many people say it can. That led me down a rabbit hole of research and first-hand discovery, and here I am, writing this blog post about what I learnt!

If you live under a rock and have never heard of organic food, it’s essentially food grown without synthetic fertilisers, herbicides, or pesticides. However, they still use natural versions of these substances! Organic farming also avoids using genetically modified organisms (GMOs), antibiotics, and growth hormones, focusing instead on natural processes and biodiversity. So, what are the benefits of eating organic? Read on to find out!

Great Taste

The flavour was the first thing that stood out to me when I tasted organic produce. They all had a rich, authentic taste, unlike the diluted flavour we're accustomed to from store-bought ones. Organic produce typically offers a superior taste compared to non-organic options. This enhanced flavour is due to the absence of pesticides and other chemicals in organic farming, allowing the food to grow naturally and fully develop its taste. Some experts suggest that chemicals can give a bitter or sour note to our food. Organic food is also usually fresher than its non-organic counterparts, further enhancing that rich flavour!

Improve Your Health

Many people believe that organic food is healthier compared to non-organic food. This belief stems from the fact that organic farming practices exclude the use of pesticides and other harmful chemicals. Research supports this, showing that individuals who consume organic foods usually have less pesticides in them! For example, a 2019 study in California found a 60.5% reduction in pesticide and toxin levels after participants followed a completely organic diet for just six days.

These findings have led some to suggest that eating more organic produce might help reduce the incidence of chronic diseases like cancer. However, definitive scientific evidence to confirm this potential benefit is still lacking. But I’m happy knowing that eating organic food is improving my health even in small ways, because every little helps!

Be Kind To The Environment

Organic food benefits the environment more than non-organic food. How? Organic farming methods focus on conserving soil and water, which helps minimise the amount of chemicals and pesticides that contaminate the soil and water cycle. Additionally, organic farms typically consume less energy than conventional ones.

Organic food is advantageous for both the environment and your health. If your budget allows, why not try investing in organic food for a while and see how you feel? If you live near me you can even try out the same Surry Hills grocery store that I go to!

Increased Nutritional Value

Organic food is often considered more nutritious than its non-organic versions. This belief stems from the fact that organic farming avoids synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, which can sometimes infiltrate the food and diminish its nutritional value.

Moreover, organic food is typically fresher because it doesn't have to travel long distances to reach us! Locally grown produce is often fresher and retains more nutrients than food that has to travel far and wide to get to my local Surry Hills grocery store. This is due to the respiration process that occurs after harvest, where fruits and vegetables continue to break down stored carbohydrates, fats and proteins that leads to nutrient loss. A study by the University of Missouri highlights how respiration contributes to this degradation of nutrients, so check that out if you’re interested.

Goodbye, Cadmium!

Organic food contains lower levels of Cadmium. If you're unfamiliar with Cadmium, it's a heavy metal that can accumulate in the kidneys over time, potentially leading to kidney disease and brittle bones. Although trace amounts of Cadmium aren't immediately harmful, prolonged exposure can pose health risks! Major sources of Cadmium intake include smoking and consuming low-quality fruits and vegetables. Additionally, Cadmium is considered a carcinogen, which means it has the potential to cause cancer, so the less we intake of it, the better!

Take Care Of Your Heart

One of the primary causes of cardiovascular disease is a poor diet, along with factors such as drug use and other lifestyle choices. Organic food benefits heart health.

Research indicates that individuals who consume diets high in antioxidants have a reduced risk of heart disease. And, as previously noted, organic foods are abundant in antioxidants, which help protect your cells from damage!

Reduced Chemical Intake

As we mentioned at the beginning, organic food is grown without using synthetic chemicals, which is immediately better for your health. Who wants to eat chemicals for dinner? Not me! Organic farming also cuts out GMOs (genetically modified organisms), which may also be linked to health problems like infertility and cancer.

Less Antiobitocs, More Antioxidants

Because organic food is cultivated without synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, it involves fewer antibiotics, which helps maintain crop health through natural methods. The reduced use of antibiotics in organic farming helps prevent the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can cause severe, hard-to-treat illnesses in humans.

Additionally, organic foods contain up to 40% higher levels of antioxidants compared to conventionally grown foods. These antioxidants, including vitamin C, beta-carotene, and flavonoids, are crucial for protecting cells from damage and reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer!

Boost Your Immune System

Organic food has been demonstrated to offer various health benefits, including enhanced immune system function. Its greater nutritional value and higher content of vitamins and minerals contribute to a stronger immune system! Organic food is neither genetically modified (GMO) nor highly processed, both of which are known to weaken the immune system.

Shopping At Your Local Grocery Store

So there you have everything I have learnt so far on my organic food journey! I hope this post has been insightful for you. If we want to live a long and healthy life, it's essential to be mindful of what we consume. Organic food offers numerous advantages over non-organic options, including higher nutritional value, greater freshness, and sometimes even lower cost. It is cultivated without synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, making it a healthier choice overall. Transitioning to organic food can significantly enhance your health. However, it's important to buy organic produce from reliable sources, as not all claims of organic authenticity are accurate! Seek out a trustworthy organic Surry Hills grocery store like the one I go to. And most importantly, enjoy the wonderful benefits that come from going organic!

#GMO #organic #real food #Sydney #supermarket

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hesperia-gym-rk62 · 1 year ago

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Phelan HVAC Service

The Best HVAC Service in Phelan

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HVAC Maintenance for Phelan

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Extended the Lifespan of Phelan HVAC Equipment

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Understanding let breathe Conditioning and Furnace Installation Air conditioning and furnaces piece of legislation essential roles in HVAC systems. let breathe conditioning helps bend the temperature and humidity of indoor spaces, even though furnaces find the money for efficient heating during colder months. Whether you are installing a additional system or upgrading an existing one, proper installation is essential for optimal piece of legislation and dynamism efficiency. Factors to rule in the past Installation Before proceeding similar to let breathe conditioning and furnace installation, several factors craving to be considered. Assessing your cooling and heating needs is crucial, as it helps determine the capacity required for your system. Evaluating the proclaim where the system will be installed is equally important, as it influences the choice of equipment and proper ventilation. Additionally, dynamism efficiency considerations should be taken into account to minimize long-term practicing costs. https://phelanhvacservice.blogspot.com/2023/05/phelan-hvac-service.html Best HVAC Company Phelan https://persianrugrepairsanclemente147.blogspot.com/ https://persianrugrepairsanclemente147.blogspot.com/2023/05/persian-rug-repair-san-clemente.html https://chattanoogatndumpsterrental.blogspot.com/ https://chattanoogatndumpsterrental.blogspot.com/2023/05/chattanooga-tn-dumpster-rental.html https://hendersontndumpsterrental.blogspot.com/

#Youtube

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shysneeze · 2 years ago

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there's a girl out there with love in her eyes | robin buckley x artist!reader

summary: robin gathers the courage to talk to her crush and ends up your muse

warnings: i am not an artist so excuse artsy errors, kissing, tooth rotting fluff, reader is slightly self critical, take a shot every time i mention the low autumn sun

notes: title from going to california by led zeppelin

Robin has become well acquainted with the art corridor, the walls lined with paintings and drawings, the splatters of paint on the floor and the earthy smell of clay. It’s not exactly a short cut to the bandroom, in fact it’s more of a detour that she’s become far too accustomed to taking.

She’s mumbling beneath her breath, practising what it is she intends to say when she finally arrives at the senior art studio, where you will undoubtedly be working away, listening to a new tape and glowing in the low autumn sun.

As she approaches, it’s to the soft staticky sound of The Cure playing, echoing in the empty hallways. She slows to a stop, breath shaking nervously from her lungs. It’s silly, to get so nervous just to talk to you, but suddenly her fingers feel tingly with anxiety, and she shakes them out with a gulp.

You’re sitting with your back to her, humming along to the song and adorning a half painted canvas with stokes of red. You're wrapped up in it all, the peace of it, Robin imagines. It’s part of what has her so enamoured really, what has her taking the detour every time, for a glimpse of you in your element.

Robin hesitates now that she’s arrived, hand frozen in midair before she can knock on the doorframe. She tries again to recall the plan, one discussed endlessly with Steve during work, the one that had her best friend just about pulling his hair out in exasperation because ‘for god’s sake, Robin, just talk to her!’.

Gulping, she rattles her knuckles lightly against the hollow wooden door frame, grimacing a little at the way your shoulders shoot up, tensing in surprise as you turn to face her. Her cheeks feel suddenly red, and the plan falls completely apart, crumbling before her eyes.

Her lips hang slack as you blink at her from across the room, head tilted curiously at her lanky frame in the doorway. You have paint smudged across your cheek and specks of red and orange drying in your furrowed brows.

Robin thinks it’s adorable.

“Can I help you?”

“H-Hi,” She exhales, pulling herself briefly together, “I didn’t mean to startle you… I’m sorry.”

You’re blinking at her silence, waiting for more, and watching as her cheeks get redder and redder. A smile quirks at the corner of your lips as you lower your paint brush onto the palette to your left.

“You okay, Robin?”

Robin’s face twitches a little with surprise, pulling the politest of giggles from your lips.

“We’re in the same english class,” You explain, “You sit behind me.”

Robin is well aware of this, instead stunned by the fact that you’ve noticed her. Briefly, the thought warms her chest before simmering into a nervousness in the pit of her stomach.

“Yeah, of course,” She nods quickly, “You’re always doodling in the margins of your paper- which everyone does but your doodles are always… beautiful. I guess that makes sense though given you’re an artist-“

A laugh interrupts her, cut short by your hand over your smiling lips. The heat rises to her ears with embarrassment, and she opens her mouth to apologise for rambling when you lift your hand to wave apologetically.

“Sorry, just… artist isn’t the right word.” You admit, “I’m still in highschool, I’m not an artist yet.”

Robin’s brows twitch slightly into a frown, and she takes a few steps forward, peering down over your shoulder at your painting, causing a self-consciousness to unfurl in your stomach.

“You don’t think this is art?”

You blink up at her, breath catching. Her eyes are round with awe, eyeing the painting with the sort of wonder every artist dreams of producing. The sun floods her face with a warm orange light, and her freckles blur pleasantly beneath it, little specks of autumn.

“This is just… it’s not finished yet.”.

Suddenly recalling her plan, Robin straightens a little, stretching beyond the orange blanket of light and finally allowing you the chance to breathe again.

“Well, I’m sure your finished stuff is just as beautiful.” She says, confidence almost betrayed by the nervous quiver in her voice, “Can I see it sometime?”

The way she chews on her cheek nervously whilst awaiting your response is oddly endearing, and it has you nodding almost too quickly, too eagerly. Wiping your slightly clammy hands across the paint streaked jeans, you stand.

“I have my folio with me,” You confess, walking across the room to your abandoned belongings. “If you want to see it now.”

“Yeah?”

“If you’ve got the time…”

“Steve is working so he can’t pick me up for a while,” She assures, bouncing slightly on her heels with excitement, “So I’m totally free.”

You try not to let your face sour at the mention of Steve Harrington. Your body loosens with disappointment suddenly, at the reminder of the well justified rumours of Robin and Steve’s unexpected relationship.

“Great,” You manage a smile, “Here,”

She comes towards you, watching you pull various paintings and sketches from your project case. She can see the anxious tremor to your fingers as they push the pieces carefully across the table, and the honour at getting to see them fill hers to the brim with warmth.

“This is a lot.” Robin exhales after a moment, “Wow…”

“I’m here a lot,” You shrug.

“I know.” Robin blurts, before panicking at the implications of it, “I mean, I’ve seen you a lot after school when I’m on my way to band practice… I've been hoping to see your work for a while now.”

“Well, you’re always welcome.”

She meets your eyes for a moment in surprise, before turning back to your art. That wonder is back, and as she bends for a closer look, that orange light engulfs her again, tying knots in your stomach.

She’s so pretty, all warm light and perfect freckles, it almost hurts.

“Wow…” She exhales again in a whisper, “These are amazing.”

“Thanks,” You mumble with an embarrassed grimace. “It’s just some ideas for college applications so it’s not much but-”

“No, these are amazing,” She repeats, almost sternly, “What do you mean you’re not an artist? What would you call this?”

“Paintings,” You exhale, “Drawings, and sketches, but that doesn’t make it art.”

Robin smirks a little, shaking her head as she draws her finger gently across a portrait, feeling each brush stroke tenderly.

“You’re one of those tortured artists, huh?”

Surprise slackens your lips, and she twists to grin at you, eyes crinkling in the corners.

“I’m joking,” She assures, “But I think these are beautiful, and that you’re an artist.”

“Thanks, Robin,” You exhale, “That’s sweet of you.”

She spends another few minutes admiring each piece, and you watch her eyes find each pencil line and each colour. You watch her take in each one, how her long fingers trace the shapes across the paper, so gently they barely touch it.

It’s so nerve wracking, so intimate in a way nothing could possibly have prepared you for, and when she finally straightens, her cheeks are rosy, smiling to herself as if she’s simply the luckiest girl in the world.

“Thanks,”

“Huh?” You ask, blinking slowly back to reality as her ocean blue eyes meet your own, “For… For what?”

“Letting me see your art- or your paintings, drawings and sketches,” She teases with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “Especially when I just showed up out of nowhere… you’re really talented.”

“T-thanks.”

“I should go,” She admits, “Steve will be heading this way so…”

“Right,” You say, ignoring the disappointment that flares to life in your chest. “Of course.”

Robin nods with that awkward charm, making her way towards the door. You watch her retreating figure, eyes caught by the red streaks in her hair, and an overwhelming need to see her again takes you both by surprise when her name blurts from your lips.

“Can I paint you?”

It’s not what you intended to ask, not even a conscious thought you knew existed in your head, and when Robin turns back to you, its with parted lips and furrowed brows. Your stomach lurches nervously, but there’s no going back.

“Just, if you’re free,” You continue, “I’m sure you’ve got work so it’s okay if you can’t, but I’d really like to paint you.”

“Me?”

“Y-yeah,” You admit, “You’re… really pretty, you know.”

Robin’s freckles disappear beneath a crimson blush, neck stretching with a nervous gulp. Mortified, you turn back to your paintings, busying your hands with returning your work to the project case.

“As I said, you’re probably busy so-”

“I’m not.”

Your shoulders ease slightly, and you bravely turn back towards her, though she’s avoiding your eyes, one hand lifted to scratch awkwardly behind her neck.

“I’m not working next week,” She assures, “So I can come after band practice, if that suits.”

“T-that’s perfect,” You confirm, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” She nods, smiling anxiously, “What’s the worse that can happen?”

-.-.-

Robin has learned that you paint with a specific look of concentration. It greets her each time you tilt your head past the easel to take her in again, lip pulled between your teeth in a way that makes her feel entirely too warm, too nervous.

She’s spent a week here, balanced awkwardly on a stool in front of you, listening to whatever tape you produce from your bag that day, and rambling in desperate attempts to avoid the heat in her chest each time you meet her eyes around the canvas.

And you’re more than happy to listen, filing each new fact away in your head; her favourite books, her least favourite subjects and the songs she hums along to as you paint. Today, she’s talking about work, hands moving animatedly as she talks about a regular, and you’ve long past given up on trying to keep her still.

“I mean, the same documentary every week.” She repeats, “How many times can you watch a plane documentary? It’s like aviation 101 every time he walks in- Steve is probably kicking himself for covering my shifts this week because he really doesn’t have the patience for Plane Guy.”

“Wait, what?”

“Sorry, am I talking too quickly?”

“No, it’s just… he’s covering your shifts?” You ask, peering around the easel with a frown. “You said you weren’t working.”

Robin’s eyes widen a little at being caught in such a silly lie. Tearing her eyes from your own, she twists to hide her embarrassment, though you can see the red climbing her neck.

“Um, yeah,” She admits, “I did say that…”

“You’re ditching work for this?” You ask, somehow mortified, “You didn’t need to do that, Robin.”

“Yeah but you seemed so excited and I wanted to!” She argues, rubbing at her neck awkwardly, “and Steve owes me for all the shifts I’ve taken whilst he’s been on dates, so really, dealing with the plane enthusiast is the least he can do.”

You sit back a little, hiding yourself behind the painting, eyes rounding with hopeful surprise. Gulping, you do your best to ignore the butterflies swelling in your chest, the excitement bubbling up inside you.

“Oh.” You attempt casually, lifting a shaky hand to the canvas again. “So you aren’t… He’s not your boyfriend?”

“Oh, god no,” Robin’s face twists beyond your line of sight, “I’ve seen that boy flirt and I have no idea how he’s getting dates at all really. So, no. We’re friends- best friends.”

“Right,” You nod, gulping, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” She assures, still red-cheeked, “I get it a lot… but we’re not together. He’s really not my type.”

“No?”

She can hear it in the lift of your voice, the question of what her type really is. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Steve is telling her to be bold: girls, artists, you… but all she can do is clear her throat, humming in confirmation.

Beyond the soft static of the tape playing in the background, silence falls upon you both, and the odd new tension in the room. That late evening sun washes Robin in orange again, and with each peer around the canvas, your stomach tightens.

You move onto painting her freckles, struggling for a moment with the colour, breathing out a frustrated sigh as nothing seems to mix quite right on the palette. Robin’s head tilts curiously at the sound.

“You okay back there?”

“Fine,” You mumble, “Just… your freckles.”

Robin’s brows twitch slightly in offence.

“Sorry, I guess?”

“No, they’re perfect and pretty, but they’re all different shades of orange,” You explain, standing with a sigh and stepping around the painting towards her. “Need a closer look.”

You take a step between her knees and Robin’s eyes widen in surprise, body swaying backwards at your sudden proximity. That paint smell finds her nostrils, mixed with the subtle scent of your perfume, and as she looks up at you, her lips fall apart.

Behind you, Led Zeppelin bristles to life from the cassette player again, the first strings of Going to California stretching outwards to every corner of the room. You’re squinting down at Robin, lifting your few paint-free fingers to tilt her chin from the sun briefly, biting your lip with that concentration Robin has become so infatuated with.

“So many freckles,” You exhale, “You’re so pretty, Robin.”

It’s not consciously that the words leave you, and Robin is almost certain you’ve hardly noticed yourself saying them, but her ears warm at the sound of them, and beneath your touch, she’s positively melting.

It draws a small whimper from the back of her throat, exhaled shakily into the sunlight washed room, joining the soft guitar strings and your just slightly uneven breaths. You pause a little, realising your current position, her knees bracing your legs, her face against your fingers.

You whisper an apology, but don’t dare step back, not with her ocean eyes staring at you with that awe, that wonder, that love… you can do nothing but blink down at her, take it all in. Then, her breath catching, she lets out a whisper of her own.

“I really want to kiss you.”

And who would you be to deny her such a simple desire?

You don’t waste a second, taking her chin and pulling her towards your lips, and she pushes upwards to meet them with a gentle sort of eagerness that tugs at your heartstrings. When you pull back, it's to her rosy cheeks and perfect freckles.

“Like that?”

Robin can only nod before pulling you in for another kiss, arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you against her chest. There’s no rush though, not as your paint-streaked fingers clasp her cheek or comb through her hair, not as her tongue slides across your concentration-chewed lip and presses into your mouth.

Her hands on your waist push up slightly to graze the skin beneath your sweater, as gentle as the shapes traced across your painting, her warm fingers leaving featherlight touches over the skin above your waist band.

“Robin..,” You mumble above her lips, “You really like me?”

“God, (y/n),” She exhales between warm kisses, “Do you know how far this place is from the bandroom?”

You grin as you find her lips again, arching into her as her fingers run up your back. You leave paint on her cheek, then her neck as your fingers trail down towards her shoulders, balancing yourself as the kiss deepens dizzyingly.

It’s with a sharp, frustrated sound that Robin pulls away, only in response to the shrill sound of car horn being pressed outside. You turn with her to the window, frowning with your arms still balanced on each of her shoulders.

“Steve,” She grumbles, “Terrible timing.”

You blink down at her, resisting the overwhelming urge to kiss her blush-blurred freckles one by one. You pull from her touch, skin cooling rapidly without it, and her brows drop disappointedly, hands dropping to her side.

“Go tell him I’m driving you home,” You instruct, “Tell him it’s your lips, they’re impossible to get right… I really need to study them.”

Robin clambers far too quickly from the stool, and with a delighted laugh you catch her before she can fall completely. She straightens with a lopsided grin, stealing another kiss before dashing towards the door.

You pace giddily back to your painting, suddenly in disbelief at your luck, but what’s an artist without a muse, you suppose.

…

bonus:

Steve knows Robin is trying to explain something, something about not needing a ride home, though he can’t quite concentrate on anything but the paint streaks on her cheeks and the obscene red of her ears.

“You are covered in paint.”

“Huh?”

Steve chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Nothing, Rob.” He assures, “Go back and make out with your artist, I’ll see you later.”

Robin can’t hide her excitement, lips stretching into a grin that has him rolling his eyes endearingly before pulling out of the car park, watching Robin hurry back into the building in his rearview mirror.

a/n: not the biggest fan but lemme know what you think :)

tag-list: @woahhhfidgett @sireeeeee @lovelyy-moonlight @starselle @robinsprker @flourelle @robinbuckleysgfreall @robinbuckleyluvr @lesbiihoenestt @sumobug @milkiane @janeswhore @strvngerrose @rxbinbuckleys @amelies-a-simp @vampirtet@zzharrypotter

#robin buckley x reader #robin x reader #robin buckley x you #robin buckley x y/n #robin buckley #robin buckley fics #robin buckley imagine #robin buckley imagines #robin buckley headcanons #robin buckley x artist!reader #robin buckley x fem reader

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diamondluxesugar · 4 years ago

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His Money =/= Your Money

A while back I answered an ask about what I spend my money and I started thinking about how I manage my money as a young woman and how it can either make or break the future.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Let me start by saying that while I believe in being a kept woman, I don’t want to be 100% dependent on any man. I firmly believe in having your own AND having a partner that gives you everything you want and need. I’ve seen so many women change their lives completely because of a man, just to have his behavior change. He becomes complacent and stops providing, whether it’s financially, emotionally, or physically. Men will want to change you no matter who you are and what you do all to maintain their own ego and sense of dominance. A woman can be a neurosurgeon or a stripper and still find a man who wants her to quit her job because be a. feels inferior b. feels insecure or c. emasculated. Is that the woman’s fault?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Bill Clinton did it with Hillary. Sidney Poitier did it with Diahann Carroll. Joe AND Arthur did it with Marilyn. Offset did it to Cardi B. Men begin relationships with beautiful, intelligent, witty women and then try to get them to change who they are, to accept less than the best, to dim their shine so the man can be seen as having won her a prize. To be honest, I don’t even really care why men are like this. The simple truth is that they all are. But now that we all know this, the question becomes how do we combat it? How do we make sure that we’ll still be taken care of even if the men in our lives wake up one day and decide screw you over because you don’t fit into what and who they want you to be?

Answer: By having your own.

Have a job, have a volunteer organization in which you have an essential leadership role, have a successful blog or book or business. Just have SOMETHING that is more than just the spa days, hair appointments, and shopping trips. (Hell, if you’re really clever you can even turn that into a hustle, but that’s a conversation for another day)

Having a job/transferable skills PLUS having an SD/boyfriend/sponsor(s) can be a lot to juggle, I know. I don’t know about you, but I put a lot of time and effort into my career. I’m constantly studying, developing new skills, reading the WSJ and researching anything that will give me a competitive edge. Yes, these things are time consuming and a lot less “fun” than shopping but it’s so important. I know I’ve mentioned this somewhere before, but you can’t put professional hoe on your resume. Having a job gives you security that you’ll be able to support yourself in case something goes left.

Trust me, things will go left in the blink of an eye.

Look at the whole situation with Dr. Dre and Nicole Young. She’s trying to get $2M/month plus $5M legal fees as a settlement from him and part of the legal claim was denied. Why does she want that much? She is having trouble keeping up with her monthly expenses, Dr. Dre kicked her out of the house, he’s freezing the charges she’s making to cards, is saying that she’s embezzling money from him (and now she’s being investigated), and all types of foolishness. It’s messy and since she was “just a wife” how much of his $820M+ money is she going to get? Nicole was a lawyer before marrying him, and gave it up for him and for family. She adopted his 5 other children. How many nights do you think she was up having conversations with him about business, giving him advice, being a sounding board? Over 25 years?!

Seems like a lot of work just to be known as the devoted wife, am I right? Now since California is a communal property state, she’ll probably leave with something, but is it really going to be close to what she is accustomed to living on? Not to mention when you have that much money you KNOW he’s not going to part easily with any of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been moving things into secret trusts and oversees accounts since before the divorce paperwork was filed. However, imagine if during these years she built up a practice with her OWN contacts and clients, had her name plastered in the credits of everything he produced, had ownership stakes in all of the companies he created. Sis would be making out like a bandit right now. She’d be able to just pick up, take her lil divorce settlement money and ride off into the sunset with a hot buff pool boy.

Instead she’s being dragged through the mud in court and in the press after dealing with Dr. Dre’s annoying ass for 25 years. How unfair. And if you aren’t satisfied with a celebrity example, I know women who got divorced and during the proceedings it came out that the man had an entire real estate company on the sly. Do you know how much money and how many secret deals it takes to have an entire RE portfolio on the side?

Ladies we have to play the long game. We have to have our own and whatever is being given to us needs to be the extra.

No one can take your degrees or certificates (that his money paid for, but your brain received).

No one can take your career or professional experience(that you elevated using his money).

No one can take your connections and network (that he introduced you to, but you made your own).

A person’s support can always be taken away, so the one thing you need to count on is yourself. Get those things that are valuable and will last you longer than this season’s designer..

-DLS

#heaux tips #heaux advice #heauxtivation #spoiled heaux #spoiled girlfriend #spoiled gf #spoiled sugar baby #black femininity #black sugar baby #black sugar blog #luxury black women #askdls

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ingek73 · 3 years ago

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Prince Harry’s Savvy Media Pivot

His Apple TV+ show and recent media appearances are clear attempts to establish a new public image as a relatable dad in therapy.

By Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Posted on May 28, 2021, at 1:58 p.m. ET

Courtesy of Apple

Prince Harry in his new docuseries, The Me You Can't See

The opening moments of Prince Harry’s appearance on a May episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast give us good insight into the royal’s new life as a public figure in the US. You get the impression that the Duke of Sussex was still settling into his seat when he casually asks his host, “What do you think about Joe Rogan’s comments [about vaccines]?” He’s referring to Rogan’s inane advice to young men not to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Shepard somewhat dodges the question. For Shepard, the comments are “ridiculous, obviously,” but he sees where Rogan is coming from. “[Rogan’s position is] ‘I fucking call fights. I’m an MMA announcer. I’m not Fauci,’” Shepard says. He concludes that he agrees “with both sides.” Harry pushes back: “[Rogan] says, ‘Don’t listen to me,’ but it’s like, well, Don’t say that.”

The exchange sets up the rest of the episode as a sort of laid-back chat — Harry comes off as unguarded and off-the-cuff, your smart friend riffing on current news stories. Only it’s not your smart friend — it’s Prince Harry, a figure who’s been in the spotlight since he was born. He’s accustomed to being the most-watched person in the room even without a camera present. So it’s hard to imagine he didn’t know the microphone was on, that the show wasn’t already rolling when he started his riffing. But he pulls off the unfiltered vibe in a smooth and unassuming way. And it’s this casual cool that is the story of Prince Harry’s reinvention right now.

Harry has been in the news because he’s an executive producer (and central figure) alongside Oprah, in a new docuseries about mental health on Apple TV+, called The Me You Can’t See. He’s on the cover of People magazine for it. And this week, the docuseries is following up its five episodes with “a special town hall” featuring Harry, Oprah, Glenn Close, and experts who will continue the conversation the show started on mental health.

On The Me You Can’t See, Harry is compelling, charming, and heartbreaking. He is forthcoming about details of the by-now-familiar story of how he and Meghan Markle left life as working royals to move to the US. He becomes emotional frequently — as he did when he told Oprah that Meghan didn’t act on her suicidal ideation because she didn’t want him to lose another woman he loved.

He is relatable, too, asserting that, “like so many people my age, I know that I’m not going to get from my family what I need” (same, my guy). The 36-year-old royal speaks with authority and precision on mental health and trauma. He is unvarnished when it comes to talking about the dark periods of his life.

Watching him at work in The Me You Can’t See, it’s hard not to admire what he’s pulled off: a total and complete pivot to a new kind of social currency. After all, Harry was “cool” in a very different way not long ago. He had a reputation for being a “bad boy,” the iconoclast within a stodgy family, the wild one who takes it too far, or parties naked in Vegas, or...whatever this is.

But in a moment still in search of new definitions for masculinity — ones that do not rely on machismo and bravado and showing off — somehow, Prince Harry is here to deliver. He’s out here evangelizing therapy and the virtues of getting help when you need it. He makes taking care of your mental health seem like the in thing to do. He’s joining the ranks of men like Nick Jonas, Michael Phelps, and Dax Shepard himself who are embracing a refreshing approach to their own mental health struggles.

Harpo Productions / Joe Pugliese via Getty Images

Oprah Winfrey interviews Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on a CBS primetime special, which aired on March 7, 2021.

Before his move to the US, Prince Harry’s identity was deeply intertwined with life as a working royal. That meant the public's engagement with his choices was limited to that realm: Was he doing the job, or was he failing at it? This is not to say people didn’t have strong feelings about his identity, only that he had little say in the matter.

But with the move to California, Harry’s celebrity posture has changed. He has comfortably slipped into a decidedly American version of celebrity, relying on a more personal story to grow his platform. He invoked the tragedies of his past to powerful effect. He shared that his years of unhealthy alcohol and drug use were the darkest of his life. When he and Meghan launched their nonprofit, Archewell, they wrote, “I am my mother’s son. And I am our son’s mother. Together we bring you Archewell.” The story may be familiar, but they are the ones doing the telling. The power has radically shifted.

In his new mode of celebrity, Harry’s not exactly reimagining the wheel. We’re living in a potent moment of the multihyphenate celebrity — Barack Obama makes podcasts with Bruce Springsteen (?) while Michelle Obama makes Netflix shows (??); Beyoncé sells athleisure (???); the Clintons are writing novels (????). Harry and Meghan have a well-established trail to follow, and they’re doing so enthusiastically (including a Spotify deal and a Netflix one, because why not!).

Piece their moves together and you’ve got the makings of an all-encompassing “brand,” the kind every celebrity is expected to have now. And with this type of public profile, the expectations are that you are to be judged on your public choices. Who are you aligning yourself with? What shows are you appearing on? What are the subject matters you want to elevate over others?

And this is why the Rogan comment is important. The MMA announcer/podcast host/professional “just-asking-questions” guy has, for myriad reasons only some of which are under his control, become shorthand for an old-school story of masculinity. He is understood as rugged and assertive, a tough guy’s tough guy.

In other words, Rogan is a natural foil to the story Harry is trying to tell right now. Even the prince’s choice of media is telling. Before his Armchair Expert appearance, his significant sit-down interviews were with James Corden and Oprah, interviewers who reach broad audiences. Turning to Shepard, a figure whose public identity is propelled by vulnerability about addiction and mental health issues, signals that Harry wants to be included in the conversation about changing masculinity.

The prince is building a public narrative on the idea that the old ways of being a man are not working. He presents himself as living proof that flying an Apache helicopter is cool, but facing your inner demons is cooler. ●

#prince harry #duke of sussex #buzzfeed

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years ago

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Star Trek: Facets of Filmmaking

As it turns out, before Star Trek was fully realized in the form we know today, the show was originally not going to be about Kirk and the Enterprise at all. In fact, it was going to be about a ship called the S.S. Yorktown, captained by a man named Robert April, on a mission to explore the Milky Way galaxy. The original concept, still named Star Trek and set in the 23rd century, was loosely based on the Horatio Hornblower novels, and took inspiration from The Voyage of the Space Beagle, the Marathon series and the 1956 film Forbidden Planet.

By the year 1964, when this idea began to take shape, Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek was an experienced writer for western television shows, and was well accustomed to (at the time) television’s favorite and most popular genre. By 1964, however, Roddenberry was tired of the shootouts, and wanted to do something different, something with a little more depth to it.

Still, Roddenberry knew what the executives, and the public, was used to. As a result, the first draft of this new Star Trek idea was generalized as a sort of ‘Wagon Train to the Stars’, a formulaic type of show where every episode was a standalone adventure in the continuous exploration of the final frontier: space.

As Roddenberry wrote the draft, a few things changed. Gone was Robert April, replaced by Captain Christopher Pike, who would be portrayed by Jefferey Hunter, and the rest of the crew. The name of the ship changed too, to the more familiar Enterprise. As these changes came about, so too did the true nature of Roddenberry’s dream show: both an adventure story, and a thought-provoking morality tale.

Armed with his script, Roddenberry brought Star Trek to Desilu Productions, (a rather large television production company headed and half-formed by Lucille Ball herself) and met with director of production Herbert F. Solow. Solow saw promise in the concept, and signed a three-year development contract with Roddenberry.

Star Trek moved into the next stage of development. Further drafts were drawn up and the idea that would later become the episode The Cage was revised, until it was shown to CBS as part of the ‘First Look’ deal with Desilu productions. CBS wasn’t impressed with the show, declining to purchase it. They had another ‘space show’ in development that seemed too similar, a show that would become Lost in Space.

However, another company became interested: NBC. In May of 1964, Grant Tinker, the head of the West Coast programming department, commissioned the pilot that would become The Cage (which would later be reworked into the episode The Menagerie). After it was completed, NBC turned it down, claiming that it was ‘too cerebral’, but although this was a mild defeat, Star Trek wasn’t beaten. NBC still showed interest in the concept, and made the highly unusual decision to commission a second pilot: the episode that would become Where No Man Has Gone Before.

With this came quite a few changes.

Christopher Pike was scrapped as a character, as was the vast majority of other cast members. Only the character of Spock, as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, was kept, and of the other cast members, only Majel Barrett stayed, demoted from playing the second-in-command (scrapped due to the unthinkable notion of a woman Commander) to the ship’s nurse, Christine Chapel. With this new pilot came an onslaught of new, more familiar names and faces: William Shatner as Captain Kirk, Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Scott played by James Doohan, and Lieutenant Sulu, (originally a physicist in the first episode, but a helmsman afterwards) played by George Takei.

This pilot passed with flying colors, and with that, NBC added Star Trek to their fall lineup for 1966.

Still, there were changes to be made. In this first pilot, the ship’s doctor was Mark Piper, played by Paul Fix. Dr. Leonard McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, would join the cast when principal filming for the first season began. Also joining the cast was Nichelle Nichols, playing Lieutenant Uhura, and Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Rand. (Whitney would depart halfway through the first season, after being on the receiving end of sexual assault from one of the executives of the show, but would later appear in the film series beginning in the 1970s.)

Besides Where No Man Has Gone Before, NBC ordered 15 episodes to start off the show. The first episode of Star Trek, The Man Trap, aired at 8:30 PM on Thursday, September 8th of 1966 as part of NBC’s ‘sneak preview’ time slot, received with mixed feelings. While some papers and reviewers genuinely liked the new show, (such as The Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle) others, such as The Boston Globe and The New York Times didn’t. Variety described the show as ‘an incredible and dreary mess of confusion and complexities’, and predicted that it would fail.

Fighting for position against reruns of previous shows, despite the critics’ warnings, Star Trek won a time slot, and began with decent ratings. However, it didn’t last long. By the end of the first season, Star Trek was sitting at 52nd out of 94 programs.

Star Trek was sinking, fast.

But even then, it wasn’t without its supporters.

The editor of Galaxy Science Fiction, Frederik Pohl, offered up his amazement that Star Trek’s consistency remained good, with no drop in quality after its Tricon winning early episodes. He expressed his fear that the show would be cancelled due to its low ratings, and pleaded with audiences to help save Star Trek, writing letters to prevent its cancellation.

At this time, the only thing that was keeping the show on the air in the first place was the demographics it was reaching. NBC had become interested in the demographics of the shows it was producing in the early 1960s, and by 1967, was using that as part of the decision making as to which shows got dropped.

And something about Star Trek’s demographics interested NBC very much: it had managed to attract ‘quality’ audiences: high income, high educated people (primarily males).

As a result, NBC ordered ten more episodes for the first season, and ordered a second in March of 1967. The network then changed Star Trek’s timeslot, moving it to 8:30 on Friday nights, a timeslot that seemed doomed for failure among the audience that Star Trek had gathered.

The next season, things didn’t seem to be getting any better. It was at this point that the show added on Walter Koenig as Ensign Chekov (as George Takei was working on The Green Berets and was not as available for shooting), although some might have wondered why they would have bothered. The show’s ratings were still dropping. William Shatner, expecting the show to be cancelled, began to prepare for other projects.

Again, the demographics saved the day.

Roddenberry’s initial concept of adventure alongside morality tales intrigued the audiences Star Trek had attracted. The show had values, values that had to be applied to every situation. The show was sincere, and serious in its exploration of issues like racism, war and peace, human rights, technology, class warfare, and imperialism, far different in tone and content than the other chief sci-fi show at the time: Lost in Space. As a result, the show generated a more interested fanbase, perhaps the first true ‘fanbase’ of any franchise in history. In the end, it was they who saved Star Trek.

By the end of the first season, NBC had received well over 29,000 fan letters. During the second season, Roddenberry began a campaign to persuade fans to write in to NBC, to support the show and save the program. Between December of 1967 and March of 1968, NCB had received nearly 116,000 letters from people who did not want to see Star Trek cancelled. Science fiction conventions, magazines, and newspaper columnists encouraged readers to save what was called ‘the best science-fiction show on the air’.

The fans didn’t stop with letters. Over 200 students of the California Institute of Technology marched to NBC’s studio in Burbank to protest the cancellation of Star Trek in January of 1968, carrying signs that said things like ‘Vulcan Power’. They weren’t alone; other groups of students of MIT and Berkeley did the same thing in New York City and San Francisco.

Interestingly, the letters that NBC received were not of the typical ‘fan mail’ quality.

“Much of the mail came from doctors, scientists, teachers, and other professional people, and was for the most part literate–and written on good stationery. And if there is anything a network wants almost as much as a high Nielsen ratings, it is the prestige of a show that appeals to the upper middle class and high-brow audiences.” (Lowry, Cynthia (January 17, 1968). “One Network Goes ‘Unconventional’”. Nashua Telegraph. Associated Press. p. 13)

“The show, according to the 6,000 letters it draws a week (more than any other in television), is watched by scientists, museum curators, psychiatrists, doctors, university professors, and other highbrows. The Smithsonian Institution asked for a print of the show for its archives, the only show so honored.” (Scott, Vernon (February 7, 1968). “Letters Can Save 'Star Trek’”. The Press-Courier. Oxnard, California. United Press International. p. 17.)

After the episode The Omega Glory, on March 1st, 1968, the announcement came:

“And now an announcement of interest to all viewers of Star Trek. We are pleased to tell you that Star Trek will continue to be seen on NBC Television. We know you will be looking forward to seeing the weekly adventure in space on Star Trek.” (“Letters For 'Star Trek’ Hit 114,667”. The Modesto Bee. April 14, 1968. p. 26.)

If this was intended to stop the letter writing campaign, it was a dismal failure. A comparable number of letters came in to NBC following this announcement, full of thanks for renewing the show for the third season.

In March of 1968, NBC moved Star Trek to another time slot: 10:00 PM on Fridays, an even worse shot than before. To make matters worse, it was only being seen by 181 out of 210 of NBC’s affiliates. Roddenberry fought the network to move it to a better time, but he was denied. Exhausted, Roddenberry quit working on production of Star Trek, remaining executive producer in name only. The running of the show went to Fred Freiberger, who was with the show as it stood on its last, shaky, legs.

And it was on its last legs.

Star Trek season three was a dying breath, the death-rattle of a show that was being intentionally destroyed by its own network.

To quote Nichelle Nichols:

“While NBC paid lip service to expanding Star Trek’s audience, it [now] slashed our production budget until it was actually 10% lower than it had been in our first season … This is why in the third season you saw fewer outdoor location shots, for example. Top writers, top guest stars, top anything you needed was harder to come by. Thus, Star Trek’s demise became a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I can assure you, that is exactly as it was meant to be.”

It showed.

While I hesitate to call season three of Star Trek a mess, it is difficult to deny that the show was definitely struggling. Episodes dropped in quality, characters became more exaggerated and less ‘true’. Star Trek stopped filming in January of 1969, and after a total run of 79 episodes, the show was cancelled.

As a newspaper columnist advised:

“You Star Trek fans have fought the “good fight,” but the show has been cancelled and there’s nothing to be done now.”

Rather incongruous with the image of the pop-culture giant we know it as today, wouldn’t you think?

So what happened?

As it turns out, Star Trek had enough episodes (thanks to the third season) to enter syndication. Desilu Productions, which at that point had become Paramount, licensed the syndication rights in order to turn a profit, and reruns of Star Trek began airing in late 1969.

In syndication, Star Trek became a cult classic, finding a larger audience on reruns than it had during its original run. The show, which was airing in the afternoons and early evenings, was attracting a young demographic, and, ironically, Star Trek became known as ‘the show that wouldn’t die’. By 1970, Star Trek was boosting Paramount’s ratings, and becoming extremely popular. In January of 1972, over 3,000 fans attended the first Star Trek convention in New York City, kicking off a previously unheard-of trend of organized fan gatherings where they could buy merchandise, meet cast and crew, and screen episodes of the show. These people, coming to be known as ‘trekkies’, took pride in their knowledge and extreme love for this series, which was becoming renowned for being a smart, heartfelt science fiction show that had been cancelled too early.

17 years after Star Trek was cancelled and started reruns, Star Trek became the most popular syndicated show of all time. By 1987, Paramount was bringing in $1 million per episode, and by 1994, reruns were still airing in over 90% of the United States of America.

The rest is history.

It has been over fifty years since Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a wagon train to the stars first took flight, and it was a hard battle fought to get as far as it did. Never before had a show garnered the support and devoted love from a fanbase, never had it inspired such huge leaps and bounds in television and fandom alike. Never had a television show meant so much to so many, and continued to do so well past its end.

For a show that struggled through a third season, it seems incredible that Star Trek still holds the weight that it does today. The show that wouldn’t die gained new life beyond the grave, still capturing people’s attention decades after it was cancelled, growing to become one of the best known and best loved television shows ever made.

Against all odds, Star Trek lives on, remaining one of the greatest television shows of all time, for very good reason.

Join me for one last article as next time we take one last look at Star Trek in our Final Thoughts. If you have any thoughts, questions, suggestions, recommendations, or just want to say hi, don’t forget to leave an ask! Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

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shemakesmusic-uk · 4 years ago

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Alt-pop newcomer LVRA (pronounced loo-rah, real name Rachel Lu) has shared her first new track of 2021, ‘DEAD’. Following up on 2020’s debut EP LVCID, she explains: “There’s a unique power you gain when you stop caring about what people think of you. It’s an ongoing battle, though, and ‘DEAD’ is about the conflict between the fantasy of not caring and how you feel in reality. The video captures that, with a version of myself who has her shit together and another that is fighting to survive.The use of red represents fear in the human condition, but in Chinese culture it also symbolises happiness. One rarely comes without the other.” The track – a cultural mix that matches LVRA’s heritage with bleeding edge ultra HD pop – is the first taster of a second EP, which is set to follow later this summer. You can check out an Oscar McNab (Lacuna Common, Oscar Lang). directed video above. [via Dork]

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Los Angeles artist Wallice follows debut single 'Punching Bag' with new coming of age anthem, '23'. Wallice finds herself caught between two places on fresh cut, '23'. “Too old to be a runaway”, but also too young to consider herself as grown up, the 22-year old yearns for a past that still has not happened yet. Working with producer David Marinelli since her return to California, Wallice has crafted a sound that is unique without taking itself too seriously. An angst-driven remonstration at the powerlessness of her age, '23' is also the clearest stamp of her musical identity to date. The expression of this purgatory is a cathartic garage-rock headbanger complemented beautifully by Wallice’s playful lyrics. “I just can't wait to be / all grown up and 23,” she admits in the song’s irresistible chorus. “Tell me what is wrong with me / I miss my Ohio fake ID”. In artfully portraying the limbo state of the age, Wallice describes the events in her life that have led to her own disaffection. “It’s hard not to compare your own professional success to that of your similarly aged peers. I dropped out of university in New York after studying Jazz Voice for a year, and my dad was VERY disappointed, to say the least, so it was hard not to feel like a loser in that sense. “The specific age 23 doesn’t have any milestones associated with it, but it’s more the idea of just looking forward to the future,” Wallice continues on the meaning of the track. "Much like how people ‘reset’ every new year, it’s comparable to be ‘older and wiser’ with each birthday, but instead of constantly looking to the future, it is important to be happy with where you are”. [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Coach Party have shared their new single 'Everybody Hates Me'. The Isle of Wight group are gearing up to release their incoming EP, with After Party pitting their potent indie pop influences against bittersweet lyricism. Out shortly, the EP is teased by new thumper 'Everybody Hates Me', with Coach Party adding a neat gloss to their guitar pop sound. Out now, 'Everybody Hates Me' comes equipped with a neat video steered by Daniel Broadley. Vocalist Jess Eastwood comments: “‘Everybody Hates Me’ isn’t a metaphor for anything; it’s literally about those times when you convince yourself that everyone, including your best friends don’t actually like you, and your self-confidence is so low that you don’t even blame them. Disguise that sentiment in an up-beat singalong, and there you have the third single from our new record. The video is a direct extension of the song. It swings between the insecurities of feeling like you’re not good enough amongst your friends, and the sense of unity you get from those same people when you finally wake up from your rut. Everyone feels that way from time to time, but you gotta remember that sometimes your irrational self is going to take over. And when it does, try to remember that you’re awesome, and your friends really are your friends.” [via Clash]

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Pussy Riot have gone hyperpop on their latest song 'Toxic'. The Dorian Electra collaboration features glitched out production by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs and tackles a relationship gone bad. Written, directed, and edited by Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, the music video features jarring, bloody imagery matching Brady’s production. “Care about yourself, cherish your mental health, and stay away from relationships that poison you!” Tolokonnikova writes in the YouTube description. “Amen.” In the song’s lyrics, Tolokonnikova tells off an ex. “You are my daily poison so annoying,” she sings. “You’re even more toxic than my employer.” The hook continues the theme. “This combo is deadly — ’cause we used to be friendly,” Electra laments. “And now my heart is a weapon / You made me… toxic.” [via Consequence of Sound]

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Baby Queen has dropped a brand new track, ‘These Drugs’. Bella Latham’s second new track of the year – following up on the anthemic ‘Raw Thoughts’ – she explains in an Instagram post: “This is a story I really needed to tell you and I didn’t know how to for a long time. When I first wrote this song, I honestly didn’t think I was going to be allowed to release it or that releasing it would be a particularly good idea. It just felt really important and that’s all I’ve ever wanted music to be; so I knew I had to share it with you.I was in a very bad place at the time… very depressed and convinced I wasn’t a good person and didn’t deserve good things. Life is different now. I’m happy. I’ve learnt that the antidote to my misery is gratitude and caring about myself even when I don’t want to, until it becomes a habit. It’s natural to look for escapism but there’s more freedom in working to build a life you like… and by that I literally just mean learning to love yourself. You, with all your scars and all your regrets, are home to an actual life! You’ve been through so much and you’ve come out the other side stronger because of it – it’s remarkable really. You’ve got to invite the sad parts of yourself in to have a tea party with you. Don’t ignore them and cover them up. If you don’t look at them, they’ll make themselves seen! You are so worthy of love and I hope that if you don’t see that yet, you will learn to in time. Anyways guys,” she finishes, “this is all very intense. I love you very much and I hope you can understand and relate in some way.” [via Dork]

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Greentea Peng has shared her new single 'Nah It Ain’t The Same'. The UK neo-soul voice is an outstanding talent, someone who pushes herself further into that hip-hop / jazz nexus with each release. Produced by Earbuds, new single 'Nah It Ain't The Same' is out now, one that reflects the chemistry she has with her live band The Seng Seng Family. Dipping into drum 'n' bass, her vocals have a calming, beatific feel, with 'Nah It Ain't The Same' tugging at matters personal. She comments: “Deliberations of a (hu) MAN, subject to the pendulum's swing, I give you ‘Nah It Aint The Same’ off my album MAN MADE. An expression and exploration of my utter confusion and inner conflicts amidst shifting paradigms.” Greentea Peng stars in the new video, with Machine Operated sculpting the video. [via Clash]

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renforshort has debuted a brand new single, ‘virtual reality’. The first taster of a forthcoming second EP, the track sees her “connect” with Kellen Pomeranz (Pom Pom), Jesse Fink and Beabadoobee collaborator Pete Robertson. “’virtual reality’ is a song that tackles many topics. But at its core, it really is about anxiety, routine, boredom, isolation, loneliness, and fear,” she explains. “I think a lot of people have a very unhealthy relationship with technology because it’s never really been restricted enough to consider mental health and overall health, and that has fucked so many people up, now more than ever. Ever since I was young, social media has played a major role in my mental wellbeing, and I became so accustomed to it, it became a part of my routine and it came before everything else. The moment I wake up, almost instinctively, I check my phone. Depending on what I see in the morning, basically determines how I’m gonna feel for the rest of the day. I hate it. But I can’t stop. And what’s most ironic about this all is you’re likely going to read this on social media or listen to the song on some sort of electronic device…” [via Dork]

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Flock of Dimes has shared the second single from her forthcoming album Head of Roses, out April 2 via Sub Pop. Following recent single, 'Two', 'Price of Blue' is another standout from Wasner’s second solo LP, an album that showcases her ability to embrace new levels of vulnerability, honesty and openness, combined with the self-assuredness that comes with a decade-plus career as a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and prolific collaborator. It comes accompanied by an unearthly new video filmed in black and white, co-directed by Wasner with Graham Tolbert. Wasner says: “This song is about trying, and failing, to connect. It’s about the ways in which, despite our best efforts, we misunderstand each other, and become so attached to stories that we’re unable to see the truth that’s right in front of us. And it’s about the invisible mark that another person can leave on your body, heart and mind long after their absence. It can be difficult to make sense of the memory of your experience when the reality on the surface is always shifting—when the story you’re telling, or the story you’ve been told, unravels, leaving you with a handful of pieces and no idea how they used to fit together.”

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Berlin-based indie-soul five-piece, People Club, announce their new EP Take Me Home, which is due May 7 and the band are sharing the title-track and new video. The title track 'Take Me Home' is a song about the realisation of mortality in old age and the cynicism that often plights the elderly after losing their loved ones and being left alone with their regrets. It is accompanied by a music video shot by long standing collaborator, Felix Spitta. Speaking of the process the band say, “Once again we worked with our very talented friend, Felix Spitta, who also shot the video for our last single Francine. We basically spent a day fooling around at his house with a smoke machine and an old tape TV camera with a red filter. The result is hazy and disorientating, just like this year has been so far.”

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Introducing MARY., the dreamy alter-ego of musician and songwriter Stef T. The self-produced debut track, ‘Day to Day’, interlaces elements of electro-pop and R&B with a voice that enchants, along with an official video filmed, edited and directed by David Risdon and Charlie Rose Creative. Reading like a page in a diary, ‘Day to Day’ offers a candid and emotionally raw glance at being overlooked as a woman in a man’s world. She is put together, glamorous and poised on the outside, but on the inside she is simmering like a pot ready to boil over, fed-up and on the brink of snapping. Speaking of the track, Stef T explains, “’Day to Day’ is a reflection on what it is to be a woman in a role where you are always unseen; constantly giving yet never receiving. As woman, we are often undervalued for our day to day work in all aspects - as mothers, in relationships, in our careers; having to push extra hard to get the basic recognition and thanks that we are entitled to. This song is a commentary of a large part of my life where I settled, sacrificed and worked, only to be used and taken for granted. It is about learning to survive a toxic relationship, discover your own individual worth again and reclaim the power that you gave away to someone else. Producing this song myself is the only thing that made sense in context with the intention of MARY. as a project. She is an entirely self made, independent woman, who does it all and doesn't need a man to confirm that she's doing a good job. This is something I have personally struggled with, so I created the MARY. persona to feel more empowered in my storytelling as an artist, in an industry without a large visible number of female-identifying producers.”

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Los Angeles based dream pop trio Tashaki Miyaki have just released a single and video of the title song from their forthcoming second album, Castaway, which will be released on April 23 via Metropolis Records. Singer, drummer and producer Paige Stark states that the song “is about the challenges of romantic love and how we are all bad at it in one way or another. The idea of a castaway in all this is that no one understands the relationship except the people in it, so you really are stuck on an island alone together there. Maybe you make it back to the mainland, or maybe you stay on the island.” Stark also shot the Sofia Coppola-inspired video on film, adding: "I wanted to tap into all the feelings that can come up in love relationships: anger, sadness, loneliness, vulnerability, stillness, joy, romance, longing. The actress in it has a beautifully expressive face and I've known her for a long time. I knew we would be able to create those moments together. I wanted it to feel like the camera was her lover, capturing her in various private moments, moods and feelings.”

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With her Vanilla Shell EP celebrating its one-year anniversary last month, Danish-Chilean composer Molina is back with another abbreviated record in the form of the new single 'Cold,' featuring vocalist Jonas Bjerre, arriving with a pair of B-sides. The brief collection of songs continues her simultaneous journey inward toward the roots of Chilean music and outward into her own unique vision of the future. The project lands with a video for the A-side, which dreams up bizarre fantasy iconography in the tradition of Grimes and Björk to complement her subdued take on these artists’ out-there recordings. Blending ambiguous electronic sounds with the familiar drone of cello and Bjerre’s backing vocals, the track’s distinct persona may have more in common with the experimental soundscapes of artists like Jenny Hval or Julia Holter. [via Flood]

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Maisie Peters has debuted her brand new single, ‘John Hughes Movie’. Described as the first single from her soon to be announced debut album, it’s a song about unrequited love, inspired by the legendary film producer and his classic coming-of-age teen comedies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. The track comes alongside a video co-written by Maisie and director Louis Bhose (Loyle Carner, Arlo Parks, Lewis Capaldi). Maisie explains: “I wrote ‘John Hughes Movie’ when I was 17 about a house party that I had gone to. It’s a really honest depiction of being a hopeless, melodramatic teenager, being awkward and drunk and getting your heart broken by people you don’t even remember anymore. John Hughes films encapsulate that foolish romantic energy of high school and everything that I, a small town English wannabe Molly Ringwald wanted to be, but was not.” [via Dork]

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Chloe x Halle have shared the music video for their song 'Ungodly Hour.' The video was debuted on Wedneday night's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and shows the Bailey sisters going underwater for a sci-fi-style visual filled with choreography and elaborate adventures at the bottom of the ocean. Watch the Alfred Marroquín-directed video above. [via The FADER]

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South London's Josie Man has returned with sentimental new single 'Cuts & Bruise', marking her first release of 2021. 'Cuts & Bruises' follows October 2020's 'Grow' single, and is accompanied by a Andrea Mae-directed video that shows couples enjoying tender moments, including Josie Man and her boyfriend. [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Jessie Ware has shared a new short film for her song 'Remember Where You Are'. Her album What's Your Pleasure? arrived last year, a disco-fuelled missile that presented some much-needed good vibes amid lockdown. The songwriter returns to the record for her song 'Remember Where You Are', a soulful and uplifting slice of UK songwriting. There's now a full video for the song and it's steered by BAFTA winning director Dominic Savage. Starring British actress Gemma Arterton, it opens on Valentine's Day and finds the star wandering through deserted London streets. A glimpse of hope and renewal, it taps into the growing feeling that this time, lockdown might be coming to a permanent end. "It was a real pleasure to collaborate with Jessie and Gemma on this short film that is inspired by Jessie Ware’s beautiful music. It was also inspired by the real feeling that was felt when we filmed in the deserted streets of eerily strange lockdown London on a Saturday night/Sunday morning,” Dominic said. “The feelings and emotions in the film are a true reflection of what that felt like, and what this time invokes. Sadness, nostalgia, pain and defiance. But when we climbed Primrose Hill and the sun started to rise above the city, there was real hope and joy for a future that will surely be ours. Listening to Jessie’s music. There is no doubt of that." Jessie adds... "This song has always meant a lot to me and I was determined for other people to hear it and for it to be single. I am so touched by how many people have embraced this song, particularly when it's one of your favourite actresses and an acclaimed film director. Working with Gemma, Dominic and their team has been an absolute joy. To have them realise my song with a beautiful ode to London and the longing for human touch and interaction couldn't be more of a compliment. It's a truly cherished piece of work." [via Clash]

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Jaguar Jonze has shared her new single and video 'CURLED IN' ahead of the release of her second EP ANTIHERO on April 16, both via Nettwerk Records. 'CURLED IN' presents all her best qualities at its outset. From the track’s rip-roaring, slicing guitar to her perfectly forceful, omnipresent vocals, 'CURLED IN' is a pure cathartic release. "Tear me apart, just tear me apart," she all but demands: "I've never seen wrong be done right." She's fulfilling her simplest needs, and it's freeing. "It's a bit of a twist for me to be a masochist." As a survivor of abuse, these words' unafraid power is all too apparent and an engaging statement to hear expressed.

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Following the release of eclectic and impressive debut singles 'ASOS,' 'Right Time,' and 'Papercut,' rising left-of-center pop singer and songwriter Dava returns with a fresh and bold new single 'New Ceilings' available now via Sony Music's Disruptor Records. The moody anti-pop record was co-written by Dava and Mike Adubato (Del Water Gap, Grace VanderWaal) who also produced the track, and is the latest off the Los Angeles-based musician's forthcoming debut EP, Sticky, due out later this year. On the inspiration behind her new single, Dava shares, "This song was written about survival and staying true to yourself. I was having a hard time financially after moving to LA and my phone was shut off while on my way to this session. I was upset with myself for prioritizing music when I really needed the money from driving Uber to stay afloat." She continues, "The day I wrote 'New Ceilings' I was angry and I wanted a song that felt empowering and validated all the work I had put in up to that point. I ended up choosing different songs for my project but when I revisited this one year later, I felt it needed to be heard because of how authentically it embodies my struggle."

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London-based Fifi Rong, a multi-talented avant-pop songstress, has shared the video for her stunning single, ‘Another Me’. Directed by Rok Pat, the video for ‘Another Me’ is stylistically simplistic, as Fifi Rong uses her own body as a medium of art, painting herself and inviting the simple imagery of waterside reeds and plants. A tranquil mysticism embraces the single as Fifi Rong acts as a gentle siren, luring the unsuspecting in yet known the inevitable outcome of the relationship. Speaking of the concept behind the single and video, Fifi Rong tells us: “In any doomed romance, timing is always mysteriously wrong. This is my first full CGI music video and it visually portrays the elusive nature of the character surrounding the key message: 'you won't find another me'. The undertone of the song displays a sense of pride and confidence in the character’s melancholy. Dressed in nothing but petals, I wanted my character to symbolise purity, nature, truthfulness, vulnerability and the divine feminine form. Acting as a rotating statue, I wanted to mark the passing of time and seasons as if a unique and lonely piece of art on display.”

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becuzitisbitter · 4 years ago

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Meeting Your Maker

Another essay I wrote for school. This one’s about 4 pages and is a reading of Susan Stryker’s My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix, for the benefit of my composition 101 class.

In “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage,” Susan Stryker makes an emotionally-powerful statement to the world which has rejected her as a transsexual woman by mobilizing a critical reading of Mary Shelley’s foundational science fiction novel, Frankenstein, to give an account of her situation and to make the case for the transformative power of rage against all that is supposed to be natural from the position of the unnatural. It was originally delivered as a performance piece at California State University in 1993 as part of a conference aimed at theorizing rage.

Stryker grabs the attention of the reader immediately with a few short, rapid-fire sentences: “The transsexual body is an unnatural body. It is the product of medical science. It is a technological construction.” Next, she begins to explain what she means and presents the essential analogy of the piece, adding “It is flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which it was born. In these circumstances, I find a deep affinity between myself as a transsexual woman and the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” This identification with the monster’s unnatural origin is central to the piece, but the monster’s rage with its creator and the entirety of the world from which it is excluded is also essential. These two themes, that her body is unnatural and that this unnaturalness is the basis of an exclusion which she feels as an enraging pain, work together to drive the piece to its conclusions.

The tendency to associate transgender bodies with Mary Shelley’s work predates Stryker’s work, though.“I am not the first to link Frankenstein’s monster and the transsexual body,” (Stryker 2) she clarifies. She proceeds to quote the transphobic remarks of Mary Daly and Janice Raymond, a pair of influential feminists, comparing transgender people to Frankenstein’s monster. Her response is to return to the text, arguing that the monster importantly appears in the story as Frankenstein’s “...dark, romantic double,” (Stryker 2) She asks what making such comparisons between transgender people and the Monster might imply about the people making them, “Might I suggest that Daly, Raymond and others of their ilk similarly construct the transsexual as their own particular golem?” (Stryker 2)

Stryker doesn’t shrink away from the monstrous associations such transphobic feminists make, instead she embraces the archetype, turning on them the way the monster turned on its maker. She says, “When such beings as these tell me I war with nature, I find no more reason to mourn my opposition to them—or to the order they claim to represent—than Frankenstein’s monster felt in its enmity to the human race.” (Stryker 3) Indeed, she does not shrink away from these critics’ company, she roars “...gleefully away from it like a Harley-straddling, dildo- packing leatherdyke from hell.” (Stryker 3)

Examining what it means to be labelled a creature, Stryker says that it is essentially to be something (presumably something with a subjective experience) which is created rather than appearing naturally. She does not elaborate on the reasoning behind this premise, but goes a step further to say that people take offense at being called or compared to creatures precisely because most people are accustomed to affording themselves a higher status, that of creator rather than created. Her reactive impulse is markedly different. She says, “I find no shame, however, in acknowledging my egalitarian relationship with non-human material Being; everything emerges from the same matrix of possibilities.” (Stryker 4) She doesn’t see the appeal of the civilizing separation between Man as maker and creator on the one hand, and the rest of the world on the other, which is presumed to be infinitely passive, infinitely subject to use and attribution by others. Instead, she allows this schism to drive her back into solidarity with all that is unnatural.

For Stryker, revulsion toward transgender people stems from their inability or refusal to conform to the supposed natural order, distilled to its most-essential form in the rigid categories of man and woman. Although the transgender body is said to be monstrous because of its artificiality, Stryker says all that is called Nature and used as a cudgel against transgender people is actually just as artificial, just as constructed as the transgender body. She warns the reader against the falsity of Nature as a concept, “Do not trust it to protect you from what I represent, for it is a fabrication that cloaks the groundlessness of the privilege you seek to maintain for yourself at my expense.” Here, she asserts the general threat transgender people pose to the social order, which is to make-visible all of the horrible techniques by which each person is made into themselves. After all, she says, “You are as constructed as me; the same anarchic Womb has birthed us both.” (Stryker 4) The author is attempting to make good on the threats her experience is said to pose toward nature; in fact, this is exactly the way forward she suggests, “Heed my words, and you may well discover the seams and sutures in yourself.” (Stryker 4)

In spite of her close identification with the creature, Stryker specifies that their situations are not the same, noting that, “Unlike the monster, we often successfully cite the culture’s visual norms of gendered embodiment.” (Stryker 4) Transgender people cite these visual norms through the manipulation of subtle signifiers such as hair length, cut of clothing, use of makeup, wearing packers and binders, and medically altering the appearances of their bodies. This becomes subversive, she says, when transgender people, “...declare the unnaturalness of our claim to the subject positions we nevertheless occupy. (Stryker 4)

Stryker reminds us that after Frankenstein’s monster learns the details of its creation, “...rather than bless its creator, the monster curses him.” Frankenstein cannot control the monster’s mind. “It exceeds and refutes his purposes.” (Stryker 5) This is central to one of Stryker’s main uses of the Frankenstein analogy; if the Monster’s mind is not beholden to Frankenstein, the transgender consciousness is also not determined by the doctors who reshape flesh or the entrepreneurs who sell synthetic penises. Although medicine is capable of making a body seem natural to any observer, being the subject of such techniques might permanently alter the way one views nature or medicine in general, or as Stryker says, “engaging with those very techniques produces a subjective experience that belies the naturalistic effect biomedical technology can achieve.” (Stryker 5)

In Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein meets with his creation at last while hiking the glaciers above the village of Chamounix. The two go to a cabin together where the monster spends almost a quarter of the book telling Frankenstein its story from its own perspective to explain why it has turned against him. The essay itself enters Stryker’s analogy, “These are my words to Victor Frankenstein, above the village of Chamounix.” (Stryker 6) She goes on, later in the passage, “I, too, have discovered the journals of the men who made my body, and who have made the bodies of creatures like me since the 1930’s.” (Stryker 6) She is well aware that the scientists who developed sexual reassignment surgical and hormonal treatments did so for wildly different motivations than those that led her to engage in them. However, by nature of her desire to engage in them, she must submit herself to their categorizations, and of course at the time of her writing, to be transgender necessarily meant maintaining a proximity to diagnoses of mental illness. She comments on the effect of this, “Through the filter of this official pathologization, the sounds that come out of my mouth can be summarily dismissed as the confused ranting of a diseased mind.” (Stryker 6) This highlights the uneasy relationship between transgender people and the medical community at large. After all, the doctors who perform sexual reassignment surgeries and the like are not accused of insanity, as are the patients who submit to their care.

The essay shifts into a journal entry about the day the author’s partner gave birth. She describes a powerful and moving birthing process, awkwardly interrupted for her alone by a thoughtless designation by the baby’s biological father, upon seeing the baby’s genitals, “It’s a girl!” (Stryker 7) Returning home, she was filled with a well of pent-up emotions. She says, “To conclude the birth ritual I had participated in, I needed to move something in me as profound as a whole human life.” (Stryker 7)

She looks inward, and backward through time, reflecting on the relationship she had been in when she had her first child, before coming out as a woman. She remembers, “I had always wanted intimacy with women more than intimacy with men, and that wanting had always felt queer to me. She needed it to appear straight.” The author wanted to love women as a woman and her partner needed love from a man. Thus, refusing the gender she was assigned at birth, she refused the love that was predicated on it. In other instances related to the most recent birth, after she came out as a woman, people would ask if she were the baby’s father, of which she says, “It shows so dramatically how much they simply don’t get about what I’m doing with my body.” (Stryker 8) This interconnected web of rejections and losses is perhaps what leads her to conclude that “Nature exerts such a hegemonic oppression.” (Stryker 8)

The text continues in italics, in a more-poetic tone before breaking into poetry completely. The author was reeling from the day’s compressed emotions: the intensity of birthing, the dark cloud of the baby’s gendering, and the recollection of past relationships. She seems sad here, and angry, but also resolute, saying, “I can never be a woman like other women, but I could never be a man.” (Stryker 8) This hard realization drives her to reject that false choice. Instead, she says, “I do war with nature. I am alienated from Being.”

From here she moves on into the actual poetry. She references drowning and becoming water to escape, “If I cannot change my situation I will change myself.” (Stryker 8) This moment of recognition of her existence in an unlivable space and being forced to become something else carries through to the final lines of the poem, “In birthing my rage, / my rage has rebirthed me.” (Stryker) and into the final portion of the essay.

If the categories of gender are transmutable, then anyone with the power to “...cite the culture’s visual norms of gendered embodiment.” (4) also has the ability to reduce all the trappings of identity to a tactical level and explore new possibilities, or as Stryker puts it, “... by mobilizing gendered identities and rendering them provisional, open to strategic development and occupation, this rage enables the establishment of subjects in new modes, regulated by different codes of intelligibility.” (10)

Gender attribution robs individuals of this tactical posture toward gender and expression, pushing them into narrow corridors of expression instead. Babies are unable to choose this fate for themselves. This is critical because fotr Stryker, gendering a child is not a simple labeling, it is a prescription for a lifetime of behaviors that will have to be programmed into the child. She explains, “Gendering is the initial step in this transformation, inseparable from the process of forming an identity by means of which we’re fitted to a system of exchange in a heterosexual economy.” (Stryker 10) This fitting for a system of exchange, she says, is exactly what is meant by phrases like, “It’s a girl.” (Stryker 10) It is for exactly this reason that to be without gender, or even to perform gender incorrectly, would form the basis for social exclusion. If gender is meant to be a universal means of social coding, being able to express one clearly is a precondition to be understood. Stryker puts it this way, “A gendering violence is the founding condition of human subjectivity; having a gender is the tribal tattoo that makes one’s personhood cognizable.” (Stryker 10) Considering her own participation in gendering an infant, she speculates about the baby’s future, “I stood for a moment between the pain of two violations, the mark of gender, and the unlivability of its absence.” (Stryker 10) As violent and painful as her relationship to gender has been, she wonders whether it would be possible for the child to exist at all in our world without a gender, “Could I say which one was worse? Or could I only say which one I felt could best be survived.” (Stryker 10)

In bringing the piece to a close, Stryker continues to look toward the future and its possibilities for herself and other creatures like her. Even if gender presents itself as inescapable, that does not preclude the strategic approach to its expression she suggested earlier, “Though I cannot escape its power, I can move through its medium.” (Stryker 10) Perhaps, she suggests, by using the medium against itself, she can short-circuit the meanings that gendered signification are meant to communicate and even elaborate new and exciting ways to use the social coding of gender to express new ideas, “Though I may not hold the stylus myself, I can move beneath it for my own deep self-sustaining pleasures.” (Stryker 11)

In spite of this optimistic note about the potential to play with gender’s meaning, she holds that transgender people undermine this system’s integrity, because “To encounter the transsexual body, to apprehend a transgendered consciousness articulating itself, is to risk a revelation of the constructedness of the natural order.” (Stryker 11) She also reasserts that one cannot take part in this process without being transformed by it, “Be forewarned, however, that taking up this task will remake you in the process.” (Stryker 11)

The ultimate subversion is that the monstrous are resolute in articulating themselves in spite of the peril such expression spells for civilization. “Like that creature, I assert my worth as a monster in spite of the conditions my monstrosity requires me to face, and redefine a life worth living.” (Stryker 11) After all, Stryker didn’t ask to be born into this particular world. Like the monster, she asks, “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?” (qtd. in Stryker 11)

In the end Stryker parts with her reader with a sort of benediction, “May your rage inform your actions, and your actions transform you as you struggle to transform your world.” (Stryker 11) In the final words of the essay, then, she is returning to one of its central themes. One cannot engage with the world without being changed by it. Perhaps this is the process by which the world moulds monsters from each of us. It is only by investigating our seams and sutures for ourselves that we can learn the impact the world has had on us, or the impact we might have on it.

Works Cited

Stryker, Susan. “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix” June 1993, https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Stryker-My-Words-to-VF.pdf

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