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pindaleng · 3 years

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Merry Pitchmas @anotherbechloeshipper !!

Had so much fun writing this one, hope you enjoy it :)

Title: In From the Snow

Pairing: Bechloe

Chapters: 1/1

Wordcount: 2943

Summary: Beca didn’t anticipate making many friends her freshman year, much less become best friends with one Chloe Beale. When a snow storm ruins both their plans to travel home, they get to spend some quality time together. Beca thinks this might be her best chance to tell the other girl how she feels.

Read on AO3 or below.

Beca stared gloomily at the large flakes falling outside her dorm window.

There was no way her old Camry would be able drive more than ten miles an hour in these conditions. The forecast said “heavy snow”, but she didn’t realize it’d be this bad.

She totally would have left a few days earlier if she didn’t have a final scheduled for the absolute last day of the semester. It’s not like she was super excited about heading back home either, but she knew her dad and step mom would give her shit for it.

She sighed. Might as well text them now to rip off that band-aid.

Shortly after she sent the message, she heard a knock on her opened door.

“Hey, you’re still here!”

In the doorway stood Chloe Beale, undoubtedly the coolest person on their dorm floor. Beca (to her surprise) got along with most of the people on her floor, but something about Chloe specifically drew her in.

Admittedly, she found the other girl annoying at first, as she seemed like the high school girls that were fake nice just to talk about you behind your back. She soon learned, though, that Chloe was the real deal.

But not of course before giving her a hard time for a couple of months. Frustratingly, but thankfully, Chloe was incredibly persistent. Beca hadn’t really expected to make so many friends, intending to keep her head down and make her way through, but everyone grew on her. Especially Chloe.

“Yeah, unfortunately still here.” Beca replied. “Wanted to drive out today but doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen.”

Chloe invited herself in and hopped onto Beca’s bed. She hummed in understanding. “I just got back from the store and driving was for sure a struggle. Definitely would not recommend.”

“Great. You’re staying here too, then?”

“Yep! Which means you get to spend time with little ol’ me.” She propped her head on her hands. “Any plans for the day?”

There wasn’t really a Plan B since she didn’t expect her driving-back-home Plan A to not work out. “Not really, probably just gonna work on some mixes.”

“Can I join?”

“Yes, please make it a little less sad that I’m stuck here on Christmas Eve.”

“Sweet, I’ll be back.” Chloe slid off the bed and make her way out the room. “Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Beca just rolled her eyes and started setting up her laptop.

Chloe came back moments later with her sketchbook and colored pencils, and settled on Beca’s roommate’s bed. Both of them were friends with Stacie, so they knew she wouldn’t mind her bed being used.

They passed time peacefully like this for a couple of hours, each doing their separate thing.

Beca was so engrossed in her music that she doesn’t notice Chloe call out her name until the other girl waved at her to get her attention.

She slipped off her headphones. “What’s up?”

“I was thinking about getting some food soon. You in?”

The hunger hit her stomach now that food was mentioned. “Yeah, I could eat. Where at?” Though the dorms stayed open, dining halls were closed. There were plenty of places nearby though, and many of whom delivered. They went back and forth suggesting restaurants until Chloe looked like she had an epiphany. “We should go to that new ramen place!”

Beca’s immediate reaction was to pout, as they didn’t deliver. Chloe laughed.

“Oh come on, it’s a five minute walk, max. You big baby.” Chloe playfully poked her cheek. “Plus it’s super pretty outside.”

“And it’s super warm inside.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I’m going with or without you.”

The ultimatum was effective. Beca grumbled but put her coat on anyways. The reluctance was really just all show, as she would probably walk naked into a freezing lake for the other girl.

Snow was steadily falling outside, blanketing all the surfaces in a thick layer of white. Campus was quiet, as most of the students had already left for the holidays. It was both eerie and calming. The absence of drunk frat guys yelling, though, was definitely a plus.

“Okay I admit, it is pretty outside.” But you’re prettier. The automatic thought was so cheesy she almost threw up a bit in her mouth. Since when did she think such gross things? She could practically see Stacie smirking annoyingly at her.

Chloe grinned in victory, and Beca’s heart swooped.

Her brain definitely wasn’t lying though: Chloe was undoubtedly beautiful. The snowflakes in Chloe’s hair contrasted perfectly with the red color, making her look like some sort of magazine model. It felt kind of unfair that she could exist like that and not know what she was doing to poor Beca’s soul.

—

When the waitress asked if they needed one or two checks, Chloe replied “just one” before Beca could get a word in.

As the waitress walked away, Beca sent a questioning look to the redhead.

Chloe shrugged, “It’s easier for them to just run a single card.” Beca offered to pay her back, but she insisted it to be a holiday present. If Beca didn’t know better, she would have swore it was a date.

They were on their way back to the dorms when Beca felt something hit the back of her head.

She whipped around. “Hey!”

Chloe was already packing another snowball, clearly out for blood. She quickly launched that one too, which Beca barely managed to sidestep. She bent down to create her own snow projectile.

Chloe began to run away to get out of range, so Beca went to chase her. Unfortunately, Beca slipped on the snow and fell. Chloe was immediately at her side. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

The snow cushioned her fall pretty well, but Beca didn’t want to give that away just yet. She faked a grimace. “I think I broke my leg.”

“Oh shit.” Chloe furrowed her eyebrows in worry. “I’m so sorry I-“

Beca felt too bad that she immediately stopped her. “I’m joking, I’m actually fine.”

It took a moment to register, and then Chloe slapped her on the arm. “You scared me!”

Beca rubbed the spot where she was hit. “Ok now I actually have to go to the hospital.”

Chloe just slapped her arm again, before offering a hand to pull her up. Beca took it but didn’t get up. Chloe looked confused as Beca smirked, and then pulled the other girl down into the snow with her. She fell on her face in the fresh snow with a satisfying poof.

“Oh my god, you asshole.” Chloe laughed after pulling her face up, and shoved at the other girl, who was still laying in the snow.

“Chlo you have a beard.” Beca was practically wheezing at the sight of Chloe having snow stuck all over her face. “Still hot though.”

Chloe modeled it, striking poses and getting up to walk down an imaginary runway, while Beca yelled after her, hyping her up.

They messed around in the snow for a while longer, then took the long way back. Beca considered complaining about the cold and wet seeping in, but Chloe just looked so happy. Plus, it really was nice outside. Walking with Chloe in the peace of campus was a moment Beca wanted to keep tucked in her pocket forever.

—

After getting back, they went to take showers (separately) to warm themselves up, deciding to reconvene later in Chloe’s room. Beca sat on her bed with her hair in a towel, scrolling through her phone. She opened a message from Stacie, who was definitely one of her best friends in college so far. She flew out a couple of days ago and told Beca not to “get too freaky” while she was gone. Beca practically shoved her out the door.

Stacie [6:31 pm]: You make it home?

Beca [7:13 pm]: No, stuck here. Stupid snow.

A reply immediately came in.

Stacie [7:13 pm]: Ugh that sucks, are you by yourself then?

Beca hesitated on what exactly to say, knowing Stacie would immediately make fun of her for the truth.

Beca [7:15 pm]: Not exactly…..Chloe is also still here

Stacie [7:16 pm]: !!!!!!!!!!

Stacie [7:16 pm]: BECA

Stacie [7:16 pm]: THIS IS YOUR CHANCE

Beca [7:17 pm]: Dude she doesn’t like me

Stacie [7:18 pm]: Do NOT bother coming back to campus if you don’t shoot your shot right now

Stacie [7:19 pm]: Joking but also not

Stacie [7:19 pm]: She hangs out w you all the time. She actually listens to your music recs. Plz do something.

Stacie [7:20 pm]: Ok talk later family is calling for dinner, good luck!!!!!

Beca [7:21 pm]: ??? I’m going to ignore that you basically implied not listening to any of the music I’ve suggested

She fell back onto her bed. She wanted to make a move, and she did feel like there could be something between them. However, each time Chloe was nice to someone else, she got psyched out believing that Chloe was always just being platonically nice to her. No flirting involved.

With each passing day, though, it became harder to deny she wanted her. And how badly she did. She caught herself staring a bit too long, and hung endlessly on the small touches Chloe would always do. A brush of the finger here, and a hair tucked behind an ear there. Beca thought some days she might explode.

She texted Chloe to ask if she was ready yet.

Chloe [7:25 pm]: Sorry got distracted!! Hopping in the shower now.

With the extra time, Beca decided to finish the mix she was working on earlier that day. There was something off about it that she couldn’t quite figure out, but coming back to it now, she figured out what it was missing. She listened to it a few times to make sure she was really happy with it before mastering it.

A text came in from Chloe, letting her know she could come over whenever.

Beca quickly added the song to a USB which already contained many music files, then placed the drive into a small pink, cardboard box she got from Stacie. The box originally held a necklace, which made it the perfect size for her gift.

She stashed it in her sweater pocket then made her way to Chloe’s room in the other wing of the floor.

It was still relatively early in the night, so Chloe suggested a movie. Beca wasn’t one for movies usually, but it wasn’t like she had any better ideas.

They cuddled together on the small dorm bed in Chloe’s den of pillows, with the laptop in front of them. The movie was actually pretty good, despite all the bad decisions the main character kept making, and the fact that Beca missed half the plot due to glancing at Chloe instead, and being nervous about how close they were.

“Thoughts?” Chloe turned down the volume as the credits began to roll.

“I think she should have gone with the second guy.”

“Really? I thought he was kind of iffy.”

They proceeded have a lively discussion about the movie, with Beca continuing to argue mostly to mess with Chloe, who seemed quite adamant about the main character’s end choice of romantic partner. It ended with Chloe tickling her until Beca finally admitted her defeat.

“Okay, close your eyes.”

Beca looked at Chloe warily, still catching her breath from the tickling attack. “Um, why?”

“Just do it.”

She sighed but did as she was told.

“No peeking!”

Her index finger drew a cross above her heart, signaling her promise to not look.

“Okay, you can open them now.”

In front of her was a piece of paper carefully rolled into a tube and bound with a red bow. Beca picked it up, gingerly untying the ribbon, unraveling her gift. Her jaw dropped.

“Chloe…”

In her hands was a pencil sketch of her with headphones on, smiling and almost on the verge of laughing. Honestly, she never thought about what she looked like while she was happy. The image of herself in her mind was always some version of broody. Is this how Chloe saw her? Beca wasn’t one to usually cry, but she might have teared up a bit.

“This is…incredible.”

Chloe looked kind of nervous. The same way that Beca was protective of showing others her music, Chloe was hesitant to show much of her art. “You like it?”

“Dude I love it. Seriously.” That reassurance seemed to put Chloe at ease. “Okay, your turn to close your eyes.”

Chloe did it without hesitation, and also held out her hands. Beca shook her head a bit in amusement and placed the small box into her palm.

“Okay, open.”

She opened her eyes and lifted the lid of the box to find a black USB drive, with a piece of tape on the side simply labeled “For Chloe”.

Her smile widened as she realized what her present was. “Do I get to finally listen to your music?”

“Maybe.”

“It means a lot, Beca. Thank you.”

“Um yeah, no problem. Don’t tell me if you end up thinking it’s bad.” She joked.

“Oh please, you’re going to have to block me with how many good things I’ll say.”

“Don’t tempt me, I might delete your contact right now.”

Chloe laughed. “Oh please, like you could last a day without me. Also, I actually have another present for you.” She scotched a bit closer to Beca.

“Oh,” Beca furrowed her eyebrows. “Well, I don’t have anything el-“

She was swiftly cut off as Chloe kissed her, soft and sweet. So polite and unassuming it almost felt platonic.

But god did it give Beca butterflies.

Chloe pulled away so quickly that Beca wasn’t sure it even happened. Like maybe she just daydreamed too hard and manifested a hallucination.

She must have had a deer in the headlights look because Chloe suddenly got super shy. “Was that okay?” She whispered, face still close.

Beca finally came to her senses. “Yeah, totally. More than okay. Amazing really.” She must look like a blushing mess.

The corner of Chloe’s mouth quirked up in amusement and relief. “Yeah?”

“Still could be better, though.” Good work Beca, make a joke to regain some semblance of having her shit together.

“Oh?” She watched Chloe lick her lips, a mesmerizing motion. The shyness was all but gone, replaced by something much more confident, and destined to ruin Beca’s life. And she knew she’d welcome it with open arms.

—

Beca woke up in the morning to the light touch of fingers trailing along her jaw. She smiled, remembering where she was, and more importantly, who was besides her. She probably had the best night of sleep in her life. “Can’t keep your hands off of me, Beale?” She asked, keeping her eyes closed.

“Are you going to try and stop me?” Chloe whispered. Her raspy morning voice was really so damn attractive.

She opened one eye, smiling. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Good.” Chloe leaned in for a long kiss, the hand on her face pulling Beca closer. Her breath hitched. She didn’t think she could ever get used to this. Kissing Chloe Beale. Touching her.

She pulled away all too soon, just as Beca began to want her even more. Beca was quickly learning how much of a tease Chloe was.

“i’m going to get ready, and then maybe we can go get breakfast somewhere?”

“Or…we can stay in bed all day.”

Chloe giggled, and Beca almost professed her love. “Becs, both of us gotta head home.”

“Do we though?”

Chloe just smiled as she slipped out of bed and grabbed her toothbrush and face towel. Before she was completely out the door, she gave her butt a little shake, as if she could tell Beca was staring at her clad in a large t-shirt and sleep shorts. Beca was sure Chloe was smirking as she did it.

As soon as she was out of sight, Beca grabbed her phone from the desk. A text from her dad and a couple from Stacie. She opened the messages from the latter.

Stacie [11:13 pm]: How’d it go?

Stacie [11:30 pm]: I’m assuming the silence is a good thing and ur just too busy making out with Chloe to reply ;)

Beca typed out a quick message.

Beca [9:30 am]: So…..

Stacie [9:30 am]: THIS BETTER BE GOOD NEWS

Beca [9:31 am]: How do you keep replying so quickly??

Stacie [9:31 am]: How about you stop avoiding

Beca thought of the million different things she could say, but opted for simplicity.

Beca [9:32 am]: :)

Stacie [9:33 am]: Is that good

Stacie [9:33 am]: Beca is that good

Stacie [9:34 am]: ?????

She set her phone down, feeling giddy. It might have been a bit cruel to leave Stacie hanging, but she’d get over it. She’d get the full story eventually, but right now, Beca wanted to keep as much of this thing with Chloe to herself as possible. Definitely not like a shameful secret, though.

Something about telling someone about it, however vaguely, made last night and this morning seem actually real. She had this feeling deep in her chest that this was the start of something incredible, which made her both excited and a bit scared. Ok a lot scared. Terrified even.

It sucked that they’d have be apart right as they were starting something. Winter break couldn’t be over soon enough.

#bechloe #merry pitchmas 2020 #pitchmas 2020 #pitch perfect #beca mitchell #chloe beale #stacie conrad #college AU #snowed in #fic #anotherbechloeshipper

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Andy Weir on Writing a Buddy Cop Story… Set in Space

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Andy Weir is all about survival. His first novel, The Martian, centers upon the attempts of astronaut Mark Watney to survive long enough on the Red Planet for a rescue mission to reach him. His sophomore book, Artemis, is a fast-paced survival story of a different kind, set among various criminal factions on the Moon. His latest novel, Project Hail Mary, raises the stakes even higher— it’s about the survival of our entire species, and all life on Earth.

In Project Hail Mary, the Sun is getting dimmer, thanks to a mysterious substance known as Astrophage, a type of interstellar infection. Humanity is facing a ticking ecological time bomb; unless the secret of the Astrophage can be discovered and the planet-wide cooling process reversed, it’s goodnight for life as we know it. There’s just one long shot left for humankind: send a starship to make contact with whoever – or whatever – is behind it all.

Project Hail Mary is as much a mystery novel as it is an SF survival tale. The book opens with our protagonist, Ryland Grace, waking up in a medical bay with two corpses and no memory of how he got there. What follows is a constant peeling back of layer after layer of this mystery, until finally, the truth is revealed. It’s a deeply satisfying ride, made even more so for those readers who share Weir’s obvious passion for science. Surprisingly, at its heart, Project Hail Mary is also a buddy road trip story, which kicks into high gear when Grace connects with an alien partner he names Rocky.

After bonding over a shared love of Terry Pratchett, Andy and I talked about the influences behind Project Hail Mary, and what it took to bring the world of the Astrophage to life.

Den of Geek: Project Hail Mary evokes similar feelings to the Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama books. Were those influences for you?

Andy Weir: Oh, big time. I grew up reading my dad’s science fiction collection, Heinlein and Asimov and Clarke, they’re my Holy Trinity. And yeah, that sense of optimism I feel has kind of vanished from sci-fi, and a lot of science fiction ends up being this bleak, dystopian misery-scape where a teenager doing weird stuff is the only thing that’ll save the day. I just don’t buy into that. I have a firm belief that the future is almost always better than the past. I mean, 2020 kind of sucked, we can all agree, but I would rather live through 2020 again than 1920.

Speaking of 2020, let’s talk about the Astrophage, which is basically Project Hail Mary’s nemesis. It’s a stellar virus, an infection transmitted from star to star. Did you plot the book during the Covid-19 pandemic, or was it just a fluke of timing? It seems like a very timely concept.

It does, but it’s pure coincidence. I actually finished the entire book before COVID-19 happened. This is the longest I’ve ever had a book done, but not yet published, because COVID messed with the print production pipelines. I actually finished the book in January of 2019. Astrophage was originally a technology called black matter, not a life form. It would absorb all electromagnetic radiation that hit it, and turn that energy into mass, in the form of more black matter. I thought, this is the perfect spacecraft fuel, because it mass converts. Then I thought, “Well, we have no way of creating that technology, I could not make that take place in the modern day… what if it wasn’t a technology? What if it was a life form?” Black matter takes energy and makes more black matter, but that’s kind of what life does, right? Humans take energy and make more humans out of it. That’s what we do. Cats take energy to make kittens.

It’s the ultimate double-edged sword. It has the power to wipe us out, but if we were smart enough to harness it, Astrophage could become humanity’s gateway to the stars.

That was my…kind of “shower epiphany.” I was thinking, “Oh, but we’d need to be really careful, because we wouldn’t want to let this shit get in our sun, because it would start breeding out of control. That’d be a disaster. We can’t have that.” Then I was like: “Wait a minute, disasters are where books come from. We can have that. We will have that!” Astrophage was… I can’t say handed to humanity on a silver platter, it was really more handed to humanity on a spiky, poisoned platter.

That’s how the Big Three – Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke – saw atomic power, wasn’t it?

Yeah, they did, and they’re not wrong. I still think that in the real world, our best bet for regular interplanetary travel is going to be ion propulsion, which requires a huge amount of energy, and so that’ll be reactors. This isn’t weird, way off in the middle of nowhere, made up science; this is real stuff. Humanity has put ion propulsion craft into space and used it, but if you scale that up big enough that you can have a passenger spacecraft, then you’re going to need to scale up the energy production. So, pretty much nuclear reactors are the only way to get that much energy out of such a small amount of weight.

The novel has a very non-traditional structure, essentially starting at two different time points, and unfolding from there in tandem. Was Project Hail Mary a difficult book to plot?

It wasn’t difficult to plot once I decided to use that structure, but it was a very difficult decision to go for that structure. I hate flashbacks. I always tell aspiring writers: “Don’t use flashbacks. Nobody likes them.” One of my main problems with flashbacks is, I’ll be really invested and interested in a story that’s going on, then suddenly we’re off somewhere else. We were over here doing neat stuff, now you’re over here doing boring stuff. This is a book, it’s entertainment, not a lesson. So, flashbacks often feel to me like you’re out playing with your friends and your mom tells you to come in and clean your room.

But I realized that this story, if told linearly, would be really weird. The whole scientific mystery which leads to the creation of the Hail Mary, and then the launch, is interesting, but it’s not a book… and so the flashbacks skip over the years. There’s this scene, and then the very next flashback you see will be two years later after that. The whole book would be really disjointed. From the second act on, it’s a completely different book. And so, I couldn’t think of any way to do this other than flashbacks. I’m like, “If I neat out the backstory bit by bit so that the stories kind of converge, and I’m constantly revealing new information in the flashbacks, then the flashbacks are compelling as well,” and just had the two stories come together at the end.

If this had been poorly executed, it would have been a very difficult read, but I felt no jarring at all due to the jumping backward and forward in time. I found myself looking forward to the next flashback, then getting back to the Rocky and Ryland show. I was also delighted to find there’s a lot of humor in there.

People don’t know it when they start the book, but it’s a buddy cop movie, basically. I don’t know if you watched those road movies from the ‘40s. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby will be on the road to something. There’s a bunch of movies that start with Road to…and then a location. It’s always the same principal plot, these two guys are trying to get somewhere, and all the funky, comedic things that happen along the way. It’s kind of like that.

So, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the team behind The Lego Movie among many others, have been tapped to direct the Project Hail Mary Movie.

MGM bought the rights, and they bought them outright, not an option, which is neat, because it implies they’re much more serious about making the movie. Ryan Gosling is attached to play the lead, so that’s pretty cool.

Wonderful! Who’s your dream casting for Rocky, Grace’s alien partner?

I have some ideas for that, but I don’t want to give them away, because there’s been a lot of discussion on how do we portray the [alien] language situation on screen. In the book, after a while, I just start using italics to indicate what Rocky’s saying, and either Grace is looking it up on his computer, or later in the book has just learned Rocky’s language, learned how to understand what Rocky’s saying. We have an idea, and I think it’s a really solid idea. Ryan Gosling came up with it, and so I think that’s what we’re going to do. But films are so security conscious, I can’t really talk about it.

It was great talking with you, Andy, and I wish you the very best of luck with Project Hail Mary.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

You too. Bye-bye.

Project Hail Mary hits the shelves on Tuesday, May 3rd.

The post Andy Weir on Writing a Buddy Cop Story… Set in Space appeared first on Den of Geek.

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mtvswatches · 4 years

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Jane the Virgin 2x20 – Chapter Forty-Two

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) I guess I should’ve figured the season finale would revolve around the wedding, but for some reason, I thought they would get married before that. What is it with TV shows and season finale weddings?

2) Jane is looking forward to spending Mother’s Day in the traditional Villanueva way – binge-watching telenovelas and bingeing ice-cream. But Petra sends her an invitation to start a new tradition, I guess. She’s organized a brunch so that they all get to spend Mother’s Day together and Rafael doesn’t need to split his time between the two households. Xiomara and Alba tell Jane to say no, but she just can’t break Petra’s heart.

3) They’re planning a crossover for Rogelio’s telenovela, and it seems epic…

Rogelio and Fernando are basically having a pissing contest to see who’s the biggest star, and Michael will inevitably get caught in the crossfire.

4) Anezka’s plan seems to be working perfectly…

Jane has to clear everything up with the school’s authorities, and she’s told she won’t be accepted back as a TA the next semester. Jane sets out to discover who is behind the fake email account and to prove that drama does not follow her around. Good luck with that.

5) So, the narrator just said…

As my grandmother used to say: “Ay, not this guy.”

…and I’m here trying to figure out if this is a clue as to who the narrator is. It has to be. But I can’t remember any characters saying this before. Could it be Alba’s line and hence the narrator would be Jane? Or is it Xiomara’s and the narrator is Mateo? Or could it be something Jane will say at some point and it’s her grandson doing the narration?

6) Jane realizes Anezka is behind the fake email account because of her awkward grammar, and I’m kind of glad she discovered it quickly because I thought we were headed towards a “Jane thinks Petra tried to ruin her career and they fall out AGAIN and everyone fights during Mother’s Day.”

7) Jane tells Petra all about Anezka’s involvement in the fake email thing, and Petra agrees to talk to her to clear everything up… but they did get into a little thing regarding the Mother’s Day brunch, so they still might get into a fight. And I’m guessing Anezka will bring up the “Petra is not a hands-on mom” comment and make Petra explode.

8) Rogelio is still sleeping with his writer. She didn’t invite him to her birthday party because she assumed he wouldn’t get along with her “intellectual” friends and Rogelio begs her to give him a chance to bond with them, while recruiting Jane to give him an intellectual side. This should end well.

And the irony here is just *chef’s kiss*

9) As predicted, Anezka blurted out that Jane said Petra is not a good mother, which is not exactly what Jane said but it was subtly implied…

10) Well, Derek is blackmailing Rafael into selling him the Fairwick for a dollar. And yes, I’m still not interested in this storyline.

11) Rogelio channeling Michael Scott in a time-traveling soap opera? Michael Scott would love it!

12) When talking to Jane, Rogelio realized that even though Michael was grateful for the job he’d given him as head of security, he didn’t find it motivating. So, thanks to Michael’s expertise as a police officer, Rogelio promoted him to technical advisor, and Michael seems super excited about it. Rogelio is simply the best.

13) Petra confronts Jane about the “bad mom” comment, and it all spirals out of control, until both out of spite for Jane and a sense of kinship towards Anezka, Petra tells Jane Anezka didn’t place the ad.

14) Poor Anezka…

15) Well, Michael is taking his new job a little bit too seriously and I guess that’s not going to last long.

16) Rogelio asks Jane to show up at the dinner party to coach him through the conversation in person, and Xiomara encourages her to go. She seems to be handling Rogelio being in a new relationship quite well. I wonder if she’ll break down at some point.

17) Or she’ll make a terrible mistake, which is the Xiomara style…

18) Rogelio’s attempt to look smart fails miserably but he ends up admitting to his lady that he did the whole thing to impress her friends because he actually likes her. She admits that it was stupid, but it was also very sweet, and they seem to become closer because of it.

19) Jane admits to Rogelio that she wanted to be supportive and help him out but it made her feel uncomfortable and that while she’s always on his side, she needs a little bit more time to be totally on board with being around her dad’s new girlfriend. It’s a very sweet moment.

20) Dina! The lady writer is called Dina!

21) Hm. Rafael just opened up to Jane and told her everything about his brother, and she literally went inside and blurted it all out to Michael. This lady can’t keep a secret! You see what I mean? That’s not what a good person would do!

22) Rogelio made a video to celebrate Jane’s motherhood, and it’s very sweet, but I’m guessing it will make Petra feel like crap? Rogelio is simply the best, though!

23) Aww, Anezka is now trying to toast to Petra and she’s so sweet.

24) Narrator is dropping a lot of hints in this episode…

And while we’re sharing about our moms, can I just say I have the greatest, most supportive, bestest mother, ever? Love you, mamma, so much.

25) Even though it ended up being a tolerably pleasant event, Jane just can’t hold it any longer and starts screaming at Anezka and calling her a liar. And again, this makes me dislike her? Yes, she was right, but was it really the moment to do that? Did she really have to rip her head off just when they were about to leave and they had survived the whole afternoon? And of course, this happened as a result…

26) After they release her from the hospital, Anezka admits that she did in fact post the ad and naively tells Petra to stop lying for her. She’s trying to make amends, but this only allows Jane to get back on her high horse and judge Petra. I don’t know, am I the only one who slightly dislikes Jane…?

27) Michael seems to have an epiphany as regards Derek’s alibi and calls his former partner (I think?) to ask her to let him join the case again.

28) Anezka is pretending to be Petra? Did they really have to turn her into the evil twin? So this means that she has been playing the naive, childish role to manipulate everyone around her. I guess I should’ve seen it coming considering how many times they referred to the Evil Twin Trope in this episode. But I honestly thought they would try to subvert the trope?

29) Yep, mistakes were made.

30) Petra tells Rafael he was an idiot to tell Jane about the whole blackmail thing, and I agree with her. Why did he tell Jane when Jane is marrying Michael, an ex-cop? And why didn’t he tell Petra, who is his business partner? Oh, of course, plot reasons.

31) Muter is back, I guess. This doesn’t make this storyline any more interesting.

32) So I’m guessing the season finale will be split between the wedding and Michael getting caught in this crime ring thing, right? Eh, that doesn’t sound too exciting to me. We’ll see.

33) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

#Jane the Virgin #Jane Villanueva #Gina Rodriguez #Rogelio De La Vega #Michael Cordero #Petra Solano #Anezka #JTV recap #recap #JTV 2x21 #mine

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goodguyjean · 5 years

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I got two comments on [this post] that I wanted to talk a bit more about. I put this analysis under the cut because it got a bit long (because I’m still me, talking for ages lol). The TL;DR is that I still don’t think Jean ever envies Eren for being “cool,” Isayama made a mistake with one of his characters, and it probably is comparatively a small deal but in the grand scheme of the narrative, I desperately don’t want Eren to be justified right now. I just don’t think he can be, after the way he treated his friends, stomped on Liberio, and dragged his friends into stomping on Liberio with him. To suggest that one of Eren’s biggest critics, someone who has been calling him on his shit for ages, was mostly just doing it because damn, Eren cool, just feels . . . narratively off for me.

Yeah, I’m still on my salt, sorry ^^’

The first comment was that it was in character for Jean to envy Eren because of Jean’s backstory where he is bullied as a kid for being fat and then annoyed by the attentions of his mother. I will say, yes, this would make sense, except this backstory only appears in the season one OVA and, apart from a few vague, off-hand comments, it is never addressed in the manga. As someone who read the entire manga from volume 1 to volume 19 before reading month-to-month or watching the anime, the OVA’s interpretation of Jean really confused me. I choose not to accept it as canon in the mangaverse until Isayama explicitly includes it . . . and if he does include it, I may still choose to ignore it lol. I know he’s said he likes it and he likes what the anime does with Jean but . . . it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

I think it comes back to something @mirandafandomette said in response to my post about Jean in 118; the anime works on easy archetypes. So does the manga, but I think Isayama at least wanted to question those archetypes a bit . . . maybe in a kind of simplistic way initially, but I still think you can see it in the way he gives Jean several good points about how Eren needs to think about the people around him more. However, a lot of those moments are cut out of the early anime. And when the anime finally decided to “flesh out” Jean’s character, they gave him a “rival” backstory to confront Eren. Eren doesn’t have a family anymore? Well, Jean doesn’t appreciate his now; never mind that it doesn’t really make sense for Trost to be a place for a “well-off” kid after the Fall of Shiganshina, Jean never behaves in the manga like a “well-off” kid and seems nihilistic, and that Jean shows no concern for said family when Trost is actually under attack in the first arc . . . honestly, I assumed almost every one of those child soldiers were joining the army because they were orphans unless they stated otherwise. And Jean never states otherwise until like, Eren tells him to be nicer to his mom randomly in a fight they have before the beginning of the Return to Shigandshina arc. If Isayama wanted us to invest in this backstory for Jean, he put way less into it than either Connie’s or Sasha’s or basically anyone else’s from the 104 except perhaps Armin’s. So, going by the backstory as present in the manga (a.k.a. nothing ^^’), Jean’s “envy” doesn’t work for me.

(I also just wanted to add like, the OVA and the anime are “canon,” like I know you’re supposed to read them all together and understand them as a whole, so you’re not wrong or anything, technically I’m the wrong one, just the anime and the manga feel so incredibly different to me, especially in their presentation of Jean--looking at you, cancelled Uprising arc!--that I can’t conflate them or make them the same universe in my head.)

The second point I wanted to talk a bit more about is that someone pointed out to me that at the end of Trost arc, Jean observes that he’s not strong like Eren. I wanted to show this scene in full and then talk about it, because reading it over again I still don’t think it’s about envying Eren. And even if it were, it doesn’t mention that he thinks Eren is cool, at least in the English translation. In fact, I really feel like this scene cements that Jean doesn’t want to be like Eren, even though he can admire Eren’s resilience, and also just doesn’t think he can be like Eren. And that his memory helps him realize that if he wants to save his friends, he doesn’t have to be. Here’s the scene.

Volume 4.

I see several things happening here. First, Jean realizes that, ironically, if he had never joined the military to try to escape Trost, he never would have met these people he now cares about and wants to protect. He also understands that most other people are feeling the same way. So Jean doesn’t want to fight the titans for an abstract reason like freedom, he’s really just invested in helping the people he’s grown attached to now . . . and from them, other people. Individual and personal connections are the source of his empathy. Next, he thinks about Eren calling them all to fight to avoid being titan food. The thought process connection Jean makes is “I want to protect my friends, therefore I must fight, like Eren has always encouraged us to do.” But then he distinctly thinks, “I don’t want to be Eren,I’m not going to turn into Eren. I’m not strong.”

I think what this shows that Jean is aware of his own “selfishness.” He thinks that he doesn’t believe in ideals--earlier in the manga we learn that he thinks these are kind of dangerous, they lead to people’s deaths, and it’s better to be “selfish” and invest in individual human life. However, at this moment, he still thinks in a dichotomy of “strength and weakness.” He’s “weak” for not wanting to fight the titans, for being pessimistic about them, and idealists are strong . . . obtuse, perhaps, but there’s a kind of strength in that obtuseness that Jean thinks is out of his reach.

But the epiphany that Marco grants him is that he doesn’t actually need this strength. He has his own strength because of his “weakness,” and that will help him protect his friends. When the darkness finally comes and Jean realizes he wants to fight, he doesn’t want to become Eren to do it. Then he realizes he doesn’t have to. We see him reiterate this when he talks to Sasha, Connie, Armin, and Annie before enlisting in the Survey Corps:

Volume 5.

By explicitly refusing to try to persuade Sasha or Connie to join the Survey Corps, especially by implying that they have a “duty” or should want to stop the titans, Jean actually convinces them to join the Survey Corps. His honesty about his fear and his distrust of the concept of duty helps them.

So I don’t think this is envy, least of all of being “cool.” I do think Jean would like to be appreciated and to have friends, but he’s always so honest because he doesn’t want the others to like him as someone he isn’t. In the beginning of the manga he calls Eren out for lying about being afraid talking like if everyone just tries hard enough, they can all beat the titans. Jean doesn’t want friends and followers by, to his mind, pretending to be brave. He is what he is, and actually, he’s been right the whole time; when push comes to shove, people do like him better for that than they would if he pretended. So Jean envies Eren’s friends and relationships, envies that people actually like him initially, but doesn’t actually think Eren is cool or want to be Eren to get those things.

#i . . . am making my peace with chapter 118 #there are some good moments in it #and hope that armin is kind of acting #to get stuff done #which would be cool #i'd just like more hints of that #and I enjoyed connie and mikasa and gabi and falco and colt and nile #anyway #still on my bullshit #snk 118 #snk meta #jean kirstein

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hobimysun-shine · 5 years

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bts as billie eilish songs

I love both artist so much because they are so diverse, so driven and in love with their art, so here’s what my mind created at 2am when i actually gotta study for an exam, but anyhow, enjoy

Jeon Jungkook - Ocean eyes

“Can't stop thinking of your diamond mind Careful creature Made friends with time”

- color scheme: Venice lavender; purple rain; valor blue

- grey clouds, quiet ocean, salty air, cold sand, bare feet, long sweater, careful wind, watery eyes,

- angelic, naive, trusting, incapable of stopping emotions

- a feel of uncertainty for the future, because you still have so much to experience in life, it’s hard to know who to trust, where to go and what your tears mean, who you should give them to

- young love, pain

- it basically speaks of someone who is impressed by another human - love based on instinct and intuition, when you’re young you just feel things, even if you don’t know where these emotions come from (jungkook-namjoon relationship) ;

- trusting someone by the feeling you get around them, without being able to trust your common sense,

- have you seen jungkook’s beautiful, ocean, doe eyes ?? (if not, then wth you doin’ with your life))

Park Jimin - idontwannabeyouanymore

“I just wish you could feel what you say Show, never tell But I know you too well Got a mood that you wish you could sell

Tell the mirror what you know she's heard before I don't wanna be you anymore”

- color scheme: pale smoke; scotch mist; apple blossom

- cold air, morning dew, raindrops at the bottom of your window, the fabric softener your mom uses to wash your sheets, soft breathing on the side of your neck, white mirrors

- self-persuasion, self-critique, inner conflict, serenity, content, libra’s aesthetic approach

- if you have listened to lie and looked at the lyrics, you know why i chose this song for jimin

- you basically get the feeling that the person is speaking to himself in this song, trying to find an answer, as to why he puts himself through all these hardships, when he could break free from this vacuum of perfectionism he created for himself

- let’s be real, we all know what jimin had to go through and maybe is still going through with being too harsh on himself, with his body image and his appearance on stage, i hope he is doing well now and is content with himself, cause he is a 100/10 and we all love him so much

Kim Taehyung - hostage; my boy

“I wanna be alone Alone with you - does that make sense? I wanna steal your soul”

“ My boy's an ugly crier but he's such a pretty liar”

- color scheme: concord purple; red wine; aurum gold

- big windows, night sky, city view, studio apartment, dark walls, smell of acrylic paint, ripped jeans with that paint splattered on them, acoustic guitars on the walls, quiet jazz music, film paper smoke, deep laughter, strong arms around your waist

- artistic freedom, no fear of judgement, mutual understanding, chest butterflies, assurance, hope, soulmates, in tune with your emotions, who cares if the world doesn’t get us, we get us

- hostage just reminds me of two people, who connect on a soul level so much, that what happens is their love turns into mutual engagement, similar to keeping each other as hostages in their hearts, however i wanted to turn the meaning of that song less toxic for taehyung,,

- i believe that if there’s a member that would want to connect with people in such level as the song suggests, it would be taehyung

- as for my boy, idk it just gives me a similar base line as in singularity, and i don’t know it’s just probably my fave song of billie and i feel like it is just taehyung’s vibe when i listen to it

Jung Hoseok - bellyache

“ Everything I do the way I wear my noose Like a necklace I wanna make 'em scared like I could be anywhere Like I'm wreck-less

I lost my mind I don't mind “

- color scheme: marigold yellow; apricot orange; candy red

- summer heat, tan skin, blushed cheeks, endless roads, loose shirts, scratched knees, rich kids away from home, one backpack and a shiny red ford convertible from your bf’s dad’s garage, loud music, lips, swollen from kissing, night fireworks

- fed up with everything, escape from reality, that one summer you will never forget, vibrant love, point of no return, rhythm, gut intuition, boldness

- i don’t know exactly either, it’s just these are the connections i make when i hear this song, and all of that screams hobi to me (aries moon)

- also am i the only one who imagines he would make a killer dance routine to that song (but again he could probably dance to a water drops going down a pipe, so,,)

Namjoon - bury a friend; copycat

“What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me? What are you wondering? What do you know? Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me? When we all fall asleep, where do we go? “

“ Perfect murder, take your aim I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name”

- color scheme: pearl river; silver fox, steel wood

- empty stage, burning projectors slowly being turned off, microphone heavy in your hand, as the words that went though it start to make sense, sweaty hair, footsteps echoing in the vast space, feeling of falling down, unexpected, but comforting hug, security, the calming scent of someone you know in this new environment, tears of fear and excitement at the same time, new life, new beginning

- words said out loud, revenge, mixed feeling of content and fast approaching emptiness, always racing thoughts, insomnia, trying to fill a void, searching for an overall meaning,

- so bury a friend is just has all these questions man. they remind me of rm’s mind. i feel like all of them are things he had already asked himself, or themes he implies in his songs too

- copycat is for namjoon swiftly leading a group that got a ton of criticism in the beginning and is still getting hate, but regardless he manages to stay on top, write what he feels, be a real artist and throw everything people said about bts failing back at their faces

Min Yoongi - lovely ; you should see me in a crown

“Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here Even if it takes all night or a hundred years Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near Wanna feel alive, outside I can't fight my fear”

“ You should see me in a crown I'm gonna run this nothing town Watch me make 'em bow One by one by, one”

- color scheme: marble white; smoke ember; royal silver;

- dark room, cold hands, shaky breath, unable to look at each other’s eyes, fear of the outside and the inside, pocket money, long fingers pressing the out-of-tune piano keys, weary smiles, small steps

(....)

steady hands, marble walls, scent of freshly printed documents, looking through a box of old photo albums your mom sent, turning the pages a larger hand stops you from flipping the next page, two teenagers than look awfully like you two are staring back fearfully, low chuckles, eyes full of love

- strong minds, growth, stability, strength, control, prosperity, hard work, passion, ambition

- lovely is in here because i feel like it portrays struggles with mental health and depression very well. you feel trapped and you feel like there is no one else who understands your personal hell and you are the only one who has to find a way for yourself to get out of that place. yoongi has been in such places before as we’ve heard from him and his lyrics, so i though lovely represents his struggles when he was younger

- you should see me in a crown. literally that’s all i can say, he worked for his success and he got it and he deserves it and he is killing it right now

- yall don’t know the amount of respect i got for this man and everything he has been through and i feel like these two songs portray his lowest and his highest in life and take account every struggle along the way and how he truly deserves everything he has right now

Kim Seokjin - when the party’s over

“ Don't you know I'm no good for you I've learned to lose you, can't afford to

Don't you know too much already I'll only hurt you if you let me

Quiet when I'm coming home and I'm on my own I could lie, say I like it like that, like it like that”

- color scheme: night snow, onyx black, muddy grey

- smell of liquor, messy steps, blurred vision, flood of thoughts, the darkest time of the night, dried streams of tears on your cheeks, your boyfriend’s hand quietly holding yours, but them you have to split ways, walking alone on the dead street, cold wind air hitting your face, but you find comfort in it, you reach home, but you can’t seem to go in; so you sit on the sidewalk, looking down; you hear distant steps; he sits down in the snow next to you; the sky slowly, but surely becomes lighter

- quiet sadness, deeper understanding of the world, human relationships seem harder, yet simpler, timeless feeling, a sense of maturity

- this song is just a masterpiece. hear me out, i don’t think i would understand this song as well as i do now, if i have listened to it a few years back. I would have been like “oh yeah it’s sad”

-But like. no. It’s not just sad. It’s a song that shows so much maturity and experience with life that first of all, idk how billie is so young and is able to create music like that. Second of all i don’t think anyone else of bts would fit better to it, than jin

- people tend to overlook his deeper emotions because he tends to distract from them, he always acts “silly” and tells jokes, but i feel like in songs like epiphany and awake we can see that jin really sees the world and his abilities from a much more mature point of view than other members. And i get the same vibe from billie’s song, so i feel like it would fit best for jin.

So actually this was way longer than i planned, but yeah, this is just strictly my opinion and it was just an idea i had at 3am now, as i said, hope it’s fun to read :))

im off to bed, because i’m so sleep deprived i will start hearing colors soon

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legionofcrows · 6 years

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Clace better reunite at Magnus and Alec's wedding just like Simon and Izzy did at Lucelyn's in the books or I'm suing Todd for emotional damage and disrespect.

SPOILERS HEAVILY IMPLIED IN THIS ASK BY BOTH ANON AND I. I WISH I COULD HIDE THE ASK ITSELF BUT I CAN’T SO I’M GOING TO PUT MY RESPONSE UNDER THE CUT AND MAKING MY SPOILER WARNING MUCH BIGGER THAN THE ASK

I do kind of have a theory that they’ve given Clary and Jace Simon and Izzy’s plotline. It does kind of make sense in a weird way closure wise. Clary’s a shadowhunter but it’s not what she knows. It’s not what she spent her whole life wanting. Add the complications she’s bound to have as a result of Valentine’s experiments and her last name. I think this definitely adds layers to her especially when you think back to when her mom wanted her to come with her to Idris. It wasn’t just a leave the institute and her friends question it was a “do i leave my entire life behind and admit it’s all gone” question. She was basically being asked to completely give up her connection to the mundane world. There’s always going to be that part of her that is a mundane.

I do have a theory/idea of how I want things to happen and they may be controversial but bare with me here for a second (or a lot of seconds because I’m probably going to write and post a fic following this exact plot line). Ideally, I would want to see Clary living her mundane life, hanging out at a coffee shop like she used to happy, healthy, and not risking her life for five damn seconds. But I want her to run into someone on her way out and when we see who it is, it turns out to be Jace.

No runes on his skin.

She has no idea who he is, but they flirt a little and exchange numbers maybe. We know they’re going to fall in love all over again without all the danger in the way.

Obviously going by Clary’s letter, she probably won’t remember or recognize him like Simon didn’t recognize Izzy. Instead of forcing her back into choosing between shadowhunter and mundane, Jace decides to be with her as a mundane.

I think we’ve kind of seen a steady decline in Jace’s um... I don’t really know how to put it but interest in being a soldier and being a shadowhunter. Yes, it’s a thing he’s good at, but he’s kind of had this ongoing epiphany of “Wait, I’m allowed to do something besides this....I can fall in love.......I can want a family.....I don’t have to die by 25?” Especially with factoring his mental health issues and family history. I don’t think it would be out of the realm of possibility for him to decide to be deruned. He’d do anything to be with Clary and as we’ve seen in the show the deruning seems to be treated differently. He’d still be able to interact with his family, even enter the institute if he’d like.

In kind of an unexpected way, they’d be guaranteed their happy ending. We might not get to see it, but we’ll get to know it’ll happen one day. No more monsters trying to kill them. No government officials treating them like traitors. No deranged family members. They just get to be themselves.

Like how at the end of the books they’re like “simon remembers one thing about the shadowworld so we’re legally allowed to tell him things and we get to have him back yay!” except this would be “Clary and Jace get to live long happy lives together”

It’s not the ending I want in an ideal world, but I’ll take what I can get. I just hope they don’t end the series with no hope of them ever getting back together. Who knows maybe he stops her before she even does it!!!

#asked and answered #SPOILERS #shadowhunters spoilers #Anonymous

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