#i know there’s pockets of people discussing this in much more nuanced ways but they’re often very niche and tend to get bombarded

[strixhaven]

You know, if there’s one thing I do miss about early 2010s tumblr and is something that I wish the broader site could have a wider, much more nuanced conversation about, it’s the openness with which people used to discuss self-harm. Early 2010s tumblr was by no means a very healthy outlet or place to talk about issues like mental health, how it manifests, how to cope with it—especially with regards to self-harm—but the shift from a deeply problematic openness and semi-romanticization to quietly adopting the predominant cultural attitude of outright silence, denial, and shame when it comes to self-harm is… more of a lateral move than anything else. For as much absolutely terrible shit that era of tumblr came with, the loss of open discussion about recovery, alternative coping mechanisms, celebrations about stopping, and encouragements that life still goes on even with self-harm as a presence in it is something that I do genuinely wish the site and people more broadly would embrace again.

I completely understand people not wanting to talk about their own experiences, though. Self-harm is often deeply tied to some of the darkest times in a person’s life, and how people navigate and feel about those times and how they relate to it is something that should be completely up to them. But in the few times I’ve seen people on the site actually broach the subject of self-harm, of living with it, of quitting, and of having it as a part of your past, it’s just an immediate barrage of people accusing them of romanticization for merely mentioning self-harm, people asking that they hide their bodies and experiences as something inherently traumatizing for everyone else to acknowledge, and overall making it very clear that this is not a struggle or a part of your life you can ever discuss openly. The readiness with which so many people will make you try to feel shame and disgust about your own body and mental health as a way to vent their own shame, denial, and disgust at themselves is unreal. It’s a whole-hearted embrace of the broader cultural narrative surrounding self-harm and mental health that seeks to keep its most ugly aspects hidden in order to pretend it’s not a problem that has to be dealt with.

Again, I do not begrudge anybody for not wanting to talk about their own experiences with self-harm, but I genuinely think this wide-scale sidelining and refusal to discuss self-harm and tumblr’s relationship with it is just as much of a problem. It is a deeply isolating and incredibly disheartening thing to have gone through, to know others have gone through, and to know that it’s something you’re likely never going to be able to bring up to other people. The greatest comfort I’ve found and the ability to make peace with my history of self-harm and scars has come from hearing other people just acknowledging their relationship to it and refusing to be shamed for what they endured, how they coped, and what they felt like they had to do to stay alive.

With the more nuanced, open discussions of the “uglier” and less-acknowledged aspects of mental health slowly becoming more common and more mainstream, the absence of self-harm from these conversations only becomes more and more noticeable, and I sincerely hope that the void it’s left is filled with the care and attention this topic deserves. With how on the rise self-harm and suicidality are amongst teens and young adults, as people who’ve lived through and with self-harm as a presence in our lives, I feel like it’s incumbent upon us to be more open and available to discuss these things so nobody else has to deal with the pain that comes from silence and shame about it.

#mb if this isn’t super incoherent and fully baked i just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this topic #i know there’s pockets of people discussing this in much more nuanced ways but they’re often very niche and tend to get bombarded #with a lot of bad-faith bs from people who sincerely seem to believe that any acknowledgement of the existence of self-harm is inherently #harmful. and as i said i genuinely think the worst thing you can do as someone who used to self-harm is encourage that kind of shame and #silencing of people who want to be open about this subject. the isolation that comes from knowing but never being able to talk about it #is so awful man. #just something i wish people talked about more overall #cw self harm #cw discussion of self harm #cw self-harm #discussion of self-harm #long post #here’s another brick of text from me ig #bees posting

[blossom-hwa]

You Look So Lovely, Darling (I’ll Love You for Lifetimes) - |BaL|

Kinda feels weird to be writing the proposal scene so early, but like? This drabble series is all out of order so whatever lmao :) enjoy some sweet nervous channie who just wants his proposal to be perfect <3

(and again, thanks to @deathbykpopboys​ for helping me work out this scene!! I LITERALLY owe you the world if you ever have ANY requests I'll be willing to write them :D)

Pairing: Chan x fem!reader

Genre: fluff, slice of life, single parent!au

Triggers: cursing

Word Count: 2.9k

Chan just wants to give you a picture perfect proposal - why is that so hard?

SKZ Masterlist | Breathe, and Live | Touching Stars (TBZ teacher!au)

Proposing, Chan comes to learn, is no easy task.

It looks so simple in movies. One of the couple pulls a ring out of their pocket, kneels down in front of their significant other, and pops the question. There might be tears, but it always ends in pure joy.

Movies make it seem like a formula, a simple algorithm that Chan just has to follow in order to get this proposal right. In real life, though, Chan thinks he’s about to lose his mind.

Because movies don’t demonstrate how to act in front of an older brother very protective of his sister. They don’t show him how to talk to his children or hers, how best to ask them if they’re all right with gaining new siblings and a new parent. They don’t give him insight on how to pick the perfect god damn ring, something maybe reminiscent of the promise rings you both wear on chains around your necks, but also not too similar because what if you think he isn���t being creative?

And the worst thing is, they don’t tell him how to pick the perfect moment. They don’t tell him where to go, what ambience is right, whether or not little kids in the room will ruin the timing.

At this point, just thinking about proposing turns Chan into a stammering mess. Even though you’ve discussed marriage before, you haven’t made any large moves beyond that. Jisung and Felix have been calling you Mama for a bit, but Hyunjin has only just started calling him Papa, and mostly on accident (though each time he does, Chan’s heart fills with this overwhelming happiness that brings tears to his eyes). What if you decide now isn’t the right time? What if you decide you want to wait a little longer?

What if you decide Chan isn’t the right person for you?

That’s a question that plagues Chan every time his mind even brushes on the topic of marriage.

He loves you, though, he loves you so much. And he knows you’re the right partner for him, even if in the end you might decide he isn’t the right partner for you.

Patience, he tells himself, taking a deep breath. He really should be working on this new track, but instead, he’s staring into his hands, trying to map out the perfect proposal. Not too fast, Chan. Take it in steps.

The only problem is, step one scares him out of his wits.

. . . . .

Chan is a full year older than Minho, and then some. By all rights, he’s the elder, and he shouldn’t be as terrified of the younger man as he is.

Minho’s a scary person, though. He’s driven, concentrated, focused – it’s how he’s gotten so far as both a dancer and a father. Chan knows he’s hardworking, but Minho is just as much, if not more, than he is.

And he’s very protective of you.

(When Minho found out you two were dating, he told Chan, verbatim, “I won’t hesitate to take you to international waters, chop up your body, and toss the parts overboard if you hurt my sister.” Just thinking about the blank expression Minho had on when he spoke those words is almost enough to make Chan lose his nerve.)

But here he is, standing just outside of Minho’s studio, ready to knock. He’s sweating, not because it’s hot or anything (it’s actually pretty cold because Minho is weird like that), but just out of sheer nervousness. His heart feels like it’s pounding a mile a minute.

Oh, God. Chan raises his hand again to rap on the door. Stop thinking. Just do it.

He knocks.

A few seconds later, the dancer opens the door in all his sweaty glory. “Chan?”

“Yeah.” Chan tries to smile, but he’s pretty sure it just looks like a grimace. “Can I ask you something?”

A glint comes into Minho’s eyes. “Of course, come on in.” He opens the door widely, smiling in a distinctly cat-like fashion that is literally scrambling Chan’s brain.

Why does he look like he knows what Chan’s about to ask?

The door swings shut with a soft but audible click, and with the noise goes Chan’s last chance to run away.

“So?” Minho looks over once Chan’s inside the room. He’s enjoying this way too much.

There’s no way he doesn’t know what I want to ask.

“I… um, so I’ve been dating your sister for a few years,” Chan starts.

Minho actually snorts. “Yes, I’m aware.”

Chan can feel the tips of his ears turning bright red. “Right. Um, I just wanted your approval for – I’m planning to – well, with your permission, of course –”

The smirk on Minho’s face only grows with each stuttering word that comes out of Chan’s mouth. And in all honesty, he actually has no idea what he’s saying. All of the sentences he rehearsed in his head before coming here seem to have completely flown out of his brain, and from Minho’s expression, he just sounds like an idiot.

He keeps going anyway, because nervous Chan doesn’t always make the best decisions to make himself look good.

“Well – um, look, I just really love her a lot.” Chan looks down with the admission, knowing he’s definitely rambled too much already, but he needs to get on with it and ask the stupid question. “I… wantedtoaskifyouwouldbeokaywithmeaskingtomarryher.”

Minho leans forward, eyes innocently wide. “Sorry, I didn’t get that, can you repeat what you said again?”

Lee Minho, you are a grade-A asshole.

Face burning, Chan clears his throat. “I wanted to ask if you would be okay with me asking to marry her. Your sister, I mean.”

Silence. Minho leaves him in silence for five whole seconds which feel more like five millennia. Chan thinks he’s going to crumble into dust on the floor out of terror and embarrassment.

“Do you have a ring?” Minho finally asks.

Chan’s cheeks burn redder. “Not… not yet.”

“So you’ll need help picking one, then?” The dancer raises one perfect eyebrow.

“… Yes?”

“Beautiful. I’ll be there whenever you need me.” Minho smiles. “Anything else you wanted to ask?”

Chan just stands there, dumbfounded. “So… is your answer yes?”

The smile immediately drops off of Minho’s face, replaced by an eye roll and a sigh. “Yes, Bang Chan, you idiot.” He punches Chan’s shoulder. “No one’s ever going to fully deserve Y/N, but you’re the closest I think anyone’s going to get. You really thought I’d say no?”

Rubbing his arm, Chan smiles sheepishly. “You can’t blame me for being nervous.”

“What? Nervous, around me?” Minho laughs, sharp and loud. Even though Chan knows he’s teasing, it’s still a bit frightening. “Never would’ve thought that.”

“You’re just proving my point,” Chan says.

“No, I’m not.” Minho smiles, close-lipped and slit-eyed. It’s terrifying. “Now, off you go. And don’t come back unless you need help picking a ring!”

It takes Chan five minutes of sitting in the hallway, garnering strange looks from several people passing by, before his legs are stable enough to take him back to his own studio. Heart still pounding, he mentally crosses a line through step one.

Next comes step two. Chan purses his lips. Step two is a bit less scary than step one (mostly because it involves children and not Lee Minho), but no less challenging.

Well, he got through Minho. Chan sighs. He just has to hope that the kids will be as receptive to the idea of a new parent as Minho was to a brother-in-law.

. . . . .

The kids know that you and Chan are at least, in some shape or form, together. They might not understand the nuances, like how you’re technically dating but don’t always refer to yourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend (because it just feels so much deeper than that, somehow), but they understand that you two “like” each other (Jisung pretends to vomit every time he hears the word “love,” so Chan just uses the word “like” to avoid that) and thus live together.

They love it, most of the time. Hyunjin was a little put out when he found out he would have to share a room with two other boys, but after Minho moved out and Hyunjin realized he would get his uncle’s old (and slightly bigger) room, he happily accepted the new plan. Jisung and Felix were mostly just happy to live with their best friend.

(Children, Chan just thinks. They’re so easy and so hard to please.)

Of course, there are difficulties. Jisung’s sensitive and has more than once broken down when he thinks Chan isn’t giving him enough attention with a new boy in the household. Felix’s tantrums are rarer, but they exist, and Hyunjin is still getting used to sharing his mom with someone else.

They’re a family, though, a messy, mostly happy family that can pull together at the end of the day and whisper “I love yous” to each other before bedtime. And that’s something Chan values more than anything in the world.

Which is why obtaining his kids’ approval for officially tying the knot is something so important to him.

He gathers them together one day in the apartment with the promise of watching a cartoon show after he asks them something. Three pairs of big eyes stare up at him from the couch, and Chan feels his heart melting with love and racing with anxiety.

Chan takes a breath. “Do you know what marriage is?”

“Yeah!” Jisung pipes up. “It’s when a girl and a boy get together and kiss!”

The laughter spills out of Chan’s mouth before he can even think. “Well, not quite, Jisung,” he chokes out, trying to stifle his remaining giggles. “It’s when two people who love each other very much get together officially. Marriage can be between a woman and a man, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Any two people can get married.”

Three small heads bob their heads in understanding.

“I wanted to ask you three if you would be okay with me marrying Y/N.” Chan looks each of the boys in the eye. “Is it?”

Felix nods quickly. “Yes!”

Jisung furrows his eyebrows. “Are we still going to live together?”

Chan smiles. “Yes, Sungie.”

The other twin nods. “Okay!”

Hyunjin’s mouth pouts slightly. “Will I have to call you Papa?”

A little piece of Chan’s heart breaks, but he tries not to show it. “No, of course not, Hyunjin.” He smiles as brightly as he can. “You can keep calling me Channie or Uncle Channie or whatever you want. You don’t have to call me Papa if you don’t want to.”

Hyunjin’s round, dark eyes gaze into his with a solemnity Chan honestly didn’t know toddlers could have. “Do you want me to call you Papa?”

Oh, fuck.

What the hell does Chan say to that?

With a sigh, he decides to be honest. “I would love it if you did, Hyunjin, but like I said, you don’t have to. I’ll never force you to do something you really don’t want to.”

There are a few seconds of silence, then Hyunjin nods. “Okay. You can marry my Mama.”

A weight lifts itself off of Chan’s chest and he smiles, freer this time. “Thank you, kids. One more thing – don’t tell Y/N about this!” He looks into each of their eyes, trying to convey how serious he is but in a fun way. “It’s a secret, okay?”

“Like a spy mission?” Jisung bounces in excitement.

The smile on his face widens. “Yes, Sungie. Like a spy mission.” He looks at the other two boys. “Do you promise? Pinky promise?” He holds out his pinkie.

The three resulting shouts of “YES!” make Chan hope their neighbors won’t come knocking. But even if they did, Chan thinks, he wouldn’t care.

He’d go to the ends of the earth to defend these three kids, after all.

. . . . .

Step three goes by in a flash. Out of sheer anxiety, Chan actually takes a full day off from work and calls Minho for help in finding the perfect ring.

Miraculously, he finds something within his budget range – a silver band with a small diamond set in the center. It’s simple but elegant, and the diamond glints beautifully in the sunlight. Really, the ring matches the way Chan often finds himself summing up your existence.

So only the last step remains: the actual proposal.

Looking back, Chan has no idea why he thought each of the other steps was so stressful. This is pure stress, he thinks, waiting for the perfect time to pop the question. Should he plan something extravagant? Or should he just go with the flow? When is the perfect time, anyway? What constitutes “perfect” in your mind? In his?

Minho just tells him to wait for the moment he thinks is “right.” But what the hell does “right” even mean?

“You’ll figure it out.” The dancer gives Chan a bright grin, patting his shoulder. “And if you don’t, I’ll tear you limb from limb.”

Chan just puts his face in his hands and screams.

. . . . .

When Chan proposes, the sky is dark. The kids are already tucked in bed, and you’re sitting on the couch, leaning into his shoulder as you mindlessly scroll through your phone.

Absently strumming his guitar, Chan smiles down at your face, illuminated by your phone’s glow. As if sensing him staring, you look up as well. “Sing me something?” you murmur.

“Of course, love.” He leans down to kiss the top of your head. “What song?”

“Anything you choose,” you reply. “Anything.”

Chan thinks for a moment, then starts strumming the instrument.

Softly, with mood, tightly hug her

Use it once a day, every day…

When your eyes meet hers, smile.

The characteristic chords of one of your favorite songs make you relax even further into Chan’s body, a smile blooming across your face. He badly wants to stop playing and just kiss you good and full, but he keeps his fingers strumming the guitar.

Let her breathe under a different sky, a different wind,

Sometimes, kiss her without a plan…

Chan almost stops playing.

Without a plan.

He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have any proper plan on how he’s going to pull the little box out of his pocket and ask the question. But now…

Maybe he’s got an idea.

The final chords die away, and Chan finally gets his long-awaited kiss when you sit up lethargically, pressing your lips to his softly. “Are you awake enough for one more?” he whispers when you pull away.

“Mm, one more.” You nod happily, snuggling back into his side. “Then sleep.”

Chan takes a breath. One chance, Chan. This is your chance.

His fingers start strumming a song very familiar by now to him and the boys. From the way your eyes light up, you recognize it too.

It doesn’t have words. It’s just a collection of guitar chords, hastily arranged in a sweet, rough melody. In the track version, it would have piano, but because Chan only has two hands, he has to make do with just the strings of the guitar.

It’s the first song he ever wrote for his twins, the song he created that day so many years ago when they weren’t even born, when they were still kicking in their mother’s stomach. They think of it as their family song, the song he plays when the twins are sad, when they can’t get to sleep, or when they just want to hear something nice.

The last strains of the song fade away and Chan looks at you to see a tear glittering on your cheek. “You play that when the boys are sad,” is all you say. “It’s your family song.”

Chan smiles softly. “But you’re part of the family too.”

When he pulls out the box, your eyes widen. “Chan –”

“Shh.” He presses a finger gently to your lips. “Y/N, the past few years you’ve been with me have been some of the best of my life, and I can’t ever thank you enough for staying with me all this time.” There’s a tear welling up in Chan’s eye, but he blinks it away. “I would love to spend the rest of my life with you, if you would marry me.”

There’s a moment of silence that nearly gives Chan a heart attack. What if you say no?

“You – you stupid romantic sap.” The tears are really sliding down your cheeks now, but your mouth is smiling wide. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you, Chan. I’ll marry you.”

Chan can’t speak as he slides the ring onto your finger with trembling hands. Throat choked, he can only pull you close, burying his face in your shoulder as your tears soak his shirt. “I love you so much,” you whisper.

He pulls back just enough for to see your eyes sparkling with love, so much love. Your touch intoxicates him, with your fingers pressing gently against his skin as you press your lips to his in a sweet, sweet kiss.

Yes, he thinks. You’re the right partner for him.

The perfect partner for him.

Teary-eyed, he smiles. “I love you too.”

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 congratulations for the newly engaged couple!!!)

#inkidz #destinyverse #kpopscape #stray kids #skz #stray kids chan #chan #skz chan #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids oneshots #skz scenarios #stray kids chan scenarios #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #stray kids chan x reader #skz chan x reader #bang chan x reader #chan x reader #fluff #triggers #cursing #single parent!au #breathe and live #you look so lovely darling (I'll love you for lifetimes) #scriptura-delirus

[monkberries]

So here goes: Personally I find Paul to be hot with a beard. But it annoys me because there’s always some Paul stan who’s like “he was super depressed during that time you know” anytime someone says how hot he looks with a beard. Like first of all, I don’t think we should go around diagnosing people and assuming how he felt 24/7 just based on a couple of quotes when we don’t know him, and second of all I was just saying he looks good. Also idk why Paul stans want to pretend like Paul is STILL a victim when he’s definitely not. He’s a super successful billionaire musician. He’s fine.

I'm going to assume all four of these were from the same anon; I received another along these same lines that seems to be from someone else:

OKAY. There's a lot here.

As I've said before, I think the concept you are both talking about - that Paul is the favourite, that people will attack you if you criticize him, that people are vilifying John more now - is true, but is also a matter of perspective. I think sometimes we perceive the whole fandom as just the people we're surrounded by; that can be true in smaller fandoms, like for obscure shows or whatever, but for the Beatles, the fandom is so much bigger and more spread out across generations, social media platforms, and works of literature than almost any other fandom. There are literally thousands upon thousands of books either about or tangentially about the Beatles; there are pockets on every platform from tumblr to twitter to podcasts to instagram to facebook etc., and it branches off even more niche within those to like, facebook groups specifically for podcasts about the Beatles, or discord servers, or livejournal threads, or music forums, or fics on ao3. There are fansites with thoughtful speculative articles like heydullblog and blogs specifically reviewing Beatle books like beatlebioreview and sites cataloging every bit of minutiae like the Beatles Bible, all with their own flavor of comment sections. And not only that, the Beatles fandom spans generations and cultures in a way that almost nothing else ever has or ever will.

And this is not even going into the shifting narratives that have been in play over the years surrounding Paul specifically, and the huge, huge difference between the perceptions of him by the authors and the Counterculture People, the perceptions of him by regular ass Wings fans who have only idly flipped through Rolling Stone while waiting in line at the local bodega, and the perceptions of him by everyone in between, who may or may not have been unconsciously influenced by the wider narratives about him.

All that is to make the case that the fandom that you are experiencing on tumblr/twitter is an extremely small fraction of The Fandom at large. For every Paul stan on twitter that yells at people for not believing that Paul literally invented music, there is a John stan in a facebook group going on about John's supposedly tireless peace efforts. For every nuanced, well sourced post on amoralto's blog, there is someone in the Beatles Bible comment section saying that John and Paul hated each other. For every fan who's read the major Beatles bios with a critical eye towards bias, there are plenty more fans who just absorbed them as straight fact. This is not to say that your experiences are not real or valid! They absolutely are! What I am saying is that there are infinite permutations of infinite Beatles fandoms out there, and the people you see who insist that Paul is still treated worse than John, I would imagine, are occupying various permutations of the fandom where that is more true, alongside the one they share with you. It's not for me to say whether the Paul or John people have the upper hand on the whole - truly, I don't think anyone has enough perspective on the whole fandom to make any judgment on that, no matter what general Grand Pronouncements anyone may make about The Fandom.

As I've said before, any overly defensive "stan" behavior, whether it's for John or Paul or George or anyone, is exhausting to me, so I definitely understand where you're coming from re: him being supposedly underrated. He is literally one of the most successful musicians of all time; as of the beginning of this year, he is worth 1.2 billion dollars; and, thanks to his own efforts and the efforts of quite a few fans and writers out there over the decades, he now enjoys an incredibly positive "granddude" reputation. There are ways in which it can be exasperating to read yet another indignant refutation of music reviews for RAM that came out fifty years ago, when his last three albums have hit the top 3 in the charts in both the US and the UK and have gotten great reviews. I have seen people wonder, honestly wonder, how much more money Paul could have made, how much more respected he could have been, if the rock press had been inclined to give RAM good reviews. When I see that, it does start to feel like fans of Paul, at least the defensive ones in the fandom permutations I occupy, are arguing with the author photo of Philip Norman in the book jacket for Shout!. It's not that I think those arguments and discussions are not worth having; I do think they're worth having because I believe that the only way we can continue to grow is if we grapple with the mistakes made in the past. But there is a strange kind of disconnect that happens when you read about someone indignantly defending Wild Life as though the members of Wings are currently, actively having eggs and rotten fruit thrown at them, and then you remember that Paul is currently, and has been for many years now, one of the richest men in the entire world.

As for the misogyny thing, I'll copy and paste a quote from Erin Weber which may explain a little better than I can:

"Where it starts entering into serious discussion for me is when you have professional grown men (Schaffner would be the most glaring example of this, but not the only one) repeatedly using the term “pretty” or “pretty-faced” to refer to another grown man. (Norman does the same). Schaffner doesn’t only do that once or twice, he uses one of those exact words at least fifteen times in his references to McCartney. “Pretty-boy” is also a term that at least one journalist has used to describe Paul, and that’s not a stealth insult: that’s an overt one. (My husband, who hates the Yankees, routinely used the term “pretty-boy” to insult Alex Rodriguez. And it wasn’t meant as a compliment).

My reaction to this is based both on studies that I’m aware of (I’d have to hunt them up, but I’ve seen them referenced before) which argue that the use of feminized language can be a method of stealth insult/diminishment when used by men to describe other men, and my own personal experience. It is difficult to see a situation where a grown man using the term “pretty” or any variation of the word “pretty” to describe another grown man means it as a compliment. Even if its purely meant as a descriptive term, it is a descriptive term that is weighted with significant meaning and is feminizing. And given the rock press’s obsession with masculinity and its insistence, as noted in other studies, of using masculine terms to portray a song as good and feminizing terms to describe them as weak or inferior, I don’t think its a coincidence that a rock press that knew well the power of masculine and feminine language commonly used feminized language, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, to describe McCartney."

I personally see this more as pseudo-homophobic than pseudo-misogynistic (like, when I see a man called "pretty" by another man in an insulting way, I immediately think "oh, that author wanted to say a gay slur but he's too Professional"), but the two things can get muddled together, I suppose.

Anyway, actionable items:

Diversify Your Fan Experience. More perspectives can really help gain a fuller understanding of not just the fandom but the Beatles themselves. Don't be afraid to be wrong, and don't be afraid to be right; always be open to learning new things and hearing new insights.

If All Else Fails, Block 'Em.

#macca #anonymous #i guess this is #hot take tuesday #? #even though its thursday night #about the blogger #for reference

[bombshellbois]

Mommy Issues

@harringroveweekoflove

Harringrove Week of Love Day 4: School Dance

Rating: T

Words: 1633

Summary: Steve and Billy have a philosophical discussion that they're both way too sober to have.

“Are you a Mama Bird or a Mama Bear?”

The question comes way too early in the dance when the kids are only just barely beginning to cross party lines and venture into the neutral ground that is the dance floor. Steve has only had one cup of punch and he barely spiked it because he’s trying to make the flask in his jacket pocket last. So he still feels way too sober for this brand of bullshit. 

“Hargrove,” he sighs. “We’re the only people between the ages of 16 and 40 at this dance.” He doesn’t have a follow up for that. He could end it with ‘Could you not be a dick?’ but he’s honestly not sure that’s in the cards when it’s Billy. Sure, he’s trying to be ‘better’ in some vague and unidentified way, and he is here with Steve acting as emergency chaperones for the school dance since there’s a shortage of people willing to be out after dark in this town these days. He just still doesn’t do the ‘nice’ thing. Ever. So Steve just kind of leaves the sentiment hanging and hopes Billy takes something away from it. 

“Please. You’re a 40-year-old woman at heart,” Billy scoffs, pulling a cigarette from the packet in the breast pocket of his white dress shirt. Which looks annoyingly good on him. He even buttoned it all the way up. Steve isn’t sure if that’s because of the formal setting or the scar on his chest, but the end result is the same. Billy Hargrove can absolutely pull off shirts with high collars and Steve has to live with that knowledge. “So. Are you a Mama Bird or a Mama Bear?”

“Dude, I don’t even know what that means,” Steve groans. “I’m not a mom at all.” Glorified babysitter who doesn’t actually get paid and spends more time fighting monsters than trying to monitor who’s watching a scrambled porn channel, sure. Mom? No way. 

“I saw that dish towel over your shoulder at Byers’ place. You’re a mom.” Billy looks at his cigarette like he’s really contemplating lighting it. 

“You can’t smoke in here.” Steve realizes a moment too late how that sounded, and Billy is already grinning widely. No taking that back now. 

“Yes, Mama Steve,” he says, tucking the cigarette behind his ear. 

Steve downs the rest of his punch. He’s kind of surprised that Billy remembers he was wearing a towel over his shoulder almost a year ago when he’d be hard-pressed to remember a single thing Billy was wearing that night, much less some accessory. But then again, he’s pretty sure he got a concussion that night too so… that probably has something to do with it. 

Halfway through the night, Mike and El have ventured out onto the dance floor. They’re probably a little too warm and snuggly for Hopper’s preferences but he’s been remanded to staying home and watching The Magnificent Seven again. Steve has no doubt he’s watching the clock to get a head start on beating the traffic on that 9 pm pickup time. 

Dustin and Will are huddled in the safety of the boys’ side of the gymnasium, heads together like they’re forming some kind of strategy. Except they never actually make any attempt to move or anything. Steve isn’t even sure if Dustin has permission to dance at this thing. Long-distance relationships have too many nuances and kudos to Dustin for trying one right out the gate. He’s a brave kid. 

Max and Lewis are loitering by the punch bowl and every time Max makes a vague motion towards the dance floor, Lucas appears to look around and then decline. Steve pauses in his kid check to follow one of Lucas’s covert glances to where Billy is staring the kid down from across the room. Well, that’s probably something he’s gonna have to deal with because who else is going to? 

Steve comes back to stand beside Billy, pulling the flask from his pocket and offering it up. “So… what does that stuff mean?” he asks, because he has to make conversation about something, and what do he and Billy even have to talk about that’s not horrifying? 

Billy reluctantly pulls his eyes away from where he’s glaring at Lucas. “What?”

“Bears and birds. What was that about?”

Billy takes the flask, shakes it experimentally, and pours a large amount into his cup of punch. Steve’s hopes of even getting a mild buzz to offset the pain of this whole affair drain into Billy’s cup with too much of his stash. “Christ, Harrington, didn’t you even pass the animal chapter in biology?”

This is going great. “Pretend I slept through most of it.”

Billy rolls his eyes and takes a sip from his punch. Then he empties the flask into it entirely before handing it back to Steve. “You some kind of superhero or something?”

“Sorry?” Steve tucks the empty flask back away, making a mental note to never try and share with Billy again. 

“No parents, no sleeping, chasing monsters with a fucking bat…”

“I’ve got parents.”

Billy takes a longer sip from his punch and sighs out through his nose. “You’ve got landlords. That’s what you’ve got.”

Steve takes a breath. Counts to five. Reminds himself that dealt with a Russian interrogator for longer than he’s dealt with Billy so far, and if that didn’t kill him then neither will this. And he only has to deal with him for another 90 minutes. 

“What’s the difference between a Mama Bird and a Mama Bear?” he asks again. 

Billy looks him up and down, and for a second, Steve thinks he’s going to refuse. Make some snide comment and put them right back at the place they’ve been stuck for weeks and months now, with Billy hovering around the edges of Steve’s life while trying to re-integrate himself with Max. Seems like if anything, he’s at least realized that Max is something good in his life and that he’s a little short on good things so he should probably hold onto that. 

“It’s like… a mama bear is gonna protect her kid, right? Baby bears are all cute and hikers think they can just go pet it because it’s friendly and then the mom shows up and rips them apart,” Billy says. Steve is sure he notices that Max grabs Lucas’s hand and drags him onto the dance floor, but he doesn’t comment on it, and that’s some growth right there. 

“That’s horrifying,” Steve says in a conversational tone that implies he understands and Billy should continue. 

“Where the mama bird straight up shoves her kids out of the nest so they’ll learn to fly.”

“That’s… also horrifying,” Steve says, in a new tone that implies that… that’s horrifying. “Mama birds are assholes.”

“You gotta show the kids the door sometime, or they’ll sit in the nest forever and eventually starve when winter comes,” Billy says, like that somehow makes it less terrible. Send a kid plummeting towards the ground to teach them to leave home? Nest. Whatever. 

“Well, I wanna be the bear then.” 

Billy looks him over, a look on his face that Steve can’t for the life of him decipher. “Yeah. You are a Mama Bear, aren’t you? You chase all the monsters away.”

Steve shrugs. “I mean, I’m not gonna leave that up to Dustin. Have you ever seen him swing anything? That kid is a goalie at best.” And not a great goalie either. Passable, but he’s definitely not someone you trust with hitting anything. 

“What happens when the monsters come and Mama Steve left for college?” Billy presses. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” Steve has a stack of college rejection letters that speak to that, but Billy doesn’t need to know that. But he’s also stopped applying because one, he’s not smart enough to get in. Obviously. And two, seriously, none of these kids can get any power behind a swing. Someone with a decent batting average has to be around. “You talk like you’d rather throw a kid off a ledge and hope for the best.”

“Yeah, because that’s how you find out if they’re gonna make it,” Billy says, taking another swig from his punch. 

Steve doesn’t think that’s remotely true. Billy is no bird, even if he’d like to be. He did a lot of damage overstepping every boundary ever while he was trying to keep an eye on Max, and maybe he’s scared of doing it again. Maybe. They don’t exactly talk about stuff like fear and emotions. Or much of anything unless they’re really bored and forced to make conversation because they’re stuck around a bunch of kids. Conversations like this feel like poking the surface of a lake with a stick and trying to guess where the deep parts are.

Steve kind of wants to ask if Billy was once the baby bird in this weird National Geographic metaphor they have going. He doesn’t because he thinks he knows the answer and he also thinks that Billy will probably take a swing at him if he pokes. They’re not there yet, and Steve hasn’t figured out if they’re heading there or not. 

“Well I know they’re gonna make it,” Steve says, taking Billy's cup of punch and draining it because he really needs at least a bare-bones burn down the back of his throat to finish this conversation. “Because I’m gonna be here.”

Billy eyes him, but he doesn’t argue. Eventually, he just scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m kicking all of these brats out of Hawkins when they go to college. We’re not staying in this hick monster town forever.” 

Now that is a level of Mama Bird that Steve can work with. “Deal.”

#my writing #harringrove week of love #harringrove #billy/steve #post s3 except everyone stayed and Billy lived #which basically makes this wish fulfillment #who am I kidding anything where Billy lived is wish fulfillment #Billy is trying he's just not very good yet. at anything. #neither of these two are qualified to be chaperones except in Hawkins

[cdyssey]

“Lyra’s Jordan” Reaction:

Hello!! I just recently got into the His Dark Materials series, and now that I’m almost done with the The Subtle Knife, I wanted to start the first season of the show! It caught my eye on Tumblr and made me want to start the books in turn. I’ve heard such good things about the series, and I’m keen to see what it does with this gorgeous world of Pullman’s.

DJDJS, nooooo, not the expositional text scrawl. I get it. You have to introduce people to this world, but still.

OH, it’s Asriel, Stelmaria, and Lyra!!!!!

Aughshsh, baby Lyra smiling at the Master. 😭

Lmao, the canon of Asriel literally just dropping his baby off at a college is objectively the funniest thing in the world. The Master is just like, Wtf? What is wrong with you, man? (To which the right answer, ofc, is a lot of things.)

OH, Dafne Keen is already everything I’ve ever wanted in a Lyra adaptation. Playful, witty, adventurous, (currently) carefree. The type of girl who has no qualms playing with a skeleton’s bones.

And I’m also really glad we get to see these shots of Lyra and Roger playing together. It feels like such a real childhood friendship.

Ooooooh, the show’s letting us see what Asriel’s up to even when Lyra’s not around, which I think is a great move. In the book, Asriel really only showed up at the beginning and end, so having some extra content to help flesh out his character is nice.

Whoa! The title credits and score are so pretty. They remind me of the ones from The Crown.

The Librarian’s fond smile at Lyra when she says please is wonderful. And then she yeets out JSJSJSJSJS. Perfect Lyra.

“The retiring room is expressly forbidden!” / “Not for family reunions.” SJSJSJ.

The Master’s hand shaking as he pours the poison into the Tokay. 🥺

They did such a good job capturing Stelmaria’s air of elegance and regality. I love her VA!!!

God @ Asriel pinning Lyra down. You suck. When I was reading the book, I didn’t know what to think of him until this precise moment, which shaded all my impressions of him from there on out.

(Holistically, tho, I actually do love both his and Mrs. Coulter’s characters. They’re both stunningly vile, but Pullman invests them with such interesting nuances that they’re genuinely two of the most electric characters in a series full of electric characters.)

God @ Lyra rubbing her shoulder after Asriel lets her go. Worst. Father. Of. The. Year.

“I’m sure he had a good reason. To be honest with you, if I were him, I would be afraid of me.” / Huh, I don’t remember if these lines were in the book, but the self-awareness here is really interesting. Asriel knows that he’s playing with dangerous fires, and he’s still doing it anyway.

That sweater on Asriel? And that little gray curl in his hair? Hot damn.

A subtle worldbuilding detail that the show was spot on to pay attention to is how all of the Scholars are essentially old men.

Between Asriel and Dr. Malone, Pullman really understands how much of academia runs on asking for grants hahahaha.

OH, MY GOD. IS THAT MA COSTA.

SHE’S SO WARM AND LOVELY AND OH MY GOD. BILLY. HE’S SO SMALL. JESUS.

And the inclusion of this little coming of age ceremony is beautiful. 😭 The Gyptians are so wonderfully communal.

BILLY 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭.

Aufh, Asriel carrying a sleeping Lyra to bed. That’s so soft.

Ur still a shitty father, tho.

But you’re a nuanced man, and I appreciate that.

Lyra waking up and smiling gently in realization. Asriel untying her shoes. Oh, my g o d.

“Can I see the man’s head?” / “No, why would I let you do that?” KWEODIDJ.

This Master and Librarian conversation has me tender. They both care for Lyra so much.

Lyra desperately pleading for Asriel to take her with him. 😭😭 And Asriel’s response: “I am sorry, but I just don’t have time for you right now.”

GOD.

“Did it look like this?” / “What?” / “The airship that my parents died in.” / “No. No, it was smaller.” Jesus.

Something that got me from the books, and that gets me here, too, is that the adults in Lyra’s life had had a similar refrain. “A college is no place for a child.” “The North is no place for a child.” And because these are the only paradigms that Lyra knows, whether through experience or imagination, the most consistent lesson that she’s ever been taught is that there is no place where she belongs.

JOHN FAA!! I love him.

And man, I’m really appreciating the way the show is paying close attention to the Gyptians, who are marginalized in their world. The way that they’re organizing to look for Billy just has me feeling some type of way.

OH? Lord Boreal!!??

“That includes her.” IT’S TIME.

I’m not going to lie. The Tumblr gif that got me interested in the series was a set of Ruth Wilson acting her ass off, so I’m ready to be hurt by her in so many more ways than one.

LMAO, this evil theme at her power walk entrance. Perfect.

The golden monkey!! He looks so deceptively cute here.

It is insane how much Dafne and Ruth weirdly favor each other. If you told me that they were really related, I’d actually believe you.

Thinks about how this is the first time Mrs. Coulter has seen her daughter in, like 12 years.

Also, ooooh, the Master in the background is intently monitoring the conversation because he knows how significant it is, and ofc, he’s absolutely wary of Mrs. C.

She’s so soft-spoken here. 😭

AUGH, and her reaching up to briefly stroke Lyra’s cheek.

“You feel utterly alone. And you feel utterly... magnificent.”

Lyra’s wide-eyed adoration of Mrs. C breaks my heart. It only makes the revelation of her true nature all the more awful. Though she doesn’t know it at this point, Lyra looks up to both of her parents, and both of them so completely fail her.

Wow, in the show, is the implication is that Mrs. Coulter gets Roger kidnapped because Lyra talked about him to her??????? Brutal.

OH, GOD. RUTH WILSON’S FACE AT LYRA UNRESTRAINEDLY HUGGING HER FOR THE FIRST TIME. THE SURPRISE, the CONFUSION, the TENDERNESS.

Roger. 😭

Ma Costa sobbing and Tony hugging her oh my g o d. I’m upset. It is no coincidence that this scene almost comes directly on the heels of the Mrs. Coulter/Lyra hug. The juxtaposition is bonechilling. Mrs. Coulter is partaking in the joys of motherhood for the first time, and Ma Costa is contending with the grief of missing a child directly because of everything that Mrs. Coulter is doing.

“Lord Asriel himself brought it to the college when you were just a baby.” Cue the Master and Librarian smiling fondly at their little Lyra, remembering. 🥺

Lyra frantically shrieking for Roger stings. The show did an excellent job of capturing their friendship—honestly, better than the books I would argue.

“BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN A GOOD AND STRONG MOTHER TO HIM, MAGGIE.” I’m crying a little at this line because my name is Maggie, and so now I love Ma Costa even more if that’s at all possible.

John Faa’s casting is pitch perfect. He’s authoritative and stern but so caring and compassionate at the same time.

In an alternate universe, Mrs. Coulter and Lyra track down the Gobblers would be such a badass plot line.

“We’ll have plenty of time to discuss whenever you wish.” Wow, this line echoes Asriel’s from earlier: “I am sorry, but I just don’t have time for you right now.” But the irony is that they’re both saying nearly the same thing. Mrs. Coulter may say this, but she absolutely doesn’t mean it.

OH, the complexities here!! The monkey noticing that Lyra shoves the alethiometer deeper into her pocket, Pan noticing the monkey growling, and then Mrs. Coulter looking up. Such quick but charged moments.

What a magnificent first episode. I’m already hooked.

#his dark materials #lyra silvertongue #marisa coulter #lord asriel #ma costa #roger #john faa #f: his dark materials #reginian blogs #maggie blogs

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

bro I sent the matt/kate ask and you gave me kate/frank feelings so like if you want to can I have that as well?

How dare you. i have been waiting for years to be asked about frankate (also i feel the need to clarify that this is very specifically Nazar-fic-Kate)

What was their first impression of each other?

“this fucking idiot” basically. they meet when Matt is chained to the roof and Kate is like “pls stop terrorizing my bf” and frank is like “your bf is a moron”

What is their ship name?

Frankate...frankkate? anything that’s a chess pun (bishop...castle...get it...)

in my WIPs they’re spooks and snipers

Describe their relationship dynamic.

Kate: FRANK NO

Frank: FRANK YES

it’s honestly a lot of philosophical discussions about killing people, Frank calling Kate out on her bullshit, and Kate acting as an impulse check. One of the BIG THINGS with this relationship is Kate realizing that Frank can and will kill someone if she asks him to, no questions asked, and that is both terrifying and a turn on. The fact that Frank trusts her moral compass so completely--he realizes that he’s a little fucked up when it comes to that, so he will look to her for the thumbs up/thumbs down kind of thing. 

like. to the point Kate has to kick Frank out of a fancy Bishop party because if he stays she knows she’ll ask him to kill her dad and he WILL.

What was their relationship like before they got together?

once they got done bitching at each other over Daredevil (and Kate yelled at him a LOT) they worked pretty well together? Kate helped Frank figure out the drug smuggling thing (turns out Derek Bishop was involved with that). They would get each other coffee and check in with each other’s mental health. Frank is very soft with her, in a lot of ways. But also not, they did beat each other up at least once and Frank shot her very much on purpose but they always were fond of each other. 

once they meet back up after Matt ~dies~ they’re....really, really good for each other. Kate feels like she’s able to be honest with Frank in a way she can’t be with anyone else, because what the hell could she say that would scandalize Frank? She doesn’t need to step lightly around him because Frank’s never stepped lightly in his life. Kate feeling like she has more leeway to be brutally honest around Frank means he feels freer to be honest around her, and she’s seen some shit so he respects her in a way he doesn’t respect a lot of people. 

Kate gets to be angry around Frank in a way she can’t with anyone else, except maybe Clint, and that’s really important.

They both like coffee and dogs, i mean, what more do you need

How would they describe each other?

Kate: That asshole

Frank: fuckin’ fed

What do they love about each other?

absolutely nothing. they barely even know each other! what are you talking about?? go away.

they love how fighty the other is, even if it drives them crazy. the inability to leave well enough alone, the willingness to do stupid stuff together.

What do they have in common?

WEAPONS. Kate doesn’t use guns professionally but she does love going to a range every now and then. Kate knows bows and grenade launchers and long range rifles, but doesn’t care for handguns. so there’s a lot of very sexually charged shooting dates where Kate lets Frank put his hands on her and around her to correct her grip, and he knows she’s just letting him, for the most part, but they both like it. she teaches him how to use a bow, and he’s terrible. it doesn’t help that Kate smells really good and she’s very very close and he’s never going to need to know how to shoot a recurve, so he doesn’t feel bad about not paying attention. Kate has general gun knowledge so he gets super obscure stuff to teach her how to shoot. like a musket, or the kind of rifle you’d take down a hippo with, something with a shitton of recoil so he can brace her against him. He’s not a proud man, okay, he’ll take his excuses to hold Kate close in public wherever he can

Frank likes dressing Kate up in body armor and Kate likes dressing Frank up in sweaters and suits. 

Also dogs. The have Lucky, and the dog Frank rescues. Kate names him something terrible. Like Charm (lucky and charm, get it?) or (apple) Jack (lucky charms and apple jacks) or Oberon

What are some differences between them?

Frank is very willing to kill. Kate is not. Frank is very mission-oriented--he’s a soldier, he gets a job, he does it. Kate’s been a leader, she’s worked with bureaucracy, she thinks about the optics of situations (yes it makes sense to have a shootout on the boardwalk but perhaps we could go to a less family-friendly location?)

What made them realize they were in love?

almost losing each other--or thinking they were almost losing each other. also, the day Sarah Lieberman kisses Frank. That’s when Frank has the realization of “okay, the kissing, that’s fine, but there’s actually someone specific I’d like to do this with” and with Kate it was more like “ (: i’m so happy ((: frank has found some happiness. i am not jealous of him kissing someone else (((: that would be silly”

What are their love languages?

so much physical affection. so much wound bandaging. Frank bringing Kate coffee to work or food to a stakeout. Beating up muggers together. Cooking together, they’re so disgustingly domestic. cuddling. all the time cuddling. hands in back pockets, pinkies linked, Frank just COCOONS her in bed (which is not to say Kate is always the little spoon. Frank loves being little spoon every now and then) they both get very octopus-limbed with each other. “if i’m plastered to you you can’t leave without me” kind of thing. they’re lowkey possessive

Do they get married? Who proposes and how?

Frank proposes, but getting to that point is a team effort, yanno? They're out in LA and Kate's in the kitchen stock still because she's living??? With Frank castle??? And kind of has been for a WHILE? And Frank's wrestling with Lucky and Kate suddenly realizes she loves him so much and there's like pasta boiling on the stove and its domestic and unexciting and neither of them are bleeding and Kate sort of dazedly says “hey Frank, would you be interested in getting married someday?”

and Frank doesn’t answer, just rummages around in one of his bags, pulls out a small box that he tosses to her. Inside is a ring. “took you long enough,” he says

What would happen if they never met?

they’re both very sad and depressed. i feel like being with Kate gives Frank more moral nuance and being with Frank makes Kate rawer, in a way. So without each other, they are really closed off emotionally. Kind of frozen.

Who dies first? How does the other one react?

Woooof ok Frank probably dies first and Kate is fucking FURIOUS about it. It's not unexpected because hes the punisher for god's sake, and he's older than her by almost a decade but still

It could happen, though, that Kate dies first, sudden and unexpected. And Frank loses. His. Shit. Idk who kills her, Fisk or Masque or Russo or all three, but you can bet your ass Frank gets his bloody revenge. And he doesn't technically kill himself, but he's reckless and gets shot a lot and bleeds out on Kate's grave. Yeah.

Are there any love rivals?

BILLY RUSSO, Totes makes a move on Kate, and also he’s in love with Frank so there’s that. 

Matt isn’t really a rival? In a perfect world they’re ot3 but do not ask me how we get from Matt pretending to be dead to a happy healthy polyamorous relationship, i don’t know

Describe your favorite moment of that ship!

the pining! the mutual yearning! and both of them are like “this is not a good time for a relationship” and then the dumb jealousy! Frank is jealous of Billy Russo, who is trying to get Kate to work for him, and Kate is jealous of Micro’s wife, Sarah, when she kisses Frank, the YEARNING

What do other characters think about this relationship?

“What. the hap. is fuckening”

Micro gets it, he thinks they’re idiots and adorable af, you know, for people who are such deadly shots, but most of the people on Kate’s side of the equation just don’t get it or think Frank’s a rebound. America and Cassie are the first ones to realize he’s sticking around.

Karen’s not to sure about them, but she likes them both and thinks they’re good for each other. 

Curtis think they’re both morons (fond) but in different ways so they balance out.

Most people on Frank’s side of the equation get it. People on Kate’s side are like “you went from self-castigating catholic lawyer to vengeance-fueled murder machine, are you ok?” 

Describe or write a really fluffy scene!

ohhhh ok so this is. probably one of my favorite scenes ever. not because it’s particularly well-written, but because i like the idea behind it

Kate has her legs wrapped around Frank, her arms draped over his shoulders as they watch the sun set over the ocean. He is very much a person to drape oneself over.

"Frank," she says, a touch of reverence in her voice as the light catches something. "Frank."

"What?"

"You've got grey hair."

"The fuck? Seriously, Spook, you gotta point that out when we're doing the romantic thing?"

Kate wraps her hands around his skull, tipping it this way and that. It's hard to tell when he has it this short but—yeah. It's there. Kate swallows down an unexpected lump in her throat as Frank continues to bitch until she drapes herself more over his shoulder and turns his head so she can shut him up with a kiss.

Kisses.

A lot of kisses, actually.

"Jesus," he pulls back after a minute, the pad of his thumb rough on her cheek as he swipes at the moisture under her eyes. "You cryin' over some grey hairs?"

"I didn't think you'd stick around long enough for me to see them," she admits.

"Not goin' anywhere, Spook. You're stuck with me."

He's not getting it. Kate presses her forehead against his, her fingers finding the spot where a bullet entered his head and changed his life. "Frank, I didn't think you'd be alive long enough to get them."

Describe or write a really angsty scene!

how about matt comes back aftermath

“You’re not going to make me choose?” Kate’s voice slips out of neutral, into something like hope. Not the kind of thing she’d ever thought Frank would be suggesting, but--

“I’m not gonna make you choose, no.” He smiles at her, a wrong kind of smile, and turns slowly, heading towards the door. His hand is on the knob before her brain processes this enough to send words to her mouth.

“Where—what are you doing, Frank?”

He doesn’t face her. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re—leaving.” The words feel strange, they sour in her mouth and panic wraps brittle fingers around her throat, choking her. “Why—are you leaving?”

“I just said, Spook. Not gonna make you pick.”

Realization and rage burn through her, bright and quick. “So you’re leaving? You’re not making me choose because you’re doing the choosing for me?”

“That’s what you want.”

“No it’s not! Stop making decisions for me! I don’t—I don’t know what I want, yeah, but I know what I don’t want!”

“You told me you still love him. Best thing is for me to go.” He says it with no inflection, as if he wasn’t ripping Kate’s heart out and his too.

“No, I don’t want you to leave! You leaving is the opposite of what I want because what I want--” her voice breaks. “Is for you to stay. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want you to leave, Frank. I love him, but he left me. He hurt me. And I love you, too. And I like you, which is more important, sometimes, and you helped me when I couldn’t find myself, you just—you let me be, you let me be angry and ugly and awful and you didn’t make me apologize for it or feel sorry about it, or guilty. And I owe you for that—that’s not why I want you to stay, but if you do stay because of it—god, that’s bad, right?” She takes a shaky breath. “Frank. Please stay. I want you to stay.”

Talk about a headcanon you’ve never talked about before.

Frank poses as Kate’s bodyguard when she’s Kate Bishop, heiress who doesn’t know self defense. They were at a party and Kate’s sister Susan was like “huh, you look a lot like mass murderer frank castle, there, pal.”

and of course frank says no he’s not he gets that a lot, and Susan gets right up close to him and says “i don’t care who you are, i just see how my little sister looks at you, and if you break her heart like the last guy did i will litigate your ass into the ground, sir. the GROUND”

also, like, an entire 1920s mafia au where derek is the man behind frank’s family being killed (which is why frank is working for him) and he’s kate’s bodyguard and he covers for her sneaking out and kicking ass

What does a typical date look like for them?

not to be basic but walking dogs and drinking coffee together. stopping a drug deal along the way. going to a shooting range. 

What’s a really significant moment in their relationship?

Frank gets roped into being Kate’s backup on a SHIELD mission. Frank takes a shot at the target and Kate’s pissed because she was supposed to take the shot, and it’s this whole thing. About Kate being angry that Frank could have been made and Frank being angry that Kate wouldn’t take the shot, putting herself in danger, and both of them are just PISSED until they realize that both of them are just AFRAID and FRANTIC. they’re both just like “what would I do if something happened to you?? huh???

#Anonymous #kate bishop #hawkeye #young avengers #frank castle #frankate #my stuff #god i have a lot of feelings about these two #i am working on the other ones i PROMISE!!!

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Disaster Lads: The Inevitable

The third part of my AU collab with @whumpiary where Cass (Ace) and Kauri meet. Read Part One and Part Two for context! 

In Part Three, things heat up, get angsty, and then there’s a surprise at the end you’ve all been waiting for... or maybe you weren’t, but trust me... it’s fun.

CW: CONSENSUAL SPICE. This is not implied, fade-to-black, or suggested. These boys have a lovely time and they’re happy to share it with you. Discussion of abusive relationship/abusive past, conditioning, 

Tagging Kauri’s crew:  @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @whimpers-and-whumpers, @moose-teeth, @whump-it, @lumpofwhump, @pumpkinthefangirl, @spiffythespook, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly

“I have stuff,” Kauri says, all at once. “In my. I always… I have stuff for it.”

And God, Cass nearly falls apart at the table at that. He wants to climb over the table, or under it maybe, and have Kauri begging right there. Instead he takes in a deep, even breath, tries to stay calm and in control as he pulls his hand back a little, creating distance. One of them had to, huh?

It’s so much better like this than it had been behind the bar. Kauri’s embarrassed and stumbling and wanting it so bad he can barely get his words out properly and the earnest nervousness of it all is so fucking hot. There was literally nothing more attractive than someone wanting something so badly they were ceasing to function.

“You’re doing just fine,” Cass says with a smile, goes in with the understatement of the century. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”

Cass’ eyes slide briefly over Kauri’s shoulder to where Nick is serving a few tables down. He wonders how much shit Kauri’s gonna get in for leaving a free meal behind. He grabs a napkin from the holder, wrapping up his own untouched burger and shoving it in his pocket to give to Kauri later.

“C’mon tiger,” he says, voice heavy with want he’s not even trying to disguise anymore “Let’s get you out back, shall we?”

Kauri wants to say fuck yes and you go first and it all gets too jumbled in his head and instead he mumbles something like, “Fuck first,” then turns an even brighter red and grins. He pulls the ten out of his pocket and drops it on the table. 

“Leave a good tip,” He says, sort of embarrassed. “Since we-... with the food. Brings good luck.” 

He gives Nick a sunny goodbye, stopping to go up on his toes to kiss his cheek before he pulls Cass out the door, leaving Nick staring wide-eyed with a weird half-grin on his face as they go. 

Kauri doesn’t really make it further than the first steps to the back of the building before he moves his back against a wall and pulls Cass to him, pulling him closer for a hard kiss. The skills were learned all the wrong ways but he wants to use them, he’s good at this. His brain is a blurring, fuzzy white noise of lust and it’s the best Kauri ever feels, just like this. 

Kauri kisses like he was made for it. Which, Cass thinks as his thoughts slip back to Kauri’s mention of training, maybe he had been. But the fuck does that matter when he moves his hips like this, when his tongue does that, when Cass is almost struggling to keep up, and shit, when did that happen. He kisses up Kauri’s neck and slips his hands under his shirt, breath quickening at the first thrill of skin on skin. 

“Tell me you want it,” he says against Kauri’s throat. Because yes he can feel it, he can feel it so strong it’s basically got him seeing double but he wants to hear it. He wants to hear that same irresistible desperation from earlier. Those practiced, expert hands paired with the overwhelmed little stutter of a guy who’s only just figuring out how to actually say yes. 

Kauri arches his back into the press of warm palms against his stomach, pushing back under the hands slipping under his shirt, almost whining with it. His skin lights up at the touch, and he's breathing hard around the next kiss, and the next. 

"I do, I want you-" He catches himself before he can slip into anything too practiced, refusing to let that in this time. 

Instead, he takes a breath, gives Cass a cockeyed smile, and says, low and soft and his blush is red enough to read even in the dark, "I, um. Gonna need you in some part of me tonight, pretty soon. I, I want-"

His mind supplies an amazing, confused flurry of thoughts of legs around Cass's waist or with his chest and stomach against the wall or bent over or on his hands and knees and he can barely think coherently enough to form words behind yes now again. 

"I, I'm not good at saying things right when I'm not acting, uh, I just-..." He slips a hand forwards, deftly undoing the button on Cass's pants and yanking down his zipper so he can slip a hand down, feel the warmth of skin there, different than anywhere else. "I want this," He says, half-breathes. "In me."

Cass jerks up into Kauri’s hand at the touch involuntarily, laughing against Kauri’s mouth, “That’s all you had to say, baby.”

He kisses Kauri hard as he fumbles with the button on the other man’s jeans, one hand snaking beneath the waistband of his underwear to palm at Kauri’s hardening cock as the other pulls his hips in tight to his own.

Working with Kauri’s body is like following the line of a road on a map. It’s so simple and so satisfying Cass could do it with his eyes closed. It would be so easy to fall to his knees, pull Kauri into his mouth with a cruel little ‘my turn first’ and drag it out until the guy was desperate and begging but God all he wants right now is to be inside of the guy, fuck him until he can’t breathe, until he can’t think of anything else. 

“You said you had stuff?” he says, voice low and grazing, free hand travelling over Kauri’s hips, down his back, over the shape of his arse while the other works at the guy’s cock. He breathes hot against Kauri’s neck. He doesn’t want to wait. He wants him now.

For once, Kauri isn’t really worried about how he looks. Normally there’s some hint of putting on a show, of looking the right way, training and need working together to make him the kind of lay people remember just looking at for some of the time. 

But he’s trying not to do that with Cass. Instead he’s more fumbling, even though his touch is expert, and he breathes in high little moans, hips jerking himself against Cass’s hand. He’s so hard he could scream so fast - Cass is good at this, too, so good, like he can tell every single place Kauri wants him to touch without him ever even saying it.

“Uh, y-yeah, in my… hnnnh, yes, right there-... in my pocket, h-hold on-” His pants are falling down around his hips and he probably looks ridiculous trying to hold himself together, digging into an inside pocket on his zip-up, flashing lust-bright eyes up at Cass, breathing hard. He holds up a condom in one hand and a little single-use packet of lubricant in the other. 

“Ta-da,” He says, with a hint of the shy, slightly nervous smile. “Always, um, always have stuff. You’re so fucking gorgeous. D’you want me, um, me to… I can put it on you with my mouth.”

It had taken three full training sessions to learn how to do that, and his jaw had ached for days. 

Cass’ smile falters for a moment before returning, eyes flicking between Kauri and the condom. He's so earnest it's almost devastating.

“Uh, no. No, thanks. You don’t have to do that,” Cass flashes a grin before snatching both packets, distracting Kauri with a kiss as he tears the condom open with nimble fingers, rolling it on blind. He tears the second packet open with his teeth, slicking himself up with one hand while the other pushes at the back of Kauri’s hips with enough pressure to turn him. “Now, flip.”

He pulls himself close along then other man’s back, reaching around to stroke him as he slips his slicked-up hand beneath Kauri’s waistband.

“I don’t need tricks,” Cass murmurs against Kauri’s neck as he presses a finger into him “Just be your gorgeous self.”

Kauri lets out a shuddering breath, turning quickly around - so fast he nearly trips on himself and has to throw a hand up on the wall to catch his balance. “I’m sorry, I’m-... sorry, I’m usually better at this part…” 

He’s trying not to use his training - somehow Cass seems to know when he does it - but taking away all the training means he’s mostly awkward and fumbling and feels like he’s barely had sex before. Still, he can’t quite help the grin on his face, pressing his forehead against the wall and shifting hands to his pants to undo them and push them lower down to barely stay up around his thighs as Cass presses his finger in.

“Hnnnh, you’re… fuck, that’s good,” He whispers. Something in him, some restlessness he can only rarely settle, is soothed as soon as someone does something like this. Wanted, he’s wanted, he’s someone, he matters to someone, if only for a while. “Can… can you, um, kiss my neck, a little, while you-... that…”

Cass laughs gently, teeth grazing Kauri’s earlobe as he starts to kiss down his neck in response. It’s relieving having someone arch up against him like this. He doesn’t have to think. He doesn’t have to analyse or second-guess. He doesn’t have to navigate the nuances of what they want or don’t want because it’s so fucking obvious and it feels so good to give it to Kauri. Like he’s falling back into the role he’s meant to be in. Like every other moment had just been lead-up, had just been treading water until he could be right back here, where he belonged, his body pressed up against another person, giving them what they needed.

“You feel so good,” he says, adding a second finger, curling them just a little just to hear the way Kauri’s breath hitches. He presses an open mouthed kiss to the join between Kauri’s shoulder and his throat, stroking him slow, easing in a third, “God I can’t wait to be inside of you.”

Kauri lets out a breathy little whine, not quite a moan, bucking his hips forward and then rocking them back, his head dropping forward a little and his eyes closing. Forward, into Cass’s grip around him, the way his hand is moving just a little slow, exactly how Kauri wants it - no one ever knows to start this slow, like this, no one ever just knows that but somehow Cass knows that’s how he wants it.

Forward into his hand, backwards onto his hand, Cass’s mouth on his skin. He’s drowning in the other man in all the best ways. “Fuck, you even smell good,” Kauri manages, his voice higher, breathy, rocking back and this time his back arches and his head falls back on Cass’ shoulder. “Ah! Haaah, ah, y-you, ah, shit, no one finds it this fast, want-... I want you so b-bad, Cass.”

It doesn’t come out practiced or trained, it’s all shaken up in him. He wants Cass’s cock in him so bad he can’t think. 

Cass tangles his fingers in those curls and tugs gently back until Kauri’s neck is pulled back in a delicious arc. He sucks kisses along it as he pulls his fingers out of Kauri, wraps them around his own length. 

He eases in slowly, so fucking slowly, too fucking slowly, and has to nuzzle along the length of Kauri’s neck, inhaling deep, breath hitching just to keep himself calm. He lets out a barely-there moan, more of an exhale of breath.

He’s so desperate for this, for Kauri. So desperate to make him feel good, to give him what he needs. It would be so easy to rut into him, fast and hard like an animal, have him stretched open and panting in seconds, but it’s good like this, better like this, because he can feel Kauri melting under his hands, keening at every gentle touch. 

“Can’t believe I-... I get to have you like this,” he says voice stuttering with his breath as he rocks his hips forward, slow and smooth. He runs his thumb over the tip of Kauri’s cock with just the slightest amount of pressure, matching his own rhythm in gentle strokes “So fucking- God you’re so beautiful. Can’t believe I get t- to do this for you”

Kauri relaxes around him, one of the first and hardest skills he'd learned was how to relax his body no matter how he felt and the skill comes in so handy now. He lets out a soft whine as Cass presses on, the sensation of being filled driving him as crazy as the hand stroking him off. 

"Next time I, I want to look at your-... ah, face-... Yes, yesyesyes-" Cass has a steady rhythm, slow but deep, and Kauri rocks his hips back against him, burying him deeper with each thrust. 

He feels like he'll collapse if Cass pulls out, just clatter to the ground. Like being full of his cock is all that's holding him together. 

Cass hits that spot inside him, then again, and Kauri moans, grinding back. More now harder. The best he ever feels, in moments like this. 

“I like the s- God- like the sound of next time.”

He pictures Kauri’s legs around his waist, or his mouth around Kauri’s cock, or making him fall apart with words alone, just begging for Cass to touch him. He imagines fucking him slow, flat on his back, keeping him on edge for an hour as he kisses him soft. He’d give him whatever he wants- everything he wants.

Cass braces one hand against the wall as he quickens his pace, the other wrapping around Kauri’s front, pulling him tight to Cass’ chest as he fucks into him. He buries his face in Kauri’s hair. He wants him close, even closer than this. God, he just wants more. He feels needy and desperate, even now, buried inside of him. 

“Fuck, you feel so good,” Cass manages out, thrusting in hard and deep. “So fucking good.”

He drops his mouth to Kauri’s neck again, nipping gently at the delicate skin. He’s close. He’s so damn close.

Kauri’s conscious thought shatters, finally, and he feels the need in him building, heat in him pushing him towards climax but he’s trained for this, too, on a level deeper than thought. Kauri knows how to pace himself, to make it perfect, to time everything just right so that the person inside him finishes before he does. 

He wants Cass to finish first, wants to feel him before he lets go. 

“C’n… hold on, can do… you want to feel good, let me just-”

Kauri lets out a breathless, half-moaned laugh and tightens himself around Cass, turning his head to kiss into Cass’s neck, nipping at his skin. “Need you to, to come so I can come for you,” he breathes into his ear.

It’s all he needs. Cass curls around the shape of Kauri with a moan, breath caught in his throat as he comes. He lets his mind go blank, his thoughts go quiet, wrapped in pleasure and pressed deep into another man’s body.

He stays there, continuing to rock into Kauri gently as his hand wraps back around Kauri’s cock, the other tracing pretty lines down his jaw, down his throat, down his chest with long, soft fingers.

“So perfect,” he whispers against his shoulder “Come for me.”

The command tips him over, and Kauri moans, rocking forward into Cass’s hand and then going suddenly still and tense, spilling with Cass still moving in him and against him, jerking his hips in small movements as he comes onto the wall and then the ground, soft little cries muffled against Cass’s neck.

He was made for this. It’s what he is, what he was remade to do. In the moment of orgasm and then in the afterglow, Kauri feels like a whole person. He’s wanted. Cass wanted him, and he did it all exactly right. He’s good, a good boy, good at what they made him.

He feels so warm, floating in post-orgasm bliss, wanting nothing more than this moment to last.

“Th-that was… was…” Kauri laughs, breathless, pressing kisses against Cass’s neck, sliding his arms up and around behind him so he won’t pull out too soon, enjoying the feeling even now. “Best sex I’ve h-had up against a wall in an alley… You’re so fucking good.”

"All you, gorgeous," Cass laughs, still rocking his hips slowly, drunk on the feeling. God, he could stay here all night. "You're so good, Kauri. So, so good for me."

He stays there for another few moments, peppering Kauri with soft kisses and letting the other man do the same. It feels like the world stops hurtling on so violently when he can just lean into this, stay here, forget about himself and forget about everything. Just give someone exactly what they need. Exactly what they want. It was so simple. 

Everything else was complicated, tangly and difficult but this… He knows he’s good like this. 

"Next time... we do that in private, so I can stay just like this for you," he says, another quick kiss against Kauris temple "But for now..."

He grabs Kauri's hand, moving it away so he can start to ease out. His own hand is still tucked around Kauri’s front, under his shirt, feeling every stutter and movement of his body as he pulls out. He tucks Kauri back in before he tidies himself up, pulling the condom off and zipping his jeans back up.

Kauri, used to mostly cleaning himself up and usually cleaning up the other guy, too - it’s part of training, he falls into it mindlessly and the guys never seem to notice and if they do, they just say thank you and don’t give it a second thought - blinks, staring down at Cass’s hands so carefully shifting his pants back up over his hips, tucking him back into them, even zipping and buttoning and he lets out a huff of disbelieving laughter.

What had he done to meet someone so nice? 

He turns to say thank you and instead Cass’s mouth is on his, insistent but still soft and sweet, and Kauri melts against him, sliding arms eagerly around his waist to hold him close, draw it out, make it last even longer. Finally, when they break apart, Kauri is still nearly panting, still feeling the languid afterglow looseness in his limbs. 

Cass keeps his voice low and soft in that way that seems to make Kauri short circuit, “Still wanna come back to mine?”

“Yeah, I… yeah, I do, I want-... I want to, um, to get a little longer with you. Plus, I can’t exactly write you a letter-” Kauri’s voice cuts off, and then he laughs, a little nervously. “Since I don’t have anywhere you could get me one back. I want-... yeah. If you’re still offering, I do.”

Kauri's easy to fluster, Cass is realising. Intensely so. There's been a permanent blush on his cheeks since before they left the diner, and everything he says is coloured by the adorable tripping over of words. He gives Kauri's hand a squeeze and a little smile, pulling him out towards the street before dropping it again, walking backwards as he talks. 

"Well you'll know where I live in about three minutes, so you can just leave me a love note like diner-boy did."

He flashes a grin and walks in the opposite direction than they'd come. Away from the bar, away from the burger joint. He can see the Facility buildings from here, nondescript and unsigned. It’s hard to tell, if you don’t know what they are, if they’re meant to be residential or corporate. Probably because they functioned as a mix of both.

He feels like a teenager sneaking someone in through his bedroom window. Like he’s breaking some private rule with himself that keeps his two worlds separate. He glances back to Kauri, smiles in that easy way, "Hey so it’s no big deal, but, uh...  guests aren’t exactly celebrated at the Facility so like, if we see anyone, just be chill, yeah?"

Kauri walks after him like a lovesick puppy and he knows it, a stupid smile on his face but Cass doesn't seem to mind and Kauri can't seem to stop. 

All his stuff will be waiting for him at the park even if it takes him a day. He's had to leave his backpack and everything before for nearly a week. Nobody knows about the loose tile in the bathroom ceiling where Kauri keeps things. 

It sounds so fucking nice to have a Facility you could just leave if you wanted. Kauri's vaguely jealous as he talks, thinking it sounds like the dorms in Owen's movies. 

"I can be chill," Kauri says seriously, with sparkling eyes and a flush still in his face. "I'm good at quiet, I was, I… learned how to be really quiet. I won't fuck it up." 

He was nervous, but he wanted more of Cass, for at least a little bit. He could be normal long enough to fool whoever they might run into. 

There's a part of Cass that wants to tell Kauri to stop talking. Every time he opens his mouth, some horrible line of tragic comes peeling out from nowhere. Cass tries not to linger on it, the little slips. About learning and training and being good.

"Well we don't have to be that quiet," he says, trying to keep it light. "Just careful."

The door unlocks with a quick little beep as Cass flashes some other guy’s keycard and he pushes it open. He gestures for Kauri to go inside, feeling suddenly embarrassed at how upscale the place must look in comparison to damp alleys and park benches.

"Not really my deal," he says, trying to shrug it off. "But I'm not paying or anything, so..."

The foyer is orchids-on-the-marble-desk kind of nice. There's a completely impractical couch to the left you could probably trade in for a decent car. Cass hates everything about this place but it was still better than Christopher's. And he'd bet serious money it's leaps and bounds from wherever Kauri last slept.

It looks like the lobby in Owen's condo, to Kauri, only even nicer. He presses himself to Cass's side, nervous in his grungy thrift-store clothes, worried they'll kick him out or know what he is by sight, that someone like him only belongs in a place like this if he's got a collar around his neck. 

Or it'll be like they said in training - runaway Romantics come to bad ends when someone knows they can't really fight back. 

By the time they get to the elevators he's holding onto Cass's waist tightly enough to probably hurt. 

"I'm a few floors up," Cass says, a flirty smile trying to smother the sudden tension running through him. "Reckon I could have you begging again before we get there?"

He doesn't realize his breathing has picked up until Cass talks again, and Kauri's answer comes out more breathless than he means it to. He nuzzles briefly into Cass's neck just for the reassuring hit of safe he feels when he's touching someone. 

"I'd beg for you right here," He says, and then turns red again. "I'm sorry. I get, um, I do that when I'm, um. Yes."

Cass feels on edge all of a sudden. Out of his element. He doesn't like bringing people back here, he doesn't even like being here. The whole point of going out and hooking up with people is that he can be somewhere else for a night. And he'd ended up hauling Homeless Hottie through the door instead.

"You don't have to come up, you know." The words come from nowhere. Not rude, just a little prickly. "Like I don't need you to be here, it's just a place to crash."

He rakes his eyes over the other man, who looks just as nervous as Cass feels. Jittery. Like someone’s about to arrest him. 

"I fuckin' hate this place so if it’s making you feel weird or you wanna leave, I get it," he tries to feel casual about it, watching for the elevator doors to open. Please stay though. I hate it here but I don’t hate you so please, please stay. "It's not like we didn't already fuck, so no hard feelings."

Kauri leaves places. It's what he does, stay long enough for someone to want him and then go when they don't any longer, or when the closed door might be locked and he can't handle it any longer. 

Weirdly, though, he doesn't want to leave Cass. 

"I'm sorry," Kauri says softly. He's made him mad, somehow, and he's not quite sure what he did this time. He started the whole night by getting Cass mad – Kauri's carefully-remade mind drops the simple fact that Cass had actually gotten mad at Matt, and substitutes himself as being at fault for not just taking the drink and being good with perfect seamlessness – and he's done it all over again without even trying. 

"I want to stay with you," He says, sincerely, truthfully. "Overnight. I think I want to know you better for a while. I just, um. No, you're right, if you don't want me in your place that's, that's okay. I was just being-... I haven't-... I get nervous about locked doors but it doesn't mean I don't want something."

Cass nods slow, trying not to prickle over the idea that this place is anything close to his. He flicks his eyes over Kauri, almost surprised at the amount of resolve in his voice. He shrugs. Makes a choice. 

"Okay. So no locked doors," he tosses Kauri the keycard that isn't his. Nobody was paying him to give a shit about facility security and he'd snag another one tomorrow anyway. "All I want is a good time, alright? For both of us."

Kauri takes the keycard and stares down at it, blinking, then the tension melts out of him all over again and he slips it into his back pocket. The elevator doors slide open and Kauri is noticeably more relaxed as he’s pulled into the elevator, looking up at Cass with all the humor and lightness back in his eyes.

Cass steps backwards until his back is pressed up against the mirrored wall with Kauri in front of him, hand reaching out to press the button for his level as the doors slide closed again. He tries to let the tension in his shoulders drop, fastening on a grin in its wake "Now tell me what you want."

“I want…” Kauri thinks it through - there’s a pile of responses on his tongue, ready to go, all of them trained and conditioned, memorized and repeated at the other end of a shock stick or tied up in ropes or hit on the knuckles whenever he got it wrong. He rejects every single one, because none of them are the true thing, the thing he really wants to say. 

It’s pure sincerity when he leans in closer to Cass, goes up on his toes to kiss him, and says softly, “I want you to kiss, um-... to kiss me stupid ‘til we get into your room and I want to ride you when we’re in there.”

Kauri’s so easy to kiss. He’s so easy to move with, so easy to tug and pull. He’s so easy to want. Cass pulls him in close, and with barely enough space between them to breathe it’s hard not to think God, he’s made for this.

“You’re so good,” Cass says, pressing up against him. The elevator doors slide open behind them and Cass kisses Kauri backwards until they’re up against the hallway wall, Kauri giggling quietly and running his hands up Cass’s sides and back down to his hips to pull them flush again.

The res level is featureless and clinical compared to the foyer. Why waste money decorating something the public didn’t see? Something only meant for those lowest on the company totem pole?

He leads Kauri down the hallway a few steps, pushing him gently into his quarters as the door slides open, kissing him all the while.

“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” he says with a grin, stripping his jacket and adding it to a chair piled with clothes. “My, uh, boss likes things to stay tidy, so naturally I keep it as messy as possible.”

Aside from the debris of his life scattered around – clothes on the floor, papers and books on the inbuilt desk, a couple pill bottles sitting pretty by the lamp – the place is stark and white. Featureless. The king single shoved in the corner lays unmade, white quilt gathered at the bottom a testament to the restless sleeper he is when he dains to occupy it. He feels strange with someone in his space like this. Exposed, almost.

“I’d offer you something to drink but, uh,” he looks around the room, shrugs “I’m not exactly well-equipped for guests.”

“That’s okay,” Kauri answers, sincerely, looking around the room with the opposite of Cass’s expression on his face. There’s a hint of nervous worry when he sees the stark white walls, the slightest hesitation before he lets himself be pulled into the room, but the simple mess is immensely comforting. 

Not a cell, not ‘resident rooms’ like his own had been, empty and with just the floor to sleep on unless you earned blankets and a pillow and there were rumors the really good trainees could earn a bed. No, this was like…

“Like a dorm room at college,” Kauri whispers, then winces at a spike of pain ricochets around inside his skull. 

don’t think about that don’t remember that that never happened you made that up it’s common to have false memories after training

He shakes it off almost instantly - it’s there and gone, barely a flicker of expression before he makes himself forget he’d ever said anything. 

“Are you allowed to have things for the walls?” He asks instead, his voice perfectly light and cheerful, moving forward into the room, grazing fingertips over the pile of clothes in the chair, as if considering something. “I could bring you a picture. There’s a lady down at the farmer’s market who paints, she likes me, she always says she’ll give me a painting if I ever have a place to put one.”

Cass closes his eyes, a smile creeping over his face. He can’t tell anymore if the way Kauri tilts the conversation onto easier topics is intentional or just a very well practiced habit. Either way, it's entirely sweet and a little disarming. 

“You know, I’ve never asked,” he says, sweeping in close again, wrapping an arm around Kauri’s waist. “But I’d risk breaking the rules for you.”

He tilts Kauri's chin up to meet him in a kiss, and as he does he feels an unpleasant twinge of jealousy. He can't help but feel like Kauri's unfairly lucky. He knows it's not a rational thought. He knows it's not. But still.

How the fuck do you stay homeless when people seem to be tripping over to try and help you? There seem to be so many people wanting to offer Kauri small kindnesses but instead he opted to turn them all down just to stay on the streets and desolate. And Cass had fought tooth and nail for a single bed in a room without a key.

Like a college dorm room, Kauri had said, before all but flinching away from his own comment. Like a college dorm room. Cass wouldn't know would he? Had never had the chance. 

“Where’d you go to college?” he asks, innocent enough. The other questions, the crueler, bitter-with-jealousy questions– were you any good? did you get kicked out? is that why you sold yourself? fucking piece of shit drop out, buried in fancy college debt? – stay at bay. 

Kauri's quiet, pressing the kiss closer, deeper, burying himself in it, more aggressive now. The headache threatens if he tries to ask too many questions, the memory of drugs woozily running through his veins, hooked to a wall and forget forget forget in his head obliterating whatever poor son of a bitch had lived in his head before.

Then, finally, he pulls away and shrugs, smiling sunny and bright, deflecting, distracting. "I don't know," Kauri says, voice perfectly, carefully constructed to seem careless, isn't it so funny that I don't know, but really, who cares? "It's not important to what we're for-... what we do. Not like I could write a fucking essay to save my life anymore. Or a poem."

Another flinch, as if Kauri had tripped over something, and he shoves Cass's back against the wall with a sudden aggressive need, slipping a hand into the waistband of his pants while shifting a leg between Cass's legs, an expert move to brush against him from two directions. 

"Doesn't matter."

A familiar rush of hot and cold runs through Cass' body at the answer, at the touch, at the rough push against the wall that makes him shudder with a kind of practiced thrill. Kauri knows exactly what he's doing with his hand and the bid for distraction spurs Cass on even more. 

Kauri's uncomfortable. He wants distraction. Deflection. To change the subject. But Cass wants to know. Cass wants to push. "So, what? They ju - hah - just keep the slutty parts and fry the rest?"

It's getting mean. He can feel it. A backwards kind of resentment clawing under his skin, twisting his mood. He catches Kauri's lips with his own, fingers brushing under the hem of Kauri's shirt. The kiss is desperate and rough, on the borderline of bruising, and when Cass pulls away he feels a childish sort of challenge pulling at him

Kauri ignores the first question entirely, sliding his hand straight down to brush over Cass between his legs, feeling him soft but he wouldn't be for long, Kauri knew just what to do to get past this moment and his thoughts, and he likes the rough stuff as much as he ever likes tenderness.

He's trained to. 

Jesus, I know I asked for a brainless slut, Kor-Bore, but this is something else. Do you even have brain cells now? 

He's just started to curve around him, to stroke him back to hardness, when Cass asks, "What if I wanted a poem?"

Kauri's face flickers with hurt, an oddly naive why would you ask that considering the practiced physicality on display. Then he tilts his head, looking up at Cass, and gives him the honest fucking answer while giving his cock just enough of a roll of his palm to feel good. 

"I'd tell you to go fuck yourself."

Cass knows an evasive answer when he hears one. It's not some sort of pathetic no homo-ism which would've been funny in its own right with Kauri's hand sitting where it is. It's something deeper than that. Something that hits close enough to home to hurt.

The energy in the room has shifted. Tense and pulsating. The undercurrent of something bitter. Territory Cass was more familiar with than tender kisses in alleyways.

"Seems like you're already doing that for me," he says, rolling his hips forward into the touch. He doesn't bring his hands up to touch back, to hold. It's a challenge in its own right.

How much will you still want me when I'm not acting how you want? When I'm not doing what you need?

Cass has been choked against this wall, threatened against this wall, had his head bashed into it more times than he could count. His eyes track across Kauri's face, land on his lips. He doubts the other man has anything even close to violence living in his veins, but Cass still juts out his chin, looks down at Kauri through lidded eyes. Even the thought of it sends something electric through him.

"You gonna make me sorry for asking?"

"No," Kauri answers easily enough, a short, almost curt single syllable. He can feel Cass getting hard again under his hand, and he tilts his head just a little, looking down, before he gives just enough of a squeeze to keep it interesting.

"I don't do that. I just make you stop wanting to ask." 

It's an honest answer - and Kauri grabs him by the belt loops in his pants, pulling him back until they stumble to the bed and Kauri half-falls to seated with Cass standing between his legs, yanking open Cass's pants with no gentleness this time. 

"Show you what parts aren't fried," Kauri mutters, half-under his breath, moving to shift his pants down and press a kiss to his stomach in the same moment. 

The sound Kauri pulls out of him is more of a grunt than a moan. Cass can feel himself starting to swim. That particular territory on a night out where old restless anger hollows him out and switches on the autopilot. He tilts his head back where he stands, tangling his fingers through Kauri's curls as he closes his eyes. He breathes in.

But this is his place. 

This is his fucking bed, his fucking room. 

He doesn't want to drift. He doesn't want to leave.

There were two ways Cass knew that kept him attached to the ground. The easiest was a punch in the teeth. The other was harder. Sharing something to make the other person feel closer to you, and then hold onto that like a tether.

It made them like you more, made them easier to stay hooked to. It made it easier to feel what they wanted, even. To ride that wave. But it meant sharing some broken part of himself. Sometimes he lies. Usually he lies. But tonight...

"I couldn't read until I was like 17," he says, voice is low, only opening his eyes after he's said it. "The guy who taught me how also taught me how to fuck."

He traces his fingers down the curve behind Kauri's ear, along the line of his jaw, tilting his face up with a gentle hand under his chin. Cass searches blue eyes and doesn't know what for.

"I'm fried, too."

"I'm… I'm sorry." Kauri hesitates, leaning forward with his shoulders so his chin rests lightly on Cass's stomach, looking up at him. "I can't… I can't read the note from Nick because I can't read. And I can't write you a poem because I can't write, either." 

He jerked Cass's pants down over his hips, to his thighs, and kissed into the flat spot just inside each hip, one on each side.

He looked back up. 

"I don't know what I look like. I can't look in mirrors. You guessed it right. They fried most of me. Now please push me back on the bed and…" Hold onto me, please, just want this, too, even if it's just to fuck me, just don't make me leave with this the last thing I said "-fuck me or something if you're going to keep me talking about this."

Hearing it all come rattling has something under Cass' skin curdling a little. He doesn't usually go for tragedy. He almost regrets pushing. He almost wants to apologise. Instead he straddles Kauri's hips, knees on the mattress as he pulls the guy's shirt over his head and throws it to the side before doing the same with his own. He kisses him until he's flat on his back on the mattress.

This part is so easy. Puzzle pieces fitting together, gears slotting into place, every kind of made for this metaphor rolled into one.

"We don't have to talk."

He apologises with his tongue, with open mouthed kisses that travel down Kauri's throat to the twisted scar along his collarbone and back up. He rolls his hips into the man beneath him, unbuttons those jeans with one hand and delights in the heat of Kauri's cock as he palms him, feels him start to harden.

His own jeans practically fall off as he stands, loose from Kauri's ministrations, and he kicks them to the side before leaning forward, kissing lines down Kauri's stomach and down his hips and down his thighs as he undresses him too. He presses his cheek to Kauri's leg, planting a kiss on his inner thigh.

"Just one more question." He brushes against Kauri's hardening cock with his lips, "This?" He slips his hand under Kauri's lower back, down the curve of his arse, just barely pressing into him again, "Or this?"

Kauri hums under the attention, he loves being pressed back into the mattress, a hint of weight holding him down. It’s what he wants, what he’s for. Any anger in him drains out with every kiss - Kauri is used to apologies that aren’t spoken or that don’t happen at all.

He wouldn’t even want an apology - he has no idea how to handle them unless they’re laced with reasons that Kauri’s really the one to blame.

Kauri pushes himself up on his elbows, nerves singing, and looks down towards Cass, the shy, sincere smile on his face as he pushes himself closer to sitting up. “Um, your-... your mouth,” Kauri says, hushed, almost shocked-sounding. “Mouth, please.”

Cass holds eye contact as he smiles, running his tongue along the underside of Kauri’s cock before taking him into his mouth. He hums deep in his throat, lets his hair fall in front of his face like a curtain and lets everything else fall away completely.

He will never understand people that don’t love this; that don’t love taking another person in with your mouth, with your hands, and making them utterly melt. It was so simple. So good. Skin against skin, another person to breathe in. He didn’t have to think about anything else, he didn’t have to worry about anything else. He could lose himself in wanting them, in being wanted.

He runs his hands up Kauri’s thighs as he works at pulling delicious sounds from him, finding a rhythm with his mouth, interrupting it again with the swirling of his tongue. Kauri tastes good. He feels good. It’s good, it’s all so fucking good. 

Kauri stays up on his elbows at first to watch him, taking the sight of Cass in with unadulterated, if oddly pure, joy. He’d had no idea what this felt like, beyond a sense-memory that told him he’d had one before, the first time someone he’d hooked up with had gone down on him after he ran away.

He never got tired of it - of how wonderful it was to have someone want him so much they would touch him even without taking anything for themselves. It felt so perfectly right, and he couldn’t keep the dopey smile off his face even as he had to shift and finally lay back, focusing his eyes on Cass’s ceiling, his hands sliding into his hair, running through the strands, hips moving gently up to push himself deeper, just a little. 

It’s not long before his soft exhalations are full-on moans, and he tries to keep mostly quiet since there are probably other people here but he’s never really been good at that - Owen didn’t want him trained to be quiet at times like this - and he can’t help himself, moaning, “You’re so good, this is so-... fuck, so good, Cass, under the-... yeah, like th-that, just like that-... ah, you’re so so good, so nice, so nice to do this, to, to, ah, ah, ah-” He trails off into a louder sound as Cass hits just the right spot just under the head and his hips jerk, hands buried deeply in his hair, eyes wide and hardly seeing.

It feels so good. For maybe the second or third time, Kauri’s genuinely a little sad he probably won’t see this guy again.

The sounds Kauri makes are so fucking endearing. He moans like he's never had a blowjob, like he's not sure he's ever gonna have one again. Was there literally anything better than hearing someone make sounds like that? It makes it easy to enjoy, to indulge in getting him off.

Cass can’t help but laughing under his breath as he pulls off, licking long and slow along Kauri’s cock.

 “Enjoying yourself, big guy?” he mutters, smiling up at Kauri’s blushing cheeks, the mass of dark curls against the sheet before swallowing him to the hilt. Maybe the only thing better than hearing someone make sounds like that was knowing you were the one that caused it.

He speeds up, moaning deep around Kauri’s cock. Hands down the best fuck Cass has had for months.

Kauri’s moans turn into something like loud, high-pitched whimpers as Cass’s throat vibrates around him with his own sounds, his fingers tightening to nearly painful in Cass’s hair and his hips jerking up harder than he intends them to, thrusting into Cass’s mouth unconsciously. 

“Y-yes, you’re so-... so good, this is so good, I’m, I’m going to-... wait wait wait if you keep g-going, I’ll, I’ll, um-... I’ll-” Kauri’s body tenses all at once, and he lets out a loud cry as he tilts over the edge, coming right down Cass’s throat.

He’s barely finished before he’s trying to pull Cass back up to him, to kiss him, to tangle every single limb around him and keep them pressed together at every possible level.

Cass finds himself, not for the first time tonight, laughing into Kauri's mouth. The guy holds him like he's gonna disappear the second they're not touching, and Cass wraps his arms around his waist as he kisses him.

I'm not going anywhere. God, please keep touching me like that. I want you, I want you, I want you.

He feels love drunk and loose, even though he's still achingly hard. He rolls his hips along Kauri's thigh, chasing the gentle friction as he rocks forward and back but not reaching for more just yet. Cass doesn't want more right now. Just wants to enjoy Kauri's body warm beneath him, the tiny electric sparks he can feel under every brush off his fingers. The desperate kisses, panting breaths, those pretty sounds still sighing out of Kauri's mouth.

He plants a kiss on Kauri's cheek, reaches down to brush his hand against Kauri's cock one more time. "That was hot."

Kauri jumps a little, letting out a half-squeaked whine at the hint of touch to his already overstimulated cock, then laughs and presses against him even more, tilting his head up and back for another kiss, taking the affection as it’s given with pure gratitude for it. 

“Yeah, you’re really good at it,” Kauri says, grinning. He can taste himself on Cass, and that’s a rare thing for him, this happens so rarely and it’s even more rare they want to kiss right after. “You’re so, so good. That was so good.” He can’t stop saying it, and he knows it’s stupid to repeat it over and over again, and he finally just ducks his head, tucking it under Cass’s chin, to hide his bright red flush, as much from the aftermath of orgasm as from his embarrassment.

“I like your bed,” Kauri murmurs, stretching his legs out, tangling them with Cass’s. He’d expected to be curled up on a park bench or lying under someone’s heavy weight by now. Lying like this instead - curled up with someone built more like he is, who seems to feel the same way about wanting touch - is so much better. “It’s really soft.”

Cass snorts, nearly makes a quip about razor wire bed springs and b-grade foam, but he stops himself, remembering where Kauri would've been if not here.

"You're really soft," he says instead, running his fingers in long circles along Kauri's arm, his back, down his side. He can feel his own body relaxing with the rhythm of it, with the feeling of skin on skin. 

He wishes it didn't feel so good to have someone tucked into him like this and pressed against him. He wishes he wasn't like this, he wishes he wasn't so needy. There's a tension in him he never knows he's holding and it releases when someone touches him. It's like he's never really breathing when he's not being held.

"I should thank that asshole for tryna spike your drink, huh?"

Kauri actually laughs, breaths against Cass’s shoulder, hands sliding across the muscles of his back. “Or I should, I guess,” He says, ignoring the flutter of nervousness. He's too loose, right now, languid and his eyes are finding it harder and harder to open.

“Used to get drugged all th’ time, anyway,” Kauri says, his voice slightly slurred with sleepiness. “It’d jus’ feel like home.”

Cass huffs out a laugh. He reaches behind himself to tap his fingers on the bedside table, one of the bottles from the random assortment of benzos and sleeping pills rolling away as he does. "I'm outta the good stuff but help your fuckin' self."

He wonders vaguely at what point the venn diagram between Kauri's experiences and his own would start looking close to a circle. He wonders too if maybe he should worry about that. He stares up at the ceiling, hand tracing lazy shapes along Kauri's upper arm.

"Mine put it in chocolates, usually," he whispers, not even sure if Kauri's conscious enough to hear him "Or in drinks. He liked it when I'd forget."

There’s a pause, like maybe Kauri had fallen asleep, before he murmurs back, “It was in our food, th’ water, all of it. Did y’... mmmmn…” Kauri nuzzles in closer, pulling Cass as tight against him as he can get, shifting around so he can bury his feet under the blankets at the end of the bed. “... tell you it’s what you’re for?”

Cass buries his face in Kauri's hair and closes his eyes. He feels sleep tugging at him now. Making his body heavy. Pulling him down. 

"Yeah," he mutters, pressing a kiss to Kauri's head "Told me I was made for it."

Kauri tries to think of a reply, but the moments lying together, the languid loose feelings of his muscles, and Cass’s warm body in the bed all work together to ensure he’s sound asleep before anything in particular comes to mind. He holds Cass tightly, and in his sleep he never rolls away, only shifts closer, twining his legs around Cass’s so their hips are flush even sleeping, as though he wants only to be touching Cass with as much of himself as he can, even fast asleep.

They’ve only been asleep for a handful of hours when the sliding door slams open. Cass sits up immediately at the sound, awake and heart pounding before Tucker even has the chance to thump the timered light back on.

“Rise and shine, Ace, we have a lot to-“ Tucker’s voice cuts off as he takes in the scene before him. He tilts his head to the side, blinks, a dangerous smile curling his mouth “What the fuck is this?”

#whump #consensual spice #consensual sex tw #referenced past noncon #conditioning #brainwashing #box boy au #whumpiary #Cass the Disaster Lad #referenced past dubcon #come get y'all spice

[squidpro-quo]

AN: Because I’m a sucker for The Witcher now, I guess? Just a short look into the little things, I got stuck on Jaskier’s ‘bread in my pants’ line and now Geralt has to deal with it too (also on ao3) 

Geralt knows that Jaskier had introduced himself as a ‘man with bread in his pants’ but after experiencing his characteristic chatter, he’d immediately assumed it was a metaphor for something else entirely, probably lewd or perhaps just plain inane. At the time he’d been making far more of an effort to not pay attention to any of the other patrons in the inn, including the bard, be it the booing from the other end or the whispers that swarmed at his sight, and so it comes as a surprise when he finds Jaskier was being completely forthright. 

Months later, after a feast he’d begrudgingly attended for reasons he’d rather forget, he’d been on his way out of the hall as the more drunken noble guests became rowdier than a saloon with free ale. Shoving his way free of the stragglers, he’d caught sight of an as-yet still buttoned and far too brightly colored set of clothes ducking down to table level, only to rise with an odd bulge added to the front as if its wearer had gained an extra roll of fat in the span of seconds. 

“Jaskier,” he growls once he’s closer, interrupting the bard’s attempts at stuffing another piece of loaf of bread down his sleeve that would undoubtedly have made them as thick as Geralt’s, if not more prone to crumbs. 

“Ah, Geralt! Off to recuperate after a strenuous evening of people smiling at you and badgering you with unwanted gratitude? I’m about sung out myself, always a bit more stored in there of course, for a last serenade or two for a bedfellow, but I’m—”

“What else are you storing?” Geralt pokes the offending section of Jaskier’s chest, his finger sinking into the fabric as what was underneath gave under the pressure. But instead of the sheepish hiding that he’d thought the accusation would bring out, Jaskier splutters and fumes like a barely boiling pot of water. Holding his head high as if it wasn’t Geralt who had jabbed him but rather one of the nobles accusing him of sleeping with their various innocent relatives, he backs into the table so suddenly his lute twangs. 

“Oi, that’s my breakfast in four days! Don’t need you squashing it before its time.” 

“It’s already squashed,” Geralt mutters, which only brought even more affront into Jaskier’s face. 

“I’ll have you know, this is the finest sweetbread you could find this side of Toussaint.” 

“And this side of your pants.” It was a habit he wouldn’t have thought to pin on the man who stuck out in a village like a peacock among partridges, but more likely he was just so attached to the finer foods in life that he’d stock up however he could. Besides, the cooks in the castle won’t miss the few loaves that fit up Jaskier’s trousers and he can’t fault the man for taking advantage of the situation, albeit in an unconventional way. 

But it continues. 

“You stepped on that one,” he notes, once Jaskier has plopped onto the bench beside him, their shoulders bumping together as he takes a swig from his tankard. The inn is as filthy as they came, the patrons even filthier, and yet Jaskier stuck to stuffing what had to be at least half a loaf of bread into his pockets. 

“And? This town might not appreciate the delicate nuance of my songs and tales, honestly that lady in the corner near took my eye out with her aim, but that doesn’t keep them from feeding us, one way or another. Roach would say not to look a fellow horse in the mouth.” He tears a bite off the one he still held in his hand and leans back with a sigh. 

“Even she wouldn’t eat some of this.” Geralt has to wonder if this was what Jaskier had grown used to from before they’d met. Despite his rancor at the earworm of a song that the bard had created, even he would have to be dull as a bogweed to not notice the decline in curses, glares, and general spitting that greets him in a new town and how much of that might be owed to the one currently filling his pockets with crumbs. And yet with fortune smiling on them more often, it hadn’t lessened this odd habit of frugality at all. 

“I don’t say anything about your morning talks with her, when you think I can’t hear you even though you discuss more with your horse than with me. Nor about how you have an apparent allergy to smiling.” 

This close, with Jaskier pushing into him as he fiddles with his lute in the small space, Geralt can see the collar of his doublet with fine gold stitching along the edge that must have cost at least ten full dinners if not more. The doublet that Jaskier had complained about being soiled during a back-alley fight with a few mercenaries a fortnight ago when a seam had been ripped is the same as the one he is now stowing stale bread in. The bard has enough coin saved up from the last town to afford a meal served on a plate instead of the floor and yet he never gives up the chance to play in an inn, no matter the crowd’s reaction. 

“Why?” Geralt finds himself asking; the question pushing against his mind until it slips out against his better judgement. He shouldn’t care, Jaskier’s habits, as long as they’re not getting him killed or annoying him personally, are just another facet of him that Geralt doesn’t understand, like the running commentary on their adventures or his insistence on helping with baths. Just another part of Jaskier that he’d forgotten to question somewhere along the way and now it’s merely another shade of color in his many and varied clothes.  That doesn’t stop him from being curious, however. 

“Why do you have an allergy to smiling? I don’t know, Geralt, you tell me.” Jaskier waves his bread to accentuate his point, flakes of it raining onto the table like dandruff. 

Instead of replying, Geralt finishes off his pint and returns a patron’s glare with a blank stare until the apparent butcher turns back to his dinner sans bread. 

The third time he brings it up, he doesn’t have to ask Jaskier the question. It’s almost half a year later, a time after they’d separated for their own purposes, and his only concern is collecting the coin he was promised after clawing his way through a burrow of rotfiends. The venom he’d ended up coated with drips onto the street with every step and it must have clogged his ears too, because that’s the only explanation for why he hears Jaskier’s voice from the dark gap between two shops. 

“I’ve got more! You can take it all.” 

His first instinct is to unsheathe his sword again, ignore the ache in his bones and wade into whatever puddle of trouble Jaskier had fallen into. But the words don’t sound like the bard’s being mugged, not fearful or worried, quiet though they are. 

Stopping by the entrance to the small alley, he wipes a hand over his splattered face and peers in to see Jaskier crouched by a gaggle of urchins pulling hunk after handful of bread from his sleeves and pockets to accompanying laughter. None of the children look older than ten, one of them trails a grubby dwarvish doll from a three-fingered hand while another sits in the mud to chew the scraps he’d gotten with teeth sharp enough to gnaw bone in half. 

“That might be all,” he admits after another minute or so, before sweeping the feathered hat he only wore during the gaudier festivals off his head to show its contents. “Ah, I’d almost forgotten about these! They had a fresh harvest last night, just on hand I guess, and I caught a few besides.” 

The hat is quickly emptied and the children scatter, one scooting by Geralt with her ears hidden under a torn kerchief pulled low, until the alley is empty save Jaskier standing up to dust his hat and pat down his much emptier jacket. Geralt meets his eyes as he turns to leave and the smile that crosses his face is fast, deceptively fast. 

“Geralt! That rotfiend must have been a wimpy one for you to finish so quickly! I wasn’t expecting you back until nightfall, would have made for a dramatic return, but no matter, I can tweak that in later. Besides, hard to recognize you anyway, looking like a pustule come walking like that.”

“There’s lettuce in your hair,” Geralt notes, pulling the stray greenery out with his offal-sticky fingers as Jaskier ducks his head to brush away any more telltale signs.

“Oh that, that’s nothing. I had a face full of tomato last night, some villagers had a bumper crop, I guess. Had those on hand when they were trying to take Roach from the stables, but she wasn’t having it so I tried to shoo them off and got a few vegetables from my trouble...” Catching sight of Geralt’s expression, Jaskier trails off with his arms still gesturing madly with hat in hand. “What?” 

“Your actions speak louder than your words, bard.” The odd feeling that’s warming him doesn’t bother Geralt at the moment and Jaskier’s grin is infectious enough to make his foot slip in the pool of slime that had collected on the cobbles. 

“Aren’t you the one who was asking about respect back then? My songs are for you.” Jaskier shrugs, patting Geralt’s shoulder. “But I do with my bread what I want. Including storing it in my pants.” 

“Hm.” He rakes his gaze down Jaskier’s clothes, the embroidery fuzzing up at his wrists and the slight pouch shape still retained by his shirt at the waist. “You could use some bigger clothes.” 

“Are you offering me your own then?” Jaskier dances into motion when Geralt strides off at the comment, ending up skipping backward up the street to keep up with his faster pace. “I couldn’t refuse such a generous gift, but I do imagine there’s bits of kikimora caked into every inch—”

“No.” His destination can’t come fast enough. Pushing the door to the inn open, Jaskier follows in his wake like a bee that won’t stop buzzing until its duty is done. He spares a look at the villagers waiting at the bar, deciding his current state will do nicely in securing the coin they’d promised and strides across the room to slam his sword down on the counter. 

“It’s all right here!” The first man’s fingers fumble with the pouch as he pulls it from his pocket. “Are they all dealt with?” 

“Depends on how my horse feels about revisiting the site to check for any stragglers.” 

“Yes, I see. Well,” he adds a few extra pieces of silver in with the rest, a nervous smile nailed onto the man’s face, “A fine mare she is, to carry such a man.” 

Looping the drawstring around the pommel of his sword, he makes for the stairs, ignoring the way Jaskier’s glare disappeared as soon as he’d turned around. Just as he makes a point to forget the handful of silver he slips into the pocket of Jaskier’s pants when he steals Geralt’s bath after he’s done.

#geralt of rivia #the witcher #jaskier #dandelion #geraskier #my writing #idk what I'm doing I got roped into watching this by my brother and now here i am #i need to go read the first book again #and steal my brother's copies of the rest

[bbq-hawks-wings]

I want to express an unpopular opinion. I hope for your understanding, because such things don't like to listen. Why does everyone think that Hawks is a bird? I couldn' fit my logical arguments into the askbox :( (about how he sits on a pole "like a bird", supposedly likes jewelry and so on). Even his quirk is called Fierce Wings, not a Hawk, not a Red Bird. Do you remember the names of the quirks of Hound Dog and Tsuyu-chan? We haven't evidence to believe that Hawks is behaves like a bird.

I do believe very much he’s a bird, and if you would let me friend, I would love to try and prove it to you because I think the evidence is overwhelming. I’ll make a TL;DR at the end but I’d really like to take the opportunity to perhaps teach others at least one method for literary analysis since it can be a really dry and boring subject to learn in school but is SO useful not only for getting good grades but getting into colleges as well as interpreting both entertainment and genuinely important information like the news, history, laws, and scientific papers. Using fiction - especially such a rich, engaging one like HeroAca - is a great way to try it out without the pressure of a grade. I don’t have the qualifications to teach in any formal capacity, but as a “peer” tutor I hope I can be helpful.

I’m going to put everything under the cut from here because this is going to get LONG, but I promise the TL;DR at the end will be very easy to read. If you liked this sort of unofficial tutorial please let me know. I’d love to help make “academic” skills like this more accessible for those who might benefit from it and enjoy it, but it doesn’t make sense to put in all that effort moving forward if I’m garbage at it.

Before we get too into things, I want to lay out a few notes to keep in mind as we go.

I will only be using the official translations from Viz’s Shonen Jump website when available. Fan translations are more than close enough to casually enjoy and follow the story, but professional translators are paid to know and get various nuances correct and some of the trickier cultural background behind certain phrases (for example, the phrase “where the rubber meets the road” might make zero sense in a foreign language if translated literally, so an equal cultural phrase should be used instead) that give more exact information. Rarely is this too important, but sometimes it helps, plus it supports the source material.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you might know I’m very fond of doing this kind of thing in my spare time and that I’m a huge fan of YouTube channels like Game/Film Theory, Overly Sarcastic Productions, Extra Credits, and Wisecrack that do this kind of thing with popular media as well. If you like this sort of content, may I encourage you to check them out after this to see how else you can apply these kinds of analytical skills to things that aren’t homework.

My writing style tends to meander, but I do my best to cut out the fat and only include relevant information so even though there’s a lot of information here, please know that I’m trying to be thorough and explain things to the best of my ability. If I seem to go off on a tangent, I’m trying to set up or contextualize information to explain why it’s relevant and then come back to the point. In other words, please be patient and bear with me as I go.

Now, to start, I want to explain at least my method for analyzing a text/piece of media. There is a set order and number of steps to take, and it’s as follows:

Read the material all the way through.

Come up with a hypothesis about something you’ve noticed when reading it. (In this case, it’s “Is Hawks actually supposed to be a bird?”)

Collect as much relevant information as possible and test the evidence to see if it supports the hypothesis we’ve made.

Step back and look at everything again with those points in mind.

Determine if we were right or wrong with the evidence we have.

If we were wrong, go back to step 3 to figure out what fell apart and see if we need to go back to step 2.

If that sequence sounds familiar it’s because it’s the scientific method! Aha, didn’t think we’d be pulling science into all this, did you? Don’t worry, we won’t be putting numbers or formulas anywhere near this discussion - the scientific method is just a way we can observe something and test if what we thought about it is actually true; and it applies to almost everything we as humans can observe - from the laws of the universe, to arts and crafts, to philosophy and religion, and so on! When you think about it that way, whole new possibilities can open up for you when it comes to understanding how the world works.

So with that set let’s (finally) begin!

Steps 1 and 2 are already done. We’ve read the manga and want to prove that Hawks is a bird. (We’re going to try and prove he IS a bird because in the context of the series there’s a lot that *isn’t* a bird and less stuff that *is* which will make our job easier.) So now, we’re onto: 

Step 3 - collect data and see what conclusions we can get just from our evidence.

Now, to pause again (I know, bear with me!) there’s a few different kinds of information and considerations we have to keep in mind as we collect. There are four kinds of information that are important to know about in order to determine if it’s good data that will help us with the testing phase in Step 4. The kinds of information to keep in mind are:

Explicit information - this is information that is directly spelled out for us. For example, Hawks says, “I like my coffee sweet.” and his character sheet says “Hawk’s favorite food is chicken.” That’s all there is to it, and it’s pretty hard to argue with. This is the easiest type of info to find.

Implicit information - this is info that isn’t directly spelled out but is noticeable either in the background or as actions, patterns, or behaviors that can be observed. For example, Hawks has mentioned in at least three very different places his concerns over people getting hurt while he tries to get in with the League:

Chapter 191 when confronting Dabi about the Nomu he says, “You said you’d release it in the factory on the coast, not in the middle of the damn city!”

Chapter 191 again in a flashback with the Hero Commission he asks, “What about the people who might be hurt while I’m infiltrating the League?”

Chapter 240 when discovering how much influence and power the League has gained, “If someone had taken down the League sooner, all those good citizens wouldn’t have had to die!”

Hawks never says in so many words, “I never want innocent people to get hurt under any circumstances!” but the pattern of behavior and concern is consistent enough to form a pattern and clue us in that this is a key part of his character to keep in mind.

Peripheral information - this is information that isn’t directly to do with Hawks or maybe even the series as a whole but is still relevant to keep in mind for his character and the questions we’re asking. This may include extra content that isn’t the “series” proper, but is still an official source like interviews with Horikoshi, etc. but it can go even further. For example, while we try to prove that he’s a bird, we should have some knowledge about what makes a bird a bird, some specific and notable birdlike habits/behaviors/features, etc. This is just to show how wide-ranging we need to cast our informational net.

Contextual information - this will be important when we get to Step 4, but it’s good to keep in mind now. This is when we compare evidence against the broader scope of the series and consider the circumstances under which we find the information. For example, if I told you, “Harry kicked a dog.” you might think “What a jerk! What decent person kicks a dog?”; but if I said, “Harry kicked a dog while trying to keep it from biting his kid.” suddenly it re-frames the story. “Is the kid ok? Why was that dog attacking? Harry put himself in danger to keep his kid safe - what a great dad!”

I’ll go chronologically to make it easier to follow my evidence as I gather and give references as to where I found that information. I’ll go through the manga first, and then any peripheral sources that are either direct informational companions to the series (like character books or bonus character information sheets) and interviews with Horikoshi. Please note the categories these details fall into may vary based on opinion/interpretation, but I did my best to list them out for reference.

Chapter 185 - Explicit Type: Feathered wings - regardless of the specifics of his quirk it’s undeniable his wings are made up of feathers which is a distinctly birdlike quality. There are many mythical creatures and even dinosaurs that also have feathered wings, but this is our first big piece of evidence.

Chapter 186 - Peripheral Type: Large appetite - birds have an incredibly fast metabolism because flying takes so much energy. They’re constantly eating. Plenty of young men are big eaters, but it was specifically pointed out and works towards our hypothesis so we’ll keep it in our back pocket for now.

Chapter 186 - Implicit/Peripheral Type: Fantastic vision - Hawks senses the Nomu coming before the audience even is able to make out what’s headed their way. It could be implied his wings caught it first, which might be the case, but he looks directly at the Nomu and brings Endeavor’s attention to it. Birds have fantastic long-range vision, especially birds of prey that mainly swoop in from high in the air to ambush highly perceptive prey. Also good to add to the pile.

Chapter 192 + Volume 20 Cover - Implicit/Peripheral type: Wears jewelry and bright colors - birds are well documented to be drawn to bright colors and are known for decorating their nests with trinkets. Scientists actually have to be careful when tagging birds with tracking bracelets because they can accidentally make him VASTLY more popular with the ladies by giving him a brightly colored band to the point they can’t resist him! Male birds are also known for having bright, colorful displays for attracting and wooing mates. While Hawks isn’t the only male character to wear jewelry in the series, he’s the only one (to my recollection) that wears as MUCH jewelry so often both during and outside of work. It may not be obvious, but the illustration on Volume 20 is actually an advertisement for his line of (presumably) luxury jewelry. In other words, Hawks on some level is synonymous with style and flair to the point he can make money by selling jewelry with his name on it.

Chapter 20 Volume Cover - Explicit Type: Hawk emblem on the watch face - If the name “Hawks” didn’t give it away, he’s very clearly trying to align himself with more avian qualities if his merch has bird motifs. In other words Hawk = “Hero Hawks” and “Hero Hawks” = bird.

Chapter 192, 244, clear file illustration - Peripheral Type: birdlike posture. Chapter 244 isn’t quite released yet on the official site as of writing this, but when Hawks swoops in and beats the kids to the punch apprehending the criminals trying to subdue Endeavor, his hands are clenched in a very talon-like manner similar to a swooping eagle. When walking with Endeavor in 192, he holds his resting hand in a similar fashion. On the clear file illustration he’s not only perched on his tippy toes in a pose that has been famously called “owling” (remember that trend/meme, y’all?) but his wings are slightly outstretched to catch the breeze to keep from falling over which a lot of birds can be seen doing when they don’t have great purchase on a surface in a place that’s a little windy. The fact that he seems to gravitate to high places like birds are often seen doing might also be a noteworthy indication.

Extra sources:

Hawks Shifuku: Horikoshi describes Hawks as a “bird person” and says that his initial design was based off of Takahiro from his old manga. 

Takahiro’s design:

Current character design: The banner image on my blog was commissioned from a friend of mine who doesn’t follow the series. When I showed her reference images of Hawks, you know what she said? “Oh! His hair is feathers!” Even his eyebrows have that fluffy/scruffy texture to them that his hair has. The markings on his eyes can also be seen on him as a young child in Chapter 191 which means it isn’t makeup meant to tie in a theme or look. He has those dark, pointed eye markings like many birds do. So on some genetic level he resembles a bird.

Step 4: Testing our hypothesis with the gathered evidence.

There’s already a lot of compelling evidence that already closely aligns him to birds which is promising. However, to really prove our point we should try to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt he is a bird. To do that this time around I’m going to see how the series treats people with animal-based quirks and see if it’s consistent with the way Hawks is portrayed.

You bring up Hound Dog and Tsuyu, and they’re fantastic examples. Let’s start with Hound.

He’s pretty straight forward - he’s like a dog. He has a dog face, has dog-like tendencies, and dog-like abilities. Superpower: dog.

And in Tsuyu’s case - quirk: frog, just frog. She’s stated explicitly to have frog-like features, frog-like tendencies, have frog-like abilities, and even comes from a “froggy family.”

So with these two very explicitly animal-like characters the common theme seems to be “If they’re considered to be like a specific animal, they have to physically resemble that animal, act like that animal at times, and have abilities like that animal.” Let’s see if another animal-quirk character matches up and then put Hawks to the test.

Spinner’s quirk is Gecko. Based on our criteria, is he a gecko?

Does he look like a gecko, even vaguely? 

Yes, he’s covered head to toe in scales, and his face is very lizard-like.

Does he occasionally act like a gecko? 

Unclear. We haven’t really seen any evidence of this, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t. For the sake of our argument, we’ll just say no and move on.

Does he have gecko-like abilities?

 Yes! Though most of his abilities are limited to things like being able to stick to walls, it’s still gecko-like in origin and qualifies.

Spinner hits clearly hits ⅔ criteria and our standards seem pretty consistent, so let’s see how Hawks stands up.

Does he look like a bird? 

Not all of his features may explicitly scream “avian” at first, but upon closer observation and with his clear previous inspiration this is a resounding yes.

Does he act like a bird? 

Many of the mannerisms and behaviors he displays can just be chalked up to him being a little eccentric, but with the sheer number of them that also parallel birds in some way this is also a pretty convincing yes.

Does he have bird-like abilities? 

While most of the emphasis is on his wings and what they can do, it does seem that he not only possesses things like heightened senses which could be attributed to avian abilities but he also very much possess high intelligence and incredibly fast reaction times which birds are also known for.

Even if we only gave Hawks a “maybe/half a point” for those last two, he still meets the 2⁄3 that Spinner did. So we have another question to ask: Does a character have to have an explicitly named “animal” quirk to be considered to be/resemble a specific animal? Let’s look at Ojirou and Tokoyami for reference.

Ojirou’s quirk is just “tail,” but he’s been described by his peers and classmates as a monkey and does seem to share some more monkey-like features. It isn’t lumped in with his quirk because the only notable monkey-like quality he possesses is a tail. He doesn’t have fangs or an opposable toe - he just has a tail. For quirk classification as far as hero work goes, that’s the only important thing to note.

Tokoyami, on the other hand has an entire literal bird head, but nothing else. He has a beak, feathers, and even in illustrations of him as a baby he had fluffier feathers on his head. Even with only those details, he just screams “bird!” However, his quirk is classified as “Dark Shadow” because that’s what sets him apart for hero work.

Back at Hawks we see his quirk classified as “fierce wings” but like Ojirou and especially like Tokoyami, the emphasis on his wings is what sets his abilities as a hero apart. Otherwise, he’s just a guy who looks and acts a LOT like a bird.

But astute observers may have noticed I’ve left out a detail that’s more or less a nail in the coffin on the whole matter, so let me ask a question: Tsuyu in particular has something else of note that solidifies in our minds that she is, indeed, a frog - she explicitly calls herself a frog. Could we say the same about Hawks?

Chapter 199 - Explicit Type

Bingo. Hawks has known himself for as long as he’s been alive. He knows his habits, his impulses, his family/genes, and so on. If he calls himself a bird, are we going to call him a liar? In fact, he calls himself a bird not once, but twice!

That’s pretty much it. With the evidence stacked to that degree, I’d be hard pressed to NOT believe he’s a bird.

That was a long amount of text to get through, so if you’re here at the end thank you for sticking out with me to this point. I really appreciate it. This is more or less the process I use when analyzing anything and everything whether it be HeroAca related or not. Maybe it’ll help you if you’ve struggled with literary analysis, or at the very least I hope you got some enjoyment out of it.

TL;DR If Hawks looks like a bird, walks (acts) like a bird, is based on a bird (character), and calls himself a bird, he’s probably a bird.

#hawks bnha #bnha hawks #hawks #hawks mha #mha hawks #she writes #let's talk hawks #bnha meta #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #manga spoilers

[letterboxd]

The Missing Linklater.

“Any time I’m on a set with Rick I feel very fortunate.” We talk to the writers behind Richard Linklater’s new missing-person feature film, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

An adaptation of Maria Semple’s 2012 comedic novel about a reclusive architect who goes missing just before a family trip to Antarctica, Where’d You Go, Bernadette? stars Cate Blanchett in the title role. Bernadette’s daughter Bee (Emma Nelson) sets out on a quest to find her, with Bernadette’s husband Elgie (Billy Crudup). Laurence Fishburne, Judy Greer and Kristen Wiig also star.

Directed by American filmmaking icon (and co-founder of the Austin Film Society) Richard Linklater, the screenplay was co-written with his frequent collaborators (and married couple) Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. If their names are not familiar as scriptwriters, that’s because they usually work further behind the scenes for Linklater, and have been since 1993’s Dazed and Confused, when Holly was a production coordinator, and Vince a second second assistant director.

Vince became Linklater’s first AD for the films Bad News Bears, Fast Food Nation, A Scanner Darkly, Before Midnight, Boyhood, Last Flag Flying and Where’d You Go, Bernadette?. Holly co-produced Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (2008), which she also wrote with Vince.

Reviewing Where’d You Go, Bernadette? on Letterboxd, Tom suggests that after a “generic” opening, the film “slowly starts to show its true colors as the character of Bernadette is unwrapped… it’s a story that is touching and even a bit inspiring for those who aspire to be their own artist in life.” J Oled agrees: “This could’ve been a Hallmark special, but because Linklater generally loves humanity, and is always experimenting, this film is quite watchable, it’s warm, relatable, and modest, and I wasn’t asking for much else.” Melissa, who has read the novel, offers: “If you’re a fan of the book… the movie is starkly different. But if you’re a fan of Linklater… you’re going to love it. Cate Blanchett may be the best actor of the decade.”

We spoke to Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. about their collaborative writing process with Linklater, mining their own relationship for inspiration, and making films for the social-media age.

Cate Blanchett as Bernadette and Emma Nelson as Bee.

How you were brought onto the project? Holly Gent Palmo: We have worked with Rick [Linklater] for many years. We first met on Dazed and Confused, where we were on the crew, and we’ve worked on many projects with him. He’s one of our close friends. He was brought onto the project and then we read the book and loved it so he brought us on. We started from scratch, it was all based on the novel.

What did you relate to in the book that made you feel you had the right perspective to take it on? HGP: This is a movie that for me personally is very relatable because it’s about a woman who has really lost herself in motherhood and as much as she loves that journey, she’s also really looking to rediscover her passion of her past creative impulses. I think that’s something that Rick, Vince, and I all can relate to, not only as parents, but also as people trying to do something creative in this world.

Was the book’s author Maria Semple involved at all? HGP: First of all, the novel is fantastic.

Vincent Palmo Jr: Love the book, love the book.

HGP: Maria knows so much about the filmmaking process and has that history herself that she knew that she wanted to hand it off to Rick. She talked to Cate and she talked to Rick but she did not take part in the writing.

Richard Linklater seems like a great writer to collaborate with. What is it about him that makes that operate so well? HGP: With Rick, the way we work is that we talk a lot in the beginning and clearly discuss every aspect of the book. This one was particularly challenging in that it was a modern epistolary novel told in emails and transcripts. It’s not a straight narrative and it’s not told in a linear fashion, necessarily. So we had to sort out the chronology of our story and what would be included.

Screenwriters Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. / Photo: Wilson Webb/Annapurna Pictures

It’s the way he works with actors and everyone. It’s a really respectful, really collaborative process where everybody gets to bring to the table their own personal point of view in their own lives. With Rick, we dove into the parts of the novel we liked best and what threads we were going to pick up and carry through.

VP: It was a pretty deep exploration of the novel, of all the different characters and situations. We talked through all that and came to an agreement between the three of us for what we felt said the themes best.

Vincent, you’re also Linklater’s first assistant director, which is an interesting combination of multi-tasking. On set, would you pitch in on the script-side? VP: No, on set as a first AD I’m more concerned about the day’s work and really having everything in place and ready to go so Rick just has to say “action” and “cut”. I don’t talk at all about the script. At that point we’re all dialed in anyway.

When Holly’s around they have their conferences and I’ll be arranging the next set up. I’ve done a lot of things with Rick. I did all twelve years of Boyhood. There’s a shorthand there that I’m intent and focused on each day’s shoot and what’s coming up the next day.

HGP: By the time Rick gets to set, he’s totally prepared and ready. He has his rehearsal process with his actors. Our process is over, he’s very sure of what he wants.

VP: You can’t over-prepare, but we’re very prepared.

HGP: Except maybe in a rare instance in having to negotiate some small change.

VP: Yeah, like in what the weather’s brought or something new at a location, things like that.

Boyhood and Before Midnight are both classics of their decade now. What were those sets like? VP: I’m so happy for Rick [that they’re highly regarded]. Boyhood just stretched on. I remember there were times where we were like, “is somebody in Eastern Europe doing the same thing and it’s going to come out before us?!” We really didn’t know.

To pick it up each year and shoot it on film when all that kind of change [to digital] was in the midst of us shooting… Any time I’m on a set with Rick I feel very fortunate. To see them received in the way they were, it’s really thrilling.

Emma Nelson and Billy Crudup in ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette?’.

In what ways, if any, did you adapt your style to the talents of Cate Blanchett and the other cast members? HGP: We knew that Cate was interested from the moment that we began. We were always hoping to do justice to her great talent and thinking towards that. To me, there could be no-one better in that role. Cate brings so much to it.

It’s an inspiration to think that no matter what kind of nuanced emotion we write in a scene, she can carry it and do an incredible job. It gives a freedom of inspiration thinking that there’s a possibility that Cate Blanchett can be playing the part.

The book is largely renowned for the way it captures the nuances of Seattle. What types of research did you do for the characters’ occupations and their environments? HGP: Rick did a lot of interesting, in-depth research for Elgie’s technology role and the kind of things he was developing. He talked to a lot of people involved in Microsoft developing those sorts of things, to bring that in the most detailed and up-to-date way.

For architecture, Rick arranged some meetings with some really great architects to go and talk to them about the language they use. As far as Seattle goes, there’s no greater resource for that than the novel itself. Maria really knows that world and has so many funny and interesting outsider opinions about it that I felt it was the perfect way to learn about that.

What did you feel you could bring to the element of marriage when writing as a married couple? HGP: That’s interesting.

VP: That is interesting. Well, we’ve been married for 26 years.

HGP: I do think that all three of us brought in our past relationships and our current relationships to the process. I believe it’s a realistic portrayal of the quest to keep improving your life through self-discovery. It’s a unique story that you don’t really see a lot of.

That whole idea that you can’t ever really know anyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try—Rick really loved those words, they’re the opening words of the novel. It’s this idea that the other person is always somewhat unknowable, but you keep trying to get to know each other while you change through the years.

VP: The search continues! You find new things.

HGP: Nothing is more rewarding in life than those close relationships that last decades.

Richard Linklater, Emma Nelson, Cate Blanchett and Billy Crudup at a New York screening earlier this month. / Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Do you think it’s difficult to write contemporary films for the social-media age? HGP: It’s fascinating when you see movies and there’s this before-and-after cell phones dividing line, because so many of the great films and their plots would have been so different if everyone was carrying a phone around.

I don’t know if it’s easier, but it is a change in your way of thinking as you realize everyone has a phone in their pocket. I think both [period and contemporary] are fun. Any kind of story or plot that you’re trying to figure out is a really fun and challenging puzzle. I notice in a lot of films they try and get rid of the phone in some way.

What was the film that got you into filmmaking and made you want to be a part of this industry? VP: Oh my gosh, wow. Jeez, that’s a really tough one.

HGP: There’s so many stages to it. There’s the ones you see when you’re a little kid that just blow you over. Those are so bound with light and emotion that you don’t even understand. I remember Apocalypse Now—that was something that blew my mind.

VP: It just kind of builds. I got a degree in journalism and then I ended up working in film so it’s hard to point to just one that really flipped the switch. I don’t know why, but I saw The Sound of Music a bunch of times when I was younger. Maybe it was just easier for my mom to take me and my four siblings out to see it.

‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette?’ is in select US cinemas now.

#richard linklater #austin film society #holly gent #vincent palmo jr #seattle #where'd you go bernadette #maria semple #billy crudup #emma nelson #austin #letterboxd

[dmellieon]

Now you see him: Martin Freeman

Words byROBIN SWITHINBANKPhotography byMATT HOLYOAKStyling byGARETH SCOURFIELD

Martin Freeman has been in some huge movies. But despite the successes and his undeniable talent, he's still not one of the first names in Hollywood. Thing is, he's okay with that. Really, actually, genuinely okay

It’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to hear a movie star say, at least, not one who has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of all time. ‘I’m not part of the Hollywood A-list,’ says Martin Freeman, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I’m genuinely not. No. Nowhere near.’

That might sound unduly modest, but the thing is, despite appearing as the titular figure in Peter Jackson’s $3bn Hobbit super-franchise; despite being part of Marvel’s universe (twice, most recently in Black Panther); despite appearing alongside the likes of Billy Bob Thornton (as Lester Nygaard in the Coen-brothers-inspired TV hit Fargo) and Benedict Cumberbatch (as Dr John Watson in Sherlock); and despite being an Emmy and BAFTA-award winning actor (both for Sherlock), he’s not.

‘For a lot of people, the Hobbit was played by Bilbo Baggins,’ he says, that familiar look of knowing resignation writ large across his face. Surely playing the heroic halfling has transformed his career and spun him into the red-carpet superstar galaxy? ‘I don’t know how many people after that thought: “Get me that guy.” I genuinely don’t know. It didn’t feel like it made a massive difference to me. Honest to God.’ Perhaps that will explain where he keeps those awards. ‘On my roof,’ he quips. ‘So people can see them.’

It’s tempting to cast Freeman as unhappy. There’s certainly a tension in him. In person, he’s courteous and engaged – he says words like ‘genuinely’ and ‘literally’ often and fervently – but there’s a sharpness to his opinions, and there’s plenty that riles him. That said, he seems at one with his lot. Mostly. ‘I will allow myself to be proud of that,’ he says of his awards, clearly trying not to big himself up. ‘I do alright. I do OK.’

Martin Freeman might have done some blockbusters in his time, but his first love is independent film. His latest vehicle is Ghost Stories, a proper spooky, throw-your-popcorn-in-the-air fright fest. It’s also an anthology – the fashionable format of our time – featuring the mercurial talents of Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Andy Nyman. Freeman appears in the third and final act as a wealthy city trader with a ghost problem no prominent psychiatrist has been able to explain. It’s a bleak piece, but it’s funny, too, particularly when Freeman’s natural comic talents are front and centre.

‘People are being hit badly. I’d happily vote for someone who’s going to tax me more’

It is also, for reasons that can’t be explained without spoiling the film, another reminder that the 46-year-old is one of our most versatile actors (‘To be a good comic actor means you’re a good actor, right?’). We spend 10 minutes discussing the film, which Nyman co-wrote and co-directed with Jeremy ‘League of Gentlemen’ Dyson, before it dawns on us that we can’t really talk about it. Not on paper, anyway. One salient detail gets the full treatment, before Freeman jumps in: ‘Don’t give that away, for f**k’s sake!’ he implores. ‘This is my first interview for the film and I’ve already f**ked it up…’

Freeman is not known for his candour. He doesn’t do a lot of interviews and he’s no self publicist (he’s not on social media), only letting it slip that he and Sherlock co-star Amanda Abbington had split after two kids and 16 years together in an interview with the FT a year after the event. Is he with anyone now? ‘Well,’ he says, folding his arms. ‘I would never tell you if I was.’

Conversation about his background and family is therefore a bit stilted. He was born in Aldershot and grew up the youngest of five siblings in Teddington (‘yes, those are the facts.’). His parents split not long after he was born, but he recalls a happy home. ‘We kissed a lot and hugged a lot,’ he says. ‘I mean, it wasn’t The Brady Bunch – we also f**king screamed and shouted a lot.’

They were creative, too, a ‘showy-offy family, no wallflowers’. He’s the only career actor, a path he was encouraged to follow, particularly by his mother, who never got the chance. ‘I was only met with support,’ he says. ‘I didn’t have to leave home, I wasn’t booted out. I know people who faced active hostility from their parents, because it’s so unsafe and it’s in the lap of the gods whether you’ll be able to feed yourself or not.’

These days, Freeman is certainly able to feed himself. Over the past 20 years, his talents have served him well. His big break came in The Office, the mockumentary cringeathon that also made household names of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Mackenzie Crook. ‘I’m very proud of it,’ he says of the show that in 2004 became the first British sitcom to win a Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Comedy or Musical. ‘I still think it’s a phenomenal show. And I still think the central performance [Gervais’s] is one of the best things I’ve ever seen, let alone acted with. I could not have wanted a better break.’

The apocryphal stories surrounding the show are legion, but the one about him originally auditioning to play Gareth, Crook’s character and the butt of all the jokes, rather than Tim, is true. Gervais and his co-creator Merchant spotted something in Freeman audiences have come to know him by. ‘The Office is basically a room full of Laurels and one Hardy, which is Tim,’ Gervais once told The Sun. ‘Tim’s character is pretty common in comedy – that person who thinks they’re better than everyone else, but it doesn’t seem to get them anywhere.’

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For a time, it seemed Freeman might suffer the same fate. He became known as the guy that did ‘that face’. He once appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocksand was invited by host Simon Amstell to do a ‘sigh-off’ with Gavin & Stacey’s routinely put-upon Mathew Horne. Did he worry he’d never lose that tag? ‘Yeah, I was nervous about that,’ he admits. ‘The thing is, I can do that face. But that face, it’s Oliver Hardy’s face. Not my face. He did it 70 years before I did. That’s just me channelling Oliver Hardy.’ Gervais was right, then.

During the mid-2000s, he picked up roles in Love Actually and Hot Fuzz, and played the lead in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Then came Sherlock, The Hobbit, Fargo, the awards and a lot more public attention. ‘I was out last night, having a drink with a friend, walking around town. There are people following you around with camera phones in your face – it’s not pleasant.’

The public is never far from Freeman’s mind. He’s openly political, not exactly in a ‘Ladies and gentleman, the next President of the United States of America’ kind of way (we’ve established he’s not Hollywood – he doesn’t even own a home in the US), but he did front a party political broadcast for the Labour Party in 2015 and endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s successful leadership bid later that year. A question about fairness opens the floodgates. ‘I do genuinely think this Government is f**king up. I really do,’ he says. ‘And that’s not to say that a Labour Government would be doing much better. But I think people are being hit genuinely really badly, who shouldn’t be. That’s why I’d happily vote for someone who’s going to tax me more.’

Pardon? ‘I think I should be taxed more. I’ve got more money than a lot of people. In my lifetime, there have always been homeless people. Now there’s even more. Food banks, and people being made homeless by not being able to afford their houses, and not enough social housing being made or built, and austerity on and on and on… I don’t know what we expect to happen, but if you’re doing that and cutting the police, what the f**k do you think is going to happen?’

‘We’re getting more polarised. The inability to see the other side is a problem. Social media has helped do away with nuance’

He’s only too conscious of the conflict in being a very wealthy movie star who thinks more should be done to support the disenfranchised. ‘I get it,’ he says. ‘I get why people say: “Who is this prick?” I get it. Most people aren’t as lucky as me. That’s just the truth. So I can see easily why it comes across as pontificating, why it comes across as being champagne socialist. Which is what we’re all called, as soon as you’re not on the dole. If you’re vaguely famous and say anything left wing, it’s a very easy stick to hit you with.’

That’s the natural framework of popular discourse, though, surely? A binary response is easiest. ‘But we’re getting more polarised,’ he retorts. ‘Definitely. The inability to see the other side is a problem. Unless someone is actually driving down your street in a Panzer, then I think you have to keep dialogue. Social media has helped do away with nuance. If me and you have a disagreement here, we can still have a cup of tea. But we do it on social media – then you’re a Nazi.

‘We can’t go on like that. I will easily say I think Trump is a vile pig, but I don’t think every single person who votes Republican is a vile pig. That would be crazy. And I certainly don’t think that about everyone who votes Conservative. It’s not my team. It’s not my party. But do I know Conservatives? Do I like ’em? ’Course I do. Can I not stand some Labour people? Yeah, I can’t stand some of them. So, my hope would be, genuinely, that we start to put our phones down for a minute, and actually not get involved in these f**king wars, which are so safe to have, and so self-righteous… It costs you nothing to be an armchair activist.’

In Ghost Stories the themes of guilt, good and bad and choice run through the piece, holding it together. In one particularly chilling scene, Freeman’s character utters the deliciously portentous line, ‘I didn’t believe in evil until that night…’ He was brought up a Catholic, but isn’t ‘card-carrying’ now. Does he think the film is a modern parable, a wake-up call to burst our secular bubble?

‘Maybe,’ he says reluctantly. ‘I’m one of the only people who I know in my world who isn’t an atheist. I like the questions. That’s where the interesting stuff happens. I’m equally uneasy with hardcore unquestioning atheists as I am with born-again Christians with their hands in the air and their eyes closed. In the same way that yes, I’m of the Left, but there are people and things about the Left that make me very uncomfortable. The sort of unquestioning, demonising of anyone who doesn’t agree with you, kind of thing. I see that in atheists – if you don’t agree with me, you’re intrinsically a moron. And that isn’t helpful. The older I get, the more I realise you need dialogue.’

This, it seems, is the real Freeman. Vocal, ardent, yet nuanced. But he’s not claiming the soapbox. ‘Let’s face it, I wasn’t a very good omen in 2015,’ he says of his virtual doorstepping days. ‘I don’t want my voice to be a political voice. I’m not some political genius. There’s one thing I’m good at, and it’s acting. I have absolute faith in my ability to do that.’

Like it or not, he has a voice. Thank goodness, it’s not the hashtaggable, awards-season friendly voice of many of his fellow actors. He’s more balanced than that. More open to argument. That’s what we saw – and loved – in Tim. In Lester. In Bilbo. In Freeman, we see life’s ambiguousness, its ludicrousness, its ordinariness.

Freeman has to go. He’s got ‘kiddy things’ to do. He’s an active father when he’s not working, and frankly, I’m holding him up. In a flash, he’s gone.

Ghost Stories is in cinemas on 6 April

Source:https://www.thejackalmagazine.com/martin-freeman-interview/

#Dee posts #martin freeman #The Jackal #March 2018

[hannahchronism]

right yeah so how does phantom’s religious beliefs affect or not affect his friendships is the rosary jut a pretty pocket accessory to his friends or like.?

Ooo good one okay so

For starters, I want to make a note on the rosary thing cause that definitely just seems like an analogy you were using but I still feel like it’s worth pointing out that his particular beliefs align more closely under the blanket term of some kind of protestant Chrisitianity. Maybe not Protestant itself but in any case, not Catholicism. (Cause y’know technically anything not Catholic is protestant but also Protestant is a whole thing itself and it’s…involved.) I should probably get more specific as to more Baptist leaning or something at some point but I argue with myself a lot about how much of the divisions between the nuanced practices (Baptist, Methodist, Non-denominational, etc.) would remain given the setting and BLI probably having a lot to say about squashing all religions, y’know? (So who even knows how much of those distinctions even remain) but essentially that just means it leaves out like. Seven deadly sins aren’t really a thing in most(?) protestant structures, also they’re not big on the saints (unless you’re Baptist and in that case, we can’t hear enough about dang John) and Mary’s not really sanctified either. 

In any case, his particular ‘’brand’’ of Christianity focuses on the new testament and Jesus’s lessons, basically. [[Though that’s…kinda biased because of my own upbringing but I digress. I really just gotta dig some more, expand what I already know and find what fits him best.]] Interesting note - he doesn’t think dustverse is the prophecized apocalypse, but I’d wager there’s at least one Bible-headed zone runner out there who does. That’d be an interesting character.

But to get to, uh, your actual question:

I’m sure it varies from character to character? So I’m gonna talk about a couple examples in a sec, but first/short answer is it’s definitely not a thing that he like, hides or avoids broaching for the sake of comfort. He’s not a high horse type – big on the ‘everybody sins and we’re all equally forgivable by divine grace’ train, actually– and if any friend of his has expressed they’re not interested in his (or any other) religion he doesn’t push it out of respect for your right to free will and autonomy, but he’s not gonna sit by and let you shit talk about it either. He’ll get mad if you’re taking potshots, man. Really basically just don’t dis his beliefs and he’ll keep his opinions about yours to himself as well.

[It probably has at least a little to do with how a thing like being religious and being a rebel to an oppressive regime like BLI intersect. Can’t exactly be a freedom fighter if you’re trying to force something on other people, right?]

This is..easier with some people than others.

Him and Des are on really good terms about having what are, effectively, contradictory religions (she’s big on the Zone Deities™ ), to the point that they’re comfortable discussing doubts about their respective beliefs with each other without feeling like the other will push them into abandoning anything. This could arguably be more to do with how close they are are members of the same group and the pseudo-parents of Dawn than anything about their specific religion(s) but it goes to show that basic respect about the topic goes a long way with Phantom. They’re probably argued about it in the past, but have ended up in a concession of agreeing to disagree, essentially, and since neither one of them uses their differing opinions as a means of saying that the other is inherently evil because of their beliefs, it works out fine for them.

[That might.. be a topic that’s dissolved some in the climate? That extreme Christian ‘convert or you’re the worst’ ideology? I feel like the exclusionary nature probably backed off once it came under actual threat as opposed to the victim complex a lot of Christianity falls under these days.  …Should I meta about Dustverse Christianity? Maybe. I’ll think about it.]

On that note, him and Tox actually got close when they met in city (which I…do not talk enough about nor have planned out as well as I’d like..) because of sharing religion.Tox’s views are a little more what you’d expect of a Christian from our time, probably [I feel like he’s just slightly more apt to remind you you’re going to hell than Phantom is, the shithead] but on the whole they’re very in sync on a lot of things. I imagine religions in general, all of them, have become pretty sparse and/or taboo under BLI, so for them finding another person who shares even the basics of the same belief system was probably an amazing thing, and then finding out that a lot of it is the same probably just furthered them growing really quickly to trust and lean on each other. (I mean, Tox trusted Phantom to get Lith out of the city safely should the worst happen after only knowing him for like… I think it was maybe a month or two? Like I said, timeline’s weak there for me.) But so the point being, for them it’s not even a secondary thing, it’s more or less the cornerstone of their friendship. They probably have a lot of talks about and around it, like a tiny church fellowship of two, sharing the stories they remember and reaffirming each other.

Conversely to both of those relationships, Diana is at best atheistic and at worst vehemently opposed to any mention of or belief in a higher power to which no actual evidence is presentable, and to that degree handles her interactions with Phantom with a chip on her shoulder about it. He tries to ignore it a lot of the time, but needless to say those aforementioned potshots he doesn’t kindly to often come from her. They’re.. kinda not really friends because of it. I mean they’ll tolerate each other and in a scrape could count on the other to watch their back, but it’s very.. professional, there’s a professional air to it. 

Weasel, as you may or may not know, is the resident nightmare about everything at all times and I’m sure he gives Phantom (and Tox. I guarantee he’s called Tox “John the Baptist” at least once) shit about it to varying degrees of awful, but to be honest that’s just because he enjoys stirring shit up and he and Phantom probably get along ..okay when Weasel’s not being a pain. Mostly because Weasel just doesn’t give a genuine shit about religion, and is only harassing him for the amusement factor.

So like. I guess the clearer answer is that it’d be basically impossible for someone to consider his religion an accessory because it’s woven into his life in a way that it’s not just convenience or habit. It’s belief, y’know? Where the structure of his ideologies comes from. So whether the people in his life want to agree with it or disagree with varies, but there’s not really room to ignore it without ignoring him, I don’t think. And not in a here-he-goes-with-that-Jesus-High-Horse-shit way but just.. there. Present. He’s got a faith and he’s not going to pretend he doesn’t for any conceivable reason. Ask him if you want, make no mention of it when he says something, take whatever path to or around or in opposition to it that you want - it doesn’t matter. He’s got what he’s got and you’re not gonna be the one to take it from him.

#pending revision

[wineanddinosaur]

Wine 101: Rioja

This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Las Rocas Wine. Las Rocas Wines hail from an arid, hilly region in the northeast of Spain, where the air is dry and the terrain is unforgiving. Against all odds, Garnacha vines thrive here on these steep, rocky slopes, producing grapes with a signature palate of spice and minerality. These robust vines, some more than a hundred years old, lend their lively spirit and character to all Las Rocas wines. Sample the rich and full-bodied flavors of Spain: Las Rocas Wine.

In this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses all things Rioja. Listeners will learn about the very small region that produces some of Spain’s finest wine. That region, a province called La Rioja, has a rich, unique history dating back to the mid-19th century.

Rioja made a name for itself because of French winemakers and the barrels they brought to the region. Beavers also explains that Rioja is unique in that it is not defined by any political boundaries. That freedom, Beavers says, has resulted in wines with a prominent place on the American market.

Tune in to become an expert on wines from Rioja.

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Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers. And beavers, how cool are beavers? They’re awesome.

What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 11 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast, Season 2. My name is Keith Beavers. I am the tasting director of VinePair. How are you? Now we’re getting famous. We’re talking about the most well-known wine region in Spain, it’s called Rioja. It’s not that big, but it has a lot of interesting stuff. Let’s get to know Rioja. What do you say?

Rioja is a word that I believe, if you’re into wine in the United States, you’ve heard. It might actually be the only word or the only wine from Spain that you may have heard of. Wines from the Rioja region of Spain are the most prominent Spanish wines on our market. That’s changing dramatically. There have always been other Spanish wines on our market. But as far as getting eyeballs on it and understanding it, Rioja has had a place on the American market that other Spanish wines haven’t. This is not an official statement, but I personally believe that Rioja is Spain’s fine-wine region. There’s other amazing wine all over, don’t get me wrong: Priorat, Ribera Del Duero. There are great wines all over Spain. I’m just saying there’s a reputation that Rioja has that other wine regions in Spain don’t. That reputation is what we know on the American market, but what do we really know about Rioja? We get that it’s from Spain. Some of us might know that it’s Tempranillo and maybe some other varieties. Some of us may know words like Crianza, and Gran Reserva. What does it all mean? Let’s break down Rioja because it’s on our market, and it’s great stuff. It’s awesome wine. Let’s understand a little bit more so when you do go and buy a Rioja wine, you know what you’re looking at.

Just inland from the coast of northeast Spain is a range of mountains called Sierra de Cantabria. If you cross the Cantabrian Mountain range, you go into a valley, of course, and that valley has a river that is called the Ebro River. If you keep on going even further south through the valley, you’ll see another mountain range called Sierra de la Demanda. This valley, guided by the geological history of the Ebro River, flowing from the Cantabrian Mountains through this valley towards the Mediterranean, runs northwest to southeast. It’s on an angle, if you will. The mountain ranges on either side of this valley, as you go southeast, those mountains start to get lower and you move into a lower-elevation area, which will eventually go into the Mediterranean. In the northwestern corner of this valley, all the way towards the foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains, is a town called Haro. There is a small tributary of the Ebro River that flows into the city of Haro. That river is called Oja. That river is what lends its name to the province that it exists in and the wine region that exists within the province. La Rioja. Rio Oja is basically what it means.

From the town of Haro, the Ebro River runs southeast through the capital of the region or province called Logroño. Then, it passes and goes even further south, then we get into the lower-lying areas. It passes a major town called Calahorra. Then, it ends in Alfaro, the town of Alfaro. You basically have 60-plus miles of the Ebro River. Spanning out from the banks of those rivers are vineyards. The vineyards basically just run along the river, and they spread out. If you go to the northwestern part of the river, it’s more mountainous. They spread out into the foothills of the Cantabrians. As you get down towards the Mediterranean, the vineyards spread out towards the Mediterranean geography. That’s the wine region of Rioja. We’re going to get into the boundaries in a second because it is interesting that the majority of this wine region is in the province of La Rioja, but it also dips into other places like the Basque region in a place called Navarre, which we’ll get into.

This little pocket, one of the smallest regions in Spain, the second smallest region in Spain — this little pocket of awesome right here has been making wine for a very long time. Yet, this is the thing talking about European wine regions, it gets a little bit repetitive after a while — especially with France, England, and Spain because of the similarities during antiquity and the Medieval times. When modern times come around, that’s when things start getting different.

In Spain, typically in this region, you would have had Roman rule and the wine was being made then. Then there was Moorish rule, which was Muslim, and they tolerated winemaking but they weren’t allowed to drink it. Then after that, you would go into Medieval times. We all know what happened in Medieval times, the monks making wine in isolation, recording things fully funded by the church, doing their thing, saving wine all over Europe. The thing about this place is during all those times, the Rioja region was pretty isolated. It’s between two mountains. It’s very hard to get to the most populated areas on the other side of the Cantabrian mountains towards the coast, going north. However, when a trade route was created to Bilbao, which is a port town in the Basque region on the north coast of Spain, that is how the floodgates opened up with Rioja. That wasn’t how Rioja made itself Rioja. Rioja made itself Rioja because of French winemakers. Not really, but kind of. OK, let me explain.

In the mid-19th century, around the 1840s, a disease from North America made its way into the vineyards of Europe, specifically France. It’s called powdery mildew. It’s a disease that attacks the green parts of vines and creates these spores that look like spider webs. It retards the growth of the plant. It interferes with certain growth processes of a plant so that it doesn’t fully form. It’s bad. It was so bad in the 1840s in Europe, especially in France, that wine merchants left France and actually came to the Rioja region of Spain. They began collaborating with winemakers in Rioja to make wine along with French ideas and French lines to sell wine that way. Basically, leaving the people in France saying, “You guys figure out your powdery mold stuff. We wine merchants are going to go over the Pyrenees to hang out with the Spanish over in La Rioja and make things happen.”

Well, by the time the French were over there doing this, there were already commercial wineries opening up in the region that were selling to colonies. The Spanish colonies, actually, and enjoying that trade route to Bilbao. This time period defined the standard of wines being made in Rioja going forward.

Then in 1901, the first document of Phylloxera in Rioja happened. By that time, the French are back over the Pyrenees and back dealing with their situation over there. Phylloxera did come to Spain, to Rioja. From that period until about the 1970s, so much happens with politics, economics, and it goes up and down. What’s important about the Rioja region is to understand what it is today, because the thing is, it’s a region that is changing. There are things changing in Rioja, and in the future, we’re going to start seeing more nuances, more details on wine labels. I am not really sure, but they’re talking about it.

Let’s get an idea of what Rioja looks like and just understand it so wine shopping could be fun again. As I said before, the wine region of Rioja is mostly in the province of La Rioja. But part of the northern borders of this wine region dip into other places. Part of it dips into Álava, which is an autonomous region in the Basque country. Part of it dips into Navarre, which is another province. As far as terroir is concerned, the Rioja region is split into three sections, which is very interesting because those three sections don’t define what you see on labels so much. However, it does define what kind of wine is in your bottle. It’s a little bit confusing, and that’s why there are some things going on in this wine region that they’re trying to update.

Imagine a diagonal line. In the middle of that line, just above it, Logroño, which is the capital of this region, is an axis point where you can see where the wine regions are. On the eastern side of Logroño, on that diagonal line going southeast, that entire section to the end of that line is Rioja Baja. It was formerly known as Rioja Baja, but it’s now called Rioja Oriental. I’m telling you both because you’re going to hear them both. This is the region that you’re going away from the elevation of the mountain towards the Mediterranean, a more low-lying, fertile area. Back to the dot, that is Logroño, the capital. The majority of the land to the west of Logroño is a wine-growing region called Rioja Alta. Alta, meaning tall. We’re getting into the foothills of the Cantabrians. It’s a more hilly region, with poorer soils. Those are the two big regions in Rioja. Now, just northwest of the town of Logroño is a separate wine region that is cut out of the Rioja Alta. Then, there’s another little section that is bisected on the other side, which is a small region they call Rioja Alavesa. The reason they call it Alavesa is that this is the wine region that goes across the border and into the Basque region, into a town called Álava. Alavesa, Álava. We have Rioja Baja, Rioja Alta, and Rioja Alavesa. Those are the three main regions of the Rioja wine-growing region.

Rioja is unique and stands aside from other wine regions because this wine region is not defined by political boundaries, it is defined by geography alone. Dare I say terroir. When a wine region dips into other autonomous regions, it’s mostly about that. The other unique thing about this region is how they classify their wine, which we’ll talk about in a second. White wine is made in Rioja. But when you’re at a wine shop looking in the Rioja section, you’re going to see a lot of red. It’s primarily a red wine region and it’s often blended. There are more mono-varietal wines being made these days. I believe that it is because of the French influence, there’s a blending culture going on here. The No. 1 variety in Rioja is a red grape called Tempranillo. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. If you listened to the Spanish episode last season, you’ll know this. It’s the country’s most ubiquitous grape variety or red. I believe that’s over 80 percent of the vines in Rioja. They also grow Garnacha or Grenache, they grow a grape called Mazuelo, which in other parts of Spain is called Cariñena and in other parts of the world called Carignane. There’s the red grape Graciano, which is often blended with Tempranillo. Then, there’s this new one. It’s not new, it’s very old, but it’s emerging. Winemakers are trying to bring it out of obscurity and back into the world of Rioja.

The grape is called Maturana Tinta. I’ve never tried wines made from just that grape. I don’t know about how it’s being blended, but there’s a lot of talk about this grape in this area. In Rioja, 85 percent of the blend needs to be made up of these grapes, which is really cool. These are all indigenous varieties. We’re not talking about Cabernet or Syrah. If they wanted to put that in, it’s fine. But it’s very interesting that it’s not. It’s specifically these grapes from this region. It’s pretty cool. Yes, there is Merlot, there is Cabernet Sauvignon, but from what I understand, they’re mostly experimental vines, not prominent in the blends. It is mostly just these indigenous varieties.

It’s pretty much the same with white wine. Even though there’s not a lot of white wine being made in the Rioja region, they are very cool if you get a chance to check them out. They’re primarily blended with grapes like Viura, which is also called Macabeo in other parts of Spain. There’s Garnacha Blanca, a grape called Malvasia, also the Maturana Blanca, which is the white version of the Maturana Tinta. The majority of the blends are made up of these varieties, but of course there is also Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, but like Cabernet and Merlot, they’re not predominantly part of these blends.

As a major wine region in the world, the way Rioja does wine is very interesting. First of all, there’s the geographic thing where it’s not political, it’s geographical. That’s one very interesting thing. The other interesting thing is that the majority of the wine being made in Rioja historically was that you’d have these merchant bodegas. Bodega is a winery. There would be vine growers or grape growers that would supply these bodegas with wine. That’s how it was done. There were also co-ops where you had a large winemaking facility with multiple members, and usually, that wine goes from the vineyard and funnels into these merchant bodegas. All these labels are created, and that’s how Rioja works or has worked. Now, there are wineries that have estates and can make their own wine. However, the merchant bodegas are how unique it is in Rioja because this happened even through into modern times.

The other thing that’s unique to this area is how they classify their wine. For now — and things are changing as I actually say this — but the wines of Rioja are classified specifically by how much time they age in the barrel and in oak. It is classified into three categories, actually four, but three major categories. The blending is very loose. 85 percent has to be these grapes, but do whatever you want. It’s the aging that defines.

These are the aging categories. You have crianza, reserva, and gran reserva. Crianza, which is loosely translated to “upbringing” or “to bring up.” For wines that are labeled crianza, you’ll see it on the wine label. And on the back, you’ll see a red sticker. That’s new. These wines have to be released in their third year. For at least 12 months of that time, the wine needs to be in oak barrels. For white wines, it’s only six months. These are the youngish wines that are soft, supple, fruity, and awesome. They can be very leathery at times, too, depending on the blend, but they’re a little softer and younger. If the wine says reserva on the label, on the back of the wine bottle you’ll see a burgundy-colored sticker. These wines also have a minimum aging of three years, but one of those years needs to be in barrel and six months need to be in bottle before release. If you see gran reserva on the label, and it has a blue sticker on the back, these wines need to be aged a total of 60 months, with a minimum of two years in oak and another two years in bottle. Every other wine from Rioja that you see that is not in those categories is considered generic. I know it’s a weird word, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. You’ll look in the back of the label and the sticker will be green, almost avocado green. That’s wines that do not adhere to these aging requirements.

My thought is that the benefit to this is the blending of these wines is very individual to the winemaker or the person building the blends. I believe the blends are built to be crianza, reserva, or gran reserva. The amount of time that you age these wines in, you want to have certain varieties that are bigger than other varieties. The majority of the red wines you get from Rioja, even if it’s gran reserva, Tempranillo is a beautiful, medium-bodied type wine. It has good acidity. It’s soft fruit. It gives me a Sangiovese vibe because it has that acidity in medium fruit, and it’s good with food. That’s why it’s really great when it’s blended with Graciano, Garnacha, Cariñena, or Mazuelo to give it a bit more body, structure, and color.

Another interesting thing about Rioja is when the French were there helping out, they brought French barrels. French barrels have been in the Rioja region since the late 1800s. However, at some point, they started favoring American oak. American oak is much more influential on the wine than French oak. French oak is a little more subtle. American oak is big, and it really adds a lot of heft to a wine. These wines in Rioja are very elegant. They are built based on how the winemaker wants to age them. A gran reserva aged in American oak is going to be a nice medium- to full-bodied red wine, but they are using French oak as well.

I need to close out with this, because it’s happening and already happened but Rioja is focusing as we speak. Over the past couple of years, they’ve redefined some of the things they’re doing. They’re trying to focus more on terroir. In the Alavesa region, you’re allowed now to attach a village to your label, similar to what they do in Burgundy. There are over 100 of them. And they are doing single-vineyard stuff now. They’re having designations for single vineyards. All these new things are not as prominent on wine labels on our market. I just want everyone to know about it, because this is where Rioja is going. They’re getting more focused on terroir. We’re going to start seeing more things on labels to help us understand where the wine is from. When we get there, of course, VinePair will let you know all about it.

That’s Rioja in a nutshell. Next time you are at a wine shop and you’re looking at the Rioja section, you’ll know what you’re looking at. Oh, and don’t worry about the netting. Some wine bottles have netting around them. It’s just an aesthetic thing. Don’t worry about that. But enjoy Rioja. I hope you can dig it. I hope this helps you understand it more, and I will see you, wine lovers, next week.

@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps get the word out there. And now, for some totally awesome credits.

“Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darby Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.

The article Wine 101: Rioja appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-rioja/

[olgagarmash]

3 Ways to Humanize the Virtual Health Care Experience – Harvard Business Review

To what degree will telehealth remain a dominant force in health care after the pandemic ends? That will significantly depend on how care providers invest in existing and emerging digital tools that will allow physicians and patients to build and maintain trusting relationships.

While virtual visits accounted for roughly 70% of total visits in the United States during the early stages of the outbreak, their levels dropped to about 30% towards the end of fall. That said, it’s safe to assume that telehealth won’t return to its pre-pandemic level, when only 8% of Americans used it. That’s because even though barriers to adoption — such as regulation, insurance coverage, and conditions requiring in-person care — will remain, provider and patient behaviors and expectations are shifting. But the degree to which they do so will depend on how the experience for both groups improves.

It will require provider organizations to invest in tools that are sensitive to human emotion. This is certainly possible. In fact, some providers have already started doing so, and startups offering solutions have begun to emerge. Here are three ways telehealth technologies can humanize the virtual care experience for both providers and patients.

Create a Strong First Impression

It’s no secret that first impressions matter. It takes milliseconds for us to make snap judgments. We also tend to resist novelty the older we get. Naturally, we can assume that physicians and patients — particularly those who haven’t used telehealth before — will be skeptical about adopting it. So the more compelling the first impression these tools create, the likelier patients and physicians are to engage with them.

When using technology, first impressions are informed by the effort it requires to execute tasks (compared to that of alternatives) and the instant gratification it provides. Models in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and economics indicate that humans like to avoid effort. Studies such as Mischel’s marshmallow experiment have also shown that we’re likelier to choose instant, over delayed, gratification.

Picture a platform that welcomes physicians with a warm message about their upcoming appointment with a particular patient. The message could include key insights about the patient’s record and reason for her visit. As they start the visit, a digital tip sheet could pop up to outline friendly reminders on virtual care best practices (e.g., maintain eye contact, ask personal questions to get to know the patient) and the types and methods of diagnoses that can be performed to execute a successful visit. Once they meet a certain benchmark of successful telehealth visits, they could be rewarded with an invitation to an exclusive seminar.

Making the scheduling process personalized and informative could make a great initial impression on patients. Having them complete a short app-based quiz to understand their needs and concerns before scheduling a visit would ease the friction of finding the right doctor. Providing a simple, clear online estimate of what their insurance would cover and what their responsibility would be before scheduling a visit would give them the gratification of making financially-informed health care decisions.

Care provider organizations and startups alike have already developed tools like these. One Medical’s 1Life technology ecosystem, for example, provides physicians with summary of a patient’s care history and context-based suggestions for their care as well as access to her full electronic health record. At NYU Langone, where I work, virtual appointments are booked through Epic’s online patient portal, MyChart, which gives physicians access to a patient’s entire clinical information. Bright.md provides a “virtual physician assistant” platform that helps patients find the right care in under two minutes by answering a thorough clinical questionnaire that bases the questions it poses on the individual patient’s responses. Waystar uses predictive analytics and other advanced software to help patients understand how much their insurance plans would cover and how much their out-of-pocket expenses would be prior to their appointments.

Build Active Engagement and Meaningful Connection

Technology streamlines the way we live our lives and engage with one another. But it seldom replicates the nuances and beauty of human connection, and that deficiency is a significant problem in health care. Providers care deeply about their patients and delivering the best care possible to them. Patients want to be listened to, understood, and comforted.

It’s therefore important to have tools that facilitate high quality delivery of care and help patients feel they’re being treated as people, not statistics. There are two prongs to understand in achieving this: active engagement and meaningful connection. The former requires the tools to prompt patients to take actions that improve the way they manage their own care and prompt providers to deliver care in a more effective way. The latter requires the tools to be able to understand and anticipate the needs of these groups so they can help strengthen the patient-provider relationship beyond a transactional service.

Active engagement for patients could be, for instance, app-based prompts to confirm their symptoms and communicate concerns to providers the day of the visit, or a friendly text message with a link to join the visit minutes before starting. For providers it might look like a virtual assistant that reminds physicians to follow up with patients depending on what the outcome and treatment plan of a particular visit was.

Meaningful connection can be achieved with artificial-intelligence-based software. For example, AI-based speech-recognition software could monitor a patient’s speech during a visit to identify potential conditions that affect the human voice, like asthma, before the physician or patient even know it.

Kencor Health’s SAMi digital assistant is one example of a solution that reminds patients to measure their vitals regularly and keeps them engaged with their treatment plans and automatically shares data with their care team. Healthymize is an AI-based, voice-monitoring solution that turns smart devices into remote patient-monitoring devices for diseases such as asthma and pneumonia.

Instill Confidence and Ensure Safety

Insecurity and fear are primal emotions. We’re averse to ambiguity and tend to favor what we know over what we don’t. We’re also afraid of suffering a loss and assess risk based on perceived control we think we have over outcomes. Clinicians want to know with certainty that their diagnoses, prognoses, and treatments are rooted in evidence-based practices. Patients want to be confident in their providers’ expertise, that their advice will heal and not endanger them, and that they will keep their information confidential.

Telehealth tools have the potential to address such concerns. For example, virtual assistants could listen to the provider-patient dialogue and search digital clinical guideline libraries for the latest evidence-based practices pertinent to the patients’ conditions and summarize key findings to assist providers in delivering well-informed advice. By not requiring providers to do this research manually, it would allow them to focus on their interactions with the patient.

The use of remote and wearable devices could help physicians measure their patients’ health metrics. Following visits, virtual assistants could prepare simple, comprehensive summaries of what was discussed, recommended treatments, and relevant research articles for physicians to review. Once physicians had reviewed this material, patients could receive this content via an encrypted messaging system, which would give them the reassurance that they’re receiving expert care and that their information is protected.

Some startups are already venturing into these activities. For instance, Notable uses wearable technology to collect patient-reported outcomes. Zignifica is a software system that analyzes and interprets information and data presented in medical papers to provide physicians with evidence-based practices. Heal sends a HIPAA-compliant summary of the services to patients within 24 hours of service.

Telehealth, of course, can never replace in-person interactions between patients and caregivers. But as experiences during the pandemic have proven, it has the potential to improve the convenience and quality of care. Its future adoption, however, heavily depends on its ability to support a trusting relationship between patients and physicians. As provider organizations choose telehealth technologies and digital health companies develop new tools, they must keep the core human needs of both patients and physicians front and center.

source https://wealthch.com/3-ways-to-humanize-the-virtual-health-care-experience-harvard-business-review/

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Seeing Game Of Thrones, and its Dimly Lit Battle, in a Whole New Light

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It’s been a year and a half since Game Of Thrones aired its final episode ‘The Iron Throne’ (although it feels a lot longer thanks to 2020 time dilation), and now a ‘Complete Collection’ box-set has arrived.

It’s slightly odd to behold these 33 discs, squeezed into eight Blu-ray cases, snuggled up in a lovely box, with a little booklet nestled in. So much time has passed since the world watched that finale and the online discourse erupted with the fiery ferocity of Cersei’s attack on the Sept Of Baelor.

With so much vocal negativity surrounding season eight, it feels as if Game Of Thrones has ended up in the big pop-culture bin of shows that nobody talks about anymore (unless they’re taking the mick). But this box-set is a chance to revisit and reappraise, and see if that sentence is really fair…

“You were the best of them”

When season eight was first released in 4K Ultra-HD at the end of last year, word filtered down that it was the best way to watch the infamously dimly lit Winterfell battle episode ‘The Long Night‘. Having originally squinted at this episode (which I streamed on Now TV through a 1080p TV back in the day), I was keen to see how it would look with a 4K-enabled Xbox Series X console hooked up to a shiny new 4K ASUS monitor.

Long story short, it did look better than I remembered (although, who’s to say that I’m not remembering it worse than it was at the time because of all the memes). I wouldn’t necessarily say that the whole thing looks brighter, but that the nuance of the lighting and the rich details in certain shots are a lot easier to make out and understand with a Blu-ray disc and a proper 4K set-up. So yes, I felt I could properly watch the episode this time, with a far greater sense of what I was meant to be able to see.

Putting tech specifications to one side for a moment, there was also a simple joy to be found in seeing these actors and characters together again on screen. With Game Of Thrones so quickly having become meme-fodder and the inspiration for countless angry comments, it’s easy to forget how excellent the cast and crew clearly were. 

Although there isn’t much in the way of dialogue during ‘The Long Night’, it’s moving to be reminded of that sweet exchange between Sansa and Tyrion in the crypts of Winterfell. Reminiscing on their fraught marriage of many seasons ago, Sansa tells Tyrion, “You were the best of them.” It’s a reminder that Game Of Thrones isn’t just about big battles and questionable writing decisions – but also lovable characters, memorable arcs and great performances.

“It’s chaotic for a reason”

There are two commentary track options on ‘The Long Night’ disc, one with director Miguel Sapochnik and cinematographer Fabian Wagner. Listening to it, I’m reminded again of how I saw Game Of Thrones before that final season, back when Sapochnik was heralded as the genius director of such iconic battles as Hardhome and Battle Of The Bastards.

On this commentary track for ‘The Long Night’, which was clearly recorded after all the backlash about how dark the episode was, Sapochnik is in very candid form. It’s refreshing to find something that sounds so honest, and very far from PR speak, on what is clearly an HBO-approved product.

Sapochnik and Wagner reflect on the gruelling 55 days of night shoots that brought this episode to life, a discussion which, on its own, is enough to remind us that a lot of people put a lot of hard work into making this show – whether or not they agreed with the top-level decisions about its direction. 

It’s also interesting to hear Sapochnik’s take on why this episode is so dark – it was, of course, a conscious creative decision from the director and the writers, as opposed to a hapless work experience kid in the editing suite accidentally thumbing a big switch labelled ‘brightness’ in the wrong direction. 

“It’s chaotic for a reason,” Sapochnik explains, as the dead descend on Winterfell on a jet-black night, bringing wind and snow with them to baffle and disorient their human enemies. As Davos squints in the abyss atop the Winterfell battlements, Sapochnik jokes that our beloved Onion Knight should’ve bought a better TV. 

As well as providing some laughs, this insightful commentary can also help fans gain a better understanding of this episode – it wasn’t meant to be a traditional battle like the ones we’d seen before. Rather, it was a descent into hell for all of our beloved characters, brought to life by a crew that spent almost two months working through the night to make it happen.

“The hardest episode of TV anyone on this show has done”

The special features of this mammoth box-set include more than 15 hours of special features, so it’s a huge treasure trove for fans of the show. There’s access to basically every resource you could want. Say, for example, you wanted to know even more about ‘The Long Night’ episode. In the Bonus Features disc from the season eight case, you could check out ‘The Last Watch’ documentary, which includes footage from the first-ever table read for that episode – complete with Maisie Williams’ utter joy when she finds out that Arya will be killing the Night King, and Kit Harington’s bemusement at that same revelation. 

There’s also ‘When Winter Falls’, a documentary which shows exactly how ‘The Long Night’ came together: you can see which bits were special effects and which bits were built in real life, and you can hear the cast and crew reflecting on the harsh realities of making what Harington calls “the hardest episode of TV anyone on this show has done.” Emilia Clarke is convinced the episode must have broken some sort of “work endurance records,” if such a thing exists.

If Game Of Thrones had ‘stuck the landing’ with its final season and somehow managed to please every different subsection of the show’s fans, a bountiful box-set like this would probably look like a tempting investment to a lot of people. And, to be honest, even though I wasn’t utterly convinced by the final season, this treasure trove has reminded me that there was a lot more to the series than just the showrunners’ decisions in the finale. 

“All this chocolate fell out of his secret pocket”

In the ‘Bonus Features’ case are three discs of extra-extra features, which couldn’t be crammed onto the dedicated discs for each season. Across these three discs, you’ll find even more goodies to grow your Game Of Thrones appreciation. On one disc you’ve got ‘Conquest & Rebellion: An Animated History Of The Seven Kingdoms‘, a feature-length animated special in which cast members narrate tales of Westerosi history. (This could be handy knowledge to have if those ancient history prequel series end up happening.)

You’ve also got numerous chunky featurettes in the categories ‘Behind the Scenes’, ‘Inside the Visual Effects’ and ‘Anatomy of a Scene’. I particularly enjoyed the Anatomy of a Scene on Sansa and Joffrey’s wedding – I’d forgotten quite how ridiculous it was, and again, it’s a great reminder of just how much great content this show has given us, how many brilliant performances Game Of Thrones boasts, and just how much hard work went in behind the scenes.

The ultimate fan-friendly celebration of Game Of Thrones can be found on disc one from the Bonus Features case, under the title ‘Game Of Thrones Reunion Special Parts 1 & 2’: it’s basically a two-hour love-in, during which Conan O’Brien interviews pretty much everyone you’d hope to see in a cast reunion.

Serving as the satisfying season finale to my rekindled Game Of Thrones fandom, this Reunion Special has so many moments of squee-inducing glee: there’s a fabulous montage that shows how lovely a time Emilia Clarke has had over the last eight years, compared to Kit Harington being caked in mud and left out in the cold at every opportunity (the gentle roasting of Harington is really quite heartwarming); there’s also a fun anecdote from Mark Addy about Sean Bean hiding chocolates in his costume; and Sean Bean himself turns up for a joyous reunion with his on-screen children, as well as being reunited with Ned Stark’s severed head. 

Seeing the cast and crew laughing together under Conan’s playful questioning, I’m reminded again of all the terrific actors and talented crew members that put years of their life into making this flight of fancy for us. And even though the decisions of the final season may not sit well with everyone, I’m glad that I dived back into the Game Of Thrones fandom and rediscovered what made me love it in the first place.

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Game Of Thrones: The Complete Collection is out now.

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Sorry, but Those Kids Are Terrible

My husband has four nieces and nephews between the ages of 2 and 10. They are unruly, unintelligent and uninteresting compared to other children we know. We don’t think their parents do a good job with them, and all the grandparents pitching in from the sidelines only leads to confusion and worse behavior. We keep to ourselves at family events and count the minutes until we can leave. Recently, one of the grandparents called to scold us for our bad attitude toward the children and suggested we not attend future events if we can’t accept them as they are. But isn’t it unfair to ask us to change without asking the same of the children or their parents?

ANNOYED AUNT

Are you seriously asking for the right to behave as a 2-year-old? What strikes me about your letter, though, is your apparent inability to distinguish among the children. They sound like one nasty blob with four sticky heads. But that’s never the way it is with actual people (including tiny, underage ones).

Now, I don’t doubt these kids are rambunctious at family events. They’re children! They’re probably also not used to so much concentrated adult attention. Next time, try peeling one away from the pack and spending some time with her or him. Ask about favorite TV shows or books. Notice quirks.

When you begin to see the children individually, I expect you will develop more nuanced views about them. Short answer: Yes, adults must try harder to be nice than children. For extra credit, read Ann Patchett’s novel “The Dutch House,” a story about ordinary children who are fascinating thanks to the careful attention the author pays them.

Image

Credit…Christoph Niemann

Paying the Friendship Tax

I was invited to a friend’s birthday dinner. We’re not close, but we see each other in group settings. The restaurant she chose is a notoriously expensive sushi place. But we’re all in our early 20s. I think it’s unreasonable for her to expect us to shell out so much for her birthday. (Plus, we don’t let honorees pay for their meals, so we’d incur even more expense.) Is it O.K. to bail on this party? I don’t want to make up an excuse, but I don’t want to tell her I’m not coming because of money either. Help!

ANONYMOUS

Let me get this straight: You don’t want to tell the truth, and you don’t want to lie. (Are you under the impression that I have magical powers?) It is never wrong to say: “Thanks for inviting me! But I’m on a budget and can’t afford to come.”

Here, your reluctance to speak honestly allows the birthday girl to persist in her mistaken belief that her friends can (or want to) spend upward of $100 on sushi in her honor. How will she learn the truth if you don’t say something?

This Is How It Ends?

I made a wonderful friend in high school. She was a year older than me and became my mentor through college. We maintained our friendship for 45 years. But three years ago, she sent me a letter saying I was not doing my part to be a good friend. She expressly left the next steps up to me. So, I shredded the letter and haven’t spoken to her since. I assumed she was telling me she no longer wanted to be friends. Was I wrong?

ANONYMOUS

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Exhibit A in support of not sending dramatic letters to friends. Written communications often seem more severe than we mean them to be. Most also lack the warmth we hear in friends’ voices when they talk to us.

My hunch, Anonymous, is that your pal had a gripe. But rather than discuss it with you specifically, she wrote a stern letter demanding you fix a vague problem. Take the high road: Call her up, invite her to lunch and ask what the problem is. Decades-long friendships are too rare to be tossed aside over silly letters.

Zip It

One morning at the blood bank where I work, I saw the chief pathologist walking toward me and, like a beacon, his bright pink shirt protruded from the open zipper of his trousers. Despite my prayers, he stopped to talk to me. I didn’t break eye contact with him. Finally, he went to his office. Sweet relief! But later, he returned to ask if I’d noticed that his zipper was down. I said no. Should I have told him about the zipper initially?

RITA

It seems likely from your charming letter, Rita, that mentioning the doctor’s open fly would have caused you anxiety. And since he is a pathologist and not a therapist, you were quite right to keep mum. You respected your comfort level.

Personally, I would have felt free to ask if his pink shirt tail was a new take on the pocket square. And in my experience, the sooner easy fashion fixes are implemented, the better for everyone. But we each get to consider the stakes (for us) in talking about the delicate subject of other people’s bodies, too.

For help with your awkward situation, send a question to [email protected], to Philip Galanes on Facebook or @SocialQPhilip on Twitter.

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