#I don't think she even knew what his career was when she wrote that scene

[greenerteacups]

What do you think as Hermione's career would be post battle of Hogwarts? To me her being minister for magic really doesn't make sense. She does not have patience or tact to wade through murky waters of politics 😭😭

So hard to say! The Trio are so, so young when we leave them, I find it almost impossible to project their futures farther than a few years out. The job that suited me at 17 would be radically unsuited to me now. That's why of all the Trio, Ron's ending strikes me as the most realistic — he jumps straight into the save-the-world business again, burns out, realizes he's actually Done The Fuck Enough, Thanks, and pivots into a low-stress career where he gets to see his family a lot. Feels accurate! The others are weirder to me because they do seem to just... pick a lane and stay there.

With Hermione, you could spin her a couple ways. You could say that she leans into her bookish side and does research or teaching, which is not my preference for a couple reasons (namely, I don't think Hermione would like academia as a profession; she finds her classwork interesting and enjoys intellectual validation, but she'd be stifled and wasted in a DPhil program, and she'd be infuriated by the administrative politicking of your average higher-ed faculty). You could say that she gets disaffected with politics and ends up as a barrister or a lobbyist of some kind, but if anything that requires more political finesse, because you don't actually have institutional power, you're just handling the people who make decisions and trying to persuade them of your goals. This is not Hermione's preferred method of influence. She's not even particularly good at persuasion, she just happens to be smart enough (and right often enough) that people take her ideas seriously.

Or you could say her brashness fades with the years into a softened flavor of tell-you-like-it-is honesty, which some politicians actually do successfully trade on; as we see in British politics today, you don't have to be all that charming or clever to get ahead, you just need to be really driven and well-connected (which Hermione completely is; she fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the first postwar Minister and her bestie, the Literal Messiah, runs the Auror Office.) But I don't know if Hermione especially wants to be Minister, after the war. She's just watched years of horrendous bureaucratic incompetence plunge the country into a violent civil conflict. She's had not one, but two Ministers of Magic try to bully or shame her friends into complicity with fascism. Her view of government is... likely extremely dark.

But Hermione also isn't the kind of person who sees her life as a quest for happiness. Babygirl has a savior complex that makes Harry look selfish. (She basically kills her parents — yeah, obliviating is a form of murder, #changemymind — "for their own good," and justifies every batshit, vindictive, mean-spirited move she ever pulls on the grounds that it "helps" one of her friends.) She is a mean, lean, dragon-slaying machine, and she needs a dragon. After Voldemort, the Ministry is the no. 1 threat to muggle-borns and non-wizarding Beings. As a war heroine with basically infinite political capital, I'd be surprised if she didn't try to do something there. That said, Hermione is so vivacious and dynamic that she could potentially grow in a hundred different directions; it's possible that all of this, while true of her at 18, becomes completely inaccurate by 22. That's why I'm not too fussed about any particular fanon interpretation.

#greenteacup asks #sidebar: I know Minister “of” Magic is an Americanism but mea culpa #Someday I might actually bite it and pay someone to britpick Lionheart but I can't do it now #because I have a ban on editing published fic unless it's finished. Otherwise I'll never get around to writing the actual ending #I have a Process #is it the best process? likely not! but it makes the words go. so here we are. #I also think the fact that JKR is Gen X makes a difference here. careers worked differently in the 80s and 90s than they do now #i.e. we have the gig economy and a lot more mobility and EXPECTATION of mobility in your early life #that means career changes & professional pivots through your 20s and 30s are increasingly normal #and in fact have always been normal — but the image of the 'true' or 'ideal' career has changed #so we look at those careers and go hm. really? none of them changed? #none of them even went to uni? do wizards... just not? #but again. I believe the epilogue was written almost completely without consideration as to what happened between the BOH and then #I really believe that JKR did not know what happened to Harry except a wedding and 3 kids. because that was the whole point #I don't think she even knew what his career was when she wrote that scene #It existed to marry everyone off and do a quick munchkin headcount #because of the understandable temptation as an author to keep your hand on the wheel. but it didn't even matter! #the epilogue changed NOTHING! it was the most useless chapter in the series! I just — GOD #you can absolutely accuse me of being sour grapes about my ships getting nixed. I AM sour grapes. I AM a hater. #AND I have plot/theme/craft reasons for disliking it. #I'm not objective. I just want credit for being a sophisticated hater. my grapes may be sour but they're still artisinal.

[amaranthineghost]

BUT I LOVE YOU SO (PLEASE LET ME GO) ( lando norris. )

he loved her, but knew he had to let her go even if it killed him inside. still he left a paper trail back to him.

warnings: heavy angst I suppose

authors note: wrote this with 2 am motivation. it was about time I finally gave you guys some writing after a couple of months of an absence (I sincerely apologize). I was thinking of making this one of the parts of the mini series because it sort of fits what I want to do with it, but i figured since i hadn't put anything out in a while, it'd be its own separate thing <3

part 2 found here

HE LOVED HER with every fiber of his being. every cell in his body lived for her, he told himself. the blood that ran through his veins underneath his tan skin, all the way to his heart that he had so carefully carved to be able to beat for her. she was the center of his life, he thought.

he really thought.

because now, as he sat and watched her through the fingers over his face to hide the incoming tears, he wished he knew what he should've done. because he only knew what to do.

to let her go.

surely, it wasn't easy, it was never going to be. but alas it was inevitable for the lovers to part though at the time, they wished for it to be only shortly.  but they were never coming back. they didn't want to believe, but their hearts knew.

it was a long time coming, but nothing could've prepared them for the heartbreak they forced upon themselves. it was like running blindly into the brick wall they had built together.

they didn't ever fight though. that was the one thing they took pride for their relationship, but now they realize it would've been better for petty arguments. because now, they realize they just don't work.

he was social, she was a homebody. he loved the night life, jumping between different clubs across cities he'd drag her to. of course, at the time she didn't mind being pulled into a club every so often, but it wasn't her scene. the media never was.

he knew that. she knew that it was his.

her hands shook with every folded article of clothing, occasionally wiping her nose with the back of her hand as she tried to avoid his figure altogether.

it wasn't like she didn't want him, in fact she needed him. but the relationship was doomed from the start, she knew yet she didn't care because at the time, everything was tunnel-visioned and he was the light at it's end. 

her best moments were the ones lived with him, yet also the worst ones too. but she didn't regret it, it shaped them for their future. one where they knew they couldn't be by each other's side.

they knew heartbreak was looming over them, though the possibility of severing their relationship at any given moment didn't dawn on them till blood was pouring out the wound and there was nothing they could do to stop the bleeding.

they wouldn't try to, they knew better than to patch a wound that would never heal. they let it bleed onto the cold floors of their apartment. the one she had to leave.

nothing had happened in the way they had wanted, but when would it ever if everything was always working against them? it was the world versus them and they lost.

they accepted that defeat.

she tried her best to keep her composure as she packed, for whatever thin thread they held onto would snap if she broke down. because they both knew he couldn't leave her if she did, wouldn't let her go.

because she knew he'd give up his career, his dream, in a heartbeat if it had meant he could still hold her at night. he said forever, and he would make it happen.

it sent her over the edge, reliving their relationship as her fingertips creased memories and packed them into a suitcase, each item of clothing holding significance from their relationship. all from the beginning, she'd kept everything, and that wouldn't change.

she broke. she recognized the textures beneath her fingertips before she could look, her favorite dress. her favorite dress that he bought for her for their anniversary. she knew it was over.

as soon as the choked sobs left her lips, the armchair he sat on creaked as he simply stood and walked to console her. his arms wrapped around her shoulders as the warmth of his chest spread across her back, which did nothing but break her heart more.

she pressed her lips against his skin, though not in an intimate manner, but to hide her struggled cries as the tears down her cheeks began to stain his skin with mascara. she gripped his forearm and bicep tightly, leaning her head further against him.

" 'm sorry," she mumbled against his skin, sniffling as she struggled to catch a breath between sobs. she clenched her eyes shut, seeing dizzying shapes underneath her eyelids. she hoped it would stop the tears.

"shh," he shushed as his lips kissed her hair, muffling his words, "i should be sorry."

still he spoke ever so softly to her as the day they'd met and she couldn't help but fold for his tone of voice every time. even when she knew she shouldn't.

" you have nothing to be sorry for, lan..." 

"i should've know the media would be too much for you, love." he mumbled against her hair, "i have everything to be sorry for."

"but i handled it." she peeled his arm from her skin, the streaks of black mascara almost making her lips twitch into a smile as it brought back memories. memories of crying-laughing and smearing mascara onto his arms. still, she held his wrist as she turned to face him, yet she didn't step back.

it'd be the last time they would be this close.

but part of him didn't want her to turn around. he loved when her makeup ran down her face as she cried tears of joy, with the bright sun shining down on her, acting as her personal spotlight, because she was the center of attention, with the wind blowing her hair.

he wished he could see her like that one more time before they left for good. because now he stood, resisting the urge to wipe the tears off her face. because now it wasn't happy, it was sullen. he wanted everything to be able to take care of her, to not let her leave. not yet.

he sighed, he had to give in. he always would, he couldn't help himself when he smudged the running mascara off her face, "fuck, that never works, does it?" he muttered in a soft panic as he realized he just made more of a mess.

she chuckled. she loved whenever he lightened the mood, intentionally or not, it was something she could always count on him to do, "every time, lando, every time." she replied through soft chuckles, sighing as she calmed.

he became serious once again as the smile slowly fell from his face and he wiped the black from his fingers, "but really, did you handle it?" he asked lowly, looking down at her with the same, soft look on his face she could always count on, "i know the media really affected you."

she sighed. there was no denying the exhaustion the media and paparazzi caused. they thought they were fine in the bubble of their apartment, but that bubble had long popped.

"you were born to shine, lando." she simply responded to not give him the truth he was expecting to hear, "that's just not me, we both know it."

"i know." he whispered, biting his lip and looking at her with a gloomy expression. he felt regret and guilt, " 'm sorry."

she shook her head, raising her hand to his jaw to trace the bone under his skin, “i know, but we're both at fault here. we should've known it wouldn't've worked out."

it hurt for them to hear, but it needed to be said, and he would've never said it. it was the truth.

she sniffled, backing away with the realization of how close they had become as she wiped away stray tears and turned back to the half-packed suitcase on the bed they once shared.

he watched her face as her eyes scanned the still heaps of clothing left for her to take, and boxes needing to be filled, "do you want some help?" he offered, his hand grabbing the back of her arm, caressing the skin as she jumped slightly at the contact.

she sighed and said through an awkward chuckle, "please," she reached again for clothes to resume her packing, " 'm afraid i'll change my mind if i stay too much longer."

her words hurt, like daggers slicing through his skin. another wound they couldn't heal.

"would it be that bad?"

his response hurt more. she hadn't meant it like that, but words were subjective. it was like he had taken the knife from beneath his flesh and twisted back into hers.

"no, lan, i didn't mean it like that-" she dropped the shirt she held to place a hand on his bicep, which he shrugged off.

" 'ts fine," he spoke without a tone in his voice, which was odd for him. His focus was on her clothes in his hands and somewhat neatly packed away into one of her many suitcases.

"but i just meant-"

"listen, 'ts fine, we aren't together anymore so we don't have to fix things, or try to."

she squirmed under the dagger as it twisted deeper into her flesh. the air was tense, too silent for her liking and his new attitude threw her off.

it made her realize that maybe there was something more to them that didn't work. because surely any two people who loved each other would make it work out.

it didn't make sense though. maybe it never would.

after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence between them where the only sound was folding of cloth and zipping up certain spots in her suitcase, he turned his back and left the room.

she watched him leave from the corner of her eye, but she didn't stop him. she wanted to though. she wanted so desperately to grab him by the arm and force him to talk to her, but she wouldn't. he was right. they weren't dating.

besides they couldn't even fix what they had before.

minutes later he reemerged with a hand stuffed in his hoodie pocket and another behind his back with something he hid from her. she couldn't get a peak before he slipped it into one of the boxes. she shrugged it off as something she had forgotten.

he returned to helping her fold, but this time with his back towards her. it pained her, she didn't want him to turn his back on her, yet in a couple of hours, she would walk through their apartment door, her back turned to him. it was unfair, she knew.

the tears this time were silent as they streamed down her face, but she didn't make a sound. she watched his actions for a solid five minutes, seeing his best attempts folding her clothes, for her. he was never the best at it, as she had poked fun at him for it in the past. it hurt to think she would never see the difference of neatness in her closet anymore.

her attention was piqued  when she saw his movement halt, quickly resuming with a messily put-together hoodie, one she didn't recognize to be hers.

she didn't get to look before he flipped back the top and zipped it up to go with the others.

she didn't have time to wipe the fresh tears from her face when he turned around after pulling the suitcase from the bed. he paused, dropping the handle.

in a swift motion, he pulled her into his chest. she couldn't stop herself from breaking down in his arms, his hand wrapped around her head, the other around her back. they stayed silent, apart from her sobs into his shirt. he didn't care if she ended up staining it.

they swayed for a while, longer than they should've, but at least now she had calmed down. though tears still streaming down her face and a headache forming in her head, they pulled apart slightly.

her hair was messy, her nose, cheeks, eyes and lips were red, her eyes were puffy and tears stained her face, but she was still prettier than ever.

he couldn't help but tuck the hair in front of her face behind her ear, his hand resting on her jaw.

for the last time, they kissed.

to him, it was like he was taking his last breath of air, or gulp of water for the rest of his life. he was taking what he could.

the taste of her salty tears, the wetness from her cheeks now on his, the hands in her messy hair pushing her desperately closer because he didn't want to let her go.

they sighed when they parted, his teeth grazing her bottom lip at a desperate attempt for more. more time.

they both stepped back, staying silent once again. they didn't have anything to say because their actions said it all. he stepped back to the suitcase he dropped and started moving them out to her car, which had considerably more trunk space than any of his.

it felt like when she was first moving out for college, with stacks of boxes and plenty of suitcases to make it seem like she was fleeing the country.

it all ended the second she walked out the door, but she didn't have to turn her back on him as he walked her to her car, opening the door.

one last hug between them. the last contact.

but they still followed each other's lives.

she would watch his races from the comfort of her new living room couch because she still worried about him the same amount from when they were dating. she noticed his suffering performance, though she sighed every time he crossed the finish line unscathed.

part of him knew she was watching for him.

he still followed her private accounts, liking the posts of the lifestyle that he could never live. it just wasn't his to experience, just like his was never hers to live either. most nights spent drunk in the dj booth, or out to dinner with other drivers, the social life had never been her scene.

he knew.

he knew all along that it was never going to end as they wished in the moment. they stared at their future without fully knowing what was waiting, yet they didn't step down.

months had passed. their lives were supposed to have gotten better, but they could both see they were both suffering.

boxes still unpacked from when she first left, she had never gotten around to fully moving in. still suitcases and cardboard boxes laid around the kitchen of her new apartment.

she felt like she should open them, like she needed to. if not now, would she ever?

boxes full of old memories from her childhood, or stuffed animals she had always convinced lando to buy for her. until there was one box left untouched. she hadn't remembered packing this one.

carefully, she sliced the tape and pulled back the cardboard. she was speechless.

his race helmet. his race helmet he dedicated to her.

dedicated for the anniversary of the day they met. for the race of the country where their eyes first found each other.

it had details about her. her favorite colors, places, things. it had her name, big enough to see from a while away.

he loved this helmet. and he gave it to her.

all she could do now was hug the last remainder of him and cry. she wasn't sure if letting him go was the right or wrong decision, but it felt wrong to question it now.

when she pulled away from the helmet and sniffling her nose, she noticed a piece of paper lodged into the visor. carefully, she pulled it out, unfolding it to see the familiar and horrible handwriting of lando norris.

she was lucky she learned to read it over the years or she would've been screwed.

blue suitcase. for when you're ready.

out of all of the suitcases she had taken, only one was blue. the one he had packed.

she hastily picked herself off the floor, carefully setting the helmet down on the kitchen counter before dropping back down on her knees and desperately unzipped it.

she tossed through every pocket and article of clothing packed into the suitcase, inspecting every single item. until she found it.

of course, he had given her one of his hoodies, but it was not just any of his hoodies. once again, a favorite of his he wore regularly. he gave it to her. it smelled like him still. curse him for spraying cologne on it.

she felt the fabric beneath her fingertips before slipping it on. a smile crept onto her lips as she went and sat back down on her couch, the TV had been playing FP3 in the background before quali in a couple hours time.

she pulled her blanket back over her, slipping her hands into the pockets. her brows furrowed when she felt yet another piece of paper, pulling it out to reveal even more horrendous handwriting from her beloved racer.

will let me know you're watching?

any day now love.

when the nights get lonely, i'll be waiting.

whenever you're ready.

i miss you, i'm sorry

ynusername

liked by landonorris and 4037 others

ynusername I don't know if i'm ready for this...

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proofread by @foreveralbon <333

#formula 1 #formula 1 drivers #formula one #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #formula 1 imagine #lando #lando norris #lando x reader #lando imagine #lando norris imagine #lando norris angst #lando norris f1 #lando norris fanfic #lando norris x reader #ln4 fluff #ln4 imagine #ln4 fic #ln4 #ln4 x reader #f1 #formula 1 x reader #mclaren formula 1 #mclaren f1 #lando norris x y/n

[blueberrypancakesworld]

My broken Angel - Gage x fem!reader

warning : drug use, use of mommy/ma'm, emotional, angst, hurt/comfort, smutish, blood, emotional breakdown, no use of Y/n, afab reader

Summary : A call that had saved him and his colleague Gage was free. But free from the old building did not mean free from the addiction and the day. He needed someone, he needed his girlfriend to take care of him and relieve him of any pain.

Info : It's been far to long since I have wrote something for Rory's characters and today say hello to Gage from Bullet Head a newcomer in my masterlist but my sweet angel. No seriously he is so inspirational just by looking at him OMG. So anyways have fun reading and I hope you Rory lovers have found your way back here ;)

Ps : I tried to look the movie online obviously not illegal but somehow my internet was like ,,No-No-No we don't do that here". So I only had a scene pack on youtube, edits and trailer of the movie to get his charcter/personality. I hope despite it I wrote him good.

masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. A break-in, it was just a damn break-in, a robbery and not something that should scale. At least that's what the three of them thought, it was supposed to be simple and not the possible end of their careers.

But in the end it was a nightmare the dog was not the man's friend the dog who tried to kill them the police and the men from the illegal dog fight they all tried to get them. If a call hadn't gone through, if one more thing hadn't happened.

If Gage hadn't been successful in calling his girlfriend, they would never have gotten out of here. She could tell by the trembling of his voice that he was stammering slightly and was nervous that something was wrong.

,,Just wait as best you can, I'll be right there," she had exclaimed into the cell phone for fear he wouldn't hear before she had rushed into the car to drive to the place. Her fear grew by the minute.

She didn't approve of his robbery, didn't approve of his secret, didn't approve of what he was doing. And yet her own job was not enough with his to pay any bills.

It was necessary, and although he was so fragile when you broke him, he sacrificed himself for her. ,,I'll-I'll take any job for you," he had once said as he gently pulled her into his arms.

His blue eyes showed truth and yet she saw the fear that he knew was dangerous. Saw that he was full of fear of the world, he would stay with her and would prefer to stay in her arms.

Ever since they had met, she had given him a bowl of soup at the food bank, something like dependency had developed between them. She was his anchor, his everything. And he would do anything for her so as not to lose her, but he would do just as much for his addiction.

She had seen it at first, the twitching, the nervousness, his diminished eye contact. But the worst was when she found him in her bathroom with the needle next to him, the oozing blood flowing from his arm and the tear-stained look on his face.

She didn't feel disgust or revulsion, she felt devotion. She called him angel from then on. Since then he was the image of a broken angel. The black hair, the bright blue eyes, the self-harm in the form of addiction.

He was so fragile that she believed that if she left him he would kill himself, that he saw no point in giving up, that he was so scarred by life. And yet she let him do his business, relying on his colleagues to make sure everything went well. Until now.

Now she raced through the streets in her car towards the building, knowing that all she had to do was open the door and get out, but she didn't know what she would find. 

Please just be complete,she pleaded inwardly, thinking back to that evening. As she slowly knelt down to him, she picked up the needle and looked at it.

Saw the drop of the drug, saw how the heroin had to go through his body. ,,I'm...so-sorry," she had heard him murmur as he opened his eyes, saw him looking at her and felt her heart beat faster.

She knew it was wrong that she wasn't disgusted and angry. But she wasn't angry like she should be, her anger came from the worry that he would die one day.

But before she let this coldness of punishment out on him or even let it get to him, she felt his cold, slightly trembling hand on hers. How he tried powerlessly to move up slightly to get closer to her. ,,You're just so... helpless," she replied, making it sound like a statement she was right to make.

He didn't speak back, just nodded silently and cuddled her almost pleadingly in her arms. He knew that she would always take him in and catch him. That she wouldn't leave him, wouldn't hit him, wouldn't be brutal like his father.

She was almost like a mother and was only too willing to blur this reality. ,,My helpless Gage, you'll never do it for me again, will you?" she asked, putting her arms around him. She could feel him looking at her, taking his head off her shoulder and moving closer to her.

He wanted to kiss her but she used her hand to gently grip his jaw. ,,I promise, I'm sorry...Mommy," he said, tears gathering in his blue eyes before she released him and he gave her a sloppy kiss before he fell limply back into her arms.

And all this while the little trickle of blood ran from his arm. The first time he had called her that she had accepted that he needed it.

She would not let him fall apart in this world. That was the first time she had ever seen him so ready. And now? ,,How do I find you now?" she asked into the car when she finally arrived at the building.

Getting out of the car and trying to find an entrance, the situation soon revealed itself, a dead getaway driver, Gage's colleagues suspiciously quiet, the sound of a dog barking what almost seemed like a farewell and then she saw him. ,,Gage! You're alive!" she shouted when she saw the black-haired man who seemed to be hiding behind the two older men.

,,Hello dear," he mumbled and lowered his gaze, not wanting her to see him like this, but the blood that had flowed from his nose was already dripping and he couldn't get rid of it without water. Besides, the pain and the smell of metal distracted him from the addiction that was raging inside him.

,,Your nose is bleeding," she realized with fear and carefully grasped his face, looking left and right to see if he still had anything. Every further bruise and every scratch and scrape made her heart ache even more.

,,It's...nothing," he said, mumbling, knowing that the other two wanted to go home, away from this place, that his friend was the thing that separated them from freedom. He gently took her hand, it was cold, and she saw his smile, saw through it, knew he was suffering.

The sigh that left her lips made him slightly sincere. Wordlessly, she squeezed his hand and gave him a look that could best be interpreted as one of concern before she opened the car and they all got in.

The engine started and they drove away from this terrible place. It was quiet between the four of them, no one said anything, no one dared or wanted to.

They had all experienced too much to want to dwell on it. She saw in the rear-view mirror that the two older ones were looking out of the window, their thoughts still completely elsewhere.

If he had died, I would have blamed you, she thought, her hands tightening around the leather of the steering wheel. His colleagues were the reason why he was now almost slumped over in the passenger seat.

His hands folded on his lap, she saw him trying to rub off the excess skin on the sides. The blood was still on him and he just looked completely wiped out. ,,It's going to be okay," she said softly and put her hand on his thigh for a moment. She felt him flinch and his gaze went to her.

The broken angel. She saw again the angel she loved and cared for. ,,It will be," he replied almost appathetically and squeezed her hand lightly, a touch that could almost have been an illusion. But she had felt it, she was there. He was with her again.

The car journey, which dragged on for a few minutes, only ended when the two of them were no longer in the car. The colleagues had been gone for a long time and they had closed the front door of the apartment behind them.

When she heard his almost vulnerable sounds as they walked up the stairs to the apartment. She saw him getting more and more lost and as the front door closed, tears flowed down his cheeks. ,,Gage...it's okay, I'm here...it's over," she said instantly and put the front door key aside, taking him by the hand, hearing him try to say something but it came out slurred under his crying.

She pulled him behind her on the way to the bathroom, the white streams in contrast to his blood and the blue of his eyes standing out against the dark charcoal black hair.

,,Don't...don't go," he said clearly, holding her firmly by the wrist as she sat him on the edge of the bath. He seemed completely out of it, distraught, traumatized, and partly because of the drugs, at least that much she guessed.

Leaning down to him, she gently stroked his dark hair and heard his suppressed whimper as his blue eyes turned to her. ,,I'm not going Mommy is just getting a towel okay?" she asked knowing it wasn't really a question. Gage knew inside himself that she was the one in control.

But he should still give his understanding to his inner self. Because a dangerous angel on earth could break at any time. Her gaze met his and her eyes detached themselves from the blood.

Showing him that she wasn't lying, she felt his grip tighten for a moment, he didn't want to be without her. Before he nodded slightly and gave a soft, ,,Okay ma'm" before letting go of her, his hand landed powerlessly on his leg and he remained sitting on the edge of the tub.

She calmly moved away from him, knowing that nothing would happen, and walked with unerring steps into the kitchen to fetch a towel and return as promised.

Saw how he exhaled shakily with relief when he saw her again, that she hadn't left him, that he wasn't just imagining her through the heroin. ,,Don't be alarmed, I'll wipe the blood off. Everything will be all right again in a minute," she said gently and gave him a small, warm smile.

She knew that he needed her, that she was everything to him, that her angel was everything to her. She took the cloth and held it under lukewarm water before she carefully began to dab away the blood and then rub it.

What at first only led to a wince became a plea and whimper after she rubbed it. ,,Shhh I know I know," she said slightly warningly, feeling his hands on her side as he held on almost convulsively, seemingly unable to bear the pain.

She knew exactly what pain. ,,I just need you - I need you," he stammered, she knew what he meant and, above all, what he wanted.

By the time she had wiped the rest of the blood from his chin and cheek, there was hardly anything left of the injuries. He pulled her close and leaned his head against her stomach, hugging her, wanting to be closer to her.

She put her hand on his head as she did every time, stroking his black hair and holding him. ,,I know...I know Gage and you can do it too...but no drug...for today," she replied slowly, feeling him almost flinch as if she had hit him. But they both knew what it meant for the black-haired man.

More hours, another day without his drug. She knew he was screaming and raging inside that he needed it and yet he was so pathetically handsome to look at.

She placed a hand on his cheek and watched him lay his head against it, snuggling against her before he rose, powerless and surrendered. His hand was entwined with hers and he slowly led her into the bedroom.

The big bed they shared had seen better days, but that wasn't the point. What was between them was something completely different.

She saw him sit down on the bed, almost about to fall asleep, he didn't seem to know what he wanted to do for a moment. ,,Wait, let me help...everything will be better in a minute," she said and squeezed his hand before letting go of his.

She went to the window and drew the curtains, closed the door and undressed slightly. Folding her jeans and putting them aside, she had long since taken off her shoes and removed her top.

When she saw his gaze go to her, he almost seemed to be asking permission to look at her body. ",,The night is all yours," she murmured and opened her bra before it fell to the floor and she took her large T-shirt.

Hiding her body underneath, the shirt went up to her thighs. She saw him scrambling over to her as she lay down on her side of the bed.

Leaned against the pillow and opened her arms to him. ,,That's it," she said and Gage lay down between her legs. His upper body leaned against hers, his head on her shoulder, his hands on her legs.

She felt his tension, felt the slight trembling as his fingers traced small circles on her thighs again and again. ,,I-I'm not getting anything, am I?" he asked, she knew he was looking at her through the built-in mirror in the closet door. She saw his blue eyes closely. She slowly let her hands go of his hair.

What had started as a light stroke became a distraction. ,,No, you got me Gage...that'll have to do for today," she admonished him but didn't raise her voice, letting her hand wander over his neck.

She could feel the rapid pulse underneath and wanted to make it clear to him that he should pull himself together. That she would give him something.

But his protesting whimper was little resistance. Instead, she felt his fingers lightly draw the small circles further up to her center. ,,I know what you want, my angel," she murmured and let her hand wander down over his top.

Went under his shirt and felt the soft, cold skin of his upper body. Heard him exhale shakily as he pressed against her, he knew what she was getting at.

She lightly scratched his cold skin the lack of pain wasn't enough he wanted more instead the red strands were burning him. ,,Please-Please...I need you," he murmured, his gaze going to hers and she gave a knowing grin.

,,I know, my angel," she replied and gave him a soft kiss on his black head of hair before running her fingers over the waistband of his trousers. She felt his tension move around the silver button, wanting to finally be distracted with something else.

If it wasn't lust for addiction then it was always lust for love. For her. She slowly saw the bulge forming in his pants as she stroked the heavy fabric of his jeans.

The coldness that always seemed to emanate from him slowly mingled with the warmth of devotion. ,,Please-please Mommy," he murmured, pushing his hip against her hand, trying to get more of the feeling.

,,You were so strong today...I want you to have it all," she whispered and undid the button of his pants, pulling down the zipper and seeing his cheeks turn pink at the sound. Before she stroked his hardness, she saw the clear bulge in his shorts.

She gave him another kiss on the head before she closed her fingers around his hardness and made a few strokes over the hardness of his pants, the fabric teasing him and asking him to give her everything.

,,Let me hear you," she reminded him and took care of him again. The room filled with his lustful noises, the use of heroin long gone.

But his search for her was something he needed even more than his drug. She only needed one thing. Her broken angel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

@icarus-star , @romanroyapoligist , @kristennero-wallacewellsver , @spookyorchid , @roryculkinsgf

#Bullet Head #rory culkin #bullet head gage #gage x reader #bullet head gage x reader

[wildflowerteas]

hella got through chapter 6 everyone cheer!

i don't know how to respond to this coherently so i'm just going to scroll down and let the word vomit happen:

the choice of emoji reacts to some of these . . . i'm surprised hella hasn't killed you guys. keeping gin away from this mess is the last thing on my mind, unfortunately *stares at the BEAST tag*

ARRGHHHFGHHH IM SO GLAD YOU GUYS LIKE SSKK. they're such a breath of fresh air, and writing them comes so easily to me. while i like writing skk ( fucked up as they are--even at this point in the story ) and the fast-paced nature of their relationship, this is romance writing work coming from the guy whose only other fic had a first kiss at uhhh...160k words.

yesenina did serve too hard. i imagine her as similair to the others, but with a Rita Hayworth-like air of ambition about her, and that's a serve. and it's what gets her killed.

Chuuya Yuan history coming in SOON. actually. Next chapter. seeing hella lose it over Chuuya's internal monologue here has been absolutely hilarious and kind of rewarding. I Knew All That because I'm the author ( duh ) so i never really grasped how strange the shift to Chuuya's thoughts about the relationship would be. I mean there's snippets of it, like the diner scene, but you're right, it's fanfic and so that is a lot easier to sweep under the rug.

ACAB. I considered putting a line from Doc Riedenschneider in The Asphalt Jungle ( 1950 ) "Experience has taught me to never trust a policeman. Just when you think one's alright, he turns legit." in a divider chapter between part I and part II, but I thought was too on the nose following 7 ( and a bit pretentious considering this is just ao3 fanfic and not a published work or anything ) so i grabbed myself by the metaphorical monkey backpack and didn't. Mafia Nepo Baby 😭 I love Hella HUGE WIN FOR ME. I was so nervous because i needed to balance Chuuya being observant but also quite literally *out of the loop.* He's not from the same world as Dazai--he's not involved with the murders or the politics or the mess going on yet. He comes across as oblivious at times because Dazai's POV is purposefully designed to make you see him that way. Dazai's so sure he's in control of what Chuuya knows that he doesn't realize he might have met his match.

ZSKK are uhm. yeah. all im gonna say there.

the "PARDON." IM CACKLING

argh. the switch up with this chapter...why the hell am i getting nostalgic for something i wrote less than two months ago ( ican't believe i've been grinding through this fic so fast jesus ).

i love unhealthy dynamics, truly. this fic was really a test to see if i could write soukoku making each other worse. which is a pretty stark contrast to my other stuff.

HELLA. OH MY GOD. that bit about their careers . . . i can't believe she noticed that. Chuuya started the fic genuinely ambitious, wanting the spotlight, wanting to defy expectations set upon him by his looks, his race, and his past. Dazai's a cop, sworn to uphold the law, but he doesn't feel like a good person. He can't ( interlude chapter . . . stares out the window ), but he can use everything about who he is to give Chuuya the life he wants. like a guardian ange--*gets taken out by a sniper chapter 8 style* Their original goals aren't gone, per se, they've simply been reoriented.

can't wait for chapter 7

i know it'll make Hella want to hunt me down for sport, so i'll sleep with both eyes open for the forseeable future.

#ask

[duelistkingdom]

dive bar on the east side

Summary: when divine crosses the line, yusei is there to pick up the pieces of aki's broken heart.

Rating: T

Ships: Yusei Fudo/Aki Izayoi

Author’s note: this was written for the @yearoftheotpevent with the prompt of “musician/band au” and features a divaki break up.

read on ao3 / support me on kofi (battle city & up supporters get early access) / join my discord (18+)

At this point, Aki very much hated Divine.

She hated that he always seemed to know best. She hated his stupid pompador. She hated the black gloves he wore everywhere. She hated that if she wrote something that meant something to her, he decided how she should edit it. And most of all, she hated how he kissed her. It was a wake up call: that the man she'd been dating since she first stepped on the scene and proclaimed to care about her career didn't care about her at all. She wasn't even sure what really made her first snap, actually. All she knew was that she was sick of him. And she was sick of his promises that if she waited just a little bit longer, he'd help her record her debut album. Each EP was received well, but he insisted that she wasn't ready to actually put something out.

Instead, he focused his efforts on his own career time and time again. Aki had written so many songs that she'd let him use on his albums and give away to other girls he produced for. And now this time, he'd gone too far. If it hadn't been for this professional betrayal, she may have let him continue to walk all over her. She might have let him continue to think he was getting away with cheating on her. But the lack of credit for her work on some girl's debut album that he produced when he kept swearing to help her with hers? When he prioritized some bitch over her? She packed everything in their shared apartment that was hers - it amounted to a single duffel bag - and walked out.

Where she was going, she didn't know. And she didn't know what pulled her to the dive bar that night. All she knew is that she needed a drink, and this place looked as good as any to drown her sorrows. That's when she ran into the bartender that would change her life. "What's got you down?"

"I just left my boyfriend," Aki said, making a face. "So obviously I need a double of a vodka coke, please."

The bartender looked her up down, and shook his head. "Sorry, I'll need ID. It's challenge 25." Aki rolled her eyes, but since she'd taken everything out of the apartment, she had her passport on her. She passed the ID over, and the bartender gave a nod before handing it back. "Tell you what, Izayoi. First drink's on me. Do you wanna tell me why you broke up with your boyfriend or am I going to have to guess?"

"You wouldn't be able to guess why," Aki said with a sigh. "It's not exactly the most common reason for breaking up with a guy. Besides, don't you gotta watch the bar for other customers?"

"On a Tuesday night?" He laughed at this, performing a trick with the vodka bottle: tossing it high in the air, catching it in his other hand, and pouring it in the glass. "I'm afraid there's never a lot of people around here. So did he cheat on you?"

He'd pushed the vodka coke towards her, and Aki slammed it down. The burn was exactly what she was after, and she shook her head. "Another," she said, glaring at him. "And he did something much worse than that."

The bartender poured her another, passing it to her. "Do I need to call the cops on him?"

"Cops won't help," she said, knocking back the second. "He didn't hit me, if that was your guess. He just... was a dick. Another."

"Maybe you should have some water with your drinks... or at least some food," the bartender remarked, arching a brow as he made another for her. Aki noticed he was less heavy on the pour this time, and she didn't exactly appreciate that. "So he was a dick? And you hit your breaking point, I'm guessing."

The haze of alcohol was starting to ply her, and she knew it would be stupid to talk shit in a bar to a strange she barely knew. And yet, she couldn't help herself anymore: she needed to get off her chest. "For years, I'd been writing songs, right? And he helped me produced a few EPs, but kept promising we'd make my debut album together. And he never did help make my debut album. Well, I recently heard from a little birdie he was executive producer on some new girl's debut album and so of course I went out and bought his work. Or should I say my work: every single song on it? I fuckin wrote it. And he had the nerve to not credit me on a single fuckin one!"

"I'll kill him for you," the bartender replied, and there was a fierce look in his eye - as if he might really hunt down Divine for this slight. "He stole the songs you wrote and gave them to someone else? That's beyond fucked up. You're better off without that piece of shit."

This validation was exactly what Aki needed - she hadn't realized she'd been needing it, but the bartender gave it so easily and so freely. "You can't kill for me and not tell me your name."

"Fudo," he replied, passing her another drink. "Yusei Fudo. I can see why you needed a drink so bad."

"Yeah. And now I don't really have anywhere to stay, either," she said with a soft sight, shaking her head. She'd left the key to the apartment with Divine - she didn't want the temptation to go back to there. It'd be so easy to just go back, ask for him to let her in, and try to pretend it'd never happened. But that would be stupid, wouldn't it? "The apartment was in his name."

"Well, since you've had so much to drink, I can't exactly let you drive yourself either," Yusei said, leaning forward across the bar. "I can let you crash with me for the night."

It was the first moment that Aki had gotten to really gaze into his eyes, and it hit her like a truck. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the fact he was being so nice to her while nursing her still bleeding emotional wounds, maybe it was the fact that he hadn't pressured her with anything so far. Whatever it was, she couldn't help but feel that she was being drawn in closer. Again, she was unable to figure out what it was that was holding her hostage. All she knew is that she'd never seen that color blue before - it was almost purple. Were they purple? She'd never known anyone to actually have purple eyes before. His hair was messy, with streaks of blond, and she imagined running her hands through it. "You know you're dangerously close to offering to be a rebound," she remarked.

He arched a brow, and it occurred to her that despite how nice he was being to her, he was still ultimately a man and in her experience, men wanted only one thing out of her. "Well, you are quite intoxicated, Izayoi," he said. "If you're still interested in the morning once you've sobered up..."

That was new. Aki was instantly confused, trying to work out what would make him take pause about hooking up with her tonight. Was it really just that she was drunk? That didn't sync up with anything she knew about the world, and suddenly she was more intrigued by him. "And if I'm still interested in you being a rebound?"

"You'd be more than welcome to use me in any way you see fit," he replied with a smirk. It was the last thing Aki remembered before the alcohol claimed her memory.

She awoke, dazed and confused in a bedroom she'd never seen before. Aki sat up, blinking as she tried to recollect how she got from point a to point b. She remembered anger first. The debut album with some other girl that contained songs that she'd written - all songs Divine claimed he wrote. She balled her fist, trying to let go of the anger and finding herself unable to. Being angry about what Divine had done, however, wouldn't help her figure out how she got her. She remembered the dive bar and the handsome bartender who'd offered to let her crash at his place. As far as she could tell, he'd put her to bed and not bothered her since. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or humiliated that he didn't want to touch her. It didn't track with anything that she was used to. And well, honestly, it wasn't worth focusing on. Not when she had to get her music back.

Except she couldn't exactly focus on that either. There was an odd smell in the air - eggs? Maybe? She rubbed her eyes, groaning as the headache started to hit. She did, in fact, have more than a few drinks last night after all. She wasn't surprised that she probably had a hangover. Well, she might as well get out of bed and figure out where she was going to go next. She wouldn't want to impose on this bartender further. She got out of the bed, surprised to see that her duffle bag was still there. Aki went through it, making sure that everything was still in there. Everything was still in order, so she pulled out a change of clothes - a nice pair of black denim shorts and a red cotton top. It'll be nice to wear when she's wandering the streets to find the next play she was going to.

Where that was, she didn't know yet. Regardless, it was a new day, and she was ready to begin anew.

#myfanfic #faithshipping #year of otp #year of the otp

[toomanyrobins2]

Are You Bald?

Summary: An orphan all her life, Y/N is simply too old to remain at The Bowery Home any longer. That is where an anonymous patron has swooped in to send her off to college and all he requires…a monthly letter of her academic progress.

Based off the book and musical “Daddy Long Legs”

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x Reader

last part // series masterlist // next part

NOVEMBER

Bruce was once again staring at the clock. It was the 30th of November and he wanted that letter. The October one had been multiple pages and he found himself returning to them at least once a week. He’d even wrote notes in the margin of her assignment she’d sent. In the middle of stuffing it into an envelope, he’d realized what he was doing and threw it across the room. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he heard the doorknob start to turn and quickly looked back at the papers on his desk, trying to seem as though he hadn’t anxiously been awaiting Alfred.

The older man placed the letter down on the desk and as soon as the door was shut behind him, Bruce was tearing into the letter:

15th NOVEMBER

Dear Batman,

Listen to what I've learned today:

The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude of either of its trapezoids. It doesn't sound true, but it is--I can prove it!

You've never heard about my clothes, have you? Six dresses, all new and beautiful and bought for me--not handed down from somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks in the career of an orphan? You gave them to me, and I am very, very, VERY much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated--but nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. After wearing gingham nearly all my life, this is truly a gift I will never forget. Barbara Gordon came with me to pick them out and tell me what looks good on me. Apparently, because of my skin, I must be careful with my dress. This is a different kind of education from the one you planned for me, but it is apparently very important according to Barbara. I have an evening dress, green mull over silk (I'm perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, and a dinner dress of royal purple, and another of pale yellow challis, and a grey street suit, and an every-day dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Harriet Kane, perhaps, but for Y/N Abbott--Oh, my! Of course, one dress would have to be yellow, but it's very pale, nearly a cream. I was worried about the green dress with my hair. I feared I would look like a tree of a person, but Babs was right it is a splendid color. Apparently, I have the perfect coloring for jewel tones. Who knew? 

I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast she is, and what a waste of money to educate a girl? When I started high school, I entered another period even worse than the checked ginghams.

You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor-box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar.

LATEST WAR BULLETIN! 

News from the Scene of Action.

At the fourth watch on Thursday the 13th of November, Hannibal routed the advance guard of the Romans and led the Carthaginian forces over the mountains into the plains of Casilinum. A cohort of light-armed Numidians engaged the infantry of Quintus Fabius Maximus. Two battles and light skirmishing. Romans were repulsed with heavy losses. 

I have the honour of being, 

Your special correspondent from the front, 

Y/N Abbott

PS. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Bats, just this once--are you awfully old or just a little old? And are you perfectly bald or just a little bald? It is very difficult thinking about you in the abstract like a theorem in geometry.

Given a tall, rich man who hates girls, but is very generous to one quite impertinent girl, what does he look like?

R.S.V.P.

Staring down at the letter, Bruce felt slightly put-out. The last letter had been nearly five pages. This was just one. One page front and back. What did he care about pyramids? Where was the discussion of her life, of basketball, and Barbara. He’d even take an update  on the insufferable Harriet Kane. Throwing the letter onto the desk, Bruce leaned back in his chair and scowled at it.

DECEMBER

19th DECEMBER

Dear Batman,

You never answered my question and it was very important. ARE YOU BALD?

I have it planned exactly what you look like--very satisfactorily--until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly grey hair or maybe none at all.

But the problem is, shall I add some hair to your portrait?

Would you like to know what color your eyes are? They're grey, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy old thing with a temper.

 (Chapel bell.) 9.45 p.m.

I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books--I have to, you know because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe what an abyss of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of. For example:

I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R. L. S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was a lady. I had never seen a picture of the Mona Lisa and (it's true but you won't believe it) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.

Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an `engaged' on the door and get into my nice red bathrobe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Sherlock Holmes and--don't laugh--Little Women. I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on Little Women. I haven't told anybody though (that WOULD stamp me as weird). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about!

(Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.) 

SATURDAY

Sir,

I have the honor to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelepipeds and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough and very uphill.

SUNDAY

The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through, and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time on vacation; there's another Freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, and we are planning to take long walks and if there's any ice-- learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read--and three empty weeks to do it in!

Goodbye, Batman, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am. 

Yours ever, 

Y/N

PS. Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. Just say: Mr. Smith is quite bald, or Mr. Smith is not bald, or Mr. Smith has white hair. And you can deduct the twenty-five cents out of my allowance. Goodbye till January--and a merry Christmas!

TOWARDS THE END OF THE CHRISTMAS VACATION…exact date unknown

Dear Batman,

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as popcorns. It's late afternoon--the sun is just setting (a cold yellow color) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I'm not used to receiving Christmas presents. You have already given me such lots of things-- everything I have, you know--that I don't quite feel that I deserve extras. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know what I bought with my money?

I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me to recitations in time.

II. Matthew Arnold’s poems

III. A hot water bottle

IV. A steamer rug, because my tower is dreadfully cold.

V. 500 sheets of yellow manuscript paper

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge this author's vocabulary.) 

VII. (I don't much like to confess this last item, but I will.) A pair of silk stockings.

And now, never say I don't tell all! It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the silk stockings. Harriet Kane comes into my room to do geometry, and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings every night. But just wait--as soon as she gets back from vacation I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see, the miserable creature that I am but at least I'm honest; and you knew already, from my record, that I wasn't perfect, didn't you?

To recapitulate (that's the way the English instructor begins every other sentence), I am very much obliged for my seven presents. I'm pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family in California. The watch is from my father, the rug from my mother, the hot water bottle from my grandmother who is always worrying for fear I shall catch a cold in this climate--and the yellow paper from my little brother Harry. My sister Isabel gave me the silk stockings, and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (little Harry is named after him) gave me the dictionary. He wanted to send chocolates, but I insisted on synonyms. You don't object, do you, to playing the part of a composite family? And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested in my education as such? I hope you appreciate the delicate shade of meaning in `as such'. It is the latest addition to my vocabulary.

The Senior girl from Texas is named Diana Prince. I like her, but not so much as Barbara Gordon; I shall never like anyone so much as Babs--except you. I must always like you the best of all because you're my whole family rolled into one. Diana and I and two Sophomores have walked 'cross country’ every pleasant day and explored the whole neighborhood, dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and caps, and carrying shiny sticks to whack things with. Once we walked into town--four miles-- and stopped at a restaurant where the college girls go for dinner. Broiled lobster (35 cents), and for dessert, buckwheat cakes and maple syrup (15 cents). Nourishing and cheap. It was such a lark! Especially for me, because it was so awfully different from the orphanage--I feel like an escaped convict every time I leave the campus. Before I thought, I started to tell the others what an experience I was having. The cat was almost out of the bag when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back. It's awfully hard for me not to tell everything I know. I'm a very confiding soul by nature; if I didn't have you to tell things to, I'd burst.

We had a molasses candy pull last Friday evening, given by the house matron of Fergusson to the left-behinds in the other halls. There were twenty-two of us altogether, Freshmen and Sophomores and Juniors and Seniors all united in amicable accord. The kitchen is huge, with copper pots and kettles hanging in rows on the stone wall-- the littlest casserole among them about the size of a wash boiler. Four hundred girls live in Fergusson. The chef, in a white cap and apron, fetched out twenty-two other white caps and aprons-- I can't imagine where he got so many--and we all turned ourselves into cooks.

It was great fun, though I have seen better candy. When it was finally finished, and ourselves and the kitchen and the door-knobs all thoroughly sticky, we organized a procession and still in our caps and aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon or frying pan, we marched through the empty corridors to the officers' parlor, where half-a-dozen professors and instructors were passing a tranquil evening. We serenaded them with college songs and offered refreshments. They accepted politely but dubiously. We left them sucking chunks of molasses candy, sticky and speechless.

So you see, Bats, my education progresses!

Don't you really think that I ought to be an artist instead of an author? Vacation will be over in two days and I shall be glad to see the girls

again. My tower is just a trifle lonely; when nine people occupy a house that was built for four hundred, they do rattle around a bit.

Eleven pages, you must be tired! I meant this to be just a short little thank-you note--but when I get started I seem to have a ready pen.

Goodbye, and thank you for thinking of me--I should be perfectly happy except for one little threatening cloud on the horizon. Examinations come in February. 

Yours with love, 

Y/N

PS. Maybe it isn't proper to send love? If it isn't, please excuse me. But I must love somebody and there's only you and Mother Waller to choose between, so you see--you'll HAVE to put up with it because I can't love her.

Bruce felt like a dirty old man. He couldn't stop the picture of Y/N in her robe and silk stockings. He sat in his study, trying to fight off the images. It was too easy to imagine her sitting in his favorite chair by the fireplace in his study while he worked. She would pad in quietly, her messy locks hanging freely over her shoulders, and head straight for his books. Completely ignoring him and yet, it was the definition of domestic bliss.

He shook his head and, too violently, shoved the newest letter with the others. “You keep the letters?” Clark’s voice startled Bruce, not that he’d ever admit it, “You’ve never done that before.”

“They are entertaining. She is studying to be a writer after all.” 

“Of course," Clark just smiled like he knew a secret that Bruce wasn’t privy to, "Now, can we go? The host disappearing from his own New Years' party is never a good look. Lois has called for us three times?"

"Yes, fine." Bruce stood up and stared down at the drawer again. he couldn't help but wonder what Y/N was doing to celebrate.

#toomanyrobins #Bruce Wayne #Bruce Wayne imagine #Bruce Wayne x reader #battison #battison imagine #battison x reader #Batman #batman x reader #batman imagine #batfam #batfamily #batfam imagine #dc comics #dcu imagine #✉️

[sharpaymichelle]

VOGUE meets with sharpay evans to discuss her life and family!

interviewer : you're known as a triple threat. a singer, dancer, actress - what can't you do!

sharpay evans : yeah, it's definitely been amazing having the recognition for all my hard work ... but i can't cook. i literally almost burned down my kitchen once, fun fact.

interviewer : before we talk about your rise to fame, you lived in albuquerque, new mexico briefly. what was that like?

sharpay evans : i did. when i moved there when i was sixteen and was there till i graduated from high school.

interviewer : what made you end up in new mexico?

sharpay evans : my past really isn't super hidden. i was just hanging around the wrong crowds and getting into trouble in my early teens. everyone thought it would be best that i just get a break from the nepo scene so was sent to live with my uncle vincent, aunt charlotte and cousin tiara.

interview : you boomed into the spotlight at the age of eighteen with your debut album, the new classic, and became known as the pop princess. what was that like?

sharpay evans : you know, i grew up in this industry. my parents really guided me every step of the way once they knew i was serious about my career. i'm really appreciative of my fans and even being given that title is such an honor.

interviewer : speaking of your parents, you're the daughter of hollywood actress derby evans and musician and producer vance evans?

sharpay evans : does this count towards one of the questions?

interviewer : yes, i guess it does, haha. what was it like being raised by them?

sharpay evans: my mother, oh my mother. she is an amazing human being and dealt with so much between me and ry. again, i caused a lot of trouble for her and she wore my trouble on her sleeves while still being a famous, well-known actress providing for us. growing up, she would take us to set with her and we'd be playing on the lot or in set school. if we were lucky, we were able to watch her scenes and i still remember being constantly fascinated by everything she did. if you didn't know, there's an indie film she did once where she had to have a kid casted and my mom advocated so hard to have me play her daughter because she knew i had the talent to be an actress even at such a young age. my mom has always believed in me. i won't lie about the fact we went through a rough patch during my teens and briefly after i broke up with my ex but i admire who that woman is every single day. i mean, there's a reason i wrote don't tell my mom on heartbreak/her and included one of her voicemails. if i ever have kids, i hope to be half as patient and loving as she is. i also just hope i don't have menaces like i was, haha.

sharpay evans : now my father, he is the reason i developed such a passion for music. looking back, i was so in awe of his life touring and him making music in the studios. i don't know how but like my mom he just saw a natural talent in me. i mean, he was gone a decent amount growing up but that was his career and he did what he needed to do to provide for us and i think that also took a toll out of him especially once i started rebelling. i remember when i came back from new mexico essentially a new person he just held me for a really long time and cried. mind you, this is a rock singer who i don't even think i had seen him cry before that very moment. my dad struggled with his own demons for years because of the industry but never really talks about it even with me till this day. i think for us, we just have a mutual understanding that, no matter what, we're here to lean on one another for support and that at the end of the day we're family. he has guided me in so many ways in life and that memory is probably, if not, my favorite of ours. i know he is proud of me.

interviewer : do you think there was anything they could have done differently?

sharpay evans : i think they did the best with what they were equipped to do. they were first time parents dealing with a kid who liked to party and you know... participate in not so great things. i struggled sharing my parents with the world as i got older and really was having a hard time understanding the nepo scene even though i grew up in it. my dad constantly was on tours or my mom was filming movies so the attention was diverted away from me and ry. i now know i should have probably just verbalized my problems rather than defaulting to some ... illegal activities. although i don't necessarily agree with some of the choices they made, i don't hold them at fault for it.

interviewer : at least you're honest! well first, i hope your twin brother, ryan, is doing great! how did he handle all of this?

sharpay evans : he is actually! he's currently doing some acting gigs on broadway right now. if you didn't know, he is actually older than me by one minute. but to answer your question, he took everything pretty hard. he came with me to new mexico for about a year but i told him to go back home to california. he found me on the floor one time after a situation and rushed me to the emergency room. like i think i traumatized him and i still feel so bad about it till this day. he's my heart that's walking on the outside of my body and the fact i hurt him so bad was devastating. ryan genuinely means everything to me. he suffered together, cried together, laughed together. we talk every day and even now, not living in the same state as one another is literally so difficult. he's just such an amazing person who dealt and cleaned up so much of my mess. i genuinely love him more than life itself.

interviewer : if we can back track to new mexico. you mentioned an uncle, aunt and cousin , what were they like?

sharpay evans : oh they're everything i hope to have in a relationship. my cousin well... lets just say i understand.

sharpay evans : my uncle vincent, i don't know if you know, was a child actor way back when but he met my aunt at a relatively young age and from what i'm told, knew from the very moment he laid his eyes on her that was his soulmate. she was just a waitress in los angeles living paycheck to paycheck wanting nothing to do with the celebrity lifestyle. when they turned eighteen, they got married but she was wanting to leave california and without hesitation, he followed her anywhere and left his career. he's now a criminal defense lawyer and is actually really happy doing it. crazy enough, the second i got to his front step i rolled my eyes at him and he literally locked me outside in the rain for twenty minutes and i had to sit on the curb until my aunt came home from work realizing what he had done. he was a strict man with me but i think i needed that type of role in my life. he wanted me to have structure and rules to know that every action and decision i made had consequences. i guess that was the lawyer in him. my uncle vincent really is such an amazing man and i'm really lucky to have a role model like him.

sharpay evans : my aunt charlotte, again she was just a waitress when first meeting my uncle but now is a transplant coordinator at a hospital. i have never in a million years met a more down to earth and genuine human being before. we weren't really raised around my aunt or uncle and it wasn't because of any bad blood but really because of time scheduling. i mean, it worked out because i built a relationship with everyone on my own accord but i can genuinely say that my aunt charlotte is like a second mother to me. there's also a reason why her voicemail is on heartbreak/her. she was concerned about my well-being just as much as my mother and not hearing from me was extremely concerning. she knew i was okay but still wanted to hear from me. it was actually my aunt who convinced me to try out for drama club, get into choir and re-enroll in dance classes while i was in high school just to keep out of trouble and keep me pre-occupied. she always had my best interest at heart and knew that i needed compassion along with compassion.

sharpay evans : tiara is my younger cousin. she is relatively ... similar to me in my personality. i think that's why we tend to buttheads frequently. i get it - i took a lot of her parents attention away when i moved to new mexico. it was exactly the problem i was facing with my own parents and hollywood. we just ran into issues when she constantly was trying to sabotage my life and that's not me being dramatic. she literally tried to steal my role in my play on opening night. thankfully, i managed to put a stop to it and we talked it out but i think when i left she was just excited to finally have her house back and be considered a single child again. i love her, i really do and i want her to have the best life possible but i hope she grows into herself just like i did at some point.

interviewer : wow. it seems like new mexico really helped you, huh?

sharpay evans : honestly, i think i'll always have a deep appreciation for my aunt, uncle and even cousin. they molded me into who i am today. without them, i can genuinely say i don't think i'd be even here doing seventy - three questions with vogue.

interviewer : and what's it like being in the spotlight now compared to then?

sharpay evans : i wasn't prepared back then. i was literally a kid and the tabloids were absolutely ruthless towards me. i had no business being in the spotlight when i barely was in any projects and hadn't even released any music yet. thankfully, now, i have such an amazing support system between my mom, dad, ryan, my uncle vincent, aunt charlotte and even tiara and my pr team. everyone's primary goal is making sure not only myself but my image stays protected and safe. i feel so much more confident now being in the celebrity spotlight between making music and acting compared to back then.

interviewer : well, thank you so much for sharing yourself, your family and your house with vogue. is there anything else you want to share?

sharpay evans : yeah, stay tuned for my next album! now get out!

#i did not do 73 qs ur trippin! #my edits. #re : derby evans. #re : vance evans. #re : ryan evans. #re : vincent evans. #re : charlotte evans. #re : tiara evans. #re : the evans. #re : headcanon. #re : webweaves.

[softie-rain]

Meet me at the Hanging Tree

previous chapter: chapter eight

Pairings: Peter Maximoff x fem!reader

Series Warnings: Murdering, described death and violence, suicide, death for natural causes such as starving, hypotermia, dehydratation and wounding infection.

Series Summary: Panem, governed by President Magnus, is getting ready for the 75th Hunger Games. It's in this Memory Edition that the reader will learn how far one can go for the loved one, even if that could bring her to certain death.

Chapter nine: I can't do this anymore

pt.1

Summary: Y/n and Peter's reunion seems to bring a small spark of hope in their hearts. But nothing lasts forever right?

a/n: I apologise for how bad written this is. You all deserved a better reunion, I know, I'm sorry, but it's honestly already much that I wrote this. But in part two I will try and do a flashback so you guys can enjoy it more I promise!

I also apologise fore the final scene. Don't hate me I love you all

also i don't wanna brag or anything but I took this photo down here 😌

Y/n's tears were consuming her. She wasn't even feeling fear, just sadness. Darwin- she needed Darwin.

But he couldn't come to her right? How could he?

And Peter, God Peter. He was supposed to meet her at that stupid tree, why wasn't he there yet?? She wanted to yell. She was so mad. She wanted to yell. To kill. To die.

No.

She had promised Darwin that she would have won, she had to maintain that promise.

And she was going to.

~~~

Two days before

Darwin and Peter were staring at each other so hard that Lorna and y/n were scared they were going to kill each other.

"How lucky of us to run into each other, uh?" Darwin said, his voice low and somehow dark. "How lucky." Lorna raised an eyebrow, shocked by the scene that was playing in front of her.

Even if she wasn't showing it, y/n's feelings were pretty much the same. "Guys come on! Really? We need to move. Now." She walked past the two very mature boys and started picking up the bag Darwin had previously left falling in shock.

Peter rushed to get next to her while Darwin scoffed and walked next to Lorna, who was definitely tired of that useless- whatever the two had going on.

"So, uhm, are you ok?" The girl suppressed a chuckle at Peter's effort of starting the conversation. "As ok as I can be here." He nodded, an obvious answer to an obvious question. "It's great to see you again too, by the way. I'm sorry I didn't follow you after the bloodbath I, I don't know what I was thinking."

"It's fine, really. I'm not blaming you." Which wasn't totally a lie. "You know Bobby?" Y/n kept walking without meeting his eyes, but nodded. The boy who died the- second? third day?

"He died because of me. Kind of. He was going to kill me but Lorna got him first." She turned to him and gave him a sympathetic look. It was… weird. Weird, to have him standing right there in front of her. When she and Darwin were running away from the almost encounter with the Careers the last thing she expected was to run- literally- into Lorna and Peter.

And yet there he was. She missed him, there was no point in denying it, but how was she going to act now? For three days her plan was to survive and find Peter. Now it was just to survive, probably.

"How was it?" She asked. "Letting him die. Was it hard?" He shook his head. "I'm not sure. I mean, better them than you. That's what keeps me going. But no, watching someone dying isn't easy at all."

She bit her bottom lip, unsure on how to continue the conversation. She didn't have to though, as Lorna interrupted them. "Hey lovebirds, if you two are done with the heartbreaking reunion, it's about to get dark so we better start looking for a shelter of some kind." Y/n stared at Lorna. Really stared at her.

All she could see was a strong independent woman, but also very alone, and probably sad. She was still scared of her, even more now that she knew she didn't have any problem in killing, but some part of her was pitying the dark-haired girl.

No one at the reaping had apparently stood up for her, seemingly she didn't seem to have a family. Or maybe they didn't care about her enough to cry for her clear death sentence?

Darwin agreed with her. "She's right, let's go."

After spending the night under a tree, y/n woke up unsurprisingly exhausted. After the first night, her sleep kept being disturbed by nightmare after nightmare, and not even having Peter by her side helped in stopping them.

As she observed the others getting ready to leave again, her mind wandered back to the breakfast in the Capitol. She refused to allow herself to miss the city but, the food? She definitely missed that.

And, honestly, Charles and Emma too. Her last words with him weren't on the best terms, and she wondered if she was ever going to take a chance to apologise to him.

She was about to follow Darwin to talk to him, when Lorna's scream pierced the air. "Lorna?!" Peter yelled immediately, his neck turning so fast y/n was scared he was going to break it.

Her hand was pierced by an arrow, which left the whole group stunned, and Lorna terrified. Wait, terrified?

"Well would you look at that. Lorna Dane is terrified!" Everyone looked up from where the voice came and of course there they were, in all their awful glory. The Careers.

Scott was the one holding the bow so they assumed also the one to shoot the arrow. Y/n seriously doubted that he had missed her heart because she saw him at training. He had an impeccable aim. Why not kill her on the spot then?

Behind Scott Ororo and Rogue were standing proud, the first one's smirk almost as if to make fun of the group standing down. Kurt and Warren were with them, but looking less proud of themselves than the others.

"Run!" Darwin yelled, carrying Lorna with him. Immediately Peter took y/n's arm and led her away from the enemies, running without a specific destination. As they did, she looked behind them. Darwin and Lorna were escaping too, but they were slower than them.

She could literally feel the panic rising in her chest as she spotted Scott and Ororo right behind the two. There's no way they're gonna make it. She thought. But she pushed it away as soon as it came.

She couldn't let herself think Darwin was going to die. She couldn't- "This way!" Peter took a turn on the left, guiding her like he knew where they were going.

To her surprise he didn't stop running when they arrived at a cliff, ending in a river. "Peter?" She asked worriedly, as he still kept running. "Peter!" She repeated. "Do you trust me?" He asked her. Yes with all my life, she was about to answer, but thought better of doing that and went instead with: "Certainly not right now- PETER!" Not even able to finish the sentence that he was throwing her off the cliff, him following right after.

That's it, that's how I'm dying.

She could bet her life that the fall lasted hours- when it was actually barely a minute- when her body finally collided with the water. She swimmed on the surface of the water and noticed Peter a few feet away from her. He swimmed towards her, held her in his arms and covered her mouth as they swimmed towards the wall of the cliff, that thank god gave them a repair from the Careers eyes.

"You see them?" She heard Rogue ask. "No." Scott answered, clearly annoyed. "Let them go. Whether they're dead or not, they won't last long without their bag and weapons.

She mentally cursed. The bag. The knife. All of that was left at the spot, probably still marked in Lorna's blood.

Lorna.

Lorna and Darwin.

Darwin.

Where the hell was Darwin?

Unfortunately for her, the answer would fall from the sky. Literally.

Darwin fell pretty much like she and Peter did, except he wasn't coming back to the surface. Scott's laugh was barely audible now, so Peter was quick to look for Darwin.

Y/n instead went swimming back to the land, trying to steady her breathing. After the third time of the silver haired boy going underwater, he finally came back with Darwin- clear unconscious.

She helped him by bringing him back next to where she was previously laying, and opened up his jacket. She started performing CPR to him the best she could remember from training, but it didn't seem to work.

Peter was standing next to her, too shocked to say or do anything, as he watched his crush- there was really no point in denying it now, Peter definitely had a crush for y/n- desperately tried to save her friend, screaming and crying.

As she was about to lose her hope, Darwin coughed once. Then twice, then thrice, and he was awake again. "Oh my God Darwin." She cried and hugged him, but as she did that he immediately pushed her away, wincing.

"Y/n stop- please." She looked at him, confused, but then noticed the wound caused by Warren's sword.

"They got my leg with an arrow. Lorna managed to run away, I didn't. Warren attacked me, and they threw me in the river."

Because they knew he wouldn't be able to survive. No. He would.

"Hey it's ok. I wasn't pointing at winning anyway."

She shook her head, trying to stop the tears. She only met him one week ago and she was that desperate for his death- or maybe more than one week?

"Just promise me two things. Win for me. Murder all those bastards and win. Bring glory to the districts. And- he coughed and some blood came out of his mouth- hug my mom for me. Will 'ya? Tell her I love her."

She didn't want to let him go. But he was right. She silently nodded, hugged him one last time and turned to Peter. If this wasn't the one moment to show her weakness to the whole state, she didn't know which was.

Might as well give them a show right? Of course she cared about Darwin. Of course her tears were real. But she would lie if she said that she wasn't hoping for the Citizens to feel pity for her.

Peter was just holding her, all of his pain clearly staged. As harsh as it sounded, he didn't care for Darwin, not a bit. His only concern was for the girl crying in his arms at that moment. Lorna was right. He was crazy for her.

As they moved to the entrance of the forest and stared at Darwin's body being carried away from the flying vehicle, her mind was finally clear.

She was going to win, and not even the Careers were going to stop her. Next to her, even if she didn't speak a word, Peter knew what she was thinking.

And, too bad for him, he agreed with her.

tags: @raincoffeeandfandoms

#peter maximoff #peter maximoff x reader #evan peters #evan peters x reader #evan peters x y/n #evan peters x you #peter maximoff imagine #peter maximoff x y/n #hunger games au

[septembersghost]

I Will Always Love You ('73): Dolly Parton (Farewell song to mentor Porter W. as she left their group to go solo). Classy. "Elvis loved the song, that was when he and Priscilla were having their problems," she explained while on The Big Interview. "But during that time—and it's no fault of Elvis'—but Tom Parker, his manager…calls me the day before and says, 'Now you do know that Elvis is recording your song and Elvis don't record anything that he don't publish or get half publishing on." People

yeah :(((

“Elvis loved “I Will Always Love You,” and he wanted to record it,” said Parton in a 2006 CMT interview. “I got the word that he was going to record it, and I was so excited. I told everybody I knew, ‘Elvis is going to record my song. You’re not going to believe who’s recording my song.'”

Parton added, “I thought it was a done deal because he don’t just say he’s going to do something. Anyway, he sent word that he loved it and he was doing it. They get to town and they call and they ask if I want to come to the session, and of course, I was going to go.”

The cover was too good to be true after Parton was approached by Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who demanded that Elvis receive a hefty portion of the publishing rights to the song.

“Now, you know we have a rule that Elvis don’t record anything that we don’t take half the publishing,” said Parker, according to Parton. “And I was really quiet,” said Parton. “I said, ‘Well, now it’s already been a hit. I wrote it and I’ve already published it, and this is the stuff I’m leaving for my family when I’m dead and gone. That money goes in for stuff for my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, so I can’t give up half the publishing,’ and he said ‘Well then, we can’t record it.'”

Parton added, “I guess they thought since they already had it prepared and already had it ready, that I would do it. .. Something in my heart [said] ‘Don’t do that,’ and I just didn’t do it, and they just didn’t do it.”

Turning down Presley, said Parton, broke her heart because she truly wanted to hear him sing her song.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the publishing,” said Parton, talking about the experience in a 2021 interview. “I wanted to hear Elvis sing it, and it broke my heart I cried all night. But I had to keep that copyright in my pocket. You have to take care of your business. Everybody’s going to use you if they can. These are my songs. They’re like my children. And I expect them to support me when I’m old.”

Though Presley never recorded the song, it still held a special place in his heart. Parton previously shared that his ex-wife Priscilla told her that he sang the song to her when they divorced. “Priscilla told me that when she and Elvis divorced, Elvis sang my song to her,” shared Parton. “That touched me so deeply.”

i admire her for sticking to her guns and i hate that he didn't get the chance to sing it.

i don't know if you've seen the film, but they subtly reference this (and were planning to do so even more directly with austin singing it in the scene). it's astonishing to think what an indelible song it would become almost two decades later when memorably covered by whitney. elvis connecting to it given what he felt at that time is very poignant and understandable, and i wish so much that he had been able to record it, it would've been stunning. (do not get me STARTED on my rage towards that man and the way he intentionally held him back and the countless opportunities and songs E missed out on because of his greedy parameters and general lack of vision. he nearly didn't get to record suspicious minds because of this too, though they fortunately worked that out, but the things he could've done in his career are probably incalculable and it makes my heart ache.)

#wonderful night to remember my enmity towards the colonel as if i ever let it go #anonymous #letterbox #i was a dreamer

[denimbex1986]

'When Christopher Nolan was working on the script for Oppenheimer, the filmmaker made the unusual decision of writing the screenplay in the first person, essentially depicting events from the POV of his lead character, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. In a behind-the-scenes sneak peek...the director explains his thinking with regard to that decision.

"In the case of this film, I wrote the script in the first person," says Nolan, whose previous credits include Inception and Interstellar. "It's the only time I've done that. It made it clear to anyone who read the script that we're on this ride with Oppenheimer."

In the same video, Cillian Murphy, who plays the role of Oppenheimer — the so-called "father of the atomic bomb" — admits to being surprised by the script's format when he began reading the screenplay.

It took me a minute to actually comprehend," the actor says, "and then I realized, oh, that's a huge responsibility."

Later in the video, Murphy explains how Oppenheimer "sees things in sort of different dimensions. Physicists operate on a completely different level than we do, and I think sometimes it's a burden. So I was really interested in that."

The featurette contains interview material with several other cast members, including Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer's wife Kitty, and Robert Downey Jr., who portrays Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss.

"If Chris Nolan calls you and says that he'd like to meet with you, you're like, I don't care what it is," Blunt says.

"From the second I read the script, I knew that he had a very acute vision," Downey adds of Nolan, "and if he were able to render that vision that this film would be a masterpiece."

Florence Pugh, who plays Oppenheimer's lover, Jean Tatlock, is also featured in the clip The Black Widow and Don't Worry Darling actress describes her character as "blunt, [knows] what she wants, but at no point is she ever punished for that, and especially not by Oppenheimer."

Matt Damon costars in the film as General Leslie Groves, who put Oppenheimer in charge of the Manhattan project, the scientific initiative which resulted in the creation of the atom bomb.

"I tried to familiarize myself with Groves and the history and then talk to Chris about what he needed from that part," Damon says in the video. "Groves was almost like a kindergarten teacher in some respects, because these scientists were so eccentric and not necessarily trustworthy, I mean, if you're looking from a military perspective."

"It's a profoundly moving and overwhelming experience, watching it," Murphy says of the finished film towards the end of the featurette. "You feel so compelled to watch what's happening with these people and how they're drawn into the biggest of moral dilemmas, and what they're wrestling with, all of the characters."

Nolan and Murphy previously discussed the Oppenheimer shoot for EW's 2023 Summer Preview.

"The shoot was very sort of fast and furious and efficient," the director said at the time. "Hoyte [Van Hoytema, Nolan's regular cinematographer] and myself — from the technical end — we kind of jumped back to an earlier point in both of our careers, where we had no Steadicam on set, we had no playback or monitors. We were approaching it in a very stripped-down manner which gave us a terrific energy. I think it gelled very well with the ensemble nature of the piece. Even though Oppenheimer is at the center of it, we had this incredible ensemble of actors bringing so much to the table, and we really wanted to be able to move fast, jump around, and capture anything that was going to get thrown up by that."

"Every day, you had these phenomenal actors, who are heroes of mine, coming in," Murphy said. "Every day, you were having to raise your game to work with these legends. Everybody was so unbelievably well-prepared. Every single actor, no matter what size their role or the significance of their character in history, each one of them had this massive depth of knowledge that they could draw on."'

#Christopher Nolan #Oppenheimer #Inception #Interstellar #Cillian Murphy #Emily Blunt #Kitty #Robert Downey Jr. #Lewis Strauss #Florence Pugh #Jean Tatlock #Black Widow #Don't Worry Darling #Matt Damon #Leslie Groves #Hoyte van Hoytema

[ren-c-leyn]

Happy STS, Ren^^ First I would like to ask for writing update on your projects, esp Dark princess wip, your dnd campaign, Forgotten gods and Shackles. :D

Second I would like to know what scene from the currently published Shackles of time chapters was the most meaningful to you?

@writingonesdreams

Happy STS to you too, Dreams ^^ I hope you're having a good one.

I'll be answering in reverse order, hope you don't mind @writingonesdreams ^^ The second answer was just the shorter and more coherent one, as my updates are a bunch of incoherent screaming at the moment lol.

Here is your read more, as is tradition.

The most meaningful to me is a toss up among the 15 chapters that are up.

Something about The Time Keeper's office scene in chapter 4 is still sticking with me, and it's gotten even more meaningful as I've continued writing the story. The symbols of the long career that was torn away, the stories behind those objects of adventurers taken with people who are no longer with them, the beautiful impression mixed with the unspoken sadness. Then there was the mask. I believe that line was 'it was not the only thing to be broken that day, just the symbol of it all.' That, that slaps way, way harder now that I've written The Guild Masters' Meeting arc. It hit hard when I wrote it the first time, but rereading it after that arc hard felt like past me kicked current me in the gut. It was a perfect, unintended set up. Like I knew the history of it when I wrote it, but I didn't know what the future would hold and it just... yeah. Yeah that scene makes me feel proud and happy and sad all at once. It resonates with me in the way that holding the stuffed unicorn my late grandmother gave me when I was a kid does now. That sense of loss and comfort all in one.

The contender is from the end of part 2 of The Guild Masters' Meeting arc, when Wyndulin is talking to his old friend, Myria. And it hits similar notes, but is much heavier on the melancholic tone as these two legends both show just how closely they mirror each other and Wyndulin is slowly coming to the conclusion that he's watching the end. The end of a legend, the end of an era, perhaps the end of everything, and Myria is not the same as she was then. She's older, more fragile, exhausted, but she still won't stop. Won't step down. He admires her and grieves her in the same breath, just as she appreciates and is frustrated with him and The Time Keeper. It's... it's hard to explain, but if you want to understand I recommend reading it when you get the chance. And when you finish with that scene, go back and reread that scene from chapter 4. But I recommend doing it on a day when you can handle some heavy angst ^^'

Your weekly updates:

There's no new updates on Forgotten Gods or The Dark Princess of Aconitum this week. I paused the rewrite in favor of working on The Shackles of Time's anniversary event since it's taking most of my creativity, and I'm letting the magic system for dark princess stew for awhile in the back of my mind. Sometimes I come up with better ways to handle things or see drawbacks that I hadn't originally expected when I give a concept some time to marinate.

I think the next thing I'm going to consider one Dark Princess while I'm finishing up solidifying the magic system is how the assassination of the elf prince was done. I've already gotten the political ramifications of it done and out of the way, as well as whose behind it, but I never did decide how he was killed ^^' a bit of an oversight on my part, I suppose, but there's a lot of things I'm juggling. So, I'm playing around with a few ideas. Some practical, some inspired by history, and some that are totally over the top and dramatic.

I may get really ambitious and actually name the characters, as not even the MC has a proper name yet ^^;

In my DnD campaign I've finished setting up the big bad's goals and what they need to do to achieve them. These things will be happening in the background, and the players have the potential to mess up those plans, speed them up, or ignore them. I'll be keeping track as the game progresses. It turned into a big undertaking. I need to finish designing some things for it, but for the most part that end of things is solidified.

I've also started marking down important locations on the world map and drawing kingdom/country boarders as well as the migration paths of the floating islands. (Yes, I have yet another world with floating islands lol)

I've also written down 10 moral quandaries for the players to answer in character to go along with their alignments as a sort of guidelines for how their characters would react. Among them is a version of the Trolley problem, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they respond to those. Though, I admit I nearly gave myself an existential crisis while looking up example moral quandaries to base the questions off of. Some of them were... yeah. Tough calls, to say the least, tough calls.

We also set up some homebrew and table rules. I also finished my 20+ god pantheon (which took forever but I survived) for the world and the players have picked their patron gods, which is great since since two of the three characters are going into levels of cleric, and you kinda need a patron god for cleric. So, we're inching closer to being able to play. I have everyone's backstories and am thinking of fun and evil ways I can bring them into play throughout the game.

Unfortunately, everyone's work schedules have changed, again, so our session 0 and character building sessions are going to be postponed and the game is getting pushed back. But it just gives me more time to fiddle with things in the world, look up more Dming tips, name things. Naming things is so hard, and scheduling people for a dnd game is even harder >.<

As far as The Shackles of Time goes, I have enough chapters banked up to get through October, even with the posted chapters doubling to 4 for that month, I just need to finish rewriting and scheduling them :D I'm not quite finished with the Stormy Road ahead arc, but I am getting there. It'll probably make up all of October and probably November's 2 posts. There's also a chance it'll continue into December. It's much longer than I originally planned for, but a lot of heavy stuff came to light and demanded my attention lol. I've also thought up a good starting point for the next mini arc, right down to the character introductions, so once I get there it should be smooth sailing.

Also, my rough drafts document is over 60,000 words long, which means the published versions are probably somewhere around 70,000 words long, if not longer. There's a full book worth of content available to be read, and I can. not. believe. it. I can't! This is so wild that I am shocked and dazed. The impulse project I spent exactly 3 days planning ahead of time has not only survived a year, but thrived! :D I'm so proud of The Shackles of Time and myself. My adorable, little adventure trio and all of their weird friends makes my heart happy and the words flow <3 Though my favorite chapter is still chapter 4, I think The Guild Masters' Meeting is my favorite arc. So much sad Wyndulin and a group of badasses sitting in dead silence out of shock and terror, I love it <3

Speaking of, I am currently working on more content for the big Anniversary event. My housemates and my writing partner have all demanded I keep them updated with my progress, they love the bonus content that much, so I am confident that I'm doing something right with the cool stuff I'm cooking up here >:D Progress is slow, as I expected, since these are very involved... and also I recently got Stardew Valley and have a hard time putting it down. That game is scary addicting, but so much fun.

I think that's about it? Nothing else is jumping to mind. If you have more specific questions about any of it, ask any time. You know how I like to ramble ;p

Thanks for stopping in, I hope you have a lovely day/evening.

#sts #writing update #The Shackles of Time #Forgotten Gods #The Dark Princess of Aconitum #dnd

[natache]

Ita Rina

First and Forgotten Yugoslav Film Star who provocated Gestapo

Ita Rina was born on 7 July 1907 in the small town of Divača (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, later Yugoslavia, now Slovenia) as Italina Lida Kravanja. She was called Ida Kravanja for short. She was named after a journalist Finzi Haydée, Jewish family friend from Trieste. The first daughter of Jožef a railroad worker and Marija Kravanja, Rina had a younger sister Danica. Shortly after the outbreak of the World War I, the family moved to Ljubljana, where Rina matriculated in 1923. She was not a good student; she repeated the third grade of elementary school. However, her dream was to be an actress.

In October 1926, Slovenski narod (Slovenian People) magazine organized a beauty pageant, and Rina entered the competition. She was crowned Miss Slovenia and was to travel to the final event for Miss Yugoslavia, which was supposed to be held on 20 December 1926 in Zagreb. However, her mother did not want to let her go to Zagreb. After a group visit from the Slovenian delegation, Marija Kravanja relented. Unfortunately, when Rina arrived in Zagreb, the jury was already choosing the most beautiful of three finalists. She was, however, noticed by Adolf Müller, the owner of Balkan Palace cinema in Zagreb. He immediately sent her photographs to German film producer Peter Ostermayer. As her mother did not want to let her go to Berlin, Rina ran away from home.

Her escape was enabled by a family friend, a painter Alojz Malota and his wife Hedvig Šarc. They invited her to come with them on a trip to Austria, and instead she went to Berlin. She has said that she felt very lonely and scared during the train ride and thought about returning home.

“That was my longest and hardest journey. I huddled myself in a corner of a coupe and looked around myself in fear. I only knew few words in German...”

Rina arrived in Berlin in 1927. Shortly after she had her first audition, following which she had classes in acting, diction, dancing.

"They would shine a spotlight on me" she later said "cameras would buzz. There were cables everywhere. Some complete strangers would stare at me, whispering amongst themselves. They told me to scream, to laugh, wave and cry. I think I looked most natural in scenes where I was crying. All I had to do was remember how far away from home I've gone and how I've deceived my mother."

"You don't know how to walk!" a director was yelling. I've dedicated all my strength on walking as gracefully as possible, and I thought to myself "how's it possible that I, who have climbed Triglav thrice, all of sudden am incapable of walking." I must admit, first few steps on film were harder than any danger definitely mountaineering.

After several small film roles in 1927 and 1928, the critics finally noticed her in the 1928 film The Last Supper. The same year, Rina met at a Yugoslav embassy party, her future husband Miodrag Đorđević, a shy engineering student from Belgrade, son of a general director of the Royal Post Office.

He asked her out to dinner in a little more upscale restaurant. What he would find out later is that his students account was not enough to pay for the meal. He went to the phone in an attempted to call a friend who could lend him money. Ita figured out what was going on, and since she was already rich, secretly passed him a few bank notes, to spare him the embarrassment. She always liked him, and they understood each other well.

 

Around that time newspapers in Yugoslavia started to sensationalize her love life, as a counter she published an open letter.

Cenjeni g. urednik!

Vsikdar sem bila ljubeznjiva napram g. dopisniku Vašega lista. Želela sem na ta način izražati simpatije, ki sem jih gojila do “Vremena”. Toda nežentlementski dopis Vašega dopisnika od 15. t. m. je zlorabil to mojo ljubeznivost in me prisilil, da Vas naprošam zaradi istine za uvrstitev naslednjih vrstic: Prišla sem domov na oddih, da se pripravim za bodoče delo, ne pa da se zaljubljam kakor goska. Zaradi tega ne potrebujem nikakih senzacij, zlasti pa ne senzacij, ki gredo preko meja dopustnega. Čudim se prostosti, ki si jo jemlje g. Ambrož, da izmišlja kar imena mojih idealov. Prava senzacija bi bila šele, ko bi g. Ambrož nekoliko srečneje uganil moje ideale. Kar pa piše g. Ambrož, je bilo doslej meni in vsem mojim znancem docela neznano. Odpotovala bom tedaj, ko me pokliče novo delo. Senzacijonalni odhod avtomobilov itd. je prosta glupost. 

Da končam. Žal mi je, da se je edini g. O. Ambrož smatral za najpametnejšega od vseh tukajšnjih novinarjev in da je segel po tako nehvaležnem poslu. Naši javnosti je treba servirati resnico o mojem delu in moji osebi, ne pa glupih izmišljotin. Prejmite g. urednik izraze itd.

Ita Rina.

Her breakthrough into European stardom came after taking a role in a controversial film Erotikon by a Czechoslovakian director Gustav Mahaty. As soon as she read the script about a seduced and then abandoned daughter of a guard of a railroad station, she understood it as her big chance, and she was right.

Erotikon premiered in Prague. Czechoslovakian censors cut out the scene of her giving birth to a child, but the movie garnered great success with film critics and audiences across Europe. At the premiere in Paris in Moulin Rouge and the film goers carried her out of the theatre on their hands.

The films success angered the puritans. Especially the french catholic theologian, abbot Betteleme who wrote: "... First, they lie next to each other, and then one to another ... It is true that the cover hides their figures, but it certainly does not hide their movements... The protagonists are shown in particularly long shots, especially Ita... A viewer can recognize her excitement, then her expression of anxiety mixed with longing, then the pain and at the end... I blush while describing the scenes". He went though streets of Paris tearing down the posters that were plastered all over. That only raised the popularity of the film.

In 1930, Rina acted in three films, most notable being the first talking Czechoslovakian film Tonka of the Gallows, which is often named her best role. Meanwhile, she married Miodrag Đorđević in 1931. Although she had announced her retirement from her film career, but she actually continued her acting until the outbreak of World War II. Her last prewar film was crime drama Zentrale Rio.

The situation in Germany was getting tense, especially for anybody who was considered undesirable which included actors who were foreign. She left Germany on the insistence of the then ambassador of Yugoslavia Ivo Andrić. In 1939, very close to the start of WW2 every time she went to work or went home, there was a man who sat in the car. In the beginning he was very quiet and she thought he was an assistant of the producer and that he might represent some new custume, a way of saying thanks to the actors. And then he spoke. At first there were talks of the superiority of the German race, but later his changes because more apparent. "I argued with him in that car" she told to the operator in the studio and retold him the whole conversation. "How could you have dared, that man is from Gestapo." said the operator. The story was retold to Ivo Andrić, and he ordered her and her husband to urgently leave Germany. The taping of the film was mostly done. That night they packed all of their belongs. In the morning she taped a few leftover scenes and absconded for Belgrade that same day.

"Only on the road I understood what's going on. Tanks everywhere, soldiers."

They went to live in Belgrade. She didn't act as the war was starting to rage and had her first child Milan in 1940 and thee years later a daughter Tijana. Her in-laws disagreed with the marriage to a controversial actress at first. And they had a permanent table for themselves and their friends at the local tavern.

After the bombing of Belgrade they moved to Vrnjačka Banja. Life during wartime was hard and she laboured and sold all of her possessions to keep family fed. She even rescued her husband from jail where he landed after he, in a tavern proclaimed that Hitler will have the same fate Napoleon did in Russia.

They moved back to Belgrade after the end of World War II in 1945. Although she was promised several roles in Yugoslav films, all projects were cancelled and she was treated unfavorably. After receipt of a letter she had written to President Tito, Rina began working as a co–production advisor in Avala Film. But she soon left Avala Film and moved to Lovćen Film.

She returned to the silver screen once, in the 1960 film War, about nuclear war fallout, directed by Veljko Bulajić. This was her last role. She got her role not though a studio, but through her husband asking nicely.

“Before the shooting of the film War began, I was approached by a very likable gentleman, that was the husband of Mrs. Ita Rine Miodrag, and in a very discreet, shy way, asked if we can talk and during that conversation, suggested to cast Ita. Honestly speaking, I have already completely forgotten about her. There was war, and they she didn't work for a very long time. She wasn't listed anywhere in cinematography as an active actress. I remembered her from her films. I suggested we meet. So we met, I don't know where in Zagreb or Belgrade, I cannot remember, but she impressed me. She made a strong impression, of a smart woman, an actress who didn't want to be in a film for no other reason, but to be filmed. She wanted to know about her role. I really liked that, so we made a deal.” 

As she suffered from asthma, Rina and her husband moved to Budva (then Yugoslavia, now Montenegro) in 1967. There, she took care of her husband, who was ill with sclerosis. Rina died on 10 May 1979 from an asthmatic attack during the great earthquake that leveled the capital of Montenegro. She was buried a few days later in Belgrade, in the presence of numerous film artists, admirers, friends and family. Her husband died next year.

Best source is in Slovene here:

#ita rina #slovenia #german cinema #european cinema #20s #fritz lang #german expressionism #1920s #1930 #Yugoslavia #natache

[primatechnosynthpop]

NKotR overanalysis masterpost time. These range from things that I've been pondering for a year and a half to things that occurred to me like a couple months ago, and a lot of it is just spitballing that's not meant to be taken completely seriously, but bear with me here

I've said this before but it bears repeating: I think the in-universe new kids have much smaller social circles than irl. Consider how many of their irl friends and relatives play antagonists or characters with little connection to them. It's not like they're completely antisocial or resistant to making new friends (they even try to be civil with Spencer at first) but at the end of the day they ~only have each other~ (tm) in a way that's definitely not the case for their irl counterparts.

Unless Neil is the son of the president (which I wrote into CF2kAI but which I hardly see being the case in canon) then we don't know what his in-fiction family is like. He seems rather spoiled and self-centered, which is kind of an only child vibe (I say this as an only child myself) so his family is probably smaller overall than irl too. It's unclear whether he has any other friends. That said, Neil seems fairly content in his relative solitude-- exemplified in his introductory scene, where he needs repeated prompting to stop watching tv and eating cereal by himself and go hang out with his friends.

From Kevin's introductory scene we know he at least hangs out with other people on a regular basis and is or was on a football team (which apparently won the super bowl, love that for him!) He also seems to be the most well-adjusted person overall. But his remark in episode 2 that an exploding clown represents his mother suggests that his mother is dead or otherwise left his life in a sudden and traumatic manner. His remark in episode 4 that Old Man Cooper "busting [their] chops" is "an old man thing" implies a familiarity with the elderly, suggesting he could have been raised by grandparents or other older relatives. The girlfriend mentioned in episode 2 never comes up again, so she may well have left him after finding out about his date with Wendy.

Finally, the fact that Neil knows more about Ryan's family than Ryan himself does actually makes sense if you consider that them all being "completely insane" probably means they were institutionalized. Ryan appears to live alone (despite having two beds in his room) and not have many friends but have the desire to attain them, based on him talking to a painting in his introductory scene. The un-narrated blurb about him in the book from Ryan's Christmas Wish states "he'd spend winters in a secret chamber, emerging only at dawn to crow at the rising sun"-- a very animalistic habit, suggesting he may have been a feral child raised by wildlife. This could also be why he stands out as so strange compared to other humans.

Other thoughts:

We see Neil acting out a Potter Puppet Pals skit in episode 3, but it's unclear if it's actually intended to be posted online, and none of the songs he sings in NKotR are diegetic, so there's nothing to indicate he has a musical career either. If I had to guess I'd say he has all the same talents as his irl counterpart, but less of an audience. Since in this universe filmmaking is, in his own words, what they do for a living, they might have less time to pursue other things

Although Ryan's claim of having "raised" Kevin is dubious given that they're the same age, Ryan telling Neil that "Kevin is filled with bad ideas" does suggest that those two knew each other for a while before befriending Neil

(That said, Ryan's back breaking when Neil steps on a crack in Unlucked does posit him as something of a "mom friend", albeit in an unconventional way)

On that note, I think Kevin and Ryan had previously met Frosty and told Neil about it but Neil had never actually seen him before, hence his reaction

It seems like they make webisodes at a much faster rate in-universe than NKotR episodes came out irl (possibly on a weekly basis?) and not all of them are comedic. From the glimpse of webisode production we get in episode 6 they really don't seem like such great actors, so you have to wonder why they're so popular... unless you assume this series is set in the same universe as Hollywood East!, in which motion pictures were apparently a brand-new invention in 2008. Then it absolutely tracks that this is the best cinema anyone in Plymouth has seen.

It's also implied that their show is wildly successful and they even got a bestselling line of action figures. With this in mind, I doubt the in-universe Hollywood East collapsed the same way it did irl... however, Mitch's sardonic "make any nickelodeons lately?" in Computer Fighters implies that they'd stopped making webisodes in-universe by that point. If anything, the new kids' criminal record may have caught up with them and landed them out of a job

Speaking of being out of a job, it's so funny in "Money Dollar Bills" when Neil says he doesn't have to work, "or go to school". Like dude what happened to finishing your aeronautical engineering degree? I figure either he was only a few days away from getting the degree when he ran out of funds and had to drop out, or (much funnier and more fitting) he went back to university for a week tops, saw Ryan and Kevin having fun without him, and was like ugh I don't wanna go to school >:/ and bribed the department into giving him a diploma

(This is a little self-indulgent but since they have so little money at the start of that storyline and we see Ryan cooking breakfast for all of them I think mayyybe at that point they're all living at their clubhouse together. Found family type of deal!)

We know from one of the headlines scrolling past in the news report segment of Ryan's Christmas Wish, as well as a scrapped ending text crawl for The Money Tree, that Ernest P. Worrell exists as a living human in the NKotR universe. I think he's like a local celebrity who the new kids have maybe met once or twice and they look up to him a lot but they're not really close or anything

Ryan immediately turning on Spencer over onion rings is especially funny when you consider that a couple episodes prior he was the one getting put down for his unorthodox food choices, but if you want to step into the woobification zone for a minute you could say that's exactly why it sets Ryan off... like maybe he sees too much of himself in Spencer in that moment and is like oh no this is why my friends don't always like me, it's because I get sherbert instead of normal ice cream... I need to cut out this part of myself by cutting ties with Spencer. COMPLETELY missing everything that sets him apart from Spencer, and that his friends do like him actually

Important to note that not only is Neil the only one who firmly believes spooky manor is haunted the whole time, he's also the one to announce that Kevin "went on a date with a dead girl" when Wendy's mom claims her daughter is dead. Yes Neil is a man of science but, crucially, he also unequivocally believes in the supernatural

On that note though, since Kevin is such a skeptic about ghosts in episode 4, what did he think was going on with Wendy? Also, you've gotta wonder if he thought he was going to see her again when he died (particularly if he was also hanging around as a ghost for a bit) and was disappointed when he didn't. ALSO gotta wonder if he attained a working proton pack before or after dying... lots of thoughts about death & ghosts or lack thereof

Maybe this is my imagination but the new kids seem to treat each other nicer or at least get more used to each other in the later installments compared to the original run of episodes. In particular, it seems like Neil and Kevin go from being weirded out by Ryan's eccentricities to barely batting an eye at them. And that's what I call character growth... or something

#'hey can't you apply these analytical skills to something that actually warrants this amount of thought?' #hmm interesting idea but did you know that uhhhhh once upon a time there were three cool kids #nkotr

[yvynyl]

// Letters to YVYNYL //

Kennedy Shaw "Heaven"

/ Sometimes I get letters from right here in my hometown. Kennedy sent this one over and I think it perfectly encapsulates the feeling a lot of my readers are going through. Those of you who are struggling to make their music despite all odds, to make a life of music, to grasp on to the love they get from putting it out there. We are all in this together, our weirdo crew of misfits and hooligans who'd rather make a song that rips out our hearts and lay it out on the table for all to hear than just 'be normal.' We hear you. We hear you. Keep it going, friends.

Hi Mark,

When I think of music, I think of my grandmother singing me a song titled "don't fence me in." There's a home video of us singing it somewhere. Music to me feels no separate from myself. My mom used to listen to Tori Amos when she was pregnant with me and always told me that's why I started playing piano the minute I could.

My name is Kennedy, I'm a 21-year-old songwriter in Philly - or was in Philly - until a global pandemic interrupted my second year of college.

I'm only 21, but as far as coffeehouse music goes, I've probably seen it all. My parents used to take me to perform once or twice every weekend. They critiqued every show and were extremely supportive of how loud and passionate I was. Because of this, I know every jam band and bluegrass cover group that plays in the bookstores of the East Coast. I know which ones have AC and which ones make you pay for a meal after you perform. I have the stories of men telling me I'm "mature for my age" and taking photos of my 14-year-old legs while at the piano bench.

After I went to University, I knew a lot about basement scenes, too. I got too drunk while performing a few times, I kissed audience members during the choruses and band members during the verses. I drove off in the wrong uber twice. When the residence hall elevators shut down, I carried the keyboard, amp, stands, and book bag down 9 flights of stairs, and carried them back up at 2 or 3 AM less tired than before.

During this pandemic, and being back home in NJ, I've been asking myself why I continue pursuing music as a career, even though I never feel entirely validated or see financial gain from it. If anything actually, I see loss.

I switched my major from Music to English just before the pandemic broke in the U.S. I decided it was time to focus on a 'real career'. Then, I listened to some rough mixes of mine and decided to use all of my savings, every penny, to buy recording equipment and finish my EP in my bedroom. Clearly, I don't have any answers on why, or what's logical, or what's smart. I'm literally a crazy 21-year old girl-woman doing vocal takes in my parent's shower when they let me and finding the personal information of music bloggers and emailing demos to small labels like I'm their musical messiah. I've never filmed anything for anyone, and yet I've been dressing in vintage clothes and setting up "sets" (a bedsheet usually, chair, flowers) and recording them on my iPhone.

Even when I want to move on, the feeling of working on my music creatively is something so close to my core I don't think I can ever stop. Not because I think my music is worth listening to, or even good, I just can't stop making it. When I think of music I think of waking up from a dream and jotting down words. My dad saying to 'turn it down,' and then 'close your door'. I think of every love I had in high school giving me mixtapes, my best friend passing out on the train ride home with my amp in their lap. I think of watching strangers cry while I sing to them, basements of sweaty chances moshing, and my bandmates cans of beer. Every car ride with my parents I took for granted then, oblivious to the cost of gas and how many hours it took to get to the record shop where one person listened to half my set. I think of my younger sister listening to music to avoid new driver anxiety, and I think of my grandmother singing me songs, telling me to sing my own.  I think of pausing the youtube tutorial, running from the desktop and to the piano upstairs. I'd make this hike a million times a night but never felt tired, and when I think of these things I don't have to wonder why. 

Music is by far not the smartest choice as far as a career- maybe if I was smart I'd choose doctor, or scientist, or engineer, but feeling "smart" doesn't feel half as good as these memories music has given to me. "Heaven" is the first song I finished when I decided to work on rough mixes I had in my back pocket. It sounds haunting and compares heaven to a first love- the romanticization of first relationships is something that still pulls me in lyrically. I wrote it on bass, alone in my dorm room, probably crying. I hope you like it.

- Kennedy

…

Support YVYNYL, an independent music project here! Got a story to tell? Submit it to Letters to YVYNYL.

#Kennedy Shaw #Letters to YVYNYL #Philadelphia #songwriter #music #mixtapes #family #love #New Jersey #indie music

[esther-dot]

I'm not sure if it was him, but Kit saying that "Daenerys was becoming someone Jon didn't like" or something like that after she learnt about his parents is such a nonsense. Like, Jon was annoyed by her for most part of s7, and their romantic relationship ended in the first episode of s8. How can she "become" someone he doesn't like when he barely knew her and their relationship started at odds? I just, I don't understand

I feel sorry for all the actors. 

Their primary job is to sell the product, not share their genuine feelings (something that could very well cost them their job or hurt their careers), and for Kit in particular, he had to try to make sense of things that there is simply no making sense of. As in, D&D wrote as story in which Dany just keeps on behaving worse and worse, indicates to Jon very early on that his hope she’s a good person is unfounded (link), and yet, they want us to think that getting to know her better makes him love her. They could have written her in a far more conciliatory manner so that we could believe Jon saw good in her and than had the anguish of watching her give in to her dark tendencies, but instead, they make sure he saw that shit right off. I mean, they could have had her be convinced, offer some military aide, but Jon could have really been adamant that it’s the dragons they would need, and she could have said they were her children blah blah blah and really emphasize her fear of losing them. Actually, then the moment that she comes to rescue him would have had more impact. As it was, Ygritte tried to protect Jon while he was in the process of betraying her, and he still didn’t switch loyalties. The idea that Dany saving him would sway him was so dumb. Sorry. Getting back to the topic!

Each conversation they had in s7 just showed how far apart their priorities and morals which was deliberate for the audience to be able to go back and rewatch post 8x05 and realize that the groundwork was there for Dark Dany, but then it makes the idea that Jon fell in love during that time impossible to accept. They never give him a moment when he speaks about anything personally meaningful to her. And, in 8x01, she threatens Sansa to his face. He stabs her in the heart to protect Sansa in the end, and we’re supposed to believe that her, “if she can’t respect me...” didn’t raise his hackles? Makes no sense. Their entire relationship was him trying to convince her to do what was right even though she didn’t want to do it. How the hell does her negative reaction to him having a claim on the throne surprise him, when she insisted he hand over his crown all s7? How is he surprised she has no interest in family, when she already threatened his? Bizarre writing. 

The answer for what happened to GoT is always going to come back to D&D’s decision to keep Dark Dany a “surprise.” What the actors say is a product of not wanting to piss of the people who gave them their careers and/or the people who will hopefully continue their careers, and their fans. I really think that’s the bottom line.

Also, I don’t know exactly what D&D did with Kit, but I wrote about ec a bit ago (link) because she has said in interviews that she was instructed to act in a way that didn’t make sense to her, so she would give multiple interpretations of a scene and hope they’d pick a good one. She did not know about Dark Dany until she got the s8 script and she was traumatized. So, I think it’s possible they were doing a similar thing to Kit. They could have been offering conflicting/nonsensical notes because they wanted a certain product, a product he had no understanding of. Before s8, he even said in an interview he didn’t think he would ever understand Jon. Post s8, that statement makes a lot of sense because in s7 he betrays everything for Dany, and in s8 he betrays Dany for the very same people he betrayed for her. It’s just nonsensical without pol!jon or sacrificial jon, but, knowing that ec didn’t know about dark!dany, it’s possible Kit didn’t know about their plan for Jon. 

All he can say is what they fed him, but that quote, if it is from him, is as silly as all the rest of the contradictory things he’s said. Once he said Ygritte was the love of Jon's life and another time he said it was Dany. Once he said Jon would be happiest with his family in Winterfell and after the finale he said Jon would be happiest in the far North. Of course, that means that what he thought Jon’s end was wasn’t Jon’s end because I remember an article in which one of the directors (actually, it might even have been one of the Ds) said that Jon was in the Watch again. They made such a mess of things Kit doesn’t even know what happened to Jon. I don’t think he was really tracking with the emotional journey they tried to shove Jon through.

[kreekey]

examples of people being racist toward yoko unintentionally: 1- calling her a weird stalker when they glorify/don't mind the many white fangirls who used to stalk the Beatles. 2- spreading misinformation that she lost custody of her daughter when in fact she'd won against her white crazy ex despite everything NOT in favour of her 3- bashing her for using John's glasses on the album cover she worked with John on, when they would've praised the artistry and bold statement if she was a white woman

Hey sorry I got around to answering your ask so late! You make a lot of really interesting points and I rarely hear people consider that. 

1 - reminds me of a Tumblr post I saw about an obsessive Beatlemaniac stalker and people were like “me” or “bless her” haha. Definitely different when they can interpret Yoko’s actions as “stalking”. And your point also reminds me of this quote, which isn’t about fangirls but still somewhat kinda related.

“Like Yoko when she met John, Linda was a divorced woman with a daughter when she met Paul mere months later.  There are stories similar to those about Yoko of her “scheming” to meet and marry Paul.  In the same way that Yoko is said to have joked prior to meeting him that she was “going to marry John Lennon,” Linda joked like any woman with a celebrity crush about how she was “going to marry Paul McCartney.”  (Bob Spitz notes both in his book The Beatles.  Guess which one he thought was conniving, and which one he thought was adorable.)... Was it the lucky fact that Linda got the scene a few months later than Yoko, or was it her whiteness?“ 

X

And I don’t have the answer if it was Yoko’s race that made her such a target, but it’s something interesting to consider and note. [And I’ll clarify this, I'm pretty sure Yoko didn't know about the Beatles until she became face to face with one, like she wasn't a fan who got lucky enough to meet her idol. In the David Frost interview and the 1971 Rolling Stone interview, John noted that Yoko didn't know him when they met, and Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies by Neil Beram says this on their meeting: "She was about as familiar with John's work as he was with hers. "I was an underground person, and such an artistic snob," she said later. "I knew about The Beatles, of course... but I wasn't interested in them." Just about the only thing she could recall about them was the drummer Ringo Starr's first name, because ringo means "apple" in Japanese.”] Also, and this definitely wasn’t stalking, but I posted a quote from Bob Spitz’ biography where he writes along the lines of

“[Linda] always insisted that she was going to marry Paul McCartney,” [Nat Weiss] recalls, “even before she met him”... It was no accident that Linda Eastman veered into his aura. She’d taken a few polite shots of Ringo and George before “zeroing in on Paul,”... Linda had come dressed to kill. Most days she played the typical rock chick, decked out in rumpled jeans and a T-shirt, with little or no makeup and unwashed hair. But today her hair had been carefully blow-dried so that it fell perfectly forward in wing points at her chin. And she was dressed in an expensive double-breasted striped barbershop jacket arranged just so over a sheer black sweater, with a miniskirt that flattered her gorgeous legs. When she squatted down – not so subtly, in what must have been a rehearsed gesture – in front of Paul for an intimate chat, he had trouble keeping his eyes from wandering below-decks...

, and some people commented that it appeared kinda predatory/pre-planned (reminds me of some criticism of Francie Schwartz’s meeting with Paul), but overall cute and everything. At the time I wondered how people would react if Yoko did that to John lol. No way of knowing, just a thought. And also, I know Yoko sent him Grapefruit and little instructions often, I think that’s usually what people cite as the stalking, that she tried to ensnare him with it. Again quoting Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies, 

For a time Yoko kept in touch with John by mailing him daily instructions-she called this Dance Event-that said things like "Dance" and "Watch all the lights until dawn" and "I'm a cloud. Watch for me in the sky." John found the instructions as perplexing as he found them intriguing.

And quoting this interview (in which she also asserts that “each and every occasion she visited John at Kenwood, it was at his invitation.”),

Despite the popular theory that Yoko was frantically inventing schemes to snare the wealthy Beatle, she was struggling with problems in her marriage [with Tony Cox] and also working hard to establish her career in the UK. Arriving in London in September 1966 to perform at the ‘Destruction In Art Symposium’, Yoko was already respected as an avant-garde artist and performer in New York, where she was allied to the Fluxus movement. She had a trained musical background, and had recently been involved in the improvisational music favoured by her peer group. She had also compiled a book of conceptual and instructional pieces called Grapefruit, and printed up a limited edition.

Yoko distributed copies to a number of influential people during 1966-’67. And John Lennon was one of the recipients. This has since been interpreted as one of various ruses on Yoko’s part to enchant Lennon.

She retorts: “There was a myth that I sent Grapefruit to him… how I wanted to trap him. It was a printed, published book. I had an orange carton of them, a lot of it. I would be giving it to critics. It was that sort of thing. He wasn’t the only one who got it.”

X

And by then, John had already eagerly offered to sponsor one of her shows, I think he was genuinely interested in her work. I don’t think John was actually threatened by these notes or felt he was harassed, especially since he made the jump to invite her over while his wife was away (and Yoko just thought it was a party!). He once referred to Yoko “someone that could turn me on to a million things” in the Lennon Remembers interview, he admired her art. And I know he said to Cyn that the letters were just junk from another one of those weird artists, but c’mon, what do you think John would say to his wife regarding the woman he’s romantically interested in? I don’t think it would’ve been fully truthful IMO, especially considering when John said that he nearly invited Yoko to India around that time because he liked her so.

2 is very true. Tony himself tried to make it seem like Yoko and John were crazy heroin druggies, and that's the case he tried to make (and that’s what he tried to tell Kyoko, that he was “saving” her from drug obsessed occultists). But, Yoko had gone “cold turkey” (ala the song) off heroin in 1969. This was 2 years before she won full custody in 1971. 

Although neither parent had been awarded sole custody of the child, Mr. Cox became increasingly reluctant to let Yoko and her new husband spend time with Kyoko, and finally refused to permit it at all. For a year before the Lennons came to America, they had been chasing Mr. Cox and Kyoko around Europe. In Majorca, Spain, the Lennons caught up with them and spirited Kyoko off to their hotel; but Mr. Cox called the police, and a Spanish court gave the child back to him. The incident added to his fear that the Lennons wanted to take her away from him for good.

Soon after the Lennons arrived in New York, they went to the United States Virgin Islands, to the same court where Yoko had been divorced, and that court awarded her permanent custody of her daughter.

X

But, Tony then took Kyoko to Texas (hiding/kidnapping her) which was in violation of that court order. Then more custody battle due to Tony’s stubbornness and evasiveness, but yes, Yoko did win custody then despite everything (even though John was very threatened by Tony lol, to the point he disallowed Yoko to visit him alone in order to discuss co-parenting when that was an option and suggested kidnapping Kyoko. But then again Tony was also kinda crazy. Seriously though IMO Yoko really tried gallantly to have Kyoko in her life, and the loss hurt her. To hear people try to spin it as Yoko being the monster in the situation through misinformation is unfortunate.)

3 is hypothetical, but I do speculate that if Yoko was white, the attitude toward her would’ve been different. Sean said, “It’s intense how racist the world is. If my mother had looked like Debbie Harry, I really think the reaction would have been different.” (X) Yoko’s former partner, Sam Havadtoy, also touched on this in an interview from 1990:

Q: ...No matter what Yoko does, she’s frequently the victim of a bad press. Any idea why?

Havadtoy: After John’s death, newspapers wrote that Yoko was this selfish person hoarding John’s memory, controlling it, not willing to share it with his fans. So after two years, she puts out 200 hours of film footage and a record and they say she’s exploiting John’s memory. She can’t win.

Q: Why not?

Havadtoy: Racism. If she were blond-haired and blue-eyed, nobody would have blamed her for breaking up the Beatles. They were the darlings of the universe; she was an outsider, an Oriental, an avant-garde artist--easy to pick on. When John married Yoko, the British press wrote: “At least he will have clean laundry.” And it’s still happening. America is infatuated with Japan-bashing. 

X

And I do think Season Of Glass was a memory thing, I posted about it here: X. 

And yes, I think that much of Yoko’s criticism/legacy was rooted in that initial reaction, which was pretty sexist and racist. But I think that influence can still be felt today, in ways that aren’t obvious. And like you said, unintentional. (Before anyone gets mad, if you dislike or hate Yoko that doesn't automatically make you racist lol. But the narrative built around her might’ve influenced your opinion of her, and the narrative was kinda rooted in a racist mentality. So that’s why and re-interpreting her in a fresh light is necessary).

#sorry I know i've said something like that last paragraph many times but just to clarify y'know #yoko ono #the beatles fandom #asks #answers #long post #it got longer than i expected sorry!! #also anon sorry i left your ask unanswered so long!! hope you see this <3 #retrospective